Groan – in defence of ‘They are U.S.’, creative freedom & artistic license
Jesus wept, at this stage I feel like the last person standing in front of the library trying to talk down everyone wanting to burn books.
Are we really allowing Paddy Gower and Linda Clark to be our censors? Gower describing Linda as the most important political commentator in NZ is as inaccurate as it is defamatory!
Are we really telling artists what to do? This is a movie, not a documentary! The Crown isn’t historically correct either, Christ most of the movies you consume aren’t factually correct either!
How is this a surprise?
Poor old David Seymour has been written out altogether and we all wish Winston had dropped a cool Proverb in Maori and had reflected on his own history of political race baiting!
Simon Bridges has every reason to be pissed off because he was actually decent in the wake of the attack. Instead of putting false words into the mouth of Simon Bridges they should have just focused on how National was ramping up criticism of the UN declaration on Refugees just before this massacre happened, but I would imagine that wouldn’t look much better.
Look, This is an American movie for an American audience using the cultural currents in America, it’s a story about America, not NZ.
This isn’t ‘They are us’ this is ‘They are U.S’
Before we lynch the artist, consider the impact of this movie in America. The script alone would get an Academy Award nomination. What if this movie speaks to Americans in a way argument and debate can’t?
What if this movie about a young white female Prime Minister is the catalyst for Americans to propel some culture change on guns?
What if it does? What if this art inspires something momentous in America?
Am I really having to defend the philosophical and intellectual arguments for creative freedom? No one else sees some enormous issues over censoring art?
You know what we should do?
Allow this piece of art to do what it’s going to do and then with taxpayer money make our own movie, call it ‘They Are Us: The Real Story’.
Make it victim centred, with all the necessary sign off and agreement of the community and get a diverse inclusive crew to make it and get Taika Waititi to direct it.
I do agree that we need to tell this story in our own voice with our own people but I disagree with stopping others from using it to resonate with the cultural currents that flow in their own country.
Are we really going to stomp and scream because the dramatization isn’t completely right?
Really? We now tell artists what to make led by censors who tell us what to think and regardless of the positive impact this story could create in the real world, we hate it anyway?
When the fuck did we become this book burning art hating censor state?
Be honest, we all wish Winston had said that.
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NONSENSE! This bloody movie is about getting in first to monetize the tragedy in question.
And if you are defending “free speech” then please also defend ours to make as much negative noise about this thing as we want!!
Of course, if these people decide to proceed with this abomination, we cant do anything about it, but we should not allow them to film any of it here, or give them any tax breaks for doing it.
Just a couple of things, there is 17 minutes of script devoted to the actual event, so they can just about do that in real time, yet it is supposed to be about the following week and Ardern’s response. I call absolute BS on that, we can see now how it will just be a salacious piece of crap.
yes 100%
Does the end justify the means ? Is appropriating the Muslin tragedy without the knowledge and consent of the persons most damaged by it, and regurgitating it in its raw bloody horror, in the expectation of changing the culture of a massively bigger and more complex society a realistic expectation ?
One main concern I have is that regardless of attempted message, it will result in copy-cat massacres.
It probably won’t be a copy past event unless someone is practising and learning from the maggot of the earths own texts, his manifesto which under the law is a prohibited text with penalties ranging in years of jail.
I believe that it is extremely unlikely that your theory. That a movie could inspire copycats. Clones maybe, synthetic ones with half the skill and resources of the true vilan. That is not something to be afraid of. That is something to be pittied.
It is a pity the PM can’t copyright the phrase ‘They are us’ to prevent the producers capitalising on it’s profound understanding of the situation.
From what has been revealed so far the Producers have no intention of treating the event with any sensitivity and so I can’t see how the film in total will be anything but the normal Holywood trash – so I won’t go and sre it; but currently the media are ‘milking’ the footage of the slaying of Constable Mathew Hunt for sensationalised reporting – What’s the difference?
Show the movie but also include Jacinda’s total disregard of the Muslim Uighurs. Show that PR and money is her ONLY priority.
Oh yay another right wing nutjob to join the already lengthy que on this blog.
As Alfred Hitchcock was famous for saying – “It’s only a movie”
As Alfred Hitchcock was famous for saying – “It’s only a movie”