First They Lie To You

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I know everyone here is semi-amused when I go on rants about people of the wrong race getting cast.

Look, seriously I don’t even mind race swapping in theater or something that’s obviously artsy. One of the best Pride and Prejudice adaptations I’ve seen, the cast was small enough you had to pretend you didn’t know Mr. Darcy was also Mr. Bennet. (To be fair they wore different coats!) And all the girls were different RACES (okay there weren’t five races, but the girls who were white were so different they might as well be, and one was Asian and Mary was black.) and it didn’t matter. It all worked, because it had a just slightly campy and deranged edge, and accommodations were made, such as the girls unrolling a carpet, to make the “path to Oakham mount.”

That’s fine. no one watching that could take it for reality.

It’s the lying that disturbs me. Things like Bridgerton, or historical movies which cast Africans in a time and place where an African who was there would only be known for this characteristic. Like the episode of a Robin Hood show where the scamming “nun” was black. My doods, this might seem reasonable in America in the 21st century, but let me assure you it wouldn’t even seem reasonable in Europe in the 20th century, much less the 13th. When I was a kid, the village had one black person (a young couple had moved to the village. She was black.) NO ONE KNEW ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT HER. Took three years for me to know she had a name. People were absolutely friendly to her. (Her kids and grandkids now live in the village.) It’s just that this one characteristic was so out of the common way no one knew her for anything else. Same way there was one protestant family and their name as far as I knew was “The protestants.” Like that.

The series completely lost me because honestly, how could you be a scammer and assume different identities when your skin color made you immediately and clearly obvious to be you for miles and miles around?

And if you’re going to say “There were always black people in England/Europe” we can’t be friends anymore. That’s what is used to justify these abominations. Were there always black people? Yes, probably. Look, homo sap moves around a lot, mates promiscuously (lit.) and is never actually that isolated. If we were, we wouldn’t be able to mate anymore. BUT the question is “how many black people were there around at any given time.” Well, from accounts, any that existed became a sort of curiosity. And for the common run of folk, their experience calibrated by those of their kind, Portuguese were blackamoor. Heck, the expression blackamoor itself tells you the calibration, since most moors were at most deeply tan Mediterranean. Also, Anne Boleyn was considered dark, and as someone explained “Dark was anyone not as pale as Jane Seymour” a woman that was so pale she appeared green in certain lights.

So, yes, I take issue with stuff that’s blatantly a-historical. But that problem is minor.

No, you see, the problem is that our schools — all the schools in the west, not just here — do such a craptastic job of teaching our kids history — or anything, really — that people take entertainment for history.

So, what’s happening is that they are straight up lying about history to people who don’t know any better.

But that’s not all they lie about, and I swear Great Britain is worse. I mean, we’ve all noticed (thank you for asking, yes.) that every commercial these days has a bi-racial couple. Which is bizarre, as in real life, yes, Americans intermarry a lot –maybe a lot more than at any time in in the past — but it’s not the majority or even half. Because guess what? White people or “pass as white at a glance” are still the vast majority in this country. So, yes, by and large they marry each other.

But the English programs are worse than this. And it’s the programming, not just the commercials. I stopped watching British mysteries, which used to be one of my primary modes of decompressing because I noticed every couple was different races. Every single couple. And once you notice that, for something set in the bucolic English countryside, it’s impossible to un-notice or watch the show and not notice it every time. Yes, yes, “use the best actors’… you mean white people can’t act at all? Because by proportion of the population they’re still the VAST majority in England, more so than even here. And that makes no sense whatsoever.

Also, after a few months I decided to try watching again, and the plots were all about racism. It culminated in a show about this woman who had joined a white supremacist group as a runaway teen. As an adult, she was married to an Indian man, and helped African immigrants learn to read. But as they investigate and her past comes out, everyone turns their backs on her, and the moral was that she deserved this, for being an idiot when she was under 20. That was the last time I tried. I still occasionally watch British mysteries, but only old ones.

Understand, I’m not bothered by bi-racial couples. As a lot of you know. Heck, if you squint and shake the snow globe, Dan and I are in a bi-racial marriage. You just have to decide which of us is the minority and through which ancestry (we is Heinz 57.) Without bi-racial couples, I wouldn’t BE here. Or my kids, which would be a greater loss.

What I’m bothered by is lies. I’ve now watched the producer and one of the stars of Bridgerton give interviews in which they said Queen Charlotte — German, blond, cousin of the king — was really black and that there really was this separate system of black nobility, like an appartheid state in the Britain of the 18th century.

And I want to scream, because, you know, it’s a lie.

I don’t care about the races. I care about the lies.

Because what it does is it causes young people to try to make sense of it. It goes something like this: Wait, if black people were always here in numbers, just separate but different, why didn’t we hear about them until now.

And then OMG the racism!

The same way the portrayals of incredibly mixed small communities will cause people to wonder why their isn’t and think “OMG, the racism.”

I’m not saying there’s no racism in England/Britain. As I pointed out, my relatives counted as a different race to them until very recently. Might still.

I’d go a long way to say racism in America is negligible. Not non-existent, for is it not written, “the chowder heads thou shall always have with you” BUT negligible.

In Europe things are different. And you know, people in Europe have a much stronger narrative (and slightly stronger reasoning) for being “one blood.” So some racism or at least xenophobia is understandable.

BUT what I’m saying is that lying about the past, to show newcomers have always been there, and we should be more tolerant is not the solution. As it should be bloody obvious.

LIES ARE NEVER THE SOLUTION. They just create other problems.

In this case the problem it has caused is a bunch of white policemen so determined not to be racist that they take the opinion of the murderer and arrest the victim while he’s dying.

These same people now think the solution is hiding their web site with policing rules, and lying some more.

Note that the left has for over a hundred years screamed about the propaganda that got us into WWI and WWII. Propaganda is evil.

Unless they do it of course. And do it in the most bassawkward way possible.

And stoke hatred.

122 thoughts on “First They Lie To You”

  1. It has been said that if it wasn’t for double-standards, the Left wouldn’t have any standards. [Sarcastic Grin]

    Liked by 3 people

  2. I used to subscribe to BritBox streaming service for the mysteries, and I noticed the whole, every other couple is mixed race thing, even in small, rural villages.

    I mostly just scoffed, but they really are trying to lie about history. Sad, just sad.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. their commercials are much the same. the few non-mixed are as often as not gay/lesbian, and there are quite a few mixed race lesbian couples in the ads (one of the Hotel brokers like Trevago often has the same 2 girls in different places iirc)

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Yes! And every Church of England pastor is either gormless or conniving. Property developers are brash and uncultured. Aristocrats are dwindling, drunken or mad, or all three at once.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Anime hits different notes, but similarly– there’s been a rash of “main character is Designated Villain, and also actually a very decent person,” with the less competent variants being “Oh, he’s blonde, and literally named The Hero, he’ll be a seriously nasty bad guy.”

        But that’s only some of them– for example, There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero’s Party, So I Tried Confessing to Her has everybody just being … people. With flaws, but basically decent people, doing what they can, for reasons that make human-sense. (And the Villain Who Really Isn’t is neither perfect nor excused in being evil, his behavior is justified. And also frequently cringe in a way that is very endearing.)

        Which is to say– third or fourth generation romantic comedy anime (heavy on the comedy) is more competent than the best of the BBC.

        Liked by 2 people

  4. It feels like it is all just word games to them, challenging each other to say they believe the most impossible thing ever just to see who will go the furthest with it to prove their bonifides, then doubling down on the next boast.

    And that is all it is to them: something to be used to depletion for brownie points. I don’t even think they believe they are spending anything of value in their games.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’m down for “make the most outrageous story you can”! It’s fun– but you have to play honestly.

      Like, the old “pinky and the brain, one is a genius, the other’s insane,” sure it’s funny to try to argue that the Brain is insane. But…that requires you justify the mouse in a romantic relationship with a horse who can’t follow even his own thoughts is the genius.

      They just say dumber and dumber stuff and you are supposed to nod along or trump it.

      Liked by 5 people

      1. … a romantic relationship with a horse … ???

        Never did watch Animaniacs as a kid* so I didn’t know about that. The “Pinky is the genius” theory was plausible to me on my surface-level knowledge.

        * Growing up in France means I missed out on a lot of American TV until I went to college in the mid- to late 90’s, and then I didn’t watch much TV because I had studying to do. Except Babylon 5. Season five of Babylon 5 came out while I was in college, so I powered through my friend’s VCR tapes of seasons one through four and then watched season five as it released.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. It still is hilarious, and I’d highly suggest watching the original show if you get a chance.

          This song is a pretty good example of normal-high-quality skits, and the horse they have as Caligula’s is the one that is usually Pinky’s light-of-love. Can’t remember the name, but it’s played very derpy sweet….

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  5. The suspension of belief on these race swap circuses are a big turnoff for me because they are just too high a hurdle. This reminds me of an incident back in the late 80’s when I was active duty Air Force and assigned to Misawa, Japan. Think way north on Honshu and a “can’t get there from here” attitude. Americans already stuck out because this city was in the literal boonies. On the weekends, my wife and I would snag a train and just… go. I had learned enough Japanese at that time and have good pattern recognition (for the signs in Kanji) so we could get around. Mostly we were just getting away from Americans and enjoying the culture. In these places o sometimes had my wife walk a good bit ahead just to watch the Japanese watch my wife. I cannot reiterate enough that WE STUCK OUT. There was no hiding or getting away from this. Now imagine two black guys. These brainiacs took a train (this fact is important) to the middle of nowhere in a society that is as homogenous as any place on earth. They robbed a jewelry store. Robbed. A. Jewelry. Store. Two black guys. In Japan. The owner called the police and the police called the train station and told them when two black gaijin get on the train, don’t go anywhere. Imagine these tow idiots with the “uh oh” moment. My point? You ain’t fooling nobody. Life is not a sitcom. Stop this stupid horse shit.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. My brother was stationed in the Philippines in the 1980s. He made two or three short visits to Manila while he was there.

      A few years ago he was watching some videos about the Philippines on Youtube, clicked someone’s digitized home movie from the 1980s, and there he was, walking down a sidewalk in Manila, 6’3, blond, blue-eyed, and literally head and shoulders taller than the people surrounding him. It was like watching some giant alien.

      He visited Japan and Korea, but only for short periods and I think he stayed on base the whole time.

      Liked by 4 people

    2. Wow. I can’t believe those master criminals didn’t manage to disappear without a trace with their ill-gotten loot. I mean, it was a flawless, foolproof plan. How could it possibly have failed?

      NOTE: the above should be read with a near-toxic level of sarcasm.

      Liked by 6 people

    3. I was also stationed at Misawa AB – when it was still a Security Service base, and yep – it was basically the back of beyond. Japan’s version of Appalachia. Beautiful country … but oh, heck did we Americans stand out! I had a friend who had two toddler-aged children with copper-penny-bright red hair. Japanese people took pictures of their kids all the time. My daughter was born there, a fair-haired, pale-skinned blue-eyed baby-san. I was walking her in her stroller up the main street in Misawa City, and a Japanese kid, middle-school-aged was so fascinated by the blond baby that he was looking back at her as he walked up the street and straight into a light pole; classic slamming-into-light pole pratfall right out of a slapstick cartoon.

      I’m annoyed by the racial historical ret-conning myself. The Brits have been going all-in on it for years. I’ve even seen stories in the Daily Mail about soldiers originally from North Africa in Roman times being stationed in Britain. Yay! There were blacks in Roman Britain! So why do you stupid racist proles object to migrants from Africa being imported in job lots?! Historically, they were ALWAYS here! So THERE!

      The Bridgerton thing and the Blackness of Queen Charlotte is just headshakingly revisionist. No, she was not black. Neither was Cleopatra. It’s worse than a lie. It’s deliberately polluting the historical record to put it into a TV series.

      Liked by 3 people

    4. And in the rest of the West, if LE tried that then they would probably get slammed for “racial profiling”.

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  6. Never got into British Mysteries, but I did watch the Law & Order franchise for YEARS. Gave it up when the villains began to fall into the same categories: Big Pharma Exec, Conservative Politician, Uber-Rich Industrial Mogul, Influential Christian Pastor/Jewish Rabbi, Stereotypical White Supremacist, Stereotypical Christian Fundamentalist Cultist, and Right Wing Boogeyman Of The Week. They were always pasty white, nearly always male (and, if female, virulently anti-feminist), and nearly always rich. And the victims were always Protected Minority Of The Weeks.

    Yeah, if I can figure out whodunnit the second the character appears on screen, before they even open their mouth, then there’s no “mystery” to the whodunnit. And if the prime suspect by some miracle isn’t one of The Usual Suspects, then rest assured a “twist” is coming that will reveal that the true perpetrator is indeed one of The Usual Suspects.

    It was the GamerGate episode in SVU (I think) that made me finally drop the whole franchise like a rotten hot potato. Which sucks because the writing was GREAT back when I first started watching it in the late 2000s. But I just couldn’t suspend disbelief anymore. Or overlook the fact that the series had turned into blatant left-wing propaganda, especially because the characters started treating civil rights and constitutional impediments as aggravating, pointless roadblocks keeping them from throwing the bad guys (read: everyone left of Lenin and everyone NOT part of a Protected Group) in prison.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. D’oh! Yeah. That’s what I meant.

        Blame it on a combination of It’s Friday Afternoon and It’s Been a Stressful Week And My Brain Is Fried.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. I heard SVU had an episode where a white rape victim refused to press charges because she didn’t want to jail a black man. It’s just appalling.

      Liked by 2 people

  7. funny you should mention not having a problem with live performances. I have exactly the same view. the suspension of disbelief is just different. The lead actors in Othelo used to alternate between Othelo and Iago and I think a black and a white actor alternating the parts would be fascinating. Impossible in this day and age but fascinating. Sigh. Top bad

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I went to a play (Bright Star) at a college theater at a small college in Appalachia. About a third of the actors in a play set in small town Appalachian 70 or 80 years ago were black. Only slightly jarring. They had to cast who they had available.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. When my wife was in college, she was in a production of Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors. They had to cast whoever was available, so one of the sets of twins (all the twins in the plot are identical, naturally, for maximum potential for confusion) was a tall white guy and an average-height Asian guy. Which, as you said, is totally fine; it actually added something to the comedy that the audience had to suspend their disbelief and pretend that these two guys looked exactly alike. Nobody was pretending it was historically accurate, because that would have ruined the fun of the silliness.

          Liked by 5 people

          1. They did Twelfth Night at my college and had a similar issue, with the one cast as Viola being a little below average female height and the one cast as Sebastian several inches taller, and dark-haired to boot.

            The solution was an absolutely horrifying blond wig for the guy. Which was also funny.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. LOL! Reminds me of The Great Muppet Caper, where the running gag is that Kermit and Fozzie are identical twins and most of the characters (including Fozzie) have trouble telling them apart.

            No, I don’t get it either. But it’s still freakin’ funny.

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  8. My cousin developed a bit of a phobia of Japanese people because when she was 4 years old her folks moved to rural Japan for 2 years for work. Cousin was an absolutely adorable little girl with bright red hair. She could not leave their house without collecting a mob of people wanting to touch her hair. She couldn’t play, have friends or anything because she was such a novelty there. Being rather shy, she did not revel in the attention.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. In the early nineties, my older sister and I got our pictures taken by Japanese tourist when we visited historical sites. We were both towheaded.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I went to Kings Island in the late 80’s with a friend who had long blonde hair and a sort of classic English look.

        We met a couple of nice Japanese businessmen who just wanted to take a picture with us in front of the park’s Eiffel Tower (or rather, with my friend, although I also was acceptably exotic/white/gaijin).

        It was kinda hilariously anime-in-real-life, because they were the stereotypical tall and short salarymen in suits. At an amusement park. As part of a tour group, also wearing suits.

        The tall guy had a long face, and the short guy had a round face. Seriously, the whole cliche.

        We didn’t get to the point of asking what company they worked for, amusing as that would have been, because we were just high school kids. But I’m sure they were from some classic Japanese corporation, too. (Possibly one that ran amusement parks, because I don’t think Honda sent people to wear suits in theme parks.)

        Liked by 2 people

        1. In Florence, Italy, in 1981, saw a whole troupe of Japanese tourists. The guide would point to something (a cathedral, in this case) and every camera came up,stopped at the same angle, and the tourists snapped the same picture. Arms down, and they went on.

          (My older-person’s regret is this was before I got to reading and re-reading The Divine Comedy, so I didn’t get the thrill,I’d get now from visiting Dante’s home cathedral).

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    2. We had the same. Two blond-haired blue-eyed kids in a new guinea jungle village that had never seen white people before. Yeah…

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      1. I haven’t mentioned this often, but I was born in a country where the average skin tone is that of coffee (without cream). It would probably be safe for me to name the country, but I’m becoming a little paranoid about revealing personal details online; any regular commenter who wants to know is welcome to email me (first name dot last name at gmail) if you’re curious, though. But anyway, there’s a photo of me, a really pale white baby, in the arms of a woman with really black skin. Most people described as black in America are really coffee-with-cream colored, but this woman had skin that was actually, legitimately, black (or at least as close to black as it is possible for human skin to be). She had the biggest grin on her face as she compared our skin colors.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. From what I see, there are four types of casting:

    • Accurate — Match the source material/historical demographics as closely as possible. Kingdom Come Deliverance and the Witcher games took flak for this because they were set in historical/fantasy Europe.
    • Celebrity — Go with the biggest celebrity you can get, no matter the race. Works best for fun, inaccurate schlock with lots of creative license (Gods of Egypt, Thor).
    • Stage play — Cast anyone for any role, either due to limitations of the production (your local theater) or because the acting is explicitly the point (Denzel doing Macbeth).
    • Woke — Cast to make a political point. Take your pick of examples, but Bridgerton and anything by the BBC are the most egregious.

    All of these are valid except for woke. Normally, celebrity casting works unless you get too cute with it (John Wayne as Genghis Khan), but the existence of woke casting makes it harder to defend. Are you race-swapping a character because you like the actor or because you’re trying to make a political point?

    Hence the kerfuffle over The Odyssey. The casting is obviously woke (probably to meet the Oscars quota), but they’re trying to pass it off as celebrity (or artistic license). Except people want some pretense of accuracy, so that defense isn’t going over well.

    Liked by 4 people

      2. What!? You’re not satisfied with JOHN WAYNE!!??

        There’s just no pleasing you people!

        *cough*

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        1. At least they attempted to make John Wayne up to look as Asian as they could.

          They didn’t have him swaggering around with cowboy hat, boots, and brandishing a pair of six-guns.

          Liked by 1 person

      3. I was just recalling Yul Brynner as Pharaoh in The Ten Commandments. That works. Charlton Heston as Moses? Waggles hand, but he did a good job. (Bearing in mind that it’s been over 50 years since I saw that movie…)

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    2. “Accurate — Match the source material/historical demographics as closely as possible. Kingdom Come Deliverance and the Witcher games took flak for this because they were set in historical/fantasy Europe.”

      And then you get the wokies coming out with comments such as, “You can accept dragons in your setting, but not sword-wielding warriors in wheelchairs? You’re just making excuses, bigot!”

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      1. In a fantasy world where a wheelchair is an artifact grade mechanism — it uses dozens of screws! — but in which magic can come up with both more useful and cheaper means of conveyance.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Irks me almost as much as Alan Moore dismissing the notion of continuity because all stories are fictional anyway. “Verisimilitude” is a handy word that I wish more people would use.

        Liked by 2 people

      3. I understand how wheelchairs work, so I assume that a fictional wheelchair works like one, unless established otherwise.

        I understand just enough about sword to have significant questions about the combination.

        Give them magical prosthetics that I would not expect to understand, or give them pistols.

        ‘disability representation’ is one of the more annoying ways activists are freaking useless to counter-productive at their stated purpose.

        Yes, I identify as ableist, and I identify as a bigot.

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        1. It’s the tokenism of much “disability representation” that is a pain. Contrast that with Sanderson having a character become paraplegic and then using her story to explore her character development, especially as regards to how she wants to maintain her dignity in the face of people who want her to essentially become home-bound. Contrast that with “I want a wheelchair barbarian in a dungeon” and you can see the difference.

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          1. Disability in fiction is hard. A disability that doesn’t disable is a paper tiger, and since each one disables differently, it requires different treatment.

            Take Isabella And The Siren. She’s depressed. To be sure, it’s a short story, but the entire story had to be built about her depression rather than her being wheel-chair bound, or face-blind, or what have you.

            Liked by 2 people

  10. I’m caught in moderation, for some reason. I choose to believe it’s because I mentioned John Wayne as Genghis Khan.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. You forgot to mention that the person-of-color in the commercial is always the one leading, guiding, showing, or otherwise in charge. Especially in pharmaceutical ads.

    Liked by 2 people

  12. And if you’re going to say “There were always black people in England/Europe” we can’t be friends anymore. 

    One of my favorite head-slappers of recent casting is in the TV adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s The Winter King. In the novels, set in the Arthurian era, there is exactly one black British character, a Numidian cavalryman. His uniqueness is commented on regularly in the books. It’s the reason the Saxons fear him, because they’ve never seen anyone who looks like him before. In the show, a quarter of the Britons and Saxons are . . . African.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. G. K. Chesterton lived in Edwardian England. It took a trip to America for him to realize that blacks were not black, any more than whites were actually white.

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      1. One reason why people have cried “Racism!” about the Barsoom books is because in the second book (iirc) he introduces a villainous race of “black” people. The problem with the claim, of course, is that these really are people with *black* skin and hair, and not merely dark brown like “black” people on Earth.

        i.e. they’re not Africans relocated to Mars.

        Liked by 1 person

  13. Before modern day nutritional supplements, wouldn’t black people living in Europe have serious problems with diseases like rickets?

    Liked by 3 people

    3. Depends on how sheltered they were. The era did regularly involve running about sunlight for the vast majority of the population.

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  14. Two points of disagreement.

    First, there is racism in America, but mostly in institutions. The institutional racism is against white people (and to a slightly lesser extent, against Jews and Asians, depending on the institution), and is masked by terms like “antiracism” and “whiteness” (which, when pressed, the sociopaths will argue is Totally Different from skin color), and gets by mostly because two generations now have been indoctrinated by the redefinition of “racism” that was pushed in all public education starting in the 1990s, that racism is “prejudice plus power”, rather than, you know, judging people by their race. This redefinition pretty much always amounts to “only white people can be racist”.

    Second, you seem to believe this set of circumstances is accidental, or a consequence of people following stupid ideas. At this point, I can only conclude that it is intentional, and always has been. Everything is a propaganda campaign, or virtually everything. The mission of entertainment is not to entertain, but to reprogram the idiots in flyover country to The Correct Values.

    This is why what they’re doing and saying is not really “lies”. They have no concept of truth, they only understand power. The subject is never the subject, the subject is always the revolution. ALWAYS.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. International airport casting in historical settings and historical fantasy settings always breaks verisimilitude for me.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. That may be part of the idea. There’s no use trying to escape, everywhere’s the same.

        Which would be rich coming from people who claim to be horrified by the “sameness,” of American highway culture.

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          1. Not even a paragraph in, and the article’s not worth reading, because they had a conclusion and didn’t do the most basic “here’s a quick search to see if anyone has looked into this.”

            He talks of the AI.

            It’s not “the.” It’s often an AI. It is not the same AI, and this does in fact matter, greatly.

            And they’re different enough that multiple studies have been done on how to game them, with the most effective being “have the AI that company is using to screen re-write your submission.”

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  16. By the late 90’s racism was well on its way to a quiet and well-deserved death. Then the Democrats pumped it back up with hot gas and a million volts of greed and envy, and set it shambling off to wreck our society again.

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    1. They had to indoctrinate a new generation to even get it to stick. Gen X flipped the man the finger ({both of them, held ’em high) and went off to do their own thing. Even through college they were pushing it stupid hard in the 90s but it just didn’t stick.

      Those that got it from cradle to college didn’t get the same sort of constitutional resistance that latchkey kids got, I suppose. We took “don’t trust the MAN” literally and distrusted pretty much everything. So far that’s been working pretty well. Conspiracy theorists (many of ’em of my beloved generation) are beating the table odds pretty handily.

      Note whereabouts the SPLC started getting the funding going for the “hate groups” they were purporting to oppose. First few years of the millenium and a bit after by the looks of things. The only way it survived- and it really hasn’t- is artificial life support. That tells me it’s already dead where it counts.

      Now we just need to cut off that funding spigot. Also, rant about race schmace deleted, nobody needs to hear that for the 47th time.

      Liked by 3 people

  17. Why come up with a new vice when you can recycle an old one?

    Progressives are all about recycling, right?

    New and improved racism!!! Now with 50% more greed and envy!!!

    Liked by 3 people

  18. It’s always been understood that when it comes to live theater (or ballet), that race (and even gender) swapping happens because the pool of actors is so small. And it works there, because this is an understood rule. When they try to claim they’re doing it on the big screen, it falls apart–because, as you say, it’s a lie and we all know it’s a lie. We know the actor pool is plenty big enough to not do that, and when they proceed to twist themselves into pretzels calling anyone who remarks upon it racist and so on and so forth, it just gets even worse.

    Now, I saw a EXCELLENT production of the Dracula ballet. But it was in Wyoming, and as you can imagine, the pool of ballet dancers in Wyoming is quite tiny.

    So Dracula, in this production, was female. Because this young lady was a STRAPPING big young lady: a bit taller than I am (and I am 5’11” in my bare feet), and obviously from well-fed, well-exercised generations of farm and ranch folk. She was beautiful, yes, but for the purposes of the ballet it was more important that she was a.) a talented ballet dancer, and b.) big enough and strong enough to do the lifts, etc. required by the role of Dracula in that particular ballet.

    And she did great job. Almost every otherwise male character in the cast was also gender swapped (Renfield and Van Helsing–who was also black). The only male dancer had the role of Jonathan Harker. :D

    Logistically, the company had to gender swap at least one of the major roles (nevermind the others), and I think story-wise the choice to do it with the lead role was the smart one. And they followed the time honored tradition of such swaps in theater: they did not comment upon it, nor did they alter the story in any way. (Which of course, made the whole dynamic between Dracula and Mina…well. Something that would make the blue hairs thrilled if it had been done on purpose to Make A Statement, lol. Since it wasn’t intended to make a statement, it was merely beautiful and enjoyable dancing with somewhat different overtones to the original male/female pairing.)

    Liked by 6 people

    1. Opera, they go straight by voice. Which was how Jerry Pournelle found his suspension of disbelief cracking, when Jessye Norman and Gary Lakes were singing, however beautifully, how they realized they were brother and sister because they looked so much alike.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. My wife and I went to a local theater company’s production of Much Ado About Nothing a couple of years ago where they nearly had enough actors not to have to gender-swap any roles. But instead of Don John, the prince’s bastard brother, they had Dona Jane, the prince’s bastard sister, because that’s who they had available. They only had to change a couple of pronouns in the text; everything else was as-written. So it worked well.

      … And I think that instead of having Hero’s father be a widower named Leonato, they had Hero’s mother be a widow named … I don’t remember what they swapped the name to except I don’t think it was Leonata. But apart from the “her mother hath oft told me so” joke, that one didn’t matter to the plot either. (And I might be wrong about that gender-swap, maybe they only gender-swapped Don John).

      I do remember that they didn’t gender-swap Antonio, Beatrice’s father, because he was played by one of the guys I work with. (Older guy with gray hair and a good beard, perfect for older-man roles). Amateur troupe, in case I didn’t mention it, everyone in the play had day jobs and rehearsed in the evenings.

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      4. Isn’t one of the main plot points about Celie being unattractive? There are lots more appropriate choices for that than Sydney Sweeney. 😮

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  21. So…

    I read something interesting on X earlier today relating to Platner, and I wanted to confirm. Is there someone here who served in the USMC who can confirm the following?

    According to the person posting on X, the US Marines are *very* careful about tattoos. If you have one, a photo of it gets taken and passed up the chain to a group who inspects it. If they see something that they don’t want affiliated with the Marines – for example, communist or *Nazi* imagery – then the person with the tattoo is going to get a talking to, and possibly a discharge.

    Platner got the SS Totenkopf tattoo while he was in the Marines. If the above is true, then it should have been passed up the chain, inspected, and then a prompt note sent back down regarding the very distinctive version of the skull and crossbones that we’re talking about. He would have either been discharged, or forced to cover it up. Since that didn’t happen, then if the above is true, then he must have intentionally kept the tattoo from getting inspected, knowing that high ups wouldn’t approve, which means that he was aware from the start that it was linked to the Nazis.

    Is the bit I heard about approvals and disapprovals correct? Or is it someone making nonsense up for the gullible masses?

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    1. Supposedly there was some scandal a while back about Marines getting Nazi tattoos. If the policy is real, I wonder if it dates to then.

      Another tidbit getting passed around was that Croatia (?) is one of the only places in Europe you can legally get a Nazi tattoo, so Platner’s trip might have been deliberate. No clue if that’s true.

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      1. I went digging online, and found a document catalogued as MCBul 1020 CH-1, which lists the USMC tattoo policy as of April 2024. I don’t know how what changes were made to the policy for this document, though I doubt they were major. In any case, I did find this bit –

        “1. Enlisted Marines will be reviewed for tattoos each time they submit a retention package to the Commanding Officer. Any tattoos not in compliance with this Bulletin will be reviewed against the Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) to ensure a NAVMC 118(11) (1070) has been completed to document the tattoo(s), and may result in punitive or administrative action. Retention interviews will also be used as a periodic, informal counseling and instruction period to reinforce the regulations relating to tattoos.

        2. For both officer and enlisted Marines, commandersshall also monitor compliance by reviewing tattoos during semi-annual height/weight verifications. This requirement is part of the Commanding General’s Inspection Program checklist.”

        (note – the copy function was a bit goofy when trying to copy from the document; if you see any spacing errors in the copied text, that’s why)

        Elsewhere it says that tattoos that are racist or extremist (and the tattoo is definitely the latter, and arguably the former) are not allowed.

        So it looks like there’s supposed to be a physical inspection for tattoos by the Commanding Officer when submitting a retention package, and again during semi-annual height and weight checks. If this was the policy when Platner was in the service (and it seems likely, though I don’t know for sure), then either his commanding officer(s) dropped the ball badly, or Platner successfully concealed it. He got the tattoo in 2007, and left the service in 2011.

        Though even after spending time on the above, it’s worth remembering that Platner’s got even worse issues than just the tattoo.

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        1. He’s an onion of scandals. I wonder if the Dems will manage to dump him before whatever the applicable deadline is. Speculation is that the NYT hit piece was designed to do just that.

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          1. A lot of people think otherwise about the NYT article. While I haven’t read the article myself, what I’ve heard is that it ignores almost all of the women that reporters from the paper spoke to. Instead, it references exactly one woman’s claims… and that woman “just happens to be” an employee of a conservative organization (Heritage Foundation, I think). The implication is that the only woman who has claimed bad behavior is a conservative shill.

            In other words, it appears to be an attempt to neutralize his misogynistic behavior politically by implying it’s just conservative slander.

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            1. I’ve heard some variant of that too. I think the case for it being a Dem hit has to do with the timing. They sat on that story for months, supposedly warning the main witness not to take it to anyone else, then released it shortly before the candidate lock deadline (I think). Like pulling the first Biden debate up, that suggests controlled demolition.

              But it’s all tea leaves, and it certainly sounds like they did everything they could to discredit the ex-girlfriend. I’m curious if there’s worse dirt they’re sitting on.

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    2. Navy, as of 2003, you had to submit a chit up the chain of command with the tattoo, and have permission to get it, and if you didn’t then you could face disciplinary action which, yes, could include being booted.

      They had a literal booklet to page through for “you are not allowed to get” which included things like a Celtic Cross, because one neo-pagan white supremacist biker gang in Idaho used it. I believe it was contributed to by the SPLC, too.

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      1. This matches up with what I heard yesterday. While it’s a different service, the Marines are supposed to be the most strict about tattoos. So I’m inclined to think that they did the same as the Navy.

        Thanks.

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    3. Of course, the way around the “get permission” thing is to just not get permission and trust the power of “it’s too much work to write him up” to keep you out of trouble.

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      1. The section I quoted from the April 2024 rules states that the commanding officer is supposed to regularly check each marine for tattoos (most commonly during the semi-annual height/weight measurement). So in theory, it shouldn’t rely on self-reporting from the Marine. Assuming that those rules were active when Platner was in, that would imply that either his CO was sloppy about it, or Platner actively covered up the tattoo somehow, knowing that he would get in trouble over it.

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        1. Oh, that’s normal, locate the tat under where you’re usually clothed– above the heart works, even PT gear usually covers that.

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  22. Dad and sister are obsessed with BritBox and I can’t even look at the shows because I know just how much the BBC tries to make sure that their casting looks like an international airport. Even for twelfth-century England or deep Ruralshire where you’re lucky if there is somebody darker-of-skin outside the urban core or a gypsy.(1)

    And the villain is always white, almost always heterosexual, and usually male. Occasionally a matronly-female type if they want to get really spicy.

    Let’s not talk about any TV cop shows on today, where they bend over backwards to not cast anyone who isn’t white, male, Catholic/Christian or Jewish, and probably some kind of hypocrite as the villain. Especially if it involves women or reproductive rights or any effort to dunk on Trump or anyone who isn’t the “modern audience.”

    I swear to God, if Amazon didn’t require you to get Amazon Prime TV to get free shipping and to keep peace at home required me to keep up my share of streaming services, I would be voting by closing my wallet and sailing the high seas.

    (1-The nearest possible justification I can think of for race-blind casting in a historical program is to emphasize the “outsider” status of particular cast members. But even this is bad precedent, because if you can’t show that your character is an outsider by proper writing and direction, what the f(YAY!)k is wrong with you?)

    Liked by 2 people

  23. A popular one in video games these days is the remote tribal village that has intentionally isolated itself from its neighbors for the last few centuries… and the population looks like it could have been cast using random people from Downtown LA. It’s not as big of a deal as it could be, in part because you need to stop and think about why it’s not right. But once you realize the issue, you spot it every time.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Ahem, the last Ghostbusters was actually really good.

        Do you mean the 2016 parody version?

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  24. For what it’s worth, this morning I tried the police website and got in. Same drivel as in the screenshot, and the site was protected (for values) by a Cloudflare verify widget.

    Haven’t tried since.

    We bought Season 25 of Midsomer Murders. Saw the first show, and (largely because Life is Happening) I can’t recall much of it. OTOH, they’ve got the shady cleric down cold, and have done so for years. Haven’t Noticed the interracial couples, though a fair number have shown up, but I do seem to recall some hetero white couples. We’ve got MM on a loose rotation with Bones and Burn Notice, which make for an interesting combination. Talk about learning to not trust government…

    Liked by 1 person

      1. When Burn Notice first came out, I think we caught it mid-first season. As memory serves, I stopped watching towards the end–either it was getting too dark for me at the time (hold my coffee, says 2026 RCPete) or something else came up. The early 201Xs were interesting. Sigh.

        After Covidiocy and the Biden Residency, I won’t have much trouble with the darker bits. (Person of Interest comes into play, too. Makes note to consider getting that series on DVD.)

        “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean there aren’t people out to get you.”

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        1. We have all of Burn Notice but haven’t watched much past when Michael got back into the CIA. I got the impression he should have listened to Fiona and stayed independent.

          And yes, really enjoyed Bruce Campbell’s work.

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          1. Without spoilers (in part because I can’t remember much), the last season or two gets more serious and it starts to drag a bit, but the series finale is strong.

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  25. “bassawkward” That word takes me back to childhood. One of my great aunt Verda’s favorite expletives was bassackward, without that first w sound. She was the daughter of an Austrian farmer in Minnesota and grew up speaking more German than English. She could be bit shrill at times, but great uncle Frank could usually calm her down. She milked cows every morning and evening for most of her life and every new baby in the family got a baby blanket crocheted by her.

    Liked by 2 people

  26. Sadly, if a movie were depicting the Norman invasions of 1066 to people in the US today, the first thing a lefty and/or a left leaning black person would ask is “Where are the black people?” There is no curiosity about historical accuracy at all. They are aware that there were no black vikings, but they just want to push DEI everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. Yet more Orwellian historical revisionism. Facts don’t matter. Reality doesn’t exist. Perception is all.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. That was quite literally what happened with the video game “Kingdom Come: Deliverance”, which is set in Medieval (non-fantasy) Hungary.

      But they do seem to genuinely believe that there were black people in numbers all over the world centuries ago. One of the British newspapers ran an article several years ago arguing that there were black vikings. I’ve also seen claims about black Japanese. There are people who really do believe this stuff, and don’t just advance the claims for DEI reasons.

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      1. Some may actually believe it. I suspect most are like my BIL, valuing virtue signal and the narrative over truth.

        As he said to my sister, when she lost a political argument with a 12 year old, “Forget the facts! Stick to the talking points!”

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      1. The Bank of England axed historical figures such as Winston Churchill from banknotes after being told they were “elitist and divisive”, The Telegraph can reveal.

        Research commissioned by the Bank concluded that figures such as Churchill, Alan Turing and Jane Austen were “contentious and not representative of the UK’s cultural and natural diversity”.

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        1. Perhaps they should consider other historical figures. King John (Lackland), Guy Fawkes, and Jack the Ripper come to mind.

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    4. I’ve heard of black soldiers asking where the black people were when crossing America.

      A black sergeant took some salt and pepper packets and explained minority to them. They found the awareness inhibiting.

      Liked by 2 people

  27. And the ongoing clean-up of the FBI continues. Amazing how many Good Guys were perfectly happy to actively jackboot….. this is just the LATEST installment.

    https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2026/06/06/fbi-analysts-learn-the-anti-catholic-memo-crew-cant-hide-behind-just-following-orders-n4953656

    Documents released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday appear to contradict former FBI Director Christopher Wray’s claim that a controversial 2023 memo targeting “radical traditionalist Catholics” was a one-off and the work of a single bureau field office.

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  28. United Kingdom republicanism is United States democracy.

    United States republicanism is United Kingdom democracy.

    This thing of ‘international harmonization’ of speech regulation was always doomed. It was always insane, destructive, and absurd.

    The people behind it fear a peaceful loss of power. To avoid this, they make a violent transistion to their own lynching more certain.

    The basic problem for every regime in the world is that having some people who speak American English is economically useful, but too many is a problem. The more people you have who are really fluent in English, the more of a security problem you have, because in American they expect you to fix problems, and that they can go away if you are too much of a henwit. That is why it is not a problem for us to be ‘so ready to violence’, the sane among us Americans try other remedies first.

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