Che Hit Theaters Today
Posted by Dirty Harry on Friday, December 12th, 2008
In order to qualify for any Academy Award nominations which might come its way, Steven Soderbergh’s love letter to a madman who probably opposed gay marriage opens in select theaters this week.
Unfortunately, one of those select theaters is right here in Los Angeles, so I’ll see it next week. All 4 hours … of … it.
In the meantime, my buddy Ed Driscoll hosts Nick Gillespie’s look at the mass-murderer forgiven by the Left because, well, he’s good looking and no doubt would have engaged in that which absolves all Leftists of all sins: driven a Prius.
Filed in General |
Brandonon 12 Dec 2008 at 7:04 am 1I’ve never understood the left’s love affair with Che. The man had no socially redeeming qualities, was a mass murderer and enforcer for one of the most repressive government’s in modern history, and on top of that was nicknamed che (pig) because he was a slob who apparently smelled awful. Can someone on the left pleeeeease explain this to me.
beartoothon 12 Dec 2008 at 7:18 am 2You’re rather assuming that everyone sees ’smelly, mass-murdering enforcer’ as a bad thing, aren’t you ?
I remain convinced that it amounts to nothing more than one very dashing photograph, and a nickname that sounds kinda cool if you don’t speak Spanish.
Anyone honestly believe this cult would exist if it was based around photos of a fat guy called Ernie playing golf (apparently a more typical pursuit than striking poses at funerals) ?
Brandonon 12 Dec 2008 at 7:45 am 3I suppose I simply don’t see the difference between idolizing che and Heinrich Himmler. Both were enforcers for oppressive socialist / communist governments the only principle differences were that Himmler didn’t personally do the killing and had better hygeine.
Michaelon 12 Dec 2008 at 7:45 am 4This is so sad and pathetic. Thank you for posting the video clip about Che. Until now I have always believed that people revere Che out of ignorance. That if they just did their homework and studied what Che actually did they would realize what a vicious sociopath he truly was. But a director like Soderberg is not an ignorant man. He and those involved in making this film had to have done at least enough research to know the vicious, murderous side of the man.
Then I saw the trailer for Che where in it Del Toro’s Che acknowledges the mass executions Che ordered and actually justifies them. This is a trick of propaganda; they acknowledge the dark side of the man just enough to claim they are not white-washing him, and then they justify his evil. How frightening! A major media A-list feature film that justifies mass murder as a political solution.
I have never understood this love affair the left has with Che any more than I can understand the left’s love affair with the battle to end liberty throughout the world, and make no mistake, that is the unspoken goal. This film is an example of it. Even when confronted with the real Che and his very real crimes against humanity the left shrug them off as if those truths are just meaningless inconveniences that tarnish the narrative they want to believe in their heads.
Can Soderberg, Del Toro and all of the artists, writers and musicians who cheer Che really be so blind as to not see that they are the very people Che would have executed or dragged off to reeducation camps?
Apparently they are that blind, and if we let them, they’ll drag the rest of us along with them.
Blast Hardcheeseon 12 Dec 2008 at 7:51 am 5Brandon, it’s because he’s a handsome guy! Don’t ask me why that should matter, though. Other (non mass-murdering) examples: JFK, RFK, Obama…
I had at least one person say to my face that the main reasons they were voting Obama was because he was ‘good looking’. How do you even start to get a rational discussion going with that?
Carolynon 12 Dec 2008 at 7:55 am 6Leftism is a dreamy state of mind in which you’re any place but here. Reality gets in the way. Which is why leftists embrace Che - he’s not real. He’s dead, for Christ’s sakes! Che’s the mental toke of leftists, putting them into sighing daydreams of a communist utopia the way Rudolf Valentino put lonely fat shopgirls into daydreams of sexual fulfillment. Both dreams are unreal and both know it. Yet both are terrified of waking up. The leftist doesn’t want to because it would mean confronting his pathetic life of a graying ponytail, no savings and a futon on the floor. A fat shopgirl doesn’t want to wake up either because it would mean having to diet and work out, take a bath, etc. Neither wants to do the hard work necessary to create a real existence - so both lose themselves in myths.
Valentino did it for lonely fat shopgirls - Che does it for lonely stupid leftists. Same difference
Another thing. FOUR HOURS? Who in the hell can sit through something that’s four hours?
texacaliroseon 12 Dec 2008 at 7:56 am 7OK, it’s casual Friday. I’m wearing my khaki colored “Reagan Revolution” teeshirt today.
If you don’t see me posting here after today, it’s because I was mugged on the streets of San Francisco.
Viva La Reagan Revolución!
dittybopperon 12 Dec 2008 at 8:04 am 8You can purchase a, “don’t be a douCHE” T-shirt at Blackfive.net and other military blogs: milblogs.net. I bought one several weeks ago and get snotty and mildly amusing remarks from Code Pink types regularly. Wear it to a Starbucks and enjoy the reaction. Actually, the best part is when they confront you, you get an opportunity to explain exactly who and what Che was: most people do not know his background, including all those young college kids. It is amazing, to me at least, how many kids do not know that he was a commie or that he was a murderer.
Johnny Ed's Babyon 12 Dec 2008 at 8:04 am 9Che Hit Theaters Today
I think hit is the perfect verb for this movie.
G-MANon 12 Dec 2008 at 8:12 am 10It’s pretty simple, really.
Revolution is COOL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87yq372R4Ts
Revolution is FUN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxXfenh-vKY
Revolution is SEXY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3iBwnx4yRk
‘“It’s about Chavez and the South American revolution,” Stone told the trade in a reference to the wave of leftist politicians elected to office in Latin America in recent years.’
What Hitler lacked was the term Revolution. Otherwise he would be as popular now as all these other jerks.
If people stopped to think about what the revolution will bring them, they wouldn’t sign up, but it’s hard to look beyond something that’s cool, fun and sexy.
woohoo
Salon 12 Dec 2008 at 8:17 am 11There is a dance club on Loop 12 called “Che”. A dance club.
I am not making this up.
Rather Readon 12 Dec 2008 at 8:23 am 12It’s one of Roger Ebert’s best movies of 2008. So is W.
Jonathanon 12 Dec 2008 at 9:11 am 13Kyle Smith has a great review of the film. (Click his name on the blog roll to get to it.)
It’s odd how we see all these images of Guevara yet none for Saddam.
Jeremiahon 12 Dec 2008 at 9:21 am 14Carolyn,
Four hours is first prize..second prize is eight hours.
Kiton 12 Dec 2008 at 9:32 am 15Brandon,
The name “Che” did not come from “pig.”
He got it because it was what he called everyone. In his home country of Argentina “Che” is a common thing to call people, like “dude.”
Got my smartass moment out of the way.
But, I agree, I never understood the Left’s fascination with him, of course, being truly detached from reality to think that Socialism Works, might enable one to think Che is a hero to to women (whom he blew fetuses out of), poor farmers (who he slaughtered), and puppies (who he shot, for no apparent reason*)
*THE BASTARD!
Read Humberto Fontova’s book if you REALLY want to get pissed.
Kiton 12 Dec 2008 at 9:35 am 16G-Man,
Huh, The Beatles’ “Revolution” always came across to me as ANTI-Revolutionist.
The words pretty much describe the feelings of conservatives (or at least me) when they (or I) hear men like Ayers, Castro, Chavez, bin Laden, Dhorn, Mao, Stalin, and others speaking about their plans.
G-MANon 12 Dec 2008 at 10:57 am 17Kit-
You are correct. “…But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow….”
I am a Beatles fan. I mentioned it only as a reference point to how other misguided souls have use it; and, as some people were acting when Lennon and McCartney wrote the song.
miles archeron 12 Dec 2008 at 1:01 pm 18Couple things. Kit is right about ‘Revolution.’ In fact, when the song was released, there was a veritable shit-storm of protest from the usual suspects on the Left.
Ramparts called it “Betrayal.”
New Left Review called it “A petty bourgeois cry of fear.”
Jon Landau opined, “Hubert Humphrey couldn’t have said it better.”
The Berkeley Barb said “Sounds like the hawk plank adopted in the Chicago convention of the Democratic Death Party.”
Heh. The fact that the Stones “Street Fighting Man” came out the same week in August didn’t help. It was seen as an ideologically acceptable alternative by those same poseurs.
(The latter info comes from the best book ever written about the band, “Magic Circles, The Beatles in Dream and History” by Devin McKinney.)
Oh, and congratulations on wedging in a gay marriage joke in the first graf, DH. This just gets better with age. It is, and exactly, like those who spent the last several years trying to find a way to fit “No Blood for Oil” into every conceivable occasion. A similarly trenchant bit of analysis.
John McClainon 12 Dec 2008 at 2:36 pm 19Speaking of “No Blood for Oil”, when we had the $4/gal, I loved bring that up. I would say “Sooooo when do we get this cheap oil that we bought with all this blood, it’s been several years now, shouldn’t we be getting cheap oil by now?” As usual they had no response because they had not received the talking points of the day from CNN.
Die Hard Fan
Kendamaon 12 Dec 2008 at 3:58 pm 20You see, leftists are obsessed with the process of revolution — the smashing of hallowed symbols, the venting of repressed anger, the feeling of unrivaled power over the authority that always used to threaten you. To them, it is truly liberating.
They have no interest in what happens afterward.
Note who their icons are: Che and Mao. Che died when Cuba’s regime was still young; Mao died shortly after the Cultural Revolution, when youths rampaged their way throughout China. The “process” was still ongoing, and they died shortly after that.
There are neither Stalin shirts, nor Ho Chi Minh shirts, nor Castro shirts making the rounds. The three aforementioned men lost their “revolutionary” status when they became authority figures. The only reason Mao was not included here was because he initiated the Cultural Revolution — a process.
This is why you see movies like The Motorcycle Diaries or Che — movies depicting Che doing what the leftists wished they could do. Don’t hold your breath for any sequels, such as The Firing-Squad Diaries or Che vs. the Dirty Bourgeois Oppressor-Dogs.
ChristopherMCon 12 Dec 2008 at 4:18 pm 21I hate Che shirts too. But I think of it this way: every Che shirt which is made and purchased is a small triumph of capitalism. The more Che shirts, the more communism is defeated.
Keetson 12 Dec 2008 at 10:18 pm 22Talk about taking the bullet for us!! All I can say, Harry, is make sure you gets of sleep beforehand. Perhaps a nice breakfast with lots of protein. You’ll need it. Good luck, and we’ll be rooting for you.
Morganon 13 Dec 2008 at 6:27 am 23In any case, Dirty Harry, having to endure “4 hours..of..it” earns you my deep condolences.
As for driving a Prius, a certain ventriloquist dummy described it best (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb12nQEOyfM [start at 2:11 into the video]):
“That is the saddest little vehicle.”
“You ever heard it as you drive by?”
“It goes I-I-I-I-I-I’m gay!”
Templaron 16 Dec 2008 at 9:46 am 24G-Man:
What Hitler lacked was the term Revolution. Otherwise he would be as popular now as all these other jerks.
Hitler was just as popular as the other jerks, right up until he attacked the Soviet Union.
Morgan:
“That is the saddest little vehicle.”
“You ever heard it as you drive by?”
“It goes I-I-I-I-I-I’m gay!”
And that, my friends, is the voice of the human male, unfettered by the shackles of political correctness.