Hollywood loves a remake. It makes a good bit of sense, really. Take a known and beloved property and breathe new life into it. It’s a low risk way to create a potential blockbuster, after all.
Couple it with a known and well-liked entity like Bruce Willis, and it has real potential to be a hit.
None of that matters to the social justice jihadis, however. They’re already using descriptive terms for it like “fascist” and “racist.” All from a trailer that shows a pile of white people being shot by Willis.
The most amusing part, for me at least, is how they’re reportedly upset by how Bruce Willis is dressed. From The Daily Wire:
One obvious factor stirring up all these crybabies is the decision to put vigilante Paul Kersey (Willis) in a hoodie as he hunts himself down some street thugs. As we all know, after the justified self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman, the hoodie (which Martin was wearing at the time of his death) is now an iconic symbol embraced by social justice warriors.
Basically, in the hopes of elevating Martin into a leftwing martyr, the Left and their media allies portrayed the Hispanic Zimmerman as a blood-thirsty white guy hunting down young black men in hoodies. And there is no question that Roth’s decision to use this symbol is intentional and deliberately (and deliciously) provocative.
I’d argue about there being no question on the use of a hoodie being intentional and deliberate. Instead, it’s possible that Willis is wearing a hoodie for the same reason people often look suspicious for wearing hoodies: They can obscure one’s identity to a degree. As Willis is playing a vigilante, he would want to be as difficult to identify as humanly possible, and a hoodie is a practical way to do that.
It should be noted that while The Daily Wire’s post provides examples of people screaming racism and fascism on the movie, there are no examples cited for the hoodie being a point of contention. Not that they don’t exist, only that writer John Nolte didn’t include any.
For your amusement, I’ll include a few just in case there were any doubts.
#DeathWish https://t.co/EOAPITF9Hd Funny how an old white dude in a hoodie killing ppl is a hero, but a black kid w/skittles is a thug. #NRA
— Annie (@annieLeBananie) August 3, 2017
Eli Roth’s DEATH WISH: old white dude shoots a bunch of black people in the name of justice while wearing a hoodie. All set to AC/DC. Jesus.
— Jacob Knight (@JacobQKnight) August 3, 2017
It’s not just the crowd on Twitter with butthurt over this either.
In the updated version, Paul, now an emergency room surgeon in Chicago, is played by none other than Bruce Willis. Chicago, Donald Trump’s favorite city to disseminate lies about, is the new location. That’s just one of the many unsettling elements on display. Another is the vigilante’s uniform: a hoodie. Black people wearing hoodies have always been subject to racism (which is why it’s so powerful that it’s Luke Cage’s uniform) as we saw with the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman—who, by the way, was a self-appointed vigilante. Willis adopting the hoodie feels like a nasty reminder of the depths of white impunity. Also, I suppose I’m not really into a white man running around in any kind of hood imposing his vision of justice.
Folks, Trayvon Martin wasn’t gunned down by a vigilante. Yeah, he was followed by a fool who was trying to do the police’s job, but Martin then turned and attacked Zimmerman — a man of Hispanic descent, it should be pointed out — by repeatedly trying to bash Zimmerman’s head into the concrete, something that caused the man to fear for his life. Trayvon Martin wasn’t shot because he was black, he was shot because he was assaulting a man who thought the guy was going to kill him.
Further, the hoodie isn’t a Trayvon Martin uniform. It existed long before him, and it’ll exist long after almost everyone has forgotten his name.
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