Quote of the Day

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I think most of you loved Beasts of the Southern Wild - hell most everybody did. I know my opinion isn't the popular one. (Here's my old review to see what the hell I'm talking about.) Which is why this piece on the film at TNR by Thomas Hackett was like a cool balm for my cornered psyche - I'm not alone! Choice bit:

"Beasts does something more pernicious than simply celebrate poverty. In casting social workers and public health officials who presume to think that a six-year-old girl should be fed, clothed, and looked after by adults as villains, the film tells us that we needn’t worry, that the poor just want to be left to fend for themselves. This is the film’s ugly operating assumption: if you are already poor (being black doesn’t hurt either), you are uniquely suited to thrive in squalor. It doesn’t matter how young or neglected you are; it doesn’t matter that your dad slaps you around when he’s angry and abandons you when he’s not; that your mom, it seems, is off working in some kind of floating whore house; that you’re not given a proper education or a bed to sleep in; and that you share your meals with hogs and dogs. That’s just your natural habitat. If you can catch catfish with your bare hands—if you can “beast it” in the film’s parlance—you’re going to be all right."

Really I could just quote the piece from end to end though, so go read it. (Although he's a tad confrontational with regards to people who feel otherwise, I'll give you that.) I started out with mixed feelings on this topic when I first saw the film, you can see that in review, but they've only grown more strongly in this direction the further away from it that I've gotten. Wonderfully stirring music and a terrific little girl aside, this movie ain't right.

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