MattHunX wrote:

I don't recall precisely when I first heard the term "feminazi"

I do. Rush Limbaugh in the 90s. It was a shitty right wing term in then as it now. That you accept these terms without knowing the history is as lazy as it gets.

Oh so these are just attempted cancellations. So much for ruining lives and careers.

The way I hear it Chapelle's show was more popular than ever because some on the left complained about it and people watched it on principle. They exact opposite effect of cancellation.

This was especially after Joe Rogan went on air complaining about the reactionary left slating it on Rotten Tomatoes such that it had 0% and his fan boys rushed to see it.

I checked and, at the time, it had a little more than 0%, but there was only like 4 or 5 reviews and at the time I worked out there must have only been 3 at the time Rogan aired for there to be 0%.

So much forJoe Rogan saying leftist media critics were up in arms about it (ironically up in arms himself). Seems to be the much larger concensus among critics was disinterest as they didn't even bother watching it, or reviewing it at least.

Talk about manufacturered outrage on Joe's part!

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MattHunX wrote:Just to clarify my position on Elba as 007 thing. Just simply having him be another James Bond would be plain, transparent tokenization. Have him be 007, sure. Just not James Bond. Someone new to the position. Come up with a new character with their own unique story. Have him be his own character, not just a lazy "re-skin" of an already well-established character. Doing just that is the laziest thing they could do. And it is an insult not just to creative writing, but the creators of the original character.

1:
Again: this is an argument about artistic merit. If you are applying it to the trend (ie the backlash at the news of Elba as 007) you haven't argued your case. You have only listed a talking point. It's an invalid syllogism, and therefore useless. As I wrote earlier, I can come up with a fairly robust argument for why glorifying Confederate generals isn't necessarily racist. It would do almost no work towards proving whether or not their glorification in the real world is racist. Likewise, listing a possible reason why someone might object to Elba as Bond doesn't represent the real world, so it's a useless description of the backlash. You can't selectively transition from the specific to the general. If the "plain, transparent tokenization" doesn't explain the volume and intensity of the backlash, then it doesn't answer anything. Again, refer to the part in my post which you quoted but decided to ignore, where I strongly suggest that artistic merit isn't likely a grave concern for the average modern Bond movie fan.

2:
And to repeat, because it's a lost point that bears repeating: whatever the topic of rage, most people who rage don't know why they're raging. Therefore, taking someone's word for why they're raging is a useless endeavor. (Much more useless still, is projecting your own stated "concerns" onto the masses.) Also, a label like "racist" is a stigma most people avoid, so to the extent that a person is even mildly aware of racist motive, they are very likely to mask it regardless.

Those two elements lead to a decision about method. If someone is genuinely interested in figuring out whether a backlash is racist, they'll think statistically and dispassionately. They'll discount their own preferences for depictions of Bond (if the person is even capable of it, which is dificult to do when emotion routinely guides their responses). They'll try as much as possible to discern whether the Elba backlash has been noticeably stronger than other backlash against "artistic" decisions in the modern Bond movie franchise. It's armchair statistics, but it's infinitely better than naked projection.

Also, there's an old joke floating around, likely Russian or just generally slavic in origin, about a black spy trying to blend in among the white people and he has the foreign language down, his accent is perfect, he knows the culture...etc., so he doesn't understand how everyone can tell he's a spy and at the end of the joke, they tell him and the listener it's because he's black. Now, that might be just a joke, but it's greatly highlights a legitimate issue they'd have if they just tokenized Bond. They'd have to have a setting where a black 007 would "fit", where him being a spy would make sense. And I seriously doubt that I have said anything, here, that's somehow racist. Yet...some SJWs would construe even this as racist somehow, because it's in their head all the time.

Others already addressed various reasons why this "concern" is bogus. Since my arguments (above) haven't been countered at all so far, I'll direct you to those, if you're sincerely interested in depicting/understanding trends, and aren't just looking to be therapized.

It’s funny that people think a spy’s goal is to “blend in.” A spy’s goal is to have people think he/she isn’t a spy. A black spy would fulfill that goal nicely.

This would be added to a bevy of reasons... if one were actually motivated by a search for understanding, and not by the need to rationalize actions already taken. At what point does a person become bored by genetic impulse, I wonder.

Fallible wrote:This ‘lazy re-skin of an already well established character’ that’s mentioned, Matt. Were you complaining about that when 007 became Irish? Or Welsh? Or just an obviously different man who we were meant to accept as the same person when it was clear to everyone that he wasn’t? Any problem you think there would be with a black James Bond could be overcome. Sometimes it might require some hard work and creativity. That, by the way, would not be ‘lazy‘. Saying ‘we can’t have a black James Bond because people would notice his blackness’, though. That may well be one of the laziest things I’ve heard.

To be fair, people have moaned about every new James Bond since it started. Even Sean Connery.

Yes, and that's a great start for a real analysis! Statistical mindsets, people. It's fun for all involved!

felltoearth wrote:It’s funny that people think a spy’s goal is to “blend in.” A spy’s goal is to have people think he/she isn’t a spy. A black spy would fulfill that goal nicely.

I don't think James Bond has ever been very good at that, to be fair.



Incidentally, Bond is another property that no-one seemed to be too bothered about becoming more progressive and self-critical in the 90s...



...but now it would suddenly be unthinkable.

Speaking of people watching things on principle. When HBO (misguidedly IMO) took down Gone With the Wind after recent events and protests a lot of wingnuts decided to watch it to own libs.

Animavore wrote:Speaking of people watching things on principle. When HBO (misguidedly IMO) took down Gone With the Wind after recent events and protests a lot of wingnuts decided to watch it to own libs.

They should take down all of Ken Loach's films so they have to sit through 50 years of socialist cinema then.

It amuses me no end, that when some folk hit back at the constant woke-a-rama they get speedily described in such terms as used in the early posts in this thread; fanboys, crybabies, manbabies, etc etc. They are essentially told, you can’t complain and if you do we’ll hold up a mirror and use your words as a unique attack back.
The new Star Wars was widely criticised as dull, poorly written and plagiarised cack. It failed to shine and the motherlode (the toys) failed to glitter. The harsh critics were damned as “man-babies”.
Black Panther, the character, was excellent in the Civil War movie and was full of personality. Yet the solo movie was shit. Again, a poor script, and a strangely hollow Black Panther (and some horrible CGI) bummed out this highly anticipated movie.
Captain Marvel was boring but mostly passable. It was Larson’s behaviours before and after the movie that got backs up. Have you seen her in interview with the rest of the Avengers cast? It’s creepy.

There is certainly a toxic element in any ideology that assumes an absolute truth. That said, reading this thread has let me feel confident in deciding that I can accept the label of social justice warrior. Or at least a clerk in their army.

No one calls people with legitimate criticism manbabies. If you aren't aware of the overboard reactions of some people you are luckily out of touch. You missed out on the people who threw a fit on the trailer of Star Wars a year before it was even out because it had a black stormtrooper. The people who downvoted Black Panther on IMdB before it was out. The ones who railed against an all female Ghostbusters when it was announced before it even went into production. The people who dedicated whole vidoes to Brie Larson having a flat arse and not smiling. The ones who complained about the 'butch' design of She-Ra months before arriving on Netflix. The ones who went mental at the trailer of Battlefield V because it featured a woman on the trailer. The ones who bullied Leslie Jones and Kelly Tran off Twitter over Ghostbusters and Star Wars with racial abuse.
Etc. Etc.

These are who are being referred to as the reactionary right manbabies.

This is exactly why we're in the ridiculous position we're in now. People are all fucking het up over super hero movies and video games. Grow the fuck up and get a fucking life, FFS.

Artistic exploration & passion therein is part of "life". So, since this is probably your way of bookmarking the topic, good on ya. The comment is empty either way.

Sez you.

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I'm With Stupid wrote:...Every year we had to sit through the "war on Christmas" stories claiming that we weren't allowed to say Christmas any more...

The Starbucks version is fabricated, as it turns out. Midwifed by the Grey Lady herself. A lovely example of mass brainlessness. Here's a brief timeline:

1.
Nov 5, 2015: the jagoff who kickstarted it with a facebook video.

2.
Mollie Hemingway reporting 5 days later in the (ultra conservative, as it happens) The Federalist, tracing the idea back to:

3.
A somewhat tongue-in-cheek Nov 5 article "War on Christmas" in Breitbart.

(So, to reconstruct: a jagoff at Breitbart essentially trolled their own readership; a jagoff reader was trolled by said trolling (or saw a marketing opportunity); jagoff #2 then made a fb video; and because fb was still the eminent grandaddy of useless information at the time, the video was a hit.)

4.
(It turns out, sbux has had special holiday-themed cups since at least 1997.)

5.
Five days after the controversy, spoof site Dandy Goat published a spoof piece titled "Starbucks CEO admits plot to lure customers into Satanism".

6.
Snopes addressed said "controversy" almost exactly a year later (2016)... because...

7.
A conspiracy website re-posted the Dandy Goat claim as real ("Starbucks Unveils New Satanic Holiday Cups")

8.
Fast-forward to 2017, and The New York Times publishes the article "Starbucks Is Criticized for Its Holiday Cups. Yes, Again."

9.
The aforementioned conservative Federalist reporter finds the sourcing for said NYT piece consisted of a single tweet by someone with 16 followers ... which the Times didn't even cite in the article, but which was mentioned in articles the piece linked to.

And again. People getting all pissed off about a manufactured controversy over the patterns on the paper cups a fucking coffee shop is using during the Winter Solstice. Apparently it offends someone's imaginary friend. Or the imaginary friend offends someone else. It's ridiculous. No serious person gives a single shit about any of it.

Once again- grow the fuck up, get a fucking life.

I'm With Stupid wrote:

Fallible wrote:This ‘lazy re-skin of an already well established character’ that’s mentioned, Matt. Were you complaining about that when 007 became Irish? Or Welsh? Or just an obviously different man who we were meant to accept as the same person when it was clear to everyone that he wasn’t? Any problem you think there would be with a black James Bond could be overcome. Sometimes it might require some hard work and creativity. That, by the way, would not be ‘lazy‘. Saying ‘we can’t have a black James Bond because people would notice his blackness’, though. That may well be one of the laziest things I’ve heard.

To be fair, people have moaned about every new James Bond since it started. Even Sean Connery.

Yes, I know. But in this instance, it is Idris Elba who would be a step too far.

Idris is gorgeous. I say that as a straight, CIS, white man.