J. Neil Schulman
@ Agorist.com
A Movie That Takes Three YouTube Videos to Attack
Jim Jesus (Jim Alexander IV on Facebook) is a radio host/podcaster who has a following among libertarians of the PorcFest stripe. He has not read Alongside Night the novel but really, really dislikes Alongside Night the movie — so much so that in his three-part YouTube video review he gets about half the plot points wrong and even messes up on character names.
I’ve been criticized for inserting myself into these kinds of attacks so I’ll leave it to the movie’s fans and detractors to debate these — but I reserve the right to insert myself if any actual clarifications are needed. — JNS
February 9, 2016 - 10:16 pm
If you honestly don’t get the Keynes joke, before he was Gilligan, Bob Denver played a character named “Maynard” on the DOBIE GILLIS TV show.
February 19, 2016 - 2:06 am
So in this follow-up YouTube video Jesus Jim attempts to explain what he was intending with his three-part video trolling of Alongside Night.
Here’s the thing. Repeatedly he says I’m a literalist who can’t understand his metaphors, comparing me to Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy, when the problem is Jesus Jim is making jokes so encrypted in his own insular jargon, meant only for others in his cult, that someone like me encountering this cult for the first time doesn’t perceive that he’s joking.
“What we have heah is a failure to communicate.”
Jesus Jim also dismisses positive views of Alongside Night because he can’t tell time. I approached Keene activist Rich Paul to distribute Alongside Night — the novel, the graphic novel, and the movie — because Rich Paul was already both a fan of Alongside Night and a libertarian activist. But Jesus Jim gets it backwards and dismisses Rich Paul’s defense of Alongside Night because he’s selling it therefore his opinion must be disqualified.
Likewise with libertarian author L. Neil Smith’s positive review of the movie Jesus Jim gets it backwards. According to Jesus Jim L. Neil Smith’s positive movie review is to be dismissed because we’ve been friendly for decades, not that L. Neil and I have been friends for decades because we’re both libertarian activists working to mainstream libertarian ideas through pop culture.
Biggest problem: Jesus Jim thinks he’s funny when he trashes Alongside Night and thinks I don’t have a sense of humor because I don’t think he’s funny.
He’s got me there.