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April 5, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
26:33
This Week in Stupid (05⧸04⧸2015)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 5th of April 2014.
We begin this week with Why Liam Neeson's Dadsploitation Films Shut Out Women.
Taken created a genre of action films starring older male protagonists.
Why are they all men?
Because in movies, women still aren't allowed to take vengeance on behalf of others.
They have to be victimized first unless you're watching Kill Bill.
Call it whatever you like.
Dadsploitation, old man vengeance and on-screen midlife crisis come to mind, but with Neeson having expanded beyond, taken films and similarly pitched affairs like non-stop blah blah blah blah blah, this is more than just a franchise of films.
It's a trend, and as long as these movies keep costing next to nothing and keep making money, they will keep getting made.
Why the fuck is this a problem?
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not really a fan of Liam Neeson either and I really couldn't give a shit if he made another film or not, but i'm not going to try and stop him from making films under the guise of guilt, tripping him into the fact that his old man revenge films don't feature women.
Oh, here's the reason, these movies are headlined by men, and what we're looking at here is the feminist, green-eyed monster seeing something that men have decided to do on their own, with no regards to women, and they're like shit.
We need to either stop them from doing it or appropriate it.
In this case, our author wants to appropriate it because there's no female taken in American filmmaking and, if the horizon's any indication, there's no female taken on the way.
No, 55 year old female actor threatening terrorists over the phone or holding an assault rifle covered in dirt flexing on a movie poster because that wouldn't look stupid as shit, would it?
You can almost taste the bile the author was chewing on when she wrote.
Men make these movies and men go to see them.
Why should it be a problem for you then?
It's got nothing to do with you, literally nothing to do with you.
You don't watch them, you don't make them, and if you weren't so insanely jealous about someone else's fun, this wouldn't even register on your radar.
But all the feminist talking points are here.
The paradigm that has been established over decades of filmmaking is that in a patriarchal culture, women must in one way or another be victimized for revenge to be significant and significantly affecting.
Apparently, according to one wide-ranging study, female actors see their income rise until the age of 34, when it drops off immediately.
Male actors make more money every year ever yeah, well done spastic.
Until they turn 51, at which point their earnings level off.
It's weird that i'm supposed to care about this, but the wall is real.
yes kentucky our same-sex marriage ban isn't anti-gay because it applies to straight people too very nice try kentucky's marriage laws treat homosexuals and heterosexuals the same and are facially neutral men and women whether heterosexual or homosexual are free to marry persons of the opposite sex under kentucky law and men and women whether heterosexual or homosexual cannot marry persons of the same sex under Kentucky law.
This is actually the basis that the governor of Kentucky is arguing that the state's ban on same-sex marriage isn't discriminatory because it applies to straight people too.
I can just imagine how this went down in the meeting.
Just sat around going, well, we don't really want gays to get married, but hang on, this isn't discriminatory.
It's not like straight people can get gay married.
Brilliant, Steve.
Fucking brilliant.
Write that down.
We're going to go to the media with that.
Presumably this is happening because the Supreme Court in the United States has ruled that a federal ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
And I imagine wants to enforce that across all of the states.
But I've got to say that is quite an inspired attempt by the governor of Kentucky there.
That is really great try.
Before I go on, I just want to say that I actually did spend quite a lot of time this week browsing Fox News because I thought if I just go on the Fox News website, I'm bound to find loads of ridiculous shit that I can use and mock and whatnot.
But it was all kind of normal.
It was all just, like, kind of normal stuff.
Stuff that you wouldn't really take umbrage to because it just wasn't really...
It just wasn't really very important.
It wasn't anything stood out.
It was just stuff that was happening.
I say this because I don't want people to forget that I'm not right wing.
I consider myself a left-wing liberal.
The problem is that the left-wing are the ones doing the most stupid things in society these days.
Which is probably why I hate the far left more than I ever hated the right.
Ever.
At all.
You know, I just, I can't stand them.
can't fucking stand them and it's this is this is just a prime example Look at this.
Liberal professor.
If you understand economics, you're likely to be a bad person.
And the thing is, she's not even taking a loaded fucking subject.
It's economics.
It's neutral.
It's not fucking political.
If she was like, you understand Nazi propaganda, you're likely to be a bad person.
Maybe I can understand it.
Maybe.
She may as well be like, if you understand physics, you're probably a bad person.
you understand floating-point decimals you're probably a bad person fucking alright alright so So, according to Lisa Wade, a professor at Occidental College in LA, a professor, says, if you have an understanding of economics, you are likely a bad person.
That was the finding in her article that she published this week titled, Are Economic Majors Antisocial?
The first word in the piece was simply, yep.
Good job.
Good job.
Don't make it look like this is the result of confirmation bias and you had your conclusion in advance and you were literally just filling paper until you could just turn around and say, yeah, I was right all along.
Fucking knew it.
They are witches.
So Dr. Wade writes, if you have taken classes on economics, you are less likely to share, less generous to the needy, more likely to cheat, lie, and steal.
Which, I'm sure that that is exactly the correct thing to take from all of this.
I tell you what, why don't I just get my calipers out and we'll start measuring the shape of people's fucking skulls like good phrenologists.
But she bases this belief on a study from 2010.
In the study, students were asked if they would like to contribute money to a liberal political group or a group that is pushing for lower tuition, possibly asking for more subsidies from taxpayers.
Holy shit, this is brilliant.
This is amazing.
Students with an understanding of economics were less inclined to donate to these groups than students with other majors.
And for that reason, Dr. Wade has declared that they're antisocial.
People with an understanding of economics don't want higher education to be subsidized by the taxpayer.
But that makes them antisocial.
I think the good doctor here doesn't realise that that's not what antisocial means.
What she means is anti-socialist.
But listen to this.
Listen to the social justice thought police.
She thinks that economic majors need to take balancing classes, ones that present a different kind of economics.
Being exposed to a variety of views, including ones that question the premises of neoclassical economics, may be the one way to make economists more honest and kind, she concludes.
It's this kind of soft terror that comes along with this.
It's like, how can we, how can we mold their mind to be better suited to our purposes?
That's really fucking scary to me.
Speaking of scary things, head teachers to report parents to police and social services if they let their children play Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty.
Wow, that's not insanely Orwellian at all.
It's absolutely a head teacher's job to report to the police and social services if a kid is playing a certain kind of video game.
A letter sent by a group of schools in Cheshire raised concerns about the levels of violence and sexual content young people are being exposed to by playing games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto and how much sexual content is in Call of Duty.
Anyway, it warns that if teachers are made aware that their pupils have been playing these video games, they will contact the police and social services.
Not for movies, not for racy books or anything like that, just for video games.
Even though we know, categorically, that there is no connection between violence and playing video games.
So here's the letter, in which they say, several children have reported playing or watching adults play games which are inappropriate for their age, and they have described the violence and levels of sexual content they have witnessed.
Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Dogs of War and other similar games are all inappropriate for children and they should not have access to them.
Nor should they have Facebook accounts or interact on sites or media and messaging sites like WhatsApp that are not designed for their age.
Children should only play games or join social media sites that are rated for their age.
Jesus Christ, Nazis have taken over the schools.
We need to advise you of all the actions we're advised to take and why.
Don't say who advises them, of course.
If your child is allowed to have inappropriate access to any game or associated product that is designated 18 plus, we will are advised, fucking idiots, to contact the police and children's social care as it is neglectful.
Apparently.
They have determined that this is now neglect.
Isn't that amazing?
I mean, it's actually neglect now.
So we're going down the road that if a child plays Call of Duty, at some point conceivably in the future, someone might lose their child because they were playing on Xbox.
Why is this happening then?
Well, because David Cameron opened his fat fucking mouth and said there are now more pressures than teachers and social workers to report concerns about children after Cameron announced they could face up to five years in prison if they do not speak out about suspicions children are being neglected or abused.
So now the schools are going to classify GTA and whatnot as neglect or abuse.
Personally, I would have thought it was way beyond the remit of the fucking school to determine that a child is being abused or neglected because they happen to have watched a movie or played a game.
But no, the authoritarian era that we live in now, this is the sort of thing that must be escalated to the authorities.
Okay, this has actually pissed me off.
I need something stupid quick.
ISIS has declared war on skinny jeans.
Suddenly I feel much better.
So ISIS actually have imposed a new law to crack down on men wearing skinny jeans.
I mean, there's me thinking that ISIS probably had more important priorities, but as long as they're not fucking bulldozing ancient statues, fine.
Let them piddle away their time banning skinny jeans.
Skinny jeans are shit anyway.
I love that ISIS are competing with the social justice warriors at who can kill fun first.
They've said they would imprison anyone caught with music on their mobile phones, smoking or turning up late for prayer in the state capital of Raqqa, Syria, which is clearly just party central.
According to reports, skinny jeans wearers will be jailed for 10 days and made to take an Islamic course during their imprisonment.
Fucking hell, Jesus.
That's actually not as bad as I was expecting, to be honest.
I'm really starting to wonder whether I've got a story from the onion here.
At the end of their jail time, they'll be forced to take a test, with those who pass being immediately released, but those who fail will be kept behind bars until they pass.
What possible test could there be thinking?
Are you going to wear skinny jeans again?
No.
Well done, you're free to go.
I mean, what the f- Here we have pictured the brave heroes of ISIS who have cracked down on skinny jeans and loud music, like a bunch of boring old men.
In a minute, they're going to be telling kids to get off their lawns and to turn up the TV so they can hear Matlock.
So Jassem, a man who lives in Raqqa, told the group, ISIS tightens penalties and uses the principle of intimidation in dealing with public, which has led to the migration and escape of many people.
Freedom of expression has become a crime, so you cannot oppose a decision issued by the group.
And it cracks me up no end that ISIS have actually been going on a massive anti-smoking campaign to stop militants from smoking and getting lung cancer.
Which is just, of course, ISIS would care about that.
But the thing is, this is actual oppression, social justice worries.
Do you see this?
You're not allowed to wear the clothes you want.
You're not allowed to listen to the music you want or any music at all.
And you're not allowed to do as you please.
Judge Church or prayer, mosque, whatever, as you please.
And you're not allowed to protest it in public.
You're not allowed freedom of expression.
You are literally being oppressed.
This is what oppression is.
This is not what oppression is.
I'm going to skip past the annoying clickbait headline and get to the meat of it.
A UCLA professor was called racist and guilty of a microaggression against black students for correcting grammar and spelling issues on their papers.
This is why.
This is why.
I never feature anything from fucking Fox News or Glenn Beck or whatever.
Because whenever I read something from them, I think, yeah, that is kind of dumb.
And then someone from the left wing will say something like this.
And I'll just be like, fuck me, that is just painfully retarded.
That is un and I love this.
A protest was organized, and students claim the professor has created a hostile climate on campus for his actions.
Fucking...
I love this.
Twenty-five students had a sit-in protest because the professor had the goals correct grammar and spelling on black students' papers.
Just, what a fucking racist.
How dare he?
Val Rust, a professor of education and information and probably economics, am I right?
Was the target of protesters for what they feel was racial insensitivity.
Describing themselves as aggrieved minority students, they claim that the professor was wrong to correct spelling and punctuation and grammar in the papers of black students.
Fucking why?
What's your reason?
Because he's white?
Of course because he's fucking white.
The students issued the following statement.
A hostile campus climate has been the norm for students of colour in the class throughout the quarter as our epistemological and methodological commitments have been repeatedly questioned by our classmates and our instructor.
The barrage of questions by white colleagues and the grammar lessons by the professor have contributed to a hostile class climate.
I want to pretend like I can't believe this happened, but I can totally believe this happened.
I'm not really including this because it was a stupid thing to do, even though, let's be fair, it probably was.
I'm more doing it to highlight that the radicals on either side of the political spectrum can be dangerous.
I mean, there could well be a far left and as Brevik.
I'm no expert on Turkish politics, so I don't really know the ins and outs of this.
I've only got what I'm being told here.
So apparently, a prominent Turkish prosecutor who was taken hostage by a far left organisation on Tuesday has died in hospital after a gunfire-filled storming of an Istanbul court in which his captors were also killed.
We negotiated with the terrorists for six hours, but began the storm when we heard gunshots from the prosecutor's office, said Istanbul's security chief something foreign.
The prosecutor Kiraz was taken hostage by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front, DHKP slash C, fucking hell, on Tuesday afternoon.
The reason he was chosen is because he was leading the case of Birkin Elvin, a 15-year-old protester who'd suffered injuries during anti-government demonstrations of 2013 and had fallen into a coma for nine months and then died March last year.
And he had subsequently become a symbolic figure for the street protest movement.
And this was why they were doing all of this.
They posted an image on Twitter of the guy with a gun to his head, followed by a list of demands, among them a public apology and a people's trial for the officer accused of injuring Elvin, pardons for all who have protested his name and of course safe passage out of the building.
I mean I don't think I would take a government official hostage to get an apology.
That is pretty fucking radical.
DHKP slash C, fucking the Turkish alphabet suit brigade, is a Marxist-Leninist outfit founded in 1978 and is responsible for a number of assassinations and suicide bombings and is considered a terrorist group in Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
On September the 10th 2001 it killed three people in a suicide bombing.
Well I can see why they consider them a terrorist group at least.
So a lot of people sent me this one and it is quite interesting.
This murder in Ireland made me rethink my sexual practices.
Elaine O'Hara was killed by a man with whom she was involved in a BDSM relationship and therefore as a BDSM participant herself she says I wonder if we can continue to deny the links between kinky sex and wider societal abuse of women.
I've never heard of any such links at all in fact but I'm sure she'll prove them.
So she details how Graham Dwyer was having an affair with Elaine O'Hara and was engaged in a BDSM relationship.
He murdered her banking on the likelihood that the disparate would be read as a suicide.
He hid the evidence of the murderer at the bottom of a reservoir which because of a particularly dry summer revealed her remains.
And she goes on to say a woman is dead, another victim of intimate partner violence and treating her death with due respect should mean an examination of the social context that allowed a man to convince a woman that his sexual desire to stab and kill her was within the bounds of acceptable.
I really don't think it was acceptable.
Like you said, she was vulnerable and suffering from mental health issues and he exploited that.
Being both a feminist and a fan of BDSM, she is naturally not happy with 50 Shades of Grey, which she had to review and says, what it is at heart is the tale of an abusive relationship in which a reluctant, inexperienced, and infatuated young girl is controlled and beaten by a rich sadist.
And that's now being offered up as a Valentine's Day's treat for naughty couples.
Well, I really don't think it's so much for the men.
I actually have a friend who went to see 50 Shades of Grey and he said it was one of the funniest films he'd ever seen.
So I don't know what you're complaining about.
Unsurprisingly, BDSM communities have been quick to distance themselves from 50 Shades and indeed from any beliefs or behaviors incompatible with informed, enthusiastic, uncoerced consent.
So what's the problem?
What is the problem?
Yes, 50 Shades of Grey is shit.
Yes, some guy exploited some girl's mental illness and murdered her.
What do these things have to do with a BDSM community that, as you say, distanced itself very quickly from these kind of incompatible beliefs or behaviors?
You know, she's doing this as a part of the community, because she just wants the community to be better.
After all, we live in a sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist society.
What a piece of shit society is.
Just fucking hell, I can't believe anyone stands it.
I tell you what, this could not be more quintessentially social justice.
A prevalent theory in kink communities is that BDSM creates a sandbox or play space around impulses that have their roots in sexism or other prejudice, consensually mirroring non-consensual societal power dynamics.
The sandbox allows roleplay that expurgates, inverts, or otherwise contains hierarchical desires.
Jacques.
It may give subs control over situations that would in reality make them feel powerless or allow DOMs to cathartically express violent urges.
In short, the sandbox gets it all out of our systems, which you would think makes it a relatively healthy thing to have.
And she pulls the old Anita Macintosh argument of, if you think it doesn't affect you, then it affects you twice as much.
Motherfucker.
I love this not even wrong bullshit.
Except, this isn't how human psychology functions.
We do not siphon off fiction or play from our social realities.
What are you fucking talking about?
Rather, the values and norms of fictions we consume or participate in suffuse our worldviews and influence our actions.
And there we have it.
Art doesn't imitate reality, reality imitates art.
You can't possibly separate fact from fiction, because that's not something human beings can do.
Participating in violent sports or fictions does not always make us less violent.
In fact, it can do the opposite.
Hmm, let's have a look at that link, shall we?
Oh, you dishonest little toad.
This isn't even talking about violence.
It's talking about aggression.
And it's more social justice.
We're going to control what you think bullshit.
We're apparently playing an excessively violent sports video game, increased aggressive effect, aggressive cognition, that's aggressive fucking thoughts, aggressive behavior and attitudes towards violence and sports.
Because all games are competitive, these findings indicate that violent content uniquely leads to increases in several aggression-related variables.
But no link to violence.
Going back, watching aggressive pornography does not quell our desire for aggressive pornography, but contrarily can create a desire for increased violence.
My god, I guess we're going to have to look at this fucking link as well.
Brain scans of porn addicts.
What's wrong with this picture?
Scan images show that watching adult online sites can alter our grey matter, which may lead to change in sexual tastes.
How the fuck can this author think that this is applicable to the general population?
But if we know and believe this, I love it, we know it, but then we believe it, which is the important bit, about video games, movies, and porn, then why do we suddenly deny it when it comes to BDSM?
Well, because it's not true for those other things either.
You fucking freak.
Jesus Christ.
You know, I love how she ends this.
In the 1970s, this issue split second wave feminism.
Activists such as Robin Morgan, Alice Walker, and everyone's favorite straw woman, Andrea Dworkin.
Oh, poor Andrea, she's can't catch a break.
She's so misrepresented.
They wrote smart, impassioned rhetoric against BDSM.
And sex-positive feminists such as Susie Bright and Candida Royale reacted just as passionately and intelligently with publications and erotic projects proclaiming that they'd fought long and hard for their sexual liberation and they weren't going to be told what to do with their beds and bodies by a priest, pastor, or feminist sister.
Which, to my mind, seems the most logical thing for feminists to do.
And she finishes with, in 2015, at this most powerful moment in feminism, with the sea change in social attitudes towards BDSM, I believe it's time to reopen the debate in a spirit of solidarity, openness, and honesty.
I believe we owe this to vulnerable women like Elaine O'Hara, whose submissive desires can leave them open to male aggression in the most tragic of ways.
What are you proposing, love?
Are you proposing that we tell women what to do with their bodies?
Specifically, that they're not allowed to do BDSM because it makes you uncomfortable.
Is that what we're suggesting?
What are we going to do?
How are we going to enforce this?
We can have secret underground BDSM clubs that the police are going to bust and drag people out to the street by their bull gags and put them in the back of the paddy wagon.
Send them off to be charged.
Was having kinky sex.
Seriously, you fucking Puritans.
Why can't you just leave people alone?
You don't have to do it.
But just because you don't want to do it doesn't mean you have to stop other people doing it.
You could just say to your husband or boyfriend, whatever, and just say, I just don't, I just don't want to carry on doing this.
It's kind of making me uncomfortable.
Could we just have sex like regular people?
Is that alright?
No.
No, no, not for you.
Not for you.
You've got to ruin it for other people.
Honestly, these fucking social justice warriors.
And you know what?
It's funny how I'm going to end this with a clip from My Little Pony.
Because you would not believe the next fandom we're going to come out against social justice, I reckon.
You know, we've got comics, we've got Game Agate, you've got Metalgate, you've got Rumblings and Tabletop.
But I think the next stand that's going to be made by a fandom is probably going to be Bronies.
I'm not joking.
Watch this.
Welcome.
You're going to see a lot of new and exciting characters this season.
And first and foremost is Starlight Glimmer.
I'm so pleased to have you here.
Our ponies are going to go into a town that she is running.
I know smiles.
And those smiles?
They're just not right.
Forget the smiles.
Look at the cutie marks.
She has a very different world philosophy about friendship and what friendship means.
In particular, what a cutie mark means.
She doesn't necessarily believe that it's as positive a thing.
And Starlight Glimmer really thinks that when you're different from other people, if other people are better than you at something, it ruins a friendship.
Only way to be happy is if we're all equal!
She's created this utopian society in her mind that is all about everyone being equal.
On the surface, everyone seems to be happy and smiling.
We're going to explore what her plans are for Equestria, how they may not be so good for everyone.
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