OK...it's done. I have received no major objection to this Xanga being closed within more than three days of my warning entry. The only one I received was not a strenous objection, and quite honestly, it wasn't from someone I know all that well either. So therefore, this Xanga as of today will cease to be updated.

My LiveJournal will still be updated, however. Its URL can be found at:

http://grenadier32.livejournal.com

Note that you can comment on that without an LJ account. If you do, please be nice and identify yourself in the subject line--anonymous yet personal comments bother me.

I am still reading my digests, so don't assume that I'm not reading your entries anymore. Also, my LJ has a built-in RSS feed that will allow you to keep track of my entries in realtime even if you don't have LJ--contact me if you want to know how to use that. Note that you won't be able to view my friends-only LJ entries without an LJ account, but you couldn't read those even before my Xanga was closed anyway, so that's hardly a change.

Thank you, and good night.

I borrowed the 1776 DVD through a certain very useful movie-finding Facebook group. Considering my knowledge of the musical from the Broadway revival soundtrack, I naturally have a few thoughts about it. I think I need a "musicals" tag.

To sum up things quickly: I really don't like the movie. Perhaps it could be chalked up to prejudice, since I've always loved the 1996 revival version, but I can't help finding issues with the old one. On the most basic level, it's really boring. The director's presentation is uneven. Not only is he not exactly a genius at filmmaking, he seems to focus much more strongly on the love relationship between John and Abigail--sure, it's a beautiful story with beautiful music, but this is a musical about the founding of a nation, not a marriage. Hell, I'm not ashamed about their singing of "Till then, 'till then, I am as I ever was and ever shall be, yours, yours, yours" bringing a tear to my eye. I just want to be touched by the historical aspect as well--understanding the myraid opinions that are present at the Congress, from Rutledge's acknowledgement of the evil of slavery combined with the refusal to remove the anti-slavery clause from the Declaration because it's simply indispensible to the economy of the South (and the North as well at that time).

Part of the problem in that respect is Donald Madden's portrayal of Dickinson, the main conservative anti-independence proponent. It is unfair to portray Dickinson as evil. After all, what's wrong with what he's saying? What could be gained by rebeling against the strongest empire in the world? What historical precedent is there for a colony breaking off from its mother country? Why should anyone have a problem with being a part of the strongest nation in the world? Is it not ridiculous to publish a paper claiming that an illegal rebellion is in fact a legal one? The fact is, Dickinson is not addled in the head or greedy or anything like that--he has a very genuine interest to represent, and it is very much threatened by separation from Great Britain. It is unfair to portray him as smug and arrogant--he should be witty and calm, but not evil. Take this line, for example:

Dickinson: Why do you persist in dancing with Mr. Adams? Good Lord, sir, you don't even like him!
Hancock: That is true, he annoys me quite a lot, but still I'd rather trot to Mr. Adams' new gavotte.
Dickinson: But why? For personal glory? For a place in history? Be careful, sir, history will brand him and his followers as traitors.
Hancock: Traitors to what, Mr. Dickinson? The British crown or the British half-crown?

In the movie, Mr. Dickinson gives him a harsh look in response to this--but in the staged revival, he laughs good-naturedly. The latter is a much more realistic portrayal--charismatic and genuine, not evil and mean-spirited. I simply can't accept the former as valid. It's simply unfair to portray him that way.

Finally, I must reference a piece of trivia, from IMDB:

President Richard Nixon was given a private screening of the movie before its release by his friend Jack L. Warner, the producer. The song "Cool, Cool, Considerate Men" offended Nixon, so Warner removed it at his request.

For those who don't know, Cool, Cool, Considerate Men is a number led by Dickinson and sung by the conservatives as a whole, about their stance on independence and why they want things to remain as they are.

And this pisses me off. I figure that Nixon was offended by that number because it portrays the conservatives as unpatriotic--as unsupportive of the new nation. Well, who the hell does he think he is? That's what a conservative was at the time--someone who wanted to retain the status quo, who supported reconciliation with Great Britian and wanted the Continental Army to surrender. And if he were living in that time, he would have been on Dickinson's side. How dare he deny that? How dare he make the claim that just because he was elected president two hundred years later, he follows the Founding Fathers in spirit? It's such an obvious act of doublethink--that he wants to distance himself from the conservatives of 1776, and yet still follow conservative policies in his own time. If you're going to take a political stance, do yourself a favor and learn some gorram history. The lines of Cool, Cool, Considerate Men were not written just to give Dickinson a personality within the context of the show--he really believed them, or something very similar to them, and would have been proud to be remembered in such a way. At least, when the same work isn't portraying him as evil.

The final lines of the offending number:

"We're the cool, cool, considerate men,
Whose like may never ever be seen again--
With our land, cash in hand,
Self-command, future planned.
And we'll hold to our gold,
Tradition that is old, reluctant to be bold.
We say this game's not of our choosing--
Why should we risk losing?"

Makes sense, doesn't it? It did to them, and it would to me, if it didn't also make sense to me that not everyone is fine the way they are. And that's why I'm a liberal.

If I ever become a successful film director (long stretch, but possible), I will attempt to remake the movie. Even I can be patriotic at times.