#interesting how nobody's pointing out how he and his incel fans sexualized her

[papirouge]

I hope tate stays in prison and rots. He moved to romania, made a mockery of how the police can be bribed there so he could get away with anything, bounced around, then got beaten up in moldova with his brother for trying to pick up local girls there (remember when he converted to islam? And only talked about how only women were going to hell Lmao all haram what he was doing but whatever), then left for Dubai to brag about laws there being so perfect (hot bed for sex trafficking by men there too) only to come back to Romania, harass a teenager because shes focused on the environment on twitter and get his ass handed to him by not only her but the LOCAL POLICE OF ROMANIA FOR SEX TRAFFICKING God is good and his timing is perfect lmaooo

God is sooo good tbh. It was such a good year for Black women too since several media figures who publicly disrespected us got into serious trouble this year:

Kevin Samuel, a Black incel guru, who made his entire branding on dunking on Black women got found dead after having sex with a prostitute. What a tragic end for a man who mocked Black women for being ugly, masculine and fated to end alone. But ultimately dude is the one who died wasted, alone, found by a prostitute in a hotel room. Tragic🤍

Nikita Dragun, a transwoman who is known to say transwomen look better than real women and argued women stole their style from transwomen, and once made a "Imagine being Black? I could never" tweet, got jailed in a MALE prison after assaulting police officers (thank God such a menace wasn't allowed in a women's prison)

Tory Lanez found guilty for shooting Megan Thee Stalion💅🏾 As a reminder, Megan has been clowned for years over this, with incels and brainwashed women saying she lied, never got shot, etc.

2022 has been avenging Black women left and right and I'm really grateful for that🤍

Back to Tate.

I'm absolutely APPEALED by the amount of conservatives and antis obsessively using Epstein and Ghislaine as some sort of gotcha to deflect from whatever is coming for Tate. A few days ago I already called out Conservatives lack of consistency when it came to call out evil doers depending on whether they were favoring them or not. That's why then went off against Kim for the whole Balenciaga scandal, while not peeping a word about Kanye who was as much linked to this company since he ran catwalk for them a few months prior to this fiasco.

By frantically being like "b-but what about Ghislaine/Prince Andrew!!!" they show that they don't care about sexual trafficking/pedo networks, otherwise, they wouldn't downplay the fact that one (alleged) offender responsible over the fact that others are roaming free. Yes, other criminals have to be prosecuted, but people aren't allowed to celebrate one being down?? Should we, like, prosecute Everyone offender in the same time so yall finally stop deflecting on anothers to downplay such achievement?? "bUt wHat abOut EpSTeIn LiSt???" Tate is THE list. Those idiots are so hyperfocused on Epstein they can't remotely handle the fact that several networks can coexist🤦🏾‍♀️

Tate being jailed doesn't mean no other offender isn't going to get busted anyway but these people looooove acting like people couldn't care about more than one predator. "people rejoicing at Tate have been reaaal silent about Ghislaine/Epstein" is such a retarded strawman that is easily disproven by the fact that there are countless of people (and yes, even Liberals/Leftists) actually who exposed this scandal and have bee asking for names....

And let's not forget how these idiots don't seems to understand that the Romania police did it's job by arresting an offender on its own soil. Why do they feel the need to talk about Ghislaine or prince Andrew when they're not Romanian citizens or on this country soil... If they have a problem with the UK or US police system not investigating their own share of offenders, they should address their grievances to their own police system and stop trying to deflect from the achievement of the Romanian police or bothering twitter users for not doing enough when this is the police job to bust criminals, not random netizens....

Look how they're defending Tate saying he "allegedly" sex trafficked people, when they've been arguing for years some people were straight up pedophiles just based off their name being on Epstein travel logs..... Sorry but the math ain't mathing : if you have the energy to argue someone is a pedophile bc they ordered pizza and travelled along Epstein, than you shouldn't be wishy washy to call Tate a sex trafficker with all the evidence that is around, especially when dude is pretty open about what he's doing (migrating to Romania itself is indeed super sus).

Tbh this hypocrisy is what's angering me more than Tate and his antics. Tate is an idiot but seeing other idiots acting like they were soooo much smarter than everyone in the room because they refuse to see the obvious is absolutely infuriating. They are so far up their own b*tthole they can't even manage to see the light of reason SMH

[throughscreendoors]

i may destroy you 2.4

I’ve just been reminded of how great things can be. Was watching some Fran Lebowitz interviews on YouTube and she was commenting about how little great art there is, and how expecting masterpieces from artists is insane. If an artist creates one masterpiece, that’s an exceptional achievement—and many artists get worse over time, not better. Also many artists and writers never make a single masterpiece, let alone a single good or great thing. By extending her thinking there’s very little great anything, which is harsh but true—but I May Destroy You was great.

America teaches us to measure ourselves by what we consume. The high schooler who likes the obscure band tells everyone about it until it isn’t obscure anymore, and he has to find another one to brandish. Digital media disrupted that, because there’s no consensus or mainstream taste to snipe at from the fringes.

Algorithms have deconstructed the taste pyramid into a horizontally organized structure of some kind. We’re all ensconced in our own permeable bubbles, sure, but we don’t really make those bubbles anymore. Spotify or Netflix suggests things to us based on limited data points, we select those things and think we’ve chosen them. I thought for a while that irony died in the early 2000s, but it actually just got sharper; now you can ironically and unironically like obscure and popular art at once from a kind of superposition. Carly Rae Jepsen comes to mind here—she’s simultaneously recognizable pop icon and marginalized indie darling, authentic new voice and post-ironic pastiche.

There is no irony or sincerity anymore. They’ve welded together in an atom-wide scalpel that slices everything all the time in our words and preferences and values, so subtle we don’t even feel it. We recombine before we slide apart into a pile of flesh cubes.

That flattening of tastes has meant every created thing—whether widely recognizable or obscure—must fit into some algorithmically imagined category (or be made to fit one). Perhaps subconsciously fighting that trend, endless new meme formats have risen in response (a kind of organic algorithm, perhaps). A VSCO girl wears these shoes and takes photos from these angles; this is the lonely divorced dad starter pack; here is stock market boyfriend explaining GME and AMC to his astrology girlfriend using images created on 4chan for incels.

As algorithms slice us more and more precisely into bits and we reassemble those bits more and more astutely into formats we can understand, something strange is happening. New categories and dominant values are springing up that seem unassailable, protected by these two alternating currents—particularly around the messiest subjects. People who overcome trauma are heroes; the world can be divided into abusers and victims, oppressors and the oppressed. Implicit is that nobody really disagrees with these statements anymore, they just wield them as truths for different ends. The positions can be inverted, in other words, but those are the positions.

Part of what makes I May Destroy You so great is that it tears those unassailable categories down. On trauma and sexual assault, those in-the-know understand that trauma constitutes a reorganization of the brain. Memories can disappear and suddenly reappear. Our emotions can fluctuate wildly. People can pursue dangerous situations they wouldn’t otherwise; they can reverse on things they knew to be true for years instantaneously.

On the other side are people who don’t understand or refuse to learn these facts, people who trot out the same debunked arguments (why wouldn’t you report right away..., how is it you now conveniently remember..., why did you go along with it for so long..., etc). The beauty of the show is it uses that idea of the unassailable category against the viewer, in case they are skeptical. We follow Arabella’s consciousness; it behaves like it behaves. It’s our job to follow its oscillations and make sense of it.

By taking that simple stance, the show paints every character as both hero and villain, victim and abuser. It is nearly overwhelming how interconnected and interdependent everything in the show is—swallowing it all threatens to destroy the characters, as it does our own minds. It’s not a coincidence that the bar where much of the worst that happens in the show is called Ego Death.

There’s a new-age positivity that has seeped into the culture lately that we can heal from anything, we can infinitely grow and expand beautifully into ourselves and into the future. The show skewers that point astutely. In truth, you don’t heal from trauma—it’s a rupture in our consciousness, in the very structure we use to interface with reality. We don’t “heal” from these things, we die to the old version of ourselves. We reach forward and backward at the same time, experiencing joy and agony at once as we��re sliced into millions of pieces and recombined into a new structure. As we scan over that inner structure in our minds, we’re liable to come across pieces that don’t belong next to one another. That’s what we mean by “processing” something, be it a memory or ourselves. We may cry and laugh in the same breath.

It’s a real challenge to use art to deconstruct the entire cultural moment, while also offering a deep and rich representation of inner and outer worlds that aren’t seen very often on TV. It reminds me of the horror in the futuristic surrealism of Random Acts of Flyness, but more optimistic. It’s more generous in spirit than that, and it reaches into dangerous areas. The conclusion of the show threatens to infuriate the primary fan base the show is made for (in one of the truest artistic risks I’ve seen on television in some time). It has nuanced takes on feminism, veganism, consumerism, social media, consent, race and modern alienation, and it does it all in consistently experimental way with an amazing soundtrack and a huge heart.

It’s interesting to watch a British show as an American with all this in mind, as I think the majority of Americans don’t leave that phase of consumption. It’s tempting to hail a show like I May Destroy You as a way to call attention to yourself; it’s challenging, nuanced, empathetic and so on (and because I like it, I must also be those things, etc). I think watching the show is more of a wake-up call than that, and it feels false to use it that way.

Artists have such a privileged place in society. They are the most interesting and the most inspiring, and now everyone wants to be one. But there’s a difference between being creative and being a good artist. I don’t think being a good artist is an intrinsic thing in the way racists allege that race is intrinsic. Still, I do think good art has to come from some kind of novel experience of the world—and even that isn’t enough. It must be matched with virtuosity of some kind. Possessing both of those qualities is exceptionally rare.

Michaela Coel made something that feels entirely for her with this, and it’s incredible that she managed to. The pressure to give in to outside influence, to make things more digestible, to accept money for a lack of control is nearly overwhelming in my own experience; I assume it must be for others as well. I think maybe this is another mark of real artistry—when your desire to say something so outweighs the social pressure to stop you from saying it (obviously, this isn’t the only mark, just one of them).

What inspired me most about this is it’s a show that makes good on its promise. It makes you think about the darkest, most shameful parts of yourself that you would least like to share with the world and challenges you to start sharing them. It encourages the kind of self-examination that truly might destroy you—even if you’re not a victim of sexual assault. It’s a terrifying feeling, but the grace note of it all is that "you” are always being destroyed by outside forces, and you are also always recombining. What “you” means always contains its opposite, it seems to argue, and for that reason, we ought to be dangerously kind.

[imasimpforstevengrant]

Why do we like this clown so much?

Change the "we" for "I" and you get an usual tag I use whenever I post my content in Tumblr. And it sounds funny at first but whenever you start diving into that phrase, the deeper it becomes. So, I finally have decided to share my thoughts about this strange but wholesome attraction to this deeply flawed character. It's not something I usually do since I don't know how to write down my feelings properly and also in english so please forgive any typos (I'm from Chile so don't be surprised lol).

So...Why do we like this clown so much?

Why was it that a character precisely designed to scare and to disgust the fuck out of us ended up unchaining a series of feelings that shouldn't have taken place in a beginning?

Let's take a look at the background: Joaquin Phoenix was cast as Arthur Fleck/Joker in 2018. The first image of him as the aforementioned character revealed a deeply disturbed man. We knew the plot. A man driven to insanity after a brutal history of abuse, creating concern in people if the upcoming film would inspire real life violence. Incel violence and mass shootings, more specifically.

(the image in question)

As 2019 arrives, the two trailers generated so much hype that media needed to fuel its concern about it. Since it wasn't your typical comic book film, media basically bombed our minds making us believe this film was going to be a total disaster, an excuse to cause harm to others among other nonsense, as if the film would justify everything Arthur would do in the film, eventually. As the release date is closer, the film receives thunderous applause and unanimous praise from critics. At this, fans rejoiced and expressed impatience to watch the film.

October 5th.

People left the theaters amazed, shocked and genuinely moved by the inhuman treatment Arthur received in the film. The fear media tried so desperately to infuse in us with all the incel bullshit and such turned out to awake one of the most positive, best feelings in humans:

E M P A T H Y

The word that so gloriously cleared away any dark thoughts or actions not only proves media was wrong but it turned out to ridicule it in way nobody will forget: Hundreds of people advocating for mental illness, calling out to the kindness that could change a person's bad day and questioning how politicians and rich people are indifferent to social problems proved how much as a society we have changed in comparison with the one shown in the film.

However, since we are on Tumblr, I'll get straight to the point and try to explain why the fuck does this clown has us dying out of love and compassion (and lust).

I. Background.

As nurturing as we women are for a biological matter, we see a man deprived of a good job, is on seven different medications, working like a slave to sustain his ill mother, putting aside his own health and well-being to look for her, struggling to make his dream of being a comedian despite everyone stepping on him, underpaid and treated like a freak for a disorder he did not ask to suffer, which makes it impossible to be indifferent to all the horrible ordeal that eventually will reach the limit of what he can tolerate without going insane. It is impossible to not say or think, at least, that someone (even if it's just one person) should stand for him just as it is impossible not to feel the need to throw ourselves at him to shield him from people who hurt him or simply offer him our shoulder whenever he has had a bad day, specially when he learns he was sexually assaulted by his step father.

This horrid behaviour terrifies newer generations because they get a taste of what being a social outcast was like more than thirty years ago in comparison with today, where there's more acceptance and treatment for mentally ill people like Arthur. We see in him someone who could have been saved with a proper education and emotional support instead of descending into madness as a criminal. Others simply saw themselves being treated like him at some point in their lives and couldn't help but put themselves in his shoes.

II. Personality.

TRUTH BE TOLD:

There's something called "attraction by proximity". It is the explanation to the eventual love you feel whenever someone doesn't catch your eye at first terms of physical attraction but his/her personality does attract you. This happens to be the base of this situation. His shyness, introverted nature, tenderness and innocent desire to make people laugh and put on a happy face awake some kind of tenderness we cannot resist. This combined with the gloomy background increases our understanding (but not justifying) of the bad decisions he'll eventually take during the course of the film. This traces a line of harsh, almost hurtful contrast of the violence he shows later on the film. Once again, it is not justified in any way but it is certainly understandable.

III. Appearance.

Arthur Fleck is unconventionally attractive.

This happens to be a plus for most women. He is out of the male beauty standards (no abs, not too muscly or particularly tall), which makes him even more unique. It is precisely the fact that he's not a model one of the reasons women love him. He could easily be your man next door or your colleague or the guy you always see but never dare to talk for fear to bother him Because it's about proximity. Arthur looks like your common neighbour. He's not meant to be your typical desirable male protagonist at all.

... And yet.

Jesus Christ, he's so fucking hot I can't even---

It's not about how beautiful his green eyes are, his long slender fingers, his hair or his smile only. It's the charm behind it.

Another "magnet point" is the way he dresses. I know he's impoverished and his wardrobe tend to be repetitive but it is so unpretentious, so simple that is hard to not fall for. The modesty of the shirts, ironed trousers reminds us of a mature man deeply withdrawn into himself, love starved and longing to be seen and loved by others, like a war veteran who still fights the most important war: with himself. Is someone who needs to be listened and understood.

AND OF COURSE WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT IT?

He's also brought back the old gentleman outfit, white shirts, red/yellow vest, red suit and elegant dancing moves and the retro style of the film boosts this attractiveness.

People keep comparing him with the previous interpretation of Joker (Leto's) whose costume appealed to young women with a tattooed, gangster, mumble rapper crazy-guy wannabe which didn't connect with the audiences (young people in general). This supposedly was to match or even have a sexy, tormented and desirable villain like Marvel's Loki. We all know how that story ended but it's the link for the next point below.

IV. Transformation

This is a particularly strong point considering how much we loved to watch the process of this weak, powerless, forgotten caterpillar into a beautiful and visible butterfly that will gracefully stir its wings for everyone to see its colours.

When Arthur transitions to the Joker, it's so cathartic to see taking revenge on those who wronged him (even when we're not supposed to root for him) like seeing his shyness fading away into a vivid confidence when dancing half naked in the bathroom, or witnessing him making way to make his name known to people in Murray Franklin's Show:

Adding to this newly gained confidence, there's another turn on: the way he walks.

At the beginning, his pace is hunched and limping, displaying his submission to violence, which makes the viewer more satisfied to see his broken yet beautiful soul turning the past pain of his existence into art: he lets music guide his moves as a way to tell the world he's a new man by cutting most of the sick, evil roots that harmed him, that he's invincible, that no one can stop him. Watching this cathartic display of euphoria was the most iconic scene in the film, following his speech at the TV and the inevitable meltdown that caused Murray's death.

Going to further appreciation, even his clown make up is beautiful. Why? Simple. The combination of colours, shapes and the intimidating glare just embellishes even more the character.

The dark blue triangles in his expressive eyes makes the light green colour to highlight, specially in dark backgrounds, giving the impression he's piercing your soul whenever he stares directly at the camera. Same can be said about the red smile and emerald green hair. They boost an already intimidating look.

The cold and warm colours paint a picture of a man full of intense emotions, mirroring it in a simple yet masterful artistic way.

Another interesting point is the way Joker dresses. Usually we had almost every single live adaption of this character in purple coat, hat, etc. But this particular version is not following any comic, which gives more freedom to creativity and once again, out of the standards of what we could have expected.

Red is a colour related to passion, action, love, strength, motivation and excitement. As for yellow, it indicates freshness, happiness and enlightenment and finally, green. Green is renewal, growth and regeneration. Colours that represent a new stage in his life, a mirthful chapter at last. We finally get to see our battered, always humiliated protagonist (or hero) descending into madness, but finally free from his repressed man who held his soul captive like a bird to fly away, to never come back. An insanity that despite being his downfall, turned out to be his ticket to freedom as he walks to the light in Arkham Asylum dancing at the end.

Ladies and gentlemen: behold the film nobody asked... But the film we fucking deserved.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

❤️💚💛