#i hate to admit but jar jar binks was one of my favorites and as an 8 year old I wished he had more screen time in AotC and RotS

[a-treatise-on-velociraptors]

Whenever people call the existence of female characters "woke" I just remember when I was a kid and I goddamn wished there were more female characters. Jedi, transformers, any 'boy' property I liked I wished there were more girls. I promise you, little girls don't see Rey and think "oh wow look at the feminist girlboss propaganda what a mary sue", little girls look at Rey and go "holy shit she's so cool"

[accioharry]

if the world was ending | peter & mj |  ch 2

Perhaps she could finally call him a friend, maybe even on the way to being her best friend. She couldn’t ruin that now, but she couldn’t watch him ruin himself either. She found herself at a crossroads, wondering what mattered more.

ao3 | read from the beginning 

chapter word count: 1.8k

They agreed to meet at a coffee shop near Central Park, a place Michelle frequented often on the weekends with her family. While she was gone, parts of the park had been turned into a memorial for the fallen; a memorial that was currently in limbo of whether it would stay up or not. She took note of the amount of families in the park, as though they were cherishing every moment they had together. She never thought she’d feel that way at her age.

She found Peter outside the Starbucks with a hot coffee already in his hand. Even though she mentally prepared herself, Michelle felt the ground sway beneath her as soon as she saw Peter’s face. He had a scar on his cheek as though stitches were there a few months ago, but what shocked Michelle the most was how exhausted he looked. He looked so stricken with grief, as though something awful had completely shattered him into pieces. 

He still looked the same with the unruly curly hair and the chocolate brown eyes that she caught staring at her more than once in decathlon practice. Except when he lifted his head to acknowledge her and she saw his eyes, the little sparkle of mischief was gone. In a way, she barely recognized him. 

“Iced latte with almond milk?” He nodded to the iced coffee on the bench next to him. She took it graciously, shock evident on her face as she sat next to him on the bench. Her words caught in her throat for a moment, as though she had no idea what to say next.

“Peter,” she tapped his shoulder and he turned to her. He winced as she examined the scar. “That wasn’t there before.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he shrugged, sipping his coffee. Michelle wanted to argue with him so badly, wanted to push him to tell her everything he kept from her, but she just couldn’t. Not when he looked so destroyed. 

“I think after recent events, nothing would surprise me,” she smiled slightly. It took everything in her to not ask questions –– his battle scars were so prominent, she wasn’t prepared for it.  

“Challenge accepted and noted for the future,” Peter replied. “Did you sleep well?”

“I wouldn’t say I slept great, but it’s gotten better over time,” she leaned back against the bench, tucking her feet under her. “It’s getting easier to be in the dark, even if…it was instant for us,” she muttered before looking up at him. He was staring straight ahead, as though his focus was the only thing keeping him sane. “Are you sleeping?” She already knew the answer. 

He sighed, sipping the coffee again before leaning forward on his elbows. “Would you believe me if I said I was?”

“Not for a second,” she wanted to confide in him, to tell him that she wants to be there for everything. The death of Tony Stark hit him like a train—she could see it in his eyes. He was still sixteen, technically, but he acted so much older now, as though he aged the five years in a matter of five minutes. It would be so easy to grab his hand and tell him that she was here, and wanted to understand. So why couldn’t she?

“This is the first time I went out of the apartment,” he admitted. “I’ve wanted to, but I spent the first few weeks––“ he cut himself off before he slipped up, “upstate. I was upstate, but May found an apartment for us, so we came back finally.” 

“I haven’t gone out much either,” she said softly. “Only with my family, but never on my own. It’s different now, for all of us.”

“Yeah,” Peter sipped his coffee again, and Michelle could’ve sworn he was holding back tears. “It’s different.” 

The two of them sat in silence for a long time, watching the world move around them. It was hard to tell who had blipped and who didn’t because from the outside, it looked as though society was rebuilding itself just fine. Michelle knew better than that, and also knew how easy it was for Peter to get lost in his own thoughts. She glanced at him. 

“Do you want to take a walk?” _______________________________________________________________________ She missed hearing Peter’s rambles about pure nonsense. 

He was reluctant to take the walk, but Michelle pulled him up by the arm until he finally agreed. Getting back in the world was hard, but having Peter by her side made it a little easier, she was certain of that. 

“So basically, they still made the last Star Wars film, and it’s been out for YEARS,” Peter huffed. “I can’t believe it, I knew they filmed already before the blip, but they could have waited until we came back.”

“Okay in the defense of Hollywood, they didn’t know that we’d come back,” Michelle smiled. “You’re just mad you didn’t get to see it in theatres.”

“I’m not mad about that, I’m mad that I didn’t get to go to the premiere. The freaking premiere! I missed it and it will never happen again,” he grumbled. “It’s rude.”

“How is that rude?” she laughed. “You’re so grumpy about this!”

“If it was a good movie I’d understand, but it was so bad MJ, you don’t understand.” He kept rambling, and Michelle’s heart did a flip hearing him call her MJ again. It’s been quite a while since she heard that nickname. 

“I watched it with my brother,” she cut him off before he could continue. “It…had it’s good moments.” She rolled her eyes at the look of disgust on Peter’s face. “It did!”

“You’re defending the worst film in the saga, I hope you know that.”

“Says the boy whose favorite character was Jar Jar Binks in sixth grade.”

“I still can’t believe Ned told you that, I told him that in confidence.”

“and now it is a small fact about you that I will cherish forever,” she grinned, elbowing him in the side. It didn’t seem to bother him.

“You mean you’ll hold it over me for the rest of my life?” Peter scoffed, dumping his empty coffee cup in a trash can as they walked. 

“Same thing,” she smiled, and Peter’s face lit up. 

“So what, ten years from now you’ll send me an outdated Jar Jar Binks meme from a blocked number, taunting me once again?”

“I would never do such a thing,” Michelle faked offense. “I’d mail it to you, obviously.”

It surprised her to see Peter double over in laughter. She didn’t realize she was being funny, but it made him smile, so she went with it. For a brief moment in time, all of his suffering was gone, vanished as though it had been blipped permanently. She willed her mind to remember the moment for as long it would allow her, because a happy Peter Parker was officially her favorite Peter Parker.

_______________________________________________________________________ It was an hour later when Michelle decided she had enough. 

Even if Peter smiled with her, it lasted for a brief moment before his face fell again. She could tell Peter was in pain, he looked so lost. His eyes never focused on anything, his sentences went unfinished when he got deep in his thoughts, and call it instinct, but she just knew. 

“Okay,” she huffed, and Peter turned back to look at her, not realizing she had stopped walking. “Sit down.”

He looked around. They were still in the park, but not in an area where many empty benches were prominent. “Where?”

“On the ground, where else?”

He opened his mouth as though he wanted to argue, but thought different when he saw the look of determination on her face. He followed Michelle off the path and into the grass. She sat down, patting the space beside her. 

Even though it was still summer it was an overcast day, which to be honest, really reflected the mood Peter was in. He knew Michelle suspected something, but was he ready to tell her?

“Hey,” she muttered after a period of silence. “Talk to me.”

“What do you think we’ve been doing for two hours?” Peter’s eyes weren’t focused on her, but on the grass he was picking with his hands. He was caught, and he knew it. 

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

The silence was deafening and actually made her uncomfortable. For someone who spent most of her school years avoiding crowds and sitting in the library, she felt almost claustrophobic in the current silence.

 She wanted to shake him –– to yell in his face that she knows and she wants to help him. If she did that, she’d scare him off and he would never trust her again. They had gotten closer in the past twenty-four hours than they ever had been before the blip, before anything really. 

Perhaps she could finally call him a friend, maybe even on the way to being her best friend. She couldn’t ruin that now, but she couldn’t watch him ruin himself either. She found herself at a crossroads, wondering what mattered more. 

“Peter, please,” she tried again. “Talk to me, I’m here aren’t I? I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to help.” 

“You don’t understand,” he shrugged, his head lowered. “You wouldn’t understand. I can’t just tell you, it’s not that easy,” he winced, as though the words caused him physical pain. “I want to, I wish I could tell someone but—” He trailed off. 

She didn’t know what to say. Her limbs felt heavy, as though the weight of the world had fallen upon her. A weight of guilt, for thinking she could fix everything by being there, for thinking Peter would easily open up to her just because she was there. That’s not how it worked and she knew that. She just didn’t want to believe it. Life was never kind enough to give her what she wanted.

 Perhaps it was the blip itself, a force of the universe that created a bond between the fallen, the ones who were brought back. Maybe she just wanted a friend, someone who went through what she did. But that wasn’t Peter. He had gone through so much more, and Michelle hated watching him struggle with his demons on his own. 

“I won’t force you to tell me anything,” Michelle said finally. “If anything, I just want you to know that I would never, ever, do that.” 

“I know,” he shrugged, his voice quiet. “I want to, I really do because I know it would help, but I can’t put that on you. I can’t ask you to walk this with me.” 

“Then don’t,” the sincerity in her voice made Peter turn his head towards her. “Don’t ask me, because I’m offering, whenever you’re ready, I’m there.” She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Got it?”

“Yeah,” he nodded with a small smile, but Michelle could see it in his eyes, he didn’t believe her.

[aj-allen97]

A Queen’s Peril Review

*Spoilers* *Maybe?*

Let us be honest for a moment; in the whole entire Star Wars universe my favorite character is Padmé Naberiee Amidala and it’s not just a recent love. I have looked up too and adored this character since I was a little girl. To the point my own dad once tried to make me a Amidala Halloween costume when I was little. Yet, Amidala merchandise and related literature was hard to find and still is. If I wanted Amidala I had to be content with watching the three movies to get my Amidala fix and when the internet started to become more reliable and easier to access I was able to look up trivia or Fanfiction on her. So to hear that Disney has authorized not just one book about her but two? I got excited real fast.

Which leads us to EK Johnson third Star Wars Novel “A Queens Peril”, which I was excited for because I thought at long last I can find out how she got elected to Queen of Naboo, see how the handmaidens became a force to be reckoned with and why Naboo loved Amidala to the degree they wanted her to run for a third term and when she refused made her the first senator to have access to the Queen's Jewels.

My expectations did not meet reality. I was so disappointed I questioned how EK Johnson managed to write two Star Wars novels that were successful enough to warrant a third book. Queens Peril left me disappointed enough I went back and read the Queens Shadows to have a basis to start off with in figuring out what went wrong and if maybe I am being to harsh in my critique and after reading Queens Shadow EK Johnson has no excuse for such a poorly executed novel that is A Queens Peril.

Don’t get me wrong it was great in its own quaint way, but it was definitely a come down from her other works. While I found the Padme Amidala and her Handmaidens were fleshed out as much as they could be given the time restraints. But, she also seemed to be also cramming in every character that played a part in the movie, not as fleshed out characters but there just because, and creating new characters as needed. Though I will admit Queen Amidala did have more personality and character quirks then the Queen to be from my American Royals review.

But, it also felt rushed at times, I honestly think they could have turned this into a small series given how diverse Amidala's and her Handmaidens background is. In my humble opinion she kept introducing characters and plot points that had no impact to the main plot. This whole book hinges on the fact the reader has seen The Phantom Menace - I honestly do not believe a newcomer could read this and not come away lost because of all the scene skips and random conversations that happen in the novel and again how reliant EK Johnson seems on the bet the readers have already seen The Phantom Menace.

If I didn't know better I would say these were all scenes that were left on the cutting board floor during the editing of The Phantom Menace, just because they all seemed like filler scenes. They have no strong support through the novel, and some of them could even be removed and the plot would not even take a hit from their deletion.

I have seen The Phantom Menace and this book still left me disconnected and disappointed by the lazy writing. The only new thing EK Johnson gave us was the prisoner camps on Naboo, which were fleshed out and engaging to read, because it was interesting and thought out. It was a snippet on what was going on in Naboo during the Blockade. Sadly that was the only good part of the book outside of the handmaidens and Padmé bonding and plotting time.

After success like Queens Shadow and Ashoka I feel that EK Johnson had no excuse for this poorly planned novel and I honestly believe if she was not up to the challenge of fleshing out The Phantom Menace by keeping it solely in the point of view of Queen Amidala and her handmaidens with the odd pop in of Darth Sideous or the Captain of her Guard, than she should not have attempted this project. Instead we get the point of views of several characters (some who had frankly little impact on the story or who felt like unfinished stories) and the unfortunate mess of time skips.

Instead of giving us a novel that added to The Phantom Menace and fleshed out Queen Amidala and her handmaidens character arc, she gave us slices of life segments and filler scenes. While skipping any other scenes that were crucial and would have had an impact on the reader if they could have seen or experienced it through Padmé Amidalas eyes.

At the pace they were going they could have honestly skipped the whole Tatooine scene because they skipped Amidala interacting with Anakin (important because Anakin ends up as her future husband and because it inspires her on wanting to free the slaves of the outer rim), the pod race, and meeting Maul for the first time, but they kept filler scenes like learning Sabé hates sand that had no bearing on the novel. They could have skipped the scene in Coruscant since all they kept was filler like gossiping on the fact Amidala overthrown the Chancellor instead of showing it.

Yet, we had time to hear about how Anakin Skywalker pod races for Watto on the side and how he likes to fly.

Yet, we had time to hear how Jar Jar Binks day went.

Yet, we had time for a pointless discussion between Mace Windu and Yoda that had very little bearing to the plot.

Yet, we had time to introduce Qui-Gon Jinn and his padawan, but they were so in the background they might as well have not existed. The same with Maul.

In the end what we got was a short novel that felt rushed or incomplete at some scenes. It had so much potential and yet it felt incomplete or they were beginning scenes of a story arc that never had the green light for their own independent novel, and oftentimes Johnson included characters like Anakin/Shimi or Maul or the Jedi when at times they didn’t feel necessary to the plot. They added scenes that helped at times and they added scenes that my brain said skip and skip I did and the story lost nothing from me skipping those parts. Other times they skipped parts I felt were needed for the story line and characterization since those scenes had an impact on the main character and on the whole Blockade plot.

I honestly think the most redeeming parts of the novel were when Amidala and her Handmaidens worked together as one entity and when they were just hanging out as friends.

Yet, we only get a week of that bonding time before the blockade happens. We only get a week of seeing how Amidala acted as Queen before they are forced into action. Watching the movies I honestly thought Queen Amidala was at least a year if not two into her reign at the start of the movie, yet here I came to find out she was only a week into her reign.

Not only that but even though Queens Shadow and Queens Peril were written by the same author and follows the same people they have different facts on what went down before the Blockade. They have different definitions on how the Handmaidens were picked and trained, even the way the story is presented feels different.

With how Queens Shadow and Queens Peril seem to disagree on several plot points, I wonder if they can be considered to exist in the same universe as one another even though they were written by the same author.

And while I may found the story enjoyable to a degree and some parts even funny, by the end of the book I felt cheated. This is the type of easy to read fluff I would have read in elementary. I felt disappointed and let down, I wanted more, not just more of The Phantom Menace, but more of Padmé Naberiee Amidala as a Queen.

Queens Peril feels more like in the author went screw it, everyone has seen The Phantom Menace and then wrote the book for that type of audience and thus allowing for lazy writing and the loss of relevant plots point in favor of non-relevant plot points.

So should you go out and read it? Indeed it’s funny and a great book for those that vaguely know Star Wars, especially if you're looking for an easy to read book that’s basically fluff and filler. Yet, for those that are fans of Amidala and have done your research on her like I have you might be like me and be a bit disappointed in how the whole thing played out.

Am I being over Biased and/or over critical? Maybe. But after reading Queen’s Shadow and seeing how it only focuses on Padme Amidala and Sabe PoV and is not all over the place with scene skips and what not I feel like I have the right to feel cheated with how this latest EK Johnson novel played out.

But I honestly would suggest reading EK Johnson’s Queens Shadow if you want something more coherent and not all over the place with differing points of views and pointless conversation or scenes.

Agree, Disagree? Drop me a comment and let me know! Until next time.

Signed AJ Allen

[twopointthreeninetoone]

The movie that started it all, Star Wars: A New Hope. Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks, rabid nerds who hate George Lucas—you have this movie to thank for all of that.  So let’s get this party started.

But first let’s get our eardrums fucking pulverized by the THX sound booster thing.

We start in…a space ship. Because it’s Star Wars. Not Alderaan Wars or Tatooine Wars or Jabba’s Party Barge Wars. (Although a sitcom based on Jabba’s Party Barge would be pretty awesome, you have to admit. Like, a sort of “Faulty Towers” deal, where Jabba’s right hand man, Bib Fortuna, has to manage the whole barge? And that little rat-like creature could be Manuel! That’s sitcom gold, right there. Anyway.) HOLY SHIT THAT SPACE SHIP JUST CAME OUT OF NOWHERE. This is back when those Rebel Fighters didn’t have a fucking chance in hell. (Also, there were lots of C-3POs and R2-D2s on the ship. Did they hang out? Were there cliques? Were C-3PO and R2-D2 sort of an odd couple for being friends? Yet another potential sitcom, folks. Like “Square Pegs”. But in space.)

And here’s Darth Vader, making his entrance amongst a pile of dead Rebel soldiers. Really, the best way to make your movie entrance is with the slain bodies of your enemies strewn about you. Good show, Darth. C-3PO spots R2-D2 having some sort of chill time with Princess Leia. We don’t know who she is at this point, so I’m guessing we’re just to assume she’s one of those spooky chicks that like to hang out in the furnace room.

Darth Vader chokes a Rebel captain using his actual bare hands, and not his Jedi magic, because that’s the sort of thing you like to savor. Meanwhile, the droids skedaddle in an escape pod. Because, you know, those humans probably didn’t need them or anything.

While the droids make their escape, Leia is captured and brought to Vader. Oh, the dialogue in this movie. It’s so awful that it’s awesome. Darth doesn’t realize that the sassy girl he’s admonishing is his own daughter! I guess the Force wasn’t too strong with this one. (Maybe she was wearing too much perfume? Maybe Darth was distracted by the smell of Charlie cologne to sense the Force in his daughter? I don’t know, man.)

C-3PO and R2-D2, riding through the desert on a horse with no name, feeling good from getting out of the rain, bicker and beep at each other, because they’re like an old married couple that way (although, interestingly, throughout the movie C-3PO seems sort of casual about their relationship. Like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard good things about this R2 unit. He’s sort of annoying with his bleeps and bloops, but when he makes love to me, it’s like we have a spiritual connection.”)

And…they get into a fight and split up two minutes after landing. Because C-3PO is just that much of a whining load. R2-D2 is the real hero of this movie, folks. He’s on a mission and he’s going to accomplish it even if the direction in which he’s going is slightly rockier than the direction in which his life partner is going. C-3PO gets picked up by a transport pretty quickly. Like when you’re in New York City and you don’t want to walk from Penn Station to the Battery. You get a taxi, this is what happens. You’re sold into slavery to desert people.

R2-D2 is indeed faring no better. He gets his ass kicked by some Jawas, which will also happen if you wander into the wrong neighborhood in New York City. It’s really cute/sad when the Jawas electrocute him and he falls down. Sadder than dozens of Ewoks dying in Return of the Jedi, that’s for sure. He’s sucked up into the Jawa transport, where he once again allies with C-3PO. Man, there’s no getting rid of that guy. There are a lot of other droids on the Jawa’s transport, so it’s pretty much just like their situation on the Rebel ship, except now there’s sand everywhere. (There’s also the Gonk droid, a mysterious fellow who says nothing but “Gonk! Gonk!”, and who is my favorite supporting-role droid in this series.)

We then have our first bit of CGI revisionism, as George Lucas injects some computer beasties, apparently called dewbacks, for no other reason other than because he has an unlimited amount of money and because he can, damn it.

R2-D2 and C-3PO are strutted out to be sold like the slabs of meat that they are. We meet Luke Skywalker, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru—and the first thing out of Luke’s mouth is a snarky barb about the Jawa’s lack of droid variety. Dude, you buy black market, you get what you pay for. C-3PO sells himself to Uncle Owen, who’s literally like “Yeah yeah shut up already,” which is the funniest part of this movie. Luke whines some more, and chooses a red R2 unit, which makes R2-D2 sad. It’s sad. This droid is sad. He watches C-3PO go off with his new owners and he does this little “Take me with you!” bounce…it’s just sad, is all. Suddenly the red R2 unit catches fire and breaks down! R2-D2 also has the ability to kill things with his mind, I suppose. C-3PO puts in a good word for R2-D2 and Luke chooses him as his new best friend. The world is happy again.

Luke and the droids chit-chat a little more, swapping life stories, although it’s primarily just Luke whining about how he never gets to do what he wants, always has to work on the farm, can’t go to the rebel military academy and battle Imperialism. Luke wants to live the high life of a soldier! He wants the girls! He wants the glamor! He wants to dance, damn it! Luke, you live on a planet with two moons. Stop complaining. He comes across R2-D2’s recording of Leia and is instantly enamored by the girl who turns out to be his sister. Because George Lucas is a sick fuck. Leia needs to find Obi Wan Kenobi, who Luke thinks might be Ben Kenobi, a hermit who lives out in the even more bumfuck part of the planet. Luke, considering there only to seem three other people living in your hemisphere, and two of them are your aunt and uncle, I think it’s safe to say that Obi Wan is Ben Kenobi.

Luke and his family have dinner, which consists of blue milk, among other things, because SCIENCE FICTION! Uncle Owen is pretty knowledgeable of the Star Wars prequels, which is probably why he thinks this whole situation is crap. Luke wants to enroll in ARMY, which Uncle Owen nixes, because you can pretty much smell the Force dripping off of him, and when Uncle Owen promises some random Jedi dude to watch this random Jedi baby, HE DOES IT, DAMN IT. Luke doesn’t know the truth about his dad. Although if you were to tell him that his dad was also a whiny little bitch when he was his age, should he really be that surprised?

R2-D2 has run off. Because he’s a robot on a mission. Luke and C-3PO go off to look for him the next day, because it isn’t as though the little dude could get too far (spoiler alert: he can) and find him right in the middle of a Sand People par-tay. Sand People are the worst. Because they’re mean and they like to steal and kill people and they probably smell pretty bad. But they’re also easily frightened by eighty-year-old Jedi hermits, so Luke and the droids are in luck. Obi Wan Kenobi scares them off and then says a lot of mellow Jedi shit. Obi Wan seems to recognize R2-D2 immediately, which he should, considering the fact that he spent, like, ten years in his company. Obi Wan takes the others to his rocking bachelor pad, and talks a lot about Luke’s dad. He’s been waiting about twenty years, I guess, for Luke to come his way, and he has a hope chest full of Star Wars memorabilia to give him. Unfortunately nothing is in its original box and thus is no longer in mint condition, so it’s practically worthless. Luke asks Obi Wan how his dad died, and Obi Wan FLAT OUT LIES. He lies his little British ass off. Because if he was like, “Lol, Luke, your dad is the most powerful villain in the galaxy,” then Luke would probably high-tail it to the Empire cruiser to live the high life with his dad. Because Luke is a tool.

Obi Wan watches Leia’s message and recruits Luke to help him in his adventures. For some reason Luke says no despite the fact that he’s waiting his whole life to get away from Tatooine. Because he’s a chump.

Darth Vader and his superior officer, Grand Moff Tarkin, crash an Imperial officers’ meeting. Vader chokes an officer with his mind! But he’s unable to kill him off because Tarkin is like, “Dude, stop it, this isn’t conducive to productivity.” Back on Tatooine, Luke and Obi Wan find that Imperial Stormtroopers have slaughtered the Jawas that sold R2-D2 and C-3PO to the Skywalker clan. Luke rushes home to find that his aunt and uncle have been killed, in a scene George Lucas pretty much took straight out of The Searchers. I’m not carping, it’s a nice reference, but I’m just saying. There’s a pretty gory shot of his uncle and aunt’s burnt bodies. Ouch. Sucks to be you, Luke.

Also sucks to be Leia, because Darth is about to torture her with some sort of Floating Torture Ball that has a hypodermic needle glued to it. Because SCIENCE FICTION.

Luke returns to Obi Wan and the dead Jawas. Obi Wan and the droids are burning the bodies, which is sort of weird. Get rid of the evidence, Obi Wan! Don’t forget the quicklime! Luke has no real choice but to go with Obi Wan to Mos Eisley, and then to Alderaan, and help find Leia, which worked out well for Obi Wan, I guess. Another new CGI scene, as a CGI droid beats up another CGI droid, and a CGI dewback bucks a CGI Jawa off its back. Because George Lucas wanted some slapstick humor to really class up the joint twenty years after the fact, I guess.

Obi Wan uses Jedi Mind Magic to get some Stormtroopers off their asses, and Luke is all like, “I want to go to there,” meaning he wants to use this Force junk that Obi Wan’s been preaching non-stop. It’s sort of like Scientology, I guess. Look at all the cool things you can do with the Force, Luke! I can bend people’s minds to my will! I can set you up on a date with Tom Cruise! Do you want to be Mrs. Tom Cruise, Luke? Because I can make it happen! Obi Wan and Luke go into a Cantina, with its awesome Cantina music. Everyone hangs out at the cantina. It’s like the Club 54 of Mos Eisley. There are a bunch guys in cheap alien outfits snorting coke, downing colorful milk. But the bartender turns away the droids, because he’s racist, I guess.

They might actually be in a gay bar, and they’d never know it. Because everyone’s some sort of alien. I’m just going to pretend they’re in a gay bar.

An alien who has a vagina for a chin tries to pick a fight with Luke, who doesn’t know what the fuck Vagina Chin is saying because That’s Not English, Dude, but Obi Wan steps in. He kills one roughneck and hacks off another’s arm with his light saber. They show the bloodied arm on the floor, which begs the question of why the light saber didn’t instantly cauterize the wound when it sliced through the arm. Seriously, George Lucas, you spent millions of dollars changing Jake Lloyd’s eyeballs in The Phantom Menace, and you can’t fucking fix this? Whatever, George. I’m done with your shit. Anyway, we finally, finally meet Han Solo and Chewbacca, who don’t take no shit from no one, at least not for a price. Obi Wan and Han hash a deal out, and Han agrees to shuttle Obi Wan and the boy around, because a job’s a job. Before he can leave, however, Greedo, a bounty hunter, comes to bring Han back to Han’s ex-boss, Jabba the Hutt, who’s put a price on Han’s head, because it’s a nice-looking head. Han and Greedo trade barbs right before Han shoots Greedo. Now, in the original version, Han shoots Greedo, because he’s a bad ass in that way. In the new version, however, Greedo shoots at Han first, somehow missing him despite the fact that he’s only, like, two fucking feet away from him. Han actually aims his gun and kills him. Because George Lucas, you son of a bitch.

Outside the cantina, the Stormtroopers are closing in on Obi Wan and the droids. Luke sells his jaunty jalopy and whines about it, because DAMN THIS ECONOMY. They’re followed to the Millennium Falcon by an alien that looks suspiciously like Trumpy from Pod People, who rats them out to the Stormtroopers. There’s a new scene in which Jabba the Hutt and Han have a conversation outside the ship. Han is like, “Whatever, this scene probably won’t even make it into the movie,” and doesn’t seem particularly worried by Jabba’s presence. Little does he know. There are another two Greedos hanging out with Jabba, so I don’t know why Jabba is so upset that Han killed the first Greedo. But whatever, that scene is worthless.

Luke sets his eyes on the Falcon and, of course, whines about it. Han tells him to keep his whiny mouth shut and get the fuck on board. They’re about to leave when the Stormtroopers attack, which allows for another fight scene, and they ultimately zip out of Mos Eisley in a hurry. Han quickly realizes that his new passengers might not be what they seem. And that he’s probably going to end up trapped in a trash compactor in the near future. Poor Han. Imperial cruisers chase the Falcon, while Luke whines and Han handles the situation like a man. Because he’s awesome.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tarkin meets Leia, who sasses him, because she has a sass-mouth. You’re either a sass-mouth or a whiner in the Skywalker family, and Leia lucked out in that respect. Tarkin threatens to blow up her home planet of Alderaan unless she tells him the location of the rebel base. She gives him a random planet name, because she’s smart and sassy, and Tarkin blows up her planet anyway, because he can play the sass game too, little lady. Obi Wan feels a whole bunch of death going down in the universe, and has to have a lie-down. Chewbacca and R2-D2 play some sort of alien game of holographic chess, because SCIENCE FICTION. R2-D2 lets Chewbacca win because Chewie’s a sore loser and will kill him if he doesn’t. Which is a good strategy to have, really. I wish I had employed that strategy more when I played competitive sports. Meanwhile, Obi Wan is trying to school Luke in the Force, while Han makes fun of him, because he’s Han and he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about hokey religions. Because Han is too cool for school. And besides, Luke’s getting his ass handed to him by a laser-shooting baseball, so Han sort of has a point.

Tarkin is shocked—shocked!—to find that Leia lied to him about where the rebel base was. Dude, she’s sassy. You’re going to get that, with sass-mouth. Tarkin gives up trying to reason with her and orders her to be executed. But not instantly though—no, let’s give those Rebel fighters a chance to maybe save her first, there’s a good sport. Luke and the gang arrive where Alderaan should have been, but by now it’s nothing but space junk. They follow some short-range TIE fighters to what is not in fact a moon but actually a space station—the Death Star. Because it’s as big as a star, and it likes to kill things to death. Hence, Death Star. Luke whines at a higher pitch than usual as the Death Star pulls the Falcon in with its tractor beam. Han wants to fight the Stormtroopers because he’s a man, damn it, and that’s what men do, but Obi Wan convinces him to hide in the cargo hold of the ship, because that’s what Jedis do. Darth senses Obi Wan’s presence. But not his own son, because I wouldn’t want to recognize Luke’s presence either.

Luke and the Gang kill some Stormtroopers and steal their uniforms, because they’re sneaky like that. Chewbacca mauls some officers to death, because that’s what wookiees do. They take control of the control room fairly easily. Good job, guys. One room down, 30,000 more to go. Han has been hanging out with Luke for too long, because he starts to whine about having to run and sneak and exert himself physically. Obi Wan sets out to turn off the Death Star’s defense system, and tells Luke to stay safe and don’t touch anything. Just put your hands behind your back, Luke. Remember—you break it, you buy it. Han and Chewie make fun of Obi Wan because Jedis are lame, man. R2-D2 finds out where Leia is being held and Han is all like, “What the fuck is this shit about princesses and saving princesses and shit this is not what I signed up for.” Luke whines, and then tries a different tack, explaining to Han that saving princesses come with rewards which means money. Money for Han. Han likes money and begrudgingly goes along with Luke’s shitty plan, which involves pretending that Chewbacca is a prisoner and going to Leia’s cell block and…that’s it. That’s the plan. It only works because everyone else on the Death Star has better things to do than wonder what two shorter-than-average Stormtroopers are doing with a humongous walking carpet (Leia’s words, not mine). They arrive at the cell block and try to lie their pants off, which doesn’t work because the officer in charge is on the ball and realizes how ridiculous their story is. So Chewie goes berserk and Han starts shooting. Because why the fuck not?

Okay, actual funniest part of the movie—Han pretends to be an Imperial officer and tries to explain the firefight that just went down when some senior officers call in asking what all the ruckus is. Harrison Ford adlibbed a lot of it, apparently. Of course, it doesn’t work, because none of their plans work, and so he shoots the CommLink. Of course he does. Luke finds Leia, who makes fun of his height, because she’s sassy. Princesses, man.

Darth Vader is 110 percent sure that Obi Wan is on the Death Star, because there’s an old man smell wafting through the hallways, I guess. Obi Wan continues to sneaky-sneak about the Death Star while Han and Luke get their asses handed to them left and right. Because they’re incompetent. They try to leave the cell block with Leia but are quickly hemmed in by Stormtroopers. Leia sass-mouths everyone, because she’s sassy, and calls Han “Fly Boy”, which is pretty fucking funny. (Actually, most of what Leia says is funny in its sassiness.) Then she forces everyone to jump into a garbage chute, because she’s a Skywalker and all Skywalker plans suck ass. Wheee, down the garbage chute they go, into the trash compactor, which is usually where all garbage chutes lead to. Leia did not plan that far ahead. Han, Leia, and Luke yell at each other as they try to get out of the compactor, because they’re way in over their heads. There’s also a Dianoga, some sort of octopus-y alien, down there with them, because why not?, and it pulls Luke into the garbage water in record time. Because Luke is a tool. There are some awkward minutes in which Luke has apparently been killed and Han and Leia have nothing to talk about, but then the alien releases Luke, because George Lucas realized that that was a plot point that was going nowhere, I guess. And then the trash compactor starts up! Because fuck their lives, that’s why!

C-3PO and R2-D2 are in the control room and could turn off the compactor, but some soldiers break into the control room, and C-3PO has to turn off his CommLink , and is unable to hear Luke whining for help. Luke and Co. are slowly getting squished, bickering all the while. It’s Suspenseful. C-3PO remembers his CommLink and tries to apologize to Sir Luke for not calling him up sooner. Luke tells him to shut the fuck up and turn off the garbage compactor. Which he does. Everyone’s happy that they’re not dead. Han and Leia hug. Han feels a stirring in his plastic stormtrooper codpiece.

Han and Leia trade barbs, because they’re both sassy, and Leia insults everyone, because she’s the sassiest of them all. Obi Wan uses his Jedi Mind Magic to turn off the Death Star’s tractor beam. On their way back to the Falcon, Han and Luke and Leia split up, Han offering a diversion by getting into it with some Stormtroopers, which naturally leads to him being chased by more Stormtroopers, and Luke and Leia getting stuck in a little alcove after Luke shoots out the controls to the bridge or something, I don’t know. He’s a fuck-up. He and Leia get out of their sticky situation, but not before relishing in some sexy, actually-incestuous chemistry between themselves.

Darth finally tracks down Obi Wan, and they duke it out using their light sabers. Darth’s like, “Yo, what’s up? How’s it going? I’m totally going to kill you, by the way, because I’m stronger than you, and I’m 90 percent machine.” And Obi Wan is like, “Even if you kill me, then I’ll still win, because I’m Zen like that.” Vader’s like, “Yeah, I’m willing to live with that,” and kills him. But only because Obi Wan lets him kill him, to divert attention so Luke and Co. could get into the Falcon and escape. Luke fucks it up by whining about Obi Wan’s death, however, catching the Stormtroopers’ attention, and so they still get shot at. Obi Wan isn’t even dead for ten seconds before his spirit has to remind Luke to run the fuck away from the bad guys.

Back in space, Luke is sad because his mentor died. Despite only after knowing him for maybe a week, at most. He tries to grieve, but Han reminds him that they’re still on the run from Imperial TIE-fighters so put on your big boy pants and strap yourself to a laser gun, farm boy. What follows is a pretty awesome fight scene between the Falcon and said TIE fighters. The good guys win, although Leia is quick to rain on Han’s parade by insisting that the Empire let them go. Because she’s sassy.  She’s right, of course, because Darth Vader and Tarkin have put a tracking device on the Falcon and are going to follow them back the Rebel base. Han and Leia argue because they’re both spunky and that’s how spunky people fall in love. Luke is like, “Don’t think squishy thoughts about my sister-crush, dude, that’s not cool,” and Han’s like, “Well, of course I’m going to now.”

The Falcon flies to the rather nice-looking planet of Yavin IV, and Luke and Leia and the rest of the Rebels prepare to destroy the Death Star, using the blueprints R2-D2 purloined. Vader and Tarkin have followed them and prepare to destroy Yavin. What a crazy happenstance! It’s like a sitcom! Hopefully, at the end the Death Star will be like, “You were trying to blow me up? But I was trying to blow you up!” And Yavin can laugh and be like, “You mean—you…? Oh, well boy is my face red!” Jan Dodonna, the Rebel leader of the attack, explains his Blow Up the Death Star strategy to the rebel pilots (it’s basically, “shoot this tiny target in the middle of the scary laser ball”). Han tries his best to not seem interested in all this. He does a fade-away-jerk hand gesture at everyone who looks at him (or, well, Chewie. Chewbacca is the only one who looks at him).

Luke whines about Han leaving before the fight, because Han apparently hasn’t put his life in jeopardy enough for Luke’s liking. Luke tries to browbeat him but Han’s like, “What the fuck ever, this bounty on my head isn’t going to pay itself.” Luke hops into an X-wing fighter with R2-D2 as his batman, (batman as in an officer’s assistant, not Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting alter ego, although R2-D2 as Batman would be interesting, admit it). Luke meets his old boyhood friend Biggs, who’s ready to kick some Imperial ass; not realizing, I guess, that if you’re introduced just before the beginning of a battle scene, you’re pretty much as good as dead. Sorry, Biggs. Nice mustache though. The Ghost of Obi Wan gives Luke a little pep talk before the mission. Everyone takes their places—Luke and R2-D2 in his X-wing, Leia and C-3PO in the rebel control center, Darth Vader and Tarkin in the command center of the Death Star, Han getting the fuck out of dodge, etc.

And the fight begins! It’s rather wicked. Troopers on the Death Star scramble about as the Death Star takes minor hits. A Rebel named Porkins is killed—Porkins, because he’s fat, get it?! Oh, George Lucas, you do have fun. Rebel pilots start getting taken out by TIE fighters, one by one, and Luke whines all the while. “Wahh, stop getting shot, guys, this isn’t funny! Wahhh, power converters!” he whines. (Fun fact: I have a Luke Skywalker pen that talks, and all its sound bytes are of Luke whining. I love it to death.) A handful of the X-wings fly through a Death Star canyon to hit their target, which will in effect blow up the Death Star—it is literally the size of a shoebox. They have to shoot into the shoebox-sized hole while flying a million miles per second and with TIE-fighters on their tale, so when Tarkin says he’s not worried about the Death Star getting blown up, it’s not necessarily difficult to see why. One after another the rebel pilots attempt to hit their target, but fail, because their scopes were apparently built in China and therefore suck and are useless. Biggs is killed, which makes Luke sad, but more driven to Blow All the Shit Up. There’s another pilot named Wedge Antilles, who realizes that this is a stupid fucked-up plan and is like, “Lol, screw you, assholes, I’m going home.” And thus is able to make appearances in subsequent Star Wars movies, unlike any of the other minor rebel fighters.

At this point Darth wants in on this Rebel-killing action and mans his own ship to shoot down the rebel pilots. He finally, finally senses that the force is strong with Luke, and manages to hit R2-D2. It’s sad. Sadder still that, if R2-D2 died, C-3PO would be unable to collect R2-D2’s pension or anything, because inter-droid marriage and its spousal benefits are probably illegal, I’m guessing. Darth is just about to shoot Luke down when HAN APPEARS TO SAVE THE DAY! Yay! The Falcon shows up in a very nice shot, haloed by a lens flare, and in a movie theater somewhere, a tiny JJ Abrams feels a chill roll down his spine. Darth is ricocheted into outer space as Luke hits his target (it’s blatantly sexual, but George Lucas probably didn’t realize it, because SCIENCE FICTION). The Death Star blows up, everyone returns to base, Han is instantly happy and Part of the Team, and they all celebrate. Some gearheads promise to fix and shine R2-D2 up real pretty-like.

In a final scene straight out of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, Princess Leia awards Han and Luke with medals—but not Chewbacca, because Racism. Han winks at her because he’s a smooth one, that Han is, and R2-D2 is alive, yay! The heroes are applauded, and George Lucas wonders if he’s going to get enough money out of this dinky little movie for him to pay off the rest of his car loans. Fox executives, doubting this movie will ever break even, wonder if maybe they can make some money off its merchandise. The answer to all their questions is—yes. Yes, it will make some money.

[wendynerdwrites]

Im glad that u also like archer. Ive been rewatching it (im on s2) and i feel guilty as a feminist for liking it so much :( i know a lot of the jokes are supposed to be ironic but i still feel bad for laughing, and my bf has made comments abt "how can u laugh at that as a feminist" (he isnt one, hes using it as a gotcha). How do u feel about this? Any advice for separating myself from toxic fandom to just be able to enjoy something problematic? Love ur blog btw happy friday 💋💋

Thanks, and don’t worry, anon: You’re not a bad feminist. 

It’s funny you ask this, but I used to have an entire essay series on this exact topic, and on Archer, particularly!

My philosophy is: don’t ignore the problematic, examine it. Use it as a springboard for analysis so you can learn more about the issue conveyed. Use your problematic responsibly! Because, let’s be honest, there ARE no unproblematic pieces of media. So just use it to educate yourself instead. For instance: my love of West Side Story (starring Natalie Wood as the Puerto Rican Maria) got me to learn more about the issues of white-washing.

Being a feminist is not about being perfect, it’s about learning and being open to examination and learning. Use your fandom for good!

Laughter is the balm for the soul. And listening to your boyfriend telling you how to be a feminist… less so. Kind of the opposite. 

My old articles are lost, for the most part, but under the cut, I’ve pasted them for reference and included a great video on satire that also very easily applies to this discussion (just substitute feminism with the Holocaust)

Our Faves Are Problematic (And So Can You!)

Nothing and no one is perfect, so isnt it about time we learn how to call out the things we love?

We are all familiar with guilty pleasures: those things we like in spite of ourselves, that we are ashamed to admit we enjoy. Usually the term is applied to something we enjoy despite a perceived “lameness”, or because we’re not the right demographic for something. For instance, I still have a deep, abiding affection for Sailor Moon: that colorful, stock-footage-laced Japanese phenomenon that still gets me shouting “MOON PRISM POWER!” when I’m in the right mood. Yes, childhood is over, and yes, the show’s American dub did give me incest panic as a child, but I can’t help but love it.

But then there is the more difficult brand of guilty pleasures guilty pleasures that involve actual guilt instead of “mild embarrassment”. I’m talking about problematic faves the stuff that we love despite it containing clearly objectionable material.

willing18

(Image copyright Vertigo Comics)

…This is a panel from Bill Willingham’s Fables. The character there is Bigby Wolf, one of the main (anti) heroes of the story and the character the writer identifies with most. The person Bigby is waxing poetically on pro-Zionism to is someone literally called “The Adversary”.

Fables also happens to be one of my favorite comic book series on the planet.

Safe to say the issues surrounding Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East are a bit more complicated than that. And my own feelings on the matter are far more complicated. But this glorification of Israeli military policy is… um… in very tame terms… uncomfortable. After reading this, I resolved to only check Fables out of the library: a way for me to enjoy these comics in a legal way without financially supporting these ideas, however indirectly.

There are other problems with Fables: a lack of ethnic diversity, some murky racial and class commentary, and instances of some objectionable tropes, but there is a lot to recommend of these books as well. The stories are fantastic, the art brilliant, the characters well-fleshed out, and there is a definite progressive take on issues like gender and sexuality. But as much as I love this series, there is no getting around the fact that these stories have issues.

No excuses.

But it’s not just Fables that has disappointed me in the past. I am now and forever a Trekker, yet despite how horribly sexist episodes like “The Turnabout Intruder” are, or the very troubling anti-Semitic coding of the Ferengi. The Star Wars prequels famously had racist caricatures with the Trade Federation and the infamous Jar Jar Binks.

In the world of media, there’s no shortage of problematic content. From the novels of Robert Heinlein containing pro-fascist commentary, to HBO’s Game of Thrones misogynistic adaptation decisions, there’s nothing that is quite free of some messed up messages, subtle and blatant alike.

Now, when we talk about such media, we don’t merely mean triggering factors (i.e. the presentation, portrayal, or discussion of potentially traumatizing issues like domestic abuse, racism, hate crimes, substance abuse, or sexual assault), but rather how these matters are portrayed. A piece of media, such as Marvel and Netflix’s excellent Jessica Jones series, can portray certain issues (such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and mental illness) in a respectful, progressive, and sensitive light. Thus, while the content of the show can be triggering, the skill with which they portray these matters keeps it from being problematic.

In contrast, something like Game of Thrones, which portrays sexual assault in a thoroughly insensitive, exploitative, and misogynistic manner, is highly problematic.

Unfortunately, progress has been a slow-moving process, with many issues such as race, gender, sexual identity, mental illness, substance abuse, and violence only being examined in a more nuanced way fairly recently. As a result, almost all media is problematic in one way or another. Especially since even today, the majority of executives crafting, publishing, and greenlighting books, shows, comics, movies, and other forms of media are in fact cisgendered, heterosexual white men.

So what do we do?

Good news: here at Fandom Following, we don’t believe in dropping something you like just because it’s problematic. Why?

Because knowing, examining, and yes, even appreciating problematic content can be incredibly important. While certain content can be damaging, it can also teach us a great deal. Not only about current issues, but also about how to go about discussing these matters, and constructing narratives in general.

The racial issues in things like Star Wars and Star Trek can teach us much about how coding works, and how to avoid reinforcing stereotypes. The exploitation of women and rape on Game of Thrones can open up a dialogue of how to portray these things properly and improperly.

There are three tricks to enjoying problematic media: 1) Recognizing that there is an issue, 2) Being ready for a dialogue, and 3) Not ignoring or silencing the complaints about said issues.

Well, we here at Fandom Following have decided to tackle this issue head on with a series called “Our Faves Are Problematic (And So Can You!)”, where we will be exploring specific media franchises, creators, and works and, specifically, the problematic content they contain. In this series, we’ll be examining the issues, talking about why they’re important, discussing what this piece of media did wrong, how to approach the issue in a more progressive way, and the best ways to go about discussing the issue itself. Various writers will be contributing to this project, and we’re excited to present this feature to you!

So let’s get down and dirty, people. We all have our problematic faves. Let’s talk about them.

My Face is Problematic: Archer

Honestly, doing a post like this on Archer, a show which is deliberate in its dark humor, is a bit hard for me. Not because I like the show, but because I think there’s true validity in the argument that humor and narratives about really messed up, problematic stuff has its place. The show exists to be as outlandish and absurd as possible. The extremes and the awfulness of the characters’ personalities and their actions is the point.

I VUZ BORN IN DUSSELDORF AND THAT IS VY THEY CALL ME ROLF!

Joking about awful things, awful circumstances, and awful people is hardly new ground for comedy to cover, nor does it send a poor message, necessarily. Mel Brooks wrote a movie in which one of the characters was a Nazi, who wrote an overblown pro-Nazi musical produced by men deliberately trying to make a flop. Springtime For Hitler, as it exists in our universe, is not problematic. The Nazis are the butt of the joke, in which any pro-Nazi sentiment can only function if it is wildly fabricated and over-the-top, and even then, it will still be taken for satire. Because Nazis are utterly terrible, they built their movement on total bullshit that they dressed up in shiny boots and Hugo Boss uniforms and German exceptionalism and “glory”. This song-and-dance number about “Don’t be stupid, be a smartie, come and join the Nazi party” only ever deserves to be a joke, as the Jew who wrote it can tell you. Nazis fucking suck and it’s hilarious that anyone would ever suggest otherwise.

There’s justice in reducing Nazis to self-parody, and doubling down on that by making a joke about them being reduced to self-parody. Especially when said self-parody and depiction of it is crafted by the very people Hitler tried to destroy. No one enjoys or masters mocking Nazis like the Jews. Plain and simple.

Joking about awful things and how terrible they are can be a good way to process things and not allow them to hurt you anymore. Comedy, at its core, is a defense mechanism against horror and pain. There’s a reason slapstick is a classic subgenre of comedy that people have built entire careers around. Laugh at terror and pain to make it go away. Unfortunately, some of the things we manage to find humor in can really make you wonder if were all just terrible and have no limits.

Angela’s Ashes is a memoir by Frank McCourt about his impoverished, abusive, dangerous childhood in Ireland. In it, he chronicles his own starvation, life-threatening illness, abuse, and suffering at the hands of alcoholism and brutality from adult authority figures. He was a child laborer who went days without food while his father drank away the family’s money and abused the rest of the family, who often came down with horrifying illnesses as a result of the terrible conditions he lived in, and spent his formative years suffering along with all the people he loved. Three of his infant siblings die within the space of a chapter. We get a glimpse of the time when his father, overjoyed at the birth of his daughter, finds the will to stop drinking, stop mistreating his family, go to work, provide for his family, and just generally be a better person so that his children don’t have to suffer. For a short period, the McCourts have food, heat, and happiness. Then the baby promptly dies and Frank’s father is back in the pubs, once again squandering any pay he manages to acquire on alcohol and returning home at three am to scream at and beat his wife while his remaining children try to cover their ears and sleep on the cold ground.

Along with being praised for it being a both an unflinchingly brutal depiction of poverty and a testament to the triumph of the human spirit, the book is also praised for its humor.

Remember: Angela’s Ashes is a true story written by the very man who suffered through all of these horrible things. And it’s considered a pretty funny book. And the author who, once again, is the person who actually suffered all of these horrible things, actually did intentionally try to make people laugh as they read about that time he was in the hospital with Typhoid Fever and enjoyed it because it was the first time he’d been in a place where he was fed regularly and got to sleep in a warm bed.

Hilarious.

That being said, there’s satire and dark humor, and there’s just gratuitous, shock-jock bullshit. There are jokes that are terrible simply because of what they’re about and how they’re handled. George Carlin said that anything can be made funny, even rape, if you imagine Elmer Fudd raping Porky Pig.

If we can build entire films and musicals about how any pro-Hitler sentiment can only ever be taken as satire, isn’t that proof that you can joke about anything?

Yes, you can, but that doesn’t mean you should try, that the joke is funny, or that it’s alright, necessarily. Maybe Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, and Springtime for Hitler prove that anything can be made funny and that’s okay. But if that’s true (and no, I’m not saying that it is), that still doesn’t mean every attempt at making something funny is either acceptable or funny.

Springtime for Hitler is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for any attempt to make a terrible subject the object of humor. Standards need to exist.

Unfortunately, the line between good or acceptable dark humor and simply gratuitous, insensitive, inherently problematic jokes can blur. The excuse of humor can only go so far. Yes, make light of Nazis. But there’s still a point where “humor” is used an excuse for people to act like assholes. And it’s an excuse that is used all too often. Radio Shock Jocks have been using that excuse to help reinforce racism and rape culture for quite a while. Whether certain dudebros like it or not, there’s a point where it stops being gross-out and just starts being gross.

Which brings me to Archer, the animated spy comedy on FX that premiered in 2011. Like many comedy series like Seinfeld or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a major part of the premise is that certain characters are, quite simply, terrible people. These characters and their abhorrent behavior is the joke. And, as the show is about spies, these terrible people are often put into highly dangerous, outlandish, and traumatizing situations.

So, the main characters, by virtue of their profession, spend a lot of time killing people in cold blood. Or trying to seduce or manipulate enemies. Or engaging in clandestine operations of sabotage that harm a lot of people. Horrible, violent things are going to happen, things violent enough to serve as narratives on their own. But most of the characters are as awful as the situations they encounter, so the horror is amplified. And it’s a comedy.

Indeed, in the first episode of the fifth season, we get the whole main ensemble recounting all of their actions and experiences working for the spy agency ISIS that we’d witnessed over the course of the show’s run at that point. Drag racing with the Yakuza, knee-capping the Irish mob, encountering human traffickers, 30 year affairs with the head of the KGB that only ended when the guy was blown up because one of the ISIS members had choke sex with the victim’s cyborg replacement, actual piracy, paying homeless people to fight for spectators, defling a corpse, defiling a different corpse, sexual assault, kidnapping the pope, blowing up oil pipelines, “smuggling Mexicans”

Yeah.

There are comedic arcs about cancer, illegal immigration, kinky S&M bondage murders, cocaine addiction… a lot of stuff, basically.

Now, take those situations, and add in characters who get aroused by things like homeless people, being choked, sex with food, and the thought of their mother dying. Who spend their weekends starting fires, making hybrid pig-people, rubbing sand into the eyes of their employees, competing in underground Chinese Fighting Fish tournaments, and calling in bomb threats so that they can get a table at a fancy restaurant. You get the idea.

And it’s all totally awesome and hilarious and god damn it I kind of love these characters.

This show has a season-long sub-arc about one of the main characters getting so aggressively addicted to cocaine that she not only consumes (literally) half a ton of it in the space of a few months, but almost gets her head chopped off for buying amphetamines from the Yakuza with counterfeit money. It’s one of the most incredible things the show has done.

Pictured: An absurdly self-centered man feeling genuine dismay and concern over his friend risking her life to achieve an unrealistic standard of beauty.

The title character has a butler named Woodhouse who practically raised him. One of the first interactions we witness between them is Archer not only threatening to rub sand into Woodhouse’s “dead little eyes”, but making him go out and buy the sand himself and check if they grade it, because he wants the sand to be coarse. He’s also done things like make the man eat a bowl of spiderwebs and deliberately keep him in the dark about his brother’s death and funeral.

Another character is a mad scientist and possible clone of Adolf Hitler who kills a young intern by giving him a drug designed to turn him gay. That’s one of the less disturbing things Dr. Krieger has done.

Frequent gags on this show include one guy repeatedly getting shot, another character repeatedly getting paralyzed (it’s complicated), people trying to remember the inappropriate puns that they wanted say as one-liners, the horrific abuse and neglect Sterling Archer has received from his mother his entire life, and basically everyone being a sex-maniac.

There are plots revolving around mind-control, drugging people, and hypnotism. You can imagine the paths some of those episodes go down. Yes, there is a character that has tried to sexually assault one of her sleeping co-workers. And later deposited two unconscious, naked coworkers in a bathroom stall with an octopus, in an episode that has already made tentacle hentai jokes. Yes, the openly gay character on the show is often the target of jokes about him being gay or a woman from his coworkers. Yes, the female lead, a black woman, is referred to as a “quadroon” at one point by one of the characters.

Yes, the following exchange of dialogue does take place in an early episode:

“Oh my god, you killed a hooker!”

“Call-girl!”

“No, Cyril, when they’re dead, they’re just hookers!”

And yet… Oh my god. How it manages to play around with stuff in an amazing fashion. For one thing, it is amazing how often this show skewers micro-aggressions and fucks around with stereotypes. And, despite how unabashedly messed up it is, the writing in it actually manages to be oddly pro-social progress in ways that most modern media doesn’t even seem to be aware of.

I take pride in my sex work and I will not put up with your bullshit!

For instance the “hooker” referred to in that exchange? (spoiler alert: she wasn’t really dead) She’s Trinette, and she an unbelievably refreshing and strangely progressive depiction of a sex worker. While she’s a minor character, every time she shows up, it’s awesome. Trinette is a sex worker who is unashamed of her job, a woman who truly does take pride in and enjoy her work, who does not put up with poor behavior from her clients, and is just generally awesome. She call people out and makes them pay for any mistreatment she receives, from calling out micro-aggressions by insisting on her preferred terminology for her profession (“Call-girl, you puke!”), shaming men for their sexual misdeeds (“How can you cheat on Lana bare-back?!”), demanding restitution for any injuries or threats she’s suffered (Threatening Archer into giving her his car after he fakes her death and stuffs her in a rug to fool Cyril into thinking he killed her), and determining her work and clients (“What about Trinette? She said that? Damn it!”). When she has a baby, she gives it her last name along with his father’s (“Magoon-Archer”) and she unapologetically proud of her Irish heritage. She’s easily one of the most functional characters in the show, and every one of her appearances on the show manage to defy at least one whore-phobic trope a minute. She’s the best.

Then there’s the show’s handling of race, which is mixed. While arguably the most important female character in the series (the show, despite its name, is very, very much an ensemble, especially as the series progresses. But in the early episodes when they focussed on fewer characters, she was the one who got the most screentime) is Lana Kane, a highly-competent (for ISIS) African American woman who is really, really well-developed, there is also the fact that she’s the only POC in the main cast. Granted, part of that IS the point. One of the earliest episodes is “Diversity Hire”, where, aside from Lana, the spy agency is so overwhelmingly white that they hire a “diversity double-whammy!” Conway Stern, a black Jew.

“Sammy Gay-vis Junior!”

Now, granted, that doesn’t sound great the way I describe it, but there are so many great moments in this episode alone. For instance, when Mallory Archer, terrible woman and owner of the spy agency mentions their lack of diversity, Cyril, the tragically white accountant and “nice guy” puts his hands on Lana’s shoulder and says he thinks they’re pretty diverse, a statement Lana finds hilarious. Cue Sterling Archer, other horrible person, telling Lana she’s “black-ish”, then responding to her offense at this with “Well, you freaked out when I said quadroon!”. The framing of this entire discourse is that Cyril and Archer are fucking idiots and Lana is of course taking offense because, duh, she should. The episode proceeds with a lot of references and discussion about racism, highlighting casual racism in a nuanced, funny, and organic way. For instance, Archer’s relief that Conway didn’t sleep with his mother. While Archer freaks out about anyone sleeping with his mother, regardless of race, Conway believes it’s racism on Archer’s fault. And in no way does the narrative act like he’s overly-sensitive or irrational for thinking that. Because the stereotype about black men seducing white women and fear from white men about this is still a very real, pervasive thing that has somehow managed to survive in our “enlightened” times. Of course Conway encountering a guy who displays a downright violent fixation on whether or not his new black coworker is sleeping with his mother will assume it’s a race thing. Because why would anyone be so preoccupied with such an idea? In that situation, it’s almost certainly based on the long-standing paranoia white men have about black men’s sexuality “conquering their women.” It’s one of the most common varieties of anti-blackness in existence.

Of course, since it’s Archer, who has kidnapped a LOT of people under the suspicion that they were having sex with his mom, we know this is the one case that it isn’t racism. It’s Archer’s disturbing, Oedipal relationship with his mother. He even kidnapped and threatened his role model, Burt Reynolds, for dating his mother. When he says “Not in a racist way” to Conway in this episode, it’s actually true. He’s just honestly that screwed up where his mother is concerned.

Conway’s conclusions on this, regardless, are still framed as a totally understandable. To the point where the episodes suggests that it would make no sense for Conway to think otherwise. Part of the joke is that no, Archer isn’t a horrible racist at all. He’s way too screwed up for his actions to be motivated by racism.

And before anyone asks, no, this wasn’t the “episode that acknowledges that racism is a thing.” You know the ones… The episodes that talk about race and why racism is bad to prove to the audience that they’re not racist, then proceed with the rest of the show, which never acknowledges race and racism again. There are frequent instances of highlighting racism, from violent outright bigotry to common micro-aggressions to clueless white people demanding how the thing they just did/said could POSSIBLY be considered racist! They’re not racist! How is THAT racist?! Cue Lana face-palming.

I just really, really like this. It doesn’t just end there, either. Racism is called out pretty frequently on this show, and not in a cliche, strawman way. Nor is it treated like something that only exists in the form of aggressively bigoted bad people shouting slurs and holding cross burnings. Nope. The “heroes” of this show just say shit that you could easily imagine someone saying in real life, shortly before getting defensive about any racism on their part. It’s treated as a common, pervasive thing that Lana and other PoC have to deal with every day, and the offense they take at it is treated as nothing short of sympathetic or justified (even in the cases of misunderstandings, like with Conway). This includes Mallory telling Lana to “put [the race card] back in the deck!” as reminder of how much of an unapologetic douche Mallory is.

It’s made clear: people say and do some super racist shit on a regular basis with realizing it or meaning to, and regardless, it’s still uncool and people have every right to get upset and call you out on it. See: Ray’s bionic hand at the end of season six.

Lana’s reactions and how they’re framed is usually pretty awesome. Mostly they come in the form of small, reasonable confrontations, which are never framed as an overreaction on her part. The fact that she “freaked out” when Archer called her a quadroon is framed as “well, duh, of course, she should.” Then there are instances like when she, Archer, and their child visit a high-end nursery school where they encounter a pretty obvious racist. The guy ignores and dismisses Lana at first, then expresses surprise at the fact that she’s the mother of the child (despite the baby being black), remarking about the “times we live in” and telling Lana “good for you!” when she informs him that yes, she is the mother, not the nanny or the maid.

Not all of the racism stuff stems from Lana being back, either. They skewer bigotry against Latinos on a pretty regular basis. When an Irish mobster rants about Latinos (he doesn’t refer to them by that name) “taking American jobs!”, Archer immediately calls bullshit, recalling actual history of the Irish being accused of that exact same thing during the mass immigration of the Irish to America during the potato famine, and it’s just as shitty and bigoted to say such things about immigrants now as it was in 1842. He is extremely irate about a mission ISIS is assigned to do on behalf of border patrol to  arrest people who just want to get a job, and he ends up siding with and befriending the Mexican illegal immigrants he encounters. All of this while aspects of certain Latinx cultures are often highlighted, often very favorably (“Ramone is Latino, so he’s not afraid to express affection.”)

That being said, there are still a lot of issues in the show. The lack of diversity is definitely an albatross around this show’s neck. Especially so many seasons after the “Diversity Hire” episode. While I do praise Archer for not treating racism as a thing that is rare and only needs to be addressed in one twenty-minute block of time, it is telling that the lack of diversity at ISIS is never addressed again.

Then there’s the approach to sexuality. The show loves gross-out sex humor, especially regarding Krieger. And the depiction of sexuality is actually pretty mixed. On one hand, the openly gay character in the show adheres to a lot of stereotypes about gay men: he mocks Lana about her “knock-off Fiacci drawers”, his go-to alias is “Carl Channing”, his free time is spent at raves, and he loves to make effeminate poses. He’s also a frequent target of homophobic jokes and remarks. His outrage at this is treated as being every bit as valid as Lana’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that their main gay character is basically ALL of the stereotypes, as are a number of the other gay characters.

“Alright! Were off to get our scrotums waxed!”

Then there is the sexual assault. Which, once again, is called out for being what it is, in defiance of many common biases (such as the idea that female-on-male sexual assault isn’t a thing). But this show is way too flippant about this.

While I consider Archer to be very sex-positive, allowing every character, regardless of sex, age, or orientation, to be comfortable and expressive about their sexuality without judgment (a lot of jokes, yes, but not any that come off as particularly shaming). Almost every character, male or female spends a fair amount of time naked or scantily clad. We see Archer stripped down just as often as Lana. And the fan service isn’t relegated to just women who adhere to the typical youth and weight obsessed eurocentric standards we all know and hate.

Pam, who is a big woman (and often the target of fat jokes, which the show always treats as nothing short of detestable) is a total sex goddess who grows to be utterly confident in herself as a woman to the point where she’s giving Mallory (one of the most desired women on the show) advice. When she reveals that she keep ingesting cocaine because it’s made her thin with big boobs, Archer is utterly dismayed, telling her she was way better off the way she was, acting horrified that she’d risk her life to be “hot”, and just generally freaking out about Pam’s desire to be thin. It manages to avoid being cliche or empty given that Archer considered Pam the best sex he ever had before she got thin, to the point of blowing off assignments just to have sex with her, because she’s just that awesome. After she gains the weight back in season six, she’s still sexy, making Archer’s jaw drop in the episode “Edie’s Wedding.” She’s also unapologetically pansexual, which is awesome.

Mallory, meanwhile, is still actively sexual and treated as desirable. While sex and sexuality are always sources of gags and jokes on Archer, never do the jokes about Mallory’s sexuality ever come across as ageist. Sure, some characters make ageist comments on the show, but it’s never treated as valid. Mallory is still treated as being extremely sexy and confident about it. While Mallory is generally a horrible person, her enthusiastic sexual agency is never once treated as a flaw or something disturbing or gross. What’s disturbing, gross, and worthy of ridicule is her son being so preoccupied  and reactionary about his mother having a sex life. It’s clear: if you have a problem with Mallory having a lot of sex and enjoying it, you’re the one with issues.

Even the one young, thin, white woman in the main cast gets to be unapologetic about her kinks. It’s really only a problem when her desire for choke-sex motivates her to lead a KGB cyborg to the ISIS safehouse. Or when she coerces Cyril into sex. And generally acts like a violent, awful person.

Essentially, there’s no tolerance for shaming women for being sexual. All of it, regardless of preference, age, size, or race, is nothing but fun and should be enthusiastically represented. “Can’t talk, got a pussy to break!”

Being a predator is shameful. Having belly rolls is not.

Who on Earth finds this funny?

But, then there’s the flippancy about sexual assault. There ARE gags about Pam and Ray dropping their pants when encountering an unconscious Cyril. And sorry, but the framing of it is all manner of screwed up. There’s tons of sexual coersion as well. Another one of the most problematic instances comes in an episode of season two, where Archer is repeatedly sexually assaulted by a sixteen-year-old German socialite. The show goes out of its way to make it clear that Archer explicitly refuses consent, that he’s being violated, yet the show treats this as funny.

While I get that this is a comedy show and that in-depth exploration of the trauma of sexual abuse isn’t going to be something they can spend a lot of time on, the option they should have gone with is, you know, not base an episode around a german schoolgirl raping the main character. It’s not funny, guys. It’s not necessary. It’s actually just uncomfortable and off-putting.

The show mentions things like alternative gender identities, emotional triggers, and sexual exploration in ways that treat these things as totally valid, which is good. It also frequently portrays poor people as jokes in and of themselves, which is a lot less good. While materialism is lampooned frequently, it’s not treated as a joke in and of itself the way poverty is.

The way the show often portray legitimate abuse for laughs also often goes overboard. While the show does a good job of exploring and following through on all the ways Mallory’s abuse screwed up Archer, there’s a point where the volume of “abuse humor” gets to just be downright gross. Dark humor is one thing, not being able to go an episode without a “Haha, ten-year-old archer was abandoned in a train station at Christmas!” joke is, uh… Not great.

Archer is an awesome, immensely watchable show. But it’s not one I always feel clean watching. It’s a show that celebrates extremes, yes, but there’s a point where certain lines are crossed and it’s just problematic rather than gallows humor.

Archer is one of those series that really makes me struggle to distinguish the gallows humor from the simple tastelessness. To give pause to the idea of problematic content being the “point.”

The line blurs with Archer. A lot. It often manages to distinguish itself with the things it gets right, especially since they often do well on things that most shows, movies, and books are often terrible at. And that’s enough to buy it some goodwill for when they screw up.

But seriously, guys, please stop treating sexual coercion and child abuse as bottomless gag wells. I would have really preferred to have Pam and her awesome sexuality without her sexually assaulting Cyril and Ray. It’s not funny or clever or edgy. It’s just gross.

[simplemlmsponsoring]

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3 Controversial Ways to Increase Your Facebook Live Conversions

Do you stink at pooping?

No, seriously!

Not only is this a physiologically valid question (as you’ll soon learn), but it’s also the subject of a massively successful viral advertisement that generated over $15 million in sales back in 2015 alone.

Here’s the story…

The “Squatty Potty” company, makers of a toilet accessory for improving your “number two” posture, needed to get creative when promoting their product, which helps users achieve more satisfying results on a properly-equipped porcelain throne.

Funded largely through an appearance on Shark Tank, the bootstrapped company approached the Harmon Brothers’ advertising agency to produce a lighthearted and informative sales video for the “Internet era.”

It’s futile to describe; just take a look…

Whether you find it funny or in poor taste, you can’t argue with the results this puerile toilet humor produced.

According to numbers reported by Adweek, this campaign…

Garnered over 66 million views on Facebook and YouTube (in 4 months) Went certifiably viral (with 75% organic viewership) Kept 70% of viewers watching all the way to the end of the video Boosted online sales 600% and retail sales 400%

That’s a smashing success by any reckoning!

And it goes to show how the Internet’s truly the “wild west” of advertising.

In contrast, let’s take a look at another scatologically-oriented ad spot…

This one’s from one of America’s iconic, yet recently fallen-on-hard-times retailers…

This non-stop series of double entendres also went viral, piling up tens-of-millions of views.

However, the response wasn’t terribly welcoming or amused.

In fact, lots of consumers were offended and the evening news ran stories like, “has Kmart gone too far?”

Unfortunately sales dropped that quarter and they pulled the video from their social media channels.

And Kmart wasn’t doing too well to start with, if you recall.

So what’s the difference between Squatty Potty’s and Kmart’s ads?

Well, not much—from one perspective.

After all, they’re both humorous, controversial, and performed well with the Millennial crowd.

But, from a brand standpoint…

Kmart’s a family-oriented storefront, so as you can imagine, “ship my pants” was found offensive by much of their community-minded demographic.

Thus, Kmart experienced media fallout and hate mail from consumers from attempting this type of “edgy” marketing.

Squatty Potty, on the other hand, is obviously more congruent with toilet humor.

Obviously, offbeat ads work for offbeat products (which appeal to offbeat consumers).

This congruency, in “advertising vernacular,” is called a message to market match.

And this is critical for your marketing efforts.

In a moment we’ll discuss 3 methods to appropriately use controversy to build trust and rapport, and dramatically increase your conversions—especially on a live presentation, such as Facebook Live.

But first…

Let’s talk about how NOT to use controversy

Because it can, obviously, soil your reputation.

Looking at you, Kmart

Okay, so question: does the idea of delivering your latest comedic routine at open mic night excite you?

For most people, the answer is absolutely not!

Because even though Squatty Potty pulled it off like a champ, humor isn’t easy.

When executed well, it’s a great rapport builder, which can make you “hip” and relatable.

But if you miss the mark, it’s death to your sales.

There’s no quicker way to alienate your audience than an off-color joke that doesn’t land, so I’d recommend staying away from being controversial via humor, especially risqué humor.

So yeah, I did start this post with two ad examples I don’t want you to follow, but what can I say, we’re not in the business of exchanging a few laughs for attention and dollars.

There are a few other controversial topics we want to avoid, but we’ll get to those later.

First let’s dive into some recommended methods of ruffling a few feathers!

Your goal is to interrupt and agitate your audience

It’s no secret that controversy captures attention.

It’s unexpected.

Much like the iconic “record scratch” sound effect, a little controversy shatters the monotony of a regularly-scheduled routine, and perks folks’ ears right up.

And here’s the sales secret to keep in mind…

Being lukewarm does not rouse people into action!

If you’re too “milk toasty,” you’re just going to create indifference.

That’s bad.

Because people will tune you out without a second thought, whether you’re marketing on the Internet or through offline methods.

Not good.

Because you know what makes people take action?

EMOTION.

So if you want action…

Then you’ve got to “stir the pot” a bit…

And make your audience actually FEEL something.

A bit of controversy is great for creating such emotional tension.

I mean, think about it, what controversial topic doesn’t get folks all hot n’ bothered?

Think about it…

Whether it’s politics, economics, religion, bioethics, or Jar Jar Binks…

Every thinking person’s got strong opinions!

Okay, so to recap the process of inspiring action right quick…

First you capture attention Then you agitate the emotions of your audience

That’s what controversy has to offer when you’re marketing on the Internet.

How to increase Facebook Live conversions through controversy…

If you’re reading this, then you already know that there’s no quicker way to connect with your audience and get them to take action than going live on their News Feed.

So let’s dive into 3 ways to employ controversy to increase attendance, capture attention, and seriously boost your conversions.

These are all proven strategies, which minimize risks and maximize rewards of agitating your audience, while being relatively “safe” bets.

Let’s begin with…

A “damaging admission” is pretty broad and can take a couple of different forms.

Here are two of my favorites…

a.) You can admit something “negative”

I’ve seen many marketers say things like…

If I’m honest, I used to build my business for selfish reasons, but now I want to help people.

This builds credibility and trust, all in one.

After all, who doesn’t love a good redemption narrative?

This can also take the form of being vulnerable and admitting something you’ve done wrong…

When I first started, I used to spam the heck out of everyone on Facebook, but now I know better.

If you want your audience to feel something, you should go first.

Another tactic is this…

b.) You can be brutally honest about the shortcomings of whatever you’re promoting

Now, this might seem like a great way to shoot yourself in the foot.

But such honesty creates a ton of trust because you’re openly expressing the “negative” about what your offer cannot do.

This can be cleverly positioned, too.

This isn’t for everyone!

Don’t you want to know more when you see a statement like that?

Now, you can close the loop like this…

Hey, if you’re looking for some get-rich-quick scheme where you sit on the couch and do nothing, this isn’t for you. You actually have to work to be successful with our products and services. But if you’re willing to put in the time and invest in yourself, then you can achieve x, y, and z.

Works like a charm!

Moving on…

Here’s a window into human nature…

Pretty much everyone is convinced they’re being lied to.

This is natural.

It’s likely a product of the increasing level of of specialization in society—as it’s really hard to know everything about the modern world.

There’s a ton of knowledge that’s inaccessible to you, me, and everyone else.

Therefore doctors are lying to you, lawyers are lying to you, scientists are lying to you, politicians most certainly are lying to you, the news is lying to you, Google and Facebook are spying on you, etc., etc.

And look, I’m not here to debate who is and isn’t actually lying to you.

(Except in the case of politicians.)

In almost every instance above, we’ll never know all the facts about what’s what.

(Except in the case of politicians.)

After all, we’re not hanging around the Oval Office, or sitting at the CEO of Monsanto’s desk, or invited to private UN meetings, or sitting in at the World Economic Forum, etc., so who knows what’s really going on, right?

You get the idea.

Now here’s how you use these suspicions to your advantage…

Remember Kevin Trudeau?

How about his iconic series of infomercials…

Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About The Weight Loss Cure “They” Don’t Want You to Know About Debt Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About

Regardless of your opinion of the man or the products (which aren’t our concern here)…

Those are KILLER titles with an amazing marketing angle, because they plays on these fears.

If you’ve been around the networking space even longer, you might recall the classic presentation…

Dead Doctors Don’t Lie

It similarly achieved “cult” status back in the days of cassette tapes, using the exact same formula…

You’re being lied to It’s not your fault Here’s what you’re not being told Now buy my sh*t! ;-)

So you can easily piggyback on this idea by confirming your audience’s suspicions that they are somehow being “lied” to.

Here are a few example titles from our blog…

What To Do When Your Upline Doesn’t Want You to Use the Internet to Build Why Company Leaders are Secretly Using the Internet to Prospect & Recruit, While Telling Their Downline to Keep It “Old School” Is It Ok to “Steal” Someone Else’s Downline?

This type of content could easily be adapted into a Facebook Live.

I mean, don’t you want to learn more when you read those titles?

Attacking the “old school” has a long history in attraction marketing, because it works.

Just keep it classy.

And whatever you do, don’t name names (as there are legal repercussions).

Finally…

This one’s easy and effective.

It creates a pattern interrupt and makes folks pay attention.

And you can do it with just about anything.

Here’s an example:

You probably think that getting traffic is hard. Well, guess what, it isn’t. In fact, if you give me 4 minutes to explain, I’ll show you how to get traffic today! It’s so easy your grandma could do it.

Make sense?

Now, let’s do the converse:

You’ve probably heard from some “guru” trying to sell you something that getting traffic is easy. Well, guess what, I’m here to tell you it’s NOT. First of all, you’ve got to know how to find a responsive audience. Secondly, you’ve got to know how to write compelling ad-copy. And thirdly, you’ve got to suffer through the learning curve of whatever traffic platform you choose. You know what all that adds up to? A giant headache. So instead…

See how that works?

Both of my statements are true—from a certain perspective—yet they are contradictory.

You can use this technique with anything.

Any market.

Any niche.

In fact, a brainstorming exercise is write out a list of commonly-held beliefs in one column, and how you intended to “spin” them in the other.

So what has your audience heard over and over?

It’s “sharing not selling” Everyone is your prospect It’s a ground floor opportunity Anyone and everyone can do this It practically sells itself This is the greatest product ever You just need more belief You’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself

Easily skewered, right?

Okay, so quick recap…

Here are the 3 controversial ways to capture attention and increase your Facebook Live conversions…

Make a damaging admission Confirm your audience’s suspicions Contradict commonly-held beliefs

Those should get you stirring up some controversy, so you can get your prospects to reach out to learn more.

Because that’s what this is all about, right?

Now, of course…

You simply can’t learn all the ins-and-outs of promoting your network marketing business on social media from a single blog post.

It’s a big topic, after all.

Now, if you’d like to learn more about effortlessly connecting with your ideal customers without being pushy or ‘spammy’…

Then I strongly recommend getting access to Elite Marketing Pro’s FREE 10-Day Online Recruiting Bootcamp to discover a step-by-step business-building blueprint called “attraction marketing,” which has a decade-plus track record of creating success stories.

You’ll learn about about the specific tools and techniques you can use to connect with prospects online, so you’ll never have to act desperate, chase down or strong-arm anybody to make a sale, or deal with cold calling and rejection, ever again.

These methods allow you to build your business automatically—where prospects reach out to you (instead of you having to reach out to them).

You can take advantage of these methods starting today—no matter how much (or little) online prospecting and recruiting experience you currently have.

The bottom line is that, in today’s age, you don’t need to be pushy, obnoxious, or overly-aggressive to build a successful business!

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    The post 3 Controversial Ways to Increase Your Facebook Live Conversions appeared first on Elite Marketing Pro.

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[littleragondin]

V@scienceoftheidiot who asked me 2/3/11/16 for the movie ask:

What’s the most disturbing movie you’ve ever watched?

In the last few year, definitely Old Boy by Park Chan-wook. The whole movie was an experience but WOW the whole ending was *something*. Otherwise “Clockwork Orange”, even more so cause I saw it a bit young (my father showed it to me when I was like 14 and some of those scenes stayed with me a long time)

An actor/actress you’ve seen in more than 8 movies? Name the movies.

This one was a hard one because I wasn’t certain I had ever seen so many movies from one actor? But because my mom, my bro and I are all big fans of him I remembered dear Colin Firth! With whom I saw: Bridget Jone’s diary 1 & 2, Love Actually, Shakespeare in love, Nanny McPhee, Dorian Gray, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Mamma Mia! (far more times than I’d be willing to admit), The King’s Speech, Kingsman 1

Also Natalie Portman: The three Star Wars prequels, Leon, Mars Attack!, Thor 1 & 2, V for Vendetta, and No Strings Attached.

Your favourite movie genre?

I watch a lot of science fiction/space opera. I’m super weak for space and things that explode. Otherwise I’m not super strict in what genre I enjoy... Not super fond of recent french cinema (comedy worst of all)

A film you love but everyone else hates?

I’m really mainstream regarding my tastes in movies… I think “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” qualify? Only the first tho. I just L O V E this movie, it’s the first Star Wars movie I ever saw and it has so many things I like (flying races! Ewan McGregor! Natalie Portman! Beautiful fashion! even Jar jar Binks! (I know I KNOW)). So, despite knowing that it’s objectively not very good and the first in a very very disliked trilogy, it’s still a favorite of mine.

Thank you! =D