Article link: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/makeapp-makeup-removal/
There's an app, this app is called MakeApp, and at first glance is doesn't look like it's anything special; it's an app that applies filters to pictures to add and remove features like makeup, sounds harmless doesn't it, unless you're a feminist, then this app is Haram, because it's a sexist misogynist tool of women's oppression, apparently. There's countless articles out there of people sperging about MakeApp, making them very easy to find, so I plucked one from the DailyDot titled; Man makes app to erase your makeup in photos—but insists it isn’t sexist, and right away I just want to make a few points about that title. For starters, we all know the answer to this question already, but why does it matter that the creator of this app is a man, and second, that title doesn't give me reason to think the app is sexist; you've described one of its functions, it removes makeup, but that alone doesn't sound sexist to me, there's men who wear makeup too aren't there, would this app also be sexist to them, somehow I doubt it. Also notice the emotionally charged wording; man makes app to erase your, the wording here does make a difference, since remove and erase your have the same meaning in this context, but one includes the word your, it's personalised for the reader, which is no doubt a deliberate move, oh this one's going to be juicy, I can tell. Continuing through the article, we can see just how juicy in the opening paragraph, where our author talks about FaceApp, and how it apparently normalized Blackface and whitewashing, and perpetuates gender binary, first and foremost, there is a gender binary; male and female, sorry if that truth offends you, but Blackface and whitewashing, well. Earlier in the year I wrote an entire piece about whitewashing as it relates to movies, in which is categorically deny its existence as a problem in Hollywood, but this is new for me, so let's do this. Making a mockery of someone's appearance or culture based on a generalised stereotype is stupid, which is why it's not tolerated anymore in our society, because it's racist, but that isn't what whitewashing is. As I understand it, whitewashing is the act of making something more white, I'm sure if you believe in white supremacy, that's bad, but I don't and so I don't care. But I love how our author lumps Blackface in with whitewashing, as if to say they're equally as shit, and if the assertion that it normalises Blackface and whitewashing were true, that would still be wrong, because one is malicious, and the other is not, they're not the same, and even then, it all relies on intent, and I doubt an AI is intent on being racist. MakeApp and FaceApp are the same thing pretty much, fundamentally, they're apps that alter photos, but in neither of these Apps is an AI with a political agenda, what sounds more likely; that an App based on an unrefined AI applied a change based on numbers, or that the creator of that App or AI or the AI itself are racist, personally I see these Apps as just novelties, it's goofy to see your face transformed into different races, but that's all it is, it's not making a political statement, like the Paddington story we'll tackle later, FaceApp was an apolitical app that got politicised by people who have to politicise everything, and MakeApp is exactly the same.
Oh Wait, that's a good point, I do remember Anita once saying that; that makeup is part of women's oppression because something about beauty standards, but now we're being told that an app that removes women's makeup is sexist, even though it's patriarchy that's making women wear makeup to begin with. So men are sexist if women wear makeup, because patriarchy, and men are sexist if women don't wear makeup, because patriarchy, how very consistent. I don't think I'll get through the whole article, it's long, but the general gist is that our author is sceptical of Gabrelyanov's claim that the AI isn't perfect, specifically noting it's sensitivity to light, which makes sense. But no, our author then says the best thing I've read all day, that the male-led (again, not relevant) team has created a product that dictates what women should and shouldn't look like, forgive me for pissing myself, author, but that's some funny shit. I will repeat, the app is not political, an AI can't have prejudice, the AI may not be perfectly ironed out, it'll be buggy, completely understandable technological limitations, but the App isn't deliberately making women less attractive, and it definitely isn't being forced on them, as dictate would imply, and you either haven't figured out the reason for makeup existing, or you don't want to figure it out. But it'll wrap this story up and explain, mansplain if you will. Makeup is used, mostly by women, to make themselves look more attractive, it doesn't mean men are idiots, as you go on to allude to, and it's not for empowerment either, it's to feel nicer, either by looking more professional or looking hotter, unless you only wear makeup at work or around the house and never to parties, which I highly doubt. Men aren't mislead by makeup, they're not animals, contrary to your beliefs, I'm sure, but makeup makes you better looking, if that wasn't true, you wouldn't wear it, and when it's taken away, and you squeal about it, it shatters the notion of patriarchal beauty norms. It should be empowering to shed those shackles, not creepy, it almost looks like you have something to hide under that makeup, I mean, if you didn't, you wouldn't care enough to write a whole article about it, but here you are. And here I am, saying that I don't care if women do or don't doll up, they can do what they like and I have no authority to stop them, but to sit there and cry that an App makes you look less pretty, and that that is sexist, does make it look like you, and all the other people mad at this app, have a reason to wear makeup, it may sound harsh, but maybe you're just not as pretty as you'd like to think.
Article link: https://www.themarysue.com/denis-villeneuve-blade-runner-2049-women/
Story two is, regrettably, more Blade Runner 2049, I know I've talked about the movie three times, but what can I say, except I have a lot to say, because the more I think about it, the more I like it, even now, but never mind all of that, our article comes from the Mary Sue so this should be some easy prey. Really what this article is about is an interview with the film's director, Dennis Villeneuve, about the film's portrayal of women, which I've already written about, but again, never mind. And usually I'd be shitting all over directors who cave to ideological pressure, but not here, because while I think his wording was very deliberately placating, I really do admire his sentiment. "cinema is a mirror on society,” and as such, “Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today. And I’m sorry, but the world is not kind on women.” The placating part is the last bit; the 'on women' that's bolted onto the end of that quote, but minus that, I actually can't disagree with him, maybe cinema is not always a reflection of society, but the point definitely has merit. His next quote; “There’s a sense in American cinema: you want to portray an ideal world. You want to portray a utopia. That’s good—dreams for a better world, to advocate for something better, yes. But if you look at my movies, they are exploring today’s shadows. The first Blade Runner is the biggest dystopian statement of the last half century. I did the follow-up to that, so yes, it’s a dystopian vision of today. Which magnifies all the faults. That’s what I’ll say about that.” is an absolutely spot on point, again, it's not all-encompassing, but it's not wrong either, I'm now very curious to see where our Mary Sue goes with this. they go exactly where you'd think they go, usual stuff about misogyny and capitalist patriarchy, forgive me for being dismissive, but I still refuse to believe that our modern, enlightened western world is misogynistic, and that it's stated as a prerequisite for our author's opinion without any examples given, as usual, just makes it very easy to dismiss, women are not oppressed in the west, if they were, how was one able to get so close to occupying the highest position of government in the land. And then they complain about the lack of diversity, and again, I'm going to be dismissive; diversity is always described as something that is crucial, and yet I've never seen a good reason as to why, the closest thing to a good reason that I've seen is the argument of empathy, which would make sense if some of the biggest films right now didn't have non-white actors in leading roles, most notably Star Wars and Marvel. But the same applies here, it's stated as important with no reason as to why, and it's also important to consider that casual cinema goers won't care about this shit anyway, even me, who is versed in this identity politics shit, watched Blade Runner 2049 and never once considered it's lack of diversity, let alone saw it as a problem. I also love how you assert that America is diverse without providing stats, because I found some ACS numbers from 2015 that say that people of colour make up 26% of the population of the US, meaning white people make up the other three quarters. Sure that's definitely diverse, a quarter of the population, but that's all non-white categories combined. Think of it as a pack of skittles, you have one quarter of the pack that's a mix of all the different colours; yellow, orange, green and purple, but the rest of the pack is red, now apply that to a racial breakdown of the US population, diverse or not, white people are still the majority by a considerable margin, and unlike you, I'm not going to say that it's a good or a bad thing, it's just the facts, dude.
I read the rest of the article, as you do, but while I was laughing at the half we've already tackled, my blood started to boil at the second half, and you'll soon see why. Simply the sentences; 'we currently live in a sexist society,' and, 'to represent our world’s oppression of women onscreen', it's pure dogma, presented with nothing to back it up, it's prerequisites of feminism that have never been proven because they can't be proven. Now let's pull apart a statement, 'Including an element is not the same as holding it up for criticism, and what I believe most critics of Blade Runner 2049 were pointing out is how little it pushes back against the misogyny of its setting.' time to translate this; Blade Runner 2049 was being criticised because it didn't fight the patriarchy, again, this is all based on feminist dogma, so she's basically complaining that the film wasn't propaganda. I say that's a good thing, feminist propaganda has a habit of failing miserably with mass audiences, even when they try hide it like with Ghostbusters and The Emoji Movie, the fact that it doesn't dwell on your oppression narrative makes it bad does it, well then sod off, like I said in my Anita Meteorette, Blade Runner has more important things on its mind and your oppression narrative. And as for most critics, you're a fucking liar, I Youtubed video reviews of the film, because there's a few channels on YouTube dedicated solely to that type of content that are huge. In Chris Stuckmann's review of the film, which has 830'000 views on it, he constantly gushes about the cinematography, but never once criticises it's representation of women. In Jeremy Jahns' review, with has 570'000 views, he praised the characters and themes, but criticised the runtime and pace, but never criticised the representation of women. Even IGN, who once called a talking bird in a kids film misogynistic, never criticised representation of women. When you say most critics, what I know you mean is most critics in the feminist journosphere, because of course they'd see a problem, it's all they ever fucking do. But then I conclude that you're just a bigot with your final little paragraph, 'I think his thinking here reveals the way that privilege can stunt your imagination. He clearly had trouble imagining what it might be like to be a woman when the world’s treatment of you does not correspond to your own understanding of yourself. When he pictures a future where the world sees some women as exploitable sex objects meant to serve, he cannot imagine that the women treated that way might not agree.' First of all, let me just get this off my chest; Fuck You, you sexist piece of shit, privilege stunting imagination, fuck off, yeah I'm sure your female privilege stunts your ability to make points that aren't pure feminist dogma, yet again that's all this article is, presented as fact with absolutely no factual basis provided, it's bollocks, all of it. And yet again we see a feminist who doesn't understand Blade Runner, because when she says 'some women' she doesn't seem to realise that those women aren't actually women, they're not even human, that's the fucking point of Blade Runner, it asks what the difference is between human and replicant, and whether or not that difference matters, and it does that while not obsessing over SJW anal vomiting like our Mary Sue author does. And then you have the fucking gall to call this a 'misstep', like Villeneuve's a misbehaving child or something, it's a good thing this is the end of the article because I've had enough of it, fuck this article, fuck its author, and best wishes to Villeneuve, who absolutely does not deserve a single shed of the criticism levelled at him here, now I'm going to go and calm down.
Article link: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2017/11/paddington-2-anti-brexit-film-where-villains-have-narrowest-minds
Our third and final story today comes from the Newstatesman, and hopefully I won't get really annoyed at it, but then again, our author is politicising Paddington, so maybe I will. That's right folks; 'Paddington 2 is an anti-Brexit film where the villains have the narrowest minds.' Right, I get that art is subjective so maybe that title isn't actually absurd and our author makes some good points, don't know yet, so let's get readin'. He first describes his thoughts on the film's presentation, odd given that its presentation certainly isn't political, but who knows, maybe he's just trying to get us on the same page before speaking his piece. Oh, that was true, because his very next statement is that Paddington was plainly pro-immigration, you what mate. I guess technically, when you think about it, in a literal sense, Paddington kind of is an illegal immigrant, but there's a huge problem with your theory. Your theory would have merit if Paddington and Paddington 2 depicted realistic versions of the world, but they don't, they portray idealistic versions of the world, remember what Villeneuve was on about, yes, Paddington and its sequel are utopic worlds, where everyone is happy, and those who aren't either learn to be through Paddington, or are villains, unless you seriously think that people wouldn't react to a talking anthropomorphic bear with shock and disbelief in the real world. And as for plainly, where did you get that from? Paddington, if we're taking this seriously, which we really shouldn't, does illegally enter the country, find a family that takes him in and learns to love him, but it's never framed as some pro-immigration message, the film doesn't even suggest that he's seen as an immigrant, and never calls him such, he gets called an undesirable by Mr. Curry, but again, that's not pro-immigration as 'undesirable' could mean pretty much anything, he could be on about weed smoking kids for all you know. But it does allude to children being sent to Britain to find homes during the war, and like Paddington, they're portrayed sympathetically, but none of it's political, they never talk about the Nazis or the far right, they just say that there was a war, it might not even have been World War 2, but just simply a war that happened, since Paddington's world is so detached from our own, unless you think that Millicent Clyde is about 120 years old but still looks like Nicole Kidman. And our author continues to politicise the film in the worst possible way, by conflating the film's villain, phoenix Buchanan, with Vote Leave, unless that's not really what this means; 'with a welcome anti-Brexit message. The most despicable characters tend to be those with no sense of community or open-mindedness.' I'm sure I've read that right, so if I have, what it looks like he's saying there is that the most despicable characters in the film are narrow-minded and have no sense of community, and that this is an anti-Brexit message. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt depending on what I perceive their motives to be, like I did with Villeneuve when he was placating feminists earlier, but here's the thing, I remember journalists writing pieces in 2016 about Brexit and racism, I remember it being not all that different in fact to the US election, where you couldn't escape people saying that Trump and his Supporters were racists and sexists, and that Trump would end the world if he won, just as Brexit would end the world, and people who voted for it were just narrow-minded racists who didn't like immigrants. Now if he really is conflating Buchanan with Brexit voters, what he's saying is that Brexit voters are narrow-minded and don't have a sense of community, that would be bad enough, but inconsequential, if he didn't then use the word 'despicable,' because here's the thing; Buchanan is a thief, liar, and attempted murderer; he is solely responsible for Paddington's false imprisonment, idolises his grandfather, who was a murderer, and tries to kill Paddington in the film's climax, he's an evil man, now the Brexit conflation makes more sense, because Brexit voters are evil, unless that's not what he thinks, and he hasn't really thought this nonsense through, because he's an idiot.
Mr. Curry is definitely what our Author initially describes him as; a busybody neighbour who's paranoid and prejudicial, but there's two problems here. One, nobody likes Mr. Curry, when the Browns embark to save Paddington, and Curry tries to stop them, the entire street comes out and helps the Browns start their car, in defiance of Curry and out of their love for Paddington, hardly a statement of our societal acceptance of racism is it, if we're still following your logic from earlier. Two, in the first film, Mr. Curry actually stops being a twat for 5 minutes and tells the Browns where Paddington is, thus effectively saving his life, because he would otherwise have been killed and stuffed by Clyde, something he described as barbaric when he figured it out, if Curry really was that evil, he wouldn't have cared that Paddington was going to die, but he did, so if Curry is a metaphor for anti immigrant sentiment, as you indirectly assert he is, all he proves is that people can change, if only briefly, and that even narrow-minded racists are capable of doing the right thing, again, you haven't thought this through. Our author then proves one of my previous points, by calling the prison scenario depicted in the film a 'candy-coloured version of a gritty situation' and citing that poverty is seemingly none existent in Paddington's London. Yes you moron, also, bears can't talk, and they don't eat Marmalade, Paddington and Paddington 2 are not realistic depictions of the world, like I said earlier, they're idealistic, utopic, approximations of our shithole world where most of the bad stuff has been scrubbed away, and where cartoonish gaps in reason like a talking bin are acceptable, and it's almost like you get this, but you clearly don't, because in a world where some of the basic rules of logic, physics, biology and law do not apply, you are trying to apply real world politics, talking bears, talking bins, infinite marmalade, 10 years for theft and grievous barberly harm, you fucking idiot. Your point about Garden Bridge also doesn't seem very relevant, I understand what you're trying to say, but again, there a problem, Paddington is a family film, it's primary audience is going to be kids, and I've never heard a kid complain about people wasting public money, honestly, like your assertion that it's pro-immigration, there is not enough basis to substantiate the point, and the whole Joanna Lumley point will probably go over the vast majority of the audiences' heads, because unlike you, they're not looking for politics in a family film. Just something to add on at this point that I somehow missed, the little bit; 'The film celebrates London's inclusiveness – but candy-coats its inequality.' How I missed that I do not know, but it's certainly worth mentioning that the film is a celebration of nothing, like I've repeatedly said, it's not a film about politics or a city or a culture of anything like that, it's a film about a bear called Paddington, and as for inequalities, I'll assume he's on about wealth inequalities given his comment about the film not depicting London's poverty, and I'll let that one be, because again, Paddington's world is not the real world, but rather an idealistic approximation of the real world.
As I wrapped up reading this article, I originally thought that this conclusion was the author just being emotional about a Marks & Spencer's add with Paddington, but while I read, I realised something, and what I realised was that our author is completely full of shit. The quote; 'It hit me that the wholesome, lovable Paddington had been hijacked for the sole purpose of getting the tills ringing at M&S this Christmas,' now, I'd be willing to let this slide if our shithead of an author didn't just spend an entire article trying to hijack the wholesome, lovable Paddington to push his fucking politics. Oh so it's fine to assert that a family film is some powerful political message when it's completely apolitical, and when you're saying it's political based solely on your politicisation of it, but a retailer doing a Christmas cross-promotion is somehow the film being hijacked, get your head out of your arse you twit. How is this entire article not you trying to hijack Paddington 2 with the sole purpose of pushing your anti Brexit agenda, how, explain. You claim the first film was pro immigration when it wasn't, you conflate this film's villain with Brexit supporters, you conflate Paddington's shitty neighbour with Brexit supporters, you criticise the film for sugar coating real problems when the film isn't even trying to be a perfect reflection of reality, and you bring up real world economics when it's not relevant, and then you complain that M&S wants a bit of that Marmalade too, you're not as bad as our Mary Sue author from earlier, definitely not as malicious, but you're every bit as stupid. So maybe, rather than complaining that Paddington's getting used to sell Salmon and handbags, you should reconsider using Paddington to sell your bullshit political philosophies that I'm sure matter so much to you. But it seemingly doesn't matter much to the film makers, because repeating myself from earlier, Paddington's London is detached from real London, and that's not a bad thing. And if you love politicising shit, then go ahead, but when you politicise Paddington, you're getting no kindness from me, because you can't leave well enough alone.
Well, what have we learned today; we've learned that feminists have fragile egos, that feminists are entitled, retarded bigots, and that I'll get really defensive about Paddington, so basically all things that we already knew, at least I had a laugh reading these articles, so it wasn't a total waste of time, and hopefully you've enjoyed my sperging about this toxic drivel, if so, it wasn't a waste for you either. Of course though, these are my thoughts on these things, you may have others, you may see things I haven't, or you may just completely disagree and think I'm a fool, because opinions are like arse holes, everyone has one, so as usual, feel free to disagree, and stay warm, because even with the beautiful glow of the meteor, it's fucking freezing out there.
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