The U.S. Vs John Lennon

I went down to the UICA last Monday to see the new John Lennon documentary. (If you still haven't seen the trailer yet, you can watch it here.)

Being a big Beatles fan, you can guess that this would be right up my alley. However by the same token being a big Beatles fan, and a self-admitted geek, I also felt it didn’t tell me a lot of new stuff. Even most of the old footage I felt I had seen before, between the ABC Beatles’ Anthology series, the “Imagine” documentary movie from the 80s, the Dick Cavett interview, and the infamous week co-hosting the Mike Douglas show during which Lennon and Ono brought in Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale. The latter two shows are frequently re-run on VH1's rock classic series, or at least they were back when I was in high school.

Nevertheless, it was a very well done documentary, and very entertaining. And I figure entertaining is really all you can ask from a documentary. Being informative is a plus, but if you’re really concerned about the information aspect, you learn a lot more sitting down with a book than you would from a 2 hour documentary. And there are actually a number of books dealing with John Lennon’s political activities, if you look in the right place. The Calvin library has a couple of them, and I recall spending a couple Friday evening’s curled up with these books back in the day. (I know, geek, geek). There’s also a recent book, “Gimmie some Truth” on which this documentary was partly based. The NPR interview with the author can be heard here.The movie didn’t have much of a thesis other than to recount the events of John’s political activity, and the US governments reaction to them. It shows Nixon and the FBI doing some not-nice things, but I trust that’s not new information at this point.

However the story of John Lennon does present an interesting case study on the intersection of music and pop culture with politics. When you talk about star power, it’s hard to get much bigger than a member of the Beatles during their heyday. Remember the Beatles were (or at least started out as) a bubble gum rock band. It would be equivalent perhaps to Elvis, or today’s Brittany Spears or Justin Timberlake, becoming heavily involved in radical politics.

And for that matter, it’s hard to get more radical than John Lennon was. When you start hanging out with Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, and Tariq Ali (who, according to his autobiography was a close personal friend of John Lennon ), it’s hard to move further out to the left.

There was a time around when I was 17, 18, and 19, when I considered John Lennon, and more recent bands like “Rage Against the Machine” the height of political sophistication. I suppose that’s right around the age where that is common (maybe I was a late bloomer by a couple years). And I can still remember one day around when I was 19 listening to a “Rage Against the Machine” song, and thinking, “Wait a minute, these guys aren’t any more politically sophisticated than I am. The only difference is they have the ability to put their message to music. But the lyrics themselves are really not that deep.”

There is a danger when rock stars become the most visible parts of the American Left. I think this is a danger that is often courted by revisionist histories of the 1960s, which focus on the era as the hey day of Woodstock, the Rolling Stones, and the Grateful Dead, instead of the real story of the civil rights and anti war movements, which is grassroots organizing at the local level.

To be fair, I think this particularly documentary did a good job of walking that line. They portrayed Lennon as responding to what was already happening in the streets, instead of being a superstar who creates movements. But still, I wince a little bit when I watch a documentary that has Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal as supporting analysts for a movie about John Lennon. It makes me worry a little about where our culture is focused.

On the other hand, the older I get, the more I realize that not everyone’s brain is wired the same as mine. People like my youngest sister have a very hard time absorbing a tract by Noam Chomsky, but could easily understand the simple message in Lennon’s songs of giving peace a chance. And this point was made in the documentary. John and Yoko both said that they were trying to use their celebrity power to get people involved in the movement who wouldn’t otherwise be involved.

But here’s what has me worried: when I go through East town I see all sorts of progressive bumper stickers on cars or progressive buttons on people at the coffee houses. But when we meet for Media Mouse meetings or IGE meetings, it is rare we have more than 10 people. I don’t think our generation is apathetic politically, but I think people sometimes put bumper stickers on their car, or listen to folk music (or punk music, or Rage against the Machine, or whatever radical music you happen to like) and think they are doing their part. And actual organizing and political participation is falling by the wayside.

There is a line to walk between being able to use star power to attract people to the movement, and becoming too dependent on it. I’m not sure what the exact answer is, but I fear we have fallen too far to the latter.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
Despite sounding like a traditional love song, "Martha My Dear" was in fact inspired by Paul McCartney's Old English Sheepdog, Martha. Said McCartney, "Whereas it would appear to anybody else to be a song to a girl called Martha, it's actually a dog, and our relationship was platonic, believe me."

Link of the Day
More Japanese music. Usually I link to the oldies, but just for the sake of variety here's a more recent song. "Shanghai Honey" by Orange Range. This song was very popular with my junior high school students about 2 years ago. In fact they used parts of it for their team chant during "Sports Day." It's not great music, but it's kind of catchy. The Band Orange Range is originally from Okinawa, and you can hear Okinawan influences in the song during the chants in between verses.

The U.S. vs. John Lennon: Movie Review (Scripted)