My friend David used to say as a joke: 'we're going to put on the best darn school play ever!' It was an ironic expression of the extreme saccharine positivity of a certain species of American movie. After all the (most likely farcical) challenges and knock-downs they'd faced, the characters were going to respond in the only way they knew how, by embodying the best traditions of American small-town life, come together as a community, rehearse their plump mono-saturated fat butts off (or if not 'off' exactly then at least 'around') and put on the best darn school play ever!
I was reminded recently of the 1983 film Testament (featuring Kevin Costner naturally) which is about a small American town after a nuclear war.
The things is: at the time the bombs fall, there is actually a school play in rehearsal. As civilisation unravels, the residents decide to keep going with it and actually try to put on the best darn school play ever to keep the community going and hopeful.
In reality, of course, they'd be roaring across desert wastelands in a souped-up Falcon coupe running down petrol-thieving mohawk-sporting neo-primitives. But maybe that's just me.
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2 comments:
Bags not being the little kid who has to climb out on to the bonnet of the truck to retrieve the last shotgun shell.
And you would have got away with it too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids.
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