A couple thoughts about Easterbrook and his column.
Even after that apology, I’m still a little confused about this: what exactly makes members of an ethnic group that has been a target of predjudice and horrific violence over thousands of years especially responsible to make sure they behave better than anyone else? What would make anyone think that?
I do sympathize with Easterbrook’s difficulty in explaining his words. While the usual celebrity or sports figure who comes out with something bigoted or otherwise profoundly offensive in an interview can simply claim they were misquoted or taken out of context, how much more difficult it must be when you actually wrote the whole piece? I guess saying “I mangled my words” is the best you can do. Kind of conjures up an image of Easterbrook rolling over in bed and accidentally mashing the column.
And lastly, it’s not as if a bunch of criticism (some with highly anti-Semitic overtones) hasn’t been leveled in the past few years at “Jewish studio executives”, over the issuing of “Last Temptation of Christ”, distribution of Mel Gibson’s movie etc.
Maybe Easterbrook just didn’t realize his pile-on would draw as much unfavorable attention as it did.
I spent a lot of time in Malaysia in the mid-90’s. Mahathir has made all sorts of anti-Jewish comments in the past so this is no suprise. When that dumbfuck decided to float Malaysia’s currency and few years back and it totally tanked (part of the “Asian contagion”) he blamed it on Jewish speculators. Israeli citizens couldn’t even enter the country until the late 90’s.
So these two retired Jewish men are sitting on a beach in Florida, as they often do. Usually they read such things as the Simon Wiesenthal Center newsletter, but one day one of them brings some neo-Nazi propaganda instead. The other man asks him, “Why are you reading that neo-Nazi stuff?” The first man says, “I’m tired of reading about how Jews are oppressed, I’d rather read about how we rule the world.”
So, the Prime Minister of Malaysia claims that Jews rule the world; what you should really be incensed about is that, in America, there’s *a general who has chided Muslims!! *.
Man, every time I let somebody convince me that Jews are white, somebody else comes around and tells me they’re not and that I’m not a member of majority culture. It’s damned confusing.
I have a bit of a problem accepting that the apology is sincere. He didn’t go after Quentin Tarantino, who wrote and directed Kill Bill, and would logically seem to be most responisble for its content, but managed to isolate the biggest name Jews associated with it, and go after them.
Then I read the original statement:
He either hasn’t seen the movie, or is deliberately distorting its content. Of the hundred somthing people killed in the film, exactly one is an innocent. She is killed offscreen. In an anime sequence. There is not one instance of “ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement”, not one instance of “glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice”, not one instance in which “hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself.”
When he blatantly lies about so much in the statement, It’s hard for me to accept that it’s merely poor wording in the rest.
As opposed to the executives at other major studios, who are only in it for the art of film…:rolleyes:
Yeah, this film will warp any children that see it. Hell, it damn near warped ME. (I enjoyed it, BTW) But I have to ask, do they let children in to see this adult faire where this bozo lives? Setting aside those devious ones who sneak in and are already a little warped to start with. Isn’t this a PG 17 film???
Well, we brought our two kids (10 and 13). In our defense, the movie had just come out and we had no idea it would be so violent. In *my * defense, it was my wife’s idea.
The theater evidently had no problem admitting two youngsters into the film with their parents.
on him!