May 27, 2014

WaPo: SB massacre fault of Seth Rogen's "Neighbors"

In the Washington Post, movie reviewer Ann Hornaday explains that the Santa Barbara slaughter was the fault of white men.
In a final videotaped message, a sad reflection of the sexist stories we so often see on screen 
Video: Following her column about Hollywood’s influence on alleged Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, The Post’s Ann Hornaday received swift and divided feedback on social media. Here is her response to critics. 
By Ann Hornaday, Published: May 25  
As deranged manifestos go, the final YouTube video made by suspected Isla Vista, Calif., mass murderer Elliot Rodger was remarkably well-made. Filmed by Rodger in his black BMW, with palm trees in the background and his face bathed in magic-hour key light, the six-minute diatribe — during which he vows revenge on all the women who rejected him and men who were enjoying fun and sex while he was “rotting in loneliness” — might easily have been mistaken for a scene from one of the movies Rodger’s father, Peter Rodger, worked on as a director and cinematographer. 
Indeed, as important as it is to understand Rodger’s actions within the context of the mental illness he clearly suffered, it’s just as clear that his delusions were inflated, if not created, by the entertainment industry he grew up in. With his florid rhetoric of self-pity, aggression and awkwardly forced “evil laugh,” Rodger resembled a noxious cross between Christian Bale’s slick sociopath in “American Psycho,” the thwarted womanizer in James Toback’s “The Pick-Up Artist” and every Bond villain in the canon.

As Rodger bemoaned his life of “loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desire” and arrogantly announced that he would now prove his own status as “the true alpha male,” he unwittingly expressed the toxic double helix of insecurity and entitlement that comprises Hollywood’s DNA. For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men, whose escapist fantasies so often revolve around vigilantism and sexual wish-fulfillment (often, if not always, featuring a steady through-line of casual misogyny). Rodger’s rampage may be a function of his own profound distress, but it also shows how a sexist movie monoculture can be toxic for women and men alike. 

Uh ...
How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like “Neighbors” and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of “sex and fun and pleasure”? How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, “It’s not fair”? 
Movies may not reflect reality, but they powerfully condition what we desire, expect and feel we deserve from it. The myths that movies have been selling us become even more palpable at a time when spectators become their own auteurs and stars on YouTube, Instagram and Vine. If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger — thanks to male studio executives who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections — no one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large.
 

107 comments:

smead jolley said...

But Ann, what about a film like "Something's Gotta Give," where 50-ish women with no curves are told the hot young doctor's going to fall in love with them? Is it possible that when this doesn't happen in real life, women act out by supporting all manner of political causes inimical to the interests of the straight white men who spurn them? Hmmm?

Anonymous said...

"How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl"

Does she mean the endless stream of Jewish movies about physically unattractive Jewish men getting the 10/10 blonde women?

doombuggy said...

So...start with a conclusion (White males are to blame) and then fill in behind it.

Soon we can mechanize/computerize this process and save some wage cost. The out of work pundits can then pick lettuce and eat beans.

Anonymous said...

"For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men, whose escapist fantasies so often revolve around vigilantism and sexual wish-fulfillment (often, if not always, featuring a steady through-line of casual misogyny)."

Are rap lyrics composed by white men?

The CronoLink said...

Wasn't Rodger half-asian?

Anonymous said...

Jews, Half-Asians, Half-Hispanics, Middle-Eastern Muslims, etc. are just another Whitey when it fits the narrative, and an oppressed minority when that fits more conveniently.

Anonymous said...

Yes Rodgers was half-Asian -- and Zimmerman was half-Peruvian and part black.

Eric Ruttencutter said...

Elliot Rodger reminds me of Charlie X from the old Star Trek episode of the same name. I think we are going to be inundated with kids like this in the coming years.

Biff said...

Ethnic guy who hates pickup artists goes on killing spree, therefore white men in general and pickup artists in particular are to blame. Could work. Communist kills JFK, therefore right-wingers are to blame worked.

Anonymous said...

The Santa Barbara shooter aftermath makes me think the press and chattering classes are functioning at the level of lizard brains. They simply attach their pre-existing pet causes to a current event without even bothering to make a plausible case. It was the fault of PUAs! (The shooter was anti-PUA.) Apatow movies! (Too dumb to merit a response.) Insufficient public mental health care! (The shooter had top-notch therapists from age 8.) The reality is pretty mundane: the kid was crazy.

At least no one has blamed it on global warming. Yet.

Anonymous said...

Some of the media is completely disconnected from reality, having no understanding of actual facts or basic statistics. We're not that far off from continual claims about "macho culture" making statements like 99% of computer programmers were the football quarterback in high school.

Anonymous said...

Being a movie reviewer, she is part of the industry, her body parts don't exempt her if she's going to blame movies.

Anonymous said...

What is "white" men even doing there? What's the point? There's an argumentative meme in which you talk flatly of "white guys" to give your article a edgy-calling-spades-spades sheen when in reality it's a completely safe move. Does Ann Hornaday prefer the cinema of Tyler Perry and Steve Harvey? Does she counsel her friends to act like a lady and think like a man?

tehtruth said...

dudes PUA culture may not be to blame for this, but let's not front like the whole jargon/atmosphere surrounding it isn't fucking weird.

There's grains of truth (AKA common sense: be assertive, don't be needy, don't be "nice" AKA supplicating) surrounded by a bunch of scientific-sheen bullshit.

Anonymous said...

The irony is that if Neighbors "objectified" anyone, it was Zac Efron. ("He's like something a gay guy created in a lab.")

Anonymous said...

Hey Steve, can you let Nicholas Stix know that his recent VDare article is inaccurate?

He claims that in the video the black guy says “My Homies Die, and White Guys Die” but that is not what he said. The news report got it right when they reported that he said "My homies die so everybody gotta die".

Not to mention the guy he killed was also black, so it makes no sense.

We don't need to use sensationalism to plead our case, it's good enough already.

https://www.vdare.com/posts/my-homies-die-and-white-guys-die-covering-up-a-hate-crime-revised

Anonymous said...

"dudes PUA culture may not be to blame for this, but let's not front like the whole jargon/atmosphere surrounding it isn't fucking weird."

Yeah, you get a whiff of self-parody from the military-style acronyms (DMV, HB10, AMOG, etc.), as if getting laid is like putting down an insurgency in Indochina.

Dave Pinsen said...

This guy nails the phenomenon of knee jerk reactions.

Dave Pinsen said...

It increasingly looks like Lion of the Blogosphere is the only one who bothered to read what Rodger actually wrote. It wasn't movies he was fixated on, but real life. Not Seth Rogen, but the famous guys he saw with women, including men Rodger wrote were less attractive than him.

Anonymous said...

" White guy killer syndrome: Elliot Rodger’s deadly, privileged rage "

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/27/white_guy_killer_syndrome_elliot_rodgers_deadly_privileged_rage/

" Can I go ahead and scream yet? It's time for America to admit what it's long resisted: White male privilege kills "

"Welp. Another young white guy has decided that his disillusionment with his life should become somebody else’s problem. On Saturday, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger (who, as many commenters have pointed out, had a white father and mother of Asian descent) went on a killing spree on the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara, murdering his three roommates, shooting women outside a sorority house, and hitting people with his car as he attempted to get away from police.

How many times must troubled young white men engage in these terroristic acts that make public space unsafe for everyone before we admit that white male privilege kills?"

Anonymous said...

Never let a tragedy go to waste. Instead, exploit it to denounce stuff you don't like.

Anonymous said...

"Chicago Coffee Legend Jim Karr Killed by Falling Coffee Machine"

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140527/roscoe-village/chicago-coffee-legend-jim-karr-killed-by-falling-java-machine

"A 48-year-old Roscoe Village man killed when a coffee machine fell on him Downtown Saturday was a "legend and mentor to the entire specialty coffee community," according to Dark Matter Coffee's Facebook page.

Jim Karr was taking down a large coffee machine in the 300 block of East Jackson Drive in Grant Park when he lost his balance about 4:25 p.m., police said. Karr grabbed the machine to steady himself, but it fell on top of him."

hardly said...

She has a point Steve. A lot of Hollywood, when you think about it, does feed male fantasies.
When you see fat losers like Seth Rogen with attractive wives (like that girl in Neighbors), an expectation is set. When you see goofy nice guys with nothing save a good heart get the prettiest girl in every animated movie, an expectation is set.
I never realized the true extent of this peddling to male fantasies, until a girl and I saw a few episodes of The Mindy Project. Mindy Lahiri is hideously unattractive and fat, yet the show has her sought after by a stream of attractive men. I thought to myself, what a feminist load of twaddle. But on reflection I realized it was just the mirror image of what Hollywood tells young men all the time.

This critic is right, our popular culture needs to stop telling pudgy loser balding nerdy men who play video games, who arent dominant in any way, who spend time reading wikipedia, that they are going to land up with hot chicks (disclaimer - all those terms describe me, except I don't think I'm too much of a loser).

In a way this critic is actually sending out a conservative message - tell people the truth, feeding them feel-good lies gets you Eliot Rodger. Tell the loser nerds that they will have to settle for the bottom of the sexual barrel. Or they have to lower their standards. Hollywood feeds young men the equivalent of Sheryl Sandberg's You Can Have it All nonsense.
It's my hypothesis that "creative" fields are filled with reedy weak men, and they like to portray men like themselves being sought by women. Not realizing that their true equals on the SMV scale are fatties and old hags. Unless they're rich nerds.

And while we're at it, let's stop defending PUAs. Any rational man can see that PUA culture ultimately works against him. Most men are not Alpha. A culture that encourages adultery usually means a small minority of men having sex with the wives of a lot of men. Only the supremely delusional can expect to be banging all the HB10s out there while their own HB10 wife stays chaste in her bedroom.

PUAs arent helping men outdo feminist activism, they are just internecine attacks by some men against other men.

Anonymous said...

In Germany and Netherlands you do not have these kind of virgin shooters or 72-virgin terrorists, because you can window shop for tall beautiful women and *know* them every few days for 30/40 Euros.

Moralism is the cause of these vices, be it 'feminazism' or 'islamofascism'. Apparently the latest shooters father was rich, so he could totally afford some LA sex therapist.

It's civilization.

Anonymous said...

"Santa Barbara killing spree bore eerie similarity to 2001 attack"

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/27/killing-spree-in-college-community-brings-back-memories-similar-crime-12-years-46399277/

"he recent shooting spree in Isla Vista, Calif., bore an eerie similarity to a rampage carried out 13 years ago, prompting Tony and Patricia Bourdakis to relive the horrifying event that took their son's life.

Just like Friday night's murder spree by Elliot Rodger, a senseless 2001 attack by David Attias was carried out in the same coastal California community by the son of a Hollywood director and driven by mental illness and intense feelings of rejection. Rodger's spree claimed seven lives, including his own; Attias used his care to kill four people and was arrested.

Both attacks occurred on a Friday night, with Rodger's coming on May 23 and Attias' on Feb. 23 some 13 years earlier.

“My wife said, 'My God, it’s the same situation,'” a shaken Tony Bourdakis told FoxNews.com. "It’s Friday night, just like the first time. It’s the 23rd of the month. He essentially focused the same way David Attias did.

I think [the similarity] really has to be looked into," he said. "It really scares the hell out of me.”

Nicholas Bourdakis was just 20 years old when Attias, a freshman at University of California-Santa Barbara, plowed his Saab into a crowd of students. Nicholas was killed, as were Christopher Divis, 20; Ruth Levy, 20 and Ellie Israel, 27. Attias, who then jumped out of his car and stood on the hood, shouting "I'm the angel of death," was declared insane by a jury. He spent 10 years in a state mental hospital before a judge released him.

Attias, whose father is former "Ally McBeal" and "Sopranos" TV director Daniel Attias, had complained about not being able to make friends or attract girls."

Dave Pinsen said...

That should have been "non-famous" guys.

tehtruth said...

"Yeah, you get a whiff of self-parody from the military-style acronyms (DMV, HB10, AMOG, etc.), as if getting laid is like putting down an insurgency in Indochina."

lol

Other guy: calling Mindy Kaling "hideously unattractive" is ridiculously offbase, and lol@your analysis of what "losers" can and can't get. I guarantee you that you don't have to be be Brad Pitt/be rich to get attractive women & being a "loser"/nerd isn't some permanent state.

your comments on PUA are vastly overestimating its influence. Like I said, the issue's that it takes certain basic insights and buries it under layers of creepy pseudoscience crap. Like this "HB10" stuff, lol

David M. said...

"In Germany and Netherlands you do not have these kind of virgin shooters or 72-virgin terrorists, because you can window shop for tall beautiful women and *know* them every few days for 30/40 Euros."

Um, have you ever been to an American strip club? I know this may shock the sensibilities of some readers, but there is actually more for sale there than just pole dances.

On the other hand, hookers have historically been one of the best sources of victims for serial killers, so I am not sure more prostitution is really the silver bullet we are looking for.

5371 said...

"Chicago Coffee Legend Jim Karr Killed by Falling Coffee Machine"

Let's make Jim Karr the new Paul Walker.

Let's! said...

I see that Noah Smith (noahpinion) took to Twitter last night to spout the latest feminist line that provider-betaism is the "patriarchy."

Of course, working hard to earn a woman's affections ("The modern woman LOVES a man who will do the dishes!" "Don't act entitled to her love before you've shown her your character!") was standard feminist catechism up until about 2010, when too many guys started publicly noticing that this was a losing strategy.

Almost immediately, the goalposts shifted - "Who do you think you are, trying to show us how courteous and consent-oriented you are! JERKS!"

Of course, this forces "feminists" to tacitly endorse sexist, dark-triad behavior among individual men, so they're counting on government to make their dreams come true with "free daycare," paid maternal leave and such.

No word on who is going to work hard to pay for all of this.

Anonymous said...

Who cares what Ann Hornaday's thinks. I mean, really.

Max said...

It's amusing that so much of the progressive instinct is to make every tiny element of life completely free of personal irritations like microaggressions or "mansplaining."

But when young men are upset because they don't have girlfriends, it's, "Life's tough. Get over it."

BTW, the first thing I thought of when hearing about Rodger's motivation was Sailer's old assertion that, when a society is polygamous, there are a lot of men left without a wife and those men tend to be angry and violent.

Anonymous said...

Okay, how to proceed?

It's going to be very difficult for a career Playa to respond explicitly to the nonsense which is being spouted here about "Game", simply because Komment Kontrol enforces some notoriously "Victorian" standards from time to time [although I don't know whether the adjective "Victorian" is entirely fair to the actual historical gentlemen who lived and thrived during the reign of Queen Victoria], but let me try to make a few implicit points about Game which I think have a fairly good chance of making it past Komment Kontrol.

1) For fathers:

1A) If you want to get any grandchildren out of your sons, then it is imperative that you teach your sons Game [or Game-like] techniques. It's not optional, it's mandatory.

1B) If you do NOT want video of your little girls showing up on xhamster or redtube, then it is imperative that you teach your daughters Anti-Game. It's not optional, it's mandatory.

2) For husbands and potential husbands:

2A) If you are a bachelor with a fiancée, then before you marry her, it is imperative that you sit down and have a very frank discussion with her about the nature of modernity and just precisely how you are going to go about creating a localized micro-climate [to include homeschooling] which will protect and defend and inoculate her, and the children which you will have with her, against the ravages of modernity. It's not optional, it's mandatory.

2B) If you are a husband, with a reasonably attractive pre-menopausal wife [i.e. a non-obese wife who is less than 45 years old], and if you aren't using Game [or Game-like] techniques on your wife, then there is a VERY HIGH PROBABILITY that you are being cuckolded. You just don't realize it yet. So either Game up, and save your marriage, or else prepare to be divorce-raped by the Divorce Industrial Complex and have your life completely shattered and ruined and destroyed, and your immortal soul crushed and rendered and spit out by Leviathan and its master, the Whore of Babylon.

***************
***************
***************

Bottom line: Just as a responsible father must give his children The Talk about which parts of town one must never venture into, so too must a responsible father spend years [decades?!?] inculcating his sons with Game and inculcating his daughters with Anti-Game.

The future of Western Civilization depends on it.

***************
***************
***************

[And for the daughters, even Anti-Game might not be enough; you'll probably need to ride along on her dates, in the back seat of the car, with a loaded 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.

And bring plenty of spare ammunition, because her Playa boyfriend might not be a lone wolf - he might have a posse of his own.]

Anonymous said...

Blame Solondz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QckhliN5SG4

Blame Schulz

http://youtu.be/_UnPzp2lmNk

http://youtu.be/A15v4tTab0Y

Anonymous said...

Rodgers never had this moment

http://youtu.be/jjWxzKwic0c

Informative Murder Porn said...

'cos we all know how popular entertainment doesn't pander explicitly or thematically to any violent fantasies women might have.

Evidence for above: Women committing less violent crime (data interval 1700-2014). QED; Lifetime Networks exonerated

Anonymous said...

"It wasn't movies he was fixated on, but real life."

But he viewed reality thru pop culture lens.

Anonymous said...

Ann has one thing in common with Duke. She blames 'whites', he blames Jews. But both agree that the blame goes to whomever that runs Hollywood.

http://davidduke.com/elliot-rodger-case-study-jewish-supremacism-poisoned-society/

Dartangnan19 said...

Interesting how one nut case in the public eye stimulates imitation and competitive nut cases like this WaPo columnist with another variety of lunacy.

hardly said...

@tehtruth:
I don't fully understand your comment. Are you actually saying Mindy Kaling is attractive? I wouldn't have thought that possible..

I have a feeling that we are often harsher in judging beauty in women of our own race, perhaps that's why I wouldn't touch Mindy with a ten-foot pole.

I didn't mean to say "losers" can't get attractive women. I've dated really attractive women. But the effort involved varies greatly from man to man. It's just statistics, like HBD.

And I'm not overestimating specifically PUA influence, I mean the general mentality of trying to have sex with as many women as possible. Ultimately it's a battle that's fought between men, although it's painted as a "conquest" of women. Most men are betas and omegas, and monogamous marriage protects them from the harshness of the sexual market.

Not to mention, if the market were allowed to operate in a state of nature, the losers would band together and take down the winner. Happens all the time with chimps and baboons. Violence by defeated omegas is sort of analogous to Che Guevara helping the poor kill off the rich and steal their stuff.

One more reason I think socialism is a great ideal - Sexual as well as economic. Since modern civilization is pretty much 100% successful at preventing uprisings by the lower classes, the dispossessed really have nothing they can do except sit there and stew in their failure. This is really the first time in human history that this sort of thing is happening.

Free markets without a mechanism for redistribution produce Eliot Rodger and Che Guevara.

Anonymous said...

http://youtu.be/hsdvhJTqLak

Here's the culprit

Anonymous said...

"stop telling pudgy loser balding nerdy men who play video games, who arent dominant in any way, who spend time reading wikipedia, that they are going to land up with hot chicks (disclaimer - all those terms describe me, except I don't think I'm too much of a loser)."

Rotfl.

Hello! It's fantasy!

What else is entertainment about?

Yes, there will always be Rupert Pupkins. But most people don't take pop fantasies seriously.
If anything, they indulge in them to get away from reality for awhile.

in ohio said...

Googling her name and Seth Rogen's reveals that she has something nasty to say about each of his movies. Maybe he or Judd Apatow once sighted her in person. Or, more likely, she had an abortion she feels conflicted about, and so these two guys enrage her with their on-screen pro-natalism (think of 16 & Pregnant and Knocked Up, although the theme plays elsewhere).

She comes off like a monomaniac.

Anonymous said...

Just the facts ma'am.

According to the WSJournal's data on murder, between 2000 and 2010 there were 165,000 or so people murdered in the good ol' US of A.

According to Mother Jones' compilation of "mass murders", there were 184 people killed in mass murders over the same time period.

So, that works out to roughly 1 out of 900 people murdered per annum is killed in a mass murder incident.

There are roughly 300,000,000 people living in the USA. Of them, 18.4 or so will be killed in a mass murder in one year. That works out to one out of 16 million.

Those are lottery-like odds. 70 Americans will be struck by lightning in a year. That's right, the likelihood of your being struck by lightning is almost 4 times greater than that of being gunned down by a mass murderer.

Nicholas said...

Anonymous Coward 5/27/14, 11:05 PM,

“Hey Steve, can you let Nicholas Stix know that his recent VDare article is inaccurate?

“He claims that in the video the black guy says ‘My Homies Die, and White Guys Die’ but that is not what he said. The news report got it right when they reported that he said ‘My homies die so everybody gotta die’.

“Not to mention the guy he killed was also black, so it makes no sense.”

I just played the video yet again. As I reported, confessed murderer Aazis Richardson said, “My homies die, and white guys die.”

And the photograph from Vincent Darbenzio’s obituary is at http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2014/05/update-cnn-throws-its-support-behind.html Not very black, is he?

Are you from the AP, Anonymous Coward? The SPLC? Are you a tenured J-School prof? Wherever your home is, you like a pro, pal!

Nicholas Stix, Uncensored

Anonymous said...

Apatow, Rogen, Solondz, Nichols, Salinger, Philip Roth...

all Jewish

Anonymous said...

Blame Freud. Freudianism said happiness and balance are not possible without good boffing.
So, boffing is a 'human right', and maybe babes and studs should be compelled to 'share' their affection with the uglies.

Sex equality. Redistribute pleasure.

Rohan Swee said...

In Germany and Netherlands you do not have these kind of virgin shooters or 72-virgin terrorists, because you can window shop for tall beautiful women and *know* them every few days for 30/40 Euros.

Moralism is the cause of these vices...


If only guys in SoCal with some money and connections had access to good-looking hookers, how much tragedy could be averted!

(Though I'll grant that tall beauties there probably charge more than 45/60US. Is that what you're suggesting the problem is - not cheap enough?)

Anonymous said...

Blame 'Debbie Does Dallas'.

The Jewish fantasy at 70:00

http://www.xvideos.com/video6759987/debbie_does_dallas

Remember:

http://www.jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/articled325.html?articleid=38

Anonymous said...

I occasionally read Roissy's blog for entertainment purpose. While he makes good points more often then not, the undercurrent of unbridled rage that pervades most of his writing betrays a level of insecurity that undermines the overall message. He's at his best when he skewers the feminazis, and at his worst when he goes off on political tangents unrelated to the PUA community/Manosphere (and we get it Roissy, you hate all minorities).

Probably the most useful thing I've taken from his blog is the idea that "game" can help improve a long-term relationship, making the woman less likely to grow bored and cheat on you.

Anonymous said...

"For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men"

Hmmm..I thought jews controlled Hollywood, like Joel Stein and others have said.

"..As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood.."

The Filth and the Fury said...

This film review, while playing games does hav a point. Hollywood is fucking poisonous.

Here's the thing though.

http://m.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/sandy-hook-killer-had-movie-depicting-manboy-relationship-his-pc

At the end of the day I suspect that Elliot Rodgers was evil just like Lanza. Bust open the computer files and you'll find what switched him on.

Anonymous said...

"This critic is right, our popular culture needs to stop telling pudgy loser balding nerdy men who play video games, who arent dominant in any way, who spend time reading wikipedia, that they are going to land up with hot chicks (disclaimer - all those terms describe me, except I don't think I'm too much of a loser)."

No, he is wrong as are you, because the vast majority of pudgy balding nerdy men do probably know how sexual partner selection works in the real world. The guy who shot up all those people because he was mad and probably came from a dysfunctional family.

Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQNdi-fRExc

Rodgers should have learned from this guy

Dahinda said...

Bill Hicks had a skit about serial killers blaming porn for their killing sprees. As a parody of that mindset, he would mimic a guy looking at a Playboy centerfold, commenting on how hot the woman was, and then say "Now I need to go kill someone."

Anonymous said...

Anon, no, it was censored and rewritten but the original video showed him saying "white guys" and the cabbie, Vincent Darbenzio, was white. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3160618/posts

Anonymous said...

I watched Elliot Rodger's video. He was a narcissistic sociopath but not an unhinged psychopath like some other school shooters (e.g., Lanza, Cho). He had issues, but the Newtown and VA Tech shooters had full subscriptions. Rodger killed because he wasn't getting sex and attention. Seung-Hui Cho locked and loaded because he did experience some teasing if not bullying (he would stammer and other students would try to get a cheap laugh and say, "Go back to China!" [Cho was Korean]). Leave it to the over-performing Korean kid to get the highest score in the college mass-shooting body count. I think this is a Subject for some Steve Sailer analysis.

Q said...

"Every Bond villain"? Rodger is nothing like Blofeld, Largo, Drax, Scaramanga, Goldfinger, Kristatos, Sanchez, Stromberg, Khan, Carver, Le Chiffre or Zorin. The only one he resembles is the little gimp from Die Another Day, who fittingly is an Asian (who looks European) with daddy issues. Rodger's seven-minute retribution video actually has better writing, action and direction than Die Another Day.

Dan said...

I wouldn't mind it if Hollywood were pauperized. Not a bit.

Jones said...

He actually looks and behaves a bit like Carter Burke in "Aliens".

peterike said...

Funny how it's all about women, when Rodger killed more men than women. The three Chinese schlubs he killed -- stabbed! how grisly -- have vanished from the narrative in record time.

And yeah, Hollywood. Nothing but male fantasies! Something needs to be done. Maybe we can come up with films that are funny but romantic, that play to women's ideas of romance. Maybe we can call them "Romantic Comedies," or rom-coms for short.

And maybe there should be movies that are really focused on appealing to women. You know, films for women. Flicks for chicks, if you will! Yeah, we could call them "Chick flicks."

If only Hollywood would put out some rom-coms and chick flicks. Well, we can dream that somebody, in a better world...

Torn and Frayed said...

Elliot Rodger is exactly as white as President Obama: half. Are we to call every dumb thing Obama does white privilege as well?

The proper term for Elliot's entitlement would be "Eurasian Privilege" but somehow that term wouldn't get the intended result.

Anonymous said...

Ann's a very warm and personable woman with good taste in movies. Unfortunately, she may have jumped the shark here.

Anonymous said...

Steve, you got the wrong text. The text you've posted is the original article. Hornaday's response is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/05/27/ann-hornaday-on-her-elliot-rodger-youtube-video-column-the-response-and-a-conversation-that-should-continue/

Anonymous said...

Steve when you hire someone to write who is "empowered" and inspired by movies you get garbage like that column.

Anonymous said...

I think he hated to be a half asian guy with to much feminine asians traits in a social world designed for whites and blacks. So he hated asian males for being weak and passing this charasteristic to him via his mother, and he hated white women because they only like black and white guys.
And thats why he killed some chinese students and white women

Anonymous said...

"How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like ***Neighbors” and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of “sex and fun and pleasure”? How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, “It’s not fair”? ***

This is a surprisingly good analysis by Hornaday - but of course she blamed the nebulous "white males" rather than getting more specific, which would be naming the Jew and therefore beyond the pale.

Seth Rogen, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Jonah Hill, Judd Apatow - these are all nerdy, secular Jewish men living out their unrealistic fantasies on the big screen where the dorky, effeminate, and passive nerd gets the girl.

Surprisingly, Michael Cera is not Jewish.

Anonymous said...

"For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men"



Anonymous:"Hmmm..I thought jews controlled Hollywood, like Joel Stein and others have said."

Well, to be completely accurate, Hollywood is controlled by Jewish White men. Black* Jewish men (cf the Ethiopian Falasha)don't seem to have much Hollywood clout.

*Convert Sammy Davis,jr, was a lackey.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"Apatow, Rogen, Solondz, Nichols, Salinger, Philip Roth...

all Jewish"

All men, too.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"Ann has one thing in common with Duke. She blames 'whites', he blames Jews. But both agree that the blame goes to whomever that runs Hollywood."

Ann doesn't blame Whites; she blames White men.White women are OK.

Anonymous said...

"I watched Elliot Rodger's video. He was a narcissistic sociopath but not an unhinged psychopath like some other school shooters (e.g., Lanza, Cho)."

Here's the thing. Had he not killed those people, he'd be your typical high school character in a movie or TV show(esp reality TV show)--or your typical creator of Hollywood movies and TV shows.
A lot of people find the 'aspergery' characters of Wes Anderson films endearing. They often identify with angry and resentful 'losers' of Todd Solondnz movies. And many films and TV shows are created by the likes of Rodgers. Had he not killed people and had he gotten his 'manifesto' published as a work of fiction, it might have been hailed as a kind of cool-hip satire of the current cultural scene; he's an engaging writer.

And loserdom is sort of cool since so many creative types are obsessive losers themselves. French New Wavers were all 'losers'. So were the likes of Spielberg and Lucas. Walter Hill, Coppola, and Scorsese were asthmatic and stuck at home with TV, comic books, or nerdy stuff(like the crippled black boy in UNBREAKABLE). Charlie Kaufman is a weird one. Philip K Dick and William Burroughs were serious f-ups.

The difference with Rodgers is his sense of fiction and reality couldn't be separated. Solondnz, Anderson, and Tarantino are weird(and 'hipster loser' types), but they could separate their real-life problems from their creativity. Rodgers could not. Like Mishima, the 'pen and the sword' became one and the same.

Anyway, the 'new normal' favors the weird and eccentric over the straight and square. If Rodgers had channeled his loserdom in a creative hipsterish way, he might have become someone. And indeed, lots of successful creative people channeled their real-life loserdoms into longterm victories. Even in big biz. I doubt if any girl was looking at Bill Gates when he was young. So, he made a lot of money. Rodgers simply wasn't motivated enough to direct himself that way. He wanted what he wanted, and right away.

But the interesting thing is how much he wanted what he disdained, how much he disdained what he wanted. A part of him wanted to join the party, part of him wanted to denounce the party.
He wanted to be the stud with the whores, but he wanted whores to act like ladies who love him for being a aristo-gentleman.

Maybe a vampire should have bit him and turned him into someone like Eddie Cullen.
Reality aint like that.



Anonymous said...

"And yeah, Hollywood. Nothing but male fantasies! Something needs to be done."

Given that Hollywood is a fantasy factory and males account for 1/2 of the population, why is it any surprise that Hollywood makes a lot of male fantasies?

What's really puzzling is why there's so much homo fantasies when homos are only 2% of the population.

Anonymous said...

Horn-aday.

LOL.

Dahlia said...

Lion/Half Sigma has been better than most, but this guy is confounding and stomping on so many frameworks and tropes, that somehow this howler gained currency in a recent thread: the killer needed parents to guide him towards a more Asian milieu where he would not have been so radically different and pained.

I vaguely recall something about three Asian men...living with two of them...nice guys...one aced the SATs...another loved animals...a knife... It's eluding me.

Whiskey said...

Steve, most women have been on the warpath for years over Apatow comedies. Heck co-star Katherine Heigl in "Knocked Up" was at pains to say how unrealistic it was to have her "hot" character played by ... herself as "hot" ... "settling" for a loser guy like Rogen's character, or a guy with body fat of Rogen.

Meanwhile, the actual Judd Apatow is a bigger deal, with more pulling power and money and fame, than his wife actress Leslie Mann. Who saw a good deal when she saw it.

Most women, PARTICULARY middle/upper class women, are in open revolt against White guys. They HATE HATE HATE non-Alpha White guys. Which is about 90% of us. Why? Because non-Alpha White guys are not sexy enough! And women have been sold a fantasy that each and every one, no matter their age, no matter their looks, no matter their intelligence, no matter their partner count or anything else, will end up with some hunky Alpha male out of a Lifetime movie. A billionaire handyman or something.

Thus anything and everything sets them off whenever a beta male who is remotely White or could be possibly considered White (Eliot Rodgers was only half-White btw) enters the scene in any negative way. See "White Hispanic" George Zimmerman and any other random White guy doing something bad. This is why Ray Rice knocking out his wife and dragging her from an elevator on video elicits no reaction (he probably will only be suspended one meaningless pre-season game) and Donald Sterling, icky old White male, generates HATE HATE HATE. As has, Mark Cuban.

As for fantasies, most male fantasies center around something women have NO ZERO ZILCH understanding of: bravery in combat. Knocked up made: $148 million gross in 2007 according to Box Office Mojo. Iron Man made $318 million in 2008, or 2.14 times the gross of a fairly Apatow-esque comedy. What about Iron Man 3? $409 million. The Avengers? $623 million. And that's not even counting the far greater revenue from toys, games, books, bedsheets etc. Which outpace box office revenues by a factor of around three or so I've read (in the FT.com). Classic tales of masculine virtue: bravery in combat, steadfastness and loyalty to friends, is what makes a LOT of money. Boys and their parents around the globe as well as young men not only fork over money for tickets and DVDs but buy games, lunchboxes, etc. emblazoned with the heroes.

Apatowesque comedies do less well than tales of male heroism, of fighting even while afraid, and winning and yes, getting the girl. But that part of male existence is simply alien and not comprehensible to about 95% of women. It just isn't. Expecting women to understand that part of men's characters is like expecting your dog to do algebra.

Most responsible PUAs will tell men they won't be banging HB10s. That however, they can do better. From no dates to dates. From dates that suck to dates that don't. To a better class of women than they used to date. To less intermittent success/failure. Why? Because all PUA is learned charisma. That's all. No, a shy nerdy intelligent guy won't be banging out Clooney/Bieber level babes. But he can do better. Much of it can be gleaned from online sources for free. Its like cooking. No you won't be chef like Bobby Flay, but you can cook healthier, tastier, cheaper meals with some training and investment.

The PUA is overall, healthy for both men and women. It teaches men what women really want: cocky, funny, assertive, non-pedestalizing, dominant jerks. It helps men achieve that level of jerkdom and maintain it in a relationship, there is a whole subset of Game devoted to married guys making their wives happy (not by being supplicating but by being SEXY!)

Anonymous said...

"Sailer's old assertion that, when a society is polygamous, there are a lot of men left without a wife and those men tend to be angry and violent."

Mass immigration has the same effect because it is disproportionately young males.

.

"Bill Hicks had a skit about serial killers blaming porn for their killing sprees. As a parody of that mindset, he would mimic a guy looking at a Playboy centerfold, commenting on how hot the woman was, and then say "Now I need to go kill someone.""

Yeah, it's only true of extreme narcissists which implies it's more about being an extreme narcissist.

.

"And thats why he killed some chinese students and white women"

The opposite halves as well, chinese men and white women.

.

"Ann's a very warm and personable woman with good taste in movies. Unfortunately, she may have jumped the shark here."

Ignoring the deaths of the non-white men may come back to haunt her.

Anonymous said...

"While he (Roissy) makes good points more often then not, the undercurrent of unbridled rage that pervades most of his writing betrays a level of insecurity that undermines the overall message. He's at his best when he skewers the feminazis.."

That's an odd point to make, because it's when he's skewering "feminists" that the rage is most unbridled.

From his comments, this of a month or so back seems relevant :

http://jezebel.com/asian-men-are-angry-1566774111

as does this pic of Ann Hornaday

http://play25.com/wp-content/uploads/Fall_Arts_Preview__Ann_Hornaday_s_picks-640x330.jpg

Anonymous said...

There's a new book claiming that Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was supremely hypergamous.

Anonymous said...

Maybe what is troubling today is the breakdown of the love-and-loathing complex.

As our culture has become more shameless, it's a zero-sum-game of winners and losers. Take a film like SPRING BREAK, BLING RING, or WOLF OF WALL STREET. They're about soulless hedonistic zombies without an ounce of shame or remorse.

They are different from something like LA DOLCE VITA and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. Both films indulge in the world of hedonism and excess, but there's also a sense of shame, remorse, reflection.
The guy in LA DOLCE VITA feels empty at the end. He can't tear himself from the high life, but he's all-too-aware of the lows that come with the highs. He does long for meaning.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER begins with 'Staying Alive' but ends with the soft and reflective 'How Deep Is Your Love' and Tony begins to reassess his life and his sense of priorities. He feels shame for having tried to get too fresh with the woman. He apologizes. More than any film of 1977, I never forgot it.

So, there's a feeling of love of the high-life, the excitement, the excess. But there's also the sense of loathing, of shame, of remorse, of contrition.

Many works of art and entertainment have indulged in the temptation of decadence, excess, hedonism, wantonness, and etc. But they also had an element of caution, warning us to loathe the moral degeneracy that comes with too much pleasure and narcissism. Take the movies of Cecil B. DeMille. Consider SAMSON AND DELILAH where the Jewish strongman stud gets pretty wild but then returns to God who gives the spiritual strength to smite the orgiastic pagan Philistines.

But we now live in a world of shamelessness. If one wallows in wantonness, it's all very cool and hip. Even the notion of redemption is utterly cynical, as in THIS IS THE END where heaven turns out to be one big pleasure fest.
So, 'winners' just win and win and win and need feel no shame, whereas the losers are just losers.
In SAMSON AND DELILAH, the 'losers' are vindicated because they remained true to God.
In SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, reflection and thoughtfulness win out at the end as night breaks into a new day.
But stuff like SPRING BREAK is so degenerate I couldn't keep watching beyond 30 min. Maybe, as David Thomson argues, it should be lauded for its honesty. But honesty for what? Idiocy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOTQ4B9dM04

Anonymous said...

tehtruth: a bunch of scientific-sheen bullshit

Anonymous: a whiff of self-parody from the military-style acronyms

hardly: Only the supremely delusional can expect to be banging all the HB10s out there while their own HB10 wife stays chaste in her bedroom.

tehtruth: layers of creepy pseudoscience crap

Anonymous: Probably the most useful thing I've taken from his blog is the idea that "game" can help improve a long-term relationship, making the woman less likely to grow bored and cheat on you.

***************

Predictors Of Marital Infidelity Among Kenyan Women
April 25, 2014
heartiste.wordpress.com

Gotta love that wife’s rationalization for her cheating: “My lover has a slow hand, which gives me many orgasms so that I’m spent and don’t feel like demanding too much from my two-pumps-and-done husband.”

***************

EXCLUSIVE - 'She couldn't wait and allowed him to seduce her in a creaky French elevator': Bombshell book reveals Jackie Kennedy's secret lovers, her revenge on JFK with William Holden, her steamy night with Brando and her forbidden affairs with Bobby AND Teddy
28 May 2014
dailymail.co.uk

‘I knew that women didn’t find him a great lover’, Jackie confided. ‘He certainly wasn’t. He wanted a quickie and then he was back on the phone talking with some silly politician. When he did have sex with me, he would turn over and go to sleep right away. There I was listening to his snoring and almost crying at my lack of fulfillment as a woman’.

Jonathan Silber said...

"For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men, whose escapist fantasies so often revolve around vigilantism and sexual wish-fulfillment...

Puzzling that women, though equal to men, as strong as men, as able as men in everything and every way, as intelligent as men if not more intelligent, have nevertheless allowed themselves, in every place and time, to submit to the rule and dominance of men in a man's world.

Anonymous said...

For future reference:
Actors of fully Jewish background: -Logan Lerman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman, Bar Refaeli, James Wolk, Julian Morris, Esti Ginzburg, Kat Dennings, Erin Heatherton, Odeya Rush, Anton Yelchin, Paul Rudd, Scott Mechlowicz, Lizzy Caplan, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Gal Gadot, Robert Kazinsky, Melanie Laurent, Marla Sokoloff, Shiri Appleby, Justin Bartha, Adam Brody, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Gabriel Macht, Halston Sage.

Actors with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers -Jake Gyllenhaal, James Franco, Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Radcliffe, Alison Brie, Eva Green, Emmy Rossum, Jennifer Connelly, Eric Dane, Jeremy Jordan, Joel Kinnaman.

Actors with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, who themselves were either raised as Jews and/or identify as Jews: -Andrew Garfield, Ezra Miller, Alexa Davalos, Nat Wolff, James Maslow, Josh Bowman, Ben Foster, Nikki Reed, Zac Efron.

Actors with one Jewish-born parent and one parent who converted to Judaism -Dianna Agron, Sara Paxton (whose father converted, not her mother), Alicia Silverstone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"Apatow, Rogen, Solondz, Nichols, Salinger, Philip Roth...

all Jewish"

"All men, too."

Sarah Silverman is Jewish. She's nastier than Adam Sandler.

Anonymous said...

The guy who made BLACK SWAN.

Another deranged hipster loser type.

And Europe has its own stinker, Lars Von Trier.

Anonymous said...

Come to think of it, Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison are pretty nasty movies.

But I have a soft spot for Billy. I love the 'shampoo is bettah' scene.

Anonymous said...

"Most women, PARTICULARY middle/upper class women, are in open revolt against White guys."

Maybe that's what EYES WIDE SHUT was all about. Whiskey's sexual paranoia would make a good subject for a movie. Deep down inside, you know the woman-as-whore wants the warrior and only feels pitying affection for the dork.

The character in the original novel was some Jewish dork whose pud nearly fell off when he found out that his nice Jewish girl of a wife had the hots for a tall goy aristocratic warrior type.

In Kube's movie, handsome Cruise discovers he's just a dork compared to REAL MEN.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"This is a surprisingly good analysis by Hornaday - but of course she blamed the nebulous "white males" rather than getting more specific, which would be naming the Jew and therefore beyond the pale."

Continental scale racial thinking. That's the way things work in the USA.

Anonymous said...

"Sarah Silverman is Jewish. She's nastier than Adam Sandler."

Being a woman means that Sarah Silverman is, ipso facto, better than Sandler.

Anonymous said...

"Ignoring the deaths of the non-white men may come back to haunt her."

Depends on what meme wins. Currently, the "White* man kills non-Whites" is losing out to the "White man kills women" meme.

*Yes, I now that he is mixed-race; the media prefer to frame him as White.

Anonymous said...

"In Kube's movie, handsome Cruise discovers he's just a dork compared to REAL MEN."

David Thomson argues that belittling Cruise was an important theme in Kubrick's vision for EYES WIDE SHUT.

tehtruth said...

Making this a specifically "white" thing doesn't really make sense, but as far as the whole half-Asian deal, that's a legit question on how people identify right? We all think of Obama as black for instance.

again though don't see why it particularly matters in this case, though of course sites like Salon have to make it not just about The Patriarchy (how that=sleep with as many women as possible PUA culture I don't know,) but The Paleface Patriarchy.

Anonymous said...

Rogan gets a hot wife in his movies because people don't want to look at ugly, obese women. Given that so many women in real life are obese these days, this just happens to be unrealistic.

If people bought tickets to the movie this idiot critic thinks Hollywood should be making, someone'ld make them.

Here's the pitch - We have an empowered *realistic* looking woman, struggling, with real world problems. Like all real people she has weaknesses and moods and a couple ingrate kids and she screams and sighs a lot and her life doesn't really change for the better.

Go see that, Ann, and tell me how awesome it is. I'll take your word on it.

Anonymous said...

doombuggy - "So...start with a conclusion (White males are to blame) and then fill in behind it.

Soon we can mechanize/computerize this process and save some wage cost. The out of work pundits can then pick lettuce and eat beans."

Funny and true.

Anonymous said...

"The character in the original novel was some Jewish dork whose pud nearly fell off when he found out that his nice Jewish girl of a wife had the hots for a tall goy aristocratic warrior type."

Warrior type.

EWS is a war film in that sense. Kubrick was fascinated with war.
In EWS, it's psycho-sexual but no less ruthless and brutal.

Anonymous said...

like putting down an insurgency in Indochina.
Did we put down an insurgency in Indochina? I don't remember that.

Dave Pinsen said...

Superhero movies aren't about bravery in combat, because the heroes are never really in any danger. This is underlined by the casual conversation and quips Scarlett Johanessen makes while dispatching burly men in hand-to-hand combat in the most recent captain America movie. Heck, more characters get killed in the Fast & Furious movies (2 in the last one).

Movies about real wars don't make as much money usually because they're unpleasant and depressing. Gibson's We Were Soldiers grossed $114mm globally; Black Hawk Down made $108mm.

Anonymous said...

Who watches movies any more? TV is the new movies. Breaking Bad, True Crime, Mad Men, &c.

Even network shows can now be watched in binges with 1/3 of the annoying ads skipped over.

And regarding movies, I like ones where they is some mystery and death. Chick flicks are even better than nerdy guy gets hot woman.

The reason that Knocked Up and Juno were interesting is that the women didn't immediately get abortions. A permanent solution to a temporary problem. Pregnancy is hell on women and their bodies. The mom thing is great but not for a technical goof.

The most sexist aspect of movies is that the women are in the top 1 percentile regarding beauty. And their minor flaws are are easily covered by skillful makeup, if not plastic surgery.

As far as the PUA -- I find it interesting that they are pushing sales techniques from the 30's. Any sort of serious sales now pushes relationship sales.

And then in places like Brooklyn, there is a huge shortage of anything resembling hetero alpha males. At least ones that aren't wanna be writers, who are disqualified by lack of money. Then you have a disproportionate population of gays. Nerds with boring jobs, then the few alpha males that aren't looking for marriage equality but rather a hot wife. No wonder the bitterness that turns to snark or worse on web sites like Jezabel.

And, for god sakes, most males have their first sexual experiences making some sort of compromise.

Whew.... got that off my chest.

Anonymous said...

Dave Pinsen:"Superhero movies aren't about bravery in combat, because the heroes are never really in any danger. This is underlined by the casual conversation and quips Scarlett Johanessen makes while dispatching burly men in hand-to-hand combat in the most recent captain America movie."

That's one of the reasons why ScarJo's fight against the eponymous Winter Soldier was so satisfying. He was treated like a serious threat. Hence, she looked worried during the fight and no quips were tossed around.

Anonymous said...

Yeah. I blame the violent, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-Semitic corporate WASP redneck frat boys who run Hollywood, too. Ahhhhh. I'm so progressive.

Anonymous said...

"Who watches movies any more? TV is the new movies. Breaking Bad, True Crime, Mad Men, &c."

I do. Movies have beginning, middle, and ending. TV shows go on forever.

I liked the first two episodes of Boardwalk Empire. They were like movies. But by the third installment, the narrative had slowed down to a crawl, with so many characters and so many filler details, so I quit.

Boardwalk Empire could have been decent if made into a 12 part series. But it seems to go on and on and on season after season.

I can see the merit of a longer version of Godfather or Goodfellas at 10 or even 20 hrs.

But at 300 hrs? No thank you.

The thing with TV shows is they wanna make you keep watching. So, they stretch out the material to the point where it's mostly filler after awhile.

This is why mini-series like Noble House or Centennial is much better.
But TV people know that once a series ends, they have to develop another one and that's costly and risky.
So, whenever a series works, they try to keep it going on for as long as possible. BAD IDEA.

Breaking Bad might have been okay in 10 parts. But how many seasons are there? I'd rather watch THE COUNSELOR.

Robert What? said...

Wait a minute - did I just read that a white liberal blamed some violence on Hollywood?

Anonymous said...

Elliot Rodger reminds me of Charlie X from the old Star Trek episode of the same name. I think we are going to be inundated with kids like this in the coming years.

You mean ones raised in isolation by ghost-like aliens and given awesome mental powers in order to survive?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"I'd rather watch THE COUNSELOR."

I'd rather watch paint dry.

Anonymous said...

http://www.examiner.com/article/anti-gun-fanatics-continue-to-affirm-no-amount-of-citizen-disarmament-enough

These clowns don't blame movies, but they do blame guns and want all of them banned except for the government. One is an la times writer and the other is an actor from some fox show I have never watched. He basically had a breakdown on twitter, saying he would personally confiscate firearms and gun owners would not stop him. Then he freaked out when people have him their addresses and said they would shoot him if he followed through. It was quite the breakdown.

Has anyone else noticed the left seems to win just about every political and cultural battle except for the gun issue? I wonder why that is?

Anonymous said...

These clowns don't blame movies, but they do blame guns and want all of them banned except for the government

And criminals.

Anonymous said...

Yes, there's a problem with narcissism and therapy and all that. But the thing is most people who are narcissistic and/or undergo therapy don't go around killing people. Otherwise, Woody Allen and fellow NYers would be shooting up everyone.

Rodgers, due to his bi-racial identity and strange personality, can be characterized as anything: conservative, liberal, anti-male, anti-female, anti-white, anti-Asian, anti-whatever.

All sorts of people can project their own ideas onto him.

So, the Left says rightwing ideas made him do what he did. And the Right says leftwing ideas made him do what he did. Feminists blame his 'misogyny' while masculinists say he's the product of our feminized culture.

There's probably a degree of truth to all such statements.

But none explains why he decided to go all the way and kill people. Most misogynists don't kill. Most leftists and most rightists don't kill. Even most schizophrenics don't kill.

I think maybe the key to understanding Rodgers is something that might be called HDS or humor deficiency syndrome. If you knew nothing about his murder spree and watched his videos and read his 'manifesto', you'd think he was being half-funny. You'd think, sure, he had gripes against the world, but he was also mocking himself, laughing at himself as he called himself 'magnificent' and 'like a god'.

Such sense of humor has a way of defusing one's inner tensions. It's about lightening up, not taking oneself too seriously.

If you didn't know about his murderous rampage, you'd think his 'manifesto' or autobio was a kind of satire of narcissism.

But the creepy thing is Rodgers meant everything he wrote and said. He wasn't kidding, not even half-kidding or quarter-kidding. Without the ability to laugh at himself, he had no way of defusing his inner tensions. And so, maybe he exploded.

After all, even most narcissistic people have some sense of humor and can laugh at themselves. Not Rodgers. Even his smiles were dead serious.

But Rodgers, like Bickle in TAXI DRIVER, was bereft of any sense of humor.

Steve Sailer said...

Makes sense.