[video]
SCALIA: Tell me, Counsel. Gay marriage: Bad for children, or the worst for children?
COOPER: We really don’t know. Gay marriage is so new. We have no evidence. It could be that gay marriage will cause aliens to descend on this planet and eat the flesh of all children under the age of sixteen. Or maybe not. We just don’t know. We have to think of the children.
KENNEDY: This is extremely persuasive to me.
This is delightful.
(via thepoliticalnotebook)
Robert Saylor, a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome, sat in a movie theatre after having watched a movie, acting as if he was going to sit through the movie again without buying another ticket.
That prompted three police officers to kill him.
Friday, a grand jury determined that no crime was committed, even though his death was ruled a homicide.He was suffocated as three officers struggled to handcuff him and drag him out of the theater. A movie ticket probably costs $11.
The court system is corrupt.
(via ikenbot)
If you’ve been to the movies in the last half-century, you know the White Savior genre well. It’s the catalog of films that features white people single-handedly rescuing people of color from their plight. These story lines insinuate that people of color have no ability to rescue themselves. This both makes white audiences feel good about themselves by portraying them as benevolent messiahs (rather than hegemonic conquerors), and also depicts people of color as helpless weaklings — all while wrapping such tripe in the cinematic argot of liberation.
This, of course, is the backbone of Spielberg’s “Lincoln.” As historian Kate Masur recently wrote in the New York Times, it is yet another “movie devoted to explaining the abolition of slavery in the United States” but one in which “African-American characters do almost nothing but passively wait for white men to liberate them.” The result, she writes, is a film that ignores actual events of the 19th century, “helps perpetuate the notion that African Americans have offered little of substance to their own liberation” and thus reinforces “the outdated assumption that white men are the primary movers of history and the main sources of social progress.”
Coming from Spielberg, this isn’t particularly surprising. He is, after all, the creator of one of the most unself-consciously archetypal White Savior movies of all time: “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” In that cartoonish adventure, a whip-wielding white archaeologist drops from the sky into India and quickly becomes the only person able to save destitute peasants from the rein of a tyrannical human-sacrificing cult.
(via ikenbot)
Here’s Why Taylor Swift Will Never Be Called a Whore
I know this puts me in the minority, but I’ve never been a huge Taylor Swift fan. It’s great that she’s the highest grossing pop star under the age of 30 and everything, and that she’s worth $56 million and everything, but her music is dog-doo awful town. And with great power comes great responsibility.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, Ken Baker of E! News tweeted the above image.
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat here so I don’t have a bunch of fellow feminists jumping down my throat: Neither Taylor Swift nor Miley Cyrus are “sluts.” As Ryan O’Connell points out: “While it’s nice that people are starting to realize that calling Miley Cyrus a slut is bad news bears, that doesn’t mean we should deflect all of that sexist energy to Taylor Swift.” I agree completely! And what is a slut anyway? Especially with regard to giant pop stars? I’m pretty sure that being slutty or not slutty has nothing to do with a woman’s musical abilities. But that doesn’t stop us from judging a female musician on her neckline.
My problem with Taylor Swift is her lyrics. It’s not that she only writes about boys and love (even though I find this problematic and totally unprogressive).
It’s that Taylor Swift slut-shames other women constantly and no one says anything about it.
Here’s a fun little thought experiment. Try to think of a Taylor Swift song that isn’t about boys and boyfriends and lovey-dovey girl feelings. In her songs, romantic relationships usually end because of the actions of another woman.
Read the rest over at NOISEY.
Kardashians Get 40 Times More News Coverage Than Ocean Acidification
'Hunger Games' fans split hairs over blond star Lawrence -
I read this article in the newspaper the other day and thought it was really… I don’t know, stupid? It puts so much focus on hair color and ignores the reason why someone who is naturally blond playing Katniss Everdeen is problematic. That would be race. Only white people are born blond. The character is described in the books as more racially ambiguous; dark hair and olive skin. Jennifer Lawrence is unquestionably white. That’s why people were upset. Since Jennifer Lawrence has blond hair and fair skin she should have been unsuitable for the role, but since she has blond hair and fair skin it doesn’t matter.
Yes.Whitney Houston Was Killed So that Blue Ivy Carter Could Live:
Was Whitney murdered? It all makes sense when you think about it. You really think it’s a coincidence that Whitney Houston, one of the biggest stars in music, died just weeks after Jay-Z and Beyonce had their child, Blue Ivy? Just a few days after Madonna’s Super Bowl performance? Just one day before the music industry(-al complex)’s grandest spectacle, The Grammys? Pull your head out of your arse and look at the facts. Continue reading here
The latest issue of Time has an article about fanfiction, specifically those that feature the Harry Potter series, but it mentions a couple of different fandoms as well.