"But fighting is wrong violence is not the answer!!"

Those cunts tried to kill a black guy in broad daylight A PUBLIC EVENT AT THAT and you think we just gonna SIT BY and let that happen??? Fuck outta here with that respectability politics bull!

.

Not a Zionist group lying about one of their members being kept out of a student reunion in Science Po Paris because she is Jewish… that she was told “You’re not getting in because you’re Jewish and Zionist”

The government jumped on it immediately calling pro Palestinians antisemitic monsters. Attal actually referred to the prosecutor in order to condemn legally the students for antisemitism.

The girl realized that her lie could have consequences on her own life if it was discovered so she changed her version saying “I actually didn’t hear the word Jewish or Zionist. A friend told me they might have heard someone else say “don’t let her in she is a Zionist”. I actually got in after the initial refusal but I didn’t stay long because the atmosphere was heavy. When I sat the person next to me moved to sit somewhere else I didn’t feel welcome.”

The truth getting out: Zionist students have been getting in these reunions to scream inappropriate stuff, to take pictures and videos of pro Palestinians students to dox them and threaten them and they make a point always screaming or talking loudly during the minutes of silence for the Palestinians who are murdered by “Israel” daily. That girl is a member of a known Zionist Islamophobic group who call everyone antisemitic all the fucking time. She previously came at reunions to take pictures and videos of the people attending. So when the student organizers saw her they told her “this reunion is meant to be peaceful it’s better if you don’t get in”.

Even now that we know the truth beyond any doubt the government is not backing down and the medias are still being super ambiguous about it.

But wanna know the icing on the cake? A pro Palestinian student went on TV to explain what happened. The journalist had the fucking audacity to say “okay but you were OCCUPYING the auditorium and you gave yourself the right to deny entry to certain people which is illegal”. Like REALLY a Zionist is going to have the fucking audacity to pretend to have the moral high ground on pro Palestinians because they “occupied” an auditorium?!?!?! You’re occupying a whole country a land that belongs to Palestinians so screw you.

(The student answered by saying it was the students duty to organize the reunion themselves after the school refused to do so multiple times and after the school refused to protect the pro Palestinians students who were harassed. Anyway that specific interview was a mess and this is the reason why I laugh at their faces whenever my family tells me I should get into politics… because if I had to go on TV and listen to the Zionists, white supremacists… I would end up punching one in the face. Like what do you mean bitch is going to be a racist piece of shit and I have to use only my words? No we’re past educating racists now it’s a punch in the face every time they are pieces of shit until they’re too scared to talk again.)

Edit to add some sources

Source 1 (paywall but you get how it started with a tweet lying about what happened)

Source 2 (the video of the pro Palestinians student I mentioned)

Source 3 (how the Zionist group went on TV to spread their lies)

Source 4 (the government jumping on the situation)

To remind people, callouts only work if they are punching down. It's wielding your greater social capital against someone vulnerable and isolated to deprive them of what remaining human connections they still have. It's why it's so effective against transfems, who are very isolated and tend to rely on the few queer/feminist spaces that will accept them, or the internet. And these spaces are only accepting on paper, loving the idealized transfem in their heads, while being ruthless against an actual flesh-and-blood transfem who has human flaws. Her human connections and social standing are very tenuous. A callout can result in a transfem's total isolation, which can be devastating and often result in suicide.

Of course, it's not just being transfem that can create vulnerable targets for callouts, you are also vulnerable if you are non-white or disabled to name a few marginalized groups. And those can of course intersect with being transfem, creating extra-vulnerable people.

It's of no use to punch up, to wield it against actually privileged and powerful people. This is despite them being the people who actually use that privilege and power to commit real acts of abuse, not the "abuse" of writing weird incest ship fics on ao3. Abusers tend to be popular people with lots of social capital, and can actually use callouts or similar methods of mobbing to succesfully DARVO their less privileged victims. Their social networks are often robust and will seldom turn on them. If you try to expose their abuse, they have the privilege and social capital to not only evade consequences, but often to strike back in revenge .

And when they are like literally rich and famous even the most public exposure and criticism of their actions has no effect. J.K. Rowling has forced people into silence by threatening to sue for libel, because she has the wealth to do that. Her buddy Johnny Depp actually did that successfully to the woman he abused. You can call the public criticism of them "callout posts", but they have little real-world effect.

And real open bigots will always embrace each other. You can call out open terfs and nazis all day long, the purpose of hate groups is to back each other up and protect each other. And it's seldom someone faces serious social consequences for being a white supremacist transmisogynist anyway. It's why callout posts of actual open terfs and nazis is so rare, there is no point to it.

A transfem accusing a tme person of transmisogyny basically never leads to lasting consequences for the transmisogynist for this very reason. That is not really callout culture, because the person doing it has less power than the person she is calling out.

Whereas some random trans woman can be hounded off the internet and exlucded from irl queer support groups because of something questionable she said a decade ago and has apologized for, and that some random tme person dug up.

Callout culture and mobbing can basically only hurt those who are marginalized and vulnerable, while the privileged can avoid consequences. Because of this it's frequently used by actual abusers as a method of furthering their abuse of vulnerable victims and doing DARVO on them.

Frank Burns is a great character because the writers and Larry Linville were aware that he was supposed to be terrible, and no attempt is ever made to redeem him.

Linville left the show because he felt there was nowhere else for the character to go, and I'd add that there was nowhere for Frank to go that wouldn't undercut the character's effectiveness.

And yet despite never achieving any recognizable redeeming qualities the way that audiences like to see in an antagonist (and MASH audiences would later get in Charles) Frank isn't entirely flat either.

Frank wants to be liked, and who can't relate to that feeling? When the one person who ever wanted to have him around (Margaret) moves on from him, it's the catalyst of a loss of any kind of self-preservation and his subsequent discharge.

He thinks Trapper and Hawkeye are neat, and sometimes he does the equivalent of yanking on their pigtails (albeit very hard) for attention. At the end of "Germ Warfare" Hawkeye and Trapper bring him flowers as an apology for having stolen his blood, cue sentimental music playing in the background as Frank slowly accepts the peace offering - it's kind of a sweet moment for them.

There's also some interesting class stuff going on with him. In Welcome to Korea pt 1 he laments to Margaret that he wasn't allowed to join the fraternity that BJ was a part of because he didn't own a black suit, which is a small detail but if you're looking at this through a class lens, then it changes the tone of Frank being on the receiving end of BJ's pranking him.

Hawkeye and Trapper were almost always punching up at Frank. This would've been possible even if say, Trapper was of a similar class-background as BJ (I doubt it, but we don't know enough about Trapper to confirm) by having Frank and Margaret team up against Hawkeye and Trapper. It was a fair(er) fight. Frank and Margaret do outrank Hawkeye and Trapper which gives them a bit of an edge, but Hawkeye and Trapper have the moral high ground and "nothing to lose" since they've been drafted. Frank and Margaret even recognize that the odds are in their favour once Trapper leaves.

To circle back to my original point - why is the Frank Burns character so great:

1) Talk about committing to the bit. They didn't blink once with Frank - but even an unrealized potential for growth is still potential, and it's there, if you want to see it. Lesser shows have gone the route of "rehabilitating" such a character in order to "make them three dimensional" and Frank Burns proves there's no need for that. Frank is fictional so you can write him off if you want to, but my feeling is the reason people protest bad decisions made by "bad people" is because they believe change is possible.

2) Everyone was in on the joke. Not so with Charles and Potter. Charles was your 3:1 ratio of flaws to virtues that make up your "jerk with a heart of gold" or "redeemable villain". His class positioning should provoke a withering response from audiences, but he's softened by his 1-part virtue. Frank Burns is a smokescreen - something that anyone can point at and identify as a "bad person" within five seconds. But how much structural power does he have compared to Charles? It's a sort of power to be a literal white supremacist and still be a "redeemable villain" on television.

Potter is an outright villain and the narrative, tragically, has no idea. When Potter's army brass moments were framed positively, that's when MASH became a poor imitation of itself. It looks like MASH, but it doesn't sound like it. When Frank used to wax teary-eyed about the brave men of the United States Army, you could rely on Hawkeye and Trapper to cut him down immediately. In the later years, BJ and Hawkeye nod along solemnly to Potter's sermons about brave men serving their country and how he's so proud to be one of them. Frank babyyy, you're sorely missed.

teen boys/young men in your life very likely could be engaging in yet another “trendy” form of antisemitism and you all need to keep those fuckers in check. this post will 100% get shadowbanned due to the language so please reblog if you feel so inclined to share this information

major antisemitism content warning under the fold but please educate yourself if you don’t already know about “gnome hunting” 

earlier this year a trending tag on tiktok popped up in the form of “gnome hunting” and multiple users posted warnings about how they were unknowingly engaging with antisemetic assholes by posting in the tag. the premise is that these users are “hunting gnomes” which actually means jewish people as well as other minority groups.

just today i noticed that youtuber annamarie forcino posted a video on the topic which prompted me to check and the trend does, in fact, still exist. if you want a fairly good discussion on the topic in under 11 minutes i recommend this video:

however annamarie is far from the first person to discuss this issue as there were articles circulating on it in april of this year and in early june i saw another report on it.

as the internet becomes more and more divided, social media sites stop encouraging information sharing, and even search engines try to silence actual issues it is important to stay up to date with issues surrounding dog whistles and hate speech. 

it is always good to stay up to date with source lists of dog whistles such as this one from rainbow cafe and this one from the american jewish committee

if you don’t have the time or attention to read those links or watch annamarie’s video then i encourage you to make time to be an actual ally to people who are targeted by white supremacists however here are the highlights of what is actively being used in gnome hunter videos:

“millions wear the hats” (or variations on the term) - the trend is claiming to reference gnomes however this term is a reference to jewish men

gnome hunting - a term used to reference the trend itself and to refer to targeting jewish people for sport

referencing the number 88 i.e. 'i saw 88 gnomes yesterday' - this is code for common nazi phrasing

using two lightning bolt emojis - this is a code referring to the ss imagery on nazi jackets

references to replacement theory - this is a dog whistle to conspiracy against minorities “replacing” white people

references to slavic sigils and culture - again this is a common dog whistle at this point but tends to be going together with this trend

additionally those posting under this tag are claiming to have various mental health conditions such as schizophrenia, insanity, autism, and depression. this is also a form of protecting their posts and as a reminder mental health is never an excuse for white supremacy and it is always ethical to punch nazis

anyway if i royally fucked up this post please let me know and i will edit or repost it, from my knowledge of dealing with these topics this is about as thorough as i think i can or need to be on this for this post but i am happy to make changes to it as well or tag/tw differently if needed.

Chag sameach!

I think I now get what I was missing in Enlightened Terminally Online Leftist Discourse, with help from this post. (I'm leaving out a good bit in the chain about American education because that part's really not my problem, but it is interesting)

People have decided their politics are an identity and not an ideology. That's why they think antisemitism is just opt-in! If they don't identify as antisemitic, if they don't look at their arm and see a red band with a swastika on it, then they can't be The Bad Guys. They're safe! The reason a lot of Jews don't talk to them anymore is irrelevant, and I bet those guys are (again! as an identity that defines who they are as a person, in every facet!) Zionists anyway so who cares. There's no reason to talk to them, or regard them as human, they aren't Part Of Us, The Good Guys. While there, why ever study what Zionism is or what it means to Jews? You don't need to do any research, just sharing emotional social media posts that tell you what to feel and conform with your Good Identity is good enough. Those guys definitely know what's up. If they tell you someone is Necessarily Bad, that's just the way it is - and it conforms with your identity so it feels good.

If Jewish concerns are only because of The Bad Guys - (Only ever The Dastardly White Supremacists, nobody else, right?) Then surely you, certified Good Person that you are, have no obligation to care about them more than anything else. Just punch Nazis and move on, right? It's all good! And listen to marginalized people. As long as their opinions conform with your identity. Otherwise they must be... not marginalized, actually. Not worthy of protection, actually.

And again, and I can't stress this enough, people legitimately think antisemitism and pervasive anti-Jewish sentiment, well-hidden behind popular causes, started and stopped with the holocaust. It happened once, it basically happened for no reason, and it was done solely by Bad Guys holding The Bad Opinions. You, since you don't identify as bad, can't be part of the same problem. Surely people will know that? That you're necessarily good, that their worries are unfounded? The Jews in your life and your circles definitely know you mean fascism specifically when you talk about Zionism... right? The decades of popular and arbitrary use of "Zionist" as a a more publicly acceptable replacement for "Jew I want to die but be righteous about it" don't factor in... right? A social media post told me it's fine. Or someone who says they're a Jew says it's fine. So my identity is secure, surely.

The fact you identify as anti-racist and antifascist is well and good. It is! But unlike other identities, where deciding to identify as such is the only validation required - this one requires actual work. Listening to other humans, even if you decided they don't share your identity, should not be difficult to you. If your reaction to Jews celebrating their cool holiday that has doughnuts and candles and songs, or how unsafe they feel right now, is to immediately talk about how Some Jews Are Good But Some Are Bad And We Must Always Watch Out And Exclude And Condemn The Bad Ones (they hide in plain sight don't you know), you aren't actually furthering any agenda - except, you know, the anti-Jewish agenda. You aren't gaining allies or changing anyone's mind for the better. It doesn't matter if this doesn't conform with your identity! You might still do it anyway! Anybody can!

And it will be with the best of intentions. That's how it works.

i'm going to be doing a video going into the positive and negative response to the flag level. Eventually. i've got about 12hundred other things on my plate. But i did grab a couple of screenshots when i was doing the edits for LBsP 290.

i'm not sure who, precisely the evil overlords are here. Me, specifically? Do they know about ed.? Is it the Grand High Trans Counsel? 'cause, like, i was supposed to get my laminated membership card and fruits basket when i sent in my 5 estrogel boxtops, and they still ain't come in the mail.

Also, ok, "indoctrinating children wiv LGBTQ" (like, how does that even work. Yes, i'm playing up being the naif, i know it means publicly existing. But also also, like indoctrinating wiv queer propaganda; that would make sense, like, from a colocation standpoint. Indoctrinating wiv LGBTQ, it sounds like i'm catapulting bears at kids.) is "downright evil," but encouraging suicide is... okilly-dokelly? Yes, i'm playing up being the naif again; i understand how this all works, but it's still bullshite and should be called bullshite.

Weirdly, as these things usually go, seeing this jobber trying to skirt around an automod (that probably isn't even there) wiv "Janny", made me sit down and finally get more comfortable wiv using tranny as a self-descriptor. i mean, honestly, it's always felt a little... twee? It lacks the phonetic punch of dyke. Love me dyke. That's a word what gots boots on. But, yeah, i'm feeling like i could fuck wiv tranny too.

Now, if you're not someone who's into LBP, i want you to know they had to sticker all those black panels on to cover up the original words (Give us trans rights or get our trans lefts, if i remember right) and then put those letters down individually. Which is commitment to the bit. A little. i bet they had more to say and got bored half-way through. 'cause i have to do the level and creator names for my shows' title cards like that, and let me tell you, it gets mindnumbing after a hot second. It also amuses me that they got the level in scenic mode. i guess the fire was a touch too hot for them.

Fun Fact: i originally went wiv fire as a hazard, 'cause, like... flaming gays? Look, the level is dense wiv puns, but that doesn't mean they're good ones.

Taking a stroll around friend RazorSupreme's earth, and, well

just totally well adjusted stuff, you know?

i wanna know what this shite is, actually. Like, if it's White Supremacist stuff, i ought to file that away in the red flags folder. On the other hand, it could be edgy LBP clan stuff too. i mean, it could be White Supremacist LBP clan stuff, but that's a more self-contained problem (still goes in the red flag folder, naturally; i'm just not likely to run into it in meatspace, you know?).

So, yeah. The whole thing has been a trip. The majority of response has been honestly really heartwarming. Having other queer players saying they got something fun out of it is worth dozens of this fucklechuck.

But dang, some folx do be pretty weird about things.

Sorry for the rough anon, also I notice people wonder where the rise of racism the past 10 years

I’m only 23 but…

Black Americans can make white supremacists blushed when it comes to racism

Like I keep seeing the hell white people especially men growing up in inner cities black neighborhoods

Thank you for not joining the kkk despite the pos adults and kids who treated you garbage because of your skintone, thank youuuu.

Ugh don’t get me started on how black people (especially) turn in super kkk grand wizards when a black guy dates/marry a white woman…to the point there a whole episode in a FUCKING DISNEY CARTOON about a black boy who only date white girls because he have a fetish

Ooh you could smell the femcel energy there

Also like people wondering how we got shit like the 1619 project and how people think the BP villain Killmonger was right.

Oh no bigoted af black people always exist, it just other blacks used to punch their teeth in and tell them to piss off

But thanks to affirmative action and Marxist infested colleges telling these racist blacks that racism=power + prejudice. They are in full force now in media and institutions

And yeah the magical negreos movie definitely going to flop. You know I thought I would have humbleness and humiliation when I have a privilege in a studio such as focus that owned by Comcast

But nope, you have to be narcissistic as hell to write in Hollywood

>Ugh don’t get me started on how black people (especially) turn in super kkk grand wizards when a black guy dates/marry a white woman

Jordan Pele and Clarence Thomas come to mind for that, Tiger caught some hell too but he was already playing golf which had the community confused enough, like that guy discovering Hockey.

I'm sure I've gone over the struggle the powers that be don't actually want folks to fight but ummmm.

Back in 1969 the racists of tumblr finally had their first meet up, reminding us all they don't care what race the other person is so long as they're racist.

I can 100% do without all the socialism, since that's just going backwards, that and the "Rainbow Coalition" kinda proved that socialism wouldn't be the best option by instead setting up their own charity and organizing it themselves, no government involvement and they got people fed and taken care of. Socialism might have kept us out of Nam but we'd still be at war on a regular basis and honestly the K/D ratio for socialist nations in war is awful.

Some would classify that as socialism, but then that would also make things like the Catholic Church socialist, instead of a charity. (among other things)

Right up till the FBI flooded their neighborhoods with crack.

Tangent over.

But it's insane to see how one of the groups that winds up saying the worst things about black people is other black people, white folks haven't even come up with a new racist insult for them in over a century, haven't needed to just start using whatever they're calling each other.

But thanks to affirmative action and Marxist infested colleges telling these racist blacks that racism=power + prejudice. They are in full force now in media and institutions

Ya, that's because they can't use crack this time and they still need a way to keep people apart, vote blue no matter who dipshits are part of that as well.

Party allegiance for a party that is doing nothing for you, just stop voting for them, find your local version of Lord Buckethead and vote for them, so the people in office know you're still voting just not for them.

This is applicable to republicans that bitch and moan about RINO's but still vote for them as well.

Circling back round we really need to get that class solidarity thing back, because that's where a voting bloc being created will actually be able to accomplish things.

Ariel laying the smackdown on vanessa, dot showing agent croft who really runs Witwicky, now the Montgomery fight OOOOH WHAT A GLORIOUS SUMMER FOR BLACK PEOPLE

I love Taylor to death but what I saw yesterday made my hair stand on end. Taylor having been a victim of sexual assault was sitting in an enclosed area with a predator. Jackson Mahomes was arrested and charged with sexual battery of a female owner of a restaurant. This was a huge story and the case still pending. I didn't like this whole setup from the beginning. Now that everyone's seen the game I want Taylor out of this whole deal. She and Mr. Kelce don't need any promo whatsoever. Her safety, career, and her life is more important. I'm upset and can't speak anymore. Most of us in this group didn't want to see Blondie with TK. I can't support her any longer if she doesn't stop playing these games. It's getting dangerous.

Anon, I am so sorry. I see you and everyone else who finds Taylor’s proximity to this situation and the NFL’s toxic culture baffling and disheartening as she is a SA survivor and general supporter of women’s rights. For whatever reason it upsets you, I see and affirm you.

(FWIW, I have also always been uncomfortable with her affinity for the late Kobe Bryant.)

By toxic culture, I mean the NFL’s long history of not giving a sh*t about SA and DV committed by its players, prospects, employees, and former players.

I love sports. And I stopped watching NFL football 6 or 7 years ago (after a life of loving the 49ers) because I could not, in good conscience, support a league that:

- ostracized Colin Kapernick. That whole situation was not dissimilar to the 🐍 summer/fall of 2016 except more public and damaging and involved more punching down.

- is run by billionaire white owners that view players (predominantly players of colour) and their bodies disposable. Like how aristocratic generals used to view common soldiers as cannon or machine-gun fodder in the wars of the late 19th and early 20th century. The initial denial then minimizing of concussion-related disabilities is particularly heinous.

- has a pervasive culture of misogyny and toxic masculinity which manifests in ways like how they cover up DV.

And like - I own that I am a privileged white woman who can insulate myself from this.

But Blondie is acting like a clueless, privileged white woman who is helping white wash (yep. I said it. It’s white supremacist at its core) this wildly problematic league and lending her fame and general good will toward this disgrace of an organization.

I haaaaaaaate it. The MH situation was terrible, but she still went out 2-3 times a week and performed and promoted SNTV. Why so little Cruel Summer or 1989TV promotion? Why is she letting this dominate everything? It is baffling.

Anyway - I see you and I am sorry. If you, like me, need to back away a bit for your own peace of mind, do what is best for you. Take care of you. That goes for all of you, besties.

I think it's important to look at the Girlfriend Reviews incident of the Hogwarts Legacy response, because even if it's just a case of lack of awareness of some Youtubers, the way that they're being used is insidious.

So from what I've seen is that they tried to stream Hogwarts Legacy, a section of their fanbase expressed their disappointment mainly via messages they were unfollowing/unsubscribing, Shelby got upset and tearfully took a break, but they still streamed for 6 hours after. Since then the story has been used to label those opposed to Hogwarts Legacy as abusive towards Girlfriend Reviews and other streamers.

If there is any screenshots of the abusive language in their chat, please let me know, as further evidence is always appreciated.

I do think that Girlfriend Reviews were mostly naive, thinking that donating to the Trevor Project would be a reasonable counterbalance for their discretion, however that action is also telling that they knew that playing the game would result in some backlash. They're no strangers to backlash, as they did receive previous harrassment when they played The Last Of Us Part 2. They should be aware by now, how politics and video games interact.

I think when they got harrassed for TLOU2, there was more of a dismissive attitude of "people getting too upset over a game", rather than a culture of misogyny in video games and that culture lashing out due to a sense of entitlement. And perhaps Girlfriend Reviews thought that HL was more of the same, but it's not and to act like it is, is just being ignorant of systems of power.

But this isn't just about these youtubers. Shelby's tears are being manipulated by bad actors as White Women's Tears. If you're unaware of the term, WWTs is a common framing tactic that has been used, mostly for anti-black purposes, for a long time. It's used to justify continued oppression against marginalized groups by saying "Look how they've hurt the feelings of this symbol of innocence". White women have often been used as a tool within white supremacist, patriarchal societies, as something to be protected from the influence and existence of The Other. White Women's Tears are most notable in the case of Emmett Till.

I'm not saying that Shelby was aware of this when she cried, or that she faked crying. What I am saying is that the sort of folk who harrassed Girlfriend Reviews for playing TLOU2, are the sort of people who are now using the image of her crying to punch down on Trans people, Jewish people, and others who expressed their disappointment at Girlfriend Reviews for playing HL. I'd hope that Girlfriend Reviews would be able to see this, and make amends, rather than trying to retreat to an apolitical position, while allowing the continued use of this "harrassment" to inflict more harm on Trans and Jewish people. And that's the better of two evils, hopefully this doesn't make them follow in the footsteps of the likes of Jontron, becoming an alt-right talking head (although this seems unlikely).

The cognitive dissonance of trying to enjoy something you thought was just innocent fun, to find out it has wider political ramifications, is hard. It's painful, you don't want to feel bad for what you consider an accidental lapse of better judgement. However, the actions you take to deal with that cognitive dissonance is important. You can either face up to your mistake, bury your head in the sand, or stand by your action and in opposition of those you have wronged.

it’s infuriating like it makes me feel so helpless so many of you are just cosplaying and it’s not like i don’t already know this bc stuff like this is exactly why i stay away from 99% of self proclaimed hardcore leftist on here bc they always always always “slip up” and say something inherently white supremacist it always fucking happens bc none of u mean if ur just using labels and symbols for fun u just want to feel like ur on the right side of history without doing any work it makes me want to punch you ppl in the jaw every fucking white leftist on here with a anarchy and revolution badges sewn onto their stupid jackets are incapable of seeing brown people as equals

do people not understand that as long as a group of individuals are advocating and endorsing the death of or implementing harm on marginalized people it's always morally correct to kill them and/or wish them death when given the opportunity? tbh seems like an easy concept to comprehend. you guys aren't real allies if you think killing nazis and white supremacists is bad. youre all just a bunch of poser pussies looking for validation imo.

It’s a very lib take. “But violence is NEVER the answer maybe you could find a middle ground and just talk it out 🥺” is a concept liberals go absolutely insane over, and why no one takes them seriously. Nazis like it too since they don’t want to get punched.

The counter demonstration drew equal numbers of police. Keeping the two sides apart had to be a challenge but the democratic principle had to be upheld (so the purist argument said). Back then, not a single young person I knew bought into that perspective. Few people who resided in the Lewisham, Catford, Deptford, New Cross, Greenwich areas believed in the principle. It seemed convenient to invoke a democratic right as a basis for protecting the National Front’s public display of hatred of blacks in a black settlement. In fact using a democratic platform to mount an undemocratic agenda turned out to be a contradiction of the democratic ideal given the incitement to blacks of a white supremacist group parading in a black neighborhood. Locals viewed the democratic argument as a smokescreen to bring home to blacks the more important message of just how unwelcome immigrants and their descendants were in the UK. On my way home from the counter demonstration as I walked hand-in-hand with my then girlfriend away from Lewisham towards Deptford (buses weren’t running because of the police barricades) a van full of police pulled up and grabbed as many young blacks as possible and herded them into vans. Two policemen ran up to me, grabbed me in a headlock, and threw me to the ground. I was punched in my face and my glasses were smashed. Before I knew what hit me I was hurled into a police van where I blurrily made out several bruised black and brown faces of other young men. I happened to be one of the lucky ones. My companion—university educated and when it comes to authority very savvy for a youth in the way the middle class always enviably appear—called everyone we knew for help, including a lecturer at Goldsmiths College whose evening class I attended at the time, and luckily, the lecturer knew an up and-coming lawyer who agreed to defend me pro bono. The police said I kicked them and they arrested me. The lawyer, Paul Boateng, walked them through their statement, dismantled its credulity, and had witnesses, along with my girlfriend, who testified to my calm demeanor at the time and the sudden appearance of the police and their strategic pounce on me. The lecturer, Helen Carr, gave me a glowing character witness. She made me feel valued as a student in her class and with some ability as a beginning poet. Her estimation showed me in altogether new light to myself. I say this because it struck me at the time that young black males rarely earned this kind of accolade from the whites around them who were in positions of authority. Mostly, the meeting was for a dressing down of the former by the latter.

Fred D’Aguiar - Six Views of Britain [Callaloo, Volume 38, Number 3, Summer 2015, pp. 490-499]

Good for Her?

I love a good Good For Her movie. The Other Woman is one of my favorites. Gone Girl, Kill Bill, Midsommar (even though I’m now realizing that’s a white supremacist cult), Gerald’s Game, and even Ready or Not are ones I really enjoy. When it comes to horror, I have a few. These are not only about the justice the women deserve after being wronged, but it makes you deeply think if the ending is really a satisfying one. 

Trigger Warning: SA or implied SA.

GOTHIKA (2003)

Starring the iconic and beautiful Halle Berry, this 2003 film ages so beautifully. It follows a psychiatrist Miranda Grey who clocks out one night at the mental institution she works at only to wake up in psychiatric hold, her husband brutally murdered, and she the main suspect. Only, she remembers nothing of the night she supposedly killed her perfect husband and cannot even think of why she would ever do that to the man she loved. But no one believes her. She begins to suspect a vengeful spirit that haunts and torments her is connected to it all.

I’ve watched this movie multiple times and there is always something new you discover that you didn’t before.  Miranda is a very unreliable character, so what she remembers and knows is all we can really go off of...which isn’t much. Throughout the movie, she’s gaslighted by doctors and nurses she once called friends and tormented by a mysterious spirit with no real answers. But the more she digs into who would’ve wanted her husband dead, the wilder the story gets. This movie shows how psychiatric patients are viewed on both sides of the table and it’s really heartbreaking, especially with the context of sexual assault.

My favorite aspect of the movie was how Miranda’s relationship developed with Penèlope Cruz’s character Chloe Sava. As Sava’s psychiatrist, Miranda wasn’t fully able to understand the weight of the words Chloe meant and had casted her off as crazy.  But after her husband is murdered and she’s thrown into the same facility as Chloe where these women are being abused, she finally sees. She is now no different that Chloe, both women screaming for their own truths to be heard by those who won’t listen...not in the way that they should anyway. Overrall, the supernatural aspect of the move made it ten times better. It would’ve been amazing without it but it’s like the final spice in the pot to make the whole meal come together. 

SUCKER PUNCH (2011)

Suckerpunch is a gem. It’s not so hidden. It’s talked about from time to time so people know about this amazing movie. But I’m still not satisfied with the level of praise I think it deserves. I personally believe it should have the very same cult following Jennifer Body rightfully gets. Like JB, Suckerpunch was promoted to boys as a sexy action movie instead of what it truly is, a psycological/fantasy dealing with trauma. There’s some actiom of course, but Psycological. Fantasy. Not much horror but I still want to add it to the list.

Directed by Zack Snyder, it follows Baby Doll (played by Emily Browning) who is sent away to a mental asylum after her step father murdered her mother and sister and planted the crimes on a traumatized Baby Doll (there’s a pattern here, yall!). To make sure that the cops don’t question Baby Doll during the investigation, her step father pays off a grimey orderly Blue Jones (played by the sexy Oscar Issac) to forge the asylum’s psychiatrist’s signature to approve of a lobotomy. This inhumane procedure will be performed in 7 days, so that is the amount of time Baby Doll has to convince the other girls she meets at the asylum to help her escape, including perky Rocket and her reluctant sister Sweet Pea. In order to cope with the sexual abuse the girls go through in the asylum, Baby Doll builds a fantasy world where the asylum is instead a brothel and in order to get the tools she needs (a knife, fire, map, a key, and a sacrifice) has to distract whoever hold each tool. Where the doctor comes in seven days to lobotomize Baby Doll, in the fantasy world of the brothel it’s a high rolling John who’ll do some “cherry picking” on the newly orphaned, virgin Baby Doll.

This distraction of the brothel Johns and the workers lunges us into another fantasy world that mirrors the task at hand. In one, Sweet Pea has to copy the map in the office of the head of the brothel who parallels Blue in the asylum. Baby Doll dances to distract Brothel Blue who left his office. As she dances, the second world opens up. We are now behind enemy lines of World War I. Bombs detonate and magazines of bullets are released on each side of the battle as zombified men fight. Babydoll and her new friends are tasked to get behind enemy lines and retrieve a map. Whether or not they complete this mission reflects if Sweet Pea got the map from Brothel Blue’s office which definitely reflects if the map is also acquired in the asylum. My very guess is that this “dancing” she does is “sexual favors” in the asylum, the distraction needed to get the tools.

The action alone is amazing, so I see why they relied on it being the biggest thing the advertised, but it really did this movie a disservice. The story has layers so it won’t be seen on the first watch. It took me many watches to understand the complexities of the world within worlds, why they exist, and what certain things meant in parallel to each world. While I once watched it for the fun action, it became more sad, more soul-sinking. Even the ending I had to understand it was for the best of the character, despite it not being what we all expected it to. But it’s so beautifully sad, this bittersweet feeling. I might make an entire post talking the ending of it. One of my favorite movies.

SHUTTER (2012) (2003)

Shutter is very similar to Gothika. If it weren’t already a Thai remake of the same name, I would’ve assumed it was derivative of it. But it stands perfectly on its own. 

Shutter follows newly wed couple Jane and Ben, played by Rachael Taylor and Joshua Jackson, who relocate to Japan shortly after their wedding. Ben is a photographer at the school and had already worked at the school previously, so he has American friends there, Adam and Bruno. While driving, similar to Gothika, the couple a girl that walked out into the road. But when the frightened couple gets out to help the victim, she’s nowhere to be found. Over the following few days, Jane is haunted by a mysterious spirit that relentless harasses her to no end. The only way to see this spirit is to take pictures from a polaroid. This spirit has also shown up in her wedding pictures back in the states and now appears in every photo as a smudge that seemed like a printing defect. But Jane learns that these spirits show up in photos when there is an intense emotion attached to it, and the reason why is grim. 

I don’t remember how I discovered the movie but I’m glad I did. It seems like the typical movie like The Ring or Drag Me To Hell where an entity haunts the main character, there’s some research done in a library or a boxy computer, and then the evil is defeated through help. However, Shutter adds the same layer I love to all these movies where nothing is how it seems. This entity isn’t just some bored spirit that wants to pick on a newly wed couples. There is a reason.

Like Gothika, I loved the supernatural addition. It don’t hurt nobody to add in a demon, a vengeful spirit, or some gremlin running around an apartment building luring your kids to impending doom. Anything out of this dimensional world gets a gold star for me. Even in serious topics that’s more than just a family moving into a haunted home. Shutter does it perfectly. But like Suckerpunch, the ending is pretty sad. It still gives that Good For Her message, but…..is it really? I don’t want to spoil much of the ending, but is that really the afterlife we would want for Megume? Attached to a person that doesn’t deserve her time instead of moving on? 

 You can tell this movie came at a time where the cut and dry Evil Has Been Defeated movies they vomited out in the 2000’s were getting predictable and directors wanted to switch it up. I’m never big on adapting foreign films, especially when the Thai one was just as good, but I’m a little biased here since the 2012 version is the one I first saw. The 2004 Thai version is amazing and should be watched along with the 2012 remake.