Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/19/18
Douchebag MRA Makes a Fan Edit of The Last Jedi to Remove all the Women
It has been a month but this next bit is going to include Last Jedi SPOILERS! Read not forward, dear friends, lest you learn too much!
The edit is 46 minutes long and pulled from a bad videotape of the movie someone made in the theater. Because when women are given power, it is important to strip away that power as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Now one might think this is a parody. Perhaps, you imagine, some person with a sense of humor saw all these nerdbros bemoaning the fact that Princess Leia rightly criticized Poe Dameron for failing to follow a direct order or that Admiral Holdo wasn’t a dude and thought “I’m going to make an edit that takes out all the girls because that would be hilarious.”
Nope. that’s not what happened. Instead, this shitbag literally believes that Leia was in the wrong when she demoted Poe for getting every Resistance bomber destroyed in an attack that served no purpose. So he edited it out to make Poe look like a hero who didn’t have to learn anything.
Does this look like a guy who should ever have to take orders from a woman? I didn’t think so.
And you know why? It isn’t because that was a bad story arc. No – it’s because the person teaching Poe that lesson was a woman.
The edit also removes Rey (of course) because the Jedi are dudes! Just look at them waving around that phallic laser sword all the time! Girls wouldn’t want to do that! They should be in the kitchen pouring blue milk!
What truly annoys me is that this guy might have a girlfriend. Or a wife. Or a daughter. He definitely has a mother.
But who gives a fuck about the women in his life, right? He probably loves them a lot. It’s just the women in his movies that he hates.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/5
It is a new year and late last year, I had trouble putting this column out every week. I’m going to do better this year but I have to tell you, this shit is hard.
It isn’t hard to write but when the White House is such an amazing shit show, things get a little tiring. I could write 1000 words about the asshole in the oval office every single week but I just hate even thinking about the guy.
So for the folks who look forward to my weekly rants, I’m sorry they’ve been so inconsistent. Let’s just start with the dick in the White House, shall we?
Donald Trump Responds to a Threat from North Korea by Making a Dick Joke
Does it bother anyone else that the most mature person in an exchange is Kim Jong Un? I don’t want to speak out for the guy who is the head of a recklessly oppressive regime that seems more interested in developing a nuclear bomb than they do in feeding their own people.
But when he rattled his saber, at least he didn’t do so by referencing his dick size.
Trump pointed out that Un is an oppressive leader by observing he has a “depleted and food starved regime” which, for once, was accurate. Then he proceeded to point out that he had a much larger dick nuclear button than Un.
I mean, maybe Trump and Un regularly exchange dick nuclear button pics so he has some knowledge of their comparative size.
It’s also a really bad analogy. This doesn’t look anything like a penis.
Thing is, we need to remember that our President is a sexual predator. He is always thinking about his penis. It is the central obsession of his life.
When he makes a tax proposal, he is thinking about how it will affect his penis. When he appoints a justice to the supreme court, he is thinking about his penis. Making a dick nuclear button joke on Twitter is one of the most honest things he’s ever done because he is pointing out that when he thinks about nuclear war, he’s thinking about his penis.
He sends unsolicited dick pics to himself. And he likes it.
Three more years (oh please) of this asshole.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/23/17
Women Can’t Get Directing Jobs in Hollywood But Men Can
You know what is great about Wonder Woman? It was directed by a woman. Not because women should direct female helmed super hero films but because hardly any women direct feature films. Is it because they don’t want to or because Hollywood is notoriously progressive until it comes to actually giving women jobs?
Before you answer that question, keep in mind that Patty Jenkins directed Monster in 2003. Charlize Theron won Best Actress for the film. The next feature film Jenkins directed?
Wonder Woman in 2017
The article above talks about Colin Trevorrow, who was handed the keys to Jurassic World after having made one mildly successful Independent film. He’s now the announced director for Star Wars Episode IX. He also directed the new, apparently horrible, film Book of Henry.
The problem here is men with no experience are handed the keys to major films all the time. Women with experience are not. Know how many movies Kathryn Bigelow has directed since she won an Oscar for Best Director in 2008? Two.
Maybe someone tried to hand her a Star Wars movie. But I’m betting they didn’t.
I mean it’s not like there’s anything in Star Wars for women to like, right?
The issue here isn’t Colin Trevorrow getting work. It is the fact he is being handed major blockbuster films when more experienced women don’t even get a call. I mean, Michael Bay makes unintelligible crap but at least his films make (for some inexplicable reason) gigantic piles of money. When Trevorrow was given Jurassic World, there was no evidence he could do the same.
Except for the fact he was making a Jurassic Park movie so of course it was going to make gigantic piles of money.
If you handed a Captain America movie to a woman director, it would also make piles of money. So why doesn’t that happen? They only super hero movie handed to a woman so far is the movie about a hero who is a woman.
It can’t be sexism right? It has to be something else.
No. It’s totally sexism.
Shit that Pissed me off – 3/11
Donald Trump Thinks Islam Hates Us
Trump is like an improvisational comedian who isn’t funny. Any time he says something outrageous, he gets called on it. Instead of clarifying his statement, he simply says “Yes, I totally meant that, AND…”
Then he says something even worse. It would be hilarious were it not for the thousands of people who hang on his every word and totally believe everything he says.
Today, I’m going to say that Barak Obama is a martian!
Does Islam hate us? No. But I guarantee you that the fact Trump has said exactly that and has stood behind the statement is all some of his supporters need to believe something that stupid.
Why, this week a man punched a protester being escorted out of a Trump rally and later said “the next time we see him, we may have to kill him.” He assumed that since the guy was black, he was also probably Muslim and, therefore, ISIS. Was this a by-product of Trump having said he’d like to punch a protestor in the face?
Maybe.
What is truly insane is the idea that people think Trump will make America great again. He’s already made America worse.
Shit that Pissed me off – 1/22
Insider Reports Indicate Disney Marketers Didn’t Think Rey Would be Very Popular
Even though Rey was the lead in The Force Awakens, inside reports suggest that the prevailing opinion was that kids (specifically boys) wouldn’t be interested. Also, apparently girls don’t play with action figures or some stupid shit like that.
They decided that what they really needed was a whole lot of Kylo Ren stuff.
Now don’t get me wrong – Kylo Ren is a great character. I love his conflicted nature and his violent mood swings. He is one of the most dangerous villains I think the Star Wars universe has ever created.
Yes, including Darth Vader.
But the heart of the film is Rey. If you don’t have confidence that kids are going to identify with her and want toys that represent her, why the fuck are you making merchandise for the film?
Come with me! I hear there’s a sale on Kylo Ren merchandise!
I mean, if your expectation of the hero is that low, your expectation of the rest of the film has to be lower, doesn’t it?
What’s embarrassing is this conversation has been going on for years. The public has been saying “we want toys featuring the women in these movies” and every time a new film comes out, the response seems to be “well, we didn’t know!”
When in realty, they just didn’t care.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/8
With Christmas and January 1st falling on Fridays, I’ve been a bit backlogged on this column. That means this week might feature more anger than usual. If you are a regular reader, I’m sorry for the time off.
A Couple of Prosperity Preachers Spend Some Time Justifying Their Private Jets
The sheer amount of privilege these guys exhibit when they talk about how difficult it is for them to fly coach is remarkable. What is frightening, though, is some of the points they make are completely fair. I hate that.
Imagine you are a super popular preacher who has to travel all over the country. Imagine you are flying somewhere new almost every day. If you had to fly commercial air the whole time, it would be a lot less convenient.
What if god loses your luggage?
I mean, you’d get all the first class upgrades and I’m pretty sure whoever is bringing you in to speak would be paying for your ticket but it would still be less convenient. If you schedule yourself that tightly, it would likely be very difficult to get everywhere you needed to go with commercial airlines. You might have to cut back on your appearances or something. Which would be a damn shame.
Thing is, they are getting luxury jets paid for by convincing poor people to give them money. Lots and lots of money. And they have conversations with god on their planes (not kidding – watch the video) in which god apparently tells them that they should want a better plane.
Which means it is time to fleece the poor people again!
The Force Awakens – You’re Damn Right
I don’t usually experience nerd excitement over films any more. I remember going to The Phantom Menace thinking I was getting new Star Wars for the first time in forever and realizing that Star Wars doesn’t have to be awesome. It can be bland and nonsensical.
I remember watching The Matrix a few dozen times and thinking whatever the Wachoskis had planned for that universe, there was no way they could mess it up. I remember being dead certain that Peter Jackson could make a trilogy about The Hobbit that was going to be just as awesome as The Lord of the Rings.
So entering the theater to see The Force Awakens, I was not vibrating with excitement. I was guardedly optimistic.
And while The Force Awakens may not have ensured I will be excited about every nerd title that comes to theaters from now on, I can honestly say it made me excited about Star Wars again. For the first time since The Empire Strikes Back, the next film can’t come soon enough.
I realize the internet does not require my take on the film. I’m writing it anyway.
And I’m going to focus on one thing: what I loved about the film. The film has faults. They aren’t huge and they don’t border on the gaffes that filled the prequels or even Return of the Jedi. But they are there. And if you want to focus on them, you go right ahead. You have as much right to dislike the film as I do to like it.
I don’t like it, though. I love it. And here’s why.
Shit that Pissed me off – 10/23
Another Hearing about Benghazi
In spite of the fact it has been publicly stated that these hearings are nothing more than an attempt to discredit Hilary Clinton as a presidential candidate, the Senate held more hearings about Benghazi this week. In what should come as no surprise, the committee spent considerable time discussing Clinton’s e-mails even after claiming they wouldn’t.
The saber rattling by the right about Benghazi is embarrassing. It is done. We are done.
The public doesn’t fucking care.
I mean, that isn’t true. The far right cares and can’t get enough. They think somewhere there is a smoking gun. Ignoring, of course, the fact that the one body completely unqualified to find a smoking gun is the United States Congress.
The US Congress even concluded Lee Harvey Oswald wald acted alone. I mean, they were right. But that isn’t the point.
If you would like to beat Hilary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders), oh Republican establishment, can I suggest you do it with better policies and better candidates?
Or are you already aware that won’t work?
Iowa Right to Life Director Doesn’t Really Know Much about Birth Control
I will never understand why pro-life advocates are not strongly pro birth control. I mean, people will have sex. It doesn’t matter how many purity rings you sell or how many abstinence only sex ed classes you teach.
Hell, married people who don’t want to have kids will have sex.
And if some of those women who want to have sex get pregnant, they might want an abortion. Why wouldn’t you be in strong support of something that reduces the odds of an unwanted pregnancy in the first place?
I’m serious – there should be pamphlets about contraception and condoms at every pro-life event. They should be handing that shit out in front of Planned Parenthood. Here’s a good slogan: “use protection so you don’t even need to consider having an abortion!”
But they aren’t handing out condoms. In fact, after statistics have shown abortion rates in Iowa dropped after use of contraception increased, the head of Iowa’s Right to Life said:
I think that contraception, by and large, has a huge failure rate.
For the record, she is totally fucking wrong. Used correctly, the failure rate of most contraception is less than 1%.
So – and I ask this with all respect – what the fuck is this really about?
I’m going to be the first to admit that I fucking hate other drivers. All of them. They are in my way and many of them engage in random lane changing or hang out in my blind spot or tailgate or drive too slow in the fast lane or don’t pull into the intersection to turn left until the light turns fucking yellow.
So I really understand road rage.
I am so angry, I will shake my fist at you in the rain!
I don’t understand a guy who pulls out a gun and shoots another driver. Nor do I understand a dude who swerves to hit a motorcycle.
When I get angry at another driver, I honk my horn at them. If I’m super out of control, I might do it twice.
I feel like it is the proper way to say “you drive like a douchebag” without, you know, shooting them.
I know regular readers will be shocked that I didn’t complain about guns here. So let me be clear, I’m not happy some asshole had a loaded gun in his car and shot a four year old. He doesn’t get brownie points for admitting he murdered a kid because some other asshole cut him off in traffic.
Road rage is certainly made worse by a loaded gun. But it is always bad. The solution, of course, is for everyone else to stop driving.
Anti Geek Bullshit
So maybe you know (or maybe you don’t) that this week contained the date Marty and Doc Brown travelled to in Back to the Future II.
You may also know that a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer dropped this week.
Geeks were understandably excited about these two events. The former resulted in a whole lot of jokes. Many of which were repetitive and/or not very funny.
The latter resulted in blog posts dissecting every single shot.
And, of course, both resulted in a bunch of people railing against the geeks for being so fucking excited about something they personally didn’t like.
It takes all kinds, I guess but here’s the thing: if someone is excited about Back to the Future because they fucking love those movies, why do you give a shit? If you are pissed that people don’t love your favorite movie, you need to learn something about art.
Love of art is subjective. And yes – the Back to the Future movies are art.
Pop art, sure. But still art.
You don’t have to like it. But you don’t have to unzip your fly and piss on it either.
Fringe Festival – Day 2
I’ve talked to a lot of artists about reviewing for Fringe shows and most of us don’t write reviews for the Fringe Festival site. It’s kind of counter-intuitive. We all really need reviews to get audiences interested in our shows. But most of the time we don’t review the shows of other artists.
In general, I’ll do a review on the Fringe site if I see a show I really enjoy and it doesn’t have many reviews or I feel like the rating is too low. That, in my mind, is a show that needs support from as many sources as possible.
If the show has a lot of reviews and is doing well, it doesn’t need my help if I liked it. If I didn’t like it, I have too much respect for the work of the people involved to torpedo the show’s rating by posting a negative review. A one or two star review can really screw a producer’s rating.
If I were an audience member with no skin in the game, I wouldn’t have an issue posting a negative review on the show page. As a producer, writer, and sometime performer, I want to help other producers. A bad review on the Fringe site can really hurt them.
So I’ll write a bad review here on my own page and perhaps they will find it helpful. Or perhaps they won’t read it.
Probably the second thing.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/13
Hasbro Seems to Have Forgotten Someone
Hasbro has announced they are releasing a line of 24 Star Wars figures to coincide with the digital re-release of the films. That is awesome because I can buy them for my kid. And then play with them myself.
However, they seem to have forgotten the most badass character in the original trilogy.
Nope. Han is there. So is Chewbacca.
Do I have to hide some plans inside a droid to help you figure it out?
Where, I ask you, is Princess Leia? They can include a two fucking battle droids but can’t seem to include one of the most important characters from the original trilogy?
Memo to Hasbro: nobody gives a shit about battle droids. Nobody.
I realize the Star Wars universe is not full of women but if you can find room for Padme Amidala in your 24 figures, you can sure as hell find room for Leia.
Grail Diary 