If I'm Such An Aries, Then Why Don't I Have Horns?
Cassandra's Good Links
December 7, 2017 Feat. overt political activism (sorry), overt disdain for astrology (not sorry), and overt solicitation for links (scroll all the way down to find a digital suggestion box).
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MILLENNIALS ARE GETTING KILLED BY THE TAX BILL (PLOT TWIST) Despite the fact that us millennials are famous for murdering shit, the NYT is here to acknowledge how brutal the tax bill will be for the vast majority of us. Tax breaks for people who send their kids to private school do not a healthy capitalist society make, and the author is sympathizing with millennials' socialist leanings mostly because capitalism might end up killing us. So I'm going to overtly plug something called "ResistBot," because I've been fed up, but I feel like maybe everyone else has really been fed up this time. If you text the word "resist" to the phone number 50409, ResistBot will help you send a letter to your congresspeople/governor. Literally all you have to do is text the message and the bot will send the message for you. It's like texting your congressperson. It doesn't get easier than this. And wouldn't it be cool if millennials murdered political apathy along with everyone else?
murder af
P.S. The tax bill isn't even law yet -- it still has to go to conference committee to reconcile the version that passed the house and the version that passed the senate. Long story short: you can still text your congresspeople telling them they better remove the provision that repeals the individual healthcare mandate or whatever else you hate about the tax bill. A LESS SERIOUS ITEM (THERE IS ACTUALLY NOTHING LESS SERIOUS THAN HOROSCOPES) Astrology is experiencing a wild rise in popularity (wouldn't it be nice to think Mercury being in retrograde while Saturn does the Cha Cha Slide is the reason T**** is president and not the inherent fallibility of humanity?), and I wanted to formally announce that I loathe it.
Some comrade-in-arms went off on astrology in a 2011 Gizmodo article (yes I found this link by googling "horoscopes suck" but sometimes that's all it takes to find a Good Link) written after that announcement that everyone might be a different sign than they initially thought. He appropriately scream-shouted "WHO CARES?" into the abyss, but no one listened because fast-forward six years and the dominant journalism on astrology includes this longread on the First Woman of Astrology, Susan Miller, that seems to suggest that "oh it's fine that we're all giving into a nonsense ideology if it makes us *feel* better," presumably about the clusterfuck that is America. The article starts out with its subject declaring "we don't know why it works," and yet they still take you on a journey of attempts at self-awareness, where the author is trying to say that Susan Miller isn't trying to be your priest so why don't we all just learn our moon signs because what's the harm? The harm, of course, is that avoiding astrology has become near impossible to avoid if you're sub-35.
In fact, astrology has gotten so popular that local papers are doing thinkpieces on why faux-enlightened millennials in hip places like West Philadelphia are claiming that astrology is saving their relationships and helping them learn more about who they are. Gag me with a spoon. If it takes an in-depth read of your "natal chart" (no, I don't know what that is, please don't tell me) to understand that you break up with people after six months because you usually get bored of them then maybe you're just terrible at self-reflection and not in need of the stars' guidance.
My point is: I think astrology is shit because while I'm in favor of people trying to cope with #2017 in the ways that they can, talking about your sign is no more interesting than talking about your Meyers-Briggs type, and for the love of fuck, that's the most boring thing I have ever done.
THIS WEEK'S THEME: THE MOVIES (BECAUSE I LOVE THEM STILL) More specifically, who's rounding out the list of Oscar contenders. Here are some lists that will give you a general idea of which films are hottest in the Oscar race and then I'm going to hit you with some dark horse takes on everyone's favorite movies of the year. And yes, Tiffany Haddish could get nominated for Girls Trip, but it's a decidedly fat chance.
First, Buzzfeed film critic Allison Wilmore describes the racial blindspot in Oscars favorite Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The film has become such a darling because of its epitomization of female rage right in the middle of the largest display of female rage since quite literally ever, but Willmore argues that it bungles the race politics of a Southern town.
Then we have The Guardian on why Lady Bird is such catnip (her words) for critics -- she posits that the film, which gives deference to a female coming-of-age story in the same grandiose way we've always done it for boys, has also come at the exact time everyone needs it most: during the age of T****.
Then The New Yorker ducked in to claim that while "The Florida Project" is an antidote for our overwhelming culture of helicopter parenting -- its idyllic purview of a precocious seven-year-old living in a motel while being raised by a sex worker mother suffers a lack of realism, a problem for a movie whose genre is realism. Regardless, Willem Dafoe, who plays the motel manager, is the most surefire Oscar contender so far.
My second favorite of these hot takes is The New Yorker's claim that Tommy Wiseau's notorious cinematic flop The Room is actually a better movie than James Franco's film The Disaster Artist (which is otherwise very well-reviewed) about the making of The Room.
And finally, my favorite review so far, has to be Sara Benincasa's totally factual (it's not factual) Twitter thread about The Post -- a film that chronicles the publishing of The Pentagon Papers by The Washington Post in the early '70s -- starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.
Aaaaand here is Vulture on how the route to winning an Oscar is by making a film that speaks to the moment. The thing is, most of these movies do, so who knows who's really ahead.
POLITICS (LIBERALS V. CONSERVATIVES, LIKE ALWAYS) I mean it's always about liberals vs. conservatives, but this time we're looking at the psychology behind these two political ideologies.
First, this 2014 WaPo article is about how a person's reaction to gross photographs (dirty toilets, dead carcasses) can predict their political ideology with up to 98% accuracy. People who get grossed out are more likely to be conservatives, and people who are less grossed out are more likely to be liberals. The article seems to be claiming it's a germaphobe thing.
And then this other WaPo article details a Yale study which concluded that conservatism can be linked with a fear for one's own personal, physical safety. Once conservatives were promised guaranteed physical safety, their political leanings became decidedly more liberal. So, if we can get your problematic cousins some Jake Gyllenhall-style bubble outfits, maybe they'll start having some more liberal second-thoughts.
This movie is about Jake Gyllenhaal being in perfect bliss while in a bubble, right?
P.S. I'm living for that throwaway line at the end of the 2014 article about the ebola crisis, which was happening at the time of publication. Maybe that outbreak, and a desire for physical safety from germs, sparked the widespread xenophobia that got T**** elected?! A CELEBRITY THINGER (WELL, ALMOST) There is a British show on television called Poldark which is about people returning to England after the War for American Independence (sort of like the War of Northern Aggression, but for Brits re: The Revolutionary War), and I have never seen it and there is no one famous in it. But some loon at Jezebel who has seen all of it created a ranking of all the male characters' sex stares and it's one of those "best things in the weirdest corners of the internet" lists because the descriptions are incredible even if you've never seen the show, the men are hot, and everyone has the absolute (George Warleggen) silliest (Dwight Enys) names (CAPTAIN Blamey) I've ever heard. WOULD YOU RATHER? (THIS ONE FEATURES VERY LITTLE GENDER BIAS IN HOW TERRIBLE EITHER OPTION IS! ENJOY!) Would you rather somebody fart in your mouth or have a life-size portrait of political flake and all-around grandstander Senator Jeff Flake in the foyer of everywhere you live forever until you die? RECOMMENDATION (NO I WILL NEVER STOP RECOMMENDING STUFF) The Lonely Island's* Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping was the single most under-appreciated piece of cinema in 2016. Like, talk about an Oscars snub. It's a stomach-ache funny parody of music documentaries about a pop star named Conner4Real (played by beautiful boy Andy Samberg) who rose to fame as part of a now-defunct boy group called "The Style Boyz" (Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer). It's about fame and friendships, yada yada, but it's also just punchy as hell and features hilarious songs from the ever-en-pointe group, including my personal fave "Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)" about a girl asking a boy to fuck her like "we fucked Bin Laden." Boom. As in boomtown.
*The Lonely Island: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer, a musical comedy trio known for their SNL digital shorts. You know them best from "Jizz In My Pants" and "I Just Had Sex." A SUGGESTION BOX (FOR YOU TO SUBMIT LINKS) I promise I have no shortage of links to send you, but many of you will send me links and say stuff like "wouldn't this be great for the newsletter?" and the answer, by and large, is that YES, IT WOULD BE! But I am a slightly disorganized individual and sometimes I lose your links, so I'm trying to introduce this here Google form for you to submit links for me to read and then maybe include in the newsletter. (I'll include this link at the top of the newsletter in future issues).