Thoughts on the movie Kick Ass

After watching Kick Ass the first time I thought it was fantastic so I immediately watched it a second time.
The second time I watched it, I didn't like it as much. Flaws always become more visible when you watch a movie a second time, because it's harder to be as engrossed in the story when you know what's going to happen. But I don't think I've ever been brought down to earth this much on a second viewing before.
Here's why.
I couldn't help noticing, that the origin story of the two superheroes, Big Daddy and Hit Girl (real name Mindy), is LAME. These particular superheros have sworn bloody revenge on the crime boss Frank D'Amico and they spend the movie brutally killing their way through his gang members, aiming to eventually kill him. Hit Girl is Big Daddy's daughter and he has trained her to carry out the same brutal vigilante justice as him.
The reason for this, according to Big Daddy, is that he used to be a cop until Frank D'Amico framed him as a drug dealer and sent him to jail for approximately five years. D'Amico did this because he was concerned that Daddy would find evidence against him and have him locked up. While Daddy was in prison, his wife, who was pregnant with Mindy at the time, was unable to cope without him and committed suicide.
The problem here is that we're being positioned to blame D'Amico for the wife's death, even though it isn't his fault. Even by Daddy's own account there is no evidence that D'Amico knew that his wife was pregnant. And even if he had known she was pregnant, he can't reasonably conclude just from that information, that she's going to kill herself if her spouse goes to jail. At most he would have had the ability to vaguely forsee hard times, but not suicide. So in relation to what happened to the wife, there's no real evidence that I should even dislike D'Amico, let alone agree to kill him and all his men.
Plus, D'Amico's idea to have Daddy sent to prison doesn't seem gratuitously sadistic. D'Amico's a crime boss, so he presumably could have had Daddy killed, if he'd really wanted to. Instead he's chosen an option that is pragmatic without being sadistic. This origin story which is meant to make me hate D'Amico actually proves that he's not such a bad guy, considering the ugly line of business that he's in.
If we're supposed to think of Big Daddy and Hit Girl as heroes for killing D'Amico and all his men, like this movie implies, D'Amico SHOULD have done something horrendous. Something so bad that Daddy departs from his ideal of obeying the law, and decides that operating outside the law to bring D'Amico down is necessary. If the movie doesn't show us that, then the heroes are not really heroes. They're just people who are going on a killing spree because they're pissed off.
It's harder to enjoy the movie when you realise you've been given no real justification for anything that was happening. This origin story is meant to be the justification for killing dozens of D'Amico's men throughout the movie, as well as killing D'Amico himself, and it clearly fails. D'Amico isn't responsible for anything other than sending Daddy to jail for five years.

The other scene in this movie that bothers me the most, is the scene where Hit Girl kills all of the gangsters at Rasul's apartment whom work for Frank D'Amico. What makes this scene particularly disturbing is that she also kills the woman in the red dress who does not appear to be a gangster, and is clearly not a threat. In fact, she was running away from Hit Girl when Hit Girl killed her.
This makes supporting Daddy and Hit Girl even more indefensible because this is a much, much worse crime, than the crime that sparked their origin story in the first place. Framing Daddy as a drug dealer involved no innocent people being murdered.

And what's frustrating is that I loved everything else about this movie. I found the whole thing to be very gripping, entertaining and amusing. So the fact that the heroes are clearly deranged psychos if you think about it for a couple of seconds can only be hugely disappointing.
Especially since this movie consistantly implies that it should be taken seriously, by depicting much of the movie realistically. It depicts the superheroes as having only weapons and no superpowers. It makes Dave's character as much like an everyman it possibly can. It sets the story in New York rather than a fictional city like Gotham. It refers to the fact that until these superheros came along there were no real life superheroes.
A movie shouldn't take itself this seriously and then make the heroes psychopaths!

'Revenge of the Nerds' - Stupid Parts

Revenge of the Nerds is a 1984 movie about a group of college nerds that trying to stop the harassment of a persecuting jock fraternity, the Alpha Betas. The main characters are Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards).
I can tell that this movie is deliberately bad to a certain extent because they named two of the nerds 'Arnold Poindexter' and 'Harold Wormser.' Those names are ridiculous. They may as well name them 'Highpants Glassesface' and 'Loser Wedgiebottom.'
However, there were some issues with the movie that just seemed (at least to me) like poor writing with no nods to any kind of ironic self-awareness. Here's what they are:



Firstly, the nerds are soooo frustratingly gullible that I felt like pulling my hair out. When Lewis and Gilbert ask cheerleader Betty Childs of the Pi Delta Pi fraternity, which fraternity house they should join, she suggests the Alpha Betas. Gilbert nervously asks if she means those big jockey guys that were yelling abuse at them earlier. Betty confirms this and rings the Alpha Betas to let them know that Lewis and Gilbert are coming over. Lewis and Gilbert head over to the Alpha Beta fraternity anyway despite their reservations, and when they arrive the Alpha Betas are waiting for them in a circle, wearing sinister black robes. They strip Lewis and Gilbert down to their underwear, blindfold them, ask them whether they are virgins, and throw buckets of cold water on them for lying.
However when Gilbert suggests that Betty set them up, Lewis responds that he doesn't think that Betty is that sort of person. Hmm... Odd comment from Lewis considering what the end result of her obviously terrible suggestion was. But it gets stupider...
Lewis then later invites Betty to a party he is throwing in exchange for getting into Lamba Lamba Lamba fraternity. She declines and shuts the door on him with a grossed out look on her face.
However, later on Betty and all the other members of her Pi Delta Pi fraternity come over to the residence of the nerds to inform them that they want to be their dates at the party, and sing about how much better they like nerds than jocks. This thoroughly convinces the nerds that they have real dates. Lewis was so sure that those women were really coming that he told the authority at Lamba Lamba Lamba (who he needed to impress) that there were a lot of good-looking women coming to the party.
How fucking unbelievably stupid are these nerds???!!! Even though they are nerds, and are therefore familiar with bullying, they have no sense of when someone is full of shit and messing with them! I really don't think that if you had been frequently bullied in the past, that you'd be so docile and trusting that you would not find it suspicious that a bunch of hot women just threw themselves at you for no apparent reason! And the situation was even more suspicious than that because it was firmly established that Betty did not like them one bit! Yet they STILL believed it! Their gullibility is astounding! These are the thickest people EVER!
Of course the Pis don't show up for the party and the Alpha Betas release pigs into their house to wreck the party. Later the Alpha Betas set a fire outside the house, burning sticks in the shape of the word 'NERDS.' At this point the nerds decide to tattle on the Alpha Betas, but unfortunately there is a very stupid plot device coming to mess things up for them. The university's 'Greek Council' is who will decide whether the Alpha Betas are guilty of vandalism of the nerds' residence, and only the president of the Greek Council can decide whether this issue will be voted on. Naturally, the president of the Greek Council is Stan Gable, the leader of the Alpha Betas and he decides that the matter will NOT go to trial... How can that POSSIBLY be allowed? That's a ridiculous conflict of interest. Of course Stan doesn't want his own fraternity to get in trouble. That's like making a murderer the judge and jury at his own trial to decide whether he's guilty or not! Of course he's going to find himself innocent!
It seems apparent that a rule needs to be made against this blatant corruption but the nerds don't solve the situation like that. They decide that they will solve this by taking over the presidency of the Greek Council themselves, so that they'll be able to be as corrupt in THEIR favour as they like, as opposed to the council being corrupt the other way. And how do they take over the presidency? Not by a vote, as is customary with some presidents, but by winning a whole lot of sports games, and various other activities... What the hell? The plot of this movie isn't even trying to make sense! Not that I'm real familiar with how American universities normally work, but I'm pretty sure that this is not it.
Two of the activities that the houses compete in are raising money for charity and costume contests. Betty is raising money for the Pis with a kissing booth. As Betty is Stan's girlfriend, she tells Stan that all of the kissing has made her horny and offers to have sex with him. Stan rudely rejects her offer by telling her she's 'like a goat' and she storms off. At that moment Lewis notices that Stan has left his Darth Vadar mask on the table. Lewis puts the mask on, follows Betty, and proceeds to have sex with her while she thinks that he's Stan. When Betty finds out that it was Lewis that she had sex with, she totally falls in love with him because of how great the sex was!
Have I taken crazy pills or is that rape? Betty didn't actually give Lewis consent. She gave consent to Stan. That was rape by deception. However instead of being sent to prison for an extended period of time, Lewis gets a hot girlfriend! Nice.
What the hell was he thinking? It's a MIRACLE that this actually worked out for him. If she had said 'what the hell is wrong with you? I'm calling the police' he wouldn't have had a leg to stand on to defend himself! I guess that means he must have been really certain that if he violated her that she'd fall for him, which makes him incredibly sick in the head.
So I'm afraid this movie fails because it's just too stupid. I give it some points for at least not pretending to be smart, but I don't think it intended to anywhere near THIS stupid.

'Team America, World Police' justifies America's wars of aggression and implies liberals aid terrorism

Did you know that there are evil, villainous people out there who want you dead? Usually they can be identified as ugly, brown, dune-coon Muslims, but occasionally they come in the form of slanty-eyed, yellow-peril chinks. These villains have no legitimate grievances and just want kill us because they hate freedom. It is not the least bit unlikely that a person would spend all that money and effort, building bombs and avoiding devastating legal consequences just to piss off thousands of people by ruining their lives, purely out of a hatred for freedom, while US-supported invasions and dictatorships have no impact on their decision to bomb us whatsoever. Anyone who finds that theoretical situation unlikely is a soft-headed, bleeding-heart liberal, socialist, pot-smoking, coke-snorting, bean-eating, vegetarian, cross-dressing, homosexual, hybrid-car-driving, hippie, communist, pussy who spends all day French-kissing Osama Bin Laden's tombstone and masturbating to their Noam Chomsky book!
We should all be shitting our pants with fear at this very real danger to the world, enhanced and aided by naïve leftists.
BUT... there is a light at the end of the tunnel! A saviour riding a white horse! ... And that saviour is... AMERICA! America will come riding to the recue once again with their genius plan to kill all the terrorists by invading random countries, bombing them into oblivion and pumping all their oil! America WILL find those terrorists and doesn't care how many random countries it has to bomb to bits, or how much oil it has to pump in the process! That's what being an altruistic hero is all about!
Remember, if we don't stand up to evil, evil will think we're a PUSSY!

If all that sounds stupid to you, it's because it is! And yet this pretty close to the message of Matt Stone and Trey Parker's mind-bendingly stupid, painfully bad movie, 'Team America, World Police!'
The completely serious plot of the movie, is that terrorist and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Ill wants to blow up the world for the sake of it, but when the SWAT team known as 'Team America' makes disastrous mistakes trying to catch him, all the liberal Hollywood actors attack Team America. This leaves Kim Jong Ill free to destroy the world and Team America's newest member Gary must then overcome the mental scars of these hateful liberal attacks in time to save the world. (I wish I were kidding.)
Though Team America is also critical of conservative policies, the criticisms are carefully restricted to complaints that the Bush Administration has fought terrorism imperfectly or poorly though with good intent. The movie makes it clear that it wishes a painful death upon those who would question the noble intent of American foreign policy.
I will now divulge into criticisms of the painfully stupid messages of the movie, just because I love torturing myself into a burning rage.

 This is a picture of me after I've just watched Team America, World Police.

Painfully stupid message number 1: Liberals hate America and want to blame it for everything.

In Team America, World Police, the puppet character representing Alec Baldwin makes the following statement, in relation to a terrorist attack where Muslims blew up the Panama Canal. This attack was committed in response to a well-intentioned piece of US military intervention in Cairo gone wrong.
Puppet Alec Baldwin's commentary on these incidents was intended as a spoof of the liberal position on terrorism.

Puppet Alec Baldwin: Who should we blame for the terrorist attack? The terrorists? The people who supplied them with WMDs? No. Blame Team America! Their reckless disregard in Cairo brought on this violence today. Team America, the blood of the victims of Panama is on your hands.

I SERIOUSLY doubt that many liberals made an argument like that. I've never heard a liberal make any argument equivalent to that, even in a youtube comment, and I pay a lot of attention to American politics. In fact, not only do I think liberals weren't making this argument, but this movie came out during the aggressively patriotic Bush Administration, when liberals would be turned into a social pariahs or investigated by the FBI for even criticizing the war in ANY significant way, let alone actually twisting the truth about it.
This attempt to strawman liberals by saying that they just want to blame America for everything and give Islamic terrorists a blank cheque for mayhem is PATHETIC! It's a transparent attempt to provoke outrage, so that soft-headed, insane, paranoid, right-wing retards will react in self-righteous indignation without considering why liberals would do that! If anyone actually THINKS for one second they realise liberals have no reason or motivation to blame everything on America! 
Matt and Trey don't seem to realise that it's not an either/or situation. Being against one side does not equal being in favour of the other side. It is possible to be against Bush's war AND Islamic terrorists.
In effect, Matt and Trey bought into Bush's false choice of 'you're either with us or you're with the enemy.' To them, wanting to understand what the terrorist's underlying motivations are, such as them being mad that America bombed them or backed an oppressive dictator to rule their country, is interpreted as 100% support for terrorist actions.
Hating a lot of what America has done will inevitably come up in the process of trying to get to the bottom of the problem, but OF COURSE hating America is not the end game of liberalism. Making things better is, and making things better involves criticism, which is why Matt and Trey's beloved America is being criticized. You can't make things better by jerking the US Government off as a reward for their disingenuousness, like this movie is doing.

The slogan at the top of this picture says 'putting the f back in freedom.' I wasn't aware that the f was missing from 'freedom.' I guess that means people have been spelling it as 'reedom.' Good thing this genius movie is here to correct that.

Painfully stupid message number 2: Americans are 'the good guys,' and liberals smear innocent corporations.

A comment by a puppet character portraying Hollywood liberal Tim Robbins said the following quote, in relation to explaining his theory that America's wars are done in the interest of corporate profit. The comment from the Tim Robbins character is meant to satirize the theory that war is about money rather than fighting terrorism, by making it look ridiculous.

Puppet Tim Robbins: Let me explain to you how this works. You see, the corporations finance Team America. And then Team America goes out, and the corporations sit there in their... In their corporation buildings, and, see, they're all corporation-y, and they make money.


What planet are you living on Matt and Trey? Earth to retarded dickheads: the problem with corporations is not that they make money, it's that they ruin innocent people to do it by giving money a higher priority than human rights virtually every single time. If they don't then they're not running their corporation right.
In this case, oil corporations have got the American Government working for them, especially the Republicans, and they want them to go invade Iraq so they can control the world's oil supply.
The reason for the denial of the fact that money is driving the Iraq war, is that Matt and Trey are trying to make the case that America is BETTER than the terrorists (liberals excluded), because the war is about fighting terrorism and HOW DARE anyone make unflattering comparisons to terrorists! This message is conveyed at the end of the movie in a scene that gives the world view that although America makes mistakes, there is a big difference between an asshole (foreign terrorist) and a dick (American government, World Police.)
The reality is there isn't that much difference. The main way in which the American Government has the moral high ground over the 9/11 terrorists, is that they have aimed to murder civilians in a way that is less direct and vicious. They still invaded knowing that civilians WOULD die, they were invading for selfish, thieving reasons and they repeatedly committed torture. But they didn't actually aim directly for any buildings that they knew for certain only had civilians (as far as I know), unlike the 9/11 terrorists.
That's hardly enough to make the Americans 'the good guys,' and this movie has justified America's wars of aggression through deception.
The reason that I say the Iraq war was undertaken for selfish, thieving reasons is because there IS significant evidence that it was done for the oil rather than to stop terrorism and that the Bush Administration did everything possible to avoid any peaceful negotiation with Saddam Hussein, which I will summarise as briefly as I can. I could provide much more evidence of the American Government's scheming and war-mongering, but I would be digressing too much.

a) Vice president Dick Cheney, the man who was probably pushing hardest for the wars because he even wanted to go into Iran, was a formerly the president of Halliburton (an oil company) which did very well out of the Iraq war because of all the oil that was pumped after the invasion. Given that it's Halliburton that's put the most money in his pockets he was probably incentivised to pay Halliburton back, by wrecking America for 8 years and blaming the mess on a chimpanzee in a suit.

b) Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia. Whoever controls it can set the price and production levels and determine that the vast amount of the wealth flow back to them. According to Noam Chomsky, the US state department in 1945 called it 'one of the greatest strategic prizes in world history,' and a major theme of US foreign policy has been to make sure the US dominates it.
Chomsky also cites that in 1958 president Eisenhower said to his staff that there is a campaign of hatred against us (America) in the middle east. Not by the governments, but by the people, because they have the perception that America undermines democracies by supporting harsh, brutal, corrupt regimes, due to their interest in controlling the region's oil reserves. What's more, it's difficult to counter this perception because it's accurate. Furthermore, it ought to be accurate. America should be undermining democracies to get it's hands on middle-east oil.

Go to 10:12 of this video for the main points.

c) As evidenced by the Young Turks clip, 'Did Cheney order torture to get bad information?' Dick Cheney schemed to get false information that was neededed to justify the Iraq war by torturing it out of people.
It had been long established that torture could get false confessions as well as real confessions because people will do anything to make the pain stop. In fact the original Chinese memo that the American government took these torture tactics from said 'ways to get false confessions.'
Ibn al-Shaykh Al Libi who provided the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda had been tricked into thinking he was going to be murdered by the Egyptian authorities by being buried alive. (Al Libi had to be transferred to Egypt because unfortunately it's hard to legally get away with burying someone alive in America.) They wrote in their notes at the time that they could see that he would say anything to make the torture stop, and seemed to be at a loss as to what to make up.
He confessed to a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda because he couldn't take it anymore, and his confession got fed to the American people as though it were rock-solid evidence. This made invasion inevitable.
Remind me again how America isn't like the terrorists?

d) George Monbiot's article 'Dreamers and Idiots', shows that Saddam Hussein offered to give the US government almost everything they wanted. This included free access to search for weapons of mass destruction wherever they wanted, that he would submit himself to internationally monitored elections within two years, that he would support America's position on Israel and Palestine and even to give the US government rights over Iraq's oil. (Though apparently not enough rights to satisfy the corporate greed.)
All the while George W Bush was telling the public that it was his (Saddam's) choice as to whether or not America went to war, which if you think about it is pretty unlikely on it's face. A shitty little country like Iraq is unlikely to want to pick a fight with a country that could completely bulldoze it without breaking a sweat. Saddam didn't pick a fight with America because Saddam didn't want to get his arse kicked.
American politicians didn't need to believe Saddam was honest in his offers as they could have offered him an ultimatum, but they were always going to invade no matter what Saddam did.

Matt and Trey should really have been more sceptical about what their government told them, instead of conveying this complete bullshit, through this excruciating movie, about how the wars are all about stopping terrorists.

Painfully stupid message number 3: Liberals and terrorists are almost the same people.


In Team America, World Police the character depicting Michael Moore walks into Team America's headquarters with a bomb strapped to him and says 'Hey Team America! I've got something for you! Prepare to die!' Then he blows himself up, destroying Team America's headquarters.
At the end of Team America, World Police all of the crazy, violent, terrorist-enabling left-wing celebrities (except Michael Moore who has already blown himself up) decide they are going to use lethal force to stop Team America achieving their goal. Team America is then forced to fight and kill them all in various gruesome ways for the gratification of the viewer.
These are only the two most extreme examples of scenes where liberals were terrorist enablers or even actual terrorists. Given all the scenes and dialogue surrounding these moments, it can be assumed that the comparison of liberals to terrorists is intended as a serious political comment.
This seems hypocritical given that Matt and Trey were clearly butt-hurt about the conservative American Government being compared to terrorists by liberals, as evidenced by the types of mad, ridiculously unfair things they make their liberal celebrity characters say. Despite seemingly being against needless comparisons with terrorists, they think it's okay to suggest that liberals are terrorists. They've done the same thing that they don't like liberals doing, but unlike liberals they have no facts whatsoever to back their comparisons up.
The liberals on the other hand, had some ACTUAL serious concerns like the fact that innocent people were being killed, imprisoned and tortured, when they compared the American government to terrorism.
And honestly, given that the whole scene is a murder fantasy against people for exercising their anti-war liberal points of view, I can't help but take these scenes a little bit personally! I was against the war too and agree with a lot of the things that the movie makes fun of. I guess that means they wish death upon me, too.
This really crosses the line, from being satire to being just disgustingly WRONG!
 

When New Zealand's Next Top Model tortured the contestants for our amusement

Although I practically never watch reality TV, I made an exception last year in 2012 when I saw an ad for New Zealand's Next Top Model.
The ad was of a tanned girl with smug hostility in her voice, telling another girl 'I think you have the fattest arse ever! Ha! Ha! Ha!' After seeing that, I thought the show would be amusing. It wasn't. It turned out that the comment from the tanned girl had a sad context, which was as follows...
(Incidentally I apologise for not knowing the names of any of the models. As I said, I only saw the show once.)

The contestants were all getting along fine chatting with one another, when the host, Sara Tetro came over to their table and asked them who they each thought should be sent home next.
All the models froze. None of them wanted to needlessly say anything that would insult any of the other contestants.
Sara then told them that there was an understanding that they were in a competition so it was okay to voice an opinion on this topic. Foolishly, they believed her, and everyone other than the tanned girl said that they thought that the tanned girl should be sent home next. Feeling she had been undermined, ganged-up on and betrayed, the tanned girl angrily lashed out at the girl sitting next to her! 'I think you have the fattest arse ever! Ha! Ha! Ha!'
It was very cringe-worthy for me how Sara manipulated the circumstances and played the contestant's emotions to give the show more drama and ratings. There was no need to insist on the discussion of a topic that was guaranteed to cause distress.
The social damage from this incident only compiled as the show went on. The other contestants were mad at the tanned girl for her outburst and didn't seem to empathise with the situation she was put in. The girl who the tanned girl had lashed out at told the camera, 'we all hate her.' On top of this, it was clearly the tanned girl who performed poorest in the photo-shoot challenge, so in addition to now being on the wrong side of all the other contestants, it looked as though she would be sent home during eliminations.
Sara Tetro was also in charge of the eliminations. Knowing that the tanned girl was in a scary position already due to the likelihood of being sent home, Sara asked her in a harsh, judgemental tone, 'Why did you tell (insert name here) she has a fat butt? What has her butt got to do with you?' To this, the tanned girl said something to the effect of, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I was just angry.' To this, Sara snapped 'Keep making excuses. That's a good way to get sent home!'

AAAAAAARGH! I'm cringing so hard right now!
How much audacity can a person have? Sara was the one who deliberately rocked the boat and upset the harmony of the group in the first place, while hoping someone would lash out! Then, once she gets the drama she was hoping for, she uses it to verbally bash the girl who she's already hurt, and make her squirm during the elimination proceedings! And that's what Next Top Model LET'S IT'S AUDIENCE SEE! There will be other calculated tortures we don't see because they get set up behind the scenes!
This is everything that's wrong with reality TV in a nutshell. The pain of the contestants is real and the ratings are real, but the situation isn't. And there's an incentive to make their contestants miserable, to make their shows more interesting. In summary, I advise against watching this show, taking part in this show and the existence of this show.

And for the record, the final decision was that the tanned girl would not be voted off that week. Apparently Sara wasn't done fucking her life up for ratings.

'Dexter' is Ridiculous

I've only seen three episodes of Dexter but it only takes that long to understand what the show's about. It's a show that sends the message that it would be a good thing if there was a serial killer killing other serial killers as a vigilante operating outside the law. However, it sends this message by secretly omitting the facts of the world we live in and replacing them with a fantasy world.
Here are some problems with Dexter's premise, which makes it's message ugly and dangerous.

1. There are not that many serial killer in real life.

The show makes it look like there are hundreds of serial killers in just one city, as Dexter Morgan murders several serial killers per episode. In real life there are not enough serial killers in America for even one criminal psychologist to be able to work exclusively on them. (That's according to my university psychology lecturer who has worked in the legal system.)

2. Dexter would not kill a guilty person every time in real life.

Dexter never kills any innocent people, yet the death penalty gets it wrong half the time in the cases that were reviewed. Presumably it would be far more inaccurate if it was only one individual deciding people's fate, as opposed to a judge and jury. Furthermore, Dexter states that he can't control his urge to kill, so he lacks impartiality and has a strong incentive to believe people are guilty. Yet, I never saw him make a mistake and he did a lot of killing for only three episodes. The idea that he wouldn't be making any mistakes in knowing who's guilty or innocent is ridiculous, yet it's presented as plausible.

3. Dexter's victims are dehumanised.

It's uncomfortable how there is ZERO opportunity to feel AT ALL bad for Dexter's victims. We only see 10 seconds of their lives where they brag about their crimes, or make excuses, or lie and then Dexter kills them. We don't see anything from their 30+ years on the planet that may mitigate the righteousness of the decision to kill them. This exaggerates the black and white view of Dexter's actions.
Contrary to the show's claim that it's dealing with an ethical grey area, it appears that everything Dexter does is good, and everything about his victims is bad.

4. We never actually SEE any evidence that Dexter is the monster he claims to be.

Dexter repeatedly calls himself a monster on the show, but it comes across as modesty rather than accuracy. There's no opportunity to like anything about Dexter's victims whatsoever, so I haven't been given any reason to oppose what Dexter's doing.
In fact, Dexter only kills people who have evaded the law so unless you can somehow feel sorry for the mass murderers who Dexter is killing, AND feel worse for them than for their victims, then you have no reason to oppose Dexter.
What the ethical dilemma of the show comes down to is - 'Are you going to side with Dexter, or are you going to let these evil murderers get away with it?' It's not a difficult ethical dilemma that we're presented with. It's a  clear cut black and white, good versus evil scenario, where Dexter is good and his victims are evil.
My reaction (if I didn't know that Dexter's actions are insanely irresponsible when you consider how the world actually works) would be to come to Dexter's defence in his harsh criticism of himself, and feel sorry for such a great guy having such low self-esteem as to call himself a monster!

5. Mark Twitchall.

Mark Twitchall is a real-life murderer in Canada who is a big fan of Dexter. Twitchall wrote a movie script inspired by Dexter then acted it out in real life. He did this by subscibing to an online dating website where he intended to lure men to his house while pretending to be a woman so he could kill them. Twitchall only managed to kill one person this way before he was caught, (38-year-old Johnny Altinger) but he had plans to become a serial killer himself.
Soon after Twitchall was arrested, Edmonton homicide detective Mark Ansley said 'we have a lot of evidence that suggests he definitely idolises Dexter and a lot of information that he tried to emulate him during this incident.'
Part of this evidence is that Twitchall's 'kill room' where he killed his victim in was designed to look like Dexter Morgan's kill room.http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/05/canadian-dexter-copycat-killer-still-watching-dexter-in-maximum-security-prison-obvs/. Twichall also commented on facebook that he had way too much in common with Dexter Morgan.
After finding out about this case Dexter's writer and producer Melissa Rosenberg responded by conveying that the show's creators had been slightly worried about something like this, but insisted  that the show did not glorify Dexter's actions.

'Every time you think you're identifying with Dexter and rooting for him, for us it's about turning that back and saying 'You may think that he's doing good but he's a monster. He's killing because he's a monster.''

My conclusion from this is that the show fucked up grotesquely, stupidly and irresponsibly!
I have no idea WHEN the show turned it back and made Dexter look like a monster! All I saw was a morally upstanding individual modestly claiming to be a monster. And I don't think the show got any better. I'll leave a link at the bottom of the page to an article called 'Such a nice boy serial killer' which is saying basically the same thing I'm saying except it's written by someone who's seen more episodes. It sounds like all the episodes were as pro-Dexter as the first three!
Although Melissa Rosenberg claims that the show is not meant to glorify Dexter's actions, actor Michael. C. Hall who plays Dexter Morgan, claims that the viewers decision as to whether Dexter's actions are appropriate is supposed to remain ambiguous.
So the defence of Dexter's message comes down to this- 'We're not glorifying the idea of a vigilante killer with an obvious conflict of interest towards finding people guilty, acting as judge, jury and executioner again and again and again perpetually. We're just saying it MIGHT be a good idea.'
That's a terrible defence! It would NEVER be a good idea in a million years. And the defence isn't even true! Of course Dexter Morgan is glorified! On the show he is both unquestionably right and the only one with the stomach to do what's right, which makes him an exceptional hero. That's what glorifying is.
For me, it's frustrating that the creators apparently couldn't see how appallingly irresponsible it is create something like that.
Here is what the show should be saying. 'Dexter is not a monster. He is a hero. But he's only able to be a hero within the realm of this fantasy world where real life rules do not apply.'
If you want to watch Dexter, THAT'S what you're getting, regardless of what the show claims it's giving you.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/such-a-nice-boy-serial-killer/

Hogwarts gets Owned!

I loved the Harry Potter books when I was little and they're still somewhat entertaining but unfortunately nowhere near the 'WOW' factor that they used to have. There are a number of behaviours which don't make sense, such as the fact that people keep saying that Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had while it's perfectly clear that the school is run terribly.
Here are some adjustments the school should make.

1. Eliminate Slytherine house as an option.

If we know Salazaar Slytherine was a racist murderer then why does he have his own house?
In the second Harry Potter book we discover that Slytherine House's founder built a secret chamber with a monster in it that would kill wizards born in non-wizarding families on command. Once this was established, Slytherine house should have been dissolved. They now know that Slytherine was a racist murderer and yet they continue to prize the values of a racist murderer so much that they keep this house as an option. Why?
That's appalling. Putting a student in Slytherine house to learn racist propaganda off each other has gotta be close to child abuse.

2. Fire Proffessor Trelawney, the Divination teacher.

I don't get why she doesn't get fired when Dumbledore knows full well that she's a fraud. She's teaching all the students bullshit! Dumbledore's meant to be the best headmaster even, yet he deliberately hires a fraud to teach bullshit? What the hell were the other Hogwarts Headmasters doing?
Not only is she indefensible in principle, but she's a sicko. In the third Harry Potter book, she told Harry, who she knew had a dark wizard currently trying to kill him, that he was going to die soon.
That has potential to seriously mess a person up psychologically.
How does she keep her job? How?

3. Expel Peeves the poltergeist.

Filch, the caretaker is constantly trying to have Peeves expelled. Why on God's green earth hasn't he succeeded? What is the argument for keeping him? He doesn't do anything useful! All he does is play dangerous, irresponsible jokes on people. It's hard to tell who's more useless, him or Professor Trelawney.
It's pretty obvious that Peeves is only written into the stories for comic relief, and that the school can't lose him because it would lose it's comic buffoon, that the reader can laugh at. But he has no practical use at Hogwarts.

4. Fire Professor Snape, the Potions Master.

Snape uses WAY too much negative reinforcement in his teaching methods. In book three he actually threatens to poison a struggling, frightened student's pet toad if he doesn't perform at a higher academic level. That is a firing offense in itself.
I'll say this in his favour. You'd DEFINATELY take your schoolwork seriously if your teacher threatened to kill your pet.

5. Fire Professor Hagrid, the Care of Magical Creatures teacher.

Hagrid is an incompetent, bigoted arse-clown.
In book three when Buckbeak the Hippogryff gored Malfoy it WAS his fault. When you're explaining to your class how to not get gored by a wild animal it is absolutely essential to be certain sure all the students are listening. He did not do that.
It's also illegal to cross-breed different types of magical creatures and smuggle dragons into your house. He doesn't learn. He keeps doing this stupid shit.
He's also the most bigoted of all the protagonist characters. He shows that he apparently finds all muggles disgusting when he tells Vernon Dursley 'I'd like to see a great muggle like you stop him', states in book two that the reason the Malfoys aren't worth listening to is that they have 'bad blood' and tells Harry in book four (in relation to Madame Maxime) 'these foriegners, you can't trust any of them.' All of these bigoted statements were in front of young students.
What's more when Hagrid is busy and can't teach, it's pretty clear that his substitute is much more competent, as she doesn't cross-breed dangerous creatures and introduce them to animals that might gore them to death.
We're supposed to hope that Hagrid keeps his job because he's a friend of the Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore and because everyone who tries to get him fired such as Malfoy and Umbridge do it for stupid, biased, bigoted reasons. I do NOT hope he keeps his job. I believe quite objectively that he is an incompetent boob and that Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore are recklessly endangering the educations of their fellow students, because they don't want big baby Hagrid to start crying because he lost his job.

6. Fire Filch, the caretaker.

If you hate children it's a bad idea to work in a school. Uh-Duuuuuh!

7. Teach Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher common sense.

Professor Flitwick did a terrible job defending the Philosopher's Stone in the first book. Flitwick charmed keys to fly around, AND LEFT RACING BROOMS RIGHT THERE IN THE ROOM SO THE BURGLERS WOULD HAVE A CHANCE OF CATCHING ONE! Why would you do that? They're BURGLERS! You're meant to keep them AWAY from the stone... IDIOT!

8. Fire Professor Binns, the History of Magic teacher.

He's dead already. He's a ghost. And he was a boring, shit teacher when he was alive. He puts all his students to sleep. Fire him!

9. Fire Dumbledore, the Headmaster.

For making, many, many, many terrible, biased and downright inexplicable staff appointments, and running a school which keeps a house known to be founded by a racist murderer.

Do all these thing and this train-wreck of a school will be on the road to recovery.

The movie 'Dragonheart' is pro-genocide

Dragonheart is a 1996 fantasy adventure film and it's storyline is completely psycho. I could not believe it when I saw it. In some university subjects it's taught to be wary of biases in movies which cause them to be racist, sexist, classist or homophobic. THIS movie should be the blueprint. It's rare to find a movie where the bias is so extreme that the plot makes no sense at all. The movie looks as though it were written and directed by a Nazi with down syndrome who needs to lay off the sugar and take his medication! It was like watching a car crash. Hideous and yet I couldn't look away.
I actually wonder what was going through the minds of the actors as they were starring in this movie. Were they thinking 'Yes! We're nailing it! This is a really great movie!'? Could anyone think that? I sure hope not.
Here are the aspects of Dragonheart which make it so painful to watch.



1. The Racism
The way dragons are treated in the movies by the hero and protagonist Bowen (Dennis Quaid) is racist in principle.
We only know of one dragon in this movie, Draco, voiced by Sean Connery. As Draco can speak and has human intelligence, we can infer that all dragons in this world can speak and have human intelligence. This essentially makes them human in every meaningful way. Yet Bowen commits murderous genocide against every dragon in the world except Draco. And he's meant to be the GOOD guy. The good guy is Hitler, in principle.
The reason for Bowen hunting down and killing all dragons is that he believed that Draco had tricked him and turned his friend into a brute. He felt this entitled him to murder ALL dragons in retaliation for the action of this one dragon. What's more, Bowen's belief that Draco tricked him, turned out to be completely wrong later in the movie. Whoops! He committed that murderous genocide for nothing!
Also when I say he doesn't kill Draco, that isn't for lack of trying. When Bowen confronts Draco, Draco tell him that he is the last dragon and Bowen has now killed every other dragon in the world. He also knows that Bowen has been getting money for his dragon hunting. Bowen responds (to paraphrase here) - 'I don't kill your kind for the money. I do it for the pleasure!'
Hence, the hero is not only racist, mass-murdering and genocidal but also sadistic. But it gets worse.
Bowen fails to kill Draco, who wins the fight and pins Bowen to the ground. Bowen admits defeat and tells Draco that he may kill him now. BUT... Draco doesn't WANT to kill Bowen at all. Draco holds no grudge whatsoever for the fact that every single one of his people other than him has been murdered by Bowen. Draco is the sweetest, most demure, submissive, subservient, boot-licking house-dragon in the world and all he wants is to be Bowen's friend....WHAT???
Replace the word dragon with black guy. Are you offended yet? This is unbelievable. By having the movie heroes behave in this way they're promoting that this is how things are supposed to work. That the white status-quo can commit genocide and minorities are supposed to say 'Yes massa! Commit all the  genocide you want massa! I loves you massa! Can I lick the cyanide off your boots massa?'
I don't even understand how anyone can defend  or positively spin this. It's like this movie has just dumped a whole massive pile of shit down in front of me and expected me to be pleased about it. And I'm sitting there bewildered, wondering why I'm supposed to be pleased about this.
Take the shit away! It's awful! What wrong with you?

2. The Homophobia and Classism.
The villain of this movie is King Einon (David Thewlis). Like a lot of movie villains, Einon is 'queered' by being  much more effeminate in appearance in contrast with Bowen. Einon is much slimmer.
Now admittedly that vague stereotype is not a LOT to go on to claim Einon is meant to be gay (or a bit gay). Possibly the reason we're supposed to hate Einon is more a classist prejudice, as Einon is a rich King in the movie. Or it may be a combination of homophobia and classism. Whatever the reason, the movie attempts to give the viewer a grotesquely unjust opinion of King Einon's character.
Unlike most villains, Einon does not actually do anything villainous. Yet he gets called 'evil' by the main characters who insist that they won't be safe until he is killed again and again and again. Probably dozens of times. I was utterly confused by this. I didn't see Einon commit a single evil act throughout the entire movie. I remembered wishing I could turn my brain off and just enjoy the gung-ho fighting action, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking WHY? Why does Einon need to die? What the hell did he do that was so bad? Do the makers of this movie realize that villain are villains because of their ACTIONS? You can't just play creepy, dramatic music while a poofter floats around the room and expect the audience to think 'ooh! He's so evil! I'm scared!' That's basically all this movie did!

It's King Nancy-boy!

Although there are a number of scenes that are supposed to make us shocked by Einon's behavior,  these scenes are only effective if the viewer lacks the empathy to put themselves in Einon's shoes.
For example, at the beginning of the movie, Einon orders a man's eyes burned out. However, this cannot be called 'evil' as this man has murdered Einon's father and mocked him about it only moments beforehand. Bowen does not agree with this order of physical disfigurement and is upset that Einon has appeared to disregard 'the old code' that Bowen taught Einon growing up. (However as Bowen's code apparently says it's okay to wipe out a whole race of people if one of them pisses you off, I don't fault Einon for disregarding Bowen's code.)
Bowen then points to a castle that Einon is ordering built and is unhappy with the work conditions of the peasants. Bowen's analysis is 'it's madness.' However, when the camera shows us the workers we actually see no suffering at all, leaving me surer than ever that the protagonist characters who I'm supposed to root for, are a deluded lunatics. This makes me hesitant to believe the claims that I hear through the movie that Einon treats peasants and workers appallingly in his kingdom as did his father before him (which is why Einon's father had to be killed) which makes his death essential. We never actually SEE this dreadful, sadistic, tyranny in the movie and the people who assert this to be true, appear to be complete Neanderthals with rocks in their heads!
He also later on kills the man who he blinded. Not that it's morally defensible to kill a blind man, but I do need more than this to hate Einon or think of him as evil like I'm supposed to. These are the only times in the whole movie that shows Einon being a tyrant, and it involves blinding and killing the man who KILLED HIS FATHER and bragged about it. The female lead Kara (Dina Meyer) who is the man's daughter, responds by attempting to assassinate Einon. Einon throws her in prison for this but does not have her killed. Again, not very evil.
When Bowen is going to storm Einon's castle and kill him, Einon begins to get understandably anxious. Then one of the upper-class lords flippantly remarks to Einon that there's nothing to worry about as 'any one of us is worth 100 of them (peasants).' Einon grabs him and slams his head on the table. Confusingly, creepy music then plays as though to indicate that I am now supposed to be shocked by the brutality. I'm not. He said something stupid about a serious situation and got whumped! He deserved it.
At the end we discover that since Draco transplanted one of his hearts into Einon's body to save his life, that Draco will now have to die for Einon to be killed. (Which of course makes perfect medical sense.) Einon sadly catches his own mother Queen Aislinn (Julie Christie) hiring dragon hunters so that Einon will be killed. When he confronts her about this she tells him 'I'm correcting the mistake I made years ago when I saved the life of a creature that didn't deserve to live!' Einon responds by... Doing nothing. This is supposed to be the vicious evil bad guy and he's so passive, that he won't harm someone who just tried to kill him!
Basically, I'm supposed to take the word of a genocidal racist and his supporters, and ignore the evidence of my own eyes which tell me that Einon is a gentle pacifist who's just defending himself. Well, no sale Dragonheart!
Despite the fact that the movie has provided us with no solid evidence of any tyranny from Einon  other than the one exception against the man who killed his father, Draco begins screaming at Bowen to kill him so that Einon can die! Bowen is reluctant to kill a friend, but eventually realizes that it's worth it based on some utterly bewildering rationalization (maybe he just wanted Draco to shut up), and runs his sword right through Draco, killing both Draco and Einon.
As I cannot see any substance which would lead me to conclude that Einon deserves to die, I can only conclude that the message here is that it's worth killing your friend to commit a murderous hate crime against a rich homosexual.


3. Sexism
At one stage of the movie  Bowen is still dragon hunting only now he's just pretending to kill Draco over and over. Together him and Draco are scamming villagers out of their gold. When Draco comes along to terrorize a village Bowen throws a spear at him and Draco pretends to die. Bowen collects his payment.
Again, Bowen's the GOOD GUY here.
Kara tries to warn the villagers who Bowen and Draco are scamming, by yelling 'Don't you understand? He's in league with the dragon!' Bowen then gives them a cocky, smarmy look that clearly says 'see - she's crazy'. Kara is effectively laughed into a low-status position. Even though she was just telling the truth. Seems like a most sexist way for a 'good guy' to resolve an issue, akin to the methods in Shakespeare's 'The Taming of the Shrew.'
This is actual the mildest of the three prejudices that Dragonheart pushes, because even though I don't think the movie writers should have written the movie in this style where Kara attempts to gain more status than Bowen through truth-telling and has to be knocked down, it can at least be somewhat defended in the context of the movie. Bowen was put on the spot and had to think fast. The racism and homophobia/classism leave me thinking what... the... fuck? Why god, Why?
Bowen is also extremely rude to Kara as she tries to rally the peasants against Einon, seemingly for no reason at all.

In summary, Dragonheart has taught me that if a minority upsets me, that I should go on a mass killing spree that wipes out his whole race, that women should be kept in line through humiliation and berating their self-esteem and uppity, rich queers should be killed even if your own friends die in the process! Genocide = good. Peace = bad. And there's nothing that can't be solved by running your sword through someone! Violence - It's what's for dinner! Dragonheart for the win!