When
Dante first wrote Inferno he openly criticized his enemies as well as some
church figures. He places many of his critics in hell as well as many other
political figures. Obviously as time went on some of the references to the
political figures were not as apparent to everybody. Regardless it is important
to note just how important politics is in the inferno. Many of the people
punished were Dante's enemies and while he punished his critics in the
church he clearly had a political agenda throughout Inferno. This agenda may
not have been clear at first simply because some of the references are to
people from Dante’s time who we may not have known without looking up. One
clear example is the people condemned to only be able to see the future and not
the present. This punishment appears in both the film and the book and even
references political parties.
While
political punishment is clear in the book in the movie it really stands out.
Many prominent political figures of the 20th and 21st
centuries are featured in hell. The filmmaker makes a political statement much
like Dante did with the first one, criticizing contemporaries. He has very
similar people in hell for behaviors much like the original however he chooses
to put people who are more relevant to our time. This really helps us
understand the punishments and also the actions that would lead to people
getting punished in hell.
Most
notably he criticizes Washington, while he does mention several other leaders
and dictators of other countries he is most open and the criticism is most
apparent of the leadership in Washington. He even goes as far as putting a
person in hell that is still alive; similar to what Dante did in the original.
This is an interesting concept, especially to punish a political leader in this
way. Dick Cheney, while still alive has his soul stuck in hell while a demon
controls his body. He also chooses to blame groups of people in politics,
specifically the lobbyists. Many people blame them for the corruption in
Washington and their area of hell looks much like Capitol Hill. Why the
filmmaker chose to put them in that particular scenario is interesting in and
of itself but Dante chooses to punish other politicians in various other ways
including presidents Nixon and Kennedy who both did various scandalous things
in office.
All in
all, politics play a key role in the various representations of Inferno. While
Dante attacks his enemies, the filmmaker chooses to simply voice his opinions
through the film. Furthermore, they both attack different groups while they
have similar types of people in hell. I believe the film, a more contemporary
version of the Inferno, helps us understand Dante’s political message.
Politics in both versions of the Inferno are prevalent, and this post causes me to think about the concept of conflict between Dante’s version and the filmmaker’s version of the Inferno is interesting. Obviously, we more readily recognize Dick Cheney than Fra Alberigo, who suffers the same fate as Cheney in the poem Inferno. Consequently, we are more apt to argue that certain people in the film’s inferno do not deserve to be there. For example, Dick Cheney and John F. Kennedy have undoubtedly participated in some morally-questionable activities. However, there is likely a large amount of people willing to argue that one, or both, of these men have been some of the greatest leaders our nation has ever seen. On the other hand, as an audience, we more readily accept the fates of those in Dante’s Inferno not only because we know less about the references, but also because what we do know about the references may have been shaped by Dante’s poem. In the fourteenth century, some of Dante’s placements could have been just as controversial as some of the filmmaker’s placements of modern figures. Character is shaped in three ways: what we say, what we do, and what other people say about us. This makes it plausible that Dante’s Inferno, though not terribly popular at the time of its “release,” has proceeded to affect contemporary readers’ perceptions of those he depicts in his poem.
ReplyDeleteYou accurately point out that politics in the inferno is a major theme both in the poem and in the movie. Both use their medium not necessarily to promote the writes ideology, but moreover to dismiss the ideology that they oppose. In the poem, Dante sends a disproportional amount of his political enemy’s to hell. Likewise, in the film the writes show a disproportional amount of conservatives to Hell. Both the poem and the movie present their own political agenda.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the movie also sets aside a large portion of the film to criticize people in the political spectrum, but whose political beliefs are not mentioned. More than anyone, the movie criticizes lobbyists. It divulges from its regular pattern of criticizing the right to criticize those who influence the right as well as the left. Perhaps the movie devotes so much time to lobbyist because they transcend the differences of party lines. The movie implies that lobbyist do not care who wins office, but instead will put heir money on “both horses” to ensure that they can influence whoever gets into office. This ideology of attempting to influence both parties is especially damnable because the lobbyist do not even have a farce of acting in the best interest of the nation, but instead blatantly work to fulfill their own agenda.
A parallel can be seen between the high criticism of lobbyist in the film and the high criticism of corrupted catholic officials in the poem. This parallel is drawn because the lobby’s power over elected officials today is comparable to the power of catholic officials over municipal officials in the 13th century.