"Watchmen" Fanatic Derangement Syndrome... (Debbie Schlussel responds to critics)

debbieschlussel.com ^ | March 5, 2009 | Debbie Schlussel

[EveningStar]

I guess I shouldn't be amazed at the number of slacker ignoramuses who are up in arms about my frank review cutting down the absolute crap they worship a/k/a "The Watchmen", coming out in theaters late tonight. The e-mails they send me and the comments they make about how "deep," "edgy" and "profound" this vile piece of trash (which is none of these) reminds me of the blind statements of followers of Jim Jones. And we all know what happened after they drank he purple Kool-Aid. If only this movie could achieve that result, it would be the most fantastic exercise in natural selection ever conducted in America.

[Antoninus]

Wow -- her issues run deeper than I suspected, and that's saying something.

Right. The person criticizing the depravity has got "issues". The person actually creating it is an artstic genius.

That's straight out of the homo-promo playbook. Congratulations, stevey.

[Antoninus]

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lord of the Rings
1984


Those had to be included for the list to be even the least bit credible. Duh.

[editor-surveyor]

Are ‘super heroes’ appropriate for adults?

You know that the theaters will be full of kids, as most R movies are.

[steve-b]

Far more innocent blood has been shed by "presidents" and "premiers" and "parliaments" acting in the name of the People than by any Christian king acting in the Name of God.

Well, duh; the former live in times when the population is over an order of magnitude greater. Using the correct measure (percentage of total population) we find, for example:

So great was the devastation brought about by the [Thirty Years'] war that estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 15% to 30%.[42][43] Some regions were affected much more than others.[44] For example, the Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war.[45] In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died.[46] The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half.[47] The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs.[48][49]

[allmendream]

Both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were Christians and wrote their books with Christian symbolism and themes.

In other words, if you think “the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” is secular humanist literature you are either a fanatic or ignorant of the thinking and intent of the author.

[bvw]

A lot of modifiers there. You’d exclude the children’s crusade, the other crusades, the Inquisition, and all the native peoples of the Americas slaughtered by the Spanish Conquistadors all acting under authority of Christian Kings, so I gather. Right?

Oh, and what of Liberty? Under the Christian Kings you’d include in your self-defined subset of the “perfect” what Liberty was had to the People so that great human invention and development occurred? What was the literacy rate under these Kings, for example? Or was the literacy of a peasant a capital crime?

[allmendream]

Sarcasm.

In my best Emily Litella..... “NEVERMIND”

[bvw]

Kudos.

[Melas]

There’s a context in this movie that makes the on-screen dismemberment of a six year old necessary? Lay it on me!

Absolutely. It's the pivotal event that turns an idealistic boyscout into a semi-sane (at best), bloodthirsty vigilante.

[steve-b]

Well, there is one modern secular regime (the Khmer Rouge) that can compete with the desolation level wrought by the Christian lords of 17th-century Europe. So, I guess it comes down to a tie.

[xp38]

One of the more disturbing movies I have seen in recent years is Mr Brooks with Kevin Costner. The lead character is a serial killer and the movie tries to make him a sympathetic character. It doesn’t pull it off completely but it tries. Was wondering if you saw it and your thoughts on it?

[texmexis best]

I have a real problem with calling a comic book art. It’s just a comic book. It’s not real.

Y’all need to get out more.....

[bvw]

I’m almost sorry I harpooned his tag line and dragged it ashore to skin it. But it has opened a certain line of indulgence of fantasy thinking that tolerates as “great fun” social deconstructionist drivel like the “watchwazoos”. I mean as “adult” material it is also very childish, in a feral child sort of way.

[hedgetrimmer]

Movies are part of the culture. If you are warring on the American culture you create 'art' that is demeaning, disparaging and discouraging. It's a goal of the communists who by some accounts now have one of their own in the white house.

COMMUNIST GOALS (From The Congressional Record, Jan. 10, 1963)
15. Gain control of key positions in radio, T.V., and motion pictures.
16. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.

[Borges]

Haven’t seen this film so couldn’t tell you.

[Borges]

I didn’t watch BOB either.

[freedumb2003]

But a King’s fantasies are realities to all, and that can be, will be, quite difficult and dangerous to all.

Well, we have one now and your words are proving prophetic.

[Borges]

The social and mythological underpinning of the need for superheros is a subject worthy of serious study for adults yes.

[Borges]

No art is real.

[Oztrich Boy]

Are you really asserting that Watchmen has any artistic or aesthetic merit?

And back in the day, the same was being asked about Shakespear.