It's America. Not Amurrrica.

Since I've been on a binge research mode on graduate life (at times looking up experiences of the rare conservative graduate student or prof), I think this little review of Captain America, found here,  was equally predictable as the other "liberal, through and through" (as said by the writer of the post) types.

If you're too lazy to click on the link and read, I'll provide a short explanation of it.

1. The film is too white.
2. The "token" female, though portrayed as a strong-willed woman, isn't the 'right' type of strong-willed woman.

That's about it.

There's this site, found within the link, that comments on the fear mongering that right talking heads - such as Beck, Limbaugh and O' Reilly supposedly do to (conservative) men. The writer also mentions Michelle Bachman. Here are the parts that tells me, although this person is in academia -- probably holds a Phd -- isn't too bright.

The one thing that comes to mind over and over again is how scared and threatened a very large segment of the population must be. Where does this phenomenon of the scared white guy come from? Because that's what it is, isn't it? Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and all the people who buy into their fear and hatred, and want to channel it back into attacking women and people of other races (and I don't really believe Islamophobia is as much about religion as it is about race -- Sharia law supports a lot of the sorts of positions Michelle Bachman does, after all...) -- how does that work? How is it that, when we look at who truly has power in Western society, we can see that it's mostly plutocratic power, and those who hold it are primarily white and primarily male. Actually, that should be reversed. Male and white. Male is still the biggest conveyer of privilege. In the West, white and straight and Christian are also up there. And yes, there are going to be trade-offs, and within certain communities, the balance will be different. A senior colleague and friend pointed out to me that one of the people who irritates me most on the list serv because he seems so entirely unable to recognize his male privilege, or even his academic privilege, probably can't see it that way because his self-perception is based on being a Jew and being held back by those with white privilege.

But back to the fear: why is it that we live in a world where there is a perception that power is a zero-sum game, and if it is shared, i.e., if we actually live in a world where people of color, people of other religions, people with other sexualities -- and, by the way, women -- share in the running of that world, it means something bad for white guys who think of themselves as Christian? And why is it that the people who fear (because I think we need to include the partners and families of these scared white men -- there are lots of women in the Tea Party, after all) cannot see that they have far more in common with the rest of us folks who live from paycheck to paycheck in multicultural land than they do with the people running things and asking us to pay the bills?

Oh dear. Let me whip out the check list. I apologize for this.

Mentions conservative talking heads.

Check.

Mention a maligned Republican.

Check (could've went for Palin, though).

Mention white privilege.

Check.

Compare Sharia law with actual Christianity.

Check.

Allude that white Christian men are incapable of recognizing people not like them (non-straight, non-white, female and non-Christian).

Check.

Condescendingly think that (the right) is what it is because of "fear."

Check.

Mention the Tea Party in some dismissing way.

Check.

Oh, mention jingoism like it's innately a bad thing.

Check.

(I could probably make a list of the issues I have with indie/art-house/foreign movies film made in the 1990s - present, but that's for another day.)

My questions to "Blogenspiel": Are you white? Is your boyfriend white? Are a Christian? If not, are you in anyway religious (being "spiritual" doesn't count)?

Me, I'm not white. I'm single. I'm a Catholic. I'm also an ex-liberal who probably would've written what you've written if I had stayed a modern day liberal.

Also, what's with non-conservatives spelling America, "Amurrrrica" - or other disrespectful misspellings - when they comment on anything that has a shred of patriotism? Are the inner anti-Vietnam and anti-Iraq war feelings slowly spilling over? It's pretty darn childish, the lot of it. (I think the writer, Blogenspiel, doesn't live in the States so she has achieved her dream of escaping the supposed oppressive and bigoted country that is America).