I meant so badly to blog but I had a busy weekend. Now
I'm behind and I need to do BIG SKY. That's a show on ABC in its third
season, created by David E. Kelley. I'm not doing recaps here. I'm
just noting what stands out to me. Why am I not doing recaps?
This
is a show that had children in jeopardy in its first season (the girls
were underage) and in its second season and I'm just not going to write
about that.
So last week,
Jenny's mother showed up. She was expertly played by Roseanna Arquette
who remains on of our most under-rated actresses of all time. If I
don't have room for that in this post, I will come back to it tomorrow.
So
she's a crook and she always leaves Jenny hanging. But there's an
ex-boyfriend who has ripped her off and she can work with Jenny (a
police officer) and Beau (Jenny's commanding officer). Jenny is
resistant but Beau and events talk her into it. They catch the crook
but when they do, Jenny realizes something's gone wrong. Sure enough,
her mother has run off -- and run off with the money.
She
didn't get far. She shows up at Tonya's -- the woman working for Ren
in season two. Was that pre-arranged? I guess we'll find out.
Reba
McIntire is the villain this season. Does anyone take her seriously?
She's the worst actress currently on TV. I think that says it all.
Beau's
daughter is at Reba's dude ranch which means she's in danger -- all the
guests are because Reba's oldest son, Walter, is a mass murderer. More
and more, his and Cassie's worlds seem to be hurtling towards one
another. If they do really meet (not just in passing on the highway --
as happened this episode) will Walter try to kill Cassie? Does the fact
that his brother Cormac is crushing on Cassie guarantee her any safety?
And
how lousy is the police department in that area? Walter's apparently
been killing people for years. The police never noticed that people
were going missing -- let alone being killed?
Monday, October 10, 2022. A year later, the UN suddenly frets over Iraq
-- and let's get honest about ourselves with regards to our lack of
support for Will Lehman and the film BROS.
As U.S. officials roundly condemn the ongoing series of Iranian strikes
against Kurdish rivals in northern Iraq, Washington has also expressed
concern over a separate Turkish campaign against Kurdish forces in the
same region.
[. . .]
"We have repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding Turkish operations in Iraq," a State Department spokesperson told Newsweek,
"urging that the government of Turkey coordinate more closely with
Iraqi authorities on cross-border military operations against terrorist
targets."
Concerns. Concerns? Yeah.
According to RUDAW, the government of Turkey is admitting to the murder:
The Turkish ambassador to Iraq said Sunday that members of the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) and associates of the group are Ankara’s targets
in response to the recent assassination of a women’s rights activist in
the city of Sulaimani.
Rights activist Nagihan Akarsel, who had ideological ties to the PKK, was shot multiple times and killed
in Sulaimani on Tuesday by assailants in the city’s Bakhtiyari
neighborhood. Her ties to the Kurdish armed group quickly led droves of
people on social media to blame Turkey for her death.
“Those who are affiliated with the PKK are indeed our targets,” Turkish
Ambassador Ali Riza Guney said in response to a question from Rudaw’s
Payam Sarbast during a press conference in the Kurdistan Region’s
capital of Erbil.
It can't be used to promote war (the way a death in Iran has been), so Nagihan's murder doesn't get US press attention. NEWS.AM notes:
Hakan Fidan, head
of Turkey's National Intelligence Agency (MİT), met with the Iraqi
Turkmen Front earlier this week, raising questions from Iraqi opposition
politicians over his visit in mid-September, Ahval writes.
Fidan's visit to the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan
Region, Erbil, on Oct. 4 coincided with the killing of Kurdish figure
Nagihan Akarsel in a shootout in Sulaymaniyah province, the Kurdish
website Medya News reported.
The Iraqi coordination structure, an opposition body made up
of Shiite parties, has called for an investigation, and a member of the
structure, Turki Sedan, said the visit was organized without notifying
Iraq's central government.
Meanwhile, today
is October 10th. A year ago, Iraq went to the polls and voted. Still
no prime minister, still no president, still no cabinet of ministers.
Speaking to the United Nations last week, the US Deputy Rep to the UN,
Ambassador Richard Mills, noted that climate change was one of the
challenges Iraq is facing, "Complicated challenges face the next
government -- including passing a
budget, developing oil and gas legislation that is acceptable to the
Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government, improving the
provision of electricity, combatting climate change, promoting private
sector development and job growth, and increasing women’s participation
in the workforce."
The next government? A year after the elections and they're still hoping it pull together to form a government.
If they paid attention, they wouldn't be surprised by how this all went down. Dropping back to the October 11, 2022 snapshot (the day after the election):
Starting with this from the BBC.
He opens with The October Revolution -- the protesters who are part of a movement that began in the fall of 2019.
Murad
Shishani: They presented, sort of, a package of demands, as they told
me. This package included an early election but the government, the
authorities, they just only this one condition. They asked for fighting
corruption. They asked for disarming the militias. They asked for
political reform, more engagement for youth. Therefore, as the
government, they didn't meet all these demands from the protesters, then
the boycotting campaigns have been becoming more stronger, they are
today in Iraq. And this is what we've noticed in a city like Mosul
which has been liberated four years ago from the so-called Islamic
State. But that devastation is still there so people were reluctant to
go to the polling stations today.
John Davidson and Ahmed Rasheed (REUTERS) report,
"Iraq's parliamentary election on Sunday drew one of the smallest
turnouts for years, electoral officials indicated, with the low
participation suggesting dwindling trust in political leaders and the
democratic system brought in by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion." The
political leadership has been corrupt. With the billions in oil
revenues that the government of Iraq takes in yearly, there is no reason
why poverty should exist in Iraq. But not only does it exist, it is
actually increasing. The corrupt leaders have taken public monies.
That money, for example, has bought multiple sports cars and homes in
Europe for Ahmed al-Maliki, son of forever thug and former prime
minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki whose (mis)leadership and paranoia
helped create ISIS and led to its seizure of Mosul and other areas in
2014. The corruption has continued and worsened. Long cited by
Transparency International as one of the five most corrupt nations in
the world, Iraq's governmental corruption is now so bad that President
Saleh, addressing the United Nations last month, called it one of the
greatest security threats to the country.
ALJAZEERA notes,
"Two electoral commission officials said the nationwide turnout of
eligible voters was 19 percent by midday. Turnout was 44.5 percent in
the last election in 2018." Since 2018? The October Revolution. That
movement of mainly Shi'ite protesters began in 2019 protesting the
corruption, the lack of jobs, the lack of dependable public services
(such as electricity and potable water). Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim (WASHINGTON POST) observe:
In effect, Sunday’s election was a referendum on that system, and most Iraqis chose to stay home.
Despite
a months-long campaign and millions of dollars spent by foreign
governments including the United States to boost trust in the voting
process, Iraq’s electoral commission said turnout by midday was only
around 20 percent and that it had risen only slowly through the
afternoon.
Prime
Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi came to office last year vowing early
elections after mass protests ousted his predecessor, Adel Abdul Mahdi,
in 2019. On Sunday, voters trickled to the polls through some of the
streets where security forces had fired live ammunition into crowds and
killed 600 during the months-long protests.
Realities
were briefly noted by the bulk of the press in the immediate aftermath
of the election and then they got to whoring. It was never a legitimate
election but goodness how they whored cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr and
pretended that he had some sort of mandate -- despite the very low
turnout, despite the fact that his coalition achieved less than they had
the previous election cycle.
They whored and whored some more.
The
other parties and coalitions didn't have to go along with Moqtada
because there were press claims but what trumped those claims was
reality and Moqtada never had reality on his side. Were it not for the
press whoring -- so-called reporting that read like slavish devotion to
Moqtada -- I'm talking western press here -- maybe he would have
realized sooner that not only was not a kingmaker (a term the press
couldn't stop pimping) but that he wasn't even competent.
As the political stalemate continued and Moqtada's frustrations mounted, he began throwing tantrums.
One
of the most infamous? If they didn't do what he wanted, he was pulling
every member of his coalition out of Parliament! They would resign in
mass!
The response was a yawn.
Idiot Moqtada then forced the resignations.
All that happened were the second place in those elections then got sworn in.
Moqtada had a bigger fit then -- he'd shut himself out of the process.
And
efforts to get the courts to overturn this didn't work. Nor did his
efforts to get the courts to dissolve the Parliament. He never should
have believed his press. Through non-stop use of the term, they'd
convinced him he was a "kingmaker."
He was -- and
remains -- a pathetic nothing and he's been humored more than long
enough. A brutal thug responsible for the deaths of many -- Iraqis and
Americans -- got paid off by the US State Dept in August of 2021 to drop
his opposition to the elections and urge his cult to show up and
vote.
The whole thing's sickening -- including the US government treating him as someone worthy of US tax dollars.
It's a year later and there's no government.
AFP notes today, "A year since Iraq's last elections, it remains without not only a new
government but a budget too, obstructing much-needed reforms and
infrastructure projects in the oil-rich but war-ravaged country." Daniel Stewart (360 NEWS) runs with:
The United Nations warned Monday that "Iraq is running out of time" in
the face of the serious political crisis rocking the country and called
on all parties to "dialogue without preconditions" to form a government,
one year after the holding of early parliamentary elections.
The United Nations
Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has recalled that "one year ago,
Iraqis went to the polls in the hope of charting a new future for the
country" and stressed that the elections were called "under public
pressure through nationwide protests in which hundreds of young Iraqis
lost their lives and thousands were injured".
"Unfortunately,
this reaffirmation of democracy was followed by a policy of division,
generating bitter disillusionment among the population," the mission
said in its communiqué, in which it stressed that "this long crisis is
generating more instability".
"The
latest developments are proof. Moreover, it threatens the livelihood of
the people," it has warned, before stressing that "the approval of the
Budgets for 2023 are imperative" and regretting that the "tireless
efforts" to move towards stability have not borne fruit.
To
which the world should respond, "Oh, shut up." It's been a year. Now
you're worried? You've been a pathetic and useless presence in Iraq.
And that's long before we factor in all the stroking of Moqtada, all the
humoring of him.
You've disgraced yourselves. No one needs you to now hop on your pony, ride in circles and scream crisis.
The
elections were a joke a year ago. Instead of admitting that reality,
you pimped Moqtada as an answer. The only thing Moqtada is ever an
answer to is the riddle: What won't flush down the toilet?
Various outlets are quoting UNAMI issuing this nonsense "The protracted crisis is breeding further instability, and recent
events are a testament to that." And noting UNAMI now declares Iraq to be "running out
of time."
Now. A year later.
The UN, like the police, always comes late if they come at all?
A year later and now the United Nations wants to play the hysteric.
It
abandoned the people for 12 months now. Let's not pretend that they in
anyway helped. They abandoned the people with their hopes that a
government -- a bad one -- would be formed and they could return to
ignoring the abuses that the Iraqi people live with daily. UNAMI has
not helped the Iraqi people. It exist solely to provide cover for
whatever monstrosity gets cobbled together and then they issue "We call
on . . ." statements. They've done for the Iraqi people and today they
stand exposed as the do-nothing that they are.
Now
I've got a problem. Just found something in the spam folder. I don't
mind putting it in here but it actually goes to a larger issue.
Brothers and sisters,
On October 17, in less than two weeks, ballots will begin going out for the first-ever direct elections of the leadership of the United Auto Workers. If
you are a UAW member, I urge you to make sure your local has your
current mailing address by tomorrow (Friday, October 7) so that you can
receive your ballot as early as possible.
This
is a historic opportunity for rank-and-file workers to express our
opposition to the entire bureaucracy, which has sold us out for decades,
rammed through contracts we opposed and defied the will of the
membership.
For
this reason, the UAW apparatus has done everything it can to keep
workers in the dark about the election and the positions of the
candidates. I have spoken to many workers who do not even know that an
election is being held.
A week and a half ago, I participated in a debate among the candidates for UAW president.
But the UAW apparatus has done virtually nothing to inform workers that
there was a debate, and only about 1.5 percent of UAW workers and
retirees have watched the video. The UAW doesn’t want anyone to watch
the debate because it so thoroughly exposed incumbent President Ray
Curry and Co. as pro-corporate enemies of the working class, who have as
little connection to rank-and-file workers as the man on the moon.
My
campaign is about establishing a new base of power through the building
of rank-and-file committees of workers in every plant and workplace to
fight for what we need, not what the UAW bureaucracy and the companies
say is acceptable. We must assert our will and our interests. We must
unite all workers in the UAW with workers throughout the country and
around the world who are confronting the same issues and face the same
enemies.
The
election itself is a critical stage in this battle. The bureaucrats in
the UAW want as little participation in this election by rank-and-file
workers as possible. They opposed the referendum for direct elections
because they know that the apparatus is universally despised by the rank
and file.
The
situation will not change unless we act. As workers, we have tremendous
strength, but nobody is going to fight for what we need but ourselves.
This is the purpose of my campaign, but I am not a miracle
worker. You must make the decision to take up this fight.
This is why I am calling on you to form a rank-and-file election committee in your workplace.
These committees will accomplish the following:
Distribute
information throughout your workplace on how to participate in the
election, including what workers must do to ensure that they get a
ballot and when they have to send it in. You can view and share
frequently asked questions about the UAW elections on my website at willforuawpresident.org/uawelections.
Make sure that all workers watch the presidential candidates’ debate, which I have posted on my website here.
Organize
meetings of workers in your plant or workplace to discuss the issues in
the election and what demands we must fight for to secure our
interests.
Set
up informational pickets outside your workplace to distribute
information and promote my rank-and-file campaign for UAW president.
Lay
the foundation for the rank-and-file networks that are necessary to
continue to fight for what we need once the election is over.
I am asking you today: write to my campaign at willforuawpresident@gmail.com or text (267) 225-6633 for assistance in setting up an election committee. Tell
me where you work and what you think we must fight for in this election
and beyond. I will do everything I can to assist you in setting up a
committee at your workplace and to link your committee to similar
committees that are being set up across the country.
Fellow
rank-and-file workers: If we are going to fight for what we need, we
cannot allow the initiative to remain in the hands of the apparatus. We
must organize ourselves! Contact my campaign and build a rank-and-file
election committee today!
Thank you, Will Lehman
P.S.
I want to do everything I can to make sure workers are informed—about
the elections, about my campaign, and about the strikes and other
struggles workers are launching. But to do that, I need your financial
support. If you agree with what I’m fighting for, then donate as much as you can to my campaign today.
Okay,
when are we ever going to work together? Here in the US, when are we
going to drop the s**t and work together? In the abstract, a Socialist
in charge of the UAW is something we on the left are supposed to be able
to get on board with. So why the hell aren't we?
Seems like this campaign should be getting support.
And I was planning on not mentioning it today but you know I'm going there now: BROS.
Straight-allies,
that's what we're supposed to be. But we're so pathetic we couldn't
even buy a ticket to a hilarious comedy. That was beyond our politics.
Beyond our abilities.
The best thing for the
UAW would be to have a Socialist president at this point. But there's
no push for him online from so-called left allies. And there was no
real push with regards to BROS.
Yeah, I saw a few times, you might have seen it as well.
But there was no real push.
I
think back, to ahead of DOBBS, when the LGBTQ community was supporting
ROE V WADE. It didn't apply to most of them. As Ava and I noted when
that awful NETFLIX special aired, unless someone got raped, they
probably weren't going to need an abortion -- someone in the LGBTQ
community. We thought the support from the community was great but we
also thought that LGBTQ comedians should also be focusing on the issues
impacting their community. I stand by that call because I'm not seeing a
push by feminist leaders or by Planned Parenthood or anyone else to be
an ally to the LGBTQ community right now.
I am seeing vicious hate online. I am seeing smears and attacks on gay people -- including Billy Eichner who's only 'crime' is making a wonderful film.
We
want allies. We want support. But apparently, we can't give it.
Rude, nasty things are being said about LGBTQs and conclusions are being
drawn regarding BROS. We didn't support the movie and now right
wingers are running with that because the message is straight allies
aren't going to push back.
That's outrageous and we should be ashamed of ourselves. We've been pathetic and disgusting.
Most Americans -- even in this economy -- can afford to buy a ticket to a movie as a political act.
The failure of straight allies to support BROS is fueling a backlash.
And
again, it's the same with Will Lehman. He's a Socialist. We should be
on board. Yeah, put him in charge of the UAW, let's see if he can get
something done.
That should be our attitude.
But
when it's our turn to be allies, we tend to have other things to do.
All you people -- and I'm referring to drive-byes more than the TCI
community -- who claim to be left and then vote centrist politicians,
this is where you could make a difference without doing that much at all
-- you could support Will. Wouldn't have to stop praising Hillary or
pretending that Nancy Pelosi was the height of left action. You could
continue in your delusions and still support Will.
But you won't.
Just
like you didn't support Billy and now want to pretend like the hideous
being said online have nothing to do with you. They have everything to
do with you and it is now time for you to figure out if you're life has
any meaning or you just want to tick off the rest of your days being a
useless piece of crap.
And on that happy note, the following sites updated:
Fat
bear week starts today, that glorious autumn tradition when anyone with
an internet connection can vote for the plumpest brown bear in Alaska's
Katmai National Park. Last year, more than 800,000 people weighed in
during Fat Bear Week, crowning Otis, an enormous, dimpled ursine, Fat
Bear champion for the third time.
But
for many scientists, the true fascination of Fat Bear Week involves
what happens next, when the now beachball-shaped bruins, carrying about
40 percent body fat, lumber into their dens and start hibernating.
During hibernation, they remain healthy under conditions that would
weaken and sicken mere humans. The bears emerge months later, lean,
strong and barely affected by their months of starvation and inactivity.
Until
recently, researchers could not explain how. But several fascinating
new molecular studies suggest hibernation remodels bear metabolisms and
gene activity in unique and dramatic ways that could have relevance for
people. The fat bears can advance our understanding of diabetes, muscle
atrophy, inactivity and the ingenuity of evolution.
Fascinating
article. And it offers so many potential real world applications --
especially for diabetics and/or people with weight issues.
Was not aware of Fat Bear Week until tonight. Here are some videos.
Thursday, October 6, 2022. We're part two on BROS today and we also note a new event in Iraq and an anniversary.
This week, the late Cass Elliot
got her star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame thanks to the very hard work
of her daughter Owen Kunkle. Cass was a one-of-a-kind vocalist. With
The Mamas and the Papas (Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and John
Phillips), she sang on such classics as "Dream A Little Dream Of Me,"
"Safe In My Garden," "California Dreamin'," "Creeque Alley," "Dancing
Bear," "Midnight Voyage," "Got A Feeling," "Monday, Monday," "I Saw Her
Again Last Night," "Sing For Your Supper," "12:30 (Young Girls Are
Coming To The Canyon)," "Dedicated To The One I Love," "Too Late,"
"Words of Love" and many more. As a solo artist, her classics included
"California Earthquake," "Make Your Own Kind Of Music," "It's Getting
Better," "New World Coming," "Move In A Little Closer Baby," etc.
"Different" (video above) is a song she performs in the film PUFNSTUF.
There are so many classics waiting to be rediscovered. I'd include
Cass' version of Judee Sill's "Jesus Was A Crossmaker" . . .
. . . and of Laura Nyro's "He's A Runner."
Owen's
done a great job honoring her mother. Cass is remembered to this day.
And her music pops up everywhere -- yes, LOST, but I'm thinking of
Hettie MacDonald's BEAUTIFUL THING. That 1996 film is an important
one.
We're back to BROS and we're back to my
marveling over how some people are so uninformed and some are taking
part in the backlash without even grasping it.
BROS is the best comedy of 2022. Billy Eichner
co-wrote the screenplay and he stars in the film with Luke Macfarlane.
People are continuing to see it and maybe if theaters were running it
it would be making even more money. I've already detailed how
homophobia on the part of theater owners led to less showings on the
Friday it debuted. But what's going on now, especially with AMC
theaters, is it's only been shown once or twice a day. Even so, it made
$1.4 million on Monday and Tuesday -- Wednesday's numbers will come out
later today.
It's an important film and let's address that because people don't seem to understand what an important film is.
Some
are carping and blaming Billy -- on that, I haven't seen anything like
that since MOMENT BY MOMENT -- when, as Academy Award winning film
editor Verna Fields (JAWS, WHAT'S UP DOC?, PAPER MOON, AMERICAN GRAFFITI
. . .) observed they refused to let the film die. They being the
industry. They slammed and they ripped apart long after it had faded
away. The film starred Lily Tomlin and John Travolta. It was directed
by Jane Wagner. And it was attacked because the director was a lesbian.
Now
MOMENT BY MOMENT is not a great film. It's not an awful film. There
were awful films released at that time and they were allowed to fade
away. But there was a concentrated effort to go after the film. As
Verna pointed out, many, many films bomb and they're allowed to die but
with Jane Wagner's film, they wouldn't let it. They kept after it, kept
insulting and destroying it inflating it into the all time worst movie.
If MOMENT BY MOMENT were widely available today -- TCM can show the crap that is WHO'S THAT GIRL? but they can't show Jane Wagner's film -- it might be re-evaluated. It might seem better than it did in its own time.
But
let's teach the lesbian her place -- that was the industry's goal.
Everyone knew Lily was gay and that she and Jane were in a relationship
-- everyone in the industry knew. And no studio wanted Lily out of the
closet and they didn't want her working with Jane. Which is why Lily
and Jane would find their success on Broadway.
The
industry doesn't honor coming out. It never has. Ellen came out and
ABC pissed all over her show -- adding that warning before every
episode, for example, refusing to promote it, acting as though it was a
flop when it was still doing better than SPIN CITY or the awful show
that replaced it.
Ellen got another shot at sitcoms.
But CBS refused to back it. It didn't belong on Friday nights --
something they realized when the show landed Mary Tyler Moore and Ed
Asner as guest stars on one episode. CBS suddenly moved the show to
Monday nights for one episode. Oh, wow, look at the high ratings, look
at the difference a time slot can make. Then it was immediately shove
it back to Fridays.
CBS didn't want to support it -- like they didn't want to support PARTNERS.
Sometimes, the industry is more interested in laying down the law than they are in making a profit.
And
some of the garbage being published in the trades reads like an effort
to destroy Billy. Even sadder, the trashing is finding an audience
gleeful to join in.
(As noted before, I know Luke Macfarlane and consider him a friend. I don't know Billy, I've never even met him.)
Billy has made an amazing film and egged on by the trades, some of the garbage is mutlyping online.
And some supposedly saw the movie.
They
blame Billy, for example, because BROKEBACK was a hit!!!! If BROKEBACK
is a hit then BROS would be too -- it must not be any good!
Did they not see BROS? The dead cowboy?
I
believe Billy makes that point in the film -- sadness and death
straight audiences are more than fine with now. That's where we've
progressed as a society. We can applaud BROKEBACK and even the hideous
LOVE SIMON and its after birth LOVE VICTOR.
Original content? Sometimes about the only thing nice you can say is: Well it's new content.
We thought about that as we suffered through LOVE, VICTOR. HULU decided
to do a TV series out of the film LOVE, SIMON. And they brought along
all the baggage from the film.
You may remember Jennifer Garner and other stars of the film tried to
pimp the movie. BLACK PANTHER had done incredible at the box office for
many reasons, The people behind LOVE, SIMON suspected one reason for
the film's success was that BLACK PANTHER was being pushed as a film
with a person of color playing an admired comic book hero. Outside of
Wesley Snipes in the BLADE films, that had not happened.
In the crazy world where Jennifer Garner has some sort of career despite
so-so talents, it seemed logical to tell people that they should see
LOVE SIMON because it was about a gay person.
Here's the thing, and we objected in real time, Chadwik Boseman played
Black Panther (and did so with an amazing performance). Boseman is a
person of color.
LOVE, SIMON? It starred boxy Nick Robinson as a gay man. But, here's
the problem (pay attention, Jennifer), Nick Robinson is not gay (or, if
he is gay, he's in the closet).
The idiots didn't get it. They still don't.
LOVE, VICTOR is supposed to instill gay pride. How?
Michael Cimino stars as high schooler Victor who, yes, is gay.
And, if this were 1992, that might be something. But it's not 1992, it's 2020.
How can a series preach gay pride or even just tolerance (we've never
been fans of tolerance) when the gay character is played by a straight
actor (judging by his INSTAGRAM)?
If being gay is okay (and we agree that it is), why are you casting straight actors in the role?
Anybody remember IN AND OUT? One of the jokes in the movie is that Matt
Dillon's straight character plays -- and wins an Oscar for playing -- a
gay character. That was funny in 1997. In 2020, it's just sad.
What a great message for the world, for the youth, for us all -- It's okay to play gay.
Not to be gay, understand, but it's okay for a straight person to play gay.
Both LOVEs refused to cast an out gay actor -- as either Simon or Victor.
I'm
sorry, love Scarlet Johansson to tears, but, no, when trans actors are
getting cast so little it is not right for a non-trans person to play a
trans character.
This was our beef with Cleveland of
FAMILY GUY and THE CLEVELAND SHOW -- Ava and I tackled that repeatedly
at THIRD -- why is a White actor voicing Cleveland on FAMILY GUY and it
only got worse on TCS when other non-African-Americans were brought on
to voice Black characters.
Can a straight actor play a
gay character? Sure. They might even be able to play it well. But
when out actors are still trying for something more than a bit part,
casting gay leads with straight actors is offensive.
And don't pretend that Billy and Luke both being out wasn't an issue. Don't pretend for one moment.
Billy
could have cast a straight actor as his love interest. We would've
gotten a crappy movie -- because after that concession, he would have
had to make many more -- and some ass would be posting online about how
it was a hit that made $65 million for the studio. No, it didn't -- we
really need to educate on markets and on theaters and on the issue of
who makes the most upfront -- I'm tired of idiots trying to handicap the
box office when they don't know what the f**k they're talking about.
They're usually quoting crapapedia -- that's where they get garbage
about how LOVE SIMON is the X on the all time list of top grossing teen
romance movies per BOX OFFICE MOJO! That link doesn't work because it
never did work because that's not a truth. And if you want to make a
list, you better grasp that SIXTEEN CANDLES had $80 million in ticket
sales because you can't take that 80s movie and put it on the list
without putting it into today's dollars.
Billy made a movie that mattered.
When
we've talked about this to groups this week someone will raise a hand
or clear their throat and I know before they open their mouth where they
are about to go . . . "No offense, but I think the pushback in society
is to a degree because of trans people."
Do you think that?
You may be right.
And I think: Good.
There's always going to be a backlash, the pendulum is always going to swing one way and then the next.
It is important that people press for progress. That's the only way it ever happens.
The
trans community shouldn't be silent and they shouldn't have to wait for
their rights. We should all be pushing for equality.
You don't win anything by being silent. You don't win anything by saying, "I'll fight in a few years."
Did the trans community make some people uncomfortable? Again, if they did, good. That's how we grow.
And Billy's made a great movie in terms of entertainment. But he's also made a historic movie by being so true to himself.
He
and Luke are the first gay (out) actors to play a same-sex couple that a
film's focused on where they fall in love, where they have sex and
neither dies.
Your crappy LOVE SIMON, if you've
forgotten, makes the climatic moment of the film Simon finding out who
his admirer was. Yeah, that's all they could handle in the 90s and LOVE
SIMON is not going to push for anything better than what we could have
seen decades ago.
ABC let Ellen come out but they
didn't know how to deal with her once she was out. It was one thing for
her to have a non-romantic kiss with Laura Dern on the coming out
episode (idiots continue to refer to it as a romantic kiss -- no,
Laura's character is already involved and in a relationship) but when
Ellen found Lori, the next season, ABC had such a huge problem with it.
LOVE
SIMON takes you to the first gloricous sunset and that's all some can
handle. Billy went beyond that and his film is transformative.
Back
when he was president, Barack Obama got really pissed at Joe Biden when
Joe went on MEET THE PRESS because Barack was going to do a slow-roll
on marriage equality and Joe forced everyone's hand. Joe also noted, in
that appearance, that attitudes had changed towards gay people because
of WILL & GRACE. Joe was right.
Without representation, people don't exist. That's true in a democracy and it's true in the arts.
Billy's put some truth onto the screen. He's changed the country as a result.
I
am very limited on what criticism I will take right now on Billy
because he has not gotten any where near the credit he deserves for what
he's done.
Or for the crap he's had to put up with over the last days.
He
insulted us!!!! Get a damn grip. He said straight people didn't turn
out for the movie. He's right. as a group, we did not turn out. It's a
fact.
He's blaming!!!! It's a fact and I didn't hear
blaming in it, I heard shock and surprise. And he has every right to
have that (or any other) response. The film achieved. Where's the
audience?
I don't think they were steered to it. When
you have the kind of reviews BROS got? That's one of your trailers.
Not "Such and such on Rotten Tomatoes" -- a small segment of the
audience cares about RT. That's about it. What you do is you pull
quote from reviews and make that a trailer.
But
UNIVERSAL didn't want to do that. The attitude was, "We've spent enough
promoting the film." And that was before it opened. Before.
A
film with those of reviews? A studio goes all out -- drama or comedy.
They go all out promoting. Studios live for those kind of reviews.
Even
now, UNIVERSAL's not doing a good job. There should have been multiple
trailers. There should be clips on YOUTUBE that you can stream --
multiple clips. There are not.
And where is the romance in the trailer?
We
do get a kiss . . . after some pushing and shoving that others mistake
as a physical fight and think they have to break up -- cue laughter. As
a scene in the movie, it more than works. In the trailer? Looks a lot
like the reaction to 1982's PARTNERS (the comedy starring Ryan O'Neal
and John Hurt).
Why was UNIVERSAL more scared of romance being shown in the trailer?
Time and again, you look at everything that went down and you see institutionalized homophobia.
Billy was up against all of that. And he made an incredible film.
Repeatedly,
I see people posting that the trailer turned them off because it mocked
straight people. A number of people are insisting that they are butt
hurt over that.
Then they 'quote' the line and get it
wrong. But more to the point, that same trailer - the only trailer --
had Billy and Luke speaking and saying gay people were so stupid.
That happened before the joke about straight people.
It's interesting to watch this conversation and see what gets emphasized and what goes unspoken.
Alice Walker has always said she writes the world she wants to see.
And that's what you have to do. Most of us will never see the possibilities unless someone gives us a glimpse.
With
BROS, Billy goes beyond the climatic coming out moment after which
Hollywood wants the gay characters to go away or to drop deep into the
background and be supporting characters. He goes beyond the
it's-okay-for-them-to-be-in-love-because-one-is-going-to-die nonsense.
BROS shatters everything that Hollywood has created over many, many decades.
He didn't settle, he pushed the conversation along. He took us, in one film, further than Hollywood's done in three decades.
And that's what you do if you're an artist, it's what you do if you're an activist.
No one is ever going to be happy to let go of their prejudice and their entitlement.
Dave
Chappelle (who I know and like) has too much fun mocking the
transgender community. He's too vested in it. And, in his mind, you're
an awful person if you're asking him to stop and think for a moment. I
said when the criticism mounted against Dave that he needed to listen
and that people were right to press him on this issue. That's not
censorship, that's a dialogue, that's an exchange in the public square.
The trans community pushed their issues and that's what they needed to do.
They have every right to participate in this democracy, they have every right to raise their issues and to say "Here I am."
And
only by doing that are they going to be heard and are they going to be
appreciated. That's how it is for every minority group. You have to
fight.
But you have to fight smartly. That's not a
slam on the trans community, I think they've done a wonderful job. That
is a slam on some of the people posting carps online about BROS. Billy
delivered. It's not his fault that the studio didn't. It's not his
fault.
UNIVERSAL did the bare minimum ahead of the film
and now they're willing to let the film die. They're not trying to fix
their mistakes. They're not rushing out a trailer that is nothing but
pull quotes. They're not rushing a trailer that's showing romance.
They're not even flooding the internet with clips.
They
want the credit and their egos stroked. They haven't done anything
wonderful. Billy worked his ass off. UNIVERSAL's basically copying
Aaron Spelling in the 90s, copying him in 2022. That's not bravery and
it's nothing that should earn them any credit.
As certain
elements within the industry gleefully sharpen their knives for Billy, I
wish there was a real pushback leading us to all acknowledge what he
has achieved.
Billy is not Orson Welles and BROS is
not CITIZEN KANE. But we're seeing Billy getting that treatment, the
post-CITIZEN KANE treatment where the industry turned on Orson.
Let's turn to Iraq before I start swearing (as always, the snapshot is dictated).
As we approach the 20th anniversary of the fateful congressional vote
authorizing the invasion of Iraq, many are questioning what would have
happened had Congress refused to go along. There was widespread public
opposition to going to war at the time. The Catholic Church and every
mainline Protestant denomination came out against the war, as did
virtually every major labor union and other left-of-center organization
that took a stand. The vast majority of the U.S. Middle East scholars
opposed an invasion, being aware of the likely disastrous consequences.
The vast majority of the world’s nations, including most of the United
States’s closest allies, were also in opposition to the war.
Unlike the near-unanimous vote (save for Rep. Barbara Lee) the
previous year authorizing military force in Afghanistan following the
9/11 attacks, the Iraq war resolution was far more controversial. A
sizable majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives voted
against the resolution authorizing the invasion, which came to a vote on
October 10, 2002. The Republicans then controlled the House, however,
and it passed easily.
This left the determination as to whether the United States would go
to war up to the Democratic-controlled Senate the following day. To the
astonishment of many, several leading Democratic senators crossed the
aisle to support the war authorization, including Senate Majority Leader
Tom Daschle, Assistant Majority Leader Harry Reid and Foreign Relations
Committee Chair Joe Biden, as well as such prominent senators as John
Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, John Edwards and Dianne
Feinstein.
All this was well-known at the time. Since then, however, a number of
these Democrats, particularly those with presidential ambitions, have
lied about their votes — and much of the mainstream media have allowed
them to get away with it.
The primary excuse they have subsequently put forward has been that
the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution,”
as it was formally known, was not actually an authorization for use of
military force against Iraq. Instead, these Democrats claim they did not
actually support George W. Bush’s decision to invade in March 2003 but
simply wanted to provide the administration with leverage to pressure
Iraq to allow a return of UN inspectors, which President Clinton had
ordered removed in 1998 prior to a four-day bombing campaign, and Iraqi
president Saddam Hussein had, quite predictably, not yet allowed to
return.
Despite wording in the congressional resolution providing Bush with an open-ended authority to invade, John Kerry claimed in 2013 that he “opposed the president’s decision to go into Iraq.” While running for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton insisted
that she voted for the resolution simply because “we needed to put
inspectors in, that was the underlying reason why I at least voted to
give President Bush the authority,” and that she did not want to “wage a
preemptive war.” Similarly, during his 2020 presidential campaign,
Biden insisted
he supported Bush’s war resolution not because he actually wanted to
invade Iraq, but because “he needed the vote to be able to get
inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was
engaged in dealing with a nuclear program,” and further claiming that,
“Immediately, the moment it started, I came out against the war at that
moment.”
In reality, at the time of the vote on the war resolution, the Iraqi
government had already agreed in principle to a return of the weapons
inspectors and were negotiating with the United Nations Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission on the details which were
formally institutionalized a few weeks later. (Indeed, it would have
likely been resolved earlier had the Bush administration not repeatedly
postponed the UN Security Council resolution in the hopes of inserting
language that would have allowed the United States to unilaterally
interpret the level of compliance.) In addition, all three of these
senators voted against the substitute amendment
by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, which would have also
granted President Bush authority to use force, but only if Iraq defied
subsequent UN demands regarding the inspections process. Instead, they
voted for the Republican-sponsored resolution to give President Bush the
authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own
choosing, regardless of whether inspectors returned.
More critically, when Bush launched the March 2003 invasion a full
four months after large-scale weapons inspections had begun with no
signs of any proscribed weapons or weapons facilities, Clinton, Biden
and Kerry still argued that the invasion was necessary and lawful.
Biden defended
the imminent launch of the invasion by saying, “I support the
president. Diplomacy over avoiding war is dead. … I do not see any
alternative. It is not as if we can back away now.” He added, “Let loose
the dogs of war. I’m confident we will win.”
Meanwhile,
when last we saw Moqtada and his massive man boobs (MOOBS), he was
retreating from the political process in a huff, pulling a Greta Garbo,
he just wanted to be alone. Look who's back. MEMO reports:
On Tuesday, the leader of the Sadrist
movement, Muqtada Al-Sadr, agreed "to dialogue, if it is public, and in
order to exclude all participants in the previous political and
electoral processes."
Commenting on the briefing given by the
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations
Assistance Mission for Iraq, Jeanine Plasschaert, he said in a tweet,
"With regard to the briefing by the UN representative, what she said
caught my attention as she said the main reason for what is happening in
Iraq is the corruption that everyone agrees exists."
"Indeed, this is very true and accurate,
and the first step for gradual reform is the exclusion of the old faces,
their parties and people from the next government in accordance with
the aspirations of the rebellious people," noted Al-Sadr.
Moqtada
ignores his own corruption, of course. And he wants newbies because
he's still hopeful that he could dominate the process. He thought he
could do that back in November as well. That's what led to months and
months of the political stalemate. In case anyone forgot, the
government should have been formed after the elections and the elections
were October 10, 2021 -- we're four days short of a year since the
elections and there is still no new prime minister, still no new
president, still no cabinet.
Let's note this tweet:
On
the day of the protests, we noted this was not Moqtada's protest. This
was The October Revolution which began in 2019. But if you're still
confused -- and a few e-mails are coming from confused people -- a
protest that Moqtada was responsible for would not have slogans against
Moqtada.
It's a media failure because the US media largely
ignored The October Revolution and only covers protests if Moqtada's
involved. But after a year or two, if you're still weighing in and
getting wrong, I think you have to take some responsibility and not pin
it all on the media. Exactly how many times are you going to trust the
US media on the topic of Iraq considering their well known history of
lying the country into war? Or are we still pretending it was all just
Judith Miller?
Those words were spoken
by president Joe Biden at the recent Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)
Annual Legislative Conference. No doubt he was purposefully evoking
Congressman James Clyburn’s 2020 endorsement. Clyburn famously said,
“I know Joe. We know Joe. But most importantly, Joe knows us.” The
identity of the other party in the first person plural was never stated,
but was widely assumed to mean Black people. The oligarchs of the
democratic party had chosen Biden and that meant Clyburn went along as
well. He is not the king maker he is made out to be. Of course the
importance of his endorsement extended beyond the South Carolina primary
and was considered to be a stamp of approval for all of Black America.
The CBC hasn’t improved any since that time. The annual conference
host is the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which this year
secured a sponsorship from Amazon, the corporation whose warehouse
workers suffer injuries at double the rates
of counterparts at other companies. Amazon’s low pay and working
conditions churn out low income workers so rapidly that in many places
their warehouses have run out of people to hire. The behemoth
corporation fought tooth and nail against a successful Black led
unionizing drive at one of their warehouses in New York.
As always the CBC conference was sponsored by corporate giants such
as Amazon, Coca Cola, Pepsico, Delta airlines, Bank of America, fossil
fuel corporations Dominion Energy, BP, Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, and
big pharma corporations such as Genentech, Johnson & Johnson,
Ferring, and Bristol Meyers Squibb. It is no coincidence that
Congressman Clyburn receives more campaign money from big pharma than
any other member of the House of Representatives. As the House Whip he
is unlikely to allow any legislation that his funders would not want to
see realized.
Biden acted like the good white boss in his appearance, telling jokes
about attending Howard University, bragging about appointing Ketanji
Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and supporting Historically Black
Colleges and Universities, “With the CBC, we invested an historic $5.8
billion dollars — that’s “B” with a — “B” — billion dollars…” He even
told a story about the Voting Rights Act being passed when neither he
nor CBC members seemed to be concerned about protecting it after SCOTUS
made its most important provisions null and void. Biden bragged about
Medicare negotiating drug prices but left out the fact that this won’t
happen until 2026 and will apply to only ten drugs. Kingmaker Clyburn
surely played a role in securing that outcome.
The Black political class is doing what it always does, serving as a
prominent buffer class, and giving a pass to the democratic party. That
is their most important function, not fighting for their constituents,
but keeping their constituents in line by propping up Obama or Biden or
any other democratic president while mouthing fake condemnation when
republicans are in office.
If Biden is the good white boss who can tell jokes and get reliable
laughs in return, he won’t be taken to task for giving Ukraine and the
military industrial complex $80 billion. He won’t be asked about the
failure of Build Back Better or why the majority Black city of Jackson,
Mississippi has a failing infrastructure that doesn’t provide clean
water.
