Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 780
May 13, 2016
Team Taylor or Team Kanye?: “These rivalries become metaphors that people use to work out their beliefs”
Taylor Swift, Kanye West (Credit: Reuters/Danny Moloshok/AP/Zacharie Scheurer)
At least since the Beatles vs. the Stones, rock music history has been told through band rivalries. Rivalries thrived in BritPop (Blur vs. Oasis), indie rock (Smashing Pumpkins vs. Pavement), pop (Prince vs. Michael Jackson), turned violent in hip hop’s East Coast vs. West Coast split, and became something hard to interpret in the case of Taylor Swift and Kanye West.
How real are these rivalries? What do they mean to the musicians themselves? And how do these oppositions help fans make sense of their lives and their values?
Journalist Steven Hyden digs into these questions with the new book “Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me.” Each chapter looks at a specific music rivalry with an enormous amount of humor, but tries to make some kind of sense of things by the time the section concludes. It ends up being a funny book that is also full of ideas – especially about how people relate to culture and how meaning changes as we age.
We spoke to Hyden from his home in Minneapolis. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
These rivalries, it turns out, don’t tell us all that much about the bands in question, and in some cases were not all that important to them. Is that fair to say?
Yeah – in the rivalries I write about in this book, the conflict comes from what the audience projects onto the artist. You can trace that back to the Beatles and the Stones – the biggest, most archetypal rivalry in pop history. The reality is that there was not much animus – they were friends for the most part. But in the minds of millions of people, they represent opposites, so it has a larger significance. In a way, choosing one side is supposed to say something about who you were as a person.
And in that case, the Beatles were supposed to be a lovable pop band, and the Stones were these dangerous, rough dudes, right?
Right. I didn’t realize this at the time, but I realize now that a lot of the rivalries have the same dynamic: You have a very successful mainstream artist, and then you have someone reacting to that artist. Either because they’re conscious of it, or because the audience demands a reaction. The Stones are counter-programming for the Beatles. But you could say the same thing about Taylor Swift and Kanye West, or Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It’s a pretty common dynamic – something becomes so big that it becomes ubiquitous, and some people find it oppressive.
You write this book in a very analytic way. But was there a time where you were emotionally committed to some of these fights?
Yes – the Oasis vs. Blur rivalry. That was a very emotional thing for me when I was 16 years old. That’s when this took hold – the idea that you could love one band and hate the other. And the reason you loved the band you did was because it was everything you wanted to be. And the other band was everything you didn’t want to be. As a kid, that’s a very primal thing – you’re trying to figure out who you are. And you do that by defining yourself as what you’re not – using pop culture to draw lines in the sand.
That was so ingrained into me that even to this day I have a hard time listening to Blur. It’s silly to think you can’t listen to both bands, but it was so visceral to me.
Let’s talk about one of these. How serious was the Prince vs. Michael Jackson rivalry, and how did it work itself out?
That’s another example of a huge mainstream pop star against an upstart of sorts. It’s a little strange to think of Prince being an upstart, but Michael Jackson, entering the ’80s, had been a pop star for most of his life and was well established in the mainstream. Prince was a guy from the Midwest, hailing from a town that wasn’t nationally known for its music scene, and was actually a self-made man – playing all the instruments and doing everything himself. That sort of sets the table for that.
They were on the same playing field when Prince put out “Purple Rain,” but he always seemed to be the guy from the fringes. Michael Jackson was very commercially driven – he puts out “Thriller,” the biggest album of all time, and then with “Bad,” his goal was to sell 100 million records. Prince put out “Purple Rain,” and it’s a huge hit. He went on to put other hits after that, but it’s a much more idiosyncratic path: He seems to be following his muse more.
Now that Prince has died, people forget that there were times in the ’80s where he did things that stigmatized him.
And not just among “squares,” you mean.
Exactly. An example I write about in the book is “We Are the World” – an enormous charity project. Michael Jackson helped spearhead that, and Prince was one of the only big pop superstars who didn’t appear. He was criticized so much that “SNL” produced a parody called “I Am the World,” where Billy Crystal donned blackface to impersonate Prince. It gives you a sense of how much times have changed – Billy Crystal in blackface was less offensive than Prince not doing “We Are the World.”
They’re all complex and interesting in various ways. But Kanye West and Taylor Swift is one of the strangest, partly because they don’t sound the same at all; they’re not even in the same genre. What happened, and what did it symbolize?
When I wrote that chapter, it appeared as if that rivalry was petering out. It started in 2009, as Kanye bum-rushed the stage as Taylor was accepting an award at the VMAs, and Kayne was excoriated for that. It was very one-sided when it happened, it was very negative on Kanye. For Taylor Swift, while she was a huge star in country music, she was just starting to cross over into pop. So while I don’t think Kanye made her a celebrity, that incident did help her; it just presented her as a very sympathetic character.
The years go on, they reconcile, there’s even talk of a collaboration. And then Kanye puts out “The Life of Pablo,” with that song where he says he could still have sex with Taylor Swift, and where he says he made her famous. It just reignites that whole thing.
They’re both huge stars, and now Taylor Swift is the epitome of mainstream pop. And Kanye West has fashioned himself as someone who’s famous, but who’s not going to play by the pop-music rules; he’s more like David Bowie. With Kanye it’s always hard to know out how much of it is premeditated; he seems like a very impulsive guy, but I have to feel at some level that he recognizes the power of Taylor Swift as a symbol, and if he talked about her in a song, it would instantly trigger a firestorm and help him.
And it’s ultimately better for both of them if they don’t get along than if they are reconciled. It’s more interesting when they are feuding – it helps Taylor Swift’s brand as a strong, independent woman doing battle with the music industry. And attacking Taylor Swift bolsters Kanye West’s bona fides – there’s something dangerous about what he does. Which he does need, frankly, since he’s pushing 40.
It’s hard to tell in a lot of these rivalries how much is sincere and how much of it is designed to generate press and media attention.
Yes – but it ultimately doesn’t matter. Like with the Beatles and the Stones: Even if they actually were friends, the fact is, in people’s minds, this exists. Which means that it matters. These rivalries become metaphors that people use to work out their beliefs. They might be aesthetic preferences, political affiliations, philosophical ways of looking at the world.
People project certain qualities on artists, and they endorse them because they want to associate themselves with a certain value system. I feel like it’s been accelerated in the social-media age. When you’re on Facebook or Twitter, talking about Taylor Swift or Kanye or Beyoncé is shorthand for the kind of person you want other people to see you as. Or if Coldplay is on the Super Bowl and you criticize them, there’s a performative aspect – you want people to know that you are against a certain kind of pop-culture construct: Whatever Coldplay are about, you’re against it, and you want other people to know that.
Our fandom has gotten more public now.
Right – and there’s a performance aspect to it. I don’t mean that it’s phony. But I mean that there’s an aspect where you’re not just talking about the record. You’re talking about yourself: You’re saying, I’m the kind of person who’s into this thing. Or I’m not the kind of person who’s into this other thing.
That’s something that starts when you’re young. And I think people assume you grow out of it. But it continues well into adulthood.
5 reasons you should think twice before jumping into your local river
Is that stream that runs through your backyard safe? What about the river that flows through your local park? Is it polluted? Americans should know that the waterways they swim, play or fish in don’t present a health hazard. But a shocking new report on the nation’s streams and rivers paints a bleak picture: The vast majority are not effectively studied for water quality.
The analysis was prepared by the Izaak Walton League of America, a nonprofit conservation group based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which conducted an extensive investigation into all 50 states’ stream monitoring practices and water pollution problems. They found some startling facts about the state of America’s waterways.
Though states are required to test the water quality of their streams and rivers under the Clean Water Act of 1972, IWLA says that “funds are limited and most waterways are not tested regularly or accurately.” In fact, only 2 percent are effectively tested for water quality. Adding to the concern is the fact that half have failed to meet state water quality standards, which means they are too dirty for swimming or fishing. The harsh reality is that for too long, Americans have been in the dark about the health of their local waters, many of which may harbor undetected pollution.
“There is an alarming lack of timely information about water quality in this country,” said IWLA executive board chair Jodi Arndt Labs. “Every morning, you can read about that day’s air quality in the local paper or on your smartphone. Yet information about the health of local streams is five to 10 years old. That’s a problem.”
The report states:
The information we do have reveals serious water pollution problems across the United States. And what we know about this problem is based on states testing just a fraction of the streams and rivers nationwide. The vast majority of streams are not regularly tested—or even tested at all. …
When problems are discovered, states are also required to address them with clean-up and restoration efforts. How to monitor waterways and determine what’s “polluted” is left up to each state. States vary widely in virtually every aspect of water quality monitoring and assessment, including setting standards used to assess water quality; where, when, and which waters are tested; the types of tests performed; and how states provide information to the public.
Here are five frightening facts that might make you think twice before jumping into one of America’s rivers or streams.
1. Lack of effective water quality monitoring.
According to IWLA, the EPA reports that nationwide, 31 percent of streams and rivers are monitored for water quality. However, IWLA’s own calculations reveal a very different reality: Just 2 percent of rivers and streams are effectively tested. In terms of the overall effectiveness of a state’s stream monitoring efforts, more than half of all states (26) received D or F grades. Adding to the concern is that “many states seriously mislead the public about the percentage of waters they actually test.”
2. Dirty water.
State reports given to the EPA reveal that 55 percent of the streams and rivers states tested were deemed unsafe for swimming, fishing and drinking. According to the report:
Water that runs off our yards, roads, and farm fields carries a laundry list of pollutants into streams and rivers across the country: bacteria and pathogens; nutrient-rich fertilizers and pesticides; oil, antifreeze, and other chemicals; and heavy metals and acid drainage. This runoff is flowing untreated into the streams and rivers that are the lifeblood of an interconnected system of waterways nationwide. Neither the Clean Water Act nor most state laws effectively address this problem—or address it all.
3. Weak water quality standards.
It’s bad enough that so many of the nation’s rivers and streams are dirty and barely tested for water quality. The report found that many states have weak water quality standards, too. That means waterways that have been rated clean and healthy may not actually be that clean and healthy. Also, the report points out that states “don’t monitor water quality often enough to make any accurate safety claims about streams and rivers.”
4. Lack of local information.
To be effective, water quality monitoring should occur regularly at various sites along the length of a stream, according to recommendations established by the EPA. The problem is that many states do their testing only at the mouths of major rivers and streams, adding only a few other randomly located test sites across the state. This lack of truly local information, IWLA says, “makes it almost impossible to pinpoint sources of pollution problems.”
5. Out-of-date information.
It’s not just that there’s a lack of information about water quality: Often the information that’s publicly available can be up to a decade old, further keeping Americans in the dark about the current health of their local waterways. “This isn’t a problem just at the state level but nationally as well,” says IWLA. The group points out that the EPA’s 2008-2009 National Rivers and Streams Assessment, which was released in March, “is not only out of date but is based on a very limited number of water quality tests conducted randomly across the country.”
IWLA says citizens can help fill the gaps in monitoring, and can do so at a low cost because they’re volunteers. “In communities nationwide, individuals and groups are collecting high-quality, reliable water quality data,” the report notes. And while there are a few states that are effective in working with citizen volunteers, IWLA contends that a majority of states “get Ds and Fs for volunteer engagement because they do not work proactively with volunteers or effectively utilize the data volunteers collect.”
“The solution to ensuring the public has accurate, timely, and local information about stream health isn’t a mystery,” said Scott Kovarovics, IWLA executive director. “Across the country today, League chapters and networks of citizen monitors are already doing great work. Volunteers could regularly monitor water quality in thousands more streams and provide timely results to their neighbors and state governments.”
How does your state rank?
How “High-Rise’s” orgy scenes got made on a budget: “‘Game of Thrones’ has pumped the per-person cost of nudity through the roof”
“High-Rise” is director Ben Wheatley’s dizzying, savage adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s dazzling, savage novel. Amy Jump, who is Wheatley’s wife, penned the screenplay. The story concerns a physiologist, Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston), who moves into a modern apartment complex—complete with swimming pools, supermarkets and other amenities—and watches society break down completely. The high-rise is, of course, a metaphor for class inequality, with Richard Wilder (Luke Evans), a documentary filmmaker and shit-stirrer living on one of the low floors, challenging the status quo of Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), the building’s designer, who lives in the penthouse. Laing, who lives on a middle floor, watches the devolution and subsequent revolution with a cool detachment–that is, until his hand is forced and he must act to survive. (Read Andrew O’Hehir’s Salon review.)
Wheatley delivers the goods in “High-Rise” with real panache, vividly depicting the violence, orgies and other bad behavior. Hiddleston, currently starring in the impressive TV miniseries “The Night Manager,” and Wheatley had tea with Salon in a New York hotel room to discuss their film, shooting orgies, and how they would fare with the end of the world.
Tom, on screen, you’ve lived in a converted barn in Tuscany in “Unrelated,” a stately mansion in “Crimson Peak,” and now in a modern apartment complex in “High-Rise.” If a man’s home is his castle, where are you most comfortable?
Hiddleston: I like my house in London, to be honest. I don’t want to reveal too much, but it’s an old artist’s studio from the mid-19th century. There have been extensions, but it is, essentially, a bungalow. My feet are on the ground. I’ve got a little outside space, and it suits me just fine.
What about you, Ben?
Wheatley: I live in a house.
Hiddleston: A lovely house.
Wheatley: We had a little house, and now we have a bigger house. If I swing a cat around, it doesn’t hit the walls or the floor or the windows.
Tom, you’ve appeared in several class-based stories, from Joanna Hogg’s films “Unrelated” and “Archipelago” to “High-Rise.” What appeals to you about these kinds of characters?
Hiddleston: I hope I haven’t been typecast. The Hogg films are depictions of human life that she recognizes…
Wheatley: The Joanna Hogg roles are very different from each other and the Laing role.
Hiddleston: The one thing that I think unites these three characters is…
Wheatley [interrupting]: Height! [Hiddleston and Wheatley burst out laughing].
Hiddleston: They all look like me…
Wheatley: It’s uncanny! [Laughter continues]
Hiddleston [getting serious again]: They seem like one thing on the surface, and there is something else going on beneath it.
Wheatley: That’s definitely what attracted Amy and me to work with Tom. He has a sense of control and then he has a sense of something else bubbling below the surface, trying to capture those emotions. He’s like that as Loki.
Hiddleston: That’s probably who I am. I don’t know anyone who isn’t like that. That’s my, perhaps—and it’s not a clean reading—my experience. We are all so complex and contradictory. We try to put our best foot forward and, quite often, behind closed doors is something much more chaotic and turbulent and vulnerable. There’s that phrase that everyone you meet is fighting a battle you don’t know about.
Wheatley: That’s a good one. Where’s that from?
Hiddleston: I can’t remember. I don’t know. From somewhere. But it’s true! I’m not sure whether it’s about the size of our society now. My sister [studied] social anthropology at college and she did a paper about this. We still haven’t evolved beyond really being able to associate with more than about 100 people. As evolutionary beings, we’re still made to know about 100 people. As the numbers get bigger, the more dissociated and detached we become from everybody else. In order to make sense of the world, psychologically, it’s easier to objectify people and say, “You are that.” People are defined by their job, or their physical appearance, or their zip code. And it is easier on the brain—and I suppose what I’m saying is that if you acknowledge each of those individual faces in a crowd is unique, then each character is going to have its unique complexity and turbulence, and that’s what I find interesting about being an actor. [Hiddleston flips his hand in the air in a triumphant gesture. Wheatley appreciates it with a raucous cheer.]
Ben, how do you approach a tricky text like the Ballard novel and capture the spirit of it on screen?
Wheatley: Well, I’ll tell you how it’s done. You get a really, really brilliant person to write the script. Amy Jump did it. To be clear, I had no hand in the writing of the script. The cliché of how a director interacts with a screenwriter, stalking around the room in a smoking jacket, ripping pages from the novel, and indicating “Put this in!”–it’s not like that. Our relationship is completely separate. She took the book away and came back with a fully formed script. That was it. That was the script that we made.
What can you say about your vision for the film? How did you imagine it from the book?
Wheatley: My job was adapting the screenplay. The script is a very clever adaptation of the book, but there are other things going on in it. It’s talking about Amy’s and my 1970s childhood, and our relationship with that generation. It comes [together] in baby steps. There are elements that are practical, like the whole idea that the characters are talking from balcony to balcony. That dictates the shape of the building. It took me a while to work it out. I stayed in an apartment with balconies. When there was a description in the book that the tower is like a hand and the palm is the lake, I thought: that’s what it is. When you see the bend on the fingers, that’s where we are going to put these tiered balconies. I had a lot of conversations with Mark Tildesley, the production designer, who came up with a way to unify the whole space. We were worried that the swimming pool and the supermarket and other disparate places would feel like they were in different locations from the tower, and that would throw the audience. Mark came up with the idea of this motif to bring everything together with a triangular pillar, and built that into every set. I liked that it impinged on the humans. It’s not a nice shape. You get the feeling of weight—the whole building is weighed down on everybody. That helps.
Let’s talk about the end of the world…
Hiddleston: A great subject!
Laing is organized, proficient, disciplined. Yet at the start of “High-Rise” he is seen being barbaric. He adapts, as necessary, to the bizarre. What are your survival skills, and how would you fare with the breakdown of society? Are you more likely to be assertive (as Wilder is) or be invisible (as Laing tries to be)?
Wheatley: It’s happening, isn’t it? We’re already in it. I always love that in my relationship with Amy, she’s the one who’s ready to be called straight to arms. Whereas I get stunned easily in stressful situations, so I would be quite useless.
Yes, my spouse says if a dirty bomb were to go off, he’d go outside and inhale deeply. I, however, would try to stay alive, even if it kills me!
Wheatley: I’ve had a similar thing. I always think in the moment, I’d become the man. And come the moment, the man doesn’t turn up. My inner coward would manifest itself.
Tom, how do you think you would you react?
Hiddleston: I think I’ve spent my whole acting career answering that question. The truth is, I don’t know. How could I know?
Wheatley: You’re very good at running, though… you could probably remove yourself from any situation and be five miles away before it kicked off.
Hiddleston: Thanks, I’ll take that.
Suddenly, Ben notices something unusual going on outside. The interview stops for a moment. We all look out the window where jet planes are skywriting. [“FACT CHECK ARMENIA,” the text reads when completed]
Hiddleston [astonished]: I’ve never seen anything like that in my life! Does that routinely happen in New York?
Wheatley: My brain’s on fire…What is that?!… It’s like a bubble jet printer for the sky!
Hiddleston [incredulous]: Gary, Is this the end of the world? [Laughter, and then the interview resumes again in earnest]
Hiddleston: Drama is what happens to human beings in extreme situations. That is why we’re fascinated by it. That’s why everybody flocks to films about the apocalypse, that’s why people love zombie movies. That’s why people are moved by superhero movies. That’s why everyone sees “The Revenant.” They are asking: What would I do in that situation? And the truth is that none of us know. We would like to believe that we would make noble, courageous decisions, but you don’t know until it happens, I suppose, the choices you would make. Would I be someone who is crippled by fear? Would I be too brave, too soon, and therefore disadvantage myself? I remember watching “Alive” and being so interested by this true story where certain people emerged from the group and were tougher than others.
Wheatley: I think the story of being brave is a fabrication. On a moment-by-moment basis, you get tested again and again. When you read about the Second World War, these guys are confronting stuff again and again and again, it’s not just surviving one thing. But within that behavior, you can have days where you’re terribly afraid, and days when you’re not. I think that is probably closer to it. You don’t always behave extremely well, but sometimes you do.
Hiddleston: One of the first parts I ever played was in a play called “Journey’s End,” about a company of officers in a trench in 1918, and they all deal with the horror of the First World War in a completely different way. A schoolmaster retells the story of “Alice in Wonderland,” because it makes him feel comfortable. Somebody else complains about the food; the next tries to skive off sick with neuralgia; and the soldier I play, who is intensely brave in battle but is deeply, deeply damaged, and gets himself to sleep with a bottle of whisky every night. And I remember I was 18 years old when I played this part, and I had no frame of reference to draw on. I was the right age, and had I been there 100 years ago, I wonder which guy I would be?
Laing seems somewhat afraid of having an emotional connection. Can you discuss that aspect of his character?
Hiddleston: That’s the interesting challenge to me, presented by the book. Ballard deliberately chose Laing’s profession as a physiologist. He’s someone who is obliged to be detached to deconstruct the biomechanics of human engineering, which keeps him at arm’s length from behavior dysfunction. He’s able to diagnose human behavior according to chemicals and hormones, and organ dysfunction, but the fact is, he’s a man faced with a crisis, and at what point does he commit one way or another? How does he feel about it? I think that detachment is what makes it interesting. I think he comes face to face with some truth about himself that he never acknowledged, and had never been aware of, in the devolution of the high-rise. Laing has moved into the high-rise to get away from the entanglements of real life. He wants the anonymity of a clean, grey, clinical space.
Laing attends various parties in the high-rise: costume parties, children’s parties, social get-togethers and even orgies. How did you film the orgies, Ben?
Wheatley: It’s really tough filming orgies, I’ve found. Amy was laughing, because in the script, that party wasn’t going to be as raucous as it was. I brought that upon myself. I sent the production team out to go get me a load of naked people, and it’s very hard to get them in Northern Ireland because “Game of Thrones” has pumped the per-person cost of nudity through the roof. So now, no one will be naked in Northern Ireland for under £1,000. It’s very expensive. So we had to figure out how to do it. When I did “Kill List” in England, it’s only £30 more to be naked for an extra. But in Ireland, it was £1,000 straight up. So I had this clever idea to contact local swingers groups, because I knew they would be just the kind of people…
Hiddleston: I wasn’t present that day.
Wheatley: So these guys and gals turned up and they loved it. They loved being naked. And you’d see them out of the corner of your eye, and the trickiest one was this guy who had the most enormous penis I’ve ever seen. It was down to his knee. I think, as a man, it’s a fight-or-flight thing from the Serengeti when you see a penis that big. You can always see it. Even when you have to think about something and are focusing on some middle distance, you realize, “I’m staring right at this guy’s cock!” [Tom starts clapping in hilarity] It was just huge. And he was so proud of it. It’s the best thing that happened to him. I met him earlier in the day, and he was a very confident man, but little did I know why. But I did find out. So that’s how you film orgies.
Stop asking how old she is: Let’s not make it easier to penalize actresses for aging
Margot Robbie (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
Margot Robbie transcends age, at least according to Vogue. The Australian actress graces the cover of the publication’s June issue, where the fashion magazine writes that the “girl of the moment”—soon to appear in “Suicide Squad” and “The Legend of Tarzan”—is a sprightly 25 years old. Her IMDb page , listing her birth date as July 2, 1990. But as Jezebel’s Bobby Finger points out, that fact raises more than a few eyebrows. Eight years ago, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the buxom import was 23. How could she have only aged two years since 2008?
It doesn’t take Nancy Drew Twitter Detective to figure out that Margot Robbie hasn’t magically harnessed the powers of Benjamin Button in the past decade. Lying about your age — not that we can say that Robbie has done so — is not a new concept in Hollywood. Finger calls it a “symptom of our youth-obsessed culture.” He continues, “And we’re all familiar with how hard it is for women in Hollywood to get acting work as they age out of their twenties.” (A separate report from Australia’s Daily Telegraph, on the other hand, backs up Robbie’s assertion that she is, in fact, 25. Who the hell even knows?)
If she is fibbing, Robbie is hardly the first actress rumored to fudge her birthdate to ensure that she keeps getting cast in projects. The most famous case is fellow Aussie Rebel Wilson. Last year, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the “Pitch Perfect” actress was actually 35, despite the fact that Wilson claimed to be 29. The comedienne hilariously dismissed the media speculation on Twitter, writing that she’s “actually a 100 year old mermaid.” Similar rumors have followed Oscar-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones for years.
If the pop singer Anastacia once claimed that every female celebrity lies about their age, these women are certainly in good company: Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Lopez, and model Agyness Deyn (who is currently starring in Terrence Davies’ “Sunset Song”) have all been accused of doing the same. Oscar-nominee Jessica Chastain simply refused to answer the question. When the Associated Press profiled the actress back in 2011—following her breakout role in “The Tree of Life”—the reporter was forced to write around that fact, saying that Chastain was “about 30 but will not disclose her exact age.” The Internet, being the Internet, launched an investigation.
But Jessica Chastain may have been onto something. In an industry that’s hellbent on punishing any woman who dares to get older in the public eye, what’s the point of disclosing your age at all? Why answer the question? Sure, it can be empowering to embrace being thirtysomething, fortysomething, or whatever-something you happen to be, but empowerment doesn’t stop the fact that Hollywood stops giving women of a certain age career opportunities. After all, Olivia Wilde, who is just 32, was famously told she was “too old” for Margot Robbie’s star-making role in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” It’s fitting that if Finger’s claims are true, the two actresses are basically the same age.
In recent years, women have protested the frivolous questions actresses are forced to field on the red carpet, usually about whatever designer dress they happen to be repping. The #AskHerMore campaign responded by calling out that sexist treatment. If a woman is nominated for an Oscar, for instance, why not ask her about the challenging role for which she’s being recognized? If women shouldn’t be reduced to their fashion choices, we shouldn’t be focusing so much attention on yet another question that—at the end of the day—matters a whole lot less than women being given great opportunities, no matter what their birth certificate says. Margot Robbie might be lying about her age, but what if she didn’t have to talk about it at all?
They say that age is just a number, but in Hollywood, it will continue to hold women back as long as we let that question hang over their heads like a guillotine.
Bill Clinton continues to defend 1994 crime bill that fueled racist mass incarceration
Bill Clinton signs the $30 billion crime bill, Sept. 13, 1994. (Credit: AP/Dennis Cook)
Former President Bill Clinton has repeatedly defended the crime bill he signed into law in 1994, which scholars say fueled the rise of racist mass incarceration.
At a May 13 event in Paterson, New Jersey in support of his wife, the Democratic Party’s presidential front-runner, an audience member asked Clinton, “Why did you put more people in prison?”
Clinton insisted the questioner was ignorant of the legislation, pointing out that it included a provision that exempted first-time drug offenders from certain sentencing laws.
“Did you know that? I bet you didn’t,” Clinton condescendingly told the audience member, who was escorted out of the rally, Politico reported.
The former president defended the $30 billion crime bill, boasting that it put an addition 100,000 police officers on the streets and increased gun restrictions.
Activists from the Black Lives Matter movement and other anti-racist groups have repeatedly blasted the Clintons for their role in pushing these “tough-on-crime” policies, which experts say boosted the prison population, devastating millions of people’s lives and disproportionately impacting black and Latina/o Americans and the poor.
Clinton has persistently credited the legislation with creating a 25-year low in crime, 33-year low in murder and 46-year low in illegal gun deaths. While he has often repeated these talking points, nevertheless, scholars say he is wrong.
When he made similar comments in April, FactCheck.org reported that “Bill Clinton overstated the effect of the crime bill he signed in 1994.”
“Independent analyses have found that the bill had a modest effect on crime rates,” the organization noted.
At the May 13 campaign event for Hillary, Bill Clinton did admit, “We overdid the sentencing in the ‘90s. We need to reverse it,” Politico reported.
“We could not pass that bill without the higher sentencing. More than a year ago, I went to the NAACP and I said that the sentencing laws were way overdone and we needed to lower them,” he added.
Yet Clinton insisted fueling mass incarceration was a mistake, not an intended consequence of the crime bill he signed.
He then changed direction and asserted “you gotta elect a president who can get something done with Republicans.”
Hillary Clinton’s own comments suggest that Bill was misleading in his remarks. She publicly spoke enthusiastically in favor of the legislation at the time, as BuzzFeed has documented, emphasizing that the bill would crack down on crime and increase funding for prisons.
“We will be able to say, loudly and clearly, that for repeat, violent, criminal offenders — three strikes and you’re out. We are tired of putting you back in through the revolving door,” the then-first lady declared in 1994.
Clinton said the crime bill “would have put more police on the street, would have locked up violent offenders so they could never get out again, … would have given more prison construction money available to the states as well as the federal government.”
She stressed that “there are many dollars in the crime bill to build more prisons,” calling the legislation “both smart and tough.”
Later, in 1996, Clinton would use racially coded language to defend the “tough-on-crime” policies she backed. She warned, “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,” instead maintaining, “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”
Black Lives Matter activists have frequently reminded Clinton of her racist comments.
In response to the pressure, Hillary has apologized for her role in pushing for the bill. On the campaign trail, she has admitted that she helped fuel mass incarceration. Bill, however, has been more adamant in defending his actions.
Renowned legal scholar Michelle Alexander has accused the Clintons of “decimat[ing] black America.”
“Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history,” she has stressed, and his policies escalated the War on Drugs “beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible.”
Alexander noted that Clinton “supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement.”
She also pointed out that, when President Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world.
Prof. Alexander is one of the world’s leading experts on mass incarceration. Her award-winning book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” details how, “by targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness.”
The 2010 book argues that there has been a “rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status — denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.”
FactCheck.org has criticized both the Clintons and their critics of misrepresenting the effects of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. But it has also acknowledged that the legislation did indeed make mass incarceration worse.
The organization noted that, while mass incarceration began in the 1970s, before the Clinton-backed crime bill, the 1994 legislation “did create incentives for states to build prisons and increase sentences, and thereby contributed to increased incarceration.”
“Take it off! This is America!”: North Carolina man pleads guilty to federal crime after yanking Muslim woman’s headscarf off during flight
People walk the terminal at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016. Flights remained delayed or canceled in the aftermath of a massive weekend blizzard that slammed into the eastern U.S., wreaking havoc on travel in the nations busiest cities, with airports in the New York City and Washington D.C. metro areas were the hardest hit. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (Credit: AP)
A North Carolina man pleaded guilty Friday to forcibly removing a Muslim woman’s head scarf during a flight between Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, late last year.
37-year-old Gill Payne of Gastonia pleaded guilty in the District of New Mexico to one count of using force or threat of force to intentionally obstruct a Muslim woman in the free exercise of her religious beliefs, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. According to court documents, the incident occurred on Dec. 11, 2015, when Payne and the woman, who was only identified as K.A., were on board a Southwest Airlines flight where Payne demanded that the woman remove her religious headscarf, known as a hijab, before forcibly removing it from her head:
Payne was seated several rows behind K.A. on the airplane, and did not know her. Payne admitted that he saw that K.A. was wearing a hijab and was aware that it is a religious practice of Muslim women to wear a headscarf.
Payne further admitted that shortly before landing, but while still in-flight, he walked up the aisle to where K.A. was sitting and stopped next to her seat. Payne proceeded to tell K.A. to take off her hijab, stating something to the effect of, “Take it off! This is America!” Payne then grabbed the back of the hijab and pulled it all the way off, leaving K.A.’s entire head exposed.
“This prosecution sends a clear message to anyone who contemplates the use of threats or intimidation to interfere with the right of individuals, including members of our Muslim community, to express their faith without fear,” U.S. Attorney of the District of New Mexico Damon Martinez said in a statement.
“No matter one’s faith, all Americans are entitled to peacefully exercise their religious beliefs free from discrimination and violence,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division which made a historic move to protect transgender people with its lawsuit against North Carolina’s discriminatory bathroom ban this week, said on Friday.
Payne’s sentencing hearing has not yet been set. He faces a maximum penalty of up to 10 years as well as a fine of up to $250,000.
Elizabeth Warren is actually the most punk rock anti-Wall Street crusader the left has got left
Elizabeth Warren told the Boston Globe she “laughed out loud” when she first read Donald Trump’s new nickname for her: “Goofy Elizabeth Warren.” (Is it really a nickname when it’s just an adjective added to someone’s legal name?) Presumably after she stopped laughing, Warren “left (my three grandchildren) and went to the other room and wrote the tweets.”
The Twitter beef was . And when Trump brought on a secondary attack, it still hadn’t gotten old.
But to be fair to history, Warren kind of started it -which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Often when opponents try to trump the Trump at his own game, they end up back in Florida with their tails between their legs. Warren, though, has clearly ruffled the peacock’s feathers.
Writes the Globe:
“Warren’s ability to effectively confront Trump — rare among politicians — is also fresh evidence of the edge she brings as a surrogate for the Democratic Party and the strength she could offer the national ticket,particularly given how Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign struggles to come across as authentic and is failing to connect with younger voters.”
If a Sanders-Warren ticket was a leftist wet dream when the math was on Bernie’s side, then a rumored Clinton-Warren ticket should at least be a palatable consolation prize. Warren is far more likely than Hillary Clinton to crusade against free market corruption and the surreptitious right-wingers who endorse it.
Last month, Warren touted a new Labor Department regulation restricting financial advisers from suggesting self-rewarding investments to their clients.
She e-shellacked Ted Cruz before he scurried back to Texas with his tail between his legs, Facebooking, “We’re supposed to pity him because trying to be the leader of the free world is hard?! I’ve got two words for you, Ted: Boo hoo.”
And who could forget her beautiful face-to-face freakout on former-Deputy Director of the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board, Leonard Chanin? The same guy who, she said, “helped lead the Federal Reserve division that refused to regulate deceptive mortgages — including the subprime lending that helped spark the crisis”?
“Did you have your eyes stitched close?” she pressed.
Read the Boston Globe story here.
Watch Warren’s 7 most magical takedowns below:
CWA union says it faced “SWAT team armed with automatic weapons” after uncovering “massive Verizon offshoring operation in Philippines”
A Communications Workers of America (CWA) strike against Verizon in Brooklyn, New York on April 13, 2016 (Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder)
The union that is on strike against corporate telecommunications giant Verizon alleges that its representatives were confronted by a heavily armed “SWAT team” in the Philippines, where it says it discovered undeclared offshore operations. Verizon strongly denies the accusations.
Chris Shelton, president of Communications Workers of America, or CWA, says his union was contacted by call center workers in the Philippines who work for Verizon. CWA says it sent four representatives to the Philippines this week, where they “discovered that the extent to which Verizon is offshoring work is far beyond what has previously been reported and what the company publicly has acknowledged.”
CWA alleges that Verizon is offshoring U.S. customer service calls to centers in the Philippines, where workers are paid as little as $1.78 an hour. The union says that Filipino workers told it they are being forced to work overtime an extra one to two hours each day, along with another full eight-hour sixth day, and are not receiving additional overtime compensation.
In a statement, CWA also claimed that, when it discovered the alleged offshored operations, the company sent armed forces to intimidate union representatives in the Philippines.
“Terrified that the public might find out about what has happened to the good middle-class jobs the company has shipped overseas, Verizon sent private armed security forces after peaceful CWA representatives and called in a SWAT team armed with automatic weapons,” the union wrote in a statement.
A spokesperson also provided Salon with photos and video of the armed forces that she says were taken by UNI Global Union representatives with the CWA reps in the Philippines.
.@CWAUnion says this video is of the SWAT team called on union reps in the Philippineshttps://t.co/eaOeMYlsX8 pic.twitter.com/gbREbn76FW
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 13, 2016
.@CWAUnion says heavily armed cops & SWAT team were called on union reps in the Philippines https://t.co/eaOeMYlsX8 pic.twitter.com/XoCPzvbIcu
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 13, 2016
Verizon flatly rejected the union’s accusations. Salon reached out to the company, and spokesperson Rich Young described the allegations as “misguided assertions.”
“Yet again, this is another page straight out of the CWA’s fictional storybook,” Young said, rejecting the union’s statement.
“The real question is why would CWA president Chris Shelton spend tens of thousands of dollars in union dues on a vacation to the Philippines at a time when 36,000 of our employees are lucky to get $200 a week from a union strike fund?” Young added.
Shelton, in turn, criticized Verizon’s claims. “Verizon has doubled down on its deception, claiming workers were on a ‘vacation.’ Let’s be clear: being on strike, exposing Verizon’s lies about off-shoring and being harassed by Verizon armed security guards is no vacation,” he said.
CWA says a delegation of union officials — including its own representatives along with reps from the UNI global union the Filipino union KMU— confronted Verizon officials in its corporate headquarters in the Philippines on Wednesday, May 11.
The delegation claims that Verizon officials refused to speak to the union representatives. “Presumably, it is difficult to justify paying workers $1.78 an hour when the company’s CEO made $18 million last year, and the company has piled up $1.5 billion a month in profits for the past 15 months,” CWA wrote in a statement.
In a statement, the union alleged that when the delegation left the headquarters: “Verizon had their armed private security team pull over the departing van on a public street. The Verizon security team then called in a SWAT team, who surrounded the car, bearing automatic weapons. One police officer with his face covered in a balaclava pounded on the van window with his automatic rifle, demanding that the labor representatives leave the vehicle.”
The union representatives, including CWA staff, a representative of UNI (global labor federation) and representatives of KMU (a Filipino union), were allowed to leave without further issue, as they had done nothing illegal and the police had no cause to detain them.
Verizon rejected CWA’s accusations as “fictional,” and did not expand further on its previous comments.
Young said the company awaits the end of the strike. “We look forward to having our employees back at work at a company that provides excellent wages, healthcare and retirement benefits,” the Verizon spokesperson told Salon via email.
Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers went on strike in April. The two unions representing the company’s workers, CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, say employees have worked without a contract since August.
The workers say they are challenging the corporation’s attempts to offshore jobs to countries like the Philippines and Mexico and outsource work to low-wage non-union contractors. Verizon has roughly 40 percent fewer unionized U.S. workers now than it did a decade ago.
“Verizon is terrified that the public might find out about what has happened to the good middle-class jobs the company has shipped to the Philippines,” said Dennis Trainor, president of CWA District One, in a statement.
“The truth is that Verizon is destroying middle-class American jobs so that it can pay workers $1.78 per hour and force them to work around the clock, rather than preserve good jobs in our communities,” Trainor added
“That’s what our strike is about. Instead of profiting off of poverty abroad, Verizon should come back to the table and negotiate a fair contract that protects middle-class jobs.”
Verizon has rejected other allegations made by the union. On April 14, CWA claims two striking workers were hit by the luxury sports car of one of the corporation’s attorneys. Verizon strongly denied that the incident took place, saying, “We have found zero evidence supporting these claims.”
James A. Parrott, chief economist at the nonpartisan Fiscal Policy Institute, defended the strike in an article in Salon, arguing “Verizon’s version of the rules harm Americans both as workers and as consumers.”
“Verizon seeks to hide behind vague claims that ‘market forces’ require it to degrade jobs and benefits and renege on commitments to invest in better service. But when Verizon says ‘market forces,’ it really means ‘market power’ — that is to say, the political and economic power they have to charge higher rates while not investing in service improvements,” Parrott wrote.
The company’s CEO, Lowell McAdam, reportedly will make $23.1 million in total compensation in 2016, a steady increase from $18.3 million in 2014. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has blasted Verizon for the enormous executive compensation, portraying it as a sign of corporate greed.
The Fiscal Policy Institute chief economist argues that the corporate telecommunications giant “would rather use its $1.5 billion a month in profits to enrich top executives or buy up other companies and further consolidate its market power.”
“Telecommunications is the most concentrated industry in the United States and Verizon has a huge share of the national market and its monopoly profits,” Parrott added. “Verizon has been tremendously enriched by the fruits of our nation’s technological leadership, and yet refuses to meaningfully invest in providing the high-speed broadband infrastructure and good jobs that American communities desperately need and seek.”
(This article was updated with photos and video that the union delegation says it took in the Philippines.)
High heels are a feminist issue: Let Julia Roberts’ bare footsteps guide the flat-sole revolution
Julia Roberts (Credit: Reuters/Regis Duvignau)
Ladies, it’s turned out to be a very empowering week for our fight to assert our right to bodily autonomy. And in case you hadn’t noticed — feet are a feminist issue.
Earlier in the week, 27 year-old Londoner Nicola Thorp shared her tale of arriving for a temp assignment at finance company PwC in what she believed was professional attire — including “smart flat shoes.” But as she told BBC Radio, she was quickly sized up and told to go out and get a pair of shoes with “2 to 4 inch heel.” And when she refused, she was sent home unpaid. Her temp firm Portico seemed to stand by the choice, explaining that she “signed the appearance guidelines” when she joined the agency.
Recalling the incident to the BBC, she Thorp said, “I said ‘If you can give me a reason as to why wearing flats would impair me to do my job today, then fair enough,’ but they couldn’t. I was expected to do a nine-hour shift on my feet escorting clients to meeting rooms. I said, ‘I just won’t be able to do that in heels.'” And she said that when she asked if a male worker would be expected to perform the same job in heels, she was laughed at. But after she posted about her experience on Facebook, she wound up organizing a petition to change UK law — which currently allows different dress codes for men and women — so that women cannot be forced to wear high heels at work. And she now argues, “I think dress codes should reflect society and nowadays women can be smart and formal and wear flat shoes. Aside from the debilitating factor, it’s the sexism issue. I think companies shouldn’t be forcing that on their female employees.”
Unsurprisingly, there are some — including professional troll Katie Hopkins, who disagree with push to make heels optional. Writing in the Mail, she declared, “The feminazis love fighting and are always looking for the next scrap on their vagenda.” But ever since the story broke, other women have chimed in with their own experiences. On the BBC’s Facebook page, female commenters have weighed in with their own workplace experiences of being expected to toddle around in heels — even when they were several months pregnant, when they were suffering arthritis or plantar fasciitis.
As it turns out, the planets have kept aligning for us to keep the shoe-centric dialogue going. Writing in the New Yorker, the eternally great Mary Karr presents her case against high heels, tracing her life trajectory from a brief stint as a foot model to the “beleaguered and bunioned” woman she is today. She cites the once sky-high Victoria Beckham, who this past winter admitted, “I just can’t do heels any more.” And ultimately, she calls for a revolution, rallying with the cry, “Oh, womenfolk, as we once burned our bras could we not torch the footwear crucifying us?”
Apparently taking her up on it, Julia Roberts soon after appeared on the red carpet at Cannes looking dazzling as ever in Giorgio Armani Prive — and blatantly barefoot. Roberts, who has also been known to rock unshaved armpits, seemed to be making a statement about the venerable’s film fest’s rumored policy of banning women whose soles hit the ground. Last year, a group of female attendees — “some older with medical conditions” — were reportedly turned away from a screening of Todd Haynes’ “Carol” for wearing dressy flats. Director Asif Kapadia said his wife had also been turned away from an event, though she was later permitted inside. And producer Valeria Richter — who lost part of her foot to amputation a few years ago — said she was “stopped four times by festival officials over her footwear.”
The festival later confirmed to Screen Daily that “It is obligatory for all women to wear high-heels to red-carpet screenings,” though festival director Thierry Fremaux insisted, “The rumor that the festival requires high heels for the women on the steps is baseless.” Well, here we are a year later, testing that out via America’s Sweetheart’s tootsies.
If strutting in a pair of heels is your thing, godspeed. Killer shoes can be sexy and confidence-boosting as hell — there’s something about standing a few inches taller that’s always immediately made me want to shout I SHOULD BE PAID MORE MONEY. But we are not all meant to be Carrie Bradshaw and we should definitely not be required to be. And if you need further evidence that it’s fine to be a little more down to earth, just look to Meghan Trainor, who Thursday evening performed flawlessly in her heels on the “Tonight” show — and then spectacularly wiped right out.
“The end of public education”: Republicans predictably flip out after Obama issues national guidelines to accommodate transgender students
This May 11, 2014 photo shows an "All Gender Restroom" sign outside a bathroom in a bar in Washington. Confrontations have flared across the country over whether to protect or curtail the right of transgender people to use public restrooms in accordance with their gender identity. (AP Photo) (Credit: AP)
Hours after it was first reported that the Obama administration planned to release a directive notifying public school officials that transgender students must be allowed to use the restroom and locker room facilities corresponding with their gender identity on Friday, one state’s top Republican officials were already forcefully fighting back on the anti-discrimination measure, comparing the federal guidelines to the removal of prayer from public schools and accusing the president of blackmail.
Although the directive doesn’t have legal teeth, Texas, which inched closer to some conservatives’ dream of seceding from the United States this week, announced it would fight the White House’s directive in a tweet from its governor, Greg Abbott:
I announced today that Texas is fighting this. Obama can't rewrite the Civil Rights Act. He's not a King. #tcot https://t.co/vDgfQPZXjR
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 13, 2016
Even Donald Trump was sure to steer clear of a direct critique on the protective measure, refusing to take a hardline stance during his daily round of morning news show interviews Friday.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, however, went even further than his boss in a press conference announcing Texas’ opposition to the measure to protect transgender students.
“I believe it is the biggest issue facing families and schools in America since prayer was taken out of public schools,” the right-wing conservative told reporters on Friday, vowing that Texas will not be “blackmailed” by the Obama administration.
“This will be the end of public education, if this prevails,” Patrick predicted. “People will pull their kids out, homeschooling will explode, private schools will increase, school choice will pass.”
“He says he’s going to withhold funding if schools do not follow the policy,” Patrick said, referring to the threat of lawsuits and cuts in funding loom over public school systems that continue to discriminate against transgender students. “Well, in Texas, he can keep his 30 pieces of silver. We will not yield to blackmail from the president of the United States.”
“So Barack Obama, if schools don’t knuckle down to force girls showering with boys and force 8-year-old girls to have to endure boys coming into their bathroom, he’s taking money from the poorest of the poor,” Patrick continued. “The president of the United States will be ending the free breakfast and free lunch program. That’s what he’s saying”:
We will not sell out our children to the federal government. And the people of Texas and the Legislature will find a way to find as much of that money as we can if we are forced to. There is no compromise on this issue,” he said. “This is a modern-day, come-and-take-it issue, and the president of the United States, like the superintendent of Fort Worth, is not coming and taking our children.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Texas Sen. John Cornyn said the guidance “is unwelcomed,” adding that “what the president needs to do is focus on his job”:
Republican Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan told Fox News that the new transgender accommodations could tie hands of those who wish to protect students from so-called “dangerous situations,” perpetuating the repeatedly debunked bathroom predator myth.
The #NeverTrump brigade’s never-going-to-happen long shot favorite for the Republican presidential nomination Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse had an early negative reaction to the guidelines:
Is there any issue the Obama Administration believes can be left to state and local government?
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) May 13, 2016
And his complaints of a lawless president were, of course, echoed by conservatives on Twitter:
Obama's tyranny proceeds https://t.co/oBXzvUEKi2
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) May 13, 2016
…it's tempting to believe Obama and his party really are as obsessed with bathrooms as they behave. But it's pure cynicism.
— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) May 13, 2016
Obama wants your daughters to be sexually assaulted. But it's OK because he's liberal. #LGBT
— Dan Gainor (@dangainor) May 13, 2016
