Bennett's Blunder

     If you pay attention at all to the circus of films and film critics, then a minor-league controversy blipped up on your radar screen this August.  The fuss involved a dirt-cheap horror movie that premiered at Chicago’s Flashback Film Festival.  The movie, simply entitled “Chaos,” was not widely released and from reports back (confession time- I have not had the opportunity to view it), this is all for the better.  A “grind house” horror movie to the Nth extreme, “Chaos” was, essentially, the story of two UCLA students on vacation who travel deep into the woodlands to find a rave and instead, end up the victims of a sadistic serial killer who shares the same name as the film.
     Most genre movies, horror especially, are exercises in style, yet “Chaos” was threadbare.  Little more than an exercise of wanton cruelty, its entire plot centered around the humiliation, beating, dismemberment, mutilation, rape, and murder (not necessarily in that order) of the two female victims.
     The controversy didn’t stem directly from the film itself, although if you examine its page on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) there is no shortage of outrage stemming from it.  Rather, it came in response to film critic Roger Ebert’s decimating review of the picture, calling it “ugly, nihilistic,” and denying “the value of life.”  He was hardly alone in his distaste for “Chaos,” but it was to him that the film’s director, David DeFalco directed a letter in response, calling his creation the first truly “post 9/11” horror movie and taking that inevitable yet still incomprehensible leap of logic by arguing that the masochistic and misogynistic violence of the movie was, in fact, an argument against violence and exploitation.
     And so is the way- the verbal two-step that CBN founder Pat Robertson attempted when his comments advocating the “taking-out” of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez met with alarm by some off-balance individuals who, in their kooky way, actually believe that Christian values and murder don’t quite go together.  The dance was also seen this week by former Secretary of Education and political pundit William Bennett when he made a comment linking the abortion rate among African-Americans to the crime rate in general, stating “…you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”  This is not Bennett’s complete statement and, to be fair, the statement was in response to talk show question regarding the influence of abortion on society, however there is plenty left over to be troubled about.
     Not surprisingly, African-American groups and liberal advocacy groups went on the attack.  What was surprising, and more than a little scary, was how Bennett and some of his contemporaries defended the statement.  No apology, no admission for a mangle-worded gaffe that simply came out wrong.  No- Bennett and no shortage of right-wing ideologues have jumped into the fray by arguing that Bennett is the victim of a PC hit-squad and is being crucified for simply telling the truth.
     The point Bennett was attempting to make is a simple one- crime rate statistics in this country disproportionately reflect African Americans.  However, the idea that Bennett is somehow a clear thinker who says what the rest of us are afraid to is disingenuous at best, appalling at worst.  The first reason is the banal lack of complexity that Bennett’s ideas seem to be based on.  In the one-note world his statement paints, to be simply born black is to be born with a greater likelihood of falling into a life of crime.  But he completely ignores the economic angle- African-Americans, despite improvements over the last several decades, remain plagued by poverty, economic emptiness, and a lack of social cohesion which has produced a festering rot of the situation.  This isn’t the same as Bill Cosby arguing that desperately needed repairs in the black community needed to come from within the black community, this is someone equating race with crime while ignoring all other societal complexities.  Bennett could have easily tailored his comment a little, showing the connection of poverty to crime, however this would be an invitation to shed light on a problem that many are loathe to admit exists, much less fix.
     The second problem with Bennett’s comment is the framework.  If Bennett’s point was to simply argue that more crime tends to be committed by African-Americans, then why not just say that?  Why institute the imagery of abortion and, indirectly, genocide?  Of course, Bennett immediately turned on his heels and said such an idea would be “impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible.”  This is a move that would have done David DeFalco proud.  No, I don’t believe that Bennett was honestly suggesting the mass-abortion of an entire race and culture, but that doesn’t let him off the hook.  Bennett’s angle with his statement was nothing more than the pure shock value, and in that way he shares quite a bit of moxie with Pat Robertson and the makers of “Chaos,” the cajones it takes to make a statement and, in an act of pure verbal gymnastics, claim you meant the opposite of what you said.  DeFalco called the bloodshed of “Chaos” an argument against murder.  Bennett says his abortion proclamation should be taken as simple fact, like the guy in the room who says, “I’m not the one to bring this up, but…”  The callousness of this is discouraging.  In equal turns, Bennett wants to be an agent provocateur, to suggest what others are too timid to, yet have the leverage to disavow the idea completely.
     Again, there is the troubling issue of the response.  This isn’t the “speech police” coming to slap Bennett with a ticket for his less than multi-cultural attitude.  This is the natural, and quite appropriate, backlash against a man who stated, however timidly, that genocide might provide a solution for social ills, despite adding a “but not really” clause to the end of it.  Whether Bennett meant what he said is irrelevant.  He said it, if for no other reason than it gave him an extra charge of controversy to ride on.  Bennett’s defenders have turned to the First Amendment in their actions, saying that today’s climate has stifled free speech unless it is popular.  This is crap.  Unpopular speech is just as tolerated today as in previous days (probably even more so), but unpopular speech remains just that- unpopular.  People like Bennett seem to forget that free speech is a two-way street.  Yes, it gives him the avenue to say what he likes, but it also provides the means for people to respond in kind.  And if he is such a student of the First Amendment, he, nor his comrades-in-arms, should act so shocked and outraged when people label his ideas “stupid” and call him for the jackass he is.