Recent Comments
Re: “NYFF 2011: Play”
For extra-super-duper calrification (though I think what I wrote is clear enough) ...
It's Ostlund's apologia that is "disingenuous crap."
Re: “NYFF 2011: Play”
"In other words, he’s depicting—without overt comment—a group of minorities utilizing stereotypes of minorities to intimidate others without actually falling into the real-life role of Thuggish Black Youth, nor is the film suggesting any such thing and it’s your fault if you think that."
Oh what disingenuous crap.
For one thing, stealing from kids IS thuggish, so saying that the African kids aren't falling into the "real-life role" is simply false.
Second, "playing on stereotypical images" ... to do what? To intimidate/guilt-trip. But how does such "playing" do that? Look at it this way -- if, let's say, a black American in the 1920s were to "play on stereotypical images," what would he gain from it? The answer is "nothing" of course -- an actually racist society would slap him down with a good conscience. Their success presupposes politically-correct paralysis and thus Ostlund's claim in no way rebuts either of your two correspondents (who seem to be saying the same thing, albeit from opposite perspectives).
Third, one of the ways political-correctness operates (and poisons society) is *exactly* this scenario of the "Marginalized" using their "Victim Status" to coerce favors from a guilt-ridden broader society that thinks it has no moral standing to say "no" to them. "Marginalization" or "oppressed" designation becomes its own form of power, in other words.
