Category Archives: Hollywood

Corrected: Jack Bauer: State Zombie, Not Bitch

Hollywood, The Zeitgeist

I’ve enjoyed previous episodes of “24.” They were good action, no more, no less. I had a hard time sitting through the 4 hour premier broadcast. (Okay, not that hard.) I kept waiting for a correction in the program’s tenor. No such luck.

Bauer was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Chinese. The American government lost interest in him for about two years, but quickly regains it when a new terrorist appears on the horizon. He promises to stop suicide-bomber attacks on American cities in exchange for Bauer, who killed his brother in better times.

Bauer, fresh from Chinese torture, is only too happy to give his life for the Greater Good. As he is being turned over to his new owner, chained like a dog to a fence (the government doesn’t trust him, even though you’d think his dog-like loyalty would have, by now, convinced the Top Dogs), he mutters about the approaching meaningful end. This guy never tires of being used and abused by successive governments. Some individualist.

What really sickens in this series —other than how Bauer turns appeaser of terrorists, and worse —is the depiction of the aggression ordinary Americans allegedly direct at American Muslims. Some even break down their Muslim neighbors’ front doors and beat them up. Certain Hollywood themes are here to stay.

Also, in real life the typical Islamic organization —take the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) —is full of dissemblers and defenders of terrorists. Ordinarily, these are media-savvy mouthpieces for militant Islam. “24” recasts the head of such an outfit as their new, true patriot.

To top this fiction up, Jack becomes attached to Assad, a reformed terrorist, now wanting to “enter the political process” (that cliché has really taken off). Jack wrangles immunity and a pardon from the president for his new consort.

But the point at which I removed myself (admittedly near the end; I’m weak) was when, to save his pet terrorist, Jackass shoots Curtis Manning, director of Fields Operations. Curtis is a moral, ex-military, man; he doesn’t buy this amnesty business. During Desert Storm (I think), Assad had captured and beheaded a few of his men. Curtis thinks that son of sixty dogs needs killing. Jackass chooses to shoot Curtis in order to save Assad. He then whimpers something about not being able to do this any longer.

Jack murdering a good man and a colleague to save a career killer, the saintly American Muslim organization, the saintlier reformed terrorist (modeled, no doubt, after Mahmoud Abbas), the mean Muslim-hating Americans —it all added up to a script Jimmy Carter would have approved.

Other fatuities and disappointments: Hollywood retains its mythical, infantile concept of computers. Seat a PC savvy type in front of the screen, and, evidently, there is no end to the information he or she can squeeze from the thing. That’s plain rubbish. And, CTU’s Chloe O’Brian has lost her famous furrow: it’s been botoxed away.

Count me out of the Bauer frenzy. I’m looking forward to the new season of The Shield. It doesn’t have 24’s hysterical, frenzied pitch, but has plenty of action, sports absolutely no bimbos (I’ll watch another episode of “24” if Jack Bauer’s daughter, Kimberley, is bumped off), has created some very interesting, complex characters, which are acted very ably.

Update: Constant camera wobble, now that’s another headache. Camera wobble is very much in vogue in all these productions. A reader brought it up in the Comments Section.

Updated Again: One of Larry Auster’s readers has become the second person (that I know of) to notice the leftist subtext of the series “24.” Everyone else is gushing indiscriminately. Let me parse the latest biases:
One of the central heroes, can’t recall who, asserted in the last episode that we are alienating the very community upon which we depend to fight terrorism. There is some heavy guilt-tripping on that front. (Read here how “indispensable” that community has been.) I predict that in the next episode we may see Jack visit a mosque as mea culpa.
Some of the central villains are … American businessmen. In fact, terrorism plots keep leading to … Americans.
Jack nearly kills his brother, who apparently richly deserved it for selling nuclear material to terrorists. Happens all the time. When Jack fails to complete the job, Pater completes it for him, but for reasons less noble!! Fratricide, patricide —it’s all in a day’s work for your average, dysfunctional, American family, at least as Hollywood sees it.

Correction: James Merritt writes:

“My wife and I love ’24,’ but we don’t call it by that name. For us, it is ‘Jack Bauer: Federal Zombie.’ He is the unstoppable, undead agent who has actually been killed and brought back to life, in service–and thrall–to the State. Instead of the ‘brains’ that normal zombies seek, the Federal Zombie feeds on ‘intelligence.'”

I agree about the PC-ignorance. In early seasons, the PCs used by CTU were Apples, even though Apple Computer had a negligible penetration within the Federal Government, and almost none at all within the security services.”

Updated: ‘Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006’

Aesthetics, Hollywood, The Zeitgeist

Let’s see, the line-up of sluts and just plain unsavory sorts in today’s WorldNetDaily column is long: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, “Hue Hefner’s harem of hos,” Judith Regan, Michael Richards, Barack Obama. Even Oprah, “the Queen of Kitsch,” cameos.

As usual, politicians make most ordinary sewer rats pale in comparison. Here’s “Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006.”

Update: Mike Burns dares me to print his apparently very gritty letter, so here goes:

You have written many a wise and witty column, Ilana. Unfortunately, “Sluts Galore” wasn’t one of them.
In an astoundingly vicious screed, you succumb to a pervasive form of bigotry, one of the last few “acceptable” forms left in America: bigotry against people you consider “ugly.”
Don’t start saying I’m defending the slutty behavior of Brittney Spears et al [That would be a moralizing, Malkin-type, red-herring retort, not one Mercer resorts to]. I don’t approve of that anymore than you. But denigrating her (and by extension, those of similar physiognomy) on the basis of the features she has is just plain mean.
I call ’em as I see ’em. Dare you to print this.

–Mike Burns

Mercer Reply:

Although these females are not beautiful, neither are they ugly. Nor were they so termed in my column. Rather, they represent what I call the porn aesthetic the essence of which is not true sensuality or real physical beauty, but something that corresponds to the lowest form of sex. They are pornographic phenoms theirs are faces that men want to see on hookers; on women they have plain crude sex with. They look well-used, cheap, unrefined, and whorish even in their youth. This nuance has evaded Mike’s righteous indignation. In fact, like the best of left-liberal sensitivity enforcers, Mike rails against aesthetic judgment per se. — ILANA

Updated: 'Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006'

Aesthetics, Hollywood, The Zeitgeist

Let’s see, the line-up of sluts and just plain unsavory sorts in today’s WorldNetDaily column is long: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, “Hue Hefner’s harem of hos,” Judith Regan, Michael Richards, Barack Obama. Even Oprah, “the Queen of Kitsch,” cameos.

As usual, politicians make most ordinary sewer rats pale in comparison. Here’s “Sluts Galore: Scenes From 2006.”

Update: Mike Burns dares me to print his apparently very gritty letter, so here goes:

You have written many a wise and witty column, Ilana. Unfortunately, “Sluts Galore” wasn’t one of them.
In an astoundingly vicious screed, you succumb to a pervasive form of bigotry, one of the last few “acceptable” forms left in America: bigotry against people you consider “ugly.”
Don’t start saying I’m defending the slutty behavior of Brittney Spears et al [That would be a moralizing, Malkin-type, red-herring retort, not one Mercer resorts to]. I don’t approve of that anymore than you. But denigrating her (and by extension, those of similar physiognomy) on the basis of the features she has is just plain mean.
I call ’em as I see ’em. Dare you to print this.

–Mike Burns

Mercer Reply:

Although these females are not beautiful, neither are they ugly. Nor were they so termed in my column. Rather, they represent what I call the porn aesthetic the essence of which is not true sensuality or real physical beauty, but something that corresponds to the lowest form of sex. They are pornographic phenoms theirs are faces that men want to see on hookers; on women they have plain crude sex with. They look well-used, cheap, unrefined, and whorish even in their youth. This nuance has evaded Mike’s righteous indignation. In fact, like the best of left-liberal sensitivity enforcers, Mike rails against aesthetic judgment per se. — ILANA

Enough of the No-Fault Forgiveness Already

Hollywood, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Race, Racism, The Zeitgeist

I’ve never been able to watch an entire episode of “Seinfeld,” an insipid and dull skit, with annoying, utterly contrived characters. By contrast, I’m quite capable of enjoying the odd “Everyone Loves Raymond” episode (Doris Roberts as Marie Barone is marvelous). But Seinfeld, including the apparition that went by the name Kramer, was crappy TV.

Now it transpires that actor Michael Richards is every bit as grob as Kramer, the creep he played. (Grob means “coarse, crude, profane, rough, rude� in Yiddish.)

TMZ.com reported that, after being heckled mildly:

“Michael Richards exploded in anger as he performed at a famous L.A. comedy club last Friday, hurling racial epithets that left the crowd gasping… The camera started rolling just as Richards began his attack, screaming at one of the men, ‘Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a f***ing fork up your ass.’ Richards continued, ‘You can talk, you can talk, you’re brave now motherf**ker. Throw his ass out. He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! A nigger, look, there’s a nigger!'”

To his credit, the man Richards assailed responded in a rather muted manner: “You’re not funny. That’s That’s un-f***ing called for, ain’t necessary.”

Later, the apology factory went into action, and Richards, who should have been banished forthwith from polite company (that doesn’t include mass media), was beamed via satellite into David Letterman’s “Late Show,” where he gruffly proclaimed: “For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I’m deeply, deeply sorry…I’m not a racist. That’s what’s so insane about this.”

No, what’s “so insane” about these episodes is the apology ritual that follows, and the notion that saying sorry is somehow redemptive; what’s “so insane” about these regular installments of pigs behaving badly is the readiness to believe the bifurcation the scumbag will offer up—that somehow an entity other than himself possessed him for the duration of the tirade. Why would the “black community” even want to engage with this sewer rat?

As I see it, the hatred and unwarranted verbal aggression Richards displayed were far less disturbing than his gutter manners and lack of inhibitions in expressing his foul repertoire.

If the pack of pigmies in the press and TV simply shunned Richards, he’d retreat into the septic tank whence he came.