Last night, the lovely bunny and I watched a cute little film called Lars and the Real Girl. Nobody saw this film if its 10 million worldwide gross is any indication.
Lars is a strange but harmless and even likable man. He holds down a job, goes to church but isolates himself to a pathological degree. Needless to say, he can't talk to girls. He ends up buying an anatomically correct sex doll, but his intentions aren't carnal. The doll becomes his girlfriend, betraying mental illness on his part far beyond the extreme shyness he's always displayed.
This is where the film gets interesting.
The small town greets this development with the expected incredulity and gossip, but unexpectedly begins to play into his delusion, treating Lars "girlfriend" as if she was real for his benefit. Hilarity ensures. Well, not exactly hilarity, but mildly amusing situations nonetheless.
A strange movie--or is it?
Society asks us to play along with obvious delusions all the time, to treat the metaphorical sex doll as if she was real. The Flight 93 memorial is a perfect example. The memorial design, even in its modified form, is an east (towards Mecca) facing cresent. Officials are arguing that its not a cresent , that its just a "broken circle", but its completely besides the point--the perception of this memorial, particularly in the Arab world, is that the U.S. built a memorial to Islam's victory over the west.
Why even go there?
An exchange with memorial officials reveals the depth of the delusion.
“You can’t just say it was ‘the flight path’ that broke the circle” Rawls admonished. “This is a story of human action. So who did it? In your depiction, who is breaking the circle?”“The passengers and crew,” said Reinbold.
“But the circle is a symbol of peace,” Rawls continued. “Who broke the peace? It was the TERRORISTS who broke the peace on 9/11.”
Reinbold countered that that the circle is also a Druid symbol, and a Christian symbol.
“But it is still a symbol of peace,” said Rawls, especially as the Memorial Project is using it, with the circle being broken on 9/11, “so who breaks it?”
“It was the passengers and crew,” Newlin repeated, elaborating that: “They are the one’s who brought the plane down.”
“You don’t think it was the terrorists who broke the peace?” Rawls asked.
“They TRIED to break the peace,” said Newlin, “but they failed.”
“Really?” asked Rawls: “They failed to break the peace? What about the 40 murdered heroes?” But Reinbold and Newlin were done talking.
I assure you, this isn't a sex doll, its a real girl.
What is shameful is their absolute determination not to admit what they perfectly well understand: that it was the terrorists who broke the peace on 9/11.If they admit this, then they have to acknowledge that Murdoch’s design can only be a memorial to the terrorists, who are depicted as breaking our peaceful circle and turning it into a giant Islamic-shaped crescent. The depth of Reinbold’s and Newlin’s determination not to admit that it was the terrorists who broke the peace is a measure of how clearly they understand the terrorist-memorializing implications.
They KNOW that this is a memorial to the terrorists, and are twisting themselves into knots to try to cover it up.
