This week all of two people, one West Virginian and one Arizonan, are thwarting the possibility of generational social and economic progress for 329 million Americans. That thwarting includes a proposed Billionaires Tax, which Mountaineer State Senator Joe Manchin, the faux-maverick, waved off, telling The New York Times “It’s time that we all pull together and row together.” I keep imagining, say, billionaire Elon Musk, who in a twist worthy of Nicholas Sparks took umbrage with the Billionaires Tax, as the Winklevi in “The Social Network”, rowing and rowing, rowing away from us fast as he can. Musk, in fact, was defended by billionaire investor Ron Baron who told CNBC “It feels like Congress thinks they are Robin Hood, from the old days.” What?
This blog has gone on record ad nauseam that Robin Hood movies need to stop. They need to stop, of course, because 1938’s “Adventures of Robin Hood”, in glorious Technicolor, was definitive. It can be duplicated but it cannot be expanded upon. But they also need to stop because too often these new Robin Hood movies are straining, paradoxically, to make a myth real. It’s a myth. And yet. The Bozo of Baron Capital, in his oddly oblivious reading of famed English folklore, might be on to something.
What if we made a Robin Hood movie from the point of view of King John (Bill Nighy) and the Sheriff of Nottingham (Jack Davenport), framing Robin Hood (Eddie Marsan) as some bum looking for a handout and Marian (Keira Knightley, all befuddled “Laggies”-like facial expressions) as some entitled twat whining about paid family leave? The only worry, of course, is that people like Mike Pence, chief film critic at The Saturday Evening Post, who misread “Titanic” as a warning of the modern world rather than feminist manifesto, would take it the wrong way and argue that we should hang people in lower income brackets for failing to pull together and row together. But those are the risks you run with satire. I would try for a streaming deal with Amazon but, well, obviously.
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