- dtkozl
- Dec 17, 2001
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ultima ratio regum
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My understanding is that the movie is saying that the hippie age failed because the government ensures that basically anyone who is part of the establishment and starts to go "hippie" is brainwashed back into straightworld. Like Wolfmann, the big real estate conglomerate, who had a "bad hippie dream" or however he puts it, is brainwashed out of it, which is alluded to by whichever blacklisted-turned-anti-commie actor Doc and his lawyer were talking about in the diner. It seems that in the actor's case this brainwashing happened on the Golden Fang boat itself, butwith Wolfmann it was in a psychiatric ward run by the Golden Fang. Obviously, the government is involved because the FBI was watching over Wolfmann and was fully aware of where he was while everyone else was still running around looking for him. The only thing I couldn't put together is why the Golden Fang would work with the government in doing so, and my only thought is that if the government goes hippie, then drugs won't be illegal anymore, and the international drug cartel essentially disintegrates. I get that there's a lot more going on in this movie, but this is basically the only way I can arrange the plot into making sense. Or is it just not supposed to make sense at all?
I would disagree really. I don't think the movie is about the hippie "age" at all, it was just the setting. There are no long drawn out monologues like in fear in loathing about how they are in a special time or thought they were, or were actively trying to subvert the status quo. The movie specifically states what inherent vice is, how things just tend to break on ships. America is the ship, and doc, bigfoot, and owen wilson are all generally good men that were broken on it. The whole idea is just that money and power are always evil forces, not always unified which is shown by the many different factions all trying to get their hands on wolfmann, the lapd, the fbi, the golden fang, etc. They do however unify when it comes down to suppressing the masses, like at the end at dinner when the lawyer dude says you lost my respect when you paid rent. The renting class will always be the victim no matter the age or the setting, and this is what breaks good men.
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Jan 12, 2015 18:44
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- dtkozl
- Dec 17, 2001
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ultima ratio regum
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Also like Fear & Loathing it's about the failure and death of the hippie movement and revolutions. Except Fear & Loathing paints the failure as a result of the hippies themselves and that Nixon's Silent Majority simply kept moving forward and growing more powerful as if they didn't even exist (Duke in Vegas, getting a glimpse of what mainstream America is really like, and how Duke is basically just an oddity or a curio for them to glance at as they continue to go about their lives).
Inherent Vice depicts the failure as a result of actual conspiracies, government suppression. Notice how with all the drugs everybody's doing no one ever gets picked up or arrested for them (actually, in the book, Puck Beaverton is the one character who gets arrested for drugs, and it's on a bullshit charge about finding a marijuana seed in his vacuum cleaner bag. More as a way to get rid of him than it is as punishment for possession). The drugs keep the hippies from ever truly mobilizing, which is how the government wants it. When a billionaire land developer starts "going hippie" is when the government steps in and puts a stop to it. The status quo must be maintained. With all this fear of cults and Manson, the worst cult of all is the FBI. They induct actors by blacklisting them and then turning them "straight" by putting them in anti-communist propaganda films. They abduct capitalists with regrets and brainwash them. And this is what Doc saves Coy from. Coy was brought in as a mole, he was inducted by the cult of the mainstream, and Doc buys him his freedom.
The fact is, that it is about the hippie age. But it's about revolutions in general. And revolutions have an inherent vice in them. They're almost destined to fall apart. To drugs, to in-fighting. "You lost my respect the moment you paid rent." That's inherent vice.
Yeah that is sorta my point. There is nothing unique to the hippie age in this story, it is just another failed revolution and there were ones before and there will be ones after.
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Jan 12, 2015 19:59
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Jan 12, 2015 18:44
