As IF Times

Source: Students at Lena Dunham’s college offended by lack of fried chicken | New York Post

The great gulf between what is depicted in the movies and what you observe in real life is laughingly wide to those that pay attention to these things.  Whomever said that life imitates art hasn’t been paying attention.  The majority of movie trailers today tease filmgoers with chaotic scenes of violence and action: well coiffed heroes with guns ablaze performing superhuman acts of courage and daring while cavalierly dispatching bad guys.

There is no angst expressed during  the decimation of faceless thugs and evil despots; nor in the property destruction that is typically a horror show for insurance adjusters.  All of this visceral action and mayhem is undertaken ostensibly to benefit the greater good of mankind.

Movie depictions are truly created out of the most improbable adolescent fantasies.  Given today’s cultural zeitgeist, there is zero chance that such alpha personas exist other than as portrayed in cinema.  Kids on college campuses can barely withstand the horrors of name calling much less take a roundhouse to the temple.

It’s comical to imagine that 20-somethings today could possibly handle a multi round automatic weapon when the mere image of one sends them scurrying away to their self declared safe zones.  If they can’t handle the odd verbal slur, they aren’t going to like their nether regions being slammed by bolo balls while tied naked to a chair like 007 in a recent Bond movie.

While film has always been about creating idealized escapism, they may want to make movies that can more identify with today’s real world.  Conflicts between despotic villains can be resolved by earnest discussions without resort to violence or name calling.  Climactic scenes will include the peaceful surrender of evil doers by the marshaling of opposing protesters holding placards instead of the generic gun battles with infinite bullets.  Instead of stylized mano-a-mano kung-fu fights, they can instead be filmed as intense rock, paper, scissors scenes.  There will always be lawyers accompanying covert operators as they parachute into enemy territories on missions.  Perhaps in a delectable bit of rapturous fantasy, they can all be sacrificed for the good of the rest of society.  Meh, that’s probably too much of a stretch.

If you think about it, Star Wars as a concept couldn’t exist.  Societies would never be allowed to continue shooting and slashing in their struggles.  More likely, the conflicts would be determined by bands of lawyers huddling over canapés and scotch while the fearful masses sit huddled nearby anxiously awaiting the results like waifs in a Dickens novel.

Yep, the entertainment of today is mislabeled.  It’s not action/adventure; it’s all fantasy.

Source: How, this time, Trump may actually have gone too far (+video) – CSMonitor.com

So this time, according to the article, Donald Trump may have gone too far…he’s crossed the rubicon.  Hmm.  Many will recall when Trump first announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination earlier this summer.  His stated advantage was that since he was more than financially secure, he was not beholden to anyone or any group’s influence.  This meant that he could say what he wanted without fear of antagonizing financial backers or satisfying the established status quo.

He proved that over the ensuing few months by insulting a broad spectrum of people starting with illegal immigrants from Latin America, notably Mexico which set off the Hispanic community.  He also cast the Chinese as, while being clever, also evil in their trade policies.  He crassly insulted Megyn Kelly when she posed a question to him after a debate.  He called Carly Fiorina not attractive.  He insulted a known war hero, John McCain and of course he calls out politicians  for being stupid and incompetent…and those are the ones on his side.   Oddly only his barber has been left unscathed by his biting remarks.

So in summary, he’s notionally offended Hispanics the world over, a few billion Chinese, all women, soldiers and most politicians, left and right.  But now, he’s insulted Muslims! Now the media gets mobilized with outrage to condemn him??  Therefore, while he’s heretofore ‘offended’ well over 80% of the world’s population up to now, it’s only when Muslims appear to be slighted that everyone gets all college student in their indignation.

Only now that the Muslim community is called out do we observe nations threatening to ban Trump from entry; his name being removed from commercial projects; his castigation as a first class racist and a cad to boot.   I think that if anything, this tells the other constituency of insulted groups that they have no pull.  Their PR machinery has nowhere near the kind of influence that Muslims do in protecting their brand.  While The Donald is certainly no slouch when it comes to media manipulation, apparently, neither are the Muslims.

Yet, none of this has really affected Trump’s appeal to his supporters, who presumably come from all sectors of the offended groups. If anything, he seems to grow in approval.  The appeal is not in the man.  It’s in his unvarnished attack on the crippling mentality of political correctness which has infected society at every level.  Whether you like him or not, ironically, Trump is the guy standing up for free speech…and free speech is about freedom to say what’s unpopular, not the ability to get Facebook likes.

UPDATE:  As if to prove Trump’s point, other nations are telling Americans how to behave: Saudi Prince weighs in