David Mamet Is A Climate Change Denier and Covid Hoaxer. Who knew? (The Guardian)

[JohnSJ]

‘Trump did a great job as president’ – David Mamet on free speech, gender politics and rigged elections"

The reality is that Mamet's support of trump is all you need to know about him. He supports a racist, bigot, and sexist, and that pretty much sums up Mamet in my book.



I will jump right to the part in The Guardian Piece where we see the real Mamet in action:

"On to Mamet’s much-documented swing to conservatism, from his stand against the NFL’s kneeling-during-the-anthem protests to his support for Donald Trump. It seems so far away from the leftist leanings of his youth, the critiques of capitalism clearly visible in American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross. “I was never, ever a communist,” he says. “All you need to know about communism is that Marx was a sponger. He lived off Engels’ family who had a furniture factory.”

.......

"Mamet became a vocal Trump supporter during his presidency, which can’t have been easy in the Democratic stronghold of California. “Well, he did a great job as a president.” Really? “Well, if you put everything you see on these little screens aside and look at what happened during the Trump presidency. We told China to knock it off. We told Nato to start paying their fair share. We moved the Embassy of the United States to Jerusalem in Israel . . . Gas prices were down. There was the lowest black unemployment in history …”

There was also Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged. Does Mamet believe America’s democratic process to be flawed too? “It’s an interesting question. I grew up in Chicago, which was run as a mob’s fiefdom by Mayor Richard J Daley. So all elections were rigged. The idea that people are not going to steal elections is ignorance because people steal elections all the time. The question is: ‘What was the extent of the election rigging?’ I don’t know. But was it questionable? Yes.”

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/feb/23/trump-great-job-president-david-mamet-free-speech-gender-politics-election-rigging-woods

The Jewish publication The Forward, sure had his number

"Embracing Trump’s politics, David Mamet has become the Kanye West of American letters"

"I should have known.

It took five weeks and two follow-up emails for the usually reliable Harper Collins publicity department to mail me a copy of David Mamet’s new essay collection, “Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch.”

At first, I thought this was an honest mistake, but now that I’ve read the book

........

"Of course, it’s possible that this was all just an honest mistake. But David Mamet doesn’t believe in honest mistakes, just conspiracies — so why shouldn’t I indulge in some harmless conspiracy-theorizing myself?"

.......

"Mamet’s conspiracy theories aren’t exactly harm¬ful (the only two kinds of people who’ll finish this book are those who already agree with it and those who’ve been paid to review it), but they’re often breathtakingly stupid. David Mamet believes mask mandates were designed to train Americans to obey government tyranny. David Mamet believes college graduates know they’ll never have to pay off their student loans, because the Democrats will cancel them first. David Mamet believes he has been “blacklisted” for his conservative political views and explains his blacklisting in the book he’s just published with Harper Collins. He claims he’s “sworn off the news,” which might be a roundabout way of admitting that “Fox News” is a misnomer."

.......

"Mamet didn’t drift to the Right, he sprinted. "

....

"Mamet’s favorite trick is to psychoanalyze people he dislikes (lefties don’t want to grow up, fans of “12 Years A Slave” secretly want to celebrate Black inferiority, etc.), so allow me to do him the same favor. It’s painfully easy."

https://forward.com/culture/484749/david-mamet-donald-trump-kanye-recessional-capitalism-milton-friedman/

This sums up just what a piece of garbage he is.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/%E2%80%98trump-did-a-great-job-as-president%E2%80%99-%E2%80%93-david-mamet-on-free-speech-gender-politics-and-rigged-elections.556018/

Looks like Maher had him on his show last night pushing his venom

https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/television/bill-maher-real-time-david-mamet-politics-comedy

[AZSkiffyGeek]

1. I remember him "coming out" as conservative after 9/11

He’s only gotten crazier since.

[smirkymonkey]

2. I can't stand David Mamet.

I never could. He may be a celebrated "artist", but he knows fuck all about history and politics and it's like he is almost proud of his ignorance.

He thinks that because he is highly accomplished in one area, then that makes him an expert in all areas, when all he is doing is making excuses for his personal prejudices.

I saw him on Bill Maher on Friday evening and he was a joke. Particularly when he started going off about the idea that we were a "Christian Nation" and that our founding fathers were Christian and built this nation on Christian principles, which is total BS. The FF were mainly diests and if they were nominally Christian, they were basically Transcendentalists or Unitarians at heart.

"If the founders were dogmatic about anything, it was the belief that a person’s faith should not be intruded upon by government and that religious doctrine should not be written into governance. James Madison, for instance, was vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs."
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-founding-fathers-religious-wisdom/#:~:text=Many%20of%20the%20founding%20fathers,solving%20social%20and%20political%20problems.

There is something about both Mamet and Maher that really offends me, particularly since they are people who would traditionally be victims of hate speech and political incorrectness, yet they believe they are somehow above it. I find them to be the worst kinds of hypocrites and completely without empathy. I could say a lot more, but I won't get into it. I don't feel like putting up w/ the backlash right now. As Bill so famously says, "I can't prove it, but I know it's true."

[JohnSJ]

6. Well said. While Maher isn't a trumper, they sure share a lot of commonalities

[smirkymonkey]

8. Sometimes, I think they are contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, but it's more than that.

These men, and others like them, have a real chip on their shoulders, and they are basically not good people. At least Bill challenged Mamet on some of his more outrageous claims, like insisting that the "left" stole the election. I will have to give him points for that.

Bill may take our side against the evil opressors occasionally but I am not so sure his heart is in it. Don't even get me started on Mamet. That guy needs more therapy than he could ever possibly squeeze in during a lifetime. What a bitter, nasty little man. Sorry. I just can't stand him. I only sometimes give Bill a pass because I think he can occassionally be funny.

I wasn't too thrilled by the way he treated his panel last night either. He was very condescending.

[PJMcK]

3. Another jerk

Watch his work or read his plays.

Is anyone really surprised?

[SCantiGOP]

7. Glengarry Glen Ross

is studied as an allegory against the anti-humanistic characteristics of American capitalism.
I agree he is a trumpian asshole now, but his body of work does not reflect that.

[smirkymonkey]

9. He's only good at writing about that stuff because it comes so naturally to a

twisted soul like his. He may say it's an allegory about capitalism, but I am thinking more like it is a fever dream of his that he put down on paper.

[Dawson Leery]

11. Maher lived the Hefner lifestyle. Now that he had his fun and made his money

he wants to lecture down to us to behave. I hate those kind of people, especially when the baby boomers do it. They had a privileged life that was set up for them by the GI elders. As for Mamet, he terribly bigoted at heart.

Edit: The boomers gave up their "f**k the man" act the moment the draft ended.

[PJMcK]

14. +1,000 (n/t)

[femmedem]

16. There are a ton of boomers on DU and that's an ageist comment. n/t

[PJMcK]

12. Speed The Plow sends up the entertainment world beautifully and mercilessly

But just because Mamet writes some really good work doesn't mean he isn't a jerk.

History is full of creative geniuses who were assholes. The composers Wagner and Beethoven, the painters Seurat and Picasso, the writers James Joyce, Brett Easton Ellis and Earnest Hemingway as well as the film directors Roman Polanski and Quentin Terrantino. There are many more.

Being a jackass doesn't mean someone cannot be talented. It just means they're a jerk and frankly, Mamet fits the bill.

To be clear, I don't judge creative work by the personality of the creator. I evaluate it on the work's merits. If the creator is an asshat, who cares? I'm not looking for a friend, after all.

[gulliver]

4. Saw him on Maher yesterday.

Very disappointing. He seemed dumb.

[smirkymonkey]

10. Yes! To be perfectly honest, he seemed like a very stupid person.

But you question yourself in thinking that because the whole world tells you how brilliant he is. It is insane.

[PJMcK]

13. Jerks can still be talented

The personality of a creator is not a reflection of their creative abilities. History is full of great talents who were complete jack holes.

In fact, one doesn't even need to be smart to be profoundly creative.

Yet even if Mamet writes another brilliant play, he's still a jerk.

[smirkymonkey]

15. I'm not saying he isn't talented. He clearly is, but his talent is siloed.

The problem is he seems to think that BECAUSE he is supremely talented creatively, that his political or sociological opinions are valid and worthy of listening to, and they really aren't. He is a very bigoted, prejudiced person. It even shows up in his work.

[Tomconroy]

5. I saw Al Pacino in American Buffalo. The play sucked.