I just saw a The Last Jedi defence post on my dash that I found Very Annoying, so rather than hijack it, here’s my extremely important opinion on the subject:
Giving viewers what they want isn’t a bad thing. In fact, in a popcorn movie – particularly a franchise movie – giving people what they want is precisely what you should be aiming for. And doing it isn’t easy – what viewers want generally includes a coherent plot, fun characters, exciting action, twists turns thrills spills and the like. There’s a reason not everyone is a successful Holywood screenwriter.
A movie that gives people what they want is almost definitionally a success. And here we have The Force Awakens. It gave people what they wanted, and it it was a massive hit and a solidly decent movie.
A great movie, though – that’s a movie that gives people what they didn’t even know they wanted. That’s much harder, and very few Hollywood blockbusters manage it.
And then you have The Last Jedi. TLJ did neither of those. Instead it mocked viewers for wanting what they did and smugly told them they ought to want what it offered instead – which many of them definitely didn’t. That’s why it is a failure both as a Star Wars movie and a work of art. (Well, that and the shonky plotting, terrible pacing, weak character work and abysmal world building.)
People don’t often look back on the early 1900’s for advice, but what if we could actually learn something from the Lost Generation? The New York Public Library has digitized 100 “how to do it” cards found in cigarette boxes over 100 years ago, and the tips they give are so practical that millennials reading this might want to take notes.
Back in the day, cigarette cards were popular collectibles included in every pack, and displayed photos of celebrities, advertisements, and more. Gallaher cigarettes, a UK-founded tobacco company that was once the largest in the world, decided to print a series of helpful how-to’s on their cards, which ranged from mundane tasks (boiling potatoes) to unlikely scenarios (stopping a runaway horse). Most of them are insanely clever, though, like how to make a fire extinguisher at home. Who even knew you could do that?
The entire set of life hacks is now part of the NYPL’s George Arents Collection. Check out some of the cleverest ones we could find below. You never know when you’ll have to clean real lace!
It’s wild how like… JKR is so skilled at so many aspects of writing, especially in little character moments, but when it comes to implications of throwaway lines she just… not a SINGLE thought.
Like in Chamber of Secrets, when Harry is talking to Tom / Voldemort and is like, you Framed Hagrid, Tom is like, yeah he was always trying to raise monsters,
he says that Hagrid tried to raise werewolf cubs under his bed like…
Men are not inherently violent, predatory, or dangerous. Any feminist project worthy of the name needs to acknowledge that this behavior is taught. The idea of men being biologically predisposed to being abusers or rapists is actively used against abuse and rape survivors / victims
(does the phrase “boys will be boys” ring a bell at all to you?) and will never, ever work in our favor.
This is a good take but the majority of people saying that men are inherently predatory, violent and abusive are men’s groups, fundamentalist Christian groups and other of that like. Mainstream and even a lot more radical feminist thought do not accept this idea.
Unless there is some feminist project actually supporting this, which is wild.
I’ve encountered multiple self-labeled radfem bloggers on here who either imply this sentiment or state it outright. That’s the context of this post.
yeah this has been a radfem/TERF talking point for like literal decades lmao it goes hand in hand w/ transmisogynist rhetoric. also there have been quite a few radfem/TERF groups whove alligned themselves w/ fundamentalist christian groups too, as both of them hav pretty much more or less the same violently redunctionist + ahistorical view on gender/sex 👀👀👀
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