Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In the ‘Canadian’
edition, this was demonstrated by Don Cherry, who was fired after he was
carried away and said some distinctively politically incorrect &
unsanctioned statements on the sports’ channel.
Here are the facts: as far as I can remember, Mr. Cherry was
spouting this anti-immigrant bull-crap since the 1990s, and no one did anything
about him. That said, under Mr. Trudeau’s leadership, the Canadian government
changed its’ views on immigration, especially that of POCs, but there are
plenty of Europeans also still coming to Canada, i.e. Ukrainians and the like.
As the numbers of ‘new’ immigrants and their immediate descendants continues to
grow and to accumulate, Mr. Cherry’s statements grow increasingly politically
tone-deaf, and so he was given the old heave-ho, aka the boot. Will he be
missed? I have no idea, but aside from his ‘political deafness’ the fact is
that a sports’ channel isn’t the most appropriate place to discuss
socio-political issues that aren’t related to sports at all, either.
No, seriously, Mr. Cherry did not even try to pretend that
his rant is sports-related – he just vented his spleen, his own personal
opinion, on his job. Seriously, man – get an online blog and do just that,
rather than confuse it with your work. No wonder than he got fired – he is
either politically incorrect and unprofessional, or old and marasmatic,
(chronologically and biologically speaking). People are trying to pretend that
this is an end of an epoch, but in reality, it is anything but – merely an old
man, who either took his privilege too far, or who had simply lost ‘it’.
Onwards to the TV shows?
…No, let us talk about a Disney+ movie – the 2019 remake of
‘Lady and the Tramp’. Unlike TLK-2019, Disney did not put this remake into theaters, but rather – into its’ own new and
personal streaming service, aka Disney+. Yay?
Well, certainly ‘yay’ on a certain level – on some level,
L&T-2019 is better than TLK-2019, in no small part because it does use
real-life animals, (at least some times), and only adds CGI-facial features to
them when it is necessary, rather than uses precise and accurate,
(realistically authentic?) CGI models as they did in TLK-2019.
Of course, the difference is understandable: proportionally,
domestic dogs, (used in L&T-2019) are much more trainable than the African
lions and similar animals are, but regardless, it kind of makes TLK-2019 even
more redundant, unnecessary and etc., when compared to L&T-2019 – honestly,
what was Disney trying to prove with
it? When ‘Dumbo’ was remade, for example, it was really remade – we’re talking
about a different movie entirely from the old one, (which was good, because the
original ‘Dumbo’ didn’t age well at all – just as Canada’s Don Cherry didn’t),
whereas TLK-2019 wasn’t, not really: it was the same movie just with some
cosmetic changes.
True, you can say the same thing about L&T-2019 – it is
the same movie that was made in the 20th century, but with some
cosmetic changes – i.e., in the original film, it were some live beavers (from
a zoo) that freed Lady from her muzzle, whereas in the 2019 version, it is a
beaver statue in the park; or in case of the cats, in the original film, they
were Siamese, (and also racial stereotypes, let’s be honest), while in 2019
they’re more like hairless Sphinxes, or some similar breed, (still creepy as
Hell though), instead. Disney does
know political correctness, it seems, but then we come to the human aspect and
this is where things took a strange turn, as IGN noted on its’ own review of
the movie.
I’m not the biggest fan of IGN these days – it seems to be
at least partially paid by various movie companies to review its’ movies and
give them ‘the right’ reviews; in a not-too-distant past someone was actually
fired from IGN for given a ‘wrong’ review, but here we’re not talking about the
‘quality’ of reviews, but more about their content, what they’re talking about,
and in case of the L&T 2019-reboot, it is the fact that Lady’s owners, are
an interracial couple. Considering that L&T took place in the first half of
the 20th century or so, when interracial relationships and marriages
were illegal in some countries and states, this is simply an anachronism – and
also a case of ‘wokeness’ done wrong, not unlike as to how it happened back in
‘Dark Phoenix-2019’, (remember, the Mystique-Xavier interaction scene? Yeesh),
only more blatantly so. This is nothing new for Disney, of course – for
example, the current ‘Spider-Men’ films try to match up the Anglo-American
Spidey with ‘people of color’ – Elizabeth Toomes, (herself a daughter of an
Anglo-American father and an Afro-American mother) in ‘Homecoming’, and MJ
herself in ‘Far From Home’ – but because these movies are good movies and are set in modern times, rather than in the past,
unlike a ‘King Arthur’ or a ‘Robin Hood’ movie, this works.
Again, in real life, there are several aspects to the
interracial issue, especially in North America. In Canada, I have seen plenty
of interracial couples – on bus stops and in buses, in stores and on streets,
and so on – and no one cares. Even Don Cherry seems to have issue not with the
interracial aspect of immigration; rather he is rejecting all immigrants
outright, by claiming that they are not true Canadians, but are rather taking
advantage of them and Canada itself as a whole. This… is clearly the case of
the horseradish that is as bitter as the bitter radish is, but while we seem to
be splitting hairs between the rotten apples, it seems that Hollywood has gone
the other way around, and lumped this current stage of social affairs with the
past.
…The current state of casual interracial affairs has taken
years, if not decades to develop, and both U.S. and Canada underwent a lot of
hard effort to reach it. By comparison, in the time set in L&T, both the
original and the remake, this effort – aka the integration – was not even in
the works, though it must be acknowledged that it is there, sort of: we’re
talking about a relationship between a ‘posh’ Lady and a ‘street-smart’ but ‘poor’
Tramp: a social interaction slash integration… minus the racial angle. In the 2019
remake, Disney tried to take this one-step further, to the modern level, but
because the movie is still set in the past, it does not really work. God knows
why, the movie is primarily about dogs, rather than people, they could’ve just
set it in modern times and then an interracial human couple would’ve seen
perfectly natural, but there you are, a genuine social anachronism in a Disney
movie, one that not even IGN couldn’t ignore.
This brings us to the upcoming Sam & Bucky ‘Captain
America’ Disney+ show, again because of the entire interracial issues in the
USA. From what we were told, Sam & Bucky will not have it easy by
transitioning to the new Cap – on one hand, MCU’s version of Zemo is coming
back, complete with his trademark purple mask now, (but keep in mind, that in
MCU he isn’t supposed to be Hydra, unlike in the comics), and on the other, we’re
going to get introduced to MCU version of John Walker, the US agent. He is
supposed to be one of those Captain America variants done wrong, who is violent
and prejudiced and evil and so forth. I remember a comic arc when Cap
encountered this sort of a character – it was Nuke. That comic arc was set in
the so-called ‘Ultimate Universe’ (Earth-1610 if anyone cares), and so Nuke was
Frank Simpson rather than William Simpson… as he is known in MCU. In MCU,
Nuke/William Simpson was part of Netflix’s ‘Defenders’, but it does not mean
that he could not appear in its’ other parts, (especially since his part in JJ was
not that big, actually), but instead we are getting John Walker/US agent in Sam
& Bucky. Fun.
…Rounding out the cast is MCU’s version of Sharon Carter,
(agent 13), who, for a while, was supposedly a love interest for Steve Rogers,
but sometime after the CA: CW film she just vanished from MCU. It will be
interesting to see as for how long she will stick around this time. Anything
else?
…Well, people are beginning to compare the conclusion of
MLP: FIM series to MCU’s AoS, claiming that both shows used plot twists and
turns incorrectly, but they are wrong. Rather, MLP: FIM is Hasbro’s answer to
HBO’s GoT, as both were great and long-lasting shows that did more poorly in
their finales, as both were about gone and done officially and for good, while
pissing-off the fans in the process. …But it does not matter! They are over! Only
not! They are still around! Hasbro is already talking about the G5 ponies,
while HBO is already working on the Targaryen family saga, as presented by one George
Martin, so yay, really. Pause.
We have steered far off course, and it is time for us to
take a break. This is it for now, see you all soon, (hopefully).
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