MEL GIBSON'S TIRADE
By now many of you have already heard of the details of this story.
For now I'll just say the following:
1. What Mel Gibson did was asinine, dangerous, irresponsible and what he said was racist and anti-semitic. He has actually hurt his defenders more than anyone else.
2. His apology and admission took courage, character and fortitude. He easily could have tried to do the celebrity spin and deny, put out counter statements etc.
3. Anyone who has financed, produced, directed, starred in or enjoyed consuming viciously anti-Catholic/christian Hollywood fare like The DaVinci Code or V for Vendetta can keep quiet on judging Mel here lest you be called a hypocrite.
I still look forward to seeing Apocalypto as much as I did 48 hours ago.
Do I think it changes his stature in Hollywood. Not really. Hollywood already hated him. What it changes is how he is perceived by his defenders. Many people went to bat for him and feel very let down...myself included.
He is human. I still admire him as an artist although he does (like many artists) have a tortured soul.
I'll say a prayer for him.
I do not think it will affect how he is perceived the public at large, that line was drawn a few years ago.
If Apocalypto does well, it will be forgotten...if it flops, he may be financing his own films for a while.
But I reiterate, given the history of Hollywood, they do not really have a place to judge his stupid act...but they will.
THESE ARE POLITICALLY INCORRECT?
Here is a perfect reason why I again urge people to read the essay below on the origins of Political Correctness.
This is an article on the "10 most politically incorrect films of all-time" but the writer, clearly does not even understand what the term means.
While some of his choices are correct (
Team America, Song of the South) mostly he confuses raunch and boorish behavior with political correctness.
There's Something About Mary,
Porky's and
Airplane! are not politically incorrect; although they may contain the odd joke that is.
Political correctness is not just about being polite. Political incorrectness is not just about raunch; indeed most raunchy films (
American Pie) are quite politically correct. What makes a film politically incorrect is not the subject matter but the films attitude about the subject matter.
And sometimes it is subtle.
Kevin Smith is not politically incorrect. He is very PC in who mocks...
Some politically incorrect films by today's standards:
Ghostbusters (pro-free enterprise; the villains are the Environmental Protection Agency; all the busters are chain smokers)
Red Dawn (an obvious choice, but how oftern do we see communists as villains in Hollywood)
Dirty Harry (the vicious pedophile is a hippy who wears a peace symbol and his villianous acts involve threatening to kill a Catholic priest)
Forrest Gump (a subtle but scathing attack on the 60's counter culture)
The Quiet Man (you don't get any more politically incorrect than seeing John Wayne drag Maureen O'Hara across the country side...and it's a love story to boot!)
The Passion of the Christ ( 'nuff said)
Dr. No or anything with Sean Connery as James Bond (the attitude, the girls, the guns)
Irreversible (the non-resolution of the rape sequence and depiction of the gay club as base and disturbed)
Straw Dogs (the rape sequence of Susan George in which we are never quite sure if she is 'enjoying' it or not; this is a truly disturbing sequence)
The Doors, Wall Street, Salvador (I know, I know he is a hard core leftist but most of Stone's first decade of films are very politically incorrect for their depiction of very traditionally masculine characters and female characters who try to nurture and domesticize the male protagonist).
There many more films that I could list here. Most films that come pre-1968 have attitudes that are considered anti-PC by today's standards; not by what they include but by what they omit.
I long for a period when Hollywood will dare to be anti-PC again. Hopefully it will be soon.
CORRECTION
Last week I posted a link to a quite well researched article on the origin of political correctness.
I credited the article to Baron Bodissey. Baron left a post and stated that the article actually was written by Fjordman.
I regret my mistake and will correct the actual post.
HEATHER REISMAN: PUBLIC HYPOCRITE # 1
The hypocrisy of Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo is rather astounding.It seems that in addition to banning an issue of Harper's because they published the Danish cartoons about Islam a few months ago, they have also banned an issue of another magazine called
"Free Inquiry, a small U.S. periodical published near Buffalo by the Council for Secular Humanism".No official reason has been giving for the banning of the current issue but the mags editor Tom Flynn speculates...
Ms. Reisman may have been offended by an editorial in the latest issue entitled The Freedom to Ridicule Religion -- and Deny the Holocaust, by Princeton University bioethicist and animal-rights activist Peter Singer. The editorial says "we should forcefully defend the right of newspaper editors to publish such cartoons," while calling on Austria to repeal its law against Holocaust denial after the imprisonment of British historian David Irving. (Mr. Singer is the son of Austrian Jews.) Ms. Reisman, a founder of the lobby group the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, made headlines in 2001 when she ordered all copies of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf pulled from her stores.So Reisman will ban magazines that depict the Danish cartoons or that contain articles that defend the right to deny the Holocaust but...Hmmm...at the Indigo at the corner of Young and Eglinton, all summer long there has been a display for
The DaVinci Code which rewrites the past to make Catholics the scourge of history.
For Heather Riesman, apparently it is alright to spread hate against some groups but not others.
Understand here, I do not argue
The DaVinci Code should be banned but to ban magazines that offend Jews or Muslims but not a book that rewrites history to libel one of the largest religions on the planet is pure hypocrisy.
Considering the size of the displays and the money that Reisman is making off the
Code, it takes a special kind of hypocrite.
I do not condone or condemn most boycotts. But I will say that I haven't shopped in an
Indigo in years.
ORIGIN OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
This an essay on a website called
Gates Of Vienna that deals with the Marxist origins of Political Correctness. I found it through a link on
Relapsed Catholic by Kathy Shaidle .
This is a dense and long read by someone going by the name of Fjordman but it is, quite frankly one of the best pieces I have ever read on Political Correctness. I implore anyone who cares about this subject to take the time to read it. It also explains much as to why political correctness and the New Left are so hateful of Christianity.
Here is a sample:
Just as in classical economic Marxism certain groups, i.e. workers and peasants, are a priori good, and other groups, i.e., the bourgeoisie and capital owners, are evil. In the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness certain groups are good,” for instance feminist women. Similarly, “white males are determined automatically to be evil, thereby becoming the equivalent of the bourgeoisie in economic Marxism.” Both economic and cultural Marxism “have a method of analysis that automatically gives the answers they want. For the classical Marxist, it’s Marxist economics. For the cultural Marxist, it’s deconstruction. Deconstruction essentially takes any text, removes all meaning from it and re-inserts any meaning desired.”and
William S. Lind points out that this cultural Marxism had its beginnings after the Marxist Revolution in Russia in 1917 failed to take roots in other countries. Marxists tried to analyze the reasons for this, and found them in Western civilization and culture itself. “Gramsci said the workers will never see their true class interests, as defined by Marxism, until they are freed from Western culture, and particularly from the Christian religion – that they are blinded by culture and religion to their true class interests. Lukacs, who was considered the most brilliant Marxist theorist since Marx himself, said in 1919, “Who will save us from Western Civilization?”Ahhh, Gramsci, MacKinnon, Marx...feels like I'm back in university.
Thanks again to
Kathy Shaidle for finding this and to the
Fjordman for writing it.
Thanks also to Baron Bodissey for contacting us so that proper credti could be given.
JON STEWART AND THE CULTURE OF IRONY
This is an article that has been discussed in other places but I thought it was worth mentioning again.
It refers to a recent study that says college students who get their news from Jon Stewart on
The Daily Show are not only much more cynical about politics, but as a result are less likely to vote.
This does not surprise me at all.
On a cultural level, Stewart is cut from the same
'culture of irony' cloth as David Letterman. His forte is taking complex issues and reducing them to insults, zingers and punchlines.
He is a shortcut to thinking.
Ironically enough, Stewart believes he is helping the political process by showing the banality of it. I know many people that love Stewart and use his voice as the gospel.
They believe cutting people down is and argument and a wiseass remark shows you are intelligent. Sadly, this is what passes for wisdom amongst many of the New Left. This is also their downfall.
What hurt conservatism/Christianity so much in decades past was the
'not being allowed to question it' aspect. When modern leftists respond to queries and questions with Stewart like insults and putdowns, it has the same result, and the fact that so many of them are now not voting is sad.
Nevertheless, it is this laziness in thinking that ultimatley leads to any ideologies downfall. For arguably four decades the left has not had to form opinions, instead taking for granted everyone thought them smart, kind and wise.
Fewer people are now believing it and they do not know where to turn.
