#i have seen articles say that her role seems reduced but i kind of have to disagree... i feel like she gets more scenes and more to do

[cerealbishh]

"You get to see her understanding of how things really are. And so that becomes much more present on the surface. (...) In this season, we get to see her fall deeper in love with him but also navigate those challenges. And also becoming an anchor for Rhett but also struggling with his decision, 'Is this what I want for my future as well, as much as I love this man?'." - Isa in an interview with The Knockturnal(x)

[riddlerosehearts]

okay so in the tags of one of my posts about encanto i had mentioned i was curious about a boy who was described in early info about the movie but didn't seem to be in it anymore--and yeah there wasn't any character that was like how he was described so now i'm just a million times more curious:

this is from an old disinsider article from december 2020, and yes it refers to mirabel as mariana but it also accurately describes her character along with isabela, luisa, and some others, just with different names than the final product.

it became clear to me as we started getting trailers and books and other pre-release info that "carlos" had either been cut from the movie or reduced to such a small role that he wasn't worth mentioning, and having seen the movie i get that they wanted to focus primarily on the madrigal family and it doesn't sound like he was part of it so it makes sense to cut him. but early on i was really interested in seeing what kind of role he would play and i am just soooo curious as to why he was cut and what the story was gonna be like with him in it. maybe there's something i'm missing but i don't see how disinsider would've just made up an entire character while getting pretty much everything else right, and their description says he's a great singer so he was important enough at one point to have a song and then he was cut??

does anyone have the artbook and maybe he's mentioned in it, or some other sort of info that i haven't seen? again, maybe i'm missing something, but all the other character descriptions that were given in this article (which is still available here btw) were pretty spot-on and yet i don't recall seeing any 15 year old boys with great singing voices who were enemies with mirabel, so now i'm way too curious about carlos.

[princess-of-the-worlds]

Torchwood and the (Mis)treatment of its Characters of Color

Let’s be honest; despite its decent track record with queer characters, Torchwood has a problem with how it treats its characters of colors, and I say this as a South Asian, bisexual fan of the show. 

For the purposes of this post, I will only be looking at the Torchwood television series (so spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2, Children of Earth, and Miracle Day), and not as Big Finish Torchwood releases since I do not believe myself to be well-versed enough in them to be able to make an accurate post. And also, as much as I love Big Finish for eveything they’re doing, on-screen POC representation is very different from audio POC representation. (And for the purposes of this post, I will not be addressing the mistreatment of Martha Jones, which really, if you think about it, stems from Doctor Who and not Torchwood.)

TLDR; Torchwood has neglected or mistreated its characters of color, given them little or no background, and brutally killed them off, often for shock value.

Let’s start with Suzie Costello. 

Suzie Costello, played by Indira Varma who is a British actress of Indian descent, was promoted alongside the regular cast members in publicity material before “Everything Changes” aired, giving the impression that she would be sticking around for a while or would be a main character. Instead, she was unceremoniously killed off at the end of the first episode and only pops up once more in “They Keep Killing Suzie.” At no point was Suzie acknowledged as a woman of color or given much more background beyond her tumultuous, most likely abusive, relationship with her father.

Next, we get to Toshiko Sato, left as the only person of color on the team after Suzie’s death. 

Wonderful, gorgeous, caring Tosh who, for all intents and purposes, is essentially a walking stereotype. She’s an Asian (Japanese specifically) technology genius who is unlucky at love. Need I say more? (Check out this Teen Vogue article if you’re wondering why that’s a bad thing, or, honestly, just quickly search Google.) And all three of the Tosh-heavy episodes (”Greeks Bearing Gifts,” “To the Last Man,” and “Adam”) feature her being unlucky in love (Mary betraying her, Tommy dying, and Adam manipulating her). Plus, there’s everything with Owen where she pines after him for years only for him to finally recognize that before he dies, and then he, well, dies; that plot arc only ends in death and sadness.

Additionally, we only have limited background for Tosh in comparison to Jack and Gwen (who I guess you could kind of say are the main characters) but even in comparison to Ianto (for whom more background was revealed only because he became a more prominent character in COE.) We know she was born in London, moved to Japan as a child, and at some point moved back before growing up in the United Kingdom. She had a younger brother (mentioned in a deleted scene in “Captain Jack Harkness”) and a grandfather who worked at Bletchley Park (mentioned in “Greeks Bearing Gifts” and “Captain Jack Harkness.”) She also very much loved her family, or at least her mother, enough to commit treason for her, despite her mother only being seen in “End of Days” and “Fragments.” But that’s about it. 

There was so much more Torchwood could have done with Tosh. We could have seen more about her family or her education. We certainly could have seen more about her bisexuality; everything that happened with Mary was not a satisfying resolution. Instead, she was killed off alongside Owen in “Exit Wounds.” Torchwood used the death of a woman of color for shock value, and no matter how effective or emotional that was, it was not excusable. There was so much story left to be told with Toshiko Sato. 

Tosh’s death brought the racial diversity in Torchwood down to zilch.

Next, we have Lisa Hallett.

Now, Lisa Hallett...what do we actually know about her? She worked at Torchwood One, dated Ianto Jones, and loved him enough to maybe fight cyberprogramming for him - this part might be subjective to your own interpretation of “Cyberwoman.” We don’t know anything about her, really, apart from how she is defined and described for a white male main character, which...is problematic enough. I mean, would it have been too much to ask the writers for maybe some further description? I mean, I don’t know. Maybe where exactly she worked in Torchwood London? How she joined? How she met Ianto? If she had any family, any other friends? Why she loved Torchwood and worked there? Heck, a flashback scene featuring a non-cyberized Lisa and Ianto would have been brilliant. Is that too much to have asked of the Torchwood writers? I don’t know.

Then there’s the entire fact that Lisa was turned into a Cyberwoman. Now, I have many problems with how Doctor Who and Torchwood uses its Cybermen, especially regarding its continuous brutalization of black and brown bodies for emotional and shock value (Lisa, Danny Pink, and Bill Potts are only some examples.) It sends a very, very nasty message to these shows’ viewers of color, especially if they’re younger and more impressionable. Plus, the depiction of Lisa in “Cyberwoman” was uncomfortable and unnecessarily sexualized, but this is a whole different essay. But in the end, Lisa Hallett was pumped with bullets many, many times, and her death only added to the emotional pain of a white man.

Now, we come to more minor characters.

Beth Halloran was a human who did not know her true identity as an alien sleeper agent. She had a very interesting and action-packed story arc in “Sleeper” before ending up dead at the hands of Torchwood. She had an emotional struggle between her human identity and her truth as an alien sleeper and chose to help save the world, intentionally ending up dead at the hands of Torchwood. That being said, she was still another character of color who Torchwood had bothered fleshing out who ended up dead.

Next, there’s Dr. Rupesh Patanjali. 

Introduced in COE, he’s a medical doctor who catches Jack and Ianto working on a case and ends up piquing their interest after he makes some shit up. Spoiler alert: he’s an MI-5 plant. We see Gwen attempt to conduct orientation and recruitment with him. He has a fun setup to be a potential new Torchwood member and inside spy, but instead, he lures Jack to the hospital where Jack’s implanted with a bomb. And despite doing his job as requested and doing it rather well, Rupesh Patanjali is shot dead by Agent Johnson that very episode, just like Beth.

Then we have Lois Habiba, arguably the most interesting and fun character introduced in COE. 

She’s a naive newcomer, almost like Gwen, but during her first week working in the Home Office, she finds herself committing treason, conspiring against her boss Frobisher, and helping save the world from an alien invasion. She’s smart, resourceful, and principled, very much like Ianto. Like with a lot of the characters on this list, we know next-to-nothing about her background, which is odd considering her rather major role in COE. And despite being seemingly set up to become a member of Torchwood, we never see her again.

Finally, we come to Miracle Day and its two new characters of color, Rex Matheson and Dr. Vera Juarez. I won’t be getting into too much detail here, especially since MD has its own problems.

Ah, Rex.

Torchwood finally has a man of color for a main character who seems like he could be an interesting foil to Jack (a high-ranking CIA agent with a high bullshit meter), and what do they do...they kill him in his first scene. Oh, and they make him “lightly” homophobic, because that’s always fun. And then he ends up immortal in some kind of bullshit plot hole...I have enough to say there.

Vera, however, was quite interesting. Again, little to no background besides the basic (from San Antonio, had an ex-husband, is a surgeon), but she was still a Latina medical doctor. She had morals and was very stubborn and determined to save people, which is why she insisted into helping Torchwood sneak into the overflow camp. And what did she get for that? She ended up brutually shot in front of her lover Rex, which traumatized them both, and then literally burnt alive. Thrown on top of that? In a quite meta move really, the death of another woman of color was used to incite outrage around the country, and the world, and expose the wrongdoings of the United States government regarding the Miracle. Good stuff? Either way, it came at the cost of the death of one strong woman of color and the further trauma of another man of color.

Plus, there’s everything about how unnecessarily violent and graphic some of the deaths of these characters of color. To put it into perspective, think about how Owen or Ianto or Esther died. (I’m not trying to reduce the values of their deaths; I’m just trying to get you to think about it.)

So yeah, that’s all I have to say about that. Torchwood, you could have done better with your characters of color. (And thank you if you stuck all this way with me.)

TLDR; Torchwood has neglected or mistreated its characters of color, given them little or no background, and brutally killed them off, often for shock value.

[opbackgrounds]

So I read the Ace Novel (Part 2)

I’m going to be level with you, if I hadn’t said I was going to do a write up for the novel, I don’t think I would have finished this one. The first fifty or so pages are terribly boring, and while it picks up considerably toward the end, I don’t think I can recommend it, for one reason and one reason only:

It reads like a freaking wikipedia article. And I hate it. 

I described Part 1 of the Ace novel like three separate one shots with the barest hint of continuity between them. That’s not the case this time around, as most of what it covers are events mentioned in the manga: The fight with Jinbe, Ace’s 100 battles with Whitebeard, Ace formally joining the Whitebeard Pirates. Comparatively speaking, that’s a lot of canon material to get through. Consequently, it’s also quite a bit longer than Part 1, about 200 pages. 

(some of those pages happen to be longer than others)

(yes this made me literally laugh out loud)

The problem is there is a metic ton of manga recap that has nothing to do with this novel, especially in chapters 1 and 2. This was baffling to me, as it seems unlikely that someone would pick up a One Piece magazine (where the novel was originally published) or a One Piece side story without bing familiar with the manga. Yet concepts like the Four Emperors, Celestial Dragons, and even the Grand Line were laid out in meticulous detail.

I am going to be unfair for a moment and compare the Ace novels to my favorite spin-off series of all time, the Kyoshi duology that takes place in the Avatar universe. 

Unlike the Ace novels, they take place several centuries before the main series, so there aren’t a lot of plot details that overlap with the animated series in the way the Ace novels do to the main manga. What is in common, however, isn’t repeated. Nowhere in the two Kyoshi books does she learn the story about Avatar Wan or any of the same lore details that are important to Aang and Korra’s stories. Instead it expands on the world building details laid out in the main series and deepens them. 

For example, do you want to know how the Fire Nation royalty got so good at lightning bending, or how the greater Earth Kingdom political landscape works? Read book 1. Do you want to know how the Fire Nation went from a fractured clan system to a strong centralized government or how advanced water bending healing techniques work? Read book 2. It’s exposition that fleshes out the system already in place, rather than retreading what’s already been established. 

Part 2 of the Ace novel does this a little bit when it develops the Pirate Code, something that has never mentioned in the manga, and even if it was Luffy’s not the sort of character that’s going to care to adhere to it. The strongest portion of the novel shows Ace going out on a mission on Whitebeard’s behalf, showing some of what it’s like to maintain the vast territories that he keeps under his flag.

But mostly...mostly it’s just recap. Literally the entire Fishman Island backstory is written out in some of the blandest narration I’ve ever read, paragraphs upon paragraphs talking about Queen Otohime and Fisher Tiger and the civil unrest of the Ryugu Kingdom, including but not limited to Vander Decken stalking Shirahoshi and her subsequent imprisonment in the royal tower. 

There’s also the wholesale recycling of gags straight from the manga that 1) don’t necessarily work as well in written format, and 2) show no originality or creativity on the part of the author. In my opinion, recurring gags are funniest when a writer can contrive different variations and circumstances around the base joke. Instead we get scenes like this beat-for-beat copy of Ace’s narcolepsy gag in Alabasta, down to using the waitress’s skirt as a napkin

I noticed in Part 1 that the author had snuck some canon elements in, such as Deuce and Ace building Striker—the one man, fire-powered boat he showed off in Alabasta—when I personally didn’t think either of them were smart enough to think up, let alone construct, anything that sophisticated. I didn’t mention it in my previous write up because there are a lot of fans that enjoy those kind of Easter eggs, and it’s a novel that runs on manga logic so it’s not exactly breaking my suspension of disbelief either. It was a minor quibble that didn’t really detract from my overall enjoyment. 

But the story of Fishman Island is at best tangentially related to the events of the novel. The only reason Fishman Island is important at all is because Ace decides to burn down Whitebeard’s flag on his way into the New World. 

Which brings me to perhaps the most interesting aspect of the novel: Ace himself. 

Even in the manga, you can make the case that there are two Aces, the happy-go-lucky, cool, and mysterious older brother of Luffy seen at Alabasta/post-Enies Lobby, and the angsty, existentially depressed young man with daddy issues that shows up during Impel Down/Marineford. 

The novel leans much closer to the latter. More than I expected it to. The Ace of Part 2 is hotheaded and a bit of a jackass. Whereas Luffy tends to go after people he has a personal beef with, Ace specifically targets Whitebeard because he was the closest to Roger, and he thinks that defeating Whitebeard will somehow bring him fame greater than his father. He ignores the concerns of his crew and the repeated warnings about how Emperors control vast armies...because of daddy issues. The novel goes out of his way that Ace’s dreams made him better suited to be a Revolutionary than a pirate, and it’s only because of his childhood promise that he became a pirate at all. It wasn’t something born out of true conviction or desire.

Laying it out like that, it might seem like this is a negative, but to me it’s one of the most interesting things the novel has to offer. I thought Part 1 worked best when it acted as a character study for Deuce, Ace, and the marine girl whose name I have already forgotten, focusing on how Ace brought together degenerates unwanted by even other degenerates. The same is true here: Once the exposition dumps are over and the focus returns to the titular character, the author is able to dig a little bit deeper into into Ace’s psyche, and he takes it in a direction I didn’t expect, but was consistent with his manga portrayal. 

I just wish I could have seen a little bit more of it. 

And speaking of characters I wish I had seen more of, after focusing so much on Deuce and Marine Girl in Part 1, they have a much reduced role in Part 2. In fact, Marine Girl isn’t seen or mentioned even once, which I thought was kind of strange. I guess I don’t see the point in putting so much effort was put into her only for her to be thrown away without even a cameo. Likewise, after spending Part 1 as the principal POV character, Deuce is set aside for Thatch and Teach. Whether that’s a good or bad thing will depend largely on how much you enjoy those individual characters. 

I don’t say this often, but these are books that can be judged by their covers. Part 1, Ace is more jovial—the burning flame that attracts others to his greatness—while introducing two major new characters to his journey. Part 2, Ace is grim and angry—the dark, smoldering flame burning with the desire to destroy the system that would have killed him for being the wrong man’s son—while focusing much more on the Whitebeard Pirates and what makes them great. 

It’s an interesting contrast, the two sides of Ace’s character as seen in the manga given a little bit of limelight. But damn if it wasn’t tedious to get through. 

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 28

catch me completely ignoring dark cybertron lmao

yeahhhh so I'm just gonna skip dark cybertron bc no thanks. I did read the tf wiki articles for the issues tho, which is more than I did in the past, so at least now I kinda know what happened, though I had to suffer thru reading about dark cybertron to learn stuff about it. yikes. reading ABOUT dark cybertron further enforced my decision to not actually read thru it

anyways. the best part of dark cybertron was when chromedome threw prowl off that cliff. that was baller lmfao

a 1 page recap of dark cybertron is about all I can handle. thank you

ooh, the 6 months later smash-cut, I fucking love itttt

nautica’s here!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy I love her. also brainstorm, and I love their friendship sm

hvbjdkhfbshdfj god I love them. they have such a fun dynamic 

everyone eavesdropping on a therapy session vhbhdjkhafbhkjsdf. hipaa laws mean nothing as usual 

the casual reveal of captain megatron, oh god 

the title fucking slaps, as usual. this is one of my favorites - ‘world, shut your mouth.’ great stuff, and a song title/reference to boot! and this being part 1: towards peace...chefs kiss

and then we flash back to 6 months earlier...yknow now that I'm rereading this, mtmte has a LOT of framing devices used - there's story-within-a-story, flashback/flash-forwards, storytelling with narration, etc...I love it

god hbvhjakdfbshjkdf rodimus saying ‘magic’ and then the little *magic = science rodimus doesn't understand HBGKJHSDBFKHJSDF my idiot boy ily

rodimus roasting prowl is my fav hbfjdkafshsbjkf ‘maybe the knights can help us find a cure for your personality’ ily sm

and then prowl agreeing w/rodimus a few panels later about megatron’s guilt...

optimus...don't you think that making yourself chief of justice is...maybe a bad idea...like, maybe there's a conflict of interests here...just a little bit of bias...a bit too much history, perhaps...

the fact that all the big roles in the trial were given to high-ranking autobots who were heavily involved in the war...I see that cybertrons justice system is as much of a farce as their medical ethics and patient confidentiality laws 

the ‘you BROKE the MATRIX’ panel is so good bjhkdhfbajskhdf

rodimus: LISTEN dad I just wanna resume my space cruise with my frat bro ship I have no interest in politics

psychiatrists HATE him! local former warlord refuses to recognize the validity of psychological analyzation of people’s actions

ravage casually breaking hipaa laws and chilling in megatron’s therapy session like >:3

I love rung...he’s so good at like, passive-aggressively cutting right to the heart of someone’s issues, and he’s so generally mild that you can’t even really get mad at him 

the sudden inclusion of megatron as a major character in mtmte is kinda jarring at first - mostly, for me at least, due in part because I didn't read dark cybertron so this is like, megatron’s introduction as a relevant character in general - but I feel like jro does a great job laying a lot of intrigue down from the very beginning w/his character - like, I already want to know more about what his whole deal is, even though we have, ostensibly, seen pretty much all of his story play out already 

rung name-dropping froid...i remember that made me lose my shit bc cmon. FROID....jesus christ

rung and megatron: holy shit! we’re suddenly being drawn in a 90s-esque sci-fi tron-looking retro-futuristic style!

interesting that megatron sought rung out, and not the other way around

RIPTIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my favorite sharkboy is HERE

CREWDITIONS...YES....

‘we’re not allowed to take anyone who might remind rodimus of prowl’ vhbhjdkshfbhaskfd brutal

I love nautica so so much. a perfect autistic scientist after my own heart

I adore that nautica brought chromia along for moral support

hgvbjdakhfbhsj and then swerve saying that rodimus hates ‘trisyllabic names’ and nautica is like....but....‘rodimus’.....

and then nightbeat busts in to get all bbc sherlock on they asses hgbfhjadkfbjaskdf

WHY was perceptor at the crewditions if he was already part of the crew lmao

ooof, and then we have megatron flipping out when chromedome, a mnemosurgeon, shows up

also damn the autobots were rlly like okay so we wanna speed this trial up so lets just like, probe megatrons brain, that seems completely ethical, especially when you consider the history of shadowplay and stuff that our previous government had

I know important stuff is happening but megatron is holding a CUBE and I love CUBES so I'm distracted by that. C U B E

and then right after a scene where we see chromedome willing to perform mnemosurgery again - despite rewind’s like, dying wish for him not to - we hear that he’s been locked up in his room rewatching rewinds goodbye message over and over again :( I'm fucking depressed

I love nightbeat, he’s so funny and kind of an asshole

and then you see more missing letters behind them next panel...clearly nightbeat is right and there’s a mystery afoot...OR somebody is fucking with the ship’s lettering as a prank, which is a plot point I would absolutely buy

yeahhhh skids is right, chromedome is clearly Not dealing 

the dramatic graffiti on megatrons door...I wanna know who spray-painted ‘die’ everywhere like they're reaper overwatch

oh god. whirl vs megatron

really cool red lighting tho

GOD its so brutal, all the stuff megatron said about how he told the cons not to kill whirl...and doesn't that end up being false anyways? so he was just saying it to dig at whirl, which is awful

also I'm never over the fact that literally everyone - including megatron and whirl - blames whirl for ‘turning megatron violent,’ as if the entire Point isn't that whirl was a tool for a corrupt system, and if it wasn't whirl it would've just been someone else, and megatron turning away from pacifism was inevitable given the circumstances, AND also a choice on his part, so he really only has himself to blame for his OWN ACTIONS

bye bye whirls right arm, see you in lost light 

‘people never stop changing’ that IS something I say all the time...damn you warlord grandpa! how can you steal my philosophies?!

ohhh man and then rewind’s goodbye message being different....oooh

AUGH the fact that whirl was basically trying to goad megatron into killing him, just like he did in issue 1 w/cyclonus...It Hurts Man

also I do love the hint at who he’s talking to w/whirl shooting megatron with the bow and arrow earlier, and we know that atomizer is a fan of those

ok, but here’s where my philosophy diverges - megatron talks about throwing away his past and starting new, but I think that you have to learn from and build on your past...either way, megatron’s arc is one that I enjoy greatly from a character writing standpoint, and I'm excited to get it underway, especially w/how controversial it is lmao

big ole double-page spread...I like how you can pick out individual characters in the background crowd, which is crazy cause that's a LOT of people. also how come cosmos is so HUGE

phewwww 4.6 billion cybertronians died in the war, that’s INSANE. that's like, an incomprehensibly huge number. is there an estimate for their current population? I bet its not a lot. no wonder jro leaned into reproductive themes so much in mtmte/ll - of course the continuation of your species would be a concern for many if your numbers have been that greatly reduced

optimus w/his fancy tyrest-lookin crown

oughdajbfsbdf and the fact that megatron ALSO murdered 100 BILLION non-cybertronians...bruh. I feel like they maybe should've dialed those numbers back a little to allow his ‘redemption arc’ to run a little smoother lmao. but also I admire the commitment either way

and then we end w/megatron doing captain stuff, and seeing The Coffin...and we never did see rodimus in any of the flash-forward parts of this issue, did we???? I love how concerning that is. where's my BOY

also of course we gotta remember the warning from way back at the beginning of mtmte: ‘don't open the coffin’....

and so begins mtmte s2! man I love s2. I love mtmte in general lmao. s2 takes on the impossible w/the whole ‘megatron redemption arc’ thing, and I know that’s like, a divisive plot point and stuff, but from a writing standpoint I enjoyed it a lot...I think it was pretty much as well done as it could've been given the enormity of the task, and I thought it was a really interesting direction for the story to go in 

also espec if it’s true that hasbro was like ‘hey jro put megatron in your story and give him a redemption arc’ rather than jro like, planning/asking to do it 

anyways. I doubt ill talk much abt the disc horse(tm) here bc this is just for fun and also my own personal opinions and whatever, but I for one am excited to reexperience this stuff 

so yeah s2 off to a strong start with some wild shit already happening! cant wait to read more!

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

You are awfully judgemental and opinionated and seem to think you know all about Corey and the reason for his problems. It doesn't show any respect to him at all and just adds the the negativity of what is already a messed up world at the moment. You collect all these articles of awful things celebrities have said. Maybe you should practice what you preach.

I’m awfully opinionated and judgemental? Sorry, anon, I just don’t like racist assholes like Lea Michele, if that makes me “awfully opinionated” then great, I’d rather be called “awfully opinionated” and NOT stand by racism than watch it happen and keep my mouth shut.

I’m not going to pretend I have the biggest platform on any social media but I do have some form of a platform here because as of writing this, I have just over 1.5k followers on this blog. It’s nowhere near what some celebs have, and I don’t kid myself, but as a white young woman with any amount of following, the best thing I can do right now is to use my privilege and try to raise awareness by spreading information, calling out other white people for their racism, and spreading links/petitions. If even one of my followers sees a link or something I’ve shared, then that makes a difference.

I don’t claim I know/knew Cory (not “Corey”) or any of the cast, I live in the UK for fuck sake and I was 15 when he died, you think I knew any of them personally? Nah, I was a fan and nothing more. On that note, I was not the one who brought up Cory into this ordeal regarding Lea and her disgusting racism/diva tendencies in the first place - I recieved an anon who mentioned Cory, and I responded. If you read what I said, I said that NO, she is NOT to blame for his addiction or death - at the time, I was extremely sorry for her. No one physically forced Cory to overdose or take drugs the day he died; he had an addiction and needed help, and I mean it in the nicest way possible but no one is to blame for him overdosing because it’s not like anyone physically forced him to take drugs, he made that decision himself.

As I said in my post, the reason Cory took drugs is because he said so himself that he had a VERY turbulent childhood and he was 13 when he started taking them. He was very open about his addiction and his upbringing, and so I’m absolutely not saying Lea is responsible for his drug addiction because she’s not, his drug addiction was a thing long before he was on Glee. I think I made that VERY clear.

What I meant by my response is that we know the Glee set was extremely toxic for EVERYONE. Cory was fighting his drug addiction and would have been in a vulnerable place because of that - the toxicity on set would have really been horrible for him to deal with, I imagine, especially since we know none of the other cast members could speak up against Lea because Ryan would have fired them or reduced their roles. So yeah, being on a set like that, it definitely wouldn’t have helped him in the slightest.

As for my respect for Cory...frankly, you don’t know about my feelings regarding Cory. I was 15 when he died, a huge Gleek, and like a lot of Gleeks, I was inconsolable and absolutely heartbroken. None of us knew him personally but he was so open and honest and genuine that it felt like we lost a big brother - sure, us fans didn’t go through nearly the same amount of pain and distress that family, friends and the Glee cast/crew did, but if you ask the Glee fandom as a whole, they’ll probably say either the same or something extremely similar. His death was the ONLY time I’ve seen the Glee fandom actually stop fighting and come together to mourn; I’ve spoken before about how horrible the Glee fandom was, and we all acknowledge how toxic the fandom was due to all the ship wars, anon hate, etc., but when Cory died...we all stopped that. We all came together and mourned and cried. Not a single Gleek alive was unaffected by Cory’s passing. So please don’t tell me I have no respect for Cory or his struggles because you don’t know how hard it was for this fandom, especially for those like myself who looked up to him and took inspiration from how hard he fought his demons/problems.

You seem very angry about me reposting screenshots of tweets that Lea’s co-stars and Glee extras - as well as other people who’ve had a bad experience - have made. Why? Why should we ignore their voices? Why should we ignore what Sammie, Amber and Alex (who are all black) have said when right now black people are fighting for their rights? Why shouldn’t I post and share information about how absolutely vile this woman is, especially to her black and POC co-stars?

I’m sorry if you’re a Lea Stan and this is all upsetting for you, but frankly when this many people have come forward to share their stories about how a) racist and b) generally horrible she is, her feelings are no longer a concern. She didn’t care about Sammie’s feelings when she threatened to “shit in her wig”, didn’t care about the extras who she referred to as “cockroaches”, didn’t care about Daubier when she said “you can’t sit at our table” even when numerous other cast members said they wanted him to. Why should I or ANYONE ELSE be nice to her right now, anon?

I agree that we should all be kind, love over hate and all that but honestly? Why should I or anyone else spare her any kindness when she doesn’t have any respect for anyone else but herself? Ignoring that she did so many vile things, especially against black people, especially right now while black people are dying and fighting for their own rights, misses the point completely of the movement. Her being pregnant doesn’t mean we should go easy on her*, neither does the fact she lost her boyfriend years ago - her grief over losing him does NOT excuse her racism or how horrible she was, especially since there are MULTIPLE people who’ve said she was that horrible and vile BEFORE Cory died and before she was even on Glee.

I’m sorry, anon, but I have to disagree with you on this.

*While her being pregnant doesn’t mean we should go easy on her, I am absolutely against bringing her baby into this. The baby hasn’t done anything, they haven’t even been born, so everyone please don’t drag the unborn baby into it or make hateful comments about them.*

[bluewatsons]

Niels Boeing & Andreas Lebert, Interview: Byung-Chun Han, ZEIT Online (September 7, 2014)

ZEIT Wissen: Where have you just come from?

Byung-Chul Han: My desk, as usual.

ZEIT Wissen: What are you working on?

Han: I’m writing a new book about beauty. I decided to do it after reading an interview with Botho Strauss. When asked what he misses, Botho Strauss answered: “beauty”. He didn’t say anything else – I miss beauty, and I got it. So then I thought, I’ll write a book about beauty.

ZEIT Wissen: So you are thinking about beauty. What does this thinking look like?

Han: Thinking consists of perceiving similarities. I often experience that I suddenly perceive similarities between events, between a current event and an event in the past, or between things that are happening at the same time. I pursue these relationships.

ZEIT Wissen: And what do you think beauty is?

Han: I perceive a connection between different things that are taking place today or are popular today. For example, Brazilian waxing, Jeff Koons’ sculptures and the iPhone.

ZEIT Wissen: You are comparing the removal of body hair with a smartphone and an artist?

Han: The common feature is easy to see: it’s about smoothness. This smoothness characterises our present day. You know the G Flex, a smartphone made by LG? This smartphone has a very special coating: if it gets scratches, they disappear after a very short time, so it has a self-healing skin, almost an organic skin. This means that the smartphone remains totally smooth. I ask myself, why would a few scratches matter on an object? Why this striving for a smooth surface? And there we have a connection between the smooth smartphone, smooth skin and love.

ZEIT Wissen: Love? Please explain.

Han: This smooth surface on the smartphone is a skin that is not vulnerable, that avoids all injury. And is it not true that when it comes to love, we also avoid injury these days? We don’t want to be vulnerable, we avoid hurting or being hurt in any way. Love requires a great deal of commitment, but we avoid this commitment, because it leads to injury. We avoid passion, and falling in love hurts too much. Falling in love is not allowed any more, in French you would say “tomber amoureux”. This falling is too negative, indeed it’s an injury that should be avoided. I see a link with another idea… We live in the age of “Like”. There is no “Dislike” button on Facebook, there is only “Like”, and this “Like” speeds up communication, whereas “Dislike” slows it down. Similarly, being hurt slows communication down. Even art no longer wants to hurt anyone today. In Jeff Koons’ sculptures, there is no injury, no breaks, no cracks, no fractures, no sharp edges, not even any seams. Everything flows in soft, smooth transitions. Everything seems rounded off, polished, smoothed down – Jeff Koons’ art is smooth surfaces. A culture of likeability is emerging today. I can apply that to politics as well.

ZEIT Wissen: You mean that politics is smooth?

Han: Politicians also avoid any kind of commitment. What is evolving is likeability politics. Which politician is an example of this likeability? Maybe Angela Merkel. That’s why she’s so popular. She obviously has no convictions, no vision. She keeps an eye on public opinion, and if it changes, she changes her views, too. After the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, she was suddenly against nuclear power. You could also say that she’s slippery like an eel. So today, we really are dealing with smooth politics. There is an interesting connection between smooth skin, smooth art and smooth politics. In the emphatic sense, though, political action requires vision and commitment. It must be capable of hurting. But today’s smooth politics doesn’t do that. It’s not just Angela Merkel, none of the politicians today are able to do it. They are only the system’s likeable henchmen. They repair any parts where the system fails, and do so in an illusion that there is no alternative. But politics must offer alternatives, otherwise it’s no different from a dictatorship. Today, we live under a dictatorship of neoliberalism. In neoliberalism, everybody is an entrepreneur of themselves. In Marx’ day, capitalism had a completely different work structure. The economy consisted of factory owners and factory workers, and no factory worker was an entrepreneur of themselves. There was external exploitation. Today, we exploit ourselves – I exploit myself under the illusion that I am expressing myself.

ZEIT Wissen: The term neoliberalism is therefore frequently seen as a left wing weapon.

Han: That’s not correct. Neoliberalism describes the state of current society very well, because it’s about exploiting freedom. The system strives towards increasing productivity, and so it switches from exploiting others to exploiting the self, because this generates more efficiency and more productivity, all under the guise of freedom.

ZEIT Wissen: Your analysis isn’t very encouraging. We exploit ourselves, we risk nothing, neither in love nor in politics, and we don’t want to be wounded or to wound.

Han: I’m sorry, but those are facts.

ZEIT Wissen: How can an individual in this society find happiness – should we be more committed to our ideals?

Han: The system makes that difficult. We don’t even know what we want. The needs that I perceive as my needs, are not my needs. Take for example Primark, the clothing discount store. People organise car shares because there isn’t a Primark store in every town. Then they arrive and virtually ransack the shop. There was a newspaper article recently about a girl: when she heard that Primark was opening a store next to C&A on Alexanderplatz [Berlin], she screamed with joy and said, if there’s a Primark here then my life is perfect. Is this life really a perfect life for her, or is it an illusion generated by consumer culture? Let’s look at what is happening here, exactly. Girls buy hundreds of dresses, each dress costing maybe five euros – which in itself is madness, because people die for these clothes in countries like Bangladesh if a clothing factory collapses. These girls buy a hundred dresses, but they hardly wear them. Do you know what they do with them?

ZEIT Wissen: They show these clothes on YouTube, in Haul Videos.

Han: Exactly, they advertise! They make masses of videos in which they plug the clothes that they’ve bought and play at being models. Every YouTube video is watched half a million times. Consumers buy clothes and other things, but they don’t use them, they advertise them, and these adverts generate new consumption. In other words, this is absolute consumption that is disconnected from the use of things. Companies have delegated advertising to the consumers. They themselves no longer advertise. It is a perfect system.

ZEIT Wissen: Should we protest against it?

Han: Why should I protest if Primark arrives and makes my life perfect?

ZEIT Wissen: “Freedom will have been an episode”, you write in your new book, Psychopolitik [Psychopolitics]. Why?

Han: Freedom is the opposite of compulsion. If you subconsciously see the compulsion that you are subjected to as freedom, then that’s the end of freedom. That’s why we’re in a crisis. The crisis of freedom is that we perceive compulsion as freedom, so no resistance is possible. If you compel me to do something, then I can fight this external compulsion. But if there is no longer an opponent who is compelling me to do something, then there can be no resistance. That’s why I chose the motto for the beginning of my book: “protect me from what I want”, the phrase made famous by the artist Jenny Holzer.

ZEIT Wissen: So we have to protect ourselves from ourselves?

Han: If a system attacks my freedom, then I have to resist. The perfidious thing is though that the system today doesn’t attack freedom, but instrumentalises it. For example: when there was a census in the 1980s, there were demonstrations. There was even a bomb in a government office. People took to the streets because they had an enemy in the state that wanted to take information from them against their will. Today, we hand over more data about ourselves than ever before. Why is there no protest about that? Because compared to then, we feel free. At that time, people felt that their freedom was being attacked or reduced, and that’s why they took to the streets. Today, we feel free and we hand over our data voluntarily.

ZEIT Wissen: Maybe because smartphones can help us get to where we want to go. We consider the benefit to be greater than the harm.

Han: Maybe, but in its structure, this society is no different from medieval feudalism. We are in serfdom. Digital feudal lords like Facebook give us land and say: plough it, and you can have it for free. And we plough it like crazy, this land. At the end, the feudal lords come and take the harvest. This is an exploitation of communication. We communicate with each other, and we feel free. The feudal lords make money from this communication, and secret services monitor it. This system is extremely efficient. There is no protest against it, because we are living in a system that exploits freedom.

ZEIT Wissen: How do you deal with it personally?

Han: Like everybody else, I am uncomfortable when I’m not connected, of course. I am a victim, too. Without all this digital communication, I can’t do my job, as a professor or as a writer. Everybody is involved, integrated.

ZEIT Wissen: What role do Big Data technologies play?

Han: An important one, because Big Data is not just being used for surveillance, but particularly for controlling human behaviour. And if human behaviour is being controlled, if the decisions we make in the feeling of being free are totally manipulated, then our free will is endangered. In other words, Big Data challenges our free will.

ZEIT Wissen: You wrote that Big Data gives rise to a new class society.

Han: The digital society of today is not a classless society. Take for example Acxiom, the data company: it divides people into categories. The last category is “waste”. Acxiom trades data from about 300 million US citizen, which is almost all of them. By now, the company knows more about US citizens than the FBI, probably even more than the NSA. At Acxiom, people are divided into seventy categories, and they are offered in a catalogue like retail goods, and you can buy one for every kind of need. Consumers with a high market value are in the “Shooting Stars” group. They are between 26 and 45 years old, dynamic, get up early to go jogging, don’t have any kids but might be married, and they have a vegan lifestyle, like to travel, watch Seinfeld on TV. This is how Big Data is generating a new digital class society.

ZEIT Wissen: And who is in the “waste” class?

Han: Those with a poor score value. They can’t get credit, for example. And so, alongside the Panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s ideal prison, we have a “ban-opticon”, as sociologist Zygmunt Bauman called it. The Panopticon monitors the enclosed inmates of the system, while the ban-opticon is a measure that identifies people as undesirable and excludes people who are outside of or hostile to the system. The classic Panopticon is used for discipline, the ban-opticon however ensures the system’s security and efficiency. It is interesting that the NSA and Acxiom are working together, that is, the secret service and the market.

ZEIT Wissen: Is it possible that the “waste” class reaches critical mass eventually, so that it can no longer be controlled?

Han: No. They hide, they are ashamed, they are on unemployment benefit, for example. They are constantly being made to feel afraid. It’s crazy how much fear job seekers live with here. They are imprisoned in this ban-opticon, so that they can’t break out of their fear prison. I know many job seekers, they are treated like waste. In one of the richest countries in the world, in Germany, people are treated like scum. Their dignity is taken away. Of course these people don’t protest, because they are ashamed. They accuse themselves, instead of making society responsible, or accusing it. No political act can be expected from this class.

ZEIT Wissen: Pretty depressing. Where will it all end?

Han: In any case it can’t continue like this, because of natural resources if nothing else. Oil will last maybe another 50 years. We are living under an illusion here in Germany. We have largely outsourced production. China now manufactures our computers, our clothes, our mobile phones. But the desert is getting closer and closer to Beijing, and you can barely breathe there because of the smog. When I was in Korea, I saw that these yellow dust clouds travel all the way to Seoul. You had to wear a face mask because the fine particles damage your lungs. The way things are developing there is very dramatic. Even if it works out okay for a bit longer – what kind of a life is it? Or just look at those people who put all sorts of sensors on their bodies and measure blood pressure, blood sugar and fat percentages around the clock, and put these data on the net! It’s called self-tracking. These people are already zombies, they are puppets whose strings are being pulled by unknown powers, as Georg Büchner said in Danton’s Death.

ZEIT Wissen: Professor Han, in South Korea you first studied metallurgy. How come prospective metal technician Byung-Chul Han became a philosopher and vocal system critic?

Han: I’m a technology freak. When I was a child, I loved to tinker, on radios and other electronic and mechanical appliances. I actually wanted to study electrical or mechanical engineering, but it turned out to be metallurgy. I really was an enthusiastic technician and tinkerer.

ZEIT Wissen: And why did you stop?

Han: Because one time, when I was experimenting with chemicals, there was an explosion. I still have the scars. I almost died, or at least I could have been blinded.

ZEIT Wissen: Where was that?

Han: At home in Seoul. I was a student. I spent the whole day tinkering, milling, soldering. My drawers were full of wires, meters and chemicals. I was a kind of alchemist. Metallurgy is modern alchemy, really. But I stopped on the day of the explosion. I still tinker, but not with wires or soldering irons. Thinking is a kind of tinkering, too. And thinking can lead to explosions. Thinking is the most dangerous activity, maybe more dangerous than atomic bombs. It can change the world. This is why Lenin said: “learn, learn, learn!”

ZEIT Wissen: Do you want to hurt people?

Han: No. I try to describe what is present. It is hard to see through things. That’s why I try to see more – to learn to see. I write down what I’ve seen. It is possible that my books hurt, because I show things that people don’t want to see. It is not me, not my analysis that is merciless, but the world in which we live; it’s merciless, crazy and absurd.

ZEIT Wissen: Are you a happy person?

Han: I don’t ask that question.

ZEIT Wissen: Do you mean that this question shouldn’t be asked?

Han: It is actually a meaningless question. Happiness is not a state I aim for. You have to define the term. What do you mean with happiness?

ZEIT Wissen: Quite simply: I enjoy being in the world, I feel at home in the world, I enjoy the world, I sleep well.

Han: Let’s start with the last one. I don’t sleep well. The day before yesterday, at a symposium about the good life with the philosopher Wilhelm Schmidt, I opened with a piece of music: the Goldberg Variations. Bach composed the Goldberg Variations for a Count who suffered from serious insomnia. I reminded the audience of the first sentence of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. In English, it goes: “For a long time, I went to bed early.” But in French, it is actually: “Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure.” Bonheur is happiness. So the correct translation would be: “For a long time, I went to bed happy.” I told the audience that sleeping well is a sign of a good and happy life. I suffer from insomnia myself.

ZEIT Wissen: What do you do when you can’t sleep?

Han: What do I do? I just lie there. On the other point: do I like being in the world? How can you like being in this false world? That’s not possible, and so, I am not happy. I often don’t understand the world. It seems very absurd to me. You can’t be happy in the absurd. For happiness you need a lot of illusions, I think.

ZEIT Wissen: You enjoy…?

Han: What?

ZEIT Wissen: What do you enjoy?

Han: I can’t enjoy the world.

ZEIT Wissen: A nice piece of cake?

Han: I don’t eat cake. I could enjoy a good meal, but food in Berlin, in Germany, is a problem. Germans don’t seem to appreciate good food. Maybe it comes from Protestantism, this hostility towards sensuality. In Asia, food has a totally different value, a much higher one. People spend a lot of money on it, unlike in Germany. Take Japan, for example: food is a cult there, an aesthetic. Especially the unbelievable freshness of it! Fragrant rice could make someone happy, as well.

ZEIT Wissen: That sounds like a grain of happiness. You’ve lived in Germany for 30 years. How do you tolerate it?

Han: I wouldn’t say tolerate. I like living in Germany. I love the quiet here, which I wouldn’t have in Seoul. I particularly love the German language, its words as well. Anyone who reads my books can see that. I have a language here in which I can philosophise very well. Yes, there are things that make me happy. Food not so much, but Bach played by Glenn Gould. I often listen to Bach for hours. I don’t know if I would have stayed in Germany this long without Bach, without Schubert’s Winterreise, without Schumann’s Dichterliebe. During my philosophy degree, I used to sing a lot, especially the songs of Schumann and Schubert, and I took a lot of singing lessons for it as well. Singing Winterreise accompanied by the piano, that’s very nice…

ZEIT Wissen: So there is beauty! You spend a lot of time badmouthing the world.

Han: Maybe. I really make my students despair, because I tell them all of these problems in my lectures. When I said in the lecture before the last one, today we are going to think about solutions, some of them applauded. At last! Now he’s going to free us from despair!

ZEIT Wissen: How lovely. Solutions is a topic we want to discuss with you, too.

Han: I wanted to think about solutions, but then I only described more problems.

ZEIT Wissen: Oh well. So what other problems are there?

Han: There is no language today – there is speechlessness and helplessness. Language is being silenced. On the one hand, there is this immense noise, communication noise, on the other there is this huge wordlessness, a wordlessness that is different from silence. Silence is very eloquent. Silence has a language. Stillness is also eloquent, and it can be a language, too. But noise and wordlessness are without language. There is only wordless, noisy communication, which is a problem. Today, there is not even knowledge, only information. Knowing is completely different from information. Knowledge and truth sound old-fashioned now. Knowledge also has a different time structure, it spans past and future. And the temporality of information is the present, now. Knowing also comes from experience. A master has knowledge. Today, we live with the terror of amateurishness.

ZEIT Wissen: What do you think of what is happening in science? Does it not create knowledge?

Han: Scientists no longer reflect on the social context of knowledge. They are doing positive research. Every knowing takes places within a power relationship, and power relationships, new capacities, generate new knowledge, a new discourse. Knowledge is always embedded in a power structure. You can simply do positive research without recognising that you are under the spell of this power, and without reflecting on the contextuality of knowledge. This reflection on contextuality no longer takes place. Philosophy is becoming a positive science too. It doesn’t refer to society, only to itself. It’s becoming blind to society.

ZEIT Wissen: Do you mean the whole of academic life?

Han: More or less. What happens now is Google Science, without critical reflection about our own activity. The humanities should think critically about their own activity, but this is not happening. Many are doing emotion research, for example. I would love to ask a scientist who is involved in this research: why do you do what you do? They don’t think about their own activity.

ZEIT Wissen: What do you suggest?

Han: This is about what social relevance the humanities have. We have to understand clearly the social background of our own research, because all knowledge is embedded in the power relationships of the system. Why is emotion research being done so intensively today? Maybe because emotions are now seen as a productive force. Emotions are being used as tools of control. If you influence emotions, you can control and manipulate human behaviour on a subconscious level.

ZEIT Wissen: Now you sound like a conspiracy theorist. Is it possible to create a better system with more intelligence?

Han: Intelligence comes from intel-legere, reading between, differentiating. Intelligence is an activity of differentiation within a system. Intelligence cannot develop a new system, a new language. The mind[1] is completely different from intelligence. I do not believe that very intelligent computers could copy the human mind[2]. You can design a totally intelligent machine, but machines will never invent a new language, something completely different, I believe. A machine has no mind[3]. No machine can output more than its input. This is precisely the miracle of life, that it can output more than its input, and can output something completely different from its input. That is life. Life is spirit[4]. That’s how it’s different from a machine. But this life is endangered when everything is automated, when everything is ruled by algorithms. An immortal machine human, as imagined by posthumanists like Ray Kurzweil, would no longer be human. Maybe we will achieve immortality eventually with the help of technology, but we will lose life. We will achieve immortality at the cost of life.

[cjdemooi]

The problem with performing

When I told a few friends in the entertainment industry I was going to write this piece, they begged me not to post it. They all agreed with what I wanted to say but desperately tried to persuade me I had to ‘play the game’ and under no circumstances criticise those who might be in a position to give me a job.

However, I found myself in an unfortunate yet unique position. After the last 4 years and through no fault of my own, I’m utterly toxic so can speak out with no consequences. After all, I can’t get more unemployable! If I was willing to play tedious games, I’d still be on television, have regular auditions and a career. Now I’ve been permanently deprived of those and am no longer willing to work with people I don’t trust, there’s nothing to keep me quiet or compliant. That rules out large swathes of opportunities but so what?

Smiling sweetly while being dismissed as a worthless commodity is something performers endure every day. The simple fact is, if you’re not willing to toe the line and do what’s expected, there are countless others who will. My response is, and always has been, screw that! The performance arts aren’t jobs, they’re callings. From a very early age, we all knew what we wanted to be and that fire only grew more intense. Of course there are sacrifices to be made but a line has to be drawn somewhere. I personally don’t believe that integrity and personal ethics are worth giving up for a dream.

Please understand that is only my view and I don’t in any way diminish those who strive tirelessly to succeed. Decisions have to be made and weighed up against such incredibly fine margins that distinctions become blurred. I’ve made my choices but each to his or her  own. 

I spoke out and criticised the BBC for the lack of same sex representation and racism. I lost my job because of it and was subjected to a smear campaign of lies in the national press. The implicit threat was, we pay you so do as you’re told. That’s a price very few people would be able or willing to pay and ultimately, I couldn’t afford it either. I lost everything because I didn’t shut up as was demanded of me. Honestly though, I don’t regret it.

Actors are treated with utter disdain. The recent interview with Mena Massoud in which he revealed he hadn’t had a single audition since Aladdin is a case in point. If the lead in a billion dollar movie is struggling to be seen, what chance does anyone else have? I have an impressive and award nominated CV but 4 auditions in 5 years speak for themselves and yet I’m still relatively lucky. Thousands of others are in far worse positions. 

Recently there has been a campaign to persuade casting directors and producers to let auditioning performers know if they haven’t been successful. Hanging around, waiting and hoping to hear about a role is not only frustrating, it causes people to miss out on other opportunities. A bulk email would take 5 minutes and allay a lot of fears but such a simple courtesy seems beneath a lot of people. We don’t need an apology or meticulous dissection of our technique. Just a quick ‘Sorry, not this time’ is all that’s required!

My worst experience, and there have been more than I care to remember, was a few years ago when I was called in for the national tour of Rent. I was sent 3 songs and dialogue for an audition 4 days later. I worked hard and managed to learn it all, travelling to London the night before to prepare. The next morning I had a singing lesson to warm up and set off up Tottenham Court Road. Literally as I was about to knock on the door, I received a text saying the producer had changed his mind and didn’t think I was right for the role. After all that effort, they wouldn’t even allow me 5 minutes to show what I could do. I was incensed so emailed him back expressing my disappointment and asking where I should send the invoice for my time and expenditure. He replied with indignant pomposity saying that was the way things were and if that’s how I was going to be, he was glad he didn’t have to work with me but I sent him the bill anyway. 

Of course this damaged my reputation with him and many others he spoke to but the fact he considered it completely acceptable to treat hard working professionals in such a manner was unforgivable. You may not want to work with me but I assure you, the feeling’s more than mutual. As actors, all we want is a chance. If we’re not good enough, fine but at least give us a few moments to try and impress you. 

I’ve burnt my bridges with a lot of industry professionals because I’m strong willed (or arrogant, depending on which side of the desk you’re sitting) but I’ve never once wished I’d kept my mouth tightly closed and my opinions to myself. I’m nothing if not brutally honest and direct. No doubt that attitude has cost me a lot of roles. 

A casting director who’d rather give a job to someone who’s become available from another production rather than sit through 3 days of auditions because the pay’s the same either way. A producer who consistently advertises jobs without pay because he’ll still be inundated with eager young things desperate for their break. A director who rehearses for 10 days then cuts your role to the bare minimum in order to give himself a big scene (and yes, this happened to me in panto in Clacton) Playwrights who promise you a script then go back on their word expecting you’ll bend over backwards to assure them it’s all fine. If nobody has to face any consequences, where is the incentive to change?

Too often, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Although thankfully no longer as common as it once was, it’s also not what you know but who you’re willing to sleep with. I wish that this wasn’t true but I can say from personal experience and stories from others that it most certainly is.

Potentially the most harmful barrier is the competition, very little of it healthy, between artists themselves. This rarely produces a buoyant environment of support for each other. It’s always been a case of how can I knock the other person down rather than raising myself up? I can reluctantly understand why this would be the case when trying to secure an audition but it happens all too frequently when there’s no direct or obvious rivalry. The whole industry seems to be predicated on survival of the fittest, so talent and kindness are often reduced to irrelevancies. I truly believe most performers are caring and encouraging but they’re battered down by a system that’s relentless and ruthless. The fact may very well be that I’m not good or obedient enough to succeed as an actor and those who are clever and subtle enough manipulate the system to their own advantage are the ones who will make it big. I honestly congratulate them as they’re better and more skilled than I ever will be.

We are taught there are standards to be upheld such as unrealistic body image or heteronormativity and these have been immensely damaging in the past. Fortunately, at least in this aspect, times are changing. I’ve been honoured to work with some amazing and nurturing people who’ve actively fostered workplaces of support and inclusivity. I hope these very positive models will soon represent the rule over the above examples rather than the exception. 

The problem is, drama schools are churning out increased numbers of students every year. They’re not taught how to cope in the outside world and find themselves ill equipped to vie for a finite number of jobs. The vast majority hold down multiple jobs just for a brief glimpse of their dreams. The time between sinking into debt during drama school and having to give it all up in order to live is probably only 3 or 4 years. That’s an cruelly narrow window to achieve something they’ve been yearning after for decades. The harsh reality is, most will never have a professional contract and will all too soon have to give up in order to survive. Surely casting directors and producers can appreciate that and at least give a few more chances to a few more desperate people?

I know these aren’t popular opinions but I believe them to be the truth. I refuse to play those ridiculous games pretending everything’s fine and not making waves with anyone with the power to employ me. I’m under no illusion that this article will obliterate any slim chance I had of ever working again so that gives me a free pass to call out what I believe to be wrong with the industry I love. Only when we come together in respect will we move forward in solidarity and strength. Performing is one of the very toughest communities to be a part of so I beg you, please, treat everyone in it with consideration and they’ll do the same in return.

 We all deserve that.

[matildsdsnook-blog]

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Most people ignore the warnings because the thought of effective wrinkle reduction is so appealing. Buy NeuroBloc Botulinum online But, there are ways to effectively reduce wrinkles, sagging and fine lines, without taking the risk.

Did you know that Botox is the deadliest naturally occurring poison on earth? Did you know that collagen is extracted from cowhide and only fattens up the deepest layer of the skin? Did you know that Botox paralyzes the facial muscles, sometimes permanently? Did you know that wrinkle correction by injection is only temporary?

Knowing all of these things, I'm not sure why anyone would choose injections. But, I think it is probably because most creams on the market are ineffective and really don't provide any wrinkle correction, at all. Luckily, we have new options.

KERATEC manufactures safe and natural materials that cosmetic and personal care companies can use in their products. The latest is called Functional Keratin. The active protein peptide is so popular and effective that the company is no longer taking new orders.

Only distributors that have already contracted to purchase the product regularly will still be supplied. Lucky for us, we can still order creams and lotions that contain it. But, the companies that hesitated, which includes all of the major cosmetic companies, will not be able to get their hands on the ingredient.

What does Functional Keratin do? It provides the most effective wrinkle reduction that anyone has ever seen from a topically applied cream.

It provides wrinkle correction by increasing skin-cell proliferation. It has antioxidant activity, healing ability and naturally reduces inflammation and redness.

If you read some labels, you will see that a number of products contain "keratin", but the ingredient has never been truly effective for wrinkle reduction, because before KERATEC, no company could extract and process the protein without denaturalizing it.

The harsh processing basically destroyed the function of the protein. Using patented technology, KERATEC is able to deliver keratin that is fully active. The skin cells literally soak it up, using it to create new fibers and elastin.

You see immediate wrinkle correction because the material refracts light, making the skin look smoother than it is. But, you will also see long term results and the longer you use it the better you'll look.

There is nothing else on the market that actually stimulates the re-growth of collagen and elastin fibers. But, the most important thing, in my opinion, is that it's completely safe.

The best creams combine Functional Keratin with an assortment of other safe and nourishing ingredients that provide guaranteed wrinkle reduction and healthier skin, in general. Give it a try, before you resort to more risky solutions.

Sweating is a part of a person's natural body mechanisms and is a way for the body to regulate its internal temperature. There are many ways to control sweating and we discuss only a few methods in this article. The nerves that control sweating depend upon a chemical transmitter called acetylcholine which is a molecule produced at the very ends of the nerve fibers. Individuals troubled by excessive sweating often do not respond adequately to antiperspirants, and they may not respond to (or be willing to tolerate) systemic medications, electrical treatments on the areas of excessive sweating, permanent destruction of the nerves which control sweating, or surgery (in the armpits) to either scrape away the sweat glands or to cut out the areas of excessive sweating.

Drugs taken by mouth, such as phenoxybenzamine and propantheline, sometimes control sweating, and injections of botulinum toxin into the affected area diminish sweating. Botox can be used to control sweating of the underarms, hands, feet, forehead, and other body areas. The most common option used to control sweating is to use an antiperspirant. Modifying your behavior and your psychological environment (at home and at work) to lessen excessive stress will help you to control sweating. Meditation is the best way to control sweating if not cures it completely. It is hoped that as more is learnt about the systems in the body that control sweating, better ways of controlling it will be found.

Condition

It is a condition that affects both men and women and usually begins during childhood or at puberty, but improves spontaneously for many people in their mid-twenties or early thirties. Profuse sweating that occurs at times other than in hot conditions or after exercise is usually due to a rare disorder called hyperhidrosis, marked by perspiration produced in abundance by overactive sweat glands. In addition, it may be helpful for you to avoid conditions of excess heat, and stay clear of diets that are too high in sugar, caffeine and alcohol, because all of these may also contribute to your problem of sweating.

Control

The reason why some people sweat more is not yet known, but it is known that sweating is controlled by the Sympathetic Nervous System. Get your nerves under control and your sweating will diminish. Most of the times you don't want to stop you're sweating; you want to control it from getting out of hand. Excessive sweating can be controlled to some degree with commercial antiperspirants. It seems that gel deodorants (Mitchum/Soft & Dry) are the only products that will control sweating, the odor for more than one hour (not long enough). While a deodorant masks odors, antiperspirants actually reduce and control the perspiration and sweating. Conventional antiperspirants contain ingredients like aluminum chloride and aluminum chlorohydrate to control sweating by plugging up your sweat glands. Check the label; you'd be surprised at how many people think they're using an antiperspirant/deodorant, a product to help stop you from sweating, but are actually using only a deodorant, a product that only helps prevent odor--not control sweating.

Botox, the popular injectable wrinkle remedy, also can be used to control sweating; injected into the skin, it temporarily paralyzes the sweat glands in the treated area. If drugs are not effective, a more drastic measure to control severe sweating is surgical cutting of the nerves leading to the sweat glands. These nerves respond to different kinds of stress: emotional stress like intimate social situations or public speaking, or physical stress like the increased body temperature that comes with exercise or hot and humid weather. Inspirational books, soothing music, scented candles or bubble baths; anything that helps you to relieve stress is ideal for you to control sweating. Proper hygiene plays an important role in helping you control excessive sweating.

Treatments

While only a doctor can prescribe or perform certain hyperhidrosis treatments, there are things you can do to help make excessive sweating less of a burden on your everyday life: bathe daily to keep the amount of bacteria on your skin in check. Stress is known to enhance sweating and it would help you if you take regular distressing treatments. Once you have received your treatments from the dermatologist you can purchase the equipment to give yourself treatments at home from that point on. To me it makes sense to start with the easiest thing and work your way up to the harder, more intensive treatments if you don't get results. Frequent treatments are usually necessary to control sweating. Bring the questions and your answers to your next doctor's appointment, or use them as evidence of the seriousness of your condition if you need to convince your health insurance plan to cover your treatments.

Excessive sweating can be treated by: simple treatments, such as roll-on antiperspirants (e.g. driclor); a type of electrolysis (called iontophoresis); medication, e.g. beta blockers or probanthine; injection of botulinum toxin; surgery (sympathectomy). Simple or medical treatments of excessive sweating might not control the symptoms, or they might induce intolerable side effects. Consult a neurosurgeon if sympathectomy is necessary in severe cases of hyperhidrosis that are refractory to all other treatments. The treatments available are still far from perfect but do give hyperhidrosis sufferers an alternative to just putting up with the condition. Non-surgical treatments include medications, Botox for palm sweating, anti-perspirant, and iontophoresis. A number of different treatments and products are available to help people with severe underarm sweating. If you are suffering from excessive sweating problem, then make sure that you bathe daily and couple this habit with any other method you'll use to control sweating.

Antiperspirants are known to control sweating to an extent and its effect depends on how bad your case of excessive sweating is. A fan or an air conditioner will definitely help you to control sweating. In some patients, these symptoms require therapeutic intervention such as dose reduction, antidepressant substitution, antidepressant discontinuation, or addition of an agent to control sweating. The researchers in this study think that sage may work to control sweating because it has astringent properties. Could an anti-perspirant (such as Drysol) be used on the forehead to control sweating. Destroying the nerves that control sweating in the feet also affects sexual responses, a price that many would think too high to pay. For the feet, aluminum chlorohydrate-containing antiperspirant sprayed onto the skin can help to control sweating. However, there are a number of different things that you can do in order to naturally reduce or control sweating. There are many natural ways and also many counter products that claim and do help to control sweating.

Information

Information and interactions contained in this Web site are for information purposes only and are not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Statements made regarding the products, ingredients and general information have not been evaluated by the FDA, or any other health authority, and should not be seen as health claims. Consult your doctor and get some information on what type of counter products will help you to control excessive sweating. There is also plenty of information about different topics that pertain to control your sweating.

[dippedanddripped]

There was a time when climate change seemed like one piece on the checkerboard of world problems, a piece perhaps sandwiched between war in a remote country and the fact that the bees were dying, which you knew you were supposed to be upset about even if you weren't sure exactly why.

But then a terrifying article in New York Magazine about the soon-to-be "uninhabitable earth" went viral, and teens all over the world ditched school to protest in the streets, and fires ravaged California and storms pummeled the Bahamas, and a bunch of UN scientists told us we had a little over a decade to turn things around. In short: The zeitgeist began to change. For many, climate change went from feeling like one problem piece out of many to the board on which the whole game is played.

"Climate change is the biggest problem of our generation and the most urgent one to solve," Hana Kajimura, a sustainability analyst at Silicon Valley's favorite sneaker company, Allbirds, tells Fashionista over the phone. She's not alone in her thinking.

Just a few months prior to our conversation, Allbirds had announced that it was going "100% carbon neutral" as a way of reckoning with the fact that it, like every other brand or business, is an emitter of some of the greenhouse gases (or GHGs) causing global warming. The news came days after Everlane launched its first ever "carbon-neutral" product. And they were both preceded by Reformation, which had been calling itself carbon neutral since 2015.

Not long after, these millennial-friendly labels known for their sustainability-centric marketing were joined by their luxury peers: Gabriela Hearst, whose $6,000 handbags have become a fixture in the wardrobe of Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, claimed to host the first ever carbon-neutral runway show at New York Fashion Week. Gucci declared its operations — including its extensive global supply chain and its latest fashion show — 100% carbon neutral earlier this month. And on Tuesday, Kering, the luxury conglomerate behind Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, announced that it too was committing to carbon neutrality.

If climate change is caused by releasing gases like carbon into the atmosphere, then becoming carbon neutral is the best thing a brand can do, right? In theory, yes. Unfortunately, getting there isn't quite as straightforward as brands often make it sound.

Most achieve "carbon neutrality" through a combination of reducing emissions and purchasing carbon offsets. The former, which might include switching to renewable energy in a brand's warehouses, is pretty universally applauded by environmentalists. The latter, in which a brand pays someone else to either capture or avoid emitting a given amount of carbon elsewhere to make up for the fact that the brand emitted that amount itself, is more controversial.

"We tend to think of [offsets] as sort of being able to offset a company's guilt, as opposed to its true environmental footprint," Dr. Amy Moas, a senior forest campaigner at Greenpeace, tells Fashionista.

There are a few key critiques that offsetting skeptics make: that it gives corporations an excuse not to shrink their direct emissions, that the offsetting market is historically unreliable, and that accounting for offsets is often inaccurate.

Most brands are aware of the first critique — that buying offsets is just an excuse not to reduce emissions — and every representative I spoke to for this story assured me they were being vigilant on this front. Gucci stated in a release that it has "already achieved a 16% reduction of its overall footprint across its supply chain since 2015, relative to growth," and Reformation's Vice President of Operations and Sustainability Kathleen Talbot told me on the phone that "you have to be really careful that you're starting with reduction."

The second common critique is that the offsetting market has a history of unreliability. This stems from the market's nascency, when it was riddled with frauds. A 2010 investigation by the Christian Science Monitor uncovered offset providers that sold the Pope himself on the idea that they were planting carbon-sucking trees on behalf of the Vatican — without lifting a finger to do so.

"There were [offset provider] companies out there that were not developing the best projects, and it certainly gave the industry a black eye for a period of time," says Kevin Hackett, the client strategy director at a carbon offsetting provider called Native Energy, which works with Everlane, Reformation and Eileen Fisher.

"But what happened was that as the standards got stronger," he continues, "and as brands and companies became more aware of the issues and more adept at figuring out which projects worked and doing due diligence, those [fraudulent] companies began to disappear."

Many would agree with Hackett that regulations have gotten stronger: It's much harder to sell a project that doesn't exist these days. But environmentalists like Dr. Moas might still make the third critique, that carbon offsets are tricky to properly account for even without con men perpetrating intentional fraud.

This is where it gets tricky. There are numerous kinds of projects a brand can invest in: Some fund the capture of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that leaks from landfills. Others get a wind farm up and running so that locals can stop relying on coal-powered energy. Still others provide rural communities in the developing world with water filters so that they don't have to cut down trees to boil their water so it's safe to drink. And so on.

With so much variety, even the most strident of offset defenders would agree that not all projects are created equal. Permanence is one concern: Will a project's carbon benefit disappear tomorrow if it's based on something like a protected forest that could burn down? Additionality is another key quality to look for in a trustworthy offset: It means the carbon benefit genuinely wouldn't have happened without the offset money. In other words, you can't just pay a landowner to not cut down trees he wasn't planning to cut down anyway, or that offset wouldn't be considered additional.

Leakage is a third concern. If you paid to protect trees in land plot A, and the landowner took your money to protect those trees but then just cut down trees in adjacent plot B, that would be considered leakage. You didn't prevent the carbon-sucking trees from being cut down, you just caused the site of the chopping to change. On top of that, there's the concern of whether or not the offset project has the potential to harm communities that might live nearby.

When taking these criteria into account, forestry-related offsets — including the UN-backed REDD+ forestry projects which make up the entirety of Kering and Gucci's offsetting portfolio — become particularly suspect.

A scene from Gucci's "carbon neutral" runway show in Milan this season. Photo: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

"There has not been one [forest offsetting project] that we have found that has been able to provide the long-term, verifiable emissions reductions without [negative] human rights impacts," Greenpeace's Dr. Moas says. "Not one."

Dr. Tracey Osborne, an associate professor at the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, has been researching carbon offsets and offsetting markets for two decades. Though she highlights the importance of protecting forests and even thinks brands could play a role in this, she agrees with Dr. Moas that forest offsets as they currently exist are problematic.

"Right now forests are seen as cheap credits, the low-hanging fruit," she explains on the phone. "But if we do it properly, they actually would cost a lot more."

Because current forest offset prices are so low, she continues, the money is not sufficient to prevent cattle ranching, soy production, palm oil production or large-scale timber operations, which are often the real drivers of deforestation in the tropical nations where these projects are focused. Instead, cheaper offsets tend to target local indigenous communities and their subsistence practices even though research from organizations like National Geographic and Project Drawdown has demonstrated that indigenous land management practices can actually reduce emissions and deforestation.

In short: There's a lot of ways that offsets can go wrong and render themselves either ineffective at reducing net carbon in the atmosphere, or even become actively harmful to vulnerable communities.

As if all that weren't enough, there's an inconsistency in carbon offset bookkeeping so blatant it's almost hard to believe.

Aldyen Donnelly is a former consultant who's been involved in carbon trading since the early '90s. By 2003, she was the largest private speculative buyer of offset credit in the world — surpassed only by organizations like the World Bank, she says. In short, she knows the market inside and out. While she acknowledges many of the other pitfalls listed here, one of the biggest in her view stems from a simple math problem.

"There are a lot of companies who are buying offset credits and saying, 'Now we're carbon neutral!' and they're not bad guys; they have every reason to think they are [carbon neutral]," she says on the phone. "But they're buying certificates with a stated value of one ton when the underlying value of the certificates is, at best, if everything else is done perfectly, a half a ton."

The reason is simple: international carbon markets don't consistently practice double-entry bookkeeping. In other words, when a brand buys offsets across international borders, the seller isn't subtracting what they've sold from their country's total carbon reductions, even though the buyer is adding it to theirs.

To illustrate: Let's say a landowner in Brazil says "I have a project that draws down ten tons of carbon from the atmosphere," and a brand in France says, "I'd like to buy two tons' worth from you to make up for the two tons I just emitted." You'd think that after the sale, Brazil's carbon registry would have to enter a -2 in its log, since France just added a +2. But up to this point, that's not how it has worked — instead, Brazil keeps its number the same even as France adds +2.

What that means for brands is that when they think they've purchased 500 tons worth of carbon offsets across international borders, there's really only a net gain of about 250 tons at the most — and that's if they've managed to avoid all the other pitfalls listed above. It's such a silly math mistake that it's hard to believe it's happening in something as large as the multibillion-dollar offset industry. But other experts confirmed what Donnelly told me: Though there are moves to change this system, that change is still years away from being realized.

All of these issues point to the main reason Dr. Moas remains less than enthusiastic about offsets — they let companies treat the real, measurable carbon they're emitting now as interchangeable with the potential (and potentially smaller-than-they-thought) carbon savings that may result in the future from their offsetting projects.

From this vantage point, it would be easy to see why some want to write carbon offsetting off as greenwashing and move on.

But consider that even if every company in the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow (which, of course, they won't), the Earth would still have far surpassed what scientists consider a safe amount of carbon in the atmosphere. It becomes easier to see why there are still plenty of people willing to do anything they can think of to keep that number from growing.

"You can always argue that it's better not to emit in the first place, and that's what we try to convince our clients to do," says Arnaud Brohe, CEO of offset provider CO2 Logic. "But we believe that if you do emit, it's also better to clean up after your mess."

Brohe tells me that he'd love for governments to do such a great job fighting or regulating emissions that his company and job could cease to exist. But until then, he thinks offsets are a good way for corporations to voluntarily put a price on their own carbon.

"If you don't want to support one of my projects, I think it's great if you take the same amount of money and invest in some other [climate] action," Brohe says. "But just saying 'I'm against offsets' is not going to work."

For all of the ways that carbon offsetting can go awry, especially in forest-related projects, there really is scientific reason to not give up the whole endeavor entirely. It just might mean switching to projects that aren't exactly... sexy. Separating manure solids on a dairy farm, as Native Energy does in one of its offsetting projects, might not be as marketable to a luxury customer as planting trees in Milan is. But it's probably delivering a more reliable offset.

And while some might claim that offsets let brands pay to pollute, the money they're handing over can make a real difference for farmers and other private landowners, who often need financial support to become more climate-friendly operations. Regenerative agriculture practices, for example, have incredible potential to draw carbon out of the atmosphere, but there can be financial barriers for farmers who want to begin implementing them.

Dr. Adam Chambers, a seasoned climate scientist who works for the USDA, sees the offsetting market's potential to defray these costs as a significant boon.

"Seventy percent of the land area in the United States is privately owned, and you can mobilize those lands for solutions," he says on the phone. "What we haven't done in the past is empowered farmers and ranchers to be part of the climate solution, and provided them with a market signal that encourages a certain type of behavior."

Donnelly, despite spending a good portion of our interview talking about how offsets can go wrong, ultimately aligns with Dr. Chambers in his excitement about farming and soil. She believes in their climate change-fighting potential so thoroughly that she's helping launch Nori, a new offsetting marketplace, before the end of the year. Through Nori, Donnelly hopes to offer farmers the support they need to take on worthwhile climate projects while ensuring corporations that when they buy one ton's worth of offsets, that's really what they're getting.

And Dr. Osborne, the climate scientist from University of Arizona, says that forest offsets don't need to be written off indefinitely. Working closely with indigenous communities and independent researchers to correct past mistakes could result in new projects that do more to protect the crucial biodiversity and carbon-capturing potential of forests.

In the end, it seems that the best attitude toward carbon offsetting mimics the best attitude toward sustainable fashion innovation: A certain skepticism is required to sort out legitimate claims from the illegitimate ones, and there will be plenty of the latter. But the existence of shoddy attempts shouldn't be a reason to stop trying entirely. Instead, it should serve as a reminder that extreme caution is necessary.

In the end, Dr. Osborne says, "our world is not going to be saved by offsets." But that's not a reason to totally do away with them.

"In order to truly transform, to make a U-turn on climate, it will require massive transformation in our social, political and economic life," she says. "But an offset is one step... It's a way of starting to move the needle in the right direction."

[ryanmeft]

Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Part 1

The culmination of the superhero ride that started with Iron Man back in 2008 is almost here. Avengers: Endgame tickets are selling out fast even though the movie is nearly three weeks away, and speculation as to how this stage of Marvel’s box office juggernaut will all end is at a fever pitch. What better time to rank the movies that have brought us here? Now, no one with even a tiny bit of objectivity sincerely believes Marvel had a ten year plan and executed it precisely according to a grand vision. Looking back through these movies makes it clearer than ever that, more often than not, they made it up as they went along. In fact, considering all the retcons, changed minds, dropped plot threads and unexpected surprises, it’s amazing the continuity holds together at all. It mostly does...but the bottom part of this list contains the few movies even Marvel’s PR team probably wishes they could have a mulligan on, as well as some good-but-not-quite-lighting-the-world-on-fire fare. Let’s get to it. Warning: this article contains spoilers for nearly every movie in the MCU.

21. Iron Man 2

The red-headed stepchild of the MCU. After the surprise success of the original Iron Man, Marvel Studios apparently forgot that the strength of that film was allowing Jon Favreau and the writing team to put heart before brand synergy, and decided to make a movie that was half marketing for their planned Avengers crossover. Dropping Black Widow in here felt completely jarring, and it didn’t help that her role just added to the jumble of plot threads that didn’t seem to add up to anything; at the time, many saw it as proof that Marvel was putting a little too much faith in their ability to pull off this whole crossover thing. That’s only part of the sordid story, though, because the movie is also a mess in nearly every other way. Rather than the tight plotting of the original, this one sees Tony, Rhodey, Pepper and the rest speeding from random situation to random situation---a car race, an unhinged party, a spy caper---with only the barest of plot threads holding it all together. The movie’s only saving graces are the villains played by Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke. Each of them deliciously devours every scene they are in, providing the film’s lone moments of enjoyment, but they’re also squandered on what feels like an extremely low stakes plan. Iron Man so well proved that superhero movies can have a soul that it even managed to make some critical best-of lists for 2008. The sequel made us wonder if that might have been a tad premature.

20. The Incredible Hulk

There are some genuinely creative moments in this action-oriented “apology” for the in-reality-pretty-good Ang Lee Hulk movie. The opening sequence showing how Hulk’s blood travels, a chase through a Brazilian favela, tossing Bruce out of a helicopter to incite his other half, and the almost-love scene aborted by the alter ego were signs of how clever the movie could have been if it were not focused on cramming in as much smashing as possible. Nick Nolte’s complex antagonist is replaced with William Hurt chewing a little too much scenery, the new super-villain played by Tim Roth is a dull waste of the actor’s talent, the finale is listless, and the entire movie is just one long excuse to show Hulk ‘roiding out as much as possible. The camera work of skilled action veteran Peter Menzies Jr. and some excellent CG on the title character make it more fun to look at than many of the tights flicks of the time, which is something. As a general rule, things that are made to chase fleeting audience sentiments don’t stand the test of time, and there’s been a quiet reversal since 2008 in which Lee’s more original and creative vision for the character has come to be re-evaluated, while this one has been almost forgotten and relegated to endless TNT re-runs. Maybe with Mark Ruffalo having one more movie on his contract, he’ll get a crack at doing it right post-Endgame.

19. Thor: The Dark World At the time, this movie served as iron-clad proof that the only reason the Thor character worked at all was Loki. The god of mischief is at his delicious then-best here, conniving from a prison cell, partnering with his brother out of genuine concern, and eventually managing to actually take the throne. Sure, that latter development was quickly undone in the next film, but what a parting shot. He’s the only aspect of the movie that fully works, and if you pop it in today you sit patiently waiting for his scenes and snoring through the second, Loki-free half of the movie. Thor himself is lifeless when Loki’s not on screen. The Warriors Three are still nowhere near the right balance of humor and bravery. Natalie Portman remains wasted on a supposedly genius scientist who can nevertheless be stunned into immediate silence by Thor’s golden locks, while Sif is still 100% unnecessary in every way. Perhaps worst of all, the underrated Christopher Eccleston is miscast as a villain who always seems to be doing bad Shakespeare. We all tried hard to forgive it at the time (and director Alan Taylor claims it was made “a different movie” in the editing room, not at all implausible) but thankfully we’ve since admitted this is mostly a misfire.

18. Ant-Man

If you were to judge Ant-Man entirely by the size-changing shenanigans, it would be one of the best Marvel movies. Peyton Reed, building off a script by departing director Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish (and tidied up by Rudd and Adam McKay) gets a ton of mileage out of the novelty of being the size of an insect, from outrunning a flood in a bathtub to that rather brilliant final confrontation in a child’s playroom, using toys as ammo. Further, Paul “I Am Immortal” Rudd is pitch-perfect in the title role, while Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly bring a lot to the picture. It’s in the details where Ant-Man falls a bit short (pun intended). To start, we have a single major Hispanic character in the MCU, played by the frankly more-legendary-than-you-think Michael Pena, and he’s reduced to a fast-talking stereotype. Judy Greer and Bobby Cannavale are also worlds better than their roles, which are, respectively, a cliche shrewish ex-wife and a cliche over-suspicious cop. What really drags things down, though, is the lackluster villain, who may be the most inert black hole in the MCU’s rogues gallery. He is neither good enough to engage us, nor bad enough to hate. He could have been played by a grip, for all the personality he’s allowed. The core of the film is delightful. The hill around it is crumbly.

17. Captain Marvel

Marvel’s first female-led flick is understandably a phenomenon, pulling down the sixth-largest opening weekend of all time and serving as inspiration to young girls and target to the kind of people who don’t want women in their clubhouse. So what about the movie that’s causing all this hullabaloo? It’s pretty decent. The movie can be summed up very succinctly as “safe”. It takes few chances and is more like one small step than one giant leap for womankind. Had it been released during the early superhero boom, it would still be fondly remembered as a major link in the genre’s evolution. As it is, it borrows from the buddy-cop subgenre to create what is essentially an adventure/sci-fi movie between Carol Danvers and Nick Fury. It stands out more as a callback to the kind of action pics made in the 90’s (when it is set) than the heavily marketed shared universe of the MCU, and includes standout performances from Annette Bening, Jude Law and Ben Mendelsohn. It meets expectations; it does not exceed them, and if you are a fan of the distinctive style practiced by directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, you won’t find it here. It’s only a month old, and it may be too soon to definitely say how it will be seen as time goes on. Right now, it feels more like a solid first step for the character than a fully realized final destination.

16. Thor

The original Thor has some completely solid, indisputable charms. Chris Hemsworth does physical comedy much more skillfully than he is ever given credit for, it is the debut of Tom Hiddleston as Loki, the third act is a rare-at-the-time case of inventiveness in an MCU finale, and it’s always great to see Stellan Skarsgard in literally anything. I would watch two hours of Stellan Skarsgard eating lunch, with a clone of Stellan Skarsgard. His drinking scene with Thor is a seriously underrated bit of awesome. It helps make up for the fact that the movie has no idea what to do with most of the supporting cast, including in part Loki, who at this stage seems to flail around between personalities, having crazy forced on him in time for the final duel despite it not even being hinted at earlier. It’s as if director Kenneth Branagh just let him do his own thing, and Hiddleston’s not 100% sure what that should be yet. The mirror scene is objectively amazing, but he won’t really come into his own until Avengers. The Warriors Three are utterly wasted; Branaugh and the writers just never nail the right combo of comedy and camaraderie needed to pull them off. Sif is superfluous. Natalie Portman is one of the finest actors of our generation, here reduced to goggling over Thor’s pecs. It’s not bad, especially compared to some of the dreck that gets pumped out of the blockbuster machine. It’s just rather inert.

That’s it for part 1. I’m  going to be doing some Marvel/Superhero/General Nerd content leading up to Endgame’s release. Check back next Friday for part 2 of this list, and pop by Monday for part 1 of my predictions on the fate of each character in Endgame. Part 2: https://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/184208179827/ranking-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-part-2 Part 3: https://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/184372777282/ranking-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-part-3

[phroyd]

WASHINGTON — Matthew G. Whitaker, the acting attorney general, served on the advisory board of a Florida company that a federal judge shut down last year and fined nearly $26 million after the government accused it of scamming customers.

The company, World Patent Marketing, “bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars” by promising inventors lucrative patent agreements, according to a complaint filed in Florida by the Federal Trade Commission.

Court documents show that when frustrated consumers tried to get their money back, Scott J. Cooper, the company’s president and founder, used Mr. Whitaker to threaten them as a former federal prosecutor. Mr. Cooper’s company paid Mr. Whitaker nearly $10,000 before it closed.

Mr. Whitaker’s role in the company would complicate his confirmation prospects should President Trump nominate him as attorney general.

It is not clear if Mr. Trump was aware of Mr. Whitaker’s involvement with the patent marketing company before naming him as a replacement for Jeff Sessions, who was ousted by Mr. Trump on Wednesday.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Whitaker’s ties to the patent company, which were first reported by The Miami New Times.

Before his ascension to the office of the nation’s top law enforcement official, Mr. Whitaker, 49, was Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff. A conservative Republican from Iowa, he was seen within the Justice Department as a White House loyalist who publicly expressed doubts about the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Mr. Trump or any of his associates conspired in the effort.

Mr. Whitaker’s appointment has prompted concerns that he might shut down or stymie the special counsel’s investigation.

In August 2017, Mr. Whitaker highlighted on Twitter a Philly.com opinion article with the headline “Note to Trump’s Lawyer: Do Not Cooperate With Mueller Lynch Mob.” In his tweet, Mr. Whitaker wrote that it was “worth a read.”

Mr. Whitaker also wrote an opinion article that same day for CNN’s website with the headline “Mueller’s Investigation of Trump Is Going Too Far.” He said the investigation needed to be limited. Mr. Whitaker, a former college football player, joined the Justice Department in October 2017 after Mr. Trump watched him as a CNN analyst and approved of his television appearances.

World Patent Marketing was founded in 2014 and had the hallmarks of a legitimate business. It used a splashy website and other marketing materials to “create the impression that they have successfully helped other inventors,” the trade commission said in its complaint.

In reality, the commission said, the Miami Beach company failed to make good on almost every promise it made to consumers, and strung them along for months or years after taking their money.

When prospective customers left their contact information on the company website, an employee would call them back and follow a script: The company was an “invention powerhouse” with an “incredible advisory board,” including Mr. Whitaker, a “former United States attorney who was appointed by President George Bush.” Mr. Whitaker had served as the top prosecutor for the Southern District of Iowa, a position he held until 2009.

In joining the board, Mr. Whitaker was quoted in a news release issued by the company as saying that he was honored to be a part of World Patent Marketing because it was a “trusted partner to many inventors.”

In another news release, Mr. Whitaker was quoted as saying that “as a former U.S. attorney, I would only align myself with a first-class organization.”

“World Patent Marketing,” the release continued, “goes beyond making statements about doing business ‘ethically’ and translates those words into action.”

In footage uploaded to Vimeo, a video platform, in 2015, Mr. Whitaker can be seen reviewing an invention meant to reduce razor-blade cuts. Mr. Cooper also posted a picture of himself on social media with a smiling Mr. Whitaker at the company offices in Miami.

The trade commission complaint said that consumers were told they had to spend about $3,000 for a “Global Invention Royalty Analysis” to begin the process of examining an invention with the goal of getting a patent. After making the payment, the company’s clients were then pitched various packages ranging from approximately $8,000 to about $65,000.

After the company took the money, it typically began ignoring customers, who became frustrated that they were left in the dark. Mr. Cooper would often berate or threaten them when they asked questions or wanted their money back.

“Defendants and their lawyers have threatened consumers with lawsuits and even criminal charges and imprisonment for making any kind of complaint,” the trade commission’s complaint said.

In at least two instances, Mr. Cooper used Mr. Whitaker’s former position as a federal prosecutor to rebuff customers.

Mr. Whitaker, using his Iowa law firm’s email, told a man who had complained to Mr. Cooper that he was a former federal prosecutor and served on the company’s board.

“Your emails and message from today seem to be an apparent attempt at possible blackmail or extortion,” Mr. Whitaker wrote in August 2015. “You also mentioned filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and to smear World Patent Marketing’s reputation online. I am assuming you understand that there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you.”

When another frustrated customer, Rich O’Neill of Montana, emailed around the same time and wanted his $1,300 returned, Mr. Cooper fired back a threatening email.

“You’re telling me that if I don’t refund your $1,300, you will blackmail me into filing complaints with regulators? And you just put it in writing,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “You are aware that we have a former U.S. attorney on our board.”

Mr. Cooper returned the money to Mr. O’Neill, who said in an interview on Thursday that he believed the email referencing Mr. Whitaker was meant to intimidate him.

The complaint also accused the company of using thuggish tactics, according to court documents. In an email to customers, the company referenced a blog post that described how one person wanted to speak with Mr. Cooper about his invention idea. The post said that the person was intercepted by the company’s “intimidating security team, all ex-Israeli special ops and trained in Krav Maga, one of the most deadly of the martial arts.”

The post added, “The World Patent Marketing Security Team are the kind of guys who are trained to knock out first and ask questions later.”

Another customer, Brenda Wilcox, 49, a Trump supporter who lives in Broward County, Fla., said in an interview on Thursday that World Patent Marketing scammed $11,000 from her. She said the company had agreed to market, license and develop a bracelet she invented that would warn drivers if they left a baby in the back seat of their car.

Another customer, William Knecht of Texas, lost about $35,000 on a patent package, according to the complaint. “The entire time I worked with W.P.M. I feel like the company cut corners, did the bare minimum to get by, and were just slimy enough to keep me happy and not complaining,” Mr. Knecht said in a 2017 statement as part of the trade commission’s case.

Another customer, Christopher Seaver, a Florida doctor who spent more than $300,000 hoping to make money on an invention, said that Mr. Cooper asked him to be on the advisory board to do consulting work on medical patents.

“I have not made any money from my involvement with W.P.M.,” Dr. Seaver said in the complaint. “This has caused financial hardship for me because I paid life savings to W.P.M.” He added, “I’ve gotten nothing in return.”

This past March, the federal judge, Darrin P. Gayles, banned Mr. Cooper and World Patent Marketing from the invention promotion industry.

Mr. Cooper was also ordered to pay the trade commission nearly $1 million, according to court documents. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Phroyd

[rapeculturerealities]

JK Rowling has finally addressed the elephant in the room: that the kids’ movies going out in her name star a domestic abuser. And her response isn’t good. In fact, it’s the very opposite of good.

Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.

Rowling says. “Genuinely happy”.

However, the agreements that have been put in place to protect the privacy of two people, both of whom have expressed a desire to get on with their lives, must be respected.

Take the words Amber Heard said about wanting to put the violence she experienced out of your mouth, JK. A survivor wants to move on. And that’s what Amber Heard is: she documented the violence she experienced, and was dragged through the mud for it. Is it any wonder she wants it behind her? Meanwhile, let’s think about the motivations for a man who has been physically and verbally violent towards a woman might want to put it behind him. It’s a little different, isn’t it?

I accept that there will be those who are not satisfied with our choice of actor in the title role. However, conscience isn’t governable by committee.

This is a line as old as time. The mob! The mob!

Meanwhile, David Yates, who Rowling name-checks in her article, and seems to imply agreement with, said this:

With Johnny, it seems to me there was one person who took a pop at him and claimed something. I can only tell you about the man I see every day: He’s full of decency and kindness, and that’s all I see. Whatever accusation was out there doesn’t tally with the kind of human being I’ve been working with.

“Took a pop”. Well, that’s not feeding “lying bitch” narratives at all. And nice that a man thinks an abuser is all sweetness and light, that’s something we’ve never seen before.

JK Rowling is complicit in domestic violence. There, I said it.

I am not alleging she has personally been violent. I am alleging that her choices and her words will, at best, not reduce any violence against women. At worst, they may perhaps expose more women to violence.

See, JK Rowling is in a position of great power. She has an army of young people following her, young people who listen to her views, and young people who will be influenced by these views. The message that we need to send to young people is that domestic violence, and violence against women on the whole, is completely unacceptable.

[aion-rsa]

The Mysterious Benedict Society: Bringing the Middle Grade Mystery Series to TV

https://ift.tt/3cZFTyo

This article contains spoilers for the first two episodes of The Mysterious Benedict Society plus teasers for future episodes. There are no book spoilers beyond the plots featured in the first two episodes.

The Mysterious Benedict Society is not only Disney+’s latest television series, it’s one of the streamer’s noteworthy original TV projects outside the massive Marvel and Star Wars franchises… But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a source material. The series is based on the bestselling middle grade book series by Trenton Lee Stewart. Stewart first published The Mysterious Benedict Society in 2007, which means the original readers are now adults and even parents themselves. (I myself discovered the series while working in summer camp and after school a year or two after publication.) The series was in development hell for over a decade before Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi joined the project in 2017. Den of Geek talked to showrunners Hay and Manfredi, who previously worked on AEon Flux and the Ride Along movie series together, to discuss the behind the scenes of translating this middle grade mystery adventure to the silver streaming screen.    

“We were aware of the book when we were brought them, and read the first one and just fell in love,” Manfredi tells Den of Geek. The most important example of this love comes through in novel series author Stewart signing on as consulting producer on the series. Several other middle grade books from the mid 2000’s, most notably the Percy Jackson movies, were reduced to in-name-only movie adaptations that butchered the essence of the stories, due to authors having no input on the adaptation. 

“We talked to him very early in the adaptation process, got to know him,” Hay says. ”Then as the show went along, he read all the scripts, he saw the cuts…whenever he had an idea, it obviously rang a lot of bells for us… and, it was just very important to us that he be pleased and like it.” 

The series follows Mr. Benedict (Tony Hale), a scientist living in an alternate universe who is very concerned that the world’s increased anxiety, called The Emergency, is not, in fact, the organic result of social politics, but rather is being orchestrated by someone outside the government. There are subliminal messages about The Emergency broadcast across the media and adults have accepted these messages as truth. Kids are naturally more curious and at times confrontational about accepting authority and fate. Although Mr. Benedict has two extremely capable assistants in Rhonda Kazembe (MaameYaa Boafo) and Number 2 (Kristen Schaal); he needs children to infiltrate the educational institute from which the messages about The Emergency  originate. After a series of rigorous tests, he assembles a team of four extremely smart orphans to infiltrate and to find the person responsible. Renard “Reynie” Muldoon (Mystic Inscho) is a master puzzle solver, George “Sticky” Washington (Seth Carr) is a trivia champion, Kate Weatherall (Emmy DeOlivera) is a budding engineer and meteorologist, and Constance Contraire (Marta Kessler) is a social rebel who needs a cause to properly apply her truth-seeking instincts. The mission is going to test not only their skills but also their stamina to resist the subliminal messaging. The title of the series comes from the team name the children give themselves. 

Although the adventure elements are clearly targeted towards today’s preteens, the political undertones of the story are definitely going to be the element that appeals to adults who haven’t read the novel series. “The book feels prescient,” Hay says. “I double-checked the copyright page when I was reading it because it just seemed that the themes were so resonant and relevant to today.” This theme adds depth and immediacy to the children’s mission. Adults will immediately recognize current politics in this alternate universe where the language of The Emergency is the language of misinformation.  

Kids are also affected by the political situation around them and this renders the plot of The Mysterious Benedict Society relatable.  “We have kids thinking of the way they’ve experienced the recent past as a relentless tide of anxiety, and how do we get to the bottom of that and how do we find ways to contend with it?” Hay says. “I think the message of the show in a way, is through getting to the truth and through finding the truth and then also through addressing others with care and with empathy and with kindness, and those things coalesced to be the bedrock of what we think the show is about.” Although some may feel uneasy about a dystopian alternate universe as escapist entertainment especially for children, there is hope and a solution embedded into the mission. The audience naturally roots for Mr. Benedict and his team triumph over evil. 

Bringing the alternate universe of Stonetown and its environs to life from Stewart’s imagination presented several challenges for Hay and Manfredi. Shooting eight, hour-long episodes during the pandemic added considerable complexity to the project. “We had such an incredible team in Vancouver led by Grace Gilroy, our line producer, and the dedication of the cast and crew, which was extraordinary to keep each other safe and healthy and follow the protocols to the T all of which happened,” Hay says. “Every day when you’re shooting in that condition is seen as a gift, and you are just really reliant on everybody, every single member of the cast and crew to be vigilant and they were, and that’s something that is extremely inspiring.”

Another obstacle was reconciling viewers’ imaginations and the illustrations in the novels with the screen. “I imagined [the novel as] a bit more Gothic or Victorian, and partially just because it worked with the themes for us and partially because we thought a lot of other things have explored that visual landscape,” Hay says. “[We] settled on this idea that this could be told in a sixties, European modernist kind of vibe, where things are very organized and formal.”

That mention of other things exploring “a Victorian landscape” is an illusion to Netflix’s series adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Most adult viewers new to the series will likely make that comparison, since both series revolve around orphans fighting eccentric adult villains in a dystopian alternate universe. However, the first two episodes of The Mysterious Benedict Society make it clear that the main characters are fighting evil on the societal level versus an inheritance fraud conspiracy one. 

Read more

TV

A Series Of Unfortunate Events Season 3 Review: The Best One Yet

By Gabriel Bergmoser

Culture

A Series Of Unfortunate Events Review (Spoiler-Free)

By Gabriel Bergmoser

Ironically, Tony Hale directly links the two series. He played Jerome Squalor in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and ended up being the top choice to lead The Mysterious Benedict Society. “We were such fans of Tony, and every role he’s done becomes an iconic thing,” Manfredi says. “He’s just so funny, and he had such a soulfulness to him and intelligence and compassion to him that he just kind of ticked all the boxes.” Hay added, “In the book, the character is reasonably a bit older. It’s more of a practical grandfatherly character than a fatherly character.” Mr. Benedict in the series is still eccentric, epilectic and tireless in his quest to right the wrongs in his world. At the end of Episode 2, the audience realizes Hale is pulling double duty in the series. He plays the sketchy institute headmaster and series villain L.P. Curtain. “We always saw it as a dual role, and that’s why somebody who is as versatile as Tony was, was so appealing to us,” Manfredi says. Novel readers know Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain are twin brothers. Hale makes a strong impression as Mr. Benedict in his introduction, and the challenge for the kids to figure out Mr. Curtain begins. 

Along with the set design and Catherine Adair’s (recently known for costuming The Man In The High Castle and Fate: The Winx Saga) vintage kitschy costumes, casting is also a key part of distinguishing The Mysterious Benedict Society from other series. Reynie, Sticky, Kate and Constance in the books were characters not only defined by their intelligence but also for their innate sense of the truth in an uncertain world. “When we were casting with the kids, it was important to us to find old souls.” Manfredi said.  

One of the most appealing factors to me as a reader over a decade ago was how Stewart’s vision of Stonetown had diverse representation built into the story. On the other hand, the adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events used raceblind casting to offset the white main characters Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler) originally described. Episode 1 of The Mysterious Benedict Society brings this to the screen by introducing Reynie as a Latine boy learning Tamil from his teacher Miss Perumal (Gia Sandhu). “We were very, throughout the process really, really focused on diversity and inclusion in the cast, Hay says. “We were really hoping to find a diverse Reynie and Sticky … We wanted Sticky to be an African-American actor.” Although racism in the world of Stonetown works slightly differently than in ours, neither character is isolated from others who look like them. 

One of the kids had an unintentional shift in their heritage. “In the book, Constance Contraire is not Russian, but when we saw Marta’s audition, she illuminated parts of the character for us, and we all of a sudden just couldn’t see her any other way,” Manfredi says. Fans should be reassured despite this accent shift Constance in the first two episodes is still the obstinate, headstrong, and full of haterade little girl readers know and love.

This vision was also carried out in the casting of the adult characters in the series. “Rhonda Kazembe is such a huge part of the book and of the show, even a bigger part of the show than the book,” Hay says.  “To find MaameYaa was such a gift, but yeah, that was really on top of our mind, and then throughout the rest of the show, again, from the perspective of wanting the show to look like the world and seeing it as an opportunity to really create a world that does reflect the world around us.” In order to fulfill this objective, a shift in the storytelling was required. In the novel, once the kids arrive at the mysterious island institute, all of the action revolves around the children. “It was important to us to keep the adults involved, to create a kind of parallel storyline to have that back and forth with the kids and the adults and learn from each other along the way, and solve the mystery together.” Manfredi says.

What can viewers expect from the remaining six episodes? Stopping Mr. Curtain’s evil propaganda campaign is the conclusion the series is leading to. “We hope that over the course of the season, there’s going to be a lot of twists and turns and hopefully it’ll be a lot of fun,” Manfredi says. “[Hopefully] these themes of empathy and the importance of truth and being able to look at a problem in many different ways…[will] resonate, and hopefully they have fun with it.” 

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There are three books total in the series, plus a prequel about Mr. Benedict, but the fate of the series is out of the hands of Hay and Manfredi. For those who want to see the series continue, word of mouth online and offline will be key to get middle schoolers to watch and for adults to sign onto a nostalgia trip.  The first two episodes of The Mysterious Benedict Society will be available on Disney + on June 25th followed by one new episode every Friday.

The post The Mysterious Benedict Society: Bringing the Middle Grade Mystery Series to TV appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3d2YbP4

[caitlynpm]

*Gender and Rhetoric*

In this entry, I will examine the critical question(s): What gender/sexuality norms are constructed or undone in this artifact, how is it rhetorically done, and/or how does it promote a dominant ideology over a marginalized group or push back against the ideology or gender norms? Is it productive/unproductive (ethical/unethical)?

To investigate these questions, I examined “Role Model-A-Rooney” from Disney Channel’s television show Liv and Maddie, which is geared toward young children and teenagers, as my rhetorical artifact. Liv undoes the gender norm that believes boys and girls are only interested in cars and fashion, respectively, by insisting that girls can build a woodblock car and eventually beat the boys in a derby race using visual and spoken language. This is productive for society because Liv undoes broad gender norms which teaches young children and teenagers that they do not have to believe the stereotypes portrayed on television and can excel in and embrace anything.  

Liv and Maddie is a show geared toward children and teenagers of both sexes. It follows parents, twin sisters Liv and Maddie, and two brothers as they navigate their way through relationships, high school, jobs, and more. In the last season, they move in with their cousin, Ruby. Liv and Ruby land an acting job for the fictional television show Sing it Louder and Liv is found standing up for what she believes. In the episode, “Roll Model-A-Rooney,” Liv teaches Ruby and her friend, Priya, a valuable lesson about gender norms. The writers of the show Sing it Louder wanted the boys to win the woodblock derby race, just like how it was on their previous show. Whereas the boys receive an actual wood block car, the girls receive a bright pink high heel with wheels full of sparkles. This causes Liv to speak out for what she believes as she is upset being reduced to a gender stereotype (Keene, 2017). 

Judith Butler describes what it means to undo normative conceptions about sex and gender. Restricting gender norms can be freeing, but also can lead to undoing one’s personhood. Butler states that “social norms that constitute our existence carry desires that do not originate with our individual personhood.” (Butler, 2004). When we are born, we are assigned a sex, male or female, but gender is socially constructed. Over the years, society has decided what constitutes “boy” and “girl” hobbies, so a person can not decide what they desire because it has been instilled in them since the day they were born. Butler encourages readers to critique the conditions in which how we relate sex and gender (Butler, 2004). 

Liv defies the gender norm by standing up for gender equality after seeing the high heel car the girls receive, which encourages the viewers to not passively accept the norms instilled in them. After Liv sees the girls car that the producers made for the woodblock derby race, she decides to confront Zach, the producer of Sing it Louder. She wants to know if the girls will win the race this time, since the boys won on the previous show, Sing it Loud. Zach’s intention for having the boys win at a masculine activity is limiting to girls and affects them. Girls may think that they will not be able to like or do “boy” things if it is not portrayed on television or in society. After Liv asks if the girls win, Zach proceeds to say “No! Get this! The boys win again, solidifying their domination!” (Fandom, n.d.). Zach implies that boys are superior to girls and should always dominate them in a derby race, presumably a “boys” interest. Zach wants to portray the boys winning because it is more realistic since the norm is that boys are more inclined to complete activities involving cars. Liv suggests that he switches things up to which he responds “it's about cars, and girls aren't really into cars. It's science and engineering. You know, guy stuff.” (Fandom, n.d.). The gender norms were set into place at the beginning of the episode when Zach said this. He thinks that boys can only be interested in cars, science, and engineering. These qualities are associated with men because it is shown in society, TV shows, and movies. He limits the girl's potential and choices by saying that there is “guy” stuff. Liv wanted to stand up for equality, so she suggested that they each build a car and the boys and girls can have an actual derby race. Zach agrees as he thinks bloggers will like that. Liv knows that girls are more than their gender norm, so she takes a stand and fights for what is right. This shows girls that they can do anything they want, no matter if it defies gender norms. Although the girls were allowed to build their own car, this did not come without struggles.

Liv, Ruby, and Priya build their own car to show viewers that girls can like and succeed at masculine hobbies. After Liv stood up to Zach, the girls were allowed to build their own woodblock derby car to race against the boys. Liv says “we will be turning this little block of wood into a super-fast, gravity-powered, woodblock-derby-winning, stereotype-smashing speed machine!” (Fandom, n.d.). In the scene of the girls building the car, it is evident that the girls do not know how to operate the power tools as they sand a wood block to wood fibers and frantically try to drill a hole. After failing and trying again, the girls build a woodblock car all by themselves, showing that persistence and teamwork pays off. Perhaps the most important part of this scene is the lack of men. Instead of other boys or the producer jumping in and teaching the girls how to build a car, Liv guides her friends (Disney Channel Central, 2017b). Ruby and Priya seemed surprised that Liv knew how to use tools, to which Liv replied “do not judge a book by its very well-manicured cover” (Fandom, n.d.). Ruby and Priya assuming Liv doesn’t know how to use tools gives more evidence of how prevalent gender norms are. Liv shows the viewers that they can still know how to use masculine things, like tools, while also embracing their feminine side with painted finger nails, skirts and jewelry. This scene also gets into the deeply entrenched issues that all girls face. Gender norms have caused women to feel powerless, which can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The girls struggling, but persisting through a task can demonstrate how it has been a struggle for society to see both sexes as equal. Not only does persisting through a difficult task show the audience to never give up, but also the visuals of them building the car. Liv, Ruby, and Priya have jumpsuits decorated with colorful gems, which shows that they can still like sparkles and pink while engaging in masculine activities. Also, the car is painted green, showing that they are not limited to “girl” colors like pink and purple (Disney Channel Central, 2017b). The girls built a woodblock derby car by themselves, while still embracing “girl” things which shows the audience that they can do the same thing. 

Liv, Ruby, and Priya portray that girls can succeed in “boy” things when they win the woodblock car derby race, thus crushing the gender norm and encouraging the viewers to embrace their interests. After the girls won the race against the boys, Liv told Ruby and Priya “Don't let anybody tell you that there's boy stuff and girl stuff 'cause really there's just stuff.” (Fandom, n.d.). Liv is implying that interests are not labeled by gender norms, which allows the viewers to try anything they want. The viewers of this show will more than likely be children older than 7 and obtain ideas about gender roles and norms from television. Disney Channel portraying this gender norm being “crushed” shows girls that they can like cars, but more importantly any stereotypical “boy” thing. One might ask why it is important to portray this on television where many viewers can see it. In a study by Judith Owen Balkemore, it was revealed that children's knowledge of gender norms and flexibility about violating them increased with age in three to eleven year olds. The children rated whether breaking a norm was seen as negative, neutral, or positive. The data showed that “boys wearing girls’ clothing was seen as very negative” and “boys playing with Barbie dolls'' was seen as less negative (Owen Blakemore, 2003). These are some of the most prevalent gender norms seen on television and in everyday life. Boys receive confused and disgusted looks if they dress like a girl or play with Barbie dolls because those are “girl” things. Worse than that is when people try to suppress children’s individuality by taking away the doll and replacing it with an action figure, or vise versa. This is seen in “Roll Model-A-Rooney” where Zach gets the girls a high heel car without considering what kind of car they would want (Disney Channel Central, 2017a). Also, “girls were evaluated more negatively when they played loudly and roughly than boys who played quietly and gently and when they played football as compared to boys who played jump rope.” (Owen Blakemore, 2003). This also portrays gender norms that boys are expected to engage in rough, sometimes violent, play and girls in passive, quiet play. This article shed light on many gender norms that are viewed as negative, which shows that this is still common and something that should be addressed. Liv and Maddie portraying girls winning against boys at a wood block derby race encourages girls to not let other people dictate their actions. This is an important message because at the beginning of the episode Ruby thought that girls couldn’t be into cars by saying “That’s how it is on TV and movies.” (Fandom, n.d.). Now, Ruby and the viewers know that they can undo the gender norms by not even winning against the boys, but being involved in a masculine activity. 

“Roll Model A Rooney'' is overall productive for society because it shows girls that they do not have to be restricted to feminine interests. This is an important message to portray because gender norms are prevalent in society and is shown on media and television. Girls believe that there are certain things that they can not do because of these norms, such as liking cars. This is limiting girls and not allowing them to reach their full potential because they assume they can not do certain things. This episode shows girls that they can defy gender norms and be happy when doing masculine activities. Whereas undoing gender norms is overall productive, there are a few instances where the show inadvertently reinforces gender norms. For example, Liv, Ruby, and Priya are wearing pink, light blue, scarves, and skirts, typically seen as more feminine clothing (Disney Channel Central, 2017a). In the scene where the girls are building the car, Ruby and Priya do not know how to use the power tools, which reinforces the belief that girls don’t know how to use tools (Disney Channel Central, 2017b). While these moments are sprinkled in the episode, they do not serve the purpose to reinforce gender norms. Instead, the clothing shows that girls do not have to change their interests, even if they are feminine, for men. The girls not being able to build a car right away shows persistence. Furthermore, instead of having a boy come in and “rescue” them by showing them how to use the tools, Liv helps. This scene is empowering and shows girls that they can achieve things without men. Despite these few scenes where it may look like Liv and Maddie is reinforcing the gender norms, the show, and the episode in particular, is rhetorically doing more to undo them. 

Liv, Ruby, and Priya are shown undoing the gender norm that girls and boys should have specific interests by winning a wood block derby race against a group of boys, which is productive for society because it teaches girls to embrace their true interest. “Roll Model-A-Rooney'' uses visual and spoken language to show children they can succeed and like more masculine activities. From the girls’ feminine outfits, to their jumpsuits with gems on them, to struggling to use power tools, to winning the race, it all shows how Liv and Maddie undoes gender norms. 

                                                     References  Butler, J. (2004). “Introduction: Acting in concert.” In Undoing gender (pp. 1-4). New York: Routledge. 

Disney Channel Central. (2017a). Liv and Maddie Cali Style - Roll Model A Rooney - Exclusive Clip [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk138cMtM1I 

Disney Channel Central. (2017b). Liv and Maddie Cali Style - Roll Model A Rooney - Clip [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r22d1cFrgQ 

Fandom. “Roll Model-A-Rooney.” https://transcripts.fandom.com/wiki/Roll_Model-A-Rooney. Accessed 17 April 2021.

Keene, J. (Writer), Garner, L. (Director). (2017, January 13). Roll Model-A-Rooney (Season 4, Episode 8) [TV series episode]. In G. Hampson. (Producer), Liv and Maddie. Oops Doughnuts Productions; It’s a Laugh Productions. 

Owen Blakemore, J. E. (2003). “Children’s belief about violating gender norms: Boys shouldn’t look like girls, and girls shouldn’t act like boys.” Sex Roles, 48(9-10), 411-419. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023574427720

[thereoncewereflwrs]

in where my body is an anthology, and literature knows more about people then we do

Today I feel ugly, my facial features angular and put together in a way that makes me feel like someone cut pieces of faces from a magazine and placed them together to create me. My clothes feel confining, probably because I haven’t worn regular clothes since lockdown and probably because I’m fat and most of my clothes fit this way anyway. Today I crave a discipline my body and mind cannot give, and this desire makes me melancholy and agitated. I keep thinking about this boy - or man, because he’s over 25 and at this stage even if we don’t feel like adults we are still deemed thus by society - who sent me a link to a tumblr page at 4 in the morning last night. I had been asleep, going to bed as early as 6 or 7 these days with little energy spent, but had woken up to the link and a casual text forewarning of nudity. The post, titled “why chloe moretz eating spaghetti from wooden boxes? why everyone lookin in the camera?? WHY SOME DUDE SUCKIN DICK???” (linked) had several comments below the picture (which showed exactly what was titled - Chloe Moretz eating spaghetti, several people in the room looking directly at the camera, and two dudes in the back, with their pants down, glimpsing over their shoulders at the camera while one of them received oral stimulation by another man). The comments all posed questions about the absurdity of this picture, revealing pieces of it to be false or photoshopped, and finally presenting the “legitimate” picture of the two men receiving blow jobs, that culminated in a scene with a large black bear walking casually by as they did. I’m confused by this, and if I’m honest, I’m also disturbed. It’s not that I’m without a sense of humor. Most of the time I believe my humor to be flexible and sarcastic, as long as it’s not offensive or insensitive. But like most of the absurdities of men, I’m confounded as to where the humor of such a post lies. Is it the homosexual blow job itself? Is it the actress consuming a meal in public? Or the fact that someone decided to photoshop such random components together in an attempt towards the casualness of such absurdity? Clearly there is something humorous about this, otherwise it wouldn’t have received such attention (241,846 notes on tumblr), and I’m left thinking that maybe I’m more ordinary and less obscene in my character after all. But beyond that, I wonder why this man decided to send me this at the time that he did. How did he come upon the link? And why, at a time when you can presume a stranger to be asleep, did he think of me and decide to send it? 

We had met only once before, and had been talking casually for the last couple of weeks. This mostly consisted of me listening to him talk about how tired, stressed and hopeless he was about the current state of his life and the world in general. It has not been an unusual connection; most of my intimate interactions with men have been like this - men needing to be heard and I playing the role of a vessel to be poured into. It’s only lately that I’ve found the act of “making space” rudimentarily extractive and imbalanced. And a lie to myself. There have been these small ways in which I’ve consented to this “extractive” practice, you see. Listening endlessly to men talk about their unloving fathers, their insecurities around mediocre sexual performance, their lack of careers or intelligence, any culmination of experiences that they deem traumatic, etc., This willingness towards extraction on my end has come about from a configuration of ideas I’ve put together in order to convince myself that this is the ultimate level of intimacy, and thus one I’ve been craving all along (to know what is not knowable to others, to know what hurts or is tender or needs healing). 

In other ways I’ve not consented to what’s been extracted - my body, my emotional entanglements, my intelligence, my victimhood that comes along with the rage of my own vulnerability. Tumblr-man is not different or far from this pattern of giving and taking, of capturing both the spaces available and the spaces I wish to be beyond grasp. I considered a series of actions to acknowledge the text he sent me, to reduce awkwardness and thus affirm that he was not wrong in sending me adult porn unsolicited or without evidence of past history of such behavior being acceptable. I considered creating further space through question and curiosity, to let him know that while I might not have appreciated it, nothing was off limits when he deemed it actionable. But as of now I can only muster enough energy to think about my own psychological patterns. My contract with this phenomenon (the “rudimentary extractive” one) makes me want to dig deeper into the superficial agreement of our relationship, to a place where I reach farther then surface level grief or joy. I want to hear, and have heard, deeper sensory, sensational information that at once makes me feel as much as the person is feeling by telling me something they’ve never considered uttering to a stranger before. I know this is just my own lack of experience around me. I am bored and perhaps numb from the lackluster stimuli that is at my disposal, and thus I want to find it in others - in men - so that it can replace my sense of unworthiness in myself with a false, brief sense of importance to someone else.  

I’ve lived in the South almost all my life. I’m more regionally Southern then most of my current peers, and yet, the culture of ‘Southern living’ did not meet me until I moved to rural Tennessee. Here we eat boiled peanuts (a practice I learned came from the dietary patterns of civil war soldiers) and biscuits with gravy and sometimes fried chicken. Here the tea is sweetened unbearably so, and moonshine is a thing, although never anywhere authentically anymore. More then anything my fat body despairs at these dietary rituals. I feel alienated from my own practices and find it hard to enjoy things. It’s really not that uncommon, however. As a millennial, feelings of alienation and displacement are common.

Tumblr-man (which previously I’d deemed LARPeg - since he both enjoys this strange phenomenon called live action role playing, and being pegged) tells me he is jealous of my ability to enjoy reading. He, in a bizarre series of events, is a Creative Writings major at an obscure liberal arts college in Asheville, NC (the same one, he informs me, that James Franco went to). He tells me that he really “likes the idea of dropping a big plot piece...” and that “writing a big, long, cheeky complaint with lots of pith is very attractive” to him. He recommends I read ‘Consider the Lobster’ by David Foster Wallace, and I do, mostly because I’ve read everything he’s sent my way thus far, and I wasn’t going to prove my own behavioral patterns wrong that day. He sends me memes about Dungeons and Dragons and LARPing that I assume I’m suppose to understand but I do not, although by his own admission, an immigrant like me is not meant to, and is hardly to blame for not understanding “cultural references.” I don’t get it, either LARPing or D&D, but I read both essay assignments he wrote for the semester around a fictional LARPing scenario. I do this because he’s a socialist, and half Venezuelan, and because I can’t help my own internal desire to show a man that I am fully engulfed in his own preferences and passions. I am not entirely foolish, I express my own passions and desires, and hardly authentically adopt theirs, but if he does not ask I do not say, because it’s always easier to listen and be seen listening, then to explain and feel the potential signs of disinterest and boredom. I am not boring. But men can be, and I do not wish to engage with bored men. Anyways, I read ‘Consider the Lobster’, the essay in the book titled the same, and it was, surprisingly, spectacular. How thrilling that something, anything, this particular man had suggested spoke to me in such a way. I preceded to read reviews and an excerpt from a New York Times article titled “How Should a Book Sound? And What About Footnotes?” in where DFW says “Most poetry is written to ride on the breath, and getting to hear the poet read it is kind of a revelation and makes the poetry more alive. But with certain literary narrative writers like me, we want the writing to sound like a brain voice, like the sound of the voice inside of the head, and the brain voice is faster, is absent any breath, and it holds together grammatically rather than sonically." I find this beyond interesting - it jolts me deep down where I safe keep my ideas around literature and its realities. I want to send it to Tumblr-man because it reminded me so specifically of what he had said right before recommending DFW: “I only recently have come to understand that the real sort of fingerprint of a writer can be where they place periods and commas. Because “She left, yesterday.” And “She left. Yesterday.” Sound similar if read aloud but read differently.” I wonder now if he, too, read this quote and had his sense of literature jolted in an inexplicable, but concrete way. 

I’ve once again picked up ‘Normal People’ by Sally Rooney. Thus far, my favorite lines are as follows (of the first U.S edition by Hogarth publishing group):

“This “what?” Question seems to him to contain so much: not just the forensic attentiveness to his silence that allows her to ask in the first place, but a desire for real communication, a sense that anything unsaid is an unwelcome interruption between them” (pg 26);

“One night the library started closing just as he reached the passage in Emma when it seems like Mr. Knightley is going to marry Harriet, and he had to close the book and walk home in a state of strange emotional agitation. He’s amused at himself, getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it “the pleasure of being touched by great art.” In those words it almost sounds sexual. And in a way, the feeling provoked in Connell when Mr. Knightley kisses Emma’s hand is not completely asexual, though its relation to sexuality is indirect. It suggests to Connell that the same imagination he uses as a reader is necessary to understand real people also, and to be intimate with them” (pg 72);

“Connell paused and took another drag on his cigarette. This was probably the most horrifying thing Eric could have said to him, not because it ended his life, but because it didn’t. He knew then that the secret for which he had sacrificed his own happiness and the happiness of another person had been trivial all along, and worthless” (pg 80);

“He kisses her closed eyelids. It’s not like this with other people, she says. Yea, he says. I know. She senses there are things he isn’t saying to her. She can’t tell whether he’s holding back a desire to pull away from her, or a desire to make himself more vulnerable somehow” (pg 96).

I am struck by the way the book’s composition demonstrates a realness unfamiliar to the readings I often take on. The book reads the way people speak, and cares very little about the grammatical composition of words/sentences. Instead, characters and their thoughts and the narrators own mind speak the way one speaks in ones mind, unfiltered, scattered with anxiety and directness, with an approach to ones own truth above all else. ‘Normal People’ reads almost opposite to the narrative guidelines David Foster Wallace deems necessary, and yet, it embodies his sentiment almost as if the two had been birthed from one another. I wish I and those around me were as brave and as vulnerable as the compilation of sentences in this book. And yet, we’d all fall apart doing so. I want to recommend ‘Normal People’ to Tumblr-man, along with a series of other writings I have not yet finished but have found impactful nonetheless. I know, ultimately, that I won’t, in the same way I won’t send the NYT’s article. Maybe this is an inability to be seen on my end, or a foolish willingness to be something for somebody else without being an actual something to that somebody. Or maybe it’s too much labor and I’m satisfied with thinking through these things on my own, knowing the depth of my own thoughts without needing them to be seen or understood. In the same way my ears strain and struggle to hear noise while wearing my noise canceling headphones while no music plays, my body strains and struggles, leaping for noise and yet feeling bound by the confines the lack of it creates. 

I think about my own mortality often, and wonder whether this existence, this very moment even, I am dead or dying, with only a delusion of existence playing forth in my mind. These thoughts cause congruent sensations in me - anxiety, because of the potential of this reality that has not been proven incorrect or impossible in my mind, and strangely, a dissociation that elevates me beyond that anxiety. I think to myself, and know deep in my bones, that it is true, that it turns out I’ve been dead all along, and that my body has just been decomposing in motion this whole time, waiting for my bones to turn to ash.