So, the Oscars were…interesting.

[Dottleshead ★]

14 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Not all jokes are funny.  Sometimes folks step over the line and it's good to see that sometimes they are held accountable.  In the post internet world we sometimes say things that would get us punched in the nose if said in person.

i don't like Chris Rock.  I never found him funny.  And I'm sure his joke crossed the line.  But you don't get up on national television with a billion people watching and strike someone.  You take that chit backstage.  That's my take anyway.  

[BR46]

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, Randomguy said:

Honestly, though, who cares enough about celebrities to know about her medical condition?  How the hell is Chris Rock supposed to know any of that, either?   Explain first, punch later, you frickin' egomaniac.

Absolutely.  Even jokes about short bus kids should be fair game.  There are no limits in this world any more.  F um and say whatever you want.  After all, if you get them to go ballistic you're a hero.

[Scrapr ★]

I understand Will smith apologized to Chris Rock. Has Chris Rock apologized to Jada?

sorry that remark/joke was over the line

[MoseySusan]

16 hours ago, Zephyr said:

Is this in the books?  I have not read the books.  I watched the movie but didn't get this vibe at all.

It’s in the books and partially in the movie. Dune part two is yet to release.

“gay menace”:  Baron Harkonen devours young slave men. He calls for one to be brought to his room several times. One unsuccessfully attempts to kill him. The 80’s film leaves this character detail in play, and portrays the Baron covered in boils. This Dune has him alluding to his desire for young men and bathing in black sludge to evoke the monster trait. Because, you know, the shortest distance between human and monster is through gay/queer. It’s a tired trope but Herbert played it in every book. In Children of Dune, he named Paul’s sister “abomination.” She went through the spice agony in utero, and was born with a fully developed gender fluid psyche, fully known male and female. And in Emperor of Dune, the characters are permitted full-throated disgust at the Emperor’s  all female praetorian guard making love with each other. Herbert was well known as a conservative thinker. His Dune-iverse makes no room to be ordinarily gay or queer. It also fetishizes women. 
About fetishized brown women: Paul has imaginings of a Fremen woman; she haunts his prescience. He eventually meets her, they fall in love, and though he officially marries the Princess Irulan, he tells her their marriage is on paper only and his heart and bed and progeny belong to Chani, the indigenous woman who could never become his legitimate bride. She later dies in childbirth of their twins. Yada yada…Maud dib’s jihad sends thousands of people into a diaspora across the universe, thousands of years go by and then a hyper-sexualized “race” of women shows up to challenge men for their role and positions of power. They’re described as wearing silk robes with embroidered dragons…Asian…and they have developed a weaponized sexual prowess.
And there it is. How the upcoming Dune part two makes sense of these worn out tropes remains to be seen. 

[Page Turner]

2 hours ago, MoseySusan said:

It’s in the books and partially in the movie. Dune part two is yet to release.

“gay menace”:  Baron Harkonen devours young slave men. He calls for one to be brought to his room several times. One unsuccessfully attempts to kill him. The 80’s film leaves this character detail in play, and portrays the Baron covered in boils. This Dune has him alluding to his desire for young men and bathing in black sludge to evoke the monster trait. Because, you know, the shortest distance between human and monster is through gay/queer. It’s a tired trope but Herbert played it in every book. In Children of Dune, he named Paul’s sister “abomination.” She went through the spice agony in utero, and was born with a fully developed gender fluid psyche, fully known male and female. And in Emperor of Dune, the characters are permitted full-throated disgust at the Emperor’s  all female praetorian guard making love with each other. Herbert was well known as a conservative thinker. His Dune-iverse makes no room to be ordinarily gay or queer. It also fetishizes women. 
About fetishized brown women: Paul has imaginings of a Fremen woman; she haunts his prescience. He eventually meets her, they fall in love, and though he officially marries the Princess Irulan, he tells her their marriage is on paper only and his heart and bed and progeny belong to Chani, the indigenous woman who could never become his legitimate bride. She later dies in childbirth of their twins. Yada yada…Maud dib’s jihad sends thousands of people into a diaspora across the universe, thousands of years go by and then a hyper-sexualized “race” of women shows up to challenge men for their role and positions of power. They’re described as wearing silk robes with embroidered dragons…Asian…and they have developed a weaponized sexual prowess.
And there it is. How the upcoming Dune part two makes sense of these worn out tropes remains to be seen. 

...see, it's a long and complicated, multi book series.  And certainly you can find stuff in there to criticize. But as long as you've chosen to spend another minute with Frank Herbert, allow me to say a couple of things. Dune was the first SciFi novel I recall reading that spent a great deal of time and attention on the ideas involved in planetary transformation by human activity.

In the case of Arrakis, here's what Wiki has to say about the sandworm life cycle:

"A desert planet with no natural precipitation, in Dune it is established that Arrakis had been "His Imperial Majesty's Desert Botanical Testing Station" before the discovery of melange, for which it is the only natural source in the universe.^[4] Melange (or, "the spice") is the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe, as it extends life and makes safe interstellar travel possible (among other uses).^[4] The planet has no surface water bodies,^[4] but open canals called qanats are used "for carrying irrigation water under controlled conditions" through the desert.^[7] The Fremen collect water in underground reservoirs to fulfill their dream of someday terraforming the planet, and pay the Spacing Guild exorbitant fees in melange to keep the skies over Arrakis free of any satellites which might observe their efforts.^[4] As indicated by its large salt flats, Arrakis once had lakes and oceans; Lady Jessica also notes in Dune that wells drilled in the sinks and basins initially produce a "trickle" of water which soon stops, as if "something plugs it."^....

^...

In Children of Dune (1976), Leto II Atreides explains to his twin sister Ghanima:

The sandtrout [...] was introduced here from some other place. This was a wet planet then. They proliferated beyond the capability of existing ecosystems to deal with them. Sandtrout encysted the available free water, made this a desert planet [...] and they did it to survive. In a planet sufficiently dry, they could move to their sandworm phase.^[8]

The environment of the desert planet Arrakis was primarily inspired by the hydrocarbon wealthy Mexico and the Middle East. Similarly Arrakis as a bioregion is presented as a particular kind of political site. Herbert has made it resemble a generic desertified petrostate."

Dune  was published in 1965.  So a lot of this was a new way of looking at things for me. And given the way global climate change has played out in the ensuing years, it seems prescient.  I confess at the time I read it, I never thought of Baron Harkonen as anything other than a textbook villain. Certainly he was not appealing as a role model.  So The stuff you quoted above seems to be bordering on histrionics to a kid who read Dune in high school.

And it's not like I'm an especially Conservative thinker. Why after reading the adventures of Paul Atriedes among the Fremen and the evolving bond and romance with "a brown woman" is somehow the equivalent of "fetishizing brown women" seems to me too strained a conclusion to even contemplate.  I mistrust your critic, if that's not already obvious. But what do I know ? I married a succession of white women, whom I fetishized as objects of sexual desire. 

I'm gonna go put on a bow tie, and pretend to be Tucker Carlson now.

[MoseySusan]

2 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

So The stuff you quoted above seems to be bordering on histrionics

Of course. 

[Page Turner]

8 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

Of course. 

...that's it. I'm leaving the forum !!!

[MoseySusan]

53 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...that's it. I'm leaving the forum !!!

Sorry about that. My spouse required me to join him for lunch and it would have been rude of me to text you a more thorough reply while he’s fetishizing me and enjoying the salad. 

Let’s agree to leave acting out of the discussion, mkay? 

For sure, all the ecological implications are a powerful part of the story. I would add that I can see an intersection of planetary transformation and anti-TLGB+. As Arrakis transforms from Dune, the people are growing more distant from their Freman heritage, taking on its style without substance. They’re no longer the outwardly tough, water conservative Freman. They’re a circus facsimile, grown decadent. The connection is that these are the same gripes of conservative voices against the US (Putin includes other Western nations), that we’ve grown effete, incapable of the manly arts of war and conquest. 

[groupw]

I don’t watch awards shows. “Best” is subjective and fluid. Most times my favorites don’t match up with the academies. Rather than be frustrated I just do something different when they are on. 
I never cared for Chris Rock. Just not my style. He crossed a line mocking a woman for a condition beyond her control in an industry where a woman’s appearance can make or break her career. 
Will Smith crossed a line for taking it out on stage. I will, and have stood up for my wife in the past. Once her and a friend were playing pool. We were all dressed up having drinks before a company Christmas party. I didn’t hear it, but apparently a guy was making comments to or about WoW and the other woman that made them uncomfortable and WoW came over and told me. The guy was big! I took a shot of courage and went over to him and just said his comments were making them uncomfortable. I asked him to knock it off. I was not an imposing presence so I’m guessing just the fact I dared to stand up to him was enough. He apologized and said he would keep it to himself. I was a hero to WoW and the other lady and didn’t even mess up my suit! I can defend myself but always believed in trying to talk a situation down before throwing punches. 

[Page Turner]

28 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

Sorry about that. My spouse required me to join him for lunch and it would have been rude of me to text you a more thorough reply while he’s fetishizing me and enjoying the salad. 

Let’s agree to leave acting out of the discussion, mkay? 

For sure, all the ecological implications are a powerful part of the story. I would add that I can see an intersection of planetary transformation and anti-TLGB+. As Arrakis transforms from Dune, the people are growing more distant from their Freman heritage, taking on its style without substance. They’re no longer the outwardly tough, water conservative Freman. They’re a circus facsimile, grown decadent. The connection is that these are the same gripes of conservative voices against the US (Putin includes other Western nations), that we’ve grown effete, incapable of the manly arts of war and conquest. 

...it's a science fiction book, made into a movie. Somebody has to be the bad guy, or no one will buy tickets/books. That the bad guy in this case happens to be gay is not his only claim to bad guy status. The bad guy in the blockbuster "Hunger Games" films/books happens to be old. But that is not  his only feature that makes him villainous.  I could go on about how ageist that whole series of movies is, and how it was the last big blockbuster franchise turned out by Hollywood production studios, but I won't. I think you catch my drift, because I also fetishize you as pretty intelligent.

Conservative voices, as much as I mistrust and regret them lately, occasionally stumble on an acorn, just like an old, blind pig.

It has not escaped my attention how many column inches have been devoted to the Will Smith slap, while the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has dropped into the black hole of forgotten news, and the cartel guys are still regularly hanging people off bridges and overpasses in the border towns of Mexico. I miss the border towns of Mexico, and I bet the people who live there now miss them too.

 

[Further]

[maddmaxx ★]

12 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...it's a science fiction book, made into a movie. Somebody has to be the bad guy, or no one will buy tickets/books. That the bad guy in this case happens to be gay is not his only claim to bad guy status. The bad guy in the blockbuster "Hunger Games" films/books happens to be old. But that is not  his only feature that makes him villainous.  I could go on about how ageist that whole series of movies is, and how it was the last big blockbuster franchise turned out by Hollywood production studios, but I won't. I think you catch my drift, because I also fetishize you as pretty intelligent.

Conservative voices, as much as I mistrust and regret them lately, occasionally stumble on an acorn, just like an old, blind pig.

It has not escaped my attention how many column inches have been devoted to the Will Smith slap, while the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has dropped into the black hole of forgotten news, and the cartel guys are still regularly hanging people off bridges and overpasses in the border towns of Mexico. I miss the border towns of Mexico, and I bet the people who live there now miss them too.

 

Afghanistan has passed beyond the veil of attention span.  Ukraine will soon also unless something happens to invigorate the 24/7 news cycle.

[ChrisL]

24 minutes ago, Further said:

Can you imagine the winners up on the stage holding a fish statue! 😂

[MoseySusan]

54 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

Somebody has to be the bad guy, or no one will buy tickets/books. That the bad guy in this case happens to be gay is not his only claim to bad guy status

Yes. The villain is gluttonous, cruel, and surrounds himself with like-minded sycophants. He’s also a gay pedophile, two interchangeable words in a lot of homophobic cant.  And which of those four traits inspired a line of questions at the recent hearing for SCOTUS nominee? The one villainy above all villainies…and now the GOP cannot possibly approve KBJ’s nomination. But I digress. All this affirming and allying TBLG+ right to exist and find humane representation in culture is distracting me from the other important issues of the day that I cannot do anything about. 

[Page Turner]

1 hour ago, MoseySusan said:

Yes. The villain is gluttonous, cruel, and surrounds himself with like-minded sycophants. He’s also a gay pedophile, two interchangeable words in a lot of homophobic cant.  And which of those four traits inspired a line of questions at the recent hearing for SCOTUS nominee? The one villainy above all villainies…and now the GOP cannot possibly approve KBJ’s nomination. But I digress. All this affirming and allying TBLG+ right to exist and find humane representation in culture is distracting me from the other important issues of the day that I cannot do anything about. 

...imagine for a moment you were a gardener, dedicated to growing wonderful flowers.

 

[MoseySusan]

2 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...imagine for a moment you were a gardener, dedicated to growing wonderful flowers.

The bastards. 

[Page Turner]

Read Sutherland's letter to Ross below:  

"Dear Gary Ross: 

 

Power. That's what this is about? Yes? Power and the forces that are manipulated by the powerful men and bureaucracies trying to maintain control and possession of that power? 

Power perpetrates war and oppression to maintain itself until it finally topples over with the bureaucratic weight of itself and sinks into the pages of history (except in Texas), leaving lessons that need to be learned unlearned.  

Power corrupts, and, in many cases, absolute power makes you really horny. Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand. 

Not so, I think, with Coriolanus Snow. His obsession, his passion, is his rose garden. There's a rose named Sterling Silver that's lilac in colour with the most extraordinarily powerful fragrance – incredibly beautiful – I loved it in the seventies when it first appeared. They've made a lot of off shoots of it since then.  

...

How will you dramatize the interior narrative running in Katniss's head that describes and consistently updates her relationship with the President who is ubiquitous in her mind? With omniscient calm he knows her perfectly. She knows he does and she knows that he will go to any necessary end to maintain his power because she knows that he believes that she's a real threat to his fragile hold on his control of that power. She's more dangerous than Joan of Arc. 

Her interior dialogue/monologue defines Snow. It's that old theatrical turnip: you can't 'play' a king, you need everybody else on stage saying to each other, and therefore to the audience, stuff like "There goes the King, isn't he a piece of work, how evil, how lovely, how benevolent, how cruel, how brilliant he is!" The idea of him, the definition of him, the audience's perception of him, is primarily instilled by the observations of others and once that idea is set, the audience's view of the character is pretty much unyielding. And in Snow's case, that definition, of course, comes from Katniss. 

Evil looks like our understanding of the history of the men we're looking at. It's not what we see: it's what we've been led to believe. Simple as that. Look at the face of Ted Bundy before you knew what he did and after you knew"

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-sutherlands-three-page-hunger-games-email-to-gary-ross-2012-8?op=1

 

 

...in passing, let me note that I have grown the rose "Sterling Silver", a couple of gardens ago.  It is a terrible rose, very fussy, and subject to every rose disease, (bacterial, viral, or fungal,) known to man.   Took me years to figure out how to grow it well, and by then, there were better lavender roses.

But I do think that after all these years of playing villains, Donald Sutherland understands something about villainy.

 

[MoseySusan]

9 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

The bastards. 

To be clear, it was Snow who forces the young Finnick to prostitute himself to women in the Capital. So, there’s that. 

[MoseySusan]

Power of the Dog also played that “gay menace” trope. Gardener? Not so much. 

[Page Turner]

8 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

Power of the Dog also played that “gay menace” trope. Gardener? Not so much. 

   ...if you are gonna complain about all the tired old tropes that get trotted out in the movies, we are gonna be here for a long time. 

[MoseySusan]

1 minute ago, Page Turner said:

   ...if you are gonna complain about all the tired old tropes that get trotted out in the movies, we are gonna be here for a long time. 

No, no… I’m on that evil gardener thing now. Woke AF. 

[Page Turner]

17 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

No, no… I’m on that evil gardener thing now. Woke AF. 

...this is why Frank Herbert was so down on chicks as master manipulators, and fetishized brown ones in particular.

[MoseySusan]

1 minute ago, Page Turner said:

...this is why Frank Herbert was so down on chicks as master manipulators, and fetishized brown ones in particular.

Making the Cafe great again, I see. Gotta conserve those ‘60s values. 

[Page Turner]

3 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

Making the Cafe great again, I see. Gotta conserve those ‘60s values. 

...the 60's were very, very good to me. 

[MoseySusan]

4 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...the 60's were very, very good to me. 

Have you seen Summer of Soul? It won the Oscar for Documentary. I very recommend. 

[maddmaxx ★]

3 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...the 60's were very, very good to me. 

The 60's were both good years and bad.  As a nation we began to view the world differently, not quite as believing in what our leaders told us and yet, the 60's were the father and mother of what we have going on today.

[Page Turner]

17 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

The 60's were both good years and bad.  As a nation we began to view the world differently, not quite as believing in what our leaders told us and yet, the 60's were the father and mother of what we have going on today.

...Joan Didion's essay (and book of the same name), "Slouching Towards Bethlehem", are very good at capturing those moments (for me.)  Also, "The White Album", from a little later chronologically.

[MickinMD ★]

The Board of Governors of the Academy will soon meet to decide on what penalties to bestow on Will Smith.

One expert's guess on CNN is that "it will be a slap on the wrist - no pun intended."

[Page Turner]

...is anybody keeping track of Sean Penn's threat to publicly melt down his Oscars, unless they invited Zelensky to speak as part of the awards ceremony ? I thought he was still in Ukraine, shooting footage for a documentary on the invasion ?

 

"He did not watch the Oscars," a representative for Penn tells CNET.

[shootingstar]

59 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...is anybody keeping track of Sean Penn's threat to publicly melt down his Oscars, unless they invited Zelensky to speak as part of the awards ceremony ? I thought he was still in Ukraine, shooting footage for a documentary on the invasion ?

 

"He did not watch the Oscars," a representative for Penn tells CNET.

Zelenksy at Oscars to address the insulated (from war) audience would be interesting.  He was after all, a comedian prior to political leadership. But Z.  would do better  with talk show host, ie. Stephen Colbert or Trevor Noah.

[Zephyr]

Welll..., based on what he gave for a sample..., I have decided if Ricky Gervais was allowed to host the Oscars..., I would watch for the first time ever.