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troublewithcomics · 6 years

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ADD Reviews Avengers: Infinity War

[Note: Contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War.] "We live inside a dream," Special Agent Dale Cooper once said on Twin Peaks. And so it has been for millions of people during the decade of Marvel Studios films that launched in 2008 with Jon Favreau's Iron Man.

I felt we had dodged a bullet back then, in the casting of talented but troubled actor Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, after talk of Tom Cruise taking the role, and Marvel even publishing comic books with Stark drawn to resemble Cruise (a tactic which would actually work with Samuel L. Jackson, to the delight of just about everyone). Cruise was not right for the role. At that point I had been living with Tony Stark in my life for over thirty years, and I knew Downey would embody that part like no one else could. Thankfully Favreau knew it as well and convinced the studio to bet on Downey along with him.

But despite the unlimited potential in the characters owned by Marvel Comics, mostly borne out of the imagination and visual power of the late Jack Kirby, I wasn't expecting much from Iron Man and I doubt anyone in the movie industry was, either. Marvel's characters had been licensed time and time again to film and TV and even radio shows, and the one that gained the most traction was the TV series The Incredible Hulk, which took a few elements from Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's creation and then used them to retell The Fugitive. Similarly the less-well-regarded Spider-Man TV series used almost none of the essential aspects of that comic book's mythology, instead using the character's name and costume as a small part of a generic, episodic crime drama, not even bothering to steal the plot of a successful show, like The Incredible Hulk did.

The relative success of those shows hinged on a number of factors, among them the lack of alternatives -- you had three commercial TV networks plus PBS back then. (Which reminds me that Spider-Man also regularly appeared on The Electric Company, a show aimed at 8-10 year olds and which managed to present a more faithful wall-crawler than a primetime network series could, even allowing for the fact that on The Electric Company, Spider-Man never spoke a word.)

The 1980s and 1990s brought even more mediocre-to-terrible attempts to cash in on Marvel's characters. Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher. Reb Brown as Captain America. And a truly awful Fantastic Four movie made quickly and cheaply by cult film director Roger Corman in order to allow the rights holders to maintain their license. It resulted in a film so bad that it was never widely released and was only seen by most people through the wonders of bootleg VHS tapes sold at sketchy comicons. It should be noted that this Fantastic Four film is only marginally worse than the three later released by major studios, but with four films to their names, The Fantastic Four at this moment has more movies to its name than even The Avengers franchise, even if not a single one of them is worth watching.

Speaking of The Avengers, I went to see Avengers: Infinity War yesterday in the company of my wife Lora. I think we have seen most of the Marvel Studios films at the theater, although I have my doubts about the second Thor film. It's hard to keep track now that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (as it's called) is closing in on two-dozen full-length feature films, almost all of which are at least entertaining, and some of which have proven magical in both their mass appeal and their ability to generate revenue. Narratively, financially, and especially from the perspective of pre-2008, the continuing success of the Marvel movies is a dream that millions have been living within. It has changed the lives of many, from turning around the literal and metaphorical fortunes of actors like Downey, who no one thought would even live to see 2018 never mind be one of the most popular movie stars on the planet, and Chris Evans, whose depiction of Steve Rogers/Captain America has left far behind any memories of his participation in two of those lousy Fantastic Four movies. More interestingly this dream movie franchise has inspired and brought happiness to untold numbers of people, like that time Downey gave an Iron Man-like bionic arm to a seven-year-old boy. Or the millions of African-Americans and others who found in the recent Black Panther film an inspirational culture in which they could see themselves and their own history. These films haven't solved all the world's problems, but it's undeniable that they have brought joy and comfort and more in far greater proportion than one might have thought possible before this all began.

Which isn't to say they are perfect. I am not writing a love letter to Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, or anyone else, really. Maybe Jack Kirby, because without him there would be none of this, but also Stan Lee, who wrote the words of so many of the comics these movies are based on. And Steve Ditko, whose imagination spawned the characters and worlds of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. And so many other comics creators I never thought would get their due, and yet who are credited in the long crawls at the end of these films and who, I hope, are being fairly compensated for the translation of their work into motion picture form.

Like Jim Starlin, a writer/artist whose work blew me away in 1977. That summer I was 11 years old, and Starlin wrote and illustrated a two-part crossover featuring The Avengers, Spider-Man and The Thing (from the Fantastic Four) in a galaxy-spanning battle royale against Starlin's most noted creation, the supervillain Thanos. The sprawling epic was made possible by the earlier work of Lee, Kirby, Ditko and others, but it felt like something entirely new. Recently going back and reading that story, I realized how direct an adaptation of that story Avengers: Infinity War is, and that realization made me even more eager to see how the film would play out.

It turns out that Infinity War is every bit as mind-blowing as those 1977 funnybooks that inspired it were to my 11-year-old self, and for much the same reason. It's not just the epic scale of the story, or the stunning visuals, or the huge cast of very different characters being remixed in new and interesting ways. Both the comics and the movie share all those elements. No, it's the combination of all those things, plus the charm, skill, talent and determination of the actors, writers and directors, the grand vision for these films from the producers, and other factors too numerous and mysterious to be easily tallied.

So yes, I loved it. My wife loved it. It wasn't perfect in the way Citizen Kane or Synecdoche, New York are perfect, timeless films, but that's not what the MCU movies are for. They are a commercially-produced dream, made for profit inside an increasingly dysfunctional capitalist system, and perhaps another essay could be written on the dangers of allowing such dreams to make one forget the injustices and dangers of the real world, but that's not the essay I am writing today. Today I want to just reflect on the wonder of seeing this film finally come to fruition, the bringing together of franchises-within-the-franchise, and I want to state with wonder and delight that it works.

Not just for me, lover of Spider-Man and the others since 1972. It works for my wife, who didn't know who most of these characters were before she met me, and who now loves Groot unconditionally and with profound delight. It works for millions of other people, some of whom have only the faintest idea who Jack Kirby is, although almost everyone knows who Stan Lee is. Not to diminish Lee's contribution to this mythology -- without him it almost certainly would not have existed nor endured this long -- but it cannot be said enough that Kirby gets the majority of the credit. Others took the baton and ran with it once Kirby left Marvel, but Captain America, Black Panther, Thor and many other of the most endearing and exciting characters in these movies are as popular and effective as they are precisely because of the elements Kirby baked into them: Black Panther's dignity, Thor's arrogance and innate decency, and perhaps most importantly, Captain America's dedication to people over politics, to good over greed. Let there be no doubt, these are exactly the heroes we need at this moment in history, and it is perhaps not a coincidence that many of the actors who inhabit these characters have used their popularity to give voice to those less fortunate than themselves, and to use their voices to critique the current wave of fascism and authoritarianism that threaten to destroy our culture. These movies are entertainment, yes, and they have made fortunes for many of the people involved, but some of those people see the responsibility their new prominence and success has given them, and they seem to take it seriously. I'm grateful for that.

And I'm grateful for the joy in so many of these films, which reaches an almost unreal level at various moments in Infinity War. Not just seeing Tony Stark bicker with Stephen Strange, or Groot heroically assist Thor in a way only he could at exactly the right moment. Not just seeing Mark Ruffalo's sublime Bruce Banner argue with The Hulk, and therefore himself, to hilarious effect at exactly the wrong moment, only to later see him delight in having all of the power but none of the horror such power usually brings him. It's all of these things and at least a thousand more.

Like I said, it's not perfect. How could it be? In a story this wide-ranging, I was never going to get enough of Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow to make me happy. But there'll be a movie for that soon enough. I was never going to get everything I came to this for, but then no one is, when you get really granular and start picking it apart. But that's missing the big picture, and in the larger sense, it's important to note I wasn't bored or unhappy for one nanosecond of this film, as I was for every never-ending moment of the grotesque, doomed-to-fail Justice League movie. I was uneasy and scared at the beginning of Infinity War, as intended. I was amused and laughing when Peter Parker asked for a distraction on a schoolbus to hilarious effect. I was chilled when Banner announced "Thanos is coming." As I said on Facebook, "So many moments."

I have seen some concern about plot holes, but I see none. The most specific concern centers on why Dr. Strange makes the choice he does near the end, with seemingly catastrophic results for the entire universe. Did the people voicing these criticisms forget that there's another movie coming? Did they not hear Strange tell his fellow heroes that he had seen millions of possible outcomes in which they all lose, but one, and one alone, in which they succeed in defeating Thanos? To be fair, that moment is couched in dread, no doubt to conceal the fact that it is foreshadowing the ultimate outcome of the as-yet unnamed sequel, said to be the end of the book all the MCU movies to date represent in the minds of those overseeing the franchise, before the start of the next book. But I have no doubt that Dr. Strange's decision, as agonizing as it was to see the consequences of, was the one that will somehow allow all those we lost to be returned to us in some form. Well, maybe not all.

I doubt it's a coincidence that Tony Stark was the one to see the ultimate defeat of their efforts to stop Thanos, and to watch in helpless horror as Peter Parker and others died before his eyes. Since the first Avengers movie, Tony Stark's bravado has masked his increasing trauma as one cosmic threat after another homicidal robot of his own design has taken chunks out of his soul. My guess is that by the end of 2019's Avengers movie, we'll have many if not most of the toys back in the toybox and ready to be played with another day. I watched the Falcon die, but I'm sure he'll be back. And Spider-Man, and The Vision, and Nick Fury, and everyone we watch blow away in the breeze, to our horror and despair. I'm guessing the price of their return will be Tony Stark's sacrifice in the next film, likely Downey's exit from the franchise. And that would be suitable. Downey was perfect for the role of Tony Stark because in so many ways he really already was Tony Stark. Arrogant, talented, addicted. He was, and is, our gateway into this world, the reason we have been able to feel the emotions these films create in us so viscerally and so immediately. Reversing the damage Thanos does at the end of Infinity War will require a huge payment to balance the books. I will be surprised if that isn't represented by the final end of Tony Stark's journey in these movies.

After all, the great throughline of these movies has been revelation and change, as the universe these characters live in has, in a decade, come to be as expansive and intriguing as it was after many decades of hard work and imagination from Stan and Jack and all the other writers and artists who are responsible for the comic books that launched this dream we are all now living inside. Who has had more revealed to him, and who has changed more than Tony Stark? How fitting would it be for the next film to end with him making the sacrifice, finally, that he narrowly escaped making at the end of the first Avengers film?

I could be wrong, though. And I don't care if I am. I’m just theorizing. How can you not? It's fun to speculate where this gigantic story will go next. And who could have guessed, before this all began in 2008, that so many millions of filmgoers would be so thrilled by one movie after another, a series of increasingly entertaining and even diverse films that give us worlds of wonder and delight, with shocks, horrors, laughs and even love?

No, no one could have seen this coming in 2008. No one except Jack Kirby, who, if he were still with us today, might be heard to say, "I knew it all along." -- Alan David Doane

#Posts by Alan David Doane #Movie Reviews #Avengers: Infinity War #Comics #Comic Books #Marvel #Marvel Comics #Jack Kirby #Jim Starlin #Stan Lee #Iron Man #captain america #Thor #Groot #Reviews

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glittergummicandypeach · 4 years

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How an 1843 Revelation on Polygamy Poses a Serious Challenge to Modern Mormonism | Religion Dispatches

This week, new legislation goes into effect in Utah that decriminalizes polygamy among consenting adults. The development, which was voted on in February, was a long-time coming. But while many decriminalization bills have been proposed over the years—Utah’s polygamy laws are the harshest in the entire country—what made this one successful was not who was involved, but who stood quietly to the side: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The LDS Church remains a dominant force in the state, and until recently worked hard to cease any attempts to soften the state’s polygamy laws. This time, however, their silence was deafening, and it allowed the bill to pass.

Mormonism has always been inseparably connected to these policies. Utah was granted statehood in 1896, only after LDS leaders promised to give up the faith’s controversial, yet defining, feature. And though the church took more than another decade to fully divorce itself from the practice, for much of the twentieth century Mormon leaders and politicians alike were unfailing in their quest to purge the state of polygamists, adopting, as noted above, America’s most strident anti-polygamy policies.

Part of that drive was due to the state constitution’s explicit criminalization of polygamy. But another part, and perhaps a major driver within the LDS portion of the agitation, is modern Mormonism’s continued anxiety over the practice itself.

Though an official manifesto publicly ended the practice of plural marriage in 1890, and a second manifesto in 1904 made the restriction official, the doctrine of a man being sealed to multiple wives never fully disappeared. Indeed, the ghost of polygamy’s past, and the threat of polygamy’s future, continues to haunt many Latter-day Saints who are otherwise conditioned to embrace monogamy and sacralize the American image of a nuclear family.

These anxieties have remarkably precise historic roots. At the heart of the issue is a single, yet overwhelming, scriptural text. Dictated by Joseph Smith on July 12, 1843, and now known as Doctrine and Covenants 132, the manuscript was forged in the fire of marital conflict, secret teachings, and swirling rumors. It was created for an intended audience of one, yet now remains binding on millions.

And the document’s various legacies continue to shape how the modern LDS tradition views gender, marriage, and the church itself.

Even though the entire text is found in the scriptural books most Latter-day Saints carry with them to Sunday meetings—either in book form or, increasingly, as an app—few members of the faith understand the document’s contested origins. And fewer still understand how it continues to shape the religious community around them.

The controversial document that resulted from a summer morning conflict in 1843, yet continues to influence a now-global church, then, demonstrates modern Mormonism’s continual struggle with prophetic authority, scriptural inerrancy, and gendered realities.

More broadly, it reveals the constant tension religions must negotiate: maintaining some form of religious consistency while also adapting to new cultural expectations.

Plural marriage begins with a secret rendezvous

The Spring and Summer months of 1843 were among the toughest of Joseph and Emma Smith’s marriage. They had already faced a number of crises in their nearly two decades together, including the death of children, threats of violence, and forced migrations. Being the founding family of a growing and controversial church with tens of thousands had taken its toll.

Yet nothing had challenged their union as much as their first few years in Nauvoo, where they settled in 1839. It was there, in a quickly growing Mormon city-state, that Joseph Smith began preaching his most radical doctrines, none more controversial than plural marriage.

Details of the practice’s origins are murky due to the paucity of contemporary records. While some posit Joseph Smith’s first plural union to take place in Kirtland during the 1830s, polygamy truly began in earnest during the winter months of 1840-41, alongside his evolving ideas of priesthood rituals, all formulated in the shadow of a towering temple then being built on the bluff overlooking the growing town.

Indeed, it was on the eve of the Nauvoo Temple’s cornerstone ceremony, on April 5, 1841, that Smith likely entered his first plural marriage. On that day, Smith and his bride, Louisa Beman, who was disguised in men’s clothing, held a secret rendezvous in a grove of trees just outside the city. By the end of the year, Smith was sealed—the Mormon term for married for eternity—to at least two more women.

Over the next eighteen months, the theology that justified and framed the practice continued to evolve. What remained consistent, however, was Smith’s belief in the importance of the doctrine, as well as the growing number of people initiated into the order. And though the prophet tried to stop the rumors from spreading, an increasing number of prominent figures outraged by the alleged practice were dedicated to root out the truth.

Among those trying to expose the practice and its participants were Joseph’s brother, Hyrum, as well as his wife, Emma.

Then, in May of 1843, in a radical reversal based on a mixture of theological reasoning and pragmatic cooperation, the two members of Joseph’s close family surprisingly shifted course and accepted the practice. Hyrum, exultant at the chance of being united with the two women he loved, could then be sealed to his current wife, Mary Fielding, as well as to his deceased wife, Jerusha.

Emma, for her part, initially approved her husband being sealed to two sets of sisters—one pair, Emily and Eliza Partridge, had already been sealed to Joseph months before, but they orchestrated a second union to hide the existence of the first—and was then finally sealed to Joseph herself.

Yet if Hyrum remained polygamy’s most ardent convert, Emma’s support proved fleeting. It’s likely she didn’t know all the details or scope of her husband’s unions—by the end of that summer, the number of women sealed to him was in the thirties—and every time she encountered new information a conflict would follow

Finally, in early July, things reached a breaking point. Hyrum, eager to help, invited Joseph to his office on the morning of July 12 and urged him to dictate a revelation outlining the theology of plural marriage. He hoped that just as the doctrine had permanently converted him, it could finally do the same for Emma. Joseph acquiesced and produced a 3,300-word revelation “on the order of the priesthood.” Hyrum, still convinced that he was the one who could finally reach his sister-in-law, then rushed the text, ink still wet, over to Emma’s home, armed with what he believed were infallible truths.

The mission failed. When Hyrum returned, he reported that he had received the sternest rebuke of his life. The next day, after he had already made a copy of the text, Joseph allowed Emma to destroy the document that symbolized, for her, so much pain.

Circumstances did not immediately improve over the next few weeks. At one point, Joseph worried that Emma was going to take a plural spouse of her own; at another, Emma threatened Joseph with divorce. Eventually, they reached a truce, but only when Joseph promised to not take any more plural wives. A tenuous peace then remained until the next March, when Emma once again publicly denounced her husband’s private doctrines.

Yet even after that heated moment eventually subsided, which culminated in a dissident movement and Joseph’s death at the hands of a mob, that fateful summer still resulted in a number of legacies.

Polygamy is abandoned after government opposition. Sort of.

The text of the revelation itself, which remained secret while the Saints resided in Nauvoo, was finally made public in 1852 when the church was settled in Utah. It was there that they announced their controversial marital practice to the world. The revelation was then canonized as LDS scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants in 1878, making plural marriage an official part of their sacred record.

But the federal government refused to relent in its attempt to abolish the practice. Church leaders, at first, strenuously opposed the increasingly draconian legislation and increased prosecution, and for much of the 1880s governed the church while in hiding; fidelity to the principle was more important than obedience to the law. Yet the situation eventually grew dire enough that LDS authorities announced the official end of polygamy in 1890.

But even then, it wasn’t the doctrine of polygamy that was disavowed, but merely its practice. Indeed, the fact that polygamy was concluded with a “Declaration,” rather than a revelation, reflected the anxiety over whether a doctrine could ever really be recalled.

And because the text of the polygamy revelation is still part of the LDS canon, the theology enshrined within it has continued to have a presence in the modern church. Indeed, portions of the revelation are among the most popular among the Saints due to the fact that they contained the clearest teachings concerning the eternal nature of marriage.

The passages that explicitly justify polygamy, on the other hand, are often glossed over or ignored altogether, seen as irrelevant to a modern church that has embraced monogamy.

Not everyone is satisfied with that uneasy position, however. Lacking a repudiation of the old doctrine, the specter of polygamy still haunts many within the faith. Outside of the official LDS Church, dozens of break-off “fundamentalist” churches, supported by thousands of members throughout the Rocky Mountain region, cling to the traditional doctrine of polygamy, needling the larger institution for betraying foundational doctrines.

Indeed, it was, in part, due to the presence of these fundamentalists that led Mormon leaders to anxiously prosecute polygamists throughout the twentieth century; distancing themselves from these marginalized sects was an indirect way of distancing the institution from its own past.

Yet even within the LDS Church, a man can still be sealed to multiple women, so long as he’s only married to one living woman at a time. Indeed, Russell M. Nelson, the current president of the faith, is sealed to both Danzel White, who passed away in 2005, as well as Wendy Watson, whom he married the next year. LDS women have therefore expressed the anxiety caused by this persisting dynamic, a deeply-felt worry that polygamy has only been temporarily ceased but will be restored in the next life.

Plural marriage, in other words, remains a live possibility as long as it’s part of the scriptural canon.

Further, beyond the explicit defense of polygamy, D&C 132 also contains some of the most direct statements concerning eternal gender roles in LDS scripture. At his first press conference as church president, Nelson explicitly drew from the revelation when he explained that a woman’s divine purpose is to birth and care for children.

The juxtaposition between these patriarchal ideals and contemporary gender values is increasingly stark. Yet even as church leaders have softened official rhetoric concerning women in the workplace and men presiding in the home, the blunt teachings found in the polygamy revelation only allow so much flexibility. The boundaries of what’s deemed acceptable are still tethered to the words Joseph Smith dictated in 1843.

How can the faith remain true to its own prophetic tradition while still adapting to an ever-changing world?

Reckoning with a written revelation

The only historical topic that has caused a similar degree of consternation among Latter-day Saints as polygamy is the church’s troubled past with those of African descent. Until 1978, Black Mormons were not granted full membership rights, as men were forbidden to hold the priesthood and both men and women were barred from the temple. During this long tenure, a number of prominent LDS leaders provided theological justification for the practice, and many claimed that the policy had revelatory origins.

In recent years the church has distanced itself from those ideas, however. Though the ‘Gospel Topics’ essay (similar to Catholic Dogma) they produced on the issue falls short of explicitly declaring the past practice a human mistake, though it doesn’t reject that possibility, either. Once believed to be a divinely appointed doctrine, then, the racial restriction is now mostly seen as a bygone, if uncomfortable, error.

Could the same conclusion ever be reached with Mormonism’s other defining nineteenth-century practice, polygamy?

Again, the biggest stumbling block is D&C 132. Like modern adherents of just about every other religion, modern Mormons have become increasingly capable, if begrudgingly so, at ignoring uncomfortable statements, beliefs, and practices of past leaders when they clash with modern priorities. But the presence of a written revelation makes it a much more difficult issue.

The document created to convert a single person in 1843, then, is the largest reason millions of members in 2020 are still forced to wrestle with the practice.

History could have turned out differently: Emma Smith could have decided not to put up a fight; Hyrum Smith could have decided not to convert to the doctrine and become its most zealous defender; Joseph Smith could have refused to dictate a word; those who followed the Smiths could have chosen to not canonize the text. Yet because these decisions were made, July 12, 1843, remains one of the most consequential dates in Mormon history, and the LDS Church continues to deal with the fallout of the events that took place that summer morning.

Modern Mormonism prides itself on its doctrine of an open canon—the belief that the corpus of scripture can be expanded and augmented by modern-day proclamations from prophetic leaders. But what happens when contemporary values, like gender equality and monogamous marriage, clash with canonized doctrines, like polygamy? Can the faith ever revoke canonized teachings, or would such a move strip their leaders of necessary authority?

The LDS tradition points toward a flexible future predicated upon revelatory intervention. But until Mormons find a way to simultaneously engage the legacies of their past—including Smith’s revelation on polygamy—contemporary Saints will live in a state of constant anxiety.

This content was originally published here.

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chicagoindiecritics · 5 years

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New Review from Jeff York of Creative Screenwriting Magazine: Greta Gerwig Gives Us a Thoroughly Contemporary Take on “Little Women”

In this overpopulated age of remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings, how do you find a new path in on a property that’s already been told on the big and small screen over a dozen times? Filmmaker Greta Gerwig has managed to make something quite new out of Little Women, the classic and over-exposed Louisa May Alcott novel. She directs the old chestnut with breezy, contemporary energy, shaking up the structure, the casting, and giving it a modern feminist feel.

Telling the tale of Jo March (Saoirse Ronan), a headstrong young woman trying to navigate her way through an adult world echoes the theme of Gerwig’s Oscar-nominated Best Picture Lady Bird in 2017. Lady Bird McPherson (Ronan there too) lacked focus and follow-thru in her ambitions, earning the doubt of her family and classmates. In Little Women, Jo is laser-focused as she chases her dreams of becoming a writer with utter zeal. The obstacle in this heroine’s way is not her own immaturity, but rather 19th-century patriarchal society.

As the film starts, Jo visits big-city editor Mr. Dashwood (Tracy Letts) with a manuscript, hoping that he’ll publish it. He likes her story and agrees to put it into print. Then Dashwood implores her to write another, advising her to “make it short and spicy, and if the main character is a girl, make sure she’s married by the end.” It’s foreshadowing, of course, but Gerwig’s adaptation of the famed novel will find many slyer ways to get there.

Saoirse Ronan

For starters, as we get to know Jo and her lively sisters, Gerwig continually showcases them as much smarter, stronger emotionally, and resilient than most of the men around them. In past productions, the conservative Meg (Emma Watson) was painted as a compromised character, choosing marriage over her acting ambitions. Here, it’s deemed her choice for a more stable life, and Watson plays it as the decision of a bold, clearheaded adult.

Gerwig applies such modernity to all of the female characters. Even the doomed Beth is stronger here, indicated by the casting of Eliza Scanlen, a young actress with a steely gaze. (Scanlen is strong, but still can’t seem to get out of those sickbeds, just like in that last episode of Sharp Objects.) Momma Marmee is bolder and more opinionated than any adult male in the room in this version, even instructing the wealthy Mr. Laurence (Chris Cooper) what to do in this crisis and that. Marmee appears to be just fine without her husband around too, and when he shows up played by wishy-washy “Jimmy McGill” himself, Bob Odenkirk, we realize that Gerwig’s casting is underlining that fact. The director also burnishes off all of Cooper’s usual edges.

Most distinctly modern is Florence Pugh’s Amy. In previous adaptations, Amy usually comes off like a bit of a brat. Here though, she’s much more likable, wittily droll, and as knowing of a woman’s potential as Jo. If anything, Amy here seems less naive about the ways of the world than her older sister.

Amy’s interactions with Theodore “Laurie” Laurence, played by Timothee Chalamet, suggest a more genuine connection than the one he had with Jo too, suggesting that he would have been eaten alive by her had they married. Gerwig suggests that Amy will be calling the shots nonetheless, as Laurie seems like a much more recessive character than in previous adaptations.

Meryl Streep

Ronan is always exceptional and imbues Jo here with a ton of wit that keeps us on her side even when she can be a pickled pill. Meryl Streep is prickly too, suggesting an extravagantly haughty Aunt March. Streep is all withering put-downs and side-eyes here, though Gerwig clearly sides with such opinions. She adapted the script, after all, and is using such mouthpieces to speak truth to the silly rules of 19th century Massachusetts by way of the male-dominated hierarchy.

The rhythms of Gerwig’s editing ensure that this period piece feels fresh and contemporary too. Rather than telling the film in chronological order, Gerwig cuts back and forth between two time periods – the present and nine years earlier. The earlier days are shot with more of an idyllic glow as well, reflecting a better time for the March clan. For the decade later, when all kinds of problems arise, Gerwig’s lighting and color palate darken.

At times, the editing is too self-aware, overt in juxtaposing irony or commentary from one era to the other. Gerwig loves showing Jo run too, in both time periods, often buttressed up against each other in the cut. Occasionally, it’s hard to tell which period the story is taking place in with less differentiation in the lighting, but by and large, Gerwig keeps her time periods separate and trackable.

Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen

The production design is gorgeous to a fault, suggesting a Hallmark card perfection that never existed in the world. At times, the middle-classed March home appears far too tony and posh as well. Even their clothes look unlived in at times. Gerwig misjudges the classic scene where Marmee instructs her daughters to sacrifice their holiday breakfast for poor neighbors as the spread is so vast it looks like it could feed the entire neighborhood.

Gerwig makes better choices in smarter adjustments for modern sensibilities, like portraying Professor Bhaer (Louis Garrel) as much closer in age to Ronan’s Jo. None of the men are bullies, and even Letts, who can do stiff-collared pricks in his sleep, chuckles as he is won over by the logical Jo.

This take on Little Women is passionately about female empowerment, more than even Alcott could have imagined as a maverick in her time. Such sentiments are never more evident than when Gerwig has Jo watch her first published book roll off the presses. She gazes upon its creation with the watchful eyes of a mother. Indeed, that book is her baby. Jo takes Dashwood’s advice and does end her story with marriage, but the real love of Jo’s life is those pages. And Gerwig makes certain none of us miss it.

Check out the trailer for Little Women below:

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isaiahrippinus · 5 years

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The Most Important Cocktail Bars of the Decade (2010s)

With last orders set to be called not only on the year, but on an entire decade, there’s barely enough time to pause and reflect. But in reviewing the past 10 years and pondering the most important shifts in drinking culture, we identified the most influential trends, and the bars that best encapsulated them.

What exactly do we mean by influential? These are the spots that pushed boundaries, ushered in an era of new “norms,” and captured the zeitgeist of the decade. Some of them were notable as a timestamp for the 2010s, while others paved an import path for years (and possibly decades) to come.

You might notice some trends and bars missing from this list that have been prominent in the last decade. These include the revival of the hotel bar (The Connaught), the modernization of tiki (Smuggler’s Cove), and the proliferation of speakeasies (Milk & Honey, PDT). None are featured here as each of those bars opened before the beginning of 2010 and the trends were already in motion at the beginning of the decade.

Here is VinePair’s list of the five most influential cocktail bars of the last 10 years and how they defined the decade in drinks.

The Aviary champions avant-garde cocktails and molecular techniques.

When Grant Achatz, one of the country’s most celebrated, innovative chefs, opened Chicago’s revolutionary Aviary bar in 2011, his first rebellious act was to remove the bar entirely. It was a bold, left-field move, but just one of a number of ways in which the Aviary reinvented the traditional cocktail bar.

Drinks from the Aviary’s range of tasting menus are prepared inside the bar’s kitchen, where a group of “cooks,” led by a “chef,” work wizardry behind a large metal cage. Their mysterious creations are then delivered to patrons in 30-or-so different custom-made vessels. Many are finished table-side and some arrive with aroma-filled plastic bags to enhance the experience.

The Aviary’s ice program is similarly innovative. In a sprawling basement beneath the bar, dedicated ice chefs create 39 different forms of frozen H2O. Some will be used as serving vessels, and others are infused with substances that add to a drink’s flavor, rather than dilute it as they melt.

Since its 2011 launch, the Aviary has scooped up dozens of high-profile awards, including “World’s Best Cocktail Menu,” awarded by the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation in 2014. The bar launched a second location in New York in September 2018. Situated on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the bar enjoys a birds-eye view of the city’s Central Park.

The Aviary’s much-anticipated cocktail book followed in October of the same year. Four years in the making, it mapped multiple iterations of each of its legendary drinks. Recipes change depending on whether the cocktail is being made for a single recipe or a batch, with different variations for professional bars and adaptations for (daring) home cocktail enthusiasts.

The Aviary was, and continues to be, influential not for spawning an army of imitators, but for introducing ideals and techniques that would be adopted and adapted by some of the decade’s highest-profile bars. With paired food and cocktail tasting menus, and the transformation of Lewis Carroll-esque fiction into imbibable reality, the Aviary did not say, “This is how it’s done,” but instead showed what could be done.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Artesian (London, England); Booker and Dax (New York, NY [CLOSED]); Columbia Room (Washington, DC); Existing Conditions (New York, NY)

The Dead Rabbit introduces world-class cocktails to the (relative) masses.

New York’s 22-square-mile Manhattan island boasts more than 120 Irish bars, though none of them are quite like The Dead Rabbit. Launched by Belfast natives Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry in 2013, The Dead Rabbit is split over three levels, with a 2019 expansion doubling its overall size.

In the downstairs Taproom, traditional Irish hospitality is recreated in the form of a sawdust-littered floor, warming (read: boozy) Irish punch, and the bar’s now-famous Irish coffee. The Guinness is as good as it gets this side of the pond, and the bar’s 145-strong Irish whiskey collection is the largest in North America. (Dead Rabbit even launched its own Irish whiskey in 2018.)

But this bar is about more than comforting hospitality. Climb the stairs to its Parlor bar, and you’ll see why The Dead Rabbit topped the list of The World’s 50 Best Bars in 2016. Bar manager Jillian Vose oversees a vast cocktail program that’s presented in an illustrated graphic novel. Categorized into shades, the drinks start light (a reference to their alcohol content) then get progressively stronger as the menu proceeds. No matter the shade, each is a triumphant execution of harmony and in-depth understanding of their ingredients.

The Dead Rabbit launched at a time when New York’s best cocktails were almost exclusively consigned to dimly lit, limited- capacity venues. In the seven years since, it’s proved that world-class drinks can be found anywhere; perhaps where you least expect them, like a traditional-looking Irish bar that pours exceptional Guinness. If the craft cocktail renaissance of the early aughts rediscovered classic concoctions, and elevated the act of imbibing cocktails to its former heyday, The Dead Rabbit has succeeded in serving those ideals to the (relative) masses.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Canon (Seattle, WA); Herbs & Rye (Las Vegas, NV); La Factoria (San Juan, Puerto Rico); Polite Provisions (San Diego, CA); Trick Dog (San Francisco, CA)

Dante becomes the epicenter of international aperitivo culture.

Caffe Dante first opened its doors on New York’s Macdougal Street in 1915. A century later, a trio of Australians took over the space and transformed the fading Italian café into one of the world’s leading cocktail bars.

The renovations were respectful of the café’s past, maintaining its layout and façade, but upgraded its interior to a bright, white-tiled space befitting of the modern-day surrounding Greenwich Village neighborhood. The drinks showcased Italy’s greatest contributions to international cocktail culture, with a much-lauded, revamped Garibaldi and dedicated Negroni and Spritz menus, with dozens of riffs on the classics. (The bar even serves Negronis on draft.)

At the time of reopening, the notion that three Australians would school New Yorkers on Italian aperitivo culture seemed unlikely. But succeed they did, and on a staggering international level. Naren Young, the best known of the trio, has since helmed Dante pop-ups in numerous cities worldwide, including Barcelona, London, Moscow, Sydney, and, most recently, Vancouver. The jewel in the bar’s crown arrived in 2019, when Dante was awarded the No. 1 spot on the list of The World’s 50 Best Bars.

With its dedication to spreading aperitivo culture and reputation for serving some of the finest iterations of the Negroni worldwide (not to mention its Spritzes), Dante captured the cocktail zeitgeist of the 2010s. Its outdoor terrace and open-plan salon serve as further proof that exclusivity is no longer a prerequisite for world-class cocktail bars.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Bar Termini (London, England); Born & Raised (San Diego, CA)

‘Lyan’ bars place sustainability front and center.

On many counts, London’s Ryan Chetiyawardana is one of the most forward-thinking, influential bartenders of the decade. Better known as Mr. Lyan, in 2013 Chetiyawardana opened White Lyan in London’s trendy Hoxton neighborhood. There, he adopted various practices that were pioneering at the time, but have worked their way into the mainstream seven years on.

Chetiyawardana commissioned his own spirits; pre-batched cocktails to cut down on wait times; sold takeaway, bottled versions of those drinks; and — most importantly — placed sustainability front and center at the bar, eliminating waste by doing away with perishables such as citrus and ice (the latter aided by the fact that the pre-batched cocktails could be chilled in fridges and freezers before service).

Chetiyawardana and the bar’s co-owner, Ian Griffiths, shut the doors at White Lyan in 2016, transforming the spot into a creative development space. By this time, they had already opened a second bar, Dandelyan, in a hotel on the South Bank of London’s River Thames. Dandelyan went on to win Tales of the Cocktail’s World’s Best Cocktail Menu in 2016 and 2018, and also topped the list of The World’s 50 Best Bars in 2018 — just two days after the duo had announced the bar was to shut. Various high-profile international pop-ups have followed and the team currently runs two permanent locations (for now): Lyaness, in London, and Super Lyan in Amsterdam.

That Chetiyawardana has operated on the highest level for the best part of a decade is notable enough. Doing so while championing “closed-loop” sustainable practices, many of which have been adopted by other high-profile establishments, leaves an important, enduring legacy. It’s one that should shape the future cocktail landscape for years if not decades to come.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: HIMKOK (Oslo, Norway); Native (Singapore); Charlie Parker’s (Sydney, Australia)

Miracle creates a globally successful pop-up trend.

If you’ve visited any notable New York cocktail bar in the past decade, chances are it’s been influenced or owned by Greg Boehm. Boehm has stakes in some of the city’s finest drinking destinations, including Boilermaker, Mace, Existing Conditions, and Katana Kitten. If you haven’t been to those bars, the bartenders at the spots you have visited were almost certainly using Boehm’s industry-standard cocktail equipment, which he sells through the drinkware company Cocktail Kingdom.

But perhaps Boehm’s most impactful influence on the decade’s cocktail scene — certainly from a global perspective — is the Miracle Christmas pop-up franchise that debuted in 2014.

With construction flagging on his upcoming East Village cocktail bar, Boehm temporarily transformed the unfinished space into a themed pop-up serving holiday-inspired drinks. Crowds flocked to the bar, queuing in the freezing New York winter, for a sip of festive cheer among its kitschy Christmas décor.

When bar industry friends asked if they could recreate the experience the following year, Miracle expanded to four locations. In 2016, the franchise went global, with pop-ups in Greece, Montreal, and Paris. In 2019, Miracle is set to feature more than 100 global outposts, reaching such destinations as Panama, Romania, New Zealand, and Switzerland.

While never intended as a “serious” bar, nor a recurring feature, the incredible, rapid expansion of this pop-up is nothing short of a miracle (sorry!). With its huge social media appeal and the proliferation of pop-ups since, this trend looks set to continue well into the next decade. The fact that drinkers around the world, from Bentonville, AR, to Bucharest, Romania, are right now united through their shared festive libations, is a worthy source of Christmas cheer and warming thought to close the decade.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Broken Shaker (Started as a pop-up in Miami, FL; now has permanent locations in Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; and New York, NY, and has hosted international pop-ups.)

The article The Most Important Cocktail Bars of the Decade (2010s) appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/list-best-bars-world-2010s/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/189704808074

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johnboothus · 5 years

Text

The Most Important Cocktail Bars of the Decade (2010s)

Here is VinePair’s list of the five most influential cocktail bars of the last 10 years and how they defined the decade in drinks.

The Aviary champions avant-garde cocktails and molecular techniques.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Artesian (London, England); Booker and Dax (New York, NY [CLOSED]); Columbia Room (Washington, DC); Existing Conditions (New York, NY)

The Dead Rabbit introduces world-class cocktails to the (relative) masses.

Dante becomes the epicenter of international aperitivo culture.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Bar Termini (London, England); Born & Raised (San Diego, CA)

‘Lyan’ bars place sustainability front and center.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: HIMKOK (Oslo, Norway); Native (Singapore); Charlie Parker’s (Sydney, Australia)

Miracle creates a globally successful pop-up trend.

But perhaps Boehm’s most impactful influence on the decade’s cocktail scene — certainly from a global perspective — is the Miracle Christmas pop-up franchise that debuted in 2014.

The article The Most Important Cocktail Bars of the Decade (2010s) appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/list-best-bars-world-2010s/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/the-most-important-cocktail-bars-of-the-decade-2010s

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wineanddinosaur · 5 years

Text

The Most Important Cocktail Bars of the Decade (2010s)

Here is VinePair’s list of the five most influential cocktail bars of the last 10 years and how they defined the decade in drinks.

The Aviary champions avant-garde cocktails and molecular techniques.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Artesian (London, England); Booker and Dax (New York, NY [CLOSED]); Columbia Room (Washington, DC); Existing Conditions (New York, NY)

The Dead Rabbit introduces world-class cocktails to the (relative) masses.

Dante becomes the epicenter of international aperitivo culture.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: Bar Termini (London, England); Born & Raised (San Diego, CA)

‘Lyan’ bars place sustainability front and center.

Notable bars that exemplified/furthered the trend: HIMKOK (Oslo, Norway); Native (Singapore); Charlie Parker’s (Sydney, Australia)

Miracle creates a globally successful pop-up trend.

But perhaps Boehm’s most impactful influence on the decade’s cocktail scene — certainly from a global perspective — is the Miracle Christmas pop-up franchise that debuted in 2014.

The article The Most Important Cocktail Bars of the Decade (2010s) appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/list-best-bars-world-2010s/

0 notes

inbonobo · 5 years

Photo

Research conducted at the University of Toronto by Stéphane Côté and colleagues confirms that the rich are less generous than the poor, but their findings suggest it’s more complicated than simply wealth making people stingy.

Rather, it’s the distance created by wealth differentials that seems to break the natural flow of human kindness. Côté found that “higher-income individuals are only less generous if they reside in a highly unequal area or when inequality is experimentally portrayed as relatively high.” Rich people were as generous as anyone else when inequality was low. The rich are less generous when inequality is extreme, a finding that challenges the idea that higher-income individuals are just more selfish. If the person who needs help doesn’t seem that different from us, we’ll probably help them out. But if they seem too far away (culturally, economically) we’re less likely to lend a hand.

The social distance separating rich and poor, like so many of the other distances that separate us from each other, only entered human experience after the advent of agriculture and the hierarchical civilizations that followed, which is why it’s so psychologically difficult to twist your soul into a shape that allows you to ignore starving children standing close enough to smell your plate of curry. You’ve got to silence the inner voice calling for justice and for fairness. But we silence this ancient, insistent voice at great cost to our own psychological well-being.

A wealthy friend of mine recently told me, “You get successful by saying ‘yes,’ but you need to say ‘no’ a lot to stay successful.” If you’re perceived to be wealthier than those around you, you’ll have to say “no” a lot. You’ll be constantly approached with requests, offers, pitches, and pleas—whether you’re in a Starbucks in Silicon Valley or the back streets of Calcutta. Refusing sincere requests for help doesn’t come naturally to our species. Neuroscientists Jorge Moll, Jordan Grafman, and Frank Krueger of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) have used fMRI machines to demonstrate that altruism is deeply embedded in human nature. Their work suggests that the deep satisfaction most people derive from altruistic behavior is not due to a benevolent cultural overlay, but from the evolved architecture of the human brain.

Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Paul Piff monitored intersections with four-way stop signs and found that people in expensive cars were four times more likely to cut in front of other drivers, compared to folks in more modest vehicles. When the researchers posed as pedestrians waiting to cross a street, all the drivers in cheap cars respected their right of way, while those in expensive cars drove right on by 46.2 percent of the time, even when they’d made eye contact with the pedestrians waiting to cross. Other studies by the same team showed that wealthier subjects were more likely to cheat at an array of tasks and games. For example, Keltner reported that wealthier subjects were far more likely to claim they’d won a computer game—even though the game was rigged so that winning was impossible. Wealthy subjects were more likely to lie in negotiations and excuse unethical behavior at work, like lying to clients in order to make more money. When Keltner and Piff left a jar of candy in the entrance to their lab with a sign saying whatever was left over would be given to kids at a nearby school, they found that wealthier people stole more candy from the babies.

Researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute surveyed 43,000 people and found that the rich were far more likely to walk out of a store with merchandise they hadn’t paid for than were poorer people. Findings like this (and the behavior of drivers at intersections) could reflect the fact that wealthy people worry less about potential legal repercussions. If you know you can afford bail and a good lawyer, running a red light now and then or swiping a Snickers bar may seem less risky. But the selfishness goes deeper than such considerations. A coalition of nonprofit organizations called the Independent Sector found that, on average, people with incomes below $25,000 per year typically gave away a little over 4 percent of their income, while those earning more than $150,000 donated only 2.7 percent (despite tax benefits the rich can get from charitable giving that are unavailable to someone making much less).

There is reason to believe that blindness to the suffering of others is a psychological adaptation to the discomfort caused by extreme wealth disparities. Michael W. Kraus and colleagues found that people of higher socio-economic status were actually less able to read emotions in other people’s faces. It wasn’t that they cared less what those faces were communicating; they were simply blind to the cues. And Keely Muscatell, a neuroscientist at UCLA, found that wealthy people’s brains showed far less activity than the brains of poor people when they looked at photos of children with cancer.

Books such as Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work and The Psychopath Test argue that many traits characteristic of psychopaths are celebrated in business: ruthlessness, a convenient absence of social conscience, a single-minded focus on “success.” But while psychopaths may be ideally suited to some of the most lucrative professions, I’m arguing something different here. It’s not just that heartless people are more likely to become rich. I’m saying that being rich tends to corrode whatever heart you’ve got left. I’m suggesting, in other words, that it’s likely the wealthy subjects who participated in Muscatell’s study learnedto be less unsettled by the photos of sick kids by the experience of being rich—much as I learned to ignore starving children in Rajastan so I could comfortably continue my vacation.

In an essay called “Extreme Wealth is Bad for Everyone—Especially the Wealthy,” Michael Lewis observed, “It is beginning to seem that the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability that gives them a market edge. The problem is caused by the inequality itself: It triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains. It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen.”

Ultimately, diminished empathy is self-destructive. It leads to social isolation, which is strongly associated with sharply increased health risks, including stroke, heart disease, depression, and dementia.

In one of my favorite studies, Keltner and Piff decided to tweak a game of Monopoly. The psychologists rigged the game so that one player had huge advantages over the other from the start. They ran the study with over a hundred pairs of subjects, all of whom were brought into the lab where a coin was flipped to determine who’d be “rich” and “poor” in the game. The randomly chosen “rich” player started out with twice as much money, collected twice as much every time they went around the board, and got to roll two dice instead of one. None of these advantages was hidden from the players. Both were well aware of how unfair the situation was. But still, the “winning” players showed the tell-tale symptoms of Rich Asshole Syndrome. They were far more likely to display dominant behaviors like smacking the board with their piece, loudly celebrating their superior skill, even eating more pretzels from a bowl positioned nearby.

After 15 minutes, the experimenters asked the subjects to discuss their experience of playing the game. When the rich players talked about why they’d won, they focused on their brilliant strategies rather than the fact that the whole game was rigged to make it nearly impossible for them to lose. “What we’ve been finding across dozens of studies and thousands of participants across this country,” said Piff, “is that as a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases.”

Of course, there are exceptions to these tendencies. Plenty of wealthy people have the wisdom to navigate the difficult currents their good fortune generates without succumbing to RAS—but such people are rare, and they tend to come from humble origins. Perhaps an understanding of the debilitating effects of wealth explains why some who have built large fortunes are vowing not to pass their wealth to their children. Several billionaires, including Chuck Feeney, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett have pledged to give away all or most of their money before they die. Buffet has famously said that he intends to leave his kids “enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.” The same impulse is expressed among those lower on the millionaire totem pole. According to an article on CNBC.com, Craig Wolfe, the owner of CelebriDucks, the largest custom collectible rubber duck manufacturer, intends to leave the millions he’s made to charity, which is amazing—but nowhere near as amazing as the fact that someone made millions of dollars selling collectible rubber ducks.

Do you know someone who suffers from RAS? There may be help for them. UC Berkeley researcher Robb Willer and his team conducted studies in which participants were given cash and instructed to play games of various complexity that would benefit “the public good.”

Participants who showed the greatest generosity benefited from more respect and cooperation from their peers and had more social influence. “The findings suggest that anyone who acts only in his or her narrow self-interest will be shunned, disrespected, even hated,” Willer said. “But those who behave generously with others are held in high esteem by their peers and thus rise in status.” Keltner and Piff have seen the same thing: “We’ve been finding in our own laboratory research that small psychological interventions, small changes to people’s values, small nudges in certain directions, can restore levels of egalitarianism and empathy,” said Piff. “For instance, reminding people of the benefits of cooperation, or the advantages of community, cause wealthier individuals to be just as egalitarian as poor people.” In one study, they showed subjects a short video—just 46 seconds long—about childhood poverty. They then checked the subjects’ willingness to help a stranger presented to them in the lab who appeared to be in distress. An hour after watching the video, rich people were as willing to lend a hand as were poor subjects. Piff believes these results suggest that “these differences are not innate or categorical, but are malleable to slight changes in people’s values, and little nudges of compassion and bumps of empathy.”

(via Why Are Rich People So Mean? | WIRED)

#rich #income inequality #compassion #empathy #sociology #society #inequality #generosity #poverty

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njawaidofficial · 7 years

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How Europe Is Fighting Back Against Fake News

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/22/how-europe-is-fighting-back-against-fake-news/

How Europe Is Fighting Back Against Fake News

From new fact-checking software to fining Facebook and shaming Twitter, Europeans hope to prevent a tide of disinformation from influencing national elections and spreading hate.

The latest bit of fake news to hit Europe was, actually, just a joke.

“Big Ben to be renamed Massive Mohamed from 2018” ran the headline in the story, widely shared, with accompanying outrage, on Facebook. “Not being funny, this will cause civil war!” posted one incandescent user, unaware that the post, first put online Aug. 15, came from The Rochdale Herald, an Onion-style news parody site.

It’s easy to laugh, but governments across Europe are starting to take fake news very seriously.

Amid fears that online disinformation may have influenced last year’s Brexit vote and recent elections in the Netherlands and France, European governments and ordinary citizens are taking action to counter the spread of news that is misleading, disingenuous or just plain wrong. At the same time, efforts are underway across Europe to crack down on hate speech, as worries that online vitriol — anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic tirades — may be poisoning political debate and feeding extremist groups across the continent.

The approach varies from country to country and reflects local concerns. Germany is particularly worried about hate speech and neo-Nazi slogans spreading online. Nations bordering Russia or with large Russian-language minorities are mainly concerned about Moscow-based propaganda being used to destabilize their democracies. And governments from London to Lisbon and Paris to Prague are worried propaganda, fake news and just poor journalism are undermining trust in government and the mainstream media.

Things in Europe aren’t quite as bad as the U.S. Research by the Computational Propaganda Research Project at the Oxford Internet Institute in the U.K. found that fully 50 percent of news stories circulated online in the United States in the lead-up to last year’s elections could be classified as “junk news,” defined as not meeting basic standards of accuracy and professional journalism. The equivalent figure ahead of recent presidential elections in France and Germany was 20 percent.

“Things are bent here, but in the U.S. they’re already broken,” is how Ehsan Fadakar, a Swedish journalist and head of social and third-party strategy at the Scandinavian Schibsted Media Group, puts it. “We’ve learned a lot from what’s happened in the U.S. and are now better equipped to deal with fake news before it breaks us.”

Another major difference between Europe and the United States is the source of the dubious online reporting. While alt-right news sites akin to Breitbart or the overtly white nationalist Daily Stormer do exist in Europe (Breitbart has bureaus in London and Jerusalem but so far has not come through on plans to launch French or German-language versions in Europe) much of the fight against fake news in Europe focuses on Russia.

Early this year, the Czech Republic’s interior ministry, concerned about the proliferation of dubious Czech-language sites with links to Russia, launched the Center Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats, tasked with identifying and countering fake news. In Ukraine, a group of lecturers, graduates and students from Kyiv’s Mohyla Journalism School operate the highly respected Stopfake.org fact-checking website that publishes stories and web videos denouncing dubious claims made (mainly) by Russian-backed media, such as false claims that the Ukrainian government is run by neo-Nazis. Several such fact-checking sites exist across Europe, including the East StratCom Task Force, set up by the European Union to counter “Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns.” East StratCom points to Russia’s investment of nearly $1 billion in its state-controlled media operations, including RT, the broadcaster that targets audiences outside of Russia.

“We got lazy and made budget cuts to public broadcasting and investigative journalism while Russia was increasing funding,” said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, speaking at an event in Brussels May 3 to celebrate World Press Freedom Day.

What distinguishes Russian-backed fake news is not just its funding, but its professionalism. Outlets like RT and Sputnik — an online Russian news site that operates in dozens of languages across Europe and Asia — mix “hard news, well reported and sourced, with fake and junk news,” says Lisa-Maria Nicola Neudert, a researcher for the London-based Computational Propaganda project. Neudert notes that news from Russia was given a separate category in their research to illustrate the difference.

Jessikka Aro, a Finnish investigative journalist with public broadcaster YLE, knows a bit about the dark side of Russian fake news. Her investigations into so-called “troll factories” in Russia — where info warriors, many with the direct support of the Russian government, spread social media propaganda targeting audiences in Western Europe — led to furious online attacks against her. Aro became, in her own words, a “troll magnet,” leading to virulent online abuse, death threats and, yes, fake news stories.

“They accused me of being a drug dealer, a terrorist sympathizer, of being a threat to Finnish national security,” she tells THR. “Even people I knew began to attack me online and send death threats.”

Aro, who is working on a book on her experiences — titled Vladimir Putin’s Troll Army — sees parallels between what has happened in Finland and developments in the U.S., saying the fake news phenomenon is poisoning mainstream political debate.

“What you saw in (President) Trump’s reaction to Charlottesville, blaming ‘all sides,’ this has already happened in Finland,” she says. “The propaganda against the so-called extreme left has created a fake argument trying to divide people into two groups. It has so politicized and polarized issues, like the issue of immigrants, that it has become impossible to comment on them without being labeled as an extremist.”

The Finnish government has noticed, and has set up a new police task force to focus on online hate. Several police investigations concerning threats against Aro are currently underway. Aro acknowledges that awareness of the issue has improved but believes more regulation and tougher laws are needed.

The legal system has also gotten involved in France. On May 4, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a inquiry into what it terms “false news in order to divert votes, use forgeries and false receipts,” following a complaint by now-President Emmanuel Macron. Macron charged that documents published on internet forum 4chan purporting to show Macron had a secret offshore account in the Bahamas were forgeries released in what his complaint says were part of a deliberate “campaign of digital disinformation” intended to destabilize the French election to benefit Macron’s challenger, the far-right politician Marine Le Pen. (In fact, Le Pen did mention “an offshore account in the Bahamas” in the final TV debate with Macron). The documents themselves have since been debunked as fake by The Observers, the fact checking division of news channel France 24.

The German government has gone one step further. On June 30, the German parliament passed a new law targeting social media platforms themselves, imposing fines of up to $57 million (€50 million) on the likes of Facebook or Twitter if they do not delete illegal, racist or slanderous comments and posts within 24 hours of being notified to do so. The law, according to Bitkom, a national association of German digital media companies, will cost the social media platforms around $622 million (€530 million) a year in extra costs for oversight and personnel, a figure Facebook has called “realistic.”

Neudert of the Oxford Institute says the impact of the German law is already being seen online, with a sharp decline in fake news stories being posted to Facebook accounts.

“It’s a great law and one I think should be adopted across Europe,” says Aro on the German legislation.

But there have been critics. The Czech initiative has been attacked as an Orwellian “ministry of truth” by the country’s own president, Milos Zeman. Zeman, who is viewed as strongly pro-Russian and likes to style himself as the Czech Donald Trump, has compared efforts to identify and combat fake news to the sort of state censorship the country experienced under communism.

In Germany, many worry fake news legislation will impinge on free speech and lead social media platforms to overreact by taking down any and all posts that could be deemed offensive. This point hit home earlier this month when Facebook deleted a post from popular television journalist Dunja Hayali. In the post, Hayali mimicked the rude tone, and spotty grammar, of a user who was insulting her online. Facebook later apologized for overreacting.

While Facebook has responded, at least in Germany, Twitter has so far shown less inclination to adapt to local regulation. Israeli-German comedian Shahak Shapira says over the past six months he’s reported more than 300 examples of hate speech on Twitter to the company, tweets such as “let’s gas some Jews,” which violate Germany’s laws against defamation, public incitement to violence or Holocaust denial. He received 9 replies and none of the tweets were removed.

On Aug. 7, Shapira spray-painted (in wash-away chalk) the offensive tweets in front of Twitter’s German headquarters in Hamburg. The video he posted of the action went viral, generating more than 250,000 views.

youtube

“Twitter didn’t respond, they don’t give a shit,” Shapira tells THR. “Most of the tweets I sprayed are still online.”

While many European governments are looking to regulation to combat fake news, others are putting their hopes on technical solutions. Full Fact, a London-based independent fact-checking organization, is developing software tools to allow journalists to carry out automatic fact-checking of claims made online, on TV or in live interviews with politicians. The tools, says Mevan Babakar, project manager at Full Fact, analyze statements and compare them to a database of verifiable facts — if a politician claims a spike in crime committed by immigrants, say, the software will link directly to the relevant data from police statistics. The tools are already being tested by select media organizations and Full Fact hopes to roll them out more widely in 2018. The group is backed by a mix of crowdfunding, donations and sizable funding by two billionaires: the Hungarian-born investor George Soros, and the Iranian-American eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Babakar compares Full Fact’s software to “building an immune system” against fake or misleading claims. But she notes that debunking alone does not necessarily stop junk news from spreading. Full Fact was among the first to debunk several claims made during the Brexit campaign — including the notorious one made by Brexiters that the U.K. sends £350 million a week ($450 million) to the EU — but they continued to be cited by politicians and pundits alike. Neudert of the Oxford Institute notes that some studies show debunking online news stories can actually increase their popularity, as users repost the fake news in order to counter what they see as an effort by the mainstream media “to suppress the truth.”

And, notes Neudert, purveyors of junk news are getting more sophisticated in the way they package and distribute their disinformation. Late last year, RT spun off In The Now, a youth-focused, irreverent news show on its regular channel, as a stand-alone online video service, serving up content for YouTube, Facebook and Twitter with the company’s Russian government affiliation nowhere to be seen (other than a page buried on RT’s website).

And earlier this year RT actually launched its own project, FakeCheck, targeting what it identifies as fake news.

“The goal is to weed out and correct any egregious bias, misinformation, or misstated facts within a particular news story by means of basic journalistic fact-checking,” a spokesperson for RT told THR.

“RT has become much more careful,” says Russian journalist Alexei Kovalev, who runs his own independent debunking site, Noodle Remover.

He cautions, however, that RT’s efforts to fight fake news may, in fact, be just another way to disseminate false or misleading information.

“Their FakeCheck project is ridiculous,” he says. “It is one-sided and totally in line with everything else they’re doing — like basically being the Syrian government’s mouthpiece or trying to embellish the Kremlin’s international reputation. … Overall, the whole thing is just another testimony to the fact that the very term ‘fake news’ has lost its value. It is being used by Donald Trump and Russia’s Foreign Ministry to the same end. Every time they’re being criticized or hear something they don’t like, they just yell loudly: It is fake news!”

Vladmir Kozlov in Moscow contributed to this report.

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