MY THOUGHTS AND THE ARTICLE

well i read the article, the argument by tyree is dysfunctional, the book was written in 2001, tyree admits the strategem would had been successful in 2010, so... saying it isn't how the industry operates in 2024 is dysfunctional. This is about a moment in the usa, this is not meant to be how the usa was before or after, but this was a real scenario. I wonder why everett had nothing to say. And the argument from some blacks against "urban lit" is no different than italians against italian mob movies . having people look like you represented in a way you don't like doesn't define you, but doesn't make it unreal. Some black people were and are step and fetchit's this doesn't mean I am or any other black person is one of them. Cord Jefferson's question shows he is either ignorant of black history or in denial about black experiences in the usa. For anyone who reads up to this point, let me say something that it seems isn't common knowledge in the usa. Most black people in the usa have always been unhappy or miserable, always. Yes from the colonial times to now a minority in the black populace in the usa has been happy. But, an overwhelming majoirty 95% to 75% of black people in the usa have been terrorized by whites in the usa or by the system of government in the usa designed or ruled by whites. I don't see how anyone black, non black or other can not accept that simple truth. Yes, obama exist, yes, michelle obama exist, yes oprah and the william sisters and lebron james exists. Ok most black people in the usa are miserable, are in pain, are unhappy, have dealt with trauma and they come from a centuries line of black people who felt worse. Said negativities are not the only things we have to offer to culture and have never been the only things. We made negro spirituals that uplift people today before the usa was founded. we made lues music that is utilized in so many asian animated works to characterize strong thoughtful characters. we made jazz that is considered world music and one of the utmost signs of improvisation. Cord Jefferson suggested black people's stories of pain or suffering or anguish or anger are too large in quantity, are too present. what? We made brer rabbit, which was referred to in positive fantasy star trek to save a bunch of defenseless humanoids from corruptions in and out of the fantasy united nations institution called the federation , with earth itself as its usa .saundra and others in the article's great flaw is speaking of the now. They can't get out of the now in assessing the film. Many black people in the usa  like to say , black folk need to forget the past, but does that mean we are to lie about it, or judge all only in the modern? 

ARTICLE

Some urban lit authors see fiction in the Oscar-nominated ‘American Fiction’

BY HILLEL ITALIE

Updated 10:41 AM EST, March 5, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — Omar Tyree, author of such urban lit narratives as “Flyy Girl” and “The Last Street Novel,” recently went to see the Oscar-nominated movie “American Fiction.”

“I loved the emotions of the family,” Tyree said of the comic drama starring best actor nominee Jeffrey Wright as the struggling author-academic Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Leslie Uggams as his ailing mother and supporting actor nominee Sterling K. Brown as his troubled and unpredictable brother. “I love seeing how Monk tries to bring the family unit together and just seeing Black people trying to work things out.”

But when asked about the film’s featured storyline — Monk finds unexpected success when he publishes a crude novel under the assumed identity of ex-con Stagg R. Leigh — Tyree laughed and gave a nod to “creative license.”

“The whole idea that he’s going to sell a lot of books by keeping it raw, in real life it doesn’t work like that,” he said. “That kind of book would have been stronger in the early 2000s.”

“American Fiction,” nominated for a best picture Academy Award and in four other categories, was adapted from Percival Everett’s “Erasure,” a 2001 novel that came out when a genre alternately called “urban lit,” “urban fiction,” “street lit” or “hip-hop fiction” was peaking, especially among young Black readers. Novels like Sister Souljah’s “The Coldest Winter Ever,” Shannon Holmes’ “B-More Careful” and Teri Woods’ “True to the Game” were selling hundreds of thousands of copies while major publishers, who had initially ignored the genre, were offering large advances in search of the next hit.

The urban lit genre dates back at least to 1967, and the release of the memoir “Pimp,” written by Robert Maupin, who was in jail when he began writing under the name Iceberg Slim and built a large word-of-mouth following. He inspired another street lit pioneer, Donald Goines, author of the Kenyatta urban crime series and other works from the 1970s that influenced such hip-hop stars as Tupac Shakur, who would famously declare, “Machiavelli was my tutor, Donald Goines my father figure.”

Urban lit is still around, but no new releases approach the heights of 20 years ago. According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the print retail market, the genre sold around 380,000 copies in 2023, far less than the total sales for “The Coldest Winter Ever.” Many leading urban lit authors these days are either independently published — among them Black Lavish and Mz. Lady P — or released through Kensington Publishing Corp., which still has cut back over the past decade.

“At one point, the majority of the books on our list that were written by Black authors would have been categorized as urban or street lit,” says Vida Engstrand, Kensington’s director of communications. Because of changes in the “retail landscape and reader interest,” Kensington now offers a much broader selection, with “very few front list titles that fall squarely in the category of urban lit,” she says.

Everett, an award-winning author whose novels include “The Trees” and the upcoming “James,” was unavailable for comment, his publisher said.

Monk is inspired to write his pseudonymous book after looking through a bestseller titled “We’s Lives In Da Ghetto” and reading such sentences as “Momma says I be the ’sponsible one and tell me that I gots to hold thing togever while she at work clean dem white people’s house.” After failing to catch on as a literary author, he is offered a six-figure book deal and seven-figure movie deal for his profanely titled novel.

Stagg R. Leigh is praised by critics and even wins a prestigious literary prize. But few were calling Teri Woods or Shannon Holmes likely Pulitzer winners. The publishing community debated whether urban lit should be condemned for reinforcing stereotypes about Black life — stereotypes parodied by Everett in his novel — or welcomed for its blunt portraits of crime and poverty and for attracting new audiences.

“I’ve heard a lot of people within the Black community who have that viewpoint, that urban lit doesn’t reflect all of us,” says author Porscha Sterling. “And while it’s important to show the Black community in multiple ways, I do think it’s important to have a well-rounded view that includes everyone.”

“In my opinion, it was wrong to characterize these books as different from other Black literature,” says Malaika Adero, an author, agent and executive editor for AUWA, a Macmillan imprint led by Questlove. “We’ve had all kinds of classic books that dealt with the underground economy and the ghetto and weren’t classified as hip-hop lit.”

Monk’s novel has some parallels to a bestseller from the 1990s, Sapphire’s “Push,” an acclaimed and controversial novel about a pregnant teen from Harlem that begins in broken English, but becomes more traditional as the girl learns to read and write. At the time, Sapphire (a pen name for Ramona Lofton) was a little-known poet who received a large advance and attracted the interest of Hollywood. The book became the Oscar-winning movie “Precious.”

“American Fiction” director Cord Jefferson, nominated for best adapted screenplay, has said that reading “Erasure” reminded him of conversations he had with friends over the years.

“Why are we always writing about misery and trauma and violence and pain inflicted on Blacks? Why is this what people expect from us? Why is this the only thing we have to offer to culture?” Jefferson often wondered, he told The Associated Press last fall.

One urban lit author, Saundra, said she found “American Fiction” funny, but “a tad bit overdramatized,” adding she doubted a novel like the one Monk wrote would be so welcomed now. Sterling, whose novels include the series “Gangland” and “Bad Boys Do It Better,” said she identified with Monk’s frustration at not being understood and recognized, but also said the satire in “American Fiction” left her feeling “misunderstood”

“I don’t know any people who write like that in the urban lit genre,” she said.

Author K’Wan Foye, known as K’Wan, says he related well to the movie, even if it was “poking fun” at urban lit. He remembers being encouraged 20 years ago to write “something really ghetto,” what became his popular “Hood Rat” series, and showing up for a meeting at St. Martin’s Press wearing a Biggie Smalls-style suit.

“They thought it was some kind of persona, the way Stagg R. Leigh is in the movie,” K’Wan said. “And I was like, ‘No, this is who I am.’”

If “Erasure” had been published now, the protagonist would likely have chosen a different kind of book to parody the commercial market, authors and publishers say. Tyree thinks he would have been writing nonfiction, maybe working on a celebrity confessional like Jada Pinkett Smith’s “Worthy.” Shawanda Williams, who oversees the Black Odyssey imprint of Kensington, cites the 2022 bestseller “The Other Black Girl,” the surreal tale of a Black editorial assistant at a publishing house.

Saundra, whose novels include “Hustler’s Queen” and “It Ain’t About the Revenge,” says the urban lit market has faded enough that she’s trying a different kind of book. In 2025, Kensington will publish “The Treacherous Wife,” which she calls “domestic suspense.”

“Times are changing,” she says, “and I think readers are looking for suspense, something everyone can relate to.”

URL

https://apnews.com/article/american-fiction-urban-lit-oscars-9a6d0c044bc2bd94fe7e98217171973b?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share 

Google's New AI Text-to-Video Tool Is Fun to Look At. But What Next?

Story by Lisa Lacy • 38m

Google has teased an AI-based video generation tool, but it's not clear when — or if — anyone outside the search giant will be able to kick the tires. It's certainly fun to look at, though.

On Wednesday, Google's Research arm released a video highlighting this new text-to-video model, which is called Lumiere.

In a LinkedIn post, team leader Inbar Mosseri said the tool "generates coherent, high-quality videos using simple text prompts" that New Atlas says run up to five seconds. Sample inputs include, "A fluffy baby sloth with an orange knitted hat trying to figure out a laptop" and "An escaped panda eating popcorn in the park."

In the year or so that generative AI has been the hottest technology going, much of the attention has been focused on tools like ChatGPT that produce text answers to prompts, or those like Dall-E that create still images. Video creation from text prompts is arguably the next frontier, so if Lumiere really can "demonstrate state-of-the-art text-to-video generation results" as Google says, we may already be evolving beyond the "grotesque abominations" of the AI-generated images of 2023.

As the video illustrates, Lumiere's capabilities include text-to-video and image-to-video generation, as well as stylized generation — that is, using an image to create videos in a similar style. Other tricks include the ability to fill in any missing visuals within a video clip.

That includes the ability to animate famous paintings, like Van Gogh's Starry Night ("A timelapse oil painting of a starry night with clouds moving") or Da Vinci's Mona Lisa ("A woman looking tired and yawning"). While the Starry Night example works almost flawlessly, Mona Lisa looks far more like she's laughing than yawning.

And while many of the animals — such as "a muskox grazing on beautiful wildflowers" and "a happy elephant wearing a birthday hat walking under the sea" — look realistic, there's something off about some of the dogs. Both a toy poodle riding a skateboard and a golden retriever puppy running in the park are close to passing as real, but their faces — and perhaps their eyes specifically—betray the fact that they're CGI.

Nevertheless, the video editing tools hold a lot of promise. Using a source video and prompts like "made of colorful toy bricks" or "made of flowers," users can purportedly change the style of the subject completely. And with inputs like "wearing a bathrobe," "wearing a party hat" and "wearing rain boots" to add said items to an image of, say, a baby chick, Lumiere may very well make fiddling with videos more accessible to those of us who didn't major in graphic design.

Though the assets shared so far certainly make Lumiere seem like it's user-friendly, the description of how it works isn't. (Google didn't respond to a request for additional comment.)

A project page < https://lumiere-video.github.io/  > describes Lumiere as "a space-time diffusion model," which sounds like something Doc Brown was working on in Back to the Future. Google Research said this means the text-to-image model learns to generate a video by processing it in multiple space-time scales, which helps create videos that "portray realistic, diverse and coherent motion."

According to Google, this is superior to existing models, which "synthesize distant keyframes followed by temporal super-resolution." 

Jason Alan Snyder, global chief technology officer at ad agency Momentum Worldwide, explained it this way: "It's like the difference between watching a puppet show and experiencing a ballet at Lincoln Center."

That's because Lumiere "doesn't just focus on snapshots, it crafts smooth, flowing motion for every frame," he added.

In other words, if you think about the traditional method of making a movie, you'd have to build key scenes and fill in the gaps later.

"Lumiere is different. It sees the whole movie in its mind, understanding how characters move, objects interact and everything changes over time," Snyder said. "It's like drawing the entire flip book simultaneously, ensuring every page flows perfectly."

So this "space-time thinking" helps Lumiere create videos that feel real, which, he added, means no more jumpy transitions or robotic movements. (Except maybe for puppy eyes.)

Time will tell.

In the meantime, as fans of Beauty and Beast will know, Lumiere is French for "light."  

Editors' note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see this post. < https://www.cnet.com/ai-policy/#ftag=MSF491fea7 >

URL

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/googles-new-ai-text-to-video-tool-is-fun-to-look-at-but-what-next/ar-BB1hgBUi

Man cleared in a 1996 Brooklyn killing said for decades he knew who did it. Prosecutors now agree

By Associated Press New York State

PUBLISHED 9:36 PM ET Jan. 18, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who served 14 years in prison for a deadly 1990s shooting was exonerated Thursday after prosecutors said they now believe the killer was an acquaintance he has implicated for decades.

“I lost 14 years of my life for a crime that I didn’t commit,” Steven Ruffin told a Brooklyn judge after sighing with emotion.

Although Ruffin was paroled in 2010 and has since built a career in sanitation in Georgia, he said that getting his manslaughter conviction dismissed and his name cleared “will help me move on.”

“If you know you're innocent, don’t give up on your case — keep on fighting, because justice will prevail,” Ruffin, 45, said outside court. “That’s all I’ve wanted for 30 years: somebody to listen and really hear what I’m saying and look into the things I was telling them."

Prosecutors said they were exploring whether to charge the man they now believe shot 16-year-old James Deligny on a Brooklyn street during a February 1996 confrontation over some stolen earrings. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said after court that charges, if any, wouldn't come immediately.

“You have to be able to convict someone beyond a reasonable doubt, and we have to make sure that that evidence is sufficient to do so,” said Gonzalez, who wasn't DA when Ruffin was tried. “You have a lot of factors working against us procedurally, but also factually — unfortunately, this is 30 years ago.”

Ruffin's conviction is the latest of more than three dozen that Brooklyn prosecutors have disavowed after reinvestigations over the last decade.

Over a dozen, including Ruffin's, were connected to retired Detective Louis Scarcella. He was lauded in the 1980s and ‘90s for his case-closing prowess, but defendants have accused him of coercing confessions, engineering dubious witness identifications and other troubling tactics. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors said in their report on the Ruffin case that they “did not discover any misconduct by Scarcella" in the matter. A message seeking comment was sent to his attorney.

Prosecutors said the police investigation — and their office's own at the time — “were wholly inadequate” and tunnel-visioned, failing to look into the person they now believe was the gunman.

The mistaken-identity shooting happened as Ruffin and others were looking for a robber who had just snatched earrings from Ruffin’s sister. In fact, Deligny wasn't the robber, authorities say.

Tipsters led police to Ruffin, then a 17-year-old high school student, and the victim's sister identified him in a lineup that a court later deemed flawed. Scarcella wasn't involved in the lineup, but he and another detective questioned Ruffin.

The teen told them, twice, that he saw but wasn't involved in Deligny's shooting, according to police records quoted in prosecutors' report.

Then Scarcella brought the teen's estranged father — a police officer himself — to the precinct. The father later testified that he told his son to “tell the truth,” but Ruffin said his father leaned on him to confess.

And he did confess, saying he fired because he thought Deligny was about to pull something out of his jacket. Ruffin told the detectives they could retrieve the gun from his sister's boyfriend, and they did, prosecutors' report said.

Ruffin quickly recanted to his father, who didn't tell the detectives his son had taken back his confession, according to prosecutors' report. The teen went on to testify at his trial that he didn't shoot Deligny but saw and knew the killer — his sister's boyfriend, the one who'd given police the gun, broken up into parts and stuffed into potatoes.

Jurors at Ruffin's trial heard from the boyfriend, but only about his relationships with the defendant, his sister and others in the case. When the jury was out of the room, the boyfriend invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer other questions, including where he'd been on the night of the shooting.

Prosecutors didn't release the boyfriend's name Thursday, and the names of lawyers who have represented him weren't immediately available. He told prosecutors during their recent reinvestigation that he had nothing to do with the shooting and didn't give detectives the gun. He also said he never confessed to anyone, though prosecutors say Ruffin's stepfather, sister and late mother all have said he made admissions to them.

Asked Thursday about the boyfriend, Ruffin's lawyers noted that the prospect of any prosecution now is uncertain.

“We only wish that in 1996, Detective Scarcella and others had performed the investigation they should have and been able to get this right the first time," attorney Garrett Ordower said, noting that Deligny's family may now never have the finality of a conviction in his death.

As for Ruffin, he's focused on his future, including promotion opportunities at his job in Atlanta. His now-voided conviction, he said, “never defined me.”

“This never really spoke of the person I was or the man I was going to become,” he said. “So this, to me, is a great closure of a chapter my life, but my life is still going up.”

URL

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/ap-top-news/2024/01/19/man-cleared-in-a-1996-brooklyn-killing-said-for-decades-he-knew-who-did-it-prosecutors-now-agree

an online profile named Myles Daye said the following

Pronpt: drawing , thick lines, white background, only color is red from paint dripping, featuring punisher from marvel with a city apart of his jacket.
Starting to feel bad for artist cause these came out amazing.

a computer  returned the following

My reply
I am an artist, don't feel bad, star trek's holodeck has the same idea as this computer generated interpretation. certain computers today have enough memory plus speed to accept literal statements and compute based on their data storage plus algorithms the literal statements into graphical images. enjoy use it. if anyone wants to draw they still can,no is has halted the ability of anyone to draw straight from their imagination. but, for those who are not artists, now they have the computer to make art they want and if the computer isn't close enough, you can go to artists and have them make details changes. for example, if you want the punisher's cityscape jacket to have a particular skyline with certain buildings certain places you can go to an artists and they can manipulate it. Don't feel bad. enjoy the modern tools, enjoy their financial affordability, if you can remember the computer isn't an artist it isn't imagining anything, and if you want specifics that the computer is having trouble reaching, human artists are out there with the skills to adjust the base image. 

IN AMENDMENT

someone then replied

please reiterate this to all the AI haters that want to be offended on your behalf. They swear it's an affront to all artists that use "natural" mediums. I'm pretty sure inkers & pencilers felt this way once digital showed up

My reply

 in the usa, many workers in many manufacturing or mining towns have been waiting for jobs for fifty or forty years. They are joined by inkers and painters, and in twenty years will probably be joined by truckers/taxi drivers. Your correct, people online spew a wild violent negativity, unwilling to comprehend a person who supports what they oppose, to be patient to their own lives delicacy , to not be afraid. And some people simply like to spread negativity as loud as possible especially online while they are very secure offline .  But the negative vibe about computer made art is in a long line of labor group complaints energized by an ever growing populace of people who are being told all is for the collective better while they know they are not too big to fail. I admit I am lucky. I have never been hungry. I have never been told my artistic desires are unworthy or have no value. And I have a loving home where even when things go against me or not conveniently  I have people offline who comfort my fears or worries. but most people in the usa don't have that and thus the vibe. Sad. And, the solution sadly is not through online discourse, it is through CEO's elected officials managing industries better. Why didn't the usa government pay for artists in college or working in firms as digital art arose, to have free digital drawing pads plus software from sea to shining sea, every state? why didn't they force firms to pay to make sure their entire labor force including retired employees had tablets plus software. move the labor force into the industry and the labor force will not be as threatened. And if the job pool is gone, which is usual, the government need to pay to redirect people, reach to them, firms don't have to care as much, but a truly caring government should. 

Response and Articles 12/19/2023

At the end of the war between the states: louisiana, south carolina, mississippi had majority black populaces, but the governments of said states had no black officials. One of the problems with some Black people in the usa is they speak very neutrally when it comes to humanity. Being verbose is a long thing, can be fatiguging, but is usually more descriptive and being more descriptive is needed when you speak of the past in humanity anywhere. The palestinean people had the majority in palestine when the zionist came but the government was completely run by members of the british empire. so... 
I think a valid question exist. Beyond the law, did the 14th or 15th amendment's make the Black Enslaved or former enslaved citizens? What makes a citizen? is it the law? or is it, the communal context? I argue the history of the native american in the usa+ the black enslaved or descended of enslaved in the usa, refutes the idea that citizenry comes from the law. 
The authors states tremendous progress for the black populace in what is commonly callted reconstruction in the usa, but i argue that is erroneous. First, most black people in the usa, 90% were still financially dead, no savings, no money, no land, n opportunity to gain financially.  Tremendous progress I thought represented a lifting of a majority in a populace, not a financial stagnation from a majority that never had financial betterment. 
The biggest problem with Black people in the usa, is the lie we tell ourselves about the commonly called Great Migration, which I call the Black fleeing. Black people flew from the south cause black people were being killed/murdered/incarcerated absent criminal activity/assaulted through the entirey of reconstruction, ask Ida B Wells and flew to the northern cities to be treated better. Most black people did not think they were going to financial betterment outside the south. I wonder where that myth comes from. Yes, some black people sought financial betterment but most wanted away from whitey. 

The firs thing he said that is truth, Black people always flew back to the south.  But the reason was always simple. Thew white governments of the  exosouth [north or west] was no better than the white governments of the south. Remember, Tulsa, which wasn't majority black like NYC, Chicago, Los ANgeles, had a government that aided in the bombing and looting of the black community in tulsa by the white community. To be blunt, NYC, Chicago, Los ANgeles were not haven cities for blacks, that is a myth. But the fact that they were not is why black people flew back. 

Now what is missing. Many years ago, during Obama's first campaign I suggested Black people in the usa needed a black party of governance in the usa to focus on places where the populace of black people is largest. He speaks of Black Power in government locally in the southern states but doesn't suggest a black party of governance in said states? why? I always find it strategically silly that any community is unwilling to support organizations strictly to their benefit when they have numerical advantage. 
Why do the black towns and counties of the south have representatives of andrew jackson or abraham lincoln when both have proven to be useless in being effective to making or administering legal policy to Black benefit.

I emailed him my thoughts, you can do the same
chblow@nytimes.com

Some post where I spoke on this

https://aalbc.com/tc/blogs/entry/194-richard-murray-creative-table/page/5/?tab=comments#comment-496

https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/9211-the-black-community-in-the-usa-need-an-alternative-to-black-officials-from-the-party-of-andrew-jackson-or-abraham-lincoln/

https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1945&type=status

This photo is part of the problem. Most black people didn't own a car. This black family is financially the black one percent. This black family is looking for financial betterment but most black people owned nothing. I know for certain. Most Black people fled the south , walking, taking the train, fleeing white violence. But the narrative whites like to hear, ala magical negro is it was a simple financial move. 

Charles M. Blow on reversing the Great Migration
sunday-morning
BY CHARLES M. BLOW

DECEMBER 17, 2023 / 10:25 AM EST / CBS NEWS

Our commentary is from New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, whose new HBO documentary "South to Black Power" is now streaming on Max:

At the end of the Civil War, three Southern states (Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi) were majority Black, and others were very close to being so. And during Reconstruction, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution made Black people citizens and gave Black men the right to vote.

This led to years of tremendous progress for Black people, in part because of the political power they could now access and wield on the state level.
But when Reconstruction was allowed to fail and Jim Crow was allowed to rise, that power was stymied. So began more decades of brutal oppression.

In the early 1910s, Black people began to flee the South for more economic opportunity and the possibility of more social and political inclusion in cities to the North and West. This became known as the Great Migration, and lasted until 1970.

But nearly as soon as that Great Migration ended, a reverse migration of Black people back to the South began, and that reverse migration – while nowhere near as robust of the original – is still happening today.

In 2001 I published a book called "The Devil You Know," encouraging even more Black people to join this reverse migration and reclaim the state power that Black people had during Reconstruction. I joined that reverse migration myself, moving from Brooklyn to Atlanta.

Last year, I set out to make a documentary which road-tested the idea, traveling the country, both North and South, and having people wrestle with this idea of Black power.

Here are three things I learned from that experience.

First, Black people are tired of marching and appealing for the existing power structure to treat them fairly.

Second, young Black voters respond to a power message more than to a message of fear and guilt.

And third, many of the people I talked to had never truly allowed themselves to consider that there was another path to power that didn't run though other people's remorse, pity, or sense of righteousness.

I don't know if Black people will heed my call and reestablish their majorities, or near-majorities, in Southern states. But sparking the conversation about the revolutionary possibility of doing so could change the entire conversation about power in this country, in the same way that it has changed me.

URL
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charles-m-blow-on-reversing-the-great-migration-south-to-black-power/

Different Tribes of Black people slowly becoming one takes too long to retain gains or start new gains

Alabama

Black Descendent of enslaved leaders guided the majority populace of said people to do what Maher says the palestinean should do. Based on the history of said people my advice is for the palestinean to keep fighting for the river to the sea. Yes, it may lead to a termination of palestineans. But, look at the native american in the usa. Look at the black descended of enslaved in the usa. 
Two peoples who in overwhelming majority, not all, chose the path Maher suggest the palestinean choose. What did it lead to? 
Whites in the USA got what they wanted, they got to win a blood feud absent having to kill the rivals in the feud, and then use that as a symbol of usa greatness. The black descended of enslaved plus native american became idolters, mostly ranked by people who are completely infatuated to the culture of those who enslaved them, completely impotent populaces concerning what can only come from collective force, beggers or crawlers in the system designed by rivals in a blood feud. 
Maher is correct, as someone in this community said to me the same as other black people said many times in earshot in my offline life, the past can not be changed. But, how you plan for the future does not have to suggest the past didn't happen. And that is what Maher truly wants, what the native american of the usa did, what the black descended of the usa did,   for the palestinean people to eat the crow of accepting the system of their opposer and embrace said system. Then they can have a palestinean president of israel. They can have dancing jolly musicals about the fiscally poor palestineans abused by the tyrranical israelis hurting each other for relief. They can mate with israelis and have a bunch of loving palestinean-israeli mulattoes. Yeah, I know what Maher is suggesting to the palestinean. If the palestinean is wise,better for the community to die than to become the native american of the usa.

Maher on palestineans

Maher on netanyahu

IN AMENDMENT
The problem with netanyahu is like so many , he is unwilling to embrace the truth of his country,this is what hitler did that many leaders are unwilling to do. Embrace the power and violence of their government as power+ violence. The Statian empire teaches all governments that power must always be wielded as benevolence, this comes from the british imperial tradition that create the usa. But I oppose that, if you are a bully be a bully. You want to push the palestineans out, then simply do it. Trying to suggest you are legal or pure or a good person or some other thing to make a false narrative in a history book or to assuade your descendents of how they got their wealth is to me a true sin. Maher says Israel is powerful , well it is time for israel to embrace that position. And to embrace that the zionist chose this location. If the zionist were wise they would had chosen somewhere in europe but they were not, they assumed they could chose a muslim place and convert it through influence of their big brother who was started the same way, the usa. But they underestimated that not all peoples are the native american + black descended of enslaved who are weak peoples. So the zionist made the bed, the israeli has to live in it, israel will always be the enemy of its neighbors, that is the zionist legacy, netanyahu needs to embrace it and kick the palestinean out and live surrounded by enemies. 

What DAvid Alan Grier said is correct, and in the situation of candy cane lane holds truth but the reason it isn't industry wide must be discussed.  The problem with the narrative is, who owns is irrelevant . Grier says all need to see themselves, and he isn't wrong but black people don't see themselves in media in the usa cause black people don't own the media. Many black people in the usa seem to think not owning sports team, not owning film studios, not owning music labels, not owning car companies, not owning gun manufacturers, not owning cement makers, not owning real estate , not owning mass produce producers[corporate farms], is not a factor. Black people in the usa don't own any industry. That is why Black people are not present as we will like in any industry in the usa. IT is very simple. But the reason black people don't own is because of our history under this government , historically white, that placed us in a negative financial state where whites disallowed us from owning. Yes, starting in the 1980s, it can be said that the black populace in the usa finally was free from the yoke of the whites to grow as individuals BUT it matters when whites in the usa have opportunities to take native american land, when whites have the opportunity to rip natural resources from the earth, when whites have the opportunity to have a gilded age making fortunes for bloodlines off of acts today deemed illegal. MErit isn't unimportant. I am not knocking down merit. But merit isn't more important than opportunity but opportunity in the usa comes from ownership not merit. And ownership in the USA 99% of the time comes from advantage through an ancestor using arms, guns,  or inheriting wealth from an ancestor who used arms, guns. 
...
 This situation reflects my point, ownership is more important than merit or equality. eddie mruphy is an owner/a producer and makes the choices, if eddie murphy didn't put grier or someone black as santa that is his choice. My point is ownership is superior to merit. Black culture/storytelling has always been present to support black people feeling apart of anything. And I know cause growing up as a kid I never felt deprived of black presence in media or in any season cause of my parents.

David Alan Grier on Why His Surprise Cameo as Black Santa in ‘Candy Cane Lane’ Reminded Him of ‘Black Panther’
The film reunited him with his 'Boomerang' collaborators Eddie Murphy and director Reginald Hudlin.

BY CHRIS GARDNER

Plus Icon
DECEMBER 9, 2023 11:15AM

As the Candy Cane Lane premiere red carpet heated up Nov. 28, two publicist elves worked their way down the press line to remind journalists not to spoil the big reveal from the Reginald Hudlin-directed holiday adventure.

The Prime Video release, penned by Kelly Younger, stars Eddie Murphy as a recently unemployed man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest. The hush-hush surprise happens late in the film when David Alan Grier crash-lands in an ultra-slick sleigh as (the lifted embargo permits us to announce) Black Santa Claus.

“Reggie called and told me what his idea was and I was overjoyed, man. He let me flow and egged me and Eddie on,” explained Grier of reteaming with Hudlin and Murphy with whom he teamed for the 1992 romantic comedy Boomerang. “That was over 30 years ago and all we talked about were cars, clubs, big houses, like ‘Where y’all going tonight.’ This was different because Eddie is so chill. He has kids, grandkids. He seemed really, really happy.”

As far as the significance of playing an iconic character as a Black man, Grier said the opportunity reminded him of Black Panther. “When you see yourself represented in movies or stories, it’s an affirmation that you exist, that you belong, and that you’re legitimate. That’s what people forget about to see ourselves, not just us, everybody. There’s room for all of us at the table. This is the first Christmas movie I ever did so it’s got to last a long time.”

Who knows, there may also be a sequel. Prime Video announced last week that following its debut, Candy Cane Lane quickly became the No. 1 movie worldwide on Prime Video, the most-watched am*zon MGM Studios-produced movie debut ever in the U.S. and among the top 10 worldwide film debuts ever on the service. 

“The sensational debut of Eddie Murphy’s first-ever Christmas movie, Candy Cane Lane, is a true demonstration of how joyful, family-oriented stories can touch the hearts of viewers around the world,” offered Courtenay Valenti, head of film, streaming, and theatrical at am*zon MGM Studios.

Grier is also counting his blessings this holiday season. “I’m going to tell you right now, I’m 67 years old. I did not think that my career would be here at my age. I have more work than I can even say yes to. My career is booming and I feel like I finally figured out what I’m doing, so I’m only getting better and better. We’ll see what happens.”

url
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/david-alan-grier-surprise-cameo-black-santa-candy-cane-lane-1235714766/

the american society of magical negroes trailer
For centuries, there has been a society hidden in plain sight, working in secret to protect Black people from harm. It’s called THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES.
A new satire from writer/director Kobii Libi and an official selection of Sundance 2024. Only in theaters March 22.

guiliani as mayor of new york made policy intentionally harming the black populace in nyc, that being the selling of nyc properties that black people lived in, properties nyc owned because the real estate industry failed which many forget... is his actions toward two black female poll workers a shock to black new york city dwellers? The answer is no.

kamala harris broke the record on tiebreak votes but is the quality of her tiebreaks showing she is thoughtful or functional?
https://www.blackenterprise.com/kamala-harris-200-year-record-tiebreakers-cast/

Question, should black people in the south look to reboot the majority of historical black colleges that went under?
For example the Conroe Normal and Industrial College faculty (c. 1903)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conroe_Normal_and_Industrial_College
referal

Mandela on a Black countries government
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5TiUhhm7cQ

or

Please read MEdical Apartheid by Harriet Washington
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/medical-apartheid
the referral
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/smithsonian-targeted-dc-s-vulnerable-to-build-brain-collection/ar-AA1lukXG

My R&A - response and articles

Well.. this topic goes into fiscal capitalism: its modern form in the usa + emitted to the remainder of humanity from the usa, the management of industries in the usa, individual wealth or living standards in the us, the prosequences or consequences of complete ownership in fiscal capitalism or the alternatives to complete ownership. ... but to be briefest, from the crafts of the oldest humans or the walls of kemet to the empire of mars, arts + crafts are best shared when totally public, ala library. But within private homes, complete ownership is best for all arts or crafts. 

Christopher Nolan Says Streaming-Only Content Is a ‘Danger’ and Can ‘Get Taken Down,’ Guillermo del Toro Calls Owning Physical Media a ‘Responsibility’

By Zack Sharf

Christopher Nolan made headlines earlier this month when he took a playful jab at streaming platforms while discussing the upcoming home release of “Oppenheimer.” The atomic bomb drama, which grossed a staggering $950 million in theaters worldwide, is hitting Blu-ray and other digital platforms this month. Nolan said at a recent “Oppenheimer” screening that it’s important to own the film on Blu-ray so that “no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”

“It was a joke when I said it. But nothing’s a joke when it’s transcribed onto the internet,” Nolan recently told The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/11/17/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-style-session/ ] in a follow-up interview.

“There is a danger, these days, that if things only exist in the streaming version they do get taken down, they come and go,” the director added.

Streamers have become notoriously known in the last year for pulling original titles from their platforms in order to license them out elsewhere and open up potential revenue streams. When such titles are streaming-only offerings, their removal makes it impossible to view the films elsewhere. Such was the case this year with the Disney+ movie “Crater,” for instance. The streaming-only family adventure was pulled from Disney+ in June and could not be viewed anywhere until it was reissued as a digital release months later in September. For Nolan, owning physical media is the only way to combat such streaming trends.

Guillermo del Toro agrees, having shared Nolan’s recent quotes on X (formerly Twitter) and adding his own commentary on the issue.

“Physical media is almost a Fahrenheit 451 (where people memorized entire books and thus became the book they loved) level of responsibility,” del Toro wrote to his followers. “If you own a great 4K HD, Blu-ray, DVD etc etc of a film or films you love…you are the custodian of those films for generations to come.”

Nolan previously said that he has spent months preparing “Oppenheimer” for home release so that the Blu-ray version of the film sounds and looks as pristine as the film’s theatrical release.

“Obviously ‘Oppenheimer’ has been quite a ride for us and now it is time for me to release a home version of the film. I’ve been working very hard on it for months,” Nolan said. “I’m known for my love of theatrical and put my whole life into that, but, the truth is, the way the film goes out at home is equally important.”

“‘The Dark Knight’ was one of the first films where we formatted it specially for Blu-ray release because it was a new form at the time,” he continued. “And in the case of ‘Oppenheimer,’ we put a lot of care and attention into the Blu-ray version… and trying to translate the photography and the sound, putting that into the digital realm with a version you can buy and own at home and put on a shelf so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”

U.R.L.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/christopher-nolan-streaming-films-danger-risk-pulled-1235802476/

A Call for Submissions
for the Killens Review of Arts & Letters
Spring 2024

All That We Carry: Where Do We Go From Here?

Deadline: Friday, December 1, 2023

The Killens Review of Arts & Letters is a peer-reviewed journal that welcomes Black writers and artists whose work speaks to the general public and to an intergenerational range of readers represented throughout the African diaspora. For the Spring 2024 issue of the Killens Review, we are seeking short stories, essays, creative nonfiction, poetry, art, and photography. Inspired by questions posed by Dr. Tiya Miles, eminent historian and creative writer, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are soliciting content that reflects how Black creatives from all parts of the world move forward when all around us is in disarray. Specifically, we ask that you submit original writing or art that explores the themes of legacy, memory, inheritance, and/or radical hope (or pessimism), with an orientation toward the future and future generations of Black peoples.

Application

https://centerforblackliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/CFP_Killens-Review-Spring-2024.pdf

The Scientific Case for Two Spaces After a Period
A new study proves that half of people are correct. The other is also correct.

By James Hamblin

photo by Tina Fineberg / AP

MAY 11, 2018

This is a time of much division. Families and communities are splintered by polarizing narratives. Outrage surrounds geopolitical discourse—so much so that anxiety often becomes a sort of white noise, making it increasingly difficult to trigger intense, acute anger. The effect can be desensitizing, like driving 60 miles per hour and losing hold of the reality that a minor error could result in instant death.

One thing that apparently still has the power to infuriate people, though, is how many spaces should be used after a period at the end of an English sentence.

The war is alive again of late because a study that came out this month from Skidmore College. The study is, somehow, the first to look specifically at this question. It is titled: “Are Two Spaces Better Than One? The Effect of Spacing Following Periods and Commas During Reading.”

It appears in the current issue of the journal Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics. As best I can tell, psychophysics is a word; the Rochester Institute of Technology defines it as the “study of the relationship between stimuli (specified in physical terms) and the sensations and perceptions evoked by these stimuli.” The researchers are also real. Rebecca Johnson, an associate professor in Skidmore’s department of psychology, led the team. Her expertise is in the cognitive processes underlying reading. As Johnson told me, “Our data suggest that all readers benefit from having two spaces after periods.”

“Increased spacing has been shown to help facilitate processing in a number of other reading studies,” Johnson explained to me by email, using two spaces after each period. “Removing the spaces between words altogether drastically hurts our ability to read fluently, and increasing the amount of space between words helps us process the text.”

In the Skidmore study, among people who write with two spaces after periods—“two-spacers”—there was an increase in reading speed of 3 percent when reading text with two spaces following periods, as compared to one. This is, Johnson points out, an average of nine additional words per minute above their performance “under the one-space conditions.”

This is a small difference, though if a change like this saved even a tiny amount of time, or prevented a tiny amount of miscommunication, the net benefit across billions of people could be enormous. Entire economies could be made or broken, wars won or lost.

Or so it would seem. The conclusions she drew from that data pushed people into their corners on social media, where they dealt with it in variously intense ways.

Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, tweeted in reference to the study: “Science can blow your mind sometimes, and this time it has come down on the side of two spaces after a period.”

Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Yale University, wrote: “Hurray! Science vindicates my longstanding practice, learned at age 12, of using TWO SPACES after periods in text. NOT ONE SPACE. Text is easier to read that way. Of course, on Twitter, I use one space, given 280 characters.”

There’s a lot going on in that tweet, but you get the idea.

Others were less ecstatic. Robert VerBruggen, the deputy managing editor at National Review, shared the study with the comment: “New facts forced me to change my mind about drug legalization but I just don’t think I can do this.”

My colleague Ian Bogost tweeted simply, “This is terrorism.”

Full disclosure: I also shared a screenshot of the study’s conclusion that “the eye-movement record suggested that initial processing of the text was facilitated when periods were followed by two spaces.” I said about this only, “Oh no.”

I find two spaces after a period unsettling, like seeing a person who never blinks or still has their phone’s keyboard sound effects on. I plan to teach my kids never to reply to messages from people who put two spaces after a period. I want this study’s conclusion to be untrue—to uncover some error in the methodology, or some scandal that discredits the researchers or the university or the entire field of psychophysics.

So let’s look for that. Because this really does matter: In a time of greater and greater screen time, and more and more consumption of media, how do we optimize the information-delivery process?

In much the same way that we’re taught to write in straight lines from left to right, most of us have been taught that one way of spacing is simply right, and the other is wrong. Less often are we taught to question the standard—whether it makes sense, or whether it should change. But what is the value of education if not to teach children to question the status quo, and to act in deliberate ways that they can justify with sound, rational arguments?

Such an argument is extremely difficult to make when it comes to sentence spacing, because the evidence is not there for either case. The fact that the scientifically optimal number of spaces hasn’t been well studied was odd to Johnson, given the strength of people’s feelings on the subject. The new American Psychological Association style guidelines came out recently, and they had changed from one space to two spaces following periods because they claimed it “increased the readability of the text.” This galled Johnson: “Here we had a manual written to teach us how to write scientifically that was making claims that were not backed with empirical evidence!”

She was intrigued and designed the new study “to add some scientific data to the conversation.”

Her rationale for two spaces gets complex—verging into the domain of rather high-level psychophysical theory (email me). As the researchers explain it, it’s all about mechanics of the eye, and what causes us to trip up or pause, even for a split second. In the current study, when text was presented with two spaces after periods, some readers’ eyes were more likely to jump over the “punctuation region” and spend less unnecessary time fixated on it. The extra space seemed to make it easier for readers to “extract the lines and curves from the text.” The space also comes into the periphery of one’s vision before it arrives, and that helps to signal that the sentence is wrapping up.

The Skidmore study was small and less than definitive—essentially dipping a toe into a long-unquestioned practice. There were only 60 subjects, and they were all college students—meaning they were probably more interested in “hooking up” and “Snapchat” than actually reading. (Ed.: This is too much editorializing, apologies.)

Most importantly, the effects appeared early in processing, and spacing did not affect overall comprehension. And that’s what reading is all about, no? The fact that our eyes may move a little faster is less important than whether the concepts make it into our brains.

“It’s not like people COULDN’T understand the text when only one space was used after the periods,” Johnson said. “The [human] reading system is pretty flexible, and we can comprehend written material regardless of whether it is narrowly or widely spaced.”

Angela Chen at The Verge also gave a pointed critique of the methodology:

The two-space convention is left over from the days of typewriters. Typewriters allot the same amount of space for every character, so a narrow character like i gets as much as a wider character like w. (This is called a mono-spaced font.) With a typewriter, it makes sense to add an extra space to make it clear that the sentence has ended. Today’s word-processing software makes fonts proportional, though, which is why we only need one space. Also, it looks better. The Chicago Manual of Style and the Modern Language Association Style Manual also take this stance.

“I’ve gotten a lot of flak for using a mono-spaced font (Courier New) in the study,” said Johnson. Her defense is that most eye-tracking studies use monospaced fonts, and that many word-processing systems still, in practice, act like typewriters (in that they don’t add additional space between sentences even when using proportional fonts; to increase the amount of space between sentences relative to the amount of space between any two words within the sentence, two physical spaces are still needed following the period). “Although I agree that future research should look at these effects using other types of fonts, research in this area suggests that font differences in general are small or nonexistent.”

Even in the studies where researchers have removed interword spaces altogether, reading comprehension is still very high. For example, Thai and Chinese are typically written without spaces between words, even though studies have found that when space is added between words, reading speed increases. The standard comes down to aesthetics, tradition, conservation of paper and space—basically, the fact that reading is an act of much more than information delivery.

I’ve written before about the effect of color gradients on reading, and how it goes against the findings of science that our words should be in a single color, usually black and usually on a near-white background, and usually presented in lines of a certain length. This is all a matter of tradition and style, not optimal information transfer. This standard does not work well for everyone. It’s why I thought, for a long time, that I didn’t like books. I wasn’t good at the mechanics of reading. When I found text-to-speech programs and actual audiobooks, it was like finally seeing the turtle in one of those Magic Eye posters that everyone else at the party saw hours ago.

All of this is to say that if we really wanted to do evidence-based delivery of text for maximum comprehension, it wouldn’t be like debating one space or two. It would look totally different: words spewing into your face by some sort of torrent that syncs with feedback about your perception, and slows or pauses when you are distracted, and speeds up when you are bored.

Still, this has been a good exercise in challenging beliefs, at least for me. What is important is that this question not be what breaks us—that Americans remember that we are united by the ideals of democracy, freedom, liberty, and justice that we still hold dear, and which demand our allegiance above any person or party or spacing issue.

James Hamblin, M.D., is a former staff writer at The Atlantic. He is also a lecturer at Yale School of Public Health, a co-host of Social Distance, and the author of Clean: The New Science of Skin.

URL
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/two-spaces-after-a-period/559304/

MY RESPONSE

As a writer I used and use grammatical techniques that are uncommon; I received and receive negative commentary in response to said use. But, what is the most potent issue? The most potent issue isn't who is right or wrong. The most potent issue is fear of no norm/standard. I find many people in various arenas are standardphiles or standard fanatics. 

I give the following examples: a sports team succeeds in lifting a trophy using a strategy deemed outdated, a writer composes a story that buyers embrace that doesn't utilize common expectations for characters, a person lives comfortably while not acting to the life script all others have around them. 

The problem isn't right or wrong, it is the fear of not being able to say who is right or wrong. This fear is huge. When a person whose forebears were enslaved in the usa to whites, says kill whites/kill the usa. The normal /standard response by most blacks or whites in the usa living at the time of this writing is something negative, around the terms: shame on you, you know better, judge individually, we are all family. But what if.... they are allowed? Notice I didn't say right or wrong. What if the condemnation is wrong ?  It isn't an issue of opinions but applied opinion. Applied opinion breeds consensus , creates the standards or norms. 

All know this. But how big is africa? who is american? who are immigrants to the usa? who are white? Absent applied opinion, the peer pressure is gone, and people are freer to do as they want, even against a majority as individuals. 

To writing, it doesn't spell the end of literature, but spells the end of critiques. Judgement requires laws which are attempts as an enforced standard or norm, which themselves are built on applied opinions. 

The reaction in the article from others is the purest example. They fear someone not caring what they say, and being surrounded by others who don't care too. 

Thus, the individualism, at least in the usa,  becomes true, not the mirror of white european descended, pan religious, empowerment that it is. 

Boo Movies for Halloween

any suggestions, please comment

Cat People 1942

The Seventh Victim 1943

The Uninvited 1944

The Picture of Dorian Grey 1945

The Picture of Dorian Gray - 1945 from Daniel on Vimeo.

Night of the Hunter 1955

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956

The House on Haunted Hill 1959

Eyes without a face 1960

The Innocents 1961

The Haunting 1963

Hour of the Wolf 1968

Night of the Living Dead 1968

 I made a reply to the following

MY REPLY TO THE TOPIC

  I will only opine on two quotes from Troy's prose. I can opine on the rest but I will not. 

I use the term black statians where he used  black americans. Black americans for me represents the people I deem black from the lands commonly called canada to argentina in total. 

The first is 

Quote

It was organized by the leader of black america, in so far as we have one, Al Sharpton.

While  the definition of any people or leadership in humanity varies historically, in various races in the human race, based on my definition of leadership or its mechanics as well as my definition of black statians, Al Sharpton was never and is not a leader in the Black Statian community in the USA; he isn't a leader in the black statian community of New York State; he isn't a leader in the black community of NEw York city; he isn't a leader in the black community of manhattan. I offer two proofs that satisfy me , and some others. 

Recently in harlem, a spitting distance from the national action network, a white owned real estate property went through a administrative/organizational struggle. But sharpton was absent. He didn't even speak with the black elected officials in the city council or state assembly on the issue. 

I view Al Sharpton as an advocate, not a leader. Sometimes a leader is an advocate as well, like the great Malcolm X. But sharpton is an advocate, he works for something, ala advocacy , but a leader, as i define one, isn't merely an advocate, they are an organizer as well, and sharpton has always refrained from organization. 

My second is Al Sharpton's words concerning his own movement. 

He admitted in local media in new york city that when he started his movement, his thing to advocate through, he wanted it to be a christian movement. what is the problem? Not all black people in the usa/new york state/new york city are christian, not all black people in the usa/new york state/new york city  are nonviolent, so by his own words he was never interested in something all black statians could gather into. So you can not lead any people when you are unwilling to lead all their  tribes or subparts. 

the second is 

Quote

Maybe that is the result of “progress.”

Well, the problem with the word progress, what you move toward, is answering the question, what are you moving toward. To the topic, what has the black statian been moving toward. One of the problems with the black community in the usa, the black statians is the idea that it is a collective, a unified being. the black statian community had two major historical moments. First when the usa was founded. Second the war between the states. 

When the usa was founded most black people were enslaved to whites and a minority of blacks were free. BAsed on their actions what were they progressing too? 

The enslaved blacks wanted freedom from whites by any means, violence preferable but exodus from the usa was the goal. Most free blacks fought aside the british to maintain the british colonies and stop the usa from being so the black statians when the usa was founded was 90% progressing to kill whites or leave the nascent usa 10% was looking to kill white colonits and gain land within the british empire. sum it up, most blacks, as well as most native americans , were opposed to the creation of the usa as well as the white europeans in it. SO the creation of the usa and the empowerment of the white europeans in it went completely against the progression of most native americans or black statians when the usa was founded. Thus is it odd to see the future negative . 

Then the second for black statians is the war between the states. But again, the three black leadership groups  were: black abolotionist leaders absent money, black soldiers who had their guns removed immediately and dispersed throughout the usa as individuals at the end of said war, the black church who was divided on whether to integrate or segregate from whites based on a vote of clergy that was near split 50/50. so what does this mean. black abolitionist had no revenue or resources to act beyond speeches and petitioning after the 13th amendment; they progressed to a small minority in the black community that speaks for money which has existed ever since in the black statian community paramount by Obama, black soldiers embraced through force or desire an individualism; that progression  become the largest heritage of the black community in the usa en large, the black church was multivided on what to do which manifested in the exodusters in the western states as opposed to integrated communities in the north east; which was a progression that led to the variances between malcolm/martinthe panthers/the sclbc/fannie lou hamer that led to the variances of barack obama/cornell west/michael jordan/oprah winfrey . 

The Black community has never in the history of the USA been majority to one path of progression that is pro usa or integration. 

5-Minute Morning Yoga
Seven poses to help you wake up and feel energized

By Melinda Wenner Moyer Sep. 6, 2023
The last thing many people want to do when they wake up is exercise. But if you’re not in the mood for a run or a trip to the gym, yoga is a good way to get moving, and you can do it in as little as five minutes.

Yoga can help “to wake up your body and get it ready for the day,” said Neha Gothe, the director of the Exercise Psychology Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The right poses can stretch the major muscle groups and warm up the joints, while slow breathing promotes focus and can reduce stress and anxiety. No equipment or even sweating‌ is required. ‌

If possible, start your morning yoga routine right after you wake up — and ideally before you reach for your phone, said Laura Schmalzl, a neuroscientist and certified yoga instructor at the Southern California University of Health Sciences.

Begin with slow, gentle movements. Listen to how your body feels, releasing any poses that cause discomfort.

As you hold positions and move through sequences, try “box” breathing, suggested Dr. Natalie Nevins, a family medicine physician and ‌an assistant dean at the Western University of Health Sciences. Inhale for around four seconds, then hold your breath for four seconds, exhale for four seconds and hold your breath again for four seconds before repeating the cycle.

If you have a heart condition, or are uncomfortable holding your breath, Dr. Nevins recommended a simple series of five-second inhales, each immediately followed by a five-second exhale.

Here is a yoga routine recommended by experts to get your day going.

Knees-to-chest
Start by lying on your back and hugging your knees to your chest. You should feel a gentle stretch in the spine. Breathe in and out through the stretch.

Half cobra
Release your legs and roll onto your chest, allowing your forehead or cheek to rest on the floor. Rest your forearms and place your palms on the ground, directly under your shoulders, while keeping your bent elbows tight against your sides.

Then gently push away from the floor, lifting your chest and forehead. Feel your spine gently stretch as you continue to slowly breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Stay here for three breaths.

Alternating cat-cow
This pose is useful to encourage spine mobility and flexibility. Rise to a kneeling tabletop position, keeping your hands shoulder-width apart and your knees hip-distance apart directly under your hips.

On the inhale, arch your back into a cow pose, easing your belly toward the floor, and bringing your head and chest upward so you are gazing toward the sky as you inhale. Then exhale, releasing your breath and pulling your belly up and in and rounding your back into a cat pose.

Alternate between these two poses as many times as you like, feeling your spine and neck stretch in both directions. Feel free to gently move your hips, shoulders or head in a circular motion, breathing slowly as you do.

Child’s pose
This is a gentle and foundational pose that stretches the spine. It’s also a pose you can return to in any yoga class if you need to rest or reset.

From the tabletop position, inhale and touch your big toes together behind you. Then sit on your heels, letting your knees open wide to create space beneath you. Or you can choose to keep your knees together, if that feels more comfortable.

As you exhale, shift your hips back and your upper body forward, lowering your torso to rest between or on top of your thighs. If your knees are together and you feel a pinch in your hips, spread your knees apart. Stretch your arms out in front of you, reaching as far forward as feels good, and then rest your forearms on the floor.

Let gravity pull you deeper into the pose. You may feel a stretch in your spine, thighs, arms and buttocks. Stay in this pose for five breaths.

Reclining twist
There are several ways to do this pose, depending on your flexibility and what part of your spine you want to target. Start by lying down on your back and bringing your knees up toward your chest.

Hug your knees and place your right hand on your left knee. Let your left arm lie flat, extended on the floor beside you. Twisting from your core, exhale and gently guide your bent legs to fall together to the right side of your body.

Bring your knees toward the floor until you feel a stretch in your back and hips. Then turn your head to look toward your left hand. On an inhale, come back to the center before switching over to the other side.

You may feel a gentle stretching in your hips, buttocks and back and an opening in your shoulders and chest. If you wish to target the upper spine or you want a gentler stretch, you can instead lie on your right side with your legs bent and resting on top of each other. Then slowly twist your upper body to the left. After that, stretch the other side.

Spinal Flex
This gentle back stretch is especially good for people who spend all day sitting at a desk. Sit down on the floor in a cross-legged position and place your hands on your ankles or knees. While inhaling, gently arch your back and lift your chest and chin forward and up. Relax, and while exhaling, round your spine, bending forward slightly and tucking your chin toward your chest. Repeat this sequence five times.

Upward salute
Stand with your feet hip-distance apart. Feel your feet connecting with the floor, and shift your hips forward slightly, remembering to engage your core. Slowly raise your arms overhead and in line with your ears, shoulder-distance apart. Then, turn your palms toward each other and, if you can, let them touch. Bring your gaze up to your hands and feel a stretch in your neck and arms.

If you want, try to raise yourself up onto your toes. Find your center as you take several breaths. When you’re ready, slowly lower your arms and the rest of your body to release the pose. Take a few moments to shake out your arms and legs to release any lingering tension.

Produced by Deanna Donegan and Hang Do Thi Duc.

URL
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/06/well/move/morning-yoga-beginner.html
 

MY THOUGHTS

Breath folks, Breath

“Unbury the Future”: Martha Wells’ Full Speech from the 2017 World Fantasy Awards
Martha Wells
Tue Nov 7, 2017 10:00am

The convention defines “secret history” as tales which uncover an alternative history of our world with the aid of fantasy literary devices. Like alternate histories or secret tales of the occult.

A secret history might also mean a lost history, something written in a language that died with the last native speaker. It might mean something inaccessible, written in a medium too fragile to last. Like the science fiction and fantasy stories published in U.S. newspapers in the late 1800s. We know a few of those authors, like Aurelia Hadley Mohl [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmoae ]  and Mollie Moore Davis [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollie_Evelyn_Moore_Davis ] , but how many others were there? Those stories were proof that everybody has always been here, but the paper they were printed on has turned to dust.

We might know that C.L. Moore [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._L._Moore ] wrote for Weird Tales, but I grew up thinking she was the only one, that a woman fantasy writer from that time period was like a unicorn, there could only be one, and that she was writing for an entirely male audience. But there were plenty of other women, around a hundred in Weird Tales alone, and many of them, like Allison V. Harding [ https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/who-was-allison-v-harding.html ] and Mary Elizabeth Counselman [ http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/summer-of-unknown-writers-mary-elizabeth-counselman/ ] , didn’t bother to conceal their identity with initials.

Weird Tales had women poets, a woman editor named Dorothy McIlwraith, women readers who had their letters printed in the magazine. There were women writing for other pulps, for the earlier Dime Novels, lots of them. Including African American Pauline Hopkins [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Hopkins ] , whose fantasy adventure novel appeared in a magazine in 1903.

These women were there, they existed. Everybody knew that, up until somehow they didn’t. We know there were LGBT and non-binary pulp writers, too, but their identities are hidden by time and the protective anonymity of pseudonyms.

Secrets are about suppression, and history is often suppressed by violence, obscured by cultural appropriation, or deliberately destroyed or altered by colonization, in a lingering kind of cultural gaslighting. Wikipedia defines “secret history” as a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars.

That’s what I think of when I hear the words “secret histories.” Histories kept intentionally secret and histories that were quietly allowed to fade away.

The women writers, directors, and producers of early Hollywood were deliberately erased from movie history. Fifty percent of movies between 1911 and 1928 were written by women. In the 1940s there were a last few survivors at MGM, but their scripts were uncredited and they were strongly encouraged to conceal what they were working on, and not to correct the assumption that they were secretaries.

With the internet, it shouldn’t be possible for that to happen again. But we hear an echo of it every time someone on Reddit says “women just don’t write epic fantasy.”

You do the work, and you try to forget that there are people wishing you out of existence. But there are a lot of means of suppression that are more effective than wishing.

Like in 1974 when Andre Norton discovered the copyeditor on her children’s novel Lavender Green Magic had changed the three black main characters to white.

Or like in 1947, when African American writer and editor Orrin C. Evans was unable to publish more issues of All-Negro Comics [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Negro_Comics ] because there was mysteriously no newsprint available for him to purchase.

Or like all the comics suppressed by the Comics Code Authority in 1954, which acted to effectively purge comics of people of color and of angry violent women, whether they were heroes or villains, or of any perceived challenge to the establishment. Like the publisher Entertaining Comics, which was targeted and eventually driven out of business for refusing to change a story to make a black astronaut white.

There’s an echo of that suppression when DC bans a storyline [ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/batwoman-authors-exit-claim-dc-621274 ] where Batwoman proposes marriage to her girlfriend. And again when Marvel publishes a storyline that makes us think Captain America is a Nazi. When we’re supposed to forget that his co-creator Jack Kirby was Jewish, that he was an Army scout in World War II, that he discovered a concentration camp, that he was personally threatened by three Nazis at the New York Marvel office for creating a character to punch Hitler. (Maybe the Nazis would like to forget that when Kirby rushed downstairs to confront them, they ran away.)

There’s been an active level of suppression in movies since movies were invented. At least a white woman writer and director like Frances Marion [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Marion ] could win two Academy Awards before she was banished from history, but that wasn’t the case for her contemporary Oscar Micheaux [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Micheaux ] . An African American, Micheaux worked as a railway porter before he wrote, directed, and produced at least 40 films in the black movie industry that was entirely separate from white Hollywood.

That kind of suppression is still alive and well, and we see it when the movie about the Stonewall riots shows the resistance against police attacks through the viewpoint of young white guys and ignores Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera [ https://sites.psu.edu/womeninhistory/2016/10/23/the-unsung-heroines-of-stonewall-marsha-p-johnson-and-sylvia-rivera/ ] . Or when Ghost in the Shell features a white actress [ https://www.tor.com/2016/04/20/why-are-we-still-white-washing-characters/ ]  instead of Japanese.

We’ve forgotten Sessue Hayakawa [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessue_Hayakawa ] , a Japanese actor who was one of the biggest stars in the silent film era of Hollywood, who was well known as a broodingly handsome heartthrob.

Sometimes history isn’t suppressed, sometimes it just drifts away. The people who lived it never expected it to be forgotten, never expected their reality to dissolve under the weight of ignorance and disbelief.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly unburied the history of the African American women of early NASA, of Katharine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughn and the hundreds like them. They were just forgotten over the years, as the brief time when women’s work meant calculating launch and landing trajectories and programming computers passed out of memory. Like the Mercury 13 [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13 ] , the “Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees” in the 1960s, all pilots, all subjected to the same tests as the men. They retired, they went away, everyone forgot them.

Sometimes when they’re remembered, their contributions are minimized, like when a photo caption calls bacteriologist Dr. Ruby Hirose a “Japanese girl scientist” or labels Bertha Pallan, who was one of the first Native American women archeologists, as an “expedition secretary.” Like the photo post on Tumblr that over and over again, identified Marie Curie as a “female laboratory assistant.” Anybody can be disappeared.

We think we remember them, but then we’re told over and over again, all over the internet, that women don’t like math, can’t do science. That’s the internet that’s supposed to preserve our history, telling us we don’t exist.

Mary Jane Seacole was a Jamaican nurse who helped the wounded on the battlefields of the Crimean War, just like Florence Nightingale. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the mother of rock and roll. Sophia Duleep Singh was a prominent suffragette in the UK. They’re all in Wikipedia, but you can’t look them up unless you remember their names.

The women who worked in the Gibson Guitar factory during WWII were deliberately erased, their existence strenuously denied, despite the evidence of a forgotten group photo that the company still would like to claim never existed.

Jackie Mitchell, seventeen years old, struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in 1931. Her contract was almost immediately voided by the baseball commissioner. Baseball was surely too strenuous for her.

In 1994, Gregory Corso was asked, “Where are the women of the Beat Generation?” He said, “There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock.” Some of them survived, like Diane di Prima, and Hettie Jones.

Book burning draws too much attention. In science fiction and fantasy, in comics, in media fandom, everybody was always here, but we have been disappeared over and over again. We stumble on ourselves in old books and magazines and fanzines, fading print, grainy black and white photos, 16 millimeter film, archives of abandoned GeoCities web sites. We remember again that we were here, they were here, I saw them, I knew them.

We have to unearth that buried history. Like Rejected Princesses [ http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/ ] , by Jason Porath, which chronicles the women of history too awesome, offbeat, or awful to be animated. Or Nisi Shawl’s series the Expanded Course in the History of Black Science Fiction [ https://www.tor.com/tag/history-of-black-science-fiction/ ] . Or Malinda Lo’s LGBTQ YA By the Numbers [ https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2017/10/12/lgbtq-ya-by-the-numbers-2015-16 ] posts. Or Medieval POC [ https://twitter.com/medievalpoc?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor ] , sharing information about people of color in European art history. Like Eric Leif Davin in his book Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction. Like Cari Beauchamps’ book Without Lying Down, about the women writers, directors, and producers of early Hollywood. Like Catherine Lundoff’s series on the history of LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy. Like Saladin Ahmed’s articles on the early history of comics or Jaime Lee Moyer’s article on the erasure of early women scientists[ http://www.jaimeleemoyer.com/we-all-know-what-they-did-to-witches/ ] . Like all the librarians and researchers and writers and archivists and fans who work to unbury our past so we have a chance to find our future.

And we have to continue to move forward toward that future in the fantasy genre, like the nominees on this year’s World Fantasy Award ballot, like all the other fantasy novels and short fiction last year that pushed the envelope a little further, or pushed it as far as it would go.

We have to break the barriers again and again, as many times as it takes, until the barriers are no more, and we can see the future our secret history promised us.

Author’s note: I’d like to thank Kate Elliott for reading an early draft of this, and for her help, inspiration, and encouragement.

Editor’s note: Martha Wells’ toastmaster speech was delivered at the World Fantasy Convention on November 5, 2017 and is reproduced here with the author’s permission; a few minor edits have been made and links have been added to the original text for additional context/clarity.

Martha Wells is a science fiction and fantasy writer, whose first novel was published in 1993. Her most recent series are The Books of the Raksura, for NightShade Books, and The Murderbot Diaries for Tor.com. Besides many fantasy novels, she has also written short stories, media tie-ins for Star Wars and Stargate Atlantis, YA fantasies, and non-fiction.

URL
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/07/unbury-the-future-martha-wells-full-speech-from-the-2017-world-fantasy-awards/

MY THOUGHT

But I think the greater question is not about presence, but action. "We" have always been here is the truth but what do "We" do when lifetimes of merit don't force "Them" to honor or treat "We" at the least equally? 
 

Week 4 of the workshop with Betts on Tumblr

Ma'am 
based on Girl from Jamaica Kincaid
https://richardmurrayhumblr.tumblr.com/post/728165222399000576/narrative-writing-workshop-with-betts-week4
 
The First Mass Of The Perihelion At Saint Lamma
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Title-The-First-Mass-Of-The-Perihelion-At-Saint-La-981961141

Training Ground
https://rmfantasysetpieces1.tumblr.com/post/728165870205009920/training-ground

Complete writing workshop with Betts posts
https://richardmurrayhumblr.tumblr.com/tagged/tumblr writing workshop with betts

Companion Deviantart folder
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/gallery/88882719/tumblr-writing-workshop-with-bettsfic

The soccer blog workshop posts- for it I didn't do all the weeks
https://rmfantasysetpieces1.tumblr.com/tagged/tumblr writing workshop with betts

After discussion side a fellow artist. I made a father to son , son to father reflection of girl from Jamaica Kincaid

Title: Boy

Get up and dig a new latrine hole; Get up and clean the tide off the boat; Get up and get the thrush from the field; Get up and clean the hotel's lawn; Get up and search for crabs; Get up gather and remove the hotel's trash; Get up and clean the hotel floor; always work with your head down; always go where Mr. White tells you to; never steal Mr. White's sugar; use your shirt to wrap the cane if no more cloth; when carrying fish don't trip up or no one will want you to carry their fish again; It is best to sweep the hotel at night when the customers are sleep; Is it true you fought in Sunday school?; don't sing songs on the road, people will not hire you; on Sundays act like a good man and be quiet and not the bums you learned those songs from; Don't fight in Sunday school; you musn't speak to those village girls, not even to give directions; don't eat in the street- people will think you are a bum; but I only fight the teacher on Sundays and always after class;  this is how to make a reel; this is how to make a hook for the reel; this is how to fish so you will not be a bum singing all over the place; this is how to you repair the roof of my house; this is how you repair the wall of my house; this is how you throw a net; this is how you reel in a net; this is how you clean out a net; remember never smile when you accept a delivery; remember never smile when you complete a delivery; remember never to smile when you confirm a delivery; never sing at any time during a delivery or people will think your a bum; don't sing with that voice or people may think your a girl; don't hang around in groups - a good worker never has time for partying; don't touch people's cars, you might dirty them; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; you have to start fishing in the morning; you have to keep fishing in the afternoon; you have to stay fishing at night; if you don't feel good , keep fishing; only sleep with dem village girls at midnight; never trust dem village girls , never say their kid is yours; if the kid is yours , teach it what  i taught you; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doens't fall on you; always spend your money cause you can't save it anywhere; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of man who the baker won't let near the bread? 

Title: Sir

Why do mornings stink? why are mornings salty? Why do mornings cut my feet? Why do mornings make me cough? Why do mornings make me tired? Why do mornings never have breakfast? Why do mornings make my skin bleach? Can I look up at a white cloud? Is Mr. White your father? Why can't Mr. White cut his own sugar? Why didn't you tell me the cane can cut my skin? Why didn't you ever help me carry fish? Why couldn't you ever help me sweep the hotel? Papa never helped you to. Why you hit me whenever I was happy. Why does nobody smile at church? Why do we live in homes like the village people? why does no one have anything to eat ? My father loved me like I love you, the best love is the love you don't know.  why didn't you go out to sea with me? why didn't you fish with me? Why didn't you ever smile when you caught fish, or show off fish? Why do you always grunt to Mama? Why don't you ever smile to Mama? Why didn't you throw a net with me? Why didn't you reel a net with me? Why didn't you clean out a net with me? Why can't I want to do what I do? Why can't I like what I do? Why can't I love what I do? Why can't I tell people I am happy? Why do people think I am a girl if I am happy? Why don't you have any friends? Why can't I have a morning off? Why can't I have an afternoon off? Why can't I have an evening off? Why do you not sleep at home at night? Why do you never trust what mama say? Why is all your money spent on rum? Why did you never let me squeeze bread around you? I  don't need your help. So after telling me what do to all the time, you never cared what I did?

URL 

https://richardmurrayhumblr.tumblr.com/post/728754332023029760/boy-and-sir

Writeup as I listened

12:10 
Secrets to writing great horror

12:12
He wrote the Kundalini equation < https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-kundalini-equation-1 >

originally wrote to have a best seller and increase his career. A white guy was put on a peers cover. The firms back in the day to the original publication was not willing to look at their own responsibility. 
True, the white audience in modernity is used to 

17:36 
STeven sees the potential to do something unique to him. He will rewrite a former novel and turn it into something it should had been, and he will collaborate with Tananarive in the script form. He wants to use Tananarive practical historical smoothing.

18:46 
People suggest Tananarive Due is one of the greatest horror writers alive. 

20:10 
what makes a great horror story?

22:06
What is the greatest extent, what is the most extreme moment?
There is a point where it is too much or that is not enough. A symphony of different emotions to feel the experience. Using vision boards matters.  You can feel your way before you write it. 

23:50 
Now that a cardboard treatment, and now a written treatment and ask what is the experience of this movie be.
What is the difference between action or horror movies?
In action movies, people are getting hurt in a sequence, like in horror. 
For Tananarive, the difference is the depth of characters.
For example, a horror movie about a bunch of college students on a ski trip. She can relate to college students through friends who like skiing.
Then a mercenary on a mission is on a ski lift. She can't relate to a mercenary or being on a ski lift. 

26:31 
Horror needs a relatable character who is experiencing fear, a haunted house is not enough. You need a customer who has never been in that haunted house and something goes wrong. A couple for example trying to work out their stuff and it makes the external side internal.

27:41 
Tananarive has a template. 
If she has to write a horror story and has three weeks.
->What scares you?
She uses survivor horror as that is scary to her and she has been camping, rafting. 
->How do you make the story yours? 
So more than bears, it becomes about a cult. Stephen King was a teacher growing up
->Believe in the characters
Suffered a trauma, and committed a transgression is common among writers of horror. Grief is common , the one horror no one overcomes. 

31:29 
All horror is about surviving what you are in.
Imagine Get Out if Chris wasn't in grief over the lost of his mother.
Steven makes a point, deer antlers were used as a symbol to defend himself, which is like the deer he hit in the beginning of the film.

32:37 
Tananarive, she weaponized his Grief, and by the end, he has weaponized his own grief. To make it his strength and overcome. 

34:09 
Tananative You can make "Get Out" a drama. Is Chris in love with the secret psycho white woman? 
Peele discussed Guess who is coming to dinner in the early screenplay version of "Get Out" 
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpGmCLcqgAw >
< https://www.shadowandact.com/what-is-black-horror-the-sunken-place-professor-tananarive-due-explains > 

36:27
Peele started with social anxiety. It wasn't about phenotypical frictions, merely the frictions of the stranger among a group of friends and amplify it. 
Turn it up to 11. 
Tananarive isn't into human horror. She is triggered by Human horror and make it a journey. It is a journey of self revelation. 

37:39
Liam Neeson, eyes in the grey.
She loves that film, for not about the wolf winning but standing up. Even though many call the end a downer. The film is about who the character becomes. 

38:44 
Tananarive considers gaslighting her least favorite horror. PArents or spouses gaslighting children or spouses in her opinion is poor storytelling. Is it going to kill your character to cut on a flashlight in the dark room? She feels it is overdone. She calls it an artificial conceit. She loves Miles in the good house. Miles doesn't believe but stands by the female character. 
< https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-good-house-2 > 

40:47
You want psychological realism, nothing breaks more than when people act away from common responses. If you do not pick up a weapon going to a dark place you are an idiot.

41:36
STeven Barnes, asks is that why meetings are the best part in horror to Tananarive. 
Tananarive loves the meeting in horror.  

42:40 
Steven talks of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, people of normal intelligence with no idea what is about to happen. In alien, normal people of normal intelligence. Whereas in prometheus, they were scientist and should had known better. 

43:57
Steven, Difference between action in horror, something killing you in the dark is horror, in the light as a tiger is action. 
Horror is unknown, playing on the minds ways to whatever the truth is in the darkness. Action is more strategic, allows for knowable assessment. 
 
45:20 
Tananarive, the feeling of fear is different in action. 
Steven, it will be interesting to take a liam neeson skill set taken man into a situation where he finds himself in a situation beyond his comprehension that he realizes. 

46:42
Tananarive, war time horror is like that. ala Predator. 

47:25 
Steven, talks of Prey, the predator underestimates the human female lead. 

48:25 
Elegance usually takes years. Steven says, the best pieces of horror were not primordial, they evolved. 

49:33 
Tananarive, Think about the antagonists too. Make sure their is logic to Zombies. What is different in the way you write zombies?
< https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/devil-s-wake > 

Put your own unique spin. For example, the reason for haunting of ghost matters. 
The interaction between characters side antagonist matters. 
Steven, your god of the universe in your story
Alot of readers like the antagonist more than anybody else in the story, make it pop ,and don't repeat things. 

52:55 
September 23rd 5-8 on the east coast , 
3 hour workshop. It is 197 dollars. If you can't afford it. You can email us and ask for a lower price.
how to format screenplay, all the hacks. 
www. hollywoodloophole.com
< https://store.payloadz.com/details/2686637-other-files-arts-and-crafts-10-secrets-of-hollywood-writers-live-zoom-workshop.html > 

They want engaged people. 

The Intruder 1962

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Charles Beaumont

Starring William Shatner

The Beautiful People

By Charles Beaumont

---

Mary was a misfit.
She didn't want to be beautiful. And she wasted time doing mad things—like eating and sleeping.

The Beautiful People

By Charles Beaumont

MARY sat quietly and watched the handsome man's legs blown off; watched further as the great ship began to crumple and break into small pieces in the middle of the blazing night. She fidgeted slightly as the men and the parts of the men came floating dreamily through the wreckage out into the awful silence. And when the meteorite shower came upon the men, gouging holes through everything, tearing flesh and ripping bones, Mary closed her eyes.

"Mother."

Mrs. Cuberle glanced up from her magazine.

"Hmm?"

"Do we have to wait much longer?"

"I don't think so. Why?"

Mary said nothing but looked at the moving wall.

"Oh, that." Mrs. Cuberle laughed[6] and shook her head. "That tired old thing. Read a magazine, Mary, like I'm doing. We've all seen that a million times."

"Does it have to be on, Mother?"

"Well, nobody seems to be watching. I don't think the doctor would mind if I switched it off."

Mrs. Cuberle rose from the couch and walked to the wall. She depressed a little button and the life went from the wall, flickering and glowing.

Mary opened her eyes.

"Honestly," Mrs. Cuberle said to a woman sitting beside her, "you'd think they'd try to get something else. We might as well go to the museum and watch the first landing on Mars. The Mayoraka Disaster—really!"

The woman replied without distracting her eyes from the magazine page. "It's the doctor's idea. Psychological."

Mrs. Cuberle opened her mouth and moved her head up and down knowingly.

"Ohhh. I should have known there was some reason. Still, who watches it?"

"The children do. Makes them think, makes them grateful or something."

"Ohhh."

"Psychological."

Mary picked up a magazine and leafed through the pages. All photographs, of women and men. Women like Mother and like the others in the room; slender, tanned, shapely, beautiful women; and men with large muscles and shiny hair. Women and men, all looking alike, all perfect and beautiful. She folded the magazine and wondered how to answer the questions that would be asked.

"Mother—"

"Gracious, what is it now! Can't you sit still for a minute?"

"But we've been here three hours."

Mrs. Cuberle sniffed.

"Do—do I really have to?"

"Now don't be silly, Mary. After those terrible things you told me, of course you do."

An olive-skinned woman in a transparent white uniform came into the reception room.

"Cuberle. Mrs. Zena Cuberle?"

"Yes."

"Doctor will see you now."

Mrs. Cuberle took Mary's hand and they walked behind the nurse down a long corridor.

A man who seemed in his middle twenties looked up from a desk. He smiled and gestured toward two adjoining chairs.

"Well—well."

"Doctor Hortel, I—"

THE doctor snapped his fingers.

"Of course, I know. Your daughter. Ha ha, I certainly do know your trouble. Get so many of them nowadays—takes up most of my time."

"You do?" asked Mrs. Cuberle. "Frankly, it had begun to upset me."

"Upset? Hmm. Not good. Not good at all. Ah, but then—if people did not get upset, we psychiatrists would be out of a job, eh? Go the way of the early M. D. But, I assure you, I need hear no more." He turned his handsome face to Mary.[7] "Little girl, how old are you?"

"Eighteen, sir."

"Oh, a real bit of impatience. It's just about time, of course. What might your name be?"

"Mary."

"Charming! And so unusual. Well now, Mary, may I say that I understand your problem—understand it thoroughly?"

Mrs. Cuberle smiled and smoothed the sequins on her blouse.

"Madam, you have no idea how many there are these days. Sometimes it preys on their minds so that it affects them physically, even mentally. Makes them act strange, say peculiar, unexpected things. One little girl I recall was so distraught she did nothing but brood all day long. Can you imagine!"

"That's what Mary does. When she finally told me, doctor, I thought she had gone—you know."

"That bad, eh? Afraid we'll have to start a re-education program, very soon, or they'll all be like this. I believe I'll suggest it to the senator day after tomorrow."

"I don't quite understand, doctor."

"Simply, Mrs. Cuberle, that the children have got to be thoroughly instructed. Thoroughly. Too much is taken for granted and childish minds somehow refuse to accept things without definite reason. Children have become far too intellectual, which, as I trust I needn't remind you, is a dangerous thing."

"Yes, but what has this to do with—"

"With Mary? Everything, of course. Mary, like half the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds today, has begun to feel acutely self-conscious. She feels that her body has developed sufficiently for the Transformation—which of course it has not, not quite yet—and she cannot understand the complex reasons that compel her to wait until some future date. Mary looks at you, at the women all about her, at the pictures, and then she looks into a mirror. From pure perfection of body, face, limbs, pigmentation, carriage, stance, from simon-pure perfection, if I may be allowed the expression, she sees herself and is horrified. Isn't that so, my dear child? Of course—of course. She asks herself, why must I be hideous, unbalanced, oversize, undersize, full of revolting skin eruptions, badly schemed organically? In short, Mary is tired of being a monster and is overly anxious to achieve what almost everyone else has already achieved."

"But—" said Mrs. Cuberle.

"This much you understand, doubtless. Now, Mary, what you object to is that our society offers you, and the others like you, no convincing logic on the side of waiting until age nineteen. It is all taken for granted, and you want to know why! It is that simple. A non-technical explanation will not suffice—mercy no! The modern child wants facts, solid technical data, to satisfy her every question. And that, as you can both see, will take a good deal of reorganizing."

"But—" said Mary.

"The child is upset, nervous, tense; she acts strange, peculiar, odd, worries you and makes herself ill because it is beyond our meagre powers to put it across. I tell you, what we need is a whole new basis for learning. And, that will take[8] doing. It will take doing, Mrs. Cuberle. Now, don't you worry about Mary, and don't you worry, child. I'll prescribe some pills and—"

"No, no, doctor! You're all mixed up," cried Mrs. Cuberle.

"I beg your pardon, Madam?"

"What I mean is, you've got it wrong. Tell him, Mary, tell the doctor what you told me."

Mary shifted uneasily in the chair.

"It's that—I don't want it."

The doctor's well-proportioned jaw dropped.

"Would you please repeat that?"

"I said, I don't want the Transformation."

"D—Don't want it?"

"You see? She told me. That's why I came to you."

The doctor looked at Mary suspiciously.

"But that's impossible! I have never heard of such a thing. Little girl, you are playing a joke!"

Mary nodded negatively.

"See, doctor. What can it be?" Mrs. Cuberle rose and began to pace.

THE DOCTOR clucked his tongue and took from a small cupboard a black box covered with buttons and dials and wire.

"Oh no, you don't think—I mean, could it?"

"We shall soon see." The doctor revolved a number of dials and studied the single bulb in the center of the box. It did not flicker. He removed handles from Mary's head.

"Dear me," the doctor said, "dear me. Your daughter is perfectly sane, Mrs. Cuberle."

"Well, then what is it?"

"Perhaps she is lying. We haven't completely eliminated that factor as yet; it slips into certain organisms."

More tests. More machines and more negative results.

Mary pushed her foot in a circle on the floor. When the doctor put his hands to her shoulders, she looked up pleasantly.

"Little girl," said the handsome man, "do you actually mean to tell us that you prefer that body?"

"Yes sir."

"May I ask why."

"I like it. It's—hard to explain, but it's me and that's what I like. Not the looks, maybe, but the me."

"You can look in the mirror and see yourself, then look at—well, at your mother and be content?"

"Yes, sir." Mary thought of her reasons; fuzzy, vague, but very definitely there. Maybe she had said the reason. No. Only a part of it.

"Mrs. Cuberle," the doctor said, "I suggest that your husband have a long talk with Mary."

"My husband is dead. That affair near Ganymede, I believe. Something like that."

"Oh, splendid. Rocket man, eh? Very interesting organisms. Something always seems to happen to rocket men, in one way or another. But—I suppose we should do something." The doctor scratched his jaw. "When did she first start talking this way," he asked.

"Oh, for quite some time. I used to think it was because she was such a baby. But lately, the time getting so close and all, I thought I'd better see you."

"Of course, yes, very wise. Er—does she also do odd things?"[9]

"Well, I found her on the second level one night. She was lying on the floor and when I asked her what she was doing, she said she was trying to sleep."

Mary flinched. She was sorry, in a way, that Mother had found that out.

"To—did you say 'sleep'?"

"That's right."

"Now where could she have picked that up?"

"No idea."

"Mary, don't you know that nobody sleeps anymore? That we have an infinitely greater life-span than our poor ancestors now that the wasteful state of unconsciousness has been conquered? Child, have you actually slept? No one knows how anymore."

"No sir, but I almost did."

The doctor sighed. "But, it's unheard of! How could you begin to try to do something people have forgotten entirely about?"

"The way it was described in the book, it sounded nice, that's all." Mary was feeling very uncomfortable now. Home and no talking man in a foolish white gown....

"Book, book? Are there books at your Unit, Madam?"

"There could be—I haven't cleaned up in a while."

"That is certainly peculiar. I haven't seen a book for years. Not since '17."

Mary began to fidget and stare nervously about.

"But with the tapes, why should you try and read books—where did you get them?"

"Daddy did. He got them from his father and so did Grandpa. He said they're better than the tapes and he was right."

Mrs. Cuberle flushed.

"My husband was a little strange, Doctor Hortel. He kept those things despite everything I said.

"Dear me, I—excuse me."

The muscular, black-haired doctor walked to another cabinet and selected from the shelf a bottle. From the bottle he took two large pills and swallowed them.

"Sleep—books—doesn't want the Transformation—Mrs. Cuberle, my dear good woman, this is grave. Doesn't want the Transformation. I would appreciate it if you would change psychiatrists: I am very busy and, uh, this is somewhat specialized. I suggest Centraldome. Many fine doctors there. Goodbye."

The doctor turned and sat down in a large chair and folded his hands. Mary watched him and wondered why the simple statements should have so changed things. But the doctor did not move from the chair.

"Well!" said Mrs. Cuberle and walked quickly from the room.

The man's legs were being blown off again as they left the reception room.

MARY considered the reflection in the mirrored wall. She sat on the floor and looked at different angles of herself: profile, full-face, full length, naked, clothed. Then she took up the magazine and studied it. She sighed.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall—" The words came haltingly to her mind and from her lips. She hadn't read them, she recalled. Daddy had said them, quoted them as he put it.[10] But they too were lines from a book—"who is the fairest of—"

A picture of Mother sat upon the dresser and Mary considered this now. Looked for a long time at the slender, feminine neck. The golden skin, smooth and without blemish, without wrinkles and without age. The dark brown eyes and the thin tapers of eyebrows, the long black lashes, set evenly, so that each half of the face corresponded precisely. The half-parted-mouth, a violet tint against the gold, the white, white teeth, even, sparkling.

Mother. Beautiful, Transformed Mother. And back again to the mirror.

"—of them all...."

The image of a rather chubby girl, without lines of rhythm or grace, without perfection. Splotchy skin full of little holes, puffs in the cheeks, red eruptions on the forehead. Perspiration, shapeless hair flowing onto shapeless shoulders down a shapeless body. Like all of them, before the Transformation.

Did they all look like this, before? Did Mother, even?

Mary thought hard, trying to remember exactly what Daddy and Grandpa had said, why they said the Transformation was a bad thing, and why she believed and agreed with them so strongly. It made little sense, but they were right. They were right! And one day, she would understand completely.

Mrs. Cuberle slammed the door angrily and Mary jumped to her feet. She hadn't forgotten about it. "The way you upset Dr. Hortel. He won't even see me anymore, and these traumas are getting horrible. I'll have to get that awful Dr. Wagoner."

"Sorry—"

Mrs. Cuberle sat on the couch and crossed her legs carefully.

"What in the world were you doing on the floor?"

"Trying to sleep."

"Now, I won't hear of it! You've got to stop it! You know you're not insane. Why should you want to do such a silly thing?"

"The books. And Daddy told me about it."

"And you mustn't read those terrible things."

"Why—is there a law against them?"

"Well, no, but people tired of books when the tapes came in. You know that. The house is full of tapes; anything you want."

Mary stuck out her lower lip.

"They're no fun. All about the Wars and the colonizations."

"And I suppose books are fun?"

"Yes. They are."

"And that's where you got this idiotic notion that you don't want the Transformation, isn't it? Of course it is. Well, we'll see to that!"

MRS. CUBERLE rose quickly and took the books from the corner and from the closet and filled her arms with them. She looked everywhere in the room and gathered the old rotten volumes.

These she carried from the room and threw into the elevator. A button guided the doors shut.

"I thought you'd do that," Mary said. "That's why I hid most of the good ones. Where you'll never find them."

Mrs. Cuberle put a satin handkerchief[11] to her eyes and began to weep.

"Just look at you. Look. I don't know what I ever did to deserve this!"

"Deserve what, Mother? What am I doing that's so wrong?" Mary's mind rippled in a confused stream.

"What!" Mrs. Cuberle screamed, "What! Do you think I want people to point to you and say I'm the mother of an idiot? That's what they'll say, you'll see. Or," she looked up hopefully, "have you changed your mind?"

"No." The vague reasons, longing to be put into words.

"It doesn't hurt. They just take off a little skin and put some on and give you pills and electronic treatments and things like that. It doesn't take more than a week."

"No." The reason.

"Don't you want to be beautiful, like other people—like me? Look at your friend Shala, she's getting her Transformation next month. And she's almost pretty now."

"Mother, I don't care—"

"If it's the bones you're worried about, well, that doesn't hurt. They give you a shot and when you wake up, everything's moulded right. Everything, to suit the personality."

"I don't care, I don't care."

"But why?"

"I like me the way I am." Almost—almost exactly. But not quite. Part of it, however. Part of what Daddy and Grandpa meant.

"But you're so ugly, dear! Like Dr. Hortel said. And Mr. Willmes, at the factory. He told some people he thought you were the ugliest girl he'd ever seen. Says he'll be thankful when you have your Transformation. And what if he hears of all this, what'll happen then?"

"Daddy said I was beautiful."

"Well really, dear. You do have eyes."

"Daddy said that real beauty is only skin deep. He said a lot of things like that and when I read the books I felt the same way. I guess I don't want to look like everybody else, that's all." No, that's not it. Not at all it.

"That man had too much to do with you. You'll notice that he had his Transformation, though!"

"But he was sorry. He told me that if he had it to do over again, he'd never do it. He said for me to be stronger than he was."

"Well, I won't have it. You're not going to get away with this, young lady. After all, I am your mother."

A bulb flickered in the bathroom and Mrs. Cuberle walked uncertainly to the cabinet. She took out a little cardboard box.

"Time for lunch."

Mary nodded. That was another thing the books talked about, which the tapes did not. Lunch seemed to be something special long ago, or at least different. The books talked of strange ways of putting a load of things into the mouth and chewing these things. Enjoying them. Strange and somehow wonderful.

"And you'd better get ready for work."

"Yes, Mother."

THE office was quiet and without shadows. The walls gave off a steady luminescence, distributed the light evenly upon all the desks and[12] tables. And it was neither hot nor cold.

Mary held the ruler firmly and allowed the pen to travel down the metal edge effortlessly. The new black lines were small and accurate. She tipped her head, compared the notes beside her to the plan she was working on. She noticed the beautiful people looking at her more furtively than before, and she wondered about this as she made her lines.

A tall man rose from his desk in the rear of the office and walked down the aisle to Mary's table. He surveyed her work, allowing his eyes to travel cautiously from her face to the draft.

Mary looked around.

"Nice job," said the man.

"Thank you, Mr. Willmes."

"Dralich shouldn't have anything to complain about. That crane should hold the whole damn city."

"It's very good alloy, sir."

"Yeah. Say, kid, you got a minute?"

"Yes sir."

"Let's go into Mullinson's office."

The big handsome man led the way into a small cubby-hole of a room. He motioned to a chair and sat on the edge of one desk.

"Kid, I never was one to beat around the bush. Somebody called in little while ago, gave me some crazy story about you not wanting the Transformation."

Mary said "Oh." Daddy had said it would have to happen, some day. This must be what he meant.

"I would've told them they were way off the beam, but I wanted to talk to you first, get it straight."

"Well, sir, it's true. I don't. I want to stay this way."

The man looked at Mary and then coughed, embarrassedly.

"What the hell—excuse me, kid, but—I don't exactly get it. You, uh, you saw the psychiatrist?"

"Yes sir. I'm not insane. Dr. Hortel can tell you."

"I didn't mean anything like that. Well—" the man laughed nervously. "I don't know what to say. You're still a cub, but you do swell work. Lot of good results, lots of comments from the stations. But, Mr. Poole won't like it."

"I know. I know what you mean, Mr. Willmes. But nothing can change my mind. I want to stay this way and that's all there is to it."

"But—you'll get old before you're half through life."

Yes, she would. Old, like the Elders, wrinkled and brittle, unable to move right. Old. "It's hard to make you understand. But I don't see why it should make any difference."

"Don't go getting me wrong, now. It's not me, but, you know, I don't own Interplan. I just work here. Mr. Poole likes things running smooth and it's my job to carry it out. And soon as everybody finds out, things wouldn't run smooth. There'll be a big stink. The dames will start asking questions and talk."

"Will you accept my resignation, then, Mr. Willmes?"

"Sure you won't change your mind?"

"No sir. I decided that a long time ago. And I'm sorry now that I told Mother or anyone else. No sir, I won't change my mind."

"Well, I'm sorry, Mary. You been doing awful swell work. Couple of[13] years you could be centralled on one of the asteroids, the way you been working. But if you should change your mind, there'll always be a job for you here."

"Thank you, sir."

"No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings."

"Okay then. You've got till March. And between you and me, I hope by then you've decided the other way."

Mary walked back down the aisle, past the rows of desks. Past the men and women. The handsome, model men and the beautiful, perfect women, perfect, all perfect, all looking alike. Looking exactly alike.

She sat down again and took up her ruler and pen.

MARY stepped into the elevator and descended several hundred feet. At the Second Level she pressed a button and the elevator stopped. The doors opened with another button and the doors to her Unit with still another.

Mrs. Cuberle sat on the floor by the T-V, disconsolate and red-eyed. Her blond hair had come slightly askew and a few strands hung over her forehead. "You don't need to tell me. No one will hire you."

Mary sat beside her mother. "If you only hadn't told Mr. Willmes in the first place—"

"Well, I thought he could beat a little sense into you."

The sounds from the T-V grew louder. Mrs. Cuberle changed channels and finally turned it off.

"What did you do today, Mother?" Mary smiled.

"Do? What can I do, now? Nobody will even come over! I told you what would happen."

"Mother!"

"They say you should be in the Circuses."

Mary went into another room. Mrs. Cuberle followed. "How are we going to live? Where does the money come from now? Just because you're stubborn on this crazy idea. Crazy crazy crazy! Can I support both of us? They'll be firing me, next!"

"Why is this happening?"

"Because of you, that's why. Nobody else on this planet has ever refused the Transformation. But you turn it down. You want to be ugly!"

Mary put her arms about her mother's shoulders. "I wish I could explain, I've tried so hard to. It isn't that I want to bother anyone, or that Daddy wanted me to. I just don't want the Transformation."

Mrs. Cuberle reached into the pockets of her blouse and got a purple pill. She swallowed the pill. When the letter dropped from the chute, Mrs. Cuberle ran to snatch it up. She read it once, silently, then smiled.

"Oh, I was afraid they wouldn't answer. But we'll see about this now!"

She gave the letter to Mary.

Mary let the paper flutter to the floor. She walked quietly to the elevator and set it for Level III. When the elevator stopped, she ran from it, crying, into her room.

She thought and remembered and tried to sort out and put together. Daddy had said it, Grandpa had, the books did. Yes, the books did.

She read until her eyes burned and her eyes burned until she could read no more. Then Mary went to sleep, softly and without realizing it, for the first time.

But the sleep was not peaceful.

"LADIES and gentlemen," said the young-looking, well groomed man, "this problem does not resolve easily. Dr. Hortel here, testifies that Mary Cuberle is definitely not insane. Drs. Monagh, Prinn and Fedders all verify this judgment. Dr. Prinn asserts that the human organism is no longer so constructed as to create and sustain such an attitude through deliberate falsehood. Further, there is positively nothing in the structure of Mary Cuberle which might suggest difficulties in Transformation. There is evidence for all these statements. And yet we are faced with this refusal. What, may I ask, is to be done?"

Mary looked at a metal table.

"We have been in session far too long, holding up far too many other pressing contingencies. The trouble on Mercury, for example. We'll have to straighten that out, somehow."

Throughout the rows of beautiful people, the mumbling increased. Mrs. Cuberle sat nervously, tapping her shoe and running a comb through her hair.

"Mary Cuberle, you have been given innumerable chances to reconsider, you know."

Mary said, "I know. But I don't want to."

The beautiful people looked at Mary and laughed. Some shook their heads.

The man threw up his hands. "Little girl, can you realize what an issue you have caused? The unrest, the wasted time? Do you fully understand what you have done? Intergalactic questions hang fire while you sit there saying the same thing over and over. Doesn't the happiness of your Mother mean anything to you?"

A slender, supple woman in a back row cried, "We want action. Do something!"

The man in the high stool raised his hand. "None of that, now. We must conform, even though the question is out of the ordinary." He leafed through a number of papers on his desk, leaned down and whispered into the ear of a strong blond man. Then he turned to Mary[15] again. "Child, for the last time. Do you reconsider? Will you accept the Transformation?"

"No."

The man shrugged his shoulders. "Very well, then. I have here a petition, signed by two thousand individuals and representing all the Stations of Earth. They have been made aware of all the facts and have submitted the petition voluntarily. It's all so unusual and I'd hoped we wouldn't have to—but the petition urges drastic measures."

The mumbling rose.

"The petition urges that you shall, upon final refusal, be forced by law to accept the Transformation. And that an act of legislature shall make this universal and binding in the future."

Mary's eyes were open, wide. She stood and paused before speaking.

"Why?" she asked, loudly.

The man passed a hand through his hair.

Another voice from the crowd, "Seems to be a lot of questions unanswered here."

And another, "Sign the petition, Senator!"

All the voices, "Sign it, sign it!"

"But why?" Mary began to cry. The voices stilled for a moment.

"Because—Because—"

"If you'd only tell me that. Tell me!"

"Why, it simply isn't being done, that's all. The greatest gift of all, and what if others should get the same idea? What would happen to us then, little girl? We'd be right back to the ugly, thin, fat, unhealthy-looking race we were ages ago! There can't be any exceptions."

"Maybe they didn't consider themselves so ugly."

The mumbling began anew.

"That isn't the point," cried the man. "You must conform!"

And the voices cried "Yes" loudly until the man took up a pen and signed the papers on his desk.

Cheers, applause, shouts.

Mrs. Cuberle patted Mary on the top of her head.

"There, now!" she said, happily, "Everything will be all right now. You'll see, Mary."

THE Transformation Parlor Covered the entire Level, sprawling with its departments. It was always filled and there was nothing to sign and no money to pay and people were always waiting in line.

But today the people stood aside. And there were still more, looking in through doors, TV cameras placed throughout the tape machines in every corner. It was filled, but not bustling as usual.

Mary walked past the people, Mother and the men in back of her, following. She looked at the people. The people were beautiful, perfect, without a single flaw.

All the beautiful people. All the ugly people, staring out from bodies that were not theirs. Walking on legs that had been made for them, laughing with manufactured voices, gesturing with shaped and fashioned arms.

Mary walked slowly, despite the prodding. In her eyes, in her eyes, was a mounting confusion; a wide, wide wonderment.

The reason was becoming less vague; the fuzzed edges were falling[16] away now. Through all the horrible months and all the horrible moments, the edges fell away. Now it was almost clear.

She looked down at her own body, then at the walls which reflected it. Flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, all hers, made by no one, built by herself or someone she did not know. Uneven kneecaps, making two grinning cherubs when they bent, and the old familiar rubbing together of fat inner thighs. Fat, unshapely, unsystematic Mary. But Mary.

Of course. Of course! This was what Daddy meant, what Grandpa and the books meant. What they would know if they would read the books or hear the words, the good, reasonable words, the words that signified more, much more, than any of this.

The understanding heaped up with each step.

"Where are these people?" Mary asked half to herself. "What has happened to them and don't they miss themselves, these manufactured things?"

She stopped, suddenly.

"Yes! That is the reason. They have all forgotten themselves!"

A curvacious woman stepped forward and took Mary's hand. The woman's skin was tinted dark. Chipped and sculptured bone into slender rhythmic lines, electrically created carriage, stance, made, turned out.

"All right, young lady. We will begin."

They guided Mary to a large, curved leather seat.

From the top of a long silver pole a machine lowered itself. Tiny bulbs glowed to life and cells began to click. The people stared. Slowly a picture formed upon the screen in the machine. Bulbs directed at Mary, then redirected into the machine. Wheels turning, buttons ticking.

The picture was completed.

"Would you like to see it?"

Mary closed her eyes, tight.

"It's really very nice." The woman turned to the crowd. "Oh yes, there's a great deal to be salvaged; you'd be surprised. A great deal. We'll keep the nose and I don't believe the elbows will have to be altered at all."

Mrs. Cuberle looked at Mary and smiled. "Now, it isn't so bad as you thought, is it?" she said.

The beautiful people looked. Cameras turned, tapes wound.

"You'll have to excuse us now. Only the machines allowed."

Only the machines.

The people filed out.

Mary saw the rooms in the mirror. Saw things in the rooms, the faces and bodies that had been left; the woman and the machines and the old young men standing about, adjusting, readying.

Then she looked at the picture in the screen.

And screamed.

A woman of medium height stared back at her. A woman with a curved body and thin legs; silver hair, pompadoured, cut short; full sensuous lips, small breasts, flat stomach, unblemished skin.

A strange, strange woman no one had ever seen before.

The nurse began to take Mary's clothes off.

"Geoff," the woman said, "come[17] look at this, will you. Not one so bad in years. Amazing that we can keep anything at all."

The handsome man put his hands in his pockets.

"Pretty bad, all right."

"Be still, child, stop making those noises. You know perfectly well nothing is going to hurt."

"But—what will you do with me?"

"That was all explained to you."

"No, no, with me, me!"

"Oh, you mean the castoffs. The usual. I don't know exactly. Somebody takes care of it."

"I want me!" Mary cried. "Not that!" She pointed at the screen.

Straps. Clamps pulling, stretching limbs apart. The screen with the picture brought in. The men and the woman, more women now. Dr. Hortel in a corner, sitting with his legs crossed, shaking his head.

Mary began to cry above the hum of the mechanical things.

"Shhh. My gracious, such a racket! Just think about your job waiting for you, and all the friends you'll have and how nice everything will be. No more trouble now."

The big machine hurtling downward.

"Where will I find me?" Mary screamed, "when it's all over?"

A long needle slid into rough flesh and the beautiful people gathered around the table.

They turned on the big machine.

THE END

URL

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36258/pg36258-images.html

KWL Live Q&A – Accessibility Tips for Authors with Wendy Reid started at noon

MY THOUGHTS AS  I LISTENED

12:02 what does accessibility mean?
The main focus on the needs and requirements for people with disabilities

12:03 How did you get involved?
She did work for the world wide web technical standards. She mostly work on epub and digital publishing. She got a lot of insight from people in disability community cause they,epub and similar,  are so important for people with disabilities.

12:05 The exercise to using the audio on her phone to navigating to her phone by audio was a challenge.
Most tools are not accessible but the disability community members have figured out workarounds
if you want to know more about accessiblity in kobo email the following
< kobo-accessibility@rakuten.com >

12:08 What is your day to day at Kobo
A lot of meetings. A lot of time researching trying to find the best way to do things. Accessibility on a tech company with a lot of different interfaces is busy. 
Another interview side wendy 
< https://www.kobo.com/blog/learn-how-kobo-makes-reading-more-accessible > 

12:12 What will you say to an author who ask with accessibility?
We all deal with accessibility or disability  issues  in life. You are planning for your future self and being inclusive of your audience.
Captions are designed for people who are hard to hear but they are a huge accessibility option 

12:15 do you know about accessibility options that authors need to be aware of, top complaints?
Image descriptions. If you are using a screen reader, and an image isn't described it is frustrating to the reader. Around NAvigation, have a really good table of contents. Name your chapters, or subsections.  Table your headings. That structure will help those who have a hard time seeing.  

12:18 How will an author know if their file is as accessible as can be?
if you are not creating the epub yourself, you can mark themself up in word. they all have accessibility checkers in them. Make sure headings are headings. Describe all images. 
Question to ask platform you distributing to, are you using that information to make epub. Are you making sure the heading 1 in word is heading 1 in epub. 
Alot of companies put disabled users to the side but one in five worldwide have a disability.

12:22 how detailed should alt text should be
There is no one way to make alt text. <She gives a great example of describing a cat> How to present a science fiction map, may be really long. The author has to decide which is best.

12:25 Epub files
It is better to make a bigger book be split into multiple files.

<one thing you guys can do is allow people to have the choice of retaining old interfaces. Some people feel better accessibility with older interfaces>

12:28 Accessibility Checker
Kobo will add it. 

12:31 How do you handle alt text in covers?
We don't have that information cause and can't do it at scale but inside your book, describe your cover. 

12:32 Can they work on fonts on covers?
Make covers readable. She has seen covers that is barely visible in small image form. Be mindful of how busy an image is. Make text stand out more. She gets complaints, try testing covers in greyscale and it is hard to see. Her father's love sending screen shots in ereader. 

Book on history of audiobook
< https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-untold-story-of-the-talking-book-3 > 
< https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-untold-story-of-the-talking-book-2 >

12:35 what about accessibility in audio books?
Underexplored area. Audiobooks were developed to be accessibile. Soldiers from world war 1 who lost their vision to be able to read. Two essential things: If you have images in book, describe in audio. Audiobook structure, she likes to know chapters in table of contents, not tracks.
She uses a book that came out two months ago and it had track 1 track 2 not chapters.

Audiobook format in Kobo
< https://kobowritinglife.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360059385511-How-to-Upload-Your-Audiobook-Directly-on-Kobo >  

12:40 What can authors do now in terms of metadata?
Can include in description. The summary is the best place to do that. DRM is not really accessible. Kobo is looking at implementing more accessibility formats in DRM. But DRM isn't great for accessibility. 

12:42 Is anything authors should be aware of for external links?
Put in link text. Recommend don't using link text that uses vague things. Use the alt text. 

12:44 How to make websites more accessible?
Describe all images. Describe all links. Wix or squarespace have accessibility options. You can do yourself. Ask about color palette. No highlighter color on black. Try to avoid putting text on top of book covers. Highly recommend using simple fonts, dyslexia or visually processing issues, and the most readable fonts are times new roman, helvitica, georgia, callibri. Describe book covers. 

12:48 any newsletter or email practices?
Same issues for the websites or books. Alot of design fundamentals cross into accessibility fundamentals. 

12:52 what about accessibility in social media?
 Alt text are needed for every image. Highly recommend. If a platform doesn't have it, use the caption. Alot of tiktokers use captions in videos. Apply captions for video post. Higly recommend reviewing captions for automated captions. Use the most simple captions , it is best for accessibility. They need to detect whether you have your own captions cause you get double captions at times. Youtube provide audio descriptions, consider that. 

12:57 about emoji's?
Use emoji's carefully. Every emoji has a name. use simplest, and don't open with emoji's. 

1:00 What do you think the publishing industry need to be more accessible ? 
The publshing industry in some countries, canada included, the biggest problem is funding, and going through backlist and making them more accessible.  Alt text is hard for very old books. Publishers try to figure that out. How do we make text that are visually complex , more accessible.

List of her links in comments
https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/08/03/kwl-live-qa-accessibility-tips-for-authors-with-wendy-reid/ 

Ace by DAISY – accessibility checker for EPUB < https://daisy.org/activities/software/ace/ >  
DAISY Knowledge Base, everything you need to know about coding accessible EPUBs < http://kb.daisy.org/publishing/docs/epub/ > 
Accessible Publishing Learning Network – lots of excellent resources! < https://apln.ca/ > 
WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool < https://wave.webaim.org/ > 
Colour Contrast, an easy to use colour contrast checker < https://colourcontrast.cc/ > 
Accessible Social, a resource for creating accessible social media content < https://www.accessible-social.com/ > 
Social Visual Alt Text, fun web extension for viewing alternative text on social media < https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-visual-alt-text/bkpbmomfemcjdeekdffmbohifpndodm > 
WordToEPUB < https://daisy.org/activities/software/wordtoepub/ > 

MY CLOSING THOUGHTS

I thought about accessibility. If accessibility was considered from the beginning of most processes it would undo alot of the schemes/scams/ aspects of entertainment/social media/wesbites or other. 
For example, I like the mandolorian show from Disney. If someone is blind and they can't see the Mandolorian maybe they have an audio read version available. So they can hear each episode absent commercials. But imagine if you are listening to an on demand film, like Godzilla,  like from TNT of the warner bros group in Discovery. Imagine you hear:"this thing killed my wife!, have you ever had bad bowels, Well try..." The commercial break is by default a terrible element. For someone who can only hear they are bound to hear a commercial where those with sight can mute and move on and come back. 
Accessibility if engineered optimally will delete many methods of commercialization in entertainment or media through electronic means. 
 

phantom lady 1944 - portrait of ella raines - photography alamy

Column: How profit-driven turmoil at Turner Classic Movies placed a vast cultural heritage at risk

Michael Hiltzik

June 29, 2023

It wasn't that long ago that the cause of film preservation and film history seemed to be on a roll. Multiple cable channels such as American Movie Classics, Bravo and Encore were devoted to classic films from the 1930s through the 1980s. When streaming supplanted scheduled cable programming, FilmStruck offered viewers a huge library of classics from the libraries of Warner Bros. and other studios.

Through it all Turner Classic Movies, or TCM, was the much-admired king. The channel was founded in 1994 by entrepreneur Ted Turner to show the library of MGM classic films he had acquired. It evolved to not only screen classic films but also curate its offerings, providing historical commentaries and interviews presented by knowledgeable hosts.

All those other services have either disappeared or been repurposed away from classic films. Until a couple of weeks ago, TCM appeared to be one of the sole survivors in the classic movie landscape.

Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum

But on June 20, David Zaslav, chief executive of TCM's new owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, swung the ax. Layoffs wiped out the network's entire top management, including some figures who had been its leaders for decades. TCM was placed under the supervision of an executive whose other responsibilities included the Adult Swim channel and Cartoon Network.

The sense of dismay and betrayal that swept across Hollywood was almost indescribable. Film stars and character actors known to millions of fans took to social media to condemn the move. Film directors Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese reached out to Zaslav to urge him to back off, advice he seems to have taken, partially.

The turmoil at TCM points to more than a single company's effort to squeeze as much profit as possible from a single asset. It reflects the impulse by the corporate stewards of America's immense film history to view that culture strictly in commercial terms.

"Whether Mr. Zaslav planned to or not, he has inherited an American cultural treasure that he is responsible for safeguarding," film historian Alan K. Rode, a director of the Film Noir Foundation, told me. "But he's also trying to run a business that's over $40 billion in debt. I don't know how you square that circle."

This is not a new conundrum. Almost all artifacts of film history are squirreled away in studios' vaults, where they've been subject to the vicissitudes of corporate accounting and the ebb and flow of mergers and acquisitions.

Occasionally, when they're encouraged by cultural fashions or the appearance of new technologies, the studios have burrowed into their film libraries to assess their marketability and try to untangle ownership rights.

Some 700 historic Paramount Studios productions, for example, are assumed to be nestled in the vaults of Universal Pictures, which inherited Paramount’s 1930s and 1940s film archive from its forebear MCA, which acquired the collection in 1958. (Universal was later absorbed by NBC and is now a division of the entertainment conglomerate Comcast.)

The studios don't repurpose their libraries wholesale. Converting old films to digital formats to be screened online or on cable, or shown in theaters equipped with digital projectors, is an expensive and complicated process. Only films thought to have commercial potential get the favored treatment. Most of the others remain largely inaccessible to the public.

Warner Bros., now absorbed into Warner Bros. Discovery, was long considered the best steward of its cultural hoard. Its Warner Archives division was the industry gold standard in the care and marketing of the past. Under division head George Feltenstein, now the Warner library historian, Warner put thousands of titles, including TV series, on sale as made-to-order DVDs and established a subscription video streaming service that has since been incorporated into the company's Max streaming service.

Choosing which films to market as DVDs or Blu-ray discs was sometimes an easy call, sometimes a challenge, Feltenstein told me in 2015. “There always will be a place on the retail shelf for ‘Casablanca,’ ‘King Kong’ or ‘Citizen Kane,’” he said. But others required finer judgments or innovative marketing. Warner Bros. still offers DVDs and Blu-rays from its classic and contemporary libraries for sale.

Classic-film cable and streaming services have tended to have short half-lives. Consider the fate of FilmStruck, which launched as the subscription-based streaming arm of Turner Classic Movies in November 2016 with an inventory of 500 films, including 200 from the classic movie library of the Criterion Collection. FilmStruck quickly became what Esquire termed "the new go-to movie destination for serious movie buffs."

Two years later, FilmStruck was dead, slain by Warner Bros.' new owner, AT&T, which couldn't wait for the service to grow beyond its base of 100,000 subscribers and reach profitability. For AT&T, as I wrote then, "mass subscribership and profits are the ballgame," patience be damned.

Other networks that had been founded to cultivate an audience of film fans suffered a similar fate. American Movie Classics was founded in 1984 as a premium cable channel to air classic films uncut and commercial-free. It even sponsored an annual film festival to raise money for film preservation. In 2002 it was rebranded as AMC and refocused on prestige TV. AMC produced "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men," among other series — good TV, certainly, but not classic films.

AMC's sister channel, Bravo, was launched in 1980 to present classic foreign and independent films. After NBC bought it in 2002, it was turned into a showcase for reality series.

Yet audience interest in classic movies and film history continued to grow. "Ten years ago, I felt that we were in kind of a golden age of appreciation of film classics and appreciation, and TCM was a huge part of that," says Bruce Goldstein, the founding repertory artistic director of Film Forum, a New York repertory house. "Now it seems to be falling apart."

TCM and the Criterion Channel remain the go-to streaming destinations for classics. Netflix, am*zon Prime and other networks have minimal classic libraries and no learned curation.

On the surface, there is no great mystery about why Warner Bros. Discovery and Zaslav might want to draw in their financial horns a bit. The company is laboring under a crippling debt load of more than $49 billion, most of it resulting from the 2022 merger that brought together the cable programming company Discovery and the WarnerMedia division of AT&T, itself the product of AT&T's 2016 takeover of Time Warner.

Given the combined companies' loss of $7.4 billion on revenue of $33.8 billion last year, plainly something had to give. The question being asked by cultural historians, cinephiles and plain ordinary film fans is why TCM had to be part of the bloodletting. It was reportedly profitable, if not hugely so, but by any measure not a significant factor on the merged company's profit-and-loss landscape.

That low profile in corporate terms could be TCM's salvation. As my colleague Stephen Battaglio reported, an outcry in the film industry, including by Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese, has prompted Zaslav to reassess the bludgeoning he visited upon TCM.

The network's longtime programming chief, Charles Tabesh, who had been fired, will stay on, TCM says. Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese will have a voice on TCM's curation and scheduling. TCM's classic film festival, held annually in Hollywood, will continue. In a move aimed at quelling outrage in the industry, the network will report directly to Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy.

Those developments generated an optimistic joint statement from Spielberg, Anderson and Scorsese: “We have already begun working on ideas with Mike and Pam, both true film enthusiasts who share a passion and reverence for classic cinema that is the hallmark of the TCM community," the directors said.

It's impossible to overstate the reverence that film historians and preservationists, and fans, have felt for TCM.

"They are the keepers of the flame," says Foster Hirsch, a professor of film at Brooklyn College and member of the Film Noir Foundation board. "They're an enormous resource for scholars and writers and fans of all ages. To start tampering with the brand or to view it in terms of marketing and data exclusively is horrifying. It's an assault on our common culture."

Among TCM's virtues is its eclectic approach. "They didn't show only well-known masterpieces," Hirsch says. "They showed obscure films, some which aren't good, they showed films for almost all tastes, different genres. From an artistic or historical point of view it isn't broken. There was no reason to 'fix' it."

The network has also been an almost unique portal introducing new generations to film culture. "It's been an essential part of people's film education, especially people of my generation," says Jon Dieringer, 37, founder of Screen Slate, a film culture website. "I grew up watching Turner Classic Movies."

Yet how assiduously Warner Bros. Discovery will follow through on its stated commitment to TCM's mission remains open to question, as does whether the network can retain its stature in the cinephile community. The confidence that the network's fans had in its staff and hosts and their ability to provide a curated approach to film history has been deeply shaken.

Many in the film community are hoping that TCM may have suffered nothing more serious than a near-death experience. Whether that's so won't be known for some time. Everyone will be watching, but experience suggests that when public companies pledge to treat the cultural assets under their control as more than generators of cash and profits, it's wise to expect the worst.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/column-profit-driven-turmoil-turner-120049275.html

Too many classic films remain buried in studios’ vaults

BY MICHAEL HILTZIKBUSINESS COLUMNIST 

OCT. 23, 2015 5:48 PM PT

Will McKinley, a New York film writer, is dying to get his hands on a copy of “Alias Nick Beal,” a 1949 film noir starring Ray Milland as a satanic gangster. For classic film blogger Nora Fiore, the Grail might be “The Wild Party” (1929), the first talkie to star 1920’s “It” girl Clara Bow, directed by the pioneering female director Dorothy Arzner. Film critic Leonard Maltin says he’d like to score a viewing of “Hotel Haywire,” a 1937 screwball comedy written by the great comic director Preston Sturges.

Produced by Paramount Studios, these are all among 700 titles assumed to be nestled in the vaults of Universal Pictures, which inherited Paramount’s 1930s and 1940s film archive from its forebear MCA, which acquired the collection in 1958. They’re frustratingly near at hand but out of reach of film fans and cinephiles.

Like most of the other major studios, Universal is grappling with the challenging economics of making more of this hoard accessible to the public on DVD, video on demand or streaming video. Studios have come to realize that there’s not only marketable value in the films, but publicity value in performing as responsible stewards of cultural assets.

I would have to break the law to see that film.

— Cinephile Nora Fiore, of a 1932 classic locked in a studio vault

No studio recognizes these values better than Warner Bros., whose Warner Archives division is the industry gold standard in the care and marketing of the past. The studio sells some 2,300 titles, including TV series, as made-to-order DVDs and offers its own archival video streaming service for a subscription fee of up to $9.99 a month.

The manufacturing-on-demand service, launched in March 2009 with 150 titles, has proved “far more successful than we even dreamed,” says George Feltenstein, a veteran home video executive who heads the division. “I thought that all the studios would follow in our footsteps, but nobody has been as comprehensive as we’ve been.”

Other major studios have dipped their toes into this market, if gingerly. Paramount last year stocked a free YouTube channel with 91 of its own titles, mostly post-1949. This month 20th Century Fox announced that as part of its 100th anniversary this year, it would release 100 remastered classic films, including silents, to buy or rent for high-definition streaming — “enough to make any classic film fan weep with joy,” McKinley wrote on his blog. Sony last year introduced a free cable channel, get.tv, to screen films from its Columbia Pictures archive, though it’s only spottily available and often preempted by cable operators.

Universal offers some manufacture-on-demand titles via am*zon as its Universal Vault Series and announced in May that it would restore 15 of its silent films as part of its 2012 centennial celebration. Curiously, Universal, owned by the cable giant Comcast, is one of the only majors without a dedicated cable channel or Internet streaming service for its archive. Universal spokesperson Cindy Gardner maintains that the studio is working on ways to improve: “Stay tuned.”

Film buffs and historians have easier access to more classic films than ever before. But that only whets their appetite for important — but perhaps forgotten — films.

The 1932 Paramount World War I drama “Broken Lullaby,” Fiore says, might provoke a reexamination of the career of its director, the master of graceful comedy Ernst Lubitsch. But a version that crept onto YouTube a few years ago was taken down at the insistence of Universal. “I would have to break the law to see that film,” laments Fiore, who blogs on classic films in the guise of the Nitrate Diva.

“The studios seem to be sitting on a lot of films, but they’re limited by budget and by their projected return on investment,” says Alan Rode, a director of the Film Noir Foundation. “But it’s not like you open a valve and films come gushing out. If they can’t realize a profit on it, they’re not going to do it.”

Adding to the challenge is that some of the major studios have become subsidiaries of large corporations, and not consistently huge profit centers. For example, Paramount last year contributed about 26% of the $13.8 billion in revenue of its parent, Viacom, but its $205 million in operating profit paled next to the $2.4 billion net income recorded by the whole corporation.

Converting a film title for digital release can be costly, especially under the watchful eye of cinephiles who demand high quality. Some black-and-white titles can be digitized for $40,000 or less, says Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive — with 350,000 titles, the second-largest in the U.S. after only the Library of Congress.

But the price rises exponentially for color, especially for important restoration. UCLA spent about three years and $1.5 million in donated funds on its heroic restoration and digital transfer of the Technicolor classic “The Red Shoes,” a 1948 backstage ballet drama revered for its beauty.

That means that when deciding which titles to prepare for digital release, archive managers must walk a tightrope between serving their audience and protecting the bottom line. Some classics are easy calls. “There always will be a place on the retail shelf for ‘Casablanca,’ ‘King Kong’ or ‘Citizen Kane,’” says Warner’s Feltenstein. But finer judgments are required for what Feltenstein calls “the deeper part of the library.”

“My job is to monetize that content, make it available to the largest number of people possible and do so profitably,” Feltenstein told me. To gauge demand, Feltenstein’s staff keeps lines open with film enthusiasts and historians via Facebook, Twitter, a free weekly podcast and other outreach. “They literally ask us, ‘What do you want to see?’” Fiore says.

That gives them a window into values that others might miss. Take B-movie westerns made in the 1940s and 1950s that landed in the Warners vault. To Allied Artists and Lorimar, their producers, “these films were worthless and they said it’s OK to let them rot,” Feltenstein says. Instead, Warner Archives packaged them into DVD collections, “and they’ve all been nicely profitable.”

Feltenstein says Warners is releasing 30 more titles to its manufacturing-on-demand library every month. “It’s growing precipitously and there’s no end in sight.” Universal’s Gardner says there’s “real momentum” at her studio behind “making our titles more available than ever before.”

But there’s always more beckoning over the horizon. “The good news is that every studio is actively engaged in taking care of its library,” Maltin says. “That’s a big improvement over 20 or 25 years ago. But access is the final frontier.”

[UPDATE: Nell Minow, whose excellent blog on film can be found at Movie Mom and who is a fan of “Alias Nick Beal,” reports that the title character, played by Ray Milland, is more than merely a “satanic gangster” as we describe him above--he’s Satan.]

Michael Hiltzik’s column appears every Sunday. His new book is “Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex.” Read his blog every day at latimes.com/business/hiltzik, reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @hiltzikm on Twitter.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20151025-column.html

Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times

Pedro Pascal and Jenna Ortega Shouldn’t Be Exceptions in Hollywood

July 23, 2023

By Arlene Dávila

Ms. Dávila is the founding director of the Latinx Project at New York University.

Corporate America’s treatment of Latinx people as a homogeneous monolithic group, instead of the diverse demographic it is, has for decades perpetuated stereotypes of Latino authenticity. These stereotypes have disproportionately depicted Latinos on TV and in movies as Spanish speakers that hailed from Latin America and shared a particular Latin “look.”

In Hollywood, this narrative has reinforced the notion that we are a niche market that is separate from the mainstream, which could be served through the importation of programming that is cheaper to produce in Latin America over programming that is produced in the United States.

That’s why it was exciting to see Jenna Ortega and Pedro Pascal make Emmy history this month. For the first time two Latino actors were nominated in the lead acting category in the same year, for the hit shows “Wednesday” and “The Last of Us.”

Though Latinx people make up 19 percent of the U.S. population, they account for less than 5 percent of actors cast in speaking roles in the nation’s top-grossing films. Additionally, representation in the media industry as a whole stands at a mere 12 percent, with the majority of positions being service oriented, like cleaning services and security. These numbers have remained stagnant for decades, which is outrageous when you consider that they make up nearly half the population of Los Angeles County.

Why has the media industry been so unwilling to acknowledge and address this growing demographic of potential viewers and consumers?

Latinx creatives have told me that many executives in Hollywood don’t understand why they are outraged by how few Latinx people appear in films and television shows. After all, there is already a variety of streaming offerings from Latin America and Spain. But there is a profound difference between these markets.

We wouldn’t mistake the experience of Indigenous Mexicans living in Mexico for the experience of a fifth-generation Chicana. This is why many in the industry are identifying as Latinx — a term that signals gender inclusivity and recognition of our racial and ethnic diversity — to call attention to a pattern of exclusion of Latinx writers and creators that are representing the U.S. experience.

The globalization of Spanish language media has only widened the existing gaps between the robust development of movies and shows produced in Latin America and the limited opportunities for Latinx writers, directors and showrunners in the United States. In recent decades, Latin American media companies have benefited from investments from American streaming conglomerates like Netflix, the lower costs of producing and importing programming in Latin America and investments by governments in the region that support their film industries.

While streaming platforms offer a wealth of series and films from Spain and Latin America, there is a lack of representation of stories written by Latinx people that reflect their experiences. While actors and writers from Latin America have had the opportunity to expand their résumés with credits from global serials produced by platforms like Netflix, am*zon and Max, Latinx actors and audiences have fewer roles to choose from. The leads cast in series like “Wednesday” and the “Last of Us” are rare exceptions.

Research shows that in the United States, Latinx actors are often cast in the roles of lower-class characters, criminals or immigrants. The gap is wider still for Afro-Latinos. In shows produced in Latin America, the majority of actors cast as leads and heroines are blond and white, while darker-skinned actors are often relegated to secondary roles, housekeepers or criminals, if they are represented at all. Additionally, Latinx writers face extra barriers when entering a shrinking industry, as highlighted by the writers’ strike.

The few productions that have been written or created by Latinx people and have represented our communities in real and personal ways have been canceled after a few seasons. When shows like “Gentefied,” “Vida” and the “Gordita Chronicles” were shut down despite positive reviews, writers and fans alike were left wondering why. In the age of streaming, algorithm-driven decisions make it difficult to determine what counts as success with transparency, especially when algorithms are biased against new content.

Latinx audiences remain avid consumers of films, TV and other media, even if they don’t see themselves reflected. Some may question why media conglomerates should change and invest in original content and programming or cast Latinx actors and writers when the cheaper importation-based model is so profitable and seemingly successful. Yet they should evolve because those formulas have historically left Latinx audiences mostly untapped. There are generations of talented scriptwriters, producers and filmmakers who have been underutilized and countless rich stories and ideas that have yet to be told. Film and TV that represent the experience of Latinx communities in the United States enrich the media ecosystem by offering a more accurate representation of American demographics.

Additionally, we must address the negative impacts of the media’s import-heavy formula for Latinx audiences, which limits opportunities and perpetuates the perception of Latinx people as foreigners rather than fellow Americans deserving equal visibility on television and movie screens.

It’s worth noting that Latinx people are not the only group excluded by the globalization of streaming. That Ms. Ortega and Mr. Pascal received recognition raises the question of whether we have reached a crucial turning point. It’s worth considering how we can leverage the current SAG-AFTRA and W.G.A. strikes to also address issues of representation and investment in productions that will provide working opportunities for Latinx actors, writers and showrunners alongside matters of pay equity for media workers.

Finally, it is time to consider the global appeal of entertainment featuring Latinx actors. I want to see more roles for actors like Ariana DeBose, the first Afro-Latina to win an Oscar, for a supporting role in “West Side Story,” and productions by filmmakers and MacArthur “genius grant” awardees Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra, among many other outstanding Latinx creatives.

I often wonder what it would look like if Hollywood dared to recognize that Latinx talent is not an exception.

Arlene Dávila, the founding director of the Latinx Project at New York University, is the author of “Latinx Art: Artists, Markets and Politics.”

URL

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/23/opinion/latinos-hollywood-representation.html

The recently released Barbie movie has provided an opportunity for a bipartisan coalition of commentators and elected officials to see value in its dissection.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times, Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters, Jim Wilson/The New York Times, Alex Brandon/Associated Press, Warner Bros. Pictures via Associated Press

‘Barbie’ Movie Gives Left and Right Another Battlefront, in Pink

Political figures of all types grabbed for the legs of a doll-turned-movie-turned-cultural moment, with predictable results.

By Matt Flegenheimer and Marc Tracy

Last week, Representative Matt Gaetz and his wife, Ginger, arrived at a Washington reception for “Barbie” in matching pink, grinning in photos along the “pink carpet,” mingling among guests sipping pink cocktails, admiring a life-size pink toy box.

They left with political ammunition.

“The Barbie I grew up with was a representation of limitless possibilities, embracing diverse careers and feminine empowerment,” Mrs. Gaetz wrote on Twitter. “The 2023 Barbie movie, unfortunately, neglects to address any notion of faith or family, and tries to normalize the idea that men and women can’t collaborate positively (yuck).”

When another account scolded Mr. Gaetz, the hard-right and perpetually stunt-seeking Florida congressman, for attending the event at all — citing the casting of a trans actor as a doctor Barbie — Mr. Gaetz replied with a culture-warring double feature.

“If you let the trans stop you from seeing Margo Robbie,” he said, leaving the “T” off the first name of the film’s star, “the terrorists win.”

The non-terroristic winners were many after the film’s estimated $155 million debut: Ms. Robbie and Greta Gerwig, the film’s director, finding an eager audience for their pink-hued feminist opus; the Warner Bros. marketing team, whose ubiquitous campaigns plainly paid off; the film industry itself, riding “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” to its most culturally dominant weekend in years.

But few outcomes were as nominally inexplicable (and probably inevitable) as the film’s instant utility to political actors and opportunists of all kinds. For a modern take on what was long a politically fraught emblem of toxic body image and reductive social norms, no choice was too small, no turn too ideology-affirming or apparently nefarious, for a bipartisan coalition of commentators and elected officials to see value in its dissection.

“I have, like, pages and pages of notes,” Ben Shapiro, the popular conservative commentator, said in a lengthy video review, which began with him setting a doll aflame and did not grow more charitable. (He said his producers “dragged” him to the theater.)

“I took a tequila shot every time Barbie said patriarchy … only just woke up,” wrote Elon Musk. (Mr. Shapiro, diligently but less colorfully, said he had counted the word “more than 10 times.”)

“Here are 4 ways Barbie embraces California values,” the office of Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, wrote in a thread hailing Barbie as a champion of climate activism, “hitting the roads in her electric vehicle,” and of destigmatizing mental health care.

If there was a time in the culture when a giant summer film event was something of an American unifier — a moment to share over-buttered popcorn through big-budget shoot-’em-ups and sagas of insatiable sharks — that time is not 2023.

And, as ever, the political class’s performative investment in “Barbie” — the outrage and the embrace — can seem mostly like a winking bit.

What to make of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Democrat of Michigan, posting a Barbie meant to resemble herself beside the Instagram caption, “Come on Barbie, let’s go govern”?

What does it mean, exactly, when Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, says of himself, “This Ken is pushing to end maternal mortality”?

Certainly, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, has summoned practiced gravity in accusing “Barbie” of working to appease the Chinese. (Some Republicans have fixated on a scene that features a crudely drawn map that supposedly depicts the so-called nine-dash line, which indicates Chinese ownership of oceanic territory that is disputed under international law. Vietnam has banned showings of the movie in the country over that image.)

“Obviously, the little girls that are going to see Barbie, none of them are going to have any idea what those dashes mean,” Mr. Cruz told Fox News. “This is really designed for the eyes of the Chinese censors, and they’re trying to kiss up to the Chinese Communist Party because they want to make money selling the movie.”

The response on the right is not a one-off. For a generation of conservative personalities, weaned on Andrew Breitbart’s much-cited observation that “politics is downstream of culture,” Hollywood and other ostensibly liberal bastions are to be confronted head-on, lest their leanings ensnare young voters without a fight.

Recent years have provided ample evidence, some on the right say, for a “go woke, go broke” view that progressivism is bad business. Last year’s apolitically patriotic “Top Gun: Maverick” was a smashing success, as was this year’s kid-friendly “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” By contrast, critics on the right contended that Disney’s remake of “The Little Mermaid,” with its title character portrayed by the Black actress Halle Bailey, failed to match its producers’ hopes. (Of course, there is no way to trace exactly what determines any movie’s success or failure, and many observers adhere to the screenwriter William Goldman’s axiom: “Nobody knows anything.”)

“Barbie” cannot be said to have gone broke. But its purported politics, conservatives have argued, did damage it by making it less entertaining — “a lecture,” in the words of The Federalist’s Rich Cromwell, “that self-identifies as a movie.”

Kyle Smith, a reviewer at The Wall Street Journal, complained that the film “contains more swipes at ‘the patriarchy’ than a year’s worth of Ms. magazine.”

The film seems at times (gentle spoiler alert) to be engaging with “the patriarchy” ironically, infusing it with knowing Southern California vapidity, décor that seems inspired by hair metal and a heavy emphasis on weight lifting and “brewskis.”

When it comes time (less gentle spoiler alert) to reclaim Barbie Land, the Barbies distract the Kens by indulging their tendency for exaggerated gestures of malehood like playing acoustic guitar and insisting on showing a date “The Godfather” while talking over it.

Mr. Shapiro has sounded unconvinced that the movie is broadly in on its own jokes.

“The actual argument the movie is making is that if women enjoy men, it’s because they have been brainwashed by the patriarchy,” he said in his review.

He called the film, with a straight face, two hours he will rue wasting as he sits on his deathbed.

“The things I do,” he said, “for my audience.”

Anjali Huynh contributed reporting.

Matt Flegenheimer is a reporter covering national politics. He started at The Times in 2011 on the Metro desk covering transit, City Hall and campaigns. More about Matt Flegenheimer

Marc Tracy is a reporter on the Culture desk. More about Marc Tracy

ARTICLE URL

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/24/us/politics/barbie-movie-newsom-gaetz.html

Time to Break Up Hollywood
Hollywood is trapped in a death spiral, with streaming giants struggling to profit while smothering the industry itself. Finally the writers stood up. But will it be enough?
MATT STOLLER
MAY 14, 2023

Today I’m writing about the biggest Hollywood labor dispute in decades, as screenwriters enter their third week striking against streaming giants like Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Warner Bros, and Comcast. Far from a narrow conflict over money, this fight is existential, a question of whether America can be a place where stars are born and movies are made.

As one striker put it < https://strikegeist.substack.com/p/daily-digest-why-this-strike-feels > , the strike is “about the whole corporate dominance of America.” 

(The Ankler’s excellent Strikegeist < https://strikegeist.substack.com/ > newsletter is covering the strike, and I highly recommend it if you are interested in what’s going on day-to-day.) 

Of America’s many inventions, reality TV does not rank as highly as, say, the semiconductor, the laser, the polio vaccine, or manned flight. But from Candid Camera in the 1940s to MTV’s The Real World in the early 1990s, the medium of reality TV has been as influential in its own way as rock music and hip hop. But today, it’s Great Britain, not America, creating many of the most popular reality shows

Here are some of the shows that got their start in the U.K., and then were licensed for an American audience: American Idol, America’s Got Talent, X-Factor, Dancing with the Stars, Wife Swap, Undercover Boss, Super Nanny, Who Wants to be a Millionaire. And there are hundreds more. In the U.K, independent producers have increased their TV related revenues from £1.5 billion in 2004 to more than £2.6 billion in 2017.

What happened? Put simply, governments changed laws so that independent producers gained bargaining leverage in the U.K., and lost it in the U.S.

Let’s start with the U.K. In the early 2000s, the British government embarked on a strategy to grow its independent production industry. It facilitated something called the “Terms of Trade,” < https://cmpa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Appendix-C-Oliver-Ohlbaum-Associates-2018-The-impact-of-the-UK-te...-1.pdf > a broadcaster code of conduct to remedy the bargaining asymmetry between dominant broadcasters and independent producers. This pact required four big public channels in the UK - BBC1, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 - to commission < https://www.smallscreenbigdebate.co.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/221955/annex-2-statement-future-of-public-service-media.pdf > 25% of their production from independent producers, and to allow those producers to retain copyrights from their work they could license abroad. 

This was a soft break-up of the industry along vertical lines, and it made the U.K a great place to do business. As the CEO of the firm that makes American Idol, The X Factor, and Britain's Got Talent said, "There is no other country where you have these terms of trade. In the UK, it's brilliant!" In 2010, independents held 50% of the market, beating in-house network programming. Exports of British content exploded.

In the U.S., by contrast, legal changes over the last thirty years stripped independent producers of their bargaining power with distributors, diminishing the ability to create great products. In 2019, I laid it out in one of my first newsletter issues, titled The Slow Death of Hollywood < https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-slow-death-of-hollywood > , explaining why weirdly themed movies like Back to the Future became smash hits in the 1980s, and why that wouldn’t happen today. 

In 1985, theater owners had more choices about what content to sell, and could decide to distribute content that was well-liked and popular without assuming a massive barrage of marketing would force them to stock the most popular stuff immediately. So they could afford to show different movies, experiment, and then bring in the popular ones over time. The industry was more decentralized. Stars, directors and writers with good track records, studios, distributors, movie theaters, critics, and moviegoers shared power.

[This market structure harkens] back to bitter battles in the 1930s and 1940s between New Deal antitrust attorneys and studio heads, which culminated in the Paramount Decrees of 1948 < https://www.justice.gov/atr/paramount-decree-review >  and the end of the autocratic so-called ‘Studio System.’ These decrees forced studios to sell their theaters, and prevented them from engaging in tying and bundling practices to force theater owners to take their films. New Hollywood, with countercultural stars like Jack Nicholson, emerged in the 1960s to revamp the industry. In 1985, weird popular movies like Back to the Future took advantage of this open market structure. 

A similar situation existed in the television industry, which was broken apart in 1970 by Richard Nixon’s FCC with Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (‘fin-syn’) < https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/0404/finsyn.html > , and a related rule called the Prime-Time Access Rule (PTAR). These rules blocked TV networks from distributing their own content in prime time, opening the market for TV content to third party producers who would take more creative risks. The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and All in the Family were some of the results of this policy choice to open up the TV market. 

Both the Paramount Decrees and the Fin-syn rules were designed to eliminate conflicts of interest by splitting the studio from the distribution. Studios had to create high quality work, and if they didn’t, distributors could choose to sell someone else’s art.

The rules structured a profitable and high-quality industry, with different kinds of TV shows and movies. Media was a series of markets, from movie theaters and prime time TV, to hundreds of local TV networks for syndication, to video tapes and DVDs, to foreign markets. Creators experimented, while audiences ruled with their preferences. Hollywood is a politically left-wing place, but conservative religious hits, like The Passion of the Christ, got into theaters, and sold tickets.

In the 1980s, antitrust enforcers, influenced by Chicago School scholars like Robert Bork, became far more tolerant of concentration economy-wide. This legal revolution had significant implications for movies. In 1995, the top five movie chains owned a third of U.S. theaters, with the biggest, Carmike, owning < https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/07/business/media/amc-biggest-movie-theater-chain.html> around 2,500. By 2016, the top five held over 53% of the movie theaters in the country, with the largest, AMC, owning 8,380. 

This consolidation changed movies. In the late 1990s, giant new multiplexes “jolted the Hollywood power structure,” < https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB885343258697290000 > as theater operators played the biggest hits on several screens at once. Films began to do most of their business in the first few weeks, so well-branded tent pole movies with strong IP - aka Marvel-style movies - displaced word of mouth. As Adam Mastroianni noted with this chart, movies, along with much of pop culture, became an oligopoly. < https://www.experimental-history.com/p/pop-culture-has-become-an-oligopoly?s=r > 

The Clinton administration enacted another legal change by ending fin-syn rules, causing a merger boom of content and distribution. Immediately, for instance, Castle Rock Entertainment, the production company behind shows like Seinfeld, sold out to Turner Broadcasting, which in turn sold out to Time Warner. Disney bought ABC, and then rolled-up a series of rivals < https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disney-part >  to acquire large amounts of well-known intellectual property - like Marvel and Star Wars. 

Then came streaming, which wasn’t very important at first. Prior to 2010, the major studios sold movies to theaters, and TV shows to cable and TV networks. Several sold to Netflix, which they saw as just another distributor. But in 2010, the Obama administration approved the merger of NBC and Comcast, a further erosion of the vertical separation at the heart of the Paramount Decrees and the fin-syn rules.

Technological innovation happens along the legal framework it is born into, so streaming, which could have decentralized had it happened in another era, did the opposite.

When Comcast bought NBC, Netflix, then a minor player, feared it would lose access to content from studios. So it began buying its own movies and shows, combining distribution and production as the first studio-streamer. Apple and am*zon, for whom Hollywood revenues were a rounding error, eventually entered the business. Netflix, Apple, and am*zon put pressure on the traditional studios, who were judged based on profit and loss. Studios realized Wall Street was valuing Netflix stock more highly as a ‘tech’ company. They wanted in on that as well. All except Sony followed Netflix and became studio-streamers.

But something wasn’t right with the streaming model Netflix introduced. There was no way to know ratings or box office take, since Netflix held its own data without third party auditors. Its then-CEO, Reed Hastings, pretended Netflix used its data to scientifically know what users wanted. But that wasn’t true. (See “The Algorithm is a Lie.” < https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-algorithm-is-a-lie?s=w > ) Netflix was just overpaying for content, and losing money to acquire market share, a technique known as predatory pricing (that used to be illegal until the Supreme Court de facto legalized < https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/509/209/ > it in 1993.) 

Netflix’s model was an attack on the bargain between creators and studios at the heart of the industry. This bargain is that everyone who makes movies or shows - production houses, studios, writers, actors, or directors - split the profits from any individual piece of content, profits generated by selling movies or shows into actual markets. Producers, for instance, often retained the intellectual property of a show, and licensed it. Traditional labor compensation packages, known as ‘residuals,’ are based on theatrical releases, or what ratings TV shows achieved when broadcast. Additionally, both categories might qualify for additional compensation through syndication or DVD sales, foreign market sales, and sometimes streaming. (It’s why the cast of Friends is still making millions of dollars a year even today.)

When Netflix sought to fully integrate the production and distribution, this bargain broke down, because there were no markets or prices to use to value anything. Netflix paid creators an upfront fee, and then that content was on Netflix, with no opportunity to syndicate or sell it elsewhere. Beyond breaking down price signals, Netflix wouldn’t even tell creators how their shows did in terms of ratings. It also refused to allow American production houses to retain IP. Other studios copied Netflix, upending the labor model for content. No one knew what anything was worth.

The lack of market signals screwed up the industry because markets, as it turns out, have an important function in Hollywood. They represent a feedback loop to the studios, telling executives the preferences of the audience, based on whether the audience (or advertisers) are willing to pay. The tacky way to understand this dynamic is that when a movie did well at the box office, other studios would often copy that kind of movie, in hopes of appealing to the large audience that saw the original. But what happens when you can’t get distribution for mid-market movies because the few theater chain owners don’t want it? What happens when there are no TV ratings because it’s all streamed? What happens when, as happened during the pandemic, there is no box office?

Obviously, at some level, people are still paying money in the form of subscription fees. But decisions for what to make happen about individual pieces of content are difficult without this feedback from the audience. A creative executive can’t, after all, green light a streaming service, they can only green light a movie or TV show.

When pricing went away, when customers were simply paying a subscription fee every month instead of buying tickets or DVDs, executives had no way to know what to make or how to value anything. As just one example, in 2021, Warner Brothers put their whole slate of films onto their streaming service at the same time as they went into theaters, revealing how executives were mis-pricing their products. Another illustration of a deep structural problem with the industry is that bankable movie stars, the most important commodity in Hollywood, are aging, because you can’t break new stars.

In an attempt to monopolize, studio-streamers accidentally transformed a high-wage, high-profit business into a low-wage low-profit commodified one. For a time, this decline in industry health wasn’t obvious. Netflix had told Wall Street a story that its overall goal was to get customers locked in, and this convinced the street to give the capital to make lots of content regardless of profit. Other studios followed, overpaying for content in the hopes of being the last man standing, in the era of what was known as “Peak TV.” < https://slate.com/culture/2023/03/peak-tv-over-golden-age-hbo-streaming.html >  As Discovery board member John Malone put it < https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/john-malone-talks-streaming-wars-1235264416/ > , “Everyone went for this mad Oklahoma land rush of streaming … That was a fool’s errand.” 

The lock-in was a mirage, as consumers switched services to find content they wanted to watch. No one, as it turns out, wanted a streaming service, they wanted individual shows and movies. Vertically integrated streaming services, contrasted with markets where consumers pay for what they want, aren’t very profitable. HBO, Peacock, and Paramount all lost money < https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/1/5/23539590/streaming-losses-netflix-hbo-peter-kafka-media-column >  in the first three quarters of 2022, and this year, Disney’s streaming services raised prices < https://deadline.com/2023/05/disney-pulling-content-off-streaming-in-strategic-rethink-1235362374/ > and removed content, and still can’t make a penny. 

Most of the consolidation discussed so far is vertical, where studios and distributors combined. But throughout this period, traditional mergers, where rivals bought rivals, also continued. In 2019, Disney bought Fox, shrinking the number of major studios into a narrower oligopoly (and cutting the output of films < https://theankler.com/p/the-disney-fox-deal-whos-right?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=15657&post_id=97369692&isFreemail=false> ). Last year, Discovery bought Time Warner, combining two big buyers of reality TV. 

Consolidation, combining both production and distribution, and shrinking the number of studios, led to budget cuts. For writers, this meant smaller writer rooms, shorter seasons, and worse terms. Writer pay fell by 14% over < https://www.wcvb.com/article/what-do-striking-hollywood-writers-want/43791834 > the last five years, with sweatshop conditions < https://theankler.com/p/showrunner-crisis-its-a-sweatshop > even for those with the most creative control, the showrunners. Others felt it too; independent TV production houses, such as firms who create reality TV shows, struggled. They no longer have any choice but to sell to one of a few studio-streamers. Streamers demanded the intellectual property of anything they bought, which meant independent production houses began working as contract players for a fee, almost like chicken farmers or gig workers. There was no point in creating something great, since all the upside went to the streaming giants. 

Nothing in Hollywood, in other words, is working now that the underlying pricing system has been reduced in importance. The studio-streamers aren’t making money, the workers aren’t getting compensated like they used to, and the cultural relevance of Hollywood is declining. (And that last point is very weird, because Hollywood should have been able to take advantage of the remarkable telecommunications revolution of the last thirty years, but hasn’t.)

This industry-wide collapse is at the heart of the writers strike that’s taking place right now, ever since the industry contract with screenwriters expired at the beginning of the month. What the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) wants, is a fix to the devastation vertical integration has wrought on the industry. Their official demands are more money, access to data on how their shows do, as well as also minimum staffing requirements for shows and better lengths of employment for writers. To add to the pressure, over the next few months, the Director’s Guild and the Screen Actors Guild will also be renegotiating < https://abc7.com/hollywood-writers-strike-los-angeles-guild-of-america-directors/13229141/#:~:text=The Writers Guild of America's,Editor in Chief Cynthia Littleton. > their contracts. 

Some of the WGA demands address the power imbalance more directly than others. More residuals is a standard labor demand, while better data on streaming would actually ameliorate industry structure. Minimum staffing requirements are a bit more controversial, according to The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield. But fundamentally, the problem the writers face is much bigger than an unfair deal. It is in fact the same problem that everyone - writers, actors, directors, producers, crew members, and executives - all face; the industry itself is badly structured, and there is no political leadership < https://theankler.com/p/rushfield-the-very-bad-choices-that > among studio CEOs to address the dysfunction.

Most in Hollywood feel in their gut the dysfunction, and the proof is in the support unions are showing one another. Believe it or not, labor solidarity in the industry is rare. During the 2007 writers strike, for instance, Teamsters would drive past picket lines and give the strikers the middle finger. Two weeks ago, however, Teamster leader Lindsay Dougherty told < https://strikegeist.substack.com/p/rushfield-day-3-netflix-bears-the >  writers at a strike rally, “If you put up a line, the trucks will fucking stop... The only way we’re gonna beat these mother fuckers is if we do it together."

It’s not just unions. Agents are pitching in, even though agents and writers had been at war relatively recently. And the producers are backing the writers as well, quietly. One strike captain told Elaine Low that “they’ve received boxes of doughnuts from producers who refused to share their names,” but that “the anonymous drive-by doughnuts were well received.” It’s remarkable that producers are afraid to have their names associated with a strike they support, but in a sense, the fear is the point.

Even the Wall Street financiers themselves see the problem, in the form of stagnating share prices. From their point of view, however, the problem isn’t that studio-streamers are too powerful, but that they are too weak. As media tycoon John Malone last year told the New York Times, studios, especially smaller ones, don’t have enough pricing power, and will ”inevitably have to combine in order to try and become profitable.” This view is near-consensus in the C-Suite; former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar recently wrote in the WSJ < https://www.wsj.com/articles/jason-kilar-chaotic-streaming-wars-11670177734 > , he expects there will only be two or three studios remaining after another merger wave, and a bevy of billionaires from Comcast and Discovery are all planning < https://puck.news/lazard-fears-nbcu-c-suite-tea-leaves/?_cio_id=f6c60604e79a01a8c408&utm_campaign=The+Daily+Courant+-+LEADS+(5%2F1%2F23)&utm_content=The+Daily+Courant+-+LEADS+(5%2F1%2F23)&utm_medium=email_action&utm_source=customer.io > for the “inevitable” merger of NBC and Warner Bros. Discovery. And am*zon is reportedly interested < https://nypost.com/2023/03/28/am*zon-reportedly-interested-in-buying-amc-entertainment/ >

 in buying the AMC theater chain.

In other words, rather than returning the industry to profitability by separating out distribution and studios once again, the goal is to further consolidate Hollywood to squeeze pricing power out of consumers and creators.

And that’s why this fight is existential. For the strikers, the problem is how to negotiate a deal providing a reasonable living making commercially viable TV shows and movies. For the studio-streamers, however, preserving a domestic creative industry is fundamentally unimportant. Their problem is a lack of pricing power, aka too much competition among relatively undifferentiated streaming services who must bid against each for both talent and audience. Their way out is to drive a hard bargain, while trying to engineer another set of mergers.

As the Entertainment Strategy Guy notes < https://entertainmentstrategyguy.com/2023/05/09/sending-a-strategy-postcard-from-strike-land/> , and as the reality TV imports from the U.K. show, there is now production capacity all over the world, and shows and movies are regularly imported into the U.S. The South Korean show Squid Game was the most popular show on Netflix, ever. This CNBC headline says it all: “‘Squid Game’ success shines a light on how cheap it is to make TV shows outside the U.S.”  < https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/16/netflixs-squid-game-success-shines-light-on-international-discounts.html > As unimaginable as it might be to think of Hollywood itself disappearing, why couldn’t TV and movies just be one more industry the U.S. outsources? 

In other words, this strike is more than just a problem for the writers, it’s about whether the U.S. wants to have the capacity to make commercially viable movies and television shows. If we do, then we’ll need a real political coalition to break up the studio-streamers.

It’s a good moment to have this conversation, because the strike has focused everyone in Hollywood on problems in the industry. Different stakeholders in the industry are going to have to build a political argument for a revival of some form of the fin-syn or Paramount Decrees. We need Congressional hearings, and industry commissions with recommendations. It could be a Terms of Trade type arrangement so producers get to keep IP, or it could be something else. But it will have to split the industry giants so they are either distributors or studios, but not both. Markets have to exist again. I don’t know how to address consolidated theater chains, but that’s a problem as well.

Finally, I would note that this strike is just one of a series of battles over who controls our media systems. There are of course many legislative proposals and antitrust suits to address social media and big tech, but it goes far beyond that. Last year, for instance, the Biden antitrust division blocked < https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/book-publishing-mega-merger-blocked > a merger of Penguin and Simon & Schuster, foiling consolidation in books. At academic publishing monopolist Elsevier, 40 scientists just resigned < https://www.salon.com/2023/05/10/elsevier-editor-resignation-neuroimage/ > from editorial positions at a journal on brain imaging to protest the “greed” of their publisher. 

There is also anger in the national security world, and on the right, over this problem. Congressman Mike Gallagher, from the Special Select Committee on China, led a delegation < https://deadline.com/2023/04/disney-china-bob-iger-mike-gallagher-interview-1235322443/ > to Hollywood to meet with CEOs about Chinese influence in the industry (which is another consequence of consolidation). There’s a public fight between Tucker Carlson and Fox News, which is about media control as well. Carlson was fired, and was subjected < https://www.axios.com/2023/05/07/fox-news-tucker-carlson > to a non-compete agreement to block him from creating a rival. And who else is fighting with studio giant Disney? That would be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and at some level this conservative anger is with corporate power. Maybe a ‘break up Hollywood studios’ battle cry would have some pull with them. 

America is a fractured society, but the truth is, most of us have something in common. We love storytelling, and we don’t want a small group telling us what stories we can tell one another. A coalition is possible to save this magnificent art form. When push comes to shove, very few Americans, in Hollywood or elsewhere, are happy “about the whole corporate dominance of America.”

ARTICLE URL
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/can-a-writers-strike-save-hollywood?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

THE IMPACT OF TERMS OF TRADE ON THE UK's TELEVISION CONTENT PRODUCTION SECTOR

PRODUCING PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA CONTENT
 

First act, a set of educators, i think college are helping a colleague leave but they all have an affinity to this colleague, a curiosity about his nature. I concur with Bixby, real human beings are not alarmist and in this select case, all of these are seasoned educators used to slowly thinking about something, so they wouldn't call the cops or paddy wagon immediately. 

Why did I not guess the black leather jacket would call someone from outside first. I thought it would be billingly's character the physics or chemistry professor.

Second act, a female teacher loves him, reminds me of that twilight zone , Long Live Walter JAmeson, by the dead early Charles Beaumont, but extended.

I love Crude demonstration , hilarious, I am not superman. Loving Tony Todd's acting. 

27:34 first seeing the ocean

28:42 he studied with the buddha, and i loved the earlier birth of the vampire myth

29:06 the first betrayal of character, leather jacket should had considered he think of being outed. Considering he called someone he is either biding time or betraying himself.

29:38 ahh well done, he was expecting, 

30:31 i wish i had been here from the beginning, I concur:) 

32:16 he survived the bubonic plague, typhoid , smallpox

32:53 good point, being immortal in a cage isn't desired

33:33 black leather is wrong, common sense isn't insulted by an immortal being, common sense accepts tthe unique is plausible even if it can't not be explained.

35:19 true Tony todd, but time is also the most precious thing in existence.

35:52 exactly, the second is a human construct. an algorithmic truth, not assessed from nature.

36:27 funny moment. slow movie but for those who like to overthink and like dialog fun

37:21 is he lucky? that is the point of the story

39:41 exactly, he is outside most of humanity yet still human, a minority of one

41:46 I love that he didn't go into his past wives or children by the invasive psychiatrist

42:50 good point, the one great chaotic moment is the "immortal man" chose to even do this. I comprehend the writer's point. It is a random idea in one of many lives. But I must admit, my long lived characters wouldn't do this, unless they wish to be caught or have their cycle of lives undone.

43:07 he didn't think of these people's feelings before he told them ahhh, i disagree bixby.

43:37 the psychiatrist, white haired is trying to pull off a guilt trip, i bet he was diagnosed to die soon

44:50 ahh i knew it was a tragedy, the psychiatrist wife died yesterday
I love it, permit me to be infantile by myself. 

46:58 my first wedding funny charades

47:54 this movie clearly couldn't make it in theaters.

48:48 love his answer to 1292 ad

50:04 funny, about the primitive tribe in new guinea:)

51:03 the older woman is a hard core christian

51:47 no way skipping the biblical figure, and now he wants to call it a night, this is what you get when you ask those who study knowledge about a person who has lived longer than common

53:10 he is jesus hahaha! 

53:24 sit down edith, i know 

54:16 yes, sit down edith, lovely honesity from the biologist about his kin

54:41 tony todd, modern, that's good:)

55:29 ahh he is espousing the old belief that jesus learned buddhist ways. it makes sense historically in one way. Buddhism is older than the roman empire, and from the travelers, who were common at that time, labeled magi, who traveled freely in the roman empire because of the might of the roman empire... ok.

56:41 exactly, Tony Todd, christianity was born from the multiracial roman empire. 

58:26 good point, buddha /jesus/the christian god, may not be happy 

59:04 you can tell this was written on bixby's deathbed, a great mortuary story. I wonder what I will write in my last moments.

59:35 hhahaha, the psychiatrist came back:) haha soul saved:) 

1:00:00 nice bridge, we don't need to reintroduce the old topics for the psychiatrist, his shame on leaving.

1:00:53 great joke, nothing unusual in the path of the psychiatrist until the day he met a caveman who thought himself jesus

1:01:46 piety is the mistake they bring to the lessons haha, he is on a roll, Bixby is enjoying himself in his last days

1:03:10 thank you biologist, people make to light the influence of drugs, no, if he is taking a drug it isn't making him go up or down be violent or peaceful, it isn't changing him at all

1:04:20 thank you tony todd, i don't blame you, stay calm and relax.

1:04:55 exactly, psychiatrist, or the modern mythologies of MLKjr or Adolf Hitler

1:07:42 Its funny , in a group called african american literary book club, do you know how many black members suggest the usa will be forever? why is that? why is it, black people who knows kemet has all other human communities by thousands of years will be bested by the usa? what are blacks in the usa afraid of?.... 

1:08:20 how do you know?  I don't smell it. 
exactly, you know when it will rain , all humans do. 

1:09:20 etymology, this does happen. words matter.

1:10:25 good acting, they are all trapped by this story of their colleague

1:11:00 if edith says you aren't jesus one more time

1:11:56 edith have broken down , the psychiatrist had to shed light

1:12:49 the psychiatrist is wrong, he doesn't demand the truth, he demands the lie to keep peace

1:13:44 he is bluffing, well done, he is giving them safety

1:14:22 easy tonny todd:) he want to kill him

1:15:44 it ends safe, well done bixby, he lets the thinkers get off easy

1:16:25 exactly , the woman who lives him is right. 

1:17:59 edith knows. she will leave it

1:18:14 Tony Todd, a latitude in what we call reality... anything is possible
I am going to watch star trek. and yes, good move tony todd
Drop me a line whenever

1:19:34 the psychiatrist found out
easy psychiatrist , the break down. ahh well done, Bixby, ahh the psychiatrist was a man he knew. 

1;21:45 exactly, he never saw his own child again.

1:22:34 yes, let her decide

hahaha, great hook, who knows, let the viewer decide.

IN CONCLUSION
Ok, this movie was fun, but not for the general audience. Alittle careless of him, but that is part of John's humanity, humans even long living one's will make mistakes. 
I know this is an aside, but i love the credits , they are large enough to see and slow enough to follow, many movies have very uncaring or cheap credits.

I say, this is a well constructed example of someone long lived revealing themselves in a paraspontaneous way.

Just thoughtfulness.

I didn't time index from the begining cause I was watching it side relatives , we do those things in our home, but I am glad my relatives went to watch other things as I could write more specifically and i forgot some points early on:) 

Sammy Davis Interview

TRANSCRIPT

0:00
4 scene 22 take 33 psalm 22.
0:13
damn
0:16
[Music]
0:28
went into the army
0:31
you know that that horrible
0:34
that was my first taste really of racism
0:37
you know ever because I never been
0:40
exposed to it being in Show Business you
0:41
know
0:42
you know you'd run into the average bit
0:44
of it but not them not enough to to
0:45
upset you or anything you know or not
0:48
even to be aware because I'm in show
0:49
business so I wasn't aware of it and as
0:51
a kid being in Show Business you I
0:53
didn't learn until later the about why
0:55
we slept in bus stations and why we had
0:57
to go to the police and say where's
0:58
there
0:59
a colored family that you can stay with
1:01
because you couldn't get in the hotels
1:02
and things like that you couldn't eat in
1:04
this restaurant
1:05
but there was a very close fraternity
1:08
between most of the black and white
1:11
performers at that time
1:13
uh that doesn't exist today what were
1:17
some specific examples when you started
1:20
first getting the message
1:21
well I think the the first real thing
1:23
that I got was in the Army when I you
1:25
know and I was in basic training and I
1:28
hadn't even gone to basic training I
1:29
went in San Francisco we went to the
1:31
Presidio Monterey and the third day I
1:33
was standing in line and this is before
1:36
um desegregation came in the Army you
1:38
know uh and I'm standing in line and at
1:42
the at this place where there was black
1:43
and white soldiers and the cat said you
1:46
know
1:47
where I come from [ __ ] you know
1:48
staring in the back or they they ain't
1:50
here I forget the exact line now and I
1:53
had my my duffel bag and I'm a duffel
1:56
bag but you know the thing like use the
1:57
carry of Shaving equipment in and I just
1:59
sundied him you know
2:01
and knocked him down and had cut his lip
2:04
and he's bleeding from the lid and he
2:06
said
2:08
okay you knock me down but you still a
2:09
[ __ ]
2:12
and that laid with me you know because
2:14
that that's that's so
2:17
so venomous it really is you know that
2:20
that's the kind of cat that you ain't
2:22
gonna never reach
2:23
were there some points at which you
2:26
during that time when you had a lot of
2:29
pressures on you almost lost confidence
2:31
in yourself
2:33
oh well I that happened to me but not
2:35
until I made it really because you know
2:37
when you when you're hungry and you're
2:39
trying to get there that's one thing
2:41
because you've got that ambition that
2:43
feeds on and you keep crawling on your
2:46
ambition to get there I got there until
2:48
I lost control of everything
2:51
sense of values uh
2:53
now I've got the doll so wound up
2:56
there was no relaxing there was there
2:58
was no being aware of anything first of
3:00
all there was not much to be aware of
3:01
anyway in those days
3:04
but I mean the nominal awareness that
3:06
wasn't there I was just wrapped up in me
3:09
then then I got scared because I started
3:12
to lose what I thought was the basic
3:14
human instinct that I had had
3:17
and I got too phony I did oh I did it
3:19
all man I invented some
3:21
the ones that in the book I invented
3:23
some other problems you know but
3:26
I you know again to relate to what you
3:29
are I said today and I look back 25
3:32
years ago and I say wow I don't think I
3:35
my head would be where it is now if I
3:38
had not gone through that
3:40
25 years ago all the mistakes being on
3:43
all the time
3:45
emulating in truth emulating the white
3:48
stars not trying to get my own identity
3:52
but because that that was the kick then
3:54
you know that's what you had to do so I
3:58
decided if you got to do it then I'd do
3:59
it better than anybody else had ever
4:00
done it
4:01
you know in other words when I started
4:03
to do Impressions and all of that kind
4:04
of stuff relating to a theatrical thing
4:06
being on Broadway and Mr Wonderful you
4:09
know I wanted to do all that because I
4:11
figured if Donald O'Connor can do it man
4:13
I'm gonna do it
4:14
so in other words I was becoming a black
4:17
Donald O'Connor a black Mickey Rooney
4:19
instead of becoming a black Sammy Davis
4:21
what about the Rat Pack era you and
4:25
Sinatra and let me light a cigarette and
4:27
I'll tell you okay
4:32
I keep thinking uh just a few days
4:36
[Music]
4:38
no longer will it be anything happening
4:40
like it should be the one traffic ticket
4:42
that's the first step to maybe in 20
4:44
years is not to legalize it right now
4:46
when they legalized marijuana
4:50
but I'm just comedically I'm thinking
4:52
when they legalize it they will be back
4:55
to commercials again
4:59
[Music]
5:13
[Music]
5:18
[Music]
5:30
and plus but the most important thing is
5:32
you'd never be able to run through the
5:34
forest
5:41
thank you
5:43
what about the Rat Pack era
5:49
was that a part of your mistakes
5:51
well let me tell you about let me tell
5:53
you about the Sinatra thing
5:56
uh
5:57
if it hadn't been for Frank Sinatra
6:00
I don't I would have never been in films
6:02
really
6:03
because he gave me uh
6:07
he gave me a an opportunity
6:09
in three pictures
6:13
based upon the fact that there was
6:14
nothing to do really except the fact
6:16
that it we got the job because we were
6:17
all friends and buddies and it was based
6:19
upon a camaraderie that we had as a
6:22
bunch of guys as performers that Frank
6:24
said why don't we do all do a picture
6:26
together
6:27
but he so he helped my career
6:29
tremendously again my own personal
6:32
involvement being such that I became so
6:35
involved with that lifestyle
6:38
that again I found myself submerging
6:41
into a lifestyle that I could not equate
6:43
with after you'd leave the party you
6:45
come home and you're going to
6:47
and you say wow man it sure was nice to
6:49
be in the company of all them big names
6:50
and the movie star
6:52
but there was no
6:54
on one hand I I loved being with my
6:57
friends
6:58
but it was submerging me as a human
7:00
being I think as I analyze it now
7:03
and there were Beautiful Moments during
7:05
that period of the 60s the early 60s and
7:08
there was some frightening moments I
7:09
remember walking on the stage at the
7:11
Democratic Convention and being booed by
7:13
the southern contingent you know
7:16
because they had no business the only
7:17
reason they booed me was because I was
7:19
married to a white woman you know to put
7:21
it right where it's at that's why they
7:22
boom boom hits how dare you be married
7:25
to a white woman you know
7:27
but it was
7:28
a part of conversation privately and
7:31
publicly is that uh you were married to
7:33
a white woman how do you feel about that
7:36
how would you advise a young black
7:38
person your son about marrying a white
7:41
woman
7:42
I think a person should marry who they
7:43
want to marry man
7:45
I think that you can be committed to
7:47
your people to the cause whatever you
7:49
whatever the terminology you want to use
7:51
doesn't matter matter who you're married
7:53
to if you fall in love you fall in love
7:55
if you're if you're getting I don't
7:57
think anyone gets married has children
7:59
and the rest
8:00
to do a three cheating job you know
8:03
and uh
8:05
to me
8:07
I feel no thing about it I really don't
8:11
I really don't feel anything about that
8:13
because I think that's so damn private
8:16
man
8:16
that has to do with what I want a cat to
8:19
do if it's a brother on the corner
8:20
whatever it is look at me and say what
8:23
did you do today to help
8:24
don't talk about my private life
8:27
that's mine that if you know if I want
8:30
to marry a dog that's my life
8:33
this is the point whatever I had I paid
8:35
my dues to get it
8:38
and I mean pay them
8:40
in every way you want to talk about but
8:43
what I'm but that's professionally
8:45
that's as a human being on a
8:47
professional level but as a human being
8:48
period I tell my kids Harry who you want
8:52
to marry
8:53
now I know this sure as I'm sitting on
8:55
this floor man whole bunch of brothers
8:58
and sisters don't like me there's a
9:00
whole bunch of white people that don't
9:01
like me why do you feel there's a group
9:03
of brothers and sisters who don't like
9:05
you because there was a whole bunch of
9:07
brothers and sisters that didn't like
9:08
Jesus Christ that's why
9:11
and ain't nobody ever been put on this
9:12
Earth that everybody liked
9:14
they don't kill Martin Luther King the
9:16
only thing he kept singing was we shall
9:17
overcome and love and peace killed him
9:19
wiped him out killed Malcolm
9:23
wiped out everybody man don't you
9:25
understand and some cat hired three
9:29
black cats to wipe out the man who was
9:31
the mother of our time and when they
9:33
killed him he had a half a church full
9:35
of people it wasn't like it was packed
9:37
and jammed because already he was losing
9:42
and he says it himself if you read his
9:44
works that there's a whole bunch of
9:46
[ __ ] that don't like me black folks
9:48
like me but not the [ __ ]
9:51
which is true and three black cat three
9:55
[ __ ] knocked him off
9:57
paid by white establishment that's my
9:59
feeling and I will feel this as long as
10:01
I live
10:02
and it was afterwards at the the
10:04
Resurgence of this man and suddenly we
10:07
became aware of all the things that he
10:08
was saying because as long as doesn't it
10:12
strike you funny that as long as
10:16
Malcolm was preaching separatism
10:20
as long as he was preaching such
10:23
vehemence he never got hurt at all it
10:26
was when he came back from Mecca and he
10:28
said we must all live together we must
10:29
we must ask black people do our thing
10:31
but we must all live on this Earth as
10:34
one blah blah that's when he started
10:36
getting his house bombed
10:38
he got wiped out months later
10:40
same thing with King as long as King was
10:42
hitting the March as they put him in
10:44
jail that was it as soon as he started
10:45
talking about Vietnam
10:47
and the workers and this that and the
10:49
other getting out of his field of
10:52
reference
10:53
really
10:55
heavy too heavy for somebody wipe him
10:57
out
10:59
you know and it's frightening to me so
11:01
that's why I say a lot of people will
11:03
not like any performer and you try to
11:06
relate
11:07
as far I'm not talking about relating in
11:09
terms of oh hi bra and do the Fist and
11:12
whatever it is and hey man right on I'm
11:14
not talking about the words I'm talking
11:15
about in your heart relating to what the
11:17
problems are
11:18
but the society in which we live in
11:19
today it has gotten to a point where you
11:21
cannot do that anymore based upon the
11:24
fact that I must do what I feel
11:26
if I feel that I I want to help in this
11:29
area I try to do it and I try to do it
11:31
Sans publicity not based upon the fear
11:34
that I have for my job
11:36
but I think that sometimes if I want to
11:38
help some brothers who are in trouble my
11:40
lending my name to it defeats the very
11:44
purpose that they're trying to achieve
11:48
but money is money
11:50
heart is heart you should lend your
11:52
heart and your money you ain't got the
11:54
money
11:56
then lend this lend your body man to it
11:59
you know but I'm talking about I think
12:01
that if the performer can be used
12:05
than he should be used
12:08
to put my obligation into black positive
12:11
things I'm not talking about National
12:12
organizations it can be something that's
12:14
happening on the corner a project that
12:16
because I found out and Walter Mason can
12:19
tell you we found out that you go into a
12:22
town
12:23
and sometimes it's as little as a
12:25
hundred dollars because you go to an
12:28
area where this where where some
12:30
projects are and they got a recreation
12:31
center ain't got no pool table ain't got
12:33
no records to play so the kids don't go
12:35
there they hang on the car right
12:37
Jesus you walk in and you look around
12:40
and you say hey well I know I get a pool
12:42
table and I know I can get the record
12:44
player and I'll get reprise at that time
12:47
or my own company to send records you're
12:50
in a privileged situation first of all
12:52
uh I can't help but make an analogy
12:54
between yourself and lean a horn
12:55
I mean the two of you are for lack of a
12:58
better phrase are superstars are using
13:00
to some extent your sense of commitment
13:04
you uh you're evolving a new sense of
13:06
self and most importantly like you're
13:09
going in front of the nation and you're
13:11
saying I'm Black and I'm Proud and I'm
13:13
relating to my people
13:15
I'm not going to use anybody's name but
13:17
I'm sure you won't but where are the
13:19
heads of a lot of the black Superstars
13:21
we don't see them like we see you in
13:23
Philadelphia with the street gangs we
13:25
don't see them saying what Lena said in
13:28
terms of what's happened to her well I I
13:30
think
13:32
I think the phonies
13:34
that's what I think and the bitter irony
13:37
of it all is
13:39
that
13:40
again I have to sit by man and watch
13:44
these people be lauded by our brothers
13:46
and sisters in the streets
13:49
and they and the brothers and sisters
13:50
must be aware
13:52
that they ain't doing nothing
13:54
but it took me a long time to get there
13:55
maybe they maybe my brother brothers and
13:57
sisters who are superstars need that
13:58
kind of time and there are many who say
14:00
I don't want to get involved in it
14:02
but I don't know how you cannot get
14:04
involved in it because they are first of
14:06
all black and they are committed
14:08
whether they want to be committed or not
14:10
the very nature of the skin commits you
14:12
I don't read a script that I don't weigh
14:15
and say I wonder what the brother and
14:17
the con is going to think about this
14:20
how can I change it if it's wrong
14:23
because the black performer again has
14:25
that obligation
14:27
that we are black performers
14:30
and so therefore I'm not talking about
14:32
you gonna come out every time man and do
14:35
a number because like on Laugh-In
14:38
you know I do jokes but somewhere along
14:41
the line I've got to relate to what's
14:43
really happening
14:44
somewhere so that the brother who's
14:47
watching me who may not necessarily buy
14:49
my records
14:50
may not go to my movies may not come to
14:53
the Copa the Sands Hotel lassimi will
14:56
say yeah
14:58
in a bar or in his house yeah
15:01
that's all that's my thanks but the
15:04
black audience
15:06
owes that black performer an obligation
15:08
of watching and supporting him unless he
15:10
turns out to be really the rat of all
15:13
time
15:15
but I mean when I say rap I mean he's
15:17
not doing anything he's doing things
15:19
that embarrass the the black population
15:23
now I know a lot of people don't like
15:24
flips doing the the Deacon I've heard a
15:27
lot of talk about it Geraldine Geraldine
15:29
they don't like uh I now my personal
15:32
things I think geraldine's funny I feel
15:34
a little funny about the deacon
15:36
because I think that's going back to
15:37
something that's so deeply rooted in
15:39
black people
15:40
religiously you know that I think that
15:43
that does this to me but I think it's
15:45
still funny because I'm looking at it
15:46
again through one eye that looks
15:49
in two directions first as a performer
15:52
is it funny is it clever secondly as a
15:55
man we're trying to relate to the cat on
15:57
the corner again you understand what I
15:58
mean because first and foremost I'm a
16:01
performer that's all I've ever done all
16:02
my life
16:03
so I know he's got to weigh it but what
16:06
do you do
16:07
you've got to have the support of your
16:09
people
16:10
but geez I just love saying that number
16:13
one variety show in the country now and
16:16
start in by a black man who is very very
16:20
funny but Amos and Andy was funny don't
16:24
do that to me don't do that
16:27
and Geraldine is funny and uh the Deacon
16:31
is funny but can you move forward you
16:33
know at at the level of the struggle we
16:36
are for Liberation yeah you know came
16:38
before to continually uh entertain white
16:41
people with shows produced by white men
16:44
with a frame of reference of what we are
16:46
I mean that's not defining ourselves and
16:49
the role of the Entertainer
16:51
to some extent has to accommodate that
16:54
relevant I think that the Amos Amanda
16:56
was funny I was embarrassed by it I
16:58
signed the letters too you know but I I
17:00
say that I think at this point now we've
17:02
got more stars than we've ever had
17:04
before that I can afford the luxury
17:07
because in place of Geraldine and then
17:10
place a Flip Wilson I have Don Knotts
17:14
since you both guess no baby I was out
17:17
of town you know I haven't had a chance
17:19
to live a boat here okay so what you
17:21
think of the terrible cat dead man
17:27
we are like
17:29
in one sense limited because we will
17:33
never have the audience of a commercial
17:36
Channel but do you want that audience
17:38
I'd like to have that audience on the
17:40
other hand if getting that audience
17:43
necessitated compromising our principles
17:46
I know they have ten Brothers
17:48
out of the 200 million people in this
17:51
country watch this show yeah then they
17:53
have the 200 million people in this
17:55
country watch the show even because I
17:57
think being irrelevant is
17:58
counterproductive you know and and that
18:00
brings me to the next point
18:02
uh you have a show
18:05
that
18:06
folded
18:09
and that's when I think like what you
18:13
said you were in another era
18:15
you're being very kind yeah
18:18
I was a stone rock and you could be for
18:21
free yeah what would you do I mean I
18:24
don't know but I would I tell you what I
18:26
wouldn't do or maybe by that you can get
18:28
a clue I certainly wouldn't do nothing
18:29
more than I'm doing as an entertainer
18:31
today in other words I ain't gonna let
18:33
them change me last time out I let him
18:35
put me in suits I couldn't smoke I
18:37
couldn't say what I wanted to say and
18:39
though I put a lot of people to work and
18:40
I did a lot of things and all of that
18:42
and I changed a lot of policies at NBC
18:44
you know when they catch and went yeah
18:47
because you know I walked into the
18:48
publicity office one day I didn't see no
18:49
black people I said I don't understand
18:50
this it looks like the Lilies of the
18:52
white Fields you know and that was it
18:54
and the guy went oh he's very bitter and
18:56
I went well the hell with it I am very
18:58
bitter if I got it I gotta surround
18:59
myself with people that I know of and
19:01
we've got capable brothers and sisters
19:02
to do it now you go up there and be
19:04
seeing it's packed and jammed and the
19:05
executives are there you know but the
19:07
only thing that they are
19:11
you know
19:15
the most relevant thing I think I was
19:18
able to do was near the end of the
19:20
series I did a sketch
19:21
with nipsy Russell
19:24
about how brothers treat Brothers
19:27
and I did a very Bourgeois cat going in
19:29
to apply for a job right
19:31
and very Bourgeois with the three button
19:33
code as soon as he found out it was a
19:35
brother
19:36
he took his head on each other
19:39
right and the cat's baggies to send him
19:41
in and the cat walked in he said damn
19:43
hey babe that ain't the way he walked in
19:46
the White Secretary was there seeing he
19:47
said I'm I'm here for the job and I like
19:50
to apply I've been okayed and I went
19:51
through the IBM machines blah blah blah
19:54
talked very problem as soon as he went
19:55
in there instead of identifying and
19:57
saying Hey I want a groove it is to see
19:59
you in this position he didn't do that
20:00
he just put his feet up on the desert
20:02
dead go ahead and sign that
20:05
you know I'm straight
20:08
you know and suddenly here's the brother
20:10
sitting there trying to do something and
20:12
he is not protected and it was a funny
20:13
sketch and we loved doing it I got such
20:16
complaints from NBC you would not
20:18
believe and we never were to do another
20:19
one because I think we went through a
20:21
period where we were just pleased to see
20:23
a black guy there
20:25
yeah
20:26
there we are
20:28
there we are we in there because we
20:30
needed that at that period now we've got
20:32
to go on
20:33
further
20:35
you know what I mean and it's not just
20:37
seeing the black cat there anymore
20:39
you know it's like the guys I will
20:42
believe till I die that when the
20:44
pressure came on the Madison Avenue and
20:46
they said you got to put black people
20:47
into commercials they said we'll show
20:50
them black people in a commercial so
20:51
they put them in the commercials where
20:53
black people look ludicrous in
20:56
you know because everybody has a white
20:58
neighbor
20:59
you very rarely see two black women
21:02
talking
21:03
and if they're black women talking
21:05
they're not the sisters
21:08
it's Bourgeois middle class you know
21:11
straight hair no dues never a dude ever
21:14
never do you know can't look like Gloria
21:16
Foster no chance you know you must look
21:19
like you know the old days of of tan
21:22
confessions you know and that's it
21:24
and I look and I say it on the stage
21:26
sometimes I say it's ridiculous because
21:29
it doesn't relate to anything
21:35
you wearing a free Angela button have
21:37
you had any reaction from other people
21:39
as a result of wearing that button well
21:41
that was a fan of mine
21:43
in the restaurant and uh
21:46
was at the risk around the airport and
21:48
the guy walked up and asked my autograph
21:50
and he was white and he said Jay the
21:53
wife gets a big kick out of here when is
21:55
he on the laughing and all that sign us
21:59
for the kitties you know and I signed it
22:01
and he said I was wondering if and he
22:03
started staring at the button and I was
22:04
wearing you know this but and he was
22:06
going like this and he kept saying I was
22:08
I was and he was trying to focus on it
22:10
because I I was blowing his bubble
22:13
because they have
22:15
an image of me I guess of another kind
22:18
my involvement with Angela is again the
22:22
Injustice of it all
22:24
uh her political beliefs you know are
22:26
her own
22:28
I don't share her political beliefs I
22:30
share her blackness
22:32
and I share the Injustice to any black
22:35
person and there's no way that she's
22:36
going to get the right kind of trial we
22:38
know that
22:39
it's stacked against it
22:41
uh they made her the Most Wanted woman
22:44
since uh Bonnie of Bonnie and Clyde and
22:49
I think that if a guy like myself wears
22:51
a button
22:52
that's letting somebody in that crowd
22:54
that I go around with know where my
22:55
head's at
22:57
you're now married to a sister
22:59
is she I didn't I didn't know that
23:04
[Music]
23:09
[Applause]
23:13
[Music]
23:18
and it's so groovy and so nice I've been
23:21
in the hospital five times
23:22
[Music]
23:24
[Applause]
23:30
I think he's trying to tell me so
23:34
I'm absolutely
23:36
you know flabbergasted by the by the
23:39
fact that we as a people almost without
23:42
the underground which they keep saying
23:44
we've got and everything else around the
23:46
ground as a soul underground you know
23:48
don't take no trains or nothing this
23:51
something happens it's it's the same
23:53
thing compared to
23:54
as soon as downtown gets the dance we've
23:57
gone on to another one and nobody ever
24:00
told us that they got it and we didn't
24:03
care about it but when they get funky
24:04
chicken we're into something else
24:06
uh there's something else you know it's
24:08
the thing that we have that ain't no
24:09
other people got in the world
24:12
it's that immediate eye to eye contact
24:15
that says
24:17
jamf
24:19
horse that says
24:21
yeah
24:23
that's that same thing again that one
24:25
word yeah
24:27
and you know and it's not followed by
24:29
he's down right on but really just yeah
24:33
you feel that we can solve our problem
24:34
by having some type of army or some type
24:38
of violent confrontation with whites
24:41
no
24:43
you know ain't no way you can put poor
24:45
Cadillacs against the tank
24:48
two Rusty raises
24:50
you know against an M1
24:52
and the flame throw against a bottle of
24:55
Coca-Cola with a rag in it ain't no way
24:57
you can do that
25:01
how is it that you're free enough uh to
25:04
talk the way you're talking and be an
25:06
Entertainer
25:07
because you know
25:09
the rationale is that if I'm black and
25:11
an Entertainer I can't be too involved
25:13
with black causes and survive in an
25:16
industry controlled basically by white
25:18
people how are you free enough let's say
25:20
to come on black journal and relate to
25:22
the brothers and sisters the Way You Are
25:24
but I I think
25:27
that it's called
25:29
a respect for one's opinion
25:31
because I've had too many white people
25:33
talk to me and say I
25:35
I don't like what you said on the David
25:36
Frost show about something such a thing
25:39
well you but you shared a lot of guts to
25:41
say it
25:44
and the other point is which is very
25:46
very good man
25:48
I really don't care I don't give it
25:52
when I say this is a racist society in
25:55
which we live in everybody knows it is
25:58
that ain't no that ain't no big big
26:00
statement to make it maybe it's shocking
26:03
to hear it from someone that you just
26:04
watched the night before on laughing uh
26:07
but it is man I can't say well how can
26:10
you say that white and black say this to
26:11
me how can you say that man you got it
26:13
made I said I Got It Made because I had
26:15
to fight all of that but I then owe an
26:17
obligation to my brothers and my sisters
26:19
to let them know
26:21
that it existed then it still exists now
26:24
and I've been here for 40 years you know
26:27
I've got the house I've got a wife I've
26:29
got children I've got success
26:32
and now it is time for me to try in
26:36
every way feasible
26:38
to help
26:39
the plight of my people
26:41
and to gain our freedom because I'm see
26:45
the fallacy is man and let's let me say
26:47
this and and I really mean it from the
26:49
bottom of my heart
26:50
money don't make you free
26:52
popularity don't make you free
26:55
don't you know that
26:58
you know sure I live in Beverly Hills
27:00
but I'm Shackled by the same things that
27:01
happen to the brother and Watts
27:06
I've had my bosses say to me
27:09
cats that I work for
27:11
who you know really basically give me a
27:15
Jack Entrada will say to me Sam geez
27:17
that was a little heavy statement you
27:19
said on that I said but it's true ain't
27:20
it Jack he said yeah I know it's true
27:22
but I said Butcher and that's the end of
27:24
that
27:25
I mean that man and my cousin did I say
27:29
it like it is man I've been the last
27:31
five years
27:33
go away
27:39
thank you
27:40
because he's got to respect me it's like
27:42
when a brother comes to me and says but
27:43
man you're a Jew
27:45
you know I look at him and say what's
27:46
your religion and he says I'm a Baptist
27:49
or I don't have one or I'm a Muslim I
27:51
said well our religion is blackness
27:55
because if we ever get to the point
27:57
where we started talking about he's a
27:58
black Jew he's a black Catholic he's a
28:00
black Baptist he's a black Muslim really
28:03
saved for the titles that the papers put
28:04
on people then we're in trouble our real
28:07
religion and the thing that connects us
28:08
all is our blackness
28:10
the religion of Blackness that's it
28:13
God
28:15
[Music]
28:17
[Applause]
28:18
[Music]
28:19
[Applause]
28:22
[Music]
28:23
[Applause]
 

My thoughts to the article below

I quote < “The other show is kind of mean and too grown up for me.”
 > 
her son said a show is to grown up for him:)  How does a child know what  defines grown up when many grown up don't. Know if he would had said what his mother will not like,that shows honesty.

I quote < what does it say that it is so much easier for my son to find wonderfully crafted television shows and films featuring talking animals than it is to find shows about kids who look like him? >
It says that Black people with money aren't willing to spend their money to make cartoons for black people. It says that Black people had less money in the past and white people financed cartoons to be made for white people, which is perfectly acceptable. It says that Black parents need to focus on books with rearing their  kids as a ton of content has existed that has human black characters. It says white people around the world who may be asian or muslim or latino is a larger market and satisfactory. It says Black people need to tell their children they are willing to suck a white persons penis or lick a white persons vagina for opportunities but opportunities are not meant to be shared or made universal. It says that Black people from black countries like Uganda didn't use their control to make media in Uganda or other black countries that black people globally need. 

I quote < “But where are the cartoons, Mom?” he asked. “And why does the story have to be so sad with people dying?” > 
What the author of the article the black mom was unwilling to simply say is white people wrote most of the films, live action or television, that she cites and sequentially, their themes. But, again, a Black one percent exist, they are billionaires or millionaires. She needs to tell her son, rich black people aren't spending their money on financing black cartoons. That is why ? and asking non blacks to make media for black people is unwarranted, and non blacks don't have to care about blacks. 

I quote < Where are the happy carefree storylines for young Black kids that white kids get? Where is the diversity of storyline and personality and genre representation that white kids get? > 
Pick up a book, they are out there.  And again where are the black rich. Where is Oprah's money? where is Tyler Perry's studios? 

I quote < I find it very telling that the first animated Disney movie featuring a Black woman main character and the first animated Disney movie to feature a Black man character as leads are written in such a way that both of these main characters spend a large part of their respective films in bodies that are neither Black nor even human. > 
Yes, White people finance media for white people. As DW Griffith said, when the NAACP boycotted Birth of a nation, anyone can make whatever film they want. The NAACP wouldn't spend money on making a film as a rebuttal as if teh white jews who financed the organization would do that. But, Oscar Mischeux made films in reply. So where are the Oscar Micheaux Black directors. Comprehend, Spike Lee tells similar stories of Blac plight than disney so...

I quote < What does it say to Black kids watching when the world’s biggest children’s entertainment company cannot give them even one animated film that features a Black person that stays a Black person throughout? What does this say about Blackness to kids who are not Black? About whose life is being portrayed as mattering? And whose does not? > 
It says to Black kids their Black parents are stupid telling them white people will change by black merit. It says to Black kids  their Black parents don't have the power, money isn't always power, to provide them with what they need. It tells non Black kids how impotent the black community is wherever they live, which is the truth. It tells non black kids to make sure they emphasize their non black community so that it isn't like the impotent black community. It says to Black kids their black parents are lying when they talk about a human family. All humans are human but that does mean all humans are family and that is ok. 

I quote  < When will Disney make a film with Black characters played by Black characters? Why is this so damn hard? > 
Maybe never and that is ok. Disney was started by a white artists as an independent company. So when will Black artists who are fortunate enough to get financing for films do likewise. Black people did create BET which was a black owned media outlet but sold it to whites. So, why complain about Disney? when Oscar Micheaux proved independent movies can be made. B.E.T. proves Black people with money undercut their own community. Disney is not obliged to give concern to black people. Why are Black people with money financing what the Black community need so damn hard? It isn't like Black people with money only send people to traditional black colleges so...

I quote < Or does Disney’s refusal to create an animated movie with Black characters who stay Black characters go beyond these three films that traffic in stereotypes and erasure and speak to larger institutional issues regarding perceptions of Blackness that behoove attention? > 
Institutional issues? no. Disney is a white owned firm that is free to sell to all phenotypes. If non whites absorb or dream of disney , they are the fools. Don't blame disney for black people pushing disney on black children or not rearing black children better, better meaning to media that has black created content, which has always existed.

I quote < It matters, where imagination begins in the mind. It matters whether that mind can imagine full Black personhood, or if that imagination is still constrained by unconscious bias and internalized stereotypes.> 
Yes this is true, but film is a collective project which starts with the financier and white people have more money or power than blacks and are not beholden to satisfy black needs. Black people can take care of ourselves and if our leaders: black people with money or influence, are unwilling to lead positively or lead negatively, well such is life.

I quote< There are a few future things in the works that I am hopeful about. Disney is set to premiere Ironheart on Disney+ in the near future, and is creating a TV show featuring Princess Tiana in 2023 with (hopefully) an eye to a less stereotypical portrayal than the earlier film. The Disney partnership with South African film company Kugali to produce Iwaju in 2022 looks promising as long as it doesn’t turn into a repeat of the single representation story, and diasporic wars where African, Afro European, and Black American creatives are pitted against each other.  > 
Well to be fair to Black people. White tribes have wars with each other. Black tribes have wars with each other as well. And to be blunt, because Black communities the world over usually lack power, and have to beg from whites, we tend to have bitter fights cause all the communities are based on begging.

I quote < In the meantime, my son has stopped asking to watch television. He told me the other day that he understands why I have always avoided TV and read to him instead. It is not just the wonder of imagination and language that books rather than TV provide. It is not just the vibrant storylines that inspire his own creations. As my Black son looks at his bookshelves he can see row after row of books whose covers shine with characters who look like him, whose pages are full of joyful stories about characters who look like him living their lives in full Black joy instead of the shapeshifting and death embedded into so much of mainstream American television entertainment engaging with Blackness for kids.

My son knows now, like many Black kids in America do, that if you try to look for yourself onscreen all you will see is erasure, sometimes stereotype. He knows to look for himself on the page instead. You can find some beautiful things there, if you try. > 
In my view, this passage should had been the whole article. All this about what white man isn't doing for Black people is for me worthless. Yes, Whites don't like Blacks. Blacks don't like Whites. And just because the financially wealthiest Black people are reared to cater to whites doesn't mean the financially poorest Black people want to. 
 

Disney's Disembodied Black Characters

March 23, 2021   •   By Hope Wabuke

ONCE A YEAR, from the first year of middle school until I graduated from high school, my orchestra would board the yellow school district buses along with our instruments and drive the 45-minute winding route through the San Gabriel mountains from Arcadia to Anaheim, California, to perform at Disneyland. After 30 minutes of rehearsal and another 30-minute performance, we were given free rein to wander the park until closing, when the busses would drive us home.

I knew even then that what we had was not usual; it was a privilege to experience what we experienced growing up in that tiny southern California town, miles and years away from the tiny black and white missionary TV screen in Uganda where my parents had first spied the Disney movies that had made them imagine America a wonderful, magical place. 

What we had in Arcadia, home to one of the top public school districts in the state, were the perks that went along with that education. But what we also had to go along with it — being one of the first Black families to move to that city, and usually the only Black student in my class — was the racism: being followed in stores, ordered to pay before dining in restaurants, being told we were the color of “poop” by teachers, and never seeing anyone who looked like us in the books we read in school. This is the Black experience in America when your hardworking Black parents are determined to get you the best education they can. It’s an abundance of opportunity, but only if you learn to survive within the boundaries of acceptable racism.

¤

My wealthy non-Black classmates loved wandering around the grounds of Disneyland, a place they were familiar with from regular family visits throughout the year. I was not. With the price tag at $100 per person, my family of eight people had been to Disneyland only once — with family friends from out of town when they came to visit. To prepare for the $1,000 excursion, my father had put our family on a budget for half a year, and we had packed backpacks full of lunch and dinner. We were warned there would be no souvenirs so we shouldn’t even try it.

As someone unaccustomed to its scope, Disneyland was big and overwhelming for me. But as performers in the student orchestra — both guests and employees, to some extent — we were privy to the back lots and back entrances of the park that regular visitors didn’t see — the backstage bones of the glossy stages and rides, the stacked up piles of recycled parts of shuttered amusements and worn-out characters. We were forbidden to take pictures here — it was not public Disney; it did not hold the myth of Disney perfection and magic. But I liked thinking that we alone had this secret knowledge of a place that was familiar to so many. We were part of the select few who saw what was denied public view.

Once, I was told this same story about the man himself, Walt Disney: the reason that most of  the candid photos of Walt Disney throughout the park showed his fingers shaped in a V was because he smoked cigarettes and didn’t want to be seen doing so. But this private truth did not align with his desired public image; the cigarettes had to be airbrushed out.

¤

In the middle of last summer, trying to understand the new balance of homeschooling and remote working in the pandemic, I gave in to my seven-year-old’s requests and let him have half an hour of screen time in the evenings. But being a Black parent who was once a Black girl and well aware of the horrific absence and equally horrific stereotypical and token representations of Blackness on television that I have seen, I told him that he could only watch a TV show if it had a main character who looked like him. Within that guideline, he could choose whatever age-appropriate show he wanted. He wanted cartoons, and so he began his search with those constraints. But within five minutes, he came to me in tears. We had subscriptions to am*zon Prime and Netflix, and he had searched both for Black characters in kids shows. He had found nothing.

I sat down, pulled him onto my lap and cuddled him until his tears eased. When he was soothed enough, I picked the remote up from the floor and typed in “Black kids cartoons” on Netflix. The only thing that came up was Motown Magic, which he had already seen. I tried “African American kids cartoons.” Nothing else. “Black kids shows,” “African American kids shows” had nothing else in his age range, but a couple of live action shows aimed at the tween and teenage crowd.  I tried am*zon Prime, which was even more of a desert. Searches there brought up Orphan Black and Black Mirror instead.

My son was growing impatient. “Mommy, isn’t there anything?” he called, tears eased and now bouncing on his trampoline. “Not yet,” I called back, scrolling through endless titles of movies without any Black characters in them. And then I recalled a passing conversation about the launch of Disney Plus with a fellow mom friend.

“Doc McStuffins!” I exclaimed loudly, remembering the patron saint of Black parents everywhere, as I ordered Disney Plus. Among the little Black girl doctor and her talking toys, my son was happy for most of the year. I thanked God for Chris Nee, McStuffins’s wonderful creator, every day of 2020. And then, just in time for winter break, he asked for something else.

“Did you finish Doc McStuffins?” I asked.

“No, I just want to watch something else for a while,” he said. But we couldn’t find any other cartoon show on Disney Plus that featured Black kids as main characters. So we watched an episode of Vampirina, another of Nee’s creations, this one about a vampire family living amongst human neighbors in contemporary Philadelphia. But I was uneasy at the danger made cute, uneasy with Nee’s portrayal of the mythical bloodsucking vampire-as-monster-as-outsider equated to the outsiderness of the Black girl as outsider.

Networks are so proud of each of their few Black kids shows, it seems, that they forget two things:

That kids will watch the show and then want to watch something else.

That Black kids have a diversity of tastes, and, beyond that, they grow up. One show can’t appeal to all Black kids from age three to 16. And why should we expect it to, even if it could?

Searching further on Disney, we found Moana, which my son watched because Moana was brownish like him he said, and Elena of Avalor because she was also kind of brownish and went to school with a brownish kid who looked kind of like him.  

But nothing else.

“What about these ones? I said, selecting the 2009 animated feature The Princess and The Frog and The Proud Family.

“I already looked, Mom. The girl isn’t really there; she’s a green frog most of the time,” he sighed. “The other show is kind of mean and too grown up for me.”

I searched and searched the network. Nothing. Finally, I had an idea.

“Animals!” I exclaimed. “You can watch a show if there are animals.”

My son’s face brightened. He returned to Netflix and selected Octonauts, a delightful show about animals from diverse regions of the world who work together to help other animals, teaching science along the way. Then there were Puffin Rock and Peppa Pig. And, of course, the entire Disney collection of talking animal content. The animal cartoons were fascinating and endless in their diversity and skillful edutainment. My son has yet to run out of new animal show options on the streaming services we have.

But I wonder: what does it say that it is so much easier for my son to find wonderfully crafted television shows and films featuring talking animals than it is to find shows about kids who look like him?

¤

Last fall, when the studios and networks rolled out their kids holiday fare, it was more of the same: the absence of Blackness. The most promising of the offerings was Netflix’s Jingle Jangle, which is quite lovely and which my son enjoyed. He appreciated the live action musical magic in the tradition of Disney’s own Mary Poppins.

“But where are the cartoons, Mom?” he asked. “And why does the story have to be so sad with people dying?”

I thought about my son’s questions. I had no answers, only the same questions about entertainment for Black adults, and the saturation of images of Black pain rather than Black joy. The heaviness I feel in my soul when yet another studio markets its slave film (or other narrative of historical Black oppression) as the “Black movie” release of the year is the same heaviness in my son’s soul at these kid’s movies that traffic in Black sadness and Black death.

True, films like Netflix’s Jingle Jangle and Disney’s The Lion King and the Princess and the Frog are in line with the loss-of-parent narrative that’s part of the blueprint for this kind of children’s storytelling, harkening all the way back to Disney’s Golden Age. But the impact of that loss-of-parent narrative resonates much more loudly when looking at animated Disney films with Black content because of the very small number of animated films and television that feature Black protagonists at all.

You see, all animated Disney films featuring Black protagonists have either a dead parent or the death of the protagonist as a plot point; however, there are many animated Disney films with non-Black characters where parents and protagonists escape this deathly trope simply because of the sheer numbers of Disney films made with non-Black protagonists. This lack of representation creates a single story of Blackness, predicated on death and sadness.

And, because of history, because of the way race and power work in a society where we are already saturated with images of Black death and anti-Black violence — consider how many times the deaths of unarmed Black children like Tamir Rice and unarmed Black men like Eric Garner and George Floyd were replayed across media channels versus the genteel blurring out of the death of Ashli Babbitt, the white woman insurrectionist who died while storming the Capitol in January 2021 — the death of Black parents in Disney films operates in a much different way than the death of non-Black parents in Disney films. Simply put: for every death of non-Black parents depicted in Disney films like Frozen, there are many, many other Disney films with non-Black protagonists in which the parents do not die, in which death is not a major plot point; in which the non-Black characters are allowed happiness and joy. And when that death does occur, it is not amplified in the real world by the media’s disregard for the sanctity of Black life.

Where are the happy carefree storylines for young Black kids that white kids get? Where is the diversity of storyline and personality and genre representation that white kids get? Whiteness gets multiplicity — of storyline, genre, medium, a multiplicity of films and television shows that speak to a multiplicity of age ranges and interests — all represented by white characters. Snow White. Cinderella. Beauty and the Beast. 101 Dalmatians. The Flight of the Navigator. E.T.. How to Tame Your Dragon. My Little Pony: Equestria Girls. The Incredibles. Kim Possible. WildKrats. Toy Story. Frozen. Frozen II. Inside Out. Tangled. Brave. Sarah and Duck. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Peter Pan. Pete’s Dragon. Alice in Wonderland. Sleeping Beauty. The Little Mermaid. The Sword in the Stone. Robin Hood. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Pete’s Dragon. James and the Giant Peach. Hercules. Doug’s First Movie. Recess: School’s Out. Return to Neverland. Treasure Planet. Meet the Robinsons. Enchanted. Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue. The Cat in the Hat. Sofia the First. Boss Baby. Masha and the Bear. Johnny Test. The Lorax. Dennis the Menace. Ben and Charlie’s Little Kingdom. The Magic School Bus. And on and on.

Blackness gets Doc McStuffins.

¤

My freshman year of high school, our annual performance at Disneyland coincided with a live recording session of a Disney film soundtrack. Because we were members of one of the best high school orchestras in the state, the staff said, we were to be given a special treat: a walk-through of the recording soundstages. Quiet, in the audience, we stood and watched the musicians’ bows rising and falling across their strings in unison. Onscreen, the young lion I would come to know as Simba was roaring his pain at the death of his father. I would, of course, also come to know the film as The Lion King, Disney’s first modern foray — however anthropomorphized — into engaging with Black culture on the big screen. The Disney orchestra soared. So did I.

The story, of course, since it engages with Blackness in some way, was about family disintegration and death. But still, I remember the crackling energy pervading my childhood home in the days preceding the film’s release, the excitement of going to see it in the theatre with my whole family, so starved for representations of Blackness, let alone Africa in film. I remember my African parents’ happiness and pride in seeing something like home shining across the screen.

The hunger for representations of Blackness in Disney films was not just felt in my family, but in families across the world. To date, The Lion King is the highest grossing traditionally animated Disney movie of all time. But back in 1994, Disney couldn’t imagine that this success could be repeated by making more Black stories, perhaps even with people, rather than animals. Instead, the studio just made more Lion King. We have seen The Lion King as Broadway musical, as a touring production, as a television show, as a live action remake starring the voices — but never the Black bodies of course — of the nation’s most iconic and brilliant Black performers.

Indeed, it would be another 15 years before Disney made another feature based on Black culture — and the first Disney film ostensibly to revolve around actual Black characters. But Tiana, Disney’s first Black animated protagonist, would be onscreen for just about 40 minutes. More shockingly, she would be drawn as a Black woman for just 17 of those minutes. Most of the time, as you probably know, Tiana is a frog.

¤

Some of us, like I am, are old enough to remember the public call for a Black Disney princess throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s that pushed a reluctant Disney into making The Princess and The Frog in the first place. However, the representations of Blackness in Princess Tiana’s world were problematic from the beginning. Set in the 1920s South — the height of the Jazz Age, but also Jim Crow — Princess Tiana, accounts of that time report, was originally conceived as a servant character with strong echoes of slavery in characterization and naming. Indeed, her original name “Maddy” sounded very close to the Mammy slave stereotype applied to Black women.

Although Tiana’s character was rewritten as a waitress rather than a servant, this original vision is still evident in the opening scenes of the film, when Tiana’s mother pays little attention to her daughter and focuses all her attention and dialogue in caring for Tiana’s white girl friend. Here, too, in this opening, Tiana’s white girl friend is introduced before Tiana and dominates the first scenes of the film with verbosity and energy. Tiana is silent and ignored in the background.

The dynamic is clear: here is the centering of the white character and the depiction of Tiana’s mother acting as a mammy character to the white child, while ignoring her own — a stereotype of Black motherhood that was set during Jim Crow but has roots embedded in American slavery.

But it is not just the opening racial dynamics and cinematic choices of the film that sets Tiana’s portrayal differently than any of Disney’s other non-Black princesses, or even main characters. Nor, again, is it just the fact that the Black body of Princess Tiana appears so little in her film: 17 minutes out of the film’s 98 minute runtime.

It is that so much of Tiana’s film is created through a white gaze that looks to diminish, rather than celebrate the beauty of Black womanhood, or even Blackness in general. Instead of the expected cute and cuddly Disney animal character that always accompanies a Disney hero, there is only the worst of the buck-toothed minstrel stereotypes in the firefly that adopts Tiana; instead of a magical and charming fairy godmother there is only the worst stereotypes of the bugaboo African witch doctor; and everywhere, everywhere is the ridiculing of the Black body with the obsessive attention to all the characters’ overexaggerated buttocks, a stereotype used to portray Blackness since Saartje Bartmaan was kidnapped from South Africa and exhibited onstage in European zoos in order for white audiences to gawk at her physiology. It’s not just a question, in other words, of Tiana’s relative visibility as a Black princess; it’s about the whole swamp she’s got to wade through in order to be seen at all.

¤

Soul, Disney’s ethnic animated kid’s film for this winter season, is unique among animated Disney movies in that the central characters are adults rather than children, with children sprinkled sparingly throughout the film. Also of note is the much more adult subject matter of the film: the inciting incident of the narrative is that the main character dies. Soul follows what happens after that death. More typical is the message of the film: the classic cinematic stereotype of the Black male character desperately trying to save the life of a white woman, the character 22 played by Tina Fey, to the point that the Black man sacrifices his “life” doing so. And the other message of Soul? Accept that you are going to die and don’t try to fight your fate. Yet neither of these themes seem particularly uplifting to children in the style of the Disney brand that exists when dealing with non-Black characters.

Like The Princess and The Frog, Soul begins as a promising premise showcasing some brilliant Black actors. However, like Princess Tiana, Soul’s Joe Gardner is immediately characterized by a burning desire to work. Even the character’s last name is a type of job. Tiana and Joe, unlike other non-Black Disney characters who are given other motivations — falling in love, self-discovery, or saving the world — are only represented by the labor their Black bodies can provide, another stereotype of Blackness.

But the most damaging representation is this: like The Princess and The Frog’s Black protagonist, Soul’s Black lead spends a good deal of the movie not in a Black body, but represented as a blue ghost object without the Black ethnic facial features that characterize the him when in his physical form. And then, Joe Gardner’s Black body is inhabited by 22, the spirit of the character voiced by white actress Tina Fey. Joe, on the other hand, is put in the body of a cat. In other words, the Black body is colonized by whiteness while the Black character’s “soul” is put into the body of an animal — because it’s Disney and Black people are only equal to animals — before eventually choosing to sacrifice his life for 22, the white woman.

I find it very telling that the first animated Disney movie featuring a Black woman main character and the first animated Disney movie to feature a Black man character as leads are written in such a way that both of these main characters spend a large part of their respective films in bodies that are neither Black nor even human.

Green, blue — Disney has no problem with characters that are different colors, it seems, as long as that color is not brown.

¤

What does it say to Black kids watching when the world’s biggest children’s entertainment company cannot give them even one animated film that features a Black person that stays a Black person throughout? What does this say about Blackness to kids who are not Black? About whose life is being portrayed as mattering? And whose does not?

This is how bias and harmful stereotypes are created and perpetuated in society. This is how whiteness protects whiteness and thus a system of white supremacy through media representation: by normalizing itself as human and othering Blackness through erasure and dehumanization. Whether conscious or unconscious, this bias and adherence to white supremacy and Black erasure and dehumanization is real and damaging.

And no matter how much I try, I still cannot understand why Disney — a groundbreaking company predicated on reveling in the imagination, a company whose creative products are so well-known for their tremendous ability to invest animals with human characteristics and deep wells of pathos in order to center intimate storytelling against epic themes — does nothing but relegate Black characters to animals and objects, mining stories of Black suffering and death when Black kids deal with enough violence, often based on race, in the real world.

When will Disney make a film with Black characters played by Black characters? Why is this so damn hard?

¤

In 1937, Walt Disney Animation Studios released its first full-length animated film: Snow White. As the film’s cost grew to $1.5 million over its three-year production period, Walt Disney mortgaged his house to put up the remaining financing. His financial gamble worked: Snow White was an artistic and commercial success. Disney’s groundbreaking form of storytelling captured the hearts and imagination of children and adults alike and grossed $8 million in revenue at the box office, the most money ever made by a film up to that time. Snow White was quickly followed by Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi, the films now known as Disney’s Golden Age.

One of the cornerstones of the Disney entertainment phenomenon is the understanding of how an irrepressible visual imagination and sonic landscape are vital in creating lush children’s entertainment that draws viewers in and has them humming songs from the films afterwards. By the mid 1940s, the Walt Disney team had perfected this structure, setting a bar that has led the industry for decades.

Simply put, Disney stories and Disney songs are iconic in our culture.

So as we think about questions of representation, this includes looking not just at how few films with Black characters are made by Disney, but also looking behind the camera at the creative team. Who are the creatives involved in these projects? The writers and composers trusted to create for the Disney brand?

For Soul, the sonic landscape of the film was created by the wonderfully talented Trent Reznor, best known for his band Nine Inch Nails, who, along with Atticus Ross, composed the score. Black American musician Jon Batiste was brought on to provide the singing “voice” of Joe Gardner’s piano, the same way the luminous Anika Noni Rose was the “voice” of Princess Tiana. This was considered progress from The Lion King’s casting of white American actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas to play the young version of the Simba, the African hero, and white American actor Mathew Broderick to play the adult version. White American actress Moira Kelly was the voice of Nala, the female African lion who is Simba’s love interest.

As with Soul, for The Princess and The Frog, Disney again tapped another white male composer to head the team in Randy Newman. And for The Lion King, we remember Elton John’s and Hans Zimmer’s glorious soundtrack, an art object in its own right.

These artists are brilliant. That is unquestionable.

The question is this: Despite the stunning reputations and work of these white composers, with all the Black jazz and soul musicians out there; with the invention of rock, country and jazz music by Black artists, the erasure of Blackness and co-option by whites of the first two art forms; with the financial imbalance in which white artists and labels took advantage of Black artists, whether predatory contracts in the 1960s and 1970s or Black soul musician Lady A getting her name stolen by the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum this past year; with this history of marginalization of Black creatives and in this political climate, doesn’t this sonic whitewashing just seem like there is so much potential for diverse representation, wasted?

Or does Disney’s refusal to create an animated movie with Black characters who stay Black characters go beyond these three films that traffic in stereotypes and erasure and speak to larger institutional issues regarding perceptions of Blackness that behoove attention?

One wonders: if the very accomplished white writing team of John Musker and Ron Clements, who after criticism about their treatment of race in the film, brought on the gifted Black writer Rob Edwards to help pen The Princess and The Frog, had also included a Black woman on the script about the first Black woman Disney protagonist, or an eye that valued Black woman the same way white women are valued in our society, would we perhaps have seen a less stereotypical representation of the first Black Disney princess that was more in line with the value and care shown to the other lighter-skinned Disney princesses in the Disney story canon, for example? Or, if the creators had thought as intentionally about Blackness before creating this story as they did with the creation of Moana’s Oceanic Story Trust, could there have been a different result as well? Or if a Black creator had been allowed to imagine Tiana and her world from the ground up, rather than slapping a Black perspective on the film as a hasty afterthought — a quick fix band-aid to solve the racist undertones of the film when the problems were not just skin deep?

And if Soul, too, had also begun with a Black writer creating a storyline rather than white screenwriters Pete Doctor and Mike Jones again bringing on a Black American writer (this time Kemp Powers) two years into the project to add authenticity and perspective of character to a fundamentally problematic idea, could Soul have been a more positive representation of Blackness without unconscious bias and stereotypes?

It matters, where imagination begins in the mind. It matters whether that mind can imagine full Black personhood, or if that imagination is still constrained by unconscious bias and internalized stereotypes.

“We quickly came across this idea of a story about a soul who doesn’t want to die meeting a soul that doesn’t want to live,” said Mike Jones in an interview with Awards Daily from February 2021. “I think the very first version, he was an actor, and he had gotten his big break on Broadway. He was going to play Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, and we thought that was just so clever but we just didn’t feel it. As soon as we came up with the idea that he should be a jazz musician, the idea of wrapping jazz and the improvisational nature of jazz was just so electric that we decided to make him a jazz musician. And let’s make him a middle school band teacher who aspires to something greater. That naturally led to the idea that he should be a middle-aged Black man, and that’s when we brought Kemp Powers in.”

Because of the complexity of the Black experience in America, stories that may read as neutral with a white main character can become, like Soul, problematic when the race of that character is changed from white to Black and the narrative is not rethought accordingly. For example, take Soul’s idea of putting a white character into the body of a Black man. Or Soul’s idea of a Black man’s soul being put into an animal. Where whiteness in America does not have a tradition of being violently colonized and enslaved, Blackness does. Where whiteness in America doesn’t have a racially loaded history of being compared to animals in a dehumanizing way, Blackness does. And suddenly, a plot point that seemed innocuous when envisioning the character as white, becomes part of a larger tradition of whiteness violating and dehumanizing the Black body, begun with American slavery.

It is not just enough to change a character’s race; when changing race, the narrative has to be re-envisioned accordingly in line with a character’s positioning in society. For Black folks in America, race informs so much of our experiences in life; to ignore this when creating a narrative of Black life is to practice a white-centered misconception of “colorblindness” that denies the full humanity of our personhood.

And nothing makes this misrepresentation clearer than Soul’s animation, which erases Joe Gardner’s Black ethnic features in the afterlife, effectively saying that the default representation of human, of a soul, is whiteness.

¤ 

There are a few future things in the works that I am hopeful about. Disney is set to premiere Ironheart on Disney+ in the near future, and is creating a TV show featuring Princess Tiana in 2023 with (hopefully) an eye to a less stereotypical portrayal than the earlier film. The Disney partnership with South African film company Kugali to produce Iwaju in 2022 looks promising as long as it doesn’t turn into a repeat of the single representation story, and diasporic wars where African, Afro European, and Black American creatives are pitted against each other. Mama K’s Team 4, a Zimbabwean cartoon, is set to premier on Netflix in 2022. And our most promising discovery: the Kweli TV app, which curates Black content from around the world with shows like Bino & Fino, a cartoon featuring two kids from Nigeria who, my son says, look exactly like him.

In the meantime, my son has stopped asking to watch television. He told me the other day that he understands why I have always avoided TV and read to him instead. It is not just the wonder of imagination and language that books rather than TV provide. It is not just the vibrant storylines that inspire his own creations. As my Black son looks at his bookshelves he can see row after row of books whose covers shine with characters who look like him, whose pages are full of joyful stories about characters who look like him living their lives in full Black joy instead of the shapeshifting and death embedded into so much of mainstream American television entertainment engaging with Blackness for kids.

My son knows now, like many Black kids in America do, that if you try to look for yourself onscreen all you will see is erasure, sometimes stereotype. He knows to look for himself on the page instead. You can find some beautiful things there, if you try.

My son’s basket of to-read books contain his current four favorites: Dragons in a Bag, Hi-Lo, Obi & Titi, and The Adventures of Mia Mayhem. In these books, like the others on his bookshelf, Black joy and Black life are embraced. And any of these would make amazing television or cinematic content.

Take Dragons in a Bag, the first book in a series about Black kids and dragons in Brooklyn written by the wonderful Zetta Elliot. Or Hi-Lo, Judd Winick’s alien robot who saves the world with his best friends — a Black girl with magical powers and an Asian boy who breaks gender stereotypes to spread love rather than violence. Or Obi & Titi, O.T. Begho’s tales of a Black boy and girl racing through magical adventures in Nigeria. Or the Mia Mayhem series, Kara West’s thrilling adventures of a Black girl superhero in a long lineage of superheroes. These books are amazing, well written stories with nuanced representations of character. And guess what?

No one Black dies in these books. And no one Black turns into a frog, a ghostly blue object, or anything else that is not Black for some corporation’s bizarre mindset that still believes that seeing Black faces onscreen for 120 minutes is too much.

They stay Black kids the whole time.

URL

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/disneys-disembodied-black-characters/

Kobo Plus US/UK Expansion: an AMA featuring the KWL Team

VIDEO STREAM

The following are selected series or works. If you join Kobo Plus you can read them for free. Read them all and tell me what you think.

• Short Story Collections series
• https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/richard-murray-short-story-collection
  • Poetry or More - a book of my poetry , from the Short Story Collections series
  • https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/poetry-or-more-1
• Tip Jar Audios series
• https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/richard-murray-tip-jar-audios
  • Ship of Fools- a poem from the Tip JAr Audio series
  • https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/ship-of-fools-legend-to-be
  • The Golden Mirror- a tale from the Tip Jar Audios series
  • https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-golden-mirror-2
• JiHi series- Screenplay series
• https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/jihi
  • The Nyotenda- free to read screenplay with storyboards, from the JiHi series
  • https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-nyotenda
• The Gospel of Joseph - to reclaim the original intent of the gospels from christianity 
• https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/gospel-of-joseph

The Kobo Writing Life team is excited to announce our next Live Q&A on April 20th, from 12:00 PM-1:00 PM EST. KWL Director Tara, author engagement manager Laura, and promotions specialist Rachel will be answering YOUR questions about this exciting Kobo Plus expansion, as well as any questions about Kobo Plus you may have had leading up to this announcement. Bring all your Kobo Plus questions forward to this informative discussion and Q&A session.

Hi authors!  

Huge news! Kobo Plus is now available in more countries than ever before with this latest expansion. Now, Kobo Plus can be accessed by readers living in the USA and the UK.

During this live event, KWL director Tara, author engagement manager Laura and promotions specialist Rachel will be answering your questions about this latest Kobo Plus expansion, how opting in to Kobo Plus (including bulk opt in options), how Kobo Plus can increase your revenue, what Kobo is doing to advertise this service, how it all works, and much more.

Please bring your Kobo Plus-related questions to this event!

Join us on YouTube or Facebook on April 20th at 12PM EST.

ARTICLE LINK

https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/04/06/kwl-live-qa-kobo-plus-us-uk-expansion-an-ama-with-the-kwl-team/

Rakuten Kobo expands digital reading offering in the US and UK with Kobo Plus, the all-you-can-read and listen subscription

TORONTO – April 5, 2023 – Leading digital reading retailer and publisher Rakuten Kobo announces the US and UK launches of Kobo Plus, the all-you-can-enjoy subscription offering booklovers unlimited access to over 1.3 million eBooks and over 100,000 audiobooks for a low monthly fee.

“At Kobo, we’re always working to make the reading experience better and more accessible. Our goal is to be delighting readers – with our best-in-class eReaders, top-rated Kobo app, unmatched digital catalogue or curated book recommendations – but there’s nothing as gratifying as saying ‘read as much as you want for a set monthly fee,’ which is exactly what our Kobo Plus subscription offers,” said Bart Robers, Director, Audiobooks and Global Subscriptions, Rakuten Kobo.

“Kobo Plus has become one of our most popular offerings in the Netherlands, Canada, Portugal, Australia, Italy and France, and it’s our pleasure and privilege to be expanding the subscription service in the US and UK, so that readers can enjoy reading and listening without boundaries.”

US and UK booklovers can access Kobo Plus via the Kobo Books App for iOS or Android and directly on Kobo eReaders to begin discovering new authors and genres. The Kobo Plus eBook and audiobook collection features a breadth of stories, including:

• Contemporary fiction by beloved authors including Ian McEwan, Elena Ferrante and Alice Hoffman
• Renowned literary works from Philip Roth, Jim Harrison, V.S. Naipaul, Aldous Huxley and William S. Burroughs
• Contemporary sci-fi and fantasy by Anne McCaffrey, Cory Doctorow, and Jeff VanderMeer
• Classic mysteries from M.C. Beaton, Patricia Highsmith, and Elizabeth Peters
• Romance by Barbara Freethy and Beverly Lewis

The Kobo Plus catalogue is ever-growing, with more titles being added to the collection each month. The service has three budget-friendly subscription plan offers:

• Kobo Plus Read: Unlimited eBooks for $7.99 USD or €9,99 GBP per month
• Kobo Plus Listen: Unlimited audiobooks for $7.99 USD or €9,99 GBP per month
• Kobo Plus Read and Listen: Unlimited eBooks and audiobooks for $9.99 USD or €12,99 GBP per month

The Kobo Plus subscription is an ideal way to approach a bucket list of literary classics, an entire author's catalogue, or to dive into a new field of interest. With unlimited reading for one low monthly fee, the subscription lets readers sample a few pages from a genre or author they have never read, and move on to another book guilt-free if it's not to their taste. It’s an ideal option for avid booklovers who can tear through several books a month, and for those who prefer to read a few chapters before committing. There’s never been a better time to discover new authors and series on a Kobo eReader or with the free Kobo reading app.

ARTICLE LINK

https://www.kobo.com/news/rakuten-kobo-expands-digital-reading-offering-in-the-us-and-uk-with-kobo-plus-the-all-you-can-read-and-listen-subscription

Kobo Plus FAQ

How do authors get paid for Kobo Plus?

Why do Kobo Plus reads get paid per minute instead of by pages read?

We have updated our eBooks subscription service to be more fair and balanced for authors across the board. Now, authors will be paid for every minute read, including re-reads, and even if a reader reads less than 10% of the book.  

How does the free trial for Kobo Plus work?

Gaining new audiences for our self-published authors is a key goal for us, and offering free trials of our Kobo Plus subscription is a great way to showcase our offering, including your books, to new and existing booklovers. We liken this to offering a first in series free, or other types of promotions for your titles, and these terms are the same for both traditional publishers and self-published authors. Our goal is to continue building excitement for the service in order to gain reading momentum for your books, while concurrently gaining new audiences.

We truly believe that this exposure will benefit you, however it is always your choice, and if you are uncomfortable with the free trial period, we have made it easy for you to opt out of whichever territory you choose.  

Will Kobo Plus affect my a la carte sales?

For authors with books opted into Kobo Plus, their a la carte sales have remained steady (and for some, have increased); what’s more Kobo Plus reads have generated additional income on top of those strong a la carte sales. We see Kobo Plus reads complementing a la carte sales, not replacing them.

The second trend we have noticed is that Kobo Plus tends to give backlist titles a boost. When we look at sales of books published before 2016, we see a significant increase in income generated by Kobo Plus reads for books opted into the catalogue. 

We will be closely watching sales patterns, and are confident that we will see a similar increase in overall sales. 

What if I want to opt out of Kobo Plus?

We want you to feel good about what you create and how you are compensated. These are your books and your business, and it’s important that you have autonomy over how you sell your intellectual property. If subscription models aren’t for you, it is easy to opt out of Kobo Plus, or out of specific territories in which Kobo Plus operates. Opting out will in no way impede readers from buying your books a la carte. The idea behind our eBook subscription is to reach new audiences, not to take away from your existing readership--in the end, it is whatever you choose and think is best for your content.

We decided to offer this option based on customer feedback asking for an all-you-can-read eBook service; this is in line with much of today’s  digital content consumption, which gravitates toward subscription models. Our experience in other markets shows we are able to attract new readers to digital reading who had never bought eBooks before, which is the case for Kobo Plus subscribers in the Netherlands. We’re aiming to grow the total earnings for authors and publishers, and our data shows that Kobo Plus can help achieve this goal.

ARTICLE LINK

https://kobowritinglife.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058975632-Kobo-Plus-FAQ

Webinar with south side home movie project
7:30 pm eastern standard
forum post
https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/10199-a-webinar-with-the-south-side-home-movie-project/
status post
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2294&type=status

TIME INDEX THOUGHTS

sabrina craig

7:32
justin williams

founded by jacqueline stewart in 2005

the people who are behind the organization

7:35

35 mm is theatrical super 8 or 8 mm is for home movies
7:37

home movies are documentaries of the black past, archivist thought to preserve them to 

7:39 
very little record of south side chicago from black people 

neither image was from a black migrant in the usa.
the photographer's context is absent the angle from black people how we saw ourselves

Justin williams will narrate some home movies
7:41

Presents home movies, I will take stills from them. 

womens's history moments

althea gibson

naacp 

medgar evers wife

party from 1941
https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/collections/nicholas-osborn-collection

7:55 
williams explains the process into digital
they do family watch parties/ oral histories/ participatory programs. all is archived and stored in double places.
During the pandemic they made streaming spinning home movies
to see spinning home movies
https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/creative-reuse/spinning-home-movies

8:04

the archivists interacting making this possible

community tagging, to describe what goes on in film, who is from chicago

8:11 jeanette foreman family collection
justin williams shares the movies and jeanette shares the stories

love the gold pants
the url 
https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/collections/jean-patton-collection

uncle ironing

jeanette younger

jeanette early 30s

kids playing - the complete film is a nice magic trick

8:24 adding tags to the videos 
an example

8:31 
what jeanette says
lake meadows had the first high rise in the black community of chicago 
imminent domain was used by the government, but overcrowding was rampant
they had kitchenette apartments

I think this can be a place for memory dates, someone younger type in and someone older remember
modern nyc is revitalizing kitchenette apartments for the highest rent in NYC

Questions and answers

Did any home movies from pullman porters?
james e taylor, but it isn't fully digitized

what did she cook in the gold pants?
She made apple pie in the gold pants, any time apple pie or peach pie. the family canned the fruit all year.

I wonder how many other black communities , that didn't have as many home movies, that have a lost existence? 

any plan of extending beyond south side chicago, i comprehend the task isn't quick or the ability to find content easy

you can use this to connect stories to items
https://storycorps.org/participate/great-questions/

their main website
https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/

how it works
https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/community-cataloging-guide

have you found home movies where no one was able to speak on them?

the oldest, no one knows who can speak on them

dr helen hash
https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/collections/dr-helen-nash-collection

a pediatrician and practiced in st louis missouri
she was the first african american physician on staff at washington university

jeanette says, women in her memory didn't smoke in front of their father's or in public
but gold pants said, that is my kitchen and I will smoke in it.

have you guys asked people from countries where the doctor traveled outside the usa to look at her movies to get an idea of where these places are?
thank you all, the legend Jeanette, Justin and Sabrina for making this happen, Jacqueline for starting this organization and all for making this fun 

THE NEXT EVENT
https://sshmp.uchicago.edu/events/spinning-home-movies-live-special-guest-artist-tbd