Jeff Bezos Defends Queen Elizabeth, Utility Company Turns Smart Thermostats to 88 Degrees, Charlotte Festival Puts 4-Year-Old on Stripper Pole, Knives Out Sequel Generates Buzz (The Five for 09/09/22)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Happy Friday…let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
In the wake of the death of 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sparred with a Carnegie Melon professor over the legacy of the late monarch.
A university professor wished Queen Elizabeth II an “excruciating” death — and she was promptly slammed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying,” Uju Anya, an associate professor of second language acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “May her pain be excruciating.”
The world’s third-richest man then quoted Anya’s tweet and wrote: “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better?”
“I don’t think so,” Bezos added. “Wow.”
The back-and-forth came as the 96-year-old monarch was under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and less than an hour before Buckingham Palace officially announced that Queen Elizabeth had died at 96.
Twitter later took down Anya’s initial tweet for violating its rules, which bar “wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.”
Anya and Carnegie Mellon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
When another user asked why she would wish Elizabeth dead, the professor wrote: “I’m not wishing her dead. She’s dying already. I’m wishing her an agonizingly painful death like the one she caused for millions of people.”
“If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star,” Anya added.
Uhhh, the British Crown is merely a figurehead and symbolic position…which is why we credit Winston Churchill for helping with WWII, not King George.
Simply put, the Royal Family has zero political power.
This is a little like being mad at the Statue of Liberty for American foreign policy.
“May the Statue of Liberty rust and fall down over George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.”
Sounds weird, doesn’t it?
But that’s exactly what this Prof did to the late Queen.
[two]
There’s a dark side to Smart Home technology, as many Colorado residents learned this week.
Thousands of Colorado residents found themselves locked out of their smart thermostats during sweltering temperatures last week in an effort to prevent power demand from overwhelming the grid.
About 22,000 Xcel customers lost control of their smart thermostats for hours on August 30th, Denver7 News reports. That led to backlash on social media as some people said the temperatures inside their homes reached as high as 88 degrees Fahrenheit. Outdoor temperatures climbed into the 90s that day across parts of Colorado as much of the western US grappled with sweltering heat.
All of the customers affected had enrolled in an energy-saving program, called AC Rewards, that’s meant to ease the strain on the power grid during heatwaves. Xcel can adjust those customers’ smart thermostats when demand gets so high that there might not be enough supply to meet it. Xcel offers a one-time $100 credit on electricity bills upon signing up, and $25 a year afterward for participation.
By itself, this isn’t a big deal, but it raises huge ethical questions about who really owns your house—you, or the electric company?
[three]
Apparently thinking this is a little weird is “Far-Right Grooming Panic.”
This year at the Charlotte Pride Festival, Whitney Ann was more excited than ever to attend. Her pole dancing studio, Pole Body and Arts, was one of the sponsors of the event, and had a booth there. Plus, it was one of her first ever Pride after having come out as queer. When a little boy came by her booth to try out the pole, believing it was a firefighter pole, Whitney says, it was hot, and he kept slipping off. So she did a pole sit to try to hold him up. “We were out there having a good time,” she says. “And it became an enormous issue.”
So, a young child shows up, and a grown woman puts him on her lap in a stripper pole dance…and doesn’t think that’s even a little weird?
Maxwell’s post was picked up by Libs of TikTok, the Daily Mail, and Fox News — essentially, all the usual suspects when attempting to cultivate an anti-LGBTQ moral panic. “We have a serious problem in this country,” Libs of TikTok tweeted with a screengrab from the post, which did not censor the minor’s face. The barrage of hate started immediately. “I’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds of messages that i need to go straight to jail, that I’m a pedophile or an abuser, which is disgusting,” says Whitney. “[I’m] not abusing a child because he wanted to play on a pole. These grownups commenting these disgusting things are sexualizing a kid being on a pole.”
Wow, that was quite the blame shift…first of all, jail for this is pretty stupid.
But so is claiming finding a four-year-old grinding on a stripper as baseless “moral panic.”
Here’s a good rule to live by…if a person still watches Paw Patrol, said person probably does not need to be dancing with strippers.
But there I go with continuing the far-right groomer panic again…
[four]
A Duke volleyball player who went viral for claiming fans at Brigham Young University hurled racial slurs at her for an entire match…has apparently been debunked.
The Daily Wire report:
“We reviewed all available video and audio recordings, including security footage and raw footage from all camera angles taken by BYUtv of the match, with broadcasting audio removed (to ensure that the noise from the stands could be heard more clearly),” the BYU statement read. “We also reached out to more than 50 individuals who attended the event: Duke athletic department personnel and student-athletes, BYU athletic department personnel and student-athletes, event security and management and fans who were in the arena that evening, including many of the fans in the on-court student section.”
The day after the game, Richardson’s godmother, Lesa Pamplin, who was running for election for the number five judge of the Tarrant County Criminal Court in Texas, tweeted, “My Goddaughter is the only black starter for Dukes volleyball team. While playing yesterday, she was called a n***er every time she served.”
The initial story led to attention from LeBron James…
As well as South Carolina pulling out of their matches with BYU.
Of course, it’s possible contrary evidence could come to light, but right now this feels pretty Jussie Smollet-ish…which is unfortunate.
Nobody wins in a situation like this.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup.
Well, after losing a lot of money, Netflix appears to be learning how to make not-terrible TV and movies. The streaming giant dropped a whopping $465 million for two sequels to director Rian Johnson’s suprise hit Knives Out. The first of the pair, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, will hit the app just in time for Christmas.
From the looks of the first trailer, I’ll likely be tempted to cancel social plans and stay in on December 23rd.
All Quiet on the Western Front was first a novel in 1928, penned by a German vet of WWI. Hollywood quickly capitalized on the success of the book and cranked out a movie just two years later. The 1930 movie version has been called “one of the most powerful anti-war films of all time.”
In an era where remakes are overly abundant…Netflix dusting this IP back off feels good. The trailer looks excellent, and it’s been 92 years, probably time for a refresh.
This one will hit the film festival circuit for September and October (so if you’re in NYC, Toronto or Paris, you can catch it in a theater) before streaming worldwide on 10/28. I’d expect this one to be an awards contender.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Fast & Furious, Red Notice) has zero acting range and pretty much just plays Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in different situations in his various movies.
The new trailer for Johnson’s Black Adam looks like more of the same, but also solid enough to be theater-worthy.
Woah. Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, Molly’s Game) and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything, Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them) team up for a true story medical thriller about a doctor who may be killing his patients.
In theaters 10/19 and streaming 10/26.
Pete Davidson (SNL, Kim’s ex—not a movie, but a title) and Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory, The Flight Attendant) are pairing up for Meet Cute, a rom-com with a pretty strong sci-fi and philosophical bent.
In theaters 09/21. I think the movie About Time (2013) already did this, but Davdison and Cuoco may be strong enough to keep a narrative retread fresh.
Obviously a ton of TV shows are launching and/or returning in September and October, including The Hanmaids Tale, Atlanta, Abbott Elementary, Seal Team, all those FBI shows on CBS, The Walking Dead (for the final season), blah blah blah. Here’s a complete list.
MUSIC NEWS
As a rule, The Five does not exist to mock things…but today is the exception for the breakup of bro-country poster boys Florida Georgia Line, one of the dumbest bands of this century.
YouTuber Grady Smith described an interview he conducted while writing for Entertainment Weekly, in which the band answered every question with a variation of the answer “we like to party, and our fans like to party…and we bring the party!” Entertainment Weekly elected not to run the piece, because the band was so stupid.
May they neve reunite. If you need hard evidence of how stupid and terrible their songs were, cringe your way through the video above.
Americana hero Tyler Childers, who hasn’t really released an album since 2019 (well, he dropped a project of fiddle music I completely ignored), is returning with a project unlike any other.
Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven will offer up eight religiously-themed songs….recorded three different ways. In other words, there will be three versions of each of the eight songs on the 24 song project.
It’s a Southern Gospel sound (think Gaither Vocal Band), but lyrically lands much closer to Universalism.
The first two songs are out now…which is two different takes on the same song.
Confused yet?
Apple Music | YouTube Music | Amazon Music
NEW MUSIC
Flogging Molly have been around for over two decades, but somebody must have lit a fire under the long time Celtic punks, who combine traditional folks sounds of Ireland with the sonics of The Clash, etc. dropped their new album today.
It was the rare moment where I listened to a new project, front to back, without even a temptation to reach for the skip foward button.
Highly recommended.
Apple Music | YouTube Music | Amazon Music
Until the next one,
-sth