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TheGutterMonkey's Replies
Whether they did <i>anything</i> to the face, who's to say. But as far as how it was destroyed (i.e., the missing nose), there were sketches of the Sphinx's messed up face from well before Napoleon was even born.
Yes. It's a pretty classic example of the trolley problem, where you're saving many lives by directly taking the lives of a fewer number of people.
In past ground invasions, such as in the Battle of Okinawa, over 200 thousand people died, mostly Japanese soldiers and civilians. The ground invasion that was to come on the Japanese home islands (Operation Downfall) was estimated to massively exceed all of this, with between 250-thousand to 1 million American lives expected to be lost and several million Japanese lives lost. Even the low estimates of deaths were far more than what was lost due to the dropping of the atomic bombs (somewhere around 129,000 and 226,000).
As far as the Japanese being "done" and ready to surrender, that's a topic of a lot of debate. However, just 11 days before the bombs were dropped the Allies warned the Japanese (the Potsdam Declaration) that if they didn't unconditionally surrender they would face "prompt and utter destruction" and Japan refused to go along with it. Thus, the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. After this, Japan <i>still</i> refused unconditional surrender. So, three days after that, the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Almost a week after <i>that</i> (and the Soviet Union declaring war on them) they finally gave up.
That's always kind of bothered me, as well. Not the race thing, because I didn't know about it (if I had, that would have bothered me too, though, to some extent) but Stahl's small size. It actually bothered me before I even saw the real Bobby Kent or knew anything about the true life story behind all of this. I remember watching this even as a kid (yes, I was watching this as a kid lol) and being so confused about why anyone would be afraid of this guy or sit back as he hurt them. It looked like every other guy in this movie could take this guy, for Pete's sake.
I mean, I still loved the movie and thought Stahl, in particular, was great in it. But that aspect of the movie always did seem very weird to me. And when I finally saw the actual person and how big he was it made the events in the movie make a lot more sense to me. But it made the casting choice make even <i>less</i> sense.
Likewise, although to a much lesser extent, when I saw the real Lisa, and that she was kind of fat and unattractive, it made more sense to me than how she was shown in the movie. I remember one scene, in particular, where Bobby makes fun of her weight and just thinking, "Wtf is this guy talking about?" because she didn't appear even slightly heavy.
The rest of the casting, while they didn't look like the characters, doesn't bother me so much. But these two do due to the sheer fact that their appearance actually factors into the plot.
It's pretty original in a way. Unlike Home Alone, any of the Christmas Carol stories, Rudolph, The Santa Clause, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Elf, Bad Santa, The Grinch, Black Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, and all of the other staples of the Christmas movie genre, Christmas Vacation, as silly as it gets, is a fairly simple, grounded-in-reality (albeit exaggerated) holiday story that I think many people can relate to on a personal level. It hits close to home with the tangled lights, the quirky (and sometimes embarrassing) family piling in, Christmas dinner, decorating, picking out Christmas trees, shopping, the overwhelming stress of all of this, and so many little, seemingly mundane things that perfectly define what Christmas is for a lot of us. The only other movie that comes to mind that also does this extremely well is A Christmas Story, which is equally beloved (for similar reasons, I'd wager).
And for both of these movies, as someone else mentioned, they manage to accomplish this in a fun and funny way that doesn't come across as overly fluffy, kiddy, gimmicky, or nauseatingly sentimental. It's just a good movie that would be entertaining to watch even if it wasn't Christmas.
That being said, a lot of us who feel so strongly about the movie didn't dive into it expecting it to be the ultimate Christmas movie or some amazing piece of cinema. If we had, no doubt we'd probably have been let down, as well. But that's true for most "classics", honestly.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but even with hearing so many talking about this movie ahead of time, when I, personally, went into it, I had no idea that it was going to be pushing such a heavy-handed message about "toxic masculinity" and how women are victims of a patriarchy. So, from my perspective, I just figured the success was mostly due to a combination of good advertising and popular actors. And, of course, the lucky happenstance of having this "Barbenheimer" thing go viral. If it weren't for this latter bit, I doubt the film would have been nearly as popular as it was.
That being said, even if the "message" of the film itself was at play, I don't think it would be signifying how much women hate men. People will just hop on whatever bandwagon is trending in front of them at the time for a chance at activism. Doesn't matter what it is, really. In this instance, the oppressed was women and the oppressors were men. Later the oppressed became Palestine and the oppressors Israel. Before that, the oppressed were black and the oppressors were white. In the 90s, they became obsessed with things like the story of the West Memphis Three, where the oppressed were misunderstood goth kids and the oppressors were the religious normies. And so on and so forth, all the way back to the alluring tales of the innocent Christians and barbarians being victims of the mean old Romans. I think people just naturally love that narrative structure and having any opportunity to signal that they're standing up for an underdog.
He said he couldn't breathe multiple times before anyone began doing anything to him.
You'd think so. However, I recall once seeing a man high on massive quantities of a drug that's notorious for causing respiratory failure. While being arrested, the man repeatedly shouted that he couldn't breathe while squirming and kicking around, even knocking himself out of a police vehicle. Eventually, an officer restrained him on the ground as they called for an ambulance for him. Meanwhile, the man continued to yell about not being able to breathe. He went unconscious before the ambulance got there and unfortunately died. The autopsy report revealed what was already apparent: that this drug that causes respiratory failure caused respiratory failure. Nevertheless, of course, many people continued to passionately and adamantly proclaim that the man died by being choked to death by a police officer.
If people want to believe something, they'll look for any cognitive loophole they can find to rationalize it as being true. Activists like stories about black people being killed by the police because it supports their pre-established worldview that the police are mostly racist. Anti-vaxxers like stories about people dying from vaccines because it supports their pre-established belief that vaccines are mostly bad and dangerous. Either group will prematurely insert these beliefs into any new story they can find because they so desperately want more evidence that validates the ideas that they've already decided are true. And they'll do whatever mental gymnastics or god of the gaps arguments that are necessary to rationalize that point of view.
I'm hardly an expert on the topic, and won't claim that any of this is definitely correct (assuming there even is a "correct"), but I suspect a large portion of it is meant to be a hallucination/metaphor. There's a moment, for instance, where the protagonist is carrying around a bag that has the remains of his monstrous bug typewriter inside of it. When he hands that bag to his friends later, though, referring to it as "the remains of my last writing machine", when his friends open it they see a pile of used drug paraphernalia inside. I thought that moment was pretty telling. I believe the indication here may be that the drugs, vices, and demons in his life (his repressed homosexuality and the trauma of accidentally killing his wife, in particular) are dark aspects of himself that fuel his creative writing. And I took that weird Interzone place he travels to as largely being a representation of him getting lost in that inner world of his mind. A place he needs to travel to, mentally, to indulge in/battle with his vices and traumas in order to write.
... uh...
Black meat is something in the film. He was referencing the movie you're talking about and are claiming to enjoy lol. You're the only one who brought up politics.
There was a moment once where the log lady said, "So now the sadness comes. The revelation. There is a depression after an answer is given. It was almost fun not knowing."
I think that sums up pretty well not just the allure of something such as Twin Peaks, but the allure of much of Lynch's work. And a big part of the reason he refuses to explain any of it to his audience. Because the not knowing is where the fun is derived from. The fact that the mystery remains unresolved (or unexplained, at least) is what keeps the story alive and interesting. Just like how a magic trick stops being entertaining once you know how it was done.
Personally, I think there <i>is</i> an explanation that can be solved with Lost Highway, as with all of Lynch's work. At least, there's an explanation he had in mind when constructing it. It's just that we'll never know what that explanation is, or have it verified if our theories are correct or not, because he knows that once we're given that resolution we'll stop caring and it'll all be over.
I think he may be onto something with that, as well. I had a very similar feeling with that TV show LOST back in the day. Whereas once I was willing to watch any given season multiple times, always finding something new, always forming new theories, and being completely obsessed with getting to the bottom of things, once we got to the end, and the big answers were given, that limitless world of possibilities had been replaced by one so-so answer; and I never had a reason or desire to watch that show again. My brain just said, "Oh, I get it now," and moved on. lol
It achieved what Lynch projects often achieve with me. It gave me a weird and complex puzzle and had me contemplating on it, analyzing it, connecting dots, theorizing, talking about it, and generally just struggling to understand it. When Lynch goes full weird, I always find it fascinating and compelling because I know that even if I don't know what it is I'm watching, there IS an answer hidden in there somewhere that, theoretically, at least, is possible for me to find.
Which, obviously, this isn't something most people probably either enjoy or expect from film and television. But, for me, I love engaging with that sorta stuff. It was always the weirdest episodes of the original series that hooked me the most because of this. And this whole Return was about as weird as it gets.
What was it about the ending that you found to be clever?
Neither Alien nor Aliens say or imply squat about women being victimized in the real world <i>or</i> their fictional one. Heck, the first film was literally written as all-male, where the sex was interchangeable. It wasn't until after the plot already existed that Ripley was made female. And in the second film, our brief look at the room full of "male corporate overlords" included a couple of women; one of whom Ripley even debates with. The "evil corporations" trope being utilized in these films has nothing to do with men victimizing women or corporations, in general, victimizing people because of any particular sex. It has to do with this one specific fictional corporation just being greedy. One sex was never singled out in these movies for any reason. Sex was not a character's defining characteristic any more than their hair color was. They were showing equality in both good and bad in that regard. It seems as if maybe you viewed <i>these films</i> from a "skewered" filter lol.
Heroines in the Alien films, T2, Kill Bill, Contact, Silence of the Lambs, etc., etc., managed to say to females "see, we can be strong, intelligent, and capable" just by showing strong, intelligent, and capable women as examples. This is a positive empowerment that doesn't require negativity towards the male sex, society, government, or anyone else in the real world.
Barbie, on the other hand, while cutesy and well-intentioned, requires all of that. It repeatedly makes direct comments about the <i>real world</i> and vilifies our <i>real</i> society, system, and male population while simultaneously pushing the negative notions that <i>real</i> females are "hated", looked down upon, generally oppressed, and should be paranoid about people (men, in particular) who are allegedly out to victimize them due to their sex. It's propagating hate, resentment, fear, victimhood, and already out-of-hand conspiracy theories about a system that's out to get them.
There's a mighty big difference between a film simply portraying a woman in a leading role as being strong, intelligent, resourceful, and capable, and a film that is transparently pushing the notion that the system in the real world is actively holding women back, that men hate them and are working against them, and that a significant percentage of real world males are their enemies (all the while making caricatures out of these males for their alleged "toxicity"). Something like T2 or the Alien films, whether consciously or not, is telling females that they can do anything if they put their minds/bodies to it and they have the will for it. Something such as Barbie, however, is telling them that they're victims and that their government, society, and male counterparts are actively working against them. Granted, obviously, it's just a Barbie movie, which is insignificant in the big scheme of things. But little stuff like this nevertheless piles up in the collective unconscious, adding to the already troublesome normalization of negative beliefs that are debatable to say the least. So I don't think it's particularly out of line to make the claim that there's "problematic" elements to the film.
It's just a matter of the false perspective that audiences acquire over time is all. There's obviously nothing wrong with portraying Rome's less flattering aspects, just as there's nothing wrong with portraying the bad aspects of Europeans who colonized America, but when we repeatedly hone in so hard on the negatives of only one group it can have the tendency leaving an otherwise uninformed audience with the false impression that this group was some sort of evil anomaly in an otherwise kind and gentle world. It's just my opinion, of course, but I personally feel like it's better for us to have a better context of history when it comes to things like these and would appreciate if films didn't repeatedly show things in such a black and white way.
What kind of "proofs" do I want? lol How about <i>any</i>. Just as I do with any other accusation these mobs mindlessly rally behind. Just as I do with anything in general, for that matter. Because that's how critical thinking works. That's how science and law work. Sorry, but him just being weird isn't going to cut it. Despite everyone's best efforts, this isn't Salem quite yet.
And I'm not sure what universe others were living in, but I grew up repeatedly hearing talk shows, comedians, radio hosts, tabloids, the news, documentaries, etc repeatedly go against this guy (from the 90s to today). From my perspective, having not delved into the case then, people spoke so confidently and regularly of his guilt that I always thought it was just a matter of fact. So to hear people act like his privileged celebrity status got him out of trouble seems somewhat laughable. Heck, even after he decided to take the pain-in-the-ass route of taking that second accuser to a months-long, highly publicized trial, rather than settling (because everyone acted as if that was an indicator of guilt), and got that not guilty verdict, all of the aforementioned mob <i>continued</i> to paint him as guilty anyway. Because people clearly just believe what they want to believe, evidence be damned.
If anything, it's the man's celebrity that kept this narrative going. There's just too much money, clicks, and/or notoriety in making an accusation against him or publishing a rumor about him. And with thousands of children (and their families) coming to his house every year, it's hardly surprising that some capitalized on this reputation and the media's neverending salivation for a juicy "I got molested" story.
Like them, you've clearly already decided what you want to believe just because... I dunno? Your gut feeling? Your unwavering trust in randos who say stories? Anything but evidence, really. Because, again, there’s none of that. So let’s just default to our chosen faith, eh?
It's not natural for a man to literally be the most famous, recognizable person on earth, having not known life without fame since about 11 yrs old. Nor is it natural for one to have grown up in an uber-religious family of Jehovah's Witnesses, where they weren't even permitted to celebrate birthdays or Christmases. It's also not natural for a person embodying these qualities to have had more money than they knew what to do with. Certain people shouldn't be viewed in the context of what's typically considered "normal".
Many of the songs he's most famous for are lyrically akin to something you'd only hear in Christian rock. Songs about not engaging in violence (Beat It, Bad) and giving to charity (Man in the Mirror). The guy put a warning before his Thriller video about how it's not condoning the occult because his religious beliefs caused him to worry about such a stupid thing. He'd had deals made with organizations to have busloads of sick and underprivileged shipped to his theme park on a regular basis. He had hospital beds placed in his home theater so kids stuck in bed could watch the big screen with everyone else. While on tour, he spent his free time at children's hospitals. All very unnatural.
As abnormal as this all is, though, it's all consistent with one another. What's not consistent is that this same guy was banging kids, something of which there's no evidence of whatsoever other than a very small group of questionable accusers. One which settled out of court, another which was in a family of known con-artists, and some who came out of the woodwork long after the fact.
His mistake was trusting all these people in his home to not take advantage of him. Any of which who, even now, can pop out of the woodwork with the rest and simply say, with zero evidence, that they were molested and instantly have everyone believe it and start throwing cash at them for interviews, appearances, and book deals (not to mention loads of rubes calling them "brave").
It is kind of unfair, actually. All of these ancient people did those things, it wasn't just the Romans. And they were hardly the most savage of the bunch (they had an especially high number of victims strictly because they were more successful than the other groups around them). Their repeated portrayal as something akin to Nazis, on film and television, however, gives a misrepresentation of history and further pushes an untrue narrative that the Roman Empire were the evil bullies who were taking over, slaughtering, and enslaving otherwise peaceful, hippy-esque people around them (which none of these places were). In fact, it could be argued that the Roman Empire was actually less savage and cruel than other places at the time, as they were often more educated and civilized, contributing significantly to law, governance, engineering, architecture, and culture.
This is a very common thing in films and it's consistently "unfair". The portrayal of Europeans when compared to Native Americans first comes to mind. Or, keeping to Ancient Roman times, Christians were repeatedly portrayed as innocent little angels who were being persecuted by the evil pagans. Never mind the fact that they went on to become the persecutors of the pagans once they had the power to do so and, even before then, many of them were causing trouble left and right, behaving like a culty ye old Antifa.
Yes... and? lol
As I stated, these films contain numerous elements that most would consider to be negatives when included in any other film/TV series (regardless of the country of origin). It's the stuff soap operas, sitcoms, and pornos are made of and made fun of over. There's no argument that people in India seem to enjoy this schlock in large numbers. That, however, doesn't result in it ceasing to be schlock.