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Let oil soar above $140 a barrel. Let layoffs and foreclosures proliferate like California’s fires. Let someone else worry about the stock market’s steepest June drop since the Great Depression. In our political culture, only one question mattered: What was Wesley Clark saying about John McCain and how loudly would every politician and bloviator in the land react..?
Unable to take another minute of this din, I did what any sensible person might do and fled to the movies. More specifically, to an animated movie in the middle of a weekday afternoon. What escape could be more complete..?
Indeed, sitting among rapt children mostly under 12, I felt as if I’d stepped through a looking glass. This movie seemed more realistically in touch with what troubles America this year than either the substance or the players of the political food fight beyond the multiplex’s walls.
While the real-life grown-ups on TV were again rebooting Vietnam, the kids at “Wall-E” were in deep contemplation of a world in peril — and of the future that is theirs to make what they will of it. Compare any 10 minutes of the movie with 10 minutes of any cable-news channel, and you’ll soon be asking: Exactly who are the adults in our country and who are the cartoon characters?One of the great things about art, including popular art, is that it can hit audiences at a profound level beyond words. That includes children. The kids at “Wall-E” were never restless, despite the movie’s often melancholy mood and few belly laughs. They seemed to instinctually understand what “Wall-E” was saying; they didn’t pepper their chaperones with questions along the way. At the end they clapped their small hands. What they applauded was not some banal cartoonish triumph of good over evil but a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out…
Mr. McCain should be required to see “Wall-E” to learn just how far adrift he is from an America whose economic fears cannot be remedied by his flip-flop embrace of the Bush tax cuts (for the wealthy) and his sham gas-tax holiday (for everyone else). Mr. Obama should see it to be reminded of just how bold his vision of change had been before he settled into a front-runner’s complacency. Americans should see it to appreciate just how much things are out of joint on an Independence Day when a cartoon robot evokes America’s patriotic ideals with more conviction than either of the men who would be president.
Perhaps, someday, we’ll have the chance to vote for a robot instead of “None of the Above”?
Is quoting half a page of a New York Times article on a blog “fair use”?
Maybe this is why newspapers are going out of business.
>>Frank Rich is an idiot
Frank Rich is a rock star. I always look forward to the Sunday Times to read his column. MoDo too.
#3–Mustard==unless you get more specific, it looks like your posting is completely consistent with my own. Thank you for the confirmation.
#4 – Bobbo
I have no idea wtf you are talking about in your post #2. As usual, you are either mind-bogglingly inscrutable, or you’re gibbering.
My point is that Frank Rich’s column is one of the high points of the Sunday NYT. Diametrically opposed to your POV.
If there’s some existential meaning to your statement “The whole and entire purpose of a child is to reflect what it is told. No insight. No deep truths. No reality.“, please enlighten us. For now, I’m going with the “gibbering” explanation.
#5–Mustard===really? Very Amusing. Existential? No. More Skinerian Operant Conditioning.
Tell me==when do kiddies start thinking for themselves and stop parroting what they are told?—to the nearest decade if you wish.
#6 – Bobbo
Operant conditioning as a child-rearing tool was discredited not too long after Skinner wrote Walden II.
In any case, Frank Rich is a breath of fresh air. Along with MoDo. Gotta love the Sunday New York Times.
Sunday TIMES? Entirely too much liberated, sophisticated, wordly reflection for bobbo. He sticks with the Dallas Morning News.
#8 – Señor Todopoderoso
With the tack Bobbo’s taking, I think he’s headed for a lifetime subscription to World Net Daily.
#9–god==too general. Give us your deep analytical thoughts on the Frank Rich piece above. Do you think cartoons in touch with kiddies has great incite into what is “actually” troubling Americans today?
Is mass consumerism our biggest problem in your estimation?
Mustardo et al: It amuses me how you choose to attack me personally than comment at all on what I posted or on the OT.
You’all should refocus your attention and spare time thinking off “personalities” and onto substance? It might be a stretch but with enough practice, you might even find yourself being relevant in your other personal activities.
I simply thought something at the level of an animated film might be easier for you to comprehend, bobbo.
Will you ever get round to seeing it? Or will you be sticking to 2D graphics?
And, of course, it looks as if I was right about the Morning News. Or was that a non-denial denial?
#12–god==you say: “I simply thought something at the level of an animated film might be easier for you to comprehend, bobbo.” /// and yet that idea has nothing to do with what you posted and actually runs counter to what I posted and what I suggested might make you relevant.
Its one kind of idiot to be stupid, its another kind of idiot to be relatively intelligent and fail to take correction.
So, I repost #10 & #11 and give you god, a third chance.
Can you be relevant?
#11 – Bobbo
>>Mustardo et al: It amuses me how you choose to
>>attack me personally than comment at all on
>>what I posted or on the OT.
Bobbo, it’s a rare day when we can determine the meaning of what you’re posting “or on the OT” (whatever that means).
The basic essence of your posts comes through though. And it’s not pretty. “Fuck the beaners”. “Fuck the fags”. And like that.
#15–Mustard==you raise a good point. I again say there should be a stick/menu item of approved abbreviations. I have seen OT used often and I take it to mean “Original Thread” or “Original Topic” but I could be wrong.
Well, we are inching towards it. Any disagreement, any nuance, any request for objective data in your mind becomes irrational hate.
You evidence religious thinking when you do that Mustard. Bad form. If you were an atheist, or a scientist, or a thinker, maybe you would be up to contesting contrary ideas and even recognize them as such when they are offered.
You just need an alternative “vision.”
Yes, its true.
#16 – Bobbo
I’ve more often seen “OT” used to denote “off topic”. But hey, that’s just me.
As to my persuasions, what makes you think I’m not a scientist? Better think twice before you assume, m’hijito.
#17–Mustard==yes, context is everything. “You are OT” has your meaning, while “Lets get back OT” would have mine. Context as usual is everything.
Except as a side issue along with a relevant comment, or clever word play, I really don’t like personal attacks devoid of content–even when fighting fire.
So, I will stop.
Rightway
I’m with Bobo on this one. Frank Rich is a leftist buffoon. His column should be in the comic section where it belongs.
Is everyone done comparing dick size? Good.
Now – about the post; kids couldn’t care less what the “meaning” of the movie is. It’s irrelevant to them. All they care about is a funny little robot who makes cute noises and does prat falls. That’s all. When I saw this movie there were numerous kids restless during those “deep, important” moments. They just wanted to see something fun.
People should stop trying to read so much into so little.
Bobbo – ideas can be learned at animated films. Not all of the kiddies are there alone, most of them are with their parents. I will assume that a few of the parents will get the message or idea that is plotted in the film.
I agree with you that most kids will not be concerned, but some of the ideas will be absorbed by the kid’s brain. Most people can remember a movie or book they saw or read when they were young that gave them ever lasting memories. Some of these ideas or memories turn into pursuit of career choices. Ex: “John Doe became a scientist because of Jules Verne.”
Only when kids are born are they a blank slate, but that blank slate fills up fast and stays filled for a life time.
Hey Mr. Mustard & Bobbo! Some of these articles may not be worth the electrons they’re printed with, but you two bickering fellas are always good for a laugh. BTW which one is the wife and which one is the husband?
Hey Mr. Mustard & Bobbo! Some of these articles may not be worth the electrons they’re printed with, but you two bickering fellas are always good for a laugh. BTW which one of you is the wife and which one is the husband?
#22–bac==I agree with everything you posted. What I don’t see is how it is responsive at all to what I posted? Roughly speaking what you post is the foundation or starting point from where I took off?
Kiddies are not founts of knowledge, they are sponges. Mr Rich in this article seems to think the opposite.
#24–geezer==================nevermind.
I actually thought this movie stank.
For the first 20 minutes there was not one word of dialogue. For the second 20 minutes only 2… EEEEVA? Wall-e EEEVA? Wall-e.
The last 1/3 of the movie you see fat white people lying on their backs like beached whales sucking down super sized drinks, talking on their phones and watching tv.
Yea, I get the political statement, white, lazy, fat people have destroyed earth with all their gadgets, and malls, will some day get what they deserve, have an Epiphany, see their evil consuming ways and throw out all their stuff and plant a tree.
Hopefully, the kids who “got the message” of this movie as stated in this article, will grow up, park their cars, not line up at the gates of Disney World to buy super sized drinks and junk tee shirts and plastic mickey mouse ears that end up in the land fill. If that happened I’ll bet we’d see a new movie…
“Wall-e the new fun filled action ride, laser blasting thrill a minute Disney attraction opening this summer. Free soda and burgers with every ticket! First 10,0000 customers get a free iPod-hug-a-tree.”
Deja Vu! Didn’t we just have an article about Wall-E just a couple of days ago. Almost same topic, almost same posts. Surely there must must other news out there.
Didn’t Frank Rich write an obituary for Matt Drudge several years ago?
#28 – Lyin’ Mike
>>Didn’t Frank Rich write an obituary for
>>Matt Drudge several years ago?
I don’t k now about that, but when Frank Rich got Mel “Jews started all the wars” Gibson to proclaim in a fit of anger that”‘I want to kill him, I want his intestines on a stick, I want to kill his dog,’“, I knew he was a superstar.
Anyone who can get that kind of reaction out of a dooshe bagge like Gibson has got to be a hero.
Mustard,
I’ve noticed a lack of postings from you lately. I have to say, the site is better for it. Your predictable condescending left-wing tripe is as equally dumbfounding as it is tiring. I have no intention whatsoever on going back and forth with you all day on this, I’m employed and have things to do that do not include sitting a Dvorak’s site quibbling with those barely equipped to do so.
Just my opinion: on this board, less of you and more of others is a good thing.
Now go back to chomping urinal cakes sipping your Starbucks while masturbating to your Bill Clinton/Ted Kennedy desktop.
Hell, I’m bored even writing anything concerning you.
Oh, and by the way Einstein, regarding post number 30, it’s spelled “douche bag”.
#30 “dooshe bagge”
#31 Oh, and by the way Einstein, regarding post number 30, it’s spelled “douche bag”.
I don’t think Mr Mustard misspelled this because he can not spell, it looks like he just was being very clever by spelling it like this on purpose. Take a second look and figure it out. I like it. Dooshe bagge… funny!
For one, Wall-E is much more eloquent that George W. Bush.