This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement
This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

"Blades of Glory"
2007

Under the joint dictatorship of the proletariat we won't need this movie. The plot is too trite and backward. The good guys overcome obstacles to win skating contests; the bad guys cheat and try to murder their way to the same goal--bad. It's just a comedy with various sexual overtones it is true, and useful for considering in mass entertainment more broadly, not for promotion to the public.

What is worthwhile discussing about this movie is character development. Despite being the heroes, champions Chazz (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy (Jon Heder) pursue their goals thinking nothing of murder plots against them along the way.

The sort of hard-driving characters we see in "Blades of Glory" give the world a sense of how it is that the bourgeoisie can have a peculiar interest in northern Korea. Northern Korea is interesting because it says something about how two skating stars can profit. It is reminiscent of Lenin's comments about capitalists selling the rope contract for their hanging.

In their plan to win a championship, Chazz and Jimmy watch a videotape of a skating stunt only attempted once before--in northern Korea. The stunt resulted in the death of a Korean skater, the point being that these skaters and their coach are so brutally focussed that they would even follow what is happening in northern Korea to get an edge.

SPOILER: As it turns out, the Korean stunt as practiced by the Amerikans turns into a championship-winning performance, by a whisker.

The introduction of the Korean angle is by a Black character who is none too happy to bring out the videotape of the figure skating stunt pulled in northern Korea. Rather than thinking that it brought a skater's death, the athletes and coach forge ahead by studying the Korean example. The Black character is supposed to be the normal persyn in the mix. The northern Koreans are portrayed as the most far-out imaginable people and MIM would disallow this film just for that reason.

We might think the use of the Black coach's assistant as too subtle for some people. Less subtle is a scene where to escape the bad guys, one of the heroes has to put toilet paper off the ground in his mouth. So there is definitely nothing immaculate here.

Although MIM does not want to promote this movie, we find it provocative to discuss, because the rap against socialist realism is that characters are too simplified, either all good or all bad. The proletarian intellectual has argued that such class polarization in art is the goal of proletarian art and that it is others with their petty-bourgeois ambiguities that are the problem, not the proletarian art.

In "Blades of Glory," the heroes are dragged way, way down to the level of ordinary Amerikans, especially in a sexual sense. MIM would say that a series based on "Blades of Glory" would end up making Chazz into a popular character.

The directors may have intended that the movie force ordinary Amerikans to confront homophobia. It's confront homophobia or not win the gold.

The parallel in socialist realism is that we take people from oppressed and exploited backgrounds and make them central characters with exaggerated heroism. Typical would be the operas under Mao.

The reason that MIM finds this movie provocative is that other than some relatively small number of undocumented workers, we have no exploited to champion inside U.$. borders. So to engage the people inside U.$. borders, a character like Chazz has its own kind of realism. It is a realism about the bourgeoisie.

Socialist art thus far in history has no reality for Amerikans. So what MIM has toyed with for some years now is that it is better to take the bourgeois as he is and then show him aiming at a structural goal, in this case the eradication of homophobia.

The movie makes the homophobia question a lifestyle one through and through. So we would have to jazz up the movie if we redid it just for that reason. Nonetheless it has us thinking about how to appeal to Amerikans toward proletarian goals.

Some art will show Amerikans the perspective of other people. In drama it is still difficult to imagine a way to handle the bourgeoisie that would not be misinterpreted. Mindful that "All in the Family" was a failure as a comedy, because it was taken seriously, not as satire, perhaps "Blades of Glory" is actually a step up. "All in the Family" failed to show why some social priorities are greater than others. "Blades of Glory" has just enough clarity of plot that it has us wondering whether it could be extended for use with the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie comes off as driven but insane in about the same degree that proletarian heroes in socialist art come off as driven but virtuous.

The point is not some kind of model bourgeoisie adjusting to proletarian dictatorship, but rather highly flawed people nonetheless working into a larger scheme of things. Since MIM's 1999 resolution on sub-reformism, MIM has put great thought into this question. Believability is important. Amerikans heroes so far have had lumpen tendencies and drug problems. Some artists have already jumped ahead of MIM based on the 1999 resolution. Perhaps there can be some art of the oppressed and exploited for Amerikans but also some art about the oppressor.