This angry mournful movie tells the story of teenage Maria Schneider, plucked out of obscurity to play opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris. It’s mostly about the trauma she endured during filming – which she tried to talk about then (no one wanted to hear it), and yet she continued to talk about it until the end of her life (she died in 2011). She never really could move past it. I think the film lays out the situation with welcome complexity and honesty. Matt Dillon plays Brando (the red turtleneck!) – and Anamaria Vartolomei is really really good as Schneider. The movie made me sad and mad. My feelings are complex. You’re not supposed to have complex feelings about Last Tango. I don’t let other people tell me how I’m supposed to feel. So I wrote about all this. I reviewed for Ebert.
In your review your say, “Those of us who love Bertolucci’s films, who love Marlon Brando, have to grapple with (not reconcile) two separate realities. “Last Tango in Paris” remains a riveting and important film, and the treatment of Maria Schneider was indefensible.” This statement captures something fundamental for me. There’s a current zeitgeist that we should throw out any art associated with troubling or indefensible acts/people. I’m not sure it serves us to do this. It implies we can scrub the world of anything that troubles us. Human experience- so far- indicates that we cannot. As Solzhenitsyn says: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart …..” It seems to me more honest and even hopeful to “wrestle with” -as you say- “the separate realities.” The wrestling is no simple thing, but it means trying to look at the full scope of our human experience. I also appreciate your use of wrestle vs. reconcile- Maybe humans be both appreciated for their greatness and reviled for their worstness- we don’t have to create a feeble compromise.
Kristen – thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I really appreciate it. I’ve had people really lash out at me before for holding the view I describe in the review – because it challenges their belief in the infallibility of their position.
“how do you reconcile good art made by a bad person?” someone asked me this. a fellow film critic.
My answer is … I don’t. I don’t reconcile it. and I don’t sweat this. I don’t agonize over it. It just makes the most sense to me. I also am firmly of the belief that every person gets to make up their mind about this. I would never tell someone else how to feel – or tell someone they SHOULD love such-and-such – if they don’t want to. I just wish the same grace was given from the “other” side – the people with prescriptive views: If you ever even mention the name Woody Allen, let alone say something good about Annie Hall, you are an apologist for … every ill under the sun.
This, to me, is fine – if you are a social worker or maybe a preacher in a pulpit. But I’m not those things. I care about art. I love soooo many artists who were horrible people, lol .
Wrestle vs. reconcile!! Yes! I was recently in Chicago and talking with my friend and his boyfriend about this in re: Michael Jackson. And we just wrestled with this. We talked about it. We struggled with it and shared our differing perspectives – our ambivalence. It was a great conversation! I do not tell people who say they will never listen to him again that they are wrong. I would never do that!
The Last Tango thing is complicated for a couple reasons. I had an exchange with a young film-maker – he was around 25 – so I had a good 20 years on him – we’re in the same circle – and Last Tango came back into the theatres for a short run. So the group of us were talking about it. I didn’t really know the young film-maker guy although his social media posts suggested the kind of condescending performative ally-ship which I find deeply suspicious. (No surprise he turned out to be a monstrously-behaved boyfriend of a friend of mine. It’s always the guys who proclaim themselves “feminist” in their social media profiles who turn out to be the WORST). Anyway I had gone to see Last Tango in the theatre – and I’ve seen it so many times but it was the first time I really registered what was going on with her film-maker boyfriend – He was her age, her peer, and he treated her like an object, a muse: she was barely real to him. He didn’t perceive her as human. She was just a projection, a fantasy – he would drop her the second she didn’t live up to his fantasy. And I realized – give me the middle-aged guy over the young film-maker any day, because at least the middle-aged guy realizes she’s a PERSON.
So I said this to the small group. And it was just casual, we were all talking about the movie, this was my contribution. And this young guy – who had no idea who he was tangling with – just could not handle the cognitive dissonance – he just ASSUMED that all women hated this movie – or, worse, SHOULD hate this movie. He didn’t realize that thinking women were all the same makes him toxically patriarchal. (It only occurred to me later that my sneering comments about the young film-maker in Last Tango might have hit too close to home). He lashed out – he forgot himself – and started lecturing me (for 5 seconds – before I stopped it) on feminism and misogyny. I joked later that I bested him in 3 exchanges. He’s “programmed” enough to know he needs to concede ground to women and not talk over them – he considers himself a feminist – but I guess that didn’t apply to me: I am not the right kind of woman so I don’t deserve the same respect, apparently. I am so used to being treated like this by a certain kind of so-called liberal man. I said something like, “You need to listen to me close because I am a woman and I am telling you something. I have vast sexual experience with men – and I am suggesting to you that maybe I am seeing something you aren’t.”
lol Normally I don’t talk about how I win arguments – it’s an obnoxious quality – but this was a good one, and actually kind of funny. I used his own “ally-ship” against him – and his own self-proclaimed sex-positivity, i.e. no slut-shaming – against him – and he literally was silent in response. The next day he unfriended me everywhere – lol !!! – and has stayed far away from me ever since. I hope maybe my comments made him think twice before telling a woman what is or is not misogynistic, and how she should respond to it.
I’ve been reading the collected works of John Keats and thinking about his concept of “negative capability” – the ability to stay in doubt and uncertainty, the ability to not feel the need to reconcile things.
I’m sure my views make some think of me as a philistine. Or a “dinosaur” (one woman called me that on Twitter once because I didn’t fall in lockstep with whatever feminist discourse was going on that day.) But these things don’t bother me really. I really just prefer the “negative capability” – it just seems more interesting and also just more true. Human beings are deeply flawed. Some more flawed than others. What they did to Maria Schneider was horrific and it breaks my heart – and it changes my feelings about what I’m seeing onscreen. She herself said “I felt a little raped”. Her exact words. Some have taken it to mean Marlon Brando actually raped her onscreen – and this is frustrating. Saying he DIDN’T do that doesn’t excuse the other stuff – but we don’t need to make shit up in order to see the situation as bad all around.
I think when people want to “reconcile” two things – as opposed to “wrestle” – what happens is they excuse and justify the bad stuff – and it’s gross. “Improvisation is sometimes messy” (true: but that means you have to put safeguards in place before any improv) “What matters is what’s onscreen” (well, sure, but … at what cost? What are you SAYING?)
To me, the only thing that makes sense is not either/or but both/and.
I feel like Maria Schneider herself was extremely clear about what happened to her and how she felt about it. She never stopped talking about it – and she basically sacrificed her career because of it. It is not a happy story but I admire her for knowing what they did was wrong, and being willing to say it publicly.
Thanks again for reading and such a (clearly) thought-provoking comment!!
Hi Sheila-
Thanks for what you said about Keat’s “negative capability.” I am reminded of “non-dual” thinking as explained by Richard Rohr: “The dualistic mind cannot process things like infinity, mystery, God, grace, suffering, sexuality, death, or love; this is exactly why most people stumble over these very issues. The dualistic mind pulls everything down into some kind of tit-for-tat system of false choices and too-simple contraries” I get why people want to “reconcile” or simple choose “either/or.” It’s SO hard being human. And it feels easier to sort people or art as good/evil. But I just can’t stay there. It doesn’t capture the fullness of our flawed selves. People do awful things and they do beautiful things and sometimes they do them almost simultaneously ( as in your description of Last Tango). Also- glad you mentioned not telling others what to watch or feel about it. I think that’s so personal. There are Woody Allen movies I probably won’t watch again (Manhattan) and those I probably will (Annie Hall) and I wouldn’t tell anybody else what they should do or feel in any case. I could keep going, but I’ll show a little restraint and end here with a thank you for your rich and thouhtful response!
Kristen – thanks, yes I feel the same way.
I get uncomfortable sometimes when a celeb does a bad thing and people excuse it because they are a fan of that person. And yet you know they’d call for the celeb’s head if they DIDN’T like them. I have a queasy memory of Whoopi Goldberg saying, in re: one of the rape accusations against Bill Clinton: “It wasn’t rape rape.” Would she have said that if she hadn’t voted for him? If you excuse things you would never excuse if someone on the “other side” did it, you need to take a moment and realize what you’re doing!
It’s perfectly valid to be like “i hate that they did this thing and yet I still love their acting.” also valid to be like “I hate that they did this thing and I no longer can watch them.” There are definitely people I feel that way about. It’s not one size fits all.
the work of Leni Riefenstahl comes to mind. You can see the beauty in her images – and also feel grateful she DID capture what she did, at least for the historical record – but if you don’t see what it was in service to – if you don’t see that that’s a PROBLEM, if you ONLY talk about aesthetics … I find that suspect.
This happens a lot in the conversation around blackface in Hollywood. Fred Astaire did blackface. Judy Garland did too. Now she was a child and so she was just doing what she was told. Fred Astaire was doing it as a tribute – I am sure he fully believed that – but it’s gross to just be like “well, that was a different time.” Yes, it was a different time: the racism was stifling and saying that doesn’t mean Fred Astaire wasn’t brilliant. You can still be a fan of Fred Astaire. Anyone who would try to cancel you for saying Fred Astaire is great is unserious. But it does need to be at least addressed and I’m more comfortable around people who want to talk about these things – and “wrestle” with them. I was on a panel with Soraya McDonald (she’s also in the NYFCC) and she was talking about how she’s so fascinated by blackface in film – she’s written a lot about it, she seeks out this troubling problematic stuff and really wants to LOOK at it. and she loves classic Hollywood. she made me think about it in a new way. People don’t exactly try to EXCUSE blackface – but “it was a different time” to me is a shortcut around really grappling with what this means and what it looked like to people not inside that charmed circle.
Monica Vitti appeared in blackface in L’Eclisse – in the 1960s !!- where everyone really should have known better. My friend Dan wrote the tribute for her when she passed and he handled it well I thought. “it’s a blot on an otherwise illustrious career”. He didn’t try to excuse it. in the 60s it was inexcusable! We might want to wish it away – but we can’t.
“It was a different time” has its uses and I don’t think it’s always invalid. But to me when people say that they want to STOP the conversation as opposed to keeping it going.
// There are Woody Allen movies I probably won’t watch again (Manhattan) and those I probably will (Annie Hall) and I wouldn’t tell anybody else what they should do or feel in any case. //
Yes, I feel the same way. I joked that they will take Woody Allen’s Another Woman out of my cold dead hands. But I just don’t feel comfortable telling other people what to do – this is a really personal issue. people have different triggers and everyone has to manage their own. and nobody has the right to say to someone else “your triggers are incorrect.” On the flipsode, nobody has the right to say to me, “You should have the same triggers as I do, and if you don’t you are Objectively a Bad Person.”
What an interesting conversation going on here – and I’m noticing things I’ve JUST written about, although I didn’t go as in-depth, and it had been brewing for a while. Not entirely surprising since we’ve had similar convos here and elsewhere but I enjoy the synchronicity.
I enjoyed your review and appreciate that you don’t shy away from complex perspectives. I will try to see Being Maria (although since I’ve stopped seeing movies in theatres I’m constantly behind and then I forget about movies I wanted to see)
// To me, the only thing that makes sense is not either/or but both/and.//
I feel like I keep having to repeat that about… EVERYTHING, in particular in the last two years, as horrible things ramp up and people in panic mode go to simplistic positions on so many subjects.
hey – sorry – I miss comments, I do try to get to them all!
// as horrible things ramp up and people in panic mode go to simplistic positions on so many subjects //
It feels like it’s inevitable – like this is how things naturally go when situations get dire. We can’t seem to help it. It’s a way to survive – and in a lot of cases we have to fight against this natural tendency. The groupthink is sstrong, so is the pressure.
On the flipside – or, part of the same side – you have to be able to make a stand against evil. Or at least recognize that something IS evil and even if evil is inevitable in this world that doesn’t mean we should just accept it. there are plenty of things I feel either/or about. Political things. Purposeful cruelty. Anti-human policies. Deliberate exclusion. etc. I won’t both’/and those things.
But art things? Humans on a human level not a global level? It’s all both / and. I was talking to a younger person and somehow Anthony Ramos came up – I think I had mentioned Twisters – and she said she “used to like him” but then learned he cheated on his girlfriend and she can’t watch him anymore. I was like “wowwww that’s a low bar.” I don’t even care if someone’s a bad husband. I’m glad I’m not married to them but what the fuck does that have to do with art? There’s a difference between being a shitty husband and being a monstrous predator and I feel like those do need to be distinguished – at least in public spaces where these things are discussed.
//But art things? Humans on a human level not a global level? It’s all both / and //
I apply that attitude even to athletes when they’re on the field/court/diamond. A guy who thinks the world is flat and that Jews run it can still play a beautiful game. A woman who thinks gay marriage is an abomination can be a joy to watch on the court.
And athletes are all young, and often sequestered from life in a lot of ways. There’s plenty of time for them to gain wisdom and grant grace to other folks.
It would be so helpful if athletic genius also came with critical thinking skills because then we wouldn’t have to DEAL with this disconnect, lol
// A woman who thinks gay marriage is an abomination can be a joy to watch on the court.//
I get it, and I’m wondering if, beyond social dynamics, there isn’t also some individual wiring at play, too. I get it but I have a hard time doing that, but in the same way that people can fuck someone they don’t like, and for me, it’s an IMMEDIATE turn off. Or on — goes both ways.
There was a prof (my age) who had every traits to make me dislike him (not his fault, poor guy, but French, with a… a French attitude), until one day I politely corrected him – in front of the class, nonetheless – about something factual related to feminism, and his INSTINCTUAL reaction was not defensive at all, but genuine curiosity, and listen, all of a sudden, I found him HOT. I have no control over this! I was very conflicted!
So, it’s always interesting to be reminded of how incredibly differently our internal reactions can be – because we don’t see that, we only see how they manifest.
yeah and also for me there is a disconnect – I separate it. I distinguish between public figures and people in my real life. There are plenty of idiots in professional sports, and I watch them if I’m into that sport. Like you can’t watch football at all if you want to avoid Christian bigots with neanderthal and homophobic views. I completely understand why people can’t watch it and I support them fully in doing whatever they want to do. But in my real life, with people I know, I DON’T extend grace, not even if you’re young. If you’re young and you say ignorant shit and I know you, then i will stop you right there and counter-act it. If you say racist shit and you’re 10 years old, if you spout an Andrew Tate type statistic and you’re 14, you’re going to hear from me and at LEAST experience what it’s like to have that thought stopped and counter-acted. I don’t have people in my life who think the earth is flat, who are homophobic (it’s a non-starter), who are on board with 45’s “program”, who demonize others, the whole nine yards. I’m lucky. All of this “can’t we agree to disagree” bullshit is like – “sure, if we’re talking about whether or not Taylor Swift is good, not whether or not women deserve equal rights. I DON’T agree to disagree if you think gay people are doomed to hellfire.” I screen for this shit on dating apps. I don’t have a laundry list but I have a couple non-negotiables. I have lived my entire gen x life surrounded by gay people. I’m not going to tolerate being around someone who is in any way not okay with that. These same people (why are they all the same) say “isn’t it funny that the so-called party of tolerance is so intolerant?” They all say this. They think it sounds smart.
It’s not ‘funny’. What is ALSO not funny is you justifying views that deny the rights of other humans.
I am not black and white in a lot of this. And I have also changed my mind on occasion. Which I reserve the right to do even though the more rigid probably think me a philistine.
Where I part company with many of the people around me, is a lot of this stuff is protected free speech and I’m stricter about that than people around me. It’s annoying but that’s part of living in a pluralistic society, which I prefer to a monoculture with “appropriate ideology” (quote 45). I’m too scared of the boomerang and think everyone should be scared of the boomerang – we’re living the boomerang right now.
I’m reading The Master and His Emissary, a book about the different processes – and different ways of viewing the world – that go on in the two hemispheres of our brains. There are many subtle differences, but one that seems true at a large level is one side looks to categorize and the other side looks individuate, to see a unique whole. Seems like the guy went from “stereotype” to “person” for you. Went from getting filed in the left hemisphere to tickling the right hemisphere.
As I’ve been reading the book, I’ve wondered how often a shift of viewpoint has involved that sort of waking one side up when it wasn’t strongly engaged before.
Maybe the young woman I mentioned will have her viewpoint changed by seeing some married gay people as individuals rather than as occupants of a category. I think that’s what you were hinting at.
The above comment was for Lyrie’s response.
I hadn’t seen yours, Sheila, before posting.
Mutecypher, that’s interesting! I don’t think that’s what I was hinting at exactly, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t something like going from stereotype to individual going on too.
It was more pleasant, and funny to talk about the turn on than the turn off, but it works the same – I can find someone interesting and attractive, and one behaviour be a complete turnoff. And it’s not a moral stance — or even if there is one, that’s not the reason. I can find many people attractive, but I cannot be actually attracted to them if there isn’t some sort of connection/interest on an emotional-intellectual level. Again, that’s not a stance, I have no control over this and it took me a long time to understand that about myself, because I couldn’t relate to how many people go about their sex lives, and I didn’t get why.
And it’s not about stereotype vs. person, because once you’ve known someone as their individual self, they don’t all of a sudden revert to a cliché. I still know and acknowledge their full selves. And also, there’s that thing, and yuck. And sometimes, it’s annoying. Especially because not everything is that important!
Now, in the case of art/artist, and ideology, etc, we’re not talking about attraction, but I’ve noticed that it works very much the same way for me. I’m driven by emotions. It doesn’t mean I don’t THINK (well, I try to, anyway), but in my reactions to people, there is this part that I don’t control. Did I consciously decide to never see a Mel Gibson movie ever again? No. But I have not (re-)watched him in anything in decades, even though when I was young I loved him. Maybe he’s very good in some of them! I might never find out.
I’m not saying “don’t watch a great athlete who is a bigot”, I”m saying, whether I want to or not, I know it might colour how I react to her, for better or for worse. It doesn’t mean I’m unable to get past it, but… why would I if I don’t have to, you know?
And also, I get why you could not give a flying fuck and completely separate her performance from who she is. We are not the same people, and how we relate to others is not just group dynamics, but also who we are.
// I separate it. I distinguish between public figures and people in my real life. //
Yes, I see what you mean. AND also, I’m actually more forgiving with real people.
Not that I let people say nasty shit (I’m with you on that, very much bringing a Leslie Jones Saves Thanksgiving type of energy, that makes me extra popular at work), but I didn’t grow up surrounded by progressive people, and I while I don’t debate some shit and there are people I won’t be in relation with, in cases where people might change their minds, I leave the door open — to a certain extent, for a while.
I’ve said racist/sexist/classist/ableist shit I’m ashamed of. I’ve learned and changed! And I want to extend that grace to other people, I want to leave room for that. Not for everyone, and not to the same degree about everything. But I also don’t want to live in a world where we close everything off in a definitive way all the time. We can’t build anything that way.
Again, it’s a tough balance, and I don’t have THE perfect answer. And I’m also not telling other people how to do it. Man, times are extra hard, we’re all doing our best.
My siblings and I have discussed all of this a lot in re: Kanye.
I think one of the things that annoys me is those who for whatever reason don’t like the artist in question – and for them the question is simple: I never listened to him or liked him anyway!
I mean, good for you?
But for millions of people this stuff has to be grappled with. and maybe NOT reconciled – like I said in the review. maybe it’s just one of those “good people do bad things” shit.
and to reiterate: I would never dream of telling people they need to “get over” their sensitivity – or listen to something they hate – or whatever. But, on the flip side, I won’t be bullied out of the grappling part. I just don’t allow it.
This is really really strict in my neck of the woods – cultural criticism. and you just have to be really really strong to withstand the criticism from other critics. Nuance is not only not prized but seen as actively suspect. If you go against the grain of whatever is “in” or “out”, you are seen as suspect, or it’s like “If you like _____ then you are [some horrible thing you don’t want to be called].”
There are boundaries you’re not supposed to cross. And … I don’t let people tell me what I should or should not accept or love.
It’s complicated! I’m okay with it being complicated, I guess!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone. Creating space to even just TALK about this stuff is radical. I hope there will be more of it – not here, but in the wider world.
// But I also don’t want to live in a world where we close everything off in a definitive way all the time. We can’t build anything that way. //
I totally see what you’re saying! That’s a good point.
also if we want to create any kind of opposition – we have to welcome people we might disagree with on this or that smaller thing but agree on the big things. That is possible.
One of my favorite examples of this is the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners movement. This also speaks to what mutecypher is talking about. Miners weren’t known for their enlightened views on homoesexuality particularly in the rabidly homophobic England of the 70s/80s. But the gay community came out HARD in support of them during their strike because they felt solidarity with them: the cops harass US, and they harass YOU – we are here for you against our shared enemy. And miners were like “who are these people??” lol Never any exposure to this community – and probably pre-judged them just because they were ignorant or just didn’t know any better. Busloads of gay people showing up to support the miners’ strike was economic at its base but it was also a hearts/minds campaign. The quotes from the miners about their side of things are incredible. It’s like – this movement created allies for life from the most unlikely community. when gay people marching for their rights later – the miners came out in support of them. To me, that whole historical event is a real role model for a potential way forward.
or the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia – which started as a student protest and grew and grew until finally the workers left their spots on the assembly lines and joined the protest. there’s no way it would have worked if it had been just the students. You just don’t have the numbers.
And so you feel solidarity with people who might hold views you don’t agree with – but you come together to fight the real enemy – you have a shared enemy. Solidarity is powerful. same with any big movement. we’re seeing it in Iran right now. Men coming out strong supporting women. And literally being executed for it.
// It’s complicated! I’m okay with it being complicated, I guess! //
Yes, I think that’s also a very important space to create – it doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all, but that we can grapple with those things alongside each other, sometimes in agreeance and sometimes not, but learning from one another in that, too.
As you pointed out in another comment: so important!
Also lol // real people//
You knew what I meant, though, right? I’m not saying artists or athletes are not real people, but our relation with them is not with them as people – as symbols, or as mirrors, or with their work, etc
“real people” lol yes I knew what you meant.
// there are plenty of things I feel either/or about. Political things. Purposeful cruelty. Anti-human policies. Deliberate exclusion. etc. I won’t both’/and those things. //
Yeah, even that is both/and: I’m not an either/or kind of person, EXCEPT on things that are non negotiable. I don’t debate the right of other people to exist, for instance. That’s not happening.
// But art things? Humans on a human level not a global level? It’s all both / and.//
I hear you. It’s not always so clear cut for me, because humans on an individual level uphold those global values and policies — so it very much depends. And in some cases it seems myopic to me not to take into account the belief of the person making the art – I have a hard time being lectured on evil (sometimes literally, like when I”m referring to the TV show Evil) while I know the creator defends what I believe to be the most vile ideology. I’m not telling other people to watch.
I get why people call to boycott JK Rowling’s work – the money and power that goes to her via her art, she uses to try and influence politics, and in effect, anti-trans rhetoric IS debating people’s right to exist.
But like I’ve written elsewhere, I don’t know what THE solution is. I don’t think there is ONE. I get that it’s impossible to always be faithful to your beliefs, but consistently separating the art from the artist (or… the sport from the sportist, like Mutecypher, I know NOTHING about sports, ok? haha) without giving it any thought at all seems to me like an easy way out of that moral quandary.
The line is somewhere different for everyone. I don’t care that someone is a shitty husband. I have a hard time enjoying the work of a known wife beater. But that’s me, and I’m not saying others should too. And sometimes I still try to enjoy the work – because the rest of the cast, or for whatever other reason.
// she said she “used to like him” but then learned he cheated on his girlfriend and she can’t watch him anymore. I was like “wowwww that’s a low bar.”//
What strikes me, though, in how maybe, just MAYBE the pendulum has swung all the way back, is how seemingly well meaning people act equally intolerant — so what, there is no room for people to grow? No forgiveness about ANYTHING? We can all just be perfect or unredeemable? That’s just plain silly. Come on.
I hope it’s clear to everyone who engaged in this convo that I’m not dismissing anyone’s opinions or trying to convince anyone. On some aspects, I’m yes,and-ing, on others I disagree, but again, unless you debate the right of people to exist or some similar shit, we’re good. As always, Sheila, I truly appreciate that you offer a space where nuanced conversations can take place. So rare.
// so what, there is no room for people to grow? No forgiveness about ANYTHING? //
yes, this is scary. And this is one of the reasons why political organizing has become so impossible on the left. Entire grassroots organizations are exploded because of interpersonal shit. Maybe someone said something mean – OR they just didn’t KNOW the latest lingo – not everyone is online 24/7. There’s ageist and classist issues here. It becomes a very unwelcoming space – not “open to all”.
But that’s neither here nor there.
If you’re a fan of any writer in the 30s – literally any of them – you have to have a high tolerance for crazy points of view. People switched sides – or didn’t – or propped up something monstrous that they THOUGHT was the “way out” – everyone lost their bearings. so you have people idolizing the USSR to the point that they called the famine in the Ukraine fake news. or, worse, EXCUSING terror because you believe in the ideology of the guy at the top. so there was so much of that. and then everybody was swept up by the post-war Red Scare – which ruined lives – another boomerang.
we can’t seem to stop doing this.
// OR they just didn’t KNOW the latest lingo //
Yeah. I’d rather talk to someone who unknowingly calls me a slur and takes me as I am than someone who knows all the right things to say and still treats me like shit in the most oblique, passive aggressive way – and the closer to the middle class I got, the worse it got.
And I will still work with that asshole when needed to get something important off the ground if needed, as long as they’re not actively harming me. I’m a big girl, I can take it – although, that hasn’t always been true (and sometimes for very valid reasons). Growth!
OK, I had never heard about the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners movement and I need to read more about it, and find that movie. And yes, exactly.
“The lesbians and gays have been super duper.” — miner.
wahhhhhhhh