'The Office' Alum Calls Out HBO Max for Anti-Christian Bias, NPR Slanders Asian Oscar Winner, Vinyl Sales Hit $1.2B, A Movie About Blackberry Phones?! (The Five for 03/19/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Sorry this one is a bit late. Let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
During a recent Congressional hearing about federal agencies allegedly pushing social media companies to censor information (such as Miocarditis in young men who took the COVID vaccine and the Hunter Biden laptop story, Stacey Plaskett (D–V.I.) referred to Matt Taibbi as a “so called journalist.”
Taibbi has been featured in The Five regularly, but if you’re not familiar with him, Matt is a former Rolling Stone investigative journalist who’s squarely on the political left.
Taibbi replied directly to the insult directly:
I’m not a so-called journalist. I’ve won the National Magazine Award, The IF Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and I’ve written 10 books, four of which are New York Times bestsellers.
There have certainly been times when members of the political right have treated the media with less than the respect they deserve…but we hear about those cases.
Recently, the trend has been for Democrats to attack left-wing journalists who have a dogged determination to go after the facts. For the most part, these attacks on the media (and that’s what they are) go mostly unnoticed.
[two]
Rainn Wilson (The Office) caused a bit of a stir this week when he critiqued the hit HBO show The Last of Us (based on a popular PlayStation video game) and it’s attitude towards Christians.
It should be noted, Wilson doesn’t make any claim to Christianity.
I agree with this statement. I also see a guy who’s new book is available for pre-order right now, and ties in well to being mad at The Last of Us.
In other words, this “honest observation” may have just been a PR stunt to stir up attention for his new project.
As a Christian myself, I’d have to be a complete dolt not to notice the Scriptures don’t promise persecution of those who believe. If you’ve never read the Bible (which I’d recommend you give a try—even if your motivation is simply cultural/philosophical understanding), the short version if that the followers of Jesus are explicitly promised trouble and persecution.
So, in a way, The Last of Us and other Hollywood IP’s demeaning Christianity is…Biblical. But it’s hard to make the case Christians are THAT persecuted, when Jesus Revolution and The Chosen are pretty big entertainment properties in their own rights.
However, a much more important story broke this week, which involves a California County surveilling a church in San Jose that stayed open during COVID, with less-than-legal police procedures.
First, in August 2020, another church next door gave the state permission to let enforcement officers spy on Calvary’s faithful through a chain-link fence on its property, according to a recent article by science journalist David Zweig.
Through that fence, for at least three months, agents surveilled the church. They then docked the church for everything from parking lot attendants’ failures to wear face masks outdoors to churchgoers’ refusal to socially distance—by hugging. Officials also counted cars in Calvary’s parking lot each day to estimate how many members were inside.
One county report stated:
“We personally observed approximately 150 cars in the rear parking lot, and 90 cars in an adjacent lot, for a total of 240 cars associated with the service. . . . None of these traffic directors or greeters wore face coverings, and both Enforcement Officer and I witnessed some greeters hug congregants, who were also not wearing face coverings.”
The surveillance also included tracking cellular devices, which likely means the attendees were “followed” AFTER they left church and went about their day-to-day lives.
According to Zweig’s piece, Santa Clara County hired the company SafeGraph, which “aggregates information from 47 million mobile devices across the United States,” to set up a virtual perimeter around Calvary Chapel’s property, allowing GPS to track exactly where churchgoers were congregating. Daniel Ho, a Stanford law professor and expert in public health data analysis, was allegedly hired for $800 an hour to analyze the results of the SafeGraph data, Zweig reports. (Officials who monitored the church were paid $219 per hour.)
SafeGraph’s data is supposed to be anonymized, but human rights attorney and information law specialist Irina Tsukerman said that using digital surveillance could mean a potentially serious violation of civil liberties.
While cultural persecution is to be expected and endured (according to the Bible)…government violations of existing laws should not.
Calvary Chapel is currently suing Santa Clara County, and it’s a good idea to root for their victory…regardless of your religious affiliation (even if it’s none), because a victory in court will at least bring hesitation the next time a government body attempts to illegally surveil citizens.
Oh, and Calvary Chapel’s attendance…has exploded, with the church tripling in size since these events. Persecution resulting in more coming to faith is…in the Bible, ironically.
[three]
This publication doesn’t cover awards shows, because spoiled people congratulating themselves on their very easy lives…isn’t culture. However, I was pleasantly suprised to see Everything Everywhere All At Once cleaning up at the Oscars, because it’s nice to see entertainment with some mass appeal being recognized. I’m not sure if we’re marketing back to the days of Rocky and Return of the King type crowd pleasers having a shot at gold hardware.
However, the groundbreaking performance of Michelle Yeoh was (somewhat) spoiled by the fact that NPR described the event as “the first time a person who identifies as Asian” won best actress.
Ok, let’s play the game for a second, and compare me to my friend Nate.
I…
…grew up counting and speaking basic words in Lao (the native language of Laos).
…could eat with chopsticks by the age of 5, enjoyed an abundance of egg rolls, sticky rice and other southeast Asian cuisine.
…consumed generous helpings of Asian pop culture (Bruce Lee movies, Asian pop music—30 years before that was cool) with my Asian cousins & best friends.
My friend Nate…
…grew up in an Anglo-Italian family.
…ate American food.
…grew up on American pop culture.
Guess who’s Asian?
Freaking Nate, who’s adopted from South Korea.
Know how I know?
DNA.
There is no “identifying” as something that’s already been determined at a biological level.
Full stop.
It is every sane person’s job to push back against the cultural goal posts moving towards madness.
As a bonus, NPR gets to engage in this lunacy with your tax dollars.
[four]
Welcome back vinyl!
The BBC reports:
Just over 41 million vinyl records were sold in 2022, to the tune of $1.2bn (£.99bn). Only 33 million CDs were sold, amounting to $483m.
It was the 16th consecutive year of growth for record sales, about 71% of physical format revenues.
Recorded music revenue in the US grew for the seventh consecutive year and reached a record high of $15.9bn.
Overall, revenue for recorded music in 2022 increased by 6%, according to the report released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), driven largely by streaming but also by physical music format sales.
The report found that revenue for physical music formats has steadily risen over the years, marked by a "remarkable resurgence" in 2021 after being muted by Covid-19 in 2020. Physical music revenues as a whole were up 4% last year, propelled by vinyl records which saw a 17% increase. Meanwhile, revenue from CDs fell 18%.
[five]
As always, let's head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup.
The field of “movie about inventing iconic thing” is getting crowded with the Air Jordan movie, the Tetris movie…and now the Blackberry movie?
First impression here…looks decent, but this trailer doesn’t overly excite me.
If you’ve seen Homeward Bound (the 90’s classic about stay pets who re-find their owners) just imagine that + drugs.
No, the dogs eat magic mushrooms and get high in the trailer. On one hand, I complain that in today’s politically correct world, studios are too scared to do comedies.
On the other…do adults really want to take a Disney movie formula (pets lost from their owners), and add alcohol and…dog prostitution…to the mix?
The summer movie season used to be filled with comedies…has the genre really sunken this low?
The Night Agent is far from an original idea…but Reacher and The Terminal List, my two favorite shows of last year…were essentially the same-old mystery/thrillers, but carried on by excellent plots and acting.
The trailer’s interesting enough for me to want to give this one a chance. And if it doesn’t work out 15 minutes in, there’s a lot of similar genre fare on Netflix to fall back on.
Until the next one,
-sth