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PLAYWRIGHT CONFESSES
Reaction to David Mamet’s conservative conversion:
The left-wing literati of London and New York were surely in a stew last night after one of their leading and most loyally liberal lights, David Mamet, confessed that advancing years have given him a greater appreciation for things conservative.
“I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind,” the playwright and screenwriter informs the readers of the venerable (and reliably left-leaning) Village Voice.
Scroll down for sometimes-comical reader responses.
(Via David L.)
Good grief, I couldn’t make it through more than 3 or 4 comments, the great collective is having a collective shit fit!
It only took 2 comments to get to Enron…....
Posted by Old Tanker on 2008 03 13 at 01:39 PM • permalinkAt least there’s room for some voices of reason:
Mr. Mamet’s position is merely sane. Most of us get to a position where we accommodate the real nature of ourselves and of other men. Mr. Mamet has announced his arrival at a place where most people actually dwell. Otherwise democratic politics would be made impossible by fanaticism.
If you are not a Socialist at 20, you have no heart; if you are not a Conservative at 40, you have no brain. Mr. Mamet is just a late bloomer…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 13 at 02:15 PM • permalinkMamet
“weighing in on the New York premiere of Waiting for Godot.
Twentieth century’s greatest play.”Sincerely, that century didn’t end a minute too soon.
Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 13 at 03:09 PM • permalinkMy favorite Mamet joke (and admit, we’ve all got a dozen of so that we treasure):
Panhandler asks a man on the street for five bucks. The man says:
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Shakespeare.”
To which the bum replies:
“Fuck you. Mamet.”
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2008 03 13 at 04:07 PM • permalinkI’d also recommend his 2004 film Spartan.
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2008 03 13 at 04:33 PM • permalink#3,
Mr. Mamet has announced his arrival at a place where most people actually dwell. Otherwise democratic politics would be made impossible by fanaticism.
Thanks for the quote, Spiny. It’s only too true.As for Mamet, it goes to show what happens when you finally grow up or, as a son repeatedly tells me, “get real”.
My favorite comment said that NPR stands for Nice Polite Republican.
So true. So true.
Posted by tim maguire on 2008 03 13 at 05:19 PM • permalinkWhy does it take really smart people 61 years to reach conclusions many of us reached in 16?
Any word on what Mrs. Mamet thought of his conversion and the sudden paucity up of dinner invitations?
Posted by charles austin on 2008 03 13 at 06:33 PM • permalink(New improved comment, without revision errors!)
Why does it take really smart people 61 years to reach conclusions many of us made in 16?
Any word on what Mrs. Mamet thought of his conversion and the sudden paucity of dinner invitations?
Posted by charles austin on 2008 03 13 at 06:34 PM • permalink8 - I took great pains to avoid Spartan, Treacher, because it was a Mamet film. I got tired of the annoying little touches he puts in his films principally - I read somewhere - to remind you that you are watching a MOVIE. Just in case the ticket and popcorn you’re holding weren’t enough of a clue… but with a thumbs up from you, I’ll go look for it at the video store.
PS: It’s old now, Jim, but that piece you did about Pope Benedict last year was a hit at work. One guy would crack up every time at that line about “Sit on my pointy-ass hat.”
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 03 13 at 06:40 PM • permalinkMamet is probably finding out that his circles are made up of new faces…ones with far less anger and, more smiles.
Another Leftie has seen the light! Can I get an “amen”!
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 03 13 at 06:55 PM • permalinkMaybe Mamet hasn’t changed as much as he thinks. The left isn’t what it used to be. When I was young there were two lefts - the hard and humourless communists and free-thinking, fun-loving soft lefties whose idea of a utopia was unlimited drugs and and lots of sex.
The two groups fused after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, the issues are those of the soft left - multiculturalism, environmentalism, feminism. The methods are those of the communists - suppression of dissent and control of information and education. No room for humour, no room for discussion, just blind acceptance.
#19 Contrail:I used to think of the two kinds of leftist as the meringues (hard and brittle on the outside, empty within) and the marshmallows (soft and squishy all the way through).
Posted by s.r.intulom on 2008 03 13 at 07:20 PM • permalinkI have read this piece, but not the comments.
In the first comment:
Does this mean that you’ve given up on democracy and thrown in with the authoritarians?
Huh? Didn’t you read the article? His very point was that the market place was as democratic as it gets and governments are authoritarian.
Shall I waste time reading a few more entries and have a larf? Yeah, why not.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 13 at 07:28 PM • permalinkThe readers’ responses are interesting.
If you go down, right down, to the first few responses, you will find many complementary and congratulatory comments. Even Pamela of Atlas Shrugs posts a well done and invite to her radio program.
But, if you start at the latest comments, working down from the very end of the article, where the latest commetns are, you will find the left casting out a heretic.
This is factual evidence demonstrating that the right is faster than the left.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 13 at 07:55 PM • permalink#5 Mr. Formely,
Sincerely, that century didn’t end a minute too soon.
In a few hundred years time, assuming the islamo-fascists don’t win, people will look back on the 20th century as the age of socialism; where socialist, dictatorial idealogues ruled the world. Rather like the Brits look back upon the time of the Roundheads of Oliver Cromwell. The Great Protector ran a dictatorship in England, and elsewhere, for 40 years.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 13 at 08:07 PM • permalink#12 Charles Austin,
Someone, and someone else can provide the real quote and authorship, said: “It takes an intellectual to be that stupid”.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 13 at 08:10 PM • permalinkWell, I waded as deep into the Village Voice comments as I could… and I’ve changed my beliefs.
We must legalize pot.
We must make it as cheap as a roll of Life-Savers.
Anything that numbs those freaks to the point where they can’t type or find the polling station is fine with me…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 03 13 at 08:28 PM • permalink#25 Wimpy Canadian:
“I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
George Orwell, “Notes on Nationalism”.
Posted by s.r.intulom on 2008 03 13 at 08:32 PM • permalinkHe cites as reasons for his epiphany his recent readings of such conservative thinkers as Paul Johnson and a sudden, even visceral, frustration with NPR, America’s cosily liberal public radio network.
Shoot, I’ve never listened to NPR. I get my news from a radio station that covers its expenses via commercials (i.e., honestly). Sure, it’s a tad annoying listening to them but it’s much, much less irritating than listening to those calmly superior snots on NPR.
“If you are not a Socialist at 20, you have no heart…”
Man, I was never that dumb. You would have to be blind not to see what the communists had done in Russia, eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba, even looking at the world through the rose-tinted glasses of a left-leaning media.
Socialism was never an option.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 13 at 09:19 PM • permalinkHe’ll have to do something to get back in the Voice readership’s good graces. Maybe he can stab his wife and set up the murder of a waiter. It worked for Mailer.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 03 13 at 09:26 PM • permalinkA lifetime of leftism ended simply because someone took the time to read a few conservative authors.
I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.
I agree with him about Sowell. It makes you realise why leftists are so keen to shout down conservative college speakers.
#29 Dave Surls
That was Winston Churchill, by the way. At age 20, I was a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party. I was a grown-up Reagan conservative by age 30, however.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 13 at 11:18 PM • permalinkDavid Mamet will soon be “cast out” as an apostate by the leftist intelligencia, but the question remains as to whether the conservatives will fully accept him. Most conservatives in the arts and entertainment business keep their politics to themselves, partly out of a desire to keep working in a leftist-dominated business, but mostly because they rarely, if ever, get much support from the wider conservative movement, which is heavily influenced by the religious “social” conservatives. Conservatives of all stripes, who have been denigrated by the arts world for generations, have given up on the whole business and tend look at anyone in the movie/stage/music world as “tainted”.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 13 at 11:33 PM • permalinkDavid Mamet’s latest TV Show is “The Unit” about a covert special operations military unit. It totally kicks arse and sees plenty of terrorists killed. For those who haven’t seen it, Foxtel has it at 9:30pm on Fox 8.
And it’s got Summer Glau in it (I’m such a geek).
There is an unintentionally hilarious post on the Guardian Arts blog:
“I am depressed to read that David Mamet has swung to the right. In an essay for the Village Voice, Mamet claims he is no longer a “brain-dead liberal” and increasingly espouses a free-market philosophy and social conservatism. As a citizen, Mamet is free to do as he likes. What worries me is the effect on his talent of locking himself into a rigid ideological position.
etc etc#41 True, I mean look at Harold Pinter’s antiwar poetry to see how left wing playwrights maintain a sense of subtlety and ambiguity that knuckle dragging conservatives like Mamet couldn’t hope to match:
Democracy
There’s no escape.
The big pricks are out.
They’ll fuck everything in sight.
Watch your back.I have dallied in the theatre and can tell you there more conservatives than you would expect but very few who are willing to talk openly about it. And they don’t for a very good commercial reason. They enjoy the craft and want to earn money doing it.
Far from being a favourite of the theatre types Mamet has always elicited some suspicion with his theories on character, drama and acting. Which are interpreted by some as anti-(The Actors Studio)method. See Practical Aesthetics.
Strangely I have always been a huge fan of Mamet and his theories of drama and character. You gotta like a bloke who writes a text book entitled “Three Uses of the Knife”. And now I know why.
Posted by Dean McAskil on 2008 03 14 at 12:39 AM • permalinkSpiny,
I was just out of the service in 1964. My wife and I were both canvassing for Goldwater. I had already as a soldier working in the Pentagon seen what the LLL were like and for sure wanted no parts of them. My college professors would have had heart attacks.
I still remember walking down the street and meeting a fraternity brother out there. He was canvassing for LBJ and tried to enlist me. When I told him I was for Goldwater, he looked at me in total disbelief. That was when I also started really questioning the education I had received. Haven’t stopped yet.
Jerry Bruckheimer Presents…
…a David Mamet film
HOW THE WEST WON
starring
Robert Duvall
Jon Voight
Kelsey Grammer
Dennis Hopper
Patricia Heaton
Fred Thompson
Angie Harmon
Adam Sandler
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Drew Carey
Melissa Gilbert
The Rock
Heather Locklear
Ron Silver
Bruce Willis
Shannen Doherty
Sylvester Stallone
Bo Derek
Chuck Norris
Emma Caulfield
Rip Torn
Dick Van Patten
Tony Sirico
Adam Baldwin
Stephen Baldwin
Jamie FarrDavid Mamet is now one of the Untouchables.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 14 at 04:46 AM • permalink#39, Monaro
And it’s got Summer Glau in it (I’m such a geek).
We don’t have cable unfortunately, but if a show’s got Summer Glau in it, expect it’s worth watching. She made a rather bland character really interesting in Firefly.
Am a bit fan of Josh Whedon. Monaro, what’s he up to these days? I’ve lost track.
Mamet co-wrote Ronin, an action-thriller that I enjoyed immensely. There were no implausible stunt scenes. The script didn’t need them.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 14 at 07:30 AM • permalinkA year or two ago I was on a radio panel on our version of NPR with another TV critic, a fellow who writes for one of the national broadsheets and regularly writes about the awfulness of the military in an shape or form. (He’s Irish ...)
He went on a tear about Mamet’s The Unit, and expressed his dismay about its “jingoism” etc. etc. Called upon to comment, I started my answer with “I actually don’t have any problem with jingoism…” I thought the wee fellow’s head was going to spin off. I hadn’t seen The Unit yet, so I made some comments about Mamet’s style, and how folks might find it a bit challenging in the TV format, but made a mental note to give it a look, since if this guy had such a hate-on for it, it might be worthwhile.
I imagine he’s giggling into his Guinness with glee now on “calling” that one.
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2008 03 14 at 11:55 AM • permalink#35 I use lefty comments to remove rust from garden tools and to dissolve old tree stumps.
Works better than a Coke on corroded battery terminals!
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 03 14 at 01:52 PM • permalink#3: I dated a socialist once, but I’m 20 now and I’ve been a hard right Republican for as long as I’ve known anything about politics. Blame Mom and Dad for letting me read National Review while I was in grade school.
As for Mr. Mamet—excellent, another covert operation completed. Break out the Sumerian mead!
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2008 03 14 at 03:50 PM • permalink#57 “I actually don’t have any problem with jingoism…”
I love that quote! It’s a conversation stopper if ever there was one.
As for The Unit, I saw it in the States, but was disappointed that it can’t be found in Australia.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 14 at 05:20 PM • permalink“Man, I was never that dumb. You would have to be blind not to see what the communists had done in Russia, eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba, even looking at the world through the rose-tinted glasses of a left-leaning media.
Socialism was never an option.”
Yeah, I figured that out when I was about eight years old. I guess I was a supergenius or something but all it took was one look around. The Berlin Wall was keeping people in, not out. People in leaky boats were fleeing from Cuba, not to Cuba. Free speech in the Soviet Union was a crime, not an inalienable right. It seemed pretty clear to me where my sympathies should lie.
$36 Spiny, Libertarian is a right thing, so don’t feel ashamed. As I explained to my socialist sister in teh UK, a libertarian (which they don’t have in the UK) is like a right-wing anarchist.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 14 at 06:42 PM • permalinkAnother conversation stopper here in Canada:
Americans are not evil.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 14 at 06:53 PM • permalink“I dated a socialist once…”
I can top that. I’m married to a self-avowed socialist and a registered member of the Green Party.
Anytime my wife starts holding forth on politics, I have to leave the room, for fear my brain will melt.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 14 at 07:24 PM • permalink#60- Channel Seven had it on late on Wednesday nights- it’s ok but the storylines are pretty daffy, and it always has to have a subplot involving the wives left behind and the various intrigues they get involved in- shagging the CO, signing up dumb grunts into the mercenary trade, having their investment club flimflammed by a bunko artist etc; like seriously, who gives a fuck? If you want that shit watch Desperate Housewives- I tend to watch stuff like this (and Ultimate Force, which it replaced and I believe ripped off- it also had an equally silly subplot involving the first female SAS trooper) to watch loons plunge headfirst out of a helicopter door and blow off some Sand Goblins cruet with an M80 grenade, not be bothered by the suburban antics of soccer moms.
I can’t really say much about the Unit as I’ve never seen a complete episode, but I’m guessing Seven will probably screen any further episodes, while seasons one and two are available on DVD in Australia.
Ann J, Joss Whedon has been writing comic books including Astonishing X-men, Fray and Firefly tie-ins. You can buy most of this stuff bundled together in single volume trade paperbacks.
According to the wikipedia he has a new TV series called Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku, coming out.
Christmas at the Baldwin household these days must be very, very interesting…
And that’s before Kim Basinger stops in to drop the kids off.
#60 Habib, you sound like a friend of mine who liked the movie Gladiator, but complained that there were too many boring bits in between the arena fight scenes!
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 14 at 10:37 PM • permalink14#: There is no statute of limitations on saying something nice about me!
Spartan requires you to pay very close attention. The script doesn’t tell you anything it doesn’t need to. And it works beautifully, I think. Plus Val Kilmer is a hoot.
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2008 03 15 at 12:27 AM • permalink37 “rich chocolate Ovaltine!”
I swear, the damn brand name must be “rich chocolaty Ovaltine” because I never hear the name without BOTH adjectives. I also swear that thirsty children always naturally yell the 3-word brand name in perfect unison, and it’s not weird or off-putting or irritating at all. I swear a lot, actually.
66 Joss Whedon wrote a ... what? ... four-issue run of Wonder Woman (allegedly a monthly comicbook) that took almost a year to come out. Dude has serious deadline issues. So waiting for the trade paperback is a good option, relative to the pure frustration of trying to stay current with the ...
What? What’s everybody looking at? Hey man! All the cool kids read Wonder Woman, and if you’re not reading it, you should be! Gail Simone’s writing it now, and whatever the opposite of “suck” is, that’s what this comic does!Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 15 at 12:32 AM • permalinkAch! I am so full of shit! It wasn’t Joss Whedon I was complaining about above ... that is, it WAS, but it SHOULD HAVE BEEN Alan Heinberg! With the deadline issues, and so forth. Joss Whedon is the fellow who WAS GOING TO direct the Wonder Woman movie but now will not be doing so.
Hmf!
Gail Simone wouldn’t have made this kind of mistake, is alls I can say!Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 15 at 12:40 AM • permalink69 - Honest injun, I had it in my hand at the video store today. But I went looking around the shelves and took home this instead.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 03 15 at 07:02 AM • permalinkTreacher? You reading this?
I saw Spartan. Thanks for the tip.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 03 16 at 01:34 AM • permalink
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