“Patriot Games” Controversies Arise
When Paramount Pictures was putting together what it expected to be its big summer movie blockbuster, Patriot Games, the only controversies it encountered was the casting of Harrison Ford as the leading man over earlier choice Alec Baldwin, and trying to reconcile the movie’s screenwriters with Tom Clancy, the author of the novel on which the film is based.
However, upon its release, the film has been at the center of controversies which have had the film attacked for being “racist” and “anti-Irish” and have also involved what some see as the censorship of an Irish-American film critic for Variety magazine.
The plot centers around fictional CIA agent Jack Ryan, who inadvertently stops an attack on members of the British royal family by a breakaway unit of the IRA.
Because of his intervention, Ryan finds himself the subject of an elaborate assassination attempt in which the IRA trails him back to the U.S., where they try to kill him, his wife and his little girl. The film was denounced by various Irish-American groups for the implausibilities of the plot as well as what was seen as the cardboard characterization of all British characters as benevolent innocents, while every Irish character is a homicidal psychopath. The intricacies of the Northern Ireland problem are reduced the simple pitting of upstanding loyal subjects against international terrorists with no motive other than their own lunacy; in fact, there is less than five minutes of the action which actually takes place in Northern Ireland.
One of the several negative reviews of the film was written by Variety magazine’s Joseph McBride, a respected Variety critic for the past 20 years and the author of several books.
McBride slammed the film for being “ultra-violent, fascistic and blatantly anti-Irish.”
Within days Paramount announced that it was pulling all of its advertising from Variety, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of dollars in revenue. In a highly unusual move, Variety’s editor and McBride’s superior, Peter Bart, immediately wrote an apology to Paramount, which was leaked to the press.
The apology denounced the McBride review as “unprofessional” and “unfairly colored” by the writer’s “political opinions.” He also promised Paramount executives that McBride would never again review Paramount films. (Bart worked as an executive at Paramount before he joined Variety).
McBride says that he also received a call from Bart saying that he never should have reviewed the film in the first place because of his Irish-American background, an attitude that McBride found surprising because he said that Bart himself had originally approved the article before it
was printed. Said McBride: “I am bothered by Mr. Bart’s statement to me that I should not have reviewed Patriot Games because I am an Irish-American. Would a Jewish reviewer not be allowed to review a film about the Holocaust? Or an African-American not be allowed to review a movie about slavery?” The National Society of Film Critics, just one of the many organizations and individuals which came to the support of McBride, stated that the body “strongly objects to the aspersions cast by Variety against a staff reviewer… by implying that a critic’s ethnicity and political beliefs are antithetical to his professional duties.”
McBride told Irish America that he has received phone calls and mail expressing support from countless supporters, including many strangers who McBride said identified themselves as Irish-Americans.
At the moment Paramount says it has no plans to return to Variety’s pages. McBride said he is not sure of his future at the magazine, as he is working away at the moment but might be forced to reconsider if Bart holds true to his vow not to let him review upcoming Paramount films.
Irish Say Yes to European Treaty
The future of the European Community (EC) seemed to be in the hands of the Irish people on June 18th, the day when Ireland was set to vote on the Maastricht treaty.
Just a few weeks previous, Denmark had voted “no” on the Maastricht treaty and advocates feared that the Irish would due the same, which could have sunk the treaty entirely and postponed Euro-unity for another generation.
(The Danes will be voting again on the treaty and this time it is expected to be ratified.)
Denmark was trouble for Maastricht because of the Danes’ fears of losing their neutrality and their autonomy. Ireland, a similarly small country, had the same worries, with the additional one of abortion.
The Irish public, despite changing attitudes, is still mostly opposed to abortion, and it was feared that the sometimes nebulous and confusing wording of the Treaty meant that Ireland would have to permit it. However the Irish government went to great lengths to stress that this was not the case, and that there| would be a separate abortion referendum later in the summer.
In the end though, people voted with their pocketbooks, as the most heeded warning against the “no” vote was the one which said that Ireland would lose £6 billion in EC grants.
With 69.1 percent in favor and 30.9 against, Maastricht was ratified, bringing the goal of a united Europe closer than its ever been. The brunt of the “no” votes came from poor areas of the country, especially in inner-city Dublin and the western coastline areas.
In the Bronx, The End of An Era
Decades of history went down under the hammers of a demolition crew last month with the destruction of perhaps the second-most famous Gaelic games pitch in the world.
The already-ramshackle spectator stands and clubhouses of Gaelic Park in The Bronx, the home of New York’s hurling and football teams since the 1930’s, were torn down by the Park’s new tenant, Manhattan College.
The demolition was just another chapter of the almost three year saga of the end of Gaelic Park. The family of John Kerry O’Donnell, the Park’s landlord since World War II, was beaten out for the park’s lease renewal last year due chiefly to the perennial hostility between the O’Donnells and Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). The city government was brought in for negotiations between the three warring parties (the O’Donnells, the GAA and the College), the result of which is the present agreement which gives the playing area to the College and the bar/dining hall area to the O’Donnells.
The result however of the years of fighting has been the total alienation of the GAA members, who have been wandering about city-owned public plots of land for the past two seasons to play their games. The O’Donnells are still fighting with the College regarding the future of the Park, and the College is busy ripping up the stands to make a wider pitch for its soccer and lacrosse teams. The GAA say they are sick of being at the mercy of a landlord and want to buy a park of their own.
For generations, the old park on 240th Street and Broadway in the North West Bronx had been a bustling social center for newly-arrived immigrants and Irish-Americans. Many jobs, apartments, and even spouses were found here, and the legend of the New York pitch was known to every hurler and footballer in Ireland as the mecca of the Gaelic sporting world, outside of Dublin’s own Croke Park of course.
Now that seems to be all but lost, as the present leadership of the GAA is adamant that it will never again set fool in the park. Instead, they are looking at plots of land all over the tri-state area in the hopes of finding one that is viable, practically and economically. It is hoped that eventually the Irish community in New York will have the kind of top-flight facility which was recently built by the Irish in Chicago.
However, many fear that the current state of limbo could have a lasting effect on the games. Without proper stands or a proper park, fewer and fewer crowds are coming to see the games, and some teams are even threatening to fold due to lack of interest. Hopefully, a new home can be found before the New York Irish community forgets the reason why it was looking in the first place.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the July August 1992 issue of Irish America. ♦
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