Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to please clarify

re: please clarify
Tom Brosz — (archived)

Okay, I'm taking a deep breath, and am taking your post as it appears to be intended, as a serious question.

It is difficult to nail down exactly who is the "cultural elite" in this country, as they tend to be self-defined. they include many of those who make a lot of our movies, write in a lot of our magazines, teach in many of our universities, and show up when someone needs to interview an "expert." They consider themselves to be in the driver's seat of our culture, and are puzzled and angered when most of America goes off in a different direction.

Shortly after the 9/11 attack, Americans developed a new sense of patriotism and love for their country. This included most conservatives and also a great many who would consider themselves leftists on most other issues. But there was a significant group, mostly from the ranks of the Left, which was actually repelled by the patriotism, and was angered by the sudden display of flags everywhere. They were called symbols of repression and imperialism, and those displaying them were derided.

Many of these same people have similar negative attitudes about other characteristics of the majority of Americans, among them a strong religious faith. Something about those who place strong faith in a personal God rubs them the wrong way, and the hogpile on Gibson reflects this much more than any objective problems with his film.

I suspect you dislike Gibson in response to this atmosphere, not out of any objective standards. His father is half-senile, and irrelevant.

As I pointed out, it's obvious that the violence is not a real issue in this film based on the treatment of similar violence in films that meet with their approval. It's also obvious how far one has to bend over backwards to get anti-Semitism out of this exercise, based on articles I've read by those accusing Gibson of this.

I used "Schindler's List" as an example. Did that film imply that all Germans are evil? Of course not. But it is a hard fact that evil was done by some Germans back then. That is truth, not prejudice. Implications that the Jews are being condemned as a race in this movie because some are behaving badly are a huge stretch. As has been pointed out, there weren't a lot of Norwegians in the area at the time. Where the "cultural elite" comes into thsi is that Jews who are upset with the film are interviewed and brought forward, while those who do not agree that the film is anti-Semitic are kept in the background. Oddly, the Romans apparently come off much worse in the movie, yet I'm not seeing problems from the Italians on this.

The box office numbers are in response to those critics who have declared that the only reason the film will make any money at all is because special interest groups and churches will buy up seats. I guess we'll see.

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