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Notes -
“Citizen Vigilante" - some musings (omega-doxxing myself, hence the throwaway account)
I was 14 years old and bored on a Saturday afternoon at a friend’s house. We cajoled their older sibling into driving us and Shanghai’d a couple girls into a ‘date’ at the nearest movie theater.
Back in those days, one either called Mr. Moviefone for showtimes - please say the name of the movie you’d like to see, now - or just took pot luck when showing up.
And you really didn’t have to call Mr. Moviefone, because pot luck was always something great. For context, that year some of the top movies were: Spider Man 3, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Harry Potter 5, The Bourne Ultimatum, 300, I am Legend, Night at the Museum, National Treasure 2, American Gangster, Blades of Glory, Superbad, Ocean’s Thirteen, Evan Almighty, Beowulf, 3:10 to Yuma, The Kingdom, No Country for Old Men, The Heartbreak Kid, Charlie Wilson’s War, Michael Clayton, Stardust, Children of Men, Zodiac…yadda yadda, left quite a few out.
But on this particular afternoon the terrifically memorable movie we took pot luck on was some generic fantasy action thing called ‘In the Name of the King’ by director Uwe Boll. I don’t remember anything really about the movie except it starred Jason Statham and at one point my friend nudged me and said ‘this sucks, should we just leave?’. My buddy's instincts were spot on as that movie somehow lost more than $50 million back when that was a lot of money and Mr. Boll won worst director of the year.
To this day it's the only movie I ever walked out of after paying for, other than a few years later when watching the 2010 Robin Hood with Russell Crowe, but that was only because the guy working the sound system had it turned up to ‘permanent hearing damage’ levels. More to that story, but for another time.
Anyway, the point being my only previous exposure to Uwe Boll was that his product was genuinely unwatchable. Coming back to the present, you can imagine my surprise in seeing his name attached over and over in reference to the hottest new piece of media to-the-right-of Rosa Luxemburg.
‘Citizen Vigilante’ starring Armie Hammer (yeah, that guy from ‘The Social Network’ who got MeToo’d) is (roughly) about an American who goes to Europe and conducts a highly restrained and well-planned vendetta against foreign gang rapists and their institutional enablers.
The film begins with an extended sequence of a pretty-but-harried mother and her six or so year old son shopping in a typical tiny European grocery store. The boy asks for chocolates and the mother indulgently relents, but when he asks for another treat she says he’s had enough. Her son helps pack up their purchases in their reusable bag while she makes small talk with the portly-but-friendly cashier. As they're walking home, a visibly foreign man stabs her in the neck, and she bleeds out while her son tries feebly to understand what just happened.
This isn’t meant to be a summary of the movie as you can get that anywhere, and anyway it is not that complicated. This is about the cultural implications. I’m gonna make a listicle so you can pick and choose any part you’re interested in discussing:
The movie is passably watchable enough that Mr. Boll must have really learned from his many, many failures to put this together. There are too many Dutch angles, too many quick cuts, the chronology is a mess, the dialogue is wooden, the soundtrack is a crime, but altogether this is a solid 5/10. Although I’m really trying not to be ideologically biased, the acting was quite good (especially the rape victims, which is relevant if a bit morbid), a fair portion of the scenes held some real tension, the effects were up to par enough to not take you out of the story, and, there was a verisimilitude that’s sorely lacking in a lot of contemporary productions.
The topic covered is absolutely explosive, en vogue, and has some pretty undeniable aspects. Regardless of the numbers of victims or perpetrators involved, there is a culture of sexual violence common to non-European countries that’s produced some shockingly poor results. Not just upon introduction, but also with what I will laconically describe as a cheeky bit of help from above along the way.
There’s a recurring motif in the film of social media accounts actively encouraging the protagonist about his work that's been reflected in reality as some fairly mainstream voices have picked up the call. Jack Posobiec is hardly a hard-right figure and he’s been tweeting about it all day.
The movie was ‘banned’ in Germany (the director’s home country) by being denied a rating so it therefore couldn’t be released. What do the kids call the ‘Streissand Effect’ these days?
There’s a door opening here for more media like this. Sometimes righteous movements find odd champions, maybe the guy who is colloquially known as perhaps the worst director of all time just became one? If this is the only cultural response to “One Battle After Another” it’s already firmly in the ‘not bad’ category. But if it’s only the first?
Curious for your thoughts, any signal here or just noise?
It sounds like a pretty straightforward remake of Taken.
It's an interesting affirmation that everyone understands and acts on racist phenomena.
"Taken" doesn't code 'the outsiders are harming us' i.e. whites, but this movie does. So the almonds of some German bureaucrat got activated and the movie is a no go.
It's probably the most ubiquitous and interesting dynamic in western media production and no one talks about it. But the incredible dance around never having the outsider victimizing whites is the greatest commonality all modern movies share. And if that is ever a theme, it's explored in such a way as to demonstrate that whites feeling victimized and acting on those emotions are wrong in some way.
On the flipside there's no shortage of 'brown person victimized by cruel evil white folk' movies.
Everyone understands this. Everyone knows. The only difference is whether ones brain can see the patterns or if it can and chooses to ignore it because 'evil white people' codes as real on some level in ones brain.
I haven't seen Citizen Vigilante but in regards to Taken I would say that this attitude says more about you than it does the movie.
"formal authorities are uncaring/ineffectual/complicit and it falls upon a square-jawed father figure to step in and correct the obvious injustice" is practically a genre unto itself. Death Wish, True Grit, John Wick, Dirty Harry, Die Hard, and The Equalizer all immediately spring to mind. Guys like Liam Neeson, Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington, and Jason Statham have built entire careers around playing this sort of role.
I mean, yeah. I exemplify Taken in my post as a movie that does not code against foreigners despite it's theme explicitly being about evil immigrant foreigners victimizing white people and then being brutally murdered by a white man.
The topic being explored here is: If the bad guys in Taken were coded brown, would it be the same movie? Obviously not. And that's an interesting affirmation that everyone understands and acts on racist phenomena. And that this song and dance is being actively played in the productions of nigh every movie. As when this song and dance is not played and whites are allowed to take revenge on the brown outsider, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
FSK ratings in Germany even take intentionality of violence into account when handing out ratings. Brutal depictions of whipping a slave in Django Unchained are not bannable, since they are, in their terms, necessary to build empathy with the victims and a disgust towards 'slavery', which translates into disgust for a white character so we can later celebrate their brutal murder. So the regulating bodies take political deliberations into account when deciding if something is verboten or not.
Well, what about disgust towards brown foreigners raping white girls? What about disgust towards activist judges that let them go free? We can celebrate a black man brutalizing 'evil whites' but not a white man brutalizing evil browns?
I do not think it's obvious at all, nor do I agree with the claim that "Taken does not code against foreigners".
Likewise I don't buy the claim that "when a white takes revenge on the brown outsider, it sticks out like a sore thumb". Maybe in a German movie, but in the US Black gang-bangers and South American drug cartels exist as stock villains right alongside Nazis, Communists, and Arabs.
Again, I haven't seen Citizen Vigilante but I think your framing reveals more about you and how you view the world than it does the movie. You being a German would explain a lot.
Well it's obvious to German censors.
Aside from that, you're not engaging with the contention. Sure, the hero kills all the stock villains, who come in all shapes and sizes, but that does not mean the villains were depicted as victimizing whites. Taken is a great example, there is a wide range of villains depicted, so there is no avenue for direct racial animus.
Another example would be Sicario. The bad guys are explicitly Mexican. The good guys are not. Except that one guy who is Mexican and gets a very specific and dramatic victim narrative. Would the movie code the same without him? No. Now if we look at movies being made and expand on this, what does the pattern look like?
I think your unwillingness to engage earnestly with the topic reveals more about you and how you view the world than it does the movies. You being a whatever you are would explain a lot.
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They used to. Is this still a thing, post 2020?
Are movies still a thing post 2020?
Someone has to provide content for anti-woke YouTube tirade channels.
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