The predictably smug and dismissive reviews of My Son Hunter from left-wing outlets keep rolling in, with Gawker and Salon taking their turns at bat to trash the movie and stan the Biden family. Gawker goes the extra mile in the latter regard by declaring Hunter Biden a “Gen X icon,” comparable in stature to the band Nirvana and its frontman, the late Kurt Cobain.
We kid you not. Gawker’s Brooklyn-based reviewer Christian Lorentzen begins his pan by elevating Hunter Biden to hero status. “In the middle of his life Hunter Biden has emerged as a Gen X icon,” he writes, before comparing him to Nirvana, arguing that Hunter’s downward spiral mirrors the “genius burnout” of Cobain.
As for the movie, it is merely “propaganda” and “nonsense,” executed by a bunch of “career hacks.” Most of Gawker’s review is devoted to plot summary written in a deadpan style to seemingly telegraph the reviewer’s superiority.
The review ends on an almost unintelligible note, arguing that the movie serves primarily as a “right-wing Boomer” fantasy.
Salon’s review gets off on the wrong foot with a headline calling My Son Hunter a “deep-state right-wing grift” — a baffling description, since the Deep State (that is, career bureaucrats at federal agencies like the FBI) did everything in its power to bury the laptop-from-hell scandal in the months leading up to the 2020 election.
Most likely, it’s just a bit of careless, SEO word salad from critic Andrew O’Hehir, who goes on to call the movie “a letdown because it’s just a stupid farce that recycles a bunch of familiar allegations about the Bidens.”
(Full disclosure: Andrew was a professor of mine at NYU and I can say he is a talented writer and a devoted teacher who was always engaged during class.)
One of Salon’s more laughable claims is that the real Hunter Biden boasts a physique that looks like he works out with a “no-doubt-hot personal trainer.” Those of us who haven’t learned to distrust our lying eyes might instead describe him as “skinny-fat” or “haggard.”
In the review, Salon smears right-wing media as a “shameless grift.” So it would be only fair to point out that Salon refused for more than a year to correct an article erroneously claiming that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill requiring Florida students and professors to register their political views with the state.
The original 2021 Salon headline falsely stated: “DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state.”
In actuality, the law in question requires public colleges and universities in Florida to perform annual surveys on the subject of “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” but participation in the survey is entirely voluntary.
Salon only revised the headline in July — more than a year after the story was first published — despite efforts by then-DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw to get the publication to run a correction. The left-wing CNN and Politifact also ran fact-checks debunking Salon’s reporting.
Who’s grifting now?
Watch the trailer:
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
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