Culture

There is no tenet of good writing simpler or more repeated than “show don’t tell.” So it’s surprising in retrospect that so many people who trade in words (and appear to take doing so seriously), people like J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, and Gloria Steinem, attached their names to a letter published in Harper’s on Tuesday that was as void of content as it was open. The subject of immediate controversy and palpable disdain, “ A Letter on Justice and Open Debate ” bemoaned “a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity” as a consequence of our culture’s social-justice reckoning. It fretted over lost editorial and research jobs and withdrawn books as a result of “calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought” by the greater public. “We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist …

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The deadly, ongoing bushfires in Australia have been burning for months. Around Christmas, however, the glittering orange flames grew closer to the community of East Gippsland in eastern Victoria, home to more than 46,000 people. Alice Pepper, an indigenous community organizer with the Gunaikurnai people, among them. Her people are the traditional owners of this land, and some 3,000 indigenous people still call this region home. When the fires came, they fled, just as their ancestors had nearly 200 years ago when European colonizers arrived only to massacre and separate families. Advertisement “Some of our people have lost their homes and everything in the fires, which has been very traumatic,” Pepper wrote in a statement to Earther. The bushfires have become a traumatic event for the entire country as the country’s iconic wildlife suffers and the landscape turns black . But for the Aboriginal peoples, the fire crisis is especially traumatizing. …

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Everyone loves Netflix’s The Crown , with its fascinating accounts of the behind-the-throne drama and funny foibles of the British royal family, but U.K. culture secretary Oliver Dowden is worried that everyone is putting too much stock in the creative liberties that Netflix takes with the series. Like, Margaret Thatcher? Lady Di? Queen Elizabeth II? There’s no way larger-than-life figures like that were ever real, right? What’s a queen anyway? Why don’t they just call it a president like they do here in America? Advertisement But yeah, Dowden said in an interview with the Daily Mail that Netflix should be more explicit about the fact that The Crown is fiction, because otherwise “a generation of viewers who did not live through these events may mistake fiction for fact.” Entertainment Weekly notes that a few other EW also theorizes that this is happening because of the fact that the show has caught up to the ‘80s, which means that a lot of …

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As parts of the United States settle in for what may be the worst weeks of their local covid-19 outbreaks, a familiar refrain is sure to emerge. Advertisement Some people will complain that the death count attributed to the coronavirus is being exaggerated. Others, including researchers , have argued that covid-19 related deaths are actually being undercounted, as people die at home without being tested. Still others will point to the final death count and say that because it’s lower than X (whether that number be flu deaths, car accident deaths, or some other moving goalpost), then that means the efforts and sacrifices made for social distancing weren’t worth it—ignoring, of course, that social distancing was the reason the toll wasn’t much higher. Figuring out As of April 10, there have been around 1.6 million reported cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus worldwide. There have also been over 96,000 reported deaths, with over 16,000 …

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Top Pick: Tom Brady Face Mask | $12 | Amazon Let me get something out of the way up top: I love Tom Brady. If you’re coming here because you’re thinking “Finally, someone who hates Tom Brady as much as me,” I’m sorry to disappoint. Please understand that I am originally from Massachusetts and it is actually illegal to hate Touchdown Tom there. He is not just a quarterback, but a culture. To reject the GOAT is to reject your sociological duty as a Masshole. Even if Tom has betrayed my family by moving to Tampa Bay, I am bound by blood and will be rooting for him in this year’s Super Bowl. Advertisement Despite worshipping at the altar of Tom, I can still dunk on this absolute nerd. More specifically, I am not above making fun of my loved ones who will buy the most outlandish merch possible to support the guy. While I’m content with owning a Patriots blanket and long-sleeve shirt from the era, my dearest aunts and uncles have all sorts of bizarre trinkets. …

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Like Candyman , the new French horror movie Kandisha is set in a neglected housing project where kids play amid concrete rubble and torn-up old furniture. Like Candyman , it’s a supernatural slasher about a historical victim-turned-vengeful demon who’s unleashed by saying its name five times. Unlike Candyman , however, the villainous, yet strangely alluring title character of Kandisha only kills men. Six of them, to be specific, before she retreats back into the impulsively drawn blood pentagram from which she was summoned. And she’ll make quite a mess in the process. Advertisement That’s because Kandisha was written and directed by the creative team of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, whose 2007 debut Inside unsettled even jaded horror fans with its graphic, unblinking violence. Since then, the duo has struggled to live up to their early promise, experimenting with twisted fairytales, sadistic slasher flicks, and an ill-advised foray into …

Continue Reading about The directors of Inside put their spin on Candyman in slasher Kandisha