Matt Gurney: How Hollywood screwed with our civic expectations
In real life, in any emergency, we’d go to war with the government we have, not the one we wish we had.
By: Matt Gurney
I try to avoid complaining about pop culture rotting brains. Pop culture is eternal, it’s never been particularly edifying or highbrow, and that’s okay. We’re all owed our trivial diversions. I long ago promised myself that middle age would not transform me into the kind of sourpuss that would have hated Elvis because of how he moved his hips.
But I actually think there is one way that Hollywood — and probably mass entertainment writ large — has kind of warped our society. It’s not that it has promoted degeneracy or loose morals or shameless enjoyment of vice. It’s more insidious. And probably more dangerous.
I think Hollywood has tricked us into thinking that, in an emergency, our governments will prove to be a lot more competent than they will be. And usually are.
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’ve mentioned it to my Line colleagues before, and I call it my Hollywood Thesis. As I see it, the broader public has fairly accurate expectations about the level of service they can expect from their government. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but it’s mostly realistic. We basically know what we’re getting into when we, for example, drag the trash bin to the curb, or turn on a tap in the morning, or go to an emergency room because you need to get stitched up after a minor mishap.
But I’ve observed over the years an interesting exception. When the public is confronted with any kind of new or unexpected threat, people, for some reason, believe their government will have some secret ability or unexpected expertise in dealing with it. Maybe it’s a quirky scientist working in the bowels of some ministry or department. Maybe it’s an elite team of experts. Or some hidden base loaded with commandos and advanced weaponry.
Wrong. And I’ve been thinking about this. Why do we assume the same government that is, for instance, struggling to fill potholes in my city, or hire enough nurses in my province, or fix a federal payroll system, is going to be more competent when presented with something totally out of the blue? This flies in the face of all of our lived experiences with government. It’s a generous assumption of state capacity that is, to put it charitably, unearned.
So why? What explains this?
It’s Hollywood. It has to be.
Lots of smart, competent people have government jobs. One of the great joys of my career has been the opportunity to speak with many. There are shining lights of unusual competency in every department, and at every order of government, really — my colleague Jen Gerson recently told our podcast listeners about how one of these hidden gems helped her cut through a confusing and dysfunctional process so she could get a permit. And I will never get tired of saying good things about the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces — true miracle workers we do not support enough.
But there aren’t hidden capabilities. There aren’t secret teams. The same people trying to prevent Canada Post from going on strike will be the same people handling the next pandemic — or who would be responsible for opening a dialogue if aliens decided to land their mothership in the middle of a Saskatchewan farm.
It would be Mark Carney. And Michael Sabia. And probably Mélanie Joly at some point. And all the civil servants under their employ. And probably a whole heap of consultants, too.
To me the pop-cultural apex of this kind of story about hidden government expertise is Independence Day, released back in 1996. When the aliens attack Earth and quickly overwhelm our militaries with advanced weaponry, the president is taken to Area 51 in Nevada. There, he discovers that the United States has long been in possession of alien technology it recovered from a crashed UFO. That technology, plus a few quirky geniuses, set up mankind’s eventual victory.
You know what? I have no doubt that the United States military — and a bunch of other militaries around the world — have capabilities we’re not privy to. Obviously, there are going to be classified programs and weapons and teams of personnel entrusted with their development and care. I wouldn’t even be that shocked if the odd crashed alien ship is being picked apart in some government warehouse somewhere.
But that was a movie. In real life, in any emergency, we’d go to war with the government we have, not the one we wish we had.
This idea has been rattling around in my head since the pandemic. I remember speaking with many friends and family who were confident that there were large reserves of personnel, supplies, and facilities somewhere that would’ve allowed us to respond to the emergency, because they trusted that their government would be up to the challenge. Why this expectation? Well, basically because they trusted the government. The state was simply presumed to have the capabilities needed to match the faith the public had in it.
Later on, when the convoy had settled in in Ottawa, I remember speaking with a very smart and well-informed friend of mine who agreed that things had gotten out of hand, but it would be all over once the Ottawa police whipped up a few thousand officers and dispersed the crowd. I remember being surprised by that. The Ottawa police, in its entirety, account for only about 1,500 officers. But my friend just assumed that, somewhere, the government would simply have what we needed, sitting around, ready to be activated. This, as readers will recall, was not the case — it took weeks to muster up the force that was used, and we had to strip most other forces largely bare to do it.
Line readers know I like to prattle on about expectations. And I think this is an important one. It’s vital that we have realistic expectations, and set our demands for competency accordingly. Because the government you have today — the mayor, the premier, the cabinet, the local officials and first responders, and the bureaucracy writ large — that’s it, guys. That’s our first, last and only line of defence.
Most of the time, that’ll be fine. The worst you’ll endure is some aggravation. Some of the time, it’ll be good — there definitely have been examples of government success in recent years, the pandemic-era vaccine rollout being an obvious example.
But a lot of the time, maybe most of it, when life throws us a curveball and the shit is hitting the fan, we’re going to look at those very same people — the people who oversee our cities, provinces, and our country — and we’re going to realize at the same moment they do, with equal levels of shock and horror, that they’re it. They’re the adults. They’re the crack team.
A government that doesn’t get the little things right every day is not going to get the big things right when confronted with unexpected — and hopefully rare — emergencies. And the only reason any of us ever dare to believe otherwise is because we’ve all been shaped too much by the movies we watch, and not enough by the lived experiences we actually have amassed with our governments as we just try to get through another day.
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Was Zelensky and his government generally considered competent before the invasion? I genuinely don't know, I only ask because sometimes people really can surprise you under pressure. In both directions I guess, and "they might rise to the occasion" is not a good strategy. But it also seems hard to know who actually will be good under pressure. Who would have guessed Zelensky was going to stay and put himself at such risk? Would Carney do that? He's a serious guy with a serious background, but that might mean nothing. Serious people can crack under pressure and comedians can become heros.
The Covid years should have taught us that, given governments' actual ability to do something constructive and net beneficial (especially Canada's governments), it is very often the case that, as with Covid, "do nothing" is the right response - because it will give a better outcome than doing "something" in practice.
Every government action should be preceded by "what makes us think that this particular action is highly likely to be better than inaction, when viewed in hindsight."