VLVL 24fps and "the Movement"

[davemarc]

jbor writes: I think that 24fps, the Pisks especially, are depicted as part
of the
problem. They've been around since those early days at Berkeley but they
don't seem to have any consciousness at all of how "the Movement" has
shifted ground, of how the original causes have all been forgotten and lost
in the dance and thrill of protest. They're into dressing up in battle
fatigues and pretending to be martyrs and spray-painting violent slogans,
but what political or social causes do they actually support, what do they
ever actually do? They make films of hippie chicks dancing....

jbor writes: I actually think that the pro-'60s whitewash which gets served
up here as a
fait accompli so often is what is "misguided" and biased, ignoring as it
does so much of what's actually *in* Pynchon's text. Where -- in the novel
itself -- is there any inkling that anti-War, Civil Rights (Elliott X from
BAAD excepted), drug decriminalisation or free speech causes are the driving
forces behind what these students and agitators are protesting against?

**

Above, in reference to the Pisks and 24fps,  jbor asks "what political
causes do they actually support, what do they ever actually do? They make
films of hippie chicks dancing...." jbor also asks "Where -- in the novel
itself -- is there
any inkling that anti-War, Civil Rights (Elliott X from BADD ecepted), drug
decriminalisation or free speech casues are the driving forces behind what
these students and agitators are protesting against?"

Well, the very passages we've been discussing provide answers to those
questions, showing 24fps to not only cover counterculture cultural but
also to be active and risk-taking in tackling political issues: The War,
drug decriminalization, police violence, government crackdowns and lies
about American freedom, farm labor (very explosive on the West Coast at that
time)--the whole corrupting influence of power thing. I'm happy to point out
those beautifully written sentences.

"Back then they had roved the country together in a loose low-visibility
convoy of older midsize sedans, pickups with and without camper shells, an
Econoline van for equipment, and a dinged and chromeless but nonetheless
kick-ass Sting Ray that served as a high-speed patrol unit, among all of
which they kept in touch by CB radio, still then a novelty on the road. They
went looking for trouble, they found it, they filmed it, and then quickly
got the record of their witness someplace safe. They particularly believed
in the ability of close-ups to reveal and devastate. When power corrupts, it
keeps a log of its progress, written into that most sensitive memory device,
the human face. Who could withstand the light? What viewer could believe in
the war, the system, the countless lies about American freedom, looking into
these mug shots of the bought and sold?" (194-5)

"'But...doesn't that get dangerous?'

"'Mm, in the short run,' Frenesi guessed. 'But to see injustices and ignore
them, as your news team has been ignoring the repression of farm workers
here in this county who've been trying to organize--that's more "dangerous"
in the long run, isn't it?'" (195)

"Here were the usual miniskirts, wire-rim glasses, and love beads, plus
hippie boys waving their dicks, somebody's dog on LSD, rock and roll bands
doing take after take, some of which was pretty awful. Strikers battled
strikebreakers and police by a fence at the edge of a pure green feathery
field of artichokes while storm clouds moved in and out of the frame.
Troopers evicted the members of a commune in Texas, beating the boys with
slapjacks, grabbing handcuffed girls by the pussy, smacking little kids
around, and killing the stock, all of which Prairie, breathing deliberately,
made herself watch. Suns came up over farm fields and bright-shirted pickers
with the still outlines of buses and portable toilets on trailers in the
distance, shone pitilessly down on mass incinerations of American-grown pot,
the flames weak orange distortions of the daylight, and set over college and
high school campuses turned into military motor pools, throwing oily
shadows. There was little mercy in these images, except by accident--backlit
sweat on a Guardsman's arm as he swung a rifle toward a demonstrator, a
close-up of a farm employer's face that said everything its subject was
trying not to, those occasional meadows and sunsets--not enough to help
anybody escape seeing and hearing what, the film implied, they must."
(198-9)

d.