We thinking apes who live through memories of conclusions derived from event change in sense simulacra of the world find ourselves continually going over memory, wondering if what we know now is what we knew then and if it is even real.

In that vein, it makes sense to sometimes revisit items from the past like The Blues Brothers (1980) which most people in that era would have identified as a really funny movie. It is not, and it sometimes is.

Like most cinema these days, this movie is a cartoon and, because supernatural or extranormal events occur, qualifies as early “capeshit” despite being a comedy. In these cartoons, the traits of people are indicated by their category, which makes for funny stereotype play because like robots, people act out their assigned roles even background events change and make that ludicrous.

It is like a Shakespearian tragedy-comedy in that sense, because people do what they do because of what they are as seen by the audience, so you have maniac cops who will drop everything to chase down a lawbreaker even as that quest waxes Ahabian and ruins everything.

The original capeshit was probably Star Wars (1976) because it combined hard action with magic from a religious realm, so it was no longer constrained to trying to make every element in the story be compatible with known reality. Just add “the force” and suddenly everything is OK.

In The Blues Brothers, two orphans embark on a mission to save their orphanage by singing their favorite blues and motown songs to an audience of morons. This sets off what is ultimately a masterpice of physical comedy that otherwise is not that funny.

Like most postmodern things, it is shot through with the equality mythos; how else do you end up at the idea that form=content except by making everything equal, effectively abolishing content as much as Christianity abolished the physical world in order to embrace a symbolic one? Postmodernity renders everything to symbol, and the form here is not so much the literary pyrotechnics of postmodern fiction but the cartoon-like tendency for each person to be a stereotype of what their character is.

As part of this, there is of course worship of the African and denigration of the redneck American and the “Illinois Nazis,” ironically representing the ACLU-defended march of Frank Colin (née Cohen) through Skokie, famous for its Jewish community. One does not need to defend that stupid act of Jewish Nazi self-hatred to realize that Hollywood is bashing some familiar tin drums here.

Naturally seeing Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, Pee-Wee Herman, James Brown, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker ham it up in a movie about music is great fun, as is Carrie Fisher’s presaging the overly-attached girlfriend meme in a Romanian version with great psychotic zeal. Mostly however, the audience for this movie was the same as those who would tune in to The Dukes of Hazard, namely people who like slapstick and car crashes.

Like all postmodern things, it converges on a gentle version of the French Revolution. All the misfits — orphans, nerds, geeks, minorities, Christians — join together to overthrow the nasty authority figures and do something fun instead of, you know, going to work, paying taxes, shopping, and watching TV.

In the end, this makes the movie hollow like a cartoon. It is presenting simplistic stuff for simplistic people, and mostly, we watch it for the car crashes and explosions. A more perfect vision of modernity would be hard to find.

Tags: capeshit, film, french revolution narrative, slapstick