It has been said that theatre and the performing arts hold a mirror. Sometimes it holds it to itself, sometimes it holds it up to the infinite, and at times it holds it up to the audience so they can see themselves. "Good Night and Good Luck" is in the last category, and, for some, it might be an uncomfortable few minutes, because polls tell us that an astonishing number of Americans are devotees, or dittoheads, of McCarty's spiritual children and grandchildren. And for these folks, the connection between themselves and William F. Buckley, and Senator McCarty's connection to William F. Buckley might momentarily give pause...although one doubts said pause will extend to Pinterian lengths, quantitatively or qualitatively, as such pausability might have prevented the sanyasinship in the first place.
We are living in a McCarthian era. George Clooney, himself, was, and is, a target for neo-McCarthyites. As was, and is, Robert Downey Jr., who also stars in the wondrous film that should be at the top of your viewing list. And just as Clooney (and Fred Friendly and Murrow) took on McCarthy with his own words, so too will someone take on the Rush Limbaughs, Ann Coulters, Bill O'Reillys and the other children of the corrny Joebob McCarthy who can only sew with yarns of fear, hate, greed and lies. But, in the meantime, there will be plenty of joiner types who will burn the Dixie Chicks CDs, the Michael Moore DVDs, and soon the works of that looney Clooney. (They always have a "clever" nickname for these Commies and Libs.)
But the mirror is also held up to The Media...who, of late, has cowered under the pressures of corporate advertisers, on the one hand, and the Bush Administration, on the same and on the other hand. The Pentagon, of course, has also a hand in their operations as well...so much so, in fact, that one might best think of todays operations as a Military-Industrial-Media complex...with politicians invested in the same companies as everyone else involved in this exciting scheme to keep people in fear and glued to their screens for direction.
It's not called programming for nothing.
"Good Night and Good Luck" is not just a cold look at the similitudes of today and the mid-50s. It is a call to action, on many levels, and for many different types of people. It will make those in the media question their own integrity, impartiality and regard for the truth. It will make some of those who have succumbed to McCarthyistic bloviations from today's reactionaries wonder if indeed they may not be on a one-way dead-end street. And it might even make a politician or two wonder about their own alliances and the wisdom, or the lack thereof, from having such connections.
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