Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Newt, a Kirareyaku?

In Japanese samurai films, the hero frequently gracefully slaughters countless antagonists, blood & body parts flying every which way. In contrast to his grace are his victims who die, as Seizo Fukumoto explains,
Whenever we die, we have to do it in a way that is unsightly or clumsy, not graceful. In this buzama, we find beauty. To die in an uncool way is the coolest."
This appears to be Newt Gingrich's strategy - to go down in a clumsy, uncool way that - thru it's gruesome horror - is somehow politically cool. I don't get it. Ron Paul never expected to win, just to show the popularity of his ideas & get them put on the table. Gingrich, like some bloated, semi-animated corpse just seems to want to go down in grotesque and ghastly ways repeatedly like in a zombies vs. samurai epic.
It is kinda fun to watch but it would be a lot cheaper for Newt to be an extra in a movie than a kirareyaku in a political campaign.

More on Kirareyaku at NPR

1 comment:

Mark said...

I don't know if Newt ever seriously expected to win (although who knows?) but like Palin, he loves the attention and is making a fortune selling his books with it.

If that's at the expense of the poor saps who believe in him, so be it.