I know the “white savior” thing has been overdone, and it is annoying in fiction, but how are supposed to tell the story of certain historical figures with running afoul of it? How, for example, could you make a contemporary film about John Brown—which someone definitely should—without being accused of white saviorism?

6/30/18 1:38pm

Exactly. Especially when she presents when with the treasured family utensils. “I was saving these for your wedding, but....”

It serves the power structure. Imagine if poor white people suddenly realized that they have a lot more in common with poor black and brown people than they do with rich white people. We can’t have that!

Contrast Trump’s formulaic “thoughts and prayers” with the vicious invective he unleashes on anyone he actually disapproves of—like a restaurant owner who politely refuses to serve one of his staff, or football players who stage a respectful protest against police brutality. Believe me, his most extreme followers know…

Season 1 was mostly great, if simple, world-building. Season 2 complicated and deepened things, maybe too much for some people, and there’s great potential for season 3.

Yes, the model wouldn’t be America in the 1860s but Spain in the 1930s. An even more terrible civil war in many ways.

After all, chickenhawk writers aren’t often found leading the charge either, are they?

Are you really bothered by a not-so-extreme age difference? He’s not 80.

Civility and manners are vital but, like tolerance, they need to be mutual—particularly in a case like this, in which a person with relatively little power is publicly chastised for incivility toward extraordinarily powerful people whose lack of respect and decency knows no bounds. Make their lives hell, I say; you…

...It’s incredibly fucking weird to write and publish a paragraph envisioning grown men icing down their erections in movie theaters full of children.

Pretty much like the god of the Old Testament.

Your body replaces all its cells over time... but memory means that you have a continuity of selfhood.

He also seemed to linger on his wrist when unbuttoning his shirt the night his wife died.

“Prefect”? For what function and for what environment? There’s no such thing as a “prefect” body for every circumstance, which is why camels, dolphins and weasels look nothing alike. Or consider at the Olympics: weightlifters don’t look like marathoners don’t look like sprinters don’t look like gymnasts.

Then why the “sports bra” top?

But that would make suicide much more difficult.

I’ve been a Westerner in Asia for the better part of 17 years. I may be terrible, but I’m definitely not uniformly terrible.

It’s really daring to let a very peripheral character become the center and narrator of a whole episode. Good job.

Unless the pain literally won’t let you think straight. It happens.