NY Times: Defining the Printed ‘Idiot Wind’

Apparently I was amazingly naive when I wrote the first draft of this. Mr. Bernstein in the NYT “Letters From America” section is apparently one of the many idiots in this great and free country who feels the need to suck enjoyment out of every corner of life in hopes of furthering some esoteric political agenda which is fueling an unprecedented scourge of hate divided down party lines. Bravo, good people, bravo. While these politico firebrands die an early death due to stress and hate induced heart failure, I’m going watch some movies and have a little fun.

In my piece below I single out the letter writer, Mr. Bernstein, exclusively. While reading, please understand that I wish to include Mr. Bernstein as well as the rest of the self satisfied malcontents who work diligently to manufacture an issue out of thin air. Carry on.

Sadism Gets a Pass at the Movies

via Letter from America – Sadism Gets a Pass at the Movies – NYTimes.com.

Richard Bernstein in the above “Letters from America”  regarding the summer hit “Inglorious Basterds” goes out of his way to make something out of nothing.  By matching the hyper sensitive martyrism of  the current event climate in the country, this ax grinding ragamuffin hops aboard the hyper-reactive train usually reserved for the vapid fencing of television political pundits and chugs gloriously with the furnaces rocking into Zeus-FUCK are you kidding me? land. Ah, yes, that special idiot wind mostly attributed to the hated bloggers and party-whore tv talking heads is once again being choked out by The New York Fucking Times by way of the safe to be stupid “Letters” section.

A few choice cuts.  Be sure to read the article to get the full context:

Am I being overly fastidious, or does Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, “Inglourious Basterds,” which earned $38 million in its first weekend in the United States — more than double the nearest competitor — provide a more unapologetic justification for torture than Dick Cheney has been articulating lately?

Well, “Inglourious Basterds” is only a movie, and the fact that the Basterds are mostly Jews avenging themselves against Nazis (actually, their victims are mostly just German soldiers, which was not always exactly the same thing) no doubt gives them a certain license, at least in the minds of the audience.

Still, it does seem a bit strange that “Inglourious Basterds,” which has been treated in the press as the cinematic event of the season, hasn’t drawn a bit more quizzical commentary, perhaps even complaints from Jewish and other groups, for depicting a moral equivalence between the Jews themselves and their victims.

Sure, let’s make the Holocaust fun.

That is what Mr. Tarantino has done, and he has been rewarded for it at the box office. The night I saw it at a theater on eastern Long Island among vacationing New Yorkers, the audience applauded enthusiastically at the end, apparently satisfied over the spectacle of Jews killing Nazis, even if the other way around is how things actually happened in history.

But even if nobody would take Mr. Tarantino’s movie very seriously as a political or moral comment, it seems worthwhile to examine why his concept — American commandos torturing and murdering Nazis in occupied France — couldn’t have happened, not least that they would have been tracked down and killed pretty quickly.

And finally.. gloriously…

The historical fact is…

And then a bunch of crap that stopped relating to anything about “Inglorious Basterd” because this guy, writing a published “Letters From America” in The Fucking New York Times, decides to bring historical fact into what is, if one is too dense to get it, a fantasy movie. The writer of the editorial wonders why there has been so little outrage and then fails to look at that from the other end – why should he be outraged? I think the answer is simple: He shouldn’t. You know how giant transforming robots and time traveling robotic assassins don’t really exist? How they’re, well, kinda fictional? This is the same thing. This is the same thing as space age Marines versus alien monsters; this is the same as scientists versus dinosaurs; this is the same as alien apartheid; this is the same as a robocop versus political corruption. The only difference is that each of those movies had one real and one completely made up protagonist or antagonist while in “Inglorious Basterds” both story devices exist in a real although heavily altered reality.

So where is the foul? Why does the author want to go on record claiming a vaguely reasoned anti-Semitic link between an apparent real-life arch villain in Dick Cheney, implied real world war crimes, reverse victimizing Jews to become aggressors, and the film (a medium largely used for escapism) “Inglorious Basterds” which takes fairly typical exploitation action film devices and produces a wildly different alternative history not unlike those in a Harry Turtledove novel? How the fuck can anyone follow that chain of reasoning? Why does Bernstein and the fun hating political extremist whack jobs vocally raping this country feel the need to vacate their hate and fear filled bowels all over any item that is itself newsworthy? Talk about exploitation!

The implications of the Times reader-submitted opinion piece is that somehow, while calling on wide jumps of editorial nothingness to connect a fantasy film to Dick Cheney, Tarantino is a Semitic Unsympathizer because he made Jews too badass in his fantasy film about killing Nazis and therefore fails to respect the unfathomable human crisis that faced Jews 60 years ago. That circular logic is the kind of proliferated crap that is manufactured by reactionaries out of thin air when desperate to be noticed. Like seven years of calling two different Presidents ‘Hitler’ and disputing a United States citizen’s clear citizenship. It’s wacko extremist views being promoted, albeit  indirectly,  in one of the largest torch bearers of a fast failing industry.

Tarantino is an exploitation film maker. Jews are no more exploited in “Inglorious Basterds,” than widowed women in “Kill Bill”. It’s a device for the plot, presented almost without comment and with no political statement (other than the scalping which is poignant when one considers the other unfathomable human crisis that occurred in the last 200 years).  I’m not sure how this exploitation is more severe than say that of the Irish in “Gangs of New York.”  Oh, because “Inglorious Basterds” is completely made up?  Then how about Scots in “Braveheart” because we all know none of that shit really happened.  I mean, is there a special rule that I’m not getting that applies here?  Like because the movies distributor, The Weinstein Company, is ran by two Jewish producers?  None of this makes any sense to me at all.

“Inglorious Basterds” is an unrepentant, undisguised fantasy that nearly every Jew and Gentile outside of Mr. Bernstein gets.

Idiot wind blowing every time your move your mouth
Blowing down the backroads heading south
Idiot wind blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

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