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Carano, Whedon and all that

Started by Professor Bear, 11 February, 2021, 01:22:41 PM

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Tjm86

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 12 February, 2021, 09:57:28 AM
I guess if nothing else, the modern world at least lets us know who our 'heroes' really are, but it's painful finding out. (See also: legions of Harry Potter fans, now trying to figure out how they align their love for those books with the person who created them.)

I hope you don't mind but I'd like to deal with this point first and separate to that of Whedon.  I want to be a little careful as I know there are quite few folks around these parts that have strong personal reasons for their positions on Rowling's remarks.

Whilst I get the point about struggling with positions, views and behaviours of public figures, what Whedon appears to have engaged in and what Rowling has done are not even close to being comparable.

Rowling has raised questions about the implications of Trans rights for women's rights.  Understandably that has caused distress and offence.  That said, there are strong views on both sides of the argument.

Whedon has allegedly engaged in prolonged predatory and abusive behaviour.  The implications of comments from other cast members is that this may have crossed into pedophilia. These behaviours are a not just an order of magnitude worse but in a whole different dimension.

The other thing is the way in which these behaviours have been 'enabled' down through the years.  Back in the 70's and 80's sexist, sexualised and abusive behaviour went on at terrifying levels.  Common practice was to gloss over, hide and protect.  The legacy of these practices is only barely understood to my mind.

So the 'revelations' are not even close to surprising.  Nor is the way it was managed.

shaolin_monkey

I wonder if it is worth splitting the conversation about Whedon and the discussion about the entertainment industry hiding/defending those behaviours into a new thread?

shaolin_monkey

Coming back to Carano, there's pretty good write-up of what she said, and how various groups have reacted here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/gina-carano-mandalorian-disney-cancel-culture-b1800886.html?fbclid=IwAR0Jrt6Lrw5tST0W8EM6m4BRpT55x5_GfIR7W27DS-bWaXN8YThHBT6YtFQ

By and large I agree with the article, in that what some see as 'cancel culture' is just decent folk pushing back against elitism, discrimination, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc etc etc. Basically restating a belief in a progressive moral code.

IndigoPrime

Agreed on splitting threads. I'll do that. As for Rowling, I don't see it as a competition, but I don't see her fight against trans people as being something to approve of to any degree. What she's doing is essentially no different from the same shit gay people went through, or black people in the middle of the last century.

Funt Solo

#19
Gina Carano's post was not an innocent comparison of like for like.

First off: hiding abhorrent views behind a mask of politics is a cheap (yet common) trick. Having a desire for less central government control over localized financial decisions - that's politics. White supremacy - that's not politics. Or, to put it another way - absolutely everything anyone ever talks about is politics, so using "you're just attacking me because of my political views" as the basis for an argument is meaningless.

What she actually said is important:

QuoteJews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors... even by children... Because history is edited, most people today don't realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?

To decompress that: she first states that Jews weren't beaten by Nazi soldiery. That's just factually incorrect. Take Kristallnacht (which, of course, was an event of culmination, rather than a beginning - but taken as an example) - "a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians".

Carano is both right (civilians were involved) and wrong (because soldiery were involved) - and misses the point. The hatred of Jews was being driven by central government (and the Church, frankly) through an organized misinformation campaign. She actually walks back her own argument by mentioning later that there was government involvement - so she's not making much sense anyway.

How is that different (asks Carano) than hating someone for their political views? Does she mean "how is a nationwide pogrom resulting in [at least] hundreds* of deaths different than voting in a democratic election"? She's also suggesting that the current Biden administration hates their political opponents (and is oppressing them), but all the signs are of pity, fear and a desire for change. So, her point ("people hate me unfairly") is empty.

Nobody in the Biden administration is currently planning any sort of a mass incarceration and liquidation campaign against any group. White, right-wing nutters aren't a subjugated minority anyway - they're an over-privileged but often woefully under-educated gang that's a mixture of backwater banana beliefs and right-wing evil. They are the Nazis in waiting, painting themselves (as the Nazis did) as victims.

I'm not sure I agree with her being (effectively) sacked - it seems that rather she is in need of education, because she's making spurious, fascistic arguments that don't hold water. I suppose if I went public with similar views I might find myself under a difficult work spotlight as well.

---

Disnae got rid of her because the "disagreeing with me makes you a Nazi" was just the straw their camel-back was waiting for after all her other bullshit, right-wing nut-job posts, and (my theory) she's not a very good actress.

*Note that I'm still referring to Kristallnacht here, and not the Holocaust, and its approximate figure of six million Jewish deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

wedgeski

How are people like Carano empowered to post this shit? Why does hiding under the scabrous veneer of "political views" even WORK? What the fuck is happening?

Funt Solo

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 12 February, 2021, 01:03:30 PM
Agreed on splitting threads. I'll do that. As for Rowling, I don't see it as a competition, but I don't see her fight against trans people as being something to approve of to any degree. What she's doing is essentially no different from the same shit gay people went through, or black people in the middle of the last century.

I find that needs some decompression to make sense of, though. It doesn't seem helpful to say "if you see something of worth in Rowling's position then you're the equivalent of a racist homophobic" - which (of course) isn't what you actually said. But you are making quite a sweeping statement and there is some inference. Ultimately, without some meat on the bones, it's difficult to make out what your argument actually is - so all we can do is infer.

I do have some sympathy for an argument that situates itself around the word view of there being males and females - and that often that's linked to biological reality. Or, a bull has a willie, and a cow doesn't, to make it really, really simple. I mean: they're standing right there, in the field.

Now, Eddie Izzard is (currently, which is important) a she. But (and this is quite important), she was a he. Clearly, in squaring the circle of a person who is both a he (historically - so, you know, in print, as it were) and a she (currently), who may later become a he again (she's hinted this is possible), we are being asked to engage in something of a game of cognitive dissonance, at the behest of, well, anyone.

Which is fine, I suppose. But I have sympathy for people who can't quite keep up and go "Eh? What's happening now?" A lot of people have never had the thought "actually, I feel more like a gender that's different than the one I've been labeled with, that's probably linked to my junk", so it's a bit of an alien feeling.

I was doing a mind game earlier with myself - if you put a hundred people in a room who've never met Eddie Izzard before and are unaware of her current preferred pronoun, and asked them to guess it...

So: there is that cognitive dissonance. In some cases. And so the situation is unusual. And people (some) find that difficult to come to terms with. I find it difficult to blame them for finding it difficult.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

IndigoPrime

I have sympathy for people who find the position difficult. Heck, I find the subject tricky to grasp at times, but then I've never had to deal with any question of my own identity. It has to date always been very straightforward. So I talk with trans friends and I listen. What I don't do is, say, use my platform as a hugely famous person to make the same old spurious arguments again and again, under the guise of protecting women. (This isn't just Rowling, obviously. Graham Linehan took it to a bewildering extreme.)

Also: I'm not saying people struggling to understand things like trans are racists. What I am saying is there's a link between people who seek to remove normalisation from such individuals who don't fit their worldview. Remember that not long ago, people were attempting to dismiss gay people in a similar way. They were attempting to eradicate their rights. And this was so often under the guise of protecting a section of society rather than protecting those being vilified (who tend to have alarmingly high levels of suicide).

Professor Bear

I don't care what the "updated science" and experts say.  It was the truth when I was taught it in school and it's the truth now and forever: Pluto is a planet.  Just look at it - it's right there in the sky.  I refuse to update Pluto's pronouns to "dwarf planet" - this is political correctness and/or more precise scientific categorization based on discussions among experts in the field and their subsequent agreed consensus gone mad.

Quote from: Tjm86 on 12 February, 2021, 11:37:37 AMRowling has raised questions about the implications of Trans rights for women's rights.  Understandably that has caused distress and offence.  That said, there are strong views on both sides of the argument.

A cynic might suggest Rowling has ulterior motives for preemptively gunning for the exact lobby that was going to take issue with her novel that has a plot about a serial killer who wears dresses to lull women into a false sense of security.  A cynic might go so far as to suggest that while she does indeed hold troubling views based on outdated essentialist notions of gender as a binary and have a vested interest in preventing the public holding wealthy celebrities to account, Rowling has been doing nothing more than running a long con as a gender critic during the writing of her novel to ensure that eventual criticisms of her work can be dismissed as irrational or based on quote-unquote "trans ideology".
If you have 90 minutes to spare - God help us all, who doesn't these days? - then centrist pin-up girl Contrapoints covers JK Rowling's public statements in depth and explains why, in her opinion, Rowling's arguments are neither good faith nor reasonable.

milstar

Well, Rowling essentially agreed with Maya Forstarter, the scientist. Rowling hasn't started the trans thing.

But Gina, I do not know how she gets roles. Neither she is sexy, nor slim. For tough physical roles, you need someone who is not "elegantly filled).
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

I understand precisely the square root of fuck all about gender politics, but that's OK because addressing someone by their preferred pronouns is not difficult. Whether or not another person should have the same rights as everyone else is not a question I need to think too hard about.

I've noticed a trend developing for people including preferred pronouns in their work email signatures, I think some employers even mandate it. One local guy's even included Ulster Scots: "he/him/thon fella". But if you're inventing your own special pronouns, you need to get the fuck over yourself. Latinx is one, and I don't know if it's pronounced "lah-tine-ecks" or "lah-tinks". I suspect it was invented by someone who doesn't speak much Spanish, and doesn't speak enough English to know the genderless terms "Latin American" and "Hispanic" exist. Should we call Mexican chavs "cholx"? Should we call tables "lxs mesx"? Should I stop being so facetious?

Things get messy with sports. World Rugby banned trans women from playing women's rugby last year. This was controversial, because whatever decision they made was going to be controversial. It's an easy cop out to say that decision doesn't affect me so my opinion doesn't matter, because it really doesn't. However I think I support the decision. There isn't even a debate about whether trans men can play men's rugby because as far as I'm aware none have tried.

While I'm on rugby, a few years back Australian Rugby sacked their (arguably) best player, Israel Folou. He posted on twitter* that homosexuals were going to burn in hell**. He then tried to sue Australian Rugby for religious discrimination, but got nowhere because he had signed a contract that included a clause about conduct on social media, a clause which Australian Rugby had introduced to all their player contracts precisely because he had been at this nonsense before, and even though he had been made aware he would be sacked if his behaviour continued, he went ahead and made a tit of himself anyway.

No doubt these social media clauses are now boilerplate for high profile jobs. No doubt Gina Carano had been warned the first couple of times she acted*** like a tit on twitter. No doubt some people find victimhood intoxicating.

*You know, that website that's a bit like youtube, but with just the cool comment section and no silly videos.
** And also alcoholics, which is obviously why the 'strayans took issue.
***for lack of a better word
You may quote me on that.

Funt Solo

Quote from: milstar on 12 February, 2021, 05:56:05 PM
Well, Rowling essentially agreed with Maya Forstarter, the scientist. Rowling hasn't started the trans thing.

But Gina, I do not know how she gets roles. Neither she is sexy, nor slim. For tough physical roles, you need someone who is not "elegantly filled).

Uhm...all my arguments against Gina Carano are to do with her extreme views on things like Covid, and the lack of serious substance in her public ponderings (and that I don't think she's a particularly good actress) - but being sexy or slim are not prerequisites for getting roles in shows, Shirley? And, anyway, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think she is beautiful, but what I think of her physical attributes isn't really relevant for the part. I don't fancy Carl Weathers, so he shouldn't have the role? Huh? 

I have no idea what you mean by "for tough physical roles, you need someone who is not elegantly filled". Are you calling her fat? She's a wrestler - so I'm guessing her bulk is mostly muscle. I'd say she's (physically) perfectly suited for the role.

---

Bear - your Pluto thing is funny. In reality, some people did battle for Pluto to remain a planet, but mostly it was either tongue in cheek or just a sort of nostalgia drive. Even there: you can understand a level of cognitive dissonance as people re-calculate their thinking (eight planets now, not nine).

I'm arguing that giving people space to discuss the changes should be allowed without belittling them - but then that's probably just my liberalism gone mad.

After all the arguments, I still don't know Rowling's motives. I only know what some people think her motives are. Just because they're thinking of things, doesn't make them correct. I am sitting on this here fence, not quite knowing.

---

Note: I haven't read Pops post yet.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

The Legendary Shark

Quote from: Mister Pops on 11 February, 2021, 11:17:54 PM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 11 February, 2021, 08:10:12 PMHow are you supposed to get into or out of an AT-ST, anyway?
As poorly as the Empire designs things, you would have to assume there would at least be some manner of door or hatch?
Reach out with your keyrings...
[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




milstar

Quote from: Funt Solo on 12 February, 2021, 06:29:31 PM
Quote from: milstar on 12 February, 2021, 05:56:05 PM
Well, Rowling essentially agreed with Maya Forstarter, the scientist. Rowling hasn't started the trans thing.

But Gina, I do not know how she gets roles. Neither she is sexy, nor slim. For tough physical roles, you need someone who is not "elegantly filled).

Uhm...all my arguments against Gina Carano are to do with her extreme views on things like Covid, and the lack of serious substance in her public ponderings (and that I don't think she's a particularly good actress) - but being sexy or slim are not prerequisites for getting roles in shows, Shirley? And, anyway, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think she is beautiful, but what I think of her physical attributes isn't really relevant for the part. I don't fancy Carl Weathers, so he shouldn't have the role? Huh? 

I have no idea what you mean by "for tough physical roles, you need someone who is not elegantly filled". Are you calling her fat? She's a wrestler - so I'm guessing her bulk is mostly muscle. I'd say she's (physically) perfectly suited for the role.




Well, she should do wrestler movies then. And yes, I called euphemistically. Because she objectively is. And in (most) movies of today, especially Hollywood, handsome look is required. Being fat does not look well on the screen when you are required to run, jump, roll over etc. This is primary reason why I hate xXx 2.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

milstar

Quote from: Mister Pops on 12 February, 2021, 06:19:04 PM
I understand precisely the square root of fuck all about gender politics, but that's OK because addressing someone by their preferred pronouns is not difficult. Whether or not another person should have the same rights as everyone else is not a question I need to think too hard about.

I've noticed a trend developing for people including preferred pronouns in their work email signatures, I think some employers even mandate it. One local guy's even included Ulster Scots: "he/him/thon fella". But if you're inventing your own special pronouns, you need to get the fuck over yourself. Latinx is one, and I don't know if it's pronounced "lah-tine-ecks" or "lah-tinks". I suspect it was invented by someone who doesn't speak much Spanish, and doesn't speak enough English to know the genderless terms "Latin American" and "Hispanic" exist. Should we call Mexican chavs "cholx"? Should we call tables "lxs mesx"? Should I stop being so facetious?

Things get messy with sports. World Rugby banned trans women from playing women's rugby last year. This was controversial, because whatever decision they made was going to be controversial. It's an easy cop out to say that decision doesn't affect me so my opinion doesn't matter, because it really doesn't. However I think I support the decision. There isn't even a debate about whether trans men can play men's rugby because as far as I'm aware none have tried.

While I'm on rugby, a few years back Australian Rugby sacked their (arguably) best player, Israel Folou. He posted on twitter* that homosexuals were going to burn in hell**. He then tried to sue Australian Rugby for religious discrimination, but got nowhere because he had signed a contract that included a clause about conduct on social media, a clause which Australian Rugby had introduced to all their player contracts precisely because he had been at this nonsense before, and even though he had been made aware he would be sacked if his behaviour continued, he went ahead and made a tit of himself anyway.

No doubt these social media clauses are now boilerplate for high profile jobs. No doubt Gina Carano had been warned the first couple of times she acted*** like a tit on twitter. No doubt some people find victimhood intoxicating.

*You know, that website that's a bit like youtube, but with just the cool comment section and no silly videos.
** And also alcoholics, which is obviously why the 'strayans took issue.
***for lack of a better word

Funny thing about latinx, I noticed that a lot of latino(a) people find the term offensive. I thought what the hell. I found it universal, where you describe these people generally. Instead of latino for male, latina for female. But that was maybe my misconception.

Social networks are toxic.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.