Quite a bit of race and gender stuff in the news.
● The big thing in the news right now is Serena William's outburst. What a spoiled brat. Her coach tried to cheat by offering her advice while she was on the court through a hand signal. The referee caught this and gave her a penalty. She promptly lost her mind and spent the next ten minutes railing against this umpire. She accused him of sexism for making the call and for adding more penalties after she called him a thief and accused him of bias (a huge no-no in sports). She then lost the match and, even though she was outclassed, she has been suggesting that this referee's sexism is what cost her. Poor sportsmanship. What's more, she's stripped her opponent of her tremendous victory and made it all about her.
Naturally, some of the #metoo'ers jumped up and said that this had to be sexism because a woman said it, but it wasn't. It's a rule. She knew it. She broke it. She got punished. How is that sexism? Moreover, her opponent was also female, so how can it be sexism? What's more, she lied. She made a huge point that she doesn't cheat and then her coach admitted that he was trying to cheat. And none of her supporters seem to care that a nice, impressive your lady got screwed out of her moment in the sun. Nice.
● Speaking of racism, Adrian Peterson, an aging NFL Player, attacked one of his critics in the most interesting of ways. Cris Carter said that Peterson is washed up (his last two lousy season justified that comment) and shouldn't play. Peterson naturally objected, which is fine. Except Peterson added that he was outraged that Carter and others had said this because "they [are] black men... how dare you." So according to Peterson, it was wrong for a black man to criticize him because, apparently, blacks should not criticize blacks. If a white person had said that, it would definitely be shocking and considered racist. Yet, all the sports writers who keep looking for racism and outrage everywhere seemed to miss this point.
● For some reason I cannot imagine, they have rebooted Magnum PI. Why? Anyways, the guy playing Magnum (Jay Hernandez) is Hispanic and Magnum is supposed to be Mexican American. Ok, whatever. But an interview in which he describes getting the role, this dude spread a very standard minority victimology myth. He said he was proud to put an heroic Mexican American up on screen because when he was growing up, the only brown faces you ever saw on screen were the villains. Huh, ok. Name them. Seriously, you can't because they didn't exist.
This is something that is taken as a matter of faith on the left. The only brown faces on screen were either maids (Gone With The Wind) or villains until the modern era, with the idea being that this is how what America viewed them. But this is crap. Hollywood never used minorities in as villains. Maybe in the 1940s they were rare and took bit parts, but so did all but a handful of famous whites. By the 1950s, the blacks appearing on screen were people like Sidney Poitier and action heroes like James Brown, or women like Ertha Kitt. Each decade thereafter saw more and more of them too. This idea that evil racist Hollywood created a stereotype of brown people as villains is bull. Even inn Westerns, where there was a Mexican villain whenever they went to Mexico simultaneously found most of the Mexicans on screen treated very sympathetically. This claim is racist myth-making.
● Finally, I had to chuckle.Marvel DC has created a lesbian superhero: Batwoman. They even picked a lesbian actress to play her, as you must. Hurray, finally! Right? LOL! Wrong. Apparently, she's not lesbian enough as she once claimed to be bi, and the lesbian community is angry about it. Snicker snicker. Idiots.
The left really is packed with idiots.
● The big thing in the news right now is Serena William's outburst. What a spoiled brat. Her coach tried to cheat by offering her advice while she was on the court through a hand signal. The referee caught this and gave her a penalty. She promptly lost her mind and spent the next ten minutes railing against this umpire. She accused him of sexism for making the call and for adding more penalties after she called him a thief and accused him of bias (a huge no-no in sports). She then lost the match and, even though she was outclassed, she has been suggesting that this referee's sexism is what cost her. Poor sportsmanship. What's more, she's stripped her opponent of her tremendous victory and made it all about her.
Naturally, some of the #metoo'ers jumped up and said that this had to be sexism because a woman said it, but it wasn't. It's a rule. She knew it. She broke it. She got punished. How is that sexism? Moreover, her opponent was also female, so how can it be sexism? What's more, she lied. She made a huge point that she doesn't cheat and then her coach admitted that he was trying to cheat. And none of her supporters seem to care that a nice, impressive your lady got screwed out of her moment in the sun. Nice.
● Speaking of racism, Adrian Peterson, an aging NFL Player, attacked one of his critics in the most interesting of ways. Cris Carter said that Peterson is washed up (his last two lousy season justified that comment) and shouldn't play. Peterson naturally objected, which is fine. Except Peterson added that he was outraged that Carter and others had said this because "they [are] black men... how dare you." So according to Peterson, it was wrong for a black man to criticize him because, apparently, blacks should not criticize blacks. If a white person had said that, it would definitely be shocking and considered racist. Yet, all the sports writers who keep looking for racism and outrage everywhere seemed to miss this point.
● For some reason I cannot imagine, they have rebooted Magnum PI. Why? Anyways, the guy playing Magnum (Jay Hernandez) is Hispanic and Magnum is supposed to be Mexican American. Ok, whatever. But an interview in which he describes getting the role, this dude spread a very standard minority victimology myth. He said he was proud to put an heroic Mexican American up on screen because when he was growing up, the only brown faces you ever saw on screen were the villains. Huh, ok. Name them. Seriously, you can't because they didn't exist.
This is something that is taken as a matter of faith on the left. The only brown faces on screen were either maids (Gone With The Wind) or villains until the modern era, with the idea being that this is how what America viewed them. But this is crap. Hollywood never used minorities in as villains. Maybe in the 1940s they were rare and took bit parts, but so did all but a handful of famous whites. By the 1950s, the blacks appearing on screen were people like Sidney Poitier and action heroes like James Brown, or women like Ertha Kitt. Each decade thereafter saw more and more of them too. This idea that evil racist Hollywood created a stereotype of brown people as villains is bull. Even inn Westerns, where there was a Mexican villain whenever they went to Mexico simultaneously found most of the Mexicans on screen treated very sympathetically. This claim is racist myth-making.
● Finally, I had to chuckle.
The left really is packed with idiots.
Let me add, Michael Strahan says he would have kneeled with Colin Kapernick. Uh, that's about race, not being gay, Mike.
ReplyDeleteI guess I forgot to add my point. These people are the top of their professions. They are influential. So what are they showing here? What kind of role models are they? They traffic is self-pity and racist, sexist myth. They shift blame and excuse their own failure with those myths. Does that really help "their people" improve their lives?
ReplyDeleteBefore I call it a day this evening...
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong, but veren't all ze bad guys in ze 30's sinister, sumb-twirling middle Europeans mit a particular ac-zent who dreamed uhv world domination vhile adjusting zer vaxed mustashes and putting ze finishing touchez on zer race of mutant, robotic shoopermen? -all vhile being assisted by zer expendable hunchback henchmen?
Und if zuch bad guys ver shtereeotyped, vhy are vee not hearing about ze ongoing shtruggle for ze rights of be-monocled bad guys via ze League of Barely Accredited Mad Scientists?
Rustbelt, Why yes... Nazis. Those were the villains in the 1930s and the 1940s. Hollywood almost always used Nazis (or sometime commies). In Westerns, you had Indians and Mexicans sometimes, but more often than not it was cattle ranchers or Civil War vets.
ReplyDeleteBy the 1950s, it was vaguely European villains and businessmen. By the 1960s, it was white cops, white businessmen, white master villains, or husbands.
The 1970s saw more diversity, but it still wasn't blacks or Hispanics. It was aliens, European terrorists, southern racists, businessmen, cops, crazy white "revolutionaries."
Even in things like Death Wish in the 1980s, where you see "gangs" as the bad guys, they are led by white men who answer to mysterious property developers.
Were there some black villains? Sure. Live and Let Die. But he's a super villain and that was a version of blacksploitation. Moreover, Yaphet Kotto, who played him, played lots of cops and good guys, e.g. Alien, The Star Chamber.
1) So a celeb broke the rules, lied about it and whined about bias (a call immediately echoed by said celeb's supporters). When a subordinate revealed the celeb had lied, without missing beat the celeb and their supporters claim the rules don't matter/shouldn't exist and that enforcing them is an act of bias. Sounds depressingly familiar.
ReplyDeleteI never watched her play but I had thought Serena Williams was a decent person. Clearly I was wrong.
2) I agree.
3) I agree and would like to add that rebooting Magnum as Hispanic is stupid. While I'm sure there is an exception or two to the rule out there, generally speaking commercial success has come from original characters rather than recolorings or regenderings of established ones.
4) The Batwoman controversy is funny. She is a really obscure character, but no moreso than the Black Panther, Antman or the Guardians of the Galaxy so I guess commercial success isn't outside the realm of possibility for the tv show. I don't care for CW's brand of superhero shows (Netflix FTW) so I won't be watching it.
Anthony, I thought she was a better person as well. I had never heard of anything like this before from her. It would have helped if she'd at least apologized to the young woman who beat her.
ReplyDeleteI think the made him Hispanic to court controversy, but I don't think that will work this time because Magnum fans seem to be shrugging their shoulders and saying they won't watch because it's not Tom Selleck.
I think the Batwoman thing is really funny. So not only can you not cast anyone who isn't gay, now they need to be specifically gay. LOL! You just can't satisfy some people!
The cries of "sexism" and "racism" from Serena Williams and her camp must be making the normies scratch their heads. Even some intersectionalists must be scrambling to explain how the ump's bias against minority women put a thumb on the scale in favor of ... a minority woman? It reminds me of those tech articles about how Silicon Valley is hiding its minority problem by ... hiring minorities? Black men criticizing black men is obviously internalized systemic something something. It's like when Lee Atwater said that if the only way you can signal racism is to not talk about race, maybe racism is behind us and the left said, "GOTCHA!"
ReplyDeleteI always just assumed that Magnum P.I. was supposed to be Mexican because of the mustache.
Also, Batwoman is D.C.
I actually hadn't heard of Batwoman.
ReplyDeleteOn Williams, I get the sense that most people see it as whining. Apparently, even the crowd in the stadium was booing. At first, the media painted it as the crowd booing at the umpire, and there was some booing at first, but the majority of the booing started when she wouldn't let it go. And then at the trophy awarding, there was a lot of booing, but it wasn't clear if it was aimed at Serena or her challenger (very unfair). The response of most commenters has been to call Williams childish, though a couple #metoo types are screaming sexism.
Slight correction: Batwoman is a DC character, not Marvel
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction. It's been fixed. :)
ReplyDeleteBTW, I think this cop in Dallas is going down for murder.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing struck me as strange from the get go. How do you just walk into someone else's apartment? They usually need keys.
And how can you not know that you're in the wrong place? The furniture is wrong. The smell is wrong. The feel is wrong.
Well, now there are witnesses who say that she was banging on the door yelling "let me in" before he let her in and she shot him.
This reeks of murder. Probably jilted lover.
Some thoughts. Speaking of Hispanics, that damned beer is now using Anthony Munoz as it's overcomer of the month. (Notice that I can't remember the name of the beet because the commercial pisses me off, a sign of an unsuccessful commercial) Anyway, Apparently Anthony Munoz inspired the NFL to look at other Hispanic players who would have been otherwise ignored(Hey, we were all wrong about Hispanics- this Munoz guy can play!) Anthony Munoz was 6'6 280 lbs with exceptionally high speed, quickness and intelligence. He's on several lists as the greatest offensive lineman of all time. I think That regardless of race any NFL scout would take a serious look at somebody with Anthony's set of tools. Pisses me off. Secondly, Why the hell would you redo Magnum PI? First of all, Tom Selleck is iconic in that role. Secondly, the character was specific to his time. One of the themes that ran through almost every episode was Magnum's attempt to come to grips with his experience in Vietnam. And even if they make this new Magnum a n Iraq or Afghanistan vet it won't work. Vietnam was it's own specific war with it's own specific set of scars and baggage. A generic war veteran just won't work.Break
ReplyDeleteGypsyTyger
Third,while Tom Selleck is iconic as Thomas Magnum, what made the show work was his interplay with the other actors. How are they going to replace John Hillerman? Roger E Mosley? Larry Manetti? When you hear Magnum PI you think of Tom Selleck but it was really an ensemble show. And lastly there's this. Now there won't be any politically correct blowback because it will be seen as a Hispanic taking over a heroic role. But think about this.If there was no previous show, and this was an original series, is Magnum really the guy that the modern politically correct crowd would want to see a non-white play? While Thomas always did the right thing, he was kind of a mooch. He lived for free on Robin Masters' estate. He was always borrowing money from Rick and TC and always conning them into doing favors for him. He siphoned gas from Higgins other vehicles and was always driving the Ferrari without permission. 2018 Social Justice Warriors would have a lot to whine about. Just some thoughts.
ReplyDeleteGypsyTyger
And while I'm here... I knew it had to happen. Everybody dies, and he was 82. But the world is a diminished place for no longer having Burton Leon Reynolds Jr in it. I hadn't been to Big Hollywood since Andrew Breitbart died. But you guys should go over there and check out John Nolte's eulogy for him.GypsyTyger
ReplyDeleteGypsyTyger, I have the exact same reaction to the Munoz commercial. There are many Hispanics who played in the league before Munoz, and them claiming that only his appearance finally made it ok for Hispanics to join the league is bullsh*t.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, their tag line is how race doesn't matter, as evidence by these people doing their thing when people of their supposedly weren't allowed or whatever... yet, the commercial is about their race/gender mattering. How does that work?
I agree with you about Magnum. That was a creature of its time and it can't work the same today.
Reynolds was awesome. He was so much larger than life.
ReplyDelete