EPISODE 499: FIND A DIRECTOR WHO CAN DO BOTH

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screen-shot-2016-10-10-at-12-52-32-pmIn this episode, Tyler and David discuss directors who make both documentaries and narratives, as well as the ethics of buying a ticket for The Birth of a Nation.

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18 Responses

  1. Ryan says:
    October 10, 2016 at 9:42 pm

    I convinced myself to go see Birth of a Nation, solely because I had remembered you guys taking a hardline on separating the art from the artist. And now you guys had to get all woke on me. Could have saved that 12 bucks.
    For anyone on the fence morally about seeing the movie, the good news is that it’s bland as hell and you won’t miss anything by skipping it.

    Reply
  2. Juhani Kenttä says:
    October 10, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    I loved the discussion before the topic.

    Reply
  3. Martin says:
    October 11, 2016 at 7:08 am

    Presumably this was recorded before the Devin Faraci thing. Virtue signaling to the extreme

    Reply
    • Dan Roy says:
      October 11, 2016 at 2:48 pm

      Holy moley is that Faraci thing a bombshell

      Reply
    • Battleship Pretension says:
      October 11, 2016 at 3:12 pm

      Yeah, I wasn’t paying much attention for the last few days, and then suddenly this thing hits. Crazy.

      Reply
      • Ray (@RaySquirrel) says:
        October 14, 2016 at 9:55 pm

        The fact that Devin Faraci is a sexual abuser came as no surprise to me. From his coverage of #GamerGate, to his need to inject intersectional feminism into every single movie review. The man violently attacked anyone who spoke ill of the Fiegbusters as a vile sexist and mysoginist. The only thing I could assume is, “that this guy is hiding something.”

        Reply
  4. Benny Washer says:
    October 11, 2016 at 8:34 am

    I may be done with the Battleship. Nate Parker was acquitted 16 years ago for what ever crime he may or may not have committed. David preaches about reform in the prison system, but seemingly has no faith in the justice system.

    Reply
    • Tommy says:
      October 11, 2016 at 9:58 am

      Ok, can we all stop with the ultimatums!!!? You’re not impressing anyone by saying you are done with the podcast. Sure, David can be insufferable with his ludicrous “SJW” opinions, but they are his and this is his show.

      Also, yes, Let the film speak for itself fellas. The power of a movie should not be related to the personal life of the creators. Great Art is Great Art. Mel Gibson is not a weaker filmmaker because he said racist remarks. Talent is talent. I just wish we were talking about a better film, “Birth of a Nation” is weak sauce.

      Reply
      • Dan Roy says:
        October 11, 2016 at 2:55 pm

        The argument against supporting art by perverts or criminals would seem to stop cold with Chaplin. But it may be a bit more complicated than that.

        Reply
    • Battleship Pretension says:
      October 11, 2016 at 10:47 am

      Yeah, we never did quite get back to THE BIRTH OF A NATION. Had we done so, I would have come down on the side of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”, which is the only real thing we can cling to in a situation like this. And, yes, the justice system may be deeply flawed in rape cases and such, but it’s all we have right now.
      So, unlike Polanski (who was found guilty, but never actually paid the price for his actions), Nate Parker may have this stigma around him, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep me away from his film.

      -Tyler

      Reply
    • Battleship Pretension says:
      October 11, 2016 at 6:02 pm

      As I discussed with the Stanford rape case, I indeed do not have much faith in the justice system. The crux of the argument that got Parker acquitted was that the victim had had consensual sex with him in the past. That does the opposite of put my mind at ease; it only adds to the nauseating facts of the case and its overall place in our culture’s inability to understand rape and our tendency to default to the male point of view on such topics.

      – David

      Reply
  5. Dan Roy says:
    October 13, 2016 at 5:47 am

    I’m going a little crazy over the fact that UCLA is asking people to identify their gender for the class as part of their classroom introductions. For one, why is that necessary? More details would be great if Tyler is up for sharing them; for example, is this a class about gender/sexuality/etc.

    Reply
    • aaron says:
      October 13, 2016 at 8:14 am

      Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s not how I took it at all – seemed more like the professor wanting to know how their students want to be recognized, not some sort of official mandate. Similar like how you may have told teachers you want to be called “Dan” instead of “Daniel” as it may say on the attendance roll. Obviously, this is a more complicated issue politically, but if that is something the professor wants to get right, why not?

      Reply
      • Dan Roy says:
        October 13, 2016 at 5:08 pm

        If it was part of a live introductions it does seem to be an intentional cue to students to set new social expectations, possibly where gender is something that can’t be assumed, which is weird. Here’s a student-run vegan restaurant at an Australian university that feels that way, for example.

        But my first assumption was that it works like trigger warnings usually work – a voluntary action by a professor as a courtesy to make all students feel included.

        Then there’s things like this Vimeo Staff Pick which indicate younger people have a hard time processing gender at all.

        I may actually be paranoid, sorry, I promise I do not read blogs.

        Reply
      • Dan Roy says:
        October 17, 2016 at 12:13 am

        Hey, speak of the dilemma and the Grey Lady shall appear:

        When we go around the room in class, students visibly react when they hear that someone they thought looked male goes by female pronouns or vice versa. This happened in my class a few years back. All eyes fell upon this person as if to ask, “If you identify as female, why don’t you try to look the part?” My heart went out to this student, who later told me that she was just beginning to think about her transition and hadn’t yet started to publicly change anything about herself, other than her name. She looked like any other guy in the class, except she had adopted a traditionally female name and used female pronouns on this day when asked.

        This is the kind of student for whom we might think the pronoun exercise would be perfect. Once she identified herself, no one would accidentally mis-gender her in class. But in fact, as the student explained to me later, having to say her pronouns in a room full of strangers terrified her. She would have preferred to state her female name and leave it at that. If we had done traditional introductions, some of the students would have put two and two together and assumed she was transitioning; others might have thought she had an unusual name for a guy; some might have thought she was gender queer and comfortable with a male appearance and a female name; and yet others would have shrugged their shoulders and thought, “Whatever.”

        With this experience in mind, I decided to adopt a compromise solution for this semester: I explained my concerns and said that students should list their pronouns along with their names only if they were so inclined. I also said that as a class we will refer to one another by our first names (community building) or the pronoun “they” (grammar evolves!). This strategy seemed to work. Half of the students disclosed their pronouns and the other half just introduced themselves in the standard way. No one became the object of scrutiny.

        Exactly how I would handle the situation, and it does for me confirm that this is very much about trying to change how young people think about gender.

        Reply
  6. Alysha says:
    November 14, 2016 at 6:43 am

    Hey guys, I’m just catching up on a backlog of episodes after being obsessed with listening to all the political podcasts over the past month. Anywho, my comment is for David…your next podcast should be WokeCast where you talk about movies from a “woke” point of view in the same way that More than One Lesson is from a Christian point of view…I’d listen to that all day!

    Reply

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