Few things are more hilarious than a right wing journalist spouting their ill-informed drivel. One of those few things is a Telegraph Twit holding forth about cinema. Read this and weep tears of mirth.
Nile Gardiner is an improbably named idiot who spouts gibberish in the Daily Tory - a recent article laid into the Obamas for hosting an Alice In Wonderland-themed event at The White House with Johnny Depp, two years ago. Now he's come out with his Top 10 conservative movies, which inspire themes of patriotism, family, decency and all round pinheadedness. In case you can't be bothered to read the article, here are some of his titles: ZULU, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, MASTER & COMMANDER, THE DEER HUNTER, LORD OF THE RINGS, ROCKY, BLACK HAWK DOWN and THE KILLING FIELDS. Notice anything these films have in common? Yup, they're nearly all war films, with a boxing movie thrown in there - and what is boxing but war on a one to one basis.
Each little review mentions the worthy themes that have helped young Nile choose the film in question, and he liberally (oops, conservatively) throws around words like 'liberty', 'courage', 'individualism', 'sacrifice' and 'camaraderie'. It's all horrendously blokey and warmongering, and it's hard to escape the feeling that these films allow him to live out his fantasies of being a great warrior, and overcoming the forces of barbarism or Marxism (spot the difference). Not for him the subtleties and paradoxes of La Grande Illusion, in which there is no black and white, just shades of luminous grey. No, Gardiner insists that there is a right and a wrong, and right is allowed to beat the shit out of wrong over 15 rounds, before pluckily overcoming his beastly adversary. And it is probably not insignificant that his Number 1 film is Chariots Of Fire, one of the most unashamedly jingoistic films ever made, with swelling Vangelis soundtrack, and plucky British athletes triumphing in the face of adversary.
The reason for my mockery - apart from the pleasure of making fun of a cultural philistine - is that his analysis of these films is so simplistic and juvenile. All that a film needs to do to achieve his approval is to generate a manly and patriotic emotion in his sturdy British chest. The fact that this can be done by any old cheesy music, combined with the triumph of the underdog, and the sacrifice of brave men on the altar of Patriotism (sorry, this kind of thing is catching) seems to have escaped his attention. His reactions are purely Pavlovian, and he appears to have no critical faculties whatsoever. He simply brings his Conservative glasses to the cinema and makes arbitrary decisions about which story fits the message. But I think you would find it hard to meet many people who thought that Peter Weir's adaptation of Patrick O'Brian's book is any kind of paean to Rule Britannia. It's about leadership, true, but also about loyalty, community and patience. And when I last looked, these qualities were not the exclusive domain of Mad Republicans.
A final thought. All the films he chooses are sentimental. They appeal to the shallower emotions, with the use of music, and emotive subject matter. Fascism, Russian communism under Stalin and other extreme ideologies use sentiment to achieve their authority, creating the illusion that there is Right and Wrong, Good and Bad, and that therefore whatever We do is OK, and whatever They do is not. It's a simple recipe for dictatorship, doing away with paradoxes, ambiguities and uncertainties. That is why a pundit for Fox News and the Telegraph likes those kind of films.
