20 Years of Posting: Here's a Culture Diatribe

 

For the (omg) 20th anniversary of this blog of mine, I thought I'd give a small rant about the state of our culture as it stands right now.

These so-called "culture wars" have been raging for quite some time now. Well, really they've been going on since the beginning of human history, but they've seem to have ramped up in the past decade or two. They're pervasive within quite a few institutions all over the globe, but my main concern is the war within the entertainment industry. These back 'n' forth shouting matches have caused much of entertainment as of late to deteriorate in quality. The CEOs in charge of Disney+ have noticed that the viewing trends on their streaming site tends to skew more towards movies and shows made just before or long before the current culture war mess we have now. What could it possibly be that's making recent releases so unwatchable for so many?

 And, yes, in that time, soooooooooooooooooo many people have made many statements about it, most often defending or decrying this thing we call "wokeness". On one side, they say "wokeness" is the problem while the another side says "wokeness" is the solution. I am of the mind to think the problem is not that at all. It is something much more insidious and also, for lack of a more eloquent term, quite stupid. Based on my observations, one of the biggest hindrances to making quality art in these times has been just plain old arrogance.

"Wait WHAT??? People in the entertainment industry are arrogant??!! Thou must be jesting, good sir!" 

Ha ha! Yes, your sarcasm is noted. Hollywood has always attracted the most swollen heads and larger than life egos. But, I think it's reached levels of delusion that are having trouble containing themselves and it's really hurting so many productions. It's not too late to pull back yet, but we must do it now. To illustrate my point, I'll first give a few examples that could be considered part of the "woke" category.

"Lady" Ghostbusters

I've said a few things about this movie before. I still maintain that the four women players: Kristin Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones performed their parts well. Their abilities were the main (and only) highlight of that movie. They deserve no hate nor harassment for this. The story however was hastily slapped together which didn't do it any favours. But, the one big thing that brought this movie down was the attitude of the film's makers most likely director Paul Feig included.

They actually thought that this movie would replace the original Ghostbusters in everybody's mind. Upon leaving the theatre, we'd all be saying "forget about old Bill Whatsisface and Sigourney Whositz and Ernie Whatsispickle from that creaky old movie, this one's the champion". Did they think we would all jump to that conclusion because we considered the story and performances to be tight and funny, or did they think we'd reach such a consensus simply because they were women? I think we all know the answer. Anyway, the fallout of this movie is that it managed to entertain a few select people who DID just want to see women replacing the men, but most everyone else instantly forgot about it. A few short years later, another Ghost Busters themed movie was made that centred around four young kids becoming the "kid versions" of the original busting team. These four women were not even mentioned. Leslie Jones herself noticed this and was not happy. This movie certainly stands as a grand example of what happens when your prioritize "representation" over quality and let arrogance cloud your vision. Although, I do think that the next example makes that point even harder.

Snow White

Yes, the most recent Razzie nominated one. I'm assuming most people reading this are quite familiar with the saga of "Rachel Zegler vs Snow White vs The Public". But, for those that aren't, I'll give a brief overview here. First I'll talk about the movie. It's...................... almost watchable. Even then, it's almost watchable one time out of nihilist curiosity and then never again. It challenges the nervous system but not in a fun way. Some critics of this movie say "it promotes Communism" but I say no. That's giving it way too much credit. What the story actually does is present this idiotic one dimensional scenario where Snow White's parents rule their kingdom on "being nice" but then the parents [go away] and then the new wicked queen rules with a iron fist of "being mean".

It plays like a horrible 80's Saturday morning cartoon on at 5:30 am. It's like they found that one first year college student who wrote the first Rainbow Brite episode to come in and pen this screenplay. Once again, the makers prioritized representation over quality. In the original draft, they wanted to replace the dwarves with seven other people. These people would be a diverse group of various races and sizes because just going with the original dwarves would've "marginalized the little people". However, after much backlash that Disney feared would sink the movie, they speedily created some CGI motion capture dwarves resembling the originals as much as possible. That diverse group was still around, but now they were assisting a young thief in his rebellion against the wicked queen. So, an ersatz Robin Hood and merry [people] accompanied Snow White as well as the Dwarves which made the setting quite crowded.

As convoluted as the movie is, what really REALLY sunk it was the star's semi-coherent ramblings in public. Rachel Zegler, the actress portraying Snow White here did many appearances and interviews essentially saying that "...we made so many improvements on the original".  Oh really now.  You think so. This movie made improvements on Walt Disney's original, you say Ms Zegler.

You think the performances of you and Gal Gadot are superior to the animated acting done by the likes of Milt Kahl, Grim Natwick, Les Clark, Ward Kimball, and Vladimir Tytla to name a few of the artists who worked on the original. You think that you've out done the first animated feature film ever that received its own special Oscar statues. Really??!!

It wasn't the so-called "wokeness" that was the problem with this movie, it was Rachel Zegler's uncontrolled arrogance that caused her to present the erroneous notion that the "wokeness" automatically made it better just by virtue of it being there. Also, it wasn't her singing, dancing or acting abilities that carried her performance it was that fact that she's a Latino playing a traditionally white character. To her, and the film's makers, that's the only thing that made her shine. It's too bad she felt the need to present herself that way because she does indeed possess talents and she used them to the best of her abilities here. But sadly and stupidly, she sabotaged the entire production with her "woke" arrogance. Hopefully she won't make this same mistake again next time............. if there is a next time for her.

"Oh ok! So if these 'woke' productions are crashing and burning, surely that must mean that, through logical properties, 'anti-woke' productions must be doing well right?"

....right?

Um........ no. They're crashing and burning too and for a similar reason. I'll explain with examples.

Lady Ballers

A few years ago, a conservative think tank called Daily Wire decided to strike their own blow for the culture war and make their own comedy movie. I will basically say here that you will only really chuckle at this movie if you are of the mindset that "there's only men and women. LGB and especially Trans people are just confused lunatics who don't know what's what." That's how you'll have to approach it. If you don't really care about the subject, you'll give this movie a shrug.  Or, you have, shall we say, the complete opposite view of that, then you'll want to avoid this movie because there's nothing for you here.

The premise is that a down and out men's basketball team wants to win again. When they're told about the concept of being "gender fluid", they all decide to "identify" as women and use their immense manly strength to dominate women's sports. Many people who have the aforementioned attitude of allying with LGBT already rolled their eyes at just the premise alone thinking "it'll certainly do well with that Daily Wire crowd". Oh, but it didn't.

Whether conservative "leaning" people approved of the premise or not, that's not what turned people off. The main culprit was the attitude of the performers. Pretty much every actor had this shit-eating grin on their faces the entire time as if to say "we are the Will Ferrells now" or "we picked up the gauntlet that Judd Apatow dropped". You can see so much of that in just the trailer alone.

Imagine sitting through the whole movie with it being like that, which I did. But, as arrogant as those "ballers" came across, the biggest display of arrogance was right at the end. One of Daily Wire's most prevalent members is an ultra-conservative named Matt Walsh. In this movie he plays a "sjw-hippie" who's always calm and kind to everyone, so playing very much against type. After the climax and denouement have concluded, Matt takes off his "costume" and claims that his "work is done". Right beside him is Candace "the Jews did it" Owens who asks, "what did you do?" He merely responds with maniacal laughter. Owens stood confused but I could see what Matt was laughing about. Before the movie was even finished, he foresaw this production making tonnes of money and conquering Hollywood. The Ballers could possibly have sequels and they'd go on to make many more conservative bent comedies that would ultimately dominate the culture. Matt Walsh pretty much presented us with a basket full of eggs with some questionable looking shells and proclaimed "look at all the chickens I've got". The off the charts arrogance could choke all of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Of course we all know that this movie has yet to conquer any portion of the entertainment landscape and the Daily Wire continues to flounder. But, if this example is a crash and burn, the next one is a free fall with a torn parachute that is also on fire.

The New Norm

This was supposed to be exclusively on Twitter/X.  A barely animated "romp" that would cut through the culture war and declare victory. As you can see from the screenshot over there, the makers lifted the format from All in the Family with Norm in place of "Archie" and a purple-haired soy/they in place of the "Meathead". Right away, before watching it, you can see a potential problem. They think by simply using the Archie Bunker format that it will automatically have the same quality of Norman Lear's TV empire. But, I'll embed the "pilot" below to show you how much they missed that mark.

Yikes! It's dripping with misplaced arrogance. Besides thinking that being adjacent to Archie equals quality, they also think that kissing up to Elon Musk with a cameo will launch it into cultural domination. But, the biggest demonstration of arrogance comes at the very end when the theme song says "Make America Funny Again". They actually thought they were "re-inventing" comedy with this. By the way, Elon made no mention of his cameo here. Therefore it was not "catapulted" into cultural stardom after all and everyone involved would rather it be forgotten.

But it's not all bleak. There is a small glimmer of hope. There is at least one "woke" production that has done well in recent years:

Schitt's Creek

This works well because the premise is a basic "riches to rags" saga with no pretense whatsoever. The Rose family were once millionaires who subsisted on their video rental retail stores. But, when Netflix and other streaming services burst that bubble, they were left with almost nothing. They had to live in the smallest town in the "quaintest" hotel and try to get by any way they can, a "reverse Beverly Hillbillies" if you will. The "woke" part happens at the end of Season 1 when the son David discovers his true sexuality. He comes out as gay.  The actor, Dan Levy, is gay in real life so this side premise is his chance to add some real life elements to his character.

Some ultra-conservative types would avoid this declaring "I don't want this in my face". Well, they're free to change the channel and remove it from their faces, problem solved. What makes it work is that the LGBT elements are folded in merely for the purpose of coming up with a wider variety of episodes. What dominates the show is the family unit and how the actors play off each other, especially long time performing companions Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara. The recent passing of "Dame O'Hare" caused a wave of people sharing video clips of her at her best, many of which are her Schitt's Creek character Moira. Of course, I've known about Catherine's abilities going way back. Both she and Eugene Levy will always be "G.O.A.Ts" to me for SCTV alone. For it was on SCTV where they pretty much perfected the art of playing ridiculous characters who don't know they're ridiculous. I'll embed some examples from Schitt's Creek to show you what I mean:

And, of course, Eugene passed that ability on to his son Dan Levy and I'm sure Anne Murphy has picked up a lesson or two from them. Anyway, it's a great show because competent writers and professional veteran actors who both know how to create fleshed out characters is always a recipe for greatness, "woke" or not.

Ok so that's a "woke" thing that's working. Now for some highly competent "anti-wokeness":

Ricky Gervais

He has in recent years gone on a "anti-wokeness" crusade of sorts. He's done stand up routines that took swipes at preferred pronouns and those that are easily offended. At the Golden Globes back in 2020 is where he first "unsheathed his anti-woke sword and verbally decapitated the entire Hollywood crowd" right in front of them. That speech is here:

Wow! How did he get away with that? For years afterwards, he double dog dared anyone and everyone to "cancel" him. He continues to mock people whom he has "offended". And how did the world of showbiz react to his "triggering" routines? How did they punish him for brazenly going against their ideology? They awarded him a Golden Globe for his stand up comedy routine Mortality. See? That's how it's done. Be a quality comedian first, THEN fold in your "anti-wokeness". Does he come across as arrogant though? Possibly, but he's also self aware enough to know if his jokes or delivery is coming across well or not. That's the big difference between him and anyone at the Daily Wire.

Anyway, happy birthday, blog. Here's hoping for many more years to come.

Putin is pootin'

 

I recently drew this picture of current leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin.  It's a fine enough drawing as it is, even if I do say so myself. However, I didn't just stop there. I created a small animated video using this drawing as well. It is embedded below:

I don't know about you, but to me that looked painful. How much borscht is old Vlady eating exactly? YIKES!  Why yes, the animation, such as it is, is indeed generated by AI. I'm told that this will be the technique that all animation will use going forward so I'd better get used to seeing how it works. 

I think I'm starting to see how to get the hang of it. But, I will say, like about most of the artists out there, I still would much rather prefer making animation the absolute traditional way. Of course, the big difference there being that traditional animation requires a sizeable crew which must be paid whereas this technique here only requires a crew of me, myself and I AND can get results in a fraction of the time.

Welcome to the future, folks. 

Trudeau as a Gerbil

 A bunch of years ago, I did a little drawing of then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a gerbil. That drawing is embedded below:

Neat.  Anyway, just as in my most recent post here, I have been experimenting with AI. The result of that is a 3D and glossed out rendering of this same drawing.

So there we go.  Then, also with AI, I used this drawing to make a small animated scene. It's a depiction of what Justin Trudeau did while in Canada's parliament for the past 10 years.

It's a "fun" little scene that only took me minutes to create, but on the whole I do prefer animating the traditional way.  Even though it takes longer, I like having absolute control of what it looks like, how it moves, and planning the movements right down to the individual frame.  That's how greats like Tex Avery and Chuck Jones worked and that's how I prefer to work too.

From my brief experience, working with AI is like getting an idiot to help move your couch. You just need this couch moved from one end of the room to the other and you think giving him that simple command will get the job done.  But instead he starts shoving that couch out the door, through the wall, he tries to eat it at one point and all you can do is get increasingly flustered shouting "NO NOT THERE!! WATCH OUT FOR THAT........ LAMP!! ARE YOU STUPID?? WHY WOULD I WANT IT IN THE FISH TANK??!! WHERE DID THE CUSHIONS GO??!!" It can get so exhausting. Well, the traditional method can get exhausting too, but at least I'm in much more control.

Oh well, this looks like the future of animation and possibly movies and TV in general. So...... let's do what we can.

A possible new look for the Censor Monkeys..... maybe..... I don't know..... probably not

Anyone who's visited this here blog of mine for any length of time going all the way back to the 2000 "oughts" is most likely familiar with my Censor Monkey characters.  They know their basic routine: a creator makes content then these ferociously disgusting (or disgustingly ferocious) monkeys swoop in to whine and complain about EVERYTHING!!!  Or, as one Dee Snyder described Tipper Gore back in the 80's, "they go looking for something to be outraged about and find it".

One of those monkeys in the pantheon is the Black Panther Monkey, pictured below:

The bug up his ass is that everything is SOOOOOOOOOO RACIST!!!  No matter what the project is, he'll find "racism" to rattle his nervous system one way or another.  The delightful irony (at least delightful to me) is that the real life versions of these Censor Monkeys consider THIS monkey to be "racist" which only solidifies just how much like this monkey they are.  The only way out of that "censor loop" is for them to pull that bug out of their asses and not find it "racist".  Problem solved.

Well, at any rate, it's now the future. Art, animation, and entertainment in general might be taken over by AI.  I'm not entirely a big fan of it either, but at the same time it's not going away anytime soon.  It's a new tool that we'll have to learn to use one way or another.  With that in mind, below is my very first attempt at rendering my Black Panther Monkey in an AI fashion.   That rendering is embedded below:

I imagine the dialogue to be:

Monkey: "THIS WHOLE PRODUCTION IS RACIST! IT RACIALLY PROFILES ALL THE MARGERINIZED RACES! APOLOGIZE AND MAKE A MILLION CHANGES OR I'M SHUTTING YOU DOWN!!!"

Director: "It's just a pudding commercial.

Monkey: "CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE OR MY AK-47 WILL DO THE TALKING!!!"

Anyway, yeah there's still alot of work to be done.  Like I said at the top, this is my very first delve into this emerging AI technology.  We'll all see where this leads together.

 

Pumpkin carving as a family

 The whole family did some pumpkin carving this year. And by the whole family, I mean the WHOLE family. Even my two year old son Avery got into it.  As you can see in the video above, I think he enjoyed himself.

I drew my own design but my wife and daughter used prints that came with the carving tools (wimps). Oh well, all of the pumpkins turned out pretty good. Sadly, though, Avery has already wrecked the smallest pumpkin with his "two year old antics".  But, hey, we all did something fun as a family and that's what counts.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  

My son is 2 today

 Happy birthday, little man! Here's to many more!

We had a nice little celebration at a park here in the city. He loved running around on the grass, climbing up on the slide and then sliding down. But what he loved most was the swing. When I took him off he immediately wanted to go back on again. He is so very active and playful.

Afterwards, we all had a nice picnic lunch full of sandwiches and various fruits.  Rather than one birthday cake, we bought two packages of mini cupcakes instead.  But, rather than eat a whole cupcake, my son preferred to pick the sprinkles off and only eat them.  In his defence, they were very colourful. I don't blame him.

He got a few presents from his mom, his grandma, and his ate.  My present to him was three Tshirts with this printed on it.

I think it would great if he wore this shirt whenever we go to some public place or event. He's not talking yet, so if, God forbid, he ever gets lost it'll be easier for security to help identify him and thus get him found by us quicker.

I think the shirt came out great.  Anyway, happy birthday, my son. I can't wait to get you something special next year.

The angry man is animated

 

Hey, remember that Angry Man drawing I posted a short while ago? Well, the above video is him all animated. Tell me what you think. Does he at the very least come across as angry?