Elsewhere (307)
Razib Khan reviews Charles Murray’s Facing Reality:
Comfortable white people—“nice white parents” in affluent neighbourhoods who support efforts to “defund the police”—can refuse to look into the data or insist that those data are the product of racist systems and structures. They can “interrogate their privilege” and “confront their white supremacy,” or better yet, demand that others do so. But they won’t be any closer to understanding why poor African Americans and Latinos in inner-city neighbourhoods want more police officers in their neighbourhoods and not fewer, nor why poor African American parents clamour for access to strict charter schools that activists condemn for being “anti-black.” Principled ignorance might be a costless gesture for affluent progressives, but they’re heaping additional injustice onto the backs of those who can least afford the wages of social signalling.
Ben Sixsmith on when paedophilia was avant-garde:
The German Green party was especially notable for its enablement of child abuse. As the Times of London reported in 2015, “a paedophile network was active in the Berlin branch of the Green party until the mid-1990s, with potentially hundreds of victims.” Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leading student activist in the 1968 unrest and a prominent member of the Greens, wrote fantasies about sexual contact with children which he later awkwardly described as “irresponsible” and “a type of manifesto against the bourgeois society.” Cohn-Bendit was not, as you might assume, a hair-brained student when he wrote that filth, but 30 years old. Perhaps the bourgeois society had something — at least something — to be said for it.
Hans Bader on woke bigotry and a dishonest news media:
On July 15, a Reuters fact-check claimed that “many Americans embrace falsehoods about critical race theory.” But it is Reuters that embraced a falsehood, not the American people. Reuters denied that critical race theory teaches that “discriminating against white people is the only way to achieve equality,” saying that was a “misconception” promoted by “conservative media outlets.”
It’s not a misconception. It’s the explicit position of the most famous exponent of critical race theory, Boston University’s Ibram X. Kendi. The “key concept” in Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist is that discrimination against whites is the only way to achieve equality: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination,” writes Kendi in that book, a New York Times bestseller touted by many progressive journalists… Kendi’s book… is a “comprehensive introduction to critical race theory,” notes the leading progressive media organ Slate. Kendi says he was “inspired by critical race theory,” and he has been described as a leading “critical race theorist.” Kendi said that he cannot “imagine a pathway to” his teachings “that does not engage CRT.”
Reuters says it is a fallacy to believe that critical race theory teaches “that white people are inherently bad or evil.” But it is hard to justify widespread discrimination against white people, as Kendi does, unless you believe they are bad. Kendi once wrote an op-ed suggesting that white people are aliens from outer space.
And Tyler Hummel on some of Mr Kendi’s fellow hustlers:
The University of Kentucky paid $5,000 to the Centre for Healing Racial Trauma for the workshop… Titled “Cultivating an Anti-Racist Mindset for Academic Administrators,” the workshop was hosted last winter by the centre, which offers trainings designed to heal people of racism and teach them to be anti-racist, among other services. The centre is run by University of Kentucky psychology Professor Candice Hargons… The session involved deans and other top faculty writing out their “chosen metric for anti-racism,” to whom they have chosen to be accountable, and the steps they have taken thus far to address it… Mary Davis, [dean of the University of Kentucky’s J. David Rosenberg College of Law,] wrote she has begun to “force myself to accept white inferiority,” and that it is “really hard.”
During this jolly barn dance of intersectional psychodrama, weak-minded administrators are instructed to “replace white supremacy with the more accurate white inferiority complex,” an allegedly all-pervasive phenomenon that, we’re told, “organises most systems in the USA.”
Ah, yes. Ectoplasm everywhere. Can you feel the healing yet?
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Mary Davis, [dean of the University of Kentucky’s J. David Rosenberg College of Law,] wrote she has begun to “force myself to accept white inferiority,” and that it is “really hard.”
What. The. Actual. F*ck…?
What. The. Actual. F*ck…?
As noted previously,
These are not good people. They do not mean well.
These are not good people. They do not mean well.
So much that. But it’s the brazenness of it that’s astounding, and the people who defend these not good people.
These are not good people. They do not mean well.
That, as they say.
Sociopaths, armed with both sides of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Foolish people thinking they are wiser than they are, and normal people assuming that the fools surely must be wise if they hold themselves in such high esteem.
and normal people assuming that the fools surely must be wise if they hold themselves in such high esteem.
There will always be grifters and people who are ill-intended. What’s concerning is that the normal inhibitions and deterrents have been compromised, often badly, and nowhere more so than academia. It’s not so much that these creatures exist – it’s that they aren’t laughed out of every room they enter.
Ben Sixsmith mentioned Gabriel Matzneff in his article. There was a famous interview in 1990 on Bernard Pivot’s programme ‘Apostrophes’ in which Matzneff, the famous writer, was encouraged to boast of his habitual child molestation to the general applause, sniggering, and head-nodding of the ‘literary’ panel. It was all rather spoiled however when a rude colonial – apparently, the only creature with a moral compass in the area – pointed out the monstrosity of his behaviour. You can find it online. Here for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0LQiv7x4xs
this jolly barn dance of intersectional psychodrama
Nice turn of phrase.
Ben Sixsmith on when paedophilia was avant-garde…Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leading student activist in the 1968 unrest and a prominent member of the Greens…
The battle cry of the French soixante-huitards (sixty-eighters) was “It is forbidden to forbid” and among the things that they said should not be forbidden was the sexual exploitation of children. I get the impression that this was true of the sixties Left throughout the West. It would be interesting to see what fraction of the leading intellectual lights of the sixties Left were involved in that. (Not that this should surprise us: Leftism is inherently based on the use and abuse of human beings.)
There will always be grifters and people who are ill-intended. What’s concerning is that the normal inhibitions and deterrents have been compromised, often badly, and nowhere more so than academia.
Academia should be drastically shrunk, and society should return to its traditional suspicion of intellectuals.
I get the impression that this was true of the sixties Left throughout the West.
Now that I have actually read the linked article, I see that it confirms that in detail.
Another definitely-not-insane hero of the left.
I totally ignore all these racists who are trying to destroy white man’s culture and achievements while enjoying them.
“Mary Davis, [dean of the University of Kentucky’s J. David Rosenberg College of Law,] wrote she has begun to “force myself to accept white inferiority,” and that it is “really hard.”
I suspect the “really hard” part of accepting her white inferiority is the part where she resigns her highly paid position and advocates for a non-white replacement.
From Khan’s review:
More often one sees the sad admission that America or the West of yore is dead and gone, and that a new approach will be needed. Thing is, that America/West never existed, and the thing that people of a certain age remember is a world run, more or less, by serious people. What we need is very simple but extremely difficult to implement: personal accountability.
Far too many cultural, political, and private matters are viewed thru the lens of collective responsibility. This allows blame to be diffused among the many and therefore nullified and never properly examined, much less addressed. It turns real problems into abstractions, while hysterically elevating impossible-to-solve abstractions to Beelzebub status, the counter to which is always one more snake oil vial away. Liberal democracy gives the veneer of consent and ensures we will never know just who exactly to blame for policy disasters – if the disaster is even recognized as such among the chaos the activist sow.
Personal accountability will return, it’s just a matter of how. You can hang a few now, or many more later, but sooner or later aggrieved people will find someone to blame -regardless of their true guilt – and hold them to account.
Ectoplasm everywhere.
So the new trailer for the new Ghostbusters movie has dropped, and I’m going to be an iconoclast and say it looks like it’s going to be a terrible movie.
It’s dreary, introspective, devoid of humour and stuffed full of random visual references to the original that make no sense in context. It’s a two-hour-long episode of Stranger Things, essentially.
The original Ghostbusters was about three overeducated, unemployable schmucks tossed out of a comfortable university environment, to make a go of it starting their own small business as working class exterminators while fending off officious and self-important government bureaucrats. Surely a decent scriptwriter could find a way to make that appeal to millenials.
Just as an aside, look at what characters the trailer(s) focus on. Look at what the trailer immediately presents as the central conflict of the movie. Look at how many lines each character gets. Paul Rudd is the big name star attached to this movie – how many scenes are there where he does anything, or shows any agency? All of that will tell you who the studio thinks the audience for this movie is.
This isn’t the Ghostbusters movie you were promised.
sooner or later aggrieved people will find someone to blame -regardless of their true guilt – and hold them to account
Sooner or later everyone comes around the idea of helicopters. The problem is it usually happens after all the kulaks have been murdered.
What we need is very simple but extremely difficult to implement: personal accountability.
There’s a common thread between the “white fragility” hustlers, the abjuration of accountability, and a Ghostbusters movie that’s mostly about a single mom fretting about her on-the-trendy-spectrum daughter while ignoring her fatherless teenage son.
There’s a common thread between the “white fragility” hustlers, the abjuration of accountability, and a Ghostbusters movie that’s mostly about a single mom fretting about her on-the-trendy-spectrum daughter while ignoring her fatherless teenage son.
You’re not the blog commenter we deserve, but you are the one we need.
Also, though admittedly Ghostbuster’s is already receiving some love (mostly for simply not being the 2016 version) I wouldn’t say it is iconoclastic to assert that a Hollywood movie in [current year] is going to probably suck.
I’m trying to imagine a producer getting a green light for a remake of High Noon set in the present day, in one of the more vibrant neighborhoods of a major metropolitan area. Not a gritty postmodern reimagining with some deeply flawed antihero, but an actual Gary Cooper type trying to get his neighbors to stand up for themselves. One can almost hear the arguments about audience expectations and box office returns.
(I was going to add a reference to Paula Cole’s Where Have All The Cowboys Gone, but just realized that it was released 25 years ago and now I think I’ll just take an antacid and a nap before I yell at the neighborhood kids to get off my lawn.)
I wouldn’t say it is iconoclastic to assert that a Hollywood movie in [current year] is going to probably suck.
Not entirely unrelated.
set in the present day, in one of the more vibrant neighborhoods of a major metropolitan area.
Wasn’t that essentially Gran Torino?
Not entirely unrelated.
I am old enough to remember Kurtzmann and Orci shitting up the Xena franchise by making Gabrielle a pacifist and pandering hard to the 16-year-old girls they obviously thought were the show’s primary demographic. The episode in which Renaissance Pictures forcibly took back the reins was epic.
I don’t think Kevin Feige was a genius; I just think he understood what a superhero movie was, who was watching them, and what they wanted to see. As William Goldman pointed out, there are a lot of perverse incentives in the Hollywood studio system that prevent this from being all you need to get a successful mainstream action movie made, but still.
I am old enough to remember Kurtzmann and Orci shitting up the Xena franchise
Mr Kurtzman’s knack for failing upwards, despite each new misfire or total disaster, makes me wonder whether he must have some really solid blackmail material stashed away in a safe.
I am old enough to remember Kurtzmann and Orci shitting up the Xena franchise by making Gabrielle a pacifist and pandering hard to the 16-year-old girls they obviously thought were the show’s primary demographic.
I know nothing about the series, but it is absurd for a sword-wielding barbarian heroine to have a pacifist sidekick.
I know nothing about the series, but it is absurd
FTFY
FTFY
Correction: I know about the Modern Major General parody of the series. 🙂
set in the present day, in one of the more vibrant neighborhoods of a major metropolitan area.
Actor Bee Vang who played Thao,a part he earned despite having no acting experience would go on to attend Brown University (imagine that) and reinvent himself as an “activist.” He proceeeded to piss all over the movie and Clint Eastwood using every tiresome trope about “racism”. His resume has been deservedly thin ever since.
it is absurd for a sword-wielding barbarian heroine to have a pacifist sidekick
Yes. Especially since they were already responding to the criticism that Gabrielle occupied the position of Robin the Boy Hostage in a way that Hercules’ sidekick did not by training Renee O’Connor in staff fighting. With, er, mixed success but give her credit for trying.
That season was…special. Timothy Omundson as an erstwhile hippie Jesus, plotlines that revealed that Xena and Gabrielle invented both the Venus/female symbol and mehndi, Gabrielle foregoing her staff to fight with a metsubishi[1] and becoming a vegan pacifist – it was everything a not terribly bright marketing intern might return from a search on “what 16 year old girls like”.
Mr Kurtzman’s knack for failing upwards
He’s made a lot of money in films, of the type where you just have to throw CGI at the screen and use a recognized IP and you’re guaranteed to make money. His TV projects are generally low-budget genre throwaways; I’m guessing he’s a man whose mediocre talent can be adequately concealed by a huge CGI budget when one is available.
To tell if our relationship’s sororal or sapphistical
Sororal. That’s Word of God. The lesbian overtones were injected when the writers found out that the show was wildly popular in women’s prisons because of the accidental butch/femme dynamic, so they started throwing in bits explicitly to tweak them.
[1] That’s a little pot with a blowhole used to blow sleeping powder into the faces of miscreants, not a motorcycle. Although frankly, Gabrielle fighting on and/or with a motorcycle could only have improved that season.
it looks like it’s going to be a terrible movie.
I’m going to politely disagree. And while I “get” that it moves beyond the original premise set up in the original and that’s a GOOD thing. This is what I believe is promising:
1 – it is NOT a “reboot”. Rather, it is a later chapter in the same universe
2 – I didn’t see one bit of woke politics in the trailer
3 – Skipping a generation works for me — kids either connect with grandparents or will discover stuff about dead grandparents that their parents either rejected or aren’t interested in. Forgotten stuff rediscovered is pretty much a staple of fantasy.
4 – I also don’t think it is a bad thing to focus on the teens in the trailer. Most of that demographic doesn’t really know the original like their boomer grandparents do … and if the kids are seeking out for help FROM these original old guys, that’s just another plus for the boomers to return to the theaters.
But, we can speculate all day — I’m willing to pony up my time and $ for this one and take my chances. That last woke one I won’t even watch if it was offered free.
I am the very model of a heroine barbarian;
That’s delightful. How have I gone this many years without ever running across it?
so they started throwing in bits explicitly to tweak [female prisoners]
Yep. T’was only those women’s prisons that got tweaked. Mid-puberty Sam was completely indifferent to the overtones.
[ awkwardly avoids eye contact with bar ]
Sigh. Alas, Showtime’s Spartacus was 10 years too late (though my current and teenage self wouldn’t kick Lawless The Milf out of bed for eating crackers).
films, of the type where you just have to throw CGI at the screen and use a recognized IP and you’re guaranteed to make money.
Looking back, I have accompanied friends many times to showings of crappy comic/superhero/sci-fi movies, just to be sociable.
I’ve seen both “Ghostbusters” trailer, and while I understand where Daniel’s coming from (and I can’t say he’s wrong, either, since we haven’t see the movie), I’m betting it’ll be better than the reboot.
Low bar, I know.
Since I haven’t seen “Stranger Things,” I don’t have that lens to view it through. This has more of a “Goonies” flavor to it, and I’m fine with that.
pandering hard to the 16-year-old girls they obviously thought were the show’s primary demographic
That series was aimed at teenage girls?
* drools at memory of Xena *
The lesbian overtones were injected when the writers found out that the show was wildly popular in women’s prisons because of the accidental butch/femme dynamic, so they started throwing in bits explicitly to tweak them.
Really??? Women’s prisons? Or just the wider lesbian world? I would have assumed the latter.
The lesbian overtones
Band name.
I am reminded of the hugely successful series L A Law which, when viewing figures were presumably falling, introduced a gratuitous “nudge nudge” lesbian relationship which went precisely nowhere but was still considered pretty edgy at the time.
A classy individual, to represent America at the Olympics. Truly the apex of civilization.
Twerking may be an Olympic sport in 2024.
This is what I believe is promising
You weren’t the target audience for the first film, you were the target audience for the second and third[1], and you are absolutely not the ideal demographic for a franchise relaunch that aims to be faithful to the first.
Inasmuch as woke politics is just pandering to suburban Karens, there’s tons of it in the trailers. The heroic single mom, the trendy-spectrum genius daughter who gets all the action scenes, the meathead teenage son, the token black girlfriend, the useless schlub male lead – you could CGI Slimer into an episode of Reba and call it a day.
Most of that demographic doesn’t really know the original like their boomer grandparents do
Most of that demographic doesn’t care about Ghostbusters. The entire point of franchise relaunches is pre-awareness – you don’t have to do as much marketing if your core demographic already knows what your movie is about and will go see it no matter how much it stinks. Now, at one point the conventional wisdom was that you had to massage the property to alsobring in the average moviegoer who didn’t know the IP and just wanted to see a movie Friday night, to be decided on upon arrival at the cineplex. Hence gratuituous lens flares, CGI, and recognizable stars, because the core demo wasn’t large enough to float a mass market movie.
That’s long since ceased to be the case. Pace pst314 above, studios know they have to cater to the fans because the fans will drag their friends along and do the viral marketing the studios don’t want to pay for. Ghostbusters is also not an obscure comic book property known only by nerds; it was a massive box office success and had multiple theatrical re-releases.
The 2021 Ghostbusters seems to think its core demographic is middle-aged suburban single moms. It is wrong. I expect it will do all right on its first weekend, much like Black Widow and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 did, and then crater on the second weekend as the actual demographic spreads the word. Or the movie itself, via digital piracy.
Since I haven’t seen “Stranger Things,” I don’t have that lens to view it through
It’s every 80’s movie aimed at or starring kids, smashed up together with a blue filter, lugubrious direction and whatever stunt casting they could afford. It’s what happens when your KPI is nostalgia/pop culture references per minute of screen time.
[1] There’s a reason they bombed.
Not entirely unrelated.
Critical Drinker has also done a short review of the Ghostbusters trailer on his second channel. He is cautiously optimistic. I myself have seen many, many more good trailers in the last decade than I have seen subsequent good movies so I will withhold judgement until the time comes to pirate it.
This has more of a “Goonies” flavor to it, and I’m fine with that.
Agreed. Although I think too many people look back on The Goonies with rose coloured glasses. It was pretty schmaltzy in the Speilbergian way. And I for one have had enough of smarmy kids in every fucking movie being made but then I may not be the target audience anymore. Which is entirely fine by me. I can watch the original Ghostbusters anytime I want and not contribute a cent in support of their “causes”
These are not good people. They do not mean well.
At least two of them are friends of mine…or I suppose I should say former friends. I’ve heard that white fragility crap from one aimed directly at me for discussing something that he was flat out wrong about…I think it had to do with George Zimmerman. I’ve seen at least one other person use it in a broader sense. Several others either didn’t understand what it was or simply accepted it.
At least two of them are friends of mine…or I suppose I should say former friends.
Same for me. Former friends.
@Daniel Ream, I think what teeth I have left have been significantly ground down by me watching gratuitous lens flares, and the average moviegoer (if I’m not he) would probably say the same. Lens flares are practically never not gratuitous. It’s not even going out on a limb to say no one ever bought a ticket on purpose to see them. We are resigned to lens flares, and wait for the fashion to pass.
In every other respect, your analysis of the marketing of Ghostbusters and its ilk, is (JMHO) the goods.
We are resigned to lens flares, and wait for the fashion to pass.
If you ask me, and for some reason no one ever does, in the last several decades there has been far too much attention paid to how movies are made rather than just making movies. My parents and their friends would, when it rarely came up, name the actors they liked and the movies they liked. I cannot recall a one of them speaking about a director except possibly those with well known styles like John Ford or Hitchcock. And even that was rare. I doubt more than a handful even knew what movies Peter Bogdanovich did. I’m sure they knew approximately who he was but somehow his name never came up over dinner…or cocktails l
Lens flares are practically never not gratuitous
I literally facepalmed the day I learned that in many CGI scenes of naturalistic backdrops, the digital artists insert lens flares because we’ve become so accustomed to seeing them in movies that we expect them when the POV pans near a strong light source (for those unfamiliar, lens flares result from tiny imperfections in real optical lenses that scatter light from a strong source like the Sun. You don’t see them if you go outside and look at a sunny sky, and there’s no reason for them to exist in a realistic sky scene. They’re entirely an artifact of imperfect filmmaking technology)
except possibly those with well known styles like John Ford or Hitchcock
As a filmmaking snob, I both agree and disagree with you. Directors with a recognizable style are outliers precisely because they tend to be polarizing. If a producer wants a reliable mass market ROI vehicle, they’ll stay away from a direction style that’s likely to veer too far into pretentious artsiness. On the other hand, if you’re trying to make a movie where the direction is a big part of what you’re offering the audience, a director with a distinct vision is important.
Even with mass market ROI vehicles, direction is important even if the average moviegoer doesn’t really notice it. “Michael Bay movies” is a punchline for a reason.
You weren’t the target audience for the first film,
Wait, what? Aykroyd came up with the Ghostbusters concept for him and Belushi after Blues Brothers showed that the original SNL audience would turn out to the movies to see them.
Just who do you believe was that original SNL audience?
Suspend the crew? I’d buy them drinks.
Meanwhile, via Ace, in Today’s World of Stupidity™, Should British Columbia change its name?
I think I’d want to change “Nooksack” first, but probably only because I am a racist.
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh ? Elon Musk naming tribes now ?
That’s delightful. How have I gone this many years without ever running across it?
pst314 didn’t even quote the best parts. The whole thing is here, and it’s worth every pixel.
As a filmmaking snob, I both agree and disagree with you
While we do need filmmaking snobs, having so many that the people making movies start to see the sophistication of the process of making a movie..excuse me…a “film”…as their goal, where they seek their glory, in deference to telling a good story will inevitably lead to poorer stories. While one can appreciate the individual parts, it’s the whole that counts. I especially despise the inside “gets”. The film should stand on its own when presented to a reasonably intelligent person. I have long suspected that most people only “appreciate” many films to the degree they do because they read a Leonard Maltin review or watched Siskel & Ebert (to give you some idea how long I have found Hollywood, etc.rather tiresome).