The Berlinale stage is not a neutral living room. It’s one of the most visible cultural platforms in the world, where silence is not accidental. Also, a tiny reminder — there is no such thing as “apolitical art.”

Every film, every performance, every red-carpet moment, every acceptance speech carries the fingerprints of the political world that produced it.

This year’s Berlin Film Festival is a parade of spineless, apolitical cowards posing as artists. It’s hard to comprehend the pile of nonsense that came out of so many mouths over the past couple of days.

Being an artist, standing on one of the world’s largest stages, at one of the most political festivals, backed by a government funding an ongoing genocide — while living through deadly ICE protests in the U.S., the Epstein scandal, a livestreamed genocide in Gaza, genocide in Sudan, human rights violations and sexual violence in Congo, and the rise of fascism in the UK, the U.S., and Germany — and then declare, “I choose to keep my work apolitical.”

As if that were possible.

As if culture floats above power.

As if silence is neutral.

Cowards.

At the press conference for filmmaker George Jaques’ Sunny Dancer, Bella Ramsey and Neil Patrick Harris were asked by a journalist whether they consider their “art to be political, and if so, how can movies these days help fight the rise of fascism in Europe and in America.”

Neil Patrick Harris: “I think we live in a strangely algorithmic and divided world right now. And so as artists, I’m always interested in doing things that are apolitical, because we’re all as humans wanting to connect in some way. That’s why we experience things together.”

George Jaques: “I think sometimes the most rebellious thing you can do is be optimistic. And we wanted to make a film about joy. I think, you know, there’s so much going on in the world right now, and I wanted to make something that really takes you somewhere else.”

Bella Ramsey: “Sunny Dancer was honestly, like, the best experience I’ve had in my career so far. It will be very hard to top. It’s a big statement, but it was probably the best professional six weeks, and also one of the best personal six weeks, of my frickin’ life.”

Journalists at the Sunny Dancer presser, bless their souls, wouldn’t be deterred. A writer from German broadcaster ZDF asked Harris, as a U.S. citizen, whether he “dared criticize the U.S. government and whether he believes democracy is in danger in the U.S.” The Berlinale moderator then interjected that the question “wasn’t relevant to Sunny Dancer.”

Neil Patrick Harris added he would rather discuss the film, saying: “I make my own choices as a performer, as an artist … I feel more the jester in the castle. So while I have my own political opinions, which are my own, I think as a performer, especially in this kind of movie, it’s trying to be as inclusive as possible to as many people as possible. So I never read this script as a political statement.”

The journalist from ARD broadcaster responded: “It’s embarrassing to say the film isn’t political. Without proper health insurance, I wouldn’t be here. I had cancer myself. So the film is political, and this festival must be political.”

Heroes.

Unlike Ethan Hawke, who just a few days ago said, “Anything that fights fascism, I’m all for it, fascism is on the rise in Europe and the U.S.,” but at the Berlinale stage, where it mattered, resorted to: "I feel like there's a slight agenda to your question that is different to my agenda. But I respect you and I respect the question."

At his press conference, Rupert Grint explained he’s against fascism, but the biggest festival stage on earth is not the moment where he thinks he should talk about it, then said: “Obviously, I’m against it. But I choose my moments when to speak.”

During her press conference, Michele Yeoh chose to say: “I don’t think I am in the position to really talk about the political situation in the U.S., and also I cannot presume to say I understand how it is," she said. "So, best not to talk about something I don’t know about. I think I want to concentrate on what is important for us, which is cinema.”

Jury.

Jury president Wim Wenders, producer Ewa Puszczyńska, and festival director Tricia Tuttle gave the most embarrassing examples of artists pretending art is apolitical for their own comfort.

At the opening jury press conference, the live feed cut out as a German journalist asked a question about why Berlinale had shown support for people in Iran and Ukraine, but never for Palestine, a fitting disruption for a festival in a country whose government is funding that genocide while beating and imprisoning its own citizens for protesting it:

“My question is, in light of the German government’s support of the genocide in Gaza and its role as the main funder of the Berlinale, do you, as a member of the jury, support this selective treatment of human rights?”

At this moment, the live feed went down, cutting the live broadcast in the middle of a journalist's question.

The answer that came from Ewa Puszczyńska, the producer of Cold War and The Zone of Interest, two films about war and genocide, was the most shocking:

“Asking us this question is a little bit unfair… we use the word ‘change the world’ but we are trying to talk to people, every single viewer, and to make them think, but we cannot be responsible for what their decision would be to support Israel … to support Palestine.

We can talk about Senegal and all the other wars, you know, you just pointed [to] the most, the biggest, but there are many other wars where genocide is committed and we do not talk about that. So this is very complicated questions … And I think, as I said, it’s a bit unfair asking us what we think, how we support, or not support, or are talking to our governments or not.”

“I’m speaking for myself I go to elections. I go, I vote using my right as a citizen of Poland, as a citizen of Europe, of the world. I go to marches, I support causes which I think I should support. But all of us here may have other things and take other decisions. So I think asking us these questions and expecting the general kind of answer is not fair.”

Jury president Wim Wenders also attempted to shut down the question about genocide and human rights, saying:

“We cannot really enter the field of politics. We have to stay out of politics because if we made movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics … We are the counterweight of politics, the opposite of politics, we have to do the work of people — not the work of politicians.”

The myth of the apolitical artist.

For decades, artists have been allowed to position themselves as “just storytellers.” As if storytelling does not define who is human, who is a villain, and who is disposable.

Art has always legitimized power, challenged power, normalized violence, built empathy, erased empathy, shaped national myths, and rehearsed political futures.

The idea of the apolitical artist is a fiction that protects comfort.

When fascism rises, and artists claim neutrality, what they are really protecting is access: to funding, to markets, to institutions, to safety.

Culture precedes policy.

Before laws change, culture shifts. Before a regime consolidates power, stories prepare the ground. Before people accept cruelty, they are taught who deserves it.

Cinema does this. Television does this. Literature does this. Culture trains emotional reflexes long before anyone reads a manifesto.

So when artists on global stages refuse to imagine a better world — refuse even to acknowledge the one unraveling in front of them — they are not staying out of politics. They are participating in it through omission.

Platforms carry responsibility.

Berlinale is not a private dinner conversation. It is one of the most significant cultural stages in the world. An actor may say, “I’m here to talk about my film.” But the film exists inside history. The industry exists inside geopolitics. The festival exists inside a political climate.

To pretend otherwise is aesthetic minimalism masquerading as moral restraint.

No one is asking artists to become policy experts.

But to say nothing, in an era openly flirting with authoritarianism, is not humility. It is a refusal to imagine a better world for all.

Art lost its moral force when it lost its nerve.

For years, mainstream art cultivated a tone: aesthetic, poetic, detached, safely humanist. The artist was meant to be visionary but never confrontational. Profound but never implicated. Empathetic but never specific.

This produced a generation of artists who explore trauma but avoid naming perpetrators, depict oppression but refuse to confront authoritarianism, celebrate “humanity” while violence unfolds in real time, and accept awards on global stages while declining to acknowledge the forces shaping the world around them.

Art lost moral teeth when artists were encouraged to stay in the realm of feeling, not responsibility.

But the world changed, and many artists did not.

The artists who matter now are the ones who refuse the fiction.

The artists who resonate today are the ones who understand that storytelling is not decorative. It is formative.

They are willing to connect their work to the world, acknowledge the systems that fund and distribute them, speak clearly about dehumanization, defend democracy without irony, and imagine futures that resist brutality.

Art has always been political — not because it waves slogans, but because it shapes perception. When artists claim neutrality, they misunderstand their own power.

And when they step onto a stage like Berlinale, they are already participating in the cultural architecture of the moment.

The question is not whether art is political. The question is whether artists are willing to admit it.

We live in a world where the separation between culture and politics has collapsed. Culture is politics. Politics is cultural. Narratives shape ideology more effectively than legislation. On a stage as large as Berlinale, refusing to engage is not modesty. It is a choice.

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A week ago, Disney decided to suspend production on The Jimmy Kimmel Show. Five days of protests and a boycott of Disney followed, resulting in an estimated loss of about $4 billion as viewers canceled their Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ subscriptions. This Monday afternoon, Disney announced they had decided to reinstate The Jimmy Kimmel Show. On Tuesday night, Jimmy was back on air.

What was this? A haiku? A rare moment of swift, undeniable effectiveness? Stories this brief and consequential are almost unheard of. Rarely does a push and change arrive this fast, sharp, and unmistakable.

In full transparency, I began drafting this article over the weekend, several days before Disney announced they would reinstate Jimmy. His return isn’t the punchline of this article. What prompted me to cover this topic was the flood of white, progressive liberals descending into my Instagram inbox, all at once deciding we should rage more over the blatant attack on Jimmy Kimmel’s freedom of speech — and questioning why I hadn’t commented on the suspension.

Why haven’t you said anything, Miranda? This is the most blatant, infringement on free speech by the government that we have ever witnessed!

I love liberals. Their disconnection from the real world, from anything beyond the safety of their own bubble — paired with an arrogance rooted in mediocrity, is something I’ve been studying closely for the past two years. I’m a lifelong Democrat; as a teenager, I collected articles on Bill Clinton — I thought I was a liberal too. But the past 700+ days have opened my eyes to a devastating truth: liberal progressiveness extends only to issues that affect them, and this self-centeredness is what keeps the world from progressing. The performative rage and mediocrity embedded in the white liberal mindset is a phenomenon worth examining.

But, Jimmy!

When a white, influential celebrity is taken off the air and his freedom of speech is snatched away, that usually marks the final stage of government control. So when I receive messages like, “Do you not see what’s happening, what Trump is doing to us, this authoritarianism and control and suppression is so dangerous, and we are descending into fascism,” I can’t help but see you as an unserious person. The suppression of your freedoms did not start with Jimmy; he is the final stage.

You wont get my rage about Jimmy, as requested in my inbox, because we have been warning you for the past two years — this was coming.

We have been telling you to vote globally, not just domestically, and warning you that the genocide carried out with bombs funded by your money will come home.

You want me to rage about Jimmy?

Jake Tapper, a CNN anchor, commented on Late Night with Seth Meyers that taking Jimmy off air was “pretty much the most direct infringement by the government on free speech that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

And I have to ask: are you all collectively serious here?

Thirty-eight US states have anti-BDS laws, making it illegal to boycott Israel. The direct infringement by the government on free speech, action, and thought has been here for a very long time.

I know Miranda, but when a white, rich celebrity …

We told you this would happen. We warned you that it starts in the Middle East, gets practiced there, and then comes home. We told you that the crimes you have been witnessing abroad are tests to see how much the government can get away with taking from you.

Welcome aboard.

Where were you for the past two years when Meta suppressed all our content, removed our posts, videos, and images for protesting a genocide?

Where were you when all the big social media profiles drawing attention to a livestream genocide our country is supporting and funding were removed, and banned indefinitely?

Where were you when the US students on US campuses were beaten, jailed, detained, suspended from universities for protesting their school funding the Israeli war crimes and genocide in Gaza?

Where were you when Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, was snatched from his apartment, detained for 3 months, dragged through courts, and about to be deported for merely protesting a genocide of his people?

The occupation has been home for a long time, folks.

Where were you when the Turkish doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk was snatched on the street, detained, and held in immigration detention for 3 months for merely co-authoring an op-ed critical of her university’s response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza?

Where were you when we warned that the Israeli army was training police in your American cities, and that those techniques used on Palestinian civilians would one day be used on you?

Where were you when we told you to pay attention to the IDF snatching Palestinian civilians from the streets in the West Bank and warned that those techniques would be tested on American streets?

You’re late, and you’re PEP.

PEP folks, Progressive Except Palestine. Mythical creatures who earned their own Wikipedia page for tireless work on every performative progressive issue except Palestine — decided Disney was worth boycotting over a ban on a white, rich, influential American celebrity, but not for supporting, funding, and propagandizing the slaughter of an entire people.

In the words of Mehdi Hasan: I don’t accept your progressive credentials.

There is a legend on Instagram named Dylan Horner who captured my entire sentiment about white, progressive liberals — those who ignored genocide for two years, yet rushed to rally, rage, protest, and cancel Disney subscriptions over the freedom of speech of an influential rich man, but not for children with shredded limbs and their entire families being wiped away in your timeline.

You have to watch this unraveling of so-called progressiveness — his delivery is beyond what I can capture here, but I’ve included the words below.

So now we understand the collective importance of boycotting a company and canceling our Disney subscriptions when it's a straight white man who gets silenced, right?

It will never cease to amaze me the level of mediocrity that comes out of the white liberal mindset, or even just the white Democratic mindset, and that you guys keep wondering why society can't progress, yet you wait till the last possible moment when something directly impacts you before you do the bare minimum.

I'm gonna hold your delicate little hands, and tell you that if you think the worst thing the parent company of Walt Disney and ABC did in the last couple years was canceling the Jimmy Kimmel Show, wait until you find out how they feel about bombing innocent civilians and slaughtering children.

To clock in at September 2025, and your form of activism is to cancel your Disney subscription; at this rate, diva, you might as well just keep it.

Go take a look through history and tell me at what stage authority and dictators start going after media and affluent straight white men — spoiler alert, it's not the beginning stages.

In the words of Jerry Greenfield, who just the other day did more than just cancel a Disney subscription for being silenced, he actually left Ben & Jerry's because their parent company was silencing their views on human rights and any outspokenness. It's easy to stand up and speak out when there's nothing at stake. The real test of values is when times are challenging, and you have something to lose.

You all need to take the note of that.

Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air prompted you to rally in the streets and cancel your Disney, Hulu, and ESPN subscriptions. This was your red line — not Disney funding genocide, not Hulu running atrocity propaganda ads for Israel during children’s programming, and not Marvel whitewashing Israel’s crimes in Gaza.

Confront your bias, performative rage, and self-centeredness of your progressive liberal mindset by understanding what Disney has done before taking Jimmy off the air.

The breakdown.

Disney is contributing to Israeli genocide in Gaza through its financial donations to Israeli relief organizations and pro-Israel bias in its films and news coverage. Hulu, a subsidiary of Disney, has been running the most grotesque ads, even on children’s programs, about “40 infants were murdered in Israel.” After that fabricated story had been debunked even by Israeli media, Disney never offered an apology or correction.

Specifics.

Donations to Israeli causes: In October 2023, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced a $2 million donation to humanitarian organizations in Israel, including Magen David Adom.

Silencing pro-Palestinian voices: Disney tried to intervene in a public disagreement between Snow White co-stars Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler over the conflict. Zegler, who has expressed pro-Palestinian views, reportedly posted "Free Palestine" on social media, leading to Disney’s attempt to censor her. Disney never censored Gal Gadot, a former Israeli soldier and an outspoken supporter of Israel, not even after Gadot hosted a screening of an Israeli military propaganda film that justified the genocide in Gaza.

Introduction of an Israeli superhero: In 2022, Marvel Studios, owned by Disney, announced it would introduce a superhero named Sabra, an Israeli Mossad agent, in the film Captain America: Brave New World. This attempt at culturewashing Israeli war crimes led to a backlash and calls for a boycott, citing the controversial role of Israel’s intelligence agency.

Involvement of IDF soldiers: Disney has been casting Israeli actors who have served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), such as Gal Gadot, in films like Snow White, which resulted in boycotts of the film and Disney+ subscriptions.

Biased news reporting: Disney's subsidiary, ABC News, has been pushing a pro-Israel narrative that continuously ignores Palestinian perspectives and war crimes. ABC News constantly portrays Israel's actions as "self-defense" while downplaying Palestinian suffering.

Hulu running Israeli propaganda ads: In early 2024, Israeli propaganda videos ran on Hulu, which is owned by Disney, in another example of Disney's complicity in promoting pro-Israel messages.

Disney has largely maintained its position, insisting that its actions support “innocent people affected by the war and condemn terrorism,” while its approach shows a clear bias that disregards the devastating impact on Palestinian civilians.

All of this didn’t move you to cancel your Disney subscription, but removing Jimmy Kimmel, in the words of Dave Smith, “a guy backed by every giant corporation in the world” — did. I’ll let Dave elaborate on this. You should watch Dave’s podcast on this whole Jimmy business and how it intersects with the limitations of a liberal mindset.

Please watch. Let’s do better.

“There’s something particularly infuriating to see someone like Jimmy Kimmel, who of like I’m saying with all the liberals is just totally ignorant of all of this in his own mind, I’m sure actually does conceive this as it’s like — the regime is Trump and we’re the little guy standing up to them. Yeah, we’re the little guy backed by every giant corporation in the world. It’s unbelievable. It’s almost like the whole nature of the government is just the gang that’s perceived as legitimate.”

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Something felt different about Sunday’s Emmy Awards. There was a shift in the air, a sense of … overcoming. But overcoming what, exactly? Everything. A barrier that held some of us from really spouting those words out: genocide, Israel, boycott. Fear of retribution. Loss of jobs, livelihoods. Hateful comments.

As words like overcoming, crossing the bridge, opening the floodgates, breaking the dam circled in my head all day, I noticed others naming the same shift, sharing the same language, as if we’d all felt it at once.

This Substack note from the author Trita Parsi hit the nail on the head. The key barrier in revolutions is the public fearing the dictator. Overcoming that barrier is when the public stops fearing the dictator. Similarly, the fear of retribution by elements supporting Israel’s genocide had been overcome. Do you feel the shift?

Listen to what Javier Bardem said on the Emmys red carpet, when interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter:

“Here I am today, denouncing the genocide in Gaza. I am talking about the IAGS, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, who study thoroughly genocide and has declared it is a genocide. That’s why we ask for a commercial and diplomatic blockade and also sanctions on Israel to stop the genocide. Free Palestine.”

The clip was reposted several times by Variety — no censorship. Variety, a magazine that relentlessly published hit pieces on actresses Rachel Zegler and Melisa Barrera, framing their empathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people as inflammatory political rhetoric that borders on hate speech.

These are the articles they published over the course of last year:

Inside Disney’s ‘Snow White’ Fiasco: Death Threats, Beefed-Up Security and a Social Media Guru for Rachel Zegler

Spyglass Says Melissa Barrera Was Fired From ‘Scream’ Due to Rhetoric That ‘Flagrantly Crosses the Line Into Hate Speech’ (EXCLUSIVE)

A Fired ‘Scream’ Star, Clients Booted From Agencies and a Secret Tom Cruise Meeting: Inside Hollywood’s Divide Over Israel

Melissa Barrera Ignites More Controversy With New Social Media Posts, Sparking Heated Debate at WME

To have Variety magazine publish Javier Bardem’s full statement on the Emmys red carpet is nothing short of a miracle, given their track record of culturewashing Israel’s war crimes in Palestine.

Javier was on a mission, using this platform to promote the Film Workers for Palestine — a call endorsed by filmmakers and cinema workers to stand for an end to genocide, and for a free Palestine. They organized a pledge, signed by 3,900 industry names declaring the signees will not work with Israeli institutions and film companies that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” The pledge states that examples of complicity include “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them.”

He pivoted every single question from himself and his project, to Palestine.

Listen to

Interviewer: First of all, I got to ask you about the Keffiyah?

Javier: “At the end of August, the AGS, the International Association of Genocide Scholars who study thoroughly the word genocide, the concept of genocide, called what is going on in Gaza today a genocide. And that's why we want to ask for a commercial and diplomatic blockade and sanctions on Israel to stop this genocide, free Palestine.”

Interviewer: And you know there's been that was a long time coming. I think there was a lot of debate over many months and people were so reluctant to say it. How frustrating was that for you for them to to wait for them to finally confirm something that a lot of people had already known?

Javier: “Yeah. And also we are getting together, the Film Workers for Palestine. It's a great union, group that is getting more and more people attached. It's also important to clarify, we do not target individuals. What we target are those complicit film companies, and institutions that are involved in whitewashing or justifying the genocide of Israel in Gaza. And it's an apartheid regime. And we stand with those who fight and stand in solidarity with the oppressed.

Interviewer: Yeah. And that was an important distinction.

Javier: “Absolutely. Institutions and companies. And if you want to work on a movie, you have to have a very thorough check out of who's behind it, and to see what is their relationship with the genocide, and then take your decisions. I know my decision. I will never work with some company now that are not are not condemning the genocide in Israel in in Gaza.”

Interviewer: Are you having conversations with Elise and your reps? Because of course I know…

Javier: I know what I'm doing. I know what I can bring. It's okay. Me not getting jobs is absolutely irrelevant compared to what is going on there. It's it's that easy.

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, what an amazing statement you're making that a lot of people have been afraid to make.

Javier: Their silence, because they're afraid, is their support to the genocide.

Interviewer: And then let's talk about you and this nomination by the way, which was so deserved.

Javier: “It's so hard to pivot to something from real life. And I thank you very much for your microphone and your time and your attention and your camera to give me the platform to speak about what it matters.”

I'm so happy that uh the Sound of Hadi had sorry made it into the Grand Jury Prize because it's going to bring attention to it, and there's another great Palestinian movie called ‘All That Is Left of You’ that you will hear about in Toronto, and it's a great movie, and it's about time to bring those stories, and to give them screen time for people to understand what we're talking about. This thing didn't start on October 7th. This thing started in 1948.

Interviewer: Wow.

Yes, exactly that. Wow.

Listen to his entire red-carpet interview.

Fuck ICE and Free Palestine? Listen to Hannah Einbinder iconic line while receiving her award.

And also her words in the Emmy Presser, clearly calling out Israel human right’s violations and war crimes.

Mohammed El-Kurd explained the importance of this moment, and why the choice of both Javier and Hannah’s words moved beyond symbolism of solidarity to a full-throated call for tangible actions against the perpetrator, Israel:

“If you felt that the Javier Bardem/Hannah Einbinder’s statements last night were refreshing, and unlike the usual red carpet lip-service, it is because they weren’t vague or preemptively defensive, nor did they reduce the genocide to a faceless “humanitarian crisis.” They denounced the culprit unequivocally and named what justice demanded: sanctions.

I'm rarely impressed with celebrity displays of solidarity, not only due to suspicions of opportunism or whatnot, but mostly because, so often, they're painfully timid and hesitant, defanging their political stances with euphemisms, disclaimers and bothsidesism, or refusing to name the perpetrators—these silly linguistic tricks meant to appease all sides end up rendering well-intentioned gestures hollow and perfunctory. Such reticence does nothing to raise the ceiling and is a complete waste of social capital.

In the case of Bardem and Einbinder, however, it wasn't the keffiyeh or the ceasefire pin that were impressive, it was Bardem's full-throated call for "commercial and diplomatic blockade, and also sanctions on Israel."

It was Einbinder’s saying “Free Palestine” in a room full of powerful Zionists, instead of opting to use the classic (and very feeble) talking point of “women, children, etc.” Meaning, instead of taking the easy route of talking about Gaza as if it's an unfortunate natural disaster, she explicitly adopted the slogan of our movement, a slogan rooted in anti-Zionist, anti-colonial struggle for land and liberation, coupling it with the local struggle against ICE, and later renouncing Israel, not just “Netanyahu’s government,” as an “ethnonationalist state” that must be exiled outside of American mainstream Jewry.

One only gets a few minutes on stage or talking to the press, and they chose to use that time to move beyond the symbolism of the pin and the scarf and into tangible action, however limited it may be: vowing to cut ties with those complicit in genocide and demanding they be sanctioned.”

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When I first heard the news about the ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’ movie being released, backed by a Hollywood A-list producer team, my first reaction was — great, it’s super important this gets made for all the world to see. For everyone who isn’t already aware of what the Israeli army is capable of, to see them pummel 335 bullets into the body of a 6-year-old girl, while claiming self-defense.

I went to sleep and woke up feeling uneasy about it. My digestive system always gives me the best instincts. I began to examine why I felt the way I did. Firstly, I wasn’t ok with Brad Pitt being on the producing team. It felt like he was only doing it to whitewash his domestic abuser reputation. Why on earth would you get on a producer team of a movie covering a war crime you never said a word about?

Brad Pitt’s name alone could help end this genocide. If he stood on any stage in the world, named the perpetrator — Israel, and demanded an end to the offensive, it would surely set the ball rolling. Yet he has never uttered a word about this Holocaust of our time unfolding before our eyes, never lent his name to the victims’ plea, never used his influence to try to stop it — and now he’ll profit from a movie about the very genocide he has refused to speak about publicly?

Every time I have a strong feeling about something to do with Gaza or Palestine, I ask my Palestinian friend what she thinks about it, am I right with what I think or feel, and what is her take? After all, however the Palestinian people feel about any of this, should be the norm we should all follow. This is their story. So I asked her what she thinks about this movie being made, depicting the death of one of her people. Her response was this:

“I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it feels like it’s all about the actors, movies, and fame. A popular topic that might not actually change anything. Part of me can’t help but feel that Gaza’s suffering is being used in the outside world for other people’s purposes. On the other hand, I know that some of them genuinely have good intentions and truly want the world to see what’s happening. We’ve tried so many ways to get the word out, and maybe this is just another one. I’m trying to focus on the good in it, but deep down, I still struggle with how it makes me feel knowing the Gazans’ suffering is being used by many.”

No matter which angle I take, I keep coming back to the same question: Why are we making a movie about an ongoing genocide instead of using everything we’ve got to try to stop it? Why are we romanticizing this death on screen like this genocide happened in the past? Why are we cinematicising this grief while children, like Hind, are still being slaughtered daily?

If you cannot see my point, I implore you to think about this, as some of you only react to white people’s deaths: Imagine Schindler’s List being made in 1944? Imagine Schindler’s List being released while Auschwitz-Birkenau is still open and running? Wouldn’t you say then, hold on a minute, why are we making a film, why don’t we do something to rescue these people?

Why are we reminiscing about an atrocity taking place, WHILE it’s taking place?

Why are we not using the Hollywood A-list influence to end this suffering? Why are we making movies instead of raging and rallying people to shut down everything until we force Israel to stop? Is this just a project to pacify the masses, then? Get some points in a largely pro-Palestinian world, as of last?

I hate the headlines flooding the media today about this movie.

Deadline: ‘Gaza Drama ‘The Voice Of Hind Rajab’ Gets Record 23-Minute-Plus Ovation At Venice World Premiere.’

Variety: ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ Stuns Venice With Its Longest Standing Ovation of 22 Minutes Amid Tears and ‘Free Palestine’ Chants’’

BBC: ‘Film about Gaza child's killing gets record ovation at Venice’

Guardian: ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab gets 23-minute ovation at Venice film festival’

This medieval brutality, allowed to happen in the year 2024, this absolutely devastating tragedy of a 6-year-old pleading for help for 3 hours, alone in the car, sitting among dead relatives, corpses, for 3 hours, before they riddled her tiny body with 335 bullets — all this is reduced to a record. A 23-minute standing ovation!

Is that the record we should be talking about? And not a record of Israel having the audacity to execute a small child with 335 bullets, then lie about it, then claim they are investigating it for a year and eight months, and the whole world accepting it as normal? Or should we talk about the record number of children Israel executed as a policy, as they see children as a demographic threat, while the whole world stands down?

This girl’s life is reduced to a 23-minute standing ovation! How can you bear it?

Another thing that worries me is the opening title card on the ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’ film, which says: “This is a dramatization based on real events. The emergency calls were recorded that day.” Just imagine what the Zionists will do with this opening title card? All of the people who support Israel’s onslaught on the Palestinian people, who constantly lie that the genocide in Gaza is fake, made up, shamelessly calling it “Pallywood”, imagine what they will do with the “dramatization based on real events.” They will take it and say it’s all made up. They already are, all over Twitter.

The story of Hind Rajab is so gruesome, there’s nothing you’ll ever hear that’s worse than a 6 year old child being alone in the car, sitting among dead relatives already executed by the Israeli army, pleading for help on the phone with Red Cresent, staring at the tank that’s staring back at her, before she was riddled with 335 bullets.

Her story doesn’t ned to be dramatized, it needs to stand alone, in reality and truth, as a stark reminder of what the State of Israel is capable of, and what 82% of their citizens support.

I read a comment on Instagram by @jeno_ortiz that fully summarizes what I think about this movie being made:

Hind doesn’t need a film.

She needed to live.

She needs Justice, not cinematic grief.

Stop aestheticizing pain.

Start demanding accountability.

What really scares me is the thought that we are a society incapable of any real action; action that would require us to sacrifice jobs, privilege, opportunity, or comfort—to enact genuine change. To halt everything. To stop this! It seems we’re only capable of passively observing atrocities and crimes, then talking about them, posting about them, making films or writing poems about them, instead of being revolutionary enough to stop them.

We should never, ever lie to ourselves or others again: “If we only lived through WW2, we would never allow concentration camps to happen, if I were alive then, I would go in and rescue those people”.

No, you wouldn’t.

We would watch it, just as we are watching now, then make films and create content about it, while people are still losing limbs, as I type this.

Respect to all the Palestinian actors and crew on this film; they are doing what they must to get the world to see their suffering after 77 years of being invisible. The shame lies entirely with us for not doing more to stop it.

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Last week, when Taylor Swift announced her engagement on Instagram, I noticed something peculiar. The reactions all over social media were unhinged, far beyond the usual Swiftie delirium. I’m so tired of constantly discovering new ways people can be awful, in this heightened awareness the universe forced upon us two years ago—the one that usually comes at the cost of witnessing people being slaughtered in front of our eyes.

Funny how mass death, livestreamed directly to your phone, can instantly hand you a litmus test; there’s nowhere to hide, nothing you can ever unsee, and no performance of authenticity can pass if it isn’t rooted in absolute honesty. Living in this world is a privilege, even as I long for the oblivion I once enjoyed before that October.

I mean, just look at the article I wrote in that October, the last one before the world changed on its axis; I read it now, and I shrug at the subheadline: “Finding yourself enthralled by this sort of narrative, it’s about Travis and Taylor, or whoever, but it’s very much about you.” I cringe.

Jess Natale, a beloved founder of So Informed, posted an image about the media phenomenon of this engagement announcement, which launched a brilliant character study:

“The fact that Taylor Swift’s engagement is plastered across every major headline today, while the genocide in Gaza is reduced to a footnote - if mentioned at all - exposes the media’s sickening obsession with celebrity over conscience. Abandon legacy media.”

so.informed

A post shared by @so.informed

She pulled the headlines to make her point.

At the top: legacy media fawning over a billionaire and a millionaire getting married, with an enthusiasm they won’t offer to a livestreamed genocide, and the most brutal, medieval erasure of an entire people.

At the bottom: ethical non-Western media actually doing their job, reporting on the largest war crime of our lived experience.

Even though this post is clearly about the legacy media practice of shielding the perpetrators of this brutal war crime and crime against every instance that makes humanity the definition, people felt called out in the comment section.

Let me repeat who is actually being called out in the post’s description. The media.

“The fact that Taylor Swift’s engagement is plastered across every major headline today, while the genocide in Gaza is reduced to a footnote - if mentioned at all - exposes the media’s sickening obsession with celebrity over conscience. Abandon legacy media.”

The comment section.

“Don’t you dare come after my billionaire bestie!”

Like, what. WHAT?

The entire comment section is filled with people raging at the idea that anyone could try to steal the joy of a billionaire’s upcoming wedding from them. Just look at these gems:

“Don’t make us feel guilty for celebrating some happy news in this terrible world????”

“I get this. But also, we need good news. We need fluff. I personally don’t even watch the news because I feel so helpless and depressed when I do.”

“So nobody’s allowed happiness??? Being negative won’t fix what’s happening in the world - only makes it worse.”

“Just be happy for them. This kind of stuff is what brings light to people in dark times.”

“Sigh. It’s almost like we can enjoy happy things and care deeply about injustice and tragedy at the same time. This take is so tiresome.”

Nothing is more dangerous than a Westerner who’s joy at the mundane celebrity gossip you tried to take away!

And we’re supposed to count on these people to give us a helping hand in global liberation, the decolonization of our minds and lands, tackling imperialism, capitalism, oligarchy—trying to make this world bearable for all people? This is the folk we’re meant to do it with?

A girlboss feminists, silent on literally everything affecting human suffering, that’s not their own. Girboss feminists who feel oppressed by thinking you are trying to take away their joy of an impending celebrity wedding. A billionaire celebrity, probably the most protected billionaire in the world, because of the horde of white women's parasocial attachment to her, as faithfully expressed by this person:

Taylor Swift is a billionaire. Do you understand that concept? She is aligning with billionaire interests, not society’s. Again, as the person below rightly pointed out: “countless women artists with far less wealth, protection, and insulation have spoken out at great personal risk.”

Taylor Swift hasn’t spoken out on the ongoing genocide, ICE raids, snatching American citizens off the streets, or freedom of speech slowly being taken away from us. Prioritizing convenience over conscience?

We have to examine our white privilege, folks. A privilege of demanding our joy at the news of a celebrity wedding not be interrupted by the grimness of a genocide happening in our timeline. We have a blind spot, and we have to work at it to recognize patterns in ourselves and the people we support.

Just look at this original post below, discussing the possible carats on Taylor’s engagement ring:

Miners probably died to obtain that rock from the depths of the earth. And to that I say … Get it, girl.

Get it, girl?

Are we that far gone in self-centeredness? Why does your happiness hinge on celebrity worship? And to the degree that you brush off the suffering of others for me me me, mine?

Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be? As rightly pointed out, “this post might be the most perfect illustration we have of how white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy form the core of Girlboss feminism. We are living in a farcical nightmare.”

Back to joy.

I clicked on some of the commentators’ profiles on the post I’m discussing in this article, and it struck me to see some white people claiming, “well, let us have some joy about this news, after all, joy is resistance”, in a pathetic attempt to sound empathetic towards an entire people being slaughtered before our eyes.

And this brilliant response to that drives it home:

“Saying joy is resistance especially when you are a straight, white woman is meaningless and myopic. Joy is resistance for the queer and trans people who are having their lives and rights threatened. Joy is resistance for Black women who are constantly belittled and othered, even in their own communities. Joy is resistance for immigrant families who continue to try and find happiness when darkness looms. Your joy is not resistance when it comes to celebrating white billionaires.”

People want to be complacent, and therefore complicit, in peace.

We are morally misaligned. Our collective fixation on celebrity joy is masking, trivializing, and shielding the suffering of millions.

We could argue that people need joy in this gruesome world, yes. But there’s a difference between seeking relief and prioritizing it over basic human empathy.

When joy comes packaged in celebrity worship while genocide is livestreamed, it stops being escapism and becomes a distraction.

Our moral compass is inverted.

We condition ourselves to care more about curated narratives of glamour and romance than the brutal realities occurring thousands of miles away.

“Why can’t you let us experience some joys?”, a question directed at the creator of the post you’re commenting on, tells me you feel called out because, deep down, you know you don’t care enough about the wholesale murder of an entire population.

Wanting to feel joy in the midst of unspeakable crimes being committed is an understandable human sentiment, but also an indictment of our desensitization. We have created a culture where empathy is optional, but celebrity worship is mandatory.

Hate to be the bearer of not-so-pleasant news, but if we are to claim any humanity, our attention must align with reality. Until the legacy media and the public place suffering at the center of the conversation, our joy exists on the backs of those being silenced.

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This moment was inevitable. A collision between two worlds, a fracture between opposing moral realities. One forged by decades of Israeli indoctrination, built on fear and entitlement; the other shaped by the lived values of much of the outside world.

For too long, the Israeli public has been taught to see life, death, justice, and humanity through a lens that justifies prioritizing their own lives and ethnostate above all else, disregarding the lives taken in the process. Now, that narrative is colliding, violently, with a global conscience that no longer accepts it.

A livestreamed genocide that we have been forced to watch and accept as the new normal for the past 20 months may be a part of it. Turns out, people don’t like systematic mass slaughter.

This isn’t rocket science. People don’t support genocide. What’s causing a deep rupture in our societies right now is the inability of Western politicians, mainstream media, and much of the Israeli public — raised to see Arab lives as disposable — to grasp why the world is reacting with such outrage. They can’t comprehend that opposition to mass violence isn’t radical. It’s human.

Framing all criticism under the banner of antisemitism is not only lazy and disingenuous — it's deliberately misleading. Simply put, people don’t like Israel because Israel is committing genocide.

A few days ago, a performer named Bob Vylan chanted “Death, Death to the IDF” on the stage of Glastonbury Festival. The crowd erupted in unison — a long-awaited catharsis after nearly two years of watching the IDF tear children’s limbs apart and flatten buildings packed with people, with such glee and disregard for life it forced you to question humanity itself, the meaning of civilization, and what future is left after witnessing such crimes.

Make no mistake, the Israeli government and Israeli citizens who support them are fully aware they are committing war crimes in Gaza. They just regard those crimes as acceptable collateral in the pursuit of Zionist (and Western) supremacy in the Middle East. That is also why they are trying to police our thoughts. They are trying to criminalize what we think about Israel by the laws they are desperately trying to pass, while Meta suppresses our content for the same reasons. Zionist fear isn’t about safety; it’s about losing control.

What happened on that stage was inevitable.

Discourse Blog offered the most straightforward analysis of this moment:

“Left unmentioned in any of this freakout is the context in which it is taking place. Why was Bob Vylan talking about Palestine right now? Why was a giant crowd of people so receptive to these comments? Why has this become such a totemic issue?

The answer will not shock you. It’s because Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza for nearly two years.

That’s it! That’s why. People don’t like genocide, and when they see a country committing genocide, they stop liking that country so much. If the genocide ended, a lot of people would be less mad at Israel than they are right now.

This isn’t rocket science. But—and this is the crucial thing—because our world’s leading politicians and media outlets fundamentally don’t see opposition to the genocide as a legitimate viewpoint to hold, they can’t quite comprehend what is happening all around them.”

“Israel is committing genocide! It’s starving people and then deliberately slaughtering them when they try to get food. It’s massacring hundreds of people a week. It’s committing every possible war crime imaginable. And it’s doing this with the military and political support of governments around the world, including the United States and the United Kingdom. We all know this! People have eyes, and they are horrified by what they’re seeing. That is literally the whole explanation for why opposition to Israel has become so much more mainstream.

This isn’t just an American thing. Support for Israel has plummeted across the Western world. Why? Must I repeat myself? OK, I guess I must. BECAUSE ISRAEL IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AND PEOPLE DON’T LIKE THAT.”

And if the war crimes of the Israeli state and the psychopathic support they enjoy among its citizens weren’t reason enough why the majority of the world opposes everything they stand for, the comments of the Israeli citizens or those supporting them close the deal:

“Sure, I feel bad for the 35,000 or so innocent lives that got caught up in this war, but I am not shedding a tear for the over 20,000 Hamas terrorists and enemy combatants that chose to martyr themselves in their pursuit of exterminating Jews and other Israeli citizens. And even if you don't like reading it, many of those terrorists were underage kids who have been groomed into these terrorist soldiers since birth.”

“Of course, I don't want to see any more unnecessary deaths either, so that's why I think the humane thing to do is to have the Palestinians deported back to the countries they came from, which is Egypt and Jordan.”

“What do Egypt and Jordan have to do with Palestinians, you may ask? There's a dirty little secret you may be unaware of: there's no such thing as a native Palestinian. The modern-day "Palestinian" was an invention of the KGB and Egypt back in the 60s. Palestinians are a bunch of illegal aliens from Egypt and Jordan that were imported into Israel as part of the Soviet Union's overall goal of undermining the free Western world. That's why they should be deported back so there wouldn't have to be so much needless killing.”

Nothing I could write can fully explain the phenomenon of a Zionist mind that sees and feels this seismic shift unfolding better than this sharp comment:

It’s not the chant — it’s the clarity that rattles them.

“Death to the IDF” isn’t acceptable, but it wasn’t vague either, and that’s the real threat.

Clarity scares people who’ve built careers on euphemism.

Normal Island News, my favorite satirized Substack Publication, closed this subject neatly for me:

One such copycat is punk act Bob Vylan who caused outrage by chanting "Death, death to the IDF" at Glastonbury. If only he'd chanted about an army we don't like such as the Russians, that would have been fine. "Death, death to Russia " would have been lovely, but Bob had to chant about our favourite genocidal lunatics, the ones who pay well.

The only impartial solution was for the BBC to cut Kneecap's performance from their live feed so you don't hear it, like boos for Israel at Eurovision.

It appeared we were safe from having our minds polluted by unauthorised opinions, but unfortunately, some idiot at the BBC didn't check who was on before Kneecap. It was someone called Bob Vylan who caused horror and disgust when he displayed the words: "Free Palestine. United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a conflict."

I’ll repeat my sentiment from the beginning of this article. For too long, the Israeli public has been taught to see life, death, justice, and humanity through a lens that justifies prioritizing their own lives and ethnostate above all else, disregarding the lives taken in the process. Now, that narrative is colliding, violently, with a global conscience that no longer accepts it.

This moment was inevitable. A collision between two worlds, a fracture between opposing moral realities. One forged by decades of Israeli indoctrination, built on fear and entitlement; the other shaped by the lived values of much of the outside world.

I know you want to see dead bodies stop dropping in Gaza, and nothing seems like success until the dead bodies stop dropping in all Palestine, but trust me, this is huge.

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‘No Other Land’ has won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The fact that this movie doesn’t even have a US distributor but now holds an Oscar is yet another irony in the tangled discourse that has defined Palestine’s reality for the past 76 years. Nonetheless, it’s colossal. The idea of the nation will always find ways to endure—and perhaps even rise on the Oscar stage—despite relentless efforts to erase it from both theaters and the land itself.

The initial shock and disbelief of hearing a Palestinian film announced as the winner quickly gave way to tears—for all of us who have spent the past 17 months witnessing and documenting the live-streamed genocide in Gaza. And then came the division. The heated debates over whether the film represents a victory or a step toward normalizing the oppression of Palestine.

A story.

‘No Other Land’ tells the story of the West Bank's Masafer Yatta community through the lens of Palestinian activist Basel Adra, and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, among others. Basel narrates his story through personal and guerilla-style footage, documenting the forced displacement of his community. Risking arrest or even death, he captures Israeli soldiers demolishing homes, schools, and playgrounds to clear land for military training zones—an ongoing reality he’s witnessed his entire life.

Studios and distributors in the United States have refused to pick up the film, despite it being the highest-grossing Oscar-nominated documentary.

Will winning the Oscar finally change that?

A crack in the narrative armor.

Anything a Palestinian person does, says, or achieves that reaches beyond their shattered communities and into the global stage serves as a window into the Zionist mindset. The moment the four creators picked up their Oscars, the predictable response came:

Despite their immense influence in Hollywood, Zionists still felt robbed because one—just one—film about Palestine, in a landscape largely devoid of Palestinian perspectives, received some attention.

If you keep insisting your assault on the Palestinian lands is about self-defense, not ethno-supremacy, why does the slightest recognition of Palestinian existence unsettle you?

Discomfort with accountability.

Propaganda & Co posted a brilliant thread breaking down why the Zionist outrage over this particular Oscar flooded the airwaves just minutes after it was awarded:

“Why are Zionists so PISSED off about this film? The anger displayed by Zionists when the Palestinian narrative gains traction reveals a deeper unease about the shifting tides of public discourse.

For decades, the Israeli perspective has dominated mainstream Western narratives, often framed as a story of survival, resilience, and moral clarity in the face of existential threats. But as films like ‘No Other Land’ break through the noise, offering glimpses into the lived realities of Palestinians, that monopoly on storytelling is being challenged—and the reaction is telling.

‘No Other Land’ isn’t a piece of Hamas propaganda, nor is it a sensationalized call to arms. It’s a documentary, grounded in the mundane yet brutal routines of occupation—home demolitions, land confiscation, and the systematic erosion of Palestinian agency—that Israel enacts daily.

This isn’t about ideology or political allegiance; it’s about bearing witness to a reality that has been outright denied in much of the discourse. The outrage from Zionists isn’t just about the film itself—it’s about what it represents: a crack in the narrative armor.

For years, criticism of Israel’s policies has been deflected with accusations of bias, antisemitism, or support for terrorism. But when a documentary like this gains attention, meticulously exposing the machinery of dispossession without needing to resort to rhetoric, those deflections lose their potency.

The anger, then, might stem less from the content and more from the fear that the world is finally listening to a voice that’s been shouting into the void for generations. The ferocity of the backlash against ‘No Other Land’ reveals a discomfort with accountability, a resistance to the idea that the Palestinian experience deserves its own space to be seen and understood.

It’s an unintended admission: the more exposure this narrative gets, the harder it becomes to dismiss it as mere propaganda. And that shift, however incremental, threatens the carefully curated image of a conflict where one side’s narrative has long overshadowed the other’s.”

On the Oscar stage, viewed by approximately 20 million people, these words were spoken aloud and heard by millions on the world’s biggest platform:

• Settler violence

• Home demolitions

• Forceful displacements

• Israeli occupation

• Ethnic cleansing

• Destruction of Gaza

• Injustice and military laws

• Ethnic supremacy

As Propaganda & Co pointed out:

”For decades, the Israeli perspective has dominated mainstream Western narratives, often framed as a story of survival, resilience, and moral clarity in the face of existential threats. But as films like ‘No Other Land’ break through the noise, offering glimpses into the lived realities of Palestinians, that monopoly on storytelling is being challenged.”

Isn't this move, then, a crucial turning point in dismantling the occupier’s narrative? The more exposure it receives, the harder it becomes to dismiss it as merely the opposing side’s propaganda.

Normalization.

It gets even more nuanced, and rightfully so. Many Palestinian people pointed out this movie would have never been allowed to be nominated—let alone win—without an Israeli attached to it.

Let’s get to the acceptance speeches first.

Basel Adra, Palestinian activist and the film's narrator, did great:

“Thank you to The Academy for the award. It's such a big honor for the four of us and everybody who supported us for this documentary. About two months ago I became a father and my hope to my daughter that she will not have to live the the same life I'm living now, always fearing settler's violence, home demolitions, and forceful displacements that my community Masafer Yatta is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation. No Other Land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades, and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”

Yuval Abraham, Israeli journalist, didn’t sit with me well:

“We made this we made this film, Palestinians and Israelis because together our voices are stronger, we see each other, the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people which must end, the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7th which must be freed, when I look at Basel I see my brother but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution, without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. And you know—why? Can't you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel's people are truly free and safe? There is another way, it's not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way. Thank you!”

I’m grappling with a moral and ethical conflict.

It’s easy to appreciate Yuval, an Israeli who recognizes the ethnic supremacy of this people, given the raging, biblical derangement we see from Israelis all over social media who simply do not value Palestinian life and boast about their death and destruction. But are we really going to pat people on their backs for not being genocidal like the rest of their peers?

As I said, I’m conflicted:

Yuval called out the US veto power blocking the path to justice, as if Washington is acting against Israeli wishes, rather than doing their bidding. He mentioned October 7th and called for the release of the hostages, but failed to mention the thousands of Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails without charge—whose release was the very purpose of the October 7th military operation: to use hostages as leverage for the release of Palestinian detainees. He’s quite literally the occupier, standing on that stage with the occupied. His presence on that land is why Palestinian people are being exterminated from that land.

Is he a liberal zionist? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Nada Elia from Mondoweiss raised some good points:

“Yuval Abraham’s speech, on the other hand, was a masterpiece of liberal hasbara, saviorism, and “both sides-ism.” He spoke of “both peoples” being “intertwined,” and called for the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, stressing that freedom for Palestinians would ensure the safety of his people. Nowhere in his speech was there even a hint of the questioning of Zionism, of the fact that Israel, by its mere existence, dispossesses the Palestinian people.

Abraham seemed smug as he took the opportunity to criticize American foreign policy as a hindrance to peace in Palestine. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he meant by “the foreign policy in this country [the United States] is blocking this path.” Is Israel yearning for an end to the occupation, for an end to the genocide, for a return of Palestinian refugees to their towns and villages, but the U.S. is saying “No. We want you to continue?”

At a historic moment when he had the world’s attention, Yuval Abraham could have mentioned Israel’s ongoing starvation of the people in Gaza, despite the ceasefire agreement. Instead, he spoke of the “crimes of October 7.” He could have called for Israel’s implementation of Phase Two of the ceasefire agreement—which does stipulate the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, and which Israel itself is reneging on—instead, he spoke of a vague “release of the Israeli hostages,” as if Hamas, rather than Israel, were responsible for the delay.

Cherished liberal buzzwords and concepts permeated Abraham’s speech: co-existence, not co-resistance, even though, in the documentary, Abraham actually does try to co-resist Israel’s land appropriation of Masafer Yatta.

The takeaway for many viewers was the need for safety for the Israelis, but only passing mention of “safety” for Palestinians. There was no mention, heaven forbid, of ending the blockade of Gaza, or even, ending the illegal occupation of the West Bank. The words settler colonialism, occupation, return, blockade, starvation, genocide, and apartheid, were not uttered.

“No Other Land” may have won a well-deserved Oscar, but Abraham’s speech was the epitome of liberal Zionist hasbara, stealing the limelight from Palestinian strugglers to center the “good Israeli savior.””

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), mandated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee, also released a statement on their position regarding ‘No Other Land’.

Message vs. the normalization?

Does the message of this movie—challenging a century-long hasbara and revealing the reality of the occupation on the ground—justify the narrator’s choice of normalization in presenting it to the world? Is spreading the truth about the occupation and daily subjugation of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank more important than the normalization used to bring it to the forefront?

I can't make that distinction from the comfort of my warm New York living room. It’s for the Palestinian community—both on the ground in Palestine and in the diaspora—to determine, and we must listen to and acknowledge all of their perspectives.

Lena Derhally, a Palestinian-American psychotherapist and author, posted an interesting take on her Instagram story:

“Palestinians in the arts are not faced with any good choices. Are we now calling out Mo Amer for streaming his show on Netflix (a Zionist entity) for normalization? Stop attacking Palestinians for finding ways to get their message and art into the world and in front of the larger audiences. Who here is going to call me out as a Palestinian author for self-publishing my book on Amazon or publishing another book with a traditional American publisher here? Stop acting like everyone makes purely ethical choices 100% of the time.”

May this film be the cog in the machinery of truth, justice, and, most importantly, accountability.

Where to watch No Other Land?

Try these streaming links: Amazon UK, Microsoft, Sky Store, AppleTV, but note that they might not be available in some regions.

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The awakening we've experienced over the past year has been nothing short of extraordinary. It's both fascinating and unsettling to realize how many moral and historical distortions were always around us, unnoticed while we were moving through life on autopilot.

I was never naive or gullible about the world and its politics. Coming from the Balkans—a region marked by violence and suffering, where grief has deep roots due to countless conflicts, empires, rulers, and occupations—politics is ingrained in you from birth. Knowing your history is essential for survival. Or countless fiery debates you’ll have for the rest of your life.

When I landed at an American college, one of the courses awaiting me in my required major was World Affairs—not that I needed outside help to understand global dynamics. I've always had a solid grasp of politics. But what I hadn't fully realized was how culture and sports are often exploited to advance political agendas.

Well, now I do.

I realized that using sports to divert attention from political controversies is quite on the nose, very obvious—anything but subtle. In contrast, using culture to achieve the same goal is far more nuanced.

For example, in sports, UEFA, a Union of European Football Associations will include Israel in its Association and allow it to compete while Israel isn’t a part of Europe. I once asked ChatGPT why that is. This is the answer I got:

“The inclusion of Israel in UEFA has indeed been a topic of discussion and debate. Some critics argue that sporting and cultural events can be used to project a positive image or divert attention from political controversies, such as concerns about apartheid policies. The question of including a country in sporting events involves complex ethical considerations. It often sparks debates about whether engagement through sports can help promote positive change or whether inadvertently legitimizes oppressive actions. Different people and organizations hold varying views on this matter, reflecting the complexity of balancing sports, politics, and human rights.”

Those in power will quite literally shove a state that is not in Europe to compete in European Championships and Tournaments to project a positive image or divert attention from political controversies, such as concerns about apartheid policies. No rules, no sense, no logic.

Which takes me to culture.

How did we all miss Sacha Baron Cohen subtly using comedy to spread islamophobia for decades?

Ghada Chehade wrote an essay ‘The problem with Borat’, where she says:

“While the 2006 film has received coverage and praise for revealing the racism of Americans, very few people are asking whether Cohen’s caricature of a savage, homophobic, misogynist, racist, and hard core Jew-hating Muslim is not actually a form of anti-Muslim racism. To be characterized as any of the above is a form of discrimination, and watching this film it is hard not to walk away wondering why funny man Cohen feels the need to depict a Muslim character in such a vulgar and deplorable light.”

This is by no means accidental. Mintpress delved deeper into Cohen’s Zionism and—this time, not so subtle justification of the genocide in Gaza:

“Cohen has been playing an active role behind the scenes in the genocide. In November 2023, he was among several high-profile figures who lobbied TikTok in private to block content and comments critical of Israel. In September 2020, he suspended his Instagram account to protest purported “hate speech” on the platform and Facebook.

Cohen has, in recent years, significantly upped the ante of his public Zionist activism under the aegis of fighting anti-Semitism. He has claimed his “comedy” output, often coordinated with the CIA and Pentagon, is concerned with the same objective. This work almost universally features racist, crude stereotypes of Muslims, whom he portrays wearing makeup and wigs reminiscent of blackface. One might reasonably ask whether his true purpose all along has been to dehumanize Muslims everywhere in order to justify Israel’s genocide.”

Have you ever come across something or someone precisely when you were ready to receive the message it provides? Of course you did, it happens to all of us. It used to happen to me constantly with people, but recently it has been more often with art. It lands in my lap exactly when I need it, whether it’s movies, series, music, or visual and performance art.

Untogether.

For the past year, with everything I read or watched, I immediately questioned who put it there for me to consume. I analyze every historical event presented to me, every beloved public figure or politician—what’s the real story? Is that charming personality just an act? Did that historic event really unfold the way it’s told? Is everything we consume just part of a larger psyop?

Amid this growing distrust, my nervous system craves a break from the relentless flow of information. I call it a mental massage, especially after feeling so helpless watching the daily visuals of slaughtered children—images my government insists I must accept as normal.

In these moments, I need to escape reality and lose myself in another story for a few hours. Whether it's a film, a series, or a book, I need something that can fully draw me into its narrative.

It’s hard, I know. It’s difficult to get pulled into fiction when reality is so morbid. But I’ve found that stepping away helps me return with a clearer focus. I’ve also found that I can only take romance right now. Everything else feels so illusory. Superheros? Where are they in real life, allowing all this death? Slapstick comedy? Pass. Action movies based on American Heros fixing the world? Bitch, please.

But romance?

No matter what happens in the world, love is the only thing that’s never an illusion. Even the love you see on your screen; someone wrote it based on their own lived experience.

Amazon Prime has been suggesting this movie to me for weeks. Untogether, written and directed by Emma Forrest. Starring Jamie Dornan and Jemima Kirke. I kept skipping it mainly because my body rejects all the plots taking place in in Los Angeles. I’m still recovering from my own body spending nine years in Los Angeles. Also, I’m still having traumas from Jemima Kirke’s character in Girls, and the whole Girls fiasco in general. I can’t possibly watch a romance featuring Jemima Kirke, I close my eyes and all I see is Jessa. It’s unholy.

Jamie Dornan, however, grew on me. There’s something soothing about Jamie Dornan’s Northern Irishness, his face when he has a beard on, and the way his body’s just how you imagined the guy next to you should feel; I can’t think of anyone else at this moment who provokes both fire and comfort sensation.

That and Jessa? As I said, it feels unholy.

You watch it when it’s time. And I did. And that movie did my head in. Blew me away, and not in the way you might think.

Come in, and close the door.

The movie follows a few characters but the story is based around two people who have a one-night stand that unwillingly turns into something else. PS: Jemima Kirke and Jamie Dornan worked wonders together. I saw no Jessa. He’s a doctor who wrote a personal story that got him famous. She’s a writer who wrote a hit when she was 23 and hasn’t written or published anything since.

It hurts me to say, there are some epic dialogues in this movie:

- He’s not a writer. He’s a doctor.

- He doesn’t slave over sentences.

- He’s just a chancer who got lucky.

- Fuck me, you’re in love with him. And jealous of him as well.

- There is no true love. Only a finely tuned jealousy.

Yes, the ‘There is no true love. Just a finely tuned jealousy” is a lyric from the song ‘Life Becoming a Landslide’ by Manic Street Preachers, but it’s pretty artful placing it in the context of this particular plot.

“He doesn’t slave over sentences”—that hit home like nothing else; I can’t convey the brilliance of that sentence if you aren’t someone who writes. I have never met a phrase that explained the agony of relentless struggle with a single sentence or paragraph, sometimes for days, or weeks, such as—slave over sentences.

There are so many great words put together here — Emma Forrest, the writer, flexed:

- Does he fuck heroically?

- All one-night stands are acts of bravery.

- Or defeat.

Enter trouble.

It completely floors me—the realization over the past 11 months that a brilliant, educated, and successful people can fall into the trap of tribalism, Zionism, a sense of supremacy over 'the other’, and an utterly mind-boggling indifference to people being slaughtered for their “safety”.

If you think I came out of left field with this one, pivoting from a romantic storyline to the rubble of Gaza, I didn’t. The writer did. All I signed up for was a mindless love story—or at least a lust story, as those often hit closer to home than the former.

Jemima Kirke’s character is telling her sister about Jamie Dornan’s character, a doctor-turned-writer with whom she just had a one-night stand:

- So, he fell in love with a Palestinian woman when he was a volunteer doctor in Gaza, and then she ended up being killed.

- I can see how that would sell a million copies.

- Mm, two.

She ended up being killed.

Killed by who? Until now, we lived in a world where people casually write about people being killed in Gaza like it’s a natural disaster that just won’t quit. This movie was released in 2018, written some years before that, I suppose. How did we allow a reality where people casually write about death in one strip of land in this world, and no one ever raised questions, wait—killed by WHO? Killed WHY? Why is a group of people constantly killed somewhere?

How is it all right to create a plot around a man falling in love with a woman in Gaza and then casually add “she got killed” like some decades-long natural disaster befalls that place, following up with a commentary, ”I can see how that would sell a million copies”—like a whole nation being exterminated by an Israeli army and illegal settlers is a convenient movie plot that adds spice to a one-night-stand turned love story—story?

Untogether is written and directed by Emma Forrest. Emma is a British American novelist, screenwriter, and a first-time film director.

The other day, I read a great line by always incisive Caitlin Johnstone:

Emma Forrest is also Jewish. I won’t make a judgment on what side of the spectrum her views of the 76-year devastation of the Palestinian people stand, I will let Emma’s words explain to us all which spectrum that is. On November 7th 2023, Emma shared a six-page post on her Instagram page, saying:

“Today is the anniversary of the October 7th massacre. Today, if they are still alive, the hostages— from babies to elderly Holocaust survivors, to young women who had been visibly raped until their trackpants were soaked in blood—have been held captive for a month. Hamas, who are deeply PR savvy, performed such medieval torture on their victims that, even though they themselves recorded and distributed videos of it, the mind cannot process it, and therefore easy for people who don’t like Jews to say it was made up.”

A woman named Aisling McGeown commented on Emma’s post, saying:

“If we offered Palestine October 7th in exchange for what they have been through they would take it any day of the week. None of it is good and every single person is one too many but let’s have a five-page nuance dedication to the Palestinian lives and the children. Jewish and Palestinian children. The children. #ceasefire”

Emma responded to Aisling, saying:

“HUGE apologies for having the temerity to write about my lived experience on my page.”

Her lived experience? Lived experience? Does she live in Gaza? West Bank? Or London and Los Angeles? Who on Earth can claim lived experience comparable to the injustice, devastation, death, carnage, and utter disregard for human life that the Palestinian people have endured for eight decades?

Is Emma’s art political? Does it oppose the madness of the status quo, support it, or distract from it?

You be the judge.

As the movie Untogether progresses, we are introduced to a kind Rabbi, played by Billy Crystal, who is raising money for Syrian refugees within his congregation:

“I’d like to end tonight by reminding you that at the end of the month we have our rally for our Syrian refugees. I’d like you all to be there because somebody was there for us when we came. Somebody was there for your grandfather when he came. Somebody was there for your great-grandfather when he came. Somebody was there. So be there for them.”

Emma clearly cares about Syrian refugees. What about 6 million Palestinian refugees created by the state of Israel, that have no right of return to their homeland? How can anyone connected to Israel not feel uneasy about millions of people being killed and ethnically cleansed from their homeland so that space can be made for a Jewish ethnostate?

Maybe Emma cares about all these things, but why isn’t she making art about the plight of Palestinian people? Israeli magazine Haaretz wrote a feature about Emma’s movie, calling it a Remarkably Jewish Indie Film.

Her desensitized way of molding this storyline is astounding. The dialogue where a Rabbi played by Billy Crystal tells a story about why he became an activist who cares about the plight of others less fortunate is appalling:

- When I was 13, we were living on the Lower East Side of New York City, and two floors above us was a young man named Mickey Schwerner.

- Mickey and his wife Rita lived two floors above us, and he was older than I was but he was very good to me in a way hat older boys are not ‘cause they dn’t like to be seen with the little kids. And they were activists.

- They worked for CORE, Congress of Racial Equality

- They were very brave people. They were Freedom Riders in the truest sense. They would go down South and register African Americans to vote.

- They would boycott businesses until they desegregated.

- They were very inspiring young people, and it was Mickey who taught me about Dr. King. And I read everything I could. And I listened to him whenever I could. And I just was awestruck.

How can a person supporting Israel write this? How can anyone sensible that cares about other human beings, besides their own—talk about boycotting businesses in the South “until they segregated” while not supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of the businesses supporting and funding the Israeli Apartheid and military occupation of Palestinian people?

Emma’s disconnect is palpable:

- So then what happened with Mickey Jewinowitz?

- Mickey was murdered in 1964 in Mississippi, along with two fellow civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman. They were beaten, shot to death, and buried by the members of the KKK. Long time ago. But that’s what got me started. 

What about the Israeli army that beats, shoots to death, and buries children under the rubble?

What stuns me the most is the fact we never even noticed these things before Israel launched their genocidal campaign in Gaza. How many filmmakers did this? How many screenwriters did this? Wrote lines and created art depicting Jewish people as these justice warriors, morally sound folk who are so sensitive to others’ plight for justice and self-determination while not recognizing Palestinian people should also have all those rights?

In contrast, many Jewish artists have done a great deal for the plight of the Palestinian people, the most recent being Jonathan Glazer, with his Oscar-winning film and his even more legendary acceptance speech. Besides artists, Jewish activists have played the most pivotal role in denouncing the occupation and the genocide of the Palestinian people in their name.

Decide if Emma Forrest is one of the people who understands, cares, or wants to see the end to the dehumanization of the Palestinians.

While researching this novelist, screenwriter, and first-time director, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen this woman before. Her name and face were familiar. Then, it hit me: back in 2009, in Los Angeles, Emma Forrest met and dated Colin Farrell for about a year. I remember those headlines and paparazzi photos in gossip magazines. He left her, got another woman pregnant instantly, and Emma wrote a memoir documenting that period of her life.

Floored me.

This is an excerpt from Emma Forrest's memoir, Your Voice In My Head:

“It has been five years since I've self-harmed when, at a dinner in LA, I am introduced to a man with long, flowing hair who is wearing a keffiyeh. HE LOOKS LIKE THE WORLD’S CAMPEST TERRORIST, but he's actually a movie star with a storied reputation. In the candle-lit garden, we sit next to each other and talk, and he admits later that every single thing he tells me is intended to translate as, "I'm not like you've heard I am." It works.”

Colin Farrell spent decades of his life wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh. It’s only natural showcasing solidarity with the Palestinian people would be important to him—he’s Irish.

Emma Forrest, a woman who met him on a night he wore a Palestinian cultural symbol, a traditional garment that every culture has, common to their customs—called him “the world’s campest terrorist”. Emma Forrest associates a Palestinian traditional garment with being a terrorist. She is so emboldened and protected in her dehumanization of the Palestinian people that she would include that sentence in her memoir. How callous is this woman, using the most destructive word one can attribute to a human being?

I scoured the internet and couldn’t find a single article or even a Reddit thread condemning her blatant Islamophobia.

Do you still think all art isn’t political?

Or has art like this created a sentiment where, today, Gaza can be bombed into oblivion; 180,000 + people killed, wounded, or buried under the rubble—and people would justify it? After all, do the “world’s campest terrorists” deserve to live?

Creating a film as a tribute to her Jewishness, while calling one of the world’s most famous actors a terrorist because he showed up with a keffiyeh— is Emma Forrest’s art meant to convince us of something?

You be the judge.

You can watch Untogether here.

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I’m not one to comment on anyone’s love life. Especially when it goes awry. With a failed marriage and a slew of other doomed relationships that pepper my past, I am yet to experience and—from what I’ve heard and seen from others, bask in the bliss of a proper, all-consuming, unabashed love.

Hey, it’s out there. I know it. Any day now.

Love is a toughie, though.

You feel like you’ve finally cracked the code to eternal happiness with a person you label your soulmate, your ride or die, your homie for life, because that’s what one does when the ‘when you know, you know’ moment finally arrives.

The wound is still very fresh, even though we had an entire summer of a ring-less, lifeless Affleck and a yacht-posing, selfie-taking Lopez to prepare us for the crash and burn ending, of—you guessed it, the inevitable kind.

Also, that cringy Bridgerton-inspired birthday bash is something we’ll never be able to unsee.

But don’t forget one thing—she is also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to re-love her. Her and her insatiable need to be in the constant, highest-wattage spotlight.

And he did. He gave it his all, it seems. While we caught glimpses of what might have caused the rift this time, the full truth will likely remain unknown.

Not unless Benny Medina decides it would be a smart, moolah-raking move for Jennifer’s next project. In that case, we can count on the full lowdown.

Whether we’re up for it, is another question altogether.

Whether you stan them or not, the rekindling of the OG Bennifer—the ultimate modern-day celebrity power couple, unmatched since their first pairing on the set of Gigli in 2002 to their astonishing second act, 17 years after their first breakup in 2004—was everything. Scriptwriters couldn’t have dreamed up a more fulfilling nor gooey love story and we craved that ‘lived happily together forever and ever’ ending for ourselves just as much as we rooted for the stars themselves.

You with me?

The signs were there from the very beginning. And trust me, I know signs oh so well. Especially when they’re not attached to my own relationships. Actually, only then.

Jane Fonda saw them too.

The Greatest Love Story Never Told filled in a lot of blanks. It humanized Lopez by showing her at her most vulnerable, glitz and filter-free self. We already knew how hardworking and success-driven she is, but the raw exposure of her insecurities and accumulated trauma is not something she freely shared in the past. The oversharing of intimate symbols from their relationship, however, was a clear indicator that she and Affleck are fundamentally misaligned.

He blatantly spelled it out on camera that he was not a fan of her exposing the private love letters he wrote to her to her crew. He also shared the caveat he presented when they decided to give their love another go—he adamantly refused to allow the public to third-wheel their relationship this time.

For Lopez, it seems, the ‘if it’s not on social media it’s like it’s not real’ vibe is very much where she chooses to live. The urge to share and expose her intimacy, no matter how deeply she may care, is too strong to fight. However, the question remains if she attempted to fight it at all.

Celebrities are just like us. Minus the money and the fame.

In matters of love and loss, the difference is miniscule.

They hurt the same way we do, they love their kids the way we love ours, and they are, in many ways, the kids we all were and still are—trauma-shaped creatures of need, full of fears, dreams, hopes, and desires. A shared hope we all have is to be loved. Accepted and loved. Seen and loved. Respected and loved.

Jennifer Lopez hopes for all those things.

I suspect her Dear Ben does too.

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We need to talk about us. The people. Society. And what have we done? I tend to not talk about celebrities in the times of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time unfolding on our phones, but last week with the Oscars, the celebrity culture intertwined with The Military Industrial Complex, better yet - danced with it, so here we are.

Yesterday, Variety magazine published an Open Letter, signed by Over 450 Jewish creatives and professionals, denouncing Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech, in which he “refuted (his and his producing partners) Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people”.

Denouncing the refute? Is this real life? More on this below.

All human catastrophe, and especially the ones of this magnitude we are currently witnessing in Gaza - lifts the masks. From the government and the people in power, celebrities you admire, your friends, family, followers on social media. There’s nothing anyone can say anymore, confronted with what they have done during this time.

There’s hope here folks. For every individual who callously ignores or even endorses violence against a starving, defenseless population under siege, there comes another, seemingly out of thin air, who restores your faith in humanity.

I know what you’re thinking; it’s hard to imagine what could be hopeful amidst images and videos of children being blown to pieces, but it’s precisely in these moments that we find our collective clarity. We think we can orchestrate our growth with good jobs, relationships, opportunities, and positive mindsets; in reality - actual, real growth happens during human catastrophes.

There’s nothing poetic or meaningful about mass death; its significance lies solely in its reflection of society. Since October, faced with the greatest horror of our time, how have we fared? The society that often ponders, "If we had lived through the Holocaust, surely we would have taken action," we now confront our own response. 

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And how did people with huge platforms respond? Successful, famous people, followed by millions? Their apparent concern seems to vanish when faced with the “complexity” of the present crisis, revealing a superficiality that prioritizes image over genuine care. “Hollywood is more of a PEP squad: progressive except for Palestine” as Dave Zirin hauntingly called them out in his piece for The Nation.

“Palestine is a litmus test”, we heard early last October, but we had no idea the unraveling would be so painful to watch. People you loved to see on screen praying for Israel on their Instagrams alongside an image of a leveled Gaza Strip or deleting an image of children in Gaza looking at the skies in horror upon learning those aren’t Israeli kids but Palestinian ones. Heart-wrenching captions alongside a visually striking image of the wrong kids whose imminent fate don’t deserve your public sympathy, let alone action.

Dystopia struck abruptly, realizing people you admired are, at best, selective in their humanitarian efforts, while others are merely performative, catering to Instagram likes. Mind you, these are the very Hollywood liberals who once recoiled at MAGA in disbelief. Yet now, they find themselves entangled in the same “frenzy of bloodlust, dehumanizing rhetoric, and willful ignorance of facts that they vehemently denounced in the MAGA movement” - as Fredrick Joseph phrased it.

You may ask yourself why am I particularly hard on celebrities, while so many people aren’t speaking out? Because they have a DUTY, as human beings with large platforms and the adoration of many to USE that privilege in pressuring governments to stop mass death. Because they have been telling us for years they care about human life, suffering, human rights, climate issues - to expand their public profiles, and now have a RESPONSIBILITY to act on decades of their empty talk. Because they smirk at the far-right for supporting Trump, a leader who cares little about laws, empathy, and humanity; yet support the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, choosing to believe fairytales about the most sophisticated army on earth slaughtering 30,000 + civilians in “self-defense”.

Again, Fredrick Joseph wraps it up with a perfect bow:

“This introspection leads to an uncomfortable truth about these liberals: the liberalism they profess is a privilege, a garment worn with exclusivity, extended only to those deemed worthy of humanity. It is a selective liberalism, conditional and bounded, a travesty of the very ideals it purports to uphold.

In this light, the struggle for Palestinian liberation becomes not just a fight against an external oppressor but also a battle against an internal contradiction, a hypocrisy within the ranks of those who claim to stand for justice and equality. This is the dilemma at the heart of the matter — the reckoning with a liberalism that is, for some, only skin deep.”

Where is the hope I mentioned above, the hope I’m trying to sell you here? Well, hope is in the - freedom.

You are free.

We are free from these people.

I feel free. I’m no longer disappointed in famous and/or successful people who don’t use their large platform to speak out on mass murder, I’m free of holding myself to their standards of jobs, success, lifestyle. I no longer see their houses, projects, or large checks as something I’m striving for or longing for. I don’t see their vacation images on yachts in the middle of winter and sigh; instead, I pity their ambivalence. They are ridiculous to me. I pity the lack of their moral compass, I pity their panic about losing opportunities; these people aren’t free.

Me and you, we are free.

You still don’t see it?

• Are you a person who doesn’t fall into the trap of tribalism where you instantly side with “your people” or the “people that look like you”?

• Are you a person who is critical of your own (state, nation, religion), as that is the highest form of patriotism, intelligence, and consciousness?

• Are you a person who is so disgusted by the horrors inflicted on other humans that you never even considered the repercussions your speaking out might have on your privilege?

• Are you a person who, upon the first missile dropped on a civilian population, felt an instant collective clarity and responsibility for the less privileged?

Congratulations, you are FREE.

As we've witnessed over the past 6 months, anyone falling short of these standards poses a danger to society.

Yesterday, on that note, Variety Magazine published a letter signed by Over 450 Jewish Creatives and Professionals Denounce Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech in an Open Letter. Today, the number of Hollywood elite’s signatures is at 1000 signatures.

As a reminder, at last Sunday’s Oscars, Jonathan Glazer won best international film for “The Zone of Interest”. For his Oscar speech, Glazer said:

“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, but rather look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October — whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

This speech, calling for an end to all dehumanization and the occupation that has been causing mass death for 75 years is dubbed a “controversial acceptance speech.”

Calling for the ending of suffering is controversial unless it’s called for certain people. Not all people, ya’ll.

However, this Open Letter as a response to Jonathan Glazer is NOT called out as controversial: 

“We are Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals. 

We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.  

Every civilian death in Gaza is tragic. Israel is not targeting civilians. It is targeting Hamas. The moment Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders is the moment this heartbreaking war ends. This has been true since the Hamas attacks of October 7th.

The use of words like “occupation” to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years, and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history.

It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood.  The current climate of growing antisemitism only underscores the need for the Jewish State of Israel, a place which will always take us in, as no state did during the Holocaust depicted in Mr. Glazer’s film.”

I have no strength to unpack this statement, past this one paragraph. My mind, as well as my soul, has been violated for 6 months; I’m at my end wits how anyone seemingly sane, intelligent, and successful can utter the words “Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination” at the time when that same nation’s government has indiscriminately killed 30,000 + civilians and is held plausible for a gencode by the highest court on earth. Or “Israel is not targeting civilians, it is targeting Hamas”, an exceptional example of tribalism I mentioned above; as if they are sitting in that war cabinet and know who Israeli officials are targeting, instead of their pool houses on Mulholland. Don’t even get me started on “blood libel”. Is this a game of Jumanji, or real life? Or the grand finale - “The use of words like “occupation” to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years”. I'm not one for the loss for words, but emotionally, I don't have any to describe people claiming to defend a biblical homeland while Israel is internationally recognized as the occupying power in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

So I will let Jonathan Cook break it down for you. In this stunning piece, he is commenting on Norman Finkelstein’s book “The Holocaust Industry” and says:

“A follow-up book called the Antisemitism Industry, an investigation into much the same group of people, is now overdue. These ghouls don’t care about antisemitism – in fact, they rub shoulders with the West’s most prominent antisemites, from Donald Trump to Viktor Orban. 

Rather, they care about Israel – and the weaponization of antisemitism to protect their emotional and financial investment. They profit from Israel’s central place in US political, diplomatic and military life:

• as a giant real-estate laundering exercise, based on the theft of native Palestinian land;

• as a laboratory for the production of new weapons and surveillance systems tested on Palestinians;

• as a heavily militarized colonial state, a spearpoint for the West, useful in destabilizing and disrupting any threat of a unifying Arab nationalism in the oil-rich Middle East;

• and as the frontier state for eroding legal and ethical principles developed after the Second World War to stop a repeat of those atrocities.

Glazer’s crime at the Oscars was to threaten the Antisemitism Industry’s stranglehold on the West’s narrative about Israel.

In Britain, the Antisemitism Industry calls them the “wrong kind of Jews” – Jews who care about all human suffering, not just Jewish suffering. Jews who refuse to let Israel commit crimes against the Palestinian people in their name. Jews who rightly described as a witch-hunt the smearing of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, including his Jewish supporters, as antisemites.

Glazer seized the rare opportunity provided by the awards ceremony this week to grab the microphone from the Antisemitism Industry and represent a Jewish voice that westerners are not supposed to hear. He used the Oscars as a platform to highlight Palestinian suffering – and to suggest that it is normal to care about Palestinian suffering as much as it is Israeli and Jewish suffering.

In doing so, he threatened, like Finkelstein before him, to expose the fact that these antisemitism witchfinder generals are dangerous charlatans, conmen in the true sense.

Unlike the Antisemitism Industry, Glazer has profound, universal things to say about the Holocaust and the human condition. He makes his living from tapping deeply into his humanity, insight and creativity, not wielding his power like a bludgeon to terrorize everyone else into submission.”

You still don’t feel your freedom? You could be like Jonathan Glazer in this world, a man who used his one-in-a-lifetime professional success to shed light on the suffering of others, without concern for how many doors might close for him.

Or you could be a Hollywood creative who has internet access and yet signs the letter stating Israel isn’t committing genocide but is fighting against its own extermination - against stateless, defenseless people without an army.

Or you could be Sean Lennon, a man-boy who hasn’t had an original thought his entire life. He keeps winning the lottery after the lottery, first by merely being born to such a father; all there, laid out for him by his parents - yet can’t seem to seize any win.

At the Oscars, yet another such opportunity presented itself, and the timing was pure poetry. Sean was a co-writer and a co-producer on an animated short movie called War Is Over!, based on his parents’ famous anti-war song - WAR IS OVER, If You Want It (Happy Xmas). They won.

Take a walk with me.

Two weeks before the Oscars, Sean sat down for the episode of Making Of, featuring the animated short’s writer/director Dave Mullins, and producer Brad Booker. In it, Dave Mullins gave us an account of his conversation with director Peter Jackson whose company Wētā FX created the animation and visual effects for the animated short, in January of 2022: “The Ukraine war has just broken out 2 weeks earlier and he (Peter) felt the way we did, which was a very important moment. There was a moment in the film where we really go there, it’s dark, you see the cost the innocents pay in a war, not only soldiers, but an innocent, and he said: do you have to do that? And I said: Peter, this is a whole point of this, is that we show the gravity of what war is and the effect it has on people.”

Brad Booker, the producer added: “For this reason, the world needs this message more than ever, and at that point (the song) was at its 50th anniversary and Peter knew he could help bring this thing to a new audience and people that really needed to hear it at that moment in time”.

Then Sean comes on in the Making Of, linking it again so you can hear it for yourself, a phenomenon of what a 48-year-old man said on camera during an active genocide happening in this world: “I’ve always been a fan of the messenger pigeons in wars, you know, the idea that these pigeons are kind of war heroes and that they should be, like, lauded in the same way that the soldiers are, because they are risking their lives and, you know, ultimately, you know, possibly saving human lives, so I’ve always found that to be very romantic and interesting”.

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Do you feel freedom yet? Do you feel the weight off your shoulders seeing these people, hearing these people?

This trio of losers won an Oscar for an animated short about a WAR, based on one of the most famous ANTI-WAR songs in history, made by the most famous ANTI-WAR activist and protestor on planet Earth, and they won it during an ACTIVE genocide. They went on stage to pick up an award for a movie about a WAR, honoring JOHN LENNON, a person who made not one, but three most famous anti-war songs in the history of mankind, and said nothing. Not a peep; even if they had said just the names of these songs, it would mean they honored John and his activism. These are the people, who, I repeat - stated the whole point of their movie “is that we show the gravity of what war is and the effect it has on people”.

Are we present on Earth currently? This was the moment to take the stage, to have the courage, to pressure those in power in front of the billions of people watching it.

Then Sean steps up to the mic, embodying the self-centered mass of nothingness he’s always been, and instead of honoring his father, who lost his life for his relentless campaigning for anti-war, anti-establishment, and whoever tells you it’s for other mundane reasons is just not that intelligent, and says nothing about the current ongoing slaughter of the purposely starved civilian population under siege. Instead, he initiates the audience to congratulate Mother’s Day to his mother, desperate to say his parent’s name, once again reminding us who he is, instead of using his privilege, his platform, and his fresh Oscar win to draw attention to the human catastrophe that would send his father to agony, if he were here to witness it.

John did for the Vietnam War what you have been doing for 6 months on the streets of New York, London, Washington, Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam, and the whole world, for Gaza. John would be on the streets of Manhattan with you now, taking all the government officials to town on his Twitter. He would be relentless today, as he was then.

If you haven’t seen the documentary The U.S. Vs. John Lennon, now is the time. Since his own son won’t do the job of reminding people what his father did in the times of war, death, and suffering for the previous war the U.S. inflicted on a foreign nation, let’s pick up the slack here. It’s hugely important, for all of you who are appalled with what our government is doing now, to see the parallel between what they did then. For all of you who are stunned by the social media suppression, censorship, threats, and free speech violations about Palestine; watch the U.S. Government try to silence John and get him deported, for opposing the reelection of Richard Nixon as president in 1972, and his anti-war and anti-Nixon campaigns.

In light of the U.S. Government being in the process of banning TikTok to suppress pro-Palestinian Z Gen voices, it is eerie to see how, then, Nixon viewed John, a Beatle, an extremely influential celebrity - a potential nuisance in an election year. He was even caught on tape (this guy and tapes!) with, I believe it was his chief of staff, discussing how “we gotta get rid of this guy, this guy can sway an election”. Nixon eventually won the election year in 1972, the one John was protesting like we are protesting Genocide Joe today, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to drop its case.

Gore Vidal offered some answers: "Anybody who sings about love, harmony, and life, is dangerous to somebody who sings about death. Lennon was a born enemy of the U.S. He was everything they hated."

In the song that the animated short his son received an Oscar for last week was based on, John is repeatedly asking - “and what have you done?”

“So this is Christmas

And what have you done?

War is over

And what have you done?

War is over

If you want it

And what have you done?”

What have we done?

When history documents this genocide masquerading as a war, among all the people discussed in this article, what is the category we fall into? Are you content with where you stand?

And what have we done?

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After seeing the masks drop over the past three months—from the government, the establishment, and especially the media—it’s hard not to view everything through a lens of suspicion. Every piece of information now feels like an attempt at propaganda. Our perspective has changed, and every aspect of our lives is seen differently. We’re on high alert. Who can blame us?

With everything I read or watch, I immediately question who put it there for me to consume. I analyze every historical event presented to me, every beloved public figure or politician—what’s the real story? Is that charming personality just an act? Did that historic event really unfold the way it’s told? Is everything we consume just part of a larger psyop?

Amid this growing distrust, my nervous system craves a break from the relentless flow of information. I call it a mental massage, especially after feeling so helpless watching the daily visuals of slaughtered children—images my government insists I must accept as normal.

In these moments, I need to escape reality and lose myself in another story for a few hours. Whether it's a film, a series, or a book, I need something that can fully draw me into its narrative.

The Crown season 6, part 2 just came out. Perfect. I've always been drawn to royal fuckery. It’s on brand with this climate too; the carnage royals inflict on each other, whether its actual physical violence in the times of Richard Plantagenet when they snuffed each other’s children like spring chickens or today’s tabloid propaganda variety of Wars of the Roses - I’m on board.

Distract me from the brutal, medieval slaughter of a besieged civilian population with 7-8 hours of a different kind of carnage.

I used to love The Crown. It was done exceptionally well, with just the right amount of imagination sprinkled over historical events. I liked the first actor they chose to play the adult Charles—the inner turmoil was palpable. Although he was too handsome to convince me that the turmoil was necessary and not just part of his story arc; ironically, the turmoil being the premise of Prince Charles’ real life— it was a pleasurable watch.

I used to love The Crown. It was well-crafted, with just the right amount of imagination sprinkled over historical events. I liked the first actor they chose to play the adult Charles—the inner turmoil was palpable. Although he was perhaps too handsome to fully convince me that the turmoil was genuine and not just a narrative choice, it ironically mirrored the real-life struggles of Prince Charles — it was a pleasurable watch.

Adding Dominic West to the cast made it unwatchable for me. His sexual energy is too intense for any screen, let alone playing one of the most famous men on earth who has none of it. It didn’t work, at least for me, trying to portray this famously fumbling character when all you can see in his eyes is—I want to pin you to the wall when you finish that sentence.

Elisabeth Debicki captured Diana’s facial expressions perfectly—the head tilt, the voice—it was eerie to watch. However, at 6’3”, her height had a storyline of its own, given Diana was 5’10’’ and never towered over people in the same way, which shifted the power dynamics with her screen partners, creating a different impression from the well-known history.

Until this generation, the show featured standard television-making, marked by both strong and questionable choices from its creators. However, with the introduction of the next generation, it began to feel less like a TV show and more like a manufactured PR piece—almost as if we hadn’t grown up with William, Kate, and Harry, or are oblivious to the realities of our generation’s most popular figures.

The level of reimagining history here was laughable to watch. William having an existential crisis thinking he’s not good enough for Kate when we all know the history of Waity Katie; nothing wrong with waiting for a guy if that’s what you chose for your life, not an ounce of judgment in this space—but that’s just not an accurate account of events. We all know Kate’s family jerked her left and right to end up in the same school as Wiliam, I always had a soft spot for that woman, the expectations placed on her were probably mentally exhausting; and she definitely deserved better than William, as it turned out to be.

The extent to which history was reimagined here was laughable. Watching William have an existential crisis over not being good enough for Kate was particularly absurd, given we all know a well-documented history of Waity Katie. There’s nothing wrong with waiting for someone if that’s your choice, there’s no judgment in this space—but that’s not an accurate recollection of actual events. I’ve always had sympathy for Kate Middleton; the expectations placed on her were undoubtedly exhausting—from her family, the public, and especially the British Tabloid Press. She deserved far better than what she received from William.

Why is The Crown going to such lengths to rewrite William and Kate’s story as a once-in-a-lifetime love story? The Palace and the media never tried to convince us of this amour until Harry and Meghan came along, making William and Kate suddenly seem pale and unfeeling by comparison.

The lines the show’s creators wrote for the conversations between William and The Queen about Kate are completely mindless.

Queen: Have you aimed high?

Will: Impossibly heigh. She could have anyone.

Queen: Some might say you’re a bit of catch too.

Prince William, at that time arguably the most eligible bachelor in the world, Princess Diana’s son and a dream for many women, pondering whether he’s aiming too high—it just doesn’t add up, aside from being an inaccurate portrayal of events.

Why are we being propagandized into rewriting this story as an epic love? Who requested it and why? And why did the creators of The Crown accept this meddling? I cannot for the logic in me understand why would they take this direction.

Prince Charles is being played by one of the sexiest actors on our screens, he’s also a good father; Camilla is thoughtful; William, a prince, a Duke of Cambridge is wondering if he’s aiming too high to marry a commoner. Who paid for this public relations campaign?

The answer lies with Harry. Or rather, a portrayal of Harry.

Prince Harry, the most popular member of the British Royal Family alongside his mother, and THE most popular member of the British Royal Family after her death, and any Royal Family of any Monarchy still existing—portrayed as a jealous, problematic, loser; asocially awkward Unabomber; a lost cause; a sinner; a screw-up, a black sheep; a fuck-up.

This is not an overreaction, the creators literally put those words into the mouth of an actor who plays Harry, in a conversation with his brother, in Episode 7, ‘Alma Matter’:

Harry: I know my job, TO BE THE FUCK-UP in this family. Don’t you start too. Go back to St. Andrews. If not for your sake then for mine. I need a purpose in life. SCREW UP and make you look good

Will: What’s going on with you and Pa?

Harry: He found out about the weed, didn’t he? Went ballistic. Said I could get myself expelled. Now he wants me to go to a treatment center to spend a day with some addicts. Bit of an overreaction, I said. Remose and responsibility, he said. Thanks. Cause it’ll be in all the papers. And make me look like a LOST CAUSE. Again. People will say - “Poor boy, ever since his mother died…” but I guess it’s all working out perfectly. Cause there’s no need for number two in this family. Except as entertainment. I can’t be NORMAL OR A SUCCESS can I? And eclipse you in any way. That would make a mockery of the whole show. So it’s Willy gold star, Harry BLACK SHEEP. Willy saint, Harry SINNER. Willy solid, Harry LOST.

Harry: Can you imagine how people would freak out if you were the one going to a treatment center? It would be like the temple was falling down. With me is just what people want. FUCKING UP. “Ah that’s Harry Wales’ job.

This was a hit job, right from the casting.

The actor picked to play Prince Harry looks nothing like him; he’s smug, annoying, and seriously lacking in the looks department—playing a man dubbed Prince Hot Ginge by the press, before he fell in love and a smear campaign ordered by his family launched in the media.

Harry was raised in an establishment that’s built on restraint and lack of spontaneity. He inherited his mother’s nature, love of life and people; but he’s even a better version of her. He possesses the ease his family hardly knows how to define, let alone have—he’s naturally engaging, personable, and real.

I always loved this assessment of Harry—”It’s amazing that family spawned him. Because comfortable, relaxed, unforced, and not stiff has never been the British Royal family's energy. The backlash against him, from the institution and from the media, is based in fear. Here is one of their own shaking off, in real-time, all that formality.”

Is The Crown seriously trying to convince us Prince Harry is an unsightly, socially awkward, jealous troll? Especially when there are records and videos of William—clearly more his father’s son than his mother’s—showing him as an angry, humorless, jealous, and aggressive boy, teenager, and man.

Why did the creators flip Harry and Will’s personalities here? Why are they portraying William’s relationship like a love story for the ages, and Harry as a Unabomber, as he appears, in the scene, in the last episode—looking through the window like he’s about to blow up the whole estate, with all the people in it?

Who ordered this hit job?

A chat between William and The Queen in Episode 9, ‘Hope Street’, is an evergreen:

Will: Things aren’t too great about Harry and Pa now.

Queen: Yes, I heard that. Something about a brawl at a local pub.

Will: More than one. And the wacky-baccy.

Queen: A what?

Will: The ganja granny. The Marijuana.

Will: So now whenever Pa goes away he insists Harry be sent to a family friend’s to be supervised, which Harry hates.

Queen: It’s not easy being a number 2, especially if you have lots of spirit.

Again, who ordered this blatantly obvious hit job on Harry?

I’m well versed in anything to protect the ruling party / anything to protect the Monarchy trope, but this still seems an all-out effort. Is Prince Harry, now that he’s out of Royal protocol—really this threatening to the Monarchy? Or is he threatening something entirely different, beyond our comprehension?

Since October, do you even believe anything being put out as genuine or transparent, rather than being used to propagandize you?

I've noticed a peculiar trend regarding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle since they stepped down from their royal duties. The tabloid media has positioned them as champions of “leftist values”, casting them as being against “tradition”, the monarchy, and "the norm"—essentially making them the poster couple for this narrative.

When you run into chatter about them on Twitter, and this usually comes from a right-wing, conservative folk, the tropes are almost identical—Harry and Meghan are friends with Obama and the left, they are working against America and for climate crises hoax, and they have been using their titles to interfere with American politics, the US constitution prohibits it, Harry came to our country to interfere with our freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, this man has its agenda, this woman has an agenda—and so on.

I always believed the Royal Family’s issue with Harry was primarily about how he made them appear—incapable, lazy, weak, unfeeling, unloving, and unremarkable. Prince Harry, much like his mother, disrupted the British Monarchy’s carefully crafted image simply by being himself.

But tabloid media went much further than portraying the Royals pale in comparison to the Sussexes. They politicized Prince Harry and his wife, casting them as symbols of a side they never explicitly aligned with.

Who’s paying for this?

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There’s just something about the low-stakes teen dramas that nourishes our soul. Is it a connection to our childhood, a reminder of how the shows we watched influenced our journey in this world? It’s comforting to me, even at this age; I don’t think I will ever outgrow a good TV triangle, and a bit of banter between the lockers. Dawson’s Creek, 90210, One Three Hill, My So-Called Life, I’m powerless to it. It’s my ultimate feel-good indulgence.

This summer, a new TV triangle rolled into town. The Summer I Turned Pretty, an adaptation of Jenny Han’s popular young adult novel. The title held promise, and with my old favorites having been rewatched countless times, I was eager for something new. Also, I was curious to see how this genre is evolving in the current era of television.

The premise of the series revolves around a girl named Belly Conklin, who spends her summers at a beach house with her mother and her mother's best friend's family. The plot focuses on her relationships with two boys, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher, who are part of her mother's best friend's family. The series delves into the dynamics between Belly, Conrad, Jeremiah, and other characters as they navigate their feelings for one another and the changes that come with growing up.

Pencil the summer of 2023 as The Summer I Got Cured. I can’t anymore. I’m too cynical for this. I’m tired. I’m also over the trope of the female character being portrayed as stable and self-assured while the male character is depicted as troubled and conflicted, leading to multiple seasons of unpacking his relatively ordinary problems. 

How much longer will we persist in this cycle? On both television and in real life? Dealing with the same issues as men while also shouldering the responsibility of guiding them toward stability needed to be equal partners with us?

Why was this genre so much more compelling in earlier times? The writing in The Summer I Turned Pretty is shallow and repetitive. Is this really all it takes to write a bestseller? I didn’t read the books, but given the popularity of them, I can’t believe the series reflects the writing from the novels.

The dialogue makes no sense: “Girls aren’t supposed to know if we are pretty or not. We’re supposed to wait for other people to tell us before we are allowed to feel it about ourselves,” - Belly says in one voiceover. Uhm, what?

Gone are the times of Pacey Witter, a multi-dimensional character written so well you can’t help but root for him from the moment he shows his face on screen.

His famous: “Just what would we be missing from the land of poorly scripted melodramas? Recycled plot lines, tiresome self-realizations. You throw in the occasional downward spiral of a dear friend, and maybe a baby here and a death there, and all you really got is a recipe for some soul-sucking, mind-numbing, ennui. And I for one could skip it.”

Or: “Wanting to kiss you? No. It’s sort of always there… like… white noise, or… the secret service or the threat of nuclear war, for that matter. Just somethin’ you get used to.”

Now, that was writing.

The Summer I Turned Pretty, fittingly for 2023, has a son who’s bisexual, a lesbian debutante, a non-binary cousin, an Indian and Black ex-girlfriend, and a bisexual love interest writer. Television today became a PowerPoint presentation, rather than a realistic storytelling. Representation is important, but realistically - what family has all that, in a single storyline? As a viewer, it felt to me a certain parameters needed to be checked, without spending enough time developing an authentic story.

Belly, the female lead is pretty strong and doing well for the material she’s been given. Conrad, the main love interest is solid, but someone told him he’s a young Leo, and he leans into this comparison a bit too noticeably – often fidgeting with his hair while striking the quintessential River/Leo brooding pose.

Jeremiah, the other brother's performance left me utterly unimpressed, bordering on unwatchable. His on-screen presence resembles that of a TikTok personality attempting to engage their audience with the kind of cringe-worthy antics that Luke Cook makes fun of.

How are we supposed to root for Belly/Jeremiah's relationship when this guy spent 6 episodes talking about kissing and hooking up with guys? He’s so hip and bi-sexual and all over the place at 19, then in one moment they turn him into a stable, viable other option for Belly, the same guy who didn't show any romantic interest in her, for half of the entire season - until she kissed his brother.

Not to mention, Belly didn't seem to be into him at all until he told her he liked her, out of the blue. It’s lazy writing. The premise of these teen dramas is to make these TV love triangles - believable.

The characters are single-dimensional, entitled, fickle. There is no connection, understanding, or sympathy displayed in the dialogue between the characters; it made me reminisce about The Vampire Diaries and how well it crafted its love triangle.

When Elena's choice between Stefan and Damon is driven by her initial meeting with Stefan, only to later remember she had encountered Damon first, thanks to his ability to make her forget - your heart starts pounding at the intricacies of the narrative as a testament to its exceptional storytelling.

I have yet to see a teen drama made today that can take on the nuance of Pacey and Joey, Angela and Jordan, Peyton and Lucas, and Elena and Damon.

Are today's TV teen dramas a reflection of young adults, or are young adults a reflection of the television dramas that shape them? The Summer I Turned Pretty, from its terrible one-liners to random playfighting, just doesn’t scratch the itch.

I promised myself I wouldn’t write about this. We are choking with Barbie opinion pieces. What is Barbenheimer anyway? Someone invented a name, a term, and we all just went for it? I’m aware it’s just a PR move to get us all back into the theaters, but it worries me how obedient we became. 

Why are we listening? How are these two movies even related? You can’t tell me there weren’t films worth seeing last year or so. 

I never really dreamt of Barbies. I was one. The last thing I wanted was another me to play with. I did use them to make clothes, try it on them, but I don’t have very many pleasant memories from that time. I used to cut my mother’s fabric to make the clothes, and I didn’t cut from the edge of the fabric, I did it from the middle; an illogical move fitting for a 12-year-old, and my mother wasn’t happy.

I remember her coming home from work, at 3.30 pm, on a dot every day. And every day, I was eager to show her the Barbie with the jacket I made and sewed myself, and she would say: “How could you cut the fabric from the middle, now you ruined it all, all you do is ruin everything … I just realized I forgot her exact speech here. I used to know it by heart and it was the source of my biggest frustration throughout my life, my mother not nurturing my artistic expressions, realizing what I made at 12 years old well surpasses the ruined fabric from Turkey or Italy.

I went on 30 years with an installation in my head - I’m the person who ruins things. The fact this is the first moment in my life I actually don’t recall her exact words of admonishment; it’s a win, friends. I finally won. I don’t care.

I MAKE things.

So, Barbies, yeah.

The movie.

Regarding this subject, reluctant to even add to the chatter, I listened more than I wished to form my opinion. 

I read opinion pieces, I read Instagram comments. My collection of favorites is, as follows:

“This doll was the most name-brand touchstone of female body shaming. From that to “Yasss Queen!”. Or is it a Trojan horse?”

“The movie addresses all those issues, it doesn’t gaslit audiences.”

Does it not?

“Barbie has been trying to rebrand their body image since 2016. This isn’t a 180 turn coming out of nowhere. Also, you can absolutely be skeptical of Mattel as a brand using Barbie to give this message, and still agree with the message itself.”

Well, the impact of the message depends on who’s sending the message.

“Women, through Barbie, have been put in a box and men have been put in the box, when both parties just want to be seen and heard and respected by each other for who they are.”

Box depth.

Victimhood strategy.

It isn’t working.

“Women have been a voting majority for over 50 years. White women are the largest voting block, but most of them repeatedly vote Republican. In 2016, white women voted for Trump over Hilary. In 2020 they increased their votes for Trump. In contrast, white men decreased their votes for Trump in 2020. Let’s vote differently and change the rules of the patriarchy in the process.”

Patriarchy?

Barbie just satirized what we all know.

Patriarchy is immature.

It’s infantile.

“The victimhood strategy hasn’t been working. It’s as if women keep looking towards the men to initiate the change.”

They won’t.

I watched Oppenheimer first, Barbie second, per directions, like a good pedestrian who follows orders. I was only going to spend 3.5 hours in the theater for Oppenheimer if Cillian Murphy’s face is attached to that scenario. Luckily it was.

Within 10 minutes of the movie, the deep programming started:

“Socialism is worse than Communism.”

Under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state; under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government.

You’ve been told socialism is a dirty word.

“Socialism is based on the idea that common or public ownership of resources and means of production leads to a more equal society.”

Equal = unwanted.

The same opportunities for everyone are offensive.

“Capitalism is better.”

“It creates people who actively exploit the world for their own benefit and are treated like kings.”

“Contrary to what socialists say, capitalism, with all its warts, is the preferred economic system to bring the masses out of poverty and to make them productive citizens in our country and in countries around the world.”

Warts.

How’s that poverty schedule working so far?

Cillian.

The Angelina of men.

Oppenheimer.

The power of vendetta, jealousy, pettiness.

JFK, always on the right side of consciousness.

"In England, Oppenheimer would have been knighted.”

I went on to research Oppenheimer’s life, and this part scared me. Shitless. Wikipedia says:

“Oppenheimer's ordeal signified that the postwar "messianic role of the scientists" was now at an end. Loyalty and security tests spread throughout the federal government. At these inquiries, federal employees were asked questions such as:

• There is a suspicion in your record that you are in sympathy with the underprivileged. Is that true?

• Have you ever made statements about the "downtrodden masses" and "underprivileged people”?”

There is a suspicion in your record that you are in sympathy with the underprivileged.

I’m frozen. Caring is suspicious? Offensive? You can’t work for the government if you are in sympathy with the unprivileged.

“Socialism is worse than communism.”

It went over our heads. How cruel America is to its citizens, how skilled it is in presenting the lack of empathy as a quality and any sense of decency, or caring as a weakness.

We’re back in theaters, money is rolling back in, imagination, life is your creation, come on, Barbie, let's go party!

I was convinced there is no story or a season out of Bridgerton universe that’ll seduce me more than Season 2 and the Viscount/Sharma bonanza, yet it did. ‘Queen Charlotte’ floored me. If you’ve already watched it, proceed; if you still didn’t - this article contains spoilers.

According to Deadline Magazine, the Bridgerton-verse is ruling Netflix. Queen Charlotte has amassed 307M hours viewed and is quickly making its way to becoming one of Netflix’s most popular series of all time. It’s expected to join both seasons of Bridgerton among Netflix’s most-watched series of all time.

Of. All. Time.

Hardly surprising; there is a special kind of imagination in all of Shonda Rimes' work. Magical, even. But magic is not in a fairytale of her tales, but in humanity with which she’s building these three-dimensional characters based on real figures, using historical events to parallel the issues of the society: 250 years ago, and today.

Why does her work speak so much to all of us? Because we think and we say we’re developing this society towards more opportunity, more equality, more inclusivity, but the progress has been minuscule. Because 250 years passed and we’re still having the same conversation over the same issues. Because Shonda Rimes writes absolute poetry in a form of a TV show.

The conversation Princess Augusta has with her court has everything. A reference, a stab, a triumph:

“She is very brown.”

“I did say she had Moor blood, ma’am.”

“You did not say she would be that brown.”

“But I did say she had Moor blood.”

“Very brown.”

“It is a problem. People will talk.”

“People will talk, it is a problem.”

“We have already made the trade deals. Can they be cancelled?”

“We cannot cancel the royal wedding on the day.”

“You might need to. It is a problem.”

“We are the Palace. The problem is only a problem if the Palace says it’s a problem. That is a fact. Is it not?”

“It is.”

In the times of the Meghan Markle fiasco at the hand of the Royal Family, the line is poignant - “We are the Palace. The problem is only a problem if the Palace says it’s a problem. That is a fact”. The year is 2023 and the Palace told you Meghan Markle is a problem. And you ran with it.

Princess Augusta is at the forefront of many triumphs in the form of Shonda Rimes’ words. Using patriarchy as her own weapon:

“What was the doctor’s name?” 

“I do not remember names, I am female.”

“Of course. Apologies.”

Bridgerton universe pleases us because it touches on handsome, smart men seeking strong female characters as equal partners. We enjoy it because we finally see racial inclusivity in an unusual setting. We celebrate someone else's turn to finally eat at the table. Call to arms for inclusivity of any kind has never been louder. Except for one. That one is still silent, and Shonda Rimes floored me by introducing it in Queen Charlotte.

Mental diversity. Or more popularly called - neurodiversity.

I refuse to think Shonda didn’t do this purposely and the real life of King George III just happened to align with her storyline’s timeline. That’s why she’s a champion. The humanity in her storytelling is unparalleled. 

I’m neurodivergent. My dopamine works differently than in neurotypical people. I’m bothered by a loud, repetitive, or sudden noise, smells, itchy clothes - it all spikes my cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone of stress. I don’t have a problem with it myself, I know how to manage my levels, but society has a problem with me. Society is designed in one size fits all principle, and it hates everyone that’s different. 

Society doesn’t want to understand, accept, accommodate.

It wants to change.

Watching King George in ‘Queen Charlotte’ and the brilliant Cory Mylchreest that portrayed him, as well as being too familiar with the story of a real King George III shattered me.

All that effort to change someone that’s different that you, instead of just finding ways to accommodate a person that’s different than you.

A word told by history is that the real “Mad King” George III wasn’t mentally ill, but had porphyria that negatively affected his nervous system. 18th-century treatments were cruel and useless, no one in his court had any compassion for his state, and his condition was made worse by his medicines. Doctors didn’t have the insight, science, or means to heal him. They knew little about mental illness and less about the nervous system; he was plied with so much arsenic - a trigger for porphyria, oftentimes physically forcing him to take it, causing him to completely lose his mind by the end of his life.

Before all this, all the way until his 50’s, George III was actually a popular and accomplished monarch. By then, he had ruled for twenty-eight years, presiding over a tumultuous era in British history. Early in his reign, England won the Seven Years’ War and became the world’s greatest colonial power.

But how can the King be different?

Should we nurture him, or poison him to normalcy?

The speech of King George in the series was a vocal point of the message Shonda Rimes gifted us with ‘Queen Charlotte’:

“Now I ask, is that all a king is? A royal stud-horse trotted out for the chosen mare? Or can I king rule in his own way through practical scientific study? Agricultural improvement? Tell me, what would the people prefer? A royal baby or a cheap bread?”

Being “normal” is getting tired. “Normal”, neurotypical people that wake up early and have a certain lifestyle are no better than people who do things differently. There’s some magic, creativity, honesty in the brains of neurodiverse people that constantly get choked out by the world who can’t seem to accept this brand of diversity.

The whole show we’re watching George trying to hide his condition. His mother trying to ignore it. His servants trying to mask it.

Two things in Queen Charlotte made me cry. First is when Charlotte says to her husband’s doctor:

“I care not for his sanity. I care for his happiness. I care for his soul. Let him be mad if mad is what he needs.”

And second, when Brimsley suggests - “we can put the screen in the garden to shield him when he needs to go out (naked)”.

Both scenes show just how much of a difference a one, only ONE understanding, kind, and loving person can do to a struggling brain.

Shonda Rimes took on racial inclusivity in the first two seasons without the stereotypes and puns. But what she did with exploring mental health and neurodiversity in Queen Charlotte shows such nuanced storytelling and exceptional human touch to an ongoing problem that, except for the medical treatments, did not evolve much since the 1800s.

We still fear differences. We’re still medieval about anyone that we don’t understand. Nor do most of us try to.

I once wrote - watching Bridgerton is participating in its imagination. I want to imagine a world, not just the screen, where people with different minds can be accepted, tolerated, accommodated and celebrated. Instead of feared, hated, misunderstood.

If we can watch a white Viscount dancing with his future brown Viscountess, what damage a King who likes to be naked and look at the stars can do to anyone?

On both sides of the screen.

In 2009, I wrote my first blog. It was the night of the Golden Globes when Tina Fey told her internet haters to suck it on a national stage, and the night Colin Farrell picked up the Best Actor for his role in In Bruges.

When he got on stage, he was sniffing a tad bit or his nose was running, and he said, also on national television, while picking up the award: “This is from the cold, not that other stuff it used to be.”

He came a long way from that night in 2009. Or, he actually made the beautiful circle of exactly where he needs to be. I met Colin in 2004, I did an event for him and you can read about that rollercoaster night in my first published piece.

I watch him differently from that night, having the experience of seeing how much of him he lets stay in his roles. The mannerisms, the way he talks so fast, yet his face has a stillness that shows every tiny drop of emotion; the talent of being nerdy and hot all at the same exact time.

Watching ‘In Bruges’ was a religious experience for me. If you know anything about the movie industry, you already know about the cult status that movie enjoys for decades now.

Colin Farrell teaming up with Brendan Gleeson, the brilliance of that pairing and how well they play off of each other, the lines, the banter, the John Lennon bit and how it plays into the narrative of the plot, but most or all the midget part - if you haven’t watched In Bruges, put it on your must-watch list, an asap one, and if you watched it, it probably was a while ago, I recommend you rewatch it again. People write articles about why In Bruges needs to be revisited again.

As you can tell by my introductory paragraphs, I want to see Colin Farrell lift that Oscar tonight.

When I heard about The Banshees of Inisherin and the repeat pairing of Colin and Brendan Gleeson, my heart skipped a beat. Not just that, but the same writer/director of In Bruges, Martin McDonagh - brilliance was expected, the gang was back together.

Brendan Gleeson, a powerhouse!

As you might as well heard, this year’s Oscars are dubbed - The Irish Oscars.

I’m excited.

Irish moviemakers/actors are one of the best storytellers in the business.

The Banshees of Inisherin is nominated for 9 Oscars. The most nominations for the Irish movie since Belfast and In the Name of the Father, which jointly have 7 nominations each.

Ireland has in total 14 nominations tonight, at the 2023 Academy Awards. Across the categories. But most importantly, a quarter of the acting nominees – Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan – are Irish. And The Quiet Girl/An Cailín Ciúin is the first Irish-language film to be nominated for an Oscar. JJ Abrams put it succinctly: “Seven million people on that island and all of them are nominated.”

There’s something specific about Irish storytelling that I can’t quite put into words. It’s more of a feeling. I’m a big fan of British storytelling but Irish is on a totally different level; it has a rare rawness, simplicity but recognition I don’t feel when I watch American television or even British.

It’s as if the Irish people are in love with words more than others. 

But what gets me the most is the simplicity. It’s always the hardest to create art that is simple; whether is a painting, a song, a movie, or a book - and no one does simple like the Irish. 

Just look at the books by Sally Rooney, an Irish author already dubbed her generation’s Shakespeare, a girl who wrote a cult piece Normal People at only 27 years old.

I have never in my life felt inspired, excited, and a tad jealous as when I read her book. To be able to construct sentences so simply yet so loaded with emotion, it’s an unbelievable, once in a generation talent.

Martin McDonagh, the writer/director of ‘In Bruges’ and ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, again, the simplicity. Uncomplicated plots with quality dialogues, references that we all relate to, smart narrative, soul, heart.

You can see how hard it is by trying to paint a painting you think is simple or try writing a few simple sentences that would have the same emotion as the ones you read someone else do.

You can’t.

Paul Mescal, an Irish actor that played the role of Connell in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’, also being nominated for his role in ‘Aftersun’. Only a few roles under his belt, and the first lead role earns him an Oscar nomination. To be a newcomer and act the way Paul does, it’s an experience and awe just to witness it.

Daniel Day-Lewis, dubbed as the greatest actor in history, and the only actor with 3 Best Actor Oscars; his storytelling, the roles he played, who can watch ‘In The Name of the Father’ and not be emotionally altered for life?

Colin.

I don’t know where to begin, how proud I am of his path and journey. Professionally and privately. Being that talented, beautiful can be a nuisance more than it can be an advantage, oftentimes; the way Colin Farrell transitioned from the hottest, messiest, dramatic thing to such stand-out, quality roles, I mean Penguin in ‘Batman’ before this but then ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’?

Wow.

To be fair, I did not manage to find time to watch all of the movies for all of the nominees. I did not watch ‘Elvis’. Everyone’s saying Austin Butler will probably take it home.

But Colin’s role in this movie where the brilliance of the plot is only about two friends where one decided he doesn’t want to be friends with the other anymore, and the quiet emotion of disappointment, rejection, confusion he played without saying a word, with his face expressions (with the help of his world famous eyebrows); if that’s not a Daniel Day Lewis-esque type of performance, storytelling, and existence in the creative space, then I don’t know what warrants an Academy Award, if not this.

Whatever happens tonight, Colin, it’s an honor.

I didn’t expect to be mesmerized by You on Netflix as much as I am. When a movie or a tv-show is made based on a book, I usually want to read the book first. I want to imagine the visuals of the characters, and places on my own, and not have the optics decided for me. Then, I’d like to see how someone else imagined it by putting it on a big screen.

I didn’t read You by Caroline Kepnes first, and I will forever regret it. I watched it first. Then read it. And even in that order, it was an unbelievable experience. Her work is something you can’t even put in words; so different than anything out there, this world she pulls you in, so original, like nothing you've ever read before. You read about this killer, but his social commentary is so on point, he says all the annoying things you are thinking about this world; you forget he kills people.

Even Stephen King was mesmerized by Caroline’s work: “Totally original. Never read anything quite like it. Hope you're working on a new one.”

Steven King never read anything like it.

Let that sit there!

The show’s creators, my all-time favorites Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti did the book great justice. I’m fascinated by how every season tops the last; a rare occurrence in television.

Why I love this show and find it so relevant, is the social commentary that is so unbelievably on point. There are so many issues on this planet, so much that’s annoying and despicable, and having someone else word it, exactly how you feel, feels nourishing to me.

The way Joe perceives all the cities he visits, and points out their nonsense is an absolute gift to watch. It makes you feel seen, acknowledged.

New York's social commentary was so brilliant. I didn’t know that can be topped, but Los Angeles, a city I lived in for 9 years and the one that gave me so much grief, the absolute mental hellhole - it was healing to watch. San Francisco was another level of being in-tuned with the grievances of the society you came into, juggling the murders that seem more pleasant and less hard than juggling annoying people in your proximity.

Disclaimer: This article contains no spoilers for Season 4 of You, Netflix.

Season 4 started in a way I thought for a split second might not be as good as the other seasons, mainly because the characters around Joe weren’t that interesting to me. A girl that was supposed to be the hottest one everyone wants is not hot at all. All the men that were supposed to be hot or studly or interesting - weren’t, his supposed love interest was not interesting or visually pleasing like others; everyone was just blah. I couldn’t connect to anyone.

But as the series progressed, I understood the build-up and slow character development of his supposed love interest to a such level, if you asked me who would I pick out of all 4 seasons to be his permanent love interest, the one he ends up with, it would be this one! This is how good writing is.

With Prince Harry whistleblowing the inner works of the Monarchy and people doubting if it should even exist when it doesn’t really benefit its subjects, and are more concerned about its own image; Season 4 is relevant again. It’s giving us another important social commentary: aristocracy, and what’s their use?

I would like if I can go through life where Joe Goldberg narrates every second of my life, even though I already walk around having similar begrudges about everything that’s shitty around me, minus the killing part.

Social commentary is priceless. There are my absolute winners.

New York - Season 1

He’s just pissed he’d gotta buy Salinger to feel respectable, when all he wants to do is eat Cheetos and jerk it to iPorn before washing it all down with a Dan Brown chaser.

You went to Brown where you majored in Lit. And minored in douchebags.

You teach a 6:30 class called Get Up N Flow. You caress the sweaty backs of bulimic dead-eyed real mommies of Soho, offering smiles and lies of encouragement.

After class, you head to your favorite cafe to write for the first time all day. But your life doesn’t cooperate. Your wealthy girlfriends have just now woken up, have nothing better to do than plan their next pointless yet Instagrammable night. Can we get real for a second you have questionable taste in friends.

Way to go Beck. Looks like a catch. Benjamin J. Ashby III, oh there’s three of them.

Greenwich-born, boarding-school bred. Two failed careers. Model. Oh, boy. And co-creator of a dating app that connects people through musical tastes called LoveHooks. Current CEO of Home Soda Artisanal Beverages. Motto - “Drink better by hand”, which makes no sense, but evokes a homespun quality that lines up with a guy who wears $600 Japanese sneakers. The hair, the privilege he tries to hide with retweets of Black Lives Matter. Not to sound judgey, but this guy is everything wrong with America.

All books add up to one essential truth. Which is, if your IQ is above a certain number, life is pretty much unbearable. And the number is not even that high.

It’s a great job, bro. “Bro”. You waste of hair.

She invited you to add texture. She wants to seem interesting. Like she hangs out with real folk.

I want to call you and tell you, but I can’t because there’s a traditional waiting period between every goddamn communication when you’re trying to date someone. I hate this generation.

Straight to voicemail. Worst three words in the English language.

These books are more alive, more worthy than most people I know.

Lynn is a dark cavern where conversations go to die.

I can metaphor circles around you all day long. I have great metaphors.

Los Angeles - Season 2

(LA was such an excellent study of Hollywood acting scene, lives “in-waiting”, and the whole wannabe celebrity culture)

Love has taken me to dark places. But Los Angeles has gotta be as dark as it gets.

Fortunately, an LA bookseller is practically an oxymoron.

Hell, I arrived. It’s called the San Fernando Valley. At the borders of which anyone with an architect’s degree is apparently denied entry.

(If you ever lived in this town, you would understand the sheer unbeaten brilliance of the above sentence.)

Well, I’m glad these people found each other. Look forward to never seeing them again.

Sea of sweaty thirsty Hollywood outsiders. Masquerading as actors, slash writers, slash directors to take the pain out of being nannies, slash baristas, slash disappointments. This room is self-fellating ouroboros of desperation.

You keep glomming onto people thinking that’s what’s gonna make you successful. Will can’t help you. You need to help you. Why don’t you just do the work?

I need to befriend somebody on the edge of fame. What better place to find nobody that think he’s somebody than the improv crowd.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He’s but the tip of a second-hand bullshit iceberg.

Forty, you know when people talk about having it? You don’t have it. It is a combination of talent & work ethic.

The air feels charged. Santa Ana winds. Anyone with a lick of common sense would get the hell out of this town before it’s too late. 

Out of pure, morbid curiosity. I know these dating apps are helpful and there are success stories, but how lazy and anti-feminist is this? Swipe yes or no based off of a glance at a retouched selfie? It’s barbaric. Bring me the days when a man would ride horseback for hours just to sit beside a woman for tea, without the promise of a graze of a single finger.

San Francisco - Season 3

Now that the baby is here. That white picket fence purgatory feels logical.

When that patented North California fog burns off, you can see for miles. Miles of noisy neighbors, peering suspiciously from behind lawn care equipment and video doorbells.

Of course, there is no bookstore in this particular circle of hell.

I’d imagine parenthood would feel like an essay by Nicholson Baker. Tiny moments made magnificent. Or maybe a novel by Louisa May Alcott. Hard work, but rewarding. Noble, even. Turns out, parenthood is Groundhog Day as written by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Her blog slash podcast slash brand, Heart-Shaped mistakes — Kill me. — is a mecca of humble bragging and superiority fronting as heard-earned wisdom.

Think about trying to keep a human infant alive, you can’t afford to think too hard about who you’re in the trenches with.

The libraries represent the very best of civilized society, the housing of egalitarian access to knowledge. It’s from separates us from the apes. 

You feel it too don’t you? That feeling when you first with someone. All the tension, possibility. I wish I could bottle it. It’s better than anything.

I don't believe in conspiracies, except when they're about the unfair advantages of being rich. Those are true.

The only thing worse than a kid’s party is a rich kid’s party.

You wanna be friends with people who can surprise you. That’s what I want in friends, to be inspired to wonder.

“Nothing bonds you for life like the altitude shits together.” - Why is male small talk so terrible?

I don’t want to spoil Season 4, Part 1 for you, but I have to finish with just a few gems.

London - Season 4

No love, no people, just books.

If something doesn’t grow, it rots. Especially when you have the means, you have to decide not to be the absolute worst.

I just want to be a person and not even a great one, just decent.

I need you, I don’t have time for boundaries.

Watching this series really just shows you; in life - in a sea of insufferable characters, and situations, it’s best to be a cynical person who reads books. Except for the killing part.

My friend Brandon often tells me - “Miranda, society peaked in the ‘90s”. And sometimes he tells me he’s jealous I got to be a teenager and a young adult then and do all the stupidly cool things people did in the ‘90s.

If you give me the option to be 20 right now, today, and erase the ‘90s from my memory and all my experiences, I would not take you up on that. Those times were priceless. You can’t have them.

When I say the society peaked in the ‘90s, I don’t mean all the misogyny and sexism without any accountability; I mean life without the social media, the pressures of competing online, and instead engaging in pure, uncomplicated fun.

When you calculate all the times humans inhabited this planet, from the beginning until today, and you add and subtract all the good things and the bad things each era represented - the ‘90s will win the competition.

Society peaked in the ’90s.

Pamela, a love story documentary made my heart flutter by reminding me of that time. She said it in the most sensible sentence:

“We just had fun back then, it was never a big curated experience, we were just in the moment.”

The simplicity of her as a human being and the softness she’s using to tell her nuanced life story shocked me. Threw the air out of my lungs, kicked me in the butt; I forgot this exists!

We’re so used to aggression, commenting, fighting, comparing, jealousy, hysterics about everything; the opposing opinions, people, events, and politics, and here comes this woman who had been done so wrong by so many, yet she speaks without urgency, anger, bitterness, even when confronted with let’s say Meghan McCain on ‘The View’ and keeps her opinion solid while this cow shrieks at her.

Look at this video. How does she do this? What kind of sorcery is it to be this calm in the face of shriekingly wrong in-your-face opinion?

I can’t even begin how instructive her documentary is. Enlightening even. On media practices, on life, love, abuse, family, redemptions, love and just keeping your heart pure.

This woman is a phenomenon.

I can’t pin it down, but I’ve never seen a woman that can be unbelievably sexual but also not threatening (possibly Bellucci). I spent the last 4 days scooping the internet, all of it, every article written about her newly released documentary & memoir; out of all the comments on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and under the articles - I haven’t found one hateful comment about Pamela.

Not not many, or some slightly negative. NONE.

How is this possible?

There’s NO woman on this planet that guys find incredibly sexy, but women don’t find threatening.

Only women like Angelina - like Angelina. Everyone else, mostly the minivan majority hates her.

How is this possible? I’m not talking just now, apparently, it was like that in her prime too.

Pure heart. I have no other explanation.

But mostly I think it’s because Pamela is not trying to be anything, she’s just being.

And she made me yearn. Badly. I felt almost palpable pain reminding myself of her life, nostalgic about those uncomplicated times. And she made me pine about the real stars from the ‘90s, compared with the social media influencer abuse we’re subjected to today. 

As Nina Metz puts it into words:

“I was struck by how committed she is during rehearsals. It’s a reminder that Anderson’s fame precedes the social media era of influencers who get by with neither talent nor charisma. She has the stuff. And by the time she takes the stage, you’re rooting for her — and she’s good. Really good.”

She just IS.

A big part of Pamela’s documentary is a love letter to Tommy Lee. I’m conflicted about this.

Here’s how. I love Tommy Lee. I think he is the most beautiful human to walk this earth, and the combination of his eyes, brows, nose, and lips - when I see it, it feels like home. I’m weak on Tommy and I’m conflicted.

I grew up obsessed with Pam and Tommy. First and foremost visually. He is everything. She is everything. Blondes are not usually my taste, but her, it was just some unexplainable magic. The teeth, lips, something about her face speaks the American dream that I wanted to see in person, when I was growing up. His and her face is homey to me.

Together, it’s something you don’t often see.

I want to picture them old with a few teeth missing, on a bench somewhere, tattooed, age 80, talking shit.

But do we need it?

Does she need it?

If you watched the doc, you know what the focal point of the documentary is.

"I really loved your dad for all the right reasons and I really don’t think I’ve loved anybody else.

I think I’d rather be alone than not be with the father of my kids. I think it’s impossible to be with anybody else, but I don’t think I could be with Tommy either. 

It’s almost like a punishment.”

This is where I’m conflicted.

The assault. He assaulted her, and we should say how brave she is to leave him. No one should take abuse, especially with a 7-month-old child in their arms.

But I dug more into it, since my memory records a slight something else there, from back then. I knew there was something else to the story.

Tommy Lee pushed her and apparently kicked her from behind. She told Howard Stern she later found out he was on steroids, trying to bulk up for her, since he was always so skinny. Aggression, blank eyes = steroids. Not an excuse, an explanation.

She did not know this at the time. When he went to jail she found needles in the house and concluded he was on heroin. She picked up her kids, no explanation, no working on anything, “no gray area” as she said in the documentary, and filed for divorce.

The time when they actually were able to communicate in a civilized way, probably came much, much later. And she got the whole picture when it was possibly too late.

I’m not condoning his behavior. No sane person is.

But Pamela takes a little blame here too. Known as a person who doesn’t think too hard and just up and leaves; on one hand - I’m impressed she chose the happiness of her kids over her own happiness, afraid this might happen again. Many mothers don’t do this, they are desperate for a guy and they ruin their kids’ lives.

But also, and this is my confliction, what if she stayed? What if she stayed a minute and let him explain, trying to work on it?

All his interviews in the aftermath have the same manifesto - “I wish I was given a chance.”

You can see the regret on her face that paints someone feeling part of the blame.

Of course, we all know they got back together again and even married in 2008-2010, so a second chance was taken, but was the mutual blame, one for the assault, one for leaving - too much to get over?

No one will ever know but them.

And not sure if the Tommy Lee of recent years is worthy of her today.

Getting pissed off she mentioned him in the 2018 interview with Piers Morgan and tweeting something dubious about her which got him decked by Brandon Lee, his son?

Brandon’s comment on his dad’s Instagram, over being aggravated about the lack of a Father’s Day message, is so poignant to me:

“Someone like you couldn’t raise a man like me.” 

Brandon is a gem.

We like men raised well like Brandon.

Although the idea of Pam and Tommy filled the nostalgia in all of us, the documentary’s love letter might just be about her sons, and not Tommy.

After being undermined by men all her life, her sons ultimately became the protectors she never had. Her sons became what Tommy Lee should have been to her. Righteous. Protective. Kind. Supportive. 

How big the power of Pamela Anderson is, shows in all the love and adoration she had been receiving all over the world. Her energy and charm at 55 are so overwhelming, it’s sad to be reminded of Kim Kardashian and Megan Fox copying her style but having no energy or aliveness of Pamela to pull that off. 

At the documentary’s premiere, when her son teases her about falling in love so often, she stops him softly but authoritatively and says - “Wait, wait, yes, it is one of my favorite thing to fall in love, but I’m always in love, I have the most romantic life right now, and I’m alone. You can set flowers on the table, you can light candles and write poetry, you don’t have to have somebody in your life, you just have to live a romantic life.”

Lots of writers did a piece on ‘Pamela, a love story’ focusing on men in her life degrading her and not getting her seriously.

I don’t often take that spin because it’s not much to say, we know the damages of the patriarchy.

I’m more annoyed with women, and how they treat other women. Being “attacked” by said patriarchy is different to me than being undermined, insulted, disregarded, or done harm by other women. I feel like the attacks from the outside never sting as much as the ones from the inside.

There’s only one unpleasant thing that came out of Pam’s telling her story, and that came with courtesy of Tommy Lee’s current wife.

In his colorful life, Tommy Lee was married to:

Heather Locklear - legend

Pam Anderson - legend, icon

Brittany Furlan - Vine girl

Brittany found offense at Pam releasing her story.

First, she tweeted: “You know what’s good for your mental health? Living in the present.”

Then she addressed the public on TikTok letting her 16 followers know she was doing ok amidst another woman telling her life story.

Then she recorded a video, in Pam’s 90’s Filter on TikTok mocking Pam while insinuating she would be happy if Brittany died.

And finally, she leaked Pam’s messages to Tommy to a TikTok gossiper who made it public.

I’m very familiar with this retroactive jealousy.

I can not for the life of me understand women who date guys that were in huge, iconic relationships before them and can’t seem to comprehend what they’re following up. Women who are bitter for not being with those guys, in their prime, with huge media interest, jealous of a woman that was there before them.

Can you erase the past?

Why would you want to?

Why can’t someone’s past be respected, as the present and future?

You can be any woman. You are any woman. You are a young girl, you are an older woman, you are an old woman, you are depending on someone and you are independent, you are ALL women.

Never forget that.

Tides can turn, and probably will; you will at some point in your life be what you despised or insulted once.

I was in that kind of relationship, I won’t post about it, google it if interested, and my ex-boyfriend’s next girlfriend couldn’t take it. But what’s not to take? It was so foreign to me, I thought he was joking when he told me “she just doesn't like me”.

This is the conundrum that gets me, the audacity: when we were together, I helped him get the biggest acting role of his life where he made tons of money. I got him that Hollywood life, papers, and the ability to be where he wouldn’t otherwise be.

His new girlfriend, later wife got to enjoy the life he has because I helped him get it. You don’t like me, but ya like the life?

She forbade him to talk to me, got someone to erase the information about our relationship from Wikipedia, and made him throw away boxes of our magazines together. He even told me she told him how she’s pissed I got to be with him in his prime, and not her.

What is wrong with us women?

I can’t really understand if this jealousy is founded on actual fear, or if it’s just instinctive? Do these women really fear losing this guy? Makes no sense to me, because if I wanted to stay with him, she wouldn’t be there.

Doesn’t this realization solve the problem? Or that’s exactly what’s making them insecure?

Because if you ask me, I can have lunch with them both, and help feed their future 4 kids chicken and fries.

Brittany just showed the power of Pamela, at 55 years old, having a homely girl of 36 years of age shitting her pants if she’ll possibly reach for Tommy.

If I was Pamela, I would steal him, just because of this raging disrespect, play for a few days and drop him around the corner.

(Tommy I would never drop you this is just for the sake of the article!)

I want to continue my 2023 in the soft-spoken, uncomplicated but strong Pam style.

And while I do that, someone better cast Pamela in White Lotus, season 3, as Tanya’s long-lost sister who came to investigate her murder while messing up everyone’s damn lives!

It took me a while to start watching The White Lotus. Well, two months. Not exactly a punishable offense; one simply doesn’t have time to watch everything, and the sheer volume of content out there is overwhelming. Too much noise. And writing and Netflix don’t exactly make the best pair.

But when so many people praise a single show, day in and day out, I eventually gave in. The verdict was in: take a day off and binge.

I was jealous.

Sometimes, I watch or read something and feel flustered by the sheer amount of talent I've just witnessed. The writing is impeccable—there isn't a single scene that makes you feel there's a gap in the storyline, nor a plotline that leaves you thinking it could be more layered or believable.

The level of focus required for this type of writing, combined with the intricate character development and seamless storytelling, is nothing short of astounding.

I felt as if I needed to bow, at the end of season 2.

Mike White, the show's creator, made me feel a sense of jealousy at his writing skills.

When I heard the series was a societal satire, I became curious about how one writes a piece that doesn’t come off as clownish or, worse, turn into a comedy that undermines the seriousness of the issues it seeks to depict.

And it wasn’t. The exaggeration was just enough to draw attention to the subject.

The first season, which was my least favorite, was a satire about the sudden struggles faced by white cis males—and the white population in general—due to an abrupt and rude trend of inclusiveness.

I don’t want to spoil too much of the plot, in case some of you haven’t watched it or finished it yet. But what always amazes me, whether in literature, film, or a series, is how social issues, their hierarchy, and structure are often best told through satire.

Character Mark’s speech, about the white/rich privilege:

“It’s humanity, welcome to history, welcome to America. I mean what are we going to do? Nobody cedes their privilege, that’s absurd. It goes ahead the human nature. We’re all just trying to win the game of life. How are we gonna make it right? Should we give away all our money? Huh? Just what I thought. Maybe we should just feel shitty about ourselves all the time, for the crimes of the past. Wear a hair shirt and not go on vacation?”

If it had been written any other way than satire, it would have come across as preachy or tone-deaf. To strike the exact tone this sensitive subject requires—especially in these challenging times where it’s easy to miss the mark—what a talent.

Then there’s Paula, the only character not filtered through the satire lens. She serves as a counterpart to the unaware, and she completes this debate with just one short sentence:

“Maybe it’s someone else’s turn to eat.”

Season 2 was mine. I felt it deeper. In Season 1, it was obvious what was wrong and who was wrong. In Season 2, everyone is wrong. The first season dealt with class. This season deals with “masculinity”, as reported by NY Times, “masterpiece on misogyny”, as reported by Elle, and a “white knighting toxic masculinity”, as reported by Popsugar.

I saw masculinity not as the centerpiece, but as a tool to showcase gender politics and flawed femininity. I couldn’t say with certainty that the show’s creator, Mike White, didn’t stage toxic masculinity and misogyny to illustrate that women, like men, are flawed and will also use their position of power if they have one.

Yes, I get it. The Di Grasso family, consisting of a grandfather, father, and son, depicts the entire spectrum of generational misogyny—“subtly rebranded but ultimately still in sync”. However, women are not morally superior simply because they are women.

As said by Bert Di Grasso, the grandfather: “Women aren’t all saints Albie. They’re just like us.”

Popsugar was also on my wavelength here:

“While it’s terribly ironic that this line comes from the male chauvinist, the sentiment is based in equity. Being placed on a pedestal simply due to one’s gender can be dehumanizing.” 

I don’t mind this narrative. Women are not always victims, and in Season 2, the sexual politics and power dynamics were perpetrated by both sexes.

As said by Rebecca Cox, for Elle:

“Perhaps White’s message, then, is not in the dangers of misogyny, but that ultimately female sexuality, particularly when weaponized against misogynists, trumps any other currency of power.”

Sexuality is the currency of power. Women may not have as many forms of power as men, but it’s the strongest kind—and often the only currency women have.

This truth is reflected in Tanya’s storyline. She’s wealthy and attractive, yet no longer young, making her less desirable. Despite being worth half a billion dollars, she holds no power because her sexual appeal, the currency she has, has faded. Instead of occupying a position of power due to her vast wealth, she becomes a target because of it.

Men have multiple currencies of power, and they can last them a long time. Women have fewer, and their shelf life is much shorter.

It’s short but it trumps any other currency of power.

As seen in the storyline of Valentina, the hotel manager, who uses her position of power to remove the staff member flirting with the object of her desire and reassign them to another role, or hires the new object of her affection while firing a piano player she has no romantic interest in. She wields her power unapologetically, much like men do.

Then there’s Harper, who has an issue with her husband turning down a hooker during a wild, drunken party but sees no fault in flirting with his friend and going to a hotel room with him, where they "just kissed"—repeating, “it was nothing” and “I was drunk.” Meanwhile, Ethan’s actions mirror hers, but he doesn't waver.

Desire is the core of Season 2, and every character believes their desire justifies their actions. Desire and sexuality become the ultimate altar of self-justification, where everyone perceives the damage done to them as wrong, while their own desires shield them from accountability to their partners or any promises made.

Portia, who owes nothing to Albie, is unbothered by dismissing him in favor of a more adventurous partner, distracting herself from her own life.

Albie, with his “gender is a construct” and “I’m a third-wave feminist” mindset, believes that listening to and understanding women guarantees their affection, only to end up paying for it.

Everyone is at the service of desire.

There’s a saying about love and sexuality that I’ve been repeating to anyone who will listen, as though I’m passing along a secret that could solve everyone’s love lives; 2008-2014 TV Show Sons of Anarchy:

“Men need to be loved. Women don’t need to be loved, women need to be wanted.”

And today, both in the series and in real life, everything revolves around being wanted—by both men and women. Countless texts, constant attention on social media; all we seem to want is attention and to be desired.

What is love, and how do we measure it?

When Harper spoke to Ethan in their room, and he proudly said, “But I love you,” her response was, “Yeah, whatever. But do you want me? Are you even attracted to me?”

Ultimately, we all just want to be wanted.

Last year, someone I met spent the entire summer telling me, “We need to go to this place in Sicily called Taormina next summer!” This was months before the show aired, and I kept asking, “Why there, of all places?” He said, “It’s the most amazing place on earth, and we need to go there and have sex on every single corner. It’s the place you take someone you desire.”

I don’t see this as a coincidence, but I do see how desire is this profound force that seems to measure our worth more than love itself. Your mother loves you. Your siblings love you.

But what you really want is desire.

Desire is a currency of worth. Sexuality is a currency of power.

In this context, the two Italian prostitutes made the most sense to me and were the most pleasurable to watch.

All the other guests—wealthy but aimless—spent their vacation in Sicily, and instead of exploring, they all ate at the same hotel restaurant, day after day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Their eating habits annoyed me. It felt too Dickensian for an Italian vacation.

Vox said it beautifully:

“They congregate around the breakfast buffet — fruit and pastries — every morning. They do not want to experience a place in its real state; they want to experience that place as the hotel, a golden cage. A cage that isn’t meant to keep them in, but rather keep everyone else out.”

Money is often spent on those who least know how to enjoy it—or is this just a platitude we tell ourselves, believing we would know how to savor it better if we had it?

Lucia and Mia, on the other hand, have a clear goal, a plan, a tactic, and the currency to execute it.

In Elite Daily’s words:

“Mia and Lucia’s friendship remained one of the healthiest, purest relationships of the entire show. There’s an uncomplicated warmth and camaraderie between them that’s hardly replicated among any of the more privileged characters, and despite their moral grayness, it’s easy to wind up rooting for them.”

The message I ended up with is that money and opportunity, in this case, equate to cluelessness (Tanya, Albie, Ethan), while honest struggle and the hustle cultivate awareness and vigilance.

Albie’s naïveté—thinking a woman selling anything sexual in 2022 still has a pimp and falling for a damsel-in-distress narrative, while claiming to be so in touch with the oppression women face—makes him the most ambiguous character of all.

We don’t have to agree with what they’re doing, but they are showcasing the empowerment of young women who are choosing their own destinies, even if that path is through transactional sexuality.

By Newsweek:

“Mia and Lucia have been immortalized as embodiments of the modern feminine ideal: empowered, glamorous and fiercely ambitious, sending the message to young women that transactional sexuality is empowering — smart even, and the fastest route to an aspirational, enviable life.

White Lotus does not cast moralistic aspersions on these hustling, cool-girl sex workers; instead, it attempts to objectively examine the exhilaration and moral ambiguity in situations where transactional sexual relationships are the norm.”

The White Lotus season 2 shows us that sex is even more powerful than money.

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