'Lincoln' vs. 'Django Unchained'

If you didn’t notice, two rather huge films were released recently, both dealing with the issue slavery. ‘Django Unchained’ I was anticipating for a long time, especially as a half-Jamaican girl with a keen interest in slavery. On top of that I was left wanting more after Inglorious Basterds, and Tarantino certainly delivered. 'Lincoln' was released quite recently (in the UK at least), and didn't really stir my interest.

No matter what critics say about possible racism in the ‘Django Unchained’, I always find myself in defense of the film. Sure, a film about slavery by a white man is going to be filled with flaws, and slavery is usually done wrong when dealt with by the mainstream. However, ‘Django Unchained’ is definitely far more progressive in dealing with slavery than Spielberg’s film ‘Lincoln’. 

Not often does a film leave me feeling disgusted and angry afterwards. For ‘Lincoln’ it wasn’t the fact that it was an incredibly boring dross, but the gross historical inaccuracy in painting Lincoln as some saintly leader who single-handedly freed the slaves. Lincoln was not a fierce fighter for equal rights. Lincoln frequently used the n-word, expressed racist sentiments and in fact wasn’t as fiercely opposed to slavery as we are made to believe. He wanted slavery to stop spreading, but didn’t want it completely abolished, in fact, he was in favour of sending the slaves to work elsewhere. He only became a fan of abolition when he saw how it benefitted white Americans in the civil war, as slaves could join the army.

In the film, the slaves play no role in their own liberation, once again an example of the portrayal of black people as passively waiting for a white saviour. This, like so many representations of slavery, blatantly ignores the fact that time and time again the slaves rose up. The slaves didn’t just sit twiddling their thumbs, they fought for their freedom, wrestling it from the unwilling hands of the state. This was what put pressure on the government to do something about slavery. Actually, slave revolts were rife (one example being the largely unrecognised Black Seminoles revolt in 1835-1838) and abolitionists lobbied much harder than the undeniably racist Lincoln ever did.

So while you could pick apart ‘Django Unchained’, at least we get a slave who actually gets up and takes action, as opposed to just waiting for Waltz to save his wife for him. In ‘Django Unchained’ they are undeniably in a partnership, both contributing equally to their cause. ‘Lincoln’ simply rattles a stream of lies about  the end of slavery and a massively flawed president. Of course, ‘Lincoln’ will pick up all the awards and be lauded as a classic because it draws upon the known patriotism of its American audience. Meanwhile, history will be rewritten to further obliterate the role of black people and racism will continue to preside in our society.

Julie Birchill's Attack on the Trans Community

Apologies for my late post, with Christmas and coursework deadlines and internships (visit moonproject.co.uk if you want to help me out!) I’ve been bowled over with work. I just wanted to squeeze in a post about the recent controversy with The Observer.

Yesterday, Sunday columnist Julie Birchill wrote a horribly transphobic article in an attempt to defend a fellow writer Suzanne Moore. Moore said in an article for The New Statesman that women were too often expected to look like "a Brazilian transsexual". Of course, the Twitter world attacked Moore, who instead of humbly apologising for being transphobic (and not acknowledging the high murder rate of Brazilian transexuals), ended the argument with “People can just fuck off really. Cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me. Good for them”.

The article by Burchill did nothing but make things worse as she launched an a vitriolic attack on transsexuals, calling them “screaming mimis”, “dicks in chicks' clothing”, “shims” and “shemales”. She also compared their attack to black-and-white minstrels telling Usain Bolt how to run. My personal favourite was how she made the bizarre assumption that all trans people are middle class and highly educated. I'm pretty sure it is possible to be trans and not be rolling in money.

Anyway, I am going to leave it unsaid how offensive the article is. Burchill's vitriolic attack is clear to see, and fortunately most are opposed to it. What I want to talk about it The Observer's decision to remove the piece.

The decision has split some people. Those who think they should have left it are mixed. Some are claiming she has freedom of speech, which is a touchy subject. Many people mix "freedom of speech" with "being an asshat". Just because someone is free to express their opinions, that doesn't mean they can be as offensive as they want. Also many people have double standards when it comes to freedom of speech. If the article was a racist, homophobic, sexist diatribe people would be less eager to cry "freedom of speech".

Some feel the article should remain as to continue the debate. However, the article brings down the whole topic of debate, and to continue it there is to validate Burchill's arguments. This debate can be carried out elsewhere in a more intellectual way than simply spewing hateful slurs against transgender people.

I feel the article was rightly removed by the editor. To leave such a hateful piece up would be completely unprofessional. If the article remains then so do the insults. Her belittling of the struggles of transgender people cuts right to the hearts of many, and so by deleting the piece, The Observer can cut the level of affected. If people are curious they most likely will find the article re-published somewhere (many readers said they'd saved the article for such a scenario).

Finally, if the article had remained, an apology from The Observer would not seem legitimate, by letting it remain that would qualify it as a valid piece of journalism, and also not register its offensiveness. What they needed to do was cut ties from it as soon as possible. They can't disassociate with it entirely, but by removing it they make the statement that they should not tolerate such bullying.

What do you think? Should the article have been left up? Leave a comment below!

Big Fat Lie of the Year

Completely off-topic, I just wanna mention I hope to learn HTML coding when I get time so I can make this blog look better. However, I’m so busy with coursework, dissertation work and reading so it looks like I won’t have any free time for months! 

Anyway, the point of this blog post was to talk about the Big Fat Quiz of the Year controversy that’s been going off recently. If you haven’t heard about it, or don’t even know what Big Fat Quiz is I’ll fill you in. Big Fat Quiz is an annual show that sums up the year’s events in a comedy panel show format. It has some big names in comedy, with this year's contestants being Jack Whitehall, James Corden, Russell Howard, Jonathan Ross, Richard Ayoade and Gabby Logan and all this hosted by Jimmy Carr.

However, the source of the controversy is not the show itself, but the Daily Mail. They published a story about how lewd and disgusting the jokes were (though went on to repeat the jokes in detail and link to clips of the show) and how awful it was that the show was broadcast seconds after the watershed. The former point is a matter of opinion. I personally found the jokes hilarious, but of course people can be offended by them. However, the latter is completely ridiculous. You can’t slate Channel 4 for abiding by the rules, for doing what they’ve done in previous years when the show has been on TV. The Daily Mail’s fear is that during the holidays, children may be up late and see the show. The simple answer is that it’s not Channel 4’s problem. If parents can’t stop their children from watching things they deem inappropriate, they need to up their parenting skills.

Ignoring the watershed issue, I do feel they are completely free to report like this if it reflects reality. I can’t even argue against their use of emotionally manipulative language as this is what the readers sign up for. However, the reality was that “Ofcom had received five complaints by last night, but that number could quickly grow” (last night being 24 hours past the original broadcast). The Sachsgate scandal they so eagerly compared it to reached almost 45,000. In the Big Fat Quiz’s case, even when the complaints increased as a direct result of the article’s nonsense, the number only reached around 160. Compared to the amount of viewers this is an almost miniscule number and is thus more of an opinion piece than a new story.

Now we all know of the Daily Mail, it’s like an embarrassing family member. You wince at what it says and quickly change the conversation. However, this instance deserves some sort of repercussion. Not because it is particularly awful what they have done (the comedians are hardly likely to suffer because of this), but simply because the Daily Mail cannot “manufacture outrage” as Twitter are nicely phrasing it. It gives them a power they should not have. Sure, newspapers have a significant level of control, but the stories must be rooted in reality in some way or another. If the Daily Mail can do that, why can’t I tell employers I’m fluent in German? Only my boyfriend says I'm good, but there could be more people who agree.

If we want to complain about Big Fat Quiz, why not report how all the male panellists were comedians, and the only female was an unfunny presenter? I’m not criticising Gabby Logan here, but her job does not involve being funny whereas the rest are professional comedians. She was more of a visual prop than anything else. The comedy world, whilst deprived of female comedians, still has a few faces to choose from. Miranda Hart would have been a brilliant choice due to her high levels of fame right now, or a more panel-show friendly comedian like Sarah Millican.

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. If you want to say something comment below!

-Khia

A New Beginning

I thought I looked cool and "writer-like" at the time.

So, I’ve written and re-written and worried about this blog for about a month now. First I was trying too hard to impress people with clever articles about a bunch of unrelated topics, when I realised it was too artificial. They were like news stories as opposed to blog entries. I made a rash (but wise) decision that for 2013 I'll clear out all the old rubbish and replace it with the new! So I deleted my old posts and started again.

Admittedly, the main purpose of this blog was to show off some writing skills to anyone who cares. However, I found myself constantly reacting to things I’ve read in the news by opening up word and going on some form of rant. I’m not joking, I have a tonne of these that just need some cleaning up and will make pretty decent blog posts! When I realised I was clogging up my computer I realised I need an outlet for my thoughts, especially as I’ll admit I am not the best at articulating opinions in real-time conversation.

So here I am writing my first blog post!  I hope all goes well, and people actually come to enjoy hearing what I have to say!

-Khia