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Go to first message Go back 20 messages Messages 8924 - 8943 out of 9153 Go forward 20 messages Go to most recent message
8924. arkymalarky - 11/23/2013 8:42:46 PM

I get your point. I think it and the comparison to Birth of a Nation are a far stretch, to put it mildly, and a bit insulting wrt the judgment of (black?) people. I haven't heard that people resembling Leonardo DiCaprio have been targeted and I'm trying to see the basis for your concerns.
Roots caused riots in my high school. But that didn't mean the story shouldn't have been told--cheesy as that 80s-era miniseries was. I still don't at all get your comparison of a pretty weak horror series depicting the sadism of slavery to Birth of a Nation.

8925. arkymalarky - 11/23/2013 8:47:52 PM

I live and work in a very integrated environment and the idea that this low quality cable series will contribute to resegregation, which has very different causes, is just way out there.

8926. judithathome - 11/23/2013 8:48:09 PM

Trill, do you live in the USA? Because if not, you might have missed the fact that many in the southern tier of states think the South should rise again.

Trust me, those types are no threat to Kathy Bates or anyone who looks like her.

8927. arkymalarky - 11/23/2013 8:48:41 PM

70s-era

8928. judithathome - 11/23/2013 8:49:28 PM

I think everyone could benefit from reading that review I linked to...;-)

8929. arkymalarky - 11/23/2013 9:13:40 PM

Very nice. I would say that focusing and having the audience attach to the individual enables them to empathize with the whole. Detail and jistorical purity, even quality, may be secondary. That's why a mediocre book like Uncle Tom's Cabin could lead to a major shift in public opinion and, as a result, in history.

Quentin Tarrentino is fond of taking beaten down classes of people and creating scenarios where they take control of their own fates through sheer ballsiness and courage and the blinkered nature of their abusers' hate.

8930. judithathome - 11/23/2013 9:27:24 PM

Still, I can't watch a Tarrentino film all the way through. I just hear his name and think of his massive ego...sours on his work.

8931. arkymalarky - 11/23/2013 9:42:00 PM

I used to think that before seeing him talk a few times. He didn't strike me that way. The writing is just so great. Mose and SIL love him. I'm going to watch Django with them so they can cue me to the gruesome parts. It's one of SIL's favorite movies ever.

8932. judithathome - 11/23/2013 11:42:38 PM

When did you see first Tarrentino interviewed? I am basing my opinion on interviews I saw long before he got wise to how he was coming across...pre-media consultants.

8933. arkymalarky - 11/24/2013 12:36:16 AM

I wasn't paying attention back then, but I don't think about him or directors at all when I watch their movies, even when they act in them, like in Pulp Fiction. I'm not a movie buff but, like I am with music, if the characters, environment, and dialogue put me into their world I like them. I don't usually even know anything about the directors' personalities. Stan rarely likes any movie so I don't watch a lot and hardly ever in a theater. I was telling him how I wanted to see the Dallas Buyers Club based on tthe previews and he didn't get it.

8934. arkymalarky - 11/24/2013 12:39:19 AM

I used to not like Spielberg movies, but he did a great job in Lincoln and with Schindlers List. And I loved his first movie, Duel. But I didn't think ET or The Color Purple were great. But I know zip about him otherwise.

8935. Trillium - 11/24/2013 7:20:19 PM

Judith, I had missed the review you linked. Just read it. Very good! Thanks. And the comments were also interesting.

8936. Trillium - 11/24/2013 7:33:58 PM

I live in the South. There are random separatists here...
Just like in California, Texas, Quebec, Catalonia etc. but nothing I would consider significant.

Much more significant in numbers are elderly emigrants from the North who retire here because real estate, taxes, and cost of living are much lower.

I moved out of NYC after 20 years because I had young children and the schools there were unusable due to violence and lousy curriculum. I still have relatives and friends up there.

Many of the NYC schools are de facto segregated. The city also has its share of hate crimes. Right now there are complaints of people being knocked out by "youths". Orthodox Jews are sensitive to hate crimes against them and have actively protested the assaults in Borough Park and elsewhere. This isn't really something new, but a spike in the number of assaults has drawn protests.

8937. Trillium - 11/24/2013 7:42:41 PM

About the judgment of (black?) people, Arky-- I don't think "black" people necessarily have better judgment than "white" people. Judgment isn't a race thing -- but judgment is very much an emotional thing, powerfully affected by cinema and art.

After "Jud Suess" was shown in the 1940s, there were riots in some places. That movie, by the way, has a very interesting history. It was specifically designed to stoke economic and ethnic hatred, but it used respectable actors and was loosely based on a historical story that was "rearranged".

8938. arkymalarky - 11/24/2013 8:54:07 PM

You simply haven't presented a compelling reason for the producers to censor that show, steamy pile though it seems. I googled and couldn't find a single opinion paralling yours. I don't believe you have responded to any recent movies with much more impact (Fruitvale Station. anyone?) that shores up your assertion that this stupid show will lead to violence against people who look like Kathy Bates. Seriously? Free speech is messy. But the sky doesn't fall whenever a stupid show hamhandedly handles an ugly aspect of history.

8939. arkymalarky - 11/24/2013 9:02:59 PM

And I really think if you want to make your point you should use examples from the 21st century, of which there are many. As a Southern teacher of English and history in a very diverse and high poverty school I face issues of slavery and race head on. We read and watch movies that disturb some people's sensibilities and I get complaints but I will continue to do so. I was asked by administration not to discuss the OJ trial. The whole argument was the one used for maintaining slavery: if you end it slaves will turn on Southern whites. I don't buy it.

8940. Trillium - 11/25/2013 11:57:19 PM

Arky, here are some links to Northeastern news that you probably don't see much of in your neck of the woods.

This is from September 9:
Union Square Random Killing

There are more, if you actually google things like "Brooklyng + Couple beaten at shopping center + hate" etc. I suspect you'd rather not know, though.

This Nov. 13 newsclip about the Midwood neighborhood gets the drift:

Midwood Neighborhood March



8941. Trillium - 11/26/2013 12:08:51 AM

Brooklyn, not Brooklyng! Dangit.

8942. arkymalarky - 11/26/2013 12:53:37 AM

That doesn't support your argument. Did he watch a tv show? And even if it did, free speech trumps it. I'm afraid if you really begin to pay attention to music, movies, what's online, what's on TV, what's on facebook, you'd despair over the fate of humanity. Normal people put these things in perspective and you can never mitigate enough for the abnormal ones. I don't support censorship of material that shows the ugly side of people. It never works anyway. Black people know slavery was bad. If major incidents haven't occurred as a result of much better offerings on the topic, then I doubt a show no one is even talking about will be that dangerous. But who can account for the motives of any individual wacko? Did you argue against the release of Schindler's List out of concern for backlash against Germans? I'd stay out of grocery lines, or at least not look at the magazines, if I felt society were hanging by so tenuous a thread.

8943. Trillium - 11/26/2013 4:21:04 AM

Arky, I do not know you personally, but you are coming across as condescending and rude.

We disagree, fine -- but you are coming across like an asshole. First you exaggerate my criticism as some sort of hysteria; then characterize my objection as going against free speech, Then you dig at my having come across this bullshit while reading on a grocery line.

I lived two decades in New York City. The racial and ethnic tensions there were much more pronounced than anything I have seen in the South. And for whatever reason, in the last months this tension has apparently escalated, and a lot of people are concerned about the level of violence. I have a theory that tv and movies are contributing to this. You apparently disagree-- fine. But no need to be an asshole in your disagreement.

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