Weekend 'Round the Web: Firewalking, Writing, and Fighting COBRAAAA!
One way or another, it's about survival.
It’s time for another installment of “Fun stuff Luke has been reading this past week.” Although “fun” isn’t entirely accurate for some of these pieces. Perhaps “worthwhile” is a better word, but it doesn’t have the same instant connotations; you have to think for a moment about what it means as applied in this case.
Let’s kick things off with two accounts of surviving the horrible L.A. fires after losing everything, from two fellows who are both pretty articulate and may help you empathize if it feels abstract. First, Mike Rothschild, professional conspiracy debunker, whom I’ve linked to before, continues to write about his journey and process:
“Watching the excavator a few days earlier as the debris removal began was truly one of the more bizarre moments of life since the fire. It would pick up something that was once meaningful to us – our grill, the bathtub where we bathed the kids when they were little, the dishwasher I loaded the night of the fire – then move it to the center of the debris pile, then rear back and smash it flat, like Godzilla stepping on a tank. Then the flattened piece of debris is scooped up and dropped in a plastic-wrapped flatbed for eventual disposal somewhere far away.
Eventually, it’s all gone except the dirt.”
Read the rest at Mike’s site. Up next we have Wade Major, the “Hollywood Heretic,” who rarely writes about himself, except when he’s picking Facebook fights out of late-night boredom. For this, he clearly felt a need to write about it, and those are often the best pieces, the ones you can’t NOT do.
On a lighter note about the process of writing, actress Heather Matarazzo (Welcome to the Dollhouse) has a piece about trying to write. It rings pretty true.
I liked this review of Anora by Charlotte Simmons, which gets to the heart of a key conflict in cinematic representation. When a group is rarely represented, there’s a great deal of pressure for its onscreen representative to be the best, most positive example ever, but stories don’t always work that way. The answer, obviously, is more representation, to allow for more different and varying portrayals of any given group. To what degree must an individual movie bear that burden? It’s always worth thinking about:
I shared a piece from the pseudonymous Salty Cinema last time, and I’m going to do so again, because I feel like our interests coincide quite a bit, as this column on postmodernism and reality will demonstrate. I also appreciate that unlike most “industry” people who also double as critics or writers, Salty doesn’t have the usual “I’m right, you’re objectively wrong” approach to art that I see so much among the screenwriters I’ve known.
For all my religion nerds, if there are any, did Jesus die on or before Passover? Are you surprised to learn the Gospels don’t agree on this?
A piece by former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox, about how conservative pop culture offers its audience things that mainstream entertainment has forgotten, is a lot more insightful than most of these things are. I never want to link to political stuff here just because I agree with it; I try only to do so when it puts things in ways I hadn’t thought of already. This is one.
“Since Trump’s reelection, liberal pundits have focused on the signifiers of support Hollywood has traditionally supplied: the label ribbons, the performative representation, and whether or not Disney includes content warnings on racial stereotypes present in its classic films. But the rise of the right-winger as trusted hangout interlocutor, and the way the connection he offers shapes how audiences move through the world, are different from the “different hat, same ball game” signaling of past presidential cycles.”
It’s a long read, but a good one.
Oh yeah, and alarmists were right:
“That they might have something to learn from us alarmists has never really occurred to them. And this is the heart of my case for why we should stress that we ‘called it.’ As the situation gets worse, as our constitutional, economic, and social orders unravel, more and more less political people will start tuning in, looking for answers. Who should they listen to? At the moment, the bulk of space in both traditional and new media is taken up by people who got it badly wrong. If they are allowed to define the response, we will continue to be a step (several steps) behind.”
Brett White says G.I. Joe is actually liberal. Can I send him back in time to tell my mom that?
“In fact, the Republican party of 2025 is pulling directly from the classic Cobra playbook, except they're doing so with infinitely less charisma, uniqueness, nerve, or talent. Honestly, modern day conservatives snatching these ideas from Cobra? It's disrespectful to Cobra. Cobra at least didn't pretend to be anything other than evil. They sure as hell didn't pretend to be Christian. Even when they were lying through their fangs, they were still being 100% honest.”
It certainly feels like we’re living through the Zartan presidency of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but White has more to say than just that.
Good work, everyone. Now, what all have the rest of you read and liked lately?
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