Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Objectivism Continues Its Plunge Off the Deep End

Objectivist writer Scott Holleran writes at Box Office Mojo that religious groups are the reason child-rape movie Hounddog hasn't been picked up for distribution.
The furor over 12-year-old child actress Dakota Fanning’s festival-screened movie, Hounddog, has so far stalled gaining a distributor for the picture. Whether her parents made an error by allowing her to play in a rape scene, the movie’s status signals spreading religious influence in Hollywood.

Citing child pornography laws, the Catholic League, outraged that a rape scene uses shots of Fanning, called for government intervention, though there is no evidence that a law was violated. Also objecting to Hounddog is a religious group known as the Christian Film and Television Commission that runs a Web site (www.movieguide.org) dedicated to promoting what it calls “biblical principles.” The site’s mission statement asserts an intention to influence entertainment executives. If controlling Hollywood content is the group’s purpose, as far as Hounddog is concerned, the Christian commission may consider its mission accomplished. …

Maybe studios passed on Hounddog, which also stars David Morse and Piper Laurie, because it’s a dud, or perhaps they have been spooked by the faith-based bunch. Time will tell if the picture’s demise means Hollywood kneels to fundamentalists, but a studio pipeline being choked by religious groups is ominous for movies and box office.
By most accounts, the movie is a dud. But this illustrates the main reason I gave up on Objectivism — these people have gone completely nuts. What are we to infer from Holleran’s grim prognosticating? That we’re on the verge of an artistic dark age when child-rape movies are no longer being made and we’re getting more stuff like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments?

We have the term ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’ (or BDS) to describe the bizarre, irrational reaction leftists often have to Bush. I think it’s time for a new term for people who react similarly phobic toward religion (most often Christianity) — I'm going to call it Christian Derangement Syndrome (or CDS).

(Previous example of CDS: Leonard Peikoff says vote Democrat and stop the theocracy now!)

[h/t: Libertas]

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I called it Theocrazy and it comes in both left and right wing flavors.

Maybe nobody wanted to watch a movie about child rape because... well, it's a movie about child rape.

2/06/2007 4:23 PM  
Blogger Stickwick Stapers said...

Robb,

Everyone except Holleran seems to understand Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one. This movie probably only appeals to the demographic who goes into a theater wearing nothing but a trenchcoat. But I think the fact that this film stars the incredibly annoying screaming brat from War of the Worlds needs to be factored in, too.

(Theocrazy -- I like it!)

2/06/2007 4:33 PM  
Blogger Russell said...

Crazy comes in a lot of different flavors, plenty to go around.

That said, what is wrong with these people even thinking of, and shooting, this type of crap?

Sheesh.

2/08/2007 3:39 PM  
Blogger NotClauswitz said...

What Rusticus said, but it's a slow day in Tinselgrad when they can't think up something stupider or even worse, hey how about a movie about gay cowboys!? It'll be a box-office smash!

2/08/2007 5:00 PM  
Blogger Francis W. Porretto said...

Time was, the Objectivists had something of value to say, particularly on non-objective law and the vacuity of moral relativism. Unfortunately, these past two or three decades, they've become caricatures of themselves, or worse. It's as if the hero-worship they poured over Rand, now that she's dead, has festered within them and rotted away all humility and good sense.

2/09/2007 10:47 AM  
Blogger Stickwick Stapers said...

I think you nailed it, Fran.

It reflects something fundamentally wrong with humanism, in general, when you cannot conceive of anything greater than yourself. Man as the measure of all things has never led to anything good.

2/09/2007 4:06 PM  

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