Action movie writers and directors – put up your dukes. I've got a longstanding issue with you blowing up U.S. cities on the big screen – especially when you attempt to nuke New York City.
My irritation with this silver screen charade was documented back in 2008 in a New York Times article that quoted me (via my maiden name) regarding movies' ("I am Legend" and "Cloverfield") cinematic obliteration of the city I spent a great deal of my childhood, teen years and college experience in getting blown to smithereens.
Now, a spontaneous trip to see "The Avengers" last weekend has reignited my loathing of on-screen explosions in the Big Apple.
Understand – nothing thrills me more than repeat rear views of Captain America or gratuitous shots of Thor's biceps beaded with perspiration and riddled with bulging veins as he summons his hammer, but I'm sick and tired of seeing New York City and its monuments ravaged, blown up and destroyed on celluloid. Am I the only one that is sensitive to the fact that this actually, so tragically happened?
The writer of that NYT article, Brooks Barnes, uncovered that obliterating New York City on the big screen is quite purposeful. Turns out foreign markets champ at the bit to see our homeland get its ass kicked. Makes my stomach turn to think that U.S. filmmakers purposefully use negative domestic imagery to make more money in the overseas market.
Call me oversensitive (as I know that's certainly not the worst thing I've been called), but can't we torch a fictional city or some unknown far away place that isn't so familiar? At the very least, perhaps just not paint such a graphic motion picture for America-haters to jerk off to. I want our superheroes to turn their superpowers to good use – to avenge this nasty for-profit habit of American moviemakers.
Lindsay Garric is a Milwaukee native who calls her favorite city home base for as long as her lifestyle will allow her. A hybrid of a makeup artist, esthetician, personal trainer and entrepreneur all rolled into a tattooed, dolled-up package, she has fantasies of being a big, bad rock star who lives in a house with a porch and a white picket fence, complete with small farm animals in a version of Milwaukee that has a tropical climate.
A mishmash of contradictions, colliding polar opposites and a dash of camp, her passion is for all pretty things and the products that go with it. From makeup to workouts, food to fashion, Lindsay has a polished finger on the pulse of beauty, fashion, fitness and nutrition trends and is super duper excited to share that and other randomness from her crazy, sexy, gypsy life with the readers of OnMilwaukee.com.