CARTOON CRITICS.
At Inside Higher Ed, Kevin Kiley says this about a new film:
...a film about diversity, the innate differences between individuals, and the institutions and situations that help foster connections and understanding between those individuals.
The movie is about the challenge of limited talent and the realization that hard work can only take one so far – and sometimes not even as far as people who are just “born with it.” But it's also about what students in the social and intellectual crucible of college can learn from each other and how those interactions shape worldviews and change lives.
At National Review, Nancy French complains that Kiley "portrayed the movie as leftwing propaganda," but it can't be, she says, because she liked it, and liked that the main characters advanced without a college education because they were thus "avoiding the rampant liberal indoctrination prevalent in colleges today."
But Jennifer Kabbany at The College Fix says the movie is indeed leftwing propaganda:
We have a problem with the fact that the priorities of the modern college experience have morphed from teaching relevant facts and skills to instead constantly force-feeding notions of diversity and tolerance in the quad, in the classroom, in homework assignments, like something akin to a religious cult.
Decades ago, college used to prioritize getting a good education and marketable skills. Now it’s about indoctrinating students, telling them they’re ignorant, racist homophobes – all the while refusing to allow intellectual diversity to thrive on campus.
If you haven't figured it out yet, these geniuses are talking about Monsters University, a fucking cartoon.
I'm not even gonna get into the shitstorm over The Lone Ranger, except to say 1.) it has inspired a particularly wonderful Debbie Schlussel column, containing this line: "Lone Ranger Armie Hammer is the great-grandson of legendary anti-American oilman Armand Hammer, who went out of his way to enable Communists and Marxists around the world in his oil trade with our enemies, especially the Soviet Union.. I’m sure he’s smiling from his grave now that his great-grandson carries on his disgusting legacy..."; and 2.) Sonny Bunch of the Free Beacon is so-near-yet-so-far when he says the movie is "Designed in a Lab to Troll Conservatives"; I'll go out on a limb and say The Lone Ranger was designed in a lab to make money, though it certainly can't hurt that imbeciles across the internet are Spelling the Name Right in the name of Freedom and White People.
Oh, one more, from Breitbart:
ALLEN WEST RIPS LADY GAGA OVER NATIONAL ANTHEM CHANGE
She sang "home of the gays." Personally I prefer the version that begins, "While we stand here waiting for the ballgame to start," but whatever. Wait'll West finds out what these homosexuals have been doing with America's beloved show tunes!
UPDATE. Sonny Bunch contends fairly that people who are not conservatives, including good old Glenn Kenny, find The Lone Ranger ridiculous. To the extent Kenny "noticed The Lone Ranger's political sensibilities," though, he portrayed it as part the general incoherence, not as a significant political gesture. I can't judge the film because I haven't seen it, so I admit the possibility that it's really Le Gai Savoir with horses and explosions. But a lifetime of experience teaches me that summer blockbusters are not usually built as means to refute the audience's false consciousness.