The "Actor": Dissecting his words

You may already be aware of Entertainment Weekly interviewing four anonymous Oscar voters: an actor, a director, a marketing specialist, and a costume designer.

https://ew.com/awards/oscars/2023-oscars-secret-ballot-academy-awards-voters-share-juicy-picks/

I know I am not the only one who was frustrated with the actor, but the other written pieces I have seen seem to be more that it happened, without analyzing why.

Here is my take.

I will note starting out that because the interviews are edited -- which makes sense -- there may be wrong impressions, but comparing all four interviewees the actor seems to be the most freely critical, often with longer quotes but still no substance.

He also uses "wokeness" unironically, which is its own strong indicator.

Where he spoke most out of turn was regarding three snubs: Gina Prince-Bythewood and Viola Davis for The Woman King (Best Director and Best Actress, respectively) and Danielle Deadwyler for Till (Best Actress). 

(You may notice a common thread.)

I will not fault the actor for mentioning them, because those were big topics of conversation beyond the interview; it would have been weird not to mention them. However, sometimes you can know things, or you can not know things but be aware that you don't know.

I want to stress that the impression this man gives is one of incredible ego, and very critical of others already. (And he's an actor!) However, the largest amount of disrespect was shown to Black women. That is completely predictable based on everything known about misogynoir and intersectionality... but he does not know.

Here is the convenient thing about privilege: he misses glaringly obvious things, and still thinks he is smart. Privilege lets you think you are better than you are, which, frankly, tends to curb efforts and result in mediocrity.

The Actor on Deadwyler:

She was good. I mean, who wouldn't be good in a part like that? The strong, wronged mother. But you look at the real Mamie Till, she's not wearing all of these incredible gowns and beautifully made-up. I thought it was a confusing message. If they'd really [made a movie about] that woman, who was not used to being in the public eye and wore house dresses, she [wouldn't have] had one incredible outfit after another. The ego behind this pushing her to be a movie star was too blatant for me.

He seems to be under the impression that Mamie Till-Mobley was a housewife, or perhaps a maid. She was working in an office. Not only was it common at the time for professional women to be dressed up, but that was a common strategy of those working for civil rights (though that was about to get much more visible).  

They cover that in the movie, and why the NAACP thought she would be a great asset, so that shouldn't be too shocking, unless he did not watch the movie. I mean, he sounds like he watched it, but he admits to not seeing The Woman King.

I have a funny feeling he didn't see Selma.

The Actor on Davis:

It's like, come on. I think Viola Davis is talented, I didn't see Woman King, but I'm a little tired of Viola Davis and her snotty crying. I'm over all of that. 

I admit I haven't seen everything Viola Davis has done, but I don't think she does it that much. It gets attention, because it is giving up staying "pretty", which has historically been expected of actresses, but which is not how real crying looks. I guess my real issue with it is that I wonder if he has ever actually seen her cry or he heard a reference to it once and that is the impression that he kept.

He got even worse about her:

"When they get in trouble for not giving Viola Davis an award, it's like, no, sweetheart, you didn't deserve it. We voted, and we voted for the five we thought were best," he finishes. "It's not fair for you to start suddenly beating a frying pan and say [they're] ignoring Black people. They're really not, they're making an effort. Maybe there was a time 10 years ago when they were, but they have, of all the high-profile things, been in the forefront of wanting to be inclusive.

It would still be condescending without the "sweetheart", but that does make it more condescending.

Certainly, there hasn't been that much effort toward equity to be that tired of the effort yet, but also, I am not sure that she got that mad.

I admit, I do not follow show business that much, so I could have missed it, but there apparently was an Instagram post that is really pretty tame, and largely a show of solidarity with Gina Prince-Bythewood:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CoYTBIzPXUc/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=28917d42-581c-4d3d-a35d-e681cb9177fd

Where does "banging a frying pan" come from? Are you just interpreting a Black woman not going out of her way to show how okay she is with everything as "angry"? Are there any stereotypes you are not going to embrace?

As it was, finishing that quote is probably his low point:

Viola Davis and the lady director need to sit down, shut up, and relax. 

It is not even necessary to know her name or to have seen the movie to dismiss her.

Dude, I don't really know that you are white (I have my suspicions),  but I do know that you are an ass. You have been coddled too much by your privilege, and you believe your own hype.

I wish you a better understanding. That will probably only come the hard way. I am at peace with this.

I would like to give the movies some individual attention, so next time!

What are you doing?

The last post ended with a question: what are we going to do?

As I have been thinking over some of these topics, I have been thinking that "What are you doing?" is a reasonable question. It's an important question to ask yourself, and it's a reasonable question to ask me.

My hope is that as I answer the question for myself, it may help others in their own planning.

I really don't feel like I do much. I don't do any organizing. The last time I marched was 2017, but not that one. 

I don't do much in the way of volunteering.

I do try and keep up with direct giving. It is not that I am against 501(c)(3) charities; I have a regular payroll deduction to one to take advantage of employer matching. However, I also know that with organized charities there can be a lot of bureaucratic delays and attempts to weed out the undeserving that limit the ability to help. 

When I was trying to get my mother onto Medicaid and myself out of foreclosure, it seemed like every application that I went through needed to be completed three times due to poor instructions or pages being lost after being sent or something. It was an inordinate amount of stress and labor from someone already on the edge. If sometimes someone just says they need money and I send them some through Paypal, that seems better.

While I do periodically give to new or different people, I am also aware that I tend to keep giving to the same people over and over again, mainly because of health problems that incur repeated costs. Because of that, I am keenly aware that what I do is of limited usefulness. Having a better health care system and a more equitable economy would be vastly superior, but what is in my power is $40 via Paypal.

I had calculated how much I thought I could reasonably give, but I keep giving more as more needs pop up. It has become somewhat of an exercise in faith for me. When I got my tax refund, I was feeling good because I would have more to give and still be ahead, but still more needs popped up. After paying my bills I had $10.10 to last for a week, but it did last. 

I am not exactly recommending this, but it feels like my path and I rely on intuition a lot.

Otherwise, I am constantly reading and studying, trying to be better informed. I share that knowledge freely, through the blog and conversations. I am not sure if I really influence anyone beyond my sisters, but there is an influence there.

I have trained for other things. I became a Master Food Preserver about 23 years ago, and spent time teaching canning classes and answering questions at farmers' markets. About 15 years ago I trained for Community Emergency Response, and was ready to be called on, though it never happened.

I try and be aware of others and considerate of them.

I wear the mask. It is true that does more to protect others from me than me from others, which is frustrating, but if for no other reason than to signal to other immune-compromised people that I care about their safety and ability to participate in society, I will keep wearing it.

I used to do more. There were times when I had more money and could be more generous, and there were times when I had more energy. I used to see more people needing encouragement and respond to that more frequently. There are probably people I am missing now, and I hope other people are spotting them.

I used to do a lot of work on making dolls for a local children's hospital, but that program has gone away.

I mention those things because circumstances change, and continue to do so. I have been through three bad unemployment/underemployment times, and two periods of bad burnout. Even as some resources were depleted, others were recovered.

As much as caring for my mother depleted me emotionally and financially, there have been strains from the Trump presidency and the pandemic that have worn down many of us; that is not just me.

With so many people burned out, we are all going to have to be kind to each other and look out for each other. A lot of the best people do not have much to give right now, but don't count yourself out.

My resources are limited, but what I do is consistent with my values. That is important to me.

What I do will also not harm my cause. Even if I cannot help as much as I want, I do not harm. That is important to me.

(Refer back to Dunking.)

Can I do more? Can I do differently? That is something that is worth asking regularly. 

I am starting to think maybe I should try doing some sort of letter writing. Would it be effective? Worth the effort? Do I even have the capacity for that effort? Or would that require dropping something else?

It's worth asking.

Model Minority

I am embarrassed to see that I did not mention one of the key sources for last week's post:

From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement by Paula Yoon.

Just to recap how we got here, I started reading about Latasha Harlins last July. It had seemed reasonable to bring her material up with Black Music Month, I guess because her death influenced so many musicians (especially Tupac Shakur).

Of course, I was running late, but I read Troublemaker by John Cho in July also.

In December I saw some artwork commemorating Vincent Chin; that's why I read Paula Yoon's book, which I got to in February.

I am not the first person to make the connection, but it is hard not to have those two deaths and court cases inextricably linked after reading about them. That is why I had to write last week's post. 

There is another factor that has been weighing on me, and I want to try and get to that here, about how these situations happen. My path may be clumsy.

Let me go back to The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the Origins of the L.A. Riots by Brenda E. Stevenson. 

Both Stevenson and Yoon tried to be fair to all of the subjects, which I know is right but sometimes I just wanted to condemn them. 

I did feel early sympathy for Soon Ja Du. Working in the store was stressful for her. I am willing to believe that she felt pressure and that she was at times truly afraid.

I also do not think that it is a coincidence that in both documented times when she pulled out her gun, it was at teenage girls.

That is anger, but also lashing out a target that is safe. 

You do get angry about perpetual fear, but how much of that fear is based in reality?

The store had been robbed; that is true. Because it was in a Black neighborhood, the majority of the robbers were probably Black. In a white neighborhood, the robbers are probably going to be white.

The difference is that perception, where all Black people are perceived to be the same, and more easily seen as thugs and criminals. That does not happen by accident. Please understand that the people who are making the propaganda don't love the people who buy it.

It can be safer to attack a teenage girl than a grown man, but also it is safer to attack one who is Black. Systemic racism will discount her innocence and right to life. That makes it easier for a judge to find the lethal "reaction" reasonable, but it also makes the judge letting off the murderers of as Asian-American man easier.

I think that Soon Ja Du believed the model minority myth. Her people were hard-working and smart and good, not like the Black people that made up their customer base. There may have been some satisfaction in it, but based on the stress and anger and fear, it wasn't making her life better. Of course, she got to keep her life, and Latasha didn't.

In a different city a few years earlier, it could have been her husband murdered by disaffected white people, and his killers be the ones let off.

In Troublemaker -- the work of fiction -- Jordan is trying to move through Los Angeles at the time of the riots to get a gun to the store where his father is boarding up the windows. That leads to some trouble, but the title refers to the reputation he already has, for not being good at school... not being perfect, the way he is supposed to be. The expectations he was not meeting were a source of anger and frustration and parental conflict. The character is fictional, but the feelings are not.

One thing I had not expected, but that made sense, was the importance of Claudia Kishi (The Baby-Sitters Club) to Asian-American girls. That was not just for some representation, but also for representation that could be loud and artistic and struggle with math.

The boxes aren't always fatal, but they are never good.

And sometimes they do kill.

Related:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8apn/claudia-kishi-coolest-kid-in-the-baby-sitters-club-netflix-documentary

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/actor-john-cho-channels-childhood-self-debut-novel-troublemaker-rcna20930

Related, from me:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/12/vincent.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/04/not-justice.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/03/black-history-month-latasha-harlins.html

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: 1994 - 2011

When Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed in 2011, I remember it being a big deal, with people finding it to be a good step forward.

I did not disagree with that, but I had remembered its passage being a step forward also; I don't remember that being mentioned much.

Let me back up. When it actually went into effect I was on my mission, and I don't think I heard anything about it. What I remember was the discussions that were leading up to it. I remember it so clearly because one of the people I knew at college was interviewed on the local news.

Michael and I were not particularly close, but we were friendly. He was interviewed and he wanted to watch the segment, so we went to watch it in Shelly's room -- she had a TV -- and then we talked.

This is assuming I am remembering the details correctly, which all these years later is questionable. I think he was in the Navy, and he left, or at least didn't re-enlist, because he was gay. After being out for a while, he wasn't necessarily interested in going back, but it would have made a difference to him before.

I don't know how the station found him to interview him. I remember very clearly a different person with the same name writing into the student newspaper very irritated because now everyone was thinking he was gay. If you saw the story, they looked nothing alike, but people...

I am pretty sure he was graduated by the time I got back to school (most people I knew were), so I have not seen him since. I still remember that footage of him walking across campus, and being in the dorm room together talking... those images are vivid.

There were gay students at my high school, but I did not know they were. The Oregon Citizens Alliance was actively campaigning against "special" rights for gay people while we were there, and there were plenty of reasons to keep closeted.

College was the first place where I was finding people who were out and proud. Getting to know them was its own education. There wasn't any recruiting. It would feel condescending to say that they were just people, humans... of course they were, but much of what I had seen before had painted them as these horrible perverts.

No. That's not how it worked.

Here's another memory. I got on Facebook in late 2008. Reconnecting with many of the guys from school, they were frequently teasing each other about being gay: lots of Brokeback Mountain jokes. That gradually faded away. I remember mentioning it to one of them when I saw him in person. I think he said something to the effect of having to grow up sometime, except it was not just that. Believe me, he has the potential to still be very immature. However, at one point it became real to him that there are gay people with real feelings, and using their identity for cheap jokes is gross.

It seemed we had successfully moved from a world that would support domestic partnerships if they were not allowed to call it marriage and where you could be a gay soldier as long as you didn't talk about it to a world where gay couples could get married in any state, individuals could serve in the military openly, and straight men could relate to each other in ways other than humorous homophobia.

I wanted to write about this because I think it illustrates how well public opinion and legislation can work together. Before Don't Ask Don't Tell, there were gay rights activists focusing on unfair military dismissals. There were Pride events and demonstrations. There was the AIDS quilt. There was determination against the counter-programming.

I understand why people rail against incrementalism, but it is easier to make continued progress in the right direction than to have to keep fighting the destruction that gets wreaked so quickly and deliberately.

It had looked like we were past all that, but then you get transgender rights being targeted and "Don't say gay" and book banning and even young people who are gay getting mad about leather at Pride and the use of the word "queer".

Dominator culture doesn't let up, and so we can't let up either, regardless of whether or not we are the target. For one thing, they will keep narrowing definitions, because there always need to be more people to oppress.

But, also we should just care about each other. 

In many ways, the children of my generation are better, being supportive and inclusive and a lot of them have great support from their parents. 

It is not an excuse to get lax. Some of the worst people in the world are working very hard. 

What will we do?

Not justice

I did not post last Friday. This was not for a lack of material, but kind of too much material (but also work being busier and the tiredness growing).

So this post may not be a good one, but I want to write about some of the issues with the trials of the killers of Latasha Harlins and Vincent Chin. There were significant differences, and similarities.

In the case of Vincent Chin, there was an increasing sloughing off of responsibility.

The officers who showed up to on the scene did not treat Ronald Ebens like they had just seen him beat someone to death with a baseball bat. They were off-duty, but still, that's a really violent crime and they caught at least the end of it.

That preferential treatment may be why he was treated kind of lightly at the station, where things kept being easier than they should have been.

That is not necessarily why the prosecutors were not in court on the day that Ebens was convicted. That was not even that abnormal, but someone should have objected to the 2nd Degree Murder charge being dropped down to manslaughter. Even if the DA's office would have wanted a plea bargain, in theory they would not want a brutal killing to result in no jail time; only probation and a fine.

There was no plea bargain in the case of Soon Ja Du; the jury found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and then Judge Karlin suspended the prison sentence, again opting for just probation and a fine.

I think Judge Kaufman has the most apt quote, regarding Ebens' sentencing:

"These weren't the kind of men you send to jail... You don't make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal."

Meaning men who would pick a fight in a strip club, hunt down the person later, and then one would hold the victim while the other beat him in the head with a baseball bat. Because they had jobs (well, the one was laid off, but he used to have a job). 

He never said that it was because they were white, and he was appalled by that insinuation, but what part of their previous lives made murdering okay?

For Judge Karlin, perhaps she was kind of impressive in her understatement:

"Did Mrs. Du react inappropriately? Absolutely. But was that reaction understandable? I think that it was." 

Thanks for acknowledging that shooting a 15 year old in the back of the head is inappropriate.

Karlin later complained about political correctness, so we know where she stands.

(Remember that "political correctness" comes from an effort to use more specific, respectful language where we can understand things better, which might help you understand how you are influenced subconsciously. https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/03/waking.html)

There is some discomfort for me in writing this, because the carceral state does more harm than good. I apparently am not truly a prison abolitionist, though, because we do not have something in place for cases like this. I would absolutely rather prevent the murders than punish the murderers, but we are really not there yet.

(I don't think it is a coincidence that one well-known prison abolitionist has chosen an abuser over his victims.)

 I'm not against the concept of double jeopardy, either, because I totally believe in court abuses, but when a case is so blatantly unjust, where is the remedy?

Well, civil cases. 

As it is, there were two civil cases against Ebens. He lost the first one, and then appealed and won. There were two main factors in the later victory. In the second trial the defense exploited differences in the prosecutor's speech to claim that she was coaching the witnesses. Her attempts to make sure everything was right was able to be turned against her.

Probably more importantly, Ebens did not testify at the second civil trial. In the first one, his testimony consisted of only remembering things that spoke in his favor, but he was not able to remember anything that might have worked against him. The first jury did not find that convincing. He did not have to testify against himself, so in the second trial he did not and came off better.

Mainly, it all makes me think of a different quote:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

This neglects intersectionality -- one of the killers is a brown woman -- but as long as there are people whom it is okay for you to abuse and bully and threaten and kill, then maybe you can put up with those who are allowed to abuse you.

It's not good for anyone, but there are those whom it hurts more. 

That is not exactly what the other aspect is, but it relates, so that will be the other post.

Related:

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pocharaponneammanee/benjamin-brennan-fraternity-hazing-coma

Concerted effort

For examples of dunking not being helpful, one is playing out in real time with Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. A Democrat, he has tried very hard to do good things but is hamstrung by a obstructive state legislator entrenched in place via gerrymandering. He does frequently refer to prayers, and that is what is being jumped on in tweets in the aftermath of a recent shooting. 

Certainly there are frequent meaningless references to thoughts and prayers, but that is not what is happening here, and that is not something the tweeters care to check. I assume they feel smart and righteous, and also that it will do nothing other than give them that ego boost.

In terms of effecting change, there are a few examples that come to mind, but I want to start with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

One of the things that made it effective was that there were clear goals. The rules about Black passengers having to ride in the back of the bus did not only mean people standing, even when there were seats available, or when they had been on longer. It also meant that sometimes people would pay their fare, then as they had to walk outside of the bus to the back door, sometime the bus would drive away. The rules gave the drivers an easy and tempting way to abuse power. 

That allowed for an easy goal of ending the busing segregation laws, with the added goal of the hiring of Black drivers. That would not only add some jobs to the community but also increase the odds of finding a friendly and respectful driver. Reasonable goals, but not something that those in power would have an interest in, if for no other reason than that those in power do not like change to the status quo.

How do you resolve that? Economic pressure is a great way to affect those in power. Suddenly excuses about not being able to make changes because it would be bad for business are coming up against significant business losses that are actual, not imagined. 

That pressure needed to be maintained for long enough (a little over a year), and there are people who depended on the bus for transportation. 

Organizing is more than choosing an action and advertising about it; it is making it possible. In this case, that meant organizing carpools. It got taxi drivers driving for bus fare, which is a personal sacrifice. It involved some people walking, perhaps uncomfortable distances. It involved fundraising, like the cooking efforts of Georgia Gilmore.

Those efforts combined people being willing to sacrifice, but also not ignoring the efforts that others had to make. That comes from community and caring. 

Protest efforts may start with anger, but that is a limited fuel.

Stirring up emotional responses matters too. 

I remember talking to a family friend about some of the demonstrations in the 60s. Younger then, anything that happened before I was born seemed a long time ago, but she remembered seeing those those fire hoses and police dogs in Birmingham, and being shocked.

White people up North and out West had their own prejudices, but there was a viciousness that they saw there that they could not have imagined. 

It was a strategy at the time that demonstrators would be well-dressed and use passive resistance; they knew the power of those images would help them. The influence of public opinion made it easier for politicians to pass bills that protected civil rights.

It was a lot of work. It is not just the marching and the telephone trees and cooking and car pooling, but also putting all of that together and being in for the long haul and working with people who annoy you. That all goes into it.

And as much as you can influence public opinion and get new laws passed and old ones struck down, there is always another force trying to ruin it.

This will be continued.

Dunking

This post is primarily inspired by two recent occurrences, and the delight they caused liberal/progressive/leftist people: Bethany Mandel not being able to define "woke" when asked (despite having written a whole book on it) and John Steward "demolishing" Oklahoma state senator Nathan Dahm over gun control:

https://www.thewrap.com/jon-stewart-gun-rights-oklahoma-senator-clip/

What I want to stress most is that no one is demolished.

Senator Dahm is doubling down and asking for a rematch on Joe Rogan.

Bethany Mandel says she was humiliated, but her article about that is self-serving, blames an anxiety that her family was going to be criticized, and still never defines "woke" (though she admits it is a reasonable question, which is big of her).

https://www.newsweek.com/define-woke-bethany-mandel-conservative-book-1788538

Conservatives are tweeting their own definitions of the word, which lie and deflect.

In Mandel's defense, answering honestly -- especially to a Black woman -- could have been awkward. If you're going to accept the interview, you should have a strategy for that.

(And this is where it's good that I wrote about "woke" last week, because now I can link to it and move on: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/03/waking.html) 

My take is that these dunkings do more harm than good.

I understand that sense of glee that we are smarter than them, but you should not need any additional proof. 

Plus, a lot of it is more about calculated evil than a lack of comprehension. It is hard to tell with some, I admit. Some are probably more manipulated than manipulative, but this is still not the way to reach them.

Instead, it reinforces their sense of being besieged by evil liberals, it gives their lies a platform, and breeds a culture where a (false) sense of domination is prioritized over actual good.

(Speaking of giving a platform, I am not including Lesley Stahl and Marjorie Taylor Green in this because it doesn't seem like there was even a dunk.)

This is not about conservatives' hurt feelings; this is about progressives' shriveled hearts.

I know there are a lot of different words that can be used, and I am willing to have that discussion. 

In this case, I lean towards "progressive" because that seems to be be the chosen self-identifier for many of those who focus more on scoring points against their rivals than working toward legislation or grass roots organizing or mutual aid or something that will help somebody.

In fact, that inner need to dominate is the kind of thing that results in some people resorting to guns for a final assertion of their dominance, where they will die but they will take others with them.

This does not accomplish anything good, and there is so much good to be done. We need to be feeding people, registering voters, making health care -- including mental health -- care available. There is so much work to be done.

The dopamine rush from feeling better-informed than someone who could not care less is a hollow substitute.

I know there are some who argue that these victories are important for shifting the conversation, and that will bring change.

I have doubts, but that will go into another post.