Emilia Perez Best Actress nominee Karla Sofia Gascon yesterday attempted an apologetic walk-back after those toxic, years–old tweets blew up… “monkeys”, Muslims, George Floyd.
Sorry, sweets, but it’s over. The milk has been spilt, the bed has been shat upon, wokesters don’t know from context…forget it.
Puck’s Matt Belloni this morning…
Let’s raise a glass to under-spoken, less-is-more performances — to the mystique of characters who say relatively little and are all the more intriguing for their absence of verbosity. Or at least the mystique of backing away from blabber-mouth conversing unless a character really has something to say. Make it count.
We all know that Steve McQueen specialized in this kind of performance, especially in The Sand Pebbles (’66). It’s also recognized that young Warren Beatty tried to deliver this kind of thing in Robert Rossen‘s Lilith (’64) and Arthur Penn‘s Mickey One (’65).
What other actors or performances have conveyed this man-of-few-words, heavy-cat aesthetic? Over the last 40 or 45 years, I mean.
I’m sure I’m forgotting several examples, but for some reason all I can think of right now is Géza Röhrig, the Hungarian actor who plays Jesus of Nazareth in Terrence Malick‘s The Way of the Wind, in László Nemes‘ Son of Saul (’15).
We all know you can very easily get into trouble with kneejerk wokesters for saying the “wrong” thing or for using the “wrong” term.
If you know how wokesters think, you know they’re not only unable to consider context but are intensely opposed to it. All they care about is whether or not an alleged verbal offender has used a trigger word or not.
Four and a half years ago Emilia Perez star and Best Actress nominee Karla Sofia Gascon tweeted a comment about the late George Floyd, and in so doing alluded to racist attitudes about people of color by citing “those who still consider Black people to be monkeys without rights.”
She was lamenting the fact that some people harbor such attitudes, but kneejerk wokesters, as noted, don’t care about context. In their brilliant deductive minds, any Oscar nominee who uses a derisive term like “monkeys” in a sentence that alludes to people of color is flat-out finished…end of story, over and done with, stick a fork in it.
On top of which Gascon referred to Floyd as “a drug addict and a hustler” — a statement that defied a blanket edict in progressive liberal circles that no one is allowed to speak of Floyd as anything but a noble, tragic martyr…a blameless victim of beat-cop racism who was murdered for the foulest of reasons.
“I truly believe that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict and a hustler,” she tweeted, “but his death has served to highlight once again that there are those who still consider Black people to be monkeys without rights and those who consider the police to be murderers. All wrong.”
Gascon will not win the Best Actress Oscar on Sunday, March 2nd…trust me. I don’t think it’s fair because she meant well in that tweet by stating that people who subscribe to simple-minded prejudice are “all wrong“, but she’s history all the same.
Because you can’t say “monkeys”…it’s one of those words that mark you as a dead man (or dead trans person) if it passes your lips. Just as much as certain other racial colloquialisms are verboten.
President Donald Trump nominated Kash Patel to be the new FBI Director for one reason primarily — he wants a vengeful, anti-woke, anti-lefty, prosecutorial attack dog.
From HE commenter Fabio Silva (posted today):
“While doing press in Brazil Karla Sofía Gascón accused the “Fernanda Torres team” (i.e., those representing Walter Salles‘ I’m Still Here, in which Torres stars) and “those around her” (her words) of talking badly about her and Emilia Pérez in social media, adding that this “says more about them and their picture than about herself (Karla)”.
“While Oscar campaigns are known to be dirty, and I certainly wouldn’t put my hand in the fire for Sony Pictures in this occasion, this is the first time that I can remember in which a major nominee has accused a fellow nominee by name [of playing dirty pool].
“This is a violation of Academy rules.
“Waldemar Dalenogare is a Brazilian journalist and member of the Critic’s Choice Association.”
Essa entrevista aqui é lamentável. Já tinha avisado desde o começo de janeiro: Netflix usa a Karla na linha de frente da campanha para criar uma narrativa que as críticas ao filme não são orgânicas. E aos poucos vão tentando colar isso nos brasileiros. https://t.co/0JvFqaYtRz
— Waldemar Dalenogare (@DalenogareW) January 29, 2025
…but when it comes to children being preyed upon by lunatic lefty teachers and administrators allied with the trans community, I’m not altogether upset by this one. I see it as a form of possible protection for my granddaughter, so I’m sorry but I’m in agreement.
The trans community undoubtedly sees this as a setback. The fact is that they overplayed their hand. They brought this on.
@michaelshellenberger Trump has, blessedly, restricted gender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers for kids. But why did this scandal go on for so long? Part of the answer is money. Another is the rise of the "trauma" therapy cult. And, at the heart of trans medicine, is an anti-human nihilism.
I’m not actually “serious” about trying to launch any of these therapeutic or advice concepts into actual going concerns, but I could easily dispense HE-styled wisdom and insight along these lines if so required. I have the ability to bullshit people and convey meaningless-but-harmless insights in a kindly, thoughtful, considerate way…as much of an ability of any licensed therapist or psychologist or social counselor.
1. HE Dating Academy, an HE-related, interactive dating advice website: “How to attract top-tier women if you’re a socially primitive shut-in…an under-educated 20something or 30something flatliner who’s generally un-travelled, spends most of his time online and who’s either unemployed or has a relatively low-paying, going-nowhere job. And who drives an older, starting-to-feel-shitty car.”
2. HE Advice to the Lovelorn (self-explanatory): A lifetime of experience and gathered wisdom offered to young men & women whose prospects of finding someone really special to fall in love and partner with in the mid 2020s are, let’s face it, pretty close to zilch. How to look good (get in shape & lose weight, avoid shitty foods, don’t wear whitesides or collared flannel shirts), how to smell good and wear interesting hair (no shaved heads or tennis-ball coifs) and how to speak intelligently about…well, many things.
3. HE Philosophical Counselling (self-explanatory): What does it all mean & where are most of us headed? Don’t ask. A been-around, seen-it-all veteran of hard-knocks living and the proverbial, turbulent romantic trenches is offering improvisational but serious, solemn but freewheeling therapy. Unlicensed or Mumford-styled counselling. (It goes without saying that Mumford sessions are not synonymous with the lessons of Roger Dodger.) Less costly than what licensed therapists charge but just as good in terms of exploring the vagaries of life and discovering various eternal / mystical truths and possibly even attaining tangible, take-it-to-the-bank results, and which will certainly be more entertaining than traditional therapy.
Has anyone noticed? Nobody talks about it. The hate conversations are about Emilia Perez and The Brutalist, of course, and the love conversations are about Anora, Conclave and A Complete Unknown, and the “yeah, liked it, really good” conversations are about A Real Pain and I’m Still Here and maybe September 5. But nobody even mentions Wicked. It’s “there” but nobody’s paying attention. It’s totally fallen by the wayside. Not happening. Unless, that is, Ariana Grande wins for Best Supporting Actress. Which is possible.
It was one thing to listen to Caroline Kennedy’s recollection of the behavior of young Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: “I watched his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction…his basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the center of the action”…that was one thing. But the remainder of her sentence really put a chill into my system: “…where drugs were available and he enjoying showing off how he put baby chickens and mice into a blender, to feed to his hawks.”
“Anyone who posts a video of herself crying and posts it to the internet should be disregarded and ignored automatically” — agreed.
I didn’t know what to do or say when Selena Gomez‘s weeping video hit a couple of days ago (i,e, sometime on Monday), although I did know right away that she/it pushed too way hard.
Plus it struck me as a tad ungenuine for an actress who “grew up speaking Spanish but lost her fluency around the same time she began her Hollywood career as a kid“, and was therefore obliged to “spend months relearning the language for her Emilia Perez role as the trophy wife of a Mexican cartel boss.”
42 and 1/2 years ago I interviewed this famous, emotionally emphatic 50 year-old woman for an Us magazine interview to promote E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. She was 7 years old at the time, and now she’s on the fucking cover of AARP’s print publication.
I feel like I’m on a time toboggan, and it’s going faster and faster.
