Kneejerks, Straw Men and the attack of the blindly devoted
MantaRay at aol.com
MantaRay at aol.com
Mon Feb 24 19:23:51 CST 1997
People:
davemarc kneejerks:
>arrogant pontificating, hyperbolic
>moralizing, and neglectful factchecking
then goes on to do the exact same thing. From what I can tell, the main
thrust of Steely Dan's criticism, if you filter out his clever wordplay, is:
Spielberg is profiting off a man who profited off slave labor. davemarc's
support of Spielberg qua Leni however-you-spell-it does nothing to refute
this argument.
in fact, he assents:
>Schindler's actions are not necessarily
>the highest form of righteousness, which would be completely anonymous.
>Nevertheless, Schindler enacted a lower, more problematic, more debatable,
>more questionable, form of righteousness while advancing himself. That's
>clear in the film.
That, in the words of my pop, is " just a clean way to not call bullshit
bullshit." Righteousness with four qualifiers preceding it seems to be
another way of saying, "Ok, you're right: we are immortalizing a man who did
profit form slave labor."
So what are you so hot under the collar for!? What, do you have a poster of
E.T. in your bedroom or something? The socio-political implication you are
not seeing seems to be clear. The message of the movie, within the context of
your "more debatable" form of righteousness, and the INEVITABLE and
ANTICIPATED praise, cash and awards Spielberg got off this flick, is that
this "lower" form of righteousness, capitalism, wherein, we can make a savior
out of a man (Spielberg/Schindler, bizarre, no?) that rips off the very
people we love him for saving, is the path to take to ward off the more
literal horrors of fascism, which deals with more obvious exploitation.
If Spielberg is so connected to the issue, documenting survivor's oral
histories and such, why doesn't he offer them to the world, instead of this
calculated narrative? Because they wouldn't sell and he wouldn't have the
balls to put out something as trite as a "documentary" when he can release
fiction, based on fiction (a novel), and call it one. davemarc, you are
missing the Hollywood variable in this equation. Put yourself in the head of
the studio execs who got behind the film. Do you think they gave a shit about
educating the public, one that has already dealt with countless better
material on the very same subject? Nah, they were thinking Oscar, and cash.
If you recall the media hype for the Oscars (Oscar/Oskar, bizarre, no?) that
year, critics and nerds from all over the country were stating into
microphones that this should be the year that Spielberg finally gets it.
This is all besides the point, really. The argument that you two really seem
to offer, in your respective ways, is enough, and your take on it begs the
question. After propping up Lang, you should have stuck with his model of
righteousness, instead of, in your own decontextualized words, "championing"
Schindler's my-hands-are-tied form of righteousness. So he saved some lives.
Is he worth an Oscar and the drooling over Spielberg and the debate on this
tired issue? No.
So leave the condescending "whoops" and "oh, boy" and the annoying
repetitions
of Steely's name out of your disagreement, and let's deal with the facts.
MantaRay
P.S. This criticism is in no way an endorsement of Pittsburgh Steelhead or
his views and is no way supported by the scuzzball Ford Motor Company.
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