#chicago horror festival

[world-of-puppets]

Even Marlowe’s Abruptio Update

All the way back in October of 2020, I wrote a post about the horror/thriller puppetry film, Abruptio, directed by Even Marlowe. Back then, the film was said to be released sometime in 2021. But 2021 came and went with Abruptio not getting so much as a trailer.

Recently, I decided to look into the film again to see if I could find any updates. As I feared the film might still be in development hell or had been cancelled.

However, to my surprise, not only did Abruptio finally have its worldwide premiere at the Santa Monica Film Festival on January 17 2023, according to Wikipedia, but the first trailer for the film also dropped just two weeks ago on the Chicago Horror Film Festival YouTube channel.

I gotta say. It looks pretty interesting. The tone seems to be a bit more serious and slow then I expected. Given the whole bomb implant the main character Les has that forces him to carry out dirty work for a mysterious puppet-master, I envisioned something more action-y and high adrenaline. The tone form what I can see in the trailer seems to be going for something more surreal and dreamlike, almost introspective. Les’s line at the end “I have a bomb in my neck… just like everyone else” plus the movies tagline “everyone’s a puppet” makes me wonder if the movie will use the neck bomb, and the puppetry medium as a whole, as some kind of deeper metaphor of some kind. Like how no individual person is truly in control of their own life and were all ultimately at the whim to larger, enigmatic forces beyond our understanding or control… or something along those lines? Or maybe I’m just reading too deeply into it.

The puppets themselves look… alright. As mentioned before, practical effects artist Jeff Farley worked as lead puppet fabricator on the puppets, and his expertise shows here, visually speaking. The realistic/semi realistic textures, scale and materials look pretty good for a mostly independent, non-Jim Henson puppetry film production. The puppet movements themselves I’m on the fence about. A lot of the movements look rather stiff and stilted, and some bits like the one where that guys head blows up in a warehouse looks very floppy crash test dummy-esque to me. This coupled with the very detailed and realistic yet slightly off look of the puppets, and I can totally understand why some people might be turned off by this trailer and the film itself. I will say though, given the surreal, unsettling feeling this film seems to be going for, making the puppets themselves off beat and uncanny looking/moving feels rather fitting. Though that’s just my opinion. Plus, most of what we’ve seen of the puppets in action is just this trailer so far, so maybe we’ll see some more impressive feats of puppetry performance in the film itself/future clips and trailers. We’ll have to wait and see…

[schlock-luster-video]

On November 12, 1976 Alice Sweet Alice premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Here's some new art inspired by the cult classic!

[wonderlesch]

August 2024 Must See Events

Let’s end the summer with some bass, some barrels and some big name celebrity guests! Must See Events - August 2024 shares music festivals, whiskey tasting, Star Trek, Star Wars and more. Grab your calendar and start planning your next August adventure!

Hello and welcome to August 2024 Must See Events. Read on to discover how much fun August 2024 is going to be. Whether you are a music enthusiast (that’s me), a food lover (that’s also me) or a sci-fi fan ( well, I am all of the above), there is bound to be an event that will pique your interest. Let’s start planning your unforgettable August adventure! Lollapalooza August 1 – 4,…

[jasonaaronpro]

Exploring the Art of Filmmaking with Director Andrew Littlefield on IN the Loop TV Show

🎬 New IN the Loop TV Show segment! Meet director Andrew Littlefield and explore his film 'When the Clock Strikes'. Get an insider look at indie filmmaking! 🎥🕰️ #InTheLoop #AndrewLittlefield #IndieFilm #HorrorComedy

Join us on IN the Loop TV Show as we delve into the world of filmmaking with our special guest, the talented director Andrew Littlefield. Based in Chicago, Andrew shares his journey in the film industry, discussing his recent project, a horror comedy titled “When the Clock Strikes.” He talks about the film’s success on the festival circuit, bagging seven festivals, and winning the Audience Choice…

[horrorpatch]

THE AMERICAN HORROR FILM FESTIVAL - Tuesday January 10th In Downers Grove, Chicago, Illinois!

THE AMERICAN HORROR FILM FESTIVAL – Tuesday January 10th In Downers Grove, Chicago, Illinois!

We are pleased to report the 2023 American Horror Film Festival will take place in our backyard at the historic Classic Cinemas Tivoli Theatre in Downers Grove, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Keep reading for more details about the film fest below. Featuring spills, thrills and fears from the USA and abroad, the eighth annual American Horror Film Festival will be hosted at the beautiful Classic…

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Published: Oct 14, 2023

I was raised to curse Israel and pray for the destruction of Jews, writes AYAAN HIRSI ALI... That's why I know all too well Hamas is another ISIS - whatever useful idiots in the West say

All across the West, there is no shortage of people blaming the horrors in Israel on Israel itself — and openly supporting the perpetrators.

The head of policy at the Community Security Trust, which monitors hate crimes committed against British Jews, has said: 'Anti-Semites are getting excited by the sight of dead Jews... Hamas murdering Israeli civilians has exhilarated them... We've had reports of people driving past synagogues shouting 'Kill the Jews'.'

Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain are currently three times higher than they were this time last year, the charity adds.

'Free Palestine' graffiti has been scrawled on a railway bridge in Golders Green, a Jewish area of north London, while in Oxford Street, one young woman — who may well have been radicalised in England — was filmed ripping down posters that pleaded for the safe return of the babies taken hostage by Hamas. 'Free Palestine, f*** you!' she screamed at an onlooker who dared to remonstrate with her.

On Thursday night in Paris, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of people at a pro-Palestine rally, in which protesters chanted 'Israel murderer [sic]' and 'End the siege of Gaza.'

Outside the Sydney Opera House, about 1,000 protesters lit flares and waved Palestinian flags — and some were filmed chanting: 'Gas the Jews.'

In the U.S., meanwhile, 31 student groups at Harvard signed an open letter claiming that the 'Israeli regime' was 'entirely responsible for all unfolding violence', while California's Stanford University displayed a banner declaring that Palestine would be made free 'by any means necessary' — a sinister slogan that tacitly justifies Hamas's slaughter of children in pursuit of its aims.

Not to be outdone, the Chicago 'chapter' of the Black Lives Matter movement posted an image of a paraglider alongside the slogan 'I stand with Palestine'. The reference, of course, was to Hamas paragliders who descended on Israel's Supernova music festival last Saturday to rape and butcher at least 260 young people.

In short, anti-Semites the world over have been emboldened by this crisis, and Jews are once again being blamed for their own massacre. And I am not remotely surprised. In my childhood, I was steeped in the Islamist movement's noxious anti-Semitism — which has been on such ugly display this week.

Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, I spent my early years escaping political strife after my father was imprisoned for being an anti-government activist. We moved between countries before settling in Kenya.

The worst insult in the Somali community was to be called a 'Jew', not that any of us actually knew one. To be called a 'Jew' was so abhorrent, some felt justified in killing anyone who so dishonoured them with this 'slur'.

As a teenager in Nairobi in the 1980s, I joined the Muslim Brotherhood — the strict Sunni Islamist movement, founded in Egypt in 1928, from which Hamas ultimately descends.

I vividly remember sitting with my female fellows in mosques, cursing Israel and praying to Allah to destroy the Jews. We were certainly not interested in a peaceful 'two-state solution': we were taught to want to see Israel wiped off the map.

When I was 16, my school's teacher of religion was Sister Aziza. She read to us the Koran's lurid descriptions of the everlasting fire that burns flesh and dissolves skin — the place reserved for Jews.

Sister Aziza described Jews as physically monstrous, with horns coming from their heads, out of which flew devils that would corrupt the world. Jews controlled everything, she told us, and it was the duty of Muslims to destroy them.

It was a lot to take in for a teenager who read Western romance novels in secret, but I believed every word.

When the fatwa was issued against the British writer Salman Rushdie in 1989, a small crowd gathered in a Nairobi car park to burn a copy of his novel The Satanic Verses.

Sister Aziza urged us to join in the condemnations of Rushdie and I am ashamed to say I took part in the book-burning. I was certain Rushdie should be killed, but the scene nevertheless made me uncomfortable.

That seed of doubt grew over the next few years as I questioned why, if Allah was so just, women were treated as mere chattels in some Muslim families.

Over time, my questions turned into open rebellion against the Muslim Brotherhood, Islam and, ultimately, my family. 

My father sent me to relatives in Germany in 1992 so I could go from there to Canada to join the distant cousin he had married me off to. I ran away from that marriage and travelled to the Netherlands where I sought asylum.

Eventually, I became a member of the Dutch parliament, and later settled in America.

I abandoned my religion, but I have never lost my clear-sighted understanding, forged in my childhood, of Islamism's pathological hatred of Jews, as well as Muslims considered as heretics and non-Muslims in general.

The former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi — a one-time leader of the Muslim Brotherhood — declared that Muslims should 'nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred' of Jews. His organisation has done just that — and the despicable sentiment is the underlying context to Hamas's most recent attacks.

The truth, however, is that Hamas is no more a friend of the Palestinians than it is a friend of Israel.

Those who see the conflict as a simple territorial dispute between a colonial state and a dispossessed minority fail to recognise Hamas for what it really is: a gang of genocidal Islamist thugs backed by a theocratic, anti-Semitic regime in Iran.

Useful idiots on the far-Left in Western countries, who blindly support Hamas because they see it as a freedom-fighting group, harm the very people they claim to defend.

They say they want peace —and perhaps many of them do. But real peace talks based on the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries have made painstaking but undeniable progress despite the efforts of Hamas.

Until Hamas's recent attacks, Saudi Arabia and Israel had looked set to normalise relations. This murderous incursion was an attempt to derail such talks — and thus ruin any chance of lasting peace.

Ordinary Palestinians want to build a prosperous, functioning society. Hamas, in its obsession with annihilating Israel, doesn't care about that. It wishes only to bring about a genocidal Islamist dystopia.

It is Hamas, after all, that holds Palestinians hostage in Gaza, setting up military installations in — and launching rockets from — civilian areas in the full knowledge that counterstrikes will kill innocent people.

It is Hamas that impoverishes Palestinians by stealing humanitarian aid to fund its terror. This is what 'by any means necessary' truly signifies: supreme callousness towards Palestinian life.

If you genuinely want to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians, or more generally between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East, then Hamas should be your enemy.

And even if — like many in the West, as we can now see — you don't care at all about Israeli or Jewish lives, even if you care only about the lives of Palestinians, Hamas is still your enemy. After all, Hamas ruthlessly persecutes any Palestinians who disagree with it: a 2022 U.S. State Department report found that, among other abuses, Hamas detained and assaulted critical journalists.

It is especially hostile to public figures associated with its rival Fatah, the Palestinian party voted out of office in Gaza in 2006, but which still runs the West Bank.

Hamas harasses its own dissidents, and has invaded the home of at least one young critical activist, telling his parents to keep their son under control — or else.

As a Dutch MP in 2004 and 2005, I travelled to the West Bank and met Palestinians.

In public, they spouted all the usual lines about Israel being their 'oppressor'. But once the cameras were switched off, they spoke more truthfully.

They complained bitterly about their treatment by Hamas and other radical groups, and told me how money meant to feed the people was being taken to fund those organisations' activities and their leaders' luxurious lifestyles. Arabs and Palestinians alike told me how fed up they were with conflict, and how ready they were for peace.

Hamas, like other Islamist groups, has done its best over the course of decades to stomp all over those wishes.

And it has been successful. The shocking rise in anti-Semitism in the West owes much to the entrenched Islamist networks that have spent years stirring up this ancient hatred.

Europe must now wake up to these fifth columnists who shamelessly celebrate violence and bigotry, promoting hatred of the Jewish minority in Europe.

The West must also wake up to the moral corruption of its own Hamas supporters, from Left-wing university students to flag-waving street thugs.

Meanwhile, elite human-rights organisations need to do far more to name terrorism when they see it.

It is horrifying to see Amnesty International claiming that one of the 'root causes' of the crisis is 'Israel's system of apartheid imposed on Palestinians'.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, should do more than merely equivocating in its insistence that no injustice can justify another.

This is not to argue that Israel should be immune from criticism. My point is that much of the criticism is at best misguided and at worst thinly veiled anti-Semitism.

Hamas, like Lebanon's Hezbollah, Isis in Syria and Iraq, Nigeria's Boko Haram, Somalia's Al-Shabaab and several other groups, are fighting not for the liberty and prosperity of Muslims but, ultimately, for the annihilation of Israel and the imposition of an Islamic state.

If Palestinians and other Muslims have to suffer for that aim, then so be it.

Well-meaning celebrities and broadcasters who, out of wilful ignorance and good intentions, hesitate to condemn Hamas as terrorists need to recognise this truth.

These are dark times for Israel and for the world, but there are some reasons to be hopeful.

This week's strong statement by America, Britain, France, Italy and Germany condemning Hamas while recognising the 'legitimate aspirations' of the Palestinians is a good sign.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer's condemnation of Hamas is particularly welcome, given that, until recently, his party was led by a man who called these butchers his 'friends'.

And if Israel and the Arab states do not allow their worst instincts to rule them, talks may continue — and might just secure peace in the longer term.

Hamas is another Isis. They are the enemies of Israel; they are the enemies of all Jews; they are the enemies of Palestinians; they are the enemies of peace and freedom. They are the enemies of Western civilisation itself.

It is about time they were recognised as such.

To achieve a two-state solution — with free and prosperous Palestinians and a safe Israel — the first, fundamental step is for people to stop chanting slogans in support of terrorists and murderers, and for everyone to cry in unison: 'Down with Hamas!'

==

Remember two years ago when everyone was arguing about whether the terrorist assault and takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban was Trump's fault or Biden's fault? Today, people are scolding us not to call the same thing terrorism. It's "liberation" and "decolonization."

Remember in 2014 when Boko Haram kidnapped the children and everyone was campaigning for their safe return because it was an unconscionable act of terrorism? Now kidnapping and murdering children is an act of legitimate revolution.

Remember when kids rushed to support ISIS the instant they rose, and people were appalled and argued over how could it could be possible to support a terrorist state that seized illegitimate power? Online radicalization was blamed, and many didn't want to believe that indoctrination had primed it well in advance. Now, if your Gender and Postcolonial Studies haven't activated you to support a terrorist state that has seized illegitimate power in the region, you're a bigot.

Remember when we cheered on the Iranians for finally fighting back against the regime of terror that hung over them, hoping for them to finally win the war against the regime? Now, Israel has to simply take whatever assaults of terrorism are dealt at them; it is, as Douglas Murray said, is the only country which is not allowed to win a war.

Remember when certain people liked to call everyone who disagreed with them "Nazis" and that punching them was the right thing to do? Now the extermination of all the Jews is the "Be Kind" position.

How morally confused do you have to be, after all this, to side with the terrorists?

Hamas is to Palestine as ISIS is to Syria and the Taliban is to Afghanistan.

As I've posted about before, Islam is a supremacist ideology. Its goal is world domination. They tell us that. Loudly.

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-4/Book-52/Hadith-196

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah 's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,' and whoever says, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,' his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his accounts will be with Allah, (either to punish him or to forgive him.)"

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-1/Book-8/Hadith-387

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.' And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with Allah."

Narrated Maimun bin Siyah that he asked Anas bin Malik, "O Abu Hamza! What makes the life and property of a person sacred?" He replied, "Whoever says, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah', faces our Qibla during the prayers, prays like us and eats our slaughtered animal, then he is a Muslim, and has got the same rights and obligations as other Muslims have."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/USC-MSA/Book-41/Hadith-6985

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.

It has successfully weaponized intersectional shibboleths to trick useful idiots into thinking that the supremacist is the oppressed victim.

[therogerclarkfanclub]

Sadly, Damn Handy does not have a release date just yet. But on the positive side, the film has been (so far) accepted into 8 film festivals! It already received one award at the Block Island Film Festival back in June of this year. We sure hope it wins all the awards! 🙌.

If one of these film festivals happens to be near you, you can check it out before anyone else! 😁

• Mystic Film Festival • Santa Fe International Film Festival • Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival • Filmquest 2024 • Chicago Horror Film Festival • Block Island Film Festival ("Spotlight Lighthouse Award" Winner, June 2024) • Fall HorrorHound Film Festival • Flickers' Rhode Island Film Festival

In the meantime, check out the preview trailer below while we await for that much-anticipated release date.

[pjunicornart]

SAW UR POST WAS IMMEDIATELY INTERESTED :3!!1!1!2!211

can u feed us lazy four info, like how did they meet? fav hangout spot? some random stuff they do together? stuff like that :3 if youve had time to develop them??? considering u probs plan on writing lazy wilro.....

SO. 👏

All of the Lazy Four exist within the same universe. So we have Wilbur, who lives in the Robinson estate on the outskirts of the city. Penny is a pop star originally from Chicago, but now lives in the city due to the rich estates and luxuries. Pop star life, y'know. Violet is a skater girl who goes to Wilbur's school. It should be noted that within Lazy Days, the Parrs DO NOT have superpowers. But, I did give them professions/hobbies which elude to them (Mrs. Incredible is a silk ribbon dancer, for example. Keep this in mind). Last but not least, Hiro is a third generation Japanese-American immigrant living in his grandfather's cafe with his older brother and aunt.

How they met: Well, Wilbur, Violet, and Hiro all go to the same school. So they met there. As for how they met Penny, there is a story there. Because of who Cornelius is, he has quite a lot of connections and "high profile clients" as his PA would put it. A couple of years ago, he was sent on a lengthy business trip. He had to bring Leo (Wilbur's baby brother) along since he was only a year old at the time. Wilbur was 13 about to be 14 when this happened. Wilbur tagged along because Neil promised they'd do something awesome for his birthday, and he didn't let work get in the way of that. This was a trip to Norway, so they figured they could do birthday festivities there as a special occasion. But first, Neil had to meet up with his client, who just so happened to be Penny's father, her manager. While the two men were discussing boring business stuff, Penny and Wilbur were able to hang out. At the end of the ordeal, they had exchanged numbers and kept in touch. Back home, Wilbur (over video calls) introduced Vi and Hiro to Penny, and the rest is history.

Some stuff they do: They mostly hang around the Robinson estate, because the family is fun. Well, also the hot tub and theater. Individually, Violet hangs out at the skate park, Wilbur in the home library, Penny in her garden, and Hiro wherever food is, tbh. Boy can't get enough of sweets. Not related to the kiddos, but Neil became good friends with Helen because they were in the same silk ribbon dancing class. Vi thinks her mother is better/more flexible, but Wilbur laughs in his father being a gymnast, yogi, pole dancer, and silk ribbon dancer. Take that Vi!

Miscellaneous points: - Wilbur is always reading something. Sometimes, he just can't shut up about the newest book he's reading. - Tadashi is still alive! Because I like him. The fire still happened, so Tadashi does have severe burns he has to treat every day. Luckily, Wilbur's father knows a thing or two about treating burns. - Sometimes Violet secretly wishes her siblings could be like Wilbur's. Quiet and polite! - It's pretty well known that Leo only likes to be held by/in the presence of Neil. However, he tolerates Penny and Wilbur. Probably because they were there when he was away from Neil for the meeting. - All of them are babies when it comes to horror. Except for Violet. She loves horror, especially psychological horror akin to Cooking Companions or That's Not My Neighbor. - Penny has three dogs. Bolt (duh), Lightning, and Shock. - If we're talking about Wilro, Wilbur calls Hiro "mio dolce." Half of Wilbur's family is Italian, so he knows some words/phrases. "Mio dolce" is a pet name. It can mean "my sweet", "my love", or "my cake." - Whenever all four of them are in Hiro's aunt's cafe, they ask for the day old donuts. - Violet can't whistle or snap her fingers. - Hiro is only slightly terrified of Wilbur's little sister's (Mazie) pet snake. Its name is Bananaconda. - Yes, Hiro knows how to bake! Instead of being a prodigy in inventing like his bro, he's an advanced baker with very intricate techniques. All figured out by the time he was nine. - Penny became a pop star when she was twelve. She mostly did kid's TV beforehand, before she got her career in music. Think... Miley Cyrus and Ariana Grande, just without the gross tongue stuff and home wrecking. - Violet does name her skateboards. Her favorite is Pico. - Wilbur is canonically bisexual, Hiro is pansexual, Penny is a straight ally, and Violet is a demigirl lesbian. - Bit of a sad point here, but Wilbur did struggle with an eating disorder (anorexia) when he was 12 and 13. Unfortunately, he inherited his father's body dysmorphia.

In regards to the Wilro fic... It will be inspired by the one Wilro image I did. It will also be pure fluff, since these are teenagers and I'm not about that gross shit! =D They'll be in the Robinson estate, and I'm unsure if we'll see any more Robinsons. We'll see. I gotta do some planning.

[leannareneehieber]

Darlings! I'm heading into an event every upcoming weekend! (And 3 book deadlines! EEK!) SO, that means I'll be scarce here BUT you can come find me at any of the following places in Chicago, Ohio or Vermont this month!

Chicago Steampunk Exposition - April 12-14 - I'm so thrilled to be a featured guest! Theme: VAMPIRES!! Come hear me talk about all things Gothic and Stoker-inspired! Books available for sale and signing! More info here.

Ohioana Book Festival - Columbus Library - Main Branch - April 20th, I'm so excited to be on the HORROR panel! Books available for sale and signing! FREE to attend! More info here.

Vermont Sci-Fi & Fantasy Expo! - Champlain Valley Expo Center - April 27th & 28th! I'll be discussing the importance of ghost stories and the importance of women writers in genre fiction! More info here.

Further upcoming: If you go to Key City Steampunk in Gettysburg or DragonCon in Atlanta, I'll also be a featured guest again this year at both events!

Hope to see you there! Happy Haunting! BOOP!

*pause*

SUPER BOOP!

[adri-2022]

Christmas

Fandom: Chicago PD

Characters: Jay Halstead x OC Sofia / OC Hope

Warnings: cute fluff

Word count: 1403

Jay Halstead Materlist

A/N: Hello my beautifully people. Here is a request from the beautiful @andreahalstead24

Don’t be afraid to leave your comment!

—————-

For Sofia, Hope was not only one of the feelings Christmas brought her, but it was also the name of her boyfriend’s 2-year-old daughter. As Jay had said many times before his daughter had brought him hope, love and compassion when he thought life couldn’t get worse. Sofia felt the same way about the little girl.

Hope’s mother had left when Hope was mere months old leaving the young new father and newborn baby alone, without any guidance whatsoever. Sofia had shared with Jay a helping hand at raising the young girl. Sofia had been Hope’s nurse and old friend of the Jay’s. Hence how Sofia had watched the little girl grow.

Winter was here and with it came the festivities. Sofia had helped Jay decorate the house inside and out. From Christmas lights on the railing of the stairs to fresh baked cookies in the kitchen isle and a big tree in the living room. Outside were lights, inflatable, and a little snowman the three of them had built in the morning. Hope was the happiest kid on earth, she also shared the passion for Christmas with Sofia.

By the end of the night Hope was already in bed while Sofia started to place the gifts underneath the three. There were so many but how could she not get a gift for every important person in her life and in Jay’s. After all the little family had a village in their corner, it was just fitting to get them something as a token of appreciation.

She was so engrossed in her mission that she didn’t hear or see Jay lean in the living room frame admiring his beautiful girlfriend with a smile on his face. Saying he was grateful was an understatement, forever in dept is more like it. She had stayed in his life since so long ago that it almost felt like a whole lifetime had passed by.

They had been friends and gone through high school, rangers, only 2 years ago realizing their feelings and raising Hope together. For him, Hope and Sofia were everything he needed, everything he ever wanted. Pushing himself off the door frame, he picked a gift from the pile in one hand, wrapping the other around her waist and chuckling lightly when she jumped in surprise.

“Jesus. Almost gave a heart attack” Sofia said placing a hand over her heart as Jay chuckled

“I’m sorry. Santa looks beautiful this year” he teasingly said as he wrapped her in a loving hug pecking her cheeks a couple of times as she laughed

“The elf looks handsome too” she joked back making Jay furrow his eyebrows

“Who are you calling an elf?- babe, don’t ignore me” Jay continued to try and get his girlfriend’s attention and eyes back from the pile of gifts

“Do you think this are enough?” she asked biting her lip as she looked at the gifts underneath the tree

“Sure… but out of curiosity for whom?” Jay asked squinting his eyes slightly at her nervous expression

“Hope” she said as if it was nothing.

Missing Jay’s wide eyes as he choked on air, the gift that he had in hand dropped onto the floor as the surprise of her comment settled in. Stepping back from the embrace they were sharing to completely look at her.

“There is no way all this are for her-” Jay shook his head massaging his forehead as he stared at the gifts in horror

“Why?” “Babe- you can’t just buy her ten gifts and ask me if they’re enough. This are enough to give to the whole city” he hissed in low voice looking straight at her eyes as if she had grown two heads

“Firstly, why not?” she asked raising a finger as if she was offended, also hissing silently to not wake Hope up.

“She’s 2-years-old” he said in a matter-of-fact way

“And? There’s actually fifteen…” she answered whispering the last part. Jay’s mouth dropped as looked back underneath the three -more than those?-.

“Fift-” “You seriously can expect me to not buy her the stuff she likes Jay. She gave me puppy eyes” she hurriedly said

“How- how much did you spend?” Jay asked as he scratch the back of his neck

“You don’t want to know” Sofia said shaking her head pursing her lips

“Oh. For gods sakes” he said as he walked towards the couch slumping down on it.

Sofia guiltily followed him to the couch sitting side by side, biting her lip as they both looked at all the presents under the tree. Maybe she did over buy, a lot. They both sighed as Jay reached for the plate of cookies on the coffee table taking a much-needed anxiety filled bite.

“Are they good?” Sofia asked expectingly looking at Jay, as he hummed satisfied

“This are really good” he praised looking at the piece of cookie on his hand before looking at Sofia shaking his head at her guilty expression

“You spoil her to much, Soph” Jay said looking in her eyes, to which she winced

“Can you help me with the rest?” she whispered

“There’s only three cookies. Pretty sure I can make space for them” Jay said chuckling as he looked at his girlfriend’s shy smile before it morphed into guilt.

“Not about the cookies…the gifts” she whispered wincing as she waited for his reaction

“Soph- Babe…” Jay whined as he lightly hit his head with the back of the couch a couple of times.

“Please” she giggled as she pecked his lips, Jay smiling slightly into it.

“Let’s get it over with then” he sighed standing dragging her with him towards the garage. When he opened the locked door his mouth fell, eyes wide. Taking a deep breath he turned his body to looked at Sofia raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry…” she said in the same tone he had used before

“You’re lucky you’re cute” he said crossing his arms

“You know me. You know how I get on Christmas; don’t know why you act so surprised” she said between laughs as he shook his head amusement clear on his face.

“You’re gonna be the death of me Sophia” Jay said pecking her cheeks lovingly, before entering Santa’s improvised workshop

“Sorry!” she winced as a box fell from the pile and onto Jay’s head, who proceeded to curse under his breath

Hours later rays of sunshine shone through the curtains; silence invaded the small house in Chicago. As Jay slept with ease, the silence and coldness in the air helped him settle. That wasn’t gonna last much.

“Babe- babe wake up” Sofia said standing beside the bed pocking his exposed cheek

“Honey. It’s 6 in the morning. Come back to bed. Give it a couple of hours” Jay said groaning. Hand grabbing her sweater, dragging her back to bed as he switched his head to avoid the pocking.

“But it’s Christmas” Sofia said making a sad voice

“No. Don’t. Do that”  Jay said warningly, voice hoarse and sleepy

“But Jay” “Hope isn’t even awake” as he huffed

“DADDY. SANTA CAME!” Hope came barreling into the room screaming at her father’s sleeping form

“Scratch that, she was probably snooping downstairs” Jay said getting up, laughing as he saw Hope clinging to Sofia’s hand both jumping up and down in excitement.

“I live with two children” “Oh hush! C’mon” Sofia said reaching for his hand and pulling him downstairs. As they all entered the living room filled with presents Hope yelped in happiness, resulting in both adults laughing.

“Momma. Look” Hope screamed as she picked up the empty cookie plate. Both adults looked at each other with surprised expressions on their faces.

“Did she-” “Yes she did” as both gazed wide eyed towards little Hope diving into the piles of presents

“Jay-” as Sofia went to argue it. She would never replace Hope’s mother, that was never her intention, and it would never be. He shook his head interrupting her

“Just enjoy it” Jay said beaming as he threw his arm around her shoulders bringing her closer to him in order to kiss her. When they pulled away, both smiled before gazing at Hope’s little figure trying to read the tags on the gifts.

“Alright, munchkin. Which one first?” Jay exclaimed walking towards the tree as Sofia sat on the couch facing both of them. It was a great day.

[schlock-luster-video]

On October 14, 2016 Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was screened at the Chicago International Film Festival.

[amaliabalash]

theatre 2023

White Christmas - 1/1, Oregon Cabaret Theatre with Oregon Shakespeare Festival

2. Moulin Rouge! - 1/8, Keller Auditorium, Portland

3. Legally Blonde - 2/4, Hult Center, Eugene (non-equity tour)

4. What Happened While Hero Was Dead - 2/18, Southern Oregon University

5. Bright Star - 3/5, Crater High School

6. The Play That Goes Wrong - 3/25, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

7. Come From Away - 4/29, Hult Center, Eugene

8. Rent - 5/6, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

9. Anastasia - 5/13, Hult Center, Eugene

10. Into the Woods - 5/20, Collaborative Theatre Project (an amazing production given that the cast had like...8-10 people and that's it)

11. Five on Fire - 5/21, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

12. Romeo and Juliet - 5/27, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

13. The Play That Goes Wrong - 5/28, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

14. Five on Fire - 6/3, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

15. Twelfth Night - 6/3, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

16. Chicago - 6/23, Broadway

17. Hadestown - 6/24, Broadway

18. Sweeney Todd - 6/24, Broadway

19. Kimberly Akimbo - 6/25, Broadway

20. Little Shop of Horrors - 6/25, Off-Broadway

21. Kinky Boots - 7/2, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

22. Three Musketeers - 7/8, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

23. Something Rotten - 7/14, Camelot Theatre

24. Kinky Boots - 7/15, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

25. Kinky Boots - 7/29, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

26. Kinky Boots - 8/27, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

27. Where We Belong - 9/16, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

28. Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - 9/23, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

28.5 Halloqueen Drag Show - 10/29, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

29. Christmas at the Prime Rib Playhouse - 12/16, Oregon Cabaret Theatre

[greensparty]

Movie Review: Revival69: The Concert That Rocked The World / MaXXXine

This week I got to review two new ones: a documentary and a narrative.

Revival69: The Concert That Rocked The World

On September 13, 1969, Canada hosted their big music festival about a month after Woodstock in the U.S. Toronto, Ontario had the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, at University of Toronto's Varsity Stadium. I didn't know too much about the concert festival itself beyond John Lennon's performance. John and wife Yoko Ono put together the Plastic Ono Band for this festival including guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voorman, and drummer Alan White. That performance was released as a live album in late 1969, Live Peace in Toronto 1969. Beyond D.A. Pennebaker's 1971 documentary Sweet Toronto, the music festival never got the proper historical documentary treatment until now. Revival69: The Concert That Rocked The World began its festival run in 2022 and has been doing indie film screenings in recent weeks as well as a digital release.

movie poster

Using the original 16mm footage that Pennebaker filmed of the concert as well as archival footage, newly shot interviews and animation, director Ron Chapman does a deep-dive into this concert headlined by Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Chicago, Alice Cooper, The Doors, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard as well as the Plastic Ono Band. This got some attention as it was the first big concert Lennon did outside of The Beatles. There's interviews with festival promotors John Brower and Ken Walker as well as Voorman, Cooper, and Robby Krieger of The Doors to name a few.

Ono and Lennon at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Show

I had the same feeling watching this as I had when I saw Summer of Soul, Questlove's doc about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Concert. While that was a very different story (had more to say about the era itself and the story of unearthing the doc footage became a part of the story as well), this is also a doc about a 1969 music festival that was in the shadow of Woodstock, but had some of the biggest names of that era and I was blown away by the archival footage of both. The centerpiece of this festival is that Lennon became a part of it and performed. I had heard their performance on the live album, but seeing it as well as the interviews about it coming together is a gift for Beatle fans like me!

For info on Revival69

3.5 out of 5 stars

MaXXXine

Ti West is one of the most exciting horror directors of this century. His third movie The House of the Devil was a powerful homage to 80s horror films on an ultra low budget. His follow up The Innkeepers was a worthy follow-up in the same slow burn vein. The found footage VICE journalists investigating a cult film The Sacrament was uneven at best. But he quietly came back with the one-two punch in 2022: the 1979-set X and the 1918-set Pearl (both among my Best Movies of 2022 list). West also found his muse in actress Mia Goth. She did double duty in X as adult film star Maxine Minx and the elderly land owner Pearl. But then we got the prequel of the early days of Pearl in 1918 and what lead her to be the way she was in the first film with Pearl. It's been two years, but the third in the trilogy MaXXXine opens this week from A24 with West, Goth and bigger cast than one would expect from this series.

movie poster

It's now 1985 and Maxine Minx is in Hollywood a few years after surviving the massacre in Texas from the first movie X. This isn't glitzy Hollywood, this is sleazy seedy Hollywood in the mid-80s. Maxine is still pursuing fame not just as an adult film star, but in mainstream movies now. But while doing sleazy jobs in between auditions, the city is fearing the Night Stalker, a serial killer walking the city at night in L.A. There are some cops looking to Maxine for answers played by Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale. There's a studio horror movie Maxine is working on with a director played by Elizabeth Debicki. There's an agent played by Giancarlo Esposito. There's a porn star friend played by Halsey. There's a shady private eye played by Kevin Bacon.

Mia Goth and Ti West on the red carpet

I wanted to like this after really liking the previous two especially Pearl and being a fan of Ti West. But boy was this a letdown and a half! It is a film that thinks it's hip and cool and it's not. The previous two films were low-budget and West was pulling out some serious scares. Here it feels like he had a much bigger budget and bigger cast and "hey look how 80s this is!!!" production design and costumes. It had so much potential which is what's so frustrating about this: the idea of setting the Maxine in the Reagan 80s at a time when heavy metal music was bubbling up from the underground, video nasty VHS videos and low budget horror were on the rise, and devil worship was more than just something on Geraldo - and all of these things were converging in 1980s Hollywood. There could've been an awesome horror movie and instead it was trying too hard to be mainstream and glossy. And another thing - through this whole movie it's bowing at the alter of Brian De Palma's highly underrated 1984 erotic thriller Body Double and then in the last third (semi-spoilers ahead) West goes all-in and films the climax at a house in the Hollywood Hills that if it's not the house from Body Double it's a pretty darn close replica. Dude - I'd rather just watch Body Double at that point!?! There's elements of House of the Devil....but it lacks the undercurrent of fear and tension that film had. The two things that do deserve credit are Giancarlo Esposito who stole the entire film (look closely and there's an element of Gus Fring from Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul in his character) and Mia Goth who blew me away with Pearl and here she rose above the weakest film in the trilogy. But both Goth and West can do much better and I hope they do with their next film(s).

For info on MaXXXine

2 out of 5 stars

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: The People's Joker (2022)

Just because I left Fort Lauderdale, and with it Popcorn Frights, behind when I moved to Boston last year doesn't mean I have to give up on horror festivals. And just as I managed to sneak in a trip to the Telluride Horror Show amidst my adventures in Utah back in 2022, so too did I find that -- where else? -- Salem, Massachusetts hosted the annual Salem Horror Show in April and May. Tonight was the first night, and they screened one of the festival's token non-horror films in The People's Joker, a queer Batman spoof made without any official approval from DC Comics or Warner Bros. (They originally had a screening of Hocus Pocus planned with Kathy Najimy as a special guest, but Najimy had to cancel at the last minute.) How was it?

The People's Joker (2022)

Not rated

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/04/salem-horror-fest-week-1-day-1-peoples.html>

Score: 4 out of 5

The People's Joker exists in a place very similar to that enjoyed by Escape from Tomorrow. In both cases, you have independent filmmakers making unlicensed, unauthorized use of American pop iconography, Disney in the case of Escape from Tomorrow and DC Comics in the case of this film, as a way of satirizing and critiquing it with a particular focus on its corporate ownership and its role in the modern economy. Unlike Disney, which permitted the release of Escape from Tomorrow, DC Comics and Warner Bros. actively tried to clamp down on this film, which was ultimately saved by fair use laws protecting parodies like this. And of the two, I'd argue that this film pulls off what it was trying to do a lot better. While both films are elevated by a particular psychedelic edge and punk-rock attitude, Escape from Tomorrow was too incoherent to really stick the landing or even really convey what it was trying to say, while The People's Joker manages to successfully pull off being not only a dark parody of Batman in which the Joker is the hero, but also a hilarious comedy in its own right, a queer coming-out story, a satire of the entertainment industry (especially stand-up and sketch comedy), and a film that manages to get its message across loud and clear. For obvious reasons, I don't expect this to be more than a cult classic, but it's one I enjoyed and do not regret watching.

In this take on Batman's most iconic villain, one that's most obviously based on the movie Joker but draws on many versions of the character (as well as elements of Harley Quinn), the Joker is now a trans woman who leaves her disapproving mother in Smallville, Kansas for Gotham City in the hopes of becoming a comedian like her idol, UCB Live star Ra's al Ghul. There, upon being exposed to the gatekeeping and hypocrisy of the world of mainstream standup comedy, which here serves largely to prop up a corporate-run dystopia even as it still claims the legacy of those who once spoke truth to power, she starts her own underground "anti-comedy" troupe in an abandoned carnival that comes to be comprised of many of Batman's traditional baddies from the comics. (Her trademark gag is inviting people onstage to tell the world their saddest experiences and then huffing Smilex and laughing her ass off at their misery, because after all, this is still the Joker we're talking about.) This eventually puts her on a collision course with Batman himself, who's depicted as not only the jackbooted thug that more cynical deconstructions of superhero comics have framed him as, but also a perverted closet case on top of it. (Let's just say, this film gets a lot of mileage out of all those jokes you've heard about his relationship with his sidekick Robin.)

The film ain't exactly subtle in what it's saying. UCB Live is a clear-cut parody of Saturday Night Live, right down to the fact that Lorne Michaels is a character in the film, and moreover, its initialism is lifted straight from the famed Chicago comedy troupe the Upright Citizens Brigade that played such a major role in the development of standup and sketch comedy in the '90s and '00s, including producing multiple SNL stars. And while the film never names him so directly, you also get the sense that its writer, director, and star Vera Drew really isn't a fan of Joe Rogan or the standup circle he's built around himself, either. The Joker's introduction to UCB Live's casting has her body being scanned and her being deemed a potential comedy superstar because she has a small penis and is therefore mistaken for the kind of insecure man who the industry is built upon. Her comic idol Ra's starred in a Borat-like film whose main joke was making fun of foreigners. The whole reason Batman, an avatar of the elite if ever there was one (being the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and all), comes after her is because she directly criticizes and threatens the ruling class in a way that the corporate, sanitized world of UCB Live merely pretends to. Drew is somebody who clearly has experience with comedy and the people who inhabit it, and is very much writing that experience into the meat of the story, a metaphorical representation of an entertainment industry that, in her view, only cloaks itself in populism and progressive language enough that it can fend off criticism without actually making any meaningful changes.

Much of this is told through a mix of a riotous and raunchy comedy and the Joker's romance with her fellow comic Jason Todd, aka "Mr. J", a trans man who's envisioned here as a mix of Robin and the edgelord Jared Leto version of the Joker from the DC Extended Universe. The gags came flying at a mile a minute, and often had me busting my gut in laughter. The whole cast is game for the material, with Drew making the Joker a compelling anti-hero not just as a comic presence but also as somebody whose journey from a Midwestern girl-trapped-in-a-boy's-body to a flamboyant Clown Princess of Crime was one that I found myself genuinely invested in. Kane Distler as Mr. J was also an interesting presence, somebody whose relationship with the Joker starts promisingly only for him to turn emotionally abusive and self-centered (complete with a "gaslighting" pun that had me cracking up), indicating that, when he transitioned, he wound up embracing the most noxious forms of hypermasculinity. And as for the style of the film, Drew goes for an exaggerated feel that combines live-action filmmaking, highly stylized CGI, what appears to be a mannequin representing Poison Ivy, and very crude animation both 2D and 3D to create a feeling that reminded me of watching Adult Swim or surfing Newgrounds back in the 2000s. There clearly wasn't much of a budget here, so Drew instead leaned on creativity, both her own and the dozens of artists worldwide who each contributed to the film. It was as unique a film to watch as it was an entertaining comedy, one that demonstrated a lot of talent and commitment on the part of everybody involved.

The Bottom Line

There's no way in hell that The People's Joker is ever getting a wide release, but if it plays near you, I highly recommend seeking it out, as a twisted, countercultural sendup of everything from superheroes to mainstream comedy to who gets to call themselves "the counterculture".

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer

Published: Feb 13, 2024

On October 7th, 2023, most Americans watched in horror as Israel experienced the deadliest terrorist attacks in its history. In the days and weeks that followed, some of that horror mingled with confusion.

For example, on Oct. 8th—before an Israeli counteroffensive was launched—BLM Grassroots issued a “Statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” writing that they “stand unwaveringly on the side of the oppressed” and “see clear parallels between Black and Palestinian people.” Two days later, BLM Chicago posted a graphic featuring a paraglider with a Palestinian flag and the text “I stand with Palestine” (terrorists had used paraglides to attack a Music festival on Oct. 7th, killing over three hundred civilians). Even more bizarre posts began turning up on social media. The Slow Factory, a progressive group with over 600k followers on Instagram, posted a graphic stating “Free Palestine is a Feminist issue. It’s a reproductive rights issue. It’s an Indigenous Rights issue. It’s a Climate Justice issue, it’s a Queer Rights issue, it’s an Abolitionist Issue.” The group “Queers for Palestine” began showing up with signs at various demonstrations. A banner hanging from a building at the University of British Columbia announced, “Trans liberation cannot happen without Palestinian Liberation.”

What explains these signs and sentiments, which seem to be springing up organically around the country and other parts of the world? How is the Hamas-Israel war connected to climate change? Why is it a feminist issue? Why are “queers” standing in solidarity with Palestine when Israel’s government is far more permissive than Palestine’s (for example, same-sex activity is criminalized in Gaza)? What has inspired an outpouring of egregious and unconscionable antisemitic rhetoric and behavior in various cities and on a number of college campuses?

The answer is, in a word, intersectionality. In this article, we’ll explain the intersectional framework that undergirds these phenomena and will then offer a brief reflection on how it can be resisted.

* * *

Intersectionality was a term coined by critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. She used it to describe the discrimination faced by Black women, whose social location (that is, their relationship to power within U.S. society) was predicated on both their race and their sex simultaneously. In other words, a Black woman’s experience cannot be reduced to merely the sum of her race and sex experiences. Instead, she occupies a unique (and uniquely marginalized) category that is shaped by both her Blackness and femininity.

Although Crenshaw’s first examples focused on race and gender, intersectionality was rapidly applied to other categories like sexuality, class, and disability, just as Crenshaw intended. Indeed, precursors to Crenshaw’s conception of intersectionality can be found in other Black feminist writings. For example, the Combahee River Collective Statement insisted in 1977 that it is “difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because... they are most often experienced simultaneously” and feminist Beverly Lindsay argued in 1979 that sexism, racism, and classism exposed poor Black women to “triple jeopardy” (see Collins and Bilge, Intersectionality, p. 76).

So in what ways does intersectionality shape progressive views on the Israel-Hamas War?

First, through its embrace of the social binary; second, through its implicit adoption of the category of “whiteness,” and finally through its commitment to solidarity in liberation.

The Social Binary

While the concept of intersectionality can be understood narrowly to refer to the trivial claim that our identities are complex and multifaceted, Crenshaw intended a far more robust understanding rooted in a prominent feature of critical social theory, what we call the “social binary.” The social binary refers to the belief that society is divided into oppressed groups and oppressor groups along lines of race, class, gender, sexuality, physical ability, religion, and a host of other identity markers. Crenshaw did not merely believe that Black women (and White men, and Hispanic lesbians) all had different social locations, but that they had differently-valued social locations.

In a 1989 paper, Crenshaw asked the reader to “[imagine] a basement which contains all people who are disadvantaged on the basis of race, sex, class, sexual preference, age and/or physical ability” and who were then literally stacked “feet standing on shoulders with the multiply-disadvantaged at the bottom and the fully privilege at the very top.” This understanding of intersectionality necessarily assumes a hierarchy of oppression and privilege such that people can be ranked in order from most to least oppressed.

Although Crenshaw didn’t discuss “colonial status” in the body of her paper, she did state in a footnote that Third World feminism is inevitably subordinated to the fight against “international domination” and “imperialism.” It is at precisely this point that intersectionality affects progressive understanding of Israel-Palestinian relationships.

Later critical social theorists, and especially postcolonial scholars, believe that colonialism—like white supremacy, the patriarchy, and heterosexism—divides society into oppressed and oppressor groups. Because the Israeli government is positioned as a “colonizing foreign power,” it is therefore necessarily oppressive. Conversely, Palestinians are then necessarily positioned as a colonized, oppressed group. Never mind the spurious assessment of both. Note here that critical theorists make these judgments not on the basis of the actual history of the region (which is complex) or a careful analysis of particular Israeli policies (which are certainly open to debate). Rather, the mere identification of Israel as a “colonial power” is all that is needed to set up a social binary between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The social binary then explains why some progressives make such a quick, simplistic analysis: intersectionality deceptively primes them to see the world in these black-and-white terms.

Whiteness

A second factor that contributes to a reflexive pro-Palestinian perspective by some in the U.S. is the ascendance of critical race theory and an attendant understanding of “whiteness.”

CRT, which was birthed concurrently with intersectionality in the late 1980s, conceptualizes whiteness not as a skin color or even as an ethnicity, but as a social construct that provides tangible and intangible benefits to those raced as “White.” (Notwithstanding that white skin and whiteness are often conflated when it serves the interests of progressives). Whiteness as a social construct signals that “whiteness” is fluid and malleable and need not only include people traditionally understood as White. For example, in his important 2003 book Racism Without Racists, sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva hypothesized that America could develop a “triracial order” consisting of “Whites,” “Honorary Whites,” and “Collective Black.” On Bonilla-Silva’s reading, Whites would include not just Anglo-Saxons, but also “Assimilated white Latinos,” “Some multiracials,” “Assimilated (urban) Native Americans,” and “A few Asian-origin people.” On the other hand, the “Collective Black” category would include “Vietnamese Americans,” “Dark-skinned Latinos,” and “Reservation-bound Native Americans” (see Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists, 228).

Critical race theorists have long wrestled with the place of Jewish people within their racial hierarchy. On the one hand, Americans did not traditionally consider Jews “White” and the U.S. has explicitly discriminated against Jews in the recent past (Jewish admission quotas at Ivy League Schools being one glaring example). On the other hand, many critical race theorists today believe that most Jews have assimilated to whiteness and benefit from “White privilege” and therefore should be classified as White. In her chapter “Whiteness, Intersectionality, and the Contradictions of White Jewish Identity,” Jewish psychologist Jodie Kliman writes that,

As European Jews have slowly ‘become’ white over the last three generations (Brodkin, 1998), we have internalized White supremacy in general and anti-Black prejudice in particular...Immigrant Jews and their descendants assimilated into US society, becoming white, or sort of white...

Unfortunately, to the extent that American Jews are viewed as “White adjacent” while Palestinians are viewed as “Brown,” the former are members of an oppressor group and the latter of an oppressed group. This categorization adds another layer to knee-jerk progressive support for Palestinians.

Liberation

Finally, the glue that binds together pro-Palestinian, pro-LGBTQ, and feminist activists is a shared commitment to mutual liberation. Again, this commitment is not new; it is found in the earliest texts of critical race theory, including those authored by Crenshaw herself. For instance, in the 1993 anthology Words that Wound, she and other co-founders of CRT wrote that a “defining element” of CRT is the commitment to ending all forms of oppression: They write: 

Critical race theory works toward the end of eliminating racial oppression as part of the broader goal of ending all forms of oppression. Racial oppression is experienced by many in tandem with oppressions on grounds of gender, class, or sexual orientation. Critical race theory measures progress by a yardstick that looks to fundamental social transformation. The interests of all people of color necessarily require not just adjustments within the established hierarchies, but a challenge to hierarchy itself (Matusda et al., Words that Wound, 6-7).

This last point is crucial to understanding the automatic solidarity between, say, LGBTQ activists and decolonial activists. One could, in principle, accept that both LGBTQ people and Palestinians are oppressed groups and still conclude that their goals are mutually exclusive. For example, most Palestinians are Muslim and traditional Islam rejects the sexual autonomy demanded by LGBTQ activists. Yet an intersectional framework insists that homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and colonialism are all “interlocking systems of oppression” that can and must be overturned simultaneously—never mind the details.

Lest anyone worry that we’re misinterpreting or overstating the degree to which popular progressive sentiments surrounding this issue are shaped by a fundamental commitment to intersectionality, consider the article “Palestine is a Feminist Issue” from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. It begins with a quotation from Mariam Barghouti “Fundamentally speaking, feminism cannot support racism, supremacy and oppressive domination in any form” and immediately explains intersectionality in its opening paragraph: 

Intersectional feminism is a framework that holds that women’s overlapping, or intersecting, identities impact the way they experience oppression and discrimination. Intersectionality rejects the idea that a woman’s experience can be reduced to only her gender, and insists that we look at the multiple factors shaping her life: race, class, ethnicity, disability, citizenship status, sexual orientation, and others, as well as how systems of oppression are connected... When we look at the world through an intersectional feminist lens, it becomes clear that Palestine is a feminist issue.

Conclusions

While the reaction of some progressives to the Hamas-Israel war took many people, especially Jewish people, by surprise, it was largely predictable given the powerful influence that intersectionality exerts on our culture. Intersectionality can lead to a grotesque moral calculus that justifies Hamas’ rape of Israeli girls as an understandable response of the oppressed lashing out at their oppressor. It has caused university presidents at our elite institutions to shamefully equivocate and prevaricate when given opportunity to unapologetically condemn antisemitism. Unfortunately, these examples are natural outworkings of the intersectional worldview.

For those who are alarmed by what seems to be growing acceptance of anti-Semitism within some segments of the left, we offer the following action items.

First, we should resist critical theory’s simplistic moral categories of Oppressor vs. Oppressed. To the extent that we see every conflict as a battle between innocent victims and cruel victimizers, we will gloss over the moral complexities of reality.

Second, we need to see people primarily as individuals rather than as avatars of their demographic groups. It’s much easier to dehumanize abstract categories than the nervous old woman across the street or the energetic cashier at the grocery store. Personal connection is an antidote to demonization.

Finally, we need to be realistic about the perniciousness of “woke” ideology, which has been infiltrating our institutions, universities, businesses, and places of worship for decades. Many social movements have waved the banner of progress and justice while slaughtering tens of millions. If we don’t learn from history, we very well may repeat it.

[quotes121sworld]

Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan reunite for the NYC premiere of The Walking Dead: Dead City

Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan coordinate in black ensembles for the NYC premiere of The Walking Dead: Dead City

By Cassie Carpenter for Dailymail.com Published: 1:01 am EDT, June 14, 2023 | Updated: 1:01 am EDT, June 14, 2023 Advertising --> --> --> The Walking Dead stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan reunited for the world premiere of their post-apocalyptic zombie spin-off series Dead City, held Tuesday during the Tribeca Festival at BMCC TPAC's OKX Theater in Lower Manhattan.The Seattle native, 57, and the American-British executive, 41, produced and reprized their roles as Negan Smith and Maggie Greene Rhee in Eli Jorné's six-part show, which premieres next Sunday on AMC/AMC+.Jeffrey, who relies on stylist Jeanne Yang, showed off his tattooed fingers while posing in an all-black suit with no tie and open-toed dress shoes.Lauren bared her arms and shoulders in a strapless black peplum top with pockets over wide-leg pants and matching shoes, chosen by stylist Eliza Yerry.Hairstylist Seiji Yamada styled Cohan's brunette bob with a side parting, and makeup artist Andréa Tiller accentuated her green eyes with black liner and applied her glossy pout.

Back in black! The Walking Dead stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan reunited for the world premiere of their post-apocalyptic zombie spin-off series Dead City, held Tuesday during the Tribeca Festival at BMCC TPAC's OKX Theater in Lower Manhattan

Premieres next Sunday on AMC/AMC+! The Seattle-born 57-year-old (left) and American-British 41-year-old (right) produced and reprized their roles as Negan Smith and Maggie Greene Rhee on Eli Jorné's six-part showIt's chilling for fans to see how the acting couple hit it off while their character despised the former Saviors leader for five of the 11 seasons of The Walking Dead after Negan met a pregnant Maggie's husband, Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun), who had been murdered with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, continued in horror."She didn't even make eye contact with me on the show for years!" Morgan confessed in hers emmy cover story."We spent years just walking past each other." She glares at me, I grin at her.'Cohan added, "I always loved that it was simmering. Maggie always balks at boiling over. "What we see is when something irretrievable happens — when you lose someone and nothing you do can ever bring them back."In The Walking Dead: Dead City, the unlikely duo join forces to rescue Maggie's kidnapped son, Hershel (Logan Kim) from Negan's former colleague The Croat (Željko Ivanek) in Manhattan.It turns out that two years before he even made his debut in the dystopian drama, Jeffrey and Lauren met in 2014 while playing Thomas and Martha Wayne in Zack Snyder's superhero film Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice."It was cold as hell," Morgan said of the Chicago set they met."It was so cold that two cameras broke."

To forget something? Jeffrey, who relies on stylist Jeanne Yang, showed off his tattooed fingers while posing in an all-black suit with no tie and open-toed dress shoes

Not-so-simple black attire: Lauren bared her arms and shoulders in a strapless black peplum top with pockets over baggy trousers and matching shoes, chosen by stylist Eliza Yerry

Ready for her closeup! Hairstylist Seiji Yamada styled Cohan's brunette bob with a side parting, and makeup artist Andréa Tiller accentuated her green eyes with black liner and applied her glossy pout

Surreal: It's chilling for fans to see how the acting couple gets along, as her character despised the former leader of the Saviors for five of the eleven seasons of The Walking Dead after Negan married the pregnant Maggie's husband, Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun ), with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. She watched in horror

Cohan added, "I always loved that it was simmering. Maggie always balks at boiling over. What we see is when something irretrievable happens — when you lose someone and nothing you do can ever bring them back.”

'You need me?' In The Walking Dead: Dead City, the unlikely duo join forces to rescue Maggie's kidnapped son, Hershel (left, Logan Kim) from Negan's former colleague The Croat (right, Željko Ivanek) in Manhattan

Surprise! It turns out that two years before he even made his debut in the dystopian drama, Jeffrey and Lauren met in 2014 while playing Thomas and Martha Wayne in Zack Snyder's superhero film Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice

Morgan said of the Chicago set they met, "It was cold as hell." It was so cold that two cameras broke. Share or comment on this article: Read the full article