Friday, August 11, 2023

Links - 11th August 2023 (2 - Diversity)

Hollywood professionals are in quiet rebellion against wokeness - "insiders, many anonymously, gave their opinion on the new ‘diversity mandates’. It seems many Hollywood producers (like the audiences) have noticed that the rise of these ideological policies has been synonymous with the decline of the cultural relevance of films.   From writers to actors to stage designers, white men are being replaced in an entertainment industry they created... These enforced woke policies in hiring sadly ensure not only that a certain large subset of society cannot get work, on or off screen, but that the audiences are also losing interest in movies and programs that are ‘decided by committee’. Because even a woke hire can always be accused of some new indiscretion, and replaced by an even woker hire, there is a culture of fear created which is not conducive to a creative industry.  The rest of the corporate world surrendered to this phenomenon years ago, and each institution suffers this in its own personal way. Ironically, Hollywood has of course been a main instigator in the proliferation of the ideology which has resulted in this.  Unlike the larger corporate world, woke activists who support ‘diversity-McCarthyism’ in Hollywood run into two particular problems. Firstly, it is comprised of high-profile people with media attention who can speak out and be heard. And secondly, a film business that can no longer perform its function of ‘entertaining people’ is dysfunctional and economically unworkable. There is no doubt that public disinterest (and even disgust) in the Hollywood brand is at an all-time high.    Practically speaking, the earnest takeover of Hollywood by wokeism began around 2015 with the 87th Academy Awards and the media hype of #OscarsSoWhite, and progressed with the #MeToo movement of 2017.  Soon after, this was further accelerated by the George Floyd incident and the ensuing Black Lives Matter riots, prompting the Academy in 2020 to launch a Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry platform. Like most corporate policies based around ‘positive discrimination’, the language of these proposals is comprised of feel-good buzzwords, which, paradoxically, enact strict policies of discrimination. According to this initiative, for a movie to qualify for Best Picture, the representation of white males among everyone from interns to executives (on-screen and off) will be artificially limited.  By 2024, no films will be considered for best picture without meeting two of four standards for the representation of ‘underrepresented groups’, which include women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities... “The audience stops trusting us. They begin to see us as a community twisting ourselves into a pretzel to make every movie as woke as possible, every relationship mixed racially, every character sexually fluid, and they decide that we are telling stories set in a fantasyland instead of a world they know and live in. If that happens… we will lose them.” – anonymous director. “I get so paranoid about even phone calls. It’s so scary. My close friends and my family are just like, ‘Don’t say anything.’ It is one of those things, ‘Will I be able to sleep at night if I say anything?’ Getting jobs in this town is so hard, and I’m very grateful to have a great job. If there’s any so-called ding on my record, that would just be an argument against hiring me.” – anonymous writer.  “Everyone has gone so underground with their true feelings about things. If you voice things in a certain way it can really have negative repercussions for you.” – Mike White, writer and director of HBO hit ‘The White Lotus’.  “You’re not allowed to pick your staff anymore, and studios won’t let you interview anybody who isn’t a person of color.” – anonymous showrunner.  “Now, they’ll just say, ‘Sorry, diversity quotas. We’re just not allowed to hire you,’” – anonymous comedy writer.   No less than Quentin Tarantino has added his opinion to this issue, saying in an appearance on Bill Maher last year saying: “Ideology has become more important than art. It’s like ideology trumps art. Ideology trumps individual effort. Ideology trumps good.”... Art withers within a framework of tight censorship, as effective art tells truths and moralises on widely accepted virtues. An effective writers’ room, especially in regard to comedy and realistic drama, is intended to be a reckless, free-form, and unrestrained riffing of the funniest, nastiest, darkest, and most ribald ideas a team can suggest to one another. The magic occurs in an unrestrained environment.  But hiring mandates do not allow like-minded creatives to organically bond; they are chosen based on unrelated criteria like race and sexual orientation, and at any moment they can be plucked out and replaced to meet a new mandate, and none of this has anything at all to do with successfully writing an amazing story.  Recently, CBS mandated that writers’ rooms be staffed with at least 40% BIPOC writers, to be increased to 50% by 2023. Every studio has a similar strict outline of ‘inclusion standards’.   “I’m sitting in a room trying to run a show with a collection of people I don’t totally trust.” – anonymous writer. It seems many big-budget woke offerings are turning out to be box office failures (such as the ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Ghostbusters’ reboots). However, it also seems that, at least for the moment, economic concerns are still not enough to restrain the tentacles of ‘woke activism’.   For those in the know, Hollywood has been stagnant for years, the real money coming from television channel reruns and wherever older movies can be sold. The rise of Netflix and streaming services has collapsed that model even further, leaving entertainment creatives feeling pressured financially as well as on the run from the discriminating mandates.  Some of these professionals apparently see their last chance to save their careers, or at least to fight back against the ruinous zealots, in the threat of legal action. A courtroom is much more difficult to control ideologically than an awards show or a hiring agency, after all.   As has been shown in other similar cases, that could well prove to be the final battleground for the future of Hollywood. As an anonymous showrunner quoted by Kiefer and Savodnik said, “This is all going to end in a giant class-action lawsuit.”"

Meme - Pop Base: "Sydney Agudong has been cast as Nani in the upcoming 'Lilo & Stitch' live-action movie."
Macaiyla: "MELANIN? WHERE ? IS IT"
Jesus Crust: "Ariel took it all"
Weird. We were just told that the skin colour of fictional characters can be changed (of course, Cleopatra doesn't count). One cope I saw was that Hawaiians are real people but not mermaids, so their skin colour cannot be changed (ignoring all the previous bitching about whitewashing in Avatar: The Last Airbender among other things) Not to mention how she has Hawaiian ancestry

Meme - "Disney's casting of 'Lilo & Stitch' character prompts colorism debate
*all dark skinned*
Bell 2022
Tinker bell 2023
Ariel 2023
Snow White 2023
Peter Pan 2023"

Meme *Little Mermaid* "SKIN COLOR DOESNT MATTER IT IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER"
*Lilo & Stitch* "COLOR IS NOT DARK ENOUGH FICTIONAL CHARACTER IS DARKER"

Meme - "... this film will also introduce our very first openly gay character!"
"this is your 7th film with "first openly gay character""
"First Latinx openly gay character"

“The Bane of My Life”: Priyanka Chopra Talks Impact Of Apu From The Simpsons : KotakuInAction - "Do you remember the scandal over that chinese movie starring Matt Damon? Americans were in a fit over how insensitive it was that Chinese people couldn't see someone like them in their own movie. But, in actuality, Chinese people from China see Chinese actors in Chinese movies all the fucking time. Seeing an A-list American actor is much more of a novelty for them (now I don't remember if that movie did well or not tbh)"
“The Bane of My Life”: Priyanka Chopra Talks Impact Of Apu From The Simpsons : KotakuInAction - "Besides, Damon's character was a European mercenary. They didnt demand the audience to accept white people like they were inhabiting China as Hollywood currently does by blackwashing historical and fantastical European settings." “The Bane of My Life”: Priyanka Chopra Talks Impact Of Apu From The Simpsons : KotakuInAction - "The joke of that whole situation was the movie was designed to be a Hollywood/China collab - it was helmed by noted Chinese director Zhang Yimou, and is a wuxia style flick with both big American stars and Chinese stars. It was made to try and appeal to both sides of the fence.  I recall that cunty actress from Fresh Off the Boat going off on Twitter about how 'white men are not our heroes!11!!1' and some such BS, even though (as u/dandrixxx noted) Matt Damon and co. were all portraying Europeans who'd travelled to China. And this was also around the time of the ScarJo in Ghost in the Shell nonsense - another misinformed controversy."

Meme - Black and Brown women: *Black Ariel* "Now we can finally feel represented"
Men: *Shrek, Optimus Prime, Korg, Ninja Turtle, Sonic the Hedgehog etc* "LMAO That's literally me!"

Meme - The Yaboiposting: "Fun thing about being a mixed or light skinned black (like yours truly) is constantly being told how non-black you actually are. This bullshit is the main reasons I ended up the red-pilled admin you see before you."
blairsmus @blairsmus: "riri williams/ironheart is voiced by biracial actress sofia wylie in short animated series, despite riri being depicted as darkskin in the comic books. i hope @disney @marvel isn't planning on taking away 1 of the few rep darkskin black girls have"
Representation is so powerful that you can see what voice actors look like when listening to their voices

Global TV Begins Production On Robyn Hood, Series To “Reimagine” Classic English Folk Hero As A Black Female “Gen Zer” - "“Robyn Hood follows Robyn Loxley, a young woman whose masked hip-hop band, The Hood, is known for their inventive videos and anti-authoritarian message.”  “She lives in Sherwood Towers, a cluster of rental high-rises in a working-class corner of New Nottingham, a near-fi city where the cost of living has skyrocketed, leaving an ever-widening gap between the rich and everyone else,” they added."

Meme - "Never forget that diversity and multiculturalism is our strength, which is why nations that had too many ethnic groups within their borders are unstable and prone to constant civil wars and dictatorships. Wait"
Xavi Ruiz @xruiztru: "Map of Africa using ethnically drawn borders, rather than those drawn by imperial powers."

City Bans Men From Applying for $63,000-A-Year Street Sweeper Operator Job - "An Australian city council has banned men from applying for a $63,000-a-year street sweeper operator job in order to create an "inclusive" organization.  Darebin City Council, in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria (Vic) state, opened the job to people identifying as "non-male"... In the job description, Darebin City Council said it was a "progressive leader in local government" and is "passionate about social inclusion."  It added: "We are proud of the diversity of our workforce and recognise the strength this provides in meeting the needs of the community we serve. "We are committed to upholding a positive and supportive work environment that values the contribution of all employees and treats all employees with dignity and respect.""
Too bad this is easily bypassed

I struggle to find men to work for me, says John Lewis chief - "The chairman of John Lewis has admitted she has struggled to find men who will work for her as she revealed she had been criticised for attempting to change the "strong male culture" at the retailer.  Dame Sharon White said she has found it “quite hard to recruit men” at John Lewis Partnership (JLP) since her push to "rebalance" the organisation away from its masculine "command and control" culture.  Speaking at an International Women's Day event at King’s College London, Dame Sharon said she had also faced a backlash for recruiting and promoting women... More than 60pc of leadership positions at JLP are filled by women, compared to 40pc of director posts across FTSE 350 companies... She said she was concerned about the growing backlash against feminism among young men. She blamed a failure to have "healthy" conversations about the importance of gender equality with boys and teenagers... figures from Ipsos earlier this week suggested that two out of every five Britons believed that championing women's equality meant that men were being discriminated against."
If you criticise male culture and prioritise women over men, it's a surprise that men don't want to work for you. And the solution is to indoctrinate men about feminism. Or blame the men for being misogynists
60% of leaders being women isn't a problem. But 60% of leaders being men is

The regional impact of cultural diversity on wages: evidence from Australia - "the ethnic fractionalisation literature indicates that cultural diversity can lead to interracial conflict or racism, at least in the short-term, followed by a decline in economic performance due to reduced investment and public spending (Alesina and La Ferrara 2005; Fearon 2003; Montalvo and Reynal-Querol 2005; Stahl et al. 2010). In a dynamic model with a lagged measure of diversity, Campos et al. (2011) found that diversity has a significant negative impact on economic growth. A range of reasons can be posited for this negative economic impact. Some studies, for example, have linked ethnic diversity with reduced social cohesion leading to conflicts (Kochan et al. 2003; Lieber 2009; Roberson and Kulik 2007). At the organisational level, diversity that is poorly managed can reduce staff morale and productivity, provoke conflict between employees and managers, and harm social cohesion (Kochan et al. 2003; Roberson and Kulik 2007; Wrench 2005). Diversity may also result in the perpetration of, and exposure to, prejudice and racism, marginalisation of minorities, deterioration of social capital, and political conflict (Stahl et al. 2010), with any potential benefits offset by the costs of such phenomena (Campos et al. 2011; Montalvo and Reynal-Querol 2005; Triana et al. 2015)... the findings that indicate a positive effect of diversity tend to disappear after controlling for individual fixed effects... although contemporaneous levels of cultural diversity strongly and positively affect weekly wages, the impact of previous levels of diversity on weekly wages is not conclusive. This may explain the variation in the literature where some studies report that cultural diversity increases wages across time (Bellini et al. 2013; Ottaviano and Peri 2006) while others do not (Longhi 2013)."

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opens ground-breaking franchise to female fans
We are simultaneously told that women need to see themselves onscreen in traditionally male roles to identify with the heroes, and that women have always been into these universes so we can't pretend that they haven't

Meme - "Black Anime Nerds
Lea Stafford: The movie was great, but not once did they reference him as Black/AA. But they definitely made it priority numbers one to mention how Hispanic he is."
Grievance mongers will never be satisfied. Diversity is a losing strategy

Meme - "Theoden, King of Rohan
Legendary Creature - Human Noble
Whenever Theoden, King of Rohan or another Human enters the battlefield under your control, target creature gains double strike until end of turn.
"Perhaps your hands would remember their old strength better, if you grasped this basketball.""

Meme - "Wizards of the coast and Magic the gathering is showing a level of incompetence that is almost impressive.
White man and white woman turned black
Aragorn, the Uniter, Galadriel, Elven-Queen
The exact same person depicted as both white and black
Meriadoc Brandybuck, Merry, Esquire of Rohan
Asian guy turned into a white woman
Easterling Vanguard
Biological siblings of completely different races
Eomer, Marshal of Rohan, Eowyn, Fearless Knight"

Meme - Based Aragorn IV: An Unexpected Yeeting: "The dunedain Rangers were black womxn. You might have read otherwise, you might have Tolkien quotes to the contrary. But you have to ask yourself one question... is this worth losing my job over? The dunedain Rangers were black womxn."

Inspired by 'Hamilton,' diverse docudrama based on survivor testimony is touring US - "A few days after playwright Wendy Kout was asked to create a play about Holocaust survivors, white supremacists took to the streets of Charlottesville with chants against Jews and immigrants.  “Those tiki torches lit a fire under me,” Kout told The Times of Israel. “That’s when the urgency of this play was fully underscored.”  Wanting audiences to connect with the Holocaust through eyewitness testimony, Kout wrote “Survivors,” a docudrama commissioned by CenterStage of Rochester, New York. Since 2017, the play has toured North America with a new cast for each region...  After Lewinsky speaks about the genocidal worldview of Nazi Germany, she adds, “Some of you in the audience may experience this kind of abuse and injustice… and fear.”"
Blackwashing Jews isn't anti-Semitic. Making inappropriate Holocaust comparisons is good if you're liberal

DC’s bisexual Superman is a misleading and hollow PR stunt - "It turns out the “S” on Superman’s chest stood for “sexually fluid” all along. The custodian of the most famous red-and-blue long johns in popular culture is bisexual, DC Comics has revealed. Next month, Superman will embark on a same-sex relationship with a close male companion after he “mentally and physically burns out from trying to save everyone that he can”. “I’ve always said everyone needs heroes and everyone deserves to see themselves in their heroes and I’m very grateful DC and Warner Bros share this idea,” Tom Taylor, the author of the latest Superman storyline said in a statement. “Superman’s symbol has always stood for hope, for truth and for justice. Today, that symbol represents something more. Today, more people can see themselves in the most powerful superhero in comics.”  He isn’t the only queer superhero. Batman’s eternal sidekick Robin was recently revealed to be “exploring” his sexuality. He’s had girlfriends before. However, following a “lightbulb” moment he decides he wants a relationship with companion Bernard. Unlike Superman, however, Robin has not been formally confirmed as “bi”... if you look past the “Superman is Bi” headlines it quickly becomes obvious that DC is engaged in a game of superheroic sleight of hand. The Superman to which they refer is not Clark Kent – boyfriend to Lois Lane and champion of truth, justice and costume changes in phone booths. No, the new bi Superman is his son, Jonathan, who is holding the fort while his dad disappears into deep space for reasons unknown.  The same is true with bisexual Robin. The character exploring their sexuality is not Batman’s original apprentice, Dick Grayson, but Tim Drake, aka Robin number three.  DC, in other words, is having its cape and eating it – and dominating the news-cycle with an ultimately hollow gesture. It has scored points for its progressiveness by giving us an LGBT Superman and Robin. Yet, the characters are ring-fenced off into their own microcosms. There is no suggestion that the Superman as recently played by Henry Cavill or the Robin your kids watch on Teen Titans Go! are to be unveiled as gay. Because that really would be a risk – one that would potentially inflame conservative comic book fans and meaningfully impact on DC’s ambitions to create a multi-media juggernaut at the same level of its rivals Marvel.  Marvel has also been pushing at the boundaries in terms of the sexuality of its characters. Yet here again it has made sure to do so in a way that does not impinge on the main event, i.e. its movies. Tessa Thompson’s Thor Ragnorark character Valkyrie is officially bisexual. Yet this was revealed only in a Tweet and is never referenced on screen."

Dean Cain blasts bisexual Superman: 'They're bandwagoning' | Toronto Sun - "“They said it’s a bold new direction, I say they’re bandwagoning,” Dean Cain — who played Superman for four seasons on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman — told Fox & Friends... Cain says the new direction misses the ways in which the Man of Tomorrow could truly have been revolutionized.  “Brave would be having him fighting for the rights of gay people in Iran, where they’ll throw you off a building for the offense of being gay,” Cain, 55, continued. “They’re talking about having him fight climate change and the deportation of refugees, and he’s dating a hacktivist — whatever a hacktivist is. Why don’t they have him fight the injustices that created the refugees whose deportation he’s protesting? That would be brave, I’d read that. Or fighting for the rights of women to attend school and have the ability to work and live and boys not to be raped by men under the new warm and fuzzy Taliban — that would be brave. There’s real evil in this world today, real corruption and government overreach, plenty of things to fight against. Human trafficking — real and actual slavery going on. … It’d be great to tackle those issues.” Earlier this year, Cain bashed Marvel over The United States of Captain America, a new comic that said the American Dream “isn’t real.”  During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Cain said it appears the “cool, the fashionable thing to do is to bash America and to hate America.”  “I love the concept of Captain America, but I am so tired of this wokeness and anti-Americanism.”"

'They don't have a right to do this:' Artist leaves DC Comics over political correctness - "A colorist involved in the making of Superman comics says he’s leaving DC Comics over its aim to make its comics more politically correct, after it announced it would be withdrawing the “American Way” theme from Superman’s traditional motto. “I’m finishing out my contract with DC. I’m tired of this s***, I’m tired of them ruining these characters; they don’t have a right to do this,” Superman: Son of Kal-El colorist Gabe Eltaeb reportedly said... Eltaeb’s decision comes over changes to classic characters, such as making the newest version of Superman bisexual and removing the traditional “American Way” motto of truth and justice that is historically associated with the comic... 'They call us bigots and racist and s***,” Eltaeb reportedly said on the live stream. “I would ask them, find me in the f****** mainstream, not on the fringes, one f****** book, one f****** t-shirt, one movie that says that leftism is bad, and conservatism is good, find it for me, they f******won’t. They’re not letting people have a voice, they’re the f****** bigots'... Ethan Van Sciver, noted that conservatism and criticism of DC’s corporate agenda is not allowed, according to Bounding Into Comics. “You have to keep your negative or critical opinions to yourself, and it’s so liberating to be able to not work for DC comics and be able to say exactly what you think,” he reportedly said in the live stream. “And I think that’s what Gabe is going through here.”"

So DC Comics made its latest Superman a bisexual climate warrior and it turns out people aren't really interested in reading that sort of thing! - "Superman is, after all, one of the most iconic American brands ever created. It's right up there with Mickey Mouse, McDonald's and Ford: Nearly a century old, Superman has for years symbolized American cultural dominance both abroad and at home. He's the total pop culture package!  Except when you retcon his character to make him kiss other boys and/or become the male Greta Thunberg. Then, not so much.  The numbers relative to other Superman comics are astonishing"

X-MEN '97 Head Writer Departs Twitter Following Backlash Over Sunspot "Whitewashing" Casting - "Head Writer Beau DeMayo has decided to leave the platform following a tense few days.   Earlier this week, we learned that Brazilian actor Gui Agustini will lend his voice to Roberto da Costa/Sunspot in the X-Men: The Animated Series follow-up. However, the character has long been the subject of whitewashing claims, first in The New Mutants live-action movie and now in X-Men '97.   Sunspot, who is typically darker-skinned on the page, being portrayed by Agustini didn't sit well with some, while others feel his skin tone in the show itself is too light for an Afro-Brazilian.   Initially, DeMayo responded by saying, "I will not indulge fans believing that they are entitled to be the arbiter of someone else’s identity, and whether or not they are 'this' or 'that' enough...At the proper time, there’ll be plenty of insights into what decisions we made and why. When Marvel gives me the go, I will be very frank and transparent."... "I value fan’s opinions but the sheer amount of vitriol in the last 24-hours is truly taxing, and actually risks working against what you’re trying to do as it’s now closed off an access point because I have to protect myself," he stated before detailing some of the attacks he's endured in recent days (including being labelled a "race traitor")."
"Disney hires a Brazilian VOICE to VOICE a Brazilian character and yet he is not dark skinned enough to VOICE the character. Disney you courted these jerks and emboldened them now look what you how rout upon yourselves."

Who do our children see in Canadian and American TV shows? | The Star - "As a Caribbean-Canadian girl, she noticed most shows did not often have characters who looked like her. “When we were represented, it was often not as a protagonist but as a side character. And so I felt like most shows didn’t teach me what it would look like or feel like to be the protagonist of my own life.”  The exception was the animated series “Corduroy” on TVO Kids, whose main character, Lisa, was a schoolgirl of Jamaican heritage, said Buchanan. “And I felt so excited when I saw her eating Jamaican food because it validated my own experiences as a Black Caribbean-Canadian girl. But yeah, there weren’t many programs like this with authentic representation.”  A new report from Children’s Media Lab found that — at least among programs released in Canada and the U.S. over the past two years — animated children’s television has come a good distance on racial diversity. While non-white and white characters are balanced nearly 50/50, “there’s still a lack of representation of characters who are South Asian, Middle Eastern or Indigenous.”... Gender balance in recent animated children’s programming appears to show an improvement since Children’s Media Lab took a wider look at kids’ TV for a report that came out in 2019. Among human characters in the newer programs, 57 per cent were male and 43 per cent female but, when examining main characters alone, the gap widens with 63 per cent male to 37 per cent female. The disparity is particularly evident with non-human characters, says Buchanan. “When it comes to things like monsters and animals and robots, we’re seeing that 70 per cent of characters are males, whereas only 30 per cent are females, which is quite surprising. What we want to tell people is that girls can be monsters and robots, too.” At just two per cent, most notable by absence are characters with disabilities. “That is really a far cry from the 20 per cent of Canadians who are currently living with a disability,” said Buchanan... “It comes down to nuance. I want kids to see lots of Indigenous experiences. Especially given how they’ve been treated in the past, we really need to counteract stereotypes and create more understanding,” she said.  Likewise, showrunners might think they’ve got disability covered with one episode featuring a kid in a wheelchair. “But that’s not what we want, because if you have a side character who comes in a once in a while and the majority storyline is about them being in a wheelchair, that’s not what we want to get across because kids in a wheelchair, that’s not their entire identity.” She said the lab has also had a lot of illuminating conversations with networks and content creators about the subtle aspects of how genders are portrayed, including the report’s finding that eyelashes are drawn almost exclusively to denote femininity. The report found that all but one character who had been drawn with eyelashes was a girl. “And what does that suggest? Makeup. Mascara.”  Likewise, they want to see that when girl characters are depicted in dresses or skirts, they’re also drawn with leggings so those characters look just as ready for rough-and-tumble play as their male counterparts, and that they’re shown with a better range of body shapes, said Russo Johnson.  The report found that zero female characters were portrayed with larger body sizes, compared to 16 per cent of male characters."
Nothing will ever be enough. Even with a strict quota for characters, new boxes will be invented all the time

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