Gerami

Both parties are not the same. One side isn’t moving toward reform as fast as they should. The other is embracing terror and repression as policy. Joe Biden is imperfect but basically a decent human being; same with Kamala Harris. They’ve made mistakes. If you think they’ve committed “crimes,” congratulations, you’re dumb enough to buy into right wing propaganda. The alternative was literally dismantling the foundations of American democracy.

These people have literally ruined lives, and you think nigga Biden’s arthritis was just acting up when he signed those bills. Miss me with that “tHey mAde mIstAkeS!!!” Bullshit.

This shit isn’t a fucking mistake. Ruining peoples lives isn’t a fucking mistake. Killing innocent civilians oversees for fucking money isn’t a fucking mistake.

Biden already said during the town hall debate that he regrets his vote for the crime bill and he didnt fully comprehend before the damage it did, AFTER people pushed him on it and presented him with the facts. That means activism works and people have the power to effect change. Now people are paying attention more than ever. They have to remain on alert and continue to push for reform to ensure this administration doesn’t get complacent and continues to live up to its promises.

So hard, to downplay this man and woman’s horrible actions, as some kind of “mistake”

Do I need to continuously list his sins out to you, to show much he has gotten away with, to show how he played a huge role in building this horrible establishment we see today, do i need to do that?

“They shouldn’t be held accountable for they’re past actions”

I want you to tell that, to millions of people affected by drone strikes from Iraq to Yemen, I want you tell that to the people who have suffered under police brutality, because this literal war criminal, helped create a bill that fuckin militarized the police, the millions of people who had their lives destroyed because of mass incarceration, fuckin Justice Clarence Thomas was smeared by this man, he lied, and painted him as a rapist Just so he wouldn’t be able to be sworn into being a Justice, to millions of people affected by student loans today, he helped with the war on drugs, he was there, he’s the one that built the fucking cages and his been locking kids in there for quite a while, he was pro-segregationist, he labeled blacks “super predators”, he is very inappropriate around women, and you have the gall, to say that sentence.

Kamala Harris, this disgusting piece of shit, manages to somehow offend the very people she supposedly is meant to represent, somehow Biden and Harris have a lot in common on having a jolly old time on arresting Black people for non violent drug offenses, and to add insult to injury, she even laughs about it saying “I smoke from time to time”, she incarcerated thousands of people and proceeds the very thing she incarcerated people for herself, you need to know that these type of charges literally take these peoples lives. They can’t even get out till they hit their 40s or even 50s, for non violent drug charges, she’s not even that great of a prosecuter, like the pig she is, she has blood on her fucking hands, not even releasing evidence for men on death row until after they have been executed, yes she killed them, by simply not releasing evidence that could have saved their lives. She just loves fucking with poor single black mothers who cannot afford to get their kids to school everyday so she’s just gonna arrest them for truancy, she also loves getting people to report undocumented immigrant children to be handed over to ICE, and stripped away from their parents, she doesn’t seem to care much for trans women since she likes to lock them up in the mens part of the prison, which cause the subsequent rape and torture of a trans woman. I could go on and on about these two.

Mistakes. I like how you use that word. As if, he just said some racist statement 50 years ago and tried to retract on it. As if Harris just said some off color joke back then.

You treat these people like they’re old grandpa and auntie with misguided opinions, when one of them is a corrupted career politician that has been in this game of politics for over 50 years. These people have blood on their hands, they ruined tons of lives, they destroyed families, they have managed to fuck over so many people.

War crimes and imperialism, thats just a mistake he can change 🥺

Mass incarceration of black people, it was a mistake people can change 🥺

Do you hear yourself? Do you fucking hear yourself.

These are people with blood on their hands, and the only way I know they feel guilt for their sins, is if they decided to fucking turn themselves in and live the rest of their lives as political prisoners. They need to face what they did. If they felt regret, they would show it. They would.

But because they said it, it totally means they regret it.

> Meanwhile, once again, you have an administration actively encouraging white supremacy, voter fraud, terrorism, treason and violence.

Citation needed. And if you bring up ‘Charlottesville”, you automatically lose, for reasons I am quite willing to explain.

Was reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and this little bit came up.

Apparently, contrary to popular assumption, under the new religious way of governing, BOTH Men and women had to change their way of dressing, throw away their possession, and behave differently to appease those few in power. Doing anything different meant that you opposed what the government wanted and you would be deemed a traitor (which more often than not got you jailed or executed.)

Even in her book, most of the people “taken away and never heard from again” (arrested, interogated, and killed for not adhering to the new rules) were male. The same rules that tons of men (including her father) were actually against and tried very hard to oppose.

Or perhaps the comic page also put into Satrapi’s book about how girls were given an education on how to be a housewife while boys were being taught how to be child soldiers. How the boys and their parents were being taught that dying was the ultimate honor.

“You don’t just say ‘men suffer too’”. But that’s the thing. People honestly don’t know that men suffer too. Entire governments don’t understand this. The mere acknowledgement that men face inequalities is often seen as laughable, as misogyny. People get defensive, quite literally like what you’re doing now .

Literally no one says that women “dont have it so bad because men suffer”. Men’s suffering is rarely even recognized. Again, you just proved that you took the inclusion of men in recognized issues as some sort of attack on women.

“ i noticed that you dropped the conversation when I mentioned which gender works more”

I didnt because you didnt mention it. But if you really want to go there, it would be men. It depends in what you define as “work”, but since I mentioned men and boys quite literally conscripted and taught that dying wasnt a big deal, I would say that would be a pretty good indicator. Not that any of that matters. You tried to change the conversation because the original point was lost on you and you couldnt offer any valid counterargunent.

So anyway, the assumption is often that bad things only happened to women. That inequalities only happened to women. Entire governments and activist groups spout this. And someone who actually lived it, literally a picture from her very book, shows that tons of these things happened to men too. You can get all angry and defensive that women aren’t receiving 100% of the attention and sympathy, but don’t you dare say you support gender equality when you discourage talking about half the population, especially when someone who lived them is quite literally exposing inequalities to address.

Men’s suffering is *constantly* recognized, which is only natural, since even the most progressive governments on the planet are generally run by men. Are there areas where that suffering is accepted as the status quo or minimized because only the right class of men suffer? Sure, absolutely.

Again, youre angry that men are included. She didnt even focus on men. She just briefly included them. And youre angry. Defensive. Offended.

No, issues men face are not widely recognized. Basically anywhere. Rape is still gendered for a majority of the world’s population, even in much of the US. But include men in talks about rape and you get…well the reaction youre giving now. Men are disproportionately ignored in cases of domestic violence by police, society, and the government. A wildly disproportionate lack of government funded shelters in every country that has them, male victims being more likely to be arrested themselves, and even an entire country (India, with a HUGE population) not eve counting female on male DV as DV. Where issues like police brutality, where men make up an overwhelming dispropirtionate majority of victims, is made entirely about black people. Where setecing disparities that are 6 times larger than sentencing disparities between black and white people, literally backed by gendered crime definitions, is completely ignored.

I’m telling you that issues men face, even the same issues other groups face, is quite often ignored by society, activist groups, and entire governments. It isn’t considered progressive to care about men for being male (unless they are a celebrity). Including men in equality and standing up for men, regardless of the issue, is typically frowned upon. Again, it typically results in people like you getting offended or defensive.

Again, literally all that was done here was the author (who literally lived through this) mentioning the issue of societal dress codes affecting men too. She didnt say that it only affected men. She didnt make the book about men specifically. She sprinkled in a few comic panels including men as victims. And you had an absolute fit over it.

Youre exactly why it’s so difficult for men to come forward with their legitimate issues, and why people dont take said issues seriously.

Also nice of you to ignore that I brought up little boys, preteens, being conscripted. Not being taught math or history, but survival tactics in school because they were very likely to die, as if it wasnt a big deal. Or perhaps how, even in her book, it was mostly men getting murdered by the government for not conforming to the new rules. You worked really hard to minimalize that, didnt you?

No money, no credit cards, identification is all vocal/fingerprints/retinal, so no wallet.

Again, doors are voice activated, or just unlocked by entering a code.  No keys.  

Communication devices are tiny and stick onto clothing starting in Next Gen.  TOS had bulkier communication that they carried around or kept in, like, packs and stuff, so the arguments for pockets is a little more valid, and if I remember correctly, those costumes did have pockets, tho I could be wrong about that.  But anything post TNG, the point is moot anyway.

Tricorders and phasers are really the only thing anyone’s carrying around, and that’s usually on away missions where they’d be bring their packs/holsters or just have them out.  I mean, who wants to stick a phaser in their pocket?  

Because of computerization, automation, and better efficiencies in workflow.

>week has 168 hours

>” a majority of your life”

This just in; Tankies are still bad at math.

Yeah, there’s a reason for that.

Lisa Edelstein is Jewish.  As are Idina Menzel and Amy Winehouse, both of whom I have seen compared in looks to Gothel.  Gothel’s design is a pretty clear caricature of ethnically Jewish women.  

This is a pretty good contrast between Rapunzel and Gothel.  Rapunzel has the “typical Disney face”:

Here’s a more close up look at her features.

The hooked nose becomes even more pronounced as she becomes “eviler.”

If you wanted to claim that there was noting out of the ordinary for Disney animation when it came to Gothel’s features, you would have to find at least one Disney princess or heroine with similar characteristics (long hooked nose and dark curly hair, etc).

But here is what we have is -

small noses that turn up at the end:

wide, flatter noses (though cheers to Disney for not putting button noses on their characters of color, although Esmerelda’s clothing design deserves another essay on Rromani stereotypes and there are some major issues with Pocahontas as well)

And then a few misc noses (again, props for Jasmine’s nose not being a button):

Apart from just the design of Gothel, there’s also the whole: “obviously ‘other’ (read Jewish) woman kidnaps the pretty blonde (read: gentile) kid to use her for ritualistic/magical purposes”

Like that right there on top of the aesthetic Jewish-coding is what pushed the antisemitic caricature over the top for me.  It harkens back to antisemitic blood libel that claimed that Jews stole gentile children for all manner of nefarious reasons. Even when Gothel is in “mother” role to Rapunzel, she’s is shown as nagging and passive aggressive, both antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish women.

There is no one thing that makes her an antisemitic caricature, but the design, plus the storyline she plays out, plus her characterization cement the overall character as antisemitic.  

Jew-coding a villain is not in itself always antisemitic when there are also Jewish coded heroes. Rapunzel does not have that.

Having a villain steal a baby for magical/ritualistic reasons is not always antisemitic as long as the villain is not Jew-coded.  Rapunzel fails this as well.

Having a nagging and passive aggressive mother character is not antisemitic provided that she is not, again, coded as Jewish.  Rapunzel fails once again.

Hope this helps.

Jewish people don’t get that.  When we are portrayed in live action, our characters are more often than not whitewashed and in other media, our features are used and caricaturized to create “evil looking” villains.

You don’t see it because you’ve been ingrained with the idea that “ethnic” features are just “how you make a character look evil.”  You don’t look at Gothel and see your mother.  You don’t see yourself and your people.  You don’t see decades of propaganda aimed at fostering hate against you and ultimately seeking to destroy you.  

But seeing how you also seem to think that saying you’re not attracted to an entire race of people ISN’T racist, you really don’t get any say on any of this.

So really, you need to chill the fuck out and stop telling marginalized people to stop talking about the tools of our own marginalization.

Let’s play a game I like to call: Movie Villain or Antisemitic Propaganda:

Many “evil witch” tropes were built on European antisemitic stereotypes, not just in appearance but in the storylines they play out as well. Greediness, stealing children, killing children, hunger for power, etc.  Every time a movie villain design uses stereotyped Jewish features to communicate “evilness” to an audience, they perpetuate the marginalization of the people they are using. 

One big issue I have is that Gothel’s didn’t start out as the antisemitic caricature that made it to screen.  Much of the early concept art has a more dark romanticism feel.  

They changed the original design. Presumably to make Gothel more “other” from the good characters in the movie.  At some point, a decision was made that dark curly hair and a hooked nose wound better convey their villain.

It really doesn’t matter if any of this was intentional, I’d actually bet that it wasn’t.  However, antisemitic tropes are so engrained in our societies that people like you, even when confronted with a step by step break down of what it is, feel comfortable thinking that there’s nothing wrong with it and mocking those calling it out as if we are overreacting.

You seem to have completely ignored the majority of my post.  It is the character design, plus the characterization, plus the story line that mirrors blood libel that makes Gothel an antisemitic character.  It’s not just about someone of a certain race or ethnicity being a villain.  It’s about how stereotypes of a certain ethnic group are understood as “villainous” due to villains being repeatedly coded as Jewish over decades of film and tv.

Now, please bear with me because now that I’ve gotten my emotions out of the way, I’m going to try to be more mellow in what I’m about to lay out:

First, Mother Gothel’s visual appearance. Before everything else, I want to ask how she’s darker complexion?

In fact in some scenes, she even looks paler than Rapunzel, like she has less color. I don’t know where you’re getting that, and this is a genuine question.

As for the dark curly hair part… Mother Gothel was physically based off of two people.

1. Her actress, Donna Murphy:

Who, shockingly, has dark curly hair and somewhat of a hooked nose.

2. Cher. Honestly I doubt there’s a lot of people who don’t know who Cher is, but either way:

So Gothel is based off of two very real people, but somehow that’s a caricature and somehow that MIGHT be racist. Not to mention a quote:  “The directors also strived to make it obvious that Mother Gothel and Rapunzel are not related. Greno told Animation World Network, “When they’re standing together, it is very clear that this is not a mother and daughter, just by the frames of their bodies, their hair, the pigments of their skin…”

A lot of people aren’t aware of this, but when Disney characters undergo redesigns, it’s usually after the character’s actor gets cast, the character designers get a sample of their voices, and they want to rework the character’s physical appearance to match the actor or actress along with an unrelated famous person. The same thing happened to Yzma from Emperor’s New Groove when Eartha Kitt was cast to play her:

And Ursula is based off of a drag queen by the stage name of Divine.

 Even with Gothel’s actress “Murphy revealed that scenes with Gothel and Rapunzel were actually recorded opposite one of the directors impersonating Moore,[5] who also explained to Murphy that Gothel’s design will continue to evolve as the character begins to adapt the actress’ mannerisms.”

Now, as for the characterization of Mother Gothel… “ You don’t look at Gothel and see your mother.” That’s not true, because the artistic directers Byron Howard and Nathan Greno interviewed several female Disney employees and asked them to tell them about negative traits that their own mothers had.

“Seeking inspiration for Gothel and Rapunzel’s “bizarre” relationship, Greno and Howard conducted a series of interviews with several female Disney employees,[3] asking them to list qualities in their mothers that “they found annoying and cloying or restricting”,[8] specifically “the things that their mothers would do that made them feel trapped or made them feel smothered” to make the villain appear more relatable.[7] Gothel’s “Mother Knows Best” line “Getting kind of chubby” was in fact borrowed from one of these interviews.” Which also lead into the characterization argument. 

The movie has to have a villain. The classic story of Rapunzel had a villain. They took a blend of EVERYTHING: Physical looks based on real people, character traits based on real people, and the story’s backbone that there was an evil sorceress who had locked Rapunzel in a tower.

Calm Harm can be tailored to your needs and will provide strategies to help you get past those crucial moments of wanting to harm.

It’s also totally FREE.

We found you

whovians, hop in your TARDISes

supernatural fans, get the shotguns

sherlockians, hire your consulting criminals

tributes, knock an arrow

avengers fans, assemble

lotr fans, unsheath Sting

Rizzles fans, grab your guns and scalpels

Slash gash Terror Crew, grab your chainsaws.

Pierce The Veil fans, get the Sheepcat.