Aaron Hillis: Inhuman Idiot Film Critic?
September 16, 2010
What does a connoisseur of erotic gay cinema think of a documentary that’s trying to save children’s lives?
First-time film producer Dr. Rutledge Taylor’s new epic/call-to-action on DDT and malaria, “3 Billion and Counting,” opens Friday at the Quad Cinema in New York City.
Sadly, Left-wing media is already on the attack in its typical ad hominem, knee-jerk, ignorant and misanthropic ways. Take Village Voice movie critic Aaron Hillis who opens his commentary on the film as follows:
“The death toll is mounting,” shrieks the tagline of this dawdling, hysterical documentary that may as well be named Every 12 Seconds a Child Dies From Malaria, and Why Haven’t You Done Anything About It?
Compare that with Hillis’ opening line in his review of “No Impact Man” last September:
The bold environmental project Colin Beavan began in the fall of 2006—to expunge his carbon footprint by giving up material consumption, electricity, non-local foods, and basically all worldly pleasures in Manhattan for one full year—was always destined to have some naysayers crying “publicity stunt.”
So to Hillis, eco-self-flagellation is “bold” while trying to save millions of real children from dying real deaths from a preventable disease is “hysterical.”
Hillis criticizes “3 Billion and Counting” because it,
… hinges only on Rutledge Taylor’s findings…”
Aside from the fact that any documentary filmmaker can only ever present his findings, Hillis omitted mention of the numerous opportunities in the film that Taylor provided environmentalists and other DDT opponents to defend themselves. For the most part, DDT opponents don’t take Taylor up on his offers because they aren’t willing to defend their indefensible actions on camera.
Hillis objects in ad hominem fashion to Taylor’s vilification of William Ruckleshaus and Rachel Carson while erroneously writing that malaria is responsible for “hundreds of millions of deaths each year.” [Earth to Hillis, the annual malaria death toll is on the order of 1-3 million per year. If you had paid attention to the movie, you wouldn't have made such a basic mistake.]
Aaron Hillis is too stupid to realize his good fortune in growing up to be a Manhattan-based film critic — as opposed to dying before the age of 5 years, which is what happens to about a million African children every year due to malaria. Worse, perhaps, is that once presented with uncontroverted facts about this ongoing tragedy, Generation Me’s Aaron Hillis is too callous to care.
Until he can complete some sort of program in compassion/humanity/empathy, maybe Hillis should just stick to reviewing films more up his alley, like gay zombie movies.
