Friday, July 05, 2013

CARTOON CRITICS.

At Inside Higher Ed, Kevin Kiley says this about a new film:
...a film about diversity, the innate differences between individuals, and the institutions and situations that help foster connections and understanding between those individuals. 
The movie is about the challenge of limited talent and the realization that hard work can only take one so far – and sometimes not even as far as people who are just “born with it.” But it's also about what students in the social and intellectual crucible of college can learn from each other and how those interactions shape worldviews and change lives.
 At National Review, Nancy French complains that Kiley "portrayed the movie as leftwing propaganda," but it can't be, she says, because she liked it, and liked that the main characters advanced without a college education because they were thus "avoiding the rampant liberal indoctrination prevalent in colleges today."

But Jennifer Kabbany at The College Fix says the movie is indeed leftwing propaganda:
We have a problem with the fact that the priorities of the modern college experience have morphed from teaching relevant facts and skills to instead constantly force-feeding notions of diversity and tolerance in the quad, in the classroom, in homework assignments, like something akin to a religious cult. 
Decades ago, college used to prioritize getting a good education and marketable skills. Now it’s about indoctrinating students, telling them they’re ignorant, racist homophobes – all the while refusing to allow intellectual diversity to thrive on campus.
If you haven't figured it out yet, these geniuses are talking about Monsters University, a fucking cartoon.

I'm not even gonna get into the shitstorm over The Lone Ranger, except to say 1.) it has inspired a particularly wonderful Debbie Schlussel column, containing this line: "Lone Ranger Armie Hammer is the great-grandson of legendary anti-American oilman Armand Hammer, who went out of his way to enable Communists and Marxists around the world in his oil trade with our enemies, especially the Soviet Union.. I’m sure he’s smiling from his grave now that his great-grandson carries on his disgusting legacy..."; and 2.) Sonny Bunch of the Free Beacon is so-near-yet-so-far when he says the movie is "Designed in a Lab to Troll Conservatives"; I'll go out on a limb and say The Lone Ranger was designed in a lab to make money, though it certainly can't hurt that imbeciles across the internet are Spelling the Name Right in the name of Freedom and White People.

Oh, one more, from Breitbart:
ALLEN WEST RIPS LADY GAGA OVER NATIONAL ANTHEM CHANGE
She sang "home of the gays." Personally I prefer the version that begins, "While we stand here waiting for the ballgame to start," but whatever. Wait'll West finds out what these homosexuals have been doing with America's beloved show tunes!

UPDATE. Sonny Bunch contends fairly that people who are not conservatives, including good old Glenn Kenny, find The Lone Ranger ridiculous. To the extent Kenny "noticed The Lone Ranger's political sensibilities," though, he portrayed it as part the general incoherence, not as a significant political gesture. I can't judge the film because I haven't seen it, so I admit the possibility that it's really Le Gai Savoir with horses and explosions. But a lifetime of experience teaches me that summer blockbusters are not usually built as means to refute the audience's false consciousness.

130 comments:

  1. Seems like as a good a time as any to share: I'm an aspiring writer - done a few short novels, a serial, dabbled a bit in screenwriting and even video games. One of my greatest fantasies about making it, about becoming broadly popular, is going on the Internet and reading what right-wing culture critics have read into my completely apolitical works. Things that they've written, not knowing (or perhaps not caring) what my beliefs actually are. No matter what they came up with, it would have to be the funniest thing I've ever seen.


    That's the thing about the Zhdanov set. It's tempting to fault these folks as lacking creativity. After all, in the midst of a second Renaissance of independent film, none of them even entertain the possibility of making their own movies or shows. But really, they're extremely creative, just not in ways that are productive.

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  2. Glock H. Palin, Esq.2:07 PM

    If you haven't figured it out yet, these geniuses are talking about Monsters University, a fucking cartoon.


    Hey now, cartoons are as open to critical analysis as any medium.

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  3. Halloween_Jack2:39 PM

    You'll never watch the Toy Story series again in the same way once you realize that Woody and Buzz are lovers--the "buzz" is from amyl nitrate poppers, and, well, "woody" is obvious. And Finding Nemo? Fish? Wet? Ellen DeGeneres? Hello?!?

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  4. montag22:40 PM

    I wonder if Li'l Debbie intended to give Charles and David Koch a sad.

    After all, Fred Koch made his fortune in the Soviet Union helping Stalin with his oil production.



    But, then, none of Charlie's and Davey's kids became something as socially leperous as, gasp, an actor. (Although I'm betting that one or two of them were hoping against hope for a bit--but meaningful--part in "Atlas Shrugged.")


    Schlussel really does need to get out more, even if it's just on the back steps.

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  5. Kit Ebersbach2:53 PM

    notions of diversity and tolerance

    What we have a problem with is Ms Kabbany's inability to understand the word "education."

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  6. JennOfArk2:53 PM

    I'm dabbling into writing a novel, something I swore I would never attempt. I've always thought that fiction writing was beyond my limits. Until I thought of a good story idea, which seems to make it at least possible, if not easier.
    Right now I'm drafting and doing a lot of research reading...maybe when the thing takes a bit more shape I'll ask around here for some volunteer reader critics, if you or anyone else is up for it.

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  7. GregMc2:56 PM

    Lightning McQUEEN? (actually flaming?)

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  8. JennOfArk2:58 PM

    I've seen the trailers for Monsters University, and understood that it's set in the early 80's, when college campuses weren't exactly hotbeds of liberal indoctrination (this according to Kabbany herself). Someone should point out to her that the more accurate critique is that the film is historically anachronistic.

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  9. Wow. There are way too many bones to pick, so I'll go for the anthem.

    Who the fuck decided that singing, "fucking God fucking Bless fucking America," was mandatory at ballgames. I paid my money. Screw you and your faux patriotism and self-righteousness.



    More and more everyday I hate what 9/11! did to this country.

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  10. JennOfArk3:05 PM

    God Bless America? We should be so lucky.
    In wide swaths of the country, that Lee Greenwood piece of shit has been turned into the redneck peckerwood white trash national anthem.

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  11. edroso3:19 PM

    For every "How to Read Donald Duck" there are a thousand of these pieces of shit. Not worth it.

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  12. So...diversity is racist against white people, as is shown in a cartoon about monsters?


    Got it.
    ~

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  13. Tehanu3:27 PM

    "Decades ago, college used to prioritize getting a good education and marketable skills. Now it’s about indoctrinating students..."


    Silly me. I never really saw what "marketable skills" had to do with a college education; decades ago, all Jennifer would have needed for "marketability" was a cute little pink uniform and an order pad, since nobody in their right mind would have hired her as a teacher or nurse. How teaching "marketable skills" is different from "indoctrination," I have no idea, but then, I just have a master's degree that's not an MBA, so what could I possibly know that would be of value?

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  14. satch3:41 PM

    "Sonny Bunch of the Free Beacon is so-near-yet-so-far when he says the movie is "Designed in a Lab to Troll Conservatives".


    Yep... and it's really adorable how they just can't help themselves. They're like Wile E. Coyote who, no matter how often he gets blown up or flattened by various Acme products, just can't stop chasing the Roadrunner.

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  15. satch3:51 PM

    "Oh, one more, from Breitbart:


    ALLEN WEST RIPS LADY GAGA OVER NATIONAL ANTHEM CHANGE"


    Allen West is super, thanks for asking.

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  16. montag23:56 PM

    Since Ms. Kabbany is a 2000 graduate of San Diego State, and appears to have done no graduate research on the subject (she is, however, a part-time winner of the much-coveted Robert Novak scholarship, which probably includes free driving lessons), I wonder how she comes to be an authority on higher education "decades ago."


    She has pretty good conservatoid creds, though, so she's probably going to do okay on wingnut welfare, although she seems destined to occupy the third or fourth tier down from the really high-paying wingnut gigs.

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  17. trizzlor4:00 PM

    Next the inmates at Breitbart will be complaining that Roots focused too much on the "theme of the evil White man" and didn't highlight the positive economic contributions of capitalist plantation owners.

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  18. Sure, I'd be more than pleased to help. Really, I love to talk about my projects, but I'm never sure which communities are okay with that sort of thing.

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  19. montag24:12 PM

    Umm, if they do, they're too late. Somebody else got there first.

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  20. Second that, and point out another quote:

    We shouldn’t be surprised that a Hollywood film aimed at kids that’s set on a college campus would promote diversity



    The obligatory "diversity" gripe. You know, I'm currently applying for a job in the international department of one of the most diverse campuses around. This time of year, it's mostly Chinese and Saudi students, and somehow that doesn't mortify me as much as people like Jennifer Kabbany think it should. Of course, I'm also the kind of weirdo who doesn't have a panic attack when he hears "Press 1 for English," so maybe I can't talk.

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  21. montag24:19 PM

    Bait
    ^
    |
    |
    |
    Rise to

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  22. willf4:20 PM

    Me too, and JoA I'm knee deep in the seventeenth century at the moment.

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  23. Sgaile-beairt4:22 PM

    oh according to the national review, which my boss got in the 80s, college campuses WERE hotbeds of liberal indoctrina tion back then!! they always have been, thats why tailgunner joe had to go after them, just like hollyweird, donchaknow??

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  24. tigrismus4:33 PM

    Decades ago, college used to prioritize getting a good education and marketable skills. Now it’s about indoctrinating students, telling them they’re ignorant, racist homophobes – all the while refusing to allow intellectual diversity to thrive on campus.

    Yeah, they didn't teach that Adorno and Kinsey crap back in the good old days, and don't even get me started on Betty Friedan!

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  25. dstatton4:35 PM

    She's also upset that the Lone Ranger wanted to bring criminals to justice rather than just killing them on the spot. I faithfully watched the Lone Ranger in the 1950s; I revered him, and he never killed anyone; he just winged them, shooting from the hip (Roy Rogers, too). I remember one episode where American Indians were being mistreated (except for Tonto). At the end he said there is no room for racial prejudice in our country. I know, leftist propaganda, even then.

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  26. dstatton4:38 PM

    How to Read Donald Duck? Only if it's by Carl Barks.

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  27. TGuerrant4:44 PM

    They are striking at the heart of a key mystery with their sharpened quills:


    Why aren't there more conservatives?


    Obviously, it must be that future conservatives are being led astray before they can join the movement. By films. By colleges. An evil plan by relentless libtard recruiters to destroy the minds and spirits of otherwise right-thinking, fetus-worshipping, concealed carrying entrepreneurs from sea to not-globally-warmed-and-closed-to-immigrants-paddling-around-in-life-preservers sea.


    What other explanation could there be?

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  28. montag25:02 PM

    "What other explanation could there be?"

    That the country isn't largely composed of assholes yet?

    I suppose the serious answer is to be derived, at least in part, from Bob Altemeyer's work on right-wing authoritarians and their followers. Conservatives, decade in and decade out seem to represent about 25% of the population, give or take a few percent. They're the minority, they're probably always going to be the minority, and it's only through skulduggery and propaganda and outright lying that they ever get more representation than they deserve.


    And, their status isn't going to get better, because they're basically the party of bad ideas and no ideas. I think that's why they seem to be inordinately obsessed with "the culture." Whining is not an idea.

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  29. marindenver5:17 PM

    " And the only smart, decent guy in the movie is . . . wait for it . . . the American Indian,
    Tonto. Oh, and did I mention that the villains of this movie are the
    American military–civil war veterans–and the businessmen who developed
    the railroads across America, which was a great development in our
    history, not a tragedy perpetrated by greedy scumbags as portrayed in
    this cinematic screed. Per the typical leftist Hollywood meme, the
    victims in this movie are Chinese men building the railroads and the
    American Indians–both groups victimized by the evil White American male
    interloper."

    So, her problem with this is because it's about what actually happened as opposed to what we pretended happened? Kind of hard to tell as the whole screed is pretty incomprehensible. Also, too, there has never before been a madam portrayed in a Western which children might watch so it is very fortunate that she was never exposed to "Gunsmoke"!

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  30. My writing is almost never apolitical. Is that bad?

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  31. Did anyone else get the joy of clicking through the Tea Party ad banner here? No greater joy than to think Roy might get a few pennies from the Tea Partiers.

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  32. No, I just find it hilarious that some people are bound and determined to read partisan politics into everything.


    Hell, maybe I'm wrong about my stuff. Can a book be considered political if it has an openly gay protagonist, or if it depicts a business doing underhanded things? If that's the case, then I can write off two-thirds of the Illinois Trilogy right now.

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  33. lawguy5:49 PM

    I remember Roy leaving masses of bodies in his wake. Although to be fair that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

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  34. gocart mozart5:53 PM

    Monsters, Inc. supports corporatism! It's right there in the title, WAKE UP LEFTIES!

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  35. Indeed, whatever specific form conservative policies take in a given day and age, the general conservative impulse is much the same and seems to just be a set of personality traits that afflicts (to put it somewhat harshly) about a quarter of the people in our society.

    For what it's worth, the same is probably true of liberals, at least in the vague sense of being generally compassionate and pro-humans rather than pro-money or pro-authority.

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  36. Ha, well yeah, some people do tend to assume that everything that might be remotely controversial in a work of fiction is a political statement. Only the most delusional conservative could deny that corporations do underhanded things, after all.


    Unfortunately a lot of people seem to unconsciously generalize anything you portray fictionally. They thus assume that you're condoning any action the protagonist takes, and that you're attempting to describe the world on a grand scale even through depictions of individual events (such as, say, a single corporation doing something underhanded).

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  37. ooooo, i hates that rackin frackin left wing indoctrination.

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  38. harumph7:10 PM

    So the Lone Ranger is a Commie/Marxist oil trader?

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  39. dstatton8:00 PM

    Maybe the movies, but not the TV show.

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  40. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard8:37 PM

    Sonny Bunch of the Free Beacon is so-near-yet-so-far when he says the movie is "Designed in a Lab to Troll Conservatives"

    Does this mean I have to watch the thing or Soros will stop giving me BIG BUX? I don't like to go to the movies anyway, and this thing got really iffy reviews.

    Damn.

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  41. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard8:38 PM

    I got a "Date Asia" ad... let's not discuss browser histories, okay?

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  42. DocAmazing9:06 PM

    some people are bound and determined to read partisan politics into everything


    Call me Israel...

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  43. montag29:06 PM

    Does she not know where the phrase, "a Chinaman's chance," comes from?

    Geez, even that predates the Marxist revisionist history she imagines at work in the evil pits of academia and Hollyweird.

    And, she might inquire, why, long before J.P. Morgan had even a faint whiff of Karl Marx, the Lakota referred to his ilk as wasi'chu.

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  44. satch9:06 PM

    Hey, hey HEY... git yer filthy librul paws off'n Miss Kitty. She was a single woman making her way as a plucky saloon keeper, who never made a dime off the baser instincts of the female companionship-deprived cowpokes out there on the frontier. And any suggestions to the contrary were scrubbed from the early film episodes, when Miss Kitty or one of the "girls" were seen accompanying customers or Matt hisself upstairs, no doubt so they could show the menfolk examples of the girls quilting ability. Nothing to see there, folks...

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  45. KatWillow9:08 PM

    Heck, remember Bambi and Thumper? No wonder conservawingers are obsessed with bestiality.

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  46. a choice of hand-operated kitchen appliances


    IYKWIMAITYD.

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  47. the villains of this movie are the American military–civil war veterans–and the businessmen who developed the railroads across America...



    And somehow I always thought that the villainous businessman--banker, railroad agent, land baron, whatever--was a characteristic trope of Hollywood B-Westerns of the 30s and 40s.

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  48. As an individual with decided Marxist tendencies who's also a huge fan of Disney comics, I strongly believe that the form would be well-served by a thoughtful, cogent anti-imperialist analysis. Alas, How to Read Donald Duck is not that book--it scores a few decent hits, but it's generally a tendentious and not hugely coherent piece of work, sometimes in ways that might not be immediately apparent to the reader without a working knowledge of the field. Holy shit that sounded pretentious.

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  49. tigrismus10:14 PM

    OK, Dr Isreal Amazing is the BEST NAME EVER.

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  50. Jeffrey_Kramer10:32 PM

    You could create a very reliable sanity test based on phallometric testing of responses to sentences like "ALLEN WEST RIPS LADY GAGA."

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  51. Matt Jones10:36 PM

    "instead constantly force-feeding notions of diversity and tolerance in the quad, in the classroom, in homework assignments, like something akin to a religious cult. "

    Goddamn it, these irony meters are EXPENSIVE. Somebody needs to start testing them with weapons-grade stoopid like a bunch of people in an *actual* religious cult that revolves entirely around racial purity and intolerance whining about cults, so they don't BLOW UP. :)

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  52. Jeffrey_Kramer10:39 PM

    Every "school" story ever written, staged or filmed, from Tom Brown's Schooldays to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is a "diversity" story: the protagonist ends up befriends the smart kid, the lazy kid, the cynical kid.... Just try to find an exception.

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  53. Jeffrey_Kramer10:45 PM

    Just so long as you don't call me "Sasquatch Israel," you anti-Semite!

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  54. In seventeenth-century London, pretty much everyone was knee-deep.

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  55. redoubt11:04 PM

    I was in college in the early 80's--what I remember as the MBA, BMW and STD years--and "liberal indoctrination" was the exact opposite of what was going on in the first years of the Reagan Administration.

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  56. I dunno about either one, but Mom used to say that Dale Evans was in the movies/radio/TeeVee to make sure no other woman got her claws into him(her phraseology).

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  57. 5 Amazing Things Invented by Donald Duck

    We're guessing you haven't thought about Donald Duck even once today.
    Sure, Disney's cartoon ducks are some of the most iconic characters around -- Uncle Scrooge, his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, and of course, their half-naked uncle with anger control issues, Donald. But it's not like they're relevant to your life at all.



    Oh, you couldn't be more wrong. For the last 50 years, these ducks have been busy changing the goddamn world, and it continues right to this
    moment. Seriously.

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  58. Spaghetti Lee11:36 PM

    I'd love to help!

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  59. Spaghetti Lee11:48 PM

    My suspicion is that a lot of middle-school and high school lit classes put a lot of weight on words like 'allegory', 'metaphor', 'symbol', and so forth. Personally, I didn't start hearing about mechanics-of-storytelling type stuff until college. Maybe just because it's the type of analysis I prefer, but I think given that most people are going to end up being casual readers at best, a little more of that would make reading more enjoyable for them, and might cut down on the number of paranoids like Schlussel and Kabbany who approach stories like they're something to disarm and subjugate, rather than enjoy.

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  60. Now it’s about indoctrinating students, telling them they’re ignorant, racist homophobes – all the while refusing to allow intellectual diversity to thrive on campus.



    It's a damn shame, because there's all sorts of white men colleges could be teaching if they were just more intellectually diverse. Hell, we might even slip in a few non-Christian white men in an effort to stave off all that white male diversity, you know, don't want to overdose.

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  61. Spaghetti Lee12:01 AM

    I just got out of college, with a liberal arts degree, no less, so I will go ahead and declare myself more qualified to comment on it than middle-aged conservatives cloistered in propaganda mag offices. Diversity and tolerance as concepts held up as wonderful on their own, free of context, well, not so much. We read Beloved and focused mostly on the language and the literary history, with the professor cautioning against going too crazy with modern-day-implications. Oh, and Madwoman in the Attic. Honestly, I think I read more Afrocentric literature in high school. The white students weren't told to be ashamed of being white or told that slavery and exploitation was all their fault. Frankly, all the white-privilege/male-privilege vocabulary I know now, I mostly learned from Tumblr. I'm not being angry here, just pointing out that the college experience for most students, even those like me who intentionally seek out intellectual diversity, is not the hellscape these guys imagine. But then, life in general is a hellscape for them.


    I did have one liberal firebrand, a history professor who taught History of Immigration and Urban Growth. It may have been the most depressing class I ever took, and I'd say a good test of whether one is devoid of empathy would be sitting through that class and not getting as angry as the professor.

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  62. And the only smart, decent guy in the movie is . . . wait for it . . . the American Indian, Tonto.

    It's like we're supposed to be shocked, amazed and a bit contemptuous that an American Indian character is a smart, decent guy, like that's the part that's beyond the realm. She should take a little comfort, though, in the knowledge that he's really a white guy underneath all that red face. From what I can tell - and I ain't paying money to find out - the movie seems to be only tangentially related to the Long Ranger mythos or even the cowboy matinee nostalgia, and more the "Johnny Depp tries to make another iconic/cool character, but do it deadpan rather than a flamboyantly gay pirate or a vicious, mean-spirited drug addict". It's like whining that Captain Jack Sparrow got too many scenes in the fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, it's sort of the point.

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  63. Long, rambling story, and I'm stoned, so feel free to skip it.


    I'm not sure if this would've worked anywhere but the University of Florida's journalism department in the mid '90s, 'cause I know they changed things back around '03. Anyway, the J-school really didn't require us getting a minor, per se, and was more interested in us doing all kinds of work for our journalism-related major and our specialization. Some took PR, some took advertising, I took reporting. All they required was that you take 12 hours of something not journalism-related, and called it an "outside concentration".


    For different reasons, most folks took business or political science or pre-law (a large number of J-schoolers then went to law school, God knows what happened to them), because they felt that was the best background for a career in mainstream journalism (at the time) and they weren't too wrong. Since I'd decided that I didn't want anything close to a "mainstream" career, I wound up with two outside concentrations, one in sociology and one in philosophy. I basically picked classes that interested me, and I'm a class away from having one in science and history.


    Anyhow, I took a class called "Gender Roles In Society", completely on whim. I was one of seven men in a class of fifty, and I was definitely the freshest off the local turnip truck. Everytime I'd bring up what I thought was "common sense" and "conventional wisdom" on a topic regarding, well, gender roles in society - be it cross-dressing, spousal abuse or the existence of a "rape culture" - I would be told politely but without any room for doubt that I was, at best, a completely dipstick and, at worst, a horrible human being. Always, and I mean, always with facts and figures. I was wrong about what I thought feminism was, and the teacher made no bones about how little I knew.


    It was probably the single most influential class I took during my entire scholastic career, and definitely the one that did me the most good. I was forced to examine and challenge my beliefs and confront where I was wrong, how I was wrong, and how big a bastard I'd be if I just decided in the face of overwhelming evidence that, nope, I'd rather stay wrong than admit I ever was wrong.


    The professor did me a world of good, and I got the impression she knew that I could stop being an asshole. I am a better human being because of what she taught me in that class and the introduction of feminism into my world view. I imagine these yay-hoos would see me as an example of some sort of failure in the system, but fuck them assholes. I ain't got to impress them.

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  64. Spaghetti Lee12:30 AM

    Also, at a certain point I'm amazed these people leave the house in the first place to see movies. Don't they know there are black people outdoors? And liberals? And foreign cuisine? Really, a mind of Schlussel's caliber would better be served by DVR'ing every episode of America's Funniest Home Videos and explaining how each shot to the balls is a calculated liberal assault on masculine power.

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  65. DocAmazing2:42 AM

    Even moreso, war movies: the cliche of the grizzled sergeant calling out, "Kowalski! Jackson! Hasegawa! Running Bear! On the double!" is past the point of parody.

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  66. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard3:00 AM

    "To iniquity and beyond!"

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  67. Wow! That Jack Kerwick, Ph.D is one godawful writer!

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  68. Egmont Scurley8:12 AM

    With all respect paid to Johnny Depp's undeniable talent, I do have to grumble a bit about this casting. Hollywood has a long, long history of casting Caucasians in Native American roles, but Tonto is--was--a big exception. Previously, he had always been played by actual Indians: Chief Thundercloud (Cherokee) in the 1930s movie serials, Jay Silverheels (Mohawk) in the 1950s TV series, Michael Horse (Yaqui) in the 1980s movie, and Nathaniel Arcand (Plains Cree) in the TV pilot a decade ago. The casting of Depp is actually a step back.

    (I must add the qualification here that this has not been the case when only Tonto's voice was required. He was played by John Todd in the original radio series, and Shepard Menken in the 1960s cartoon. However, there was also a cartoon series in 1980, in which Tonto was played by Ivan Naranjo--I cannot specify his tribe, but his appearance and his filmography indicate that he is a true Native American.)

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  69. Adrian8:51 AM

    I remember a Debbie Schlussel post about the rejection of gender roles signaling the decline of civilization. The evidence: a straight-to-DVD Peter Pan movie that had Tinkerbelle dressed like a boy on the cover. Debbie didn't bother to find out that Tink was in disguise as a part of the plot.

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  70. Don't they know there are black people outdoors? And liberals?

    This is a large element in conservative opposition to public transit.

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  71. satch9:49 AM

    I was kind of partial to "Black thinker Thomas Sowell" myself, along with Sowell's contention that white Europeans were off the hook for slavery because *black Africans did it too!!!*

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  72. satch9:53 AM

    Well, I think Tonto would have looked better without the stuffed crow on his head.

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  73. dstatton10:25 AM

    Many thanks for the link.

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  74. reallyaimai10:52 AM

    Yay I'm back on this stupid system!

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  75. harumph11:04 AM

    I think there are entire states where one is able to avoid black people, liberals and foreign cuisine for months on end. Years, if we're talking about Idaho. They are very successful at insulating themselves from those horrors.

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  76. Mr. Wonderful11:57 AM

    "Whining is not an idea."


    Sez you. It's not just a job, it's an adventure.

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  77. Jay B.12:12 PM

    Lone Ranger Armie Hammer is the great-grandson of legendary anti-American oilman Armand Hammer, who went out of his way to enable Communists and Marxists around the world in his oil trade with our enemies, especially the Soviet Union.. I’m sure he’s smiling from his grave now that his great-grandson carries on his disgusting legacy...



    Of trading with the Soviet Union? Of enabling Marxism through the pernicious applications of capitalism? Better still, I'm guessing (by her surname) that Debbie's great-grandfather was either burning Jews in barns, working as a Judenrat or actively working for Father Coughlin, so I'm sure he's pleased as punch to see how his vicious worldview has oozed on.

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  78. Mr. Wonderful12:15 PM

    And these are the people who complain that "political correctness" is a Procrustean bed onto which "the left" forces every cultural expression in its insatiable demand for conformity. Man, it really IS always projection with these nudniks, isn't it.

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  79. 'It can't be lefty because I liked it' and 'It must be conservative because I liked it' are cornerstones of the thoughtcrime approach to culture, FSM help us all.

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  80. Hell, if you want her head to blow apart, just mention to her that the stage play usually has the title role played by a woman.

    ReplyDelete
  81. You left out Greenberg.

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  82. Substance McGravitas4:48 PM

    IYKWIMAITYD.

    Why yes.

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  83. Substance McGravitas4:58 PM

    Revenge of the Nerds was about misfit supremacy.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Substance McGravitas5:09 PM

    I endorse rambling Matt T stories.

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  85. Substance McGravitas5:13 PM

    I was in Iowa City, liberal hotbed as far as Iowa goes.


    The city voted Democrat, the dorms voted Republican.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Substance McGravitas5:46 PM

    I love the fucking cartoons, but there must be a cartoon bingo card you can fill up for almost all the product since computers took over.

    ReplyDelete
  87. montag26:04 PM

    Oh, yeah, Kerwick is a piece of work.

    One of his students was more direct: "Oh my god. I hate him."


    It seems as if his life-work is to prove--somehow--that conservatism is sound (and superior) political philosophy. Which means he's going to go through life being laughed at by Flat-Earthers.

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  88. montag26:15 PM

    I do recall that there was an American Chinese (read: lots and lots and lots of chopped celery) restaurant in Boise.

    ReplyDelete
  89. FlipYrWhig6:19 PM

    Revenge of the Nerds also rather openly makes nerd rights and anti-nerd prejudice a part of the wider civil rights struggle. Which is sort of interesting in its wrongness, like much of the movie Soul Man. (Also, it has to be said, Nerds is an _extremely_ rape-tastic movie.)

    ReplyDelete
  90. FlipYrWhig6:23 PM

    NERD!

    ReplyDelete
  91. Halloween_Jack6:33 PM

    I'd make up something about Wall-E, but why bother?

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  92. IFoughtTheLOLandTheLOLWut6:47 PM

    This crowded, confusing movie is more overstuffed than Rosie O’Donnell, Rachel Jeantel (Trayvon Martin’s calorically-gifted girlfriend with the cursive-reading prob), and Melissa McCarthy combined."
    Like, seriously, what the actual fuck is wrong with Debbie Schlussel?

    ReplyDelete
  93. PersonaAuGratin6:48 PM

    Que pasa ¿!¿

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  94. PersonaAuGratin6:51 PM

    Also, enabling Communists and Marxists through contributions to Nixon's presidential campaigns.

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  95. redoubt7:42 PM

    Don't they know there are black people outdoors? And liberals? And foreign cuisine?


    Yes, and they don't approve.

    ReplyDelete
  96. DocAmazing8:40 PM

    Oy gevalt!

    ReplyDelete
  97. Halloween_Jack9:08 PM

    Hell, try rewatching Animal House sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Halloween_Jack9:11 PM

    His hat is a bird, your argument is invalid.

    ReplyDelete
  99. edroso9:57 PM

    Sorry, it was spam. Removed.

    ReplyDelete
  100. billcinsd10:01 PM

    Johnny Depp joined the Comanche tribe at their behest in May

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  101. billcinsd10:15 PM

    The Bloom County strips where Milo and Opus etc. went to college campus to recruit for a No Nukes (IIRC) rally were classics of this idea

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  102. The totality of the conservatoids worst fears boils down to:



    "Do you mind if we dance wif yo dates?"

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  103. Tanned, rested, and ready to snark!

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  104. The high point of her life was as a junior high school mean girl, and she just never outgrew that stage.

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  105. I'll never forgive you for this.

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  106. drkrick11:06 PM

    Not sure how a fairly obvious Keith Richards imitation qualifies as "flamboyantly gay."

    ReplyDelete
  107. ... Welp, looks like I picked the wrong week to stop huffing bug spray.

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  108. Aye, and if my granny had wheels, she'd be a wagon.

    ReplyDelete
  109. "... Rosie O’Donnell, Rachel Jeantel ... , and Melissa McCarthy
    combined."


    HOT.

    ReplyDelete
  110. montag21:05 AM

    "Like, seriously, what the actual fuck is wrong with Debbie Schlussel?"


    Got an afternoon or two?

    ReplyDelete
  111. montag21:14 AM

    Umm, I suspect that she was a junior-high mean-girl wannabe, and has spent the bulk of her adult life trying to prove that she's worthy of the nastiest clique.



    And she still doesn't measure up.

    ReplyDelete
  112. "Designed In A Lab to Troll Conservatives"

    They really believe science is out to get them

    ReplyDelete
  113. JennOfArk1:46 AM

    I never have been able to resist a clever goatse photoshop.
    What I really wanna know is, what name will Ron Popeil come up with for this new, must-have kitchen gadget? And when will the obligatory McArdle post about her new, indispensable Kitchen Goatse appear?

    ReplyDelete
  114. Spaghetti Lee2:11 AM

    I downvoted you so hard it turned into an upvote.


    ...if you know what I me-oh fuck it all.

    ReplyDelete
  115. tigrismus9:09 AM

    I was going to downvote too, because WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK, but then I saw the hand crank of quality.

    ReplyDelete
  116. SHE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE COCK-A-DOODIE DISGUISE!

    ReplyDelete
  117. That Thomas Sowell is so articulate, don't you think?

    ReplyDelete
  118. JennOfArk1:32 PM

    To be fair, if science was a sentient being, it would be.

    ReplyDelete
  119. LittlePig2:18 PM

    ah, but they inspire gems like


    "Well I'm proud to be a Cabotian,
    Where from Little Rock I flee.
    I can smoke, and pee offa my back porch
    and they still won't jail me,
    And I'm gonna keep on living here

    Until my dying day
    There ain't no doubt I love this town
    God bless the Cabot way..."


    with background dialog of a very good Hank Hill


    "Can we smoke in here? Why son, this is Knight's Grocery. You're in Cabot, for crying out loud. Of course you can smoke in here".

    ReplyDelete
  120. That's nice for him.

    For what it's worth, the radio show identified Tonto as a member of the Potawatomi tribe (itself a tribe from the Michigan area) and Depp's costume is based off a white dude's re-imagination of how a Creek warrior is supposed to look like. But one's as good as another, I suppose.

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  121. StringOnAStick27:00 PM

    Heh. My parents waited to head to the hospital because they wanted to watch the rest of that week's Gunsmoke. they cut it a little close though, and while my first name starts with a "K", I spent my entire childhood as "Kitty", in honor of the madame with the heart of gold. I was lucky enough to acquire that husky voice too.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Halloween_Jack7:04 PM

    Search for her on Google image, and compare the heavily-photoshopped pic that she puts on her website vs. the way she looks in real life, and you'll understand exactly why she that specific insult and those specific examples. Hint: rhymes with "elf clothing."

    ReplyDelete
  123. Halloween_Jack7:08 PM

    I laughed like a sixth-grader who's just found out what "queef" means.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Halloween_Jack11:10 PM

    Deer and rabbits living together, mass hysteria!

    ReplyDelete
  125. edroso9:46 AM

    Where were you?

    ReplyDelete
  126. Eric Anderson7:50 AM

    I too would like to say that for making a movie drawing is necessary and for that purpose it is advisable to practice drawing.

    Complement ltd

    ReplyDelete