Come on, Bricker. You’re completely and utterly begging the question here.
And so, since turnabout is fair play, I’ll assert categorically that any reviewer (or just plain viewer) who presented a viewpoint similar to Coulter’s “synopsis” is ipso facto irrational. Hence, no rational people agree with Coulter. Prove me wrong, I dare ya!
And the Award for “Most Proactive Attempt at the No True Scotsman Argument” goes to Gorsnak.
:golf clap:
Regards,
Shodan
Gosh, I don’t know what to say. I never expected to win. I’d like to thank the SDMB for making these posts possible. I’d like to thank Sampiro for starting this thread. Without him I never could have done it. And most of all I’d like to thank Bricker for providing such brilliant material to play off of. I love you guys. Thank you! Thank you so much!
You know, Shodan, you really are fucking brainless. My utterly contentless and invalid “argument” was intended to highlight the similar lack of content in Bricker’s “argument” in this thread, and not to convince anyone of anything in its own right. But you managed to completely miss the point. That really is a rare talent you have.
Jonah Goldberg.
Ben Shapiro.
Emmett Tyrrell.
Stewart Ain.
Leon Wieseltier.
Except that the two are not similar. If I list only one movie reviewer, I concede you may argue he’s not reasonable. If I list two unrelated reviewers, it becomes less likely that both are unreasonable. With each unrelated reviewer I can add to the list, the burden shifts more strongly to you to prove their unjoint lack of reason.
Come on. We’re not going to take your word for it. You know you have to devlop a three part test to determine what a “reasonable viewer” would conclude. 
Those ‘reasonable’ reviewers you name specifically interpret Munich to be saying that the fallen athletes “had it coming,” Bricker?
First of all, you list didn’t exist when I made my post. Please don’t pretend that it did.
Second, you’ve got a completely explicit argumentum ad populum going here. I realize that you want to run it as a “as sample of population grows in size, the probability of all members of that sample being irrational rapidly diminishes”, but that’s sadly not going to cut it. The problem here is that given a certain social situation, it’s entirely probable that vast swathes of society can make the same irrational mistake. That’s why argumentum ad populum is a fallacy. Consider my hypothetical lynching movie. If it were made, I think you’ll agree that it’s extremely likely that large numbers of (mostly liberal) individuals and groups would revile it for its sympathetic portrayal of the lyncher. That wouldn’t make it an unreasonable or inaccurate portrayal.
As a general rule, people don’t like to face up to the fact that underneath it all, most people are not all that different, and under certain circumstances most of us are reasonably likely to commit some fairly heinous actions. (see for example the Milgram experiments, or the Stanford prison experiment) So when a movie portrays a bad person as someone not all that different from you or me, we tend to get upset. Okay, that’s an understandable reaction. That’s largely what’s going on in this particular case. I think by and large it’s unhealthy, because it prevents a proper understanding of things. It leads to knee-jerk us vs. them responses. And it’s a simple denial of reality. But I do think it’s an understandable reaction, and it’s what I expect to see when I google up the links for the reviews of these people you’ve so kindly listed without any links. And which list didn’t exist when I said you’d provided no argument, mind.
However, this unhappiness with humanizing villains IS NOT THE SAME THING AS SAYING THAT THE VICTIMS OF THESE VILLAINS HAD IT COMING. Is that really so difficult to grasp? Is it really so hard to see why it’s offensive to conflate the two statements?
Are you aware that not one of these names belongs to a movie critic? This is a list of right-wing columnists and bloggers. Like I said above- demagogues.
Even so, can you actually produce a quotation from these “reasonable movie critics” (who are neither reasonable nor movie critics) who specifically made a claim that the movie pusjes a message that the Munich athletes deserved to get murdered.
(A suggestion of moral ambiguity about the Israeli response is not the same as saying the athletes deserved to be murdered)
Far be it from me to cast aspersions on the reasonableness of those listed, but I should note that none of them are film critics. I have no reason to believe they are familiar with the language of cinematography. They are, as has been observed, noted demagogues who have a vested financial interest in castigating ‘Liberal’ Hollywood.
Oddly enough, after googling these names along with ‘review’ and ‘munich’ I get a bunch of articles (none of which are reviews) furious with Spielberg for portraying the counterterrorists as “morally equivalent” with the terrorists. They’ve all very fond of the phrase (well, except for Tyrrell’s, whose “review” I was unable to find and hence cannot comment on). Not a single one of them mentioned anything about the Israeli athletes “having it coming,” nor did I even get the impression that the authors were very likely to make that particular leap.
What did jump out at me is that none of them seemed to be all that unhappy with the terrorists not being portrayed as bad guys. They all seemed much more unhappy with the counterterrorists not being portrayed as good guys. That general trend makes me think that “Jew athletes had it coming” isn’t being seen as the message of the movie even by right-wing pundits who are very unhappy with what they do see as the message of the movie.
Since this appears, on the surface, to be more of the usual bullshit from someone who nevertheless maintains a touching Bushlike belief in his own righteousness, let’s take a look, shall we?
Harsh, but calling someone a soldier hardly equates to saying he deserves to die, as you would have us believe, not thinking anyone would actually call you on a lie. One might think you’d know better, hmm?
But let us proceed, on the off chance that you might actually have a valid, fact-based point:
But that’s what he goes on to do, unfortunately NOT mentioning the athletes. Sorry, Bricker. Here in Laymanland, that’s called “you’re making shit up again”.
That’s as close as he gets to even mentioning the athletes. Looks like another Bricker lie.
Not even a mention of the athletes, only a rejection of what he sees as Spielberg’s portrayal of moral equivalency.
Why the hell do you even bother? Do you really have such a low opinion of your fellow Dopers as to think this shit works?
There are two kinds of Israelis in Munich : cruel Israelis with remorse and cruel Israelis without remorse
That’s as close as he comes to mentioning the athletes, either. Which kind of Jew were they, again?
There’s plenty of stuff making Ain’s complaint about Spielberg, but not a fucking thing about saying ‘the athletes deserved to die’.
Do you ever try such silly lies in your profession? :rolleyes:
Wait just a second.
Nowhere do I say that any reviewers wrote, “The Jews had it coming.” What I said was that many reviewers said the message of the film was that the terrorists were not bad guys, and that THAT message is what Coulter distilled as “The Jews had it coming.”
Ah, see, here’s the disconnect. “The terrorists are not bad guys” is in no way equivalent to “the Jews had it coming.” And you should know better than to think it is.
Yet another lie.
Then you’re the idiot, and not them. Sorry to have to break the news to you. The two statements are in no way equivalent. And to be honest, I don’t know where you’re getting “the terrorists were not bad guys” from in those articles. They’re not bitching about that. They’re bitching about the counterterrorists not being unambiguous good guys. Did you even read them?
I should also point out that “The Jews had it coming” is a very friendly rephrasing of Coulter’s “Jew athletes had it coming”, as the former (1) recasts ‘Jew’ in a less offensive usage, and (2) suggests that a meaning closer to “Israel should have expected some sort of attack” (arguable for certain characterizations of ‘expect’ and ‘some sort of attack’) and further from “the Israeli athletes in Munich deserved to be murdered” (ludicrous and offensive).
Let’s review:
I don’t see how this could be interpreted as anything but an assertion on your part that a.) a reasonable conclusion could be drawn from the film that Spielberg intended to convey a message that the victims at Munich deserved to be murdered and b.) that “several reasonable reviewers” had reached that conclusion.
You seem to be backing off the first assertion (in which case you’d also have to be admitting that Coulter was wrong in her characterization of the film). As to the second assertion, you have not produced a single movie reviewer who has drawn this conclusion. Just so there’s no ambiguity about what you meant by “reviewer,” you also said this:
You have not cited a single person “who is paid to review movies” who has drawn the same conclusion as Coulter. You have offered a list of political demagogues but not even any of them has drawn the same conclusion as Coulter.
You really haven’t been in top form lately, Bricker. Your sophistry used to be much harder to spot.
It’s not quite that black and white, and I tend to agree more with **Bricker **that Coulter’s one-liner is not signficantly different than what Michael Medved (who is a film critic, although admitedly a conservative one) said:
IOW, the focus is on the cycle of violence, rather than on who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. In that sense, Coulter’s summary of the “Jew athletes” having it coming to them is another way of saying that violence begets violence.
Having said that, I don’t see what’s so “wrong” about Pitting Coulter over this. After all, her article is essentially a Pitting of Hollywood, so what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. And frankly I agree with **Sampiro **that AC should expect others to take her quote out of context and fling it back at her, since she is the Diva of the Out-of-Context quote. (Not saying this thread is doing that, but that future editorial writers probably will.)