As I mentioned yesterday, my essay on racism in the movie Priest sparked a fair bit of discussion at Splice Today. It also led to some (significantly more productive) discussion on Twitter and elsewhere. I thought I’d reproduce some of the conversation I had with Ed Sizemore. I’m grouping together the tweets into paragraphs, incidentally, so please make allowances for any lack of coherence on anyone’s part. Also at points we were typing at the same time. Why does anyone use twitter again?
Anyway, here we go:
Ed Sizemore: I just say I disagree. I think you see racism because you want to, not because it’s there.
Noah Berlatsky: Right; I enjoy going to a film and seeing a racist genocidal fantasy. That’s much more fun than enjoying the movie. Have you even seen it? Or is it just that hollywood never makes racist movies?”
Ed: I saw it and enjoyed it for the what it was. We’ll have to agree to disagree. I see it as a Judge Dredd rip-off.
Noah: It rips off the Searchers. In order to make it more racist. I’ve got no problem with mindless action movies. I just don’t want them to get off on genocide of native americans. It seems like a fairly low bar.
Ed: Noah here is how I perceive out differences. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m neither a postmodern nor a deconstructionist.I don’t think everything revolves around race, gender, & class. My impression is that you [do]. Therefore you can’t help but see racism n Priest. Whereas, I do not see it because I don’t use that matrix of analysis.
Noah: Everything doesn’t. This movie does. Racism and sexism exist. If you refuse to see it, that’s a political choice with unpleasant consequences. My analysis of priest had nothing to do with deconstruction or postmodernism.It was a basic look at racial issues. It’s really straightforward.
Conservatives have largely forsworn racism. They’ve replaced it with anti-anti-racism. The idea that race might still matter is considered delusional and racist. That’s a way to avoid dealing with ongoing inequity. So sure, it’s a choice of mode of analysis. But you’re presenting it as if that choice is divorced from political or moral content. You’re kind of being postmodernist yourself; you’re claiming that perspective determines reality. I’m the one claiming a reality exists — racism — and you’re determination not to see it is doesn’t erase its existence.
Ed: Yes and no. Perspective shapes how you see reality and thus how you respond to what you think you see. If you see racism then you react to the book, person, event, movie in a manner accordingly. The way you’re denouncing Priest. I would argue believing you can choose your perspective free of moral and political influences is the old model Enlightenment. It’s what postmodernity was a reaction to. Postmodernism says you are mired in a socio-political historical context that takes training to overcome. And even then you will always have to be on guard against it reasserting control.
Noah: You’re still just being a postmodernist. Does racism exist or not? Does not seeing it mean it doesn’t exist?
Ed: Racism exits. I’m saying there is no discussion of race in Priest. I see why you think there is and I think your wrong.
Noah: Then make the argument. You haven’t said anything about the movie. It’s all just hand waving. Is the film not based on the Searchers? Are the vampires not associated with Indians?
And postmodernity is hardly the first philosophy that suggested that there might possibly just maybe be some link between how people act and their society. Rousseau? Hobbes? Basically everybody, because the contrary position is idiotic.
Ed: I say it is not based on the Searchers and no vampires don’t equal Indians in Priest. I say it’s based on Judge Dredd and vampires are simply monsters. You base your comparison on plot. I base my comparison in the world building.
Noah: On what grounds do you deny it’s based on the searchers? It’s the same damn plot. There’s the settler there’s an attack by monsters leaving the reservation, there’s a kidnapping of a niece, there’s concerns about the rescuer killing her if she turns.
Aha. So the plot is based on the searchers. So it is just you refusing to think about the plot because that would make you wrong.
Saying it’s based on Judge Dredd is nonsense. Judge Dredd was derivative crap. It’s all from bladerunner.
Ed: BTW I’m trying to understand why we disagree and if there is a middle ground. I just realized this might sound like a personal attack and I apologize for that. That’s not my intention.
But the Searchers isn’t the only film with that plot or even the first film with that plot. Heck, Dracula had a lot of that plot.
Noah: Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m thicker skinned than that! There’s not really a middle ground, though. You’re wrong!
It deliberately plays with the fact it’s his niece. It’s got a western setting. Arguing that it’s not based on the searchers is crazy. Really. Tons of people have noticed it. I’m absolutely sure it’s intentional on the part of the filmmakers. If you’re analysis depends on that point, you’ve kind of lost. I mean, google priest and searchers. It’s not like I’m a lone nutcase arguing the connection.
Ed: I agree that Priest & Searchers have the same plot. But sharing a plot doesn’t mean they have the same message or meaning. I think of plot like a sentence. It needs a context. That’s where world building comes in. Searchers is historical people. It plays off off real groups of humans and real circumstances. Priest is sci-fi. Fiction can be analogous, but I maintain Priest is not. The vampires of Priest can’t be equated with real Indians. First, vampires are a separate species. Second, with the exception of the queen, there is nothing human-like about vampire. Third, they have always been at war with humans and seek to eradicate them. There is such great divergence between vampires & Indians I find it impossible to equate the two. I hope that’s a better explanation.
Noah: That’s better. Do you deny that historically Indians have been caricatured as subhuman savages who deserve extermination? If you agree that they have, how do subhuman vampires distance themselves from that caricature? Do you claim that putting vampires on reservations and having them attack innocent settler is not deliberately giving them the role of Indians in western narratives?
You seem to believe that the issue is whether *you* equate indians and vampires. The issue is whether the *film* does. I’m sure you don’t equate Jews with subhuman bloodsucking monsters either. Yet people have done so historically. Racism works by caricaturing people as things they are *not* like.
Your argument boils down to simply claiming that nobody could actually be racist enough to equate vampires and indians. But racism gets significantly nastier than that. The only way your argument works is if you presuppose that Priest can’t be racist from the outset.
Oh, and there is something human-like about vampires. They can breed with humans. That seems fairly significant. And Priest and Searchers don’t have the same message! The first is racist; the second is (at least partly) anti-racist. That’s a big difference!
Ed: No, I can’t deny that Indians, and others, have been labeled as subhuman and even nonhuman. The reservation thing is a big plot hole. Why would imprison a species hellbent on your extinction? I confess I never understood that.
After reflection, I concede. I see your point about racism in Priest. I still don’t see it personally, but I have a deep hatred of vampires and so refuse to equate them with anything in the real world. They are part of my pantheon of ultimate evil monsters. Thanks for all the discussion. You were most patient.
Noah: Good lord, you conceded?! Where do you think you are?! This is the internet!
Ed: LOL. I have to bow before superior logic. It’s built in my DNA.
Noah: And thanks yourself. You are exceedingly gracious.
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The conversation with Ed (who, as you’ve probably noticed, is a much nicer person than me) also speaks to a related discussion by Mori Theil. Mori writes:
when is something racist? If someone makes a joke, and part of the audience thinks it’s racist, but part of the audience doesn’t, is it truly racist? Does intent matter? Does only the end result matter? We all know that for workplace regulations, anyone feeling offended because of a possible racist interpretation is enough to classify something as racist. But literary and art criticism need not apply legal criteria. Which criteria, then, should apply?
Is it OK to think in ways that parallel racism as long as one isn’t racist in real life? Or should people be on guard against such thought even in fantasy worlds? I rather think this goes into the realm of scientific questions, as it should be possible to demonstrate statistically that repeated exposure to such thinking does or does not lead to racist thought – but who will run that experiment?
I think looking to intent in these matters is largely futile. You can’t read people’s minds, and virtually nobody is going to stand up and say, “yep I’m racist.” I’m sure the folks who made Priest would not advocate genocide of Native Americans if you sat them down to an interview.
Racism is a system of thought. You can participate in that system of thought without necessarily intending to, just as you can be influenced by, say, Kant’s ideas without necessarily having read Kant, or even knowing who he is. You need to look at what is said or what the piece does, not at what the creators say they’re doing. (Some of this does come from postmodernism; I think I disavowed that too strongly in the discussion with Ed.)
The appeal to science is a red herring, I think. Racism is a cultural thing; what is and isn’t racist is difficult to define, and I very much doubt that you could construct an experiment which would tell you anything useful. But…I’d argue that if disputing Priest’s racism had no consequences, then people wouldn’t bother. The relationship between dreaming about racism and committing racist acts isn’t clear or straightforward…but what we dream is part of who we are. And if we don’t want who we are to be racist, it makes sense to think about that when we talk about our fantasies.
Noah? Judge Dredd precedes Blade Runner by 5 years.
Other than that, let me applaud your courageous stance in condemning anti-Vampirist racism.
Exactly the sort of focussed militancy the world needs.
We’re talking about the movie Jude Dredd, Alex. Not the comic. For Christ’s sake.
And I thought what the world needed was more mean-spirited, three or four line trolling comments on random comics blogs. You are making the world a brighter place. Keep it up.
Hmm; it is possible Ed was talking about the comic. The movie is certainly indebted to Bladerunner in its feel; it may owe a debt to judge dredd the comic as well.
I salute you for your courage in making that entirely reasonable point in as unpleasant a way as possible.
Ah, this makes your discussion with Ed much easier to read. Thanks!
About science: I believed you were saying that vilification of entire categories of fictional beings is bad because it leads to racism in real life, which is very bad. You could just as easily have been saying categorical vilification is itself ontologically bad, and equivalent to racism (with no intervening step.) In the latter case, science is of no use; in the former case, we may wish to establish scientifically that repeated exposure to the thought patterns of categorical vilification lead to racist speech and actions.
As you put it, “the relationship between dreaming about racism and committing racist acts isn’t clear or straightforward.” I think it would be good if we could clarify it a bit, though again, that takes the discussion into practical problems such as study design.
“I’d argue that if disputing Priest’s racism had no consequences, then people wouldn’t bother.”
Clearly racism (or at least, categorical vilification) in Priest merits discussion. However, I’m not sure peoples’ reactions to these arguments are the best proof of societal significance. They could argue the matter out of sheer cognitive dissonance.
Thanks for the link!
I find it interesting when Ed uses the argument that “it’s sci-fi”. Of all the popular genres, sci-fi is one that more often than not can most easily be read metaphorically (which is basically what you’re doing). So much science fiction is metaphorical commentary on contemporary society/culture/life.
Pingback: Categorical thought and Priest « The Moritheil Review
Mori, there wouldn’t be cognitive dissonance if the argument didn’t rub up against social issues which had some resonance, would there?
Denying racism is such a trope in our political discourse, as Matt Yglesias talks about here. It just seems very clearly to me to be deployed in the interest of denying ongoing inequities domestically and/or ongoing imperialism overseas. Do violent fantasies about racial genocide and unending war play into that at all? I would argue that they do; ideas have consequences and drive actions. Again, if they didn’t, no one would care about them — though that doesn’t mean that the consequences are always clear or especially quantifiable.
Sci-fi is often metaphorical. I think it’s often important to point out the ways it diverges from reality…but the divergences have meaning too. Indians *aren’t* vampires…which is why the film is racist for equating them!
It’s also odd to turn to Judge Dredd as an out…isn’t Judge Dredd itself fairly fascistic?
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…It’s also odd to turn to Judge Dredd as an out…isn’t Judge Dredd itself fairly fascistic?
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“Judge Dredd” the comic is actually “satiro-fascistic” in exactly the same fashion that the “Starship Troopers” movie was. (In one story, in order to cut down on the crime, disorder, and accidents which occur during New Year’s Eve celebrations, the Judges manufacture, complete with faked footage, the threat of a massive swarm of killer bees to scare everyone into staying indoors…)
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Derik Badman says:
I find it interesting when Ed uses the argument that “it’s sci-fi”. Of all the popular genres, sci-fi is one that more often than not can most easily be read metaphorically (which is basically what you’re doing). So much science fiction is metaphorical commentary on contemporary society/culture/life.
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Check out the alas, now superseded and neglected “Don’t Harsh on My Genocidal Fantasies!” thread for my remarks on the brainy vs. stupid strains of SF, and a gallery of links to SF pulp covers playing on “they want our women!” miscegenation and sexual-insecurity fears, featuring robots and aliens scampering off with buxom human beauties…
What a contrast is “Priest”* to the similar storyline in the second “Vampire Hunter D” movie. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216651/ ) D is hired to rescue a millionaire’s daughter, who’s supposedly been kidnapped by a vampire. And if she’s been “turned,” to kill her, the father says; to the dismay of her brother. But it turns out that she went with the vampire willingly, that both are truly in love with each other. And, though vampires are routinely villainous in the D series, there is a place for more sympathetic, even admirable and courageous ones. Of course, D is a half-human, half-vampire himself; no simplistic glorifying “racial purity” or its equivalent there. (Humans are frequently depicted as scummy and treacherous, too…)
* If at all accurately described by Noah; that he can say “The Lone Ranger viciously condescended to Tonto” (did I miss a TV show where he ordered, “Lick muh boot, you dirty redskin! Lick it clean!“) oughtta give me pause, though…
Isn’t Priest itself based on a comic? Haven’t seen it myself…but if the Searchers link and the reservations are as clearly articulated as Noah claims, I don’t see how the link to Indians can be avoided. Rather it seems invited. Discussions of race inevitably follow.
Is it more racist than 300 though? That one was pretty sickening… (the film…which didn’t exactly make me want to read the book)
Ugh, 300. I have friends who still refuse to see the racism. The Persians are portrayed as effeminate monsters without any redeeming qualities. It isn’t even a metaphor!!
According to Wiki, Priest was a manhwa. Haven’t read it, though it’s interesting to think about how racist caricatures are unthinkingly borrowed by foreign cultures.
I saw a couple of issues of the Priest manhwa. Nice art; the storyline was almost completely incomprehensible. I was talking to someone who said that they picked up almost nothing from the book for the movie, which seems right.
I haven’t seen the movie 300. The book is pretty racist though if I remember; the Persians as effeminate monsters rings a bell anyway.
For what it’s worth, from an interview with the director cited on the Priest movie Wikipedia entry:
Stewart said, “They are the enemy we don’t really understand, but we fought them for centuries. They are mysterious and alien, with their own culture. You sense that they think and communicate, but you don’t really understand what they are saying.” The director also called Priest an homage to The Searchers with the title character being similar to John Wayne’s character and the vampires being similar to the Comanche.
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“It’s also odd to turn to Judge Dredd as an out…isn’t Judge Dredd itself fairly fascistic?”
No. Like Mike Hunter said, Judge Dredd was always intended to be bluntly satirical.
Thanks Ian. That’s pretty clear.
I can well believe that the folks who made Priest got the plot of the searchers without the anti-racism, and the fascism of Judge Dredd without the satire.
Just on 300, this is as brilliant and comprehensive a critique of its racism (and sexism) as I’ve seen, and the comments resemble the debate Noah had on Splice to an uncanny extent:
http://brokenmystic.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/frank-millers-300-and-the-persistence-of-accepted-racism/
The quoted interview with Frank Miller is so teeth grittingly awful that I think it would be far too kind to apply the ‘unintentional’ caveat in this case.
Judge Dredd has some of the best art in comics, I havent read any ones that actually have Judge Dredd in them but i like the ones with the weird alien cow things.
Personally, I have a deep affection for and identification with vampires. If they are fictional and so not-analogous to anything in real world, why deep hatred? Maybe Ed has some personal issues. The psychic/metaphorical bond between fictional/non-fiction has ruptured deep within Ed’s subconscious, and from the focal point of that trauma springs up an unsubdued jungle of metaphors that cannot resolve to any referent. The vampire emerges as the human/sub-human face of this rupture. The post-modern ego extends itself to all horizons, having banished alterity to another dimension in order to conform to the pressures of capitalism. Under these conditions, the vampire appears as alterity’s inverse image. The post-modern ego is unable to recognize itself within the vampire, even as the image of the vampire dominates everywhere.
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Ben says:
Just on 300, this is as brilliant and comprehensive a critique of its racism (and sexism) as I’ve seen, and the comments resemble the debate Noah had on Splice to an uncanny extent:
http://brokenmystic.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/frank-millers-300-and-the-persistence-of-accepted-racism/
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Thanks, that was excellent. BTW, the scant bit of “feminism” in the movie, the Spartan queen’s actions, was added on; she had a pretty minor role in the book. (Yes, the GN manages to be even more reactionary than the movie…)
One of the dunderheaded comments in that site:
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Barey Jones said,
You are missing the point that the film is a fictionalized account loosely based on ancient historical events. ANCIENT historical events. Literally thousands of years old….
So is the film racist towards modern day Persians? Of course not! Racism is a term used to describe MODERN sentiments aimed at modern day peoples and groups. …
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Hmph. So, movies set in historic times cannot therefore be used to inflame sentiment against a modern enemy? Let us consider Eisenstein’s splendid “Alexander Nevsky,” which…
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…depicts the attempted invasion of Novgorod in the 13th century by the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their defeat by the Polish people, led by Prince Alexander, known popularly as Alexander Nevsky.
Alexander Nevsky was made during the Stalinist era, when the Soviet Union was at odds with Nazi Germany. The film contains obvious allegory that reflect the political situation between the two countries at the time it was produced. Some types of helmets worn by the Teutonic infantries resemble mock-ups of Stahlhelms from World War I in order to resemble German-style kettle hats. Emphasizing grasping eagle talons or animal horns and covering the entire face except for a narrow full-face slit for eyes which cannot be seen on the Teutonic knights’ helmets…
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The “other” is rendered faceless, dehumanized…
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“In the first draft of the Alexander Nevsky script, swastikas even appeared in the invaders’ helmets”. The film portrays Alexander as a folk hero and shows him bypassing a fight with the Mongols, his old enemies, in order to face the more dangerous enemy. …
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Although, as has been noted by critics — the Mongols are pretty sinister, shown with Russian slaves — we get the point that they represent a future threat: China. The Wikipedia entry continues:
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Thus the film is also highly anti-clerical and anti-Catholic. This is highlighted by the fact that the knights’ bishop’s miter is adorned by swastikas, while religion plays a minor role on the Russian side…
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In the fashion that the “homo-ness” of the Persians is emphasized in “300,” while the Spartan’s activities in that area are erased.
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It made a central theme the importance of the common people in saving Russia while nobles and merchants did nothing, a motif that was heavily employed.
The film was finished only a few months before Stalin entered into the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which provided for non-aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union. The film was therefore pulled from distribution within a few weeks of its (highly successful) opening within and outside the Soviet Union, ostensibly indefinitely. It was the first film completed by Eisenstein in 10 years. But the situation was reversed dramatically in 1941 after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and the film was rapidly returned to Soviet and western screens…
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_%28film%29
cbren,
Uh, no. Not even close.
It’s just funny when you say “I have a deep hatred of vampires and so refuse to equate them with anything in the real world” because I thought hatred was a real-world emotion. Are you locating yourself within the fiction when you say that.
cbren,
Not sure how you want to parse it, but I hate vampires in the same manner I hate Sauron or Thomas Covenant or Count Olaf. So I guess it’s literary hatred?
Also, I don’t buy into the modern emo-vampire craze. It’s Dracula and Bram Stoker only for me.
What about Polidori or Ewers
It’s hard for me too to understand what you mean by hating someone like Sauron, exactly. Hating a literary character usually means they annoy you or bore you or aren’t fun to read about. I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at when you say you hate Sauron or vampires; you’re saying that you feel towards them the way the characters in the book feel towards them. Which is hard to get my mind around…. I mean, Sauron is hardly a character at all, for example…
I hate Sauron because when I watch the lord of the rings movie I feel like Sauron is a metaphor for capitalism and the ring is a metaphor for the image through which capitalism exerts social control. But as far as concerns the intent of the author and filmmaker and how the evil people all have dark skin or have “oriental” cultural signifiers in the movie I think that evil in the film is actually supposed to be the same thing as non-white people? So this example shows the problems that arise when we give precedence to metaphors instead of talking about the things that they signify.
cbren,
I haven’t read them yet. One day, one day. They are on the encyclopedic list of books to read. But that list is 20 volumes long, so I can’t say when.
Noah,
Apparently, I’m not as detached a reader as you. That’s the best explanation I can give. I have visceral reactions to the people and the events in the books I read. I physically cry at the sad parts and laugh out loud at the funny parts. I love characters, I hate characters, I admire characters, I hope the best for characters, etc. Sorry, I wish I could explain it better.
I cry at books and movies! Kind of ridiculously easily; I’m a sap.
And of course you have visceral reactions to characters…though it is somewhat different from the visceral reactions you have to people in real life, right?
I guess it’s just weird to hear you say that vampires, per se, are something you hate…because vampires aren’t even a character. It’s this trope which is pretty different from use to use. The vampires in Priest are so stupid it’s hard to feel anything in particular about them, really, at least for me. I’m pissed at the filmmakers for being racist tools, but that’s a little different.
Cbren, it’s hard for me not to see the Lord of the Rings movies in terms of WWII. I think the appeal of the ring is a fascist appeal more than a capitalist one. It’s unitary and hierarchical; it doesn’t dissolve into fluidity, but imposes ridigity. It’s Moloch, not Mammon.
Saruman is more the capitalist stooge trading in tobacco and such…but he’s clearly secondary in the evil scheme of things….
‘From somewhere out of space, through the stratosphere, from the unknown, dropping through a silence with bleak eyes fixed greedily towards the inhabited earth. They might have bred here unseen, unheard of, in some darkly warm unexplored tropical fastness, but where in the world is any unexplored territory? No, from some passing planet, some other world from which I like to think they had been exiled, outcast, for the beastly things they are, and from the space into which they had flown for safety, chanced upon earth.’
‘And thou, O most fatal and potent of mankind, in what terms shall I describe thee? What words are adequate to the just delineation of thy character? How shall I detail the means which rendered the secrecy of thy purposes unfathomable?’
‘How imperfectly acquainted are we with the condition and designs of the beings that surround us? The city is near at hand, and thousands might there exist whose powers and purposes might easily explain whatever to us is mysterious.’
Noah,
My apologies, I misread your comment. I think of vampires as a corruption of humanity. So maybe a demi-race? I can’t think of a good term for them. My preception of that demi-race comes from old Universal and Hammer films. So yes, I’m a vampire demi-racist. I see no good in vampires. And I will concede there is nothing remotely rational in my feelings toward vampires.
how detached does a metaphor have to become from any concrete referent before it ceases to function as a metaphor
what is the one drop rule of vampirism
what is the one drop rule of vampirism
You don’t need to apologize! I wasn’t being clear enough.
When you say you see no good in vampires…that doesn’t mean you don’t like vampire movies, though, right? You seem to like movies with vampires in them okay. So you like to go hate vampires in movies, right?
And I presume you don’t hate the twilight vampires, at least not in the same way? You might not want to go see those movies, but Edward Cullen isn’t evil within the context of the film (whatever he may or not be as a trope….)
d, it’s more a one bite rule.
if stuff is ethically copmlicated and does not have these easy boundaries between good and evil in real life, is it an escape from our ethical responsibility to fabricate those solid lines (one bite and thats it) in fiction. lots of racist or nazi authors in fantasy and horror. tolkein and mythology derived from him based on good/evil along racial lines. ewers and gs vierick were nazis. lovecraft etc. escape into fantasy. easy blanket categories. but i believe that there is something in the nature of horror that is corrosive towards easy polarization. there is an element of identification with the object of horror, always.
Lovecraft was really, really racist. Avowedly so. His books have explicit, vile caricatures of Arabs and blacks. I think almost all the energy in his books comes from his prejudice; the horror of the other in him is really strongly racialized. There’s a disgust at miscegenation, a horror of atavistic degeneration. It’s not subtle at all.
I do love Lovecraft, though. There’s such a tortured fascination with the other, and it’s so hyperbolic and weird. And of course the evil other wins more often than not, and is often beautiful in a horrible way. It’s easy to root for the bad guys. I think this is what you’re saying; horror can often be read against itself. (I have a massive essay about that here.
Priest just isn’t thoughtful or accomplished enough to do that very effectively, though. Partly it’s that it’s not really horror; it’s an action flick where the binaries are a lot less conflated. Black hat is appealing in some ways…but that appeal is immediately channeled into racial repulsion and genocidal violence (rather than into awe or submission or fusion with the other as it often is in horror.)
The comparison with 300 is really apt. Priest uses some horror tropes and it’s a western plot, but in its morality it’s more a war propaganda movie than anything. It’s definitely about our current permanent state of imperial war, connecting it historically to and justifying it as a continuation of America’s genocidal war against Native Americans. It’s really vile.
Noah,
True. I guess you can say I love to hate vampires. I enjoy the traditional vampire films where the vampire is killed in the end. I don’t consider Twilight to be true vampire fiction, but I’m sure that’s a singular opinion on my part. I know people that have read the Twilight series and I’ve had it explained to me. I know enough to know to avoid it.
defense of murder… it’s ok if you’re the overman!
“If only you hadn’t confessed to the murder!” were my final words.
“But I had to! They asked me on my honour”, he said naively.
Somewhat puzzled, I asked, “Do you think a lie is worse than . . . than rape and murder?”
“As a general principle probably not, but in my case yes, definitely. You see, when the examining magistrate asked me if I admitted the crime, I had the strength to tell the truth. That is, it was in my power to lie or not to lie. When I committed the rape and the murder I had no choice. Even though I was fully aware of what I was doing, I still had no choice. There was something inside me, the presence of which I had until then never suspected, that woke up and was stronger than I. Do you imagine I would have murdered someone if I had had the choice? I have never killed anything, not even the smallest animal; now I would be absolutely incapable of doing so.
Do you know the words of the Prophet Micah, ‘He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what the Lord doth require of thee’?
If I had lied, I would have created an ultimate cause, because I had the choice. When I committed the murder, I did not create a cause. It was merely the effect of a cause that had long been slumbering within me, and over which I had no control, that was released.
That is why my hands are clean.
By making me into a murderer, the spirit within me has carried out an execution on me; by stringing me up on the gallows, men will detach my fate from theirs: I will reach freedom.”
This man is a saint, I thought to myself, and my hair stood on end as I shuddered at my own insignificance.
“You will ask how it could happen that I, in spite of my detachment from the world, could turn into a rapist and murderer over night? Human beings are like glass tubes with coloured balls running along them. In most cases there is only one ball during a whole lifetime: if the ball is red, then the person is ‘bad’; if it is yellow, the person is ‘good’. If there are two, one red and one yellow, then ‘one’ has an ‘unstable character’. We who have been ‘bitten by the snake’ go through as much in one lifetime as the whole of mankind goes through in an epoch. The red and yellow balls shoot along the glass tube one after the other, and when they are finished, then we will have become prophets, will be the mirrors of God.”
Oh, that’s not a singular opinion. Lots and lots of people hate twilight on the grounds that sparkly vampires aren’t real vampires. (I kind of like the sparkly vampires myself — I enjoy the bizarre star-struck goofiness of it. But that is me.)
horror is defenses of murder by aristocrats, written by aristocrats. after polidori vampire is aristocratic figure. by saying that aristocrats are bloodsuckers is it really anti aristocrat? what if we are tricked into identify with the fucking royalty (as usual)? hmmmm?
how come the royalty gets to be the hero and the villain at same time (is sauron royalty? orcs seem like proles. lots of serfs grovelling at the feet of the good guys of the LOTR movies especially with the rohan peasants all being shoved into a castle so the main characters can kick them with their horses hooves)
the article is good i like the ’78 body snatchers tho. reminds me that ‘don’t look now’ would be a good one for that topic with its parental anxiety themes.
child stabbing parent in echo chamber in night of the living dead.
‘dandy dust’ is a queer horror film. a great time travel narrative.
the [monster/vampire] is the extruded, rejected part of [selfhood] — the anxiety, terror, and desire which threaten a compromised … identity
yes? no?
Are we kind of starting to forget the fact that Priest was apparently a miserable movie with or without racism?
I don’t think I’d forgotten it…but it doesn’t hurt to have it reiterated.
the oldest story in america is that of genocide justified through notions of white superiority. it is a narrative that saturates every level of social reality. priest is just another take on the elements of that racist narrative, updating it to be entertaining and palatable by younger generations whose historical contextual facts are lacking. substitute “american indian” for “vampire” and you have a classical cowboy storyline of how the west was won. the priest is john wayne, indian killer extraordinaire. the reservations where the fallen tribes of “vampires” live are geographically segregated from the real human beings whose lives are much more valuable; mirroring the actual reality of how reservations and “american indians” (as a racialized other) were created. reifying american indians into vampires allows the racism of the true historical story to be buffered/redirected and continued at the same time. racism is as embedded into white european cultural DNA as is the blue eyes and blond hair of the main character. how do you americanize a korean comic? you add the racist and wild west narrative as directed.