(urth) The Death of Doctor Island Movie

[Jeff Wilson]

Daniel D Jones wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 October 2006 11:59, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> Daniel D Jones wrote:
>>> On Monday 16 October 2006 22:51, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>>> Daniel D Jones wrote:
>>>>> On Monday 16 October 2006 13:38, David DiGiacomo wrote:
>>>>>>>> Care to expound on why you find it offensive?
>>>>>>> I was thinking the same thing.  I mean there is some violence in
>>>>>>> there, but nothing more than you'd find in any of his other books.
>>>>>>> Heck, he had an executioner for a protaganist.  So what did you find
>>>>>>> offensive David?
>>>>>> Oh, blatant misogyny.
>>>>> Misogyny on the part of Wolfe or the part of characters in the story? 
>>>>> If the former, I'm not sure what you're referring to, particularly if
>>>>> you take into account that the story was published in 1973.  It would
>>>>> be a bit of an understatement to refer to Dr. Island's dismissal of
>>>>> Diane's murder as unimportant because it helped cure Ignacio as
>>>>> misogyny.  I can certainly see why those events would be offensive, but
>>>>> that's part of what makes the story so forceful.  But I don't think
>>>>> that describing offensive events makes a story itself offensive, unless
>>>>> you believe that the moral or theme of the story somehow supports or
>>>>> lauds those events.
>>>> It's just that Wolfe seems to be really fond of including misogynist
>>>> characters and situations in his stories.
>>> And Sam Clemons was really fond of including racist characters and
>>> situations in his.
>> And he was himself an admitted and practicing racist.
> 
> Which, true or not, doesn't at all change the fact that his stories are 
> powerful arguments against racism.

I agree, I was just playing along with the red herring theme. Twain 
wrote about his own society, in which esentially everyone was a racist, 
largely in a time when racism was enshrined as a divinely and legally 
ordained fact of life, so of course there were lots of racist characters 
and situations. Wolfe doesn't have this excuse, not that he really needs 
one.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >