Showing posts with label critiques. Show all posts
Showing posts with label critiques. Show all posts

Saturday, April 4, 2009

What do you mean "we," white man?

So I saw this link to a discussion of the political decline of the white male and, truth be told, I felt a little bit of a twinge of loss, then felt guilty about it. I guess no one wants to feel that they are losing something, even if it's something they don't really think they should have. Or maybe I just have issues.

Anyways, I clicked on the link, and read this. After some talk about all the people in power who are either not white or not male, it states:
Missing from their powerful ranks is the benevolent, yet stern retrosexual white guy prototype, someone at home in a country club locker room, but with enough self-confidence to get out and ask for directions in the ‘hood. He enjoys nigiri sushi, but he’s still comfortable with his own chest hair. By day, he feels his way through an Eastern bazaar like Simon LeBon, and by night he takes a nightcap with the ladies like a randy Bruce Campbell.
But I am not that guy. I have never been in a country club, nor it's locker room, nor would I have felt comfortable there. I am not some manly, upperclass badass. When people talk about white men, it seems like they are always talking about some other person, someone I don't know and don't even see. Some phantom.

It seems like it is always the case that when people start talking about white men, they immediately think of someone completely different. I am getting tired of being lumped in with people I have nothing in common with.

But then, maybe I shouldn't take it too hard. Maybe, next time someone talks about the downfall of the white male, I should just think, "Good. Fuck that asshole."

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Robocop

I just got done watching Robocop for the first time. Good movie. Fun movie. Slight movie. Actually, I was kind of amazed how insubstantial the plot was; the film only clocked in at 104 minutes, which compared to something like The Dark Knight, around 150, is pretty short for an action movie. I mean, the movie is basically about a guy who dies in the line of duty and then becomes and empty cyborg, get revenge on his killers and reclaims his identity, even though he has no real contact with it. There really isn't much plot, just a bunch of setting that subtly satirizes modern America. The kind of critiques that, unfortunately, are still very very valid, although probably a bit simplistic for our times. There is definately room for a sequal, which I think is written by Frank Miller, and I kind of want to see, since I saw it already, but years ago, and I remember liking it, although I think it didn't get the best reviews. It's just that the first movie doesn't really do much other than setup, though in an enjoyable way, and you leave it kind of wanting to see more of the concept.

Unrelated to anything, I got kind of a cyberpunk feel off of the issues raised in it, or at least in the issues that could have been raised by it, but were really just kind of hinted at. The whole mind-body kind of thing, and what is the self: could it be downloaded, or is there something more emepheral about it? What makes a person a person, and not just a robot? That kind of thing.

Shit. Now I need to start watching that Ghost in the Machine series.