This week in Woke: Actresses justly cancelled for committing atrocities

[Metaphor]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...celled-not-late-fight-says-JOHN-HUMPHRYS.html

...
On these pages you will see pictures of some of the victims in this war. One of them is the Oscar-winning film star Halle Berry. She had accepted a role in which she would play a transgender man, but in this new ‘woke’ world that is no longer allowed.

She was attacked by the transgender lobby and has now withdrawn. Her ‘apology’ this week contained some scary language.

It was redolent of the sort of thing you might hear from a prisoner convicted of making critical comments about the leader of a totalitarian regime:

‘As a cisgender woman, I now understand that I should not have considered this role . . . I am grateful for the guidance and critical conversation over the past few days and I will continue to listen.’

Here is an intelligent, experienced actor who has played many different roles in her career abasing herself before the court of political correctness. Or ‘wokeness’.
The court ruled that only if she were herself transgender could she play the part and she meekly accepted that ruling.

Halle Berry ought have realised 'acting' is not about playing roles that are not you. I do hope Berry has realised that going forward, she ought only consider roles where she plays a beautiful A-list actress at about whatever her current age is.

It’s even happened to Jodie Comer, the brilliant actor who plays Villanelle in the hit BBC TV series Killing Eve.

She’s been cancelled this week not because she is a sadistic multi murderer like her character but, far worse, because she is dating an American lacrosse player who happens to be a supporter of the Republican Party.

Look, this cancellation is actually fair. What did she expect when she married literally Hitler?

Not that Comer was the first actor to fall foul of the witch-hunt. Only last month, Florence Pugh, of Little Women fame, apologised for her so-called ‘white privilege’ after a picture surfaced of her with cornrows, a type of hairstyle favoured in the Caribbean.

It's a shame there were no future Canadian prime ministers there that could pull focus.

 

[Politesse]

You're acting like you're defending Berry, but she seems to understand the situation a lot better than you do, and is fine with it. So you attack her too, and suggest that she doesn't know what acting is? How many Oscars have you got, chump?

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Cis people want to profit off our identities and stories while cutting us out of the picture entirely. It's fucked up. I don't mean that in condemnation of Halle Berry for wanting to take an interesting role. I just mean the state of affairs is one in which trans narratives exist on the big screen for the amusement of cis people. In a world where transgender representation was better, it would be less of an issue. Maybe in some cases cisgender actors would work better in some roles. Like in Orange is the New Black, there is a scene showing Sophia prior to transition. They cast Laverne Cox's twin brother in that scene. Makes sense. But then Laverne was the primary actress telling Sophia's story throughout the series.

 

[Metaphor]

You're acting like you're defending Berry, but she seems to understand the situation a lot better than you do, and is fine with it. So you attack her too, and suggest that she doesn't know what acting is? How many Oscars have you got, chump?

I don't know if Berry is 'fine' with it, because I don't know how sincere her apology is.

If it is not sincere, Berry has been hounded out of a role for no good reason, and Berry is aware that the wolves are at the door and needs to make the right sounds to keep them away.

If it is sincere (though it reads rather like a carefully prepared statement subject to multiple upstream approvals), that's a sad sign that a nonsense idea with no merit--that cis actors should not play trans characters--has so easily crossed the rubicon.

In the 80s and earlier, A-list talent didn't want to play gay. Not because they thought they couldn't, not because they thought it was unfair to gay people, but because they thought it would mar their chances of heterosexual leading roles later.

Then A-listers started playing gay in the 90s and it was suddenly okay.

Then the LGBTQ+ lobby got the idea into its head that straight actors should only play straight roles. I don't know what the LGBTQ+ lobby thinks 'acting' is.

Acting is playing a role. An actor doesn't play herself (except Dolly Parton, but she's so good at it she gets a pass).

You know in X-Men when Berry played a mutant who could conjure the elements? True story: Berry isn't a mutant and can't actually conjure the elements.

 

[Bomb#20]

You're acting like you're defending Berry,

That's not acting. He really is defending Berry.

but she seems to understand the situation a lot better than you do, and is fine with it.

What evidence do you have that she's "fine with it"?

So you attack her too, and suggest that she doesn't know what acting is?

You appear to have a reading comprehension problem. He didn't attack Berry. He was satirically mocking the views of the people who pressured her to withdraw.

 

[Metaphor]

Cis people want to profit off our identities and stories while cutting us out of the picture entirely. It's fucked up.

No, it isn't, and that isn't what cis people are doing.

You see, artists create stories, and they have every right to create whatever stories they want.

I don't mean that in condemnation of Halle Berry for wanting to take an interesting role. I just mean the state of affairs is one in which trans narratives exist on the big screen for the amusement of cis people.

You don't say!

I hear that some studios actually try to turn a profit! Unbelievable!

In a world where transgender representation was better, it would be less of an issue.

It isn't an issue right now, except to the perpetually offended grievance mongers who want to tell artists how to create their art.

Maybe in some cases cisgender actors would work better in some roles. Like in Orange is the New Black, there is a scene showing Sophia prior to transition. They cast Laverne Cox's twin brother in that scene. Makes sense. But then Laverne was the primary actress telling Sophia's story throughout the series.

Wait, they cast a cisgender man to play a transwoman? Outrageous. I hope the production was shut down.

 

[repoman]

This is a matter of degree.

If no trans ever played a trans that would be ridiculous. Same if a shitty trans actor was chosen over a competent cis actor every time.

Of course there have got to be enough competent trans actors coming through the pipeline.

Watched Designated Survivor and the trans actor in it was pretty solid. It was only slightly "talk instead of show" cringey in the writing.

 

[Politesse]

What evidence do you have that she's "fine with it"?

Ah, silly me, asking a woman what she thinks. I should have remembered to ask a middle aged man on the internet what she thinks.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

No, it isn't, and that isn't what cis people are doing.

You see, artists create stories, and they have every right to create whatever stories they want.

These aren't mutually exclusive things.

You don't say!

I hear that some studios actually try to turn a profit! Unbelievable!

Turning a profit off our identities and stories while cutting us out.

In a world where transgender representation was better, it would be less of an issue.

It isn't an issue right now, except to the [whiny metaphor nonsense] who want to tell artists how to create their art.

Ah, the thing that doesn't affect you isn't an issue. Cool, cool.

Art has always been open to criticism. Inauthenticity is a valid criticism. What fucking art world do you live in where we all just quietly nod along? Do you even live in this world?

 

[Metaphor]

Turning a profit off our identities and stories while cutting us out.

Non. They are not turning a profit off your identities. They are turning a profit (usually) from a story somebody has created. You do not own a concept. You have no moral right to a concept. And you have no moral right to make demands on the creative fruit of other people.

Ah, the thing that doesn't affect you isn't an issue. Cool, cool.

Art has always been open to criticism. Inauthenticity is a valid criticism. What fucking art world do you live in where we all just quietly nod along? Do you even live in this world?

"A cis actor played this trans character" is not a criticism worth paying any respect to. It is an empty and baseless criticism. It is a criticism from somebody who hasn't even sampled the product.

"Inauthenticity" is not a valid criticism. It's a ludicrous one. No actor in the X-Men franchise is a mutant. Nobody in Alien went to space or are astronauts. Al Pacino didn't secretly die of AIDS while pretending he had liver cancer in order to act in Angels in America. Jim Parsons and Neil Patrick Harris are not straight men, but they play them on TV.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Turning a profit off our identities and stories while cutting us out.

Non. They are not turning a profit off your identities. They are turning a profit (usually) from a story somebody has created. You do not own a concept. You have no moral right to a concept. And you have no moral right to make demands on the creative fruit of other people.

Some of the stories are literally biographies. Also, they didn't invent transgender identities or people. (Maybe you're thinking you didn't say they did, but it's atypical for characters to just be transgender without delving into some aspect of transgender struggles or experiences).

"A cis actor played this trans character" is not a criticism worth paying any respect to. It is an empty and baseless criticism. It is a criticism from somebody who hasn't even sampled the product.

Of course it's a valid criticism. Casting direction, writing, production decisions are all part of the process and all open to criticism not just in execution, but in the context of current social and political affairs.

"Inauthenticity" is not a valid criticism. It's a ludicrous one. No actor in the X-Men franchise is a mutant. Nobody in Alien went to space or are astronauts. Al Pacino didn't secretly die of AIDS while pretending he had liver cancer in order to act in Angels in America. Jim Parsons and Neil Patrick Harris are not straight men, but they play them on TV.

Of course inauthenticity is a valid criticism. Your comparisons scarcely make sense. There are no authentic super mutants. I don't know how you break this to you butternut, but they aren't real. Sci fi movies are very often criticized on the basis of realism and authenticity of elements which do reflect actual science and are not covered under suspension of disbelief. I don't think it too likely casting an actor dying of AIDS was too practical. Playing a member of a normalized group doing normal activities isn't a huge stretch when the only real variable here is that they like women, not men. In Parsons' case, he barely even had to do that.

This is just more specious bullshit. Everything is on the surface with you. It's painfully fucking sad.

 

[Politesse]

A woman is cast to play a cis male character: "Omigod the seas will burn if James Bond is ever played by a woman! This is an outrage to all good decency and artistic sense!"

A woman is cast to play a trans male character: "You are basically as bad as the Gestapo if you judge this before seeing it."

 

[TV and credit cards]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...celled-not-late-fight-says-JOHN-HUMPHRYS.html



Halle Berry ought have realised 'acting' is not about playing roles that are not you. I do hope Berry has realised that going forward, she ought only consider roles where she plays a beautiful A-list actress at about whatever her current age is.



Look, this cancellation is actually fair. What did she expect when she married literally Hitler?

Not that Comer was the first actor to fall foul of the witch-hunt. Only last month, Florence Pugh, of Little Women fame, apologised for her so-called ‘white privilege’ after a picture surfaced of her with cornrows, a type of hairstyle favoured in the Caribbean.

It's a shame there were no future Canadian prime ministers there that could pull focus.

No one knows my story better than I do. But if I suck at storytelling, few if any are ever going to hear it.

I read the for grown-ups version here. Slashing my way through that visual jungle of shit, the Daily Mail gives me a headache.

I would have pressed for proper consultants to represent and advise rather than admonish an actor for acting. These are movies. Ultimately, you've got to have asses in the seats or your story will no be heard outside of your community. This might have been an opportunity for mainstream understanding. I think they kind of screwed the pooch on this one.

 

[Metaphor]

Some of the stories are literally biographies.

So? A biography does not turn itself into a screenplay. A screenplay does not produce itself into a movie. If somebody wrote a biography that was turned into a screenplay, then that person is compensated.

Also, they didn't invent transgender identities or people. (Maybe you're thinking you didn't say they did, but it's atypical for characters to just be transgender without delving into some aspect of transgender struggles or experiences).

Um, when a screenwriter invents a character, they invented the character.

Now, as far 'transgender struggles' - so what if they are included or not? Trans people don't own other people's imaginations. You are not owed.

Of course it's a valid criticism. Casting direction, writing, production decisions are all part of the process and all open to criticism not just in execution, but in the context of current social and political affairs.

You are criticising people not for their acting, but for the mere fact that they are cis. That's blatant prejudice.

Of course inauthenticity is a valid criticism. Your comparisons scarcely make sense. There are no authentic super mutants. I don't know how you break this to you butternut, but they aren't real. Sci fi movies are very often criticized on the basis of realism and authenticity of elements which do reflect actual science and are not covered under suspension of disbelief. I don't think it too likely casting an actor dying of AIDS was too practical. Playing a member of a normalized group doing normal activities isn't a huge stretch when the only real variable here is that they like women, not men. In Parsons' case, he barely even had to do that.

This is just more specious bullshit. Everything is on the surface with you. It's painfully fucking sad.

What I find painfully fucking sad is how easily your faith comes to you. You have a bizarre one-way notion of 'authenticity' (which is already bullshit because acting is people performing things they are not). I suspect also that you think 'inauthentic' is a criticism you'd level at a recipe, when the only virtue for food that matters is not whether it is 'authentic' but whether it tastes good.

You don't own trans stories or trans identities. Nobody has taken anything from you when they include a trans person in their stories. You are not owed.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

You don't own trans stories or trans identities. Nobody has taken anything from you when they include a trans person in their stories. You are not owed.

What the actual fuck are you talking about? What is it in your brain that does everything in its power to avoid what is being said to you and instead go off on some half-baked nonsense?

Who said I was 'owed'? Who said something was taken from me? You are not in a position to make arguments on my behalf.

 

[Metaphor]

What the actual fuck are you talking about? What is it in your brain that does everything in its power to avoid what is being said to you and instead go off on some half-baked nonsense?[


Who said I was 'owed'? Who said something was taken from me? You are not in a position to make arguments on my behalf.

You made the claim that Hollywood 'profits off trans identities' and 'cuts us out', as if trans people are owed something. They are not. You are not.

Right, you can't form an argument, so you go right to 'faith'. Just more stupid bullshit of a man who can't answer to what is being said to him. What a joke.

You're the joke, kis. You believe the word 'authentic' makes an argument for you. For you, casting a cis actor as a trans character is 'inauthentic', but casting a trans actor as a cis character isn't 'inauthentic', or if it is, you don't care.

 

[ruby sparks]

Benedict Cumberbatch played Alan Turing but is not himself gay. Ditto Trevante Rhodes in Moonlight. Ditto Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. All great films which elicited, in a very wide audience, greater understanding about and sympathy for what gay men had/have to go through, and possibly helped pave the way, even if only a little, for more acceptance and tolerance of male homosexuality generally.

Eddie Redmayne played a trans woman, I believe, in The Danish Girl but he is not trans. I haven’t seen that one so I can’t comment on the content. Some controversy over the casting as I understand it.

There are countless other examples of people playing characters with characteristics that they themselves do not have. Indeed it is surely the norm.

I do not agree with those from the trans community objecting in this case, even if I understand why they did it. Yes, it would be much better if it was actually a trans man in the role. But I think it still could have been a step in the right direction (assuming the narrative was fair and reasonable and the role accurate and positive). Just having more characters like that on screen in front of large audiences would be helpful, imo, because in many ways what needs to happen with these types of what I am going to call valid minority issues of many sorts which involve misunderstandings, lack of awareness and discrimination, is that they need to become normalised, and be perceived as normal, and someone like Halle Berry could have potentially done it very well.

That said, 30 years ago I cringed heavily during Dances With Wolves.

 

[Bomb#20]

What evidence do you have that she's "fine with it"?

Ah, silly me, asking a woman what she thinks.

Did you ask Ms. Berry what she thinks?

A couple of hundred years ago, two 20-something gentlemen -- later famous scientists -- sailed around the world on HMS Beagle. In Brazil, " ...Darwin was horrified at tales of the treatment of slaves. FitzRoy, while not endorsing brutality, recounted how an estancia owner once asked his slaves if they wished to be free and was told they did not. Darwin asked FitzRoy if he thought slaves could answer such a question honestly when it was posed by their master, at which the captain lost his temper and, before storming out, told Darwin that if he doubted his word they could no longer live together..."

I should have remembered to ask a middle aged man on the internet what she thinks.

Why did you write that? Did a middle aged man on the internet claim to know what she thinks?

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

You made the claim that Hollywood 'profits off trans identities' and 'cuts us out', as if trans people are owed something. They are not. You are not.

No, I didn't make the statement as if I were 'owed' anything.

You're the joke, kis. You believe the word 'authentic' makes an argument for you. For you, casting a cis actor as a trans character is 'inauthentic', but casting a trans actor as a cis character isn't 'inauthentic', or if it is, you don't care.

How about you stick to talking about what you believe. Everything you try to talk about what I believe you just come up with garbage.

Or are you intending to play me in a little drama you are staging? Such a little artist, you.

 

[Politesse]

Did you ask Ms. Berry what she thinks?

A couple of hundred years ago, two 20-something gentlemen -- later famous scientists -- sailed around the world on HMS Beagle. In Brazil, " ...Darwin was horrified at tales of the treatment of slaves. FitzRoy, while not endorsing brutality, recounted how an estancia owner once asked his slaves if they wished to be free and was told they did not. Darwin asked FitzRoy if he thought slaves could answer such a question honestly when it was posed by their master, at which the captain lost his temper and, before storming out, told Darwin that if he doubted his word they could no longer live together..."

I should have remembered to ask a middle aged man on the internet what she thinks.

Why did you write that? Did a middle aged man on the internet claim to know what she thinks?

I know Mrs. Berry is black, but that does not make her a slave. Such confusion of centuries swirling around in your head!