Day: January 29, 2020

It hit me today that there are probably millions of Millennials and Zoomers who don’t know (or care) anything about who former Georgia governor Lester Maddox was or the origin of Randy Newman‘s “Rednecks.” Well, here’s a primer.

N.Y. Times, 12.19.70: “In a huff, Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia walked out of a taping of the Dick Cavett Show last night after demanding that [Cavett] apologize for a remark about Maddox’s white supporters.

“Cavett was paraphrasing a question asked during a break in the show by Jim Brown, the black actor, who wanted to know if Governor Maddox had ‘any trouble with the white bigots because of all the things you did for blacks.’ On the air, Mr. Cavett substituted ‘admirers’ for ‘bigots.’

[HE interjection: Maddox’s rep was that of a staunch segregationist — there was absolutely no ambiguity about this.]

The Governor, saying the implication was that his supporters were bigots, demanded an apology.

“’If I called any of your admirers bigots who are not bigots, I apologize,’ Cavett said.

“Maddox rose and, after another exchange, left the stage with 10 minutes of the program remaining.”

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“Dee Rees‘ adaptation of Joan Didion‘s novel is an incomprehensible slog that serves as an embarrassment for everyone involved.” — Collider‘s Matt Goldberg, filed on 1.28.

“An incoherent mess of the highest order. Rees is in over her head here with her narrative. Is it her fault? Not entirely. Some of the tracking shots she produces in this film are fantastic. No, the film’s flaws have actually more to do with the screenplay and editing, which isolate the viewer in trying to follow the Byzantine plot. The Last Thing He Wanted will be quickly forgotten after it premieres on Netflix February 3rd.” — World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, ditto.

There are dozens of things to hate or feel irked by in this Birds of Prey trailer, but my principal objection is to Margot Robbie‘s extra-arch, super-meta, over-considered performing style. The tone of Cathy Yan’s film, “the first DCEU film and the second DC Films production to be rated R”, is obviously at odds with the downbeat noirish impressionism in Joker. Costarring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong and Ewan McGregor. Opens eight days hence, just around the corner.

Bernie Sanders’ recent poll surges have me worried and thinking something I never thought I’d admit to myself, much less post in this column. I’m deathly afraid of what might happen if the devotional blues, Bernie Bros and under-30s manage to enable Bernie to capture the Democratic nomination. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but for all his gaffes, droolings, weaknesses and vulnerabilities I want Joe Biden to beat Bernie.

And I really don’t feel much enthusiasm for Joe. Does anyone?

I realize that my favorite guy, Pete Buttigieg, is done, but I’m furious that the race has come down to this. Neither of these geezers has that magic-wandy current. People don’t want a crusty Democratic socialist trying (and almost certainly failing) to push through Medicare For All — they just want a return to sanity and normality. Buttigieg could be that “normal” but he’s been gored so many times by African Americans and the progressive left that it’s a miracle he’s still standing.

I agree with Bernie for the most part. People want change. I would love to see this country turn into Finland. But I’m terrified of what’s happening now.

From “Democrats court doom by backing Bernie Sanders,” a 1./29 USA Today piece by Matt Bennett and Lanae Erickson:

Subhead: “[Sanders’] ideas are toxic outside blue America. He’s never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows his brand is a flop in red and purple states.

Excerpt: “Sanders has never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows that his ideas are politically toxic. Yet a week before primary voting begins, he is surging in Iowa, New Hampshire and California.

“Democrats now face a monumental choice. Deciding which presidential candidate should go head to head with Donald Trump is the paramount political calculation of our lifetimes.

“In the past, when Sanders has declared himself and his ideas to be ‘winners’ in red and purple areas, it has turned out to be demonstrably false. Democrats must not be fooled by him now.

Plus: “Don’t ignore reality: Democrats need to face facts about Bernie Sanders, his heart attack and his health.”

Rightwing outrage has gone viral about yesterday’s briefly hilarious CNN discussion between Don Lemon, Majahat Ali and Republican strategist and author Rick Wilson, which I also linked to yesterday.

Earth to rightwing asshats: Your stupid, self-destructive, bull-headed support of a sociopathic authoritarian crime-family president does confirm (or at the very least strongly signifies) an embrace of ignorance, idiocy and negative anti-urban, anti-awareness tribalism. You’re not wrong to loathe the politically correct Stalinist left but otherwise there is such a thing as bumblefuckery.

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Yes, I’m confessing to somehow not paying sufficient attention to the ever-evolving, shape-shifting American vocabulary and thereby missing the emergence of “zoomer,” which is a much better term for GenZ-ers than GenZ. Freshly coined terms are almost always alive and pulsing before the Merriam Webster researchers get hold of them, but the following MW update was only posted six days ago. It also claims that “zoomer” dates back to 2016 so double my fine.

Go to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and ask yourself, “Who am I? What am I? Am I a person of passion and conviction — a heartfelt Movie Catholic whose life has meaning because of the industry I love and work for — or am I just a go-alonger whose primary longing in life is to swim with the other fishies and thereby feel safe and secure?”

“Starting in about 2005, the number of democracies around the world began to fall, as it had in the 1930s. Authoritarians rose to power: Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Donald J. Trump in the United States.

“American democracy in the 21st century is withering.

“The Democracy Index rates a hundred and sixty-seven countries, every year, on a scale that ranges from ‘full democracy’ to ‘authoritarian regime.’ In 2006, the U.S. was a ‘full democracy,’ the seventeenth most democratic nation in the world. In 2016, the index for the first time rated the United States a ‘flawed democracy,’ and since then American democracy has gotten only more flawed.

“True, the United States still doesn’t have a Rome or a Berlin to march on. That hasn’t saved the nation from misinformation, tribalization, domestic terrorism, human-rights abuses, political intolerance, social-media mob rule, white nationalism, a criminal President, the nobbling of Congress, a corrupt Presidential Administration, assaults on the press, crippling polarization, the undermining of elections, and an epistemological chaos that is the only air that totalitarianism can breathe.”

— excerpted from a New Yorker piece titled “The Last Time Democracy Almost Died — Learning from the upheaval of the 1930s,” written by Jill Lepore and posted on 1.27.20.