Media bias enables prejudice

Blaming the Victim, Excusing the Powerful: What Real Institutional Media Bias Looks Like

By Reed RichardsonTo fulfill the promise of a free press in our democracy journalism can’t be satisfied with assuming the posture of looking down on the powerless. Instead, journalism, at its best, should be—must be—about punching up at the powerful.

Most, if not all, individual journalists wholeheartedly agree with this ideal. And yet, time and again it’s easy to find examples of an institutional media bias that undermines this ethos. By consistently favoring the status quo and reflexively deferring to authority, news organizations that should be exposing and condemning abuse, prejudice and corruption all too often end up excusing, justifying and perpetuating it.

As a result, celebrities, corporations and government officials all command an outsized influence in the traditional media. This phenomenon isn’t new, but the magnitude certainly is. As never before, these entities are able to mobilize a veritable army of handlers, lawyers and flacks to soothe, shape and, spin the press into accepting their version of reality—no matter how tenuously related to the truth it might be.

This fundamental bias marks the central thread that runs through the coverage of everything from Bill Cosby to Ferguson to the US drone strike program. Stripping away each of those storylines’ unique details reveals the same flawed core: a media that grants the benefit of the doubt to the establishment and that saves its cynicism for the voiceless. In a way, this bias acts as a kind broad enabler of all prejudice, allowing whatever latent inequalities exist in the status quo to go unchallenged, if not outright defended. Thus, institutionalized sexism, racism and militarism enjoy a sympathetic ear in the press precisely because they are institutionalized.Comment:  This is another nail in the coffin of the myth of the liberal media. A truly liberal media would demolish conservative lies about the "war on terrorism," climate change, tax cuts, and so forth. Instead, every issue is smothered in faux evenhandedness. Contrary voices are muffled and the status quo continues unchallenged.

Debating Peter Pan Live!

While I watched Peter Pan Live!, I did a bit of live-blogging on Facebook. I didn't plan to debate the production, but a couple of people responded and we were off.

Things started innocuously enough:

Off to Neverland

Watching Peter Pan Live!--the must-see event of the year!

I have a radical new idea for a remake: Cast a teenage boy to play Peter Pan the teenage boy. You know, instead of a grown woman.

Yes, I'm brilliant, I know. Thank you, thank you.

Didn't Christopher Walken used to sound normal when he was young? Now he sounds like he's doing a Christopher Walken impression.Casting a teenage boy presents a lot of issues from a musical theater perspective.It can't be much worse than trying to convince oneself that 26-year-old Allison Williams is a teenage boy. I'm not buying it.

I bet Daniel Radcliffe could've nailed it.Of course, a 25 year old man is much more convincing...it's about the voice, for one, and the ages of the Darling children.I meant when he was a teenager. "Cast a teenage boy [such as Radcliffe when he was a teenager] to play Peter Pan the teenage boy."

Problems arise

Race in ‪#‎PeterPanLive‬: Nine of the ten Lost Boys are white. The first four of Tiger Lily's tribe look brown-skinned and ethnic.

Even if the "tribal" actors are white, they're adorned with broad stripes of brown color. This conveys the impression that they're brown.

The tribesmen wear bone chokers and breastplates, and round pendants--like Indians. They tend to creep on all fours--like animals. ‪#‎PeterPanLive‬

The Lost Boys, including Michael Darling dressed as an Indian, reject Wendy's attempt to teach them how to avoid war. That's because Lost Boys, like Indian savages, are uncivilized.As near as I can tell, the Natives are also generic (tribally too unspecific).Yes, they're generic. But making them so doesn't solve the problem, it only redirects it.

The problem is that Peter's Lost Boys are wild, undisciplined, and ignorant because they have no rules, responsibilities, or parents. No law and order. In a word, they're uncivilized. And Tiger Lily's tribesmen are the same.

The message is that Lost Boys = indigenous people = savages. Whether the tribe is from the Americas, Africa, or Asia and the Pacific Islands doesn't really matter. The story is an indictment of all indigenous cultures. It suggests they're akin to children frolicking in the jungle, or animals in human form.As someone who grew up with this kind of unfounded, blatant, erroneous picture of Natives, I have only been condemning specific issues in these cases. But I am thrilled that we are finally at a place where we can finally address the broader ignorance issues that needs to be ended. Especially in popular media and entertainment.On the other hand:For heaven's sakes, it's FANTASY, it's silliness, it's choreographed -- did you notice how realistic the plants and trees were? *not*

Maybe you can go after "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" next time.Are you seriously going to argue that people haven't gotten their ideas about Indians from Western movies, sports mascots, and corporate logos--all of which are forms of fiction? In fact, people absorb messages about reality from whatever they see, including fiction. As a few centuries of novels, plays, movies, TV shows, and comic books have proved.

So we should say nothing about racist stereotypes in movies or TV shows because they're "fantasies"? How about school plays, paintings and statues, or songs? Did you miss the last ten thousand times I criticized racist stereotypes in our culture?

A blackface minstrel show is just a fantasy. As is a Halloween party with Pocahotties and "Nava-hoes." Really, you expect me to give these a pass because they're "fantasies" like Peter Pan? As the last 20 years of my work has demonstrated, that's not gonna happen.

Lost Boys = Lord of the Flies?Haven't missed a one of your criticisms, and most often agree with them (although I'm protesting your NIGA group for its abominable acronym). I guess you've protested Peter Pan for 30 or more years now?

The Halloween analogy is false -- stupid women wanting to be "Nava-hoes" doesn't compare to Barrie's play, nor the musical. And if you knew the story, you would not put = between Lost Boys and the Indians in the show -- the Lost Boys are a different group altogether.

We've had plenty of literature, that for better or worse, deals with issues like this. Do we ban it all, or do we learn? Would you remove Lord of the Flies from the libraries (after all, they were certainly "Lost Boys" who became quite savage)?The Indian savages perform the same function as the Lost Boys. They run and play in the forest, follow Peter Pan, and fight the pirates. They're different but equivalent groups.

That's why I said the message is that they're the same. Not that they're literally the same.

I didn't say my examples--the minstrel show and Halloween party--were alike in terms of "quality." But they're all examples of employing fictional or fantasy characters. They're alike in that regard.

And saying my analogy is "false" isn't much of an argument. Explain why it's false if you can.

In fact, anyone can present a racial stereotype and claim they're just "play-acting" or "pretending." If racism in "fantasy" is harmless, it's harmless whether it's a minstrel show, a Halloween party, or "Peter Pan." I say it's harmful in all these cases so the "fantasy" defense is rubbish.

I don't think the Lord of the Flies boys dressed specifically like Indians. Tiger Lily's tribe did. We're talking about characters who use racial stereotypes to represent a particular group--in this case, Indians or indigenous people. We're not talking about anyone who becomes "savage" in any way.

We're also not talking about censoring or removing Peter Pan. You invented that straw man because I didn't say a word about it. My solution is to fix the racist and sexist elements of this play and then present it.

If you want to present the original story with its racism and sexism, go ahead. You do that and I'll criticize it, just as I've done here.

Do we ban it or do we learn from it? I'm helping people learn from it by educating them about its racism and sexism. You're doing the opposite: telling people to ignore its problems and simply enjoy it as a "fantasy." Don't talk to us about "learning" when you're advocating the opposite.

P.S. My official critique of Peter Pan is 10 years old:

Tiger Lily in Peter Pan: An Allegory of Anglo-Indian Relations

I found every line about Indians in Barrie's original book to make sure I didn't miss anything. I understand his racist stereotyping well.

No doubt I mentioned the play and the Disney movie before then. And yet Peter Pan is only one of a thousand topics I've dealt with over the years. The facts prove there's no "obsession" here, so your claim is false and insulting.

You say you haven't missed my criticisms, yet you're surprised I criticized Peter Pan. Criticized it the same way I've criticized countless comic books, cartoons, video games, and other things that qualify as fantasies for children. So why are you surprised?

To reiterate, I've criticized Peter Pan and movies, TV shows, and plays like it many times before. My actions have been completely consistent so your surprise is illogical. In fact, the only surprise would be if I ignored a spectacle featuring Indians in prime-time television.

Racist and sexist, too

On the gender front, ‪#‎PeterPanLive‬ may be even worse. Girls = mothers = caretakers and servants = nags and scolds = killers of fun and freedom.

Wendy should slap some sense into Peter. "You say you want a mother, but you don't want to do anything I say? What do you think a mother is, you stupid twit?

"If you want someone to serve you, go hire a maid or a butler. I've got better things to do than to babysit babies."

Now she's singing about how she wants to kiss Peter Pan. Even a century ago, girls went for the charming bad boys who would love 'em and leave 'em. All Peter needs is a leather jacket and motorcycle to seal the deal.

Back to the racial issues:

If you want a race of animal-like savages, make them bestial for real. Centaurs, cat people, talking bears, etc. Or make them toy soldiers come to life a la Toy Story. There's really no excuse to equate savages with indigenous people. ‪#‎PeterPanLive‬

Getting a closer look at Tiger Lily's tribe as they dance. Perhaps half the actors are nonwhite. All have dark hair and several have dreadlocks. Shoes look like moccasins. Definitely an Afro-Indian vibe. ‪#‎PeterPanLive‬

And they're mixing the Wyandotte song title with "Hickory dickory dock" and "Tweedledee, tweedledum." Well, gee, thanks for making it clear that Native languages aren't just singsong nonsense words.

Not to mention the tom-tom beats and chanting that echo a thousand old Westerns. They aren't even subtle. This is obviously an "Indian" song in everything but name.

And Tiger Lily says Peter is the sun and the moon. Good thing she praised the "great white father" only once in this scene, or it would be unbearable.

Peter is mystified that Wendy, Tinkerbell, and Tiger Lily all want more from him. Why are girls so needy and clingy? Why can't they be strong and independent, like boys?! ‪#‎PeterPanLive‬Do you know when this story was written, what society was like at the time?It was written around the time when Dorothy traveled to Oz, took command of her destiny (more or less), and proceeded without any thought of clinging to a man or becoming a mother.

That was several decades after Alice had her solo adventures in Wonderland. A couple of centuries after Jane Austen's heroines showed what strong, independent women could do. Are you seriously arguing that having all three female characters long for Peter was a sign of the times? That authors like Barrie couldn't conceive of any other way of thinking?

And the producers are putting the play on in 2014, not 1902 when it was written. They're responsible for how its sexist message plays today. If you or they don't want anyone criticizing the sexism, don't put it on the air now. Leave it and the racist savages in the dustbin of history where they belong.

Next up: How Santa's message of toys for everyone obscures the structural poverty built into our society.

Tinkerbell must die

Captain Hook's "brilliant" plan to kill Peter Pan is to poison him. He puts the poison in Peter's medicine while he sits next to the sleeping Peter. How about stabbing him in the chest instead? ‪#‎PeterPanDead‬

But Tinkerbell drinks it instead! What a bumbler that Hook is!

Tweet to save Tinkerbell? #TinkerbellMustDie

Now Peter is speaking to the audience, telling us to clap if we believe in fairies. Die, you little piece of CGI fakery!!

Odd. The swelling music seems to indicate we should be filled with joy, not laughter at this silliness.You must have had a very sad childhood -- and I'm not trying to insult. That a grown man is so obsessed with a little musical that children love is worrisome. When I was a little girl, I thought Mary Martin was speaking directly to me. I found joy in the show, and still do. Lovely music, great dancing, lots of fun.As I said, I've posted critiques and analyses of thousands of Native stereotypes. I'm not sure Peter Pan is even in the top 25 or 50 of the subjects I've covered. Despite the fact that it's one of the longest-running and most prominent purveyors of Native stereotypes in existence.

If you're worried that I spent a couple of hours posting a few comments about one play, I'd hate to see your reaction to the subjects I've actually focused on. You know, things like the Washington Redskins and other mascots, The Lone Ranger and Twilight, and hipster headdresses. I guess you'd be amazed at my rock-solid opposition to racist stereotypes wherever they occur.

P.S. My childhood was stunningly normal, not "sad." I'm incredulous that you've suddenly discovered that I criticize things. If you somehow missed my last 10,000 postings, check them again. You'll see a decades-long pattern of denouncing racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice.

If you don't like that, sorry, but that's what I do. I thought it was obvious, but now you know.

Here are some of the criticisms directed at this production:

http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/notyourtigerlily-nine-months-later-still-dont-get-point/

https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/12/05/keene-why-fix-tiger-lily-why-cant-we-just-let-her-go-158155

http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2014/12/true-blood-brothers-in-nbcs-production.html

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/05/the_boggling_mixed_signals_of_peter_pan_live_why_on_earth_did_nbc_decide_to_stage_this_show/

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/06/the_7_worst_things_about_nbcs_peter_pan_live_partner/

I guess a lot of people are "obsessed" or had "sad" childhoods. Which are obvious codewords for, "Stop criticizing my beloved fairy tale, you can't make me think about its racism and sexism, la la la la la I can't hear you!"

A tweet to sum up the racial issues:

Tiger Lily's tribe in ‪#‎PeterPanLive‬: brown skins, body paint, bone chokers and breastplates, crawling on all fours--but not stereotypical?!

For more on Peter Pan, see Native Stereotypes in Peter Pan Live! and Peter Pan Live! Reviewed.

Peter Pan Live! reviewed

NBC's mega-event production of Peter Pan Live! aired Sunday night. The reviews were mixed, to say the least.

Some people liked it:

Smooth Flight to Neverland, Mostly. Just Ask @tinkerbell.

'Peter Pan Live' review: Allison Williams-led production, broadcast from Long Island, nearly soars

Others, including me, didn't find much to like:

TV Review: NBC's 'Peter Pan' falls sadly flat

By Mark KennedyThis "Peter Pan" needed a lot more fairy dust.

NBC's live telling of J.M. Barrie's classic tale Thursday was an oddly ponderous, disconnected, disjointed and jerky mess. If it had been a Broadway show, it would have gotten the hook (pun intended).

It wasn't the small things that broke the spell—ungraceful wire work, clunky transitions, a Tinkerbell that was as annoying as a mosquito and sounded like a wind chime, a tea cup that fell from Peter's head and some technical glitches.

"Peter Pan Live!" simply never flew.

It suffered a draggy start, cursed by a "Downton Abbey" drawing room dialogue and a call for everyone to go to bed. It grew better in the colorful Neverland but veered into parody with a Captain Hook by Christopher Walken that seemed like a failed "Saturday Night Live" sketch about Johnny Depp. The whole thing lost steam by the second hour. Was anyone still trying to save Tinkerbell with 45 minutes to go?The boggling mixed signals of “Peter Pan Live!”: Why on earth did NBC decide to do this show?

"Peter Pan" wasn't a technical disaster or a racist cringe-fest--but man, was it weird

By Sonia SaraiyaNBC’s production of this 1904 musical did nothing different, interesting or risky. (It might not even have been sung live! What was the point, NBC?) Aside from a few changes to Tiger Lily’s song to make it slightly less racist, “Peter Pan Live!” was “Peter Pan,” more or less intact. Which is mind-boggling. If Disney had produced this, audiences would be asking: Why is it so overwhelmingly white? Why wasn’t Tiger Lily’s role rethought or cut entirely?

And the most obvious response to all of this, naturally, is that “Peter Pan” isn’t meant for television, because it’s a play, and it’s not meant for modern audiences, because it was written in 1904. But then that leads to the most obvious question that struck me as I was watching last night: Why on earth would anyone make this show in 2014? As the fabulous and opinionated Tom and Lorenzo wrote this morning: “There’s a difference between ‘old-fashioned entertainment’ and ‘offensive minstrel shows’ and this falls somewhere in the middle.”

We live in a world where a feminist retelling of the book of Genesis is a bestselling book and an upcoming miniseries on Lifetime. Where children’s fables are being unpacked and retold to include more female and minority perspectives. The “Hunger Games” franchise and the Marvel and DC universes are engaging with complex, dystopian themes in their storytelling. We are not shrinking violets in our American living rooms, and neither are our children, and yet this version of “Peter Pan” is like a time capsule from 1904, unwilling to do anything to disturb the fragile social norms of a bunch of long-dead white Brits.The 7 worst things about NBC’s “Peter Pan Live!”

Nearly two days later, we still can't quite believe what we just saw

By EJ Dickson1) Cast someone who can actually pull off the role of Peter Pan.

The problem was that Williams simply doesn’t have the charisma to pull off the Boy Who Never Grew Up. She looked nice, and sounded nice, but as the A.V. Club’s Caroline Siede put it, “Williams feels like the girl who got every lead role in high school but couldn’t quite compete with stronger performers in college. She’s not bad, but she lacks the right impulsive, impish energy for Peter Pan.” Someone with more firecracker energy, like an Anna Kendrick or an Ellen Page, would’ve made for a much stronger Peter.

4) Replace or cut out the “Ugg-A-Wugg/True Blood Brothers” number.

The trouble is that no matter what you do to Tiger Lily and the “Ugg-A-Wugg” number, it’s still a song about Native peoples celebrating Peter Pan, their white male savior; replacing the “gibberish” Native American lyrics with equally gibberish nursery rhymes doesn’t necessarily make it any better. And because the number itself really isn’t that integral to the narrative or even very good to begin with, the smart choice would’ve been for NBC producers to cut it (as they did with the operatic “Mysterious Lady,” presumably due to Williams’ vocal limitations) or replace it with a new, equally rousing, more politically correct number.

7) Pick a better show.

Let’s be real: Peter Pan is not the best musical in the world. While it’s great for parents to turn on when they’re busy, so they can plop their kids in front of it and watch them zonk out for a few hours, the pacing is slow, the score subpar and poorly edited—I know we all love Christopher Walken, but do we really need at least three musical numbers for Captain Hook and his band of pirates?—and the libretto full of stodgy, regressive ideas about women and gender. Considered as a whole, I’d take a good production of Guys and Dolls, The Music Man, South Pacific or even Grease over Peter Pan any day.A few people simply gawked at it:

Peter Pan Live on NBC: Reviewed

Hate-watching “Peter Pan Live!”: The funniest tweets during tonight’s NBC musical

Comment:  For more on Peter Pan, see A 21st-Century Peter Pan and Peter Pan's Racist History.

Lucas's prejudices in Star Wars

In 2012 I posted the following article and comment:

George Lucas cut female X-wing pilots out of Return of the Jedi at the last minute

Can we call Lucas a sexist and a racist for his film choices?

This led to the following discussion with Brad:I think the article says it best that we'll probably never know. However, I'll say two things that aren't exactly defenses of Lucas.

One is that if he WERE sexist, it would have been an easy casting decision just not to screen female actors for the parts in the first place. I don't think anyone would have given that a second thought especially back then, although we might have more to talk about now. Lot of male characters had lines cut too, so I'm not seeing an indictment here.

The second is that Lucas has done a lot of squirrely things with these films for a lot of squirrely reasons. Sexism almost seems TOO EASY of an explanation for why he changed something. More likely that it had to do with some inane, esoteric minutia that would never have occurred to anyone but him.Whatever the reason, there was no excuse for one woman and no minorities among the main characters in Episode IV.

People can always come up with excuses--er, reasons--for their beliefs. Like, "Muslims may be hiding bombs in their robes, or I can't understand what they're saying, or they give off a bad vibe."

What matters is outcomes not, intent. If you're thinking of reasons why a universe doesn't have any significant women or minorities, you're thinking along sexist and racist lines. Whether you realize it or not.In singling out Episode 4, I think you may be placing blame on Lucas that belongs on FOX studios. Star Wars was only Lucas' second major film and he had a tough time selling it to begin with. It's a mistake to think that he had the final say over casting for the film. His only real concession from the studio was permission to use less famous white people. You do remember that this movie was made in the mid-'70s right?

I also think you might be giving Lucas a little too much credit in the creativity department. Much of what Star Wars is was drawn from archetypal medieval literature, Japanese B-movie mysticism, cowboy spaghetti westerns, and WWII combat pictures none of which were particularly big on diversity. If you want to say that Lucas wasn't very enlightened, sure, but I'd say his tropes are more a product of his times than they are bigoted.Fox cared about the race and gender of minor characters such as X-Wing pilots? Thirteen years after Star Trek pioneered an integrated starship crew? Unlikely.

And why did Lucas dismiss the criticism of the first movie before backtracking and casting some minorities in Episode V? If Fox made the decision, Lucas's response should've been, "I totally agree with your criticism, but the studio had the final say on casting." Unless I'm sadly mistaken, that isn't close to what he said.

Lucas had more power when he made the Indiana Jones movies, but his depictions of South American Indians and Asian Indians were stereotypical and arguably racist. So no, I don't cut him any slack for his alleged lack of clout.

The "product of his times" argument applies to any older person who feels uncomfortable around blacks, gays, Muslims, et al. Hence my posting about Person X and the roomful of strangers. Either Lucas and Person X are both racists, or neither are.

"Discomfort" with strangers

Here's the "Person X" posting I mentioned, with comments from people:

Suppose Person X feels uncomfortable in a room full of one type of person: women, blacks, gays, Muslims, old people, the disabled, children, burn victims, CEOs, prostitutes, movie stars, undertakers, televangelists, drug users, nudists, ex-convicts, etc.

You could say X is prejudiced and needs to get over it, but I wouldn't be too harsh on him. Most likely his discomfort comes from ignorance and will fade as he gets to know the people.

I wouldn't necessarily use words like "racism," sexism," "homophobia," or "bigotry" to describe X. He's not saying these people are bad or inferior, only that he's not used to them.

What do you think?Judy
Will X make an effort to get to know them?

For me, that would be the test. ;-)

Laurel
He's probably a bigot/sexist/racist/homophobe or whatever. I never met anyone who said "I'm not a racist, I just don't feel comfortable around those people" who wasn't a big ol' racist. This is one of those things racists say so I'll shut up about race.

If I go so far with my preferences as to avoid an entire group of people, you can bet I don't see them as individuals and do not have positive thoughts about them.I agree, Laurel. But my inclusion of nonracial groups shows it can happen whether race is involved or not.

And I agree, Judy. The first time it happened, I'd be charitable toward X and not condemn him as a bigot. But if he continued to avoid them, refused to learn about them, and kept hinting something was wrong with them, I'd move toward condemning him.Laurel:
I can't think of a roomful of ANY type of people I would be that uncomfortable in except one full of armed terrorists or rapists or something, although the "Laurel in a roomful of televangelists" scenario would probably devolve into a bunch of yelling pretty quick.

It is probably usually a good idea to give a person the benefit of the doubt once, though.

Brad
I think Laurel hit on the key issue--the generalizing of people by a characteristic. If "X" is referring to any group of people collectively when making derogatory remarks about them (i.e. "those people"), I think that indicates a ingrained prejudice that goes beyond simple discomfort. People who do that clearly have bias against the characteristic that "those people" who they are whether we're talking about gays, blacks, women, or CPAs. That goes beyond a simple dislike of an individual or singular behavior. I wouldn't hesitate to label that held belief or expression whatever -ism or -phobia that applies.

And to further the point, I don't think even just a willingness to learn about the group in question and potentially change their attitude is enough to make a difference. While it's possible "X" COULD do that, I don't think they get any credit for it until it actually happens.Comment:  As I said, I'm not sure that we could say Person X is necessarily prejudiced. But yes, prejudice will explain his responses most of the time.

If Person X never met a CPA and has no idea what to expect, I guess you could call his discomfort "prejudice." He's prejudiced against the unknown--thinking a whole class of people will have some harmful or unpleasant trait. But unless the group is murderers or sociopaths or people who never take a bath, that probably won't happen. The group will have the same variety of people as any other group.

Now that Brad made the case that discomfort usually means "ingrained prejudice," go back and apply that to George Lucas and his evident discomfort with casting women and minorities. Lucas's "product of the times" feelings qualify as prejudice.

For more on the subject, see Star Trek vs. Star Wars.

Rodger's half-white male entitlement

Many pundits have called the Santa Barbara shootings an act of white male entitlement and hyper-masculine rage against women. It's a bit more complex than that.

Clearly he was driving by racial as well as sexual animus. Some postings explain how:

Santa Barbara shooter had history of posting racist, misogynist comments on hate site

By Tom BoggioniAccording to the SPLC, Rodger posted comments in January, beginning with “Saw a black guy sitting with 4 white girls,” causing him to admit his frustration over white women socializing with minority men:Today I drove through the area near my college and saw some things that were extremely rage-inducing.

I passed by this restaurant and I saw this black guy chilling with 4 hot white girls. He didn’t even look good.

Then later on in the day I was shopping at Trader Joe’s and saw an Indian guy with 2 above average White Girls!!!

What rage-inducing sights did you guys see today? Don’t you just hate seeing these things when you go out? It just makes you want to quit life.After being called out on the website for the racism in his comments, Rodger responded, “Here we are suffering on PuaHate when these lesser, undeserving men that I saw today are walking around with hot girls. It doesn’t make sense.”

Rodger also wrote that Asian men could never date white women, leading a commenter of Asian descent to post a picture of himself with a white woman.

Rodger dismissed the photos as fake, writing: “Full Asian men are disgustingly ugly and white girls would never go for you. You’re just butthurt that you were born as an asian piece of shit, so you lash out by linking these fake pictures. You even admit that you wish you were half white. You’ll never be half-white and you’ll never fulfill your dream of marrying a white woman. I suggest you jump off a bridge.”Elliot Rodger’s half-white male privilege

The killer’s Asian heritage matters. So does his ugly class entitlement. Misogyny crosses lines of race and culture

By Joan WalshWhy is it so hard to recognize Rodger as of mixed racial descent? It certainly doesn’t negate the role white entitlement and privilege played in his “syndrome.” Rodger is at least partly a victim of the ideology of white supremacy, as well as its violent enforcer. He struggled with his status as half-Asian, writing “I always felt as if white girls thought less of me because I was half-Asian.”

Elsewhere he explains:

On top of this was the feeling that I was different because I am of mixed race. I am half White, half Asian, and this made me different from the normal fully-white kids that I was trying to fit in with. I envied the cool kids, and I wanted to be one of them.

He dyed his hair blond, trying to fit in, but the dye job left him with blond tips and black roots, a sad metaphor for a racial mixture he couldn’t accept.

Merely labeling Rodger white, and his problem one of “white privilege,” also obscures the role of class in heightening his toxic sense of entitlement. He wondered: Why would “an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am descended from British aristocracy.” He believed his aristocratic background, his gorgeous home, his Armani shirts, Hugo Boss shoes, and shiny BMW—not just his race—entitled him to blond women. He even had a narcissistic mantra he said to himself to boost his confidence: “I am the image of beauty and supremacy.”

Of course he saw a racial hierarchy where he, being half-white, is near the very top of the pyramid, below white men but, as half Asian, still above every other race and racial mix. He degrades “full Asian” men as “disgusting” and mocks them for not being half-white like him. Then he’s aghast when he sees “this Asian guy who was talking to a white girl. The sight of that filled me with rage … How could an ugly Asian attract the attention of a white girl, while a beautiful Eurasian like myself never had any attention from them?” Every attempt to “explain” his isolation and loneliness unravels. There is only one explanation: the evil of beautiful, blond white girls.Comment:  I'd say white male entitlement is a cause, or at least a factor, in any shooting spree. If the shooter is white, he's acting out his entitlement. If he's a minority, he's angry because he thinks he's not getting what whites get. He's lashing out at others for their entitlement.

For more on the subject, see The Rage of Misogynist Nerds and Santa Barbara Shootings Show America's Pathology.

The rage of misogynist nerds

Some discussion of the angry subculture of men's rights advocates (MRA) and failed pickup artists (PUA) to which Elliot Rodger belonged:

The Angry Underground World of Failed Pickup Artists[A]t its core, PuaHate members don't hate the game, "just the BS and hype and fluff that goes with it." As one poster explains, "I would just like to get to the point where I can bang a girl whenever I want ie 5 times a week." Is that so much to ask for?Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and NerdsBut the overall problem is one of a culture where instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to “earn,” to “win.” That if we try hard enough and persist long enough, we’ll get the girl in the end. Like life is a video game and women, like money and status, are just part of the reward we get for doing well.

So what happens to nerdy guys who keep finding out that the princess they were promised is always in another castle? When they “do everything right,” they get good grades, they get a decent job, and that wife they were promised in the package deal doesn’t arrive? When the persistent passive-aggressive Nice Guy act fails, do they step it up to elaborate Steve-Urkel-esque stalking and stunts? Do they try elaborate Revenge of the Nerds-style ruses? Do they tap into their inner John Galt and try blatant, violent rape?

Do they buy into the “pickup artist” snake oil—started by nerdy guys, for nerdy guys—filled with techniques to manipulate, pressure and in some cases outright assault women to get what they want? Or when that doesn’t work, and they spend hours a day on sites bitching about how it doesn’t work, like Elliot Rodger’s hangout “PUAHate.com,” sometimes, do they buy some handguns, leave a manifesto on the Internet and then drive off to a sorority house to murder as many women as they can?

No, I’m not saying most frustrated nerdy guys are rapists or potential rapists. I’m certainly not saying they’re all potential mass murderers. I’m not saying that most lonely men who put women up on pedestals will turn on them with hostility and rage once they get frustrated enough.

But I have known nerdy male stalkers, and, yes, nerdy male rapists. I’ve known situations where I knew something was going on but didn’t say anything—because I didn’t want to stick my neck out, because some vile part of me thought that this kind of thing was “normal,” because, in other words, I was a coward and I had the privilege of ignoring the problem.

I’ve heard and seen the stories that those of you who followed the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter have seen—women getting groped at cons, women getting vicious insults flung at them online, women getting stalked by creeps in college and told they should be “flattered.” I’ve heard Elliot Rodger’s voice before. I was expecting his manifesto to be incomprehensible madness—hoping for it to be—but it wasn’t. It’s a standard frustrated angry geeky guy manifesto, except for the part about mass murder.What (Else) Can Men Do? Grow The Fuck Up.

Boys who like computers are taught that we DESERVE sexual attention from women. We need to get over it.

Santa Barbara shootings show America's pathology

What the Santa Barbara shootings tell us about "white guy killer syndrome" aka "aggrieved white male entitlement syndrome":

The Santa Barbara Mass Shooting, Elliot Rodger, and Aggrieved White Male Entitlement Syndrome

When an entire social structure has been erected to reinforce the lie that white folks are "normal" and "Others" are "deviant," it can be very difficult to break out of denial.

By Chauncey DeVegaAs I often ask, "What shall we do with the white people?"

When an "Arab" or "Muslim" American kills people in mass they are a "terrorist." When a black person shoots someone they are "thugs." When a white man commits a mass shooting he is "mentally ill" or "sick."

Whiteness and white privilege are the luxury to be an individual, one whose behavior reflects nothing about white people as a group.

There will not be a national discussion of a culture of "white pathology" or how white Americans may have a "cultural problem" with their young men and gun violence. The news media will not devote extensive time to the "social problem" of white male violence and mass shootings.

Elliot Rodger, a rich, white, entitled young man, allegedly killed six innocent men and women and wounded 13 others yesterday. Like Adam Lanza, this would appear to be a case of aggrieved white male entitlement syndrome, one which has led to a murderous and tragic outcome.

I have written about what I term "aggrieved white male entitlement syndrome" on several occasions.

In a complementary manner, William Hamby offers up a sharp synthesis of how rage and white male privilege come together to create monsters:Rachel Kalish and Michael Kimmel (2010) proposed a mechanism that might well explain why white males are routinely going crazy and killing people. It's called "aggrieved entitlement." According to the authors, it is "a gendered emotion, a fusion of that humiliating loss of manhood and the moral obligation and entitlement to get it back. And its gender is masculine." This feeling was clearly articulated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine Massacre. Harris said, "People constantly make fun of my face, my hair, my shirts..." A group of girls asked him, "Why are you doing this?" He replied, "We've always wanted to do this. This is payback... This is for all the sh*t you put us through. This is what you deserve."

At the risk of getting too existentialist, I'd like to propose a very simple and elegant explanation for not only school shootings but a host of other barbaric acts in recent years: White men are having a crisis of both aggrievement and entitlement. One need only look at the 2012 election season to see less brutal but equally mind-numbing examples of white men going mad because they are losing their power. The "Republican Meltdown" is a perfect example of men who previously had all the control escalating to madness when that control was lost...The thing is, losing power hurts. That's the "aggrieve" part of aggrieved entitlement. It's one thing for a bunch of white men to feel hurt because they are no longer the kings of their own private castles, rulers of all they survey. It's another thing for them to feel like they're entitled to power, and more importantly, entitled to punish others for taking it away. And that--aggrievement plus the feeling of entitlement--is what may well drive people like Adam Lanza to these horrific crimes.Elliot Rodger’s fatal menace: How toxic male entitlement devalues women’s and men’s lives

In moments after unspeakable tragedy we must not rush to conclusions. But here's one thing we already know too well

By Katie McDonoughThere is an angry part of me—a frightened part of me—that wants to tear Rodger’s video manifesto apart in the pettiest terms imaginable. Point to how cliched it all is—the tired self-importance, the god comparisons, his lazy use of “sluts” and “brutes” to describe the women and men he would allegedly target and murder only hours later. I have seen these videos before. Women have heard these threats before, and been forced to consider how seriously they should take an anonymous man who says he knows where they live and tells them, “I am the one who is going to kill you.” If Rodger had posted his angry monologue to YouTube or fired it off in an email and then gone about his day—seething privately and without violence about his wounded sense of entitlement and the sting of having his resentful and warped desires unfulfilled—the country wouldn’t be talking about him. Because until the moment that he is alleged to have killed six women and men, Elliot Rodger was every bit the same as the other men who are defined by their resentment toward women and their sense of bitter victimization in the world. Men who threaten women in person and online in an attempt to control their lives. Men who feel that girls and women owe them adoration, sexual gratification, subservience. Men whose sense of rage and entitlement has rotted their brains and ruined them.

And this anger—this toxic male entitlement—isn’t contained to random comment boards or the YouTube videos of disturbed young men. It’s on full view elsewhere in our culture. Earlier this week, a writer for the New York Post quoted a member of a men’s rights group as the sole source in a report on Jill Abramson’s ouster at the New York Times. Mel Feit of the National Center for Men told columnist Richard Johnson that Abramson was systematically firing men and replacing them with women. He said that our society gives women preferential treatment. On his website, Feit bemoans a culture in which men are subject to the powerful whims of vindictive women who exist on “sexual pedestals.” He argues that men can’t be blamed for rape after a certain point of arousal. These views about women and violence are replicated in our criminal justice system. They filter into our media. This is what makes Rodger’s misogynistic vitriol so terrifying—the fact that in many ways it’s utterly banal.

The news out of Isla Vista is still painfully fresh, and in the coming days we will continue to struggle to understand this pattern of violence. And while we do that—the work of considering what laws, support systems and cultural shifts must be put in place to prevent these tragedies from destroying more lives, families and communities—I can’t help but be reminded of all of the women who have been victimized by a culture and a system that denies their humanity.

I’m reminded of Marissa Alexander, whom the state of Florida is trying to imprison for 60 years because she fired a warning shot to ward off a man who had a history of violently abusing her and had told her that he was going to kill her. I’m reminded of CeCe McDonald, a trans woman of color who was incarcerated for defending herself during a brutal assault. “Her gift for survival was a prison sentence,” trans actress and activist Laverne Cox recently observed. I’m reminded of the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted more than a month ago and remain missing because they had the audacity to go to school.

I think of the millions of other women and girls whose names the public does not know, but who have been forced all the same—by institutional forces larger than themselves, by systemic and enduring misogyny and racism, by the sheer bad luck of being at a given place at a given moment—to become statistics or symbols of our culture’s profound disregard for the humanity of women and girls. I am reminded of all of them and I don’t know where to put the pain and anger that comes with that. There is no possible vessel large enough to hold it all.What Elliot Rodger Said About Women Reveals Why We Need to Stamp Out Misogyny

By Elizabeth PlankWhat happened in Santa Barbara is nothing less than a hate crime, and yet mainstream news outlets are distilling the issue to "mental illness" and "premeditated mass murder." Although we should be shocked by Elliot Rodger's actions, we should not be surprised. In fact, most school shootings share chillingly similar characteristics. It's time we stop treating these incidents as anomalies and start recognizing the deep societal issues at play.

1. Men commit most school shootings

All but one of the mass murders in the U.S. over the last 30 years has been committed by men. The fact that gender is often omitted from the story speaks to how we still see the masculine as the irreproachable and invisible standard. As Michael Kimmel notes in his extensive research on school shootings, if the genders were reversed and most school shootings were committed by women, you'd bet gender would be part of the analysis.

We often instead shift the conversation to "mental illness" and describe shooters as madmen, while the characteristics they exhibit are often an extension of toxic masculinity ideals that are institutionally reinforced.

Details are still emerging, but according to the Daily Kos, Elliot Rodger subscribed to many Men's Rights Activists' (MRA) websites and may have adopted their radical ideology about women. The comments that motivated his killing spree were not far from many of the ones that are openly made by men in those communities. Even in the aftermath of the tragedy in Santa Barbara, a pick-up artist group (many of which often classify as MRAs) left a horrendous comment publicizing their services, as if their view of entitlement to women were valid in the first place.And:5. Most gunmen exhibit a large sense of entitlement

Like many other school shooters, Elliot Rodger displayed a colossal sense of entitlement in his unsettling manifesto. He describes his inability to attract women as something he needed to "punish" them for. He describes the fact that women are not interested in him as an "injustice" and a "crime" because he is the "perfect guy." In an attempt to prove that he is the "alpha male," he decides to slaughter them. He believes he is entitled to women's bodies and, when denied access, he retaliates. "It's not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls have never been attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it," he says.

This kind of attitude toward females can be seen in bullying patterns too. Although we tend to believe that girls bully girls and boys bully boys, cross-gender bullying is much more frequent than we think. When it occurs, it is often "unpopular boys" who are not deemed to be the Alpha Male by their peers who bully "popular girls." These boys seem to use bullying to prove their manhood.

We live in a society where being white and male affords one with countless privileges and, for some, a toxic sense of entitlement. As Michael Kimmel explains, "righteous retaliation is a deeply held, almost sacred, tenant of masculinity: if you are aggrieved, you are entitled to retribution. American men don't just get mad, we get even."White guy killer syndrome: Elliot Rodger’s deadly, privileged rage

Can I go ahead and scream yet? It's time for America to admit what it's long resisted: White male privilege kills

By Brittney CooperFrom my standpoint as an armchair therapist—having read transcripts of Rodger’s videos—his anger is about his failure to be able to access all the markers of white male heterosexual middle-class privilege. He goes on and on about his status as a virgin, his inability to find a date since middle school, his anger and resentment about being rejected by blond, sorority women. In fact, he claims he will “slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut I see.” As Jessica Valenti so thoroughly demonstrates: “misogyny kills.” I am struck by the extent to which Rodger believed he was entitled to have what he deemed the prettiest girls, he was entitled to women’s bodies, and when society denied him these “entitlements” he thought it should become the public’s problem. He thought that his happiness was worth the slaughter of multiple people.

This sense of heterosexual white male entitlement to a world that grants all one’s wishes, and this destructive murderous anger that attends the ostensible denial of these wishes, is at the emotional core of white supremacy. Elliot Rodger was a late bloomer, which while socially inconvenient and embarrassing, is neither uncommon nor a problem. But because we don’t have a fundamentally honest societal conversation happening about white male privilege, rooted as it is in sexism and racism, we can’t even observe one of the most basic truths here: What Rodger perceived as a denial was at the very worst a delay. Our society is fundamentally premised on making sure that straight, middle-class (upper class in Rodger’s case) white men have access to power, money and women.

And while we have no problem from President Obama, down to Paul Ryan, down to the preacher in the pulpit talking about pathological black masculinity, we seem wholly uninterested in talking about pathological white masculinity, which continues to assert itself in the most dangerous and deadly of ways.

In this regard, the rage at the core of Rodger’s horrific acts is not unlike the kind of middle-class, heterosexual, white male rage that drives much of social policy in this country. In the era of Barack Obama, we have endured a mass temper tantrum from white men that includes a mind-boggling war on women, with an unprecedented rollback of the gains of the women’s rights movement, and an attempt to decimate whole communities of color, which are disproportionately poor, through school privatization, mass incarceration (which began long before the Obama era) and the gutting of the social safety net.

I’m not calling these guys mass murderers. Of that I want to be clear. But I am saying that we cannot understand Elliot Rodger’s clear mental health issues and view of himself as the supremely forsaken victim here outside a context of racism, white supremacy and patriarchy. I’m also saying that white male privilege might be considered a mental health issue, because it allows these dudes to move through the world believing that their happiness, pleasure and well-being matters more than the death and suffering of others.Masculine insecurity and entitlement are a big, tangled-up mess

By Amanda MarcotteThis horrible UCSB shooting has, I think, been something of a wake-up call to the country. Elliot Rodger was clearly out of his head in some ways, but his copious amount of writing and video-blogging made it nigh-impossible—excepting the usual denialist suspects, of course—to ignore the bizarre but strong link between entitlement and insecurity. I think most of us, even those of us inclined to deny the realities of racism and sexism, understand quite well that being targeted routinely with messages that your gender or race makes you inferior can negatively impact self-esteem. (Indeed, that concern was a critical turning point in the decision Brown v the Board of Education.) Less well-understood is the negative impact that being told you’re entitled to certain privileges because of your race or gender can also breed insecurity. It’s an insecurity that manifests differently, but it is nonetheless an insecurity.

Obviously, this isn’t true across the board. We’ve all had plenty of experiences with white dudes of the Donald Trump sort, who are so puffed up artificially that they have no idea what blithering idiots they actually are. We’ve all met men who actually believe that the obligatory tittering at their lame jokes that women provide means they are actually funny. It’s sad, but kind of comical.

But being constantly told that, by virtue of being a white dude, you are supposed to be smarter, more sexually powerful, funnier, etc. than everyone else can have a totally different effect, and I think the Rodger situation makes that really clear. A lot of white guys look around and realize that they really aren’t all that smart/sexually masterful/whatever, and they are hit with a profound insecurity. They aren’t what white guys are “supposed” to be!

Of course, where this kind of insecurity is very different than more run-of-the-mill insecurity, where the insecure person just wallows in shame, many men suffering from anxious masculinity react by indulging grotesque power fantasies, hoping by acting like giant assholes—or, worse, actually committing violence—they can become the big men they are secretly afraid they are not. Rodger was direct about this: Murder would make him an “alpha”, with is MRA/PUA terminology for the fantasy of the powerful man. But this sort of thinking crops up in lesser forms all the time.Comment:  Euro-American history = toxic culture of white male entitlement = genocide of Indians and enslavement of Africans = Elliot Rodger shootings.

For more on the subject, see Newtown Shootings Show America's Pathology and Aurora Shooting Shows America's Pathology.

Conservatives champion white privilege

Bye-bye, whiny white dudes: Tucker Carlson, Tal Fortgang and the weakening grip of entitlement

The relevance of jerks like Fortgang and Carlson has never been more tenuous--which is why they're whining harder

By Katie McDonoughPrinceton University freshman Tal Fortgang is the current face of white dude entitlement, but he’s not the only reminder we have right now about what happens when sheltered boys enter the world feeling that they’re owed something and believing that their actions don’t have consequences.

Call it whatever you’d like. Toxic masculinity. Frat mentality. Patriarchal bullshittery. But put really simply, the problem is that our culture doesn’t generally encourage boys to feel compassion or curiosity beyond a very narrow sphere of their experience, and then some grow up to be terrible jerks.

And the pathetic thing is that a smug and racist editorial written by a college freshman with a tiny baby brain—a piece that should have died on the pages of a college newspaper but was embarrassingly propped up as legitimate commentary by Time magazine—is a comparatively benign example of what happens when boys are raised not to think much about other people.

Epidemic levels of sexual violence on college campuses, the racist misogyny that characterizes so much of fraternity life, the male politicians who spout off about “legitimate rape,” the high school and college football coaches who ignore reports of sexual assault to shield their players from accountability—these are all part of the same problem.And:Outside the college realm, Tucker Carlson—papa bear to a collection of racist misogynists over at the Daily Caller—said this week that sexual assault against men is a victimless crime. When the female hosts of Fox News’ “Outnumbered”—a show that could alternately be called “Hey wow there are more women than men here right now and that’s not usually how this works ha ha ha”—asked him why he would say something that so clearly minimized the experiences of male survivors, Carlson replied, “Because it’s true.”

Carlson is basically Fortgang—or the myriad other college baby men that our culture is churning out and protecting—25 years down the road and with a bigger platform. Neither of these guys are really that culturally significant or smart, but what they say and do gets parroted and propped up across the shithead echo chamber of certain parts of the media. Their defenses of the status quo and lazy ideas about how the world works get repackaged as brave truth telling, and they get lionized and rewarded for it. (In the case of Fortgang, this couldn’t be more true. He pretty much emerged from the womb and was promptly booked for an interview with Greta Van Susteren and landed a spot on Time’s homepage.)

That men like Fortgang and Carlson manage to symbolize so much while actually mattering so little is kind of depressing, but the reign of whiny white dudes may be on the decline. People are pushing back really, really hard against their tantrums. They are documenting incidents of misogyny or racism on campus and in the media, and blowing these stories up so the whole country can see them.

The surge in Title IX complaints is probably the most direct example, but the struggle against male entitlement—on campuses and elsewhere—is happening daily in smaller ways, too. The entire reason that Fortgang felt the need to complain about being asked to think about other people—and the advantages that his whiteness, his maleness and his wealth have afforded him—is because his peers are now acting as a check against his tunnel vision. Granted, the plush green lawns of Princeton are still home to a really narrow portion of the population, but at least part of that student body is interested in calling him on his shit.

But this isn't just the whining of white men afraid of losing their privileged positions. No, it's part of the right-wing agenda to enshrine rich white conservatives as the country's rulers:

Conservative Money Front Is Behind Princeton's "White Privilege" Guy

By Adam WeinsteinFortgang wrote his rant for the Princeton Tory, an independent campus publication that's just one of about 80 bankrolled by the Collegiate Network and its parent group, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. According to its website, ISI was founded in the McCarthy era as a "fifty-year plan" to advance conservative political causes "by implanting the idea in the minds of the coming generations."

Today, ISI is a "nonpartisan" non-profit with a $10 million annual budget that astroturfs scores of conservative campus publications across the country, funding them and grooming their staffs to become TV pundits, politicians, and political moneymen. Praised by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Antonin Scalia, it started humbly in 1953 with nothing but an idea and a president: a recent graduate of Yale named William F. Buckley.

The ISI and Collegiate Network have raked in millions of dollars from major conservative financiers over the years, most of it from the coffers of Richard Mellon Scaife, a banking tycoon (yes, those Mellons) who's most famous for bankrolling the conservative witch-hunt against Bill Clinton that led to Whitewater and Monicagate. Scaife's money also helps keep the lights on at the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, ALEC, and just about every other conservative money-and-opinion laundromat you can name.

What does all that bakshish buy? Quite a lot. Since Buckley's time, the ISI and its Collegiate Network have been responsible for molding much of the right-wing blogosphere. Ann Coulter got her start at the Cornell Review, a CN publication. Dinesh D'Souza cut his teeth writing for the CN-funded Dartmouth Review as an undergrad. "I learned the ins and outs of taking on the far Left as the editor of the Virginia Advocate," current National Review editor Rich Lowry says of his time running a CN-sponsored publication in college.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Educating Princeton's Privileged Kid and Princeton's "White Privilege" Apologist.

Sterling: Don't bring blacks to games

Cliven Bundy the welfare cowboy must've been overjoyed to find himself bumped out of the news this week. Clippers owner Donald Sterling took his place with a racist and sexist tirade caught on tape.

A sampling of Sterling postings, with my comments:

Report: Clippers owner Donald Sterling caught on tape telling his girlfriend to not bring African-Americans to 'my games'

Clippers owner Donald Sterling can't be a racist. Some of his best friends and basketball players are black!

Your Complete Quotable Guide To Decades Of Donald Sterling's Racism



Digging deeper

Why Is the NAACP In Bed With Racist Donald Sterling?

NAACP On Sterling: Local Chapters Need 'Better Vetting Process' For Awards

Ya think?!

Maybe give the award to someone who hasn't donated big bucks to your cause. #conflictofinterest

Conservatives Called Him A Democrat, But Sterling Is Registered Republican

Sordid Subplot Appears To Show Another Ugly Side Of Donald Sterling

Let's not forget that he's a sexist pig as well as a racist pig.

Donald Sterling’s girlfriend has magical racism powers!

Maybe Stiviano should get the NAACP's award for exposing racism against blacks.

For more on conservative racism, see Bundy the Conservative Racist and The Science of Conservative Racism.

Controversies in Star Trek into Darkness

From Wikipedia:The film was criticized for a scene with actress Alice Eve's character Carol in her underwear, which was called "wholly unnecessary" and "gratuitous." Screenwriter and producer Damon Lindelof apologized on Twitter for the scene: "I take responsibility and will be more mindful in the future." On Conan, Abrams addressed the matter by debuting a deleted scene of actor Benedict Cumberbatch's character Khan taking a shower. Eve addressed the underwear controversy at a 2013 Las Vegas Star Trek Convention and said, "I didn’t know it would cause such a ruckus. I didn’t feel exploited."So all the Starfleet chicks are in skirts and none are in positions of power. Uhura is turning into the communications girlfriend/sidekick/secretary once again.

But Lindelof thinks putting Cumberbatch in a shower scene would've corrected the grotesque sexual imbalance throughout the new movies? Wow.Despite an acclaimed performance from Cumberbatch, Christian Blauvelt of Hollywood.com criticized the casting of the actor as Khan Noonien Singh, considering that the character had been "whitewashed into oblivion," since Khan is of Indian descent in the Star Trek canon. There have been similar accusations of whitewashing by fans and American Sikhs, with Star Trek: Voyager actor Garrett Wang tweeting "The casting of Cumberbatch was a mistake on the part of the producers. I am not being critical of the actor or his talent, just the casting."

On Trekmovie.com, co-producer and co-screenwriter Bob Orci addressed Khan's casting: "Basically, as we went through the casting process and we began honing in on the themes of the movie, it became uncomfortable for me to support demonizing anyone of color, particularly any one of Middle Eastern descent or anyone evoking that. One of the points of the movie is that we must be careful about the villain within US, not some other race." George Takei, the original actor of Hikaru Sulu, was also disappointed with Cumberbatch's casting.

“The second one, where Benedict Cumberbatch played Khan, I thought was unfortunate. Benedict Cumberbatch is a wonderful actor. I love everything that he’s done, but if he was going to be playing that character, J.J. should have made him an original character that’s singular to him. Because the Khan character first appeared in our TV series, Space Seed, and Ricardo Montalban was sensational in our second movie—he was the title character, The Wrath of Khan, you know! The other thought that Gene Roddenberry always had in the back of his mind—and that was his philosophy—was to embrace the diversity of this planet."

—George Takei, who originated the role of Hikaru Sulu and appeared in Star Trek films and TV episodesSo the producers are as blind to their racism as they are to their sexism? So much for Gene Roddenberry's vision of infinite diversity in infinite combinations. That's so 1960s.

If you don't want to make a brown guy the terrorist villain, then don't call him Khan, you flippin' idiots. Especially since his being a genetically enhanced superman from the past wasn't necessary to the plot. But if you do name him Khan, he needs to be a Khan.

A brown guy who's clearly superior to the white guys isn't necessarily bad or racist. But there are ways around any potential problems. For instance, show his white followers so his presence isn't some sort of racial statement. Or show other Sikhs--perhaps his descendants--who disagree with his supremacist attitudes.

Then there's this:Orci noted that when trying to create the "gigantic imagery" required by a summer blockbuster, Kurtzman suggested a scene where the Enterprise rose from the ocean. With that as a starting point they (and Lindelof) came up with the cold open in Nibiru, which blended action and comedy and was isolated from the main story in an homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark."Rose from the ocean"...so they came up with a "gigantic" (i.e., colossally stupid) image first, then wrote a story around it? In other words, they failed Writing 101? Plot and characterization determine individual scenes, not vice versa. Duhhh!

And a cold open that rips off the racist cold open of Raiders? Stealing from the aliens, dodging their spear-chucking savagery, and demolishing their native culture? And having the last laugh as they foolishly worship the Enterprise? What fun!

Also, "isolated" from the main story? That's stupid-speak for a sequence that's irrelevant and a waste of time.

Kirk doesn't learn to respect the Prime Directive or other Starfleet directives. In fact, his primary lesson is that he's right to disobey superiors like Admiral Marcus. Even villains and traitors aren't as bad as a bad boy like him, who can do good by breaking all the rules. When you're Captain Kirk, you really are a tin-plated god with delusions of grandeur.

Below:  Indigenous people bad...run!

White privilege = male privilege

Of course all men don’t hate women. But all men must know they benefit from sexism

Anger is an entirely appropriate response to learning that you’re implicated in a system that oppresses women–but the solution isn’t to direct that anger back at women.

By Laurie PennyThese days, before we talk about misogyny, women are increasingly being asked to modify our language so we don’t hurt men’s feelings. Don’t say, “Men oppress women”–that’s sexism, as bad as any sexism women ever have to handle, possibly worse. Instead, say, “Some men oppress women.” Whatever you do, don’t generalise. That’s something men do. Not all men–just some men.

This type of semantic squabbling is a very effective way of getting women to shut up. After all, most of us grew up learning that being a good girl was all about putting other people’s feelings ahead of our own. We aren’t supposed to say what we think if there’s a chance it might upset somebody else or, worse, make them angry. So we stifle our speech with apologies, caveats and soothing sounds. We reassure our friends and loved ones that “you’re not one of those men who hate women”.

What we don’t say is: of course not all men hate women. But culture hates women, so men who grow up in a sexist culture have a tendency to do and say sexist things, often without meaning to. We aren’t judging you for who you are but that doesn’t mean we’re not asking you to change your behaviour. What you feel about women in your heart is of less immediate importance than how you treat them on a daily basis.

You can be the gentlest, sweetest man in the world yet still benefit from sexism. That’s how oppression works. Thousands of otherwise decent people are persuaded to go along with an unfair system because it’s less hassle that way. The appropriate response when somebody demands a change in that unfair system is to listen, rather than turning away or yelling, as a child might, that it’s not your fault. And it isn’t your fault. I’m sure you’re lovely. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to do something about it.Comment:  This applies 100% to whites and racism. Whites can be completely non-racist in their personal lives--although studies show that's difficult to do. But they still benefit from a racist system that oppresses and criminalizes brown-skinned people.

It's called white privilege, folks. It's exactly like the unquestionable advantage men have over women, but with race, not gender.

For more on the subject, see:

Time to profile white men?
Whiteness defines others as outsiders
White "norm" is planned and enforced
White = sick, brown = deviant
White privilege will end soon

Sexism at the 2013 Oscars

Seth MacFarlane, misogynistic Oscar host

But strange hatred was everywhere. From the boob song to Twitter-bashing, the Oscars' gender politics were a mess

By Willa PaskinIt is the nature of the world we live in that less than 12 hours after the Academy Awards finished, it has been widely noted that Seth MacFarlane made a whole lot of misogynistic jokes at this year’s Oscars. (In the long opening number, in which William Shatner was sent from the future to help MacFarlane avoid being called the worst Oscar host ever, a number of headlines were flashed on-screen: with just a smidge more foresight, they probably could have predicted the one on this story too.)

The show began with a song called “We Saw Your Boobs,”about all the actresses who have shown audiences their tops at one time or another. The women name-checked in the audience didn’t seem pleased (though that was agreed upon in advance). And when Channing Tatum came out a few minutes later to dance with Charlize Theron, he didn’t even strip away his pants at the end of the number. There was no reciprocity last night.

The lady-dissing jokes didn’t stop with the ode to breasts: MacFarlane cracked that Jennifer Aniston was a stripper. He sexualized the young Quvenzhané Wallis: “It’ll be 16 years before she’s too old for Clooney,” which is, somehow, only the second most offensive thing someone said about the adorable 9-year-old last night. He also described Jessica Chastain’s character in “Zero Dark Thirty,” the ultra-driven women who through sheer force of will made the raid on Osama bin Laden possible, as “a celebration of every woman’s innate ability to never ever let anything go.”

In this context, the more standard, easy-target knocks—the kind of joke almost any host would make in our tabloid era—about Rihanna and Chris Brown’s ongoing train-wreck relationship and the hairiness of the Kardashians seemed even more mean-spirited. More remarkable than all undercutting remarks, is that without them, MacFarlane had barely anything to say about women at all: they were either boff-toys or nothing. He introduced Sandra Bullock by her random credit in the movie “28 Days,” just so he could make a joke about getting drunk himself.Seth MacFarlane saw your boobs

And then couldn't avert his eyes from women's chests—via his vile jokes—for the rest of the night

By Elissa SchappellIt was pretty staggering. On a night meant to honor and reward the best performances of the year, MacFarlane let the female Oscar nominees in on a secret: We don’t see the work you’re doing. We’re too busy staring at your tits. Giggle, giggle. Boobies. It wouldn’t be funny if he sang, “We saw your dick” because men aren’t expected to strip down in order to sell a movie, and it would be super gay. Want to peek at Bradley Cooper’s grade A beef dart? Dream on. Long to ogle Samuel L. Jackson’s heat-seeking-moisture-missile? As if. Get a load of Hugh Jackman’s wee little Jackman? Not in this lifetime.

Despite MacFarlane’s fondness for rape jokes on “Family Guy,” I am sure that it was pure stupidity that led him to name-check Halle Berry in “Monster’s Ball,” Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry” and best actress nominee Jessica Chastain in “Lawless”—as the scenes in which we see their breasts are ones in which they’re being raped or gang-raped.

Shame is played for laughs, though. When actresses such as Charlize Theron’s names were called, they mugged humiliation, shrinking down in their seats in complete mortification. Slap a big Scarlet B on Charlize. B for Boobs. B for Bad Girl. Because what woman would choose to show her breasts unless she was forced to, right? Charlize, that slut, liked it.

When MacFarlane sang about seeing 2012 best supporting actress winner Anne Hathaway’s boobs in “Brokeback Mountain” it felt like the gleeful taunting of the snotty little brother who proudly announces at his sibling’s graduation party, “My sister’s got pubes!” Most creepy, perhaps, was that the focus on the actresses’ boobs wasn’t just on the silver screen, but little screens too. He reminded Scarlett Johansson that “We saw them on our phones,” because hacking someone’s cellphone and putting the pictures on the Web is just so funny.Amy Davidson: Seth MacFarlane and the Oscars’ Hostile, Ugly, Sexist Night



Don’t blame Seth MacFarlane!

“The Oscars” hired a host to shower contempt on the nominees, the industry and the audience

By Joan WalshIn the golden age for Oscar stability, 1939 to 1967, Bob Hope hosted or co-hosted 17 of 28 shows. In between, they’d go with ensemble casting that combined glamour and humor. Between 1955 and 1997, three dominant hosts—Hope, Johnny Carson and Billy Crystal—combined to do 20 shows, and each of them had at least one stint of four consecutive years, a mini-era, if you will. Since then, it’s been 16 consecutive auditions.

What are they looking for? Well, it’s obvious they want younger viewers, a quest that hit bottom when Anne Hathaway was teamed up with James Franco, who didn’t show up. But the job description also comes with a sadism quotient: They have to needle the nominees expertly, but without drawing (visible) blood. Of course the winners participate, as if to appease vengeful gods, who would take away their cheekbones and glossy hair and paychecks and overall great good fortune if they didn’t allow themselves to be mocked for one national night of all-in-good-fun.

When it works, it is good fun, with just enough admiration, affection and mockery. Mockery is essential to the formula; the host has always been a comedian except in those ensemble years. But because they’ve changed hosts so many times, the meta story—and to insiders, the only story that matters—is how did the host do, or how badly did he bomb. To an extent, MacFarlane gave the academy exactly what it deserved. (And let’s remember, people, his script was pre-approved, probably by many layers of powerful vetters.)

We’ll be talking for a long time about what it meant that MacFarlane’s nastiest humor came at the expense of women, gays, blacks and Latinos, Jews, Quvenzhané Wallis and Abraham Lincoln. Maybe his appalling John Wilkes Booth joke was intended to get into our own heads and say: Yes, this is just as awful as you think it is. And it’s supposed to be.The Onion’s hipster misogyny

Being ironic and self-aware and knowing something is offensive doesn't make it funny--or OK

By Falguni A. ShethThat was bad enough. This morning, I woke up to the news that the Onion decided to take up MacFarlane’s “humorous sexism” prompt and notch it up to ironic racist misogyny with a tweet on its official account about 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, the heart of the film “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

Notice that at least 515 people found this tweet “funny” enough to retweet before the Onion deleted it sometime later. Who gets a tweet retweeted over 500 times unless it seems so overwhelmingly insightful—or so overwhelmingly funny and untroubling? Add to that casual acceptance some part of the 413 who favorite—favorited?—a racist and misogynist tweet about a 9-year-old African-American girl.

It’s a blaring example of how casually racism and misogyny, even about young children, can be accepted and even celebrated by some percentage of the public—especially when it is couched in the form of humor. So many kinds of hostility—racial, sexual, homo- and trans-phobic humor—gain an easy acceptability, precisely because it plays into the ironic hipster self-aware racism of “being so cool that we know it’s racist that it’s ok to participate in it. We’re above it.”

Someone on Twitter suggested that “no one believes that Quvenzhané is a c—.” What does it even mean to say that someone “believes” or “doesn’t believe” this? Others will respond that it’s just an offhand comment. Nope. It’s a sexual and racial epithet.And:For a girl-child to be referred to in such a way, and to have the remark be repeated in such a widespread fashion, shows the casualness with which the decency and dignity of young people of color can be violated without a second thought. It is a message that will be picked up, spread and reinforced in other venues, much like a wildfire in a dry forest.

Twitter may be prone to this, especially in the urgency of the moment of “live-tweeting”—the urge to be faster, smarter, quicker, sharper, more acidic, in order to have one’s “thoughts” (if we can call it that) shared quickly and widely. But it also has the unwitting implication of removing most filters to thought. It has a limited use, as in this case, in that it reveals the unacceptable thoughts that many would think quietly. Hiding those thoughts don’t make them go away; at least we get to know and have proof of the easy vileness that those in public “spaces” can promulgate concerning young vulnerable targets. It’s also evidence of the casual verbal hostility that is acceptable to direct toward women—and women of color—and young black girls on a daily basis.

Seth MacFarlane to Rush Limbaugh: Now I understand why conservatives hate the media

Rush says he sent MacFarlane a mash note, and compares Michelle Obama's Oscar appearance to something out of Orwell

By David DaleyLimbaugh was fired up about the Oscars, and saw evidence of a liberal conspiracy to create a totalitarian world, and also a political tug-of-war between Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein.

Speaking of Michelle Obama’s appearance via video link to hand out the best picture Oscar with Jack Nicholson, Limbaugh said:When I saw Moochelle Obama on that giant screen, I mean, she dwarfed Nicholson. If you look at that, if you saw it, that screen on that stage, Moochelle and the military people, gosh, they weren’t even referenced, those military people. I don’t know what that was. Was it a cocktail party? I think they were props. Anyway, she looked bigger than life. I mean, she looked like anybody would have, don’t misunderstand, but just one bite and swallow that whole room, that’s how big. The optics, of course, are what matters. And I thought of 1984, the Macintosh ad from the Super Bowl in 1984, exact type of scenario, except Michelle Obama was actually the Dear Leader of this, obviously a totalitarian state. And the Dear Leader was making some giant speech and fist pounding and robotic citizens were sitting there nodding, everybody in total agreement, and a lone person runs down the center aisle and obliterates and destroys the screen.Comment:  So we have a ton of sexist and racist "jokes"--approved by the producers and uttered to an audience of millions. We have the Onion's sexist tweet. We have McFarlane whining because the media called him on his sexist and racist performance. And we have Limbaugh calling the First Lady "Moochelle" and accusing her of a conspiracy.

This is the "hipster" attitude we've talked about so many times with regard to Indian headdresses, costumes, and mascots. It's commonplace in our culture. "Jokes" and tweets show our "unfiltered" prejudices, as do the anonymous comments on the Internet. Below the surface of alleged equality, people are seething with resentment at women and minorities.

Nice try, Americans. You think it's okay to be racist and sexist if they wink to themselves or others, say it's "ironic" or "satirical," and didn't mean to offend anyone. Here's a news flash, bigots: Your invisible and imaginary intent doesn't matter. If you say and do the same things as a racist or sexist, you're a racist or sexist also.

Our culture's racism and sexism hasn't gone away. It's just morphed into a slightly more subtle form. We don't prevent Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton when they run for president, we just sneer at them when they do. And then we say it's a "joke," because if these actions were done seriously, they'd be pure bigotry.

Hipster bigotry = bigotry

One more posting makes it clear what's wrong with the Onion tweet, McFarlane's jokes, and laughing about women and minorities in general.

David Carr On Quvenzhané Wallis And The Onion: The Worst Possible Response

By Maureen RyanWell after The Onion apologized for the statement about Wallis (which had already been deleted), here's what David Carr of The New York Times had to say: "Onion to writers: Tweet incredibly edgy, funny stuff. If you go over the line, we'll just slide you under the bus."And:Carr is not dumb. As a media columnist, he's proven in other situations that he understands how power dynamics work. Why is he so blind to the hierarchies and power imbalances here? Why isn't he using his power to excavate and examine them, even a little bit?

A lot of comedy comes from playing around with and commenting on status and power, and one of The Onion's best-known gags involves taking Vice President Biden--an icon of Establishment power--and re-imagining him as a lovably foul-mouthed, working-class dude. It's funny because Biden is famous and important in real life, but The Onion writers give him a narrative in which he appears to have less power--but their version of Biden is actually more likable and memorable than the real thing. That's clever.

There was nothing clever, witty or perceptive about the Wallis comment. The tweet that invoked her name--and the treatment of women at the Oscars in general--was about putting less powerful people in their place. When a more powerful entity attacks a less powerful entity--especially a more vulnerable group that has been historically marginalized and demeaned--why should we worry about how the more powerful feel? Shouldn't we just expect them to take their lumps when criticized?

As Emily Hauser pointed out, "Humor rooted in demeaning & belittling those who are routinely demeaned & belittled is a) lazy & b) part of the problem." It's true. Carr's comment smacks of siding with bullies, and we already have enough of that kind of exclusionary thinking floating around. Yes, we can "take a joke," whether those jokes are from McFarlane or The Onion, but not when they're "an ostensibly gentler way of saying, 'I don't think you belong here'" or when, in "the process of trying to satirize the media's cruelty towards women, they actually [end] up accidentally perpetuating it."For more on hipster racism, see Conservatives Deny "Black Jesus," Genocide and Gap's "Manifest Destiny" T-Shirt.