The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Reactions to The Golden Globes?

    By AmericanDreamer on Mon, 01/08/2018 - 10:52am |

    Overall, very cool, I thought, for the #metoo theme of the night.  IF we change our cultures--and our public policies--to make them far more just, safe, and supportive for women, last night may be viewed as an event of significance in fostering such change.

    A few miscellaneous reactions:

    *I thought it was refreshing to see at least one movie recognized and honored that depicted working-class white people in non-caricatured ways.  That would be "I, Tanya".  Margot Robbie's depiction of Harding was a remarkable, rich performance that rang true for me.  The clownish miscreant men who surrounded Harding skated, figuratively speaking, as she endured further brutalization.  Allison Janney's portrayal as Harding's mother was also vivid, deeply memorable.  "Three Billboards", which I've wanted to see, may be another film with interesting observations about social class.  Apparently the network censored parts of Frances McDormand's acceptance remarks last night which should not have been by the standards applied these days.  

    *Funniest line of the night: Gary Oldman, on thanking his wife upon receiving his award for playing Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour": "My wife (tells people) she goes to bed with Winston Churchill and wakes up with Gary Oldman.  Which, I suppose, is better than the other way around."  Denzel Washington was caught cracking up at that one.

     

    Comments

    Yeah, I like the consistent message, "Women should be believed, including those who try to club their sporting competitors and ruin their careers". While we're outing & making pariahs out of men for decades-old behavior (Taibbi for being a jerk in Moscow, Victor Salva for what he already served time for a decade or 2 ago, Al Franken for a goofy USO tour entertaining the troops...) we're busy rehabilitating a woman by excuse of being white trash and everyone around her made her do it. Because after all, women have no agency in this society, amirite?

    And then cheering having Oprah WInfrey explore becoming yet another unqualified person running for the highest office - yay!!!

    Francis McDormand was bleeped cause they thought she was going to say "shit" - still on the FCC list - which she didn't (close homonyms), though they missed "shite" (damn Brit-speak). They got the [bleeping] bleeping correct on the West-coast broadcast. In any case, yeah, actors & actresses can get through an awards ceremony without cursing (or can be bleeped). I don't see athletes or politicians cursing in their daily interviews. Anyway, great actress, wonderful Mom in "Almost Famous"


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 5:46am

    Funny, I took the message as women should be listened to, and, presumptively, taken seriously. As should men.  It's just that the latter seems less often to be an issue.

    "White trash" is such a dehumanizing, worse than useless phrase.  I would have thought more Democrats would be of that view these days especially.


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 8:49am

    Gotta uphold our roots, no?


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 9:15am

    If your goal is to unite poor, working, and middle-class Americans in support of economic, racial, and gender justice, you don't use terms like "white trash." That, however, is not the goal of many Democrats.


    by HSG on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 9:28am

    If you know people who live in trailers, you know they use the term "white trash" or "trailer trash" all the time. Or as Kid Rock said, "You're straight outta Compton? I'm straight outta trailer". Talking over their heads is probably more counterproductive.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 11:14am

    Doesn't it depend--a very great deal--on whether you are, or are perceived to be, "one of them"?  Just as someone not a member of a family can be pilloried for saying the very same things about a family member as another family member may believe or have said to that person.  Even if the person about whom the comments are made also may believe the claims are true or have some merit.  

    Not talking here about peer-to-peer interactions.  But about how, rather, people who could hardly be viewed as more remote and disconnected from the lives in question, and have enormous accumulated basic credibility and trust barriers they must overcome if they hope to earn votes or even have a chance of being listened to, communicate and/or are heard when talking about those lives.


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 11:24am

    I'm very comfortable in my friends' trailers, no problem sleeping with dawgs on the floor, can finish a case of the worst pisspoor beer made, sit through whatever church service, wade through the muck of riverbanks & backwaters at dawn though granted not much of a hunter, cuss and drawl like everyone else, and run pretty well barefoot through the woods, though hot pavement & glass might be a problems these days. Want to give me some more cultural splainin'? 


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 11:49am

    Defensive much?


    by HSG on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 12:25pm

    Nah, I just get told I don't understand black issues, women's issues (not here), liberal issues, etc. so I can at least put a stake in the ground to say "I speak redneck".


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 1:08pm

    Seriously, how 'bout we just don't insult each other and we don't use insulting or pejorative terms to describe people or groups - especially groups of which we aren't members.


    by HSG on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 1:18pm

    Because I'm a redneck and hung around with enough trailer trash to be able to use the words, and besides, I've listened to liberals on the internet for a decade slurring anyone from the South at any opportunity, so why don't you go toddle on and tell someone else what fucking works they can or goddam can't use, including curse words and what not. If you don't like it, as we say, you can kiss my rebel ass. (well, we use something stronger than that, but you get the point). Damn, people are bossy on the internetz.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 3:23pm

    PP, are there particular public policy issues you care about?  Sorry, I've been away from dag for a while, back just recently, and am hoping you might provide the skinny on that to bring me up to speed.


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 4:02pm

    1) next-gen energy including the migration path from current energy

    2) improved health care delivery (access + new techniques + better understanding of physical/psychology)

    3) next-gen education as enabling changing skillsets & rate of retraining, including more involvement of latest psychology in learning

    4) poverty mitigation & 3rd world development/economy adaptation, including a forward-looking democracy plan for the Mideast (Mideast version of EU?), and something new for Africa

    5) keeping European Union together

    6) voter disenfranchisement

    7) police brutality

    8) GOP corruption

    9) a sane thought-out immigration policy without ponies and unicorns

    10) improved, more level, more worker protecting trade policy

    11) guaranteed living income tied to fair taxation and public benefit from increased productivity

    12) keeping war decreasing, while preventing Russian/Chinese/other mischief (including new kinds of cyberwar, monopoly of resources, infiltration of governments, support for revolution/civil wars...)

    13) cloned meat and the move away from land/ocean-intensive/fouling animal/fish husbandry

    14) next-gen agriculture and healthy living

    15) various rise of the machine and integrating that with humans rather than in place of humans

    16) various culture (why with so much stuff do we have such a putrified non-renaissance?), supporting a healthier societal approach to relationships and sex, personal security/freedom...

    17) any stuff that lets us live on the edge/different-better than we did 20 years ago

    18) cultural sanity


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 5:01pm

    Cool--thanks for sharing this.


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 5:14pm

    As Lennon said, "I hope we passed the audition".

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 6:15pm

    Have you seen "I, Tonya"?  I ask because prior to seeing it, I was under the impression, not having followed the story at all closely at the time obviously, that Harding herself had attacked Kerrigan.  Not so. 

    As to her level of culpability, from wikipedia:

    "...The USFSA concluded that she knew about the attack before it happened and displayed "a clear disregard for fairness, good sportsmanship and ethical behavior"....In her 2008 autobiography, The Tonya Tapes, Harding states that she wanted to call the FBI to reveal what she knew, but decided not to when Gillooly allegedly threatened her with death following a gunpoint gang rape by him and two other men she did not know."

    You and I and others might or might not believe Harding's claim about wanting to contact the FBI and her asserted reason why she didn't.  Her claims of course might not be true.  But to dismiss them out of hand, based on what is known about the actions of the men involved, seems callous and arbitrary.  Just a little more nuance and ambiguity there than many people, including me, had lazily thought to be the case at the time.

    Beyond what actually happened with the Kerrigan incident, the movie paints what for me was a very believable picture of the early life of someone who had a lot of obstacles to deal with.  These used to be the sorts of people Democrats were sympathetic towards and wanted to find ways to support via broadly targeted opportunity-creating and safety-enhancing laws and public policies.  Or at least not insult, condescend to, or write off.    


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 10:50am

    Okay, so I'm "callous" and "arbitrary" and "lazy" and "condescending" and "dismissing out of hand". Because I'm sure Tonya Harding is very sorry about what happened. Which being a bit lazy, led me to not acknowledge Harding's apology. Oh wait, Tonya Harding never apologized. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter - she was born poor and her mother was mean and she had an abusive boyfriend or husband, and the sun was in her eyes and a rock in her skate and something or other, nevermind...  Oh, and it turns out Harding knew about the planned attack 2 months before. But nothing matters, all water under the dam.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 11:33am

    Lavona Golden's truth, in her words during ABC News interview: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/tonya-hardings-estranged-mother-lavona-g...

    Just a few discrepancies between what Harding has said, what her mother has now said, and what the movie depicted...

     


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 01/16/2018 - 9:56am

    Very interesting, giving excerpts so you know all the movie meta he's getting into here:

    Does ‘Three Billboards’ Say Anything About America? Well …

    By  Wesley Morris @ NYTimes.com/Movies, Jan. 18

    Sometimes, a movie comes along that appears to take the H.O.V. lane through the awards circuit. It gets a bunch of nominations and wins some big prizes, occasionally the biggest ones, and most of the time, people — moviegoers, moviemakers, movie critics — will say they didn’t see it coming, that the enthusiasm for this movie doesn’t make any sense, that the praise being slathered insults how good about a dozen other movies actually are. Nonetheless, the movie is even kind of a hit. In its own accidental way, it does seem to be saying something about, you know, now. And the more love the prize givers throw at it, the more some people want to throw themselves off a cliff [....]

    What’s got people arguing is whether the movie is convincingly about America (Ebbing is as real a place as Narnia) and whether this movie about America ought to be, say, redeeming one of the racist cops serving and protecting Ebbing. Of course, anybody who loves “Crash” already knows the answer to that one — “Why not!” [....]

    To “Three Billboards” admirers and to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the outfit that hands out the Golden Globes, something about the movie rings true or feels timely. That presumption of truth is driving some of the annoyance over this movie. My favorite bad thing about “Three Billboards” is its ambition to play around with America’s ideological and geographical toys.

    One of the toys is the word “nigger.” Another is the concept of political correctness [....]


    by artappraiser on Sat, 01/20/2018 - 4:01pm

    Isn't it just liking Frances McDormand? (not sure if it involves feeding body parts to a wood chipper this time, but probably close enough)


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 12:30pm

    Well, she is a hoot, isn't she?


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 1:02pm

    In her acceptance remarks last night she did graciously suggest to the SAG voters that, as grateful as she was for their recognition, they might going forward want to give this award to some of the newer folks on the scene.

    FTWMHMI (horrible acronym: for those who might have missed it), Morgan Freeman, on accepting his award, noted that the statue awarded to all the winners is fine viewed from the rear, but not gender-neutral viewed from the front.  And that they might want to think about that going forward.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 1:11pm

    So with more love showered on "Three Billboards" at last night's SAG awards, here is a hypothesis as to why:

    the entertainment industry wants it to be known that it approves of stories which depict even pretty far out there racists as capable of moving onto a path of redemption.  And it wants more people to see a story where that is depicted, to plant a seed, perhaps?

       


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 8:21am

    There is always the hope that racists will reform, even though it rarely happens. Many were disappointed that “Get Out”, another story about racism lost.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/get-out-golden-globes-2018-lose-snub-no-wins-response-jordan-peele-best-movie-a8147191.html

     


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 1:35pm

    Well, Sterling Brown, who very publicly has recently thanked the "This is Us" producers for creating a role that allowed him to be a black man, won.  As did the cast of "This is Us."  Have you seen that show?  If so, what do you think?  I haven't yet, but want to check it out.


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 1:58pm

    I have both seasons on Amazon Video but have not watched the series yet..Everyone says that it a great show. There are roles that will be specifically for black males other will be for actors who just happen to be black. Thr role could be played by a talented actor, but blacks aren’t on the digital Rolodex. Because the default color of many award shows has been white, many ethnic minority actors will receive their praise from minority audience based award shows. The same phenomenon occurs in the music and book industries.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 2:31pm

    Yes, I understand what you're saying.  The infrequency of any exceptions (maybe Denzel Washington in some of his roles?) tends to prove the rule.


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 01/22/2018 - 3:19pm