intertribal: (the only one who could ever reach me)
intertribal ([personal profile] intertribal) wrote2009-01-30 10:06 am

that's a tomato... no wait, that's a fetus.

Title from the ever brilliant KSK.  Talk about my only light in dark times.

From the NYTimes (Oscar-Nominated Films Deliver Triumphant Tales for Dark Days): "And the best-film nominees this year — give or take “The Reader,” which has the Holocaust as a central concern — reflect an appetite on the part of the Academy, and by proxy, the public, for a nice, big chunk of uplift...  Consumers who are motivated by the laurels heaped on these films to plunk down increasingly scarce disposable income will leave the movie house with the message that circumstance is just that, and no match for the indomitability of human will. The films are built on individual successes — kids from the slums who better themselves, a television celebrity who finds his inner newsman, a newborn who overcomes old age and the midlife closeted man who steps into the light — that accrue to the greater good. That message, that darkness can be overcome by individuals working for the common good, is not so distant from the current collective impulse."

Why did How Green Is My Valley beat out the "vastly superior" Citizen Kane for Best Picture in 1941?  Why, could it be because How Green Is My Valley had a more uplifting message about family togetherness?


I assign the entire Oscar committee to watch Hot Fuzz, and meanwhile I guess I'm rooting for The Reader, even though I've never seen it.  Ha ha ha.

[identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
I guess I'm not sure the secular part is cohesive/defined enough to really count as anything. I'm not sure I would call American Christian per se, but I would definitely call it religious, maybe even "organized religious". I would call it Churchy, but maybe not Christian.

But yeah, I don't think Osama is the public enemy of every individual American. You could probably make a wider claim that he is a public enemy to everyone if you base your argument on "justice", though.

[identity profile] royinpink.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
hm...I wonder how that stands in relation to his idea of puritanical bigots. but yeah, america is a very sorta 'sunday christian' country, culturally speaking. if that makes sense.

but you can't base public enemies on justice. they don't threaten your way of life... ahaha.

[identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:28 am (UTC)(link)
I just don't think that religious extremism is something that scares generic America. To some extent cults do, but those are associated with radical politics, weird sex, beards, suicide, Latin America, UFOs, and other things that are not in the American way of life. I don't think it's actual religious extremism that scares us at all.

ooh, but justice is part of our way of life...

[identity profile] royinpink.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
Hmm. Mormons do, though, lol. I don't know what scares generic America.

I guess, but...yeah, that's why these distinctions don't quite make sense to me.

[identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, but Mormons have weird sex. Seriously, without that, I think they would have had a much smoother history in the U.S. And they did say some very anti-mainstream-church things... which is an affront against Christianity, not secularism.



[identity profile] royinpink.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:39 am (UTC)(link)
lol. Sexual mores determine friends and enemies!

[identity profile] royinpink.livejournal.com 2009-01-31 06:44 am (UTC)(link)
sigh. people are silly.