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MisterSwig

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6 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Why, because there's some absurdity and attempt at humor?

Because the situation and comedy is directed at standard "sexual tension" tropes. Guy likes girl. Guy pretends not to like girl. Humor ensues because guy is fighting with girl, but doesn't fight back hard since he is distracted by his attraction. Importantly, the fight didn't even finish. I would guess that most people see it this way. 

Where you see "women beating up men", I see "men distracted by sexual attraction". I don't think this is an example of moral cowardice, even though humor is sometimes used in that way. 

6 hours ago, whYNOT said:

"Don't take me seriously! I didn't mean it". That's Woke - and deconstructionist.

Not usually. Generally I hear that from alt-right people. Woke people are usually excessively serious about portrayals of identity (in exactly the same way as being sensitive to "women beating up men")

2 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

both a female ridiculously beating up several men and also cultural parasitism.

Unlike the Fast and the Furious scene, this one barely has any humor anyway, and extremely derivative. It strikes me as lazy.

Compared to a fight scene like this:

Clearly this is extremely choreographed. There is some exaggeration, but this serves the dramatic effect intended and make sense for the plot. She doesn't win, which is also relevant to the plot. Notice later that when a guy grabs her and she can't escape, rather than some completely insane maneuver, she pokes his eyes and kicks him in the crotch. A little bit of humor, without trying to break the rules already set by the story. As a Bruce Lee movie, I don't think this is really derivative except to say that it might be derivative of his own movies.

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Enter the Dragon is a classic martial arts movie so the fighting is top notch. The context is narrowed to a martial arts action movie, you go expecting to see epic hand-to-hand battles. Also, the men were trying to kidnap her, so not really going all-out. Good example of well-done female fighting.

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3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

It's also highly derivative (her dialogue about how she's going to beat them imitates dialogue from some other movie that I can't remember exactly).

I knew it would come to me eventually.

I don't know how far back this sort of "cocky intimidation from a vulnerable position" trope goes, but it was masterfully applied in Princess Bride. Not so much in Charlie's Angels.

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Ah that trope is in play in the scene from True Romance where the character Alabama fights the mafia hit man. The hitman senses her vulnerability in being female and she uses that apprehension against him.

In my opinion that scene is one of  the best and in a sense most realistic scenes dramatizing female on male violence.

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32 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

In my opinion that scene is one of  the best and in a sense most realistic scenes dramatizing female on male violence.

It's been ages since I watched True Romance. This must be the scene though.

That's a good action scene. I feel like I need to rewatch the whole movie to understand some of it. Why does she scream "you look ridiculous"?

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Thanks for the clip , it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the movie, funny the scene was more violent than I remember. 

As I remembered it she says that line to bide her time , shift his focus ? Having just reviewed the scene that sense doesn’t seem as demonstrable but not exactly out of the realm possibility to have been her intent.

Perhaps my memory of the scene colored the editing lol.

 

ps I remember being at the video rental looking at the blurbs on the VHS cassette jackets , picking out the movie night selection (plus another selection in conjunction of my choice, because you know marriage) , when I glanced at the cast and saw the description “Val Kilmer as the ghost of Elvis” I mean , right ?

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21 hours ago, Doug Morris said:
On 3/25/2021 at 8:09 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

783951829_AChineseBoywhoEatswithSticks.thumb.jpg.8d3c0e710ba39b6eb68801a4614a7ae4.jpg

Depicting "A Chinese Boy who eats with Sticks".

 

Expand  

What is the context of this image?

I looked it up.  A kid has concocted a very tall tale, and is making it even taller by adding three concretes that have nothing to do with the rest of the tale or each other, but are all things you wouldn't see often going down Mulberry Street.  They don't seem intended as representative of anything, just as unusual sights.

The magician is depicted as pulling rabbits out of a hat.  I've seen some magicians perform, but I don't recall seeing one pull a rabbit out of a hat.  Indeed, pulling a rabbit out of a hat is a stereotype of magicians.

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On 3/25/2021 at 11:12 PM, MisterSwig said:

Can we drop the race? I've already agreed it's not that relevant to the character of Mal. What you seem to be saying is that it's a nonissue to swap straight male Mal for a gay female Mal, because a gay female can have the same sort of mind as a straight male. What exactly does that mean? How are they of the same kind? Because they're both humans?

Yeah; sorry about that.

 

You asked whether lesbian Mal would crack the same kinds of jokes and have the same mannerisms as the old Mal and yes; if she was Mal then she would.

Not simply because they're both human (although I probably should've brought up the issue of free will the other night) but because that is the identity of Mal. If she was a more timid and feminine sort of person then she would be a different person.

 

Which is not to deny the statistical differences between male and female personality traits. But since they are statistical differences they tell us very little about the character of any individual man or woman.

And then there is the obvious issue of free will and the fact that since men and women are beings of self made souls they are fully capable of shaping their own character in defiance of any and a statistics, which is another reason why they're probably not as relevant to this as you seem to think they are.

On 3/25/2021 at 11:39 PM, human_murda said:

Do you think there's any difference between the following two images?

had.thumb.png.a8b511ac2b1fd584f0b53294e46143e5.png

 

 

Yeah. The one on the right is a cartoon caricature of two ridiculous faces while the one on the left is photorealistic.

Sorry if that's not quite the answer you were looking for but I am colorblind.

 

On 3/26/2021 at 12:46 AM, MisterSwig said:

If you return tomorrow, here is one concrete example to consider. When Mal and Wash are being tortured together, not only is that scene about male bonding, it includes dialogue that wouldn't make sense if Mal were a lesbian. At one point Mal says to Wash that he must be wondering if Mal ever slept with his wife. Now why would Wash wonder that if Mal were a lesbian? His wife isn't a lesbian. It's this sort of straight maleness that defines Mal's character and contributes to his style of dialogue.

Perhaps, but that again falls into the legitimate differences of interactions between the sexes (which I spent a bit too much time on the other night); not the identities of the characters in question, as such.

It sounds like you're trying to say that there could not be a female Mal, really. If having an innie rather than an outie would make him a totally different character then this new character would not be Mal. 

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On 3/26/2021 at 2:00 PM, whYNOT said:

Well, I believe my next post will be no "better". I do not renounce a thing. I call it as I see it and I've been seeing for several years. The West is sick with self- immolation and guilt and the hint of an Objectivist saying this growing white/male sacrifice and self-sacrifice is wrong - and no better than whatever transpired to the previously repressed - gets the treatment.

For fear of the label 'White Supremacist', even once good and brave thinkers tread carefully nowadays.

I've had to get acquainted with SJW's (et al) premises, not from idle curiosity, but to find clarity, to be able to conceive of what is going on and where this is all headed. The least of it: what is bad in America will be worse in South Africa (8% whites). Mentioned before, things between races were quite stable and amicable until that sweet, loving bunch Black Lives Matter infected a disaffected portion of the population here, too. Saying which, above all I care strongly for your country's future.

HD. Be careful not to slip into apologism for the Left-progressivists-pmodernists-socialists, in your endeavor to be balanced and humane.

This is an ideological power struggle, and rational, independent people are losing. The vile ones on the Left eat decent people for breakfast.

 

Oh, sorry! I assumed you were an American too! XD My bad!

I am trying to be careful of that; thank you. But in this particular case I don't think I'm in much danger of it.

 

The skin color and genitalia of actors in movies should not matter in the slightest to anybody, except in the case of porn.

 

It doesn't matter whether you wish there were more White Male heroes or more disabled trans black lesbian heroes; neither desire makes any sense, because neither really has anything to do with the quality of the stories themselves (which is the only thing that really should matter in cinema).

If that's what you're paying attention to while watching these things then you're simply doing it wrong.

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On 3/25/2021 at 11:39 PM, human_murda said:

Non-Americans only care about America?

We've got people from South Africa (I think?) and India all arguing pretty fiercely about what happens in Hollywood right in this very thread, don't we?

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23 hours ago, whYNOT said:

But you need to see what is implicit, and connect to the identical narrative which Hollywood and the media have been pressing and exploiting for many years, a manipulated division of, and tension between the sexes - and every grouping they can come up with, like race.

Alright. I'll bite. What's the underlying narrative you think they're trying to sell?

On 3/26/2021 at 2:21 PM, Eiuol said:

I've seen more bad writing on the face of it than any attempt necessarily to make a political statement by means of bad writing. 

Exactly.

 

It's not like movies like the new Ghostbusters are bad because all the heroes are women; they're bad because they're badly and lazily written. And the "white supremacist misogynist" crap that's designed to cover that up is not believable but just irritating to basically everyone.

 

But there seem to be a few carts being put before their horses about that.

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22 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

What is the context of this image?

Sorry; it's not from "if I ran the zoo" but "to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street". The whole thing is just listing off a whole lot of cool and exotic things he saw on Mulberry Street, including "a Chinese boy who eats with sticks".

In the time period it was written in I'm sure that sounded much more exotic and fascinating. But racist?

Really. To say that you once saw a Chinese boy eating with chopsticks is racist. It's still a little hard for me to believe that anyone on Earth is actually taking that seriously.

Here's the full PDF. It's not long.

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10 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

To say that you once saw a Chinese boy eating with chopsticks is racist.

Again, I don't think that's the part anyone is suggesting is racist. Everything else about the depiction is racist. The one part that isn't is the chopsticks. The point about the picture you saw is that the right side one was racist because it doesn't depict anything about Indian or Chinese people despite the apparent efforts to portray Indian and Chinese people. It is a false depiction of a Chinese boy. They are visual depictions of racist stereotypes. The left one of Harold and Kumar is not racist at all, because those are actual Indian and Chinese people (in terms of ethnicity). 

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38 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Not simply because they're both human (although I probably should've brought up the issue of free will the other night) but because that is the identity of Mal.

What is the identity of Mal? We're talking about swapping out a straight male for a lesbian, so do you mean that Mal's identity is straight male? If not, who are we swapping out?

It's not just about Mal's given sex and orientation, it's about how those traits are used throughout the plots and character interactions. They are essential to the story Joss Whedon created. I could probably find many more examples if I rewatched the show, but I don't want to hear the words "innie" and "outie" again, so I think I'll rewatch John Wick instead.

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58 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

It's not like movies like the new Ghostbusters are bad because all the heroes are women; they're bad because they're badly and lazily written.

Did you see it? Why do you say it was badly written?

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

The point about the picture you saw is that the right side one was racist because it doesn't depict anything about Indian or Chinese people despite the apparent efforts to portray Indian and Chinese people. It is a false depiction of a Chinese boy. They are visual depictions of racist stereotypes.

had.thumb.png.a8b511ac2b1fd584f0b53294e46143e5.png.6b217ce788921ce53eb33d32a2dcb67d.png

Really?

 

Racism is specifically attributing mental characteristics to someone (usually someone you don't even know) on the basis of their ancestry or skin color (like "all black people are thieves" or "all white people are murderous colonizers" or "you must be good at math because you're Chinese").

 

I can't find any such thing in that picture. The pictures on the left are very well executed and photorealistic while the ones on the right are pretty goofy looking sketches, but that is not what racism is.

 

To say that Mal couldn't be the same person if he'd been born with darker skin WOULD BE racist if anyone here was actually trying to say that.

 

Again - it's not something that can even be expressed with pictures alone. The only reason you think that's racist is because you're making certain assumptions about what we're supposed to be looking at. What if those assumptions are wrong?

What in the picture could give one rational grounds to know for sure?

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8 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Racism is specifically attributing mental characteristics to someone (usually someone you don't even know) on the basis of their ancestry or skin color

Do you mind if I take this quote and respond as a new thread?

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2 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Racism is specifically attributing mental characteristics to someone (usually someone you don't even know) on the basis of their ancestry or skin color (like "all black people are thieves" or "all white people are murderous colonizers" or "you must be good at math because you're Chinese").

 

I can't find any such thing in that picture.

Well, there are the conical hats and turbans (among other things), which are used as stereotypes. They're not mental characteristics, but they're still stereotypes.

Also, the drawing on the left could represent individuals, while the drawing on the right doesn't.

5 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

The one on the right is a cartoon caricature of two ridiculous faces

Caricatures of what/who? You're basically just saying that they're caricatures of caricatures ("caricature of two ridiculous faces") avoiding the big turban in the room here.

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4 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Did you see it? Why do you say it was badly written?

To be frank, I haven't.  I've seen bits and pieces cut out of it and heard the general synopsis from multiple critics who generally seem to get things right, but I'm not ready to dive into any of the details because I haven't seen it for myself.  I was just trying to use it as a useful shorthand for an example of real cultural parasitism (which I still think exists and is not good).  And by the way - I do actually agree with what you said in the OP.

Perhaps it might make it easier for us to identify what the actual issues involved were if I endured the new Ghostbusters firsthand.

4 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

What is the identity of Mal? We're talking about swapping out a straight male for a lesbian, so do you mean that Mal's identity is straight male? If not, who are we swapping out?

The soldier who's still fighting a war he's already lost in any way he can find.  The person who can endure any manner of insult, except to be called an Alliance sympathizer, and looks out for his own best interests except when it comes to the Alliance or Inara.

I could go on, but I think you get the behavioral sort of gist I'm driving at.

John Wick (which I have seen for myself) would be a much better example, though, since sex actually never comes up in it once.

 

Also, I have to respect the entire box set of Firefly.  That's a beautiful thing.

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28 minutes ago, human_murda said:

Well, there are the conical hats and turbans (among other things), which are used as stereotypes. They're not mental characteristics, but they're still stereotypes.

Non-mental stereotypes are not racism.

 

African people have dark brown skin and tend to be taller than people of Asian, American or European ancestry (along with many other facial and biological quirks).  That's not racism any more than it's sexism to say that men have outties while women have innies.

And yes @MisterSwig; I know exactly how ridiculous those terms sound, which is precisely why I'm using them.

 

Anatomical differences between the races and genders are literally self-evident; it's how we define what a "race" or "sex" even means.  They also happen to mean very little outside of the bedroom (since they do not relate to the sorts of people we choose to be) and to think otherwise about THAT is just as silly and cringe as those terms ("innie" and "outie") are.

I wish there were some equivalent ones for skin color so I could use them too!

 

To point out that men statistically tend to be taller and stronger than women (and black men the most of all), or that there are certain anatomical features that only some of us are born with, is not bigotry; it's a simple observation of the facts that everyone can literally see for themselves.  To say that this dictates what kind of person they are is bigotry, and false because of the fact of human volition (which is also self-evident, but introspectively).

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38 minutes ago, human_murda said:

Also, the drawing on the left could represent individuals, while the drawing on the right doesn't.

Why?  Couldn't the ones on the right represent individuals?

 

This is what I mean about making certain key assumptions about such drawings.  They clearly represent human faces (that is also self-evident) but you're assuming that they're supposed to represent ALL faces of a certain ethnic group.

I'm pretty sure @Eiuol thinks they're supposed to represent Harold and Kumar (just as the pictures on the left apparently do).  If so it would be because the assumptions he's making in order to call it "racist" actually happen to differ from yours.

Because they are not justified assumptions and you'd do better without them.

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42 minutes ago, human_murda said:

Caricatures of what/who? You're basically just saying that they're caricatures of caricatures ("caricature of two ridiculous faces") avoiding the big turban in the room here.

Avoiding racism?  Heavens, no; I actually find actual racism to be quite funny.  Those are my favorite sorts of jokes!

Because actual racism is fucking silly!

 

 

Good night.

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