Category Archives: Culture

Retro Movie: Ms .45

Released in 1981, and I watched this film on its initial released, Ms .45is an exploitation film that is charitably about sexism in society and more accurately an excuse to watch for nearly an hour and a half of a young woman taking revenge with the aid of a semi-automatic pistol. Be warned, spoilers for the entire film abound ahead.

Thana, played by the tragically doomed Zoe Tamerlis, is young woman, mute, who works as a seamstress in the New York City’s garment district. On her way home from work she is attacked and raped in an alley, then when she gets to her apartment, she interrupts a burglar armed with a .45 caliber pistol, who also rapes her. During the assault Thana fights off her attacker and kills him. With her sanity snapped by the violations Thana dismembers her attacker’s corpse and takes his pistol. The rest of the film is following Thana around as she disposes of body parts by leaving them in various trash bins or grinding them into dog food and shooting dead men who attack her, frighten her, or make sexual advances towards her. The film culminated in a costume party thrown by her employer where Thana attends dressed as a nun and after her boss makes a sexual advance, proceeds to shoot every male in at the celebration, though momentarily confused by the man who had cross-dressed as a bride for his costume. The final scenes of Ms .45 has a wildly different context today with mass shootings now ubiquitous compared to 1981 when there were still rather rare.

Ms .45 was written and directed by Abel Ferrara and had I realized eleven years later that he also wrote and directed Bad Lieutenant I would have dissuaded by friend from selected that film as the one we were going to see. The film while attempting to have a thematic point about sexism and the treatment of women in American society lingers on the violence presented following the footsteps of other exploitation movies about crime and revenge that populated theaters of the 1970s and 1980s. Thana’s marksmanship with her pistol is never explained falling into one of Hollywood’s most beloved firearms tropes, precision shooting is easy.

On its release the film received terrible reviews but has become something of a cult favorite and has even had a high definition released of a restored print from the original negative.

Zoe Tamerlis as Thana is really quite good. Bereft of dialog and voice she fully conveys Thana’s inner life with her large and expressive eyes. Sadly, she was devoted to recreational drug use and died from it at the age of 37.

For people who enjoy the trashy sub-genre of rape and revenge films Ms .45may possibly fit your tastes but I was not moved by this movie in 1981 nor in 2020.

 

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Your Opinion Will be Meaningless

Trump’s reelection is in trouble. To be sure it is far from assured that Biden will win this contest. If fact, while it can’t be quantified, I think a major factor in Hillary Clinton’s Electoral College loss in 2016 was that so many people assumed that the election was predetermined, certain that Trump simply couldn’t win that, that those who stayed home and did not vote subtracted just enough votes from her to give the Presidency to Trump. That’s a factor I do not think will be repeating.

During the Obama Presidency conservative commentators and friends seemed to harp on an endless list of ‘scandals’ and ‘abuses’ committed by the president and his administration. (I placed them in quotes because it is my opinion many of them were simply ginned up for political purposes but I have no intention of litigating them here.)

Many of those same commenters and friends have been silent on such abuses, fraud, and corruption during the Trump presidency.

Should Biden win the White House I expect that many of those voice will suddenly find corruption and abuses to horrify them. To which I say to them:

“I do not care at all for your opinion on this. It is valueless.”

They will cloak their opinions in phrases such as ‘rule of law’ and ‘abuse of power,’ but their silence during Trump’s years make plain that their interest is not in principal but politics. They have devotion to morality, fairness, or justice but only to whatever club is convenient for them to wield against their political enemies.

 

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What is the American Dream?

Too often we are told that the American Dream is a house with a white picket fence and the appropriate number of offspring as though the idealized American life had not been conceived before the middle of the twentieth century and that the previous one hundred and seventy odd years contained no national aspiration of individual life.

Liberty, not material possessions, is the core of the American dream. It is unamusingly ironic that a nation with a founding ideal of liberty also at its founding enslaved another people but our national character, just like an individual’s character, is complex and resists simplistic description. We are a nation, a people, raised on the ideal of liberty and far too often and for far too long we have fallen short of our lofty aspirations.

That does not mean we must not try.

Rather the opposite, we must constantly strive to be better. Perfection must never be the enemy of the good, and the evils of history while they cannot be erased nor should they, must never dissuade us from being virtuous today.

Slavery is one of the few things I consider an absolute evil. It is a mark of shame that it is a part of our history but it is there and no pretending that it was somehow caring or considerate can wash away the evil that existed alongside our virtues.

That we ended chattel slavery is a good and should be celebrated even if we continue to stumble towards a better and more just society.

To that end we should celebrate Juneteenth as a holiday. It should be a national one, one that mixes the desire of celebration with the need to reflect on where we still need to go.

 

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Coded versus Interpreted

I have been watching some documentaries about films and film makers, including some of the better Cinema youtubers. (Really, that makes them sound related to potatoes.) One thing I kind of struggle and rebel against is the idea that something is ‘coded’ into a film when there is no documented evidence of the filmmaker’s intent.

Coded has the clear implication that something was done with intent. In Robocop the Christ imagery, though in my opinion it is highly misplaced, is there by intent. Paul Verhoeven deliberately created that imagery for his own artistic purpose. It is coded. However, I can find no evidence supporting my interpretation that the corporate executives enjoying Robocop food paste that ‘tastes like baby food,’ is a deliberate symbolism that they are children playing with things that have moral implication that they do not understand.

Perhaps the best example of coded versus interpreted comes from John Carpenter’s They Live. From interviews and on-line debates, plus anyone with even a passing knowledge of Carpenter’s political philosophy, it’s clear that the aliens in that film and their objectives are a stand in for Conservatism and particularly Reaganism. Neo-Nazis interpreted the aliens to be coded as Jewish and have embraced the film as something delivery their kind of message.

Another example is Disney’s The Lion King. One interpretation is that the film contains a message about environmentalism and the great circle of life, but it can also be seen as an argument for conservative social Darwinism because the entire system collapses when Scar brings the ‘takers’ in has them live off the ‘makers.’ I do not think that is what the filmmakers intended but I can and has been read in that manner.

There are times when the message is clear, there is no coding in Birth of a Nation, the message is plainly racist and it is meant to be, but I would be wary of seeing intent where there is possibly only interpretation.

 

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Political Bits and Pieces

The title of today’s post in not to disparage the importance of any of the subjects but just because I’m doing quick comments and opinions and several at once rather than diving deep into any of them.

Juneteenth

Under unexpectedly harsh criticism the Trump campaign has moved the date of the return to rally event off June the 19th. Trump himself has said it was moved ‘out of respect,’ but that’s a statement I consider to be yet another lie. Aside from possibly Jared and Ivanka it is my opinion that Trump has never manifested any respect for anyone other than himself. More likely, and this is sheer speculation, Ivanka persuaded him to move the event as though a single bucked of water pumped from this political Titanic could make any difference.

LGBQT Rights

This morning the US Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, that the 1964 civil right law that forbade discrimination in employment on account of sex protected sexual orientation as well. Well, that’s an unexpected gift for Pride month.

Trump vs. The Ramp

At the commencement ceremony for the graduating class of West Point, the site of the United States most infamous treason, Trump had clearly visible difficulty navigating the shallow ramp prompting more speculation about his physical health. While a president’s physical health is of vital national importance, such as concealing when the President has suffered a stroke while in office, this matter is rather more of a distraction. Trump’s ignorance, pettiness, bigotry, corruption, and tendency to view himself and his office in authoritarian terms are reasons enough to remove him from office.

Defund the Police

Policing in the United States is terrible. It is applied unjustly, frequently with racial bias, and police forces throughout the nation too often have the culture of an occupation force rather than public servants. Much has been made about the police’s non-use of a heavy-handed tactics during protests over pandemic driven lockdowns versus the deployment of batons, riot gear, and tear gas against peaceful protester participating in the Black Lives Matter movement. I do not think it is mere coincidence that police forces have reacted with unjustified force against people directly challenging their authority. We must reinvent policing in the nation.

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A Thumb in the Eye

Next Friday Trump returns to the rally circuit but in doing so he’s quite deliberately putting his thumb in the eye of the black community and everyone with even a modicum of decency. The date is June the 19th and that date is a holiday celebrated by many African-Americans as the end of hundreds of years of chattel slavery was enforced by Union, read American, General Gordon Granger in Galveston Texas. Perhaps you can ascribe ignorance of the date to our most ignorant president but his staff and closest advisers, particularly Steven Miller, are too well educated to be blind to the symbolism.

Trump multiplies his insult by holding this rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma the site of a horrendous slaughter of black residents at hand and aerial attacks from whites. A massacre that slaughtered hundreds and left 10,000 homeless with their homes burned and their businesses looted. This ethnic cleansing, it was far beyond a riot, was recently captured in popular media with the opening scenes of HBO’s magnificent series Watchmen. Again, perhaps Trump himself is too uneducated to beware of the history, it would be difficult to under-estimate this man mental abilities, but Miller and the rest will know.

Oklahoma is a solidly red state that in the electoral college is beyond Biden’s reach. Here is no political advantage to hosting a rally in the state.

Trump administration, campaign, and argument is one based on racism and there is no policy or appointment that can justify supporting it.

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Why It’s Necessary to Say, ‘Black Lives Matter.’

As protests, unrest, and repression continues throughout this country over the killing of George Floyd the unifying chant heard from protesters is ‘Black Live Matter.’ The Chat did not start with this protest but is sadly years old and is likely to be carried forward for years to come.

A common response from those in disagreement is ‘All Lives Matter,’ and less common but more contentious is the response ‘Blue Lives Matter.’ Both of these responses miss the point and the reason for why the BLM movement exists at all.

The terrible truth of the matter is that black lives are valued less by our society and our culture than other lives. In terms of income, wealth, education, justice, health, voting, and in life expectancy, it is painfully clear that societally black lives simply do not count as much, commanding far less attention for injustices of all kinds visited upon and receiving far less resources to address their troubles. To say ‘Black Lives Matters’ is to say that these devalued should be valued. It is not taking lives that are equally valued and placing them above the rest, which is the implication of the response ‘All Lives Matter,’ it is trying to remove the blinders that keeps many people from seeing the terrible price black lives pay for merely existing in our society.

“Blue Lives Matter’ is beyond wrong it is egregious and a perversion of the argument. First off there are no ‘blue lives,’ policeperson is a chosen identity not one assigned by accident of birth or societal bigotry. Every cop out there chooses to be a cop a choice that is incomparable to race. Secondly, ‘blue lives’ are more valued in our society that other lives. Crimes against the police are punished more heavily than comparable crimes against average citizens. (NOT civilians, the police are civilians and the use of that term to describe non-police is part of the police’s culture of occupation that is exacerbating all of our problems.) In terms of valorization and resources police are valued far above nearly every other for of public employee and citizen.

It is a terrible thing that we must say ‘Black Lives Matter’ because is it an indictment of how far short we have fallen of our lofty cultural goals.

 

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Could Trump Play a ‘Stabbed in the Back’ Card?

In his mind Trump never loses. Any loss is always either a secret win that he spins with enormous lies or a result of ‘cheating’ and betrayals. Everyone, including Trump himself, was ready for his endless and utterly false claims of having won the 2016 when it was expected that he could not win. But he did win. A think margin of 70,000 votes in less than a handful of states put him into the presidency and created the conditions of our current chaos.

At moment Trump is running for re-election and in national polls and in the battleground states he is losing to Biden. Moreover, he has never held a lead over Biden during this entire race and with the triple threat of a global pandemic, an economic crisis, and civil unrest the prospect for Trump to take the lead is rather slim. Not impossible mind you but the electoral map does not look good for team Trump.

Given that the map is threatening and Trump’s ego requires that he does not lose I wonder if there is a possibility that he’s going to turn the campaign ship and run it aground.

Not as a ‘quitter’ because that too runs afoul of his over-inflated ego, but could some action, particularly an action taken by the Republican party or elites, such as not having a crowd packed convention, provide him with an excuse that the ‘deep state’ and ‘corrupt elites’ have stabbed him and ‘the country’ in the back and he then drops out of the race?

It was on March 31 when LBJ stood down from his second full term and left the Democratic party in a shambles and Trump has less concern for his party than any party leader in history. He wouldn’t care that a summer declination to run would trash the GOP, all that matters to him is his ego. Before the August Convention the GOP will not have officially nominated anyone as their candidate, leaving open the possibility that it could be someone else.

I am not saying that this is a likely scenario but as we have seen so far in 2020 unlikely is far from impossible.

 

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A Thousand Little Compromises

A friend on Facebook asked how was that conservatives were disgusted and ashamed by this presidency and its horrific actions.

The truth of the matter is that is a very human things to do to turn a blind eye towards one’s tribe and one’s self when looking for flaws and hypocrisy and simultaneously be hyper-aware of the same things in others. Understanding this requires understanding that people rarely go from one extreme to another in a single leap but rather get there by a thousand little steps, justifying, if they think about it at all, as unpleasant actions and compromises taken for a greater good. Think back upon Saruman in The Fellowship of the Ring, “Our goals need not change only our methods.”

That element of goals is critically important, it is what allows someone to accept the unacceptable because the destination is worth it. Of course, this is the classic ‘the ends justify the means,’ and that so often leads to terrible consequences but it is difficult to see that slow corruption in one’s self and it is equally difficult to admit error particularly for anything of high personal importance. So, when someone of your team acts in a dishonorable manner, cheats, or is abusive it is far easier to excuse it, justify it, or point an accusing finger back at the opponents than face the painful truth of what you have even tacitly supported.

However, this has limits and eventually people either abandon their previously held truths for new ones or they abandon the tribes associated with their previous selves and both are ruptures of identity.

Among conservatives you can watch this process in action. Some have gone silent, simply no longer associating with the tribe as it currently stands, some have abandoned the tribe and formed their own new identity, the ‘never Trumpers,’ and some have adopted the uniform of their new movement, washing away their former ideals. It is wrong to think of conservatives as a single monolithic block and the same is true for any very large ideology. The reactions among conservatives is varied but the political party and its apparatus is firmly in the control of a single faction, Trump’s, and it would be best not to confuse the larger collection with the party.

 

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It Always Matters

Six years ago, after a meeting of the writers’ group I belong to one of the members voiced the opinion that in the3 USA who you voted for did not matter as all the politicians were effectively the same. It was another instance of cynicism masquerading as wisdom. The next presidential election presented the choices between an experienced candidate who had spent their entire life in the arena of publica service and narcissistic game show host with no experience in politics, service, or empathy. Today we are paying the price for selecting the game show host and pretending that the choices were in any way equivalent.

As of this week more than 100,0000 American have died of the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis is far from over. When the news began filtering out of China, there were those in the administration that tried to sound alarms, tried to ready the nation and the government for a crisis but their leadership shut their eyes and plugged their ears pretending the crisis did not exist. When the outbreak became undeniable the nation was plunged, state by state, into an economic coma, throwing tens of millions out of work and destroying more than a decade’s growth but that might have been the right choice if the time it purchased had not been wasted. The ‘shut down’ was not the tool that would by itself suppress and mitigate the pandemic it was there to buy time so that the real tools, testing and tracing could be brought to the front and deployed against the enemy.

Again, the leadership failed the public. There was no mass mobilization for either testing or tracing. There wasn’t even coordination of efforts across the federal system but rather the opposite, states were pitted against states and against the Federal government itself. At least one state deploying its guard to protect incoming vital medical supplies not from bandits but from the Federal government coming in and confiscating the supplies for itself.

So now we are beginning to revive the comatose economy and we still do not have adequate levels of testing and we do not have the capacity to contact traces outbreaks. The best we can hope for is that the curve does not go up again but that we can keep the rate of infection and death level. If we do that, forestall any increase as people venture out and are forced back to their employment weather it is safe or not, then we can expect another 100,000 dead Americans by the end of the year. We will be near a quarter of a million dead Americans and for what?

For conservative judges?

For tax breaks on capitol?

What conservative gain is worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of American lives?

(Side note: Sweden did not put its economy into a coma and it is seeing as of this morning the first signs of economic growth, but it has a death rate from COVID-19 of 4.55 per million and the USA’s is 3.55 per million. Had the US followed that course it would have produced another 28,000 corpses.)

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