On “The Edukators”
It’s Mother’s Day weekend, so I’m allowed to do whatever I want and everyone has to do what I say and I make all the decisions. One of my decisions was that we would watch "The Edukators," which is in German, and because my husband played golf all day he was barely able to read and I ended up reading the entire movie to him.
Off to a great start. Happy Mother’s Day to me.
The Edukators won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 2004 and a slew of other awards and though it’s far from perfect and it includes that seemingly-ubiquitous Jeff Buckley song (written by Leonard Cohen), Hallelujah, it’s definitely interesting commentary of the political, social and psychological kinds. It’s a love story, yes, but it’s also about three young people (2 male, 1 female) whose anti-establishment idealism and activism collide with their opposite.
Under cover of darkness, the two young men break into the homes of wealthy people, rearrange their furniture (often by piling it up to the ceiling) and leave a note saying: "Your days of plenty are numbered" or "You have too much money." The girlfriend of one of them gets involved, for all the wrong reasons, and the trio ends up abducting a wealthy man to whom the girlfriend owes 94,000 euros for totaling his Mercedes-Benz. She falls in love with her boyfriend’s best friend, and cliches abound.
Oh, and the man they abduct was an SDS member in the late 60s, and when we discover that tidbit, irony takes over.
Here’s what the film brings up for me:
I fail to understand the targeting of wealthy people. No one has too much money, in my mind. And no one should be judged as being part of the problem because they have more money than you. In my mind, shopping at WalMart and Target is worse, morally speaking, than having $300 shirts custom made. Yet the person whose clothes are made-to-measure is more often ridiculed, and that’s certainly true when the ridiculer is anti-capitalist. What you do with your money is your business, but it would be nice if you gave at least 15% to some kind of charitable cause. Hating people–abusing people–because of their wealth is mere scapegoating.
Now, if someone makes their money by hurting people, the animals or the planet, ridiculing what they do is definitely reasonable. You should be sure you know what they do first, though, as assuming that harm is involved just because wealth is involved is not reasonable.
According to a recent study, the idea that young people are idealistic because they have heart, but later become conservative because they have wisdom (or something like that) isn’t true, and people get more liberal as they grow older. This film represents the conventional wisdom that we get more conservative as we age, and our ideals make way for the realities of homeownership, families, careers and retirement (which makes sense to me and I must say I see that more often).
When you deconstruct all of the messages sent in this film after you’ve gotten past the fluff, you are left with questions such as:
- What is the best way to make a point?
- Is it property damage justified to make a point? If so, are there certain kinds of points this doesn’t apply to?
- If you’ve committed a crime, should you be prosecuted, or does that depend on whether the crime you committed is worse than the one you perceive is being perpetrated by your victim?
- What is the definition of "terrorist" or "vandal?" (I recommend Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, edited by Steven Best and Anthony J. Nocella, II, and Will Potter at GreenIsTheNewRed for exploration of such issues.)
Finally, and related to Friday’s post, you can find out if your mutual funds are terror-free with the Terror-Free Calculator, which is not a joke. I’ll write more about this, as well as bills for making state pensions terror free tomorrow, as I’m still getting over the fact that they exist.
Check out The Edukators, and let me know what you think.
Well, I agree with you that wealth in and of itself is not worthy of hate. The issue is how people get wealthy. And well, usually they just get born into it, they are unethical, or they get lucky in another way. For example, my husband wrote a book on poker during the poker 'boom' and he received plenty of money from that book. He planned it, but did he really deserve that much? Not really. And he'll agree.
So, I can understand the anger because wealth distribution is very, very rarely fair. And when you're poor or middle class, it feels really horrible to be one of the unlucky ones.
But here's what really makes me angry about the rich people I know. I know a guy who occasionally spends upwards of $8k on one meal. And that meal, of course, contains all sorts of terrible animal products like veal, foie gras, etc. Then there are all those richie-riches who wear fur. It's the conspicuous consumption of animals lives that bother me most about wealthy people.
It's that kind of irresponsible spending and disgusting excuses that make me prefer to spend time with poor people than with wealthy people. Most of the wealthy people I know think they 'deserve' their wealth regardless of what they did to get it. And they feel they have a 'right' to spend it however they want, regardless of the toll it takes on animal and human lives.
I haven't seen this movie, but I love the TV show The Riches. It plays on some of these same themes.
Elaine,
I disagree and think your husband deserved whatever the market decided his book was worth! Luck, persistence and craft can make best sellers overnight and that's what I love and hate about the business.
Meanwhile, without any luck, persistence or much skill, certain celebrities can get a book published very quickly and it'll be a best seller. Since not much else about life is fair, I don't consider publishing to be any different.
I'll check out The Riches. I used to watch Dirty Sexy Money, but it disappeared with the strike and I think it's coming back in the Fall. Funny inherited wealth show.
I'm fortunate to know a handful of families and individuals who either started great businesses that did very well or who inherited wealth, and several have converted to veganism recently. I find them to be just like everyone else in that some of them will change their lives based on new information or a new perspective (such as killing without justification or many uses of animals are tantamount to enslavement), while others think I'm crazy and will keep breeding polo horses or whatever.
There's an entire field of wealth planning that teaches children and sudden money recipients the psychological aspects of wealth in addition to the more obvious aspects. Whether people are born into wealth or create it themselves, they need to learn how to deal with it in a healthy way, and that's something that's missing for many people. They think: "What's so tough about being wealthy–it just makes life easier!" But it's the opposite.
Your examples clearly demonstrate that. People who act entitled or engage in absurd levels of consumption haven't successfully integrated the meaning and possibility of wealth, and are merely acting out of fear, ego and ignorance.