Mark Morford-Dennis Madalone

[raysr]

-snip- Just for a moment. I want to live the naivete, swim in tepid pools of happy blissful ignorance, regrow my hair past my shoulders and love my country so blindly and unquestioningly that everyone and everything becomes sweet and sticky and warm, like giant mealworms of love. This is, I imagine, how a mental patient must feel. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2005/04/29/notes042905.DTL&nl=fix

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Discussion in Editorials

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My comment reposted from that thread:

Remember Up with People? That was the early seventies version of America, We Stand as One. It was a rock show (very soft rock; I believe Pat Boone was one of the producers) in support of clean cut, patriotic values.

Madalone's video is just bad. It's preaching disguised as art. That sort of thing doesn't work from any political perspective, even one that I find more agreeable. However, this is a long ways from being Triumph of the Will. Leni Riefenstahl's documentary of the 1934 Nazi rally at Nuremberg was at least powerful enough to leave a modern audience wondering why they are so impressed with a love song to people who turned out to be mass murderers. There is no such power in Madalone's magnum opus. Anyone who watches it with an open mind comes away asking, "What on earth was that?"

Madalone is entitled to his opinion; as long as he respects my right to voice mine, I have no problem with respecting his right to voice his. He's also entitled to sink his time and effort into producing bad art. It will probably make him a lot of money which, unfortunately, will find its way into Republican campaign coffers.