THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2024
Why Fox News [HEART] Die Hard: We haven't seen A Complete Unknown, but we can answer a question about the new film.
The question, which is perfectly sensible, appears in this review by Khari Taylor:
[This] brings me to A Complete Unknown’s biggest problem as a dramatic biopic: it's extremely light on conflict and fails to explain the larger stakes for a modern audience, one far removed from Dylan’s youthful era (including my middle-aged self). For instance, why was it so crucial to the American folk movement that Dylan remain a strictly acoustic singer and not “go electric?” What made acoustic folk so sacrosanct that electrically amplified instruments couldn’t be used? Why was it considered so controversial for Dylan to perform as a lead singer in a “rock band” rather than as a solo folk singer?
A Complete Unknown never provides answers to these questions, instead assuming the audience already knows and understands the divide between folk and rock in the 1960s and why it existed. Because of this, I found myself shrugging with indifference during A Complete Unknown’s climax, wondering if what I was watching was truly significant. There’s no question that the 1965 Newport Folk Festival incident was an iconic moment that altered the course of music history, but without being given a full emotional connection to what was at risk—particularly for the folk movement—it felt more like observing a tempest in a teacup.
What explains the era's animus against "going electric?" In part, the answer could perhaps be provided by the contents of the halftime show at yesterday's Ravens-Texans game.
More specifically, the driving force, at that particular time, is suggested by the lyrics which introduce one of the songs on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the gentleman's amazingly early second album.
The album appeared in May 1963. Dylan had turned 22 that very week, but he'd already written (and had now recorded) these remarkable songs:
Blowin' in the Wind
Masters of War
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
Fifty-three years later, that third song was still astounding when Patti Smith performed it before Swedish royalty at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in 2016.
The song was still astounding. Way back in 1963, a little-known songwriter said he'd seen such things as these when he was still 21:
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin'
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw 10,000 talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
Bob Dylan's Blues
Unlike most of the songs nowadays being written up in Tin Pan Alley
That's where most of the folk songs come from nowadays
This, this is a song, this wasn't written up there
This was written somewhere down in the United States
"That's where most of the folk songs come from nowadays?" The cultural context was this:
Sad! The album appeared in May 1963. By that time, much of the energy of 1950s rock-and-roll had been subsumed by the Frankie Avalon-Fabian school of pop, with teen films like Beach Blanket Bingo destined to follow.
That pop culture was, in fact, being "written up in Tin Pan Alley." We recall how amazingly fresh and new it already sounded when Peter Paul and Mary broke (fairly) big with Lemon Tree in 1962.
That trio had itself been assembled in Tin Pan Alley, but they sounded very different. Soon thereafter, along came Dylan, one of their Greenwich Village contemporaries—not to mention Joan Baez—and the rejection of a certain species of manufactured shlock was instant in certain parts of the land.
The insistence on staying acoustic functioned within that context. Even the Beatles were culturally suspect when they arrived on the scene, insisting that they wanted to hold some unnamed person's hand.
As coincidence would have it, A Complete Unknown is a Christmas film this year. We spent a bit of time, in the past few days, spelunking within the bowels of our flailing nation's current "revolt from below."
We did so with reference to a certain affectation on the Fox News Channel concerning Christmas movies. The affectation in question operates like this:
What's your favorite Christmas movie, a panel of Stepfords will ask themselves on one of the channel's programs. The ladies will name some standard titles—and at some point, one of the angry males will defiantly name his own favorite Christmas film:
Die Hard!
In part, so goes the current revolt from below, a revolution which is clearly winning at the present time.
In the past few days, we spent a certain amount of time trying to establish the timeline of the widely revered Frank Capra film, It's A Wonderful Life. Our own unanswered question was this:
How many times was the Jimmy Stewart character forced to renounce his lifelong dream of leaving Bedford Falls?
How many times did circumstance make him abandon his dream? We've finally nailed the confusing timeline down.
(The answer is anywhere from two to four times, depending on how you score a pair of double renunciations—first at the apparent age of 21 or 22, then again four years later. Going to college was abandoned twice. Also abandoned was a trip to Europe, along with a later honeymoon with the person he was lucky enough to marry.)
On the Fox News Channel, the ladies are permitted to cite It's A Wonderful Life as one of their favorite Christmas films. Eventually, one of the fellows will shock the world by stating his preference for the 1988 "gender roles anthem" we've already named.
Triggered by this affectation, we decided to watch Die Hard last night. Frequently, we were struck by what we saw.
Even in that 1988 film, we saw major elements of the current "revolt from below." In particular, the film is bookended by the marital problems of the Bruce Willis character and his estranged wife, who's played by Bonnie Bedelia.
He's a working-class New York City cop. She's a giant-salary corporate executive—one who has even started using her "maiden name!"
How did these two ever get together to start with? That question is never explained. At any rate, by the end of the film, the Bedelia character is once again blurting her married name. Also, she's huddled on and behind her husband's arm in much the way, it must be said, a young couple is posed on the famous cover of Dylan's Freewheelin' album.
In the 1988 film in question, we saw the basic elements of the "revolt from below" which is currently being staged at the Fox News Channel (and pretty much everywhere else).
For better or worse, Die Hard tells a modern "Christmas story." We'll lay it out in a bit more detail tomorrow. We'll also mention this (inevitably) unexplored question about the early Dylan:
What happened to his earlier "sexual politics" as the years went by?
Why did the kinder, gentler earlier Dylan become so sour in his remarks about the people he thought of as women? This may be our species' oldest story—and not just at Christmas time. It's an (almost wholly) unexplored story pretty much all year round!
At any rate, what explains the fight, in the 1960s, against going electric? Very frankly, it goes like this:
The young Dylan had already seen "guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children." Elsewhere, Beach Blanket Bingo was being peddled as Frankie Avalon and Annette moved on to movie careers.
At the time, "electric" was code for Tin Pan Alley! Yesterday, did our failing nation possibly see a Tin Pan halftime show?
Tomorrow: He'd seen 10,000 talkers whose tongues were all broken? At present, for better or worse, our most influential talkers are gaggles of angry male comedians, backed by former professional "wrestlers."
Could it be that their tongues are all broken? That, of course, is a matter of judgment. Also, the Willis character's' "wife-beater" shirt! Plus, that Christmas film's "pin-up" shots!
Dylan was obviously a great songwriter but some of the phrases Somerby especially lauds were adapted from Woody Guthrie. The folk tradition allows such borrowing as songs evolved without known authors. Rock has songwriters who sue and are sued for taking ithers’ work. Rock is an individualist expressive medium with stars. Folk is a collectivist medium where the expression belongs to the people. Folk is performed in groups in people’s homes, with all participating; rock on a stage with an audience. Folk is part of cultural tradition. Rock is individual artistic expression.
ReplyDeleteDylan was self-oriented.
Dylan "sold out" but then became irrelevant as much more talented musicians came to the fore, so then he became a born again christian, etc. the guy is a mess, a sad tale of someone blowing in the wind chasing the almighty dollar.
ReplyDeleteA big part of nostalgia is cognitive dissonance.
Oh well.
I didn’t like Dylan’s voice.
ReplyDeleteNo one did. He was booed in London. He managed to portray his voice as "authentic" not polished, the antithesis of the Tin Pan Alley produced pop sound that Somerby disparages here. His bad voice was part of what made him a counter-establishment figure, a symbol of rebellion against "plastic" music.
DeleteWhat is a folk song? At one time some were actual folk songs — songs written by no known person and long sung by some group of people. Today virtually all the “folk songs” are written by a contemporary songwriter.
ReplyDeleteYes, folk music is baloney, just as much as Tin Pan Alley is baloney.
DeleteDavid, was that not a bit of the point Dylan was making in the quote?
DeleteWhat is the content of a comment when a commenter has nothing to add? See @2:08 PM.
DeleteKevin Drum does his part to make America great again:
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/a-look-at-the-poor-people-who-think-trump-will-help-them/
Democrats need to rebrand and reconnect with voters. Out of touch is what they seem to people outside their unctuous and inbred bubble.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/opinion/democrats-election-future.html
Voters need to reconnect with Democrats. If they don’t, they deserve what happens to them.
DeleteAgree with 2:35
DeleteWhat a perceptive and incisive comment you add to your link, especially the (oooh what a word) "unctuous" and (non sequiturish) "inbred" part.
DeleteWhy a fucking genius like is is wasting your time preaching to the great unwashed here instead of sucking off Elon Musk is confounding.
People are feeling Democrats are in need of rebranding to reconnect with voters.
DeleteThis approach wouldn't do any good for Democrats if the reason why Harris lost is because she is black and female, or if the reason she lost was inadequate campaign length due to taking on the nomination much later than anyone else has had to do.
DeleteRunning a campaign on "joy" was so out of touch for so many Americans who were struggling to buy food, educate their kids, pay their rent, etc.... The Dems are out of touch with reality...I despise Trump, but at least he understands that people are angry because life is hard. He's got nothing to offer them, but he does understand that much. The Democratic Party is its own worst enemy.
DeleteIf that were all her campaign was about, you might have a point, but you are focusing only on the contrast that was emphasized between Harris and Trump's doom and gloom, America is a shithole rally speeches. Her point was positivity, not emotionality.
DeleteFrom a psychological perspective, even the poorest people will do better if they adopt a stance of positivity and optimism rather than one of despair or constant anger. Look at the work of Martin Seligman on Learned Optimism.
https://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your-Mind/dp/1400078393
Adopting a positive approach to solving the nation's problems is not as foolish as you are trying to portray it, and it is better for people than promoting victimhood (which the right has often deplored) or the hate Trump emphasized.
Yes, life is hard. But the main difference between Harris and Trump was what to do about it. If people think Trump has answers, they are mistaken and that is the danger of his false promises and lies.
Your response doesn't really make sense to me but thank you.
DeleteIt is about "running a campaign on joy", the criticism of the positivity shown by Harris. The previous comment suggested that because life is hard, people cannot have positive emotions and that it was foolish to run a positive campaign. Psychological research suggests that no matter how bad someone's circumstances are, a positive attitude and expectation will produce better results for them in life, than emphasizing doom and gloom, as Trump's campaign did relentlessly. Why? Because when someone is negative, they lose their motivation and will to try to improve their circumstances. They feel like a victim and believe there is nothing they can do to change their lives and that things will always be bad for them. Trump told his voters that, but he blamed it on the Democrats. That was objectively untrue given the actual accomplishments and improvements of Biden's administration, especially for the poor and working classes. The problem is not that Harris ran on "joy" but that voters didn't believe her when she pointed out the real things that Biden did for them. That is the damage that lies can do, but that is not Harris's fault for being positive and offering hope. It is the voters who chose Trump over her.
DeleteTrump campaigned on 3 main themes: 1) cut taxes for the rich, 2) mass deportation to god knows where of millions of undocumented persons & 3) ginormous tariffs on all countries (unilaterally abrogating the trade agreement he himself negotiated with Mexico.
DeleteAll three of these proposals would severely increase inflation. So naturally, trump voters picked him because they were angry about the price of eggs 3 years ago. Sure.
Those Dylan lyrics about what he supposedly saw at age 21-22 are things no one has seen, much less Dylan himself. Somerby is being too literal with Dylan's lyrics.
ReplyDeleteYoung Adult novels in the fantasy and sci fi genres are dystopian. I don't know why teens are attracted to such dark views, but they were no different in Dylan's time and the lyrics created by Dylan (barely more than a teen himself) to appeal to teens are like Hunger Games or Divergent in their darkness and cynicism, especially about an adult establishment.
I don't understand why Somerby misses this appeal to youth and instead offers this as a vision of his own dark vision of today's reality. Again, Somerby perverts the original meanings of these songs and films and superimposes his own purposes onto them, instead of trying to understand Dylan himself or his times, at the beginning of the counter-culture (the Summer of Love was 1967). Somerby pretends Dylan started the 60s music scene but he didn't. In England, the Yardbirds, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Kinks had nothing to do with Dylan or folk music. The Doors and groups like Cream and the San Francisco bands were the foundations of rock. Folk rock is well-summarized in the Song Creeque Alley by the Mamas & Papas. Peter Paul and Mary, a folk group, couldn't fit into the rock scene so they went Christian too. Folk did not evolve into rock.
Bob Dylan was a sell out compared to people like Phil Ochs, who carried out the anti-war protest genre much better than Dylan. Pete Seeger and Rambling Jack Elliott took over for Woody Guthrie. Folk went its own way. Dylan emerged from folk but did that by transitioning himself, not changing the folk scene. Groups like the Beach Boys or Simon & Garfunkel did not emerge from Bob Dylan. They created their own sounds and music.
The pose where Willis's wife is clinging to his arm is not meant to show that women's lib is bunk. It was to show that his wife recognized that she loved him when his life was endangered and realized what she almost lost. A reconciliation is implied but not stated, as I recall.
ReplyDeleteSomerby wishes to generalize this beyond the characters in the film to apply to Dylan and "sexual politics". Why did Dylan sour on women? He got divorced from his wife (with whom he had 5 kids). Who knows what the problems in their marriage may have been. Writing interesting lyrics doesn't make Dylan a social scientist or philosopher, especially when people tend to project their own meanings onto ambiguous words with little attachment to anything in real life and everything he writes seems either symbolic or metaphorical. That's how Somerby gets away with saying nothing too.
"At present, for better or worse, our most influential talkers are gaggles of angry male comedians, backed by former professional "wrestlers."
ReplyDeleteThese people exist on Fox, but why call them "our most influential talkers"? Trump didn't get a majority of votes and he barely won the election, largely because Democratic voters stayed home (compared to Biden's vote count). That suggests these guys on Fox were not very influential, or Trump would have done better than he did.
Arguably, the NY Times was more influential because it reached Democrats who started to call for Biden's removal from the ticket, after he had already won the primaries on his own merits. Their smear campaign was more influential in encouraging Democrats to stay home than anything Gutfeld said, given that Dems don't watch Fox.
Somerby doesn't understand why many women keep their maiden names. It is not because they are divorcing their husbands or estranged or dislike their husbands. It has nothing to do with that. It is to differentiate their own work in a professional field from their husband's reputation, so that the wives can get credit for what they do and will also not be perceived as benefitting from their husbands' accomplishments. Because sexism causes some men to believe that wives only succeed at work due to their husbands, separating themselves to avoid that confusion is the main way of making sure women get credit for their own achievements.
ReplyDeleteTaylor Swift would not want anyone to think she attained musical success by marrying a football player. A writer of bestselling books wouldn't want anyone to think she was popular as an author because she was married to a judge or a corporate executive.
Look at the assholes who accused Hillary Clinton of being elected only because she was married to Bill Clinton (and not vice versa). She could not separate herself from his offices, even though her education and nearly all of her independent work was in public service. (The exception was when she worked as a lawyer when Bill lost reelection to Governor.)
Women were not legally able to keep a maiden name or adopt a pen or stage or screen name separate from their husbands' until after women's lib. Just as women were not able to check into hotels by themselves, eat at better restaurants alone, obtain a car loan or buy a house without their husband as a cosigner, maintain a separate bank account, or carry out business as a separate entity (while their husbands could do all of these things).
Somerby's rancid views about sexual politics are based on a lack of understanding why women do what they do or care about the things they do. If the Bedelia character had already divorced Willis, then she would have the option of going back to her maiden name as part of the divorce decree. She may have done that. That she was a corporate executive is separate from that. It would be odd that Willis wouldn't know she had changed her name if he was served with diviorce papers.
The implication in the film is that Willis was not supportive of her career, given that police officers can find work in any large city, which means he could have moved to her location, if she was offered a good job elsewhere. It isn't clear whether he was going to become more supportive after the scenes in the movie. If he did change, then that would be a happier ending. If he didn't due to old-fashioned ideas about who should work in a marriage, then I doubt they would stay together long despite a reconciliation. The more talented a woman is, the less willing she is going to be to subjugate her own talents and abilities to a husband's ego or irrational demands.
Imagine if Bob Dylan had married Joan Baez. Would she have changed her name or stopped her career? Much of the time she was more popular than Dylan, more successful in music. None of that is about sexual politics. It is about individual goals and ambitions. When women grow up with guitars instead of Chatty Cathy dolls, they are more likely to meet someone like Dylan on the way up and obviously, Baez chose her career instead of being a helper to Dylan's efforts. They might have worked together, but chose their individual paths instead. Sexual politics gave women like Baez the choice to keep her name and pursue her career without foregoing a relationship with a man. That is a boon to both sexes, unless men cannot tolerate women with talent.
There was an interesting video circulating on the internet that I watched a few years ago. Somerby is being interviewed by a journalist in the room where comedians prepare to go on stage and do their sets. Several of those other comedians walk into view and are introduced to the journalist, as Somerby gives his answers to the questions. There is a female comedian there too, but Somerby ignores her entirely and does not introduce her, as he does the male comedians.
DeleteWho knows whether Somerby had a beef with her or it just didn't occur to him to introduce her. Whatever the reason, this illustrates the difficulties women have establishing themselves in male-dominated fields, including stand-up comedy. To Somerby's credit, at least he didn't masturbate in front of her, like Louis C.K., but then again, perhaps he was inhibited by the presence of the male journalist interviewing him.
“To Somerby’s credit, at least he didn’t masturbate in front of her”
DeleteYou are sick.
No, Louis C.K. is sick. That really happened.
DeleteJoan Baez, however extremely talented, and certainly exhibiting more interest in the events if the day and advocating for social justice more than Dylan professed to, was never more popular or highly regarded than him as a songwriter or musician.
DeleteThe larger point, JC, is that women get harrassed (including in sexual ways) in male-dominated workplaces where they are not wanted by men. Women are not "sick" for complaining about this stuff. Men are sick for doing it.
DeleteAt the beginning of Dylan's career, Joan Baez was more popular and successful than Dylan was, and more highly regarded as a musician. She didn't write her own songs. She is absolutely a better singer. She helped his career to gain traction, not vice versa.
DeleteJoan had a better voice, a better personality, and a better body.
Delete5:21. You are sick. It’s as if I said of you that at least you’re not a cannibal like Hannibal Lector. There would be no reason for me to say that, and there was no reason for you to say what you said. It was just a smear with deniability; you can pretend that CK and Somerby are comparable but then feign innocence when called on it.
DeleteI mean, I wouldn’t say you copulate with farm animals, but — now it’s in everyone’s head, right?
DeleteSomerby is a misogynist. His own words show that. What evidence is there Dylan soured on women, for example?
DeleteJC is healthy, intelligent, and altogether normal.
DeleteThese are the words of a misogynistic asshole: “the people he [Dylan] referred to as women.”
DeleteI guess we’re lucky Somerby considers us “people”. Men don’t define women but they also don’t get to decide who is or is not a woman either. Here with this odd phrase Somerby joins the right wing’s insistence that women conform to their notions of womanhood as if they are innate, universal and ordained, when diversity is the norm within both sexes. He can refer to Dylan all he wants but he is pushing right wing trad views when he implies Dylan’s wives and girlfriends are being referred to as women but may not be women. And JC thinks Somerby is being unfairly maligned. What about Dylan’s suspect females who may or may not be women no matter what they are called. Do they deserve that? Somerby doesn’t know any of them.
JC won’t defend them because he is only here to protect Somerby from his own assholery.
Somerby may not realize that there are men who are not necessarily men too, people who are referred to as men. Has Dylan soured on them?
DeleteThere are no right ways or wrong ways to be men or women.
DeleteTo a chimpanzee, a human is a closer relative than a gorilla is.
DeletePeople are human first and male or female second. I see a lack of respect in Somerby’s snotty remark attributed indirectly to Dylan. Women are neither chimps nor gorillas.
Delete9:30 - Somerby doesn’t need to, nor does he deign to, defend himself from the likes of you. And I wasn’t defending him, either. Instead I was just pointing out that your attack was steeped in sleaze.
Delete8:20 - You’re right. I was a tad harsh.
To a chimp, a woman is a closer cousin than a gorilla is.
DeleteYou might as well compare a woman to a frog or a man to a pig while you’re at it.
DeleteJC, Somerby is a bigot. Nothing you say changes that.
Delete10:54 - True or not, that doesn’t excuse your sleazy attack.
DeleteAnd why are you so obsessed? I would guess you’ve told us at least 500 to 1000 times that you feel Somerby is a sexist. Why the personal vendetta?
DeleteSomerby keeps quoting those angry male comedians and wrestlers on Fox, but he ignores our own comedians, such as my favorite, Jeff Tiedrich:
ReplyDelete"oh fuck, we forgot to have a War on Christmas
shit, what do we do now?
remember the War on Christmas? remember how much fun that was? Republicans used to cower in their homes as gangs of MS-13 roamed the streets, ready to punch the shit out of anyone who failed to say ‘Happy Holidays.’
seriously, Fox News really fell down on the job this year. back in the good old days, loofah enthusiast Bill O’Reilly would devote weeks upon weeks of programming to tirelessly documenting every instance of a public figure failing to pay proper tribute to Jesus Claus by saying Merry Christmas, using instead the Karl Marx-approved woke greeting Happy Holidays.
look, commies, Bill’s just trying to do you a favor by restoring you to God’s graces. it’s right there in your Bible, heathens, in Zealots 4:20 — “thou shalt only say Merry Christmas, lest I smite ye blaspheming fuckheads.”
listen to your Uncle Bill, infidels, and stop inciting God’s wrath.
after Bill was sent to a big farm upstate where he would have room to run around and sexually harass all the other dogs, it was up to Fox News found objects like Jesse Watters to carry the mantle.
but this year? crickets — and so rank and file Republicans to step into the breach.
here’s Georgia’s own three-toed embarrassment.
“Merry Christmas Eve everyone!! It’s the last Christmas under Democrat Communist control. Freedom is coming!” [tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene on Xmas]
I think we can all agree that Democrat Communist Christmas is the worst kind of Christmas. remember when we had to wait in line for hours just to buy a potato to put under the Generic Holiday Statue of Michelle Obama all of us were forced to have in our homes? Donny’s gonna put an end to that shit.
in 2025, we’ll have the freedumb to buy a $90 Christmas ornament from Dear Leader’s Slovenian trophy wife."
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/oh-fuck-we-forgot-to-have-a-war-on
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Much funnier than Gutfeld, but maybe just as angry about how we Dems are portrayed by the right wing during the holiday season.
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/election-2024-bomb-threats-russia-swing-states
ReplyDeleteNoah Berlatsky says:
Though it’s largely already been forgotten, 2024 was not a completely peaceful election. Anonymous terrorists, probably working for Russia, sent bomb threats to numerous majority Black and Native American polling places in battleground states in an effort to disrupt voting and aid the Trump campaign.
The threats were widely reported on Election Day itself. However, in the aftermath of Trump’s narrow but definitive win, there has been little discussion of these egregious, deliberate attacks on democracy in general, and on the voting rights of Black and Native American people in particular. Analysts have instead focused on whether the Democrats and Kamala Harris should have run further to the left or further to the right or further in some other direction."
--------------------------------------
I feel the same way about the pipe bombs planted as part of the 1/6 attack on the Capitol building perpetrated by unknown Trump supporters. That too has fallen by the wayside but is a serious threat to our democracy due to the violence injected into our election process.
I am still waiting to find out who in the NYC FBI Field Office was feeding Rudy and Joe Digenova information about Anthony Weiner's laptop in 2016.
DeleteThis supposed investigation was quietly forgotten to death.
That is the field office whose chief had some connection to a Russian oligarch, no? When that story came out it seemed there were some dots that needed connecting, especially in view of Rudy's ties to that office and the October surprise he knew about in advance of Comey's announcement just before the 2016 election.
Delete5:16, Yes, that is correct. They spooked Comey to the point that he felt compelled to violate every rule in the book by publicly announcing the re-opening of the email bullshit investigation less than two week before the election. More than anything else, this turned the election to tRump.
DeleteSomerby doesn't own Bob Dylan, just because they are roughly the same age.
ReplyDeleteWell, they’re both named Bob.
Delete"Why did the kinder, gentler earlier Dylan become so sour in his remarks about the people he thought of as women? This may be our species' oldest story—and not just at Christmas time. It's an (almost wholly) unexplored story pretty much all year round!"
ReplyDeleteWhy does Somerby use this odd construction "the people he thought of as women"? It implies that the only thing that makes a woman a woman is thinking of her as one. Or perhaps Somerby is implying that Dylan dated exclusively transwomen or men in drag, who fooled Dylan into thinking they were women when they were not? Or perhaps Somerby is mocking the complexities of biology, customs and language that afflict those who want to be treated with respect by others who are stuck in rigid gender roles that have become obsolete in modern times. Who knows what Somerby's sarcasm means. He uses it in a hit-and-run manner without explaining his problems with women himself. And if neither Somerby nor Dylan is willing to explain their problems with women, then why should any of us, especially women, care what they are?
It hadn't occurred to me that Dylan's views on women had "soured". I find them consistent across time. He generally only describes some specific woman in his songs and one gets the feeling that these are people he perhaps knew when he wrote the song, or perhaps not.
For example, his song "Just like a woman" is not about all women but about a specific woman who behaved as described "she breaks just like a little girl" Dylan says. We don't all do that, but perhaps Dylan did know someone who did -- but Somerby wants to generalize that to an attitude toward women, and a negative one at that. I just don't see it that way.
Men like to pretend that woman are hard to understand, but that is largely because they refuse to see women as people, individuals who share many of their own traits. That may take some of the romance out of relationships but in the long run, there are greater chances of successful partnerships if men treat women as human beings and not as Chatty Cathys. There is less mystery and less biology involved than men pretend.
What do women want? An equal rights ammendment to the Constitution. It was passed by Congress and ratified by the required number of states. All that remains is for the president to finalize it. Why do I get the feeling that Trump won't do that?
Men need to choose between patriarchy and relationship. They can't have both because women have been more free since women's lib and won't go back to the bad old days. If that made Bob Dylan sour, well too bad for him.
Just because a movie is released at Christmas time doesn't make it a Christmas movie.
ReplyDeleteA real Christmas movie would have a flashback, the intimate encounter between the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit.
Deleteshe was filled by the holy spirit
Deletebow chicka wow wow
DeleteAnd then she said her soul magnified the Lord, which seems blasphemous to me.
Delete"Which is more likely — that the whole natural order is to be suspended, or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?" — David Hume
DeleteSimilar logic can and should be applied to all of the utterly stupid claims of the supernatural within Christian doctrine.
Because it is so relevant to discussion here, below is a portion of a post by The Rude Pundit which won an award in the Jon Swift Roundup 2024, best blog posts selected by the bloggers themselves:
ReplyDeletehttps://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2024/12/jon-swift-roundup-2024.html
"And on and on and on. They will find a way to blame everyone and everything except those who deserve the blame.
At the end of the day, a majority of Americans wanted Donald Trump to be president, and they didn't give a damn about anything else. They hate what he hates. They want to see retribution agains the imagined foes he's conjured. They did this even with everything they knew about him and his extravagant criminality and treason. They simply didn't believe it or they liked it. His voters might have been misinformed about a lot of things, but they know who Trump is, and they're completely fine with it. Where we see a rapist and a felon and a coup leader, they see a Tony Soprano-like antihero. Where we saw a competent and accomplished Democratic candidate, they saw a communist harridan who will force schools to give sex changes to children and let Venezuelans take over towns out west. You laugh, but they hold this as true. God, they want to punish immigrants and women and trans people so fucking badly they can taste it. They want their tears and blood and screams to bathe them.
There are things we know for sure. The Latino vote, especially men, tilted dramatically to Trump. White people, especially white men, voted for him. College-age men voted for Trump in much larger numbers than anticipated. And my generation, Gen X, betrayed everything that we were raised to believe about fakes and frauds in authority and went for Trump. All of them, us, deserve blame. America has a men problem, and it's scary as hell.
But one thing above all other ruled the day, and, frankly, makes me embarrassed to live on this floating island of garbage we pretend is a country. And let me do this as an address to Trump's voters:
You are so fucking stupid, just the stupidest motherfuckers who ever were allowed to breathe. You're so stupid that you won't even realize how badly you've fucked everything up. Your stupidity is so deep, so ingrained, so far up your deranged asses that you won't even realize it when you become the victim of your own stupid decisions, when prices go up because of tariffs and the lack of workers for farms, when you're fucking drowning in your shitbox homes because nobody did anything to stop climate change, when your town's tax base has been deported, when your factories die because there aren't enough workers, when your daughters and wives die because of no access to the medical care they need, when the rank stupidity you force others to adopt ends up making all of you worthless shit lumps in a ditch, just vessels for algorithm-fed hate lessons on social media on your screens, masturbating into oblivion over the pain of others while ignoring the cries of everyone around you while the world burns. I'd tell you to go fuck yourselves, but you already have and you don't even know it.
Jesus fuck, you voted to protect abortion rights in Missouri and Montana while still voting for Trump and other Republicans who will pass a national ban, negating the amendments to your state constitutions. That is, in the most basic way, blindingly fucking stupid, demonstrating a complete ignorance of any way that our elections or government functions. And if you're in one of the many groups that Trump has explicitly promised to harm and you voted for him, you're a fucking joke.
Cont.
Delete"And if I sound angry and disgusted, it's because at least in 2016 we could say that Trump didn't win the popular vote, that the country at large was still hanging in there. But not this time. This is who we are. None of it was enough, not the crimes, not the blatantly unAmerican policies, not the weirdness and obvious mental decline, not the shitshow that surrounds him. None of it. Trump increased his margins of victory across the nation, including in states like New Jersey and New York. That's so frightening.
And all those blames and excuses up there? Here's the coldest comfort I can offer: none of it would have mattered. I don't know what would have made a difference. This is who we are. This. This is who we are in the damned 21st-century. It's who we've always been. We're a nation founded on genocide and racism, enforced misogyny and absurd delusions of our superiority. It's in our DNA. And now we get to live out the natural and horrific extension of that.
You want me to end this by saying we should fight, by saying we need to regroup and defend those who will need defending (god, there are so many), by saying we're in this together. And maybe I'll get there. But right now, today, all I'm wondering is what, exactly, is worth fighting for. "
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Rude Pundit always seems to capture the way I feel about things, and this essay from right after the election is no exception. And the various other essays by Rude Pundit are the way real liberals feel and think. Compare to Somerby's garbage and understand the difference.
Rude Pundit's predictions of doom because of a Trump Presidency might have made sense in 2016. But, the thing's RP projects didn't happen when Trump was President. It's logical to guess that they won't happen in Trump's second term.
DeleteThe essay is about 2024 not 2016 and Trump is much worse gicen that his crimes and convictions came after too.
DeleteRight, DiC, after watching Trump become the first president in our nation's history who refused to accept the results of the election and a peaceful transfer of power and incited an attack on our Capitol, I feel much better handing him the most powerful office on the face of the earth, which he has already started corrupting.
DeleteIf "this is who we are"—a nation founded on genocide, racism, enforced misogyny, and absurd delusions of superiority ingrained in our DNA—why would the Rude Pundit blame or even be surprised by voters' choices? If these voters are described as blindingly ignorant, with no understanding of how elections or government function, how can they simultaneously be so driven by hate and cruelty that they actively seek to punish immigrants, women, and trans people? In one breath, voters are said to act out of ignorance, and in the next, they are portrayed as knowingly motivated by malice and fully aware of the consequences.
DeleteIt may be that Rude Pundit reflects the feelings of the hothouse flowers encumbered in the echo chamber with him, but to those outside it, he's incoherent and extremely unimpressive.
But I am sorry the results of the election have left you brimming with bitterness. I can assure you brighter days will be here before you know it.
I don’t see the ignorance and malice as incompatible.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear that. All the best,
DeleteIt may seem a minor thing, but to say that the majority of Americans wanted Trump to be president is not based on any known fact.
Delete"In one breath, voters are said to act out of ignorance, and in the next they are portrayed as knowingly acting out of malice...." these are not mutually exclusive statements.
DeleteDIC showing us a little of the fucking stupidity Rude Pundit describes. Two absolute pillars of Trump's campaign were tariffs and mass deportations. Was Trump lying then, DIC?
ReplyDeleteAnd of course Trump's first term was a disaster from start to finish, no matter how DIC tries to spin it. He undermined the rule of law. His Supreme Court picks helped overturn Roe v. Wade. He separated children from parents at the border while taking no steps to ensure they could be reunited later. He set back climate change progress. His tariffs on China hurt U.S. farmers to such an extent that they had to be bailed out by the government, increasing the debt DIC professes to care so much about. Speaking of which, the debt increased under Trump more than any other president, in part because of Trump's tax cuts, the vast bulk of which went to the ultra-rich like Trump and his family. He mishandled the pandemic, leading to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths. He broke America's word, proving it to be unreliable, by reneging on an extremely hard-won nuclear deal with Iran. On and on and on the list goes. Historians will be assessing the full scope of the damage for decades. And every honest observer of the political world knows Trump's second term will be far worse than his first. He's already undermining the free press, selecting a bunch of unqualified clowns to key positions, and gearing up to use the Justice Department and other government agencies to get "revenge" on his political enemies.
A lot of time and effort on this site has been wasted, including by me, pushing back against the comments put up by DIC. He is an old man who chooses to be informed exclusively by right wing outlets. At this point his forever trolling is probably best ignored.
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