Kulturkampf

[Uncle]

https://imgur.com/gallery/rMM9JCo



yes it feels ironic, but I like the subtle revelation that people who think this way believe that people should feel compelled to defend anything that looks like them

e.g. "a black person is saying it and I'm black so I have to back them up no matter what"


or, alternatively -- the idea that people who are influenced deeply by something (styling yourself after Barbie) should always defend that thing at all costs, rather than naturally being its harshest critics, when it goes in a direction that feels like a betrayal of what you once loved

[Cauliflower Of Love]

https://www.threads.net/@travisjakers/post/CvfwwCAu-2p


She doth protest too much

[benji]

https://imgur.com/gallery/rMM9JCo

yes it feels ironic, but I like the subtle revelation that people who think this way believe that people should feel compelled to defend anything that looks like them

They altered a number of these to give them blonde/blonder/longer hair. They aren't necessarily GOPers just (some former) Fox News hosts. Seems to be blaming the women because Roger Ailes had a type.

[Polident]

Not the point, but Margot herself was in that Fox News/Ailes movie nobody saw. Well, I did. It’s funny because her character is basically that picture. Where other actors played real people, such as Charlize Theron playing Megyn Kelly, Robbie is an amalgam of various real blonde white ladies.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

robbie is white? I thought she was australian

[Nintex]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/JFGariepy/status/1687455697829502978?t=6EnHSoR8d2fBpdWbTVEqdQ&s=19[/tweet]

[Nintex]

Gamers Rise Up

[Nintex]

The regime keeps arresting innocent people. They are shaking in their boots.

[Propagandhim]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/real1maria/status/1686630686512267264?s=20
[/tweet]



Am I using this thread right?

[benji]

Hundreds of tweets attacking anyone who replies with an explanation and then locking down the replies.

[benji]

I Took My 15-Year-Old Son To See 'Barbie' Because I'm Worried He Could Become Ken

By
Wendy Besel Hahn
Aug 4, 2023, 01:00 PM EDT

“Barbie” is the movie I needed my 15-year-old son to see this summer. The kid has his learner’s permit for driving, medaled in a couple of swim events at a regional meet, recently went on his first date, and soon will be embarking on his sophomore year in high school. He’s on his way to becoming Ken on Venice Beach (as played by Ryan Gosling).

As his 51-year-old mother, I’m painfully aware that my son is merely six years away from having more rights in America than I do. He will soon obtain a driver’s license, and later get a voter’s registration. Due to the generosity of his grandparents and our ability to save money, he has a modest college fund. Once he reaches the age when he can legally consume alcohol and has a college degree, he might arrive on a relatively level playing field with Gosling (minus the fame and the eight-pack abs). He will have bodily autonomy — a privilege I lost in June 2022 when six Supreme Court justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Undoubtedly, those who seek to uphold the current status quo in American society and applaud the SCOTUS decision will label my actions “indoctrination” and “woke.” I’ll happily admit it: They are. To borrow an African proverb, “If the wise elders of the village don’t teach the children, the village idiots will certainly do so.”

I’ve been inoculating my son against hate for years. On the morning of Nov. 9, 2016, my then 8-year-old son found me sobbing on our family room couch in a suburb outside Washington, D.C. Right then and there, I gave him a gargantuan task that amounted to “don’t sit by and let people bully others.” I implored him to use his privilege to help. It was a huge ask and perhaps an inappropriate burden for a kid that age, but I’d already put some scaffold in place.

Despite these efforts and a new administration, we live in a country where white nationalism is on the rise, as are antisemitic incidents and anti-LGBTQ legislation. We live in a country where women do not control our own bodies. In 2023, I am fighting to raise a son who doesn’t become the next Kyle Rittenhouse, Brock Turner or Elon Musk.

Movies, like books, invite dialogue. As a former high school English teacher, I wish all teachers would assign their students to watch “Barbie” in place of summer reading selections like “The Grapes of Wrath.” Since it’s too late to amend summer assignments, I’ll encourage all my friends and acquaintances to see the movie with their teenagers.

Analyzing the “Barbie” film is as foreign to my son as reading Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was last year in ninth grade. It requires a guide who can explain that Ken’s inferior position in Barbieland is a mere inversion of the patriarchal American society we live in today. I was thrilled to be given the chance to provide that guidance.

The experience of sitting in a theater with my son and watching Ken ask Stereotypical Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) if she wants to have a sleepover offered me the opportunity to point out that consent is important and needs to be honored.

In taking my son to the “Barbie” movie and talking with him, I seized the lesson plan that Hollywood handed me. Although I don’t live in Florida or plan to visit the state anytime soon, I challenged the anti-woke agenda that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is trying to impose there ― and everywhere. I want my son to fully understand the message that “Barbie” has emblazoned in front of us, because the patriarchy is real and too many people are suffering under it. And he can help change that.

In the spirit of cooperation, my son signed off on this essay about our excursion. It’s just one instance in an ongoing process of negotiations between parent and child. I’m grateful to see glimmers of the man he is becoming, even wrapped in a sometimes surly exterior. One day, months before we saw “Barbie” together, he surprised me during a car ride by saying how messed up it was that people were boycotting a product advertised with the help of a transgender celebrity. It’s those small interactions that convince me he understands his privilege and sees a world that desperately needs diversity. Going forward, I’ll keep teaching him about this messy world whenever I can ― even if it’s at the movies and with the help of a doll ― and I’ll keep saying and doing things that embarrass him, a skill that he swears I excel at. And he’ll do his best to grow into the man he’s becoming, who currently wears a men’s size 11 shoe. I am hopeful that he will learn to tread lightly to avoid stepping on Barbie’s Birkenstocks.

Wendy Besel Hahn (she/her) is the nonfiction editor for “Furious Gravity” (May 2020), a collection of 50 stories by D.C.-area women. Her work appears in The Washington Post, Scary Mommy and The Fem, and is forthcoming in Hippocampus. She lives in Denver, where she is working on a novel.

[Nintex]

On the morning of Nov. 9, 2016, my then 8-year-old son found me sobbing on our family room couch in a suburb outside Washington, 

many such cases

Her work appears in The Washington Post, Scary Mommy and The Fem

Of course it does. 

[HaughtyFrank]

[HaughtyFrank]

I don't care about TMNT in any sort of way but there's really something in the water when it comes to reimagining childhood cartoon characters 

Then again, when you pull something like that it probably pulls away any attention from the race swapping

[Nintex]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/SciFiisHere/status/1687794586930847744

[/tweet]

[BIONIC]

1691261864[/url]']

Oh god, benji plz make that face into an emote

:ithurtstolive

[Nintex]

In this alternate universe, Aprils mom was knocked up by her fat cousin person of color  

[benji]

"relatable and grounded in the real world while keeping some of the details which make her so iconic"

*makes hilarious stereotype but Black*

[Nintex]

Doomsday scenarios from 1997 one of which could upset a long time of prosperity and peace.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

They all happened

[benji]

Except for the part where only one of them did.

[Eric Cartman]

[HaughtyFrank]

dude, that looks legit racist and it comes from trying to be progressive  

[Puffy Fucking Baby]

Has there even been a decent race swap since Scarface? (and does that even count?)

[Polident]

Aquaman being a Polynesian guy is cool. Actor choice helped. Likewise in nerd media, Sam L Jackson as Nick Fury. Recent Batman’s Gordon. 

Feels like there are plenty of examples where nobody cared because they were innocuous or good. In the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie, is anybody upset about Oscar Isaac playing Solid Snake? Well, maybe they’re saving their venom for the Meryl casting.

[Tucker's Law]

I Took My 15-Year-Old Son To See 'Barbie' Because I'm Worried He Could Become Ken

By
Wendy Besel Hahn
Aug 4, 2023, 01:00 PM EDT

“Barbie” is the movie I needed my 15-year-old son to see this summer. The kid has his learner’s permit for driving, medaled in a couple of swim events at a regional meet, recently went on his first date, and soon will be embarking on his sophomore year in high school. He’s on his way to becoming Ken on Venice Beach (as played by Ryan Gosling).

As his 51-year-old mother, I’m painfully aware that my son is merely six years away from having more rights in America than I do. He will soon obtain a driver’s license, and later get a voter’s registration. Due to the generosity of his grandparents and our ability to save money, he has a modest college fund. Once he reaches the age when he can legally consume alcohol and has a college degree, he might arrive on a relatively level playing field with Gosling (minus the fame and the eight-pack abs). He will have bodily autonomy — a privilege I lost in June 2022 when six Supreme Court justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Undoubtedly, those who seek to uphold the current status quo in American society and applaud the SCOTUS decision will label my actions “indoctrination” and “woke.” I’ll happily admit it: They are. To borrow an African proverb, “If the wise elders of the village don’t teach the children, the village idiots will certainly do so.”

I’ve been inoculating my son against hate for years. On the morning of Nov. 9, 2016, my then 8-year-old son found me sobbing on our family room couch in a suburb outside Washington, D.C. Right then and there, I gave him a gargantuan task that amounted to “don’t sit by and let people bully others.” I implored him to use his privilege to help. It was a huge ask and perhaps an inappropriate burden for a kid that age, but I’d already put some scaffold in place.

Despite these efforts and a new administration, we live in a country where white nationalism is on the rise, as are antisemitic incidents and anti-LGBTQ legislation. We live in a country where women do not control our own bodies. In 2023, I am fighting to raise a son who doesn’t become the next Kyle Rittenhouse, Brock Turner or Elon Musk.

Movies, like books, invite dialogue. As a former high school English teacher, I wish all teachers would assign their students to watch “Barbie” in place of summer reading selections like “The Grapes of Wrath.” Since it’s too late to amend summer assignments, I’ll encourage all my friends and acquaintances to see the movie with their teenagers.

Analyzing the “Barbie” film is as foreign to my son as reading Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was last year in ninth grade. It requires a guide who can explain that Ken’s inferior position in Barbieland is a mere inversion of the patriarchal American society we live in today. I was thrilled to be given the chance to provide that guidance.

The experience of sitting in a theater with my son and watching Ken ask Stereotypical Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) if she wants to have a sleepover offered me the opportunity to point out that consent is important and needs to be honored.

In taking my son to the “Barbie” movie and talking with him, I seized the lesson plan that Hollywood handed me. Although I don’t live in Florida or plan to visit the state anytime soon, I challenged the anti-woke agenda that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is trying to impose there ― and everywhere. I want my son to fully understand the message that “Barbie” has emblazoned in front of us, because the patriarchy is real and too many people are suffering under it. And he can help change that.

In the spirit of cooperation, my son signed off on this essay about our excursion. It’s just one instance in an ongoing process of negotiations between parent and child. I’m grateful to see glimmers of the man he is becoming, even wrapped in a sometimes surly exterior. One day, months before we saw “Barbie” together, he surprised me during a car ride by saying how messed up it was that people were boycotting a product advertised with the help of a transgender celebrity. It’s those small interactions that convince me he understands his privilege and sees a world that desperately needs diversity. Going forward, I’ll keep teaching him about this messy world whenever I can ― even if it’s at the movies and with the help of a doll ― and I’ll keep saying and doing things that embarrass him, a skill that he swears I excel at. And he’ll do his best to grow into the man he’s becoming, who currently wears a men’s size 11 shoe. I am hopeful that he will learn to tread lightly to avoid stepping on Barbie’s Birkenstocks.

Wendy Besel Hahn (she/her) is the nonfiction editor for “Furious Gravity” (May 2020), a collection of 50 stories by D.C.-area women. Her work appears in The Washington Post, Scary Mommy and The Fem, and is forthcoming in Hippocampus. She lives in Denver, where she is working on a novel.

I sincerely hope someone sends her or has already sent her several of the recent critiques breaking down how Barbie is so far into parody that it ends up being a biting satire on modern feminism, intentionally or not.

Example:

[benji]

But perhaps the question shouldn’t be how someone like Lizzo could ever engage in this sort of behavior. The better question is, why were we so convinced she was a politically progressive artist in the first place?

So how did we become so easily convinced that Lizzo is a progressive artist? Why do we feel so let down by her right now? It may be in part due to the context in which she arrived into the mainstream.

Modern political catastrophes have coincided with an apparent growing need for fans to feel like they have close and personal relationships with their celebrities. As such, there’s an unprecedented pressure on today’s superstars to create music that “makes a statement”—particularly one that lines up with the progressive values of young listeners while still being broad enough for repeat listens and sold-out stadiums. It’s these conditions that have given birth to artists like Lizzo, who capitalize on the trendiness of progressivism without getting too bogged down by its actual politics.

Today, there is no shortage of artists whose quasi-progressive signaling has been received as radical: Taylor Swift included the Queer Eye guys in a music video and then received a GLAAD Vanguard award; Harry Styles wore a dress and became the face of gender fluidity in music; Lizzo sang phrases like “thick-thirty” and was given the PCA’s 2022 People’s Champion Award for her commitment to size diversity.

Meanwhile, pop stars who are finding more detailed and thoughtful ways of championing progressive ideology are constantly facing accusations of hypocrisy. Beyoncé’s most recent album, Renaissance, was critically acclaimed for its studied and well-executed take on Black queer music, yet she was scrutinized by people who questioned whether a heterosexual star has any right to make an album appropriating queer culture. Then there’s Kendrick Lamar, who has long been heralded the torchbearer for all things “conscious” in rap music; his 2015 song “Alright,” which preaches equanimity in the face of profound injustice, is the closest thing we have to a contemporary and canonical protest anthem. But last year, Lamar was scolded for his song “Auntie Diaries,” in which he deadnames his trans relatives and repeatedly uses a gay slur. The discourse around the song punctured a hole in the rapper’s image as an icon of leftist politics, despite his attempt to shed light on the struggles of the Black trans community: something no mainstream rapper had done before.

The difference between Lizzo’s music and “Auntie Diaries” is that the latter fails not by skimming the surface of sociopolitical issues, but by clumsily ramming into them head-on. Songs like these have no room in our current culture because progressives have a hard time cosigning a political statement that isn’t executed with painstaking precision and consideration. It’s much easier to settle for progressive-core artists like Lizzo, whose messaging is so broad and empty, we can project whatever ideology we want onto it.

This isn’t inherently a problem; the job of a mainstream pop artist is often to create a picture of themselves that is just vast and blurry enough that, if we squint real hard, we can see ourselves in it. We just need to be prepared for the possibility that, should that portrait ever come into focus, we might not like what we see.

Not me, I always knew she was fash-adjacent and so don't even know what her music sounds like.

[benji]

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[Nintex]

her commitment to size diversity.

you mean her devotion to the Burger King

[HaughtyFrank]

Ally and defender of the working class 

Most people who make politics their social media persona just seem to be a bunch of dumbasses

[Nintex]

her commitment to size diversity.

you mean her affection with body mass