#jakey-jakes

Am I mad? Am I sad? Am I smad? Am I missing out on telling Annaleigh Ashford how much I appreciate her support for Black Lives Matter, her founding cooperation on Black Theatre, her love for Kinky Boots and drinking whiskey on the rocks in her kitchen in complete Grease outfits? Yes, I am missing out on that. I am also missing out on an opportunity to ask Jake Gyllenhaal how he’s doing, since he said in several interviews he’d rather have a conversation and not take a selfie. He would have been absolutely terrified, I’m pretty sure I’m taller than he is and I have a few decades in straight white males telling me I’m “intimidating”. It would have been hilarious and I would have been drunk, and it would have just been a good evening, at least for me. I don’t know about Jake. That’s like, two and a half months of performances he won’t have to do on the other side of the world, so he’s probably relieved and will continue to not do anything about what’s happening in the United States and play with his dog. Honestly, I wish I had a dog so I could be doing just that right now.

Instead it’s fucking 2020 and I am drowning under a pile of work, I am trying to find an arrangement with the Eurostar, I’m due to move in 6 weeks, I’m fighting with peer-review of legal papers that apparently do not cite Justice Thomas enough (like I would ever even bother), and I think it’s hot today but I don’t have anywhere else to go because I don’t want to sweat underneath my mask. Is it a good time to start drinking? It’s 3pm so, yes, I’m going to pretend today is a normal day in July and wait until 9pm for my partner to be in-between meetings to uncork some wine. Listen: everything is not postponed or rescheduled, it’s cancelled. It’s not just Sondheim on Embankment. Two cult music venues in Manchester have permanently closed, and NYC is dying. I know there’s a pandemic and none of us are supposed to come out of it unscathed, but this is pushing it a little bit. There’s so much political apathy toward mass death, being from medical ignorance or police killings, that it’s just contributing towards the snowballing of bullshit that we’re all going through right now.

Let’s laugh through the pain, everyone.

On the grand scheme of things - or even a little one - it doesn’t matter. I don’t want a voucher for another play: I don’t live in London and I don’t have the luxury of free time to devote to art, so that will be a gift to someone. I had just carved out one evening in July to go see this play because I needed to drink copious amounts of Merlot in a plushy red seat, but it’s nothing compared to what everyone else is losing. My tiny inconvenience is just that: some whiny first problem crap about how my JFK to LHR flight would have probably been cancelled anyway (or not, considering airlines continue to operate to the detriment of the safety of their staff). But really, cancelled altogether? Not even an alternative? Not even a word from anyone that is involved?

The first hour of the movie stretches out along with the fatigued slowness of a torn body that is trying to fit on a narrow hospital bed. It’s uncomfortable, it doesn’t seem to go anywhere, and Jake Gyllenhaal’s character appears to have a background viewers should know about. He twitches. He has an impossible temper. He breaks Paul Dano’s nose for no discernable reason. It’s the same discomfort I have when watching Law & Order: SVU: damn if I don’t love Eliot Stabler, but my brain inevitably goes, oh my, is this police violence? So throughout the whole movie, I pointed to no one else in particular: ah, this is a constitutional violation. Ah, I’m not sure he had reasonable suspicion to enter here. Ah, that should immediately be investigated by internal affairs if this took place in a precinct. Mmmm, surely if Hugh Jackman was black he wouldn’t have made it through the first forty minutes.

Occupational hazard.

But leave it to Denis Villeneuve to normalize pathological behaviour for the sake of art or whatever he thinks he did with Enemy. I feel the first hour should be a little less about how cold it’s supposed to be in Conyers, GA on Thanksgiving, and a little more about how Detective Loki lost his sense of humor probably around the time he acquired cheap tattoos from the time he was in a hardcore punk band (this is the only explanation). His chief is the recipient of his disdain and anger, and if real life is anything to go by, Loki would have been disciplined faster than I can place a Starbucks order, but what do I know, he enters houses despite being unequivocally told not to and starts searching them without a warrant, so I think what Loki does is basically whatever the fuck he wants, because he’s a rebel, and there’s no bad cops, just bad apples, amirite?

Anyway, once you get past the long exposure that is characteristic of someone who is unable to adapt a screenplay, you enter the real problem: families are broken because of the disappearance of their kids, an old lady with a cardigan from 1946 knitted by a late teenage Ted Bundy is making an appearance, and Hugh Jackman starts torturing Paul Dano. Now, Paul Dano is an outstanding actor, with this silent radiation of power that few people do have; the problem is here, besides the fact his total screentime must be around seven minutes, it disappears under prosthetics. Little known fact, there are 14 bones in the human face, and apparently they’re all broken. A particularly gruesome scene sees a reluctant Terrence Howard (completely underused, but he’s black in Hollywood) watching in horror as Hugh Jackman swings a hammer near Paul Dano’s bloody and sweaty face, slamming it on a sink, and punching holes right next to his ears. The hammer could very well land with full force on Dano’s already broken face. (Dano’s torture will continue, and judging by the extent of the injuries over the period of time the movie takes place - 8 days or so - without medical attention, his character should be dead, at the very least sustaining permanent and incapaciting injuries. It’s not the case.)

It’s fucked up. So, yes, the situation is fucked up. Yes, Terrence Howard is the only conscience of this movie. I’m always wondering if instances of torture in movies have a role to play or if they could be replaced by better storytelling. I’m not clicking on Prime to have (redacted profession) in my face, and I would hate to normalize vigilante behaviour. But in this story, it works, and that’s why I think I liked this movie, which was 7 years ago, meaning two lifetimes in quarantine years. The torture of a poor, arrested development man whose back story is only revealed in a sordid way at the end illustrates the descent into oblivion and dehumanization of Hugh Jackman’s character, who, at some point, seems to realise he’s never going to get out of the criminal hole he’s dug for himself. It’s just not clear why the police never sees in him anything but a man destroyed by grief (because he’s white! It’s the economic anxiety of a former railroad town!). Is this movie about the violence of grief, or the fact grief exposes inherent violence? Are we all capable of this?

WE WILL NEVER KNOW. This is grazed upon, but just like a hand on a hotplate, it seems to immediately withdraw from it. There’s no resolution. No human is deserving, so we should be grateful for global warming.

Speaking of which, it’s a crime to undercast Viola Davis. This woman is incredible, and I’m tired of seeing her in third-tier roles, where she plays second fiddle, stereotypical characters to second roles. But hey, she’s a black woman in Hollywood! Come forward, directors who have taken advantage of her talent.

It’s unclear how Detective Loki gets any work done considering he smashes his entire equipment in front of uniformed officers, and spends most of the movie parking his car never locking the door, never rolling up the window, recklessly driving and following instincts that are never explained. (lol at him driving through sleet, at night, with only one eye open and a concussed head. I kept waiting for him to die at the wheel. This is impossible.) How does this man have a job? I don’t know, I ask myself every time I see a cop. He seems to follow threads only his mind can fathom. He’s also working alone on the case involving the simultaneous disappearances of two minors, which is frankly odd (he probably shoved his former partner into a bin alongside his Windows 7 computer). For two and a half hours, he doesn’t see the information right in front of his face, which is the Annie Wilkes of this movie (remember the aforementioned grandma with the Ted Bundy knit, played to sociopathic perfection by Melissa Leo?). I would have told him, but he doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who answers well to pointers, let alone issued by a woman. All we’re good for is telling him he won’t have a fortune cookie today (and of course an asian waitress in a chinese restaurant would know the chinese horoscope by heart! my god, Villeneuve, check yourself before you wreck yourself).

The ending is extremely frustrating, but Villeneuve hates endings. He hates tying things up, because then it would probably require the work of actually addressing inconsistencies or failures of continuity. The easiest way to address the vigilante was to make sure that Loki would stand right next to his shallow grave, pretend the whistling (???!!! the man has been buried for days in frozen ground but you do you) is in his head, which is frankly possible. Maybe if Hugh Jackman had sung  from Taylor Swift’s seminal album RED, which deserves a Grammy, he would have turned around and screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU SINGING MOTHERFUCKER?” and the movie could have ended with the fact that it’s okay to begin again, and start wearing heels even if he didn’t want you to. Anyway, Loki can’t always win. After all, remember, he smashed his computer, so the very fact he’s supervising a forensic dig and doesn’t even think of moving parked cars (I laughed out loud), so who knows. Georgia is not in good hands.

All in all I’m an asshole that can never be satisfied, and this is a good movie that deserves some serious editing. All the speculation we can have about how Loki still has a job and is generally left to make decisions on his own, even with a very erratic suspect in custody (screaming “no! no! no!” when someone shoves a gun into their mouth is not how you were taught de-escalation, my dude), is difficult. Hugh Jackman flying off the handle and being told to get a grip by his teenage son (an underrated performance by Dylan Minnette) is much more interesting. Once again, this is a Denis Villeneuve movie in which female partners have little to no lines, and are only there to cry with a photo during half a shot. It would have been interesting to see how the friendship between the mothers would have been affected, how Viola Davis truly reacted to the knowledge her husband was complicit in the abduction, detention and torture of a man, etc. None of this is addressed.

And then, later, all we know is aaaaah, Paul Dano is going to be fiiiiiiiine, everyone. He was himself an abducted child and then was tortured by a couple of random men who never bothered to check on his identity, but that’s ok. Loki drops the newspaper with as much interest as I do my phone bill, and then he moves on. A little girl who is suffering the effects of a drug that is never mentioned but is obviously having a central nervous system impact tries to say hello, and we’ll never know whether there is a possibility to recover.

I’m not going to be a complete douche and say the prisoners of this movie are us; there is possibly a line somewhere that says we are all prisoners, or that everyone is a prisoner of its own mind and its own background, but mostly I’m thinking, maybe we should discharge Loki from his position and ensure he doesn’t get to carry an off-duty weapon? I don’t know, his face screams “domestic violence incident”.

Meanwhile Hugh Jackman has been in this hole for 7 years because NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT THOUGHT OF MOVING OBJECTS FROM AN EXCAVATION SCENE, I’ll never get over it, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.

What happens during this strange period when several industries are out of work and have to postpone their performances is that they’re trying to keep their spot in the, well, spotlight, by opining on things. There is plenty to opine on. Brexit is one thing. As far as I know, Jake has not called the Kentucky Attorney General to ask that the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in her sleep be arrested. We have already covered that Jakey-Jakes is not interested in opining on the following:

Whether Black Lives Matter

The importance of community-based initiatives during a pandemic

The accountability of police forces

Lack of PoC representation in Hollywood

His role in #OscarsSoWhite

Whether dating women that are just 20 when you’re 40 constitutes predatory behavior

All of those issues are just like Black, indigenous, and queer lives: they matter. Jake isn’t interested. He also isn’t interested in criticism of movies in which he appears, such as the gratuitous rape scenes in Denis Villeneuve movies, the fact one of the directors he worked with praised Roman Polanski, or that it’s frankly quite odd women had to perform the emotional labour of explaining to him sexual harassment was Bad (TM). All of those are issues that only this new generation cares about, because it was so much better before. Anyway, people are asking what Jake Gyllenhaal is watching during his self-imposed exile. Instead of answering “I’m rewatching Friends while playing Words with Friends on my phone”, like everybody else, here’s what he served us:

So many opportunities to do the right thing, absolutely none taken.

“... would not have passed muster with the woke police”, let me translate this for you.

“It contains absolutely unacceptable homophobic / racist / sexist  tropes that society has decided was no longer going to be the norm.”

“the woke police” is a term usually leveraged by conservative twitter pundits, aka URL Badmen, who are angry at The Youf for having values; who praise the status quo of a bygone era in which considerable sections of the population were deprived of rights and/or had to live in fear of retribution, humiliation, or destitution because they were not recognized as being the white straight male dominant force. Anything that goes against this is usually called “the woke police”. Again, for someone who is much too often parading his subscription to the Democratic party (which, I have to say, means jack shit to me), I have to stand up for my generation, which is Jake’s, and apologize to any person this is obviously seeking to offend.

I don’t give a flying fuck if he likes me. Interview after interview, he keeps saying he wishes people would have a conversation with him, instead of just taking a photo. It would help if he didn’t constantly look as if it was a chore, but I thought I would one day take him up on this offer: “hey Jake, how are you? Good performance tonight, thank you. How do you feel?” or something like that. I would probably be taken away by security for being so daring, mind you, but at this point I just kind of want to ask: what did we ever do to you? We are simply asking to exist, and to advocate for ourselves, right here. No one asked you to absorb Tom Friedman’s columns.

So I went on the internet to find the recesses in which the phrase “woke police” lies, usually in some corners that I avoid. Well, the first google searches are in: conspiracy theorist peddling Spiked Online, “Why i’m anti-woke”; Conservative and populist NY Post “Why the woke police have ruined entertainment”; the even more populist and downright racist Douglas Murray in the Daily Mail, “good riddance to the woke kids”, an obscure South African website’s opinion section that argues demanding the end of racial or sexist slurs (which, frankly, is just what being “woke” is) is the end of free speech. Yo, no one is an absolutist over here, whatever-your-name-is! My god, every undereducated white dude is qualified to be a columnist these days. Let me give you more exemples of where Jakey-Jakes may have gotten his not-so-cute little quip: right wing UK paper The Telegraph, and because I already feel I need to shower, I will give you far right extremist Ben Shapiro on Fox News. For those of us who live and breathe politics and international relations, and who happen to be progressive because human rights matter, the Guardian, who published an interview of Jake Gyllenhaal where he bullied their journalist, is explaining that this is a myth:

Woke – a term once used by African Americans to denote people who were alert to racism and social injustice – has been retired. As is often the case with black innovations, overuse by the white mainstream killed off its authenticity. Today, the person using the word is likely to be a rightwing culture warrior angry at a phenomenon that lives mainly in their imagination. 

In short, we moved on, because we became tired to fight for what we believe was a basic standard of decency, and then whypipo used it to make fun of us, so we picked something else. “Political correctness” is extremely triggering in some circles, I found. So we tip-toe around the issue to preserve the fee-feels of people who still think watching The Cosby Show is palatable entertainment and who turn a blind eye to Roman Polanski because he’s talented, or really do question whether Ke$ha stood to lose her entire career after her sexual assault. There is no woke police, because as this blog keeps mentioning and as those who know me know I write about a lot, law enforcement is not exactly about enforcing the law as much as it is enforcing state power (we will not be discussing whether the law is in itself an instrument of state power in this blog, you will enrol in my classes and pay the tuition fees), but also because policing? Eh. Nah, we got our share.

But the truth is, there are no woke police. Instead there are – and here is the real enemy of the reactionary right – a lot of people who recognise that the progress that has been made is all the result of struggle. Barring those who would still like to deny women reproductive rights, who use overtly racist language (among these I include our prime minister) or who dislike the idea that Black Lives Matter, mainstream opinion no longer advocates a return to segregation, violent racism or the formal exclusion of women from social, political and economic life. But these gains are the result of constant, relentless struggle, as each era has battled against the conservatism of the time. A struggle in which people like Murray have always been on the wrong side, but whose gains end up benefiting us all.

There you go, Jakey-Jakes. You can enjoy your quaint little show that is perpetuating sexism and immigrant tropes because you feel this odd sense of nostalgia from the last hoarse breaths of the Cold War, the way I sometimes lose myself in thought over the “Fallout Shelter” metal sign I unscrewed from a brick wall nearby and rescrewed on my apartment door. The most ardent defenders of a boomer version of Jake Gyllenhaal would point out he said “fair enough” afterwards, but let’s all be honest with each other here and realise that was not him conceding he was wrong, but doing the equivalent of an eyeroll to appease the family at the Thanksgiving table.

Yesterday I came across this series of slides on instagram that explained why silence is violence, and why choosing not to be political or to remain silent in this specific era when a movement is building to entirely restructure a nation, and maybe the world, is inherently racist. I would say it’s definitely inherently privileged as fuck, to be able to choose whether or not one would engage. But the slides did make me think. Not engaging in civil rights movements is not a free ride theory exemption. There is no conflict, just transition. As such, it requires the participation of all. You can check those slides here and make up your mind. You might disagree and that’s alright.

It all started when I watched Enemy, a movie I only liked because I kept laughing throughout the entire thing - a possibility only occurring because my brain had blocked all the spiders - ever since we are introduced to the character of Adam, the professor, teaching what I assume is a poli-sci class at the U of Toronto. For those who don’t know, and are not that interested in international academia, U of Toronto is quite a good school. It’s not McGill, but it’s also not whatever brutalist enthusiast Denis Villeneuve thinks it is. I laughed because whatever Adam teaches, I hope was to a class of first year graduates, as this was an introduction to a poor reshaping of Hobbes that is usually tackled in 9th grade (I was only selectively absent in 9th grade). I remember texting a snippet to a U of Toronto graduate friend asking, “U of T, u ok? xx”

Anyway, the critical skill proficiency of the students was completely irrelevant to the plot of the movie, but I then wondered what Jakey-Jakes was doing at Columbia. Given his lifelong dedication to embodying the scumbro type, I expected him to have attended the white privilege version of that, NYU, that is destroying my city at a rapid rate and clogging our Trader Joe’s queues. As for me, the only school I ever gave time to in NYC, teaching master classes (*) in (redacted) thanks to my (redacted profession) was CUNY, but we digress. Columbia did have Jakey-Jakes at some point, and his major is.... problematic, to say the least. (redacted) and I started this blog because Jake Gyllenhaal is a problematic fave, but there’s a line between Matt McGorry and... majoring in Tibetan Buddhism and Eastern Mysticism.

And then he dropped out.

That’s too much information to put into my hands. I’ve been laughing since I found out, which was three days ago. I laughed through the read, I laughed talking to (redacted) about this, I laughed with a friend going to Columbia for her PhD in law, I laughed while running a 5K, I laughed into a flask of rum and I laughed while taking an ice bath. It’s been a pretty goddamn amazing week and I strongly encourage all my fellow angels struggling with clinical depression to know that Jake Gyllenhaal majored in Tibetan Buddhism and Eastern Mysticism at Columbia University before dropping out after two years. I think this could be the new prozac. White Saviour and Other Drugs should be the new name of this blog. I can’t man, it’s just so fucking funny.

I’m going to do one thing I never do, and only as a metaphor because I’m not a bloody monster - watering my wine: there are several elements at play here. One, college is for exploration and we’ve all had electives that could definitely be construed as a quest for a personality or chasing a crush that we didn’t know majored in something completely out of left field (like Tibetan Buddhism and Eastern Mysticism). He also chose not to graduate in that, which can be understood as a rejection, in which Jakey-Jakes would have awoken from a two-year long acid stupor in Washington Heights and asked himself, “the fuck am I doing here?” and bailed downtown. That, we will never know. Of course, I could ask, but I don’t think Columbia will answer. Because maybe Columbia is to blame to begin with. So I took a look at their catalog of undergraduate classes.

All of those; good options for an actor. You might argue he doesn’t need it. I agree. But that would make sense. I assume this was this general degree. Granted, this is really interesting, mostly because it tackles various issues including the Chinese Revolution, the occupation of Tibet, and provides language classes for those seeking to follow-up with a Masters degree. But this is not a degree in Tibetan Buddhism: this is a degree in Eastern Asia regional socio-politics. You can pick classes affecting the major texts and the way gender has evolved over centuries. Hell, they even have classes on representation in film and specialised literature. Instead, we have a Madonna-like obsession with Eastern Asia from white people that are seeking a philosophical answer to the mundane life of the ruling class, and it has a name: orientalism. It’s the same kind of attitude that makes some people in line at Starbucks touch my hair without my permission, or that one guy at a party in Park Slope who told me I was “ethnically confusing”, and that he could not “place me”, and that made him “uncomfortable”. Orientalism is not straightforward racism: it’s a fascination for what does not belong to you in a way that can be drawn to appropriation. So I’m calling it that. Because I have no proof it is anything different. I read somewhere that he went on a trip to Bhutan for no reason whatsoever, except that he could, and while I can only encourage people to travel, there has to be some sort of mindful consciousness here.

For instance, there is a genocide. Maybe discuss that for five minutes.

Eastern Asia is one of those places I’ve never been, despite being more or less close to the region. It wasn’t me, but a (redacted), who blew the whistle on the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, that he documented for PBS. Over the years of doing my (redacted profession), I would wake up in places where I did not master the language, where the sounds and temperature were foreign. I would walk around, dazed, mostly sleep-deprived, and I knew that if I was there, there was nothing positive. I remember one difficult year in which I sat on a hill of dust in (redacted country), a FOB beneath me, the chopping hum of helicopter blades above me, and wondering if it was my place; if, at the end of the day, I was not part of a form of post-colonial framework that could not apply. I ask this all the time. And sometimes, a few seas and continents away, a kid on the street would hand me orange slices, and I would put my hand over my sunglasses, listening to the distant hiss of a sol-air missile, then closing my eyes, inhaling the dust, and thinking of the cedars of Lebanon. It’s almost impossible to return from those places. Our presence there is not innocuous: it’s bearing witness to what has been forgotten and what should be reminded, constantly: the value of the human life.

So when I see this as being just another jingoistic vision to entertain the wealthy masses of a country that once paraded itself as being the policeman of the world, I have a twitch inside my front shoulder, and the tingle extends all the way to my knuckles. I am not East Asian, and it is not my place to decide whether people who can afford full tuition at Columbia University should just make hand signs with locals in Bhutan.The list of human rights violations is not insignificant (and Bhutan is far from being alone in that), but I have an issue in providing oneself relief throug distraction in a country where so many are working hard to access a modicum of security. War tourism is a despicable activity, and just the same, lack of human rights provisions is not your spring break. From this terrible Another Man interview, which was not Jakey-Jakes’ fault, this should make you shiver:

He mentions a recent trip to Bhutan, one that seems to have been undertaken on almost a whim – “Someone had said, ‘Oh, it’s a nice time to go to Bhutan.’ And I thought, ‘Where is Bhutan?’ I knew it was near India, I just didn’t know exactly where” – but which he describes as an incredible experience.

I have had people say this about my hometown, which is in Europe, and taking photos of our disturbing way to live. It was horrific. It’s never a nice fucking time, “someone”. I can’t imagine being a refugee from Bhutan and reading this. But then, you know:

He tells me about having tea at the top of a three-hour hike next to a melted glacial lake, and about another hike up to a temple where a monk has lived for 35 years. “I had tea with him too,” Gyllenhaal says. “And some very stale crackers.”

I’m sorry there was no room service, or a reservation at Buvette, in Bhutan, a country he could not even place on a map.

I don’t know to which extent Columbia University discusses it with its undergraduates and tries to raise awareness of the precarious position it is to just show up, have a good time, and bail. it probably does, and I guess it does so in junior year, meaning after he dropped out.

We are all in search of something we can’t explain, or can’t even verbalize. Some of us carry trauma that predates their own generation. We are turning to whatever we can find and learn to explain what has happened to us and what turned us into who we are. This introspection and self-analysis is necessary for growth. I have a vague memory of a silhouette next to mine flicking a half-smoked cigarette in the hot air, my brain racing wondering if this was friend or foe, meaning if I could have access to some water, or if I would die. This is how it’s always been. I would not go to Bhutan to find myself. My self has been lost somewhere, where blue helmets have dents from shrapnel. But humility, especially to local populations, was always the word.

Whenever he comes back to NYC - whenever - since he’s taking a break from work to have babies, Jake should enroll back into Columbia to finish his undergraduate credits with those, considering he even named his production company after a J.D. Salinger opus, so that’s fitting; and submit his BA thesis on how to kill me softly, with his words, killing me softly, with his song. Killing me softly. Because he’s Jake Gyllenhaal and that’s all I deserve.

The temperatures are set to rise this week in a way that my poor (redacted identity) self is not raised to handle, so I am anticipating the upcoming heat, amongst closed borders, by going for a run before the sunrise. We’ve done the Brooklyn Mile, y’all! I hope you did too, if you could. 80% of the proceeds go to the NYC Covid-19 Relief Fund, something Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t help, because he left the city to die during the pandemic. We will make sure to drop some white roses on Hart Island after all of this is over; the shape and the absence of some of our favorite New Yorkers - all New Yorkers - is dramatic and will leave a terrible taste in our mouths and souls for years to come. The trauma of having survived this moment, as we reach a second wave, is not yet explained. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, in an empty bed, in a different city, wondering how my partner made it out, after recurring nightmares triggered by her scattered and labored breathing for weeks. I have yet to be able to properly pay respect to those I couldn’t be present to bury. It’s been a difficult winter. Please wear your masks and be responsible, it’s been too much already.

Now that we are about to file the necessary paperwork to incorporate as a non-profit in NYS in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and our need to end US exceptionalism and promote human rights access for all, I wonder if Jake Gyllenhaal would campaign and fundraise for us the way he has for the Kerry / Edwards campaign. I’m sitting on a very uncomfortable chair listening to Prince very loudly to drown the noise of construction work outside my flat; I am uncomfortable, both sweating and shivering, my body having trouble adjusting to a rigorous workout schedule and utter sleep deprivation. My fingertips trace the outline of some of my tattoos, the scarred skin raised by stress, the dryness of my mouth and the uncertainty of a future that depends on others than I. My hands are cold - but they’re always cold. I spent 3 hours on the phone comforting a friend currently in LA County, like Jake Gyllenhaal, wondering if they should ask for a firearm permit, so scared they were of white supremacists entering their home. I am strictly against civilian use of weaponry, so it took hours for them to come down. Outside my window, at 2am, I heard a detonation. I ran outside immediately to figure out where it came from. I have poor reflexes. Jake Gyllenhaal is probably sleeping.

I scroll instagram absent-mindedly, congratulating Gen Z in my head for having ruined Trump’s rally in Tulsa, OK. I find a very disturbing article on NPR and I make a mental note, then open a new file on Google Drive, to work on through my (redacted profession). I wonder how long it will be. Clicking on files and folders, I open one called “production” and check where I am on the priority list and what information I am supposed to release to the public in the coming days. I have a few, on gruesome events. I click on it, and start typing. Fortunately for me, I type very fast. I open another window, for this blog. I start needing more coffee. It is getting hot out there; I grab a fistful of my hair, that is so detested by some, tight, thick knots hair, the texture a little too dry for my taste, and roll it out into a poor man’s ponytail that would leave my neck breathe out for a bit. The hair bounces almost straight out from the rest of my head; it doesn’t flow down, seamlessly, like white straight hair does. It’s a different kind of help. I open the Amazon app to order some texture-specific coconut oil products. Unlike Jake Gyllenhaal, who spends 17 hours on Fresh Direct, I can’t find everything I need just at my finger tips.

It was Juneteenth, and I marked the occasion by watching a documentary on Nina Simone, and looked at social media to see what was being done or said. The history of slavery in the US and the Civil War passed by before my eyes; Jamie Foxx, who starred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in Jarhead, a movie I liked, is doing the most trying to educate his 10 million+ followers in the history of Juneteenth and the struggle that we are still facing in this country. Jake Gyllenhaal doesn’t follow him, and I don’t know whether he is one of those meatheads singing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” in British football stadiums, but I know that I am starting to feel the second wave of exhaustion hit me as the New York City Council will soon vote on its budget and mobilization must be carried away to ensure that the NYPD will leave schools. Meanwhile, the instances of voter suppression in Georgia are rolling in; Jake Gyllenhaal doesn’t mention there are primaries ongoing. After all, if he was like me, a Warren supporter, this is nothing to be excited about, but this is still a crucial moment.

I have spent way too much time on sunday, while my partner was coming down from way too much alcohol, wondering what Jake Gyllenhaal was doing. In fact, I am pretty sure I fucked up my time on the Brooklyn Mile because it was on my mind. A lot of things are on my mind and like any other person with ADHD and anxiety disorders, I can multitask on what gives me goosebumps and slight nausea. I wonder what, in general, people do, when faced with historical moments of mobilization, if there are not on the street, or if they are not speaking up. This is not one of those eras when it was difficult to be on the frontpage of a newspaper or attending a rally. This is 2020, when teenagers can ruin the ego of an authoritarian president from the comfort of their couch. This is 2020, when we are comforted by the presence of our peers, even when we social distance and wear masks. This is 2020, when we have a super computer in our pockets telling us where to go and what to do, how to engage, and where our money is best placed. Of course, it is entirely possible Jake Gyllenhaaal logged off and deliberately chose not to drown in this information.

This is privilege.

This is privilege I don’t have. I keep wondering what it’s like to have it. We don’t even have Pride this weekend, and I’m so grateful for organizers still managing online events.

I want so hard to find not just allies, but accomplices in those battles, that when one decides to drop out of the race for civil and human rights, the disappointment is completely disproportionate. Or is it?

If you read this blog you know I have been angry on the regular (here, here, here, heeeere) about the fact that Jake Gyllenhaal, your woke bae, is in fact neither woke, nor a desirable bae for those of us for whom wealth and whiteness aren’t the norm and haven’t been since birth. Forty-four (44) days after the despicable and torturous murder of George Floyd, Jake Gyllenhaal has decided to do something. Actually, he isn’t doing anything himself, but he sent an email via his disturbingly named production company to highlight the work of a Black-owned and Black-operated small business in the city that he deserted. And somehow, this is supposed to make up for the fact that he has done a total of absolutely zero things during forty-four days, has remained absolutely silent, not even addressing his own industry in the movement. He could be perfectly quiet on the history of social justice, if he feels underequipped or undereducated, but he was blocks away when Michael B. Jordan called him and his ilk out. So he talked about Black farmers in upstate NY.

I have spoken about how exhausted I am. And that exhausted me, because at this point, I felt I was handed over a few leaves of an iceberg salad after starving for months, and I should be saying, “thank you, massa”. Well, fuck me, because this isn’t me. But boy oh boy do I sometimes wish that was me. I sometimes wish my ex boyfriend (remember dating men? lol) hadn’t left because my job was a permanent encroachment. I wish I could still skip on Thomas Street with my brother and brother-in-law after a fancy meal in Chelsea. I wish things were different, when my partner and I would spend raucous and raunchy nights on the rooftop at Output, gazing at the Manhattan lights in the distance. I wish all of these days were simple, but truth is, they were even more magnificent because everything else wasn’t. I was knee-deep - fuck, elbow-deep into horror all the time, when someone would grab my hand and say, have you ever listened to the lapping sound of the East River on the Two Bridges Park rocks?

What if Jake Gyllenhaal is just trying to restore normalcy?

What if in fact it makes things so, so much worse?

Supporting Black small businesses matters. It especially matters in a pandemic, that affects Black people disproportionately, but has also diminished their already fledging chances are making it through an economic depression. The best way to do that while going about your everyday life is to grab your coffee (with a mask) at a Black owned coffee shop, grab your lunch box to go (with a mask) at a Black owned restaurant, and stop at your local bodega (with a mask) to support any form of BIPOC and those threatened by ICE. Highlighting the work of a Black owned cooperative is great. The cooperative in question grows organic food, which is usually out of the reach of low income people, and can participate in the NYC school lunch program. All of this is great. All of this is necessary. All of this is part of what makes NYC great.

None of this sat well with me. Because highlighting this work could have been done anytime. It could have been done before the movement started, when the pandemic had already made the situation of NYC schoolchildren precarious. All of this could have been done at anytime. The tone of the email was joyful, the design colorful, and it felt like it was just a regular infomercial on the part of Nine Stories. Black joy is a form of resistance, you’ll tell me, and you’d be absolutely right. But this isn’t Black joy: it’s white people rejoicing at their own white idea to highlight Black folks, and did so for a split minute before returning to business as usual, making money off of others and never working, learning, growing, working on their shortcomings, or doing more significant things - like letting BIPOC take over their social media, instead of shooting an email to subscribers, or have entire IG live series (tattooer Grace Neutral has been doing amazing work by doing it every week on different issues and highlighting various non-profits). In short, I felt insulted. It felt like lip service. I felt like I had invited Nine Stories for a cookout and all they showed up with was a cheap bottle of wine, and just the one, even though the whole block was there. It didn’t feel they were engaging, or talking to communities. For someone in my (redacted profession) and as a founding member of a non-profit in my non-existent free time, that works around the clock and across timezones to register voters, filing complaints with AGs, and forcing UNHRC resolutions, I could have shot this email in my sleep. It required absolutely no bead of sweat on their brow, at a time when we need allies to shoulder the burden because we are fucking tired.

My friend Yves Mathieu, who happens to be on the cover of L’Officiel Italy this month because he’s a handsome motherfucker, has been traveling across the US for the best part of the last two months to attend every single protest in major cities, especially in places where the police department has been documented abusing protesters. He’s filmed, live; he’s been tear gassed; he’s been shot out with KIPs; he’s been arrested; and at times he dances, in the middle of a line of National Guard shields, and he’s screaming, galvanizing crowds, shouting the names of all the recent trans folks we’ve lost and the “suicides by hanging” we have seen. He is tireless, or at least this is the image he puts up. Because he is fucking tired. And while he calls me his “angel on earth”, there is no day in which I don’t worry about his safety. Right now, we are working in urgency, and if I had a table, I would have flipped it because I don’t give a bloody damn about Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker’s apples.

For those of you who tell me I am ungrateful and that this project is worthwhile, I’ll refer you to the first paragraph. Yes, it absolutely is, in times of normalcy. It should be supported, not just now, but perenially. The issue here is that we have an emergency, and we have wealthy white people on our hands who are doing not just the bare minimum, but are so much below the standard of what is required in existing in a society that we are numb to the crumbs they throw to the movement. Showing our gratitude for this is being thankful to have one loaf of bread a month during a famine. I don’t want crumbs. I want a sit at the top of the goddamn table. It’s trying to quench a thirst that is so urgent, so pressing, and so dependent on life and death, with dipping lips in tepid water. It’s not doing it. We should, of course, support this collective once we have achieved everything else that can allow them to thrive in a world where those collectives will be normalized. But releasing this on the day that ICE is changing the laws to deport people on student visas? When I mentioned life or death, did I stutter?

As I was telling my lovely and incredible friend Shelley, who is doing so much while being in Australia and still more informed than the Nine Stories team, here it is. Beware. This is non exhaustive:

Waiters being disproportionately exposed to covid as states reopen. Waiters depending on reopening because there is no minimim wage. Rubber bullets. Tear gas. Killing rates. Primary elections. Non-profits being criminalized. Bail funds. White privilege. White history. Rewriting historical narratives. Defunding and disbanding police departments. The investigation into Bill Barr. The UNHRC resolution on the US systemic failures on racial discrimination. Conversations on colorism and racism. Death rates during the pandemic. Overcrowded prisons. Elijah McClain. White supremacists. Voter suppression. Lynchings. Pride. Marsha P. Johnson. Black theater. Minneapolis. UNCERD review. Oscars So White. Michael B. Jordan. 13th Amendment. Black trans lives. Trans rights. Ahmaud Arbery. DC Lewis List. NYPD refusal to discipline. Elijah McClain’s funeral. Suspension of immigration visas. ICE raids. ICE detention facilities. Suspension of habeas corpus rights in NYS. Pentagon opposition to the White House. Holding rallies on native land. Deployment of white militias.

Let’s take a quick look at Jakey-Jakes’ professional accolades so far. According to my extremely academic research, based on decades of experience and some years as a postgraduate professor in (redacted), Wikipedia gives us the following:

1 (one) BAFTA (for Brokeback Mountain, that same year I received this insulting, undeserving B+ in a class I had owned, so it sorts of puts the year on a more even footing)

... and that’s it for the major awards. Don’t get me wrong, he is nominated a lot. If a Jakey-Jakes nomination was a drinking game, we would all end up on posters put up by our local minister of health and end up recording PSAs and after school specials for the rest of our lives. We would all die a terrible death choking on our own vomit (which is how I intend to go, but that’s for another conversation), and I want to see 2020 through, just out of sheer spite. Just the way the Academy nominated him for Brokeback Mountain in the Best Supporting Actor category, and did not give it to him. Instead, my still exceptional research skills show that -

- OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD NO. OH MY FUCKING GOD.

IT WENT TO GEORGE CLOONEY. For his role in Syriana. Whatever. I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m cool. George Clooney, for whom I have a deep-seated, seething hatred; George Clooney, whose role in Gravity made me fear doing a space walk even with all the other scary space shit; George Clooney, whose coffee machine at work never ever works; George Clooney, who married way, way above his station; George Clooney, someone who ruined my life (this is again for another blog, listen, it’s complicated, I don’t want to get it into it, I’m trying to get over it, he knows what he did).

George Clooney stole Jake Gyllenhaal’s Oscar. That’s bullshit.

Anyway, it’s fine, because Jakey-Jakes was 25 at the time and had a brilliant career ahead of him working on films by rapey directors, one after the other and confusing the hell out of every single person on the gender and sexual orientation spectrum. He does have a wee trophy case, don’t get me wrong; my country recognized him once, as he won for Best Actor for Nightcrawler in 2014. Yes, the Dublin Film Critics’ Circle is real and before you ask, no, I am not on the committee, although I do applaud their excellent taste. Maybe we should just replace the Academy with something a little more substantial and with much more laudable goals in mind, like the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (he didn’t win, but was nominated for that same movie, and frankly, I would much rather receive a nod from the profession I portray than the profession that portrays, but that’s me, and for those who did not know yet, I am not Jake Gyllenhaal; although we do have something in common - neither of us won an Oscar).

Now, not all of his movies are deserving of such an honor - an honor that was created by the Academy, for the Academy, broadcast for people who care about the Academy. I assume that since Jake Gyllenhaal is a part of it - he was added to it in 2006 - he cares (and in his sketch with Amy Schumer, he says, “why would I lie (about being nominated for an Oscar)? That’s like, a really cool thing to get.” Maybe that was the ferret talking, and not him. But listen, he’s turning 40 (despite showing up at sophomore dorms), and getting an Oscar would be swell. Sadly he’s not in any movies right now, so we could settle for a Tony? I would settle for a Tony. Would Jake settle for a Tony? Probably. Obviously there is nothing left to do in film and the expectations are so low, we may be getting a fourth 50 Shades of Grey movie, and if this is where it’s at, perhaps not receiving one is the biggest accolade one can find.

But losing to George Clooney, in general? I’m thinking of all the times I’ve lost in my (redacted profession) and it was never due to my work or because the other (redacted) was a cheap suit, had sunken eyes, the permanent eyebrow raise of a sleazy door-to-door salesman in the 60s, with a house on Lake Como. I... I could never relate to that. I would never recover. I would probably shoot myself into the sun. I feel so bad for Jake.

On the other hand, there is no reason for me to feel bad for Jake Gyllenhaal. He is a leading, powerful, influential, cisgendered and straight white man in Hollywood, which is (leading + powerful + influential + straight + white + male)², at the very least, and after #Oscarssowhite and #TimesUp, maybe this isn’t a time for yet another New Jersey Class Clown to win an Oscar. Maybe we should just give them to every single movie ever made by Jordan Peele until he retires, or highlight movies made by women where they’re not accessories, punchbags, raped, or simply non existent. Maybe Jake Gyllenhaal should be collateral in the quest for more equality in the representation in entertainment. Maybe this simply isn’t what we should be striving for at this point in time, when people like me, or people like countless others, are struggling to see themselves in a way that portrays them for the complex, aspirational, flawed, and beautiful nonetheless, humans that they are. Maybe Jake Gyllenhaal should take a seat behind the wheel until that happens.

But I’m also petty as fuck, so in for a penny, in for a pound.

So far here’s the list of movies Jake Gyllenhaal has been nominated for and did not win, again only in the “greatest ceremonies” section, outside of Brokeback Mountain:

by the Academy, none

by the Golden Globes: Love & Other Drugs (best actor), Nightcrawler (best actor)

by the BAFTAs: Nightcrawler (best leading actor), Nocturnal Animals (best leading actor)

by the SAG Awards: Nightcrawler (Outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role)

Okay, I think we have detected a pattern here. Nightcrawler was brilliant. I have loathed journalists as it is the goddesses’ given right of (my redacted profession), but they’re also in many ways my colleagues and peers because of (redacted), and it was truly something to see a fraction of their work portrayed in that way. Nocturnal Animals had a disturbing plot (official Jake Gyllenhaal chronicler Kaitlyn Tiffany called it “semi-misogynist”), Okja was great and deserved a nod, Love & Other Drugs is terrifying and this blog will address it very very soon (we have already recorded the audio, in case you want a (redacted) and (redacted) ASMR for two hours), but Jarhead was great, and for some reason I really liked Southpaw. I think it has to do with the fact that one of my colleagues has a shirt that reads “NYC Southpaw”, and now I associate it with immensely self-regarding white males in my (redacted) profession therefore seeing them punched repeatedly has somewhat of a cathartic effect; but it was well-made. Brothers triggered my PTSD, and the nod should go to Toby Maguire. The only reason Enemy is watchable is because of Jake. Toronto is not that brutalist and the obsession with this particular era of architecture should be reserved to hot northeastern British painters and the Stasi museum. Everything else is a conceited semi-admiration for authoritarianism by someone who never digested Hobbes in high school. I don’t want to talk about End of Watch, because I don’t like cops. Long story short, Jake increases the watchability and the likeability of a movie by a very scientific 400%.

Maybe Jake Gyllenhaal shouldn’t have an Oscar for just one performance, but for his life performance, in which he storms out of interviews everytime Taylor Swift is mentioned, or for having wrapped the world in a comfortable plushy blanket smelling of lavender and has personally poured us champagne on ice thanks to his romance with Tom Holland. Maybe that in itself deserves to be acknowledged. But the man works hard, not Daniel Day-Lewis hard, which assuredly may be a wee bit too hard, and it should be noted. It seems that his peers do appreciate the work, though, and maybe that’s enough. Maybe sometimes one is perfectly happy doing things for themselves, because they are granted that opportunity; maybe receiving awards is just an icing on a cake that is already extremely sweet; maybe sometimes we are all just happy to be there, quarantined, working from home, typing shit on Tumblr and wondering if all those messages clogging my work inbox are worth it (they are). Some of us choose a profession for the reputation it holds, the legitimacy it would grant them, the glory at the family table, the adoration of their former bullies, and the feeling of achievement that, I can’t lie, is one hell of a power trip. Others choose the same profession, or another, because it is the one that fits us best, what we excel at, what brings us joy and what gives us a reason to get up in the morning; we do our work in silence, we smile when we win, we toast to ourselves, we grab a hug from a friend, and we continue working with our heads down. It’s perfectly okay not to chase something that, when all’s said and done, may not be our legacy, if we choose to leave one behind, and not disappear into a cloud of smoke the moment the clock stops ticking. What can be left are the hours that we spend poring over the work, giving it our fullest attention, and being committed to what its responsibilities and consequences are. That could speak to it just as much, in my view.

The package was very light, so I was immediately disappointed to know it contained no gin. It was surprising. The few people I know back in England still that haven’t been unceremoniously kicked out by Priti Patel’s disgustingly racist Home Office know gin is the only currency that I acknowledge. I make sure I didn’t pick up anything that was intended for someone else. My first name was just my initial, with my full last name. It appeared very formal. My first thought, as someone who spends too much time wondering how people obtain her personal information - it’s not paranoia, (redacted profession) requires certain safeguards - was, how did John Lewis manage to send me something? I don’t ever recall entering a John Lewis. I think I ate on John Lewis plates when my brother moved to London, and he and his then-fiancé were really into that minimal design crap that parades for British elegance. Then I thought: is Jake Gyllenhaal finally sorry about vanishing into space during both a pandemic and a revolution?

Is this package reparations?

First of all, it’s not, because I would only accept them in the form of g&t in a can, as stated above. But at this stage, we are all grasping at straws, so why not. I ripped open the plastic package and the slightly dizzying stench of badly processed petroleum hit me, and I found... a  pair of weird Happy Socks and ... a box of heart-shaped teaspoons?

I’m not kidding. That’s what is in the package. If this is all Jake Gyllenhaal has to offer, he can keep on supporting cops at a time of widespread and systemic violence, or... wait I found something else he did (actually said) during his confinement away from us plebes that was offensive. I’m the last person to be easily offended, so rest assured it’s bad. Anyway, here’s what would have made for a great package instead. I’m sure that with all of his police and Homeland Security connections, Jake Gyllenhaal can find my info if he puts his iPhone to it. It’s disturbing, but this is the world we’re living in. Anyway, if he drops by London, that he loves so much, before England drifts away into the North Sea in December:

- custard tarts (not kidding, favorite dessert)

- cans of gin and tonic, preferrably assorted

- a one-year pass at the Tate Modern

- a video in which he would have coerced my ex into saying he was wrong (haha dating men... I was cursed then)

- a three-page essay written by hand on how he intends to use his platform and influence to advance the cause of immigrants, specifically refugees, and commit to the civil and human rights of people of color, queer folx, and women who are not under the age of 21;

- disowning Jared Leto;

- admitting his sister is the better Gyllenhaal.

It would have been quite a light package, minus the cans, if you think about it. It’s okay, I think he can afford postage.

I’m so confused, because none of the photos I found are in front of a John Lewis store. This is the Tower of London, where I once ran around with my childhood friend L (you know, the one who is smaller and crunchier, like a Persian cucumber), explaining torture methods to visitors who probably didn’t need that much information. We took frankly hilarious photos, but it was fun, and I read about how London feeds its ravens, which is a perfect metaphor for the way Britain is treating immigrants, so before we all claim we are more British than racist Prince Philip because Yorkshire Gold is supposedly preferrable than the workman’s PG Tips, we should take a pause to reflect. You know, the same pause the statue of Edward Colston took in Bristol.

(feeling mighty proud of what I did there)

Anyway, I am really saddened to report that Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t send me that package. I don’t know who did, yet I’m grateful that people I don’t know think of me? It’s been a very long five weeks, and the US is still knee-deep in that pandemic because y’all refuse to wear a goddamn mask, so you know, a nice dessert and gin would do. I’m not sure what it would take for Jakey-Jakes to be redeemed in my eyes. Time passes by, people keep getting shot and killed, federal agents and local police officers keep not being charged, the primaries are fraught with voter suppression, the UN Human Rights Council is debating launching a Commission of Inquiry and dispatching observers, and we’re incorporating my non-profit in New York State. I guess he could decide to be our angel investor, although I’m not sure how comfortable how I would be with the idea; it would be helpful, sure, and save us the trouble of fundraising, an activity that always made me feel a bit gross despite its necessity. But would we be whitewashing his silence? Would we be placing a price on his refusal to be involved? How could we justify this, ethically?

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