Race realism grows in the US cinema - liberal bigotry still alive and well in British cinema
Robert Henderson
Race realism grows in the US cinema - liberal bigotry still alive and
well in British cinema
Robert Henderson
Around ten years ago the film Falling Down came out. Starring Michael
Douglas in one of his best roles, it followed a lower-middle class
middle aged white man who was depressed by the disadvantaged position
of people like him in the new multicultural Moronica. Losing his job
pushed his dissatisfaction past the point of control and he takes off
on a few days of increasingly non-pc behaviour. However, this being the
mid nineties the non-pc behaviour was none too shocking to liberal
bigots, with Douglas' character in the end being not merely the victim
but (in liberal bigot eyes) a rather undeserving one. Nowhere was
Douglas' character allowed to say what people like him in the US would
actually be saying, namely, why has this multicultural, anti-white
discriminating mess been allowed to happen? Nonetheless the film did
signal a crack in the rigid multiculti pc control of US film-making.
The film Crash which has just been released has moved race realism
on. This is an Altmanesque adventure with a series of characters
ranging from rich WASPs to lowlife black muggers and carjackers, with a
good selection of ethnic and class characters in between, including a
liberal bigot white cop.
Here, unlike Falling Down, the characters racially abuse one another
and show their racial hostility openly and the corrupting nature of
multicultural special interests and positive discrimination are openly
displayed (The WASP DA says "Christ, why did they have to be black! I
need the black vote! " when he is carjacked, while one of his aides
says to a black detective "Why do you people have to feed the black man
sterotype?" The bglack detective he is to be given a prestige post
because he is black.) The dialogue and action is rather cartoonist but
it rattles along at a fair pace for the first three quarters of the
film.
The last quarter lapses into the sentimentality which bedevils
mainstream US films with the WASP female character telling her Latino
maid she is her best friend and the black carjacker letting go a dozen
Asian illegal immigrants who he discovers in a van he has hijacked. Why,
he even gives them 40 bucks to buy food.
Marred and vaguely absurd as it is in places, the film is significant
for what it shows, namely, a growing public recognition of the
multicultural mess. What is noticeable throughout the piece is that
everyone is constantly tense, constantly on their guard. No one feels
secure. That rang true.
Well worth seeing with a tip top cast including Sandra Bullock, Don
Cheadle and Matt Dillon.
Between Falling Down and Crash came two other American films which
showed the journey from Right-On worship of pc to a glimmer of
race-reality. These are American History X and the Believer.
The former was a film of two halves. The first was edgy, fast and
believable with the main characters unashamed neo-Nazis. - I especially
enjoyed Edward Norton verbally savaging at the dinner table the white
liberal would-be boyfriend of his mother . The second half was utterly
incredible, with Norton transformed for no particular reason from a
charismatic skinhead to floppy haired liberal nothing,
The Believer (2003) is a much more rounded film which deals with an
American Jewish neo-Nazi. There the main character struggles with his
beliefs and background were much more plausible and ends by blowing up
an empty synagogue with himself in it. He does this not because he is
suicide bomber but because he cannot square his Jewish background with
his neo-Nazi beliefs.
But if race realism is creeping into US films, the inbred self-hating
masochism of the British liberal bigot community is alive and well. Take
a recent release The Rising, The film deals with supposed events leading
up to the Indian Mutiny of 1857. It is part funded by the British Film
Council .
The Rising must rank as one of the most risible films ever made. There
are many problems with it. First, it is absurdly crude Indian
nationalist propaganda with the main Indian character constantly
referring to making all of India free again. This is equivalent to a
European of the day saying they were going to make Europe free, India
never having been more than a geographical expression before the
British arrived and eventually created the idea of a unified the sub
continent - in practice, even at the height of their power the Mughals
never came close to controlling the sub-continent. It is worth noting
that only one of the three armies (that of Bengal) mutinied and that the
others helped to put down the Mutiny. Nor could the British have ruled
or continued to rule the country after the Mutiny without tacit Indian
acceptance of their rule. The area covered by the Mutiny was a very
small part of the sub continent in the north.
Second, The prime cause of the mutiny as portrayed in the film is the
dubious historical claim that the Indian army mutinied because of
cartridges for a new rifle being greased with pork and cow fat. The
actual prime reasons were poor pay, the recent annexation of some
princely states to direct rule, eg, the State of Avadh (now part of
Uttar Pradesh), and the resentment caused by the Governor-General
Dalhousie's reform of the Company's administration and law, including
the putting down of suttee and female infanticide . (One suspects the
question of poor pay probably weighed more with the common soldiers than
anything else in the first instance).
Third, the East India company is portrayed as being first, second and
last a commercial concern where the bottom line was all that mattered.
In fact, by 1857 the company had been in effect a private arm of the
British state for the better part of a century, having first come
under British regulation with the Regulation Act of 1773 which
established the post of Governor-General of Bengal (soon after of
India) . This was followed by the India Act of 1784 which established a
British controlled board of control to supervise the Company's
behaviour in matters of revenue, administration, war and diplomacy,
leaving only trade and patronage to the free disposal of the company.
The Charter Act of 1813 ended the Company's Indian trading monopoly
and the Charter of 1833 ended their monopoly of the China trade. By the
mutiny it was primarily an administrating body acting for the British
state. .
Fourth, the Company's white employees bar two are represented as
stupidly arrogant boneheads . The exceptions are a General (who
understands the problems but is ineffectual) and a Scots captain
(played well by Toby Stephens) who is one of the two male leads and
takes the role of native sympathiser. The use of a white character who
is not English as the "sympathetic" conduit for liberal bigot views of
course is par for the course.
Fifth, The Stephens character has an absurd relationship with the other
male lead, an Indian, who plays a sepoy (private soldier). They are
shown as having a friendship of equality. This is ridiculous because
they would have been divided by race, class and military rank.
Sixth. All of this tosh is made even more ridiculous by regular
Bollywood song and dance routines which are both anachronistic and
ludicrous in themselves. RH
--
Robert Henderson
Blair Scandal website: http://www.geocities.com/blairscandal/
Personal website: http://www.anywhere.demon.co.uk
eloise
Robert Henderson wrote:
> Race realism grows in the US cinema - liberal bigotry still alive and
> well in British cinema
>
What a race-bounded mind he has, this Robert Hitlerson!
eloise
--
Diversity Isn't A Codeword
news:1124796281.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
of course the liberal loony left aren't obsessed with race at all, they're
very balanced. ROTFL.
eloise
And you're very balanced? ROTFL!
Ted
"Diversity Isn't A Codeword" <allbla...@political.correctness> wrote in
message news:A7EOe.10660$jr4...@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
any debate.
Jon°
stalineloise is.
Keith Langley
"Jon°" <topj...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:430b...@212.67.96.135...
> What a closed and bigoted man, without any ability to think widely, this
> stalineloise is.
> "eloise" <i_luv_...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>
Regards, K.