Hollywood's Great Wall and Great Gall

Matt Damon's latest film offers both epic ambition and epic hypocrisy. This movie seeks global profit by teasing the Asian market with local lore (China's wall) and an American audience with local controversy (Trump's wall). Yet, it still condemns profit seeking. To do this, it descends into politically-correct racism (Asians are loving collectivists while Europeans are greedy individualists) and even some contradictory old-school racism (said utopic society still can't defend itself without the brilliance, courage, and technology of white savior Damon). Plus, all this is from critically respected director Zhang Yimou.

Such hypocrisy is shocking but not surprising. Most Hollywood heavyweights are democratic liberals in theory but aristocratic dictators in practice. Behind Damon's likeable screen persona is something less pleasant. Matt is the son of the boss of a teacher's union that is a distant descendant of Marxist thugs. However, his roots aren't the problem. Damon has branched out from his celebrity to help syndicate boss mom in haranging citizens on their moral responsibility to support public schools even if they're failing one's children.

Still, Matt's bullying has now ceased. When the time arrived to school his own offspring, Damon refocused his public pronouncements to explain why private schools are necessary evil for the children of American royalty like himself. Only the little people must support the system. (For a stellar crime novel on how public schools can abuse their monopoly and sell out the kids, read Fail by my friend Rick Skwiot.)

So, perhaps it isn't unexpected that a great white hope should arise from Hollywood, the righteous moral center of an otherwise degenerate capitalist West, to save a superior collective Asian brotherhood in a brief moment of civilizational vulnerability. Thank God we sent them our best: our actors. If we'd only remembered to include Will Smith and Michelle Rodriguez, no dragon monsters would dare test the Great Wall but rather tremble before the brutal whooping their green asses would receive from black, brown, yellow, and great white asses in total solidarity. (Excuse me as I wipe a tear.) Hollywood is so above the tribalism that plagues us common rubes.

In fact, if Meryl Streep held conservatives Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone captive at what they foolishly thought was just an awards ceremony to bully them about their preferred candidate being a bully, they deserved it. They're white westerners who don't live up to the lofty norms of Hollywood's great white liberal heroes like Matt Damon. If Trump can hold Asians hostage in airports for a couple hours because he suspects they may be terrorists, Hollywood can hold Americans hostage for a couple hours every awards season because they suspect we're idiots. We're morons who refuse to vote lovingly and collectively for the approved candidates of our supreme leaders.

Nobody craves understanding of rich cultures like China more than I, but to receive such cross-cultural understanding from Hollywood bimbos who've constructed a bigoted cultural wall between California/New York and flyover country is truly rich. If you wish to be better programmed by your Hollywood and Chicom betters, enjoy all the trite contradictory pablum that passes for dialogue in this film. If you long for a civilization where folks march in lockstep with their dynastic rulers without annoying disagreement or discussion, enjoy the computer-generated compliant hordes. Otherwise, just get liquored up and enjoy vast landscapes, cool monsters, and epic battles no further from reality than Hollywood's self concept. When they classify this movie as a fantasy, they aint lyin'!