Kurt Brindley's Blog, page 152
November 22, 2012
Sons of Anarchy: Hollywood’s Shakespearean Expression of the American Way of Life
Sons of Anarchy–Hollywood’s Shakespearean Expression of the American Way of Life
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and since I am American I must, like all Americans are doing across the nation and all over facebook, offer my thanks.
There are many things for which I am thankful: my family, my health, my freedom, football (football, the real kind, not soccer), you know, all the standard things a standard American is standardly thankful for.
But in addition to those standards, I am also thankful for the miracle of technology, for it allows me to experience right from my easy chair such wonderful, and cheap, mind melting joys like this and this and Netflix.
And I am especially thankful for Netflix, for it allows me to watch movies and television shows and documentaries and even some cartoons “on demand” (which is a very American way of putting it, no?).
And, of course I’m thankful for Hollywood, too, for without Hollywood, how else would I and the rest of the world know what America is truly like?
And because of Hollywood, and Netflix, and technology, and my health (and all the free time it affords me), I just spent the past three or fours days (I’m not exactly sure how many it was because by the second day it all became a blur) watching a delightful, non-family show called Sons of Anarchy.
Yeah, I know, as usual I’m late to the party. Four seasons late, to be exact. Season Five is already close to a wrap. Unfortunately, I will not be able to see it until sometime next year, probably right before Season Six kicks off; that is, if Netflix graciously makes it available for me to watch.
So much for “on demand” I guess.
Anyway, now, after that marathon of anarchy and mayhem, I can’t stop thinking, “What the hell just happened?”
I’m not really sure. After four straight days of watching four straight seasons of head bangin’, motorcycle clubbin’, gun runnin’, drug slingin’, porn flickin’, bombs explodin’, babies cryin’, and back stabbin’ drama, I’m not sure of anything right now.
Except that the show is good.
Once again, Hollywood did what it does best: exploiting, romanticizing, and glamorizing the most extreme of man’s deviant nature.
Hollywood did its job so well and the show is so good I gave it a Netflix rating of 4 out of 5 stars.
I almost gave it a 5 of 5 but it does have a few flaws:
– A bizarre Irish Republican Army connection that really put a drag on the pace and feel of the show for one of the seasons, season two, I think.
– A couple of cheezy reveals, especially at the end of season four, that seriously cheapens the credibility of the story.
– Chuck Hunnam’s British accent. Mostly it goes unnoticed, but it is noticeable. It especially got thick when he was talking with/screaming at the Irish dudes.
But other than those flaws, the show is near masterpiece, as in Masterpiece Theatre.
Speaking of theatre — dammit, I’m American…I mean, theater — Kurt Sutter, the show’s genius creator, is in no way shy about the show’s obvious draw off of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. For example, we have our conflicted prince (or Motor Cycle Club Vice President), we have our surrogate father king (or MC President and step-father of the VP), we have our ghost of the dead former king and father of the prince (or a manifesto written by the dead former MC President, which is found and read by the son/VP of said dead former MC President, and which conflicts said son/VP even more).
There are more parallels but I think you get the point.
Hey, if you’re gonna rip off someone’s storyline, who’s better to rip off than the Great Bard himself (who, by the way, is also accused of being a first class storyline ripper-offer in his own right).
Yeah indeed, it’s a raunchy, guns-drug-sex-laden American version of Hamlet (heck, to make sure we didn’t miss the Hamlet connexion, Sutter even titled the last two episodes of Season Four as “To Be – Act I” and “To Be – Act II”).
I haven’t watched such a deviantly fine contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare since My Own Private Idaho (yeah, I know — Keanu Reeves. But hey, his “style” of acting works in this flick and, besides, it also has River Phoenix (MHRIP)).
Sons of Anarchy just about has it all; all, that is, except…anarchy.
Sure there’s all the killing and all the other subversion of societal norms one could imagine, but all that is done within the context of maintaining a structured and orderly, albeit illicit, motorcycle club. And clubs, especially those that are guided via vote and majority rule like the SOA MC is, represent anything but anarchistic ideals.
Clubs, especially those of the motorcycle variety, do not represent anarchy, they represent democracy and freedom.
And democracy and freedom, damn it, represent America!
Yes, the Sons of Anarchy, with its British leading man, and its British-owned storyline, and its Irish Republican Army and Mexican Drug Cartela dependencies and connexions–er, connections, is about as American as any television series could ever strive to be…
Or not to be.
Ha, ha…
Oh well, I tried.
While my dubious and corny conclusion may be in question, there is no question that, with Sons of Anarchy, Hollywood has served up yet another feast of a show for us turkeys to feed upon in our unending quest to fill our insatiable viewing appetites.
And for that, I am also thankful.
…burp
Related Posts:
September 20, 2011
THE SEA TRIAL OF AN UNFORTUNATE SAILOR – BOOK TRAILER
National Nervous Breakdown
November 16, 2012
November 11, 2012
Cough Much?
Roll the cursor over the widget to listen for the sounds of COPD
November is COPD Awareness Month. While my condition, does not fall into the COPD category, there are similarities.
There you go. I hope you’re now a bit more aware.
Related Posts:
Caffeine Therapy
Long Overdue
Caffeine Therapy – Update #2
Caffeine Therapy – Update #1
Exploiting the Crisis
November 10, 2012
Boo! Artistically so…
I found this work of art on the Singularity Weblog site, sadly well past Halloween.
There’s always next year.
~~~~~
Even more fascinating is this short video of how The Green Ruby Pumpkin was created.
Related Posts:
Hollow’s Eve on The North Coast
A Super Sad True Look at What May Lie Ahead
November 9, 2012
November 8, 2012
Toward the Happy End of Legislating Morality
By: torbakhopper
You may be happy or sad over the reelection of Barack Obama.
I, for one, am happy.
You may be happy or sad over the reelection of the Congressional Incumbents.
I, for one, am sad.
And, you may be happy or sad over the historic legalization of gay marriage in Maryland and other states and the legalization of the limited recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington.
I, for one, am beyond happy; in fact, I am completely and blissfully ecstatic.
Now, since I am happily married and have been so for over two score, and since my lung disease prevents me from inhaling any kind of smoke and my high liver counts discourage me from introducing THC into my system by any other means, I do not foresee me benefiting physically in the least because of the legalization of gay marriage and the decriminalization of marijuana use.
But I do benefit from it.
All Americans benefit from it because it represents a new mind set in our country.
A new hope.
Millions of Americans voted in this election to begin the end of legislating morality.
Yes, there will be legal challenges and set backs to these recent advancements toward the protection of our basic human right to live a life as we choose to live it.
Yes, we still have many states to go and many votes to cast before all Americans’s have the right to be human as each sees fit.
But we have just made a significant advancement, an advancement which sets the momentum toward even further advancement, and which minimizes the chance for significant setback.
And I, for one, am very happy about that.
By: Crazy Horse
Related Posts:
We’re So Exceptionally Blue
Declare Your Independence By Voting for (a) Change
Mother Nature Casts an Early Ballot
F### You Motherland I Am A Grass Mud Horse
The Disposition Matrix
November 7, 2012
We’re So Exceptionally Blue
It occurred to me that every US state that I have had ever lived in — Ohio, Hawaii, Virgina, Pennsylvania — went blue and voted for Barack Obama in this election.
I am pleased and proud of that unimportant fact.
Original image courtesy of Huffington Post
But I also lived a large and pleasant chunk of my life in Japan.
While, obviously, citizens of Japan cannot vote in the United States election, if they could, I’m confident in saying, even without any polling data to back me up, that the country of Japan would be just as blue as the majority of the United States is, because of their overwhelming support and admiration for President Barack Obama.
Many of my more conservative friends scoff at the fact that President Obama’s international appeal is so strong and argue that what the international community think about America’s leaders should have nothing to do with who should be leading America.
They’re probably right.
But they seem to go even further when they imply, and sometimes state outright, that this international appeal of his somehow proves that he is less American, which, to me, translates as calling him un-American, because of it.
I cannot even come close to understanding this sort of irrational rationale.
Especially when many of these conservatives are so intent — intent to such an extremity that it becomes obvious they suffer from some serious Freudian insecurities — on reminding everyone just how exceptional American is.
I agree the US is exceptional, but the labeling of it as being so is for others outside of the US to apply, not those of us in the US.
It’s conceited and unbecoming.
Still, if we all were to agree that the US is an exceptional place, it would have to be partly because the United States provides trusting and exceptional leadership to the world.
Agreed world?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Regardless what the world thinks, I’m quite sure my conservative friends agree that the US does provide such exceptional leadership, just as I’m also quite sure that these same friends project, or try to project — as do those drivers of really big trucks try to project the size of their trucks upon the size of their own, um, stature — the United States’s exceptional stature upon their own, perhaps less than exceptional, perhaps highly insecure, stature.
Nothing wrong with that, really.
I’m sure I’ve been guilty of doing the same sort of projecting upon my own less than exceptional stature on many more than just one occasions. It’s hard not to do since I’m proud to be an American and proud, most of the time, of the leadership America does provide to the world.
But if we are going to assume the responsibilities that come with being a world leader, then doesn’t it make sense that we out to, at least, consider the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of those of whom we’re professing to lead?
The rest of the world may not have the ability to vote in our US election, rightly so, but that doesn’t mean they are not going to be interested in, concerned with, impacted by the consequences of our election.
Of course they are, and at least we should acknowledge their input and reactions to our decisions.
Oh, and by the way…
No Donald Trump, the world is not laughing at us.
We are laughing at you.
Related Posts:
Declare Your Independence By Voting for (a) Change
Mother Nature Casts an Early Ballot
The Disposition Matrix
Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst
Merry Lame Duck Congress Season To All
November 6, 2012
Declare Your Independence By Voting for (a) Change
Today is Election Day in the United States. If you are an American, I hope you exercise your right [privilege] to vote.
If you are not American, I hope you live in a country where you have the right to vote.
If you don’t live in a country that provides the right to vote, I hope you have the courage to fight for it.
By: mark harmon
America’s Founding Fathers, together with its Founding Citizens, had the courage to fight for our right to to vote. And we all know the severe consequences they endured for doing so.
Vote, people. Find the courage, and the will, to declare your independence and vote.
Related Posts:
Mother Nature Casts an Early Ballot
Legacy
WRITE TO PURGE – my guest post for Author Alison Naomi Holt
In Honor of the End of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy
