And to think just earlier this week you had the New York Times calling Hollywood about their long time claims about not being able to lead movies. And now you have a big name comic and animated creator telling us exactly what Hollywood thinks of girls when it comes to shows targeted at kids.
Paul Dini is interviewed on Kevin Smith’s Fatman on Batman podcast this week and during it he explains from personal experience how Hollywood devalues female viewers and female characters. Dini was, of course one of the creators on Batman: The Animated Series. He has also written and produced a number of other animated shows including Batman Beyond in addition to writing comics. The Emmy award-winning creator also had a live-action show targeted to younger viewers call Tower Prep.
In the interview, transcribed by Agelfeygelach Dini talks about the change in how Hollywood views the audience for animation (this starts around 41:00.- bold is mine)
But then, there’s been this weird—there’s been a, a sudden trend in animation, with super-heroes. Like, ‘it’s too old. It’s too old for our audience, and it has to be younger. It has to be funnier.’ And that’s when I watch the first couple of episodes of Teen Titans Go!, it’s like those are the wacky moments in the Teen Titans cartoon, without any of the more serious moments. ‘Let’s just do them all fighting over pizza, or running around crazy and everything, ’cause our audience—the audience we wanna go after, is not the Young Justice audience any more. We wanna go after little kids, who are into—boys who are into goofy humor, goofy random humor, like on Adventure Time or Regular Show. We wanna do that goofy, that sense of humor, that’s where we’re going for.’”
Okay, so they want younger kids. But wait, it gets worse.
Dini talks a bit about Young Justice and how it had a sophisticated mythology (he calls them “Buffy style stories) but now they have to be, based on his interactions and observations, funny and … NOT FOR GIRLS… (warning f bombs ahoy!)
Tag Archives: i do politics
they only teach it as a holocaust if millions of white people are killed
Okay, I was going to scroll past – I was even going to reblog, sans commentary – and then I hit that caption.
Because you know what?
In 1945, Jews weren’t “white”. They were “Jews.” For hundreds of years, Jews weren’t considered Caucasian, or European, or part of the privileged elite in any way, shape, or form. Even running the banks was another way to keep us oppressed, because guess what? If all bankers are Jews, and you don’t like your interest rates, there’s no one who’s going to protest if you light our fucking house on fire.
But you know what? Okay, leave aside the Jews. Because we get taught about (even if it’s not really given the time it deserves) and we’ve got a country (that’s busy pushing itself towards hell in a handbasket) and the Native Americans/First Nations got neither of those.
Let me tell you about the Romani.
Let me tell you about the Irish.
Let me tell you about the Scots.
The Celts.
The Slavs.
The millions of people not members of the Russians in the 1700s and 1800s. (And 1900s)
Let me tell you about Armenia.
Let me tell you about China.
Actually, let me tell you about China again, because China has been through shit.
Let me tell you about Nigeria, and South Africa, and Rwanda, and the Congo.
Let me tell you about the Palestinian Territories and then about Israel.
And then the Palestinian Territories again.
Let me tell you about the Aborigines.
Let me tell you about this list on Wikipedia.
And then let me tell you this:
We are taught about one genocide, if we are taught about any, and that is the Holocaust. We should be taught about more. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee should be required reading for every high school student. We should learn about the complete and utter dickery committed by the US Government in the 19th (and 18th and 20th and 21st) century (centuries).
We should also learn about the fact that our erstwhile ally during WWII was busy killing more of its own people than Germany ever accomplished.
But you know what?
If we have to learn about one genocide, let’s learn about the Holocaust.
And I’m not trying to diminish 100 million dead, or countless ripped from their land, or any of that.
But 11 million people died in camps in 6 years (really more like 4). And that’s something the US Government never accomplished.
But the genocide of the Native Americans was committed (and it makes me nauseous to type this, but it’s true) by people believing that the Native Americans were savages, were animals, were of less value than the two billion bison killed during the same period. It was committed by soldiers against strangers. And many did not know.
And the genocide of the Jews was committed by a population who lived alongside them, who knew that Abram was just as smart as Johan, who knew that they were human – and who killed them, and let them die regardless. It was committed by soldiers against their own neighbours. And everyone knew.
What I’m trying to say here, I guess, is this: the genocide of the Native Americans was horrible, but it won’t happen again until we discover aliens, and possibly not even then. But the genocide of the Jews occurred in the most highly educated population in the world and it can happen any day, in any country.
Even now.
Even here.
And that is why the Holocaust is taught in schools.
I’ve been to Auschwitz and Birkenau with my pupils yesterday. It’s not only that people killed people out of hatred. It’s not only that everyone knew and most of the population stayed silent. It’s the perverted way that these millions of people were killed – the Nazis made them believe that they were simply relocated to another country. They made them believe that they would be able to build up a new life in the east (they even gave out flyers telling them what to take with them to their new ‘homes’). Even when people arrived in Auschwitz they were made believe that everyting would be fine. That they were to take a shower after the long journey, hundreds of them in one wagon supposed to transport animals. There were changing rooms with rules how to take a bath etc. And then they went in, not suspecting anything when the Nazis threw in gas bombs… In Birkenau 4000 to 5000 people were killed evey day!
re-blogging for the last two comments… and damn, that second one really did their research.
The Problem With The Big Bang Theory…
tzun:
I’ve been meaning to post something about The Big Bang Theory for a while now but it’s taken me ‘till now to really understand what it is about the show that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not exactly a believer in the whole “only write about the things you like, don’t trash the things you don’t” trend which seems to be plaguing comments sections in negative articles lately, but I wanted to be able to really examine why I don’t like TBBT rather than just slagging it off. My main questions being – Why don’t I like this anymore? Why do I feel uncomfortable watching it? And why do I get so annoyed when I see people sing its praises online? The thing which really sparked this post was seeing a raft of comments on Facebook, below the last round of voting in Television Without Pity’s Tubey Awards, claiming The Big Bang Theory to be “the best comedy on TV”. This made me angry so instead of posting an impulsive comment calling out their bad taste which I’d probably regret later, I decided to really analyse why seeing comments like that made me so mad when previously, although I didn’t really love the show, I’d never considered myself as disliking The Big Bang Theory.
Hell, I even have season one on dvd, it’s sitting right between Battlestar Galactica and Bored To Death in my alphabetised collection.
And here, I think, is where my problem with The Big Bang Theory lies…
This is a good write up of why I too dislike The Big Bang Theory. When customers ask me if I watch it, I tell them that the show seems to be written by someone who doesn’t actually know any nerds but only knows stereotypes.
general psa:
freedom of speech means that the government is not allowed to tell you to shut the fuck up. it doesn’t mean that i am not allowed to tell you to shut the fuck up.
“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.
Fun fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.
See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon.
Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy.
To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died.
You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.
reblogging for commentary
(Image text: Disability Problem #130: When the NRA suggests “an active national database of the mentally ill”)
And people wonder why some of us don’t want a fucking diagnosis. 😛
But don’t you think it’d be more effective to maintain an active national database of angry white men instead?
Okay, so, active national database of gun owners = violation of second amendment rights. Active national database of the mentally ill = a worthy goal. Noted.
I want to make this clear, I am not fundamentally anti-gun, but shit like this is exactly why I have zero respect for the NRA and why they will never speak for me on gun issues.
Oh, let’s just make things even better. What they’re calling for isn’t even the institution of such a database, but the updating of the already existing one. The one that’s supposed to be part of the background check that’s run when you go to buy a gun. The one you end up in — maybe — if you’re involuntarily incarcerated for mental health issues.
You know, like I was a couple years ago. Except that even my husband isn’t sure, and he’s a gun rights activist, if I would actually be in the database or not. Because ‘involuntarily incarcerated’, despite seeming so clear-cut, is awfully subjective. See, he thinks that because I was only there for observation I wouldn’t be on the list.
But even if I was, there’s supposedly a way to get removed from the database. Only, nobody seems to know any more than that, and the department that handles that probably isn’t even funded.
Mental illness is casually and readily used as a metaphor for evil or bizarre behaviour, it’s treated as the root cause for any kind of social deviance, and it’s feared and hated across society. Numerous people express an unwillingness to date, work with, or socialise around mentally ill people, perhaps fearing that mental illness is contagious or that they’ll be viciously attacked while innocently compiling spreadsheets or dining out with friends.
At the same time that society hates mental illness, though, it’s surprisingly vocal when it comes to the use of psychiatric medications and therapy to manage mental illness. Taking pills makes you ‘weak’ and not able to ‘just handle it,’ while therapy is useless and suspect, something that people are only brainwashed into thinking is useful. People who pay to talk to someone for an hour (or more) a week are clearly, well, you know. Crazy, and the entire mental health profession is obviously raking it in by deceiving all these people with their silly notions of ‘treatment’ and ‘management.’
The disdainful attitude when it comes to managing mental illness is at utter odds with social attitudes about mental illness. If crazy people are so awful, if we’re told that it’s ‘okay to be crazy so long as you act sane in public,’ how are we supposed to be less crazy if we can’t actually get any treatment? This paradoxical attitude is widely in force in society and people don’t seem to realise how absurd it is; if they think that, for example, schizophrenia is a scary and dangerous disease that turns people into monsters, uh, wouldn’t they want people with schizophrenia to be able to access whichever treatments help them manage their mental health condition most effectively?
every day, it seems that there’s a new shooting somewhere.
i’ve begun to really hate guns
Please don’t blame the tool for what people do with it.
We can’t jump off bridges anymore because our iPhones will get ruined. We can’t take skinny dips in the ocean, because there’s no service on the beach and adventures aren’t real unless they’re on Instagram. Technology has doomed the spontaneity of adventure and we’re helping destroy it every time we Google, check-in, and hashtag.
Jeremy Glass, We Can’t Get Lost Anymore
i’m so sick of seeing people trash this generation for no other reason than that things aren’t the way they used to be. there’s this constant vitriolic stream of people snarling that selfies, check-ins and blogs are the death of culture, and i am bored of it.
the human desire to record and document experience is hardly new. without that urge we wouldn’t have art, music, dance, theatre. the world of electronics evolving around that to give us an even broader scope of options to preserve our unique view of the world and share it with others is a beautiful thing. despite a legion of cynical naysayers constantly shouting otherwise, i’ve not actually become immune to earth’s beauty or my own experiences in it. stop being terrified of change and development and calling it profound.
(via thekatediary)
Last line bolded for emphasis
(via fedoraharp)
Additionally, I’m not losing my sense of adventure every time I Google something, I’m feeding my thrist for knowledge. I have easy access to the most information that humanity has ever amassed, and you want me to not use that? Because let’s be real, my ancestors who had a “sense of adventure” were actually far more restricted in their travel. I can travel more widely and more cheaply than any point in human history, and you’re trying to imply that my “sense of adventure” has died because of the very technology that has made that possible?
Actually, how about this: my “sense of adventure” is tempered by the responsibilities and anxieties I carry far more than Google or check-ins or hashtags. My “sense of adventure” is tempered by the money I have (or rather don’t have) in my bank account. My “sense of adventure” is tempered by what society has taught me about traveling alone at night. My “sense of adventure” is tempered by the fact that a girl from my high school went on an adventure and ended up murdered, and whose family is still seeking justice because of the negligence of the local police department. My “sense of adventure” is the same as my ancestors’ “sense of adventure,” and it not this nostalgic retelling of history.
And how many of these naysayers have actually taken a trip like Steinbeck or William Least Heat-Moon? How many of them have jumped off a bridge? How many of them feel free to benefit from iPhones and Google and cell service and Instagram, but then criticize younger generations for taking full advantage of the world around them?
We can’t jump off bridges anymore because it’s against laws passed by older generations. We can’t take skinny dips in the ocean because it’s against laws passed by older generations, and adventures aren’t a reality for us because they often cost more money than we have. Technology has made travel more cheap and widespread than ever, and we helped destroy it when we weighed an entire generation down with the responsibilities of another.
(via theladyem)
[repeated for emphasis]
“We can’t jump off bridges anymore because it’s against laws passed by older generations. We can’t take skinny dips in the ocean because it’s against laws passed by older generations, and adventures aren’t a reality for us because they often cost more money than we have.”
I get angry when Christians in the United States — especially the Christian Right — try to have it both ways on the “persecuted martyr /favored majority” question. I get angry when they play the “Christian nation” card, saying “majority rules, there are more of us then there are of you, we get to push the rest of you around and make everyone play the way we want”… and then, when it’s politically expedient, they turn around and howl about how Christians are being persecuted by the secular humanist power structure, and how Christianity is in grave danger of being eradicated. Those things can’t both be true. Pick one.
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? (via candidlycara)