Monthly Archives: February 2017

It went, roughly, like this: Over the weekend, Melissa McCarthy made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live, making sweaty, swaggery fun of Donald Trumps combative press secretary, Sean Spicer. On Monday, Politico reported that Trump had been angered by SNLs mockery of Spicernot, it contended, because of McCarthys eviscerating portrayal of him, but because of the person of McCarthy herself. More than being lampooned as a press secretary who makes up facts, Politico noted, it was Spicers portrayal by a woman that was most problematic in the presidents eyes, according to sources close to him. As a top Trump donor added, bringing another voice to an idea that has become prominent in the early days of the new presidential administration: Trump doesnt like his people to look weak.

From there it went, roughly, like this: You know, people began asking on Monday, what Trump would probably really, really hate? Say, just for instance, that SNL found a woman to play top presidential advisor Stephen Bannon. And say that they found not just any woman, but the woman Trump has sparred with more publicly, and more reliably, than any other. The one the president has referred to, over the course of their more-than-decade-long feud, as a real loser and a total trainwreck and crude, rude, obnoxious, and dumb and a fat pig and a slob.

The idea spread. Recruit Rosie! the people cried. Enlist ODonnell! Who better than Trumps so-called pig to really get his goat!

Rosie, it seems, read the tweets. And on Monday evening, jokingly-or-maybe-not-so-jokingly summoning George Washington and William Sherman and Franklin Roosevelt, the comedian gave her succinct reply: I will serve, ODonnell tweeted.

It was all, on the one hand, a low-stakes jokenot so much at the expense of Steve Bannon as it was at the expense of a president who seems to be unprecedentedly thin-skinned. But Recruit Rosie was also, despite its tempest-in-a-tweetstorm setting, much more than a joke: It operated on the premise that jokes can effect significant changes in the daily operations of the White House. It assumed that one bitODonnell playing Bannon, the real loser playing the person who seems to be, in Trumps mind, the ultimate winnercould have not just a comedic punchline, but also a political upshot. Recruit Rosie took for granted that satire can be, at this moment, and with this president, not just a distraction or an amusement, but indeed a weapon of resistance.

In one sense, certainly, thats an extremely old and bland idea. Call it the banality of comedy: Politics and satire have been intertwined since at least the earliest days of democracy. The Roman poet Juvenal, famed practitioner of the art of Satura, noted that it was hard not to write satire, living as he did within the corruption and decadence of the unjust City. Juvenal was, of course, not alone in that sentiment. Shed of the particularities of geography or generation or political system, it is a very human tendencyperhaps the human tendencyto puncture those in power. And American democracy, in particular, with its lively media culture and its hosting of Thomas Nast and Ambrose Bierce and the writers of SNL, has been a particularly eager adopter of the practice. We, the people have become, over the years, extremely adept with our side-eye.

But heres where Recruit Rosie breaks, just a little bit, with all that. Many of the most recent, and most memorable, of the presidential satiresRonald Reagan, secret genius; Gerald Ford, obvious klutz; George W. Bush, sworn enemy of the English languagehave existed not just to amuse their audiences, but also to influence the peoples perception of their targets. They have aimed at the zeitgeist, and, as such, have been less concerned with direct impact than with a softer kind of power: They have generally been concerned with shaping the public impressions that congeal into historical memory. Did George W. Bush, the person, talk about strategeryor did his SNL persona? Satire, when done well, makes it hard to remember for sure. Satire, traditionally, has played the long game.

The Genius of Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live

Trump, however, is not a traditional president. And the satire aimed at him and his administration has been, along with so much else, adjusting accordingly. And thus: Recruit Rosiewhich is about humor, sure (ODonnell as Bannon! Can you even imagine?), but which is also, and more directly, premised on action. It sees itself, as @CaptJaneway2017 suggested, as part of #TheResistance. Its real punchline is that President Trump is so sensitive about his public image that an unflattering portrayal of his primary advisorwhich is also an unflattering portrayal of the presidentmight remove that advisor from the presidents good graces. Taken to its logical extreme it might even get Bannon fired.

The news cycle that hosted the Politico piece about Trumps SNL-driven anger with Spicer also featured another story: The New York Times reported that Trump has been spending the early evenings of his young presidency by retiring to the residence of the White House and watching cable news. It was a revelation that would surprise nobody who follows the presidents cable-driven Twitter feed (though Spicer, for the record, dismissed the entire Times story as one more instanceand, indeed, the epitomeof fake news).

Coupled with the Politico story, though, the Timess reporting suggested just how powerful television has become as a means of shaping not just the publics worldview, but also the presidents. Savvy lobbyists are now buying ads that air during the Fox News Channel and MSNBC shows the president is known to watch, on the assumption that its more efficient to buy presidential attention through ads than it is to try to obtain that most precious of commodities through more traditional means. And, now, people are suggesting that SNL and its satire can function in a similar way.

Recruit Rosie, that meme-y movement, acknowledges how protective of his public image the current occupant of the West Wing seems to be. It recognizes the extent to which President Trump, as a creature of reality TV, remains deeply concerned about his ratings, whether they be manifested through Nielsen scores or crowd sizes or polling numbers or, indeed, late-night comedy sketches. Progressivesand non-progressives along with themhave been publicly wondering how to resist the new president and his policies. Recruit Rosie hints at a tool that might have been overlooked, so far, in those discussionsone that is powerful precisely because it is so basic: Americans abilityat once cherished and time-tested and constitutionally stipulatedto laugh at their leaders.

See more here:

'Recruit Rosie': When Satire Joins the Resistance - The Atlantic

A rare film featuring the Scottish pop artist Eduardo Paolozzi in a leading role is to be part of Scotland's silent movie festival.

Lorenza Mazzetti's 1956 film Together features a young Paolozzi in a lead role as a deaf-mute dock worker.

The role was apparently relished by the artist, born in Leith in 1924, and he modelled his performance on Marlon Brando.

Bill Hare, honorary fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art, writes in an introduction for the film: "For those more familiar with Paolozzis brightly coloured jazzy Pop Art work from the 1960s onwardsTogethermight seem strangely different to their expectations.

"In the 1940s and 1950s however, his work was closely connected with austere angst-ridden zeitgeist of the post-war, cold war era, where the dominant avant garde movement was Art Brut."

He adds: "Paolozzi was also fascinated by the world of science in all its forms, including medicine.

"So it would not be surprising that the exclusively visual world of the deaf-mute would attract him and their artificial created system of communication."

Mr Hare said that Paolozzi may also have been influenced by the Oscar-winning classic movie On The Waterfront.

He adds: "In the previous year the film which swept the Oscar awards was one with a similar gritty dockland subject - [Elia]Kazans On the Waterfront.

"So it is possible that Paolozzi is trying his hand at a bit of method acting inTogether- though admittedly he is no Marlon Brando."

Other films in the 2017 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival include the original screen version of Chicago from 1927, The Informer, a film set in revolution-torn Dublin in 1922, and Whats The World Coming To? a 1926 film that takes place 100 years from now when men have become more like women and women more like men and was co-written by Stan Laurel.

All films in the programme feature live scores by an international line-up of musicians.

The 2017 festival includes four musical commissions, with new scores composed by Scottish Album of the Year award-winning musician RM Hubbert, for 1926 Soviet film By The Law.

Raymond MacDonald and Christian Ferlaino have created the music for Together, and Jane Gardner and others for for Festival opener The Grub Stake, from 1923.

One of the themes of the festival, known as HippFest, this year is the "pioneering but largely forgotten women of early cinema, a time when there were more women working at every level in the film industry than there are today."

The Festival opens on 22 March with The Grub Stake, a 1923 adventure created by Nell Shipman, a silent movie star who turned down a studio career to work entirely outside of the Hollywood system.

Lorenza Mazzetti was a novelist, painter and director.

Mazzetti, part of the British Free Cinema movement, is now 89 and was celebrated last year at the Venice Film Festival in a new documentary titled Because I Am a Genius!

Alison Strauss, director, said: At HippFest we are all about making cinema special engaging the best musicians to accompany rarely screened titles, presenting those films in beautiful and atmospheric settings, seeking out the best restorations from the worlds archives, and generating an atmosphere of inclusion and fun with our audience.

"Since we established the Festival in 2011, more and more people are finding out that early cinema is not clunky and out-dated, but rather is fresh and relevant, sometimes even colourful and never actually silent.

"Within our programme people will find unparalleled comedians, experimental work and revelatory new scores alongside youth projects, workshops for school children and grown-ups, a Speakeasy, walks, talks and exhibitions."

Tickets for HippFest 2017 are now on sale.

Originally posted here:

A movie of the artist as a young man: Paolozzi silent film stars in film festival - Herald Scotland

6th February 2017 0 Comments

By Barbara Reynolds TriceEdneywire.com Columnist

Coretta Scott King died on January 30, 2006. Yet her legacy is very much alive as a coalition builder, a strategist and a moral voice that confronted detractors but insisted upon non-violent approaches, such as dialogue, protests and economic boycotts with the end goal of peaceful reconciliation.

In their own analysis 60-era civil rights leaders used to refer to a Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, which divine dimension that summons leaders exactly when needed most. That certainly describes the timing of human rights activist Coretta Scott King who is experiencing a resurgence as people take a fresh look at those who successfully moved themselves and others forward through the heavy thicket of discrimination such as the leading ladies in the wonderful new film, Hidden Figures.

A second look at Kings legacy should focus on but go beyond her well known decades ordeal of successfully lobbying to make Kings birthday a national holiday and building the Dr. Martin Luther King Center for Social Change in Atlanta. Tourists from around the role visit this site, where her crypt and that of Dr. King are located near Ebenezer Baptist church where Dr. King preached and was funeralized.

Coretta King certainly should come to mind as millions gathered in Washington and in sister cities around the world last week to mount an overwhelming rebuke to President Donald Trumps anti-human rights campaign and his denigration of women, minorities, immigrants and the physically challenged. Her name was scrawled on home-made signs scattered throughout.

It is appropriate that we remember her appeal to women and her global human rights efforts. That was the capstone of Kings 38-year mission as she shifted from civil rights to a more global inclusive human rights agenda after the assassination of her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in 1968. A favorite slogan was: Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed her a nonvoting delegate to the 32nd General Assembly of the United Nations, where she advocated for more international focus on the human rights of women. That same year in Houston, she served as Commissioner on the International Womens Year Conference where she created quite a stir over her support for gay rights, an unpopular issue at the time.

In her memoir she tells how she opposed the various womens groups at the Conference who were advocating a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. I feel that gay and lesbian people have families and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union. I believe unequivocally that discrimination because of sexual orientation is wrong and unacceptable in a democracy that protects the human rights of all its citizens.

In the historic 1963 March on Washington-which catapulted Dr. King to famewomen, however, were not allowed to march with the leaders or give a major address. But without a doubt King, would have played a supportive role in the Womens march as did her daughter, Bernice King.

King was a spokeswoman for social justice causes, both large and small, writing a syndicated news column on issues from gun violence, to environmental racism, to apartheid in South Africa. She was rarely missing in action. Sometimes you win, just by showing up, she said, often referring to her role as a ministry of presence.

King believed that it is citizen action that is crucial to the making of a president. She often said that Ronald Reagan did not warm to the idea of a Dr. King holiday until the movement created a groundswell for it with three million signatures, marches and years of lobbying Congress. He signed it on November 20, 1983.

In recent weeks several Black leaders have been publicly scourged for meeting with President Trump through his transition stage. King, however, would have been knocking on his door, as she did with all the other presidents in her heyday. And she would not have been there for photo-ops or selfies. As a seasoned coalition building she would have prepared a well- crafted agenda, which called upon Trump to govern as president of all Americans.

In past years, Kings influence was mammoth in the shaping of the political landscape. She successfully campaigned to elect scores of liberals to political office, worked with Carter in the selection of federal judges and threw her weight against those who stood in the way of voting rights.

Typical of her role is how she confronted and helped block Alabama U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions who in 1985 was vying for a federal judgeship. Sessions, who was called brilliant, by Trump is his choice for U.S. Attorney General. In a recently surfaced 10-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, King had called him lacking in judgement and temperament who would irreparably harm the work the movement had done to seize a slice of democracy for disenfranchised blacks.

King opposed Sessions for his 1985 attempt to prosecute three civil rights activists from Marion, Alabama for voter fraud accusations that were later proved unmerited. Her opposition to Sessions ran deep because she grew up right outside of Marion which before the movement launched its successful voter rights drive were unable to counter terrorizing attacks on their lives and property. Civil rights activists fear that Sessions will not hold law enforcement officials accountable for the episodic incidents of unarmed Black men being murdered, as was done under the Obama administration.

In the battle to stop Sessions and others who seemed primed to push back advances in human rights, Coretta would not have panicked. In her memoir, she said, Struggle is a never-ending process and freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.

And so it goes.

This article originally published in the February 6, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

See the rest here:

Remembering Coretta Scott King - Louisiana Weekly