dasfoo
2yr ago
Last month one of the big controversies in online movie discussions was the box office failure of the film BROS:
The movie, which was which was promoted as a pioneering mainstream romantic comedy about gay men, earned $11.6 against a $22 million budget.
A lot of coverage lamented that romcoms of all varieties are simply dead as far as theatrical excursions are considered:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/bros-disappointing-box-office-debut-142922789.html
This may not be true if the romcom features major Hollywood stars -- the new Julia Roberts/Geroge Clooney movie has already broken the $100 million barrier -- but the cast of BROS is niche, to say the least, if Eichner (a Youtube celeb and bit player in later Parks & Rec seasons) is the most recognizable face in its cast.
Some questioned whether marketing the movie as an important milestone in gay cinema made it less enticing than marketing it as a funny comedy. Apparently, the narrative of the movie gives some prominence to the discussion of gay history, making it feel even more like a "lesson movie;" I don't know -- like everyone else, I did not go to see the movie, and I watch considerably more movies than most people.
Co-writer/star Billy Eichner blamed "homophobic weirdo[s]" for his movie's failure:
https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/03/gay-rom-com-bombs-box-office-billy-eichner-blames-audience-bros/
The movie podcasts I listen to couldn't find their way into discussing this elephant in the room beyond shallow references to Eichner's comment: Is it actually "weirdo" to be "homophobic" by Eichner's standard? Or is homophobia normative and homophilia is the "weirdo" position? 'Not homophobic' in this context, one assumes, means something like Ibram X. Kendi's "anti-racist:" that is, it's not enough to merely not be homophobic, one must be actively affirming of homosexuality (to the point of buying one or more tickets for BROS) to display one's lack of homophobia. However, if homophobia is to be measured by the reaction to BROS, it suggests that so few people are not homophobic that "not homophobic" is a position on the outer fringes of positions.
What I suspect is that maybe even most "allies" who support homosexuality politically with rainbow avatars, buttons, and bumper stickers, aren't going to go out of their way and spend their $30+ for a night out to watch gay men love each other, including an allegedly strong sex scene. Allyship's appeal as a virtue maybe doesn't easily translate into casual "date night" entertainment. For all of the battling over culture war insertions into big franchises mostly owned by Disney, those are still properties that appeal mostly to normies, who are the biggest box office spenders. If you take away all of the normie appeal -- the movie stars, the special effects -- and just leave the important socio-political content, the audience almost completely vanishes, as should be expected.
It also probably didn't help the box office of BROS that its target market --- young urban progressives -- is the same one most hawkishly cautious about COVID and the least likely to return to movie theaters out of what now could be ascribed to superstitious fears of deadly illness.
I had another thought about this movie today that I'm almost sure didn't occur to anyone who is 100% in on the Ally train, and which suggests a systemic blindspot within the pro-homosexual community: the title. "Bros" may be a term that has entered popular lexicon as a synonym for "Buddies," but etymologically it derives from "Brothers." Its meaning is an intentional blurring of the two: "Buddies" who are so close they are like "Brothers." The poster, https://nerdzone-cinemanerdz.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/bros-poster.jpg, which over the title shows the backs of two men each with a hand on the other's blue-jeaned ass, has an inescapable connotation of incest in this context.
If for many normies who have internalized decades of calls for tolerance and are no longer actively anti-gay, gay men still seem, when considered closely, pretty gross, adding an incest connotation multiplies that potential nausea exponentially. Can you imagine a movie poster just like that of BROS, but with a hetero couple, for a movie titled, "Like Brother and Sister?" It's almost inconceivable that this would happen outside of some edgy indie fare. (The only comparison that came to mind is Spanking the Monkey (1994) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanking_the_Monkey, a dark comedy about a fraught and erotic mother-son relationship, which grossed less than $2 million but launched the career of Oscar-nominated director David O. Russell.)
I suspect that, if homosexuality is still, in the broad scope of sexuality, a fringe deviation from the norm, the act of promoting homosexuality as "normal" has made its proponents tone-deaf to the general public's overall aversion to other sexual transgressions, like incest. That suggesting an extreme taboo like incest in the title either was not noticed as an obstacle or was noticed and dismissed is noteworthy because movie studio marketing departments are notorious for micromanaging every detail to an obnoxious degree to be the most blandly appealing to the widest audience.
Even if you don't think the title BROS connotes incest, the far lesser taboo it suggests has been treated as a consequential obstacle by romcoms for several decades. To take the title BROS at its most benign: How many romcoms are about the earthshaking repercussions of crossing the line from platonic hetero friendship to a sexual relationship? It's a staple of the genre and is often the primary conflict for an entire narrative. My guess is that, IRL, the friends-to-lovers pathway is a far more common transgression than vanilla homosexuality, and yet BROS wants to steal the less common transgression as a given and expects a wide audience to accept it without a blink. It doesn't seem a shock that ignorance of one taboo is joined hand-in-ass with willful ignorance of another taboo within the same broad category, increasing the reasons why a normie audience member could be put off from going to see this. The problem is, as I see it, not only that lines are being crossed that the general audience is not ready to cross, but that the censorious nature of public discourse about homosexuality has made its proponents unaware of the lines that are being crossed.
Also, one more line is being crossed: This is an unusually sexually bold poster for any mainstream comedy, let alone a gay one, right? I can't think of any others that depict fondling, except for some low-grade 1980s sex comedies, and even those are mostly leering rather than active groping. If BROS is supposed to be the gay equivalent of middlebrow comedies like NO STRINGS ATTACHED (2011) (https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTg2MDQ1NTEzNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgxNTMyNA@@.V1.jpg) or FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (2011) (https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/417b9424-88ce-47b9-affe-58804b299ea0_1.09201acca0a0b0759d602d050606699d.jpeg) those posters don't show touching at all, surprisingly. I also looked through the posters for several other Judd Apatow-produced comedies from the last 20 years, and the only ones that show actual physical contact are STEP BROTHERS (2008) and BRIDESMAIDS (2011), and the contact in those is non-romantic. This is not a prudish criticism of BROS as much as it is to point out how out-of-step it is with mainstream Hollywood, which does have prudish marketing for comedies, and even for comedies mostly about sex. If the intent of BROS is to push envelopes, fine; but it shouldn't then expect mainstream success. If its makers want mainstream success, they need better self-awareness and management of their envelope-pushing.
dasfoo
2yr ago
English football club Manchester United is embroiled in two sticky situations right now that are splitting fans into two camps I am going to call “The Moralists” and “The Sportalists.”
The first issue is that the club, considered one of the most valuable brands in the sporting world, is for sale. For over a decade, United fans have hated the American owners who bought the club with leveraged debt and have since overseen a long period with little success on the field and a frustrating approach to on-and-off-field development. Now, however, a more ominous cloud is looming: Oil Money. The most likely buyer is a Qatari banker with close connections to the state. While such an owner would surely open the floodgates of opportunity in terms of new player signings and stadium improvements, many fans are not pleased with Qatar’s record on human rights. They accuse the Qatari owner of being a proxy for an evil government that wants to indulge in “sportswashing[*],” which is a vague term for laundering dubious behavior through the glamor of sport. It also doesn’t help that United fans have spent the last decade accusing their cross-town rivals Manchester City – who were transformed from a third-rate club into dominant champions shortly after they were purchased by Abu Dhabi oil billionaires in 2008 – of profiting off of blood money. So you have The Moralists claiming that they can no longer support the club if it’s bought by LGBTQii++-unfriendly oil barons, and you have The Sportalists excited by the prospect of ending a humiliating decade by unleashing the clubs innate financial power with additional oil-funded swagger.
The second issue is similar, but concerns a player rather than new prospective owners. One of the club’s brightest young stars, 21-year-old Mason Greenwood, who scored his first professional goal for the club at the age of 17, and who has the tools to become one of the best strikers in the world, hasn’t played for the club in a year. His girlfriend accused him of rape accompanied by an an audio recording of Greenwood making menacing threats along with video recordings of her bruises and other wounds. Criminal files were charged and Greenwood was suspended pending the outcome of the trial. A year later, and it looks like that trial is not going to happen. The charges have been dropped and the couple has reconciled. This is not stopping The Moralists, however, from insisting that Greenwood should never play for the club again, that the evidence was clear regardless of trivialities like legal conviction. The Sportalists, on the other hand, are reluctant to lose a remarkable on-field asset, especially when the team has been thin in the attacking department. Even accepting that the team is currently playing well under a new manager and has another star, Marcus Rashford, scoring for fun, a talent the likes of Greenwood is not something to be casually tossed away. Would his return stain the brand, and/or derail the current rebuilding project? Does it matter that current league leaders Arsenal are currently fielding a star with his own closet full of rape allegations albeit without criminal charges?
I don’t spend much time worrying about morality in entertainment. I am fully in the “separate the art from the artist” camp. I watch soccer to watch good soccer just like I watch Woody Allen and Roman Polanski movies for their rare artistry (and I will defend Allen against all charges; not so much for Polanski). I am a Sportalist. Maybe Sportalists are the “silent majority,” but Reddit fan groups are awash with moral superiors declaring that if either Qatari or Greenwoodian presences are allowed to sully United in the near future, it will be the end of the historic club as we know it.
Sportalists are downvoted into oblivion in the corners I frequent. The Moralists, meanwhile, argue that Qatar/Greenwood will trigger fans who are sensitive to LGBTQi++/Sex Abuse issues. News has been leaking that the Manchester United women’s team is categorically opposed to Greenwood’s return, while the men’s team is split. It’s worth remembering that some of Manchester United’s players have been friends and co-workers with Greenwood for four or more years, so it might not be as easy for some of them to cut ties so cleanly without some equivication.
Both of these issues are interesting as examples of clear moral arguments pitted against pretty clear sporting benefits, mirroring the Culture War dynamic of, depending on how you look at it, Virtue Signaling Busybodies vs.Blissful Ignorants, or, Higher Consciousness vs. Lower Desires. Wokeness vs. Commerce.
[*] About “Sportswashing:” I don’t really understand this accusation. It seems to me that by buying a high profile entertainment service, the Qataris are bringing more attention to their human rights issues rather than hiding them behind the sport. If anything, I would expect a gradual adoption of western attitudes the more the Qataris are involved with western business people in western settings. At the very least, their human right records are not likely to get worse should they become owners of Manchester United, so from a utilitarian perspective, this argument seems moot. In what scenario does Qatari ownership of Manchester United make their human rights abuses worse? Someone rich enough to buy the organization already has the resources to do whatever they want, so I fail to see how it enables increased evil. It reeks to me of a selective quest for unattainable purity, which is a form of self-destruction.
dasfoo
2yr ago
We have a fair number of Russians and Russophiles in here, so I thought I’d ask for opinions about Alexei Navalny.
He’s the subject of a documentary (one that could win an Oscar next month: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_(film)) which I watched recently, and I followed it up with a video mentioned near the end of the doc that his team made about Putin’s lucrative circle of corruption. As a skeptic, I know not to believe everything I see, hear, and read, but I was wondering if there is a deeper counter-argument to Navalny’s narrative and positions than, “He’s a tool of western governments/the CIA to besmirch Putin and Russia.”
In the documentary about Navalny (on HBOMax), he’s depicted as a jovial but committed critic of Putin, and one who has so annoyed the Russian leader, that Putin won’t even deign to mention Navalny’s name on TV, but refers to him only in the form of “that person.” Navalny is questioned briefly about his past appearances with questionable nationalist/racist political movements and he’s unapologetic, explaining that he’s trying to build a coalition that can challenge the establishment and can’t afford the luxury of turning anyone away (which is similar to how some supporters of Trump’s 2016 campaign explained his flirtations with Alex Jones and some less savory radio personalities). I don’t put much stock in official Russian accusations that its enemies are racists or Nazis, anyway, as I see those as arguments made in bad faith with the sole intention of eroding opposition enthusiasm and not as issues that Putin’s racially diverse and sensitive supporters actually care about. Its arguments-as-soldiers on top of pot-calling-kettle.
The documentary then depicts the aftermath of Navalny’s poisoning with a nerve agent, which hits him while in-flight across Russia, the fatal consequences of which are only averted by an emergency landing and, after some political jostling, his eventual release from a Russian hospital to seek care in Europe. While in recovery, Navalny teams up with a Bulgarian hacker to reveal the identities of the assassins, and they even trick one into discussing the details of the plot over the phone. It’s a bombshell scene, if it can be believed. (The filmmakers contend that the scientist who was tricked by Navalny’s impersonation of a post-mission auditor disappeared shortly after their conversation was made public.)
When Navalny returns to Russia, he is detained at the airport, and has been in prison ever since. But a couple of days after his arrest, his team drops a two-hour YouTube video titled “Putin's palace. The story of the world's biggest bribe” (https://youtube.com/watch?v=T_tFSWZXKN0&authuser=2), which details the formation of Putin's network of graft and embezzlement and how it has poured billions in state funds into the construction of a lavish secluded palace, in addition to providing jobs and housing for Putin’s mistresses and their families. Again, maybe it’s all false, but it’s densely reported and has a sheen of credibility.
So am I a fool falling for wholly concocted neoliberal propaganda besmirching the world’s only remaining champion of traditional values? What’s the direct counterargument to Navalny’s claims about Putin’s corruption or attempt to assassinate a pesky political opponent? I’m certain that Navalny is flawed, as are we all, and I am loath to trust any politician. But I like Navalny – he comes off as a “happy warrior” with a worthy cause – and he seems honest. Without resorting to ad hominem non sequiturs, tell me why I shouldn’t take him seriously? Even if he is a Nazi, is he wrong about Putin?
dasfoo
1yr ago
I have to ask, at this point, why does the West still support Ukraine?
Do you think any of the concerns you've raised are relevant to why the West supports Ukraine?
dasfoo
1yr ago
To claim that modern society has devalued motherhood and femininity, or made them low status, is completely backwards. Motherhood and femininity in general have been devalued for as long as patriarchy has existed, so pretty much the whole of human history.
I see comments like this a lot, and it goes with the general sentiment that men don't respect women and only think of them as sex objects. The truth is that men do value women greatly for certain things that are unique to their womanhood and less for other things that are not unique to women. It's contemporary women who have devalued the qualities they have which men do value.
It's the reason you occasionally get figures like Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great who are praised for being essentially men in women's bodies, but you never get men praised for being essentially women in men's bodies.
I know this is controversial to say these days, but the bodies of men who act like women cannot do the things the real women can do with their bodies and, generally, women are highly valuable because of what their bodies are built to do: nurture life. If I owned a goat who just wanted sit in my chicken coop all day, he wouldn't be very valuable to me because he can't lay eggs.
I'm not saying that all people should be strictly limited to traditional gender roles -- there are outliers that just can't perform those roles. However, society is currently obsessed with making outliers the new normal, which is wreaking havoc on both the healthy operation of human interactions and the self-worth of those who have been yaslit into devaluing their natural gifts.
dasfoo
9mo ago
I'm a "Stop the Steal" agnostic. The 2020 election looked fishy, but most of the "proof" of election fraud has been merely suggestions with no follow-through. I'm not a Trump voter, but I have no faith in the integrity of his opponents -- especially if you take them at their word that he is an existential threat.
The Democrats do themselves no favors by trying to stop all of these election reform measures in swing states, like PA and GA. Their insistence that we should not clean the voter rolls, enforce ballot integrity or deadlines, or be able to produce records that verify vote counts or reconcile ballot and voter numbers is bewildering in the absence of fraud. Can anyone of the "Most Secure Election in History" persuasion steelman the argument against increasing election integrity? Isn't it in everyone's best interest to increase confidence in the electoral process, even if you think 2020 election deniers are kooks, as it will improve the legitimacy of whoever wins and diminish avenues of sympathy for the deniers?
dasfoo
1yr ago
Claiming that the false entry was in furtherance of another crime ... without actually including that crime in the indictment and without that crime ever being adjudicated in court
This is the part that bugs me the most. How can a crime be asserted as a predicate fact in court when that crime has never been charged, tried or convicted?
If the argument is that the crime exists because Michael Cohen pled to it as part of a bargain, isn't that irrelevant with regard to Trump? AIUI, one person cannot be convicted by proxy of another person's trial; Trump would be entitled to his own defense.
Further, the insinuation that it is electoral fraud for a political candidate to mislead the public opens unlimited potential for lawfare fuckery. Does this mean it's possible to charge Joe Biden with Electoral Fraud for saying that his son's laptop was fake during a Presidential Debate? Or any other outright lie or even half-truth told in the course of any campaign?
I admit, seeing most active politicians from the past few decades jailed for dishonesty might be a nice corrective, but selective prosecution is not the way to go about it. It seems like this case is going to come back at the Democrats in severely unpleasant ways.
dasfoo
2yr ago
I'm on the fence about this. I have no problem with my kids seeing nude figures in classical art. But it seems to me this teacher was either asking for trouble or had some motive that superseded his job survival instincts.
It's clear from the chain of events that this teacher knew this might be an issue for some kids/parents, because:
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The school already considered it controversial enough to (fail to) send out a warning letter.
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The teacher felt the need to categorize it as "non-pornographic" (Why, exactly, did he feel this was necessary? ISTM that raising the topic of porn is more likely to get him into trouble, not less likely. Hopefully, it wasn't to differentiate Michael from the art he showed the students on other days....)
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"Don't tell your parents." Come on. Maybe he wanted this. Maybe he wanted to become a cause celebre for the left. This is not the behavior of a teacher without some other motive. He got what he wanted. He poked the bear and the bear gutted him and we all know about it and I'm sure there's a related GoFundMe we can support or a TikTok we can heart.
Given all that, I have another question: Why Michelangelo's David? Yes, it's famous. But it's not like it's the only work of art in existence. I don't know enough about art to tell you why David is more famous or worthy of study than any other partially clothed statue. They all look pretty good to me. He chose it for a reason. Maybe laziness. Maybe a lack of imagination. Maybe he just a little bit likes to make kids look at schlongs. Maybe it's his favorite work of art and he has a unique and scintillating perspective on it. Maybe he holds that fraction of parents in contempt and wanted to fuck with them. All or some of the above, still it was poor judgement on his part, unless it's what he wanted.
dasfoo
2yr ago
The radical right in America is unable to articulate a coherent vision of the kind of society it wants to live in. This is the problem with many modern Western conservatives: they live modern, liberal lives and then preach against it. Georgia Meloni is a single unmarried mother with a bastard, to provide one illustration. The parliamentary leader of the AfD is a transnational lesbian with a wife who prefers living in Switzerland to Germany. That’s not very trad of them.
Maybe, but when the opposition is a Luciferian death cult that wants to fuck our children while drinking their essence, anyone will do. At least that's where my friends on the New Right go when pushed. I had one explain to me his support for Russia v Ukraine as follows, "I know we [The West] are evil. I don't know that Putin is evil." In the battle between literal demons (or Nephilim, more like it) and flawed strongmen, they pick the strongmen. And they don't care if civilization gets destroyed in the process, because civilization has been ruined by gays, Jews, and gay Jews. The best case is that a strongman can put all the gay jews in prison, so we can build something better. This feels like a strawman as I write it, but it seems to be the essence of their private views. And they really do believe that the World Economic Forum/Democrats/RINOs/Neoliberalism is literally Satanic.
dasfoo
11mo ago
Any minnesotans got any cool stories about him?
Some of the stuff coming out about him includes:
- Claims that he quit his National Guard post when they were called up to Iraq but has continued to play it up in his bio, including citing a retroactively invalidated rank
- Was once arrested for DUI going nearly 100mph in a 55 zone
- While he allowed Minneapolis to burn in 2020 his wife found romance in the smell of the fiery destruction
- Presided over the redesign of the MN state flag to resemble the Somali flag
- "Tampon Tim"
Can't vouch for the truthiness of any of these. Interesting how #1 & #2 strongly echo attacks on Geroge W Bush in 2000 and 2004.
dasfoo
2yr ago
Although I think the whole depicting the prophet, at least in the states, isn't an establish route of canceling.
If not outright "cancelling," it's the source of extreme skittishness. There's the famous instance of South Park intentionally poking at this issue (https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Muhammad) by including Muhammed amongst a group of superheroes. This episode cannot be found on HBOMax, Comedy Central or the official South Park website (run by Comedy Central).
dasfoo
1yr ago
With everyone focused on the election, little attention is being paid to what would otherwise be an obvious question in light of the new scrutiny on Biden's health: Is he even fit to continue being president for the remainder of his term? In a vacuum, I think most of us would prefer for a leader who is not capable of doing their job to step down -- or be made to step down by those with influence. As much as I might not like the replacement currently on-deck, I would prefer a gesture of civic responsibility over what is looking increasingly like a desperate grip on power.
If everyone now assumes that Biden -- if he remains upright -- will hand it over to his VP after his inauguration, then why persist with an obvious charade through the election? That's surely sapping voter enthusiasm. There would seem to be a greater upside to clearing the deck prior to the election, just for the refreshing honesty of it.
We've been very short on gestures of civic honesty and responsibility recently, and I will take what I can get.
dasfoo
2yr ago
Opposition to intervention in European affairs in the 1930s and then to entry into WWII was distinctly conservative.
Depends on when you look. During the 1930s there was a growing pro-war anti-fascist movement among left-leaning Americans. There was even a brigade in the Spanish Civil War for anti-Franco foreigners. Not coincidentally, many American pro-war/ant-fascist leftists immediately became anti-war upon the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and then became pro-war again when that pact was broken. Some might suspect that their attitude toward war was dependent on its utility to the Communist Party. The Left likes wars in which the Left are the "good guys" and hates wars in which the Left are the bad guys. Go figure.
My far-right friends see the Ukraine war as the Globohomo Lefitst Elite spitting in the eye of a Trad Warrior State.
The growing anti-war sentiment in the US is, I think, directly related the right-coded nature of the military. The Right feels like the military are their people, and that their people are being sent out to risk their lives to line the pockets of effete sexually deviant billionaires who are the lizardy powers behind Globohomo. In the past the right was gung-ho for fighting Communism, but the Communists secretly won and are now pulling the strings.
dasfoo
1yr ago
In simple utilitarian terms Palestinians obviously suffer more. The end.
But what if it's self-induced suffering, gamified to achieve victory on the scale of "who suffers the most?" Is that still "The End?"
dasfoo
10mo ago
Another reason why the left currently worries me more is that their delusions are deeper than the right's delusions.
Yes: The left is smart and understands the system and has been re-engineering it for decades. I am far more wary of smart people who know how to accomplish bad things than dumb people who might accidentally break some stuff but don't know how to permanently damage the structure of it. It's a grim choice, and I can't endorse either one, but I know which one is more frightening.
dasfoo
1yr ago
I live in a red tribe crank bubble- 0% of the people I know well enough to have talked about it with will vote RFK. The like two red tribe leftists will vote Biden and everyone else will vote Trump.
I'm in a similar bubble in a blue state, but at least half of the red tribers close to me are voting RFK as a protest vote. My wife -- who campaigned against state vaxx laws a few years ago -- has an RFK sign and is putting it in our lawn.
I try to tell them that absent vaccines they would loathe RFK, but it's hard to draw that distinction when the other options are so revolting.
dasfoo
1yr ago
That just makes me think of Hippias Minor, in which Plato's Socrates proposes that the man who does evil deliberately is better than the man who does it accidentally, in that he is more capable.
I think the opposite is true. The man who does evil deliberately intends evil -- wanton suffering, pain, misery -- and will continue to do it because evil is the goal. The man who does evil accidentally has a non-evil goal and may be persuaded to pursue that goal through a different, non-evil path. Believing that a person is better because they are more capable of pursuing evil successfully is itself an evil notion and Socrates should drink some hemlock for even thinking it.
dasfoo
2yr ago
Maybe this is asking too much, but why wouldn't Rationalist women adopt a different viewpoint of male sexual behavior, being Rationalists?
Instead of taking the same progressive approach of "toxic masculinity must be extirpated," it seems like the Rationalist view would be something like: "Male Sexual Behavior is how it is for reasons, and has been this way since the beginning. Even if we wanted to change it, it is unlikely to change. Therefore lets find a way to harness it for the greater good. One way that this has worked historically is for women to engage with male sexuality and control it as best as possible via marriage..." etc.
I'm trying to compile a list of movies that would be useful in an overview of 20th Century History. I have two versions of the list, one with about 90 movies and a longer one with about 130 movies. I feel like I've covered most key events and themes, but the 1950s and 1990s feel a little thin. I probably have most of the obvious choices covered, but am likely missing some key outside-the-box options.
If you could pick 10 movies to show, say, a teenager to supplement their understanding of the century before they existed, what would you pick?
Edit: I've uploaded my long list to Letterboxd here:
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/20th-century-the-movie/
Edit 2: To be clear: This not meant as a list of "important movies in movie history," or "the best movies of the last century," but rather as a list of movies that can be used to inform discussions of real world history, even if through fictional treatment of or adjacent to its subjects. What was important in/about the 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, etc.: what key events happened, how did people live, what were the thematic currents that for you summarize key times and places in the 20th century?
dasfoo
1yr ago
This is crazy! Why would Trump go out of his way to do things the illegal way if it were already legal?
Part of the problem with this whole thing is assigning intent to a guy who seems to wing it on instinct and never really bothers to do due dilligence to make sure he's doing things the proper way -- and who hires shitty, sleazy lawyers who are also incompetent at covering the legal bases. Trump is sloppy. Contrary to the memes, he's barely playing 1-D Chess. He follows the straight line from his desires to his ego. It's entirely possible given his apparent modus operandi that no one thought to check if there were any legal issues with anything related to the FEC or any other set of regulations, and "legal services" was written on the checks because Cohen was a lawyer, making anything he does "legal services."
I don't doubt that Trump is guilty of hundreds (if not more) of compliance violations, because he generally holds all rules and official processes in contempt. Felony convictions for details he likely never bothered to consider or understand seems harsh; but it does make a good case for why political parties should screen their candidates with a more serious sense of purpose.
dasfoo
2yr ago
Ironically, support groups where people confirm and commiserate seem to make the issue worse. In fact, many modern studies on pain recommend not even using the word "pain" and replacing it with something else to trick your mind into understanding that your pain doesn’t have an acute physical cause.
And, to add a button to this dynamic, the mode of therapy for these kinds of issues seems to have changed from correcting them -- aiming to help the patient reconcile their delusions with reality -- to normalizing the delusions, including cultural reinforcement of this normalization.
dasfoo
9mo ago
Tangentially, IMO both sides got the response to claims of election shenanigans totally wrong, going into tribal mode rather than civic mode.
Whether or not there was actual fraud, there was pretty compelling appearance of fraud in the seemingly sychronized one-way anomolies that took place on election night. Rather than carefully investigating claims of impropriety and producing explanations that assauged concerns, the winning side took the very Trumpian approach of declaring fraud impossible in the most secure and perfect election ever held, coupled with a slate of articles condescendingly headline with the following template "No, xxxxxxxxx didn't happen, you fucking MAGA retards!" (OK, that last part was implied rather than stated directly.) It seems to me, as someone who voted for neither Trump nor Biden in 2020, that there were ample claims of shenanigans that deserved sober investigation, and sober investigation was never produced. The losers, on the other hand, thanks to grifters who saw they could profit off an atmosphere of polarized suspicion, threw every possible crazy fraud theory into the mix and then threw the stupidest tantrum in American history on Jan. 6. Trump was a terrible figurehead for a cause that could only possibly succeed with a careful and precise and civic-minded legal approach. I don't think the winners were ever capable of entertaining the best evidence of fraud and the losers were never capable of producing it.
dasfoo
1yr ago
My idea for dealing with homelessness is to create a series of remote contained cities -- using BLM land -- that are essentially economies built around a hospital-prison-treatment-community college complex.
Let's say there are 4 categories of homeless:
- Economic
- Addiction
- Criminal
- Psychotic
The Cat-1 Homeless can live in apartments or housing and get jobs in the cities that serve the complex staff. There will be restaurants, groceries, everything a normal small city might have, as well as job in the complex. So there is plenty of opportunity for employment. They will also be enrolled in the college to develop other skills -- maybe with a focus on addiction treatment and social work. When they are on better financial and educational ground, they can "graduate" back to the real world.
The Cat-2 Homeless go to the addiction treatment center. They can "graduate" to Cat-1 or fail to Cat-2.
The Cat-3 Homeless are repeat offenders who have either failed Cat-2 or have been deemed mentally well enough to not belong to Cat-4. Through good behavior, they can graduate to Cat-1.
The Cat-4 Homeless are for the serially mentally unfit. these would need drastic oversight so as not to repeat the failure mode of the old state mental hospitals that turned into hellholes.
These cities would need to be far enough away from other cities to discourage foot traffic and have some kind of low-security system that checks people in and out. They are essentially halfway houses on a larger scale.
Maybe there can also be a wilderness area on the outskirts of these town for those homeless who aren't Cat 2-4 but who just wish to live in outdoor camps off the grid of normal society.
Last night I watched the absurdly stupid and awful-looking surprise hit movie of 2022, the Tollywood epic RRR. While slogging through this 3-hour parade of xenophobic melodrama, incoherent action, and kindergarten-level sentiment was a struggle, it did make me wonder about two ideas that I’ve always thought should be in direct conflict with each other but aren’t treated as such: “Anti-Colonialism” and “Open Borders.”
As I understand it, the principle behind “Anti-Colonialism” is that Group A is never entitled to move into Group B’s space and take it over, replacing Group B’s preferred culture and/or method of governance with Group A’s preferred culture and/or method of governance, thereby subjugating Group B as second class in their own space. However, this school of thought seems to be most popular among the same political/intellectual cohort that also champions very loose immigration controls, commonly referred to as “Open Borders” (even though that phrase suggests no control whatsoever, whereas the reality is probably something closer liberal immigration controls). With an “Open Borders” mindset, there is no stopping Groups B-Z from moving into Group A’s space and altering its culture or assuming control of its institutions if any of those Groups does so with enough numbers or organization. “Open Borders,” on principle, refutes the very notion of any group’s ownership of any space, which more or less dismantles the paradigm of “Anti-Colonialism.” How do these two ideas co-exist in the same mind without producing uncomfortable cognitive dissonance?
It seems uncharitable to suggest that the salve for this cognitive dissonance is simply racism; or, to put it how I suppose the “Open Borders Anti Colonialist” would think of it, “intersectionality.” That is, the principle behind “Anti-Colonialism” is not really the wrongness of generic groups subjugating each other but rather the wrongness of one static “Bad Group” (that happens to be largely defined by skin color/geographical origin) subjugating other Groups (of other skin colors), who by the nature of their subjugation and opposition to “Bad Group” are thereby “Good Groups.” “Open Borders,” too, is a policy only sought after when the same “Good Groups” are immigrating into the space of the same “Bad Group,” rather than vice versa. These are intended as strictly one-way ideological roads, and not as equal-use roadmaps for Groups A-Z.
I don’t get the impression that this intersectional solution to the “Open Borders Anti Colonialism” knot is oft-contemplated by the typical “Open Borders Anti Colonialist,” who rather thinks of both notions as having sprung from the same well of humanist good intentions. Is the racial/intersectional question actually essential to this paradigm, or is there some other less invidious key that unlocks the conflict between “Open Borders” and “Anti Colonialism?” in the progressive mindset?
I’ll hand this to RRR: It aptly confounds Western culture-warring by presenting its own set of ideas that may be difficult for some Western progressives to reconcile: It pits noble indigenous revolutionaries against the cartooniest of all racist villains and does so with a strident rallying cry against gun control. One of the protagonists has the stated goal of “putting a rifle in the hand” of every colonial subject, and suggests that a bullet only attains its true value when it kills an immigrant (or, in this exact case, any white person).
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