30 Replies to “Frankly, My Dear”

  1. Bravo, Kate!
    I literally didn’t know you had it in you!
    Now I’d be fascinated to find out what you think of the sequel…

  2. That’s nothing. Wait until “The Birth of a Nation” is released sometime before the election. This tells the story of Nat Turner, a former slave, who led a slave rebellion in 1831. It was a Rwanda-style uprising where about 60 whites were killed with clubs, knives and machetes. Turner hoped to start a general slave uprising, which like John Brown’s later effort, did not ensue. I’ve heard it described as a “Braveheart” movie for black people. I don’t want to be walking near the theatre when the young black audience pours out on the street. It’s going to get ugly.

  3. i hate going to the movie theater.
    overpriced everything
    the “food” isn’t really
    the “product” isn’t entertaining
    no refund for lost time
    any nutbar with a weapon can do serious damage

  4. Why hasn’t Hollywood made “Trayvon,the Movie” or “The Michael Brown Story”?
    White mistreatment of them thar african-amerikan folks is never ending, there should be a movie made about every instance of B-W upsettedness.
    If nothing else, it would keep the Hollywood propaganda factory busy and we could all just stay home and not waste time going to movies.
    I’ve seen “To Kill a Mockingbird” several times, love Gregory Peck’s stiff-necked acting, played the same guy in every movie he ever made. My favorite is “Atticus Goes to War”, in which Peck and David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle etc., do a commando raid on some German guns perched in a mountain cave.
    And there’s “Atticus Meets De Debbil” with the lovely Lee Remick, and of course, “The Boys From Brazil” in which Atticus channels the Angel Of Death.
    Ah,Hollywood, the place the Muslims should eliminate first, but seem too allah-damned stupid to do it and keep shooting up other less evil places.

  5. A critique of “To Kill A Mockingbird” by a racist. Absurdly racist. Ridiculous racist. Ludicrous racist.
    Full disclosure: I never read the book but have seen the movie (which Katy attests is faithful to the book) several times. Why not take the story at face value? Why is it necessary to allege that it is a piece of propaganda? That’s just nuts!! Embarrassingly so.
    I’m pretty certain that the movie’s portrayal of a rural, small southern town in the 1920s was accurate. Like every small rural town it had it’s quirks and it’s characters. But that’s not the story. That’s just the background. Nothing more. The story is about Atticus and his children. And, like the movie “High Noon”, the message that a man has sometime got to stand for something “or lie a coward in his grave” is a good one.
    …..
    Katy Shadlie or whatever her name is has unresolved issues. She should see a mental health professional. And if it’s possible, the comments that I bothered to read were even worse.

  6. We took To Kill a Mockingbird in school. So did my kids. Loved it. Loved the movie. Not following the story here. Is this just a late book report from someone who’s never read the book?

  7. I appreciate Kathy most times,
    But being true to my non-conformist nature I have to disagree with Kathy and most of the comments here…it was a great book, and a great movie.
    It was an examination of the fallen human heart from a child’s point of view. Comparison to Rachel Carson is extreme.
    The racial issues that Obama and company are fuelling today cannot be blamed on that innocent handicapped man in the story.
    David …right on…except I don’t think Kathy needs ‘help’…she just likes to stir things up occasionally.

  10. Sometimes Ms. Shaidle gets it right on, but this isn’t one of those times. Reading and commenting on ‘Mockingbird with a 21st Century mindset is going to lead to bad conclusions. This is true of most literature – the Bible comes to mind, in fact, where anachronisms are rife and a literal translation given modern understanding is going to result in a very, very bad position on the part of time-constrained critics.
    If you want to appreciate ‘Mockingbird, read it with a 1960 mindset.

  11. Here in the SF Bay Area, local Middle schoolers get to watch “Fruitvale Station” so they can witness the deification of common criminal punk Oscar Grant. Poor little Oscar was accidentally (and moronically) killed by a WHITE Bart police officer with a very Aryan Nation sounding last name. Oscar is portrayed as the boy next door … not the Thug who was harassing Bart riders and fighting violently. Nawww … Oscar was a humble, quiet, choir boy. It was WHITEY who killed Oscar. It was WHITEY who didn’t believe that black (African American ?) lives matter !

  12. “i hate going to the movie theater.”
    I’m inclined to agree. In an age when large-screen HDTV is readily available to everyone (including folks on the reserves), why would you put up with the expense and inconvenience of a movie theatre when you can relax at home, enjoy a couple of cold beers and start and stop the film as you want?

  13. I haven’t been in a movie theatre since December 1993 when I saw “Jurassic Park” at a second-run house. I made the mistake of going during the year-end holidays, so the place was packed with teenyboppers.
    The girls ruined the movie for me by reacting to every slightest thing. Missing goat? Scream! Dino footprint? Shriek!
    It took me several years before I could watch that movie again. By then, I had developed a different perspective, looking at it not as a horror flick (which, to be frank, the media portrayed it as being), but one about science. I’d finished my last graduate degree by then, so I could watch JP as a researcher.
    A few years later, I bought the boxed DVD set of the first 3 films.

  14. Birds and people have died becuase Racheal Carson lied the facts are that DDT was’nt harming the birds like she claimed in her book SILENT SPRING but her lies have become fact just like with Global Warming/Climate Change or make that ManBearPig Climate change

  15. That’s one reason my favourite TV channel is Turner Classic Movies. I get to watch what I like, often when it’s convenient for me. I’ve discovered a lot of films through it, many of which have become personal favourites (e. g., “The Best Years of Our Lives”, “Captain Blood”).
    I don’t know of any cinema here in my city that can offer me that, let alone for a comparable price.

  16. If you want to appreciate ‘Mockingbird, read it with a 1960 mindset.
    I did & Ms.Shaidle gets it right on.. Lee was/is a delusional freak who created “thought” crimes.. No different than the false Rape claims of today….She is not popular in the town she destroyed & refuses interviews.
    The movie “Hateful Eight” has been panned by every reviewer, extreme violence without any merit…
    I saw it and think he (Producer) has something deeper going on that “may” have meaning… if you can stomach all the gore without one hero..

  17. “Why not take the story at face value? Why is it necessary to allege that it is a piece of propaganda? That’s just nuts!! Embarrassingly so.”
    I agree. It seems to me that Shaidle can sometimes go on “spin dry” for no coherent reason. This is one of those times.
    Both the book and the film are first rate in and of themselves, whatever others might make of them.
    (As “nold” noted, if the original story got Shaidle so wired up, I wonder what the effect of the sequel would be.)

  19. Both my children read the book in ONT high schools, so it was on the reading list, don’t know how Shaidle avoided it. I read it and it is a pretty good story. In 1960 the plot was original and Harper lee is not responsible for dozens of hacked imitations. Also it is simplistic to label Lee as a liberal without some qualification.
    Her father was an Alabama superior court judge during the turbulent 1960s. Lee never participated in the marches and protests in Alabama and was not outspoken on the racial issue. Many of her Manhattan neighbours and northern activists tried to put words in her mouth, and use her story as a anti southern tome. But Lee continued to live half the year in Monroe Alabama where she still resides. She said all she intended to say in the novel.
    A very worthwhile read is her biography Mockingbird which paints a complex picture of her character.

  20. I totally agree. This kind of garbage undermines SDA as a thoughtful forum. The racial tensions in the States have been politicized and exploited, but Lee’s book helps people to understand the historical context.

  21. Writing an article on a book she hasn’t read. I’ve also seen Shaidle comment on Breaking Bad, admitting she’s never watched the show. Doesn’t do much for her credibility as a writer.

  22. While I enjoy Ms Shaidle’s blog, she is a snark and I take most of what she writes with that in mind. Harper Lee was no snark but a superb prose stylist.
    Lee’s book is a gem and stands alone as a piece of literature notwithstanding its subject matter.
    I have read her book perhaps twenty times but was unable to sit through the movie. Gregory Peck was wooden. His best work was The Boys from Brazil.

  23. There’s probably a good article to be written about how Mockingbird has been hijacked by the left to prop up their narrative, but this isn’t it.
    Every column Kathy writes is about Kathy.

  24. She’s right.
    It’s become a template of magic noble negros vs dumb white southern inbred trash since the 60’s.
    Nothing can be attributed to these stereotypes more than this novel.
    Of all the commenters putting down Kathy’s take who doesn’t idolize Atticus to some degree.

  25. David said: “Why not take the story at face value? Why is it necessary to allege that it is a piece of propaganda? That’s just nuts!! Embarrassingly so.”
    Because whether the author intended it as propaganda or not (I have no idea either way) the book is being -used- as propaganda by the Left in schools all over the world. It’s one of their foundational myths.
    As is Lord of the Flies. That one is in Ontario schools, and it is another foundation myth of the modern Left. Then there’s Grapes of Wrath and a few more “classics” that reinforce their socialist mindset.
    They also love 1984, but for a different reason. That one they use as an instruction manual.

  26. ‘As is Lord of the Flies. That one is in Ontario schools, and it is another foundation myth of the modern Left’
    How is Lord of the Flies by William Golding a leftist book? IMO the book is a precautionary tale against collectivism; a tale of how things can rapidly head south for a group of children or any group for that matter when the stress of day to day survival is thrown into the mix.

  27. We read the book in high school. We saw the movie too. I can’t remember what grade.
    I don’t recall anyone getting all worked up about it – it was just another work of fiction. No different than The Merchant of Venice. No one got brainwashed by it.

  29. Lord of the Flies: the lesson is that civilization is a thin veneer, and that anyone can snap any time, given the right pressure.
    Except that we know from countless wars and disasters, it doesn’t work that way. People do not self-assemble into warring tribes the second Big Brother’s watchful eye isn’t on them. Individuals do not become murderous given freedom.
    But the Left very much wants you to think so. Their foundational belief is people are stupid and must be controlled.

  30. I must have attended crappy elementry schools because the students where I went regularly assembled into factions and ditto for the summer camps I attended. I could easily imagine the fictional events portrayed in the book taking place.
    WWII was not tribal? For war to be acceptable to the masses it invariably boils down to ‘our tribe against their tribe’.

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