February 2012
18 posts
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Sinead O'Connor and the Catholic Church
Sinead O’Conner was ahead of her time. In the 1980s and 90s, she spoke up in protest against the Catholic Church’s cover up of child sexual abuse across the world. Her protest reached its height during a guest spot on Saturday Night Live where she ripped up a picture of the Pope and, looking down the barrel of the camera, told the audience to ‘fight the real enemy.’...
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An article I’ve written called “Chris Brown, Male Violence and Racist Rants”, on why domestic abusers (like Chris Brown) can make a come back but those that engage in racist rants (like Mel Gibson or Michael Richards) can’t, has been accepted and uploaded onto Racialicious. Check it out here.
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Soap Operas and the Third World
Around the world, from North India to South Africa, there are dozens of television and radio shows that tightly weave social themes into entertaining narratives, a technique often referred to as “entertainment-education.” Writers develop fictional characters that model positive or negative behaviors, and through their stories and struggles, audiences learn about issues ranging from...
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Pop Culture and the Fourth World
NOTE: I thought Fourth World would be a cute thing to call this amalgamation of fantasy lands. But apparently the Fourth World is actually a thing - it means nomadic, pastoral, and hunter-gatherer peoples living beyond the modern industrial norm. I guess I should call this the Fifth World.
EXTRA-NOTE: Nope. Fifth World means something too - the physical world in several Native American beliefs...
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Austin G MacKell and the Egyptian Police
A friend of mine, Austin G MacKell, is an Australian journalist who has been detained in Egypt. In line with current anti-foreigner sentiments from Egyptian leaders, Austin was arrested on bogus charges that he was bribing protesters (He wasn’t. He was interviewing them). Before the public prosecution office eventually accepted his version of events, Austin was moved around from prison to...
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George Clooney and Darfur
“In the case of Darfur, it’s been the greatest failure of my life.”
- George Clooney (2010)
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George Clooney has been advocating for a resolution to the Darfur conflict for over five years. He has smuggled cameras into Darfur refugee camps with his journalist dad to film an expose, set up the group Not On Our Watch, worked with the UN, and even had a private meeting with...
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Marilyn Monroe and Gay Marriage
Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called ‘How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire,’ it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous movie, even though the underlying drama for same-sex couples is no different.
- Judge Stephen Reinhardt, US Court of Appeals (Ninth Court), ruling that Prop 8 (the law that banned gay marriage in California) is unconstitutional.
I...
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Madonna and the Middle East
Madonna will not be adhering to the Israel cultural boycott, unlike some of her celebrity cohorts such as Julianne Moore (her old Body of Evidence costar), Cynthia Nixon and Elvis Costello. On the contrary, the Material Girl’s new tour launches in Tel Aviv in May.
Madge has a special affinity with Israel (as she says in American Life, she’s not a Jew, but she is a follower of...
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Rita Moreno as the Developing World
Who’s Rita Moreno!?!? Rita Moreno is everything. She’s a Puerto Rican in West Side Story, a Burmese slave in The King and I, a South-East Indian in Father Knows Best, an American-Indian in a thousand D-Grade Westerns, a Middle Eastern princess in a thousand D-Grade Aladdin ripoffs and a plain ole white girl in Singing in the Rain (because Gene Kelly cast her and doesn’t see...
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January 2012
56 posts
15 tags
White Saviours and the Third World
Whitey’s got your back, Nelson Mandela. Check out this great article on gay blog AfterElton about the White Savior trope (ie. how movies about racial minorities’ rights almost always have at its centre a white hero. eg. The Help, The Blind Side, The Last Samurai, The Last of the Mohicans, The Flowers of War). The writer makes a good comparison, that if Milk was set up so the hero was...