The usual suspects are up in arms over V for Vendetta, the new action flick with Natalie Portman (yowza!). Now, unlike many of the other movies where they go looking for the politics, V for Vendetta is clearly a slap at the sort of heavy handed fascism enjoyed by Republicans. There are allusions to Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, and media manipulation. But the thing is, while the world of V for Vendetta turns modern conservatism up to 11 – it isn’t like they pulled these things out of the air. The Bush White House has created an environment where we’ve got warrantless wiretapping, torture, and media manipulation as elements of our culture. Who’s to say if we were to allow another 20 years of this sort of GOP rule that America wouldn’t look like V’s England? And would the appropriate response to fascism be the twiddling of thumbs? I think our founding fathers would probably disagree. That said, remember rule #1: IT’S A F***ING MOVIE. Republicans like to look at box office receipts and use their magical bias powers to divine Great Meaning about America’s political attitude. V for Vendetta was #1 with a take of $25.6 million. Surely this means America is pro-anarchy, right?
Or it’s just a f***ing movie.
(You should also see Thank You for Smoking, it’s great if you’re into politics at all and – not that it really mattered to me, I just like a good movie – but the movie’s political sensibility is right-libertarian if anything.)
I think everyone should listen to hear what conservatives think about a movie before actually watching it.
Natalie Portman can do anything she wants to me.
JK
[Slight SPOILERS to follow]
V is not “just a movie,” no movie ever is, but here in particular because the filmmakers so clearly have something to say. As a whole, V has a lot of problems on the level of pure filmmaking but that aside, the conservative political criticism of it is utterly inane. Just as it was when they criticized Munich, Paradise Now, Brokeback Mountain and Good Night and Good Luck et al
The author of the screed that Oliver links to writes that, “If you asked a liberal like Michael Moore or Ted Rall to imagine himself as a terrorist, V is what you’d come up with.” Naturally. Because if conservatives lived in a country in which “Political dissidents are jailed, criticism of the government is not allowed, gays are murdered … the government carries out germ warfare attacks and blames terrorists for them, the media is controlled by the government, and art is banned” they’d sit on their asses doing nothing about it.
For goodness sakes, the country depicted in V is a fascist dictatorship! Wouldn’t we all like to think that if it came to it, we’d all be out in the streets?!?!? Of course.
But it sounds like this conservative film critic would fight this state tyrany by forming a regular army and taking the field of battle like a professional soldier because that would be the only honrable way of fighting for freedom. It’d also lead to a pretty quick end to your revolution.
Accoridng to the moron who wrote this review terrorism is always bad even when it’s aimed at a genuinely repressive regime. He writes: “This movie is the equivalent of making a movie in 1944 that features Nazis saving Americans from a fascist, Jew hating dictatorship that has taken over their country in 1960.”
Here’s a better analogy: What if, after the first Gulf War, average Iraqis had turned to IEDs, car bombings, assassinations and kidnappings to bring down Hussein’s regime? Would he be opposed to their efforts at liberation because they used terrorist tactics? Would he be exorting them from the side lines to fight fair?
Even more than that, the reviewer clearly missed the moment in the film when Natalie Portman’s character condemns V for becoming the kind of monster he hates. He also clearly missed the point when V recognizes the double-edged sword of his actions: one must sometimes become what one hates and so seal one’s fate along with one’s enemy. Indeed, the film’s final shots illustrate the paradox of mass political movements, especially those predicated on individual liberty: The success of any mass revolution demands individuals to surrender their idividuality to the mass inorder to make their voice heard. The filmmakers confront both these dillemas but their inability or unwillingness to live in ambiguity and paradox is why the movie isn’t as smart is it thinks it is. It wants as much clarity and resolution as the film’s tone deaf film critics are demanding.
V is not a very good movie but you have to be a simple minded moron to equate its hero with Osama Bin Laden as this critic clearly does. Big picture, it’s simply astonishing how dumb you have to be to be a conservative these days — epsecially a cultural conservative. It’s just lucky he didn’t choke on his popcorn.
As Lester Burnham from American Beauty would say, “look closer” at V’s box office #s. Last year, The Ring 2 opened on the same weekend (3rd weekend in March) and earned $35 million. Read the trades and you’ll see that $25 Million , given the budget & promotional push, is seen as slightly disapointing.
Which isn’t all that surprising really. Making terrorists the good guys, as V does, can’t be all that good for business.
PS: If this really were facism, how in the world are you still posting?!? I thought the BushCo regime was stifling dissent.
Go see “Find Me Guilty”. You will not believe how good Vin Diesel is.
It is a movie that you will not want to see end.
Or maybe, it’s just a f**ng movie.
“Making terrorists the good guys, as V does, can t be all that good for “business.”
Like I said, you have to be dumb as shit.
He writes: This movie is the equivalent of making a movie in 1944 that features Nazis saving Americans from a fascist, Jew hating dictatorship that has taken over their country in 1960.
One more thing, what the hell do you suppose this dipshit critic thinks about the French, Yugoslavian, Polish and Czech undergrounds who did indeed use guerilla tactics to fight the Nazis?
And I should clarify that V DOES NOT actually use terrorist tactics to the extent that terrorism is violence directed at civilians. Innocents do indeed get hurt and killed but Vs targets are all entirely state run institutions.
Dman conservatives are stupid.
Late Evening Update
Take a look. Charlie Quimby on Kevin Phillips’ new book. Amba is not happy about the possibility that Afghanistan will execute a man for converting to Christianity. Ezra comments on the rising cost of college. Yup! Oliver reviews a couple
Words guaranteed to keep me away from a movie: “You will not believe how good Vin Diesel is.”
You will not believe how good Vin Diesel is.
I’m actually a Vin Diesel fan. I’ll be checking it out.
frame,
Gee, I wonder where I could have gotten the ridiculous notion that terrorists were the good guys. Hey it says so right here in the press release!
The hard left owns Hollywood and if you expect anything other than hard left movies out of those yahoos – you’re naive. More of the same. What the left doesn’t realize is how their political doimance of Hollywood has stagnated the intelelctual quality of the product. Almost all heavy handed left wing political and cultural ‘message’ movies. I read that the original author’s inspiration was fascist ritain under Thatcher. WEll gee, how in the h*ll did this courageous author survive those evil fascists. Probably the same way leftists are thriving under the facsist reign of Herr Bushitler.
Dugger, Hollywood is ALL yours, enjoy (and thank god for tapes and DVDs)
The film is clumsy and heavy-handed, and it glosses over the main thrust of Alan Moore’s novel–that the people in power were so craven, distrusting, and self-absorbed that V only had to offer the slightest push, relatively, to have it all come tumbling down.
It also glosses over the fact that V isn’t a solution, only a counterbalance. For a government that had swung too far right, V purposely swung them too far left; it would be up to the survivors to balance the ship.
Dugger, Alan Moore’s inspiration for the original story wasn’t “fascist Britain under Thatcher,” it was the rise of neo-fascist extremism under Thatcher. And groups like the National Front were and are real, and had real influence over public policy.
I don’t know why you guys act like you don’t understand fiction. An author warns about his country’s tendencies toward tyranny by presenting an extreme, futuristic dystopia, and your fatuous reaction is “but it isn’t really that way!” Duh. V for Vendetta also takes place after a nuclear war; are you going to object that England wasn’t really experiencing nuclear winter when Moore wrote the book?
Did you ever read Atlas Shrugged? Gee, how did Ayn Rand ever get her books published when the government was so full of mendacious mediocrities who squashed the accomplishments of true creative types? Oh, I see, she was writing fiction. She was making up an extreme world to illustrate her point.
“The hard left owns Hollywood”
And? Maybe you should re-examine your belief system and temperment if all the smart, creative people disagree with you. Did you ever think why?
The hard left doesn’t own Hollywood any more than the oil companies own Houston (yeah, well). John Ford filmed the Battle of Midway, directed Stagecoach and the “Calvary Trilogy,” but also directed The Grapes of Wrath. We need more people like that.
I don’t know what the “hard left” is, but the truth is liberals dominate Hollywood because only liberal minds, open to new ideas, tend to create great art.
How many great painters, filmmakers, sculptors, photographers, fiction writers, etc, are conservative? Very few. The work of art is to challenge the mind, to break out of conventional ways, to inspire the senses.
The orthodoxy of conservatism, by the definition of conservatism, does none of this. So it should come as no surprise that few artists are conservative.
On the other hand, there is always stuff like “Bewitched, the Movie” or anything else with Will Ferrell that Hollywood produces for the other part of the population. Or Thomas Kincaid type of art. I don’t think anybody is confusing any of that with “art”, however.
JSA,
H*ll, agree on Ford. He made movies in, what, fifties and early sixties.
Plenty of old left wing semi polemic films I liked – because they argued their point honestly and there were a few right wing (or actually non-left win films) films to have some diveriity. Jean Renoir- The Southerner, Ox-Bow Incident, Paths of Glory – all good, honest old left wing films.
Dugger
Art is liberal. Creativity blossoms when rebelling against conservative ideas. Or do you think that “liberal bias” is the only reason this song (http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/right_brothers_bush) didn’t catch on?
“The hard left owns Hollywood and if you expect anything other than hard left movies out of those yahoos – you re naive.”
Hard left movies like, Failure to Launch? Naturally conservative bloggers hate Failure to Launch, it makes them feel bad about living at home with their parents.
And Save, V is a good guy because he’s fighting THE BAD GUYS in a facist dictatorship. Have you seen the movie? Are you that stupid? How many idiot conservatives would like to argue that it’s wrong to fight tyranny?
Oliver, I said you will not believe it. For the record, nobody gets killed, and nothing blows up. It’s not XXX, or the Pacifier, it’s a truth based comedy drama.
You can wait for cable. Cinematically, it’s no great shakes.
A more balanced review from Roger Ebert.
Crazy Jay, did you read the whole post?
If you had, you would have seen me say:
On the other hand, there is always stuff like Bewitched, the Movie or anything else with Will Ferrell that Hollywood produces for the other part of the population. Or Thomas Kincaid type of art. I don t think anybody is confusing any of that with art , however.
Go play in traffic.
“Not having seen the movie, I don t know if he intentionally targets civilians.”
Innocent civilians get hurt and killed here and there but all of his targets are state run institutions and complicit government agents. As I pointed out above he does not set out to target civilians so it’s even a misnomer to call him a terrorist to the extent that terrorist do target civilians. At the same time, the film does raise doubts about his means and methods of achieving his goal. It is not uncritical of V. He is a complicated hero who recognizes that he has become what he hates but to a certain extent he seems to conclude that this inevitable and necessary: He is a product of the tryanny that created him.
You simply have to be a wilful idiot to think that the film is lauding terrorism and equating V with Osama Bin Laden.
“Second of all, political ideologies have nothing to do with the creation of art.”
Ya, look at Wagner.
Conservatives are just as capable of producing great as liberals. But it’s ludicrous to assert that political ideologies have nothing to do with making that art. All art is political guys, from Deuce Bigolo to a landscape to the Mona Lisa.
I don’t know if I agree with you, frame. To produce great art, your mind must be open to new ideas, and the conservative mind usually is not.
That isn’t an absolute rule, of course, but it does seem to be the nature of art.
On the other hand, maybe many artists with no ideaology are turned liberal because liberal pols tend to fund public art/movies/writing, whereas conservative pols do not. Cons tend to censor art, liberals do not in general.
Most artists, like most people, are probably pretty apolitical, but for the above reasons and I’m sure many others my impression is they tend to be liberal.
I’m not trying to say that being liberal makes a good artist, you have to have innate talent. I am saying that good artists tend to be liberal.
Factcheck, that still doesn’t make your other point any more valid. It’s still dumb. I noticed too that you completely dismiss the work of Thomas Kinkaid. Why?
But it s ludicrous to assert that political ideologies have nothing to do with making that art. All art is political guys
How is that?
The film itself is also naive. Does anyone really think that a 21st Century fascist dictatorship will reappropriate the iconography of Nazis Germany? Please. That’s straight Hollywood storytelling in all its obvious glory. If any Western Democracy slipped into totalitarianism in the next two decades it would be all surface smiles and light and happen so gradually we’d hardly even notice.
To say that art is a “skill” is to severely misunderstand art. Great art can and has been done without really any traditional technical prowess. Why were the Sex Pistols so great? Not becasue they could cut licks like Joe Satriani.
that should be “producing great art as liberals”
“I noticed too that you completely dismiss the work of Thomas Kinkaid. Why? ”
If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.
And Leni Riefenstahl!
To produce great art, your mind must be open to new ideas, and the conservative mind usually is not.
More rubbish.
If you have to ask, you wouldn t understand.
Don’t be an intellectual coward. You made a statement. Defend it. Why is Thomas Kinkade’s work not art?
Who are his intentional targets? Not having seen the movie, I don’t know if he intentionally targets civilians.
World’s smallest book: Great conservative artists through history.
I don t know what the hard left is, but the truth is liberals dominate Hollywood because only liberal minds, open to new ideas, tend to create great art.
How many great painters, filmmakers, sculptors, photographers, fiction writers, etc, are conservative? Very few. The work of art is to challenge the mind, to break out of conventional ways, to inspire the senses.
The orthodoxy of conservatism, by the definition of conservatism, does none of this. So it should come as no surprise that few artists are conservative.
This is one of the dumbest things I have ever read.
First of all, when one considers the amount of SHIT Hollywood produces every year and how it heavily outweighs the good stuff, I wouldn’t be bragging about their propensity to “create great art.” Unless one considers “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo” to be great art.
Second of all, political ideologies have nothing to do with the creation of art. The creation of art, be it painting, writing, filmmaking, music, etc. is a talent. Many can learn any of the above. But the best have a natural ability they’ve been blessed with to do these things and it has nothing to do with them being liberals or conservatives.
The breakdown between ideologies probably has more to do with what people have chosen as a profession, rather than just a hobby or creative outlet.
Your assertion is absurd.
Jay, the conservative drummer and photographer.
It’s oversimplified to say that conservatives can’t be artists. James Woods and Gary Oldman, two fine actors, are also staunch conservatives.
That said, the vast majority of our greatest artists were always subversive in some way or another–it’s how they got noticed in the first place; they rejected the status quo. As a conservative mindset tends toward preserving or strengthening that status quo, you find fewer artists of that mindset.
For every time Jay C says “Thomas Kinkade,” any high school student can name at least three great artists of a more liberal stripe.
Vogelfrei,
I opined about Hollywood – not the government. IE, I’m complaining about the product of the free market – which UI support. I don’t like the product. I wish the free market would give those who think like me, right wing movies with right wing biases and right wing views of history. Three have ben a few over history but not many. I don’t want any changes forced. It took foreve to get Fox News, but now we have a very small counterbalcnce to the MSM.
“Alan Moore s inspiration for the original story wasn t fascist Britain under Thatcher, it was the rise of neo-fascist extremism under Thatcher”
A distinction without a difference.
Vogel, Communism is arguably the greatest evil visited upon mankind – having murdered many more innocents than fascism. Why do you think there haven’t been a sh*tpot of movies about the evils of communism? We get movies telling how good commies are (Reds, the Way we Were etc), but not (in general) how bad.
And there has been a wee bit of conservative fiction and a very few conservative movies, but representing roughly half the population I wonder why thats all we get.
Dugger (Read Atlas, and they made a movie of Fountainhead)
If you want to learn about the Nazis and art, check out the documentary
Architecture of Doom.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0098559/
You know it should be added that Picasso was only able to develop his ever evolving style after he mastered the basic, traditional rules of perspective and realism. The avant-garde functions as a critique of tradition but at the same time it is always, inherently bound up with and dependent on tradition.
A great example of a conservative, or rather conservative leaning, film artist is Sam Fuller. Go see all of his movies now.
Because, Dugger, what Stalin practiced wasn’t communism, it was fascism that pretended to be communism. And it’s disingenuous of you to keep pretending otherwise.
The basic tenet of communism, at its heart, is that everybody is equal in the economic and social structure. Stalin didn’t practice this; he practiced the Animal Farm communism. “All animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others.”
“To produce great art, your mind must be open to new ideas, and the conservative mind usually is not.”
Realist representation was the height of artistic expression for centuries. Then along came photography and threw painting into a crisis. Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh et al responded with a radical new form of painting that drove traditional art patrons and critics crazy. Impressionism and cubism were the end of the world they thought. Of course it wasn’t. Far from it. Picasso et al were open to new ways of thinking and doing art. Conservative and reactionary forces responded the way they always do: With ignorance and fear in defense of tradition. So yes, one could argue that conservatives are less inclined to experiment and push the limits of artistic expression but that doesn’t mean they can’t still paint masterly landscapes. Look at Hitler (oops, does this mean I lose the argument?). One of the premiere events on the Nazi social/cultural calendar was what was called the Degenerate Art shows. All the works of cubist, impressionist and other avant-garde painters were put on mocking display for the German public to get a look at the “corruption” and “horror” that largely Jewish intellectuals were “infecting” German culture with. Right across the street would be an annual showing of art personally selected by Hitler, paintings and sculpture that evoked classical Greek form and realism. It has even been argued that Nazism was less a political movement but an aesthetic one that aimed at “purifying” the German culture. Hitler went so far as to extend aesthetic into biology which lead to the Holocaust. Indeed, German doctors compared cubist and impressionist portraits doen by Jewish avant-artists to photographs of the physically and mentally handicapped to prove a link between mental and physical degeneration. The art on display in the “approved” art shows was largely what one might call kitsch, but it nevertheless displayed a mastery of classical proportions and realist aesthetics.
That said, show me an apolitical artist and I’ll show and artist that sucks.
It always amazes (and frightens) me how comprehensive the degradation of Jews in Nazi Germany truly was, how it spread to every aspect of society. Thanks, that was interesting Frame.
How about every single movie Disney has ever made …
“I wonder why thats all we get.”
Naturally its because of the liberal conspiracy that controls Hollywood and won’t allow the free market to do its job. Gimme a break. Hollywood doesn’t make conservative movies? Where have you been the last four decades, going to dinner theater? Here’s a few conservative movies you might want to check out: Coogan’s Bluff, the Dirty Harry films, Death Wish I-V, the entire Rambo series, Top Gun, every single Tom Clancy adaptation, the Die Hard films, Forrest Gump (please don’t tell me you think this film is liberal, it’s a wholesale trashing of the 60s counter-culture), Independence Day (remember the scene in which the British soldiers thank god that the Americans finally have a plan to save the world?), Armageddon, Pearl Harbor (hell practically every Jerry Bruckheimer film), Gladiator, Black Hawk Down etc. etc. etc.
frameone I certainly wouldn’t describe Fuller’s work as Conservative. Sure, his work is punchy and manly, two qualities conservatives link to ascribe themselves, but many of his movies are widely critical of the nation of America.
Shock Corridor uses an insane asylum as a metaphor for America – Fuller’s prognosis being that all is not well. Whilst his final American movie (y’know before he moved to Paris, home of all of Patriotic American conservatives) White Dog is about an Afro-American trying to deprogramme a dog that’s been trained to attack black people.
His war movies meanwhile, in a stark contrast to the Conservative ideal, make warfare look messy and unpleasant. Add to that the fact he actually served in WWII and I really can’t imagine him finding very much common ground with the current generation of Conservatives.
The Godfather films are radically conservative not only in their portrayal of family, women, power, the free market etc. but also aesthetically as a rejection of New Hollywood experimentation in its return to classical Hollywood narrative structure and style.
Speaking of Coppola, he wrote Patton, another conservative classic. I mentioned Fuller before, how about the Big Red One, recentlyt restored and given a wonderful tribute by Fuller friend and fan, Curtis Hanson, director of LA Confidential.
factcheck, a fair number of excellent writers were very conservative. I will only point out Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as two of the greatest novelists ever. Flannery O’Connor and Tom Wolfe are pretty good examples of talented conservative American writers.
Having said that, I would also recommend that we not get trapped into believing that Hollywood is a liberal bastion. Jack Abramoff did write a movie, and he is part of a pretty consequential crew in Hollywood who hold similar views. Hollywood is about making money. If conservative ideas sell, expect more green-lighted projects.
Dugger, you did indeed opine about the government:
That’s clearly a statement about freedom of expression under regimes commonly criticized (hyperbolically) as oppressive.
Your assertion that I make “a distinction without a difference” overlooks the fact that the NF was not in charge. “Fascism under Thatcher” implies that the Conservative government itself was fascist. It wasn’t. “The rise of neo-fascism” is a reference to a cultural movement that was underway, even occasionally influencing policy, but not actually calling the shots. I didn’t state it well, and it’s a bit inaccurate anyway because the NF actually declined in influence under Thatcher, but I hope you see that there is a distinction there.
I’m really not so sure about your assertion that there is a preponderance of pro-communist film in America. I don’t have much in the way of examples either way, but my instinct tells me that the Cold War provided plenty of dramatic fodder for films depicting the oppressiveness of Soviet-style communism. I’m thinking White Nights, Moscow on the Hudson, the HBO movie Gulag — none of these were jingoistic, mindless adventures like the litany of crap frameone lists above, yet they sure weren’t depicting communism as a happy thing. Also, The Killing Fields was as horrific a depiction of the horrors of totalitarian communism as I can imagine coming from Hollywood.
Dugger, The Last Emperor and The Joy Luck Club did a masterful job of picturing the Communist revolution in China for what it was.
And “The Joy Luck Club” was very good, and “The Last Emperor” was even better.
I must add that “The Last Emperor” was made by an Italian, and anti – Nazi and concentration camps are put out by the dozen each year. If it were possible for you to come with a different angle on the Holocaust, and, believe me, it wouldn’t be easy, you could drive out to Hollywood, toss it over somebody’s transom at breakfast time, and be a millionaire by lunch.
Obviously, anti – Communist films don’t fare that well in Hollywood. If it were simply a matter of creativity, as suggested by factcheck, why hasn’t a creative mind been able to produce an innovative film? Assuming (and, it’s a whale of an assumption — the names Ezra Pound, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Malcolm Muggeridge come to mind, even though they are not painters; even W.F. Buckley’s is well – received) that conservatives are not creative enough to make films, why can’t liberal filmmakers make movies about conservative themes.
Oliver once said he saw The Rock, as an indicator of his open mindedness with regard to movies with “conservative themes.” But I’ve seen that movie. The villains were far – right mercenaries who planned to gas San Francisco!
How many movies feature right – wing whackos threatening to blow up something or other? Take over the country? Start a revolution? Kill the President? Taking hostages?
Ever see a Hollywood movie about the various “student: radicals that robbed banks, shooting cops, and bank guards; blew up ROTC buildings? Were they portrayed as villains?
There’s no need to go on…
“So again, why not a sh*tpot of movies about murderous commies. About Mao s mass executions of peasants, Stalins gulags and mass starvation, etc.”
Ya, because everyone knows that mass executions, gulags and starvation spell big box office. Why Hollywood would be crazy not to make a bunch of movies about mass execution. There’d be lines around the block!
Dugger, Hollywood follows the bottom line. Nazis are the go to bad guys not because Hollywood loves gulags but because Nazi-style iconogrpahy is instantly recognizable to American audiences. All someone has to do is goose step in high leather boots and bam, he’s a bad guy. No further explication needed.
Take V for Vendetta, as an example. It lifts all it’s art direction straight from Triumph of the Will. It’s called genre, Dugger. You’re really talking about a cliche of evil that’s been set in stone since 1941. If you think Hollywood is going to change now to constructivist agit-prop you have no idea how movies work. It’s less evidence of a Hollywood liberal conspiracy to hide the horrors of Stalanism than it is proof that Hollywood is LAZY!
BTW, Hollywood made plenty of anti-communist films i the 1950s and 60s. Just because you haven’t seen or heard of them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Unless, of course, your Gut tells you they don’t.
I probably overstate the case for Fuller’s conservatism (I’m trying to be fair) and I don’t think Fuller would have much in common with today’s conservatives but you can’t discount the reactionary politics, racial and cultural, of films like Pick Up On South Street or China Gate, either. Suffice it to say that there’s a pulp, tabloid hysteria that runs through much of Fuller’s style that makes him hard to pin down.
BD, Maybe technically correct but a distinction without a difference. The evil is not the technical ‘ism’ but what its adherents do in its name. And the proud practioners of communism are history’s worst. So again, why not a sh*tpot of movies about murderous commies. About Mao’s mass executions of peasants, Stalins gulags and mass starvation, etc. If murder is the measure, there should be about five anti-commie movies to every one anti-fascist. We are talking about why movie makers are liberal. Is there some kind of brain block that if you are artistically creative, you are also morally dead? Are the murcered victims of communists not as deserving as the murdered victims of Nazis?
Dugger
http://www.mtv.com/shared/movies/interviews/m/moore_alan_060315/
I Married A Communist
Pickup on South Street
The Manchurian Candidate
I was a Communist for the FBI
Big Jim McClain
The Iron Curtain
The Red Menace
My Son John
etc. etc.
And i was just reminded from Digby, what was I thinking: Red Freakin Dawn, people. Red freakin Dawn. Now if that isn’t a conservative anti-communist Hollywood made by Hollywood that supports guerilla warfare I don’t what is. Damn.
If V for Vendetta is a liberal action fantasy (and it is) it is no different from Red Dawn, the conservative fantasy action film of all time.
Wolverines!
Vogelfrei,
Accept what you say (government versus an independent organzation) but then it seems to emphasize the point does it not that (I say left) filmakers are obsessed with the right and pay scant attention to the horrors of the extreme left. I mean this whole big blockbuster movie has as its inspiration a minor British right wing group? Hello! 100 million have been murderd by communists.
I actually assert that there has been a preponderance of pro-left, favorable-view-of-communism films as opposed to the opposite in the political film arena.
I always think about Reds and wonder if a filmaker would do a favorable story about an idealistic Nazi journalist. Or we could have a Streisand Redford love story between an idealistic young Nazi and an uptight liberal. Or the American (conservative presdient). Blah blah blah. Of course not (nor would I want it). But how can major filmmakers, studios and major stars make movies that pretend these people are any different than Nazis. Something is wrong at the core with the value system.
And I could probably name ten leftist movies for every rightist one.
Duros,
Body Snatchers’ right wingedness is a ‘reach’ interpretation. it is not a right wing movie. It has also been intreprted as a cricism of McCarthyism.
Red Dawn is a rightist action movie (not a very good one) – a movie left wingers think of as right wing. . My rightist movie would ‘cook the books’ ideologically just like the left wing movies do.
Frank,
Haven’t seen either. Its estimated by man that Mao murdered 20 million peasants. Do either actually capture some of this – as Schindler does the Holocaust?
And great point about the Holocaust movie phenomenon. Also somewhat true of McCarthyism. Every few years the left establishes its great intelelctual and moral superiority by amking a movie about a minor US politician who fought communism a little too wildly. My idea: Actually make a few movies about McCarthy’s targets.. showing them as evil!
Also the Jonestowwn movie glossed over Jim Jones communist ties. If he had been a Nazi or even a right winger, think that wouldn’t have been brought out?
Dugger, I could care less if it is or isn’t a conspiracy. Hollywood needs to authoritatively and artistically address the greatest evil in human history.
BTW, Hollywood made plenty of anti-communist films i the 1950s and 60s.M
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Dugger, Hollywood follows the bottom line. There’s a “chicken and egg” problem there, frame. If all the movies you ever make have Nazis, and right wingers — see above, after moderation — some will do better than others. A superlative performance — Life is Beautiful; a name director, and newly discovered history for background — Schindler’s List; and you’ve got a hit. They’re even getting ready to remake The Dirty Dozen!
How about the massacre in the Katyn Forest? How about Cancer Ward? How about an honest film about Herbert Philbrick? The Hiss – Chamberlain battle?
We can see a movie about fixing a game show — Quiz Show — but the best CBS can come up with for a movie about Ronald Reagan is one that perpetuates dozens of myths, rumors, and lies about him.
No, you can’t blame the audience for the movie. We don’t make ‘em, we just watch ‘em!
duros: You might think that Invasion of the Body Snatchers was an anti – communist film, and it could be interpreted that way, but that’s not what it was intended to be. The concept was that the pod people were conforming Republican types, held in thrall by McCarthy, willing to rat out non – conformists.
“Yeah, when you show a hammer & sickle or one of those big-ass hats, noone knows who the hell they re supposed to be.”
I’m sorry Save, we’re alive in the 1980s when Hollywood churned out all manner of Soviet bogeyman movies from Top Gun to Red Dawn? But we’re talking about fictionalized tyrannies here. When a filmmaker sets out to imagine a fictional tyranny, the hammer and sickle just don’t cut it. The swastika gives itself far easier to impressionist interpretation. How’s an art director going to rework the hammer and sickle? As a scythe and a wrench? I believe that’s the realm of parody, not fear.
I think the trouble is that you guys just have no idea how Hollywood works. You assume studio executives sit around all day plotting to destroy America and that’s all you need to go on. What’s more, you have a limited understanding of how movies work period.
Ever see a Hollywood movie about the various student: radicals that robbed banks, shooting cops, and bank guards; blew up ROTC buildings? Were they portrayed as villains?
Off the top of my head, no. But I can’t think of any where they’re the heroes, either. I mean where they’re really presented as heroes. Are there main stream movies that really glorified cop killing, etc.?
That’s really more rap’s job, now isn’t it?
“No, you can t blame the audience for the movie. We don t make em, we just watch em!”
There is a circular, self-fulling logic to Hollywood’s production system: It doesn’t make films about Stalinist Russia because nobody goes to see films about Stalinist Russia but you’d never really know because Hollywood doesn’t make movies about Stalinist Russia because no one would go see it. Phew. That said, Hollywood probably only has room enough for one genocide genre, and the Holocaust film pretty much fills the bill.
People only get to choose from what they’re given by Hollywood, unless, of course, they watch foriegn or independent films. And if you don’t, well, you don’t have much room for complain about Hollywood to begin with, do you? You want to see films about the 20th century’s greatest monsters aside from Hitler? Check out Alexander Sokurov’s trilogy: Moloch (Hitler), Telets (Lenin) and Solontse (Hirohito). Frank you mentioned Cancer Ward, how about German director Caspar Wrede’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1973)?
Why hasn’t Hollywood made a film about Katyn Forest? I don’t know Frank. Maybe it’s because you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Hollywood’s coveted 18-35 bracket who currently knows what the hell it is. Everyone knows what the Holocaust is. It’s a pre-sold property and Hollywood loves those.
Hollywood lives and dies on formula, even to the point where its remaking films long after most audiences have grown tired of the same old story. Can you say, Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child? Then some new director/writer comes along an rejuvenates an old formula and suddenly it’s back in vogue again. Think, again, about the slasher film cycle of the 1980s and how it was revived by Kevin Williamson with one film, Scream. Suddenly the teen horror flick was back in vogue.
So go aheead. Give the world the Stalinist expose it’s been dying for! Raise $5 million and make a film on Stalin’s Gulags and market it to the John Birchersm, get the director on Michael Medved’s show, try to build word of mouth. What have you got to loose?
Yeah, when you show a hammer & sickle or one of those big-ass hats, noone knows who the hell they’re supposed to be.
You are all missing the mark on conservative artists. Maybe I should throw out James Joyce. I mean Ulyssess is probably one of the greatest novels of all time. The difference lies in that while Joyce was a conservative, he didn’t quite agree with bleeting his message. Just look at how he addressed Irish revolutionaries. I think why there is such a decline of conservative art/prose is the Republican party wants nothing to do with intellectuals. The old vanguard, (Buckley and company) are so marginalized by a party hell bent on truthiness and machismo. A perfect example is that our president is quite a mental midget. I think I would respect conservative art more if in fact they argued theory and OPENLY talked about world problems. Instead “conservatives” or the milquetoast/sham conservatives of today would rather satisfy the reptilian side of thier bases skull than embrace open thinking, creativity, and dialougue.
Rude Awakening and Flashback. They were comedies, for cryin’ out loud! Neither was one a box office blockbuster, but they were feature films, not low budget, with name stars.
I’m sure Hollywood producers don’t sit around plotting to take over the world — they own so much of it, they don’t need to!
But they do accept these scripts as valuable and worthy of production. They must receive at least a few conservative – themed scripts, but those they reject. How many truly conservative – themed movies can you name, compared to the hundreds (thousands?) that are not?
Check out this list, going back to 1994, from National Review, of 100 movies that Conservatives would like. Look at the years it covers
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n20_v46/ai_15905983
Dugger, let me recommend Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. It’s a documentary about the communist Chinese occupation of Tibet. It portrays Mao as both incompetent and murderous and his Cultural Revolution as a cultural murder-suicide.
Warning: it was made with the cooperation and participation of a whole raft of people you don’t like at all: Tim Robbins, Ed Harris, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, etc.
And as long as I’ve brought up the subject of Tibet, maybe you can answer a question for me. Why is it that conservatives don’t show much interest in opposing the Chinese occupation of Tibet? Is it only because lefties like Robbins, Sarandon, and Richard Gere got there first?
Principles, my man. Principles.
Are there main stream movies that really glorified cop killing, etc.?
That s really more rap s job, now isn t it?
Sadly, true. But didn’t Warner’s catch hell for it, too?
I agree actors should not be involved in politics. Here is a list of actors who I especially wish would or had stayed out of politics.
Charlton (10 Commandments) Heston (President NRA)
Congressman Sony (Sonny & Cher) Bono (R-Palm Springs)
Congressman Fred (Love Boat) Grandy (R-Iowa)
Senator George (Battleground) Murphy (R-California)
Senator Fred (Law & Order) Thompson (R-Tennessee)
Governor Arnold (Terminator) Schwarzenegger (R-California)
President Ronald (Bedtime for Bonzo) Reagan (R-California)
Boy, there sure are a lot of Rs after those names. I, for one am sick of these Hollywood types trying to pass off their Conservative views on the rest of main stream America!
Quaker,
I honestly don’t know why conservatives have been quiet about Tibet. We as a group are perfectly capable of being hypocritical and/or ignorant (but then so are all groups of humans).
BTW, I generally don’t care about the politics of Hollywood stars, but if they go public with advocacy they are fair game for the other way. The only one I refuse ever to watch, patronize or have anything to do with is Jane Fonda. Will take that to the grave with me.
Loved leftie Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan – nearly perfect.
And I will check out Tibet (plus the two Frank recommended).
Dugger
If you’re talking about Tibet, Martin Scorses’s Kundun is a masterpiece. The images and scenes of the Chinese massacre there are utterly heart wrenching.
“Ah& the You re Stupid! argument. Always compelling.”
The minute you want to go back and discuss why you think V celebrates the terrorism of Osama Bin Laden let me know.
Let’s just take on example from that NR list.
“Today, when the traditional family has come under fierce assault, these films have a special poignance with their un-self-conscious embrace of bedrock values. In Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) (directed by Vincente Minnelli), Judy Garland comforts little Margaret O’Brien, distraught at the prospect of moving away from her beloved home, with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
Are they kidding? Meet in the St. Louis is not an unselfconscious embrace of embrace bedrock values. It’s a deeply ironic film.
Meet in St. Louis is a period piece about a turn of the century family forced to confront the industrial/economic realities of the new century. It is a film driven on every level by anxiety. What the National Review praises as an embrace of bedrock values is really a paean to the cultural moment when those values slipped away forever. Not because of some liberal assault on tradition but because of the cultural changes wrought by the march of free market capitalism. The film ends on a deeply ironic note as the family bathes in the electric glory of the St. Louis World’s Fair, a glittering celebration of the technological progress that will soon demolish their way of life and leave them nothing but their nostalgia.
Meet in St. Louis was supposed to be Hollywood’s conservative, treacly response to Welle’s Maginificent Ambersons which laid it all on the line. But Minnelli was also an artist of anxiety and no number of lullabies from Garland could soothe the trauma of Margaret O’Brien destroying that family of snowmen.
Ah… the “You’re Stupid!” argument. Always compelling.
Hollywood suffers from the same insulatory thinking that plagues the MSM. They think everyone watches the Daily Show and Robert Greenwald films because everyone they know does the same.
“They think everyone watches the Daily Show and Robert Greenwald films because everyone they know does the same.”
That must explain Aquamarine, The Shaggy Dog, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, Because of Winn-Dixie, Chicken Little, Curious George, Cheaper by the Dozen, Polar Express, Sky High, Yours Mine and Ours, Madgascar, The Incredibles, Wallace and Gromit, March of the Penguins, Aliens of the Deep, Spy Kids, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, etc. etc.
“They must receive at least a few conservative – themed scripts, but those they reject.”
Frank, would you like to define what you mean by a “conservative-themed” script?
A script where, as a minimum, the people with conservative views are not portrayed negatively, as being anywhere from sullen to psychotic.
A film where liberals or people with liberal views are not victims of people with conservative views.
A film where people who live regular, normal, happy lives and are conservatives, are not secretly baby eaters or orphange burners.
A film where people with conservative views win without cheating.
Maybe a film where the Navajo code talkers are not escorted by someone whose job it is to kill them if they are captured — especially since it never happened.
How about a film where life in years before the sixties is not filled with people who have have sixties values?
You get the idea
Everyone knows that The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl was pure unadulterated left wing agitprop.
Dugger: Just so you know: Rude Awakening and Flashback are lighthearted romps about fugitive radical students. Of course, the conservatives are bumbling idiots, and each movie ends with a message about the “Good old days, when dissent was tolerated.”
A script where, as a minimum, the people with conservative views are not portrayed negatively, as being anywhere from sullen to psychotic.>>
That’s a tough one, Frank. I can’t think of an example that isn’t in the Veggie Tales series.
A film where liberals or people with liberal views are not victims of people with conservative views.>>
Thus eliminating “The Ten Commandments” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
A film where people who live regular, normal, happy lives and are conservatives, are not secretly baby eaters or orphange burners.>>
If they can’t be overt baby eaters or orphanage burners, maybe “Leave It to Beaver” then.
A film where people with conservative views win without cheating.>>
“Inherit the Wind.” The fundies won the case and the character based on Scopes had to pay a small fine.
How about a film where life in years before the sixties is not filled with people who have sixties values?>>
That eliminates “Quest for Fire.” How about “Schindler’s List”? It wasn’t exactly filled with people with sixties values.
buma: What in the hell are you talking about?
Speaking of movies {Requires ShockWave}
True or false?: Christian iconic imagry is used by the bad guys.
True or false?: One of the good guys says “The Koran’s images are beautiful”.
True or false?: In the same scene, we see an Amercian/British/Nazi flag mash-up with the slogan “Coalition of the Willing”.
It’s all just a “metaphor”, right?
frank,
That 7:55 post was a good one.
Patton again is one of those movies that leftists call rightist but causes a rightist like me to scratch our heads (that, and ticks). Its a very good, but straight forward bio of a man whose epic achievement in life was defeating fascist military. I would not argue that its left wing (I would argue that it is excellent) but it is hardly right wing.
Dugger
I want conservatives to make a fantasy movie that accurately depicts everything they want for America–fund it with your own money, if you don’t trust Hollywood; God knows you’ll find donors.
So, make a movie in which homosexuals have, simply by existing, destroyed marriage, and the conservative Christian family at the center of the film must find a way to convert all the gays back to God’s love, but it’s hard to do that when the gays are all out having sex with animals and trying to adopt our kids.
Make a movie in which we finally wipe out all the drugs and terrorists using military force, and in which all the poor and addicted manage to stop being poor and addicted.
Luckily, our heroes have an unlimited supply of wealth and ammo, brought to them by Tax Cuts!
I’m sure it would sell itself.
Dugger: a ray of hope
I’d have to agree.
I’m so old that I saw that movie in a theatre during its initial run. (I was a youngster, tho.)
Even though I had not yet developed my lefty perspective, I was so disturbed by Patton’s actions that I couldn’t bear to watch George C. Scott in anything for years after that.
The movie wasn’t exactly a celebration of Patton’s legacy.
“The movie wasn t exactly a celebration of Patton s legacy.”
Good biographies don’t celebrate their subjects in the first place, they treat them as complex human beings shaped by and responding to the circumstances of their particular historical moment.
Does a film have to celebrate someone, covering over their faults and mistakes, before it can be considered right wing? Is that the kind of cinema conservatives are demanding? Looking at Frank’s criteria is sounds like it: No conservative cen ever be shown in a negative light period.
Hollywood history is rife with liberal characters who are depicted in a negative light. Anyone ever seen Michael Mann’s Heat? The wife of Al Pacino’s character is a classic liberal who doesn’t undertsand the needs of her meat and potatos, law and order husband. The official foil of just about every action hero from Ahnold to Bruce Willis is some version of the same.
Patton is all the more powerful because it shows Patton as a human being.
Patton emerges as a man who, DESPITE his faults, led a nation in a great and worthy crusade. Would conservatives prefer a white washed version that depicted Patton as an infallible military genius who was betrayed by FDR? Great. Talk about a dull ass movie. It’s like when people criticized Scorsese for his depiction of Christ in The Last Temptation. That movie is an astonishing of work of art and faith precisely because it depicts Christ’s humanity.
One of the greatest liberals who ever worked in Hollywood was Orson Welles. Watch his films and you’ll see that his villains are not one dimensionally evil, neither, however, are his heroes. Look at Touch of Evil. Welles’ Hank Quinlan is a corrupt cop but has more humanity and soul in him than Charlton Heston’s feel good liberal. Even in the end of the film, after Quinlan has been disgraced for planting evidence, it turns out that the guy he framed was guilty afterall.
Listen, I hate mushed headed crap like Crash or documentaries like Why We Fight because they are uncomplicated, unambiguous and preachy. That isn’t good art or good non-fiction.
Of course.
That should read: “neither, however, are his heroes entirely pure.”
complex human beings
I think you hit the nail on the head, there. The current strain of conservative thought does not demand complexity of its characters, fictional or otherwise. Just show us who wears the white hats and who wears the black hats, thankyouverymuch.
“True or false?: Christian iconic imagry is used by the bad guys.
True or false?: One of the good guys says The Koran s images are beautiful .
True or false?: In the same scene, we see an Amercian/British/Nazi flag mash-up with the slogan Coalition of the Willing .
It s all just a metaphor , right?”
Save, what part of any of this suggests that V is a stand in for Osama Bin Laden or that the filmmaker’s support Islamic terror?
Chrisitan iconic imagery is used by the bad guys who are also depicted as duplicitous manipulators who use the rhetoric of religion to impose a decidedly unChristian tyranny on the British people. Or are you arguing that the film depicts true Christians as bad guys?
One of the good guys says The Koran s images are beautiful , Yes, one the good guys who also happens to be gay, so please tell me that his aesthetic appreciation of the Koran’s printing is also a defacto support for the Islamic religion. The character also clearly kept the book as part of a collection of other banned objects and art works not because he loves Islam, but because he cherishes FREE SPEECH! Again, tell me you think that the Koran should be banned or that Koran’s cannot, in fact, be beautiful.
In the same scene, we see an Amercian/British/Nazi flag mash-up with the slogan Coalition of the Willing because the filmmakers are making about the manipulative rhetoric that governments use to win public assent. Please tell me that you think the “Coalition of the Willing” is an accurate description of the hodge podge of countries that provided little if any real support to our war efforts in Iraq.
But again, how does any of this add up to a reading of V as supporting Osama Bin Laden?
Furthermore, Stephen Fry’s character couldn’t read the Q’uran. He was appreciating Arabic as written, much the same way people can appreciate the artistry of Japanese kanji without knowing what it means.
FrankD is asking for a movie with “conservative values” that are written into the script.
What exactly are “conservative values”? Let’s see, the movie would have no sex. Nobody would ever disagree with anyone because the dad is the most man of the house and the misses and kids cannot have an argument. I mean, do you want a movie version of 7th Heaven?
The strawman argument about conservative scripts that are thrown away is quite brilliant. Have you any proof that there are in fact conservative scripts that are well written and somehow engage the audience? I bet you if “liberal” movies outnumber “conservative” movies 10 to 1 so to do the scripts.
My thoughts on the reason Nazi movies are chosen over Stalinist or Maoist is because everyone reads the diaries of Anne Frank in school and thus can understand more easily a Nazi movie. Most kids are not required to read Solyzhenitsyn “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” or Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, although they really ought to. Heck, those books are very liberal in my eyes. Also, movies like Stalag 17 can only be done so many times.
Someone mentioned earlier about how Dostoevsky was a conservative. That’s really funny because the thing that made me hate “Crime and Punishment” was the ending which I found very sad. I wouldn’t label him as a “conservative” though, at least, not like Ronald Reagan was a “conservative”. I thought he was more of an existentialist, who I would argue can not possibly be of either persuassion by their very philosophy. In fact, wikipedia claims he is sometimes called the father of existentialism.
On to “V for Vendetta”. To hell with everyone, I thought it was a superb movie. It was very well acted. The directing was clean. Just enough explosions and death to satisfy and some great one liners and many-liners. The music was really good, as can be expected from the Wachowski brothers.
Equating V with terrorists is silly, especially for anyone who has actually seen the movie. V is the epitome of what a “freedom fighter” is. He wasn’t moving the country “left”, he was fighting to free the people from enslavement to a Hitler-esqe character at the same time letting the people know it was their fault. Tyranny occurs because the populace lets it. That’s one of the most important points of the movie.
The rest of the points regarding paradoxes, etc. are also valid. No need to elaborate further.
Quaker,
“Even though I had not yet developed my lefty perspective, I was so disturbed by Patton s actions that I couldn t bear to watch George C. Scott in anything for years after that. ”
I was in training at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio (a patriotic place theoretically, early seventies – showing my age) and we saw the movie in the base theater and there was booing of Patton (no cheering).
“Would conservatives prefer a white washed version that depicted Patton as an infallible military genius who was betrayed by FDR?”
To which you said ‘of course’. I wouldn’t but many probably would. So fair enough, but do you deny many liberals prefer equally stereotyped, one-dimensional portrayals of their ideal goods and bads, especially business men, soldiers and evangelical Christians, etc. Remember the WaPo quote on those under educated easily led anti abortion demonstraters?
Frame,
Good stuff on Patton and the Hank Quinlan analogy.
Dugger , “He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?…Adios!”
“I want conservatives to make a fantasy movie that accurately depicts everything they want for America”
Not sure where that link was supposed to go Duros but here’s my suggestion:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257408/
This the anti-V: A One World Court tries the film’s heroine for the crime of “Christianity.” Starring Corbin Berson!
Thing is, you would have thought that Left Behind would have sold better.
“Furthermore …”
Exactly. It was a purely formal, aesthetic appreciation of the printing itself. At the same time, there’s no question that the filmmaker’s went out of there way to establish correspondences between our current contemporary world and their futuristic fictional one. But to suggest that those correspondences add up to an endorsement of Islamic terror and Osama Bin Laden is absurd.
The film, not the books, obviously.
I want conservatives to make a fantasy movie that accurately depicts everything they want for America
How about this one?
Let s see, the movie would have no sex. Nobody would ever disagree with anyone because the dad is the most man of the house and the misses and kids cannot have an argument. I mean, do you want a movie version of 7th Heaven?
This is what liberals think conservatives believe, and want in their entertainment. Is it any wonder that Hollywood’s liberals piss us off?
What baloney!
Let me tell how this conservative goes to the movies:
I buy a Delaware – sized buttered popcorn — extra butter (screw the cholesterol!), and a Rhode Island – sized Cherry Coke — extra ice.
I sit in the second row — so no one’s in front of me, and I feel like I’m inside the movie.
What’s my favorite kind of movie? It’s rated PGKASBU
People Get Killed And Shit Blows Up
And, when I go to see We Were Soldiers, I don’t want to see a plot contrivance where two Vietnamese communists regret the American victory, “because now they’ll never leave.”
I do, if we’re talking about liberals with any taste in literature or film.
I don’t. Seems irrelevant to the discussion at hand anyway.
Point: liberals have their ‘comfortable’ thought-free, knee-jerk prejudices just like conservatives and they often revolve around the perceived negative characteristics of the other side. Hnce, the WaPo’s cavalier dismissal of the Christian right.
“I do, if we re talking about liberals with any taste in literature or film.”
Well, yes, you have an excellent point if we include ‘tasteful and tasteless’ conservatives in the mix and only ‘tasteful’ liberals. Books=cooked.
Dugger
Frank_D.
You are the reason liberals think conservatives want some crap movie version of 7th Heaven. Define “conservative value” and how you could see them in a movie for us and maybe then we can have a discussion. Furthermore, what about two Vietnamese communists regretting American victory because now they’ll never leave is liberal? Is trying to show something from a different point of view liberal? To me, that’s good art.
And by the way, that’s not what I think “conservative values” are. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about when you say “conservative values”. It looks like you want people to die and shit to blow up. Sounds about right for today’s “conservative values”.
Oh, in “V for Vendetta” people die and shit blows up. Think of it like this, it’s like the Diary of Anne Frank, but Anne Frank kills Hitler and blows up Neuschwanstein while dying for the cause. How is that anything like Osama killing innocent civilians?
Codswallop.
The discussion–waay back up there–was about what makes a movie a “conservative” movie. For any narrative work to qualify as a “conservative” work, it has to please the partisans and hew to the orthodoxy. Thus, my answer to frame’s question about what mythical “conservatives” would want.
It is *you* who has attempted to make all not-Conservative movies into “liberal” movies. Truth is, hardcore lefties like me don’t like the output of corporate media. Hollywood tends to produce bland, predictable, lowest-common-denominator fare starring Ben Stiller or Cameron Diaz or some other half-talent who can deliver reliable ticket sales. If these movies feature evil business types or crooked politicians, it’s more from lack of imagination than ideology.
As for me, any movie I pay money to see is likely to require me to read subtitles.
If these movies feature evil business types or crooked politicians, it s more from lack of imagination than ideology.
That’s know as exposition, isn’t it?
Not sure where that link was supposed to go Duros
Sorry. Joke.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0099731/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnx0dD0xfGZiPXV8cG49MHxrdz0xfHE9aGFuZG1haWQncyB0YWxlfGZ0PTF8bXg9MjB8bG09NTAwfGNvPTF8aHRtbD0xfG5tPTE_;fc=1;ft=22
No, MikeD, Trying to show something from a different point of view is not liberal. Showing something from a liberal point of view is liberal.
The battle of Ia Drang (We Were Soldiers) really happened. The conversation between the two Vietnamese guys did not. Are you telling me you have no idea why it was put in there? Puhleeeeze.
And I didn’t say anything about Vendetta — at all. And I didn’t say anything about Osama bin Laden — at all.
“As for me, any movie I pay money to see is likely to require me to read subtitles.”
Oh.
Like one of them there Swedish movies where Death and the Devil play chess for the soul of Jutta Bergenborg, who is trapped in a dysfunctional marriage with a preacher who has lost his faith?? Yumpin yimminy I ban hoping for a stalemate (subtitled).
Or do you like the sweaty French movies where Jean Jacques is always having it out with some slatternly, but good-hearted slut in the open-windowed upstairs room of a Paris apartment?
Dugger, I could be a moviemaker (every villain for the first ten movies would be a left wing college professor, then a business man to head off bias complaints)
Here’s one for you Dugger:
A tenured college professor is caught on videotape raping and murdering a little girl. But they still can’t fire him!
The faculty circles the wagons around him, his adoring students file petitions, demonstrate, march, start burning buildings, they even attempt to torch the town.
It becomes a national media circus, with most of the media siding with the professor.
It would make a great musical comedy:
Dancing in the Goves of Academe
18 people would go to see it, and it would win an Oscar. George Clooney would present, saying: “Hollywood goes ouside the mainstream.”
An Idaho militia group suddenly appears, and fires flamethrowers at the first 5 rows (apologies to Firesign Theater).
Dugger,
Who doesn’t like having it out with sweaty big hearted French sluts? Sorry, I’ll go now.
Dugger,
Yes on all counts, but lately my tastes have been leaning toward Bombay.
“A tenured college professor is caught on videotape raping and murdering a little girl. But they still can t fire him!
The faculty circles the wagons around him, his adoring students file petitions, demonstrate, march, start burning buildings, they even attempt to torch the town.
It becomes a national media circus, with most of the media siding with the professor.
It would make a great musical comedy…”
No, it wouldn’t. I’ll try to be a little more serious than in my last post. I know this is your concept of what a liberal’s ultimate wet-dream movie would be (and I hope you’re exaggerating some), but it’s not mine. If it is anybody’s then shame on them.
What if I said we’ll make the ultimate conservative movie. It’ll be about a professor at Bob Jones University who murders a coed after he catches her in an interracial relationship. The faculty circles the wagons around him, his adoring students file petitions, demonstrate, march, start burning buildings, they even attempt to torch the town, etc.
Not very funny and not an accurate portrayal, I’m sure, of what conservatives want in their movies. I appreciate your frustration. Conservatives often get portrayed in stereotypically negative manners. So do others. I’m a southerner and am frustrated that a lot of people’s idea of the southern male is Jethro Bodine or Gomer Pyle. Speaking of sitcoms from the ’60’s, notice how often “hippies” and “flower children” were used for comedic effect.
As others have noted, a lot of this comes down to what sells coupled with intellectual laziness. This holds for the left and the right. For all its reputation as a conservative bastion, Fox has aired some of the raunchiest (and I’ll admit, funniest) shows on broadcast television (e.g. Married with Children, Family Guy).
But is it liberal bias or is it conservative bias making fun of liberals?
I’m not sure. I wasn’t thinking so much in terms of bias as in terms of airing whatever will make a buck. I’ve only seen a couple of episodes of Family Guy this season. In one, Chris announces he has joined the Peace Corps and is being sent to a small villiage in South America. Stewie asks if they still perform “clitor-ectomies.” In another, someone is recalling the Waltons. After the familiar goodnights to everybody, the family realizes John-Boy hasn’t said anything. You hear footsteps, then a door-opening and then, “Geez can’t a guy masterbate anymore?”
This isn’t what I would expect from a conservative network, especially on Sunday. But, if it sells…
With regard to bias, another Fox show I thought of (and like) is King of the Hill. The pilot episode reran the other day. In it, Bobby is hit in the head during a baseball game, and somehow the child welfare office becomes involved. The caseworker is presented as a classic (liberal?) weenie bureaucrat who won’t listen to the reasonalbe explanation of what happened. Yesterday’s rerun was about a weenie archeology professor who takes over Hank’s yard after Hank finds an Indian artifact (John Red Corn tells him it was for straightening arrow shafts; Hank’s convinced it was for stabbing Whites in the base of the skull). And I guess Dale Dribble is poking fun at the stereotypical (conservative?) anti-government, paranoid, conspiracy theorist.
Fox has aired some of the raunchiest (and I ll admit, funniest) shows on broadcast television (e.g. Married with Children, Family Guy).
Agreed.
But is it liberal bias or is it conservative bias making fun of liberals?
So maybe it’s both. Fun for the whole family!
I tell you what!
So, FrankD, are you saying that all movies about everything need to be 100% true? The movie put in something that shows the Vietnamese people are human beings and had a rationale for their activities. If that’s your idea of a “liberal” point of view in your mind, then you need to speak to more liberals and fix the prism from which you are viewing the world. To conservatives, everything that could be construed as “sympathizing” with the terrorists”, or in this case the Vietnamese, is grounds for execution based on the idea that to do so is the definition of the word “traitor”. To that logic, I say, “f$@# you very much”, sir.
Why are you even arguing here if you have not said anything about the subject of the post, which, from what I could tell was about “V”? I thought you were trying to make some sort of a point relating to said subject by claiming no conservative viewpoints are put in movies. Apparently you were not trying to make any such point. My point was it’s a good movie and you might even like it. But, then again, you might think the movie is trying to show that terrorists are human beings and there is nothing more disgraceful to a hawk.
You never answered my question about what exactly the phrase “conservative values” means. Apparently it’s the opposite of a professor raping a student. Gee. How accusatory.
Let me guess, you don’t care for the musical “Rent”.