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The Children of Gramsci and Pepsi

 

 

The Children of Gramsci and Pepsi: The Hegemonic Party in Times of Anti-Communism Left, Right and Centre. This is the new title of the extended version of a paper I presented under the title “Bugaboos of Baroque Marxism” ( used elsewhere ) at the second annual Rethinking Gramsci: Global Perspectives on Gramsci conference, held May 8-10, 2024, at the Instituto Italiano di Cultura in Montreal. The essay is available on my academia.edu page under drafts: https://independent.academia.edu/MarcLéger/.

 

 

Zone of Disinterest

 

 

Glancing at the media coverage of the 96th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place March 9 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, one cannot help but be struck by the lack of attention to what actually happened throughout the evening. The broadcast was delayed by a few minutes due to protests by hundreds of Film Workers for Palestine activists, whose message was maintained during the ceremony itself by those wearing the red Artists for Ceasefire pin, including Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. Coverage of the speech given by Jonathan Glazer, the director of the film Zone of Interest that won Best International Film, has focused on the fact that his phrase “we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation” was used on social media by pro-Zionist commentators to falsely suggest that he said “we refute our Jewishness.” Glazer’s mention of the victims of October 7 as well as the victims of the ongoing war on Gaza could be construed as equivocation. In the current neo-McCarthyite environment it was nevertheless virtuous of him to mention the fact we cannot look only at what was done in the past and ignore parallels in the present.

What was not mentioned anywhere in media coverage of the Oscars is the fact that Mstyslav Chernov, the war reporter whose documentation is used in 20 Days in Mariupol, which won Best Documentary Feature Film, ended his speech with the slogan “Slava Ukraini!” This phrase, which means “Glory to Ukraine!,” is not only associated with Ukrainian nationalism, but is known to have been used by the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), a fascist organization headed by Stepan Bandera and that participated in the Nazi genocide, carrying out pogroms that led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles and Russians. Towards the end of WWII, far-right nationalists realigned with Western governments in the effort to destroy the Soviet Union.

Around the time of the Oscars ceremony, Sweden joined the NATO alliance, making the chances of Russia becoming a NATO member somewhat slimmer than they were in the 1990s. This comes in the midst of statements by European leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz who call for sending NATO troops into Ukraine, a conflict that could easily escalate into a nuclear-based world war rather than the current proxy war, which has led so far to the deaths of some 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers. At this moment, the Zelensky regime is recruiting convicts in a desperate effort to produce 500,000 more soldiers to send on suicide missions, a failed military policy that has led to 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers going AWOL. This occurs after much of the country’s assets have been sold to Western investors, a fate that awaits Argentina now that Washington’s man, Javier Milei, is imposing brutal austerity measures.

The success of the film Oppenheimer at the Oscars is no doubt a sign that people do not want nuclear escalation with Russia or China, a sentiment that was in no way connected to the fact that the United States not only supports fascism in Israel and in Ukraine, but also in its home country, with the highest court in the land deciding this month that the kingpin of the January 6 insurrection against democratic elections, and who stole away government intelligence to his Mar-a-Lago compound, can run again for the most influential political position on the planet. Trump’s infamous “we got the oil” statements came to mind when Lili Gladstone was nominated for the prize of Best Actress in a Leading Role for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, not only in reference to the notorious crime boss William King Hale, who was responsible for the murder of Osage Indians, but also to the film’s supposed happy ending, which celebrates Indigenous “red” capitalism at the same time that Indigenous and other activists have been sacrificing their freedom to stop harmful pipeline projects. In that regard, the speech by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who won a prize for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in The Holdovers, was noticeably short on woke messaging.

Few have commented on how little there was of OscarsSoWhite rhetoric this year, a fact that coincides with the subtle but increased attention to world affairs, as noted especially by the number of nominations for Oppenheimer, as well as the short shrift that was appropriately given to the biopics Maestro and Rustin, which ignore the important reasons these figures are known to us in favour of personal drama. The awarding of Best Adapted Screenplay to Cord Jefferson for American Fiction said something to that effect as well.

Attention given at the ceremony to the music in the movie Barbie hit a correct note, which is the fact that people go to the cinema to be entertained as well as to be stimulated intellectually, socially and politically. Too much film production today, much of it seeming to be the product of Wall Street and the Pentagon, not to mention a moribund postmodern academy, has a cynical and numbing effect. Academy Awards are perceived by most people to be a generally liberal affair. How the liberal class presents itself to the world in what seems like the dying days of liberal democracy is perhaps less important than how people will respond to this situation, by following the pied pipers of nihilistic destruction or those who remind the liberal class that the majority of people are eager for either radical reforms or revolutionary change. This was acknowledged in the slightest degree by reference to the SAG-AFTRA strike and the display of some of the union hands – all of them wearing uniform black outfits – that make films possible. One thinks that these people are like the Tokyo Toilet cleaner in Win Wenders’ Perfect Days, who go about work in a state of ascetic-aesthetic bliss.

That these people have gotten stiffed in the latest negotiations is the open secret that makes this part of the presentation not only condescending but very liberal indeed. What would it mean for actors, writers, film technicians, producers and directors to be in solidarity with the class of people who, when organized with a radical programme and leadership, could see to it that their occupations are not hijacked by AI, could prevent trains from being routinely derailed and bridges collapsing, who could prevent American-made weapons from being sent to Israel, or who could redirect military efforts towards fighting climate change, who could put an end to soaring economic equality by quitting the Democratic Party en masse in favour of something slightly socialist for a change. While the Oscars this year did seem to be on the correct course, it was a timid step, somewhat like the dithering ingenue in Poor Things, a nostalgic nod to times in which Romantic and avant-garde artists knew what they were about.