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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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I’m not accusing you of being paranoid and I largely agree with your original point. Knives Out is a progressive propaganda movie, but it’s on the basis of class rather than race. The family don’t have their unearned wealth because they’re white (they’re not descendants of slaveowners or something) but because of their mystery novelist father’s capitalist success. The message of the movie is that the son does not deserve the wealth of the father, that inheritance is inherently unjust, that the generational transfer of wealth is not just arbitrary but unfair and must be corrected. Sure, there’s some progressive waffle about immigration and race and the alt right son, though that’s largely played for laughs in front of a progressive audience. But the core of the message is essentially Occupy Wall Street, Wealth Tax Now. There have always been white hispanics in Hollywood, but I can’t imagine someone’s aesthetic sympathy for Mayans is improved by the casting of a Spanish actress in this movie; most Americans encounter illegal migrants at least somewhat regularly; they don’t look like Ana de Armas.