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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35893 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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I recently watched "The Outfit," which was a pretty well done mystery/thriller set amongst 1950's Chicago gangsters. Also an Amazon production.

Late in the film a group that had previously only been referred to by name shows up, and they're black. The characters are still interesting, central to the plot, well-acted, etc. But knowing Amazon's diversity rules, it kind of breaks the fourth wall. I know of no notable group of black Chicago mobsters during this era. I do know about Amazon's rules. So, this probably wasn't an independent artistic decision, but rather the result of those rules.

It's like watching R-rated movies edited for TV, or movies that are dealing in very adult material but hold back because they want a PG-13 rating. It takes you out of the story momentarily while you contemplate the production process.

I’m sympathetic to this view, but I’d just try not to worry about it too much. My take is that studios have far more irritating practices than diversity quotas.

I watched Unforgiven (1992) yesterday. Morgan Freeman showing up doesn’t make much historical sense there either. However, perhaps these kind of casting choices have been going on longer than it feels like and isn’t actually that new of a liberal movement.

"Woke madness has gone so far that they are now ahistorically portraying black people as criminals" is certainly a new twist.

It's almost as if people can object to wokism without being racists.

Maybe I'm used to it, as it doesn't really break the fourth wall for me. But at some point we're going to have Idris Elba signing the Magna Carta.

Idris Elba can act, so I would roll with that 😀

Whoever is playing Arondir is as wooden as his cuirass.

A specific type of criminal from a specific time period, rather. Don't be dense.

A specific type of criminal from a specific time period, rather. Don't be dense.

Don't get personal like this. People who interpret things differently than you do are not dense (or if they are, you need more evidence than just "You interpreted something differently than I do").

I have to say I agree that the parent comment was "asking for it" in this case. It doesn't read as genuine misunderstanding but as cutesy gotcha masqueraded by thinly feigned incomprehension.

I'm not going to pretend he's too dumb to know what he was doing.

Okay, so you're doubling down with an assertion that you know for a fact someone is being "dense" or dishonest because you interpret things differently.

I know this whole BDE thing is part of the persona you are cultivating here, but it has also earned you the distinction of being one of the most frequently-warned posters in our short time here, and may soon earn you the distinction of being the first person banned other than for outright trolling.

Stop being a dick.

I'm not going to take back what I said. If that means you have to ban me, go ahead. It's more of a headache for you than me.

I'm not asking you to take back anything. It's nice on the rare occasions that someone realizes they were wrong and acknowledges it, but that almost never happens. What I'm asking you to do is amend your behavior going forward, and spelling out the consequences if you refuse to do so.

I understand and respect your commitment to this community's historical traditions; it has always been more important to come down on calling out bad faith than to come down on the bad faith itself. Nerd spaces seem doomed to this particular dementation.

As someone who also honors the traditions of his people, however, I must insist on not letting such things fly. If our traditions must conflict, I resign myself to the tragic consequences.

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A quick skim of this paper would seem to suggest there was, indeed, black organized crime in Chicago in this period.

A paper saying it's arguing against the consensus view that there wasn't a meaningful black presence in the mafia. Perhaps it's even correct! I'm skeptical, but I don't know. I also don't care -- I just wanted you to stop being dense, and not deliberately conflate "black criminality" with "black mafioso" as if they weren't obviously very different things.

I don't know anything about a consensus view, but there were definitely some famous black gangsters in New York at the time, it would be almost surprising for there to be none in Chicago.

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