As we all know, if the left didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any. The same people who’ve belted us over the heads with what Ben Shapiro dubs Prime Time Propaganda for decades lose their minds when a movie or TV show dares even hint at having centrist, let alone conservative, sympathies.
Case in point, hit a Netflix rom-com.
The movie, Purple Hearts, is about a woman who marries a Marine in order to get health insurance, and various aspects of the film have upset viewers, leading many to claim that it’s racist, misogynist and even military propaganda. In response to the outrage, the director of Purple Hearts, Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, and one of its stars, Sofia Carson, have spoken out in defense of the romance.
So, what’s got the Twitter left’s knickers in such an almighty bunch?
Purple Hearts – which was released July 29 – is about a liberal musician, Cassie (Carson), who agrees to marry a conservative Marine named Luke (Nicholas Galitzine), for one year. She has Type 1 diabetes and desperately needs health insurance to pay for her treatment. Meanwhile, Luke joined the military in order to pay back a debt after suffering from addiction. As time goes on and Cassie and Luke face more hardships and time apart, they end up actually falling for one another for real.
Which, forgive me for thinking, seems like just the sort of story America needs right now. The country has become more and more bitterly divided along ideological lines. To the point that the prospect of civil war is being seriously discussed by pundits on all sides.
So, a movie which gently reminds Americans of left and right persuasion that they have more in common than not, and that it’s entirely possible to have different opinions and still be friends, even lovers, should surely be seen as a tonic? Not to the screeching harpies and emasculated soy-boys of the left.
The backlash to the movie includes claims that it is military propaganda and that it includes unchecked instances of racism and misogyny. For example, at one point, another Marine giving a toast says, “This one is to life, love and hunting down some [expletive] Arabs, baby!” Cassie is upset by the comment, while Luke is not.
Jeez, somebody play them Stormtroopers Of Death’s 1985 classic, Speak English or Die.
Or maybe the easily offended pussies ought to spend some time around soldiers, police, even firefighters – people who do a dangerous job. Black humour is a necessary coping mechanism. There’s not the luxury of crying about “trigger warnings” and hiding under your blankie when you’re risking your life, not just getting “offended” by pronouns.
Rosenbaum spoke up for Purple Hearts in an interview with Variety, saying that the movie is meant to show how two very different people can come together despite their differences.
“I hope that people understand that in order for characters to grow, they need to be flawed in the beginning,” she said.
Which is not how woke Hollywood is used to working, lately. So Millennials have gotten entirely conditioned to a cavalcade of Mary Sues, from Star Wars’ Rei, to the remade Mulan. “Stronk wahmen” who are perfect in every way from the very onset and never fail in their cookie-cutter quests to smash the patriarchy/racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia… you know, all the stuff that progressives really believe everyone else thinks.
“So we very much intentionally created two characters that had been bred to hate each other … In order for the red heart and the blue heart to kind of turn purple, you have to have them be kind of extreme. Some of the people that they’re surrounded with are even more flawed than they are. They both have been neglected by the system; he’s hurt in a war that doesn’t seem to be ending and she’s slipping through the cracks of the healthcare system. So they’re both neglected by the system, and then they live under one roof, and in these extreme circumstances, they learn to become more moderate and to listen to each other and to love.”
Become moderate and listen to the other side? The left would rather die.
“What happens with these two people is that, rather than approaching each other with hatred and with seeing their divisions, they start to see each other as human beings, not just political views.”
In other words, break the chains of identity politics. The only problem with that, is that identity politics is all the woke left have got.
Fortunately, a whole lot of Americans, especially Netflix subscribers who probably lean more left than not, apparently disagree with the tiny, outrageously noisy echo-chamber of the online offenderati.
Despite the backlash, many people have streamed Purple Hearts on Netflix. The movie has been viewed for over 100 million hours and took over the No. 1 spot from the Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans action movie The Gray Man […]
Carson added that the response she’s experienced “has been so beautifully overwhelming” and that “so many people have felt seen or are comforted by this movie”. The actor continued, “That’s all we could want filmmakers and as artists.”
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If we needed any further proof that this might actually be a pretty good movie, look no further than Rotten Tomatoes. The film has a 30 per cent critical rating and a 70 per cent audience rating.
When the critics and the audience disagree – the audience is almost always right.