Rod and Karen discuss The Oscars, anger can be contagious online, YNW Melly update, Knight Rider man strikes again, racist graffiti on a church, Gucci making changes and sword ratchetness.
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I usually watch the Oscars and for the most part I usually watch the opening red carpet to see what the celebrities are wearing, the big five awards and the in memoriam. I liked that they didn’t have a host this year, it made for less awkward jokes and I loved all the POC presenters. This was the first year I actually saw the majority of the movies nominated for an oscar. Ironically Green Book was the only one I didn’t see. So I can’t say whether it deserved it or not. The only movie I didn’t get was Roma. I know a lot of people loved it but it just went over my head and I usually love foreign films. I was so happy for Regina King, Ruth Carter, Rami Malek and Spike Lee. I hope they go with a no host format from here on out.
I used to really enjoy the Oscar’s but recently I’ve found myself being exhausted by them. Especially as an animator the animation category is always a bloody mess. The best films never usually win and its always guaranteed it’ll go to Disney or Pixar anyway. The voters also being quoted saying racist stuff about anime movies too also doesn’t help especially in years when certain anime movies are really more deserving. Which brings me to Peter Ramsay’s spiderverse win. Talk about someone who’s worked their ass off all over the industry. The fact hes the first black director to win for an animated movie shows just how little representation there is of us in the field. Folks like him and lesean Thomas, Bruce w Smith, floyd norman and lots of other black animation greats are so inspiring. I didn’t watch the Oscar’s but seeing all my fellow black animators getting emotional about it on the timeline was genuinely heartwarming. I’m happy with what black panther won. I hoped at the very least itd win costumes, production designs and score and it did. That’s enough for me. With all the discourse about it being nominated I didn’t think its actually win but that would’ve been a nice bonus to see Nate more and Kevin feige up there too. The movie made me and my dad cry and talk a lot after seeing it together and that’s always gonna be something I treasure so I’m not bothered it didn’t win best picture, it’ll always be best picture in my heart. It was a lot less stressful looking at my timeline the day after the Oscar’s than watching them so that’s what I’ll be doing from now on. Also doesn’t help that being in a different timezone the shit aired at 11pm on a Sunday so that’s a no go anayway. Last thing on the Oscar’s now, fuck green book and the folks on stage who made it (mahershala and octavia being the exceptions of course, love em) and the old white dudes who voted for it.
Onto anger being contagious online, man I feel that so much. I got to the point last year that the first things I would see as soon as I opened up my phone where folks being angry at everything and it was severely affecting me mentally and creatively and I didn’t realise until it got to be to much. I took a break for a while and still am on a break kinda. I’ve been slowly cutting down the number of people I follow and even folks I do like I dont follow anymore because of the kind of stuff they tend to post more about online. I just find it’s much easier to be creative when I’m in a positive place and since I need to be in that place to get by as an artist I’m gonna try and maintain that. It took me so long to get to that point because I didn’t want folks to think I didn’t like them or I hated them for not following anymore but folks were understanding so it’s not stressed me out too much. Which is why I enjoy your show because even when you cover tough topics your approach isn’t one that leaves somebody in a place where they feel drained by the conversation. It really does feel like talking to friends in your head about stuff and I really appreciate it for that. Especially in this climate, cant tell you enough how you’ve helped me get through some tough spots. Enjoyed the show. Felix out.
Emotional contagion is so GAHTDAMN real! A researcher from facebook teamed up with researchers at Cornell and published similar findings in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a few years back. I usually teach about this study in my section on research ethics cuz facebook was on some fuckshit with the consent, but, point is, facebook has known for years that the emotional content a user sees will influence their future postings and that if you persistently show users negative content the emotional content of future postings will reflect that same negativity. The article is open access so I always give my students the link to have them read it for themselves .
***** Stars-Loving the discussion on serving the public and common courtesy. I have worked at BK, Albertsons, the US Postal Service, and other departments where I serve the public. A simple “Please,” “Thank You,” or “You are Welcome” does not hurt anyone. Even though I “fake” boycott Chick-fil-A , their customer service is always pleasant.
When I was growing up in the early 80’s we only had one TV station, JBC, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. Those motherfuckers used to split the Oscars up into this 3 part show, broadcasting each part on three consecutive Sunday nights. This was obviously before the internet and YouTube so we just had to deal.
Back then I loved the Oscars. I think the scarcity of movies played a huge part in that. Until the mid 90’s, Jamaica would get movies weeks, sometimes months after their release in the States. The movie houses would rent the reels which would have to be physically brought to the Island. Also, there were no cineplexes back then so the runs would be for maybe a week or two weeks, so catching a movie in the cinema was a challenge. We would get to see the big ones, but most of the movies I got to see were on VCR a year or two after initial release. This made the Oscars fascinating because it would show all the movie clips interspersed throughout the show.
I never thought much about inclusion because, since I saw America as primarily white, the premier awards show would naturally service the tastes of the white people. As far as I was concerned, my appreciation and enjoyment of black American culture didn’t rely on its validation by white people. Outside looking in, my view was white people like their shit, we like our shit, but sometimes we like their shit too. Honestly, it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized white people watched The Jeffersons or 227 or Fresh Prince.
As I got older I still appreciated watching the awards shows for different reasons. I began to appreciate why it was important that the Academy recognize art from others rather than just rewarding the same white dudes, but they were still somewhat enjoyable. Then something happened in the late aughts, I got a DVR. You mean I can record my shows automatically then watch them at my convenience, skipping though ads, without fucking with VHS tapes? Each year I got less and less tolerant of watching awards shows to the point where I stopped watching them altogether like 4 or 5 years ago. There’s too much entertainment. Today my DVR has 64 shows on it between my wife and I. There’s Netflix, Amazon Prime and movies on demand. The only sporting event I watch live is the Super Bowl. Every Sunday during the season I picked the games I wanted to watch and recorded them. Even if I had the time, I would start watching games halfway in. If I skip all the adds and all the times when the clock stopped, I would catch up by the end of the game.
I do care about inclusion and I do get annoyed that art by people that look like me, is ignored by the wider world, but I still enjoy, to an extent the spectacle of the awards. I mean where else are you going to get snaps of Billy Porter looking great in a gown tux and activating a thousand hoteps to start blathering about the destruction of the black man and some-such nonsense? I just have more options now. I watched Spike’s acceptance on You Tube minutes after it aired and I only had to pause Umbrella Academy for a few minutes.
Amil
Since 2015, I stopped watching the Academy Awards & haven’t looked back. I even contemplated recording them, this year, but I realized that it wasn’t worth it. Another year of #OscarsSoWhite thinkpieces, out of touch Oscar voters, people complaining that a film got robbed & and institution that fawns for an era of cinema that’ll never come back. I love movies. Always have & always will, but I realized after awhile, that award shows like the Oscars just gravitate to things that don’t cater to black people. I appreciate the fight from folks like April Reign, who are trying to open doors for black & brown people. That is one of the good things that I can take for progress in this era of entertainment, especially in cinema. I’m happy for Spike Lee, Mahershala Ali, Peter Ramsey, Ruth Carter, Regina King & others; but, at the end of the day, I lost the ability to care for the horserace aspect of the show. I even laughed when I saw Green Book won for best picture, cuz, why not. That’s how I got over that & playing my XBOX one helped. I think cinema, too often, does cater to this archaic, academic hive mind that robs the joy away from movies. You have your AFIs, pretenious white critics, wokesâ„¢ & dudebros, who do nothing but bitch about movies. That shit gets tiring after awhile. That being said, I’m glad Spoiled Movie Reviews, MTRnetwork, Nerdpocalypse & WM40 doesn’t do that.