IS THIS A BLIND SPOT I SEE BEFORE ME?

There’s this movie, see? It’s called “The Blindness”, okay?

And look, Julianne Moore’s in it. Aside from being an exceptionally talented actress, Ms. Moore’s quite easy on the eyes too. Quite the stunner, in fact.

Here’s a pic to feast your optics on …

Now, that bats my lashes every time, whaddyareckon? Huh? HUH??

Anyway, this moving picture is based on the premise that some thing or other has caused the world’s population to go blind. Hence the title. “The Blindness”. Only, Julianne Moore’s character doesn’t go belly-up in the peepers, she can still see ‘round corners, up hill and down dale, a hunnert-an-twenny-twenny vision.

What? You want me to draw you a picture? Fuck off.

So, anyhow, when all these folks go dark in the head, they also go a bit whacky and start fucking each other about and gettin’ nasty an’ stuff.

Here’s a trailer so you can see for yourself …



What’s that? You can’t?

That’s a shame, ain’t it?

So. Let me get this straight. You can’t see the fucking movie, but you’d like to have a whine about it because it makes out that blind people like fucking each other about and being nasty an’ stuff?

IT’S A FUCKING MOVIE! IT’S MADE UP! IT AIN’T REAL! IT’S A PREMISE, A HOOK, A FICTION, A STORY! A METAPHOR IF YOU FUCKING WILL THANK YOU VERY FUCKING MUCH!

And you think you speak on behalf of some community? No, you don’t. You speak for your own self and a tiny, teensy-weensy noisy handful of other twitchy little fuckers simply because you’ve bugger all else to do with your time but root about trying to find stuff to bitch about. Like these retards over here.

What’s that?

“The National Federation of the Blind condemns and deplores this film, which will do substantial harm to the blind of America and the world. Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom.”

Hang on a moment, sunshine. Read this … Some fella in Vancouver by the name of Pete McMartin wrote it. He thought the movie was crap, but …

“That, I thought, was over the top, if not just wrong. The public image of the blind, I'd say, is one of downright admiration and empathy. The blind are empowered in our society, not demonized. I also thought the federation's objection to blindness as a metaphor for depravity was silly because it had either misread it, or not read it at all.

Had she read the book, I asked.

No, she said, she hadn't.

Had she seen the movie?

"I personally don't want to see the movie. The idea of it makes me sick."

Big irony here, of course: The federations' protests will draw people into the theatres to see what all the fuss is about, whereas if they had ignored it, it would have, believe me, come and gone in a week.

But the book, I pointed out, has been around much longer. It was written in 1995, and translated into English in 1997. Why hadn't the federation protested against the book's publication then?

"That's a good question," Lalonde said, one she didn't quite have an answer to, though she thought a movie's ability to reach a larger market might have something to do with it.

In other words, a Nobel Prize-winning author's novel, which I have read, and which has been read all over the world, is so negligible as to be not worthy of the federation's scorn. It's just words, after all”

Did you read that?

You didn’t?

Well, maybe you can just feel your way through it. I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.

Mind you don’t hit your fucking head on your way out.