By Chris Tucker, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX –
And now, in the category of Most Intriguing Idea From the Very Few Oscar-Nominated Movies That I've Seen, the winner is...
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," the Jim Carrey-Kate Winslet vehicle that explores this tantalizing question: what if we could selectively get rid of certain memories?
In the movie, Carrey's quirky girlfriend has him erased from her memory, thanks to a process invented by a company called Lacuna. Carrey then decides he'll "get even" by destroying all memories of her - every kiss, dinner, argument, apology, the whole ball of ecstasy and angst.
After I saw "Eternal Sunshine,' I began to wonder what, if anything, I would banish from my own memory. My first impulse was to erase memories of overwhelming sadness, tragedies that lie beyond anyone's power to control or comprehend: the Holocaust, September 11th, the terrible tsunamis that struck in December.
But deliberately forgetting such events, I finally decided, would be an act of cowardice, and would dishonor the victims of those disasters. Sometimes it's our duty to remember, as we should on Memorial Day. If we all bear a little bit of history's burden, perhaps the load will be lighter for everyone.
So I decided I would leave the big things intact - and use the mind-wiping power on those irritations, hypocrisies, and absurdities that, while apparently trivial, take up valuable space on the mental hard drive for no good reason.
Take prices, for example. If you've been a working adult for a couple of decades, you probably find yourself complaining about how much certain things cost. Not just gasoline. Take that venti super-mocha, extra-hot, decaf no foam latte, for example. You remember when you could get a whole meal for that price. And it must be even worse for the World War II generation: they can remember when the same money would get you a nice shirt or a pair of shoes.
Speaking of cash, how about athletes' salaries? What good does it do to remember that great stars like Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays were paid a fraction of the dough hauled down by today's temperamental, .220-hitting shortstop for a last-place team? Tell the eraser guys to snip those synapses and let's move on.
Oh, and what about politics? Now there's a field where deliberate amnesia would be a godsend. After you've watched four or five presidential elections, you need a good memory wipe in order to recapture the naive hope that this time around, it's really going to be different.
Hey! Have you heard? They're gonna cut government big-spending! They're gonna clean up the environment! The youth vote will change everything! Of course, they've been saying all that since at least 1972.
And while I'm filling my spotless mind with sunshine, adios to all memories of shocking trials, those months of saturation coverage of bizarre people and their messy lives. Scott Peterson? Who's he? Michael Jackson? Well, I'd like to remember the "Thriller" video, but everything else has to go.
Of course, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is just a movie, but it's something to think about. If selective amnesia ever becomes possible, we'll all have to decide which parts of the human drama to leave on the cutting-room floor.
Chris Tucker is a Dallas writer who covers technology for Southwest Spirit magazine. If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.