Iron Mannequins

I just came back from watching Iron Man, and it sparked some thoughts about why I tell stories -- my place as an artist and accountability for the message I’m portraying.

Although I’ll admit that certain parts of Iron Man can only be referred to as awesome, I spent the much of the movie incredibly offended by the portrayal of Muslims and Middle-Easterners. A chunk of the movie takes place in Afghanistan, and the Afghan people are portrayed either as terrorists running shouting with turbans on their head and guns in their hands, as the heaven-sent sidekick who dies too quickly to be given three-dimensional qualities, or as goat farmers.

What the screenwriters did was incredibly smart…they were given the charge to create a world exactly like our own except with the premise that this Iron Man superhero exists. By using Afghan terrorists as the villain and Afghan civilians as the innocent bystanders, the screenwriters created recognizable stereotypes that tug immensely at our heartstrings. These symbols are incredibly powerful tools which make for thrilling drama.

However, if I’m a thirteen-year-old boy, chances are I’ve seen Iron Man and haven’t seen something like Babel, yet alone have any understanding that all Middle-Eastern (or Muslim for that matter) countries cannot be clumped into the same lump. Do we fly every thirteen-year-old boy over to Dubai and say look: Middle-Easterners run the gamut (just as Americans do) and also have sophisticated first-world cities and three-dimensional cultures/people?

Yes, this film is a product of our time, just as it was pointed out to me that Indiana Jones did the same thing with villainous Germans, but it doesn’t cease to make my heart pound a little faster as I’m watching the desert-scenes in Iron Man.

Art with a message. There’ve been several discussions among the interns about this very topic -- the catalyst seeming to be Jodi and Annie’s master class about season selection which touched on this very issue.

Art and entertainment are a huge part of my world. A huge part of the modern world. And evidenced by the fact I have been spurred to write these thoughts down, I am hypersensitive to the incredible power stories have.

In my life, I have chosen to be a storyteller. I am just beginning to understand that the ability to tell a powerful story is very different than the ability to tell a truthful story. Perhaps I’m still too young to have the cynic-bug buzzing in my ear, but I still believe that every artist has been charged to expose a little truth in this world. “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” Pablo Picasso.

In her recent opening night speech for Scramble!, Annie (with a wink) quoted the old Hollywood adage: “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” However, I think Scramble! does more than meets the eye when it comes to truth-telling. Bringing a group of people together to laugh at the absurdity of office politics and the irrationality of what we get worked up over on a daily basis…that’s absolutely a story worth telling. And you know what?...it’s fun. And when I (god forbid) have a thirteen-year-old son, I’ll certainly plop him down in a seat for a show that tells the truth with a spoonful of sugar.

There is a place for many disparate kinds of entertainment – truth wrapped in both colorful tissue paper and chain-link. But a blockbuster hit (that will be translated into every language this world has to offer) portraying something so blatantly and destructively one-sided, THAT I find simply…untrue.

What to do about it? I guess I'll keep telling stories. If you can't beat 'em, flood the system...

Amy.