#you know I mean as an upper middle class white American this was the first I’d heard of it

[clownboybebop]

having dutch ancestry is basically meaningless to me, except for every November 25th, when I stick it to those stupid old fucks by celebrating Suriname Independence Day

[gruesella]

I don't know when it became a common misconception that the Munsters are a bunch of sad conformists trying desperately to fit in bc they're ashamed of their monstrous nature while the Addams are not only aware of how different they are, they are proud of it. Which is really just Addams stans' way of going "neener neener, our fav is better than yours" but misses wholly that the entire joke of both shows was that neither family actually knew they freaked people out; both thought they were normal and kindly treated outsiders like friends. (tho the comics were more satirizing blueblood aristocrats and how creepy the rich are, a point they also miss.)

Under the cut for length and some possibly unpopular takes that need to be said about privilege.

Yes, including the Addams. Gomez as much in the very first episode of the series:

Truant Officer: Mr. Addams, surely you want your children to be like other children? Gomez: But they are!

Just as few people can actually explain how TAF is aware they're not normal, even less can tell me how the Munsters worry about fitting in. Especially because in my experience, people who drag the Munsters have not usually seen many of the episodes, making this claim even more confusing to me. At best I can only guess they mean that episode where everyone but Grandpa is excited to be named "America's Average Family", but that's more because they're hyped to be on a nationally recognized magazine than anything else. Who wouldn't be? There is no evidence the Munsters ever try to fit in with their white picket fence neighbors; they believe THEY are the white picket fence neighbors and do not understand why their friendliness and- in their eyes- harmless customs and hobbies bring out the rudeness in guests or neighbors. Being ordinary is not something they TRY to do; it's something they already think they are. That. Is. The. Joke! They're horror icons but want their kids to get a good education and have nice family dinners every evening! They SHOULD be disturbing and disgusting, but they're nice people with reasonable values!

But the humor in TAF comes from how confident they are that they are THE norm. They are the true Americans and assume everyone must think the way they do. This was and is an accurate attitude from the wealthy elite and even just financially well-off middle class families unaware of life outside their sheltered bubble. This doesn't make the Addams bad people btw, it just means they're naive (and in fairness, so are the Munsters, just for different reasons).

Related to that, I'm going to say something that a lot of people won't agree with but it's true. The Munsters do not "try to be normal" or are "ashamed" of their heritage; what they DO is try to assimilate. I think this is lost on many viewers but the Munsters are a working class immigrant family; frightening appearances aside, they do not meet the status quo. Millions of immigrants, since America was founded, have assimilated. Americans themselves will generally assimilate when they move. This is just a thing those living in a different culture do because it's not seen as correct or considerate to ignore cultural norms of the place you are staying in. More to the point, the Munsters very obviously represent what real life minorities went through in the very racist and xenophobic mid-20th century. They would try to balance their own culture while following what the majority (white, middle or upper class people) or adapt entirely to it... and STILL faced prejudice.

The part you won't like: the Addams meet the status quo FAR more than the Munsters. They are rich, white, straight, closer to their aristocratic status (the Munsters technically have nobility but seemingly left it behind when they immigrated, with Herman dismissing it outright as unimportant in the US), and above all, are normal-looking. Add that to their somewhat condescending pity (and Gomez' disgust) for Aunt Ophelia, who is the black sheep of the family, showing that they DO value some sense of normalcy; it's just different from an average person's. Even thinking the Addams were this edgy, rebellious goth family a lot of their fans think they are, they can afford to be quirky because of their privilege. It is not necessarily bold to "be yourself" when "yourself" is already closer to what society says you should be. I am not saying they don't do anything progressive, they are in ways of course; I'm saying this is a very tone-deaf, first-world outlook that takes for granted the fact that the Munsters as both foreigners and minorities and don't get the luxury of flaunting their MUCH MORE ATYPICAL appearances and culture to WASP America. To say they as a marginalized group are just sad conformists compared to the brave and self-loving Addams who are by contrast easier to swallow with their normal appearances and attractive wealth is... naive to say the least, and an offensive disregard to how privilege works IRL, at worst.

But it's not founded in any of the source material. In truth both families are happy the way they are; that's what makes them funny, because they enjoy abnormal things and don't see that this disturbs their neighbors and ultimately their odd ways aren't harming anyone (usually). IDK how this got lost on so many people's heads but I largely blame the fact that viewers (mainly millennials and zoomers) were weaned on the "I'm not like other girls"-y 1990s Addams remakes without ever seeing the Munsters, and as some of them have based their identity too much on the former and see the latter as a "rival" or "other", they assume the Munsters must operate on the opposite end of the scale, I guess? If that makes sense.

I personally think all of this just boils down to classism and (some) Addams fans- mainly those who are most familiar with the edgy 90s films- having this deep individuality complex which comes out not only in their resentful takes and spiteful jokes about the Munsters, but many other franchises and characters too. Like. there's a reason there's a million Addams memes on r/notlikeothergirls and maybe 2 of Lily. There's a reason most of their insults towards the Munsters are about how "trashy" and "poor" they are (NM that these are counts & countesses living in a freaking mansion in one of the richest states in America with 2 expensive custom made cars, ijbol) and much praise for TAF seems to come from how much cool stuff they have or their old family name. There is obviously a need with a good chunk of their fanbase for the characters they identify way too much with to be more special and cool than any others and I've said for awhile that some fans of the 90s version def have this rich, beautiful goth fantasy projected onto TAF, as seen quite grossly by the racist and body-shaming hate Luis Guzman received for daring to be a pudgy brown guy playing... a pudgy tanned guy.

And as someone who greatly enjoys deep dive analyses on seemingly simple fiction like these shows, I won't begrudge anyone for taking their fav fiction seriously... but if you're going to try to act like the Addams are a complex and philosophically deep franchise who did more for fiction than Munsters and then tell Munster fans "bro it's not that deep" when we point out the Addams' absurd socioeconomic/racial status protecting them from societal judgment or how it's much easier to digest nonconformit with when it's coming from a group who is already Have some perspective is all I am asking and stop being so "how very dare you" with angry blocking/downvoting when you face people who appreciate the Munsters as much as you appreciate the Addams. Like... I enjoy both but I am tired of seeing baseless criticism of the Munsters from people who never analyze TAF to that same degree and NO nuanced takes about either side, or being gaslit when I complain about that hate. (Yes, I've been told it's not a big deal and I am basically the real problem to shoot back against people who have harassed or bullied me or my moots for defending the show... seriously.)

Also, I'm putting this in the Addams' tag and I don't want to hear any griping about how I'm "tagging hate" from fans because I'm not; this is not hating them at all, this is a fandom problem with Addams fans that has gone on way too long and I want people to see it (and there is constantly negative stuff put in the Munsters' tags or spaces as well). If you're just gonna do what I said in the above paragraph, please DNI; I am venting but open to good-faith responses.

[beardedmrbean]

[Huey Zoomer Anon]

If "Male and pale is stale.” a phase going on in Hollywood is the phase “Brown with substance is nonsense” is going on as well?

Non white cultures, history, mythos and folklore have been the most accessible for accurate adaptations as it ever been for Hollywood to use

But what they still do? Primarily half ass adapted then or don’t use them at all

Like the usage of black characters in fantasy…Jesus fucking CHRIST, just say a African inspired kingdom based off say the Mali decided make larger trade routes with Europeans inspired fantasy kingdoms and said that a group of them decided to migrate to the euro kingdoms for a reason

Wait the left trade routes right?

Riiiiiiight?

Oh say do steampunk since…you know…it based of the First Era of the Modern Age (okay I need a better term) while black Americans didn’t have equal rights we was doing shit

Hmm mechanical dinosaurs (legal distinct enough for you know who do sue my ass. Company starts with a H), mechanical dragons, floating cities, blimps, flying ships

Sorry overthinking

But no substance, depth, and that good shit

Wait why you hate the audience? Y’all thought the certain idiots on tumblr and twitter and in the Bay Area represent how all modern audience

I mean they been trying to pander to me….but it didn’t work

Also being anti white and man…your main consumer bases…

Are they only hired sheltered af upper middle class people as advisors?

If "Male and pale is stale.” a phase going on in Hollywood is the phase “Brown with substance is nonsense” is going on as well? Non white cultures, history, mythos and folklore have been the most accessible for accurate adaptations as it ever been for Hollywood to use But what they still do? Primarily half ass adapted then or don’t use them at all

You may be onto something there with the nonsense bit, really wish that some good adaptations of different African folklore could be made

Like the usage of black characters in fantasy…Jesus fucking CHRIST, just say a African inspired kingdom based off say the Mali decided make larger trade routes with Europeans inspired fantasy kingdoms and said that a group of them decided to migrate to the euro kingdoms for a reason

That could actually work, group migrated to a empty area in they caucuses or something, historical fiction/fantasy and all.

Wait the left trade routes right?

That's capitalism and therefore bad, wishes and fairy dust are the way to go there.

Oh say do steampunk since…you know…it based of the First Era of the Modern Age (okay I need a better term) while black Americans didn’t have equal rights we was doing shit

Mid industrial revolution works.

Hmm mechanical dinosaurs (legal distinct enough for you know who do sue my ass. Company starts with a H), mechanical dragons, floating cities, blimps, flying ships Sorry overthinking But no substance, depth, and that good shit

Not sure which company, but that's ok keeping things vague is fun at times.

Wait why you hate the audience? Y’all thought the certain idiots on tumblr and twitter and in the Bay Area represent how all modern audience

Honestly this is one of the big issues with 'influencer' culture, especially with folks in marketing that don't understand the concept of the hate follow.

The whole Morbious thing really highlighted how clueless they are and how easy it is to manipulate things like that.

I mean they been trying to pander to me….but it didn’t work Also being anti white and man…your main consumer bases…

Wild to see a company that wants to make money purposely alienating their largest consumer base like they have been, please market to whomever you like but if you'd like to keep customers insulting them is a bad way to do that.

Are they only hired sheltered af upper middle class people as advisors?

Chronically online millennials and zoomers who are in denial about being chronically online would be my guess.

[venusstadt]

Introduction

Hi, and welcome to Venusstadt. I’m Jiana, and this is the final part of a two-part series on globalism and its aesthetics throughout the 90s. Today, I’m discussing 90s globalist conceptions of the future, the most popular of which is definitely Y2K.

In the first part—which I HIGHLY recommend watching—I explained what globalism is and how the interconnectedness from new tech AND the sense of being at the ‘end of history’ led to the emergence of various aesthetics as people looked back at the history of humanity and looked forward to a new age.

During my analysis of these aesthetics I also spoke about cultural appropriation and exchange, as well as how white supremacists appropriated neoclassical aesthetics to be racist towards everyone else and establish themselves as “superior,” “civilized,” or “modern,” which is the perfect segue for this adjacent context I’m about to give.

Minimalism: A Brief Interlude

So, 90s minimalism!

Minimalism was not influenced by globalism by any discernible means, save for those minimalisms that were imported predominantly from Japanese culture and based on Buddhism as a part of the New Age movement and how it trickled into general 90s design philosophies.

Elly Parson of Refinery29 mentions that in the 90s, minimalism was more prominent in high-design spaces like rich people’s homes, hotels, storefronts, and luxury fashion rather than the interiors and wardrobes of the average person (Parson). Still, it’s significant, because when we think of minimalism, we harken back to the 90s since it was a response to maximalism in the 80s as I mentioned at the beginning of the last part.

Minimalism has come back around in fashion and design more recently, which has prompted a look at its origins. So I’m sure a lot of you by now know about Adolf Loos, a prominent modernist architect who is also associated with minimalism, who saw excess ornamentation as “savagery” and saw European modernism as “the ultimate answer to all aesthetic problems” (Chayka). Naturally, because of this, any time people give a cultural or sociological critique of minimalism, his name is involved.

Now, associating any ornamentation with the Other is racist, as are the loaded terms “savage” and “degenerate,” which he uses in his infamous essay Ornamentation and Crime (Loos 20).

In his essay, he also distinguishes art like rugs from things like buildings and furniture, which he views as needing to be firmly utilitarian (Loos 24). To him, any decoration of utilitarian things was a sign of cultural devolution and savagery (20). He advocated for more minimal aesthetics in order to reach a timeless look that could survive as civilization marched on (22).

Much of the language used is eugenics-speak, and goes back to the notion of social degradation that was VERY popular in the early 20th century. This was the idea that non-white people and poor white people could spread their “defectiveness” and therefore needed to be kept from mixing their genes with middle- and upper-class Western white folks for the good of civilization (Eugenics Archive Canada, “Degeneracy”).

From this we also get the concept of cultural degradation, which is basically the same thing, except that it hyper focused on the idea that non-Western and lower-class culture could lead to “lowered standards of education and failures of taste-inculcating institutions,” and, again, the demise of Western culture (Wampole).

So, to further summarize, there was a fear among Western white society that the art, music, and aesthetics of people of color and the poor, aka the cultures of the “Other,” could lead to societal and cultural regression, and thus annihilate Western civilization. And these fears were used to create laws and initiatives to both murder the said “Other” and eradicate their cultures—think, for instance, forced sterilization, the American Indian boarding schools, Henry Ford’s anti-Jazz initiatives, Tom Buchanan’s speech in the Great Gatsby, the Nazis entire existence, every US culture war spat since like, the 60s—you get the picture. 

Now, none of this is to say that people are weird eugenicists for liking modernist or minimalist aesthetics. I’m just using this to highlight rhetorics of modernity. As we saw prior, anything ornate or “other” is of the past, while what is “Western” is viewed as progressive, timeless, and more utilitarian.

“Progressive” and “timeless” are the keywords as I move into explaining the next set of aesthetics, which I’m calling the aesthetics of eternity, because that sounds really cool.

Eternity & Anxiety

So in the 90s, the rapidly approaching year 2000 was a big deal, for obvious reasons. A new millennium was on the horizon, which only happens like, once every a thousand years.

Plus it was the end of a technologically accelerated century. The mid-1900s started with inventions like the radio, the car, and the airplane; and by the early- to mid-1990s, people had gotten used to personal computers a la Apple and Microsoft, home video systems, and video game consoles like Atari and Gameboy, on top of previous inventions like photography and film, space rockets, and much, much more (Woollaston).

With all that in mind, people were looking forward to the future, while also being slightly afraid of it, as we see with the Y2K crisis (Wade). This excitement and fear appeared in the future-inspired aesthetics.

Like the global village aesthetics, this section is also split up in two: minimalist eternities and global anxieties.

I use the term minimalist “eternities” for this first portion to bring back the prevalent idea that the less ornamentation or cultural markers there were in design, the more “timeless” it would be.

This is observable in the industrial and sartorial design of a lot of Y2K or the Y2K-esque, like Cyber Corporate or Gen-X Soft Club. These designs are “clean.” They cannot be tied to a specific culture or time-period; it’s like they exist in this vacuous, liminal space. With Cyber Corporate specifically, CARI co-founder Evan Collins notes that it “seemed to be the go-to style to appear contemporary, especially with companies in industries associated with booming fields of the era” (Collins, “Cyber/Gen-X Corporate). And what’s most striking about these images is that they were contemporary and futuristic back then and STILL feel exciting and futuristic now, because of that minimalism.

As you can see, this is intentionally antithetical to the globalist aesthetics, which, because of their multicultural influence, were considered to be of the past.

But obviously the multicultural influence did not disappear altogether. In fact, it in some ways meshed with the futuristic aesthetics. This is especially true when it comes to East Asian cultures, specifically that of Japan.

So, like I said in part one, Western upper- and upper-middle folks were living large in the 1980s (White).

But Japan was also experiencing an economic upswing thanks to their export of tech and cars (White). And, of course, any time a non-Western country starts to have a bit of success, the West gets a bit uneasy. In 1985, Thomas White wrote in the New York Times:

“40 years after the end of World War II, the Japanese are on the move again in one of history’s most brilliant commercial offensives, as they go about dismantling American industry” (White).

Basically, White feared that American economic dominance would be thwarted by Japan due to how much America was importing as opposed to exporting, as well as the rise of companies like Toyota, Sony, Hitachi, Honda, and others (White). These imports especially spelled trouble for the American car industry, which was utterly gutted as people stopped preferring American cars (White).

There was also a fear that Japan’s steady rise would uplift other Asian markets (White). As White states: “Behind Japan (‘the big dragon’ some call it) march the ‘four little dragons’ (Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore) following in its path. And behind loom China and India, desperate as they are to raise their standards of living—at the expense of American standards, if necessary” (White).

The invocation of the dragon is unmistakably Orientalist of course, which brings us to techno-orientalism. With the rise of globalization and interconnectedness that came from it and the aforementioned “need for a new ideology to justify America’s hegemonic status at the end of the Cold War” (Harris) came this new breed of orientalism that was being leveled against Japan and other countries.

The term “techno-orientalism” was first coined by David Morley and Kevin Robins, a portmanteau of technology and Orientalism, which denotes the stereotypical lens by which the West often views the East (Harris). Unlike traditional (Said’s) Orientalism, which relies on stereotypes of the past, techno-orientalism relies on constructions of a future in which the East accomplishes supremacy through technological might (Harris) despite being non-Western and thus “of the past” and “degenerate”. As explained further:

“The techno- of techno-orientalism, then, comes to signal Orientalism’s relationship to economic globalization and to a form of temporal asymmetry: an Asian-ness characterized by the juxtaposition of cultural retrograde with technical hyper-advancement” (Harris).

Now any sort of perceived cultural dominance from a place that is non-Western, as we saw previously in the section about social and cultural degradation, always gives Western countries anxiety. For techno-orientalism, the level of this anxiety honestly depends on where you look, and sometimes it can’t really be described as anxiety but more of your run-of-the-mill cultural appropriation to seem hip or on-trend.

On the actual anxiety side, techno-orientalism is most associated with the cyberpunk genre, which features both technological advancement but is often set in a dystopian world. Now this genre obv. originated in the 80s and not the 90s like some of these other aesthetics, but it remained a prominent mainstay of the 90s and continued into the early 2000s.

For more specific film and storytelling examples of this, see the Japan Takes Over the World page on TV Tropes because I’d really be here all day if I went through all of them. Harris mentions multiple visual hallmarks of the genre, but in this case, these visuals are all unified by being a mix of Asian aesthetics and high-tech milieus. And I don’t believe this was incorporated into general industrial or architectural design, but it was a present in marketing and, to a certain degree, music.

2001: The Global Bubble Bursts

So, what happened to these aesthetics?

Well, like any trend, they faded away thanks to a change in the outside factors that brought them into the spotlight.

For one, in March 2000, the Dot-com bubble burst (Salvucci). This leads to large online companies (like Amazon) losing some of their values and causes smaller online companies to shut down, as well as a slight recession in the early 2000s (Salvucci). I don’t want to go into business and economic jargon so I won’t go too far into this, but think of the Dot-com bubble popping as the 2000s equivalent of the cryptocurrency crash we just had with the collapse of Terra-Luna and FTX. This puts a damper on the whole tech innovation schtick that people had going in the 1990s.

Then the attack on the World Trade Center occurs, which, on top of mounting criticism against globalism in the 90s thanks to the loss of industrial jobs in the U.S., absolutely killed the utopian globalist dream (Schwartz).

These events burst the 90s “cultural bubble” (Williams), and lead many to look back on the decade as frivolous and void of American cultural values.

Writing for the New York Times in November 2001, John Schwartz declared that:

“… the country is experiencing a shift away from the libertarian, individualistic values that were expressed in the celebration of the New Economy and toward more old-fashioned values in the wake of the terrorist attacks” (Schwartz).

This was a direct dig at Gen X, since the 1990s was powered by Gen X’s progressive, entrepreneurial spirits (Gross). We know these individualist values didn’t disappear with 9/11—after all, America was founded on such individualist values, and they would power the rampant Islamophobic sentiment in the wake of the attacks. The ‘libertarian, individualist values’ in question were that, as we know from the original 1990s article that defined them, Gen X were less loyal to specific corporations than they were to the idea that they could job hop and earn more money to support themselves.

Also, not that I’m some tech warrior or anything, but there’s a lot of reference in Schwartz’ article to the leaders of the Dot-com boom being ‘geeks’ and ‘whiz kids.’ Immature high school imagery, of course, but it also alludes to the idea that instead of these geeks winning at capitalism it should be the well-rounded, all-American kids—which, like everything in this video, is a coded concept.

Throughout the 90s, there was a growing nationalist movement in response to globalism, and the people involved were blaming immigration and undocumented immigrants for lost factory jobs that were being outsourced to other countries (Chatzky, McBride, and Sergie). This, along with things like people of color and gay people having rights, was a major factor in the 90s culture wars, the rise in paleo-conservatism, and a desire to “reclaim the United States” that would lead to events like Ruby Ridge and Waco, and then Oklahoma City, and then Columbine, and all the issues we still have today.

After Sept. 11, this nationalist sentiment became more mainstream thanks to the War on Terror. Accordingly, the multicultural and techno-futurist aesthetics of the 90s faded away.

There’s a return of preppy style, which had not been popular since the 1980s—again, a conservative period. This time around the prep style is embodied by stores like Aeropostale and Abercrombie and Fitch, the latter of which relied on images of thin, conventionally attractive models, and all-American (read: white) marketing for its desirability factor (Klayman).

We do see more traditional Orientalist imagery peak in the mid-2000s and fade by the 2010s (Collins, “Millennium Orientalism – Eastern Exoticism”). I don’t know what to make of this: judging by my previous multicultural aesthetic analysis I would call it either some appropriative attempt at peace and anti-war sentiment or at worst super insensitive given that Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian people were being conflated with one another, hate crimed, and labeled terrorists while their cultural aesthetics were being used for funsies. We’d also see some techno-futurist themes in Frutiger Aero (though the techno part was more played down) in line with tech innovations like social media and the launch of the 1st generation iPhone in 2007, but this seems like a nostalgic late Gen-X/Millennial grasp at Y2K.

2020: A Global Re-emergence?

So obviously Y2K is back and has been back for years, though in its current iteration that term refers to a mix of original Y2K, McBling, and some late 2000s stuff we don’t even have a name for yet. The most obvious guess for why these came back is because of the ubiquity of social media websites since they’ve taken over the internet (and because they’ve allowed for such archiving that re-introduced everyone to such aesthetics), especially because of the pandemic.

Evan Collins says that for Global Village Coffeehouse at least, it never came back and never was remembered as part of the general 90s aesthetic. I too thought these global aesthetics would be dead and gone forever since we’re more aware of cultural appropriation nowadays, but someone on TikTok pointed out that now that the U.S. is looking a little not global superpower-ish and other countries and fashion capitals are emerging, there’s a rush of multiculturalism again, at least in the luxury space. So, that could be exciting.

With both aesthetics, I feel like we’re far more skeptical and more culturally aware. There’s not an utter faith in tech or a blithe willingness to borrow from other cultures like there was in the 90s. And though people criticize Gen Z for biting from past aesthetics (as they did with Gen X), I think this is just a side effect of all these cultural materials from the past being available thanks to the Internet and things like the Wayback Machine. As with Gen X, our generation’s main cultural marker is that the interconnectivity and speed we have at our fingertips enables us to run through past aesthetics almost as quickly as we find out about them—but that’s a topic for a future video!

Conclusion 

And that’s all I have for this video. I realized towards the end that this was just a big excuse to talk about globalism, but, again understanding culture is important to understanding design aesthetics, so I hope you all learned something from this video that could help you in that respect.

As always, if you enjoyed this video, give it a like and maybe even click the subscribe button below for more. My channel is still new and I’m testing things out, so any feedback would be appreciated. I can also be found on Twitter and Tumblr. Thanks for watching!

Sources

Chatzky, Andrew, James McBride, and Mohammed Aly Sergie. “NAFTA and the USMCA: Weighing the Impact of North American Trade.” Council on Foreign Relations, 1 July 2020, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/naftas-economic-impact. Accessed 7 April 2023.    

Chayka, Kyle. “The North American Maximalism of Gigi Hadid’s and Drake’s Home Design.” The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/dept-of-design/the-north-american-maximalism-of-gigi-hadid-and-drakes-home-design. Accessed 6 April 2023. 

Collins, Evan. “Cyber/Gen-X Corporate.” Are.na, https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/cyber-gen-x-corporate. Accessed 7 April 2023.

Collins, Evan. “Millennium Orientalism – Eastern Exoticism.” Are.na, https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/millennium-orientalism-eastern-exoticism. Accessed 7 April 2023.  

Eugenics Archive Canada – Their website seems to be broken now, but here’s a link. http://eugenicsarchive.ca/

Gross, David M, and Sophronia Scott. “Proceeding With Caution.” Time, 16 July 1990, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,970634-9,00.html. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Harris, Elif. “Orientalism & Technology: A Primer on the Techno-Orientalism Debate.” Elif Notes, 15 March 2023, https://elifnotes.com/techno-orientalism/. Accessed 14 April 2023.

Klayman, Alison, creator. White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch. Second Nature, Aliklay Productions, Cinetic Media, and All3Media America, 2022. 

Loos, Adolf. “Adolf Loos: Ornamentation and Crime.” George Washington University, https://www2.gwu.edu/~art/Temporary_SL/177/pdfs/Loos.pdf. Accessd 6 April 2023. 

Parsons, Elly. “‘90s Interiors Were Eclectic, Fun, & Free. Now They’re Back.” Refinery29, 23 Sept. 2021, https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/90s-interiors-homeware-trend. Accessed 6 April 2023.

Salvucci, Jeremy. “What was the Dot-Com Bubble and Why Did It Burst?” The Street, 12 Jan. 2023, https://www.thestreet.com/dictionary/d/dot-com-bubble-and-burst. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Wade, Grace. “The Y2K Movement: Its History and Resurgence.” Stitch Fashion, 19 June 2018, https://www.stitchfashion.com/home//the-y2k-movement-its-history-and-resurgence. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Wampole, Christy. “Can Culture Degenerate?” Aeon, 5 Aug. 2021, https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-cultural-degeneration-has-an-unsavoury-pedigree. Accessed 6 April 2023.

White, Thomas. “The Danger from Japan.” The New York Times Magazine, 28 July 1985, https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/28/magazine/the-danger-from-japan.html. Accessed 14 April 2023. 

Williams, Alex. “2001: When the Internet Was, Um, Over?” New York Times, 8 Oct. 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/style/dot-com-crash-of-2000.html. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Woollaston, Victoria. “The Best 1980s Gadgets that Defined a Decade.” Pocket-Lint, 20 Feb. 2023, https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/147958-12-best-1980s-gadgets-that-defined-a-decade/. Accessed 9 May 2023. 

[distracteddaintydemon]

[ID 1: 3 images with the caption: We need this version of frozen!! in all caps. The first image is elsa from frozen with a straight bob cut, chain, sleeveless white top, and a denim jacket. The second image shows Anna with space buns with 2 strands of hair pulled out, a choker, and a spaghetti strap dark blue dress. The third image shows Kristoff with a short haircut, a trimmed beard and mustache, and a white tshirt.

ID 2: A reply by @socte-blue: how did they white wash white people

ID 3: A reply by @reblog-house: its just hit me why the phrase "how did they whitewash white people" works. It works because americanisation isnt noticed for what it is and it's instead just described as whitewashing. This is someone taking non-american white characters and making them fit the pinnacle of _american_ whiteness, stripping them of their culture just to fit american subcultures and fashions. It _feels_ like whitewashing because it rids them of their culture and heritage to fit american molds.

ID 4: Screenshot of tags reading: #^This #really it's fascinating and a bit unsettling how American assimilation means cultural erasure #so much distinctiveness gets lost #which i think is important to point out when talking about 'whiteness' #especially when certain people invoke 'white culture' or 'white history' #since there is literally no such thing #and they know it - it's why they try to be sound smarter and say things like 'western culture' #rather than what they really mean #which is a very certain type of white upper-middle class protestant #Whiteness is a political label that can arbitrarily be applied or revoked to a person or group of people #I can for sure tell you there is a nasty undercurrent of old-world racism that is still persistent even today in America #such as against citizens of Italian - Russian - Polish or Irish descent #all people who were traditionally poor peasant immigrants who practiced a type of Christianity that wasn't protestant #i.e. catholic and Orthodox #(denominations that are to this day considered in evangelical Christianity as "false" faiths - the "wrong" kind of christian) #we are really not that many steps removed from the ethnic and classist European racism of our grandparents #and ir world be so so easily for those in power to change the rules again - in order the shrink the circle of privilege #and its material benefits to fewer people #Race #Whiteness #Americanism #American Identity #Assimilation #Conformity #Cultural Erasure #Frozen

End ID]

My friend blocked me because I wouldn’t stop sending him this picture

[yinlotus]

(original ask was mine) hi i am so sorry I did not mean to get you dragged into the discourse...i really just did want to complain for a minute about the US news cycle, and the fires/smoke hit especially close to home, and i thought you had made some good points so i sent in the ask. (also as an american i felt like i could critique it bc its my country)

I thought your answer was really well thought out like yes we both agree about it being extremely important to help canada & everywhere else that's on fire but you're right, that doesn't mean that people in nyc philly dc boston toronto montreal etc and all over the entire eastern coast of n.america aren't suffering too. my grandma has copd so i know that bad air quality can really be dangerous, especially for vulnerable people or those who cannot stay inside or stay home to work.

anyway again i'm very sorry i liked your answer to my ask and i hope you're not feeling bad about this

Hi Anon!

Aww thank you, but don't worry you don't have to apologize for sending in the ask. They commented on my other post as well so they would've done it regardless. It was annoying sure (my interactions with the other person, not your ask) but it's not worth anymore effort thinking about it.

I liked hearing your critique and thoughts! Heavens know I have plenty about this country that I want to critique. Though, I admit I'm usually more receptive to other Americans criticizing the US than others. From other people it usually tends to sound like "those stupid, white, rich ableist americans always causing problems and ignoring the rest of us" when that doesn’t portray the vast others that live here especially bipoc, disabled people, and anyone not upper middle class or above.

Like you, some of this hit close to home. I used to live in the areas affected more intensely and I have asthma bad enough to need a daily inhaler in addition to the one for emergencies. So, having seen posts completely negating that people would suffer from the air quality and that they should suck it up because Canada is doing worse, struck a nerve with me.

Thank you for asking in the first place! Don't feel afraid to send anything else because of what happened, it wasn't a big deal. 🩵

[multimediablogtori]

Black-Ish Analysis

1. What is the subject of your film, program, or internet/social media selection? Provide a brief summary, describing your selection and how it relates to our course topics, readings, and screenings. 

The tv show Black-ish highlights an upper class black family, their lives, and how they deal with social, personal, and cultural challenges. One of the main characters, Dre, struggles with his black identity, as well as upbringing his family, because he is in the middle of a white neighborhood.  This relates to cultural identity because it follows how he is working to define himself, despite the challenges that come with the world and culture around him, that isn’t necessarily his own.

2. Referring to related and appropriate readings and screenings from the course, describe how your selection represents racial and ethnic identities (and if applicable, intersectionality). In what ways does your selection for each of the journal entries generate a conversation regarding race, ethnicity, and cultural diversity? Include citations! 

Dre tries to create a sense of ethnic identity for his family, in hopes that it will allow them to embrace their background.  They talk about how the parents' childhood was much different than their childrens because of the certain area they are being brought up in. After doing some research about the writer of the show, Kenya Barris, he talks about how it is important to highlight the experiences of Black families in America, as well as discuss the differences in culture between families of different races, as well as in this environment of a predominantly white neighborhood. He talks about how it is important to know that every Black person doesn’t align with certain stereotypes. (Williams, 2014). Hence the name of the show “Black-ish”.

“He knows that, dummy! Look, the boy grew up different from how you did. Just like you grew up different from how I did, and now he is traveling down a road you ain’t never been on before. You ought to be glad Junior has the opportunity to do it his way.” (Season 5, Ep 1). Pops talks about how growing up is different than how they did, and how they have more opportunities for growth based on living the “American Dream.”

3. How does your selection relate to the course readings, screenings and discussions? Reflect upon the representation and circulation of racial and ethnic identities in popular visual culture. Your reflections should be attentive to the intersectionalities of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic class and gender. 

This topic relates back to the first lesson we talked about in this course, and reading by Richard Dyer and the idea of what it means to be “white” and to identify with your race. Being “white” or studying “whiteness”  is a point of view, and Richard Dyer talks about “whiteness” as a sort of culture, and that we should consider whiteness as well as blackness in order to “make visible what is rendered invisible when viewed as the normative state of existence” (Dyer pg 302). In other words, all people need to try to put themselves in the shoes of other races and ethnicities in order to gather knowledge and understanding of the difficulties as well as experiences that occur from that point of view. This show is exactly that, where you have to think about what it means to be black, and how to identify yourself within a space where it isn’t necessarily easy to be brought back to your roots. 

4. Include images, video, audio, links or other media elements for your selection. Make sure you cite everything you use. 

Williams, B. (2014, August 29). 'Black-ish' Creator Kenya Barris Defines New Show  And Responds to Critics. Retrieved July 12, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/29/black-ish-kenya-barris-critics_n_5737966.html 

Fusco, & Wallis, B. (2003). Only skin deep : changing visions of the American self. International Center of Photography/Harry N. Abrams. Dyer, R. “On the Matter of Whiteness”

Barris, K. (Writer & Director). (2017, January 11). Gap Year (Season 5, Episode 1) [TV series episode]. In K. Barris, J. Groff, A. Anderson, E. B. Dobbins, L. Fishburne, and H. Sugland (Executive Producers), Black-ish. Wilmore Films; Artists First; Cinema Gypsy Productions; ABC Studios.

[piraytoro]

Okay, so I haven’t seen any posts (which doesn’t mean they don’t exist!) about racism towards Latine people in Supernatural. I think one post I saw might have mentioned Edgar? But the thing I want to talk about is the Pishtaco (which I know as the Ñakaq). The show called it the “Peruvian fat-sucker,” which is actually the first issue that I take with it. The first thing you need to know is that the Ñakaq are white men. The fact that they made the Ñakaq Latine people is incredibly messed up. Because the thing is that the legend comes from ACTUAL HISTORICAL WHITE COLONIZERS boiling the bodies of indigenous Peruvian people for fat to oil their guns and create a salve to treat their wounds. They literally stole life from Indigenous people (traditionally in Peru fat more than blood is considered a symbol of life—the negative associations of fatness are another WONDERFUL gift from the colonizers—plus they actually had to literally kill them to get it) and the conquistadors used that life force to take other Indigenous lives and to preserve their own lives.

Supernatural literally flips this narrative. Two Peruvian immigrants are shown to be sucking the fat out of wealthy white middle-upper class people. Instead of the conquistadors being parasites, now it is the Native Peruvian people. THEY LITERALLY MADE THEIR ONLY TWO PERUVIAN CHARACTERS (and some of their only Latine characters) P A R A S I T E S. That is so messed up. But even more messed up is that, in doing so, they flipped the script from “white people come to Peru to steal land, livelihoods, and lives from Native peoples” to “Peruvian people come to America to steal white lives and livelihoods.” Sound familiar? This flipping of the script is textbook colonialist rhetoric. And these two “Pishtacos” moved to the US to get AWAY from the Pishtacos back home who kill people, so that they can try to “help people” instead. (Because fat shaming is AWESOME, but that needs to be a different post.) They need to leave their homeland for America to find a “better way.” The implication being that the Peruvian people back in Peru are savages, and in order to stop being savage, you must become American (and buy into both capitalism and fat shaming, which—again—is not a concept endemic to Indigenous Andean peoples). And the woman who can “civilize” (THIS WORD IS LITERALLY USED IN THE EPISODE!) herself is co-owner of the business, while her brother who refuses to assimilate is reduced to a menial job that is literally coded as menial BOTH culturally and by Dean’s reaction to getting assigned that job himself. Hello assimilation narrative!

And then, of course, the Latina woman’s white husband calls her brother a freak (which means he obviously thinks on some level that she’s a freak as well). White boy literally threatens to deport(/kill???) the brother and tells him his sister WANTS HIM TO BE DEPORTED (after all, she is the one who demoted him for not assimilating well enough)! And she ultimately sells him out by putting her white husband over him even though the husband’s already dead! Because the Winchesters are the only people who are allowed to save their sibling-who-is-killing-people and have that be the right thing to do every. damn. time. Family loyalty is the most important thing if you’re white people, but if you’re not white, assimilation should trump everything else. And even then it’s not quite enough, because no matter how much you assimilate you will never actually be white. (Don’t ask me about my generational trauma wrt this lolol.) In Supernatural terms, even if you’re not a killer, you’re still a monster.

The whole thing just reinforces the idea that the very presence of Latine people in the US threatens white American livelihoods (again, traditionally in the Andes fat symbolizes life and health) and lives. Because of course all the clients are white. And overall it basically sends the message that Latine people can’t be successful business owners, or if they are it’s because they’re “cheating” somehow or doing something underhanded literally at the expense of white people. And the bros deport her at the end of the episode, thus signaling that even those Latine immigrants who give in to the pressure to assimilate and even put white people above their own families still don’t belong here and are dangerous because they’re “feeding off the system.” Because that’s the rub—to become “civilized,” you must not only become an American, but a WHITE American, which you can never do. And deporting her is framed as a mercy! Because they didn’t kill her! And the true monsters—the white people who try to enforce cultural assimilation and then reject any efforts as not enough—walk free. The Winchesters are once again protecting the white American way of life.

OH and also they named this episode “The Purge.” And it ends with the killing of one Latine person and the deportation of another. The only two Latine characters in the episode. YEAH.

[greatwyrmgold]

I think part of the problem is that people think of "oppressor" as a kind of person, instead of recognizing "oppression" as a thing people do.

Anyone can do white supremacy. White supremacists, white centrists, well-meaning white radicals, even people of color. A Klansman does white supremacy more and more consciously than most white people, and POC have fewer opportunities and less incentive to do racism than white people, but both of them can be assholes in ways that support white supremacy.

The same goes for misogyny, for ableism, for Islamophobia, for classism, for homophobia and transphobia and other queerphobias, for every form of bigotry. People aren't bigots, actions are bigoted.

But most people talk about bigotry like it's a character trait and not a thing people do. (I personally suspect that's because the terms of discussion are set by people who want to think that not actively thinking certain people are inferior for no good reason means they're Not Bigots, but that's neither here nor there.)

People talk about MLK Jr, they talk about judging people by their character and not their skin color, and contrast that ideal with klansmen who say people with skin colors darker than Pantone 475 are innately inferior. This framing claims that racists are people who make white supremacy a core part of their personality, that non-racists are just people who don't think about skin color when judging people, and there's no room for a gray zone between the two.

That's not just a few outliers, that's how most American media, parents, and teachers describe the Civil Rights movement to kids. And as long as people learn about bigotry that way, they're going to think about all forms of bigotry through that lens until someone teaches them differently.

But teaching them differently is uncomfortable. If they accept your premises, they need to consciously think about statements and actions and even inactions that they used to do thoughtlessly. They might even need to change their behavior, reject conveniences that now feel natural, or at least feel guilty about using their privilege. From the perspective of an upper-middle-class white dude, there is nothing to gain from changing their mind, and not changing their mind is easier in the first place.

This is a serious problem, one which needs to be overcome if we want to make significant progress fighting systemic injustice of any kind. I'll let you know if I think of a solution.

lot of people take the idea they might be an oppressor like it's some kind of curse or marks them or makes them fundamentally irredeemable.

this means whenever someone suggests they might have structural power over some group, rather than being normal about it and going "oh yeah i should be mindful of how i act so i don't abuse that," they take it as a personal attack, and either jump to defending themselves by denying it, or start lashing out.

this makes 99.99999% of all conversations on this website completely fucking unbearable.

[beardedmrbean]

[Huey Zoomer Anon]

Okay it got community noted but what this elitism

https://x.com/seamus_coughlin/status/1857629211537666253?s=46

“Only people with degree should vote!” What types of degrees? The running jokes about “college educated” people these days is how out of touch they are with the working class

“It seem affordable groceries is more important than women rights!” I remember people on tumblr pointed out the lack of wealth privilege discussion in sjws circles. No I don’t mean line trump vs me a Amazon warehouse worker

I mean more “Upper middle class woman with several college degrees living in a gated community and shitting on poor trailer white kids��

That what I been seeing from the woke

Also just because you have a college degree doesn’t mean you know everything

One thing I been having issues with Sjws when it comes to black struggles (minus my own community bs) I go “wait is your idea of black people based off your pop culture media consumption and sanitized textbooks?”

Oh my family was there during the civil rights movement and lord’s knows the full extent of how the Vietnam war effected my elders as my late grandmother couldn’t have memories of her brother who died in Vietnam because she was too young when he was drafted

The shit you learn in textbooks is a lot of marginalized people families histories wokesters

It like how people were shocked that black Americans were very weary about the Covid vaccines…..there something called pattern recognition

https://youtu.be/rX07mUHFO4s?si=dX-U6Ee1Q1Gk3E5T

I got out of the democratic cult, but idc if it Obama (actually he the first person I realize the wolf in sheep clothing metaphor), Hillary, or Harris

I can seen the devil beyond his new persona= the woke person

Okay it got community noted but what this elitism

It's an abuse tactic, they're trying to emotionally manipulate people that didn't vote the way they wanted them to.

Guessing they think that since it works on leftist types that it will work on not leftist types too. Personally I respond better to not being insulted.

“It seem affordable groceries is more important than women rights!” I remember people on tumblr pointed out the lack of wealth privilege discussion in sjws circles. No I don’t mean line trump vs me a Amazon warehouse worker

Immediate physical needs tend to take the lead, that's human nature. It's not affordable groceries it's being able to feed yourself and your family people are concerned with.

Insulting them for that isn't going to do you any favors in the future.

AOC did a thing where she asked her voters if they also voted for Trump and why, short version of the primary reasons I saw were 'you both care about working people' and 'I wanted something different and harris didn't offer that'

She seemed flummoxed, but the DNC would do well to read the responses and adjust their message accordingly in the future instead of sticking with the old standby of 'call them racist' or any other ist/phobic ect thing they've been running with.

I mean more “Upper middle class woman with several college degrees living in a gated community and shitting on poor trailer white kids” That what I been seeing from the woke Also just because you have a college degree doesn’t mean you know everything

Having that degree just means you have a easier time wrapping your bigotry and hate in fancy words that disguise what they're saying.

Funniest part is they still opt to do things like that tweet.

One thing I been having issues with Sjws when it comes to black struggles (minus my own community bs) I go “wait is your idea of black people based off your pop culture media consumption and sanitized textbooks?”

You already know the answer to that.

Oh my family was there during the civil rights movement and lord’s knows the full extent of how the Vietnam war effected my elders as my late grandmother couldn’t have memories of her brother who died in Vietnam because she was too young when he was drafted

Sadly that draft thing is not uncommon throughout history.

The shit you learn in textbooks is a lot of marginalized people families histories wokesters It like how people were shocked that black Americans were very weary about the Covid vaccines…..there something called pattern recognition

I wasn't surprised, raw numbers had white folks in the US being the peak group refusing or hesitant to get the covid shot, but by %of total population by racial demographic it was black Americans.

'oh how could they do that and refuse this thing that the government says is good for you?'

Tuskegee syphilis experiment ring a bell anyone?

Oh, I could have saved myself a moment if I'd just added that, lol.

I got out of the democratic cult, but idc if it Obama (actually he the first person I realize the wolf in sheep clothing metaphor), Hillary, or Harris I can seen the devil beyond his new persona= the woke person

Still a registered democrat because I never bothered to change to unaffiliated, not that it really matters since I get to vote for who I want to anyhow in pretty much anything but the primaries which are done by party here in CA and also fairly decided by the time they get here.

Both sides are ass, Vermin Supreme 2028!!!!!

[bloodbenderz]

humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3

[ofprevioustimes]

everyone who disagrees with me is a white upper class person? lmao i bet you’re from the united states and are barely a shade darker than ivory lmao. you reek of privilege.

enjoy trying to pronounce ‘vamxs a lx playa mis amigxs’ in your white millennial liberal hell you stupid cunt

I honestly don't know which part of this ask is funnier: thinking I'm from the US (probably learned from my comment that it's problematic to call it America, huh?), thinking I am white (like a Karen would be), a liberal, or assuming that being latina means I'm hispanic, which is a dumb as hell assumption, considering that I'm brazilian and my mother language is portuguese.

It does sound like my comment hit home though, bc honestly who else but an upper-middle class first world white girl would waste time with these asks? Here in the real world we have better things to do, Karen.

But you can have a picture of my beautiful, south-american, cinnamon tinted ass, just for you to kiss! BESOS

[gordvendomewhore]

I wanted... to point something out to you about the 'who would vote for trump post'-

Parker is an Asian American-

He's like, one of the ONLY asian kids in school.

hi anon!! thank you for leaving an “ask” (in quotations since you’re not really asking me something lol)!!

(for reference, this is the post anon is referring to)

i wanna say now that this post is meant to be read lightheartedly and that it is written with no malice at all (/gen)!! however, i am about to tear you a new hole

first of all, i am asian LMAOOO first gen vietnamese, baybee 😼🇻🇳

not very obvious since a tumblr blog for a rockstar game isn’t exactly somewhere where you would post about your personal life, but yes i am asian and so i know what it’s like to be asian american.

second of all, parker is not confirmed ANYWHERE to be canonically asian. i headcanon him as asian, a lot of people do!! but the only thing we have to go off of are his straight black hair and his pale skin, features associated with east asia.

but when you compare parker to characters that are confirmed asian, angie ng and mr. oh, there’s notable differences to take note of:

angie and mr. oh have explicitly asian surnames (which hey! no big deal, surname doesn’t always indicate ethnicity)

angie and mr. oh are both voiced by asian voice actors; parker is not

angie and mr. oh’s faces are modeled with features that are distinctively asian; parker lacks that

now, none of that really means anything, because for all we know parker could STILL be asian. hell, i’ll go to my fucking GRAVE saying that he’s asian bc god knows this game needs the representation, but i argue against it in this situation because i know how to distinguish canon from fanon.

and frankly? ethnicity does not change the points i made in that post lmao.

parker is naive and blatantly unaware of what is going on in the world around him lmao. he’s a prep: we can assume he’s at LEAST upper middle class, and so he’s grown up comfortably without having to worry about things like that. he’s influenced by people like DERBY HARRINGTON and listening to his dialogue, it’s obvious his parents aren’t feeding him the most progressive ideologies either.

asian or white or mixed, being a person of color does not automatically indicate that someone is not bigoted. often it does, but with parker it would not given the nature of his character. either way, i know a lot of asian people who LOVE trump.

but in the long run, this really doesn’t matter lmaoooo think what you want anon!! /lh /gen

if you want to argue that he’s asian and wouldn’t ever vote for that walking turd, argue it to your heart’s content. this is just my view on it all as someone who loves bully, loves the preps, loves parker, and is also a politically and socially aware asian american.

if you read all this…thank you LMAO have a nice day yall

[butcharyastark]

like yeah. jeff bezos is worst of the worst and so are his ilk, and literally none of it matters if they arent stopped wholescale from ruining the planet and killing everyone in the process, but some of the ""leftists"" on here legit talk as if classism isn't a whole separate thing from capitalism on its own. as if it hasnt always existed whether or not capitalism exists--and not to be cynical, but probably always will still exist.

and i know why lmao its because anybody who isnt a ceo of a company wants to point fingers so they can avoid the accountability for their own privilege. but like. you are capable of upholding capitalism and clasissm. i dont care if you hate 9-5 work culture and are always exhausted and want to start a revolution, because if you arent poor, guess what? you have class privilege. it doesnt make capitalism suck less for you, but--here is the main thing--you are not the target.

like even as a poor person myself, i have immense privilege compared to others. my whiteness (a class in itself, post-colonialism) gives me access to resources and class mobility that poor poc simply do not have. being a white american means that even in a worst case scenario, i will not be among the first groups suffering from the planet wide environmental and community devastation--that's black and brown ppl in the global south. i am lucky enough to have a house, and to usually have food, which immediately puts me financially ahead of a significant portion of poor ppl in my own community.

and some ppl on this website who are upper middle and upper class assholes will not even fucking acknowledge that classism as an oppression systems exists regardless of capitalism, and that they have a hand in it.

well, guess what--if you don't acknowledge it, there is no way any of the real big targets and perpetrators of climate change and capitalistic oppression are ever going to be stopped. if you dont have actually solidarity and keep leveraging ur own ability to uphold the system against ppl with less privilege than you.

[friendoftheelves]

People, what is somethings you wish writers knew about your culture, I'll start (I'm English):

If you say British-English I will riot. It's standard English, American English is just the most commonly spoken version of English, being the dominant culture

Nobody cares about sports at Secondary school, I didn't realise my school had sports teams until like year 11 when I saw them leaving and it was just a casual observation

Also Primary school = reception to year 6 or ages 4 to 11, Secondary school = years 7 to 11 or ages 11 to 16, Sixth Form (attached to a secondary school) and college (independent from a secondary school but otherwise same thing) = 16 to 18. Primary school to Secondary school is compulsory, after that you have to attend some form of further education whether that be an apprenticeship or sixth form/college is up to you. It is common to have a compulsory uniform for secondary school and less common for both primary school and sixth form/college. Primary school and sixth form/college uniforms are noteworthy whereas a lack of compulsory uniform in secondary school is noteworthy

American culture is the dominant one, we have watched and read a lot of American media

If you're poor, you live in a council flat and probably have free school meals, "trailer trash" isn't really a thing because trailers just aren't a common occurrence, the only group I can think of that commonly lives in "trailers" is 'gypsy' who are their own community and live in motorhomes. Discrimination against them is common but not in your face, which I will explain in a bit because that is its own point

People care a lot about both rugby and football and if you call it soccer and act all superior about you will make a lot of people mad because British football officially came first and a lot of languages call it something that sounds very close to football in their language and American football is closer to rugby in how it looks to us so it is a very sore point

Also, in case you haven't gathered, Britain is subtly anti-American we had an empire and we are bitter we lost it so seeing America get to where we were is something Britain does not react well to

British culture is all about pretending everything so normal and subduing, ignoring and otherwise refusing to acknowledge what strays from that "normal" so unless we are forced to openly acknowledge it we will not and then we will passive aggressively snipe at it. American culture is all about being in your face, British culture is all about pretending we don't see what's wrong. We refuse to acknowledge we even had an empire

Class is a big deal. The elites in our culture have historically been their own one and this is still seen today. Class divide is what defines us. We have things like the house of commons and the house of lords. Rather than the rich ending up in positions of power due to society falling to prevent their privilege, British culture and actively encourages elite power. There is still discrimination but because of the importance of class divide and the British refusal to acknowledge our own faults, it presents differently. Race is seen as it's own class below working class and there is discrimination between the white classes. The working class are seen as beneath the rich and the rich are seen as 'upperclass tw**s'. The middle class are then seen as traitors and having abandoned the working class because the elite government has purposefully drafted policies to ensure that happens

Also,all of the above applies to English culture. There are three countries in Great Britain and 4 countries in the UK. England, Wales, Scotland and North Ireland and the divide between these countries is clear. Scotland actively hates England, Wales passive aggressively hates us and Ireland is a mess we created (I would suggest waiting for someone who is Irish to explain that because I don't know enough about it and it is an incredibly complicated topic which plays a significant role in politics)

Also we dislike the French, Britain and France are rivals because we have been fighting on and off for centuries but the French are still seen as equals. We dislike them but we will fight alongside them if if comes to it

Also accents are important, because of the class divide, if you have a working class accent you are being discriminated against, if you have a posh accent you will be hated but people will respect your 'authority', no matter how much they hate

Oxbridge is elitist but there are so many other great Unis across the UK

To American media specifically, stop romanticising British culture, I have never seen the academia aesthetic you are portraying and it irritates, we are not just the rich upper class, look at our history people you portray and because of the class divide it hurts to see that as our only representation

Also London is its own thing, Britain does not recognise London as representative of Britain and London does not like everywhere that is London, it is the most diverse and the biggest city in the entirety of England by a large margin, it does not feel like the rest of Britain

On that point, there are many, many other cities and other towns outside of London, please acknowledge them (having never been to a lot of cities I can't explain them to you)

London does have divides within it such as the divide between North and South of the river, the South does not want to be part of London and the North refuses to acknowledge it. The Northern edge of London is also up for debate, for me it is the edge of Zone 3 (on a tube map) and the other side of the North circular by car but for others it might be further in or out so be aware of that. There is also divide between the post codes for example Wood Green and Tottenham, both have the same council (Haringey) but there is a clear divide between them only further emphasises by Haringey having two MPs one for Tottenham (David Lammey) and one for Wood Green and Hornsey. Both Wood Green and Tottenham have bad reps but the Wood Green half of Haringey starts drifting into middle class at its edges with Hornsey being solidly middle class so be aware of the variation in boroughs

And, London has no centre. It is a city that grew with its country and absorbed the surrounding towns. So if you say the centre of London people will assume you mean a specific part in zone 1 but will not know which part you are talking about and will assume you are talking in a generalisation. If they are traveling with you though, they will expect further clarification, don't say the centre and expect me to know where

Also, there is no space between houses in England, they are mostly semi-detached. I once watched an episode of escape to the country where someone tried to find a detached house and just struggled massively. You either have to pay loads of money or be in the middle of nowhere before your house is fully detached and it will still be only the same distance away from another house as the average American house is. We have one of the highest populations in Europe but a small land mass

Going on from that, Britain is definitely European and has a lot of shared culture whilst still obviously being it's own thing (like every single other country) but Britain acts like and will get mad at the suggestion that they are European like any other European country because 'we are entirely seperate and on an island and how can we not have become our own thing' the actual variation is because Rome (contrary to what the school system will teach you) had very little impact on Britain so we aren't as similar to the other Latin speaking countries as is expected, the main reason we are still similar is because of the impact of Norman conquest. Also everyone underestimated the effect of Scandinavian and Germanic culture on Britain because we act like all they did was pillage when in fact they settled down and where embraced by Briton (unlike Rome which did actually pillage and subjugate Britain without being widely accepted) so that's why there is variation. We are very European but not in the way people expect so Britain refuses to acknowledge it

Honestly British culture is a lesson in tolerance versus acceptance. But there is still active discrimination as people of colour and the LGBTQ+ can attest

Also Christianity is baked into Britain to the point that even atheists follow Christian customs without questioning it but significantly less extreme than France which just stops on Sundays (but is acknowledged as a Christian country so you know) and 'pagan' - so, in this case, Celtic, anglosaxon and Norse - culture has effected us being carried down in fairy tales and witchcraft

Some of this will be upsetting to many people as it should be because British culture hurts, it discriminates without acknowledging it and I want people to know that. I want people to see that when they write about it because the alternative is writing about Britain as if it has faults and that would be so much worse. So writers, please bear all of this in mind when talking about Britain, even and especially, the ugly parts

This has been a white, middle class, Londoners, perspective on Britain and no I will not call myself English because the divide between England and London means that being a Londoner rather than just English matters in this context

I would recommend listening to the perspective of Brits from other groups, such as England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, working class, upper class, Brit of colour, non-passing queer folk, Muslim, Hindu, Indian (the largest immigrant group is actually Indian and that's just immigrated in their lifetime rather than born British and Indian), Jewish (especially Jewish I can talk about that on another post but let's just say the Jewish have never been accepted but always been part of Europe) and so on, to get a more comprehensive view of Britain

[popculturebuffet]

Life And Times of Scrooge McDuck Retrospective: The New Laird of Castle McDuck! “And I’ll Remember It Poppa! There’s Always Another Rainbow!”

Hello all you happy people! And welcome back to my look at the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck! And to make up for lost time im’ doing two instalments this month, and with luck and my schedule holding out I plan to finish the main series in September, doubling up again for the last two months to finish this up. 

Background wise there’s honestly not a lot this go round, as it’s less rooted in history and more Don Rosa’s need to settle an annoying flaw with continuity. Man oh man do I relate to that and having read comics for at least half my life, i’ve seen writers do this by the bucketload to fix decisions from other writers. Sometimes for the write reasons and sometimes because EVERYTHING WAS BETTER ON MY EARTH. Don Rosa, like most writers.. has done both. 

Here though it’s for the good and for understandable reasons: Barks had Scrooge’s origin as a poor shoeshine boy from Glasgow.. but also had a rather famous and awesome story, the Old Castle’s Secret, that also gave them a giant ancestral castle. Rosa fixed this by having the McDuck’s having lost it due to a combination of being driven off the land by a fake ghost dog and poor turns of fourtune meaning they coudln’t pay the taxes to live there and were behind on taxes on it, hence the Whiskervilles having taken it over in part one. 

But obviously the Whiskervilles coudln’t KEEP the castle as Scrooge owned it in present day, thus this chapter explains how he got it. It was a stroke of genius plot wise too as it allowed him to open each act in Scotland and using the castle to measure where Scrooge is in life: As a boy dreaming of getting it back, as a young man who while not a success succeeds at this, and as an older hardned man who realizes he simply doesn’t belong here anymore who has to leave his family’s legacy here behind to start a better one in America. 

The only other real story is that a sequence here was based on the film A Matter of Life and Death, and Rosa detailed in his notes his quest to get a copy as the distribution rights here were a nightmare at the time. Thankfully that’s clearly changed as a quick look on Amazon shows both a standard DVD release, mentioned by rosa in the book and a snazzier release by the Criteron Collection are both easily available. He ended up getting a copy from Canada, and while he didn’t get any insight at least got a neat addition to his collection. Admittedly this dosen’t add much to the story, I just thought it was neat. So with all of that settled, join me after the cut as Scrooge tries to buy back his family’s legacy.

And Scrooge has already arrived in Scotland, having reunited with Downy and Matilda, who as a refresher is more responsible and straightlaced here versus the 2017 incarnation.  Part of me DOES wish they hadn’t glossed over the reunion especially since this chapter is the last time we’ll see Scrooge and his Mom together before her utterly heartbreaking passing a few chapters down the road. But I get why we opened here instead: it’s a captivating open, with Scrooge speeding to the castle, his mother and sister trying to stave the rain off and time clearly of the essence. It sucks you in as we don’t know WHY Scrooge was summoned last time, only that it was bad enough he needed to come home, and thus ratchet’s up the tension until we find out shortly. 

It turns out the back taxes on Castle McDuck are up and the castle is being sold., doing so with some glasses, foreshadowing his iconic specs wearing as the snow and brightness of the praries in various seasons mean his eyes are all done fucked up like mine.  The Whiskervilles are naturally not only the prospective buyer but already trying to take the property prematurely, with Fergus and Jake holding the line, because love isn’t always on time. But Hortense is and when the Whiskervilles mock her daddy and uncle, planning to tear down the castle out of spite, her response reminds us why donald is a ball of rage and badassery...

Have I mentioned she’s my favorite part of this story? Because she is. Her response to scrooge being back is also just pure adorable. 

Scrooge does get a big reunion with his dad and uncle, getting a big hug from Fergus, if squshing his cream cheese sandwitch... and yes that’s apparently a real thing. I mean I do love me some cream cheese don’t get me wrong, but it just feels weird to put it on bread as the only thing, but I guess i’m a bit spoiled with crackers and bagels in my day and age or putting it on tosat with salmon and.. saying all of this both makes me very hungry for cream cheese. So I guess i’ts not all bad it’s just weird to me, especially since I don’t think it’d keep all that well unregrigrated but I also don’t know the times that well. Or maybe when your that poor and hungry, it dosen’t matter how good it is and maybe i’m just spoiled by my upper middle class existance. I dunno. The point is i’m going to go get me some cream cheese be back in a minute. Here have some music. 

For all two of you that didn’t clear out, Fergus naturally for the time, turns out to be sexist, insisting Jake get “The Women” home.

Though Rosa gets a great joke out of it by having Jake wonder if he can even reign Hortense in. And I do love Hortense’s character. Whlie i’ts simple, she’s simply an angrier version of her son without the penchant for half-assed schemes, it works and makes her stand out against the more subdued rest of the McDuck family outside of Scrooge. 

Fergus explains HOW it got so bad to Scrooge: While the McDuck ancestors pooled resources to automatically pay the taxes, eventually only having two poor old men who could barely keep their family fed and a slightly less poor pulp fiction writer somewhere in America meant the taxes piled up and the Whiskervilles are within a whisker’s reach of gettng the castle, something mentioned in part 1. 

It also provides a great payoff to the first part of Scrooge’s journey: while the boy bemoans only having gotten the 10,000 dollar check from the mine sale, and that will only just about cover the castle’s taxes, he feels disheratned as it’s ALL he’s accomplished.. but in a nice moment from Fergus he points it WASN’T all for nothing: Thanks to his work they get their home back. His family can move from the cramped confines of Dismal Downs back to their ancestral homeland like they always deserved. While he may of not achieved his goal of being rich yet.. he still achieved his goal of buying the castle back, the very thing that set him on this path in the first place. It’s telling though that it takes a reminder of that, that Scrooge is loosing sight of the very human, for lack of a better term, reasons he set out: while he’s finally built a better life for his family, if just so.. all he can see is that he’s not RICH. The money is starting to cloud his judgement.. and i’tll roll over him entirely before the series is over. 

The Head of the Whiskervilles shows up with the Sheirff.. whose also a Whiskerville lest you thought unfair and crooked policing was a strictly american thing. But Fergus points out their too early.. and Scrooge flashes his check. And when the Head Whiskerville scoffs at a mcduck having money... Scrooge points out he didn’t believe in ghosts either and brags about his awesomeness in the first chapter, revealing what he did and leaving The SHierff pissed and the older whiskerville ready with a plan: he decide......

Sadly not with children’s trading cards but with swords, and gets past the legality issue by simply challenging Scrooge’s pride and angering him into accepting. Argus, the head whiskerville whose name I just got from the comic, reveals his plan to the Shierff: While he’s dueling Scrooge Sheirff can snatch the bank statment.. though why Scrooge didn’t you know, cash it before coming and how an american banks tatment is valid in early 1900′s Scotland...

So the Duel is on.. and like the money he’s made, the Duel is another Marker of how far Scrooge has come and how despite still not having made his fortune yet he’s rich with EXPERINCE. His experince fighting cattle rustlers and pirates means he has the reflexes to easily outfight his opponent.. though him saying he learned how to fight “Injun Style from Buffallo Bill”, i.e. learned how to fight like a native american from a white guy and beat Sitting Bull with it just makes me feel like i’m watching that episode of Saved by the Bell where Zach has to learn not to be racist but then thinks this outfit is acceptable. 

Scrooge also tracks the guy using the tracking skills he learned from the blackfeet which again feel like the picture above , but send Argus running.. only to lure Scrooge into a fight on the castle battlemnt in the pooring rain and disarming him. Luckily the spirit of Sir Quackly gives the lad his sword back and Scrooge wins the fight.. but promptly gets hit by lighting while celebrating Caddyshack style. 

No really Scrooge is.. or close as he got knocked into the water and is now in heaven. Sir Quackly naturally doesn’t want to see the last hope of the Clan McDuck dies and goes to talk to the tribunal of McDucks to sort it out hence the Matter of Life And Death connection. 

The Tribunal is made up of former McDucks.. it turns out Scrooge is here because of Quackly: the lighting was SUPPOSED to hit the tower, distracting Argus, and they prepare to write Scrooge off because their more concerned with golf than the fact that their whole clan’s future is on the line.. which I do not get because unless you are Tiger Woods or the Film Caddyshack, golf usually is the boring garbage water of sports and this is from someone who dosen’t like sports to begin with. I do like the Missing Links of Moorshire though so there’s that. And golf episodes of shows are usually good.. the sport itself is just incredibly boring. And I sat through Mank. I know boring. I know wanting hours of my life back. Golf is the Mank of Sports. 

What we get is a pretty tiresome sequence honestly: Quackly points out the tribuanls faults while their just dicks who only care about golf. Which again, Mank of sports. Or if you prefer the Cloud Atlas of sports but with SLIGHTLY less untetionall racisim and sadly much less Tom Hanks and Hugh Grant. The point is golf sucks and while I ilke the REST of this chapter this bit just dosen’t work for me and was clearly funnier in Rosa’s head, with the assholes not thinking much of Scrooge’s achievements and only liking him when they find out he’ll be a tight wad, the only funny joke in these draggy as hell three pages, not counting the start and finish of the sequence which arnet bad, as they send him back to earth with Quackly mentioning the dime, but not giving out WHY it’s important. That he has to figure out on his own and all that good stuff. 

So Scrooge uses his dime to unscrew the bolts and back at the castle while Argus TRIES to pawn it off as Scrooge being a coward and depart with the bank draft.... 

Damnnnn that’s badass, he gets the bank note back (only knowing because one of his ancestors mentioned it, though with his memory of the dying dream gone he dosen’t know WHY), and has Fergus run into town to pay the taxes tonight before any other shenanigans happen while he keeps the two scheming dogmen captive long enough for Fergus to get too far for them to catch up.  Argus plans to go with plan “Do a murder on Scrooge”.. but fines Scrooge is far from unprotected and not the only badass in his family.. I mean Hortense exists but I mean that ther’es more than two... you know what jut look at the ghost heads. 

So the two run for their lives..... also they forgot you know Hortense exists.. she’d revenge murder all of them and they both know it. 

So with the land safe and the taxes paid so the Family can implicitly move in, we end on a beautiful sunrise as Scrooge prepares to leave soon. Despite all the setbacks and hardship Scrooge is deterimend to still make it and knows he won’t fail forever. When Fergus mentions Gold at the end of a rainbow, Scrooge takes that, and the golden dawn as a sign. WHen Fergus understandably asks if he’s sure he’ll make it this time.. we get a nice nod to Bark’s best and most notable painting “always another rainbow to close us out”

It’s a beauitful and inspiring statment.. no matter what you face.. there’s always a light at the end of it. Always another opportunity, another goal to reach, another hill to climb.. and life to live... and it’s one i’ve taken to heart and always will.. and one that will land Scrooge his fortune yet. 

Final Thoughts: This chapter is alright but like I said the two page sequence in heaven dosen’t really work for me. It’s just not funny enough and really shoudl’ve been trimmed down a page so we could get more character stuff with Scrooge and his family> Otherwise it’s a tightly paced thrilling chapter in Scrooge’s life, showing just how far he’s come and how far he has left to go. The DIsmal Downs chapter serve as a good marker of where Scrooge is and where he’s heading as I mentioned earlier, with this one showing that while he’s not hit his goal yet, he still got his family their true home back, beat his enmeis and is a legend to be. Ther’es always another rainbow.. and he just needs to find it. All in all a decent chapter outside those two pages, and a good setup for the next three glorious chapters. 

Next Month on LIfe and Times: One is Scroogey and the other is FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD, as Scrooge meets his arch enemy and rides a motherfucking lion. And if “rides a motherfucking lion” doesn’t make you come back I do not know why you read this.  Next Time On This BLog: What is that, that Freaky Thing? It’s A naked Mole rat as we return to Kauai this time with Kim Possible and Co as Drakken tries to capture stitch and Jumba wonders if Rufus is one of his or not. 

See you at the next rainbow