Hyping the Spider for global conflict

by Marcus Browning

Earlier this year when George W Bush called a White House conference of the 
heads of the major Hollywood studios, it was to mobilise the most powerful 
propaganda machine in history behind the USA's global terror war. Not 
surprising really. Never has there been a more complex, refined machine: a 
gleaming, streamlined promoter of ideas and ideology.

The films now coming hot off the Hollywood assembly line can be divided 
into categories: nostalgia for previous conflicts involving the US (WW2, 
Korea, Vietnam etc) in order to rewrite history; the supernatural, in order 
to promote the idea of existence being unknowable and thus out of our 
hands; the family, of course, (that crumbling cornerstone of a system in 
deep crisis); and escapism (the public's scrutinising gaze must be averted 
from reality).

Able to whip up nationalistic fervour and xenophobia through a level of 
hype previously unimaginable, even for Hollywood, the options are chosen 
and the machine is put in motion, cynically exploiting real life tragedy 
and suffering to promote fear and loathing.

This is why it is important to distinguish between hype and hyperbole (from 
the Greek for "excess"). Hyperbole is a legitimate artistic tool, a form of 
exaggeration to enlarge and emphasise a subject, in order to make its 
detail more accessible or note its importance. (It is unlikely, for 
example, that Helen of Troy's face actually launched a thousand ships, but 
it is "true" in the context of telling that history through poetry.)

Hype, on the other hand, is a child of capitalism, of the big sell. Its 
excess is used for the purpose of artificially creating demand: no 
commodity appears simply as the product of labour with a use value.

Whether a shampoo, a laxative or a car, all products are inflated with 
promises of greater self-awareness, personal wealth, sexual gratification, 
higher social eminence etc.

Everything is "the greatest" — music is "majestic and haunting", novels 
are "brilliant and stunning", television programs are "unforgettably life-
changing".

Movies are all this and more; endless rounds of talk shows, souvenirs, 
action figures, TV "the-making-of" promotions drive the hype juggernauts, 
no more so than now, in the momentum of war propaganda.

It is instructive therefore to examine the Spider-Man movie, one of the 
most hyped of recent times. Even to consider only one small aspect, its 
coverage in the arts lift out from The Age newspaper.

In a single issue last week the broadsheet's 12-page arts section, "The 
Culture", had two-and-a-half pages of text and pictures on the Spider-Man 
movie, plus an "article" with photo in the straight news section.

The movie itself is a recreation from a long-standing comic book character. 
Briefly, working class teen student and orphan Peter Parker — he lives 
with his aunt and uncle — is bitten by a genetically engineered spider.

The poison melds with his own DNA to give him all the attributes of a 
spider — the ability to scale the sides of buildings, ensnare objects in a 
web, have incredible strength and agility plus a spider's "sixth sense".

His nemesis is the billionaire CEO of Oscorp, a contractor supplying high-
tech weapons of destruction to the US military.

In an experiment in the corporation's laboratory he too is genetically 
transformed — into an evil monster, complete with evil-looking costume, 
known as the Green Goblin. He has a split personality (good caring 
capitalism versus bad rampant capitalism).

When Peter's uncle is murdered by a car jacker in New York city Peter, 
predictably, becomes an avenging vigilante type. I am reliably informed 
that this is all straight from the original comic book storyline.

As for the special effects, signs should be posted out the front of 
theatres with warnings for people who suffer from vertigo or motion 
sickness. There is, naturally, gratutious violence.

Visual references to the twin tower site appear in passing throughout the 
movie — the bombed remains crop up in the background and on television 
screens.

And at one point, as the Green Goblin appears as a dot in the sky on his 
flying machine, as the masses on the street watch him home in on an office 
block, the film replays a version of the crashing of the planes into the 
towers (how's that for exploiting all angles?).

Spider-Man's creed is, "With great power, comes great responsibility. This 
is my gift, my curse." US imperialism in a red, white and blue spider suit. 
The final scene is of Spider-Man flashing past the Stars and Stripes 
fluttering in the breeze (the winds of freedom, one presumes).

Which brings us back to hype and hyperbole. The merchandising — the 
Spider-Man sticker books, comics (an original series comic can now bring up 
to $62,000), the plastic figures in fast food outlets — hides the 
essential difference between the two.

Truth is the departure point for hyperbole, whereas the objective of hype 
is to displace the truth with its demand that everyone must love the 
product. The pressure imposed by hype makes it obligatory, almost 
treasonable in some cases, not to love the product.

Surely it is to condone terrorism not to support projects which plainly are 
a part of George W Bush's war on terrorism. Since it opened on May 3 
Spider-Man has taken more than $616 million in the US alone.

The message? Bring your patriotism to the box office: be warned: your 
absence will be noted. Dissent will not be tolerated.