#the pics of prominent women of her culture
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enchanted-moura · 1 year ago
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It’s Miss Cameroon calling her cultural feminine court for me 💕💋
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daystarvoyage · 2 months ago
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Hey everyone its the daystar voyage Head LT Kyoko cane here to bring you another good post on my blog, one of my concerned posts on black poc representation in black media
Today in this two part special where gonna discuss about Good hair in animation & how it can define the character and fashion.
i wanted to talk about the topic of hair in animated shows, how it can define the details and proper cultural portrayal of how black people or POC have been represented as a whole (be it of mixed ecthnicity)
Lets get down to it, I feel we need to make a discussion on the Good & bad on proper cultural rep on shows especially when it relates & emotes to viewers & fans, we do have the discussions oof having nothing but our sexuality been made a character define characteer instead of good character, wriitng, physcial features and up holding a beauty standard.
The topic of HAIR Appreciation in animation, Questionable taste in how hair is not styled well for ethnicity.
Example
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Luz's hair has so much symbolism of who she is, going to all works of animation, I do feel when she wasn't fully understood at home she acted out very ill-conditioned cause her father pass and moved into a new area, never relating to anyone, So it leads her to not changing her looks be it fashion, which i feel the shows writing shouldve explored more into why she keeps in short and theres a topic ill put in is masculization of black women think about it.
Dear I say it, after rewatching the show, IT feels like A LETDOWN & missed chances at times, with the staff & writers not know how to make great hairstyles to show proper culutral race. (and i have seen alot of fanart who did a great job on giving her better styles that enhnace her physcial features.
i feel this a recurring trope been used since the miles morales hair controversy cause black people or poc presented hair comes in many forms that can gives so much praise. Hers a article on the miles morales hair debut which is a logical standpoint on hair reprenentation, shows we need to have more diverse hairstyles in media or poc characters
NOW
I mean girl this HAIRMET (Fused words hairdo+helmet) and my goodness will never let them down for the outfit choices for luz comparing the femme presented amity and willow which is tasteless at best.
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Look down down below on how her hair could’ve made her more feminine and beautiful I blame the masculinity of black women, a topic video you can find on my youtube that contribute to such aspects of how we see poc or black people.
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so many missed oppurtunitys Remind yourselfs to draw long hair luz ill be a sucka to buy it which i discuss in my video.
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My FAVORITE VIDEO AND PIC on how that did her justice
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also another thing, nobody shouldnt have an excuse to brush away fem qualities over sexual orientation , let there design be versatile and not one track (along with the writing of the show.)
The greater aspects of how we should style characters.
Now unlike other media i talked about above whihc have been flawed in design and dont contribute to the chaaracters growth, two shows that did a absolutely great job of showing good ethnic & cultural representation in series such as amphibia & molly mcgee whihc made raw characters come out of theere own with greatness with prominent physical features
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While anne boonchy & moon girl lunella had great writing, having there cultural cleebbrated in great execution of proper black hair great with good results, In moon girl we also get in episode where we discuss why we see black people be in love with there selves for there beautiful features including hair along anne boochuy diaspora making a impact.
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moon girl video below
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Great hair episode that impacts Cultural and ecthinic representation above.
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i feel we have a long way to go when it comes for the new gen to desgin well executed characters, instead not having there postive trait of whos orenitation being there great feature.
but i disgress
look at the hairstlyes from the winx club, the long hair on characters as layla (aisha) & flora is PHENOMENAL AND COULD’VE PLAYED A ROLE IN BLACK PEOPLES HAIR BEING BEAUTIFUL FOR VIEWERS
One Great example for hair representation, and also cultural goodness put into it was the Winx club (which had actual fashion designers work on the character concepts and outfits)
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Thank you for reading this post hope we can discuss the topic on the comments (that means civilized and dont hate appreciate others critiques and statements)
Thank you for being on the daystar voyage.
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mithliya · 2 years ago
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What are some good Taiwanese radfem blogs here? I'm a second generation Taiwanese immigrant and I was excited to see that there was a Taiwanese radfem movement. I always associated Korea with the most radical feminists. I haven't been to Taiwan in ages and I'm pretty assimilated, but I'm very interested in learning more. Taiwan is the most liberal Asian country, being the first to legalize gay marriage and I've been to pride parades there. In terms of the TRA movement, I think the TRA rhetoric has carried more weight there than in more conservative countries as a result of the more lgbtqa+ friendly culture.
i follow @pierriq and once u go on her blog and check the notes of some of her chinese posts, youll come across many taiwanese radfems there. or at least i assume theyre taiwanese bc theyre using traditional chinese characters
i think the korean radfem movement is larger, but its also definitely a thing all over east asia even in china where (afaik) its far less prominent than all other east asian countries comparatively. from what my gf told me, lots of her normie (not even radfem) taiwanese female friends dont waste their time on men and prioritise themselves & other women. also my gf told me that the pride march in taiwan is amazinggggggg and id love to go. she showed me some pics and theres so many hot and stylish butches its insane hfshfhsdf i would absolutely love to be go. as for the TRA rhetoric, idk, when i told my gf about it she was shocked and thought it was stupid. she mentioned it to many of her taiwanese friends since and they all are like ??? over it lol. and keep in mind that my gf has been like a part of many LGBT & "queer" clubs for over a decade. even the lesbian & bisexual friends of hers are not so familiar with it and think terfy things r just common sense. i dont think its much of a thing outside of the west tbh tho the rhetoric does exist
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whileiamdying · 5 years ago
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Wadjda - Le film
A winning, handsomely crafted story with a charismatic lead guaranteed to charm international auds.
Initially the biggest talking point about “#Wadjda” will be that a woman, Haifaa Al Mansour, has directed the first Saudi Arabian feature shot entirely within the kingdom. Once the novelty is processed, critics and the public will likely agree that the pic transcends mere surprise value and delivers a winning, handsomely crafted story with a charismatic lead guaranteed to charm international auds. Resembling kid-centered Iranian pics that tackle sticky topics via pint-sized protags, “Wadjda” uses a spunky girl to explore women’s limitations within Arabian society. A vigorous fest life is assured, followed by probable arthouse play. Screenings in Saudi Arabia are another matter, since the country has no cinemas. Especially interesting will be how the film plays in the neighboring United Arab Emirates, a nation with an avid multiplex culture and a slightly more relaxed view of women’s roles in society. Shooting had to be a difficult undertaking, no doubt helped by powerful supporters; Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is given prominent thanks in the closing credits, and while Germany’s Razor Film is the main producing entity, backing comes from a range of global movie initiatives including The Royal Film Commission Jordan - RFC, the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, Sundance Film Festival and the Hubert Bals Fund. Al Mansour trained abroad and has award-winning shorts and a docu, “Women Without Shadows,” already under her belt, so although producers Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner may have helped shape the pic along international lines, “Wadjda” feels geared to Arab and global auds. Repetitions of women’s constraints, already well established in the script, are likely meant for foreign viewers, though plenty of lines, including humorous ones, are included for local ears. Ten-year-old Wadjda (newcomer Waad Mohammed) and her mom (Reem Abdullah) live in a Riyadh suburb, with Wadjda’s affectionate father (Sultan Al Assaf) making only occasional visits from his parents’ house nearby. Mom suspects her in-laws are looking to marry her husband off again since she hasn’t produced a son, but he denies having eyes for anyone else. Mom talks of little else except pleasing her husband, yet Wadjda is preoccupied with asserting her independence on the playground with best friend Abdullah (Abdullrahman Al Gohani). Most of all, she wants a bike so they can race together, but girls aren’t allowed to ride bikes in Saudi Arabia for fear that they would compromise a woman’s virginity (and encourage freedom of movement in a country where women aren’t allowed to drive). A new green bike at the local toy store captures Wadjda’s fancy, and she’s determined to raise the $213 needed. Constantly scolded for lax girlish propriety by her headmistress, Hussa (Ahd), Wadjda surprises the school by enrolling in a Koran competition whose prize money will more than cover the bike’s purchase. Wadjda is constantly told she’s overstepping mandatory modesty; her voice shouldn’t be overheard by men, her head must be covered, she mustn’t listen to pop songs. Yet, delightfully, the girl is anything but contrite. Constantly banging into metaphorical walls erected around her gender, Wadjda’s blithe resolve protects her from bruises: With her irresistible combination of spunk and guile, she’ll achieve her goals. The adults around her aren’t so lucky, starting with her mother, whose fixation on her husband blinds her to much else (however, the pic foregrounds a loving relationship between mother and daughter). Another side of the coin is Hussa, a hardline hypocrite who compensates for her own frustrations by rigidly imposing Wahabi codes of behavior. With enormous sympathy for all, Al Mansour captures the isolation of Saudi women and their parallel lives of freedom at home and invisibility outside. A natural onscreen who was 12 at the time of shooting, young thesp Mohammed captivates with a palpable confidence: Her T-shirt proudly proclaims, “I am a Great Catch!,” and she is. Single-monikered Ahd is a believable scold, and while other thesps, including Saudi TV star Abdullah, are less comfortable in emotional roles, they maintain an authentic honesty. Visuals are clean and satisfying, revealing a confident fluency in compositions and lensing. The majority of the crew is German, but Al Mansour delivers a final product that thankfully doesn’t disguise its Arab origins under a generic internationalism. Although there’s a level of predictability to the finale, it acts as a gift not just to Wadjda, but to her audience. — Jay Weissberg, Variety
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vivsnotes · 6 years ago
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W10: Social Sexism in Online Games
What the heck is Social Gaming?
The words “social” and “gaming” are what you think they mean, which actually just literally mean any form of games that involve social activities with another player. While it doesn’t have to be in personal contact, the internet has made it possible for us to connect with others at a social level through live gaming communities that involve using speaking equipment (mainly headphones and a microphone) often to provide live strategies mid-game especially for popular online games like Overwatch and DoTA.
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Unhealthy Video Game Obsessions (at a really unhealthy level)
Gaming addiction is no secret amongst worrisome parents, especially when you’re living in an era where the internet rules over nearly everything. Entertainment is available everywhere, and with games being pretty much nearly inevitable, games are incorporated into our lives and companies have created strategies in a form of achievements that rewards our brain into wanting more.
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Even as there are studies that have provided evidence that video games are beneficial for the brain whereby it enhances your cognitive skills (Bergland 2013), understanding how to promote moderation in fun can be difficult as being exposed to video games for long hours have shown that it has brought negative consequences to our health including neck pain, strain injuries, and obesity (Griffiths 2005).
Toxic Sexism Surrounding Video Games
Sexism and online bullying is a prominent issue surrounding online video game platforms, or better put together: sexism in video games is just another form of bullying (Lynch 2017). Some argued that this issue is less likely to go away as women have brought themselves into a male-dominant territory. However, it is a constant conflicting issue whereby women are continuously encouraged to participate in games that are made to cater to both men and women but are then discouraged for gender stereotypes.
This prejudiced behavior can lead to a personal intrusion where women may not feel safe playing online simply because of being a woman. Female gamers have often been fetishized to a predatorial level when players come across a casual female gamer to the point where sexual remarks are given to the point of harassment.
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Leena Van Deventer
Writer and Game Developer, Leena Van Deventer had her share of online sexism when she was playing one of her favorite online multiplayer shooter game, “Team Fortress 2” when she was bombarded with reactions expected to happen when other players realize women are present during the game when she began speaking in-game to test the new feature that made her sound like a robot or a giant. Soon enough, she was bombarded with questions such as “hove you got any NODE pics”, “Do you fuck guys who like games”, and “what are you wearing”. One man even went as far as to “stalk” her avatar in the game and masturbated to her username through the microphone (O’Halloran 2017).
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While her teammates found it hilarious, Deventer wished that she could focus on other game objectives even though she knew she had to abandon the server.
Fortunately, with the focus shift to create an equal bridge for both men and women, I hope that in time we as females, don’t have to hide our gender identity online to protect ourselves from sexist slurs and instead, look forward to a community that is more acceptable to both genders enjoying the same hobby.
References
Bergland, C 2013, Video Games Can Increase Brain Size and Connectivity, Psychology Today,  viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/201310/video-gaming-can-increase-brain-size-and-connectivity>
Griffiths, M 2005, �� Video gaming is safe for most players and can be useful in health care ’, Video Games and Health,  BMJ 2005;331 :122, viewed 21 May 2019, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.331.7509.122
Lynch, M 2017, Sexism in Video Gaming is Just Another Form of Bullying,  The Tech Advocate, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.thetechedvocate.org/sexism-in-video-gaming-is-just-another-form-of-bullying/>
O’Halloran, K 2017,  ‘Hey dude, do this’: the last resort for female gamers escaping online abuse’, The Guardian, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/oct/24/hey-dude-do-this-the-last-resort-for-female-gamers-escaping-online-abuse>
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wifeofbath · 6 years ago
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Wife of Bath in Florence--Part 6: San Lorenzo, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, and Santa Croce
Hey, Wife of Bath!  Two things! First, it’s been *checks blog* three years since you last told us about what you did in Florence back in 2014. Second, where’s the love for Michelangelo?
 Hi, fictional person I made up solely to ask me accusatory questions! Yes, it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I last did my little travel breakdown, and I really haven’t mentioned Michelangelo at all have I?  That’s going to change because Michelangelo featured prominently in the last two days of my 2014 Florence trip.
 (Also I realized that I really do want to finish this because I’m going back to Florence in June.)
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Friday brought an early morning with the class meeting at San Lorenzo at 8:30. By this time, I had a pretty good (though not great) idea of where everything was, so I had a leisurely walk to the basilica.  Unfortunately, I got to the church earlier than the rest of my class, which meant a few minutes of walking around trying to spot anyone I recognized.  Thankfully, I found them after a while at the back. Luckily, my favorite classmate was also running late, so at least I wasn’t the last to show up.
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Once all gathered, we headed to the Old Sacristy.  At the time of our trip, San Lorenzo did not permit pictures inside, so the photos here are a mix of Wikipedia and WGA.
 Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy.  Look at those lovely arches and Corinthian capitals.  In their architectural designs, both Brunelleschi and Michelangelo used this gray stone, pietra serena, which was native to Florence.
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Michelangelo’s New Sacristy, commissioned by Leo X and Giulio de’Medici. Michelangelo designed it and completed some of the sculptures, including the famous Night, but he was never able to finish it.  
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Night and Day flanking a sculpture of Giuliano de’Medici.  Much has been made of Night’s pose and her physiognomy, ranging from the humorous “Michelangelo wasn’t comfortable with women so he stuck two oranges on a man’s chest,” to doctors speculating that Night shows symptoms of breast cancer to analysis of androgyny and late-Renaissance/early Mannerist concepts of beauty.  Personally, I come down on the side that Michelangelo designed a figure that was both elegant and off-putting that reflects both the changes in art and the uncertainty in Italian culture during the beginning of the Mannerist period.
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Dawn and Dusk with Lorenzo de’Medici.  This is not a sculpture allegorizing Michelangelo’s beloved mentor but one of the lesser known Medicis, Lorenzo di Piero, Duke of Urbino, who’s probably more famous for his children, Catherine de’Medici and Allessandro, who became the first duke of Florence.  Lorenzo the Magnificent’s tomb was never completed, but he is buried here with his brother Guiliano in a simple tomb underneath a Madonna and Child sculpted by Michelangelo.
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From there we went to the Cappelli dei Principi (Chapel of the Princes). If you look at an aerial view of San Lorenzo, the large, octagonal dome between the two sacristies easily stands out. Of the sites we saw at San Lorenzo, this one with its height, opulence, and the mixture of dark stone was one of the most memorable for me.  First photo from MuseumsinFlorence.com
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Peak Baroque aesthetic right here.  This picture helps give some sense of how TALL this space is.
 Off to the Laurentian Library!
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Brunelleschi’s cloisters
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Orange trees!
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Inside, the vestibule with the famous steps designed by Michelangelo. Originally, Michelangelo wanted these stairs, which may be the first freestanding staircase in Western architecture, to be made of walnut but ended up using that gray stone seen in the Old and New Sacristy.
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Subverting the rules of Classical architecture to make a characteristically Mannerist space
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I love how the center aisle of the staircase seems to pool out into the vestibule.
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Inside the library, the floor with some great grotesques
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One of the reading stalls
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From there to the Medici Riccardi Palace.  We primarily focused on the Chapel of the Magi, the tapestry room, and the Luca Giordano hall.
 The Chapel of the Magi is actually quite small, smaller than you might think just looking at pictures of Benozzo Gozzoli’s frescoes online.  It’s a very intimate space (confining if you’re in there with fifteen other people).  The frescoes completely envelope you, and your eye follows the journey of the Magi along the walls.  No pictures inside the Chapel, so pics are from travelsintuscany.com and wiki.
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Like many Renaissance depictions of the Magi, Gozzoli included portraits of the Medici family among the Magi.
 For a long time, there was speculation that the young king was a portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici, but recently, he’s been identified as one of the other members of the party (fourth figure from the left).
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He does look a lot more like the later portraits we have of Lorenzo.
The Tapestry Room
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This was interesting to see.  It’s a Madonna and Child by Filippo Lippi, but on the other side is a drawing of a young man.
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The Gallery, which is where Florence’s government meets.  
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Giordano’s ceiling fresco, representing the creation of Man and the triumph of the Medici on Mount Olympus.
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The courtyard with the sculpture of Orpheus.
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The gardens.  In Hannibal, this was where “Dr. Fell” ran into Anthony Dimmond (thirsty scarf dad).
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Once we were through with the area surrounding San Lorenzo, we split into two groups.  My professor took half the class to the Florence Archives while my group headed to Santa Croce.
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“The Church of Santa Croce, seat of the Franciscans, its vast interior ringing with eight languages as the hordes of tourists shuffle through, following the bright umbrellas of their guides, fumbling for two-hundred-lire pieces in the gloom so they can pay to light, for a precious moment in their lives, the great frescoes in the chapel.”
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Of course, I had to check out all the tombs
 Machiavelli’s tomb
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Dante’s memorial
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Galileo’s tomb.  All that Baroque covering up those frescoes *sigh*
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Michelangelo’s tomb.  Definitely not what he had in mind, but Vasari went all out to honor his friend.  Hopefully, Michelangelo does not mind too much that I write stories of questionable quality about his relationships with Leonardo and Raphael.
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The altar
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Bardi Chapel with one of the earliest depictions of St. Francis (sorry about the glare)
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Death of St. Francis by Giotto and his followers
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Just wanted a picture of the stained glass light on the stone floor
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Baroncelli Chapel, Taddeo Gaddi’s fresco of David and Goliath
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Because of the time, we didn’t have a chance to check out the Pazzi Chapel.  I also did not take a close look at the Rinuccini Chapel (mostly because I didn’t know how relevant it would be to my research later—add that to the to-do list).
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It was close to lunchtime, so we grabbed a sandwich nearby (tomato and mozzarella with an Orangina) and had some gelato under Dante’s imposing stare.
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The façade of Santa Croce, completed in the 19th century.
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Then it was off to the Florence Archives to briefly talk to the people who run the Medici Archive Project.  I’ll be seeing them again in June for their paleography seminar.  Once done at the Archives, we checked out the Duomo.
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Vasari’s frescoes inside Brunelleschi’s dome.  He’s showing up a lot in this write-up too, but Vasari has cast a long shadow over art history.
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We then dispersed for a couple hours until meeting against for a farewell dinner that evening.  I hate that I never caught the name of the restaurant (we met together at the cathedral and then walked over together) because the pasta carbonara and tiramisu I had was really good.
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And that was it for the official class business!  All in all, I learned a lot.  However, I still had a day left to explore Florence on my own, which I will recount later (but not too much later).
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theculturedmarxist · 6 years ago
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Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck; written by Boden, Fleck and Geneva Robertson-Dworet
The production and release of Captain Marvel, the new science fiction superhero adventure from Marvel and Disney, has a number of remarkable features, but none of them involve the film’s drama, action or characters.
Briefly, Captain Marvel, in convoluted fashion, follows US Air Force pilot Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) who absorbs an awesome energy source, making her potentially “one of the universe’s most powerful heroes ever known,” according to the film’s publicity.
However, six years later, she is suffering from amnesia, doesn’t know who or what she is and has become a member of the repressive Starforce Military under her mentor Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). The shapeshifting Skrulls, the apparent enemy, force Danvers to crash-land in the US in the mid-1990s. But all is not what it appears. Danvers discovers secrets about herself and about a “galactic war” between two alien races.
Not much of this is interesting, although it is noisy and “action-packed.” Captain Marvel, as a film, is predictable, empty and tedious. The more “sensitive” scenes on Earth, focusing on Danvers and her African American friend Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) and daughter (Akira Akbar), are possibly the most contrived and least convincing.
The first genuinely noteworthy fact about the new film, not surprisingly, concerns money.
Disney, the film’s distributor, is the world’s largest media company, with some $100 billion in assets. With a market value of $152 billion, it ranks as the 53rd largest company of any kind in the world, just behind Total (oil and gas), Merck (pharmaceuticals), the Bank of China (one of the four leading state-owned commercial banks in China), Unilever, DowDuPont and BP.
Media reports place Captain Marvel’s combined net production and global marketing costs at $300 million. To date, the film’s global box office stands at $774 million.
Captain Marvel is truly “corporate entertainment”—i.e., the very process by which it came into being prevents it from being entertaining or enlightening in any meaningful fashion.
This type of large-scale, officially sponsored filmmaking, whose success is avidly promoted and tracked by the media and business publications in particular, inevitably intersects and overlaps with other aspects of American establishment culture. In the case of Captain Marvel, this means militarism and feminism specifically.
The US Air Force was involved in the production of Captain Marvel.
In fact, Task & Purpose reported that Marvel Studios launched the official start of production “with a photo of Larson, and Air Force Brig. Gen. Jeannie M. Leavitt, then-commander of the 57th Wing and the service’s first female fighter pilot, atop an F-15 at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.”
“To prepare for her role, Larson,” according to The Wrap, visited the Air Force base “to join simulated dogfights. The film’s red-carpet premiere included testimonials from Air Force men and women and a flyover by the Air Force’s Nellis-based Thunderbirds.”
Task & Purpose, a website that follows the American military, also cited the emailed comments of Todd Fleming, chief of the Community and Public Outreach Division at Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs: “The Air Force partners on any number of entertainment projects to ensure the depiction of Airmen and the Air Force mission is accurate and authentic. Our partnership with ‘Capt Marvel’ [sic] helped ensure the character’s time in the Air Force and backstory was presented accurately. It also highlighted the importance of the Air Force to our national defense.”
“[Captain Marvel] is not part of a recruiting strategy but we would expect that audiences seeing a strong Air Force heroine, whose story is in line with the story of many of our Airmen, would be positively received,” Fleming said.
The issue of female recruitment is no small matter. American imperialism, recklessly gearing up for war against Russia, China and other rivals, needs vast new supplies of human fodder. Task & Purpose explains, “The spotlight on airmen [in Captain Marvel] comes at a time when the Air Force, like the other services, is hunting for the next generation of pilots. The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps are all short 25 percent of their pilot billets, according to a GAO [Government Accountability Office] report published this summer; the Air Force in particular has doled out cash incentives like candy in a vain effort to prevent pilots from defecting to the private sector. Indeed, the branch’s plan to increase its number of squadrons by 76 to Cold War levels will require an additional 40,000 personnel, further straining the service’s recruitment capabilities. At the Air Force Academy, female cadets are increasingly encouraged to vie for pilot spots to help bridge that gap.”
Larson, who has made all sorts of useless (or worse) comments about #MeToo, alleged sexual abuse and her own “social activism,” like most of affluent Hollywood, is entirely oblivious to the criminal role of the US military, the greatest source of terror and “abuse” on the planet by an order of magnitude of 100 times or more.
The female heroism in Captain Marvel, of course, has been greeted with plaudits. Entertainment Weekly noted excitedly that the film would “mark the first time a woman will be headlining her own solo superhero movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also marks the first time a woman will direct a superhero film for Marvel Studios: Anna Boden will co-direct with her Mississippi Grind partner Ryan Fleck.”
The hope is that Captain Marvel will do “for women” what Black Panther did “for African Americans”—which is, of course, nothing whatsoever, except for a small layer of prominent studio executives, writers, performers, etc.
This comment from Deadline is typical: “One film finance source believes that it’s pretty much certain that Captain Marvel will see $1 billion around the world and break the glass ceiling for female-led pics at the global B.O. [box office], dashing past Wonder Woman’s final global of $821.8M.”
As is this Vox headline: “Why Captain Marvel’s milestone status creates so much pressure for it to succeed—Why Captain Marvel represents more than just a superhero movie.” The article proposes to answer these important questions: “What does a woman superhero mean for Marvel Studios and the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe]? What are the takeaways from Captain Marvel’s already overwhelming box office success? What does the film have to say about feminism? What might have happened if it had flopped? And who gets to shape the conversation and narrative surrounding it?”
The final and perhaps most remarkable feature of Captain Marvel involves its writer-directors. (And, secondarily, its performers. What are Larson, Jude Law and the talented Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn, whose acting in The Land of Steady Habits we recently praised, doing in this rubbish?)
We have made the point previously on more than one occasion about the objective significance of the “long march” of numerous so-called independent or art filmmakers toward empty-headed, “blockbuster” movie-making. We noted the examples of Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, etc.), Alan Taylor (Terminator Genisys), the Russo brothers (the Captain America and Avengers franchises), Kenneth Branagh (Thor), Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, etc.), John Singleton (a Fast and Furious installment), Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day, one of the James Bond fantasies), Marc Forster (another of the Bond films, Quantum of Solace), Sam Mendes (yet another Bond film, Skyfall) and Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman).
To that list, one can add the more recent examples of Jon Watts (two Spider-Man films), Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok), Ava DuVernay (A Wrinkle in Time) and Ryan Coogler (Black Panther).
In a number of these cases, the filmmakers had earlier indicated vaguely oppositional political views or a certain concern at least for the fate of broader layers of the population.
The lure of large amounts of money is obviously an issue. But perhaps the more pertinent question is: what are the social and ideological conditions that make writers, directors and performers susceptible to this “lure”? It is not inevitable. Artists, including in the US, have been known to repudiate such offers with contempt. Almost inevitably, however, such resistance has been rooted in political and social conceptions and opposition of a left-wing character, sustained by a confidence in the better instincts of the population and its willingness to struggle. Those conceptions and that confidence are sorely lacking today.
The directors of the dreadful Captain Marvel, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, should not be entirely unfamiliar to readers of the WSWS, although the context—big-budget Hollywood—may be unexpected. We have reviewed two of their films in the past, Half Nelson (2006) and Sugar (2008).
The Atlantic notes with surprise that Fleck and Boden “until now have worked in the realm of quiet, sensitive indie films.” More than simply “quiet” and “sensitive,” Half Nelson centers on an obviously left-wing high school teacher working at an inner-city school in Brooklyn.
A 2006 New York Times article about the making of Half Nelson is worth citing. The Fleck-Boden film, wrote Dennis Lim, “is a political allegory, a film about a would-be visionary who wants to change the world but can’t get his act together and is often his own worst enemy. It’s not a stretch to read it as a comment on the sorry state of the American left.”
“‘That was more or less conscious,’ the film’s director, Ryan Fleck, said of the political subtext.” Fleck and Boden “started writing Half Nelson … four years ago, as the Bush administration was preparing to invade Iraq and the antiwar movement was gaining momentum. ‘It felt like we were going to protests every other week,’ Mr. Fleck said recently. ‘But ultimately you don’t have the energy to do it all, and you feel like you’re doing very little. A big part of the frustration was the inability to make meaningful change.’
“The activist spirit comes naturally to Mr. Fleck, who was born to socialist parents on a commune in Berkeley, Calif. As a child he was taken to rallies and protests. As a teenager he read Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.”
In an interview with Slant magazine, Fleck, asked about religion, replied jokingly “I was raised communist.”
Fleck and Boden’s Sugar, about a Dominican baseball player playing in the minor leagues in the US, the WSWS commented, was “about immigration and acculturation, capitalism and exploitation, hospitality and loneliness.”
Now, a decade later, Captain Marvel.
The same 2006 Times article referred to above contained this passage:
“Mr. Fleck said he hoped that their future projects would remain, however obliquely, rooted in a sense of social justice. ‘Filmmaking is kind of a vain hobby when maybe we should all be taking to the streets,’ he said. ‘But it seems irresponsible not to be informed by politics in some way.’
“Ms. Boden’s idealism is more tempered. ‘I don’t have an inflated sense of what a movie can do,’ she said. ‘But you can at least try not to put something out there that you don’t believe in.’
“Mr. Fleck added: ‘That’s a rule we try to follow, to not put garbage in the world.’”
Unfortunately, they have now.
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tkmedia · 3 years ago
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Who is Nanga Awasum? All about the 23-year-old model who received a major career boost from Gigi Hadid
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American model Nanga Awasum recently came under the spotlight after being randomly spotted by Gigi Hadid on a New York street. On July 16th, Hadid came across Awasum and was left impressed by her fashion sense.She ended up capturing a snap of Awasum from behind without the latter’s knowledge. Hadid also took to Instagram story to share the picture and called the rising model her “inspiration of the day”:“Shoutout to my NYC inspiration of the day: this queen. Was too drooling to get a pic of the front, but she was major.”In response, Nanga Awasum took to Twitter to share a picture of her entire outfit, mentioning Gigi Hadid in her post:“It's the way @GiGiHadid would have changed my entire life if I was only facing the right way.”Hadid also made sure to respond to Awasum’s tweet with a sweet reply:“You were facing the right way exactly where you were headed. Sunshine! Sending biiiiig love Nanga!” Following her interaction with Hadid, the 23-year-old garnered major attention on social media. She was reportedly approached by several agencies following the encounter and had also reportedly earned a few notable modeling gigs.Also Read: Who is Alyssa Scott? Everything about the model from Nick Cannon’s show whose pregnancy has sparked rumors
Who is Nanga Awasum?
Nanga Awasum is a 23-year-old aspiring model who is making headlines after being noticed by supermodel Gigi Hadid. Born on June 29th, 1998, in Silver Spring, Maryland, she is currently based in Manhattan, New York.Nanga Awasum’s father is a pastor, while her sister, Azah Awasum, is a contestant in the ongoing season of “Big Brother.” Nanga Awasum graduated from Damascus High School in 2016 and currently studies at Morgan State University. She is reportedly studying to earn a degree in women, gender, and sexuality.She has been working as a professional model for the past few years. In October 2019, Nanga Awasum signed with Wilhelmina New York, one of the leading modeling and talent management agencies in the world.Following her encounter with Gigi Hadid, Awasum spoke to E! News about the outfit that “changed her life”:"I woke up that morning, and I threw on this outfit, and I really, really didn't like the outfit at all, but I had 30 minutes to get to work, and I had to get on set. I was like, God, I hate it, but I have no more time, and I just ran out of the house." She further shared that the interaction with Gigi Hadid “changed the trajectory” of her month:"I've been told I was ugly, I've been turned down by so many agencies, I've been turned down by so many jobs, and just to have someone like her see me and tell me that I was pretty and tell me I was major, it changed the trajectory of my month."Nanga Awasum has reportedly earned a possible brand ambassador deal with Nasty Gal and a prominent modeling gig with Maybelline.Gigi Hadid's fans and other social media users have also started a campaign to provide Nanga Awasum with a chance to appear on HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl.”Also Read: Who are Irina Shayk’s ex-boyfriends? A look at model’s past relationship amid rumors of a romance with Kanye WestHelp us improve our coverage of pop culture news. Take the 3-minute survey now. Edited by Shaheen Banu Login to reply Read the full article
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laetro · 4 years ago
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Sheeba Maya: Art with Magical Realism
Sheeba Maya, the artist who has creativity filled within her. Her process of creating art involves getting inspired, developing and creating iridescent artworks that showcase profound stories! The wunderkind individual has achieved a name in the industry and uses her platform to stand against racism. Sheeba also wishes to establish herself as public speaker and lecturer in the near future.
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A prominent artist of the Afrofuturism movement specializing in portraiture, fantasy art, and realism, Sheeba Maya has been working as a freelance illustrator, fine artist, graphic designer, curator, and educator in New York, since 2009. She has been featured on popular blogs including Medium.com, Wacom.com, and Shondaland.com. Maya has participated in panels on everything from gender & race to ideation and concept development and also worked for the Nigerian film industry!
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Q. Your work has been featured in galleries across the USA, including scholarly works. What is your ethos behind each illustration?
Sheeba Maya: I’ve been making art my entire life. My parents were also artists so art as a lifestyle and an interest in cultural exposure is written in my DNA.
It’s definitely woven into my psyche. It’s so ingrained into how I process information and express thoughts. Filtering my life through art really sharpens my senses as a visionary with an undying drive to actualize what my mind can conceive. I am and always have been seriously self-motivated to learn and grow.
Along with the passion to develop creativity came a desire to share my process and final work. This started a conversation between myself and whoever was looking. I reflect often on this overwhelming amount of feedback and put that together with what I learn about people and the world around me.
So now I’m also developing empathy for humanity through art and art-making. This is especially useful when making art for clients and I have to reach into someone else’s mind and spirit to translate and create THEIR vision that will have an impact and meet a goal.
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Q. Which treats of the first sally the ingenious Don Quixote made from home
Sheeba: These preliminaries settled, he did not care to put off any longer the execution of his design, urged on to it by the thought of all the world was losing by his delay, seeing what wrongs he intended to right, grievances to redress, injustices to repair, abuses to remove, and duties to discharge.
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Q. Your work has been featured on Shondaland as well. What did that feel like?
Sheeba: Amazing! Anytime my art is featured on a large platform like that it’s a proud moment. Getting into ImagineFX was also a big-time goal that felt great. I like getting notes from other artists saying that they were inspired to push themselves creatively or professionally because they saw my work featured somewhere. It all reminds and affirms me that my work is purposeful.
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Q. What would you describe your style as?
Sheeba: Generally I specialize in portraits, people, and characters. Thematically I would call it Fantasy Realism. My work is considered part of the Afrofuturism/Black Speculative Arts Movement.
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“..When I read a story, I start to imagine it playing out in my mind. Like a daydream or a mind movie. The moment that best describes the story is the *jump off* concept. From there I can develop that concept or create alternative ideas by asking myself questions and exploring the “what if ?”. These are jotted down as thumbnail sketches.”
Q. Do you think we still have a long way to go before black women artists do not have to work twice as hard to get the recognition they deserve?
Sheeba: If this question is still being asked, then, yes! It is 2021 and we’re still celebrating the first Black female ‘this or ‘that’. The real question is who do we allow to validate that recognition.
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Q. What kind of difficulties have you faced as a black woman in order to become a successful artist and reach where you are today?
Sheeba: One problem is this overall ever-present assumption that you lack anything of value or quality. With white men, it’s the opposite. So Black women have to devote more energy into proving otherwise.
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Q. What has your experience with Wacom been like?
Sheeba: Simply amazing! I had my eyes set on them as a client for years. Seeing my art on their platform for the first time was a true thrill. I’m always excited for opportunities to create artwork featuring Black people being powerful and fantastical and designed to be enjoyed by anyone regardless of gender, race, or sexual identity.
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Q. What software do you use to create your illustrations?
Sheeba: I switch between Procreate and Photoshop as my programs of expertise.
Q. What was your experience while visiting countless Comic Cons and creating art for the Nigerian film industry?
Sheeba: I am very eager for comic conventions of all kinds to return. I seriously miss meeting fans, creators, and other industry pros to exchange ideas, inspiration, and support. It wasn’t just the opportunity to sell my art. I participated in panels on everything from gender & race to ideation and concept development. I also hosted workshops on fantasy portraits, color theory, ethnicity and anatomy. and digital painting techniques.
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Q. What is the first thing you do when you receive a brief? Describe your process.
Sheeba: The brief is like a little story. And when I read a story, I start to imagine it playing out in my mind. Like a daydream or a mind movie. The moment that best describes the story is the ‘jump off’ concept. From there I can develop that concept or create alternative ideas by asking myself questions and exploring the ‘what if’.
These are jotted down as thumbnail sketches. Thumbnails and related notes/questions are presented for feedback until the concept is worked out and confirmed. From there research for references or related info is performed and the artwork can be fully drawn and then painted to full detail.
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Q. What are some of the most interesting pieces you have worked on so far? And who has been your best client to work with?
Sheeba: One experience that stands out is working with actress Erica Alexander (Living Single, Queen Sugar, Black Lightning). She reached out to me to create illustrative portraits of Michelle Obama and Maxine Waters. The illustrations appeared alongside articles written by Joy Reid (MSNBC) and Alexander herself in a series called MoonRakers featured on medium.com. When Joy Reid mentioned my art, her article and mentioned Michelle Obama in the same tweet!
Another great experience was being hired by comic company Sorghum and Spear to paint collaborating actress Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek OTS) as one of their characters. When they shared a pic of her holding my artwork of her it was a seriously proud moment.
All of the women mentioned are personal heroes and have inspired me to discover, develop, and deliver my greatest potential. These were big-time honours!
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Q. What are your plans for the future?
Sheeba: I am very eager for comic conventions of all kinds to return. I seriously miss meeting fans, creators, and other pros. My life and work were like a playland full of visionary and imaginative people that created and sustained it. Since the pandemic, I’ve been indulging in a lot of personal art that explores new aspects of familiar themes like magic, witchcraft and voodoo, Erotica, and cosplay. I’ve been enjoying all this in isolation but now I’m itching to share with the public all these new expressions.
I’ll also be offering art talks, lectures, and classes virtually in the coming year. It’s funny how social distancing actually pushed me towards becoming more accessible. Now that virtual learning and events are becoming the norm, I’m better able to offer these things to people who would like to work together but are not local to NY.
These preliminaries settled, he did not care to put off any longer the execution of his design, urged on to it by the thought of all the world was losing by his delay, seeing what wrongs he intended to right, grievances to redress, injustices to repair, abuses to remove, and duties to discharge.
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mrsslrss · 7 years ago
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2017
I rang in 2017 drunk and crying. I left a New Year’s Eve Party where all my friends and I drank down the clock and M and I went home, and I had been obsessed with “Love More” for a few weeks so as soon as we got back to the house I put it on over the stereo. Anyway about ten seconds in I started sobbing and I couldn’t, for the life of me, explain why. (I wasn’t even sad! It’s just such a beautiful song!) M just put his arm around me and kind of half-laughed and told me it was going to be okay in a quizzical but very convincing way and eventually I stopped crying and the song played itself out. I think that about sums it up.
Anyway I think we can all agree that 2017 was a weird year in a grand sense, which I don’t feel compelled or equipped to speak to. But it was weird in a personal sense, too. The year started in that mass of feelings for me; I dyed my hair pink; I lost someone I cared about deeply, which hurt in a place I didn’t expect or understand. The other side of that month was the Women’s March: housing twenty friends from Boston and Brooklyn and elsewhere in a spirit of earnest and viable and real solidarity that nearly broke my heart.
In the spring I worked a lot, and eventually got to travel across the country and fall in love with a couple different cities: New York (Life After Youth, celebrating my 25th); Seattle (Bois Naufrage, fancy coffee, riding the bus); Austin (freeways, rental car, KUTX, wildflowers). In the summer, Keeper put out a tape – bittersweet timing, just before Sam moved back to Texas – and I got a few days on the Cape with the crew. I worked weekends and drank green juice and read novels. In the fall I got really into that Fever Ray song and memorized the opening passage of The Argonauts and finally made it to DIA: Beacon.
Overall, I think, it’s been a head-above-water kind of year for me, where I mainly got caught in a cycle of exist-process-react-exist without creating much. I spent a lot of time thinking about my feelings but still can’t exactly mark the growth. Sometimes stillness is a sign of change, though; maybe I’ll count that one as a win. So here’s a list of 10 things (big and small!) that I saw, heard, watched, made, felt and loved in 2017, that helped me get through the year.
The Heart Season: “No”
Before this year became the kind of dumpster fire in which you hear everyday about new ways that powerful, prominent men treat the women around them terribly, The Heart was talking about consent in a genuinely nuanced, genuinely feminist way. The “No” season was four episodes long, during which host Kaitlin Prest stared down specific instances in her own life where consent’s gray area reared its fucked-up face, and explored where the experiences left her – how they influenced her sense of self, how they shaped and informed her future sexual (and non-sexual!) encounters. And then she broadened the scope, ignoring the easier narratives – “yes means yes,” “no means no,” “consent is sexy!!!!”, rhetorical devices so exhausted and exhausting – and instead asked harder, realer questions about the intersections of desire, fear, gender, pleasure, and autonomy. It gave me language I didn’t know I needed and set a model for a kind of audio storytelling I didn’t know was possible. I wish they played this at every college orientation across the country.
Turning The Tables
What if we appreciated women’s art apart from maleness entirely? What would it look like to tell the story of popular music through only women’s greatness? That was, crudely put, the mission of the list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women that NPR Music published this year. Being part of this project was huge: it meant absorbing massive amounts of history, rethinking canon, getting to be an editor(!), working with some of my biggest professional idols. Mostly, though, it meant devoting much of my working life to the intersection of radical feminism and rock and roll. What a dream.
Drag
I was drawn to art that felt genuinely subversive this year, but it mainly played out in moments of surprise: disappointment from expectations I didn’t realize I held being left unmet; utter radiant joy when this need I didn’t know I had was fulfilled. Maybe the most memorable time it happened was in June, at GAY/BASH, a monthly experimental drag show in D.C. It was the first time I saw drag IRL, which would maybe have felt subversive no matter what – but probably few things would have matched watching a drag queen in a red white & blue housewife dress penetrate the eyeholes of a Trump mask with a strap-on. Incredible! Tell me you can watch that and feel unmoved. My friends and I went back to GAY/BASH every month after that. The music was always perfect: The Knife and Paramore and No Doubt and Cher, etc. But mostly what felt so powerful was the company: being in explicitly gay spaces full of gay and queer people, where abject expressions of sexuality and of gender trouble felt neither like threats nor invitations to violence.
There was also, of course, Sasha Velour, the cerebral art-queen who was crowned this year’s winner of Rupaul’s Drag Race. I saw her on tour with other season 9 queens this summer; her lip-sync of “Praying” by Kesha was perhaps, no lie, the most moving musical performance I saw in 2017. She embodied and embraced the reality so many of us face as women and queer people: victims and victors, agents and acted-on, mired in both hope and fear on a near-constant basis. It was transcendent. 
Ramen
On a less serious note, D.C. is, like many cities, in the midst of a ramen craze right now, and if I’m honest I spent an inordinate amount of the year benefiting from it! And from the fact that a few places will even deliver ramen right to your house if you have the right app! (Also, there’s a lot to be said about cultural appropriation, the devaluing of non-Western food traditions, etc. in these contexts; I am trying to keep learning and will leave the explanations to folks smarter than I.)
Tank And The Bangas
I called this band the “best band in America” all year and I meant it. Their Tiny Desk concert was both an exhale (after the stress of running the Contest itself) and an inhale (before an unrelenting and enthralling month of tour with them). I saw Tank and the Bangas perform eight times in 2017; their positivity never got stale, their exuberance never felt forced, their passion never wavered. They sound like no one else I know. Goddamn, I love this band. The best band in America!
Therapy
I went back to therapy this year after not really going since childhood but thinking about finding someone to talk to and being jealous of friends’ casual off-hand remarks about their therapists for years. I went mostly because of this thing that happened last December involving some brutal unkindness from a loved one that was so vicious yet unexpected it left me feeling startled and knocked off course, like having been shoved from a great height and, after shaking off the dust, finding myself very alone. I thought it was a minor disturbance but it actually burrowed pretty deep into me and I wound up freaked out about a bunch of stuff, so long story short: I finally found someone to talk to.
I will save my breath about how mental health care should be accessible and de-stigmatized. I will say that therapy made my year better in a lot of ways; mostly, in that I had a dedicated time and place to work, patiently, on some things that felt really paralyzing. (It also taught me some useful concepts, like the idea of psychological safety and the Buddhist teaching of the “second arrow,” which I then snuck into some of my favorite writing I did this year. Win-win.) Nothing is fixed, obviously; therapy has felt mostly like a drawn-out emotional root canal all year, which is to say, I still nurse the same ache that sent me. But I’m grateful and I am learning and it’s starting to feel less self-indulgent to want to address my bullshit. I recommend therapy to everyone! If you’re interested in talking to someone, here are some affordable resources.
Iced Americanos 
There are precious few things that get M out of bed early: the promise of imminent skiing; a genuine emergency; and coffee. I’ve relied heavily on the third one this year to squeeze in a half-hour of quality time with him before I go to the office. Listen I know this is cheesy as h*ck but it truly improves the overall quality of my day! Anyway the iced coffee at our corner coffee shop is not for me but the baristas take great care with their espresso shots so I started getting iced americanos instead and now I have been converted to an iced americano grrrl, even in winter (true to my New England roots). And a morning-coffee-with-your-boyfriend grrrl. Gross! I can’t help it.
Creative collaboration
Madeline Zappala is both a dear friend of mine and a total badass artistic inspiration to me. I was so glad she asked me to help edit her magazine, Reflections on the Burden of Men – and that she (and her co-creator, Laura) accepted a short piece I wrote about being disgusted by sexuality, or maybe more so by the insistence that women perform it for patriarchy, feeling isolated from my body, wanting to not want what I want. Editing the writing in the magazine was a dream! And watching it come together was so instructive. Go get a copy! (Or just pick up some unsolicited dick pic stickers, a real thing they made.)
2017 was a pretty exciting year for Keeper, too. Between January and August – when Sam moved back to Texas and Keeper became a project with a less coherent identity – we played amazing shows and put out a tape and met a lot of really lovely people. I learned a lot.
Female solidarity
I never got the appeal of using the phrase “work wife” to describe a lady BFF in your office before this year (too close to “girl crush,” which, I maintain, is basically homophobic; plus, who wants to replicate the capitalist heteropatriarchy of the marriage-industrial complex in your office friendships, of all places?!) but now I have two and I totally get it. There’s really something special about working alongside women like me, and having them be people who are willing to take a lunch break or walk to Starbucks (lol) so we can encourage each other through weird career stuff, or vent about male incompetence, or gush about new music, or interrogate what it means to care about feminism or justice or epistemology or whatever in 2017, which is mostly what we did. Some of the most enriching and important conversations I had this year were these; we often joked about the positions of authority we’d have, the raises we’d get, the articles we’d be assigned if only the People In Charge heard the conversations we had around cafeteria lunch tables!
Of course, there was also the mere fact of having lived with three other women throughout this year, creating a home that was a constant space for frank discussions about shared oppression; there were days of 8+ hours of GChat sessions that formed a virtual safe space; there were the year’s albums that spoke to the bizarre, incredible realities of womanhood. And all of this happening in the context of women coming forward about sexual assault, women journalists reporting on it, all of us whispering #MeToo on the internet. It was a year that, for me, fostered a consistent and palpable sense of solidarity among us. I needed it.
The “Thief” music video:  
Lastly: this is, maybe, the most wonderfully terrible music video I have ever seen. I first heard about this on the now-defunct podcast This Week Had Me Like, which I sorely miss, and now it’s rare that my housemates and I go more than a month without watching it communally. It’s histrionic in the best way, nonsensical, totally delightful. Thank you, Ansel Elgort.
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wisepoetry-blog1 · 7 years ago
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Beware Male Feminists
Sources
Kyle Payne https://thecurvature.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/final-thoughts-on-kyle-payne/
Hugo Schwyzer https://studentactivism.net/2012/01/04/paternalistic-feminism-hugo-schwyzer/
Still doing harm https://studentactivism.net/2012/01/22/hugo-schwyzer-is-still-doing-harm/
Extra info http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-college-resign-20131009-story.html
Extra info https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/27/community-college-forces-professor-bar-public-class-adult-film-star
Onision http://onisiondrama.tumblr.com/post/79402071084
Allegations http://chaseagainstonision.tumblr.com/post/88514543151/the-whole-story-behind-the-rape-allegations
Underage pics http://www.wetheunicorns.com/news/onision-underage-website-naked-pictures/#aegHXM78dSllpdoK.97
Jian Ghomeshi https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/11/28/jian_ghomeshi_did_not_ask_for_consent_accusers_say.html
Acquitted https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/jian-ghomeshi-found-not-guilty-of-sexual-assault/article29377074/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
Jezebel ask the question - Hart Noecker http://jezebel.com/what-happens-when-a-prominent-male-feminist-is-accused-1683352727
Shives calls out un-named male feminist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBARa7xK85Y
Sarah Nyberg http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/09/11/leading-gamergate-critic-sarah-nyberg-claimed-to-be-a-pedophile-apologised-for-white-nationalism/
Trolling http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/09/15/sarah-nyberg-in-shock-admission-yes-i-claimed-to-be-a-pedophile-but-i-was-just-trolling/
Promise Delon Redmond http://theralphretort.com/repulsive-anita-sarkeesian-has-a-convicted-pedophile-as-her-twitch-moderator-1029015/
Hannibal the victor https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3qqsbq/leading_male_feminist_hannibalthevictor13_turns/
Jarrod Davis http://sexoffender.publicrecordrepository.com/36/69/366909-jarrod_m._davis.pdf
James Deen https://mic.com/articles/129345/there-s-a-huge-problem-with-the-concept-of-the-male-feminist#.MjaBgueNu
Richard Carrier https://the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/2016/06/20/summarizing-current-allegations-richard-carrier/
Unseen Perfidy http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/10/crash-override-network-twitter-anti-harassment/
Devin Faraci, Pussygrabber https://variety.com/2016/film/news/devin-faraci-birth-movies-death-sexual-assault-1201885262/
Sunil Patel https://archive.is/lEF8d
Mo Fathelbab http://theralphretort.com/male-feminist-claimed-alt-right-harassed-allegedly-accused-rape-12020016/
Michael-Jon Matthew Hickey http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/fake-adult-entertainment-agency-sued-deceptive-business-practices-n700931
Fake Porn agency http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/01/anti-gamergate-journalist-matt-hickey-sued-by-attorney-general-for-fake-porn-agency/20669/
Jamie Kilstein https://archive.fo/PFW3M
Booted https://www.dailydot.com/irl/jamie-kilstein-male-feminist-abuser/
Skeptic Feminist http://www.craveonline.co.uk/design/1263931-skeptic-feminist-youtuber-arrested-murdering-female-co-host
Randy Stair http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4584406/Four-people-shot-dead-murder-suicide-supermarket.html
Trans https://heatst.com/culture-wars/pennsylvania-market-shooter-identified-as-transgender-woman-who-hated-all-men/
Christopher John Goldberg https://archive.is/xQKrO
Child pornography https://archive.is/G5wEI
Nick Robinson https://segmentnext.com/2017/08/11/polygon-video-producer-fired-over-allegations-of-asking-woman-for-nudes-on-twitter/
Stuart Campbell https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/08/anti-gamergate-critic-stuart-campbell-arrested-for-harassment/37848/
Dan Broadbent https://archive.is/LrLvw
Preys on women https://archive.is/Ko6uP
Andy Signore http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/honest-trailers-creator-andy-signore-accused-sexual-abuse-1046574
Feminist agenda https://twitter.com/andysignore/status/734760500366446593
20 women http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/honest-trailers-creator-andy-signore-fired-for-egregious-and-intolerable-sexual-behavior-1202583996/
Michael Hafford http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/10/17/multiple-women-allege-abuse-by-vice-male-feminist-contributor/
Sam Kriss https://www.facebook.com/notes/monitoring-the-lefts-support-for-r-pe-culture/metoo-and-sam-kriss/1518056408275666/
Admits fault https://medium.com/@samkriss/today-an-allegation-of-sexual-harassment-and-aggression-was-made-against-me-and-i-want-to-address-ecc1739d85a2
Dropped by Vice https://archive.fo/ZUaR3
Defending himself proves the point https://www.cataloguemagazine.com.au/news/male-journalists-response-to-metoo-allegations-is-the-perfect-example-of-the-problem
Shane Vader https://twitter.com/shanevader/status/920730084444602368
Shane Vader https://twitter.com/shanevader/status/891524246417092608
Shane Vader https://twitter.com/mombot/status/921755773251629056
Intersectional femnist https://twitter.com/shanevader/status/662486118605148160
Ed Eames https://www.facebook.com/djamilayasmin/posts/10155143451243562
Rupert Myers http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/10/19/male-feminist-writer-fired-by-gq-magazine-after-woman-accuses-him-sexual-assault.html
Lockheart Steele http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/vox-media-lockhart-steele-fired-sexual-harassment-1202595146/
Matt Myers https://archive.is/afSVd
Gamergate https://storify.com/m_m_myers/gamergate-s-left-wing-credentials
Denial https://archive.is/GwJHf
Sam Biddle https://www.dangerandplay.com/2017/10/21/sam-biddle-of-the-intercept-accused-of-masturbating-in-front-of-coworker/
War with Gamergate https://www.recode.net/2014/10/22/11632146/adobe-distances-self-from-gawker-after-writers-gamergate-tweet
Fredrik Virtanen https://www.rt.com/news/407615-assange-critic-rape-allegations/
Neogaf http://comicbook.com/gaming/2017/10/22/neogaf-down-owner-sexual-assault-/
Implosion http://mashable.com/2017/10/23/neogaf-sexual-harassment-controversy-tyler-malka/#fLGiZ.XTaiq1
archive https://archive.is/zuFb9
Refugee server already down https://www.voat.co/v/NeoFAG/2204720
Kotaku coverup https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/10/gamers-attack-kotaku-claims-covered-neogafs-sex-scandals/42488/
Nazi return http://mashable.com/2017/10/24/neogaf-tyler-malka-statement/#uRH4trsKlgqt
Users in revolt https://kotaku.com/neogaf-reopens-users-revolt-1819790736
Morgan Marquis-Boire https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/19/16675704/morgan-marquis-boire-hacker-sexual-assault
Feminist https://twitter.com/headhntr/status/188707130222723073
Feminist https://twitter.com/headhntr/status/236874676696141824
Jordan Chariton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J0Td0-bjK8&feature=youtu.be
Sue https://web.archive.org/web/20171123010218/https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/22/jordan-chariton-young-turks-lawsuit-firing-259363
Shawn Thomas Weixelman https://www.dangerous.com/38196/male-feminist-pedophile-complains-judge-sci-fi-objectifies-women/
Justin Georges Stephen Coulombe https://www.dangerous.com/39338/twitter-virtuous-pedophile-enderphile-charged-with-sexual-assault-and-child-pornography/
Virtuous pedos https://www.thecut.com/2017/02/salon-shouldnt-have-unpublished-its-pedophilia-article.html
TJ Miller https://www.dangerous.com/39193/male-feminist-comedian-tj-miller-accused-brutal-sexual-assault/
Max Landis https://www.dangerous.com/39542/zoe-quinn-accuses-bright-dirk-gently-netflix-screenwriter-max-landis-rapist/
Problematic male comedian http://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1077959/why-we-should-feel-sorry-for-patton-oswalt
Patton Oswalt's observation https://archive.is/JWcWt
Laurie Penny's observation https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/670778099089457153
Macktivist http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=macktivist
Suspicious of male feminists https://medium.com/@alicengrey/i-m-suspicious-of-male-feminists-and-you-should-be-too-441055a2e614
Not dating another male feminist https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/19/why-i-wont-date-another-male-feminist
Wary of dating male feminist http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/why-im-wary-of-men-who-call-themselves-feminists-20160312-gnhlpf.html
Beware the male feminist http://www.thecrimson.com/column/femme-fatale/article/2017/3/23/hu-beware-male-feminist/
Left-wing men are sexist https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/14/men-on-left-sexist-labour-womens-rights
Jess Phillips https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/left-wing-men-are-worst-sexists-of-all-says-labour-woman-mp-dt32vjc3v
Creeps are feminist https://www.buzzfeed.com/janecoaston/even-the-creeps-are-feminists-these-days?utm_term=.afnmq9zOxV#.pvbwolGp1r
Listen and Believe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah8mhDW6Shs
We should believe rape claims https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/no-matter-what-jackie-said-we-should-automatically-believe-rape-claims/
Do we believe yet? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/us/retro-sexual-harassment.html
Hillary Agrees http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3741760/Hillary-Clinton-s-website-removed-promise-believe-sexual-assault-survivors-emergence-Bill-Clinton-Juanita-Broaddrick-historic-rape-allegations.html
Broadway http://deadline.com/2017/10/broadway-reacts-to-weinstein-reports-1202185492/
Get intersectional with it! https://immanentforms.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/ask-listen-believe-how-to-be-a-white-ally/
Believing Women https://www.themarysue.com/brie-larson-believing-women/
Old question http://theantifeminist.com/are-all-male-feminists-sex-predators-paedophiles-or-worse/
Jordan Peterson Male feminists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBK8QktuViw
Female liars http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1211104/Think-men-unfaithful-sex-A-study-shows-WOMEN-biggest-cheats--theyre-just-better-lying-it.html
False rape allegations http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/27/the-myth-that-false-rape-accusations-are-common-is-dangerous-and-damaging-6956067/
low conviction rate http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/100000-assaults-1000-rapists-sentenced-shockingly-low-conviction-rates-revealed-8446058.html
pity fuck http://archive.is/x6fQC
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ejsulzle · 7 years ago
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Let's talk about our kids' phones
My oldest daughter is 12. She's had a cellphone for over a year. No social media accounts. No Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. And she knows why. There's enough drama in group texts; she doesn't need to add in the complication of social media. We check her phone, regularly. We waffle back and forth on how strict we are about phone hours and YouTube time. I guess my point is that we're trying. We're trying to help our kid establish a reasonably healthy relationship with the technology she's going to have to live with for the rest of her life. We talk about how meaning and inflection aren't always apparent in a text. We call her out when her communication is rude or inappropriate. We encourage apologies and connection. She does okay. 
By far, the biggest challenge so far with the damn cellphone is boys. Last night, for instance, a 13-year old boy pleaded (literally,  "pleazzzzzz") with my 12-year old daughter to send him photos. Yeah, those kind of photos. 
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She came to me (can you believe her friends make fun of her for talking with me about too much? She just throws back that it must suck not being able to talk to your parents about stuff) to have me help her block him on her phone. 
Then we had a discussion about all the negatives that go along with pics like that and why a boy would even want pics like that anyway... 
And it occurred to me that the boy who asked for intimate photos of my daughter isn't having conversations with his parents about the appropriate use of his phone. I can surmise four potential situations:
1) His parents aren't involved with his phone conduct, or
2) They have talked at him about it, generally, but aren't actively involved/monitoring his phone usage, or
3) They have guidelines, but he defies them, or
4) He sees this kind of behavior at home and it's either allowed or encouraged.
Positive self-worth is something we're working hard to cultivate in our children, including the awareness that one's body is worth more than a pic to some boy. Our tween knew without a doubt that this kid was acting like a douche and that his behavior was no reflection on her. 
But my problem is that we're bringing up a society of boys who have no problem asking for girls to send them pics. I'm not surprised. Look at the culture around us. I can name several famous/prominent men who objectify or assault women and see success regardless. 
My question is, what conversations are we having with our boys about how these situations play out in their real lives? What are we saying to them about personal responsibility and integrity? How do we teach and show them the value of our human relationships and the beauty of our intimate relationships? 
Parents, start your sex talks now. And don't forget to include a conversation about cellphones. 
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chiseler · 7 years ago
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REVENGE OF THE PEARL QUEEN
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Donald Richie’s assessment of her as “a star who consisted almost entirely of mammary glands” might have been rather fanciful. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that, like her Occidental counterparts Jane Russell and Brigitte Bardot, Michiko Maeda could certainly fill out a swimsuit. Her sinuous underwater scenes in Revenge of the Pearl Queen caused quite the sensation with Japanese viewers in 1956. Brazen, defiant, athletic, Maeda became the literal embodiment of a more assertive type of female sexuality that emerged in the postwar period. There were others who followed in her wake – figures such as Yoko Mihara, Masayo Banri and Hisako Tsukuba. Collectively referred to as the ‘nikutai-ha joyu’, or the ‘Flesh Group Actresses’, the prominent billing of these glamour girls who dared to bare more than the rest served as a promise of erotic allure on the posters of the films in which they appeared.
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Masayo Banri
Eroticism itself was hardly an alien concept to the Japanese, but before now, never had it been allowed to flourish in the cinema to such an extent. Indeed, vigilant Japanese censors of the prewar era took to snipping every instance of a kiss, every insinuation of physical intimacy, in imported titles, while the tipping point of Pearl Harbor saw Hollywood’s seditious brand of escapist fantasy completely banished from the nation’s screens along with, indeed, every other title produced in America.
Thus sexual liberation became part and parcel of the postwar democratization project steered by the Allied Occupation. “Japanese tend to do things sneakily. They should do things openly,” asserted David Conde of the Civil Information and Education Service entrusted with bringing Western values to the vanquished nation’s screens, and it was under Conde’s instigation that audiences were first afforded their first glimpse of an onscreen clinch in a local film in 1947, in a title called Phoenix directed by Keisuke Kinoshita.
Nudity was another matter, and it was a Hollywood director, albeit one of European origin whose career was on the skids, who first provided Japanese audiences with a legitimate excuse to see themselves as naked as nature intended, when in the early 1950s Josef von Sternberg headed to Japan to make his directorial swansong, Saga of Anatahan. If this first attempt at a US-Japanese co-production was an opportunity for the Americans to get to know their former enemy in a way they clearly hadn’t when Frank Capra assembled his Know Your Enemy: Japan propaganda pic in 1945, it was clear that the main focus of attention was on the female of the species.
The use of the word “species” seems apt here, as von Sternberg’s ethnological, near-documentary approach seems primarily used to justify the emphasis on his main subject, Akemi Negishi, in various states of undress. The film recounted, with a voiceover track written and narrated by von Sternberg himself, the purportedly true tale of a group of Japanese soldiers stranded on the South Pacific isle of the title seemingly oblivious to the fact that the war has ended. When they discover that one of the two others with whom they share their island is a woman, the sex-starved menfolk end up systematically murdering each another in desperation for her favors.
In a manner not dissimilar from the scenes of Polynesian maidens innocent cavorting au naturel around the prelapsarian island paradise of Murnau and Flaherty’s Tabu (1931), Anatahan adhered to the National Geographic-propagated wisdom of the age, that nudity was perfectly acceptable when rendered in anthropological terms and applied to a racial other. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Anatahan was rather more of a success upon its 1953 release in Japan than it ever was in the States, even as von Sternberg upped the flesh quotient in his 1958 recut of the film. It not only introduced an archetype into Japanese exploitation cinema, that of the “Queen Bee” whose sexuality ensures dominion over the men who swarm around her, but anticipated an entirely new endemic genre.
It is Revenge of the Pearl Queen that truly marked the sea change. A cut-price pulp offering from a studio, Shintoho, whose stock-in-trade was cut-price pulp offerings, it lifted the premise of von Sternberg’s story wholesale for its mid-section, integrating it within a tale of blackmail and corporate corruption in which Michiko Maeda’s role as witness to fraud sees her pitched overboard a cruise liner and washed up on a deserted isle full of horny marooned military men who go gung-ho for her. Maeda might not have been the first Japanese actress to bear her amazonian form for the camera, but she was the first to do so in a local production.
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Michiko Maeda
Maeda’s eventual rescue follows the scenes that proved the film’s unique selling point; that of her underwater excursions during which she accumulates the bounty of pearls that afford her the means to turn the tables on her persecutors back on the civilized Japanese mainland. The string of titles that followed adopted a similar formula, although this time the narratives revolved around a different kind of sub-aqueous screen siren more rooted in Japanese traditions – the ama, whose close-knit communities of diving girls who eke out a living scouring the ocean floor for shellfish were then still a notable feature of Japan’s coastal culture.
Both Maeda and director Toshio Shimura returned for the first in the short-lived cycle in ama films, The Girl Diver Trembles in Fear (1957), a film that boldly flaunts all the tropes of this peculiar submarine sub-genre: a village community of cuties with slender glistening wet bodies squeezed into a tight white tunics; sequences of them duck-diving in formation beneath the waves and heading to the ocean floor as if performers in an undersea ballet, the diaphanous fabric swirling with the currents to reveal surreptitious glimpses of bare bosoms; beachside catfights between rivals within the group; and a token plot that sees big-city gangsters mysterious surfacing in the village, lured by rumors of caches of sunken treasure.
Maeda’s moon-faced successor, Yoko Mihara, took over the next two entries, Man-Eating Girl Diver (1958) and Girl Divers at Spook Mansion (1959), in a series that began plunging increasingly ludicrous depths. The second of these saw her returning to her seaside roots after acquiring the sophisticated airs and graces of a short stint away Tokyo, lodging in an ancestral Gothic mansion home now reduced to one just further occupant, a girl diver whose brother failed to return from a fishing trip one dark, stormy night. Secret panels, sinister servants, creaking floorboards and black cats springing out of dark corners abound: there’s even hunchback loitering in the garden, while hushed voices talk of legendary treasure in an underwater cave and a mysterious black pearl. The final straw is an apparition that periodically pops up every time either of the comely residents ventures anywhere near a bed or a bathtub.
Shintoho’s final ama release, Ghost Story: Phantom Ama (1960), saw Mihara stepping aside to allow Masayo Banri, a supporting actress in the previous entries, to take centre stage, before the series sank with the bankruptcy of the studio in 1961. Not that the other studios hadn’t come up with their own equivalents in the meantime, with Nikkatsu’s Reef of the Girl Diver (1958) starring Hisako Tsukuba providing but one example.
None of these, it goes without saying, made it to Western shores. Nevertheless, in 1954, several years before the cycle had even begun, the Italian adventurer, photographer and anthropologist Fosco Maraini arrived in Japan to document their real-life inspiration. The result was the glossy photobook, Hekura: The Diving Girls’ Island (1960). Its smorgasbord of the more striking specimens from the village community where he set up camp, captured in front of his leering lens clad in little more than loin-cloths, came accompanied by such gushing prose descriptions as “mythical sea goddesses”, “Valkyries of the sea with mahogany-colored skins”, and “tall, assured, silent, earthenware-colored, diving girls in their twenties, bare-breasted like goddesses.”
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The few sequences of 8mm home-movie footage that Maraini was able to capture of the Hekura girls in action underwater showed up later in a bizarre Italian quasi-documentary, Violated Paradise (1963), based on his other great photographic treatment of the country, Meeting with Japan (1960), and directed by a man called Marion Gering, a Russian émigré who, paralleling von Sternberg, was at one point a fairly significant figure in Hollywood, making films during the 1930s with the likes of Tallulah Bankhead, George Raft, Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton and Cary Grant.
One might also surmise that Maraini would have played some role in drawing the attention of his compatriots Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi to the subject for Women of the World, the 1963 follow-up to their seminal shockumentary Mondo Cane (1962). With these majestic maidens from Japan’s hidden coastal enclaves now exposed to a Western world with an eye for Eastern exoticism, it comes as little surprise that they should later surface as one of the main attractions among James Bond’s Japanese escapades in You Only Live Twice (1967).
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Fosco Maraini
There’s no evidence to suggest that Maraini himself was to witness any of the locally-produced ama films. He does, nevertheless, reveal a telling early encounter in a coastal resort closer to civilization where the diving girls worked on cultivated oyster beds and lined up dutifully for day-trippers from Tokyo to take photos, wearing white cotton bathing costumes issued by their employers that did a better job of covering up their modesty than the bare essentials used on the remote island of Hekura. The account reinforces what the Shintoho films had already proven - that these tanned, vital, earthy women of the waves were as equal a source of fascination for the modern, metropolitan Japanese male as they were for the foreign thrill-seeker.
by Jasper Sharp
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caveartfair · 6 years ago
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Bangkok’s Inventive New Biennial Brings Contemporary Art to Buddhist Temples
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Yayoi Kusama, 14 Pumpkins, 2017. Courtesy of Bangkok Biennale.
Dr. Apinan Poshyananda takes great pains to point out the connections between the inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale and the high-profile event upon which it and dozens of similar happenings around the world are modelled. Indeed, it was during the vernissage of last year’s Venice Biennale that the chief executive and artistic director of the Bangkok Art Biennale announced the Thai event at the Westin Europa & Regina hotel, on the banks of the Grand Canal. It was also in Venice that he invited the first artist to participate, Marina Abramović. And, he points out, Bangkok has long been described as “the Venice of the East.”
But that’s a shabby title shared withat least 12 other cities, including Alleppey—close to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which kicks off in December—and both Suzhou and Wuzhen, two water towns less than two hours from Shanghai, where another biennale will begin in November. What makes the Bangkok Art Biennale worthwhile is not its fidelity to the model of Venice, but its uniquely Thai context—and that it’s happening at all, in a city where there’s so little government or institutional support for contemporary art.
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Anneè Olofsson, Say Hello Then Wave Goodbye, 2004. Courtesy of Bangkok Biennale.
The Bangkok Art Biennale, on view through February 3, 2019, presents artworks by 75 artists in 20 locations best reached by some combination of motorbike taxi, elevated rail, and ferry rides up and down the city’s great aorta, the Chao Phraya River. The spot with the highest concentration of works is the ailing Bangkok Art and Culture Center (BACC), a multi-story, museum-like space surrounded by shopping malls. During a speech at the opening of the biennale, Pawit Mahasarinand, director of the BACC, said, “As you’ve heard in the news, we’re experiencing some budget problems, but this place is still brimming with creativity.” Less than a month earlier, the BACC had reduced its opening hours due to budget constraints. He concluded his remarks with a plea: “Please support art, please help support BACC, and please send a message to everybody that art is important, and we need art in this city.”
For all the institution’s difficulties, the works at the BACC are engaging and diverse. On the eighth floor, eight artists enact solo performances, a method of artmaking that’s integral to creative scenes in Southeast Asia, where resources are often limited and regimes repressive. Abramović herself is not performing, but the Marina Abramović Institute is carrying out a kind of mass-meditation, fitting for what’s in many ways a Buddhist biennial. After locking away their smartphones and watches, it’s the audience who is made present through a series of mindfulness exercises and a heavy duty pair of 3M headphones.
More works are gathered on the seventh floor, including Anneè Olofsson’s video Say Hello Then Wave Goodbye (2004), which shows a frozen black-ink cast of the artist melting onto canvas. At first white with frost, the figure quickly turns black, an accelerated mummification, before ending, in Olofsson’s words, “like a fetus.” The Swedish artist was invited to participate in the Bangkok Art Biennale after taking part in a 2002 show Poshyananda curated called “Beyond Paradise,” which brought Scandinavian artists to Bangkok. Sixteen years later, Olofsson’s work is a good fit for this biennial’s related theme, “Beyond Bliss,” clearly marking out bliss’s limits—with cold, Scandinavian literalism—at birth and death.
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Kawita Vatanajyankur, Shuttle, 2018. Courtesy of Bangkok Biennale.
The Bangkok Art Biennale explores the theme of “Beyond Bliss” in very different venues where we might seek it out: shopping malls, five-star hotels, and some of the city’s most prominent temples. The theme at once alludes to a basic precept of Buddhism—to detach oneself from pleasure and pain as a means to transcend suffering—and the hedonism associated with visiting Thailand’s beaches, full moon parties, and red-light districts.
“The government would not talk about nocturnal tourism so much,” Poshyananda said, “but ‘Beyond Bliss’ touches both,” alluding to bliss as both a Buddhist precept and a tourism strategy. He mentions Chumpon Apisuk’s video I Have Dreams (2018), in which sex workers state their disparate ambitions, and Imhathai Suwatthanasilp’s No More Sewing Machine (2018), which incorporates the hair of sex workers, as things the government would never choose to show.
Giving voice to female sex workers is part of the Bangkok Art Biennale’s strong showing of feminist work, especially by women from Southeast Asia. Nge Lay created a large-scale sculpture of a vagina out of women’s longyi, the skirts worn by both men and women in her native Myanmar, and invites visitors to step through it. “Men in Myanmar are afraid to touch [women’s longyi], or even to see them hanging higher than the men’s longyi,” she says.
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Choi Jeong Hwa, Love Me Pink Pig, 2013. Courtesy of Bangkok Biennale.
And at the beautiful, crumbling East Asiatic Building, Thai-Australian artist Kawita Vatanajyankur makes herself into tools associated with female labor. Shot in a saturated, graphic style reminiscent of juice ads, the videos show her taking deep breaths before her head and upper torso are dipped into red dye, which colors white thread gathered on her head. It’s waterboarding as women’s work. Alongside her videos, Vatanajyankur will perform in person, making her body into a shuttle and throwing it back and forth through a purpose-built loom to create a weaving. Initially, a mattress was put in place to soften her fall, but “I asked her to remove the mattress,” Poshyananda said.
That such works may have Western analogs and precedents in feminist art doesn’t diminish their urgency in Asia, where sexism is omnipresent. Asked whether the Bangkok Art Biennale is a consciously feminist biennale, Poshyananda laughed and pointed to Aurèle Ricard’s LostDog Ma Long (2018), a giant, gold-leaf-coated canine sat outside the Mandarin Oriental hotel. “Well, that’s very male,” he said. Most of the oversized sculptures at the Bangkok Art Biennale are indeed by male artists—the sort of eye-catching, artistic equivalents of dick pics that demand you acknowledge how big they are. There’s another dog by Yoshitomo Nara, for instance, and Choi Jeong Hwa’s inflatables Love Me Pig (2013), Fruit Tree (2017), and Breathing Flower (2016). “It’s not intentional to have more or equal numbers of female artists,” Poshyananda said. “We had open calls. It happens that their works are so strong.”
Thailand nevertheless remains, in many ways, a socially conservative place. At the Jim Thompson House Museum, for instance—a tourist site—guides elect not to show the bathrooms. Feet are considered socially unclean. There’s a strong separation between the sacred and the profane, but art is often both. Yet the Bangkok Art Biennale chooses to spotlight contemporary art in holy, heritage sites like Wat Arun, Wat Pho, and Wat Prayurawongsawas Waraviharn (a.k.a. the Temple of the Iron Fence).
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Choi Jeong Hwa, Fruit Tree, 2017. Courtesy of Bangkok Biennale.
“We chose the most important temples in Bangkok, where 6,000 people go a day,” Poshyananda explained. “I’ve done a lot of talking with abbots, I tell you.” To allay their misgivings, he asked them to consider the art already in the temples. “That’s why Wat Pho and Wat Arun are so attractive—because of the art, okay, as well as religion and faith and all that. But the reclining Buddha is a masterpiece made by artisans.”
Of all the works installed in the Wats, the most cunning is Jitsing Somboon’s #Faithway (2018). Visiting the reclining Buddha, tourists are already given a sort of role to perform—rules of engagement, a route, and even attitudinal cues (“Beware of pickpockets!”). Somboon makes the experience more elaborate by providing costumes to visitors who choose to wear them: white coveralls—like something Supreme might design for freezing workers—that protect them from pickpockets and offer deep pockets in which to carry their shoes. Printed on the back in Thai, English, or Chinese is the word “faith.” Other highlights showing in the temples include Nino Sarabutra’s WHAT WILL WE LEAVE BEHIND? (2012)—a group of 125,000 porcelain skulls placed on the floor of the Temple of the Iron Fence’s corridors—and Sanitas Pradittasnee’s Across the Universe and Beyond (2018), a red acrylic box inspired by the red skies of Buddhist murals.
Already, the biennale is being trumpeted as a great success by young Thai artists. “We haven’t had this much artwork here before,” Vatanajyankur said. “The BACC is our only devoted art space. Now it’s everywhere. This is beyond my expectations.”
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Nino Sarabutra, WHAT WILL WE LEAVE BEHIND?, 2012.Courtesy of Bangkok Biennale.
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Sanitas Pradittasnee, Across the Universe and Beyond, 2018. Courtesy of Bangkok Biennale.
Gesturing towards vendors selling food and drink along Oriental Avenue, near the Mandarin Oriental, Poshyananda said his metric of success is when people, such as the vendors, know what the Bangkok Art Biennale is. “Maybe it means they can sell 100 more bowls of noodles because of the people who come visit, that’s fine,” he said. But beyond that, he hopes to reach people who wouldn’t otherwise encounter contemporary art. “My benchmark is how many people can enjoy art who don’t get a lot of chances to do that,” he added.
There’s a precariousness to an inaugural biennial. In a sense, there’s no such thing—it only becomes a biennial when the second event successfully takes place two years later. With limited government support, corporate sponsorship has been key. Thapana Sirivadhanabhakdi, the CEO of drinks giant ThaiBev, is, for example, the chairman and co-founder of the Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation. A major testament to Poshanandya’s achievements, ThaiBev and other key sponsors have all signed up for the next two editions—in 2020 and 2022—and even the abbots have indicated they’d like to be involved in future editions. “Oh yeah,” Poshanandya said. “They want some of our pieces.”
from Artsy News
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blogwonderwebsites · 6 years ago
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Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers
Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers http://www.nature-business.com/nature-debunking-5-more-viral-rumors-about-kavanaughs-accusers/
Nature
A week after internet rumors started circulating about Christine Blasey Ford, misinformation is still spreading about her and two other women.
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Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. CreditCreditAlex Brandon/Associated Press
Last week, after Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, of sexual assault, a torrent of false and misleading allegations about Dr. Blasey surfaced online, many of them originating on social media.
We debunked five of those claims. Now, more women have come forward with public accusations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh, including Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Judge Kavanaugh’s, and Julie Swetnick, who said she had observed the nominee at parties in the 1980s where women were verbally abused and “gang raped.” And viral rumors, hoaxes and distortions about Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers are still swirling around social media.
FIVE OTHER VIRAL RUMORS
Read a debunking
of additional misinformation about Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accusers.
Here are five of the most widely spread false and misleading allegations, along with explanations of how they went viral.
Claim: Ms. Ramirez has ties to the liberal megadonor George Soros.
Verdict: False.
This week, two distinct — but equally false — rumors spread about links between Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers and George Soros, the liberal billionaire and Democratic megadonor. (Mr. Soros makes frequent appearances in internet conspiracy theories.)
The first claim was that Ms. Ramirez, who lives in Colorado, had received a fellowship in 2013 from the Open Society Foundations, a philanthropic organization started by Mr. Soros.
In fact, a different Deborah Ramirez — a law professor at Northeastern University in Boston — received a grant from the organization.
The false claim began to pick up steam on conservative social media on Monday morning. John Fund, a columnist for National Review, tweeted that the “irony of this is just too great.” Mr. Fund subsequently apologized and issued a correction on Twitter.
The accusation also quickly appeared on r/the_donald, a pro-Trump forum on Reddit, the popular message board. It then spread to several right-wing media outlets. Big League Politics, a website founded by former Breitbart employees, published a story titled “BUSTED: Kavanaugh Second Accuser Was George Soros Open Society Fellow.” The article has since been deleted, and no correction was issued.
Image
CreditBigLeaguePolitics.com
Claim: Dr. Blasey was photographed with Mr. Soros at a public event.
Verdict: False.
On Tuesday, a photograph began circulating that purported to show Dr. Blasey posing with Mr. Soros.
Image
CreditTwitter
The woman in the photograph with Mr. Soros is Lyudmyla Kozlovska, a Ukranian human rights activist, according to Snopes, the fact-checking website.
Within hours, the mislabeled photo had been shared thousands of times. On Facebook, a page called “Concerned Citizens of America” shared it along with the hashtag #WWG1WGA, a signature mark of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy. The post had received 35,000 shares as of Tuesday.
Image
CreditFacebook
Also on Facebook, videos that falsely linked Dr. Blasey and Ms. Ramirez to Mr. Soros were shared inside private right-wing groups and viewed thousands more times.
Claim: Dr. Blasey’s lawyer was photographed with Hillary Clinton at a 2016 fund-raiser.
Verdict: False.
On Wednesday, the gossip website TMZ posted a story claiming that Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Blasey, was photographed with Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in August 2016.
Image
CreditTMZ
But the woman pictured with Ms. Clinton is Barbara Kinney, a photographer who traveled with Ms. Clinton during the campaign. In a phone interview on Wednesday, Ms. Kinney confirmed her identity in the photo, which was taken by Andrew Harnik for The Associated Press in Southampton, N.Y.
The falsely labeled photograph may have originated with a post on 8chan, a message board frequented by conspiracy theorists. According to Travis View, a researcher who studies online disinformation, the photograph appeared in a Tuesday post in /qresearch/, a QAnon discussion forum on 8chan, where it was linked to Ms. Katz.
Over the course of the day, the rumor spread to Twitter, where it was picked up by several prominent conservatives, including Erick Erickson, who tweeted it to his 200,000 followers. Mr. Erickson subsequently deleted the tweet.
TMZ eventually deleted the photograph and issued a correction that read: “Earlier, we posted a pic of Hillary with a woman who’d mistakenly been identified as Katz, but it wasn’t her.”
The debunked photograph continues to spread on social media. One Facebook post containing the photo has been shared 49,000 times.
Claim: The lawyer Michael Avenatti was duped by a 4chan hoax into falsely bringing sexual assault accusations against Judge Kavanaugh.
Verdict: Unfounded.
On Monday, Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who represents the adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, who is also known as Stormy Daniels, teased that he was preparing to bring new sexual assault accusations against Judge Kavanaugh on behalf of an unnamed client.
A day later, an anonymous post appeared on 4chan, the notorious internet message board. The post spun a tale about a prankster who had gotten Mr. Avenatti to pay $75,000 by offering him made-up claims of sexual assault, complete with lurid details meant to convince him that the allegations were real.
The rumors caught fire on Twitter, where prominent conservatives including Mr. Erickson and Mark Levin shared them with caveats.
Mr. Avenatti soon rebutted the rumors, calling them “completely false” and a “total fabrication.” On Wednesday, he brought forward accusations from Ms. Swetnick, who said Judge Kavanaugh had engaged in sexual misconduct at parties.
No evidence corroborating the 4chan prank rumors has emerged.
Claim: Dr. Blasey works for a pharmaceutical company that makes “abortion pills,” and she is bringing accusations against Judge Kavanaugh to preserve abortion rights and protect her firm’s profits.
Verdict: Mostly false.
One of the more elaborate misinformation campaigns against Dr. Blasey involves claims that she worked for a pharmaceutical company that made abortifacient drugs. Because of these ties, the claims say, she was financially motivated to keep Judge Kavanaugh — who abortion-rights advocates worry would reverse Roe v. Wade and end legalized abortion in the United States — off the Supreme Court.
This theory unspooled on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on right-wing websites like Gateway Pundit and World News Daily. Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion group, called Dr. Blasey an “abortion pimp.”
The claim revolves around Corcept Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical start-up where Dr. Blasey worked several years ago.
Conservative activists singled out a drug made by Corcept Therapueutics — Korlym, also known as mifepristone — that the activists said was an off-label “abortion pill.” Mike Adams, a far-right blogger who is known for his promotion of pseudoscientific conspiracy theories, wrote on the website Natural News that “Blasey is a paid researcher for an abortion pill company with a lot to lose if Kavanaugh is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Dr. Blasey did, in fact, work as the director of biostatistics for Corcept Therapeutics. And mifepristone can, in fact, be prescribed in combination with another drug, misoprostol, to terminate pregnancies.
But Korlym, the drug made by Corcept Therapeutics, was developed to treat Cushing’s syndrome, a rare, potentially deadly condition that causes the body to produce excess cortisol. It is not promoted for use in medically induced abortions, and it is far more expensive than the usual drugs used in those procedures.
In addition, there is no evidence that Dr. Blasey ever researched the drug’s use in terminating pregnancies, or has anything to gain financially from court rulings on abortions.
The unfounded theory about Dr. Blasey’s ties to an “abortion pill” provider is still traveling on Facebook. Gateway Pundit’s post has been shared nearly 20,000 times on Facebook, according to its website.
FiVE OTHER VIRAL RuMORS
Read a debunking
of additional misinformation about Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s a
Kevin Roose is a columnist for Business Day and a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. His column, “The Shift,” examines the intersection of technology, business, and culture. @kevinroose • Facebook
Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/kavanaugh-fact-check.html |
Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers, in 2018-09-27 00:42:26
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Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers
Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers http://www.nature-business.com/nature-debunking-5-more-viral-rumors-about-kavanaughs-accusers/
Nature
A week after internet rumors started circulating about Christine Blasey Ford, misinformation is still spreading about her and two other women.
Image
Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. CreditCreditAlex Brandon/Associated Press
Last week, after Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, of sexual assault, a torrent of false and misleading allegations about Dr. Blasey surfaced online, many of them originating on social media.
We debunked five of those claims. Now, more women have come forward with public accusations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh, including Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Judge Kavanaugh’s, and Julie Swetnick, who said she had observed the nominee at parties in the 1980s where women were verbally abused and “gang raped.” And viral rumors, hoaxes and distortions about Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers are still swirling around social media.
FIVE OTHER VIRAL RUMORS
Read a debunking
of additional misinformation about Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accusers.
Here are five of the most widely spread false and misleading allegations, along with explanations of how they went viral.
Claim: Ms. Ramirez has ties to the liberal megadonor George Soros.
Verdict: False.
This week, two distinct — but equally false — rumors spread about links between Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers and George Soros, the liberal billionaire and Democratic megadonor. (Mr. Soros makes frequent appearances in internet conspiracy theories.)
The first claim was that Ms. Ramirez, who lives in Colorado, had received a fellowship in 2013 from the Open Society Foundations, a philanthropic organization started by Mr. Soros.
In fact, a different Deborah Ramirez — a law professor at Northeastern University in Boston — received a grant from the organization.
The false claim began to pick up steam on conservative social media on Monday morning. John Fund, a columnist for National Review, tweeted that the “irony of this is just too great.” Mr. Fund subsequently apologized and issued a correction on Twitter.
The accusation also quickly appeared on r/the_donald, a pro-Trump forum on Reddit, the popular message board. It then spread to several right-wing media outlets. Big League Politics, a website founded by former Breitbart employees, published a story titled “BUSTED: Kavanaugh Second Accuser Was George Soros Open Society Fellow.” The article has since been deleted, and no correction was issued.
Image
CreditBigLeaguePolitics.com
Claim: Dr. Blasey was photographed with Mr. Soros at a public event.
Verdict: False.
On Tuesday, a photograph began circulating that purported to show Dr. Blasey posing with Mr. Soros.
Image
CreditTwitter
The woman in the photograph with Mr. Soros is Lyudmyla Kozlovska, a Ukranian human rights activist, according to Snopes, the fact-checking website.
Within hours, the mislabeled photo had been shared thousands of times. On Facebook, a page called “Concerned Citizens of America” shared it along with the hashtag #WWG1WGA, a signature mark of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy. The post had received 35,000 shares as of Tuesday.
Image
CreditFacebook
Also on Facebook, videos that falsely linked Dr. Blasey and Ms. Ramirez to Mr. Soros were shared inside private right-wing groups and viewed thousands more times.
Claim: Dr. Blasey’s lawyer was photographed with Hillary Clinton at a 2016 fund-raiser.
Verdict: False.
On Wednesday, the gossip website TMZ posted a story claiming that Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Blasey, was photographed with Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in August 2016.
Image
CreditTMZ
But the woman pictured with Ms. Clinton is Barbara Kinney, a photographer who traveled with Ms. Clinton during the campaign. In a phone interview on Wednesday, Ms. Kinney confirmed her identity in the photo, which was taken by Andrew Harnik for The Associated Press in Southampton, N.Y.
The falsely labeled photograph may have originated with a post on 8chan, a message board frequented by conspiracy theorists. According to Travis View, a researcher who studies online disinformation, the photograph appeared in a Tuesday post in /qresearch/, a QAnon discussion forum on 8chan, where it was linked to Ms. Katz.
Over the course of the day, the rumor spread to Twitter, where it was picked up by several prominent conservatives, including Erick Erickson, who tweeted it to his 200,000 followers. Mr. Erickson subsequently deleted the tweet.
TMZ eventually deleted the photograph and issued a correction that read: “Earlier, we posted a pic of Hillary with a woman who’d mistakenly been identified as Katz, but it wasn’t her.”
The debunked photograph continues to spread on social media. One Facebook post containing the photo has been shared 49,000 times.
Claim: The lawyer Michael Avenatti was duped by a 4chan hoax into falsely bringing sexual assault accusations against Judge Kavanaugh.
Verdict: Unfounded.
On Monday, Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who represents the adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, who is also known as Stormy Daniels, teased that he was preparing to bring new sexual assault accusations against Judge Kavanaugh on behalf of an unnamed client.
A day later, an anonymous post appeared on 4chan, the notorious internet message board. The post spun a tale about a prankster who had gotten Mr. Avenatti to pay $75,000 by offering him made-up claims of sexual assault, complete with lurid details meant to convince him that the allegations were real.
The rumors caught fire on Twitter, where prominent conservatives including Mr. Erickson and Mark Levin shared them with caveats.
Mr. Avenatti soon rebutted the rumors, calling them “completely false” and a “total fabrication.” On Wednesday, he brought forward accusations from Ms. Swetnick, who said Judge Kavanaugh had engaged in sexual misconduct at parties.
No evidence corroborating the 4chan prank rumors has emerged.
Claim: Dr. Blasey works for a pharmaceutical company that makes “abortion pills,” and she is bringing accusations against Judge Kavanaugh to preserve abortion rights and protect her firm’s profits.
Verdict: Mostly false.
One of the more elaborate misinformation campaigns against Dr. Blasey involves claims that she worked for a pharmaceutical company that made abortifacient drugs. Because of these ties, the claims say, she was financially motivated to keep Judge Kavanaugh — who abortion-rights advocates worry would reverse Roe v. Wade and end legalized abortion in the United States — off the Supreme Court.
This theory unspooled on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on right-wing websites like Gateway Pundit and World News Daily. Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion group, called Dr. Blasey an “abortion pimp.”
The claim revolves around Corcept Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical start-up where Dr. Blasey worked several years ago.
Conservative activists singled out a drug made by Corcept Therapueutics — Korlym, also known as mifepristone — that the activists said was an off-label “abortion pill.” Mike Adams, a far-right blogger who is known for his promotion of pseudoscientific conspiracy theories, wrote on the website Natural News that “Blasey is a paid researcher for an abortion pill company with a lot to lose if Kavanaugh is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Dr. Blasey did, in fact, work as the director of biostatistics for Corcept Therapeutics. And mifepristone can, in fact, be prescribed in combination with another drug, misoprostol, to terminate pregnancies.
But Korlym, the drug made by Corcept Therapeutics, was developed to treat Cushing’s syndrome, a rare, potentially deadly condition that causes the body to produce excess cortisol. It is not promoted for use in medically induced abortions, and it is far more expensive than the usual drugs used in those procedures.
In addition, there is no evidence that Dr. Blasey ever researched the drug’s use in terminating pregnancies, or has anything to gain financially from court rulings on abortions.
The unfounded theory about Dr. Blasey’s ties to an “abortion pill” provider is still traveling on Facebook. Gateway Pundit’s post has been shared nearly 20,000 times on Facebook, according to its website.
FiVE OTHER VIRAL RuMORS
Read a debunking
of additional misinformation about Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s a
Kevin Roose is a columnist for Business Day and a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. His column, “The Shift,” examines the intersection of technology, business, and culture. @kevinroose • Facebook
Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/kavanaugh-fact-check.html |
Nature Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers, in 2018-09-27 00:42:26
0 notes