I don’t think I would have the strength to go through an Iron Man movie but for my nieces and nephew who were eager to watch it. In this barely analytical review, I’m paraphrasing the first chapter of Eric Cheyftiz’s The Poetics of Imperialism titled “Tarzan of the Apes: US Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century” spiced with notes from George Carlin.
I just completed The Devil finds Work – an uncannily insightful book – by the black writer James Baldwin on racism in American movies. Iron Man is an arrogant, patronizing, racist prick who stands for everything that makes the United States such a crazy drunk ape of a regime. He just belongs to the long line of James Bonds and Supermans and Rambos and other dickheads who are out there to save white Americans and their families from the wretched others. There’s a point Baldwin makes over and again: what is missing or rather repressed in white American consciousness is blackness. This blackness takes myriad forms from the “blacks” themselves to communists, Arabs and gays. The stupidest American movie gives you an idea of what this hidden face of blackness is all about.
