Thread: HERE'S WHAT *JUST* HAPPENED AT THE NY POST. Daniella Greenbaum wrote a piece asserting that ScarJo withdrew from an upcoming role as a trans man after being bullied by a mob of leftist cultural hegemonists. (Not linking it you can find it if you like that kind of thing.)
1. ScarJo is FINE. She's a GOOD actress with GREAT management. She's not a unicorn. She's better than I am (Gotcha, trolls! I know you were about to ask, "Oh yeah how many times have YOU been nominated for a Golden Globe?" Answer: 0 bc I don't work with pedophiles.) #MatchPoint
2. But stop it with the fangirl myth that artists are demigods. I don't know if you're up on the literature, but the stars? THEY'RE JUST LIKE US.
True: Nobody else can play Tex Gill the way ScarJo would have.
False: Nobody else can play a Tex Gill AS WELL as ScarJo would have.
3. I guarantee that there are at least a thousand trans actors who could play the shit out of Tex. The talent pool doesn't lack for depth. It lacks for freaking stairs and stands. & to the question of "can cis women play trans men?" Sure! BUT SHOULD THEY? Well, that depends...
4. ... were you able to get the 1.21 Gigawatts you needed to bring the Delorean back to the future or are you still waiting for lightning to strike the clock tower, trying not to see your mom in her bra? It's 2018, lady. The conversation around representation has evolved...
5. ... & the question of whether or not an actress is capable of a role is separate from the equally important, albeit more recent question of whether she is ENTITLED to that role. You know what else was mainstream entertainment not so long ago? You know. I don't have to say it.
6. The worst part of DG's piece, for me, is this line: "This movie, if it gets made at all, won’t have the high-profile allure and the phenomenal acting of Scarlett Johansson. How this helps the transgender community is anybody’s guess." WOW GREAT POINT DG.
7. It might have helped if ScarJo had played Tex. It might've helped us cis folks feel woke, w/o challenging our bias. It might've helped us feel comfortably informed about trans issues, while remaining completely disengaged from the trans community. Damn...
8. We could've "been trans allies" for $10.75 plus Raisinets! Flashback: How many of us were moved by Boys Don't Cry? How many of us were proud of Swank for that performance? How many of us did a damn thing to stop hate crimes like the one that took Brandon Teena's life?
9. Empower trans artists to tell any story they want, including & especially their own. Cast them. Fund them. Because at the end of the day the people who profit from their pain should be the people who survived it and learned to live alongside it. Anything else is profiteering.
10. & DG, I know u want to identify with ScarJo as another cis woman bullied into stepping down by the outrage mob but the truth is neither of you lost a damn thing this week. She gets a redemption arc & you get a Post column & I get to never read your writing again. #winwinwin
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THREAD: Just discovered an op-ed from 2002 in the @guardian, a FASCINATING* piece about giving the benefit of the doubt to priests who collect child porn! Let's take a close read at some quotes here, shall we?
* FUCK YOU
1. "Adults who use their authority to press children into having sex with them have to be stopped... But there is no evidence that O'Kelly ever did anything of the sort. As far as we know he abused only himself, with the help of his 18,000 images, in the privacy of his own room."
1. Adults who use their authority to press children into having sex with them have to be stopped... and adults who use their dollars to create a demand for an industry in which children are raped for entertainment MUST ALSO BE STOPPED.
THREAD: Politically active women and POC are not a silver lining. We are the last line of defense because it became clear in 2016 that our humanity was negotiable.
In fact, it's important to note that a silver lining doesn't defuse a storm cloud. It only comforts the people who are looking at that storm from the outside.
The overwhelming number of chances to resist Trump's agenda is only good news if you don't value the mental health, dignity, and freedom of the people who rise to resist.
Such an interesting day at @NewYorker. Some takeaways: 1. You need more diversity on your editorial board if you green-lit this idea in the first place. This was not a subtle gaffe.
2. Good for you for changing your mind. Now you need to change your approach.
3. What happened here was: someone announced their intention to do a terrible thing, everyone was like ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THAT THING IS TERRIBLE YOU CAN'T SIT WITH US ANYMORE and that person said, "Upon reflection, I have decided that it the thing is terrible. May I sit?"
4. What happened here was NOT "We unequivocally reject Bannon's violent Nazi ideology & refuse to lend him our platform. We made a principled choice to focus on rigorous reporting of the harm done by white supremacy, rather than to focus on humanizing white supremacists."
OK so let me check and see if I got the 3-act arc right for Louis CK's career:
Act 1: 1. I worked hard. 2. I got famous. 3. I sexually harassed co-workers. 4. I worked more. 5. I got more famous. 6. I sexually harassed more co-workers. 7. I worked more. 8. I got more famous. 9. I got caught. 10. I'M SO SO SO FUCKING SORRY.
Act 2: 1. Wait for it 2. Wait for it 3. Wait for it 4. Wait for it 5. Wait for it 6. Wait for it 7. Wait for it 8. Wait for it 9. Wait for it 10. Wait for it
1. The press is not the enemy of the people. The press is the enemy of fascist people. Neo-Nazis are mad about free press because journalists have the intellectual stamina and ethical rigor to accurately report on the crimes that these racists committed ON FACEBOOK LIVE.
2a. Would you try to “come to the table” with a child molestor who went from state to state going to public pools? No, you wouldn't. It's easy for us to reject people who hurt kids... less easy for us to reject racists who joyfully beat POC in broad daylight in front of cameras.
Trump supporter refuses to engage with others about why they support the president because, "by the tone of your responses, you would be quick to discount my intelligence, knowledge and/or my values and choices."
1. It’s impossible to have a “respectful” conversation about supporting Trump bc his agenda and administration respects nothing but the private financial successes of its own members. Not children’s healthcare. Not long-standing asylum procedures. Not families. Not women.
2. Not gay people’s right to have families. Not trans people’s right to serve their country. Not veterans. Not the environment. Not teachers. Not students who want to live through the school day. Not the press, whose job it is to hold our lawmakers accountable.