Pardon, but your tie is not symmetrical.

Idc, if someone was making fun of MY wife’s chronic disorder that she is supposedly very sensitive about in front of thousands of people, I’d get on stage and smack the shit out of him too

I need people to know this isn't just some ha ha funny moment, this is someone standing up against ableism in the most direct way possible on national television.

Let's acknowledge that this was misogynoir as well as ableism. You cannot ignore the historical and cultural meaning of humiliating a Black woman for her hair, be it because of a condition or for any other reason. Especially from a comedian who's made a career out of misogynoir.

Will Smith was just banned from the Oscars for 10 years for slapping a guy. Unrelated but here’s an IMDb list of the most famous actors and directors who signed the letter asking for the statutory rape charges against Roman Polanski, who is not banned from the Oscars, to be dropped.

Will Smith just slapped the living hell out of Chris Rock live on camera for making an inappropriate joke about his wife, won the Oscar for Best Actor 20 minutes later, and opened his acceptance speech with "Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family" as if that wasn't the most amazingly ironic thing that'd ever happened in the history of major motion picture film making.

THE DRAMATICS

[ID 1: the cropped beginning of a tweet by "Judd Apatow":

He could have killed him. That's pure out of control rage and violence. They've heard a-

ID 2: a screenshot of a tweet by "⛄":

It's actually not funny at all? Will Smith could have killed him with that slap. What if his hand had been full of bees and Chris Rock was allergic to bees and one of the bees stung Chris and nobody had an epipen. Not so funny now is it. /end ID].

dying at people being outraged like "will should have his award revoked" "how can he do something so violent and outrageous!!" "this is a win to toxic masculinity" lmfaoooo it's a bitch slap y'all so sensitive and the asshole deserved it. if more assholes got bitch slapped when they humiliate women in front of millions of people maybe the world would be a better place.

Wait what happened, what did i miss what

will smith slapped chris rock at the oscars for making fun of his wifes medical condtion

Then he had it coming. Jesus, who makes fun of their wife's medical condition at such an event?????

oh it was will smiths wife jada but yes youre right

THEN EVEN MORE DESERVED. I mean, he would have been a piece of shit regardless, but this way smith definitely had every right.

“this sets a bad precedent people are gonna start going up to comedians and punching them during their routines” promise?

[ID 1: a screenshot of a tweet by "guy online":Hopefully this ushers in an age of terror planted deep within the hearts of standup comedians everywhere. /end ID].

Idc, if someone was making fun of MY wife’s chronic disorder that she is supposedly very sensitive about in front of thousands of people, I’d get on stage and smack the shit out of him too

I swear I miss the good ol "talk shit get hit" days.

how r ppl not laughing at the sheer absurdity of this moment like y’all couldn’t hold back on the thinkpieces for a second just to gag at the fact that will smith open palm smacked the shit out this man and then won the most prestigious acting award of the night like 20 mins later

The uncensored exchange of Will Smith and Chris Rock in the Oscars via Japanese Television

Chris Rock is yet another comedian that hasn’t evolved with the times. They think that because they were the shit in the 90s-early 00s that that means that their “brand of humor” is still somehow relevant just because there’s still a couple generations alive to remember a time where they were genuinely funny.

Fro anyone confused: article

The uncensored exchange of Will Smith and Chris Rock in the Oscars via Japanese Television

Chris Rock is yet another comedian that hasn’t evolved with the times. They think that because they were the shit in the 90s-early 00s that that means that their “brand of humor” is still somehow relevant just because there’s still a couple generations alive to remember a time where they were genuinely funny.

Barbossa: This is Elizabeth she's the Pirate Lord of the South China Sea and the Pirate King by popular vote she also gives great motivational speeches and is absolutely fucking feral. I'm so proud of her.

Sparrow: This is Will I picked him up off the street he's absolutely useless outside of looking pretty and making cool swords. I look out for him because otherwise he would have died a long fucking time ago.

James Norrington did nothing wrong. His only crime was being a Jane Austen hero in a Disney movie based on a theme park ride.

Okay, no. I tried, but couldn’t just let this post stand. Listen, OP, I agree with you 10,000%, but it is so much worse than that.

In CotBP, where the criticism that James is boring is most likely to come up, we can see in his introductory scene that James is head over heels for this woman by Regency standards. I mean, the unflappable, highest ranking Naval officer in Port Royal is reduced to a stammering, awkward mess around Elizabeth. If this were an Austen novel, y’all would be fucking swooning.

And what of the deleted scenes? (Don’t even get me started on this, I will rant for hours about how salty I am that they cut them.) We see James agonizing over the fact that he believes Elizabeth has only accepted his proposal as a means to an end. His stony veneer cracks, and we get to see him vulnerable!

‘Is it so wrong that I should want it given unconditionally?’ is such a fucking incredible line, and in a period drama, would be seen as a declaration!

But James isn’t in a period drama. He’s in a Disney movie based on a theme park ride. The film is an unapologetic mishmash of genres, and he has committed a cardinal sin by falling in love with Elizabeth, a modern character. She practically rolls her eyes at his heartfelt confessions! She wants nothing to do with his subtle emotional advances!

While, in a Austen novel, James Norrington would have been the clear hero and most obvious choice for Elizabeth to make, she is completely uninterested because he’s made the mistake of being period appropriate and not a product of the early 2000s like the rest of the main cast.

And the worst part is…once James changes so that he fits into their world…he is killed.

But that’s a discussion for another time.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

@meganphntmgrl and i talked about this endlessly when I was in NYC (and i’m trying to make her read Pride and Prejudice just to prove this point lmao).  I’m not even convinced that Elizabeth has this degree of non-interest in him, though.  I think she just already has a really big crush on Will and thinks, due to the circumstances of their meeting, their being the same age and everything, that they’re meant to be together. (Is that a convention of modern storytelling? Little bit, yeah, but it’s not unknown to either mythological romances or period romances - the class divide between them, and importantly, Elizabeth’s desire to be with him overwhelming her sense of convention and propriety, is what stands out to me the most as a 21st century detail.)  All that said, she doesn’t expect she can actually be with Will at the start of COTBP, and seems to be really considering James’ proposal. He’s not what she wants in life, but she’s not disgusted or rolling her eyes at him.  In her words, more or less, she kind of knew he might propose, and knows her father is all for the match, but it still took her off guard.  She’s having to decide on a realistic course for her life and to put aside her dreams, because she’s a woman now, whether she feels ready for that or not.

COTBP is a film written by men that thinks it’s a story about a girl being forced to choose between reality and romantic fantasy, and it’s very clear that Elizabeth knows that Norrington is an appropriate match for her.  Even though she does, in the story, accept his proposal as a means to an end, her acceptance is still fully serious.  (And for all I might joke about her dumping him or whatever - the proposal doesn’t get a big, dramatic rejection.  He sees her standing beside Will and asks if this “where [her] heart truly lies”, and she confirms it.  The breakup is implicit, but he instigates it, seeing this is what she wants.)  Elizabeth’s heart might belong to another man, but there’s no sulking or anger or even too much reluctance when she accepts James; she might even know they could be happy together.

When Will reminds her that her fiancé will want to know she’s safe after the climactic battle, as much as it hurts her, Elizabeth leaves.

tl;dr Elizabeth isn’t so much of a Spunky Modern Heroine Rejects All Trappings Of Period Drama stereotype that she doesn’t compromise on what she wants as society, her family and her fiancé dictate.  She accepts James’ proposal and is prepared to marry him; she never tries to run off with Will; it is James who breaks their engagement for her happiness.  There is no indication that Elizabeth particularly dislikes him; he just isn’t Will.

Then I just really really love their relationship dynamic in DMC and AWE because it’s not founded on expectation or obligation anymore and it isn’t hindered by propriety.  As soon as those things go away, they actually relate to each other like two people who have known each other for ages.  Elizabeth isn’t an unfriendly sort of person, but she doesn’t just go around relating to the other characters she doesn’t know very well.  The bits of conversation she has with James Norrington in Dead Men’s Chest are more real conversation than she and Will ever have in the entire film trilogy.  Will and Elizabeth get these pining, lovelorn speeches and bits of drama, but James and Elizabeth just talk like old friends.  You already know about the deleted scene where they casually strike up conversation on Isla Cruces; I love the moment where he makes a comment suggesting his dark mental state, and she gives him a look I can only describe as Suddenly Interested.

And she holds his gaze for a couple of frames!

So, not like, romantic interested. But like. Realizing this guy she’s known since forever has depth, and she wants to see it.

They’re interrupted by Jack, who is in this film particularly (a lot more than I realized, actually, but on the writers’ commentary Ted and Terry cannot stop bringing it up) is hoping to get Elizabeth to himself, and clearly picks up on this moment as infringing on that hope.

Curse of the Black Pearl was consciously written to frame Elizabeth as the protagonist, and when she chooses Will at the end, it’s because he and he alone among her potential love interests embodies her romantic dream.  Torn between the reality of Norrington, a man she’s always known might propose to her, a lawful man, a good and honest man, but embodying the smothering sense of obligation that comes with her class and gender role - and the reality of Jack Sparrow, a pirate she’s read about with eagerness who shows her that pirates genuinely are pretty scummy people, dirty and disloyal to everyone - Will appears to offer her a third option: someone who breaks the law, but only for the right reasons; someone who defies social convention, but only to better society. 

Except Ted and Terry are men and what seems obvious to me is that the third option Elizabeth really needs is to graduate from the damsel role life appears to have slotted her into and become the romantic hero she dreams of.  Sure, I buy that she loves Will, with a sort of infatuated and light-hearted love that could develop into something more but could just as easily not - but most importantly, what Will represents to her is a projection of the life she wants for herself.

And acquires, in the next two films.

Elizabeth’s narrative arc, if it weren’t tucked underneath or behind everybody else’s, is the most well-developed narrative arc in the trilogy, well beyond the first installment which is the only one that they actually wrote to particularly revolve around her.  Jane Austen heroine?  Maybe.  Probably not.  But the protagonist we deserved, most definitely.

And as much as I do like Will as a character - I actually think his storyline would have gotten the resolution and impact it deserved if he hadn’t been treated as the protagonist, as much as I think hers would have been, but this post isn’t an excuse for me to air my grievances lol - the character whose storyline most follows hers is Norrington.  

Her arc is about finding her place in the world, rejecting the specific oppressive reality she believes is inevitable as a well-bred 18th century female and embracing the heroine swashbuckler she’s wanted to be all her life but projected onto male love interests.  And this arc is a microcosm of the larger plot in a way no one else’s is - Beckett’s threat to end the age of piracy and keep the entire ocean under his thumb threatens her specific character growth and reflects the world she’s trying to escape in a way that is not half so resonant for anybody else.

Will’s story is, excepting turns of the plot in which he’s trying to save Elizabeth, entirely about his relationship with his father, and how that affects his identity.  It has nothing to do with society beyond the tensions in the first film where he wants to be respectable but has learned his father really was a pirate all along - after that film, there is no thematic or actual connection to society in Will’s plot, which is why it gets so exclusively connected to the supernatural storyline.  But Norrington’s arc is also about his place in the world.  After the first film, in which he and Jack and Will  operate as foils to one another, each of them demonstrating one of the paths Elizabeth may follow as she grows increasingly experienced and consequently disillusioned, Norrington has his fall from grace and subsequent identity crisis.  His maintaining the wig and coat while a drunken, miserable wreck on Tortuga, and his willingness to throw everything away to regain his former standing, implies that the role of Naval Officer was the whole extent of his identity.   So, yes, the man lacks a viable personality in COTBP - it works out to seem intentional by the sequel, because it becomes clear the role he was inhabiting was the only person he knew how to be, and without it he discovered how little of a person he was.  This is a grim inversion of Elizabeth’s storyline.  Elizabeth becomes more and more her true self, including symbolically casting off and manipulating her wedding gown, while Norrington symbolically clings to the relics of his former life and wallows in existential despair.

By the time of AWE, Norrington has discovered that his is not, in fact, nothing, without his social role - as evidenced by his willingness to betray all that he must stand for when that role has been resumed, to “choose a side”, and to choose Elizabeth’s.  But yes… then he dies.  

Both in the substance of their actual conversations, which, owing to their rarely being about love, convey a greater sense of compatibility than Will and Elizabeth’s conversations never being so casual and often running to the dramatic, and the symmetry of their narrative arcs, the story of Elizabeth and James Norrington really would have made a perfect romance.

@morethanprinceofcats really out here bringing the “in this essay I will…” meme to life

@smallvillecommunity this is…….. the nicest thing……… anyone has ever said to me

James Norrington did nothing wrong. His only crime was being a Jane Austen hero in a Disney movie based on a theme park ride.

Okay, no. I tried, but couldn’t just let this post stand. Listen, OP, I agree with you 10,000%, but it is so much worse than that.

In CotBP, where the criticism that James is boring is most likely to come up, we can see in his introductory scene that James is head over heels for this woman by Regency standards. I mean, the unflappable, highest ranking Naval officer in Port Royal is reduced to a stammering, awkward mess around Elizabeth. If this were an Austen novel, y’all would be fucking swooning.

And what of the deleted scenes? (Don’t even get me started on this, I will rant for hours about how salty I am that they cut them.) We see James agonizing over the fact that he believes Elizabeth has only accepted his proposal as a means to an end. His stony veneer cracks, and we get to see him vulnerable!

‘Is it so wrong that I should want it given unconditionally?’ is such a fucking incredible line, and in a period drama, would be seen as a declaration!

But James isn’t in a period drama. He’s in a Disney movie based on a theme park ride. The film is an unapologetic mishmash of genres, and he has committed a cardinal sin by falling in love with Elizabeth, a modern character. She practically rolls her eyes at his heartfelt confessions! She wants nothing to do with his subtle emotional advances!

While, in a Austen novel, James Norrington would have been the clear hero and most obvious choice for Elizabeth to make, she is completely uninterested because he’s made the mistake of being period appropriate and not a product of the early 2000s like the rest of the main cast.

And the worst part is…once James changes so that he fits into their world…he is killed.

But that’s a discussion for another time.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

@meganphntmgrl and i talked about this endlessly when I was in NYC (and i’m trying to make her read Pride and Prejudice just to prove this point lmao).  I’m not even convinced that Elizabeth has this degree of non-interest in him, though.  I think she just already has a really big crush on Will and thinks, due to the circumstances of their meeting, their being the same age and everything, that they’re meant to be together. (Is that a convention of modern storytelling? Little bit, yeah, but it’s not unknown to either mythological romances or period romances - the class divide between them, and importantly, Elizabeth’s desire to be with him overwhelming her sense of convention and propriety, is what stands out to me the most as a 21st century detail.)  All that said, she doesn’t expect she can actually be with Will at the start of COTBP, and seems to be really considering James’ proposal. He’s not what she wants in life, but she’s not disgusted or rolling her eyes at him.  In her words, more or less, she kind of knew he might propose, and knows her father is all for the match, but it still took her off guard.  She’s having to decide on a realistic course for her life and to put aside her dreams, because she’s a woman now, whether she feels ready for that or not.

COTBP is a film written by men that thinks it’s a story about a girl being forced to choose between reality and romantic fantasy, and it’s very clear that Elizabeth knows that Norrington is an appropriate match for her.  Even though she does, in the story, accept his proposal as a means to an end, her acceptance is still fully serious.  (And for all I might joke about her dumping him or whatever - the proposal doesn’t get a big, dramatic rejection.  He sees her standing beside Will and asks if this “where [her] heart truly lies”, and she confirms it.  The breakup is implicit, but he instigates it, seeing this is what she wants.)  Elizabeth’s heart might belong to another man, but there’s no sulking or anger or even too much reluctance when she accepts James; she might even know they could be happy together.

When Will reminds her that her fiancé will want to know she’s safe after the climactic battle, as much as it hurts her, Elizabeth leaves.

tl;dr Elizabeth isn’t so much of a Spunky Modern Heroine Rejects All Trappings Of Period Drama stereotype that she doesn’t compromise on what she wants as society, her family and her fiancé dictate.  She accepts James’ proposal and is prepared to marry him; she never tries to run off with Will; it is James who breaks their engagement for her happiness.  There is no indication that Elizabeth particularly dislikes him; he just isn’t Will.

Then I just really really love their relationship dynamic in DMC and AWE because it’s not founded on expectation or obligation anymore and it isn’t hindered by propriety.  As soon as those things go away, they actually relate to each other like two people who have known each other for ages.  Elizabeth isn’t an unfriendly sort of person, but she doesn’t just go around relating to the other characters she doesn’t know very well.  The bits of conversation she has with James Norrington in Dead Men’s Chest are more real conversation than she and Will ever have in the entire film trilogy.  Will and Elizabeth get these pining, lovelorn speeches and bits of drama, but James and Elizabeth just talk like old friends.  You already know about the deleted scene where they casually strike up conversation on Isla Cruces; I love the moment where he makes a comment suggesting his dark mental state, and she gives him a look I can only describe as Suddenly Interested.

And she holds his gaze for a couple of frames!

So, not like, romantic interested. But like. Realizing this guy she’s known since forever has depth, and she wants to see it.

They’re interrupted by Jack, who is in this film particularly (a lot more than I realized, actually, but on the writers’ commentary Ted and Terry cannot stop bringing it up) is hoping to get Elizabeth to himself, and clearly picks up on this moment as infringing on that hope.

Curse of the Black Pearl was consciously written to frame Elizabeth as the protagonist, and when she chooses Will at the end, it’s because he and he alone among her potential love interests embodies her romantic dream.  Torn between the reality of Norrington, a man she’s always known might propose to her, a lawful man, a good and honest man, but embodying the smothering sense of obligation that comes with her class and gender role - and the reality of Jack Sparrow, a pirate she’s read about with eagerness who shows her that pirates genuinely are pretty scummy people, dirty and disloyal to everyone - Will appears to offer her a third option: someone who breaks the law, but only for the right reasons; someone who defies social convention, but only to better society. 

Except Ted and Terry are men and what seems obvious to me is that the third option Elizabeth really needs is to graduate from the damsel role life appears to have slotted her into and become the romantic hero she dreams of.  Sure, I buy that she loves Will, with a sort of infatuated and light-hearted love that could develop into something more but could just as easily not - but most importantly, what Will represents to her is a projection of the life she wants for herself.

And acquires, in the next two films.

Elizabeth’s narrative arc, if it weren’t tucked underneath or behind everybody else’s, is the most well-developed narrative arc in the trilogy, well beyond the first installment which is the only one that they actually wrote to particularly revolve around her.  Jane Austen heroine?  Maybe.  Probably not.  But the protagonist we deserved, most definitely.

And as much as I do like Will as a character - I actually think his storyline would have gotten the resolution and impact it deserved if he hadn’t been treated as the protagonist, as much as I think hers would have been, but this post isn’t an excuse for me to air my grievances lol - the character whose storyline most follows hers is Norrington.  

Her arc is about finding her place in the world, rejecting the specific oppressive reality she believes is inevitable as a well-bred 18th century female and embracing the heroine swashbuckler she’s wanted to be all her life but projected onto male love interests.  And this arc is a microcosm of the larger plot in a way no one else’s is - Beckett’s threat to end the age of piracy and keep the entire ocean under his thumb threatens her specific character growth and reflects the world she’s trying to escape in a way that is not half so resonant for anybody else.

Will’s story is, excepting turns of the plot in which he’s trying to save Elizabeth, entirely about his relationship with his father, and how that affects his identity.  It has nothing to do with society beyond the tensions in the first film where he wants to be respectable but has learned his father really was a pirate all along - after that film, there is no thematic or actual connection to society in Will’s plot, which is why it gets so exclusively connected to the supernatural storyline.  But Norrington’s arc is also about his place in the world.  After the first film, in which he and Jack and Will  operate as foils to one another, each of them demonstrating one of the paths Elizabeth may follow as she grows increasingly experienced and consequently disillusioned, Norrington has his fall from grace and subsequent identity crisis.  His maintaining the wig and coat while a drunken, miserable wreck on Tortuga, and his willingness to throw everything away to regain his former standing, implies that the role of Naval Officer was the whole extent of his identity.   So, yes, the man lacks a viable personality in COTBP - it works out to seem intentional by the sequel, because it becomes clear the role he was inhabiting was the only person he knew how to be, and without it he discovered how little of a person he was.  This is a grim inversion of Elizabeth’s storyline.  Elizabeth becomes more and more her true self, including symbolically casting off and manipulating her wedding gown, while Norrington symbolically clings to the relics of his former life and wallows in existential despair.

By the time of AWE, Norrington has discovered that his is not, in fact, nothing, without his social role - as evidenced by his willingness to betray all that he must stand for when that role has been resumed, to “choose a side”, and to choose Elizabeth’s.  But yes… then he dies.  

Both in the substance of their actual conversations, which, owing to their rarely being about love, convey a greater sense of compatibility than Will and Elizabeth’s conversations never being so casual and often running to the dramatic, and the symmetry of their narrative arcs, the story of Elizabeth and James Norrington really would have made a perfect romance.

@morethanprinceofcats really out here bringing the “in this essay I will…” meme to life

@smallvillecommunity this is…….. the nicest thing……… anyone has ever said to me

Black excellence 🙏🏾

Men in Black (1997) dir. Barry Sonnenfeld

I use this scene to explain implicit bias to people. his first instinct is to assume the aliens are violent and the girl is innocent, but instead of acting on those assumptions he takes time to recognize his bias, look at the situation again, and then act.