The Balenciaga Fashion/Child Porn Scandal Gets Worse, Canada Wants to Kill You if You're Sad, Netflix New Massive Hit, Indiana Jones Returns!!!! (The Five for 12/02/22)
We’ll wrap up The Five for 2022 with “best of” lists…per tradition.
But I thought I’d kick off this issue by roasting myself.
Here are The Five cultural topics I probably over-covered in 2022.
Yellowstone
Kid Cudi
John Wick 4 news
Zach Bryan
The Terminal List
Also, I have no regrets about this :)
It’s Friday, so let’s get into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
Ugh. Wish we didn’t have to start here today.
If you haven’t been following the luxury fashion brand Balenciaga scandal…the brand came under fire for featuring toddlers holding teddy bears adorned in BDSM gear.
Yahoo apparently thinks it’s a “right wing uproar” that the general public is concerned about 50-Shades-of-Grey-ing the preschool set.
If that wasn’t enough, a separate ad featured court documents on child porn.
In one image, an hourglass handbag was placed on top of a pile of papers strewn across an office desk.
A social-media user enhanced the image to get a closer look at the papers and discovered one was from the 2008 Supreme Court ruling, United States vs. Williams.
The court had been tasked with deciding whether laws banning the "pandering"—promoting—of child pornography violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.
The Supreme Court upheld the 2003 laws to continue to outlaw the advertising, promoting, presenting or distributing child pornography.
Balenciga’s Creative Director, Demna Gvasalia, has a historhy of posting disturbing images of very young children with sex toys to his Instagram.
If Yahoo wants to call this “right wing outrage,” that’s fine.
Count me in.
We’re far beyond conspiracy here…it’s not a conspiracy when it’s posted on public platforms for all the world to see.
There are cultural elites who want to sexualize and abuse young children, and they’re not hiding the ball(gag).
[two]
Well, Apple has had quite the week.
Allegedly, the company is considering banning Twitter from the app store, which was apparently headed off by a direct convrsation between Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
But the tide may be changing in the tech community in regards to Apple’s strict app policies. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg essentially called the App Store a corrupt monopoly, and Spotify head Daniel Ek echoed a similar sentiment.
Meanwhile, Apple aided the Communist dictatorship in China in suppressing free speech.
Protests have erupted across China in recent weeks against the country's zero-COVID policy, but citizens will no longer be able to take full advantage of their iPhones' AirDrop file sharing feature, which has frequently been used to bypass censorship and spread information about demonstrations.
Under the latest software update, iOS 16.1.1, iPhone owners in China can only use AirDrop to receive files, images, and videos from other non-contacts for 10 minutes, according to 9to5Mac. Once that 10-minute window lapses, AirDrop shifts back to contacts only automatically.
So…Apple has no problem bullying companies offering valuable services to the American people, but will be happy to help Communism stay in power.
Man, I miss Steve Jobs…this would have never happened under the watch of the son of a Syrian refugee.
[three]
Canada is heading in an absolutely horrific direction when it comes to human rights, opening up Assisted Suicide to include “mental health issues.”
In other words…if you’re sad…right this minute…a doctor can end your life for you.
There’s nothing I can say here that satire channel Freedomtoons hasn’t already said better.
[four]
Uhhh…wut? The Addams Family reboot/spinoff Wednesday actually has bigger ratings than Stranger Things season 4?
I haven’t seen it yet, but word on the street is this version mixes murder/mystery with (obviously morbid/deadpan) comedy.
Netflix has struggled to replicate the success of their 80s-Nostalgia-and-Monsters franchise…who knew it would come from spinning off a character that first appeared in comics in the 1930’s, that hadn’t been featured on the big or small screen since the mid-90’s.
[five]
Ranking the movies of my very young childhood (mid-80’s), Indiana Jones had a way bigger influence on me than Star Wars. Harrison Ford goes out for one last adventure in the iconic fedora…at 81 years old.
Simply cannot wait.Guardians of the Galaxy 3 looks…awesome.
Damian Chazelle is looking to follow up on his massive hits Whiplash and LaLa Land with Babylon, about the golden age of Hollywood. Margo Robbie (Suicide Squad, The Wolf of Wall Street), Brad Pitt (Moneyball, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) the mentally unstable Olivia Wilde (who you know for being famous and crazy, but not for her movies) and Topher Grace (Spiderman, The Cider House Rules).
In theaters 12/23/22…and maybe winning Best Picture in 2023.
I've been pretty skeptical of Apple TV+ (or just fatigued at the number of subscription services out there), but Echo 3 just changed my mind. It looks like a pretty standard (but very well executed) spy thriller with a healthy dose of Liam Neeson's Taken thrown into the script blender. I'm so down for this…streaming now.
I dunno on this one…leaning towards optimism now that the first full trailer has dropped for The Super Mario Bros movie. Silly fun.
MUSIC
It’s possible I’ve featured this one before…but it’s worth another spin. Canadian Cree-Oji-Cree singer/songwriter Aysanabee has put together quite the project…a modern pop/soul alubm with more than a dozen spoken word interludes from his elderly grandfather, who lived through horrific discrimination and abuse as a Canadian First Nations citizen (you know, that country that now kills people for being sad).
Until the next one,
-sth