So I see that several wingnut blogs are now comparing the scene Saturday night in the House after the vote, when the Democrats were cheering Pelosi, to this scene:
This is funny for all the usual reasons, but doubly so because some of us can remember past week. If you will remember, when this movie came out, the same species of wingnut was literally FREAKING out about the Star Wars film being anti-Bush. Here is deep thinker and nepotism beneficiary J-Pod:
The whole confusion is reminiscent of the last Matrix movie, which is all about a noble truce between our heroes and the computers that have been using all of humanity as batteries. So that a few people could survive to have orgies in the underground city of Zion, billions of people had to remain in the Matrix. Inadvertently, both Lucas and the Wachowski brothers (who wrote and directed the Matrix movies) reveal with their brainless anti-Bushism the essential cowardly vapidity of pacifism.
Morans.
At any rate, we really need to undertake a project like the lexicon- we can call it Wingnut Movie References, and we can chronicle all their idiotic references to movies. I remember a couple of weeks ago someone at Red State was comparing something to Obi Wan being struck down, and I know these guys are fond of 300 and LOTR references.
Sentient Puddle
I didn’t realize a five vote margin counted as “thunderous applause.”
dmsilev
Wait a second. Weren’t these same morons who were one step short of organizing a campaign to mail random objects to George Lucas because he put a line *in that very same movie* which they interpreted as an attack on Former Dear Leader Who Now Does Not and Has Never Existed (aka GW Bush)?
The line in question was roughly:
Whiny pre-Vader: “If you’re not with me, you’re with my enemies”
not-Alec Guiness: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes”
-dms
Zifnab
I appreciate how Obama gets to play the part of Xerxes while the noble wingnut is embodied by King Leonidas. At a certain point, it’s hilarious imagining Gerard Butler furiously tapping away a post to Red State in full Spartan garb. At another point, you’re just looking at the whole situation and asking the question, “How does this in any way relate to current affairs, except where Xerxes is black, Leonidas is white, and the Spartans lose in the end?”
mistersnrub
Batman is Bush
GregB
Orange John Beohner in a codpiece with a sword.
I think I just threw up in my mouth.
-G
Why oh why
Lucas said this scene was inspired by Rome, Napoleonic France and the Weimar Republic. There is no mystery or need for interpretation.
dmsilev
This would *have* to begin with ‘Wolverines!’.
It’s too early in the morning both for trawling through Google and for the necessary strong drink, but I seem to recall some wingnuttish references to Independence Day. Probably some giggling about how various Evil Librul Cities
got blown up by the aliens.
-dms
Fwiffo
Don’t forget the incoherent Battlestar Galactica stuff. Oh, and also, Wolverines! Also.
MikeJ
@Why oh why: Lucas isn’t always the best judge of whats what in the Star Wars universe. Greedo shot first my ass.
AndyT
So does that mean teabaggers are the Jedi? Does Michelle Bachmann have to go into exile and live in a swamp?
flukebucket
Don’t forget that the reptile people on “V” are all for peace and universal health care.
Anna is Obama!
r€nato
Funny how conservatives discovered the danger of an overly-powerful executive branch on January 20, 2009.
(hardly an original observation but one that can’t be mentioned often enough…)
SpotWeld
I weep because of the oncoming onslaught of Chuck Norris and “RoadHouse” references.
Morbo
Consult any number of top 10 lists. Roy Edroso should also be considered an invaluable research source in this endeavor.
Carnacki
They’re very fond of 300, which might be the best gay fantasy movie ever.
Sly
If they were even a bit clever, they would have ran with the scene from Lion King, wherein Scar is rallying his hyena troops, that was inspired by Triumph of the Will.
Da Bomb
@GregB: That was not a pleasant image. I threw up in mouth just a little.
@Zifnab: Another reference is that maybe there are only 300 Republicans left in our country, at least self-identified ones anyway.
What about Forrest Gump? Wasn’t that consider a treatise on self-responsibility and pulling one’s self up by the boot straps? No government handouts even if you have a learning disability? You can be or do whatever you want, from playing table tennis, serving in the war, working on a shrimp boat, and loving a drug addled skank named Jenny.
Ah, the American dream indeed!
Kennedy
Don’t forget this little gem:
Shorter Klaven: Bush is totally fucking awesome and the thought of him in a Batman suit makes me see starbursts. Also, libruls are pussies.
Robin G.
I usually responded to those nuts by saying, “Hey, I’m pretty sure Lucas said that that scene was a reference to Nazi Germany, but if *you* see Bush in it, who am I to disagree?”
They hated that.
4tehlulz
SHOW US THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE ANNA
Kennedy
My link did not work for some reason. The full text of that abomination can be found here: http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121694247343482821.html
Robin G.
By the way, I tried to comment via mobile and finally gave up. This is the only website that routinely crashes my iPhone. I always have trouble. Has anyone else experienced that?
cleek
here’s a favorite of mine: the left = Persia and Obama = Xerxes.
Svensker
What they don’t get is that Tolkien was a pointy-headed intellectual who spoke multiple languages and read more, and who refused to drive a car because he believed they polluted the environment and destroyed social structures.
Prof. Tolkien would not have been fond of Say-rah.
Maxwel
Xerxes black? He was Persian. The original Persians were probably fair.
rreay
Unspoofable. These are the same people who somehow think that Brazil is a conservative movie.
Kennedy
Also, FYWP. It’s could be operator error but my initial post got massacred and did not turn out at all like I had planned.
Roland X
Holy…pacifism? How many bullets filled the screen in each Matrix movie again? And a series called Star Wars is about…pacifism? Really?
*facefaults*
—
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix
The Grand Panjandrum
Interesting that all those traitorous Hollywood liberals would make movies with right wing code embedded in it. Damn socia1ist liberals will do anything to make a buck so they can send it to Dear Leader. (They really are a devious bunch.)
rreay
And there was a link in there.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTkyNjE5NTg0ZTU3ZjYyMjI2YzU2YTVlMmM2MzBjZGM=
debit
@Robin G.: BJ always works fine. Daily Kos is the one that crashes my iphone.
@Svensker: He would hate her, Precious.
doxastic
Every time they support censoring art, I think wingnuts should be reminded of their love for the (excellent) film “The Lives of Others” and the conclusions it draws.
Jen R
@Robin G.: It doesn’t exactly *crash* my iTouch, but the long threads sometimes just don’t load.
I’m thinking about getting a Droid if I finally upgrade to a smartphone. Insert droid joke here.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Why oh why: As my art teacher said, the artist’s interpretation is just one of many interpretations of a work. The guy who wrote the Wizard of Oz had not realized that his work was about the great depression until after someone pointed it out to him.
Comrade Dread
Your problem is that you assume your political opponents will recognize or care that they are being inconsistant.
They don’t care enough to think about it because they live only in the moment.
There is no sense or acknowledgement of the real past beyond an idealized version they get from television and movies. Thus we can forget the immediate past eight years of Republican foolishness, waste, and constitutional trampling and take positions 180 degrees from the ones we held then.
And there is no sense of perspective beyond absolutes. (And this affects liberals to a degree, just not as one as great.) Thus one’s political enemies are not fellow citizens who want what’s best for the country, but dangerous subversives out to destroy America and create a totalitarian state. They will never admit inconsistancy because to do so acknowledges that they were wrong. And that would be defeat, appeasement, and weakness and call all of their certainty into question.
Robin G.
@Kennedy: The Dark Knight stuff always drove me nuts, in that Batman always *failed* in that movie when he resorted to ends-justify-the-means. He beats up the Joker, and the Joker escapes and Rachel dies. Batman kidnaps the new head of the mob and drops him off a building, but gets no information; there’s none to have. Batman sets up the (totally implausible) cell-phone spying, but the special Bat-spy-vision screws him up in the final fight. Every time he tries to get down in the dirt with the dogs, he fails. It’s at the end, when he choses not to kill the Joker, that he gets the information he needs — and makes it to the warehouse in time to save Gordon and his family. The entire movie is a philisophical treatise, with the Joker constantly trying to force people to their basest instincts of kill-or-be-killed, and the eventual triumph of holding to ones’ principles, even when it seems that that will only lead to more death. Which, by the way, it doesn’t.
AAAGGGHHHHH.
Okay, I’m done now.
aimai
This is a great suggestion. I would add that a link to the Mahablog’s brilliant essay on mythic thinking on the far right should go along with it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this essay as I’ve watched the right wing struggle for ways to turn Bush’s 8 years into an archtype of all presidential periods. Thus we have the insistence that this or that “moment” is “Obama’s Katrina” or “Obama’s Pet Goat Moment.” On the surface they seem to be arguing that Obama is as big a screw up as Bush. And they certainly are arguing that. But underlying that is a kind of assertion that every Presidential period follows a certain mythic logic. This has all happened before and it will all happen again. The job of pundits and followers is simply to identify the key tropes and examples.
They do this to shift the public’s anger away from the uniquely incompetent Bush and onto Obama. But they are also doing it because they can, because on some level we do look at each President and his period in power as an instance of a certain kind of political game, always structured the same way, with the same pitfalls, goals, and problems. Its why we talk so rigidly about the “mid term elections” and “the base” instead of treating each one as a unique configuration at a unique moment in time. We, too, think we are always replaying a mythic struggle.
aimai
JenJen
It’s moments like these where I often turn to the People of Wal-Mart for a pick-me-up.
Robin G.
@Jen R: Yeah, it’ll keep trying to load, but then it crashes as I try and force it to give up and go do something else.
aimai
Bugger. Everything from the block quote to “wrathful dakini of Stubborness” should be in the block quote. That is Maha. The “I’ve been thinking a lot…mythic struggle…” is me.
aimai
ChrisS
My ‘winger buddy and I saw an ad for Avatar during the world series, I said it looked like a shitty movie and he replied that he thought the same thing, “another shitty morality play from liberal hollywood where white men and corporations are evil.”
I said, no, I just thought it looked shitty. Big budget movies don’t have ideology, usually. Usually it seems like writers/producers take a bunch of political cliches and slap them together ham-handedly to try and make a “statement” about something other than dick jokes and shit blowing up.
dmsilev
@Svensker:
Not to mention that the whole clash of armies thing in LOTR was basically just a sideshow. Yes, yes, it looks very dramatic, and I’m sure there are endless numbers of warbloggers who envision themselves as being part of the Ride of the Rohirrim or whatever, but the real center of the story was Frodo and his interactions with Sam, Gollum, and The Ring.
-dms
dadanarchist
That was a moment of wingnut hivemind since more than one cheetoh-addled loser came up with that analogy, or they quietly stole it from each other.
They were comparing Sarah Palin’s resignation as governor to Obi Wan Kenobi allowing Darth Vader to kill him, because they fantasized that after her stepping down, she would be ‘more powerful than you can imagine.’
See here and here.
The analogy is pretty weak, since apparently Darth Vader = Gotcha Liberal Media.
I think some analogy to Luke Skywalker would work better, since Darth Vader (the media) is Luke’s father, just as the media gave birth to the Sarah Palin phenomena in the first place.
Glenn Beck can be Chewbacca.
ChrisS
@Robin G.:
This.
Little Dreamer
@dadanarchist:
Michelle Bachmann can be R2D2.
r€nato
Let’s not forget television shows if you do the Wingnut Movie References lexicon.
One of their favorite shows to take their anti-terrorism policy cues from, is 24.
keithly
[email protected]
I thought 300 was klingon pr0n? But hey, I’m educable.
Ciao
Max
Teabaggers in full force – according to David Shuster, they are protesting in front of the Obama girls’ school with homophobic and anti-Obama signs.
I saw it on Twitter, haven’t looked for the article because it makes me fucking sick.
These people are racist, evil, mouth breathers.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@dmsilev: And even deeper, it was about Sam growing from living under his dad’s and Frodo’s shadows to an individual who could save the world and his town, and ask the cute girl to marry him.
John S.
It could have been…
If Bob Guccione got a hold of it and gave it the Caligula treatment – complete with nude soldiers and lavish orgies – then it definitely would have been.
RememberNovember
Yet again, the Wingnuttia are behind the Bell curve- this was a meme from the left in 2004.
The difference between Thermopylae and the GOP- The Spartans were all ripped and fought as one unit.
dmsilev
@Max: Lovely.
Will they do a Rush Limbaugh and claim that attacking the President’s daughter(s) was just an accident?
-dms
General Winfield Stuck
OT maybe. sort of
Sarah Serendipity pulls another wabbit out of her hat.
OH well, back to the dwawing board.
Little Dreamer
@John S.:
I made the mistake of renting Caligula at Blockbuster recently because it had John Geilgud in it, so I figured it couldn’t be all bad. OMG, what a trainwreck that was.
RedKitten
@JenJen: That site really makes me worry about humanity. I’ve been lucky enough to never encounter anything like that when I go to Wal-Mart — if I did, I would not be able to keep myself from pointing/laughing/vomiting uncontrollably.
asiangrrlMN
@Max: Yes, because they love the children so much. Think of the children!
@Robin G.: This is a brilliant distillation of the last Batman movie. Just wonderful.
@ChrisS: Now you’re making me want to see the movie because of what your ‘winger buddy said about it.
For the first time, I am GLAD that I have an aversion to popular culture movies so that I don’t get references like this. It allows me to keep my pure mine unblemished (stop laughing!). The sheer idiocy of the rightwingnutters continues to astonish me.
jrg
The Hollywood libruls hate the GOP. Except when they don’t. If “conservatives” stopped putting words in people’s mouths, they would have nothing to say.
These loons whistled and skipped their way through the Bush admin, when it became commonplace to spy on citizens without a warrant and arrest protesters for wearing the wrong t-shirts. Now they tremble and leave a trail of urine in their wake over health care, like it’s some sort of plot to destroy liberty? Sweet Jeebus on a pogo stick, these people are dense.
Violet
@Max:
That makes me sick just to think of it. Protest the President all you like, but protesting in front of his daughters’ school? WTF? These people are utterly out of control. Disgusting.
Bill H
Okay, the “V” references are confusing. The V‘s are Obama because they are foreigners offering us universal health care. Or the V‘s are Bush because they have been here for years creating chaos with false wars, etc. Or do we have two kinds of V‘s? I know we have the traitor V‘s, but they are helping the insurgents, omigod that’s us.
John S.
Then you missed the real train wreck, which is the UNrated version they do not carry in Blockbuster.
I got it from a friend of mine who worked in a porn store many years ago to keep in my kitsch collection along with Naked Lunch and Eraserhead.
It’s just…wow.
Violet
@Carnacki:
Don’t forget Top Gun. The volleyball scene.
Rick Taylor
Yes I remember that scene well. The Emperor proclaiming universal health care coverage; it was powerful.
Colin Laney
Plot of first Star Wars prequel: The leader of a democratic government arranges for an attack on his own state so he can go to war and achieve dictatorial powers.
Plot of first Matrix film: Everything you know, everything you see and hear, is an illusion managed and enforced by white men in suits. Only a few, most of them people of color, see through the illusion.
asiangrrlMN
@Rick Taylor: Heh heh heh. You funny. I laughed. It was better than cursing the Republicans yet again.
cleek
it’s hilarious.
one minute you’re watching a movie about Roman imperial intrigue and decadence, then, suddenly, as if someone has changed the channel, you’re watching some soft-focus lesbian porn. and then it changes back.
tripletee
@Robin G.:
Mine always seems to hang for a while about 3/4 of the way through loading – I think there’s a script near the end of the page load that Mobile Safari doesn’t like.
Max
@Violet: Hey, it’s alright, if you’re all-white, don’t you know.
Wankers.
Ash
@ChrisS:
Yeah, but Avatar is from James Cameron, and he’s no Michael Bay. It most definitely is a moralistic movie about man vs. nature and how corporations are evil.
And yes, it still looks shitty.
cleek
Breitbart @ the National Review kindly made a list of the Best Conservative Movies.
#2 = The Incredibles. why ? because there’s a line where the mother mocks the idea that “everyone is special”. also, apparently, conservatives think of themselves as unappreciated heroes.
#6 = Groundhog Day.
wtf
YellowJournalism
I hope this would include TV references. I just started a biography of The Simpsons. The first chapter is about the show’s cultural influence. The author mentions that when the show first premiered, Bush No. 1 and other conservatives used it as an example of everything that was wrong with America and the American family. The author next refernces a National Review quote that praises the show, noting that it has conservative values in part because the characters go to church on Sunday. (Nevermind the fact that the church leaders are either corrupt or, well, Ned Flanders, or that the show focuses on themes like questioning ones faith and accepting other religions, including Islam.)
Ash Can
@Max: Holy crap. If that report is accurate, that has to be a new and spectacular low. Has anyone ever been vile enough to protest at a presidential child’s school before? This would truly be beyond the pale.
gwangung
@tripletee: Really? BJuice tends to be the site that’s the least troublesome on my iPhone.
dmsilev
@cleek: That list is actively painful to read. I still have a headache after this one:
I’d pound my head against the wall, but then I’d have to explain to the building manager why there’s a hole in the drywall.
-dms
Da Bomb
@John S.: There’s an unrated version of that movie? OMG, how scary! All I can remember about it is Malcom McDowell looking perpetually glazed over.
Brick Oven Bill
This Administration / Congress does not rate Star Wars references.
It’s really more like an episode Family Ties where Urkel fails in an attempt to be the lead actor. In this episode the drugged out aunt (Nancy) with the face-lifts gets in a fight with her brow-beaten husband (Harry). And then everybody starts crying when the debt collector takes away the pop-corn popper.
Only Glenn Beck warrants Star Wars references. Glenn is Obi Wan. We have discussed this before.
Svensker
@Da Bomb:
Isn’t that how he always looks?
Robin G.
@asiangrrlMN: Thanks. And I didn’t even get into the Categorical Imperative.
@tripletee: You know, that makes a lot of sense. Huh. I wonder what it is (and if WP will fix it… nah).
@cleek: I’d actually say they might be on to something with The Incredibles. There was something about that “if everyone is special, no one will be” theme that rubbed me the wrong way.
Adrienne
@Jen R:
Droid is made by Motorola. I would rather gouge out my own eyeballs with rusty screwdriver than own something manufactured by Motorola.
asiangrrlMN
@Robin G.: Oh, please do! I would really like to hear it.
arguingwithsignposts
@Jen R: I have the same problem with the ipod touch safari loading BJ threads.
Little Dreamer
@cleek:
Could have sworn that was what I was watching on the Blockbuster version. Hmmmm.
J. Michael Neal
This may be the thing that finally gets the media to turn on the tea baggers in full force. They all get that attacking the kids is wrong, *and* it makes for good bout of indignant fury: “Who will think of the children!”
Sure, they got away with attacking Chelsea Clinton, but she was older, and, let’s face it, not as adorable as Sasha and Malia. Those two are three tons of cute in 125 lbs of body.
J. Michael Neal
As for the Star Wars stuff, I can’t be the only one who has noticed just how much Senator Palpatine looks like Senator Joe Lieberman.
4tehlulz
@Bill H: All Vs are the same. Ron Paul 2012.
BrianD
I was there. It wasn’t anything like that.
Within about one minute of the results being announced, the vast majority of the Republicans left the chamber.
Is there a scene from a movie somewhere showing about 200 middle-aged white people petulantly storming out of a room? That would be more appropriate.
The Republicans didn’t even stick around to vote on the resolution commemorating the Iranian hostage crisis, thus revealing their lack of resolve in the fight against terrorism.
tripletee
@Brick Oven Bill:
Obi Wan is a serial liar, so yeah, I guess that works.
Kennedy
@Robin G.: Nicely done. Great summary of some of the philosophies underlying the movie that I had never really thought of before.
It also bears mentioning that when Harvey Dent kidnaps and interrogates/tortures the shooter from the commissioner’s funeral, he’s a low-level, know-nothing shmuck who is simply drawn to the Joker’s ideology of anarchy and chaos.
But all the people that the US tortures totally know how to prevent the next great terror attack, I’m sure.
tripletee
@Robin G.:
Seems to be specific to this site – I don’t have the same problem with other WP sites. My guess is a shittily-coded ad script.
ellaesther
I can’t tell you how ashamed I am over how long it took me to get the reference in the post’s title…. Oh, brain cells, why are you abandoning me?
Also: Yes. Morans indeed.
Geeno
I would like to ask J-Pod just what exactly the people of Zion were supposed to do with a few extra billion inhabitants? They were shown as barely keeping their own alive.
HT
Is this why some people hated the Matrix sequels? Because they completely missed the point?
The truce required that all humans in the matrix be given the choice to leave the matrix, acknowledging the reality that some would choose to stay. It’s not complicated.
And why did so many people get so hung up about the rave? Is it some kind of “dancing=sex” puritanism? I don’t get it.
Randy P
I kept reading “Wolverines!” references around the left blogosphere and realizing this was a joke that everybody in the universe understood but me.
So I wasted an hour or so this weekend tracking down the reference, and now I too know about Red Dawn and how any high school in Amurrika could fight off the invading commie hordes if you gave them guns. Opinion online seems to be divided between so-bad-its-good and unspeakably, unwatchably bad.
Taps was a much better armed high schoolers against the world movie.
Da Bomb
@Svensker: I guess so.
Ron
@cleek:
Actually as I recall it was the son who mocked it. something like
Elastigirl: “Everyone’s special, Dash”
Dash:”Which is another way of saying no one is.”
But I thought the conservative cred was also the idea that lawsuits forced the “supers” to retire. The evil lawyers stopped heroes from protecting us.
Ron
@HT: I didn’t get “hung up” about the rave other than I thought the scene was just way longer than it needed to be.
As for why most people didn’t like them, for me it was a)that it was kind of confusing to follow in spots b)had a lot of random characters just thrown in without any good reason that I could tell and c)the acting in those movies is teh suck.
Kennedy
@HT: The rave thing just seemed kind of odd and out of place. I really doubt many people that object to it do so on moral grounds. You have a collection of people who have defied the collective consciousness and can move in and out of the Matrix at will, engage sentient machines in epic battles, and yet their leisure time is spent in a cave, dressed like hobos, glow-sticking and gyrating to house music? It just seemed kind of weird.
Robin G.
@asiangrrlMN: The Categorical Imperative is as follows:
In The Dark Knight, the boat scene is the test — either they kill each other, or everyone dies. A utilitarian would say to blow up the other boat, because at least you can guarantee someone will survive, instead of no one, thus maximizing happiness (in my personal view, while utilitarianism is well-meaning, it assumes you can be more or less certain of all of the results of your actions, and in my experience, that is not the case). The Categorical Imperative says you throw away the box and accept your fate, because you can will that “one person should not murder others for their own benefit.” The Categorical Imperative also makes a great deal more sense when you factor in chaos theory — essentially, that we as human beings can’t possibly predict the future. In theory, the boats’ mutual destruction should have been assured, but Batman was there; you can never be certain how things are going to turn out, so you’d better just do the right thing and hope for the best.
Conservatives would, without question, have blown up the other boat. (Individuals are of course the final part of the equation — lots of liberals would have done it, too, but we’re not talking about individuals as much as philosophies, so when I say “conservatives” I more or less mean “conservatism.”) The last administration was entirely about blowing up the other boat — “kill them before they kill us.” Therefore, these wingnuts going on about how The Dark Knight is their movie? It’s moronic bullshit. They aren’t Batman. Hell, they aren’t even the Joker. They’re the sheep who would have proven the Joker’s philosophy — that deep down, people are animals who will destroy one another for personal gain.
In summary, teabaggers can’t interpret movies. The end.
Svensker
@Randy P:
See, this is why our hosts provided us with the nice Lexicon over there up on the right —–> So you could go quick look up “wolverines” and have an hour of your life back.
BongCrosby
@Brick Oven Bill:
Sorry. I’ve got him pegged as Jar Jar Becks.
chrome agnomen
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
which great depression? book was published in the year 1900, baum died in 1919.
sorry if this has been pointed out already.
ChrisB
I’m way too late to this thread to make the obligatory “Wolverines!,” 300, and of course 24 references so I’ll point out that Happy Feet came in for all kinds of wingnut scorn for its pro-environment message (not to mention the nerve of using penguins to promote that message, given conservatives’ love for March of the Penguins, misguided though it may be).
Some of us also remember Dan Quayle’s criticism of Murphy Brown.
Oh yeah, and Tinky-Winky’s gay.
And one more thing:
@Max:
Fixed.
Omnes Omnibus
@BongCrosby: That is offensive to JarJar Binks.
aimai
I have a love hate relationship with The Incredibles for precisely the reasons ron mentions–one, its a “problem” for the superheroes that ordinary people are living their ordinary lives and mere exotic talent doesn’t determine who is empowered. (Dash is aggrieved because he isn’t allowed to win every race, which for him would be effortless and therefore not actually signficant. And the movie is on his side. Its wrong that he has to hide his prowess–its not a problem that his parents don’t encourage him to try something difficult like, say, math.) His parents comfort him by saying “everyone is special” and he resents that specifically because valuing the work/struggle of other kids seems to him to be undervaluing Dash himself. If he doesn’t get to rule over the other talentless jerks with his unearned essential nature then where’s the fun in that?
The movie treats that statement as a sign that the parents have foolishly bought into a bankrupt “self esteem” program that levels all accomplishment to the lowest common denominator. Dash is the Randian superhero who demands that ordinary runners, for example, with their ordinary skills lose to him every time. He’s actually a ringer, like an older kid or someone on steroids, competing below his real class level so he can win every time.
The name and objective of the evil superhero is also a giveaway. The antihero wants to “help” the superheros but has no essential talent or skill. Instead he replaces their natural qualities with sheer brainpower–he builds what he needs. But he’s not a scientist superhero, he’s the anti hero because he aims to dominate and destroy where they don’t. His name–Syndrome–only makes sense when you realize its meant to parody the notion that people are not “well” or “sick” , “good” or “evil” but in the modern, liberal, imaginary have “syndromes” or “problems.” The name itself reminds me of the song ” officer Krupke” when the juvenile delinquents sing about having a “social disease.” The character syndrome is represented as really essentially evil, where the superheros are really, essentially, good. But society makes a mistake and treats the good as the bad (repressing superheros) and exalting the self made man (syndrome.)
In that way the whole film is a paean to very archaic and anti democratic notions of natural aristocracies and supermen.
Still, I enjoyed it for the acting, voices, and the comedy even as I wince at the underlying message.
aimai
carlos the dwarf
@Da Bomb:
I had a (liberal) professor in college who called Forrest Gump “Reaganite propaganda”. Sadly, I’ve forgotten his explanation.
AndyT
@ChrisB: I always thought that Happy Feet was a gay allegory, what with the gay penguin stories from awhile back
Omnes Omnibus
Ok, I have a favor to ask of everyone here. Could you please stop posting interesting, informative, and/or amusing things? I really need to work on drafting a complaint so that I can get it filed this week. You guys (and gals) are distracting me. Thank you for your cooperation.
ChrisB
I have never responded to B.O.B. I will not do so now to point out that Urkel was not on Family Ties.
But mistakes like that destroy whatever credibility a commenter might possess.
asiangrrlMN
@Robin G.: Thank you for posting this. I agree that conservatism as we know it would posit blowing up the other boat, as demonstrated by W., who, we now know, was not a true conservative. Wow. You’re making me enjoy the movie more in retrospect than I did at the time of actual viewing.
Little Dreamer
If I remember correctly, there used to be a lot of right wingers who simply couldn’t stop watching American Idol. I’m not sure why, but I think the word Idol has much to do with it (Christian Conservatives seem to have an addiction to idolatry in all of it’s various forms).
R-Jud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I actually put Balloon Juice on my work schedule as a task. I don’t get into many threads discussionwise, but I do get work done in between bouts of lurking.
Phoenix Woman
@cleek:
Which is hilarious, because the first part of the movie shows Mr. Incredible losing his day job as an insurance-company drone worker because he dared pay a needy person’s claim. It’s the best ad for health care reform imaginable.
Phoenix Woman
@aimai: The first part of the film is an indictment against capitalism as cancer — remember Mr. I’s losing his insurance job because he actually showed an old lady how to work the system so her claim would be paid? — but that abruptly ends when the villain hits the scene.
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: Nope. If you want dull and boring dreck, go read the Strib (I am assuming you’re in MN from your earlier comments about snow in December) or if you want dull and stupid, go troll Red State. It’s all brilliant snark here, bay-bee!
Captain Goto
aimai–
I like your insights re The Incredibles, and I think you have the general drift of some of the influences about right, but your take strikes me as a little harsh.
In particular, I would point out that at the end of the movie, Dash accepts (with amazing good humor for a kid) the premise that although he could easily win the race, he chooses not to–and it’s clear that (from his attitude towards Mom and Dad, who had to sorta-gently remind him), the reason he did so was that he “got” the bigger picture (see, cf. Stan Lee, circa 196? — “With great power comes great responsibility!”).
Oh, and besides the acting, voices and comedy, I freaking loved Michael Giacchino’s soundtrack. IMHO, No One has ever channeled John Barry’s James Bond stuff with that kind of verve and sense of fun.
Phoenix Woman
@Randy P:
I first saw it with my future spouse back in 1985 at a party one of his Cow Orkers (who absolutely ADORED the film and took it dead seriously) was having. Eddie Murphy’s Delirious was the warm-up act, but Red Dawn outshone it in terms of pure comedy. Millius must have gone to great lengths to keep Joel Hodgson and the other MST3K crew from getting to lampoon that turkey.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@chrome agnomen: Sorry, you’re right about that. I should have said the depression of the late 1800s.
tripletee
@aimai:
Interesting ideas, aimai, but I always thought the subtext of The Incredibles boiled down to “How dare those talentless studio suits send ‘The Iron Giant’ out to die? Don’t they recognize my genius??”
Captain Goto
@PW:
Weren’t Hogdson et. al. self-avowed conservatives? That might explain things.
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: Wisconsin, not Minnesota.
Phoenix Woman
Oh, and John, here’s the NYT’s John Tierney, one of the Cons they hired to appease Bush, rhapsodizing about what neat guys the Sith are:
Robin G.
@aimai: Excellent analysis. You’ve pretty much summed up the problems I had with that movie. It’s really the only Pixar that I have squidgies about (though I admit I haven’t seen Cars) — but, frankly, it reeked of Disney influence to me. A lot of the *events* were good (like the insurance scene), but the underlying message had some fundamental issues.
@asiangrrlMN: Watch it again. The first time I saw The Dark Knight, I thought it was good, but mostly just loved Heath Ledger. I’ve now watched it about 20 times and every single time, I see more and more and love it more and more. (Also, get it on BluRay — not for the explosions, but so you can appreciate the subtleness of Gary Oldman’s acting. Without BluRay you can’t really see the quick little eye movements that reveal SO much of Gordon.)
JenJen
@RedKitten: Really? I view it more as, gosh, if I ever do go to a Wal-Mart, I need to be sure to remember I have a camera on my phone!
I know, right? Ick. And I’m sorry for exposing you to that. :-(
JenJen
@RedKitten: Damn! Edit Button Fail. Did you get this far?
AndyT
@Phoenix Woman: That is awesome. Just as Palpatine uses this ruse to fool Anakin into becoming Vader, the Right uses rudimentary free-market capitalism to fool the Tea partiers into supporting endless corporate profits.
R-Jud
@JenJen: I read your comment above and nodded in agreement. Then I spent twenty minutes browsing the site.
Almost makes me nostalgic for Pennsyltucky, where I done growed up.
Almost.
Kennedy
@Robin G.: Has nothing to do with philosophy, but the cityscapes/skyline shots on the Blu-Ray version are absolutely ridiculous. I’m talking specifically about the scene in Hong Kong before he breaks into LSI Holdings and right before the Lower 5th chase scene. On a decent HD TV, those two scenes are absolutely amazing.
Shell
No, she can be Salacious Crumb, Jaba the hut’s cackling sidekick.
soonergrunt
@Shell:
Shell FTW!
Redshirt
I just want to know where Palpatine’s birth certificate is? Hmm? Seriously. I mean it.
At the time, I definitely viewed the new Star Wars trilogy as containing Lucas’ thoughts on the Bush admin – the parallels are too many.
But then, it’s important to note that the Phantom Menace came out in 1999, just when the country was getting a full dose of media driven propaganda on behalf of the RNC, but before Bush was actually “elected”.
I’m a huge sci-fi nerd, so this stuff is right up my alley. Consider: One of Palpatine’s goals was to essentially brutalize the population of the Republic so they would of course more readily accept the protections offered by his dictatorship.
I see a direct parallel with the Republicans efforts on behalf of “good governance”. That is, they so want to mess up people’s belief in government that they will have little choice but to accept their vision.
It’s working!
Robin G.
@Kennedy: I read a think about the special effects in the cityscapes, and it was amazing. This is the first movie — the first — that I couldn’t tell at all that they weren’t shooting each scene on location.
Robin G.
Er, thing. Oh, how I miss edit.
David Hunt
In regards to the Boat Dilemma in the Dark Knight, I had an entirely different solution to “Do we blow up the other boat or let ourselves get killed” problem. After the switch that the Joker pulled on Batman with the addresses that Dent and Rachel were at, I was sure that the detonators were set to blow up the boat that they placed on instead of the other boat. Sometimes, I still believe that. If I, as a passenger, had known half of what I knew about the Joker from watching the movie, I’d have never turned that key because I would have been convinced that it would be suicide. I don’t think that I could have turned the key, even if I believed the in scenario that the Joker had set up, but you never know that sort of thing for sure until your back’s actually up against the wall.
Kennedy
@Robin G.: They might not have shot in Hong Kong, but I know that they shot a lot of Gotham in Chicago.
I am also not certain about this, but I swear that they might have included some of the IMAX footage in the Blu-Ray version, if that is at all possible. It looks so much more dynamic than when I used to watch it on DVD.
All of this makes me want to go home and hug my 55″ Samsung LED.
Comrade Kevin
The people outside the Obamas’ kids’ school were the Phelpses, of Westboro Baptist Church.
dmsilev
@Robin G.: Quite a few shots were on location; as a Chicagoan, it made an amusing game to identify all the landmarks and not-so-famous locations. I think my favorite was the scene where Batman is riding his motorcycle through a shopping center or somesuch; that’s actually the concourse of one of the local commuter rail stations.
-dms
freelancer
@Phoenix Woman:
Ask and you shall receive:
http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/red-dawn
Adrienne
@Robin G.:
Ditto. My hands down fave line in the movie was something I actually missed the first time around. When Rachel, Bruce, Dent, and the Russian ballerina are out to dinner and they are discussing Ceasar and Dent says, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Knowing what happens in the end gives that quote an entirely richer meaning.
YellowJournalism
@carlos the dwarf: I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Aint It Cool News (I see John has a link to it.), but a former contributor named Moriarty did a long explanation in an article about why he hated the film version fo Forrest Gump. Basically, all of the people with liberal ideals (the hippies, the Black Panthers, etc.) were either potrayed as fools and jerks. Jenny, who represented peace, free love, and an artistic nature, was “punished” in the movie by having a terrible life that ended with her getting AIDs (never actually called that in the movie). He did a much better job explaining it. I don’t necessarily agree with his conclusions, and I like the movie, but I see where he’s coming from. I always did think that Jenny was really shit on in that movie, but I took it as the consequences of society ignoring abuse and women’s issues.
If you’ve read the book, it’s VERY different from the movie. Heavier on the satire and no one, not even Forrest, comes out looking good in it. I actually hated the book, though not for its message.
YellowJournalism
@David Hunt: I thought the same thing when I watched the movie. I didn’t think of it as a punishment for someone actually choosing as much as a big middle finger from the Joker.
Kennedy
@Adrienne: I hated that quote. Between that quote and Dent’s obsessive coin flipping, it was like they were screaming the entire time that he would become Two Face by the end of the movie.
I mean, if you’re familiar with Batman comics, I guess that much should have already been apparent, but it was just kind of annoying to me how they announced it so early on. Maybe it was supposed to be some cool way of overshadowing the outcome, but I didn’t think so.
David Hunt
@YellowJournalism:
Same here. I was just going with the conclusion that you could not trust the Joker and that if you tried to play by the “rules” that he set up, you were going to lose, even if you thought that you were winning.
Hey, I just thought of another switcheroo he pulled. He dressed up his hostages as his henchmen and taped useless guns to their hands so the SWAT team would shoot them.
If those detonators actually worked the way the Joker said they did, I don’t believe that he would have let them live more than a few minutes after using it. He’d have made some comment about society, rules, and base nature of man, then blown up the the other boat. If the un-criminals had been the survivors, I’m sure that he would have made some comment about them being murderers now, and thrown the switch with them knowing that they’d killed hundreds of people for nothing.
aimai
Phoenix woman:
I agree about those early scenes in the insurance company being an indictment of capitalism/insurance companies and, of course, of the “corporate drone/daddy” model of fifties fatherhood.
Its one of the very enjoyable things about the movie–it draws on a very fifties representation of gender and of homelife and then subverts them. Not only does Mr. Incredible try to survive in a corporate world not suited to a heroic person, but they move into a teeny tiny suburban house and a highly restrictive set of daily routines (daddy works/mommy mommies) that they are both clearly unsuited for. The heroic world of the superhero is larger and more enriching for daddy–and for mommy who turns out to be much happier piloting a plane and doing the laundry.
And I adore the fashion designer and her voice.
I also agree about Dash, he does “get it” in the end and the movie turns into a total disney love fest with the sullen teenage girl getting control of her angry young womanhood and getting dates.
aimai
mapaghimagsik
I *loved* Iron Giant!
Redshirt
Also. Props to Robin g. for the awesome Dark Knight analysis. Great stuff, and you made the movie better for me in the span of a few minutes.
I still think it’s too long though.
licensed to kill time
Teabaggers are all ugly bags of mostly water, with teabags conveniently dangling, ready to steep. They must be placed in indefinite quarantine.
(Star Trek, “Home Soil”)
Calouste
@rreay:
These people also included the Sex Pistols in the top 50 best conservative songs.
Randy P
@aimai:
I have to chime in on the discussion of one of my all time favorite movies, The Incredibles. I love so many things about this movie. I love that Syndrome is a former fanboy, and still kind of a fanboy (he talks about “still geeking out about how Mr. Incredible defeats his super robot”). I love the designer “E”. Her impatient holding up of TP squares while Mrs. Incredible weeps is priceless. I most especially love the marital spat about which exit to take while the Incredibles are speeding down the highway to save the world.
I avidly watched every second of DVD extras. Much of it is too geeky to repeat, but I’ll pass on one thing since you love “E”s voice: It’s Brad Bird, the director. Nobody else could do this weird Japanese/German thing he did when conceptualizing her. So he did the voice himself. And also she used to be tall and willowy, till one day the animators drew her as a tiny imp as a joke.
aimai
Randy P,
I couldn’t agree more. I knew that weird fact about Brad Bird being the voice of E. I love the E scenes more than anything and have been known just to watch those without the rest of the movie. I also love, love, love the scene where they aregue about which exit to take. There are many clever little in jokes. Plus I’m a huge fan of Holly Hunter and she’s just perfect as Mrs. Incredible.
aimai
Donald G
@Brick Oven Bill:
Urkel wasn’t even in “Family Ties”. The breakout character in “Family Ties” was Michael J. Fox’s conservative preppie, Alex Keaton.
The official title of “The Urkel Show” was “Family Matters”.
tavella
Er, I’m pretty sure Dash wins in the end; his dad is just coaching him not to win by _too much_. Notice the giant trophy he’s carrying away at the end and how pumped up and happy he is. Which I thought was particularly dishonest; if Dash really wants “to be himself”, he’ll run as fast as he can. Will he likely then get relegated to a superhuman league? Quite possibly, the same way we don’t let grown men run in a kiddie race and we have separate leagues for men and women in most sports.
If you know that the writer/director, Brad Bird, is a Randian, the underlying message makes a lot more sense. I still like most of the movie, but the Dash subplot is downright creepy (notice also that Dash is effectively celebrated for tormenting his teacher with his powers.)
slippy
@Carnacki: I can’t see a single one of today’s flabby redneck conservative lard-tubs managing to survive a truly Spartan existence. Not. One. Depending on which economic percentile they’re from (either the upper 1% or the lower 40%) either the lack of caviar or fried pig’s feet will have them in tears by the afternoon of Day fucking One.
Robin G.
@dmsilev: No, I know it was on location, in the sense that it was Chicago, not a simulated city; but they “flat shot” the city (during times of the day that the light is the least interesting) so that they could digitize whether it was night or day or whatever without having reshoot, then… I think bluescreened, but I’m not sure. My point is, until reading that article, I would have sworn up and down that it wasn’t digitally overlaid, that they actually shot it on the street in every scene. Gorgeous.
RememberNovember
@Brick Oven Bill:
GB is Jek Porkins at best
jedi’s don’t whine about botched brain,err hemerrhoid surgery and draw specious conclusions about ACORNs
Julie
@Phoenix Woman:
I would pay seriously good money to see that happen. :)
dSquib
@YellowJournalism: That’s always been my take on Forrest Gump, and I’ve known a few people to think the same thing. To me it’s just so obviously a reactionary piece. More neocon than Reaganite though, I reckon. In fact I find it amazing that while the right wingers pick through popular or well respected films and highlight dubious evidence that these are somehow conservative documents, this quite blatant one is rarely picked up.
Perhaps it’s also because the movie champions a stupid, compliant, unquestioning buffoon, and the major character who questions, learns, experiments and so on, dies of AIDS, and the conservatives like to think they are the ones who question authority (during Democratic presidencies at least).
MovieCritic
You guys are missing the best part of The Corner’s top 100 movie list. #1 was The Lives of Others, a tremendously brilliant 2006 German film. The plot is broadly that a East German intelligence officer is tasked to monitor a playwright who is a suspected dissident by bugging his house, but surveilling the playwright changes the intelligence guy and the plot ensues. I don’t want to spoil it.
Anyway, The Corner apparently loved it because the bad guys were communists. But the rest of the The Corner is full of posts accusing people who create art with liberal subtext of treason, mixed with a healthy dose of paeans to the greatness of Dick Cheney and hatred for the treasonous NYT for exposing the warrantless wiretapping.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGJhOWU1NzZmNDg4OTAzNDQ3MGFhMDI1NWRlYzY2MGQ=
Really, the whole top 25 is a monument to how people who write for The Corner aren’t even capable of watching a movie correctly.
Ken
HT @91: “The truce required that all humans in the matrix be given the choice to leave the matrix, acknowledging the reality that some would choose to stay.”
I’d be one of them, per Cypher’s line from the first movie: “I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.”
The Matrix was what we humans have been working toward for thousands of years: The technology does everything automatically, and you just have to lie back and enjoy life. My only quibble would be with that last bit, since the simulation did not remove the unpleasant parts. There’s no reason (or at least, none given) that the computers couldn’t provide every human with whatever life that person desired. Steak for everyone, and they all believe they’re trust-fund babies who don’t have to work for the steak.
Hob
@Ken: Actually they do touch on that in The Matrix. Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the original Matrix was actually a wish-fulfillment paradise, but it broke down right away because people couldn’t keep up the suspension of disbelief or something like that – so they made it a little crappier and more realistic and it worked fine ever since.