� The Republican Freak-Out | Main | Ronnie Talk to Russia Before It's Too Late �
October 12, 2005
Bulworth
My critics have been losing their cool and their minds recently. I've been called all kinds of names by people who should know better. Most recently, I've discovered that I'm supposed to be an admirer of 'Bulworth'. So I dug this out...
(from the archives - October 1998)
12770. boohab - Oct. 23, 1998 - 5:16 PM PDT bulworth is, in the end, the movie that we go to when we want to see how clueless whitefolks have matured since 'grand canyon' which it now replaces as the stupidest movie on the racial subjects in memory.i had managed to miss this movie as it passed through the various distribution channels, but a long conference in dallas set me up for a bunch of free time in front of spectravision. and so i got bulworth. as some of you may recall, i made a wild guess at the scope of the film with a quote from james baldwin as a review, giving bulworth no benefit of the doubt. not only was i right about the story's level of pathos, but the film gives me reason to suspect that warren beatty and everyone else associated with the film are grossly pathetic as well. i must say it makes me honestly feel sorry for halle berry, who has basically been dealt a one, two punch. with this and the film baps, to her 'credit', i'm starting to take david justice' side in the divorce.
the plot for this bomb is disgustingly simple. a corrupt politician decides to end his life by arranging his own assassination. but before the deed is done, he gets a case of jungle fever. he then decides to rap his campaign, and in a fit of insomniacal delerium, paints himself 'black' through a campy set of encounters with the most incredibily one dimensional parade of black ghetto stereotypes i have ever seen on film. ever. and i do mean ever. what's worse, is that everybody seems to take this seriously. this film's ideas are perverse, bankrupt, self-righteous, self-parodying and idiotic all at once.
12771. boohab - Oct. 23, 1998 - 5:18 PM PDT bulworth is useful as a litmus test on racial perceptions in the same way that real dicks and pussies would be in inkblot. reasonable and sane people would look and seriously question the ethics and sense of the person administering the test, not to mention utter lack of imagination. but right now i'm more interested in seeing how and which critics have been bulworthed into saying something profound about this shitheap of a message movie.it gets a 55%, which should clarify my percentage scale, everything below 50% means it's not worth seeing.
Though I'm no longer the notorious boohab, as far as the flick is concerned nothing has changed.
(Link added)
Posted by mbowen at October 12, 2005 02:38 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.visioncircle.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4491
Comments
I saw Bulworth at the dollar theater and just about got my money's worth.
It's a satire, man. That's why you saw "the most incredibily one dimensional parade of black ghetto stereotypes." But whatever. I'd pay a buck to look at Halle.
Posted by: Daniel Conover at October 12, 2005 05:34 PM
I suppose only someone who would think of Howard Dean as a good candidate would think of Bulworth as a good film. I seem to recall a lot of stuff like this:
In the 1998 black comedy, Bulworth, Warren Beatty plays a presidential candidate who takes out both a big insurance policy and a hit contract on himself. Senator Bulworth is consequently set free of all restraints, and says everything he wants to say instead saying what he should say. He goes to war against racism, economic inequity and the corruption of the political system itself.It's hard to see this film and not want to immediately elect Jay Bulworth president. The in-your-face honesty of the protagonist would appeal to anyone, political values aside.
If you ask me, Bulworth's antics are exactly what Democrats pass off as 'race relations', and it is exactly how seriously they take black voters, in such a way that it can be mistaken for satire.
Posted by: Cobb at October 12, 2005 06:33 PM
Your loyally oppositional critic never suggested anywhere, ever, that you cared for the movie Bulworth. Instead, his annoying auditory hallucination in your conscience suggested that your hyper-assimilationist politics are "Bulworthian"
Bulworth got it overtly right. I believe Cobb's unstated motive is Bulworthian.Maslow forgot about generative imperatives, and in so doing, he neglected THE prime mover. As go these generative *instincts* so also the contingent levels of the hierarchy of needs.
IMOHO - the entirety of the culture war is about seignurial primacy and privilege.., here's a working title proposal, Who's Ya Daddy?" Progressive Patriarchy in the Fin d'Siecle American Republic
Methinkst, however, that while Bulworth's ego/persona collapsed under the sway of jes grew {however poorly that was depicted}, your ego/persona is hardening under the sway of an anglo-patristic hegemony that is fundamentally and fatally flawed.
My point to you, in the clearest possible terms, is that you've bought into what I consider to be a thermodynamically and morally bankrupt cultural ethos. BTW - I don't criticize you, but I will relentlessly exercise the duppified ideology you've elected to espouse.
Look on the bright side magne, it's a "that which does not kill you, makes you stronger" game proposition. If you're right, you'll only become a more articulate spokesman for the anglo-patristic absolutism you espouse. If you're mistaken, I'll eventually succeed in exorcising the defective meme that's taken root in your headbrain.
Posted by: cnulan at October 13, 2005 07:56 AM
Can someone translate cnulan's response into plain English? Reading it gives me tired-head.
Posted by: Golasso at October 13, 2005 02:02 PM
He's a crypto-progressive. Obscurity is part of the point.