"Pay It Forward" dabbles in sub-reformism and utopianism, and puts down revolutionary young people

Pay It Forward Directed by Mimi Leder PG-13 Peru:14 2000 Reviewed by Qiu Jin The principal contradiction within gender oppression in oppressor nations is between socially constructed children and patriarchy. One of the most popular child actors of all time in the u.$.(1), as well as in the world, is Haley Joel Osment, whose movie "Artificial Intelligence" was recently reviewed on MIM's Web site. For Maoists to ignore this persyn's movies would be like ignoring the ideological boat crashing through gender-oppressed people's lives, so let's take a look at Osment's earlier movie, "Pay It Forward." (PIF) Osment plays Trevor McKinney, a Las Vegas junior high school student who comes up with an idea for a school assignment to change the world. Trevor's plan is to do favors for people, obligate them to do favors for others, and so on until the whole world is helped by this pyramid scheme. In the process, Trevor helps at least two people with substance addictions: his mother, who is an alcoholic, and a homeless man with a heroin addiction. Many people viscerally take offense to this movie because they perceive it as being preachy and utopian. While it is difficult to tell exactly how much of this is based on a genuine criticism of sub-reformism and utopianism, as incorrect strategies for ending oppression, it is still correct to criticize "Pay It Forward" for its sub-reformism and utopianism. I am prepared to concede the "point" that Trevor sometimes comes off as a preachy do-gooder. (So fucking what?) From an MLM viewpoint, this issue of style or tone is not too important. What's important is the sub-reformist and utopian line, which can take many forms other than being preachy. People should not get caught up in these style issues and leave the more important line issues unaddressed. An open defense of utopianism is preferable to a so-called criticism of utopianism that is really just directed at the efforts by children to have some control over their environments. Meanwhile, even the openly imperialist bourgeoisie's political and economic demands are let off the hook by the majority of PIF's subjectivist critics whining about preachiness, or children talking back. From the viewpoint of ending gender oppression, PIF has some positive elements. First off, certain kinds of utopianism in children's thinking are better than nothing, or being content, especially where Trevor is already asking, "Is the world just shit?" This is true even if utopian ideology is incorrect in an absolute sense. Trevor starts to look past the problems that he sees in his own backyard. "Everything sucks." He starts to think more systemically, and this is something that revolutionaries can work with. The fact that Trevor is already living among oppressed nationalities in Shoshone territory doesn't hurt either from a revolutionary geographic strategic perspective. Another version of PIF made in a socialist people's republic has Euro-Amerikan youth Trevor repudiating sub-reformism and utopianism, helping more people to defeat heroin addiction, and uniting with oppressed nationalities (including the individuals who physically attack him) to get rid of whole- oppressor-nation parasitism. At the same time, Trevor changes people's perception that children are worthless for anything other than emotion work, sex, sex work, domestic work, being beat on, and being vessels for reactionary ideology. Another positive element of PIF is that a twelve- year-old persyn is depicted as being capable of criticizing adults and helping them to overcome their substance addictions. This is markedly different from the bourgeois bullshit line that drug abuse is something particular to youth.(2) Given the real-life impact that PIF has had on promoting time-wasting sub-reformism at the expense of revolutionary ideology, it would be difficult to give PIF anything more than a neutral rating, and even a neutral rating would be pushing it. PIF does do things to expose gender oppression, of both wimmin and children (Trevor, and Mr. Simonet as a child), but offers no real solution, no solution that threatens the system. It is not enough to just depict oppression. People live it on a daily basis, and gender oppressors know when they are physically assaulting children. What's needed is a systemic, scientific description of oppression and a solution to it. The impact of the "pay it forward" idea stops at the labor aristocracy-policed border between the u.$. and the Third World, where the pigs and pig- wanna-bes are way beyond doing proletarians the "favor" of not gunning them down. There are reported examples of the Pay It Forward Movement in Puerto Rico, but they involve people doing the favor of helping other people get cash from ATMs, and doing the "favor" of giving condolences to a child whose parent had just passed away.(3) (And here we thought this is what Liberalism meant by being "human.") In principle, there is absolutely nothing wrong with oppressed people doing each other favors, but if people are doing their three obligatory favors so they can go back to being content, this is wrong. The wealthy lawyer in the movie could have sold his Jaguar for maybe $50,000 and donated this to the revolution. Instead, as if on a whim, he just gives the car to the oppressor- nation journalist closest to him, and the audience is left with the impression that suddenly the bourgeoisie don't really care about having wealth. People in the Pay It Forward Movement doing small favors should take the PIF movie's own advice that "putting up recycling flyers in two supermarkets" is not significant even to sub-reformism. Mr. Simonet, who later admits that he did not expect Trevor's project to work, says that the recycling proposal of another student is not "an attempt to interact with the world." Even if there is the potential for some utopian ideology to be changed into MLM, this point does not redeem PIF either. PIF sets up a false dichotomy between contentment and utopianism that excludes the revolutionary possibilities. This makes PIF confusing and a distortion of reality. The real-world impact that PIF and Catherine Ryan Hyde's original book version has had on increasing the sub-reformism of "changing the world one favor at a time" is something real. Banning the distribution of PIF will not be among the proletariat's top priorities in revolutionizing movie culture since the movie's defense of patriarchy is not blatant, but the confusing elements of PIF warrant an overall negative rating. Trevor starts out unapologetically defending his pay-it-forward idea, but at the end of the day, he is forced to admit that his proposal was unrealistic. Since no other solution was presented in the movie, where does that leave gender- oppressed people and the proletariat? Nowhere. Children and wimmin just "owe" patriarchy (Mr. Simonet), which is what Trevor himself tells his mom when she doesn't want to wear her "way too sexy" shoes. If in fact Helen Hunt's character is a net gender oppressor who enjoys sex under patriarchy, then the movie's lack of interest in revolutionary solutions is "understandable," but the people don't need movies like PIF. They need films that show, unambiguously, what gender oppression is, and effective ways to end gender oppression. Revolution is not a favor; it is a necessity for the exploited and oppressed. Notes: 1. "Haley Joel Osment and Lassie come top in Blockbuster poll." http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_8022 52.html 2. "Teens comprise perhaps 2% of America's drug problem, but 90% of the raging controversy over drug use" (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/312/males.sht ml). 3. http://www.payitforwardmovement.org/individuals/Yv ette.htm