Monday, July 23, 2012

In Which Kurt Loder Gets A Taste Of His Own Medicine...

While most of the reviews of "The Dark Knight Rises" have been positive, the opinions haven't been unanimous.  Seems as if there's a certain...type of person who hasn't found the film to their liking.  And it's not because they don't enjoy movies with violence, looting, and mayhem. Lord, no!

They just hate when those action are ascribed to their side.

Kurt Loder - former Rolling Stone editor and deliverer of dramatic headlines from the world of music as anchor of MTV news - lashes out at the final flick of the Batman trilogy.  Won't take you long to figure out why, either.  Via R.S. McCain:

The film is thick with politics of an obliviously nonsensical sort. In an attempt to lend the tale contemporary resonance, the script (by director Nolan and his brother, Jonathan) positions Bane as a self-declared revolutionary, come to liberate Gotham from its oppression by the city’s wealthy upper crust (the One Percent, if it need be said). But Bane is so clearly a vicious nihilist—he empties the municipal prison, arms the freed inmates, sets up kangaroo courts—that it’s not at all clear why the inexplicably angry populace (they’re living in a city scrubbed crime-free after the death of Harvey Dent—what is their problem?) would so ecstatically rally to him. Members of the real-world Occupy movement may bristle at being thus depicted, even at second hand, as witless sheep.



I think that Loder has come up with the best description of the denizens of Zuccotti park and elsewhere - "witless sheep".



"My hate is about to be expressed as projectile vomiting...!!"


Loder's tone seems almost petulant, that his pet cause isn't in fact given the solemn respeect it deserves, but instead is fictionalized to meet the needs of a dramatic production.

Just like Republicans and their ideas were/are in HBO movies/series such as Game Change, The Newsroom, and Recount.  Just as George Bush and the Iraq war were in the slew of poorly -attended movies Hollywood churned out during his administration [In the Valley of Elah (2007) Redacted (2007)The Kingdom (2007) Rendition (2007) Lions for Lambs(2007) Home of the Brave (2006) and Stop Loss (2008)].  Just like ordinary conservative citizens are in TV shows like "Law and Order", or on ABC News.

Will Loder realize what he's feeling now is what conservatives feel every day, when we watch the news, listen to the radio, or read the paper?  Will he feel empathy with our despair at seeing our views being intentionally distorted in order to meet a prefabricated, fictional storyline?  Will he wake up to the greater injustice?

Nah.  He's a witless sheep, after all.  He'll pause to get his breath, then begin bleating once again, clueless to the irony of his complaint...

4 comments:

DismalDave said...

Well, what did Loder expect to arise from a successful revolt of the OWS crowd?

Let's see if history can give us a guide, perhaps in the French Revolution?

- first a toppeling of the existing political & social hierarchy leaving a power vacume (lets presume the OWS group filled the void of leadership).

- they would then institute a Reign of Terror where they confiscate wealth from the 1% & redistribute to those they deem worthy, the 1% would be incarcerated, tried & most likely executed like the French Aristocrats.

- The Terror expands and the chaos, deprivation & lack of justice on a grand scale would prepare the popluance for a savior and a Napoleon would rise & sieze absolute power.

- Followed by war and deaths in the (tens, hundreds?) of millions.

Sounds good, lets try that again.

The JerseyNut said...

That's exactly what the Left wants, and the media, steeped in class envy, is egging on its most radical elements.

Naively, they believe that any violence will end with the (well-deserved) hanging of the portion of the 1% who refuse to turn over their goods to the masses for redistribution, and the naming of Barack Obama as President for Life. With the added bonus of shutting the Right up for good, lest any remaining malcontents wish to swing from a branch as well.

But as you point out, the mob, once unleashed, moves beyond anyone's control. And the graveyards of Revolutions worldwide are filled with those who were dragged off in shock, proclaiming their fealty to the New Order, stunned that they too should fall victim to the madness they unleashed against a specific target.

Anonymous said...

Like the French Revo analogy - what's funny is that liberals see themselves as a better-educated cultural elite, but blindly repeat some of history's worst mistakes.

Can we replace COngress and the executive branch with a bunch of farmers, oil workers, and small business owners, please?

Anonymous said...

Kurt Loders a die hard libertwrian who opposes socialised health care genuis.