OLD AMERICA VERSUS NEW AMERICA WITH THE OLD GUARDS IN NEW REALISM:

By Mansor bin Puteh

‘What did I do to deserve this?’

How did this question was forgotten and was replaced with this question instead, ‘Why did you do this to me?’

That was the one question all Americans asked themselves when they were faced with adversity not too long ago. It was something they must have learnt from the media and social commentators who spouted what early smart American psychologists had said, something many Americans thought to be smart. 

It caused many Americans then some consternation as to why they were pushed to confront social, economic, political and personal issues and problems, which most of these could be of their own doing.

Unfortunately, Old America is now lost and what we have today is New and Confused America, that they are now sharing with the rest of the world through various mediums, especially journalism and Hollywood and television.

I cannot but remember Steven Spielberg’s ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ or ‘The Sheik’ and ‘The Son of Sheik’ and ‘Garden of Allah’, made during the Silent Era when Hollywood did not know how to belittle anyone; but Spielberg’s film was no better than any of those Charlie Chan films that were ‘cancel culture’ long before the term was introduced. 

In ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ Spielberg had some Chinese and Indians operating gambling and vice dens and eating snakes, respectively, while ‘Red Indians’ chase a white man who cleverly escape arrows directed to him and how Arabs surround Dr Indiana Jones in a bazaar somewhere in a country in the Middleast and he just needed to fire a shot at random to kill an Arab brandishing a long sword to kill him instantaneously with the other Arabs not doing anything.

‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ is the epitome of racism of Hollywood but Spielberg was not chastised for that who later found Nazis to be ‘crooks’ in his subsequent Indiana Jones films, a safe approach at looking and finding crooks in Hollywood films.

Strangely, no one brought up the matter on the racism that was exhibited in this film even when it was shown widely in Malaysia, India and China and other countries where there were sizeable people of these races?

The reason was nobody was brave enough to look at any Hollywood film critically because they feared Hollywood.

So isn’t Hollywood also party to the racial discrimination that is perpetuated by the many films they have produce in order to make it easier and simpler for the viewers to identify who are the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ that peddle to the simplistic notion of bravado that many Americans who were mostly white that flock the cinemas in America then?

Then came the whites-only super-heroes that caused more harm than the cartoons that were first created to highlight deeds and extraordinary powers they had, alone and thus creating the notion that one person’s views of the world and of America are superior to the common views of any issues. 

So one takes this to the stores, the sidewalks and torment anyone who stands in the way of his authority and power, using his bare hands and some harsh words – against those who held authority with weapons in their possession.  

Can America learn something useful from someone who is not one of them, but who had the good fortune to study at Columbia University in New York City, an experience that did not happen by chance but mostly by personal effort?

Yes, it was also by chance, especially when I reflected on it and asked myself the same question: ‘What did I do to deserve – to study at Columbia?’ 

Plenty.

My brother-in-law happens to be the son (nephew who he adopted since small) of the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Prince or Tunku Abdul Rahman, who made an official visit to Canada to seek technicians to help establish the first television station in the country; after that he and his entourage and his son came to Washington, DC and was received at the White House by then President Lyndon Johnson, which was also an official visit.

Malaysia and America were two countries that established strong and cordial ties with each other since the Federation of Malaysia was formed on 16 September, 1963, two months before my sister, Rokiah married the Prince’s son, Syed Abdullah.

And after being feted by President Johnson, Tunku and his entourage went to New York City where they stayed at Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue.

But my interests in New York City were piqued when my brother-in-law gave me catalogues of Pan-American Airlines that they had flown in on some parts of their trip from Kuala Lumpur to Canada and America and back.

I saw photos of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty for the first time and told myself that one day I would be able to be in New York City – but not as a tourist but as a student.

This happened in August, 1978 when I enrolled at the Film Division of Columbia.

And this was also where I gained much, other than the knowledge on film and the cinema, especially with people like Frank Daniels and Milos Forman as the co-chairmen of the Film Division. 

Milos also gave me a one-year medical leave when I was diagnosed with a ‘Giant cell tumor of the upper left tibia’ by Dr George Unis of the Columbia Health Center who did the biopsy on my leg at the St. Luke’s Hospital near the university.

Dr Unis later transferred me to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for two more surgeries conducted by Dr Ralph C Marcove over a period of one and a half years, for which I am eternally grateful for allow me to walk on my own now without the need for the two crutches that I had to use for many years.

I then was able to see America from many angles in many aspect that no other Malaysian who had the good fortune to study at the universities in the country.