#gun to my head and recite an entire movie's script?

[aryomengrande]

we aren’t worried at all, darling. soon you’ll see things our way. (coraline, 2009)

baji, peke j, and i wish everyone a delightful all hallow's eve 👻🎃

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[mostly-megan]

I Read The Triple Frontier Early Draft Script

And I have several thoughts on it. @frannyzooey Told me to, so I’m going to go down the line of points I thought were interesting and notes on the characters. It’s all going to be below the cut so we don’t bother the people who don’t care.

It was clearly a very early draft, but I still think it’s interesting to see how the characters changed over time.

Important note: Everyone except for Benny and Tom is only referred to by their nicknames, no real names. So I keep that up to keep from getting confused. 

I do not link to the google doc with the script, but you can dm me if you want the link privately.

Warnings: Mentions of violence, suicide, and sex; mild gore; character death; racism

Story:

Pope during the drug raid learns from a teen in the gang where Lorea keeps his money

Redfly, Benny, and Cat are in North Carolina and keep turning down bs military mission

Pope shows up on Redfly’s stoop, stays with his family, and he tells him about the heist

Redfly seems to agree, but only because Pope is asking and not for the money

The “ You were shot 5 times for your country and can’t afford a new truck” scene is here bit for bit

They go meet Ironhead at one of his support group speeches to convince him to join. He begrudgingly agrees.

Cat and Redfly talk at the fight about the job and both reluctantly agree since the other will do it

Cut to South America running through surveillance, we learn that there are two gun towers, ground sensors, machine guns, and several guards

Pope’s informant is Lorea’s sugar baby(?), Yovanna, who gave him a pic of the money in the office a few weeks prior

The plan is to hide in one of the maid vans and make their way in and out with the money

Everyone is distrustful of his old intel, so they do their own surveillance 

Getting caught in rain on heist day, they wait in the jungle for the guard rotations to resume, almost catching hypothermia

The heist vibe is the same, but this time they find the money is not there instantly

Redfly and Cat try to call the mission, but Benny and Pope insist on getting the money

Benny gets shot(grazed?) in the face and wants to say fuck it, but Redfly reminds him it was his idea

Pope blackmails the guard in the video room and gets the tape before killing him

While Cat, Benny, and Redfly grab the money, Ironhead is shot badly and they have to tape his mouth to keep him quiet

This is when Redfly snaps and decides they go out blazing

Lorea’s guards are outside waiting for them, but the boys literally blow up the front of the house and make a run for the river behind the house with a raft waiting

Lorea’s personal guard shoots him

Kidnapping Yovanna from her apartment, they get her money, passport, and visa to her Redfly grills her and seriously debates killing her, but instructs her to get to Australia 

After essentially holding up the airstrip workers, they see the news of the break-in on TV and weigh 8 tons of money 

Cat argues it’s too much weight, but agrees it will probably be fine

During the flight, Ironhead dies from his wound

Helicopter crash is the same

Pope goes in solo to speak with the farmers and they actually almost kill him before Redfly shoots way too many of them

They get pack animals from the farmers, load up the money and Ironhead, and start climbing

At some point, Cat insists they bury Ironhead because taking a body with them is going to start causing way worse issues

They camp at the burial spot, Pope voices how he blames himself for the death

The trek up the mountain is the same, including dumping some of the money and memorizing the coordinates

Getting to a port town, Cat gets sick from exposure, so they rest a few days

The local gang leader figures out who they are and uses his gang of kids to confront them

They shoot their way out and grab with guns and the money backpack on the way to the car

Benny drives and they almost flip the truck

They literally ALL get shot, but still make it to the boat and get away

The boys all agree to donate all the money to charity, in honor of Ironhead, and almost literally head off to the sunset

Characters:

Redfly

All-American late 30′s white guy; genuiniely wants to be a good person, but seems too wrapped up in the Army life

He’s the main character and most of the story is his POV

He is still with Molly and the girls, and we actually get a nice scene with them in here

He legitimately snaps once Ironhead is shot and doesn’t come back until after they bury him

He seriously almost kills Yovanna and sounds like he regrets not doing so

Says the words to her “After you sucked him off? You were lying there, playing with him- And you asked ‘What’s your real name? Where are you from?’-What did he say?” and I disliked it

Yovanna tells him that Pope thought he was so honest and he hates knowing he is not that person anymore

Pope

Mid-30′s white guy; way more of an instigator and really manipulated his friends to join him 

They never give a reason why he wants to get rid of Lorea

His argument for committing a crime is that America was founded on crimes and it’s not different them the war crimes they committed under orders

Seems embarrassed about his relationship with Yovanna and it’s implied he actually told her his name, but he told her Redfly is the most honest guy he knows. 

Calls some indigenous South Americans “Indians” and says they “don’t even know what century it is”

When an informant runs late, he says it’s because they run on Latino Standard Time

He saved Ironhead’s life once in fire and that is how he convices him to come, so he blames himself solely for his death

He literally brought cigars with them for after the heist. They smoke them once they are in the boat

They made Pope the asshole we don’t like, which is understandable, but upsetting

Catfish

Laid-back mid-30′s white guy who now trains Benny and works as a Private Investigator

He still is the main joker and sarcasm, but they really make sure we remember how dark his past is

There is a scene played as a laugh where he gets annoyed waiting for a cheating couple to fuck, so he holds them at gunpoint, tells them to strip and kiss, take the picture, and then tells them he’s sorry, but they should just get a divorce. It comes off terrifying and gross.

He seems to really distrust Pope and is closest to Redfly

He barely speaks Spanish

The Special Forces Museum put up a statue of him, the only living operative to have one, and his wife tells him to retire then because there was no topping that

When they argue about the weight limit, Cat says “Oh, I’m sorry, I missed you going to flight school.” And I appreciate that line.

Benny

Early 30′s white fighter

He’s described as being all or nothing and prone to manic depressive behavior and “prone to pills”

Redfly thinks he’s too old to go pro in fighting and Benny is v offended

He’s the only one to cry over Ironhead’s death

He still uses his “fuck you” money for a fire

He seems to have the most med knowledge and is the one checking for hypothermia, gives the “reason” why Ironhead dies, helps nurse Cat when he’s sick

He’s mostly played for laughs and it’s sort of a waste

Ironhead

Grizzled, but generous 55 year old white vet

He is literally the father figure here and is called that often

He is not related to Benny, but he seems to have a very soft spot for him as the youngest

He somehow served under Redfly?

He gave up running and gunning to mediate and help newer retirees

In the support group, his speech details all of the horrible things that he’s seen and had happen to him, this is supposed to be the reason why the younger soldiers listen to him

One of the group admits to almost committing suicide the past night and Ironhead say he will not tell him not to do it, just that he will not do it tonight and they all recite not tonight, it’s actually touching to “see” them all taking heart in what he is saying

He only agrees to help Pope because Pope once saved his life in combat and he told him he owes him. This scene is described as a father sadden that he can’t get through to his son, but says yes to keep an eye on them

In the “what will you buy with your money” scene, he says he will donate it to charity. It’s quickly followed by Benny excitedly saying he wants a Ferrari and Ironhead affectionately looks at him and says, “That’s a nice car, Ben!” Which made my doubting heart melt...

He the entire time gives the boys reminders to preserve their humanity and is the one who tell Redfly it’s good he let Yovanna go

When he’s shot, they say that the wound was through, meaning that the bullet entered and exited. But, when he dies, Benny says the bullet must have shifted and nudged into his heart. And I’m really annoyed by that clear mistake....

I genuinely did like this version of the character, not more than OUR Will, but I liked him

Lorea

His intro to the movie is literally leading the police in a high-speed chase in his yellow Lambo

He brings a business partner to his mansion during the boys surveying his house and they see his personal guard shoot the partner and cut off his head so it fits in the trunk of the car

I had to learn that, so now so do you

He has a thing for exotic birds and has to bring in several shifts of maids to clean up after them

He comes off here as way more of a rich wimp

Yovanna

Lorea’s sugar baby/girlfriend who sleeps with Pope and gives him info

She used to be a beauty queen

The script says Redfly is her type and she says out-loud that she wants to watch Pope and Redfly fuck. 

She taught one of Lorea’s birds to say “Hello, Beautiful” and lets that bird get loose in the mansion so she can get the pic of the money for Pope

I genuinely liked her character, too

My Review

I prefer the actual plot and planning of the final movie. The plan and surveillance here slowly fell together smoothly, but ultimately made far less sense.

But, I think they felt like actual friends here. They interact with each other instead of around each other

But this version is racist and kind of gross, so I’d take kind of boring any day

4/10, please do not make me read again

Tagging because you guys seemed interested: @frannyzooey @mandoplease

@krissology @pedropasscals (thought you might like it)

[a-s-levynn]

4, 8, 9, 11, 12

( ´ 3`)~<3 Thank you so much for always asking! (TmT)  

4. A film you could watch on repeat for the rest of your life? 

There is a few so let me list a few. The movie i watched the most already is probably the 2014 winter soldier movie. That’s my stress relief movie. So when it’s like an exam period or something it just goes on loop sometimes only as a background noise. But i’m still properly watching it as well regularly. That is the movie that -no matter what- can make me focus. I can’t pinpoint it why. But it is probably going to stick for the rest of my life.

Now close second would be probably the first pirates of the caribbean movie. The black pearl. I can watch that thing over and over.

Also the LOTR trilogy.. tho i have not watched it in a year ot two i still can recite every single line from the three movies. And i never say no to a rewatch soo, this one could work as well. And one of the very few actually good fantasy movies and that’s always a plus.

But all in all, i probably still would pick the Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Just for the sole reason that it can completely put my mind off of anything that stresses me out and i can be fully engaged no matter how many times i see it. Or when i use it as noise, it helps me focus.

8. Which book would you like to see adapted into a film? 

For the longest time i had this love hate relationship with the idea of the Riyria books being made into a move. Because the story and the characters are so much fun! But with a bad script, or not so great director or failed casting it would be a disaster. And we already know that fantasy movies are usually disasters so..

Now i recently read a book called Beat the Reaper and ooooh my god it could be such a great film! It would be highly dependent on the actor for the main role but boi with a good actor it would be a blast.

9. The most aesthetically pleasing movie you’ve ever watched? 

Now this is going to be a weird one but the clusterfuck called Guns Akimbo. I can’t even really explain why? Probably because i was in a really weird headspace when i watched it but it stuck in my head. I’m not sure it should be called an aesthetically pleasing move per se because the genre and the overall plot but i just loved how that thing looked. 

Also shout out to the Into the Spiderverse movie because that was something really special. So yeah that would be the other i’d say i loved watching for the looks.

11. Your favourite movie genre? 

Of this, i’m not entirely sure. 10 years ago i’d said horror. A few years back i would have said fantasy/sci-fi without a second of hesitation but now i’m in a stage when i watch movies for actors first and genre or plot second. I just want to see new things. And movies with actors i like, you know, it’s a good place to start. I mean i kinda have a baseline of what to expect from at least someone in the movie and it allows me discover new actors and i can branch out form that. It helps me watch different types of movies from all across the genre board.

12. A movie that holds a special place in your heart?

Hmm.. I needed some time to think about this, that’s why i answered so slow. I was debating with myself over it because i recently saw a movie that might become something special to me but only time and a few revisiting would tell. 

In the meantime i’d say the original Hair movie. I have so many memories attached to it. Good and bad and it’s just.. it is one of those things that going to stay with me for the rest of my life, you know. Hard to explain without going off the rails too much but yeah. That one.

[chwesolai]

Training

Characters: Richard Madden x Reader Warning: Smut A/N: my first shot at smut and hopefully I don’t make you cringe... just enjoy and the song goes with the write ok enjoy ;)

Summary: You and Richard become co-stars for a new upcoming action film where you both agreed on doing your own stunts and with doing your own stunts, comes a ton of training time aka your time to stare at the jaw-dropping body of your lovely co-star and after all the trainers leave you two alone, some things lead to another

-- Your POV

Rigs, hoists, flips, jumps, parkour, you name it, the trainers were probably having me do. 

“I guess my years as a failed Olympic gymnast are finally paying of,” I laugh as I practice my back tucks and then pretending to high kick someone.

One of our trainers, Pat, laughed, “I guess so, we just need to make those movements more fluid. After your tuck, bounce into the kick, don’t pause then kick. Just kick.”

I nod, going again and again until Pat was satisfied with my landing. Moving on to more contact stunting, Pat pairs me up with a couple of our stuntmen and I begin to practice sparring. This movie followed a highly-trained criminal teaming up with a secret service agent and blah blah blah, don’t want to give too much away. And with my character being the secret service agent, I had to be fit and able to do the defense training an agent would do.

Grunts escape from my mouth as I kick and punch as if these two stuntmen were coming at me for my life. I practiced taking a gun out of their hands and unloading the gun, not the easiest thing to do. And Pat begins to clap, “My my my, y/n you’ve truly have become kickass at this whole stunt game.” 

I couldn’t help but smile. It was about two months in training and the long-awaited words came out of Pat’s mouth, “I think its time to put you and Madden up to the test.”

It was nerve-racking. Richard has been in way more of these type of things as this is my first big gig. Not to mention, Richard is absolutely gorgeous. Richard and I only met up for script reasons and chemistry tests, so I guess you can say this is where the real fun begins.

Pat and I continue to practice with the rigs and me being launched into the air as the doors to the gym swing open and there he was. Richard and Leonard, our other trainer, come walking in as I do one last pretend explosion run.

“Atta kid!” I hear Leonard say as I finish the stunt, “it was only last month you hated doing those y/n!”

“Hey, Leonard! And I know right, the things progress does.” I laugh as I detach myself from the rig, “Are you ready for this Richard?”

Caught completely off guard, Richard just smiles and nods. 

-- Richard’s POV

Dear God, she’s breath-taking. How is it possible for someone to look THAT attractive whilst sweating and yanked by a rig? And I’ll be acting beside her for the next two months, fuck me. 

“Are you ready for this, Richard?” I hear her say and all I could do is just nod and smile like a dummy, what the fuck is wrong with you? She’s just another co-star. 

Before I set my things down I check my phone seeing another text from Taron: Rich, you just need to suck it up and ask her dinner after your training! I believe in you!

Ok, I think I could do it. Ok. Ok. 

Fuck me. 

-- Your POV

Pat and Leonard set up the scenario where Richard’s character and mine meet for the first time and my character attacks him, as he’s an enemy in the beginning. Pat and Leonard demonstrate and Richard and I observe, “Fairly easy. Let’s do this.”

We set up the scene, my back facing Richard and Richard opposite of me. Then, Richard begins to recite his lines, “Hello? Anyone in here? I’m Trevor Card and I-” His line gets cut off by me screaming, running full force at him.

 “Wait for a second! This is a misunderstanding! I’m not-” Richard continues in character. I tackle him to the ground and point my fake gun at him, “How could I misunderstand looking at a criminal?”

“A retired criminal. Ms. Weiss, I’m your new assignment.” Richard looks up at me as I’m basically straddling him. I help him up and we are face to face.

“Oh my. I’m so sorry about that, Mr. Card, I-” My line gets but off with Richard grabbing my left arm back and pulling me harshly, nearly whispers into my ear, “All is forgiven, Ms. Weiss. Now let’s discuss our assignment shall we?”

Fuck me that accent is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.

“And, cut!” Leonard and Pat clap their hands in amazement, “pure naturals, I have to say. So, we’re gonna do more action packed stuff for the next hour and then we’ll see you guys on set!”

I nod and look over at Richard in pure awe.

---------------------------

Our hour was up and I was so sweaty it was unbearable how disgusting my clothes were. Richard gave up wearing a shirt after about 30 minutes and I was in a sports bra practically clinging to me.

“So, we’ll see you guys on set tomorrow!” Leonard and Pat wave the two of us goodbye as they leave the gym.

“So, how are you feeling about all this?” Richard asks me as we clean up the bench we laid all our belonging on.

“Honestly, really good. It’s really helpful to not be going through all this training alone, ya know?”

“I feel you on that one. All this training was intense but when you have a partner to do it with, I think it becomes fun.” He smiles at me, “also, just wanted to say you’ve got some wandering eyes, ms. y/n”

Well yeah, I do you’re fucking gorgeous.

“Well, I mean I’d have to say the about you.”

“You are attractive, y/n if you didn’t know. And I did not think you’d be so flexible.” His eyes began to darken, those baby blues became night sky blue. Fuck Me. 

“Are you implying something, Madden?” I begin inching closer to him, “your eyes have done some damage throughout the day, I think you owe me something.”

His eyebrows rose intrigued, “Me? Owe you? I mean I was going to ask you to dinner but the gym is empty and I just couldn’t stop thinking about myself feeling you. All of you.” His hand trailed up my back and brought me up against his chest.

I felt his shorts come in contact with my leg and holy fuck I’m in for it right now, “Richard, what are you waiting for? Kiss me already.” 

“Naughty, I love it.” He growls and he pulls me for a kiss and it’s slow at first. Our lips slowly find a rhythm and my tongue begins to explore. Our kisses escalate and get sloppier and sloppier, the tension building up in the both of us and I jump, wrapping my legs around Richard. His hands grab my ass and massage it and I let a moan escape.

“Baby, I need to hear from you. Louder,” Richard begins kissing down my neck and my moans begin to echo in the empty gym, “That’s it.” He lays me down on the bench, “We don’t need to do this, y/n. Tell me if you’re uncomfortable and I’ll stop.”

“We’ve barely begun.” I grab his face and begin kissing him as we both begin stripping down. His mouth travels south, leaving marks down my stomach and he begins kissing down my inner thighs and his hands rubbing against me, moans getting louder. “I can’t wait to take a taste.” He looks up at me and I all I could do it nod.

He traces his tongue from my entrance to my clit and I reach down to pull him in closer but he grabs my wrist, “Patience, love. Patience.” His whispers vibrate inside me and I lose my mind. Richard hums, opening his mouth and lapping at your clit with his breath coming hard against you. His fingers find my clit as his tongue enters inside. Gripping his hair, he licks you continuously up and down and comes back up and kisses you, sharing the taste.

“Ready?”

“Never been more ready.” We both laugh and he brings me in close, “I’m not doing this just because you’re my co-star, I really do like you, y/n.”

“I like you too.” My face feeling 10x hotter than it already it, “Now show me how much you need me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He lined himself up with my entrance, leaning over and kissing down my spine. I simply nodded my head in response. He buried himself in me, a low grunt and small gasp leaving his lips. I gripped onto what of the bench I could reach and shut my eyes tight.

"Holy sh-," I mumbled, biting my lip as Richard slowly pulled his entire length out before entering me again. He began this steady rhythm of slow thrusts. He would thrust halfway out two or three times and then the fourth thrust would be his entire length. I’m sure my eyes were at the back of my head by the time he had groaned out that he was close. His thumb reached around to our conjoined bodies, making fast circles on my clit against his slow thrusts. I came with a toe-curling orgasm and he followed soon after. He removed the condom and threw it in the bin by the benches.

Richard carries me, bridal-style, “let’s shower and I’ll treat to the nicest dinner you’ve ever had.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I smile and kiss his cheek.

[miggidymacdewi]

I tried to review RP1

Ready Player One is not a very good book. It is thin on original ideas, it has frustratingly simple prose and no sense of drama or pace. The overarching premise (A misanthrope genius game developer creates a world changing VR social space and bequeaths his fortune and total control to whomever succeeds at his challenge) could lead to interesting ideas about emulating celebrities' lives, living vicariously through them, or obsession with distractions limiting our development. Instead it's nothing more than a celebration of loving whatever it was you grew up with, which in the case of Ernest Cline seems to boil down to one sitcom, three films and a handful of cartoons.

A classic hero's quest might require the protagonist to learn and grow, to overcome challenges both from within and without or to reject the obvious path and forge something new. Ready Player One has nothing like that in mind. The first challenge needs a knowledge of one latin word, a map of a D&D module and some practice at Joust. Wade (or ParZival, as the 'gunting' community knows him) just so happens to be studying latin, have memorised and scanned that D&D module and practiced hours upon hours of Joust, all before turning 19, while attending school and having watched and memorised all 180 episodes of Family Ties, Star Wars, most John Hughes movies, a lot of anime, some Japanese Spiderman, and reading Stephen King, Douglas Adams, Vonnegut, Gaiman, and of course, the masterpieces of cinema created by Kevin Smith. Cline tries to suggest that 12 hours a day for four years would be enough for this most dedicated 'gunter' to absorb a literal decade of pop-culture but it feels like a cheap excuse for Cline simply having the internet to hand whenever he wanted to add a reference, with encyclopaedic notation ("Union of the Snake, I recited, mostly out of habit. Duran Duran. Nineteen Eighty Three" or "I recognised the opening riffs of 'Change' by John Waite. From the Vision Quest soundtrack. Geffen Records, 1985" or even "I recognised the song as 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' by Def Leppard, off their Hysteria album (Epic Records, 1987)").

Perhaps the book's worst sin is the rote recreations of opening scenes to movies Cline likes. This happens twice, once during the first challenge, where after playing Joust very well and then playing Dungeons of Daggorath very well, Wade must perform Matthew Broderick's role in Wargames word for word. There is no room for creativity or improvisation, the only way to prove your worth is to know the script to Wargames, and that's it. No purity of spirit, no courage, no grace or work ethic. Just watching the movie a few too many times beforehand, or having the screenplay read to you perhaps. The second time this challenge rears its head is even more frustrating, simply for being exactly the same challenge but now the player must know Monty Python's Holy Grail very well. And again, that's it. A comedy troupe famous for surprising the audience, subverting expectations and absolutely ignoring any semblance of expected comedy or storytelling are featured as something for Wade to quote word for word. We are treated to a full page of dialogue from Holy Grail before we are simply told he manages it perfectly, as any 'gunter' worth their salt should.

A close second for sins in RP1 is Cline's refusal to let the reader reach any conclusions or let the book carry any suspense before he blurts out the answer in the next line. Wade finally acquires the first key in the epic quest to unlock the treasure, and is worried that a rival gunter may kill him and take it. Four paragraphs later we are told this will never be an issue. The Oasis' entire virtual word occupies 27 cubes, arranged in a cube. This might put someone in mind of a Rubik's Cube. The following sentence tells us it resembles a Rubik's Cube.

These are just some of my thoughts on RP1's flaws. I could devote a lot more to the frankly problematic depiction of Shoto and Daito, two 'samurai' who are obsessed with 'honour', speak perfect English except for when they must say 'arigato' or call Wade 'Parzival-san' and receive as little development as Ms Gilmore, an old lady neighbour who dies in the first third of the book. Or the bizarre swings between over descriptions of attending a VR high school or what a vinyl record was, but the brushing off of a sci-fi gun battle as 'Like something out of a John Woo movie. One of the ones starring Chow Yun Fat', or his daring escape plan from the shadowy corporate headquarters as 'like something out of an old prison movie'. Or his mashing together of words that should carry a lot of weight and producing word-salads ('socializing with the twinked-out wannabe-gunter uberdorks' or 'sort of postapocalyptic cyberpunk girl-next-door look'). Or making a direct reference to Rivendell 'just like how it looked in the movies'. Or the 16 lines devoted to the importance of masturbation for lonely nerds. I feel compelled to keep going but I need to stop. Ready Player One is not a good book.

[antoine-roquentin]

An essay titled FEAR & UNbalanced: Confessions of a 14-Year Fox News Hitman by Tobin Smith offers an explanation of the ratings success of Fox News. Smith says he asked Roger Ailes, the then head of Fox News, about the target audience of Fox News. Ailes said it was men aged “55 to dead”, who look like Ailes, “… white guys in mostly Red State counties who sit on their couch with the remote in their hand all day and night,��� and “They want to see YOU tear those smug condescending know-it-all East Coast liberals to pieces . . limb by limb . . . until they jump up out of their LaZ boy and scream “Way to go Toby…you KILLED that libtard!”

Smith says this is addicting: “…Visceral gut feelings of existential outrage relieved by … the thrill of your tribe’s victory over its enemy…” The technique for achieving this addiction is the same as in pro wrestling, where there are two characters, the Baby Face and the Heel. The Heel seems on the verge of winning, but the Baby Face triumphs in the end. At Fox News, there are two characters, the Libtard and the Hitman, both totally scripted.

The Libtard’s goal is to enrage the viewer by reciting liberal or progressive ideas in a predictable, smug superior way. The viewer already hates these ideas and the people who espouse them from listening to thousands of hours of right-wing radio.

Key Point: the viewer’s rage set their brain’s pleasure giving dopamine delivery system into high gear . . .and when their fellow conservative protagonist/tribal hero (aka me the hitman) turned the liberal’s own words against them and vanquished the sniveling apostate into living hell on live TV…WOW…the pleasure chemical rushed through the Fox viewer’s brain like a deep hit of crack cocaine (btw its the dopamine system in the brain that cocaine stimulates and makes it so addictive).

I’m pretty sure this isn’t just pop psychology, although I’m not quite sure he’s got the chemistry right. Here’s an article from Psychology Today, with further links for those interested. This paper says that dopamine/serotonin systems play a role in control of anger, as well as addiction.

Fox News isn’t the only entity out there dishing out tension and release. It’s a staple in the movies. Recently I saw a fragment of a 2008 Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino, in which three tall Black guys were pushing around a Hmong girl whose white boyfriend was spineless. Fortunately Eastwood drives by and intervenes with what looked like a .45 caliber pistol he just happened to have in his belt. The tension was palpable as the pushing around and threatening continued for several minutes with pulsating music, then was increased as the old white guy strode up and confronted the three guys, and then was released with the sudden appearance of the gun. This ridiculous movie grossed $272 million worldwide.

Another anecdotal example: how many of us have watched our dads get hooked on Fox News, like my dad did. His hearing and vision were bad, but he wouldn’t let anyone change the channel away from the Fox. He was always a bit angry about politics, but in his old age, he was remorseless. Here’s another anecdote.

We say movies like Gran Torino keep us glued to the edge of our seats; we mean we are waiting for the next tightening of tension and the sudden release. It helps me understand why Tobin Smith says that these old guys on couches hold that remote with a death grip; they want that fix.

Of course, media have always manipulated public opinion. But that at least was done with words, and could be countered, at least potentially, with smarter words. This is a simple manipulation of brain chemistry by a corporation for its own ends. It’s a psych experiment that would never be permitted by an Institutional Review Board.

Let’s put this in a larger context.

Bio-power and bio-politics are terms used by Michel Foucault to explain the way the state controls and defends its population. This recent essay by Rachel Adams posted at Critical Legal Thinking is a good introduction to Foucault’s thinking. For starters, recall that for Foucault “… power ts a relationship in which one person has the ability to guide another, to influence the behavior of another. This is an unequal relationship, but it is in itself neither good nor bad.”

According to Adams bio-power is the power of the State to influence the lives of the people it controls in a positive manner. She says Foucault describes two poles of power in the current era. One is the disciplinary pole, jail, mental hospitals; also, training the young in schools, banning noxious chemicals, and enforcing open spaces in cities. She quotes this from Foucault’s Will To Knowledge:

The second, formed somewhat later, focused on the species body, the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that can cause these to vary. Their supervision was effected through an entire series of interventions and regulatory controls: a biopolitics of the population. (Italics in original).

I interpret this to mean that issues of births and mortality, health, life expectancy, and the conditions that cause these, are properly the subject of politics in the current era, and that it is appropriate and necessary that the State provide a framework for making decisions about those outcomes and conditions. In other words, they become a proper subject of practical politics and of theoretical and scientific study. In a democracy, at least theoretically we all have a role in making decisions about these matters. Foucault makes it clear that such decisions should be made rationally, considering the possible outcomes of possible choices and selecting those that advance the values of the society.

Of course, it’s perfectly possible that the decision-making processes can be hijacked by people furthering only their own personal interests. This is how I view the Fox News crowd. The addiction practiced on their audience makes the target audience suckers for whichever candidate multi-billionaire octogenarian Rupert Murdoch chooses. That addicted audience is the people who now rejoice at the dismay of the libtards at the gutting of government and of health care and of all our international relationships.

It’s a new form of bio-power: the direct manipulation of brain chemistry for the goals of the people who control the vast capital pools in the private sector. It fits neatly into our oligarchy. Not all billionaires support all the garbage Fox spews about cultural issues, but they all support his economic agenda. And quite a few billionaires don’t really believe in democracy; they think they should make decisions about policy and infrastructure themselves. That’s the basis of their support for privatization, public/private partnerships for infrastructure, charter schools and deregulation, all of which are ways of displacing social control and inserting themselves directly in control.

the medium post in question compared the fox news style of a liberal going on to get roasted by a conservative to wrestling, but as somebody who spends a relatively large amount of time on social media, i think an apt comparison is the “dragging” phenomenon, where some low hanging right winger fruit gets insulted or proven wrong, and we screenshot the post and pass it around and feel like we’re doing activism. it’s worrying.