I read an article recently, which inspired me to write this “essay.” It’s not really an essay, though. It’s too informal. I don’t follow those BULLSHIT rules that English teachers forced upon us. I write how I want! LIKE A STREAM OF THOUGHTS, as if I was TALKING. HOW’S THAT FOR AN ATTENTION-GETTER?
The article asserted that Jeff Bezos is on pace to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2026. Interesting. So what am I writing about? Well, I’m urging you to watch a silent movie that was made in 1920s Germany.
The movie is Metropolis. It was directed by Fritz Lang and released in 1927. The movie’s setting is kind of up for interpretation, to some extent, but one release explicitly states that the film takes place in the year 2026. It’s just around the corner, really. 2014 and 2026 are the same amount of time removed from our present moment. And 2014 doesn’t seem that long ago, at least to me, anyway, I’m not sure what your perspective is.
Metropolis is almost one hundred years old and it takes place in the very-near future.
But movies are always wrong when they predict the future, right? Like Back to the Future Part II, they said that in 2015 we would have self-lacing shoes, hoverboards, and flying cars, but we didn’t have any of that! Yes, many movies are wrong with their predictions, but most do get a few things right.
Metropolis portrays the year 2026 as a world in which a select few elites enjoy a life of leisure, luxury, and decadence in beautiful giant buildings, while the masses toil away for long hours in dangerous, grueling jobs just to be able to survive. And the elites enjoy their status because of the work of the many who still live in squalor. There is a clear causality between these two classes. The inequality is painfully obvious. This is why it’s a perfect movie to watch right now. Yes, it’s old. Yes, it’s silent. But it’s just as relevant now as it ever was.
Today, just a couple dozen individuals own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the planet. Billions of people. Global wealth inequality is really bad, and it’s getting worse.
So yes, a German-made, silent movie from 1927 is relevant to your life.
Anway, one of these elites has a son named Freder, who inadvertently discovers the horrible, dangerous, impoverished conditions of the workers when a woman named Maria brings some poor children to see Freder’s home. Freder begins to sympathize with the workers, and he recognizes that the workers look to Maria as a beacon of hope, a savior of sorts. Freder, Maria, and some workers have a meeting of sorts and start planning a rebellion of sorts.
The elites realize that their extremely luxurious position might be the tiniest bit threatened, so they freak the fuck out. They design a robot, a fake Maria, to disrupt the workers’ plans.
This movie has wealth inequality, class solidarity, artificial intelligence, revolution, and phony class heroes. Phony class heroes? That sounds familiar.. you know, people like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and dare I say Barack Obama?? Yes, I dare say. These are the fake Maria’s of the world. They act like and seem like they are fighting for you and me, the everyday people. They say they’re on our side, on the side of the disenfranchised, but they’re not really. They, and other “liberals,” march on towards more imperialism, more mass incarceration, more surveillance, more love for corporations and less love for the workers of the world.
So watch Metropolis! Get some class solidarity!
But what I’m trying to say is more relevant to the uber-rich than it is to these “fake Maria’s” [I just wanted to mention that, as it’s another minor correlation between the film and the real world]. In the film, the elites live in luxury while their workers spend almost every moment of their lives working and living in shit conditions.
A recent report indicates that Bezos’ net worth has risen over $30 billion during the pandemic. Amazon cut hazard pay to its warehouse workers while handing out “Thank you” t-shirts. A “fuck you” followed by a “thank you.” Classic capitalist. Bezos lets workers pee in bottles in his warehouses, he designs bracelets to track his employees’ every movement, he uses heat maps to prevent workers unionizing for better conditions [like a living wage]. There was an Amazon employee video wherein employees were advised to turn in their fellow employees to management if they heard them say “living wage.” Fuck him.
There’s other evil shit and evil implications of Bezos’ actions and inactions, as well as companies like facebook, google, and others.
So watch Metropolis! Get angry! Get that radicalized, motivating feeling! Watch the movie!
Also, it’s just brilliantly directed, in that German expressionist way. And the visuals are pretty impressive for its time. And won’t you be a more interesting person after you watch it? Like, wow, that guy watched a silent movie, how cerebral! He must have such great focus and appreciation for art and shit. You might start calling movies “films” from now on, since you’re such an intellectual.
Of course, Metropolis does get some things wrong. The film suggests that those on top, the elites, are on top largely because they are the smartest [though of course the film clearly indicates that they retain such a lofty position because of the labor of the workers]. The film’s main phrase,“the mediator between Head and Hands must be the Heart,” is to be interpreted as “the compassion/empathy [heart] of the elites [the head/mind] must bridge the gap to the workers/labor [hand].” The elites are not the smartest, first of all. They’re not the stupidest, either, but Bezos is not 140,000,000,000 times smarter than anyone. Secondly, the elites have had plenty of time to develop compassion and empathy for the workers of the world, but they don’t. They never will. It’s pointless to hope that they will ever develop the “heart” that mediates between themselves and the common man. Fuck them.
So watch Metropolis, gain some class consciousness, and who knows, maybe we’ll fight for a better world? That’d be cool.
Lefty Forrester 