Yeah He's Mad, He's Matter Eater Lad

Geez, you'd think aesthetic Stalinism, once you'd committed yourself to it, would in application produce at least broadly compatible results. But you'd be wrong. Take these wildly divergent reviews of the new superhero flick, Iron Man, both coming from dependable sources of right-wing ideological correctness, Pajamas Media and Townhall.

Is Iron Man anti-American? Fuck yeah, says Pajamas Media -- why, Tony Stark is just Jimmy Carter with repulsor rays! And probably an atomic vagina!

Iron Man at its best is made of some heavy mettle. The scenes in which Tony hammers away at an anvil in his cave in Afghanistan stir some primordial Norseman juices. And as superhero material, Tony has a lot more to recommend him than Peter Parker. He’s a wisecracking old hand instead of a damp-eyed daydreamer, he’s an expert on both manufacturing bombshells and dating them, and he’s introduced with AC/DC’s “Back in Black” on the soundtrack. He’s a man, not a boy like that mewling, sticky-palmed milk-drinker Spider-Man....

But as Iron Man turns inward, using his rocket suit and automatic-firing arms not to crush America’s rather hard-to-miss (except by Hollywood) foreign enemies but to essentially go on a cleanup mission to right the wrongs he has committed in the past, the storyline starts to strain at its own contradictions. The climactic battle, for instance, is not only visually uninspired (two giant machines go at it in a near-reenactment of the vapid kiddie movie Transformers) but it reduces Iron Man. He is forced to meekly ask for help instead of finding a way to triumph, and even then things are resolved disappointingly, with the push of a button.

We don’t want a fantasy movie to be a cliché, but we don’t want it to stray too far from the familiar either, and anyway Iron Man merely substitutes one cliché for another: must we be tricked into sitting through another America-as-root-of-all-evil message? Must this superhero be powered by super-shame?

Gosh, sounds like Tony Stark is a real Islamofascist-appeasing pussy. But is he?

Not according to Townhall's gonad-geek Jerry Bowyer! Fuck no! Tony Stark's repulsor rays squirt purest he-man jism, drowning America's foes in the potent white sticky goo of Freedom!

Yes, I loved it. I've got an Y-chromosome, what do you expect? He is a man wrapped in a robot, wrapped in a missile. Oh, and he shoots lightening. He kills terrorists. He saves children. According to CNBC, Americans paid over one hundred million dollars in one weekend to see Iron Man do all that stuff.

We'll probably see it again. I liked the politics of it. I'll pay to watch someone insult my politics once, if the movie is good, but the only people who get a second mini-van load of fully-paid-up Bowyers are the ones we agree with. Marvel gets us again because Iron Man is an entrepreneur. In fact, horror of horrors, he inherited the business from his father. In double fact (duck, incoming spoilers), the only Americans who oppose him are the lackeys of his upper-middle-management corporate weenie COO....

In fact Iron Man is the moral clarity guy, no winking and nodding at bad guys around the world. The bad guys have stubble, turbans and heavy Arabic accents. They torture people, including our hero. They slaughter families.

Iron Man doesn't spend any time trying to understand their rage. He admits that he had unwittingly with the best of intentions supported these fanatics in the past, and that the only thing he can do now is to make a better weapon and use it to go after them.

Clearly one of these fellows needs to be sent posthaste to Wingnut Siberia, to be reeducated under a strict regimen of Red Dawn showings and the constant swilling of Mounain Dew. But who?

Perhaps we can let 'em duke it out, let them dress up in spandex tights and have a superhero-costume slapfight. Two dorks in, on dork leaves. In Greater Wingnuttia, only the most childishly, desperately, & self-consciously butch survive, even when what's at stake is how much idiotic political & cultural ressentiment you can wring out of a comic book movie, for the love of fuck.

Comments

[Dave]

These people are nuts. Do we on the left really ever ascribe political content to hollywood shite? I gotta say they have us beat on that fools errand. Cheesus... these people are idiots.

[Jake T. Snake]

I'm cool with the profanity, but you must cease and desist writing about right wing goo spurting about, lest I be forced to drive up the hill and leave my children at your house. I have to go shower now.

[Me]

Who the hell spends 8-10 bucks a pop just to go to the movies and be regularly pissed off?

Oh, that's right. Dumbasses.

[Susan of Texas]

but the only people who get a second mini-van load of fully-paid-up Bowyers are the ones we agree with

Suddenly I have flashbacks of my childhood stuffed into the back of a station wagon, going to what seemed to be the only remaining San Diego drive-in that didn't show porn.

Except Bowyer would have said Snow White was liberal because the Queen sold tainted food and beauty products, just like those lefties are always going on about.

[spencer]

Marvel gets us again because Iron Man is an entrepreneur. In fact, horror of horrors, he inherited the business from his father.

So which is it - did Tony Stark build a business from nothing or did someone give it to him?

[spencer]

Also, what is "lightening," exactly?

[Susan of Texas]

I think it's that thing that goes with "thunderous."

[BigHank53]

I'm still trying to figure out how one makes things out of "mettle". I mean, I know it can be tested, but after that...do you weld it, rivet it, or glue it?

[Jay B.]

These people are nuts. Do we on the left really ever ascribe political content to hollywood shite?

Of course we do. It's not unheard of for someone on the left to deconstruct the politics of everything from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to High Noon to Cheaper by the Dozen.

Hell, it's not hard to find.

I just pray that it's not as retarded as this.

[Susan of Texas]

Whether it is or isn't, at least it's not because we're being paid to give the Bush Administration a tongue bath. That's just embarrassing.

[¡El Gato Negro!]

Perhaps we can let 'em duke it out, let them dress up in spandex tights and have a superhero-costume slapfight.

¿You mean like this?

[Hecate]

The scenes in which Tony hammers away at an anvil in his cave in Afghanistan stir some primordial Norseman juices.

TMI

[Gundamhead]

"stir some primordial Norseman juices."

"Yes, I loved it. I've got an Y-chromosome, what do you expect?"

How repressed are these assholes anyway?

I do find the headesploding amusing though. It has a heroic white guy businessman, so it's good! But he has self doubt about manufacturing weapons, so it's bad! It has villains who have "stubble, turbans and heavy Arabic accents." (aren't they Afghan Warlord types i.e. not Arabic?) so it's good! But theres also an immoral rich white guy, so it's bad! It's got juvenile power fantasies with a "man wrapped in a robot, wrapped in a missile." Shooting terrorists! So it's good! But he actually has MEEKLY ASK FOR HELP at one point, so it's bad!

[Kathleen]

that "asked for help" part really takes the wingnut cake.
After the last 8 years, I would've thought I could predict to a T, all the pro- and anti-Iron Man statements these guys would come up with, but I never never would've thought of that.

[Bitter Scribe]

...to be reeducated under a strict regimen of Red Dawn showings...

I cannot conceive of ever hating anyone enough to subject them to that movie.

[D Johnston]

I've been wondering: Do you think that the people who write these sorts of reviews actually ENJOY going to the movies? The more I think about it, the more I think they probably treat the flicks like those evening lectures I had to attend for some courses. Enlightening, maybe even interesting, but ultimately there are places where we'd rather be.

[Bitter Scribe]

Do you think that the people who write these sorts of reviews actually ENJOY going to the movies?

I can't speak for these individuals in particular, but having been a movie critic for about 15 minutes in my youth, I can tell you that eventually, it does become just a job. You find yourself sitting through a lot of movies you'd never be caught dead in otherwise (which is why I'm familiar with "Red Dawn," see post above).

This explains why so many critics are so crabby about bad movies: It's two hours of their life they'll never get back.

[Jemand von Niemand]

Hey, I remember Iron Man when we were kicked out of the Red Family Collective for expousing a "splittist, revisionist interpretation" of Marxisim-Leninism, and "cohabitating with women who are not ideologically awakened".

That guy could party, do Dialectic, and crush a Volkswagen with his left hand, let me tell you.

[steve simels]

I shudder to think what these two idiots had to say about the new Harold and Kumar flick....

[Thers]

"Splittist."

Hee hee.

[Sir Charles]

Wolverines!

[Tehanu]

The scenes in which Tony hammers away at an anvil in his cave in Afghanistan stir some primordial Norseman juices.

God, these people are ignorant as well as bigoted. That's GREEK and ROMAN juices, boys -- Tony's practically an avatar of Hephaestus/Vulcan in one shot, as originally limned by, I dunno, Rubens or some other limp-wristed Eurotrash artist at the pinnacle of the Western Civilization they're always talking about defending -- but that they know zilch about.

[Warren Terra]

I had a reaction similar to Spencer's ... should we perhaps psychoanalyze a Clownhall columnist wishing that he, too, could "shoot lightening" as he beats up on our dusky islamofascist foes?

[Jay B.]

should we perhaps psychoanalyze a Clownhall columnist wishing that he, too, could "shoot lightening" as he beats up on our dusky islamofascist foes?

As the defrocked Rev. T Lawrence Shannon said about the butch Miss Fellowes regarding their respective relationships with the lithe young Charlotte (played in the movie by Sue Lyon) in Night of the Iguana:

"Miss Fellowes is a highly moral person. If she ever recognized the truth about herself it would destroy her."

[herr doktor bimler]

He is forced to meekly ask for help
How will they cope if the next comic-book movie includes a scene where the hero admits he's lost and stops to ask directions?

[Ripley]

The scenes in which Tony hammers away at an anvil in his cave in Afghanistan stir some primordial Norseman juices.

I'll not have my adopted heritage sullied by the likes of some dickslapper named... "Smith!" This pony boy probably doesn't even know how to spell berserk correctly, much less know who the berserkers were or understand their legend.

Fuckin' tosser...

[rea]

"shoot lightening"

Obviously refers to an antigravity ray . . .

[spencer]

much less know who the berserkers were

"My love for you is ticking clock -
Berser-kerrrr!
Would you like to making fuck?
Berser-kerrrr!"

[r@d@r]

atomic vagina?? where do i get one!! i'd wear it with pride. even if i had to trim off my man-bits a little.

[Interrobang]

two dorks in, on dork leaves

I'm sorry, I couldn't quite avoid a mis-reading of this typo, with a couple of nerds in tights rolling around on a carpet of foliage from the Dork Tree. Whatever that is. I dunno, but whatever it is, it's really dorky, and if you chew its leaves, you wind up speaking in AOL.

He is forced to meekly ask for help

And I'm soon going to be forced to split the skulls of people who split infinitives. The principle's so much easier to grasp in other languages where the infinitives are all one word...