Yeah, I heard an NPR piece where this really, really angry woman -- she was just seething at the injustice of it all -- was ranting about the "Pigmentocracy" and how this new musical wasn't actually woke at all because the only Black guy in the main cast was actually playing a Black guy... instead of a LatinX Black guy from the Dominican Republic, ... which would have been more legit for the neighborhood they're portraying. I pictured dark-side-force-ghost Limbaugh laughing with his cigar. Blood starting leaking out of my ears, and I almost drove my car into the Bay before having to witness the 2022 midterms.
I personally don't care for Hollywood activism. Most of their activism is trivial and all they seem to care about is whether enough Black directors and actors get awards at pointless award shows. That really doesn't do anything for the underprivileged but to a Hollywood activist, it makes them feel good inside that they care so much about representation.
I saw Lin Manuel apologize which was insane. I have to wonder though who actually was outraged by this, and if what really happened was someone from the right pointed it out to troll liberals, one or two woke high school seniors posted something on twitter about it that was critical, and then it went viral because the media loves this sort of stuff, and it grabbed attention because people like me thought "WTF... how could something in In The Heights" be controversial??" Lin Manuel apologizing for that was really beneath him and he owes nobody an apology imo. It just makes people like me have to perk my ears up and wonder what the hell he's apologizing for. IMO this is just another case of the right & the media saying that people on the left are outraged about something that people aren't really outraged about. This lady calling into NPR is hard to take seriously, and I know virtually no libs who are ready to "cancel" Lin Manuel.
Felice is not a right-wing agitator. The following is pretty typical for many academic voices these days. It feels like an umbrage arms race. https://www.theroot.com/lets-talk-about-in-the-heights-and-the-erasure-of-dark-1847064126
first, I was addressing another poster’s point about the story’s origin being from the right. second, not trying to convince you of anything. I’m not stupid.
i did and do with crap like that, yes. To my ear, it just spoonfeeds an ongoing FOX narrative of a “woke mob(sic)” going crazy, but worse than that, it just divides liberals who need to stand together. you disagree with my concern. Understood. But you seemed to really want a reply from me, so this is it.
Yes but this isn’t a left wing priority right now. I’m pretty liberal and I know of nobody that woke up today thinking that shaming Lin Manuel is a high priority. I don’t know who Felice is but I do know that the right wing and MSM amplification of “things libs are mad about (that they aren’t really mad about) that YOU right winger should be mad about them being mad” is 100% louder than Whatever megaphone Felice has. The left wing activists… do you know what they are doing tonight??? Trying to get Joe Manchin and Sinema to move on the filibuster so we don’t lose our democracy to unchecked right wing electioneering. Indivisible, Power to the People, etc etc … none…. None of them are out there protesting Lin Manuel. I respect you BBob but you are just wrong here for playing into a narrative that libs are mad about something (when they really aren’t) therefore you should be outraged at liberals. Come on man. You’re smarter than that.
Thanks for the respect, but eh, I am what I am. I work at a university and I see the umbrage arms race. I've seen meetings where your ability to speak depends on melanin content. Maybe "The Root" is a fringe outlet, and maybe NPR made the mistake to elevate Felice. But a lot of the country got to hear from her about "Pigmentocracy." I think some of y'all are pretty far removed from what some of us see on campuses. But you heard freaking Lin Manuel bow and scrape to the orthodoxy, and I got to hear Felice completely reject his supplication. And I know a lot of academic twitter was cheering her on. I dearly hope you are correct and I am "just wrong." But a lot of what some of the left goes on about is just cringe-worthy when the rest of us are hoping to maintain the shreds of a democracy.
I remember college and remember the debates about religion in the quad and all the pockets where folks thought they were reaching enlightenment. I remember seeing Maya Angelou speak and me and my friends going to the coffee shop talking about life in a way where you’d think we thought we’d pass reparations right then and there. A lot of growth in the exploration of ideas and the depth of imagination happens at college and that’s great. However important to remember that only 17% of voters are under 29. That would mean something like 5 to 8% are in college engaged in some of the idea that young people are exploring. Also my wife teaches high school theatre arts which is probably the most liberal youngster at that level and just the other day one of those kids didn’t think and tweeted from the official school account that at practice this week you have to wear a mask if you aren’t vaccinated, and that tweet has caused the principle to maybe lose his job because of the right wing outrage machine at the school board level. So I know first hand about young liberals exploring their ideals and maybe not thinking about what battles they pick and choose that the vast majority of liberals are smart enough to understand what will and what won’t make the change get actually care about. I see the lib outrage with youngsters and I understand that in a vacuum it can be face palm cringe. However if you actually zoom out and look at the American left as a whole you’ll see the priorities are much much more focused on real world issues like Healthcare, voting rights, etc. If that wasn’t the case then why isn’t Indivisible and Power to the People in NY protesting outside Lin Manuel’s condo and why are they in West Virginia outside Joe Manchins home office? What I do know though is that if you turn on FoxNews right now I bet you 100 bucks the topic is about something that liberals are apparently outraged about and I’m sure it’s not HR1 or a public option, and im sure the host is almost foaming at the mouth with outrage in order to trigger their viewers. We gotta be better than to fall for that on our end too man. Lin Manuel is still the man. In the Heights is still like number 2 at the box office and I know Trumpers aren’t lining up to see it twice.
I don’t consider myself a “woke” person at all, but I get the frustration over it. If you’re a dark-skinned person from that community, one of the things you’re looking forward to in watching that movie is to see people like you represented in a way that they haven’t been represented historically in the movies. Perhaps I’m biased, being dark-skinned myself and often noticing the lack of representation of people who look like me in movies. I’m sure the movie creators meant well and there is a lot in the movie they should feel proud of, but it’s good for people to speak out about lack of representation (because if no one does, it simply won’t get fixed). And it’s good for people in prominent positions like Miranda to acknowledge that they have a point. Yes, some people may go overboard with the vitriol and attacking these filmmakers who for the most part meant well. But I think this is still a topic worth speaking out about, and the filmmakers should be receptive to it.
Of course. That's why there's a robust calm voice NPR type of discussion about racial representation in film that can have nuance & appropriate perspective. That's great, and I don't think the right can exploit that conversation much at all. What I'm talking about is the inevitable right wing campaign around an issue like this where they see an "in" on an issue being discussed in good faith with nuance, and imply liberal outrage and "cancel culture" or whatever where there really isn't or where there is just good ole fashion nuanced discussion. (I used the example here at the local level of a high school student posting about practice requiring masks if not vaccinated, and how Chip Gaine's sister on the school board (whose seat was funded by 5 dark money GOP groups) turned her outrage megaphone on, and is in the process of getting the school districts first African American principle fired, but the media and media figures do this on a larger viral level with small examples of someone saying something stupid on twitter or FB, and having that informing their consensus for widespread "liberal outrage") The implication of liberal outrage then is sold in a way to outrage the right wing consumer, and then there are a FEW on the left in and the media who also imply that this liberal outrage is real as well in order to seem woke about being non-woke (see Bill Maher or whataboutism Chuck Todd). That's an issue I see where these hacks should be called out for feeding right wing propaganda just so they can go viral, or play this whataboutism game that the mainstream media always likes to play in order to prove their non-bias.
As of last year, my faculty senate now starts every meeting with a kind of incantation that includes every possible piece of cultural guilt, starting with acknowledging that we stole the land under our university from native peoples and moving forward from there in a kind of spanking machine. As everyone is supposed to recite this kind of "prayer" together -- it is literally called a "prayer" -- my friends and I talk about how creepy and gothic the whole business feels, a sort of self-flagellation ritual. I of course record it discretely via my phone for posterity and to help goad my dreams of retirement.
Your insufferable and very judgmental get off your soapbox. You also have a real issue with painting certain people with a broad brush and writing "most" of them off. You have no real idea of what individual people in hollywood actually do with their activism. This is not about Hollywood activism its people upset on twitter so I don't know what you are on about.
