As time goes by

I'm starting to suspect that everything that comes out of Hollywood isn't quite real, writes columnist Troy Nahumko

Troy Nahumko

Malaga

Friday, 17 January 2025, 16:38

I'm starting to suspect that everything that comes out of Hollywood isn't quite real. I've been there on many occasions, seen the white letters up on the hillside and tripped over the junkies on Hollywood and Vine. So, I know that the place exists. It's what it has produced that I am no longer certain of. I'm picturing Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn climbing the cliffs of Navarone. Or maybe something lighter when Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson make a Luftwaffe colonel's life impossibly complicated as they try to escape.

We don't even have to reach so far back to find more films on the same theme. We've seen Stephen Spielberg direct Liam Neeson in a most harrowing film about a terrible list and Tom Hanks searching for Private Ryan. Or perhaps more recently, Christoph Waltz's unparalleled quiet, yet menacing depiction of pure raw evil. One that might even approach the heinous malevolence of someone like Reinhard Heydrich in Tarantino's inglourious remake.

For eighty years Hollywood has churned out constant reminders of the monumental struggle that took place in the 30s and 40s. All are, in their own fashion, depictions of a time when things were remarkably black and white. The false Hollywood narrative of cowboys and indians temporarily replaced by something more easily digestible. On one side we had people fighting for supposed freedom and democracy. While on the other, supporters of authoritarian regimes who had no compunction about sending millions of people who didn't fit into their mould to their deaths in purpose-built extermination camps. Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito's defeat and the subsequent freeing of the concentration camps have flooded our screens ever since.

In Spain however it would take another 40 years. Franco was never toppled. He died peacefully in bed, marking the beginning of the end to perhaps Europe's longest dictatorship. At last, the good guys had beaten the baddies and fascism seemed to have finally been put to rest. But then something happened. It came back. Four years ago the world watched a violent mob try overturn a free and fair election. Nazi flags were seen flying in the Capitol building of a country that lost 400,000 plus lives fighting the very ideology invading its legislative core. Worse yet, the coup attempt's leader, Donald Trump, has now been reelected. In Italy, an open supporter of Mussolini now runs the county. At the same time, in the cradles of the most atrocious crimes of the 20th century, Germany has seen a surge in support for the far right, while in Austria Nazi supporters may form a government.

In Spain, young people blithely sing fascist songs on school outings while more and more women look back fondly on a dark period when they had next to no rights. Regime apologists now sit in all levels of government and, in attempts to whitewash the past, the traditional right has joined them in attempts to repeal laws reminding us of past horrors.

In a world where Mayor Stasser has become the good guy and Rick Blaine the bad, you no longer need dystopian movies, just pay attention. Please Sam, don't play it again.

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