Overly kind to Buckley - Best of Enemies (2015) Discussion

[–] persistenceofvision 8 years ago

Early on they have that clip of Buckley's brother, and he says that more than anything 'he was a revolutionary'. Apparently he doesn't substantiate this, the interviewer doesn't ask him to and we quickly cut to something else. What was revolutionary about Buckley exactly?

The movie also leaves out the bits where Vidal calls Buckley out on the National Review's racism (like calling someone black a 'jig', which is so weirdly old-fashioned I wouldn't have understood it if I hadn't seen Gangs of New York).

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[–] danielbaelewis 8 years ago

Buckley was a "revolutionary" because of Firing Line, because he entered the 1965 NYC Mayoral Election as a troll candidate and ended up getting a ton of votes, because he started a conservative magazine, because he organized and revitalized the conservative movement, etc. Reid was clearly proud of his brother but I think that there's some substance there. From what I remember, the documentary touched on this briefly but perhaps they could have detailed that point.

I don't think it's biased to leave out every attack each man made. I also think that it's pretty obvious - with the amount of academics on Vidal's side, and the fact that Buckley is already scorned for calling Vidal a queer - that the filmmakers were restraining and trying to balance out the attacks. Including that he used the word "jig" would've been a bit irrelevant because I don't remember many allusions to race, but I could be forgetting.

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[–] suits_me 8 years ago

"Including that he used the word "jig" would've been a bit irrelevant because I don't remember many allusions to race, but I could be forgetting."

The charge is that the "National Review" used an overtly racist slur in print. That is not "irrelevant" regarding that magazine, the right wing, or the editor of the magazine whether the two men alluded to race in their debates many times or did not.

However, I think it's telling that a right winger would try for a rationale to find a racist slur in the "National Review" to be "irrelevant."

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[–] danielbaelewis 8 years ago

No. I'm not saying that Vidal's comment is irrelevant. I'm referring to the charge made by the user, which is that the documentary left out bits where Vidal brought up slurs Buckley printed, and this user's comment followed the general theme of the thread, which is that the film was "overly kind" to Buckley. My opinion is that that is false because the film did not reference race enough to a point where Vidal's charge would be relevant to the film - if you've seen it, you should have picked up on the fact that allusions to RFK, Myra Breckenridge, Buckley's sexuality, etc. were all put into the movie for a reason.

I think it's very telling that a leftist would lack the comprehension skills needed to read the words of my original comment, in which I do NOT defend the word jig or deny that its publication is racist, and manage high enough airs to assume that I'm on the right, all while apparently not even reading the comments in the right context! Please.

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[–] suits_me 8 years ago

That would qualify as the film being easy on racist, homophobic Buckley, the point that was under discussion.

I didn't expect you would _openly_ support Buckey's use of "jig." I expected you would, as you did, try to change the subject from Buckley's history of overt, ugly racism, which went far, far beyond just the use of a relatively (for him and his cohorts) benign racist slur which the video under discussion did see fit to mention.

salon dot com, for example:
"William F. Buckley and National Review’s vile race stance: Everything you need to know about conservatives and civil rights
"Remembering the night William F. Buckley took his genteel racism to Cambridge--and left destroyed by James Baldwin"

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[–] danielbaelewis 8 years ago

It would absolutely not. Excluding information in order to establish yourself as an honest filmmaker and hold the focus of the documentary is not "being easy" on a subject. You still imply that I tried to excuse the word "jig, a pretty extreme logical conclusion to draw, under the large point that I tried to change the topic of the discussion by pointing out that not including Buckley's obscure remarks on race was irrelevant to the discussion of the film's credibility. Untrue. The topic of discussion was always the film's credibility. You were focused on race.

I don't need to read Salon articles since I've read plenty on Buckley already, but I glanced through them briefly for the sake of this discussion. I've already seen the video of him debating Baldwin and, as someone who does parliamentary debate and knows how it goes, it means nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. Parli speeches are so quick, positions are decided for you without your consent and on the spot, you have to formulate your arguments while the other person is speaking, everything must be purely logical, etc. Especially because Buckley was trained for it at Yale, I doubt his performance was a good reflection of his views, and I think it was very brave of him to go against such an esteemed black writer (who was also brave) on such a delicate topic that Buckley was doomed to lose on.

Those quotes about African Americans being socially backward do mean something to me, and I think they're quite offensive and ignorant. But if this is your idea of "ugly, overt racism"...then I guess we're philosophically different. I understand where you're coming from and I can't say that you're wrong, but I personally have a different standard for what is/isn't racist and I think Buckley as a man wasn't particularly bad for his era and background. But if you somehow think that this goes "far, far beyond" one slur then you're wrong: that "far, far" is actually just two other articles and a grainy debate, and no one has ever convinced me otherwise. People always whip out a few random NR quotes and the Baldwin debate and accuse Buckley burning crosses, but his views were derived from ignorance and very traditional reactionary views. If his views on civil rights actually incited real racism in the Republican Party then I would be less inclined to defend his legacy, but they were of SO little consequence to the conservative movement and to society that it doesn't matter. I am totally convinced that people just google the quotes because they want a reason to dislike him.

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[–] suits_me 8 years ago

That was a lot of words.

William F. Buckley and his organ had and have, respectively, a long history of vile racism. That record is scarcely hinted at in the film under discussion. Whether you think that's a problem with the film or represents the film glossing over Buckley's virulent racism or not is not a significant issue to me.

The significant issue to me is the man's racism and homophobia, and that not much of the former record is on view in the present film. Then of course there's the issue of sad individuals today who make excuses for obvious bigotries against multiple groups, or who engage in painstaking, constipated denial of same. Fortunately, those people are being pushed farther and farther to the margins, particularly by young people in the main.

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[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] suits_me 8 years ago

Whether you heard such a remark or whether such a remark is even recorded by the documentary the film in either case would _still_ amount to a very partial, cursory revelation of WFB's long history of racism.

Now, his homophobia is on fairly full view in the documentary, i.e., in the original broadcasts. I'm not sure how much he could have said in private or in other media contexts that would have been more stark on that score.

By the way, I think Vidal was correct in suggesting WFB - who once suggested that gay men have identifying tattoos put on their buttocks as some sort of AIDS prevention strategy, supposedly - was the usual right wing sort of homophobic closet case.

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[–] danielbaelewis 8 years ago

I think "Best of Enemies" is an extremely nuanced and highly researched portrayal of Buckley's legacy and I can't really understand where you're coming from.

Buckley was owned more comprehensively by Chomsky before Vidal got there.

The owning was more fact based and less about the personalities. It's all on YouTube.

Alright so I don't know a single person who won a debate against Noam Chomsky because the man is a human computer. I have seen the debate, I agree that Chomsky won, but I don't know how that's relevant at all towards Best of Enemies. Also, "before Vidal got there" -- Chomsky went on Firing Line a year AFTER the debates. I also think Buckley's debate style is rather clear: not to obliterate the opponent's argument, but to casually find flaws and allow them to clarify. Sometimes Buckley won, sometimes he didn't, but I don't think he did it TO win but rather present a conservative opinion. Firing Line was on PBS and what is now My9 - Not Fox News.

He also resorted to 'smash face' talk in the interview with Chomsky.

That was an extremely obvious allusion to the debate with Vidal that Chomsky and the audience found funny. It's obvious that he wasn't serious.

The film hinged around Buckley's loss of control in the Vidal instance like it was the nadir of Buckley's career as an intellectual. It wasn't, like most fascists, once the smooth talk wasn't going anywhere, the jackboot came out and this was an established pattern.

I would disagree with your interpretation of the movie: it focused on his loss of control towards the end because it was incredibly embarrassing for Buckley but also gave him more celebrity. The debate wasn't meant to be "intellectual" in the first place: It was a very short, very shallow debate with two personalities/writers who were VERY bright and used big words but whose debate was simple enough for the general public to enjoy. I think it's extreme to call Buckley a fascist when he was known in later years to be a libertarian, and to operate under the assumption that Vidal would never try to get ad hominem (I assume that's what "the jackboot" was referring to? Because Buckley didn't get violent in any other debate/interview and he rarely got frustrated), when that's what the film was about.

I enjoyed the film, and I always liked Gore Vidal, but it's overly kind to Buckley.

I enjoyed the film because I thought it was so moderate. The producers had personal interview footage of Vidal that they cut out. They gushed about notes that Vidal made with quips like "If Bette Davis went to Yale, she would be you", and more jabs made at Buckley's supposed attraction to men. They included some things about Vidal that I thought were so groundbreakingly insulting - the fact that his "quick wit" was actually rehearsed (which I'm sure is common, but wow) and that one pal of his that compared him to Norma Desmond - but I think it's pretty clear that they weren't card-carrying Republicans. If you want a documentary that's more sympathetic to Vidal, I suggest "Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia", but "Best of Enemies" is really as moderate at it gets.

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[–] RBM05 8 years ago

I thought the complete opposite. It seems like the only people who have a kind word to say about Buckley, somebody far more influential than Vidal, are his biographer or his brother. Whereas there are all these "unbiased," third parties hyping up Vidal throughout the documentary.
I can't say I was ever really impressed with either figure, but admiration of Buckley by other people goes beyond his biographer and his blood. And Vidal isn't really regarded as some intellectual titan that he is made out to be by these people in the movie.

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[–] suits_me 8 years ago

As against the admittedly more numerous Vidal partisans who were quoted there was a lot of material about "The National Review" and its wide ranging influences. That balances the scales at least a little.

However, in terms of leaving out the overt, proven, published racism (and homophobic bigotry) of Buckley (and of "The National Review") he got off easy.

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[–] sunheadbowed 8 years ago

You are delusional to a bizarre degree if you believe that Gore Vidal isn't admired outside of his biographer and his family -- he was a massively popular and influential writer, in fiction, non-fiction, historical quasi-non-fiction, political commentary and screenwriting.

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[–] CorathTheHung 8 years ago

One of the more moronic posts I've seen in awhile.

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[–] flask 8 years ago

Buckley was owned more comprehensively by Chomsky before Vidal got there.

The Vidal-Buckley debates occurred in Summer 1968.

The only Chomsky-Buckley debate occurred in April 1969.

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[–] Z-Tay 8 years ago

Chomsky and Vidal are both intellectual hacks who blame America for every thing wrong on the planet. Buckley handled them pretty well, and as we are seeing now in the 21st century, the political ideology that Chomsky founded is intellectually dishonest, emotional nonsense and has been a massive failure around the world.

I want to dispel this myth that Marxists know what they're doing, THEY HAVE NO CLUE

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