Article

2007-11-29 Home Front: Culture Wars

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-29 11:00|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ] Top

#1 I care for none of these things!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2007-11-29 11:29|| 2007-11-29 11:29|| Front Page Top

#2 i could discourse about this topic (Beowulf) ad nauseum, but it would be a heinous crime to make my fellow Rantburgers puke up all of Barbara's savory popcorn...

so i'll defer to the Goodly Professor JRRT and not see the Beowulf movie after all, since the movie i understand they've released here is totally different from the one whose props Museum Replicas had for sale.

That and i've read the book.

Posted by Querent 2007-11-29 13:07|| 2007-11-29 13:07|| Front Page Top

#3 There was a "Beowulf & Grendel" movie last year ago which seemed promising, this may be the one whose props are on sale by Museum Replicas.

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-29 14:01|| 2007-11-29 14:01|| Front Page Top

#4 They totally lost me when I saw Angelina Jolie was used as the model for Grendel's mother. I mean, c'mon!

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2007-11-29 14:06|| 2007-11-29 14:06|| Front Page Top

#5 The only Beowulf that matters.

Posted by spiffo 2007-11-29 17:12|| 2007-11-29 17:12|| Front Page Top

#6 I read the book as a kid and don't remember Grendel having a hot mom or any anti-Christian rhetoric - it was just a good dungeons/dragon style yarn.

BTW - it was Clovis in about 496 that embraced Christianity for the Franks not Martel 200 yrs later. Martel already had the backing of the church when he was the lord protector of the castle.

Posted by Broadhead6 2007-11-29 17:14|| 2007-11-29 17:14|| Front Page Top

#7 Perhapas Martel wasn't the first Frank to embrace it but that doesn't mean he didn't. And he comes off as a bit better known as a warrior which is the theme.

Posted by rjschwarz 2007-11-29 18:29|| 2007-11-29 18:29|| Front Page Top

#8 As argued andor inferred long ago, one of the major "justifications" for 9-11/WOT as WAR FOR OWG, GLOBAL/UNIVERSAL GOVTISM, etc, is that the USA-West must save, validate or "justify" EVERY -iSM, ANTE-ISM, PRO-ISM AND ANTI-ISM regardless of base.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-11-29 19:27|| 2007-11-29 19:27|| Front Page Top

#9 Point being that Martel was a bad ass and western Europe owes him a huge debt of gratitude. However, he was hardly what we would consider an ideal christian if one digs deep enough. Personally saw to the end of the meroviginian line of kings and started the Caroliginian line under his son Peppin and then his grandson Charlemagne. Tours is a great battle study - rare instance of medieval infantry standing up to repeated cavalry charges.

Posted by Broadhead6 2007-11-29 20:31|| 2007-11-29 20:31|| Front Page Top

#10 Going through Richard Winston's 'Charlemagne' (narrated by Charles Griffon). Definately suggest it, really any topic from Audio Connoiseur - great to listen to at work. When describing the tribal ethos it is interesting how comparable the description is compared with Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic war.

Reading 'I care for none of these things' makes sense in a good way. But as the lady in India and Theo van Gogh, plus the politician getting ready to release his film can attest there only seems to be one group in particular which has a problem with criticism and is not being handled in the way the poet mentions. Christianity/the West have been the 'bad guy' in innummerable movies (I would like to add that the advertisements for the game 'Assassins Creed' has the character going after a character dressed in the same manner as those in 'Kingdom of Heaven'). With the hooplah around 'Passion of Christ' there were no churches or synagogues burned (that I know of). Draw a picture someone doesn't like and a teacher has people calling for her death with that as an excuse.

I can agree with Ibrahim's dissection of the movies seeing the particulars and subtleties (except for Merlin's line, took that as 'a stronger wind is beginning to blow' but understand Ibrahim's point about the 'loss of the mystical'). It is important IMO in image terms to have more good fights and values - I have to constantly remind my peers that there was a movie 'Tears of the Sun', give history lessons for 'Blackhawk Down', and explain that just because Raiden fights Beowulf that the book should be read. Some of it I chalk up to the general lack of imagination coming out of the movie industry (all the remakes of movies and/or just using familiar names - and I would like to add that Golden Compass is a cheap knockoff of Narnia) but that there is a more sinister undercurrent among a lot of movies (this is coming from someone who took offense in 'Transformers' when the police car said "To Oppress and Crush", used a Raptor as a bad guy when a Falcon could have been more general nationality and cameoflauged). GI JOE in Brussells are you frikin kidding me?

Basically it comes down to this for me. A cowboy friend of mine from around my way was vacationing in Hawaii recently and he says "a couple of asian guys" jumped him (no offense intended its just how we talk around here) and started helling at him for his passport (I know but it makes me think that they were the foreigners in the conversation). 'Oh, here comes a white guy, let's get him because he will roll over'. Being perceived as a weak link, like in Red Rover, draws that type of attention - by the way an ass whippun on them.

Posted by swksvolFF 2007-11-29 21:14|| 2007-11-29 21:14|| Front Page Top

23:56 Barbara Skolaut
23:49 KBK
23:31 McZoid
23:21 jan from work
23:18 Rambler
23:14 crosspatch
23:07 swksvolFF
23:02 Zenster
23:02 swksvolFF
23:00 McZoid
22:46 Zenster
22:46 Pappy
22:27 Pappy
22:26 Zhang Fei
22:13 Pappy
22:03 twobyfour
22:02 Zenster
21:54 Zenster
21:53 Zhang Fei
21:51 Procopius2k
21:51 Nimble Spemble
21:47 JosephMendiola
21:47 g(r)omgoru
21:45 trailing wife