Hard Eight
People like to believe Idiocracy is a movie laying bare the stupidity of contemporary America, at its core and in its outskirts. It's a convenient commonplace, but it isn't factual, not really - Idiocracy is merely a tedious, didacticist agglomeration of nonsense.
Hard Eighti on the other hand is exactly that : a movie laying bare the stupidity of contemporary America. So bare, in fact, that nobody immersed in that recent, painful failure is even able to notice, or prepared to voice the observation should they somehow manage to - improbably - notice.
The voice of reason is admirably embodied in a classical icon by Mr. Bookman. Quite contrary to the Tarantino tradition, but quite true to reality, it finds itself neither confused nor faltering nor depressed nor contemplating its ultimate demise, pointlessness or nihilistic anything. It's doing just fine, wheezing along efficiently and effectualy, in a world of broken up fucktards. Fucktards.
That monkey of a nigger played to perfection but perhaps unintentionally by Jackson, wearing clothes as if it were a human being, walking around as if part of society, cultivating delusions of participation and function in the peculiar, specific terms of "I kno what flies". Flies, you see. That's the way monkeys say "proper". He knows what's proper, is what the nigger aims to convey. He knows what flies, and therefore talking about waitresses' cunts is quite fine and proper after dinner conversation among gentlemen. If those gentlemen were monkeys, obviously.
And perhaps, should you be one of the intellects immersed in the recent pseudocultural goop they serve with a side of fries & corn syrup in the cafeterias of various zoos posing as places of higher education, it may occur to you that why not ? Why shouldn't fine waitress cunt be apt and proper discussion among gentlemen ? And why shouldn't gentlemen be monkeys dressed up in colored bits of random textiles ? Who's to say a suit cut for a man looks bad on a monkey, or a suit cut for a monkey is ridiculous on its own ? If it's what the voters want...
You wouldn't, however, have considered that this sudden linguistic liberation should perhaps include discussing niggers as if they were monkeys. This somehow isn't proper conversation fit for gentlemen. Waitresses' cunts, fine. That flies. Within earshot of said cunts, even better, let them learn their place. Nigger monkeys however, that doth not fly. Why not ? It should, the same exact "rationale" that justifies one justifies the other. It justifies anything, in fact, which is exactly the problem with it : it's not a rationale, it's a stupidale.
That whore of a waitress played to absolute, consumate perfection by Paltrow. She's been treated nice, which makes her hot for... well, not exactly loving. Hot for a good raming. And if the old timer ain't got the goods, she's going to find them just fine behind a corner, in a bar, in the street. She's getting married and getting stiffed by her John the same day, the same evening. Different men, same hole, same deal. Because, all together now, why not. Because why the fuck not. That's it.
That retard of a shooter played quite well by Philip Seymour Hoffman, wanting to know why's the old timer not learning to have some fun-fun-fun. Fun, this wonderful new construction of all the shit in the world. Fun, this most overused meaningless nothing in all copywriting. Fun, this saddest shell of a long deceased hermit crab. Fun, you see. Choose a monkey suit, it's fun and easy. Choose a credit card, it's easy and fun. Choose a career, one that's fun. Choose a fun family to have fun vacations with in places you choose. It's easy. It's fun. And reason ? There is no reason. Who needs reason when one's completely fucking retarded to the level of chimpdom ?
And finally, and best of all, that despicable, disgusting worm of a son. Not even really his son. Some kid. Some kid that loves our classical icon to the best of his abilities. Best of which abilities consists of soiling the icon's spats. That's all. That's all he's got, that's all he's good for, if we're inclined to thusly abuse the notion of "good". An infantile, unbalanced, ignorant, lazy, stupid blob of biomass that exhibits all the voracious qualities of a tape worm. Blind he is, clingy he is, useless he is, needy he is, unable to survive outside of the gut of actual people he most definitely is. A tape worm.
That's your modern, progressed to shit society : the marriage between a down and out whore and a shivering, coiling tape worm, in a hotel room they didn't pay for, among blood and piss and sweat and dry, caked cum. That's all. And there's no talking to it : there's no means, there's no point and most importantly there's no intent.
That's the only place where the movie diverges from reality : much unlike the celuloid Mr. Bookman, the real deal doth not even harbor the intent of entertaining this cloacal pseudomodernity. None whatsoever. Some vague and peripheral interest, the same sort of impulse that has you momentarily examine a particularly truculent booger that somehow came out of you. Nothing more.
Nothing more, and after the brief moment it's time to say goodnight. Forever.
———- 1996, by Paul Thomas Anderson, with Philip Baker Hall, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson. [↩]
