Hollywood screenwriter and producer Ian Gurvitz discusses his latest book DumbF***istan - a scathing assessment of how one of the world's superpowers is getting dumber by the minute.
On Sarah Palin
Ian Gurvitz: That somebody so absolutely competent could frankly be one malfunctioning difibrulator away from the oval office, it was just insane. But she was just the Beta version. Trump is Palin 2.0.
On "insult comic" Donald Trump
Ian Gurvitz: Anything he’s said over the last 14 months, you wouldn’t take it from a drunk at the end of a bar, let alone somebody running for the presidency. Any of these things should have disqualified him instantly, yet he's still in the running.
On the US "crumbling under the weight of its own stupidity"
Ian Gurvitz: Stupidity, it’s like it’s being injected at every level of culture and you don’t really see people calling people out on it… The fact that Fox News even exists is a travesty. The place itself is an oxymoron, yet it’s still there, and they’ve been basically in the disinformation business.
You look at the way we talk about guns, where we think the Second Amendment was something that as put on earth by God so we could all run around heavily armed and just shoot the hell out of each other.
The culture, especially the movie business, seems to have devolved from movies that have to do with the human condition to basically cartoons and superhero movies, which have now become our chief export.
On the US news industry
Ian Gurvitz: In order to [get news ratings] you’re going to see a lot less analysis and a lot more squirrels on waterskis. It’s a fact of the economic nature of the business, but I think what suffers is, frankly, information. We’re becoming less and less informed.
On the place of religion in US society
Ian Gurvitz: It’s another case where we have debates, but we don’t have dialogue. Most people don’t understand what religion is, why it exists, what it’s supposed to do.
