The School Shooting "Blame Game" Misses the #1 Action to Make Kids Safer, Racist Disney Tells You Not to be Racist, The Return of Colin Kaepernick? (The Five for 06/03/22)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
Note, this is a bit of a long one…but reading every story in The Five isn’t required.
Scroll through…read the stories that interest you, whether it’s only 1 or all 5.
Let’s dive in.
[one]
A week after the Uvalde, TX shooting, the blame game is circulating. At this point, blaming the police response is the one thing all Americans seem to agree upon.
Even though none of the recent mass shooter terrorists have cited any religious motivation or affliation, the AP has decided that Christian Nationalism is a majpr threat leading to these massacres.
From the Associated Press:
According to a recent survey by the institute, white evangelical Christians were among the strongest supporters of the assertion that God intended America as a “promised land” for European Christians. Those who backed that idea were far more likely to agree that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence ... to save our country.”
The survey in question was conducted by Baylor University, so I did a quick check of the sample size, which Baylor calls “the most extensive and sensitive study of religion ever conducted into American religious attitudes, behaviors and beliefs.”
That “extensive study” was a survey of 1,248 households.
So, “one in five” Evangelical Christians that are down with “resorting to violence,” was, in reality, 250 randos who responded to a survey.
Elsewhere, gun control advocated pointed to this Daniels Defense image from social media, with the caption “train up a child.”
Uhhh, not cool. That kid looks to be five or six years old, and should never be put in this situation. Some Conservative politicians have a weird fascination with brand-building through posting photos with very young kids holding guns.
Those youngest two boys in this photo have no business handling a real gun, full stop.
It doesn’t take into account the brain development of young kids and it trivializes handling deadly weapons.
Still, none of this gets at the root of the problem of school shootings driven by individuals who carry out “violent suicide,” sometimes for racist reasons, sometimes for delusions of grandeur, and always from being mentally disturbed.
What’s becoming increasingly clear since Columbine 25 year ago is that schools are easy places to shoot up. In the wake of the Columbine shooting, there was a substantial push to hire school resource officers and make schools safer places, with methods and technology to deter mass shooters (such as a single point of entry, automatically locking classroom doors, and more).
In a very odd turn of events, The Biden Administration has come out against “hardening schools” to push for more gun control, as if the two things are mutually exclusive.
After school shootings we talk a lot about things around school shootings that aren’t directly correlated to school shootings (such as “Christian Nationalism” and inappropriate gun behavior with children—which I’m not defending), but the one thing that should be a no-brainer, making schools more physically secure against domestic terrorism.
I’m not sure how much these upgrades would cost, but I bet the $7 billion we wasted arming the Taliban in Ukraine would have put a dent in it.
[two]
As a continuation of the last story…what do Americans want when it comes to gun policy?
Well, that depends on which outlet/poll you’re paying attention to.
According to the Daily Wire, most voters want armed teachers:
A new poll conducted by The Trafalgar Group in partnership with Convention of States Action (COSA) shows that a majority of 2022 likely voters support having properly trained, armed teachers in schools. The poll was conducted in the aftermath of a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in which 21 victims, including 19 children, died.
Researchers surveyed 1,091 likely general election voters from May 25-29. The poll’s results have a margin of error of 2.9%. The results were provided exclusively to The Daily Wire.
I would expect left-leaning outlets to report on studies that show most Americans want more gun control, but that’s not the story that Vox found:
Still, when Americans are asked broadly if they support stricter gun laws, their opinions volley back and forth, and it’s hard to see a consistent majority. Slightly more than half (52 percent) of Americans in a Gallup poll last year said laws regarding firearms sales should be stricter — a number that has actually gone down in recent years — and a Quinnipiac poll last year found that just under half (45 percent) support stricter gun laws. More recently, a Politico/Morning Consult poll last week found that 59 percent of registered voters think it’s very important (41 percent) or somewhat important (18 percent) for lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws.
It’s complicated…but a rough sketch is that the country seems to be pretty split down the middle, with more Americans leaning towards the pro-gun side in recent years.
However, as with the first story…polls of only 1,000+ should be taken with a large grain of salt.
[three]
This week, Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram posted a video to Instagram about racist comments she had received about the blockbuster streaming show (the biggest ever on Disney+).
"There's nothing anybody can do about this. There's nothing anybody can do to stop this hate," she said, in a video posted to her Instagram stories.
"The thing that bothers me is ... this feeling of like, I just gotta shut up and take it, I just have to grin and bear it. And I'm not built like that," she continued. "Thank you to the people who show up for me in the comments and in the places that I'm not going to put myself. And to the rest of y'all, y'all weird."
For the record, it’s impossible to tell where these comments were coming from, and the racist remarks could have generated from a bot farm looking to stir up controversy.
Then, Disney tweeted this:
The internet never forgets, and several accounts were quick to point out that…Disney should probably fire themselves for erasing John Boyega, one of the lead actors in Star Wars VII-IX, from the movie poster in China.
Apparently what Disney means by “don’t be racist” is “don’t be racist*”
*Unless you’re trying to get a movie approved by the Communist Party in China to make more money. Then racism is…cool, apparently.
[four]
A pair of moments around sports and politics intersected this week, as rumors abounded that Colin Kaepernick may return to the NFL after six years away from the league.
Kaep became a lightning rod of controversy after kneeling during the National Anthem during the 2016 season with the 49ers, a move that requires some context. Colin’s first choice was to sit on the bench in protest during the anthem, but retired Special Forces soldier Nate Boyer convinced the QB to “compromise” with the knee.
From NPR:
And it struck a chord with me, of course, and it struck a chord with a lot of people - a lot of people in the veteran community as well - because obviously the flag and the anthem and what that stuff stands for means something, you know, very different to us. And I was pretty upset, you know, just because I felt like he didn't understand what those symbols really represent. And - but instead of letting my anger overwhelm me, I decided to relax a little bit, and I wrote this open letter that was just explaining my experiences, my relationship to the flag.
And Colin actually reached out, said he wanted to meet with me. And we sat in the lobby of the team hotel, discussed our situation, our different opinions and feelings about all this. And I suggested him taking a knee instead of sitting even though I wanted him to stand, and he wanted to sit. And it was, like, this compromise that we sort of came to. And that's where the kneeling began.
Kaep’s time away from the league had attracted a bevy of sponsorships, racking endorsement deals with Beats by Dre Headphones, McDonalds, Jaguar Electronic Arts (Video Games) and MusclePharm, with reported annual earnings of $12-20M, so the dude is making more money off-field (and because of the kneeling controversy) than he did in a jersey.
If he returns and kneels (or returns and doesn’t kneel), I’m not sure anyone will care that much. The novelty of the moment has passed. Kaep will undoubtably sell a ton of jerseys and keep cashing in on endorsements, but
Which is why you probably didn’t hear much about San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler protesting “gun violence” by staying in the locker room during the national anthem before MLB games. Kapler “paused” this during Memorial Day (possibly just a play to drum up more headlines).
Both Kaep and Kapler are playing second fiddle to the 2016 protest by Colin, which was culturally disruptive.
Now, it’s been done…and the lack of coverage around Kapler is evidence of how apathetic the public is to the issue in general.
Protest during the National Anthem isn’t that interesting anymore…even if the guy who started it comes back and does it again.
[five]
As always, lets head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup.
Top Gun: Maverick has the highest audience score of any movie this year, is bringing older moviegoers back to the local multiplex, and could net Tom Cruise a reported $200M payday.
But there’s one more noteworthy element of the film…Paramount refused to bend the knee to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) censors and remove a Taiwanese flag from Cruise’s jacket in the final cut of the film, despite early footage showing the flag edited out (main patch, bottom right).
Willow, a Disney+ sequel to the 1987 movie also called Willow, dropped a trailer that’s somewhere between Game of Thrones and The Princess Bride meets The Wizard of Oz. I can’t tell exactly what this movie is going for, tonally or otherwise.
On the flip side…doesn’t look too bad, and it’s a streamer so the buy-in is low.
George Lucas created the original film after the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies had wrapped up, which was directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind), and the cult-like status of this flick hasn’t waned…which is why the decades-delayed sequel isn’t surprising.
Still, I’m having a hard time getting over TWO MOVIES WITH THE EXACT SAME NAME. Should we stay tuned for the final entry in the trilogy, with the working title of….wait for it…Willow?!
Gen X/Grunge animated icons Bevis and Butthead return to the pop culture lexicon via a new streaming movie on Paramount+ on June 23rd.
The infamous slackers get sucked through a black hole and are transported from the 1990’s to 2022, where they struggle to deal with life in the iPhone era.
It looks like…exactly the same show, a quarter century later.
The limited series of of pioneering punk outfit The Sex Pistols hit Hulu this week, to mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (it’s just barely “fresh” at the time of this writing).
Legendary director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later) helms this one. If the subject matter interests you at all, might be a good show to check out.
Here’s to hoping we get an American sequel that features The Ramones.
This is definitely a descriptive, not prescriptive write up. A few months ago, Winnie the Pooh went to public domain (full legal explanation here, if you care) which means Disney doesn’t have exclusive rights.
So, somebody (I’m not giving the writer or director the dignity of having their names listed) took the beloved children’s characters and reworked them. Christopher Robin leaves for college, and Winnie and Pooh are pissed.
So they eat Eyeore, and go around killing people.
I have an extremely irrevereant of humor at times (I mean, I just covered Bevis and Butthead)…but even I think Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey goes too far.
Hollywood doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to Native American portrayal over the last 100 years of film and TV…but that is changing. Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan’s excellent film Wind River (trailer), and the minor Hulu hit Reservation Dogs (trailer) from Thor director Taika Watiti are quite literally flipping the script.
Disney+ announced the mostly-Native cast for Echo, a show for the streamer following a Marvel hero who’s both Native and deaf.
I wish I could say I was excited, but the only two Marvel shows I’ve watched so far, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Hawkeye, were both so-so.
The Disney live-action(ish, it is a story about a puppet with a good bit of CGI) remake of Pinocchio dropped a first trailer. Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises), Lorraine Bacco (Goodfellas, The Sopranos) and Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beat, Midway) lead the cast.
Streaming on Disney+ September 8th.
Rachel Zegler, who led last year’s West Side Story remake, is set to star in a Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Compared to Twilight, which has found an audience with Gen-Z thanks to streaming, The Hunger Games seems to have faded from the pop culture lexicon pretty quickly, despite the fact that opening weekend of the first film, the novel, movie and soundtrack were the all #1 bestsellers simultaneously.
However, I don’t remember the prequel novel making much of a splash. Perhaps Zegler’s star power will revitalize the IP.
While we’re on the topic, the soundtrack to the original flick, featuring Taylor Swift, Arcade Fire, Kid Cudi, The Civil Wars an d more is well worth a listen.
MUSIC(SLASH MOVIE) NEWS: Indie studio powerhouse A24 (Midsommar, Uncut Gems) is reportedly in talks with Frank Ocean to write and direct his debut album.
R&B star Ocean doesn’t produce much very quickly, but both of his albums landed on Rolling Stone’s “Top 500 Albums of All Time.” So, don’t expect anything soon…but Ocean hasn’t turned out a bad project yet, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
NEW MUSIC:
Rapper (but, mostly singer) 070 Shake is Kanye West affiliated, and worth a listen if you like Kid Cudi and/or atmospheric pop.
Alt-country legends Drive-By Truckers haven’t put out a record that doesn’t suck in awhile…but my first impression is that Welcome to Club XIII is the sound of them finding their feet again.
CCMer TobyMac has a duet with Sheryl Crow that’s well worth a spin.
Until the next one,
-sth