O’Sullivan’s Law at the Movies: J. Edgar and Cultural Decay
But now, listen to portions of the movie’s review by Manohla Dargis of the leftist New York Times. “The tenderness of the love story in ‘J. Edgar’” comes as a shock.” “Mr. Eastwood, working from a smart script by Dustin Lance Black… takes a dynamic approach to history (even as it speaks to contemporary times…)” “[Eastwood's] handling of Hoover and Tolson’s relationship… lifts the film from the usual biopic blahs.”
Okay, you may read this nonsense and say, “Ah, well, there’s no accounting for taste.” But I think a more plausible explanation for it is that Ms. Dargis is full of crap. I do not believe she found the tenderness of the movie a shock, or the poorly constructed script smart, or the antiquated handling of the story uplifting. I believe she said those things only to tout a film with a pro-homosexual agenda. (I say this as a gay-friendly libertarian.) The Times is infamous for this sort of thing, as documented in William McGowan’s book Gray Lady Down. The paper lies to its readers, in other words, to promote those cultural productions that support their favored causes.
Compare this to the work of my friends at Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, one of the most important conservative salients in the culture war. Editor-in-Chief John Nolte and his crew routinely lambaste conservative films on the basis of quality, never allowing their politics to get in the way of either their aesthetic judgment or their commitment to a writer’s first responsibility, the truth as he knows it. Even when he recently complained about the conservative failure to support pro-conservative movies, BH’s Assistant Editor Christian Toto confessed, “‘The Undefeated’ made a night spent watching MSNBC feel fair and balanced by comparison. ‘Atlas Shrugged’ raised the bar for stiff, unnatural acting. And ‘An American Carol’ delivered a fraction of the laughs from director David Zucker’s previous hits, ‘Airplane!’ and ‘The Naked Gun.’”
One cultural group committed to dishonest support of its agenda, another committed to honesty first, politics second. Over time, the natural result will be that artists, knowing they’re guaranteed praise and awards for their politics, will turn to the left more often than the right, for whom they have to produce quality work. As a result, the culture will, ala O’Sullivan, decay leftward over time.
And yet, despite this — and despite those conservatives who say we must become more like the left — more dishonest, more Alinskyite, more exclusionary — in order to win, win, win the fight against them, the fact is we don’t actually have that option. The very thing that makes conservatism what it is compels us to a different path.
Big Hollywood has it right. Our only real alternatives are to expose them relentlessly, oppose them entirely, and fearlessly point with our words and actions toward our better and freer way.
Andrew, in the end, a gay-friendly libertarian is just as responsible for the decay as is a scriptwriter with a pro-homosexual agenda. So, really, what’s the point of you writing this article?
Yeah, because Lord knows we must hate gay people and keep them in the closet to make our country great. Can’t have people living their lives as they see fit, can we? People might treat others with dignity and respect for their abilities and accomplishments instead of hurling judgement and condemnation for what they do in the bedroom. That’s no way to run a free and open society.
He wrote the article because he doesn’t like politics triumphing art.
There is an enormous difference between being friendly to people who are gay and having a pro-homosexual agenda. One is being civilized; the other is activism, which I do not care for in any form.
And if you think that all gays have to either change or pray the gay away or go in the closet only because they’re gay, you’re a Neanderthal and just as bad in your own way as any of the moonbats.
Hmmm… J.Edgar Hoover as political gay icon? I guess gay bio-pics are currently thin on the ground and a send up of Barney Frank just can’t get the momentum nor the financing nor most importantly the hype that Eastwood’s ‘Hoover’ is getting.
They say political capital can be frittered away but apparently Hollywood can print up as much money/hype as the treasury does. Trillions of it.
So let’s, just for the sake of argument, concede what is probably the hackneyed point of the movie in the Socratic form: Would Hoover have been happier and more effective in his chosen profession of law enforcement if he’d just simply ‘come out’ a sgayu? Well?
… back to Barney Frank, he’s always been out and about for a good long while, so how did that turn out? Do you think Barney Frank will measure up to Harvey Milk level of put-upon targeted civil rights abused tragic hero anytime soon? Sorry, excuse me…that’s political tragic gay political tragic gay political icon. My mistake.
Hmmm… must explain the dirth of familiar tragic gay political hero icons to choose from right now….
Now that is a tragedy…
(*sigh*)
The difference between Milk and Hoover is that liberals liked Milk. For Hoover, they hypocritally accuse him of being gay to damage his reputation.
I don’t care whether Hoover was gay or not, but it’s fascinating to see the left use homosexuality as a weapon to damange someone’s reputation.
Oh, and Barney Frank is a corrupt scumbag regardless of his orientation.
I was thinking the same thing. I also don’t think that “fighting” the culture war is a winning battle; you have lost the culture war. There is no way younger generations will buy into conservative socio-cultural mores, especially if there is an implicit homophobia or religious discrimination involved– real or perceived.
I’m sure that J. Edgar’s pro-gay and anti-conservative slant will be rewarded with lots of Academy Awards this year. I guess it takes one to know one.
The giveaway that Ms. Dargis’ piece is agenda-driven (well, aside from the mere fact that it’s a New York Times film review) is the line “working from a smart script …”
Any time something is described as “smart,” you can bet that it’s pushing a left-leaning agenda or narrative of some sort. Critics love to throw the word around to describe art (i.e., film, music, literature, spoken word, etc.), but “smart” is such a subjective and vague word that its use tells the critic’s audience almost nothing about the art in question (aside from its politics).
This has been going on for some time, and it’s a particularly SWPL characteristic. Thus, “smart” is often used by hipsters to describe art targeted at hipster audiences. If a film or song pushes the buttons of trendy liberal white people, it’s forevermore known as “smart.”
This Drunk Idiot had been generally aware of the trend of critics using the word “smart” to describe agenda-driven liberal hipster tripe for a while, but really started taking note of it after reading a 2004 music review by Chicago Tribune reporter-turned music critic-turned ‘foodie’ food critic Monica Eng. Ms. Eng, who despite her Chinese/Puerto Rican heritage, is practically a walking/talking embodiment of every joke on the Stuff White People Like (SWPL) website, reviewed an album by some obscure, politically-minded hipster indie band who wasn’t known then and hasn’t been heard from since. She praised a George W. Bush-inspired lyric that went a little something like “any chimpanzee can be president” as being especially “smart.”
Regardless of one’s take on the Bush presidency, it would be difficult to argue that the lyric was anything but infantile. It certainly wasn’t original — most conversations that occurred between 2000 and 2008, and which included at least one liberal, included (at some point in the conversation) the line “Bush is a chimpanzee.” Talk about a liberal cliche! The only thing missing was the obligatory “Bush is just like Hitler … only dumber.” Any run-of-the-mill liberal could have come up with that lyric. Any conservative internet troll pretending to be a run-of-the-mill liberal could have come up with it. Hell, Miley Cyrus even could have come up with it after ripping a sh**load of bong hits. If any chimp can be president, then any poop-throwing monkey can be a music critic.
Be forewarned: when you see a film/music/literary/art review describe the subject matter as “smart,” it means the subject matter is rote “liberal” red meat.
All well and good, but WHY does conservative entertainment tend to be so unspeakably dull? I submit that it is, in fact, because conservatives mistake ham-fistedness for honesty. We keep re-iterating our message every ten seconds rather than putting the focus on entertainment.
For example, people accuse Jon Stewart of lying when he says his comedy isn’t politically motivated, but from his perspective, it’s not. His ideology is as natural to him as breathing; he doesn’t look at the camera periodically and say “I’m a liberal”. Conservative media, with the notable exception of Red-Eye, is clunky and stilted because we are acutely aware of our position, and we can’t ever let that take a back seat to simple amusement. Our beliefs don’t come as naturally to us as they do to liberals; we have to think about them. Heck, we OVER-THINK them.
We do need to be more like liberals. We need to learn to relax like they do. We don’t need to lie, but we do need to understand that there are ways to tell the truth besides ham-fisted repetition.
Exactly. We need more sensible conservatives like you!
I just watched The Natural on hulu and it seemed rather conservative even though it was made by a bunch of leftist. Of course, that may just be because it is 30 years old and the Country was leaning right when it was made.
A few months back I watched “The Winning of Barbara Worth,” a silent film with Gary Cooper. I just wanted to see Gary Cooper in a Silent movie. It was about people building railroads and dams and irrigation projects without government help. Banker and tycoons are not automatically bad and development isn’t either. There is a hundred year flood, a small town disappears and they move to higher ground and rebuild. They even name the place the Imperial Valley. The results of their efforts is seen as good. They do this with hardly a government agent in sight.
If they remade it today it would be about the heroic birth of the Bureau of Land Management.
If this movie had been based on the facts alone it would have been terrifying how a single maniacal individual was able to control the Nation’s justice system for decades.
There was no need to embellish any aspect of Edgar Hoover’s life, it is shocking enough simply laid out in cold hard ugly truth.
I had a relative who suffered from schizophrenia. She once, somehow, got Hoover on the phone in his office and gave him a thorough cussing for spying on her and having her followed ( a delusion ) . After a visit from the local FBI agents, who determined she was no real threat, her husband reluctantly had her committed. A year later, after her release from the asylum, she was able to do it again! I suppose you could say that the second time she was not delusional.
“One cultural group committed to dishonest support of its agenda, another committed to honesty first, politics second. Over time, the natural result will be that artists, knowing they’re guaranteed praise and awards for their politics, will turn to the left more often than the right, for whom they have to produce quality work. As a result, the culture will, ala O’Sullivan, decay leftward over time.”
That, Mr. Klavan, is the most succinct explanation I have heard to explain the inane hollywood mentality that seems to infect the vast majority of performance artists.
Mr. Klavan: What you’ve styled “O’Sullivan’s Law” is actually Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics. Otherwise, well done.
Actually, O’Sullivan did coin it — or says he coined it, in an article back in 1989, and it’s been incorrectly attributed to Conquest over the years. I’ve linked loads of times myself to Conquest’s Laws, but when Roger Simon interviewed Conquest at Stanford in the fall of 2008 during the early of PJTV, during which I played cameraman for him, Conquest didn’t seem to remember drafting the phrase — but IIRC, he liked the concept.
“Actually, O’Sullivan did coin it — or says he coined it, in an article back in 1989…”
Ironically, if we follow your link to the O’Sullivan article, we find this:
Is there any law which enables us to predict the behavior of right-wing organizations? As it happens, there is: Conquest’s Second Law (formulated by the Sovietologist Robert Conquest):
The behavior of an organization can best be predicted by assuming it to be controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies. Examples: virtually any conservative party anywhere, the Ronald Lauder for Mayor campaign, and the British secret service. That last example is, however, flawed, since the British secret service actually was controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies in the form of Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, et al. In which case, Conquest’s Law should have operated to make M1-6 a crack anti-Soviet intelligence service of James Bond proportions. But these are deep waters.
It looks like O’Sullivan is citing Conquest as the source of the idea.
Ahh, but see this!
GAAHHH! Please, no more, no more! I’ll talk!
Actually, I thought it was James Burnham’s law.
The left has never forgiven Hoover for breaking the Klan.
Brilliant!
The Soviet Union’s spies engaged in what were known as “active measures”—the deliberate planting and developing of falsehoods about the West. The claim that J. Edgar Hoover was homosexual was one of its successful “active measures.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
Somebody needs to fix the Wiki piece on Edgar; it is contaminated with BS.
Excellent, Mr. Klavan. GroupThink is a danger to any community of common interest, and the Conservative movement is not immune.
American Carol was very successful with my kids. I wish they’d do another movie like that. The spouse is a huge fan of silly films. I didn’t have to cringe when my kids repeated the jokes, or sang that silly ’68 song.
The promotions for right-ish films is heinous, though. I usually find out after it’s in the dollar theatre, or at Blockbuster, or even later. Valkyrie- I got handed a copy at the park by a mom who insisted I watch it.
It would be nice to go to a good popcorn flick. I think the last big, all of the family film we saw was Indiana Jones. It was worth- well, we paid our entire summer’s entertainment budget. It was worth it. And then bought the DVDs, the chapter-books, the tee-shirts, and the lego video-games.
If American Carol had been slightly sunnier, and had a tee-shirt- we’d've bought them for the kids. Why not? Kids like being part of cool pop culture. Leftists- they don’t have kids. Right-wingers- have kids and fathers and mothers. I’m trying to hunt down some Psych tee-shirts, for that very reason- it’s cool, all the kids’ friends watch it- even when parents aren’t in the room- it’s funny and bright in ways that they get. It’s optimistic. Not- brain-dead hallmark card, lemonade and rocking chairs on the porch-
Eastwood needs to get out of Hollywood. His “libertarianism” is becoming indistinguishable from bog-standard gliberalism. Glibertarianism?
The information stream should be off limits to pollution from any side.
In a two party system, when one or the other of the parties has, as a co-conspirator, seized the watering holes of facts, evidence and truth with the mass outlets for delivering the same…the breakdown is not of the party out of such control…but of the nation which allows it.
Substituting propaganda for facts, distortion for truth, slander for evidence…is equally destructive from either side.
My interpretation of what Andrew put forward here…is the need for us to hold fast to the notion that truth is more dear to democracy than partisan support. What leftists fear most, is open competition. EVERY leftist institution seeks first to eliminate the risk of being challenged …the struggle to be better, greater, stronger, faster.
Leftist institutions by definition are set up to be granted prizes, awards and kudos…for sameness, fealty, grotesque displays of pomp and fanfare for the best display of abject groveling at the feet of leftism itself.
The academy awards, Pulitzer prize, Nobel trinkets…are awarded not on the basis of achievement, but upon the basis of adherence to political purity.
And unions, academic tenure, ACORN/SEIU, democratic patronage jobs, hollywood scriptwriting/directing/acting, global warming science…are all set up to destroy merit-based advancement…you get your position…you keep your position…based upon being a me-too lackey.
The “science is settled”, the news is pre-scripted, the awards are all rigged and the fix is in…because leftism can’t stand competition. Eventually, it falls in on itself and becomes totalitarian, dictatorial,…a straitjacket against the movement toward betterment. At some point…EVERY truth becomes “inconvenient” to the leftists.
We must never adopt a strategy that does that to ourselves, just to defeat them. Leftism is a disease, we don’t need to catch it…to cure it.
“…the need for us to hold fast to the notion that truth is more dear to democracy than partisan support.”
Exactly! When candidates in a democracy – or their supporters/advocates – are free to lie at will and aren’t called on it, democracy is in a very bad way. How can any reasonable person choose a political party or candidate if the facts themselves are in dispute?
It is my firm belief that truth – otherwise known as fact – is, by definition, something that is inarguable. For instance, if I say “if you drop something anywhere on the planet Earth, it falls.”, you can’t reasonably say you disagree, unless you can cite exceptions from real life.
Opinions are quite different. I can say “Capitalism makes people freer overall than any other system” and any number of objections can be raised because that is not a self-evident, scientifically-provable truth like the Law of Gravity.
I think it’s increasingly hard enough for people to distinguish between truth and opinion. A key reason is that facts are rarely presented as facts any more; they always seem to be “spun” at the moment they are expressed. Spinning seems to consist primarily of merging facts with explanations. For instance, instead of simply saying “The national debt for the United States is currently close to 15 trillion dollars”, which is a fact, we often hear that fact merged with an “explanation” that is dubious at best: “The national debt for the United States is currently 15 trillion dollars because the current administration had to try to prevent a crash of the economy caused by the previous administration(s)”.
The explanation, of course, is trying to rationalize the debt and score political points for the current administration but the explanation part of the sentence is totally disputable and not remotely factual. However, the indisputable fact and the dubious explanation are delivered together and a lot of readers probably blur the two to the point that they treat the whole statement as a fact when only the first part is a fact.
If our schools were doing their jobs properly, the distinction between fact and opinion would be obvious to everyone and little would be gained by attempts to confuse the two. But I think most here would agree that our educational institutions have gone over to indoctrination much of the time and aren’t to be trusted with elementary distinctions like fact vs. opinion. That jeopardizes democracy because if you can’t tell a fact from an opinion, you are more likely going to vote for someone like Obama because the opinion “Obama is the best president ever” is going to be confused with a factual statement.
You are the exact reason conservatism is failing. You embody all of the irrationality of conservatism. If we follow the logic of conservative philosophy to it’s conclusion, it becomes untenable. Conservatism has us needlessly clinging to the ancient memories of the past in service of what? Tradition? So we keep what’s good and throw out the rest. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That axiom isn’t representative of conservatism however; conservatives would have us cling to the most broken, disreputable traditions known to man if they had had their way throughout history. The tryanny of the monarch is what led to the creation of this great country. Can you imagine if we had “conserved” the monarchy? Can you imagine if we had “conserved” racism? Can you imagine if women were never allowed to vote or never allowed to go to college? Conservatism is status quo, and it has us dubiously believing in it’s tenets for the reason that we respect “tradition.” Americans were never traditionalists though! We were radicals! We defied authority! We are here to have our freedom! Conservatism would have taken that away from us. Conservatism proscribed our actions; it labeled us criminals when we dared to defy our British masters in search for self determination. conservatism is everywhere in this country. Harry Reid is a conservative; Barrack Obama is a conservative; Nancy Pelosi is a conservative; Newt Gingrich is a conservative; Cheney is a conservative; Bachmann is a conservative; Donald Trump is a conservative. All of these men and women are conservatives and they play a political game called bait and switch. Dems act like dems; they are the compassionate welfarists who somehow can’t manage to truly bring the people they serve out of any measurable difference of poverty. The republicans are the pseudo traditionalists who pander to the religious in order to get votes. In reality the two party’s, by and large, represent corporations and cronyism; not the free market! The stakes are not over small battles in some culture war–what is left of the free market has already dictated the outcome of the culture war; younger generations have chosen to consume different products. The real stakes however are economic sovereignty and individual liberty!
Part of the problem is that the Left has done a really good job of associating certain bad things with the Right. So that when they make a movie they don’t have to explicitly make the movie “pro-left” or “anti-right.” They simply set the scene and let the audience make the “correct” assumption, which is that the good guys are liberals and bad guys are some form of non-liberal.
For instance… It’s understood that Conservatives are generally pro-military, pro-defense, pro-national security, etc. So if I’m a Leftist making a movie or writing a thriller then all I have to do is make the bad guys be rogue elements in the military or the CIA. Or have the evil mastermind be a corrupt politician in bed with defense contractors. The words “Democrat” and “Republican” may not appear anywhere in the script…and yet it’s understood by the audience that the good guys are Democrats/Liberals and the bad guys are Republicans/Conservatives.
Another favorite trope of Hollywood which we see over and over again is the hypocritical politician. You know the ones: the outspoken opponent of the gay agenda who is actually a self-loathing, closeted homosexual. Or the “family values” politician who cheats on his wife, molests the children or runs around in drag. Again, they don’t have to be explicitly identified as Republicans. It’s understood because of the context, which is facilitated by the so-called mainstream media. The narrative is out there, all around us, and so all the Hollywood Left has to do is tap into that. And the beauty of it is that the issues being portrayed are, in the abstract, things that we all would condemn. We as Conservatives are even more against governmental abuse of power than the Left. We are not in favor of corruption. We are not in favor of hypocrisy or dishonesty. So when we complain about the obvious slant of the scenarios I described, the response is something like: “Well, are you opposed to us making a movie that is critical of corruption? Are you unhappy that we demonized rogues who use the power of government to harm individual citizens?” The quick answer is no, we don’t oppose that. But the real answer is that we don’t appreciate the relentless one-sidedness of it all. The presumption that one side of the political and cultural spectrum has a monopoly on corruption, hypocrisy and rogue activity.
So if I’m a Conservative looking to write a screenplay then my corrupt politician is going to be in bed with the unions or certain left-wing special interest groups rather than defense contractors. The rogue elements in the government are going to be in the Dept. of Justice or the Department of Energy. The bad guys will go out of their way to deny certain groups their civil rights in a cynical attempt to “right historic wrongs.” Or the bad guys will be working in cahoots with corporate types who seek to manufacture and exploit a “global warming” panic in order to promote sales of solar panels or other “green” technology. And again, there doesn’t need to be even a single mention of “Democrat” or “Republican” in the movie. It’s understood. But the understanding doesn’t take away from the entertaining “thriller” elements of the film.
It is possible to create entertainment that promotes Conservative values in some way or condemns the types of corruption and abuse that is typically found on the Left without it coming off like some sort of 90-minute PSA.
I agree with some of what you said. Especially about the part where the political right has the monopoly on corruption. I think that it is unfair, but it is also misleading because many on the so called left will either tacitly or openly endorse what the right was doing in the first place or simply set the trend! I don’t agree with you about global warming. I think the threats are real and I actually think there is a considerable body of knowledge about it. I sometimes find myself asking the simple question: why would they lie? Especially when you have so much misinformation and lies out there about any subject. I think exaggerating the threat for corporate profits might not be a huge leap, but I definitely don’t think it’s some liberal or left wing conspiracy either. I’m no expert so all I can do is suggest you search google for more info.
But to address your main criticism in more detail, I think the reason why it works so well is that the media also does a good job of creating obvious bad guys. So you have more moderate news stations like CNN or MSNBC rarely outing democrats, is it because democrats aren’t ever corrupt? Yeah, right. I think the dems may be better at hiding it, maybe. MSNBC I like sometimes but it is pretty tiring watching the same personalities do the same show over and over again 24/7 constantly complaining about what republicans did; whether it should be reported or not, it’s tiring. I was really upset when not even Rachel Maddow mentioned the bill for indefinite military detention, or barrack Obama’s weak objection to it. CNN is more concerned about heroes, celebrity interviews, and nonsense more so than news. Then you have fox news. Now these guys on fox seem to enjoy playing the bad guy. The seem to like to stir things up and appeal to the emotions of their viewers. They present themselves as the everyday guy who can get angry when is necessary, and I find that relatable to many people. Fox was always pushing the boundary in my opinion and I feel like they never wanted to be pc unless it was expedient. But in any case, the anti-pc, angry when necessary, relatable to people approach from FOX, is a good adversary to the more cerebral yet constantly “picking on republicans” approach from MSNBC. Both do their part in keeping the veil over our eyes, and every now and then CNN “keeps us honest.” Hell even, Fox, rarely in my opinion, and MSNBC get it right sometimes.
Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It
I purchased an original copy of this book from a used bookstore years ago. J. Edgar Hoover is another in the long list of conservative America-firsters that have been vilified by the Democratic Mainstream Media. He gives a mound of evidence in this book about Communist/Socialist front organizations that were either infiltrated or founded by communists from the 1920′s to the late 1950′s when this book was written. This book should be a must-read for every high school student in America so they can identify their tricks and tactics. Unfortunately, with how our national Republican and Democratic Representatives trample on the Constitution, it may be too late.
This is an either or fallacy.
Never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake. If a critic holds a film to a lower standard because he agrees with its political content, then the filmmakers will never understand why the audience is staying home.
Roger Ebert once told Rob Schneider, “Your film sucks.” Nobody (in the left-wing press) is telling the people who produced “In the Valley of Elah”, “Redacted”, “Stop Loss”, “Lions For Lambs”, and so on the truth, so they keep wasting their money, trying and failing to get the public to waste theirs.
although, it’s probably a mote/beam issue. Democrat Dad keeps sending me biographies of progressive/bohemian people. So many have literally no clue about boys+ girls that I want to send them to locksmithing school. It would be a revelation for them.
I haven’t seen anyone with the following interpretation: Movies such as “J.Edgar” and “Apocalypse Now” and others which I can’t recall right now are/were not written only for contemporary audiences. I remember the ludicrous plot of the former, and I remember much of Mr. Hoover’s career as Director of the FBI. He did a good job, pretty much invented the FBI from nothing: a national Police Force with strict limitations on jurisdictions and authority
(I/m 83 years old).
These movies are written for later generations who have no memory of the times depicted and who will listen to “experts” enlighten them as to the plot and the characters, with a slant towards criticizing the U.S. An example could be “Birth of a Nation” or “Huckleberry Finn:” The original reviewer would have wrote a much different review than a 2011 reviewer.
The gay thing might be a stretch, but Hoover was a paranoid and delusional racist, come on!
I repeat, libertarian equals liberal. I’ve not heard of osullivan’s law but the principle is true. Gay is wrong for civil society. Period. True conservatives must stand. Period.
No, libertarian equals libertarian.
Conquest’s other law: The behavior of any organization can best be predicted by assuming it to be run by a cabal of its enemies.
Well in reading Mr. Radosh’s tome “the Rosenberg File” I was struck by how meticulasly the FBI built cases. They were very thurough and accurate. They also did not use illegal wire taps in the prosecution of cases. Considering what Hoover was up against It seems he did rather well. I have also read that Rosa Luxemburg commented upon her deportation from the US that she was treated kindly and fairly by a young man named J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was one of the few to understand the threat posed by the Soviet’s and for a while was our only line of defence. I wonder if any of that will appear in the film. True he kept files on many many people and I am sure what he had on Jack Kennedy gave him his continued employment but did he ever use these files for personal monitary gain? was Hr. Hoover a horrid blotch in American History? This is something that I would wish to come out rather than wither he is gay or not. On that I wonder if this will qualify for him to be the gay historical figure that California now requires in their school ciriculm.