The Illusive “WASP Establishment”—Again

7 comments

1. Spyro says:

   January 23, 2011 at 11:42 pm

   Do you mean elusive?

   1. Greg Johnson says:

      January 23, 2011 at 11:48 pm

      No

2. Ed Connelly says:

   January 24, 2011 at 11:05 am

   Interesting insights. It reminded me of a surprising interview that appeared in the DECEMBER 2010 issue of FIRST THINGS. Called “Whit Stillman is Running Late,” it discusses his three hit WASP Indie films. I would post the interview here but I just discovered that FIRST THINGS now requires a password and my subscription number doesn’t work. Anyway, the trilogy looks like it’s worth viewing.

   Also, last night I happened to watch BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT. Very WASP inflected. They even featured some bad non-Whites rather than the typical cast of Numinous Negroes and Evil White Men.

   Finally, because I’m working on Part IV of my “Understanding Hollywood” series for The Occidental Quarterly (it is on Hollywood’s take on the WASP), I hoping someone can remind me of the film in which the wealthy WASPs are absent minded and harmless–except to themselves. I believe at least twice people bloody their heads while walking into something after drinking. It sounds like a Woody Allen movie but I don’t think it is.

   1. Greg Johnson says:

      January 24, 2011 at 11:09 am

      When I watched Whit Stillman’s three movies, I thought: This guy is the WASP Woody Allen. But I also predicted that he would make no more movies. Why? Because, unlike Woody Allen, he will grow up.

      I am glad you liked The Dark Knight. Did you read the Trevor Lynch review?

3. JJ says:

   January 24, 2011 at 12:57 pm

   Is status that which Mr. Johnson is seeking or redemption? It seems to me that at least part of these “self critical” examinations are a means to distant oneself from sin yet keep the money so to speak. The narrator is diluting liberal guilt (having it easy) by directing it toward the group of which the person is just one part of. “Yes, it’s time for me to own up, it’s all our fault.” Surely status is involved and Moloch provides the stage but the pattern is too common. Just in the last couple days I read two such articles.
   White middle class kids are responsible for inner city violence, race relations and sexism because the white kids are the ones buying rap albums.
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090702048.html
   People who bought the McMansions are responsible for China’s rise to power.
   Fred Reed
   http://www.fredoneverything.net/MonkeyTrap.shtml

   1. Greg Johnson says:

      January 24, 2011 at 2:15 pm

      I was rather pleased with a line about white guilt as a form of self-congratulation in my review of Christian Lander’s WHITER SHADES OF PALE: “Every stroke of the flagellum is ultimately just a pat on the back.”

4. Andrew Hamilton says:

   January 24, 2011 at 11:05 pm

   I took the opportunity to examine a few of Johnson’s articles that have appeared since this was written.

   In a comment about the depiction of WASPs in The Social Network, the Jewish movie about the rise of Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg, he essentially says that the depiction of the WASP elite at Harvard is a falsehood. He interviewed a WASP acquaintance who graduated in 1990 who knew onlyone other contemporary at Harvard with a similar social background.

   Johnson concludes, “In spite of the Protestant Establishment’s eroding stature, it still holds enough intangible allure for Hollywood to want to distort that old presence. And somehow the myth of aristocratic authority survives as more of a dominating ideal than it really is. ” http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/the-one-percent-of-winklevi-and-wasps.html

   About Jewish elitist Elena Kagan’s bumping of the last white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (John Paul Stevens) from the Supreme Court he wrote:

   “Despite prominently placed stories in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, among other outlets, the Protestants I’ve spoken to hadn’t heard about the subject until I brought it up. This is so peculiar that I almost wonder if it represents a subconscious avoidance of unwelcome information. . . . The topic clearly hasn’t captured the attention of Wasps, who are far more likely to get worked up over the latest twists and turns in the World Cup. Their reluctance to acknowledge the Court’s evolution probably reveals some genuine feelings of ambivalence among Protestants, but I don’t detect any anger or buried resentment. What I do sense is a passive submission to the inevitable.” http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/07/should-wasps-worry-about-the-loss-of-the-last-supreme-court-protestant.html

   He also noted the widespread hiring of Israeli thugs (my characterization; definitely not his) as bodyguards by “the rich” (not necessarily WASPs) via the “private security industry.” A couple of Jewish commentors (at the bottom of the page) accuse him of anti-Semitism–the usual asininity. http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/when-only-the-best-will-do-hire-an-israeli-commando.html

   And way back in 2008 he wrote about the portrayal of rich heroes in the movies Ironman and Batman: The Dark Knight–as usual leaving the reader somewhat unclear about his point, if any. http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2008/07/batman-iron-man-and-the-return-of-the-superrich.html

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