MoJo Sections: Media

Viggo Mortensen, King of The Road

By Michael Mechanic — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:30:00 -0800

Anyone not living under a rock has probably seen previews for the big-screen version of Cormac McCarthy's postapocalyptic novel The Road, which hits theaters November 25. The film stars Viggo Mortensen as a nameless father struggling for survival alongside his boy, played by 13-year-old Australian TV actor Kodi Smit-McPhee. (Mortensen's real-life son—Henry, 21—is the product of his now-defunct marriage to Exene Cervenka, front woman of seminal LA punk band X.)

The word "actor" only begins to describe the many talents of 51-year-old Mortensen, who made his Hollywood debut as an Amish farmer in the 1985 Harrison Ford flick Witness. It would be another 16 years before his portrayal of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy catapulted him to international stardom (and job security), but Mortensen has never had trouble keeping busy. Born to a Danish father and raised in South America, he's fluent in four languages (not counting the Elvish tongues) and conversational in others. He's a published poet, painter, fine arts photographer, and dabbler in musical projects—including Intelligence Failure, a collaboration with weirdo-guitarist Buckethead. He's also founder and editor of Perceval Press, a boutique publishing house that puts out mostly high-end art books.

To that résumé, you can add another title: political activist. An outspoken foe of the Iraq War, Mortensen actively campaigned for Dennis Kucinich during the 2008 primaries. He's also featured alongside Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, and others in The People Speak, a new documentary based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, which debuts December 13 on the History Channel. As chance would have it, I caught up with Mortensen the morning that President Obama won his Nobel Peace Prize.

Mother Jones: What do you make of this morning's news about Obama?

Viggo Mortensen: There's a certain irony. He says he's committed to keeping his campaign promise of getting us out of Iraq as soon as it's possible—I don't know exactly what that means anymore. He's gone back on what he said about Guantánamo. He's gone back on what he said about the torture photographs. And he's quite hawkish on Afghanistan. I agree with Obama when he said this morning that he didn't deserve it. But I do like the fact that it seems to be, which he acknowledged, an award that carries with it a certain degree of expectation.

Trying Terrorists

By Mark Fiore — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:17:38 -0800

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Mark Fiore is an editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a web site featuring his work.

Jumping the Snark

By Dave Gilson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

WHAT'S A GOOD PRANK worth? How about $2 billion? That's how much Dow Chemical's stock value dipped in just 23 minutes on the morning of December 3, 2004, after its spokesman went on the BBC to announce that the company would make amends for the 1984 Bhopal toxic-gas disaster "simply because it's the right thing to do." (Dow had acquired Union Carbide, the original owner of the Bhopal chemical plant, in 1999.) Within the hour, the flack was exposed as one of the Yes Men, a duo that's spent the past decade perfecting the art of anti-corporate trickery. The feat cemented their reputation as the world's preeminent political pranksters (a reputation they recently reaffirmed by pranking the US Chamber of Commerce). It also proved that a punch line can occasionally pack a real punch.

The Bhopal stunt kicks off the pair's new film, The Yes Men Fix the World, the follow-up to their self-titled 2004 movie. But don't let the puffed-up title fool you into thinking that the Yes Men believe their hijinks are actually making the world a better place. A better title would have been The Prank Is Dead.

How to Speak Tea Bag

By Mark Fiore — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:31:39 -0800

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Democracy: It's Complicated

By Mark Fiore — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:55:59 -0800

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Why It's Not Smart to Call Women Conservatives 'Whores'

By Tana Ganeva — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:04:00 -0800

This story first appeared at Alternet.

When Alan Grayson called a female corporate lobbyist a "K-Street whore"—and was attacked as crude and sexist at the same time that he was lauded as gutsy and honest—he played a role in a familiar script: hero of the left (MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher) attacks female villain (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin) using sexist language. Progressive feminists soul-search about liberal misogyny. Mainstream media talk about sexism for 5 seconds. Then the media move on, and no one learns a thing. Repeat.

It happened again just two weeks ago, when Olbermann called Malkin a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it" during the "Worst Person in the World" segment of Countdown. The creepily fleshy insult followed Olbermann's rendition of Malkin's e-mails, which he read in a Valley Girl voice to signal her presumed Barbie-doll vapidity. Megan Carpentier pointed out at the time, "A liberal, progressive critique of Malkin need not, and should not, resort to an attack on her looks or her gender or rely on silly stereotypes or imagery that brings to mind victims of domestic violence."

The Queen and I

By Kiera Butler — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

When Nahid Persson Sarvestani was a little girl in Iran in the '70s, she adored the glamorous Queen Farah. The queen's fairytale life of parties and palaces was much different from her own: Her father was ill, and her mother wove carpets 15 hours a day to support their family of 10. But as she got older, Sarvestani began to see the injustice of the monarchy and joined the secular resistance. Her 17-year-old brother was executed by the Islamic government just after the shah's regime collapsed. Twenty-nine years after the revolution, Sarvestani started making a film about her former idol and enemy, now living in exile in Paris. The result is a frank portrait of a charismatic woman who doesn't fully understand her role in her country's history.

At first, Farah, now 71, balks at the prospect of having her personal life exposed—and even after she agrees to the film, she struggles to preserve her dignity. "I have an image to maintain," she sniffs when Sarvestani tries to accompany her into a hair salon. When Farah discovers that Sarvestani was involved in the resistance, she threatens to pull out of the film, changing her mind only after Sarvestani convinces her that many Iranians—including herself—still see her as a compassionate person.

Farah does come across as kind yet genuinely naive. She says she wishes she could have done more for her subjects, telling Sarvestani, "You should have written to us, 'My mother is struggling to feed eight children; do something for us.'" When Sarvestani finally confronts Farah about the executions under the shah's regime, the queen responds simply, "The shah wouldn't personally do it." Cold comfort for the survivors, and a telling insight into the blinding power of privilege.

Credit Card Industry: S.C.R.E.W. U.

By Mark Fiore — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:56:02 -0700

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Goldman Sachs: Balloon Bank

By Mark Fiore — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:08:10 -0700

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Ralph Stanley's World of Sorrow

By Michael Mechanic — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:30:00 -0700

Q. How many Stanley Brothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. Two. Carter Stanley to do it, and Ralph Stanley to talk about how much better the old bulb was.

That's a joke I usually apply to Vermonters, but it aptly captures one side of renowned old-time crooner Ralph Stanley, whose memoir, Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times, is out this week on Gotham Books. A recurring theme—the book is first person, as told to music writer Eddie Dean—involves a time when fellow musicians on the struggling bluegrass circuit were changing their acts to suit modern audiences and compete with rock and roll. Stanley wouldn't budge. He won't even call his music "bluegrass"—despite his close friendship with Kentucky's late Bill Monroe, the country music pioneer from whom the term originated (Kentucky being the bluegrass state). Sure, Stanley admires those fast pickers (like Monroe, Ricky Skaggs, Lester Flatt, and Earl Scruggs), but he'll just tell you he plays hillbilly music. He prefers the old lightbulb.