Philadelphia: Classic Courtroom Drama, or Cartoonish, Self-Congratulatory Agitprop?

By Nicholas Stix

Well, if I’m going to waste my time debating the geniuses over at IMDB, I might as well get some mileage out of the exercise, by re-posting the great debates over here!
 

Classic Courtroom Dramas: An IMDB List

Philadelphia

Phil Surtees • Sydney, Australia

An excellent list! You need to add Philadelphia though; one of the truly great courtroom dramas...

August 31, 2013 at 6:09 a.m.

Nicholas Stix • Works at Why the hell would I tell you??

Philadelphia? PC garbage.

October 4, 2014 at 7:38 p.m.

Phil Surtees • Sydney, Australia

"PC Garbage"? Philadelphia, aside from being an excellent courtroom drama, had a significant role in bringing the plight of HIV sufferers out of the shadows and into the mainstream. It actually had a major impact on society you ignorant imbecile. Not to mention that it was nominated for 5 Oscars - including best screenplay - and won 2. You're a retarded douche!

[Friday] at 3:13 p.m.

N.S.: Philadelphia is an awful courtroom drama. It has no tension or moral ambiguity. It’s utterly unrealistic, except for one facet, to which I’ll come. The gay plaintiff is an angel, while the normal defendants are all cartoonish monsters. In a low-grade imitation of A Few Good Men, lacking its intelligence, they make self-incriminating statements on the stand that no corporate defendant, let alone a corporate lawyer, would ever make.

(The corporate lawyers spoke with open contempt of homosexuals, with one even bragging about him and his mates brutally beating one in the Navy.)

The one realistic aspect of the movie is that the law firm fired the protagonist because he was breaking out with open sores on his face, from Kaposi’s Sarcoma. How the hell could his firing be “discrimination”?

A law (or any) firm that retained someone clearly dying from a communicable disease and had him deal with clients, would have been liable to be sued out of existence by the latter, and no client wants to deal with someone in that state.

But you proved my point: The entire purpose of the picture was propagandistic. Your assertion that it brought “the plight of HIV sufferers out of the shadows and into the mainstream” is nonsense on stilts. The MSM had supported militant, promiscuous homosexuals since the 1970s. This agitprop was released in 1993; the MSM had been in the corner of people with HIV since the early 1980s, when the disease was first identified.

Thus, the picture had no impact on society. It was merely an opportunity for Hollywood lefties to celebrate their imagined moral superiority over the people they live off of.

The picture got its Oscar nominations and wins as purely political rewards. If the Academy had been concerned with excellence, the movie would have gotten one nomination: For Denzel Washington, who steals the picture, and provides its only moments of comic relief, as Best Supporting Actor. But Washington was snubbed, as if to say, ‘This movie’s artistic merits mean nothing to us.’

You’re as pathetically dishonest as you are stupid.

P.S.: I think that Tom Hanks should have been up for Best Actor for Apollo 13, and that he should have won another Oscar for Saving Private Ryan (1998). However, since he was given an undeserved Oscar for Philadelphia, things worked out: He deserved two Oscars, and he won two, albeit not for exactly the pictures for which he deserved them.