People in the throes of sexual rapture don’t notice a lot of things about their lovers: the lies, the deceit, the skills that the unscrupulous use on the needy and willing to manipulate them and seduce them. The prey’s judgement is clouded by the image that the seducer displays. Since judgement is suspended, the contradictions that are apparent to others not seduced vanish into thin air.
That is also the case with people seduced by propagandists: they don’t realize that they contradict themselves by defending mass murderers and sociopaths in the name of “social justice”. Case in point, movie auteur Steven Soderbergh:
‘Che’ relevant to American politics
Why make “Che”? What relevance does it have to 2008?
“We’re certainly seeing the result of what happens when you make profit the point of everything, where money that’s being earned doesn’t represent any particular product or labor on anybody’s part.
Like a movie, you mean?
That can’t sustain, because it’s magical thinking. It can’t go on indefinitely, because eventually it crashes. Che’s dream of a classless society, a society that isn’t built on the profit motive, is still relevant. The arguments still going on are about his methodology.”
Soderbergh’s orgasm over Che has lasted long enough that he’s now inflicting a four hour propaganda movie on the paying public.
Hmmm. The paying public. And let’s not forget the push for Benicio to win the Oscar. Might there be a profit motive in that? Pejman thinks so:
I suppose I should applaud Soderbergh for not experiencing intellectual whiplash in the course of both denouncing and exalting the profit motive in a single interview but however impressed I am with that feat, I am more appalled that Soderbergh apparently did not notice the inconsistency in his commentary.
As I said, being in love and being rational don’t go hand in hand.
Nick Gillespie, who is not in love with Che:
Aye caramba. Yes, the real lesson to be drawn from a man who oversaw summary executions and ran Cuba’s economy 20,000 leagues under the sea is that profits and capitalism are evil.
…
As for the dream of a classless society, I’m not sure what the profit motive has to do with that per se (classes, as Marx would tell you, predate bourgeois society);or precisely how desirable such a thing is (I write as an arriviste whose parents grew up grindingly poor, needless to say). The U.S. has classes, for sure. What is different about this place is that class is not fixed on status or connections. It is not perfect, to be sure, but it’s a much more fluid and forgiving place than the hierarchical societies that produced Fidel and Che and it’s also a lot less stultifying than the open-air prisons they helped create.
Take a look at the Cuba Archive files, and read the names of the people Che himself killed. Then ask why Soderbergh doesn’t mention them in his film.
Perhaps it would affect his profit motive?
More on Soderbergh’s Che here and here.
UPDATE, Sunday 14 December
Del Toro Turns Into Del Burro When Confronted About the REAL Che: Here’s the interview in Spanish, parts 1 & 2,
She kicked his butt from here to Patagonia.
So, I guess we get to be treated with “V for Vendetta” stretched to 4 hours? I am still amazed that the studios are finding big enough suckers to finance turkeys like this.
IMHO – Benicio del Toro’s best role was ‘Fenster’ in The Usual Suspects. He wasn’t big on the scene a dozen years ago, but since hitting Oscar gold, he is very full of himself.