“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts”
William Shakespeare: As You Like It: Act 2, Scene 6
Perhaps that seemed true back in Elizabethan times, but I suspect most of us feel rather more like the audience, or part of the scenery, than active players in the tale that is unfolding before us. If indeed we are mentioned within the play, we are the masses offstage, heard of only in the dialogue of others. Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, fates of the faceless are only spoken of, and then forgotten, uncounted. The drama is revealed to us, as through a glass darkly, by the news agencies. And it is they who choose the lines we hear, and the characters we are introduced to. And indeed which play we get to watch in the first place.
Case in point. You’ve probably read the Operation Northwoods file by now. If not, humour me and go read the previous entry. Of all the news networks I’ve checked, I found but one single story regarding it, on the ABC site. You would have thought that any journalist with the chance would have jumped all over a story like that.
Similarly, the incident at the checkpoint in Iraq, where a car loaded with Iraqi women and children was torn apart by Coalition gunfire has been buried. The official story from the military is that a number of warning shots had been fired. Yet the only independant witness, a journalist from the Washington Post, claimed that no warning had been given. Since that initial report we have heard nothing on the matter. And so the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, launched at the behest of men with outrageous fortunes, will continue to fall upon the extras, and never the stars.
Just as within the world of theatre there are none more hated than the critics, those who attempt to criticise the information given out by the government will be the targets of vitriol. Sometimes though, despite all efforts, some actual journalism does take place. A surprisingly avant-gard piece from the BBC’s Correspondent programme set out to review one episode of this year’s top tragi-comedy, “War on Terror – The Miniseries.” Gods, I hope its just a miniseries. This baby could run and run.
Speaking about Private Jessica Lynch, Dr Harith a-Houssona reportedly said “I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle. There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound – only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don’t know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury.”
The Pentagon, when quized recently by the BBC, still refused to reveal publicly what injuries Private Lynch suffered, beyond the claim that she has suffered amnesia. While the poor girl certainly deserves some privacy after her assuredly genuine ordeal, what worthwhile purpose is served by leaving her wounds ambiguous?
Dr Anmar Uday, who also worked at the hospital were Lynch was being treated claimed “We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. They cried ‘go, go, go’, with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital – action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan.”
Maybe all the world IS a stage.
Jerry Bruckheimer, who frequently collaborates with the Pentagon, is probably quite upset that his latest war story failed to win any awards at Cannes. NBC is currently fast-tracking a TV movie to be released by the end of this coming year, though their remake is unlikely to be able to match the budget of the Bush original.
I’ll end this train of thought with a little more of the bard. As the chorus did entreat the audience, in the prologue to Henry V, to view and interpret the scenes before them according to the desires of the performers, and the spirit of the story, it has found its modern echo in the chorus of editors, anchormen, and politicians who expect us to take their version of the truth as absolute.
” O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath dar’d
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin’d two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth;
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,
Turning th’ accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass; for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like, your humble patience pray
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.”