Does Satan Ever Sleep? & Political Documentary

This weeks questions consider the relationship between professional storytelling and the audience.  Our entire purpose as a class has been to utilize 'all means necessary' to redefine this formerly passive exchange of ideas & information.  We view, write, research, navigate, read, connect, blog & vlog and are left agog!  By any other name we work it girl! 

At it's inception, the INTERNET, was developed by the US Defense Department.  The World Wide Web aka www. was so named because it reflected the militaristic mindset of it's clandestine creators.  This was one potential weapon that got away!  And now we are being asked to redefine this mind boggling power to purpose. 

It is human nature to communicate.  Even GOD feared human communication; witness the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel.  If you introduce God in a story, you must introduce Satan.  Did the Devil make him do it?  O'Grady looks into the camera and smiles while remembering fondly each and every detail.  Joseph Menegle where are you?  Can even your evil genius explain this genetic permutation anointed and ordained a PRIEST?                                           



Many of our fellow students have written in detail about this weeks questions.  A well researched array of websites, online tools, eloquently expressed contradictions, moral outrage, & personal experiences presented in blog format.  I would like to offer a slightly different perspective to answer this weeks thought demanding questions. With regret, the history of abuse by the priesthood of the Catholic Church is old news. The Medieval Church was so over run, with the illegitimate progeny of priests that they were the punchline to many well known jokes of the day.  The priestly predilection for pederasty was well known,  forewarned and apparently acknowledged by Rome, Avignon & Constanople.  (The Church was having a family feud...again.).

So what makes this situation any different?  To begin with Political Documentary is our singular focus.  Could it be politically imperative to keep the entire population ferverently following the spectacle of a reign of terror by SATAN?  Every time the political power base (ever a tool of wealth) is threatened, our GOD fearing nation is under attack!  It doesn’t matter by whom, from where, or how.  And these films document the politically acceptable collateral damage.

Please follow me for a moment.  ALL of the films we have viewed display a similar dynamic.  We are boldly introduced to a naive sounding group of individuals; betrayed.  Evil incarnate is disguised as familiar institutions, government & religion, followed by cruel & tragic missteps. Then an epilogue of emotional outrage.  From Aristophanes to Mamet, this is NOT NEW.

In a universe far far away, there was THEATRE.  Theatres were not originally hallowed temples of culture with a capital C.  They were the FaceBook of their time; a social network of ‘like’, ‘friends’, ‘groups’.  Countless STAGES in instead of multiple screens.  STAGES & the ecclesiastical PULPIT were the media outlets utilizing the familiar interaction of all of the above plus applause, booing, & outright banning of playwrights.  Macbeth?  Political Documentary? 

All that once was old is new again.  The very concept of 'professional' storytelling, 'professional' citizen journalist, requires by definition a 'professional' audience; viewer, reader, respondent. WE are that emerging 'professional' collaborative 'community'.  Words & Images are POWER.  Otherwise why a gulag, or a fatwa, or a gitmo?   Ethics, Risks, Public Rights to Engage; are a few concepts that have filled Law Libraries from the first scrolls in Athens to the burning books of the Third Reich.  Even Julius Caesar wrote about these ideas despite burning down the library at Alexandria.  WHOOPS!

What is NEW is the absolute illusion of knowledge, not just information, imparted by access to the Internet. The mutually agreed upon suspension of physical reality as we seek 'community' in parallel worlds made of digital/electric sync pulses.  Our modern warriors utilize military extensions of this new digital media.  Our corporate dream sellers, distract us daily with one more APP! 

What is OLD is the enormity of the responsibility to curate and present  a 'truth' as a documentary filmmaker.  Documentary film is allowed to exist like a naughty stepchild;  legitimate, but unruly and often unwelcome.  Political Documentary is even more problematic.  We may have all the digital toys necessary to create & present, but for how long?  WHO determines if they may be taken away from us like bad baidu children if we "don't play nice"?