The title quote comes from
Mary McNamara's beautifully ruthless* critique of "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood." Her review helped crystalize part of my reaction to the Democratic debates this week.
Kenneth Turan's review of "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood" in the LA Times last week was positive. He acknowledged that he wasn't a Quentin Tarantino fan, but said this was a different Tarantino. Turan saw
Reservoir Dogs at Sundance.
"When a visibly pained audience member asked Tarantino in the Q&A how he justified the film’s tidal waves of violence, the director almost didn’t understand the question. “Justify it?” he echoed before just about roaring, “I don’t have to justify it. I love it!”
Over the next quarter-century, little has changed. To enjoy Tarantino was to embrace his preening style, to share his reductive view of cinema and the world and violence’s preeminent place in both.
I was a chronic dissenter — I still get occasional grief about my “Pulp Fiction” review — so how is it that I reacted with distinct pleasure to the writer-director’s 'Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood'?"
I didn't see either of those films. I'd heard about the level of violence (much directed at women) and decided I didn't need to buy a ticket for films that glorify violence.
[*How can I enjoy a 'beautifully ruthless" critique on the one hand, and shun a violent and bloody film? Well, one is just well strung words, the other strings bloody images across the screen. Do we really think that Hollywood and the video game industry have not been primers for mass shooters?]
But given Turan's approval this time, I was thinking about going.
But a few days later, Mary McNamara, also reviewed the movie in the LA Times. She came after the movie, mercilessly from a different angle. Here's more than I'd normally quote, but it's all relevant to my follow up about white males' difficulty understanding why others have problems with their past behavior.
"Nostalgia is fun, and fine when used recreationally; but it’s time to face the dangers of our national addiction to reveling in visions of the past that are, at best, emotionally curated by a select few and, at worst, complete nonsense."
"Watching two middle-aged white guys grapple with a world that does not value them as much as they believe it should, it was tough not to wonder if that something was the same narrow, reductive and mythologized view of history that has made red MAGA hats the couture of conservative fashion."
"Whatever the reason, as I shifted in my seat waiting for the film’s climax, Tarantino’s elegy for a time when men were men and women were madonnas, whores or nags and the only people who spoke Spanish were waiters — “Don’t cry in front of the Mexicans” is an actual line played for laughs — began to feel ominously familiar.
If nothing else, 'Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood' laid to rest the notion of Hollywood liberalism — any industry still so invested in sentimentalizing a time of studio fiefdoms, agents played by Al Pacino in a wig-hat and white-guy buddy movies can hardly be considered progressive.
When times, it is implied if not directly stated, were simpler.
Even though they weren’t. Ever.
Unless you were a member of the white, male, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied, culturally conforming, non-addicted, mentally well, moneyed elite, there was literally no time in history that was simpler, better, easier, or greater. For most people, history is the story of original oppression gradually lessened through a series of struggles and setbacks.
'Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood' is a masterpiece of nostalgia porn. . . Whether it’s the resurrection of leg warmers or fedoras, the British class system, Winona Ryder or, heaven help us, Charles Manson, nostalgia is the new sex and the exquisite museum-like quality of the detail found in period films and television series is its porn.
And he has chosen as his driving force an actor upset because he is no longer seen as hero material and his loyal stuntman companion, who may or may not have murdered his wife. That this death is treated as a joke, and the wife visible only once, in flashback, as a braying nag in a bikini, could be viewed as an indictment of the Playboy-cartoon misogyny of the time. Could be, if Cliff were not portrayed with such charming tough-guy chivalry. If this guy murdered his wife, she probably deserved it .
So for Cliff’s wife anyway, not such a golden era.
I haven't seen the movie, so I can't tell you that she nailed it. But Tarantino would probably tell you his film doesn't have to follow her rules, and so, at worst, she doesn't have to follow his either.
But all this discussion about nostalgia for an age when healthy, etc. white males had it best, intersected with thoughts I had about the criticisms of Biden in the debates - particularly about his
being friendly with extreme Southern racist Senators and his support of the Omnibus Crime bill.
OK, public policy is complicated and few bills are 100% what the sponsors and supporters want.
There are some who would argue that the mass incarceration of black men had already happened and that the bill didn't contribute that much more, plus it included the Violence Against Women Act. (Which Bernie Sanders says is why he voted for it.) But others, who understood better what was happening,
like Marian Wright Edelman, wanted less emphasis on punishment and more emphasis on prevention. Indeed, the bill greatly damaged Edelman's relationship with the Clintons.
My thoughts had been along the lines of:
- Policy is complicated and to pass bills, sponsors have to compromise.
- But ultimately, this was a response to crime fear and was a get tough bill that included the 3 strikes you're out provision that has been so problematic.
- Can you fault Biden, the bill's sponsor?
One can say that he was trying to fight the increase in crime, but that he was using traditional means - more police, stricter punishment, more prisons - and not listening to the minority communities who wanted more prevention money. If he wasn't such a good friend with racist Southern Senators, might he have had a more progressive understanding of the issues? Maybe.
When we judge politicians on their past actions, it's reasonable to give some attention to what were the common beliefs at the time. But I really want our elected officials to be insightful to the extent that the see way ahead of the contemporary wisdom of the day. I want officials who understand the underlying causes of a problem and look ahead to the best - not the most popular - ways to attack the problem.
Because, if Biden becomes president, his past behavior is likely to be the best predictor of his present and future behavior. And he wasn't the deep thinker who saw through the flaws of his bill, how it would affect the prison population, or how preventative provisions needed to be included.
I want a president who sees, and acts on, a greater vision than current public opinion. But I also have to weigh in whether he could have gotten such a law passed. Just as Democrats can't get a lot done while McConnell is majority leader in the Senate.
But I think McNamara's review also points out how easy it is for the privileged in society to NOT see what is happening to the rest of society. Perhaps if he had spent more time with Southern blacks he might have had a better understanding of the perniciousness of the criminal justice systems in the southern states were. But I also watched the Watergate hearings live. It was when I first learned that there were very intelligent Southerners. Without people like Sen. Sam Ervin, Nixon would never have resigned. So, yes, in a legislature, it's useful to maintain cordial relations with people whose ideas you abhor.
But
Biden was also the chair of the committee that vetted Clarence Thomas. He regrets how he handled that now - that's good - but dad he had a more insightful understanding about sexual harassment, had he not been surrounded by privileged white men, perhaps Anita Hill would have been treated with more respect. You can say that 'our national consciousness has evolved" since then, but lots of people were outraged back then as they were more recently.
Even LA Times movie critic Kenneth Turan, who went against the grain in his earlier reviews of Tarantino's work, missed this other interpretation of "Once Upon A Time." This interpretation that the less privileged, the victims of sexism, racism, homophobia, and on and on, have of things.
Of course, we all see films differently because we all have different experiences in life which enable us to react positively or negatively with some things in a film but not others. So we all see different things in the same films. I don't know how I would have reacted to 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' if I saw it. I grew up in LA in the 50s and 60s so there is surely a lot of 'nostalgia porn' for me to get off on in the film. (Though I was off teaching in Thailand when the Sharon Tate murder happened.) But as soon as I read McNamara's review, I understood immediately what she saying. I'm not certain that Biden would think here concerns would outweigh the 'cool stuff.'
But he'd be a lot better than our current president and he'd have around him people who do get it, now, not 30 years from now. I think flaws like this can be pointed out without doing much damage to a presidential candidate Biden were he to nominated, because the Republicans don't even understand these complaints. But they'll try to exploit any divisions among Democrats.
I have a lot of other thoughts about the debates, but I'll save them for a different post - if I get to it.
