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| The young Hoover |
Clint Eastwood’s biopic J. Edgar, with Leonardo DiCaprio as the Washington bureaucrat who ran the FBI and its predecessor from 1924 to his death in early 1972, provides an intriguing data point for tracking the 21st-century struggle between blacks and gays for the upper hand in the Victim Sweepstakes.
Hoover was widely rumored to be either a self-hating gay passing for straight, a self-hating mulatto passing for all-white, or both. So did Clint, a presumably neutral bystander, wind up blaming racism or homophobia for warping Hoover?
Read the whole thing there.
[P.S., the technical glitch that kept you from reading the last half of the review is fixed.]
Come on, Steve. He was clearly both.
ReplyDeleteOK. Probably gay but mulatto as well? He actually looks a little like Peter Lorre, slightly bugged eyes. I'd think some Moroccan ancestry via a Roman soldier forbear. Just another Latin derived fascist. Let's move on...
ReplyDeleteCan't see page 2. Was there supposed to be a page 2?
ReplyDeleteYes, there is supposed to be a p. 2.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Deadliest Men," there is a profile of early FBI agent "Jelly" Bryce, who once punched out a man for calling Hoover a "half n----r son of a bitch."
ReplyDeleteBryce wrote about the incident to Hoover, who praised his handling of it.
It had never occurred to me that there was any foundation to that description.
In photos of him in middle age and older, I never thought he looked anything but odd: widely-spaced eyes coupled with a strangely shaped, huge head. He looked mentally retarded actually.
ReplyDeleteI wish I hadn't read page one since I now want page two yet I knew when I read page 1 there was no page 2.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, enjoyed the article by Gavin McInnes, "Apologies are for Fags" so the trip wasn't wasted.
I always like your reviews, Steve, so I'll check back for page 2 later.
at the moment, the second page of my review appears to be unavailable due to a technical glitch
ReplyDeleteHere at blogspot, the click-through on the picture doesn't work, either.
Who is in charge of the Taki site? It really went downhill since Richard Spencer left.
ReplyDelete"So, go there, read the first half of my review now, then try to get some sleep so you'll be at your best for the exciting conclusion tomorrow."
ReplyDeleteWhen, presumably, you will tell us whether or not Leo dons a dress in the service of art.
I know you like leaving as on a flat note with your film reviews but this one takes the cake.
ReplyDeleteI'd think some Moroccan ancestry via a Roman soldier forbear. Just another Latin derived fascist. Let's move on...
ReplyDeleteAllow Quentin Tarantino to explain it to you in the ne plus ultra performance of Dennis Hopper's thespian career.
[BTW, my brother tells me that he has fraternity brothers, from college, who have actually MEMORIZED that Dennis Hopper speech, and who can re-create it for you word-by-word.
F-ing hilarious.]
The question "Gay, mulatto, or both" is a prescient reminder of the turmoil likely to hit the Democratic Party in the next 10 or so years as research into what causes homosexuality moves inexorably forward.
ReplyDeleteWhen we reach the point where its biological origin or trigger is identified, the next logical questions for to-be parents will be, "Can we stop it from ever happening? Should we abort? Can we reverse it?"
Just recently it was announced that there is a new blood test that can be given to pregnant women in high risk groups for Down Syndrome, a test that makes amniocentesis tests unnecessary. There will soon be fewer Down Syndrome babies than ever.
Can you imagine what will happen to the feminist-glbt alliance should a blood test or some other test tell a couple if their fetus will likely be gay?
Lesbians seem not too fond of anyone; gays and lesbians aren't at all happy with the insertion of "t's" into their acronym and alliance; and no one seems to know if there really is any such thing as a true "bi" but the gays and lesbos don't much think that if they do exist that they need any protection. Blacks hate 'em all.
It's gonna be ugly...which mean fun to watch.
"a flat note"
ReplyDeleteI prefer to think of it as a cliffhanger.
"Can you imagine what will happen to the feminist-glbt alliance should a blood test or some other test tell a couple if their fetus will likely be gay?"
ReplyDeletethere is now a blood test that pregnant mothers can get which will indicate the gender of the baby at about...9 weeks? if i read the article correctly. basically you simply check the mother's blood for byproducts of a male child's testicle function. if those are in her blood, it's a boy. if not, girl.
this is months sooner than the current standard ultrasound detection.
note this continues to line up with the hypothesis that male children who are gay, usually seem to be "born gay". that is, the mother's body is responding to the sudden appearance of the wrong hormone production in her body, by flooding her body with estrogen. the side effect - the suspected alteration this hormone cascade produces on her son's brain. does it change the development of the neurons and brain structures, to be more like a female brain?
so then. what if scientists can develop some kind of patch that pregnant mothers wear, or some kind of injection that they can receive, which will counteract this process? won't this virtually "eliminate" gays from being born, in the treated groups?
"Hoover was widely rumored to be either a self-hating gay passing for straight..."
ReplyDeleteI'd dispute this characterization of "passing for straight," Steve. In those days gay guys didn't, couldn't say, "Yep, I'm a homosexual."
It was flat-out daring of J. Edgar to have done what he did--coupled up with his paramour and gone everywhere publicly with him. Based on the mores of their day, I'd hardly call their behavior an attempt to closet themselves.
Who is in charge of the Taki site? It really went downhill since Richard Spencer left.
ReplyDeleteYeah. It's really gone downhill. Alternative Right is not much good either.
Takimag at its height was much better than Alt-Right and Takimag today.
Yes Hoover was a very ugly old man. Remarkably ugly and weird looking in fact. Not a hale-hearty fatherly or grandfatherly kind of guy like say, your classic Irish pol Tip O'Neil. Or Southern coach like Bobby Bowden. Just ... weird.
ReplyDeleteThe worst stuff about Hoover was his ambition, not being gay or mulatto. Really who cared? It was his desire to crush out any competition that led him to drive out Melvin Purvis, and stuff the FBI with Yes-Men. MAYBE he was blackmailed by the Mafia, or maybe he just feared he could do nothing about it, the Hoover FBI denied its existence.
Which is odd given that he took credit for "nabbing" Al Capone. Hoover was always one for glory hogging and grandstanding.
This is where Clint Eastwood has become all feminized in his old age. It does not matter a bit what a guy "is" ... Catholic, White, Mulatto, Atheist, Jew, Mexican, Homosexual, or Straight (though in aggregate these questions matter very much). But rather what a guy DOES (and dramatically that matters too). Results are what guys are judged by. Look at Paterno. His win-loss column has one giant loss that will forever tarnish him. Men are judged by what they accomplish. Their actions. Not who they are (that's for women and female audiences). Well Clint wants an Oscar so bad he can taste it. Hence the gaying up as identity for a gold statue. Pathetic.
Well for my humble opinion, he could be daddy to both Your buddy on his right, or the Hungie on his left.
ReplyDelete...with Leonardo DiCaprio as the Washington bureaucrat...
ReplyDeleteLeonardo DiCaprio?! Good grief.
And I never thought of Hoover as a "bureaucrat".
One of the more interesting characters of 20th century America, though.
Apparently the SPLC has a dastardly plan to torture iSteve addicts (like me) by letting them read the first half but not the second half of his movie reviews.
ReplyDeleteI had a bad day at work, I need a full iSteve movie review when I get home.
'Yet all those latex prosthetics on DiCaprio and Hammer are the only chemistry between them.'
ReplyDeleteLOL. Great line.
Speaking of energy levels, what is up with Clint Eastwood? Is his energy increasing exponentially? I predict at the age of 100 he will direct five movies in one year. He will direct an entire movie in the five hours before his death.
ReplyDeleteEh:
ReplyDelete"I never thought of Hoover as a bureaucrat"
Well, why not? He headed the FBI, the Federal BUREAU of Investigation (actually one of the relatively few bureaus actually sporting the tag).
The photo makes him look blacker than Kid Ory.
ReplyDeleteJust saw 'Play Misty for Me', Clint's directorial debut from 1971, yesterday on cable. Such a fine, taut, quiet psycholigical thriller. They don't make 'em like that anymore. And delightfully un-p.c., with a female psychotic driven to murder after becoming unduly attached to a one-night stand. Roissy material...
ReplyDeleteOh, come on.
ReplyDeleteIn sepia photos, all Whites look mulatto. Heck, in sepia a white napkin would look mulatto.
In non-sepia photos, and in film, Hoover looks White. Strange, but White.
Actual mulattoes tend to be rather good-looking, examples of which you've pointed out before.
I was recently surprised to find out that "mulatto" has entered the lexicon of Unspeakable Words. It's now "mixed race" in correct company. The folks on The Atlantic boards had the vapors when I called our Commander In Chief a mulatto.
ReplyDeleteThere's an odd tendency on the Left to make up all these acronyms and euphemisms to describe marginal individuals. I've heard PWA's (People With Aids), "questioning" youths (tomboys, sissies).
In the October issue of Informer magazine, Richard Warner breaks down both rumours and concludes they're bogus.
ReplyDeletehttp://informer-journal.blogspot.com/2011/10/warner-files-more-hoover-myths-or-maybe.html
OT:
ReplyDeletenot a lesbian this time
http://kotaku.com/5859814/the-fascinating-tale-of-pixelvixen-707-the-internets-most-famous-imaginary-female-video-game-critic
"Gays have been striving manfully to overtake blacks in the struggle to be above criticism."
ReplyDeleteChuckle, chuckle.
Rumors that Hoover was gay or mulatto -- sounds like Soviet propaganda designed to tarnish the image of the FBI.
ReplyDeleteEr... what do you all "Hoover was a homo" people make of the Mitrokhin Archive's revelation that the KGB engaged in a disinformation campaign to spread rumors that J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual?
ReplyDelete>what is up with Clint Eastwood?<
ReplyDeleteClint's ambition to win Oscars in both the acting and directing categories is something he has pursued for years. People were remarking on this career strategy of his decades ago.
I'd say he literally can't quit - too old, not flexible enough to declare victory and try something different or just relax. Or, maybe he is hanging on to life by hanging on to power (a common feedback loop). Or both.
Personally can't stand the guy or any of the movies he directed.
Jody said,
ReplyDelete"so then. what if scientists can develop some kind of patch that pregnant mothers wear, or some kind of injection that they can receive, which will counteract this process? won't this virtually "eliminate" gays from being born, in the treated groups?"
-------
Sure would.
The researchers who have done the most work on this in domesticated sheep, the animal most like humans when it comes to same-sex mating behavior, believe they've established that in sheep, the brain of a male-oriented ram has not been fully masculinized in mid to late term gestation, maybe due to some failure of an androgen receptor mechanism.
What they've not yet looked into (as far as I know--perhaps they aren't saying) is *why* so many rams are so affected by such a failure of development given natural selection alone wouldn't allow that to happen.
Ultimately, when they *do* look into why Mamma Ewe's body is failing to make Baby Boy Fetus a manly ram after all the trouble she went through carrying him AND delivering him, I am betting Cochran and Ewald will have been right--it's something in the environment, baby, and what is more likely than it's some kind of intruder, a bug that screws up Momma Ewe's or Baby Boy's hormones, which, in turn, prevents the full defeminizing and masculinization of Baby Boy's brain.
Ah, a patch. I've a visual image of women in sleeveless blouses walking around with the patch, being asked, "Trying to quit smoking?"
"Nope. Making a man out of my boy."
:)
Too good to be true.
ReplyDeleteI found a photo linking Hoover with Elijah Muhammed and put it on my site with links back to you. I'm going to stick my neck out and put in a link HERE.
ReplyDeleteBy coincidence, I just finished re-reading Robert Lamphere’s memoir, “The FBI-KGB War,” about how Hoover and the Bureau played catch-up in the late 1940s with the epidemic of Soviet espionage. There are ideas for many fascinating movies in that story, in contrast to one more bit of tired speculation about Hoover’s personal demons. Funny, the only time Hollywood wants to revisit those days is in some tortured effort to exonerate the spies or tarnish their pursuers.
ReplyDeleteEastwood does not believe "rehearsals are for fags." He has his actors rehearse, before shooting begins, sticks to the script, generally lets the actors give the performance they want, and wraps up early (around 7 pm or so). There's limited special effects, stunts, and other stuff making his movies fast and cheap to shoot. Eastwood and Woody Allen make their movies fast and cheap, compared to other directors. They don't noodle around with tricky shots, or endless takes trying to get "the magic moment' and as a result actors like to work with them.
ReplyDeleteSince 70s aggro "cultural blackness" has been supplanted by homophoria. Any activity with lots of young males is deemed "homoerotic" while women of child-rearing age = superfluous to society. It's the $$ rise of gay vs. Black
ReplyDeleteYou've got it right Mr Sailer, La Cage aux folles meets The Untouchables sounds funnier.
ReplyDeleteBlack previously wrote the screenplay for Pedro about the homosexual man of colour Pedro Zamora. Perhaps he didn't want to repeat himself?
It seems the movie didn't fit in a part for Cardinal Spellman another alleged homosexual who did business with McCarthy.
Eastwood's later movies generally are terrible. He has no spiritual or moral center from which to develop a coherent worldview with which to inform his movies.
ReplyDeleteHave you noticed that Damien Thompson has quoted you in the Daily Telegraph blogs?
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100118076/the-one-inequality-infographic-no-one-on-the-left-wants-to-see/
Sorry, Ed West, not Thompson.
ReplyDeleteFlorence King once wrote about the racial transformation of Washington D.C. before desegregation, and how in 1950, J. Edgar Hoover, noted alumnus of D.C.'s Central High School, "went up in smoke" when he learned that Central High was to be transferred to the black side of the system (he couldn't stop it and (I think--I'm not from D.C.) Central High was renamed "Cardozo" when it became a black H.S.--it was desegregated several years later).
ReplyDeleteSo mulatto or not, Hoover didn't publically identify with blacks in D.C.
"I've heard PWA's (People With Aids), 'questioning' youths (tomboys, sissies)."
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm dense--explain, please what this means for me.
Here's the thing about J. Edgar Hoover. It's easy to criticize his reign, which, by blackmailing politicians, he prolonged decades past the point where he was an effective leader in "the fight against crime." Also, he was arrogant and trained everyone in the FBI to extreme arrogance, making the organization much less effective and allowing the once cutting-edge FBI Lab to deteriorate into a corrupt source of prosecutor-serving false reports.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Hoover was hated by the American Left because he was anti-Communist, and more to the point, because he actually interfered in Communist activities and attempts to foment revolution in the US). People now have no idea how serious that stuff was from the 1930's through the 1950's. Hoover kept dogging the Left through the late 1970's even though the Left itself had been transformed--it had both won ("the treason of the clerks") and lost (the chance of "red revolution" had dropped to nil and the Soviets' interest in fifth columnists had faded)-- so Hoover's old-fashioned obsession with leftist organizations was wasted effort-- it gave the American Left something to complain about without actually harming it.
Since the American left has controlled academia and the mass media for several decades now, it has taught everyone to revile Hoover even though he was only ever bad for leftists (and blacks, in a way, since Hoover correctly assessed Martin Luther King and a lot of other "civil rights leaders" as Communists and fellow-travellers and then immorally refused to protect them and their followers from racially-motivated crimes such as the September 1963 Birmingham, AL Baptist church bombing).
The Left has flushed all of the good things Hoover did down the memory hole: (1) he fought Communism and leftism in America, especially when American leftists really were agents of the Soviet-run Comintern; (2) he caught many Nazi and Soviet spies; (3) he blackmailed politicians mainly to keep himself and Clyde T. in clover-- rarely for other people's causes unlike post-Hoover FBI Directors, who've proved willing to blackmail anyone for any cause. Remember Louis Freeh providing Bill Clinton with FBI blackmail dossiers?; (4) he consistently forbid FBI agents to mistreat Americans en-masse,* the Clinton/Reno/FBI Waco massacre of 82 people would not have occurred under Hoover (at least the FBI wouldn't have done the killing); I could go on.
Hoover wasn't nearly as bad as the leftists paint him, whether he was a homosexual or a mulatto.
(I don't think Hoover was particularly bad for homosexuals. Sure, the FBI kept a lot of homosexuals from getting/keeping security clearances--but at the time, homosexuals really were security risks!
*Leftists would say that Hoover mistreated them en-masse by infiltrating their organizations, spying on their mail, etc. That claim is weak-- the FBI did do some illegal stuff (warrantless searches, etc) but set against that, the leftists really were trying to destroy the country--only for propaganda reasons do they claim shelter under the Constitution they profess to despise. The leftists of the mid-20th-Century were like the "islamists" of today--the only thing they want from democracy is to be elected to offices from which they can abolish it.
Gays have been striving manfully to overtake blacks in the struggle to be above criticism.
ReplyDeleteGays will never surpass Blacks in that contest, kinda like the old college All-Stars couldn't touch the NFL champs.
Steve, I just shot 73. In forty years of golf, 1st time I ever broke 80.
ReplyDelete"I'd say he literally can't quit - too old, not flexible enough to declare victory and try something different or just relax. Or, maybe he is hanging on to life by hanging on to power (a common feedback loop). Or both."
ReplyDeleteOr maybe he works hard.
"Actual mulattoes tend to be rather good-looking, examples of which you've pointed out before."
ReplyDeleteActually, no. Some are, some aren't. For every Halle Berry, there's a Barack Obama.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think any man who resembles Alfred E. Neuman can reasonably be called good-looking.
Barack and Alfred: Separated at Birth?
This movie sounds like HOFFA.
ReplyDeleteBiopic of Hoover from 70s
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly certain he was both gay and mulatto....yep definitely Gelato.
ReplyDeletenot a hacker said...
Steve, I just shot 73. In forty years of golf, 1st time I ever broke 80.
That's F'n unbelievable!! 7 strokes better!!! In fact, it's so unbelievable that I don't believe it.
Dan in DC
BTW, my brother tells me that he has fraternity brothers, from college, who have actually MEMORIZED that Dennis Hopper speech
ReplyDeletei followed the youtube link 9 minutes of my life gone, more fo a waste of time than reading a whiskey post.
I bowled an 88 and a 71 today, but I don't do WhiteBoi shit, so I guess it's not that bad.
ReplyDelete"I bowled an 88 and a 71 today, but I don't do WhiteBoi shit, so I guess it's not that bad."
ReplyDeleteNo, it's bad, Truth, really bad. A kid could throw 9 frames, even a black kid, and beat an 88.
Get help, would ya.
Agree, Clint missed a chance here. ie Do a movie showing that deep shades of homosity are not in conflict, at all, with being an authoritarian nat'l-security Republican (they claim Lincoln as one of their own now, right?)
ReplyDeleteInstead we get the gay pieta piece drenched in bathos, the sort of self-indulgent garbage ridiculed on a regular basis by New York critics in the 1960s.
Eastwood sure missed the mark here with DiCaprio. He should have gone with Billy Crudup, who gave a scene-stealing performance as Hoover in "Public Enemies" - which featured Johnny Depp and Christian Bale as Dillinger and Purvis, respectively.
ReplyDeletekinda like the old college All-Stars couldn't touch the NFL champs.
ReplyDeleteActually, in the span of time they played that game (1934 to 1976 - 42 games), the College All-Stars managed 9 wins and 2 ties.
Not bad, especially considering that if they revived the concept today, even the 2011 Indianapolis Colts would probably shut them out.
>Gays will never surpass Blacks in that contest, kinda like the old college All-Stars couldn't touch the NFL champs.<
ReplyDeleteOne advantage of homosexuality is it cuts across both sexes and all races(and nationalities). As such, it's a kind of coshomopolitanism.
No wonder Jews feel rather close to gays. Ironic given Judaism was far less tolerant of homosexuality than pagan cultures were.
"One advantage of homosexuality is it cuts across both sexes and all races(and nationalities). As such, it's a kind of coshomopolitanism.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder Jews feel rather close to gays. Ironic given Judaism was far less tolerant of homosexuality than pagan cultures were."
True enough.
"No wonder Jews feel rather close to gays."
The two groups also share footholds in certain professions.
"Actual mulattoes tend to be rather good-looking, examples of which you've pointed out before."
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by "actual mulattos?" I guess you mean persons who show unmistakable characteristics, in the sort of conventional way of, say, the current potus.
But when the degree of sub-Saharan African ancestry (why can't we just say negroid; it's so descriptive) is very little, or just not dominant, then it may show up making the features sort of odd, without being distinctly negroid. For instance, I have seen persons of distant black ancestry, passing for white, with what look like squashed noses. You see them from the side and they are prominent, even aquiline Caucasoid noses. But from the front it looks like the nostrils are squashed to the face, and sort of flaring a bit. The eyeballs protrude (a sub-Saharan characteristic)l or the face has a verg slight prognathism. These traits might make a person look odd, but still pass as white. I've seen it.
I'd say rumors about Hoover are true. There's a black woman (can't remember her name) who claims he is a cousin and that she was terrified as a child to talk about it because her father told J. Edgar would come after them and get them. She's written about it.
btw, re "Mulattos" being good looking. There was a vibrant discussion on some mixed-race board with people complaining about this stereotype (positive as it is) being b.s. There are plenty of homely to meh mulattos, and people on the board pointed to themselves as examples, in some cases. They found the implication that non-mixed people were less attractive, and that mixed were automatically considered good looking, to be one of those "types" that just keep annoying you when they're not true, and annoying you when they are.
Actually, when disparate types of the same race produce offspring, and the kid has the luck to inherit the best of each, you may see the "mixed" effect.
I recall a couple, both white, ea. good looking enough, but the daughter was gorgeous (she was only 10 at the time, but she probably grew up pretty.) The kid has the mom's good bone structure, and the dad's rather fine, chisled features. She got the best of each. You don't need to mix races to get interesting blends.
The most brutal movie on the dynamics of power I've seen since Andre De Toth's DAY OF THE OUTLAW. Surprise, Surprise, James Clavell wasn't just a famous novelist but an able director. Unjustly neglected movie; never heard of it til stumbling upon it at the library. Reminded me of Pinker's theory on the history of violence.
ReplyDeleteInteresting social commentary from Kael
ReplyDeleteAmong FBI agents having direct
ReplyDeletesocial contact with Hoover in person, the notion that he was gay seems generally not to have been an impression from very many of them. I discount those in the ranks who were so devoted, or so hostile, as to be partly blinded to the man's virtues and faults. The broad range between these extremes appears not to have
included many agents who felt in his presence that he had same sex "vibes". It is not necessary to emphasize that the vast majority of agents never had any contact with him. But those that did on
several occasions probably included over time, a few hundred--not merely several dozen.
Tolson, however, did seem to give vibes to many people of someone who had eyes for his own gender.
It is not all that clear whether
ReplyDeleteHoover in his early career (he rose fast as a very able bureaucrat devoted to meticulous detail and
enormous self-discipline) was viewed as warped. One of the earliest muckraking biographies of Hoover was by the brainy ex-agent, William Turner. Hoover had ambivalences about Jews that were quite commonplace in his generation--not all that different from the views of people like the father of the well known columnist, William F. Buckley, Jr. or the father of the glamour political figures, JFK, RFK, and Teddy bare. If I recall correctly, Turner mentions how dramatically under-represented Jews were among those accepted into the FBI and how over-represented straight-laced Mormons were. Nothing nothing nothing brings one under the microscope of personal fallibility any faster than some mere hint of
being antiii-Seeeemitik. Relevant to the historical revisionism about Hoover? Probably not, but I'd sure not ignore the possibility.
That is why I prefer the gays being safely out of the closet, and living in their own world.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, it's safer that way for everyone.
What a dumb comment, gays don't become more normal when they come out of the closet, rather less.