Article Review 2
Bernard Beck in his article “Your Worst Nightmare: The Seige, American History X, and Our Views of Enemies, Foreign and Domestic” critiques the way in which we, as a society, allow drama into our lives, and how much we should actually engage in its consumption. He starts by stating that drama is naturally entertaining, and states that most audiences love to hate villains in a movie. “Children and adults, we get as much if them as we can. So we are always in the market for fresh versions of the exciting conflict that makes the process possible.” Beck believes that this process of viewing conflict and watching villains is most effective when the situations are closest to home, “such as the struggle for survival, danger to loved ones, an attack on our deeply held values, or the persistence of injustice.” (19) Obviously this is true, most of the films made today touch on these topics, but in an exaggerated and dramatized form. Why would anyone want to watch a boring film about something they could care less about? Even “sci-fi” films touch on the basic foundations of a personal struggle. Beck then focuses his attention on a more specific topic, our affinity for villains we can easily recognize, predators whose intentions are made clear in the film, and provide a platform where our own deepest fears and shames can be represented. He also claims that American audiences like to watch villains that represent the “others” that we may also fear in our actual lives: foreigners, terrorists, anyone different or perhaps intimidating to our accepted versions of American life. “Their differences are an insult to our understandings of right and wrong.” (20) However, in this day and age, Beck believes it is difficult to construct a villain because of increasing multiculturalism in society. “It becomes very difficult to cast a member of any group in villain’s role.” He further exploits his thesis by presenting two specific examples in film The Seige and American History X.
Beck believes that these films are good examples of creating the drama and villains audiences desire, and, therefore, have been met with ambivalent receptions by audiences and critics. However, they succeed in the conflicting demands of society (creating a recognizable villain while remaining unbiased) by portraying “their suggestions of ambiguity about the identification of the villains.” (21) Although the movies are both loaded with heavy and extreme illustrations of violence, the dually situated nature of the violence ultimately cancels out any reasonable condemnation of guilt. Beck ends by agreeing that although moviemakers may underestimate American audiences’ ability to take any film with a “grain of salt,” you still can’t assume to know how a particular group of people may feel about their representation in a film. We have witnessed this first hand, for example, in the film Boyz ‘N the Hood: no one can really conclude whether or not the film realistically portrays the life of an urban black male – other than an urban black male that has lived through similar circumstances. Even then, however, he cannot speak for an entire group of people.