50-Year-Old Biological Male Shares Locker Room with 10-Year-Old Girls, Viral 2024 Movie "Civil War" Too Close to Reality? Media World Firings Over AI Use(The Five for 12/15/23)
Plus, Tom Petty's new "Hit Single" recorded 34 years ago, Ryan Reynold's new kid's movie looks like a much-watch.
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Now, it’s Friday so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
Despite the criticism of the controversy around the newly released comedy Lady Ballers, the movie seems to be coming to life in real time, as a 50-year-old biological male is now competing with, and changing with, 10-year-old girls.
Girls from age eight to 16 in a Swimming Canada-sanctioned swim meet in Barrie last week not only found themselves in the same pool as a transgender female swimmer but in the same changeroom, too.
Parents confirmed that the person in question changed in and out of a swimsuit in the women’s locker room at the East Bayfield Community Centre during the Dec. 1 Trojan Cup.
“The girls were terrified,” said one parent of a child involved.
And mortified.
From the changing area, where parents put up makeshift towel-tenting apparatus so no one could see their daughters and they could not see the person with male anatomy changing with them, they got into the pool to race against this 50-year-old who was competing in several categories.
The whole thing is gross.
“It’s all so confusing for the kids,” said one parent. “No one is comfortable. Everybody is accepting of all people but them swimming against our kids and being in the locker room with them is not appropriate.”
Around the pool, or at York University, Nicholas Cepeda now goes by Melody Wiseheart. Swimming meet stats show Wiseheart, who has not so far responded to requests for comment of clarification from the Toronto Sun, has been competing against girls since 2019.
“We have no idea why it is allowed,” said a parent. “We know it’s not fair to the girls who are training at their sport and some of whom are hoping for scholarships.”
It should be noted that there are plenty of Trans influencers, including Blair White and Buck Angel (both popular YouTubers) who condemn this disturbing behavior, so it’s not fair to blame something like this on an entire group of people.
If anyone is at fault here, it’s the parents who don’t have the backbone to pull their daughters out of a hazardous situation. This could be easily remedied by all competitors quitting the league, leaving a 50-year-old biological male to swim alone.
[two]
Ugh, this doesn’t sit right. British writer/director Alex Garland is set to release a movie about a modern U.S. Civil War next year. You may not know Garland by name, but odds are you’ve seen at least some of his body of work, which includes 28 Days Later, Dredd, Ex Machina and Annihilation.
Garland does hail from the other side of the pond, but it’s unlikely that he wrote this movie in a vacuum without the knowledge that 2 in 5 Americans believes a Civil War is “likely” within the next decade.
It’s not clear that Garland’s work is partisan in any way, as the trailer reveals that Texas and California have seceded from the U.S. and joined forces, which is all but impossible in real life.
At this point, I hope it doesn’t need to be re-stated, but I’m pretty absolute on free speech. I don’t think this movie should be prevented from release or censored in any way. I’m even somewhat curious, considering that the cast includes Nick Offerman (Parks and Rec, The Last of Us) Kirstin Dunst (Spiderman, Interview with the Vampire) and Jesse Plemons (Friday Night Lights, The Irishman).
On one hand, this feels like when World Trade Center released in 2006…an example of the the timing being perfectly wrong. But on the other, I do believe in art being judged on it’s own merit, and making a final decision about a film based on the trailer is hardly fair.
[three]
The CEO of Sports Illustrated, along with several other execs, have been ousted in the wake of the prestigious publication’s use of AI content.
Digital publisher The Arena Group, which operates household brands such as Sports Illustrated and The Street, fired its chief executive on Monday amid a larger C-suite bloodbath, a spokesperson for the company told CNN.
A spokesperson for The Arena Group declined to go into further detail to explain the ouster of Ross Levinsohn, who served as chief executive for three years. But the move came after an embarrassing debacle in which Sports Illustrated was caught publishing stories with fake author names and profile photos generated by artificial intelligence.
Levinsohn was replaced, effective immediately, by interim chief executive Manoj Bhargava, the 5-Hour Energy founder who owns a majority stake in The Arena Group, said Vince Bodiford, a spokesperson for Bhargava.
Levinsohn’s termination comes less than a week after The Arena Group fired three of its major executives: operations president and chief operating officer Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster.
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over cheap AI content taking over the world, the SI shakeup proves (at least for now) that the public won’t tolerate fake AI generated journalism (at least from a well established source)
[four]
The White House is receiving significant heat over First Lady Jill Biden’s Christmas video, which is based on the Nutcracker. The video does lean heavily on Americana, as both tap dancing and jazz are American-invented art forms.
However, wearing garish costumes and dancing around the literal Capital when people in Appalachia are starving…isn’t the best move in the same year a new Hunger Games movie dropped AND President Biden is leaning hard into the “good economy” messaging for his 2024 campaign.
In a different economic climate (and without the refresh of The Hunger Games stories) this would feel whimsical and festive. But in politics, timing is everything, and the video comes off more tone deaf than celebratory in a year when many are struggling just to buy gas and groceries.
[five]
John Krazinkski (The Office, Jack Ryan) steps into the director’s chair for IF (short for Imaginary Friend), a family comedy with Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool, The Proposal) in the lead. The cast (most of which are probably just doing voices of the animated characters) are too numerous to list, but safe to say this one looks like a winner.
Catch it in theaters in April.
Apparently we’re far enough from the civil unrest of 2020 for cop movies to be a thing again.
Beverly Hills Cop, released in 1984, was a Gen X movie, not a Millennial one. While I remember the original film from re-runs, I’ve never seen it and know nothing about the character.
Even with no previous knowledge, this looks like a lot of fun. It’s a Netflix movie, and the streamer has a habit of finding a way to making eye-catching trailers followed by bad films, but I’ve got some hope here.
Dropping sometime in 2024.
Jenna Ortega (Wednesday, Scream VI) and Martin Freeman (Shaun of the Dead, Black Panther) bring a lot of talent to Miller’s Girl, a psychological thriller about an 18-year-old student trying to (seduce? destroy? both?) her lit teacher.
I’m not sold on this one, but mainly highlighting the fact that the movie comes with a warning and list of resources from studio Lionsgate about sexual harassment and domestic violence.
Cinematically, it looks very well done. Thematically, the big question is whether the film will glorify, or condemn, sexual relationships between teachers and students, which are being uncovered (and even advocated for) at an increasing rate.
It’s rare that I get excited about a horror flick, but Out of the Darkness feels like the Caveman version of Predator mixed with M. Night Shamalan’s The Village.
Out this winter. Could be worthy of catching in the theater.
[new? music]
Thanks to the being featured in the GTA VI video game trailer, an album cut from Tom Petty’1989 album Full Moon Fever increased 37,000% and has essentially become a hit single 34 years after being recorded and six years after the singer’s death.
[re-play]
Apple Music | YouTube Music
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park fame dropped a deluxe version of his 2005 solo hip hop debut The Rising Tied, and the updated version hits hard at first listen (I played through most of the album this morning).
Shinoda has kept busy since the death of Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington in 2017, making beats and releasing a second solo album Post Traumatic, which deals heavily with the grief of losing his bandmate.
The nu-metal band, which was heavily mocked at one point, have reached elder statesmen status within the music world with the fingerprints of their early 00’s innovative sonics are visible on pop, rock and hip hop radio today.
While LP hasn’t broken up, they also haven’t played a show together since a tribute show to Chester in 2017, so it’s unclear if we’ll see the band ever re-form and forge a new path without Bennington’s iconic vocal range and stage presence.
Until the next one,
-sth