You and I both know that the new Star Wars movie is going to make a obscene amount of money, I'd say they'd literally be "raking it in" but that would be wrong; even if they changed all the money they'll make into thousand dollar bills there is still not a rake big enough in this plane of existence to rake it "in" in an expedient matter. The chips have already fallen and they're confident the movie is going to make a billion fucking dollars. With ridiculous cross promotion everywhere (collector's edition Star Wars Band-Aid tins anyone?), TV and internet ads and advanced ticket sales kicking the internet in the head, it's impossible to imagine a world where this movie won't make more than the GDP 27 countries. But a man can dream, no?
Better start cutting yourself kids. This bizarre compulsion to collect tins of Band-Aids isn't going to rationalize itself!
So if the average American movie ticket is around $8.38 and the budget for the movie itself is $200 million; if less than twenty-three-point-nine million people watched it in theaters it wouldn't recoup its budget. This is obviously flawed math, as it doesn't take into account foreign markets, home entertainment, merchandise and the $4 billion Disney spent buying Lucasfilm in the first place. Though I still think people not watching Star Wars in theaters is a step in the right direction, it's really beyond my capabilities to say what will make the evil Disney empire fall.
In all this how you may be asking yourself why I want the new Star Wars (and therefore Mickey, Minnie, Goofy et al.) to fail. Disney is creatively bankrupt, decedent and a cancer on our culture. Disney, at their most creative just makes Shakespeare plays into movies about talking animals. Now they seem content merely with beating the dead horses named Marvel and Star Wars. They're making their money off of the backs of franchises made famous by people far more creative then them. I just think it's a behavior we shouldn't condone with our money.
Disney must pay for their sins.
Then again, I'm probably going to watch it too. Fuck it, boycott Star Wars or don't, I don't care. All I really want to see is Mickey Mouse cry into a glass of his Macallan '39 and hang a rope from a rafter.
Love,
Big Mike.
P.S. By the way, did you hear there are black people in it? Hopefully America is as racist as Tumblr says it is, and our amorphous white male patriarchal systems of oppression will trigger it out of existence.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret, gentle reader. I don't give a fuck how you feel. My compatriot doesn't give a fuck about how you feel either. We're hard pressed as it stands to give one iota of a fuck about what you think or what your opinions are, but we really couldn't give a subatomic fuck about how offended you feel.
Personally, this little website is for me to put up my half baked opinions and silly short stories up for posterity. I don't really feel any shame or embarrassment for the things I write so I figure fuck it, why not put it up for the world to see?
Xavier and I really do appreciate your commentary, good and bad (Frankly, most of the time it's negative) because it tells us you at least read us. We love people who hate our shit and act disrespectfully because they're fun to fuck with. We're also open to having our ideas challenged if a reasoned debate is your thing. The internet is a great place to engage with creative types, their fans, detractors and hecklers and should remain a place for the free expression of all.
However, something I will never abide by is people who think the world should coddle them and keep them safe from their own insecurities and use this as a reason to call art they don't like whatever "ism" they think will silence it. People like this always say they aren't being "Censors" but that they're just critiquing popular culture. I disagree. The problem with you people (yes, I do mean you people) is you never seem to look at a piece of art on it's artistic merits but how "diverse" it is. As if "diversity" is an artistic statement in and of itself.
If there are "too many" men and not enough women the piece of art is sexist.
If there are "too many" white people and not enough "people of color" the piece of art is racist.
If there are "too many" straight people and not enough gay people the piece of art is homophobic.
If there are "too many" trim, healthy people and not enough overweight people the piece of art is fatphobic.
If there are "too many" cisgendered people and not enough transsexuals or nonbinary zhes and zhers, the piece of art is transphobic.
What would happen if I made the perfect, socially conscious movie about a gay, trans, three hundred pound woman of color? Of course you sloppy, over sensitive clit mounds would still cry foul. If your pet minority has representation, then it's invariably (in your expert estimation) represented poorly or negatively. "It's a stereotype!" you'll cry "We gay, trans three hundred pound women of color don't act like that at all!"
Wait, so you're saying you want the characters in books, comics, movies and video games to act like "normal" human beings? Why then do you feel you can't relate to the characters the people with actual artistic talent create? It's almost as if creating art, or more over, DICTATING to artists what quotas and social-justice-checklists would make you feel better doesn't make for good art.
I've said this to people who whine about the lack of diversity in a piece of art before: If you don't like it, don't consume it, make your own. Get off your special snowflake ass to make art you feel "validates" your "lived experience". If that's too hard and want to critique something you don't like instead; do it on it's artistic merits. I'll be right there with you. Calling something sexist, racist, homophobic, fat-phobic or trans-phobic because it doesn't pass your wholly subjective and arbitrary litmus test though is not a critique, that's just you being a whimpering cunt.
Just because an artist doesn't put gays, black people, fat people, trans folk or women in their art does not mean they hate those groups of people. However, if you do think that then I hate you.
