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#and there will always be shithead fans that’s not really the root of the problem here although it doesn’t help
georgervssell · 3 years
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i just wish wilson would tone it down more... like i really would just like for all this to be able to stop happening because it’s not good for anyone
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bigskydreaming · 3 years
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For the record: I fucking adore pre-Crisis Dick and Bruce and always have. And would have ZERO problems whatsoever with people focusing on the version of events surrounding Dick’s leaving home in that last reblog…if not for how often this is paired with the reactions and attitudes Dick was written as having in direct response to the OTHER version of events in which he was fired. Its literally just the mixing and matching that’s the problem for me. 
(And additionally for the record, this has absolutely nothing to do with that reblog or its OP or anything other than the fact that I’ve been trying to write this particular post for like two months and could never muster the spoons before now. But seriously, not really about that post at all, it just finally got the gears working in the direction I wanted them to go).
Anyway. Like I said, its the mixing and matching of cause and effects that are inherently just not MEANT to match up and go together, because the effect was not referring back to a specific cause, but rather a different one altogether....that’s the issue. That’s always been the issue.
Because when you leave out the key fact that Dick’s hostility in later stories is written with the explicit intention of referring back to stories in which Bruce instigated their estrangement, you make it look like Dick is just a spoiled brat who throws temper tantrums when things aren’t about him, when that is literally not the scenario he was being characterized that way in response to. 
My problem has never been with Dick and Bruce having a good relationship or Bruce being a good father who loves his eldest and expresses that in a myriad of ways. Its with the narratives that twist a specific sequence of cause and effect to shift the focus away from any possible reason Dick could have for being upset with Bruce….to spotlight SOLELY Dick’s upset, with all actual relevant context deliberately stripped away and replaced with the context of “Bruce is a good father who loves his eldest and never fails to express that in a myriad of ways.” 
And with the way this pattern has then been mirrored over the decades since it was initially applied by fandom to avoid dealing with the earliest stories where Bruce was written as abusive….and with the ripple effect consequentially being that it has become a fandom staple for the focus to be put entirely on what Dick’s doing at all times and never on WHY, so that he constantly keeps getting upheld as the problem even in situations where he was clearly the victim. Like with Spyral, like with Ric Grayson, like Mirage and tons of other times throughout this character’s history because once you establish a precedent and uphold it to the degree that we’ve so often seen with “Dick is really the mastermind of his own misery, because none of the things that he’s miserable about really happened to him, look see, Bruce is a fabulous father and always was”.....like, you get a lot of repetition at that point.
Because that, right there, ESPECIALLY when paired with the reality that the stories that this tendency is most commonly used to distract from, like Dick’s firing and NTT #55 and NW #30 and other issues where there were clear and obvious instances of abuse in how Bruce was written......intentionally or not, that replaces these narratives of abuse, but NOT with stories where everything’s all fine and dandy.....but rather, with a narrative of abuse apologism, even if it is largely unintentional.
Because when an abuse victim’s behavior in specific moments is called into question AT THE SAME TIME as the root cause of that specific behavior in those specific moments is shuffled offstage and KEPT out of focus, so that the abuse victim’s specific behavior is upheld as the ONLY issue at hand, leaving the abuser who they’re reacting to free to just keep on walking while no one pays them any attention now.....this is a fundamental cornerstone of abuse apologism in real life as much as in fiction. And it has nothing to do whatsoever if its INTENDED that way, its simply the reality of what results.
And its that last part that usually gets me and a lot of other fans so worked up because just like a lot of people turn to Bruce as their emotional support character because they relate to either his trauma or his coping mechanisms or a million other things about him.....there’s a shit ton of us who turn to Dick Grayson as our emotional support character because we relate to HIS trauma....which, like it or not, for many of us INCLUDES his at-times extremely shitty relationship with his parent.
The way people condescend about this in particular, acting like the ONLY POSSIBLE REASON anyone ever has for writing Bruce as abusive or writing fixes or codas or transformative response-takes on actual literal canon stories where he was written as abusive.....like, treating the situation as though people ONLY do this for the sake of angst porn or to smear Bruce’s character, like, they’re just in it for the drama and there’s absolutely no other possible reason to engage with those particular stories.....its aggravating as hell. 
Especially when this is paired with stuff like “oh, sorry I’m not addicted to making Bruce an abusive shithead, I have taste and am above click-bait angst lolol” like.....people really think they’re saying something there, but its probably not what they think they’re saying when you hold it up against the fact that most people saying this have ZERO problem with excessive angst and misery in literally any other context EXCEPT for ones where Bruce is to blame.
I like to refer back to the fact that people disparage any focus on Dick being fired as being ‘just a retcon’....because of how that coincides with the fact that Jason’s pre-Crisis stories were largely (though not completely) retconned as well. Because its not just the fact that Jason’s origin as an acrobat was retconned to him being a street kid that’s significant here....but rather, the fact that HOW he became Robin was retconned as well. Since originally, pre-Crisis, just like it was Dick who chose to move on from Robin himself, it was Dick who chose to make Robin the name Jason used as Batman’s partner as well. 
So I’d be fine with people being like “oh I don’t engage with the retcon of Dick being fired because it was just a retcon” except for the fact that they DO engage with a huge part of that retcon still. They engage with the part where Dick is bitter and resentful of not being Robin anymore, just not the REASONS for it, because they’ve supplanted all the history for the version of events where Dick is resentful with the history from when Bruce was nothing but supportive. And then ADDITIONALLY, they still engage with the part where it was Bruce who made Jason Robin, not Dick, as this is then linked in fanon to WHY Dick is allegedly so resentful of Jason as Robin.....even though that too is a retcon, and if they just went with the original story where Dick gave Jason his name and costume before Jason ever debuted as Robin for the very first time.....voila, no resentment or bitterness from Dick towards Jason would ever exist.
See what I’m saying? Its frustrating hearing over and over that people don’t like the firing retcon just because it was a retcon and they like the original....AT THE EXACT SAME TIME as they continue to interact with and engage with literally every part of the retcon EXCEPT for where Bruce did stuff that Dick understandably could be upset about.
And that people claim this is to avoid the more negative aspects of things between Bruce and Dick and make for a more positive family dynamic....except then they still KEEP Dick being estranged and not coming home and sniping at Bruce as WELL as keep Dick being resentful and bitter about Jason so its like.....Error 404, More Positive Family Dynamic Not Found, its almost like you’re totally fine with Dick being the fly in the family togetherness soup, just so long as Bruce comes across fine.
And this is the pattern we see over and over, and that’s why the frustration Dick Grayson’s fans have with a lot of the rest of fandom are not directly interchangeable with the frustrations fans of any character have when its their favorite character in the hotseat. Because its not the simple fact of other fans not liking his character or stories about his character, its the HOW and WHY of the reasoning, and how often that’s telling people who relate to parts of Dick’s narrative that include the uglier bits with Bruce, that like....the stories we’re upset about don’t matter, or aren’t relevant, or didn’t happen, lmfao.
Because here’s the thing: nobody has to engage with parts of canon they don’t like. We all come to these stories and characters for different reasons and if Bruce written abusively is totally counter to everything you love about the character, OF COURSE you don’t want to engage with those takes! Of course you find that out of character and view it as shitty writing that should never have happened. And that’s FINE!
But its not about whether or not you just choose not to engage with these stories or ones based on them.....its about how often people then TALK OVER the people who DO choose to engage with these stories or ones based on them.....and belittle their validity in existing at all, try and paper over the stuff that people are directly trying to address by way of fic by arguing points that aren’t in contention.....because we’re not disputing that there’s a version of events where Dick left home happily, we’re literally just saying THAT’S NOT THE STORY WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.
Like, if I go on a post where people are just having a good time with good wholesome father and son interactions between Bruce and Dick and say something like “wow wish this was real and that Bruce wasn’t actually an abusive shithead”....I’M THE ASSHOLE THERE. Lol, make no mistake. But the flip side of that is when people go on posts where people are talking about times and places and ways the dynamic between Bruce and Dick is shittier, and say stuff like “wow good thing this isn’t real and everyone with taste knows that this is just angst bait and Bruce is actually the Best Father”.....uh....what exactly is the difference here?
(Especially, and I CAN NOT stress the hilarious irony of this enough....when they then just go back to making another Whumptober entry. LOL that’s fine! The part that’s hilarious though is condescending to people who write abusive Bruce Wayne takes as just being in it for the misery business when like......umm. Like I have a point here, but I’ll let people reach it on their own. The dots though. They’re extremely connectable).
Also also, I would just like to point out that Batfandom in particular has always leaned heavily on the “sometimes people write things to cope” in regards to rape and incest fic, etc........so as long as certain corners of fandom are willing to lean heavily into that argument to defend any and all kinds of sexual content in fic, they might consider extending that very same logic to “sometimes people write things to cope” in regards to abuse survivors writing about abusive dynamics within the Batfam to work through their own shit with abuse.
But I’m just extremely tired with the “but its a retcon/its bad writing” arguments rearing their heads anywhere people are like “here is a canon story I would like to engage with because hey I thought fanfic was supposed to be about us being able to fix shitty canon or address shitty canon or just lampshade that shitty canon is shitty”.....particularly when that awareness of things being a retcon seem to be devoid of any awareness of how retcons WORK.
Because the thing is, we all know and get how retcons work. We understand that retcons act as an insertion point for a second version of events that later stories can refer back to or act upon INSTEAD of the original version of events.
This is why literally nobody in fandom writes stories about Jason as the Red Hood and tries to like....use them to make points about Jason’s childhood as a circus acrobat. Because everyone gets that the issue there isn’t whether or not Jason’s early childhood was retconned, and there only being ONE TRUE VERSION of that you can go with......no, people get that it doesn’t matter IF they for whatever reason prefer Jason’s original story.....literally no canon story about the Red Hood has been written with the intention of referring back to THAT origin instead of the street kid Jason origin. No story about the Red Hood is attempting to SAY anything about or DO anything with Jason the child acrobat instead of Jason the street kid.
So why does that awareness vanish the second that stories about how Dick RESPONDS to the retcon of being fired come under scrutiny....with people acting like they just don’t get how retcons work all of a sudden, and its fine to argue the point about how that second inserted sequence of events isn’t relevant and everyone knows this so clearly there’s no problem treating Dick’s reactions to those events as though they’re just reactions to Bruce and Dick fighting over college?
Every character has at least two versions of themselves, tbh. A canon version and a fanon version. And obviously with a shared universe as old and having passed through as many hands as DC has....you could argue that there are many canon versions of Dick’s character. 
I would argue however that there are two distinct fanon versions of Dick’s character as well. And to be clear, each of these fanon versions encompass a spectrum unto themselves, there’s a wide range of varying DEGREES of these two fanon takes.....but there’s two specific fanon Dick Grayson STARTING points.
One of these of course is the happy-go-lucky, air-headed, never worried about anything in his life, cereal-munching, fashion disaster, sails through everything without a care in the world other than his care for everyone but himself Dick Grayson. 
I mean, I don’t particularly care for that one, but it is what it is, and like I said, every character has that fanon take that has a lot of their fans going Lol wut a mess, like plz just no.
The fanon starting point I’m usually more concerned about is this one: the Dick Grayson who grew up in the lap of luxury but never really appreciated it or what he had, who is territorial and possessive, prone to fits of anger with very little provocation prompting people to walk on eggshells around him, who cares about other people but is often oblivious of his effect on them because he’s just so reckless, so impulsive, that frequently he jumps into situations without thinking about how other people will be impacted by what he says or does, and then is too proud to take it back.
The reason I’m bothered so much by THIS fanon Dick Grayson is because I flat out don’t believe we get to him by looking at canon....but rather by extremely selectively AVOIDING looking at canon, but only specific PARTS of canon.
And thus we get a Dick Grayson who never really appreciated his childhood or what he had.....as evidenced by the Dick Grayson who at times takes shots at Bruce for how he raised Dick......but without ANY examination of or awareness that the way those shots are written in canon, are with the intention of referring back to specific stories in which Bruce DID fuck up in certain ways while raising Dick....rather than a Bruce who was nothing but supportive and nurturing and did no wrong ever.
And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is territorial and possessive....as evidenced by the way he’s been less than graceful about ‘sharing’ Robin with certain of his siblings, or even Bruce himself......but without ANY examination of or awareness that the reason he’s written as ungracious about these things in these specific moments is because they were written with the intention of referring back to specific stories where something he built from the ground up - Robin - was stripped from him and given away without consulting him, or when he had to watch others enjoy a specific aspect of their relationship with Bruce that he was never (or at least not yet) ever offered himself......rather than just because Dick’s spoiled and selfish and never learned to share because he has only child syndrome.
And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is prone to fits of anger with very little provocation prompting people to walk on eggshells around him.....as evidenced by the way he blows up at certain people at certain times....but without ANY examination of what they said or did to him just BEFORE he blew up at them, or awareness that the reason he said awful things or displayed such anger is because he was specifically being written as reacting to things that very understandably PROMPT such anger, or he was written standing up for himself in the face of people saying or doing shitty things as well, or even outright attacking him......rather than just because Dick has a hair-trigger temper and anger management issues, and nobody’s ever said or done anything that justifies him getting angry at them ever.
And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is oblivious to his effect on other people because he’s just so reckless and impulsive that he jumps into situations without thinking about how they’ll be impacted....as evidenced by the way he does things like fake his death without thinking through what this will do to others......but without ANY examination of the fact that the stories in which he’s originally written MAKING the decisions to do these things, he DOES think through how others will be impacted, like how in NW #30 he did nothing BUT argue how it would affect his siblings and Barbara, or awareness of the fact that the reasons these arguments don’t change the outcome of events is because they’re deliberately written as not being ALLOWED to change the outcome, as Dick’s objections and concerns for other people are actively overriden and over-ruled.....rather than because he doesn’t make these objections in the first place or think through how other people will be impacted by things.
And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is just too proud to take things back when he fucks up.....as evidenced by the way that he either doesn’t apologize for certain things, or his apology seems hollow or insincere, or his apology doesn’t preclude him from doing something similar again later down the line....but without ANY examination of the fact that the reasons for all of these more often have to do with the fact that the crimes aren’t his to apologize for in the first place, its often him that’s owed the actual apology, and he simply won’t be ALLOWED to not get into the same situation in the future because the entire reason this pattern persists so frequently is because there’s zero sincere examination of what the pattern actually consists OF and just WHY it is that Dick in specific is so frequently stuck in this particular pattern....rather than just because Dick’s simply too proud to ever acknowledge when he fucks up.
Does that specific fanon interpretation of Dick Grayson sound at ALL familiar to anyone else?
And can you understand how the frustration with it could stem from not simply the fact that it exists, or that its not canon based....but rather the fact that it in order to exist at all, it REQUIRES building upon a foundational cornerstone of abuse apologism and outright ignoring and disregarding stories where he is the one victimized in order to prioritize that no blowback for the canon instances of abuse impact or reflect badly upon the actual victimizing characters in fandom conversations about these things?
Because speaking solely for myself now....this is and ALWAYS HAS BEEN, the ONLY issue I have in this matter. I have zero problems with good dad Bruce Wayne content, with prioritizing takes where Dick wasn’t actually fired, with simply not wanting to engage with canon or fan content where Bruce is abusive....none of these things have EVER been my problem or ever will be....as long as they like....don’t go hand in hand with making an abuse victim his own victimizer and everyone else his hapless victim whenever the specific instances of when he’s been a victim of other characters in canon comes up either in fic, headcanons, meta or just casual conversation.
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i-gwarth · 6 years
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The Last Jedi: themes of change, cycles of renewal, and bitching about lore
Spoilers included
Ok, so I was going to give this a bit more time, maybe watch the movie again to see if I caught all the details, but then I started seeing all of these reviews on Youtube from ostensible Star Wars “fans” that just... miss the themes of this motion picture by an enormous margin. So I’m going to tell you what it’s all REALLY about. And you can trust me, because I have a small blog on the internet and write long unwieldy sentences.
Here’s what I’m going to start with: AngryJoe begins his spoiler review by complaining about the death of Leader Snoke. About how he wanted to know about his origins, his powers, his damn rings. Joe asks “where were the lore masters” when this scene was written. And like... I admit I too was curious about Snoke when I first saw TFA. But here’s why I think clinging to that is wrong: as TLJ moved on with its own scenes I realized more and more that Snoke was an utter irrelevance. A red herring, a nebulous and powerful “evil presence” to kickstart the plot.
Nobody important. Film wasn’t about him in any way. And so of course he would die halfway through the film in a way that echoes the deaths of both Palpatine and Darth Maul (as always, the history of the Star Wars galaxy rhymes, and the past is echoed into the future). Just like Palpatine, he dies in the same movie that he makes his first “real” appearance in, at the hands of his own apprentice, whom he had derided and openly mocked in front of someone said apprentice clearly cared about. Hell, he even outright states he cannot be destroyed; if that’s not a dead giveaway I don’t know what is. We find out just as much about the Supreme Leader in TLJ as we did about the Emperor in ROTJ. Which is to say, no more than we need.
Again, this story was never about Snoke. He was a literal relic, physically and metaphorically left over from the old days. The new trilogy is about a new generation of heroes and villains inheriting things from the old guard and fumbling and making their own mistakes as they become independent and try to understand their role in this next chapter of history.
Rey’s parentage reveal is another thing that bothers a lot of people, who are more preoccupied with lore and the mechanical intricacies of a fantasy space opera than with the characters the entire story is built around. Of course Rey is a nobody, daughter of drunkards on Jakku. She’s not a Skywalker or a Kenobi or whatever. Because, again, this trilogy is about releasing yourself from the past. Kylo Ren sees this as “killing the past”: first his parents, Han and Leia, then his mentors, Snoke and Luke. Rey, on the other hand, interprets that same concept differently: she realizes that her origins, as the nothing daughter or nobodies on a nowhere planet, doesn’t stop her from becoming a fucking Jedi hero.
Hell, even fucking Yoda, the series-long stand-in for tradition, dogma and the ancient Jedi ways, understands this metanarrative need for change and renewal that both the franchise itself and the long-held philosophies within it sorely need. Rey doesn’t really need Luke’s teachings, inherited from generations of previous Jedi masters, just like Luke didn’t really need Yoda’s teachings that much. Both Luke and Rey took only the barest understanding of Jedi-ism with them into the confrontation with their respective masked men and their masters.
Here’s the thing though: it could be argued that this cycle of breaking off from the past has taken place once before, but was incomplete. Luke did learn some stuff from Yoda, like a loathing of the dark side, and attempted to pass that flawed knowledge on to a new generation with disastrous results. The renewal wasn’t complete, and the result was failure. The very fear and mistrust of someone powerful falling to the dark that Yoda and Obi-wan instilled into him is what led to the destruction of his new Order. However, Rey has the opportunity to take the cycle to a more positive conclusion: she has with her the ancient texts of the Jedi, but not the old Jedi interpretation of them. Luke never did pass that on to her, and indeed he realized why those ways of thinking had failed. I fully expect Rey to be able to create a truly new Jedi Order, based on a fresh spin on the old wisdom, making Luke Skywalker both The Last of the Jedi and, paradoxically, not.
If I may be allowed a dip into philosophy here, the old Jedi always had a problem with darkness and passion. Yoda relentlessly preaches about their dangers, and Luke is horrified when Rey doesn’t even hesitate to throw herself into the pit in her vision. In my opinion, this is a flagrant rejection of human nature, of the understanding that people can’t just be beings of pure light or pure darkness, and that a balance must be struck between them. Rey is a being of balance. She goes for the dark, sure, but it never corrupts her. Hell, even Kylo is like that, desperately trying to throw himself into the pit for the power it promises, only to never actually be able to go all the way down (and making a fool of himself in his failures). Maybe this will be the basis of the Jedi teachings going forward?
Back to the theme of renewal. Two more things get renewed in TLJ the way I see it: fascism and the rejection of it. It has been said before and it bears repeating: the First Order are the alt-right to the Empire’s Nazis. They’re angry, shithead fascist fanboys. Their convictions are paper-thin and they lack whatever structural cohesion and discipline made the old way work (evil as it was), and as a consequence they start falling apart rapidly as soon as their leader is dead. General Hux’s attempt at following chain-of-succession lasts all of 5 seconds before he backs down from the much more powerful Kylo Ren, like a schoolyard bully who has finally met an even bigger thug. Meanwhile the “Supreme Leader” Kylo Ren is a fucking mess, losing every single crumb of his mind the moment he catches sight of Luke Skywalker, and allows his old master to utterly humiliate him before his entire army.
The Resistance, meanwhile, goes back to the roots of... well, resistance. The old Rebel Alliance was created by rogue senators, stateswomen, financiers and true believers in the democracy of the Old Republic. However, the first thing we were ever told about that democracy, by the Prequel trilogy, is that it had been, for a long time, failing. This is what the scenes on Canto-Bight, who so many lesser reviewers deride as “pointless” and “leading nowhere”, are actually for. They reveal that the New Republic relies on the exact same corrupt power structures as the Empire and the Old Republic before it. The rich man who sold TIE fighters to the First Order also sold X-Wings to the Resistance. That whole segment of the story also reveals that the anti-imperial revolution had failed to protect society’s most vulnerable members. And surely enough, because the cycle of renewal did not complete in this case either, and the New Republic was ashes 30 years after it had started. The Resistance looks set to avoid making the same mistake, by appealing to a different “base”. Instead of nostalgia for an old, flawed power structure, it seems to be centered around support from very poorest members of society, people who have been abused their whole lives by those in power. Floor sweepers on the Starkiller Base. Sisters from mining planets devastated by the First Order. Stable boys in the casino-city Canto Bight. And a random junker girl whose parents had sold her for drink money.
That’s the new foundation. And the renewal seems set to complete itself this time.
Thanks for reading this far. Any comments would be genuinely appreciated.
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anneapocalypse · 7 years
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@kyliafanfiction replied to your post “do you ever think about that fact that like. we got exponentially more...”
I think its because Felix, by being all over the top and what not, is more 'Fun'. Hence he's more popular. Though I mostly appreciated those backstory episodes for the Locus, because he's a guy we needed more on
Also, shitheads being shitty is more in the RT wheelhouse than... well, politics
This isn’t about character popularity. I’m not asking why people like Felix and I’m not saying that they shouldn’t. I’m talking about the writing decisions in the canon material. The mercs are fan favorites, yes, but the amount of screentime and development they get is as much because they’re writer favorites, if not more so. This is in no way atypical of RvB writers generally or of Miles’ writing specifically, and that’s really all I want to say about that today.
Why do I care? I care because Kimball’s backstory is directly tied into the setting where three seasons of the show took place. It’s not just that one character gets less development than another. It’s the fact that we’re missing a massive amount of context for the central conflict of a three-season story arc. As a major character in that conflict, Kimball’s backstory directly ties into that context in a way that Felix’s does not, and the fact that she doesn’t get more is only a symptom of the wider problem of Chorus’s incomplete worldbuilding.
And yes, the missing worldbuilding does matter, because as a major premise of the Chorus arc we’re asked to accept that there is no fundamental difference between the Feds and the News, no ideological divide that matters--that the only real obstacle to them getting along is stubbornness. Because this is a kind of a tough sell, the story goes out of its way to tell as little as possible about the actual roots of the conflict, to deflect us from coming to our own conclusions. But the side effect of that is it leaves major gaps in the motivations of everyone directly involved with the war. Kimball’s iconic question, “What do you fight for?” goes for all practical purposes unanswered.
Politics has always been a backdrop in RvB. Not in the foreground, but frequently in the background. Some of the earliest jokes in Blood Gulch are about military incompetence and bureaucracy. There are political jokes scattered throughout the series. The Chairman’s vendetta against the Director and the way in which he carries it out is as much political as it is practical. And even setting all of that aside... you can’t have a story about a civil war without politics at least in the background. You just can’t.
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moosterrecords · 6 years
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D.O.A., Canada's legendary pioneering punks who set the bar high for punk and basically invented hardcore, are ready to rip it up on the occasion of their 40th anniversary. They have a brand new album called Fight Back and they are embarking on a worldwide tour to support this impressive new effort. The "Men of Action" are ready to take on all opposition and lay down a punk rock path of wild music and free thought. Their rough and ready line up is led by the godfather of Hardcore, Joe Shithead Keithley (guitar, vocals) he is more than ably accompanied by the manic rhythm section of Paddy Duddy (drums) and Corkscrew (bass).
Early reviews indicate that Fight Back is the most innovative D.O.A. album since War on 45. D.O.A. has always been right on the pulse of what's going on in our screwed up world. Fight Back deals with what we have left, which in a lot of ways, is not much. "When you really think about it, income inequality and disparity is at the root of a lot huge problems, like environmental degradation, war, sexism and hate" said Keithley who has been fighting the good fight for the last 40 years. It's why he's made TALK - ACTION = 0 his lifelong mantra. Fight Back, released on Joe's own label Sudden Death Records, is a scathing and timely piece. Joe deals with all manner of unseemly low characters and issues. The album opens with acerbic "You Need an Ass Kickin' Right Now," next rips right into the startling "Killer Cops," then smashes into the anthemic "Time To Fight Back," which is street punk resistance at its fiercest. The album proceeds with the timely "Gonna Set You Straight" with violent and natural ease, and continues with the vitriolic "I Just Got Back From the USA." Then, the album takes a funny twist with "We Won't Drink This Piss" (down with bad corporate beer!) and "You Can't Stop Me," a song in which Joe delves into the character of Slapshot's playing coach Reggie Dunlop (a natural alter ego perhaps). D.O.A. was formed amidst a whirlwind of controversy and upheaval. In 1978, three guys fresh out of high school from the backwaters of Canada's suburbs heard about the punk rock revolution. In February of that same year the band formed and started playing shows. They soon realized that there were no record deals coming in any time soon. Keithley (aka Joey Shithead) who was working towards being a civil rights lawyer before he found punk rock, concluded that the band had to take the "do it yourself" approach long before DIY became a popular concept. He formed a fledging record label called Sudden Death Records and the label released D.O.A.'s first snarling slab of vinyl, the Disco Sucks 7" EP. Disco Sucks soon became an underground hit and the band started touring from Vancouver to their newly adopted "home base" of California five to six times a year. In 1980, Keithley coined the term "hardcore" and the band soon released their landmark album Hardcore 81. The album became a hit, the hardcore movement took off, and D.O.A. pushed that expression into common vernacular. Over the last four decades, D.O.A. have released 17 studio albums, sold over a million albums, and played 4,000 shows on five different continents. The band's albums, shows, and attitude have won over three generations of fans and influenced the likes of Green Day, Nirvana, Offspring, Henry Rollins, David Grohl and The Red Hot Chilli peppers, to name a few. Keithley has also written two books: I Shithead: A Life in Punk and TALK - ACTION = 0. From day one, D.O.A. has helped organize and lead hundreds of benefit concerts and protests for good and just causes like environmental issues, women's rights, food bank benefits, and First Nations' rights. They have organized protests and stood against war, racism, weapons proliferation, and countless other causes. Keithley has been called a cultural politician, trying to change the world from outside the system. He's currently running for Mayor of his home town of Burnaby, under the Green Party banner, attempting to change the system from inside. Keithley and the band were also ardent supporters of the Occupy Movement, realizing this was a step towards equality in our world. He is always looking for a way to push "grassroots democracy" and like his idol Pete Seeger, he and the band won't give up. When the band takes their wild, unbridled show live show on the road, it's a must see, because it's a chance to see one of the last real punk rock bands that gets out there, kicks ass, and tells it like it is. It's a perpetual atmosphere of chaos, veering out of control, but somehow, at the last minute, D.O.A. manages to reign all of it back in. And in an indescribable way, you are not quite the same person afterwards.
TIME TO FIGHT BACK AND CHANGE THIS WORLD
TALK - ACTION = 0
Ya Hey! D.O.A. - Forty years and going strong
The "Men Of Action" are returning to the US for some unfinished business. US TOUR DATES (w/ MDC as main support): 5/21 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall 5/22 - Colorado Springs, CO @ Black Sheep 5/23 - Fort Collins,CO @ Hodi's Half Note 5/24 - Denver, CO @ Streets Of London Pub 5/26 - Las Vegas, NV @ Punk Rock Bowling Festival 5/29 - Laguna Niguel, CA @ Karmann Bar 5/30 - West Hollywood, CA @ The Viper Room 5/31 - San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick 6/02 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge 6/03 - Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad 6/04 - El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace 6/05 - Harlingen, TX @ Hop Shop 6/06 - Austin, TX @ Barracuda 6/07 - Houston, TX @ The Secret Group 6/08 - San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger 6/09 - Dallas, TX @ Gas Monkey Bar and Grill 6/10 - Tulsa, OK @ Shrine 6/12 - Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room 6/13 - Des Moines, IA @ Lefty's Live Music 6/15 - Billings, MT @ The Pub Station 6/16 - Spokane, WA @ The Pin! US & CANADA TOUR DATES (w/ Down By Law + Kevin Seconds (of 7 Seconds) playing solo: 07/06 - Vancouver, BC @ First Annual Fight Back Festival, Rickshaw Theater 07/11 - Regina 07/12 - Winnipeg 07/13 - Thunder Bay 07/14 - Minneapolis 07/15 - Green Bay 07/16 - Madison 07/17 - Milwaukee 07/18 - Chicago 07/19 - Detroit 07/20 - Cleveland 07/21 - Buffalo 07/22 - Brooklyn 07/23 - Philly 07/24 - TBA 07/25 - Toronto 07/26 - Ottawa 07/27 - Montreal ¹77 Festival
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justinmoviereviews · 7 years
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Replacing the Redskins
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The Redskins have passed the point of redemption, and are now an unsympathetic dumpster fire I look forward to cheering against from now on. Which begs the question: which team will I root for? Let’s go through all 32, to determine who I like, who I hate, and who I don’t care about. I want one AFC team and one NFC team.
NFC East:
Washington: eat shit and die, you bloodless fucking vampires. Kirk Cousins manages to be both overrated and screwed over by his shittyass management, everyone that comes here either starts to suck or turns into an asshole, or both, we ruin more promising careers than abortion does (hey-ohh!), and our owner is such a Trumpy shithead that he voids all sympathy anyone might have for the team. This team isn’t just bad or hapless, they’re malevolent. They fired their talented GM for reasons that will never be explained. Their horrible stadium doesn’t even have cupholders! How much would that have set you back, Dan? But right, you needed that money so you could cut down more publicly owned trees. Fuck the Redskins.
Philadelphia: Eh. I don’t think I can name five players on this team. And Carson Wentz is too ugly to be a franchise star.
New York Giants: Fuck the Giants.
Dallas: It’s too much of a Benedict Arnold move to start embracing the team that Washington has united against for years, even with all the spite I have for the Redskins—I mean, it’s not the fans’ fault that Dan Snyder lied and screwed people over well enough to become a billionaire—but I love this team. My two favorite types of quarterbacks are weathered veterans with Super Bowl rings or young promising studs who are gearing up to carry their team into the future. Dallas has Dak Prescott, who fits the second mold and gets extra points for being the accidental starter who wildly exceeded expectations. It also has Zeke Elliot, who carried my fantasy team into the postseason last year pretty much on his own, and has this amazing ability to run directly into a scrum of five lineman and then bust out like a little kamikaze Marshawn Lynch. I will secretly root for this team every week, but I’m scared to admit it out loud.
AFC East:
New England: These assholes don’t need any more love from me, and after the Celtics-Wizards series I’m pretty anti-Boston.
New York Jets: Hahahahahaha #bringbackgeno
Buffalo: These guys are underdogs, they’re good enough to be, not relevant, exactly, but able to torpedo any border-line team’s season, they play in a city so weather-beaten as to engender a lot of good vibrations, their fans are hysterical and deal with the freezing cold in hilarious ways, and they hired Rex Ryan, who despite having campaigned for Trump is still one of the NFL’s greatest personalities. I like these guys a lot, but they’re too remote to ever play on TV down here.
Miami: When Ryan Tannehill got hurt in the playoffs and they started that other guy, I got interested for the first time. He’s not bad! If for whatever reason he becomes the starter, I’ll care about this team, otherwise I will continue failing to acknowledge Florida is a state.
NFC North:
Green Bay: Eh, too boring. Rooting for Green Bay is the equivalent of being the guy who only invests in hedge funds with low interest returns.
Chicago: One of my favorite cities, and I’m one of the few people who is actively a Jay Cutler fan (by the way, if he embraces the persona that’s been attributed to him as a commentary guy, he will become football’s Pete Rose and must-see television) but this team sucks too much to start rooting for.
Detroit: Detroit is a city we should as a nation come together to root for, and it’s cool they have a relevant football team. I like these guys too, but not enough to make them my team.
Minnesota: Yeah, I like them, but not enough.
AFC North:
Pittsburgh: My guys. I love Mike Tomlin, I love AB, Le’Veon Bell and that dominant offense, and ignoring Big Ben’s sordid extracurriculars, he fits the mold perfectly of weathered quarterbacks with Super Bowl rings. Watching them phase out their aging quarterback and replace him with someone new will be interesting. This is a likeable dynastic team that will stay relevant for awhile. This is my team.
Baltimore: DC used to pick up the torch for these guys every postseason after the Skins flared out but then our baseball team got good and now the two cities hate each other. Baltimore is easy to like for Skins fans in exodus because their games are always broadcast here. I suspect I will watch a lot of Ravens games this season, and I respect any man confident enough to wear a fu Manchu like my guy Joe Flacco, who also has one of my favorite names in football, but they won’t be my team.
Cincinnati: Somehow I think it would be easier to like this team if Andy Dalton were a little better. I like most of the major city teams, especially from flyover states, but they almost never show Cincy games in DC.
Cleveland: Trust the process. No but seriously, choosing this team is like choosing to be OJ Simpson’s wife.
NFC South:
Atlanta: They lost their genius offensive coordinator to promotion, their aging quarterback overperformed last year, and they’re probably suffering the Super Bowl hangover every losing team inevitably suffers, except it will be compounded by how bad they choked the big game away. My suspicion is this team will come back down to earth this year. Pass.
Carolina: Winning makes everything better, so it’s no surprise that Cam was slightly less charming last year, but I still think he has the best throw in the NFL, and I will always root for him. I like this team a lot, they’re in my top five, but they’re not my NFC team.
Tampa Bay: I went to a Skins game a couple years ago when they played against Tampa (that was the game where Kirk Cousins led the greatest comeback in team history but I was too bitter about RGIII’s seat on the bench to appreciate it) and there were a ton of people wearing Jameis Winston shirts. We should probably come together as a society and agree that wearing jerseys of guys who likely committed rape is a sign of bad priorities. That said, I’m enjoying watching Tampa Bay resurge a little bit, but not enough for them to be my team.
New Orleans: A great American city, an aging quarterback who puts up huge numbers in losing games, this is a team with a ton of problems and years away from a solution. So why are they my NFC team? They just are. This is sports.
AFC South:
Indianapolis: I will have to google the AFC South in order to remember which teams are actually in it, which doesn’t bode well for any of these fuckheads. Pass on this stupid team.
Tennessee: No.
Jacksonville: How dare they sully an animal as awesome as the jaguar with their sucky football.
Houston: This is my other AFC team. I have two. This is based 100% on the fact that I, who watches zero college football, ended up watching the championship game and fell in love with Deshaun Watson. That kid is a stud. He’s an animal. He’s my favorite player now, hands down. I can’t wait to watch him play.
NFC West:
Seattle: I like Seattle a lot, but they’re a few years past their cinematic season where everything clicked into place and they won the Super Bowl. Russell Wilson has been revealed as kind of a weirdo, Marshawn Lynch is gone, and the defense is starting to show some holes. I still pull for these guys, but I don’t love them as much as I did when they beat the shit out of Denver.
Arizona: As someone who lived in Arizona and loved it, and as someone who appreciates guys like Bruce Arians, I’m a fan of this team. Here’s the problem: it’s almost impossible for us on the east coast to see west coast games, especially when the teams aren’t that good, and Arizona isn’t that good.
LA Rams: With all due respect to my father, who is a proud Cal alum, Jared Goff is not any good at football. And I got fucked over in fantasy by their decision to suck so much that even Todd Gurley couldn’t play.
San Francisco: Great city, proud franchise, and whatever happens with Colin Kaepernick at least they had the balls to stand by him and eventually start him last year. But they’re too dysfunctional right now to adopt.
AFC West:
Oakland: It sucks that these guys are headed to Vegas, where their stadium will be populated by…blackjack dealers and cab drivers who have the day off? This will be the future destination for hungover guys on bachelor parties? I actually don’t understand who they’re marketing to, and it’s particularly disappointing given that this team is on such a positive trajectory. Gaining Marshawn Lynch means this team is now appointment viewing, but I can’t reward the opportunism that sent them packing to a city as illogical as Las Vegas.
LA Chargers: I didn’t even like these fuckers when they were in San Diego. Now they’re gonna be the little brother of a team as stupid as the Rams? Fuck outta here.
Kansas City: I love, LOVE, that they just drafted the anti-Alex Smith as their quarterback of the future. This is the safe, decent team that’s too boring to really bandwagon on, but if they’re gonna replace their game manager with a gunslinger, than Andy Reid is just doin’ it right. Bookmark these dudes, we’ll come back in a few years.
Denver: I now hate Peyton Manning. That has to be someone’s fault. I think it’s Denver’s.
Pittsburgh, Houston and New Orleans. See you guys in September.
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