The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    The Legend of Tarzan: An Amazing Movie

    By Orion on Tue, 04/19/2022 - 7:34pm |

    I thought the review for this Legend of Tarzan movie was excellent:

    And then, of course, the bottom dropped out, for obvious reasons: Tarzan was such a racist product of such a racist time, that after the civil rights movement and the breakdown of the British empire, it became harder for mass audiences to enjoy the kind of deeply un-reflexive white supremacy that the character represented. To call the character “racist” is to state the painfully obvious: In the original books, the name “Tarzan” literally means “White Skin,” and the zest and righteousness with which he kills Africans is such an organic part of the character that, if you took the racism away, there wouldn’t be much left.

    There is a lot of criticism of "woke" cinema and books but there was so much more depth to this movie than the critics realize. Tarzan is ashamed of his past, sure, but George Washington Williams is portrayed as ignorant, arrogant and weak, unable to keep up in the jungles and tundras of Africa. The African tribe that a young Tarzan was in conflict with is depicted as treasonous, giving in to Belgian colonizers.

    The movie was brilliant and was far from just a simple rebuttal of the tired racist Tarzan trope. I would go so far as to say that there is far more depth to wokeism than people fully realize, and it represents an attempt to revitalize the traditional canon as opposed to replacing it, as the like of Tucker Carlson would have us believe.

    Comments

    Tucker who?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 12:34am


    by Orion on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 2:56am

    Uh, how'd we elide off Tarzan & Tucker?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 9:38am

    Intellectual acid trip.


    by Orion on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 11:14am

    that IS a good quote about Tucker, a useful reminder that he started out with a milquetoast sensible conservative brand! then when Trumpism came along, he supported it, likely because his audience thought this Trump thing was new and exciting, own the crazy liberal culture warriors with Trump shtick. but Trump turned out crazy too and now he's stuck defending really loony Trump shit. The thing is, now every time he makes big news by turning libs into screaming mimis, his audience likes that.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 12:02pm

    p.s. as long as he is profitable - where the Depends commercials keep coming in - Murdoch Inc. will keep him. Too many on the left get Murdoch Inc. wrong, they sell infotainment, that's it, that's the whole thing. If it's not profitable, out it goes-Bill O'Reilly was losing his advertisers, that's when it was over for him. Libs screaming over their programming, that makes that audience tune in more. And when it could really hurt the whole financial foundation - like too much emphasis on overturning the election around Jan. 6 - it's only then that the kibosh comes down from on high. Other than that, if you're profitable, you stay. Milquetoast conservative is pretty boring, no fireworks to watch.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 12:14pm

    I threw Tucker in there because I thought it more likely y'all would want to talk about that.

    I had to write this because the reviews of the movie did not understand it at all. It depicts a Tarzan who felt regret over killing an African boy, sure, but it also depicted Samuel L. Jackson's character as clueless, lazy, ignorant and reckless to the point that Tarzan choked him out while he was talking nonsense. It depicted the African chiefs as collaborating with colonials for their own selfish gain. It was an all around nuanced and accurate movie and the critics reviewing it didn't get that at all.


    by Orion on Sat, 04/23/2022 - 3:11pm

    More about Africa:


    by Orion on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 11:16am