Category Archives: Film

‘Invictus’

Film, Hollywood, Race, Racism, South-Africa, Sport

I had to search the dictionary for the grandiose title of Clint Eastwood’s new film, “Invictus.” If so inclined, you can read up about it too, although all you need to know, in this context, is that the “short poem by the British poet William Ernest Henley is the source of a number of familiar clichés and quotations.” “Invictus” is Latin for “unconquered.”

For the sake of its viewers, I do hope that “Invictus” is not, as The Independent promised, an “over-reverent biopic, but … instead a surprisingly entertaining sports movie which for the most part follows the conventions of the genre.”

Here’s what you need to know about the sainted Mandela and the game of Rugby, excerpted from my near-complete book, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post Apartheid South Africa:

“Of late, local and international establishment press has showered Mr. Mandela with more praise for serving as the mighty Springboks’ mascot.

The Springboks are the South African national rugby team, and the reigning world champions. But has Mandela ever raised his authoritative voice against the ANC’s plans to force this traditionally Afrikaner game to become racially representative? Not on your life. … Has Mandela piped up about the ANC’s unremitting attacks on Afrikaans as the language of instruction in Afrikaner schools and universities? Again, no.” (©2009 by ilana mercer)

'Invictus'

Film, Hollywood, Race, Racism, South-Africa, Sport

I had to search the dictionary for the grandiose title of Clint Eastwood’s new film, “Invictus.” If so inclined, you can read up about it too, although all you need to know, in this context, is that the “short poem by the British poet William Ernest Henley is the source of a number of familiar clichés and quotations.” “Invictus” is Latin for “unconquered.”

For the sake of its viewers, I do hope that “Invictus” is not, as The Independent promised, an “over-reverent biopic, but … instead a surprisingly entertaining sports movie which for the most part follows the conventions of the genre.”

Here’s what you need to know about the sainted Mandela and the game of Rugby, excerpted from my near-complete book, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post Apartheid South Africa:

“Of late, local and international establishment press has showered Mr. Mandela with more praise for serving as the mighty Springboks’ mascot.

The Springboks are the South African national rugby team, and the reigning world champions. But has Mandela ever raised his authoritative voice against the ANC’s plans to force this traditionally Afrikaner game to become racially representative? Not on your life. … Has Mandela piped up about the ANC’s unremitting attacks on Afrikaans as the language of instruction in Afrikaner schools and universities? Again, no.” (©2009 by ilana mercer)

Updated: Bring Back The Silent Steely Type

Celebrity, Feminism, Film, Gender, Hollywood, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

Steve Sailer: “After the Tom Cruise generation of boyish, small, and energetic stars, it’s refreshing to see a Golden Age of Hollywoodish leading man like tall, dark, and handsome Jon Hamm, who plays creative director Don Draper as the strong, silent type” in “the cable period drama Mad Men.”

Too true, but bless Steve: In an article about “Mad Men” the series, this is one of the few mentions the MM get.

I’ve watched Mad Men a couple of times, mainly for the Draper character. He’s perfect. As is evident from his tender affair with a teacher, the viewer recently discovered that this complex character (now that’s a novelty) would probably not be quite such an incorrigible philanderer were his beautiful wife not so icy and hostile. Poverty, military service, and a marriage of necessity—these are all interesting facets revealed recently about the Draper character.

I watch it, when it doesn’t get too tedious, for the nostalgia the production triggers—nostalgia for the days when women had soothing, soft voices, spoke in complete sentences, and seemed so much smarter and refined than their modern-day, emancipated shrew sisters.

One more thing: The Cruise generation has been followed by a slew of androgynous, unisex actors supposedly in possession of the Y Chromosome. For example, Ryan Phillippe. Yuk. Unwatchable. Or Leonardo DiCaprio; a fair actor, but frightfully undeveloped physically. I hope Hamm makes a lot of films, thrillers, especially. Maybe a couple of new-generation “Dirty Harry” flicks.

Steve’s spot on: “the show relentlessly exposes the sexism of pre-feminism men like Don Draper, seemingly for today’s women to cluck over.”

MadMan_med

Update (Oct 31): Oh for heaven’s sake: “Perfect” to describe the Draper character is meant to compliment his dashing looks, manly demeanor, and complexity. There is a lot of good about him.

Asserted and assimilated by men in the Comments Section is the feminist truism whereby saying that a man would be a good husband if he only had a loving wife is an excuse for the man’s innate badness.

Given the profile of the average woman—leftist, whining, romance-reading, Oprah-watching idiot—it makes perfect sense to feel sorry for a lot of men.

I have only to watch couples purchasing homes on the “House and Garden” channel to marvel at why more men don’t stray. The average woman shopping for a home:

“The dog would love this yard. This yard is not large enough for the dog.” Here’s a fem checking over a $1.3 million home: “my couch will go well in this living room; no, I can’t fit that grand sofa I purchased at Target in here.”

And I’m saying to Sean: “The agent is kind of cute. She gets that you don’t purchase a home to accommodate your ugly old furniture. Or dog! He should go for her.”

It’s also possible that TV reflects the worst of America.

However, certain verbose individuals should take a cue or two from the silent steely type. Never shutting up; never censoring yourself—spewing forth with every infarct of a thought the misfiring brain produces: now that is bloody off-putting.

Draper does not talk a lot. My favorite people ration speech.

An exchange with writer Rob Stove produced these BAB memories/thoughts some time ago:

“When my daughter was seven-years old, her school assigned her the task of describing her parents. On her father, daddy’s darling heaped unrealistic praise (the tables have since turned. Excellent!). For her affection-starved mother, the little lady reserved a matter-of-fact appraisal. ‘My mother,’ she wrote in her girlie cursive, ‘is a quiet woman who speaks mainly when she has something to say.’ (Rob’s riposte: ‘if everyone rationed speech thus, the entire mainstream punditocracy would cease to exist.’ Amen.)”

Pinpointed by my perceptive chatterbox of a child, this economy explains the lack of gush in my writing. Cutting and slashing at a column are one of the best things a writer can do. That’s my advice to budding writers (or people who believe they are writers). Slash mercilessly.

Update II: Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You (The Race Rot)

Affirmative Action, Debt, Economy, Film, Political Correctness, Race, Regulation, Socialism, The State

This week’s column, “Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You,” is too lyrical for my liking. Nevertheless, if I’ve learned anything as a writer, it is the power of a personal story.

So do read about the latest incident in “a seven-year saga” at my local branch of the United States Postal Service.

The incident “was no more than a sadistic display of power, honed in a state monopoly, where captive ‘customers’ are pinned down like butterflies by ‘service providers.’ The discretion left to such petty tyrants is wide—fear of being fired minimal, if non-existent.”

“Just you wait until a postal worker of this caliber, subject to the same disincentives, is in charge of determining whether to schedule your emergency CAT Scan (or maybe not). You don’t wish to set that cat among the poor pigeons. These will be the very beasts rising out of the sea of statism unleashed by a government-controlled healthcare system.”

To get a glimpse of President Camacho’s post office, read “Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You,” now up on WND.COM, and on Taki’s Magazine every weekend.

Update I (Sept. 4): Presumably, everyone who reads this blog has watched “Idiocracy.” It’s compulsory. I mention in “Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You,” that the dialogue with “sour-Asian-lady-who-speaks-in-tongues” and “rude-African-American-guy” was precisely the kind of dialogue Joe Bauers, the protagonist in Mike Judge’s superb satire “Idiocracy,” had conducted with the “‘tarded” doctor character. Here’s a snippet (make sure to click on the sound clips for full effect):

Doctor (Justin Long): “Hey, how’s it hang, ese?”
Doctor: “Well, don’t wanna sound like a d-ck or nothin’, but, uh, it says on your chart that you’re bleeped up. Uh, you talk like a fag, and your sh-t’s all retarded. What I do is just like, like, you know… like, you know what I mean? Like– (chuckles)”
Joe: “No, I’m serious here.”
Doctor: “Don’t worry, scrot. Now, there are plenty of ‘tards out there living really kick-ass lives. My first wife was ‘tarded.” She’s a pilot now.
Joe: “I need for you to be serious for a second here, okay? I need help.”
Doctor: “There’s that fag talk we talked about.”

Update II (Sept. 5): THE RACE ROT. Before I address Mr. Davis’ fabulous letter, hereunder, which also rejects the “bigot” epithet another reader attached to me, check the column on Taki’s Magazine, where Richard Spencer, the young, hip (and dashing) editor posted a picture of the “‘tard” doc, screaming when he discovers Joe is an “unscannable.” I can’t get enough of “Idiocracy.”

Back to the cast in the column. “Sour-Asian-lady-who-speaks-in-tongues”: Yes, too many native Americans speak bad English, but not all speak in tongues. Ignoring her “heritage” would have made the column forced, artificial and phony.

Next: “Who ya gonna call? Ghost Busters!” Indeed, who did I call on to rescue me from the Asian service clerk? The African-American gentleman. At least I thought he was one. I asked sourpuss to call him because he had struck me on a previous session in the “coven” as standing head-and-shoulders above the rest in his pleasant, professional demeanor (and he was certainly buff). He turned out to be a “‘tard.”

Had I been concerned with race—or even prone to thinking in such terms—I would have mentioned that the “feral female PO devotee” who accosted me on my way out was white. Or that the sweet young woman who took the initiative and rescued me was Hispanic.

I did neither. When you tell a story, some facts contribute to the narrative; others don’t. If anything, shying away from these descriptions rings false and racist. I wrote spontaneously. I was plotting neither a PC or an un-PC piece.

I’m an individualist. However, I have also said the following in this interview with Dr. David Yeagley:

“Broad statements about aggregate group characteristics, provided they are substantiated by hard evidence, not hunches, are not incorrect. Science relies on the ability to generalize to the larger population observations drawn from a representative sample. People make prudent decision in their daily lives as to where to invest scarce and precious resources—to wit, one’s life and property—based on probabilities and generalities.”

So while I treat each and every person on his merit, I do not shy away from speaking openly about demographic data.

I once lamented that, “We used to be able to joke about stereotypes without shrieking, ‘racism, Anti-Semitism,’ ‘Occidentalism,’ ‘Orientalism,’ ‘Eurocentrism,’ and that, “There is some truth to them.”