Does anyone else find it interesting that screenwriter Tom Ford decided to give Amy Adams' character some long, irreleva
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twookey — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 03:17 PM)
I don't think I've ever read a more unreasonable riposte to a post before, such as the one you received from that bed wetting liberal harping on about sentivities.
Having just watched the film, I completely concur that Ford does seem to be dragging us through the liberal agenda, then suddenly reminding us of the deleterious emotional effects of abortion, thus seemingly compromising his whole political agenda. Remember, for liberals abortion is just a fun day out, not to be taken too seriously, just a free visit to a clinic to rectify the problem of liberal parenting.
You've been hit with the homophobia tag for daring to mention the director's agenda. I have no issue with homosexuals, bar the fact that they are terribles bores. Banging on about rights ad nauseam and castigating those that mention it just makes them slaves to their own insecuriity. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 05:41 PM)
This post is so confusing.
I understand and completely agree with most of what you wrote, especially the bit about Ford compromising his whole political agenda (and perhaps less with your hyperbole about liberals' attitudes towards abortion). However, my main point is that it's the hypocrisies of liberal tolerance that we both seem to be picking up on hereand in particular, in my case, that nauseating variety typified by wealthy gay men wearing their 'oppression' as some badge of honor.
But the sensitivities I was talking about were the (liberal) responder and her knee-jerk reaction to defend all gays, and her immediate interpretation of my observation as a sign of fear and hatred. If anything, the bed-wetting liberal is she, not I.
And I, not she, have been hit with the homophobia taga predictable attack lobbed by her. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 15, 2017 08:34 AM)
Remember, for liberals abortion is just a fun day out, . .
This remark is beyond stupid, and identifies you as a buffoon and bed-wetting conservative bore. The film is a psychological mystery - not a political diatribe. Ford uses the abortion issue as plot point - it's only tedious dogmatists who see propaganda wherever they look. -
weirdozmedia — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 08:13 PM)
I don't see anything wrong with gay people and women having rights.
Hack The Planet!
http://www.ExilesoftheUnderground.com -
joekiddlouischama — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 08:14 PM)
It's like Ford's waving his rainbow flag and equating (however indirectly) abortion in the mind of a man as tantamount to a brutal abduction and murder all in one fell swoop.
These ideas never occurred to me in my two viewings. Would you describe yourself as politically conservative (perhaps passionately so)? You may well possess a pointthat Ford was covertly pushing a liberal political agenda or at least offering some progressive political subtextbut one might have to be especially sensitive to such issues in order to come away with that interpretation.
For the record, I am not sure that the "soliloquy about her gay brother and her intolerant parents" is that "irrelevant," because it suggests that Susan is socially isolated and alienated on some levela theme that continues through the end of the movie and that may explain why she got into the LA art scene rather than, say, moving back to Texas like Edward. And the abortion point creates (or at least tries to do so) some emotional depth and a plausible theory for motivation.
I never saw any of that as especially political. Yes, the whole "Republican, racist, sexist" spiel is superficially political, but I saw it primarily as a point of character illuminationto suggest Susan's disaffectionand one that Ford presents with humor and irony. Actually, even Susan is saying those lines with some humor and irony, as if to suggest that she is being somewhat hyperbolic while still reflecting a strong kernel of truth. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(December 31, 2016 04:43 AM)
Susan's isolation and disaffection is compounded, first by rejecting the stifling, conservative existence of a Southern debutante, and second by eventually capitulating to her family's bourgeois way of thinking.
We don't really need Ford's treatise on anti-gay conservative Americans to bring this point home. It's beyond superficial; it's superfluous.
What's interesting to me, however, is that you seem to see this as somehow significant for character development (Really? We're talking about Columbia grad school students enjoying dinner at a place most of the student body couldn't afford), while giving Ford a pass for his abortion plot device as grounds for Edward's rape-revenge fantasy.
Does gay acceptance trump women's rights for you as it apparently does for Ford?
And no, I'm not politically conservative. Maybe I'm just attuned to these things after having studied film and political anthropology and even queer theory. Perhaps that you didn't see this as especially political means that it's so commonplace for you as (now it's my turn to presume) an urbane sophisticate in a wealthy liberal society as to escape your notice. But if you haven't seen Ford's previous film A Single Man, and hear echoes of the overtly political sentiments in that film here, then maybe it's not so much my 'conservative' sensibilities that were affronted as these pro-gay-yet-misogynistic ideologies being as natural as the air your breathe. -
VonDC — 9 years ago(January 16, 2017 01:03 AM)
DHfilmfan wrote:
'But if you haven't seen Ford's previous film A Single Man, and hear echoes of the overtly political sentiments in that film here, then maybe it's not so much my 'conservative' sensibilities that were affronted as these pro-gay-yet-misogynistic ideologies being as natural as the air your breathe.'
You are absolutely right. -
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ashman-12 — 9 years ago(January 02, 2017 05:07 AM)
Agreed; the aesthetic of the movie was beautiful, but it did have some weirdly discordant misogyny that really stood out for me. Especially things like rape (suggested and then depicted, which was really unnecessary) as a plot device to motivate a male character to fulfil his revenge fantasy; and abortion where one of the first thoughts the woman has afterwards is that her ex won't forgive her for "killing his child", as opposed to the emotional ordeal she's just gone through herself and her own decision-making autonomy. The whole focus on how much of a victim Edward was from Susan's abortion (as if it was a malicious act of hers towards him) seemed pretty messed up.
OP, glad you brought this up. You're right to juxtapose this misogyny with Ford's liberal stance with gay men. It's great to see more gay men represented in cinema, but I get your point that the focus on the acceptance of gay men contrasts with the lack of acceptance of women's autonomy. Speaking from within the community, I do observe that many cis gay men can be quite casually misogynistic, often without really realising it. -
agostino-dallas — 9 years ago(January 02, 2017 05:52 PM)
English is not my first language but I guess reading your post that all you wanted was to point out how the screenwriter has some sort of sympathy on the gay cause clearly putting the Republican parents on the spot while at the same time the abortion is compared to a rape/murder which means he is like justifying or at least giving some implied support to the husband's revenge, criminalizing abortion or making it "revenge-worthy".
Anyway, it is so weird how the internet has brought up the worse of some people. Not only to your post but thousands everyday. And some of them are unjustified angry comments like the person reads it dynamically and just start "punching the keyboard" like crazy. And usually, one gets so angry they refuse to read it again and the confusion snowballs quickly to a point of no return. I am not like "Gandhi" when it comes to writing but I tend to avoid arguing when the person is clearly too defensive or when the person is totally biased and avoids to analyze the text. I guess the same is valid to the "It doesn't matter" post here as well. I go a lot to the movies in Brazil and I also did when I lived in Texas in the USA. And one of the funniest thing is you go to the movies, you watch something you hate and something you loved. And you get to the office and sometimes before you even mention you have been to the movies you listen some colleagues saying they find movie "A" awesome and movie "B" terrible, and it is just the opposite of what you think. That's how we are. In a much broader way, Europeans movies were for a long time considered art, thought-provoking, long dialogues about existential issues and used nudity all the time while Hollywood would demonize nudity and focus on non-stop car-crashing and bullets ripping all over with almost no critical dialogue. And in the end there was market for both. -
agostino-dallas — 9 years ago(January 02, 2017 05:52 PM)
English is not my first language but I guess reading your post that all you wanted was to point out how the screenwriter has some sort of sympathy on the gay cause clearly putting the Republican parents on the spot while at the same time the abortion is compared to a rape/murder which means he is like justifying or at least giving some implied support to the husband's revenge, criminalizing abortion or making it "revenge-worthy".
Anyway, it is so weird how the internet has brought up the worse of some people. Not only to your post but thousands everyday. And some of them are unjustified angry comments like the person reads it dynamically and just start "punching the keyboard" like crazy. And usually, one gets so angry they refuse to read it again and the confusion snowballs quickly to a point of no return. I am not like "Gandhi" when it comes to writing but I tend to avoid arguing when the person is clearly too defensive or when the person is totally biased and avoids to analyze the text. I guess the same is valid to the "It doesn't matter" post here as well. I go a lot to the movies in Brazil and I also did when I lived in Texas in the USA. And one of the funniest thing is you go to the movies, you watch something you hate and something you loved. And you get to the office and sometimes before you even mention you have been to the movies you listen some colleagues saying they find movie "A" awesome and movie "B" terrible, and it is just the opposite of what you think. That's how we are. In a much broader way, Europeans movies were for a long time considered art, thought-provoking, long dialogues about existential issues and used nudity all the time while Hollywood would demonize nudity and focus on non-stop car-crashing and bullets ripping all over with almost no critical dialogue. And in the end there was market for both.