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#Post#: 4543--------------------------------------------------
Media decolonization
By: acc9 Date: March 1, 2021, 9:51 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The following Ganten water commercials are revealing of the lack
of self-confidence in the Chinese when promoting their products
- adopting what they call the 'aristocratic' quality of their
brand by highlighting the 'Western touch'. Still a long way to
go in their psychological decolonization!
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7YpOblKd-k
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzQllvzbDs0
#Post#: 4548--------------------------------------------------
Re: Re: Psychological decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 2, 2021, 12:02 am
---------------------------------------------------------
These are the literally most cringe-inducing commercials I have
seen in my life; the level of Eurocentrism is off the charts! I
found one more:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HikXkXKjL7g
There are also fans doing screencap/collage galleries:
HTML https://www.po369.com/tupian/%E7%99%BE%E5%B2%81%E5%B1%B1%E5%B9%BF%E5%91%8A%E5%A5%B3%E4%B8%BB%E8%A7%92.html
[img]
HTML https://dn-wenjuan-com.qbox.me/57728775a320fc849d2414bc/b802460a-3d43-11e6-ab2e-44a8420c29f3?imageView2/2/w/815/[/img]
When I try to explain to people how bad the Eurocentrism is
among most "non-whites", most people think I am exaggerating.
These commercials show that if anything I have been still
understating it!
BOYCOTT GANTEN!
Contrast with the anti-colonialist themes in Counterculture-era
commercials such as the following:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTXjrW7l8E
I miss the 90s.....
#Post#: 4565--------------------------------------------------
Re: Re: Psychological decolonization
By: Prite Date: March 3, 2021, 12:35 am
---------------------------------------------------------
How about these Japanese MVs? The musics are used for an anime
named "Violet Evergarden".
HTML https://youtu.be/uwph0dv9E6U
HTML https://youtu.be/UKU4B05fPck
#Post#: 4592--------------------------------------------------
Re: Re: Psychological decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 3, 2021, 11:45 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
This may well reflect what many "non-white" Eurocentrist parents
subconsciously hope will happen ("non-white" children will grow
up into "white" adults!) when they violently force their
offspring to spend thousands and thousands of hours of their
childhood practicing Western classical music. If this were
satire on the part of the MV designers, it would actually be
good. But I don't think it is, and that is what makes it
terrifying.....
Again, it wasn't like this during the Counterculture era; back
then Western classical music and Western decor in general were
associated with villains (1:35-2:10):
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0hywe3uiCo
#Post#: 4593--------------------------------------------------
Re: Re: Psychological decolonization
By: rp Date: March 3, 2021, 11:49 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
"spend thousands and thousands of hours of their childhood
practicing Western classical music."
Amy Chua (Gentile) is a good example of this.
#Post#: 4687--------------------------------------------------
Media decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 8, 2021, 9:34 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
OLD CONTENT
I have noticed a resurgence of ZC media in the post 9/11 era,
such as the show “South Park” created by Trey Parker and Matt
Stone (Jew) which deliberately promotes ethnic stereotypes. This
has been popular among teenagers who view it as “rebellious”,
hence the popular meme among rightists that they are
“red-pilling” Generation Z. Contrast this with 90s
entertainment, which reflected a much more non Westernized
climate.
---
90sRetroFan, what are your thoughts on people playing videogames
together and their intrinsic value to social interactions? With
online multiplayer each person has a different experience and
initiates a potential for Aryanist conversation. Surely
decolonization of trolls and griefers can be appropeiately
discussed. I say this from experience; nearly all gamers embrace
the social norms of the West and it's a problem that must be
dealt with.
---
What social norms do you mean?
---
I'd guess he means the usual. Modern gamer culture has a
reputation for harboring sexist, homophobic, and even racist
sentiments. One burning example would be the Gamergate
Controversy.
---
We should look at different subcultures and figure out why some
have managed to avoid degrading as you describe. For example,
the subculture I am closest to (though I left after the graphics
started becoming 3D) is the fighting game community (FGC), where
bigotry has never been an issue:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY176IOvS_c
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA4o9uT3rbE
The only attributes that earn respect within the FGC are: 1)
skill in playing the games themselves; 2) contribution to
community events. We should try to figure out why other gamer
subcultures have failed to replicate this kind of folkish
attitude. If I had to take a first guess, the FGC has a rather
high threshold of minimum skill required to even join in a
serious capacity, which might have an effect of on one hand
filtering out the rabble and on the other hand inculcating
mutual respect between those who have reached that grade of
skill (regardless of background). This may not be the case with
other genres where in-game performance can be enhanced by
levelling, purchasing powerups, etc., and where PvP action is
not primarily based on one-on-one duelling.
---
forward.com/fast-forward/433338/p-is-for-palestine-library-new-j
ersey/
[quote]Jewish groups have issued a legal threat against a public
library in New Jersey if librarians proceed with a public
reading of a book called “P is for Palestine,” the Bridgewater
Courier News reported Monday.
The two groups - the Central Jersey Jewish Public Affairs
Committee and the Zachor Legal Institute, a legal group that
fights the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against
Israel - sent a letter to the Highland Park Library threatening
to file formal complaints with the U.S. Departments of Justice
and Education should they hold the event on 2:00 p.m. on Sunday
as scheduled. The groups claim sponsoring the book reading would
be anti-Semitic and thus violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The book, which teaches children the alphabet while using
concepts from Palestinian history and culture, attracted
controversy soon after it was published in 2017 because its
entry for the 9th letter was “I is for Intifada. Intifada is
Arabic for rising up/For what is right, if you are a kid or
grownup!”
“Intifada,” the Arabic word for “tremor” or “shaking off,” was
used to refer to Palestinian uprisings in the 1980s and 2000s,
which included violent terrorist attacks as well as nonviolent
protests. More than 1,000 Israelis and 5,000 Palestinians
combined were killed in the two intifadas.
...
Jewish groups are also expected to protest outside the library
should the reading commence, though attendance is expected to be
depressed because that falls a few hours before the start of the
holiday of Shemini Atzeret.
A New York bookstore that hosted a reading of “P is for
Palestine” in 2017 was protested by the far-right Jewish Defense
League.[/quote]
---
China bans "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood":
www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-cancels-release-tarantinos-
once-a-time-hollywood-1248652
The film is a typical ZC wet dream that shows Brad Pitt, the
archetypal Westerner with a mesomorphic build subduing Bruce
Lee's character with ease due to his ectomorphic build and
smaller stature, despite the obvious disparity in combat skill.
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/bruce-lee-on
ce-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-quentin-tarantino-mike-moh-kareem-ab
dul-jabbar-a9063721.html
[quote]Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, argued last month her
father, rather than being arrogant on sets, would have had to
work far harder than Booth as an Asian-American in the late
1960s.
She described her experience watching Tarantino's film as
“uncomfortable” as she had to listen to people “laugh at my
father”.[/quote]
---
Regarding Bruce Lee, I have lost count of the number of times I
have had to remind people that he was American. A genuinely
American nationalist US would try to take credit for Lee's
achievements (indisputably among the most influential of the
Counterculture era) as American achievements. But I have rarely
seen such attempts. Instead, I more often see both his fans and
his detractors speak of him as if he represents anything but
America!
Lee himself went to considerable lengths to emphasize his
Americanness, but was rejected:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(TV_series)#Bruce_Lee's_involvemen
t
[quote]In her memoirs, Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell,
asserts that Lee created the concept for the series, which was
then stolen by Warner Bros. There is circumstantial evidence for
this in a December 8, 1971, television interview that Bruce Lee
gave on The Pierre Berton Show. In the interview, Lee stated
that he had developed a concept for a television series called
The Warrior, meant to star himself, about a martial artist in
the American Old West (the same concept as Kung Fu, which aired
the following year), but that he was having trouble pitching it
to Warner Brothers and Paramount.[/quote]
Even in his own movie The Way of the Dragon, Lee made a point of
portraying Chuck Norris' character (an American mercenary) as
more honourable than the Italian villains:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Dragon
[quote]In a decisive ten-minute battle, Tang disables Colt. When
Colt refuses an opportunity for mercy, Tang kills him with
reluctance. Tang then places Colt's gi and black belt atop his
dead body as a gesture of respect[/quote]
And this Tarantino scene is the thanks Lee gets for loyalty to
his country.....
"Brad Pitt, the archetypal Westerner"
Pitt literally played Achilles in Troy. No, this is not a
coincidence.
#Post#: 4688--------------------------------------------------
Re: Media decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 8, 2021, 9:42 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
OLD CONTENT contd.
people.com/books/dr-seuss-books-racist-problematic/
[quote]“Findings from this study promote awareness of the racist
narratives and images in Dr. Seuss’ children’s books and
implications to the formation and reinforcement of racial biases
in children.”
The study continues by explaining that some of the most iconic
characters relay the troubling messages of Orientalism (the
representation of Asia and Asian people based on colonialist
stereotypes), anti-blackness and white supremacy.
“Notably, every character of color is male. Males of color are
only presented in subservient, exotified, or dehumanized roles,”
the authors write as part of their findings. “This also remains
true in their relation to White characters. Most startling is
the complete invisibility and absence of women and girls of
color across Seuss’ entire children’s book collection.”
...
Theodor Seuss Geisel, whose pen name is Dr. Seuss, published his
first children’s book in 1937, and his works are filled with
problematic portrayals that coincide with the culture of
pre-Civil-Rights-Movement America. For instance, in If I Ran the
Zoo a white male is carried by three Asian characters as he
holds a gun. The caption beneath the Asian males describes them
as “helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant” from “countries
no one can spell,” according to the study. The only two
characters identified as African appear in Horton Hears a Who!.
Sporting grass skirts and wearing no shoes, “they are placed in
a subservient role, carrying an animal to a White male child’s
zoo,” Ishizuka and Stephens explain.
...
In September 2017, Cambridgeport Elementary School’s librarian,
Liz Phipps Soeiro, made a political statement that quickly went
viral when she turned down a shipment of Dr. Seuss books from
First Lady Melania Trump.[/quote]
---
At least people are pointing it out:
www.yahoo.com/entertainment/disney-criticised-after-minor-white-
aladdin-character-gets-a-spinoff-064607422.html
[quote]Disney have been roundly criticised after it was revealed
that they’re developing a Disney + spin-off for a minor white
character from Aladdin in the same week that its leading star
Mena Massoud announced he couldn’t even get an audition for
another movie.
The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that the studio were working on
a show for Billy Magnussen’s Prince Anders, who only had a
handful of scenes in the billion dollar grossing live-action
remake.[/quote]
---
I have seen rightists brag about how "whites" and jews are more
creative/innovative, hence why most inventors are "whites" or
Jews. They often cite this as a rebuttal to the success of "non
whites", whom they characterize as mere "worker drones".
---
This claim takes for granted the progressive position
(unfortunately shared by False Leftists) that invention is
always good:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/leftists-against-progressivism/
This progressive position is what as True Leftists we are here
to challenge:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/truth-knowledge/
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-right/western-civilization-is-a-health-hazard/
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-right/if-western-civilization-does-not-die-soon/
We must as far as possible avoid the False Left/neocon approach
of trying to encourage "non-whites" to be machine inventors, as
this will just enlarge the problem. Instead, the quickest way to
discredit the "worker drone" stereotype is to point to
Counterculture era "non-white" artistic contributions. I first
noticed this as a video game fan. Western releases were
constantly trying to be cutting-edge in graphics, sound,
interface, etc. but the games themselves sucked:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNXypBxNGMo
compared to non-Western releases with 'outdated' presentation
and technical features but infinitely more engrossing story,
characters, mechanics, etc.:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g2vk8Gudqs
The same is true of movies, TV dramas, etc. also. Unfortunately,
the relatively limited exposure of non-Western movies and
especially TV dramas among Western audiences during the
Counterculture era has largely obscured this from mainstream
awareness. This is something else we should aim to change by
introducing more people to Counterculture era works from
non-Western countries.
---
The Witcher series, Halo, Assassin's Creed, the Call of Duty
Modern Warfare trilogy, Uncharted, God of War, Bioshock,
Borderlands, Fallout New Vegas, Alan Wake, Dragon Age Origins,
Far Cry 3, Gears of War, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Metro, and the
Prince of Persia Trilogy would like to know your location.
---
"The Witcher series, Halo, Assassin's Creed, the Call of Duty
Modern Warfare trilogy, Uncharted, God of War, Bioshock,
Borderlands, Fallout New Vegas, Alan Wake, Dragon Age Origins,
Far Cry 3, Gears of War, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Metro,"
All these are post-Counterculture-era franchises. After the
Counterculture era ended, even non-Western video game developers
shifted towards 3D (ie. became Westernized). This was why I
totally lost interest in new games by the mid-2000s.
"Prince of Persia Trilogy"
I am happy to discuss Prince of Persia, however, as it is
actually an example of what I was talking about:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_(1989_video_game)
[quote]Mechner used an animation technique called rotoscoping,
with which he used footage to animate the characters' sprites
and movements. To create the protagonist's platforming motions,
Mechner traced video footage of his younger brother running and
jumping in white clothes.[9] To create the game's sword fighting
sprites, Mechner rotoscoped the final duel scene between Errol
Flynn and Basil Rathbone in the 1938 film The Adventures of
Robin Hood.[8] Though the use of rotoscoping was regarded as a
pioneering move, Mechner later recalled that "when we made that
decision with Prince of Persia, I wasn't thinking about being
cutting edge—we did it essentially because I'm not that good at
drawing or animation, and it was the only way I could think of
to get lifelike movement."[10][/quote]
This reinforces the thesis of my previous post. Even in 2D,
Westerners were always trying to make sprite animation imitate
realistic motion as closely as possible:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv20j8ChtRY
The excessive realism made controlling the character just plain
irritating due to the lag between input and response. For
example, when you press jump, the Prince doesn't jump right
away, instead he begins his Realistic Jump Animation Sequence
which consists of coiling up and then jumping and then
uncoiling, during which you may have already changed your mind
about what you want him to do but have to wait for him to finish
the whole move before you can tell him to do something else.
Therefore the whole game experience is of trying to send delayed
instructions to the Prince, rather than ever being able to feel
that you are the Prince.
Compare with non-Western sprite animation which thoroughly
disregards realism:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmnMq2Hw72w
yet result in far more player-friendly control (you instantly
feel like you have become Mario) and hence ultimately far more
captivating games.
For the record:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Mechner
[quote]Mechner was born in New York City, into a family of
European Jewish immigrants.[/quote]
---
“ After the Counterculture era ended, even non-Western video
game developers shifted towards 3D (ie. became Westernized).
This was why I totally lost interest in new games by the
mid-2000s.”
Yes. I remember growing up in the mid 2000s, I was never
interested in the video games released during that era. They
seemed very dark and gritty and weren’t to my liking (probably a
reflection of the times more than anything). I specifically
remember playing Metroid Prime on the GameCube at a toy store
and hating it. I spent most of my time playing games from the
90s my dad had purchased earlier. There was something about
those games that appealed to me, almost like they were the
supreme antithesis to the mood of the 00s games. It was almost
like playing those games transported me to an earlier era (the
90s) that I felt I belonged to, and resonated with, even though
I myself was born in the 21st century.
Just compare the aesthetic design of the GameCube console, to
say, the SNES FFS!
This to say nothing of the games themselves:
Super Metroid (SNES):
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB317FOcU0Y
Metroid Prime (GameCube):
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-b0kx4c_qc
Unsurprisingly, by the late 2000s I had completely lost interest
in new releases altogether, which by no coincidence was due in
part to the heavy influence of Zionist war propaganda present in
the games. I would thereafter spend my life looking to rekindle
that spirit that I felt as a child...
---
"Metroid Prime"
Ah, yes. While everyone else was focused on the Prime series, I
ignored it completely and only played Fusion and Zero Mission.
Did you play these two?
---
No, since I’ve never owned a Gameboy Advance.
#Post#: 4689--------------------------------------------------
Re: Media decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 8, 2021, 9:52 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
OLD CONTENT contd.
www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/opinion/opera-racism-puccini.html
[quote]This fall, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto gave a
botched face-lift to “Turandot,” a Puccini opera about a
barbaric Chinese princess in “ancient Peking” who executes her
suitors.
To try to mask the racism of the opera, the director changed the
names of Ping, Pang and Pong, three of the main characters, to
Jim, Bob and Bill, and swapped their Chinese costumes for black
suits. My father, a Taiwanese-American tenor, performed the role
of Pong (or I guess, Bill?) for the production’s 2019 run. But
the characters continued to play into stereotypes of effeminate
Asian men as they pranced around onstage, giggling at one
another.
Alterations like these have become part of a broader trend as
opera clumsily reckons with its racist and sexist past. But if
it hopes to win favor with younger listeners like me, opera
needs to realize that shallow changes can’t erase the
problematic foundations of season fixtures like “Turandot,”
“Madama Butterfly,” “The Magic Flute” and “Carmen.”
The Orientalist stereotyping in “Turandot,” for instance, seeps
into the music itself. The only way to get rid of it would be to
rewrite the opera entirely, a revision that would destroy the
classical canon. So how do we bring opera into the 21st century?
How do we preserve the beauty of Puccini’s music, the likes of
which will never be composed again, while also recognizing that
it taints how we perceive Chinese women like me?[/quote]
What beauty? And why should it be preserved at all? This is why
False Leftists will never be able to kill Western civilization:
they aren't even trying to do so.
[quote]Some critics argue for retiring problematic operas from
the stage. While newer operas written by people of color tell
their stories responsibly, they aren’t going to replace the
classics anytime soon.[/quote]
Firstly, we do not necessarily need "newer" operas. There are
plenty of non-Western classics available. The fact that the
author presumes "the classics" to automatically mean "Western
classics" is a problem in itself.
[quote]This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive to diversify
operas, both in composition and in casting. In fact, that’s
ideal. But in the meantime, doing away with these works would
destroy the art form, preventing us from reshaping otherwise
beautiful compositions in powerful ways.
...
The music in “Turandot’’ is entrancing; there is no feeling
comparable to the force of an operatic finale. My hope is that
more people will feel comfortable in the opera houses of my
childhood. If we can hold Puccini’s musical genius in tandem
with the racism of his time, there may be hope.[/quote]
Secondly, it is not beautiful or entrancing or incomporable or
ingenious. All who think it is are useless to us. To criticize
Western ethics while promoting Western aesthetics is like trying
to suppress the symptoms of a disease while encouraging the
disease itself. The unflattering stereotypes of "non-whites"
that the author complains about are direct products of the very
same Western aesthetic standards that she admires, standards
which - when applied to view "non-whites" - cannot help but see
them as crude caricatures, precisely because they can never fit
organically within the Western aesthetic pantheon. The radical
(and only thus truly meaningful) solution is to reject Western
aesthetic standards altogether:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-right/western-civilization-is-ugly-48/
[quote]REPORT: 100 Years of Hollywood Islamophobia
A new report from the Pop Culture Collaborative details
depictions of Muslims on screen—what the entertainment industry
must do to uplift Muslim narratives that don’t damage the
community.[/quote]
www.colorlines.com/articles/report-100-years-hollywood-islamopho
bia
[quote]‘Death to the infidels!’ Why it’s time to fix Hollywood’s
problem with Muslims
The US government wants the movie business to help counter Isis
propaganda. But from shady sheikhs to detonator-happy
terrorists, Hollywood’s pervasive Islamophobia is already a big
part of the problem.[/quote]
www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/08/death-to-infidels-time-to-f
ix-hollywoods-problem-muslims
[quote]Arabs in Post-9/11 Hollywood Films: a Move towards a More
Realistic Depiction?
Classical Stereotypes of Arabs in Hollywood Films Prior to 9-11
Events
Edward Said has pointed out that the prejudiced values which
western culture had assigned to the Orient have been advocated
through a discourse that helped to justify them. Said believes
that “The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was
discovered to be Oriental in all those ways considered
common-place by an average nineteenth-century European, but also
because it could be–that is, submitted to being–made Oriental.”
(Said, Orientalism 5-6) Said argues that the truth about the
Orient has been constructed and does not necessarily reflect how
the real Orient is. Said makes his concern very conspicuous: he
is not interested in the way western culture perceives the
cultural practices of the Orient, particularly Arabs, as much as
in the representative structure that generates general
statements about the Orient, which he describes as uncritical,
distant and reductive. Moreover, Ibrahim Kalin argues that the
present misgivings about Muslims are due to the set of negative
connotations that have often been allocated to the religion of
Islam. These notions consistently present Islam as being
inherently anti-reason, fixed and traditional. Kalin also
relates the existing
3 misconceptions about the cultural and religious beliefs of
Arabs to the deep-rooted prejudices about Islam that emerged
upon its fast expansion in the eight century (Kalin 166). Kalan
explains that Europe’s reactionary attitudes towards the fast
growth of Islam have been manifested in the relentless attempts
to distort the image of Arabs and their religious
doctrine.[/quote]
docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1056&context=rev
isioning
---
Responding to this post:
[quote]All these existed in pre-colonial storytelling all over
the world. The difference was, they existed unnamed, and as such
as pure artistic inspiration unique in each instance of arising,
that other civilizations tacitly understood was not to be
arrested by categorization lest it spoil the literary experience
itself. Only Western civilization was spiritually coarse enough
to explicitly name them all, and thus reduce them to dead
"devices", as Duchesne so eloquently put it. Henceforth anyone
acquainted with such terms can never again appreciate a story
(let alone write one) as innocently as before learning of such
terms (and as we all did before such terms existed), but is
forced to perceive a network of butchered devices. To the
artistically sensitive, Western dissection of literature is
almost as violent as Western vivisection of animals, and is
certainly motivated by the same utterly insensitive Western
thinking. In each case Westerners thinks they are doing the
world a favour, totally disregarding what the "favour" feels
like to their victims.[/quote]
This dissection is not only limited to literature. I have
noticed that Western film (and video game) critics (mostly on
YouTube), for example are extremely snobbish in their criticism
and think that by nitpicking all the supposed "flaws"* in movies
and games (esp. non-Western movies/games) they sound smart and
are doing their audience a favor by polishing their tastes.
What's more infuriating is that they will not concede such
tastes are subjective, and will instead instead there is
objective metric by which they can measure the quality of the
media. What do you think?
*While from an idealistic perspective, expecting perfection is
acceptable and thus would warrant pointing out flaws, Western
critics perceive "flaws" based on Western standards such as
whether a certain movie/game is "realistic" enough, which is of
course not in line with our views.
---
"nitpicking all the supposed "flaws"* in movies"
A peeve of mine is the semantic degradation of the term "plot
hole".
During the Counterculture era, a plot hole meant an event that
contradicted an earlier event inside the storyline. For example,
if the hero had just finished putting his handgun into a drawer,
then someone breaks into the hero's house and the hero picks up
the handgun off the table to shoot the intruder, that is a plot
hole, because the handgun should be in the drawer. So far so
good.
These days, however, a so-called "plot hole" mostly means any
character failing to choose the best possible strategy available
in a given situation. For example, if someone breaks into the
hero's house and the hero reflexively tries to pick up the
handgun off the table only to then remember that it is in the
drawer, that is a "plot hole" according to many present-day
critics because the hero "should have remembered" where his
handgun was.
Bonus video:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USEFLLFhIZI
---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4xtO4RBwPs
#Post#: 4690--------------------------------------------------
Re: Media decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 8, 2021, 10:33 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Latest:
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/my-mother-found-dr-seuss-book/618225/
[quote]In Our House, Dr. Seuss Was Contraband
...
My mother went to what I now realize were enormous lengths to
shield us from negative images of Black people, a seemingly
impossible task for someone raising children in 1970s and ’80s
South Carolina. The intensity of her displeasure over a Dr.
Seuss book being in her home—and not even one of the
objectionable titles—speaks to how much labor her plan required.
...
In addition to banning Dr. Seuss and pork-related literature, my
mother was very intentional about limiting our contact with
white people. My three sisters and I were homeschooled during
our elementary years. We lived in a Black neighborhood, attended
a Black church, and were citizens of a country that once dreamed
up an idea called “segregation,” so we didn’t have much contact
with white people anyway. But my mother also altered the cover
of children’s books or sometimes removed them completely if they
had white faces. When she read bedtime stories, she’d substitute
our names for those of the characters. She would even record
cassette tapes, so that when she worked the night shift of her
second job, we could still fall asleep to the sound of her
reading. (Later, when I read the Encyclopedia Brown series
myself, I thought, This sounds like a white version of
Encyclopedia Mikey that my mom used to read!)
I knew that white people existed, of course. I had seen them at
the Piggly Wiggly and on television. Arthur Fonzarelli seemed
cool, when we caught him on TV, and Phillip Drummond was nice
enough to invite Arnold and Willis Jackson into his home. At our
house, though, no white dolls were allowed. We couldn’t watch
reruns of The Jeffersons or Sanford and Son simply because they
depicted white people’s versions of Black people. Our
entertainment catalog was mostly limited to World Book
Encyclopedia, four-days-a-week church services, Sesame Street,
and all the “outside” we could handle.
...
A few years ago, I asked my mother why she put so much effort
into concocting this Caucasian-free cocoon. She informed me that
our childhood was part of an experiment she had envisioned
before we were even born. “A Black person’s humanity can never
be fully realized in the presence of whiteness,” she explained.
Not a single day has passed since in which I have not thought
about that sentence.
...
Most Black children are exposed to an infinitely wide variety of
whiteness, but the available depictions of Black people have
been, until recently, extremely limited. Such portrayals aren’t
necessarily negative as much as they are dichotomous—sassy or
subservient; poor or lucky; the criminal or the hero. These are
mostly white people’s versions of Black people.
Black people’s entire existence is defined by these perceptions,
while white people get to be everything. And because most
Americans can’t unsee whiteness as a default, they don’t
recognize that the hero of the story is nearly always white.
Sometimes the villain is too. And so is the victim. And the
victim’s lawyer. And the judge. And if you’re reading this and
pointing out all the times when the hero or the judge in a TV
show or a movie was Black, ask yourself this: Why did you
notice?[/quote]
#Post#: 4808--------------------------------------------------
Re: Media decolonization
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 13, 2021, 11:25 pm
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HTML https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-dr-seuss-got-away-220025990.html'
[quote]Dr. Seuss' illustrations reveal just how ingrained
anti-Asian racism is in America
One illustration shows an Asian man with bright yellow skin,
slanted eyes, a pigtail and conical hat, holding chopsticks and
a bowl of rice over the words “a Chinaman who eats with sticks.”
Another depicts three Asian men in wooden sandals carrying a
bamboo cage on their heads with a gun-wielding white boy perched
on top, next to the rhyme, “I’ll hunt in the mountains of
Zomba-ma-Tant / With helpers who all wear their eyes at a
slant.”
The drawings are from “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry
Street” and “If I Ran the Zoo,” two of the six Dr. Seuss books
that the company in charge of the author’s works announced last
week will no longer be published because of their racist
imagery, some of which includes stereotypical portrayals of
Asian people.
Though Seuss’ art has been around for decades — “Mulberry
Street,” his first children’s book, was published more than 80
years ago — widespread criticism of his work is relatively
recent. Karen Ishizuka, chief curator at the Japanese American
National Museum in Los Angeles, said Dr. Seuss' books have been
able to get away with this racism for so long in part because of
the persistence of anti-Asian racism in the U.S. since the
1800s.
...
One of his most infamous political cartoons suggested that
Japanese Americans were a threat to the U.S. after the bombing
of Pearl Harbor. Titled “Waiting for the Signal From Home … ,”
the cartoon depicts countless characters with the same slanted
eyes and glasses — who are meant to be Japanese Americans —
marching along the West Coast and waiting to pick up TNT from a
store labeled “Honorable 5th Column.” The cartoon was published
on Feb. 13, 1942 — just six days before President Franklin D.
Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led to the
incarceration of more than 110,000 individuals of Japanese
descent.
Some of Dr. Seuss' other political cartoons during this time use
the slur “Jap,” depict Japanese people as animals, and include
captions that replace the letter R with the letter L to mock the
way Japanese people speak.
Ishizuka is working on developing a new core exhibit for the
museum that she hopes will bring greater attention to Dr. Seuss’
political cartoons by featuring original drawings from the
library of the University of California, San Diego — including
“Waiting for the Signal From Home ... ”
“It’s important to draw attention to the racist images in Dr.
Seuss’ cartoons and children’s books because they’re almost
insidious,” she said. “The harm they cause is more difficult to
identify than when someone calls you a ‘Jap’ to your face. It’s
harder to combat.”
...
In 2017, Ito’s children, Rockett and Zoe, who were 11 and 10 at
the time, created and distributed flyers to their classrooms on
Read Across America Day — which was founded by the National
Education Association to coincide with Dr. Seuss’ birthday — to
educate their peers about Dr. Seuss’ racist work.
“Ever since the kids started elementary school, my husband and I
decided it was important that we taught them about the darker
side of Dr. Seuss,” Ito said of her children, who are Chinese
and Japanese American. “We did this every year around Read
Across America Day, and one year the kids came up with the idea
to create a flyer, unprompted.”
The kids came home that day telling their parents they got in
trouble and had their flyers confiscated, and that evening Ito
and her husband received an email from the school saying the
flyers were inappropriate.[/quote]
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