Honestly, I'm loving all the armchairjusticegum of late. Thanks, Gabe, for making me less :( when I find out yet another filmmaker has signed the "we support child rapists" list.
They say never meet your heroes...
Great idea!* "...children would be smarter." --except for the students who wouldn't be allowed into any schools. They'll just rob your house for you while you're at work.
(*sarcasm)
Well I spent the last year unemployed, and am now working again. And all I can think is "I could have commented so much more!" Not really, but I feel ya. Since I'm a teacher, I'll see you college kids at breaks and next summer.
Why is Beowulf naked? Doesn't he wear a magic chain armor that Grendel can't penetrate because of God/paganism? My head hurts. But not as much as yours will be next week, Gabe. I feel sorry for you!!!
Aww, this is the sweetest thread ever! I'm going to print it out and tape it to my fridge, and read it whenever I'm lonely or sad or just need to be reminded that there are people in this world who get it, even on the internet.
Is it just me, or is there too much room for error with those hanky codes? I know I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between fuschia and magenta, but it could make all the difference!
Totally. I think we're on the same page here, and I hate to say it, but sometimes I really feel alone in that. (not on videogum, though. i think most of the commenters here get it). I mean, just look at the past eight years of foreign policy, where war is the ultimate spectator sport, and we can extrapolate how violence can be twisted. I definitely agree with your point about the Saw movies, and I do believe that audiences do bear some culpability for "voting with their dollars", so to speak, but the creator/audience relationship is far from the "partnership" that Haneke implies.
While I agree with you, what I don't think Haneke does is implicate himself. In Funny Games as well as some of his earlier works, he seems to think that if he keeps the most horrific violence off screen that somehow he's insulating himself from it, as if to say, I'll show you the terrible emotional ramifications but not the violence, therefore, I can atone for the sins of what I've done to my characters because it's in service of a larger message." BUT, he has done what he's done to his characters. HE'S the one in control, whether the audience is implicit in what happens or not simply by the act of submission to viewership. I get his point but not his method. And he's profiting from it none-the-less, which dampens his moral superiority.
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