Monday, December 29, 2008

Blindsight

documentary

A feelgood film in the Big Game genre. 6 blind Tibetans are led, carefully, to the Advance Base Camp on Everest and back. 

They are ostracized by their communities because the barbaric concept of karma tells their fellows that they are blind because of misdeeds they must have committed in a "former life." So they probably deserve it. 

Who makes this stuff up? This culture is one of the cruelest on the planet (see Michael Parenti...Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth) but somehow has captured the warm huggies of the rich Hollywood elite and is looked upon here with benign paternalism.

It's impossible not to feel sympathy for these poor young people. Doubly handicapped, it's hard to see a good future for them. Their courage here was moving and inspirational. But how do you tell teenagers that their only hope for a decent life is to leave their homes and families, make their way to the West and try to start a new life? 

Life isn't fair.

5

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