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#like genuinely the amount of credit they deserve for doing this on a major network sitcom is immense
thecryptidbard · 23 days
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More thoughts on the Hetty plotline of “Holes are Bad”, put below the cut for spoilers/sensitive content:
Feeling so grateful that the writers didn’t just make Hetty’s death a ‘I was a woman trapped by my circumstances and killing myself to protect my child was So Noble And Brave Of Me’ thing like they hit on how she hoped to protect her son and how she was trapped but then still also made sure to go a step further and have Hetty acknowledge that regardless of if that had actually protected Thomas, she still knows now that she made a bad choice, and that a big part of it was not just her son but that she was so fucking unhappy in life and had no one and did not have the tools to deal with that and made a panicked, desperate decision that has haunted her ever since.
They don’t let it just be a single or easily digestible reason; they don’t give her an easy explanation or out for her choice, they treat it with nuance and such attention to her as a character in a way that I really can’t imagine any other show doing.
Basically, once again our writers are the best.
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sftswigan · 4 years
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Wigan band, Dirty Circus, return with a point to prove and reveal name of new single
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We’ve got Binns, frontman of the band with us. Alright man, how’s it going?
Good mate, just trying to adjust to this new world we live in as well as trying not to drink too much.
You guys have recently, over the year or so returned to the scene after a long time away. What made you come back and how would you compare the music scene now to how it was then?
Long story shortish...after we split from Sony we carried on for a few years but all wasn’t well within the band and cracks had started to show and we split in 2010. Even though we we’re all best friends the heartbreak of the split with Sony caused us to start blaming each other. We didn’t speak with each other for 8 years pretty much but there may of been an occasional text etc. Then in 2017 Stevie invited us all to his wedding and 3 of us decided to go and as soon as we saw each other we realised that the magic was still there. We decided to book a rehearsal room and see what happened, I contacted the other 2 lads they didn’t want to do it so we moved on as a 4 piece. Soon as we started playing we knew we wanted to play some shows again we had unfinished buisness. We booked a comeback show at the Old courts and sold it out it was only meant to be 1 show but because of the reaction we decided carry on.
The music scene now is completely different, it’s not enough to just be a musician anymore you’ve got to be so many other things. If you want to be successful, social media manager, record label owner, video director etc it’s great in the way that you don’t need to have a big label to release a record but it’s more difficult to really make a mark if you don’t know all the other stuff. But at the same time there’s always new music to listen to and new bands coming through. I just wished a few more of them would get the credit they deserved.
It’s mad how when we originally came through all it was about was finding a label now you can run your own label from a phone.
A real shame it didn’t work out with the label though isn’t it. Why do you think that was?
Yeah mate it just wasn’t the right time. Labels were losing so much money especially the big ones. Mad thing is we had our pick, we met with 6 labels 4 majors and 2 big indie labels. We could of picked any but unfortunately we chose wrong. If we would have had a manager in place before signing I reckon we would of signed elsewhere.
The Suzukis were on Deltasonic during their career and Moco we're well liked on the scene so Wigan bands were being looked at it seems.
Every band wants to sign to a major (in theory) but so many smaller labels do well now, Modern Sky are doing well with the bands they have on their roster. Are they a label you will approach?
We are good friends with Pichilingi who runs the label. We nearly signed to him and his previous label Robot.
The plan was to get the record off Sony and put it out on Robot. So Pichilingi paid for us to go to Wales for a week to record B-sides.
We recorded ‘Middle class masterclass’ on those sessions but couldn’t get the masters for the record in time and due to this it didn’t get released on Robot.
You mentioned interest from other labels, any stories about that?
When we were signed , Atlantic offered us a pretty big US deal including publishing. We turned it down because we were told Sony wanted us to sign a global deal with them so we missed that boat as well. It’s mad, I genuinely think we were cursed!
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During the time you were signed to a major label like Sony, how was it? What positives have you taken from that experience?
It was mad really everything happened so quickly we had only been together 6 months with that line up we didn’t have a manager or anything and we started getting label attention. It was weird, after the first label reached out to us it felt like a different label was in touch everyday and were gradually getting bigger and bigger. It got to the point where we were playing small shows and people from Sony or Parlophone were pretty much the only people in the crowd, in-fact once we played a small festival on the back of a wagon in Ribchester which is near Preston and there was A&R from Sony there. We were all pretty intoxicated as we had been drinking all day and we pretty much told him to fuck off because we thought he was lying. Mad really, it got to the point where we had spoke to pretty much all the major labels and quite a few of the big indies.
Being signed was amazing at first. We got to quit our jobs and got paid for pretty much rehearsing and writing all day, it was the dream. We had all come from working class backgrounds and had that work mentality so we treated it as we would a normal job. We had a rehearsal room just outside Manchester City center and we would practice Monday to Friday 9ish till gone 6 everyday and learnt a lot in that time. I think it stands us in good stead today, we just fit together now we all know each other as musician and know exactly what each other are thinking on stage. We could go weeks between proper practices but as soon as we play it’s like we’ve been playing everyday.
In regards to our experience, like I said, it was amazing at first all our dreams had come true but it started to become frustrating. At about 8 months in, before we signed, we had a huge amount of momentum. Labels were all over us. We were selling all our show’s out, our MySpace (remember that) was going mad at one point we were getting about 600/700 plays a day which at the time was huge. We were playing every week, sometimes twice. We had just been mentioned in NME as part of the radar page and clash magazine had named us ones to watch. Then we signed the deal and the label told us to stop playing live and spend the next 6 months writing our album with the promise they would put everything behind us when we’ve finished the album. That completely derailed all the momentum we had built. We stopped booking shows and spent everyday writing and we wouldn’t see anybody from the label for months, when we did they would tell us yeah we’re speaking with producers about the album. At one point it genuinely looked like we were recording the record with Butch Vig in the US, well that’s what we got told. We had started to look at visa’s and stuff but then that went quiet. We had a manger at this point it was Phil Saxe who had managed the Happy Mondays and worked for Factory for years but he was appointed by Sony so he had his hands tied. Anyway, it got that bad we started to book some shows on the sly and we booked ‘in the city’ not on the main stage but one of the fringe shows we smashed it and had another raft of labels approaching us asking what’s the deal with Sony. We even got named as one of the acts of the festival by Clash Magazine. We hoped this would give Sony the kick up the arse they needed but it wasn’t. It’s key to mention, this was the mid noughties and illegal downloading and counterfeit Cd’s where rife. There was no Spotify or Apple Music and the labels were losing huge amounts of money. Sony had just put out kasabians second record and lost a huge amount of money on it . We had heard that a few our our label mates had been offered settlements to terminate there contracts, The Go Team and infact Primal Scream. So the label had started to cull less profitable bands. We had a meeting and got told they were still happy with us and to keep preparing the record so we cracked on for another 3 months but nothing happened and we still weren’t playing regularly. It was then we got an offer.
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3 or 4 months after we left, Mani asked us to go and play a show he had put on. We played and the same A&R guy we told fuck of back in Ribchester who we had since become friends with came to watch us. He’d lost his job as part of the cuts and he told us that one of the reasons the label initially signed us was because they saw us a threat to Kasabian who were also on Sony and they wanted to keep us out the hands of other labels.
Which looking back made sense because early on in signing us they started asking us to write some ballads etc which we thought was strange.
Definitely seen the highs and lows of being on a label there. If you were in a new band starting out now, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give them? And also looking back, would you do anything differently?
Trust your own instinct definitely and don’t rush it. Wait to make the right decision and don’t get blinded by the lights. The music industry was a different beast back then it wasn’t as easy to put your own stuff out streaming services were in their infancy as was social media and you needed a label to release music properly. Just take your time and release your own music and don’t get obsessed with getting a label you don’t need them anymore you’ve got google.
The one thing I will say though is gig as much as you can, don’t refuse shows big or little even if it’s in someone’s back garden, play it. That’s why we got signed because we played everything, 2 or 3 gigs a week but never really got any money. We did it for the love of it and the crowds just got bigger and bigger.
Would we of done anything different, yeah we would of taken our time and not rushed. We got blinded by Sony a little before we signed. They sorted us a manger and took us to loads of fancy London parties and paid for everything. It was amazing but it was all just buttering us making sure we didn’t go elsewhere and it worked at the time we had the pick of the labels indies, majors, big indies the lot. We should of listened to what they had to say but we got blinkered. It could of been a completely different story if we would of given one of the other labels the time.
Great advice that but you make a important point about the strength of social media and labels not necessarily being as important as they were. Though there are some good ones about especially indie labels. I do believe in gigging as much as bands can, obviously do your research first and network with bands from other towns first maybe.
Can we talk about your new material? How’s that sounding? And also how much are you releasing and how are you going to about it?
Yeah it’s sounding really good mate. We’re super happy with it. We were always more experimental and been influenced by more than just guitar music. We loved dance music, hip hop, garage etc back in the day. We had a huge set up with loads of analog synths and drum machines only problem was we never really worked out how to use them properly so we were limited and never really got to the sound we wanted.
In a weird way though it worked and give us a kind of rawness at the time.
The difference is now in 7 or 8 years we were apart I got more into the electronic side of music through the likes of four tet, Jamie xx, SBTRKT. So I decided to buy a MacBook with logic and teach myself how to use it with the aim of doing something on my own. In that time I wrote and wrote learning more and more how to use it properly. I never planned on doing anything solo and when we reformed I had a raft of ideas to take to the lads. I wasn’t sure how it would translate with the lads because it was a lot more routed in Dance music with loads of samples and more modern drum patterns but they litterally lapped it up. We managed to build songs really quickly and I’d say we sound more Dirty Circus now than we did when we recorded the first record.
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We’re going to release our first proper new music in over 10 years in August. We’re putting it out on our own label ‘Clap it off’ and we’re hoping we can do a video etc. It’s an absolute summer banger hugely influenced by Chicago house and punk rock! With the new stuff, I always say imagine Jonny rotten on ecstasy in the hacienda. The plan is to do it old skool like a lot of the late 90’s bands we are into and do the single with 3 or 4 remixes on it and here’s a world exclusive...it’s called SUNSHINE.
After that we’ve basically got another 5 songs in various stages of mixing but the plan is to do another single after this then put everything together for an EP.
Unfortunately, everything costs money so things don’t move as fast as they would do if we had a label behind us but we’ll get there.
We’ve got a point to prove and that’s what we want to do with these songs.
Well, there you go people...some exclusive news! I love the sound of that though the Johnny Rotten comparison. Is the songwriting process much different to how it was back then?
Not really just a bit more advanced plus there’s only 4 of us now as opposed to 6 back in the day. It’s usually starts with a synth line or drum machine loop then we build it up from that although we have loads of samples and loops we still structure the song pretty traditional. A little secret...we got a deal and we didn’t have any verse lyrics to the songs! I used to make them up every gig and freestyle them. We had choruses that were always the same and a melody but I genuinely used to make the verses up on the spot.
That’s mad innit, but you got away with it and was enough to impress people.
You’ve told us so much about the band and the stories of the highs and the lows of the band.
We’re gonna end on some quick fun questions...
What venue would you love to play?
Wherever you could fit as many people as possible. Not bothered as long as there is 60k+ people watching.
id like to do a massive hometown show in Wigan at the DW or something.
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Streaming or Vinyl?
Streaming
If you could gig with any band (alive or dead) who would it be?
It’s difficult, but probably peak Happy Mondays, around 89-90 era.
Facebook or Twitter?
I’m personally more Instagram, but out the 2 Facebook, just.
Thanks for taking the time to chat to us, we’ve learned so much about the band!
Thanks for everything mate. Thanks for all the support over the last few months mate.
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mikemarko567-blog · 5 years
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Make A Great Business Influence – Small Biz SEO
“Make A Great Business Influence”
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Develop an internet site and include your site in your classified advertisements. This will certainly give individuals another method to join your network marketing chance. Get a vendor account via your financial institution so you can accept credit cards online. Discover a web developer if you are incapable to create your very own website.
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Source: Cincinnati SEO
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trainsinanime · 7 years
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Logan
About a day has passed, I’m mostly awake again now, and I know more people on my timeline have seen the movie, so I think it’s time to dive in and talk about it in detail. Which requires spoilers for absolutely everything, so don’t read this yet if you’re planning on watching the movie soon.
I’ve already said that this movie is great in every way; the best X-Men movie yet (even including Deadpool), and quite possibly my favorite Marvel movie. I mean, Avengers 1 was nice and all, but now that the novelty value has worn off, it’s really just very nice; and Guardians of the Galaxy’s soundtrack was making promises that the movie sometimes struggled to keep.
Hugh Jackman is amazing in this. Patrick Stewart is even better, doing perhaps his best acting since „there are four lights!“. Both portray characters that are broken, full of history, portraying most of the things that need to be said without words. All their emotions are genuine, beautiful and heartbreaking. But we already knew these guys were great. What’s really amazing is that Dafne Keen as Laura cannot only keep up, she often ends up stealing the scene. Careful and guarded, then suddenly full of wonder, weary beyond her young age and incredibly badass, she does it all and it’s perfect. And most of that without ever speaking.
The movie is beautifully shot and directed, which you already knew if you saw the trailers. Most people talk about how it’s a western, and it is. But the really important thing is how human this movie is; how close it gets to its characters and their emotions. It all works.
Now for some things I wanted to discuss in more detail:
Why no post-credit scene tho?
After so many years of patiently sitting through the credits and wondering why movies always need someone to grip keys, it’s certainly unexpected to have it missing here. It’s nice that Marjorie Liu and Kyle Host got special thanks.
While I did sympathise with the disappointment that could be heard throughout my theatre, I think it was the right choice. The movie didn’t need a post-credit scene, and any post-credit scene would have made it weaker. Post-credit scenes are hints for what comes next, but this movie is all about providing closure, and it does so beautifully.
Whatever happens next, if something happens next, is a new story. Not a new part of this one.
What is the locomotive on the mexican freight train?
No idea; I think it’s entirely fictional. The lack of windows implies automatic operation. The closest thing visually would be the GE U50 (which has been out of service since 1977) and maybe the E60C, but both of these are a big stretch honestly. So my guess is entirely fictional, just like the automated trucks.
Gabriela: A reference to All-New Wolverine?
Maybe, but I’m guessing it’s just a coincidence and that both projects were developed more or less in parallel, without either one influencing the other to any meaningful degree. If they had wanted to reference Tom Taylor’s work, they could have put him on the „Special thanks“ list after all.
Could automated trucks really be built without a cab, just the pure container ending there?
Yes! The idea of a truck without a cab in front of the trailer is not actually new; the Steinwinter 2040 was a prototype built int he 1980s. That one still had a cab, of course, and the concept ultimately never went anywhere - while there was a lot of interest, nobody wanted to fund a series production. This approach would make a lot of sense for a fully autonomous vehicle, as well, where the issues of visiblity and crash safety are less pronounced.
I don’t know whether it makes enough sense to actually happen; even for automated road trains, some sort of shield before the trailer would make sense aerodynamically (if the aerodynamics of container haulage interest you, then don’t forget to google „UP Arrowedge“). I’m also not sure that we’ll be in a place for fully automated trucks by 2029. I guess it works if we have a head canon where these trucks are limited to motorways and a few well-defined roads between loading areas and motorways. We can almost already do that today. „Platooning“, i.e. automated control of multiple trucks together as if they were one very long truck, is already being trialled as well.
Generally speaking, one of the big problems of trucks is that they have to carry a person around. The cab is dead weight and takes up lots of space. Getting rid of it makes trucks much more attractive compared to trains. They still have the disadvantage that they have lots of small (by railway standards) diesel engines instead of one big one, and that rubber wheels on roads have much higher friction than steel wheels on steel rails, but every little bit helps. If such technology is available, you can be sure that there will be much more freight hauled on overloaded road networks, increasing traffic jams, and much less on energy-efficient, economically and ecologically superior railroads. Progress!
Is there anything wrong with the movie?
Nothing major, I guess. X-24 is ultimately a waste. He could have worked as a contrast to Logan, but the movie never goes there, so he’s just a CGI-heavy obstacle. In general, the movie suffers heavily from forgettable Marvel movie villain syndrome; nobody will remember who Pierce was two months from now. Finally, compared to Laura, the other kids that show up in the third act are just not that interesting.
Mind you, what this boils down to is „at times, the movie almost drops down to the level of Iron Man“.
Will Laura become the new Wolverine now?
God, I hope not. That would be incredibly stupid. Laura is her own character, always has been, and putting her into someone else’s shoes does disservice both to the original character and to her own history.
Yes, it works well in All-New Wolverine by Tom Taylor. But the reason why it works there is because Laura didn’t. actually become Wolverine. She’s just using the name and costume. It’s still clearly a Laura book just as much as the ones with X-23 in the title. There’s no overlap with Logan’s history, with Logan’s usual modes of operation and so on. It works, but giving her the name is entirely unnecessary for that.
In general, what does this movie set up?
No idea. There are certainly some hints dropped that can be picked up elsewhere, but it seems just as likely that future X-Men movies will ignore it and leave it in some sort of canonical timey-wimey limbo, presumably the same one that Deadpool is in.
I’d be okay with that. Ultimately, no amount of setup can ever change whether this was a good movie, and it was.
Isn’t this movie taking a woman’s story and turning it into an accessory to a man’s?
This is a point I heard on Twitter shortly after the first trailer dropped. Having seen the movie, I can confidently say: Yes, kind of.
Obviously, the movie is called Logan, and it’s ultimately him that is the star. But it’s also notable how little women there are besides Laura. Sarah Kinney, her mother in the comics (it’s complicated because comics) is absent. Her closest equivalent, Gabriela (reference to the current comic or just coincidence? I’m leaning coincidence), gets killed fairly soon, but she also has far less impact on the story. Sarah was in many ways one of the masterminds of Laura’s torture; she had agency, culpability, guilt and internal conflict. Gabriela doesn’t get any of that depth.
There’s also the part where the three surviving mutants are all men, despite X-Men being pretty balanced ever since Claremont. The movie’s plot is carefully constructed so that it seems inevitable that these are the folks involved, but it’s not like that was the only choice.
(If you’ll allow an aside: They could, for example, have chosen Kitty Pryde instead of Caliban. Just make her a former mutant hunter. After all, there’s precedence for randomly giving Kitty powers that actually belong to Rachel.)
I think the movie can get away with this simply because it is so damn great, and because Laura in particular is so great here. I know some people will weigh things differently and come to a different conclusion here (though I don’t expect there to be very many).
If the stretch limousine is a 2024 Chrysler, and FCA plans to use the Giorgio platform for basically all their RWD stuff going forward, then doesn’t that mean someone did a stretch limo of a car with a transaxle platform and a carbon-fibre drive shaft?
That’s where my mind is going to anyway. My head canon is that they swapped the carbon fibre driveshaft for a cheap one made of steel, though I have no idea whether that is more or less realistic than any alternative. Either way I would assume this car isn’t that great for high-performance driving.
By the way, this is once more a movie that is full of FCA cars but doesn’t have any Alfa Romeos. I hated that about Batman v Superman. Here, I think it fits. This movie works if the heroes are driving an American truck; it would never work with a Stelvio. In Batman v Superman, though, they even brought in an IVECO truck (from the truck division of CNH which is the industrial arm/sister of FCA) to an ostensibly American city, even though that company’s products where never sold in the US, so the odd Giulietta wouldn’t have hurt, would it? Basically, fuck Batman v Superman.
With people praising Logan, will they now give the DCEU the second look it deserves?
I actually found a person on Tumblr who said that, then forgot to save a link so I guess I’ll have to sub-tumble them. Sorry. Dear person, if you read this: No. While you are correct that there are high-level similarities between the two, if you look in detail you’ll find that everything that actually matters is done well in Logan and badly in the DCEU. For one example, see the paragraph about the cars and product placement right above.
If that’s not sufficient, then let me put it like this: In its efforts to be dark, gritty and mature, the DCEU has thrown out plot, relatable characters, and all forms of fun except pee jokes. That is a major misunderstanding of mature. Logan is mature, gritty, violent, not the slightest bit flashy and so on. But at its core, it’s about humans relating to each other. It’s about them coming together, not finding ways to divide them. It’s violent, but it’s also all about the cost of that violence and about finding a way out of that cycle.
Perhaps most importantly: This movie takes comics, the old brightly coloured ones that are silly and full of flashy costumes, the very thing that both the DCEU (and the original Old Man Logan comic…) tried to abolish to show us how mature they are… and tells us how important it is to believe in them. That by believing in the „childish immature crap“ from the comics, we find together, and we get the strength to get us to where we’re going. Because it’s not actually childish to dream of a better world at all, as our hero has to learn; it’s what makes us human.
So pack in all your pitchforks, dear DCEU fans, when you hear that Logan is getting much better reviews than any DC movie ever, and that it’s making much more money. It’s not because people like Marvel more. It’s because DC keeps making shitty movies whenever they’re not made out of Lego.
(I do hope Wonder Woman won’t be shitty, but based on the trailers, the most I’m hoping for is „a little less shitty“. Sorry.)
What about that MovieBob Video? Will attempts at copying Logan lead to a new comics crash?
I’m talking about this video here. And let me just say that while I respect Bob a lot, he’s also wrong a lot. That guy thought Cars 2 was a better movie than Cars 1, after all. This video, to me, feels like a guy with too much time on his hands thinking too much about stuff that happened decades ago.
The fundamental problem with his argument is that comic book movies are in the mainstream, and they’re being made because they get mainstream levels of money. There was a good (short-term) business case for going fans-only for the comics industry in the 1990s. That’s just not the case today.
It’s certainly possible that Logan will inspire studios to try dark and gritty deconstructions of superheroes… but DC’s been doing that for years with questionable success and no influence whatsoever on the company that makes the good ones, i.e. Marvel.
What I do find fascinating is that between this, Deadpool and Legion, we’re now in a place where Fox’s X-Men movies may just be the inventive, innovative and weird superhero franchise, and the bits and pieces and preview animations that have come out for the New Mutants movie hint that it may be going in that general direction as well. That would be an awesome way for things to develop, and the X-Men certainly have their share of characters that fit that description. Of course, it seems like Fox landed in this place almost by accident, so any attempts to prolong it or end it or pretty much do anything with it seem incredibly dangerous. We’ll see how it turns out.
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gisverde-blog · 5 years
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Chatter, Lies and Free Psn Gamings
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lindyhunt · 5 years
Text
Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?
The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.
PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.
Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.
As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.
So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?
FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019
GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.
Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.
So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)
Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.
I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.
But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.
My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.
My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.
PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)
I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.
Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.
I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)
Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(
— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019
Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.
What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”
They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?
GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!
Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.
I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.
But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!
Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.
So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.
And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.
But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?
PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.
But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.
Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.
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jessicakehoe · 5 years
Text
Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?
The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.
PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.
Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.
As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.
So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?
FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019
GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.
Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.
So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)
Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.
I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.
But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.
My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.
My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.
PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)
I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.
Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.
I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)
Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(
— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019
Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.
What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”
They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?
GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!
Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.
I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.
But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!
Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.
So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.
And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.
But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?
PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.
But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.
Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.
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tinymixtapes · 7 years
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Column: Favorite Rap Mixtapes of October 2017
With a cascade of releases spewing from the likes of DatPiff, LiveMixtapes, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud, it can be difficult to keep up with the overbearing yet increasingly vital mixtape game. In this column, we aim to immerse ourselves in this hyper-prolific world and share our favorite releases each month. The focus will primarily be on rap mixtapes — loosely defined here as free (or sometimes free-to-stream) digital releases — but we’ll keep things loose enough to branch out if/when we feel it necessary. (Check out last month’s installment here.) --- Trippie Redd - A Love Letter To You 2 [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] All those Lil Uzi Vert comparisons notwithstanding, Ohio’s Trippie Redd is doing a fine job carving out his own lane as hip-hop’s closest thing to an opera singer. I mean, sure, there’s crooning, but then there’s Trippie Redd’s emotive bellow that erupts like a bat out of hell on the pre-hook for In Too Deep (I see the future in my plans / I’m gonna be good, it’s in God’s hands). Redd’s consistently ariose flow is the major draw for me: he’s got an amazing ear for melody, particularly those that instill sadness. While not entirely morose, the tape does embody themes of loneliness, nostalgia, and heartbreak (Baby wish me well / You know that I live in hell / I’m hellboy, I live in hell). Using autotune and endlessly-alluring, eerie, and ambient instrumentals as his brush, Trippie paints a world of vivid, lush euphony. And he does it effortlessly, with genuine affect. –Alex Brown --- Antwon - Sunnyvale Gardens [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] There’s a lot of talk about potential in the rap game these days. With infinite, uh, clout at stake for those early champions of the next to claim their fifteen minutes, rap nerdery can feel more than a little obsessed with the obscure. But what exactly are we hoping that these teenagers might turn into? With Sunnyvale Gardens, underground veteran Antwon provides one possible answer, summarizing the year in Soundcloud while retaining the form of an actual, polished album. It’s a reassuring step forward, a promise that the genre’s core tenets - unabashed emo influence, guitar front and center, gargled autotune melody - can carry weight even in the absence of minute-and-a-half runtimes and blown out mastering. In spanning seemingly the entire history of rap since 2010, Sunnyvale Gardens can certainly feel a bit uneven; more often than not, however, it’s worth your while - Antwon is the ideal auteur for the goofy sincerity of rap’s current moment. –Corrigan B --- Grandmilly & Shozae - Motel Six [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] The desk clerk hardly takes her eyes off the TV, absolutely never shoots you a straight glance, but make no mistake, she’ll scan her peripherals enough times to piece together a mental image. So it pays for you to look around too, giving her as little as possible without making it obvious. The game plays out perpetually. That’s what passes for hospitality here — that and musty carpets and buckled wallboards and busted heat pumps and penitentiary-level shower pressure and springy mattresses and HBO — because they know you’re only here on business. Bring your own amenities. –Samuel Diamond --- Evil Haze x CowboyKiller - Western Haze EP [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] Cowpokin’ ain’t a far cry from trappin’. Texan/Pennsylvanian tag-team Evil Haze and CowboyKiller ride foreign horses and tote big irons, shooting hissed bars from the hip atop oppressively crusty bass lines. Their first three-track collab, Western Haze is a desert heat wave, warping its cracking samples on the scorched horizon: it stifles in the biblical sense, drying my throat like baked clay as my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Lay me in the dust of death and ride off, pistols blazing. I hear the whine of slide guitar against the lens flare in the pale blue sky. “I’m causing damage while you on the internet spamming,” CowboyKiller whispers from a distance so great that I’m unnerved to hear him at all. It cuts deep. –Jude Noel --- YoungBoy Never Broke Again - Ain’t Too Long [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] Ain’t Too Long, the latest chapter in Baton Rouge rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s rapid ascent to hip-hop’s front page, arrived early October in peculiar form: a playlist of 8 YouTube videos on YoungBoy’s official page, not accessible via the usual mixtape sites nor the main-channel streaming services. This very unceremoniousness is exactly what makes the 18 year-old rapper so refreshing: his melodic, repetitive storytelling bears equal imprints of gen Z stylistic cues and Kevin Gates-esque confessionalism, and this latest tape finds him pensive and morose even in the face of great success. “Pour One” and “Better Man” start at the origin of his struggle and tell a story elliptically, looking back on betrayal and past selves with equal parts disbelief and gratitude. The circular melancholy in YoungBoy’s grates on the listener, at times unrelentingly sad even as the beat continues to bounce and fade out. What else are you looking for? –Nick Henderson --- Gunplay - Haram [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] There’s not good reason that Gunplay isn’t one of the biggest rappers in the world. He has more than enough intensity, talent, grind, uniqueness and hit-making ability to get over. Crossover appeal? C Monster and I saw him rock a noise showcase during Red Bull music week a couple years ago! Plus, Gucci Mane and DMX sustained careers through worse recidivism. Regardless, a couple years removed from a debut album that was understandably underwhelming (in that it was so needlessly belated and highly anticipated), Gunplay has sounded reinvigorated throughout 2017, powdery explosiveness complemented by a sensibility that was at the heart of his finest early works and now feels more attuned. Gunplay with precision and consistency. –Samuel Diamond --- Injury Reserve - Drive It Like It’s Stolen [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] God, these three will never get the credit they deserve. Drive It Like It’s Stolen is everything Injury Reserve fans have come to expect: beat-heavy, lyrically conscious songs drizzled with some of the silkiest flow in the game. The 23-minute mixtape showcases the dichotomy of the trio in a short amount of time. “See You Sweet” and “Boom (X3)” are tough enough to “have the landlord knocking like a burglary,” while “North Pole” and “Colors” sway slow enough to swing a room into a smoke-sesh. Jokes aside, Drive it Like It’s Stolen has moved Injury Reserve to a more permanent position in rap and lets the world know that the trio has finished flossing and is ready to eat again. –Sam Tornow --- araabMUZIK - One of One [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] In 2010, Dipset Trance Party was, as far as I was concerned, one of the coolest and most confounding things in music. Hosted by someone calling themselves “Your Boy SK,” the series of beat tapes, somehow inspired simultaneously by vocal trance and by the rhythm-focused, high-fidelity Dipset production aesthetic, introduced the world to araabMUZIK. Since the release of his debut album Electronic Dream one year later, in what was surely the biggest Dipset Trance Party success story, we haven’t heard very much from the producer, known for feverishly punching out drum sequences on his MPC as if it were a live percussion instrument. At six tracks, One of One feels like the perfect serving of his simple yet intoxicating blend of beats and emotional dance music. Nevelle Viracocha’s vocals on “Lock and Load” and “Wanted,” seated in the middle of the mix and shrouded in delay, take me back to the bygone Trance Party even more effectively than araabMUZIK’s studio efforts, while the drums hit with the swinging, hand-plucked weight I’ve come to expect from him. One of One is a nifty, powerful little collection of beats, as ready for SoundCloud freestyling as for home listening. –Will Neibergall --- Future & Young Thug - Super Slimey [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] According to the October 2017 edition of Physics Today: Allison Sweeney and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania now report that they may have a solution to the long-standing puzzle of how the squid lens establishes its protein-density gradient in a way that maintains uniform transparency. They found that cells at different radial positions within the lens produce different ratios of some 40 subtly different variants of S-crystallin. All the mixtures form gels — or at least a volume-spanning protein network — but at varying densities. The gelation prevents the proteins from aggregating into opaque clumps and damps local density fluctuations that could distort vision. –Samuel Diamond --- Lil Durk - Signed to the Streets 2.5 [STREAM · DOWNLOAD] I guess Lil Durk and Dej Loaf aren’t together anymore. I hope they’re ok! Really. Though never short on flexes, Lil Durk’s music has always had a believable earnestness far beyond that of his peers, neither cartoonishly immersed in his feelings nor insistent that they don’t exist. Despite never quite breaking out beyond Chicago, Durk has enjoyed massive sustained popularity there since well before drill entered (and subsequently exited) the national stage. There was a brief period this summer when it seemed like Distance was going to break through, and practically every track on Signed to the Streets 2.5 is similarly easy to imagine as a hit. Then again, that’s been the case for most of his career. –Corrigan B http://j.mp/2hruY3A
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energysolutions · 7 years
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Speech: Launch of the Clean Growth Strategy has been published on Energy Solutions News
New Post has been published on http://www.energybrokers.co.uk/news/beis/speech-launch-of-the-clean-growth-strategy
Speech: Launch of the Clean Growth Strategy
Good morning all.
It is such a pleasure to be here today to launch our new Clean Growth Strategy. Not only because I am required to, under the Climate Change Act.
But also because I am genuinely proud of what we have achieved so far in the United Kingdom and incredibly excited about the huge opportunities for us ahead.
You may wonder why we have asked you to come to this iconic venue, scene of so much national success, this morning.
Well there are two reasons.
The first is because we are benefiting in this building from one of the UK’s biggest low-carbon combined heating, cooling and power facilities – brilliant technology that we want to see deployed much more widely.
And the second reason is… well you will have to wait for that.
Before I begin to detail all the steps we are taking, I want to thank a few people.
First, I want to thank my Secretary of State Greg Clark for his longstanding commitment to action on climate change.
From his time as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change before the 2010 election, to his work across government, he has continued to champion the urgent need to cut emissions and seize the opportunity of clean growth and he deserves a huge amount of credit for this Strategy.
Second, I want to thank Nick Hurd, my predecessor in the department.
Nick put a massive effort into developing the policies in this plan, and I was really delighted I could take the baton from him [not just to steal all the glory] but because when I took on the Strategy, he had got it to a great place.
Thanks also to my amazing team at BEIS who have been working so hard for so long to put this Strategy together.
I also want to thank the Committee on Climate Change and their tireless chairman, Lord Deben.
You don’t realise until you sit in this ministerial chair, what a brilliant piece of legislation the Climate Change Act has proved to be, holding our feet to the fire as we consider every policy choice and empowering the Committee to keep us moving forward despite the short term political cycle.
Finally, I also want to thank all of you here today for your work cajoling, prodding, challenging, sometimes praising and, yes, criticising what we do.
We are not going to tackle the risks of climate change, nor grasp the opportunities of doing so unless we work together and I thank you for your commitment to this most important of issues.
You will know the gestation of our Clean Growth Strategy has been long, at times difficult and sometimes frustrating.
But we finally have a Strategy that is ambitious, broad and binding…
Sets out clear targets….
Harnesses the power of national innovation….
And re-affirms this government’s commitment to lead the way to a low carbon future.
So, today, in launching the Clean Growth Strategy I want to focus on three things:
First, to celebrate the extraordinary success the United Kingdom has achieved in delivering clean growth over the past two decades…
Second, as Greg said, to underline the enormous industrial opportunity for us that is emerging from the global transition to a low carbon economy – and how it will benefit us right across the UK.
And third to set out why this Clean Growth Strategy is distinctive and how it helps us meet the challenges we face.
As I said to start, the reason we are all here is the 2008 Climate Change Act, which had cross-party support and was a totemic piece of legislation. Because of that legislation we have to set out our strategy to meet the upcoming carbon budgets.
But we are also here because we want to be.
As the Prime Minister said in her foreword to our new strategy: “Clean growth is not an option, but a duty we owe to the next generation.”
And I think the UK should be very proud of our record in fulfilling that duty.
We were one of the first countries to recognise both the economic and security threats posed by rising sea levels and rising high temperatures.
And we have followed the guidance provided by that scientific understanding with action.
As Greg said, since 1990, we have cut emissions by more than 40 per cent while our economy has grown by two thirds over that time.
On a per person basis, this means that we have reduced emissions faster than any other G7 nation.
And not by sacrificing growth and competitiveness – we have led the G7 group in growth in national income over that period.
Let me just repeat that – we lead the G7 group of countries in cutting our emissions and growing our economy
Proving as false the view that we couldn’t protect the planet and raise prosperity at the same time.
Our world-first 2008 Climate Change Act set the pace for change, committing us to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least eighty per cent by 2050.
And I’m pleased to tell you we are on track.
We over-performed against our first carbon budget, and are on track to do the same for the second and third. This is a fantastic achievement.
Our action at home is matched by our ambition to see action across the world.
This saw us playing a leading role in securing the agreement of 195 countries to sign up to the now historic Paris Climate Agreement…
It commits us to being among the largest contributors of international climate finance.
And it means that from the Prime Minister, Theresa May, downwards we continue to work across the world to ensure the Paris agreement and climate action are delivered and at the forefront of international action – UK leadership that has never been more needed than now.
I know many of you in this room are responsible for this incredible success.
A success which I don’t think we celebrate enough.
Well I promise to keep talking about it and to champion it on your behalf at every opportunity, home and abroad.
The commitments made by 195 countries in Paris also present an unparalleled economic opportunity.
We are seeing the start of a global shift toward clean solutions…
Low carbon ways to get from A to B…
…power and heat produced in way that helps the planet and helps people struggling with their bills…
…and heavy industry going carbon-light.
This shift offers UK businesses and innovators huge potential to shape the future of clean growth.
Because part of the reason why the UK is considered a leader in tackling climate change, is that we don’t just see it as a problem to be solved…
We see it is an opportunity, too.
So, by focusing on clean growth, we are presented with a win-win situation…
We can cut the cost of energy…
Drive economic growth…
Create high value jobs right across the UK…
And improve our quality of life.
This is precisely what our Clean Growth Strategy is about.
You will see a list of 50 major policies and plans in the Strategy Document today, with many supporting ones in the text behind them, and when implemented there will be real change
To give you just a few examples:
For businesses, the largest pool of contributors to emissions, we will help them improve how they use their energy, aiming to increase their energy productivity by at least twenty per cent by 2030, saving businesses £6 billion…
…we will establish an industrial energy efficiency scheme to help large companies cut their bills…
…and we will demonstrate international leadership in carbon capture, usage and storage, that we need to decarbonise and improve how we do business, including substantial new investment in leading edge innovation.
Our strategy will make a positive change to how we live.
We will make it easier for homeowners to make home improvements that can reduce their energy use…
…we will invest around £3.6 billion to upgrade around a million homes through the Energy Company Obligation by 2020, and extend that support to 2028…
…we will continue to support RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive)…
… we will work towards our aspiration that every home in the country will be rated Energy Performance Certificate as Band C by 2035…
And we will aim to upgrade as many private rented homes as possible where practical and affordable – helping many of those living in severe fuel poverty.
And, our Clean Growth Strategy will change the way we travel and make our air cleaner.
We have already said and reconfirm today we will end the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040…
…it will invest £1 billion supporting the take-up of ultra-low emission vehicles, including helping consumers to overcome the upfront cost of an electric car…
…and we will make sure that those cars are powered by developing one of the best electric vehicle charging networks in the world.
Indeed you may have seen the hydrogen bus outside and we will continue to support different types of low carbon transport.
I get asked all the time – so what’s the magic bullet today?
And my answer is – we don’t have one. There is no one lever we can pull.
Instead we go through every major part of our economy and every part of government to set out ways to cut the emissions and drive innovation
Whether that’s investing in research and innovation for energy efficiency…
Or building new heat networks across the country to drive down the cost of keeping homes warm…
Whatever it takes, we are determined to make a difference.
And any set of actions that hopes to combat climate change has to cover all parts of the economy
And be focused on the next few decades, not the next few years, that is why the Clean Growth Strategy is a Strategy.
It has far-reaching goals and priorities, and sets the scene for other long-term plans government will be bringing forward like the upcoming 25 year plan from my colleagues at DEFRA, the DfT’s Road to Zero and our Industrial Strategy and its Sector Deals.
Our message is clear: this needs to be a priority for our government and the country for the years ahead, for future generations and not just us today.
And now is the right time to make these decisions because the benefits are huge.
The most recent research shows that the UK’s low carbon economy could grow over 10 to 12 per cent per year up to 2030 – four times faster than the growth of the UK economy as a whole.
By that estimate that would mean – in just 13 years – the UK’s low carbon economy would support up to 2 million more jobs and export up to £170bn low carbon goods and services each year.
And I’m not just talking about jobs in London and the South East…
This impact will be felt all over the country. We’ve already seen this happen, whether it’s the Siemens wind turbine blade factory in Hull or Nissan confirming that their Leaf electric car will be produced in Sunderland.
Like I said: a win-win situation right across the country, one that we are exploiting.
You may ask: what is different about this plan?
Well, it focuses areas of action where we get clear joint benefits:
cleaner air from low emissions vehicles…
…lower energy bills from improved energy efficiency…
… reducing waste and using resources efficiently…
…and creating a more biodiverse, resilient natural environment.
It is also a true cross-government approach – with real actions from buildings to transport, and from the natural environment to power generation.
And at the heart of our Strategy is a targeted focus on innovation.
Because I fundamentally believe that it is only through innovation that we can bring down the costs of low carbon technologies.
We want low carbon to mean low cost.
Because we need low cost to protect our businesses and households from high costs, including energy costs.
But – just as important – if we can develop the low cost, low carbon technologies here, we can capture the industrial and economic advantage from the global transition we are starting to see.
Finally, if we want to see other countries, particularly developing countries, follow our lead, we need low carbon technologies to be cheap.
So we have a new triple test to help us decide how to support new technologies:
First, does this deliver maximum carbon emission reduction?
Second, can we see a clear cost reduction pathway for this technology, so we can deliver low cost solutions?
And third, can the UK develop world-leading technology in a sizeable global market?
Of course, we can’t predict every technological breakthrough – if we’d have done that a few years ago, we would have been wrong – and not all of the choices we make will be the right ones.
That is the nature of working with such fast moving technologies.
But we are determined to create the best possible ecosystem for the private sector to invest and innovate.
If we get it right, we can see the benefits, just as we have on offshore wind, and the remarkable cost reduction we have seen where the costs have plummeted 50 percent in just two years.
And we have installed the biggest offshore wind base in the world.
To achieve these sorts of wins going forward and deliver the clean growth we need, it will require everyone to play their part.
This is not a job for central government alone.
It is a job for our devolved nations, local authorities, businesses and civil society working together; ambition and drive from every part of society and government is as important as diktats from Whitehall.
That is why we are delighted to celebrate in our document some of the amazing work that is taking place across the country.
And it is why we are setting up an annual ‘Green Great Britain’ Week, to celebrate the progress we have made, showcase UK technology and leadership, and inspire and motivate us to keep going, no matter the challenges, to deliver low carbon technology.
To meet our goals, we are going to need the full ingenuity, enterprise and determination of the British people working together.
So that answers the second question as to why we are here today.
Because we want to capture the spirit of cooperation and enterprise that gave us such an amazing performance at the 2012 Olympics from Team GB…
And use it to deliver a Green GB…
There won’t be medals on offer…
But the prize for all of us will be driving and capturing the benefits and opportunities for Britain and the world of our low carbon future.
I think that’s a race we all want to win.
Thank you.
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clubofinfo · 7 years
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Expert: Liberals, progressive and Democrats should think critically about the negative impacts of widespread media bias on American democracy.  There simply is no doubt that virtually all mainstream media regularly show their strong bias against president Trump and his administration.  These media have convinced themselves that they are working to save American democracy from an incompetent, corrupt and dangerous president.  And those on the left eat up the negative coverage, which means more money for the anti-Trump networks, newspapers and magazines.  Never mind that he was elected fairly and legally. It seems that the leftist media would only be happy if Trump was driven out of office by any means.  Such a victory would confirm the undemocratic power of a free press that replaces a military coup with a media one.. Here is my point: More Americans should seriously consider the larger question of whether such a perversion of freedom of the press undermines our democracy.  Why?  Because instead of fairly presenting genuine news the opinion loaded negative coverage has the goal of bringing down Trump and overturning the election result.  The press establishment overwhelmingly filled with liberals and progressives wanted Hillary Clinton and refuse to accept defeat.  After all, despite a mighty effort, the media failed to elect Clinton.  It continues to seek retribution by bashing Trump and ignoring the many failings of the Clinton campaign. The press probably feels some responsibility for Trump’s success during the primary season.  Coverage of Trump’s beating up of his Republican opponents was extreme.  Now the press is getting even. To dispel any doubt about the widespread perception of media bias, consider a June 2017 Rasmussen survey of likely American voters.  “Fifty percent (50%) think most reporters are biased against the president, up two points from January.  Just four percent (4%) think most reporters are biased in Trump’s favor.  Given the president’s testy relationship with the media, however, it’s not surprising that 76% of Republicans and 51% of voters not affiliated with either major political party believe most reporters are biased against the president, a view shared by only 24% of Democrats.”  Perhaps the most important finding is that “Nearly 90% of voters who Strongly Approve of the job the president is doing think most reporters are biased against Trump and rate media coverage of him as poor.” These results support the view that all the negative coverage may strengthen the Trump base, which largely have stopped reading and listening to what they think is fake news.  News based on reporting of facts has been replaced by opinion and a near total emphasis on what Trump says rather than on what he and his administration have done.  In other words, rhetoric preempts accomplishments, and those positive accomplishments from a conservative perspective are also viewed negatively by the leftist press.  Information about governance is purposely kept out of the media limelight to allow Trump rhetoric to get endless vicious criticism. Often, such surveys are dismissed.  So consider the 2017 study prepared by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard.  It revealed what reasonable people would consider a disturbing level of media bias against president Trump.  Here are the fractions of negative news coverage towards Trump: CNN and NBC, 93%; CBS, 91%; New York Times, 87%; Washington Post, 83%.  FOX had the most equal coverage, with 52% negative. Those who like the biased anti-Trump media coverage should reflect on how all that coverage robs them of getting solid information on myriad local, state and world events.  In other words, the biased media dominance inevitably leads to a dumbing down of the public about what is really happening that merits news coverage as well as details about what is happening in the sphere of public policy.  Journalism itself has been degraded to such a degree that for much of the population no one believes anything coming from the opinion-loaded media.  Apologists for the left and right unload opinions rather than enlightening information and analysis.  Rational people do not trust the press. The core issue is whether the press is giving itself too much credit for presenting the truth.  In fact, what is happening is the presentation of opinion not objective facts that reveal the truth.  Truth requires objectivity and a concerted emphasis on undisputed facts.  Instead, opinion, even in so-called news stories, is routinely presented. Biased media hiding behind freedom of the press should disgust all Americans.  We all are being robbed of huge amounts of news and information.  Amazingly, for example, network CBS news used its whole hour broadcast to presenting anti-Trump laced coverage of the recent Charlottsville event.  That is virtually a nightly occurrence at CNN where only anti-Trump diatribes are presented in multiple shows.  The front pages of the main newspapers are the same.  Real news from all over the country and the world is not given to the public the way it used to be. The credibility of the media has taken a lethal blow.  What they deem good for their business now will ultimately backfire as Americans for years to come seek and find alternative news sources or eliminate news from their lives.  A truly informed public is needed for a quality democracy, and we are losing that. Yes, a free press is vital for democracy.  But a deeply biased press is not. As to these crazy times, Ruben Navarrette Jr. summed them eloquently: “President Trump and the media deserve each other.  Both are driven by ego and take criticism personally. Both will twist the facts to defend themselves and push their agenda.  …Americans are fed precooked narratives by the Fourth Estate.  We’re told what’s important and what isn’t, what to focus on and what to ignore, and — above all — what to think.  …I sure miss journalism.”  So many of us do. http://clubof.info/
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bestbestshoes-blog · 7 years
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jessicakehoe · 5 years
Text
Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?
The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.
PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.
Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.
As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.
So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?
FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019
GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.
Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.
So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)
Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.
I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.
But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.
My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.
My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.
PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)
I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.
Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.
I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)
Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(
— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019
Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.
What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”
They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?
GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!
Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.
I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.
But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!
Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.
So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.
And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.
But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?
PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.
But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.
Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.
The post Does Bryan Singer’s Film <em> Bohemian Rhapsody</em> Deserve to Get Awards Love? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.
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jessicakehoe · 5 years
Text
Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?
The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.
PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.
Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.
As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.
So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?
FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019
GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.
Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.
So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)
Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.
I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.
But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.
My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.
My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.
PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)
I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.
Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.
I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)
Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(
— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019
Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.
What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”
They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?
GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!
Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.
I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.
But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!
Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.
So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.
And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.
But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?
PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.
But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.
Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.
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clubofinfo · 7 years
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Expert: Liberals, progressive and Democrats should think critically about the negative impacts of widespread media bias on American democracy.  There simply is no doubt that virtually all mainstream media regularly show their strong bias against president Trump and his administration.  These media have convinced themselves that they are working to save American democracy from an incompetent, corrupt and dangerous president.  And those on the left eat up the negative coverage, which means more money for the anti-Trump networks, newspapers and magazines.  Never mind that he was elected fairly and legally. It seems that the leftist media would only be happy if Trump was driven out of office by any means.  Such a victory would confirm the undemocratic power of a free press that replaces a military coup with a media one.. Here is my point: More Americans should seriously consider the larger question of whether such a perversion of freedom of the press undermines our democracy.  Why?  Because instead of fairly presenting genuine news the opinion loaded negative coverage has the goal of bringing down Trump and overturning the election result.  The press establishment overwhelmingly filled with liberals and progressives wanted Hillary Clinton and refuse to accept defeat.  After all, despite a mighty effort, the media failed to elect Clinton.  It continues to seek retribution by bashing Trump and ignoring the many failings of the Clinton campaign. The press probably feels some responsibility for Trump’s success during the primary season.  Coverage of Trump’s beating up of his Republican opponents was extreme.  Now the press is getting even. To dispel any doubt about the widespread perception of media bias, consider a June 2017 Rasmussen survey of likely American voters.  “Fifty percent (50%) think most reporters are biased against the president, up two points from January.  Just four percent (4%) think most reporters are biased in Trump’s favor.  Given the president’s testy relationship with the media, however, it’s not surprising that 76% of Republicans and 51% of voters not affiliated with either major political party believe most reporters are biased against the president, a view shared by only 24% of Democrats.”  Perhaps the most important finding is that “Nearly 90% of voters who Strongly Approve of the job the president is doing think most reporters are biased against Trump and rate media coverage of him as poor.” These results support the view that all the negative coverage may strengthen the Trump base, which largely have stopped reading and listening to what they think is fake news.  News based on reporting of facts has been replaced by opinion and a near total emphasis on what Trump says rather than on what he and his administration have done.  In other words, rhetoric preempts accomplishments, and those positive accomplishments from a conservative perspective are also viewed negatively by the leftist press.  Information about governance is purposely kept out of the media limelight to allow Trump rhetoric to get endless vicious criticism. Often, such surveys are dismissed.  So consider the 2017 study prepared by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard.  It revealed what reasonable people would consider a disturbing level of media bias against president Trump.  Here are the fractions of negative news coverage towards Trump: CNN and NBC, 93%; CBS, 91%; New York Times, 87%; Washington Post, 83%.  FOX had the most equal coverage, with 52% negative. Those who like the biased anti-Trump media coverage should reflect on how all that coverage robs them of getting solid information on myriad local, state and world events.  In other words, the biased media dominance inevitably leads to a dumbing down of the public about what is really happening that merits news coverage as well as details about what is happening in the sphere of public policy.  Journalism itself has been degraded to such a degree that for much of the population no one believes anything coming from the opinion-loaded media.  Apologists for the left and right unload opinions rather than enlightening information and analysis.  Rational people do not trust the press. The core issue is whether the press is giving itself too much credit for presenting the truth.  In fact, what is happening is the presentation of opinion not objective facts that reveal the truth.  Truth requires objectivity and a concerted emphasis on undisputed facts.  Instead, opinion, even in so-called news stories, is routinely presented. Biased media hiding behind freedom of the press should disgust all Americans.  We all are being robbed of huge amounts of news and information.  Amazingly, for example, network CBS news used its whole hour broadcast to presenting anti-Trump laced coverage of the recent Charlottsville event.  That is virtually a nightly occurrence at CNN where only anti-Trump diatribes are presented in multiple shows.  The front pages of the main newspapers are the same.  Real news from all over the country and the world is not given to the public the way it used to be. The credibility of the media has taken a lethal blow.  What they deem good for their business now will ultimately backfire as Americans for years to come seek and find alternative news sources or eliminate news from their lives.  A truly informed public is needed for a quality democracy, and we are losing that. Yes, a free press is vital for democracy.  But a deeply biased press is not. As to these crazy times, Ruben Navarrette Jr. summed them eloquently: “President Trump and the media deserve each other.  Both are driven by ego and take criticism personally. Both will twist the facts to defend themselves and push their agenda.  …Americans are fed precooked narratives by the Fourth Estate.  We’re told what’s important and what isn’t, what to focus on and what to ignore, and — above all — what to think.  …I sure miss journalism.”  So many of us do. http://clubof.info/
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