James Woods Breaks His Silence on Armstrong Biopic, Unloads on 'Flag-Hating Liberals'
“First Man” is the kind of film that a guy like James Woods (or Clint Eastwood) should have directed. It’s a movie about a deeply American man (Neil Armstrong) and a deeply American moment (the first moon landing).
He didn’t direct it, of course, and those who did make it decided to leave the most famous image from the entire moon landing — the planting of the American flag — out of it.
So Woods, who has made a reputation as a formidable social media force, did the second-best thing he could do about it — he tweeted about the controversy.
For those of you coming into the controversy in medias res, a quick explanation: “First Man,” a biopic about Armstrong and the moon landing starring Ryan Gosling, premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week.
The Venice Film Festival isn’t exactly known for a high percentage of MAGA-hat owners (or at least those that would wear them publicly), but even the crowd there noticed that the American flag scene was missing.
There were plenty of explanations about why it was omitted from the producers and actors. Woods, however, said what a lot of us were thinking:
The greatest miscalculation in movie promotion is to piss off your target audience while trying to appease people who would never be interested in the subject matter anyway. Flag hating #liberals were never going to see the moon landing movie. Now many patriots won’t either. Sad.
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) September 2, 2018
Exactly.
This film was made and conceived by individuals for whom the flag is an ambiguous symbol — at best.
It’s not that they don’t get that this was a distinctly American moment, it’s that they don’t get why there would be distinctly American moments to begin with — especially involving the stars and stripes.
Lead actor Gosling said that it was a moment that “transcended countries and borders.”
Really, now? So it was embraced by the Soviets? The Chinese? The North Vietnamese? The Cubans? Inasmuch as it transcended borders, it did so only because of American ingenuity.
I haven’t seen “First Man” yet. For all I know, it makes an artistic point that the flag would have gotten in the way of. I highly doubt that, but I don’t put it outside of the realm of possibility.
However, the audience at the Venice Film Festival didn’t seem to think so, which is why this was a controversy in the first place.
And the fact is, this is a product of Hollywood, USA: A company town with a marked contempt for the country that makes it possible. The factory line that produced “Platoon” probably shouldn’t have been trusted with one of America’s finest moments.
We shouldn’t be surprised. But we should be insulted.
James Woods is right: Conservatives aren’t going to see it, and liberals never were. Excellent job, Hollywood.
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