The Growing Rift Between Antifa and BLM, Why Did Critics Finally Turn on Marvel? Mandatory Condoms for Jr. High Kids in Vermont (The Five for 11/12/21)
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Let’s dive in…
[one]
Currently, one in five boys and one in eleven girls meets the criteria for an ADHD diagnosis.
Fiction author Jessica Marie Baumgartner writes about how many of these cases are mis-diagnosed symptoms of deep trauma in children, and heavy medication only covers symptoms and creates more negative side effects.
Because it’s easier to give a child a pill and pretend that everything is now fixed. Instead of working through complicated issues, schools don’t have the time, the resources, or the will to aid our children through crises.
Not to mention that Big Pharma makes a lot of money from pumping meds into our children. They have a lot to gain from getting as many children prescribed as possible. Behavioral medication has become a huge industry. And the side effects of medications like Ritalin and Adderall can lead to a need for life-long mental health treatments.
ADHD meds are amphetamines. They’re highly addictive and host a bevy of side effects that can lead to psychosis. We're giving these to young children without truly researching the full long-term impact this has on the human brain, much less an underdeveloped one.
Adderall addiction is so common there are endless articles, social media posts, and videos of people joking about it. College and high school students are known to pop it to study for tests or just stay awake longer if they want to party harder.
But the darker side of these meds leads to anxiety, paranoia, blackouts, and more.
[two]
Another outbreak of violence hit a major city in the past week when Antifa clashed with anti-mask/anti-vaccine mandate protestors in Boston.
The Group Super Happy Fun America, who appear to be a group who enjoy public trolling (the organization held a “Straight Pride Parade” in 2019, with a gay grand marshal) gathered to protest the aforementioned mask/vaccine mandates.
(Note: It’s difficult for me to tell how serious Super Happy Fun America was about this—it’s a highly divisive, serious issue…but the group also appears to exist mainly for attention).
Anyway, Antifa showed up claiming they were standing against rioters who were at the January 6th riots in Washington D.C. Considering 691 people have been prosecuted for the events on January 6th…I kinda doubt there was anyone in attendance for both events.
Per as usual, a pretty good brawl broke out. There were injuries and arrests, but no deaths, but it looked pretty rough:
Unfortunately, events like this are so commonplace that…a low level riot doesn’t qualify as notable news in 2021, sadly.
But this one is worth noting because we’re starting to see a pretty major split between Antifa and Black Lives Matter, who protested against vaccine mandates and in support of NBA player Kyrie Irving (read coverage in the 10/29/21 issue of The Five here).
The death of George Floyd brought Antifa and Black Lives Matter together…and now it seems vaccine mandates are splitting the two groups apart.
It’s also perplexing to me exactly why Antifa are taking a pro-vaccine mandate stand, except that that group aligns with Communism, and is generally supportive of top-down authoritarianism.
The riots continue.
But the groups rioting…are changing before our eyes.
[three]
Thirteen years into the Marvel Cinematic Universe of interconnected movies and TV shows…the first MCU movie has a negative average critical score (aka a “Rotten Tomato.”)
This comes as a bit of a surprise, as Eternals was helmed by Oscar wining director Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) and an all-star cast that includes Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted, Maleficent), Salma Hayak (Desperado, Frida), Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians, Raya and the Last Dragon) and reunited Game of Thrones alums Kit Harrington and Richard Madden (Jon Snow and Rob Stark, respectively).
In my opinion, the reviews of MCU movies in general are pretty inflated, as the movies that have aged very poorly (Thor: The Dark World, Captain Marvel) received an abundance of praise from major media outlets at release.
If you’re looking to check the boxes that critics tend to love, Eternals has them all:
Marvel’s first clearly LGBT character
Female writer/director
A diverse cast, including the first deaf character in a leading role in the MCU
Plus, Zhao, Jolie and Hayak have racked up an impressive number of awards between three of them.
So what happened?
In my opinion…movie critics turned on Marvel because Zhao created a movie that wrestles with weighty ethical issues and struggles through human tragedy. Apparently, when corporate media calls for “diversity,” what they mean is “a diversity of actors, writers and directors…but please don’t go dealing with actual issues in your film or draw inspiration from classic literature or mythology. Just do physical comedy and play some throwback 80’s/90’s pop hits.”
Currently, the audience scored Eternals at 80% for on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics score sitting at 47%.”
One of the societal splits in the last few years is how surface level (and often stupid) cable news coverage of an issue is, vs. the in-depth content everyday Americans are willing to engage with on YouTube and podcasts.
I believe this is a similar split.
Movie critics want Marvel to stay “popcorn,” and aren’t nearly as keen on diversity if the “Marvel formula” isn’t followed.
Chloe Zhao, who opened her pitch for Eternals with a poem from William Blake, wanted to dive deeper into the human spirit, and it really pissed off critics (but not moviegoers).
At the heart of the divergence in the critics/audience score is a bigger battle…who decides what movies are “good.” As someone who spent the better part of a decade writing about TV and film for a large(ish) magazine, I can tell you firsthand that many critics love feeling superior to the average Joe and Jane as much (or more) than they love the actual movies.
Eternals isn’t the first time this split between critics and fans has become apparent, but it is the case study where critics have the thinnest argument…since Eternals works by relying on classic storytelling elements found in stories from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Peter Pan.
It’s not that Eternals is a perfect movie…it’s that critics don’t seem to be able to provide a reason why they don’t like this one AND have overlooked much larger issues with Marvel films in the past.
The arguments happening online aren’t as much about the movie itself, but who the gatekeepers get to be around assigning a “quality” rating to films.
And the gates are being torn down.
[four]
One of the debates happening around the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is how much of a “boy” vs. how much of an “adult” Rittenhouse was when he allegedly shot and killed two and wounded a third during the 2020 riots in Kenosha, WI.
That’s because 17 does seem to lie on the border of both adolescence and adulthood.
However, most people would NOT say the same thing about…middle school. I believe it’s safe to assume that the vast majority of Americans (pedophiles excluded) would describe middle schoolers as children/adolescents, not adolescents/adults.
Which should make Vermont’s new law even more concerning.
From the state’s official website:
In order to prevent or reduce unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, each school district shall make condoms available to all students in its secondary schools, free of charge. School district administrative teams, in consultation with school district nursing staff, shall determine the best manner in which to make condoms available to students. At a minimum, condoms shall be placed in locations that are safe and readily accessible to students, including the school nurse's office.
I checked several news sources to confirm, and yes, “secondary schools” includes every high school AND middle school in the state.
There isn’t enough time here to dive into how sexual education is handled in public high schools, but why is the Vermont state government making it law to provide condoms to jr. high students when Federal government findings also have identified a lifetime of problems from sexual activity early in life.
From a paper published by the National Institute of Health:
Early sexual intercourse initiation has been associated with an increased risk of having multiple lifetime sexual partners, unprotected sex, acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unwanted pregnancy [1–6], and undesirable sexual outcomes, such as problems with orgasm and sexual arousal [4]. In addition, recent studies have found that early sexual intercourse is associated with depression and low self-esteem [7–10].
So…the state of Vermont is now requiring middle schools to encourage behavior that the federal government has identified with a host of lifelong mental and physical problems.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
The final Daniel Craig entry into the James Bond Cannon, No Time to Die, hit major streaming services as a PVOD (Premium Video on Demand) just 30 days after the movie’s theatrical debut. If movies are available to rent for a premium (in this case, $19.99) a month after the multiplex opening weekend…this will likely continue the trend of consumer skipping the the theater experience all together.
Sci-fi epic Dune is getting a sequel…which is kind of a big deal because the film only told the first half of the story in the 1965 novel…aka it’s only the first 50% of the story. Science Fiction doesn’t normally do well at awards shows, but Dune is getting some Oscar buzz at the moment…stream it on HBO Max.
The biggest Netflix original film to date, Red Notice, is being universally panned by critics as a Michael-Bay-esque project with plenty of action, but no real story. Starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Fast & Furious, Jumanji), Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman, Justice League) and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool, The Proposal). Given that it’s free…I’ll probably still give it a chance.
Fortunately for Netflix, the new Lin Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights) musical tick...tick...BOOM!, which releases next week, is gaining much better buzz.
WandaVision, the first MCU TV show to hit Disney+, is getting an official spinoff, Agatha: House of Harkness, as is the MCU show Hawkeye, which doesn’t even release until later this month. The small screen tale of the famous Avengers archer will spin off into a new show, Echo.
Controversial comedian Dave Chappelle won’t be allowed to appear at a fundraiser for the public high school he attended after students threatened a walk out, but did receive some public support from rapper/mogul Jay-Z, who "I think what happens with true art is that it has to cause conversation," Jay-Z said. "Sometimes it’s going to abrasive, something it’s going to be off-putting to folks. But it opens up an opportunity to have a dialogue.” Listen to the full audio here.
MUSIC PICK: It’s not like this song needs any additional visibility today, but Taylor Swift’s 10 minute long re-recording of her classic hit “All to Well” is…some of the sharpest songwriting I’ve ever heard. I listened to it three times in a row this morning. Yes, that means I had the same song on repeat for a half hour.
Until the next one,
-sth