I wasn’t going to see “Straw Dogs” anyway but now there’s no way I’m going to see it.
Here’s the funny thing. The director Rod Lurie said the following quote as a way to ameliorate concerns that he was putting down red state folks. Yup. He actually thought this statement would help. You’ve gotta’ read this.
I certainly never intended for the film to send any political message about a conservative-liberal issue, and I do not see this film as a red state/blue state film at all. The reason why I set it in the South is because to me, it was a way of creating the best fish-out-of-water situation that I could find for my lead character. I wanted to find two extremes in lifestyles, and it seemed to me that taking somebody from an intellectual world and planting him into a world that is almost purely physical made sense. Now, some of the greatest thinkers and writers of our time have come out of the South. However, this is a community where everything about it is geared towards violence: football, hunting, preachers talking about a God that will smite you from the earth if you behave badly. It’s the principal difference, I think, between the two films in my opinion. Peckinpah was making a movie about a man, and men in general, who are biologically-inclined to violence. My movie seems to be stating that violence is conditioned from how you grow up and where you live.
Gasp! They like football?! Because we all know that Northerners don’t like football, right?
And what’s this about preachers talking about God smiting people from the earth? What? I’ve been going to Church my whole life and there’s not a lot of talk of smiting.
Well guess what, Mr. Lurie, those savage beasts from the South and those idiotic smite-fearing Christians aren’t going to reach their dirty paws into the pockets and shell out the money to see your idiotic remake of a movie.
This is how Hollywood sees the South and Christians. We’re animals with money.
Leave a Reply