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I Heard The Crowd Laugh And Knew In My Heart They Wanted Socialism

By Shawn Macomber on 3.9.09 @ 4:04PM

Just as a matter of personal taste, I haven't even the slightest interest in seeing Watchmen, but I did think it was amusing to see Entertainment Weekly so swoony over the film's "at least two shout-outs to Woodward and Bernstein"--breathtaking!--and accidental endorsement of Obama's stimulus plan:

The biggest laugh Watchmen got at the sold-out, 9 a.m., IMAX suburban-theater show I went to on Saturday occurred [SOMETHING OF A SPOILER ALERT HERE--LOOK AWAY IF YOU MUST!] when the Lee Iacocca-businessman-figure said, "Free is just another word for socialist." It was the happily derisive laugh of a crowd that was totally into the movie, and which also seemed well aware of the recent effort to label the Obama stimulus package as "socialist"--and the audience clearly thought the use of that supposedly-inflammatory word was a joke.

One of the silly reactionaries most concerned over "that supposedly-inflammatory word" is, of course, Barack Obama, who some of you may recall from a recent issue of Spider-Man.  

UPDATE: See also Tabin's take on the complicated politics of the film.