From "'The Snowman' Is the Most Unintentionally Hilarious Movie of the Year/Michael Fassbender as a detective named 'Harry Hole.' A serial killer who puts snowman heads on their victims. How the hell did this get made?" by Ira Madison III (in The Daily Beast).
I have a more general question: Why is so much Hollywood talent and money thrown into glamorizing and entertaining people with sadistic, graphic violence against women?
I'm trying to understand the sentence "Did you know that some Hollywood executive didn’t change that name because they’re somehow unaware of the juvenile laughing it elicits?" There are so many negatives that I don't know what the reviewer is asking. I just feel prompted to say that I think Hollywood executives are juvenile men who get off using their power to get away with rude intrusions on the feelings of females.
Having said that, I'll now try to undo the excessive negativity and complexity of "Did you know that some Hollywood executive didn’t change that name because they’re somehow unaware of the juvenile laughing it elicits?"
A Hollywood executive accepted the use of the name Harry Hole because he did not see what's funny about it.
Is that what Ira Madison III is saying?
I don't believe it. I think the executive thought it was funny and operates gleefully within a culture where guys like him do things like that.
I went to IMDB to find out which executives were actually involved in this movie, and I happened to see this:
Harry's last name is consistently mispronounced throughout the film. As per the books, the correct pronunciation resembles the English word "holy."
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82 comments:
"Harry Hole" is Peter-bait or Laslo-bait.
Egbert Souse? - Isn't that an odd name?
- It isn't pronounced Souse. Accent grave over the "E." Egbert "Sou-say."
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I'm so indebted to her for."
Maybe it's a lingo issue:
"Harry Hole is the main character in a series of crime novels written by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø."
Netflix has three of Adler-Olsen's "Department Q" stories on offer, tho it might help to read the books first.
But "Spider Baby" is not a good movie.
Harry's last name is consistently mispronounced throughout the film. As per the books, the correct pronunciation resembles the English word "holy."
Rick Grimes: Coral!
Guys can pretty consistently see sex as funny. Women can't.
Pussy Galore.
Octopussy.
Hol-ey reminds me of the SNL bit where Nicholas Cage played a guy named Asswipe as in Ahs-we-pay.
Souse!
There is about one movie a year worth seeing for me.
"Dunkirk" was pretty good and "American Assassin" stunk.
I wonder about these people. Do they want to lose all this money ? Maybe they think it will pay off in foreign rights.
Childish, immature, uncluttered, ignorant, superficial, vain, self indulgent, vindictive people have huge influences on our popular culture.
And we allow it.
Books? Plural?
Evidently, the publishing industry has some sexual abuse scandals that have yet to surface, else why does a "book" about a serial murderer who encases his victims' heads in snow ever appear in print. The fact that it's books rather than book is particularly damning of all concerned.
uncluttered = uncultured. Though I kind of like the uncluttered epithet too.
I have an even deeper question
Why do you read and then publicize such drivel as the review above, giving your valued brand's credence to it?
What a waste of internet space. The person writing it is a sad human being --- and I have no opinion of the movie (nor will I see it). Seriously, it is proven science that time spent reading pulp novel quality trash such as this reviewer craps out decreases overall brain function.
Or at least it ahould.
"I think the executive thought it was funny and operates gleefully within a culture where guys like him do things like that."
Hollywood has been marinated of a culture of anything goes for 50 years. Anything. THere are no rules other than the unwritten rule that a nobody is subject to the whims of a Hollywood somebody. Weinstein made the mistake of preying on Hollywood somebodies. Had he stuck to abusing nobodies it would never have been a story.
When people get that kind of power ofver others, they will push the boundaires, sometimes ridiculously. It is certainly plausible that the executive used the name Harry Hole just to see if he could get away with it. It has zero artistic value.
The juvenile humor is for 20 year olds who will outgrow it . And a small dose of it is like salt that flavors life, but an entire meal of it is poisonous. Apparently the young like poison.
I recall back 10 years ago seeing a good review on "Knocked Up". So we went and were stunned by what the culture had become. It makes you fear for your grandchildren.
Harry Hole is just juvenile and vulgar. One of my favorite underrated names from the Name of the Year brackets, though, was a realtor named Heidi Hohl. See, same joke, but it's cute.
Neither holds a candle to a Japanese guy named Yu Arafuka.
...or the embrace of torture. I cringe when I see torture regularly glamorized either negatively or positively in plot devices such as the Chicago Police TV series, SVU, and certain law shows, the names I can't bother to do an internet search for right now.
The boor in Knocked Up was way too boorish, aiming at a younger market.
@fivewheel:
True. In the Austin Powers movie, the Japanese twins named Fuk-Mi and Fuk-Yu was funny because it was clever. It was not stupid and degrading for the purpose of being stupid and degrading. THere's a guy in my neighbrhood named Dick Hunt (what were his parents thinking??) but no one laughs since that is his name and it would be stupid and degrading to make a joke over it.
Radio call-in favorite: Mike Hunt.
"Guys can pretty consistently see sex as funny. Women can't."
Well, erections are kind of inherently funny. That gets an important difference going.
Brent said...
Why do you read and then publicize such drivel as the review above, giving your valued brand's credence to it?
It is proven science that pop culture tend to be mentioned on a blog that's mostly about pop culture ... ?
Dick Trickle was the inspiration for Cruise's Cole Trickle in "Days of Thunder."
I have met guys named Dick Rott and Les Harsh*.
Turd Wrinkle is one of my heretofore unrealized characters in my novel, or an unsung as of yet song maybe, or a poem I may someday choose to construct.
*It was explained Les had an older brother and a mom with a sense of humor.
Who pushes violence, gun violence, and psycho-depressive into the mainstream consciousness: The NRA or Hillarywood/Weinsteinland?
The film is based on the book of the same name by the Norwegian author Jo Nesbø. Harry Hole is the name of the detective in a serious of books and that couldn't be changed because of the popularity of the books.
I read one of his books because I work with American tourists here in Norway and many of them have read and loved his books. He's taken over from Stig Larsson as the leading Nordic Noir writer. I can't see why. I read one of his books and it was at best a mediocre crime novel with lots of gratuitous gore.
The film has been panned everywhere, including Norway which is usually kind to local talent.
On the other hand, Headhunters, a Norwegian film based on Nesbø's book of the same name, was very good. It was directed by Morten Tyldum who also directed The Imitation Game. I had a speaking role in a commercial he did here. Very decent guy.
"tends to be mentioned" 3X dammit.
The big difference is the attitude towards pussy before and after ejaculation, from huge interest to not being able to recall what that was all about.
That gap can be moved all over as humor. The guy can see that his wiring has huge effects, and is forced into self-awareness.
I don't think women have anything similar.
Also, the "e" in Hole is pronounced in Norwegian as the "e" in bed.
"Why do you read and then publicize such drivel as the review above, giving your valued brand's credence to it?"
Why would a person who doesn't get how this blog works call my brand "valued"?
Evolutionary advantage of instant loss of sexual interest: the next guy gets his turn.
The big difference is the attitude towards pussy before and after ejaculation, from huge interest to not being able to recall what that was all about.
What is unusual about a sperm bank?
After a deposit, you lose interest,
consistently mispronounced
If it is consistently mispronounced, then that is the pronunciation.
Well, erections are kind of inherently funny. That gets an important difference going.
Trigger warning! Red Alert! Take cover!
There is no part of the female anatomy that men find inherently funny. Delightful, perhaps, but not funny. Some parts of the general anatomy are funny, or perhaps tragicomic -- the little toe, for instance. The only thing it does is go Wee! Wee! all the way home.
So Harry Hole would be a good description of what was formerly gorgeous pussy, to a guy. He knows it's both, but refers to the after state.
It's not misogyny exactly, just experience shared.
A guy would not think that a woman would understand the joke in Harry Hole, because he would not think she knows that experience.
Indeed rhhardin, indeed, my last name has been pronounced in so many ways by so many folks. No harm, no foul, it's an outlier as names go. One great memory was at a graduation cocktail party at my colleges History Hall, where several professors all realized that I was the same person they had been, apparently, discussing. They had all pronounced my last name dependent on what their historic interest was centered. It was, 'No, George, that's Mr. Gall', 'Basil, I knew him as Galle [accent grave]', then Bruce 'I asked him, it's Galle' [pronounced as with a'y' attached.
Maybe they think it will pay off in foreign rights.
Bingo.
Love it or loathe it, Hollywood is a major contributor to our export trade. It would be interesting to know which foreign countries enjoy Americam Assassin and similarly mindless slaughter-fests.
Why is a guy not on the verge of sexual arousal when his gf/wife is around all day?
He can remember sex either way, the before or the after.
Something has to put him in the before state.
I think the movie folks are so sure of themselves and their exhaulted position that they are thumbing their collective noses at us. I can’t see any other explanation for the “Kingsmen” film I sat through recently.
Mindless slaugher-fests are okay so long as there's a plot.
Mindless has the advantage of sparing you from a formula, say, romcom plot.
Writers are often so awful at coming up with a boy-loses-girl reason. It's often idiotic, some mistake no guy would make.
The mandatory guy apology at the end can be good or bad. Two Weeks Notice has the best apology ever, what every girl wants to hear.
I'm strongly against killing off the love interest at the end, though women love it. It's always a danger. Nicholas Sparks lives on it.
Also killing off John Wick's beagle was a huge mistake. It shows they have no respect for dogs. And the guy just replaces him with a pit bull or something at the end.
Another dog, same breed, as soon as possible. That's the professional advice.
I used to do business with a guy from UPS named Richard Head who didn't think it was funny one damned bit.
What a dick.
My junior year dorm resident was Richard Seaman.
Nobody made any jokes because it was too obvious.
I like big budget sci-fi movies. The stunts, explosions, sets, and special effects are extraordinary. They're usually a quantum jump ahead of the dialogue, plot, and acting. I wonder if this is because the most technical aspects of filmmaking and special effects are the least influenced by the casting couch phenomenon.
"I have a more general question: Why is so much Hollywood talent and money thrown into glamorizing and entertaining people with sadistic, graphic violence against women?"
Althouse, you might (merely a suggestion, don't go all Watership Down on me) want to check out The Fall on Netflix. A feminist diatribe in a sea of non-explicit, but clear enough, sadism. I wonder who the makers of this series thought their target audience was? Well, me, but other than that...
All this discussion about the pronunciation of a fictional character's name reminds me of the only successful joke in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!. To grok the joke one must know something about the plot of that apparently plot-less movie.
Briefly (but not brief enough), Earth has been invaded by aliens in human form who have sequential Social Security numbers, who were all born on 31 October 1938, and who all work for an aerospace company called Yoyodyne. Their leader is an "Italian" called Emilio Lizardo who speaks in an accent that would embarrass Chico Marx. All the others are called John something-or-other, the something-or-other being nonsense words assigned to each alien as a pseudonym by a computer, many of them being puerile anatomy jokes like "Smallberries". The second-in-command alien is called John Bigboote, which his colleagues pronounce as "big bootie" (bootie being a popular word in the Age of Disco) which greatly annoys Number Two, who insists his surname is pronounced big-boo-TAY. That's the joke. $17 million 1984 dollars for one lame joke.
When I was a kid, we had a neighbor named Harry Groth.
My wife went to High School with Adam Baum. Still laughs at it.
madAsHell said...
consistently mispronounced
If it is consistently mispronounced, then that is the pronunciation.
10/22/17, 10:57 AM
And, if "majority of Americans are obese", does not obese become "average"?
"This has been a Fassbender-Buttafuco production." What a credit that would make.
If it is consistently mispronounced, then that is the pronunciation
David Foster Wallace is rolling in his grave!
One reason it may have gotten made: there were incentives to film in Norway. Combine that with a best-selling Norwegian book and the "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" success and you get this. I still think they could have changed the character's name.
BTW, I've read the first few of the Dragon Tattoo books and they are, in places, quite awful. The main character is a Mary Sue of the author. The characters are Nordic socialists, but there are long descriptions, sometimes going on for pages, of the stuff the characters buy. There is a page long description of a laptop one character buys that read like an ad from Toshiba. In another sequence, a character buys a bunch of furniture at Ikea and there are several pages of descriptions of it, with no relevance to the plot.
Some years back I developed an adult board game called "Sex, Lies, and the Electoral College". In the game, each player assumes the identity of one of six parody political personae, each with his own platform and hidden backstory full of scandal and faux pas. The goal is to use deception, trickery, and betrayal to gain the Presidency. I made a really nice prototype of the game and paid some university students to test it for playability and entertainment value. I haven't found a publisher yet. Evidently, 21st-century politics isn't funny. Bill Clinton is loathsome to most right-thinking people, but he was always funny in his facile ability to charm idiots and a few his many perversities -- I mean, who cannot think of the 42nd POTUS and cigars without laughing? But humor dried up with #43, the Nazi war criminal chimpanzee wholly owned by Big Oil. Nothing funny there. To laugh at #44, Jesus Christ's adoptive mixed-race brother, was a mortal sin. No yucks allowed.
Anyhoo, I gave each personae a humorous or scatological name. The character inspired by Bill Clinton was called "Governor Grope", which he insists is pronounced gro-PAY. I stole that joke and improved it.
That's the joke. $17 million 1984 dollars for one lame joke.
Joke still works, I laughed.
“Althouse, you might (merely a suggestion, don't go all Watership Down on me) want to check out The Fall on Netflix. A feminist diatribe in a sea of non-explicit, but clear enough, sadism. I wonder who the makers of this series thought their target audience was? Well, me, but other than that...”
Are you talking about the 2006 movie? I saw and blogged about a lot of movies that year and The Fall was my favorite.
But you say “series” do I guess it’s not the movie.
It's a series. Three seasons.
@quaestor wrote I haven't found a publisher yet.
Try self-publishing via kickstarter?
"Why is so much Hollywood talent and money thrown into glamorizing and entertaining people with sadistic, graphic violence against women?" As opposed to the sadistic, graphic violence against men?
Black Hole. Diversity racketeers and female chauvinists set the tone in popular culture and the casting couch, too. Notably under a layer of privacy. Phallic symbols exempted.
I read that book quite a few years ago & it was a great read with a great protagonist.
Sounds like Hollyweird screwed up another great Nordic mystery (see "The Girl With".
What this movie needed simply was one of those enigmatic taglines, like...
"In space, no one can hear you scream."
For example:
"Made of three large snowballs of increasing diameter, Snowmen have no legs that you can hump."
Larsson and lapidus, the latter is a mob lawyer, reveal the murky depth behind Nordic socialism
Every time I read about, or see, a movie like this I always wonder how many sandwiches could have been given to the homeless for how much it cost to make the movie. These ppl always lecture everyone else about not doing enough for the poor and then spend millions making pointless dreck.
Buckaroo Banzai also gave us the immortal line, "No matter where you go, there you are." Seventeen million dollars well spent.
Ernest Hemingway did a lengthy riff on that concept at the beginning of The Sun Also Rises, and a 1984 movie manages to nail it in seven words.
You may think I'm lying but I once knew two cousins named Randy and Harry...
The family name was Dix...
Err...eight words. Still.
If I was a porno actor my screen name would be Buck Naked.
Why is so much Hollywood talent and money thrown into glamorizing and entertaining people with sadistic, graphic violence against women?
Yes. Interesting that the people who green light various movies think that violence against women is "entertainment." While they're purging Weinstein and Toback could they please get rid of producers who make movies that don't have much in the way of a screenplay and don't tell a story?
Its interesting to look at the history of art and literature re modern entertainment themes, from antiquity through the 19th century.
You will certainly find the (very) occasional rape, you will quite often have women threatened (there are damsels in distress everywhere), but nearly always rescued somehow.
But the main reasonable feminist complaint about the last 5000 years is not mistreatment, hatred or torture, but a lack of agency of the sorts feminists prefer, or a relegation to the background, the works being within a male point of view.
And this is not a western thing at all. You will see the same POV in the Iliad and Odyssey as in the Cantar De Mio Cid as in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Shahnameh,
etc. (Interestingly, we had a section, that of Rustam and Sohrab, out of Ferdowsi in our 1960's Catholic readers; you will NOT find that now.)
What you will consistently find is violence between men, often extreme even by modern standards. The Iliad is hard to beat as bloodbaths go. And this is consistent among cultures.
But a regular diet of rape and murder of women is a modern sickness.
"Rude intrusions on the feelings of females."
Oh dear. I am worried we're in Poe's Law territory here. Is this..is this for real?
Anyone remember Harry Cox from "Everything You Know Is Wrong" by the Firesign Theater?
I've read all the books in the series, and the Snowman was my favorite of the bunch. I have no interest in seeing the movie, however.
It's more "hole-eh" than holy.
Dick Trickle was a popular NASCAR driver....
You know the consistent juvenile word play on the mispronunciation of fassbender's character's name is why people in foreign countries talk about that boorish shitheel-the Ugly American.(By the way the apparent meaning of the word most closely pronounced Hoola is small round hills)
Why is so much Hollywood talent and money thrown into glamorizing and entertaining people with sadistic, graphic violence against women?
Because violence against women makes people hate the perpetrator more than violence against men?
That reflects gender/gender-role assumptions a feminist might have room to complain about, certainly, but it's nothing as simple or wicked as "because they like hurting women and seeing women hurt".
No disagreement, Sigivald, as it's still true in the context that I think there's still WAY more sadistic, graphic violence against men than of women coming out of Hollywood. Tell me the female version of The 300 and we can talk from there.
Also agreed with buwaya that brutal depictions of violence exclusive to men are the historical worldwide norm in art and literature, and sometimes depicting it against women is a modern evil, what feminism hath wrought. You've come a long way, baby!
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