Can’t talk now, I’m on the throne

Are movies real? Do they speak to us of real people and events, or simply weave stories that distract attention from everyday life? The difference is not in the story, but how the story is read. To the easily deluded, all life is entertainment. (The word deluded means “distracted by play”.) To the remainder, all entertainment is reality in disguise.

When Edward Gibbon created his monumental Decline of the Roman Empire he was less concerned about delivering the facts of ancient history than alerting his peers to the reality of imminent decline of the English empire. That is what historians do. They create imaginative fictions based on the past that enable readers to focus on the present. And they usually get it wrong.

For nearly a century the historian’s role has been taken over by moviemakers. What Peter Jackson creates is stories about us. If the general public just hasn’t cottoned on, that is not his fault.

New Zealanders are happy to identify with the little people of Middle Earth, seeing ourselves as fuzzy bedroom toys like the Wombles of Wimbledon, the Smurfs, or the Laputans of Gulliver’s Travels. But how many movie fans understand that Star Trek is a Hollywood sitcom about Captain Cook’s voyages? (James Cook = James T. Kirk, flagship Endeavour = starship Enterprise, etc.) Or that the noble alien warrior race the Klingons are a Hollywood stereotype of Maori? What does that tell us, about our perception of Hollywood, as about Hollywood’s perception of us?

Which local commentator has picked up the uncomfortable resonances for New Zealand viewers of an Avatar plotline, even when presented in 3D? How many viewers get the present-day ecological message of a movie fiction dealing with the occupation and exploitation by a technically advanced but materially and emotionally impoverished human species, of an alien paradise peopled by a linguistic paraphrase of Maori (Maa-vi)?

And who in New Zealand at the present time could miss the topical relevance of a movie about a king who has to struggle to express himself in public? How can a leader be a public figure, the voice of conscience of his people, if he cannot communicate clearly and effectively? That is the question.

Put to one side the Freudian undertones of sibling rivalry and stuttering, though both are true and historically revealing. Focus instead on leadership and its responsibilities, summed up in the key exchange: Why should anyone be interested in what a leader has to say? “Because I have a voice!” he stammers. Exactly.

Beyond the stutter is a person. The person’s word as leader is his bond. For a leader to speak freely and unequivocally to his people is a sometimes painful but necessary duty. But to challenge his right to speak, or put obstacles in the way, is a recipe for anarchy.

Is current Maori Party reaction to Hone Harawira a cultural behaviour, I wonder? Or may we hope for no more than a comic interlude in the style of Indiana Jones? That wonderful scene where the man of action, scholar and anthropologist, responds to the sabre-waving attentions of a self-appointed people’s champion by wearily drawing his revolver and shooting the bugger.

ENDS

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