The problem of the impact mass culture has on the soul of the individual and on societal consciousness as a whole became the subject of a lively conversation with Vadym Skurativsky, a well-known Ukrainian culture and art researcher, doctor of philology, and professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
“Mr. Skurativsky, do you think that attempts are being made to instill in us the ideology of ‘sweet life today,’ based on the cult of material enrichment, sex, permissiveness, and sadism, instead of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism with its promise of a ‘radiant future’?”
“The issue is not of the so-called Marxism-Leninism having been replaced by mass culture. Marxism- Leninism is an absolutely degraded, vulgarized, but still a variety, of European humanism. This is a trend which we can say emerged first in the Catholic and then the Protestant church, as well as in the studies of Renaissance and then baroque intellectuals. As to the so-called mass culture (perhaps the greatest danger, in my opinion, humanity will face in the next century), we deal, especially under current conditions, with a system of certain antihuman signals that wipe everything else out. One can ask here: ‘Is it really so terrible?’ For, in addition to the cruel and vulgar version of mass culture, in which the heroes are always killing or torturing one another, there seems to be another version that follows certain folklore patterns people have been accumulating in their everyday life for centuries and even millennia. Indeed, look at Indian films or certain Hollywood products. These are fairy tales depicted by modern technological means. One might think: let these tales remain. But things are only good in a proper place! These folklore patterns formed a certain indispensable existential basis of the archaic consciousness of long-bygone times, and they fulfilled their ethical, esthetic, and, after all, societal cohering task. But now, in our situation, these patterns look quite strange. They run absolutely counter to modern moral and social reality. And, if I may say so, this reality should be described by realistic means. For instance, there was recently a preview, here in the House of Cinema, of the Russian film Khrustaliov, My Car! directed by Alexei German. Between me and you, I think this is the greatest movie in the history of the twentieth century cinema. Why? Because this movie found suitable and realistic esthetics to reflect a horrible reality. But a mass- culture storyteller in essence constructs a kind of parallel world which in fact entertains the spectator, listener, or reader, but has nothing to do with reality. In other words, let us say frankly, both the more and less aggressive versions of mass culture are equally harmful.
“In the contemporary world, we all live in the situation of democracy. The latter has in fact turned into a global system from Taipei to New York, from London to Kyiv and, I hope, Moscow. Under these circumstances, history is being made by the masses of millions of people who are, after all, the main subject of democracy. This is at least what world leaders now say. However, mass culture is bound to have only a negative effect on these masses. This culture only causes a certain moral and esthetic degradation in them. I can see so far no other effects of mass culture. Thus, huge electoral ‘audiences’ are being brought up in the spirit of, I would say, anti-pedagogy. Let me ask you: how will these masses behave a few decades later as a result of these circumstances? Nobody knows. But even now there are extremely dangerous symptoms. I mean the well-known examples of a very effective media manipulation of mass consciousness in, for example, Russia and America.”
“Some people might say mass culture is, to some extent, positive because modern man needs some emotional and psychological relaxation.”
“The world of today is stuffed with human audiences millions strong who, no doubt, need to relax. For instance, we see this kind of relaxation today in Kyiv during the Day of the City celebrations. So here, along with various vulgar versions of mass culture, we can also see mass forms of relaxation and normal recreation, which do the individual no harm. But there is nothing positive right in the main layers of mass culture. For this reason we now have to, so to speak, ring all the bells. For it will be too late in ten or twenty years. A wise teacher once said that when one Hollywood film character, pardon the expression, punches another in the nose, this foils his (teachers) years of purposeful efforts in a matter of seconds.
“Now about the so-called openness of mass culture and the so-called pornography or the very open display of male-female relations. This has always existed, throughout the millennia. But this open display was always conducted in a closed mode! Somewhere after 1968, under the influence of US and European radicals leftists, mass culture threw the doors open to this openness. There can only be a negative result. This means that the consciousness of young people from six to sixteen is being suddenly struck with what earlier used to be opened gradually, following a certain initiation of an individual into this sphere. It is no accident that this led to the formation of boys’ and then girls’ companies and the establishment of special relationships between these children and their parents. Young boys and girls were specially groomed for this role. What does the ritual of a Ukrainian and, in general, Slavic wedding mean? It means grooming for the relations in question. And suddenly all the veils of secrecy are ripped apart and all the gates swing open! What this may finally result in is that Marxism- Leninism will seem to us an ideological idyll against the background of this mass culture!
“True literature has always been open. It only became more chaste in the nineteenth century. But it was quite revealing before and after that. However, this openness was of a very serious, special, I would say, artistic and Gnostic, nature: this was an attempt to understand what a human being is. Here the artist should be allowed everything. But these are two entirely different things, when this attempt is being made by Ernest Hemingway or James Joyce and when a mass-culture dealer sells a woman and her naked body wholesale and retail, right and left.
“Forty years ago, Federico Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita was released. In it, the heroine begins to take off her clothes but still keeps the last item on. All hell broke loose! The Pope made a special announcement, the Catholic Church made a statement, and so did some moralists. But today this film (incidentally, a product of true classic art), as an art writer said, is for seminary students to see. Indeed, this process is of an altogether different level today. And the state should at least try to stem this murky tide. Otherwise, to be frank with you, there will be nothing left of the state.
“In what way should morals be protected? This is a real and far from simple problem. Yes, there is a risk of there being a bureaucratic functionary who will be banning everything, like in the Soviet times. Still, we must go in this direction: to draw up, apply, and modify, if necessary, a relevant law. So far, nothing is being done at all.”
“There is a certain phenomenon in our today’s information space, connected with overuse of the word affluence and its various derivatives. For example, ‘An affluent country makes an affluent man’ or ‘Only an affluent person can be truly generous, for he/she has a lot and gives things away without regret.’ Do you think this kind of view is completely wrong?”
“It is a little different. The point is that when rich states began to emerge in the West, there came Karl Marx with his followers, who, fairly enough, paid attention to the underprivileged strata of society. And he suggested, let us say this frankly, that this affluent state, this rich class, be eliminated. This led to nothing but our miseries. Thus this straightforward Marxist strategy did not work. It is far wiser to do one’s best for the individual to have some kind of material wealth. You see, this should be the alpha and omega of modern civilization, this is beyond doubt.”
“I mean ‘affluence’ is a certain Ukrainian idiom meaning not the material property that allows an individual and his/her family to lead a decent life but somebody’s obvious and well-known surplus in excess of a normal level of material wealth. It seems to me like turning this surplus into a fetish (in fact worshipping a material idol) makes human consciousness primitive.”
“You see, it would be a good idea to at least identify a certain standard of material wealth and only then discuss it. In general, the world which calls itself Christian behaves somewhat strangely. Christianity, especially in the first centuries, was always oriented toward absolute poverty. And, after all, it would be good if at least philanthropy were left behind out of the adoration of this poverty. But I cannot see this charity. For example, a lady teacher I know, in whose class a pupil fell seriously ill and needed an urgent operation, came to the nearest casino. Even the guards were stunned when she suddenly said to one and all: ‘Ladies and gentlemen! A child is dying! You must help him!’ She left the place with forty hryvnias, while she needed 1000 dollars for this. I am deeply convinced this casino cleared several thousand dollars before dawn. In principle, it would have cost a certain gentleman nothing to make a kind gesture, but he never made it in spite of all his affluence. This concerns the interconnection between generosity and richness. Or take the US dollar on which it is written ‘In God We Trust.’ I beg to disagree! You believe in your gold reserves and in the value of your dollar. But do you believe in the Lord God? This problem has not been solved at all, and no solution is in sight. You see, it was said, ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.’ But now all Western civilizations, ostensibly Christian by origin, keep on talking about the rich and richness. We, too, had this kind of wealthy Prime Minister. At first he had so many millions, then so many again and again. He just could not stop. And this speaks volumes.”
“Today, when an individual in this country faces so much evil and the state is unable to adequately protect him, the theme of retribution, punishment, and revenge becomes the key problem of existence in society. The cinema is also actively pursuing this theme.”
“I see exactly what you mean, but let me start with the American cinema. For in a country with the formal cult of law, a highly law-abiding population, and quite an effective judicial and police system, the huge film industry is paradoxically fixated on one basic plot, in which a state-appointed law- enforcement functionary in the rank of a prosecutor or a policeman (let alone thousands of private detectives and just amateurs), who failed to achieve his aim by legitimate means, takes up arms, and this avenger not only holds all the laws in contempt but, in general, stops at nothing. This is a classic illustration of the fact that mass culture obeys only its own rules and interests (in this case, the self-sufficiency and self-valuation of violence), and even if they openly undermine law-and-order in society, then so much the worse for law-and-order. As to the plot, it is quite typical of mass culture, so it is through this prism that you should see the film Sure Shot made by Sergei Govorukhin, Russian movie director and member of the Ukrainian Union of Cinematographers.”
“Strange things could be observed when this film premiered in Kyiv’s House of Cinema. Shots, blood, and cries of pain on screen met with hearty laughter and applause from the audience. I looked over almost all press reviews: only one reviewer mentioned this odd thing and qualified it as proof that ‘our society is already psychologically prepared for lynch law’.”
“That reviewer is partly right, but this is a political assessment. And what should art do under the circumstances? Govorukhin’s film is a makeshift piece of mass culture. Hopes are in fact being pinned on the fascist way of resolving socio-ethical and other conflicts. But what should true art do? When a true artist, like the mentioned author of the film Khrustaliov, My Car!, gets down to business, using purely artistic methods, the latter work by themselves. The classic Italian film Rocco e i suoi fratelli also contains rapes and murders, but this is high art which stuns and strikes the viewer, so the latter will eventually never go and do this.
“And what is mass culture doing? It begins to instill these fascistic patterns in mass consciousness which, generally speaking, is defenseless. An individual is watching this kind of movie and suddenly thinks: ‘This is the way things should be done, but I also guessed myself one should do so.” The result is all too obvious. I really heard the audience laughing when the actor Porokhovshchikov’s character was shot in the belly. Women laughing, children laughing... The point is the film set itself exactly these provocative goals. By the way, Sure Shot is not so dangerous, for it is a weak movie. But Balabanov’s films Brother-1 and Brother-2 are nothing but fascist movies of an extremely high, in their own way, class. I mean here suggestive, not esthetic, class. They influence the masses completely. They lie brazenly but still exert influence! And this is a huge problem. For, in the long run, we can see one day political characters who will bet on a ‘sure shot’ not from Govorukhin’s film but from the already conditioned environment. This can yield an incredibly negative result. In other words, we are facing, frankly speaking, a quasi- esthetic Chornobyl.”
“One more American question. When the first wave of those low-budget horror movies and thrillers reached us, the impression was that this gathering of horrors and violence was only the play of imagination and the result of the rational and commercial concoctions of rather permissive Hollywood purveyors of kitsch. But if you begin to study the current statistics of American violence (a well-known clinical psychologist, Jeanette Rainwater, writes in her book You’re in Charge that every fourth under-15 child in the US falls victim to sexual violence, while the Women against Pornography association claims that 38% of American women have suffered from this kind of assault, let alone the never-ending cases where some guy with an automatic runs into a school, church, or kindergarten and begins to spray everything with bullets), you suddenly begin to think that all this horrible cinema is the reality of their existence.”
“You see, it seems to me the point of departure from the real American dream dates back to the assassination of the president who was the nation’s favorite. America still does not know what happened there, although there are dozens of various film versions. This seemed to confirm that a mature civilization and democracy seem not to have worked. Then came Vietnam, the youth rebellion shrouded in drug stupefaction and sexual revolution, and Watergate. It is then that mass culture began to stand firmly on its own two feet. It is at that time that the hero of the American cinema personified by actor Gary Cooper, a self- possessed hero incapable of hatred and confident in himself, his rights, justice, and the cause one should fight for, suddenly vanished. He gave way to a hero overwhelmed by doubt, everyday life, apocalyptic horrors, and disgust in himself. And this seemed to be the adequate reflection of a change in the self-awareness of a society called ‘the country of unlimited freedom...’ You see, communism, with its slogan ‘All to the benefit of man,’ put the individual in chains for the sake of this slogan. America, on the contrary, maximally emancipated the individual in its democratic progress and disconnected all the brakes. For example, you walk across a US city and see the green flag waving on a balcony. This means this is a place where a ‘family’ or a ‘commune’ of a well-known sexual minority resides. You see, I understand that, to our deep regret, homosexuality is the biological plight of certain human environments. I also understand that there is a difference between such things as protecting rights and shamelessness. And it is difficult to understand when American law is today putting up an all-out defense of the mind-boggling number of such films and printed matter. When recently in Philadelphia, I dropped in at a video- rental store and asked for a few classic films of the sixties and seventies. The salesgirl did not even know the names, nor were there any in the catalogue. But there were over 500 cassettes on the racks, all kitsch. By the way, they make every year a dozen of films (entirely different from Titanic) that have something to do with the true, serious cinema, but they all get lost among the kitsch, and I gained an impression that they are removed intentionally for nobody to see them.
“And, watching how humanism is used in a society that seems to be cut out for the implementation of democracy and humanistic models, you see that in reality it all turned out the other way around.
“So, deeply absorbed in thoughts over all this, I begin to understand that humanity is facing in this respect a certain problem of a metaphysical or theological nature. But I would rather stop here, for this is not in my line.”
