When Robert Rodriguez gave Ain't It Cool News the first (real) trailer for Machete, a mexpoitation Grindhouse throwback film, on Cinco de Mayo, I had no idea that people would freak out over the (quite brief) special introductory message to Arizona preceding the trailer. And that's not because I live under a rock, either. I'm up to speed on Arizona's increasingly controversial policies toward immigration. I simply thought people would take that dedication as the joke it was considering how intentionally outlandish everything that follows it is. The trailer ends with Danny Trejo flying through the air on a motorcycle that has a Gatling gun attached to the front of it, for crying out loud. Rodriguez's film isn't exactly taking itself too seriously and all that trailer is doing is telling the Aristocrats joke in reverse.

Not long after the trailer released, however, I started to see signs that not everyone saw the humor in the topical jab. Over at Hollywood.com, Chris Cargill wondered whether or not that barb was a terrible bit of extraneous marketing, "Can the progeny of Grindhouse, a film that itself notoriously underperformed at the box office, really afford to become a film that a segment of the population wants to write off because they don't want to feel like they're being lectured to?" And that's an excellent point; if your film clearly isn't a "message film" why even bother poking that bee hive? The pure futility of it only added to how uncommitted of a comment it was, I found.

A few days after that, Cargill then shared a video that stopped me dead in my tracks.

It's a 7-minute long call to arms from radio host Alex Jones that opens with him saying "Hello friends, this is a very important message. We're trying to avert a tragedy and possible trigger for serious race war in the United States, something the establishment has been stoking and preparing for decades. Whether he knows it or not, Robert Rodriguez-- I would say it's a 90% chance right now -- is going to trigger racial riots and racial killings in the United States with the September release of his film, Machete."



Now, I really do not want to turn this post into a debate about the legislation passed in Arizona or whether or not Alex Jones is some right wing conspiracy theorist off his rocker; I am just really curious as to whether or not readers think any film, be it Machete or Malcom X, is capable of starting a race war in the United States.

I honestly don't think it's possible. I don't think any work of cinematic fiction can be galvanizing enough to start an actual war, regardless of the subject matter. That's not to say that a film is incapable of inspiring individuals or even small groups to action, but not en masse and not with any kind of a quickness; especially when violence is involved. I think people are A) generally rather lazy and B) capable of discerning between overt propaganda and vague political leanings.

I am also curious as to whether or not people agree with Jones when he said Machete's special message to Arizona was a"call for violence; a call for racial warfare and death." Again, I just do not see it. I don't see ANY political message in Machete (mind you we are still talking solely about a trailer here). All I see is an advertisement for a film that deftly taps into the over-the-top trappings of an ad hoc style of filmmaking that became an endangered species when no one took it seriously decades ago. That's it.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, though. Do you think Machete will cause a race war? And if so, is Robert Rodriguez intentionally trying to do just that? Or has everyone positing that scenario simply fallen into the age-old "no such thing as bad publicity" trap Rodriguez and Trejo intentionally set?