Month: April 2014

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Seeing taterpie’s retumblr (Is that a word? It should be a word) of a Pacific Rim pic made me wonder: Did anyone ever do a good write-up about the wacky gender/race politics of that movie? And by “wacky,” I mean “giving lip service to minorities but then ensuring that it’s the white male that saves the day, with the black lead sacrificing himself nobly for the white man and then the man literally sending the woman off in a pod so she could be ‘safe’ while he did the tough stuff.”

I’m seriously asking, not just snarking; is there good critical analysis of Pacific Rim out there worth reading?

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You’ve heard of infotainment. We live in what I call the age of arguetainment.

In the age of arguetainment the most condescending, dismissive, antagonistic newscasters win. They are the ones who get the biggest ratings. It’s like 20 years ago our news programs were taken over by the World Wrestling Federation.

And similar to the World Wrestling Federation we too often forget it’s not real. It’s just a paid performance. News today is like a reality TV parody of itself. Frankly, I can’t believe no one has come out yet with a reality TV show to pick our next most blustery newscaster. Though I’m sure it’s on its way.

These shows do a fabulous job at getting us worked up but they don’t generally help us build the deep understanding necessary to deal with our very important and complex challenges. And the internet magnifies this 1000 times.

From here.
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I always have to be strategic about what I post on my personal platforms and how it relates to my job. My job is to be this character on social media — and I have to adhere to that. I do censor myself a lot in terms of opinions on things, because I know my opinions can be misconstrued or taken out of context, and I’d never want to put the brand in jeopardy because of a misguided tweet.

Life on the Modern Internet, from this interview with Marvel’s Adri Cowan.
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A Chinese crackdown on pornography is taking a creative turn. Authorities have arrested over 20 women in Henan province for writing gay erotic fan fiction online, according to a report (video in Chinese) from Anhui Television… Since the launch of a “cleaning the web” campaign, the government has shuttered dozens of websites containing porn, as well as those dedicated to danmei. The reasoning, according to one police officer interviewed by Anhui Television, is the belief that slash fiction “is essentially pornography that promotes homosexuality.”

From here, via aleskot.
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As a piece of filmmaking, The Other Woman is garbage, from the arbitrary scene transitions and incoherent editing to the decision to soundtrack a scene of girls having fun with “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” As a piece of entertainment, it’s yet another example of how sexism and racism regularly sneak into ostensibly broad-minded popular films under the rubric of “comedy.” But you don’t even have to dial up the outrage machine to find the film comedically bankrupt: The ladies’ grand revenge scheme involves dosing Jaime with both laxatives AND estrogen supplements. Seriously. Those are jokes.

All hail Alison Hallett.