June 25, 2009, - 4:10 pm
Johnny Depp: “I’m a Big Fan” and “Hope People Root For” Bank-Robbing, Cop-Killing Murderer
When I was a kid, one of the best syndicated re-runs of “The Brady Bunch” was an episode entitled “Bobby’s Hero,” in which Bobby Brady idolizes Jesse James. Mr. Brady, disturbed that one of his sons would idolize a criminal and murderer, forces Bobby to learn about the real evil embodied by his romanticized hero from the old West. It finally hits home when Mike Brady introduces son Bobby to a man whose father was murdered in cold blood by his “idol.” (The full episode can be viewed in three parts here, here, and here–thanks to reader Yitzchak.)
If only we could go back 36 years and force actor Johnny Depp to have the fictional Mike Brady as his father. This is what I mean when I talk about the importance of good fathers in kids’ lives in America. Say what you want about “The Brady Bunch.” That was a TV father who did what many Americans don’t do for their kids today . . . including, apparently, Johnny Depp’s father.
Depp plays John Dillinger, the 1930s serial bank robber in “Public Enemies,” the movie which debuts in theaters, next Wednesday. It’s one of the big 4th of July holiday releases.
Sadly, Depp–who has a history of making anti-American statements–is just as clueless on the cold-blooded creep he plays. He’s now idolizing Dillinger in the same way little Bobby Brady idolized Jesse James. And, with it, he and his castmates play the same old left-wing class warfare politics, which somehow makes bank robbery “cool.”
Johnny Depp chuckles when he hears that his cast mates say he has a swagger similar to 1930s bank robber John Dillinger.
He thinks so, too.
“Oddly,” said the star of the legendary criminal, “I’m a big fan.”Depp chatted about the folklore-like merits of Dillinger at the Los Angeles premiere of Public Enemies. . . .
“Especially in that era . . . everything was going against the common man. People like John Dillinger came back and were anti the establishment in their own special way,” Depp said. “I actually hope people root for him, too.“
Sadly, co-star Christian Bale, who plays FBI Agent Melvin Purvis who went after Dillinger, drinks the pan-criminal Kool-Aid, too.
Bale said . . . moviegoers will naturally fall for the criminal’s charm.
“Especially because this is a gangster who really has the heart of the common man, too,” Bale said. “It’s like today, there’s a recession and like now, people back then felt there was this great sense of injustice and that these fat cats were just screwing them over. And Dillinger was somebody taking it back.
It’s like Dillinger was the right man at the right time and he seemed almost to have a cause. It’s a question whether that was really the case, but you can see how easily the people felt about that and gravitated toward that.”
9/11 Truther idiotette and co-star Marion Cotillard spouts the BS, too.
The cast also chatted about the Robin Hood-like quality that Depp brings to Dillinger.
“He wasn’t really that bad,” cooed Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, who portrays Depp’s love interest in the film. “People will love this guy.
Disgusting.
Here’s a reality check: John Dillinger was not a nice guy. He was a murderer. He killed a police officer, Patrick O’Malley. And he was a cop killer in more ways than one. When fellow degenerate friends of his sprung him from jail, a sheriff, Jess Sarber, was killed. And death and maiming, including of female bystanders, followed him everywhere he went.
This is America’s new folk hero? It reminds me of the sickening worship of Charles Manson that continues to simmer within America’s younger demographic.
When I first wrote about how I was looking forward to this movie, readers contacted me, hoping it wasn’t going to romanticize Dillinger, and it looks like their fears have been realized, based on what we’ve seen so far.
Reader Mark, who wrote:
Did you see the 1973 movie, “Dillinger“? I watched it on TV recently, twice. The first time, I was thinking that you don’t see movies like that too much any more, as it did not, over all, glorify the robbers and demonize the federal agents.
Did you ever happen to hear Woodie Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd“? I guess that presaged the coming of romanticizing evil.
Nowadays, everybody wants to be an outlaw.
Sadly, they do. Gangsta is in. Good is out.
Reader OldSchoolW warned:
Michael Mann’s films have never been known for their accuracy.
And if Dillinger is the hero these guys make him out to be, looks like this movie will be equally as inaccurate.
I’ll be seeing the movie, Monday, and posting my review at just after Midnight on Wednesday Morning. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I repost the trailer here:
Now hang on there a sec … Jesse James? You can’t equate a man resisting the federal District of Columbia’s violent aggression against it’s own citizens to John Dillinger’s murderous and pointless spree killing. In fact, I would equate the Union’s pointless Civil War spree killing to Dillinger since it wasn’t for anything, like Dillinger, than Money.
The Black Flag in my handle is representative of Bill Quantrill. But rather than argue the War of Northern Aggression in this respected forum, I will quote H L Mencken’s note on the Gettysburg Address … since we’re all fond (these days) of supporting the basic human right to political self-determination …
(quote) The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history…the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination ñ that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.
BlackFlagQ55 on June 25, 2009 at 5:21 pm