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political, social, and economic tension throughout the past year in the United
States of America has provided almost all human beings with eyes and ears nothing
other than a pure sense of absolute chaos. The fighting… the headlines… the countless
unfortunate events… the losses… the lies… the flames… the damage… the hate… the
chaos… the division… So much tension piled up and fit into one little segment
or scene, or in this case, a nation, that it’s almost as if some people could
sit back, put their feet up, and watch it all happen like it’s some critically
acclaimed film. You know what? Someone could feel like Captain Willard, navigating
himself through the chaotic madness of Vietnam in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse
Now. The current state of America in 2021 could resemble the pure chaos
that the renowned filmmaker intended to encapsulate his audience with. The
futility of death and violence and intervention in Vietnam could be drawn to
the purposeless division in our country today.
Captain Willard finds himself
navigating the jungle in a land across the world from home, avoiding death and
tragedy scene after scene in the film. Draw that to… say, a college student, or
any individual for that matter, preparing to dive into this world and make a
life on his or her own, just as Willard makes it to Colonel Kurtz by himself by
the end of the film.
Pure chaos and pointless death. Those are the main takeaways from Coppola’s film. Just a handful of events within the last six months can resemble this pure chaos and pointless death…
Just a few days before this past Christmas, an
automobile accident in Yonkers, New York left four teenagers dead as a
convicted drug dealer attempted to evade police in a high-speed chase. He
destroyed the lives of four young men as he split their vehicle in half after their
collision. He single-handedly caused four families to stare at unwrapped Christmas
gifts under trees in their homes that week. Mayor Mike Spano added, “four young
lives were cut short by the recklessness of one individual. Let this be a
lesson to all who drive at excessive speeds—it’s not only your life at risk but
also the innocent lives with whom you share the road.”
Throughout March and April, all
across the country, but consistently in big cities, a spree of violent attacks
on Asian-Americans occurs within a year after the coronavirus outbreak in China
and the entire world is thrown into a dark storm that pours down on countless
lives over a year later. One particular video gone viral of one of these
hateful attacks on Asian-Americans shows a middle-aged thug stomping on the
head of a poor, old, innocent lady. A nearby store security guard (now we’re
talking ten feet nearby, and a security guard, whose job is to… forget
it) even goes out of his way to CLOSE the door on the poor lady getting stomped
on for no other reason than pure hate. He closed the door on her…
Mass shootings continue to haunt
the nation this year as mentally ill individuals achieve easy access to
high-powered machines of death, violence, and terror. A young man unleashes a
wrath of bullets in a supermarket in Colorado on people who are trying to put
on the table for their families. In Atlanta, staff and customers at a nail
salon are the recipients of bullets and lose their lives as well. Lives brought
to an end for reasons of pure hate and violence.
All these examples of death and
violence can be drawn to the madness that never ends in Coppola’s film. However,
this last example of mass shootings in our country resembles the “Ride of the Valkyries”
scene in Apocalypse Now. It represents one person or party inflicting
violence and death over another for no rational rhyme or reason. It represents
the pure destruction of human life, and emphasizes the futility of doing so. It
also includes an element of enjoying, or getting something out of committing
acts of violence and physical harm like this.
This month, a twelve-year-old boy
was walking down Malcolm X Boulevard in Brooklyn, New York, when he was suddenly
shot in the chest from a moving car. Was it intentional or accidental? Not
sure. Can anyone say which one is worse?
This tragic event could remind
someone of Clean’s death on the boat in Apocalypse Now, a scene in which
Captain Willard and the squad witness the death of an innocent, young man. A
young man who was in the process of listening to a tape from his family back
home. I imagine this young boy was on his way to his family, at his home. It could
just be a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but someone or
something is to blame.
Also in this month, a twenty-year-old
man is tragically and undeservedly shot and killed by police in Minnesota. The panicked
officer who was rightfully pulling him over allegedly shot her pistol instead
of her taser gun by mistake, which doesn’t make much sense or carry much credibility.
People come quick to blame the poor young man because of his criminal
background, but he was just a kid who fell victim to the life of violence that
has become mainstream, enabled, and arguably encouraged in our society today. This
tragic event has been followed by days of burning and destroying and looting
innocent neighborhoods and businesses where people are trying to proceed with
their lives day by day and avoid this very violence that has swarmed our
society. A crucial part of this event, like many today, is that it seems like
it is all recorded for seemingly entertainment purposes, and to display to the
country what is happening… but not in a good way at all, in most cases. It’s
like the scene in Apocalypse Now when the camera crew sits in the midst
of warfare and pure chaos, catching every moment they can on camera and yelling
at the soldiers to keep doing what they’re doing. They only want more of the
chaos… Keep going! Keep it up! Don’t look at the camera! Go! Go! Go!
As mentioned earlier, it’s as if
someone has it all orchestrated. Like it’s all a show for people someplace else.
It really is like a movie… you can’t make some of it up, as cliché as that sounds.
In Apocalypse Now, nobody knows why the soldiers are there and killing
and destroying everyone and everything in Vietnam, not even themselves. In
America today, nobody knows why they want so much division, and just like the American
intervention in Vietnam in the mid-century era, nobody knows who wants
so much of this division.
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