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Post by otherscott on Feb 24, 2019 5:21:10 GMT -8
Frankly, it’s all about what’s comfortable.
I don’t like racially based historical fiction. Either about slavery or the civil war or whatever- why? Because it’s incredibly safe and does absolutely nothing for progressing the issues except villanize people from the past and give a pat on the back to people now for how far we’ve come. It’s safe stuff that won’t provoke any controversy but has an appearance of being about civil rights.
We’re getting to that same spot with homosexuality as well. There’s still a large section of people who don’t like it, and large sections of the world, but for the most part the West has gotten comfortable enough that they’re beginning to make bad movies like “The Imitation Game” about the past persecution of homosexuality, once again having the appearance of being a movie about rights where once again it’s just safe.
We aren’t there yet with transgenderism. Too many people are still uncomfortable with it that it’s that same brand of safe, uplifting, but ultimately useless fiction people gravitate to for that proverbial pat on the back.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 24, 2019 6:22:43 GMT -8
I don’t like racially based historical fiction. Either about slavery or the civil war or whatever- why? Because it’s incredibly safe and does absolutely nothing for progressing the issues except villanize people from the past and give a pat on the back to people now for how far we’ve come. It’s safe stuff that won’t provoke any controversy but has an appearance of being about civil rights. Depends on the execution. The original Roots is one of the best TV programs ever made because it wasn't safe (especially not for its time) and because it challenged basic and dormant conventions about race and depictions of slavery. I think this sort of thing has been homogenized in recent years, though - nowadays, we're more likely to get something docile and back-patty like Green Book (which, sigh, may well win Best Picture tonight). In any case, you're mostly right about the historical perceptive differences between race and sexuality - the former has had a much longer road from public awareness to public acceptance than the latter. I may have mentioned this on another thread, but part of the reason why modern activist movements haven't been so successful is because so many young people assume that previous cultural changes essentially happened overnight, and haven't the patience to maintain an actual, lengthy movement themselves.
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Post by Zarnium on Feb 24, 2019 7:50:37 GMT -8
This is admittedly solely from my point of view as a white person, so take it with a grain of salt, but despite my general complaint about the media as a whole, I really liked the Rosa Parks episode. It puts a couple of dark-skinned people who are used to modern society into a situation where their lives are in danger just for looking at a white person the wrong way, and the white people palling around with them also face arrest just for being near them, and are clearly uncomfortable with the implication that they need to treat their black friends like garbage to fit in, or play a "white oppressor" role a few times in order to set history right again. The contrast is pretty shocking in a way I've never quite seen done before on TV. It also emphasizes that change didn't happen overnight, and there was still a long way to go after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.
Of course, it's correct to say that this is still largely "safe" television about a fairly non-controversial topic. The cynic in me wants to point out that LGBT civil rights and public demonstrations have been going on for just as long as the modern black civil rights movement, but no one knows about them because the media doesn't want talk about them. Maybe there'd be fewer people who believe that being transgender and/or having cross-sex inclinations is a "choice" if they knew that openly gender-variant people of the past chose to live with constant police harrassment and be forced to live in the worst parts of their city and take up sex work rather than try to be "normal". There's also the uncomfortable fact that mid-20th century feminists didn't like transgender women very much, so portraying the past struggles of transgender women would require being very critical of feminism.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 24, 2019 9:58:28 GMT -8
Feminism and transgenderism still have issues with each other to this day, since their current philosophies about gender are incompatible with one another. But that doesn't get much press either because, again, the media would rather not talk about it.
Incidentally, there have been a number of recent films made about trans people, although they don't usually get much publicity outside of awards season (i.e. The Danish Girl). And when someone tries to make a more mainstream film about the subject, people complain about it for casting Scarlett Johansson or something.
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Post by Zarnium on Feb 24, 2019 10:38:33 GMT -8
There's a lot less strife between them now, and most feminists don't hold gender theories that are diametrically opposed to transgender theory. But there's still some of that going around. (There's also been lots of strife between straight and lesbian feminists, white and non-white feminists, and feminine and non-feminine feminists. The dominant form of feminism in a given time period has historically not played very nicely with the others.)
I'm also not a big fan of the insistence that only transgender actors should play transgender parts. Let's make it even more difficult to have transgender characters in the media, eh?
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 24, 2019 13:07:06 GMT -8
There's a lot less strife between them now, and most feminists don't hold gender theories that are diametrically opposed to transgender theory. But there's still some of that going around. (There's also been lots of strife between straight and lesbian feminists, white and non-white feminists, and feminine and non-feminine feminists. The dominant form of feminism in a given time period has historically not played very nicely with the others.) Eh, feminism didn’t really have a “dominant form” until recently. There was always a question of what women’s rights constituted w/r/t men, but the social stratification didn’t kick in until we entered the age of intersectionality. (Also, people should refrain from using the word “feminine.” It’s a sexist and transphobic term which suggests that certain attributes and character traits are inherently and stereotypically female. I need to find a safe space whenever I hear someone use it.) And gay characters must be played by gay people, and Jewish characters by Jewish people, and so on and so on. Basically, actors are no longer allowed to act. What fun times we live in.
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Post by Zarnium on Feb 24, 2019 15:49:09 GMT -8
In regards to both feminism and LGBT activism constantly picking themselves and each other apart, Julia Serano's Whipping Girl is a really good book on the subject. There have always been sub-groups of women and gender-variant people who think that they're the only ones living properly, and all of the other sub-groups are being duped by men into living a lie. Luckily, we're finally approaching a point in time where gender-related activism is basing itself more on "you have the right to live however you want for your own reasons without judgement" instead of basing itself around doing the opposite of whatever masculine-men/society is supposedly forcing everyone into.
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 24, 2019 23:42:43 GMT -8
Zarnium, you might want to give director Sean Baker's Tangerine a look. The lead characters are fairly loud and in-your-face in the early going, but it's ultimately a funny and touching portrayal of friendship among transgender characters. It was also all shot on an iPhone, which worked out much better than one would expect, visually. I think it's still available on Netflix, and it's a hell of a lot better than The Danish Girl, which features so much self-satisfied preening from Eddie Redmayne and the filmmakers that it's probably in the same ballpark as Green Book w/r/t patronizing minorities.
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Post by otherscott on Feb 25, 2019 8:19:03 GMT -8
The True Detective S3 finale was REALLY good - without a doubt the best writing Pizzolatto has done on his time with the show. In fact, I'd be comfortable saying the whole season is the best written True Detective season.
That being said, I wouldn't call it better than Season 1. Season 1 had so much more going for it aside from the writing, and each episode really felt like AN EVENT in the way Season 3 did not. Season 3 was a little more meandering, a little more straight forward, a little more relaxed and contemplative. And it was the directing that really made S1 what it was - whereas S3 was well directed but it wasn't in that same league.
I think for people who don't mind slow philosophizing things, I do really recommend this season. It takes a while to get to its point, but once it gets there it's worth the ride.
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In other news I'm watching Escape at Dannemora (halfway through), and it was not what I was expecting at all. I was expecting like a sort of thriller, not something that painstakingly goes through the details on how people broke out of prison, with what I'd say is a really cynical view of mankind as a whole. As an engineer I find it sort of interesting, but it has to be said the show has zero heart whatsoever.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 25, 2019 19:33:26 GMT -8
The episode about Rosa Parks got me thinking, though... not that there's anything wrong with that particular episode, but why is there so much fictional coverage of racial issues, but so little of LGBT issues? There's no Doctor Who episode about the Stonewall riots. Drunk History (of all shows) did a very touching episode about Stonewall. I'd also argue that a lot of sci-fi is full of metaphors for LGBT issues (including Doctor Who, in that episode with the obvious Thatcher stand-in who controls a cotton candy golem).
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Post by Zarnium on Feb 26, 2019 11:19:51 GMT -8
Hmm, looks like they also did an episode on the Scopes Trial. I may have to check it out.
And yeah, sci-fi has a lot of LGBT metaphors, which I'm greatful for, but it's not quite he same thing as real LGBT historical representation.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 26, 2019 12:15:38 GMT -8
Honestly, if you want more historical representation, you're going to have to start teaching people about the history. Most of LGBT history is not well-known to the public because it hasn't been well-publicized, and when it does make the airwaves, it's usually relegated to "special event" TV shows like When We Rise.
To tie this in with your earlier comment about the Doctor Who episode: Everyone knows Rosa Parks, but how many people are familiar with Claudette Colvin? She's every bit the civil-rights hero that Parks is - probably even more so - yet no one ever talks about her. Why? Because the NAACP (i.e. the people who had the power and motivation to publicize her) decided that Parks' story could more easily earn national attention than Colvin's. Ergo, to this day, history books teach about one and not the other.
(Oh, wait... Drunk History did a Claudette Colvin episode. Man, those guys are on top of everything.)
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Post by Zarnium on Feb 26, 2019 14:36:38 GMT -8
Well, yes, that's the other thing. Often, the big cases that become well-known are well-known because they're the ones that those with the power to publicize such things have chosen to publicize. Case in point, I'd known for years that prior to Parks, there had been another black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus who was passed over by the NAACP because she was a pregnant teenager, but I never knew her name until you mentioned it just now. Not that I want to diminish Rosa Parks or her case, but she wasn't the first one, she was just the most convenient one. The Scopes Trial was also entirely manufactured by the ACLU and didn't happen organically at all. Scopes himself was a volunteer who purposely incriminated himself so that the ACLU could sue Tennessee, and it's not even certain that he'd actually taught the theory of evolution in his class to begin with. That doesn't make it less significant, but these things are often artificially created as a PR move.
EDIT: Not really sure what you meant by this:
Yes, that's my point, so I'm not sure why this seems like it's phrased in opposition to something I've said.
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Post by otherscott on Mar 4, 2019 8:13:21 GMT -8
In other news I'm watching Escape at Dannemora (halfway through) , and it was not what I was expecting at all. I was expecting like a sort of thriller, not something that painstakingly goes through the details on how people broke out of prison, with what I'd say is a really cynical view of mankind as a whole. As an engineer I find it sort of interesting, but it has to be said the show has zero heart whatsoever. I gave up on Escape from Dannemora partway through the penultimate episode. I think the show thought it was making its main characters sympathetic and felt the need to undermine it with a flashback episode showing how awful they were, which was completely unnecessary since they were all very clearly awful. The whole thing has just turned into a real slog of plots and character beats that I have no interest in whatsoever, so I decided to be done with it and not waste anymore time. Starting One Day At A Time Season 3 and I'm not really enamored at all with the first few episodes, it seems like a less intelligent version of the show this season for some reason.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 4, 2019 8:55:57 GMT -8
I'm moving slowly through the new season of One Day. Thus far, no, it's not as strong as the first two. The morals get a little too heavy-handed and after-school-specialy at times, whereas previous seasons measured them pretty well. But it's still pleasant viewing when I've got a half-hour to spare. EDIT: Not really sure what you meant by this:
Yes, that's my point, so I'm not sure why this seems like it's phrased in opposition to something I've said.
You mentioned in an earlier post that the reason people don't know about the history is because the media doesn't want to talk about it. I was pointing out that the media would talk about it if LGBT people and groups gave it more publicity. (Much like racial issues became more publicized in the media once the NAACP made them aware of it, as I indicated earlier.) Maybe that's what you were referring to as well when you said "the power to publicize." I'm not quite sure.
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