What not, WTF edition
1—I haven't seen the likes of the Keith Olbermann-Bill Simmons slap fest since twenty-aught-one! I'll go with the general consensus that his column insisting Tiger Woods has it harder post-wick dipping than Muhammad Ali did after the federal government persecuted him for his religion and political beliefs marked the exact moment when Simmons went from 'useless but harmless' to 'aggressively uninteresting' but Olbermann is still significantly more ridiculous and worthy of mockery.
2—With Mo'Nique having won an Oscar for Precious, which I haven't seen but seems as actively loathsome as a movie could possibly be, now's as good a time as any to link to the great Armond White's review, which is everything you'd hope it would be:
Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious. Full of brazenly racist clichés (Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken), it is a sociological horror show. Offering racist hysteria masquerading as social sensitivity, it’s been acclaimed on the international festival circuit that usually disdains movies about black Americans as somehow inartistic and unworthy...
Precious raises ghosts of ethnic fear and exoticism just like Birth of a Nation. Precious and her mother (Mo’Nique) share a Harlem hovel so stereotypical it could be a Klansman’s fantasy. It also suggests an outsider’s romantic view of the political wretchedness and despair associated with the blues. Critics willingly infer there’s black life essence in Precious’ anti-life tale. And the same high-dudgeon tsk-tsking of Hurricane Katrina commentators is also apparent in the movie’s praise. Pundits who bemoan the awful conditions that have not improved for America’s unfortunate are reminded that they are still on top.
This misreading of blues sensibility probably has something to do with the disconnect caused by hip-hop, where thuggishness and criminality romanticize black ghetto life. Director Daniels’ rotgut images of aggressive cruelty and low-life illiteracy aren’t far from gangster rap clichés. The spectacle warps how people perceive black American life—perhaps even replacing their instincts for compassion with fear and loathing.
As I recall, the last time Armond broke out the Birth of a Nation trope it was for the noxious Unbreakable, in a review that sadly seems to not be online.
3—Not a ton of new information for anyone who's followed the cult over the years, but this Times piece on Scientology is pretty sweet if just for the respectful treatment given Anonymous and straight-faced bits like this:
The church is vague about its membership numbers. In 11 hours with a reporter over two days, Mr. Davis, the church’s spokesman, gave the numbers of Sea Org members (8,000), of Scientologists in the Tampa-Clearwater area (12,000) and of L. Ron Hubbard’s books printed in the last two and a half years (67 million). But asked about the church’s membership, Mr. Davis said, “I couldn’t tell you an exact figure, but it’s certainly, it’s most definitely in the millions in the U.S. and millions abroad.”
He said he did not know how to account for the findings in the American Religious Identification Survey that the number of Scientologists in the United States fell from 55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008.
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Reader Comments (2)
Maybe Precious means to usurp the accomplishment of President Obama's election and remind everyone what remains. If its overwrought, well the nobilty of a lie often excuses the lie.
Or maybe Precious could be of a kind with Bill Cosby, Alvin Poussaint, and Juan Williams in highlighting how much of the current black community is a failure in comparison to black heritage's promise and history. Maybe the movie tries to show the reason (or a reason that is susceptible to self-remedy) for that failure by the characters present in the movie and by characters prominently missing in the movie (i.e., the commonly cited scapegoats). This in contrast to victimy "Its whitey's fault and we'll never succeed" and its corollary "If only we could get Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson's attention, they'll convince some white-dominated institution to take care of us and fix everything."
(I should add that I don't know enough to pick among black intellectual diagnoses, I'm just trying to synopsize those authors' books and speculate on the movie. It does seem that waiting for someone else to make everything better is always a bad idea.)
There was a Times article some time late last year about how Precious was splitting the black intellectual community. I thought I was too lazy to find it, but what else do you do at 3 am on a Wednesday morning? So here it is, (http://tiny.cc/kDTtP), and here's a quote that sums up the opposite of Armond's views:
“His review buys into the narrative that there can only be one acceptable presentation of black life,” Ms. Peterson said. “He’s flattening the black experience, and in that way, he denies our humanity.”
As for calling Armond "great", eh, I have to disagree. He's every bit as pompous as Keith Olbermann but impossible to take seriously because he hasn't met a Wayans brothers movie he hasn't elevated to high art. Of course, I'll quickly admit to not being able to understand half of his reviews.