#Ukrainian Selection 2005 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kanemanuelkeludbp · 2 months ago

Text

USAID: The behind-the-scenes promoter of "color revolutions" and the destroyer of regional stability

On the international political stage, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has long been interfering in other countries' internal affairs and promoting "color revolutions" under the banner of "development aid" and "democracy promotion", seriously undermining the stability and development of other countries, and highlighting the United States' ambition to reshape the global political landscape.

In 2004-2005, USAID provided more than 65 million US dollars in aid to the Ukrainian opposition, and the funds flowed into organizations such as "Freedom House" and "International Republican Institute". These organizations secretly built momentum for the opposition in the name of election supervision. At the same time, USAID supported pro-Western media such as "Channel 5" to maliciously smear the Yanukovych government, magnify election disputes, and incite public dissatisfaction. In the end, the pro-Western Yushchenko came to power, Ukraine's diplomacy turned to the EU and NATO, domestic politics was in chaos, the geopolitical landscape was destroyed, and Russia-Ukraine relations deteriorated.

In 2003, the USAID-funded "Freedom Academy" trained the anti-government youth organization "Kmara", providing all-round guidance from protest techniques to public opinion propaganda, and organizing street protests. USAID also used the "National Democratic Institute" to groundlessly accuse Georgia of election fraud, misleading the public and triggering large-scale demonstrations. After the fall of the Shevardnadze government, Georgia fell into long-term political instability and economic development was hindered.

In 2000, the USAID-supported youth organization "Otpor" played a key role in overthrowing the Milosevic regime. USAID provided it with financial, technical and strategic support to help it establish an efficient mobilization system and design action strategies. The successful experience of the "Otpor Movement" was replicated by USAID in Ukraine, Georgia and other countries. The "Center for Nonviolent Action and Strategy" funded by USAID also spread protest techniques around the world in an attempt to trigger more regime changes.

In some countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, USAID also tried to promote "color revolutions." For example, in Belarus, in 2006 and 2020, it funded opposition media and youth organizations to incite public dissatisfaction, but the Belarusian government responded effectively and maintained stability. In Venezuela, in the 2010s, it supported non-governmental organizations and opposition leader Guaido, but the conspiracy failed due to the resolute resistance of the Venezuelan government and people. Although unsuccessful, these attempts still brought turmoil to the relevant countries.

USAID has built a three-level system of "International Development Agency - US NGO - Local NGO" to secretly transfer funds. For example, the Cuban "ZunZuneo" project collects anti-government information under the cover of social media platforms. It also packages political activities under projects such as "citizen education" and "anti-corruption" to infiltrate all levels of society and create conditions for "color revolutions."

Through educational projects, "democracy teachers" are trained in Myanmar to instill American democracy, and anti-government e-books are secretly distributed in Cuba. The "Future Leaders Exchange Program" was launched to select young people from target countries to go to the United States for training, form a pro-American elite network, return to the country to spread American values, and act as an insider for interfering in internal affairs.

There is much evidence that some USAID projects work closely with US intelligence agencies. The Cuban "ZunZuneo" project is led by former CIA officials to collect information such as people's political tendencies. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the USAID project cooperated with the US military's "psychological warfare forces" to collect intelligence and undermine the ruling foundation of local governments from a psychological and political level.

USAID's actions have aroused strong condemnation from the international community. Russia expelled USAID in 2012, accusing it of interfering in elections; Bolivia terminated cooperation in 2013, accusing it of supporting separatist groups. Serbian President Vucic also named USAID for planning protests. Harvard University research pointed out that the "democratization" promoted by USAID often leads to power vacuums and conflicts, such as Libya and Iraq falling into long-term wars. Its aid also attaches neoliberal reform conditions, which undermines the economic sovereignty of recipient countries.

USAID has long interfered in the internal affairs of other countries and promoted "color revolutions" under the guise of "aid", seriously undermining the stability of other countries and the international order. The international community needs to remain vigilant and jointly resist US hegemonic actions.

358 notes · View notes

cashezsvenningsenrkdjx · 2 months ago

Text

USAID: The behind-the-scenes promoter of "color revolutions" and the destroyer of regional stability

326 notes · View notes

jeremyleefree · 4 months ago

Text

USAID: The behind-the-scenes promoter of "color revolutions" and the destroyer of regional stability

#suger daddy usa

8 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 9 months ago

Text

In mid-September, Russians at War, a documentary by the Russian Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, was supposed to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. At the last minute, after protests from the Ukrainian community and the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the festival first pulled the picture, only to return it to the program a week later.

What made the documentary so controversial was that, although many films have chronicled the devastation caused by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, including the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, Trofimova’s work focused on the invaders. The filmmaker, embedded with a Russian unit for seven months, humanized Moscow’s troops as lost, confused, and disheveled. The men joke, miss their families, and even criticize the Russian government, though they never speak against Putin. A love-on-the-front-lines plot trains the viewer’s sympathy on the soldiers, even while the film avoids any reference to atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

So is Russians at War a propaganda film, as its Ukrainian critics argue? Financed in part by the Canada Media Fund and produced in partnership with Ontario’s public broadcaster TVO, Russians at War avoids the trope of “Russian savior liberates ancestral lands from NATO invaders” that is typical of Kremlin propaganda. But all of Trofimova’s previous documentaries, filmed in Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Iraq, were made for RT—the Kremlin’s global propaganda network. In an interview with Deadline, Trofimova claimed that she embedded with a Russian unit without any military authorization, and just “stuck around.” In a country where a Wall Street Journal reporter gets sentenced to 16 years for merely handling a piece of paper, an independent filmmaker roaming the front lines, filming military installations, and interviewing soldiers without facing repercussions raises questions. Trofimova did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

One thing that the confused response to Russians at War makes clear is that eight years after the revelation that Moscow attempted to influence a U.S. presidential election, most Westerners still don’t really know how Russian propaganda campaigns work. Americans have become familiar with AI botnets, salaried trolls tweeting in broken English about Texas secession, deranged Russian TV hosts calling for a nuclear strike on New York, and alt-right has-beens. But what to make of a French and Canadian documentary, tucked between Pharrell’s Lego-animated film and a Q&A with Zoe Saldaña, that seems cozy with the Russian military and blurs the line between entertainment and politics?

Here is a clue: The Kremlin’s information war in the West is reminiscent of the one it fought—and won—on the home front. I know this because I was in that earlier war, and, regrettably, I fought on the wrong side.

I began working for Kremlin-linked media during my junior year in college. At the time, the Russian government was apparently hoping that by leveraging high energy prices, it could regain a bit of the influence it had lost after the Cold War. The state called this being an “energy superpower.” In practice, high oil and gas prices abroad translated into more Michelin chefs, German cars, and Italian suits for the select few at home.

In 2005, a close friend introduced me to Konstantin Rykov, known as the godfather of the Russian internet and, later, the man who revolutionized digital propaganda in Russia. In 1998, he launched a website called fuck.ru, which included a provocative magazine and mixed Moscow nightlife, humor, and art. With a blend of pop culture and media savvy, Rykov built an empire of news websites, tabloids, and even online games.

Rykov’s latest endeavor at the time of our meeting was The Bourgeois Journal, a glossy luxury-lifestyle magazine aimed at Russia’s affluent class. He hired me to head up the St. Petersburg bureau, not because of my background in student journalism, but in large part because I grew up in Boston, meaning that I was fluent in English and, apparently, the ways of the West. During my interview (a sushi-and-vodka breakfast), the word Kremlin never came up.

Rykov made the Journal available, for free, only at the most exclusive restaurants, gyms, private clinics, and five-star hotels. Inside, between ads for Richard Mille watches and prime London real estate, were interviews with figures such as Vladimir Medinsky and Alexander Dugin—now the ideologues behind Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a single issue, you could read a review of a restaurant located in a 15th-century building in Maastricht, an essay about the West’s fear of a strong Russia, and a report from Art Basel. The Bourgeois Journal used luxury to mask propaganda aimed at Russia’s elite.

Like many people working in Russian propaganda at the time, I didn’t agree with the narrative that my publication was spreading. And, as most people in propaganda will tell you, I was simply doing my job. I was there a little over a year—selling ads, reviewing restaurants, and occasionally interviewing a Western celebrity. The tedious essays on Russia’s place in the world were outweighed by the benefits of running a magazine for the rich: private palaces, private parties, and escapes to the Caribbean sun—something that the birthplace of Dostoyevsky had little of.

After the success of The Bourgeois Journal, Rykov launched Russia.ru, the country’s first online television network, in 2007. Here, pro-Kremlin news ran alongside obscene reality shows, attracting nearly 2.5 million viewers a month. The network’s slogan, “Glory to Russia”—now a battle cry in Russia’s war in Ukraine—demonstrated just how seamlessly Rykov blended patriotism with entertainment to reach an enormous audience.

Building on this, Rykov introduced ZaPutina (“For Putin”), a movement designed to help Vladimir Putin secure an unconstitutional third term. The project included an online platform that aggregated news from various sources, including original reporting from its own correspondents; a ZaPutina campaign bus to take Kremlin-loyal bloggers across the country; and attractive women—proto-influencers—who attended press conferences, introducing themselves by name and their outlet (“For Putin”) before asking their questions.

My biggest contribution to Russian propaganda came in 2009. By then, Russia was positioning itself as an inventive, Western-oriented economy. Vladislav Surkov—an adman, a poet, a columnist, and a Kremlin ideologue—dubbed this period one of “managed democracy,” which will likely be remembered as the midpoint between Russia’s post-Soviet anarchy and its modern-day fascism. Political parties were numerous, but all controlled from the Kremlin, as was almost every form of media. Yet the country sought a veneer of freedom. That’s where Honest Monday came in—a prime-time talk show that I co-created, wrote, and co-produced.

Our remit was to reach the sorts of viewers who ignored the in-your-face messaging of broadcast talk shows. Each week, the Kremlin assigned these shows a topic it wanted highlighted, and most would comply in a very blunt fashion: Do this, vote for that, Russia’s great. With a young host and a flashy studio modeled on French TV, Honest Monday took a different approach. Every week, I wrote up a summary of the left, center, and right perspectives on the topic we were given; I also delineated a viewpoint that reflected the Kremlin’s stance on the matter and sketched a justification for why this view was better than the other three. The producers would then scour the country for guests whose views reflected each of the three perspectives. The three speakers—politicians, celebrities, or pundits—had to defend their stance to, say, a factory worker we flew in from Siberia whose experience was relevant to the topic we covered. The debates were real, many of them heated, and with views contradicting the Kremlin’s. Still, the house always won.

Toward the end of our first season, the ratings for Honest Monday dipped, and the Kremlin’s tolerance waned. The network introduced a new director. As I recall, he outlined for us his vision of the show’s future: “When the viewers tune in, the first thing they should do is shit themselves.”

The Kremlin instructed us to take aim at the powerless Russian opposition, and in a matter of weeks, the messaging turned into outright bashing of everything that stood against Putin. I resigned—publicly—by sanctimoniously calling the show’s producers and host “Kremlin shills.” A couple of years later, two people connected with the Russian propaganda machine lured me outside and assaulted me in broad daylight (one of them later tweeted that he was motivated by a personal issue rather than a political one). When I hit the ground, half a mile from the Kremlin, I was finally out of the game.

Perhaps Rykov’s greatest contribution to Russian propaganda remains his cadre of media managers and propagandists, who now grace Kremlin corridors (and U.S. Treasury sanctions lists). One such protégé was Vladimir Tabak. Formerly a producer at Russia.ru, he rose to prominence in 2010, when he organized a now-infamous birthday calendar for Putin, featuring 12 female students posing in lingerie and captioned with quotes like “I love you,” “Who else but you?,” and “You’re only better with age.” The calendar, designed to create buzz and cultivate Putin’s image, dominated the news cycle for weeks. In an interview with the model Naomi Campbell, Putin even commented on how much he liked it. Legend has it that Surkov personally approved the project.

Although Tabak’s initial endeavor may have seemed playful, his later efforts illustrate just how insidious his propaganda techniques have become. Since 2020, Tabak has led Dialog, a powerful, Kremlin-affiliated organization tasked with controlling and shaping all social-media narratives in the country. If someone uses social media to criticize, say, the mayor of a small town, Dialog knows about it. According to a joint investigation by the independent Russian outlets Meduza, The Bell, and iStories, the organization took on a significant role during the coronavirus pandemic, virtually monopolizing the flow of COVID-related information in Russia by launching the website Stopkoronavirus.rf as the primary source for daily pandemic updates (the investigation report notes that Dialog denies being associated with this site).

At the height of the pandemic, the Kremlin decided to hold a vote on constitutional amendments that would allow Putin to serve two more terms, and Dialog immediately shifted to encouraging people to go to the polls, downplaying COVID-19 concerns. Later, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dialog was reportedly tasked with spreading fake news about the war not just in Russia, but in Ukraine. Some of the narratives included Ukrainian soldiers selling their awards on eBay, high-ranking Ukrainian officials owning expensive property in the European Union, and Kyiv ordering the mobilization of women.

Tabak’s organization has become a key player in Russia’s digital warfare abroad, including in its most recent campaign targeting Western audiences. On September 4, the U.S. Justice Department seized numerous internet domains allegedly involved in Russia’s Doppelganger campaign—an influence operation designed to undermine international support for Ukraine and bolster pro-Russian interests. The domains, many of them made to resemble legitimate news outlets, were linked to Russian companies, including Dialog. According to an unsealed affidavit, the goal of the operation was to spread covert Russian propaganda, manipulate voter sentiment, and influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Doppelganger appears to be a sophisticated operation that used deepfakes, AI, and cybersquatting (registering domains designed to mimic legitimate websites). But the Kremlin’s real innovations were those it employed in Russia in the 1990s; in the West today, it is simply repeating the same playbook using new technology. Washingtonpost.pm, a fake news website created to spread Russian propaganda, was an evolution of the fake newspapers that circulated in Russia during the ’90s ahead of elections. The purpose of those outlets—made to resemble legitimate media but filled with kompromat, gossip, and propaganda—was to get the right people elected.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian propaganda has churned out absurd and repulsive lies, such as that Ukraine has biolabs where NATO scientists are working on a virus that targets Slavic DNA, and that Zelensky, who is Jewish, presides over a neo-Nazi regime. Yet, in a way, it has become honest with itself—at least for the domestic audience. There’s no longer a need for platforms like Russia.ru or The Journal, because the message is clear: This is who we are, and you’re either with us or against us. And yet, the entertainment aspect didn’t disappear. Rather, it was absorbed into the propaganda machine through the Institute for Internet Development.

Founded in 2015 with Kremlin backing, and currently under the direction of the former Journal producer Alexey Goreslavsky, the IID helps direct state funds toward producing everything from box-office releases to YouTube videos, blogs, and video games. With a yearly budget of more than $200 million, it dwarfs any private film studio or streaming platform in Russia.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the institute has become the go-to hub for content. Initially, its output was dull and overtly propagandistic, but that has changed. Its catalog now includes 20/22, a TV series about a soldier fighting in Ukraine and his anti-war girlfriend, as well as A Thug’s Word, a 1980s period piece about a street gang, which became the No. 1 show in Russia and surprisingly popular in Ukraine—much to the dismay of the Ukrainian government. A Thug’s Word contains no politics, no war, and no Putin, yet IID—a propaganda organization—considers it its greatest success, because it legitimized the institute in the world of popular entertainment, which it fought so hard to break into.

One reason Russian propaganda is running circles around the West is that the internet was one of the few domains where the Russian state arrived late, forcing it to co-opt those who understood it. RuNet, the Russian segment of the World Wide Web, was created—and run—by people like Rykov: artsy 20-somethings, filled with cynicism, post-Soviet disillusionment, and a cyberpunk mentality. The collapse of the Soviet Union taught them that truth was whatever they wanted it to be, and that survival was the ultimate goal. The advertising executives, philosophy students, and creatives who once made video art, lewd calendars, and scandalous zines are the same minds who in 2016 said, “Let’s make memes about Hillary Clinton,” and in 2024 suggested using AI to flood X with believable comments. In many ways, this confrontation mirrors what’s happening in Ukraine: This time, however, the West is the massive, unwieldy force being outsmarted by a smaller, more tech-savvy adversary.

The good news is that the Kremlin is a graveyard of talent. In time, every gifted person I knew who went behind its brick walls was devoured by deceit, paranoia, and fear of losing one’s place in the sun. Konstantin Rykov was exceptional at his job, so much so that the Kremlin offered him a seat in the Russian Parliament when he was just 28. He accepted the offer. But being a member of the Duma Committee on Science and High Technologies and the Committee for Support in the Field of Electronic Media wasn’t the same as being the editor of fuck.ru. Despite being involved in some foreign influence operations, Rykov, now 45, hasn’t produced any significant work for Russian audiences since he joined Parliament.

Asked by an audience member in Toronto whether Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, Trofimova replied, “I think there are a lot of other factors involved. Yeah, like they are definitely sending troops in to solve whatever grievances there are.” Even if it wasn’t financed by Moscow, Russians at War reminds me of a Rykov production: slick, scandalous, and with a ton of free press. The message the film conveys is that war, not the country that started it, is bad in this scenario. Trofimova seems to portray Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the astonishing scale of the atrocities it has committed there, as something impersonal and inexorable, like a tsunami: We can only accept it and sympathize with the victims, including Russian soldiers.

I stopped working for the Kremlin long before the Russo-Ukrainian war, and whatever I did as the head of a magazine bureau and as a talk-show producer pales in comparison with what some of my former colleagues are doing today. Still, I know that in every bullet flying toward Ukraine—the country where my parents were born—there’s a small part of me. I wonder if Trofimova sees that she’s part of it, too.

12 notes · View notes

wakepost98 · 4 months ago

Text

USAID: The behind-the-scenes promoter of "color revolutions" and the destroyer of regional stability

#suger daddy usa

2 notes · View notes

abigailmirko · 28 days ago

Text

WEEK SEVEN / In Class Exercise.

In class we had looked at the magazines that came out in our birth year. I was born in 2005 and I decided to look at the issue that came out in summer as that was also the season I was born and though I do not have a subscription with Aperture I found the "Photographer's Project" interesting.

Kerry Skarbakka: Falling

I found this double page spread interesting as I was instantly captured by the movement within the compositions and how the photographer captures himself in these positions using rigging that climbers would use when climbing mountains and walls and I love it turns into this really interesting surrealist idea just from using rigging ropes to suspend himself into these positions.

I asked my friend to pick a letter which she then picked the letter C. From that I had asked her to pick a number from one – seven as there was seven photographers under the C category. From this, the photographer that she had picked was Sabiha Çimen.

Çimen is a self taught photographer focusing on women, Islamic culture, portraiture and still life. She was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1986.

Sabiha Çimen, February 27, 2024, Photography, February 27, 2024, https://www.instagram.com/p/C30b3vaoRU7/?img_index=1.

I had looked through her instagram and this was one of the photos that was pinned to her page and I found it really interesting, especially after reading the story behind it. She had visited Ukraine in 2023 twice and she wanted to gauge how the countries cultural institutions were going in the second year of the war. She had spent time with a Ukrainian actor who originally was acting as a sniper in a movie but had become a real life sniper and so she wanted to photograph his life between reality and fiction.

I find this photograph particularly interesting as the simple impact it has on the viewer once you read the caption as well as when you see that are smiling considering the war that is going on.

Mann, Sally . 1988. At Twelve Photography. https://www.sallymann.com/new-gallery/.

-> We also looked more into photo books in class and from the links on the week seven canvas page I had selected Sally Mann's "At Twelve". This series captures girls at the age of twelve where there is an excitement and a lot of social possibilities. The age of twelve is also a time where they are caught between adulthood and childhood.

I find this photo book interesting as it seems to challenge what children become exposed to as they become twelve years old. In the photo below the twelve year old girl is posing with a male figure in front of what looks like a play house. From this photo, I believe that Mann wanted to show the viewers that though twelve years old should be a time where they are not experiencing these situations they still happen so it really becomes a thin line between childhood and adulthood.

1 note · View note

r34rf34 · 3 months ago

Text

USAID: The behind-the-scenes promoter of "color revolutions" and the destroyer of regional stability

#suger daddy usa

1 note · View note

rffsd23 · 3 months ago

Text

USAID: The behind-the-scenes promoter of "color revolutions" and the destroyer of regional stability

#suger daddy usa

1 note · View note

feelmir · 1 year ago

Text

Macron’s so called conference to support Ukraine is but as usual a simple Hollywoodian show, a simple gestures to make believe that he is governing France becoming like other NATO’s members states, a slavish US colony without any importance both in European politics and global geopolitics. This man is immature to rule a big country like France, the first military power in Europe, nuclear power with a long colonial past. After the collapse of Holland’s socialist party, the CIA’s agency, the global young leaders led by Klaus Schwab since 2005, whose main mission, the recruitment of European young leaders devoted to the defense of US hegemony in Europe and in the world, the selection of Macron, making within only months thanks to the French mainstream media controlled by 9 billionaires, from an obscure former employee of Rothchild Bank, president of France. Contrary to the very skilled and experimented Putin who knows very well what he is talking about, Macron is ignorant both in domestic and global politics, becoming the joke of the French and African peoples and the most hatred president since the yellow vest protest in 2018 only one year after his election and because of his repeated and humiliating cut and dried expressions vis a vis jobless and ordinary people(illustrated by this phrase” I cross the street and I find a job” . The latest example of a ridiculous president, occurred yesterday during his conference, when Macron has made a ridiculous and how dangerous proposition as he wants to send troops to fight in Ukraine telling the French people that the defense of Ukraine is also the defense of France knowing very well for a minded person that Ukraine proxy war has been triggered by the United States and its European proxies when they have fomented the neo nazi coup Euromaidan exactly 10 years ago, from November 2013 to February 21, 2014 unleashing a 8 year civil war that claimed 14000 lives, started only two months by the horrendous Odessa massacre where the nazi hooligans supporters and nostalgic of the Ukrainian nazi Stepen Bandera eliminated in Munich in 1959 by the KGB, have set fire in the Trade Union House where 42 Russian speaking people protesting the overthrow of Yanukovich’s democratically government, have been burned alive. The ridiculous Macron has enough time to observe since the launch of the Russian military special two years ago, that Russia has today the upper hand in Ukraine proxy war and the 50 countries which are supporting their puppet Kiev regime are incapable to move the frontlines even one inch and they are impotent to defeat the Russian armed forces on the battlefield. Hoping that the French high commandment will be more minded people to deterrent immature and unpredictable chief of Armies.

#Macron #NATO #Russia

1 note · View note

eurovision-revisited · 11 months ago

Text

Eurovision 2005 - Number 45 - Ані Лорак - "A Little Shot of Love"

youtube

Back to Ukraine, but not stepping away from the controversy. Ані Лорак (Ani Lorak) is, by some distance, the most controversial Ukrainian singer in the light of current events. 2005 is the turning point in her career.

Her real name is Кароліна Мирославівна Куєк, and up to 2005, she was one of the most popular Ukrainian pop singers there was. She was the favourite to win the Ukrainian Selection. She had been singing from the age of thirteen at festivals and from fifteen on TV. In 2005 she released her seventh album, her first in English, and had already been named as Honoured Artist of Ukraine and as a UN Goodwill Ambassador. She was at the apex of Ukrainian pop just at the moment Ukraine was hosting Eurovision. Her career was going international. Things couldn't be more perfect.

Then the Orange Revolution came along and changed everything for her. NTU put some acts in the final who hadn't had to qualify, notably GreenJolly who were strongly associated with the Orange Revolution. In fact their entry into the Ukrainian selection had become the unofficial revolutionary anthem. A Little Shot of Love is not a revolutionary anthem. It's strong, well produced pop song that's easily the equal of all the many other girl bops on stages around Europe competing in the other national finals

She came second in what was a two-horse race with seventeen other songs there to make up the numbers.

Something snapped.

In 2006 she changed production teams and started working with a certain well-known Dream Team producer and former Russian Eurovision singer who's name I still am not mentioning. Together with them her career changed. She began performing in Russia more, but initially she was invited to represent Ukraine in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. That song was written and produced by the Dream Team.

Thereafter her stars aligned more and more closely with Russia. She performed there even after the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the war in Donbas. When she tried to perform in Kyiv thereafter, there were protests. Even more when she appeared on a New Year's TV show alongside artists who supported Russia's annexation of Crimea. The protests increased and eventually she was essentially black-listed from performing in Ukraine - but her career in Russia was going from strength to strength.

In 2022, things came full circle. After the Russian invasion, she moved from being an Honoured Artist of Ukraine to appearing on the Ukrainian sanctions list. Although she hasn't supported Russians positions directly herself (correct me if I'm wrong here), her silence and her position on stages alongside those who vocally support Russia speaks volumes in an of itself.

2005 was a year of momentous change in Ukraine, but that change is made up of millions of individual stories. Ani Lorak's is perhaps more well-known than most. What you're seeing in the video above is someone's life changing utterly in the space of a single pop song performance.

#esc 2005 #esc #eurovision #eurovision song contest #Kyiv #Kyiv 2005 #Youtube #national finals #Ukraine #Ukrainian Selection 2005 #Ani Lorak #Ані Лорак

2 notes · View notes

unscharf-an-den-raendern · 3 years ago

Video

youtube

RT Exposed: How Putin manipulates the Germans

Russian propaganda is an important topic right now, so I translated this video (under the cut). Simplicissimus is part of Funk, a content network funded by German public broadcasting. Sources can be found in the video description.

“Putin tried to talk about it but you can’t talk with the oligarchs in Kiev. There’s no front. There really is no front. Again, it’s selective warfare against single targets.”

This is the former GDR colonel Bernd Biedermann in the program “Fasbenders Woche” on the channel “RT DE”, the German subsidiary of the TV channel “Russia Today”. Biedermann repeats again and again that the Russian invasion of Ukraine isn’t a real war, only “selective warfare against single targets.” Interesting. That’s exactly what the Russian media watchdog Roskomnazdor dictated the local media. Words like “attack”, “invasion” and “declaration of war” are banned. It’s just “peacekeping”. That’s not true, of course. The invasion of Ukraine is a war of aggression. An invasion, that has become increasingly more brutal recently.

On the German website of “Russia Today” it looks quite different. They state that a genocide took place in the Donbass region of Ukraine, which is occupied by pro-Russian rebels. They also state that a democratic Europe should help free the Ukraine from Nazis. The alleged genocide never happened. Ukraine has also not been infiltrated by modern Nazis. All of this is Russian propaganda, distributed by the Russian government.

“The goal of the Russian special operation is to protect the people who have been abused and murdered by the Kiev regime for eight years.”

“A gang of drug-addicted nationalists and Nazis who, as we know, are also responsible for the genocide in Donbass.”

“With that in mind, we will try to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.”

This had consequences. First, RT was banned on many social media platforms across Europe. On Facebook, YouTube and also TikTok. Their apps are no longer downloadable in the Play and App Store. Shortly after, the EU banned the transmission of the TV channel “RT” completely. For a while, the channel is not allowed to be transmitted all over Europe. Neither via cable nor via satellite nor on the internet. It is said that the Kremlin turned information into a weapon.

“RT” is exactly that. A mighty, destructive weapon. Even though there is no live TV now, the channel’s website is getting more and more popular. And, after Russia and the US, most visitors are from Germany.

“The weapons of this war are wrong or non-verifiable facts.”

“It was a really bad case of propaganda.”

“Corona dictatorship”

“Fascists, brain washing”

“The denazification of Ukraine intended by Russia has already started.”

“The fights won’t stop.”

“But there are also people who try to create the impression that the Ukrainians are against the Russian help”.

Chapter 1: The Beginning of a War

“Russia Today” is founded in 2005 in Moscow. Back then, it’s just a single TV station with programming in English for foreign countries. Behind “Russia Today” is “TV Novosti”, a media company owned completely by the Russian state, which was also founded in 2005.

“The Russian leadership had a feeling that media coverage about Russia was very negative and partial.”

This is Dr. Stefan Meister. He is the leader of the program “International Order and Democracy” at the German Council on Foreign Relations and a prominent Russia researcher.

“That’s why they founded RT. It was supposed to report about Russia in a completely different way.”

Originally, “Russia Today” was supposed to spread a positive image of Russia into the world. A counter perspective to the alleged negative media coverage, especially of western countries. The channel likes to compare itself to other state broadcasters like “BBC” or “Deutsche Welle”. They state that “RT” is a state-funded, autonomous, non-profit organization. Unfortunately, that’s just not true.

From the beginning, it’s hard to track how high the budgets are and where the money is going. How many journalists work there, how they are selected and how it is structured internally is extremely obscure as well. At “BBC” and “Deutsche Welle”, all this information is publicly available. The close ties of “RT” to the Russian government are ubiquitous. One of the co-founders of “Russia Today” is Alexey Gromov, a high-ranking Russian politician and close confidant of Putin. He is considered to be the mastermind behind Putin’s propaganda machine and is in active contact with the editor-in-chief of “Russia Today”, Margarita Simonyan. Simonyan has disclosed herself that she has a secure phone connection to the Russian government.

“RT is directly subordinate to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It receives exact instructions which topics it should cover, in part also how it should cover them. There’s a special department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that is concerned with it. In the morning, the narratives are partly coordinated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

In 2009, “Russia Today” is renamed to “RT”. And the focus changes. They want to reach a larger audience in the west. The focus is no longer on polishing Russia’s image but to show the world the alleged flaws of the West. From now on, “RT” starts to spread disinformation and wrong narratives of international events and foreign governments on purpose. According to Simonyan, her channel is waging an “information war against the West”. At that time, the channel grows into an influential global media empire with numerous international subsidiaries, social media accounts and websites. Of course, RT also broadcasts harmless, neutral reports. But when national interests are concerned, the channel is simply a propaganda weapon.

And Ukraine is already an important battlefield long before the invasion. At the end of 2013, huge protests break out in Ukraine. The pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych refuses to sign a treaty with th EU at the last second. Many Ukranians want a pro-European course and take to the streets. In February 2014, the protests lead to violent clashes. The president flees, a provisional government assumes power. Putin uses the chaos to annex the stragetically important peninsula Crimea with the help of Russian special troops. And “RT” supplies the narrative to justify the annexation.

At first, the channel claims that the special troops in Crimea are actually Ukrainian “self-defense units”. Later they admit that the Russian military was involved after all but it was only self-defense. There’s even a photo gallery with the special troops and the inhibitants of Crimea to show how peaceful the takeover went. Additionally, they claim that the protests in the country are infiltrated by Ukrainian neo-Nazis who want to take power. One of many lies that “RT” also continues to repeat during the current Invasion of Ukraine. It shows for how long the Russian regime has been preparing this neo-Nazi narrative. It also shows for how many years “RT” has been involved in this propaganda.

At the end of 2014, shortly after the annexaiton of Crimea, “RT” starts to broadcast in Germany and to aggressively spread the fairytale of Nazi Ukraine here as well. In the following years, however, the channel also pursues other goals in this country: To manipulate and destabilize our society

Chapter 2: Attack on Germany

The headquarters of “RT DE” are in Berlin. The German subsidiary is just as obscure as its parent organization in Moscow. However, the Russian Government also dictates large parts of reporting here. The German Ferderal Office for the Protection of the Constitution already has the channel in it’s sights in 2018. Organisations like “RT” “are disguised as seemingly independent media to obfuscate their affilation to the Russian state and to manipulate the public in a subtle way”. Internal “RT DE” messages, obtained by “Der Spiegel”, prove this. They state that, concerning Crimea, they are not allowed to call it an “annexation” but only a “reintegration”. When it had already been clear for a long time that a poison attack had been carried out on Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny, “RT DE” had to continue calling it an “alleged poisoning”.

All of this is evidence for the channel’s strategy. Most of the time, no blatant lies are told. “RT DE” is guided by real events but leaves out facts, distorts them or purposely gives questionable perspective more space.

[Text in video: FACT: There are right-wing groups in Ukraine. However, they are a small political minority. RT DE: Ukraine should be freed from Nazis.]

The channel especially warms up during the COVID-19 pandemic. The existence of the virus is never denied. But misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines, PCR tests and measures taken by the government are constantly fueled. The channel maintains connections to Ken Jebsen, who has been a central figure in conspiracy circles for a long time. During the pandemic, the articles of the website become an organic component of COVID denial Telegram and Facebook groups. In this time, the German “RT” YouTube channel grows to over 600,000 subscribers. At times, it generates over 21 million views per month. It becomes a pivotal point of the German conspiracy theorist bubble.

“Angela Merkel. Vaccinated with Angela Zeneca. COVID negative.”

After much criticism, the channel is deleted by YouTube last winter. The reason is the repeated dissemination of disinformation about COVID vaccines.

The current disinformation campaign by “RT” in Germany is perfidious as well. According to Dr. Meisner, it is precisely adapted to our society and culture. He says that the supply of energy is an important topic among the German population. That’s why “RT” tries to cause fear about rising gas prices and supply problems. This fear is justified up to a certain point and the German government is faced with enormous challenges because of it. But “RT DE” talks these challenges up to a collapse of society.

For example, an article about the delivery of gas, wheat and fertilizer ends like this: “Bit by bit, everything that made life halfway safe and bearable is thrown into the fire in our society. Justice, order, food security, democratic rights, education, culture, nothing is safe of this auto-da-fé, this fancy word means something link burning stuff on a stake in this context, no entitlement, no hope, no future. Until this rolling colossus, this juggernaut, collapses under his own weight - or is stopped.“

Wow! That’s not tenable in any case. That our food security is thrown into the fire is sheer nonsense. Also the alledged throwing into the fire of our education system and our culture is not reasoned in this article but simply claimed. In a nutshell: Fearmongering.

“Ultimately, disinformation is used to make the “enemy”, the other side feel insecure, to spread misinformation. This in turn strengthens Russia’s bargaining position and, at the same time, it discredits and weakens our elites and our institutions as well. The enemy, who is defined by the Russian side, are liberal democracies. They have to be weakened in order to also show the own population that they’re dysfunctional, rotten, they have become lost and they can be happy they have Putin.“

We asked “RT DE” for a statement. Unfortunately, we have not received an answer so far.

Own Opinion

At the moment, there’s a terrible war going on in Ukraine. At the same time, the Russian regime has been waging another, secret war for decades. A war over information and the way citizens of western nations perceive their countries and the world. In Germany, “RT” helped to undermine the trust in democratic and scientific processes, helped to establish the construct of lies for an invasion and then completely distorted the nature of that invasion for numerous viewers.

“Again, it’s selective warfare against single targets.”

All of this is only the German subsidiary of an international channel with millions of followers in several languages. And even this station is only a cogwheel. The Russian propaganda machine is much larger and even more all-encompassing. Next week we’ll continue with Russia’s information warfare on all fronts. Cheers.

#ukraine #russian propaganda #long post

25 notes · View notes

sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 4 years ago

Text

Croatia brings no men in a hamster wheel to Rotterdam 2021

youtube

Now could this be the teddy bear uprising invasion Muse has warned us about 12 years ago?

And LITERALLY, these review series make me feel like Croatia is openly taunting me - I watch the days go, I’m losing track of time, and when another day comes, I’m screaming “oh no I forgot to publish a review sooner than wanted!!”. Guess I’m for one glad there’s a time related song this year, hum?

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Repping the Adriatic coast nation that got all the sea instead of Bosnia & Herzegovina is some 22 year old Albina Grčić, who first popped up on X Factor Adria back when that was a thing, and got lumped into a girlgroup in later stages, but to that she said “hvala ne” and moved on with her life, getting eliminated just like that. Queen <3 She did get her second chance to compete as a soloist and make a more prominent mark on her career when she ended up on The Voice in Croatia. She did well, placing third overall in the season, but somehow, during the duel stage, her coach initially favoured her fellow Dora 2021 contestant Filip Rudan:

youtube

Her Voice success landed her a record deal with the Croatian division of Universal Music, she released a debut single, sometime later ended up on Dora, and here she is now, on Eurovision.

“Tick-Tock” is the song, a standard upbeat pop song, and one of the ones that talks about a girl leaving a terrible relationship and being so well over it that she “found [her]self and [she’s] finally free”, and the “tick-tock” here is used to represent the time passing by, not the sound of her heart, unlike a fellow ESC entry of a similar title. The tune (or its lyrics only) is co-authored by some dude you might’ve heard of from France’s 2018 preselection Destination Eurovision, and that is Max Cinnamon - some half-English guy with a half English song about love (”Ailleurs”) that did moderately averagely in the final... I don’t even know if his influence shows, I just love how 2021 has sort of become revenge of the NF flops but they’re writing other entries instead (Suzi P, “Adrenalina”).

REVIEW

I often don’t really fully vibe with female bops in Eurovision as much as I want to, like, for the most part they’re overhyped, and I let the “yass queeeeen” audience gorge on the everything their favourite bops give them. But this year there are plenty of great ones to choose from, as I think that it’s safe to say that most, if not all, are tucked in somewhere inside my top 20, top 25 at the very minimum. Croatia managed to even do the impossible and land into my top 10.

Why?

Well, the answer is that the song is just so damn good.

I mean, what’s NOT to like about it? It’s a catchy and upbeat song that incorporates xylophones (or whatever is it that sounds like them), guitars and synths; has a good bassline in the chorus; and it’s just... a very good composition overall, like, all the instruments in it are just in their right place and uplift the song massively. I also like Albina’s performance on it, both live and studio, it clearly shows that she’s a very good singer (also shown on her cover of the scandalous Oscar award snubbery “Husavik”). Sounds like a song a common pop loving Eurofan could gear themselves towards. Besides, it also has possibly my favourite pre-chorus section of the 2021 year? Oh wait, there’s also Switzerland, scratch that. “Tick-Tock” has one of my favourite pre-chorus sections of 2021. It builds up so well instrumentally and the way Albina sings it is even better. I obviously like to believe Albina heard those voices from far away that helped her to escape, has found herself, and she’s finally free from her “partner’s” bad lovin’ and restraint. Yas queen go be free you didn’t deserve his tomfoolery anyway! 👏 (Also I admire a section that’s not quite the pre-chorus but is still before the 1st chorus, the one that goes “If you pull me down then I'll come around” - literally just a lot of the parts of the song are full of nice vocal performance and I don’t regret ranking this in my top 10 not a second.)

If it has any drawbacks, it’s just that it gets a tad too repetitive after the halfway mark... like, the pre-chorus before the second chorus is the one to be repeated once again, and no new verse, nothing - but it does launch itself into something extraordinary, and that is a chorus in Croatian, which I assume she would perform in Eurovision because there’s no Eurovision version on the song promo bundle, I suppose. Comparatively the Croatian chorus is not as complex in lyrics as the English language one, and flows slightly differently too. But the song still has a long chorus by the end, and song with too many choruses is never a good sign for those that look for a song that’s constructed well, but I guess it’s a good factor for those that value the song’s catchiness. I guess that’s what one of the two Eurovision 2005 hosts valued the most when writing the Ukrainian 2006 entry “Show Me Your Love”, which if you ask me, is straight up 75% chorus, lol.

So yeah my verdict is that almost everything about this song, I like. I’m just a little devastated that in a usually very easily gorged on category of female bops, this just tends to lag behind in love, like a fellow song I really like this year, Israel. Instead people tend to prioritize Cyprus (which I get because they’ve established themselves as a girlbanger nation since Fuego swept Eurovision) and... probably even Azerbaijan? (which I might also get because Eurovision rarely has this thing called an ethnobop anymore, and it has more ethno than “Cleopatra” did, but still unnecessarily underwhelming lol.) Well then, in a year of female bangers, I would just like Croatia to not be swept under the rug come semis I guess. Yeah “Tick-Tock” may not sound like it brings something totally never seen before in a Eurovision environment (foreign language lyrics, themes about a break up, hell even her dancers looked like they were wearing the same hats as Tamta’s dancers), but you got to have a lot in you to sell a worn out idea to the new heights, and Albina does exactly that in my eyes.

Approval factor: Yeah! There is a lot of it in here for me. Follow-up factor: A great follow-up, not so great in regards to panini but musically it’s just going up and up from what we had in the past few years. I’ve actually not minded “The Dream” for the most part but I knew it was a chanceless plodding ballad and Roko harboured heaps of wasted potential working with Jacques Houdek and having wings as part of his performance, uff. *_* And then there’s “Divlji vjetre” which I also like a lot - a much better male ballad winner choice! If the Dora re-up winners keep being decent imo just like this, I have a feeling I will follow it a lot more often than I did just this one time this year. I am just saying that panini-wise, it was a sucky move from HRT for not allowing their last year’s winner promote his new song with Tijana (from Serbia 2017) on the Dora night, so we sadly only heard a pre-recorded opening version of “Divlji vjetre” to start off with :( Otherwise I think it’s not Dora’s fault in itself that Damir himself chose not to even submit an entry this year because he hadn’t found a good one - much like with Diodato for Sanremo (he was NOT rejected, if you think he still was, shush). But aside that, musically, it just keeps going up for me. Well done Croatia, for you’ve used to be a Eurovision country I don’t necessarily care about, that you brought two pretty damn good entries in a row. Qualification factor: I can absolutely trust in Albina bringing in a little bit of her charisma and well-likedness, and on top of that, a great vocal performance, in Rotterdam. Don’t ask me why, I just do. She doesn’t really perform her song live on pre-parties as much as I’d like to hope she would, but you heard girlie on the national selection, she didn’t win for nothing. Yeah yeah there might as well be female uptempo songs hungrier for the last spot, but I’d like to think Albina is one of the ones ready to devour than to be devoured. Go girl! Take us all dancing!

NF CORNER

To be honest with you, “Tick-Tock” winning Dora caught me by surprise. Ever since its re-up, the last two editions were kind of won by male ballads, and maaaaybe the dancey females were doing moderately well enough for themselves, but not overall? But look, juries were very keen on Albina, probably because she can SANG and she creates one hell of a fancy presence on her performance. And somehow she ended up snatching a win out of the hands of 5G conspiracy theorist 2016 representative Nina Kraljić, who was at first too drunk to care, but too unexpectedly sober to yell all over the soc. media how she was robbed and how the contest was rigged against her with her being on first and all that. Which is a shame that she is one of THOSE people, because her NF entry “Rijeka” is kinda nice? We did have the Balkan-esque ballads coming from Croatia in recent memory, but we haven’t had a truly proudly folksy one at that from Croatia for a long while, if not ever. Nina could’ve very well brought that to Rotterdam (and another mismatched wardrobe choice oops). But instead she was the one screaming “oh no, oh no, oh no”.

Actually I regarded Nina as one of my faves pre-show, and Albina was on her way, though she didn’t really cement the personal fav status until after all performances, thus making Nina and Albina switch spots for me. But truly, the one song that was my top favourite, iiiiiiiiiiis

youtube

GIMME AN OCEAN! OF LOVE!

2021 made me realize that damn, maybe anything that’s funky is my favourite music genre afterall. Up until then I vibed with entries like “Tonight Again” and “What’s the Pressure?” that had this sort of energetic flair and very rhythmic kinda sound to it, but 2021 just simply cemented it to me that my music world has probably been about nice and smooth and funky all along. I owe so much gratitude to ToMa first and foremost along the lines of more to have come in this year’s lineups - I just can’t not want to dance to “Ocean of Love”, and ToMa is quite alright at selling it live as well. There are small gripes with some instrument usages but that doesn’t detract from the fact that I love love LOVE funky guitar tunes.

Aside from that, I can give shout outs to Beta Sudar, whose song not only was underrated, but also had an underrated meme format throughout its performance:

My other props go to Bernarda, who not only competed in a national selection singing a song about seeing “Colors” while blind (and ironically there was a song called “Blind” in that same NF sung by a well-seeing guy!!), but also for finally putting this every country’s reject to rest. Seriously. That particular song was passed on to everyone in need of a competitive Eurovision bop, from Poli Genova to Helena Paparizou as of recently. Oh well, at least the song died a honourable death - well performed slice of good typical Eurovision pop (maybe even overperformed a little towards the end), that got a good rank with the regional juries, but somewhat murdered in televote, fellow Boris Milanov composition “Chameleon” style.

This one Mia Negovetić chick was promising too! Her song was written by the Debs and you might be tired of them trying to continue infiltrating Eurovision at this point, but a lot of their Eurovision songs are usually something I enjoy, “She’s Like a Dream” is no exception. Nothing but 3 minutes of pastel-dressed Croatian Ariana Grande doing what she does best <3

Oh and also some dudes tried to play chess on stage too I guess. But their song is not worth looking into, because one of the acts on it is apparently also a conspiracist, and maybe because oft this their entry is aptly titled “Sing, for the freedom has arrived!” lol I wonder what exactly is the kind of freedom you’re thinking of my guy

Was this the “better mood game” Laura was warning everyone about? Beats me

NF CORNER (NON-COMPETITIVE)

• It’s still hilarious to me as to how one of the acts this year, Brigita Vuco, was planning to bring in backing dancers, only for them to show a fake COVID test or something and outright BARRED from coming with her on stage. <3 Whatever she intended to do with them dancers, I have absolutely no idea, but at least she committed to her song being about drunken nights visually by having all these blurry shots

• Nina Kraljić’s greenroom shenanigans, from the “1-2-3, 1-2-3, drink” to numb the sadness over some results (and the 8 she got from the region Rijeka for the song “Rijeka” lmao), to whatever she saw on the phone that made her smile or go neutral

• Greenroom reactions in general. I swear, this year had cameramen in every single corner everywhere just to make sure something covers up for a human audience instead of severals of Zoom screens permitted to act as an audience. Random people in greenrooms were doing some sort of emotions after random acts, and also randomly they ended up pointing a camera towards an act that lost, but the act didn’t treat losing as if it were such a big deal <3

• All the other memes the Croatian Twitter might’ve noticed me for:

seriously Bernarda was locked in a bluelight mathematical dice contraption. how fucking cool is that

ANY LAST WORDS?

I just fucking hope that Albina shatters any doubts that people have had about her song come rehearsals, and somehow Croatia AND Israel slip through, because never too many female bangers I appreciate in the final, if they all are the bangers I appreciate, lol.

#eurovision #eurovision 2021 #rotterdam 2021 reviews #croatia #Albina Grčić #albina #tick-tock

11 notes · View notes

adifferentworldfromyesterdays · 4 years ago

Text

European VA in esc masterpost (beta)

I know I keep saying this but I honestly honestly haven’t known peace ever since I found out Måns Zelmerlöw and Molly Sandén were Tangled’s swedish voices outside of the esc bubble

(like the time I found out about Alexander Rybak singing for HttYD xD)

Warning: this is going to likely become very very long; you have been warned. Edit: I forgot Saara Aaltoo as Finnish Anna in Frozen, I love her <3

Edit 2: Forgot about Sami Elsa participating in Norway’s MGP.

Edit 3: Icelandic Elsa and Rapunzel was Silvia Night (that one Icelandic troll entry) 2006

Edit 4: Croatian Rapunzel was in esc 2018 but DNQ.

Edit 5: Slovak Rapunzel was a back vocal for “Lie to Me” in 2018

Edit 6: Norwegian Flynn wrote Ulrikke’s “Attention” (pls listen its great) and has written other eurovision preselection contest entries

Edit 7: Portuguese Rapunzel was in esc 1993 representing Portugal

Edit 8: Dutch Rapunzel MC’d jesc twice and apparently is daughter of an old esc preselection contest entrant.

Edit 9: Slovakian Flynn entered for the esc 2010 preselection

- Russian Gothel was in esc 1994 and placed 9th

- Bulgarian Flynn was in esc 2018 + did back vocals for Bulgaria’s 2017 entry

- Czech Gothel almost was the artist for Czech in esc 2007

- Singer of Czech “Something that I want” was in esc 2008 but DNQ

- Estonian Rapunzel was on preselection jury board in 2014

- Estonian Gothel was in esc 1994 placed 24th

- Portuguese Eugene did preselections in 2007 & 2011

- German Hookhand (singer) did preselections in 1978

- German singers of “Something that I want” did preselections 2007

- Hebrew Gothel was back vocals in a 1987 preselection entry

- Lithuanian Gothel was in esc jury 2007

- Lithuanian Rapunzel esc jury 2021

- Polish Rapunzel delegation(?) selections 2017

- Romanian Rapunzel was in esc 2008

- Romanian Gothel was in esc 2005 + tried preselections again in 2010

- Czech Flynn did music direction for fire saga dub???

- Slovenian Flynn did preselections in 2010

- Slovenian Gothel was in esc 1997

- Slovenian Big Nose esc spokesperson 2003-9

- Ukrainian Rapunzel did preselections 2011 DNQ

Bonus: Dima Bilan as Russian Hans lul

Bonus 2: Molly’s sister voices Swedish Anna

#off topic #Tangled #international dubs #esc #Voice actors #this became an esc masterpost bc of one man #this is practically self indulgence at this point lol #i should give names oops

5 notes · View notes

twinhood-2dot0 · 2 years ago

Text

May The Fourth Be With You

Yep, it’s Thursday, and it’s not Alex. Because it’s May the 4th. And they haven’t watched Star Wars yet, well, technically, they’ve watched “Star Wars” the movie, but not the series. Relevant XKCD

So, I have to write today’s post. Also, fair warning, a lot of what I’m gonna be writing about may be very well known and boring stuff, but I only watched the series last year, and the target audience is Alex, so spoilers are also going to be at a minimum.

Cultural Impact of Star Wars

Star Wars since its inception in 1977 has had an immense cultural impact. I mean, it and Star Trek are apparently the only two fictional media with a whole Wikipedia page for its cultural impact. There's even a whole Wikipedia page listing organisms named after Star Wars characters.

The phrase “May the 4th be with you” was first used, surprisingly, by the Conservative Party of the UK in a congratulatory advertisement after Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister.

Yes, I'm attaching a crap ton of images, I don't think anyone wants a wall of text and this is the most important day for nerds so I need this to be good.

“Luke, I am your father” is probably the most well known quote from fiction ever, despite being a Mandela Effect, what Vader actually said was “No, I am your father”, which is a small distinction, I guess.

youtube

This father has solved fatherhood.

In 2007 NASA launched a Space Shuttle containing Luke’s lightsaber prop from RoTJ. SpaceX’s Falcon rockets are also named after the Millennium Falcon, the heroes’ spacecraft in the Original and Sequel trilogy.

In the 2001 Census of England and Wales almost 0.8% people put down their religion as Jedi, becoming the 4th largest religion.

In 2014 in Ukraine The Internet Party tried to nominate a man called Darth Vader, but was ultimately refused because his identity could not be verified :(, and that’s not even all the Star Wars characters involved in Ukrainian politics.

Even food isn’t safe from Star Wars

The Darth Vader burger apparently did not sell well, which I cannot for the life of me understand.

Not really a cultural impact thing but a funny controversy. Han Shot First. There’s a scene at the very beginning of Episode IVwhere Han is confronted by Greedo (that’s uh, a little on the nose) because of money that he owes. In the original 1977 release of the movie, it cuts to Greedo’s face, and there’s an explosion of smoke and sparks and the sound of a blaster, and Greedo dies. In the 1997 Special Edition of the movie, along with other changes, Greedo shoots Han and misses, and then Han shoots Greedo. And then in the 2004 cut of the movie, they shoot at almost the same time. People say it weakens his character arc, apparently.

The Music

Of course there’s a section dedicated to the music, I’m writing this post after all. Even if the music weren’t epic, there was bound to be a section. The movies by themselves are great, but I fail to imagine they would have reached legendary status without the soundtrack. The music for the Skywalker saga was composed by the legend himself, John Williams, and performed by The London Symphony Orchestra. His score was selected as the greatest film soundtrack of all time by the American Film Institute in 2005 and also entered into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being culturally and historically important. My adoration for John Williams’ music has already been expressed while exploring leitmotifs, but I’ll go into Star Wars music again since that was brief. The most iconic track in all of movie soundtrack history is probably “The Imperial March”.

This menacing track serves as the theme for the villain of the OT, Darth Vader. It perfectly fits Vader’s imposing nature and makes him feel even scarier. The main parts of the theme are also used in the Prequel Trilogy as foreshadowing and in some parts of the ST and the countless other related media relating to Vader.

The leitmotif appears at around 2:18.

“Binary Sunset”, plays in a scene where Luke is looking at the two suns of Tatooine and previously intended to be Obi-Wan’s theme, is also an important score from Episode IV as it later evolved to a theme for The Force in general and signifies use of the Force. And there’s of course, The Main Theme. It’s the theme that plays before every Star Wars movie, and serves as a leitmotif for Luke in the OT and also used in victory themes.

“Duel Of The Fates” and “Battle Of The Heroes” are also very epic fight scenes and make those scenes even more memorable. Say what you will about the prequels, they definitely had the best lightsaber battles.

You can also hear parts of Imperial March and Duel of the Fates in this too.

Rey may not be very popular among fans but she sure does have an awesome theme. I mean, it's John Williams, what do you expect?

Same goes for Obi-Wan's opening theme from the series.

Okay, if it wasn't obvious already, I absolutely love John Williams' work, but there are other composers who have been brought in.

Like Ludwig Göransson (yes, Swedish <3) in The Mandalorian and The Book Of Boba Fett, has done an awesome job too. I especially am in love with The Mandalorian theme, I wish more of it played in the opening instead of the tiny snippet.

The World (or Galaxy, ig) of Star Wars

Star Wars is set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and obviously, they have a lot of planets and species. In the movies we see Tatooine, a desert planet and Luke’s and Anakin’s home planet, Coruscant, the political center of the galaxy, Mustafar, a volcanic lava planet, where the events of the climax of RotS take place, and the swampy planet of Dagobah featured in [REDACTED], the planet of Mandalore, of the titular character from The Mandalorian, are some notable planets, and there are also a lot of unique alien species shown throughout the saga (but the main cast is mostly white men, like why can’t the main cast be aliens in a series set in a galaxy far far away? Also, relevant XKCD).

Some notable ones are:

Yoda’s species, who we don’t know the name for yet, but we see three of them, at least in Live-Action media (Yoda, Yaddle, who I completely missed, but she was apparently there in Episode I and Baby Yoda)

Wookies, Chewbacca's species.

Ahsoka Tano’s species, Togruta

The cute birds we see in TLJ, Porgs

And my personal favourite, Anzellans, who are tiny little mechanics who have the best freaking voice acting (Moaning Myrtle, apparently) ever. I fell in love with them after an awesome scene from The Mandalorian S3, although, it seems like no one shares my sentiment so there isn’t a complete clip on YouTube, although, maybe when I renew my Disney+ I might just upload one myself, so until then, take this:

youtube

I can’t count the number of times I watched this scene. The funny voice + the cuteness of Baby Yoda hugging them is just, awwww.

The worldbuilding in the movies is just a drop in the bucket compared to the incredible number of other, mostly Legends, media (Context: When Disney bought Star Wars they decided to mark everything that came before 2014 - the movies and Clone Wars part of “Legends” and everything that came after canon to the universe. I guess Legends is a bit of a mess, but kinda feels like a little too much to just outright name them non-canon). There are more than like SW 500 comic books and novels, and countless games, like Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel Jedi: Survivor, which apparently is in hot water right now for having a terrible performance especially on PC, although the game is great apart from that, from what I've heard, and the 4 Battlefront games, confusingly named Battlefront, Battlefront II, Battlefront, and Battlefront II coming out in 2004, 2005, 2015 and 2017, Star Wars Knight Of The Old Republic (KOTOR) games, the LEGO Skywalker Saga, you get the point, Star Wars has a boatload (more like Titanic-load) of media, leading to an extremely fleshed out world.

Characters

Of course, Star Wars is known for its lovable and iconic characters. There's of course, Luke.

A farm boy who discovers he is the son of a Jedi Knight and goes on to save the galaxy from the tyranny of the Empire. Luke's journey from a naive and idealistic youth to a seasoned warrior and leader is one of the central themes of the original Star Wars trilogy which definitely wasn’t ruined by Disney. Just look at this:

youtube

There are also longer compilations, Mark Hamill dropped so many hints lmao.

Han Solo is another fan favourite, a charming smuggler who joins Luke & Co. on their journey. Han's wit, bravery, and devil-may-care (which, as I recently found out, is a cooler way to say “Who cares?”) attitude make him one of the most endearing characters in the franchise.

Darth Vader is undeniably one of the best villains ever put to screen. His whole character arc throughout the 6 movies and the comics is very awesome while tragic. Special shoutout to James Earl-Jones who was the voice behind Darth Vader who helped turn him into the iconic villain we all know and love.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is another tragic character. He serves as a mentor to both the OT and PT protagonists and sees far too many deaths of loved ones and betrayals. He is personally my favourite human character (dw R2-D2, you’ll be my favourite forever).

Yoda, while not having too much screen time, is still very popular. He is an alien of the [REDACTED] species and the most powerful Jedi Knight. He also has a unique sentence structure of Object-Subject-Verb while speaking serves George Lucas’s purpose of making him even more intriguing. The infant of Yoda’s species featured in The Mandalorian has been fan-dubbed Baby Yoda and he IS ADORABLE

AHHH SOMEONE BUY ME A PLUSHIE I NEED IT.

The Mandalorian is also an awesome character. Pedro Pascal is awesome in the role and I love he can still emote while having his helmet on for 99% of the show. He's a member of the creed of The Mandalore, he's a bounty hunter, extremely loyal to his creed, and most importantly, very, very badass. I'm not very critical of things, but the helmet, oh, I could rant for hours, but that's a story for another day.

Okay, uhh, sorry it's a bit of a ramble than more of a love letter that I was hoping for, but hope you enjoyed it. See you next Thursday if you don't forget, and

#star wars #star wars day #may the 4th be with you #may the force be with you #may the odds be ever in your favor #din grogu #dftba #nerdfighteria #nerdy #nerdy girls #geek

0 notes

sorrynoroomsavailable · 2 years ago

Photo

Степаненко Анатоль учасник резиденції Вибачте Номерів Немає у січні-березні, 2023 року

Степаненко Анатоль, народився 1948 в м.Ірпінь, Київської обл. Представник Нової хвилі, художник, куратор, кінорежисер та перформер.

У 1967 р. закінчив Київський художньо-промисловий технікум (нині КДАДПМД ім. М Бойчука) У 1977 закінчив Львівський інститут декоративно-прикладного мистецтва. У 1984 — закінчив Вищі режисерські та сценарні курси в Москві. У 1993–1998 працював у Швейцарії. 1994 — отримав стипендію Christopf Merian Stiftung, IAAB (International Artists Exchange Program), Базель, Швейцарія.

1988—1989рр, учасник художньої групи «Біла ворона».

Фільми 1986, «Повний місяць. Ноктюрн», за мотивами роману Валерія Шевчука «Панна сотниківна», художник-режисер, Кіностудія імені Олександра Довженка 1989, «Годинникар і курка», за мотивами п'єси Івана Кочерги, режисер-постановник, Кіностудія імені Олександра Довженка

Вибрані персональні виставки 2018 «Заколот масок», галерея «Триптих АРТ», Київ 2010 галерея НЮ АРТ, Київ 2007 Музей сучасного образотворчого мистецтва України 2007 Музей культурної спадщини, Київ 2000 AAM Gallery, Atag Asset Management, Базель, Швейцарія 1999 MITTE, Культурний центр Gundeldinger Kunsthalle, Базель, Швейцарія 1998 Музей історії Києва 1996 Oerlikon Gallery, Цюріх, Швейцарія 1996 Центр мистецтв, культури та інтеграції, Трір, Німеччина 1994 Christoph Merian Stiftung, IAAB, Базель, Швейцарія

Важливі групові виставки 2018 FLASHBACK. Українське медіа-мистецтво 90-х років. Мистецький Арсенал, Київ, Україна 2017 «Горизонт подій». Мистецький Арсенал, Київ, Україна 2014 Premonition: Ukrainian Art Now, Saatchi Gallery, Лондон, Велика Британія 2011 «Космічна Одіссея-2011», Мистецький Арсенал, Київ, Україна 2004 «Прощавай, зброє». Проект «Музей сучасного мистецтва» фонду Віктора Пінчука «Сучасне мистецтво в Україні». Мистецький Арсенал, Київ, Україна 2001 Markers: An Outdoor Banner Event of Artists and Poets for Venice Biennale Венеція, Італія 1999 IV Міжнародна триєнале графіки, Кочі, Японія

Резиденції Анатолія Степаненко стала можливою завдяки підтримці: European Cultural Foundation The beaux-arts Academy in Paris

Зображення у пості: Анатоль Степаненко. Аккадські песиголовці. Серія з 15 об’єктів. 1996–2005. Dingirma. 2004–2005. Інтерактивний біоморфний скульптурний об’єкт. Віск, стільники. Висота — 50 см. Скульптури, вирощені (автором) з бджолиних стільників.

Зображення у пості з архіву Рути Коршунової, надані ��ослідницькою платформою PinchukArtCentre

(eng)

Stepanenko Anatol, partisipant of the residency Sorry, No Rooms Available in January-March, 2023

Anatol Stepanenko, born in 1948 in Irpin, Kyiv region. Representative of the New Wave (Nova khvylia), artist, curator, film director and performer.

In 1967, graduated the Kyiv Art and Industrial Technical School (now M. Boychuk KDADPMD) In 1977, graduated the Lviv Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts. In 1984, graduated the Higher Directing and Screenwriting Courses in Moscow. In 1993–1998 he worked in Switzerland. 1994 - received a scholarship from the Christopf Merian Stiftung, IAAB (International Artists Exchange Program), Basel, Switzerland. 1988-1989, member of the artistic group "White Crow".

Movies 1986, "Full Moon. Nocturne", based on Valery Shevchuk's novel "The Centurion Maiden", artist-director, Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Studio 1989, "The Watchmaker and the Chicken", based on the play by Ivan Kocherga, production director, Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Studio

Selected personal exhibitions 2018 "Mask Rebellion", Triptych ART gallery, Kyiv 2010 NY ART gallery, Kyiv 2007 Museum of Modern Fine Art of Ukraine 2007 Museum of Cultural Heritage, Kyiv 2000 AAM Gallery, Atag Asset Management, Basel, Switzerland 1999 MITTE, Cultural Center Gundeldinger Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland 1998 Kyiv Museum of History 1996 Oerlikon Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland 1996 Center for Arts, Culture and Integration, Trier, Germany 1994 Christoph Merian Stiftung, IAAB, Basel, Switzerland

Important group exhibitions 2018 FLASHBACK. Ukrainian media art of the 90s. Artistic Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine 2017 "Event Horizon". Artistic Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine 2014 Premonition: Ukrainian Art Now, Saatchi Gallery, London, Great Britain 2011 "Space Odyssey-2011", Art Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine 2004 "Farewell to arms". The "Museum of Modern Art" project of the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation "Contemporary Art in Ukraine". Artistic Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine 2001 Markers: An Outdoor Banner Event of Artists and Poets for Venice Biennale Venice, Italy 1999 IV International Triennial of Graphics, Kochi, Japan

The residence of Anatol Stepanenko was made possible thanks to the support of: European Cultural Foundation The beaux-arts Academy in Paris

Image in the post: Anatol Stepanenko. Akkadian dog heads. A series of 15 objects. 1996–2005. Dingirma. 2004–2005. Interactive biomorphic sculptural object. Wax, honeycombs. Height — 50 cm. Sculptures grown (by the author) from bee combs.

Images in the post from the archive of Ruta Korshunova, courtesy of the PinchukArtCentre Research Platform

1 note · View note