1. Do you want to commit a perfect crime? Here's one tactic: you take a natural catastrophe like the pandemic & use it as a cover for a destructive act: i.e. the media giants are currently using Covid as an excuse to kill theatrical moving going.
2. Media giants like Disney, Warner & Netflix clearly want streaming to become the dominant mode of experiencing movies, with theater-going reduced to being one subsidiary "platform" among many. There's also the hope of replacing movie chains with new studio run chains.
3. The war on movie theaters is being conducted on many fronts. There's also Disney making life hard for rep theaters by not allowing them access to its vast catalogue (which now includes Fox). The goal is to squeeze out alternative venues.
4. Well, what's wrong with movie theaters dying off or becoming secondary? Isn't the main thing the content of the movies? Why not let people enjoy movies on home network, on laptops, on cell phones?
5. Like McLuhan, I think the media is the message: that the central movie going experience of immersive viewing with strangers is very much what movies are: it's the experience of being in a collective waking dream.
6. With some help from @aoscott, @ManohlaDargis, @JoSchneller, the late P. Kael, & the late M. Farber, I try to lay out the case for theatrical movie going: thenation.com/article/cultur…

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More from @HeerJeet

5 Dec
In terms of actual criminal justice reform & police reform measures, what counts is local elections. That's where power is. And reformers have been winning big -- in fact much better at winning local elections than mainstream Dems have of late.
On reason I get annoyed at people lecturing criminal justice reform & police reform movements on electoral politics is that these movements have been playing the electoral politics game very well where it counts: in local elections.
The other area where criminal justice reform people have been very good at politics is actually getting buy-in from some Republicans. Crucial in a polarized democracy. Again, the movement people are better it this than the so-called pragmatists.
Read 4 tweets
24 Nov
1. This letter of recommendation to Harvard in 1936 seems strange to our eyes but it follows a common form of that time used for Jewish students -- assuring the school that the applicant is the right type of Jew ("one of the outstanding products of that Race.")
2. Peter Novick, in his truly magisterial history of American historical profession "That Noble Dream," quotes many such letters. The subtext is usually: "yes, he's a Jew but one of the good ones."
3. In a fine footnote (always read his footnotes!) Novick rightly notes the moral ambiguity of these letters. The writers wanted to help the Jewish applicants get into programs so had to address anti-Semitic concerns, but in do so replicated anti-Semitism.
Read 6 tweets
23 Nov
This bad cold I have isn't being helped by me constantly screaming about how badly the House of Windsor treated Princess Diana. I'm going to have to rethink things.
In 1980, the House of Windsor tricked a naive, star-struck 19 year old into a fraudulent marriage. She thought her husband would love her. He (and the family) knew the marriage was for show & his heart would remain with his mistress. They destroyed that woman's life.
The House of Windsor pushed for a marriage based on 1) lies (his heart was with Camilla) 2) patriarchy & sexual double standard (they needed a virgin) 3) eugenics (she had the right "blood-lines). Truly monstrous people.
Read 5 tweets
23 Nov
1. One thing we haven't seen in election post-mortems is an acknowledgement that saying and doing the right thing can cost you votes, but is still the right thing to do. I think that's particularly true of Biden's handling of climate and covid.
2. In the second debate Biden said, as president he would "transition from the old industry." Trump jumped on that & said "Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?" I'm sure Biden's words cost him. But they were the right thing to say.
3. On Covid, Biden's bleak message ("a dark winter") likely cost him votes. But it was also honest and better leadership than Trump's everything is going to be great soon.
Read 5 tweets
16 Nov
1. Trump's refusal to acknowledge defeat, his stirring up of conspiracy theories, his incitement of street goons like the proud boys, his call for Republican state legislators to choose electors -- all of these amount too a coup, albeit a typically half-assed Trumpian one.
2. Trump's half-assed doddering like doomed coup shouldn't blind us to the other ways he has undermined democracy -- in particular by his lazy governance which has empowered factions within the national security establishment.
3. This Defense One story deserves more attention than it got. Trump's Syria Envoy boasting about how they were able to deceive him into keeping troops in Syria. Very typical story of Trump era: an addled president empowering national security state.
Read 4 tweets
16 Nov
Looks like we're heading towards an Avignon Presidency. As long as none of the military shift allegiance (and I don't think they will), it'll be incredibly funny.
I mean on January 20th, Biden will be sworn in and have the government on his side. Power will be divested from Trump but he'll keep pretending to be president. Maybe set up an alternative White House at Mar-A-Lago.
Trump will hold his rival inauguration in some red state stadium. Newsmax will talk about how it is bigger than Biden's inauguration (which might be true because Biden will have a low key affair because of Covid). Really a win-win.
Read 4 tweets

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