Culture vs Copyright and how gifs help us see the difference.
This episode is all about how cool the Devil is, especially for people of marginalized genders and sexualities. The devil is all over popular media, not as a straight symbol of absolute evil, but as something a little more nuanced and approachable—and sometimes even a little queer. Is this a sign of the end times and the moral degradation of humanity? Or does the character’s appeal to young people speak to a greater rejection of good vs. evil binaries?
To find out, I spoke with two experts. First, you’ll hear from Megan Kennedy, the executive director of Utah’s Religious Education Series, on the political side of evil. Then you’ll hear from Holly Lyman Antolini, the rector at St. James’s Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on what it means to disregard the idea of absolute evil. I hope you enjoy the show!
#devil#satan#satanic#satanism#hail satan#satanist#witches#witchcraft#feminism#feminist#Religion#ancient history#history#history of religion#religious history#podcast#pop culture commentary#pop culture critque#pop culture history#pop culture#cultural criticism#cultural analysis#cultural critque#bitch media#bitch media podcast#popaganda#good vs evil#women's rights#women's history
The underbelly of a lot of this misrepresentation and space-taking lies with a fundamental misunderstanding of the history that much of the story it relies upon, namely that of the Salem Witch Trials. It does so because it is easy for white storytellers to envision a descendant of European witches who fled to the new world to escape religious persecution as the champion of such a story.
In reality, it was not merely witchcraft that sent the town of Salem into a Christian religious panic and doomed many of its citizens to execution by hanging, but specifically the practice of non-European, non-Christian, Black spiritual traditions.
This article showed up in this tweet thread. It’s nice when someone can articulate uncomfortable feelings about something you used to like very much but came to realize was actually problematic. I think a lot of American media can fall into this ‘explanations for social phenomena specific to US neoliberal capitalism’ Giving people individual based solutions and explanations for structural problems. Oprah comes to mind big time.
HIGHLIGHTS from the article.
...I can’t help but think about all the authors who could speak to the topic at hand. Scholars of social movements that could describe the changing tactics and demands of women’s rights movements; philosophers that could weigh the responsibility of paying attention to current events with the desire to be happy; and sociologists that could explain why measuring everyday occurrences can change the way you think about them....
...What I get instead are positivists: data analysts, neuroscientists, and behavioral economists....
...what you believed to be true before the show started was not wrong, it just lacked the veneer of factiness....
...NPR’s podcasts depoliticize important issues by recasting them as interesting factoids to be shared over cocktails–stimulating but inherently incomplete...
...try to raise their offspring to be better cogs in the capitalist machine than they were....
...The irony on display in the Vedantam interview–and in the background of nearly every NPR podcast–is that a focus on individuals, rather than society, is exactly the sort of self-centered worldview that the hosts claim is damaging to human flourishing....
...But adding up individuals is not the same as describing structure; cognition is no substitute for sociological analysis, and big data misses what an anthropologist’s thick description might catch: the relationship between meaning and action....
...Progressive and leftist voices are at their most inspiring when they articulate all possible tomorrows; they cannot afford to get mired in positivist ennui while conservatives paint the future in their own moving, affect-driven tones....
...In short, they would misunderstand their own impact on the world the way they misunderstand just about everything else....
Right alongside Mickey Mouse and Snoopy sits Hello Kitty, one of the most recognizable characters worldwide. Sanrio’s biggest star has won over fans of every age since her 1974 debut, thanks to her adorable face and massive quantities of merch.
Like all famous figures, though, we may take Hello Kitty for granted. How much do we really know about her? Does she have a backstory? Does she ever speak? And is she an actual cat, or a cat-like human girl?
Senior Cute Things Correspondent Allegra Frank walks us through a brief history of Kitty White’s life, condensing nearly 45 years into less than 45 minutes. As usual, Chris Plante and Russ Frushtick are left dumbfounded.
“In light of recent ethical questions raised surrounding my casting as Dante Tex Gill, I have decided to respectfully withdraw my participation in the project. Our cultural understanding of transgender people continues to advance, and I’ve learned a lot from the community since making my first statement about my casting and realize it was insensitive. I have great admiration and love for the trans community and am grateful that the conversation regarding inclusivity in Hollywood continues. According to GLAAD, LGBTQ+ characters dropped 40% in 2017 from the previous year, with no representation of trans characters in any major studio release. While I would have loved the opportunity to bring Dante’s story and transition to life, I understand why many feel he should be portrayed by a transgender person, and I am thankful that this casting debate, albeit controversial, has sparked a larger conversation about diversity and representation in film. I believe that all artists should be considered equally and fairly. My production company, These Pictures, actively pursues projects that both entertain and push boundaries. We look forward to working with every community to bring these most poignant and important stories to audiences worldwide.”
What’s in a super hero name?
it’s really cool to think superman started as a zine
...“The Disaster Artist” attempts to position Wiseau as an underdog, that awkward kid no one believes in but overcomes obstacles in his own way and succeeds against all odds. But how can Wiseau be an underdog when he can pay to make his own film? How many awkward marginalized people can buy their way into an industry when they are explicitly told no? How many victims of sexual assault had the capability to buy their own parts when powerful abusers were edging them out of the industry?...
... To ignore diverse voices who disliked the film – to dismiss them out of hand as some form of reductive backlash – is to suggest that those voices are only valid when they happen to align with our tastes. ...
... This is just one of the concessions that the female crew members undertake for their own self-preservation, but they’re all the same theme: reducing themselves to objects, to playthings. If you watch the episode more than once, you see how stiffly receptionist Elena (Milanka Brooks) holds herself in Daly’s arms for the kiss, how widely and fakely Shania grins to cover her revulsion, how Nanette learns to soften her eyes and stroke her captain’s ego. Daly’s way to self-preservation is to raise himself up, to become untouchable; by contrast, Elena, Shania, and Nanette let themselves be lowered to Daly’s view of them. The scene in which Nanette must distract Daly on an away mission with an impromptu dip in the water is fascinating to watch; she’s tense to tautness, her wide smile belying her shifting eyes as she hopes that her romping around in a bikini is enough to convince him to join her. Her splashing Daly to keep him in the water with her is a testament to Milioti’s acting, as she giggles like a ’60s beach babe, but every time the water momentarily blinds him, her smile drops and she looks utterly revolted, only to yank the mask back up when he’s cleared his eyes. ...
These are all the reasons I love Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette
FOR YEARS, we have been warned about the addictive and harmful impact of heavy smartphone and internet use, with physicians and brain specialists raising red flags regarding the cognitive price of these technologies. Many of us now recognize that we are addicts, often joking about it in an attempt to lessen the seriousness of this realization. But what had been missing to really drive the fact of digital dependency home was an admission by those who design the technologies that such was their intended goal. This has now changed as a cadre of IT professionals recently broke their silence on the subject, revealing the motivations behind the creation of some of the world’s most popular apps. . .
Every culture has its idealized woman, its standard of beauty that is valorized. Everywhere women are altering themselves in small and major ways to attempt the look that is celebrated. History is full of methods, home grown and scientific, used to attain these ideals— footbinding, corsetting, liposuction, emaciation, molding of the skull, face lifts, lip stretching…
In this story Hidden World of Girls travels to Jamaica — where cosmetic folk treatments and changing ideals of beauty are part of a the national debate going on in the music, the dancehalls and on the streets.
In Jamaica, especially in poorer areas, there is a saying among men, ” I don’t want a “maga” (meager) woman.” A maga woman, a slight or thin woman, says to the world that a man is poor and doesn’t have means to provide for her. A larger woman is a way of showing you have means and that you can afford to keep this woman fed.
“If you have no meat on your bones the society can’t see your wealth, your progress, your being,” said Professor Sonjah Stanley-Niaah. “This African standard of beauty, and it’s very much present in Jamaica. The body must be healthy and that health is expressed in some amount of fat. You musn’t just be able to slip through the arms of a man. The healthy body girl is anywhere from 160 to 210 pounds.So there’s a high level of interest and activity around modifying the body.”
In the 1990s, some women in Jamaica, longing to be large, started taking “Chicken Pills,” hormones sold to plump up the breasts and thighs of chickens.
In Jamaica we talked with twenty-one year old Raquel Jones who was cast in an independent film called “Chicken Pills,”by Jamaica born playwright, Storm. The film is about two teenage girls. One is getting more attention from the boys in the class. The other character, Lisa, is having self esteem problems so she turns to the chicken pills. “Here in Jamaica it’s pressure on teenage girls and women. We do stuff that increases these physical appearances, getting our bodies to look a certain way.”
I would watch a movie about rebel activists making zines and dropping them on Stormtroopers White Rose style.
The White Rose (German: die Weiße Rose) was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany led by a group of students and a professor at the University of Munich. The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign which called for active opposition to the Nazi regime.