So, about that whole gay thing…
Salon contributor Mark Feldstein does not care so much about the issue. In a brief but scathing response to the J. Edgar movie, Feldstein called the film a “brief defense of the FBI’s legendary director” which ignore’s Hoover’s “ruthless abuse of power.”
Feldstein credits Hoover, as does the film, with creating the modern forensics lab to nab bad guys, and even provides a credible rationale for Hoover’s obsession with communism. But Felstein’s first complaint is the film’s portrayal of Hoover as an ally of Senator Joe McCarthy. “In fact, the FBI director was a crucial ally of the Red-baiting demagogue,” he writes.
“During his lifetime he was Washington’s consummate master of sexual slander and political blackmail,” he writes of Hoover. “Given the known facts of Hoover’s life, Eastwood has painted his subject in the best light possible—better than he deserves and infinitely kinder than Hoover ever treated his many enemies, who included some of the most heroic figures of that tumultuous era.”
Feldstein has plenty more criticisms of Hoover, or of what the film missed. To read more click here.
