More on the Atheism series

I'm still working through my emotional response to this programme :) . I felt proud to be one of these intelligent, informed atheists, but mostly I was just poleaxed. Rather like Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud, or We're Here and We're Queer, the first time I heard either of those proclamations.

Ah, I've just realized what made the show so unusual - there was no presentation of the "other side." In American politics, the media is supposed to present "both sides" (in reality fulfilling the equal time requirement most unevenly), and that approach has bled over into its coverage of almost everything else, particularly anything the least controversial. So that, instead of telling us what's what with global warming, or the Shroud, say, of Turin, we hear from scientists on the one hand and true believers on the other. The viewers are left to "make up their own minds", as if there were no factual aspect to the matter.

But the British atheism show ONLY presented information about the course of atheism throughout history - no religious types got to have their say! Most unusual!

Inspired

I just spent the afternoon and early evening watching "Atheism: A Brief History of Unbelief" and the accompanying interviews. What an eye-opener! I learned some things, but mostly I was astounded, not only to look at these guys stating boldly their non-belief in God, and their logical reasons for it, but to think that this program was actually broadcast nationwide, albeit in England. There's some hope that it will appear in the US, but I can't imagine it. That's how bible-belty it feels here. Or perhaps my childhood has a stronger hold on me than I like to think.

The one drawback, and it is a big one, is that the show was exclusively white males, and mostly pretty old too, though I don't really mind that. But to think that not a single woman could have made a substantive contribution to the topic. Huh.

Immediately afterward, I caught the last part of Bill Moyers' "The Buying of the Iraq War", followed by an Iowa Public Television journalist roundtable on in-state coverage of the runup to the war. Gilbert was great; to the others I kept saying, so why did you?

Still, for today at least, things are looking pretty good for us antiwar antireligion types.

Red

Five minutes in: The red is such a welcome contrast after the cold, dreary white of White. It's also more natural - taillights, jackets, no-left-turn signs - than the blue of Blue - candy wrappers, glass mobiles.

Fifteen minutes in: Okay, enough with the red already! Every thing that doesn't move is painted or dyed red, and if you count the dog's blood, then some of the moving things as well. Even the protagonist is named Valentine.

On the other hand, it does have two dogs in it.

An hour ten in: I'm sorry the young judge guy's girlfriend is cheating on him, but the fact that if she doesn't answer her phone, he goes to her place and, with some effort, spies on her with her new lover - that's creepy. In fact, Marie's own boyfriend sounds pretty creepy and controlling, too - and Kieslowski doesn't seem to be commenting on it, it seems like neutral depiction. Hope I'm wrong, that it (critisicm) just doesn't come across in translation.

Auguste, the scorned lover, has just tied his little dog out on a post and is abandoning him. I hate him. Ah, later, we see he couldn't go through with it. But does the dog survive the ferry capsize??

White

As with Blue, I get more out of it on every viewing. This time, I was struck by Karol's weakness and ineffectualness in France - before the film starts, he wins prizes for his hairstyling, but by the time we meet him, he is one sad sack loser - but when he returns to Poland, he quickly grows in cleverness and determination. In contrast, Dominique is the dominant personality in France, but after Karol lures her to Poland, their roles reverse and she becomes the needy loser. Is it the natural difficulty a foreigner faces when dealing with the court system of a strange country? Or is it something more mystical, about drawing strength from one's native soil? (As opposed to Blue, which at least superficially celebrated the EU.)

The film certainly makes Poland look like a cold, dreary place, with rusted-out infrastructure apparently not renewed since WWII and a post-communist economy where only the corrupt survive.

Maybe next time I will figure out the ending: she's to be hung, then she'll climb up to heaven and they will be married there??

Frasier vs. Cheers

Blogger Lance Mannion always holds up Cheers as one of the premier television comedies of all time. Right now, I'm watching Cheers and Frasier in tandem, and I'm up to Season 5 for both. Cheers has truly archetypical characters, and is very funny, but Frasier makes me laugh out loud in every episode, even though I've seen them each a dozen times or more.

Perhaps the thing that makes Cheers the less funny of the two, for me, is that I know the whole story - the center couple ultimately does not stay together. And so much of the humor is one person insulting another (Diane/Sam, Sam/Diane, Carla/Cliff), which grates on my humanity after a while.

Presumably Lance Mannion likes Cheers so much because he identifies with Sam - I just saw the LM episode a few days ago - and certainly I always identified with Diane. But her story is a sad one. Whereas there is no one on Frasier with whom I identify (aside from Niles).

Frasier won Emmys 5 years in a row, I believe - a record - and I can see why. It plays to the strengths of the actors in an amazing way. Ep. 1 of Season 5 - Frasier's Imaginary Friend - is one of my favorite episodes and has one of the best-delivered lines in the series. In any series. And David Hyde Pierce is possibly the finest comedic actor of this generation. Posture, gesture, facial expression, timing, delivery - he can do it all, and plays the piano too.

Plus, Frasier has Eddie (see esp. Season 4).