Showing posts with label HBO Political Correctness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HBO Political Correctness. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The Young Pope and the Old Secularists



"I don't want any more part-time believers,"  Pope Pius XII on The Young Pope

HBO has very little use for God in all of His manifestations.  Unless, there is a political schtick and secularists stick whacking the global pious and opiated masses, HBO offers minimalist religion.

I was wondering who let The Young Pope slip by.  This is one very savvy and and less-tan PC presentation of faith, family and cynical folly.

Vanity Fair hates it. The New York Times calls it "Ridiculous." With reviews like tehse a show just can not miss!

The episodes are brilliant.  I was reminded of Frederick Rolfe's brilliant 1904 novel Hadrian VII The satire turns the pomp and pretentious around on the cynical minds that howl against faith in any form. 

 Here is a brilliant scene from an episode in which Pius XIII, who refuses to allow any 'exhibition' of Peter's successor dresses down an African dictator and a popularly 'sainted' nun who uses water as a weapon over suffering people and also all of us.


The chain smoking, opaque and delightfully orthodox Pope is a saint.


Others near him and against him also find themselves becoming more saintly. 


HBO - thanks.  No, really. 


Sunday, February 22, 2015

Black Sails Season Two Raises The Rainbow Flag: Must The Pirate's Heart Want What the LBTQ Want Too?


 Yo, Ho and Ho again! Cable TV's Black Sails just hoisted the Jolliest of Rogers on a Rainbow Banner!
 The show is gorgeous to look at and action-packed, but over the first season and a half there didn’t seem to be a lot there specifically for gay (male) audiences. Sure, the show features many attractive actors, among them Tom Hopper, Toby Stephens, Zach McGowan and Toby Schmitz. (Added bonus, a couple of these guys seem to have no qualms about full frontal nudity.) The series also can boast a central lesbian character– a beautiful and clever prostitute named Max (Jessica Parker Kennedy) who has had two very passionate relationships with other central female characters. But gay men at least seemed pretty much absent from the canvas. That is, until last night’s episode.
  ABC - the Disney network is and has been fociferously gay. Sonic fast foods demands to sell the Rainbow Flag along with its hot dogs.  Fair enough.  Hollwood demands to be heard and its message for last twenty years or so, is loud and proud about homosexuals.  No big deal.

Genres?  The Pirate movie.  Gay subtext universal?  Gilbert & Sullivan defined gay according to the now archaic meaning. Douglas Fairbanks, Ty Power and Errol Flynn the same - cut a throat and lark-out a joyful 'Ha,Ha, Me Hearties!'

Real pirates.  The Gangster Disciples of Carribean were as homophobic as People and Folks demand of stone killers and players.

Hollywood?  Tin-ear. Peter Pan, not Peter Blood!

Pre-Stonewall Maritime Homosexual practices were punishable by death.  Homosexuals remained closeted, or went rouge like Claggert in Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd about the homsexual stalking of a handsome sailor, by the afroemnamed Master at Arms.
Adam Shankman
The Starz channel and other cable television outlets are thick with gay themed series, movies, documentaries, stand-up concerts and investigations.

America's part in WWII was cover nicely with two ten part series - Band of Brothers and The Pacific.  Vietnam, The Depression, Korea?  Not much to tell there.

Sex sells and blood sells.  Now mix them up and as quick as you can Say Will and Grace. . . you get Sex Cells and Bloods Cells and . . .Pirates! Ambiguous . . .nope, better yet, . . .A Pirate Captain who is Questioning!

Piracy is finally out of Davy Jones' Locker.  Black Sails, a pirate series packed with the usual cable TV KY Jelly lubrication of sapphic pillow talk and back-porch majority rule in matters of the heart, now has added the heart.  Capatin Flint is a Nancy boy. 

Yep, the man who terrorized the warm waters of the Carribean is really a just a man in full denial of his lust and longing for an English Lord.  Captain Flint is now fully out of the closet and liberated.

Pirates. Buccaneers. High Sea free booters.  Captain Blood?  You know.

We get it homosexuals (Male/Female & Whatever) make up 2% of our human population.

Gays sell us our mortgages; they people our villages; they do more than dance in musical comedies. We understand that and we treat them like neighbors. I nod with sympathy whenever Stephen Fry cries about his gender specific heart breaks.  I get it. It is no tiresome.

Black Sails was a fairly entertaining pirate series. I'm off it. Black Sails?  Not worth watching Brokeback Cove.   What's next, The Enola Gay - Now It Can Be Sung! ?    

Did the gay agenda jump the shark with this one?  I think so.




Monday, March 02, 2009

Art Not Chance - Catholics Not Welcome Still


"I have hated the Church way before anyone else." Bill Maher


Alexander Pope's family was not allowed to live within 'ten miles of London or Windsor.' That was due to the very acceptable anti-Catholic sentiment that flourished in Britain and still is quite fashionable in the United States.

Bill Maher's whipping of the Pope's Dogs in America - all 60 million of us - gave him the Bulliest of Pulpits - TV. Maher goes unchallenged and unchecked and will continue to do so. He even has a movie out that no one I know has seen, but everyone has heard about - Buzzzzzzzz.

Boston College reviewed the movie:

Religulous is incredibly indicative of Maher's love to stir up trouble and surely offended those who identify with the Holy Land or creationist museum guests. Instead of striving to inspire religious questioning, Maher attacks beliefs that are dear to a huge demographic. Charles' style is reminiscent of his pervious work on Borat, as Religulous attempts to go over the heads of those at whom it pokes fun. Just like Borat, Charles takes the back seat and lets the lead (Maher) take the driver seat to craft his style of humor.

After his prolific talk show history, Maher takes his disregard for others' feelings to the big screen in Religulous. Although entertaining, Maher falls short of convincing many to question their beliefs; instead, he alienates those who might sympathize with his cause.


http://media.www.bcheights.com/media/storage/paper144/news/2009/02/19/TheScene/Mahers.religulous.Able.To.Stir.Up.Extremism.But.Not.Debate-3637016-page2.shtml

PC gave Maher carte blanche, but it failed to fuel the clown with talent or genuine insights - human much less divine. Maher tools for others who hate Catholics in particular and religion in general.

HBO gave the raving anti-Catholic Bill Maher a wonderful platform from which to insult sixty (60) million Americans. Renegade Catholics are lionized like George Carlin, Eugene O'Neill, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. America has no place for Catholics in text books ( try and find any reference to the Carrolls of Maryland; John Barry Father of the US Navy; or American Philosopher Orestes Brownson). Devout Catholics are dissected on a Procrustean rack by context critics and semiotic totalitarians and then tossed aside as slaves to the Vatican.

Like writing itself, this fashionable American bigotry is practised. Good writing requires continued practice. As Pope wrote," True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learned to dance"
In Essay on Criticism, Pope defended literary orthodoxies and savage attention to virtues, patriotism, and piety in Faith. Writers are not 'outside' themselves it seems. A writer who would attack a life-long friend in an attempt to curry favor with a patron, could not devote himself to the canons of taste that command all literary arts,

Likewise, trendy bigots can spew hate in fashionable epithets and sound bytes

But if in Noble Minds some Dregs remain,
Not yet purg'd off, of Spleen and sow'r Disdain,
Discharge that Rage on more Provoking Crimes,
Nor fear a Dearth in these Flagitious Times.
No Pardon vile Obscenity should find,
Tho' Wit and Art conspire to move your Mind;
But Dulness with Obscenity must prove
As Shameful sure as Importance in Love.
In the fat Age of Pleasure, Wealth, and Ease,
Sprung the rank Weed, and thriv'd with large Increase;
When Love was all an easie Monarch's Care;
Seldom at Council, never in a War:
Jilts rul'd the State, and Statesmen Farces writ;
Nay Wits had Pensions, and young Lords had Wit:
The Fair sate panting at a Courtier's Play,
And not a Mask went un-improv'd away:
The modest Fan was liked up no more,
And Virgins smil'd at what they blush'd before--
The following Licence of a Foreign Reign
Did all the Dregs of bold Socinus drain;
Then Unbelieving Priests reform'd the Nation,
And taught more Pleasant Methods of Salvation;
Where Heav'ns Free Subjects might their Rights dispute,
Lest God himself shou'd seem too Absolute.
Pulpits their Sacred Satire learn'd to spare,
And Vice admir'd to find a Flatt'rer there!
Encourag'd thus, Witt's Titans brav'd the Skies,
And the Press groan'd with Licenc'd Blasphemies--
These Monsters, Criticks! with your Darts engage,
Here point your Thunder, and exhaust your Rage!
Yet shun their Fault, who, Scandalously nice,
Will needs mistake an Author into Vice;
All seems Infected that th' Infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the Jaundic'd Eye.

LEARN then what MORALS Criticks ought to show,
For 'tis but half a Judge's Task, to Know.
'Tis not enough, Taste, Judgment, Learning, join;
In all you speak, let Truth and Candor shine:
That not alone what to your Sense is due,
All may allow; but seek your Friendship too.

Be silent always when you doubt your Sense;
And speak, tho' sure, with seeming Diffidence:
Some positive persisting Fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;
But you, with Pleasure own your Errors past,
An make each Day a Critick on the last.

'Tis not enough your Counsel still be true,
Blunt Truths more Mischief than nice Falsehood do;
Men must be taught as if you taught them not;
And Things unknown propos'd as Things forgot:
Without Good Breeding, Truth is disapprov'd;
That only makes Superior Sense belov'd.

Be Niggards of Advice on no Pretence;
For the worst Avarice is that of Sense:
With mean Complacence ne'er betray your Trust,
Nor be so Civil as to prove Unjust;
Fear not the Anger of the Wise to raise;
Those best can bear Reproof, who merit Praise.

'Twere well, might Criticks still this Freedom take;
But Appius reddens at each Word you speak,
And stares, Tremendous! with a threatning Eye
Like some fierce Tyrant in Old Tapestry!
Fear most to tax an Honourable Fool,
Whose Right it is, uncensur'd to be dull;
Such without Wit are Poets when they please.
As without Learning they can take Degrees.
Leave dang'rous Truths to unsuccessful Satyrs,
And Flattery to fulsome Dedicators,
Whom, when they Praise, the World believes no more,
Than when they promise to give Scribling o'er.
'Tis best sometimes your Censure to restrain,
And charitably let the Dull be vain:
Your Silence there is better than your Spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?
Still humming on, their drowzy Course they keep,
And lash'd so long, like Tops, are lash'd asleep.
False Steps but help them to renew the Race,
As after Stumbling, Jades will mend their Pace.
What Crouds of these, impenitently bold,
In Sounds and jingling Syllables grown old,
Still run on Poets in a raging Vein,
Ev'n to the Dregs and Squeezings of the Brain;
Strain out the last, dull droppings of their Sense,
And Rhyme with all the Rage of Impotence!
From Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Clowns like Maher get the job done for their masters. Their Masters are the people who have eliminated the canons of taste in all of the Arts, in Politics, and in common societal discourse. I call them The Who's To Say-ers: 'Who's to say Lesbianism at the Grammies is not what Americans demand; that humorless PC gelds literature and art.' I do not find Maher clever or funny. He lacks depth of thought and practiced attention to the canons of humor. He is an outrageous loudmouth.

Pope had it right. 'Tis best sometimes your Censure to restrain,
And charitably let the Dull be vain:
Your Silence there is better than your Spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?