Evil is less a person in Miyazaki’s films that you overcome and defeat than it is a condition that spreads and which needs to be resisted and changed. The fascists in Porco Rosso are at the gates, Eboshi is tearing the world apart, Sophie is surrounded by war, Laputa is harvested for destruction, and the heroes have…

One of the striking things about these films is that they show models of courage and heroism that often have little to do with the ability to commit violence. It’s more about how these characters withstand adversity, use their ingenuity, and practice kindness to solve the problems facing their communities. They also…

The reason African-Americans are often so skeptical of Israeli policies is because some of us did the same thing in Africa a hundred years earlier.

Between that and “as a TV lesbian, I’m offended by this group of actual lesbians,” it’s just possible she might not be the ally that making the right Instagram post implies.

I’m sorry, but it isn’t “obvious” to me why there should be an ethnostate, and if it seems so to you, you probably don’t understand the implications of what you’re saying.

People are by and large supporting Palestinian civilians, who make up the overwhelming majority of the 15,000 casualties born out of Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign — that’s not counting atrocities that have been committed in the West Bank, or those committed before October 7. 2023 was the deadliest year…

Yeah, I’m not knocking her for it, it’s clearly working for her. But the fact that she has a legion of diehard fans who parse and pore over every lyric and interview and tweet to decipher hidden meanings about her relationships is a big part of her branding.

When people criticize “Zionists” and “Zionism”, they’re not talking about Jews. They’re talking about colonialism.

I’m not a fan or hater of Swift’s music. It ain’t my thing, but clearly it’s doing something for damned near a billion other people, so whatever. But it’s always funny to me when the more irascible “Swifties” try to pretend that her primary wheelhouse *isn’t* “epic breakup songs,” occasionally to the point of quasi…

Isn’t everyone involved here a “Swiftie?” My sense is the same people are basically consuming this gossip trash and simultaneously feeling self-righteous about not buying into it when it’s shot down. Fans read it and half-know it’s nonsense, while also sort of speculating about it being true. Then they drift back and…

This reads like a list of reasons not to date Taylor Swift, which means I’m at least doing one thing right in my life.

How is it that Taylor’s romantic life keeps captivating the public imagination?

It just felt completely unearned to me.

It strikes me that “a century” is a nice, round, symbolically weighty number that Satan would offer in one of his deals.

Love and Thunder was such a disappointment, which was surprising, because Waititi juggled tone so well in Jojo Rabbit, but it’s kind of hard to do a cancer/godkiller story combined with “Russell Crowe’s silly accents and screaming goats.” Those things just did not mesh well at all.

I agree with all of this, but I feel we may need to change “Russo Brothers” to “Markus and McFeely.” They wrote all those great entries and that’s not to diminish the Russo Brothers’ work on them, but everything they’ve touched since Endgame has been kind of crap, (Yes, I know they also collaborated on the screenplay…

It’s a major U.S. business. Maybe it’s not making steel or building computers, but it is a billion-dollar industry so when it takes part in prima facie fuckery, it should get at least some scrutiny.

I’ll applaud any time Congress gets off its collective ass to do anything that isn’t blatantly self-serving and/or detrimental to the country as a whole, so let’s just call this one a win.

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Oh, you're fucked now, Zaslav. The giant anvil lobby has deep pockets.