15. Imagine &...

Lyrics

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one


I am not really a fan of the Beatles, but I do actually like what John Lennon and Paul McCartney have done outside of the Beatles. This is a great song and however naive and unpractical its message often is, its heart is in the right place. I do not think that Lennon truly believes in everything he sings about in this song. I don't think anyone really does. But he sings as if he truly believes in it and that is all that matters. The movie I chose to link to this song is a movie I saw some parts from a while ago. These parts represented a world that felt as close to Lennon's imagined world as I've ever seen in a movie. After seeing the  complete movie, I think this is one of the most logical links I've made in the still short life of this blog.

The Movie: Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008)

One could call Rachel Getting Married a celebration of the American multicultural society. But that doesn't do justice to how progressive the mindset of this movie really is. A multicultural society usually means a society in which different cultures live peacefully next to each other and in which the norms and values of all these cultures are respected. Rachel Getting Married presents an American society in which there is one American culture, existing of blacks, whites, Asian-Americans and Arab-Americans, living together in unison. It does this so succesfully because it actually doesn't try to make any kind of statement about this. Let me explain this. In basically all films regarding interracial relations (of any kind) everything that happens is put in a larger context. If we see two people from two different races mary, for example, that is presented as a triumph for the whole (American) society and it is regarded as something special. This doesn't happen at all in Rachel Getting Married. It puts no emphasis on the fact that people of all races attend this wedding and that it is infact an interracial marriage that is happening. The race of the people is basically completely ignored. The people attending this wedding are celebrating simply because it is a happy event and they love and care for each other. The wedding wouldn't be any different if it was a completely white couple getting married. The peole attending it are presented as above all Americans, or even human beings. Thus by not making any explicit statements about race and racial differences Rachel Getting Married completely normalizes racial differences. It doesn't matter at all whether you are black or white as long as you are a good person. I don't know for sure whether there is a song in the top 2000 about Martin Luther King. If there is I've wasted the best possible link to that song. It's hard to find another movie that is so much in the spirit of King's famous line: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.


I haven't got much else to say about this movie, so I'll end with two notes
Even ignoring its presentation of race this is an incredibly joyous movie, filled with great music. The movie has a lot of love for its characters and rightly so. These are all wonderful people. They don't only celebrate the marriage of Rachel and Sydney, but also the fact that they are all there together having fun.
The main storyline of the movie isn't even Rachel's marriage, but the fact that Kym, Rachel's sister is attending it. Kym is a recovering addict who is allowed to leave rehab for a day. The movie is actually pretty conventional in the representation of Kym. There is nothing wrong with this and she is presented with a lot of warmth and sympathy. But there is nothing we haven't seen in  other portrayals of addiction. Kym is played by Anne Hathaway, an actress I usually dislike quite a lot. But here she does give a great performance and her Oscar nomination is very much deserved.