1968 contrasted the two American space programs: real-life NASA had to compete for attention with the Cinerama visions of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the top-grossing film of 1968, which smuggled its Nietzschian philosophy into movie theaters via space stations and talking computers, and was a magnificently photographed and scored exercise in liberal fascism.Perfect as it seems, it's the next line that really makes it:
I don’t use the phrase lightly.Please don't ever show him Forbidden Planet. They'll have to scrape him off the ceiling with a broom.
UPDATE. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard wins comments: "The black monolith represents the 90% Democratic African-American voting bloc." But the game ain't over! e.g. GregMc: "My god! It's full of shit!"; Spaghetti Lee: "'Lower the top marginal income tax rate, HAL.' 'I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.'"
UPDATE 2. This reminds me of the great Mad parody "201 Minutes of Space Idiocy," which reminds me of a lovely Film Comment article on Mad movie parodies you should read.
My god! It's full of shit!
ReplyDeleteLittle known fact that that fascist liberal movie skipped over with its clever "jump-cut": after bashing in the other guy's head with a bone, the ape-man sat down and wrote the Second Amendment.
ReplyDeleteNietzchean philosophy? Did this guy just finish reading Man and Spider-Man or something?
ReplyDeleteOk, color me stupid, but can someone explain what Susan Sontag means here?
ReplyDeleteSuch art is hardly confined to works labeled as fascist or produced under fascist governments. (To cite films only: Walt Disney's Fantasia, Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here, and Kubrick's 2001 also strikingly exemplify certain formal structures and themes of fascist art.)
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/33dTexts/SontagFascinFascism75.htm
As long as we're cataloguing fail, in no particular order:
ReplyDeleteSirhan Sirhan was not Muslim, he was an Arab Christian. So his crime was not an indictment on Islam and certainly not the first "religion of peace-style protest" on our shores. That actually happened back in 1609 when John Smith brought his venerable middle eastern value system to bear and slaughtered the Powhatan Indians for their food.
When making the unlikely argument that liberals are fascists it's probably best to remember that if we're metering Nietzschean influence on culture, it was most renowned as being a driver for German nationalism, militarism, and right-wing fascism - otherwise known as "fascism."
Whitewashing the failure of the once-grand railroad business by making a cutesy joke about it being just like those failed left-wingers is a nakedly transparent way of saying that you're too chickenshit to admit that capitalism is fallible. "Hey! Look over there! Isn't that a hippie crapping on America?" is not an argument in favor of laissez-faire capitalism.
Also, Mr. Bell Curve (and wife) wrote a book about the Apollo program? Huh. I guess it's a good story about Stuff White People Like.
ReplyDeleteHow could the railroad business have anything to do with laissez-faire capitalism? Those right-of-ways weren't exactly purchased on the free market, IIRC, and the competing interstate highway system was funded by tax dollars.
ReplyDeleteThanks. What scares me is that the essay smells like shit, but I don't have a firm enough grasp of history to refudiate it. I mean, the central points seem to be that the Democrats were disorganized and divided, and something about Nietzsche and fascism and railroads and astronauts reading Genesis therefore... something. I'll shut up now.
ReplyDeleteDon't let him see The Day the Earth Stood Still, either. Peacknik fascism! (And don't let him read the source story!)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Roy, for finding this little gem. Our cups runneth over.
(And don't let him read the source story!)
ReplyDeleteThe other one about carpenter who who said to love each other or the earthlings would get their asses whooped? Then he gets killed at the end and comes back to life and flies away?
I think the paragraph preceding that quote explains what she labels fascist themes and formal structures. I'm not sure I agree with her about 2001, at least, I'd have to watch it again with an eye towards her contention, but you can for sure see it in Fantasia.
ReplyDeleteY'know, I have to wonder if Driscoll even considered "2010," wherein the Soviets and the Americans have to overcome their ingrained suspicions of each other, find scientific solutions to their problems so that they all can return to an Earth that, for a significant part of their journey, is on the verge of political suicide for ultimately stupid and venal reasons, while at the same time the Americans must puzzle out how their own paranoia contributed to the destruction of their first mission, and yet, they all return home to a solar system that's changed in ways they do not fully understand but are forced by a higher power to acknowledge and accept.
ReplyDeleteIn the abbreviated, Conservative Classic Comics version of the tale, cooperation with the enemy is capitulation. Shit, that's liberal fascism fer sure.
Wasn't that Tom Wolfe that wrote The Right White Stuff?
ReplyDeleteMuthafuckah. That's... uh, um, crystalline. That's what it is.
ReplyDeleteOk, I get that the multitude of broomsticks in the Sorcerer's Apprentice cartoon might actually be a literal representation of fasces, but I didn't sense that they were being portrayed in a particularly positive light.
ReplyDelete"Please don't ever show him Forbidden Planet."
ReplyDeleteI'd kind of like to hear what he'd make of Fantastic Planet!
My English Lit tutor during my first year at university once said, "the monolith is a fascist symbol," during a discussion about "2001". He got pissed when I started giggling. I had a t-shirt made up with that line printed on it and wore it to every one of his tutorials that year.
ReplyDeleteSpaghetti Lee serves up the best sauce in the world.
ReplyDeleteHoly CrapTackyLarity, with a dollop of Hyperbole. It is early and I am inclined to delve, as the original moon landing was one of my earliest memories and 2001 one of the first movies I saw in the theatre, the first I remember seeing, in any event, I had many questions for the old man during intermission. I am pretty sure that the seeds of my desire to matriculate from MIT were sown within that 10 month window (/shakes fist at Math!) Over the next several years I would regularly receive packets from NASA with pamphlets full of information regarding any number of projects.
ReplyDeleteFloodgates of cherished memories (without even a hint of partisan jaberwocky) have been opened...Oh and to bring this home (complete the circle, as it were) I have dropped, and dropped plenty...
Now off with my Mango Spork™
...
First take: I have never been to PJmedia before (thank you very much Roy) and while I have kenned that Conservatives inhabit a parallel Universe of their own construction, I am occasionally surprised by their "creative 'chuts-paw'" to wit: "Voices from a Free America" ( Is there a Vichy state with a light on some hill that I have been hitherto unaware?) The next, Driscoll's avatar, which looks vaguely like a character out of a Hopper painting (upon review, shamelessly stolen from "Nighthawks"), and the third, the headline of the piece in question
ReplyDelete"Off the Rails: Mad Men and American Liberalism in 1968".
I have yet to read word one of what will be an entertaining stroll through wingnut wonderland, but sense that without going any further that a Masters level thesis could be derived from a simple glance of the front page.
It has been a while since I donned the wetsuits...I might have to take the ball gag and dildo along to, you know, protect my vital openings...
...
While the two-hour sixth season debut of Mad Men earlier this month played oddly coy about which year the series was set in, we now know that we’re witnessing Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce versus 1968.
ReplyDeleteI think I finally understand the winger fascination with the show now and their disappointment that it has failed to rewrite history in a fashion in which they would prefer...(just a guess, as my familiarity with the show goes back to a few episodes seen during the first season.)
Not even past the first sentence and I believe on could base at least part of a Doctoral thesis on the Authoritarian/Paranoid mind on this essay/column/wankfest...
You might be advised to set your Phasers on Scroll, as I feel like I might indulge myself in tl:dr fashion.
...
While the two-hour sixth season debut of Mad Men earlier this month played oddly coy about which year the series was set in, we now know that we’re witnessing Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce versus 1968.
I am sincerely curious what he'd think of Barbarella.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps it’s the other way around, given how the year of 1968 came close to tearing the country apart.
ReplyDeleteSecond sentence. Really?!?!?!?. (Disclaimer: I was only two and three years old during the year in question, so what the fuck do I know), but really? "...tearing the country apart...?
I think he means that Urban riots (YKWIM) caused quite a bit of bedshitting in Suburban Mercia.
"...close to tearing..." is almost like a dry hump that might leave both parties with a post erotic desire to change their underoos, while leaving both innocent of any accusations of fornication.
....
I really think it might not be a good idea to continue down this rabbit hole...
...
You know those old maps, wherein the uncharted territories were signified with some sort of variation on "and here be Monsters"...You probably really don't want to know, though I suspect as far as Barbarella is concerned, the column would never likely to be written suspecting as I do that Driscoll is not a one hand typist.
ReplyDelete...
In many ways, the events of that year shaped our current world in ways
ReplyDeletethat are still playing themselves out (One hand typing, so maybe this dude could review Barbarella, except Fonda, Jane), so it’s worth exploring just how
badly the nation imploded. Apologies for the length of this post, but
it’s merely a partial list of 1968′s horror stories.
Thanks for the too long will not finish reading warning in only the fourth sentence. For that i will grudgingly tip my cap (as I am certain that I more entertaining things to do, after I close that tab, that is.)
It has been awhile since I strapped on the wetsuits and got off the boat. but Jesus, Roy, I don't know how you do it now. I think I did once, but a break from the 'trons and not working with idiots seems to have weakened my Mango hunting resolve. maybe I am just too tired to launch into a Jeremiad.
...
I reckon that going on about "Nietzschian philosophy" because the little fecker can't spell 'Nietzschean' probably belongs on the FAILlist.
ReplyDeleteNietzschian philosophy and liberal fascism, all in one movie! Don't forget to stop by the lobby for a cool glass of dry water!
ReplyDeleteOh, screw Forbidden Planet. I want to know how Driscoll has managed to avoid Star Trek for forty-odd fuckin' years. One-world government! No money! Instant free transportation! Mixed-gender multiracial crews! Misceganation! A semi-militarized space force intent on peaceful exploration! A prime directive of non-interference!
ReplyDeleteGene Rodenberry was a sexist hack, but the stuff he did manage to slide into Star Trek was hundreds of times more subversive than 2001. Maybe Driscoll's just managed to block it out of his mind.
Don't forget the badass shirtless gay d00d.
ReplyDeleteIf Driscoll has ever read anything more intellectually challenging than Bazooka Joe comics, I'll eat my socks.
ReplyDeleteFun book loan ideas for your Conservative friends: give them a copy of Heinlein's "Starship Troopers", endure two weeks of "Service before Citizenship! Great Idea!", then give them "Stranger in a Strange Land". The thought of holding two opposing ideas in your brain at the same time really blows the Conservative mind.
Of course the sixties were terrible - for instance, a band of inconvertibly racist assclowns realized they could cobble together a political coalition out of their KKK brethren, the local gawd-botherers, and some stray libertarian lunatics: and best of all, they could get a bunch of sociopathic RICH assholes to pay for the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteOh wait, that's NOT Driscoll's point, is it? :)
No, in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the brooms not only represent but are literal chaos. Mickey attempts to arrogate the power of his Master. His failure (and the cutesy resolution of only-a-dream) is a clear moral instruction to the lower classes: don't try anything clever. That's the fascist theme.
ReplyDeleteI just had dinner last night with Mr. Spock and his wife. Really.
ReplyDeleteAnd the giant white baby signifies our response to loss of privilege.
ReplyDeleteDancing hippos?
ReplyDeleteNew Spock or Classic Spock?
ReplyDeleteEither way, I trust you had a lovely evening.
I dunno about that. I'd say the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your brain at the same time is a core element of the Conservative mind. For example: "The US government is completely incompetent at everything it does" and "The US military is completely perfect at everything it does, but is an agency of the US government"
ReplyDeleteI'd like to dance with this comment's giant statue.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing he didn't hate the cracking of leftist heads, either.
ReplyDeletePlease don't ever show him Forbidden Planet.
ReplyDeleteMonsters from the idiot.
"Barbarella's indictment of liberal fascism becomes clear when the Angel saves Barbarella from the evil lesbian..."
ReplyDeleteThe thought of holding two opposing ideas in your brain at the same time really blows the Conservative mind.
ReplyDeleteWould this were truly so, the streets in towns all across this great land of ours would be painted in a fine red mist with bits of grey chunks scattered about.
The Conservative mind is a veritable Cirque du Soleil when it comes to juggling conflicting ideas to suit whatever its id is demanding in any given moment.
...
Nicely played sir, now where should I deliver your bed of Roses?
ReplyDelete...
"stream-of-semiconsciousness" -- pretty good one, Roy.
ReplyDeleteI've always found the "love one another or I'll torture you for eternity" line really inspiring.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, having watched 2001 for the first time (perfectly enough) at the Harvard Square Cinema in 1978 stoned to the gills (one could light up in the Men's Room without fear of spending life in jail) and giving it the cogent critique "oh wow!" -- I totally missed the liberal fascism at the time.
ReplyDeleteMad movie parodies -- a staple of a misspent youth. I fondly remember "The Milking of the Planet that Went Ape," not to mention "Dirty Larry" which I think would have appealed to Mr. Driscoll:
Scorpio: Haven't you heard of the Fourth Amendment?
Larry: If it's anywhere near the third vertabrae I think I just kicked it in.
Ah, but please note the qualifier "at the same time". Having one Unshakeable Principle today, and it's complete opposite tomorrow, is one thing. Simply switching them out as needed and forgetting what you said the day before? That's good old-fashioned CrimeStop (for the Orwell fans).
ReplyDeleteIt's like an entire political party has been turned over to freshmen philosophy majors: every new idea to come down the pike is The Answer.
Or, as Provider_UNE put it: "The Conservative mind is a veritable Cirque du Soleil when it comes to
juggling conflicting ideas to suit whatever its id is demanding in any
given moment."
Our civilization is doomed.
"real-life NASA had to compete for attention with the Cinerama visions of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey"
ReplyDeleteThere you go again... That "had to" comes from the same whiny-wingnut lexicon as their "because of political correctness, we're not allowed to..." For a movement of rugged individualists, they're sure a bunch of big babies.
My personal fave Mad parody was "The Ecchorcist."
ReplyDelete"Cut to front lawn of house in Washington, D.C. where something evil has been taking place (frame shows figure silhouetted on front lawn of White House, with a reel-to-reel tape lying in the foreground) Whoops! Wrong house in Washington, D.C. where something evil has been taking place!"
New Spock does not have a wife. Really.
ReplyDeleteOh, you mean the line you just made up?
ReplyDeleteExcept for the fact that last season ended in late winter of '67 and we come back to Christmas decorations in the first scene at SCDP, and people referencing events from the end of the season as happening about 10 months ago, yeah, absolutely no evidence what year it was.
ReplyDeleteOr all the talk leading up to the premier about how this season was going to be about 1968.
Ed Driscoll probably thinks all the praise for "The Suitcase" was because it spoonfed you an easy chronological clue.
Ummm... hippos are the 1%, minding their own business, just living their lives wild and free, then along come the ALLIGATORS (obviously the 99%). Or something.
ReplyDeleteWe have (another) winner! I'd buy a whole set of Fantasia movie memorabilia for this comment.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel bad, your comments started a really interesting thread!
ReplyDeleteThen give them "The Seven-Day Disappearer" by RA Lafferty. Ha!
ReplyDeleteWhat I got fromt the appearance of The Monolith: It appears before proto-humans and they start killing each other. It appears before "modern" humans and Hal starts killing them.
ReplyDelete"God, I miss that show" (from the movie "Serial")
ReplyDeleteI was pretty sure Mr. Quinto was unattached, but jeez: do you expect to jump all over my own joke? And yes, I have now checked his bio and am suitably embarrassed. My apologies to Mr. Quinto.
ReplyDeleteNot only that, 2001 wasn't competing with NASA but rather marketing its value and promoting its vision for space exploration.
ReplyDeleteI think he means that Urban riots (YKWIM) caused quite a bit of bedshitting in Suburban Mercia.
ReplyDeleteLeft unmentioned is the role that James Earl Ray had in creating said bedshitting.
I'm not going to be charitable. Driscoll makes it sound like it was MLK's own fault for getting shot, for "drifting further to the radical left" as though opposing racism and the Vietnam War was something limited to a bunch of pinko comsymps.
Maybe the word should be "spouse"?
ReplyDeleteWell, its phallic, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteThere's no need to fear, SMITH is here!
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to give a huge shout out to the parody 2001 scene in Zoolander http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze3hthGRbRo
ReplyDeleteI had the original Barbarella graphic novel when I was a little girl in france. Quite an amazing thing. Wish I still owned it.
ReplyDeleteReally? So cool.
ReplyDeleteNight on Big Bad Bald Bastard Mountain!
ReplyDeleteI read 201 Minutes of Space Idiocy when I was about 8, long before I'd ever even heard of the movie it was based on. I still thought it was funny.
ReplyDeleteits Nietzschian philosophy
ReplyDeleteIf 2001 is Nietzschean because Kubrick used a musical piece inspired by Zarathustra, I guess his use elsewhere of the Blue Danube Waltz means that it is also a homage to the values of Beidermeier domesticity.
That 'Film Comment' article is the best damn piece ever written on MAD, ties together the comic book and the magazine, lays out the history, understands the institutionalization, and brings back many movie (parody) memories.
ReplyDeleteI can feel the electorate draining away, Dave ... I can feel it ... I can feel it, Dave ....
ReplyDeleteWhat caused the American mood to crumble between William DeVane’s statement and E. B. White’s? The civil rights struggle couldn’t be the
ReplyDeleteanswer; for one thing, it united rather than divided the country, except
for the segregationist Old South.
...the fuck?
...the FUCK??
That right there is a pretty goddamn big "except for", goober. 'Yes, but except for that, Mrs. Evers, how was your evening?'
Also, Republican politicians being forced to publically feign great admiration for Dr. King one day a year is not the same thing as being 'united by the civil rights struggle'.
Spaghetti Lee: "'Lower the top marginal income tax rate, HAL.' 'I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.'"
ReplyDelete3 points, nothing but net....
See, you can't think at all about wingnut bloviatings or they'll just go POOF!
ReplyDeleteYeah, really, He talked about his memories of growing up in Boston.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to look that one up now (Hello, I'm Kordo, and I'm a SciFi junky)
ReplyDeleteIt would not surprise me if in WingnutWonderland™, that James Earl Jones shot MLK, ergo "own goal" no backsies...
ReplyDelete...
Holy crap, brevity is truly the soul of wit!
ReplyDelete...
Mine must be shaped wrong. This explains much.
ReplyDeleteI think you'll find it was the Pope made that up.
ReplyDeleteEasy... to wingers, the Military is a completely separate entity from "Teh Gummint", whose only legitimate function is to funnel money to the Military and the contractors who supply it, and then shut up and get out of the way.
ReplyDeleteDid you pass?
ReplyDeleteAnd, even for a sexist hack, his original pilot had a woman as executive officer. (It's one of the things that the network shot down when they ordered a reboot.)
ReplyDeleteMonolith, you say?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.topatoco.com/graphics/00000001/goat-monolith.jpg
Hell, follow up Starship Troopers with The Forever War, and then ask them to guess which author actually saw combat. (It also works if you swap out David Drake for Heinlein, but that's just cruel.)
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Matthew 25:46 was written by the Pope.
ReplyDeleteHalf the women in 2001 are stewardesses. No joke.
ReplyDeleteThe lie about Sirhan Sirhan being a Muslim has been repeated so often. I mean, did the man even have any Muslim friends?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, it's a hard word for English speakers to spell. To be less fair, this is the kind of error that five seconds of Googling can catch.
ReplyDeleteDo you mean "The Seven Day Terror"? Lafferty is a great source of delight for me.
ReplyDeleteWhile Roddenberry was certainly sexist by the standards of our time (not his), I don't think the word "hack" in this context means what you think it means. No, he wasn't a great writer (the best TOS segments were mostly written by other people, though he was notorious for his heavy-handed rewrites). I think he came to understand this himself as time went on, exchanging his writer/producer credentials for those of a Futurist Visionary and all-around guru. Still, the man did manage to win the Writer's Guild and Hugo awards for scripts that he personally wrote--not bad for a "hack."
ReplyDelete(And yes, Driscoll is clinically insane. I don't use that term lightly.)
"Hack" may well be too strong a word. I refer to his predilection for scantily-clad women, gleeful neglect of continuity, and cheerful storyline contradiction--all in the name of better ratings, of course. The late sixties were not the modern day, and he had a TV show to pump out on a weekly basis. If he had to cut corners, then...hello, transporter!
ReplyDeleteThe problem is coming up with a better description. B-minus auteur? Ed Wood with talent? Something was going on there, because even with the borrowed sets and cheesy effects and Shatner pawing this week's eye-candy, there's a real optimism that shines through. Roddenberry thought the future could be a better place. A lot better, even if there will still a whole lot of problems left to either shoot your phasers at or outsmart or sometimes just be confused by.