When I was a kid, George Orwell’s novel 1984 was a work of fiction about a dystopian future. Little did I know that during my lifetime it would morph into more of a non-fiction blueprint for modern society. We have a form of Big Brother–as security cameras, facial recognition software, internal body scanners and electronic devices that monitor our every word are everywhere. The Thought Police are ever-present on social media and college campuses, waiting to attack anyone with an opinion or political stance that differs from theirs. And now we have “Unpersons” being blotted out of the public record.
I was reminded of “Unperson” last night when I heard that a Hollywood studio was reshooting movie scenes involving Kevin Spacey–even though the film is supposed to be released to theaters in just six weeks. All of the other actors are being brought back to film scenes with Christopher Plummer–who as of this morning had not been publicly accused of molesting any children or walking around nude in front of any actresses–but again, it is still early in the day. Then it was announced that Louis CK was being removed from some HBO comedy special, since he is part of the Hollywood “purge” now as well.
Actually, trying to eliminate any proof of existence of a person was a common practice before Orwell wrote about it in 1949. Stalin was the best at it. He had public documents, birth certificates, and even marriage records deleted after sending his enemies to the gulags or had them executed. He had filmmakers re-shoot newsreel footage to have random people or items block out those that he had killed. He was like the first Photoshop user–having his enemies airbrushed out of pictures to the point that some photos that had once been full of people standing around Stalin were reduced to Stalin just by himself standing behind some random table.
I’ll have to check the list of Harvey Weinstein productions to see which movies I like that will never be aired on TV again. Erasing Kevin Spacey from our collective memories will eliminate two of my absolute favorites: Glengary Glenross and American Beauty. Just the other day I was laughing at an on-line clip of Louis CK playing “Black Jeopardy” on Saturday Night Live. I guess I’ll just have to pretend I never actually saw that. Meanwhile, I’ll get used to movies that only star women from now on.
