Johnny Cash and Lost America

Just saw the Johnny Cash biopic.

It reminds me how much more divided America has become even since my childhood in the '70's. Growing up, I listened to Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, but also Led Zeppelin and the Who, and also Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. No one ever suggested it was odd to combine an interest in hard rock, country, and folk. And then of course there was funk, soul and disco and all of my parents' music: Steve Lawrence and Edie Gormet, Jacques Brel, Frank Sinatra.

In the 1960's, there were still some radio stations that played ALL of those genres -- without even acknowledging them as separate genres. Once upon a time (as the movie reminds us), Johnny Cash toured with Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Apparently, rural America and urban America, North and South weren't really that far apart from one another -- at least in terms of listening tastes.

Now we are all carved up into separate listening segments. My demographic would never get on the same section of bandwidth with your demographic.

A shame.

It's a sign of the times that the film was too timid, too milky mouthed Hollywood-liberalish to deal with the overwhelming importantance of religious faith in Johnny Cash's life. There are references to the older brother's religiosity, but of course he dies, and the only Christians in the film are portrayed as narrow-minded bigots. The closest Johnny gets to religion is a brief glimpse of him being dragged into Church by June Carter. Did these hosers even listen to the man's music?

At the same time - and for similar reasons - the film failed to portray Johnny Cash's unique importance as a bard of the little man. Since the focus was mostly on his drug addiction and his status as a pop idol, you would never guess that he had written ballad after ballad about the plight of poor workers, that he criticized the Vietnam War, and advocated for prison reform (ok, they did show him saying nice things to Fulsom Prison inmates, but that hardly gets at his importannce.)

Seems like Hollywood missed an opportunity to remind us of a time when being religious, being country, and being -- at least by our standards -- "LIBERAL" was not uncommon.