Likes: I think that sanctimonious shit came later, not during the show's run.Originally Posted by allegro
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Active Member
I think that sanctimonious shit came later, not during the show's run.
she/her/hers
oh man, this article is incredible. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...927-story.html
a choice quote:
NB: that article is from 1992, and the fact that it still resonates so perfectly right now is extremely upsetting.Television, despite the liberal intentions of many who write its stories, has pushed culture backward. White people are not prepared to deal with the problem of racial inequality because they can no longer see that there is a problem.
God is an American
I like Mr. Morris's style very much (his interview on The Daily about reckoning with HBO's Leaving Neverland helped me recognize and let go of my Michael Jackson baggage, which I also had carried with me since childhood) but he rightly concludes the show is "condemned".
Active Member
Michael Jackson is definitely another one to ad to the list.
I was nobody. Nothing.
With me, I can usually do it with music.
But, JESUS, fucking Kevin Spacey.
I swear to god, I had a feeling that he wasn't a very nice person, while watching House of Cards. It seemed too easy for him to act so hateful and threatening.
And American Beauty: that WAS one of my favorite movies of all time. It got into some taboo shit, but, "hey, it's just Kevin actng, and he's a nice guy."
I can't imagine watching any of that shit, because he is out protagonist: our avatar, if you will. Music isn't like that, as MUCH, you know?
I can also handle watching stuff by a disgraced director, or producer.
What I'm saying, here, is about what I'm ABLE to separate, though.
Whether I SHOULD, or not, is a different issue. I've been a bowie fan since I was, like, six. I'm not sure if this might make me part of the problem.
Active Member
For me personally, I think it depends on not only the infraction but whether or not there's any contrition on the part of the offender.
This particular moral issue is also prevalent in professional sports. Kobe Bryant, Michael Vick, and Ray Lewis were all tried for different offenses (rape, dog fighting, and murder, respectively) with outcomes ranging. Kobe went on to have a (mostly) celebrated career while Vick, who served time, was never fully accepted again.
Active Member
There's one big one in pro wrestling: Chris Benoit. Before the murder/suicide of his family that understandably stained his legacy, he had a lot of fans online. Some of them around still, who purport any number of silly conspiracy theories about his "innocence". In this case it lays more on the other side, of people who can say that stuff with a straight face. As for me, I do feel weird watching his matches but I feel it more whenever I see Nancy in something.
Bite me
Active Member
I think both Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon would like a word.
Bite me
Naomi Wolf posted this, which explains some scary stuff across the pond. Wtf. I thought the racist death threats to Meghan Markle were bad enough, now this shit. The COMMENTS in this tweet are horrible. There’s nothing “feminist” about this. This is simply “Terrorist.” Nobody should feel threatened by anyone else, we should all coexist peacefully and be welcoming and inclusive.
I’ve never read a Harry Potter book, but people on Twitter have been saying that there were already some pretty serious underlying issues in the themes and characters?
Last edited by allegro; 06-23-2020 at 02:02 PM.
God is an American
I just learned via Twitter that a young-ish actor, who a couple of years ago was in a play that was produced at my workplace (a small theatre company with a permanent space), stands accused of sexual assault by MULTIPLE people. What's even worse is that the show was notable for involving some 'challenging' (well, to the normie mainstream Toronto arts-patron types, anyway) depictions of sexuality, and used nudity in a boundary-pushing way, and of course the alleged rapist got to have a triumphant three-way scene in it and made us all believe he was just a healthy dude challenging hetero-normative stage conventions in rehearsals and his press quotes for the show. The whole time, he was just a piece-of-shit sex addict making rough sex without proper consent a nightmarish routine in his private life.
So what the hell am I supposed to do with this information, other than amplify voices calling for him to be cancelled and removed from the company he's currently in (which isn't performing anyway rn, because COVID)? I'm upset and angry, and want him gone from the position in our small artistic community he was enjoying. The director of the show, a queer cis white man with TV-writing money who insisted on burning sage into oblivion every night, waving it around the room like it was a fucking fog machine, made a (possibly unrelated? dunno) tweet about a week before the revelations started to make waves about cancel culture being "dangerous"... okay. What about letting an accused rapist back into rehearsal halls, is that not dangerous?
Anyway, this has me thinking A LOT about the creative workplace, and how to separate art that should push boundaries and make people uncomfortable and challenge notions of decorum, from preserving the BASIC FUCKING HUMANITY of the artists involved with making it. Like, looking back on movies now like Last Tango in Paris, where the director essentially colluded with a rapist, and plays where the rehearsal room is triggering and unsafe. What can I as a tech do, without a lot of power other than to lock people out of the building? To say "STOP," out loud, when I feel skeeved out? Is that enough? Is that too much? Ugh. I'm tired and logging off to have a long shower.
Stubby Member
Certainly sounds like the Mel Gibson I heard in those infamous audio recordings many moons ago.
she/her/hers
at first i thought you were talking about Ansel Elgort, who is also in a bit of hot water at the moment.
Active Member
Graham Linehan has got massive karma for what he’s doing though, have you seen this tweet where someone photographed him buying ingredients and utensils to make carbonara? - he’s divorced now. One of the many things that pisses me off about him is his using the phrase ‘protecting women and girls’ - he’s not speaking for me! Also he fucked off his own family, a woman and teenage children and is dragging their name through the mud, if you don’t even give a fuck about your own family, who believes he gives a fuck about anyone else? Anyway I could go on for hours about my hate for him, so I’ll stop. He’s an egomaniac and this is just about himself
Active Member
I find the complete opposite, actors are playing someone else, so it’s not like you’re rooting for them, also the only film I really like with Spacey in it is Seven and he’s an absolute villain so I have no problem watching.
Active Member
Neither of them killed anybody. Benoit is most definitely cancelled, Hogan is still paid by WWE and Vince still runs things. That isn't indicative of their outer cancellations but comparatively speaking their crimes against wokeness are weak compared to the death of a woman and her child.
tempus est umbra in mente
I just found out that HP Lovecraft, maybe my favorite world-builder in fantasy/sci-fi fiction circles, was apparently a really open white supremacist racist anti-semitic dick.
That really fucks me up, and not just because he influenced so many people that I love in fiction... he was more than an influence point for some, but really you could imply he was the initial inspiration for many.
My favorite video game of all time is Bloodborne, which has a world clearly modeled directly after HP Lovecraft's work. Does my appreciation for that, even degrees removed, become problematic if its influence was morally fucked? What if the people who made Bloodborne knew nothing about his racism, just like I didn't. Does that make it an acceptable rendering of something that otherwise should be shunned for the shittiness of its creator's beliefs?
That makes it even more confusing for me, re: where I stand on it all. But I'd thought I'd bump the thread.
she/her/hers
1) most people refer to his works and what they've inspired as "cosmic horror" now, acknowledging that he had some amazing ideas while also being a horribly shitty person.
2) i'm assuming you never read his short story where the main character has a cat named "ni**er-man"? because yeah, that's a thing.
3) i would highly recommend checking out the book Carter & Lovecraft and its sequel After The End Of The World by Jonathan L Howard.
4) i am extremely excited for the upcoming series Lovecraft Country.
5) one of my favorite things people do with lovecraft-inspired stuff is use the good ideas but spit in the face of his racism, etc. for example, supernatural had an episode where he (in the past) is gay. the arkham horror deck-building game (which is amazing) is SUPER diverse in terms of characters and super inclusive in terms of leagues that play it. there's a lot of work being done to dismantle the horrible things he believed without erasing the undeniable impact he had on the sci-fi/horror world.
tempus est umbra in mente
2) yeah I do believe I remember this, but using language isn’t an endorsement and we only need to stop at Twain there... but, sorry this one really pisses me off. I kinda felt like Lovecraft was “on my side,” and I don’t know how to explain that, especially considering what we’re talking about with his fucked personal beliefs.
I thought he was being “edgy,” not a racist dick. This scrambles so much for me. Up until a couple days ago, Lovecraft was my standard for gothic horror, and I just assumed he was a cool person. This is upsetting at least, but weirdly this actually messes with the way I appreciate some things in a clearly disruptive way. And if you want me to be honest and sound like a dick, primarily I’m just fucking annoyed
Last edited by Jinsai; 07-27-2020 at 01:56 AM.
Bite me
Are you mad at Mark Twain?
God is an American
I don't envy the Black artists who've had to go onstage and accept the Mark Twain Prize. I like that Chapelle addressed racism in comedy head-on during his acceptance speech, waving a cigarette at the audience, while the bust of a White man from the 19th century looms over his shoulder. It takes chutzpah:
Active Member
I'll still watch and enjoy Kelsey Grammer on Cheers and Fraiser, but am disappointed that he's a Trump guy. He's so well spoken and seemingly intelligent, he should know better.
Bite me
https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/marktwain/The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor recognizes individuals who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the distinguished 19th-century novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens, best known as Mark Twain. As a social commentator, satirist, and creator of characters, Clemens was a fearless observer of society, who startled many while delighting and informing many more with his uncompromising perspective on social injustice and personal folly.
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/mar...venient-truths
Last edited by allegro; 07-28-2020 at 01:52 AM.
Active Member
Here's a question that doesn't seem to be pondered much, and it kind of makes me mad in one very specific case although there are others. What happens when the actual truth is different from the popularized news item/scandal? Currently Johnny Depp is in court trying to disprove the abuse against Amber Heard, when in actual fact there is plenty of awful evidence to the contrary. This is a good enough example, because the hubbub about what's going on now doesn't seem to be as loud and as furious as when social media were lead to believe that another Hollywood leading man was accused of abusing his spouse.
My very specific axe to grind here is regarding Pete Townshend, and that the immediate response to him online goes back to his 2003 arrest for looking at child pornography. I always point to this as proof that his misguided attempt at trying to take down that foul industry was nothing more than that, an emotional journey brought on by the deaths of a few people close to him in his life who experienced sexual abuse as children, as he did as well (part of which inspired him to write Tommy). But explaining such a thing can't be enough for the more rabid SJW's who want to prove how pure they are by ignorantly labeling him a pervert and pedophile. And that pisses me off, as does so much about the internet now.
Last edited by onthewall2983; 07-30-2020 at 10:17 AM.
God is an American
I am watching Shane Carruth self destruct in real time on Twitter. I do not wish I was doing this.
I know, I loved Huckleberry Finn as a kid. I can appreciate the stuff that's great about Clemons' writing now. Black men may feel differently about him in America, though.
Bite me
J don’t think so. It’s generally an honor to receive a Kennedy Center award. That particular award just happens to be named for Twain because he was America’s premier humorist but also because he was such a huge advocate for social justice.
We read “ The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson” in a college American Literature class. One of my favorites. It’s a short little book so I gave copies to several friends and relatives.
Twain’s activism is legendary.
https://socialistworker.org/2010/04/...ey-didnt-teach
Last edited by allegro; 07-29-2020 at 10:30 PM.
she/her/hers
yeah, what the fuck? poor amy...
and seriously, the college student (?) that shane has repeatedly threatened with violence...fucking yikes.
Bite me
What a horrible horrible asshole.
Flaccid Member
It's up to each individual to decide that. Not everyone shares the same "that's it, line in the sand!" to answer this with a definitive answer.
God is an American
I'm not going to be able to watch his films now without thinking "fuck me, was he behaving like that on set the entire time?"
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