Richard Armitage? Who’s he?!
As P.J. Gladnick writes at Newsbusters, “Imagine a movie about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination that neglects to include the character of John Wilkes Booth. Ridiculous, right? Well, that is pretty much what has happened in the movie Fair Game, in which the person who leaked the name of Valerie Plame to Robert Novak, Richard Armitage, never appears in the film”:
So how to excuse such an absurd situation? Simple. Just write off complaints about this as political insider nitpicking. That is what Washington Post writer Ann Hornaday has done in her article that sets up laughable excuses in advance to what is sure to be a firestorm of criticism about the absence of the very leaker responsible for why we even know the name of Valerie Plame. The photo caption accompanying her story encapsulates her excuse:
In Washington, watching fact-based political movies has become a sport all its own, with viewers hyper-alert to mistakes, composite characters or real stories hijacked by political agendas. But what audiences often fail to take into account is that a too-literal allegiance to the facts can sometimes obscure a larger truth.
Read the whole thing, which concludes with this observation from Gladnick:
Hornaday concludes her justification of political film fact twisting with some stunning reasoning straight out of “1984″ that is painful to read:
As long as dramatists seek to make protagonists out of mere humans — to reduce their tangled webs of contradictions, complexities and banalities to a set of single-minded motivations and fatal flaws — audiences will need to approach these narratives with a blend of sophistication and skepticism. But maybe the best way to understand these films isn’t as narrative at all, but an experience more akin to ritual. When religious pilgrims travel to the sacred sites of the Holy Land, for example, the locations they visit often aren’t the literal places where a biblical figure was born or baptized. Instead, they’re the sites that, through centuries of use and shared meaning, have become infused with a spiritual reality all their own.
Thus, the movies about Washington that get the right stuff right — or get some stuff wrong but in the right way — become their own form of consensus history. “Follow the money,” then, assumes its own totemic truth. Ratified through repeated viewings in theaters, on Netflix and beyond, these films become a mutual exercise in creating a usable past. We watch them to be entertained, surely, and maybe educated. But we keep watching them in order to remember.
Wow! So the “truth” of a “usable past” can be “ratified” through repeated viewings in theaters? That is the Orwellian reasoning that makes Valerie Plame name leaker Richard Armitage a non-person. Armitage never existed because he doesn’t appear in “Fair Game.”
A few years ago, Dennis Prager wrote, “As a famous Soviet dissident joke put it: ‘In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it’s the past which is always changing.’”
“Usable past” – I like this.
Fact is that the “fluid reality”, “multifaceted reality” college craptrap has became accepted as solid, & defining science in certain circles – and we live in the times of “your narrative”, “their narrative” and “usable past” -
I remember LA Times using several times as lead variations on “if you say something often enough, it will became at a point reality” -
Then, remember Clinton’s “magisterial” (LA Times term) waxing about “It depends on what do you mean by “IS” – “IS” can be “was”, “has been”, “is being”, “will be” -
Russians would nod approvingly – after all don’t they live in the country with an “unpredictable past?
Fake but Accurate, Hollywood and WaPo Style
True, from a certain point of view
– Obi Wan Kenobi
This c(lapt)rap should be filed in the same basket as “living Constitution” – that round one beside the desk.
The old “larger truth” ends justify the lying means. Paging Dr. Lenin…
Sorel argued, the myth of socialism will continue to have power, despite the various failures of socialist experiments, so long as there are revolutionaries who are unwilling to relinquish their great myth.
If this is an accurate description of Sorel’s thinking, he was a master architect of interior intellectual walls — a man who could persuade himself of gigantic lies.
Hornaday is not far behind.
I had the misfortune of reading a CNN.com headline. I glanced at the comments accompanying the article.. whoa! The utter nonsense of the posts, it’s easy to see why CNN is lagging in the information department.
‘It’s not a lie if you believe it’
- George Costanza
George: “…that’s the George you know, the George you grew up with — Movie George, Coffee Shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George.”
Jerry: “I love that George!”
So, the past is “usable”, the present “ungovernable”, and the future is said to be “unsustainable” — but hey, vote Democrat and we’ll do our best to uncover the “larger truth”!
If only our cars ran on that horse****, huh?
This is hardly the first time this crap has been pulled. Every film made about the Iraq War would fit this template.
The most famous attempt was Oliver Stone’s JFK, which while receiving Hollywood praise as history was better suited for Saturday Night Live.
I’m sure the American people will fight this claptrap the same way they have over the last eight years, by staying away from the theatre in droves.
She does speak the truth, you know.
People have been baffled by the fact that, pretty much with the exception of ‘The Hurt Locker’, Hollywood has created a long list of Iraq war movies with two things in common…. they are universally hostile to Bush and the Iraq effort….. and they are catastrophic money-losing bombs.
And now here’s another one (that will bomb).
Remember “Hollywood is just all about the money”?
Not any more. Now they have even bigger fish to fry.
Take note.
Andrew,
It’s been astoundingly obvious that Hollywood isn’t as interested in money as advancing their worldview since at least 2003.
Beacause that world View is where the really big money hangs out?
Re: Yglesias’ tweet…
So now we know we don’t have to pay attention to anything Matty says. Way to tip your hand, dude! Not only dishonest, but dumb.
Yehudit, we knew that a long time ago. For example when Yglesias gushed about Ahmadinedjad in 2006. Quote: “Ahmadinejad has a pretty sweet hipster style. It all starts with a beard not unlike the one I and many of my twentysomething male friends sport. But it goes deeper. The man went without a tie to address the UN General Assembly. And I was in a bar where the TV was showing his interview with Anderson Cooper (it’s DC, these things happen) and while there was no sound, he certainly looked witty and charming. There was also this clip of him walking down some hallway shooting the sh** with Kofi Annan. It’s like diplomacy! Bush should try it.” etc.
Yet another lefty movie that will bomb at the box office.
Will they ever learn?
Creating a usable past by “ratifying” through repeated viewings in theaters, etc.
Well, the “rat” part is certainly correct.
Or should it be “Ratherifying”?
Applauding the “strategy” of getting the left stuff right; that is, using the false stuff to create a “liberal” consensus. A mind-boggling example of arrogant socialist stupidity: bragging about the tired Goebbels technique, echoed by Alinsky, of pounding on a lie or a libel until it is accepted as the truth. But that only works if the media are in the pocket of the liars, or if there is no body of citizens to stand up and shout “liar”.
Its been working in the USA, atleast since the Fed in 1913.
These movies are money-losers not just because of their socialist bias. They are just bad movies. Like all art produced essentially to make a political statement, they are just dull.
And don’t bother reminding me about Goya, and Picasso’s Guernica, and War and Peace. Poliwood has produced no cinematic geniuses.
Unfortunately, too many people believe everything they see in the movies is true. That can be very dangerous and, when you take huge liberties with the truth, you’re creating propoganda and NOT a representation of reality. Though some snobs may say, “Well, if you want accuracy in a movie, make a documentary and not a feature film.” Well, I’ve seen a lot of bad documentaries too (just ask Michael Moore about that).
I just don’t see why you can’t do both, make an entertaining movie as well as have it be historically accurate. The movie “Glory” was a fine example of that and its accuracy and attention to detail made it a truly amazing film. So it can be done. But, in far-left Hollywood where the enemy in this world is the United States and nobody else, I don’t expect much accuracy in movies these days.
But, I think the American public can spot an inaccurate and biased movie a mile away. Just look at all of those Iraq war movies that came out (like “Rendition”) that were filled with such lies and were huge box office bombs. The American public may like to be entertained, but they are not stupid.
But we are way too gullible and quick to believe anything put before us in a slick manner. A short list of evidence:
* Support for the Global Warming Act in California -as if we have our own private atmosphere.
* Belief that Government spending on nonsensical things can revive the economy.
* Belief that the government can do anything well and cost effectively.
* Belief that Corporations and Businesses actually pay taxes and don’t pass the tab on to you and I, their customers.
* Belief that really rich people give a hoot about tax rates while in fact wealth is not taxed in this country.
* The AARP actually supported ObamaCare in spite of being told directly that older people will have to substitute an aspirin for that hip replacement they will eventually need.
* The OJ jury believed that if the cops mess up a crime scene enough, some unrelated person’s DNA can appear mistakenly out of the chaos
* They also believed that if something rhymes, it must be true.
The OJ jury’s motive was cowardice. When the DA put eight blacks on that jury he knew there could be no conviction. Facts notwithstanding, no jury member could send “the brother” to prison and then live safely in the ‘hood. The “trial” was an exercise in legal masturbation. The end result was a given.
But the system got him down the line, didn’t it? In spite of the amplified cowardice of both jury and DA.
I also think that another reason that all these liberal, lying, Hollywood movies bomb is that the “state” that all liberals love and worship makes a terrible hero. And what liberals find heroic in people,— lying, cheating, stealing for the cause, most people find repugnant.
So from a simple storytelling point of view, the audience can not identify with the “hero” in the liberal movie and thus, these movies all stink on ice.
The line about building “a larger truth” on a bunch of fabrications and lies is an old marxist agit-prop theory.
Some time ago Rigoberto Menchu got a Nobel in literature for a faked autobiography glorifying marxist revolutionary activity in Guatemala. When exposed as a massive fake, her first defense was exactly this canard. Of course she kept her Nobel and the money, too.
This crappy flick won’t get a Nobel, but it is of the same cloth and mindset of deception.
This sort of thing predates marxism. I’m writing a book about the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Most every researcher in this topic uses the Charles Upham book “Salem Witchcraft” published in 1867 (culminating about 20 years of work). Unfortunately, the 2-volume book is severely flawed in that Upham blended public records with local legend and his own opinions and labeled the whole thing “fact.” A LOT of period historians think he did this to exalt some and harm others; there is good evidence that he got Nathaniel Hawthorne fired from his job for going against the “story” Upham was telling.
Point is, this is neither liberal nor Marxist nor new. It is something that we all have to be vigilant against, and thank G-d the Internet makes fact-checking so much easier.
“A too-literal allegiance to the facts can sometimes obscure a larger truth,”
Of course, Ann (modestly enough) neglects to mention that it is only she and her fellow liberals that are able to grok the larger truth.
For the liberal cabal in DC, the absurdity known as Plamegate was about exposing the larger truth of BushHitler. Valerie and her story were purposely overly hyped and distorted in real time as the cabal was, literally, desperate to frogmarch Karl Rove. Dick Cheney, too.
The story was driven by JournoList-style fixation. (meanwhile, genuine Grade A perfidy is consistently ignored by the entrenched media)
“Ratified through repeated viewings in theaters, on Netflix and beyond, these films become a mutual exercise in creating a usable past.”
Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it.
Hitler & Goebbels understood that The Big Lie (repeated & repeated) was an easier sell than the Little Lie.
So, too, Sorel argued, the myth of socialism will continue to have power, despite the various failures of socialist experiments, so long as there are revolutionaries who are unwilling to relinquish their great myth.
When their wet dreams don’t come true, it is the facts that are wrong, not their preferred narrative.
Apparently, the brain doesn’t allow any part of the preferred myth to be challenged or amended, lest the entire belief system fall apart.
That’s why Barack Obama, unlike his Democrat predecessor, Bill Clinton, is unable to shift courses in response to that nasty thing known as reality.
Dogmatism at its most rigid.
To accept the principle that lying in a movie is OK to “convey a larger truth” is to justify lying outside of movies to “convey a larger truth.” That was the despicable excuse the potbangers of Duke University gave for hounding men falsely accused of rape. The result of this isn’t a widely deluded public which believes false ideas, but a solipsistic one which no longer believes the truth of anything.
That was the despicable excuse the potbangers of Duke University gave for hounding men falsely accused of rape.
One of my favorite or least favorite) quotes of all time was from Evan Thomas at Newsweek following the meltdown of the Duke case and the exposé of the fact that the dancer was lying.
“The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.”
The facts were wrong ! but the narrative of the black dancer exploited by rich white guys continued to be true!
And so, revealing that Richard Armitage was the leaker (and the leaker far in advance of the story becoming anything at all) would screw up the filmmaker’s preferred narrative.
The Academy Awards
One of the few times in life that average people get to watch ungodly people preform a genuinely nauseating display of self-worship.
It’s similar to watching children playing with dolls or toy soldiers. It is afterall pretend, Right? They give out awards for this?
Hollyweird is full of indoctrinated liberals who throughout their lives are taught to hate America first by their parents, and then their profs at institutions of “higher learning”, and lastly the movie industry. (It used to be 300,000 people in the industry but now Californians are leaving the state like rats on a sinking ship because of the total incompetence of the liberal leadership. Remember though, the Hollyweirders sure won’t be giving up (or paying taxes) on their off-shore trusts when this country is flowing down the toilet with two more years of “The Anointed One.” Maybe he could call the Rock’n’ rollers to help. Oh, sorry, I forgot, most of them are probably busy with those Aliester Crowley Satanic meetings and the sacrificial evening festivities. Then there are all the hundreds of sad stories. Doctors now say that the amount of bogus prescriptions among celebrities and their children are staggering. Unfortunately, unless something is done soon, it won’t be long until we add another name to the list that already includes Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger and now Corey Haim.
So where are the real hero’s in Hollyweird?
I have some simple advice. You want to meet a real hero so you can figure out what kind of movie to make? Go talk to the three Navy SEALs who faced assault charges for capturing one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq.
Remember, when it comes to Hollyweird: There is no space as vacant as that of an actor without a script in their hand
As long as the left has a stranglehold on Hollywood and its brain-dead, glitterati lemmings, we will continue to see this sort of popaganda foisted onto a mostly ignorant public, which has already been dumbed-down by the Left Wing Media.
You can help change this but – amazingly – Driscoll hasn’t bothered to mention how.
Go to Declaration Entertainment and join.
But what audiences often fail to take into account is that a too-literal allegiance to the facts can sometimes obscure a larger truth.
Such as the larger truths exposed to the world in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or the stories of Evil Joooos murdering Christian children to use their blood in Passover matzoh.
Okay …
Yet another lefty movie that will bomb at the box office. Will they ever learn?
Alas, your statement should have been “Yet another lefty movie that will bomb at the American box office.”
These days less than half the profits come from domestic audiences; most movies are made with an eye for how they will play in foreign markets. Overseas audiences won’t know or care whether the facts are accurate, they’ll just know that even the Americans are saying that Americans are corrupt and evil.
You make a very important point. I live in Europe and have often observed that anti-Americanism is a major American export. The liberal narrative about domestic events is faithfully reproduced in the media, Michael Moore has sold more books over there than over here and these movies all get a second life on tv and dvd. Once I used amazon.fr and amazon.de to see who writes about US policy and which American political books and opinions get translated and which don´t. The result shows that left-wing voices have almost a monopoly.
Yet another lefty movie that will bomb at the box office. Will they ever learn?
Alas, your statement should have been “Yet another lefty movie that will bomb at the American box office.”
These days less than half of the movie industry’s profits come from domestic audiences, and most movies are made with an eye for how they will play in foreign markets. Overseas audiences won’t know or care whether the facts are accurate, they’ll just know that even the Americans are saying that Americans are corrupt and evil.
Whoops! How did that happen?
Good. God. Does Ann Harnaday’s brain have too much time on its hands?
Where have I seen and heard this kind of thought process before . . . . ? O yes, back in the benighted 60′s, among people sitting on the floor of a seedy apartment, sharing a joint and some cheap, awful wine.
All I had to do was catch part of a trailer for this movie, see that Sean Penn was in it, and I could tell it was a total escape from reality.
The bottom line, Rev.21.8, is that all liars will burn forever in Hell. There they will be free to rewrite history as they wish; except without pen or audience.
The notion that the facts belie a “larger truth” is insane, and criminal.
Now, why does the name Rigoberta Menchú leap to mind? Oh, I know. It’s because the left offered up the same lame rationalizations when her autobiography turned out to be largely fiction. We have to understand that in certain quarters, when “fact” gets in the way of “truth,” “fact” must necessarily be dispensed with. Congrats to Hornaday, though; this one’s a classic in its genre.
I just followed the link and discovered that Sean Penn is playing Joe Wilson. It just doesn’t get any better than that.
Quote from mid 60′s regarding activist songs and plays:
“If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”
Some of those activist songs were even worse than Rap.
Good. God. Does Ann Harnaday’s brain have too much time on its hands?
Good. God. Does Ann Harnaday’s intestinal tract have too much time on its hands?
FIFY.