Herbert's Hippopotamus.
Ever since the '90s began, right-wingers like George Will and Charles Krauthammer have lined up with leftier social critics like Camille Paglia and Elinor Burkett to lambaste the so-called "PC thought police" for their rabid vigilance against insensitive language, legislation, and behavior. Problem is, the political correctness of the right wing is just as prevalent and probably more dangerous because it has gone largely unrecognized. Documentary filmmaker Paul Alexander Juutiainen dips back to the California student protests of the'60s to uncover a once-infamous radical leader whose reputation, then and now, suffered a PC campaign of distortion spearheaded by conservatives as various as the Pope, then-California governor Ronald Reagan, Navy leaders, and the American Legion. Herbert's Hippopotamus is Juutiainen's engrossing, insightful, and finely detailed attempt at character reparation, both for Herbert Marcuse and the radical student movement that has been' characterized as monolithic anarchy by revisionist conservative pundits. To be sure, the political philosophies espoused by University of California at San Diego professor Marcuse threatened many people in power - he had a dread of the state's arbitrary exercise of force, the dehumanizing effects of materialism, and the tyranny of the majority. These concerns were based on his memories of a Nazi Germany he fled in the 1930s. The 7O year-old European expatriate made international headlines for his late '60s participation in American and European student demonstrations, labor strikes, and Vietnam War protests. His most famous disciple and staunchest supporter was a former student named Angela Davis, who would make the cover of Newsweek as a black radical and later be acquitted on federal charges of kidnapping and murder.
The company Marcuse kept infuriated his powerful enemies more than anything; the lies they printed and spoke about him were a premeditated campaign designed to establish guilt by association. He was frequently labeled a Communist by reporters and detractors when in fact he never joined the Community Party, publicly disagreed with Angela Davis' decision to do so, and railed against Stalin's brutality. He was often characterized as an advocate of violence, when one TV interview after another made clear he only supported it in self-defense. One Legionnaire even compared him to a Nazi, absurd in light of his terrifying escape from a democratically elected Hitler. Herbert's Hippopotamus features a long cast of '60s survivors who give fiercely partisan - though often humorous - defense of their youthful political activity. They are united in their affection of Herbert Marcuse, as much for his self-deprecating humor as his idealism. (One former student relates how Marcuse declined an interview request from Playboy, which included a promise of hefty payment; Marcuse called the magazine and said he would accept the offer only if he was also photographed naked as that month's' centerfold. Playboy didn't bite). In case you're wondering, the title Herbert's Hippopotamus alludes to the subject's favorite animal, whose image he displayed, in dozens of figurines in his office. He believed the clumsy gait and homely face of the hippopotamus, an indispensable mammalian link between land and water in its own ecosystem, belied its importance as a species, and that comic contradiction inspired him. Herbert's Hippopotamus will lead you back through the contradiction and subtleties of liberal student activism during the '60s. (JF)
Herbert's Hippopotamus. January 11, 5:45 p.m., Video Box,
