Review of: =============================================== _ M a n u f a c t u r i n g C o n s e n t _ : =============================================== =================================================== N o a m C h o m s k y a n d t h e M e d i a =================================================== From The Nation, April 5, 1993. By Stuard Klawans. Somewhere within the third hour of _Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media_, the film's subject lets slip the fact that he does not read movie reviews. Chomsky therefore will not learn how much I enjoyed his performance -- performances, really -- in this documentary, a complex but high-spirited summary of his theories on thought control in a democratic society. The filmmakers, Mark Achvar and Peter Wintonick, have skillfully played mix-and-match with archival footage of Chomsky's public appearances from as far back as thirty years ago, combining it with footage shot by themselves from 1988 through 1992. There's Chomsky demonstrating in front of the Pentagon and fencing with William F. Buckley in the late sixties; Chomsky discussing his notions of universal grammar -- and universal human creativity -- with Michel Foucault in the seventies; Chomsky in the eighties and nineties, talking with journalists, students and people in general throughout Europe and North America. A thin man, somewhat stooped, with one of those sharp-featured Jewish faces that grow more handsome with age, he declares himself opposed to the mass media's practice of inventing celebrities, and he acts like it. While shyly posing for a newspaper photographer in London, he manages to cut himself. Confronted by an overwrought heckler at one of his lectures, he mildly invites the man to join him at the podium, so the issue being raised can get a full airing. In a media culture that rewards flippancy, Chomsky makes outrageous-sounding statements, but only when given adequate time to explain them. He grows snappish, but only when an interviewer tries to skip over relevant facts. How strange, I thought. I've been reading this man all my adult life, but this was the first chance I'd had to glimpse his manner, his physical presence, his way of addressing people. But that, of course, is one of the points of _Manufacturing Consent_. In a totalitarian society, Chomsky argues, the state routinely uses force to keep the public in line. In a democratic society -- or one that approximates democracy -- gentler means are needed. The public must be persuaded to leave power in the hands of the ruling elite; the public must be dissuaded from asking too many questions about how that power is used. And so, instead of groveling before the jackboot, we lounge in front of the TV screen -- though our posture, in either case, is horizontal. As someone who would prod the public into a standing position, Chomsky is therefore unwelcome on the Op-Ed pages, let along the mainstream American TV and radio shows. Only his work in linguistics is deemed respectable; his reading of American foreign policy, and the role played in it by The New York Times, is not. So, for those who understandably are still in the dark about Chomsky's ideas, here is the one-paragraph version: For the most part, the organizations that tell us what's happening in the world are big corporations or are owned by big corporations (an unchallengeable observation). These corporations are set up to make a profit by selling time or space for advertisements; in other words, they try to direct the public's attention, in an appropriately malleable state, toward the messages of other big corporations (also unchallengeable). Assuming then, that organizations at least *try* to act in their own interest, Chomsky deduces that the mass media will project a world view congenial to big corporations. [Another unchallengeable deduction is that these are *profit-making*, not "news"/info disseminating organizations, by their very essence and purpose --HB]. This conclusion *is* challenged, hotly and persistently -- though the rebuttals are either diversionary (Chomsky is putting forth a conspiracy theory) or phantasmagorical (corporate and public interests coincide). Beyond this, some critics also object that the mass media in practice tend to be more liberal than the public at large [The U. Mass public post-election 1992 opinion survey, for example, demonstrated that Republican-promoted *falsehoods* were much more successfully transferred into the public's beliefs. But that is not the main response --HB]. But that's what you would expect, Chomsky replies, in a system that functions well. The mass media define the leftward limit (the rightward limit as well) of what people may think and still be considered rational. It's a subtle point, which nudges us away from the safe ground of empiricism and onto more speculative territory [But if we look at the *documented* record, we see that even the "liberal" side of the mass media follow the Washington Party Line [WPL], with numerous examples in Chomsky's _Necessary Illusions_ and Chomsky/Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ of WPL lies sold to the public, with catastrophic/murderous consequences in the world, so the "liberal" counter-chorus is a "less filling!" -- counter-chorus to the "tastes great!" of the so-called conservatives. The the beer being "sold" with remarkable predictability are policies and lies geared towards the corporate interests which own/control this nation --HB] Still, it might be possible to subject this theory to something like a controlled experiment, as Chomsky demonstrates by comparing how the American press treated two contemporaneous cases of mass slaughter, in Cambodia and in East Timor. The Cambodian genocide, carried out by "bad guys" (as defined by the State Department and corporate interests), met with loud and frequent denunciations. The East Timor genocide, carried out by Indonesian "good guys," went almost unreported. So Chomsky, as a good scientist, verifies his hypothesis -- all the while hoping, we may assume, not to see the experiment repeated too often. And now, a counterargument: "I mean, some of this stuff to me looks like it's from Neptune...His notion about the limits of debate in this country is absolutely wacko" (Jeff Greenfiled, definer of leftward limits on ABC News's _Nightline_). Much of the fun in _Manufacturing Consent_ results from such intellectual pratfalls and from the sight of Chomsky's reaction to them -- his deadpan puzzlement that anyone would slip on such an obvious banana peel; his peevishness when the sucker, in falling, happens to dirty Chomsky's trousers with a bit of flying pulp. Sometimes, when the event in itself does not suggest slapstick, the filmmakers provide their own. A debate between Chomsky and the Dutch Minister of Defense becomes the occasion for intercutting old footage of a prizefight. Cheap -- though I wouldn't have minded, had it been funny. Similarly unfortunate are such old tricks as overlaying images from American history with sarcastic patches of patriotic music [to illustrate the Reagan's propagandistic/Orwellian Standing Tall / The "PeaceKeeper" (MX missle), I understand -- what's wrong with that? (Per previous review posted)--HB]. But most of the time, Achbar and Wintonick entertain when they mean to entertain. Editing like mad, staging little demonstrations and skits, making Chomsky's face pop up on everything from a shopping-mall video display to the giant screen at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, they turn in an admirable performance in free-style documentary, expounding their subject fully and clearly while keeping the picture moving briskly along. On one point in particular they are first-rate: the [``]controversy[''] over Chomsky' alleged support for the French crank Robert Faurisson. As we all know, Faurisson denies that the Holocaust happened. Also, as we all know, Chomsky (along with hundreds of other people) signed a statement in Faurisson's defense when the French government indicted him for the crime of "falsifying history." In addition, Chomsky wrote an essay on the case, full of "banal sentiments" (as he puts it) on the right to publish. What we do *not* all know -- because some people find it convenient to keep the controversy alive -- is that Chomsky did nothing more. He did not endorse Faurisson's views. (In fact, he abhors them.) He did not write a preface to Faurisson's book. (It was Faurisson's publisher who had the bright idea of tacking Chomsky's civil-libertarian essay onto a body of Faurisson's ravings.) As the film amply demonstrates, Chomsky does not duck the controversy over this affair; he merely insists that people get the facts straight. Nor do the filmmakers duck. To make sure the audience know where they stand, they include a section of archival footage of the Holocaust. It was real, all right. They also catch Faurisson at a sidewalk cafe in Paris, proclaiming he doesn't care at all about freedom of speech; he just wants to win. Mark Achbar, who has been interviewing him, looks back toward the camera, his eyes wide with revulsion. Other highlights, nearly as memorable, come to mind -- such as a guided rout or The New York Times, conducted for the filmmakers under blackout conditions so there effectively *is* no tour. But instead of giving away the best bits of _Manufacturing Consent_, perhaps I should argue with the film, as the best way to praise it. _Manufacturing Consent_ does such a good job of explaining Chomsky's ideas [primarily about the media --HB], and in a form so appropriate to the doctrine, that I want to point out what lies *outside* the theory. By Chomsky's own reckoning, the experience of 80 percent of the population lies outside. He estimates that opinion makers such as the Times and Nightline address only one-fifth of the public, those who are college-educated and in the habit of voting. For everybody else, the mass media provide distractions, which are meant to keep people stupid and passive. An example: the sports industry. As it happens, thought, I saw _Manufacturing Consent_ on the day of Arthur Ashe's funeral. My head was full of information on how he used sports as a tool for social activism. We may leave open the question of how well Ashe succeeded [?]. The point is, he tested the possibility. He did not abandon the field to a bunch of yahoos selling designer shorts. When Chomsky, being above all else a scholar, neglects to contest the ruling elite on 80 percent of their territory; when he champions little listener-supported radio stations but makes it sound futile to think of crashing the network news; when his followers, Achbar and Wintonick, ignore commercial constraints and make a 167 [albeit divided into two parts --HB] film, thereby giving the majority of exhibitors one more excuse not to book a documentary -- aren't they retreating towards the margin a step or two faster than those big, heavy bastards are pushing them? Or perhaps we might say they're making too mechanical a connection between what is and what could be. They work they're doing is still invaluable. But I'd also like to see a critical theory and practice of mass media that will acknowledge the liberating power of The Simpsons; that will encourage ten young athletes to pick up where every Arthur Ashe leave off; that will result in [The Nation's] Katha Pollitt's taking regular soundbites out of Peter Jenning's hide. Until then, I can tell you that _Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media_ has wrapped up a run at the Art Institute of Chicago and just opened in New York at the Film Forum. Many other bookings will follow, beginning with San Francisco's Castro Theater and Boston's Brattle in April. You will find the picture surprisingly fast-paced and funny, with a warm and endeading character at the center and an unimpeachably high moral tone. At last -- a movie for the whole family!