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The Spectacle Blog
One fun feature in my DirecTV service is that the “info” button shows movie ratings from RottenTomatoes.com as well as a brief description of the selected movie. Please don’t hold it against me, but for some reason the other day I decided to watch “X2: X-Men United,” partly because I wanted something that would not require any brain usage to watch, and partly because the aforementioned movie ratings for the film are quite good.
I scanned the movie description quickly before watching the film, thinking little of its statement of the basic plot line.
The story includes a vendetta/obsession by one Colonel William Stryker, apparently a rogue former military officer, who is bent on destruction of all “mutants,” including the movie’s heroes, living on earth.
After watching about one third of the film, I had this nagging feeling that something I had read in the movie description didn’t seem right, but I didn’t remember what it was. So I pushed “Info” again, and re-read the sentence: “Wolverine, Storm and the other mutants must fend for themselves after a right-wing militarist invades their school.”
Nowhere during the movie (made in 2003) did Stryker express a fondness for Republicans, George W. Bush, the John Birch Society, or even the Wall Street Journal.
So exactly where did the person writing the description get the idea that Stryker was “right-wing”? It can only be that in his or her view, someone who dislikes someone who is different from himself, i.e. a “mutant” versus an ordinary human, is the sci-fi equivalent of a racist, and further that racism is, obviously, a “right-wing” trait.
Never mind that the biggest racists in American history, the strongest forces against civil rights legislation, indeed the founders and earliest members of the KKK, were all Democrats. Never mind that some of the most vicious racism in America today is anti-white racism by blacks – whom nobody would call right wing. Never mind that officials the Obama Justice Department refuse to prosecute voting rights infringements if the victims are white. Never mind that in 2008, Barack Obama received the highest share of the white vote of any Democrat in a head-to-head matchup since 1976, or that he received votes from 9 percent of Republicans, a 50% jump from John Kerry’s tally among the GOP in 2004.
It’s not that one sentence in a description of a decade-old movie impacts voters. But the subtle persistent representation by Hollywood of anybody who doesn’t like somebody else (due to fundamental traits of that somebody else) as “right wing” is little different from ABC News’ Brian Ross deep desire to tie the Colorado movie theater murderer to the Tea Party.
Complaining about liberal bias in Hollywood and the media is much like complaining about a puppy peeing on the rug. You know it’s just what they’re going to do. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the occasional swat on the rump to let them know that we noticed, and we’re not happy. Unfortunately, neither Hollywood or ABC News is any more likely to clean up their mess than a puppy is.
View all comments (11) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Ross Kaminsky
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/07/24/if-hes-a-bad-guy-he-must-be-ri
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Fiscal| 7.24.12 @ 1:43PM
I don't know where you studied the terms, but right wing applies to those who believe in a hierarchy and left wing applies to those who believe in consensus. These terms started with the French Revolution. Interestingly, libertarians, like you and I, would be considered primarily left wing even though we are both conservative fiscally. Most people believe in a combination of right wing and left wing ideologies.
This is a case where you seem to have redefined right wing in the image of TAS. We interchangeably use "right wing" as a synonym for "conservative". That's the real problem, they measure different ideologies. Highly religious people tend to be "right wing" because they believe in a strict religious hierarchy. Terrorists, like Al Qaeda, tend to be right wing and are highly hierarchical.
Hollywood, just like many at TAS, confuse these terms, but you'd have to agree that if we go back to the historical definition of "right wing", it would apply more to Stryker than his antagonists and would be an appropriate view of his philosophy.
Let's face it, the right has done the same thing to the word "liberal" as the left has done with "right wing". Of course, neither is accurate, but that is the state of our politics.
JP| 7.24.12 @ 3:24PM
Relative terms - Left and Right wings. From a perspective of the French Revolution, There were Monarchists, and then there were Liberals. Monarchists were from King, Church, Inherited Rights, Class, Tradition, Honor, Glory, etc.. Liberals were for political equality, private property, the break-up of the aristocracy and its class systems, athieism, and land for the peasantry.
The Middle Way was found in Great Britain, which had both the aristocracy, and private property rights; equality and Tradition; the Monarchy, and Parliment. Great Britain kept its classes, but the peasantry had eqaulity before the law. The vast empire, which became the United Kingdom had a social and political safety valve- North America. And the colonists took Great Britain's form of government and perfected it. Until Progressivism hit us 100 years ago, even Conservatives in the US had nothing but contempt for the class system of the UK and its Monarchs. As far as the UK and France were concerned, everyone in the US were political and economic "Liberals". Only Edmund Burke and Alexis de Toqueville thought that our social and political arrangements were at least equal if not superior to Europe's.
And as far as afixing political labels to religious believs, Al Qaeda and the proponents of Sharia could be looked upon as religious revolutionairies and heretics. Their form of Islam is radical as compared to established religious and social practices in almost all Muslim nations.
Fiscal| 7.24.12 @ 3:48PM
From a political perspective, Al Qaeda and the religious right have a great deal in common even though they differ greatly in moral values. They both have strong fundamentalist beliefs, and in that sense, cannot be called "heretics" or "religious revolutionaries".
Personally, I have a problem with both the extreme left and the extreme right as they both infringe on personal liberties. But that is another discussion.
Dai Alanye | 7.24.12 @ 5:38PM
I have a problem with people who go back to the French Revolution for political definitions, then fail to explain how Robespierre and Napoleon fit in. And Madame Defarge.
The definitions of right and left have changed over the centuries, in America they are different from in Europe, and overall are somewhat hazy.
Fiscal| 7.24.12 @ 10:30PM
The definitions really haven't changed that much -- unless, that is, you misuse them politically. Perhaps we can discuss Robespierre and Napoleon with tweets as a proper forum for intellectual discussion.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 2:13PM
Teddy Roosevelt was an anti-big business progressive and a Republican. I can only conclude that the Republican party hates big business. Why do you, Ross, support a candidate who hates big business and wants to increase government regulation?
Bob S| 7.25.12 @ 2:02AM
Progressives tried infiltrating the Republican Party, and failed. Teddy abandoned the Republicans and formed the Bull Moose (Progressive) Party. Knowing a third party couldn't compete, the progressives turned their eyes to Democrats, successfully infiltrated them, and have amassed power to the point that they elected the most progressive president in history.
C. Vernon Crisler | 7.24.12 @ 2:28PM
The fact is, most of the racialists in America were Progressives and environmentalists, e.g., Madison Grant, et al. The reason is because racialists were statists, too. They wanted the power of the state to expand at the expense of individuals: better to protect the race as a whole against defective individuals or lower races. The idea of negative eugenics could not be implimented unless the state had priority over individuals.
Thus, one can just as easily argue that racialists were leftists.
Occam's Tool| 7.24.12 @ 4:08PM
Stryker was a Big Government type who hated individualists. What does that make him?
Bob S| 7.25.12 @ 1:57AM
Never mind that the pioneers of eugenics were all progressives looking to "cleanse" humanity to form their perfect utopia, and the founders of Planned Parenthood were among the progressives who advocated eugenics.
DTOM| 7.25.12 @ 8:01AM
Let me help y'all out here.
Divide the population into two groups:
1. Those who know what is better for you than you do; and
2. Those who know that you know what is better for you than any one else could.
The first group is where all the trouble comes from.
The second group does all the work, pays all the taxes, and has relied on the first to follow the first rule of being a successful parasite, "Don't kill the host - or we both starve!"
Lately, the first group, the parasites, has forgotten the first rule.
Don't Tread On Me!