Just thought I would point out that Noah Forrest is getting hit with some really nasty anti-Semitic comments on his John Galliano post.
He’s already deleted some of them. But The Final Solution and gays being led by jews… still there…
Amazing.
It’s 2011.
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
I know this will make me sound incredibly naive, but I was in college before I realized that anti-Semitism wasn’t some antiquated ugliness that ended with WWII. Seriously: All throughout high school, I sincerely believed that the only people who ever said ugly things about Jews wore swastikas and/or spoke with European accents. Today? Well, I can’t imagine that kids make it past first grade without realizing that anti-Semitism is alive and well all over the world — and especially on the Internet. To me, it’s a bit like certain kinky sexual preferences: There was a time when people who enjoyed those activities kept a low profile and kept quiet about it because they figured they were all alone, or at least in a very small minority, and thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to publicly express their preferences. But with the advent of the Internet — and, more important, the anonymity granted by the Internet — folks realize they’re not alone, and aren’t afraid to (anonymously) express themselves.
So what came first, the chicken or the egg? Have we always had this many anti-Semites with us, and the Internet is only now exposing their number? Or is the Internet encouraging the spread of this virus to greater and greater multitudes? Or both?
Joe, the truth is that I had a similar experience. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish community and have lived most of my adult life in NYC, where anti-Semitism is hard to come by. I think that it wasn’t until I started visiting message boards many years ago that I saw anti-Semitism out in the open, proudly displayed. The weird thing to me is that before I started posting regularly, it would take me an awful lot to respond to something on a message board or blog and for me to say something mean or hateful? Jeez, I don’t have that kind of anger in me.
So, with that said, it scares the shit out of me how many people will throw around racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and homophobic remarks on blogs. These are people who clearly have access to computers and the internet, where there is a lot of useful information to be found. Even something like Wikipedia could teach these ignorant folks something, but do they willfully ignore those sites that might actually help them learn something and spend all of their time on the sites that re-affirm their idiotic beliefs?
But I think you raise a really interesting question, which is whether the internet encourages anti-Semitism or if it just gives more of a voice to those with ugly opinions?
Noah: I often use the term Internet Brave to describe people — yes, including a few who post here — who routinely post outrageously belligerent, hatefully vile and/or proudly racist/sexist/homophobic comments that they would never express in real life, because they know people would (a) shun them, (b) fire them, (c) repeatedly punch them in the face, or (d) all of the above. I think it’s safe to say that many anti-Semites are Internet Brave, and they encourage by example.
David: You and I have had our differences, so I know that beginning anything with “No offense, David” may seem suspect, but I really don’t mean to offend you with this because you are certainly not the only person who does this. Indeed, just about everyone who operates a blog — with the exception of Andrew Sullivan and a few others — allows for people to post really nasty stuff under aliases. (And before you or anyone else asks: Yes, on my relatively insignificant blog, I allow for aliases as well. But I usually purge the really ugly postings.) So I have to ask: Are you — am I, are we — actually contributing to the problem?
it’s interesting. i was raised catholic, i never really knew any Jewish families growing up. I think my entire exposure to Judaism is from movies and television. Everything i know about the Jewish people came from Woody Allen, Jackie Mason, and Jerry Seinfeld.
Think about that for a second. What if you’re this normal Christian kid who knows nothing about people of other faiths except what you see on tv and the movies. what if your first exposure to Israel was YOU DONT MESS WITH THE ZOHAN?
ignorance is the sin here. Noah, you’re right on. People rarely educate themselves. They take what they hear and what they’re told and fold it into their world view.
Joe, you’re not part of the problem. Anonymity is the oil that keeps the internet lubricated. Without it, there would be very few conversations online because people would exhibit common sense. I’d prefer that people spoke using their real names, but this is not that world. The anonymous assholes have already won. We, the reasonable, just have to try and ignore them.
Well said, Anghus. It’s refreshing to hear from reasonable people. One of the comments that I had to delete told me that I was the spawn of the devil and that I was evil and should be killed. Good thing I’m an atheist or I’d really be offended.
Noah: How did they know? Did you tip them off or something?
I was raised Baptist in Kentucky, and the only thing I grew up knowing about Jews was that Jesus was one. It didn’t even occur to me as a kid that when I bought clothes at Bernstein’s or shoes at Simon’s that I was patronizing Jewish-owned businesses. Maybe I was an oblivious kid, or just blessed with family and friends who weren’t anti-Semites, but I don’t recall ever hearing any anti-Semitic rhetoric about the Jews in our community. anghus: Therefore, I too was a “normal Christian kid who [knew] nothing about people of other faiths except what [I saw] on tv and the movies.” That’s why I’m always a bit surprised when others with that history develop hatred and revulsion for the Jews — how does one hate something that’s given our culture so many of its best comedians, actors, musicians, etc.? After falling for the Marx Brothers in my early teens, an anti-Semite would’ve had an uphill battle trying to get me to “see the light.”
people hate who they’re taught to hate.
The internet probably is revealing a lot that lurks beneath the surface of people that wouldn’t otherwise appear in their daily life, but there’s still something more going on. I’ll never forget the day a few years back when I watched a couple of co-workers (not for the last time) in their late teens/early twenties talk about getting “jew’d down” in some kind of financial transaction like it was the most natural thing in the world to say. What made it even more bizarre than the fact that one of the guys was Korean and the other guy looked more like the fellows in the striped pajamas than the guys with the guns in a concentration camp movie was the fact that they tossed that phrase around without a whiff of self-conciousness. It’s almost as baffling as the time last month when somebody asked me if I believed dinosaurs were actually real or made up like the Easter Bunny. Whhhhhuhhhhh-at?
I mean, JESUS – did nobody learn anything from “Porky’s II: The Next Day”?
yancy, i think you hit the nail on the head.
my parents taught me to treat everybody the same. so it didn’t matter if i knew about judaism, hindu, islam, or any other belief system because i didn’t need to. if you treat everyone as equals you don’t need to know the nuances. i don’t think educating people on other cultures could hurt, but i think if you’re raised right you don’t make those kind of broad declarations about other races and beliefs. it’s all handed down.
Hal, that’s a beautiful reference. Absolutely beautiful.
Hallick: I once had a student tell me that she’d learned while watching a TV documentary that Robert Kennedy had ordered the murder of Marilyn Monroe because she was sleeping with a Communist. No, I’m not making that up.