Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

The Italian election is about to usher in what is commonly being described as the most right-wing government since Mussolini. However, things may be a little more cheerful than they seem.

A new entry called Italexit polled 1.9 per cent. The alarming swerve to the far-right came about mainly via the cannibalisation of two right-wing parties by a third harder-right version of themselves.

Following the lowest turnout in the republics history, Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy won by halving the vote of the old waxwork Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia party and also of the rosary-kissing Matteo Salvinis Lega party. Pulling in twice the vote of the pairs combined total, Meloni has reduced this once swaggering pair of alpha males a former prime minister in four governments and a former deputy prime minister to junior coalition partners.

She also took a big bite out of the Five Star Movement over on the left. This is the one that entered politics only four years ago when its comedian founder landed a stunning 33 per cent of the vote (compared to Melonis 26 per cent on Sunday) with its torch-the-elites rhetoric. It went on to fulfil all the predictions of chaotic incompetence and infighting before bringing down a capable government of national unity led by former ECB president Mario Draghi; then almost imploding. It recovered just enough to prevent a total takeover by the hard right.

So its not all bad news. Still the right-wing alliance has a comfortable majority of seats. The question is where Meloni and Italy end up and how.

The political lessons are stark. Even with the dismal failure of Five Star, the Democratic Party and the Greens to form any alliance they still pulled in 38 per cent of the vote between them, just five points behind the righ- wing alliance which had campaigned masterfully. No doubt this will always be a great what if of Italian politics; what if the left had cut out the feuding and banded together against the opposition?

Second is the fact that Meloni is preceded by a long line of would-be political saviours. Being against the incumbent government has been Italys sure-fire election winner for decades a hypothesis borne out by the failure of any party or coalition to get re-elected in 30 years. Melonis genius was to remain the being against party during Draghis government of national unity, enabling her to emerge as the new face or the last resort after everything else was tried.

Just four years ago her party was at 4 per cent and the Five Star Movement was that years saviour; riding the zeitgeist when populism was at its zenith.

Now Italy has a government focused on tax cuts, a small state, freedom from foreigners, a miraculous resurgence in national pride and much else that seems familiar from Liz Trusss wishlist (before the meltdown). The virulent if confused Euroscepticism is similar. Trusss swivel-eyed suggestion that France might be a foe while an actual war is raging in Europe is matched by Meloni jumping to Viktor Orbans defence when the European Parliament deems Hungary no longer a fully-fledged democracy. He won elections, said Meloni; the familiar refrain that absolves all.

But unlike Truss, Meloni had to dial down the campaign rhetoric. She had to demonstrate some capacity to handle the vital 200 billion EU-funded recovery fund and the European Central Banks bond-buying scheme which underpins the Italian national debt.

What lies beneath is another matter. Brothers of Italy still boasts the notorious flame logo and undoubtedly contains some fascists. Both she and Orban have recycled the great replacement conspiracy theory which holds that white European populations are being replaced by non-white populations at the behest of unidentified elites. Her rabble-rousing speeches insist that the nation, family and Christianity are under attack from the left, migrants and gays.

She will share a government with Salvini who rejoices in his bare-chested, strongman image, posing with submachine guns, endorsing Trump, Bolsonaro and The Movement, Steve Bannons Brussels-based right-wing populist organisation. He pronounced Putin the best statesman currently on earth before executing a U-turn when the best statesman on earth irritated even Xi Jinping.

He lashes out at sanctions against Russia, as does his coalition partner Berlusconi, who has managed to crash this glittering constellation a decade after being kicked out of parliament and banned from public office for tax fraud.

Berlusconi told a recent Italian chat show that Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by his ministers to invent this special operation. The troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv within a week, replace Zelenskyys government with decent people and then leave. Instead they found resistance, which was then fed by arms of all kinds from the west.

Though portrayed as a moderating influence after four spells as prime minister, his strongman tendencies have long been noted. What legacy will the octogenarian want to leave? How will the notoriously combative Salvini and the Lega adapt to a Rome-centric woman-led government?

Meloni will have scant time for the nation, family and Christianity shtick. The era of populism as a big TV performance played for drama and fantasy as opposed to the dull, hard grind of everyday politics and compromise is ebbing. She is being pitched into a cauldron like no cauldron that has ever been, as Trump might put it.

There is a view that she will make a competent administrator, prepared to seek out respected advisers, and work with other parties and civil servants to effect her far-right-wing policies. But that means losing the being against card.

Brace yourselves.

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Kathy Sheridan: Brace yourselves for where Giorgia Meloni and Italy end up - The Irish Times

You f**cking onion, dont you f***ing get it?

It could only be Sir Philip Green on the phone. The negative piece the Evening Standard had written on his Arcadia retail empire had ticked him off royally and, as was his wont, he was straight on the phone to bark what he thought of it. And me.

You always knew such barrackings were coming and, when they did, you also knew his initial burst of fury usually with the funniest concoctions of abuse and faux threats of violence would eventually give way to a joke, a gossip, and the invitation to a cup of tea.

It was precisely that mixture of brawn and charm that got him to the riches he achieved as the undoubted king of the British high street.

But, two years after the dramatic closure of Topshop stores, Greens reputation lies in tatters, and his characteristically brash modus operandi might provide some clues as to why. Trouble At Topshop, a two-part BBC documentary, has shed new light on the behind-the-scenes story of the iconic brands rise and fall, and Greens controversial management.

He might be a household name but, before Green joined the brand, it was propelled by a revolutionary team, notably led by women. The documentary describes the Topshop of the Eighties and Nineties as a prelapsarian wonderland of female-led creativity, transforming the high-street landscape by offering fashion by women, for women. Fronted by brand director Jane Shepherdson, the woman-heavy team was once an outlier in the fashion sphere.

So when Green acquired the brand in 2002, his brash machismo and prioritisation of profit over quality was an unwelcome shakeup. Former Topshop employees interviewed described toxic workplace encounters with Green Shepherdson even claimed that he took a phone call in the middle of her resignation.

So, just how did Green come to rule the high street, and where did it all go wrong?

Early days

Green was left school with no O-Levels, but learned to be a crafty negotiator

Green was born in 1952, the north London son of a father who owned property, garages, and electrical businesses. His parents sent him to a Jewish boarding school, Carmel College in Berkshire, and gave him a fairly unaffectionate childhood.

He left Carmel with no O-Levels, but learned to be a crafty negotiator at the knee of Rodney Geminder, a successful shoe wholesaler based in Old Street.

As told in Oliver Shahs biography Damaged Goods, he learned to buy low and sell high, particularly bankrupt stock, which was traded from the pubs north of Oxford Street a district that remained his stomping ground for the rest of his career.

With his mother Alma, he went into clothes manufacturing and importing, often not successfully and usually underwritten by her money.

But he learned from his mistakes.

Jean Genius

Green made his first major success in his 20s, buying a distressed retail chain called Bonanza Jeans

With his knowledge of buying stock for Geminder from companies in trouble, he made his first major success in his 20s, buying a distressed retail chain called Bonanza Jeans using borrowed money from Bank Leumi.

Green knew it had 400,000 pairs of jeans in stock which had been totally undervalued by the receivers and bought the whole chain for a little over 1 million.

Within a month, hed repaid the bank its 1 million and, after roasting its buyers into driving better bargains, he was living high on the hog, working hard during the day and spending fast in the Ritz casino by night.

He learned that menacing style reportedly from an unsavoury loan shark he used to use called Anthony Schneider.

Then, he bought Jean Jeanie, another chain in distress, for around 500,000, adding it to Bonanza, turning it into profit, and selling the combined group to Lee Cooper for 7 million.

The press, who he assiduously courted even then, called him the Jean Genius.

It was 1986. Green was 34, loaded, and sporting a Spandau Ballet hairstyle.

Posh boys and scandal

Green restructured its Woodhouse and Review chains then bought What Everyone Wants

His barrow-boy trading style initially went down well in his next venture, a stock-market quoted menswear business called Amber Day. By force of his personality, and trading prowess, he turned the business around, moving manufacturing to Hong Kong for cheaper supplies.

He restructured its Woodhouse and Review chains then bought What Everyone Wants, sending his share price soaring as staid City institutions were drawn to this epitomy of the Eighties , winner-takes-all zeitgeist.

But, when recession came, sales crashed brutally. The same City which once loved his maverick style fled, citing fears of lack of transparency and good practice. They muttered darkly about an apparent share-support operation (which he denied) and his connections to characters such as the convicted fraudster Roger Levitt, and Schneider.

Green was out, with news leaking about a Department of Trade and Industry investigation hovering over him. The probe came to nothing and Green was left resenting the Citys posh boys, a chip on his shoulder he carried throughout his life.

Serious money

Philip Green in 1980

He soon bounced back, teaming up with Scottish tycoon Tom Hunter, fashion importer and now restaurateur Richard Caring, and the Telegraph-owning Barclay brothers, to buy Sears for 548 million. He asset-stripped the empire within months, and he and his fellow investors made a 280 million profit.

In 1999, having proved to the City he didnt need it to make money, he bid for Marks & Spencer, with a view to making a killing selling the freeholds on its 300-strong store estate.

Again though, the double barrelled c***s, as Green called City types, were to be his undoing, as his banking advisers took fright at dark rumours that his wife Tina had been buying shares in M&S before the bid.

BHS and Arcadia

Green bought British Home Stores (BHS) in a move that would both propel him to billionaire status and destroy his reputation

He would not lick his wounds for long. Soon after, he bought British Home Stores (BHS) in a move that would both propel him to billionaire status and destroy his reputation.

He and his crack-management team, including ex-Debenhams chief Terry Green and Allan Leighton of Asda fame, set to work boosting BHSs profits through skilful buying and stock management, quickly turning a business he had bought for 100 million into a 1 billion one.

He went on to buy Arcadia, where retail veteran Stuart Rose was chief executive, sealing the deal with Rose in a final round of haggling outside the George Club. in Mayfair.

Arcadias Topshop brought him glamour as well as wealth. He turned it into the hottest retail property on the street, signing up celebrities like Kate Moss to design ranges and appear with him at parties and fashion shows.

Buoyed by success, he made another bid for M&S, which at that stage was being run by Rose. He failed, and famously had a handbags-at-dawn moment with the suave CEO on the street, jumping out of his limo and grabbing him by the lapels.

At the height of Arcadia-BHSs profitable heyday, Tina, in whose name his empire was owned, took out a record-breaking 1.2 billion tax-free thanks to her residency in Monaco.

It was 2005, and while some in the business world applauded his success, others found it distasteful. More still were baffled as to how the company could afford it. That question came back to haunt the Greens in future years.

Online explosion

Green neglected to invest in taking his brands digital

As the retail world moved increasingly online, and big, legacy store chains like Woolworths fell by the wayside, Green neglected to invest in taking his brands digital.

Even in bricks and mortar, competition was leaving his chains behind. Fast-fashion chains capable of switching ranges in a heartbeat were beating his brands at every turn. Primark, Zara, and H&M began to rule the roost.

BHS was the first of the Green empire to crumble, and the halcyon days of racy profit margins dramatically turned into a miserable tale of contraction.

Worse still, it left a massive hole in its pension scheme.

Green spent his days and nights trying to figure out an exit.

Sale to a spiv

Green sold his business for 1 to Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt racing driver

That eventually came in 2015, when he sold the business for 1 to Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt racing driver.

Green rejoiced at the sale, thinking it had lifted a huge weight from his shoulders. But it was not to prove so.

Chappell turned out to be a spiv (he was earlier this month jailed for six years for tax dodging).

He was totally incapable of turning the business around and the company collapsed into bankruptcy with 11,000 job losses and a 571 million pension deficit.

Pension shame

At the height of the BHS pensions fiasco, he took delivery of a 100 million yacht, Lionheart, on which he spends much of his time.

The row that ensued was to destroy Greens reputation and almost claim his knighthood. He was pilloried by MPs and the pension hole he had left the company with when he passed it on was described as the unacceptable face of capitalism. A bizarre, six-hour performance in front of the business select committee saw him berate one MP for staring at him.

Eventually, he paid 363 million into the pension fund after lengthy negotiations with regulators. Over the years, he and his family had collected some 580 million from BHS in dividends, rents, and interest on loans.

He had once been a regular on the party circuit. Newspapers and glossy magazines salivated over extravaganzas like his 60th birthday party, where he flew 150 of his closest friends to Mexico, including Naomi Campbell, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kate Moss.

But, since the BHS scandal, he has often been exiled to his Monaco base.

Dont feel too sorry for him at the height of the BHS pensions fiasco, he took delivery of a 100 million yacht, Lionheart, on which he spends much of his time.

#MeToo

Philip Green became the bogeyman of the MeToo movement

But, even as he hid, the critical stories have followed him. In 2019, reports emerged alleging that he had made racist remarks, groped female staff, and been abusive to other employees claims he vigorously denies.

He became a bogeyman of the #MeToo movement. The friends who remained loyal despaired. Harold Tillman, veteran retailer and former owner of the Jaeger chain, said: Ive known him 40 years. I have seen him do so many kind, good things for people.

But, as even Topshoplosses soared to nearly 500 million, he was being seen as a dinosaur in a world of rising online giants, like Boohoo, Asos, and the Hut Group.

Like his retail empire, he had failed to keep up with the sensibilities of the modern world.

Coronavirus

Debenhams went under during the pandemic

As in so many industries, the coronavirus pandemic accelerated trends that had been running for years.

Covids lockdown of shops and malls has seen not only Greens stores suffer like never before, but his revenue via department stores like Debenhams, which went under.

However, few will feel too sorry for him. The Greens are still one of Britains richest couples.

They have long since diversified their wealth away from retail and into property and other ventures.

But, as far as his reputation on the High Street goes, with Arcadia following Debenhams into administration, the king has fallen far.

Link:

The rise and fall of Sir Philip Green, the retail king who fell from grace - Evening Standard

Chinas leaders have staked the countrys future on innovation. In its latest blueprint for national economic development, China has pledged to end its reliance on imported technology and to focus on domestic consumption as the primary driver of growth. At a conference in May for engineers and scientists, Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged greater self-reliance in science and technology, which would serve, he said, as the strategic support for national development.

Chinas drive toward technological independence has raised alarm bells in the West, where a resurgent China powered by a leading technology industry is widely considered the key strategic challenge of the 21st century. But these fears all too often fail to consider the internal obstacles facing Beijings push toward tech supremacy. Among them is one very low-tech problem: a prevailing sense of social and professional stagnation.

The drive toward self-reliance has encountered an unlikely form of resistance in a generation of young Chinese who balk at the Partys high-minded calls for continued struggle alongside an deeply engrained culture of overwork without the promise of real advancement. They opt instead for lying flat, or tangping (). The lying flat movement calls on young workers and professionals, including the middle-class Chinese who are to be the engine of Xi Jinpings domestic boom, to opt out of the struggle for workplace success, and to reject the promise of consumer fulfilment. For some, lying flat promises release from the crush of life and work in a fast-paced society and technology sector where competition is unrelenting. For Chinas leadership, however, this movement of passive resistance to the national drive for development is a worrying trenda threat to ambition at a time when Xi Jinping has made grand ambition the zeitgeist of his so-called New Era.

Lying flat is justice

The lying flat movement was jumpstarted in April when a post on Baidu titled Lying Flat Is Justice went viral on the platform. A manifesto of renunciation, the post shared the authors lessons from two years of joblessness. The extraordinary stresses of contemporary life, the author concluded, were unnecessary, the product of the old-fashioned mindset of the previous generation. It was possible, even desirable, he argued, to find independence in resignation: I can be like Diogenes, who sleeps in his own barrel taking in the sun. Discussions about lying flat picked up pace in May, as young Chinese, over-worked and over-stressed, weighed the merits of relinquishing ambition, spurning effort, and refusing to bear hardship.

On May 20, the Party-state media issued a series of simultaneous rebuttals. The creative contribution of our youth is indispensable to achieving the goal of high-quality development, Wang Xingyu, an official at the China University of Labor Relations wrote in the Guangming Daily. Attending to those lying flat, and giving them the will to struggle, is a prime necessity for our country as it faces the task of transitioning development. Nanfang Daily, the mouthpiece of Guangdongs CCP leadership, ran a page-four commentary expressing disgust over the notion of lying flat, concerned that talk of resignation might become a self-fulfilled prophecy. At any time, no matter what stage of development, struggle is always the brightest base color of youth, it said. In the face of pressure, choosing to lie flat is not only unjust, but shameful. There is no value whatsoever in this poisonous chicken soup. In a video that made the rounds online the same day, a commentator at the official Hubei Economic Television said in an admonishing tone: To accept misfortune is fine, but lying flat is not. This condescension was widely ridiculed across Chinese social media.

As state media made their position clear, the original April post on lying flat suddenly disappeared. The search function for lying flat on WeChat, where the word had still been trending, was disabled. On the Douban social networking service, a lying flat discussion group was also shut down. And on Taobao, the popular online shopping platform run by tech giant Alibaba, t-shirts related to lying down were pulled from online stores.

The social cost of innovation

Over the past decade, Chinas leadership has identified innovation as the way forward for economic and social development. The promise of innovation has been epitomized by Chinas tech entrepreneurs, including billionaire founders like Alibabas Jack Ma and Tencents Pony Ma. But the dream of innovation has collided with the harsh reality of overwork in a technology sector that seems sapped of opportunities for breakthrough. Jack Ma and others have advocated a severe culture of overtime work that has become known as 996working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. At the technology giant Huawei, this extreme work environment has been dubbed wolf culture, a climate of fierce internal workplace competition in which workers must either kill or be killed. Observers have drawn a straight line from 996 culture to the lying flat movement. Lying flat was spawned under the persecution of the 996 overtime culture, one writer argued on the Zhihu platform. We employees are too tired. We have to lie down and rest.

The lying flat movement isnt the first time Chinas tech workers have rebelled. In 2019, thousands of tech workers, including programmers and beta testers for major technology firms, responded to Chinas extreme working conditions by launching an online campaign called 996.ICUa mashup of 996 culture and intensive care unit referencing instances of programmers seeking emergency medical treatment for work-related health crises. 996.ICU began compiling a list of Chinese companies with extreme work cultures and advocated an industry consensus on reasonable hours.

While the campaign managed to focus some attention on the issue of extreme overwork, it could not shake the predominant culture in Chinas tech industry. Company bosses merely shrugged it off. Confronted with questions about 996 at a meeting that year, Jack Ma said, In this world, all of us want to be successful, all of us want a good life, and all of us want to be respected. I ask you, How can you achieve the success you want if you dont put in more effort and time than others? In a post to Alibabas WeChat account, Ma called the companys work culture a huge blessing.

Chinese tech executives embrace of extreme work culture find justification in the official Party narrative of tireless struggle in the service of Chinas global rise. But try as it might to drown out the growing despair among millennials and Generation Z, Chinas government will have to grapple with the social costs of breakneck competition in an environment of dwindling returns. And it will have to do more than repeat slogans of struggle and self-sacrifice to inspire the next generation of workers and innovators.

For Chinas young workers, the pressure to forge ahead and innovate is compounded by the pressure to consume. Before the new millennium, Chinese were culturally savers, and consuming on credit was exceptionally rare. It was generally supposed that conspicuous consumption was something unsuited to Chinas national conditions. Over the past decade, however, these assumptions have been turned upside-down. Chinese can now be counted among the worlds most conspicuous consumers.

The consumer boom has been fueled by government policies to encourage domestic consumption. Just eight years ago, in 2013, the government introduced consumer finance pilot programs that encouraged easy credit. These programs came alongside a tech-driven revolution in consumer payment, including the launch in 2013 of WeChat Pay, a digital wallet service connected to the all-purpose social media super-app that enabled users not just to make mobile payments but to transfer money to their contacts. By 2016 in China, barcode payment had been completely normalized, transforming mobile phones into virtual wallets. By 2019, the new trend was to link payment with facial recognition technology.

Fueled by technology and cheap credit, online shopping has exploded in China in recent years. During last years Singles Day shopping event, e-commerce giants including Alibaba and JD.com made $115 billion in sales. Alibabas sales alone doubled over the previous year. During the recent 618 online shopping event, total sales turnover on major Chinese e-commerce platforms reached nearly $90 billion, up more than 26% over 2020. (By comparison, independent sellers on Amazon took in $4.8 billion between Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year.)

Along with innovation, consumption is the second leg on which Chinas economic future is to stand. It was a telling fact last year when Chinas Premier, Li Keqiang, refrained from talking about GDP in his annual government work report, focusing instead on consumption. In a press conference after the release of the report, Li said that consumption is now the primary engine driving growth and indicated that the bulk of government stimulus funds would be applied to support the increase in peoples income through direct or relatively direct means in order to spur consumption and energize the market.

But as consumption has become a perceived necessity, a form of psychological reprieve from the pressures of work, and even a patriotic duty, some young Chinese have buckled under the immense pressure to keep up. Consumer debt has grown dramatically in China during Xi Jinpings New Era, in what one business analyst has called an unfolding debt crisis. The problems facing young borrowers, who have increasingly turned to online consumer finance providers, prompted Chinese regulators to issue a ban in March on new consumer loans to college students, who have frequently been targeted by providers with loans at interest rates sometimes nearly double the 24% allowed by regulations. Skyrocketing living costs in Chinas cities have also meant that many young Chinese, even with elite college degrees, find it difficult to cover the basics, much less afford a life of conspicuous consumption.

For young people struggling under the weight of both extreme competition and its would-be reward, the empty promise of consumerism, it can seem that there is no escape from exploitation. And in a society where more open forms of protest, such as labor activism, are quickly suppressed, they have found release, if not relief, in online expression. The lying flat movement, whose forums have drawn upwards of 200,000 members, is one example of this, and a slew of popular online terms have emerged to describe the sense of hopelessness. These include leek people and harvesting leeks, phrases that liken those caught in the struggle of work and consumption to leeks that are constantly harvested under the blade. Lying flat-ism, one Chinese journalist wrote on the Weibo platform, is a non-violent movement of non-cooperation by the leek people, and the most silent and helpless of actions. When one opts out of the cycle, or so the reasoning goes, it is no longer possible to be cut down, as the illustration below, appearing on Chinese social media in May, expresses. A harvest knife slashes vainly in the air as the plants below fold themselves down toward the earth. Leeks that lie down cannot be harvested so easily, the caption reads.

Lying flat-ism is seen by some as the only possible form of resistance to this cycle of exploitation. One of the dominant slogans of the lying flat movement has been, Dont buy property; dont buy a car; dont get married; dont have children; and dont consume. For this reason, calls to lie flat have doubly concerned Chinas leadership, as they threaten both to sap the country of the ambition to innovate and to knock down the second leg of the countrys long-term development strategythe drive to consume.

Rejuvenation, great and small

One lesson to emerge from the recent wave of attention to lying flat is that there are societal limits to the power of the Party-state to generate economic vibrancy and technological innovation through campaign-style approaches. These limitations can be overlooked or underestimated by the policy community in the West, as the dominance of the Party and the weakness of civil society encourages the perception of a monolithic command state capable of fulfilling its own policy wishes.

But even if they cannot be expressed openly as constraints on policy, the wishes of the Chinese people remain an important factorand the lying flat movement makes this clear. More Chinese hunger for basic dignity. In Chinas current political climate, however, dignity is something abstract, imagined only for the Chinese nation as it rises above the indignities of the 19th and 20th centuries to regain its rightful place in the 21st. In an April speech delivered shortly before the Lying Flat Is Justice post went viral, Xi Jinping encouraged the youth of China to constantly strive for the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

For many of Chinas young workers, struggling through a twelve-hour workday and bracing for the next loan payment, such sloganeering about rejuvenation may sound detached from the personal hope for renewalfor better pay, better working conditions and protections, and for more security. With or without anti-slogans like lying flat, the attitudes of Chinas white-collar workers seem to be changing. A recent survey by Zhao pin, a leading career platform in China, found that more than 80% of white-collar respondents cited fair treatment and respect by companies as the most important factor in company cultures. Workers generally rejected 996 and wolf culture, hoping instead for more balance and humanity.

In Xis China, however, where the Party and the state reign supreme, it has become virtually impossible to stand up for ones own rights and intereststo assert ones personal needs and desires over the grandiose ambitions of the national self. Lying flat is an answer, passive and desperate, to the dehumanizing nature of the struggle, both national and personal. Why should one stand for self-reliance, only to be cut down and harvested?

DavidBandurskiis the co-director of the China Media Project, a research program in partnership with the Journalism & Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong.

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The lying flat movement standing in the way of China ... - Brookings

When loss and grief mark you at a young age, how does it shape every aspect of your life, from your family to your understanding of truth and memory? These questions are central to Cassandra, the main character in Namwali Serpells sophomore novel, The Furrows.

When Cassandra is 12, her younger brother, 7-year-old Wayne, dies while in her care, taken by the sea with no body recovered. The death ruins Cassandras parents marriage. Her father finds a sense of solace in his new family, while her mother becomes obsessed with finding her missing child, even starting an organization dedicated to the cause. This disorienting and fracturing trauma causes Cassandra to become unmoored, which only intensifies into adulthood when she meets Wayne, who she believes could be her long-lost brother.

The talented author, whos also a Harvard English professor, made waves with her previous novel, The Old Drift, which won a slew of awards and landed on many best-of lists. By contrast, The Furrows is less sprawling and more intimate, examining grief and death while playing with time, dreams, parallel realities, and notions of the truth. Serpell also touches on race in America, incarceration, conflicting ideas of love, and the doppelganger effect.

Shondaland spoke with Serpell about the disorientation of grief; truth and lies; sexuality and desire; and the nature of storytelling and loss.

SARAH NEILSON: How did this story come into being? Was there a seed that led to this novel and these characters?

NAMWALI SERPELL: Yes, more clearly than for other novels that Ive written. I had a dream in 2008 or so, and in the dream I was out in the water swimming, and I was with a young boy. Probably my imagination was picturing my nephew Chedza, who was about 5 in 2008, and a storm picked up, and he was struggling out there in the water, and I was trying to swim him to shore. I woke up with a real sense of panic but also with an uncanny feeling that reminded me of dreams that Id had about my late sister, who died in 1999, and about whom I had a recurrent set of dreams in which she would try to convince me that she hadnt in fact died, but as the post-epigraph to my novel details, she would try to convince me that in fact she had just gone away on a long trip.

Proust presents this as a natural tendency of humans we dont really believe that someone has died; its very hard for us to fathom what death actually means. And that feeling of panic and love, but also this deep sense of grief and of loss that I would feel whenever I woke up from a dream like that and remembered that my sister was in fact gone and she hadnt just taken a trip somewhere there was something about the way I felt when I woke up from the dream about my nephew that reminded me of that. Trying to coordinate these two feelings of familial love and desire to protect with the minds flailing and grappling with the question of loss was really the emotional seed out of which The Furrows grew.

The Furrows

The Furrows

SN: Death is portrayed in the book as a dynamic and ongoing experience, especially for the people who are left behind. But Wayne has his own life in the book in unexpected ways. How did you approach rendering Waynes death and life, and the ghosts who live in the bodies of the people you might not even expect?

NS: The second half of the novel really starts to play with this notion of haunting and doubling and doppelgangers in a more explicitly genre sense, and there I was really riffing on Edgar Allan Poes story William Wilson. The family in the doppelganger story of Jordan Peeles Us is also named the Wilsons, so hes obviously thinking about this as well, the way that theres some kind of uncanny relationship between the notion of the double or the doppelganger, the notion of haunting, or being haunted by a version of yourself, that seems particular to Black experience. And one of the ways that I think about this is that the double consciousness that W.E.B. Du Bois speaks about manifests as a doppelganger in my novel as well. I was interested in how these two men in the second half of the novel, Wayne and the man who calls himself Will, whos talking to us from prison, are engaging in this question of haunting as it pertains to Black experience. In Cassandras perspective, theres a way in which her baby brother Wayne keeps appearing to her in different figures, whether its a sandy boy that sometimes appears in the shadows to her, or whether its in her memories and dreams of her little brother, and then perhaps more unsettlingly, the way that he seems to appear in this man who approaches her when shes an adult, and the staging of a scene of recognition that has to do with feeling that theres some familiar spirit in this man who happens to have her brothers name becomes a knotty moral and emotional question for her as the novel proceeds.

SN: Staying on the relationship between the adult Wayne and Cassandra (who are not related), one of the things I liked a lot about the book is that Wayne is always saving Cassandra, or at least trying to, during all these disasters. It felt to me like he was saving her at the end of the world, and that really paralleled her trying to save her brother at the end of the world as they knew it. Can you talk about that part of the story and how you came up with that thread?

NS: I dont know if it was intended on my part, that reversal that you just described, but Ill take it its beautiful, and it makes a lot of sense insofar as the adult Wayne presents to Cassandra a kind of solution to a problem that she has not really properly worked out for herself. He seems to save her from the condition that shes in, which is shes trapped in a cycle of bad mourning, in the psychoanalytic sense a compulsive melancholy where she keeps repeating and reiterating this loss for herself, but she cant seem to actually heal from it or feel any closure about it, and he seems like the missing piece to that. So, it makes a lot of sense that she, having lost Wayne and having not been able to save him, that the older man would then save her from that condition.

We discover relatively quickly into the plot that this man is not in fact her long-lost brother, but one of the things that I wanted to capture about these reunion scenes, these false reunions, is the way that it would feel like a climax of life, a drawing together of all youve been longing for coming to you in this moment. But the moment that she recognizes him, or so she feels, the world erupts around them. Part of what I was trying to get at there its something that [Toni] Morrison talks about in her description of what shes trying to do in Tar Baby, which is to register in the external world the intense tragedy and violence thats happening in the world of the characters on the island. So, theres all this internal family violence happening in that novel, but she has these images of the trees screaming and the birds registering this disaster. Its like when we see the prophetic omens before a plague strikes in biblical type of stories. So, it was a way for me to register in the body of the world that Im depicting what I think is a fundamental wrongness about Cassandras desire to replace her brother with this man, to fill the hole inside her heart with romantic love for this person, whos basically a perfect stranger to her, and whom she really doesnt try to know in his full self. The reader gets to know him, but Cassandra really doesnt, and I wanted to speak to the futility of that. Our desire to get out of grief can sometimes overwhelm us to the point where we no longer think of other people as people but rather as solutions to our own emotional problems. So, the catastrophes, in some ways, are ways to register the wrongness of that in Cassandra.

The author photographed in her home in 2019.

SN: Can you dig a little bit more into the role of sex and desire in the book and how it intersects with grief and trauma?

NS: I had an interview with a wonderful Australian writer recently, and she said, As I was reading, I was like, oh, no, Namwali; dont go there. Oh, shes going there. To stage a sexual encounter immediately following what seems to be a characters recognition of someone as her brother is obviously quite perverse and dark in a way of thinking about sexuality. And I think theres several different angles from which one can understand this. Theres a long literary tradition of thinking about these kinds of transgressive sexual relationships, and youll find it in The Bluest Eye and Lolita, The Sound and the Fury these intimations of incest hover over texts, I think, as ways of thinking about how Eros [a Greek word from which erotism is derived] can really derange our moral and our emotional lives. At the same time, I think this goes back even further to much, much older literature. What interests me is the way that family love and romantic love present to us two conflicting versions of love. In the case of Cassandra, she has an irresolvable dilemma for herself. If she accepts that this man is her brother, then she cannot have him as her lover. But if she accepts him as her lover, then she loses her brother altogether; she loses all hope of ever reuniting with her brother. Of course, this whole time shes been maintaining that her brother is dead, but what the recognition reveals to us, and also I think to her, is how much she actually hopes that in fact he did not die.

So, theres this way in which drawing together these two kinds of love presented an impasse for Cassandra that I thought would be really interesting to work through. Whats interesting to me is that its not really a factor for the adult Wayne at all because he knows that its not his sister, and hes quite disgusted when it even comes up later in the novel, that this would even be a shadow that would be cast over their relationship in any kind of way. And so, it becomes entirely internal to Cassandras own tortured relationship to family love and to her deep loneliness.

SN: Theres a repeating line in the book that reads, I dont want to tell you what happened; I want to tell you how it felt. Throughout the book, time is written about as an ocean, a storm, a carousel, a rope its furrowed and nonlinear, and there are parallel existences happening. Can you talk about that intersection of nonlinear time, memory, and feeling?

NS: If you search the word plot on Wikipedia or Google, youll find all this advice for writers about conflict and resolution, about climax and denouement. It gives us an illusion that we tell stories from beginning to end. But almost always, even if events happen from beginning to end, the order of telling is not the same as the order of happening, and theres a really good question as to why that is. Very few stories start from the beginning and move toward the end, and so thats a wonderful tool for writers because it means that we can manipulate time. We are time travelers just by virtue of how we write. One of the exceptional things that I think modernism, as a movement in the early 20th century, brought to us is just how much variety you can have when it comes to our playing with time, and in this novel, I felt very interested in experimenting with the order of telling in order to capture what Cassandra characterizes as wanting to tell you how it felt rather than exactly what happened.

I think one of the reasons we play with time in the stories we tell, and one of the reasons audiences like that, is because it allows for suspense; it allows for information to be revealed to us late. We can start in the middle of things, right when things are getting exciting, and then flash back to how we got here in the first place, and theres this dynamism to that way of telling. For me, it seemed like this is a really amazing opportunity to try to enact through the readers experience what grief feels like, and one of the things that I think grief intensifies is the way that time feels. We always say that time flies, or it creeps, or it stretches, or an hour can feel like three hours; a day can feel like it goes by in a minute. The way we experience time has very little relation to its orderly movement through seconds and minutes and hours. So, being able to play with temporality in that way was really helpful to try to embody, or have the reader feel in their body, the way that time might move when youre mourning, but also the way that time moves differently when youre dreaming and when youre remembering. As the novel progresses, I tried to give a sense of how time feels now in the contemporary moment because this is a novel thats very much about how time feels in the United States in the twenty-teens, and the ways in which our relationship to feelings, our relationships to other people, is really filtered through a larger zeitgeist, as we like to say, of how the world is doing time.

SN: I wonder if we can extend that a little bit into ideas of truth, because I found it really interesting that in Cassandras family, the word lie was really taboo. Why did it feel important for you to make that part of the story, and can you elaborate a little bit about notions of truth and lies that you were thinking about when you were writing?

NS: Something I think about the modern era, especially this particular time, from the 2000s to the twenty-teens, is the extent to which we have a context collapse, information collapse. The great digital shift in how we consume media has made our grasp on what is true and what is not true quite tenuous. Of course, the novel takes place before Trumps election, when a lot of these questions and issues came to the fore. But I think we often perceive that as a kind of existential crisis in how we can know whether or not something is true. I actually think one of the greater losses is that the instability of what is true and what is not true has led us to this always happens when theres a panic, when theres a crisis is that we tend to fix those categories much more strongly. Truth and lie become much more fixed. When actually what we know, and what literature knows, and what art of all kinds knows is that within the category of truth, theres a whole spectrum of what we understand truth to be. Theres empirical fact, theres emotional truth, theres phenomenological truth, which is how you experience something, even if it doesnt actually correspond to what happened, and theres also truth that changes our understanding of the world changes, but the world also changes. And then within lies, theres a huge spectrum theres white lies, manipulative lies; theres lying to yourself, self-deception. We lose a lot of complexity when we fix these notions of truth and lie, and my novel is really working at the edges of what we can know to be true. Theres very little in the novel that we can know to be true except that this boy is gone. Thats all we know, and everything else comes down to how we handle that, how we respond to that, whether we believe one thing or another about that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Neilson is a freelance writer. They can be found on Twitter @sarahmariewrote.

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Namwali Serpell Distills the Disorienting Experience of Grief in 'The Furrows' - Shondaland.com

Summer is officially over, and as the days get longer, its only natural that we take stock of the seasons biggest moments in music.

There are a lot of themes and events that nabbed summers attentionfrom major box office releases to a string of live festivals and fashion shows. But in music, nothing has dominated conversation as much as house and dance musics triumphant rise to mainstream popularity.

In June, Drake entered the world of dance with his seventh studio album, Honestly, Nevermind. The project, which borrowed sounds from Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago house music, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. A few weeks later, Beyonc entered the conversation with her highly-anticipated album, Renaissance. The album served as a sort of history lesson in dance and house culture, utilizing classic samples like Robin S.s Show Me Love and Donna Summers I Feel Love. Beyoncs record also debuted atop the Billboard 200. Beyonc and Drake are not the only contemporary artists to dip their toes in the genre. Kanye West, Azealia Banks, Teyana Taylor, and a handful of others have also contributed tunes to the space in the last decade. But the success of Beyonc and Drakes respective records makes a case for why dance is the official MVP of summer 2022.

Before delving into dance musics current success, its worth noting that its a far from new endeavor. Dance music has been around for over five decades, first gaining traction in the 1970s and early 80s in Chicagos underground club scene with artists like Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy. One of the main influences of house music was disco, but DJs began adding their own spin to the sound by altering the beat to have more electronic and mechanical elements. By the 1980s, DJs began playing a range of house styles at parties, including subgenres such as deep house, acid house, and UK garage.

Hip-hop also started to embrace house music when MCs and beatmakers joined forces to create energized songs with funk samples and gritty vocals in the late 80s. Since then, modern house music has become more regional with subgenres like Jersey club, Baltimore club, and Philly club music taking center stage.

House music, though it never completely fell off, lost much of its popularity after its peak in the 1990s, as the industry moved towards other genres and sounds. Pop and rock music creeped into dominance during the Y2K era and remained for many years, until 2017, when hip-hop and R&B surpassed rock as the most dominant genre in music and has occupied the space for the last four years. Hip-hop, of course, isnt going anywhere, but there has been a shift in some consumers musical interests.

A need for vibrant and uptempo music comes in large part as a result of a global pandemic that kept most of us indoors for months at a time. Venus X, DJ and host of GHE20GOTH1K (pronounced ghetto gothic)an underground party held in New Yorks club scenetells Complex that she saw a thirst for more upbeat and vibrant records in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We came to a head collectively as a culture, whether people want to accept it or not, she says. A lot of people died, and a lot of people got sick, and a lot of people lost jobs, and lost money and were in a recession. All recessions historically create the demand for more dance music. So, if anybody thinks that that dark shit is going to continue to work right now, its just not.

Its always interesting to me when people try to call things a revival.

In conversation with Harpers Bazaar, Beyonc also noted that her album came together as a result of the pandemic. With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again, Beyonc said in August 2021. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible.

The resurgence of house music in popular culture can also be attributed to musicians and music listeners changing interests. Venus X says that artists are moving away from certain themes and sounds that might have been popular five years ago. We are shifting from a dark, secretive culture into a transparent, Me Too oriented, and very self-help and wellness oriented culture, she continues. We dont have the same type of songs we had seven years ago from Future where hes promoting Percocets and lean. Its changing because people are dying and also because you cannot survive a pandemic and go back to the same lifestyle you had before. And, according to the charts, that tracks. The shift was documented on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Songs like Burna Boys Last Last and Beyoncs Break My Soul have been popular summer anthems and held spots on the Hot 100 for several weeks.

Although new cultural events are pushing the reemergence of house music right now, creators and experts within the space wouldnt call this a comeback or even a revival. Its always interesting to me when people try to call things a revival because to me, I think a revival implies some sort of community-oriented cultural focus where the quote-unquote revival is the result of intentional action, house and garage producer DJ Dirty Bird tells Complex. Instead, its become more marketable and people are paying more attention to it because certain high profile figures are interested in it.

You cannot survive a pandemic and go back to the same lifestyle you had before.

DJ Dirty Bird attributes dance musics latest marketability to a number of things; the first being the Black communitys interest in reclaiming genres that have suffered from whitewashing, he explains. People are interested in house music because of [its] history but also the later whitewashing of it, Dirty Bird adds. The story of it is more accessible and is being covered in more high profiles and articles now, so its reentered the zeitgeist again.

Internet culture has also contributed to the genres marketability, says DJ Dirty Bird. TikTok has been a huge source for rediscovering and promoting other genres of music. Thousands of videos are uploaded every day using clips of dance songs that arent necessarily getting a lot of spins on the radio. With all these emerging underground music scenes break core, hyper-pop, and general electronic musicyoung people [on the internet] have been discovering this music for the first time and started to produce it, he adds. Then theyre seeing that these big artists delve into the genre a little bit, so its become a little bit more interesting. And with the general cultural interest being reignited in it, all the big million dollar music labels are dumping money into it and are making money off of it.

Creators on the ground who have been putting in the work for years now might not call it a comeback, because as far as they are concerned, theyve never stopped playing house records in spaces. But Daze, a Black electronic producer from Brooklyn, New York, says he has noticed a surge in house music requests in social functions since the end of the pandemic. I am usually asked to play house [music] now, Daze shares. Of course, Ill get some pop [requests] as well, but I usually run it up more and everybody enjoys it.

These genres and these styles of music have been kept alive and were pioneered by queer and trans and alternative people.

While Daze has always specialized in dance and electronic music, hes aware of the appeal of all DJs playing the genre, saying, House and dance music is much easier for DJs to loop as well. Its much smoother to transition two 4x4 dance tracks by big artists that everybody recognizes, rather than a very abstract electronic song, or a very off-the-grid rap song.

Whenever mainstream artists hop on a trend, there is always some backlash, and understandably so. Creators who pioneered the space are often dismissed and denied credit, and the scene tends to lose the underground feel that appealed to its core audience. This wave of popularity for house and dance music is no different. Venus X says that people can look at it as a loss of authorship and a loss of representation, which it can absolutely be that, considering both Beyonc and Drake, though they may be Black, are straight, cis-hetero people. These genres and these styles of music have been kept alive and were pioneered by queer and trans and alternative people, which I would say very clearly they are not.

There is also a lack of knowledge that comes with underground music moving into the mainstream. DJ Dirty Bird says a lot of requests hes received in parties are from a short list of contemporary artists because people dont have knowledge of artists outside of their immediate network. Theyll be, Oh, I like house music. I love Kaytranada, he recalls of fans music requests. I hate to name-drop him because its not his fault that people are drawn to his music and base their experience of house around him. But its interesting to me that people only seem able to explore the genre around this singular launching point.

DJ Dirty Bird continues: I think now that the genre is more popular, people are trying to use what they know as a springboard to learn more about it. But in that process, they dont really have the critical tools to engage with the music thoroughly. This is where it becomes the DJs responsibility. It takes a little bit of cultural facilitation to get people from their starting point to true appreciation of the genre as a whole.

Despite the inevitable hesitation, everyone who spoke to Complex recognizes the benefits of having two of the worlds biggest artists jump onto the movement, recognizing it as a big commercial push for a genre that hasnt seen this much attention in several decades.

Plus, any time a major recording artist hops on a trend, there is a new possibility for growth and education. People dont speak the language of house or queer culture yet, but they will be able to understand more words as a result of these artists using these similar practices and drum patterns, Venus X explains. And it is a great opportunity for people who have been trying to push it forward and do the work.

The music industry is fickle, and every trend leaves almost as fast as it is introduced. So, although dance music was more popular than ever this summer, DJ Dirty Bird asserts that drill and contemporary are still mainstays in the music scene right now, too.

House music caused a lot of ripples, but when I think of whats the most popular music right now, its still rap. Lets not get it twisted, he says. Its still Atlanta rap music All that is way more popular than house music will probably ever be in the states, at least for next five or 10 years. But I think house music had an interesting peak in its popularity this year. Still, he says its going to take a little bit more from the house scene to really say that we had a smash hit summer type of thing.

Its only as profitable as long as its marketable, and its only marketable if the community is supporting it.

Nevertheless, with Beyonc, Drake, and possibly other big names joining houses resurgence, DJ Dirty is hopeful that the trend will continue long past the summer. Im just thinking about all the other dance music artists who I know and have been friends over the past two years. I think it would be cool to have a cultural moment that persists, that can support these artists in the same way that weve done for Atlanta rap, and Detroit rap, and whatnot, and UK drill, he adds. I dont think people realize that their level of interest and support directly affects the livelihood of underground artists. So, its reliant on both the support of the general public and the music industry. Its only as profitable as long as its marketable, and its only marketable if the community is supporting it.

Dance music might have ruled summer 2022 and entered the conversation for a new generation once more, but Venus X, DJ Dirty Bird, and Daze all agree it will never die. Why? Well, because people need stuff to dance to, Daze insists. In fact, its likely that the need to move our bodies will facilitate dance musics continued success in the mainstream landscape for years to come. Daze predicts that when a lot of the public gets into dancing to house music, its going to become much more intertwined with pop music, and many more rap artists will start experimenting with it.

See the original post here:

Dance & House Music Ruled the Summer. What Now? - Complex

NOT since the foundation of the Labour Party in 1900 has the need for an alternative political vehicle in Britain been more urgently required.

The defeat of the Jeremy Corbyn project left millions of people bereft.

So much hope and expectation was invested in the Labour Party under Corbyns leadership.

But the direction in which Sir Keir Starmer has steered Labour for the last two-and-a-half years has created a political vacuum on the left.

Millions of people in Britain no longer have an electoral home. All the political parties currently sitting in the Commons favour retaining the economic and foreign policy status quo.

This makes a mockery of our democracy. Politics should be about giving people choices but in Britain there is no real choice.

It doesnt matter whether Labour or the Conservatives win most seats at a general election.

They are both committed to retaining the neoliberal and imperialist status quo, as are the SNP and Lib Dems.

Of course, there would be some tinkering at the edges, but nothing would fundamentally change whether a majority Tory or Labour government was elected or whether a coalition was formed with the Liberal Democrats or SNP.

All these parties would preside over rising poverty, worsening inequality and increased authoritarianism that would undermine our fundamental rights and Britains involvement in overseas wars would continue apace.

It is 110 years since Vladimir Lenin published his seminal pamphlet about the situation in tsarist Russia, What Is to Be Done.

We need to ask ourselves the same fundamental question what is to be done in 21st-century Britain?

It is an entirely futile exercise to waste time and effort trying to make the Labour Party a force for socialism and anti-imperialism.

We had our chance and we blew it. New grassroots organisations have sprung up like Enough is Enough, and I helped to found the Resist Movement a few months after the 2019 general election.

Trade union militancy is also on the rise as a reaction to the cost-of-living catastrophe that has been facilitated by Natos proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

But although these initiatives are inspiring, it still leaves the question about what is to be done at the next general election.

Are trade unions and the Enough is Enough movement going to urge people to vote Labour even though a Labour government would retain the system that has created the explosion in poverty, insecurity and inequality?

Britains democracy is a sham, but I believe the political vacuum could be filled by a rejuvenated Socialist Labour Party (SLP), the alternative party founded by Arthur Scargill in 1996.

I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me that what we need is a socialist Labour Party.

That is why Resists steering committee unanimously recommended to our members that we should join the SLP, and in a poll of Resists membership last month, 89 per cent voted in favour of the move.

Lenin recognised the need for a vanguard political party and I believe the SLP could fulfil that role.

Corbyn showed that there is an appetite for a socialist alternative and I think the SLP has the potential to mount a serious challenge to the political duopoly.

It wont be easy of course. The first-past-the-post system favours the mainstream parties, but the political duopoly has been broken before and it can be broken again.

More recent attempts by parties like Respect, Tusc, and the SLP for that matter, floundered because the timing wasnt right.

There was still a hope, when those parties first emerged, that the Labour Party was salvageable but the evidence from the Corbyn experience proves beyond any shadow of doubt that it isnt.

I firmly believe that the zeitgeist has shifted in favour of an alternative socialist party. One of the key benefits of the SLP, apart from its unambiguous commitment to socialism, is its name recognition.

Even though there is huge dissatisfaction among the electorate with the Labour Party, it is still ahead of the Tories in opinion polls because many people still see Labour as the natural alternative to the Tories.

Consequently, having the name Labour in the SLPs title is hugely beneficial, and a socialist Labour Party is precisely what many people have been clamouring for.

I want to see a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families in this country.

That was a pledge given by the Labour Party in its 1974 manifesto before it was abandoned after Denis Healey went to the IMF on a false premise.

Tinkering with the system will not do. It is system change that is required now.

There is currently no political outlet in Westminsters corridors of power for the anger that is being expressed through street protests and industrial action.

So, my plea to all Morning Star readers is to join us in this endeavour to build the Socialist Labour Party into a serious electoral force.

You can join us in Liverpool this Sunday at the Liner Hotel, which is a minutes walk from Lime Street Station, when we will be formally announcing our intention to join the SLP.

Chris Williamson was MP for Derby North from 2010-15 and 2017-19.

Continued here:

It is time to back a new party in the elections - Morning Star Online

For the pop culturally attuned, worrying about the film Dont Worry Darling has become a weeks-long pastime, after a mess of a press tour that basically amounted to a whole TV seasons worth of water-cooler drama. The film, a psychological thriller starring Florence Pugh and little-known pop singer Harry Styles, finally arrived in theaters this weekend. Judgment day was kind estimates have its debut weekend haul at $19.2m. Now that its out, we can do what the studio and director Olivia Wilde have encouraged us to do: judge the film by its own merits rather than real-world gossip (spoilers ahead).

The problem is, its impossible to separate the film from its off-screen drama. The PR around Dont Worry Darling and the film itself suffer from a similar issue: theres a clear discrepancy between what were told is happening and what we actually see. A difference between official narrative and actual material, and in the case of the film which Wilde has billed as a vehicle for female pleasure and a feminist thriller a stark gap between visual achievement and cheap, empty narrative.

On the PR side something was clearly off despite Wildes protestations that all the endless tabloid gossip around on-set strife and issues with Pugh amount to internet nonsense and sexist double standards (am I envious of my male colleagues in the way that they seem to be able to live their lives without as much judgment? Yeah, I think about it, she told Kelly Clarkson last week. Im like, That must be nice to be that guy. Everybodys just, like, applauding just every move he makes). Pugh, the lead star of a major release, skipped almost all promotional duties except the Venice film festival, where she did not acknowledge Wilde (there are a million TikToks/explainers dissecting the Venice premiere like the Zapruder film, if you want a refresher.) Vulture reported that the two had a screaming match in January 2021 that resulted in negotiations with Warner Bros executives to ensure Pugh would participate in any promotion at all. (A letter signed by 40 crew members disputed any allegations of unprofessional behavior on set and called reports of a vocal argument between Pugh and Wilde completely false.)

I could go on about the off-screen drama and the unusual press tour, and some of it (spitgate) is just noise. But a lot of it is the natural response to seeing something that does not align with the official narrative. The gap provokes interest, frustration. People will fill it with speculation that, yes, can be sexist and judgmental and extra, but also just curious.

Unfortunately, the discrepancy between what the film seems to be trying to do (or what Wilde says its doing) and what its actually doing has the opposite effect. The twist (spoilers, again) that Pughs Alice has been trapped in a 50s simulation because her internet-poisoned boyfriend, Styless Jack, wants her to himself all the time is shocking, in that its borderline offensive for a film Wilde has hyped for female pleasure to have said pleasure be nonconsensual, in the service of captivity. But it turns the brain off rather than on. Youd have to not think much to find it surprising, or to not poke holes in it immediately (What did the plane mean? Did no one have any sense of personal history? Why did Gemma Chans character turn on Chris Pines Frank?! Pugh is completely convincing throughout, but why did Alice, supposedly a smart character, confess her skepticism to Wildes Bunny and not Kiki Laynes Margaret?) And youd have to really not think to find it some sort of feminist statement.

The film takes some basic ideas that some men find womens employment a threat, crave submission and idolize a return to repressive 1950s gender norms and strings them together with little coherence or characterization. It borrows heavily from other, better movies the zeitgeist-y politics and sunken place pacification of Jordan Peeles Get Out, the simulations of The Truman Show and The Matrix. Many of its plot beats mirror The Stepford Wives (the 1975 original, a thriller with roots in dark satire) the sinister 50s housewife aesthetic, the spiky best friend, women asking what do you think they do up there? about their husbands, a forbidden mens club. Both protagonists beat their husbands, unmasked as their captors, over the head with a household item. The Stepford Wives also stretched misogyny to ludicrous ends the men, not nearly as likable or handsome as the DWD husbands, replace the women with robots but its twist at least held up to narrative scrutiny.

Wilde does deserve credit as a director. She wrangled together a team of superior craft lush cinematography from Matthew Libatique, vibrant costumes from Arianne Phillips, John Powells booming score that does more suspense work than any of Alices strange discoveries. As with the drug trip scene in her debut film, Booksmart, Wilde demonstrates a knack for conveying the destabilized brain Alices flashbacks/memory jolts/hallucinations, often involving Busby Berkeley-esque dance sequences, are visually compelling, even in service of complete obviousness.

But for all the tricks, Dont Worry Darling is basically devoid of suspense. Part of that is due to a press cycle in which Wilde has spoiled much of the movie. Shes compared it to The Truman Show, revealed before the release that Chris Pines character is based on Jordan Peterson, told Variety that she did a deep dive into disenfranchised world of white men on the internet via 4chan as research for the film, and lectured Maggie Gyllenhaal about incels. And part of that is that the film actually has nothing to say about feminism, or the internet, or society, other than misogyny is a helluva trip.

It reminds me of Promising Young Woman, another film hyped for its feminism and radical anger whose twist was doubling down on how bad some men can be; the film, which got a wide release in late 2020, followed a beautiful, white female protagonist, played by Carey Mulligan, singularly obsessed with revenge for sexual violence. Both films have visual panache and a female star whose performance exceeds the story; both felt anachronistic upon release, as if they were responding to the early days of the #MeToo movement in 2017, in which exposure of singularly, devastatingly bad men felt itself like revelation. Or, in the case of Dont Worry Darling, when concern about internet-bred incels (involuntary celibates) spiked after the 2018 Toronto van attack, in which a man radicalized online killed 10 people.

I wrote at the time how Promising Young Woman demonstrated the limits of #MeToo rage on-screen, how the films insistence on everyone reaching their worst potential felt dead-ending; theres little room to explore the slipperiness of complicity, the corrosive effects of trauma, in a bifurcated world of good and bad people. Dont Worry Darling feels like an even shallower, cheaper version of this. Men are bad, and? Misogyny runs deep, and? Theres a well-shot sequence of Jack going down on Alice, to what end? Its certainly not pleasure, given what we learn of Alices prison, nor is it in service of some greater idea.

In the end, I do root for Dont Worry Darling, as a non-IP film and a big swing by a female film-maker. Its fun to see on a big screen. But like the Victory Project, its also a ruse selling one thing, delivering something else.

Read more:

The empty feminism of Dont Worry Darling - The Guardian

Good Monday morning.

The Vogel Group and law firm Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak are expanding in Tallahassee with three new hires.

Chad Revis and Josh Pratt are joining the law firm Holtzman Vogel while Tori Deal is coming on as Director of Operations for both firms, further adding to the teams deep political and policy reach across the state.

The growth on our team is further evidence our firms are thriving. We are thrilled to welcome this remarkable group of young talent. Vogel Group principal Eileen Stuart said. They bring an impressive array of experiences and relationships throughout Florida, which we are already successfully leveraging on behalf of firm clients.

Pratt most recently served as Deputy General Counsel to Gov. Ron DeSantis, where he managed a wide-ranging portfolio including high-profile litigation, judicial appointments and legislative priorities. He also clerked for Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles Canady and two federal judges.

Revis previously clerked for Chief Justice Carlos Muniz at the Florida Supreme Court and before that served on Attorney General Ashley Moodys executive staff, overseeing initiatives on human trafficking and opioids, as well as working as a legal intern at the Republican Party of Florida.

He and Pratt join as associate attorneys at Holtzman Vogel.

Deal joins the team after serving as an executive assistant and adviser to numerous Secretaries at the state Department of Environmental Protection. In this role, Deal advanced the Departments mission while building relationships with key stakeholders in the natural resources arena. Over the course of her 14 years at DEP, she collaborated directly with policymakers and staff across the entire Florida executive branch.

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TS Ian update Tropical Storm Ian intensified overnight into a hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center, and forecasters expect the storm will be a major hurricane by the end of the day.

The hurricane center on Monday morning also placed Tampa Bay under a hurricane watch and a storm surge watch. Tampa Bay remained firmly in the storms forecast cone, though forecasters said there was still a great deal of uncertainty about Ians path.

As of 5 a.m. Monday, Hurricane Ian was 90 miles southwest of Grand Cayman and about 315 miles southeast of the western tip of Cuba. Ian was moving northwest at about 14 mph and had sustained winds near 75 mph with higher gusts, the 5 a.m. update from the hurricane center said.

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

Tweet, tweet:

Tweet, tweet:

@DonLew87: On Matt Gaetz. First, Devlin Barrett writes WaPo story relying on unnamed sources. Next, @MuellerSheWrote expresses serious skepticism. Then, the same @DevlinBarrett retweets MSWs post! And, Joel Greenbergs lawyer says hes heard nothing to suggest Gaetz is off the hook.

@DavidGoodhue: Despite the Keys getting farther away from Ians forecasted center, Jonathan Rizzo at NWS Key West warns its likely to be a huge storm: This is not the forecast cone of a chihuahua charging to meet you when you get home from work. This is a charging bull.

DAYS UNTIL

Supervisors of Elections vote-by-mail mailing deadline for General Election 10; 22-23 NHL season begins 11; WPEC televised debate in Florida Governors race 16; deadline to register for General Election 18; Before You Vote TV debates (Senate) 22; NBA season tips off 22; Taylor Swifts Midnights release 25; Florida Chamber Annual Meeting & Future of Florida Forum 28; Cormac McCarthys The Passenger releases 29; Jon Meachams And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle releases 29; City & State Florida Digital Summit 31; Early voting begins for General Election 33; 2022 General Election 43; Black Panther: Wakanda Forever premieres 46; Captain Marvel 2 premieres 46; FITCon 2022 begins 52; The Flash premieres 52; The World Cup kicks off in Qatar 56; The U.S. World Cup Soccer Team begins play 59; Florida TaxWatchs Annual Meeting begins 68; Willow premieres on Disney+ 68; McCarthys Stella Maris releases 71; Avatar 2 premieres 81; final Broadway performance of The Music Man with Hugh Jackman 97; Bruce Springsteen launches his 2023 tour in Tampa 128; Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania premieres 144; 2023 Legislative Session convenes 162; John Wick: Chapter 4 premieres 179; American Association of Political Consultants Pollies 23 conference begins 204; 2023 Session Sine Die 221; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 premieres 221; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse premieres 249; Christopher Nolans Oppenheimer premieres 298; Blade reboot premieres 403; Dune: Part Two premieres 417; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 2 premieres 550; Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games 669; Thunderbolts premieres 669; Fantastic Four reboot premieres 774; Avengers: The Kang Dynasty premieres 952.

TOP STORY

Gov. Ron DeSantis urges Floridians to stay alert, prepare for Tropical Storm Ian via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics Forecasts now show the storm path for Tropical Storm Ian shifting west toward the Panhandle away from Southwest Florida. But DeSantis stressed a similar message as meteorologists: Essentially, no one knows for sure the eventual path of the storm. Its important to point out to folks that the path of this is still uncertain, DeSantis said at an 11:30 a.m. news conference on Sunday. The impacts will be broad throughout the state of Florida.

President Joe Bidens trip to Orlando area postponed due to Tropical Storm Ian via Steven Lemongello of the Orlando Sentinel Bidens scheduled trip to the Orlando area on Tuesday to rally Democrats has been postponed due to the approach of Tropical Storm Ian. Biden had been set to appear at the Harold and Ted Alfond Sports Center at Rollins College in Winter Park, according to organizer Jose Nunez. The event would have also featured comedian Keegan-Michael Key. Charlie Crist, the partys gubernatorial candidate, was scheduled to appear alongside Biden, but not Val Demings, the partys U.S. Senate candidate.

NASA stands down from Tuesday launch for Artemis I, holding off rollback decision via Richard Tribou of the Orlando Sentinel With the approaching threat of what is forecast to be Hurricane Ian, NASA finally threw in the towel for a launch attempt Tuesday of its Artemis I mission to the moon from Kennedy Space Center. On Sunday, managers indicated they would wait longer before deciding on whether to roll back the massive 5.75 million-pound, 322-foot-tall combination of Space Launch System rocket, mobile launcher and Orion spacecraft to the safety of the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Leon County has sandbag sites open ahead of Ian via WFSU These sites will be staffed to help quickly fill sandbags. Sand, bags and ties will be available for public use. Residents are asked to take no more than 15 bags: Leon Countys Northeast Branch Library; Apalachee Regional Park; Fred George Park; the intersection of Oak Ridge Road at Ranchero Road. There are two additional self-service sites. Residents must bring their own shovels, and there is a 25-bag limit: Mike Blankenship Skate Park; Northwood Centre.

Even as storm Ian approaches, Cuba focuses on controversial referendum on gay marriage via Nora Gmez Torres of the Miami Herald Cuba, which is holding a high-stakes, islandwide referendum on gay marriage and other family rights on Sunday, has downplayed preparations as Tropical Storm Ian approaches, even as projections for the storm have it hitting the western tip of the island as a major Category 3 hurricane Monday night into Tuesday. On its morning advisory, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ian will intensify rapidly on Sunday and reach major hurricane strength by late Monday when it will reach the island. The center forecasts that western Cuba is at increased risk of facing significant wind and storm surge impacts.

DESANTIS V. CRIST

Donald Trump and DeSantis: Once allies, now in simmering rivalry with 2024 nearing via Hannah Knowles and Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post The public contrasts and behind-the-scenes tensions reflect how formidable an emerging adversary the Florida Governor has become to Trump, even as the 45th President polls far ahead of the pack in a hypothetical Primary matchup.

At a recent gathering, DeSantis had with a few dozen donors in Arizona, everyone asked him about 2024, according to Don Tapia, a donor who attended and who served as an ambassador in the Trump administration. DeSantis, Tapia said, is building a base with the Trump people, but, right now the Republican base is Donald Trumps base.

The former President tracks DeSantiss public appearances and polling numbers, according to his advisers. He has also soured on DeSantis, repeatedly criticizing him and telling advisers: I made him.

Trump and his advisers widely expect DeSantis to take him on in 2024, multiple people in the former Presidents orbit said. Yet Trump has not been adversarial to the current Governor because he is favored to win a second term as a Republican in Florida, and advisers said they see little value in open animosity. Some Trump advisers said DeSantis has tapped into the conservative zeitgeist on cultural issues in a way that Trump did in 2016 but has struggled to do since leaving office. One Trump adviser said it is not in anyones interest for the two sides to be fighting right now.

Independents and suburban voters strongly prefer DeSantis over Biden, poll finds via Eric Daugherty of Floridas Voice According to favorability ratings in the latest The Economist/YouGov Poll, DeSantis net and total favorability ratings far exceed Bidens. Recent polls have given DeSantis a strong lead over Democrat Crist, but the latest national poll paints the Governor also with considerable strength nationwide. The poll which leans Democrat by a staggering 9 points gives DeSantis an overall net favorability rating of +8, 41% favorable to 33% unfavorable. Among Independents, his position is better, being +11, 38%-27%. Suburban voters like DeSantis even more, 45%-34%.

DeSantis re-election campaign focuses on voters in Florida Republican base via Arian Campo-Flores and Alex Leary of The Wall Street Journal In closely divided Florida, gubernatorial candidates usually tack toward the middle in the general election after courting their party bases in the Primary. Not Republican DeSantis. Last week, he sent two planes of migrants to Marthas Vineyard, infuriating immigrant-rights groups, triggering lawsuits and garnering praise from some Republicans and conservative media outlets. DeSantis recently campaigned for conservative GOP candidates in Kansas and Pennsylvania while asserting that Florida has gotten redder.

DeSantis is not stopping his migrant charters. And Biden world cant do a thing about it. via Oriana Pawlyk of POLITICO The company that GOP Gov. DeSantis used to send dozens of migrants to Marthas Vineyard operates charter flights under approvals granted by federal transportation regulators who have almost absolute power to regulate safety in the skies. But theres probably little the Federal Aviation Administration can do to stop DeSantis from continuing the flights, people familiar with the agencys legal authorities say even though Biden and other Democrats have condemned the flights as cruel publicity stunts.

Mysteries, legal challenges follow DeSantiss migrant flights via Beth Reinhard, Maria Sacchetti and Molly Hennessy-Fiske of The Washington Post While DeSantis has embraced his role in staging the flight, arguing that it protected Florida from negative ramifications of a border crossing surge, his office has been less clear about the purpose of nearly $1.6 million paid to a contractor, according to state records, and the role of state officials in developing the plan. Post interviews with several migrants paint a picture of a carefully orchestrated, taxpayer-funded operation with little apparent concern for the interests of the migrants caught in the middle. Florida officials began researching Texass migrant situation weeks before the flights, and a contractor with ties to the DeSantis administration later handled the efforts.

Do Americans love migrant flights or hate them? Neither. Its kind of a gray area. As Kaleigh Rogers and Zoha Qamar write for FiveThirtyEight, public opinion is split on the issue with about two-fifths approving and the same number disapproving. The split reflects a broader divide on immigration in general.

Charlie Crists running mate Karla Hernndez wants accountability for charter schools via Mark Harper of the Daytona Beach News-Journal About 50 Volusia Democrats crowded into their headquarters to meet one of the newest faces of the 2022 Florida election. Crists running mate, Hernndez is president of United Teachers of Dade since 2016 and a first-generation Miami native of Honduran descent. She gave dozens of hugs, posed for countless photos and told of her humble beginnings before launching into politics. I was raised in a very small house, much smaller than this one. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, she said.

Assignment editors Crist and U.S. Senate candidate Demings will take part in a rally hosted by the Faith in Florida Action Fund. Aramis Ayala, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, also is expected to attend: 7 p.m., New Mount Olive Baptist Church, 400 N.W. Ninth Ave., Fort Lauderdale.

2022

Voters divided amid intense fight for control of Congress, poll finds via The Washington Post Heading into the final weeks of the midterm election campaign, Americans are split nationally in their vote for Congress, with Republicans holding sizable advantages on the economy, inflation and crime and Democrats far more trusted to handle the issues of abortion and climate change, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. With control of the House and Senate possibly shifting from Democrats to Republicans in November and the country deeply divided, 2 in 3 registered voters see this election as more important than past midterm campaigns.

Democrats in Florida seek to win over Latinos on gun control via Adriana Gomez Licon of The Associated Press Annette Taddeo walked to a podium overlooking Miamis Biscayne Bay and described to her audience how she had fled terrorism as a teenager in Colombia and now feared for the safety of her 16-year-old daughter at an American public school. A blue and bright orange bus behind the Democratic congressional candidate carried this message in Spanish: A future without violence. Latinos are here because of the American Dream, and it is really hard to do that when you are worried about your kids safety, said Taddeo, a state Senator who is challenging a Republican Congresswoman, Mara Elvira Salazar.

NRA updates grades, endorsements for 2022; DeSantis, Jimmy Patronis earn A+ via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics The National Rifle Association (NRA) has updated its grades and endorsements for Florida candidates this year. Notably, the organization has not endorsed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for re-election and gave him a B grade. Demings, his Democratic challenger this year, earned an F grade, so those whose vote is guided by the report card may still favor the incumbent. DeSantis pulled off an A+ rating with the organization. Crist, DeSantis opponent, earned an F from the organization. Attorney General Moody earned an A and Chief Financial Officer Patronis garnered an A+, while respective Democratic challengers Ayala and Adam Hattersley both received failing grades.

Marco Rubio swings through Wakulla County Rubio held a campaign rally in Wakulla County with grassroots supporters. At the event, Rubio spoke to the crowd about what he has done for Florida in the U.S. Senate, and said it was important to elect Republicans up and down the ballot in November. I know, like you do, that we live in the greatest country in the history of the world. We also happen to live in the greatest state in the greatest country. And in America, we have this movement on the far Left that has overtaken one of our two major political parties. And if we dont beat these people, if we dont stop them, theyll destroy this country, Rubio said.

Demi Busatta Cabrera enjoys best round of fundraising by far this cycle for HD 114 defense via Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics Republican Rep. Busatta Cabrera collected more than $103,000 between Aug. 1 and Sept. 9 her best round of fundraising by far to defend the seat representing House District 114 that she won handily two years ago. Her prior best round of fundraising this election cycle was last September when she amassed $67,000. A month and a half before the Nov. 8 election, the freshman Representative from Coral Gables held about $372,000 between her campaign account and political committee, People Above Politics, to fend off her comparatively underfunded challenger, Democratic lawyer Adam Benna.

STATEWIDE

Pete Antonacci, Florida elections security chief, dies of heart attack via Jeffrey Schweers of the Orlando Sentinel Antonacci, a former deputy Attorney General for Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles whom seven Governors of both parties often called upon to fix serious problems in their administrations, died of a heart attack while at work. He was 74. Antonacci gave most of his long career to public service. His latest post was as director of the newly created Office of Elections Crimes and Security, which the Legislature created this year at the prompting of DeSantis.

Will DeSantis get deposed and questioned on the witness stand? via Sue Carlton of the Tampa Bay Times The upcoming federal court battle between suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren and DeSantis, who removed him from office last month, could make for a legal and political spectacle: A sitting Governor running for re-election and also widely considered to be a 2024 presidential contender grilled on the witness stand. I wouldnt think his lawyers would be excited about the prospect of the Governor being put on the stand, put under oath and questioned about it, said Scott Tozian, a Tampa attorney who represents judges and lawyers in court and disciplinary matters.

Florida wildlife agency expected to shoot down commercialized turtle breeding proposal via Julia Coin of Fresh Take Florida Conservationists are split on a new proposal that would legalize captive, commercial breeding of one of Floridas flagship species. The states wildlife agency was expected to vote against the plan next week over concerns it would make diamondback turtles more attractive to poachers. The U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers of Florida wants the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to approve captive breeding to lessen the novelty associated with the species current population levels and better prepare for impending habitat loss due to climate change, spokesperson Daniel Parker said. The group represents pet stores and hobbyists. Floridas coastline houses five of diamondback terrapins seven subspecies.

D.C. MATTERS

Some Republicans feel uneasy about DeSantis migrant strategy via Alexander Bolton of The Hill Some Republican senators are privately expressing misgivings over DeSantis provocative decision to ship migrants from Texas to liberal enclaves such as Marthas Vineyard. GOP lawmakers acknowledge sending planeloads of migrants to Marthas Vineyard, where former President Barack Obama recently bought a house, plays well on Fox News, and will likely ingratiate the Florida Governor with Republican Primary voters if he runs for President in 2024. But the idea of shipping migrants thousands of miles across the country to Marthas Vineyard without any advance notice to local authorities, to make a political point, leaves some GOP lawmakers feeling uncomfortable.

Career prosecutors recommend no charges for Matt Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe via Devlin Barrett of The Washington Post Career prosecutors have recommended against charging Gaetz in a long-running sex-trafficking investigation telling Justice Department superiors that a conviction is unlikely in part because of credibility questions with the two central witnesses, according to people familiar with the matter. Senior department officials have not made a final decision on whether to charge Gaetz, but it is rare for such advice to be rejected, these people told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations. They added that it is always possible additional evidence emerges that could alter prosecutors understanding of the case.

EPILOGUE TRUMP

How a Trump soundtrack became a QAnon phenomenon via Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer of The Washington Post A new QAnon song has left Trump advisers grappling with what to do. The melody was the soundtrack to a campaign-style video Trump released in August. But it wasnt until an Ohio rally last week Saturday when the tune closed Trumps nearly two-hour speech, inspiring the crowd to respond with raised arms and pointed index fingers, that it broke through as a phenomenon. Trump repeated the performance with the same music to close Fridays rally in Wilmington, North Carolina A few people in the crowd responded by pointing to the sky or raising their right hands, but it didnt catch on or last long. The music has been widely described as an anthem for QAnon and Trump, according to one adviser, will probably use the song again.

Jan. 6 Twitter witness: Failure to curb Trump spurred terrifying choice via Drew Harwell of The Washington Post An unidentified former Twitter employee testified to the House Jan. 6 committee back in July that the company tolerated false and rule-breaking tweets from Trump for years because executives knew their service was his favorite and most-used and enjoyed having that sort of power. The whistleblower, Anika Collier Navaroli, told The Washington Post in an exclusive interview of the terror she felt about coming forward and how eventually that fear was overcome by her worry that extremism and political disinformation on social media pose an imminent threat not just to American democracy, but to the societal fabric of our planet.

LOCAL: S. FL

Where are essential workers? South Beach employers cant retain them in housing crunch via Rebecca San Juan of the Miami Herald South Beach employers are struggling to run their businesses due to the inability to hire and retain enough essential workers. They blame the scarcity of talent on the citys skyrocketing apartment rents and lack of housing workers can afford. Many hospitality and service workers are skipping jobs in South Beach, according to the owners and manager of the luxury condominium Portofino Tower, The Gaythering bar and hotel and Joes Stone Crab seafood restaurant.

The push for COVID-19 boosters is on in South Florida but uptake is slow via Cindy Krischer Goodman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel The Fall season is approaching, COVID-19 cases are projected to tick up again, and the uptake for the new booster is strikingly slow. South Florida hospital leaders are concerned. So far, only about 37,000 of Floridas 20 million eligible residents have received the new bivalent booster shot designed to target the omicron subvariants that have dominated caseloads in Florida in 2022, according to a state health report. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention signed off on updated versions of Pfizers and Modernas booster shots on Sept. 1, and Florida pharmacies and doctors offices began administering them just after Labor Day.

Sara Baxter bets $20K on her PBC Commission bid via Anne Geggis of Florida Politics After one of the costliest Primary elections in Palm Beach County history with spending reaching over $1 million Republican Baxter is putting her money down in her bid to represent District 6 on the Commission. Baxter, a real estate agent, added and spent more money in the last month than she has any other month in this election cycle as she prepares to take on Democrat Michelle Oyola McGovern. McGovern spent hundreds of thousands defeating state Rep. Matt Willhite and Sylvia Sharps in the Democratic Primary contest to fill the open seat representing the agricultural swath of Palm Beach County. The General Election promises to be a more modest affair.

LOCAL: C. FL

Clearwater to host forums on bluff referendum as residents push for passage via Tracey McManus for the Tampa Bay Times Over the past 20 years, John Doran has watched most storefronts and streets stay empty in downtown Clearwater while nearby St. Petersburg, Dunedin and Safety Harbor turned their downtowns into success stories. People have blamed decisions by the city government, the location of downtown, and the 47-year presence of the Church of Scientology, with its expanding control of the commercial real estate. The debate has been endless. Regardless of how we got to where we are, the question is: Do we stay where we are, the status quo, forever, or do we try to make a difference? said Doran.

Hillsborough County Sheriff must pay $15M for death of Florida teen outside fair via The Associated Press A jury has ordered a Florida Sheriff to pay $15 million to the parents of a teenager who died while trying to cross a highway after being kicked out of the state fair by deputies. The 10-person jury reached its verdict Thursday evening in Tampa federal court in the case of Andrew Joseph III, a Black 14-year-old who was killed on Interstate 4 in 2014 after he was booted from the Florida State Fair following a disturbance involving several teenagers. The jury verdict culminates more than six years of court action. Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister, who could appeal the verdict, issued a statement Friday expressing sympathy for the Joseph family.

LOCAL: SW. FL

Who wins battle between The Players and The Bay over Municipal Auditorium? via Carrie Seidman of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune When The Players Theatre asked the Sarasota City Commission to grant the 93-year-old nonprofit a long-term lease on the Municipal Auditorium to serve as the organizations new home, The Bay Conservancy objected and reminded Commissioners its contract with the city for redevelopment of the bay front included promised management control of the adjacent auditorium. The Commissioners sent the two parties to the bargaining table to negotiate a mutually acceptable solution and bid them to return to chambers next month. But those negotiations have resulted in a stalemate.

LOCAL: N. FL

Tallahassee City Commissioners will hold workshop to hash out gun violence spending via Christopher Cann of the Tallahassee Democrat Tallahassee City Commissioners unanimously voted to hold a public workshop on Oct. 12 to further examine ways to spend $1 million to curb gun violence in the capital city. In April, Commissioners pledged $5 million over a five-year period for evidence-based programs to prevent and interrupt gun violence. The workshop vote came after a presentation by city staff explored successful programs in other cities and surveyed Tallahassees current efforts to combat rising gun violence rates.

UF students say Kent Fuchs was welcoming president, express hopes for his successor via Gershon Harrell of The Gainesville Sun As Fuchs wraps up his final semester as University of Florida president, some students say they appreciate his work in the position but hope his successor will make changes. After seven years of serving as UFs president, Fuchs plans to leave his administrative role by the end of this year and become a professor within the College of Engineering. Some UF students will miss his eagerness to be involved in the student community. As a first-generation (student), I feel like he played a great role, said Megan Wright, a second-year student at UF.

TOP OPINION

As DeSantis roars onward, Christian soldiers! Democrats must get real about religion via the Miami Herald editorial board Is America a Christian nation? The United States is a secular nation with no official religion, so the answer is No. But to Republicans such as DeSantis, simplifying the answer to a Yes is a powerful tool. Theyve found a political gold mine in pitting Christians against the so-called evils of the left, gay and transgender people and teachers accused of pushing a woke agenda. DeSantis flirting with Christian nationalism the belief that America is in Gods plan and was intended to be a Christian nation as the Herald recently reported, is not new in GOP politics.

OPINIONS

The GOPs Commitment is to total political warfare via E.J. Dionne Jr. of The Washington Post While they were trumpeting their Commitment to America on Friday, House Republicans might have told Americans more than they intended about what a GOP majority would mean and the forces it would answer to. But they also gave Democrats some tips about whats coming their way. Some of the awkward revelations during an event at a factory outside Pittsburgh, including a vaccine skeptic who won loud cheers. Even Rep. Jim Jordan, a hero to the Trumpist far right, thought it wise to take a pass on that one, saying, Im not against the vaccines. Heres another thing the Republicans made clear: If they take the majority, they plan to use their power to harass the Biden administration with one hearing after another.

The ongoing baby formula shortage is a reminder of a disturbing truth in America via Alyssa Rosenberg of The Washington Post Formula might once have been a necessity Americans could take for granted akin to a utility such as water or electricity. But peoples struggles this year to find a reliable supply are a reminder of a disturbing truth: In a breakdown as broad as the formula shortage has been, even when government and businesses step up to help, individual Americans end up fending for themselves and the babies in their care. Even when a systemic collapse captures public attention, it is individuals who are left to bear the consequences and to continue shouldering the load when the headlines, and the outrage, move on.

Enough negative attacks. These candidates really dont have horns via Gary Yordan of the Tallahassee Democrat I ran into Kristin Dozier the other day and she didnt have horns. I mean if you just listen to the campaign being designed to discredit her, I would have bet the farm that she had at least a couple of nubs. But no, she was the same Kristin I had known for years. Go figure. And I saw a picture of John Dailey at a high school football game. He looked pretty normal to me as well. No pitchforks or pointy ears. Amazing. The truth is that despite the extreme rhetoric; it is unfortunate on many levels.

From itching witches to anti-WOKE, Lake County exposes a lie via the Orlando Sentinel editorial board The year was 1991. Four of the Lake County School Boards five members were dumbfounded. Their newest colleague, Pat Hart, wanted to talk about sneezing witches, quacking fathers, and why some books should be banned from school libraries. We should not be making a witch appear nice to a child. There is no such thing as a nice witch, Hart said about the book When Itchy Witchy Sneezes. Harts rant came completely out of left (actually, right) field for the other School Board members, some of whom reacted with outrage. Banning books had not been a major flashpoint of controversy for public schools for decades.

INSTAGRAM OF THE DAY

ALOE

Florida State returns to AP Top 25 college football poll at No. 23 via Ralph Russo of The Associated Press Florida State is back in the rankings for the first time in four years. Georgia remained No. 1 and received 55 of 63 first-place votes in the Top 25, presented by Regions Bank. No. 2 Alabama (four first-place votes), No. 3 Ohio State (four first-place votes), No. 4 Michigan and No. 5 Clemson all held their places. Florida States poll drought was remarkable considering how the Seminoles have been a Top 25 staple since the late 1970s. Florida States streak of 211 straight weeks ranked from 1989-2001 is the third longest streak in the history of the poll and its streak of 42 straight seasons appearing in at least one poll from 1977-2018 is fourth all-time. Before the current drought, Florida State had not gone consecutive seasons without being ranked in at least one poll since 1973-77, which was the late Bobby Bowdens first season as coach.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Best wishes to Brittany Davis Wise, Jessica Bakeman,Cynthia Henderson, Leslie Ingram, and Tanya Jackson.

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Sunburn is authored and assembled by Peter Schorsch, Phil Ammann, Daniel Dean, Renzo Downey, Jacob Ogles, and Drew Wilson.

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Sunburn The morning read of what's hot in Florida politics 9.26.22 - Florida Politics

Utah House candidate Republican Trevor Lee is behind a recently deleted Twitter account that elevated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, attacked women and members of the LGBTQ community, made false statements about the coronavirus pandemic and frequently used the #DezNat hashtag in support of the conservative religious philosophy.

Lee, who defeated longtime Republican Steve Handy for the GOP nomination in Utah House District 16, operated the @ballinlee Twitter account that used the screen name Truth seeker. The account disappeared from the platform earlier this month, within hours of The Salt Lake Tribune contacting Lee about his association with it. Lee took the account private shortly after filing to run for office in March.

During an interview, Lee admitted he owned the account. So why did he take it offline?

The world we live in now. I can say something that I may not think is controversial, Lee said, but the world is changing to a point where it thinks it is.

Those comments included calling Republican Gov. Spencer Cox spineless for supporting transgender girls in athletics; using a derogatory term for transgender people after publicly apologizing for using it initially; and saying Brigham Young University was a progressive cesspool that needs to be cleansed.

GOP House leaders expressed shock when they were informed of Lees social media account, making it clear they were unaware.

Presenting one face publicly while posting demeaning comments behind a hidden Twitter account is disrespectful to the people and the electoral process, said Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville. I am deeply disappointed that a candidate for the Utah House of Representatives did not have this same commitment to transparency.

House Majority Leader Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said Utah lawmakers, even aspiring ones, should not hide behind anonymous online personas.

These private, anonymous tweets in no way reflect the values of the House of Representatives or the majority caucus. We collectively shake our heads at these types of Pierre DeLecto-type Twitter accounts, meant to conceal a persons identity and convey statements or observations that the author would not want to openly stand by, Schultz said, referencing Sen. Mitt Romneys onetime anonymous Twitter account.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

Lees now-deleted Twitter account included a profile picture featuring an umbrella emblazoned with FamProc shielding a house that says The Family from a rainbow.

The imagery is common to DezNat, or the Deseret Nation movement, which is a group of self-appointed defenders of the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FamProc is short for family proclamation, the 1995 proclamation from the church that defines marriage as between a man and a woman and advocates for traditional gender roles for men and women.

The 13-star Betsy Ross flag, representing the first colonies, was used as the background. Lee posted more than 16,000 times before the social media platform was wiped.

Lees account wasnt always so anonymous. According to posts saved on the Internet Archive, Lees Twitter screen name was simply Trevor as recently as January. Older archived posts show he used his own picture as an avatar.

According to the archived webpages and screenshots of posts provided to The Tribune, Lees account was littered with controversial, and often trolling, hate-filled posts including attacking the LGBTQ community.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

On May 25, 2021, Lee posted a meme featuring Ned Stark from Game of Thrones and more than a dozen corporate logos with rainbow colors, saying, Brace yourself, June is coming.

#lds #Deznat separate the wheat from the tares! Lee added.

In June, Lee replied to a post that claimed the message of Pride Month is satanic with, Gosh, this is amazing.

Doing things that are explicit, you know, people that are topless, that are running around in underwear and they have children there. Yeah, I think thats satanic. I think thats horrible, Lee said during an interview.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

In April, he highlighted a meme in support of Floridas controversial Dont Say Gay law, which prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation in a manner that is not age-appropriate.

Hate speech directed toward LGBTQ people exploded online after Florida passed the law, The Associated Press reported.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

Lee attacked Cox later that month when he responded to a suggestion that the Utah Jazz move to Las Vegas. Lee said, Yes, than (sic) our spineless governor can stop acting like he needs to let transsexuals destroy our girls in sports.

In another post, Lee wished the Utah governor had some balls to support a law like one passed by Texas lawmakers last year requiring public school athletes to compete against others of the same biological gender, even if they had a different gender identity.

Lee was referencing Coxs veto of a bill to block transgender athletes from participating in girls sports in Utah.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

After being criticized for using a slur to describe transgender people on a right-wing podcast earlier this year, Lee publicly apologized for using the slur on his Facebook page, vowing to remove it from his vocabulary.

However, Lee also responded with his anonymous Twitter account to a post about the story by saying, When did the word Tranny (sic) become a slur?

Using that particular slur was not a one-off for Lee. There are multiple examples of transphobic content.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

After a post complaining about a joke about trans people made during elders quorum a Sunday meeting for male Latter-day Saints Lee replied, Trans people need help. Lets never encourage what theyre doing.

Posts show Lee was a supporter of the DezNat movement, but he says he recently has distanced himself.

In 2021, he and several other DezNat enthusiasts got into a Twitter spat with the wife of a high school classmate about Julie Hanks, a prominent therapist who is a Latter-day Saint. Hanks has frequently drawn the ire of DezNat followers for her focus on emotional health and relationship skills.

That dispute did not stay online. According to text messages shared with The Tribune, Lee reached out to the womans husband to warn him that his wife was a fan of Hanks, who he said tells members to go against Gods words and leaders.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

After the man defended his wife, Lee extolled the virtues of DezNat, directing him to the Official DezNat User Guide. He offered to connect him with a man he referred to as JP meaning J.P. Bellum, who coined the #DezNat hashtag.

Theres a lot of misconceptions about the hashtag and how its used. I was saying if you want to learn, go read that article and the reasoning behind that, Lee said in a text. Lee added that he knows JP personally, but did not realize his involvement with DezNat until after he had gotten involved with the movement.

The Tribune will not share the name of the person who provided the text messages to prevent further harassment. Lee acknowledged the texts are real.

Because Im still in the church and willing to talk about hard things, Hanks told The Tribune, I have become a place where people with questions or criticisms of the church feel comfortable.

Back online, Lee was not shy about expressing his feelings toward Hanks. In response to a post that asserts Hanks teaches her followers to leave the church, Lee said, She will be held accountable.

Hanks said she has no agenda to lead anyone out of the church. People leave the church all the time, and they have legitimate reasons to leave. There are also legitimate reasons to stay. Thats not my business.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

While she has never been physically threatened by DezNat followers, Hanks says they have directed significant harassment her way.

Theyve spearheaded a letter-writing campaign to my church leaders. Ive been called a false prophet. Theyve made videos and memes of me being a money changer in the temple, Hanks said. Its just ridiculous how much time they spend tearing other people down in the name of Jesus Christ.

Lee says he has pulled away from the DezNat movement in recent months because it has strayed from its original focus.

Its just a hashtag, right? It was a way to connect with people who want to defend the LDS Church, Lee said. Its just been so contaminated by other people who dont defend the church anymore.

Lee has also used the hashtag in a post claiming that teachers should be paid less not more.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

In other replies, Lee argued teachers get amazing benefits, including having summers off, and said they are nearly impossible to fire.

When asked about that post, Lee said his opinion has shifted greatly in the past year.

I dont stand by that. I think teachers need to be paid more, he said. I think administrators get paid way too much.

On the topic of education, Lee complained that LDS Church-run Brigham Young University has drifted to the political left. He responded to a post warning about groups hoping to expose BYU professors for teaching divisive topics with BYU needs to be cleansed.

When the school apologized for a talk by Brad Wilcox, a high-level church leader, Lee replied, BYU is a progressive cesspool now.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

Lee told The Tribune that he was simply complaining that the school, which he did not attend, was drifting from the teachings of the church.

A lot of the professors who are indoctrinating the college students, and who dont go along with what the church espouses, I dont think they have a place at the university, Lee said. I just dont see why they would keep holding on to someone who was actively fighting against what they believe in the church.

A search through the Internet Archive of Lees now-defunct Twitter account showed posts aligned with outrage dominating the conservative zeitgeist at the moment, including election and coronavirus pandemic conspiracies.

There are posts hyping false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. He responded to a Tribune story about Sen. Mike Lees (no known relation to Trevor) efforts to assist Donald Trumps campaign to overturn the election results, and the Utah House candidate asserted there was rampant fraud in many states.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

He has also insulted prominent women for how they looked.

He retweeted a post that called Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan disgusting freaks. In another instance, he called first lady Jill Biden, who was wearing a black-spotted outfit, a dog.

(Screenshot via Twitter) A screenshot from Republican Trevor Lee's now-deleted Twitter account.

As the Republican nominee in the district, Lee is the odds-on favorite to take the House District 16 seat in Novembers election. His only significant opposition is a long-shot, write-in campaign from Steve Handy, whom Lee defeated at the Davis County GOP convention. Handy said Lees social media demonstrates he is out of Utahs political mainstream.

This extreme rhetoric simply does not align with the good people of Davis County and the people I represent in the Legislature, regardless of political party, Handy said in a statement about Lees Twitter account.

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Layton Rep. Steve Handy, who lost his reelection bid to Trevor Lee at the Davis County Republican convention in March, Handy officially announced his campaign surrounded by a crowd of family and supporters in Layton, Aug. 30, 2022. .

Handy has received donations from several current legislators since launching his write-in effort. They include Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City; Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton; Sen. Don Ipson, R-St. George; Sen. Gregg Buxton, R-Roy; Rep. Merrill Nelson, R-Grantsville; and Rep. Lowry Snow, R-Santa Clara.

Lee has received a handful of donations from lawmakers since winning the nomination, with only one from Sen. John Johnson, R-Ogden coming since Handys write-in announcement.

Schultz, the House GOP leader who criticized Lees online behavior, made a small campaign donation to Lee in May. Schultz says he had no inkling of the posts Lee made with the @ballinlee account when he donated. Lee also received a small donation from the Utah House Republican Election Committee PAC in August, which is afforded to all Republican House candidates once they become the party nominee.

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GOP candidate Trevor Lee ran a secret Twitter account that attacked LGBTQ people and Utah Gov. Cox. Now he's been rebuked by Republican leadership. -...

EspionageCoverage of the CBS drama BULL scheduled to air on the CBS Television Network. Photo:Barbara Nitke/CBS 2021 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved

What do Netflixs Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, CWs Riverdale, the 2013 remake of Carrie, and Orion Pictures The Town That Dreaded Sundown all have in common? Besides being a little sinister, its Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Having written or produced all of these titles, its evident that Roberto has a special likeness for the horror genre and giving existing properties a dark makeover. His latest project, HBO Maxs Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, being a perfect example of this. With the constant horror references, the hooded A being recast as a true slasher villain and all the uneasy death scenes, the reboot is pure terror.

Highlighting that terror is the cinematography by Anka Malatynska. Its no surprise why Malatynska was brought onto the series after looking at some of her previous credits, Amazons I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hulus Monsterland. Its safe to say Malatynska has a unique approach to darkness. An approach that is never redundant and one that she keeps fresh through inventive lighting techniques and camera angles. While Malatynska enjoys working with darkness, she explains below that there are a lot of other worlds she would still like to work in. Next up for Malatynska, Steve Buscemis feature film, The Listener, starring Tessa Thompson. Read our full conversation with her below.

You can stream Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin on HBO Max.

Anka Malatynska: I feel like what attracted me to the series was the storyline, the powerful female characters, and the way that they were being framed and portrayed. I think theres a lot of girl power in front of and behind the camera, including the directors, myself as the DP, and our entire team. I think it gives a very different spin from the female gaze of horror. And thats actually one of our episodes, the female gaze and turning the male gaze into the female gaze. And thats what attracted me to the series.

AM: Well, I took the show over after the pilot shooting block of the series and I started with episode three, so predominantly my research was really deeply delving into what they had already been doing on the show. Joe Collins, who was the pilot cinematographer, established a really beautiful dark look with Lisa Soper, that I know Roberto, our showrunner, really protected. So my main research into the series, beyond watching some of the original series, was really all about absorbing the visual style and the visual language that had already been established in the first two episodes.

AM: I dont know that they made us go back to watch movies. But for sure every time we referenced a horror movie in the series I would go out and watch it again, whether I had seen it or not. And we would actually, even intentionally build shots that are taken from those horror movies. It went as far as in the fifth episode, which is the female gaze episode, we recreated a sequence from the original Psycho. Kind of like in our inception of shooting it, we actually shot all the setups in the shower murder scene in Psycho. They werent all used in the final cut of the show, but we were very, very true to the genre and very true to doing our research as filmmakers. When anything was referenced, we were diving right into it and pulling inspiration

AM: Alien! And I know thats sci-fi, but its more like sci-fi horror, and we did have talks and had inspirations from the alien movies as well. And the other thing that I think would be really fun to incorporate into season two, is actually more of a Twin Peaks, David Lynch kind of vibe to our creeper character. Me and two of the directors that I worked with joked about it being kind of fun if our creeper did some wacky off-the-wall, things that are really like Twin Peaks creepy.

AM: In general, it was like a season-long discussion between myself, our production designer, and our directors of what it is that actually makes the creeper scary. And what I eventually landed on was the idea that the creeper is scarier when hes further away or when hes more obscured. I think hes scary in episode seven when we come up behind him at the Carnival of Souls and we dont see his face close up.

Then just embracing really steep, low angles. In episode four where Noah runs away from him, we used a 10-millimeter lens at 8K that didnt really bend, so it wasnt fish eye distorted, but it did make him look really scary in low mode on a steady cam backtracking with him at full speed. So, you know, lower, wider, further away, more obscured, silhouetted, all of those things are elements that make a character like the creeper scarier.

AM: I also love so many other genres and actually beyond these three projects, Ive really worked the gamut of genres from comedy to drama. But what draws me to horror and to science fiction is the darkness, the permission for more inventive visuals. I love anything fantasy, sci-fi, or horror because I feel like theres a much broader spectrum of what you can do visually and stylistically and build it into the storytelling seamlessly. Im attracted to powerful shots and interesting framing. Making darkness beautiful and not just dark is like a gold star in my cinematography badges and in my bag of tricks.

What Ive really worked on in many ways and in many films and projects has been how do you make darkness look sexy and attractive and have shape and what does it mean when the lights are off in a house thats in the middle of the countryside and its a whole new night versus what does it mean if the lights are all out in a graveyard thats foggy and dark and its a moonless night? Like how do you shoot that? How do you show characters without over-lighting?

And I really feel like in Pretty Little Liars, I hit a really beautiful stride with that. I had a great collaboration with our gaffer. We really worked at the very, very toe of the visual gamma curve and kept things really dark and had a lot of encouragement and permission to push the envelope. So thats whats attractivepushing the envelope, doing new things, making darkness beautiful, making the ugly impactful in an emotional way.

AM: I think there is a very big emphasis in the Original Sin series for HBO Max on how we utilized the visual language of horror. We went over at the beginning of this conversation, that were actively referencing so many art house 70s and 80s horror films, and were embracing that visual language and were pushing it into the show. So I think the show is much more highly stylized. I think it lives in a very unique visual world that has some definite rules.

I feel like the original series was a little bit more shot in the way of this is life as it is. Its just trying to evoke and replicate reality of that time period. Whereas really, we were building our own world of Millwood, Pennsylvania where everything is old, all the cars are old, everything is dark, the paint is chipping, the bathroom walls are dirty at the high school, the hallways are dark and under lit. And yet, our characters have cell phones and computers and for all intent and purposes, live in a modern world. Just that modern world is very vintage.

AM: Thats a tricky question. I think every jump scare is a little bit different. But I think what helps is building tension. What I love to use is really slow camera movement to build tension. But you can use the idea of no camera movement to build tension. And then, a lot of it plays on the reaction of the person. Like a classic jump scare is, if you have a steady cam approaching somebody from behind, it does give a really ominous feel. And then you have someones hand reach in and they turn around, and give the reaction of a jump scare. That slow-moving camera thats building tension, juxtaposed with a very strong reaction from the character will build a jump scare.

If there are great elements of contrast, that can also be helpful in a jump scare. Whether its contrast in lighting or in the camera angles, whether youre looking from a really high angle or really low angle. So I think jump scares are both about building tension. One, you can build tension through movement, or you can build tension through denying any kind of camera movement. But I think its about a strong decision either way. And then I think any kind of situations that we want to evoke a really strong emotional reaction in our viewers, the more contrast we have, or the more tension we have in our framing, which can be really unusual angles basically.

AM: I think its a powerful, modern story that is very on point in regards to some of the issues that young women are actively dealing with today in our country. And very specifically speaking to rape, being assaulted, to the repercussions of that, and how as a young woman you can deal with the repercussions of that. I think this is a subject matter that is right now currently in the zeitgeist. And without talking about whats happening in our country, were raising the question of, you know, what is an appropriate way of dealing with this? And then were pushing it into the horror genre which allows us to break the rules of reality and take things to extremes. I think this is why its really deeply resonating with people.

And at another level, I think we crafted the series incredibly well. We have such a strong, beautiful visual language stemming from the production design and the cinematography. And then we have these amazing characters, five beautiful young women. Were framing them in much more powerful ways. I think these storylines give them a lot of power. You know, Im just hearing left and right that people are loving it. And I think its the craftsmanship from the performances, to the writing, to the production design, to the cinematography, and all of that on top of a framework of a story that is very deeply embedded in the zeitgeist of what is going on for us in this country as women.

You can find out more about Anka Malatynska at https://www.ankavision.com/

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Peeling Back the Slasher-Inspired Look of HBO Maxs Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin with Cinematographer Anka Malatynska - Dread Central