Comments on: Steven Spielberg’s White Men of Democracy

By: Jeffrey Davis

Jeffrey Davis — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 22:09:09 +0000

I was surprised, after reading this thread, to find that the opening scenes of the movie involved black soldiers in close hand-to-hand combat.

As for the movie itself, I wish it had ended it with the scene of Stevens in bed with his mistress. He went on too long.

Sorry for the 2 weeks late and a hundred dollar short comments.

By: ptl

ptl — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:00:10 +0000

I’ll try again

#290 “If you think slavery can be explained merely by the actions of the slaveholders, and not many many other white people… But it would be like trying to explain Nazism without mentioning the Germans,”

I really don’t know how to address something as clumsy and as insulting as this as a response to my attack on your unqualified “I don’t think it requires all that much to say white Americans (and Europeans) ravaged and ruined people of African descent”. I think I’ll just say that I, like some others here, saw your words as a version of “there are no innocents”, and leave it there.

By: ptl

ptl — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 16:48:58 +0000

#289: If you think slavery can be explained merely by the actions of the slaveholders, and not many many other white people

I don’t.

By: William Timberman

William Timberman — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:15:29 +0000

Donald Johnson @ 301 Sorry, I probably should have specified which thread I'd meant to attach my 292 to, but I thought that the reference to Madonnas and whores would do the trick. Anyway, it was meant for CR's follow-up to the post above: The Madonna/Whore Complex in American Politics. I may be wrong, but in that context I think what I was driving at should be a little clearer.

By: Harold

Harold — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:05:00 +0000

It is one thing to say that something is missing from the film. It is another to nastily insinuate there is something missing from the film because “perhaps” the screenwriter is a blinkered, unimaginative bigot, and by extension I and my backscratching pal the political scientist are not.

If evidence abounds of Slade’s and Keckley’s leadership and advocacy, then why didn’t the film allude to it? Perhaps because the filmmakers did not—or could not—imagine black servants who had lives outside their work and were activists in their own right.

By: Main Street Muse

Main Street Muse — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:50:02 +0000

@Corey (300) thanks for the link. This is a much more completely realized description of what is missing than the NY op-ed piece.

By: LFC

LFC — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:39:36 +0000

NickT:

The South did authorize blacks to serve, right at the end of the war (March 13, 1865)

Thank you; I thought I had been right about that, but was too lazy to look it up.

By: Donald Johnson

Donald Johnson — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:24:27 +0000

On William Timberman’s 292 post–

Which thread did it belong in? Because it was interesting (not quite sure I understood all of it, but what I think I got I agreed with). And as someone else said, it did seem to fit here.

By: Corey Robin

Corey Robin — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:20:29 +0000

Kate Masur, who WAS the Lincoln Spielberg debate before there was one, has an excellent response to all the controversy. http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2012/11/30/a-filmmakers-imagination-and-a-historians/

By: NickT

NickT — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:10:33 +0000

@31 Mark Field

The South did authorize blacks to serve, right at the end of the war (March 13, 1865).

By: NickT

NickT — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:54:34 +0000

@Anarcissie

“part of the outcome of the Civil War and Reconstruction was to produce a society of three castes with mutual hatred for one another: White Americans, Southerners, and Negroes.”

Sure, let’s quietly forget about the society and history that came before the Civil War. As for the division between “White Americans” and “Southerners”… well, what can one say, really?

By: Corey Robin

Corey Robin — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:52:09 +0000

296: That’s a fair point, though I don’t think it’s as comprehensive as you make it out to be. I mean, it’s true that the immigrant striver in Vito Corleone is supposed to be a stand-in for all Americans. But the instruments of his striving — cutting off horse’s heads, raising a sociopathic son or two, resolving a mortician’s family disputes with guns and goons — aren’t what I would call constants, or obvious points of contact, in the cultural firmament. But still I take your point.

By: dax

dax — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:26:06 +0000

“Tell me what the majority of Americans … have “ethnically and culturally” in common with Vito Corleone?”

Uh, especially on the cultural side, everything? Isn’t that one of the themes of the first two Godfathers?

By: Glen Parker

Glen Parker — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 01:16:13 +0000

The timing for its release seems to be caculated, and the heroics overdone, the prior efforts of many was takin advantage of by the politicians as expected.

By: Bruce Wilder

Bruce Wilder — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:48:34 +0000

It seems to me @ 292 fits in to this thread, nicely.