For last Sunday's paper, I wrote a quasi-humorous column about politics and this year's Oscars. Here's a link:
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grpress/index.ss
f?/base/entertainment-1/1141558018119930.xml&coll=
6
Anyway, it prompted this letter from a reader:
Dear Mr. Serba:
You poor dear. I hadn't realized that this was your very first year watching
movies of any kind. What handicap you've been laboring under!
If you had watched any films made, say, in the past 90 years or so, you
would realize that many, many films are political in nature, and have been
at many, many points in history. However, movies have been a particularly
popular venue for speaking out against dictators who, for example, start
wars for untruthful reason, allow cities to be destroyed without issuing
aid, condone torture, and heedlessly and deliberately break laws regarding
the rights of citizens-just to name a few administrative atrocities. If you
study any films from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" to "The Manchurian
Candidate," to "All the Presidents' Men" and then study the times in which
they were made, you'll actually see a connection! I'm so sorry to break it
to you that yours is not a new idea, and this is far from the first year in
which political movies have dominated the Academy Awards ceremony.
But then, you've clearly got lots of catching up to do.
In the meantime, I'd like to inquire about your use of the phrase
"unapologetic liberal." For what, exactly, do liberals have to apologize?
Please remember that liberals are the only force right now standing to
defend your First Amendment right to publish shallow, unfunny, unresearched
pablum like your column this Sunday. You might want to think about the
application of the phrase "unapologetic conservative" instead-they appear to
have lots of 'splaining to do.
Sincerely,
Kate Wheeler |
