…Whatever you want to say about this week’s Topics, etc., you can’t say that it doesn’t get into some, you know, stuff. At The Daily Notebook. Argue with me there or here.
Panahi, Polanski, the Taliban, Zizek...
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I don’t believe that either “he’s a symbol” or “he makes movies” really get at the heart of why Panahi should be free, so I don’t think Rizov, who I respect, has much of a horn to toot here, his own self.
Further, you don’t have to hate PIRATES to not sign a petition to free Polanski, either.
And as you know, Bill, I happen to like “Pirates,” and think that the Polanski petitions were bad ideas badly executed.
I’ve just gotten used to reflexively pointing out those two things…
No argument from me, as far as the main thrust of your arguments go, Glenn. I think it’s an unfortunate development in ethical discourse that, as you say, one is required to morally correct for the right reasons. It’s a lot of rot, and it needlessly complicates various arguments. On the other hand, there is some kind of once-removed hypocrisy in a call for Pahani’s release coming from a rabid rightie, but I don’t read Simpson at all, and don’t have an understanding on where he stands overall on Iran – if he’s cut from the same cloth as those who would have us rain down hellfire on the Iranians, which is a position we are getting dangerously close to as a de facto strategy. “Release Panahi, and when all else fails w/r/t Iran, bomb the hell out of them!” If that happens, and the chances are scarily good that it will, people like Panahi will not be spared, although he and others would probably be able to flee to Europe before Tehran turned into Baghdad.
I agree that Sietz’s essay/review has a lame title (which seems an ill-conceived jest more than anything), and maybe an irresponsible one, but I find most of the content to be pretty much on the money, inasmuch as it considers S&TC2 to be emblematic of various spiritual ailments that currently afflict this culture, or pseudo-culture, or whatever it is. But of course, that’s not why “they” hate us. It maybe adds fuel to the fire, but it can’t significantly augment any fanatic’s case against America. The real problem isn’t what this movie says to Arabs, or Muslims, peaceful or violent, (many of whom probably won’t watch it) but what it says to Americans.
Glenn, I remember liking PIRATES too, if for no other reason than that Walter Matthau is in it, but I have my own reflexive responses about things. As, as you say, you know.
I feel obliged to point out that near as I can tell, Simpson’s first post on Panahi, at least at BH, came almost two weeks after Vadim first wrote about the matter. I know, because Vadim’s piece got me fired up enough to link to it at my own place, and to suggest that people donate to an Iranian human-rights committee working for his release. Which I did, and my exit links and a couple of emails tell me others did as well. So much for the silence of liberal bloggers and those who read them.
Chest-beating over “who came first” is probably pointless anyway, but I would also argue that Simpson’s using the Panahi arrest to once again drive the Polanski case into the ground tends to bear out Vadim’s larger point about symbols versus principled concern. As does even the merest glance at BH’s comments section on any given day.
@ Siren, agreed that the “who came first” argument is counterproductive in most if not all respects, but I think it’s worth noting that for all his faults Simpson is not an arriviste as far as this issue is concerned. Whereas I have every conviction, for instance, that John Nolte believes you ought not be permitted to read “Lolita” anywhere, let alone in Tehran.
And that’s not to say that SImpson’s tone doesn’t leave him gapingly open to accusations that he really cares more about excoriating Hollywood “liberals” than the actual issue at hand.
They should remake LOLITA with me and Taylor Momsen.
Or Dakota Fanning. Or both.
BAIT POWER
Oh, heavens…
Bill, let us not disdain Lex’s clumsy but no doubt well-meaning attempts to, erm, elevate the discourse.
Full disclosure: I had to Google Taylor Momsen. What’s with all these “Gossip Girl” broads and their inability to have anything resembling normal names? Blake Lively, Leighton Meester…The guys don’t fare much better. Penn Badgely deserves the death penalty JUST FOR BEING NAMED Penn Badgely!
I wasn’t expressing disdain so much as alarm.
But really…Penn Badgely? That’s like a Saul Bellow/Martin Amis character. Parents can’t do anything about last names, but they should be mindful of how the first names flow into those last names. “Leighton Meester”, for instance, is a fucking nightmare of a name.
Alarm is right. I urge you to halt this development in its tracks.
Also, what’s the picture from? Does Zizek have a cameo in Birdemic 2?
Jeff, the still is from “The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema,” which I haven’t looked at yet, a film directed by Sophie Fiennes in which the irrepressible part-time film theorist Zizek—who I gather is rather disliked by full-time film-theorists—expounds on various cinematic works whilst placed, via the miracle of green-screen technology, in something like the very scene he’s talking about. Here, of course, it’s “The Birds” that’s under examination.
As far as halting a development in its tracks, I’ll try. But I’m getting on a bus in 35 minutes and was in fact hoping to grab some internet downtime over the weekend. Hope all of you are able to do something like the same!
Well, Leighton Meester gets a pass from me for being on “Veronica Mars,” but that’s neither here nor there.
What I’m confused about is this – what the hell does Polanski have to do with Panahi? And sorry, but I can’t join in the like for PIRATES (although the idea of casting Matthau in that kind of movie should automatically qualify it for “Ideas So Crazy They Should Work,” in this case, it doesn’t work).
I’ve never seen his films, but I think Panahi should be free.
I’m a fan of almost all his films and I think Polanski should be in jail.
I feel like such a terrible person.
Please like me, Glenn. I NEED your approval.
I’ve never seen his films, but I think Panahi should be free.
I’m a fan of almost all his films and I think Polanski should be in jail.
I feel like such a terrible person.
Please like me, Glenn. I NEED your approval.
I NEED your approval so bad I posted twice. That was no accident.
Well, if you didn’t need his approval, you wouldn’t even be reading this blog, would you?
Congratulations! If you had actually read Glenn’s posting, you’d see that the two of you are actually basically in agreement on the subject.
@Dan Coyle – That doesn’t actually make sense. Do you only read blogs written by people whose approval you crave?
Re Nolte:
“He used…sarcasm…”
Yeah, Jeff, I must’ve misread… Especially the part about us being bad and opportunistic coming from, of all people, Glenn Kenny, the man who cornered the Pseudo-Intellectual Bitter Market. Oh, and the stuff about my wanting to ban LOLITA. Don’t forget that. But thanks for clarifying, I’m swooning now that you’ve helped me to see the light.
Just to clarify… No matter how much you all snit, we evil righties will always find it troubling that Hollywood (and its defenders) put up much more of a stink over a fugitive child rapist going to jail than an innocent Iranian filmmaker. And if our pointing that out gives you all some odd avenue to attack us with… That’s okay. Secret: Because we’ve figured out that you’re going to attack us regardless.
And I LOVE this, Glenn: “His essential point being that the right-wing proselytizers for the release of Jafar Panahi don’t care a whit about the man’s actual work.”
Glenn…what moral clarity! But help me out here:
Are we terrible right-wingers because we don’t like his work?
Are we terrible right-wingers because we don’t like his work and still want him freed?
But… If we don’t like his work and still want him freed, doesn’t that say something good about us?
Oh, wait, I forgot about the Leftist way: You only support people wrongly imprisoned…whose…work…you…like.
And for the record, I’ve never seen Panahi’s work and wouldn’t care if he was a shoe salesman. I would still think his being imprisoned was wrong even…if he didn’t make movies!
I know, how immoral, how provincial, how non-elitist, how non-intellectual, how so very Sarah Palin of me.
Now if you’ll excuse I’m going to check LOLITA out of the library and burn it.
“Nolte’s defense of the film “Kick Ass” and its Hit Girl character is not just objectively stupid, it’s so objectively stupid it could make you go blind.”
Now, Glenn, seriously; do you think that’s going to DIScourage or ENcourage me? Just remove yourself from the equation and look honestly at the situation.
I should come ’round here more often. Nothing builds up my self-esteem more than irrational rage from all the right people.
Hey, Nolte, leave me out of that generalization! I’m an evil moderate Rightie!
Taylor Momsen is hotter than August balls, and her band PRETTY RECKLESS is incredible. All should check it out.
Leighton Meester also RULES ALL. How come internet movie guys never allow themselves to be LECHEROUS? Christ, you guys go to premieres and festivals. If they let me loose at one of those and I could meet Leighton Meester, I’d be punching the clown for a week.
Also KNIFE IN THE WATER is the best movie I’ve seen ages… Watched it for the first time last month on Netflix. So damn good.
I never go to screenings or festivals – because who would have me? – and I’m plenty lecherous, thank you very much.
What does Polanski have to do with Panahi? The latter is obviously suffering from government oppression and the former is only answering to an old warrant, for which he will likely not serve any additional time? Or are the injustices perpetrated in Tehran being used to take a swipe at some faceless mass of “liberal” Hollywood? I’m sure if a lot of people in Hollywood had worked with Panahi, as they have worked with Polanski, they would have signed a petition, because people in Hollywood are selfish, think about only their friends and themselves, and likely don’t pay much attention to the news. But it’s still kind of tasteless to settle personal scores by linking the two situations. And start with Crimson Gold, Mr. Nolte. You won’t be disappointed.
Oh, look, Joel Gordon joins the HuhWhuhPlayDumb crowd…
“What does Panahi have to do with Polanski?”
The piece was also ABOUT Hollywood – the piece was also ABOUT a Hollywood that makes a child rapist a cause célèbre while having to be shamed into speaking up for an innocent filmmaker.
Hey, next week we’ll really make your lefty heads explode. Early look at the headline:
INDUSTRY THAT LOBBIES FOR RELEASE OF FUGITIVE CHILD SODOMIZER IGNORES THEO VAN GOGH
Here, let me get the jump on your coming response:
“OHMIGAWD, what does Van Gogh have to do with Polanski!?!?! Scumbag rightwingers are sticking up for Van Gogh and they don’t even like his work!!”
Just cut and paste the outrage. My gift to you.
Any attack on Polanski sure stirs you guys. Don’t think we don’t appreciate the encouragement.
Dude, I really have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sure there are a lot of people like me who think that Polanski should be in jail, in L.A., and Panahi should not be in jail, in Tehran. I was just trying to understand what the two cases have to do with each other. But you’re obviously just trying to bait people, and then get off on your outrage. I think I’m done here. Still, I recommend Crimson Gold.
“The piece was also ABOUT Hollywood – the piece was also ABOUT a Hollywood that makes a child rapist a cause célèbre while having to be shamed into speaking up for an innocent filmmaker.
”
And therein lies the crux, the sad moment wherein John Nolte’s own need to be the big bad contrarian, his foolishness and his lack of awareness catches his own tail.
Zizek has become a fool himself. He recycles his own books into an endless stream of publications, he misreads writers all over town (his idea of what Deleuze is doing is laughably bad in its misreadings) and the funny thing is that while John Nolte is doing the same horrible misreadings here, projecting his idea of what his interlocuter is saying rather than paying attention to what he is actually saying, reading with the proper attention and care the texts deserve, it is that very misreader Zizek whose earlier work, before his lazyness sent him in a downward spiral, could teach John Nolte some very fundamental lessons about ideology, about how it works and how it shapes our discourse that would be quite good for him to read. He is enacting too many of the teaching examples right now in this here comments section. Project all the pronouncements of the big bad A all you want…
“I never go to screenings or festivals – because who would have me?” bill, this is tongue-in-cheek, yes? You don’t avoid festivals as a principle…?
Also, to Lex: “How come internet movie guys never allow themselves to be LECHEROUS?” Hmmmm…never? Never ever?
I have not gotten the impression that lefties are more interested in freeing Polanski than Panahi. But maybe I’m not looking hard enough. Polanski’s higher profile could be a contribution to this misimpression.
So by Nolte’s rationale if, say, John Milius was wrongfully imprisoned somewhere, lefties would be cool with that? I would at least support a Red Dawn-style teenage militia to go break him free.
“So by Nolte’s rationale if, say, John Milius was wrongfully imprisoned somewhere, lefties would be cool with that?”
That’s not my rationale, that’s Kenny’s rationale. He’s the one who wrote in his defense of Rizov:
“His essential point being that the right-wing proselytizers for the release of Jafar Panahi don’t care a whit about the man’s actual work[.]”
In other words, according to your host, one must care a whit about one’s work or one has no credibility when one opposes one’s wrongful imprisonment. One.
Revealing but not surprising.
Oh yeah, I forgot the other arrow in Nolte’s largely bereft rhetorical quiver (see the thread at The Daily Notebook, if you must): Accuse your opponent falsely, use a cherry-picked (and willfully misinterpreted) piece of your opponent’s own words to bolster your accusation, and throw in a little boogity-boogity at the end, e.g., “revealing but not surprising.” I’m not gonna bother to rehash the fact that I considered the argument Rizov was making to be overheated and beside the overall point, because I’ve got other things to do. As Victor Morton correctly points out at the Daily Notebook, I haven’t been entirely consistent in laying out my perspectives here, but Nolte is just being either intellectually dishonest or he’s more reading-comprehension-challenged than anyone could imagine. Either way, he’s a hate-mongering punk (and any argument he makes against that assertion that is automatically revealed as hollow nonsense by pretty much any Big Hollywood comment thread), and I hope he enjoys the career pinnacle he’s experiencing at the moment. It’s all downhill from here, chum.
In what strange dimension does simply saying what Rizov’s argument is constitute a defense of it? Especially when it’s followed by Our Host pointing out that said argument is faulty, in that it posits a contradiction that isn’t especially contradictory?
Glenn,
What part of your defense of Rizov chastising us for defending Panahi did I misquote?
“His essential point being that the right-wing proselytizers for the release of Jafar Panahi don’t care a whit about the man’s actual work[.]”
Methinks “essential” is YOUR word.
Yours Truly,
Hate Mongering Punk At Career Pinnacle On Brink Of Going Downhill
Beat me to it.
But since Nolte is seemingly unable to comprehend more than two sentences at a time, my post may still serve some purpose.
@JF, could you rephrase that without using the word “contradictory” so much. Cuz I got confused.
Speaking of contradictory, did you see in the comment thread how PIBM (Kenny) raged against me for defending HIT GIRL and then turned around in the very next comment and claimed I wanted LOLITA banned?
Straight From the Department of: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up.
Yours Truly,
Hate Mongering Punk At Career Pinnacle On Brink Of Going Downhill
OK, I was gonna let this one go, for two reasons, one of them cravenly self-serving, the other, not so much. And as I said, I have other things to do. But My Lovely Wife is in the shower, so I’ve got a few minutes to kill, so here goes.
First, relative to the cravenly self-serving reason: Yes, it was stupid and WRONG of me to suggest that John Nolte is in favor of banning “Lolita.” Of course he is not in favor of banning “Lolita.” It is a Canonical Literary Work and the basis of a Kubrick film he likes. Now it would probably be irresponsible to speculate that, were some Free-Market-loving, Christian Ayatollah-equivalent could somehow come to rule America, and that that Ayatollah-equivalent would then ban “Lolita,” that Nolte would somehow find a way to be cool with it. And clearly it is too late in the game to posit a thought experiment in which one would ask Nolte what he would make of a novel in which the middle-aged male narrator crowed about cadging handjobs from his 13-year-old adopted daughter at 25 cents a pop (as it were), so that’s out. And I’m too lazy to investigate whether Nolte called for the lynching of anyone involved in the making of the admittedly execrable “Hound Dog.” So my shit is completely out of luck here. And I apologize. And just to make sure I’m not misunderstood, I apologize again. It was a cheap, unsupportable shot.
However. There is zero—none, nil, nada, zip—I repeat, zero correlation between “Kick-Ass,” its “Hit Girl” character, and Nabokov’s actual work. Indeed, there is no correlation between the “Lolita” or “nymphet” idea as it exists in popular culture and Nabokov’s work. And to insist on any such correlation is to trumpet one’s own spectacular ignorance. Period. We are no longer in the realm of opinion or argument here.
POLL:
Favorite PIBM Phrase from above backtrack/rant/Mayor of Crazytown job application:
1. Canonical Literary Work
2. Free-Market-loving Christian Ayatollah
3. zero—none, nil, nada, zip—I repeat, zero correlation
4. one’s own spectacular ignorance
Glenn, you are quickly becoming my favoritest wordsmithy nemesis.
And just think, John, I was able to conjure all that up while my wife was in the shower! First draft! Holy moley, I practically define “facile!”
Oh, look, it’s Gregarious Glenn again.
If I pointed out that John T. Simpson got in touch with me directly and has turned out to be a perfectly pleasant fellow with whom I agree on the essentials (while still deploring the comments frenzy of BH), would that nip this in the bud?
I mean, I doubt it. I’m just saying.
At this point, I feel like I should clear my throat and remind us how all of this got started. One blogger suggested that the motives of certain people advocating for the release of a political prisoner were not pure. And then Glenn Kenny said purity of motive is not entirely relevant on such matters. Which is followed by Nolte and Simpson barging in to declare that their motives are pure, accompanied by a lot of egocentric blather about how righteous they are. And now it’s about whether or not Nolte wants to ban “Lolita,” which, of course, he doesn’t, but, again, not entirely relevant to the original point made by a blogger in the first place. Which wasn’t a well-thought one.
I said awhile ago I deliberately avoided going to Big Hollywood. That looks wiser with each passing day.
What’s really tiresome is the endless fossilized snark that Nolte and other righties use to answer any criticism: “Ooo, I’m an Evil Republican and now I’m off to ban books, kill Muslims and spill oil!”
Hey, Vadim, over at Glenn’s main post one of his commenters at the ever-so thoughtful, progressive and broad-minded MUBI just called William Buckley a “fag.”
So you just go right ahead on “deploring the comments frenzy at BH.”
I’m just saying.
Yick. I stand guilty as charged using the other “F” word. I was employing it as hyperbole, as explained there. Indeed, anyone attuned to Nolte’s beloved irony can probably see what I tried (and failed) to do there. If I’ve soiled the MUBI name, I apologize.
Three points to John Nolte –
1) That ‘fag’ remark on the other thread was clearly intended to be ironic. Not a word to use lightly, but I understood the intent.
2) When the Buckmeister used the same word on Gore Vidal back in ’68, I’m not sure he was being ironic.
3) Don’t. Even. Try. That Shit. Here. You know full well where we can find the homophobes nowadays. You know what any random search through Big Hollywood or any right-wing site can produce. And you better damn well remember how you voted on Proposition 8, just as I remember your lame-ass rationales for doing so.
I’ve learned all I needed to know about you. Now piss off.
…
John Nolte, let me be infinitely clear on this one point: if you don’t realize for a fact that the comments thread at Big Hollywood is one of the most toxic, least well-informed cesspools of folks who mingle talking points they picked up from Steve Doocy and the gang with the illusion that they have an intellectually cogent timeline proving how the Frankfurt School got a communist elected into the White House, you’re either disingenuous, willfully self-deceiving or stupid. And I know you’re not stupid, because we have mutual acquaintances.
So yes, I’m sorry someone attempted irony and gave you one talking point to work with versus an entire site of people whose incoherent splenetics give me the impression that they are quite serious about getting the guns out of the basement when they (The Real Americans) have to Defend Themselves. You’re right, my face is all red right now. What a hypocrite I must be! Someone on another website I don’t work for said something! Heavens to betsy!
Please excuse me now as I get back to my duties of hating the average American, pushing sexual immorality on our children and cowering before Islam.
I also love the right-wingers attacking James Cameron for dare providing an example of an private citizen entrepeneur offering his obvious knowledge to help BP in its time of deadly incompetence.
@Vadim:
“the comments thread at Big Hollywood is one of the most toxic, least well-informed cesspools of folks who mingle talking points they picked up from Steve Doocy…”
No, no, like the “fag” comment at the thoughtful, progressive site – our comment threads are “ironic.”
Duh.
@christian: I know, can you believe we righties mock and question a powerful, politically connected billionaire like James Cameron?
Where do I sign up to become a Butt-Boy Palace Guard for powerful, politically connected billionaires?
‘No, no, like the “fag” comment at the thoughtful, progressive site – our comment threads are “ironic.“ ‘
No, they’re not. And you’re not funny. Get out.
@hisnewreasons No, really, it’s all irony. Of course unlike the thoughtful, progressive film site MUBI we delete homophobic slurs because we’re knuckle-draggers who see things in black and white and can’t quite see the nuance and irony in calling someone a “fag.”
But you sensitive progressive tolerant types will learn us. No doubt.
John, that’s the kind of response that helps prove the modern GOP willfully ignores actual information in favor of ideology. Cameron has been piloting his own submarines, travelling underwater for over a decade. Why not get assist from somebody who probably knows more about the ocean than 95 percent of BP’s owners. What does a “politically connected billionaire” have to do with him offering some potential help? It’s so obvious how you to kowtow to corporations like BP – like you’re actually offended a guy who risked his life exploring the oceans would offer help. Me no understand.
I’m not real sure how co-opting Nikki Finke’s vocabulary (Butt-Boy!) is really gonna help anything.
Keep on keepin’ on, man. There’s always more phantoms to get apopleptic over.
And of course Nolte knows exactly what he’s doing when he posts his occasions for Two Minute Hates, or meat-tossings, or whatever you want to call them, and then, Christian that he is, stands back and allows his claque to indulge in all manner of foaming-at-the-mouth slander and invective. My favorite, if you can all it that, of recent weeks was “Today’s Polanski Supporter: Martin Scorsese” (http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2010/05/26/todays-polanski-supporter-martin-scorsese/) —and as you’ll note the “Two Minute Hate” concept is rendered here practically literally—wherein one commenter, a Leopold Stotch, says, pretty much right off the bat, “Polanski only did what Scorsese wishes he could do to Leonardo DiCaprio.” A few comments down, Jay Patrick avers, “So funny because it is so true.” And this is, grotesquerie aside, kind of weirdly funny, because, although not exactly what you’d call epicene, Scorsese himself has never given off what you might call a “randy” vibe in the way someone like a Tony Scott or Michael Bay does. Beyond that, one can get rather hung up on contemplating just what point in neurosyphilis one has to reach in order to start fantasizing about Martin Scorsese wishing to commit anal rape on Leonardo DiCaprio, but that’s kind of overstepping the point. This is not, as hisnewreason’s comment powerfully demonstrates, about who’s a “nice” guy or not. Bigger issues are at stake. What people stand for actually means something. And as far as I’m concerned, what Nolte, Breitbart, Greg Gutfeld, Gary Graham, Robert Avrech, Alfonzo Rachel, “The” Pam Meister, every godforsaken last one of these possibly “nice” people stand for, is this: “So funny because it is so true.”
And they can all go to hell.
@Christian – okay, we’ll stop questioning powerful, politically connected billionaires with.…“good intentions.”
And I praise you for your blind faith that Cameron’s motives aren’t in any way mercenary or that his flaming “those guys are morons” ego has nothing to do with it; and that he isn’t eating up valuable time with the people trying to actually solve this problem as they placate the ego of the King Of The Industry That Gives Obama Tons Of Cash.
No curiosity, no skepticism, just butt-boy awe at what an awesome, selfless guy Cameron is.
The Pathetic Palace Guards of the Leftist Entertainment Media. I have so much to learn.
Glenn, like your commenter calling Bill Buckley a “fag” at your tolerant, progressive, oh-so MUBI site… It’s what you sensitive, profressive types call…“irony.”
Okay, at this point I should remind myself that this is Kenny’s house. Only he gets to say who has to leave. So I apologize for taking a privilege that wasn’t mine.
As for you, Nolte…I can only sigh. Roy Edroso uses the word ‘fag’ all the time on his blog, but he’s clearly describing the attitudes of homophobes, not being a homophobe. I took that other comment in the same vein.
And as I pointed out, you voted for Prop 8 while announcing “But I’m your pal, gay folk, really I am!” I don’t think I could ‘learn’ you a thing. Because I ain’t that sensitive. And I surely ain’t that patient.
@everyone: Just think of what a better world this would be if those outraged by those outraged by a child rapist – were just as outraged by the actual child rapist and his defenders.
Here are your choices:
‑You can be outraged by a child rapist and his rich, powerful, politically-connected celebrity defenders. Or…
‑You can be even more outraged by those named above than the actual rapist and his powerful celebrity defenders. (which isn’t to say you’re not outraged at Polanski’s behavior, you just spend more energy attacking us for being outraged than those who want to see him given a pass.)
But I am trying to understand the sensitive, progressive nuance in all this. Or is it irony, like when one of YOU calls someone a “fag?”
I’m simply not sophisticated enough to keep up with your intellectual excuses for what to us simpletons looks pretty craven.
“So funny because it is so true.”
It’s not irony, John. Not even close. Not even Alanis Morrisette ballpark. You can make fun of “profressives” or progressives or whoever all you want, but that doesn’t make you right. It’s just hate, and dementia, and you actively manufacture it.
I’m not kicking you out, but I respectfully request that my other commenters simply stop feeding this troll.
“So funny because it is so true.”
Glenn, you’re picking on a typo. How adorable. Almost as adorable as “go to hell” and “not even close.”
I sit here chagrined.
You need not ask me to leave. I just came over here to defend myself. Got blind-sided by an email alerting me that my name was being trashed.
I wouldn’t have even considered stopping by and throwing a few jabs if you hadn’t called me into the ring.
Carry on, No-Longer Gregarious Glenn. Carry on.
I’m so glad that I can learn here, without having to go to Big Hollywood, that John Nolte is a stupid, intellectually dishonest rageaholic with a victim complex.
(Sorry to feed the troll, but I had to get in there somewhere.)
@Jeff MCM If I was able to learn you something, then my work here is done.
Yours Forever,
Stupid, Intellectually Dishonest Rageaholic With A Victim Complex
-“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
-“Paranoids are not paranoid because they’re paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.”
from “Proverbs for Paranoids” in GRAVITY’S RAINBOW ‑Thomas Pynchon
@Evelyn Roak:
-“Let’s rock.”
From “an episode” of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN – Al Bundy
Um… I had a point before it was derailed by Some Guy. It was that most public conservative mouthpieces these days can’t hold an articulate, respectful debate. That they resort to blustering ad hominem attacks and strain gnats while swallowing camels. I think that was my point. And it’s now been made for me, both here and at MUBI. So… never mind.
Hmmm. I couldn’t just let the “Comments” count read “69,” could I? That would be weird. So here I am.
SO. We could let this thread die, or stir up some new shit—something along the lines of “Paul McCartney is my new favorite Beatle” or something. I trust many of you have already read BH contributor Warner Todd “I has a bucket/Oh no they be stealing my bucket” Huston’s scintillating pensées on the topic. No?
Forget about it. I’m gonna get some dinner. Night, all!
boy, this blog can be so incredibly educational. Once again I’d like to thank Glenn for keeping the comments free to be what they may be – now I know what “Big Hollywood” is (i’d never heard of it, because i’m not a right-wing paranoid whackjob) and that some guy on the internet who goes by the moniker John Nolte is an insufferable prick who engages in the most insufferable right wing whackjob habit of trolling on the internet by simultaneously snidely deriding and caustically dismissing ANY topic/argument/joke/comment that doesn’t pass the Ann Coulter test. What an enlightening experience this thread has been!
Should I call someone a fag so John can continue to cite it has proof that all liberals are closeted homophobes while the right just care too much and are simply misunderstood friends of everyone?
Thank God progressives never resort to “blustering ad hominem attacks.” Oh, wait.…
Hey, Ed, I don’t think you’d find a progressive on this thread who wouldn’t/couldn’t admit that ad hominems are overly prominent in almost all realms of discourse, political or not. And I’m obviously no angel in this department myself. But for Nolte to willfully misread a perhaps improperly-executed joke from a commenter (I believe that Buckley referred to Vidal as a “queer” rather than a “fag”), interpret that as an intolerant ad hominem, and then hide behind the “irony” defense that he so clearly disdains or doesn’t understand when presented with actual, incontrovertible evidence of the twisted hatred he actively solicits on the website he edits is just…well, too rich. And then when he’s called on it, he changes the subject, trying to portray his sick commenters as righteous crusaders for justice because the rest of us haven’t been sufficient in our condemnation of Roman Polanski…and then affects to storm out in a huff. A masterful performance, really. If we were living in a reenactment of “Marat/Sade,” which for all I know we may be…
John, your absolute lack of a substantial reply again belies your proud ignorance. And I would love it for you to revisit post 9/11 when the Pentagon came a’callin’ to Big Hollywood and pick filmmaker brains about terrorist scenarios. Jeebus, are you that willfully blind?
You know what I think is funny? If I were Jafar Panahi (fat chance), I’d be feeling SOOoo good right around now.
Look, it’s simple. When someone’s your ally on an issue you care about, questioning his or her motives is bullshit. It means you care more about your own purity/vanity than getting the job done. I may have all sorts of objections to Ted Olson, say. But so long as he’s fighting what I call the good fight for gay marriage, I ain’t gonna distract him by bitching about Bush v. Gore. That’s for another day.
In this case, what any of us could do to help Panahi stay free is pretty murky. But that’s no excuse for this circle jerk. What in hell are all of you thinking?
@ Tom – Hear, hear.
Hey, this blog rules.
This kinda stuff never goes down at Poland’s anymore. And Wells usually puts an end to it all too soon, plus he banned Nolte, which was a bad idea; Plus McDouche and Christian are all over the place here, my TWO FAVORITES!
If Glenn could regularly post pictures of Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, this could be my new favorite place.
@ Tom and Bill: Boy. You two are tough.
What was I thinking? I’ll tell you what I was thinking. An hour and a half ago, I was thinking, “Hmm, this soft-shell crab special looks good.” So when the waiter comes along, I ask for it, and he makes that face and says, “Oooh, sorry, we’re all out of that,” which he might have had the wherewithal to have pointed out when he handed over the specials printout in the first place. “Yeah,” he explains, “the crabs were a big hit tonight.” As if I thought maybe that the reason they were out was because they had escaped, or something. Trying to be helpful, he then says, “The Mahi-mahi is good. That’s a fish.”
Hey Tom, remember in Toronto when we saw the first 40 minutes of “Baise-moi” and Panahi’s “The Circle” in the same day? That was fun. A more innocent time, when the world was young, and stuff. And then remember how, as “The Circle“ ‘s commercial fortunes languished, “Baise-moi” became this sort of success de scandale in New York, which meant I had to see it again, in its entirety, because I didn’t feel ethically correct in condemning it based on only a partial viewing? Boy, what a schmuck I turned out to be, huh?
Okay. I’m tired and crab-deprived. Nighty night, fellas.
John, my apologies, I posted and had to run out, not realizing you were so quick on the draw. Granted, it was a pithy response, but still, had I been able to get into the witty repartee, a veritable Hepburn-Tracy for the some came running crowd, well, missed opportunities, what can you do?
As for your response…what can I say? All you have done is enacted exactly that which you have wished to deny. I had given you the benefit of the doubt in perceiving your willful ignorance to be just that, willful, but I’m afraid I gave you the benefit of a doubt you didn’t deserve. Granted it was under the idea of willful ignorance, your favorite rhetorical style, that you proved your actual ignorance, but, hey, you learn new things every day. I know you thought it was funny, or even worse a beneficial rhetorical style, to ignore the substance of a discussion in favor of your pithy response. I mean really? I liked Married With Children as much as the next guy but your pretend quoting is just sad. And an even greater crime, not funny. For fuck‘s sake you in your idea of joking significance enacted the very thing I critiqued you for. Are you really that much of a fool or is just your false understanding of irony?…I wasn’t quoting just to do so…there was actual substance in there…you chose not to actually read it, a you have routinely (and as I said I thought it was part of your rhetorical style…now I realize it is a rhetorical style that masks your stupidity ((more to come)) ) but let me throw one more at you: “Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.”—William Gaddis
Tom–I know it is easy to come in at this late date and be the moral voice of reason, and you are perhaps correct in what you say, but really? Clearly this has moved far beyond any discussion of the director of CRIMSON GOLD and become a much sadder farce. To be the moral arbiter at this point just rings hollow. And sad. And way too settled ground to be staking a moral high ground upon. I think you know that.
@Glenn, dear friend: I’m chagrined if you thought my comment was directed at you. I didn’t have any quarrel at all with your original MUBI post, since the Rizov vs. BH kerfuffle was already out there and I thought your rundown on the whole thing was judicious and funny. And once the comments snowball started, well, it’s your blog, so you’re gonna jump in. I just wish your wrapup MUBI line on the subject – “futile, spurious arguments must be played out; and each side must assure itself that its self-righteousness is better than their self-righteousness. And none of us are in jail, whoopee!”– hadn’t turned out to be so, ah, predictive.
@Evelyn Roak: Sorry if you thought I was playing the Joe Lieberman card. I came in late for the simple reason that I’ve learned I’m better off staying on the sidelines in these SCR brawls. Then I got appalled enough by the thread’s swerve into “I know you are, but what am I?” ad infinitum that I jumped in anyway. So much for that, but I think you must have meant to say, “Clearly this has moved far BENEATH,” etc., etc.
Yeah, Glenn, I wasn’t reading, or agreeing with, Tom’s comment as a jab at you. And if anyone HAD asked me “What’s Glenn thinking of?”, I would have said “Soft shell crabs, or their absence.” So that’s pretty impressive, I think.
Guys, please don’t be even a little bit chagrined…I’m not. I was just funnin’ with the two of yas. And good morning to you both. I’m going down to breakfast now. Claire and I are scheming to strike it rich and buy a big house on LBI where we can host all our pals, and you will be among those kept abreast of any developments in this project…
Tom-My apologies. That whole misreading tone on the internet and all. Not to mention John Nolte succesfully playing his cards in getting one into full on deriding people on the internet mode. Lashing out far too widely. Oh well, sorry about that. Sometimes one needs to take a bit more care, in this instance I failed at that.
To Tom Carson –
You know what’s really sad? I make a comment about how OT this thread has gotten and then I contribute to the OT. When Nolte tried to accuse other people of homophobia, I basically saw red. Black Narcissus Red. Suspiria Red. Cries and Whispers Red. (Just trying to get back to the original notion of this blog.) I hope that I’ve made it clear why I took such offense, but I was clearly throwing table scraps to the smelly fellow under the bridge.
Let me repeat my old point – on some issues why is not as important as what. Of course, Nolte and Simpson don’t help things by effectively making themselves the issue again with their overheated heads and willful misreadings. They could have just said, “Even if what you said is true, does it matter? And, by the way, thanks for flogging this issue too, Vadim.” In their confusion between self-promotion and activism; their obsessive beefing with celebrities and anybody who criticizes them; their belief that media attention is not a tool, but a right – they resemble, in fact, a narcissistic Hollywood activist.
Which is a minor point, but not a major one. It’s just that, to borrow a line from Carson, some people are bigger assholes when you do agree with them.
I’m terribly disappointed in you dearest Evelyn. Not one ‘Fuckwad” for Nolte? Not even an “Asshat?” tsk tsk.…
🙂
brad – Let me do the honors: Nolte and his BH goons are fuckhats, asswads, blowhards, and boohoos. Which all might be forgivable had they A SINGLE THING TO SAY.
I had been blissfully unaware of their site (and yet, somehow, aware of the Panahi petition) up until this little kerfuffle. I hope to remain so in the future. They and their Fox News compatriots are major contributors to the destruction of conservatism’s proud intellectual legacy.
Brad – Dare I learned a lesson? I tried for wit, probably failed too, but John Nolte’s reaction to the Pynchon quote made me laugh, and not for the reasons he thinks…oh well. And Brad, you should take it as a compliment that I cared enough about your opinion to trot out the “fuckwad”, some people just aren’t worth the heavy lifting.
David Markson is dead and I just don’t care enough about John Nolte to spend that energy while I am saddened over the death of one the finest writers of the last hundred years.
David Markson died? Son of a bitch! This year is getting brutal. Time to reread Springer’s Progress. Among others.
Otherbill – Yeah. A bummer through and through. Of course not one news source is reporting it. I found out inadvertantly when my friend asked me how old he was, during a discussion of his work, and I looked it up this morning only to find out on wikipedia. A bizarre moment. I love Markson’s work but it isn’t like I’m having conversations with other people about him on a daily basis. See if there is an obit in the Times or anywhere else tomorrow…I’m not counting on it. But that says more about the state of literature these days.
Springer’s Progress is a favorite of mine. Hilarious, touching, brilliant. The man can write about sex. And baseball jokes. And is one of the greatest novelists in capturing thought.
That’s really sad news, especially for a novelist who hit his stride so late in life and could have written several more great works. Wittgenstein’s Mistress is my favorite–not just of Markson’s novels, but of all 20th-century American lit. He was also a great booster of now-canonical neglected authors, such as Malcolm Lowry and William Gaddis. After the Celtics finish blowing Game Two, I might have to re-read a bit of WM before bed.
I retract the final sentence of my last post. Go, Celts!
Joel – We may be soulmates. A Markson fan, and yes, WM may be his best, Springer’s Progress perhaps the most pleasurable (and it is surprising how formed his style is in the early “for hire” detective and western novels), and not only pointing out his love for Lowry and Gaddis (he surely lead a fascinating life and had stories of drinking with authors to rival any) but also a Celtics fan? What a game. Ray in the first half, Rondo in the second. Got the split. Saddened by the death of Markson, happy with The Celtics win.
Of sports and Markson, one of my favorite little moments in all his writing:
“Hey, Loosh, you want to grab this?”
For him? For Springer? Oh, sweetheart! Oh my wondrous girl!
“Loosh? Listen, can we maybe cancel that bet? Be cultural schizophrenia if I have to root a full season against Rod Carew.”
Antidisestablishmentarianism. What’s all this?
“I just this instant found out. His wife is Jewish. He’s actually taken instruction and converted.”
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept.
–Springer’s Progress
A tremendous loss.
Nice to end this comments thread on a friendly note, Evelyn. Leaving the Markson-talk to another thread, I’ll say that I’m happy to leave Staples Center with one win. Being a Celtics fan in LA only makes it sweeter for me.
Wow. Look at all the intellectualizing self gratification I missed! And most aimed at little olé’ me. I’m humbled. At least that’s what it looks like. I scanned it, really. Worried if I read in depth I might get some “insufferable” on me.
Do me a favor, will ya? cuz I love to mix it up – Email me direct the next time you have a go at me or BH: jjmnolte@hotmail.com.
I’m absurdly accessible and always eager to step in the ring.
I leave you now to continue on with lives dedicated to impressing each other.
Wow. Sometimes I think it must be a little sad to be the sort of person who believes that anyone who evinces any kind of enthusiasm for something that’s outside of his own taste or experience can’t POSSIBLY have a real enthusiasm for it, and that the other person is just evincing that enthusiasm to impress a potential peer group, and also to exclude the first guy. In other words, not only is the enthusiasm inauthentic, the person himself is inauthentic. Which somehow doesn’t prevent the first guy from nursing a helluva resentment against the other person.
Like I said, a little sad. And then I remember that this tendency is tied into the totalitarian impulse, and that one man’s intellectualizing self-gratifiers are another man’s rootless cosmopolitans. Make no mistake, kids; when Breitbart and Nolte are kings, we WILL be first against the wall.
Anyway, John, if it makes you feel any better, the writer we’re getting all snurfly about DID create Dirty Dingus Magee. A proto-Al Bundy if there ever was one.
Make no mistake, kids; when Breitbart and Nolte are kings, we WILL be first against the wall.
Do you actually believe that?
If so, why weren’t you shot during the Bush years?
Are you a Radiohead fan, Victor? No, me neither, but I have to admit “OK Computer” really is a classic album. Anyway, the line “When I am king you will be first against the wall” is from…which song, hold on…ah, yes, “Paranoid Android.” For a minute I was thinking it was “Karma Police.” (Which in turn reminds me of this bit of dialogue: “The name of the composition is ‘Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish’… [sound of cigarette lighting, inhalation]…no, it’s ‘Hair Pie,’ ” as heard on “Trout Mask Replica.”)
No, I don’t REALLY believe that, but I’m also reasonably confident that Breitbart and Nolte will never become kings, or powerful enough to have people shot, etcetera. I DO believe that Nolte’s particular brand of resentment does tie into the pathology of totalitarian thought, though. Also, I flew pretty low under the radar during the Bush years (joke!)…
KENNY: “Make no mistake, kids; when Breitbart and Nolte are kings, we WILL be first against the wall.”
*insert what’s her name’s pretentious little quote paranoia here*
That’s right, the mascara snake. Fast and bulbous. (‘Bout all there is left to say on this matter, actually.)
Mr. Nolte, do you have a setting other than ‘smug’?
Also, if you’ve never met Hollywood mega-producer of crap Don Murphy, you should. The two of you apparently have a lot in common.
Hey Philip, best you watch it with the mutually-impressive self-gratifying intellectualizing references there, pardner.
Hmm. I don’t think I’ve used up all my dick tickets for today, so I think before I go to the park I will tell you, as it were, what I REALLY think. I really think that if some metaphysical being who could suspend laws at will were to appear before Andrew Breitbart with an AK-47 and tell Breitbart that with this weapon he could slaughter any ten liberals of his choice with zero consequences, well, honestly…I believe that Breitbart would likely waste about seven or so within twenty minutes before his wife, or his father-in-law, talked him down and put him to bed to sleep it off. And yes, that’s what I really think. As for Nolte, I don’t think he’d take the metaphysical being up on its offer. And he’d tell himself that he’s declining for all of the correct and Christian reasons, but it would really be because he just prefers to snivel and whine, rather than take what some degenerate lefties like to call “direct action.” A guy doesn’t pick Al Bundy for an avatar just for comedy’s sake, you know.
Okay, off to the park. John, you think I should read Portis’ “Masters of Atlantis” or Pavese’s “Among Women Only” this fine afternoon?
So this is still going on, huh?
Also, Glenn: MASTERS OF ATLANTIS. I say that not knowing Pavese, but even so: MASTERS OF ATLANTIS.
Indeed, Bill. I was just telling Our Common Friend that I was wondering if one could buy a Rod of Correction from Amazon… What a hoot…
@Jeff McMahon, it’s not “smug.” You’re accidentally confusing the unbridled joy that comes with being given the invitation (I was minding my own business when Kenny…) to come over here and ridicule you all into unleashing obscure quotes, calling William Buckley a “fag,” and writing things like:
“Breitbart…could slaughter any ten liberals of his choice with zero consequences, well, honestly…I believe that Breitbart would likely waste about seven or so within twenty minutes…”
How do I turn down such an opportunity when I know any elbow thrown at your inflated sense of superiority gets you spitting nonsense like the above. Or quoting Pynchon, or my favorite: ridiculing typos.
And to be fair, I don’t even mind over-educated shallow types who mistakenly believe ideas like “Sex and the City 2” creating terrorists and articles that open with:
“…today’s New York Times Magazine is quite the feast of putative conundrums for the discerning aspiring middlebrow, isn’t it?”
…somehow qualify as BIG THINKS.
Hey, to each their own. People capable of hiding away in protective bubbles where self-awareness is outlawed…I kinda envy them in a way. Even transparent, self-important poseurs like yourselves.
It’s just your laughable sense of superiority… That’s why I took Glenn’s opportunity to come on over. So it’s not me being smug. I just don’t like or respect any of you. And the opportunity was too good to pass up.
Again, here’s my email: jjmnolte@hotmail.com – please let me know when there’s a next time.
You know how you can tell someone’s pretty much what you call a tosser? When they use the French spelling of the perfectly good English word “poser.” And now we know just what Nolte and Andrew Sullivan have in common.
You can not like and not respect me all you like. And you can call my speculation about your boss “nonsense.” But you can’t really answer it, other than to just say it’s nonsense. Why is it nonsense? Because Breitbart wouldn’t hurt a fly? Because he’s the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being you’ve ever met in your life? You know as well as I do that there’s plenty of easily-accessible footage out there of Breitbart behaving like a borderline personality, and it ain’t an act, or him being “impassioned” about his “values.” In a sane world the people who care about him would be getting him help. In this one he’s a circus ringleader.
See, this is the thing: you (Mr. Nolte) didn’t come over here to have a discussion on the actual issue at hand, or any issue at all, really. You just found out that Glenn Kenny had said something about you (never mind that what he said was something you would generally agree with), and used that as an opportunity for some good old-fashioned bashing and baiting, without any actual interest in developing an argument or proving a point, just yelling at people you don’t like, in a smug and complacent manner. That’s what I mean when I say ‘intellectually-dishonest’. Another would way to put it would be to call you a thoughtless thug.
I also note how you conflate everybody who’s posted here into ‘you’. I personally didn’t say most of the things you’re attributing specifically to me in the above post. Why? Because you don’t care, you just want to yell at strangers because it makes you feel good. Which is a pretty lame thing to do.
Glenn, I feel confident that Our Common Friend would stump for the Portis book, too. Not to pressure you, or anything.
Bill, I’m now past the Rod of Correction and into the bagweed section! Loving it.
This is the kind of well-connected billionaire servicing that Nolte prefers and the jawdropping stupidity his party represents:
“People understand that regulation is the problem and they want corporations in charge.” – George Will
This thread is giving me Libertas flashbacks.
*shudder*
Wow, has it ever been pleasant to be on the outside, looking in, at this Nolte nonsense. But I would’ve chosen Among Women Only (a title maybe better translated as “Women on Their Own”), if only for Cesare’s remarkable evocation of a European post-war female sensibility. Also, because anyone who’d find a phrase like “evocation of a European post-war female sensibility” laughable is liable to be merely a knee-jerk right-wing know-nothing blowhard dipshit who will never appreciate the difference and considerable distance between his condition and his presumed iconoclasm. That same person’s life would be best captured in a novel titled Among Douchebags Only.
Re: the pic in the post… “I vant to fuck Meetch.”
Just to lighten things a tad.
On Twitter, Nolte is hinting he’s gonna write about this and Jeffrey Wells this week. We’re gonna be FAMOUS!
Full disclosure: Nolte is something I created for the 10th grade science fair (this was back in ’92, hence all the Al Bundy references). It was the early days of the internet, so he’s a pretty basic bot/troll. He’s mainly programmed to latch on to certain words/phrases and regurgitate them, adding a pithy one-liner (at least, they seemed pithy to me when I was fifteen). It was a simple algorithm. I got a B.
(The program has since “gone rogue”; I no longer have control.)
Jeff: “See, this is the thing: you (Mr. Nolte) didn’t come over here to have a discussion on the actual issue at hand, or any issue at all, really.”
You’re just now figuring that out?
By the way, Glenn Kenny just threatened via email to sic his lawyer on me if I mock him at BH. As a matter of fact, he’s “calling his lawyer now.”
See, there I was over at BH minding my own business. I’ve never even used the words “Glenn” or “Kenny” together over there… Only to find out last week that he’s been having a go at me over here for quite some time.
He puts himself on my radar, I decide to gave a go with him over at BH, and I get these hysterics via email:
“I will hold you personally responsible for any threats I or any member of my family receive, by the way. In fact I’m calling a lawyer now.”
You can practically hear the high notes.
Typical bully. Fight back and he goes running home to mommy.
Uh, you’re the bully. You just admitted as much.
Yes, folks, it’s true; I DID e‑mail Nolte, at the address he provided in a prior comment, and I did say precisely that, and some other things too. And, as if on cue, here he is to tell you all about it.
Three things:
1) My mom’s not a lawyer. I wish.
2) For a guy who supposedly loves movies, it’s kind of odd that Nolte’s apparently never heard of Elmer Fudd.
3) Quick John, name the movie: “Ooh, baby, you are so talented…and they are so dumb!”
Nothing left for now but to wait for the coming meat-tossing fest over at Big Hollywood. Nolte’s promised not to link to me (not out of kindness, mind you; he admits that “the beauty” of mocking me from there is that he can do while denying me traffic), so hopefully I won’t get the spillover I got when I pissed off Ann Althouse all those years ago. I suppose if Vadim Rizov can take it, I can.
Dear Mr. Nolte: this is an honest question. I have it on good authority that you’re not a stupid man, and you obviously care about politics – which is, in a democracy and even most other systems, the art of convincing the undecided.
So here’s my question. What on earth in your online persona do you think will make anyone who isn’t already on your side want to join it? Or am I just missing the point? Really, I’d just like to know your stragetic thinking here.
Um, “strategic.” I’d love to pretend I was making a joke about “strategerry,” but it was just a dumb typo.
Tom, I think you should have gone with the subterranean Looney Tunes association. It would have worked.
And by the way, since Nolte has no qualms about sharing the contents of personal e‑mails, here’s a further peek at our exchange:
Myself to Nolte: “Your reaction to my squirming has confirmed my suspicion that beneath your ‘Christian’ veneer (and boy, what a joke THAT is) you’re a thin-skinned sadist. I will decline to provide you any further satisfaction.”
Nolte to myself: “If you provided me any more satisfaction, I’d burst.”
So. Anybody want to clue me in as to why I SHOULDN’T be thoroughly creeped out by this guy and his claque?
Now here’s the thing that bugs me about the entire ‘Conservative film-blogging’ movement, such as it is: there’s plenty of room for common cause between those guys and the rest of us on a bunch of topics: Speaking perhaps only for myself, but hopefully for a lot of others, I agree with the Big Hollywood types that Hollywood product doesn’t do a good job of addressing the actual, everyday concerns of actual, everyday Americans; that Hollywood is an often obnoxiously self-congratulatory clique of chums and insiders; and that the too many movies suck too much of the time.
These are genuine, interesting issues that could be addressed, discussed, debated, etc. But instead, John Nolte is too busy hatesturbating to want to bother, as per his own admission.
Wow guys. 5 days and counting, huh? Someone screwed up and gave me traffic though.
I’m mostly just leaving this here to push up the comment count so we can get a fresh page going! Go team!
“I agree with the Big Hollywood types that Hollywood product doesn’t do a good job of addressing the actual, everyday concerns of actual, everyday Americans”
One hesitates to reject an open hand, but I’m curious what you mean by that. Mainstream Hollywood has rarely been about addressing ordinary concerns but about escapism and entertainment (indeed, its attempts tk be relevant are among its biggest recent embarrassments). I obviously don’t speak for Big Hollywood, but that’s not really its position (or mine). The premise of BH is that, for the most part, the entertainment industry has contempt for ordinary Americans and affirmatively detests that half of it that’s conservative and the 70-odd percent that’s religious. Hollywood is an enemy, not ineffectual.
“The premise of BH is that, for the most part, the entertainment industry has contempt for ordinary Americans and affirmatively detests that half of it that’s conservative and the 70-odd percent that’s religious. Hollywood is an enemy, not ineffectual.”
That is such bunk. That is creating the big bad meany to rail against. There is a huge difference between Dennis Hopper saying it is a hard place to work and indicting a whole industry as an enemy. Hell, on this very site, one thread above, a conversation about Spielberg is going on. Spielberg, perhaps the most popular and prevelant filmmaker of the last 30 years, and dang if he isn’t one of the most conservative as well. Has any filmmaker made a stronger case for that favorite of conservative causes, “the family”, than Spielberg? And let us not even start on his views of history. They aren’t exactly progressive. The Blind Side, 300, etc etc. The whole schpiel of Big Hollywood is one long search for an enemy.
Now I’m going to do something that will really piss the John Nolte’s of the world off because it relies on reading books and quoting philosophers (a horrible crime apparently. Quoting Pynchon was an offense to the n’th degree, god forbid he reads a book. Granted his response only proved his idiocy but what are you gonna do? Reading prevalent literature of the last 50 years makes you an “elitist” so guess I’ll go back to reading Dinesh D’Souza, or A Tale of The Tub but I’ll overlook the irony) and brings it all back home as there is a picture of Zizek at the top of this post. I got my problems with Zizek, but his early books are good, back when he took the time to read carefully. Here is a summary of his earlier writings on our contemporary reactions to the Big Other (The Big A in Lacanan terms)…:
The Return of the Big Other
Besides the construction of little big Others as a reaction of the demise of the big Other, Zizek identifies another response in the positing of a big Other that actually exists in the Real. The name Lacan gives to an Other in the Real is “the Other of the Other”. A belief in an Other of the Other, in someone or something who is really pulling the strings of society and organizing everything, is one of the signs of paranoia. Needless to say that it is commonplace to argue that the dominant pathology today is paranoia: countless books and films refer to some organization which covertly control governments, news, markets and academia. Zizek proposes that the cause of this paranoia can be located in a reaction to the demise of the big Other:
When faced with such a paranoid construction, we must not forget Freud’s warning and mistake it for the “ilness” itself: the paranoid construction is, on the contrary, an attempt to heal ourselves, to pull ourselves out of the real “illness”, the “end of the world”, the breakdown of the symbolic universe, by means of this substitute formation. Looking Awry: an Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture)
Paradoxically, then, Zizek argues that the typical postmodern subject is one who displays an outright cynicism towards official institutions, yet at the same time believes in the existence of conspirancies and an unseen Other pulling the strings. This apparently contradictory coupling of cynicism and belief is strictly correlative to the demise of the big Other. Its disappearance causes us to construct an Other of the Other in order to escape the unbearable freedom its loss encumbers us with. Conversely, there is no need to take the big Other seriously if we believe in an Other of the Other. We therefore display cynicism and belief in equal and sinceres measures.
Maybe that is all just academic nonsense but what the hell, I’m pissed about the NBA Finals right now, the bogus officiating and all that jazz, and I’m here to get my mind off that and just vent. Victor, you at least are honest in your conversation which I respect. My apologies if I confuse you with Mr. Nolte in this, as he is nothing but a fool, a role he chooses to play, and not with the nobility of a Falstaff, which makes it all the sadder.
WARNING: long and boring. do not read.
“There is a huge difference between Dennis Hopper saying it is a hard place to work and indicting a whole industry as an enemy.”
That seriously understates what Hopper said, which was that “I live in a city where somebody who voted for Bush is really an outcast.” You may say I’m picking nits, but the term “outcast” really makes the point. Half the country voted for Bush (twice), and yet its popular-cultural capital sees doing so, not as something it itself doesn’t do, but as something inexplicable, ridiculous and/or cause for ostracism.
If one is a conservative, why wouldn’t such an attitude make the entertainment industry the enemy? What would enemyship require, then?
Spielberg, perhaps the most popular and prevelant filmmaker of the last 30 years, and dang if he isn’t one of the most conservative as well.
This is the nub of the disagreement. What do you mean when you call Spielberg “conservative,” and what evidence exists for that independent of a certain “read” on his movies (to which I’ll get in a minute).
Is “conservative” a mainstream position held by (loosely speaking) half the country and represented primarily in the Republican Party (and the converses for “liberal” and the “Democratic Party”)?
If your answer is “no,” then we need to have a different discussion about political philosophy that really has nothing to do with Spielberg (or with the contemporary actually-existing US, I would add).
But if “yes,” then your statement “Spielberg is a conservative” is – frankly – laughable and completely removed from reality. I actually once read a bell hooks essay in which she called Catharine MacKinnon a conservative – that response ranks second only to that in terms of sheer wtf-ness.
First of all, and this is generally a good procedure when trying to type, can you name a single self-identified conservative who considers Spielberg “one of us” politically?
Second, Spielberg’s political donations have been 99.45% to Democrats since 1999. Even 0.55% to Republicans is instructive – it was a 2004 primary-season donation to Arlen Specter, a liberal Republican who was facing a primary challenge from the right.
Third, Spielberg’s political activities are a matter of public record – he has produced videos for the Democratic convention and for Clinton’s millennium celebration and has been friends with the Clintons since the 90s; he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president but co-sponsored the key 2007 fund-raising dinner that introduced Barack Obama to Hollywood (he did back Obama in the general election).
Fourth, he has endorsed gay marriage and resigned from the Boy Scouts (I think the national advisory board) over its stance against gay scoutmasters.
Fifth, he went to Fidel Castro for a dinner and meeting he called “the most important eight hours of my life,” and then endorsed lifting the Cuba embargo.
I could go on, but the point is … there is plenty of evidence that Spielberg is a liberal Democrat. Can you name a single substantive political stance of his that would tag him as a conservative on any matter of public controversy?
Has any filmmaker made a stronger case for that favorite of conservative causes, “the family”, than Spielberg?
A few years ago, I mentioned en-passant on a discussion board that liberals are anti-family, and I got a response from a leftist critic friend telling me I was full of crap. “I believe in family and marriage and love my parents. Where do you guys (rightists) get these ridiculous notions, etc?” I had a lengthy response to him that granted that he loved his parents, etc.
But part of the answer was: because some liberal-leftist-radical critics say things like this. Championing the family (love the quotes, btw … what are you trying to problematize or critique?) makes one a conservative?
As for the substance of Spielberg’s films – yes, they generally end optimistically, with the family (real or surrogate) reunited and resilient. But what do his families look like – parents are habitually absent or incompetent or divorced (the fantasy of the film is that they become not-so or the kids reconcile themselves to that or find a surrogate). I’m not saying Spielberg’s films are radical anti-family screeds (though his support for gay marriage indicates his idea of family is a bit plastic and/or not one most conservatives would endorse). But that’s an awfully thin reed to rest a case on and a fairly low standard for conservatism by which 95 percent of the US populace is conservative.
“And let us not even start on his views of history. They aren’t exactly progressive.”
What do you refer to? World War II was necessary? The Pacific War was racist? The Nazis and the Holocaust were bad? Slavery too? (I apologize for the insouciance, but Spielberg’s historical films don’t reveal much about his views of history beyond that, or even whether he really has any views beyond the commonplace liberal.)
And MINORITY REPORT reveals that if he a view of history, it is the decidedly post-modern Whig view that it is both “progressive” (i.e., history progresses with knowledge) and infinitely malleable (we can even change the future).
The Blind Side, 300, etc etc.
Spielberg had nothing to do with these films to my knowledge, so I can only assume you think they prove Hollywood output leans conservative.
Tell you what, for every conservative film you think you can name, I’ll name three from the same year that lean liberal. We can play it as long as you like, and I will win.
THE BLIND SIDE (2009) – THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE (marriage as “comfortable concentration camp”); AVATAR (the military, civilization and the West are bad because they commit genocide against nature and the noble natives); THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS (wouldn’t it be groovy if we all dropped LSD or put it in the military’s water, then there’d be no war, man)
300 (2007) – THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (Irish liberators fight for a socialist people’s democracy); AMAZING GRACE (the Whig view of history, 18th century British division); THE NAMESAKE (Mira Nair immigrant pain)
And sorry, but I don’t consider either Zizek or Lacan to be any kind of authority (and less so the closer they reach actual politics). Their fact-free free-association theorizing crumbles when you poke at it or try to relate it to reality (I took a poke at him here over THE LIVES OF OTHERS).
And to the extent Zizek’s “Other” thoughts have any validity, they just as accurately (if not more so) describe liberals and leftists (particularly in intellectual circles) writing about The Man, The Establishment, The Patriarchy, Big Business, Manufactured Consent or the average Oliver Stone or Seymour Hersh rants about secret maneuverings by the CIA, the FBI or Big Oil, etc.
For whatever reason, the three links I included didn’t come through:
for Hopper’s actual words: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/06/02/dennis-hopper-voting-for-bush-makes-you-a-hollywood-outcast/
for Spielberg’s political donations: http://www.campaignmoney.com/biography/steven_spielberg.asp
for me on Zizek on LIVES OF OTHERS: http://vjmorton.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/critical-vulgarity
Four of the six films Victor Morton cites are only tenuously related to “Hollywood” as a concept or place.
I know, I know, you can’t get more Hollywood than THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY and THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE. Ken Loach, that Hollywood schlockmeister.
And “immigrant pain”: a liberal notion?
I can’t believe I’m going to respond to something at this late point in the thread, but I’ll just make two quick points in response to Victor Morton.
First, your criteria for conservative film are incoherent. You seem to suggest that Spielberg’s partisan political activities render the content of his films necessarily un-conservative. That is obviously false, as you basically concede by going on to engage with the content of some of his movies.
Of course, you then go on to suggest that even the portrayal of divorce is somehow un-conservative. After all, though Spielberg’s families are often father-less, this is often the source of great trauma, so it’s hardly like he’s valorizing the situation.
It seems like what it comes down to for you is basically identity politics – something (or some filmmaker) has to explicitly self-identify with the Republican-affiliated conservative movement to count as conservative. To me, that misses a great deal of what’s actually and genuinely conservative in both movies and politics because that movement is advocating such a narrow and specific policy agenda that is distinct from conservativism as a whole.
Second, you use THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY as an example of liberal *Hollywood* production?? Seriously? Come on, that’s just an own-goal in this context.
I was looking at a dated listing of premieres and so just scanned for films that opened in the weeks surrounding the titles she named.
And you don’t have to twist my arm either to say that the arthouse is as left-leaning as the multiplex (if not more so) or that Ken Loach at his worst (i.e., BARLEY) is a schlockmeister melodramatist that Griffith would reject as too obvious.
In “I Lost It at the Movies,” Pauline Kael pointed out that art-house films are as formulaic and melodramatic as Hollywood ones, though perhaps with a different cast of villains.
Vic, wouldn’t a site called BIG ART HOUSE be kinda, i dunno, oxymoronic? Besides, you’re changing the subject.
“You seem to suggest that Spielberg’s partisan political activities render the content of his films necessarily un-conservative.”
I don’t honestly see where I did that. But obviously … an artist’s political activity doesn’t necessarily determine his work (you’d have to have a room-temperature IQ to believe that).
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t at all probative or doesn’t establish presumptions. I was responding to someone who characterized Spielberg as “the most conservative” film-maker (not “maker of conservative films”) of the last 30 years.
Quite apart from all considerations about his work, if that were really the case, wouldn’t we expect to see some reflection of that in his political activism. At all. Instead, we see one-sided liberal-Democratic advocay (NTTAWT per se). Which rather suggests a skewed understanding of politics IMO.
I certainly don’t deny that Spielberg’s films often show divorce and absent fathers as bad things. (As I said, he’s not Todd Solondz or Sam Mendes or the rest of the “family sucks”/Suburban Hell crowd.) My point was merely that his portrayal of family, and notions about what it can mean, is hardly Father Knows Best / Family Research Council / “most conservative film-maker of the last 30 years” territory.
As for “this is about identity politics,” that’s ridiculous aimed at me, a Catholic who loves VIRIDIANA, a reactionary who loves MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA and EARTH, a warhawk who loves BATTLE OF ALGIERS and BURMESE HARP (all those films my #1 for their respective years). Heck … can I even say that I at least like most (and love some) of Spielberg’s movies while thinking his political judgment atrocious. If I had to, I’d type Spielberg as a sentimental individualist – making films centered on a single family “with issues” while the world is destroyed, and filming unironically a line like “saving one private might be the only good thing to come out of WW2.”
Half the country certainly did not vote for Bush (of Gore or Kerry). Half of the voters did, which is not the same thing at all. If you consider not voting a form of voting in itself, then Nobody clearly won the 2000 and 2004 elections in a landslide. This suggests to me that most Americans do not identify with either liberalism or conservatism, much less the Republican and Democratic parties.
The “of Gore” in my last post was suppposed to be “or Gore”. Whoops.
An important to thing to keep in mind is that Hollywood movies cost so much nowadays that they typically have to do well in the international market in order to turn a profit. Therefore, the values espoused in Hollywood films are usually the ones the industry perceives as having the broadest global appeal. Conservatives often confuse or conflate said values, which might be refered to as the values of globalization, with liberalism per se.
“If you consider not voting a form of voting in itself”
True … but why should you? Is there actual social-science or survey evidence about “why people don’t vote” for doing so (the answer BTW is “not really” … there’s a hundred reasons people don’t vote and a hundred forms of interference in even asking the question).
What there is good survey data on is the opinions and leanings of people who don’t vote, but they’re not terribly different from those of the people who do. The do differ a little – slightly in favor of the Democrats (i.e., nonvoters tend to agree with Democrats more than Republicans). And this is why the Democrats tend to put more energy and moral suasion into general voter-registration and GOTV drives.
So I feel quite comfortable saying half the country favored Bush (and half Kerry, etc.)
Since I’m the one who steered the conversation into this particular realm, I really should follow-up on my earlier comment, and Victor Morton’s response.
I agree (a) that Hollywood is generally more interested in producing escapism, and (b) that when it does venture into ‘serious’ political subjects, the results are usually embarrassingly preachy and self-indulgent – I’m happy to agree with any conservative that Paul Haggis’s Crash was gunk. Also, it’s pretty obvious that Hollywood does indeed have ‘contempt’ for its audience – just look at the vast fortunes of Michael Bay/Brett Ratner/name your own awful hack.
There are several things that I don’t agree with, though. For one thing, ‘Hollywood’, despite being clubby and liberal-leaning, is also not a monolithic entity, and it is generally primarily interested not pushing a liberal agenda, but in making money. A year or two ago I got in an online argument with someone who was convinced the Weinstein brothers were engaged in the ‘War on Christmas’ because of their tendency to release horror movies every December, conveniently ignoring the simple fact that the Weinsteins (and others) do so because of simple counter-programming opportunities. If Hollywood is an enemy, it’s an enemy against quality and art on behalf of the lower-common-denominator. The problem with Avatar wasn’t that it was liberal – it was that it was clumsy, under-dramatic and pandering.
Anyway, to get back to my original the common ground that I sort of hope to find on the subject is that I believe Hollywood spends too much time and money making hollow escapism or feel-good pandering crap, and ought to do more to engage in the actual issues of the day. Maybe it’s false nostalgia, but I think Hollywood did a better job of dealing with contemporary affairs in an intelligent, mass-audience manner from the ’30s to the ’70s, and those storytelling skills seemed to fade in the ’80s.
So anyway, what I’m saying is that I wish we had more How to Train Your Dragons and fewer Marmadukes, more Gran Torinos and fewer Kick-Asses, more 28 Days Laters and fewer Saw 5s.
Oh, and on the subject of Spielberg, I think it’s too reductive to say that his art comes down on either side of the political spectrum in an easy or uncomplicated manner (like most great artists). Yes, we all know that Spielberg-the-man is a devoted liberal and Democratic donor, but in the films themselves? There are ‘liberal’ notions like the importance of due process (Minority Report), the moral problems of fighting terror (Munich), and distrust of the military (1941). And then there are ‘conservative’ stances like the necessity of settling down instead of a lifestyle of rootless roaming (Catch Me If You Can), the importance of individual moral responsibility (Schindler’s List), and the supremacy of faith (the first 3 Indiana Jones movies).
Eh, don’t know if I have the time now to truly go tit-for-tat so a few brief thoughts here…
Sorry I misquoted Dennis Hopper but this whole “enemy” thing seems a recourse to a militarism because it is easy and rousing, going for the broad brushstrokes instead of nuance to the detriment of actually accomplishing anything…the fuss is more important than the result. See later re: Zizek…
Jeff and DUH have responded along these lines so let me simply write that I wasn’t talking about where Spielberg gives his money. I was talking about his movies. What they say, do, and how they say and do it. Now who he opens up his checkbook for. And, anyways, a lot more people see his films than research his political donations—if the grounds are the effect on the “average” American (if such a thing exists).
Yes, I meant exactly that only a conservative would agree that the Holocaust was bad. That is clearly what I must have been trying to say. Obviously, that was sarcasm. No I was trying to imply a slightly higher level of thought (though I think much of Spielberg’s historical engagement in his films does come down to those base statements–and that is part of the problem), and I think he has a view of historical forces, and a reliance on narrative that could be construed or read as being on the conservative side of the spectrum.
Re: Minority Report—well, I stayed away from commenting in the thread above but one thing I would say is Minority Report is one of those films that shows Spielberg is not as smart as he either thinks he is or needs to be….I haven’t seen it since its original run in the theaters but I remember walking out thinking it was an utter mess, that it threw out all these ideas that contradicted themselves, that the ideas and their presentation weren’t particularly nuanced or intelligent and the filmmaker confused himself. It has been ages so perhaps I should revisit it, but yes, my thoughts at the time were the man who made this film isn’t particularly smart, a thought I have had about many of his films. Oh well…
“Their fact-free free-association theorizing crumbles when you poke at it or try to relate it to reality.” Clearly I disagree with this statement. I have made clear that I am not a huge Zizek fan. Particularly the Zizek of the last few years (or many years), and while I may disagree with him often, I don’t think his work crumbles, especially his early work on ideology. Lacan especially is quite far from “fact-free free-association” and that seems far too easy a dismissal—and a continual rhetorical maneuver that would rather say something is mumbo-jumbo to me so it must just be intellectual masturbation (see all J. Nolte’s comments above) and b.s. And, yes, the ideas quoted above do apply to what we have been referring to here as “the left” as they do to “the right.” That doesn’t mean they aren’t applicable and describe something that is going on at Big Hollywood. I am not claiming the equivalent liberal site isn’t guilty of the same. I didn’t realize that I needed to clarify that upfront, but there it is. I went to the Zizek (and Lacan) because it seemed relevant, and because I keep on seeing his picture every time this thread loads–must have been on my mind. I am no Zizek booster, but that analysis quoted above does seem to fit…though the digs at “intellectuals”–like that is the worst thing to be in the world–is appreciated.
…eh, there’s still a place in this world for a track as great as Burn Hollywood Burn so maybe I’m just a hypocrite….
Oh deary–those rambling thoughts didn’t end up so brief after all. Could have stood to do some editing.
Victor, I just read your article on Zizek and The Live of Others. I agree with you that the homoesexuality comment is routed in lazy thinking. But I don’t think the homosexuality analysis is really that important in his analysis and you’ve totally misunderstood him concerning “Goodbye Hitler”, blaming him of giving communism a pass, just because he pointed out that Lennin is held in much higher-regard historically than Hitler. Without getting into Zizek’s reasoning, I believe it is quite obviously the case. “Goodbye Hitler”, if made, will probably have a much different tone (made in Germany according to German law or in other european countries).
Big Hollywood is a propaganda outlet, meant to stir shit and play the persecution card.
Hollywood, for the most part, on the basis of the vast majority of its films, has roughly the same view of its customers as P.T. Barnum had of his. This makes it in no way different from the vast majority of the US Corporate sector.
Hollywood’s product is nominally apolitical. Any argument over whether it’s deeper ideological currents are “conservative” or “liberal” would have to have as a preamble a long discussion over the meaning of the terms, which is probably out of the scope of this comments thread, ambitious as it is. The best we can say is that is it essentially centrist – opinions to the right and left do appear (300 and Avatar make a good comparison) but never radically, and they are scrupulous in making the politics secondary and subservient to the requirements of the story. Which is, I should point out, an aesthetically conservative idea, if not a political one.
Victor Morton’s analysis of Americans’ voting habits is absurd in its oversimplification. The reason nearly half of the American population doesn’t vote is simple and well-studied: widespread and deep dissatisfaction with both political parties and the overall power structure of the country. The idea that the non-voting portion of the population can be counted as virtual supporters for either candidate, roughly split down the middle, is nonsense. What polls do consistently show is that most of the issues people care about are consistently absent from the political agenda.
Victor,
Considering the vast amounts of time and lucre spent on campaigning nowadays, I don’t see how not voting can be interpreted as anything but a rejection of the candidates by a good number of nonvoters. A major problem I have with your analysis is that it allows absolutely no room for such rejection. Indeed, it unequivocaly denies its exitence. Nonvoters are marginalized enough in this country as it is without it being suggested that they shouldn’t count or that their failure to vote is somehow a tacit endorsement of the contemporary political system, or of the liberal-conservative pissing match.
Why is it that you’re able to regard Hollywood as the enemy but refuse to acknowledge that a wide swath of the public sees American politics in the same light? Just curious.
Victor: Part of the problem with your analysis is that it’s completely abstract, neglecting certain basic facts about the entertainment industry, and the Republican party (I’m using your frame of treating “Republican” and “conservative” as synonymous, although we know that’s not quite true).
One huge factor in the Democratic leanings of Hollywood is the nature of Republican politicking, which has been built, at least since the early 60s, on presenting a minority group as a threat to “normal Americans”. In the 60s, it was African-Americans; today it’s gays (and, in some quarters, Mexicans). Hollywood, of course, would shut down without gay people (and in the 50s and 60s, was one of the few places where black people could work and socialize alongside whites). So even a Republican in Hollywood, like Schwartzenegger or Hopper, is going to feel at least somewhat alienated from the national Republican party, knowing as they do that “the gay lifestyle” has little to do with actual gay people’s lives. So it becomes a lot easier to drift towards the Democratic party when so many of your colleagues are genuinely (and rightly) afraid of the consequences of the other party winning.
On a broader scale: Most Hollywood people are artists (yes, even schlockmeisters like Bay). And artists tend to be people who feel alienated by rural life, small-town conformity, institutionalized religion, and all the other things the conservative movement exists to celebrate. This has gotten even more polarized as the GOP has cut loose its northeastern wing, and become ever-more the rural party, in opposition to the Democrats urban party (with both fighting over who gets the suburbs).
This is why conservatives like the Big Hollywood crew are reduced to carping about movies rather than making them. The modern conservative movement is essentially an institution of Babbitry, and such a movement is simply not going to have much appeal to most creative individuals. Note I don’t say intelligent individuals—that’s another discussion. But most people with ambitions to become professional writers, painters, actors, directors, sculptors, or any other sort of artist are naturally going to go the a big city, pal around with gay people and immigrants, and be mistrustful of big institutions that demand absolute loyalty, like the church or the army. Which means they’re simply not going to be Republicans. And yes, are going to view those who feel otherwise as “the enemy”.
Just a couple of post-scripts to this discussion:
I had a problem with The Lives of Others, and it wasn’t anything to do with what either Morton or Zizek are saying, but simply that I had a REALLY hard time believing that a career Stasi agent would become sympathetic to the subversive objects of his surveillance because of five minutes of montage of reading poetry and listening to classical music. I’d call that some pretty mushy-headed sentimentalism that, if anything, seriously downplays the harshness of the East German régime.
Also, I think the Big Hollywood types do have a point (yick) about how Hollywood could make a lot of money by serving audience segments that they typically ignore. After The Passion of the Christ (a film I don’t care for) made $600 million on a fairly small budget with no star actors, I would have thought that the studios would have tried to emulate its success with remakes of Biblical epic-era hits like Samson & Delilah, Ben-Hur, etc. But instead all the studios did was half-heartedly make The Nativity Story with a lousy director and leave the rest of that market to niche distributors.
Wow … lots of people responding to li’l ol’ me. This’ll take time and space, and I fear overstaying my welcome and abusing Typepad’s bandwidth.
Jeff McMahon:
Points of agreement: (1) Spielberg’s work is clearly far less ideological than his person is, and indeed even the “moral of the films” you cite are all somewhat double-edged; (2) arguing that the Weinsteins release horror films at Christmas to eff with Christians is retarded; (3) I don’t believe either that, as I once put it (http://vjmorton.wordpress.com/2003/08/20/liberalism-as-product-placement/) “Hollywood is a singular noun that wakes up in the morning and asks itself over its first latte ‘what can we put into movies to help the left’?” (But that doesn’t mean I don’t think it ideologizes commercial product – in that essay I cite a subtler process that I analogize to product placement); (4) storytelling did start to decline in the 80s, partly in response to and partly as a result of the post-literate society.
Where I disagree with you is that I’m not really sure I want Hollywood to deal with contemporary affairs (OK … I’m sure I don’t; not the Hollywood that now exists) because I don’t believe it’s capable of doing so in an intelligent, mass-audience manner. Partly because of politically-correct paralysis, and because of the culture wars and mutual cultural estrangement from half the audience that Fuzzy Bastard described below. But also partly because Golden Era Hollywood was rarely relevant in a way that we would recognize and “controversy” was anathema. As Andrew Sarris once put it “the ‘Thou Swell’ romances were just as much a reaction to the Depression as ‘I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang’,” but who would ever think to call the former relevant. When politics or religion were broached, it was in a generic way (what party did Everett Noble, the mayor in Sturges’ HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO, belong to?) or in a manner designed not to give offense (SONG OF BERNADETTE couldn’t be made today [be thankful for small favors of historical “progress”]). Indeed, Marxist critics long denounced Hollywood on exactly those grounds as a hegemonic narcotic.
Evelyn Roak:
After reading that Spielberg has “a reliance on narrative that could be construed or read as being on the conservative side of the spectrum,” I just have to conclude that you are clearly not using the word “conservative” in a way that has any relationship to the actual politics of the US, ca. 2010 (or 1980 or 1900 or 1800). If we’re going to argue (correctly, as far as it goes) that “a lot more people see [Spielberg’s] films than research his political donations,” then we can’t drop the “ad populum impact” standard when it comes to actually considering Spielberg’s films. In measuring the social or political impact of a popular text, one either approaches it in the same terms the mass audience does (which I’m pretty sure in a 50% liberal country that gives 99% of its money to English-language narrative films doesn’t include that “reliance on narrative is conservative”) or one talks patronizing rot.
And no, one can’t just wave off Spielberg’s personal political activities because, while I agree they don’t determine his films’ content, they still speak to the truth of this sort of film-theorizing as historical hypothesis testing. If reliance on narrative is on the conservative side of the spectrum, then shouldn’t a master of it and relier on it actually **be** a conservative and shouldn’t it therefore be manifested in concrete ways outside his films? Yet that is exactly what we do not see. Here are three statements:
A. Person X’s political activities are entirely on behalf of the liberal party
B. Person X is a master of narrative and his works rely on it
C. Reliance on narrative is conservative
At least one of those statements is false. Persons not trying to engage in a slightly higher level of thought realize right away, of course, that A and B are demonstrable facts, therefore C is probably false. It takes a more than slightly higher level of thought simply to cross out A and substitute “D. ‘Person X is therefore “one of the most conservative filmmaker[s] of the last 30 years’.”
(*This* and not inability to understand it, BTW, is why much Continental philosophy and basically all psychoanalysis is fact-free free-associative rubbish, at least with respect to the social. Either they are offering hypotheses that can be tested in the real world, and then proven or disproven by actual events, or they’re just engaged in intellectual wankery. In this example, claiming C is mere religious dogma.)
Yuval:
I looked again at Zizek’s “In These Times” piece. And while I agree the homosexuality claim isn’t that central (dumb modern sex theory is a pet peeve of mine though), I don’t think I missed his point. Obviously Lenin is held in higher regard than Hitler and thus Ostalgie is thinkable and GOODBYE HITLER is not. But Zizek offers an explanation for why that is (that we are still dimly aware that Communism had good ideals), which is what I objected to – empirically and morally.
Zach:
If you really think “The reason nearly half of the American population doesn’t vote is simple and well-studied: widespread and deep dissatisfaction with both political parties and the overall power structure of the country,” then I have to conclude that you’re talking off the top of your head and/or projecting your own opinions onto others. “Why people vote or not” is indeed one of the most-studied questions, yes, but it’s also one of the most contentious and least-agreed-upon fields in academic political science. The reason you give is one commonly stated reason, of course (though whether such self-reports are reliable on a matter of civic duty is questionable). But also common reasons for not voting are disinterest, apathy, inconvenience of all kinds, non-registration, ineligibility, belief in ineffectuality, etc. Also, disgust with status-quo parties is as often cited as a reason FOR political activism – the Democratic Netroots and the Tea Party movements being two recent examples.
“The idea that the non-voting portion of the population can be counted as virtual supporters for either candidate, roughly split down the middle, is nonsense.”
Why? When you ask people detailed questions about ideology and issues, voters and non-voters don’t differ by that much.
“What polls do consistently show is that most of the issues people care about are consistently absent from the political agenda.”
What are you talking about? Can you cite a single poll of “what issues people care about” that contains little or nothing that politicians talk about? Pre-empt: whether the issues are addressed effectually or discussed to your satisfaction is neither here nor there, given your claim of “consistently absent from the political agenda.” Politicians have many flaws, but “not putting what the people care about on the political agenda” is not one of them. If it were, they couldn’t be widely viewed (correctly) as panderers.
Jake Leg Kid:
Part of what I said to Zach applies. There are many reasons – good, bad or trivial – why people don’t vote. I don’t see why the fact you cite – a lot of money and time is spent campaigning – even speaks to the why. That presupposes that turnout is a natural resource that responds in some uniform way to inputs. All the campaigning and ad buys in the world can affect only some of the myriad reasons people give for not voting. Those that it cannot affect include (to name a few) “I’m not registered,” “I don’t care about politics,” “politics doesn’t affect me that much,” “my vote won’t affect the outcome,” “I couldn’t get off work,” “I missed the absentee deadline.”
The rest of your note either attributes to me things I didn’t say (I really “allow[ed] absolutely no room for such rejection”??) or relies on such attributions.
Fuzzy Bastard:
Setting normative judgements aside, I pretty much agree with what you say though I think the whole “Babbitry” narrative is a bit of bohemian self-congratulation (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-anti-american-fallacy-15402?page=all) – which doesn’t make it less real in bohemia of course. However, it’s an explanation for WHY Hollywood is, loosely speaking, a left-wing institution and/or a normative argument for why it SHOULD be – subjects on which I don’t believe I said anything here. And the first of which subjects presupposes that it DOES lean left and DOES view Republicans as the enemy.
Mr. Morton, just to respond to the points you made to me specifically, I’d simply say that I think art should be relevant to the concerns of its audience and engage the issues of its time and place. Saying that Hollywood shouldn’t deal with contemporary affairs is like saying that we should only read books by Nora Roberts or Clive Cussler. Granted, I don’t want more stupid movies about current affairs, like anything directed by Paul Haggis or the last couple of Michael Moore movies or that recent David Zucker ‘American Carol’ thing. Maybe I’m just being an idealist.
Victor – I probably didn’t phrase the conservative argument properly, but I seem to have run out of steam. I think your a‑b-c-(d) is a far cry from what I was saying, but oh well. I’m, obviously, not ready to dismiss continental philosophy in realms of the social. That feels like a broad brush to be painting with, and an argument that has been had over and over for the last 50 yars. Agamben and Deleuze alone allow me to maintain faith that it can be relevant. We probably need more Stanley Cavell’s anyways but that man is one of a kind and one of the finest thinkers the last 100 years has seen. Perhaps it is best to let this wimper out…
Here we go:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/06/16/leftist-media-enforcers-sex-and-the-city-2-racist-creates-terrorists/
You know, I struggle with a lot of… emotional issues. But one thing my parents- dirty liberals, both of them- have always tried to drill into me is that bullies, or percieved enemies, while going after them may be fun and satisfying, it’s also incredibly draining on your time and spirit.
Um, thanks, I think, Dan.
Since Nolte is likely to publish it anyway, here’s the text of the personal e‑mail I just sent him:
“Is that all you’ve got?
Pathetic.
Yours in Christ,
GK”
I don’t know why, but that “Yours in Christ” line made me LOL, as they say.
Nolte is clearly a lying idiot, and severely lacking in self-awareness and irony. Congratulations on attaining the epithet ‘well-known leftist’, which I’m sure he sees as prelude to lining you up against a wall.