Stupid List of Noninspirational Films
Topic: Art and Poetry

The American Film Institute came out with another insipid, uninformed and illogical list of films they say, in this case are the 100 most inspirational films. AFI's listA tricky catagory here. "Inspirational" means imparting a divine influence on the mind and soul. And even if the influence they seek to impart is actually divine or not, it's somebody's agenda and somebody's ideas of what is good for us. It's a lot of social commentary and a lot of movies nobody sees more than one time if they see them at all. I see a list here that has an agenda on it's mind. It should be called the "NPR List of Movies approved for their content and social message that you should believe in with a few 'inspirational' movies thrown in."

To Kill a Mockingbird is a movie they made us watch in school, Schindler's List is probably a movie they make you watch in school now as well. The Grapes of Wrath is social commentary, Saving Private Ryan, Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Best Years of Our Lives are antiwar movies. The business is bad, government is bad and people are noble movies include, Norma Rae, Silkwood, Erin Brockovich, Grapes of Wrath, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe. Prisoners are noble and prisons are bad - Cool Hand Luke, Birdman of Alcatraz, Shawshank Redemption. Glory, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, Color Purple, To Kill a Mockingbird and Raisin in the Sun teach me that rascism is bad. Dead Poet's Society and Philadephia teach me that gay people are people and homophobia is bad. I don't find any of those movies particularly inspirational. Preachy maybe with their own agendas and some of them were effective when I was younger and didn't know that I was being fed a point of view. I particularly remember Meet John Doe, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the other Capra movies where Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper would fall in love with women who are more 'worldly' then they are and sort of risked everything on a hoped for change of attitude and opinion by Jean Arthur or Barbara Stanwick to save them. Beautiful women, inspirational shows I'd eat up every time. I'd admire Gary Cooper just being able to sit there not defending himself because it was the woman he loved who put him in that situation. Of course, in the end of those movies the woman would stand up and start defending Gary Cooper and in the end a happy ending would emerge just in the nick of time the way it always used to happen in those old black and white movies. Reality of course is more like that horrifying show you flip over through on Discovery or A&E which tells about the woman/man who plots and kills their spouse/partner and the process of getting enough clues to arrest them for it. Definitely not inspirational, like most of the films on that list. Bah, I hate lists.