- It would be wonderful if we lived in a culture devoid
of illogic and hypocrisy, where ignorance and emotional reactivity were
not traits conditioned by media and handed down from one increasingly
diminished generation to another. In such a culture, the populace would
be well-informed and powerfully independent, nearly impervious to propaganda,
and unafraid to speak the truth as they believe it in their hearts. But
this is not the culture we live in. Not by a damn long country mile.
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- One of the greatest impediments to a truth-driven culture
is "political correctness." Let me be very clear in my complaints
about pc's influences. I am not one of those phonies who tears down the
straw man of "pc thuggery" in order to justify a personal prejudice.
It's not "politically incorrect" to be racist, sexist, homophobic,
xenophobic, or anti-semtic; it is inhuman and pathologically stupid. As
a human being, my own humanity is irredeemably reduced if I choose to
view another as anything less than intrinsically equal. This is the paradigm
I live in, and it is dramatically contrary to the "politically correct"
paradigm of 21st century America, as defined by popular media.
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- The evidence of this is everywhere. We all witnessed
the preposterous, overblown hysteria resulting from the respective "racist"
and "anti-semitic" rants of Michael Richards and Mel Gibson.
The boundaries for any "discussion" of these absurd fiascoes
were immediately set by pc media. In the Richards case, inanity has turned
to insanity, with some talk of the men at whom Richards spewed racial
epithets pursuing LITIGATION against the comedian. (Imagine if every person
who had been called a name in a bar or comedy club filed a LAWSUIT against
their antagonizers.} Few seem to recognize the most obvious explanation
for Richards' onstage obscenities: He is, was, and always has been an
overachieved comedic actor with no real talent for the art of stand- up.
His routine was bombing badly, and in desperation, like so many of his
comedic predecessors, he tried to be shocking when he couldn't be funny.
(This phenomena could be witnessed quite painfully among many early female
comics, who presumably felt obliged to be outrageously vulgar.)
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- Coverage of the Gibson case has been even more distorted
and overblown, undoubtedly due to pre-existing accusations, based on
Gibson's film The Passion, of anti-semitism against the actor/ director.
The Gibson-directed movie "Apocalypto" opens today, and it does
not take a psychic to know that the vast majority of film reviews will
focus largely on Gibson's DUI-related comments.
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- Consider critic Shawn Levy's "review" in today's
Oregonian newspaper. In FOUR of his article's NINE paragraphs, Levy rages
over Gibson's "despicable heart and mind." Levy introduces his
piece with an interesting assertion: "Let's get it out of the way:
Mel Gibson has some hateful thoughts in his head, and some of them slipped
into the script of 'The Passion of the Christ,' and quite a few more of
them splashed out when he was arrested for drunken driving this summer."
(One wonders how Levy can read anyone's mind, even one as supposedly "transparent"
as Gibson's.)
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- What is particularly strange about this "review"
is that Levy repeatedly states that Gibson's personal beliefs are not
his (Levy's) focus. He begins the second paragraph with the statement:
"But the purpose here is not to review the soul of Mel Gibson. It
is to review 'Apocalypto,' a film he has directed."
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- But by the THIRD PARAGRAPH, Levy still has not gotten
over it. He writes: "For the record, then, Mel Gibson is to be stayed
away from, even for purposes of study. He is to be shunned. A committee
should be formed to boycott him. But the job here is to forget about
Mel Gibson and focus on 'Apocalypto.'"
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- Indeed, that is the job of people like Levy, and at that,
he has failed miserably. In concluding his piece, Levy again picks up
his proverbial hammer and drops it on Gibson's head: "It's possible
for a despicable heart and mind to make great art."
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- Let me see if I understand Mr. Levy's reasoning: Mel
Gibson is more despicable than any other person in Hollywood because he
made some nasty comments about Jews while being arrested for a DUI. In
fact, he is so despicable that nearly 50% of any "review" of
his films must be devoted to personally denigrating him. One wonders why
Levy considers Gibson more despicable than, say, Roman Polanski, a PEDOPHILE
who is nevertheless almost universally celebrated by Hollywood critics.
And why, for that matter, is Gibson more despicable than Spike Lee, an
overt racist who once advocated the murder of Charlton Heston?
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- I've been reading Levy's reviews for years, and don't
recall him ever offering such a melodramatic personal indictment of any
Hollywood figure, for any reason. Tell me, Mr. Levy, is speaking hatefully
of Jews -- while heavily inebriated, no less -- worse than CHILD MOLESTATION,
or the advocation of MURDER?
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- Levy's most laughable blunder is that he barely mentions
what landed Gibson in trouble in the first place: The man was DRIVING
DRUNK and endangering the lives of innocent people! If one is going to
view Gibson as "despicable," it should be for that reason, and
not any slurred, spittle-laced profanity that spewed from his mouth while
he was bombed out of his mind. But in the twisted, movie- freaked fantasy
world of Shawn Levy, a drunk driver has moral superiority over an apparent
anti-semite every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
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- The problem with people like Levy is NOT that they have
no tolerance for hatred. It is that they accept and even encourage hatred,
as long it is consistent with the current, pc-driven cultural climate.
In my opinion, calling a human being "despicable" over and over
again in a purported movie review is reflective of a hateful mind. But
I'm sure that Levy considers his own hatred justified, since it is directed
against a member of a currently unpopular social demographic: A middle-aged,
white, Christian heterosexual male who seems to possess some personal
prejudices.
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- Flim critic Shawn Levy represents a paradigm of selective
hatred shaped by cultural programming. In fact, pc media drones like Levy
help create a climate that is antithetical to the American ideal of intrinsic
equality for all humans. This is a climate where absurd and indefensible
"hate laws" are passed, laws that deem the act of "murder"
more "hateful" when motivated by prejudice against very selective
groups of people. It is a climate where the utterance of certain words
is viewed as despicable, unforgivable, and worse than reckless and/or
violent behavior. It is a climate where people are not taught to love
everyone equally, but to hate whomever is currently vilified in the "politically
correct" popular media.
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