Cool With Popular Culture

The home theatre system is finally starting to get a bit of use, and the other night we screened the '67 classic "Cool Hand Luke" with Paul Newman. The film is entertaining, well acted, and well filmed. As a younger person seeing it, I was less oriented to thinking of "message" than today.

The simple story for the very rare individual who as never seen it is that Luke (Paul Newman) is caught drunk, cutting the heads off parking meters for no apparent reason ends up on a "chain-gang" southern prison detail working on the roads. Luke can't accept "the system" or "rules". He is presented as "basically good", but the evil system wears him down.

Luke is "punished for being an atheist", he REALLY "wants to believe in God", but God just won't show himself and deal Luke a good hand. In as much as there is a hero, Luke is it, but not really. The message is pretty much that we have a choice to either "give into the corrupt system and be corrupted, but at least on the surface have a marginally better life, or "be true to ourselves", and be hounded, chewed up, and destroyed by "the system".

Interestingly, the "high point" of the movie is where Luke spurs the prison work crew to work like demons to complete the tarring of the road ahead of schedule so they have a few hours of daylight with "nothing to do". Ah yes, the pinnacle of human existence, idleness.

The bottom line message, like a lot of Hollywood is "futility", you "can't win". They do it well though, with a lot of emotional appeal, and it is all rolled out so easily. That is one of keys of the modern world. Music, movies, day to day TV, mass media news and modern education. You are told what to think at so many levels, and given a ton of little opportunities to be a "rebel". Get a tattoo, piercing, grow your hair any way you want, etc etc. The odd part is that there aren't any real sanctions anymore for any of it. **BUT** you are TOLD that there are ... Luke was killed after all, "Bush locks up dissenters", "our rights are under assault". Of course, none of it is true, but it SEEMS that way, it especially FEELS that way if we give into enough media control.