A scheduled movie screening of “American Sniper” at the University of Michigan was abruptly cancelled Tuesday after nearly 300 students and others complained the film perpetuates “negative and misleading stereotypes” against Muslims.Via Iowahawkblog
“The movie American Sniper not only tolerates but promotes anti-Muslim … rhetoric and sympathizes with a mass killer,” according to an online letter circulated among the campus community via Google Docs that garnered the signatures.
“Chris Kyle was a racist who took a disturbing stance on murdering Iraqi civilians,” the collective letter stated. “Middle Eastern characters in the film are not lent an ounce of humanity and watching this movie is provocative and unsafe to MENA and Muslim students who are too often reminded of how little the media and world values their lives. … The University of Michigan should not participate in further perpetuating these negative and misleading stereotypes.”...
The Center for Campus Involvement did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment, but its official Twitter account noted “Paddington Bear,” a PG-rated movie about a stuffed animal’s misadventures, will be shown instead of “American Sniper.”
“We have elected to pull the film from this week’s program and screen another movie in its place that we believe better creates the fun, engaging atmosphere we seek, without excluding valued members of our community,” the center stated.
College cinemas used to screen John Waters movies; now a $350 million box office blockbuster is too "controversial" http://t.co/70YmPc0JcE
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 8, 2015
12 comments:
The one good thing that has come out of the reign of the Left is that screaming "RACISSS!" is now understood by all but true believers as the equivalent of crying "WOLF!"
It's important that college aged students are treated like they are delicate day-care kids at club Med.
Soft-padded walls, round ended scissors and easy left-wing dreams for a bright future.
Pogo has occasionally quoted something (maybe from that Dalrymple guy?) about how the object of the Soviet system of lies wasn't chiefly to fool people but rather to impress upon them the superordinate truth that factual truth was immaterial to their state of oppression and submission.
Came to mind.
Wonder how long it will be before they start trying to angle this feeling unsafe into getting a monthly disability check?
University of Michigan Kindergarten: Turning adults back into helpless crying babies who need Big Mommy to keep them safe.
I hope that replacing "American Sniper" with "Paddington" is an indicator that someone, somewhere on that campus has a sense of humor. But probably not.
Theodore Dalrymple:
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
So UofM censored and repressed a film on their campus, not on free speech grounds (snicker), but on the grounds of students feelings of fear and discrimination they feel is being portrayed in the movie, but have yet not seen it on campus or if at all? Hmmm...
Yes, I had read that Dalrymple quote somewhere else and was also struck by it, Pogo. Yes, to crap on the rest of us and make us eat it: the ultimate communist high. Pogo the Great! Keep that broom closet ready for me, Pogo. Of course I will say that humiliation is inevitable...in any society. Just read William Hazlitt's great essay, On The Want Of Money, written in 1827. Plus ca change...
This must be known henceforth The Weakest Generation.
Note to self, don't recruit from Michigan. Graduates from there unable to handle 2 hours of a different viewpoint. They won't be able to handle a professional career.
It is not good to force people to be silent. I agree with that.
It is not good to force people to be silent about the ways in which they're bucking the system, day by day, in so many ways, either. I agree with that, too, and also I am entirely unconvinced that a number of folks here get what that means, practically speaking, if just because you're in a such a profoundly different place if only due to a scant 8-10-12-20 years of separation.
I used to think that the self parodying excesses of the academy would isolate them from mainstream society. But then they elected a President from within that fold. Two times. Their pale breath now rules the land..
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