It's absolutely true that Musk is trying to wrap himself in the mantle of the Common Man, embracing all the conservative assumptions about what the Common Man wants: “Fuck your universal healthcare and access to the polls, I want to watch Tom Cruise blow things up while I die of a treatable disease, Wokesters.”
But I find the most tragi-comic – and maddening -- thing about Musk to be his fans. When I look at what’s happening at Twitter, I’m reminded of the tried and true comedic premise of the protagonist who can never admit he made a mistake: he never course-corrects, his every new blunder generates an accelerating level of chaos, until finally he’s standing in the street after setting his own house on fire, loudly proclaiming “I meant to do that.”
Except in Musk’s case it’s his fanbois who are saying it *FOR* him. In a month, if the only things remaining at Twitter are Elon himself and a mainframe computer the size of a bowling alley, and he has to run an extension cord to a neighboring building because nobody paid the electric bill, his fanbois will STILL be saying “he meant to do that.”
I mean, awful people pandering to worse people, please. The crap is only as significant and we make it.
BTW: I think I'm ready after the 24+ hours to walk back my presumption that Twitter will survive Musk. If it does, it's going to be as Parler 2.0. Til the lack of supervision gets it booted off of app stores. Then it'll be a sub-Parler at best.
I’m already tired of Musk. He’s so predictable, as if a TV series writers’ room was told their show needed a rich, unselfaware asshole character and they decided to toss in every cliche they could think of. To me the more interesting part of Roy’s essay is the question, “What is the right standard for good art?” How many people get to see a movie depends on a lot more than its quality, like the luck of the draw of opening weekend, or how much PR was pushed early on, so that’s not a reliable measure. I’m reminded of a back and forth in high school art class, where we were exposed to representative examples from centuries of painting in the hope we would take away a lifetime of appreciation for how art (or artists) work. To a student’s objection that he already knew what he liked, our teacher replied, “You know what you like, but do you know why you like it?” I haven’t looked at a painting, watched a movie, read a book or listened to music since then without hearing that question in the back of my mind. I doubt Musk has any idea why he likes “Top Gun” more than “Coda,” and why the latter has more to say to him than the former ever could.
Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I enjoy both high and low-brow forms of films, music, whatever. I watch a lot of sf/action/superhero-type stuff mainly because, at the end of the work week, I enjoy seeing good defeat evil, seeing the bad guy get the shit kicked out of him, seeing... well, you get it. I wanna rock! It's fun and mindless and goes great with beer and snacks. I understand it and I understand it's appeal. But, I also understand that that's not all there is out there.
And it IS the truly artistic stuff that gives me my moments of pure, jaw-dropping, "holy fucking shit!" But I can only take those moments in small doses, or I'd be the friend-nobody-wants who's constantly screaming shit like "What the fuck do you mean you haven't seen Nomadland!?" in people's faces at parties. The really good shit is often dark, sometimes painful to watch, and (lol) hardly ever has a happy ending (that sentence brought to you by Ingmar Bergman--fuck, I'm as existentialist as the next guy born in a frozen fucking wasteland, but talk about a killjoy!). Anyway, what I mean is that I *eventually* get to most of the stuff like what's on the Times' top ten, but that, except for "Nope," I haven't heard of any of those movies, *until now.* So, this particular Times reviewer has done his job.
Slightly embarrassing aside: 1) I enjoyed the new "Top Gun" a LOT more than I thought I would; 2) while I found "Nope" to be very interesting visually, I honestly didn't get it (but it wouldn't be the first time I didn't initially understand something--I'll watch it again).
RWers will never understand that if a person who knows a fair amount about film & sees a lot of them in a given year says they have ten favorites, that doesn't mean my favorite is any less my favorite or may have appealed to others as well. They also don't understand that no one has to proclaim the virtues of the big-budget & over-hyped because those proclamations are everywhere ("hegemonic," ya might say...)
But one can see how this logic can be extended to "gay marriage" (or we like to call in the real world, "marriage"), or drag shows, or Google homepage banners, or whatever.
You know, I'm old to remember when the boomers & conservabros were _soooo_ angry about "participation trophies" -- now we have an Oscars best picture list drastically expanded so some chuds can say their popular favorite has at least some shot at the title.
Maybe, if I may (& I will so there), is that the nagging sense of thoroughgoing mediocrity at the core of white people, of middle management, of dudebros, requires the world the reflect back their imagined glory. If that light flickers even for a second, their ego goes dark. They are no one at all. If only they would shut up about it...
Addendum: hmmm, this last part reminds me of this, which I haven't heard in a bit:
I know without cognitive dissonance they'd have no cognitive at all, but their hero Elmo owns an ELECTRIC car company. Check out the comments below any article about electric cars (actually, don't, it's a dumpster fire) and you can see what right-wingers think of those sissy soy-boy electric cars, plus the fact that Joe Biden is FORCING you to buy one. Tesla, of course, has benefited hugely from SOCIALIST tax credits for the buyers of electric cars and Teslas are loved by the coastal elites including many HOLLYWOOD LIBERALS, but that's all cool, I guess, because Elmo is One Of Us, and can do no wrong.
This has been another installment in my continuing series on how this one opinion held by conservatives is not consistent with other other opinions held by conservatives, be sure to like and subscribe!
I’m minded of the time I set out to dutifully watch Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog because more than one friend had recommended it.
It’s a slowwww movie, and the ambiguity of so many of the characters’ feelings and actions was irritating. Campion doesn’t spell anything out, you have to do your own work and you can never be sure you’ve “got it.”
So it was a little annoying and I still have lots of questions (Hey did I miss something? What are the rings the mother-in-law gives to the Kirsten Dunst character at the funeral… and why? Why was she SO unsettled by the Cumberbatch character from the jump? Was there a prior relationship? And so on.) The very definition of a movie that “makes you think.”
I was impatient for answers. Still want ‘em. Didn’t like the feeling of uncertainty. In the end I realized that even as she was chronicling the (puzzling) emotional evolution of the characters, she was laying the foundations of the “story.” You hardly even notice.
But. It all adds up. It’s a finely tuned accumulation to set up that mindblow of an ending. For me it was literally a jaw dropper—my mouth actually fell open when I “got it.”
I wish there was a way that I could talk about it without spoiling it, because it was just…perfect.
Alla yins (including Roy/excluding GM* – props!) missin' the point:
The person what gets paid to watch movies fer a living will see MANY more movies than possibly all y'all combined! Some of them are bound to be purty gud. When you don't know anything about what's on their list, it don't mean nothin'! That film writer prolly knows next to nothin' 'bout the best way to drop an engine and when you need to v. when you don't...but they're not draggin' on you mechanics.
The lack of awareness (alternately, the simple cussedness) of experts in one field who decline to give credit where due to experts in another field is widespread and to be deplored by all thinking persons**.
*Edited to add & SteveB, except his writing's kinda hard to pin down, so the jury, as they say in Canada, is still oot.
This reminds me of an aquaintance (lawyer who drives a six-figure Range Rover) who once, during a light-hearted discussion of famous private detectives, was irritated that people were talking about Poirot, Maigret, Wallendar, etc., and not American dectectives. When invited to suggest his favorite American gumshoe, he didn't mention Philip Marlow or Travis McGee, but rather touted Thomas Magnum (Magnum PI) as a dectective Americans could identify with.
This is a brilliant essay. I love wealthy conservatives accusing people and institutions of being "elite," braying that supporting abortion rights, universal healthcare, and higher taxes on billionaires is "elitist" when large majorities of the populace do just that. Irony abounds. Or maybe just bullshit. In this case, I want to ask them, in Dana Carvey's most accusatory Church Lady voice, "And who is it that made this 'Top Gun: Maverick' movie that has your loins all aflame, hmmmm? Was it........ HOLLYWOOD!!!?"
I keep waiting for all these me-o-centric fools to run out of energy defending lost or never-were causes, but their staunch resoluteness seems indefatigable. won't Elmo please take them all to Galt's gulch, which I hear is somewhere in the martian highlands?
If I was a major Tesla/SpaceX stock holder, I'd be "hair on fire" mad right now. Everything he's doing screams "micromanager", which we knew that when we heard stories about Tesla's shoddy safety records, attributed to Musk's dislike of the color yellow. If he's got time to tweet all day, what the hell is he doing with his time?
So the world's richest micromanager fancies himself a movie critic? JFC let's hope he doesn't decide to purchase an airline, because jets will be falling out of the sky when he discovers that the pilots are just too "woke".
It's absolutely true that Musk is trying to wrap himself in the mantle of the Common Man, embracing all the conservative assumptions about what the Common Man wants: “Fuck your universal healthcare and access to the polls, I want to watch Tom Cruise blow things up while I die of a treatable disease, Wokesters.”
But I find the most tragi-comic – and maddening -- thing about Musk to be his fans. When I look at what’s happening at Twitter, I’m reminded of the tried and true comedic premise of the protagonist who can never admit he made a mistake: he never course-corrects, his every new blunder generates an accelerating level of chaos, until finally he’s standing in the street after setting his own house on fire, loudly proclaiming “I meant to do that.”
Except in Musk’s case it’s his fanbois who are saying it *FOR* him. In a month, if the only things remaining at Twitter are Elon himself and a mainframe computer the size of a bowling alley, and he has to run an extension cord to a neighboring building because nobody paid the electric bill, his fanbois will STILL be saying “he meant to do that.”
Eh, I'm thinking Roy may need a break, maybe time off til after the holidays.
Panderers to people who hate knowledge, who think knowing anything is somehow uppity and elitist, of course will say what's burning Roy's ass.
Speaking of the circle jerk of imbecility, I suppose I should provide this link and the discussion about tribes:
https://collabfund.com/blog/ideas-that-changed-my-life/
I mean, awful people pandering to worse people, please. The crap is only as significant and we make it.
BTW: I think I'm ready after the 24+ hours to walk back my presumption that Twitter will survive Musk. If it does, it's going to be as Parler 2.0. Til the lack of supervision gets it booted off of app stores. Then it'll be a sub-Parler at best.
I’m already tired of Musk. He’s so predictable, as if a TV series writers’ room was told their show needed a rich, unselfaware asshole character and they decided to toss in every cliche they could think of. To me the more interesting part of Roy’s essay is the question, “What is the right standard for good art?” How many people get to see a movie depends on a lot more than its quality, like the luck of the draw of opening weekend, or how much PR was pushed early on, so that’s not a reliable measure. I’m reminded of a back and forth in high school art class, where we were exposed to representative examples from centuries of painting in the hope we would take away a lifetime of appreciation for how art (or artists) work. To a student’s objection that he already knew what he liked, our teacher replied, “You know what you like, but do you know why you like it?” I haven’t looked at a painting, watched a movie, read a book or listened to music since then without hearing that question in the back of my mind. I doubt Musk has any idea why he likes “Top Gun” more than “Coda,” and why the latter has more to say to him than the former ever could.
Geez, Roy--better hold Nole Smuk doesn't read this REBID or you're gonna get banned from Twitter.
Because free speech absolutist is banning people who do not write fawning things about him. You know, in the name of free speech.
by associating their own policies with signifiers of popularity —
That is particularly meaningful. Fascists and kitsch go together like peanut butter and jelly. (There's an essay about that...
http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html)
" Go to the Mirror, Boy!"
Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I enjoy both high and low-brow forms of films, music, whatever. I watch a lot of sf/action/superhero-type stuff mainly because, at the end of the work week, I enjoy seeing good defeat evil, seeing the bad guy get the shit kicked out of him, seeing... well, you get it. I wanna rock! It's fun and mindless and goes great with beer and snacks. I understand it and I understand it's appeal. But, I also understand that that's not all there is out there.
And it IS the truly artistic stuff that gives me my moments of pure, jaw-dropping, "holy fucking shit!" But I can only take those moments in small doses, or I'd be the friend-nobody-wants who's constantly screaming shit like "What the fuck do you mean you haven't seen Nomadland!?" in people's faces at parties. The really good shit is often dark, sometimes painful to watch, and (lol) hardly ever has a happy ending (that sentence brought to you by Ingmar Bergman--fuck, I'm as existentialist as the next guy born in a frozen fucking wasteland, but talk about a killjoy!). Anyway, what I mean is that I *eventually* get to most of the stuff like what's on the Times' top ten, but that, except for "Nope," I haven't heard of any of those movies, *until now.* So, this particular Times reviewer has done his job.
Slightly embarrassing aside: 1) I enjoyed the new "Top Gun" a LOT more than I thought I would; 2) while I found "Nope" to be very interesting visually, I honestly didn't get it (but it wouldn't be the first time I didn't initially understand something--I'll watch it again).
RWers will never understand that if a person who knows a fair amount about film & sees a lot of them in a given year says they have ten favorites, that doesn't mean my favorite is any less my favorite or may have appealed to others as well. They also don't understand that no one has to proclaim the virtues of the big-budget & over-hyped because those proclamations are everywhere ("hegemonic," ya might say...)
But one can see how this logic can be extended to "gay marriage" (or we like to call in the real world, "marriage"), or drag shows, or Google homepage banners, or whatever.
You know, I'm old to remember when the boomers & conservabros were _soooo_ angry about "participation trophies" -- now we have an Oscars best picture list drastically expanded so some chuds can say their popular favorite has at least some shot at the title.
Maybe, if I may (& I will so there), is that the nagging sense of thoroughgoing mediocrity at the core of white people, of middle management, of dudebros, requires the world the reflect back their imagined glory. If that light flickers even for a second, their ego goes dark. They are no one at all. If only they would shut up about it...
Addendum: hmmm, this last part reminds me of this, which I haven't heard in a bit:
https://youtu.be/bfWGJrwYfBU
So Friday, a GM post that is half-Manque and half-Little PIg. Lol. Stay salty, fuckers.
I know without cognitive dissonance they'd have no cognitive at all, but their hero Elmo owns an ELECTRIC car company. Check out the comments below any article about electric cars (actually, don't, it's a dumpster fire) and you can see what right-wingers think of those sissy soy-boy electric cars, plus the fact that Joe Biden is FORCING you to buy one. Tesla, of course, has benefited hugely from SOCIALIST tax credits for the buyers of electric cars and Teslas are loved by the coastal elites including many HOLLYWOOD LIBERALS, but that's all cool, I guess, because Elmo is One Of Us, and can do no wrong.
This has been another installment in my continuing series on how this one opinion held by conservatives is not consistent with other other opinions held by conservatives, be sure to like and subscribe!
persnickety
I’m minded of the time I set out to dutifully watch Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog because more than one friend had recommended it.
It’s a slowwww movie, and the ambiguity of so many of the characters’ feelings and actions was irritating. Campion doesn’t spell anything out, you have to do your own work and you can never be sure you’ve “got it.”
So it was a little annoying and I still have lots of questions (Hey did I miss something? What are the rings the mother-in-law gives to the Kirsten Dunst character at the funeral… and why? Why was she SO unsettled by the Cumberbatch character from the jump? Was there a prior relationship? And so on.) The very definition of a movie that “makes you think.”
I was impatient for answers. Still want ‘em. Didn’t like the feeling of uncertainty. In the end I realized that even as she was chronicling the (puzzling) emotional evolution of the characters, she was laying the foundations of the “story.” You hardly even notice.
But. It all adds up. It’s a finely tuned accumulation to set up that mindblow of an ending. For me it was literally a jaw dropper—my mouth actually fell open when I “got it.”
I wish there was a way that I could talk about it without spoiling it, because it was just…perfect.
Alla yins (including Roy/excluding GM* – props!) missin' the point:
The person what gets paid to watch movies fer a living will see MANY more movies than possibly all y'all combined! Some of them are bound to be purty gud. When you don't know anything about what's on their list, it don't mean nothin'! That film writer prolly knows next to nothin' 'bout the best way to drop an engine and when you need to v. when you don't...but they're not draggin' on you mechanics.
The lack of awareness (alternately, the simple cussedness) of experts in one field who decline to give credit where due to experts in another field is widespread and to be deplored by all thinking persons**.
*Edited to add & SteveB, except his writing's kinda hard to pin down, so the jury, as they say in Canada, is still oot.
**Cue purported Adlai Stevenson quote here.
This reminds me of an aquaintance (lawyer who drives a six-figure Range Rover) who once, during a light-hearted discussion of famous private detectives, was irritated that people were talking about Poirot, Maigret, Wallendar, etc., and not American dectectives. When invited to suggest his favorite American gumshoe, he didn't mention Philip Marlow or Travis McGee, but rather touted Thomas Magnum (Magnum PI) as a dectective Americans could identify with.
This is a brilliant essay. I love wealthy conservatives accusing people and institutions of being "elite," braying that supporting abortion rights, universal healthcare, and higher taxes on billionaires is "elitist" when large majorities of the populace do just that. Irony abounds. Or maybe just bullshit. In this case, I want to ask them, in Dana Carvey's most accusatory Church Lady voice, "And who is it that made this 'Top Gun: Maverick' movie that has your loins all aflame, hmmmm? Was it........ HOLLYWOOD!!!?"
Musk is going to buy People magazine, put himself on the cover, and post on Twitter that this proves he's the most popular person in the world.
I keep waiting for all these me-o-centric fools to run out of energy defending lost or never-were causes, but their staunch resoluteness seems indefatigable. won't Elmo please take them all to Galt's gulch, which I hear is somewhere in the martian highlands?
If I was a major Tesla/SpaceX stock holder, I'd be "hair on fire" mad right now. Everything he's doing screams "micromanager", which we knew that when we heard stories about Tesla's shoddy safety records, attributed to Musk's dislike of the color yellow. If he's got time to tweet all day, what the hell is he doing with his time?
So the world's richest micromanager fancies himself a movie critic? JFC let's hope he doesn't decide to purchase an airline, because jets will be falling out of the sky when he discovers that the pilots are just too "woke".