All Episodes
Previous Next
March 6, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
24:49
This Week in Stupid (06⧸03⧸2016)
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 6th of March 2016.
If you find anything you'd like to see in this week in Stupid, tweet using hashtag TWIS or post it to our Sagan of ACAD and I'll find it.
I've got a funny feeling that this week is gonna really piss me off.
Because some just stupid shit happened.
So let's start with something absolutely pointless.
Ghostbusters.
Specifically the trailer for the film that's going to come out later this year, I presume.
Like every feminist on earth, you'll have noticed that the new characters are all Tumblr bloggers, and therefore, everyone who opposes this must be sexist.
That's what we heard time and time and time again.
And then we saw this trailer.
This trailer was fucking awful.
Anyone preemptively defending this with cries of, it's an all-female cast, you're a sexist, were absolutely drowned out by the tsunami of people saying this looks like it is Ghostbusters as directed by Adam Sandler.
So while the general public was looking at this like, wow, this looks fucking terrible, the feminists were running wild with it.
Look at, say, I don't know, USA Today, one of the most popular news sites in the world.
Five times the new Ghostbusters trailer destroyed the patriarchy.
Almost 6,000 fucking shares.
The first trailer for the all-new all-female Ghostbusters is here, and goodness gracious, it's everything we hoped and dreamed for.
Well, it certainly wasn't fucking funny you were dreaming for, was it?
In addition to being incredibly hilarious and visually on point.
Wait a minute.
I think this is the phrase stunning and brave being applied to feminist trans comedy.
They may be telling jokes, but they're never going to make you laugh.
Incredibly hilarious and visually on point, sorry, the trailer is also unabashedly proud of its four-femaleism, the feminism it is espousing.
Don't believe us?
We rounded up five times the trailer used Proton Packs to shoot right through Hollywood conventions about gender.
The cringe is real.
So number one, a new team will answer the call.
Ready for your heroes?
They're not any different from Bill Murray, Dale Aykroyd, Harold Ramos, or Ernie Hudson.
Yes, they are.
These people aren't funny.
This isn't female Ghostbusters.
No one's saying that.
It's that this is the non-funny Ghostbusters.
It's just Ghostbusters.
Director Paul Feig said as much at the launch event.
Oh, well, if he fucking said as much, then it must be right.
The first movie worked because it had four of the funniest people, he said.
And honestly, I just want the funniest people, and the funniest people I happen to know are these women.
Well, okay, Paul, but these women aren't funny.
Nobody's saying all women aren't funny.
We are saying these women aren't funny.
Number two, even the ghost is a woman.
The ghost in the library scene in the original Ghostbusters was a woman.
Number three, sorry.
So you fucking should be.
No, seriously, everyone involved in this movie should be apologising.
I mean, this, like, you know, supposed to be awkward scene was just not even awkward.
It was just like, oh, groan-worthy.
Number four, Kate McKinnon.
Licking guns, making a swoon, wearing that wig, the SNL actress is playing with gender and sexuality conventions all over the place and we can't wait tomorrow.
That's fucking cringy, to be honest.
It was really cringy.
And I don't, maybe, maybe it's down to gender and sexuality conventions, but all I know is that I was watching this, and I felt like I was watching my mum do it or something.
It wasn't edgy or hip or anything you think that maybe it's going on.
It was just shit.
It was just complete try-hard cringe.
I mean, look at this picture.
If this isn't the most try-hard fucking picture I've ever seen, I don't know what is.
And number five, Chris Hemsworth Eye Candy.
Sure, why not?
Why not throw in a bit of hypocrisy there too?
Objectification is wrong, unless we're doing it to a man, then it's fine, because we're hypocrites.
Of course, not everything in the land of white feminism is happy and flowery.
They're being oppressed too.
Because, uh-oh, along comes intersectionality, and it turns out Ghostbusters is racist.
How?
Because it has a black woman in it!
I really loved Ghostbusters growing up, and I cringed at the casting of a reboot.
Ah, you and me both, sister, I tell ya.
Now that I've seen the trailer, I want to burn things.
I'll fucking preach.
They literally have three white women scientists and Leslie Jones playing some clueless black woman trope who shows up with a Cadillac.
Is that a trope?
Clueless black woman with Cadillac trope.
Okay.
I think you may have just invented it, I'm not gonna lie.
But yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, it was actually really sort of strange.
I would have thought they would have simply just made one of the three main female characters the black character.
Because, I mean, that way you would obviously circumvent any accusations that it's a black character is actually the, you know, from the ghetto or something, which it does actually kind of seem they're implying in the film.
You know, I'm Street, I know New York is okay.
I mean, I'm genuinely shocked they would do that.
I don't really care that they've done that.
I'm surprised they didn't think, is this going to get us in trouble?
But I guess Hollywood's, like, coming to grips with the whole being forced to be diverse thing.
I mean, listen to this.
JJ Abrams on Oscar So White Controversy, Bad Robot, which is his production company, their new diversity policy.
So after promoting diversity in Star Wars, apparently, he's not yet done as he's officially committed to promoting a new diversity policy within his production company Bad Robot.
Bad Robot will team up with CIA, Warner Brothers and Paramount to ensure that women and minorities are submitted for all writing, acting and directing jobs within the company in proportion to their representation in the US population.
This is the first instance I've heard of of a major company actually enforcing what I think is supposed to be one of the core end goals of social justice.
Abrams apparently thinks that it'll be good for audiences and good for the bottom line, which shows you exactly what his motivations are.
Presumably he means drawing a large audience and not telling audiences what to think.
Although it could be that.
But it really looks like he's just talking about, oh well, it's going to get me a large audience, I'm going to get a lot of money.
So this is why I'm going to do it.
Not because it's right, not because it's good, but because I'm going to get rich off it.
And unsurprisingly, the pool of people who fall into the category of diverse begins to shrink.
Because if you are gay in Hollywood, you are now not a diversity hire.
So with Oscar's night finally over, it's up to Hollywood to deliver on its promise to make diversity more than an awards season buzzword.
But in efforts to create real and lasting change, will Tinseltown end up promoting those who need it least?
This is what may happen if diversity is defined as much by sexual orientation as it is by race and gender.
Earnestly designed and sincerely packaged, such efforts are rooted in good intentions, but look at their fine print reveals the historical and cultural myopia that has caused such scant diversity in the first place.
Without doubt, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people face a gauntlet of legally and socially sanctioned discrimination throughout America.
There are no national laws protecting LGBTs in the workplace, for instance, while local level ordinances vary from state to state, even from city to city.
But as the recent Oscar So White and film hurstery Bruha Haas suggest, diversity in Hollywood and Silicon Valley isn't an LGBT problem, it's a race and gender problem.
They give you a bunch of statistics about the percentage of people in Hollywood that are white and male and straight, and then say LGBTs, however, are well represented in both the tech and entertainment industries.
Apple is led by a gay CEO.
Every top tech firm has a robust LGBT affinity group.
And media companies have some of the most progressive policies in America.
Hollywood and Silicon Valley are also based on the most tolerant sections and most tolerant state in the nation.
It's not that LGBTs don't face real and often violent discrimination.
They do.
But diversity and inclusiveness policies must address the needs of those who have been excluded most.
And regardless of sexual orientation, they're not white men.
I think this gives us enough information to sort of decipher the progressive stack for 2016.
For anyone who doesn't know what the progressive stack is, it's the order of importance of identities.
This is how they figure out who's more oppressed than other people.
So the first thing, obviously, is race.
Probably because it's the easiest and probably because the sort of people who engage in using the progressive stack are idiots.
Number two is heteronormativity, which I'm probably being a little bit fast and loose with, but I'm meaning to basically mean someone who has transitioned or not.
Then we have gender, of course, are you male or female?
And I do think being trans supersedes whether you're male or female.
And then we have sexuality.
Apparently, the fact that you're a white male is more important than the fact that you're gay.
I find it really ironic then that things like ability and class are relegated to the bottom of the stack, which is odd to me because these are the places where I would look first if looking for privilege.
But the fact that, say, Laurie Penny comes from a wealthy family comes a distance second to the fact that she's a woman.
She's being oppressed and now you have to let the little rich girl explain to you how difficult her life has been.
And woe betide you if you were a white, cis, male, straight, able-bodied, middle-class person.
You are scum.
Because you are not only benefiting from these privileges, you're also forcing oppressions on the opposite of these categories.
Which is why the progressives hate you, just so you know.
Personally, I do not think that other people's existences are oppressive, and therefore, I don't subscribe to this.
People can have privileges without oppressing other people.
And the word we use to describe that is earning.
We also have a demonstration of this mindset in action this week.
There was an attack on a KKK rally.
The New York Daily produced this objective journalism on the fact.
One person was almost killed and another four injured after protesters confronted a small KKK rally Saturday afternoon in a public park in Anaheim.
A small rally, right?
Half a dozen clan members arrived and ex day their cars to hold a scheduled and publicized rally.
Everyone knew this was happening in advance.
30 protesters have been waiting for them and quickly confronted the Klansmen.
In the subsequent fight, three protesters were stabbed, including one who was critically wounded after being struck with the decorated end of either a Confederate or American flagpole.
In all, five people were injured and 13 arrested.
The fight was captured on video by several bystanders and media members.
Accurate factual reporting.
So we'll have a look at the video.
It's only short to have a look at the level of violence involved here.
Oh shit.
It's good!
Get away!
Get away from this jailman!
Get it!
I would get out of here, sir.
Get away!
Get away, Guido!
Get away!
I'm a black man!
Get the fuck out of here, baby!
Get the fuck out of here, baby!
Get the fuck out of here!
It's alright!
Get away!
It's alright!
Get away!
Don't hurt him, sir!
Sir, don't hurt him!
Don't hurt him!
Okay, that looked pretty intense, and I hate to have to say this, but I think the people conducting the rally were the victims there.
They had organised this rally in advance, which is why the protesters knew where to be.
This tiny group of people went through official channels in order to hold their rally to spout morally indefensible bigotry.
And as much as I disagree with what they have to say, I completely agree with their right to say it.
And I think it is expressing this view and their right to publicly make it that makes them such a small group.
But unless they are actually committing some kind of crime or doing some objectionable wrong to someone else, there is no reason to punish them because that is punishing people for thought crimes.
I am speaking specifically, of course, of the vigilante mob who decided to kick them and beat them when they're on the ground.
I don't think that is morally defensible.
Especially as the protesters were the ones who initiated violence.
And by definition, this is bigotry.
It's complete intolerance of these ideas.
What I'm saying is that when you meet morally indefensible bigotry with more morally indefensible bigotry, you have just doubled the amount of morally indefensible bigotry.
You haven't actually solved the problem.
You've made it worse.
You are never going to get rid of morally indefensible bigotry, so you need to confine it at as low a point as possible, and unbelievably, letting bigots speak is generally the way to do it.
Basically what I'm saying is, free speech is the best system we have for keeping bigotry to a minimum.
And now I'd like to talk about the LA Times article, which is accurate, but...
So as I said, the beginning of the article is factual.
It's all factual information, and it's presented in a reasonably unbiased way.
Or that's how it seems, until you actually look at it as if you're looking for the active and passive voice, as if you were judging a piece of literature.
Three people stabbed and 13 others arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupted in violence on Saturday, police said.
Just erupted as if this was a natural event, as if there is no blame to be placed here.
By 11am, several dozen protesters had shown up to confront the clan.
They've actually written a conference- a sentence describing a confrontation in the passive voice.
These protesters had shown up.
Not that they arrived, it's not their agency.
And this is symptomatic through the entire article.
When describing the KKK members, they have agency, they do things, they have the active voice.
When describing the protesters who are initiating the protest and the violence, they are described in the passive voice.
They are not responsible for their actions.
For example, let's compare a Klansman in handcuffs could be heard telling a police officer that he stabbed him in self-defense.
Witnesses said the Klansman used the point of the flagpole as a weapon while fighting them.
Several of the Klan members jumped into the SUV and sped off, leaving the others to fend for themselves.
Many people at the park demanded to know why Anaheim police did not have a larger presence before the violence broke out.
It just came from nowhere.
Like an uncontrollable force of nature, like the people committing the violence have no choice in it whatsoever.
This is amazing this bit, right?
Martin said a friend of his whom he'd only identified by his nickname Fuzzbuzz was wounded when one of the clan members began using a flagpole, something active.
They switched from something happening to someone to someone doing something to someone, despite the fact the person who's having something happen to them was the one doing something first.
And this sentence is amazing.
They started pulling out weapons, he said, of the clansmen.
One of them had a flag, an American flag, with a pointed top.
I think that's what got my friend.
It's a serious wound.
It wasn't like the blood was dripping out of them.
It gushed out of him.
Well shit, have you considered not trying to beat the shit out of them when they're on the floor, having the shit beaten out of them?
I mean, these guys didn't come up to you and start the violence, but this is not, they don't interview the clansmen.
They go, what was it like being beaten on the floor by these protesters?
It's fucking awful.
You're a wounded person.
You got wounded trying to beat the shit out of a KKK guy.
Are you okay?
Can we sympathise with you?
I mean, the fact that they beat him is worse than what he thinks.
Actions speak louder than words.
Hello?
Is anyone fucking there anymore?
Apparently all could face charges of assault by a deadly weapon, though Wyatt said some people could have a self-defense claim.
He did not say if he was referring to the clan members or the protesters.
Oh, it could be just as equally either, couldn't it?
It absolutely could.
It's not that the protesters attacked them, and they therefore might have a self-defense claim.
It's that the press has attacked them, but that's not the press's fault.
And so the clan attacked, and now the protesters are defending themselves.
And then they spend four paragraphs telling us how bad the KKK are.
You know, and it's like, okay, I agree with you that they're bad, but they didn't attack anyone.
They defended themselves.
We have the video of it.
This is what really advanced propaganda actually looks like.
This is the really convincing stuff.
Again, I really don't want to defend the Klu Klux Klan.
I really don't.
I mean, I wouldn't be allowed to be a member of it, I don't think.
However, that doesn't mean they shouldn't enjoy the same rights as everyone else.
In fact, because I disagree with them, I have to defend their right.
If I don't, I'm not applying my principles consistently, and I therefore cannot call them universal liberal principles.
So no, even the KKK has a right to speak.
They organized it.
The protesters are 100% in the wrong here.
And it was because they instigated violence first.
This is my opinion, because we have actual examples of what things are like in countries that do not have freedom of speech.
We have an example from this week.
This week, 100,000 people attended a funeral of a Pakistani man who has been executed for murdering a governor.
And the governor's crime was that he had been critical of blasphemy laws.
The vast gathering on Tuesday centered on the Laclad Park in wherever, where a succession of clerics had made fiery speeches bitterly condemning the government, forgiving the go-ahead for Monday's execution of Khadri, a former police bodyguard who became a hero to many of his countrymen after he shot and killed Salman Tazir, the governor of Punjab province in 2011.
Fearing violence, authorities closed schools and beat up security in both the garrison of the city and neighbouring Islamabad, the capital, key roads were closed traffic and the red zone near important government buildings were sealed.
Many people had travelled from around the country to attend the funeral and crowds spilled out of the park into adjacent through fare where throngs crushed around the flower-strewn ambulance that eventually brought Qadri's body to the event.
This is fucking nuts.
Khadri murdered the guy because of his opinion.
He committed a thought crime and hundreds of thousands of people agree.
Hundreds of thousands of people are dismayed he got executed for cold-blooded murder.
Because this guy had a different opinion on whether blasphemy should be illegal.
Some of the all-male crowd wore I am Qadri signs around their necks, while others held up the front page of the Umat newspaper for Pastoral's Kiss, which was entirely covered with a photo of his dead and garland body.
Many in the crowd were furious with the courts for convicting Qadri, with the governing factor of the Prime Minister's Muslim League for not ordering a presidential pardon, and for the media agreeing to a strict news blackout on the protests.
This is grassroots activism in Pakistan.
Qadri's supporters believe he was justified in killing Taseer as he left arrest on Islamba in 2011 because he had called for the pardoning of a poor Christian woman who had been convicted under blasphemy laws which he also condemned.
This is in the Guardian.
This is the Guardian's reporting on this issue.
And if they are being this fucking extreme that the Guardian can't spin it, then you know it must be bad.
Seriously, this is a grassroots thing in Pakistan.
Social media takes the lead amid unspoken ban on cadre coverage.
This is exactly the same as what happened in Cologne.
Exactly.
Except instead of being annoyed at a cover-up about a bunch of sexual assaults and rapes, instead of that, these people are annoyed that someone who murdered someone for his opinion has been punished.
And this comes out on Pakistani social media.
Twitter Trends in Pakistan also showed a grim picture with 5 out of 10 trends either praising Qadri or protesting against the government's decision to hang him.
With thousands in support of the convicted killer, the government has decided not to take any direct action to arrest any of the protesters.
Just, this is not an unusual opinion in Pakistan.
There are probably millions of people who actually believe this.
And they know, subconsciously, that freedom of speech would destroy this.
If the guy could speak without being punished for blasphemy, then he would be able to change minds.
And the more minds that would change, the swifter the reduction of this kind of nonsense would happen.
They would end up like they are in the West.
A tiny fringe group that literally can get half a dozen people together for a fucking rally.
Quote unquote.
They know this, which is why there are blasphemy laws in Pakistan.
And mere criticism of these laws will get you murdered.
I think that we are witnessing the same kind of thing happening to the KKK from people who think they simply should not be allowed to voice their opinion.
This is the problem I have with these people attacking the KKK.
It's the same that I have with a vigilante attacking the government minister and murdering him because of his opinion.
What you are saying is that the other person is committing a thought crime, and it cannot be tolerated, in fact, to the point where other people need to be intimidated enough to prevent them from committing thought crimes.
Oh, and don't think that this is just in Pakistan.
Bradford Imam praises Marta, who murdered anti-blasphemy Lord Governor.
Fucking hell.
But surely he's just a nobody, right?
Nope, apparently he's a popular Imam and speaker among the Muslim youth in the UK and the founder of a registered youth charity that aims to give young people a deeper more positive awareness of their faith.
Oh I'm so glad to hear that he does charity and interacts with young kids.
I was getting worried there for a minute.
He told his 100,000 Facebook followers that the murderer was a true servant of Allah and a lion of Islam and described him as a Ghazi, a Muslim fighter against non-Muslims.
Now I'm not saying we can't let this guy speak.
I think we should.
I think we in fact have to.
Not only are we morally obligated, but if we want to understand what they actually teach, we have to start listening to what they're actually saying.
Because that's the thing.
You have free speech in one place, and you don't have free speech in another place.
And the place without free speech will create people who want to destroy free speech.
They will apparently go to other places that have free speech and attempt to undermine it.
So the only response we can have is attempts to insert free speech into their culture.
And the only way to do that is via discourse.
By talking to these people as if they are intelligent, rational adults, as we would want to be spoken to, and explaining why they are wrong.
So if you have a problem with us talking about specific people who voice their opinions and have awful opinions, shut up and get out of the way.
Because otherwise you are propping up these beliefs.
Oh, and the Pope thinks that the Arab invasion, as he terms it, is a social fact and a good thing.
We can speak today of an Arab invasion.
It is a social fact.
The pontiff said, according to extracts from his address earlier this week, which were published by the Vatican newspaper, he added, How many invasions has Europe experienced in the course of its history?
But it has always been able to overcome them and move forward, finding itself complemented and improved by the cultural exchange that they brought about.
Seriously, this is the Pope's words.
The Pope saying, well, there's a lot we can benefit from from allowing Muslims in.
The Christian Pope!
Unbelievable.
I mean, it's incredible.
▲
Export Selection