I haven't seen the movie yet, although I plan to. It looks like it could be fun. I know too much history to think this is based on much more than the bare outlines of history, and I like to think I'm too smart to begin with to get my history from Hollywood. But something bothers me about this review, and the kinds of attitudes it pushes forward.

It's this: why is violence and the exposure of the male form connected into "homoeroticism" with a sneer attached to it? Sure, I know a couple of leather men; I know about the same number of straight males who exhibit the same degree of what I consider to be overhyped masculinity. I know far more truly violent straights than I do gays. But always, in these kinds of reviews, there's a wink, a nod, a sneer at the mention of the exposure of the male form and its connection to sexuality--also, a belief that the male form must be attractive only to gay men, that women cannot find such beautiful or sexual.

I find all this to be almost as reflective of a deep and troubling prejudice and covert hatred of homosexuals as the overt gay-bashing we see from the Right.

"But I can't really imagine this particular ad sparking much more than a "Huh, that's kind of cool" reaction in its viewers. And it doesn't seem to me to represent, as an expert on politics and new media is quoted as saying, "the end of the broadcast era." But perhaps I'm missing something."

A million views, in a very short time.

That sound? That sound is you, missing the point.

"buying a 30 second spot on network TV that was viewed by 1MM people would cost you pocket change, less than $20k."

How many of those folks are taking a crap, getting popcorn from the fridge, petting the dog? Even more to the point, even if they sit glued to the tube, they didn't choose to look at the picture.

The million hitters each one individually chose to look at the spot. That's what makes this different from the old media. Choice. Choice, and all that represents.

Oh, and the YouTube post? Cost nothing. Done in a couple of hours on your garden-variety PC or Mac.

We'll see a lot more of these in time to come.

The conversation has just gotten a whole lot larger.

Wow. I mean, just, wow. Like wow. I mean, like really wow.

"No one knows when or where, but more online political videos are sure to catch fire. The bigger question is: Will those who secretly pay to produce the videos be able to hide behind YouTube, or will they be forced to come forward?"

No.

The bigger question is: will the old media be able to handle the new media, which is, by its fundamental nature, democratic, anarchistic, and, to adapt Stewart Brand's saying, "wanting to be free"?

Judging from this article, the answer to _that_ bigger question is "No."

And, as for this:

"There is little civil intercourse on the internet and we are becoming a pathetically polarized society. Shame on the activists who are behind these antics. I am sick to my core of such ads, such blogging, such nonsense."

This writer must not have been paying attention to society since, oh, say, 1988. Lee Atwater showed us the way to this brave new world; shouters like Limbaugh and Coulter have made us live in it without relief. Don't blame blogs and YouTube for what has been happening for almost two decades now.

Those of us who post on TableTalk have repeatedly run into the kind of ugliness that you're talking about in this article: overt and ugly racism, sexism, death threats. We've repeatedly asked, hell, we've begged you to do something about it.

Repeatedly, the Salon PTB have refused. The ugliness has reduced the Politics and WH fora to irrelevance as they've become absolute pits where right-wing haters feel free to practice their broadband hate.

And you've done nothing about it. Nothing. Not a damned thing.

But now, you choose one poor blogger who's suffered abuse, and talk about the misogyny in the Letters section--which, along with racism and hatred of homosexuals, exists, no doubt about it.

Now you plan to do something about it--in the Letters section. Are we still to suffer in TableTalk?

Does it simply depend on whose ox is being gored? You've had enough of the abuse in Letters; but we can eat endless amounts of it in TT?

If you want to clean up the Salon house, then clean up all of it.

Save Our Salon.

The perfect description of CP's work, lifted from this essay:

"...distorted language with self-important opacity and who inflated small ideas into giant, groaning bladder-bags."

There are plenty of good writers and deep thinkers out there.

Paglia is not one of them, and hasn't been for quite some time.

This is just sad, folks.