Wednesday, December 19, 2012

World Can't Wait goes completely nuts




That's the trailer to Zero Dark Thirty.

 Debra Sweet wants you to protest it.  I love Debra but disagree with her call for action.  I'm sorry, Debra, but I'm F**KING sick of women being attacked.  You haven't seen Kathryn Bigelow's film.  It's really interesting that it's supposedly pro-torture and we must protest it.

It's really interesting because back in July, Ava and I were calling out Homeland, explaining the show's roots (conservative, right-wing Zionism), how it was propaganda against Muslims.  Where the hell is World Can't Wait?  Oh, that's right, as Ann pointed out last night, Homeland is made by a man.  So we don't protest it and we pretend like it's groovy and World Can't Wait can and did run a bit of praise for the crappy show.

They posted praise for the show at World Can't Wait.  From September, here's Jordan Chandler Hirsh and Jeremy Dauber (The New Republic) explaining Homeland:


There’s certainly something to “Homeland” that goes beyond cat and mouse, cloak and dagger. Some critics, like the New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum, say that the appeal of “Homeland” is that it’s the anti-“24.” That show, the argument goes, was W’s righteous might writ large for the small screen, a cinematic case that America could be trusted with harsh interrogations and military force. “Homeland,” meanwhile, embodies the wrenching ambiguities that cable loves: Carrie’s wavering is that of an America that, after its fraught interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, now doubts the morality of hard power. (Certainly, the motivation for Brody’s actions, when revealed, suggests that an excess of American force can lead to blowback like nobody’s business.)
But questions of moral power aren’t really what make “Homeland” tick. In fact, its characters have few qualms about using harsh coercion when they decide it’s necessary. Whether it’s bullet-ridden battles through the streets of Washington, an interrogation of an al Qaeda agent using Bush-era “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or the illegal bugging of citizens’ homes, the central characters are hardly reluctant warriors. Even Carrie’s far more cautious mentor and superior Saul (Mandy Patinkin), generally understood to be the show’s moral compass, has been known to tell State Department representatives to screw the CIA charter.
Characters only feel regret when coercion doesn’t work. And that seems to be the show’s point: it’s not about morality, but capability.

They've analyzed correctly and, for those who can't grasp it, that's a pro-torture stance.

I love Debra but I don't believe she has the skills to evaluate film.  First skill you need is to actually see the film.

I cannot believe that we are so stupid on the left that we are going to call for a protest of a film before we've seen it.  I can remember how we laughed at the people protesting The Last Temptation of Christ.

Let's pretend the film is what Debra thinks it is.  Great. Then call it out, let's have a loud conversation and if she wants to protest after, wonderful.

But before you see a film, you're organizing a protest of it?

Based on what?

Based on sexist Glenn Greenwald?

Really? We're that damn desperate on the left that we're going to embrace that dumb ass from the right?  Really?  That noted sexist is who we're going to get in bed with?  (Before you get in bed with Glenn, read this -- and always use protection.)

The idiot who attacked the film but hasn't seen the film?

Seriously.

And in his "update," he 'backed up' his opinion by citing the columns by Bareback Andrew Sullivan and others who -- you knew this was coming -- admit in their columns that they haven't seen it either.

I love Debra.

I hate stupid.

It is supremely stupid to call for the protest of a film you haven't seen.

As noted before, I know Kathyrn, I've known her for years (I've noted that here for years and have called out D.M. who was her assistant nightmare in the 90s who went around spreading false rumors about her -- there's something about men -- not all men -- but about weak men that makes them really hate Kathryn, I've seen that over and over).  She is not pro-torture.

I remember the Socialists who couldn't come out of their political closets but could attack her for Hurt Locker.  I remember them working really hard to say they weren't voting for her for Best Director.  Thing is, they don't have a vote.  I do.  I'm a member of the Academy.  But they worked real hard to trash her at their website and to insist that her film wasn't right and blah blah blah.

It's really funny that World Can't Wait is now going to protest a film.

I'm failing to remember any other protest.  But now they're going to protest a film.  And it's a film directed by a woman.

When Charles Ferguson's nonsense (the war was good! but damn we screwed up the occupation!) was getting applause, we stood alone in calling this out (and I actively campaigned against Ferguson and his revisionary b.s. to ensure he didn't get the Academy Award).  Where was World Can't Wait?

We do realize that was a documentary, right?  Not a piece of fiction, not a based upon.  But they couldn't call it out could they?

Now because Glenn Greenwald  wants to call out Kathyrn's film -- that, again, he hasn't seen -- World Can't Wait's going to organize a protest?

I can take my friend's film being protested.  I can't take her film and her film alone being protested.  World Can't Wait needs to take a hard look at how they embrace and popularize sexism.  And this is a conversation we'll continue at Third because Ava's reading over my shoulder and the sexist comments about Kathyrn really do go towards the way women are viewed in this society, so we'll continue it there.


I guess it's just more fun to play Bash The Bitch, huh?  Can't call out beloved Barack, can you?  He gives a speech about the importance of keeping children safe and Isaiah hits harder than anything this week at World Can't Wait.  But Bash The Bitch is so much fun, right?

Let me know, Debra, when World Can't Wait intends to fight sexism because I haven't seen it.  I'm about to be done with World Can't Wait.

Repeating, if WCW wanted to protest my friend because they saw her film and their interpretation was that it was pro-torture, oh well.  But to protest a film you haven't seen?  That offends me not just on behalf of Kathryn, not just on behalf of women, but it offends me in terms of intellectual honesty.  Shame on you.  And how dare you attack any piece of art without familiarizing youself with it.


The term for that is "censorship."  As an artist, I do not embrace or support censorship. I loathe pornography but I've never called for it to be eliminated.  I don't jump on "Ban this, ban that" brigades.

Shame on you for embracing censorship and attempting to demonize Kathryn.  I'm not recalling any film getting this treatment before.  And I can remember the revisionary and pro-war Heaven's Gate being released.  And it didn't result in freak show Cimino getting called out the way Kathryn's being attacked.  (And that film bombed and brought down a studio.)

So shame on you.

And shame on you for getting in bed with pro-Iraq War, pro-Bully Boy Bush Glenn Greenwald.  We're supposed to trust his jugdment now?  Wrong about Bully Boy Bush (he loved him!), wrong about the illegal war (he lapped it up), but we're supposed to trust him now?

Clearly there are no standards here.  When you have no standards, you tend to get a social disease and I bet that's a topic Glenn could actually write about from a base of knowledge -- probably the only topic he could write about from a base of knowledge.


And, Debra, Nouri al-Maliki shut down a satellite channel on Friday, he has the military around the editor of Al Mada newspaper's home.  At what point does World Can't Wait intend to focus on Iraq? 

(This started as a tack on to the planned first entry for this morning.  Half-way in, Ava said to copy and paste it because it needs to be a stand alone.  This isn't one of the two entries for this morning.  They will both go up shortly.  I need to finish the second one.)


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.





iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
Posted by at