Protests, propaganda, and false narratives

Narratives give definition and structure to our stories, both in fiction and in life; they can also deceive us and teach us false truths. An object lesson in wariness is unfolding right now. According to news reports, protestors yesterday have attacked U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya. In Benghazi, an American ambassador and at least three others were murdered. In Cairo, the U.S. flag was torn to shreds and replaced with a flag with the traditional Muslim prayer, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet.” So far, these facts appear to be undisputed. What is more provocative (and more relevant to this blog) is that a causal link has been made between these attacks and a film made by an Israeli-American filmmaker. The film is ironically titled The Innocence of Muslims, and it is a broadside against Islam.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ☕ d. David Fincher, 2011

Last year, I published a review of the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; I also published a defense of remakes.  As my review of Män som hatar kvinnor made clear, I did not like the original film; as my discussion of remakes made clear, I have nothing against remakes in principle.  My fear was that David Fincher’s remake would essentially be beneath his talent, which would make it pointless primarily in the sense that an already-odious story was bequeathed an unearned aura of respectability by an artist that should, by now, have developed the sense to do better things with his time.  Since initially publishing those thoughts back in March 2011, another factor developed that I had not anticipated.

Breivik and temptations to violence

While I was station-surfing the radio on the way to work on Friday, I caught about five minutes of American conservative Michael Medved’s show.  His guest was Susan Brooks Thislethwaite, who writes a religion column for The Washington Post.  The subject was her column, “When Christianity becomes lethal,” a response to the Anders Breivik massacre, and Medved specifically highlighted the following paragraph:

When I consider the theological perspectives that “tempt” some Christians to justify hatred and even violence against others, such as, in this case in Norway, the following perspectives seem especially prevalent: 1) making supremacist claims that Christianity is the “only” truth; 2) holding the related view that other religions are not merely wrong, but “evil” and “of the devil”; 3) being highly selective in the use of biblical literalism, for example ignoring the justice claims of the prophets and using biblical texts that seem to justify violence; 4) identifying Christianity with a dominant race and/or nation; 5) believing that violence is divinely justified to “cleanse” or “purify” as in a “holy war”; and 6) believing the end of the world is at hand.

Why parents (and everyone else) should be glad SCOTUS ruled in favor of violent video games

Castlevania isn't one of the most violent video games, but it among the most likely to send you into a murderous rage.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States of America issued its ruling in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (08-1448), deciding in a vote of 7-2 that the state of California was out of line in passing legislation that would penalize merchants for selling violent games to minors.  This is a case I’ve been following for about a year.  A while back, I wrote an article for Playtime that ruminated on the implications of this law, but the first draft was a mess, and I never gathered up the gumption to go back and revise it, so it was never published.  Happily, the majority opinion went the right way, and mostly for all the right reasons.  Even more happily, Justice Antonin Scalia and the concurring justices marshaled way more facts and citations than I did.  The main point that I had wanted to make was that a lot of people from across the ideological spectrum like to legislate morality in ways that run counter to the principles of liberty that Americans, in theory, hold dear.  And they like to justify these intrusions by that most manipulative of plaintive wails: “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”

Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women) ☕ d. Niels Arden Oplev, 2009

Confession time: the primary reason I’m logging my thoughts about the 2009 adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (as it’s known in English-speaking countries) on my blog now is because I want to have a reference for later, when the David Fincher version comes out.  I’m one of those fascinated-by-the-process apologists who refuses to get my knickers in a twist every time a movie I like is remade.  Part of it is exhaustion.  It’s very tiring to get thoroughly worked up every time Hollywood decides to “screw up” a beloved “classic.”  Because it happens a lot.  Then there’s the fact that sometimes — once in a very rare while — the remake is superior to the original.  If not superior, sometimes interesting as a failure.  Or just interesting because it’s substantially different.  Or interesting to see how a film can be redone, nearly shot for shot, for no other purpose than the fact that lazy, American audiences are too stupid and lazy to read subtitles.  Or the fact that lazy, American studios and distributors don’t bother to market foreign or older films very aggressively.