Photo Credit: Jean-Gabriel Fernandez
The rainbow crosswalk at Cathedral Square.
Like many of us, over the last year of my pandemic staying-at-home, I’ve been as good as glued to the TV. I just watched that old Henry Fonda film, The Ox-Bow Incident. The 1942 western tells the story of a posse determined to lynch three men suspected of murder. Despite the objections of seven men of reason, the mob is incited by an old Confederate colonel symbolically still in uniform and hang the men only to learn moments later that they were indeed innocent.
Earlier this year I saw a 1963 Twilight Zone episode, “He’s Alive,” in which an American neo-Nazi leader is possessed by Hitler’s spirit. He dies but Hitler’s ghost lives on. Shortly thereafter I caught that 1992 “ Golden Girls” spinoff episode of “The Golden Palace” (the girls are now hotel owners) in which Southern belle Blanche displays a Confederate flag for her Daughters of the Traditional South event. When the Black employee objects, a discussion about racism ensues. (Over 20 years later, in 2015, I published a column on the same subject. It could very well have been written today.)
Art, whether presented in more accessible mass media, on the lofty stage, or in the hallowed halls of museums, often reminds us of our frailties. That predicating factor of art over millennia is the constant of those frailties. Sadly, humanity resolutely resists the embrace of the moral of the story. Ultimately, no one wants to admit they are wrong, especially when it comes to sincerely held beliefs, however unfounded they might be.
Nothing’s Sacred?
Five years ago in this column, I criticized a local drag queen’s grotesque Anne Frank-Holocaust parody (in a costume replete with a clown-sized glitter Star of David). However, instead of the introspective soul searching I had hoped my article might evoke, the reaction to it was universally defensive. One response claimed nothing was too sacred to be beyond the realm of comedy. Another, a bar owner, cited the musical Cabaret to improbably justify the drag queen’s shtik. Ironically, Cabaret is a parable about people partying in the microcosm of the cabaret while ignoring the greater macrocosm outside and then suffering the consequences, the Holocaust.
One wonders how it is that the insistence of some on their being right survives in the face of truth. There’s blind faith (popularly known as groupthink), of course. That brand of conviction is based in nothing at all but absolves believers of any responsibility to think for themselves. Religion has set the standard here. If one firmly believes in fantastical theologies, it’s not much of a stretch to transfer that unquestioning mind-set to the machinations of politicians. There’s simple but strident pride that demands ignorance be intransient as well as a host of other causes. Suffice it to say, all lend themselves to easy manipulation in the Jim Jones’ manner.
In the perfect world of fictional parables, lessons are learned. In an act of contrition, The Ox-Bow Incident’s hateful old Confederate officer kills himself with a pistol shot. Blanche takes a less dramatic exit from her blithe naiveté but nevertheless recognizes the racism embodied in the Confederate flag and apologizes. Meanwhile, in the imperfect real world, you can still watch the Anne Frank routine on YouTube.
So, here we are on the brink of a civil war and in the midst of a pandemic that has killed over 400,000 Americans. As we embark into the unknowns of a new political era and its perils, we will hopefully find some means of reckoning and accountability. Perhaps some will admit to being wrong… never mind, who am I kidding?
