By David Futrelle
We’re in the grip of a pandemic that has already killed more than 132,000 Americans. The Black Lives Matters protests continue across the country. And somehow at this fraught moment in history the internet babies are throwing yet another tantrum about “Captain Marvel” actress Brie Larson — though at this point I doubt many of them can even remember what they’re ostensibly mad at her for. (Because she’s named after a cheese?)
A couple of months back, professional and amateur outrage merchants on YouTube pitched a fit over her appearance in a Nissan commercial. Now they’re mad that she’s started up a YouTube channel of her own.
Her channel has been up all of three days and already her haters on YouTube have started pumping out attack videos.. Here’s a selection:
Yes, that last one is three and a half hours long.
I would offer some more commentary on these bullshit videos, but I refuse to watch any of them on principle, the principle being that I don’t want to watch any of these bullshit videos.
But scrolling through the search results on YouTube I did find one relatively unoffensive video about Brie Larson that I would like to share with you. It features Ms. Larson wearing a pantsuit, and it was put up online by a channel that specializes in “Female wearing suit shirt & tie.”
I have to say, that’s the best clip of a woman wearing a pantsuit I’ve seen in some time. And it’s got puppies! How can anyone be mad at someone with such obvious rapport with puppies?
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Brie Larson retroactively ruined the Chinese trotting horse lamps. That’s how badly she’s affected cinema!
@matruz
That they’re claiming it as fact is enough reason to dismiss it out of hand without any further evidence.
@ matruz
I’m not up on the new SW movies, so I’m not sure of the context; but some better informed people have heard rumours that certain people are on their way out at Disney as their contracts expire, so they’re going to use the opportunity for a sort of soft reboot.
Supposedly they’re going to use this ‘Veil of the Force’ idea to set up a new timeline, but still within continuity with the existing works. Bit like the new Star Trek franchise.
Unrelated, but I feel it’s important : China apparently decided to censor everything social-media related that they export out of the country. (AKA the company I work at suddenly stopped getting any data from China)
Last time it happened was when people started discussing COVID at the start of the year. It’s bad when the least bad reason one could think about it is that they are preparing an operation against Hong Kong.
And to think all this hate started simply because she said film critics could be a little more diverse.
I wonder if the insane vitriol is because neckbeards got an image in their head of what she was(a raging sjw feminazi) but everything shes done since shows shes actually A NERD! Which clashes with their preconceived notions and makes them hate her more.
@Moggie
Wow just gonna jump in and say that video has a rather horrifying preview image, and the implication that there’s a woman at the other end of the noose/lasso doesn’t help a whole lot. *shudder*
Like no offense or anything, I’m okay, just… wow holy shit that image is an abuse trigger.
@AlanRobertshaw
I also heard the basis of it, but from a business standpoint it makes absolutely no sense:
* For all the hate they got the fact is that the sequel trilogy still made a ton of money, to wipe that out is akin to shooting yourself in the foot.
* If they wipe that out from the continuity (a la Legends timeline) they ought to replace that with something else, and good luck trying to reboot the sequel now that Carrie Fisher is dead.
* Even if the sequel trilogy is the worst thing ever, Disney/Lucasfilm is better off trying to move forward with new storylines set in different eras, or attempt to add stories that attempt to fix the problems with sequel trilogy (also called Author’s Saving Throw https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AuthorsSavingThrow)
@matruz
I agree with those reasons, and it seems unlikely. In general, internet chud rumors are not accurate, so unless we see more evidence it seems fine to ignore this one.
@matruz: They should have no trouble resurrecting Carrie Fisher if they need to, if Rogue One’s ending is any indication.
I have no idea why anyone thinks that the portion of Star Wars that Disney actually had a hand in creating and managing would be the one they would strike from canon. It’s not going to happen. The sequel trilogy was enormously lucrative and that’s the only thing that Disney cares about. They don’t give a shit about fan backlash (see: the live-action remakes, which are generally viewed as terrible or at best shadows of the original film, but keep getting churned out because they always turn a profit), so long as it doesn’t impact their bottom line. Artistic and narrative consistency are not the concern of the Disney execs, and they’re the ones with the power to make this call.
I’ve not seen any of the new SW films; but from the trailers and clips they seem brilliant. Back to the narrative style and mis en scene of the classic originals. And Rogue One looks especially good!
Mind you, I like the Holiday Special*, so what do I know?
As for Hollywood making weird decisions though I highly recommend Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell!
(* Bea Arthur and Boba Fett! “Change my mind”)
@Alan
Oh, cool, that shouldn’t create any confusion, then.
@Catalpa
IIRC there is another reason they keep making live action remakes: it helps them keep the copyrights on the stories.
FWIW I personally don’t enjoy the remakes, probably in part because of nostalgia, but if other people enjoy them that’s fine too.
@Alan Robertshaw
I’ve never seen the Star Wars Christmas special, but I have listened to part of the Star Wars Christmas album. Would not recommend, but maybe others could appreciate it.
@ naglfar
Yup, buys them another couple of decades.
There’s a whole oeuvre of works though that are just created for copyright or license reasons with the intention they’ll never see anything but the most minimal public release. Including some Marvel and DC ones. There’s also four entire seasons of a Blazing Saddles TV series.
Burt Disney are notorious for lobbying for copyright law changes.
http://copyright.nova.edu/mickey-public-domain/
I find the Star Wars rumors believable not because it make sense, but because making stupid decisions based on ego, “common sense” and prejudice is pretty much the standard Hollywood way. Remember how they avoided female leads for at least 50 years because clearly thoses movies would not turn a profit, based on pretty much no evidences.
Whether it will actually pass is another question. The cheesy way to handwave the trilogy would be the third most ridiculous thing I have seen in Star Wars after the Dark Empire comics and the third movie of the modern trilogy.
(and, really, the third movie is just a slightly better done Dark Empire)
OT Thank god for Jim, because those gamers are being fuckshits again. This time they are mad at a voice actress because they don’t like what the character in a video game did.
@Cyborgette:
You’re absolutely right, and it was completely clueless of me to post it. Sadly, it’s too late for me to go back and edit it, but perhaps David can remove the comment.
OT: Lindsay Ellis has put out an unexpected and rushed video on “death of the author” as it relates to the TERF du jour:
@Moggie
My thoughts on death of the author as a school of thought is that I don’t agree. An author’s background and positive and negative aspects are relevant to understanding a book, even if it may cause some cognitive dissonance for the reader. And, perhaps more importantly, if you buy things from problematic people, even if you ignore that while reading they still get the money.
Death of the author, in this context, is just a fancy way of expressing one’s privilege to enjoy material despite how shitty the creator is/was. It’s not a whole lot different from the trend I saw a couple of years ago where people would say, “It’s okay to consume problematic media as long as you acknowledge and understand why it’s problematic.” It’s just a way to get around the problem of wanting to consume a particular media property despite the issues involved.
Properly, “death of the author” is a method of academically critiquing some art work as an end in itself. It has nothing to do with “should I give JK Rowling money” and Lindsay Ellis knows this, so I’m really confused by that video. I didn’t watch the whole thing because I got bored, but I did watch about 2/3rds of it, and she didn’t mention at any point in the part I watched that “death of the author” is an academic critique method and not an excuse for privileged people to keep throwing their cash at a bigot.
@PoM
I have mixed feelings towards Lindsay in general, she also has repeatedly defended ContraPoints. I recognize that it is possible to both be critical of and still use media, but this isn’t the way to do it and in this case I don’t think it makes sense.
Moggie, I took out the video with the creepy thumbnail.
@PoM:
It wasn’t up to her usual standard, certainly. But at 2:29 she says this:
So there’s that. She continues:
I don’t think she’s really focused on the “how not to further enrich the TERF” problem. This is about all the people saying “I already read the books, and they were very important to me emotionally, but now I find that the author is a bigot, and I want to know how I can hold onto what HP meant to my life”. And her answer is… inconclusive?
Death of the author really has no way to justify giving money to a bigoted author, but isn’t that question comparatively easy to answer? If you haven’t yet read the books, buy them used, and she won’t see a penny. Or just… find better fiction.
(I was surprised to hear how important Ender’s Game was to her. I remember it as being intensely cruel, even before I found out about OSC being basically a Nazi)
@David:
Thanks, that’s for the best. For anyone who missed the comment and wants to see the critique of Captain Marvel, search for Filmento’s youtube channel. The thumbnail is bad, but isn’t representative of the content, as far as I remember.
Thanks, Moggie and David. Sorry about that.
@Moggie
This. There is now more than ever a wealth of literature written by diverse authors who aren’t bigots. By most accounts Harry Potter isn’t an exceptional body of literature, it became a cultural phenomenon because a generation read it as children and are nostalgic.