Last week, I sat down to watch Amazon’s newest film Bliss. I tried my hardest to not prejudge the movie, but having watched several other Amazon major productions, I had a feeling that this film would also fall under the broad category of leftist propaganda. It isn’t merely that the majority of the entertainment industry is far left in its political orientation,1 or that a lot of what they produce is greatly influenced by whether or not they offend and, therefore, do or don't make money in/from Communist China,2 or that Jeff Bezos has a very questionable relationship with China that seems to compromise America’s Department of Defense,3 but that they have also recently been creating explicitly anti-American and anti-Christian trash.
For instance, Amazon’s series The Boys, is not a criticism of narratively incoherent superhero tropes, as some would have you believe, but as Brian Goddawa correctly notes is actually “woke Hollywood anti-American Christophobic absurdity.” In it American nationalists are identified with Nazis, Christian leaders promoting the so-called purity culture are homosexual perverts, and parents – at least the parents of the so-called “superheroes” – are concerned only with benefiting themselves at the expense of their children. In another of one its putrid productions, Amazon’s series Hunters indulges in revenge fantasies against “Nazis.” While somewhat dependent on actual history, Hunters is little more than a thinly-veiled fictional symbolic call for an all or nothing commitment to anti-“White-supremacy” political and physical violence. The show has, rightly I think, been characterized as “B-movie Jewsploitation” excused by its implicit appeal to then current mischaracterizations of President Trump as a Nazi/Nazi collaborator.4
If I had time, I could also delve into some of their other heavy-handed anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Conservative productions, but I think you get the point. It was harder for me to suspend my judgment before watching Amazon’s film Bliss than it was for me to prejudge the movie as another putrid piece of leftist propaganda. But I tried my hardest. And about five or ten minutes into the film, I realized my folly.
Superficial Sci-Fi [Spoiler Alert]
On the surface, Bliss plays with the idea that what we think is the real world might actually be a computer simulation. The film begins with Owen Wilson at work, daydreaming and sketching pictures of an ideal house and romantic partner. Apparently, this kind of behavior had become common place for him, which led to his boss confronting him about it and firing him. Wilson’s boss’ speech angers him, so he hits his boss on the head. This blow kills the man, so Owen hides him behind a window curtain and quickly leaves. Distressed, he heads across the street to a bar, and this is where he crosses paths with Salma Hayek who, understanding Wilson’s shock, explains that the world she and he occupy is not real. Instead, the world he thought was real is only a computer simulation.
The two become romantically involved, with Hayek teaching Hayek how to manipulate the simulation via the ingestion of elements that alter their brain chemistry (i.e. drugs). As time progresses, Wilson’s biracial daughter (this is significant, as I’ll explain below) becomes more concerned about her father’s failure to show up for meetings with her (e.g. her graduation from college), as well as his relationship with Hayek and the trouble it brings (i.e. illegal activities like stealing and murder). This rather bleak story is juxtaposed with what Hayek supposedly reveals to Wilson about the world that created the technology behind the computer simulation. In the real world, according to Hayek, war and poverty and discrimination (i.e. racism, classism, and so on) have been eliminated. Hayek procures another brain altering compound/element, and she and Wilson are transferred to the supposed real world.
In that world, Wilson realizes that the ideal house is one that he literally created, and is reaffirmed in his belief that Hayek is the ideal woman from his drawings. Curious about how the world became so beautiful, peaceful, and devoid of injustice, etc, Wilson asks Hayek. She explains that the world became better by automation and universal basic income. Universal basic income provided the opportunity for everyone to succeed, and automation gave everyone free time to pursue matters that really concerned them (not mundane things like manual labor). Wilson enjoys this world, but he keeps thinking about his biracial daughter, trying to accept that she isn’t real but merely a simulation. This causes cognitive dissonance and eventually leads Wilson to blur the supposedly real world and the “simulation” together, an act that distresses Hayek.
Wilson’s biracial daughter is aware of his belief that the world is a simulation, viewing this as the result of his mental degradation and drug abuse. Concerned with his well-being, but unable to find anywhere, she ventures out into the city looking for him. In one scene, she is told that there is a protest occurring soon – a BLM protest – and she states that she will definitely be there to join the protesters. And here is where the real message of the film takes form.
How to Make the Future Blissful –
The Great Reset or Social Justice
Activism
Wilson’s daughter being biracial might seem to be the obvious attempt of Amazon to meet its diversity quota, but it’s much more than that. Wilson’s character is directly responsible for the problems his biracial daughter and son are facing. He has been cut off from interacting with his presumably black wife for his behavior. He can change things between himself and his family, however, by interacting with his empathetic, BLM supporting, injustice protesting biracial daughter. Fixing his relationship with her will bring resolution to their racially mixed conflict. On the other hand, however, fixing the world around him can be accomplished by the Great Reset. The film doesn’t explicitly call automation and universal income the Great Reset, but that is what is being alluded to, as Joseph Mercola explains –
Ultimately, [the Great Reset is] a technocratic agenda that seeks to integrate mankind into a technological surveillance apparatus overseen by powerful artificial intelligence. Ironically, while the real plan is to usher in a tech-driven dystopia free of democratic controls, they speak of this plan as a way to bring us back into harmony with Nature.5
The Great Reset, in other words, is the establishment of a global “technocracy,” which is
…an economic system of resource allocation that revolves around technology — in particular artificial intelligence, digital surveillance and Big Data collection — and the digitization of industry (which includes banking) and government, which in turn allows for the automation of social engineering and social rule, thereby doing away with the need for elected government leaders.6
Wilson is given the choice – he can choose to work things out with his biracial daughter and thereby fix his relationship with his ex-wife and son, or he can follow Hayek into the future, trusting that all of his problems will be solved by automation, the internet of things, and a fixed universal basic income.
There is no other option offered.
What Do You Choose?
Wilson chooses to leave Hayek’s world, enter rehab, and work on his relationship with his biracial daughter. The film ends, it seems, on a high note. Yet in this story it is Wilson who is the problem. He is an absent minded idealist, drug addict (?), failure of a father who can only fix things by either (a.) subjecting himself to the Great Reset or (b.) subject himself to correction overseen by his social justice activist daughter. These two options are not portrayed as being inherently problematic, though they are, in fact, very problematic. The viewer is being given a choice between two means of achieving heaven on earth, and given that in reality these two choices are inextricably linked to one another,7 the choice is ultimately of little to no consequence.
Both choices are opposed to Christianity.
Both choices are opposed to individualism.
Both choices are collectivist.
Both choices are communistic.
Bliss is an aesthetically and morally bad film for these reasons. It is not only plagued by bad acting, a poorly developed narrative arc, multiple plot holes, and two-dimensional characters. It is also a steaming pile of heavy handed propaganda aimed at reinforcing the false belief that we have only one option when it comes to dealing with various socio-economic problems, namely the leftist solution – communism/Marxism/collectivism.
1 Many have, in fact, openly expressed their support of Communism. See Hudson, Jerome, “Nine Liberal Hollywood Elites Who Normalized Communist Dictator Fidel Castro,” Breitbart, Nov 26, 2016, https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2016/11/26/9-liberal-hollywood-elites-normalized-communist-dictator-fidel-castro/.
2 See Jakielek, Jan, “Inside Communist China’s Takeover of Hollywood: Film Exec Chris Fenton,” The Epoch Times Online, July 9, 2020, https://www.theepochtimes.com/inside-communist-chinas-takeover-of-hollywood-film-exec-chris-fenton_3418527.html.
3 See Wallace, David, “How Jeff Bezos and Amazon Are Inviting China Into America’s DoD Computers,” TownHall, Jul 1, 2018, https://townhall.com/columnists/davidwallace/2018/07/01/how-jeff-bezos-and-amazon-are-inviting-china-into-americas-defense-department-computers-n2495433.
4 See Perez, Rodrigo, “‘Hunters’: Al Pacino Jewsploitation Series Takes A Superficial & Tarantino-Esque ‘Mod Squad’ Approach To Nazi Hunting [Review],” Feb 17, 2020, https://theplaylist.net/hunters-review-amazon-20200217/.
5 “What You Need to Know About 'the Great Reset',” Mercola, Oct 28, 2020, https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/10/28/the-great-reset.aspx.
6 ibid.
7 See Dreher, Rod, “The Great Reset & Social Justice,” The American Conservative, Nov 30, 2020, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/great-reset-social-justice-live-not-by-lies/.
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