Oh, I would never say that “art” is a complete non-factor, only that politics and ideology also always factor (to varying degrees) - even so much as in determining what “good art” is, a shifting definition that in recent years tends to imply something pretty and well made that allows viewers with middle-class tastes…

The Academy Awards have rarely in their history been about “art” (or, at least, only art). Since their inception they’ve been about Hollywood patting itself on the back. Over the years, depending on a wide host of extenuating circumstances, the reasons Hollywood might want to pat itself on the back have changed and…

It depends on how you classify the different performers. If you compare Mo’Nique with Rock as “black comedians,” then it seems that the men are getting paid more. If you compare Mo’Nique with Schumer as “women comedians,” then it appears that the white woman is getting paid more.

Since the majority of the interiors are shot at the same studio in Belfast, most of the cast hunkers down there for several months a year. It’s a pretty small town, and I think (or PR would have me believe) they end up spending a lot of their down time together.

I’d say the comma after “away” is also pretty questionable.

It’s been ages, but I seem to remember Drop Dead Gorgeous being pretty good, too.

As a US transplant to the British Isles, I’ve always found Men at Work’s one-hit-wonderdom round these parts peculiar. I guess I’d just assumed them being Aussie meant that they’d have been at least as big over here as in the US, but when that time of night comes round and I’m ready to crank up “Overkill,” I’m still…

The first one was Hooper, which I think (it’s been ages) Dom’s not in, but yeah, Needham did those later ones, too.

Hal Needham, who also gave us the end-credits blooper reel.

This isn’t really going anywhere, but since you asked a question, I’ll try to answer as a wrap up. It feels like you haven’t read either of the letters in question, or done any research at all because she spells it all out very clearly.

None of what you just said happened, happened. Yeesh. Have you actually read any of the documentation?

Whether UBC should or shouldn’t have acted as it did isn’t the point here. Atwood (and many others, the signatories list reads like a who’s who of Canadian literature) believed UBC’s actions were unfair and they simply called on UBC to be more transparent. You can find the letter online.

She wrote it, as she spells out in the same letter, not simply in support of her friend. Rather, he was fired by his university without any of the charges being made public and without ever being convicted of any crime. Atwood and many other Canadian writers signed a letter a few years ago protesting how he was fired…

I think we basically agree, just thought it was worth pointing out that there is more than one way to reckon what “making money” means in Hollywood, and that there’s a lot of evidence that women-led movies do actually “make more money” (depending on how one calculates), so that, yes, as you imply, Hollywood should be…

. . . said mr Z on looking in the mirror.

“The movies that make the most money, and therefore pay the highest salaries, don’t have women in the lead role, or they have one woman among multiple men”

According to reports, I don’t think he did refer to all of Africa as a shithole because he was discussing a specific program that only covers specific countries in Africa.

One might consider it a minor quibble in the face of Trump’s awful comment, but in the US and Europe, we have a tendency to think of and discuss Africa as one monolithic place, even though it’s bigger than most of Europe, China, and the US combined. Doing so helps perpetuate many of the Western stereotypes about…

You may be right that Trump is clueless about which African nations qualify for the protected status, and he may even have referred to them generically as African nations. But the only “direct” quote being attributed to him is, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”- at least as far as…

Yeah, I got the joke. And in my original comment, I wasn’t speaking about Noah specifically. If you watch all the clips about Trump’s statement, almost every single newsreader says something like, “El Salvador, Haiti, and some African countries.” The late-night hosts generally perpetuate this trend.