The Relevance of Marxist Theory to Media Texts - Essay Example

Critically assess the relevance of Marxist theory to media texts Is Marxist theory relevant to the study of media texts This is the question which this paper will attempt to answer. The media text chosen for this purpose is Michael Moore's documentary film, "Fahrenheit 9/11" released in 2004. In order to critically assess the relevance, we will look into some key messages in the film and Moore's commentary which runs along this rather anecdotal collection of video clips, some of them rare. We will also summarize relevant elements of the Marxist theory and conclude in the light of a comparative analysis whether Marxist theory is relevant to the film. Moore's comments have been paraphrased in the essay. By way of introducing the film, which at the outset turns out to be a critique of the American state, one can say that it is an investigation of the Bush administration's actions in the wake of the tragic events of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. Moore looks into the presidency of George W. Bush and analyzes the future of the country in the light of his policies and actions. Moore alleges that Bush family had long-term business relationship with the Saudi royalty and the family of bin Ladens. Bush and his inner circle avoided pursuing the Saudi connection to 9/11, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and Saudi money had allegedly funded Al Qaeda (Fahrenheit 9/11). Fahrenheit 9/11 shows how a nation is kept in constant fear by FBI alerts and ultimately lulled into accepting the USA Patriot Act, that according to the film infringes on basic civil rights further adding that it is in this atmosphere of "confusion, suspicion and dread" that the Bush Administration "invades" Iraq. Fahrenheit 9/11 shows clips of the war to highlight the US casualties and the human cost to individual soldiers and their families thus invoking anti-state feelings within the armed forces. The core narrative of Fahrenheit 9/11 paraphrased from various reviews on the film: the Bush administration seized power by a fraudulent vote in Florida and exploited the September 11 terrorist attacks to pump up fear, suppress dissent, favor his cronies and, ultimately, to launch an attack on Iraq with a hidden motive to capture the world's second largest reservoir of oil-all on the dubious grounds that Saddam Hussein was behind Al Qaeda's attack on World Trade Centre and his regime which possessed weapons of mass destruction posed a serious threat to the security of the United States and its Western allies. Fahrenheit 9/11 has been one of the most controversial and provocative documentary films since 2004 when it was released in the United States and worldwide. It seems to have borrowed the title and inspiration from Ray Bradbury's fiction novel "Fehrenheir 451" published in 1953. The thrust of the novel is towards highlighting the major concerns of the 1950s such as McCarthyite witch-hunt against communists , burning of books in Nazi Germany; Soviet leader Stalin's suppression of writers and books and the horrifying consequences of a nuclear weapon on the fictional town of Phoenix. Fahrenheit 451 belongs to George Orwell's "Big Brother" genre which is not exactly a Marxist comment on the society but a reflection of Western liberal thought. One may argue that Bush comes out in the film as the main protagonist, however, in its over all impact the film, wittingly or unwittingly, shuns narrative structure of story-telling that is the hallmark of the Hollywood style of film-making. Vertov and his colleagues believed both in the absolute ability of the cinema apparatus to reproduce reality as it actually appears and in the necessity of editing to arrange this reality into an expressive and persuasive whole. This doctrine, called by Vertov kino-glaz ("cinema-eye"), contributed significantly to the montage aesthetics which came to dominate the Soviet cinema after 1924. (Cook, 1996 p.134) Fahrenheit 911 does not use a protagonist or a narrative and uses a format which is more associated with the former Soviet film industry wherein instead of developing a narrative, the key message or a number of messages were conveyed to the viewer through a clash of one image against the next whether in composition, motion, or idea. (Cook 1996) Thus it can be said of Fahrenheit 911 that it is a montage of several anecdotal news reports. A critical review of the film Fahrenheit 9/11 identifies five key messages enlisted below: George W Bush heads an imperialist presidency: The movie is more tilted towards portraying George W Bush as a president who heads an economy in recession which is haunted by the spectre of social issues including unemployment and a competition with European Union and China for control of world resources. Essentially, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 came as a great shock to the government of which, as the film also points out, the intelligence agencies had a clear warning and had an assessment that the United States may come under attack from a foreign group of terrorists. George W ignored the warnings at the cost of losing over 3,000 innocent lives, material loss and of course a diplomatic setback: the most powerful state on earth was starting to appear weak and vulnerable. The attacks created a sense of fear and panic among the American public which looked up to George W for protection. Interestingly, the public reaction was expected to be that of outrage leading to the beginning of a movement to remove the rulers who are normally held responsible. May be the feeling in the hearts of the public was just that and that feeling was about to take a shape of a movement aimed at bringing about revolutionary changes in the political system was also ready to transcend partisan politics . In fact, it may be argued that the brains behind the terrorist attacks may have visualized this scenario leading to an implosion of the United States just as it occurred in the Soviet Union. These are the factors in the post-9/11 realpolitik of the United States which showed the Bush presidency in a real bad light indeed or to borrow the Marxist term the failure of the state was abundantly evident. "On September 11, 2001 over 3000 people were killed in the largest foreign attack ever. The targets were the financial and military headquarters of the United States. Bush chief secretary told him the nation is under attack." (Fahrenheit 911) The natural response of the most powerful bourgeois state arguably would have been to hang the blame on someone, smash it to pieces and make sure that the event is rolled out on the media with a clear motive to remove public fear and thwart any future attacks. This is exactly what the Bush administration with a bipartisan support did. The group that was identified as the mastermind turned out to be an erstwhile unknown group called "Al Qaeda" whose leader, Osama Bin Laden happened to be a Saudi billionaire based in Afghanistan under the protection of Taliban. A war plan was given final touches and within no time fire rained over Afghanistan killing thousands of innocent people in its wake. The film points out that the plausible places where Osama Bin Laden may have been hiding were not attacked for two months thus giving enough time to the alleged culprit to make good his escape to neighboring Pakistan or Iran. When the attack on Afghanistan failed to "smoke Osama bin Laden out of his cave/hole" (to borrow words from a war message issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces, namely George W), the rhetoric coming out of Washington shifted to a new threat posed by another sovereign state, Iraq which Bush and Co claimed had weapons of mass destruction and threatened to harm the security of the United States. Bush and Co. linked Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda and therefore partly responsible for 9/11. Another war plan was chalked out and within no time, in the Spring of 2003 American troops were shown on world television racing towards Baghdad with a motive to capture Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction while the US soldier listened to the war song: "burn, mother-fucker burn" referring essentially to the Iraqi civilians because in the absence of an military opposition it was the civilian men, women and children who were burning to death. However, Fehrenheit 9/11 very convincingly puts forth the alternative view on the events which is that the main reason for invading Iraq was to take control of the Iraqi oil wells which incidentally contained the world's second largest reservoir. The film shows a clip of Americans working an Iraqi oil rig under the protection of US troops. Towards the end of the film Moore addresses another important reason for the ruling bourgeoisie to wage a war: "The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects to keep the very structure of the society in tact." (Fahrenheit 911) Existence of working class and ruling bourgeoisie: The classical Marxism concept of class struggle playing a central role in understanding society's "inevitable" development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society is relevant in the film when Moore differentiates between the working class and the bourgeoisie. Traditional Hollywood films would take great pains to avoid showing the American class system even if the plot demanded so. Almost all films coming out of Hollywood present the bourgeoisie as the only class and the working class a villainous group of people always attacking the "rich fella." But Fahrenheit 9/11 presents the working class in a positive light when it shows clips of Flint, Michigan with dilapidated houses and unemployed youth for whom the only place to look for work is the US army. A black man sees images of war-torn Baghdad and remarks, "There's parts of Flint that look like that, and we ain't even been in a war." On the other hand the portrayal of Congressmen showing reluctance to send their wards to Iraq represents a typical bourgeoisie which would consider soldiery as a proletarian job. Exploitation of the working class to an extent of extreme poverty: Fahrenheit 9/11 links the job in the armed forces with the working class or to be exact in Marxian terminology the lumpen proletariat whose members in the American context are essentially the Blacks and Hispanics. Consider when Moore asks a group of Black youth how many of them had a relative fighting in Iraq and all of them raise their hands. Also consider the Marine recruiters looking for Black recruits. Thus an inspiration from the Marxian idea of class struggle or class distinction. War is all about maintaining the social status quo: Commenting on the real purpose of war, Moore remarks towards the end of the film thus: George Orwell once wrote it's not a matter whether a war is not real or if it is, victory is not possible. But war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is possible only on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past than it ever has existed. In principle the war is always planned to keep the society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not victory over Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of the society in tact. (Fahrenheit 911) It seems while Moore tries to convince his viewers that the invasion of Iraq was in essence taking over the Iraqi oil wells, he is also conveying the message that a war which entails a fear of reprisal in case of defeat, a counter-attack or young sons and daughters in many families facing death generates a sense of unity and a sense of holding on to the community and its leadership at least till the time the war is over. One Marxist idea which can be said to have relevance to the film is that of imperialism or neo-imperliasm which is not necessarily attributable to Marx himself but to people like Kautsky and Lenin. In his historic book, "Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism", Lenin writes that "imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed." (Lenin, 1916 p. 265) Lenin discusses the history of the idea of imperialism and quotes a Marxist intellectual, Kautsky although disagreeing with it and terming it "un-Marxist," thus: "Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to bring under its control or to annex all large areas of agrarian [Kautsky's italics] territory, irrespective of what nations inhabit it." (Lenin, 1916 p. 266) Lenin argues that Kautski's definition reflected English social-liberals such as Hobson et al calling them "apologists." Although Michael Moore is a liberal left-of-centre Democrat political activist, his film, Fahrenheit 9/11, draws upon the Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism in the shape of US invasion of Iraq which was not in self-defense but to take over the world's second largest oil reserves in aid of boosting its own ailing economy. In terms of production it appears to have used the former Soviet film-making format rather than sticking with the Hollywood's narrative style which really shows his dislike for an institution many refer to as an important tool of US imperialism: Hollywood products are a household name in almost every part of the world. The film under review throws in glimpses of events with a dash of American humor at the audience to come up with its own conclusion. But Suzanne Fields (2003) writing about Fahrenheit 9/11 in The Washington Times disagrees: "A media-saturated culture rewards sensational attitudinizing, blather without accuracy, rationality or ethics that is meant only to shock and awe. Misinformation accelerates at the cost of precision, provoking passion, if not much else, through exaggeration." (Fields 2003, p A12) The film tends to show that the 9/11 terrorist attack reflected a failure of the US state which in Marxist theory is an indication of the decaying of the bourgeois state. Thus, the overall film is inspired by a thought that is inspired not necessarily by classical Marxism but so many of its variants also known as Neo-Marxian thought. After all he has to sell film too. So in conclusion, it can safely be asserted that Marxist theory is relevant to the study of Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11." REFERENCES Fahrenheit 9/11, 2004, Film directed by Michael Moore, USA: Lion's Gate Cook, D., 1996, A History of Narrative Film. New York: W. W. Norton. Fields, S., 2003, The Ugly American in the Shadows; A Fading Memory Is Resuscitated by the Left. 2003. The Washington Times, 31 July. Washington Lenin, V. I, 1916, Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism, Collected Works, Moscow (Cited page also available here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htm#v22zz99h-265-GUESS) Read More