Until recently, Michael Calleri was a movie reviewer for the Niagara Falls Reporter. Indeed, he’d been reviewing movies for the weekly paper for more than 20 years. But then the paper got sold to a new owner, and Calleri found that many of the reviews he sent in weren’t making their way into print. He contacted the new publisher, who was also the new editor, and after several surreal conversations and a number of emails, he received this explanation from his new boss:
i have a deep moral objection to publishing reviews of films that offend me. snow white and the huntsman is such a film. when my boys were young i would never have allowed them to go to such a film for i believe it would injure their developing manhood. if i would not let my own sons see it, why would i want to publish anything about it?
Yeah, I think we can all see where this is going.
snow white and the huntsman is trash. moral garbage. a lot of fuzzy feminist thinking and pandering to creepy hollywood mores produced by metrosexual imbeciles.
I don’t want to publish reviews of films where women are alpha and men are beta.
where women are heroes and villains and men are just lesser versions or shadows of females.
i believe in manliness.
not even on the web would i want to attach my name to snow white and the huntsman except to deconstruct its moral rot and its appeal to unmanly perfidious creeps.
i’m not sure what headhunter has to offer either but of what I read about it it sounds kind of creepy and morally repugnant.
with all the publications in the world who glorify what i find offensive, it should not be hard for you to publish your reviews with any number of these.
they seem to like critiques from an artistic standpoint without a word about the moral turpitude seeping into the consciousness of young people who go to watch such things as snow white and get indoctrinated to the hollywood agenda of glorifying degenerate power women and promoting as natural the weakling, hyena -like men, cum eunuchs.
Dude,”eunuch” is not the preferred nomanclature. Mangina-American, please.
Oh, but the new boss made clear that he was open to some sorts of reviews from Calleri:
If you care to write reviews where men act like good strong men and have a heroic inspiring influence on young people to build up their character (if there are such movies being made) i will be glad to publish these.
i am not interested in supporting the reversing of traditional gender roles.
i don’t want to associate the Niagara Falls Reporter with the trash of Hollywood and their ilk.
it is my opinion that hollywood has robbed america of its manliness and made us a nation of eunuchs who lacking all manliness welcome in the coming police state. …
In short i don’t care to publish reviews of films that offend me.
if you care to condemn the filmmakers as the pandering weasels that they are…. true hyenas.
i would be interested in that….
So, yeah, apparently the Niagara Falls Reporter is now being edited by a barely literate misogynist who seems like he just stepped out of the comments section of The Spearhead.
You can read the rest of Calleri’s story over at the Chicago Sun-Times.
(Thanks to several alert Man Boobz readers for pointing me to this story.)
The average straight male viewer doesn’t want the male protagonist in a story to just be the comic relief side-kick of the female protagonist, no matter how sexy she is. This explains the final season of Kim Possible…
Lots about him out there.
http://www.frankparlato.com/
http://www.frankparlatojr.com/index.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/esp/esp76.html
http://www.oniagara.com/
http://www.frankparlato.net/
http://www.vivekananda.net/ (scroll down to bottom of page)
More money than brains, more ego than both together.
I don’t know about Snow White and the Huntsman. Were the men really that wimpy that it would hurt boys’ developing manhood. Or do their dicks shrivel at the sight of a strong woman? Anyway. I highly recommend Once Upon a Time. I’ve been enjoying it on Netflix. BTW, what does it do to girls to see females constantly as damsels in distress? I prefer my entertainment not to promote helplessness in girls.
A rant of his here: http://www.frankparlato.com/NFR/05Aug08.pdf
Why do I get the feeling that this letter is going to get viral? And then said publisher gets under fire? And then he’s going to have to apologize? And then in his apology, he’s going to say that he “misspoken” or that the reviewer “misrepresented” him. And then he’s going to continue with what he meant to say, and it’s pretty much the exact same thing?
I’m using far too many conjunctions at the beginning of my sentences. Someone should hit me with an MLA handbook.
Also, scarlettpipistrelle, did he seriously say that California v. Bakke was discrimination against white people when the Supreme Court’s decision was pretty much exactly that universities CAN’T discriminate against white people?
He’s sure said a lot of things, and it makes me wonder how much else of this ilk is floating around.
If we’re talking about Spider-Man 2, with Doctor Octopus in it, the falling, elderly lady was Spidey’s beloved aunt; but he would have saved anyone Doc Ock had grabbed. And it’s not just Spider-Man; I think the heroes from the idealist side of the comics industry save all kinds of people (although the authors are not immune from falling back on the bus full of nuns when they get lazy or tired). The heroes from the cynical side tend to leave criminals and drug addicts to their fates (I’m looking at you, Punisher, you asshole).
If we’re talking The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) I don’t remember all of his derring-do all that well, although I’ll be the first to admit that the movie is all about White Men.
Damn, I wish I’d printed out a bingo card before I read that last link scarlettpipistrelle posted. I’m pretty sure I would have won by the time I hit the middle of the third column.
And you just know he’s not talking about young female people having their character built up, don’t you?
Don’t be silly. Girls aren’t people.
Why do I get the feeling that this letter is going to get viral? And then said publisher gets under fire? And then he’s going to have to apologize? And then in his apology, he’s going to say that he “misspoken” or that the reviewer “misrepresented” him. And then he’s going to continue with what he meant to say, and it’s pretty much the exact same thing?
There is no way this guy is not taking the “sorry if inferior people chose to get hurt by my courageous truth bombs” route.
Let’s check this weekend’s top box office movies for metrosexuals and perfidious power women:
1. Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Obviously, Twilight series is suspect just for being aimed at girls. But Bella spends the movies doing what a woman is supposed to do: lying around helplessly and waiting to get rescued by superpowered alpha males. Some of the man even turn into wolves, which are properly manly animals, unlike hyenas, well-known as the pocket-protector-wearing wimps of the animal kingdom.
Oh, wait, but in this movie Bella also gets superpowers, degenerating into a power woman. So boo to this.
2. Skyfall
I’m sure you manginas out there think that James Bond is a heroic role model for aspiring manly men. But you forget he takes orders from a WOMAN! (Yes, people who have seen the movie, I know. Shh.)
3. Lincoln
Seriously. What did Lincoln ever do that was heroic?
4. Wreck-It Ralph
Yes, the movie is literally about a male character learning how to be a hero, but he also hangs out with a little girl. Cooties, anyone?
5. Flight
A movie about a heroic male pilot who turns out to have hidden demons. I think we have to nix this one for having moral complexity.
6. Argo
A heroic male CIA agent rescues hostages from Iran. On the other hand, it’s set in the 1970s, a notoriously feminist era.
7. Taken 2
A heroic male CIA agent rescues his wife and daughter from terrorists. This has got to be man-hating in some way. Give me time. I’ll figure out what the feminists and the metrosexuals are plotting with this one.
8. Pitch Perfect
A comedy about a female a capella group. Women! Shamelessly singing a capella! And going to college, even! Jupiter’s thunder!
9. Here Comes the Boom
A heroic high-school teacher becomes a mixed martial-arts fighter to raise money to save his school. But Kevin James is kind of fat, so probably not manly enough.
10. Cloud Atlas
I can’t figure out what this movie’s about, so I’m going to assume it’s feminist. BOO. TO. THIS. MORAL. GARBAGE.
I’d also like to point out that seven–count ’em, seven–of the top ten movies feature heroic male leads. Two feature female leads (who, I might as well note, are not particularly heroic), and one has an ensemble cast.
Why, why must men be oppressed so?
My favorite Batman moment post-relaunch is him saving two teenagers from a hate crime: http://media.dcentertainment.com/sites/default/files/bm12_p14_COLORlo.jpg And then intimidating the ever-loving hell out of the perpetrators. “You’re done here. You hurt these people again, and the next visit won’t go this well. Understand?”
One of my favorite Batman moments of all time was in the Marvel/DC crossover when he beat the shit out of the Punisher for being such an asshole.
Frank Parlato is apparently involved with the Vedanta Movement/Ramakrishna Mission, and claims to be a Vedic scholar of some repute, but the only info I can find on this reputation comes from his dozens of personally-owned domains and websites.
It also includes scenes of women in hijab protesting – one is even carrying a gun! This is obviously some liberal PC feel-good crap, because everyone knows Iranians don’t let their women out of the house. Some feminist probably made the director put in some “strong women”.
All of the above was sarcasm, by the way. I shouldn’t have assumed that was obvious.
I may have shed a few tears at drst’s link. The little girl really reminded me of TinyFantastic (my 8 year old sister). She’s a total awesome little badass, but none of the other girls at school will be friends with her because she hates princesses and loves Vikings. She knows that we all think she’s cool and she’s friends with the boys but I still worry that it upsets her that people are mean because she doesn’t like what she’s “supposed” to 🙁
Does everyone know that? Because I have been informed* that in Iran, the women run the show without seeming to lift a single finger, giving a very good illusion of being an underclass while secretly only staying their seizure of power until they can marry the sultan’s beautiful daughter to grant their coup a veneer of legitimacy. /snark
*By a very dubious source.
One of the curious things is that the publisher forbids all reviews, not just positive reviews, of these films. If he hates that stuff so much, you’d expect him to publish reviews saying so, but no.
He’s just taking a cue from the jew and ignoring and blacklisting things he doesn’t like. lol
And Fruitloops we know you’re reading this. You’re a cyberbully and were a real bully as a kid. We have the proof.
RE: Ruby
I have been watching that show, actually! (Knee injury. Stuck on couch sometimes.) I’ve been enjoying it, though I misunderstood the relation between two characters (don’t want to name because of possible SPOILERS) and was really bummed when I was corrected and I found it less interesting.
RE: Lauralot
That art is gorgoues! Which issue is that?
@Creative Writing Student: Striped tabbies. Yes, that is a good way of putting it.
@Dumpster Jedi: Yeah. His letter does seem pretty stream-of-consciousness.
Thank you for that list, Shaenon! I need to see more movies. Regardless of how good it is, I think this guy would crap his pants at Silent Hill 3D. Because Heather is just that awesome.
@Lauralot86: I loved that issue! The way his sister cut her hair to match his, and Alfred and the brownies, and…
((Minor “Night of the Owls” spoiler))
It was nice to figure out who that girl with the impromptu defibrillator was. I remember getting to the panel where Batman runs out of her truck and thinking “Who the hell was that?”
@LBT
Batman #13, I think?
@LBT: That’s issue 12 of the current run of Batman. It had two artists, and each was amazing.
@Quiet Wolf: I totally googled the jumper cable girl after that issue. I had just gotten into comics and I thought she must be some long established character I knew nothing about.
And Alfred and the brownies was glorious.
Thanks, Lauralot! I’m generally not a big Batman fan (I need a Robin, an Alfred, or an Oracle to sugarcoat him first), but I might have to mooch around and see if I can’t see that.
It’s a good issue to pick up if you’re interested, as it happens between story arcs and is basically its own self-contained story. Also it serves as an introduction to two new characters, so you don’t have to have great knowledge of the Batverse to enjoy it.
Actually, one of my favorite things about Batman post-Flashpoint is how nice he seems these days vs. what I’d seen of him in the old continuity. Hugging Batgirl, holding little kids’ hands, trying to reason with the villains before the fight starts and/or when they’ve tied him up and poisoned him…and they’ve made a big deal of focusing on his philanthropy stuff in the current run. I hope he stays this way for a while and doesn’t drift back into Batdickery any time soon.