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Pat

@2ck

Ribbit.

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Pat

@kmic @przemek@berserker.town

We're on the same page here, we shouldn't be putting waste plastic into the ocean at all. Regardless of whether it takes 1000 years or 50 years to break down into something safe, during all those years animals will suffer and die and that's unacceptable.

All animals are precious, even humans. I don't think it's a binary choice -- we don't have to kill 10% of the human population to save the turtles or any other animals.

Besides throwing my respirator into the ocean and then dying from COVID-19, what other steps can I take to reduce my plastic footprint?

(Note: As long as my respirtor is on my face, that plastic isn't killing anything except a few viruses.)

Also, here's a link to a great article about how plastics biodegrade and how labs can test that:

web.archive.org/web/2018091906

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Pat

One more thing about that censored clip...

One of the changes imposed on Japan by the US after the war was a liberalization of women's civil rights. You can see some of that gender dynamic playing out in that clip.

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Pat

@kmic @przemek@berserker.town

Plastics probably last up to 100 years, depending on the polymer, but still pretty awful.

The real tragedy is the suffering of all those people which could have been prevented had they worn a respirator.

(I use a 20-year-old elastomeric respirator with replacable P-100 filters that last up to a year, so minimal waste.)

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Pat

@trinsec

Good catch. Thank you for the correction.

Yeah, I'm not a big monster movie fan either. I saw this film a few years ago and was shocked at how well it was produced compared to the American versions I had seen when I was younger.

I watch these old films mostly for the study of film and cultural history.

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Pat

Here's a link to an extensively researched and well-produced video about the film:

youtube.com/watch?v=JRn-UvI6YW

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Pat

Here's a link to the American version:

tubitv.com/movies/287497/godzi

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Pat

That clip that I posted in the first post (video only) was censored from the American version of the film. A few months before the movie was released, the US performed an H-bomb test near the Bikini Atoll (Castle Bravo test) which contaminated a Japanese fishing boat with radioactive fallout, resulting in death and serious radiation poisoning.

The H-bomb tests that the US was doing in the pacific were kept secret from the American public, but in Japan the incident (known as the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (第五福龍丸, F/V Lucky Dragon 5 incident) was a major story and fueled discontent about the American occupation of Japan (which was just then coming to a conclusion).

At first, when the fishing boat returned home, nobody knew what that fine dust was that covered the crew. But then it was tested and determined to be H-bomb fallout.

The clip is pretty much a direct reference to the incident, which is probably why it was censored in the US.

Ultimately, the shared love of the movie by American and Japanese audiences contributed to a long and fruitful exchange of trade and culture between the two countries, which continues to today.

Here’s a link to the film:

pluto.tv/en/on-demand/movies/g

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Pat

Retro SciFi of the Week…

Godzilla (1954)

This is the original Japanese version. Shortly after it’s release, a highly censored American version was released in the US and other countries which totally hacked up the film, replacing character- and plot-developing dialogue with bland exposition voiceover.

The American version replaced one of the protagonists with a white guy, cutting in scenes which were produced with lousy sets, poor cinematography and hasty acting which trampled on the carefully crafted pace of the original film. This gave most people an impression that the film was just a B-movie, instead of the well-produced masterpiece which was the original.

If you’ve never seen the original Japanese version, you haven’t seen Godzilla.

(Note: Of course, as with all earlier films, the cinematic techniques of the time were no match to today’s state of the art, so you need to watch it with a different level of suspension of disbelief.)

Here’s a clip from the film that was cut from the American version. (See the rest of this thread for more discussion.)

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Pat

@khird

>”… I think you could just as easily spin your example the other way - Rock was cast in the punk role to identify him with society at large, younger and more diverse than the gov't.”

The vast majority of people are neither “street-wise punks” nor CIA agents, so I don’t think the film is trying in anyway to represent the average person’s experience.

>”... So I think you need to be very careful about interpretation - you and I can observe the same film but come to opposite conclusions on its role in movie racism.”
I agree, some of it is interpretation, but much of the bias can be clearly quantized. I’ve mentioned earlier here and elsewhere some other techniques that filmmakers use to promote bias which require virtually no interpretation at all.

>”I also want to point out that films set in the present are reflective of present society. If nonwhite people are actually overrepresented in menial roles/criminal activities/etc., is it worse on the filmmaker's part to cast his actors in ways that reinforce the audience's awareness of that, or to pretend the society in which his work is set doesn't have those racial disparities?”

Then the kid said, “But mom, Johnny’s parents let him be racist, so why can’t I be racist, too?”

Filmmakers make films about what they want, not what they see -- how they want society to be (unless they’re doing documentaries). They understand the influence that they have and that what they portray on the screen will nudge society in that direction. If they want people to fight among themselves, that’s what they show. If they want people to believe that black people have poor grammar or can only be employed in dangerous or menial occupations, that’s what they show on the screen.

Let me say that this particular film, Bad Company, is really not one of the worst. It’s actually pretty fair to black people, relative to many others. Rock’s character has a much higher-than-average IQ, learns very quickly in an impossible situation, and ultimately finds success. My main concern on this particular film was it’s marketing and casting. Many, many more people will see this movie poster/description than those who will actually watch the film. And after seeing the poster they’ll walk away with another negative impression about black people.

If you want to gain more understanding about racist techniques used by filmmakers, watch the film Hollywood Shuffle (1987). That was made 35 years ago, yet many of the techniques depicted in that film are still being used today by racist filmmakers. But a lot more suble techniques have also been added since then.

And if you want to watch some movies that demonstrate less bias, here are a few:

American Warship (2012)
2 Days in New York (2012)
Z is for Zachariah (2015)
Armed Response (2017)
Movement and Location (2015)
Black Coffee (2013)

Some of these have issues too, but they are much better than a typical major Hollywood production. There are race-positive movies out there, but you have to search for them, they usually aren’t promoted and they are a tiny fraction of the films produced each year.

@2ck

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Pat

@kmic @przemek@berserker.town

Which would you rather have in your home?

1) a pile of used plastic
2) a pile of dead bodies

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Pat

@allergianalyudey

Here's how google translated your toot:

"Learning and thinking will lead to incomprehension, and thinking and learning will waste time."

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Pat

@2ck

>”you'd have to 1) ensure your movie selections were unbiased but popularity (if Hollywood is making films that's are more racially diverse in the principal cast, but Americans aren't going to see them, is that the fault of the movie makers?)”

Yes, that’s very important, because bias happens during the promotion phase, too – films that aren’t biased often get derailed by some racist in the marketing department, or by the producers themselves sometimes.

When those ten example films were chosen, audience size was considered – they came from a list of the top 100 (I think) most popular movies in that decade, so they are films that had a lot of impressions.

>”2) preselect the indicators of bias and count them for every film...”

Yes, I’ve done that. I have a list of dozens of those techniques that racist filmmakers use against black people. I compared those techniques against those films to determine if there was bias. (Some of the techniques are more qualitative, like if the filmmakers use a lighter-skinned black actor, or if they use lighting and makeup techniques to make the actor look more like a white person. But most of the criteria are quantitative, like “Are there any black people in the film at all?”, or “Are black extras placed in the back of the scene or the edges of the frame, or are they obscured in some fashion?”

>”...probably good to count the counterexamples too”

I do. Here are two films I’ve seen recently that I think are better:

Deja Vu (2006), Paula Patton, Denzel Washington – a major motion picture, well produced and seen by a wide audience.

American Warships (2012), aka “American Battleship”, Mario Van Peebles, Carl Weathers – an extremely low budget film, but the filmmakers did a terrific job with limited resources (except the CG, which sucked). The actors were better than you’d expect in a very low-budget film. Also, an original narrative.

>”3) control for the fact that some actors are protagonists, so of course they get more lines, screen time, etc. -- basically, you have to make metrics like "black person in supporting role", "screen time for black person in supporting role" -- and somehow figure out how to do stats with that shit...”

Filmmakers decide who will play which parts, so if a black person is cast in a role that has less screen time, it’s no accident, it’s a choice made by the filmmaker.

>”all that said, I guess I don't care that much about who is in movies as long as they can act.”

I agree that bad acting is the quickest way to ruin a film. But I don’t try to be colorblind. If you are colorblind, you will be unable to see all the racism in film. I make a point to see the race of the characters and how the film treats them. It’s a real eye-opener once you are able to see how poorly black people are represented in film.

>”so my only input to that process is the movies I watch.”

You can also speak up when you see bias in films. Filmmakers are listening. It’s very competitive. If more people speak up, as well as boycott those racists films, they will change.

@khird

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Pat

@skells

If our zeitgeist is that everyone lies about everything, and some people believe their own lies and are delusional. Yeah.

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Pat

@skells

What does that mean?

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Pat

@lucifargundam

I think that's what overqualitied is. They don't want to pay what you're worth for the position, or they don't want to hire someone who will ditch the job at the next better offer.

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Pat

@Acer

There is a similar saying in Japan:

"The protruding nail will be pounded down."

I think the guy who said that was holding a hammer.

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Pat

@lucifargundam

Turned down for "Linux Support Associate"?

Wow. How'd that happen? Overqualified maybe?

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Pat

@mereyu

The guy killed himself at 29 years old. What a fucking moron!

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Pat

@BookReader

>"Your post is miss-information."

So is yours.

Cows can't swim as fast as a dolphin. 😅

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