Monday, December 21, 2015

Righties Talking "Star Wars"

Roy's latest column is about righties' reactions to the latest "Star Wars" film. Once again, these idjits are fussing over a bit of pop culture and trying to pound it into an ideologically sound (dare I say, a politically correct?) hole. Typically, they fail pretty miserably.

Righties have a "Star Wars problem", even those who are big fans of the movies. The original 1977 movie which kicked off the franchise opened with a depiction of an "extraordinary rendition" of a civilian deemed to be an enemy of the state. The main villain's perfidy was signaled by his use of "enhanced interrogation techniques", an impromptu grilling of a captured crewman, and an eventual extended torture session in a "black site". The sheer magnitude of the villains' evil was driven home by a depiction of a "shock and awe" attack on a planet inhabited by civilians. Twenty-five years later, a Republican administration used these scenes as a blueprint for a pre-emptive war, even though they were a clear indicator to 20th Century audiences: THIS IS WHAT BAD GUYS DO!!!

Righties try to portray Darth Obama as the Dark Lord who wants to destroy their freedom by raising the top marginal tax rates by a few percentage points or make dudes face background checks to buy AR-15s, but that's not what bad guys do... bad guys don't force schools to serve kale at lunch or to institute carbon cap-and-trade policies, they whisk people off to torture sites and blow civilians to smithereens, stuff which righties applauded. Try as they might, they don't "get" the Star Wars movies, precisely because they took one look at the Evil Empire and thought, "Hey, they have some good ideas."

1 comment:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Darth Obama has also managed to recover from the economic abyss created by his predecessor, continual increases in employment, and lowest gas prices in over a decade. What a horrorshow!