Tag: woke cancel culture mob

Well, I’ve At Least Come Up With An Interesting Heroine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After years of dwelling on the nature of my heroine, I feel as though I’ve finally managed to come up with a woman who is really, really unique. Because I continue to do all of this in a vacuum, I am at a loss as to what people’s reaction to her might be.

My heroine of my first novel looks like a younger version of Nicole Scherzinger

Remember, by definition, because I’m a smelly CIS white male there will be members of the woke cancel culture mob who dismiss my right to tell the story I want to tell. I’m supposed to just stick to writing from a male POV and otherwise shut up. This happens, of course, in the context of “intersectional feminists” complaining about not enough representation in fiction.

In fact, I listened to an entire Slate podcast where two women were angry about how not enough women, POC and LGBTQ+ people were in positions of power in Hollywood. That’s all well and good and I validate those concerns, but I found myself growing a little insecure — what if a CIS white male like me makes a good faith effort to tell a story about a POC woman?

Is that “representation” or is that “exploitive appropriation?”

I am really self-conscious about that potential criticism being lobbed at me. But it’s too late now. I had no idea of the cultural minefield I was wondering into when I decided I wanted my heroine to be a POC. And, what’s more, I only relatively recently realized there was some sort of woke taboo against against a man writing from a female POV.

Ugh.

But, having said all that, I do think I’ve come up with not one but TWO heroines (over the course of six novels) who are just as interesting, in their own way, as Lisbeth Salander. In the end, you just can’t please everyone, especially not members of the woke cancel culture mob who have all these weird ideological demands for any art they consume.

I’m Really Struggling With The Specifics Of My Heroine’s Appearance

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I know, in general, my heroine’s phenotype, but when it comes to her hair I’m having a real struggle. There is so much I can do with what she does with her hair that I find myself at a loss as to what I think would be the best option.

I vacillate widely from moment to the next about how she does her hair as the story opens. In this third draft, I’m really taking how I introduce my heroine a lot more seriously. I don’t want to sexualize her in any sort of gratuitous way because if I did anything like that there would be “woke” portions of the audience that would that would pitch a fucking fit.

They would say I’m just another horny CIS white male who is wants to fuck my heroine and is obsessed with boobs. As such, I am really self-conscious about how much I talk about my heroine’s appearance. And, yet, at the same time, I want to give readers a clear understanding in their mind’s eye of…her appearance.

My heroine kind of looks like this in my mind’s eye.

As a CIS white male writing from the POV of a female POC it’s kind of a no win situation. Woke people just want me to drop dead, not try to give them the representation they claim to want in their fiction. Only transgender, undocumented Mexicans can tell the type of stories I want to tell. Forgive me, I’m a bit grumpy and tipsy at the moment.

Anyway, you have to give me credit for at least understanding the sticky wicket I’m wading into. I get it. I’m a CIS white male, a member of the patriarchy and I should just shut up and let women and POC tell stories. But I’m an asshole and have a story to tell.

I’m trying to be as empathetic as possible, all things considered.

The Struggle Is Real When Writing Female Characters As A Male Author

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m extremely paranoid and self-conscious when it comes to writing the female characters in this novel I’m working on. My greatest fear is that I’ll somehow get some element of being a woman wrong and I’ll be held up by some Tik-Toker as yet another example of how men shouldn’t even write female characters at all.

My heroine looks like a younger version of Olivia Munn.

Ugh.

Just in the last few days, I’ve had two notable instances of this situation come up.

One was I have a very specific vision of what my heroine looks like and, as a part of that, I want to convey to the reader some sense of her bosom. Now, some context — Stieg Larsson spent an entire scene going into detail about Lisbeth Salander’s relationship to her breasts, so it’s not like it can’t be done. My fear is that in my quest to give the audience a clear understand on that front, that some of the squeaky wheels reading will think I’m obsessed with boobs. (But, in all honesty, who isn’t?)

I’ve managed to figure out a few ways of indicate what I want to show the audience without wallowing in gratuitous verbiage about breasts.

Meanwhile, the other issue I’ve had to address dealt with periods. I have a really interesting provocative scene that talks about that issue head on, but I’ve kind of been stressed out all day about it because I was afraid that there was some aspect of it all that I just was missing. I finally talked to a woman about the specific plot point I was concerned about and she assured me I had it right.

Anyway, I fear that, by definition, any attempt on my part to write about women will be poo-pooed by some of the more “woke” elements of the audience for no other reason than I’m a “CIS white male.” If I had some other, more exotic background they wouldn’t blink an eye.

But, lulz, slings and arrows and all that.

A Hot Take On ‘Barbie’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was quite pleased with the Barbie movie for a number of reasons. It was pretty much the political sweetspot of what I generally believe about gender politics. I can see why conservatives might consider the movie “woke,” but, in general, it seemed like just a a good movie that told a good story.

That is what struck me about the nature of the movie — it was really good. I was impressed with Greta Gerwig’s storytelling ability. I have been a fan of hers since “Frances Ha” and I knew going into the movie that it was probably going to tell a silly story in an interesting way.

As an aside, I do think that the success of Barbie may — possibly — suggest that we’re about to have something to the mythical “vibe shift” that everyone was talking about in the recent past. It’s just a short jaunt to a more gritty mainstream movie. Though, I’ve given this a lot of thought and I just don’t think our society is at a point for the legendary type of movies of the early 70s to come back.

But it is at least possible that superhero movies are on their way out. We’ve had them dominate the box office for about 20 years and so it’s inevitable that something will replace them at some point. But what? And when? I just don’t know the answer to that question.

I still think it’s at least possible that AI is going to make all these musings moot when at some point — probably after we sort things out in a Fourth Turning — the very notion of “mass media” will seem rather quaint. We’ll just sit down in front of our TVs, have our faces scanned and out will pop a movie or TV show directly tailored to how we’re feeling at that specific moment.

That seems nearly an immutable force of history and technology at this point.

But back to Barbie — the movie, in my opinion, did what a good movie is supposed to do — tell an interesting story in a way that left you mulling what you’ve just seen once it was over. How the movie dealt with the issue of “the patriarchy” was really amusing to me and, what’s more, it was presented in such a way that young women might take heart.

Which, of course, is why that very element of the movie freaks conservative so much.

Of Olivia Munn & A Picture Not Being 1,000 Woke Words

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, here is a picture that has apparently “triggered” the more “woke” amongst us:

The reason is — there aren’t enough non-white people in the picture. And, yet, Olivia Munn is there, hamming things up in a very conspicuous manner and she ain’t white.

So, I suppose the issue is — either Olivia Munn isn’t close enough to the camera to suit the “woke” people who are complaining, or these “woke” people are upset there aren’t any black people in the picture and an Amerasian person doesn’t count towards the “white liberals have to have x number of non-white friends at their dinner party not to be hypocrites” metric?

To me, the issue is not the whole suck-your-own-cock woke nature of things, but how fucking wealthy everyone in this picture is! Everyone in the picture above has GOT to be at LEAST a multi-millionaire and they live in their bubble of liberal whiteness with pretty much total disregard for us Poors.

What’s more, this picture from Kristen Bell also gives us validation of our most basic assumptions about celebrity — they really do all know each other and that’s why nepobabies control everything.

While I general believe the whole idea of “woke” is everything and nothing relative to the need of an ambitious Republican lawmaker trying to scare up votes, it’s shit like people attacking the Bell picture that really does annoy me. Should they have strategically put Munn closer to the camera to put at least one non-white person closer to the frame?

I dunno. I guess I’m not woke enough.

Video: A Long Rant About The Absence Of Spicy Content In Hollywood Movies

Enjoy

The Misogyny Directed Against Phoebe Waller-Bridge For Her Role In ‘Dial of Destiny’ is Shocking

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I found Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s role in Dial of Destiny to be one that established her as a Hollywood star. And, yet, from the way some commenters talk, you would think that not only did she suck, but that she took over the movie in a “woke” attempt to hand the Indy franchise over to her.

Now, here’s the context — there was a massive amount of bonkers chatter on YouTube that the time travel element of the movie was originially meant to be a way to turn Waller-Bridge into Indiana Jones by erasing Harrison Ford’s version from time altogether. They really got themselves worked out into an anti-woke Hollywood lather about this possibility.

And…then…it didn’t happen.

They claimed “victory” over the evil forces of Woke Hollywood, but I have my doubts. While I understand the fears — that definitely does sound like something Kathleen Kennedy would do to Indiana Jones — I just am not prepared to believe that was ever seriously considered, much less shot.

But, who knows.

The key thing to remember is I think, ultimately, the issue of who to turn the Indy franchise over to will be mooted because of technology. Soon enough, our digital assistant will scan our face, determine our mood and give us a very specific Indy movie that is completely different anything anyone else is watching at that particular moment.

It seems a foregone conclusion at this point.

I do wish, however, that Waller-Bridge could get her own franchise playing Dr. Susan Calvin of the I, Robot short stories. That would be great!

The WGA Is In Trouble

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I often say — I’m always, always wrong. But it definitely seems as though it’s at least possible that we’re in something of a waiting game when it comes to the current WGA strike.

And the two sides, tragically, are waiting for different things.

The WGA is waiting for the Suits to come back to the negotiating table, while the Suits are waiting for LLMs to advance to the point that Hollywood writers are…moot. So, rather than “September” being the deadline as one very young and naive striking WGA writer proposed, I think we have a far more open-ended situation on our hands.

It could be 18 months before there’s any resolution to the Writers’ Strike and the resolution will be that technology has reached a point where the Suits feel like they can just ignore the WGA altogether. And, rather than thinking about a WGA strike, they’re thinking about how many programmers they’re going to have to pay in place of them.

Like I said — I’m always, always wrong. So, I suppose it’s possible that something will happen and the Suits will come to some sort of agreement with writers. But..I couldn’t count on it.

The Problem With The Movie ‘She Said’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really liked the #MeToo books She Said and Catch And Kill. They were insightful and interesting. But I find myself watching the movie adaptation of the former book and it comes across as a humorless Very Serious Film.

I’m just starting it, but I can see what it didn’t do very well in the box office, especially given how divided America is. The movie doesn’t seem to have much heart. It takes its subject matter So Seriously that it can come across as sort of plodding.

But I’ve just started. Maybe it will get better.

‘Protect Trans Kids’ Is The Clit Of The Culture Wars

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want to see how fucked up American politics are, look no further than the issue of “protect trans kids.” Because of all the disinformation flying around this issue — from both sides — I’ve given some serious thought to what I think about the issue.

The key take away from this particular clusterfuck is….there really aren’t that many “trans kids” to protect. It’s not like there are thousands of children who are demanding they take the medical steps necessary to transition. There are a lot of sexually confused kids — like there have always been since the dawn of time — who don’t know what they are or what they want and they’re being used as pawns on “both sides” to make political points.

Because the Left makes a big deal about “protect trans kids,” the Right flips out that there are “trans kids” that need to be “protected” in the first place.

The whole thing is very very fucked up because, from my experience, if you don’t cling to the established center-Left narrative about “protect trans kids” even though there really aren’t that many trans kids to protect….you are in for shit ton of trouble. From both sides! Either the Left things you’re Satan, or the Right demands you becoming just as hysterical as they are about this issue — and other culture war issues — for them to accept you.

Ugh. Fuck all that.

I totally validate the alarm and anger that a lot of Trans Rights advocates have stimming from violence and all that. My only concern is maybe be a little less crazy when it comes to demanding everyone hone to the extremist dictates of the “protect trans kids” narrative.