Unfortunately, I never saw Pans Labyrinth so I couldn’t say. Do you have any insight as to “how” this movie falls outside the scope of H&A?

Please note that I’m not fully buying this argument either. We have indy film and documentaries. These must challenge the culture industry by revealing reality as it is rather than how it is constructed. I was just wondering if anybody can shed some light of an example while I’m stuck in my blind spot.

You said of Horkheimer and Adorno:

While I can understand some of the points they make, I don’t agree with these guys. I like movies. And I don’t see them as a means of brainwashing, or as a tool of the culture industry.

I hate to burst your bubble, but its interesting that you chose to post a preview for the movie Die Hard immediately after what you said. When I watched the preview, I found that it only proves Horkheimer and Adorno’s point.

On page 1228 of Norton’s Anthology, our friendly theorists say:

By subordinating in the same way and to the same end all areas of intellectual creation, by occupying men’s senses from the time they leave the factory in the evening to the time they clock in again the next morning with matter that bears the impress of the labor process they themselves have to sustain throughout the day, this subsumption mockingly satisfies the concept of unified culture with the philosophers of personality contrasted with mass culture.

This is exemplified in two ways within this film:

Fist, Die Hard offers no escapism from the every day for the main character, a NY cop named John McLain. He is on his way to see his family, not on duty, and yet he must, even after hours, fight crime. H&A say that “Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work” (1229). The message couldn’t be more evident for this character as the hostages are all watching a video feed of McLain scaling the walls of the elevator shaft to defeat the terrorists. One hostage asks, “What does he think he’s doing?” McLain’s wife Holly, one of the hostages answers, “His job.”

Second, this bears a heavy message for the audience. McLain becomes a hero for doing this job at all costs, even in the face of his unwillingness to participate. He conforms to the system, expanding his individual desire to save his wife, complying eventually with the idea of preserving society as a whole by destroying the terrorists. We are left to admire his ability to do so and invigorated to continue on in our meager existence as participatory cogs of the same system.

According to H&A, Die Hard embodies:

… the necessity inherent in the system not to leave the customer alone, not for a moment to allow him any suspicion that resistance is possible. The principle dictates that he should be shown that all his needs as capable of fulfillment, but that those needs should be so predetermined that he feels himself to be the eternal consumer, the object of the culture industry. Not only does it make him believe that the deception it practices is satisfaction, but it goes further and implies that whatever the state of affairs, he must put up with what is offered. (1232)

I’m sorry Ryan. Are you feeling accosted yet because you, the consumer, were blindly complicit in chosing this movie as an example of pure fun? While I welcome your rebuttal, I must say that I take no pride in disputing your pure view of mindless entertainment. Instead, I feel as though I too have been taken hostage by the culture industry. Still, I have hope. If you read my post on this matter, Time Magazine heralds the “individual” behind new technologies of You Tube and the like, claiming “YOU” as the person of the year for this overthrow of corporate regulatory power.

Cheers,
- Kim