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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn a final videotaped message, a sad reflection of the sexist stories we so often see on screen
The real culprit in all of this is a culture of thriving misogyny, in which women are dehumanized and regarded as grudging dispensers of sex candy, who must be punished if they dont do their job of servicing men.
Elliot Rodger was a spoiled, entitled kid who had his brain poisoned
with this attitude. First he learned that women are disposable, then he
learned that they were evil for not having sex with him, and then he
rationally put together two delusions and acted on them.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/05/25/well-that-explains-everything/comment-page-1/
Ann Hornaday:
In a final videotaped message, a sad reflection of the sexist stories we so often see on screen
As deranged manifestos go, the final YouTube video made by suspected Isla Vista, Calif., mass murderer Elliot Rodger was remarkably well-made. Filmed by Rodger in his black BMW, with palm trees in the background and his face bathed in magic-hour key light, the six-minute diatribe during which he vows revenge on all the women who rejected him and men who were enjoying fun and sex while he was rotting in loneliness might easily have been mistaken for a scene from one of the movies Rodgers father, Peter Rodger, worked on as a director and cinematographer.
Indeed, as important as it is to understand Rodgers actions within the context of the mental illness he clearly suffered, its just as clear that his delusions were inflated, if not created, by the entertainment industry he grew up in. With his florid rhetoric of self-pity, aggression and awkwardly forced evil laugh, Rodger resembled a noxious cross between Christian Bales slick sociopath in American Psycho, the thwarted womanizer in James Tobacks The Pick-Up Artist and every Bond villain in the canon.
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As Rodger bemoaned his life of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desire and arrogantly announced that he would now prove his own status as the true alpha male, he unwittingly expressed the toxic double helix of insecurity and entitlement that comprises Hollywoods DNA. For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men, whose escapist fantasies so often revolve around vigilantism and sexual wish-fulfillment (often, if not always, featuring a steady through-line of casual misogyny). Rodgers rampage may be a function of his own profound distress, but it also shows how a sexist movie monoculture can be toxic for women and men alike.
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Movies may not reflect reality, but they powerfully condition what we desire, expect and feel we deserve from it. The myths that movies have been selling us become even more palpable at a time when spectators become their own auteurs and stars on YouTube, Instagram and Vine. If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger thanks to male studio executives who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections no one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large.
MORE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-a-final-videotaped-message-a-sad-reflection-of-the-sexist-stories-we-so-often-see-on-screen/2014/05/25/dec7e7ea-e40d-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html?hpid=z4
2naSalit
(86,572 posts)tired of this topic, these are valid points that should be considered as the movie consuming culture tries to open it's eyes while facing the "cosmic mirror".
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)mwrguy
(3,245 posts)on our society.
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)Excellent descriptive phrase, could be applied to much more than Hollywood's sexist movie monoculture.
It describes every reactionary movement and cause that afflicts us today, and describes the tactics used by proponents of those reactionary causes.