IMITATIONS (OF LIFE): This Thursday, we stage our latest event!

MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2024

Our latest imitation: We've never known why Imitation of Life was called Imitation of Life.

On the most literal level, the well-regarded 1959 film carried that name for an obvious reason. It was a remake of a well-regarded 1934 film of the exact same name.

That film, in turn, had been an adaptation of Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel, Imitation of Life.  The evocative title—Imitation of Life—was passed on, down through the ages. 

On Thursday night, we within our failing nation will be staging, and will be consuming, our own most recent imitation of life. At present, the people who pretend to be journalists are pretending to discuss that upcoming imitation of life.

Why were the novel and the subsequent films called Imitation of Life? We still don't know, but the leading authority on the later film thumbnails it in this manner:

Imitation of Life (1959 film)

Imitation of Life (1959) is an American drama film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter and released by Universal International. It was Sirk's final Hollywood film and dealt with issues of race, class and gender.

[...]

In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected Imitation of Life (1959) for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." (The 1934 version of Imitation of Life had been added to the National Film Registry in 2005.)

[...]

Though it was not well-reviewed upon its original release and was viewed as inferior to the original 1934 film version–many critics derided the film as a "soap opera"–Imitation of Life was the sixth highest-grossing film of 1959, grossing $6.4 million...[One critic] wrote that, in contrast to the novel, this film and the previous film had received "far more critical attention." With a wider audience, the second film became "more famous" than the first.

In 1959, somewhat improbably, Imitation of Life "dealt with issues of race, class and gender." That may help explain why it received so much critical attention, some of it dismissive.

Having said all that, we're still not sure why the film, and the original novel, were called Imitation of Life. In certain ways, Hollywood may have attempted to fashion the 1959 film as a fairly standard type of imitation of discourse:

Imitation of Life (1959 film)

[...]

In the 1950s there was increased activism in the Civil Rights Movement, with milestones such as the Brown v. Board of Education US Supreme Court case, and the Montgomery bus boycott gaining national attention. In addition, more women had been working during and after World War II. At the same time, the writers acknowledged that racial discrimination and its inequities were still part of society.

They created a plot line in which [the Lana Turner character] becomes a Broadway star by her own talents, with Annie assisting by being paid to serve as a nanny for Lora's child and general household manager. Producer Ross Hunter also was cannily aware that these plot changes would enable Lana Turner to model an array of glamorous costumes and real jewels, something that would appeal to a female audience. 

Lana Turner's wardrobe for Imitation of Life cost over $1.078 million, making it one of the most expensive in cinema history to that time.

In a highly improbable addition to the plot, the Lana Turner character turns into a big Broadway star! Come see Miss Turner's stunning wardrobe and jewels, the producer may have been whispering into the public's ear.

Did that constitute an imitation of discourse—a distraction from the challenging heart of the film? Each citizen, whether Red or Blue, is going to have to decide.

But what we'll see this Thursday night will be a full-blown imitation—a well-disguised imitation of human intellectual life. The same can be said of the pseudo-discussions which are now being broadcast about Thursday night's imitation of a debate.

Thursday's event will feature two imitations of American political leadership. The current imitations of discourse are being conducted by a wide array of imitations of journalistic thought leaders, Red and Blue alike.

As we ingest this rolling imitation of a functioning democracy, we think of what Michael Moore said at the 2003 Oscars. On stage at that high-profile event, the gentleman offered this:

MOORE (3/23/03): I've invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to—they are here. They are here in solidarity with me because we like non-fiction.

We like non-fiction, and we live in fictitious times.

We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president.

We—We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.

Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or the fictitious [sic] of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush!

Employing a lovely turn of phrase, Moore spoke that night of "fictitions." Twenty-one years later, we're inclined to say that our culture has advanced to the point where we're all living inside a full-blown imitation of life.

(Back then, it was Moore who was alleging "fictitious election results!" Today, one of our imitation candidates insists on making that unsupported claim about our last election.)

In a brilliant joke from the dead-and-gone Soviet Union, a public employee of the Soviet state was said to make this wickedly sage observation:

We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.

Today, within our own imitation of life, it may work more like this:

They pretend to discuss an election and we pretend to listen. 

On the whole, the people cast in the role of journalists are on the air, every day and then all night, pretending that nothing essential has changed. In our view, the time has come to abandon that pretense. 

The time has come to drop that pose. Also, we'd have to say this:

It's no longer clear that there's any known way "back out of all this now too much for us."

This afternoon: Out of nowhere—where you'd least expect it!—a brilliant presentation