The media have been pretty blatant in their effort to deify the Parkland student gun control activists, but the New Yorker has dialed it up to 11 with this profile of Emma González:
Emma González's appearance at the March for Our Lives—in its restraint, its symbolism, and its palpable emotion—offered an uncanny echo of a classic film about Joan of Arc: https://t.co/hO0sndkG8g pic.twitter.com/3LEFhNspnc
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) March 26, 2018
It starts out promisingly enough:
Annnnndddd….I didn't even make it one complete sentence into this piece before coming across this gem, "semiautomatic machine gun".
This dear @newyorker is what is known as, "an oxymoron". https://t.co/GTYtEwirZR
— Drew McCoy (@_Drew_McCoy_) March 26, 2018
Yep:
Since the mass shooting on Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, in which a former student of the school killed seventeen students and staff with a legally acquired semiautomatic machine gun, several of the survivors have become veteran public speakers.
What would be the point of discussing gun control, gun violence, or gun rights with someone who thinks there is such a thing as a "semiautomatic machine gun"?
It's not worth the effort to educate them. They'll tucker themselves out soon. pic.twitter.com/XOU6QUoNA6
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) March 26, 2018
https://twitter.com/alwaysonoffense/status/978395009706848256
Journos: This is an apple because facts matter
Also Journos: Semiautomatic machine guns
Also also Journos: Don't correct me with your technical facts, you fucking baby murderers!!
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) March 26, 2018
And it just keeps getting better:
On Saturday, González, who is small and compact, and who wears her dark hair cropped close to her skull, spoke for just a couple of minutes, offering an emotional name-check of the students who had died. Then, lifting her eyes and staring into the distance before her, González stood in silence. Inhaling and exhaling deeply—the microphone caught the susurration, like waves lapping a shoreline—González’s face was stoic, tragic. Her expression shifted only minutely, but each shift—her nostrils flaring, or her eyelids batting tightly closed—registered vast emotion. Tears rolled down her cheeks; she did not wipe them away. Mostly, the crowd was silent, too, though waves of cheering support—“Go, Emma!” “We all love you!”—arose momentarily, then faded away. She stood in this articulate silence for more than twice as long as she had spoken, until a timer beeped. Six minutes and twenty seconds were over, she told her audience: the period of time it took Nikolas Cruz to commit the massacre.
In its restraint, its symbolism, and its palpable emotion, González’s silence was a remarkable piece of political expression. Her appearance also offered an uncanny echo of one of the most indelible performances in the history of cinema: that of Renée Maria Falconetti, who starred in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic silent film from 1928, “The Passion of Joan of Arc.” Based upon the transcript of Joan of Arc’s trial, in 1431, Dreyer’s film shows Joan as an otherworldly young woman—she is nineteen, to the best of her limited knowledge—who, in the face of a barrage of questioning by hostile, older, powerful clerics, is simultaneously self-contained and brimming over with emotion. Falconetti, who never made another movie, gives an extraordinary performance, her face registering at different moments rapture, fear, defiance, and transcendence. Joan’s defense in the face of her inquisitors is largely mute: when she is asked to describe Saint Michael—who, she blasphemously claims, has appeared to her—she mostly refrains from verbal response, her silence bespeaking holy understanding greater than theirs. In the final phase of her life, when Joan knows that she is to be martyred, Dreyer’s camera lingers on closeups of Falconetti, with her brutally close-cropped hair, her rough garments, and her anguished silence. Her extraordinary image in that sequence could be intercut almost seamlessly with footage from Saturday’s rally.
Good Lord.
At least you're not getting carried away
— thiswasneverthat (@duellingswords) March 26, 2018
https://twitter.com/californiaweed/status/978393433235705856
This sounds more like what the Onion would write when mocking The New Yorker. https://t.co/f7msTsDqsa
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) March 26, 2018
Right?
oh ffs https://t.co/5l7xRa7fjE
— jon gabriel (@exjon) March 26, 2018
Joan of Havana
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) March 26, 2018
These children are basically Jesus, thank you journos for explaining the factshttps://t.co/Wbvj1c8J6W pic.twitter.com/7iLIA56cKe
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) March 26, 2018
Next thing you know, she'll be the Virgin Mary.
— The Monster ❌ ??? ???????? (@SumErgoMonstro) March 26, 2018
She'll be Mary before nightfall…
— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) March 26, 2018
Don’t be surprised.
https://twitter.com/michi83/status/978395037053669377
This is just downright weird.
As much as I disagree with her and people raising her up to ridiculous levels, I certainly trust and hope she does not meet anything remotely like Joan of Arc's fate. https://t.co/GTYtEwirZR
— Drew McCoy (@_Drew_McCoy_) March 26, 2018
No kidding.
Umm…you guys know how that ended, right? Not good. https://t.co/9pkvHuZOOg
— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) March 26, 2018
Join the conversation as a VIP Member