Trump, Parasite and the 2020 Election

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes 57 seconds

This is an extended version of an article that was originally published on Friday, February 21, 2020, at RT.

TRUMP HATES PARASITE BECAUSE IT PREDICTS HIS ELECTION DEFEAT

Movies are a bellwether of public sentiment, and last year’s crop of class-conscious nominees, such as Best Picture winner Parasite, spell doom for Trump’s re-election.

Last night (Thursday February 20th) President Trump told a raucous rally crowd that he was not a fan of Parasite winning Best Picture at this year’s Oscars.

I think Trump despises Parasite, the South Korean film about class divisions and class struggle, because he unconsciously understands that it is a foreboding omen that foretells his electoral defeat come November.

As longtime readers know, I have developed a theory, named the Isaiah/McCaffrey Wave Theory, that is meant to track trends in the collective unconscious through various data points. These data points are then turned into waves - such as historical waves, empire waves, generational waves, time waves, and culture/art waves.

The theory is rather complex and is simply too long and complicated to coherently boil down in a blog post. So for this article I have simply focused the lens of the theory down to the culture/art waves as a way to measure unconscious trends before, or as, they turn into public sentiment.

In terms of the McCaffrey Wave Theory’s (MWT) viability, it did accurately predict the last presidential election - the first in which it was used…which most prognosticators, political scientists and other theories did not. In fact, the MWT thought that Trump’s victory was glaringly obvious…which is why I was so puzzled when everyone else was so shocked by the result.

In regards to the culture/art wave of the MWT, the primary (and most easily digestible) data points are the top ten box office films and Oscar nominated films for the year previous and the year of a presidential election. There are other secondary data points as well, but box office/Oscars are the one that we will use in this article because those films are the ones that most resonated with the general public. (And it should also be noted, film is not always the primary art/culture data point, that changes through history as different art/culture forms take precedence over others.)

Artists…even those that work in corporate Hollywood, are like antennas attuned to the collective unconscious, and their art is the act of taking the unconscious and making it conscious. In other words, artists take dreams and put them into reality. These artists are not consciously predicting the future, they are just acting on whatever resonates with their own subconscious when they are choosing what stories to tell and how to tell them.

Due to the nature of the film business, it takes years for their work to come to fruition…which is why cinema can be a leading indicator of what comes next in public sentiment as the lag time between concept and fruition gives time for those sentiments to come closer to the surface of the collective consciousness.

According to the McCaffrey Wave Theory, the titles, narratives, themes, color palettes and archetypes present in the most popular (box office/awards) movies hold clues as to what lies ahead in terms of public political preference.

The basic premise regarding these pieces of information, is to consider them like a dream and interpret them through a Jungian perspective. Dreams come from the unconscious, and movies/art are collective dreams born of the collective unconscious. Jungian dream interpretation is used because it is the best way to try and decipher the language of symbols with which the unconscious (collective or personal) communicates.

With this in mind it is also worth remembering that Oscar nominated and Box Office winning films aren’t just about the movies, but the marketing around those movies. The messages of these movies are not confined to the two hour viewing experience or to just those who see the film, because marketing will put incessant advertisements, tv and radio commercials, magazine and newspaper coverage, and billboards and posters in front of the entire populace. This will have the effect of not only being a leading indicator of public sentiment by expressing the symbols of the collective unconscious, but, as Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays teaches us, also being somewhat of a driver of that sentiment.

With all of this background in mind…let’s take a look at recent electoral history using the MWT before we dive in what lay ahead for 2020.

2016 ELECTION

The box office and Oscars accurately foreshadowed Trump’s 2016 win as in 2015 both Spotlight and The Big Short, two stories about outsiders taking on a corrupt establishment – The Catholic Church and Wall Street respectively, won Oscars, with Spotlight winning Best Picture.

Three other nominees, The Revenant, The Martian and Mad Max: Fury Road, were about men overcoming long odds and surviving in the starkest of situations. These films also had very distinct color palettes, with Mad Max and The Martian having red as their primary color, and The Revenant having blue as its primary color. These films also had similar visual schemes as they frequently used wide panoramic shots of bleak and desolate landscapes.

Even the title, Mad Max: Fury Road, was a sign of what lay ahead, Mad, Max, Fury…these words are obviously pointing to a jolting amount of anger coming to a boil in the collective unconscious. In terms of Trump, he was Mad to the Max, and his road to the White House was paved with Fury -and in the wake of his election, Democrats were the ones at Maximum Mad and filled with Fury.

Symbolically, these films tapped into the archetype of the outsider taking on the corrupt establishment (Spotlight, The Big Short), and the individual man overcoming staggering odds to survive in the bleakest of environments. Trump followed suit as he ran as an outsider taking on Washington and survived bleak odds and the grueling gauntlet of a decidedly adversarial establishment media to win.

The 2015 box office also presaged Trump’s election, as the box office champ, The Force Awakens, could’ve been titled “The Populist Force Awakens”, as it foreshadowed a forceful awakening of something. That something was the populism that propelled Trump to the Republican nomination and elevated Bernie Sanders to be a threat in the Democratic primary.

Like The Revenant, The Martian and Fury Road, The Force Awakens also used similar wide shots of bleak environments as the previously mentioned Oscar nominees, and also had a clashing red and blue color scheme…most notably in its movie poster…where red (the color of Republicans) is superior to blue (the color of Democrats). (See visual aids below)

Another top ten box office film in 2015 was Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. The title “Hunger Games” is all about warfare and a lack of resources…people being hungry and there being winners and losers. This is the same theme that Trump ran so successfully on in both the party and general elections. In addition Trump’s favorite political tactic, “mocking”, is also prominently highlighted by the title.

Two other 2015 top ten box office winners signaling Trump’s victory were Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Minions. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation could be the title of Trump’s entire campaign and presidency…as his winning was deemed “impossible”, and the nation needed to go “rogue” to elect this “rogue” candidate. “Minions” is also an apt description of Trump’s devoutly loyal followers.

The word “rogue”, defined as “a dishonest or unprincipled man”, made a very large appearance in the 2016 box office as well when Rogue One was a big box office winner. This meant that the “rogue” was not only a symbol the collective unconscious was desperate to make conscious, but also one that was advertised and marketed to the American public from the Summer of 2015 through to the end of 2016.

The top ten of 2016’s box office was chock full of primal words that indicated a less civilized, animalistic, predatory nature…such as Zootopia (a utopia of madness), Jungle Book (a handbook for life in a jungle), and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (a road map to the beast).

2016 also brought us the very clear signs of the hellaciously contentious energy in both the party primaries and in the general election. The most glaring examples were Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman which both told stories of internecine warfare with blue (Captain America) versus red (the billionaire Iron Man) as the opposing colors. (See visual aids below)

Another comic book movie, Suicide Squad was a top ten box office earner and it astutely summed up the feelings of the anti-Trump establishment Republicans and the Democrats after Trump’s victory.

But the biggest box office clue to Trump’s impending victory was the astounding success of Deadpool, the red clad, wise-ass outsider superhero, who premiered on the big screen in February of 2016. Is there any more Trumpish a superhero than the irreverent, anti-establishment Deadpool?

Hell or High Water, a 2016 Oscar nominee about two brothers who rob the corrupt banks in Texas that robbed their family, was another movie with wide shots of bleak environments (with a bleak reddish color palette), that thematically was right in Trump’s wheelhouse.

2012 ELECTION

Looking at other elections through the MWT is enlightening as well.

In 2012 Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln, films about government accomplishing great things, were nominated and monopolized attention throughout the year leading to Obama’s re-election. These films told the narrative of government as effective and good…and obviously reflected a satisfaction with the status quo…which would mean an incumbent’s re-election.

Silver Linings Playbook was another Oscar nominee that year and its title is one of optimism (silver lining) and planning (a playbook)…which sums up Obama’s re-election message.

2012 also saw Django Unchained get Oscar nominations and do very well at the box office. The film is about a black man, Django - played by Jamie Foxx, getting revenge upon racist Southerners and slave owners. Of course, this archetype of the empowered black man in a racist America, was attached to Obama during his presidency.

2011’s Oscar nominees had two films that pointed towards Obama’s impending victory, the first was The Descendants, a movie set in Hawaii, the state of Obama’s birth, and The Help, a film about working class black women dealing with racism in the Deep South.

2008 ELECTION

Obama’s election in 2008 is also apparent when seen through the MWT perspective.

In 2007, No Country for Old Men won Best Picture and could have been a bumper sticker for Obama’s campaign against his older opponents Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain.

Other nominees from that year were Michael Clayton, a story about a lone man taking on a corrupt corporate establishment, and Atonement. Obama ran as the archetypal fighter against corporate malfeasance…and his election would symbolize, among many voters, an atonement for the sin of slavery and Jim Crow.

2007’s box office also gave indication of a major shift occurring in the collective. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix were the top two movies that year. At World’s End symbolizes the ending of something, and the title Order of the Phoenix is a cry to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes (of the Bush administration, Wall Street collapse etc.) and restore “order”…which was the narrative and archetype Obama embraced.

Another top ten box office film was Legend, which starred Will Smith and told the story of a black man surviving a pandemic and working to find a cure. Once again, the archetype of the black savior is perfectly embodied by Obama.

In 2008, the box office was dominated by Hancock, a story of a black superhero, and The Dark Knight, both metaphors for Obama (a black man as a white knight, hence the dark knight) as the man to save America from the disastrous chaos of the Bush reign.

Other 2008 box office winners signaled pro-Obama sentiment as well, with Madagascar: Escape to Africa 2 and Narnia: Prince Caspian landing in the top ten for the year. Escape to Africa has the word “Africa” in the title, which is significant in an election where there is an African-American candidate…and “Prince Caspian” once again indicates preference for the younger - “prince”.

Although these film’s were not released until right after the election, both 2008 Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire and nominee Milk, pointed to Obama winning. Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a poor Indian boy (who is brown skinned and born into poverty), overcoming great odds and making it big, while Milk is about a first…the first openly gay politician elected to public office. Obama, of course, would become the first black man elected to be president.

2004 ELECTION

Bush’s re-election in 2004 is also found in the MWT data.

In 2003, The Return of the King, a title that is an incumbent’s wet dream, won both the box office and Best Picture Oscar. Another Oscar nominee was Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, which is a powerful title in an election involving a “commander” in chief waging two wars on the “far side of the world”.

A plethora of sequels in the top ten box office of both 2003 and 2004, such as Matrix Reloaded, X2, Bad Boys 2, Spider Man 2, Shrek 2, Meet the Parents 2 and Ocean’s 12, all foresaw Bush’s reelection as he was going for a sequel in the form of a second term.

2004’s Oscar winner, Million Dollar Baby, could have been a moniker hung on Bush, as he was labeled by his critics as an entitled, petulant, silver spooned child born into enormous wealth, power and privilege. Another nominee, Sideways, indicated not a moving forward but rather a perpendicular movement…thus re-election.

2020 ELECTION

Which finally brings us to 2020.

Purely as a political observer I have long felt Trump was going to win re-election in 2020, and 2/3rds of the American public feel the same way. The MWT has also pointed, ever so slightly, in that same direction…until very recently. It was on Oscar night, when Parasite, the ultimate outsider (a foreign film with subtitles), beat out 1917, the status quo nominee, that I noticed a pronounced shift in the waves.

Parasite’s Best Picture win is a very clear signal that the economic populism of 2020 is an even more vibrant energy in the collective unconscious than it was in 2016.

Further proof of this is that in 2019, of the nine films nominated for Best Picture, a staggering six of them deal specifically with issues of class. Parasite, Joker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman and Little Women all tell varying tales of class warfare and struggle. This is as strong an indicator of a single sentiment as we have ever seen in the art/culture wave of the MWT in recent memory.

The box office indicates a dramatic change coming as well, with Endgame (the highest grossing film of all-time) - which signifies a definitive ending, and Rise of Skywalker - indicating something rising, dominating, as did the overtly revolutionary populist Joker.

It is also noteworthy that both Endgame and Rise of Skywalker are the end of the respective story arcs of two record-breaking, blockbuster franchises. This Star Wars narrative arc is a cultural cornerstone and is over forty years old, and Marvel’s narrative arc has monopolized the culture for well over a decade. Both of these iconic stories ending in the same year is an extraordinarily compelling piece of evidence that the end of an era is upon us.

Rise of Skywalker is not only significant for these reasons, but also because of its color scheme. In the movie’s poster, the dominant color is now blue, whereas in 2016’s The Force Awakens, red dominating blue was the color scheme.

Endgame too has a color scheme of a purple-ish blue completely dominating red in its posters which is fascinating. The off-blue-ish color is striking because it is so unusual…and portends that not only is red waning but that it is not business as usual on the blue side of the divide.

These symbols in the art/cutlure wave could not be more clearly telling us that the thing ending is Trump’s presidency, and the thing rising is Bernie Sander’s class-fueled populist revolution.

Here are some more pieces of evidence to back up that assertion. Aladdin, the tale of a blue (Democrat) genie who grants wishes, was a top ten big box office winner last year. The symbolism is obvious as, fair or not, Bernie Sanders is being labeled as someone “giving away free stuff” by his critics in the establishment.

Another sign is much more esoteric, and that is the film Jumanji:The Next Level. The film was in the top ten of the box office last year and on its surface seems quite benign, but when you dig into it, things become pretty fascinating. Let me preface this by saying once again that this is Jungian dream interpretation, and you may find this interpretation to be a bridge too far. But here it is…

When you break the word Jumanji down into what it sounds like….it becomes “jew” + “manji”. Of course, the word “Jew” in the consciousness is striking in a year with the potentially the first Jewish presidential candidate.

The other part of this equation is even more subtle, but potentially much more powerful. The word “manji” is a Japanese word for a symbol…the symbol being the left facing swastika - as opposed to the right facing swastika used by the Nazis. To interpret this data from a Jungian perspective, that would mean that “Jew” + “manji” could be interpreted as a Jew who reverses the swastika/Nazism. I am not calling Trump a Nazi, but there is a strong sentiment in the culture that does attach him to the Nazi archetype. The conclusion to draw from this is that Jumanji symbolically means the current right (Republican) facing swastika will be reversed into a left (Democratic) facing manji. It might also signify Bernie Sanders, potentially the first Jewish candidate for President, will reverse the gains of the archetypal “Nazi”, Trump. (Again…I am not calling Trump a Nazi, only that he has been branded with the Nazi/“not-see” archetype in the public consciousness)

Another vital point is that like Trump in 2016, Sanders is running as the archetypal outsider. For instance, the media keep saying that Bernie is a joke and he can’t win the nomination or the general election, but remember, the media once said the same thing about Trump, and treated him with the same contempt.

Sanders is running against the establishment of both Washington AND the Democratic party. Also like Trump, he is despised by the mainstream media, who, like establishment politicians, belittle, dismiss and denigrate him every chance they get.

On a purely political and psychological level, it is obvious that the public viscerally loathes Washington and the media more than anything, which means that just like Trump in 2016, Sanders has the right enemies…and this will be a key to his success.

In conclusion, there is certainly a chance that the data that makes up the History, Empire, Generation, Time and Art/Culture waves, will shift in the crucial coming months, and the waves will obviously reflect, and I will report, that shift. But with that said, as currently configured, the Isaiah McCaffrey Wave Theory, most notably but not exclusively the art/culture wave, clearly indicates that Bernie Sanders is going to be the next President of the United States.

©2020

VISUAL AIDS

The blue-ish purple of 2019 Endgame surrounding red.

2019’s Rise of Skywalker has blue dominated red…in contrast to the color scheme of 2016’s The Force Awakens.

Blue once again taking up a larger percentage of the frame than red in 2019’s Rise of Skywalker.

2016 - The Force Awakens has red front and center over blue.

2016 The Force Awakens with its protagonist having the appearance of holding red…the color which dominates the frame over blue.

Red v Blue in 2016’s Civil War.

Red v Blue in Batman v Superman…notice that red wins.

Deadpool…the Trumpiest of superheroes…being snakry and wearing red in 2016.

2018 Mid-Term Elections

Ever since Trump was elected president in 2016, the media have declared that he would face a comeuppance in the form of vast Democrat victories, or as they call it, a “blue wave”, come the 2018 mid-term elections. While I would like to think that would happen…I don’t think that will happen.

As long time readers know, I was one of “those people” who, in the face of a cavalcade of opposite opinion in the media and in my social circles, accurately predicted Trump’s victory in 2016. As I said in my writing from that time, I didn’t want Trump to win (nor was I a Hillary supporter), I just thought he would. I ended up being right and we have all had to suffer through the never ending reality show that is Trump TV ever since.

The formula I used to predict Trump’s 2016 victory is my McCaffrey Wave Theory, which again, I am sure long-time readers are sick of hearing about…but what can you do? My wave theory uses, among other things, popular culture, most specifically, at least currently, film and television, as indicators of the mood in the collective unconscious. The formula of the McCaffrey Wave Theory is actually very complex and complicated, and takes into account numerous cultural and historical “waves” or “cycles” that are all simultaneously in motion.

Interpreting the data from these waves/cycles and measuring their relationship to one another is how the McCaffrey Wave Theory is able to “predict” certain turn of events. And to be clear, this is not about being Nostradamus and saying planes will fly into buildings on 9-11, but rather about understanding the ebbs and flows of the collective unconscious and knowing when both big and small shifts will occur when portions of the collective unconscious become conscious.

The key elements of the McCaffrey Wave Theory are the archetypes, narratives and sub-texts prominent in films/tv along with their color scheme and visual/cinematic tendencies. These data points are how my wave/cycle theory is able to discern which films and/or television shows are leading indicators and which are lagging indicators of the collective unconscious. Leading indicator films are the ones that express the unconscious desires/fears of the collective, while lagging indicator films are the ones that express conscious fears or desires of the collective.

Some examples of leading indicator film and tv were pretty obvious in 2017 when HULU’s A Handmaid’s Tale (its narrative and vibrant red and green color scheme) and the DC film Wonder Woman (its narrative and red and blue color scheme) jumped to the fore of our culture in the early summer. These two successful projects accurately foretold of the coming feminist outcry and the rise of the #MeToo movement in the wake of the Weinstein revelations that came out in October of 2017.

A good example of a lagging indicator film was in 2017 as well, when Steven Spielberg rushed into production his thinly veiled anti-Trump/pro-Hillary film, The Post, that underwhelmed both at the box office and come awards time. The Post failed both artistically and financially because it was little more than wish fulfillment that attempted to give the audience what it wanted, not what the collective sub-conscious needed.

In the years leading up to the rise of Trump in 2016, there were numerous films and television shows that were ominous signs of a very dark impulse coming to the fore in American life and across the globe.

Two glaring examples were HBO’s Game of Thrones with its marketing campaign which for years was warning us all with their ice-blue billboards proclaiming that “Winter is Coming”. The other was Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, a show about what America would be like if the Nazi’s and Japanese won World War II, which hit the airwaves in 2015 accompanied by a prodigious marketing campaign which had the Nazi Eagle on the American flag and the Imperial Japanese flag plastered all over the New York subway and elsewhere. Both of those shows resonated within the culture because they accurately gave voice to what was lurking in our collective unconscious. On some level we knew what was coming…a horrible “winter” and the Nazi’s/Not Sees…and these shows knew it before we were even conscious of it. (and don’t kid yourself, the Nazi/Not See impulse is not solely of the right, the left has a strong Not See impulse too).

In 2015 there were many films that were also giving us warning signs of big trouble ahead. The Martian, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant and Star Wars: The Force Awakens were all through their narratives, color schemes (Martian - Red, Hateful 8 - Blue, Revenant - Blue, Star Wars - Red and Blue) and cinematic visuals (shots of foreboding vast expanses) the equivalent of a flashing red sign that a gigantic storm was coming.

In 2016 things got even clearer, as the blockbusters Captain America: Civil War, X-Men: Apocalypse, Deadpool, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and even La La Land all revealed through their narratives (internecine warfare), sub-text and color schemes (all of them with vibrant clashes of red and blue) that our cultural train was headed off the track if not the cliff.

As I have previously written, last year cinema gave us some signs of what to expect going forward. The big archetype of the year in 2017 was Winston Churchill…with the films Dunkirk, Darkest Hour and the Netflix show The Crown. The Churchill archetype can be interpreted in numerous ways, but when seen in conjunction with other wave/cycles, it strikes me that the Churchill archetype is manifesting in the Trump’s of the world…in other words…it is actually the Churchill shadow archetype that is taking center stage.

Which brings us to this year and the mid-terms. As I said, there has been incessant talk of a blue wave and in its jubilant wake the possibility of a Democratic House and maybe even Senate where, like a scene out of The Godfather where Michael settles all family business, liberals exact revenge by impeaching not only of Trump but Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. As entertaining as that liberal porn may be…I don’t think it is going to happen.

According to my wave theory, there will be no blue wave. Not only will the Democrats not win the Senate, I don’t think they will win the House either, and if they do it will be by the skin of their teeth. Now…before you stick your head in the oven…to be very, very clear…I could certainly be wrong about this, God knows it wouldn’t be the first time. For starters, I have never used my wave theory to predict a mid-term before, and it could be I am interpreting the data entirely incorrectly, this is a distinct possibility. But with that said, ever since last June, when I wrote a piece for CounterPunch on the topic, along with a follow up posting on this blog in July, I have thought that this blue wave was a mirage.

As I stated in my CounterPunch piece, the big warning signs for me were the prominence and success of both Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War, both of which had narratives, sub-text and color scheme that spoke clearly of the failure of the opposition to Trump to succeed in toppling him.

Other films, such as A Quiet Place, Hereditary and even A Star is Born, that have all resonated deeply within the culture this year, are also leading indicators of a Democratic failure come the mid-terms because of their narratives and sub-text. Believe it or not, A Star is Born is remarkably insightful sub-textually and that sub-text very clearly (once you crack the code of it) states that if not Trump, then at least Trumpism, is here to stay as a replacement for the old paradigm, as indicated by the song in the film “Maybe it’s time we let the old ways die”. (I hope to have a full analysis of A Star is Born done soon).

Just as importantly, there are lagging indicator films that are, just like Spielberg’s The Post in 2017, falling flat, which highlight what isn’t resonating in the collective unconscious. Films with similar narratives, like the “aggrieved and under-appreciated genius wife/power behind the throne” stories of The Wife and Colette, or the “police shooting/racism” films The Hate U Give, Monsters and Men and Blindspotting, have all fallen flat in the broader culture. Even the colossal failure of the cinematic celebration of multi-culturalism and female empowerment, A Wrinkle in Time, is telling us what is going on in our collective unconscious, and it isn’t good news.

Now…maybe I am dead wrong about all this…maybe I am misreading and misinterpreting the data, that is a distinct possibility. Maybe the Democrats win a huge majority in the House and even get one in the Senate…but neither of those things will lead to a return to “normal”…only an escalation of the clash for civilization that is currently taking place.

Even if Democrats win, the intensity of the political turmoil here in America will not recede but proceed at an even quicker pace. Two more years of impeachment talk and congressional hearings will only heighten the tensions that are already near a boil. If you thought Trump was awful these last two years, wait until he faces an existential threat to his presidency from a Democratically controlled House and possibly Senate.

On the other hand, if, as I have been predicting since June, there is not blue wave, don’t expect tensions to lessen. If Democrats fail to gain the House, Trump will turn his obnoxiousness up to 11 and liberals and the media will ratchet up the crazy to unseen heights. And on top of that, if Mueller ends his investigation with no bombshells or smoking gun of “Russian collusion”, the liberal and Democratic meltdown will make Chernobyl look like a cookout.

In other words…no matter the outcome on November 6th, the conflagration that is American politics will only grow bigger, hotter and much more dangerous.

The reality is that there is no stopping the collapse of the institutions of western civilizations. Trust me, we have a very, very bumpy road ahead. That means more authoritarianism across the globe (Bolsonaro will win in Brazil) and more shocks to the system, like economic earthquakes, natural disasters and war.

The good news is that this current wave/cycle of collapse and destruction will not last forever. Eventually, after maybe a decade or so (or God help us a decade or two), this collapse and destruction wave/cycle will transform into a more optimistic wave/cycle of growth, stability, relative peace and prosperity. Remember, destruction is the first act of creation, and we will create, hopefully, a more just, localized, thoughtful and sustainable civilization in the crater where this one once stood.

As for the bad news…we are still in the destruction phase…and come November 7th there are going to be a lot of really pissed off Democrats, liberals and anti-Trumpers, who will still have no power in Washington with which to vent their rage. And if you thought things have been bad the last two years, what ‘til you get a load of what comes next because you ain’t seen nothing yet.

©2018

The Martian : A Review

SPOILER ALERT!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!! CONSIDER THIS YOUR OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT!!

MY RATING: SKIP IT IN THE THEATRE, SEE IT ON CABLE OR NETFLIX

The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, is the story of Mark Watney (Matt Damon), an astronaut accidentally left behind on Mars when his fellow crew members think he has been killed in an accident. The film follows Watney's struggle to survive on the barren planet and NASA's attempts to rescue him. As my very clever friend The Magnificent Anderson said to me, "with Saving Private Ryan, Interstellar and The Martian, America has spent a ridiculous amount of money to rescue Matt Damon". I gotta be honest, after seeing The Martian, I don't think that money was very well spent.

I was excited to see Ridley Scott and Matt Damon paired off, as I am a big fan of both men and their work. Scott, much like his star Damon, is an often underrated talent. He has made some of the most iconic films of the last forty years. From Alien to Blade Runner to Gladiator to Thelma and Louise, Ridley Scott at his best is as good as anyone. Matt Damon is also often over shadowed by his more fame seeking contemporaries like Brad Pitt or Matthew McConnaghey, but Damon, with his work in Good Will Hunting, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Departed and The Informant, has proven to be by far the more superior actor. 

"NOTHING EVER HAPPENS ON MARS….BORING! BORING! BORING!" - Waiting for Guffman

From Mission to Mars to Red Planet to Mars Needs Moms, the planet Mars is generally where movies go to die. With The Martian the result of the trip is not as horrible as the three previously mentioned films, but it certainly keeps the Mars cinematic jinx firmly in place. So what went wrong with The Martian? Let's take a look.

The Martian is a very strange film indeed. It is bursting with dramatic and cinematic potential, and yet, due to it's fundamental flaws, it is never able to break the bonds of its pedestrian atmosphere and soar to the great beyond of filmmaking achievement. The fundamental flaw I am speaking of is the film's incredibly poor narrative structure, which leaves the movie curiously devoid of tension and drama. The structural flaw of the film is pretty basic, instead of giving the viewer only Mark Watney's perspective, Ridley Scott chose to show the audience the God perspective, where they see everything that is happening. So the audience is able to see and know things that the film's protagonist Watney, does not see and know. Because of this choice, all of the drama of Watney's precarious situation on Mars is drained and we are left with a rather flaccid storytelling and dramatic endeavor.

If the viewer were only given Watney's perspective, this would have greatly heightened the drama in a few ways. The first is, the viewer would be entirely connected to the Watney character to a much greater degree than they already are. If we spent the first two thirds of the film trapped with Watney on Mars, like we were trapped on an island with Tom Hanks in Castaway for instance, then we would have had a more intimate and genuine connection to Watney. The second thing that would have happened is that the audience would be put through the emotional and mental anguish that Watney would have gone through when he doesn't know if anyone even knows he's alive, never mind trying to rescue him.  We would have, along with Watney, discovered what it's like to be the loneliest man in the universe. The decision to use the God perspective completely undermines these vital dramatic points by showing us that NASA knows he's alive and is trying to figure out how to save him, and Watney doesn't know it. If we were left in the dark along with Watney, then every other development in the story would take on greater significance and dramatic power. For instance, when Watney finally figures out that NASA knows he's alive, that would have been a tremendously thrilling moment, instead it is a rather mundane one since we knew that the whole time while Watney did not. All throughout the story there are significant moments that could have been greatly increased by the use of a  minimalist perspective, such as when Watney figures out how to increase his food supply, communicate with NASA, how to escape Mars, and then how to aid in his own rescue.  Instead the viewing experience is diminished because we are never truly able to project ourselves onto Watney since we have a grander view of things than he does. The energetic connection between viewer and protagonist is broken, and the film greatly suffers for it.

Damon's performance is also undercut by the perspective issue. While he is certainly able to give Watney a humanity through humor, he fails to portray a viable sense of impending doom and dread. Watney, the eternal optimist, never has his optimism truly challenged, and neither does the audience. Resiliance is a great trait to have, maybe the greatest, but dramatically it can ring hollow if the character is never fully allowed to hit rock bottom. Watney needs to be allowed to fall into despair, a deep existential despair, yet he and the audience are never allowed to because we KNOW that he isn't forgotten and alone on Mars. If we could have shared in Watney's desperation, this would make his achievements, his strength and his resilience all the more impactful for the viewer.  Instead we get a performance that is just like the film, neither hot nor cold, but mildly luke warm. Damon's performance is, like the entire film, relentlessly safe and middlebrow, which are two words that previously would have been unthinkable in regards to a Ridley Scott project.

HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM, AND THAT PROBLEM IS YOU

The other problem with showing us the God perspective is that we are forced to suffer through all of the scenes back on earth. These earth bound scenes are, at best, terribly generic, and at worst, cringeworthy. I would prefer to die cold and alone on Mars than watch one more actor melodramatically pause and raise their eyebrows to signify that they've just thought of something astonishingly brilliant while everyone else looks on perplexed. This happens again and again and again. The acting on earth is pretty atrocious, with Mackenzie Davis being the lone, notable exception. Davis actually seems like a down to earth (pardon the pun), genuine human being, not an actor trying to play a real human being.

There are also some pretty egregious casting decisions as well. Jeff Daniels is a fine actor, his work in The Squid and the Whale is testament to that. Yet he is terribly miscast in The Martian as the sometimes cut throat leader of NASA. We seem to be in the midst of a Jeff Daniels renaissance at the moment, which is good for him, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why he keeps being miscast. He was remarkably miscast in The Newsroom as well. Daniels is good at a lot of things, but he lacks the gravitas to play the head of NASA or a bombastic tv show host. One of the reasons he lacks gravitas is that his jaw is not very prominent or square, and he is not much of a physical presence. Secondly, his voice is slightly nasal and higher toned and his diction can veer into mush mouth, both of which undermine any power or gravitas that come with the characters he is cast to play. The result is we are left with performances from him that feel forced and ring hollow when he isn't in a role that suits his considerable strengths. An actor who would be perfectly suited to play the role of the head of NASA in The Martian would be Ed Harris.

A MILE WIDE AND AN INCH DEEP

The Martian is one of those movies that badly wants to be both taken seriously and liked by everyone, yet in my opinion it achieves neither. The film tries desperately for a scientific realism throughout, but that becomes less viable as the film goes on, finally spiraling into a sort of scientific farce during Watney's rescue. The highlight of which is when Watney goes full on "Iron Man" by puncturing his spacesuit and propelling himself into the waiting arms of his commanding officer Melissa Lewis, played by an under used Jessica Chastain. This sequence is supposed to be the dramatic crescendo of the story but it plays as contrived, underwhelming and frankly laughable.

The Martian is not a great film, in fact, I would argue that at it's very best it is surprisingly average. Comparisons to another recent astronaut film, Gravity, which won seven Oscars including Best Director, will do it no favors. Gravity was not a great film either, but it was visually pretty stunning. The Martian is neither visually nor dramatically compelling, and I found it frustrating because of the remarkable talents of Ridley Scott and Matt Damon being involved.

Which brings me to my final point. Ridley Scott is a master craftsman and artist. He knows what the hell he is doing. A look at his most recent films, the bafflingly inept Prometheus and the abhorrent Exodus: Gods and Kings, shows he may have lost his fastball, but maybe, just maybe, with The Martian he was up to something else. The errors in the most basic fundamentals of filmmaking and the tepid storytelling by such a creatively brilliant man as Scott, have left me wondering if he wasn't up to something else, something much deeper. I have been thinking about The Martian and mulling it over for a week now, wondering what the hell was really going on? What was Ridley Scott REALLY up to. Was there something much deeper and more meaningful hidden within the film that could redeem it? I've come up with a few ideas. 

SYMBOLISM, THE COMING ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AND REAGAN'S MORNING IN AMERICA

One idea I had is that The Martian is really about the coming economic tsunami. What economic tsunami you may ask? Ever since I left a job on Wall Street in the early 2000's, I was telling everyone who would listen that we were headed for an economic earthquake. The evidence was hiding in plain sight for anybody with eyes to see if they dared look. I wasn't writing back then so you will have to take my word for it. Most people thought I was a kook and ignored me. Then 2007/2008 happened, and I ended up being right, and those people ended up being wrong…and losing a lot of money. Well…it seems very apparent to me that another economic seismic event on the same scale or larger than 2007-2008 is coming. The economy, like The Martian, is fundamentally flawed, dare I say, fatally flawed. The reasons for this are much too complex to get into here, but rest assured, I am not the only person seeing this tsunami coming, not by a long shot. Lots of people who are a hell of a lot smarter than I am are seeing it coming too. Spend some time over at Zerohedge, Chris Martenson, Max Keiser, Peter Schiff or The Independent Report among others and you'll get some great analysis on what is coming our way. Of course the establishment media will continue to cheerlead for the economy like the band playing while the Titanic sinks, they always do. In my humble opinion, the time frame for this global economic tsunami is the only thing in question.

Now that I've told you the tsunami is coming, what the hell does any of that have to do with The Martian?  Here's my theory…from the very beginning of the film Matt Damon represents the regular working man. In one of the very first scenes, he is meticulously checking soil along a very small grid, inch by inch. As he tries to talk to his co-workers and superior officer, he is told to be quiet and then his communication is shut off. No one wants to hear what the lowly worker has to say. Then, AS A HUGE STORM UNEXPECTEDLY ROLLS IN (the economic storm that is coming), and everyone runs to the ship, Damon is impaled and thought to be killed by a communication dish. 

When Damon awakes and finds himself alone on a dead and barren planet, he must use his smarts in order to survive. He starts by surgically removing the communications wire stuck in him, symbolically severing the ties with establishment media. Then he uses his intellect, AND THE REMNANTS OF THE MISSIONS THAT CAME BEFORE HIM, to survive. 

Damon uses everyday items to transform his surroundings and to protect himself. He uses a simple tarp and duct tape to reinforce his shelter, and later his escape rocket. He digs up some left over radioactive material in order to stay warm, a symbolic move that we must get away from carbon based fuels, of which Mars has none, and use alternative fuel, such as nuclear and solar. 

Damon uses his skill as a botanist, an old school, nearly forgotten science, in order to double and triple his food supply. This is symbolic of our need to return to more locally sourced and organic farming techniques in order to overcome the coming shortages. He even uses his own and his crew member's shit in order to grow food. After the economic tsunami, there is going to be a big shit sandwich, and we are all going to have to take a bite. The idea of turning chicken shit into chicken salad will take on a whole new meaning. We will have to be lean and resourceful to survive.

Damon also figures out how to reconfigure an old way of communicating, a Mars rover, and uses it to start communicating with NASA anew. He also uses an old, scientific alphabet when he communicates, this being a metaphor for civilization looking backward to the basics in order to look forward for solutions and that the old way of talking about things must be discarded and replaced with a new one, even if it comes from an old one.

When the US is unable to successfully send a ship to save Damon, the Chinese step in with their advanced technology in order to help out. This is symbolic of how global the coming collapse will be and how the world will be multi-polar instead of uni-polar from here on out.

Even the rescue mission is symbolic of what it will take to overcome the difficulties that lie ahead. The NASA ship that is coming to save Damon must LOWER ITS TRAJECTORY AND SLOW IT'S SPEED, in order to get closer to Damon as he can only propel himself so high. The graph used to show that trajectory could be an economic graph, meaning that endless rates of high growth are unsustainable and we will have to lower expectations and slow down growth if we want to have any chance to for the earth and humanity to survive. Also the rescue ship must blow up and jettison a great deal of its excess rooms in order to facilitate the slowing of it's speed and it's trajectory, both symbolic of the need for excess and decadence to be eschewed in order to right the ship of our planet.

Finally, as Damon is falling short of the rescue ship, he punctures his space suit in order to propel himself to his saviors, just like people will have to puncture their own bubbles of expectations in order to find the courage and the final fuel to move them forward into the future. Chastain catches Damon and the two tumble and spiral together, getting wrapped in her tether, symbolizing the need for everyone, both rich and poor, to commit to stick together in order for humanity and civilization to survive.

Yes…I know this may be insane. But watching The Martian  through this lens makes it much, much more interesting than watching it as a straight up Mars movie. There are a lot of symbols throughout the film which lend themselves to this reading of the movie. For instance, there are constant references to the 1970's…Damon watches Happy Days and poses as Fonzie, he listens to Chastain's playlists which is nothing but 1970's disco. These could all be symbolic of another more political theme, namely that Damon is the eternal American optimist, Ronald Reagan, who is trying to escape and survive the economic and cultural malaise of the 1970's and bring us into the stratosphere of the 80's boom (which was more a mirage than a boom, but that's a discussion for another day). I fully admit that this might be a bridge too far…but there is some evidence that supports this theory as well.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, if I am giving the benefit of the doubt to Ridley Scott, which I believe he has earned, then The Martian may be a metaphor for the the coming economic collapse and for how humanity and civilization must behave in order to survive it. Or it may be a metaphor for America which is stuck in a 1970's type of stagnation, both economically, politically and culturally, and that a Reagan-esque figure is needed to teach us to 'never give up' and to go back to our individualistic and resourceful roots in order to break free and survive. (by the way, just to be clear, I am not saying that is true, I am saying that the film may be saying that it's true)

Regardless of what you think of me, my economic predictions, or my theories, I recommend you keep them in mind when you watch the film. Trust me when I tell you it will make for a much more interesting viewing  experience. As for watching the film…there is no need to rush out and pay full price to see it in a theatre, you would be wiser to save your hard-earned money (and prepare for the coming economic tsunami!!). Plus you can always wait until The Martian is on cable or Netflix and watch it from the comfort of your own home while civilization crumbles all about you outside. 

UPDATE : I got a great email from reader Arthur H., who hails from the Land of 10,000 Lakes and 2 Coen Brothers, he writes in regard to The Martian…"I was greatly relieved to read your thoughtful, critical review because almost everyone I know who saw it, and so many movie reviewers, think it is a truly great film. After reading your comments, I feel much less nuts." Welcome to my life!! Just remember Arthur, in the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King.

Arthur then gave a brief but very insightful review of his own, which with his permission I share with you here in full.

"The Martian is a "quintessential American" movie. Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is a classic mythological American white man who, in this incarnation, claims the entire planet of Mars because he grows potatoes in his own excrement. Thankfully, he did not have to murder millions of Martians in the process of claiming Mars as his property. The Martian is also an excruciatingly boring, completely and ridiculously implausible, intelligence insulting Hollywood B movie for the uncritical masses. Watney making a plastic tarp sealed with duct tape to cover a hole in the spacecraft that can withstand the tremendous speed in his lift off from Mars? The final scene where astronauts catch Watney flying by with rope and bring him safely aboard their space vehicle? One needs to suspend your disbelief to appreciate theatre. For The Martian, you would have to totally demolish it. Well, at least, even though we, your God view, knew from the first moment Watney would be saved, there still is a lot of dramatic tension building throughout the film. NOT, none, nada, zero. Like someone said, "By the end no one cared except on the screen, and they were all acting."

Well said, thank you Arthur!!