The Destruction Distraction
By Trevor Denning (@BookstoreThor)
Last summer when everything was on fire and statues were being pulled down left and right, whether it made any sense or not, I didn’t see anyone mentioning that cultural purges are historically quite common. As far back as ancient Egypt we have an example of a canceled pharaoh, Hatshepsut (1507-1458 BC). She was powerful and successful, and then her successor tried to scrub her from history.
Our word iconoclast, meaning a destroyer of images, goes back to the eighth century when groups of Christians went around smashing religious artifacts. The only thing that’s changed is the religion. Icons are never safe. For every celebrity that endures, there are more who are shunned. Consider Gina Carano and Joss Whedon. These two names seemed unimpeachable a few months or years ago, but the media machine is trying, with varying degrees of success, to chew them up and spit them out.
The game for those of us in the stands, no matter our political affiliation, is in pointing out the hypocrisy. Schadenfreude is a hell of a drug. If anyone had it coming it’s Joss Whedon, the snarky atheist and self-proclaimed “male feminist,” well known for cheating on his wife and politcal rants so severe they drove him off social media for a time.
A man who believes in no higher being or objective morality treats people badly? I’m shocked!
Despite that, as a script doctor Whedon wrote some of our favorite movie lines and told some excellent stories that transcended his own small-mindedness. So at times we’ve loved him, and we’ve hated him, making him the perfect villain in the theater of pop culture. By now thousands of words and articles have been written about him. I don’t feel the need to add any more than these. The iconoclasts came for Whedon and far be it from me to sift through the rubble for another shard to smash.
Then there’s Gina Carano’s story, where it’s not she who is the hypocrite, but her former employer. For generations now Disney was the standard for American virtue and morality. Somewhere along the line they added in a celebration of strong women that on the surface didn’t seem too bad. Problem is, strong men and women have strong opinions. Fine, but they better be the correct opinions.
Gina Carano, clearly, had the wrong opinions.
So in an act both hypocritical and astonishingly stupid, Disney fired their most popular star from their most popular series. And they didn’t even have the decency to do it to her face. Carano found out through the media channels just like everyone else. So much for American virtue. Ever since, the internet has been on fire, enraged about what Disney has done to their brand, Star Wars, feminism, and on, and on. Ragging on Disney is almost as much fun as kicking Joss Whedon while he’s down. We could talk about it all day!
So what?
Because here’s what the ancient Egyptians didn’t care about, what the religious zealots didn’t understand while they were smashing things, what the summertime rioters cannot grasp, and what those of us who watch the media forget: destruction is easy. Destruction is a diversion only slightly more engaging than consumption. Destruction is a distraction.
If everyone who was spending so much time soaking up the schadenfreude actually rolled up their sleeves and built something, it wouldn’t matter who Joss Whedon is (was?). Develop a talent that surpasses his. It wouldn’t matter if Star Wars is over. Find the sci-fi visionaries telling new stories and share their work.
In removing yourself from the drama du jour, you’re not missing anything that hasn’t happened many times before and will happen many times again. Now is the time to break out of the cycle. The current culture never stops setting them up and knocking them down. We can keep participating in their game, or we can make our own culture that refuses to eat its own.
Say what you will about The Daily Wire hiring Carano and getting into the entertainment business. I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the idea, myself. However, while everyone else is talking, talking, talking, there are people (powerful people and those with nothing more than great potential) doing. Smash enough things and the world will change, true. Our world is broken enough without celebrating the wreckage. Doing the hard work, as our Creator made us, in His image, to also create is what will make the world a better, more beautiful place.
