[...]neo-neocon » Blog Archive » Juno’s heart of tin[...]…

Of course, some of the posturing of the art world today is foolish in the extreme, and I hate it as much as anyone else. I deplore the lack of craftsmanship, and the loss of reverence for the ‘art object,’ but I will always defend the young artist’s right make as big a mistake as he wants because, as with all innovation, you never know where the next great art form will emerge.”

- Desmond Morris

‘Cuz being a cosseted little lefty, you know all about being a soldier….

Excellent post!

A further analysis:

First, even if we for the sake of argument accept all films as art… an artist depicts what he perceives. Just as you are continually coloring my arguments with your ideas of what you think I must be trying to say, an artist’s work will be colored by his own view of the world. In the case of Hollywood, the overwhelming majority of liberalism among producers, directors, writers and actors in that community means that the liberal mind-set will color most of their products, even if unintentionally.

Second, your argument rests on the erroneous assumption that all filmmakers are “artists.” If you re-read the quotes I took from the Verhoeven fan site, you will find that he definitely made “Starship Troopers” as a STATEMENT, and not as ART. So, in addition to the more general “liberal tinting” of most Hollywood products, some products are quite blatant in their bias. Coming from the most powerful media empire on the planet, this constitutes a program of propaganda, even if it is unintentional.

Whether it is entirely unintentional is another argument.

Actually, you’re trying very hard to shoe-horn what I write into your own preconceived notions of what a conservative MUST believe–as demonstrated by the fact that my “all of them” became “all Arabs” (among other points) in your rebuttals.
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“Derrida was famously reluctant to ever provide an actual definition of what “deconstruction” was, despite being its “father.”

I would posit that it CANNOT be accurately defined, because it is a linguistically nonsensical word based in a non-philosophy. Just food for thought.
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“Again, I refer you to Derrida’s Plato’s Pharmacy. He explains it a lot better than I could.”

It really doesn’t require much explanation. Just point me to the Greek/English lexicon wherein “pharmakon” is defined as “poison.”
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“The scientific method is certainly the most valid within the context of modern civilization, and it certainly produces results, but results don’t confer “legitimacy.”

Again, you are putting words in my mouth; I never mentioned “legitimacy.” Seriously, this goes a lot smoother if you respond to what people say, rather than what you want them to have said.
I’m not going argue the merits of ancient Chinese animal-categorization versus biological taxonomy. It is only one example in the basic argument of valuation: Every system of thought prior to the scientific method began with a particular view of the universe, and then described how phenomena fit into that worldview (which is why Chinese classifications were acceptable to Chinese people). The scientific method, per se, does not offer a world-view; it attempts to falsify individual hypotheses and constructs models from the results.
The models thus obtained can be continually refined–or rejected–by future experimentation, thereby providing better and better predictive data. This may not lend “legitimacy,” but its VALIDITY is pretty much a tautology.
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“Good for you! Except that Heidegger was explicit, as I said, that he was using the term Destruktion to refer only to ontological vocabulary.”

With seven years of Latin, “easy for me” would be more appropriate. And Heidegger wrote in German; “Destruktion” in German becomes “destruction” in English. “Deconstruction” was the result of Derrida’s combination of mis-guided attempt to deal with philosophy free from “traditional ideas” (that is, intelligible language) and a rather tragic lack of understanding regarding the nature of Latin prefixes.
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“Ambiguity! Double-Plus-Ungood! Alert the People’s Committee for Ideological Purity in Entertainment!

If your litmus test for ideological purity in propaganda pro-American sentiment in film is that villains are never, not even for a moment, depicted in any way that might show them as more than merely monsters and that might humanize them in any small way, then you really are demanding that art be reduced to propaganda.”

Again, with the bias. I have been trying for a dozen posts to explain that “The Kingdom” ends with a position of of moral equivalence; now that you finally accept that it exists (sort of–you use “ambiguity”), you insist that I MUST BE searching for some sort of “ideological purity.”
Please argue with me, and not your own prejudices.
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“…as is Full Metal Jacket – both movies do a service to soldiers by showing how shitty their jobs can be…”

Before we get into whether “Full Metal Jacket” was a pro-military movie, perhaps you could point out the SOLDIERS in it? I don’t recall seeing any.
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“To expect (or want) movies to have as their Raison d’etre the propagation of a certain idea, and to privilege the promotion of that idea over the art itself, is to expect (or want) propaganda.”

Man, Leni Riefenstahl would’ve LOVED you!

Movies do in fact present their own moral universe, some context within which choices are made. When the model presented seems that it would lead people to make wrong choices – when it calls what is bad good and what is good bad, then I think it is rightly criticized. Stories are how we understand ourselves and our lives.

This disagreement goes back farther than Plato, so I don’t think we will resolve it here.

False!

To one who practices deconstruction, or at least believes that the practice has validity, then a work can only “privilege a point of view” if the reader/viewer privileges it. Derrida’s point was that a work is ambiguous – a film can “privilege a point of view” (it sort of has to or…where’s the film? the plot has to be about something) but cannot be “read” in only one way.

It’s sort of like Sartre’s claim that existence is a priori meaningless until we give it meaning ourselves. An author might intend a work to mean something, but that doesn’t mean that a work necessarily “has” that meaning, and only that meaning.

But, then again: the conversation about deconstruction is sort of tangential to the discussion about movies. My point is: artists make art because they’re artists; it’s sort of a reflex. To expect (or want) movies to have as their Raison d’etre the propagation of a certain idea, and to privilege the promotion of that idea over the art itself, is to expect (or want) propaganda.

Then there’s Gibson’s We Were Soldiers.

Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot is both profoundly pro-military and profoundly anti-war (as is Full Metal Jacket – both movies do a service to soldiers by showing how shitty their jobs can be).

Though I haven’t seen it yet (an oversight on my part), I’ve heard good things about The Thin Red Line. Just added it to Netflix!

The Patriot, another Gibson film and a total stinker, is about as pro-American as you can get (the British only lacked baby-eating and swastikas to really round out their villainy).

Zulu and, to a lesser extent, Zulu Dawn are, in contrast, rather pro-British Empire.

The Hornblower series is a rather ripping tail of the Napoleonic Wars.

Gallipoli? Gibson loves playing soldier!

Red Dawn! Wolverines!

K-19: The Widowmaker was a dour little movie, but interesting.

Ridley Scott: you’ll probably hate these depictions of soldiers, as they’re depicted as real human beings replete with flaws, but if you’re looking for more than propaganda, then definitely see Blackhawk Down, Gladiator, and Kingdom of Heaven (his best).

Um…I’m sure there are more. Start with those.

One of these is wrong.