Highbrowing it.

"Suck it Stallone."

-Dame Maggie Smith

(actual quote)

I love the shit out of the fact that Downton Abbey the movie beat Rambo this weekend. Love it. And look, I don't care about box office numbers or which giant media company made more money that some other media company, I just love that a two-hour follow-up to a TV show about British people in the nineteen diggidies or whatever was more interesting to the public at large than Sylvester Stallone murdering his way through another sequel that should have never been made.

Ok, confession time. I haven't seen either of the films I'm expressing opinions about, but when has that ever stopped anyone on the internet? What's more, I've never seen any of the Rambo movies. But I did read reviews which describe Rambo, I don't know, 12? They describe Rambo 12 as a hyper violent, xenophobic right-wing fantasy where the answer to all of life's adversities is guns.

Screenplay by your racist uncle's Facebook screed.

What do you want them to do, go down in
a dinner jacket? Like goddamn barbarians?

And so in a fit of schadenfreude, I'm pleased to see that no one went to see it. Of course, Downton Abbey probably isn't all that woke either. Again, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have seen the TV show. It was mostly about poorer people being deferential to those in a higher socio-economic class who themselves, while at the top of this grossly unfair system, are actually super kind-hearted. So, you know, it's ok that they control all the wealth, produce nothing and need like six servants to strap them into their evening tuxedos.

But whatever, the important thing to keep in mind here is that America, like as a movie going public, chose Masterpiece Theatre over Sylvester Stallone. Highbrow drama over lowbrow action. Instead of violence and explosions, we instead opted for a window into the past. A movie that invites us to look back at a time of limited social mobility and massive wealth inequity and think about how far we've come. Bravo America.

Oh...right...