IT'S ABOUT AMERICA, STUPID
Hey eds:
I've seen a lot of stupid things in the Stranger--mostly in the film
review section--but Andy Spletzer's review of "American Beauty" has got to be the dumbest --Yea, Andy thanks for the little essay on 'cardboard
characters' you wanna-be Prof., but you wouldn't know a cardboard
character if it hit you over the head with a cardboard spoon. And
anybody's message will be shoddy if you attempt to deconstruct it with a
head of lettuce--yes, that thing you yawn out of.
Most movie critics try to entertain their audiences by ingeniously
insulting the movies they review, thereby displaying their own wit and
superiority to the people they're talking about. In the case of Andy
Spletzer and "American Beauty" this is a bit like an ant mounting an
elephant with a hardon. It's also an example of a typical movie critic
who knows nothing about the outside world writing about a movie written by someone who does (not having the real world to compare it to, he merely compares this movie to the last movie he saw which he feels is most like it, in this case "Happiness"--which featured a real pedophile instead of the one Andy makes up for his insipid review). What's most annoying is Spletzer's incomprehensible sucking up to the moral majority in a paper
that makes it's money off of sex columns, cigarette ads and striking a
pose of mock rebellion (not that there's anything wrong with sex columns).
Andy writes: "[Spacey's character's] obsession with the teenager . . .
is distasteful"--what is this, the effing Pat Buchanan newsletter?
--Typical American Puritan Balderdash. Hey Andy, what about the photo of
the crying East Timorean child in the last issue of the Stranger whose
neighbors and family were getting slaughtered by American-trained and
armed Indonesian military-backed militia the last couple weeks because
they voted for independence while America and the world stood by and
watched and the caption read,"Boo-hoo!" --was that distasteful? It made
my stomach turn, as does your prose.
--Oh ho, but yer so cutting to keep referring to Spacey's character as a
"pedophile"--don't you belong in a Bette Davis and Joan Crawford movie
trading barbs! I can see it now: you lounging on the velvet chaise saying
how "Lolita" disgusts you because it is all about a pedophile, and the
story of Lolita spends so much time on the pedophile that Nabokov, too,
must be a pedophile, and not only that but Nabokov--the pedophiliac writer
who writes about pedophiles--writes about them "smugly" on top of it all
and the whole room titters at your wit and sophistication--not likely.
It's obvious Spletzer keeps using the word "pedophile" in lieu of actual
criticisms for pure pseudo-shock value as a hack writer will when no
pedophilia may actually exist in the movie! The teenage boy next door
clearly says he is 18 and the teenage girl Spletzer so manfully defends
cleary sez she went to 9th grade with SAME KID! So she might be 18
HERSELF! An 18 year old girl and a man in his forties is NOT
pedophilia!--It's Hollywood! It's eastern Capitol Hill! It's America,
baby!--simultaneously in love with and scared of it's youth (this latter
played by the charming "bible saleman" next door). --But Spletzer,
lacking any subtle, intelligent means of an actual smartass prefers to
throw the word "pedophile" around as if Jerry Falwell was going around the
Stranger offices handing out merit badges.
It would literally take a dissertation to go over all the ways Spletzer
displays himself a hamstermind from his one review of "American
Beauty"--from plain misquoting (Spacey's daughter does not say her Dad
"jerks off"; she says he "sprays his pants"--right there a microexamp. of
the real poetry of the movie versus Spletzer's bland-me-down reading of
it), to the above mentioned Southern Baptist-like misportrayal of
pedophilia and right on up to his totally infantile misdiagnosis of this
movie's theme, which would take me too many paragraphs to even try to
explain. Picture Andy attempting to plumb the depth of the ocean with a 2
by 4 and you begin to see the lite.
In the end, "American Beauty" is not merely about doing what yer
supposed to, only tangentially about suburbia (no mention once of sprawl
or strip malls; here suburbia is merely the backdrop), and is especially
not about pedophiles--it's about America, stupid. And if you can't see
that then you should go on over to the Kathleen Wilson table and sharpen
your pencil fawning over local rock stars when **NEWSFLASH** rock has long
since died a heavy breath. --You could also warn people who don't want to
be infected with the obnoxious ignorance of your word lines, i.e.: "The
STRANGER: Now Offering Movie Reviews from the Polytextually-Impaired."
And everyone else should go see "American Beauty", an instant
iconoclast pie.
If you need me, I'll be in the lab.
Dr. Menlo
International Art Machine
Central Labs, Seattle