Real-life villains abound as LA burns, but sadly, there’s no Hollywood hero to save the day

Even before the firestorms consuming major parts of Los Angeles have been tamped down, let alone extinguished, the partisan infighting, backbiting, name-calling and conspiracy theories are already in full, awful bloom.

By contrast, in dealing with the actual disaster, thousands of firefighters and other first responders from Los Angeles, the rest of California, other states, as well as Canada and Mexico continue battling the blazes without surcease — so far, with only partial success.

There is, of course, a tragic irony about the scenes we are witnessing of Los Angeles’ agonies, courtesy of the internet and all-news television channels. That irony is that Los Angeles, and Hollywood as the world’s dream factory, has been the global capital for films about Armageddons and massive natural disasters — from tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, alien attacks, massive fires and catastrophic collapses of dams and skyscrapers to nuclear disasters.

The only thing missing, so far, at least, has been a Godzilla who has risen out of the Pacific Ocean to march through the city, destroying highways and blasting whole neighbourhoods. (Just by the way, Godzilla, or, more authentically, Gojira — the gorilla whale — was a creation of Japan’s Toho Studios, rather than Hollywood, and its favoured site for devastation was always Tokyo. That city, amazingly, was always rebuilt in time for the next film.)

For many observers, what is now happening to Los Angeles is a variation of something we have already witnessed a thousand times — right down to those heartrending vignettes of people who have lost their homes, livelihoods and families. Life imitates art, even as art imitates life.

One crucial difference, however, is that even the worst, most horrendous disaster flick always has a hero in it — somebody who survives and steps forward to save the day in the face of the chaos, confusion, destruction and death, even if they have to give up their life to save humanity.

Sometimes it is a scientist with the genius of a seemingly crackpot theory; occasionally it is an unexpected military hero who figures out how to save the multitudes with ad hoc bits of equipment; and now and again it is a Mr or Ms Everyman/woman who steps forward from the crowd, finding within their soul the unexpected resources of leadership needed.

Often, though, the villains in such films are politicians who delay or dicker over what is happening or going to happen — or not going to happen. Sometimes, such characters even display awesome cowardice or duplicity of a “Chacun pour soi et Dieu pour tous” (Every man for himself, and God for us all) variety, until a true hero steps up to save the day and bring the action to a successful conclusion.

Unfortunately for Los Angeles, so far, no character in the mould of Bruce Willis or Dwayne Johnson has stepped forward, let alone one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s roster of heroes. He will not be back for this newest challenge.

An unseemly spectacle

Instead of seeing politicians working together to figure out what must be done to forestall such disasters in future, or even to coordinate city, state and national resources more effectively in the midst of the fires, what we have been witnessing is an unseemly spectacle of finger-pointing.

They have argued about decisions on budgets, the balance between saving endangered species versus feeding more water into the city’s water reticulation systems and other choices which set the foundation for the current disaster.

There has even been the madness of accusations from the president-elect that the city’s government failed to rake up the innumerable leaves shed all across LA’s hillsides, which became fuel for explosive wildfires.

Yes, it is true that at the level of actual government institutions such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state and local equivalents, the various fire departments and public safety agencies have all sprung into action (along with a myriad of NGOs and ad hoc volunteer groups).

The career officers and their staff in those bodies have worked 24/7 to bring resources to bear on the fires and those affected by them. This stands in real contrast to how disasters were mishandled elsewhere, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana two decades ago, or, closer to home, the rioting and looting in 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

But, sadly, as far as Los Angeles’ current agonies go, it is the US’s top politicians such as Donald Trump (most gravely and especially), Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, among others, who have been acting out in an imitation of children squabbling over who broke that special antique plate their parents had loved so much.

Conspiratorial textures

Of course, there are now also malicious folks who are fabricating rumours and images with distinctly conspiratorial textures and then posting them on social media where they are seen by many and repeated yet further.

What is amazing is that the actual circumstances are bad enough. For example, the fires have indeed swept through and devastated special and historic districts such as the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighbourhoods. Other neighbourhoods may now be threatened as well, with the Santa Ana winds revving up yet again.

Given the enormity of the ongoing crisis and the complications of funding urgent, immediate and longer-term needs and adjudicating a multitude of insurance claims, the right image, now, should have been to demonstrate that the leaders are working in sync and demonstrating that for print, broadcast and online media at home and abroad.

Instead, the predominant political texture is one of politicians using human misery as a football, rather than putting aside political divisions and addressing the challenges like real public servants.

But sadly, that is not the political universe of today’s United States. Partisan politics infects practically everything, regardless of the human immiseration. The right tone must begin at the top, but with the near-absence of outgoing President Joe Biden’s voice and the destructiveness of the incoming president’s utterances, that kind of unanimity will not be heard any time soon.

In the final scene of one of Hollywood’s greatest disaster films, San Francisco, following the giant earthquake and fire that struck that city, Jeanette MacDonald, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy link arms, put aside their deep personal divisions and lead their city’s battered citizens onward with the cry, “We’ll build a new San Francisco!”

Listen to the kind of inspiration Hollywood could deliver back in 1936 (in the middle of the Great Depression) in one of the great anthems to a city. Los Angeles will need something similar for its tribulations.

Unfortunately, given the politics of the time, it may not get it. DM