Thursday, February 05, 2004

Geez, I wonder if Ralph Fiennes isn't really a Nazi?

What on Earth is the big deal about Patrick Stewart not being all that enthusiastic about space exploration? When did we begin expecting actors to believe whatever we think their characters believed? Take Lileks, for example: driven to the usual dull-as-ditchwater crap in which "My God, an actor dares to believe something different than I! The Horror!" somehow becomes "How dare an actor open his mouth to do anything other than recite dialogue!"

But Lileks gets even worse: he's shocked to hear such things not just from an actor who had the unmitigated gall to play a science fiction hero, but an Englishman besides! Oh, no!

God, what an ass. "Boo-hoo, the guy who played my favorite SF character doesn't hold the same set of beliefs that I do." Get over it, already. Just keep writing boring crap about Target. And to think, on space travel I agree with Lileks and not with Stewart. Kind of reminds me of an exchange in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers:

GIDEON: Adam's right. I stand with Adam.

ADAM: Well, don't stand too close.

(By the way, Stewart's stance on this is not new. I heard him espouse this view in an interview at least ten years ago. And James, no, I do not think that Democratic Underground would feature that picture. Not much of a rhetorical flourish, though -- I don't recall seeing the picture you're obliquely referencing on too many sites like NewsMax or in Town Hall columns, so your "Let me make up a dumb hypothetical to accuse people of dishonesty before the fact" thought-experiment pretty much fails.)

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