Quote:
Originally Posted by James
I just watched Selma and I can't remember the last time a film had that level of an emotional impact on me. I usually hate biopics, but it really is a special case. I cried like a baby - out of sadness, out of disgust, out of joy. I cannot urge people more to see this film, the story of Martin Luther King and The Civil Rights Movement is just as important and relevant today than it ever was. Blown away.
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The modern perception of MLK always bothers me. Everyone likes to mythologize him, and forget that he was supposedly an adulterer and communist. I have no problem with him possibly being a commie---though being an adulterer doesn't exactly speak
to his character---but pretending that none of that ever happened implies that if it were true that it would somehow tarnish his accomplishments. That the only way you can be a worthwhile person is if you're perfect and have no blemishes on your record.
**** that.
MLK got his poon on (allegedly) and still had more integrity than any man can be reasonably expected to have. I get respecting his memory, but the man is a symbol of the best of us, and if we treat him as more than a person (which actually makes him less than a person since he's now a fictional character), then how can we really emulate him? Someone as perfect as he's made out to be simply cannot be lived up to, but the real man has far more worth as proof that one does not have to be defined by their flaws.