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Untitled Document
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE INVADES THE NY TIMES.
(Or, Economic Blacklisting, Cultural Facisim, and the National Organization
of Women)
by Lloyd Kaufman with Adam Jahnke
| Not long ago, I served on
the jury for the prestigious Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival
in Korea. At one of the press conferences there, French filmmaker Bertrand
Tavernier (director of such justly acclaimed flicks as 'Round Midnight
and Coup de Torchon) said a couple things that echo a mantra I've been
repeating for years. Tavernier said the economic blacklist does indeed
exist in film and it's infinitely more insidious and damaging than any
political blacklist. The economic blacklist is harder to prove and virtually
impossible to fight. The fact that this idea was being purported by a
respected and honored French filmmaker and not a broken-down low budget
film-maker, best known for head-crushings and hot lesbian action doesn't
seem to have garnered the theory any more media attention |
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On the contrary, the pages
of The New York Times on July 30 were full of bizarre stories seemingly
intended to reinforce the status quo and maintain the economic blacklist
that cripples independent art and commerce. In an editorial piece on the
"New Economy", Tim Race puts forth the argument that A.I., Steven
Spielberg's latest expulsion of saccharine drivel, tanked at the box office
because Americans have grown wary of technology. Nowhere does he suggest
that perhaps Americans have simply grown wary of boring, horseshit movies
that ramble on and on as if the editor had been tied up, beaten, ass-raped,
and stuffed into a broom closet while Spielberg indulged in two-and-a-half
hours worth of self-pleasure in front of the Avid.
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Here is cultural fascism in
action.Race's "theory" is basically that back in '99, The Matrix
became a big hit and the dot-com industry was at the crest of its wave.
Today, technology stocks have become about as desirable as a syphilitic
groin lump, so it's no surprise that the Roboboy of A.I. is box office
poison. Of course, for this theory to hold even a drop of water, you'd
have to ignore the fact that The Matrix starred androgynous Queer World
icon Keanu Reeves instead of spooky pseudo-child Haley Joel Osment, the
fact that The Matrix was about an hour shorter than A.I., and the fact
that, if nothing else, at least there were guns in The Matrix, thus guaranteeing
the Trenchcoat Mafia audience. This is like saying Kevin Costner's movie
For Love Of The Game failed because Americans are sick of baseball (and
this is obviously not true, judging by the success of Troma's recent DVD
release of the softball epic Squeeze
Play).
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| What the New York Times is NOT
saying is that A.I. is a piece of shit. And while the big devil-worshipping
studios can frequently turn pieces of shit into big hits, they can't do
it if the stench from the shit is too much for the movie-going public…that
is, if there is absolutely not one thing worth seeing in the whole picture.
Of course, it does the studio's Steven Spielberg Money-Printing Machine
no good if word leaks out that Spielberg is more than capable of churning
out unwatchable, pretentious garbage. To maintain their economic stranglehold
and to protect the Spielberg brand name, it's imperative that they place
the blame for the failure of A.I. on anything other than the movie itself. |
A couple pages later, the Times reports on the National Organization for
Women's second annual "Feminist Primetime Report". The idea here
is to rank the best Gyno-American role models on primetime television. The
report basically says that there are no good feminist role models on TV
(surprise, surprise) but we're gonna slap this list together anyway. NOW's
"role models" include such jail-bait eye candy as the semi-naked
cock-tease from the WB's holy-rolling "7th Heaven" and Buffy The
Vampire Slayer (apparently Buffy's willingness to stab vampires through
the heart marks her as "strong and independent").
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It should be pretty
obvious that the only reason NOW issued this list was to get press coverage
in rags like People, US, and TV Guide. Even more amazingly, New Republic
magazine is playing into this by actually arguing with NOW's choices. In
their July 30 issue, they ran a piece debating the relative merits of Felicity
as a Gyno-American role model. There is no debate! Any retard jerking off
to a commercial for the show can tell you she's a pathetic choice for a
role model. End of story.
NOW (and, through their half-assed argument, New Republic) are simply trying
to ride the networks' coattails to some free publicity with this report.
If NOW really wanted to make a stand, they'd issue a report that says primetime
television offers fuck-all as far as positive role models for Gyno-Americans.
It's a wasteland of stereotypes and body images that make teenage girls
think they're grotesque and have to puke their guts up after meals. For
real role models, you gotta leave TV and look at the real world. What about
Heidi Sjursen, star of Citizen
Toxie? Here's an actress trying to make it on her own in New York, she
refuses to move to Hollywood, she has her own line of clothing, and she's
producing her own independent movies. What about Pat Kaufman? Not only has
she survived breast cancer and a couple decades worth of my bullshit, she's
New York state film commissioner. NOW had an opportunity to say that primetime
TV is nothing more than dangerous male-programmed bullshit. Instead, they
bent over backwards to kiss the networks' collective ass and to praise what
should be condemned. |
It's
common knowledge by now that many newspapers and magazines are mere tentacles
of a devil-worshipping international megaconglomerate and exist solely to
promote the agenda and/or product of the parent company. For instance, People
Weekly, the most respected journalistic branch of the AOL/Time/Warner/Satan
hydra, features on its most recent cover a story called "Sexy At Any
Age", continuing the baby boomer's generation desperate attempt to
reinvent the very idea of what it means to be old (a conspiracy exposed
and explored in a previous essay, accessible by clicking here: http://www.troma.com/lk2/babyboomers/index.php3.
As long as the press remains little more than a corporate vassal, advertisements
masquerading as news, there is no hope of rubbing out the economic blacklist.
The blacklist hurts independent artists and filmmakers like myself and Bertrand
Tavernier. But the party most injured by the blacklist is the audience,
because you have lost the freedom to see what you want, when you want.
For the economic blacklist to be exposed and rooted out, this kind of oppressive
cultural fascism must be eliminated. You don't even have to know how to
spell the word "jernalizm" to realize that the stories I'm referring
to are not newsworthy. They are corporate apologies and excuses for things
that the Powers That Be have invested billions in: prime-time television
and the bulletproof career of America's favorite filmmaker. Cultural fascism
has infected America for too long. We must expose and reject it to enjoy
real diversity both on screen and off.
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FOR
MORE ON TROMA's OPINION ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CHECK OUT TERROR FIRMER!!!
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