Create an Account
username: password:
 
  MemeStreams Logo

Op-Ed Columnist - Dangers of the Penn - NYTimes.com

search

ubernoir
Picture of ubernoir
My Blog
My Profile
My Audience
My Sources
Send Me a Message

sponsored links

ubernoir's topics
Arts
  Literature
   Fiction
   Sci-Fi/Fantasy Literature
Business
Games
Health and Wellness
Home and Garden
Miscellaneous
Current Events
Recreation
Local Information
  Events in Washington D.C.
Science
  Astronomy
  Space
Society
  International Relations
  History
Sports
  Football
Technology
  Computers

support us

Get MemeStreams Stuff!


 
Op-Ed Columnist - Dangers of the Penn - NYTimes.com
Topic: Miscellaneous 7:48 am EST, Jan  5, 2009

I thought I’d begin 2009 with a movie, so on its first freezing afternoon I went to see Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” starring Sean Penn in a breathtaking performance as a smart, wry gay-rights politician whose whimsical effectiveness arouses murderous ire.
...
Was this really the same Sean Penn who’d just penned a fawning tribute to the grim Cuban president, Raúl Castro, a dictator presiding over a 50-year-old revolution that once dispatched gays to labor camps to correct their “counterrevolutionary tendencies?”

Yes, it was, despite the fact that “Milk” is precisely about the sort of grass-roots political movement that would be impossible in the Cuba of the Castro brothers, despite the fact that the “inalienable rights” of hundreds of Cuban political prisoners are trampled daily and despite the fact that the pursuit of happiness for most Cubans has been reduced to eking out an existence on $20 a month.
...

A gift for detachment is as important to the journalist as a gift for empathy is to the actor.

art and politics rarely if ever mix well
I tried to think of a single instance of a great artist who was a great politician and couldn't think of a single instance. There were great artists that have used art to bring social themes and issues to public consciousness like Dickens but not an example of a practical every day political leader and who was also a great artist. Havel sprang to mind and examples of great artists with lousy political instincts like Neil Young and even malign political instincts like Wagner. So maybe art is too emotive. Any suggestions?

Op-Ed Columnist - Dangers of the Penn - NYTimes.com



 
 
Powered By Industrial Memetics
RSS2.0