Notes on Review of TAXI DRIVER(by Paul Schrader & Martin Scorsese) by Trevor Lynch

https://counter-currents.com/2021/01/taxi-driver/

-- But even with (Dylan) Roof’s case, I felt that I had seen this all before. Then I remembered where: Taxi Driver. --

Is there much in the way of parallel between Travis Bickle(Robert DeNiro) and Dylan Roof? Bickle, as troubled as he is, devised a clear plan that followed a certain logic. He went after figures of authority, the politician and the pimp. If Dylan Roof had gone after black thugs or politicians, he would have been like Bickle. But he went to a black church where nice folks welcomed him. I'm no fan of Negroes, but what he did was beyond the pale. Roof's act is more in line with the Columbine murders. He left a 'manifesto' of sorts, but it had no bearing on his actions whatsoever. If he had problems with blacks, presumably as bullies or criminals, why take it out on a black church full of nice folks? Even the Columbine Massacre, crazy as it was, had more rhyme and reason. Even though the two homo psychos mowed down kids of every clique, they felled some 'bullies' as well. Perhaps, they killed the 'bullies' out of revenge and killed others for having been all-too-compliant with the school hierarchy. Bickle acts with a degree of clarity and purpose(despite all the craziness), whereas Roof struck out as if in a haze. It's sort of like how Sirhan Sirhan insisted he remembers NOTHING of the day of Robert Kennedy's murder. We sense resolve in Bickle's preparation and action(as with Anders Breivik), whereas Roof seemed to have sleep-walked through his mayhem.

-- Travis Bickle, an alienated loner in an urban hellscape who decides to die in a hail of bullets --

Suicide by assassination? Perhaps not. The film was made cognizant of the spate of famous killings going back to the 60s. JFK, RFK, and MLK. George Wallace survived but was paralyzed from waist down. Assassination plots were hatched against Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. (Sean Penn starred in THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON during the Bush II years.) Even celebrities were not spared. Andy Warhol nearly died from gunshot wound. David Chapman was obsessed with John Lennon throughout the 70s before killing him in 1980. Some of these assassinations were the acts of lone lunatics. Others were seemingly political or ideologically motivated. Others were by lone nuts using ideology as crutch for their madness. If John Wilkes Booth was obviously motivated by politics in killing Lincoln, Lee Harvey Oswald(if he was the real culprit) was drawn to radical politics as a kind of psycho-drama. He hated being a nobody.

So, the conception of Travis Bickle has to be seen, at least in part, as a response to the times. Indeed, it's been argued that the Sixties as a cultural phenomenon began with the death of John F. Kennedy and the coming of the Beatles. Loss of innocence, rise of radicalism, and youth hedonism, all of which are reflected in TAXI DRIVER but in stale and deflated form. Bickle's mission is like a parody of the Kennedy assassination, and Iris(Jodie Foster) is the pathetic product of Counterculture and "Women's Lib". Sexual Revolution led to new forms of tyranny. Sport(Harvey Keitel) is made up like a debased version of the hippie(though he also resembles an Indian, perhaps an homage to John Ford's THE SEARCHERS, an influence). What seemed so new and fresh in the 60s had already grown tired and sickly by the 70s. No wonder the celebration went from natural outdoors(Woodstock) to the artificial dance floor(SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER).

The 1960s, for good or ill, were truly a momentous decade. It was like the Second Revolution or Second Civil War though the conflict was generational, racial, cultural, and sexual than military. In contrast, the first American Civil War was essentially a war among whites, pro-Union and pro-Secession. The 1960s affected everyone, everything, and every group in some profound and seminal way. Just about everything that followed has been an attempt at repetition or rejection. Antifa imitates the Weather Underground and SDS. Blacks invoke Civil Rights Movement over and over. MLK has been made god. And, what means of conservatism traces current social ills and moral malaise to the 60s. All roads, pro and con, lead back to the 60s.

For a time, the 80s were billed as an effective and successful counter-revolution against the 60s, but the so-called Reagan Decade was really an extension of boomer excess, this time with materialistic yuppies than delusional hippies. 60s anti-materialism and 80s materialism were really two sides of the same coin: Boomer egotism and narcissism run amok. Young boomers could play at anti-materialism because they grew up with prosperity that they took for granted; and when they graduated and entered the work place, they were far more acquisitive than their parents whom they'd once condemned.
At any rate, the fact that the 80s decade defined itself against the 60s showed it didn't have compelling themes of its own. It's almost as if people have been unable to dream new dreams since the 60s. One either revives the 60s as exemplary or reviles the 60s as execrable. So, Obama was hailed as the new JFK, or current 'wokeness' is blamed as outgrowth of 60s student radicalism. Yet, even conservatives often wax romantic about the 60s as a time of free speech and, if anything, denounce current 'liberals' of having betrayed the 60s spirit of freedom. Even conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter prefer pop culture from 60s onward. Either way, all things are measured in relation to that transformative decade.

The 70s were an interesting period as both continuation and rupture with the forces unleashed in the 60s. Gone was the naivete and idealism, and yet, the nation had yet to coalesce around a new consensus that would come with the short-lived Reagan's Morning in America and the rise of MTV that made Grace Slick truly slick with 'We Built This City'. In the 60s, the young cheered on Benjamin Braddock as the white(or swarthy)knight in THE GRADUATE, but Mike Nichols keynote film of the 70s was CARNAL KNOWLEDGE that documented the betrayals of the 'sexual revolution'. Also, more candid depictions of sex and violence went from liberation(BONNIE & CLYDE that gave Pauline Kael orgasms) to grim reckoning with brutality. Closer cinema got to sex & violence, uglier things seemed, as in STRAW DOGS and THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS. It turned into disgust and loathing(before the industry and audience accepted them as guilt-free meaningless thrills). One of the more controversial films from the period was JOE, starring Peter Boyle who appears in TAXI DRIVER. It too is about a man trying to save a girl(his daughter) from degenerates, a scenario revisited by Paul Schrader with his own directorial effort, HARDCORE. It's as if men and women, liberated from traditional roles, went from short-lived liberation to the state of pimps and whores, real or metaphorical.

Anyway, given that Travis Bickle was partly inspired by radicals or misfits of the 60s and 70s, is it fair to say he was seeking death? After all, most assassins of the period weren't looking to be gunned down. Lee Harvey Oswald ran for his life and pled innocence. Sirhan Sirhan was wrestled to the ground. The shooter of George Wallace wasn't killed either. David Chapman just surrendered after killing Lennon. Hinckley was jumped by secret agents and policemen. James Earl Ray ran from the scene. So, it's possible Bickle wasn't seeking death. He might have expected arrest and trial. On the other hand, his character seems partly to have been inspired by Yukio Mishima(a Schrader obsession) who did seek ritual death.
As for the bloodbath in the brothel, Bickle did everything to avoid getting hurt. He was sure Sport was incapacitated, but the pimp came back and shot him in the neck. In the end, he tries to shoot himself because he's badly injured(shot in two places) and has no chance of escape. At any rate, he doesn't seem upset that he's alive in the final scene.

-- Any movie involving vigilantism is inherently anti-liberal, which makes it objectively Right-wing, regardless of the vigilante’s or the director’s intentions. Liberalism is the idea that we can be governed by laws, not men. --

Vigilantism may be anti-liberal, but it isn't necessarily right-wing, though it depends on how we define the term. After all, Antifa and BLM violence are premised on the notion that Law-and-Order as it exists is unjust and perpetuates tyranny. Therefore, radicals and blacks must take the law into their own hands and fight the evil police state that perpetuates 'racism' and 'white supremacism'. And Jews and globalists are happy to aid and abet such mindset and mayhem. At Charlottesville, the authorities let the radical rabble run riot and attack Alt Right types. Global Media controlled by Jews almost never condemned attacks on Trump supporters. When Richard Spencer was clocked, most 'liberals' cheered and called for 'punching nazis'. California courts were ultra-lenient on radical thugs, such as the professor who used a bike lock to bloody someone's head. In 2020, the Power, even the US military, bestowed blessing on BLM thugs and Antifa nuts. Governments in Portland and Seattle hardly did anything to rein in the 'mostly peaceful protesters'.

Now, one could argue that such violence isn't vigilante in the classic sense. Still, blacks and radicals believe they must take the law into their own hands because of the 'inherent violence' of the system rigged to favor certain groups. (To be sure, the current 'left' is less about the powerless against the powerful than the sacred select against the tainted others. Jews, blacks, and homos are sacred, and so, it doesn't matter how much power, privilege, and wealth they have, whereas whites and patriots, even the poorest among them, must be attacked and humiliated because they are eternally soul-tainted by History.)

Radicals clearly have a more abstract and theoretic sense of injustice; therefore, their violence is of a different kind than that of conservatives. While radicals and anarchists aren't claiming to act violent for violence's sake(which would be nihilism), their sense of wrongness derives from a macro-vision of the world. In contrast, right-wing vigilantism is grounded more in personal safety. Rightists take up arms because of direct threats to their well-being. (In RED DAWN, the townsfolk pick up arms because they were invaded by the Soviets.) So, when BLM marchers were met with a white middle class couple holding assault rifles in St. Louis, both parties were going against social norms but on different grounds. The marching blacks were not in danger of being gunned down by the police, but blacks and their white radical allies have a abstract vision of historical injustice with endless invocations about slavery and Jim Crow and etc. In contrast, the white couple picked up guns to protect their lives and property; they felt under direct threat. The Left responds to History, whereas 'right-wing' vigilantes react to circumstances.

From the encounter, we can deduce why the 'left' has an advantage over the 'right'. The 'right' is reactive and limited in scope; its members aren't willing to act unless they are threatened there and then; indeed, many such folks don't even deem themselves to be rightist in ideology. In contrast, the 'left' is motivated by a larger vision(even if delusional and nuts) that goes beyond the well-being of me-and-family. The 'right' is usually dormant when undisturbed whereas the 'left' is agitated even when its members face no dangers. All those college professors are affluent and privileged, but they still wage the 'culture war' and infect students with radicalism. Discontentment is always part and parcel of Leftism. Indeed, the average leftist feels ill-at-ease and guilty about feeling content. With all the problems in the world, why should anyone be happy? So, leftism tends to attract more malcontents who, even when faced with no danger, feel much rage and hatred in their hearts.

How would Travis Bickle fit into all this? On some level, he seems a conservative type disgruntled by all the filth and corruption. And yet, he is different from the stereotypical vigilante because he does have a larger sense of what's 'wrong' and goes after those posing no direct harm to him. Palantine is just another politician, one Bickle could just ignore. And Sport the pimp had no personal beef with Bickle. Sport is content to do his thing on his piece of turf. It is Bickle who intrudes into others' spaces. Furthermore, his sense of the Wrong is less personal than 'spiritual'. Though living in a dangerous city, he isn't particularly victimized by crime. If anything, he says he's willing to pick up anyone, even 'spooks', in his cab and take anyone to any part of the city. He seems to make okay-money driving the cab. So, what's his problem?
He's more like Oswald the radical than Paul Kersey of DEATH WISH. Kersey hardly thought of bigger issues before his family was attacked. And he reacts to criminals who threaten his life. It's entirely personal. Bernie Goetz, who became famous or infamous in the 80s, was a classic vigilante. He wanted no trouble as long as others left him alone. If those black thugs hadn't accosted him in the subway, there would have been no shooting and no publicity. In contrast, Bickle, like Oswald, goes looking for 'trouble'. They both feel there's something wrong with the world that must be made right. In that sense, Bickle doesn't fit the stereotypical profile of the right-wing vigilante. He has right-wing sentiments but also radical obsession.

When blacks riot and loot, is it an act of vigilantism? After all, they justify their actions as righteous rebellion against a 'racist' society that won't give them a fair shake in the system. There was a TV show a year back with Al Pacino as a vengeful Jew. The scenario called on Jews, blacks, and cuck-whites to hunt down 'nazi' whites. Is that vigilantism? If so, Jews seem to be okay with vigilante justice as long as 'nazis' are hunted down and hanged.
What about post-WWII violence in Europe? In Italy and France, communists and anarchists were let loose to lynch anyone accused of fascism or collaboration. The authorities either looked the other way or encouraged it. This complicates the meaning of vigilantism and rough justice.

Bernie Goetz

Of course, 'progressives' and 'leftists' almost never characterize their extra-legal activities as 'vigilante', a term that connotes bigotry or brute instinct, i.e. a vigilante has no sense of right-and-wrong or vision of society other than 'my security' or 'my tribe'. So, anyone from Bernie Goetz to KKK member could be labeled as 'vigilante' because they were motivated not by ideals but personal safety or tribal/racial security.
In contrast, extra-legal violence on the Left is idealized as serving History or some greater cause. Whereas the vigilante acts to defend life and limb(and has no higher sense of good beyond himself, his family, and perhaps his tribe), the revolutionary is deemed as self-sacrificing; he takes up violence to make for a better world and is willing to give his life for it. Like Che Guevara, he's willing to offer himself up for the Cause, live or die. To the extent that Travis Bickle is a self-sacrificing character with shades of Jesus-complex, he doesn't fit the bill as the classic vigilante.

-- Vigilantism takes place when the legal system breaks down and citizens feel the need to take action themselves. --

It comes in two flavors. There is post-order vigilantism where people take up arms in a world where order has broken down. But there is also pre-order vigilantism, often depicted in Western movies. The frontier has yet to establish law-and-order(and secure systems of contracts and property rights), so everyone operates in vigilante mode with guns and guts.
The appeal of the Western was contradictory because the genre revels in the freedom of violence but also roots for law-and-order whereby children and womenfolk could walk safely to church without being accosted by Lee Marvin. HIGH NOON is especially contradictory because the citizens won't stand behind the lawman who is left all alone to go 'vigilante' against the will(or lack thereof) of the 'good' people of the town.

It's also murky in STRAW DOGS. In a way, David Sumner(Dustin Hoffman) goes vigilante against the town thugs, but he is motivated by pride of principle than self-preservation. Indeed, he's willing to risk his life for that principle. He could have avoided the whole trouble had he given up the village idiot to the local yokels. He insists on protecting the village idiot out of some higher principle than self-preservation, the main objectives of most vigilante types.

-- and the lyrical but also menacing musical score by Bernard Herrmann --

The score is remarkable but problematic. It is too jazzy, hip, and loose to convey the constricted and sullen inner torment of Bickle. Herrmann's music for PSYCHO was closer to the mark with the subject matter. The score for TAXI DRIVER is more reflective of the city than of Bickle in particular. (Its jazziness also sounds overly nostalgic in the age of Rock and Soul, the dominant forms of music in the 70s. On the other hand, Bickle is a man out of time.)

-- So who is Travis Bickle? Travis Bickle is a twenty-six-year-old honorably discharged Marine... Travis suffers from insomnia. --

Some have tried to explain Bickle's madness as post-war syndrome, but he was surely borderline psycho BEFORE he entered the military, like Francis in STRIPES.

In a way, Bickle would have been better off in the military, which provides some sense of order, structure, and purpose. One of the characters in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES has difficulty adjusting to life back home. At least in war, he was a 'hero', a patriot among 'real men'. As a civilian, he's suddenly a nobody.

It's no wonder Bickle shows interest in the secret service. He isn't only trying to measure up the enemy but fascinated with its sense of order and purpose, like with Clint Eastwood's character in IN THE LINE OF FIRE. One wonders why Bickle doesn't join the police force. Still, driving a taxi offers some semblance of order and purpose. Taxi cabs, like police cars, are alike in standardization. It's a way of being 'organizized'. There's uniformity and order in being a cabbie in a city full of crime and chaos.
And yet, it isn't fulfilling because Bickle as cabbie can only be an observer than an enforcer. He belongs to an order of sorts but one of serving than saving the customers. There's a part of Bickle that wants to belong, to be part of an Order. And yet, there's another side to him that is deviant and asocial, rather like Paul Newman's character in COOL HAND LUKE. Bickle is a walking contradiction, like the lyrics from the Kris Kristofferson song. He's a misfit who wants to fit in. Unlike Randall McMurphy who revels in his anarchy, Bickle is uneasy with the bohemian side of his being. The Mr. Hyde part of him feels more at home with the hookers, junkies, and other flotsam, while the Dr. Jekyll part of him feels nothing but contempt for the lowlifes. He is a weirdo with the square's disdain for weirdos. No wonder he doesn't leave NY. And yet, another part of him recoils in disgust from the weirdness. It's like Woody Allen's quotation from Groucho Marx: "I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me for a member", which is visualized in the opening of STARDUST MEMORIES where Allen, in a train car full of Jews(and depressives), wants to be with the glitzy glam-goyim in the other car.

Some people are happy to be squares among squares while others are happy to be bohemians among bohemians. Bickle, in contrast, is like both a square among bohemians and a bohemian among squares. There's a film MAX about young Hitler with a similar theme. Hitler's problem is he's too square and straight to be a bohemian artist, but too weird & deviant to be fit into respectable bourgeois society. He's ill-at-ease in both worlds. In contrast, the Jewish Max is comfortable in both. Bickle has all this weirdness but simply can't face up to it.

Trailer for MAX.

-- He tries to connect with his fellow cabbies. But, being on the night-shift, they are almost as weird and asocial as he is. --

But the key difference is the other cabbies are okay with what they are. Weird or not, it's just a living for them, as with the characters in the TV series TAXI. Bickle isn't merely weird but ill-at-east with his weirdness. (In contrast, Jeff Bridges, originally slated for the role of Bickle, plays a happy-go-lucky weirdo in THE BIG LEBOWSKI. He's weird alright and proud of it. If anyone recalls Bickle in that movie, it's the John Goodman character who's just as weird as Lebowski but thumps his chest as an upright patriot and pious Jew to boot. BIG LEBOWSKI may have taken some inspiration from CUTTER'S WAY, which in turn, might have been partly inspired by TAXI DRIVER.)
When Iris calls him 'square', he even misinterprets the word and says she is the 'square' one for doing all the un-square things. And he doesn't seem to understand the term 'hip' either in his encounter with Sport. As with James Dean in THE REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, something's tearing him apart. If Dean's character was trapped in an all-too-square and conformist society, Bickle is caught up in the exact opposite, an open sewer of libertine freedom with humanity reverted to the tyranny of animality. Either way, there's lack of equilibrium, especially for the innately confused.

-- Senator Charles Palantine, who is running in his party’s presidential primary. (His party is not stated, but he’s clearly supposed to be a Democrat. --

Or, Palantine could be based somewhat on John Lindsay, the Liberal Republican.

-- he walks into the office and asks her on a date. Betsy accepts. Travis is strange, but he’s not bad-looking and has an off-kilter charisma.
Travis blows it on their second date, however, when he takes her to a pornographic movie. It is painfully awkward. --

He initially strikes Betsy(Cybill Shepherd) as confident and worldly. But already at the first 'date', she notices something off about him. He seemed easy-going, even a bit suave, when he walked into the campaign office to introduce himself. But at the coffee shop, he comes across as overly earnest, almost like a Jehovah's Witness. There are also signs of agitation, like of a sculptor anxious to turn a slab of marble into his ideal vision. It goes from easy to a bit queasy. When she quotes from Kris Kristofferson's song about 'prophet and a pusher', Bickle takes it the wrong way(like Burt Lancaster's ruse in the restaurant scene in ATLANTIC CITY when Susan Sarandon's character says he has no fingerprints).

TAXI DRIVER stood the test of time. As mere sociology, it would have become dated, like JOE, PEOPLE NEXT DOOR, and NETWORK. But Bickle's problem is psychological, even spiritual, and as such universal and timeless. It's part of man's unceasing struggle with one's demons, but then the demons of one era are the angels of another. No wonder Scorsese has been more fascinated with the existential aspect of the struggle. The real meaning is in the struggle than in happy acceptance of official truths without questioning. How Christianity was struggled into being as vision and movement is more fascinating to Scorsese than how it was consecrated as the compulsory Faith for all in the Kingdom. Bickle goes about it the wrong way, but there is a certain dark integrity in his struggle to figure things out.
Jesus is shown undergoing a similar struggle in THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. The 'spiritual' aspect of TAXI DRIVER partly derives from Robert Bresson, whose works also influenced Schrader's AMERICAN GIGOLO and LIGHT SLEEPER. (Bresson's characters are usually inarticulate and withdrawn, social outcasts and pariahs. And yet, isolation and/or rejection may be a requisite for grace. Carl Dreyer with PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and Tarkovsky with STALKER, NOSTALGHIA, and THE SACRIFICE also pondered madness as a kind of hell with a backdoor to heaven.
TAXI DRIVER is impure in its fusion of Bresson and Peckinpah. (Bresson's more austere and purist take on violence can be seen in L'ARGENT.) It was also in the spirit of Sidney Lumet's work with SERPICO and DOG DAY AFTERNOON. By the looks of Robert Altman's NASHVILLE, the 70s malaise was a nation-wide problem. The country music capital, though far from New York, is beset with same problems of drugs, sex, and sleaze. It also ends with an assassination. And DELIVERANCE showed the woods ain't no sanctuary either. Hillbillies can be queers too.

TAXI DRIVER was both a Zeitgeist film and a stand-alone work. On the one hand, it was very much the film of the moment, the talk of the town about symptoms of the malaise. It dealt with violence and sex and urban decay, crime, pornography & prostitution, alienation, crisis of youth, the problem of guns & assassination, racial tensions(especially with blacks), and etc. Like Lumet's film from the same year, it can be approached as a social document. But like MIDNIGHT COWBOY, it is much more and has been compared with the works of Dostoevsky and continues to strike a chord with new audiences. In terms of alienation, Bickle most closely resembles Robert Duvall in THX 1138 though the worlds the two characters exhibit are diametrically opposed. Both are about individuals who feel such powerful sense of angst but can't put a finger on why.

Ironically, TAXI DRIVER'S biggest problem may be it's too-well-made. Scorsese displayed such mastery and brilliance of style that Bickle is transformed into an 'icon' of sorts. It partly sensationalizes and idolizes him even if such wasn't the intention of Schrader and Scorsese. The visual prowess canonizes his madness, much like in THE GRADUATE does for Benjamin Braddock(and HAROLD AND MAUDE does for its lead). In that sense, the raw Bickle might have been more honestly conveyed by a second-rate director lacking in visual flourish that inadvertently serves as advertisement for madness.

Dave Kehr's Review of LIGHT SLEEPER by Paul Schrader.

-- The choice to take Betsy to a dirty movie makes it abundantly clear that Travis has issues. It is not socially appropriate. --

And yet, here's the irony. It was both appropriate and inappropriate. Bickle attends porn movies because they were so conspicuous in the 1970s. There were porn theaters all over NY, and XXX movies were advertised in newspapers. Serious critics and scholars wrote about movies like DEEP THROAT, which also became the codeword of a key leaker involved in the Watergate Scandal. Pauline Kael, John Simon, Susan Sontag, and others weighed in on the matter of pornography. Playboy had already become a reputable magazine with serious interviews with important figures of politics and the arts. The Carter clan would soon become chummy with Larry Flynt of HUSTLER.

And as Bickle notes, couples attend porn movies, and there were plenty of educated middle class people, men and women, who watched porn movies in the 70s, out of habit or curiosity. So, given the culture of the times, Bickle's taking Betsy to a porn movie wasn't as outlandish as it may seem. (These days, stuff like Lena Dunham's GIRLS on TV and Miley Cyrus have pretty much legitimized porn among young people, and respectable journals like Forbes and other run articles about the porn industry as just another sector of capitalism.) There's no indication that Bickle has any special thing for porn. Confused and alienated with too much time on his hands, he wanders into porn theaters because they are there, like he watches whatever is on TV. So, he takes Betsy to a porn movie because pornography seems to be a normal thing in New York. In that sense, he is the one being 'normal'. It is Betsy, in taking offense, who seems 'abnormal', 'old-fashioned' and 'square'. She still seems to cling to 'outdated' notions of 'respectability' and 'dignity'. Initially, she seemed hipper than him, but there's still something of the small-town girl in her to take offense from pornography. She did say she's from upstate.
This all adds to the confusion of modernity, and this confusion may be worse than ever. Women now celebrate 'slut pride' but also claim to take offense at Trump's 'grab pussy' remark. And their idea of wearing dignity on their sleeves was to wear pussy hats. Women who use sexual wiles to get ahead in the industry suddenly shriek and join the #MeToo Movement. That crazy and shameless skank Emma Sulkowicz also cried 'rape', and then made a porn video about the trauma. Porn and puritanism sit side by side.

-- He broods and ruminates. He tells Wizard, one of his fellow drivers played by Peter Boyle, “I got some bad ideas in my head.” Travis does not, however, come off as delusional. Instead, he is angry at the sleaze and injustice that surround him. --

He isn't delusional about social ills, but he's delusional in failing to realize his own sickness. Foul fumes rise from sewers, but Bickle own soul is a sewer. A part of him morally recoils from the urban rot, but there's something fermenting inside him as well, which he's unwilling or incapable of realizing.
Paul Schrader said in an interview that Bickle is a uniquely American phenomenon. He said a European or Japanese Bickle, being more cultured and/or philosophical, would realize that the main source of his sickness is from within; therefore, he would commit suicide, presumably like the character in Louis Malle's THE FIRE WITHIN(based on a work by Drieu La Rochelle). In contrast, Americans, being less self-aware, are prone to project their inner demons on the outside world and strike out in violence; guns help some. The problem with Bickle is he both suffers from inner demons and is correct about the urban rot. So, his inner demons and the social decay become intermeshed, and he's not sure whether he's going crazy or being driven crazy by the city. And we aren't sure either as Bickle seeks an external solution to his internal troubles.

https://www.filmcomment.com/article/paul-schrader-richard-thompson-interview/

-- One wonders, though, why Travis continues to subject himself to this world. Not every city is as dystopian as New York. He could also focus on better neighborhoods and better fares. But he doesn’t. The truth is that Travis is a glutton for punishment. He has a masochistic, self-defeating personality. --

In a way, it's because he's just as sick as the city though loathe to admit it. In this, he's different from the retard in SLING BLADE(the indie FORREST GUMP). Billy Bob Thorton's character is capable of murder but is really a good soul. And he feels a peace of mind looking out the window of a mental hospital. In contrast, Bickle is always in a state of inner turmoil. So, things might be even worse for him in a stable and normal community. Amidst the peace and quiet, he would come face to face with his demons. In contrast, NY is somewhat therapeutic precisely because its craziness serves as a diversion. It's like someone who hallucinates strange voices may not prefer quietude as the voices will only grow louder. He'd rather be in a noisy place where the constant din drowns out the voices emanating from within.
Craziness being commonplace in NY, he is distracted from his inner demons. Or, he can pretend his demons are the sounds of social degeneracy and decay. Bickle is a different animal from David Lynch who, as in ERASERHEAD, could probe into his weirdo psyche and see what's there. Bickle is loathe to stare into his own soul and prefers the distractions of NY. Easier to see craziness in the world than in oneself. (Likewise, a minor character in FIRST REFORMED, the latest Paul Schrader film, becomes obsessed with environmental issues as a coping mechanism for his depression. He clearly has psychological issues but would rather project them onto the wider world. But this poses a new set of problems. If the whole world is as diseased as one's own soul, where's the escape? The man commits suicide, like Max von Sydow's character in Ingmar Bergman's WINTER LIGHT who ascribes his depression to fear of nuclear holocaust.)

Also, despite Bickle's loneliness, it too is somewhat comforting. After all, anything goes and everyone is tolerated in a big city full of strangers. No one cares. It's lonely but one is left alone. If Bickle were to settle in a nice rural community, he would be observed and judged by his peers. If judged badly, he would be shunned by the community. In contrast, no one is exiled in NY because everyone is a stranger. Bickle is just one of the many nameless nobodies. It is lonely but also liberating.
Besides, many people prefer to be a nobody in The Place than a somebody in no place. Why does Joe Buck hang around New York for so long in MIDNIGHT COWBOY? It's the capital of the world whereas the place whence he came was some nowhere-ville in Texas. Adolf Hitler hated degeneracy but was drawn to the city where things were happening. Only the 'happening' metropoles matter. It's like Washington D.C. is a sleazy place, but Pat Buchanan is addicted to the sports of politics. It makes him feel alive, and he just can't let it go despite his disgust. And in Oliver Stone's film, Nixon feels dead outside politics. You'd think he'd have peace of mind after bidding farewell to the System that only kicked him around, but he must re-enter the ring. The warrior part of Bickle knows the game is in the city. In a way, he's a war lover and still in the fight even after leaving the Marines.

-- Today, I look at Travis and see someone on the autism spectrum who is also an incel. --

He has issues but isn't technically an incel, which means 'involuntary celibate'. Bickle had a chance to have sex with Iris but refused. Even when he approaches the mulatto woman at the porn theater refreshment stand, he courts her. (In the background is a classical nude statue, suggesting Bickle's idealism about the other sex.) And he approaches Betsy with courtesy and feels she deserves respect. Ironically, he takes her to a porn theater thinking it is the 'proper' thing to do in NY. He thought she might appreciate it as a New Yorker.

So, if Bickle really wanted to 'get laid' or 'ball' someone, he surely could have. He is willfully celibate with Iris. Thus, he's more a 'wilcel', a willful celibate. It makes him feel special. In his mind, other men see Iris as a piece of meat, but he sees her as someone special; therefore, he is better, nobler. There's a similar appeal to Vito and Michael Corleone. Whereas Sonny, Fredo, and Carlo stick their dongs into everyone(and even Tom Hagen has a mistress), Vito and Michael are faithful to their wives. And Vito despised the Tataglias for dealing in whoredom.
A key difference between Michael Corleone and Bickle is the former belongs to a family and tradition. So, Michael's 'psycho' acts(and those of Al Neri) have legitimacy within the milieu(with its core of honor), whereas Bickle's psycho act seems out of the left field... but for the fact that society comes to spin his crazy deed as an heroic act in total ignorance of the fact that Bickle attacked the brothel ONLY BECAUSE his attempt on Palantine was foiled. It's the thin line between monster and hero, but then in our age of George Floyd, notice how easy it was some lowlife Negro druggy to be spun as a saint, along with Michael Brown. And Jonathan Pollard went from arch-traitor, the worst in US history, to a hero who worked for Israel; as Israel is America's Greatest Ally, Pollard's deeds now seem justified. If the US's primary purpose is to serve Israel, then Pollard did no wrong in betraying the US for Israel. It's what 99% of politicians do on a daily basis. Maybe Jews will demand in that the US apologize to Pollard as the 'New Dreyfus'.

-- Betsy isn’t the only object of Travis’ gallantry. He also wants to rescue Iris, a twelve-year-old prostitute from a pimp played by Harvey Keitel. --

In a way, he 'also' wants to save Iris. In another way, he 'afterwards' wants to save Iris as compensation for having lost Betsy. Iris is like a consolation prize. Had things worked out with Betsy, it's unlikely he would have paid any mind to Iris. But after his humiliation with Betsy, he fixates on Iris to restore his pride. Betsy is too high above him. He saw her as an angel, even a goddess. He apologized and groveled, but she snubbed him as a loser and lunatic. He can't handle this pain, and so, Iris becomes useful to his wounded ego.
After all, she's a young whore, the dreg of society. There's no way someone like her can look down on him. She allows any man to screw her orifices for money. She's so low in the totem pole that he need not worry about being rejected by her. Jesus too had a special relation with a whore.

People feel offended by being snubbed or rejected by superiors, not inferiors. People take offense when called dumb by a smart person, not by a retard. So, Bickle feels more at ease with Iris who is below even someone like him. Also, there's something similar to the dynamics in MULHOLLAND DR. There, Diane Selwyn feels dejected and humiliated by her friend who made it in the industry. In her fantasy, Selwyn-as-Betty is full of love and kindness; she would never do what her friend did to her and goes out of her way to help out an amnesiac stranger who is modeled on the friend. Similarly, through his concern toward Iris, Bickle is reassuring himself that he would never do to another what Betsy did to him. She turned out to be a BITCH, but he's no son-of-a-bitch. He cares and would go out of his way to care for Iris.
But then, he's not being entirely honest. After all, his real objective was to kill Palantine(and face arrest or be shot by cops and secret service men). He attacked the brothel as compensation for his failed attempt on Palantine. Now, why did he target Palantine? He may consciously justify it on political or ideological grounds. But, it really has to do with Betsy. Subconsciously, he sees Palantine as the pimp who owns Betsy as his whore. In Bickle's subconscious, Palantine is to Betsy what Iris is to Sport. So, despite his bitterness about Betsy, a part of him still wants to prove himself to her as the slayer of the super-pimp who owns her.

-- The seventies were the decade of the anti-hero. The organs of the culture were by then firmly in the hands of the hostile elite. Thus the instinct of the critical mainstream was to weaponize anti-heroes like Bickle against the establishment, meaning against mainstream America. There was surely some hand-rubbing on both coasts when Reagan was shot by a wannabe Travis Bickle. --

But Bickle isn't at war with mainstream America but with the very things that led to White Flight. He seems uneasy in the presence of black thugs. And he feels contempt for the Jew played by Albert Brooks. Also, many Anti-Heroes of 70s cinema were accused of 'fascism'. Dirty Harry was an anti-hero cop. Unlike the traditional crime fighter, he played dirty like the criminals. He bent rules. But people still rooted for him because he got things done. Crime got so out of control that even Liberal Hollywood was making 'vigilant movies' and soon shut down the production of Blaxploitation movies as agitating the Negroes. SWEET SWEETBACK'S BADASS SONG was a runaway hit in the black community but was soon taken out of circulation.

Audiences also identified with the Corleones of THE GODFATHER. Corleones were killers and criminals but not without an element of Nobility of Evil in service to Family and Honor. THE LAST DETAIL mocks the military but also hippies and other freaks of the period. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST has an anti-hero who fights Negroes and a bitch-monster. If the problem in CUCKOO'S NEST is too much order, the problem in TAXI DRIVER is too much disorder. Both were released in the same year, but the 60s revolution is the gulf between the two anti-heroes.
It was Liberals who were most upset with THE FRENCH CONNECTION where anti-hero cops played dirty to shake down black junkies and break up the international drug trade. William Friedkin's other big movie was THE EXORCIST, the appeal of which wasn't much different from TAXI DRIVER. A priest paralyzed with self-doubt regains meaning by fighting the Devil to save a young girl whose body is ravaged by onset of puberty.

With movies like NETWORK and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, things got further confused. Are the two newsmen in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN heroes or anti-heroes? In a way, they are hero journalists. Yet, they can also be seen as assassins, gunning to bring down the President. You don't need a gun to hunt politicians, as Trump recently found out. Are Woodward and Bernstein righteous rebels against the most powerful man in America, as the movie suggests, or are they hired killers for the Establishment that simply didn't like Nixon? Heroes and Anti-heroes become even more muddled in the world of NETWORK.

-- Today, the hostile elite is fully in control. They are the establishment. They want to hold on to their power. Thus they live in terror of Travis Bickles like Brenton Tarrant and Dylann Roof. Hence the cultural organs pushed back hard against Todd Phillips’ Joker, which owes a great deal to both Taxi Driver and Scorsese’s later DeNiro vehicle The King of Comedy. --

I don't think the current elites would be much upset with a film like TAXI DRIVER were one to come out today(but for the part about blacks, especially the scene where Martin Scorsese as jealous husband says he's gonna take a magnum 44 and blow away his wife's pooter for her infidelity with Long Dong Silver). The reason why many critics reacted in horror to THE JOKER was it sensationalized Art House tropes for the mass audience. Some people might come away with sick ideas from TAXI DRIVER, but it was never going to turn mobs into Travis Bickles. From beginning to end, Bickle is on his own as God's Lonely Man.
In contrast, THE JOKER is about how the lunacy of one spreads like wildfire and ignites a mass movement. Also, due to its superhero comic book pedigree, many more people were going to see THE JOKER than TAXI DRIVER(or something like THE KING OF COMEDY). Whatever its flaws, Scorsese and Schrader tried to be true with the material: What would really happen with someone like Travis Bickle, a ticking time bomb?
In contrast, THE JOKER merely steals Art Film tropes and goes into fantasy mode not unlike V FOR VENDETTA. Genuine art rarely has mass appeal. Fantasy has mass appeal but is usually taken as fantasy, nothing serious. But THE JOKER was Mass Fantasy posturing as Radical Truth, and there lay the danger.

2020 WAS THE YEAR OF THE JEW. THE JEWISH TAKEOVER OF EVERYTHING

Notes on An Essay on "Jewish Themes in THE GRADUATE(1967, dir. Mike Nichols)" by Brenton Sanderson

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/07/26/jewish-themes-in-the-graduate-1967/

The Jewish Angle in THE GRADUATE has been much discussed. But whatever its implications and meanings, there's no denying the brilliance with which Mike Nichols made the movie, something that eluded him in later works... though CATCH-22 has its moments and CARNAL KNOWLEDGE is pretty compelling as an arty take on the Sexual Revolution. So, the talent has to be discussed in relation to the film's impact. THE GRADUATE would likely have failed with critics and audience in lesser hands, whatever its message. It's like almost no one talks about GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER or just about anything by Stanley Kramer. Though Nichols ultimately didn't turn out to be a great director, he made one great movie, THE GRADUATE, much like Ridley Scott surpassed his limitations one time with BLADE RUNNER. Likewise, other key works by Jewish directors of the period must be considered(even in criticism) with an appreciation of their power as artists, wits, dramatists, expressionists. Even if there is a Jewish angle to THE GRADUATE and other works by Jewish artists, there is much more than mere ethnic propaganda. Stanley Kubrick made 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Roman Polanski made ROSEMARY'S BABY. Stuart Rosenberg made COOL HAND LUKE. Arthur Penn made BONNIE & CLYDE. Arthur Schlesinger made MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Richard Brooks made IN COLD BLOOD. Earlier in the decade, Blake Edwards made BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. Though Sidney Lumet would come to greatness in the 70s and 80s, he was emerging as a force as well. (Norman Jewison, who made IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, isn't Jewish despite the name.)
Now, not all the above-listed directors attained greatness. Rosenberg made one great movie, COOL HAND LUKE, but was mostly a journeyman director. But for whatever reason, it was the Jews(and then some Italian-Americans) who were most adept at hitching onto the new sensibility and conceiving new possibilities for Hollywood. Of course, many new or newer talents were not Jewish. Sam Peckinpah, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, and the like. But Jewish film-makers were among the key figures in the development of New Hollywood. They were bolder, hungrier, more curious, more radical, more hip to trends. They were also among the most admiring of the great European directors(most of whom were not Jewish) and some Japanese ones. Their impact on cinema was somewhat akin to Bob Dylan's on Rock Music, though it's arguable that the only Jewish film-maker to match the cultural significance of Dylan was Stanley Kubrick who struck a chord with both critics and the audience. To be sure, cinephilia of the Film Generation was somewhat different from the attitudes of Youth Culture. Whereas Rock fans had close to zero interest in pre-Rock music and foreign music — though Folk Rockers were more reverent of the past and other cultures — , Film Culture was about remembrance and international curiosity. So, the seminal film critics of the 60s didn't just discuss the latest trends and hottest hits but wrote extensively about foreign cinema and classic Hollywood. College kids who had no interest in music prior to Rock might nevertheless look up to Howard Hawks and Orson Welles as cultural heroes and icons.
Still, despite the respect accorded to the Old Hollywood greats by Andrew Sarris, Peter Bogdanovich, and their acolytes, the fact is the culture was changing fast. So, while even young cinephiles might marvel at a John Ford Western or Frank Capra comedy, they no longer believed movies could or should be made that way. There was a new spirit in the air, and Jewish film-makers were among the first to run with it. And yet, the Europeans and Japanese had been ahead of American Cinema in personal expression and experimentation. In a way, the new batch of Jewish film-makers had a greater affinity for non-Jewish-controlled foreign cinema and were rebelling against the Hollywood System controlled by old-fashioned Jewish executives and careerists. And they had their chance because the Old Studio system was either dead or moribund, just barely hanging on, as the result of Hollywood's loss of theater monopoly and the rise of TV.

One can socially critique movies like COOL HAND LUKE, THE GRADUATE, BONNIE AND CLYDE, and many others as hostile and subversive, and there is certainly a Jewish angle to this. Still, the real power and effectiveness of these works owes to their artistry, brilliance, and deeper implications than their apparent message, be it blatant or esoteric. It's like Shakespeare's HENRY V is more than a 'nationalist' piece of propaganda. Also, they were refreshing because there is a bit of anarchist in each of us that roots for the oddball, eccentric, maverick, outsider, or underdog. (The audience rooted for Sylvester Stallone in ROCKY because whites had become underdogs in boxing.) And the similar strains could be found in European and Japanese movies that were, if anything, even bolder in thumbing their noses at the established order and social norms. Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, and Hiroshi Teshigahara were not Jewish. Neither were European directors like Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Bo Widenberg, Fassbinder, Gillo Pontecorvo, and etc. So, in some ways, the Jewish American directors were following in the leads of European and Japanese cultural pioneers and enfants terribles, though one could argue that modern radicalism anywhere in the world was inspired in part by Jewish Influence.

At any rate, Jewish Power of Propaganda cannot be understood apart from the talent and visions that go far beyond whatever the original 'political' intent may have been. In some ways, David Mamet is an unpleasant Jewish chauvinist, yet he is also artist and thinker enough to raise questions and face truths that challenge his ethnic biases. (In contrast, Aaron Sorkin is a mere propagandist-hack, albeit a talented one.) Sergei Eisenstein's propaganda films are crude as message but works of genius as experimental formalism. ROSEMARY'S BABY would likely have been a third-rate movie in the hands of someone other than Polanski, just like JAWS would have been one more dumb monster movie if not for Steven Spielberg. (Polanski and other Eastern European directors are a special case. Whereas most of the great Western European directors were non-Jewish, many of the Iron Curtain's 'new wave' directors, especially in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, were Jewish. Though the White Right generally sees Jews as radical leftists, many of these Hungarian and Czech 'new wave' Jewish film-makers were problematic to communist authorities for their espousal of individualism, irreverence, satire, and/or something approaching libertarianism. Most were liberal than leftist, highly problematic as communism regarded liberalism as a bourgeois conceit. And even if not pro-capitalist, they leaned more towards social democracy than communism. Polanski detested communism, and Milos Forman, the Czech Jew in exile, found great success in Hollywood with ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, which would be very un-PC today, and AMADEUS, a work that is, at once, subversive of authority and defensive of genius as natural hierarchy.) Talent goes a long way, and whatever ideological agendas or ethnic biases may have shaped the works of Jewish directors, the top Jewish talents were not only born with natural intelligence but grew up with a genuine appreciation of arts/culture. As such, Mike Nichols' main objective was to make a popular but personal art film inspired by the cinema of Europe. (Nichols was especially impressed with Fellini's 8 1/2. THE GRADUATE also has nods to Michelangelo Antonioni and Francois Truffaut.) But if some American directors miserably failed at making Art Films— THE SWIMMER had all the elements to be a great piece of personal film-making but suffered from strained uneven direction, and Lumet's PAWNBROKER is an embarrassing assemblage of obvious homages to European Art House — , others found their own stride, and THE GRADUATE may be the most significant work in this spirit. At first glance, it seemed a Hollywood movie riffing on European Art film mannerisms, and yet, it was so genuinely American and Hollywood. Moreover, Nichols, unlike Lumet before him, totally made the work his own. Instead of imitation, he drew inspiration and found his own beat and rhythm. As such, while THE GRADUATE may resemble a work like BLOW-UP by Antonioni, it has a uniqueness all its own. Also, the great appeal of movies like THE GRADUATE and MIDNIGHT COWBOY owed to American Jews being less hung up with intellectual conceits. As much as they admired European cinema, they also loved humor, effect, and fun. Increasingly with European Cinema, there developed the purist notion that true art cannot be much fun or rely on time-tested conventions. Also, theory began to dominate practice. For instance, Pier Paolo Pasolini began his film career with lively works with expressive actors, but along the way, he got this idea that actors shouldn't act dramatically. Godard's films got increasingly self-conscious. Ingmar Bergman's films grew colder. Now, an artist who really knows what he's doing can make it work, as in the case of Robert Bresson. But too many aspiring auteurs in Europe became allergic to doing anything that might violate the monastic or radical mission of cinema as art or commitment.
In contrast, Nichols had far fewer such hang-ups. So, even as he drew certain ideas from European cinema, he was mindful to lots of humor along with the songs of Simon and Garfunkel, whatever worked. Such use of songs might have aeen deemed as cheating or relying more on non-cinematic expressions than on the pure possibilities of cinema. But the use of songs did wonders for THE GRADUATE, just like the use of classical music added another dimension to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. So, Nichols and others like him had the best of both worlds: The new language of Art Cinema as personal expression but also the eagerness to please and win over the audience with timeless tricks of entertainment. And that is why THE GRADUATE, like HAROLD AND MAUDE, works on so many levels. It is seriously committed to cinema as art but also shameless in presenting a good show. New Hollywood was closer in spirit to Serious Rock — Later Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, CCR — than Modernist Music that took out all the fun from music.

So much of PC mentality is reductionist in evaluating works for their 'toxicity' level, e.g. 'racism', 'misogyny', 'sexism', 'homophobia', 'antisemitism', and etc. It's too bad that this tendency exists on the Right as well. Now, it's fair game to notice socially or politically problematic ideas and messages in any work, but the question still remains, why do certain works, regardless of their moral or political content, have such power and influence on the audience? And here, we have to address the matter of talent, brilliance, originality, and/or genius. While THE GRADUATE isn't the work of a genius, it is a brilliant piece of film-making, one where everything clicked together. (It both supports and subverts the cult of the 'auteur' as its miracle couldn't have been possible without Mike Nichols' guiding hand but also depended so much on the chemistry among the assembled cast and crew.) And also a poetic one, even if it amounts to pop-poeticism, like the songs of Simon and Garfunkel. Likewise, THE GODFATHER movies would likely have been nothing special and soon forgotten but for the understanding, knowledge, and skills brought to it by Francis Ford Coppola. There's no point to condemning or praising an entire work because of its said politics.

Turman bought the rights to the book for $1,000 and sent it unsolicited to Jewish director Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Peschkowsky) who signed on to the project. Turman’s search for financing led him to Jewish film mogul Joseph E. Levine—“the schlockmeister of the world”—who put up $3 million... Nichols assigned Jewish screenwriter Buck Henry (born Henry Zuckerman)... Songs by the Jewish duo Simon and Garfunkel were used for the soundtrack. Given the many Jews involved in the film’s production, it’s hardly surprising that Jewish sensibilities and ideological fixations pervade the final product.

But Jewish finance and Jewish producers had long been a dominant force in Hollywood. Also, Jewish writers had been embedded in Hollywood since its inception. And many music composers were Jewish. So, THE GRADUATE is hardly different from works of Classic Hollywood in the preponderance of Jewish money and talent.

In the hands of director Mike Nichols, however, the story became a scathing critique of bourgeois WASP American culture and the oppressive burden it purportedly imposed on young Americans. Nichols employs two recurrent visual metaphors to symbolize this oppressive culture: black-and-white stripes and water.

Many people saw the movie that way, but I'm not sure Nichols meant it that way. When pressed about Elaine and Benjamin by a young female fan of the movie, he answered that they'd probably end up just like their parents. Also, even though there is gentle mockery of upper middle class life, it's hardly hateful. (If anything, even as the audience is glibly laughing at the 'shallow' people in the movie, they are attracted to displays of affluence and the good life, also true of works like LA DOLCE VITA and LA NOTTE. Would THE GRADUATE have been as successful if it were about a working class guy living in a tenement? MARTY with Ernest Borgnine proved to be more or less a one-off thing.)
Benjamin's woes have less to do with social oppression than loss of youth. He's worried about the future, i.e. it has arrived, he's living in it, so it no longer exists for him. This is a universal problem faced by people all over the world. When you're young, the future is always something in the distant horizon. It's always a day ahead, like the song from ANNIE. Or consider how Scarlett in GONE WITH THE WIND always assures herself that 'tomorrow will be another day'. This procrastination about the future loomed larger among the boomer generation as more of them grew up in affluence, could attend college, and followed their bliss, that was as long as one was young and still at work or play. But school eventually ends, and one must be an adult with responsibilities and burdens. So, even though the movie is based on Charles Webb's novel, its spirit also flows from CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger. Braddock is not a victim of social oppression, that is made clear. His parents provided him with everything. He has a nice big room all to himself. He could attend the college of his choice far from home. His graduation gift is a fancy sports car. And as the movie makes clear, his parents pretty much allow him to do as he pleases. At one time, his father expresses displeasure with Ben's taking it easy, but he doesn't do much about it. Also, Mr. Robinson's advice to Ben is that he should sow some wild oats and have the time of his life(without realizing it would lead to an affair with his wife). Later, when his mother asks him what he does all night long and his answer isn't forthcoming, she just walks away and leaves him alone; she's a very understanding, even permissive, parent.

Ben also has no problem with job prospects. 'Plastics', he can make lots of money working for corporations. Or, he can continue with his education, especially as he got a scholarship. So, what is bothering him? His youth is over and thrill is gone. Whether work or more school, he feels his youth slipped by. It went from looking-forward-to-life to life-itself. He's going through what might be called the Beginning-Age Crisis, the crisis that befalls someone who realizes his youth is definitely over and his first chapter as an adult begins. He doesn't want to be like his parents or their friends, but it's not because he hates them. It's because it means just working, making money, and then growing old and retiring. Such is life, and there is no escape, and it's something everyone must accept at some moment, but Ben simply isn't ready yet to make the transition. (Perhaps, he feels especially cheated because his youth passed him by without him even having gotten laid or fallen in love or done something truly exciting.) And in the 1960s when youth itself became an identity in its own right, the boomers developed this notion of Forever-Young. They said stuff like "Don't trust anyone over thirty" without realizing they themselves would be over 30 sooner than later. So, Ben's problems are essentially personal and psychological(and generational) than social or cultural. The problem is not lack of freedom but too much freedom that he came to associate with youth. Finally, with graduation, he will have less freedom as a full-time worker who just grows older and becomes just another suburban man. Granted, there is a certain irony in his transition from student to full adulthood. On the one hand, he has more freedom after graduation. He doesn't have to attend classes anymore. He's his own man and can do whatever he wants. And yet, it's a freedom of responsibility, a kind of drag and burden. In contrast, while as a student he was more under the control of institutions and his parents who paid his tuition, he wasn't responsible for himself. As a son and student, his sole responsibility was to attend school and get good grades. He was taken care of, and furthermore, he could focus on knowledge and learning than on mundane matters of life. And he could always look to the future as something special. But the day finally arrived, and it just proved to be another day, and all the days following that day will turn him into just another suburban man. His life will be comfortable and affluent but not particularly meaningful, as only a tiny handful of people actually get to pursue their dreams.

The water metaphor is less about societal weight on Ben's shoulders than about Ben's emotional state of melancholy and confusion. In a way, the watery depth is more a solace than a prison. Notice how he keeps running back to his bed room from the graduation party full of admiring friends of his parents. These people are full of affection and praise for Ben. Hardly oppressive, but he finds the situation insufferable because they all remind him of what he will be in two or three decades. So, he would rather be in his room staring into the aquarium. Thus, he feels comfortably numb. The fish, like the ducks in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, may stand for a more ideal existence. Unlike Holden Caulfield who doesn't know what to make of his life, the ducks naturally know to fly south for winter. The fish in the aquarium need not worry about anything as the tank is cleaned by humans and as they're regularly fed. Having graduated, Ben is out of the fish tank of childhood for good and in the river of adulthood. Later when we see Ben having a good time with his affair with Mrs. Robinson, we see him floating on the water glinting with sunlight. There's the memorable moment with the rain, but I think it was more for effect and mood than symbolism. It also foreshadows his desperate race against time later in the movie. Of course, as he sweats up a storm, he's his own rain-maker.
A special thing about THE GRADUATE is it finds a special beauty in the melancholy. In a way, Ben wants to break out or break on through to the other side, but the meaning is in the struggle, not in the victory. He studied hard all his young life to be a top student and graduated with honors, but it seems hollow once it's behind him. Same with his 'second graduation' with Elaine as trophy wrested from the church wedding. His greatest desire is to win her heart and make her his. It becomes an all-consuming passion and obsession... but once he has Elaine with him in the bus at the end, he begins to feel somewhat empty again. The dream is always sad, even a bit depressing, because its realization seems so elusive, even impossible. The dreamer hopes the dream will become reality, but per chance it does, the result is always bound to be anticlimactic. So, Ben is caught in a psychological trap. A neurotic-romantic, he's given to aching for what's beyond his reach. And yet, upon attaining his dream, he realizes that he was truly happy when he was in yearning. It's like hunger calls for satiation but, once satisfied, soon fades in pleasure.
Once he gets it, he realizes it's just one more trophy and life goes on. It's like the scene in BLOW-UP where a bunch of guys tussle over a broken guitar neck, but it is tossed aside soon after it's taken by one guy. It's the curse of a dream coming true. It just becomes more of mundane reality and loses its luster as future vision.

In a way, Ben's problem isn't all that different from the personal crisis of the young man in BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. War was hell, and he dreamed of returning home alive in one piece. But as a civilian, he's just another Joe, just another guy working 9 to 5 to make ends meet. As horrific as war was, he was a hero and felt more alive precisely because death was everywhere. But back in the States, where life is everywhere and so humdrum, he feels empty. And when he sees the many bombers rusting in the airfield waiting to be scrapped for metal, he senses another kind of death. End of war means life, but the airfield looks like a graveyard of heroism. Feeling alive isn't the same thing as life. There can be lots of life but no sense of being alive, feeling alive. In contrast, one could feel most alive around death. While Ben hardly had to worry about death, the experience of growing up and graduating from school to school was a kind of adventure of mind and spirit. Every year meant he was rising another level, growing into adulthood. But once an adult, there is growing older but no more growing up. It's like once peak height is reached, there is advancement in years but not in inches(except around the waistline).

Ben's situation in the final part of the movie is like David and Goliath. It’s the same reason we root for Tony Montana who defies the chief kingpin in SCARFACE and takes on all-comers. Ben is the scrappy fellow who pursues his dream come what may and runs off with the girl. But what he does isn’t normal. It’s not normal to expect a relationship with a girl whose mother you had sex with. It’s not normal or very honorable to come between a woman and her prospective groom. The scene where he informs his parents about the marriage says it all. They assume Elaine and Ben came to an agreement, but Ben says he decided on his own and that Elaine doesn’t even like him. And unbeknownst to his parents, there is the problem of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. (We are not sure when exactly Mr. Robinson found out about the affair.) Ben's father says his plan is half-baked, and Ben says, no, it’s completely baked. And it is. The normal and honorable thing would be for a guy to accept the reality of the girl being betrothed to another. The proper thing is to walk away, but Ben just won’t. To be sure, he decides to call it quits after Mr. McClusky(Norman Fell as landlord) threatens him with eviction, but then, Elaine tells him not to leave until he has a definite plan. And then, Ben is back to his crazy dreamer self.

Things can never be normal with Ben and Elaine even if they do eventually get married. After all, she made her wedding vow and is legally wed to Carl Smith. So, she must go through the whole legal rigamarole of filing for divorce. And if Ben and Elaine were to tie the knot to make it official, they will still be estranged from their parents, especially the Robinsons. Ben’s father can’t be too happy either as his partner in the law firm is none other than Mr. Robinson. In time, Ben and Elaine as married couple will likely end up like their parents, but their lives can never be normal due to strained situations with their parents(and perhaps the scandal of the wedding crash).

That said, THE GRADUATE had an almost universal appeal because it was as sentimental as it was cynical. It was like the Beatles and SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, an album beloved not only by youths but older people and even highbrow types. It was a Rock album pandering to Summer of Love and Youth Culture, but it was also arty and even a bit old-fashioned, with tunes like “When I’m Sixty Four” and “She’s Leaving Home”, a song that is rebellious in message but traditional in delivery. (A HARD DAY’S NIGHT was also a winner with both young and older audiences.) Young people regarded Ben as a rebel-hero who says hell to ‘plastics’, experiments in free love, seeks authenticity, and takes action to realize his dreams. And yet, even non-radical or non-experimental boomers could relate to him because he initially comes across as something of a square and stuff-shirt, someone who focused more on books than all the groovy things happening around the period. Charles Webb's novel came out before Counterculture happened, whereas the movie was made in its midst. The scenario feels all the more alienating for that reason. It's like an early 60s mindset time-traveled to the latter-60s. Now, one might say that those were just a few years, but SO MUCH happened between 1963 and 1967. That sudden sense of change was the subject of FUTURE SHOCK by Alvin Toffler. If Ben were graduating from high school in the movie, he might be ecstatic. Alas, he graduated from college and officially became an adult just when the culture of youth was taking off to new dimensions. He's too young to identify with his parents generation but just old enough to feel out of sync with the youth culture. Thus, he feels alienated from old and young. And yet, he feels attracted to Mrs. Robinson who, though twice his age, seems defiant of growing older by making up her own rules. And part of the reason he may feel such attraction to Elaine is she's still in school and therefore symbolizes the youth that has passed him by, at least in official capacity. Ben was following the track of being an Organization Man than a Creative Soul. Or, at the very least, he's like an Early Beatle with suit-and-tie who suddenly finds himself transported to the Age of Aquarius. For older or more traditional audiences, it was a story about a guy who initially finds escapism with easy sex with an older woman but then falls in true love and wants commitment and marriage. As for the ending, it can be seen as a rebellion against social norms(as how many people crash weddings?) or confirmation of true love, the classic fairy-tale of a hero saving a damsel from distress.

Now, why would Elaine be attracted to Ben when Carl Smith is taller and more handsome(and has good prospects as a doctor)? Ben has personality. Also, Elaine has a soft side and feels for others. Carl Smith is so sure of himself whereas there is a passive/aggressive boyish side to Ben that needs mothering. So, her maternal instincts kick into gear in the presence of Ben. (She is actually more mother-like than Mrs. Robinson who seems bitter that her youth was cut short by pregnancy and marriage.) Also, Ben is a funny guy, and humor goes a long way. Furthermore, love isn’t only about sexual attraction but the feeling of being appreciated. A person can fall in love with the love shown him/her by the other. For Carl Smith, Elaine may be a good catch but not the only one. If she slips from his grasp, he will likely find another good catch. But for Ben, Elaine is the ONLY ONE, and she senses the depth of his passion for her.
And it’s also what happened between them at the night club. Ben was acting like a total ass but later confesses that he went against his nature due to parental pressure. Of course, that’s not really true as the real reason he tried to sabotage the date was because Mrs. Robinson had forbidden him to date her daughter. Anyway, something clicked in that moment. Elaine is a physically a fully blossomed woman, but there is still something of the little girl inside. You can tell she hasn’t yet lost her innocence, and she lives in something like a paper doll world. Ben realizes how much he hurt her, and he does everything to make amends and this creates a special bond between them. With the kiss, Elaine goes from weeping girl to a real woman, and Ben goes from a confused adult without direction to a man who finally understands what gives his life meaning: Elaine as his true love. (At the same time, there is a quality of puppy love.) With Mrs. Robinson, he was toyed with and used, and he used her in turn. It was just about sex and to stave off boredom. An escapism from life. But with Elaine, there is no guile and gamesmanship. He feels natural in her presence. His plan was for a short date where he’d act the jerk, make Elaine dislike him, take her home, and be done with it. But Elaine’s reaction in the night club is more that of a vulnerable girl than an angry bitch. He sees a side of her he never expected, and in turn, he feels born-again when he tries to console Elaine. It's as if he's finally found his true self and no longer feels so alienated. Thus, the problem was less social alienation than auto-alienation. It suggests that an individual is only half-a-person, therefore a person can only be complete when he meets one's soulmate. It lends a mythic overtone to the movie — Greek mythology says Zeus separated men and women from their embrace, therefore life is about men and women trying to reconnect with their lost mates. Much has been made of the Christian and Jewish angle of the story, but perhaps the main appeal is closer to Greek mythology and Western fairy tales. Earlier in the decade, there was a hit French movie called BLACK ORPHEUS, the telling of the Greek myth with black actors. THE GRADUATE is like the Jewish Perseus. At any rate, it was this ‘subversive’ and multi-faceted blend of cynicism and sentimentality that made THE GRADUATE so special. But the same could be said of THE GODFATHER, which is both a heart-warming family story and a cold & ruthless gangster tale.

The perennial theme of Jewish alienation from a WASP-dominated mainstream American society played an important role in how the character of Benjamin Braddock—and the entire film—were conceived by Nichols—though this only became fully apparent to him after the film had been made.

But it works in the movie because even the character in the novel is alienated. Indeed, many leading characters in novels and movies are outsiders, eccentrics, oddballs, or mavericks. We find such characters more interesting. Even Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan is alienated from the System he works for. John Wayne's character in THE SEARCHERS is something of a misfit, at odds not only with Indians but with fellow whites. Marlon Brando and James Dean became famous as malcontents. Orson Welles said he cast homosexual Anthony Perkins because his closeted neurosis might add something to the character of Joseph K. in THE TRIAL, and it seems Nichols had something similar in mind in having a Jewish character play Ben. I think it works better than it would have with Robert Redford, though a younger Paul Newman, as half-Jew and half-Aryan, might have been even better. Redford, though a capable actor, was rather colorless and inexpressive. The movie wouldn't have been half-as-funny with Redford as Benjamin. Dustin Hoffman was an actor of limited range but fantastic at his best. His Ratso Rizzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY is genius-acting.

Also, Hoffman-as-Ben has an ambiguous presence in the movie, making it all the more interesting. He's both Jewish and Wasp. Boy and man. Awkward and aggressive. Timid and bold. Calculating and chaotic. The Jew/Wasp tensions within the character intensifiy the contradictions within Benjamin who is both eager and afraid to be free. Hoffman is short but physically fit. Topless, he does have the physique of a long-distance track star. Also, while not handsome, the young Hoffman is rather attractive from certain angles. There is also something of the 'cute' quality that Ringo had. And then, there's the timing and intelligence in his acting, something truly rare in cinema as most actors aren't known for brains.

Ben’s scream in the church is so reminiscent of Rod Steiger’s wailing at the end of THE PAWNBROKER. As for Wasps trapped in the church, that has nothing on the ending of DIRTY DOZEN where Nazi officers are barricaded in the basement and roasted alive with gasoline and grenades. That is one cynical movie. Nazis are so evil they deserve to be slaughtered like animals. But American heroes are a bunch of crooks, criminals, thugs, and psychos. It’s like an insane hashing of BRIDGE ON RIVER KWAI and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Truly a dirty movie.

Nichols cast Hoffman, “despite the fact that he was virtually unknown and looked nothing like the leading man described in the script, which called for a tall, blond track star, not a short, Jewish guy with a schnoz for the ages.”

But in the end, we must judge by results, and I think the success of THE GRADUATE is inseparable from Hoffman's shell game of drama and humor. While an actor like Redford or Ryan O'Neal might have been closer in looks to the character in the novel, Hoffman had that blend of straight man and clown that made the role so different and unique. Also, the final part of the movie when Ben is speeding back and forth from LA and Berkeley has something of the silent comedies of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, the tales of underdogs who overcome all obstacles to end up with the girl. Robert Redford running off with the girl would seem less amazing and outrageous than Dustin Hoffman doing so. Buster Keaton was a short guy but one who out-maneuvered the competition and usually came out ahead. Same goes for Harold Lloyd, and especially as Nichols came from comedy background, he was looking for the most comic as well as dramatic actor, and he hit gold with Hoffman.
Now, take Jack Nicholson in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The character in the novel is much stronger, a tough Irishman who takes on three Negroes in the shower and beats them all up. Nicholson's McMurphy is smaller and weaker and no match for the Negroes, but it's a masterly performance, and he came to own that role. Many, indeed most, movies deviate from the novel or the original screenplay, but at the end of the day, the only question that matters is "Does it work"? Hoffman made it work. But then, Victor Mature played Samson and Charlton Heston played Moses, and they made it work, at least as entertainment.

Hoffman’s anti-heroic character gave the green light for Hollywood to promote “the ethnic Jewish matinee idol and youth icon in the forms of George Segal, Elliot Gould, Richard Benjamin, Charles Grodin, and Gene Wilder.”[9] These Jewish romantic leads were invariably paired onscreen with beautiful non-Jewish actresses like Marsha Mason, Candice Bergen, and (in the case of Dustin Hoffman) blondes like Mia Farrow, Faye Dunaway, Susan George, and Meryl Streep.

It's been said that THE GRADUATE changed the rules of who can be a star in Hollywood, but this is a gross exaggeration. Hollywood always had lots of room for Jewish, ethnic, different, ugly, short, and weird actors, even among Wasps. Alan Ladd was a short guy. Humphrey Bogart, though Wasp, looked ethnic and could have passed for Italian, Greek, Spaniard, or Jew. But he was a big star. Short and funny-looking Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest stars of the 40s. James Cagney was no looker but a tremendous star. The Jewish Paul Muni was in many prestigious roles. Peter Lorre and Edward G. Robinson, both Jewish, became world famous. Short actors were nothing special in Hollywood. Many actors, if not downright short, were hardly tall. James Dean was 5'7. Marlon Brando was 5'9, not exactly short but far from tall. It could be that shorter men gravitate to acting because they have to be more expressive to gain the kind of attention that taller men usually get. How tall is Tom Cruise? Long before Dustin Hoffman became a household name, Frank Sinatra was a big movie star. He was only 5'7, had pocked face, and was Italian. And movie stardom was often less about looks than the hook. Certain actors and actresses, even if not handsome or pretty, had a certain screen presence, an allure. Take Charles Bronson who could even be said to be ugly. But he had a great movie face. Same was true of Telly Savalis and Anthony Quinn. Tony Curtis the Jew played a Norseman in THE VIKINGS and did a pretty good job.

As for George Segal, Elliot Gould, Richard Benjamin, Charles Grodin, and Gene Wilder, they usually starred in lesser or more 'independent' productions. Among the new batch of Jewish actors, the only one whose success matched that of Hoffman in the 70s and 80s was maybe Gene Hackman(though Henry Winkler hit pay dirt as the Fonz on HAPPY DAYS, but that was TV). Richard Dreyfus seemed to be on the up and up but soon faded. Of course, one could count Harrison Ford as Jewish, or half-Jewish. Woody Allen might qualify but he was appreciated more as 'auteur' than actor. (Correction. Gene Hackman doesn't seem to be Jewish.)

Hoffman won the role over Charles Grodin, another Jewish actor who was no model of conventional WASP good looks.

Grodin, though no heartthrob, had a certain goofy charm. And unlike in THE GRADUATE where everything is 'crypto', THE HEARTBREAK KID is very much a public airing of the Jewish Male obsession with the 'shikse'. It is in satirical than romantic mode(as in the case of THE GRADUATE) and, as such, cinematically less interesting but even more revealing of the Jewish sensibility. Hilarious stuff.

Such overt anti-Christian imagery jarred with the film’s first audiences—but was only the start of Hollywood’s disparagement of Christianity, and seems tame by today’s standards.

Maybe Jews are doing white people a favor by bashing Christianity, a religion that originated from renegade Jews. In a way, what is more 'crypto-Jewish' than Christianity? Though Christ is often depicted in Western Art as an Aryan-looking fellow, He was actually Jewish and probably looked more like Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky. And speaking of neurosis, how about the story of a Man who claimed to be the Son of God and got Himself killed over it? Western Civilization is founded on Jewish Neurosis. So, even though Hoffman the Jew plays a Wasp in THE GRADUATE, white people over the eons have been worshiping a Jew with a big nose in the image of European whites. And look at the sculpture of David by Michelangelo. I'm thinking that David, being Jewish, looked more like Jerry Seinfeld or Sean Penn, but the statue resembles something out of Greco-Roman mythology.

At any rate, when will whites find their own covenant with the ultimate power of the universe? As long as whites keep with Christianity, it means they are forever beholden to the imagination and vision of Jews. Also, Christianity, if followed to the letter, is a death cult as we are now seeing in the West. If Christian West was powerful in the past, it was because it heeded only about 1/4 of Jesus' teachings. Go beyond that, and you end up dead. And if you don't, you get blamed for hypocrisy, preaching 'turn the other cheek' while using violence to conquer and control the world. Christianity has been a great religion, but it is now dead. It's very sad in a way, but it means the white race must finally GRADUATE toward a new consciousness with prophets of its own that can meditate on the ultimate power and receive the covenant that has meaning to whites and whites alone.

By the way, thing in the church happens so fast that it hardly registers as an anti-Christian screed. And, whatever the significance of Ben wielding the cross as a weapon, it is funny as hell, and as the characters in THE WILD BUNCH say, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” The outrage element is part of the fun. A little irreverence never hurt anyone.
Also, just look at the church. Its design is so Californian, so modernist and soulless. It looks like a bleached shell devoid of spiritual meaning. A church as status-symbol of the affluent and modern. So, it’s less a Christian ceremony than a matter of custom. They get married in a church because it’s just what people do. And who are among the attendees? None other than Mrs. Robinson, hardly a virtuous character. And there’s Mr. Robinson who pressured his daughter into marrying Carl Smith out of his seething rage at Ben. We don’t know much about Smith the ‘make-out king’, but he doesn’t seem the spiritual type. So, even without Ben’s presence, the wedding is just an empty show, a ritual devoid of spiritual or even much moral meaning. Elaine is getting married to console her father. Her heart is really with Ben.
Ben’s wielding the cross as a weapon could be seen as a desecration of Christianity, but it could also mean he’s the christ-like figure for true love. He’s willing to sacrifice everything, even sanity and limb, for the girl he loves.

The problem with clinging to Christianity in our age is it no longer provides the answers. As such, people need to seek out new visions and find new directions. It’s like a horse. It is highly useful when strong and hardy. But what use is a dead horse? Christianity is now a dead horse. In Europe, it’s totally dead. They say America is still religious, but no one gets fired or blacklisted for insulting God, Jesus, or Paul. But you may be fired and blacklisted even at a so-called ‘conservative’ Christian institution if you criticize Fentanyl Floyd or Jewish promotion of globo-homo. For many Christians, even those on the ‘right’, the highest holies are Jews, Negroes, and Homos. Indeed, many churches would have us believe that god and jesus serve Jews, homos, and blacks than anything else.

Christianity has become a suicide pact. If Christianity still had martial spirit, it would be in much better shape. In the past, Christianity served the West well in the form of 'hypochristianity'. Christianity had to be hypocritical in order to survive and expand. The teachings of Jesus, such as ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘meek shall inherit the earth’, don't do much for worldly power. Jesus urged people to give away all their wealth, live in righteous poverty, and meditate on spiritual matters. But people who act that way end up dead or oppressed. If they believe in Heaven, they may expect something better in the afterlife. But most people are attached to the real world, and power is about money, weapons, hierarchy, and violence. So, the Christian West at its peak preached one thing but practiced something other. Now, the West wasn’t purely hypocritical and much of its values & practices derived from Christian morality. Still, the kindly side of the West relied on the hard side that kept and expanded power by ruthless means.

But such kind of hypocrisy is no longer tenable, especially as Jews gained power in the West and never lose sleep pointing out all the hypocrisies of the West. This shame has been internalized by most whites. This has led to whites either rejecting Christianity or trying to practice a Christianity that is closer to the spirit of Jesus’s teachings… which can only serve as a death/suicide cult. Worse, there are so many idiots or opportunists who seek to use the church as a club for other agendas, often satanic in nature, like globo-homo and worship of savage Negro as Magic Negro. And of course, many non-religious and anti-religious people are possessed of a zealotry derived from puritanical strains of Christianity. If the church in our times is an empty shell devoid of spiritual passion, post-Christian passion of radicals is like fanaticism without a meaningful vessel. Shell without flesh and flesh without shell are, of course, both doomed. Form without content and content without form are both ultimately useless. Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, is dead as a useful and virile creed. When the Vatican has Pope Francis as top leader, what does that say? What is Mainline church in the US but promotion of globo-homo and Magic Negro? What is Evangelicalism but about More Wars for ‘Muh Israel’? There is the Orthodox Church, but it has no meaning to most Greeks who are secular. And in Russia, it is a museum culture than a living one despite all the new cathedrals built.

In the first scene of the film, Benjamin rides to the left on an airport conveyor belt as everyone else accedes to the airport’s public announcement system’s request to “Please stay to the right.”

I think 'stay on the right' in that moment meant stay to the right on the conveyor belt or in walkways, which is conventional rule in all places. It's like people usually walk on the right side no matter which way they're going.

In One Dimensional Man, he argued that advanced industrial societies like the United States repress their populations by creating false needs via mass advertising, industrial management, and modes of thought which resulted in a “one dimensional” universe of thought and behavior which stifled people’s capacity for critical thought and oppositional behavior.

Even if we disagree with Herbert Marcuse's solutions, was he wrong in his critique of consumer-capitalism? Look all around today, and corporate-consumer-capitalism is a big part of the problem. The rise of Pop Culture as Main Culture has led to the one-dimensional idiot. And we need critical thought and oppositional thought more than ever.

In the end, the real problem of whites was not 'authoritarianism' but complacency. Post-war boom made white people lower their guard and care mostly about the good life. They became passionless with crass materialism. The boomer generation rebelled against such complacency with utopian dreams and commitment to authenticity, but they too came under the power of materialism as their main inspirations came from pop music and TV. Like Peter Fonda said in EASY RIDER, 'We blew it'. If the Greatest Generation drowned in alcohol, the boomers failed to find nirvana in pot smoke, which is now just more big business.

Reich claimed the role of traditional “repressive” Western sexual morality was “to produce acquiescent subjects who, despite distress and humiliation, are adjusted to the authoritarian order.” Marcuse agreed with Reich that the “liberation of sexuality and the creation of non-hierarchical democratic structures in the family, workplace and society at large would create personalities resistant to fascism.”

There is obviously some truth to their claims. Any form of repression, sexual or otherwise, is to create a more stable order of unity and consensus. And it is true that 'sexual liberation' will undermine fascism as each boy and girl will be more into hedonism and self-gratification than suppressing one's individual desires for the good of the whole, the volk. If German youths in the 1930s had mostly been into sex, drugs, and rock & roll, would they have paid any heed to Hitler? And same could be said for youths under communism, which is why communist nations did all they could to suppress individualism as expressions of capitalism.
More interesting is why Marcuse and others blamed capitalism for the repression when it was obviously the forces of capitalism that were leading to the triumph of hedonism, 'sexual liberation', individualism, and youth culture of impatience. Maybe, it was difficult to immediately abandon the ideology, Marxism, that had shaped them for so long. Consciously or subconsciously, maybe the Frankfurt School was seeking to serve as the bridge that would allow the left to go from communism to capitalism as the more useful ideology.

The Frankfurters were right that 'sexual liberation' would be bad for fascism. But they overlooked how 'sexual liberation' would lead to the rise of new barbarism. After all, sexual politics is hardly egalitarian as alpha males usually win and as women prefer winners over losers. Some women seek out long-term winners who gain success in professions, but other women seek out short-term winners: the thugs, studs, and athletes. So, instead of resulting in the peaceful eternal summer of love where everyone is happy with good vibes, it has led to the rise of demented heavy metal culture, rap culture, pornification of even kiddie culture, and countless displays of narcissism & vanity, indeed as if everyone is a diva, his or her own 'hitler'. Fascism represses and channels virile barbarian energies in the service of civilization whereas the raw barbarian energies of 'sexual liberation' has led to the degradation of family and society, resulting in lots of violence and stupidity. Black African savages demonstrated that sexual licentiousness is no immunity to ultra-violence. Being sexually far less inhibited, blacks were generally unable to repress their wilder energies for the development of civilization, but they were murderous just the same. And the European barbarians long long ago were less hung up about sexual morality(before the coming of Christianity and its stricter ethos), but did that prevent them from rampaging other communities and raping and pillaging, i.e. acting like Alex and his droogs in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE? Indeed, people like Marcuse seem blind to the fact that National Socialism gained in popularity precisely because Jews pushed the most demented kind of anti-values in the Weimar Period, leading to a new barbarism. Degenerate personality leads to social chaos, which leads to people demanding an authoritarian personality to clean up the mess.

Frankfurt School was right to critique capitalism-consumerism and its mind-numbing and conformist influences, but its proposed solutions were useless because people like Herbert Marcuse were not honest, not least with themselves. Marcuse wailed against fascism, but he meant goy fascism. As he was pro-Zionist, he was for Jewish fascism. This is a key truth about Jews. They are so virulently anti-fascist precisely because they want fascism only for themselves. It is through fascism that both the right wing and left wing of a people can unite into a combined force. Fascism serves as the bridge and bond between left and right. Don’t make them fight one another but work together. This was the basis for National Socialism and Zionism. Where both ultimately failed morally is they went from nationalism to imperialism. Just like Jews hated Christianity and Islam for passing the secrets of the Jewish God to goyim, they hate fascism because it allows goyim to develop the kind of power specialized by Jews. Leo Strauss was a ‘rightist’ while Herbert Marcuse was a ‘leftist’. But what did they have in common? They were proudly Jewish and Zionist. For all their ideological discourse, identity came first. Zionism was created by Jewish socialists and Jewish capitalists working together. So, even as whites should give credit where it’s due — Frankfurters made useful criticism of capitalism and consumerism — , they must forge their own answers and solutions to problems, one that prioritizes the needs of whites. Jews are often interesting in their critique but useless in their proposed solutions, at least for goyim, as the utmost priority of Jews is to maximize Jewish power, not to make goyim more powerful. Frankfurt School is like a doctor that diagnoses the disease but advises the wrong cure.

In a way, much of modern form of Jewish Alienation derived from acceptance by White Society. Jews were both ragging Wasps for not being sufficiently accepting of Jews AND fretting too much assimilation may lead to loss of Jewish identity.

So, even as Jews felt alienated from Wasps, they also felt increasing alienation from their own roots. The more they became modern and Western, the less they felt traditionally bound to Jewishness. It’s one reason why Jews cooked up ersatz-form of being Jewish, such as being fixated on the Holocaust or celebrating Globo-Homo. Barbra Streisand’s YENTL is both celebratory and critical of Jewish Tradition, and it features a woman posing as a man to be accepted into the world of Rabbis. Around the same time, Blake Edwards made VICTOR/VICTORIA and soon after, there was TOOTSIE where Hoffman plays a ‘woman’. And Woody Allen made ZELIG. Paradoxically, Allen’s film seems to imply that the thing that Jews most fear as being harmful to Jewishness, which is assimilation, is also what most defines Jewishness. In other words, Jews have developed remarkably adaptive strategies of assimilation. And yet, even as Jews morph and blend into goy societies, at the end of the day, they revert back to Jewishness; they don’t really transform into the other. It’s like an octopus can take on all sorts of shapes but returns to being an octopus. But if an octopus is so fluid and flexible in its shape and structure, is there a core structure to octopus-ness? Or is the essence of the octopus to have no definite form? It’s no wonder Jews are so into trans-business where there can be infinite number of ‘genders’. It’s like sexual Houdini-ism. ZELIG is almost like a satire of an intellectual Nazi movie about Jews.