Flicks for the far right

[NoPasaran]

Speaking at the American Film Renaissance's small opening-night reception at the Dallas Intercontinental last Friday, the right-wing film critic Michael Medved claimed that "the huge success of 'The Passion of the Christ' has changed Western culture permanently and forever." He's simply stunned, he said, that Hollywood wasn't trying to cash in on the shift.

"What is it about one of the most profitable movies in history that they don't understand?" he asked, as a crowd of about 50 festival-goers nibbled miniature roast beef sandwiches, spring rolls and empanadas. "There is something wrong here! There is a very real problem! The problem is not that people objected to the movie because it was anti-Jewish" -- indeed, he said, the charges of anti-Semitism were "sick, twisted and demagogic."

"They opposed it not because it was anti-Jewish," he said, "but because it was pro-Christian."

Like so many of the people at the inaugural American Film Renaissance festival, Medved spoke with an easygoing Rotary Club ordinariness that belied the seething anger underneath. There was none of Zell Miller's fire and brimstone in his voice as he blandly called for more demeaning portrayals of gay people in the mass media, saying, "Every single image of homosexuality you see on TV is positive. It's not only positive, it's glowing. It's saintly. When was the last time you saw a nasty gay character? A degraded gay character?"

-more-

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/09/15/hollyweird/index.html

:puke:

[donco6]

1. What an ass.

And stupid too boot. The reason POTC sold so many tickets was simply because fundie churches made it a religious pilgrimage. It won't work with anything else, and will only work with biblical themes once in a while. In this case, fundies ascribed because it supposedly didn't vary from the original text (thought as it turns out, there were moments of peotic license.) Any movie that made up a story about Jesus or Moses wouldn't get the same reception.

Plus, about the gay thing, how many years did we have to put up with movies that depicted gays as ONLY evil? He knows better.

Plus PLUS - you're telling me that Will and Grace depict gays as SAINTLY? Jack is about the most self-centered asshat there ever was. We laugh because he's so outrageous, but in real life we'd probably be kicking his ass to Cleveland.

[lectrobyte]

3. amen, pardon the pun. My fundie relatives (most of whom would

faint if they were in a theater and saw something like American Pie, and who probably go to the dentist more often than to the movies, anyway) made it a point to see Passion en mass.

I guess using Medved's logic that you could argue that the huge success of F-911 has changed movies forever, too.

[reprehensor]

2. HA! I got 55 people to watch ONE screening of...

'Bush Family Fortunes' in Dallas on Sunday.

LOSERS!

[bryant69]

4. It's a mordently funny article

I like the bit about how many of these movies are just a guy sitting talking to the camera about his theories.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[randr]

5. We read about nasty gay people

every time we hear of another religious based sex scandle.
Methinks Mr. Medved should be checking his own eyes for
pebbles.

[Romulus]

6. "flicks for the far right" :reality version

would be gay porn, wrapped in plain brown wrapper, and clutched in a "prominent homophobe's" sweaty hands as he scurries home from the "newstand"- LOL

[Screaming Lord Byron]

7. No one event can change 'Western culture permanently and forever." '

Particularly not a gore-fest b-movie.

[XanaDUer]

8. RWers and hyperbole.

"the huge success of 'The Passion of the Christ' has changed Western culture permanently and forever."

And "everything changed" after 9/11. (No, it's still the same crappy world it always was.)

They sure do like hyperbole, don't they? :eyes: