Seeing Everything. Maybe.
One of my guilty pleasures is Kansas City Chiefs football. I could write a lot about that, and whether it is good or bad or painful (too often!) or joyous (as it has indeed been a few times recently).
A year or two ago one of the streaming services, I forget which one, had a feature about the "inside lives" of NFL quarterbacks. Three were showcased, and one of them was Patrick Mahomes, the fine Chiefs quarterback. The idea was filmmakers were allowed a bit into his personal life, and I watched some of it.
Then stopped.
After a while I really felt uncomfortable being shoved into someone else's private domain, even if it involved the most innocuous goings-ons about the most marvelous people on the planet. I have always loathed "reality" shows because they are absolutely not reality. The instant a camera and microphone show up, it becomes simulacra. Instantly, categorically, and permanently.
This was, from what I presume, the thrust of the movie, highlighting all the so-called reality, simulacra, and manipulation surrounding Elizabeth Holmes and her infamy. I presume this because, well, I left the theater about 30 minutes in, the film was so insufferably ugly. Indeed much of the reason was the whole live-streaming people's "real" lives effect -- sorry, it is just so exploitive. It is just wrong.
I went in thinking "This simply can't be about filming Holmes' mundane daily activities is it? Washing dishes, making breakfast, playing with the toddler... that would be pointless, it wouldn't have received this much acclaim if it was three hours of that." Well, much of the first 30 minutes was that. Ugh.
Yes throughout that portion of the film the director was right there, trying to ask penetrating questions of Holmes and her new husband. "Do you know what you did?" "What do you think about what they think about what you did?" "How do you really feel about this, that, or this other thing?" The answers were 90% vapidity and 10% provoked emotion, with lots of charming rationalization attempts mixed in.
This is not even to mention most of the camera shots of everybody, Holmes, husband, even the director, had the camera shoved right up into their faces, you could see the bacteria in their facial pores it was so bad, displayed on these humongous movie theater screens they have now -- they even boasted before the film started about how superduper fine the images are now! Sorry, this was just disturbing and not fun to endure, not like in a good horror movie way but in I've wasted my money and every minute I remain watching this dreck is wasted time kind of way.
Afterwards, to be fair, I looked up what people liked about this since it was received raved attention. Turns out about 60 minutes in, the film turns into something of a psychological thriller, with the filmmakers turning on its subjects, evoking sentiments about who is manipulating whom. The directors jerking around Holmes et al? All of them jerking around the audience?
And your point is?
See, I didn't care about any of these people, not that they were so reprobate in some way but because they were all so uninteresting. Almost every reality show subject no matter how much they try really really hard to make them interesting, aren't. And they're being exploited by the filmmaker. Maybe that's the thing that makes You Can See Everything so interesting to so many, that the filmmakers are really ramping up that idea, amplifying the horror of how much manipulating there is by everyone -- I understand. But if that is what it is, sorry, I still really don't care.
I don't want to be so arrogantly dismissive, please, maybe the rest of the film is something enjoyable. I didn't see it, so apologies for any unjustified assessments here. It is just if it is merely what I read it is, it is merely sitting in a theater enduring pain, that's all. Some of us are just really sensitive to that stuff. I actually do like good horror films, but please, they have to be good. Doesn't mean they can't be terrifying, that's kind of the point -- horror film moviegoers like to be scared. Films just can't be distressingly uncomfortable, painfully disturbing, or yes, just so ridiculously evil-spewing that your soul is overwrought.
It has gotten so bad that before the feature started we all had to endure some "red screen" movie previews, the ones they know R-rated moviegoers can endure. Well, I knew going in You Can See Everything had some nudity and language in it, but no distressing violence. Well, sure enough, the red screen previews did. One featured horrifically bloody scenes from the latest Exorcist movie and even if you try to look away you still catch these things in your peripheral vision glancing up for a moment, and you still hear all the delightful sounds of people enduring the worst torment.
For me, much of all of this is just seeing so much of the World System at work, and so much of it looks meaningful or redemptive, but it is just the same old World Ops-imbued crap. They'll say they are getting at what's real but they're still just pulling you into more of the World sewage. I could write so much more about this or that, but I do so already all the time in my webzine and this blog effort. I encourage you to look around there, if only to find The Reality.
One more thing, does kind of relate to this whole thing.
Before going to the movie theater I was at the library looking for books on web design -- I'd really like to fix up my webzine but God just hasn't yet introduced me to someone I can trust to help me with all of that. Thing is at least here at the library the offerings were pretty sparse -- just old outdated tomes, most of them.
But what I did see right next to them was an entire shelf of books on the "AI." Huh. I pulled out one and leafed through it, then noticed another, peeked at it a bit, and thought, "Wow, look at all these relatively recent tomes just on what the deal is with AI." I noted that they all had the most turgid explanations of what it is and how good it is and how bad it is and what is where and who's doing what and how this particular thing is happening and how that particular thing is not happening and how much it mimics human capabilities and how little it mimics human capabilities and how much it will save humanity and how much it will kill everybody and on and on and on.
Just packed with the most detailed considerations of what is happening and what will happen with this magically powerful new god A.I.
I really think that's why this Elizabeth Holmes film is so compelling. Because it gets at what extraordinarily talented simulacra-distending people can do to whack you out. The You Can See Everything movie is in a very real sense a horror film, I don't think people would disagree, again, at least from what I've gathered about it. It is almost as if the World is saying to everyone, "Here! Look! We want to show you everything! Even if it scares you, at least you're getting what is real!"
Yet without the Kingdom lens it is just more enticing World slop. Maybe that's why God permits it, why He lets the World to do its grotesque simulacra thing, so people can actually figure out how wretched it is -- how overwhelming the wickedness in each and every human heart is -- and actually turn to Him, to where the reality is.
If you can get it from the movies, that's cool, I just think it is really hard to do that. If you can get it from the AI, that's great too. I just have questions, only because all that stuff is mostly just World Simulacra. God uses any and all of this as His footstool to achieve His purposes.
All I can do is this ministry work here, and by His grace and provision be His words in this effort, and readers would really see The Reality Who Is The Eternal Living Word.
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Was just looking at some old posts and thought I'd add a link to this one. In it is a link to a fine Kit Knightly piece over at Off-Guardian that just gets a bit at the meaning of the simulacra and how destructive it is. I've included his conclusion below. The image of the Cheshire Cat is from the Josiah Hill-Meyer Facebook page, thank you. Seems to me this character is one of the best symbols of the simulacra. The image of the library books is mine, and any consideration of endorsement of any of them is wholly unintended.
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In a world of no reason or rule, everything I tell you becomes inherently believable. In a world where nothing is true, anything could be.
I can tell you that me taking your money makes us both richer, and you’ll never realise I’m robbing you.
I can tell you that bars and chains are an expression of freedom, and you’ll never realise you’re my slave.
In short, they use crazy narratives to erode the idea of objective truth, because if you don’t even know such a thing exists you are a lot easier to control.
This is the perfidious unreality of the “new normal”. It’s not just about deception or fakery or propaganda.
It’s about breaking your spirit and your mind.
(From Kit Knightly's "The Perfidious Unreality of the 'New Normal'" at Off-Guardian, January 5 2024)
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