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The “get woke, go broke” crowd has egg on its face again, with Disney’s new live-action The Little Mermaid raking in a cool $117 million at the domestic box office and another $68 million internationally over the Memorial Day weekend. The anti-woke haters, you may recall, were outraged that a black actress, Halle Bailey, took on the titular role, and had convinced themselves that the film would be a colossal flop.
So how are the doomsayers reacting to the film’s success? Like the UFO cultists in the sociology classic When Prophecy Fails, they’ve found reasons to convince themselves that they weren’t wrong.
The China Syndrome
Though The Little Mermaid did quite well in the US, it did poorly in China, taking in less than $4 million over the weekend and giving the haters an excuse to call the successful film a flop.
It’sa me, Mario
On PJ Media, Matt Margolis sniffed that the movie hasn’t done as well as The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a massive hit that has taken in more than a billion dollars in box office so far.
Despite all the hype surrounding The Little Mermaid, and the benefit of a long weekend opening, it failed to top The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s opening weekend domestic box office of $204.6 million. Comparing apples to apples, The Little Mermaid made $95.5 million, excluding its Memorial Day take. Ouch.
Really? $95 million is an “ouch?”
So, to put it another way, The Super Mario Bros. Movie made more than double what The Little Mermaid did over the same period of time. But, the media is presenting The Little Mermaid as some box office record breaker. It’s not. Disney remains dethroned as the box office king.
Talk about moving the goalposts.
Future Shock
Our old friends at Bounding Into Comics found some guy on YouTube who crunched some numbers and somehow deduced that the film might not look like a flop now, but it will in the future.
“I would not be surprised if when all the numbers comes in it’s a $50 to $100 million loss. That’s the kind of numbers we’re seeing from this movie right now,” he shared.
Ironically, OMB Reviews then predicted this could be a first for Disney, “This could be the first time that a full-fledged, full-featured, full distribution movie from Disney, the live-action Disney remakes ends up being an actual box office flop.”
Let’s stick a pin in this one and see how these predictions fare in the long run.
Review-bombing run
The haters have also taken solace in the fact that the movie got a lot of one-star reviews on IMDb. Never mind that many of them seem to be from bots and from people who haven’t seen the film.
The truth-challenged Gateway Pundit declared in a headline that the “Woke ‘Little Mermaid’ Reboot Completely Bombs in Reviews, IMBD Blames Online Trolls, Manipulates Votes to Give Higher Audience Score!”
Well, part of that is true. IMDb says it had “detected unusual voting activity on this title”–by which they mean a review-bombing campaign–and that “to preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied.”
Right now, the IMDb rating is 7.0 out of 10; on Rotten Tomatoes, where they only poll “verified audience” members, the film has a 95% audience score.
Hideous Kinky
Some Little Mermaid haters have redirected their ire towards the New York Times, a favorite right-wing target that ran a negative review of the film complaining that the remake “reeks of obligation and noble intentions” and chastising it for missing “joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor, kink… .”
Naturally, the haters are aghast at seeing the word “kink” in a review of a kids’ film, and have therefore concluded that the Times is full of pedophiles.
It’s become a new right-wing mantra: When in doubt, accuse someone of being a pedophile.
Anyway, in conclusion, cry moar you bunch of racist idiots.
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@Dave:
The only way I can remember Van Johnson is that he nearly shares a name with the infinitely more exciting Portal character played by J. K. Simmons.
And that he had extraordinary green eyes—a detail that instantly cued me to the fact that a (brown-eyed, I seem to recall) imposter was at work in “Corpse of the Year” (1.18-19.)
@Alan Robertshaw:
I trust you realize that Jet Li’s two Black Mask movies were tacit Kato fanfilms with the numbers sanded off.
@ FMO
I love Jet Li. In one of the films though even in universe they compare Black mask to Kato. All gets very meta.
There’s an ‘avenue of the stars’ in Kowloon where they have a load of famous people’s handprints; including Jet. I have photos of myself doing a very bad tiger stance at the Bruce Lee one.
Bruce is of course very popular in HK. Which is ironic as he pretty much had to leave because he’d pissed so many people off. But all is forgiven now.
I had to be careful though. I was doing the ‘Be like water’ speech and I got warned that, as that had been adopted by the protestors (it was advice for dealing with the authorities and police), it wasn’t a phrase that was wise to utter in public.
But, as even my chambers acknowledged, I was as good as gold…
https://www.goldsmithchambers.com/icca-international-advocacy-training-hong-kong-2023/
🥂👍🏼🥂
Sounds like a really enjoyable as well as productive trip (I’m guessing that this is written by somebody who knows you well? 😄)
@Dave, Ox:
Van Williams—and I confess only know that because when I read “Van Johnson” I thought “wait, wasn’t in In the Good Old Summertime with Judy Garland? How old was he when he played the Green Hornet?!” and went on Wikipedia.
@Raging Bee, Alan:
Jiaoren! Also, from photos I’ve seen on Tumblr, it looks like a number of hanfu enthusiasts are also mermaid cosplayers.
Personally I’m more interested in the Oppenheimer biopic that’s premiering in late July.
This just in: an avalanche of racist troll-bombing on The Little Mermaid has led IMDb to revise its rating algorithm:
https://archive.ph/5mLif
Psst. Nobody tell the “get woke go broke” idjits that “The Little Mermaid” is arguably a love letter from HCA to another man. Or that it lends itself quite well to a number of other interpretations, not just the Disneyfied variations.
I’m rather fond of a modern retelling where the mermaid princess frees herself just long enough to take on another form: a sea dragon. And then proceeds to wreak havoc on those who imprisoned her.
ETA: “Silenced” by Ekaterine Xia is the story I was thinking of.
I don’t think it’s a love letter, so much as an admission that HCA is in love with the dude, that the dude will never love HCA back, but that ultimately HCA doesn’t need him. The prince in the short story never sees the mermaid as a love interest. He has no idea she is suffering. He has no idea her fate is, she thinks, bound to him. He sees her as a child, as a friend, even in a sense as a male comrade. But he never sees her as a potential love interest. All the while, she is literally bleeding to be around him, and he doesn’t notice.
But then, she has hope of getting a soul without him.
I think there’s also a message of the divine rules simply being unfair, but if you struggle enough against them, maybe they bend a bit.
@Dave
I’d argue that love doesn’t have to be requited for somebody to write a love letter. I agree with you about the divine rules portrayal.
Minor bit of legal news; but you may recall that fugitive sex offender chap who is fighting extradition to the US on the grounds that he is in fact a very British British person called Arthur Knight.
Well he was in court yesterday. He was applying for bail on the ground he is being bullied in prison.
The bullying taking the form of all the other prisoners singing John Denver’s “Leaving on a jet plane” whenever he walks past.
He didn’t get bail.
@ opposablethumbs
Our long suffering practice manager. She knows us oh so well.
It was; on both counts.
Everybody was so lovely; I’ve made some great new friends.
It was also very useful though. The purpose of international cross training is we can learn from each other. I picked up some very useful tips from how they do things in HK, and the other jurisdictions. I then write a report, and TPTB see if there’s anything we might want to adopt here.
And on a personal level I’m really fascinated by comparative jurisprudence and the different courtroom cultures. There were some really interesting cultural differences.
I found myself quoting that bit from The Simpsons: “In decadent West you reward knowledge. Here, we punish ignorance.”
But there’s all sorts of fascinating aspects. For example, it was explained to me that in Chinese culture it’s considered very rude to make a definitive statement. So I had to account for that when it came to both the questions from the barristers and the answers from the witnesses. Like, ‘might have’ means ‘did’.
There were also issues of deference. I would ask students if they understood a point and they would all just nod vigorously, even if they clearly didn’t. But for them to suggest otherwise would be seen as a criticism of my teaching.
@Alan Robertshaw:
Anything you might want to adopt here from a despotic regime … shouldn’t that be the empty set?
So, in a Chinese trial the lawyers have to skip directly to the “pounding the law” stage? That’s gotta make things … interesting.
@ surplus
Well it’s very clean. They also take public health very seriously. You see “sanitised hourly” stickers on just about every surface. Weirdly there were no covid restrictions on entering HK; but there are to enter mainland China. Even though you can just jump on the Underground and be there in minutes.
But this is a massively complex subject as you can imagine. Theoretically HK was to operate as it had under British rule until 2047. That’s obviously not the case now. Although as someone said “What you going to do? Send the fleet in?”
I won’t bore you about it here; but you can envisage the tensions of operating a legal system under those conditions. But the bench and bar are really doing that; even though it’s not necessarily an easy or comfortable thing to do. And they’re producing some top notch lawyers.
The thing I found most interesting about trials there is that, no matter what the language of the parties, judge, or witnesses, if just one person involved in the proceedings speaks English then they default to that. Yey colonialism I guess. But handy for any English barristers who want to practice over there. 🙂
So, the anti-COVID trains run on time, therefore they’re worthy of emulation?
Aren’t you worried that this amounts to a form of collaboration and helps to legitimate the regime? History has not generally looked kindly on willing accomplices of despotic regimes, even when they’ve claimed they did it to try to be a moderating influence. (More applicable to those who work there full time, rather than to visiting observers.)
@ surplus
Well that’s the dilemma. This was covered in ‘the judges’s trial’ at Nuremberg.
I can’t comment on any specific circumstance. But I can say that I very much trust the lawyers and judiciary I know to do the right thing and ensure the rule of law. And if that ever becomes impossible then they may have to take a view.
But you were asking about things China does well. They certainly have some innovative takes on military strategy.
@ Alan
This stuff is always fascinating to me, how you have to listen to what people mean instead of what they say, and have to take into account what people hear when you think you say what you mean.
Years ago, I did an internship in Stockholm. My Swedish teacher had drilled into us that things that sound normal to Finnish-speakers will sound rude to Swedish-speakers, and doubly so if you’re actually in Sweden. So if something has to be done, don’t say “måste” (“must”) but instead “borde” (“ought to”). I kept this in mind and said “borde” every time I wanted to say “måste”, right until I was talking about needing to send a letter to Finland, and my internship instructor very gently asked me to not say “borde”, since It sounds brash and makes the thing I’m talking about sound more serious than it is.
I cant even properly remember what the watered-down replacement she offered was. It was very weird to me that I needed to say something but apparently couldn’t say it. Especially since the letter I needed to post was a form I had to send to my school to fulfill legal requirements or something. Even if “måste” is a life-or-death kind of a word, I still think having been asking for a signature for over a week warranted more than, “When could I possibly expect to get a signature? I would like to post this by the end of the week, if it’s not too much trouble for this lady I’ve yet to meet”, when not getting the job done would have real consequences for me.
(Can’t remember what consequences, since I did manage to send it in time. Qualifying for raised financial aid? Having the internship actually count towards my degree? I’m glad they accept scanned documents these days.)
@Masse_Mysteria:
“Fascinating”? I think the appropriate F-word here is “frustrating”. And maybe the other one: How the fuck are you supposed to accomplish that without being a telepath straight out of Star Trek??
@ Masse_Mysteria
Ooh, cheers for that. That’s all really fascinating. And I love stuff like this.
It is interesting how language and culture combine. Like how you could have two people who are both fluent in what is ostensibly the same language use identical words, but mean very different things.
Over here, understatement is a big thing. That’s fine domestically, but it can lead to confusion with anglophones from other countries; sometimes fatally.
Lawyers have been described – not even pejoratively – as ‘manipulators of words’.
That’s very true. Words can be so very important in law. The main skillset in both drawing up legal documents like contracts, and drafting legislation, is to avoid ambiguity. That’s often prioritised over clarity; hence ‘legalese’.
It’s also, as discussed, an issue in trials.
I remember in a trial where my client was German. He was asked what his reaction was when it was discovered there were drugs in his vehicle. The interpreter translated his response as ‘shocked’. But he was telling me afterwards that whilst that was a legitimate English alternative, and one you might find in a dictionary, the original German word my chap used had connotations of ‘caught out’. But he was nice enough not to make things even worse for my guy.
But even in English all sorts of issues arise. That’s why I love doing all the international work.
One of the things our international committee does is train up prosecutors for the ICC; and we’re working on stuff for any upcoming ad hoc war crimes tribunals. But such trials do by implication involve people who speak different languages. So you have all the issues we’re chatting about in terms of understanding meaning, but then with the added layer of interpreters in the mix.
@ Surplus
I guess I’ve just come to realise that my understanding is not perfect, so I can’t expect anyone else’s to be either. So all communication is kind of a hit and miss affair, where you have to rely on convention and contextual cues. If someone (like the instructor) is kind enough to say, “I understand why you say that but this is not how we speak here”, the individual situation can be frustrating, but on a principle I think it’s fascinating that we get so much communicating done when it’s so difficult in a way.
@ Alan
Thank you for the link! I think I’ve heard of British understatements before, but of one with such results.
I can only assume legalese is a thing in all languages. I think I’ve heard somewhere that Finnish law texts are the way they are because the older legal texts were all in Swedish, and translating them made for some weird idioms, but I think the the more current explanation is that it’s just to avoid ambiguity, like you said. It must just be easier to know what’s being talked about if you can’t mix terms with everyday language.
This movie literally failed, this article is a huge cope 😂😂😂😂😂
@Surplus to Requirements
I am often frustrated by the things I find fascinating. Not so much the other way around, I think. I included the rest of your comment because Star Trek is both of those things (to me) though I gotta ask – which kind of telepath as portrayed in Star Trek are you thinking of? I hope I blockquoted correctly!
@ trianglethief (cool nym, I’d love to know the backstory)
“Human scum! You are but worms before us. You are a scourge on the universe. Prepare to be blasted from the skies”
“Captain, I sense….hostility.”
@ masse_mysteria
That’s an issue in law generally; especially in common law countries. If you rely heavily on precedent, then you end up looking at a lot of old cases. Generally the more obvious an issue is, the earlier it was addressed. Like here for example, Murder is a purely common law offence. There’s no statute actually prohibiting it. It was never considered necessary as generally there’s never been any doubt you shouldn’t go around killing people.
Of course the parameters have refined over time. But again, most of this was thrashed out ages ago.
But all the cases used the language of the time. And whilst the colloquial use of language evolves, the legal meaning has to be frozen.
So for example an old definition of murder requires “malice aforethought”. That’s such an evocative term. But what does malice mean? In this instance it means intent.
So you could be forgiven for thinking every time you see ‘malice’ referred to in law that’s what it means.
Except in GBH it means the exact opposite. There it is synonymous with recklessness.
But in defamation, malice means lack of honest belief or failure to do due diligence.
Ironically in defamation, malice in the colloquial sense, can be used to rebut malice in the defamation sense. The fact someone has ill will towards a person can be evidence they truly believe what they say about them.
Words are fun!
@Jay pri
Unlike you, I am no expert on movie making, movie budgets, foreign markets for movies, and so on and so on.
But cope? Yeah, I am an expert on coping with what life throws at me. I find the incels’ alternative, which they recommend to their peers pretty much constantly — suicide — to be unappealing.
Also, you haven’t used enough “laughing till I cry” emojis. If you were truly sincere, you’d use at least a dozen. Come on, man up. Nothing makes us libs cry more than clichés.