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9 Nov, 10 tweets, 2 min read
Surprised I haven’t seen anyone note just how eminently cancellable Disney’s Little Mermaid cartoon is

It’s coming. Feels like the easiest prediction in the world
why is the crab doing a Jamaican accent? huh?
oh gee what are all these caricatures they gave the sea creatures in some of these dance numbers? what’s that about?
ugh so Triton basically acts like owns his daughters and showcases them and their beauty for…what exactly? patriarchy and heteronormativity? yeah that’s what I thought
there’s the casual violence - the chef and the crab. this is for kids?
the girl basically gives up her entire life and culture and people to go live with an ‘80s-cute 20 year old. she has no interests or talent aside from ‘singing’ (=making others happy) it’s all so..ugh I just can’t
seriously almost all the sea creatures are coded-Caribbeans. they, their interests, lives & internal thoughts are all subordinated to this vapid love story b/t these (to them) foreigners. full-on reinforces imperialist attitudes, completely retrograde, was this made in the ‘30s?
at the very least I give it inside of 3 years before Disney+ slaps their ‘these ideas and stereotypes were wrong then and they’re wrong now’ warning at the front
Ariel isn’t a ‘strong woman’ in any meaningful way. I guess there’s there’s the part where she pulls out the prince from drowning, that’s something. But she’s female yet doesn’t kick ANYONE. How can they still just show this move to people?
Possibly the only saving grace for this movie is if someone could come up with a theory that the sailors having a fireworks celebration/party/dance near the start were secretly meant as queer-coded by the transgressive writers/animators. That’d be something I guess

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More from @soncharm

soncharm Profile picture
10 Nov
A repeated problem I have with the past 2 years of policy is that policies are hastily thrown in place and then reactively ‘defended’ by Smart People who *invoke the possible existence of an argument for them* rather than actually making that argument.
Lockdowns: wait why is this worth it? what justifies any of it? where can I find anyone putting forth something resembling, say, cost-benefit analysis?

Smart People: ‘well surely Lockdowns are justified *in some cases*. are you sure it *wouldn’t* pass a cost-benefit test?’
Vaccine mandates: wait, these vaccines don’t seem to suppress transmission that much, & to have a more-than-normal side-effect risk profile. What’s the argument for surmounting the presumption against forced medication?

Smart People: ‘surely vaccines can be mandated *sometimes*’
Read 6 tweets
soncharm Profile picture
10 Nov
more interesting/larger question is why e.g. European health authorities seem able to make these kinds of decisions with some nuance, and even reverse themselves, but in the US it’s all-or-nothing: vax good or vax bad

are US health authorities just more insecure people?
what set of incentives and constraints do US health authorities perceive themselves to face that leads them to make all these decisions as clunky one-size-fits-all things, and then, act like they have to double down endlessly (e.g. on masks) instead of allow for further thought?
The ‘best’ spin I can put on this is that it’s a symptom of the complexity and diversity of the country, that CDC etc. just sees themselves as having very little ‘natural’ authority or sway with a large % of the population, and is very conscious of that, affects their messaging
Read 4 tweets
soncharm Profile picture
9 Nov
While I roll my eyes at ‘this shouldn’t have been Politicized!’, it is indeed a bad dynamic for all concerned that being full-on Covid-Taliban is somehow coded D and opposing Wuhan-virus maximalism is only coded R.
One immediate problem is that this might lead to some ‘backlash’ style electoral victories for Rs but of course many/most of those Rs will be disappointments who won’t accomplish anything and this will muddle all these issues
It’s also a HUGE missed opportunity for Ds! Ok I am a lifelong righty wacko, but opposing Covid-Talibanism is literally the ONLY thing I care about anymore. I’d vote for the most lefty progressive socialist D you can name if I thought they would be the one to unmask children.
Read 4 tweets
soncharm Profile picture
8 Nov
gonna start pretending to everyone i know that I’m sincerely a big fan of that ‘crazy like Applebee’s’ song, see what happens
‘oh man the Applebee’s song I love this song’

and then I literally start the dance (I assume there’s a dance). Which I’ll actually be good at cuz I’ve studied the choreography & practiced for hours

but all as a joke of course! it’s all tongue in cheek
also i start rattling off trivia about the Applebee’s guy. ‘Did you know he went to the same high school as (the nephew of some famous college football assistant coach, or golfer, or whatever)?’

all of which I will have studied

(as a joke).
Read 5 tweets
soncharm Profile picture
17 Oct
The current bubbling-up vaccine-mandate issue is one of those moments that brings a permanent social fact to the forefront, which is there is some everpresent, solid core of people that Just Like The Concept Of Mandating Things (in principle).
It isn’t actually that they are so much in favor of *this mandate*, of *this vaccine*, by the institutions doing the mandating, per se. I mean, most of them are lukewarm, at best.

It’s that - in their minds - mandating things has just GOT to be ok, sometimes.
That’s the primary motivation that I can detect, anyway: *establishing the general principle* (that Mandating Is Okay, Sometimes). Because what frightens them more than anything - even more than some particular mandate being wrong - is if Mandating (As A Thing) is discredited.
Read 14 tweets
soncharm Profile picture
13 Oct
77% of eligible people in the US (12+) have received at least a dose of a vaccine.

Why are people still scheming like mad to get more vaccinated? What sea-change exactly do you imagine this would bring about, even if attainable, which it isn’t?

I guess I just don’t understand
Honestly, we don’t even need to get into some heavy discussion of rights or whatever

We just need to confront the more immediate issue which is that there’s simply *no point* in pushing this thing so hard from where we already are

It’s not gonna do anything meaningful
If you disagree explain it to me

‘If we get 77 up to X, then ___ will happen’

What is X and what goes in that blank

There simply is no need to chase this asymptote. It’s a total waste of energy, political capital, and social cohesion.
Read 7 tweets

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