Just when even the mainstream media outlets are starting to cautiously report that some of the Democratic candidates have insane ideas or are obnoxious and corrupt, Donald Trump gets all upset about the South Koreans winning a major Oscar and rhapsodising about how good movies were in the days of "Gone With The Wind" and "Sunset Boulevard." Will someone explain to me that this is actually a good thing about him, and an example of how he is outwitting them by playing 3D chess?
Can we admit that at least some of his tweets are ill-advised, and harm his electoral chances?
GWTW is in fact a terrible movie. The whole genre associated with it is bad, like romance novels that also manage to romanticize slavery as it was practiced in the South. It was once extremely popular, but I cannot grasp why.
ReplyDeleteI will concede that some of Trump's tweets, or stratagems in general, backfire on him. But I don't think taht's the case here. When I first read his comment about Parasite, I thought it was a pitifully stupid example of the worst kind of proud ignorance. But I suspect that most Americans wouldn't dream of going to see a subtitled foreign movie, and Korea might as well be Mars asf ar as they're concerned. I imagine they were deeply confused that a movie in Korean would be given the top award, and much more confused, and perhaps insulted, to hear coastal elites chatter about how wonderful it was that a foreign film had triumphed over American ones.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the effectiveness of this tweet other than maybe it's a roundabout way of expressing some form of American exceptionalism, but my suspicion is that sometimes Trump just says silly things.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I did see Parasite and 1917, and 1917 is 10 times the film Parasite is.
Firstly off, the N-dimensional Chess paradigm is just plain wrong and misleading. Chess is a finite state game with fixed rules. The apt metaphor is that Trump is a master poker player. Poker is all about reading people. That's what Trump does best.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Tweets - the only people who pay attention, maybe 10% of the electorate, or take them seriously are committed partisans. He's not changing any votes there.
What the tweets do is focus everything on him. They are like a catnip equipped laser pointer to the media and his opponents. This has two major plusses. First, it keeps him in the news like no other politician ever. Second, he is a lightning rod that frees the rest of his administration from close scrutiny. More than one cabinet officer has made comments to this effect.
Attempting to analyze or critique Trump's actions is an exercise in futility. He's different in ways that we have never seen. Results are the only things that matter. So far he's done pretty durn good.
I think there is something to the idea that he is tapping into an undercurrent of calling people out for congratulating themselves for awarding a non-American, non-white film. Not having followed this at all I can't certify that this rhapsodising is going on, but I'll bet it is, because I know these people. Very much in the "First Native-American to be a bank president - ain't we special" realm.
ReplyDeleteI agree entirely with Roy's take. I broke my own rule, which has been "Pay no attention to what he says; watch what he does." Duly chastened here.
Ya gotta go with the flow, mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
ReplyDeleteI don't live near a movie theater. The nearest one is nearly an hour away.