Tuesday, February 26, 2013

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Elite publications like The New Yorker and New York Review of Books parade themselves as liberal—yet the kind of literary art they promote is stripped of social relevance. Insular; personal; ornate—as reactionary an art, in fact, as could possibly be.

I was thinking about this after a discussion about boxing (that once great sport). Note the change in two great boxing movies; one from the 1940’s, “Body and Soul”; the other from the 1970’s, “Rocky.” The first one is tougher. More than this, it shows a broader context: the machinations of the boxing managers and promoters take place within a corrupt framework. In comparison, “Rocky” is a mere fairy tale.

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