Death of a President

Oh, for christ’s sake, the idea of making a fake film of the assassination of a real president or, for that matter, any living person is simply beyond the pale. Bad enough that you find high octane wine anoying now you find bad taste telvision acceptable.

The current Administration, its decisions and the various venal f@cks out of which it is made is bad not only enough but more than enough; this film is appaling. I thought so when first I read of it and I think so now. The idea of it simply repulses me.

You just don’t get it, do you. Showing a movie like this is so utterly stupid and tasteless, especially before an election. The average american is repulsed by this sort of thing.

And you’ll whine up a storm when the election becomes a huge disappoint.

Personally, I was grossly offended by the deaths of Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Samuel L Jackson, Matt Damon, Janeane Garofalo and Tim Robbins, and the impaling of Kim Jong-Il, all real living people, at the end of “Team America: World Police”. And don’t get me started on the grotesqueries visited on Saddam Hussein in “South Park: The Movie”!

The film would only serve to rally support for Bush, so anyone who wants it shown over here anytime near an election is evidently hoping for Republican success at the polls.

(Remember the Brits who wrote random Americans to tell them to vote Kerry? That went over well, didn’t it?)

“Please! So you’d be on here posting a comment like that if a mockumentary had involved the assassination of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez or the Saudi royal family and had examined the possible consequences of those acts?”
The thrust of this comment would seem to be either I am Americo-centric or outraged only by the fictive deaths of non-fictive right wingers. Neither point is accurate. So yes, I would be equally outraged by the films you imagine. Call me a sentimental old fool, but this type of film adds little to nothing. Sort of like a “mockmentary” on the question of How would the Battle of the Bulge been different if Elenore Roosevelt could fly.

“And US cinemas would be refusing to screen those films on grounds of taste?”

As to this, I cannot possible comment. I do know, however, that I would not see the damn thing.

It is possible, by the way, for someone to find a thing reprehensible not because it violates some deeply held love of Bush or because he or she wishes to ban speech (the mockumentary makers are perfectly within their rights to make the thing, as am I to find it beneath contempt) but rather because the the thing itself is either silly, stupid, or hopelessly wrongheaded. In this case my objection is not a matter of “taste,” which sounds like refusal to see any movie staring Steve Gutenburg (with the exception of Diner) but rather the fact that I find the subject matter silly, stupid, and beneath contempt.

the idea of making a fake film of the assassination of a real president or, for that matter, any living person is simply beyond the pale.

Strangely, people who say this never quite explain why that is, other than ‘It’s all very silly and I’m touchy about it’.

I suspect it’s because of that one big hole in the First Amendment that makes saying ‘I wish I could shoot George Bush’ an equivalent to ‘Jehovah!’ in The Life of Brian. The penumbra around that prohibition is a large one, violating the image of the kingpresident has all the hallmarks of a classic taboo.

–but rather the fact that I find the subject matter silly, stupid, and beneath contempt.

But still worthy of the first response to this thread, and a long follow-up? Interesting.

Call me a sentimental old fool, but this type of film adds little to nothing. Sort of like a “mockmentary” on the question of How would the Battle of the Bulge been different if Elenore Roosevelt could fly.

Yes, because the idea that someone might try to assassinate Fidel Castro is clearly ludicrous.

Did you like “The Day of the Jackal”, by the way? Or “JFK”?

“But still worthy of the first response to this thread, and a long follow-up? Interesting.”

Interesting, you say? Well I suppose so. I mean it is interesting that just before sleepy go nap time, I noticed a post on a film that raises my ire and decided to post on it. What a coincidence that I was first. That is interesting. Indeed, it is also interesting that all the lights on the way to work were green.

Interesting that I post a long reply, you inquire. Yes, why on earth would I reply to a second post that appears to accuse me of either hypocrisy or feigned outrage. Indeed, one really ought let those sorts of remarks pass. After all, accusations of intellectual dishonesty are beneath contempt.

Interesting that I comment on something I find beneath contempt? I find the current American administration beneath contempt aand yet I talk about how beneath contempt they are all the time. Interesting indeed.

I find the cryptic use of a meaningless word interesting, what could you have meant?

“Strangely, people who say this never quite explain why that is, other than ‘It’s all very silly and I’m touchy about it’”

Well, here’s an attempt.

I supose on some level or another I do find the use of the faked assassination of a sitting president touches a nerve. Granted, its not like America has any experience with that, oh wait. And you would be right if I found it only silly, stupid, and beneath contempt on those grounds, which I do.

However, my complaint goes beyond this initial and, no doubt, viseral reaction. A reaction that may, in fact, be something the mocumentarians wanted. Shock and awe, by all accounts, is a popular strategy for winning arguments both large and small.

Mr. Bertram, by all accounts a bright fellow, seems to think that we need fake, made up, or imagined events “to situate Cheney as an opportunist who would use anything, even the killing of Bush, to advance his pet view of the world.”

Now I will grant it would be hard to prove that Cheney would use assasination for his own gain, in as much as it hasn’t happened; but, it is as easy as pie to prove that he did use a tragedy to promote his own views. Why, I ask, is it necessary to make stuff up to prove what is provable with, as it were, the actual factual facts of the matter?

Isn’t one of the points of the exercise, which I take to be the vigorous opposition of a cabal of crooks bent on destroying America through the creation of fictive enemies foreign and domestic – or that, in any event is my justification for my opposition to the current cabal of crooks, that the facts, as my grandma used to say, are agin them? Look at that other mocudocudramamentary on 9/11, distortion, half truth, fact, and fiction jumbled together to make an argument. Yes, by all means, let us encourage the use of fiction. It is, after all, so much easier to win the argument if you get to make stuff up. And, even better, it encourages others to stick to the facts of the matter, oh wait.

I suspect, to be honest, that although long this was not interesting.

I mean really, why not go the whole hog and make, you know, a fictional film, you could call it Bob Roberts if you wanted, to make the point that the death, which is certainly not proud, or near death of a popular but dangerous politician could be used to advance the forces of darkness. Why one could, if one wanted, make a fictional film about, say, a tv and radio personality who becomes demigoge through faux populism. Making and breaking politicians. I suggest casting Andy Griffin and maybe whatshername, Barbara Stanwyck, or however it is spelt.

Watched it yesterday. The only point there seems to be that Muslims are persecuted in the US. Quite a Rube Goldberg way to make this point.

I realize, of course, that I am bore. I was trying to follow the debate about the new numbers of dead in Iraq when perverse curiosity forced me to Galt’s webpage. She provides, I think, a textbook case of the stupidity of thinking that fictional facts somehow or another advance an argument.
http://www.janegalt.net/archives/009512.html