eich@uiucdcs.UUCP (11/18/83)
#R:rlgvax:-140500:uiucdcs:29200042:000:2150 uiucdcs!eich Nov 17 20:00:00 1983 >/***** uiuccsb:net.politics / uiucuxc!odom / 11:09 am Nov 17, 1983 */ >Have you actually seen this movie? and what's >"liberal/left delirium"?? shouldn't you post >these reviews to net.movies? No he shouldn't have posted that review in net.movies (or net.tv), because it wasn't a critique of the movie on its dramatic merits. It was an attack on the politics of the people behind it. Of course the only people who have seen the film so far besides its makers are the freeze groups and test audiences for whom it was pre-screened. So what? However artistically worthy it is (and the early reports are not encouraging), the politics of the film and its timing are obvious to anyone honest enough to acknowledge that the subject of nuclear war and how to avoid it is even debatable. >one more flame: i thought being informed would mean >looking at both sides of an issue...in fairness, >and freedom, why don't you support an effort to produce >another film on the Glories of the Day After. This is precisely what he meant by "liberal/left delirium." You presumptuously grab the moral high ground by claiming you are opposed to the Horrors of the Day After, are against nuclear destruction, are for `Social Responsibility', and that therefore anyone who disagrees with you *politically* is for these things. This is an evasion. No one supports the coming of the Day After except a few Apocalytic Christians. You are dodging a *political* debate by attempting to reduce it to an incontrovertible moral proposition. It's plain dishonest to caricature people who disagree with you on strategy as satans. There's a lot of this obnoxious moralizing in the latest pacifism: films with titles like "If You Love This Planet" (Darth Vader not welcome), and the `Social Responsibility' whim-wham. And throughout it all, the amusing assertions that the issue is "not political." Are the rest of us socially irresponsible? Do we hate the planet? Or are we just complaisant, zombiatic, benighted? The megalomaniacal moral pretensions are wearing thin. Why not try honestly debating, rather than dishonestly baiting? Brendan Eich uiucdcs!eich
odom@uiucuxc.UUCP (11/18/83)
#R:rlgvax:-140500:uiucuxc:21200027:000:367
uiucuxc!odom Nov 17 11:09:00 1983
Have you actually seen this movie? and what's
"liberal/left delirium"?? shouldn't you post
these reviews to net.movies?
one more flame: i thought being informed would mean
looking at both sides of an issue...in fairness,
and freedom, why don't you support an effort to produce
another film on the Glories of the Day After.
susangrunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (11/20/83)
#R:rlgvax:-140500:uiuccsb:11000063:000:801 uiuccsb!grunwald Nov 17 18:37:00 1983 From my understanding, the producers do not impose a ``liberal'' view in the film. In the study guide associated with the film, they present questions that parents are supposed to go over with their kids. Most of the questions and proposed solutions lean towards fortification and planning for disaster, as opposed to seeking solutions to the basic problem: the existance of nuclear weapons. The only way that this film could be construed as being liberal is in that it does not pull the punches. It shows people what radiation sickness does to you. It's not like the watered down little clips that the Army fed its own soldiers and the general public during the '50s. I think it would be a big mistake to miss this movie. Dirk Grunwald University of Illinois ihnp4 ! uiucdcs ! grunwald
grunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (11/20/83)
#R:rlgvax:-140500:uiuccsb:11000064:000:1186 uiuccsb!grunwald Nov 18 02:08:00 1983 Seeing as how this film was started over two years ago, I don't see how the film was timed to conincide with the increase in the popularity of the freeze movement. And I still contend that your statement about the obvious liberal leanings in the film are misguided. In a review in this weeks In These Times, they point out that the film is very careful about avoiding that. The producers do not go into detail about who started the nuclear exchange (one might note that the DoD applied pressure to have it appear that the U.S.S.R. started it, as well as asking the producers to remove any mention of Perishing missles in Europe). The concept of civil defense has been, for the most part, rejected by the various groups you feel are behind this film. This film (according to the reviewers who have seen it) preaches civil defense. I still think that the only liberal thing about it is that it is going to make a lot of people aware of nuclear war will mean to them. Certainly there is a dispairty of facts here. Why not watch the film for yourself and find out if it is just so much liberal brouhaha? Dirk "We'll never need nightlights again" Grunwald ihnp4 ! uiucdcs ! grunwald
eich@uiuccsb.UUCP (11/20/83)
#R:rlgvax:-140500:uiuccsb:11000069:000:1415 uiuccsb!eich Nov 18 14:13:00 1983 I do intend to watch it if I've got the time. But the producers were not so scrupulous about not hinting at who started the final war as you indicated (DoD I don't expect subtlety from). There was the line spoken by a fictitious Russian General which mumbled something about Pershing II launcher movement on the East German border. This has now been excised, but its presence in a near-final cut shows not only bias but possibly a specific political aim (naming a weapon about to be deployed by NATO). Newsweek reports that Nick Meyer claimed to be aghast at finding this line in a work he takes pride in (he didn't have a completely free hand editorially, unsurprisingly). He noted that the executives who allowed this example of bias to get through seemed oblivious to its portentousness. Maybe, but it warms the cockles of the Freeze groups (for which, again, it was pre-screened, another dubious practice). That's a good point about civil defense -- in order to make a film titled "The Day After" one has to suppose there would be enough people alive and capable of histrionics. Somebody in net.tv was of the opinion that conservatives disliked the movie because "some people will come to believe, after viewing the movie, that there is not as great a need as we thought to freeze the nuclear build-up, while liberals may feel that this is to the advantage of the nuclear program." Can you beat that?
grunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (11/20/83)
#R:rlgvax:-140500:uiuccsb:11000072:000:1055 uiuccsb!grunwald Nov 18 15:26:00 1983 You're correct about the comment about the Perishing launcher movement -- I'm glad that they removed that from the film. However, that sort of a comment does not imply that the U.S. started the war. My immediate reaction would be that the Soviets over-reacted to an unannounced movement of missles or some such. This is one senerio which has been constantly suggested as a possible cause of strikes, mostly because of the close proximity of the Perishings to the U.S.S.R., giving them very little time to react to a situation. And about the movie being pre-viewed by the freeze people -- I was under the impression that the preview was open to reviewers, mainly from newspapers, but also from teachers institutions and so forth, to allow these groups to prepare for the day after "The Day After" in the schools. I had not heard that the freeze groups had special access to it. However, admitting that the DoD asked that certain sections be omitted would seem to preclude that they had seen the film aforehand too. Almost seems like a balanced approach.