Dante's Dim Inferno

It's not like we need to spend that much time discussing the media's inability to report the war correctly. But the left-wing artists who've decided to comment on the war at least provide us with perspective that the media's only lazy, while the artists are ignorant and stupid.

Latest cases in point: Joe Dante's new movie, Homecoming, which receives a fawning review in the Village Voice (surprise, surpise) (hat tip: Instapundit), where Dante is hailed for making "a righteous blast of liberal-left fury" that "uncorks the rage that despondent progressives promptly suppressed after last year's election and that has only recently been allowed to color mainstream coverage of presidential untruths and debacles." Please -- the left-wing's outrage has never been suppressed, no matter how idiotic their claims have been, for the past five years. The only thing so-called Progressives have suppressed during the past five years might be their sense of decency.

The Mechanical Eye spends some time reviewing the film's premise, which has dead soldiers climing out of the grave to remove the GOP from office...

Like Michael Moore's portrayal of US soldiers as not-too-bright grunts in Farenheit 9/11, these descriptions reveal a pitying kind of contempt for the subjects the writers and directors are supposedly championing. Soldiers are merely another class of victim, the subject of pity rather than the object of their own intelligent decisions. They're shell-shocked, they're zombies, children, the unknowing kill-bots who apparently march straight into enemy fire or landmines (since they make no decisions!). Voiceless dupes.

Zombies aren't known for their elocution - so others speak for them, it would seem.

Then we have Grady Hendrix' review in Slate, which contains this rather condescending passage...

Today, zombies are the perfect metaphor for our soldiers in Iraq: They're shell-shocked, anonymous, and aren't asked to make very many decisions. Unless you personally know a soldier, the war in Iraq has been a zombie war, fought by an uncomplaining, faceless mass wrapped in desert camo and called "our boys." We talk about them all the time—supporting them, criticizing them, speaking for them—but we don't really have a clue as to what's on their minds. They often seem like disposable units sent to enforce the will of our country. But what if they come back and they're different? What if they come back and don't want to follow orders anymore?

You know, I'm not going to pretend to know whether soldiers would find it flattering to be metaphorically portrayed as zombies. But Vodkapundit responds beautifully to Hendrix...

My brother-in-law served in the Iraq invasion, and spent a year after that getting shot at in Balad. A year later, he went to Afghanistan, and he's back there now, having just returned from a two-week leave. He got to see his youngest son at Thanksgiving, after missing eight of the first nine months of the little guy's life (he missed the second year of his older son's life while in Iraq). Matt is a polymath who holds a couple of advanced degrees, and is one of those people who knows something--and usually a lot--about nearly any topic. His list of hobbies is exhausting for me to even think about, not even mentioning his actual job. In a battle of wits, I feel very secure in flatly declaring that he'd bury Grady Hendrix, or any other elitist mediot snob, in much the same way that USC demolished UCLA this afternoon.

Makes me wonder if Grady has ever actually met any soldiers. No, wait, I don't wonder about that. Based on the above, I think I'm safe in assuming that the majority of this guy's knowlege of the US Army came from watching a rerun of "Platoon" in his dorm room, in between bong hits. His herd-following denunciation of people with more guts, more brains, and more character than, well, virtually everybody in journalism isn't terribly surprising, now that I think about it.

Judging by this and other insipid and rote mediot dismissals of intelligence in the military, if there are any brainless zombies walking around loose today, they're most likely to be found in newsrooms, not in the armed services.

Liberal elitists tried mightily to pretend Michael Moore's last brain-fart would impact votes; no matter how much they spun the numbers, the votes went the other way. Now they want to pretend that Dante's horror-flick, which will air on Showtime, might make a difference. I know, does anyone actually watch Showtime? normally, no... but this is a free "preview" weekend, where you can watch stuff like the movie from Dante... not to mention Fahrenheit 9/11.

You gotta give the execs in the entertainment industry this -- they don't hide their bias, and they're even willing to give it away for free. Of course, you get what you pay for.