Monday, December 21, 2009

How Not to Review a Movie

Sunday, it was established by consensus -- because no sane man would argue with Debbie Schlussel -- that Avatar sucks. The science is settled. And yet liberals aren't content to leave it at that:
Annalee Newitz writes that "[w]hether Avatar is racist is a matter of debate," but it isn't: the film is racist. Its fundamental narrative logic is racist: it transposes the cultural politics of Westerns (in which the Native Americans are animists who belong to a more primitive race) onto an interplanetary conflict and then assuages the white guilt that accompanies acts of racial and cultural genocide by having a white man save the noble savages (who are also racists). . . .
Why bother deconstructing the racial subtext of a crappy 3-D sci-fi movie? It's like pondering the cultural significance of Scooby-Doo, or doing your Ph.D. dissertation on feminist themes as embodied by Veronica and Betty in "Archie" comics.

Don't you people have lives? Speaking of which, I'm told that Barrett Brown loved Avatar. Not that he's a racist. But he does suck. Be sure to look for his book, People That Barrett Brown Doesn't Like (Mainly Jews), coming soon to a clearance bin near you.

(Via Memeorandum.)

7 comments:

  1. Hey!!! I've spent 40+ years studying 'em bodies of Veronica and Betty and I think the time has been well spent! [Veronica is clearly the best...sort-of the Denise Milani of pen and ink]

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  2. I personally do not plan on seeing "Dancing With Smurfs" until sometime after it hits the $5.00 remainder bin at the Wally Mart.

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  3. Powerline points out how Garrison Keillor hates da Joooooos for spoiling Lutefisk night.

    Tollerance on the Left! Now, I think Keillor is right that those crazy Unitarians should keep to themselves. But attacking Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer? Hey Keillor, my kids love the animated Rudolph show every year, but they sure as hell are not bugging me to put on Praire Home Companion.

    As Charles Johnson notes: White Christmas is just so racist.

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  4. Charles Johnson liked it (well, I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing he would) would that make him racist by proxy then?

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  5. Bob, you're talking about the Dan DeCarlo Veronica, of course...

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  6. Critical, deconstructionist inquiry into the metatextual assignation of gender roles as explicated in the presumptively normative characters used in fictive illustrations accompanying textual "commercial fiction" for mass publication to a minor audience reveals corporatist indoctrination of behaviors and promotes role acceptance of historically hegemonic attitudes deserving of analysis within the domain of academic criticism, most especially the false dichotomies of role and gender assignments and personal identification with same as presented by such protogynotypical models as related in the phallocentric orientation of discussions as "Betty or Veronica." The science is established.

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  7. 1) Richard: Yes. The representations of Veronica by the hand of Master DeCarlo are the gold standard of Veronica representations in the Western World. They are the sine qua non of Veronica representationalism. However, and the final proofs have not been established at this point, it is nevertheless clear that he was a raaaaacist and, shockingly, considering the important and significant strides made by the feminists to liberate women from the shackles of bestial male oppressiveness, he was a breast supremacist of the worst kind. Against this, there cannot be any legitimate argument if one is to consider oneself enlightened.

    2) Ronsonic: The 'science' may well be established, as you say, but thems some righteous hooters.

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