The Interview, Terrorists, & an America that's Lost its Nerve

When did Americans start to scare so easily? At what point did North Koreans decide what we could and couldn’t watch in theaters.

Sony recently canceled the theatrical release of their 44 million dollar movie, The Interview, which stands finished and ready to launch, as expected, on December 25th—except for the fact that theaters refuse to show it.

The reason? Sony pictures recently suffered a massive hacking job by, supposedly, North Korean hackers, who stole information from Sony in the forms of emails and entire, unreleased movies.

The hackers also left Sony a message, which read:

“We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places 'The Interview' be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to. Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you'd better leave.) Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment. All the world will denounce the SONY.”

(Someone uses Google Translate)

Now we can’t watch The Interview, a comedy that stars Seth Rogen and James Franco in an assassination attempt against North Korean dictator and cheese enthusiast, Kim Jong-un.

Sure, we killed Kim’s father in Team America and beat him up on Saturday Night Live, but now that someone threatened us, we shut our mouths, stare at the ground, and wait for the big bully to go away.

Even a thriller that stars Steve Carell faces cancelation because of the aforementioned threat.

Forget that Captain America punched Hitler in the face on the cover of his comic books during the 40s, when Hitler remained alive and in power. Heck, Daffy Duck knocked Hitler’s teeth out a few times.

The Pillsbury Doughboy might’ve gotten in a sucker punch or two. Hitler’s punch-able.

Set aside, for the moment, however you might feel about The Interview as a movie. I don’t know what I think about it. I obviously haven’t seen it yet (or ever will).

I would want to see this movie released even if I hated it. Well . . . let me write more specifically:

The recent Amazing Spiderman 2 movie made me want to curl up into the fetal position and weep. That movie deserved to fail, to go bust, to lose money as punishment for a lazy job that insulted its fan base.

If people refused to go see it (once word spread of its abysmal quality), I would’ve pumped my fist in the air in celebration.

However, I would have protested if theaters decided to cancel the release of Spiderman because Peru threatened to egg our houses. I hope you see the difference.

The refusal to feature this movie because a hacker threatened us seems the second-most cowardly reaction a theater could produce in this situation.

Pretending that you decided not to feature the film out of sensitivity proves the most cowardly. I didn’t hear a word against this movie for its “insensitivity” prior to the online threat.

At least have the guts to admit you lack the guts to show the movie. Don’t chicken out of parachuting because you suddenly realized how insensitive it seems to flightless birds.

It’s not like when, after 9-11, we decided not to theatrically release that Jackie Chan movie that involved a window washer who uncovers a terrorist plot to destroy the World Trade Center.

That Jackie Chan movie would have felt insensitive. It made sense not to show it (Chan and the other filmmakers involved did not make this movie in any attempt at insensitivity. They completed the movie before 9-11 happened. Just to be clear).

I hate to write something so sexist, but could we, as Americans, grow a pair? Do we actually fear that three-foot, dictator with a bad heart and his gang of underfed thugs?

If The Interview arrived in theaters, and no one went to see it, for whatever reason, so be it, but this is . . . well, it’s not “censorship,” per se.

Movie theaters don’t have to show any particular movie. Their managers enjoy the right to pick and choose. However, those managers turned The Interview away from their screens for the wrong reasons.

Apparently, America not only negotiates with terrorists, we bow down and tremble against the vaguest threat thrown our way.

On the subject of terrorism . . .

Whenever I hear that people in another country committed some inconceivable act, I wonder if it really happened, or if the United States government invented or embellished the story.

I stand uncertain if this makes me a cynic or an optimist.

In light of that, you can imagine how difficult I found it to swallow that a group of ISIS “soldiers” stormed a school and gunned down children. Turns out, yeah, that happened, because God told them to do that.

Let’s set aside how preposterous that claim proves. Let’s pretend that it makes perfect sense. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that God—GOD!—materialized before these twat waffles like Obi-Wan Kenobi and said:

“I need you to shoot up a school.”

Let’s pretend that we all accept and believe that.

Regardless, does no point exist where you decide that your God’s horrible and you shouldn’t listen to him (or Her)?

Shouldn’t anyone respond to, “I need you to shoot up a school,” with: “Gee, God, I don’t think we can hang out, anymore. You’re a little too radical for me. I’m gonna have to un-friend you.”

Just saying.

Why We Suck at Dating

I need to explain, before we begin today’s post, why the release dates for my blogs turned all topsy-turvy this week.

I spent last weekend at an Army Reserve base in Cape Coral, Florida, and that pretty much smashed my schedule against the wall. This comes as something of an embarrassment, given my recent advice at Darkwana.blogspot.com, where I stressed the importance of a strict schedule for your blogs.

Expect my blogs to suffer, for the remainder of this week, a shuffling of release dates. Everything ought to return to normal, come Monday, which means:

Short stories (Mondays and Thursdays) at martinwolt.blogspot.com

EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com on Tuesdays

An inside look at my novel series (Wednesdays) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Writing advice for your fiction (Fridays) at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

And Sunday's movie review at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com.

Okay. Let's get this horse running.

A lot of feedback (always welcome) flooded my way in regards to my post from two weeks ago.

The post in question served as a longwinded ramble that attempted to justify my enjoyment of perfect-bodied women in comics, video games, and so forth via its supposed separation from actual objectification.

At best, I confronted the dual voices in my head (and probably that of every other heterosexual male). Straight guys love to look (to say nothing of touch) attractive females, but most of us want also to respect them as human beings.

I rested my wispy-at-best case with the thought that sexy images and animation remain inanimate and consequently cannot possess an agenda, thus they can do nothing to objectify their subject matter.

People can use those images to fuel objectifying behavior, and the blame therefore rests with people’s actions and not the Playboy centerfolds (or whatever) that inspire it.

I suppose such mental gymnastics come only from wanting to keep my centerfolds, Hooters calendars, and whatnot without feeling like a scumbag while I enjoy them.

At the risk of leading this blog a bit further from its original concern (sexism and homophobia found specifically in the entertainment business), I'll respond to some of the feedback that my aforementioned post generated.

One person wrote to tell me, “It’s ridiculous that girls complain when a guy looks at them. Our attraction gets them free meals. They could cover themselves up, but then they might have to pay for their food. They can’t have it both ways.”

O . . . kay. That’s kind of . . . stupid (not to discourage responses, mind you).

Women pay for their meals. Trust me as someone who lived with many female roommates.

The amount of money that most women spend in preparation for a date towers over what a guy spends. Guys shave, shower, and don some clothes that don’t look as if we snatched them from the nearest Dumpster.

Women spend a lot of money on their hair, wardrobe, and so forth, not just when they go out on a date, but in general to improve the possibility that someone will ask them out on a date.

(Related point of interest: Sometimes, women appear so attractive that men who aren’t narcissistic pigs won’t approach them. “Look at her! She’s out of my league and probably already in a relationship with someone much better than me.”)

Listen, guys. By the time you pick up your date, she already spent more money than you likely will on the dinner and movie.

Let’s address the real problem with the aforementioned comment. The suggestion that women dress and decorate themselves and then get offended when guys look at them.

Women live in a confusing world where their looks earn them a number between one and ten, and that alone serves to sum their entire value as a person, which, of course, represents a shallow system.

Imagine if guys wore their credit scores or bank statements on their chests for the world to read, and everyone who met them instantly graded them based on those numbers.

If you, as a man in this hypothetical situation, refuse to advertise your monetary value, women wouldn't notice you. If you do wear your credit score and bank statement in this (again) imaginary situation, a woman's eyes instantly glide around those numbers and assign a value upon you in that microsecond.

Like a woman’s looks, a guy’s credit score or life savings can nosedive at the drop of a hat. Imagine walking through life, fellows, with the knowledge that once your financial value hits the wall, your value as a person drops with it, and everyone can see it.

That sums up only a portion of the confusion-filled world of women in America (and plenty of other countries). The clock ticks, so you, as a woman, must put yourself "out there." You deal with, in that process, the dehumanizing experience of having every set of eyes you pass grade you at a glance.

I imagine that homosexual women despise this nonsense even more for obvious reasons.

Here’s another comment someone shared with me after my post of two weeks ago:

“Women LOVE to mess with guys’ minds. They lead us on just to tease us. They ignore us just to make us feel like shit.”

I won’t pretend that some women do behave this way just to hurt someone’s feelings, but the majority of the time, they just want to avoid the catch 22 they face every time they meet a man.

Women know that if they smile and act pleasant, the guy might get the wrong idea. Once he discovers she’s not interested in dating and/or sleeping with him, he claims that she misled him, labels her a tease and badmouths her because of it.

But if she doesn’t smile and speak to the guy, he considers her stuck up, and badmouths her for that.

Imagine, guys, if every time someone spoke to you, you had smile—but not too hard. Laugh—but keep it in check. Don’t give anyone the wrong idea.

I don’t know how women deal with this crap.

As the title of this post implies, reasons exist why we suck at dating, flirting, and relationships. We, as a species, enjoyed little practice. "Dating," for the vast, vast majority of our history, meant kidnapping and raping.

Eventually, men grew more considerate, and learned to purchase a young woman from her father so she could cook, clean, please him sexually, give birth to his children, and keep her mouth shut, lest he beat her.

Makes you laugh when certain people whine about “protecting the sanctity of traditional marriage,” huh?

Heck, plenty of countries still treat women as soulless property.

Most guys (myself included) want to treat women with respect, but it proves a challenge with all those lunacy-inducing chemicals that pump relentlessly through our brains whenever we see a nice ass in a tight pair of jeans.

Heterosexual men will likely never surrender our unreasonable depictions of perfect-bodied women in our cartoons, comics, and so forth. We enjoy them too much. That's fine, but we need to recognize real, flesh-and-blood women as people and treat them accordingly.

Dolls prove a nice distraction, but don't confuse them with people.

A Critical Look at Criticism

Consider the following, fictional conversation:

“Man! I just saw the 4^th Transformer movie. It sucked!”

“Really? Did you see the first three?”

“Yeah. They sucked, too.”

“Well, then . . . who’s really to blame here?”

Audiences encourage filmmakers to produce terrible movies every time they spend millions of dollars to see those movies. Those same moviegoers afterwards rant about the horrible experience.

You can’t give your dog a treat every time he urinates on your rug and then complain that he urinates on your rug. The blame rests with those of us who continue to purchase the tickets, to feed the dog.

I love to poke fun at Michael Bay, who makes movies I can sum up with the word “Explosions.”

However, we go to see his movies, put millions of dollars in Bay’s pockets. It serves as a mixed message to afterwards complain about them, to demand better work from Bay.

We, as a collective audience, need to cut many filmmakers some slack. Most of us couldn’t tell a good story if our lives depended upon it.

I loved The Rock and Pain and Gain. Everything else that Bay’s put on the screen made me curl into the fetal position and weep, but I can’t blame that disappointment on anyone but myself. I know what a Bay movie offers before we purchase the ticket.

Bay’s movies don’t work for me, but I stand as an audience of one. Who gives a damn what I think? If millions of people love to watch Bay's senseless explosions—more power to them. I can stay home or go to the gym or annoy the cat.

Why shouldn’t I respect that Bay’s work entertains people? So what if I don’t personally enjoy his work? Why should I experience anything worse than gratitude for The Rock and Pain and Gain?

Whenever someone mentions M. Night Shyamalan, I want to launch into a rant about how much I hate his movies. The enjoyment that Shyamalan brought me via The Sixth Sense doesn’t surface in my mind. I think only of the negative.

I need to discard this habit.

I attended funerals for people who led less than respectable lives, and yet everyone present tried to think of nice things to say about them. Why do entertainers face constant, unconstructive criticism for their worst moments?

More people forgave Ray Rice when he beat his wife than forgave George Lucas for his Star Wars prequels.

Sure, those prequels made us want to duct tape plastic bags over our faces, but did we so suddenly forget the childhood joy Lucas’s previous work brought us?

Doesn’t a one-hit-wonder band merit something better than our snickers at how they never produced a second album?

Can’t we discontinue this snobbery?

I hereby insist that everyone forgive Alanis Morissette’s misuse of “ironic.” Everyone misuses that word. The song’s catchy. Enjoy it.

Criticism proves a useful tool. The nastiest criticism might contain useful information, but their nasty delivery drowns their value.

I get carried away with my movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com, my head shoved so far up my own ass that I forget I ought to know better. My own work sits on kindle and martinwolt.blogspot.com. I should know better.

Some buildings need someone to tear them down, but with respect to the effort that went into their creation. Tear them down, but with a plan to rebuild them even better.

Writing means rewriting, which requires feedback. Negative feedback often proves more useful than positive (go figure), but minus a constructive delivery, such feedback becomes easily ignored.

You can catch my novels, such as Daughters of Darkwana, on Kindle.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Short stories on Mondays and Thursdays at martinwolt.blogspot.com

A look at entertainment industries via feminist and queer theory, as well as other political filters on Tuesdays at Entertainmentmicroscope.blogspot.com

An inside look at my novel series, its creation, and the e-publishing process on Wednesdays at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Tips on improving your fiction writing Fridays at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

Movie reviews on Sundays at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Video Games, Youtube, & Objectification

Common Core Math does not serve as the subject of today’s post. However, I will take this moment to strongly urge you to Google the subject, especially those of you with kids who attend public, elementary education in America.

Common Core Math proves a ridiculous bit of incomprehensible nonsense that all but guarantees to confuse your children and turn them away from math.

It shouldn’t shock anyone to learn that a group of Washington politicians, who possess not a single bit of educational background, invented this crap.

The cynic in me suspects that someone wants to sell a lot of textbooks, and paying off our government to make old math books obsolete seems the easiest way to accomplish that.

Google it. Take a look. Write angry letters.

Today’s post concerns something even more unpleasant: objectification of women in the entertainment industry, specifically in video games and animated, online shorts.

Don’t wince.

I don’t want to sound as if I climbed onto a moral soapbox, so I’ll begin with a confession. If we encourage objectification through our purchases and where we go online, I serve as part of the problem.

I don’t suspect that I singlehandedly support the porn industry, but . . . my computer spent time in bad neighborhoods. I like to look at beautiful women, while they’re naked if possible.

I want to believe that I can do this and still respect women as a human beings.

Video games and animation exhibit women with perfect bodies, flawless skin, and inhumanly big, brilliant eyes. Heterosexual men enjoy this so much that we seek any excuse to justify it, myself included.

I used to, back in high school, make statements such as, “Yes, comic books depict women with unrealistic bodies while they wear what amounts to a thin layer of paint, but they also depict men with unrealistic muscles.”

I soon realized the flaw with my observation. Men rarely face the same degree of judgment based upon their looks as their female counterparts. A physically unattractive man can still appear attractive if he demonstrates a kind heart, humor, a nice paycheck, an interesting job, respect from those around him, or the ability to sing for Aerosmith.

Guys possess options. We never face the same sense of insecurities that women do, not in the looks department. We can, therefore, laugh off with greater ease any unrealistic depictions of men in video games and animation.

When one guy describes a woman to another guy, he likely sums her (and her worth) with a number between one and ten (I again admit that I’ve done this).

We rarely see the same encouragement for bad behavior towards women as we do towards men.

A news anchor on Fox “News” actually encouraged his male audience to clap for attractive women as they walk past them, so that women will know we “approve” of them.

A news reporter asked Donald Trump if his beauty contests demean women. Trump shamelessly told the female reporter that her looks bought her career. God forbid anyone suspect she earned her position through hard work.

The four heroes in the recent, god-awful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie threaten and sexually harass a character named April, who smiles and blushes in response. I hate to sound like an old man, but what kind of example is that?

“But,” I hear you say, “don’t women make sexual suggestions to guys?”

Sure, but guys typically possess a few pounds over their female counterparts. How threated do guys feel when sexually harassed?

I realize that this post avoids the topic of unwanted advances within the homosexual community, but I hold little authority over that portion of this discussion. Feel free to leave a comment if you wish to add anything on that front.

Sexual harassment predates video games and animation. Rape might predate consensual sex. We can’t blame objectification on computers and television.

Porn, Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball, topless calendars, half naked vocaloids (look it up), and the like exist as nonliving, non-thinking entities. They can't (or want to) objectify anyone.

However, if we wish to keep our fun-to-look-at, animated dolls, then we, as men, must accept responsibility for said objectification.

The late George Carlin suggested that bad words didn’t exist, that only people could use words for good or bad purposes.

The same holds true for porn, videos of topless women, and all the rest for it. None of it carries its own agenda, but men (and women) can use it to justify bad behavior.

I perhaps provided only a convoluted path to nowhere new. Look, but don't stare. Enjoy, but keep unwanted comments to yourself. You heard it all before.

Maybe this entire post serves only to say that I think like a pig, but I draw a line somewhere so, gosh, doesn’t that make me a bit better than most?

When I watch a Beautiful Agony video, or something similar, my brain releases happy chemicals into my bloodstream. I like to feel happy. I’ve never thought, Give that girl two-thirds what I make and take away her voting rights!

I suppose that sets the bar low, though.

You can catch my novels, such as Daughters of Darkwana, on Kindle.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Short stories on Mondays and Thursdays at martinwolt.blogspot.com

A look at entertainment industries via feminist and queer theory, as well as other political filters on Tuesdays at Entertainmentmicroscope.blogspot.com

An inside look at my novel series, its creation, and the e-publishing process on Wednesdays at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Tips on improving your fiction writing Fridays at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

Movie reviews on Sundays at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com