Stupid idiot f**ckers LAUGHING at showing of Hotel Rwanda today! [View All]

[liberalhistorian]

I went to see Hotel Rwanda today, since I've seen all of the Oscar-nominated movies and I wanted to include it since the lead actor was nominated.

To call it a "powerful and emotional" film is quite an understatement. I was very drained when it was over, also, even though I'd mentally prepared myself for an emotionally difficult experience. I remembered vividly when it all happened and how the U.N. and the world just stood by and did nothing, so I knew it wasn't going to be a piece of cake to watch. But the scene where the "European intervention" team that everyone had been expecting to save them came to save and evacuate only the whites and leave everyone else behind was beyond wrenching.

But what was really unbelievable was the reaction of several people in the audience. For some unfathomable reason, they seemed to think many scenes were funny, when they were anything but. They kept laughing throughout the movie, even in the really emotional scenes, while stuffing their faces with popcorn and hot dogs. I wanted to stand up and scream at them "what is so fucking funny?" Do they have ANY idea of scale of the slaughter and genocide and the horrible suffering endured by both those who were massacred and those who survived? Do they have ANY idea of how we and the west could have done SO much more to prevent it, especially since the U.N. and Clinton had advance warning of what was about to happen? Was it because the victims were black, and from an African country to boot, was racism the explanation as to why they didn't seem to give a shit? Do they have ANY idea how lucky they are to live in a country where that kind of thing isn't likely to happen and where we've never, ever suffered devastation of that kind?

What was especially sickening was when Don Cheadle's character was talking to a man he'd known for years, from whom he'd always bought supplies for his hotel from, and the man was saying how much better they'd all be when the country was rid of Tutsis. Cheadle asks if they honestly think they can kill all of the Tutsis in the country and the man becomes angry and says "why not? We're halfway there already!" (at this point, around 500,000 Tutsis, many women and children, had been massacred, including children from orphanages, NO ONE was safe). When he said that, some people snickered and seemed to giggle, and I couldn't believe it. Just WHAT was so FUCKING FUNNY? Was it funny to them to see blacks being massacred by the hundreds of thousands? Was it funny to them to see the oh-so-humanitarian U.N. and European intervention forces evacuate all the whites from the hotel and leave the blacks behind, including children from an orphanage who were being targeted by the murderers? God in heaven, what the fuck is wrong with people? Do they just not understand at all how horrible this really was?

I remember when it was happening, a local talk show host was discussing it and made the giggling comment that "how can you expect Americans to care about Africans murdering each other when the tribes involved are named the Hutus and the Tutsis? Un-fucking-believable!