"Round up the usual straight White men!"
Regards,
Posted on 04/28/2023 10:37:50 AM PDT by nickcarraway
It finally happened and not a moment too soon.
Conservatives and old-school liberals have been waiting, and waiting, for a Hollywood A-lister to defend free speech.
We’ve had comic legends do just that, from John Cleese to Bill Maher. Their comments, and bravery, matter.
Others, like legendary author Judy Blume, approached the subject but only to smite a rising GOP star with a limited grasp of the facts.
Cutting through the pop culture noise demands something extra – the biggest stars in entertainment blasting the freedom-snuffing woke mindset.
Enter Steven Spielberg.
The Oscar-winning director not only mocked efforts to revise classic art, but he also regretted doing just that to one of his most iconic films. The director spoke during a recent master class event at the Time 100 Summit.
The Q&A found him rising to cinema’s defense while admitting his own shortcomings.
Spielberg edited the 1982 smash “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” for its 20th anniversary to remove the guns held by FBI agents chasing the film’s heroic children. The weapons became walkie-talkies with some CGI trickery, a switch Spielberg now sees as wrong.
“That was a mistake,” Spielberg said. “I never should have done that. ‘E.T.’ is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily, or being forced to peer through.”
Wait. Stop.
Spielberg specifically said, “or being forced to peer through.” That matters.
News outlets covering Spielberg’s interview focused on the “E.T.” regret, mostly. Others zeroed in, and rightly so, on the director shredding “sensitivity readers” for censoring books by Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie.
“For me, it is sacrosanct. It’s our history, it’s our cultural heritage. I do not believe in censorship in that way.”
That matters.
What Spielberg alluded to speaks to the heart of the matter. We’re being “forced” to re-examine classic films, books and TV shows by a tiny minority of woke scolds who want to erase western culture.
Said minority wields tremendous power, alas, supported by the mainstream media, timid corporations and radicals who crave a Marxist makeover of the grand American experiment.
Spielberg’s comments hit the press roughly two days ago, and he hasn’t rushed out to apologize or amend his statements.
That matters, too.
Think how quickly Blume rescinded her defense of author J.K. Rowling when the woke mob descended on her virtually.
News travels fast in the Internet age.
None of this erases Spielberg’s political leanings. He’s a rock-ribbed progressive who has written more than a few checks for Democrats over the decades. He also remade “West Side Story” last year, embracing woke “upgrades” along the way.
‘Woke’ West Side Story was ‘quite the flop’
The film proved one of the biggest commercial failures of his illustrious career.
Politics shouldn’t matter when it comes to creative expression, free speech and protecting art. Spielberg proved that this week, even though he should have been speaking out on the matter long before the Time event.
Now, will more A-listers follow his lead?
Speaking of which, I’m a little disappointed Steven chose not to reinsert the scene with Elliot’s principal, who was played by Harrison Ford, back into the 2002 20th anniversary special edition of “E.T: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL”.
No. They don't. For two reasons, one they only speak up when their personal ox is gored.
The second is they spent a very long time tearing down all the things the preserved a culture that protected free speech.
And then suddenly they discovered that the cuddly puppies were actually wolves that would tear them apart as well they were frightened. And cried about their wounds. But never managed to draw the line between their tearing down the fence that kept them safe and the wolf bite.
I don’t remember seeing it.
Imagine what Casablanca would look like if modern day feminists and trans ‘women’ took a pair of scissors to it...
Spielberg’s right on this issue.
Cleese once called Republicans ‘’racists’’.
> Now, will more A-listers follow his lead?
Nope. Not a chance.
Judy Blume is “legendary”??
Judy Blume is “legendary”??
You’ll have to use YouTube if you want to watch the scene in question, because it was only included on the 1996 laserdisc release.
"Round up the usual straight White men!"
Regards,
Spielberg is huge gun guy with a collection to die for. Stupid for him to support the party that wants to take it away.
Which is pretty much the attitude of every gun (or rather weapon) grabber since time immemorial. Can't let the peasants have crossbows. Or long bows. Or swords. Or spears.
Re: the cuddly puppies
I am reminded of the movie “Gremlins”.
LOL - good one!
I liked the original scene where alien ET while riding on the bicycle is vaporizing everyone.... ZAP! ZAP!
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