McCain was called "Hamlet." Movie now...'Hamlet 2'

[Fresno_Layshaft]

What we know about HMW:

1) Hugh makes detailed claims about movies he's never seen. It also appears that Hugh has seen fewer films that the average person.

2) Hugh knows very little about motion pictures in general, with regards to both the business or artistic side of the industry.

3) Hugh's ideas are simply not possible. There is no logic behind his "Keyword Hijack" theory at all. This should be painfully obvious to everyone- but somehow isn't.

4) Hugh makes lucid, logical points in other threads when not pushing his non-sense theories. Thus, we can observe that Hugh is not a lunatic; or a moron.

What we can infer from the above:

Hugh is just a joker. He enjoys playing games with "conspiracy theorists" on the internet-- seeing who he can get to go along with his non-sense, crackpot theories. And he's been quite successful at it here for years, which is a little frightening.

Hugh: I know you are joking. But you need to add some more material to your act. Its getting stale as performance art and comedy.

[Truth4Youth]

Just that gawdawful poster of 'evil hippie' Dennis Hopper with long hair looking demented

Hugh, what on earth are you on about? Dennis Hopper is an old man now, and he is not even in the film, never mind on the poster.

Here's the cast-list.

DOH. Quite right. Brain fart.


I've seen so many damn movies with Hopper as 'evil hippie' that citing him while posting on several different threads stuck him in my mind for a spell.

That illustrates how these stereotype images can move right in and stay when a place has been repeatedly carved out for them in one's mind. Especially when you're multi-tasking.

I've got a really wild conspiracy theory...

You're an avant-garde performance artist, and you knew that Hopper wasn't in the movie just so you could set someone up for you to write the words I bolded.

[orz]

I know it's comforting to believe he's just a troll, (just like it's 'comforting' to believe in conspiracy theories right guys? ) but really he's too consistant and also too lacking in any obvious punchline. Plus, even if he is faking it, he's still a nut because only a nut would put so much time and energy into such elaborate trolling for so little reward. To make this stuff up for fun is almost more insane than actually believing it.

seeing who he can get to go along with his non-sense, crackpot theories. And he's been quite successful at it here for years, which is a little frightening.

Regardless of the meta-troll of insisting he's joking, this is very true. It's worrying. Whatever Hugh's intentions are, if you seriously buy into his theories (the specific 'keyword hijacking' stuff, not the general idea that the media is propagandised) then you're either being contrary for emotional reasons or are just dumb.

[IanEye]

During his time in the Navy, John McCain would frequently drop napalm on tiny Vietnamese villages.

Question: What is another name for a tiny Vietnamese village?


"It's a difficult thing to say. But now that I've seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam." - John McCain 1967

[orz]

I've seen so many damn movies with Hopper as 'evil hippie' that citing him while posting on several different threads stuck him in my mind for a spell.

That illustrates how these stereotype images can move right in and stay when a place has been repeatedly carved out for them in one's mind. Especially when you're multi-tasking.

I'm ignorant about the very things I spend hours blathering on about.

THIS PROVES THAT I AM RIGHT!

[nomo]

Hamlet? Fuck Hamlet.

Macbeth. Now that's a masterpiece!

[compared2what?]

But, Hugh. First of all, being compared to Hamlet is not viewed as a very damning statement about a politician. Below, please see a 2005 post by Chris Cillizza, from "The Fix," The Washington Post's political commentary blog. Although he either didn't remember (or didn't admit the conceit wasn't original to him until enough people complained about it, it's unclear which) Cuomo's "Hamlet on the Hudson" days, he also associates it with only one kind of indecision:

The Hamlet Effect

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's (D) decision today not to run for governor got me thinking about politicians that are forever mentioned for the "next big race" but never wind up making it.

I call this the "Hamlet effect," a form of indecision that strikes certain politicians who would love to serve as senator, governor or even president but always seem to find a reason why the timing isn't right to make a race. "To be or not to be" indeed.

Blumenthal is a perfect example of a political Hamlet. After roughly a year of playing the "wait and see" game, he bowed out of a run for governor today and will instead run for a fifth term as the state's top cop. This repeats a familiar cycle for Blumenthal, who passed on gubernatorial bids in 1994 and 1998. In 2000, he was mentioned as the most likely Democratic candidate for the Senate if Sen. Joseph Lieberman decided not to seek reelection while he simultaneously ran for vice president on Al Gore's ticket. Lieberman ran for both offices, though, and Blumenthal saw another window close.

Roll Call's Jennifer Yachnin wrote a great piece on the "Man with the Golden Resume" earlier this year. The site is subscriber-only, but if you have a password it's definitely worth reading.

Blumenthal is far from the only politician suffering from the Hamlet effect. Off the top of my head I came up with former New Jersey governor Tom Kean (R), former Kansas congressman Dan Glickman (D), former Indiana congressman Tim Roemer (D), former Illinois governor Jim Edgar (R) and -- until recently -- Ohio Rep. Sherrod Brown (D). Brown threw off that image last week when he jumped into the Democratic primary race to challenge Sen. Mike DeWine (R).

I am sure there are others I'm missing. Send me your own suggestions here or post a comment.

UPDATE: Several readers have mentioned former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo (D) as the ultimate example of the Hamlet effect. For The Fix's younger readers, Cuomo was widely seen as a rising star within the Democratic Party in the 1980s and was expected to make a presidential run in 1988. He passed, and then did the same four years later after much hemming and hawing.

So well-known was Cuomo's penchant for vacillation that he became the butt of jokes by late night comics (longtime "Tonight Show" show Johnny Carson once said of Cuomo's indecisiveness: "Mario Cuomo was in New York City yesterday and a mugger came up to him and said, 'Your money or your life!' and Mario said, 'Why do I have to make up my mind right now?'"). Cuomo's political timidity eventually came back to bite him as he was ousted in 1994 by a little known state senator named George Pataki (R) -- another New Yorker often mentioned in 2008 presidential speculation.

A few other Hamlet suggestions from loyal readers: Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon (D) and former California Rep. Chris Cox (R). Keep 'em coming!

It's true that it's a very, very well known play, and that the quote you cite is even better known -- probably almost universally known among the kind of people who might be infected by any potential outbreak of McCain=Hamlet memitis, had they not, according to your hypothesis, been meme-proofed by Hamlet 2.

And those people -- by definition -- would have to have a rough idea what the character is like, but not much more than that. And I respectfully submit that any person who knows that Hamlet is a character in a play in which he has a soliloquy that includes the words "To be or not to be" has to also know, at a minimum, that it's a role that's been played in movies by Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh, and Ethan Hawke. Those that know about the Ethan Hawke version probably also know about the young, handsome Laurence Olivier version, and possibly the Tony-winning Ralph Fiennes stage version, too. In short, they at least know the character is a hero, and may even know he's what you might call a maverick hero.

It's just not a fatally damaging association. And the article that has the quote isn't even decidedly negative. In fact, I'd say it's as close to a whitewash of McCain's Keating-Five past as it can be while also more or less describing what his role in the Keating Five scandal actually was. I mean, its scathing conclusion is, basically, that he made an error in judgment a long time ago.

I really think this one's a false positive, honey.

ON EDIT: Made a gesture in the direction of writing sentences, not clauses, for clarity's sake.

[H_C_E]

Macbeth. Now that's a masterpiece!

Amen!

HCE

[compared2what?]

Stop referring to it by title, though, okay? I'm superstitious, though not an actor.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Just that gawdawful poster of 'evil hippie' Dennis Hopper with long hair looking demented

Hugh, what on earth are you on about? Dennis Hopper is an old man now, and he is not even in the film, never mind on the poster.

Here's the cast-list.

DOH. Quite right. Brain fart.


I've seen so many damn movies with Hopper as 'evil hippie' that citing him while posting on several different threads stuck him in my mind for a spell.

That illustrates how these stereotype images can move right in and stay when a place has been repeatedly carved out for them in one's mind. Especially when you're multi-tasking.

I've got a really wild conspiracy theory...

You're an avant-garde performance artist, and you knew that Hopper wasn't in the movie just so you could set someone up for you to write the words I bolded.

Nope. I really got a Hopper mnemonic hangover.

His 1985 evil hippie science teacher in 'My Science Project' snarls "pigs!" instead of "cops" and is linked to the movie kids trying to dynamite an electrical tower.
Coincidently, a few years later, the FBI had provocateurs really try to get Earth First activists to blow up...an electrical tower. With thermite no less. 'Operation Thermcon.'

So Hopper has a history of being movie psyops agit-prop, like this movie.

I just biked over to the psyops-plex and looked at the full size 'Hamlet 2' poster.
The central character does look to me kind of like Dennis Hopper 2.

And the poster has him in his 'Christ' position with a cross on his belt buckle and his left hand showing his middle finger and the kids all laughing along with him, one of them with a daquiri in hand. ('Bottle Shock' is also playing and there's an effort to drop the drinking age right now. Another coincidence.)

The poster seems designed to really piss off fundie Republicans during their convention week like a Mapplethorpe picture of a crucifix in a jar of piss.

Campaign season culture war agit-prop, I think.
Along with pre-empting that phrase so it doesn't stick to Buck wishy-washy McCain.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

What we know about HMW:

1) Hugh makes detailed claims about movies he's never seen.

There's lots of information in casting and plot and context.
And since keywords, especially names, are primary tools of movie psyops and they are available in text descriptions, there is LOTS that can be learned from text descriptions.

It also appears that Hugh has seen fewer films that the average person.

I have stacks and stacks of them. I'm tripping over them. I watch 10-20 a month for the last few years. And much more closely than 'civilians' would. I research them before I watch and after.

2) Hugh knows very little about motion pictures in general, with regards to both the business or artistic side of the industry.

Wrong.

3) Hugh's ideas are simply not possible. There is no logic behind his "Keyword Hijack" theory at all. This should be painfully obvious to everyone- but somehow isn't.

Heh. Completely wrong.

Sorry, there probably is too great a chasm between us if you are that far from comprehending how merely writing symbiotic scripts for the news cycle and fictional entertainment which synthesize for a sum effect greater than the parts has been standard psyops practice since WWII.

You might want to read some WWII propaganda history to catch up.
See 'Office of War Information' and 'Bureau of Motion Pictures.'

4)

saving time

What we can infer from the above:

Hugh is just a joker. He enjoys playing games with "conspiracy theorists" on the internet-- seeing who he can get to go along with his non-sense, crackpot theories. And he's been quite successful at it here for years, which is a little frightening.

There's nothing funny about psyops conditioning kids to be ignorant or confused, morally disengaged, self-centered, jingoistic, and violent.

There's nothing funny about inoculation theory and interference theory used to jam cultural transmission of 'subversive' (true) information about the CIA and Pentagon.

Controlling language and memory was effective before cybernetics and search engines made it even more so.

Hugh: I know you are joking. But you need to add some more material to your act. Its getting stale as performance art and comedy.

Try television if you just want entertainment.
If you want to learn something about neuroscience, state-controlled media, social control, and how they get away with atrocity and eugenics as national policies, dig in.
It's kinda short on laughs but very tall (deep?) on insight.

[barracuda]

"Piss Christ" was created by Andres Serrano, not Mapplethorpe. And hippies are evil, by the way; please refer to the Laurel Canyon thread for confirmation.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

"Piss Christ" was created by Andres Serrano, not Mapplethorpe. And hippies are evil, by the way; please refer to the Laurel Canyon thread for confirmation.

Thanks for the correction, barracuda, on 'Piss Christ.'

I'm not defending hippies. I'm pointing at their place as a symbol in culture war used to support bombing people by repelling some voters into supporting the utterly discredited Republican Party.

[Jeff]

Hugh is just a joker. He enjoys playing games with "conspiracy theorists" on the internet-- seeing who he can get to go along with his non-sense, crackpot theories. And he's been quite successful at it here for years, which is a little frightening.

There's nothing funny about psyops conditioning kids to be ignorant or confused, morally disengaged, self-centered, jingoistic, and violent.

There's nothing funny about inoculation theory and interference theory used to jam cultural transmission of 'subversive' (true) information about the CIA and Pentagon.

Though there's nothing particularly serious about free associations masquerading as unassailable "theory" and an impoverished sense of proportion.

[Fresno_Layshaft]

I know it's comforting to believe he's just a troll, (just like it's 'comforting' to believe in conspiracy theories right guys? ) but really he's too consistant and also too lacking in any obvious punchline.

I think the punchline in this sort of performance is the people who take him seriously. It's a two-way mirror, he can see us, but we can't see him laughing.

Plus, even if he is faking it, he's still a nut because only a nut would put so much time and energy into such elaborate trolling for so little reward. To make this stuff up for fun is almost more insane than actually believing it.

I was on another message board, a basketball message board as it were, that was literally under siege for nearly a year by a small group of "trolls" posting under dozens and dozens of dummy accounts. It was a monumental effort and had no payoff other than the juvenile thrills of tricking people and shit-disturbing. People do strange things for kicks.

Regardless of the meta-troll of insisting he's joking, this is very true. It's worrying...

I'm not insisting anything. It's just my belief that he's having us on. He may well be sincere and believe his theories are true. I can't be certain of anything. But I've seen this sort of thing before and a years-long "in-character" performance is not unheard of.