Our interest here is in responsibly speculating if it was Mamet's coming out of the reactionary closet that lead him to take Spector's side. Is the conviction of a (certain level of) celebrity of the Caucasian persuasion for using Second Amendment rights to put a woman in her place an indication to Mamet of how the monolithic left is irredeemably evil & so on? Or has Mamet has always been this much of a jerk?The film is not only an ugly case for Spector’s innocence, it’s a bad case for it. Over and over, we hear that he’s being prosecuted because he’s rich and famous and the proof that happens is … what? Spector wasn’t that famous except maybe in his own mind. A jury could easily be selected of folks who’d never heard of him. There’s no history of suspected murderers being indicted because they were celebrities. There is a long history of police in the Los Angeles area giving preferential treatment to celebrities and they sure waited a long time before indicting a man that everyone knew was probably guilty from the moment the crime was reported. And even if somehow, rich/famous folks are more likely to be prosecuted when suspicious murders happen around them, the “famous” disadvantage gets offset by the “rich” advantage. They can hire legal Dream Teams — the best money can buy.
I’m going to get off this because I doubt many folks reading this who care about this case think Spector was railroaded. I was just kind of amazed — and in a sense, relieved — that even slanting the facts to prove the guy innocent didn’t prove him innocent. And I was amazed that the film was such a waste of time as drama. About all I learned was that Phil Spector does a decent impression of Al Pacino.
Chicken/egg time: Does entering the world of wing-nuttia bring out the hitherto unsuspected inner jerk, or is jerk-offery a pre-requisite to becoming a reactionary? We'll probably have to slice into a few extremist brains to determine the answer. Where's that scalpel?
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