It’s that time of year again. Thankfully, my birthday doesn’t fall on Passover this year, so I don’t have to be that angry. Matzah still gets old fast and there never seems to be enough Passover candy in the house. At least there are some funnies I can post. Getting harder to find these. So many involved Hitler, antisemitism, American politics, and focusing on the blood on doorways. So, I found most from the Someecards. Hope next year is more plentiful.
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Legends of Windemere 
Very funny, Charles.😁
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Thanks
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The birthday on Passover meme made me laugh out loud!!!!
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I’ve lived that far too many times.
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Those are great memes. I never even thought about what would happen if one’s birthday was on Passover and the birthday meme really put things into perspective. Sorry that you couldn’t get birthday cake on the times when your birthday happened during that holiday.
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My family eventually made a birthday exception. This came after we tried a kosher for Passover cake. It was yellow cake with green spots. The two friends who came over and I learned that it wasn’t supposed to have those green spots. Tasted like gasoline smells.
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Gotcha. I wondered how that would work. That cake sounds sketchy. Green spots on the cake that isn’t green dye or green candy pieces is quite dubious.
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At our age, we didn’t know better. My mom thought it was right until she tried. Thing didn’t even expire.
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Fair enough. That sounds like a fluke of nature if it doesn’t expire. I guess it’s kind of like McDonald’s french fries never going bad even if you seal them in a jar for several weeks.
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Is that true? I’ve had McDonald’s fries go gross on me within an hour.
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It’s more of a theory, but I remember an extra from Super Size Me where they tested McDonalds food and regular food in airtight jars for several days or weeks and the Mickey D’s fries didn’t have a speck of mold on them compared to everything else. To be fair, those fries can taste nasty after a long time period when you don’t eat them right away.
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I wonder if airtight meant the food went in only with the mold spores it already had. So the McDonald’s fries may have been fried so much that nothing survived.
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That could be a possibility. It’s been years since I watched that documentary, so I don’t remember all of the controls that went into sealing the jars. I believe the food was bought and sealed on that day.
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I just remember there being some revelation of him skewing information at some point. Not sure if it was that documentary or another one.
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I do remember hearing that part of what went down wasn’t the fast food diet, but his alcoholism that he kept hidden from the public. Then again, that’s tame compared to the other allegations about Morgan Spurlock.
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Which other ones?
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I believe I mentioned this in another comment in a different post of yours, but he admitted to sexual misconduct to multiple women during his career. That, the infidelity, alcoholism, and signing on to The Princess of North Sudan movie have tarnished his career.
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Think the first thing sounds familiar. To be fair, I’ve been on a busy vacation and my brain is fried to the point it could be served at KFC. Need to look up that movie. Very curious.
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I believe I mentioned it in passing in the first conversation thread we had. That’s understandable with you having that busy vacation, but I’m sorry to hear about your brain getting the KFC treatment in the process. The Princess of North Sudan might either be cancelled or stuck in development hell after Disney got backlash on social media for announcing it. That concept is something I know I brought up when I mentioned my issues with the House of Mouse’s depiction of African culture and even you thought that movie idea let alone the real-life family were ridiculous.
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Can’t find anything on it beyond 2016. Looking into it again, the whole thing is weird. The guy’s claim wasn’t even taken seriously, so it shouldn’t have any real meat to it. Might as well claim a star and make her a space princess.
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That’s not surprising and it sounds like it was quietly scrapped. I did hear the Sudanese community were angry (rightfully so) even though you can’t just stick a flag in a place and claim it’s yours anyway. Good point about claiming a star. I get that girls want to be princesses, but couldn’t he at least give her a doll or princess costume on her birthday instead? SMH.
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Guess that isn’t the same as being a princess. Wonder what she thinks now that she’s older. Funny how Sudan was angry when they don’t have a claim on it either. Was it over the name?
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Pardon the Disney musical reference, but the daughter wanted more. Hopefully, she wonders what she was thinking or how far her father went to go all the way to Sudan to make a fake kingdom. I get what your saying about the Bir Bawil situation since it was really close to the Egyptian border, but the imagery of sticking a flag in their country evoking that anger is justified. I know it’s not as big as the issues Sudan has been dealing with such as Darfur, a civil war, the seceeding of South Sudan, and some major political issues, but it was the colonialism angle that set people off since that country used to be owned by the British until 1956. It wasn’t just Sudan, obviously since even Americans called out the sanitized colonization, the father not realizing Bedouins are people as well, and I remember one person bringing up the fact that if this movie existed, it would be the 3rd Disney movie in a row taking place in Africa that doesn’t feature human characters that looked like they were from the continent.
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Wasn’t she 8? I don’t really think she knew what was going on. I’m torn on the flag I’m the country thing too. From what I’m reading, nobody has claim to the land in question. They got angry over someone claiming land that nobody owns, but everyone tries to claim. So, I kind of find the anger a little hypocritical only because this guy did what others were already doing with the same level of fail.
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I forget how old she was when that happened, but I’m sure was that age or close to it at the time. At least she has an excuse for being too young to know any better then, but I wonder if she has enough sense to be embarrassed about it now. I see Bir Tawil is still unclaimed by either Sudan or Egypt given the remote nature and harsh desert climate. If it was either country making a claim, I could at least see the logic in that, but that guy flying over from Virginia to make his daughter’s dream of being a princess come true is just mind-numbing and the fact that there was almost a Disney movie that was trying to call her the first African Disney princess (human princess to be clear, so I’m barring Nala) in the 2010s just grinds my gears.
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From what I can tell, the whole concept died quickly. Since no claim has been accepted, her father’s stunt was nothing more than an empty gesture. Probably would have stayed that way if the media didn’t pounce at the time. I can see how someone would think to try it for their kid even if it’s temporary or fake. Sounds more like the real anger is aimed Disney for trying to make this more than it should have been.
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Sounds like it and I hope that movie concept never materializes. I was angry at the dad because he should know about the optics with what he did even if he was spoiling his daughter. The anger towards Disney is totally deserved even though I wish the public were rougher on that company for similar things or other facts consistently, not just for signing off on a potential movie.
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I don’t think your average person thinks about the optics. Humans get fixated on their situation and don’t pay attention to what might be seen from outside. It happens to just about everybody because our minds use logic to subconsciously rationalize minor things. It depends on the guy’s upbringing too because it could genuinely not have been a possibility in his mind that this was a bad move. I think him doubling down is more out of pride and feeling cornered, which is another human trait. On the other hand, Disney had plenty of time and minds to consider the optics. They could have investigated the whole situation and seen that it should have been avoided. The public doesn’t learn about these types of things until long after the fact. Disney has over 30 permanent lobbyists in DC and control over a lot of media sources. If they want to downplay something, they’ll do it. Heck, they’re the company responsible for screwing up ‘public domain’, which hurt science advancement. I’d say they’re more powerful than every other corporation out there.
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Is that so? I can see come people being oblivious in certain situations (I’m sometimes guilty of this). There have been some times where I’m prejudged if there’s an optics issue with what I do or say, so I feel the need to judge others as a response to them. Sometimes, it can be so obvious like the dad sticking a flag on African soil which was so facepalm-worthy seeing that as an adult. Disney definitely should know better and they are too powerful of a company. Personally, I’m surprised that they only have 30-something lobbyists and they get away with so much. I’m even surprised that documentaries such as Mickey Mouse Monopoly or even The Lion’s Share were able to get distribution especially the latter with Netflix for example. I hear you right there about public domain and copyrights like trademarking the name “Snow White” even though they legally can’t copyright or trademark the character. This even affects the perceptions of the public by believing that Disney can do know wrong or anything they do is good while everyone else is bad or the people who call this stuff out.
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With the dad not thinking that putting a flag in African soil is bad optics, I’m not that surprised. Your average person thinks optics are only for celebrities and corporations. Most of us don’t think our actions will get a lot of attention outside of our social circles too. Those are filled with people who would be okay with such things or try to stop us if we attempt a bad optics move.
With Disney, I think those are only their fulltime lobbyists. They probably use lawyers and some temps when they really need to push. Though, it could also depend on the money they’re throwing around in general. I had to look up the ‘Snow White’ thing and saw that they don’t have it trademarked. As you said, they can’t do that. It’s the specific animated movies and appearances of those characters. So, you can have all of the characters and the same story, but not the songs and exact appearance. I think them trademarking ‘Snow White’ and other public domain ideas is more of an empty rumor that Disney didn’t try to stop. They sued enough people for trying to copy them directly, so now people think the entire concept is off the table. Yet, ‘Fables’ is a graphic novel that has all of these characters involved just with different appearances. Even then, Snow White can still have all aspects that the original tale states because that part is public domain.
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I didn’t think about the point of celebrities or corporations, but he should’ve still known better. In these days, people can be canceled for far more shallower things for even having an unpopular opinion on a TV show or movie.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they have a whole auxiliary army of lawyers with their fulltime lobbyists in DC or other politically charged areas. They don’t have the rights to the character because anyone can make a Snow White story as long as it’s not like the Disney version or looks like their version of the character. There is this rapper named Snow the Product who was originally called Snow White the Product, but she changed it because of potential legal trouble with Disney. That company is so hypocritical when it comes to suing others for copying their stuff when they are guilty of this as well. Same with their fans bashing various stories or characters for being similar to Disney’s characters. You know I’m going to go there with this example, but no one better be telling me how Kayley from Quest For Camelot is a Belle-clone when they like certain feline villains voiced by Jeremy Irons because I can name WAY more similarities, but you already knew that. Filthy freaking hypocrites…It does sound like gaslighting because it doesn’t let people try to make unique adaptations of these stories that have existed for centuries that are clearly in the public domain. Funny you mention Fables because the main villain was originally going to be Peter Pan, but they couldn’t do it because of Disney and with the copyright not being expired while also being tied to a children’s hospital in England (yeah, it’s a weird situation).
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Except this guy did it in June of 2014. The whole ‘cancel’ thing wasn’t in full swing at that point. Neither was the ‘wokeness’ and whatever else we want to call today. That really didn’t kick into full swing across the nation until after that. The level we see in calling people out publicly, shaming, refusing forgiveness, and plain viciousness back then was nothing compared to today.
Disney does have a lot of lawyers on hand and they do sue to intimidate. Yet, not as often as people think. They used to do it a lot more to create the narrative that nobody should go near anything remotely like their properties. Take ‘Snow Tha Product’. I looked her up and I couldn’t find anything about Disney actually threatening her. So, it sounds like she did it to be safe even though they can’t sue her over that name. Never heard of Kayley being a Belle clone before, but I can see some physical similarities. That’s just animation considering how many princes look identical across all companies. As far as Peter Pan goes, Disney wasn’t a problem when it came to that issue. Fables couldn’t use that version, but that would have happened no matter what. The issue was Jim Barrie’s estate, which I’m guessing wouldn’t give permission for a deranged version of Peter Pan. So, it was safer to go with Geppetto and not have to jump through hoops. Many authors take the path of least resistance when it comes to public domain. It’s much safer and less stressful. They don’t have the money to pay estates for the use like Disney does too.
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There was some shaming and blacklash then and if this happened this year or even the 2020s so far, I’m sure the canceling would’ve been more severe. There are times where I admit that I get vicious online when calling out stuff if it involves subjects close to my heart or seeing people get away with things they clearly shouldn’t.
That is certainly true about Disney intimidating others. I haven’t heard anything they’ve done recently, but I know they’ve been cutthroat like the nursery issue with the Winnie-the-Pooh characters, the Spider-Man tombstone, or how they almost banned the Jungle Emperor Leo (1997) movie from it’s North American debut at the Fantasia Film Festival in Canada. I figured it was a safety sort of thing for Snow The Product changing her rap name, but I wasn’t sure if there was legal action against her or not. Then again, I’m not familiar with her music though. Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that from multiple Disney sycophants even going back to Nostalgia Critic reviewing it over a decade ago before I lost respect for him with his Dumbo review and eventually the face that he and his company Channel Awesome literally covered up a sexual harassment (or was it assault) case with one of their content creators. It does make sense with the Jim Barrie situation since I doubt the creators of Fables would make a Peter Pan character like the Disney version which would miss the point of the graphic novel series. It is insane how people can play it so safe when it comes to adapting something public domain.
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Oh, the canceling would have been immense if it happened in the last 3 years. Heck, I’m sure it could still happen if anyone tries to revive that project. Personally, I think it has gone a bit too far because it’s reached a point where there’s no forgiveness. It’s simply ‘destroy the heathen’, which forces them to either disappear forever or double down since they’re fucked anyway. It’s rarely an actual discussion about the topic at hand or an attempt to education the person who messed up.
I remember the Winnie-the-Pooh thing and Spider-Man. There was a big uproar over both. I think the first one was done simply to intimidate. Though, I do remember there was a time where Disney went really sue happy down in Florida and both of these incidents may have happened during that period. I wonder if the sycophants know that Beauty & Beast came out first or that they’re simply reacting blindly. Only because I remember when Twilight fans attacked Bram Stoker’s Dracula for copying and MCU fans for saying Darkseid was a ripoff of Thanos. Those types of people typically don’t get the chronology right.
Uh, I haven’t watched much with Nostalgia Critic. So . . . What? I’m not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole when I have work in the morning.
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And how! I hope no one tries to revive that movie concept. The internet rarely forgives even if someone was innocent the whole time which this guy and Disney aren’t.
Definitely. I didn’t hear about the Spider-Man issue until a couple of years ago when I was in a text block conversation with another blogger and she mentioned some of her qualms with Disney despite being a fan of most of their movies. It can come off as legal bullying just because they have the lawyers and resources. They WOULD go on a suing spree in Florida given how much business they do there. I picture the whole Kayley issue being a bit of both because I think they do know Beauty and the Beast came out in the early 90s. Reacting blindly do to fandom loyalty is something that wouldn’t surprise me at all. I know how insane a section of Disney fans can be and it’s sad to know these ar adults making insane statements or crapping on anything that isn’t from that company. Some of those types made fun of me for liking anime. SMH. I didn’t hear that about Twi-hards. WOW! That is so idiotic. I did hear that about Darkseid because Thanos got the silver screen treatment first even though I knew Darkseid because of the 90s Superman cartoon. Conversely, those same people say “well, everyone rips off from someone” or “so what if it isn’t original” when these fandoms react to legit evidence of stealing from things.
I stopped years ago. I only watched him from the late 00s/early 10s during the height of his fame before all that stuff happened. Trust me, it’s a long story and quite depressing. At least 98% of the content creators bailed after that news was leaked and I’m shocked that Doug/NC is a Rotten Tomatoes-certified critic.
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I can’t really say if this guy would be considered entirely guilty. Ignorant maybe. I think we judge too much in terms of black and white. It results in people who could be taught better to become defensive and get worse.
Fandoms are truly strange. I think the crazy ones are fueled by the creators too. Harry Potter fans went after Narnia and LOTR once. Rowling did nothing. Then again, she’s turned into a real piece of work.
I’m guessing a critic stays RT-certified forever?
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I do my best not to judge things in black and white, but some topics I have to press on after being silenced for so long by others throwing all kinds of microaggressions. People do need to do better and be better.
Of course, and there are so many toxic sects going on. It’s even worse how creators encourage fans to be crazy. Geez, what did LOTR and Narnia fans to do Harry Potter fans? Why would such a rivalry even exist? Then again, Rowling certainly has a lot of issues.
Maybe, but I don’t know how long he’s been certified.
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The problem with expecting people to do and be better is that such a thing is subjective. It differs from person to person. Honestly, I think everyone needs to improve in terms of understanding and communication. We ignore context and jump to conclusions far too often because the Internet removes about 75% of human communication, which is the nonverbal.
I never fully understood microaggressions either because it seems to be used to silence even the slightest difference of opinion. So I don’t really get what it’s supposed to be beyond what I see people claim on the Internet.
The rivalry was because all were fantasy. I think The Hobbit movies began coming out too. Fantasy fandoms get really territorial these days. Almost as much as MCU fans.
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I guess I can expect too much out of people in general. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling myself a saint since I still struggle with so many things like low self-esteem and I tend to get bitter even though I hide it most of the time.
They can be used for silence and they often come in dog whistle forms. I definitely had racial ones towards my way such as “no one in America is racist anymore” after Obama got elected, “not everything is about race”, or “someone like you might have difficulty with [this job/position/etc.]”.
That is one of the most shallow fandom rivalries I’ve ever heard. Please don’t tell me these are adults who should know better than to have these petty arguments. I remember getting made fun of for liking the band La Dispute by a now ex-friend since according to him, they were a “mewithoutYou ripoff band”. I strongly disagree and the only similarity is that both bands use spoken word vocals in an experimental rock context although La Dispute is more influenced by hardcore music. It’s one example of why I HATE people saying what I like is a ripoff and I feel like I deserve to fandom-shame someone for liking something that legitimately stole from something else.
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I’ve come to learn that most people aren’t going to match my moral code. Different upbringings, culture, and life experience does that. It’s why I find it a little disappointing to see people pounce on the slightest misstep these days.
I heard about that first quote, but never saw it in action. I’ve actually had the reverse of the second one thrown my way more. I notice that every time I try to talk about other areas of inequality, it gets turned to race. While it is a big issue, I really don’t agree that everything boils down to it. That just ignores other sources of hate.
There were some adults involved in those fights. Mostly teenagers though, but they should have at least done research. I don’t know either of those bands.
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I feel somewhat similar, but it does irk me when someone is objectively wrong. People jump on my missteps, and I feel like I have to do that to others if I’m forced to, but I don’t want to overdo it.
These are things actually said to my face. The race example is something I know given my heritage, but I’m not ignorant to other forms of microaggressions involving sexism, homophobia, nativism, religion, etc. I was blind to some of the covert things when I was younger even in my early 20s, but I’m more aware and I will call it out on site if I catch anyone doing that stuff to me.
That is just sad. Couldn’t those people find something else to do or care about normal adulting things? There’s nothing wrong with being a fan, but fanaticism is overboard over fictional characters. It’s fine if you don’t know about those bands. That was back when I was really into music and my tastes have changed since then. However, I was bullied for being a music fan and I have a love/hate relationship for music especially for certain genres.
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I get it. Comes down to giving since you’ve been getting for long. Though, I’ve noticed a lot are just out for blood and they build their personality around destroying others for missteps. Those are the ones who I think keep this toxic social media trend going.
Would racism be micro or macro? As far as covert things, that’s pretty much where antisemitism thrives. Realized how rampant the hate towards my people is over the last few years. God help me if I bring it up though.
Many people today have built their identity around what they like instead of what the do or are. If something threatens their favorite franchises, they feel it threatens their identity. They can’t adjust their understanding without fearing they’ll become a different, weaker person.
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Thanks for understanding. I’ve noticed it too about people who just want to go after whoever. It’s no wonder why I stopped using Facebook and Twitter years ago for example. It’s like they thrive on negativity and schadenfreude.
It can be both. Macro would be something obvious like a slur or saying something with a painfully obvious subtext like “We don’t want your kind here” for example. Sometimes, some things could’ve been micro then are macro now when people catch on to the hidden meanings which is why if someone used a term like “welfare queen”, they will instantly be called out. I’m aware that antisemitism can be subtle and I remember hearing a term a few years ago that was used as an insult to a Jewish person on a video that I didn’t know what it meant until it was explained later on and my heart sank hearing these covert insults. People don’t realize that others do covert things so they can be bigoted but with reasonable doubt or rampant denialism.
Yes, and that’s sad. I have many interests, but I don’t want to define myself by my interests or hobbies. Don’t even get me started on how sports fans manage to avoid that stigma even if they talk about it all the time or are rocking memorabilia from a team or player.
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I keep wondering if I should drop Twitter. On Facebook, I just still to the friends I can’t interact with anywhere else. Twitter is definitely the worse of the two.
I think the biggest frustration about Jewish dog whistles is when I see them used by people who speak out for other groups. There’s this weird mentality that people can be low key antisemitic in this country. Like you only get in trouble if you go Nazi.
Sports fans differ from other fandoms in one way. Most keep the aggressive side in their circles and don’t attack people who aren’t involved. I mean, you don’t see a Patriots fan picking a fight with a Chicago Bull fan. Even within the sport, the trash talking is seen as friendly banter. You don’t see that happen in other areas.
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I don’t blame you if you drop Twitter. I’ve seen how toxic it can be especially with the bots and Avi accounts trolling others.
That is saddening hearing how the dog whistles are used by these groups. I’m definitely aware that antisemitism still exists, and I think it adds to my point about people using dog whistles as it’s some get out of jail free card. No, it doesn’t work that way. I swear people can be so remedial that they believe that only racists or antisemites have to don a white hood or a swastika to be such. Those are just the extreme overt kinds. In my experience, some of the worst bigots are the ones who are low key and act normal/moderate (politically and socially).
Right. It’s such a double standard like how they can destroy buildings and property, but people just laugh it off. You don’t see Trekkies or Otaku doing that crap.
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I don’t even do much on Twitter. My blog posts go there. That’s just about it. I used to do heavy promotions for my books, but they stopped gained sales eventually. Just became people retweeting and that’s it. So I really don’t have a use for it.
Never thought of dog whistles as get out of jail cards. I thought they were innocuous terms one uses to subtly stir up hate groups. For example, uttering the name George Soros to summon Nazis. I have met many who are racist and act like their not because they ‘have a friend’. My favorite was one person swearing they had a Jewish friend who agreed that Jews need to accept it’s a Christian nation. Couldn’t tell me the person’s name or anything other than they’re Jewish. It’s such an obvious lie.
I wouldn’t call it a double standard. Sports fans do get mocked, but they don’t get to the extremes of Trekkies and Otaku. By that, I mean they don’t normally attack members of other groups in a fandom war. You have team rivalries, but sports fans don’t start swarming posts about in the same way as MCU, Potter, and other fandoms. You’re thinking of the riots after games too. Those are rightly mocked and arrests are made. They’re also pounced on by the media so often that it feels like the norm. The reality is that it isn’t that common. I’ve also seen the destruction left behind by large comic cons. They aren’t breaking stuff, but they definitely leave a big mess behind at times.
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I see. Others just use it to sync with their blogs and other sites.
I use that term because the person who says it uses the facet of plausible deniability or doubt with something innocent sounding. You’re right about innocuous terms to stir up hate groups, but I was just adding to your point. I’ve heard the George Soros example you’ve mentioned before. That “have a friend” strawman is something that was said to me and it ticks me off to no end. 10 years ago, anyone who said that would’ve gotten away with it, but certainly not me or most decent-thinking members of society in the 2020s. It’s one of those obvious things now like I shouldn’t have to explain about fake nice guys. That person who used that lame rhetorical dodge/lie should be ashamed of himself. Sorry to hear that someone said it to you. The Christian nation excuse is even more cringeworthy since it wasn’t built as one and a lot of the founding fathers didn’t follow that religion (Washington was a Deist for example). I’ve also heard other variations like “some of my best friends…”, “I work with/hire…”, or “I’m dating/married to…”. That is the same logic as saying the porn industry can’t be sexist because they hire women, a person can’t be Islamophobic/Antisemetic/anti-other religion here because they attended an inter-faith coalition, or The Lion King can’t have racist implications because James Earl Jones voiced Mufasa which is an excuse I’ve seen online and real life. People seriously think they can just use certain groups as shields and it needs to stop.
Really? I rarely see sports fans getting mocked. Maybe I should troll sports fans as some kind of catharsis and revenge against the jocks who gave me crap then! Hahaha! I know team rivalries are a given regardless of the sport, but I don’t see as much grief given to them. Yes, I was referring to riots. The Philedelphia one involving the Super Bowl comes to mind with the utter stupidity I saw in the videos. It looked like society accepts damaged property and buildings as long as it involves sports. If otaku did that nonsense on that level, this would be national news.
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Guess dog whistles are vague enough for the person to shrug and claim ignorance. Some actually are ignorant because they don’t know they power behind the term. They see it used online and follow suit. As far as they ‘friend’ thing, I think it’s harder these days to disprove it. Thank you, social media. Now, a person can follow members of groups they have disdain for and point to that. You can follow without interacting, which is what they use. It’s not a great trick, but it does give them some manufactured defense that reeks of bullshit. Sadly, using other people and groups as shields in a long tradition of humanity.
I’ve seen sports fans get movies by otaku and nerd groups every time a new season starts. It’s petty revenge for the jock bullies of high school. Yet, those jocks aren’t the bulk of sports fans. People just think they are because those are the ones who played. That’s not counting the mocking within sports groups. You take that as part of it though. For example, Dallas Cowboys and NY Giants fans rag on each other all the time. It’s not taken that seriously by the majority of fans. With the riots, I don’t think society accepts it when it comes to sports. It was national news for days as far as I remember. Arrests were made, people were horrified by it, and only a handful of idiots tried to really justify it. Most of those weren’t even Eagles fans, but people who tried to say it wasn’t worse than BLM riots.
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Exactly with the vagueries. They can be innocuous or neutral-sounding words or phrases until you look really close with how they are used. I’d be lying if I said I knew every single example since I was a kid, but as I got older, I started to get wiser with the language with how it’s used and even then, some of these idiots try to refine the language to save face. I was talking about rhetorical shields if I wasn’t clear enough, but I get you were saying.
Get movies by otaku and nerd groups? You mean sports fans actually watching anime or nerdier movies? I was a bit confused there. I’ve heard of some of that banter, but I’m not part of that, obviously. Sometimes I’m surprised that people don’t accept these sports riots or that people actually get arrested for doing this stupid crap.
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New ones always seem to turn up. I’m noticing that ‘free speech’ and variations on that are drawing out some rather rabid groups. I think it’s all about context and the state of society at this point. Older ones that aren’t understood won’t have the same impact. Guess they’ve gotta be switched out too.
I meant mocked instead of movies. Working by phone here and missed autocorrect causing trouble. Though there is a lot of overlap these days. Plenty of sports fans are into anime and such.
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Of course and it’s part of a nefarious refining process. My that, I mean changing the language, not refining themselves to be better.
Okay, thanks for clarifying. I’ve had my fair share of embarrassing autocorrect moments when I respond from my phone. I’m aware some sports fans like anime and whatever. I’m just annoyed at hardcore sports fans who make fun of anyone who likes anything nerdy because their fandom is acceptable in society. Part of me wants to improve my insulting skills since I’ve never been good at that, so I can make them feel ashamed of what they like and for them to leave me alone if I’m forced to if they antagonize me.
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I’m not sure if it’s refining or ditching the terms that lose their power. Eventually, the dog whistle becomes too obvious. You can’t slip it into every day conversation and pretend that you don’t know what it means. So, you have to ditch or reduce the use of it then grab a new one. At least, that’s what I’m seeing them do. CRT seems to be the newest dog whistle that they’re riding like there’s no tomorrow.
I always hear about those types of sports fans, but I haven’t seen many of them. It feels like they’re not as common as before or they’re simply more noticeable than the fans who stick to their own stuff. I doubt they’d feel ashamed of what they enjoy too. Just like anime and other nerd fans shouldn’t feel that way.
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I guess it’s a refining a process and the ditching is for the old terms becoming obsolete in their eyes. After 2020, I’ve been seeing more people become wise to certain words and phrases and how they are used. I’m seeing it right now with these CRT laws and hypocritical outrage against that curriculum. Banning real uncomfortable history is stupid and nefarious. One, there’s the internet for people that want to learn. Two, metaphorical and literal book burning has NEVER worked in any society. I have so many thoughts about that issue and I’m trying to restrain myself from going on a gigantic rant or namedropping several examples in just American history.
You’re certainly fortunate. Have you ever wanted to insult the jerk sports fans or anyone who tries to fandom shame you? Wouldn’t you feel like your life would be complete if you did so? It would be tricky to shame them and there were times where I felt shame for what I (used to) like, so it was tough for me to find that confidence at times.
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I’m curious to see if the anti-CRT politicians go too far and reveal their hand entirely to those who are in the middle. They’ve usually gotten further by running up to the line and poking at it. Now, you have people like DeSantis sprinting over the line with toilet paper dangling from both shoes. As far as the Internet for learning goes, I think that’s where this mess gets a lot of its fuel. The Internet isn’t vetted, so you can get information to suit whatever you believe instead of learning what’s true. A person may want to learn, but they can easily go down the wrong path without some type of foundation to start with. I remember a quote that was along the lines of:
“We thought the problem with ignorance was that people didn’t have access to knowledge. Now with the Internet, we know that wasn’t the problem.”
My life wouldn’t be complete because I’d have wasted my time on people who are trying to distract me from what I enjoy. The weird thing is that I’ve never met a jerk sports fan that goes to the extremes you’re talking about. I remember jock bullies in high school, but those weren’t a thing once I got to college. I’ve actually run into more rabid fans of various franchises that make sports fans seem down right stoic. MCU fans are especially nasty if you’re not careful with how you speak about the movies.
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Sadly, I think that could be a possibility. I know DeSantis is an obvious punchline and he deserves to be called out for making anti-CRT bills in both education and work settings, but it’s been happening in other states like Texas, Mississippi, and Tennesse with the infamous Maus ban. Obviously, it’s good to vet your sources online, so I should’ve been clearer in the previous comment. The examples that are true were quite eye-opening. The biggest examples of American history (not counting world history) that I never learned about in all my years in school were Black Wall Street and The Devil’s Punchbowl which I found out after graduating college for example. Even then, I’m still learning about things that should be taught so America doesn’t repeat itself. That is a good quote about the internet, by the way.
I see. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t resentful towards the people insulting what I liked or made so many double standards that I didn’t notice at the time. There were a couple of those hardcore sports jerk jock types back when I was in high school, but not so much afterwards. I’ve definitely dealt with my fair share of toxic sects of various fandoms online and offline especially Disney fans for me who think I’m insane for not liking most of the movies or calling out the problematic stuff the company has done. I could see that happening with MCU fans.
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Wasn’t sure if Maus was banned due to CRT since it’s been banned before. I think the big thing with DeSantis is that he want after math books. That seemed to go off the rails more than the others. It’s like he saw other states and decided to outdo them. I’ve heard of Black Wall Street, but Devil’s Punchbowl only sounds vaguely familiar. Sad thing is that you can look up stuff for other groups too and find a slew of things. Antisemitism was really common prior to WWII. Hotels would have ‘No Jew’ signs and both sides of the Civil War accused Jews of aiding the enemy. The thing is that nobody really cares about anything done to most groups. I’ve noticed that whenever people talk about the horrible treatment of Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, etc., somebody turns the conversation back to the treatment of blacks and LGBTQ+. It’s like nobody else is allowed to claim victimhood right now. Think I went off topic, but it is kind of like the whole fandom thing.
Technically, MCU and Disney fans are one and the same these days. At least, they have a lot of overlap. The interesting thing that I’ve seen with fandoms is that most of the jock sports fans grew out of that bullying after high school. At least the ones I’ve noticed. It’s the ones who were bullied in high school for liking nerd stuff that seem to get pretty bad as if they’re trying to get revenge. Being someone who was bullied, I always found that strange. You get a large group of bullied people together and a new hierarchy appears with a more vicious type of harassment towards those who aren’t into exactly the same stuff.
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I wasn’t aware that Maus was banned prior, but I was talking about the recent banning in that part of Tennessee. The claim according to the school board was disturbing imagery and one brief case of nudity in the graphic novels and the author Art Spiegelman countered that by saying that the Holocaust was a very disturbing event (That and the book was an autobiography of his father surviving Nazi Germany albeit with mice and cats) and was influenced by anti-CRT sentiment. That banning was stupid and I don’t want to see an erasure of real-life atrocities whether they are in textbooks or stories. I heard about the math book controversy and I saw what textbooks were targeted. That was incredibly bigoted and idiotic of him to ban educational books that use practical ways to use math even if some of the activities involve non-American cultural items for example. It’s good that you’ve heard of Black Wall Street before. The Devil’s Punchbowl is in Natchez, MS where freed slaves were starved out and were isolated from the rest of the town. There’s a giant peach grove there and no one will eat the peaches because they know what the “fertilizer” was. I am aware that Antisemitism happened in America prior to WWII, but I wasn’t aware of those accusations during the Civil War which is saddening. Also, I never said that other groups don’t or have never suffered, so don’t lump me in with people who downplay the suffering of others.
People have downplayed the things I’ve been through, my maternal side of the family, and some of my friends. I’ve been profiled at stores, someone questioned whether I was an American citizen or not even though I was clearly born here, and I’ve been chastised for things my white peers get away with all the time for doing the same thing or worse (saying nothing about the times I was falsely accused of things or being gaslighted). Not only that, but I feel like I have to prove my humanity every time which is a chore. I wish I lived in a world where there would be no discrimination and I would never downplay the hurts of others. No, I’m not preventing others of their victimhood, but I hate how people say that my hurts or others like me don’t exist or aren’t “that bad” and how I should shut up and be happy.
Okay, I need to calm down now. Going to the topic about toxic fandoms. That makes sense since Disney bought out Marvel. It’s still surreal to me with how acceptable liking superheroes are since I still remember getting crapped on for playing HeroClix in my early teen years or how I have watched multiple Marvel media back when they were their own company (the 90s X-Men cartoon was a big one for me). Maybe it’s that Disney connection that gave Marvel that acceptable slant? I don’t know since I’m still theorizing over that possibility. Sometimes I wonder if the jocks I knew grew out of that midset. Have you seen other people who you knew were bullied to act that way at high school or afterwards? I’ve never seen that angle before with bullied people wanting to get that kind of revenge or taking it out on others with different fandom circles mostly online. I can’t say I was in a group who had that mentality since I never really went to different circles with things I liked that much. Even then, some of my interests have turned into love/hate relationships like music or some forms of anime. I didn’t expect to make a text block, but I hope this makes sense with what we’re talking about.
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I think Maus has gotten a ban from time to time. It’s not one of the to banned books, but I’ve seen it come up as ‘bad’ before. Think sales shot up after the banning too. Surprised that peach grove is still standing given the history.
Sorry. Wasn’t lumping you in with those people. Just making a statement born from years of frustration. Seems as antisemitism rose, people tried to divert attention from it. Not only the Nazis, but people who were fighting for other groups. There’s always been this weird outsider thing with Jews even among other groups that are kept down. I think part of it is the idea that Jews are always rich and successful, which leads to that ‘shadowy puppet masters of the government and media’ idea.
I was into comics when I’m high school. Star Trek a bit too. Got movies for it when I showed I was interested. Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man seemed to be safe zones though. I think the change happened after MCU got big. Now, you had big stars in those movies, so it wasn’t nerdy yet. LOTR did that for adventure fantasy prior and Harry Potter shifted nerd culture more to the center.
I’ve been in several social groups that were composed of people who were bullied in high school. Small ones stayed rather civil. Larger ones always got that hierarchy with one fandom taking the reins. I noted how quick some bullied people were to step into the bully role. They enjoyed ostracizing because it gave them power and kept them ‘safe’ from opposing opinions. Really showed me a lot about human behavior.
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That is disheartening how Maus got banned previously before. I did hear the sales shot up on Amazon and other places around that time. I don’t want to invoke the terms forbidden fruit or Streisand Effect, but that banning certainly made those families curious or people who don’t even live in TN that never read the story interested in checking out since they knew the banning was wrong on so many levels. Yes, it’s disturbing about the peach grove still being there and the terrain is so dense, that someone would need to “be like Indiana Jones” to get there as one of the locals said on TV.
Okay and thanks for clearing it up for me. Don’t worry, I don’t subscribe to that “shadowy puppet master” conspiracy theory. It’s a shame that some people don’t think Antisemitism is real. I feel the same way when people downplay or deny things when I talk about my experiences, history I bring up, or mentioning unfortunate implications in various stories. Going back to your topic, shame on those who derogated your Jewish heritage.
Gotcha. I was mainly reading manga in my high school days, but I definitely read western comics when I was younger. Maybe those superheroes you mentioned were acceptable because they were already household names. You had big stars in some of those movies then, but nowhere near as much as the MCU where actors and actresses want a spot in those movies or TV series. I do agree with the perception with LOTR and Harry Potter.
That is so strange. Good on those for staying civil. For me, I’ve internalized a lot of things with fandom issues and more serious issues and I wondered if I would get to that level where I would insult others all the time, but I’m not good at making fun of others. Maybe I’m more courteous than I thought even though I see others get away with insulting other people in work or other settings. I can see why they could be safe online if they have an alias of sorts.
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Banned books typically see a big boost in sales. It’s basically a free promotion. People buy either out of curiosity or support against the ban. I guess the peach grove is so out of the way that it isn’t worth it to destroy. Probably important to the local ecosystem too. Animals don’t know any better.
The funny thing is that it’s common for people to assume antisemitism isn’t real. That’s because it rarely makes the news. You also have people immediately bringing up Israel and Palestine to muddy the waters. So, your average American doesn’t notice the issue.
I didn’t get into manga until after college. It was all Spider-Man and X-Titles during the 90’s. Back when the stories were usually good. The movies wouldn’t come out for another 2-4 years. We had the cartoons though, but that didn’t make things better.
I think getting away with insults depends on a lot of factors. Mostly setting. Work and school have pack mentalities. They also have groups that will rib on each other for fun without hurting feelings. It’s hard to get a feel for the situations when we’re not the target.
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I can see that being the case with both reasons. It’s crazy when media gets banned for stupid or indisious reasons. I even made a list of films and series that were banned or sabotaged on my film review blog if you’re interested. The peach grove is super dense and I’d be disturbed to see what’s on the other side of the brush regardless of the ecosystem.
That many people are in denial? I would’ve never guessed that. Now that you mention it, the only Antisemitism stories I can think of that got mainstream attention involve extreme situations like Charlottesville or that synagogue shooting years ago at the top of my head. For some reason, I thought Americans would be at least somewhat more cognizant, but then again, I do see ignorance in multiple situations.
That’s fine. I definitely watched those cartoons and had action figures when I was a kid. I liked the X-Men cartoon more than the live-action movies especially the terribad X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie where my sister and I mentioned everything wrong while the movie went on in the theater. We were also massively enraged that Gambit didn’t sound Cajun and had a typical Southern drawl.
You definitely have cliques even if they aren’t obvious which infuriated me since I felt like an outsider of sorts.
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Never heard of media being sabotaged, but it wouldn’t surprise me. As far as the peach grove goes, there is part of me that would be curious. Only because of the amount of time that’s past.
You hit the nail on the head. Antisemitism stories don’t show up as often as homophobia and racism against blacks. It doesn’t bring in the same level of attention, so it gets ignored. Charlottesville even got skewed over the course of months to being entirely about racism with Jews not being a target at all. I even saw people trying to say the chant was ‘Blacks will not replace us’ and these were people who would be considered liberal. Antisemitism appears in the news as shock value, so people simply thing it’s a rare event. I think it’s a national reaction to sending Jews back to Hitler and/or almost siding with him.
The last Wolverine movie was really good, but it was R-Rated and designed to be Hugh Jackman’s finale. They had to make good on that one. We don’t talk about the Origins one . . . ever.
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Yeah, it can happen in different ways such as censorship, manipulating a debut of a show or movie, and or using SLAPP suits. There should be an investigation and it needs to be in the history books.
Thank you, Charles. I know it sadly still exists, but the only time it’s really discussed if it’s a giant atrocity. Wait, people actually claimed the tiki torch mob were saying “Blacks will not replace us?” Don’t get me wrong, there was definitely racism when Charlottesville went down and the “you will not replace us” applied to other ethnic groups as well, but there was obvious Antisemitism with the “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil” chants that can be clearly heard from the videos. Is this some kind of revisionist history going on? The Tree of Life murderer is still in court right now. I’ll even add to your point with the January Sixers since I did see some of the insurrectionists wearing 6MWE shirts which any sane person would find very disturbing and I didn’t hear that much about that aspect even if there was so much to talk about. With anti-Black racism/violence/murder etc., it’s like trauma porn for the mainstream media like people are aroused by seeing these cases since the perpetrators rarely get punished given the historical patterns in this country. This could be a theory that is about what you said involving the national reaction. What if the un(der)reported cases of Antisemitism is to make sure these scenes aren’t used as fodder for other countries to say that America is resembling Nazi Germany? I could be wrong, but I still don’t want to see people getting attacked because of their race, creed, orientation, nationality, etc., so hopefully what I’m saying makes sense. I also wonder if it’s another form of mainstream media aversion of seeing white-on-white crimes which rarely gets shown unless if it’s something extreme like a school shooting for example. That or someone could make crackpot conspiracy theories like calling them hoaxes or false flag events which would be dangerous if people thought like that. I’m just pondering and you did make me think more about how certain forms of discrimination get shown or not, so I’m just asking questions and I hope these forms of bigotry would just stop.
That was Logan, right? I never saw that one, but I did hear some good things. Of course, I’m dealing with superhero burnout despite ironically watching the newest Spider-Man and Batman movies in theaters with some friends, but I’m not sure. Origins was probably the worst movie I ever watched in a theater that I can remember or at least one that I thought was bad on site instead of in hindsight. Makes me wonder what they’re going to do with the X-Men characters going forward in the MCU.
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People would probably just censor those history books. Betting on it being done from Florida.
The reason people tried to erase the antisemitism part of Charlottesville is due to antisemitism itself. There are sects within the anti-racism groups that think Jews are part of the problem. One theory they have is that Jews pretend to be victims and some even think they did the Holocaust themselves for sympathy. It’s this whole ‘Jews are evil manipulators’ mentality that can draw in Nazis to push the ideas even though they’re from different social groups. I think these things are underreported simply because they don’t get the same reaction and longevity as other hate crimes. For example, George Floyd is still a vivid memory while most people forgot about the Tree of Life murders. It’s worse now because you’ll see Palestine get brought up within hours of an antisemitism story. This redirects to what Israel is doing since Americans seem to think Jew and Israeli are synonyms. It could be seen as white-on-white too since we have that skin tone. Those stories don’t get much traction with audiences unless it’s a really bizarre incident. I’m talking things like cannibalism or a feral badger being used as a weapon.
‘Logan’ was a really good movie. It didn’t feel like other superhero movies to me because it was a send off. They really put some drama into it compared to MCU. I saw the newest Batman and liked it for trying a new take on him. Origins was definitely bad, but I’ve seen worse. ‘The Spirit’ comes to mind for me. I expect the X-men to be very similar to the Avengers. MCU doesn’t really do variety.
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Sad but true and even then history books have been censored here in America before with so many stories that people should know, but don’t.
Okay, that makes sense and I appreciate you explaining this. I’ve heard of some of those theories and I clearly don’t subscribe to them. It is frustrating when I see people spout that nonsense who should know better. With George Floyd, it had to be filmed and have a global reaction for any kind of punishment to be done let alone having charges pressed and it was a very egregious case of police brutality. That and any sane person didn’t want to see another case of someone getting away with something horrible. I’m glad the shooter is getting charged, but it’s taking very long for a conviction even though I know he’s going to be punished. This could be a theory, but maybe with how many mass shootings that have happened for years, they could be blurred in the collective conscious, but I could be wrong. It’s frustrating with that analogy involving the Jew/Israel parallels. Yes, Israel is the only Jewish-majority (religiously speaking) country in the world, but not every Israeli living there follows that religion and the Jewish community can come in different ethnic groups such as those of European descent, Middle-Eastern-based ethnic groups, Indians, and you even have Africans who follow the Hebrew faith like the Lemba tribe or the Beta Israel community from Ethiopia for example. You do bring up a good point about white-on-white crime stories because they don’t get the spotlight unless it’s a madness or something very outrageous. That and those stories could shut up bigoted idiots who talk about Black-on-Black crime or use Chicago as a dog whistle. When you mentioned cannibalism, I thought of Austin Harouff. How many people can say they ate human flesh and show up on Dr. Phil after the fact? Feral badger? Wait, what?! That is very bizarre. Anyways, I’m glad I can have these conversations with you and I’ve learned some things from you.
That’s good. I heard it was loosely based on that Old Man Logan storyline if I’m not mistaken. It’s cool that they put effort into that movie. I feel like MCU stuff can be very formulaic even if those movies may or may not have a budget rivalling the GDPs of developing nations. The new Batman movie was good and I forgot that Edward Cullen was the new Caped Crusader. Haha! Funny enough, this movie is another example of someone being in both Marvel and DC with Andy Serkis as Alfred when he was Klaue in Black Panther and directed the 2nd Venom movie. I’ve seen clips of The Spirit and that looked really weird.
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I don’t think censoring history books is just an American thing. Definitely a human thing, so one can only imagine how much history has been lost due to horrible people winning.
Interesting theory about mass shootings not having any impact. Although, reports of police killing black men have been common too. Maybe because that one is much more blatantly racist while a mass shooting isn’t. So, you can always skew the shooting as not being motivated by antisemitism/racism while you can’t do the same to the police brutality. I did think that there were other videotaped incidents before George Floyd though. I think his just hit at the ‘right’ time to get a massive reaction. Wasn’t it during Covid, so everyone was already stressed and about ready to burst? I think I read an article a year ago that talked about how the tension across the nation helped to make people more likely to react to the case instead of shrugging it off. The Ethiopian Jews are an interesting case since they don’t get treated very well at all. Yet, they were declared real Jews by chief rabbits of 45 countries in 1908. I think an added issue outside of Israel is that there’s a push by some groups that Ethiopian Jews are the only real ones and that all white-skinned Jews, like me, are fake ones. Got a feeling that this was created by white supremacy types and other groups grabbed at it because it sounded ‘right’. Far too many Jewish conspiracies to make sense of them all.
Did not know about Austin Harouff. Though I think Dr. Phil gets anybody who will get him ratings. Pepper and Pibb are closer to real doctors than him at this point. As for the feral badger, I just went with the second thing that came to my mind. Only because the first was attacking someone with an alligator, but that’s happened multiple times in Florida. Kind of unnerving that attacking someone with an alligator is no longer a strange type of white-on-white crime, but an aspect of Floridian culture.
‘Logan’ was based on the Old Man Logan story, but only in how they portrayed him. It would have been nice to see the real one, but movie rights and such. MCU is very formulaic and low risk. They follow the same formula and cover it with CGI, humor, and fight scenes. It hits what people love, which is why it keeps succeeding. That and Disney making sure to send fans after potential threats to their box office. Forgot about Serkis being Klaue. Though, I had already bailed on MCU by the time Black Panther came out. ‘The Spirit’ . . . was something. It was weird, but not in the right way. I lost interest within 15 minutes and paid more attention to the fact that I had a cold.
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I didn’t say it was exclusive to America, and I do agree that it’s a worldwide thing. It does disturb me with the horrible winners writing the history books to prop themselves up. Nice usage of an old adage.
I’d say people are numb and most people don’t want to do anything about that. It’s telling when you read non-American media about these stories and I think there was a British article (I forget if it was BBC or The Guardian) saying something along the lines of “It’s just another day in America” about the Las Vegas shooting years ago. Ouch! It’s hard to argue with that and it got ready bad in 2018 where there was one every week roughly speaking with how frequently they happened that year. The history of anti-Black police brutality is nothing new since the history even goes back to the slave catchers. It’s just now been on camera more often with cell phones and occasionally surveillance footage. COVID world could’ve added to that since everyone was still cooped up at home and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back let alone the other stories that happened that year at the time. It’s good that you’ve heard of the Beta Israel community and how you know about their plight. Their name translates to “House of Israel” or “Community of Israel” in Ge’ez and other Ethiopian languages and not Beta as in below Alpha. It has been fascinating learning about that group with how they are fluent in Hebrew, have their own traditions in Judaism, or finding out about people in that community such as the singer Eden Alene who’s Ethiopian-Israeli for example. I have sadly heard of that conspiracy theory of white Jewish people being “fake Jews” and that does frustrate me a lot. These people use the Khazar example to justify it. Yes, they were a real ethnic group and multiple people did convert to Judaism several centuries ago, but they aren’t the ancestors of the European Jewish community. Even then I still thought it was a dangerous conspiracy theory since they tried to distort a ton of history to meet their narrative.
I was wondering if you heard of him or not. I remember hearing that story the week it happened and I saw people online saying how he should be thankful for his skin color for being able to eat people while living to tell about it. That’s very true about Pepper and Pibb being having more doctoral credence than Phil. Hahahaha! That doesn’t surprise me about alligators even though I never saw them the couple of times I have been to Florida.
Gotcha. It would’ve been trickier to make a straightforward adaptation because there are multiple MCU characters in the original story. You’re right about MCU movies being formulaic which does bore me. I’m not surprised about fans getting tickets to curb any non-Disney owned threats. It’s the same like the mainline Disney animated canon. I did watch Black Panther in theaters and even then I hadn’t watched an MCU movie in years before then (I think it was the first Avengers movie that I last saw in a theater at that time). I don’t blame you for bailing out because it was so hard to keep track of everything. Oh, dang. That does sound like a testament with how uninteresting The Spirit was. I wish there would be some decent movies or shows based on superheroes that aren’t Marvel or DC.
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Sometimes I wonder if ‘winners write the history books’ is inevitable. We always write and react from our own perspective. If one side writes what happened then it never has the other side. If this occurred after a conflict then the winner wouldn’t think the losing side is worth mentioning out of either disdain or fear of a rebellion.
Sometimes I find it hard to take foreign press seriously when it comes to the shootings. I find some sources that talk as if all Americans are this way and nobody is trying to speak out about the problem. There’s an ignorance on the details that they maintain to continue the ‘All Americans are Stupid’ idea. I find it as manipulative as what our media does to various groups. With cop-on-black crime, I’ve been wondering about one incident for a while. Did Rodney King have any lasting effect? I remember when that was a big deal, but nothing seems to have changed at all. Is it because he wasn’t killed that it did have the same impact as George Floyd? Unfortunately, there’s a long history of trying to divide the Jews and make people think all or some of them aren’t real. Either not real Jews or not real humans. Makes me start to truly believe that God did that ‘my chosen people who will suffer for eternity’ thing to us. Definitely fits the Old Testament version of him.
I lived in Florida for 4.5 years. Never saw a wild alligator. Only at zoos. Closest was when I was stuck in traffic on a bridge going over a lake. One second a duck was there and the next I heard a splash. Then, only feathers. Figured it was an alligator.
The last MCU movie I willingly saw in theaters was the first ‘Ant-Man’. After that, a friend convinced me to see the second Spider-Man movie. I was talked into watching ‘Infinity War’ at home too, but I kept pausing it to do other things until I decided to go back. Took all day to get through that slog. I did hear that they were working on ‘Spawn’ again and the original ‘Hellboy’ was really good. There’s ‘Invincible’ on Amazon, which was violent, but good. There’s also ‘The Boys’, ‘Umbrella Academy’, ‘Raising Dion’, and a few others. They’re out there.
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Makes me wonder about that, too. It’s like that saying of how there are two sides to every story and there have been times when people have been silenced. There’s also a similar saying from Africa: “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.”
I don’t believe all Americans react that way and I know people who want to stop this legitimate problem in this country. Although, let’s be honest here…we do have our fair share of stupid or ignorant people in America. There are times when I even get tempted to make a painfully obvious Disney villain quote in regards to people being ignoramuses, but I’m not going there. I get why sometimes some countries get the vibe of “At least we’re not America” when something bad happens, but at the same time I get frustrated with people making excuses for atrocities like these mass shootings or straight up denying them. Foreign media has its own interests and they have their own narratives. I was using that quote as an example. Things really haven’t changed in regards to the police brutality cases, but they’re getting filmed more often. That is sad about the division of the Jewish community like these conspiracy theories or discrimination by ethnicity while practicing the faith.
Okay, that makes sense. The only alligators I’ve seen were in zoos. Dang, poor duck!
I never saw that movie except for a few clips of it playing on TV in the breakroom at work a few years ago. The only Tom Holland Spider-Man movie I saw was the newest one. I felt old realizing that the first movie with Toby McGuire came out over 20 years ago. I’ve heard of a lot of those movies and series. I never saw all of the original Hellboy, but I have met the guy who played Abe Sapien though.
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I like that saying. Makes a lot of sense too.
I know the quote and I’ve used it many times. Figure it’s right enough to be used when necessary. Sadly, the ignorant and stupid tend to vote more often than the educated and smart. I’ve noticed how often smart people rationalize themselves out of voting too. Then those people get angry about the state of the country, which is being run primarily by those voted in by the ignorant. Haven’t really seen anyone try to defend a mass shooting. Making up excuses or saying it isn’t time to talk about it are the responses I tend to see.
Part of me felt that the newest Spider-Man movie was a trap. As if I was going to fall for a plot built entirely around nostalgia and previous franchises. I mean, all of the villains were from either McGuire or Garfield. I really liked the original ‘Hellboy’. Sequel wasn’t as good, but still had its charms. Cool that you met the guy who played Abe Sapien.
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Thanks. The wording of it gives the proverb so much impact.
Not that I think you’d be like that character, but I can see you saying that or thinking it at some points. Sometimes, I joke that I’m referencing the metal band Wrathchild America since their song with the quote we’re both thinking of existed first. Don’t worry, I’m not going to scream plagiarism despite the obvious. Anyways, I’ve noticed the duality of intelligence and voting. I do confess that I need to be better at local politics in my current town, county, and at the state level. I should’ve said that I see excuses or the occasional denialist whenever they do happen.
Hahahaha! I don’t blame you for thinking that way and it did feel like a nostalgia trip with the other Spider-Men. I saw all three of the original Sam Raimi films, but not The Amazing Spider-Man movies, so I can’t tell you anything other than the fact that the Lizard and Electro were villains in them. Looks like you don’t have to resort to remakes, prequels, or sequels for nostalgia baiting people. Good to know about the original Hellboy movies. I remember that it was Doug Jones who was the actor. He was also Silver Surfer in the 2nd Fantastic Four movie, Billy from Hocus Pocus, and the Faun from Pan’s Labyrinth among several other movies.
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I’ve said the quote before. Usually out of frustration. I used to be bad at local stuff until I moved back to New York from Florida. Felt easier to vote up here than down there when I didn’t really know what was going on. They make sure people vote around here.
Same here with the Spider-Man movies. I never got around to the Garfield movies due to life. Love Doug Jones.
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I’m guilty of saying it before and there was one time a few years ago where I imitated that character’s voice when I was explaining his voice actor after watching the documentary Trashed to a co-worker and he was temporarily scared since he claimed I sounded exactly like him and how that is the actor’s “real voice”.
That does make sense with being more familiar with the New York political scene since you’re originally from there. You lived in that state most of your life, right? That’s interesting how they encourage voting up there.
I see. Same here and I was focused on other things. Doug Jones is definitely talented.
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Jeremy Irons was really good in that role. His voice can be rather chilling. Love it when he plays a bad guy.
Born here and lived here for most of my life. Only lived in Florida from 2007 through 2010. So, there might not have been many opportunities to vote. I’ll admit that I don’t get a lot of voter mail since I don’t belong to a party in New York. I had to choose one when I moved to Florida, but I still didn’t get much. It wasn’t until Obama vs McCain that I noticed any push to vote.
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Jeremy Irons is a talented actor even though he does overact in various roles. It was interesting seeing him in Trashed with him genuinely concerned about littering around the globe instead of making a documentary to make himself look good. Seeing him being himself was surprising given how many bad guys he’s played for decades and seems like a genuinely kind person in real life. I’m torn when it came to THAT role because he did put a lot of effort with that character, but you know why I have disdain with that antagonist much less the franchise he’s a part of. It’s also my first rhetorical counterattack if anyone calls what I like unoriginal. Sometimes I wonder if he ever knew or heard about Claw. There was also one funny quote I remember him saying in an interview where he said “Social media is one of the most frightening things ever” while looking legitimately concerned. Haha!
Okay. I was figuring that you lived in New York most of your life, but I was just curious. I haven’t been to that state since I was a teenager and even then it was en route to Vermont. Been to Albany, Syracuse, and some smaller town upstate, but never NYC or the NYC metro area. That does seem weird with choosing a political party moving. I don’t belong to a party in my home state mainly because I have issues with both of them for similar and different reasons and I’ll leave it at that.
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I guess you can be positive about his performance while having issues with the overall movie. Jeremy Irons probably wasn’t aware of what was going on. I know there are a lot of movies that people hated, but enjoyed how an actor handled their role. Seems to be fairly common these days.
I’m from the Long Island area, which is down south. Went to college about 45 minutes north of Syracuse in a town called Oswego. So, I’ve been in a few spots around this state. Never went all the way to the northern tip though, which I’m curious about now. As far as the political party thing, I always felt that they caused too much division in this country. This became a stronger belief when I read that Washington was against the idea in his farewell speech. Basically, they would only lead to revenge politics and cause division. *gestures towards everything to show he was right* The reason I had to choose one in Florida is because I needed to get a driver’s license. The person asked me for my party and I said I was an independent. She tried to put me in the Independence Party. I told her no and explained that I didn’t belong to a party. She then tried to get me to register to vote and simply couldn’t understand the ‘unaffiliated’ concept. So, I loudly claimed Democrat as the lesser of two evils and got a laugh out of everyone else who was on line. Still acted like an independent though.
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I know I’ve gotten a reputation for having severe issues with that movie franchise despite being an ex-fan years ago with the film reviewer and anibloggers on WordPress, but I don’t want to come off as irrational by swearing off everyone involved. Jeremy Irons doesn’t strike me as someone who knows about anime and I don’t know if he’s been in other animated works. Unlike most people, I can name multiple live action movies he’s been in and have seen. Personally, I’m a lot more offended by the “problem free philosophy” trademark, the depiction of those henchmen, the Mbube plagiarism case, and something I found out this year that Matthew Broderick actually killed two people in a car collision in Northern Ireland and got a slap on the wrist in the late 80s. I do feel like I’m at a table for one with these realizations because people give me crap for not being a Disney fan and I’m sure they’re talking behind my back or secretly trolling me online. Do you have similar feelings with movies you hate, but couldn’t bash everyone involved.
I remember you saying you’re from Long Island and I know it’s down south in New York. Don’t worry, I know Long Island isn’t part of New York City. Haha! I’ve heard of Oswego, but I’ve never been there before and I’ve been to another Oswego in a different state. Washington was definitely no saint to say the least with what he’s done, but he definitely wasn’t wrong about division and revenge politics. The Independence Party? Oh, wow! [facepalm] It’s like you can’t be neutral in that state. That is so insane with people not being unaffiliated.
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Think I remember hearing about the accident with Broderick. I thought the lighter sentence was because it was claimed to be an accident and they couldn’t prove he was doing anything reckless. It could have just been a skid. Due to recent events in my life, I’ve learned that freak car accidents happen and it’s difficult to prove dangerous actions even if someone died. He wasn’t drinking or doing drugs, so it would be more likely that he just lost control. Those cases tend to go for lesser sentences even with non-celebrities. I don’t think I have any movies that I truly despise. Though, I’m frustrated by MCU consuming all conversations about fiction and nerdy stuff.
Pretty sure every historical figure isn’t a saint by modern standards. 😁
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I was curious if you knew about that story about him. I know he wasn’t drunk or on drugs, but it was a shock knowing that. Of course it didn’t help that he would eventually be in a Honda Super Bowl commercial several years later and that family wasn’t happy about that. I know this is a morbid observation, but I find it sordidly ironic that someone who killed a mother and her adult daughter in a car crash would eventually play a character who has to avenge the death of one of HIS parents. I paid more to get my car fixed than what he had to pay in court regardless of inflation. At least he’s not Rob Lowe who got an even bigger free pass even if there was a legal loophole at the time and he eventually played the same character in a very certain sequel/spinoff that I have not and will not see.
Interesting how you don’t despite any movies. I do share your frustration about the MCU dominating nerdy things because I’m nerdy and my tastes in movies are rarely ever in that field since I watch a ton of international stuff, documentaries, and some art house flicks.
That’s true, but some get revered more than others. I often get peeved at that “he was a man of his time” excuse for Washington.
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I heard about the car commercial issue when it came out. Never really understood the uproar considering how much time had passed. The Rob Lowe thing was another odd one only because it showed messed up parts of the law. I think we notice loopholes more in these cases even though they get used in non-celebrity cases as well. Just need the right lawyer to spot the loopholes and precedents.
Kept thinking and it’s really only dislike that I get towards movies. Unless I’m forgetting one. Couple tv series are my despise list though. I don’t watch a lot of movies these days anyway.
I think it’s a viable excuse though. To judge people from hundreds of years ago by our modern standards isn’t really fair. They can’t be taught to change or speak up for themselves. For all anyone knows, Washington would have sought to become a better person if he had modern knowledge and experience. It’s like judging cavemen on their lack of soap and toothpaste. This is why I think examining history without acknowledging time period context is a mistake. Not saying to avoid pointing out flaws, but to condemn or drop a figure from respect for not following our ways feels like a step too far to me.
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I wasn’t aware of that at first since I’m apathetic to so many sports and I didn’t know about the car crash issue with Matthew Broderick until a couple of months ago. The backlash was more towards the surviving family members which I totally understand from their perspective as to why they’d be upset. It’s also good that you know about THAT part of Rob Lowe’s past. I’m surprised he didn’t get the #MeToo treatment like other people and that’s not even counting examples of people that were falsely accused. I get angry at these stories not just because of the severity and affluenza, but knowing that if I (or someone else like me or similar) did the same thing as those two, then I know I will get punished no questions asked. So many double standards rile me up because I’ve been chastised for far less yet others get away with everything. I even have those examples as backup if I ever get into an argument with a Disney fan.
Okay. I haven’t watched as many TV shows except for the occasional anime work that’s older and I’ve been watching other things involving different interests.
Is it though? I get what you’re trying to say with the caveman example, but Washington certainly did bad things like slavery being the most obvious example. Conversely, there are people who have been demonized or erased in history that don’t deserve it who haven’t done anything egregious. I get humans are far from perfect, but I wonder why we have various standards for some historical figures over others. Are there people who should be demonized like Hitler or Pol Pot for example? Absolutely. I wonder why there are certain standards or maybe this cycles back to the victors writing history thing.
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I think he did get pulled into the MeToo thing, but it didn’t go anywhere. His story had already played out and went through the courts. It was a loophole, but he was let go. The attempts to MeToo him failed because he had already gone through the system and it was focused on those who never faced judgment. MeToo pushing for justice primarily in the court of public opinion is what caused many people to step back from the movement too. As you said, there were false and exaggerate accusations, which hurt their momentum. Now you have the Depp/Heard stuff, which shows that ‘trust all women’ can be taken too far. As far as getting punished, I know people who were involved in Broderick type accidents. They got ‘away with it’ like him because they were true accidents. Think we forget that driving involves speeding down a street in a giant piece of metal and plastic that can swerve due to a variety of situations beyond our control. The Rob Lowe thing I only know one person who came close to it and it was a ‘she lied about her age’ thing. He didn’t get in trouble because she had a fake ID.
Washington and slavery isn’t nearly as simple as modern day people want to think. We’d like it to be because it’s a clearly evil practice, but it was normal back then. He inherited his first slaves as a kid, so he was raised in that culture. His mind started changing right before the Revolutionary War and he did try to stop it afterwards. Yet, all anti-slavery stuff had to be dropped from the Constitution to prevent the southern states from leaving. Washington himself couldn’t free his slaves due to a variety of laws and his personal finances too. It could only happen after he and Martha died. All of this turns this from a black/white situation to more gray because it isn’t like he was gleefully pushing slavery. He wanted it gone, but doing so would have split the thirteen colonies and left them open to being conquered by another country. As far as Hitler and Pol Pot, they’re actually more current history. Our morality and sense of social standards aren’t that different from their time. Not when compared to Washington who came from a time where slavery was just starting to be seen as unethical by those with power. I think another issue is that people tend to do only demonize or praise a historical figure. There’s no balance in most discussions, which tends to cause a debate over a flawed human being.
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I get it was a loophole because of state laws at the time when Rob Lowe did what he did, but it is mind-blowing how not many people know about it and still has a career to this day. Trust me, as much as I’ve called out people who were dead to rights on these horrible things, I’ve also called out the MeToo crowd on their hypocrisy even years before the Heard/Depp situation happened. One thing that really proved me right was that Kenyan documentary Preying MIssionaries existing where there was mass horrific abuse to Kenyan orphans and I blasted these MeToo types how their silence showed who they really are. It’s tough for me because whenever I’ve made a mistake or said/done something mean, I’m treated like I’m the reincarnation of Satan himself when I rarely ever see anyone treated the same way. Of course, I even got coerced into apologizing for things I didn’t do when I was young. I hate being a scapegoat for others especially when no one else owns up to THEIR wrongdoings. Worse, people are so easily forgiving to people who have done far worse that what I’ve done in my life. When I hear these examples of Lowe and Broderick given how both have played the same character at different times, I wonder how these fans would feel if they knew about those low points (no pun intended for Rob) in their lives.
Just because slavery was normal still doesn’t make it right. I’m a descendant of slaves on my mom’s side of the family, so that doesn’t give Washington or others any excuse when they never had to deal with being in bondage. I did read up on Washington’s changing views of slavery, but it comes off as him saying “I only did it reluctantly”. Yeah, but the action is still happening instead of just stopping all together. Martha actually had more slaves than George when they got married. It’s like there’s concessions and compromises going on just to still have bigotry. You know the 3/5ths compromise? Only one group of people were called that in America and one of the main reasons why was because the Southern states and especially South Carolina’s population at the time had enslaved Africans outnumbering the colonizers which meant they couldn’t let everyone who lived there the right to vote. You could fast-forward to Lincoln’s time with the 13th Amendment. Sure, slavery as a private institution became illegal, but prison labor was an out clause of sorts since it involves the government and you have innocent people serving years or decades only to be released most likely due to free labor. Even when slavery is discussed in school, it’s downplayed. Sure, they may mention whips, hard labor, and lynching, but there were also breeding pits which even involved enforced incest by blinding the slaves, sexual assault was legal as long as it was white-on-black (this even went to the Jim Crow era), and there were even cases of cannibalism which I read from the book The Delectable Negro. I agree that modern morality isn’t much different from back then because people still get away with things they shouldn’t while innocent people are wrongfully killed or imprisoned, but why is it only bad when certain people do horrible things but others are demonized for less? I get no one’s perfect, but certain flaws are seen as worse than those that are objectively abhorrent. I know we both know that slavery is evil. My anger towards it is definitely on principle in my case with the stories I know and heard from my older family members.
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Stuff like that typically only sticks if there’s a conviction or the person is routinely dragged. That and overall popularity. There are other celebrities who have admitted to murder and rape, but it doesn’t slow them down. I think there was someone who admitted to drugging and robbing people, which their fans applauded. I never heard of that documentary, so I wonder how much attention it got. Many who joined MeToo aren’t aware of other events. Documentaries don’t get a lot of traction in this country unless a celebrity is behind it or it already hits a controversial nerve. I see many who get scapegoated and never given a break too. Probably more are in that position than getting away with it. I’ve noticed that it’s easier to notice when a person is getting better treatment than the same or worse than ourselves. At least I’ve seen myself and others do it. Probably because those who get away are hoisted into the public eye.
Actually, my point was that modern morality is very different from back then. Witches were allowed to be burned. Slavery was legal. Jews could have their property taken for any reason and were banned from practicing during colonial times. It wasn’t our world in any way. The abolitionist movement was just starting to appear alongside the birth of a new country. While I understand your anger, I think it’s a mistake to overlook how morality was just starting to turn at this time. Washington did try to free his slaves, but there were laws that stopped even him. In fact, it seems he needed to find a loophole, which was that it could only be done after he and Martha were dead. I’ve seen people of all walks get demonized too. The wealthy and influential do get away with it more, but that’s classism. A leftover of humankind’s pack origins if I had to guess. Touching on slavery in school, my son is learning a lot about it since 5th grade. It hasn’t been as glossed over as it was when we were in school. It also depends on where you live. Northern states tend to teach more about it than Southern states from what I’ve seen. I don’t think any K-12 school is going to get into the level of detail you mentioned though. I mean, the Holocaust lessons are all gassing, concentration camp overview, and shootings. Nothing about Nazi experimentations and other horrors. Our groups at least get mentioned in school. I only learned about Chinese laborers on the railroad as a kid because of a ‘Blazing Saddles’ reference.
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You’re talking about the MeToo movement or just in general if someone is accused of something? I remember reading some articles about celebrities who’ve done terrible things and a lot of them haven’t done any time or that much. The person you’re talking about when it comes to admitting she drugged and robbed people was Cardi B. I remember seeing a clip of that live stream and was furious (I was never a fan of her or her music). She admitted to drugging men with perkasets. Isn’t that the same drug Bill Cosby was accused of using on women? She got such a free ride like still having her music career, showing up on a Pepsi commercial, and she now has her own potato chip line of all things! That example is a big double standard and part of it is a gender thing to be honest in her case. It did get considerable attention in Kenya since it was on their mainstream news and some people saw it in America (you can watch it for free on YouTube legally), but it didn’t get that much attention in the west which is a tragedy. It was so horrific, I had to take a break from film reviews after I covered it. Edmond Nyabola deserves ALL the journalism and documentary awards for what he did covering that story. I don’t know because I rarely see people get into trouble and I have a hard time believing it.
I get what you’re saying with those examples and it’s a travesty that those things actually happened in America and other countries. I’m aware that the abolitionist movement was starting to come up in the infancy of America and even during it’s pre-independence days. It’s also infuriating that even after Washington’s times most of the white people who were lynched were abolitionists who could’ve easily been called “allies” or “anti-racists” if we were to use modern language terms. It really shows how deep that bigotry is embedded here. Classism is a thing which I won’t deny, but it isn’t the only way for people to get away with things even though it helps. Is that so about today’s K-12 schools? I’m from a Northern state and I still feel like they downplay stuff. Of course, I’d be a fool to say the only racism I felt was in the South. When I did learn about the Holocaust, they did talk about the things you mentioned and a very small amount of the experimentations that happened. Obviously, I learned more with my own research and other films on that matter. Oddly enough, I first heard about the Chinese laborers from an episode of Jackie Chan Adventures of all things when I was young, but that was downplayed since I doubt they would mention the conditions or the Asian Expulsion Act then.
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I was talking about things just in general. One of the challenges is that our court system is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. So, you need evidence, which celebrities seem to get and use more easily than average people. This is probably connected to the lawyers that people have access to as well. An overburdened public defender is going to have a harder time than an expensive lawyer with multiple assistants. Not sure if I should be impressed that I remember Bill Cosby used Quaaludes and not Percocet. At least from what I remember reading. With Cardi B, I saw people on Twitter and Facebook cheering for her when that news broke. A lot of ‘girl power’ and ‘she did nothing wrong’ arguments. Want to say it was around the time Jennifer Lopez had a movie come out about women who did the same thing to men. There’s definitely a gender bias on that one. I know several people who are fine with a woman doing anything to a man, but will flip out if roles are reversed. I’m sure there was nothing that could be done about what she did, but that’s definitely a big case of slap on the wrist. Not to mention I don’t think she’s ever shown any remorse or apologized for it, which makes it stranger since most celebrities at least try to go that route.
My son is actually about to take a test on Sectionalism and how slavery lead to the secession. He’s still confused on why slavery was ever a thing because he sees the world in black/white. So, it’s hard to explain how one person would see another one as property instead of a fellow human. Northern states still do an overview, but that’s not really because of sugarcoating. The curriculum for American History is immense and doesn’t really give time to go into details. For example, my son is in 7th grade and started with Pangea and is going right to the Civil War in a single school year. That doesn’t give a lot of time to do more than the general events. There are high school teachers that try to go further, but that’s typically for honors students who are in the higher grades. Of course, this makes the whole CRT thing ridiculous since teachers can barely get the foundation of the curriculum done before the students burn out around May. You hit the nail on the head with doing your own research, which is what education is supposed to foster. A curiosity to learn more about things and keep learning as you grow older. American sucks at this because we’ve become too focused on grades and getting kids into college with said grades. It’s cookie cutting education, which I think was pushed by Rockefeller because he wanted a less educated workforce. I’d be surprised if they went further on Chinese laborers with Jackie Chan Adventures.
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Thanks for clarifying. You have evidence or in some cases claims or planted evidence for those that get railroaded. It’s no wonder why so many rich people have armies of lawyers. Also, I feel stupid for misspelling that drug, but I guess this shows that I don’t do them and I can count on one hand how many times I drank alcohol (the first being my 21st birthday, and even then I’ve never been drunk in my life). It disgusted me when Cardi B was praised for admitting to drugging and robbing men. We know they wouldn’t be singing the same tune if the genders were reversed. I never heard of that Jennifer Lopez movie, but shame on her if it portrays it in a good light. I get it, male privilege exists which I won’t deny, but it’s situations like those and others that prove people right that a (pardon the term even if it’s quasi-censored from the original wording) “vagina pass” exists. She has never apologized or felt any remorse which only makes me more resentful of hers and other abusive women. You could throw the aforementioned Hope Solo, Amber Heard, and Asia Argento to that list and the last example is one of the most filthy hypocrites associated with MeToo if you know about what she’s done.
I see. To be fair, I was surprised that I even learned about Bloody Kansas when I was in elementary school or even a downplayed article about The Tuskegee Experiment later on. Now that you bring it up, a school year can be very compressed with all subjects and that’s not talking about the things they don’t and/or should teach in all classes whether it’s history, life skills, etc. It does tick me off about these anti-CRT types with censoring and erasing history just because that history will “make them and their children feel bad”. Grades are important, but that shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all. The Jackie Chan Adventures example was weird because it involved one episode that involved a fictional ancestor in the wild west who looks just like him.
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It probably is more likely for a celebrity to deal with fake accusations of crimes than regular people. Some would go for money or the glory of taking down a famous person. Both drugs are real, so nothing to feel stupid about. I forgot what Percocet does too, so I’m not any better. Never saw the Jlo movie, so I’m not sure what they did. My guess is anti-hero because I remember people saying it was an empowering movie. Though plenty had issues with it too. I’ve noticed Ed the same imbalance in certain arenas. Men do have advantages more often, but there are others where men are practically disposable or ignored. Custody battles come to mind since fathers always have a disadvantage unless the mother is a blatant train wreck. Asia Argento? I thought she was one of Weinstein’s victims.
Can’t remember if I mentioned Bloody Kansas before. My son learned about that earlier this week. It’s always an overview unless a project or paper are assigned. That’s when depth can be pushed and achieved. History has the hardest time because the curriculum keeps getting longer. The issue with grades is that government wants to be able to quantify education. They need numbers and rankings to get ideas, but this ignores individuality. Many teachers try to get around this in some way, but they’re jobs depend on the standardized tests of students.
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Alrght. They do have the lawyers at their whim to deal with this. Thank you. I felt embarrassed by that typo. I’ve heard the name more than I’ve seen it written or typed, so that threw me off. You make a great point about how even though men do have advantages in various fields, they can still be disposable. Custody, alimony, and child support are good examples. Asia Argento was victimized by Weinstein which is horrible, but what people conveniently forget is that she was one of several people in the film industry to sign a petition to un-ban Roman Polanski in America, but she eventually regretted it because of what he did decades ago and fled the country before he got convicted. People have been banned from the Academy for just SLAPPING someone, but others do far worse and never got the book thrown at him. The worse thing about Asia Argento is that she committed statutory rape with a then-17-year-old Jimmy Bennett and she is 20 years older than him. Her late husband Anthony Bourain paid Bennett hush money all while she was going on her MeToo crusade.
It’s interesting that they do mention Bloody Kansas even for today’s group of kids coming up in school. It’s not just public schools but even private schools are no better when it comes to obsessing over grades just so they can have prestige of sorts.
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Don’t forget war. Men have usually been the soldiers, which adds to our expendability. Though many people do tend to look at the chance to serve as a full positive. Guess it’s a plus that she regretted backing Polanski, but it is messed up that he’s received less punishment than Smith. I brought that up and the explanation people gave me was that one was during the Oscars and the other wasn’t. Doesn’t that just mean it’s all about reputation and not morality? Think I heard about the Bennett thing, but it vanished fast. There is a big belief in society that men can’t be raped, so I wonder how that would have gone down.
Higher grades equal bigger budgets. It’s all about money.
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Of course and I’m not singling that out either. I get both sides on the war/military issue. I’ll give Argento a slight pass for reversing that position on Polanski, but the issue with Bennett makes her a hypocrite who should seriously know better. Weinstein is a horrible person, but she’s taken sexual advantage of someone, too. Thank you for bringing up the double standard with Smith against Polanski! I’m glad you’re another person who knows about that part of Polanski’s past and uses it as a contrast to slapgate. People actually used the excuse of the slap happening at The Oscars as an excuse? WOW! Just, wow! This is as infuriating as Nate Parker being demonized due to a false rape accusation when he made Birth of a Nation (2016), but Polanski got a pass because of his contributions to cinema and having the benefit of “separating art from the artist”. No, they were triggered by the subject matter involving a real life slave rebellion and the title being an inversion of that extremely racist movie. It makes me wonder if this is all about reputation over morality. It’s disgusting how people belive that males can’t be raped, harassed, or molested.
No disagreements there about profits over pupils. It’s an unfortunate reality.
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Agree on the Bennett thing. Sadly, women taking sexual advantage of men seems to be shrugged off. There’s always that argument that the man/boy wanted it. Sometimes a person argues that if they didn’t, they wouldn’t become aroused as if that’s not just nerves reacting to stimulation. I’m guessing she didn’t suffer any consequences. With Polanski, most people know about his history. I don’t know why they avoid talking about. Best I can figure is people don’t think he’ll ever see justice, so they move on. I really gotta look up the Nate Parker thing too. It sounds familiar.
Funny thing is that schools with better budgets can put students over grades/profits. They have the luxury of being able to add a personal touch and not fixate on grades. Too bad none of billionaires ever consider donating a bunch of money to the poorest schools. That could make a big difference even with a basic tech upgrade.
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Thanks. You brought up the point that a man or boy always “wants it” which isn’t always true. Thank you for bringing up that fallacy. It bothers me by how much of a free pass Polanski gets. I might as well make a sign that says “Don’t support Polanski if you keep complaining about Cosby or R. Kelly!” The Nate Parker thing was ruthless with that smear campaign when his movie came out. They sagotaged the movie theaters and they were screaming about this fake story about him forcing himself on a white woman which didn’t happen. What made this more infuriating was that Gabrielle Union who starred in that movie was on that rumor train. I didn’t want to bring up that Disney example again, but she bashed Nate Parker for something he didn’t do, yet she had no problem voicing Rob Lowe’s “wife” in that spin-off series aimed at an early elementary demographic! Geez, she’s such a filthy hypocrite and she needs to get dragged for believing those lies.
Yeah, seriously. It’s just insane how flawed the American education system is with the lack of resources, these anti-CRT bills, and the lack of curricula that is actually useful instead of the bare minimum school materials.
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I remember South Park hitting on that issue back in the day. Think it was specifically female teachers with students though. Does Polanski get a pass outside of Hollywood? I’ve never met anyone who actually denies or agrees with what he did. Especially younger generations who never saw his movies. I think it’s more that Hollywood won’t black list him. Forgot Gabrielle Union was a thing actually.
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That sounds like a topic South Park would cover, but then again, I rarely ever watch that show. I’m somewhat not surprised that they would bring up the situation if the adult was female. There are people who lambaste Polanski for his crime and rightfully so, but I still see people who think his movies are so good that he gets a pass and they don’t want that horrific thing to taint their fandom of his movies. Most of them do tend to be older than me, but I don’t know anyone younger than me who has heard of him or his movies outside of maybe The Pianist (that’s a BIG maybe if they know about international movies). It is frustrating how Hollywood won’t blacklist him because he still won awards including Oscars long after the fact. Yeah, I’m not a fan of Gabrielle Union and she was just a secondary character at best in Nate Parker’s movie.
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Haven’t watched in years. Wasn’t a repeat watcher to start with, but friends got me to watch it at times. Polanski is who people seem to use for ‘separate the art from the artist’. I agree with that on some levels, but you still need to condemn the artist and have boundaries. I don’t even know what Polanski made too. Didn’t realize one was The Pianist, but I never saw of.
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Fair enough. Even the people who I know that like that show told me the quality has been variable at best over the past few years. I’ve noticed that about Polanski being a go-to reference with that particular excuse among a few other names depending on what I’m talking about. There was one blogger who will remain nameless who freaked out at me when I wasn’t even attacking them or their thoughts and how they don’t care about horrible things involving something they like if it doesn’t personally affect them and wants to find the things “as they found them”. This person was being super defensive when I was just being civil. Then again, this same person will still watch Aquaman regardless of Amber Heard’s involvement, so take that for what it’s worth.
I also forgot Polanski directed Rosemary’s Baby which I know is talked about in horror movie circles. The Pianist was his big award-winning work. He also made Chinatown which he won an Oscar for back then, the 70s adaptation of Macbeth, and Frantic just to name a few.
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South Park quality was always hit and miss. Think that was part of the initial charm. Though it felt like something changed about 5-6 years ago. Not sure why the episodes I caught were either meaner or emptier than I remember.
Movies do make that separation of art and artist a challenge. Using Aquaman as an example, what if you’re a Jason Mamoa fan? Do you ignore supporting him to punish her? There’s the other people who worked on the film as well. Just being on the crew of a hit movie can help their career. So, is it fair to have everyone involved suffer because one name is a horrible person? This is why I have issues with protests that end up hurting those with no power and influence instead of those who make the actual decisions. It doesn’t really get the point across since the wrong group is made to suffer. It would nice if they replace her, but I can’t see how it can be done in time.
Huh, I really haven’t seen any Polanski movies. I don’t think I’m missing much.
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Quick add: It looks like Heard is only in 10 minutes of Aquaman 2. Sounds like her contract prevents her from being dropped completely, so her role was minimized. I actually like this better. Means she can’t sue WB and win more money.
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Yeah. I don’t find most of the episodes I’ve seen to be funny. This also goes for a lot of Seth McFarlane’s works, too.
I get that movies are a collaborative effort. A different blogger that I respect used that point with how she feels about various movies even though she’s gotten push back. The blogger I mentioned in the previous comment came off as a bit unhinged in hindsight and quite selfish like bad people weren’t involved in the things this person likes.
I haven’t seen a Polanski movie from beginning to end.
That’s intriguing about cutting down her screen time. I wonder if the same thing would happen if she was a man.
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I found the older South Park better because they seemed more even in who they went after. Now, it just seems too cruel like Family Guy. Mean with no underlying message about why it’s bad.
I think there have been times men who are accused of things have been reduced in roles. Another aspect is the contractual and legal side. Since she made the legal accusations against Johnny, he suffered. This really happened primarily over The Sun article and him losing the defamation case. All accusations towards her were in the public opinion court until now. If she loses this trail and it turns out she lied then WB might be able to break the overall contract like was done with Depp.
Some people want to punish their target regardless of who else gets hurt. They do the ‘by association’ excuse, but people don’t always choose who they’re teamed up with. It’s like giving the entire class a zero on a final because one kid wrote the answers on his arm.
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Okay. Granted, I definitely wasn’t allowed to watch that show when I was a child for obvious reasons, so I didn’t see any full episodes until I was in my late teens. It’s noticeably mean with what I saw and I didn’t think the satirical elements were that effective.
That is certainly plausible, but I can’t think of any examples. I didn’t even think about that point with how the trial would play out with the courts or how there would be purjury/slander going on.
I have to try to not do that as much, but it is rough because I do feel like I have to punish people even if it’s abstractly if I hear about people doing horrible things. It’s even more so when it’s something I massive or something I know I would be slaughtered for if I did that.
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It came out when I was a late teen. The earlier stuff had better satire. It was still more shocking than anything else. Yet, the meanness wasn’t even close what it is now or Family Guy levels.
I think the reduction method was done more in the past. MeToo made it that firing was more effective. It is odd that evidence isn’t always needed. I think it depends on star power and the type of accusation.
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I see. I remember how super controversial it was back in the day and how it made Beavis and Butthead look like a PBS Kids show even then, but nowadays it’s just tame regardless of the crude humor and strong language. I’ll take your word for it with the earlier seasons.
It is unfortunate that evidence isn’t always necessary to make someone look guilty. Star power and shot callers get the benefit of the doubt.
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It definitely pushed limits back then. I think that’s why it became tamer. Other shows worked to outdo South Park. They kept going, but it eventually lost its luster.
Evidence is definitely an optional need for some. Others only believe initial evidence and ignore anything that may be new and contradict old stuff.
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That’s what I remember with the reactions it got when it was starting out. Maybe it could also be shock fatigue over time where something starts out super controversially, but then it becomes tame or “cute” over a period of years.
That’s an accurate statement there.
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Shock fatigue could definitely be it.
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Love it. I can see how these might be hard to find.
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It didn’t use to be so difficult. Not sure what changed.
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