The Other Critic

A few weeks ago, I noted that The New Yorker's theatre critic Hilton Als is about as bad as they come. But we try to be balanced here at Pajama Guy. Let's look at this week's theatre review in The New Yorker by John Lahr, who's even worse.

He discusses a revival of A Soldier's Play, a minor work later turned into a minor movie. But this review is more an excuse to show off his "sophisticated" worldview. For you see, John Lahr is a modern liberal. This means he feels every decent person understands America is a vile, monstrous place. In fact, expressing this often, as well as casually (casually because there is no serious counter-argument) is what makes one a decent person. (Lahr's first thought regarding 9/11--and I give him credit at least for admitting it--was that our government's behind it.)

Thus, he sums up:

At the end of the play, [white Captain] Taylor eats a little Jim Crow. “I was wrong . . . about Negroes being in charge,” he says. And [black Captain] Davenport has just the right heroic last word. “Oh, you’ll get used to it,” he says. “You can bet your ass on that, Captain—you will get used to it.” This kind of hollow progressive bravado is for the movies, not for life. As the federal government’s response to the hurricane in Louisiana showed the world, institutional racism is a concept that white America has yet to acknowledge.

That darn white America.

In fact, what Davenport says is true--casually true. There have been tremendous strides in racial relations over the past several decades, and things are almost incomparably better than they've ever been. Seeing an African-American in a position of authority is simply not a big deal anymore, in the armed forces or anywhere else.

Old-fashioned liberals would glory in the progress that's been made, but not a modern liberal. To admit any progress at all in this hateful country sticks in their throats--perhaps every now and then they'll admit we've moved forward a small amount, but only to draw attention to how much further we have to go.

To John Lahr, white Americans still gnash their teeth every a successful black man walks by, at least when they're not busy high-fiving each other for the good work they did on Katrina.

Lahr is a tough critic to please. Reading him, you might think the last place you'd want to be stuck is in a New York theatre. Me, I'm just glad I'm not stuck in John Lahr's reactionary mindset.