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theorajones · 4 years ago

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OR IS HE?

I present to you, the Michael Knight Manwhore Index!

This was shamelessly ripped off from inspired by Sara_merry’s Michael Knight Sex Project on LJ, which tragically appears to have been abandoned after the first 14 episodes. But having a) a ton of spare time on my hands due to the ongoing Coronapocalypse, b) a steadfast dedication to sitting around in my pajamas watching Knight Rider instead of cleaning the gutters or replacing my car’s valve cover gaskets and c) a burning need to know how accurate my estimate of Michael’s conquests was in my last trashy fanfic, I persevered.

Methodology: I assigned each prominent female guest character (and the occasional male and/or regular character) a probability of having gotten it on with Michael, based on my subjective interpretation of how much they flirted/made out/made plans for a romantic getaway/actually went on a romantic getaway. Episodes in which at least one character had a 50% or greater probability (including with characters who were talked about but not seen onscreen) were assigned a value of 1. Episodes with a 49% or lower probability were assigned a value of 0. Values were totaled to calculate each season’s MKMI number.

TL;DR results:

(# denotes probable sexytimes with someone who wasn’t seen onscreen, * denotes Michael’s participation was most likely non-consensual)

Season 1 MKMI number: 13

04 - Good Day at White Rock 05 - Slammin’ Sammy’s Stunt Show Spectacular 06 - Just My Bill # 07 - Not a Drop to Drink 08 - No Big Thing # 09 - Trust Doesn’t Rust # 10 - Inside Out 11 - The Final Verdict 13 - Forget Me Not 15 - Give Me Liberty... or Give Me Death 16 - The Topaz Connection 17 - A Nice, Indecent Little Town 20 - Knight Moves

Season 2 MKMI number: 6

06 - Return to Cadiz 07 - KITT the Cat 08 - Custom KITT 14 - Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Best Friend 18/19 - Goliath Returns * 23 - Let It Be Me

Season 3 MKMI number: 7

09 - Dead of Knight 12 - Custom Made Killer # 13 - Knight by A Nose 14 - Junk Yard Dog 15 - Buy Out 17 - The Nineteenth Hole 22 - Circus Knights

Season 4 MKMI number: 5

03 - KITTnap 08 - Many Happy Returns 12 - The Scent of Roses 16 - Redemption of a Champion 22 - Voo Doo Knight

Conclusion: Michael is not nearly as much of a manwhore as people think, at least based on what we see onscreen. Although he clearly does have a social life outside of what we’re shown in every episode, so there’s still a world of possibilities...

Detailed episode analysis below the cut:

s1e01/02 - Knight of the Phoenix

Lonnie - Don't seem to know each other very well, no signs of other than professional interest. Probability: 0%

Tanya - Some kind of working relationship as Michael Long, but she doesn't seem to recognize his voice as MK. Plus he was possibly still engaged to Stevie as ML.

T: "I can promise you a very rewarding... *partnership*." M: "Not this time."

Probability: 5% (as ML) 0% (as MK)

Maggie - She expresses regret at not going for him at the end, but also seems more interested in finding a father figure for her son. It's implied that Michael left town before anything could happen. He did say he'd come back and visit. Did he ever? Would Maggie be up for a fling even though she knows he can't settle down? Potentially but not necessarily.

Probability - 30%

s1e03 - Deadly Maneuvers

Robin - They keep things mostly professional during the investigation. Michael goes to his own hotel room. At the end, it looks like he and Devon are leaving together. Michael is wearing a different shirt in the last scene than in the one where he rescues Robin from the munitions range so it's unclear how much time has passed. Theoretically sexytimes could have transpired but there aren't really any strong suggestions that they have.

Probability: 10%

s1e04 - Good Day at White Rock

Sherry - "Keep driving." "For how long?" "Until one of us runs out of gas."

Probability: 95%

s1e05 - Slammin' Sammy's Stunt Show Spectacular

Lisa - She's definitely interested. And he's sticking around for another 3 weeks, so definitely some opportunity. He doesn't seem as flirtatious with her as he was with Sherry but it's definitely a possibility.

Probability: 70%

s1e06 - Just My Bill

Sabrina (offscreen) - Devon breaks Michael's date with her. Not enough info to draw any conclusions about whether it's a first and/or last date. A definite possibility.

Probability: 50%

Senator Maggie - That would have been subversive af, but alas, no.

Probability: 0%

Jane - Doesn't seem that into him at their first meeting. At their breakfast date he asks her how she slept, which presumably he'd know if he'd been there. She does go out to lunch with him and Devon at the end. Possible but not conclusive.

Probability: 25%

s1e07 - Not A Drop to Drink

Francesca - They have kind of a "channel the sexual tension into arguments" thing, but like Maggie in the pilot, she's probably looking more for somebody who can settle down. Another one where he talks at the end about coming back to visit but we don't know if he ever does. Maybe?

Probability: 50%

S1e08 - No Big Thing

The Unnamed 200-Mile Diversion Girl (offscreen) - I doubt he drove 200 miles out of his way just for coffee and friendly conversation.

Probability: 90%

Carol Reston - They have dinner together but seem to be keeping things strictly business. No apparent indication that they're romantically interested, no "Come back and visit sometime."

Probability: 0%

s1e09 - Trust Doesn't Rust

Rosalyn and/or Rosalie (offscreen) - "What's wrong with a little 'companionship'?"

Probability: 90%

Bonnie - They almost kiss after defeating KARR, but mutually think better of it. Presumably the moment passes and stays passed for another few seasons of UST.

Probability: 0%

s1e10 - Inside Out

(This ep has a higher than average amount of sexual innuendo, including KITT's breathless response to Bonnie adjusting his components, Michael commenting that Bonnie knows how to turn KITT on, KITT straight-facedly giving Michael an accounting of Bonnie's measurements after Michael wonders whether there's a real woman under her jumpsuit, and Michael & KITT's "Maybe I can get something from the girl"/ "I wouldn't touch that line with a 10 foot driveshaft" conversation. "Don't worry, I'll distract her."/"I'll bet." "What was that all about?"/"Biology.")

Linda - WTF was up with him grabbing her in the woods like a skeezoid rapist when he just wanted to give her dinner? She doesn't kick him in the balls so I guess that counts for something. They hug after a conversation in her room later, hold hands and smooch before she goes off to do... something mission related. She saves his ass and helps him drop off the bad guys at the prison. Do they celebrate later? Maybe.

Probability: 70%

s1e11 - The Final Verdict

Cheryl - They're pretty touchy-feely when he visits her in jail, and she gives him a pretty good kiss at the end. Odds are good that they had/will have a romantic relationship at some point.

Probability: 90%

s1e12- A Plush Ride

M: I wanna search Margo's room. K: I've heard that one before. M: It'll give you something to brood about during the night.

Margo - (spoiler alert) She's a terrorist. They get physical when she catches him searching her room but it doesn't turn into anything more than fighting. He kisses her (in front of everybody, wtf) after she (supposedly) saves him from being murdered by Jacobs. But the next time we see the two of them together, she's taking him prisoner. She's pretty touchy-feely with him while he's tied up but there's no time for her to do anything (and presumably he wouldn't be into it if she did, what with her being a terrorist and all).

Probability: 0%

Bonnie - Uncharacteristically flirtatious, appears to be a bit tipsy. No real implication that anything happened, though.

Probability: 0%

s1e13 - Forget Me Not

Maria Elena - They're flirting up a storm in their first scene. And their third one. And fourth one. Also she's frequently scantily clad around him. Michael to KITT in the last scene: "See you in two days, buddy." Oh yeah, he was planning something.

Probability: 95%

Micki - She's a little flirtatious too before she loses her memory (although he starts it by fake-flirting with her). And also feels comfortable enough to just run around in Michael's shirt and little else after she loses her memory, although she says she doesn't just meet guys at parties and go home with them (she thinks). He tells her she's a nice lady but doesn't seem that romantically interested in her.

Probability: 10% Until...

Maria Elena & Micki - They've become fast friends by the last scene and both kiss him on the cheek at the same time after he brings them both flowers (at KITT's instigation). Why do I get the feeling "Anybody wanna cruise a hamburger joint?" was as close as they could get to implying a threesome on 80s family hour tv?

Probability: 60%

s1e14 - Hearts of Stone

M: KITT, don't fall in love with one of these beautiful cars and run off on me, huh?

K: I wouldn't dream of it.

Angie - She's with Roberto. Also (spoiler alert) a scam artist criminal.

Probability - 0%

The blonde lady at the bar - They flirt and she tells him she hopes to see him later, but no indication that she ever does.

Probability: 5%

Devon - Oh man, the way he's eyeing Michael up in his hotel room. And if we're still in the pilot universe, Michael is a dead ringer for a young Wilton, whom I will never be unconvinced Devon wasn't either secretly in love with or a relationship with, s2 Devon Miles Heterosexuality Minutes be damned. We never really get any indication that Michael swings that way, though (at least with non-automotive males, *wink*).

Probability: 0%

The nurse - In the novelization she flirts with him and kisses him, but no indication of romantic interest in the actual episode.

Probability: 0%

s1e15 - Give Me Liberty... Or Give Me Death

Bonnie - He tries to ask her out, but she's busy spending the night with KITT. :D She also doesn't seem very impressed with his Liberty drama.

Probability: 0%

Liberty Cox - When she shows up in his room, he seems a lot less interested in her than she is in him, but he doesn't exactly fight her off when she starts kissing him. He tells KITT he went to bed and she went back to her room, but she's sure more pissed about not getting to ride along with him the next day than you'd think she'd be if all they'd done was smooch. Also she's back at FLAG HQ at the end so maybe she's spending some time in town.

Probability: 90%

Dorothy Ackridge - He tries to be flirtatious but she has no time for his shenanigans. she's grateful when he saves her life but doesn't express any romantic interest in him.

Probability: 0%

s1e16 - The Topaz Connection

Lauren Royce - She takes half the episode to warm up to him but they have fun in Vegas. "You do the cake, I'll do the champagne, and we'll see what else comes to mind." "Deal." Things look like they might be headed in a steamy direction as evidenced by the romantic music playing but they get cockblocked by Bob. They smooch before she gets on the bogus plane. In the last scene they kiss some more and she tells him they have some unfinished business.

Probability: 95%

s1e17 - A Nice, Indecent Little Town

KITT: Michael is... indisposed. Devon: Oh. That means he's either with a young lady or in jail.

Jobina - He's definitely turning on the charm. She helps Michael escape from jail (with KITT's assistance). "Is there anything this car can't do?" "I think a woman would be a better judge of that." "I beg your pardon?" I don't even know what that's supposed to mean but I want to believe it's something saucy. Not actually much indication onscreen that anything happened but in the last scene Michael says he hopes Jobina will stay in town and Bonnie asks if that's so he'll know where to find her. Michael responds, "Yeah, that's a thought." Possibilities here.

Probability: 50%

s1e18 - Chariot of Gold

Dr. Charlene Litton - He chats her up at the party, but it's in the line of duty. She's kind of condescending to him. She does break away from the creepy IQ cult and help Michael foil their plans, but isn't seen again.

Probability: 0%

Bonnie - They do their usual UST thing, and dance at the party until Devon cuts in. He's extremely protective of her. He talks her out of her brainwashing by telling her "We're a team, we love each other." He makes her breakfast and brings her a rose at the end. Still, no overt indication that anything beyond camaraderie happens.

Probability: 0%

s1e19 - White Bird

Stevie - Presumably they've gotten it on in the past but there was too much going on in this episode for anything to happen. Also presumably Wilton didn't do any renovations below Michael's neck so if they'd gotten it on she would have known with 100% certainty who he was.

Probability: 95% (as ML) 5% (as MK)

s1e20 - Knight Moves

Terri - He asks her to go dancing. She turns him down but finds him likable/trustworthy enough to let him give her a lift home. They seem to be bonding but when he goes in for a kiss she says goodnight and goes in the house (alone). His little smile afterwards suggests he's up for the challenge. After he saves her life and her other driver threatens to quit she tells him she really likes him and hugs her but doesn't push it further than that. She tells him the next day that it was the first time she ever wanted to kiss a man (but that she had before anyway D: ). At the end they do go dancing (and she puts on a dress because heaven forbid a tough woman should ever fail to embrace conventional femininity immediately upon being found attractive by any halfway decent dude) and it's a reasonable assumption that they did more than just *dance* until dawn. I kind of want to roast Michael a little for not being more aghast about the fact that she's kissed dudes she didn't really want to and for encouraging her to give up her Tomboy Terri persona but it was a less enlightened era and at least he didn't hit on her when she was vulnerable which is more than a lot of dudes of his time (or this one, for that matter) would have done so I'll cut him some slack.

Probability: 90%

s1e21 - Nobody Does It Better

Connie - He's checking her out on the tennis court but (spoiler alert) she gets murdered.

Probability: 0%

Flannery Roe - Things are off to a rocky start. She seems to take his "do you like to play?" at the club as a come on, pulls a gun on him (not entirely unjustifiably) when he corners her in the cul-de-sac and has him arrested on suspicion of being a stalker and/or rapist. She warms up to him a bit after he provides a comforting hug when she finds Connie's body but still gets a little shirty with him at the restaurant and turns down his offer of a ride home. She's antagonistic toward him when they meet again at the club. He saves her from the bad guys and for some reason she's back at the Foundation HQ at the end but they don't do any huggy-kissy stuff so odds are minimal.

Probability: 1%

s1e22 - Short Notice

K: Since you haven't asked, I'll tell you. It was demoralizing, demeaning. M: What? K: Police impound. M: Oh. You had me worried there for a minute.

Nicole - She keeps him at arm's length initially (understandably since she's hitching). Turns out she's another single mom, so her main preoccupation is getting her kid back, and she doesn't really care if she dicks Michael over in the process. He does get along well with her kid when they find her so that probably gets him a few points in her eyes. They hold hands after he beats all the bad guys in the western town and hug at the end but don't kiss. She's probably looking for a new dad for Natalie. He tells Natalie he hopes they'll see him again but nothing conclusive.

Probability: 10%

s2e01/02 - Goliath

Rita Wilcox - Another one where there was possible interest but probably wasn't time for anything to happen. She spends half the episode either pissed off at him or faking a relationship with Garthe, and then they're busy trying to take out Goliath. They hug after Garthe and Goliath are out of commission but don't kiss. At the end she's on her way out of town. It's unclear how much time has passed between that and the last scene but when she implies he should look her up if he's in LA, he doesn't mention that the Foundation's home base is in SoCal (or so it appears)? I don't think he's the type who wouldn't go for a woman he was interested in just because she'd hooked up with his evil twin (even if he was a little judgy when he found out she was shacking up with Garthe again), so maybe he's just not that into her.

Probability: 25%

s2e03 - Brother's Keeper

Lisa - Things aren't exactly off to a great start when he kidnaps her. She warms up to him a little by the end and they give each other a fairly chaste goodbye smooch. He says they'll see each other again and she says she hopes so. Maybe?

Probability: 30%

April: He's on a kidnapping spree and drags her to the beach at the end. Still, no real indicator that anything romantic is going to ensue.

Probability: 5%

s2e04 - Merchants of Death

Camela - They seem to keep it professional except for a goodbye kiss. Not even a "We'll see each other again." Odds are minimal.

Probability: 5%

s2e05 - Blind Spot

Julie - She's in some kind of platonic lifemate relationship with John, which may end up being more than platonic thanks to Michael's yenta-ing.

Probability: 0%

s2e06 - Return to Cadiz

Jennifer Shell - They have dinner together and she seems to open up to him but it isn't overtly romantic. They have a spat but hug and make up when he finds the secret treasure cave. She kisses him after he rescues her from the bad guys. An undisclosed amount of time has passed before they have dinner and he heads out but they do the "Will I see you again?/count on it" thing before she kisses him goodbye. It's possible, maybe even likely.

Probability: 50%

s2e07 - KITT the Cat

Grace - She's definitely flirting with him when she invites him to the party. And then tries to convince him she's not the burglar by making out with him. At the end he kisses her goodbye pretty interestedly while promising to keep a closer eye on her. Odds are good.

Probability: 85%

s2e08 - Custom KITT

Suzanne Weston - She's pretty overt about her interest in him, but when she shows up in his room he seems relieved when KITT beeps him on the comlink. She tells him he knows where to find her if he's ever in the mood for something other than "good, clean" fun, so by implication he hasn't been.

Probability: 0%

Carrie - She's into him enough to get jealous when she thinks he hooked up with Suzanne. "If our plan works and the thief tries to steal KITT tonight, you can thank me." She kisses him first, but then he kisses her and tells her that's "very close" to his way of wanting to be thanked. The implications aren't particularly subtle. They enthusiastically hug after catching the bad guys. When she wins the car show, they smooch with more "I don't know how to thank you... but I'm sure I'll think of a way" innuendo. He tells her he'll see her later, and I think it's a strong possibility that he will.

Probability: 90%

s2e09 - Soul Survivor

M: Devon, I felt something in here... I don't know, a presence... KITT's presence.

K: Oh Michael, do I look just dreadful? Be honest. M: KITT, what matters to me is who you are, not what you look like. Sure we don't have the car. So we can't turbo boost. So we can't go over 200 miles an hour. It was all icing on the cake anyway. It wasn't you. K: It wasn't? M: No, the car was fantastic but if you break it down it was steel, rubber and glass. We can always make another one. But you, you are a lot more than silicon chips and fancy circuitry, You're my buddy. You're my partner. KITT, you're one of a kind. K: Thank you, Michael. The feeling's mutual.

K: What was it like, Michael? M: What, KITT? K: Seeing my body functioning without me? Or you? M: A little spooky, let me tell ya. K: Did it seem like me? M: Yeah, it did and it didn't. It looked like you, but somehow it just wasn't the same. K: I don't understand. M: It didn't have your soul, KITT. Without that, it could never be the same. K: Thank you, Michael.

Adrianne - She techno-roofies him and the way Randy sticks his head in the door and then guiltily ducks back out as she's leaning over him on the couch kind of suggests he's walking in on something he knows he shouldn't see. Still, Michael appears to be fully clothed when he wakes up in a ditch. Adrianne is totally a creepy douchebag and/or rapist (as we will see more of in Goliath Returns) but she was probably too preoccupied with stealing KITT to do anything in this ep.

Probability: 20%

s2e10 - Ring of Fire

(This is one of two eps where Michael utters the phrase "come on, baby" to KITT while trying to get out of a jam. Obviously NBC's censors had to ruin our fun because it never happens again after this season.)

Layla - She's still married. Doesn't really express romantic interest in Michael and the hero of an 80s family hour tv series probably wouldn't have gotten it on with a married woman no matter how much of an abusive dick her husband was. They do kiss goodbye at the end and he tells her if she ever decides to leave the bayou, she knows where he'll be. If anything ever happens, it's probably in the distant future.

Probability: 5%

s2e11 - Knightmares

M: Whoa, you are hot! K: Quite true, Michael.

Cara - She tries to look out for him after he gets amnesia, but not a lot of indication that she's romantically interested in him, and he's too busy trying to figure out wtf is going on to hit on her. They hug after he rescues her from drowning but we don't see any more of them together.

Probability: 5%

s2e12 - Silent Knight

Marta - No real indication of romantic interest on either side. We don't see what they're doing as Tino is saying goodbye to KITT but considering he offered her a handshake and not a kiss or even a hug, it's probably safe to say nothing happened.

Probability: 0%

s2e13 - A Knight in Shining Armor

Katherine - She's a little young for him (Michael tells her the treasure was supposed to be her 21st birthday present so presumably she's legal but the fact that she's still in prep school makes her seem younger). Also this is another episode where he begins their acquaintance by first rescuing, then kidnapping the female lead. They don't particularly like each other at first, but hug after his "if nobody can hurt you, then nobody can love you" chat with her, again after he rescues her from the bad guy (again) and after escaping the cave collapse. It seems more friendly than romantic, though.He takes her hand in the cave but it comes off more as sharing a moment than a romantic overture. They kiss at the end but he tells her goodbye and leaves. No indication that they're going to see each other again.

Probability: 5%

s2e14 - Diamonds Aren't A Girl's Best Friend

Lauren - She makes out with him when he first shows up as part of her cover story and he clearly doesn't mind. He's pretty committed to maintaining their cover in subsequent scenes. In the last scene she tells him she'd like "to do it for real" but she's pretty clearly referring to kissing, not *it*. By implication they haven't done more than kiss at this point but when she asks if she'll see him again, he tells her "unless you change her name and move to Okinawa." Future potential.

Probability: 50%

Lauren's boss - She's kind of flirtatious with him when they first meet but no indicator that anything happens.

Probability: 0%

s2e15 - White Line Warriors

Cindy - She's with Ron, who is apparently pretty understanding since he doesn't seem to object to her giving Michael a thank-you kiss at the end.

Probability: 0%

s2e16 - Race For Life

April - He's emotionally supportive and her niece has been introduced to Michael and KITT but no significant indications of anything romantic.

Probability: 0%

s2e17 - Speed Demons

Sabrina - He comes to her rescue when Wade is harassing her at the party, They hug after she talks to him about Kelly. They give each other a chaste goodbye kiss but no real indication of romantic interest.

Probability: 0%

s2318/19 - Goliath Returns

Adrianne - This one gets an asterisk, because whatever happened in Garthe's creepy dungeon after the cutaway to a scandalized KITT didn't look consensual on Michael's side. She pretty obviously went down to there to sleep with him, and the way she staggers out in her bathrobe the next morning while Garthe bitches about how she slept in pretty strongly implies that she actually did, but Michael really seems the opposite of into her and her basically telling him "please me [in bed] and maybe I'll make sure my psycho boyfriend doesn't murder you" is rape by coercion if not by force. Did he grit his teeth and do it just to hedge his bets? Maybe.

Probability: 80%*

s20 - A Good Knight's Work

Gina - He's obviously interested and kisses her before he goes to MMM, but (spoiler alert) she's playing him. Except maybe she's not so bad because she lets him talk her out of shooting him and then they hug. They kiss goodbye at the end but she's going into witness protection and there isn't really any indication that they'll see each other again or that anything romantic transpired.

Probability: 10%

s2e21/22 - Mouth of the Snake

Joanna - She was more interested in Dalton. I deeply want to believe Dalton's invitation to Michael to hang out with them at the end was really an invitation to join them for a threesome because it's the only thing that would make this episode interesting, but Michael takes a rain check and heads out of town.

Probability: 0%

s2e23 - Let It Be Me

Stevie - She's still pretty broken up about her boyfriend's death. He kisses her when they go back to her apartment and she tells him she still dreams about him. The next scene they're wearing different clothes and seemingly some time has passed so maybe something happened after the cutaway?

Probability: 50%

s2e24 - Big Iron

Lucy - She was the woman who was coming out of the hotel room at the beginning. He seemed to be checking her out in that scene but obviously he's not going for a married woman even if she didn't have some other drama going on.

Probability: 0%

s3e01/02 - Knight of the Drones

Bonnie - They hug when he shows up at the university and he makes the "You can sail with me anytime" comment to her at the marina at the end and they link arms to walk to the boat, but not really anything more romantic than that.

Probability: 0%

Margo - She fakes romantic interest in him and he plays along, but (spoiler alert) she's setting him up to be murdered.

Probability: 0%

s3e03 - The Ice Bandits

Bonnie - They walk arm-in-arm into the diamond place, but Michael was making innuendoes about other women when she was sitting right next to him in the car 30 seconds previously so probably nothing really going on.

Probability: 5%

Jody - She's engaged to Charlie. Michael tells Charlie "She's not the one I'm interested in, it's *you*," with his standard flirtatious grin and god, that's hot. Spoiler alert: Charlie is a crook. Even after she finds out the truth she doesn't really express romantic interest in Michael although she does paint his portrait.

Probability: 5%

s3e04 - Knights of the Fast Lane

Diane - He's too preoccupied with Stacy's case to flirt. She hugs him after he rescues her but we don't see them together again.

Probability: 5%

The random cheerleader - She seems interested, but we don't see them together again either.

Probability: 5%

s3e05 - Halloween Knight

Bonnie - He's very protective. Tinhats would probably make something of the fact that her costume is Scarlett O'Hara and his is Rhett Butler. Still, nothing too overtly romantic.

Probability: 5%

Esmerelda - She'd probably put a love spell on him in a hot minute but I think he finds her a little terrifying.

Probability: 5%

Denise - She's friendly but not overly flirtatious. Also she gets murdered before anything can happen.

Probability: 0%

s3e06 - KITT vs. KARR

Mandy - She's with John. No indicators that they're interested in a threesome.

Probability: 0%

s3e07 - The Rotten Apples

Marilyn - They're hardcore flirting and she says she hopes to see him again. They kiss after he wins the mechanical bull contest, but then she catches a bus out of town. She kisses him goodbye and he does this "oh yeah, I still got it" move but we don't get any strong evidence that anything else happened.

Probability: 10%

Rebecca - Not a lot of flirtation, and the kids are always around cockblocking.

Probability: 10%

s3e08 - Knight in Disgrace

(I was almost too distracted by KITT and Michael in this ep to pay attention to the GOTW, lol. KITT's hurt confusion when Michael leaves and him being a total bitch to Michael's would-be replacement and the way he goes with Michael even when he thinks he's on the wrong side of the law, I'm *dying* here...)

Linda - She comes onto him and roofies him at the bar and he wakes up with his shirt undone, but she's Boyd's girlfriend and (spoiler alert) another hapless single mom so she probably didn't do anything untoward, assuming he was even conscious enough by the time she got him home. After she gets to know and trust him she doesn't make any moves on him and they don't smooch or anything at the end.

Probability: 5%

s3e09 - Dead of Knight

Cindy - It's not entirely clear what their relationship is. At the beginning it looks more like he's trying to pick up on her than they're actually dating. He's obviously really invested in helping her but he'd undoubtedly do the same for anybody who was in mortal peril because of him. At the end in the ambulance he calls her "baby" and says they have a date. In the last scene Cindy is leaving for Broadway soon but they're all together at the Foundation and it's unclear how much time has elapsed. Not conclusive but suggestive.

Probability: 50%

Renard's girlfriend - She's putting the moves on him while he's feverish and loopy and somehow his shirt has gotten unbuttoned but there's a guard in the room so probably nothing happened.

Probability: 10%

s3e10 - Lost Knight

"If I may be so bold, what on earth were you *doing* down there?"

(LBR, Michael is too busy angsting about KITT to try and get laid in this ep.)

Doug's mom - In a relationship, although at the end she decides to break things off with her boyfriend so she can focus more on her son. She and Michael kiss goodbye but it's improbable that there's anything more than that since she just said she doesn't need another man around right now.

Probability: 0%

s3e11 - Knight of the Chameleon

Tonie Baxter - They seem to know each other from a previous case. He kisses her on the forehead at the end of their first scene. They don't really seem to interact romantically during this episode. Michael gets distracted by KITT's contest winnings before they have a chance for a goodbye kiss.

Probability: 10%

s3e12 - Custom Made Killer

Unnamed Dancer (offscreen) - Devon: "You've been rather difficult to reach lately. Particularly last night." Michael: "I got a weakness for dancers." HIs protest that they're "innocent girls working their way through college" leaves little doubt about what kind of dancer this was.

Probability: 95%

Joan - No evidence of romantic interest. Also (spoiler alert) she's collaborating with the bad guys.

Probability: 0%

Debra - He flirts at the end and she kisses him goodbye. Lewis says "He'll be back" and she gives a suggestive eyebrow raise. Possible but not conclusive.

Probability: 25%

s3e13 - Knight By A Nose

M: KITT, how close are you? It's getting stuffy in here. K: Any closer and I'll have to marry this limo.

Maxine - They hug and he calls her "sweetheart" when he shows up. Devon accuses Michael of being biased because Max is attractive but he describes her as "a very, very close friend." Yet we never actually see them kiss. Maybe they really are just friends?

Probability: 25%

s3e14 - Junkyard Dog

Fran - He's too preoccupied with KITT to do much flirting for most of the episode, but they're having a picnic/makeout session together in the semi, seemingly alone, at the end. It's a reasonable assumption that things escalated at some point, even if they didn't want a scandalized KITT watching and commenting at that particular moment.

Probability: 80%

s3e15 - Buy Out

Mel - They keep it professional for most of the ep but after he catches the bad guy he tells her she's attractive without her welding mask and they kiss. We don't see them together again but it's possible that more happened.

Probability: 50%

s3e16 - Knightlines

Janet Morgan - She's recently widowed and not in the market yet. No romantic interaction.

Probability: 0%

s3e17 - The Nineteenth Hole

Daisy: Is that thing blown? KITT: I beg your pardon?

Jamie - After they fake being married at the hotel she kisses him before the race. Not a lot of other romantic interaction but he and Bonnie and Devon do seem to be sticking around to watch the race so something could happen.

Probability: 50%

Daisy - He flirts with her a little at the meetup but no indication that it goes beyond that.

Probability: 0%

s3e18 - Knight and Knerd

Allie - She rides off into the sunset with Elliot.

Probability: 0%

Receptionist at Gifford's - He flirts but no indication that it goes anywhere.

Probability: 0%

Vanessa Sutton - Apparently he gives a really good massage but she's (understandably) pissed off that he wasn't who she was expecting the massage from. Also she's a villain and is too busy setting him up to get murdered for anything to happen.

Probability: 0%

s3e19 - Ten Wheel Trouble

M: Hey, are you hungry back there, partner? K: Perhaps a little lonely, Michael. But rather enjoying my independence.

Sally - He turns on the charm when they first meet but things go south rapidly when he talks her brother into going to jail. By the end he's back in her good graces and she likes him enough to steal a kiss from him before he says goodbye. You know her hormonal teenage brain is thinking about it but for reasons that should be obvious, he isn't going there.

Probability: 0%

s3e20 - Knight In Retreat

KITT: Of course, there is one other possibility. Devon: What is that? KITT: The lady of the retreat. She's quite attractive. Of course, knowing Michael the way I do, it would strictly be in the line of duty.

Bianca - She seems to find him physically attractive, and maybe if she hadn't been so busy torturing him she would have tried to have a little fun with him. But considering what he suspects her of, he probably wouldn't have gone too far unless he absolutely had to.

Probability: 0%

Monica - She flirts with him at the bar and comments on what a waste it is to kill him, but nothing is likely to have happened due to both time constraints and her being Bianca's henchwoman.

Probability: 0%

s3e21 - Knight Strike

Sheila - She acts jealous when he makes the date with Tyler but he seems more exasperated than romantically interested in her. They kiss before he goes into the warehouse but it's fairly short and chaste. At the end, she goes off with O'Malley.

Probability: 0%

Tyler - She makes a date with him at the gun range but it's just a distraction. He flirts with her but it's all in the line of duty.

Probability: 0%

s3e22 - Circus Knights

Bonnie: I have to admit, Devon, he looks fantastic. Devon: Yes, in spite of that ridiculous costume he's wearing. Bonnie: No, I'm talking about KITT!

Terri - They keep things professional at first, although when they're in the car together she asks if circus-folk camaraderie is the only reason he's interested in helping her. He says he's be lying if he said yes and presumably she reads it as him being interested romantically. After his near-murder in the ring they have a heart-to-heart talk and kiss. At the end he tells her to call him if she needs anything. *Anything?* Hmmm...

Probability: 50%

Tiger - She hits on him but he's not into it.

Probability: 0%

s4e01/02 - Knight of the Juggernaut

K: I'm asking you how I look. M: You look great, same as always!

Marta - They have some chemistry in their first meeting. He asks her out when they get back to her apartment. But (spoiler alert) she's part of the conspiracy to steal the cernium and sets him up to get murdered (twice). He cools it on the flirting after the first incident (understandably, since if he takes her story at face value she was assaulted and possibly worse) although he still acts protective of her. After she helps them get the bad guys she's hanging out with the Foundation crew at the end but we don't see any more romantic interaction.

Probability: 25%

Jennifer - No overtly romantic interaction. They're antagonistic for most of the episode although they make up at the end.

Probability: 0%

s4e03 - KITTnap

Karen - She's doing her doctoral thesis on KITT and spending a lot of time with Michael in the progress. Judging by the way they're holding hands in their first scene and then making out at her apartment, there's obvious romantic interest. And she clearly has more than academic interest even after (spoiler alert) she gets held hostage by the bad guys so it's a reasonable assumption that if they weren't already banging they're going to at some point.

Probability: 95%

s4e04 - Sky Knight

Bonnie - He's pretty touchy-feely at the airport and they hug after saving the day but no overt romance.

Probability: 5%

s4e05 - Burial Ground

Susan - They keep it professional for most of the episode. He tries to hit on her at the end but she's in a relationship with Eagle. That doesn't stop her from giving him a goodbye kiss but no indicator that it goes any further than that.

Probability: 0%

s4e06 - The Wrong Crowd

Ann - She spends most of the episode being menaced and/or held hostage by the bikers and we don't really see them interact with each other in a non-case-related way.

Probability: 0%

RC - Michael is very tenderly concerned when he finds him knocked out by the side of the road. But probably neither of them swing that way.

Probability: 0%

s4e07 - Knight Sting

Gaye - She seems young. And also kind of annoying. He hugs her in the hospital but it doesn't look particularly romantic. No evidence of interest on either side.

Probability: 0%

Bonnie - He flirts with her when they're planning the operation and she shows him her dress. The rest of the episode they're too busy with the mission for any shenanigans.

Probability: 0%

RC - He's clearly been raiding Michael's closet for that sweater. But Michael is cool with it. No overt indication that they're more than bros, though.

Probability: 0%

s4e08 - Many Happy Returns

Amy - He's flirting up a storm but whoops, Devon is cockblocking and she's actually there with a mission for him. However, it's not all business and she surprises him with a birthday cupcake and some birthday smoochin', until duty calls again. She makes some innuendo about "getting to adolescence and maturity later" as he's leaving so she's obviously willing to take a rain check. She's back in the semi with them at the end and Michael invites her on vacation with him. We don't see her answer but it's a safe bet it's a yes.

Probability: 95%

s4e09 - Knight Racer

Elena - At first it's all business but they seem to be having fun dancing at the reception. They have a heart-to-heart talk in the parking lot until the hit man shows up. They hug after the big reveal about Elena's dad and the fight with Wayne's partner but don't kiss. Maybe Michael would think twice about getting involved with a friend of Bonnie's.

Probability: 10%

Unnamed track bunnies - Michael says it wasn't easy ignoring all those trophy queens and their phone numbers, implying that he did indeed ignore them (maybe more because he had to get back to the office than out of disinterest).

Probability: 0%

s4e10 - Knight Behind Bars

Julie - He agrees with KITT that she's cute, but they don't really express romantic interest to each other beyond a hug after he tosses Nelson into the ocean. Also at 20 she's a little young for him.

Probability: 0%

Gymnastics instructor - She flirtatiously tells him she's free the rest of the day, but he isn't. No indication that they see each other again.

Probability: 0%

s4e11 - Knight Song

Bonnie and/or RC - They're all playing hookie together and conspiring to keep it from Devon. Shenanigans?

Probability: 5%

Sanford - No indication of romantic interest, also she's a villain.

Probability: 0%

s4e12 - The Scent of Roses

K: I'm sorry, they don't allow cars in hospitals. I would have been closer. M: I know you would.

Stevie - They appear to have been staying at the beach house together so it's a safe bet, even if (spoiler alert) they never got to consummate their marriage.

Probability: 95%

s4e13 - Killer KITT

"Not now, Michael. I have a headache."

Bronwen - She and Michael barely interact, plus she's probably Berio's girlfriend.

Probability: 0%

s4e14 - Out of the Woods

Sam - He's flirtatious when they first get reacquainted but too busy working on the case for anything to happen before it's revealed that (spoiler alert) she's a villain. He does hug her when she surrenders at the end but I assume that trying to murder him is a dealbreaker.

Probability: 0%

Ellen - No real evidence of romantic interest and she says goodbye with a handshake rather than a kiss.

Probability: 0%

s4e15 - Deadly Knightshade

Bonnie - She's more preoccupied with Templeton. He does give her a swan in his magic act at the end.

Probability: 0%

Nancy - He's too busy with the investigation to even do much flirting.

Probability: 0%

s4e16 - Redemption of a Champion

Miss Cooper - Michael obviously has a hot date that most likely would have ended with some lovin' if he hadn't once again been cockblocked by KITT and Devon. At the end, Michael is dressed up for Date Night, Take 2, but gets called back to the semi again. Does she give him a third chance? I mean, *I* would...

Probability: 50%

Nurse Tremount - He flirts with her to get info and comforts her after she breaks down and confesses to the scam but no indication that it goes further than that. Plus she’s in an adulterous relationship with the villainous doctor.

Probability: 0%

s4e17 - Knight of A Thousand Devils

Claudia Terrell - She's a villain. When she makes a pseudo-date with him it's just to set him up.

Probability: 0%

Agent Jonas - They bet dinner on the arrest and Michael seems to be taking his death extremely personally. Juggernaut slash ships have been built on less. If he were a chick I'd say "extremely probable" except for the fact that Jonas was married with kids. Not that it stops some people, but it would most likely stop Michael.

Probability: 0%

"Ana-Lucia" - She keeps him up all night working on her car and he says he's going to come back after the race is over and demand equal time. Her response: "You won't have to demand." Plot twist: She's actually a Federale. We don't see her again after they apprehend the bad guy so it's questionable whether their flirtation was still valid for her real identity.

Probability: 10%

s4e18 - Hills of Fire

Sandra Rusk - Barely any interaction and also she's a villain.

Probability: 0%

Tess Hubbard: No significant romantic interaction. Probably too busy with her charitable work to go chasing after pretty-boys.

Probability: 0%

s4e19 - Knight Flight to Freedom

Lisa - Too busy dealing with a revolution for any shenanigans.

Probability: 0%

s4e20 - Fright Night

Karen - They keep things mostly professional but she buys him lunch at the end. No real indicator that it ends in anything romantic, though.

Probability: 5%

Liz - They flirt a little when he interviews her ("I appreciate your interest." "I'm interested!") but it doesn't really go anywhere.

Probability: 5%

s4e21 - Knight of the Rising Sun

N/A - No female guest characters and nothing particularly shippy with Bonnie.

Probability: 0%

s4e22 - Voo Doo Knight

Harana - She's a little flirtatious at the party. When she puts one of her zombifying earrings on him, she gets a little touchy-feely and tells him they could have had a future together but there are two of her goons in the room and she's sending him to the soon-to-be-demolished building so she probably doesn't have time to take advantage of him even if she wanted to do it with an audience.

Probability: 0%

Elizabeth - Michael nudges Devon into letting her stay an extra few days, and she seems pretty good with that. We don't see them kiss but they're engaged in a pretty intense hug at the end.

Probability: 90%

...at least he got to go out with a bang?

#knight rider #is srs bsns #long post #this was a much better use for my time #than my hamfisted car repair #and less likely to result in death by misadventure #than trying to clean the gutters

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 11, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On Friday, as President Joe Biden signed “An Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” he echoed the language of his predecessors. “[C]ompetition keeps the economy moving and keeps it growing,” he said. “Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth…. But what we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back.”

Biden listed how prescription drugs, hearing aids, internet service, and agricultural supplies are all overpriced in the U.S. because of a lack of competition (RFD TV, the nation’s rural channel, has a long-running ad complaining of the cost of hearing aids). He also noted that noncompete clauses make it hard for workers to change jobs, another issue straight out of the late nineteenth century, when southern states tried to keep prices low by prohibiting employers from hiring Black workers away from their current jobs.

“I’m a proud capitalist,” Biden said. “I know America can’t succeed unless American business succeeds…. But let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation. Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want and treat you however they want…. “[W]e know we’ve got a problem—a major problem. But we also have an incredible opportunity. We can bring back more competition to more of the country, helping entrepreneurs and small businesses get in the game, helping workers get a better deal, helping families save money every month. The good news is: We’ve done it before.”

Biden reached into our history to reclaim our long tradition of opposing economic consolidation. Calling out both Roosevelt presidents—Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who oversaw part of the Progressive Era, and Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who oversaw the New Deal—Biden celebrated their attempt to rein in the power of big business, first by focusing on the abuses of those businesses, and then by championing competition.

Civil War era Republicans had organized around the idea that the American economy enjoyed what they called a “harmony of interest.” By that, they meant that everyone had the same economic interests. People at the bottom of the economy, people who drew value out of the products of nature—trees, or fish, or grain—produced value through their hard work. They created more value than they could consume, and this value, in the form of capital, employed people on the next level of the economy: shoemakers, dry goods merchants, cabinetmakers, and so on. They, in turn, produced more than they could consume, and their excess supported a few industrialists and financiers at the top of the pyramid who, in their turn, employed those just starting out. In this vision, the economy was a web in which every person shared a harmony of interest.

But by the 1880s, this idea that all Americans shared the same economic interest had changed into the idea that protecting American businesses would be good for everyone. American businessmen had begun to consolidate their enterprises into trusts, bringing a number of corporations under the same umbrella. The trusts stifled competition and colluded to raise the prices paid by consumers. Their power and funding gave them increasing power over lawmakers. As wealth migrated upward and working Americans felt like they had less and less control over their lives, they began to wonder what had happened to the equality for which they had fought the Civil War.

Labor leaders, newspapers, and Democratic lawmakers began to complain about the power of the wealthy in society and to claim the economic game was rigged, but their general critiques of the economy simply left them open to charges of being “socialists” who wanted to overturn society. Congress in 1890 finally gave in and passed an antitrust act, but it was so toothless that only one senator in the staunchly pro-business Senate voted against it, and no one in the House of Representatives voted no.

Then, around 1900, the so-called muckrakers hit their stride. Muckrakers were journalists who took on the political corruption and the concentration of wealth that plagued their era, but rather than making general moral statements, they did deep research into the workings of specific industries and political machines—Standard Oil, for example, and Minneapolis city government—and revealed the details behind the general outrage.

Their stories built pressure to regulate the robber barons, as they were called by then, but Congress, dominated by business interests, had no interest. Instead, President Theodore Roosevelt and his successor, William Howard Taft, tended to rein in the trusts through the executive branch of the government, especially by legal action undertaken by the Department of Justice.

On Friday, Biden promised to use the power of the executive branch to rein in corporations, much as Theodore Roosevelt did during his terms of office. But there was more to Biden’s statement than that. His emphasis on restoring competition is from the next historical phase of antitrust action.

In the 1912 election, political language turned away from the evils of trusts and toward the economic competition so central to American life. Both Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson centered their campaigns around the idea that big business was strangling competition. Wilson called for a “New Freedom” that would get rid of the trusts once and for all and return the nation to a world of small enterprise and opportunity. Roosevelt scoffed at this idea. He talked of the “New Nationalism,” in which a large government would restore competition by regulating big businesses. (He said that if you got rid of trusts and then looked away, they would immediately spring up again.)

While their solutions were different, both Roosevelt and Wilson had reframed the stratified economy not solely as a problem, but also as an opportunity. Trimming the sails of the corporations was not an attack on the liberty of industrialists, but rather a restoration of the competition that had, in the past, enabled the country’s economy to thrive. And, once elected, Wilson managed to get key items of that agenda passed through Congress.

That positive emphasis on competition carried into the administration of the next Roosevelt president, FDR. Biden noted that FDR called for Congress to pass an economic bill of rights, including “the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies.” And indeed, the idea of restoring a level playing field for all businesses, rather than letting them succeed or fail based on the whims of economic wirepullers, persuaded businessmen who had previously opposed regulation to line up behind the establishment of our Securities and Exchange Act of 1934.

Americans have lost this tradition since 1980, Biden said, when we abandoned the “fundamental American idea that true capitalism depends on fair and open competition.” Reframing business regulation as “laws to promote competition,” he promised 72 specific actions to enforce antitrust laws, stop “abusive actions by monopolies,” and end “bad mergers that lead to mass layoffs, higher prices, fewer options for workers and consumers alike.”

For 40 years, the Republican Party has offered a vision of America as a land of hyperindividualism, in which any government intervention in the economy is seen as an attack on individual liberty because it hampers the accumulation of wealth. Biden’s speech on Friday reclaims a different theme in our history, that of government protecting individualism by keeping the economic playing field level.

—-

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/09/remarks-by-president-biden-at-signing-of-an-executive-order-promoting-competition-in-the-american-economy/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #capitalism #history #fair competition #competition #hyperindividualism

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unabashedtastemakersublime · 4 years ago

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Nigerian Music Videos - Stepping Up The Quality Game

The foreign music films were much better than our domestically produced ones. Despite strikes such as for example: Nico Mbanga (Sweet Mother), Osita Osadebe (Osondi Owendi), Oliver p Coque (Boni boni identity), Mandy Brown (Taxi driver), Onyeka Owenu (One Love), Lorine Okotie (His enjoy is that medicine), Charly boy (Before Before) Bob Okotie (ABC), Evy Edna Ogoli( Happy Birthday), Felyx and Mozes( Free), Felix Liberty(Ifeoma), Stella Monye (Nigeria get survive), as observed in one of my articles "The blossoming Of The Nigerian Music Business", artistes failed to really make the preferred affect in the International world, centered amongst other items on the colossal deficient video quality account.

The 90's era wasn't dramatically better compared to the 80's, probably the middle 90's when the style of music towed the path of reputation / hiphop and the use of our local parlance in songs began to really make the music business more entertaining instead of the 80's. The Solutions (Edris Abdulkareem, Eddie Montana, Tony tetwila) keyed into it and turned the rave of the moment at that time. Plantation Boyz (Tu experience Idibia, Faze, Dark Face) were amazing and soared to greater heights ahead of the party split. The launching of Tu experience Idibia's alone career along with his hit monitor "African Queen" catapulted him to the top. Most Nigerians enjoyed his first movie, but regrettably he had to re-shoot yet another in conformity with the path of a popular foreign music TV channel. Model Plus's "Olu Fumi" also had a great movie in comparison with several that stormed our TV sets. Henry Play's hit song "Angel of my entire life" also had a very good video.

Probably, the turning stage for the making of high quality films stems from the secure of P- Square with the movie for their hit song "Do me" that has been shot in South Africa. The movie undoubtedly hit the International typical mark with different music prepared TV reveals in Nigeria, continually featuring it. Artistes pushed by the strong generation began to visit South Africa, USA, and elements of Europe to throw films of the songs. Additionally they included white skinned girls dancing in the videos. Most top ranked artistes patronise directors who've carved marketers for themselves in the art of making quality videos. Covers on the list are DJ Tee, Clarence Peters (CEO of Capital Hill) and Bobby Hai.

The rise of Cally Ikpe's "Nigerian Music Video Awards" (NMVA) and Noise Town Music Video Awards (SMVA) aimed at rewarding artistes with first-rate films also have contributed to the rise of high quality productions. Besides, artistes who've great films have easy access to take pleasure from airplay on MTV Bottom, Station O and different International music channels, opening bigger, the gates which tend to give them usage of celebrity and fortune MP3 download.

Excellent, creative films are catchy and pull awareness of the artistes and obviously, the director. Quality music films that have built dunes in Nigeria and also beyond contain although not restricted to: P- Square (Do me, Roll it, Ifunnaya), Dare Artwork Alade (Not the girl, More), Tu experience Idibia (If enjoy is really a crime), Kel (Too fine), Keffi (kokoroko), Naeto D (Kini major deal), Bouqui (Take you away), Infinity (Olori oko), Asa (Fire on the mountain), TY Bello (Green land, Ekundayo), Gino (No be God), Djinee (Lade), DJ Jimmy Jatt (Too much ft Sasha, Blaise, kemistry, Bouqui), Alabai (Voice of God), Mo hit all stars (Pere), Omawunmi (In the music), Nikki Laoye (Never believed that way), Steel (South African girl).

Nigerian music films have undoubtedly served artistes to clinch international discounts / prizes and are getting better daily. The couple of P-Square clinched the KORAH prizes presented in 2010 at Burkina Faso for the "Artiste of the season" category. The twins gone home with the jack pot reward of $ 1 million !.

Use of latest Hi-tech cameras / technology, wild creativity, higher level of professionalism on the the main directors, can make Nigerian films the talk of the city in foreign countries.

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tcm · 5 years ago

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In Conversation with Eva Marie Saint and Norman Lloyd by Susan King

Anybody who has attended the TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL in Hollywood knows what a magical experience the event is for fans of vintage movies. There’s such good will, love and friendship there that it’s hard to choose what the favorite event is at the Festival, which would have celebrated its 11th edition this April until Covid-19 cancelled the four days of classic films.

One of the most popular presentations are the “Live From” events, which features some of the greatest actors and filmmakers from the Golden Age of Hollywood in conversation with the late, great TCM host Robert Osborne and now with Ben Mankiewicz, the channel’s primary host. These interviews have played on TCM over the years. And a select few, including interviews with Oscar-winners Luise Rainer, Eva Marie Saint, Faye Dunaway and such legends as Norman Lloyd and Peter O’Toole, will be featured during the TCM Classic Film Festival: Special Home Edition.

As a movie writer for 26 years at the L.A. Times. I’ve had the good fortune of interviewing many of these legends. Here are some memories of my conversations with two of my favorites, Eva Marie Saint and Norman Lloyd.

Eva Marie Saint

I have lost count of how many times I have interviewed Eva Marie Saint, now 95, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Edie, the girlfriend of Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), in Elia Kazan’s 1954 Academy Award-winning masterpiece ON THE WATERFRONT.

But I remember the first time.

I was at the now defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner when I was assigned to talk to her in 1986 about director Garry Marshall’s NOTHING IN COMMON, which stars Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason in his final film. Saint had long been a favorite of mine. I was a huge fan of ON THE WATERFRONT and admired her performances in 1957’s RAINTREE COUNTY opposite Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 romantic thriller NORTH BY NORTHWEST opposite Cary Grant and Otto Preminger’s 1960 epic EXODUS, where Saint was romanced by Paul Newman. I had also seen her on stage in 1979 in Los Angeles opposite Henry Fonda in the hit comedy First Monday in October.

From the moment she opened the door of the Westwood townhome she shared with her late director husband Jeffrey Hayden, I felt an immediate bond with her. Not only did we both hail from the same hometown, East Orange, N.J., Saint was down-to-earth, friendly and smart as a whip. And she’s always been frank and funny.

The last time I interviewed her in person in 2014, Saint talked about doing live TV in the late 1940s and 1950s. “My God, terrible things happened,” she said with a laugh, including exposing more than her talent on the soap opera One Man’s Family. Saint was doing a scene in a small pool opposite the actor who was playing her brother. At one point, she recalled, “someone was doing something offstage. You learn not to look away from what you are doing because you can be distracted.” But she finally looked, only to see a man off camera pulling his shirt up and down. “I looked down and saw my boobies were showing coast to coast,” Saint said, laughing. “I just kept in the scene and slid under the water. What could I do? It was live television. To this day, all of these years later, someone will say to me ‘Miss Saint, you were doing One Man’s Family…’ and I’ll say, ‘I remember.’”

Saint was married to Hayden for 65 years until his death at 90 in late 2016. And he was as exceptional a person as Saint, sweet and friendly. I asked her how the two met. Saint was a young actress and model in New York in the late 1940s, and Hayden was working in radio at NBC. “He saw me on the subway from the back, and he liked the way I walked,” Saint said with a smile. Hayden also noticed a big black book she was carrying that was her modeling portfolio. “The book I was carrying said ‘Eva Marie Saint’ in gold letters,” she noted. “He thought ‘I like the name.’”

They were fated to meet. Not long after seeing her on the subway, Hayden saw her again at Radio City talking with actor Arnold Stang, who also happened to be the only actor that Hayden knew. “So, he could go over to Arnold and Arnold would say ‘Hi Jeff, do you know Eva Marie?’”

The married in 1951, had two children and grandchildren.

My heart skipped a beat when she talked about how strong their marriage was after six decades. Saint noted she had been “thinking about life and I guess I was a little low. I said ‘Jeffrey, what in today’s world inspires you?’ He put his head up and said ‘You.’”

Norman Lloyd

Norman Lloyd, who is still going strong at 105, is one of the most accomplished actors/producers/directors. Beginning as child actor in the 1920s, he starred on Broadway as a member of Orson Welles’ legendary Mercury Theatre in the late 1930s.

He’s appeared in countless movies, including as the evil villain who falls from the Statue of Liberty in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 classic thriller SABOTEUR, as well as Jean Renoir’s 1945 THE SOUTHERNER and Charlie Chaplin’s 1952 LIMELIGHT. And TV audiences may know him as the kindly Dr. Auschlander on NBC’s acclaimed medical drama St. Elsewhere from 1982-88.

Lloyd also had one of the strongest marriages in Hollywood. He and his wife Peggy, who died in 2011, were married for 75 years. Having interviewed him several times, I can attest that he is a terrific storyteller and the sweetest of peas.

When I chatted with him at his cozy Brentwood home in 2014, he was still playing tennis twice a week and regaling me with stories about Hitchcock (Hitchcock, Renoir and Chaplin were among his best friends.) In fact, Hitchcock saved his career in the 1950s. Lloyd had discovered jobs hard to find because of the Hollywood Blacklist. Though he was not officially blacklisted, his liberal leanings and friendship with those who had been blacklisted hurt his career.

That didn’t stop Hitchcock from hiring him to be an associate producer on his classic anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1957. CBS told the Master of Suspense that there was a “problem” with Lloyd. Hitch persisted. “He said three words: ‘I want him,’” Lloyd recalled.

The Tiffany network, not wanting to upset one of the biggest directors in the world, immediately greenlit Lloyd, who initially worked with producer Joan Harrison, eventually became the executive producer of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour which ran until 1965. Lloyd also directed episodes of the series, including the devilishly fun 1960 installment “Man from the South,” starring Peter Lorre, Steve McQueen and the King of Cool’s then-wife Neile Adams.

Hitchcock and Lloyd reunited in the late 1970s for THE SHORT NIGHT, a thriller Hitch was hoping to make after 1976’s FAMILY PLOT. “Hitch, by the way, was not at his physical best,” Lloyd recalled. “He was really getting old and had difficulty walking. We were working on the script one day and he says to me, ‘You know, Norm. We are not going to make the picture.’”

Lloyd asked him what he meant by the statement. “He said to me a classic line: ‘Because it’s not necessary.’ When he died, the Directors Guild asked me to write a tribute to him, which I did. That’s what I ended it with.“

#Eva Marie Saint #Norman Lloyd #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #TCMFF #Film festival #blacklist #alfred hitchcock #old hollywood #Susan King

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incarnationsf · 4 years ago

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What Bible Says about Cable News

Bible Readings

By the Rev. Darren Miner

The readings today are a problem for any preacher, for at first glance, they seem to have no common thread. But if you will bear with me to the end, I hope to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that all three readings deal with a single contemporary issue—namely, cable news!

The reading from Deuteronomy is straightforward: After the death of Moses, God will continue to guide his people by sending them prophets. But there is a problem: some self-proclaimed prophets will, in fact, be false prophets. How then are we to tell the difference between the true and the false? The first criterion is that a true prophet will speak only in the name of the one true God. The second criterion is that the true prophet will speak only God’s truth.

The reading from First Corinthians is anything but straightforward. The issue at hand is eating food that had been offered to pagan idols, a problem for any Corinthian Christian who wished to attend a civic celebration or even to buy meat at the public market. Paul uses some convoluted rhetoric to persuade his audience to stop eating idol food. He starts out by agreeing with his opponents. He acknowledges that they are right: it is not inherently sinful to eat food offered to pagan idols, since these idols have no spiritual reality. But he then argues that they should refrain from partaking of idol food anyway, because it might offend other Christians who think the practice to be ungodly. Even worse, exercising their right to eat idol food might encourage people with less theological understanding to follow their example and to violate their own consciences by eating idol food too. The upshot of St. Paul’s teaching is that sometimes love overrides liberty. And sometimes, it even overrides being right.

Finally, let’s look at the exorcism story from Mark’s Gospel. A man troubled by an unclean spirit reacts to Jesus’ presence in the synagogue. The demon addresses Jesus. But Jesus is in no mood to chat with a demon. Jesus commands the demon to depart, and the demon is instantly expelled. At this point, the onlookers begin to recognize what we all know to be true, that Jesus is more powerful than the Evil One.

Now, if you recall, I made the rather bold claim that today’s readings all deal in some way with cable news. Well, I wasn’t joking!

Deuteronomy warns us to beware of false prophets and ungodly liars who would presume to mislead God’s people. Keep that in mind when you turn on your TV to watch cable news! For you will find many a self-proclaimed prophet on each and every cable news channel, from MSNBC on the political Left to Fox News on the Right. Next time you are watching some snarky commentator on cable news, ask yourself this question: Is this person really speaking in the Name of the one true God, the God of Truth and Love?

In St. Paul’s epistle, we are advised to avoid offending our brothers and sisters (so far as it is possible) and to value love above being right. Remember that as you watch your favorite cable news channel! Ignore pundits and politicians who foment division and hate, even if you agree with their politics. And instead, pay attention to those few who work for unity and promote peace.

Finally, in Mark’s Gospel, we are reminded that Jesus Christ is more powerful than the Evil One. Remember this when you turn on the nightly news. For the news that we are force-fed on TV is almost all bad, especially during this time of pandemic. And with time, this surfeit of bad news can make you spiritually sick. So, when you are feeling particularly oppressed and burdened by the evils of this world, turn to the Lord in prayer, and trust that the Holy One of God will set you free, just as he freed the man in Capernaum with the unclean spirit.

With that, I rest my case.

#cable news #false prophets #pundits #politicians #unity #peace #love overrides #Jesus can free you #sermon #theology #Christianity #Jesus #episcopal church #episcopal #episcopalian #The Episcopal Church #anglican #Anglican Communion

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worldlibertytv · 10 months ago

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Louis Gossett Jr Academy & Emmy Award Winning actor dead at Age 87, Met on many occasions, truly a wonderful man, REST IN Peace see more in our World Liberty TV , Celebrity Channels @ https://www.worldlibertytv.org/portfolio-view/celebrities/?pagenum=2#WLTV[gallery]/23/

#Lou Gossett Jr #Dead at 87 #Easter 2024 #World Liberty TV Celebrity Channels #Brooklyn Actor

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nomanwalksalone · 5 years ago

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ALTERNATIVE STYLE ICON: RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN IN WALLENBERG: A HERO’S STORY

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

The writer George Santayana famously wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Ironically many who repeat his quote forget who first uttered it.

I had long meant to write about Richard Chamberlain in this role. I once referred to him as “the fey king of the miniseries” and I don’t regret it: foppish, almost milquetoast in fare as varied as a two-part TV version of The Bourne Identity (with Jaclyn Smith, natch), Shogun, and as a leading candidate for an honorary Seinfeld puffy shirt: Not only did he play the Count of Monte Cristo in a 1975 TV movie, but a bunch of what Elaine Benes would have called chandelier-swinging characters in other Dumas adaptations, including Aramis in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers and Louis XIV and his twin in The Man in the Iron Mask. Postmodern swashbuckler author Arturo Perez-Reverte even described a character in one of his own novels as looking “like Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds, only more manly.” That same Thorn Birds role, Father Ralph de Bricassart, also inspired a certain Rhunette Ferguson to give her son, a future New York Jets player, perhaps my favorite name ever: D’Brickashaw.

Dubbing Chamberlain an Alternative Style Icon for his role as Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is low-hanging fruit. For years this TV special dwelt at the bottom of my Netflix queue for that express purpose. Former Savile Row tailors Manning & Manning won an Emmy award for the outfits they made for him; decades later Bryan Manning had some very interesting things to say to the inimitable Simon Crompton of Permanent Style about the 1930s and 1940s cutting styles he had to adopt for Chamberlain’s outfits for the movie. Chamberlain’s costumes are appropriately dashing, from the full diplomatic gala white tie ensemble worn while conspiring with the Papal Nuncio of Budapest to a tan double-breasted suit with horizontal peaked lapels that is, quite simply, magnificent. Zagreb, one of the most beautiful cities in eastern Europe, admirably filled in for 1940s Budapest and Stockholm in the making of this production. I’m fairly certain that I’ve stayed at the Zagreb hotel on whose esplanade Chamberlain wore that suit, in an early expository scene where the American and Swedish governments encourage Wallenberg to take a position with the Swedish legation in Budapest. I’ve been told Zagreb’s one of two cities in Europe where the street lamps in certain neighborhoods are still gaslit. Gaslighting happens to have been one of the reasons that I finally wrote about this icon.

Of course there’s plenty to mock in the conventions of this telefilm, even beyond Chamberlain’s indisputable 1970s and 1980s stock hero status: its heavy-handed setup and plotting, making Wallenberg out to be a one-man anti-Nazi force from his time at home in Sweden (wearing a U. Michigan sweatshirt to indicate that he had studied in the US - did college sweatshirts even exist back then?). Miniseries meant melodrama and its archetypal characters: an adorable child whom Wallenberg saves from the death camps only to die of illness; a shoehorned-in love interest in the form of a kindhearted baroness who lobbies her suspicious husband to relax the Hungarian government's strictures on Jews; a fiery Hungarian resistance fighter who provides the unofficial, combative counterpoint to Wallenberg’s diplomatic, humanitarian efforts through official channels. And, of course, Wallenberg’s kidnapping by the Soviets at the fall of Budapest meant his story was perfectly framed for 1985, when we still couldn’t trust those Russians. (In fact, to this day no one knows what they did with him.)

A few appropriately haunting and powerful moments do ring true, including Wallenberg’s cordial verbal fencing matches over contraband Scotch and cigarettes with Adolf Eichmann. Whether those meetings really took place in that form or not, their film versions appropriately capture the realities of how we are forced to engage with evil. Rarely are we simply battling an easily identifiable other, weapon to weapon. Instead, we encounter evil in the everyday – in fact, it seeks us out, finds shared ground, converses with us over pleasantries and hospitality even as we recognize its intentions. It identifies with us, we identify with it. Even as you know it is evil.

Eichmann had made it his avowed duty to kill the Jews of Europe. Wallenberg’s mission, as an emissary of an officially neutral power, was to help save as many as he could. And he did, through famously fearless, reckless endeavors including the distribution of thousands of official-looking Swedish passes to the Jews of Budapest, the creation of vast cultural centers and warehouses in the Swedish mission buildings in which these new countrymen could work under the aegis of their adoptive country, and savvy diplomatic maneuvering with the Hungarian and German authorities and military. He went as far as to climb on top of a train bound for Auschwitz and distribute passes to as many deportees as he could while soldiers fired shots at him. Looking back, historians suggest they were firing over his head to warn him as they could easily have dropped him at that range, but it’s not likely Wallenberg knew that at the time.

At that time diplomats of neutral powers could make fortunes more safely as armchair heroes: playboy Porfirio Rubirosa reportedly did so in Paris selling visas to the Dominican Republic to French Jews during World War II. In that respect, perhaps, both he and Wallenberg were heroes… of different sorts.

Wallenberg did not do it for money. The Wallenbergs were Swedish aristocracy (with, the film takes pains to remind us, an ounce of Jewish blood) with considerable means – hence the finely tailored wardrobe for Chamberlain. Thus, an easy cynical response to this essay could be that a rich aristocrat with diplomatic immunity risked nothing swanning around the salons of Budapest, just like the fictional gentleman spies we read about and watch on screen.

That response is wrong. Heroism is not just born of opportunity. It is recognizing when a choice confronts you and taking the difficult, unpopular and dangerous one in order to do what is right. Fictional heroes like Bond or Steed rarely suffer meaningful personal loss and rarely confront the reality of evil. Evil is your friend with many positive qualities, maybe more intelligent or cultured or better dressed than you, the one you looked up to, who gradually reveals the awful things he or she believes and has done. Evil is those complicit in carrying out those things by their inaction, their credulity, or their cooperation, not at the point of a gun but of a paycheck. Evil is legal, logically explained, repeated and reported until its baseless reasoning becomes fact and the foundation for more lies, more evil. Evil can so easily become the system.

Hindsight is a handicap, for it doesn’t usually permit us to see that there were no times without ambiguity in battles between good and evil and no certainty that good triumphs. We have the privilege of retrospect to acknowledge the dashing diplomat in Savile Row suits was a hero for saving innocents from deportation and death as part of the most ghastly genocide in history. We learned what genocide is, and had to invent the word to describe it. Because at that time the people singled out for persecution and death were unpopular, historically, socially and legally marginalized, supposedly easily identifiable and classifiable. A group that societies had made it easy - through regulation, ghettoization, oppression and antagonism – to hate, and whole false narratives drawn up to explain why that group hated and wanted to destroy us even more than we them.

One of A Hero’s Story’s most timely and inspiring lines is Wallenberg’s reply to the Hungarian ruler’s query why the King of Sweden cared so much about the Jews of another country, when he was a Christian. Wallenberg reminded the prime minister that the King’s “concerns transcend religion or national borders.” That concern is humanity, our lowest common denominator, our shared recognition of our capacity for suffering. That concern drove a man to acts of incredible selflessness, a generous mercy that seems to have cost him his liberty and his life. There is no romance to Raoul Wallenberg’s fate. It is worth remembering that he probably saw little romance in the actions he took in Budapest.

Now is no less an unromantic time, no less a time when others – so many different others –are easily denigrated, feared, distrusted, brutalized. Otherization, both of many within our borders and pressing against them, has returned, as has fascism, with apologists blandly elegant or brutally populist, like some inauspicious comet in our skies. Now, again, is a time for heroes – men and women who recognize how difficult and dangerous it is to do what is right. That struggle is far from those of Chamberlain’s habitual roles swashbuckling against a monolithic, universally despicable, evil. Evil is among us, habituating us, desensitizing us, gaslighting us. Far from frills and fanfare, celebration, or certainty of triumph, can we place ourselves in Wallenberg’s Budapester shoes and do what is right?

Quality content, like quality clothing, ages well. This post first appeared on the No Man blog in February 2017.

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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The Creeping Reality of V for Vendetta

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It's not the Fifth of November yet but that doesn't mean we can't consider how V for Vendetta's dystopian future is closer than ever.

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Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason, and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

These are the words that have accompanied hundreds of Guy Fawkes Day celebrations ever since that eponymous Catholic failed to blow up Parliament in 1605. But for many millions the world over, the poem is now synonymous with V for Vendetta, a shockingly subversive studio movie that was released in 2006. More than a decade later that film’s success at celebrating radical political ideas can still be felt by the fact that a movie which glorifies terrorist action (blowing up Parliament and Big Ben) is considered a classic in many circles, and is routinely viewed at the beginning of every November by movie fans the world over. It’s almost a fitting bit of irony that the film’s iconic visage of uncivil disobedience—the sleek and sexy reworking of a Guy Fawkes mask on Hugo Weaving’s face—has similarly become ubiquitous with anarchists, counterculture subversives, and online hackers, who all wear the trademarked Halloween item… that they helpfully purchase from the very capitalist friendly Warner Brothers’ merchandising arm on Amazon.

Nevertheless, the film is always worth remembering on Nov. 5 (or any other day), because director James McTeigue and the Wachowskis’ best screenplay to date succeeded at shrewdly adapting the V for Vendetta graphic novel to the big screen. Alan Moore purists might forever remain skeptical of such praise since by reimagining a seminal anti-Thatcher ‘80s hit piece, the Wachowskis essentially reworked the entire narrative as a brutally anti-Bush allegory (and reconfigured Weaving’s V and Natalie Portman’s Evey as a surprisingly convincing star-crossed pair of lovers from The Phantom of the Opera mold). In the process, Moore’s V went from being the poster child for anarchy to a defender of classical liberalism.

But on its own cinematic terms, V for Vendetta combines slick R-rated action movie set-pieces (that are appropriately theatrical for a comic book adaptation) alongside some pointed criticism of the U.S. government circa 2006, specifically in regard to the War on Terror and the persecution of minorities in right-wing media (remember folks: as recently as 2004, a president ran a successful national campaign by pledging to make a constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage). The film may have unintentionally also endorsed the use of torture for political radicalization, but that’s neither here nor there.

Watch V For Vendetta on Amazon

Just as sweeping as its brava rebranding of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” V for Vendetta remains a pop culture artifact about the anxieties felt on the left in the waning years of George W. Bush’s presidency. And with it being so specifically fitted to those critiques, it should in theory seem very dated in the third year of President Donald Trump's tenure in the White House.

Yet, if one looks around, it becomes apparent that we are tiptoeing ever closer to the dystopian future that V for Vendetta warned so vehemently against…

A Government for the People That Watches the People

One of the most chilling (and familiar) beats of dystopian hell envisioned in V for Vendetta is the Orwellian presence of a Big Brother. The film’s cartoonish dictator, High Chancellor Adam Sutler, is clearly meant to resemble Adolf Hitler. However, the filmmakers also selected John Hurt for the role of the tyrant who stripped away his country’s civil liberties. This canny casting recalls George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four since Hurt starred in the actual 1984 adaptation of that book.

And like that story’s infamous Big Brother, Sutler’s Britain is under constant surveillance by roaming trucks that are eavesdropping on every dinner table, phone, or digital conversation amongst its citizens. This is an obvious allusion to the U.S. PATRIOT Act, which provided extraordinary freedom to government agencies to pursue suspected terrorists in October 2001 (less than two months removed from the shadow of 9/11). And its encroachment on civil liberties was as disquieting in 2006 as it is in 2019—after it was extended twice during the Obama administration.

As a U.S. senator in 2005, Barack Obama spoke precisely about reforming the law: “We don’t have to settle for a PATRIOT Act that sacrifices our liberties or our safety—we can have one that secures both.” Yet elements of the PATRIOT Act were only allowed to temporarily expire in its June 2015 extension due to the maneuvers of Senator Rand Paul. Meanwhile Obama, a president I greatly admire, continued to run afoul of civil liberties groups and privacy advocates.

In fact, it was during his administration that Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, unleashed a cascade of classified documents that showed the NSA was secretly utilizing a global system of surveillance that was gathering massive amounts of information about the private correspondence of both American and foreign citizens. Initially, the White House’s reaction was to brand Snowden as “not a patriot” (he currently lives outside the reach of extradition in Russia) and to suggest that the American people simply needed to become “comfortable” with the NSA’s mass bulk collection of millions’ phone records.

But eventually the Obama White House reversed course, first by appointing a panel to quell concerns of “distorted” information in the press about the “drip, drip” and “Big Brother” perception the U.S. government ascertained overnight. Subsequently, Obama pivoted closer to the side of civil liberties (especially after a U.S. federal judge ruled the bulk collection was probably unconstitutional). In June 2015, the NSA lost the carte blanche authority to collect millions of Americans’ phone records via the White House supported USA Freedom Act (the NSA now needs a targeted warrant from the FISA court).

So, all is well that ends well in this particular case, right? Maybe, except Snowden is still living in exile and considered a traitor by many government officials, the PATRIOT Act persists, the aforementioned parts that Paul was able to see expire were reinstated by the USA Freedom Act, telecommunications companies can still stockpile Americans’ bulk data, which the FISA Court allows access to with a secret warrant, and it is so easy to imagine a scenario where a president less constitutionally minded would not choose to introduce a bill after an intelligence agency was caught with its hand in the wiretapped cookie jar. Or one who would seek to expand its powers further when the PATRIOT Act comes up for renewal again.

In fact, given many of the strongest political winds at the moment, it seems that for every step forward, we’re about to take 50 goosesteps back.

Video of V For Vendetta - 3 - Control Through Fear

The Spread of Misinformation

Another hallmark of any good dystopian yarn is a state-run media arm that inundates and brainwashes a public via the spread of propaganda. Hence one of the most exciting moments in V for Vendetta is when the titular anti-hero invades and commandeers what is clearly intended to be a stand-in for Fox News, using their ability to infest every home in England to now instead offer a rousing cry of “vive la révolution!”

Of course even in 2006, it was unfair to conflate Fox News with being a government-run puppet of the Republican National Party or the Bush administration. In many ways, the tail wags the dog with Fox News setting the Republican Party's agenda, especially now that its standard-bearer prefers getting his news from Fox & Friends as opposed to his own intelligence agencies. By contrast, V for Vendetta simplified mass media misinformation for the sake of narrative brevity. Indeed, the point about the dangers of media misinformation are only more pronounced now than they were 10 years ago.

read more: The Best Dystopian Movies and TV Shows

As broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once prophesized in 1958, “For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities, which must indeed be faced if we are to survive.” At the time, Murrow was musing about the decline of broadcast news during a period where there were only three channels on television. Today with the increasingly endless variety of media resources in a post-internet and post-social media world, the dissemination of lies and falsehoods is greater than even the Wachowskis’ paranoia could imagine during the pre-iPhone naiveté of 2006.

With more information than ever at folks’ fingertips, the desire to insulate one’s self in a media echo chamber has ironically become only more desirable for millions.

To use V’s veiled punching bag of Fox News as an example, a University of Maryland study in 2010 found that Fox News viewers were more misinformed about factual information than those who consumed their primary news stories from any other major resource. Also, misinformation is arguably more dangerous to public discourse than even uninformed voters, because the misinformed are often more confident in clinging to discredited information.

Nine years later, it’s now a lot easier to fall down the rabbit hole of innuendo and ideological fanaticism (i.e. lies) than it was in the age when cable news reigned supreme. The more people become insulated in partisan echo chambers, the easier it is to create the effect of a brainwashed society hinted at in V for Vendetta—government run or otherwise.

Consider that Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and once frequent Fox News commentator, showcased this bizarre resistance to reality among a group of Donald Trump supporters. Preferring a particular political candidate for president was their right, but when Luntz emphatically proved the future Republican nominee Trump lied about how many Syrian refugees President Obama attempted to bring into the U.S. in 2016—for the record it was 10,000 refugees while Trump falsely asserted it was 250,000—the reaction was apathy, including comments like “he’d let in as many as possible” and “what is in his heart?”

Luntz further found that only three of the 29 Trump supporters sampled believe that Obama is a Christian. One even insisted that he believed Obama was sworn into office in 2009 on a Quran. Also the general consensus was to prefer news from far right-wing leaning media like Breitbart (a site that willfully sided with the Trump campaign over its own reporters, even in an incident of alleged physical assault) and talk radio while anything considered “mainstream media” was to be viewed with hostile skepticism and outright denial. This was years before a fanatical Trump supporter, who watched the president call all non-right-wing media “the enemy of the people,” mailed several pipe bombs to CNN in addition to those of nearly a dozen of Trump's political opponents and critics.

Additionally, Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, was hired by Donald Trump to be his campaign's CEO, further muddying the waters of collusion between political leaders and the partisan, extremist media they court--although after Bannon fell out of favor with the mercurial president, Breitbart happily threw him to the wolves and fired the fallen Trump advisor from his returned chairman role, all to curry favor with the veritably lying and tweeting president.

In this current climate of media tribalization, it is far easier for a demagogue like Sutler to lie his way to power and to then retain it.

Video of Opening scene from V for Vendetta

Persecution of Minorities

V for Vendetta begins with a blunt and on-the-nose depiction of the kind of politics that High Chancellor Adam Sutler and his Norsefire Party represent. Roger Allam’s Lewis Prothero is obviously meant to be a cross between Howard Beale and Joseph Goebbels when we hear his televised voice before even realizing we’re watching Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving’s robed introductions.

From the very first frame, Prothero, and by extension the political party he represents, hisses his disdain for those inherently responsible for all of the problems in the world: “Immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, terrorists, diseased-ridden degenerates, they had to go! Strength through unity, unity through faith!”

read more: The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix

Drawing a parallel between the nativist bigotry represented by V for Vendetta and the current disintegration of the Republican Party is like tracing with a ruler. While V for Vendetta’s fears about the persecution of the LGBT community turned out to be thankfully unfounded in the Obama Years with “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” repealed and gay marriage now the law of the land, everything else Prothero espoused hatred for is again in the national conversation… except with even less nuance. This includes how the Trump adiministration is targeting people who identify as transexual as Other, beginning with banning them from the military.

It would almost be redundant to bring up how Donald Trump—the preferred president of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, and Neo Nazis everywhere—suggested in 2015 that we should ignore the Constitution and founding tenets of this country by creating a religious litmus test for entry while banning all Muslims (which he has now made a restricted version of the law of the land via executive order). So let’s just focus on what the man who once inferred he did not know what the KKK represented. While on CNN in 2016, the GOP candidate said, “I think Islam hates us.” For the record, this also insinuated merit to Anderson Cooper’s question about whether Trump believed Islam was “at war with the West?”

Let this sink in: The President of the United States insinuated that a religion of 1.6 billion people (that’s roughly 23 percent of the global population) is at war with the United States. It certainly gives his voters a boogeyman to fear in the shape of nearly three million fellow American neighbors. In the 2018 midterms, he shifted the focus back to his original boogeyman when he turned the media's attention to an “invasion” of South American refugees from a crumbling caravan a thousand miles away walking through Mexico on foot.

V for Vendetta features flashbacks of Sutler rounding up British Muslims, and gay and lesbian citizens to be taken to camps. While Trump has not suggested anything quite that drastic for Muslims (yet), he campaigned pretty damn close to it in regards to undocumented immigrants. And then he acted on it as president, supporting and then attempting to defend a policy designed to ruin immigrant families by locking children in cages. This makes good on a campaign launched by the claim that a majority of undocumented migrants are “rapists,” which in turn led to millions of Trump supporters chanting “build a Wall.”

One imagines that if Prothero was a real person, he’d have been in the bleachers right next to them, talking about how he also agrees about shipping off minorities in a “humane” way to a place where they’d be “happy.”

“He’s Completely Single-Minded and Has No Regard for Political Process”

Ultimately, however, the easiest way to glimpse our ever growing flirtation with Sutler’s future is to see how parts of our culture already march to the sound of the fictional character’s bark. Midway through V for Vendetta, V surmises that Sutler’s career began with “a deeply religious man and a member of the conservative party. He’s completely single-minded and has no regard for political process. The more power he obtains, the more obvious his zealotry and the more aggressive his supporters become.”

Obviously, the Wachowski Siblings, as well as Alan Moore before them, were revisiting the rise of Adolf Hitler in a modern context. I would not suggest that it is a 1:1 comparison, but so much of how V describes Sutler could be used at this very moment to detail the popularity of Donald Trump.

In terms of political process, one only has to look at the Republican president’s woefully dishonest campaign promises and then often fractured policy, be it rounding up illegal immigrants or now claiming he has the power to revoke birthright citizenship without a Constutional amendment, despite it being enshrined in the 14th Amendment. In 2016, he ranted and raved about how he plans to immediately deport 12 million people living in America without due process, a claim he echoed in 2018 by playing ignorant to due process. Even Bill O’Reilly once called him out on that fact, pointing out in 2016 that under the Constitution, anyone detained on American soil (i.e. not just crossing the border) has the right to be processed in our judicial system—a harrowing (and impossible) feat if it is to be immediately implemented around 12 million times. Yet Trump just shrugged the facts off, repeating, “They’re here illegally,” as if repetition and magical thinking will make it constitutionally sound or at all humane.

Then again, Trump’s entire rhetorical approach has already been documented as operating on a fourth grade reading level, and it is as effective as the emphatic leader of V for Vendetta’s fictional conservative party. Increasingly, folks cheer when he suggests attacking cornerstones of American life like the freedom of the press. Much like how Sutler reacted to a political TV parody that made him look the fool, the Donald let his thin skin show when he suggested, with the utmost earnestness, that one of the things he wants most is to “open up libel laws.”

Even if the Supreme Court settled long ago in 1964 that you need to prove an organization reported inaccurate information it knew to be false with malicious intent, Trump would like to be able to sue “The New York Times [when they write] a hit-piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit-piece. We can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning, because they’re totally protected.”

His whining about the press suggests a chip on his shoulder worthy of when Sutler had a late night comedian disappeared into one of Creedy’s black bags.

Yet these are applause lines for supporters who are indeed embracing V’s visions of a dystopic 21st century where the more power Trump receives, the more aggressive they become. With almost every Trump rally during the heated primaries, there seemed to be another attack, another beating, and another protest devolving into chaos. In January 2016, Trump told an Iowa crowd, “There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?... I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”

Two months later in North Carolina, a black man was sucker punched by a Trump supporter as he was being escorted by police out of the facility, and it was captured on video. Despite visual confirmation of an unprompted burst of violence from a white supporter toward an African American protestor, Trump lied to his supporters when he said, “It was a guy who was swinging.” He then condoned the violence by saying, “I thought it was very, very appropriate… that’s what we need a little bit more of.” He then later would not refute the alleged attacker’s claims that the protestor was a member of ISIS.

After his ascendency to the White House, many emphatic supporters of Trump have become more violent instead of less so. When a visceral orgy of far-right politics converged on Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, Neo Nazis, Neo Confederates, and card carrying members of the KKK celebrated an event titled "Unite the Right," including a number of supporters dressed in President Trump's preferred golfing attire as they marched with torches and chanted "The Jews will not replace us," word-for-word the same cries made by Nazis at 1930s rallies. The following day, one such far-right extremist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. The following week, Trump gave rhetorical cover to racist supporters by saying "there were very fine people on both sides." A year later, a Trump enthusiast sent bombs to Trump critics. A year after that, a far-right terrorist opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring another 24.

Eventually, this is going to devolve into something even more tragic and reminiscent of the 1930s.

How is this anger growing right now in a country that actually has seen a growth in job creation, GDP, and access to healthcare while a decrease in the deficit and unemployment over the last six years of Obama's presidency and then increasingly so in the Trump years? There is an obvious racial and deplorable component for a number of voters in this country from the David Duke mold. Still, there are also reasons for justifiable anger with a cataclysmic income inequality gap and stagnant wages, the undeniable stench of money in politics, and the ever modern and unending anxiety of the new century: the threat of terrorism. But demagogues like Sutler and Trump are exploiting these fears and frustrations with such ridiculous ease, and building it on a foundation of hate, nationalism, and bigotry, that it seems almost fictional.

But if you think all of this is slanted, partisan hooey, watch V’s impassioned plea for the people of England to set aside their fear and face an ugly reality inside their culture. Then admit that it is not prescient for the direction our country is headed in.

Video of V for Vendetta: The Revolutionary Speech (HD)

So yes, Americans are closer than ever to achieving the dystopian future imagined for England in V for Vendetta. That’s something to remember, remember for the fifth of November.

A version of this article first ran on March 17, 2016.

David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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shayanyaan · 5 years ago

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Two Eleven Super

“London is very human-scale,” I am quick to pitch for one of my favorite cities in the world.

Her eyes widen and her face lights up. She nods her head vigorously and points her finger at me, in complete agreement. This is the moment in a conversation when one person articulates perfectly what the other person was thinking but couldn’t quite put into words. B and I have been explaining to each other how both of us are more comfortable living in cities where we can walk or take public transport.

“Oh gosh London, yes! Seeing a London trip on my schedule always fills me with immense warmth. Imagine being able to walk around a city slowly absorbing all that it has to offer, the sights, the sounds, the traditions.”

They say never meet your celebrity heroes because you’ll inevitably find something disappointing. I think the same applies to some of the great cities of the world. But both of us conclude hands down that London does not fall in this category.

“Actually London is not even a celebrity. London is a reliable old friend. A friend that has not lost their sense of culture and tradition. The monuments, the churches ...”

“.....and the bridges across the Thames - each one steeped in history.” We are finishing each other's sentences now. “The railway stations. The tube - a subterranean metropolis beneath a metropolis. The Mind the Gap jokes.”

“And what about the black cabs and then … and then the red double decker buses. Oh the red buses - what an icon! They say tourists take the tube but real Londoners take the bus.”

“Aha! You’re probably right. Flocks of pigeons on Trafalgar square, the shops on Oxford Street.”

“And you can’t forget the ever present murky skies, steady rain, rippled puddles, umbrella bearing pedestrians.”

“Of course you just had to mention the Great British weather!” A disapproving look is thrown. The entire body of humor surrounding the British weather is a road we agree not to go down.

---

I continue to quiz B on some of the other cities that she thought would fit the human-scale bill. New York inevitably comes up as a place she has not only travelled to but lived in. I am glad she brought up New York. Now New York is not an old friend. New York is a person you know you shouldn’t fall for, but you do anyway. There is something about the pace and the madness that sets New York apart from the rest of the US. Something about the people, coming from all corners of the world. To make a living, or even half a living. American dream and all that.

In New York you are acutely aware of the class divide that exists in society. New York is dirty. The subway is full of creaking old trains. New York has JFK and LaGuardia both of which are dismal at best and soul destroying at worst. Oh and Penn Station. Never has there been a more classic case of the mighty having fallen. A complete and utter hell hole out of some post apocalyptic world.

But somehow it all works. Barely. And that is where New York absolutely has you. As you walk around the city, you peel back the layers and beneath all the flaws and scars, you will find a genuinely captivating person. A person that knows how to push your buttons and make you forget the pandemonium, if only for a split second. Through the dollar pizzas on the street corners. Through the sheer magic of Central Park and the museums. Through the Manhattan skyline; hands down the best skyline in the world. Standing next to the Hudson, under the Brooklyn Bridge, with Lady Liberty keeping a quiet watch from a distance, you will be powerless as New York sucks you in. One glittering high rise at a time. Dreamy eyed, you cannot help but stare in wonderment. Hundreds of floors, thousands of windows. What goes on inside? And the lights! Yes so many lights. What could be a better tribute to Tesla, Faraday and the like?

“In general, the east coast of the United States is on a much more human-scale. Relatively small states with trains taking you across borders within a couple of hours at the most.”

“Going west of maybe Illinois, they started drawing great big rectangles for states.”

“And then there’s Texas. Vast open skies in an almost revolting shade of blue. Just as vast are the expanses of highway, further than the eye could see, or care to see. Wide, long and monotonous. Not a single human-scale building in sight”

“And who the hell builds highways passing through the center of a city!? Makes going to get some milk feel like a great expedition to the other side of the world.”

More chuckles.

Then a brief silence, during which I am suddenly reminded of where I am - in a lounge on the upper deck of an A380. A massive ship hurtling through the ether, pushing the speed of sound. A big TV screen near where I am standing silently glares back at me indicating that -50 degrees is but a mere 10 meters from where I am standing. Yet here we are, B and I, chatting like two friends catching up over coffee.

But of course, we are not friends. Not even acquaintances. She is on the Emirates cabin crew. And I am just a passenger.

---

Back at my seat, halfway through an episode of Chernobyl, I pause to stare out of the window. Beyond the wing, which seems to stretch out to eternity, a smudge of orange is forcing its way through the royal blue of the sky. I can hear the muffled yet reassuring boom from the four Rolls Royce engines. It is then that I realize that there is nothing about the A380 that is human-scale. There is nothing about the skies which she inhabits that is human-scale. I've travelled on the beloved Super dozens of times. Yet I continue to be amazed at the size and scale with which she operates. Devouring continents and swallowing oceans. Bringing the other side of the world just a little closer to home.

A friend of mine often describes journeys on the A380 as the closest we can get to the long sea voyages on gigantic ocean liners in the 1930s. And he is right. Two decks with so much space to stretch out. Bars, lounges, showers - no expense spared in ensuring luxury. Imagine peering out of the window from your first class cabin on the Queen Mary and seeing nothing but vast open sea. Right now I am doing exactly the same. Only from 36000 feet above the Earth, and all I can see is the vast open sky. Far below, Moscow and St Petersburg slip behind us. Scandinavia and the Atlantic Ocean lie ahead. As we burn more fuel, over North America, we will eventually settle in the exclusive airspace of flight level 410.

The Boeing 747 is a work of art. Sheer poetry. The Airbus A380 however, is a lesson in outsmarting the laws of Physics. It is an absolute whale of a plane that looks like it should never leave the surface of the Earth in the first place. But somehow it does, through the most languid and sluggish of take offs. Once up at cruising altitude though, it is steady ship all the way to your destination. The ability to punch through the sky without even the faintest of trembles is simply unmatched. I continue to stare wistfully out of the window, thinking about how much I’ll miss the A380 when she’s gone. She’s right up there with the Concorde in that nothing like this will ever be built in my lifetime.

---

Resting my head on one of the fluffiest pillows ever to have taken flight, I gaze at the roof of the cabin - tiny twinkling stars gently coaxing me to drift off into a deep sleep. And frankly, it is not hard to. The bed is completely flat and the mattress is more comfortable than the one I have at home. The blanket is ever so soft. The fake gold and wood around the windows is not something I’d furnish my home with, yet up here in the sky, it somehow adds to the coziness. From my own little cocoon, I can see neither the aisle nor other TV screens. Not a single window shade in the cabin is raised. I don’t remember the last time I fell asleep on a plane without an eye mask. All I can hear are the engines whirling away, and the hushed sound of the air beating against the fuselage - no more than a relaxing white noise.

In the moments between lying down and falling asleep, I am thinking about the countless journeys I’ve made with Emirates over the last two decades. Leaving home as often as I’ve had to, I’ve come to really treasure the sense of familiarity that an Emirates flight brings to me. I’ve never stopped to think about it before but there is a certain warmth and tenderness you feel when you have an old faithful travel companion to share your journeys with. And Emirates has been that companion for me, helping me wipe away the homesickness. Slowly at first, then all at once. The boarding music that says “Hello Tomorrow”. The inflight announcements that say “Tayaran Al Emarat”. The reassuring voice of Sir Tim Clark answering questions on the default podcast channel. The wavy curves on the cabin wallpaper. The cabin crew with their brown blazers and their red hats. When choosing an airline to fly, it is hard to look past this comfort of familiarity resulting from a bond first formed unwittingly, many years ago. And strengthened over numerous journeys from one side of the planet to the other, including this one. Before I can process any more thoughts, I slip into a happy and peaceful sleep. We are probably somewhere over the North Atlantic. But in this moment, it hardly matters.

---

Six hours have passed. B is on hand to wake me for dinner. It seems the crew has saved the best meal till the very end. Three courses this evening, starting with a chick-pea salad that doesn’t make you hate your life with its dreariness. I politely refuse the alcohol but ask for a piece of garlic bread on the side. Which is brought to me, warm, from a basket lined with cloth. The main course is served with the Jeera rice cooked in just the right amount of butter. The ratio of jeera to rice - perfect. The Rajma has the power to rival any dhaba in North India and along with it is a second curry made with melt-in-your-mouth soft paneer. Actual phulkas to go on the side, instead of pita.

And if you're going to go full North Indian with your meal, you need some achaar. Which obviously is on my tray as well. Emirates just knows how to serve Indian food. If I had any doubts about this, they are well and truly shattered when B brings the dessert. Four of the finest pieces of Rasgulla. Sometimes you have a meal so sublime that you are moved to shedding a tear or two. This AVML has been one such.

I call B over one last time to thank her for everything. She passes me a brownie, one very similar to those I’d been wolfing down earlier while talking to her in the lounge. This of course, brings the widest of smiles to my face. Not because I like brownies. But most certainly because of the fact that she had noticed. And remembered. The crew has been absolutely stellar on this flight.

---

Business class. A crew that knows how to pronounce your ridiculously long last name. A crew that has time to engage in conversations with you. Meals served on crisp white table cloths. Meals that come in courses. Flat beds to stretch your legs. Flat beds to rest your weary soul. On a grueling ultra long haul flight across 10 time zones, almost anything that seeks to make you feel more earthly is highly appreciated.

This has been Emirates Two Eleven Super - Dubai to Houston in just under seventeen hours, albeit the best seventeen hours of my life.

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