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September 30, 2008
Stupidest Protest Ever
Blind people protesting Blindness.
Oy.
Blindness is a metaphor in the movie... as it has been forever.
The idea that sighted people in their 20s, 30s and older suddenly becoming blind, surrounded by others who are suddenly blind, would not be disoriented and find it hard to deal with a massive new challenge is pretty absurd on its face.
To quote Marc Maurer, president of the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, who said to the AP, "The movie portrays blind people as monsters, and I believe it to be a lie. Blindness doesn't turn decent people into monsters.”
This just shows that he carries the bias in a much more profound way than the movie does.
The film, as the novel did, uses blindness as a way of taking power away from a group, suddenly and unexpectedly. How will people react?
Most of the people in the movie are good and well-intended. A group, mostly of men, does become angry, cruel, and dangerous. If anything, this is sexist, against men.
The description in the AP story starts, “Blind people quarantined in a mental asylum, attacking each other, soiling themselves, trading sex for food.”
That does happen, though it feels completely false in tone. People are quarantined when the government isn’t sure what’s going on. They soil themselves occasionally because they don’t know how to live blind and this all takes place early in their experience. And the “attacking each other” and “trading sex for food” has nothing to do with being blind, but rather to do with power inequity, which is what the movie is ultimately about. (Specifically, there is no trade of sex for food… there is vicious, abusive rape committed by the armed men, who assert the power of having a weapon. The scene would be no more or less horrible if everyone involved was sighted. There is also a story twist in this moment, which I will not disclose, that also speaks to power, not sight.)
Blind people have nothing to protest here. I would be less shocked if feminist groups protested, given the behavior through parts of the movie by the one person who is sighted (the ads give this away, so I don’t feel it is a spoiler).
The movie is not an easy one. And I can understand it being misunderstood… or simply disliked. But it’s a bit like Levi’s complaining about The Accused because Jodie Foster is raped wearing a jeans skirt or feminists complaining because people (some of whom are men) have noticed that Sarah Palin doesn’t know much about national or world politics.
Better to use the sections of the film in which people overcome their sudden, unprepared for handicap with kindness and generosity to remind people that being blind does not have to be a bad thing… but being blind doesn’t automatically make you a saint either.
Posted by dpoland at September 30, 2008 05:11 PM
Comments
They should really wait until they see the movie before they jump to conclusions about it.
Posted by: jeffmcm ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 30, 2008 05:38 PM
"The movie portrays blind people as monsters, and I believe it to be a lie. Blindness doesn't turn decent people into monsters.”
This may be the nadir of movie protests.
Posted by: mysteryperfecta at September 30, 2008 06:00 PM
This do remind of important cartoon friend of I draw.
http://chrislohr.net/uploader/files/36/static.gif
It never ok to make the funs of something that harm. People who wont see have hard time making for normal. Expose!?!?! BUT WHY??? Same with person who make for threat in education cartoon i show.
One day The Americans will wake upping and know that they wrong for always making fun of black, retardation, blind, color, and disabilty. Also racists!
Fat Americans will punished. For their hate hearts full of, and mean eyes.
Posted by: DaneCookForLife at September 30, 2008 06:03 PM
Jeff just told a joke.
Posted by: LexG at September 30, 2008 06:07 PM
If you read the piece, J-Mc, this group did see it... unless you were making a bad pun.
Posted by: David Poland at September 30, 2008 06:07 PM
Don't think it counts as a pun.
Posted by: jeffmcm at September 30, 2008 06:11 PM
Comment not appreciate Jeff. Who laugh at a not funny joke? Imbacils.
Posted by: DaneCookForLife at September 30, 2008 06:48 PM
DaneCook, what people will do to promote themselves. Is that the best cartoon you have, really?
Posted by: T. Holly at September 30, 2008 06:57 PM
I read Danecookforlife's comic strip and his post and I completely don't get it. It gave me headache, I guess he's trying to say with his writing style. Can someone explain it to me?
I liked Jeff's joke quite a bit.
Posted by: MDOC at September 30, 2008 07:03 PM
I read Danecookforlife's comic strip and his post and I completely don't get it. It gave me headache, I guess he's trying to make some statement with his writing style. Can someone explain it to me?
I liked Jeff's joke quite a bit.
Posted by: MDOC at September 30, 2008 07:03 PM
Sorry for the double post, I think following that link caused me to lose 20 IQ points.
Posted by: MDOC at September 30, 2008 07:05 PM
just a dumb situation. groups that look for reasons to get their name in the press. there hasn't been a decent protest in this company since the civil rights movement.
we get promise keepers, hands across america, and this.
this country needs a fucking bitchslap.
Posted by: anghus at September 30, 2008 08:08 PM
Jeff's joke is actually spoken, after a fashion, by one of the blinded characters about two-thirds of the way into the movie.
Posted by: moviecityindie at September 30, 2008 08:33 PM
In other news . . . woman's groups have organized a boycott of THE WOMEN because they heard it's about women and there's sure to be an unlikable one in the bunch.
Posted by: Krazy Eyes at October 1, 2008 07:06 AM
Marc Maurer should have also protested Idiocracy since he is obviously a dumbass.
Posted by: hcat at October 1, 2008 08:17 AM
I hear Lex will be protesting THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN because he thinks it's prejudiced against boners.
Posted by: Cadavra at October 1, 2008 05:56 PM
hcat, brilliant!
Whoever was who said that organisations need somebody to be angry at, otherwise they cease to have a point was very much correct about this group. I mean... really... I know they may be blind, but they're surely not completely dumb enough to realise that if the population all went blind then things would cease to remain the same.
And, besides, it's not like people choose to be blind. People aren't going to see this movie and go "wow, blind people are slobs. I'm never going to be blind." etc.
idiots.
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at October 4, 2008 08:50 AM
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