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Post by sgev1977 on Mar 3, 2021 2:15:14 GMT
I don't know too much about her problems with her father and about people strongly campaigning for her nowadays and I haven't watched her documentary but I felt a little cynical after I read a headline claiming she and Mia Farrow were horribly attacked because misogyny in the 90s.
For starters, I think people are exaggerating with Farrow. I mean look at her! She is an angelic looking Catholic mother that adopted disabled kids from around the world meanwhile Allen is well...the complete opposite! Are there someone who really thinks people automatically sided with the ugly Jewish guy who was dating the daughter of his ex?! I don't remember she being cast as the villain then. Sure she received some flack when some details emerged. It's impossible not to because the situation was and still is terrible and confusing but I remember people mostly judging Allen. There was a lot of misogyny then with popular scandals in the way Monica Lewinsky or Lorena Bobbitt were treated but if someone was made fun in a cruel way with the Allen-Farrow stuff, it was Soon-Yi not Farrow! She was portrayed sometimes as a Dragon Lady and others as the stupid girl-woman with sub-human intelligence.
But about Britney, even when I wasn't a fan of her (and much less of her politics), I remember I felt really bad when I saw how the press treated her. It was awful! She was having a mental breakdown and they decided to made fun of her! But I actually remember why she was hated so much by some members of the press. It was because she was a Conservative and a Republican who defended Bush jr. during the Iraq war. The question is do you think the American press nowadays would show some mercy for a celebrity publicly suffering of some mental illness if say celebrity has different political ideas to them? Again I'm being very cynical of journalist now asking why Britney was treated that way and then dehumanizing anyone with different ideas to them! And I'm not talking specifically of any political orientation!
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Post by queenzod on Mar 3, 2021 2:44:38 GMT
I think most of the US press have sold themselves out for clicks. There are still some real journalists around, but they don’t cover stuff like that. Imo, if Britney is healthy enough to go on world tours she’s healthy enough to find someone (other than her father) to handle her finances.
And look at the UK press w/ Meghan. Apparently there’s some big brouhaha brewing now. I don’t follow H&M, just what I see in passing, but it seems most of the press nowadays are misogynists & racists. It’s disgusting.
The whole thing feels like a pack of rabid weasels, tbh.
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Post by sgev1977 on Mar 3, 2021 3:15:48 GMT
Well, a lot of those I'm referring claim to champion progressive values but the right wingers are the same. I think the real challenge is to show basic human respect to someone you don't like or agreed even if you think that person is offensive.
For example, Roseanne Barr. She said and did awful things and yes, she is a Donal Trump fan but she is also someone who had suffered from mental health issues all her life. Sure, someone like her probably shouldn't spend too much time on social media but how much of her illness speaks for her?
I never watched her show nor any of her movies but talking about the 90s, I remember she promoted the now debunked ideas of multiple personalities. A lot of personalities did but she claimed she suffered from that and apparently she also said her parents sexually abused her (the multiple personalities, recuperated memory movement and the satanic abuse panic were all linked), she later retracted but it's clear she is a very conflicted woman with a lot of issues and probably, just probably she needed a little empathy even when she said some terrible things.
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Post by sgev1977 on Mar 3, 2021 3:31:00 GMT
British tabloids and Daily Mail commenters are the worst against left wing celebrities. One of the worst tweets I have read about BC was someone wishing it was him who had HIV when there was a rumor that a famous celebrity had it (It was Charlie Sheen). I thought seriously, you are wishing someone an illness just because you don't agree with him? Surely, there was a little homophobia there, too. And the ugliest part is that BC's offensive action was to ask money for Syrian kids!
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Post by queenzod on Mar 3, 2021 5:26:15 GMT
Maybe I’m dreaming but didn’t there used to be a more measured response to celebs saying or doing things? Or maybe I’m thinking of Golden Hollywood where the press agents for the studios kept things under wraps and the higher class tabloids just printed the myths. So we never really learned about who was sleeping with who, their sexual predilections, and the stupid things they said or did, or, for example, that Rock Hudson was gay. There was just the scandal rags, “True Confessions” and things like that which everyone sort of understood was just juicy conjecture and probably not true but tantalizing to read about.
Also, most people understood most of that stuff wasn’t really their business anyway. Now, with social media, people feel like they own celebrities and get so hot when there’s a slip of the tongue or it comes out they’re having sex with someone they don’t approve of, and feel they have the right to trash that person all up one side of social media and down the other. It’s all so...partisan, to use a word that maybe doesn’t quite apply but you know what mean. Divided and judgmental.
But now I’m thinking of when Johnny Cash got a divorce from his first wife, Vivian in 1967. His wife was Italian and very dark. The newspapers tore her apart, calling her the N word and describing their children as Mongrels. So maybe I have been dreaming of kinder, gentler times, lol. Maybe they never really existed.
correction: the press were terrible to Mrs. Cash not during their divorce, but when he got busted in 1965 for having 1,000 amphetamines.
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Post by sgev1977 on Mar 3, 2021 13:50:31 GMT
Older times were horrible! Of course, we are much better now but I don't think some people who consider themselves open minded, comprehensive or progressive are any of those things when they don't like the person who is being attacked! Ironically, I remember that one of the very few media people who showed any compassion for Spears when she had that breakdown was South Park! A very cruel show that could be very bullying about celebrities! And I easily could see wokes misinterpreting it as an example of abuse but it was one of those episodes that showed that those guys, who were mostly about gratuitously shocking, could be brilliant satirists, too. The episode is very crude and the Britney character doesn't has a head during most of it (she tried to kill herself and literally lost her head. So yeah, it's cruel and crude!) but at the end is revealed to the kids that Americans practice this ancient pagan religion in which beautiful teen virgins are choose to be sacrificed to the gods in exchange of a good harvest. The way they kill them is to humiliated them until pushing them to suicide. I thought it was brilliant! They announced the episode as we are making fun of Britney (as everyone was doing it) but the episode was actually an indictment of how American society treats very young female celebrities! This from the leaders of shock humour! EDITED I googled the episode to see if it's being used by modern press as one of example of how the media abused her even when it was the opposite but no, they are saying the same I'm saying here! It seems I'm a woke, then! Lol www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2021/02/10/south-park-called-out-the-medias-horrendous-treatment-of-britney-spears-more-than-a-decade-ago/?sh=24718ad524f6www.cbr.com/south-park-media-treatment-britney-spears-2008/screenrant.com/south-park-framing-britney-predict-future/I think they were ahead of time regarding Britney because they are contrarians. They have to if they want to shock and scandalize. That's why it's important to listen people who doesn't think like you because sometimes you think you are in the right and don't notice that you are actually the bad guy.
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Post by sgev1977 on Mar 3, 2021 15:30:11 GMT
I just remembered another celebrity that clearly has some major mental issues but says and does a lot of silly things (probably because his illness!) that press and social media frequently make fun of him: Kanye West. Most than once I have wondered why no one or just a very few admit that what he really needs is some help and not people attacking him or making fun of him. He clearly is not well.
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Post by queenzod on Mar 3, 2021 16:02:24 GMT
On Twitter I see calls for help for him all the time, but they’re usually pretty snarky. He’s bi-polar & gets manic & does those inappropriate things. Often bi-polar folks go off their meds b/c they like the highs & then they’re impossible to reason with & it’s hard to get them back on their meds. It’s a bad cycle.
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Post by mllemass on Mar 3, 2021 18:11:23 GMT
I saw a biography about Kanye West on tv a while back, and I was shocked to discover his background in academics and the arts. Since he was young, he has shown talent in painting, poetry and music. I know nothing about rap, so I’ll have to take other people’s word that his rap music is good. It seems to me that his big mistake was getting involved with the Kardashians.
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Post by sgev1977 on Mar 3, 2021 19:56:38 GMT
He is whatever is the American equivalent of "posh". It's easy to assume he is working class because most American rappers are very humble origins. He is really good and he was considered a liberal hero when he rightly criticized Bush Jr. during that event in favor of Katrina victims. I remember he said the famous phrase that "the president doesn't care for Black people" with a very nervous Mike Myers at his side. But then his "protests" become more bizarre when he decided to "steal" awards from Taylor Swift and Beck after they won it and in the name of black artists! In retrospective, just that was very abnormal behavior that was applauded by some and criticized by others but thinking about it, it easily could be part of his illness and not just a publicity stunts. More recently he become a Trump follower and well, he received a lot of flak for that (he is similar to Barr in that regard. They both went from being left wings to Trump fans and I'm wondering if it's in part because their conditions, they are probably more easy to influence by cult mentality)
He is ill. No one has the blame for it but I guess that a difficult condition as the bipolarity (I know someone with it and yes, it's not easy) should be even more difficult when people around you doesn't question you or doesn't help you to have your feets on the ground. You know being around of only yes men. He has a lot of money but probably not someone who contradict him when he needs it.
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