TRUE HORROR HAS NO DISCRIMINATION - IT'S AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY SLAUGHTER




Urban Horror

Just typing those words makes me angry. Why are we 'racially profiling' our horror movies? Urban Horror is NOT a genre - it's like a signal to the audience that there may be 'people of color' in it. It's rude, it's ridiculous, and it's wrong.

Now I'm not talking about designating horror as 'Chinese' or 'Spanish' or 'Japanese' - that simply tell you where the movie is from. But a US movie is just that - a US movie! We don't give a rip what the dumb teenagers look like, just kill 'em and roll the credits...

I already knew a couple of titles that fall under this so-called 'genre' - one I just reviewed - Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. It was 'targeted' for the Hispanic community. That's the worst line of crap... are we living like barbaric human beings so badly that (besides killing each other indiscriminately) we have to 'separate' our horror like we separate laundry? I mean really? 

In a country that is fighting mad about equal rights for the LGBT communities, why is everyone so blase' about the fact that the Hollywood movie makers apparently want everyone to go back to the 50's and segregate their movies by color?

It's not just movies either - music has the same prejudices. I was once called 'racist' for the stuuuuupidest of reasons. Here's the breakdown: I like an a capella group called Pentatonix (look 'em up on YouTube, they're incredible). Included in their group is a young man named Kevin Olusola. This multi-talented guy sings, plays the cello, and beatboxes. So Pentatonix is getting very popular, 'kay? They release a song called Run To You...

Like an eeeediot (channeling my Ren Höek for a second) I commented on the video, saying it was absolutely beautiful that they could just sit and sing and sound so wonderful. A chicken troll, who must have been licking his beak and waiting for new comments, immediately attacked, saying I was being 'racist' because Kevin is a beatboxer, and to 'just' call him a singer was belittling beatboxers everywhere because bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk...

Still channeling my Ren, I responded by pointing out he wasn't playing his cello for the song either, was THAT racist? BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK... I imagine his chicken troll feathers were flying all over the room. Please don't ask me what chicken troll feathers look like. I deleted the whole thing. I replaced the comment by simply writing that the song was beautiful and made me cry. I've only gotten +1's (Google's version of 'Like' for you Facebookers) on it since...

My point? What day is it... oh yeah. No matter how advanced we think we are, we're apparently all still racist. Even when we're not, we still are. Now this chicken troll didn't know what nationality I was, but he assumed I was still a racist. Huh.

I know, not a horror movie but doesn't he scare YOU?

I looked up 'Urban Horror' and it immediately wanted to list African American Horror. WTH? So they are trying to tell us that if ONE person in the movie with an important role is not <gasp> white in some way, the whole movie is a whole other genre? Or if a person of color lives to the end of the movie that makes it more, umm, special? 

Here's just some titles I found that seem to be in the "Hold onto your wallet while watching these in the theater" type movies (yes I know that's horribly offensive, that's the point people)...

When a Stranger Calls (1979)
The Thing (1982)
The People Under The Stairs (1991)
Candyman (1992)
Tales From The Hood (1995)
The Craft (1996)
Anaconda (1997)
Devil’s Advocate (1997)
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Stigmata (1999)
Bones (2001)
13 Ghosts (2001)
Crazy As Hell (2002)
Gothika (2003)
Holla (2006)
Shadow: Dead Riot (2006)
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Dead Heist (2007)
Nailed (2007)
Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror (2007)
I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

Stick close to this one - as long as she
keeps her clothes on, survival is a sure bet.

Hmm... seems this list is a bit incomplete. Where's The Cabin In The Woods, Night Of The Living Dead (both original and remake), Day Of The Dead, The Shining... okay, let's ask Google the most racist and offensive question I can think of without withering in shame: "List horror movies with black people in them". Know what I got? You guessed it - all the SAME entries I got from Urban Horror with some extra goodies about how people of color never survive to the end of the movie.

You're dead.

I'm saying 'people of color' because I'm not just referring to African Americans. I'm talking about anyone who isn't a Cracker (you may throw rotten fruit at this point if you wish, just not at me) in a horror film. Sure, you die in a horror film if you're a slut, a wastoid, or the know-it-all, but EVERYBODY knows if you're just a little bit ethnic... SNICK - YOU'RE DEAD!

I know, I know, I'm embarrassed too...

Which means even though I'm smarter than the average bear (sigh, ask your grandparents to explain that to you too), I, being a whiter-than-a-sheet bonafide registered Native American would be destined to bite it within the first 20 minutes of a horror movie.

So that is my rant for today. Horror is an equal opportunity genre - stop belittling people by thinking that they need their own category. Next it'll be Paranormal Activity: The American Indian Reservation Casino Massacre. Or something massively offensive like that. I'll appear in it, but I'll also be the first to die.

And if y'all don't get the point of this rant, decide that I'm a horrible, horrible person who deserves to die as a racist, then I've failed.

Update 5/27/14: I learned something interesting. I want to state right here and now that I am NOT an SJW. What's that? Cracked.com's J.F. Sargent wrote the following:

If someone tells me that they don't like my favorite movie, then it's easy to ignore it, but if they tell me that my favorite movie is stupid, I can't help but feel like they're saying I'm stupid for liking it. It's a natural response, because I'm kind of a narcissist. But then it gets even worse if they think my favorite movie is racist, because being racist is even worse than being stupid. Ever hear the term "SJW"? It means "social justice warrior," and it refers specifically to people who point out racism or sexism in movies, video games, and other pop culture.

Those people are considered worse than other types of critics because instead of just pointing out that a movie has flaws, they're accusing people who like it of being awful.

Except they're not, of course. If someone points out that the alternator belt in your car is slipping, they're not accusing you of being some kind of mustache-twirling, white cat-stroking supervillain for having car problems. They're not accusing you of anything. They're talking about your car.

Phew. For a moment there I was worried... but I do admit I'd hoped I was safe since I love roughly half of the movies listed above... 

CAN'T WE JUST GO BACK ABOUT TEN OR SO YEARS, PLEASE???

Internet Trolls And Cellular Phones

A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. Later, in Scandinavian folklore, trolls became beings in their own right, where they live far from human habitation, are not Christianized, and are considered dangerous to human beings. Depending on the region from which accounts of trolls stem... no wait a minute, that's not right. I'm talking about internet trolls.

This is the most foul of people clogging your news feed or favorite website. Now some people like to put their comments on everything they can find, using their real name just to get their name noticed somehow by all the others making comments. Why they'd want that I've no idea. No thank you. Those could be trolls but I think they're just vain.

Then there's the people who don't comment about the article at all but put links to whatever they're selling, those who complain that the article they've just read has no bearing in real life and, finally, those who feel the need to totally destroy the people brave enough to upload things on YouTube or a website or ??? or make comments.

Internet trolls are persons who sow discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

We're not talking about someone who disagrees with what Miss Murder thinks about a movie. That is called a personal opinion and we are all entitled to one. I personally like it if someone actually pays attention to my review enough to find a mistake or a plot point I mistook. But some comment just for the eeeeeeevil wickedness of it.

Backing up just a bit, I used to look over our local news websites a lot and comment on the news stories. But I found out something interesting (and incredibly disturbing). There could be the saddest of news stories (babies dying, young people losing their lives to cancer, older ones being killed in vehicle accidents) and invariably there'd be someone saying something crude. Doesn't matter what, it's just disgusting. This happens so often there's is now something called Godwin's Law especially formulated for these type of people.

Basically Godwin's Law (or Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies) is an assertion made by American attorney and author Mike Godwin that has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches." In other words, Godwin said that, given enough time, in any online discussion - regardless of topic or scope - someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis. In 2012, "Godwin's Law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

When I first heard this I scoffed - what a crock! So I looked over news and blogs and discussions on Facebook and news pages and.... If I had no command of the English language I'd be saying "OMG IDK SMH totes!" Or, in a real language, he was right. Not every single time, but in a lot of things that I read IN ONE SITTING, yes, the argument (because there always is one) degrades into a form of name-calling and there's a good chance Nazis and Hitler will be mentioned. Here's my personal recent example (no Nazis though):

Miss Murder likes a new a cappella group called Pentatonix. They are five young people who not only sing with great harmonies, several in the group can make it sound as if there are also instruments accompanying them. They usually do 'mash ups' of pop groups hit songs. Among their unusual aspects (read wonderful) they have a guy who not only is able to sing very VERY low bass but Avi Kaplan has been documented as being able to sing two different notes AT THE SAME TIME.

So Texans Scott Hoying, Kirstie Maldonado and Mitch Grassi used to sing all the time together in high school. In time they wanted to round out their sound and added Avi. Then they saw an incredible video of a young man named Kevin Olusola who can not only beatbox but accompany it with a cello and their five member band was complete. Their name comes from the pentatonic scale of five notes. Cool.

Among their growing list of songs, there is one they have of their own: Run To You. Watch it on YouTube, it will give you chills. All five sing perfect harmonies and it is wonderful. So Miss Murder had the dumb idea of saying so as a YouTube comment. I think I said it was so beautiful and they did it without trying to add any kind of instrumentation.

Some... person decided to tell me that I don't deserve to breathe and I was a horrible racist, since the African American Kevin was a 'beatboxer' and my calling Kevin Olusola a singer was very insulting. Huh. My compliment on this gentleman's singing abilities apparently was being equaled to calling him the 'N' word. Mmph.

I replied (which you should NEVER do with trolls, EVER) that Kevin also did not play the cello for most of their performances, is that insulting also? I got an instant reply (he apparently was up with his finger on the notification button waiting for someone to slam and trolling at breakneck speeds) that a beatboxer should be given credit as a beatboxer and not using him as one... sigh. You know what? There was more but I just hit the 'delete' button and put a new comment for PTX saying their song was just beautiful and it made me cry. The end. Is there a lesson here? Nope. No matter what you say or how you say it, if it is public, get prepared to be slammed by somebody for something.

NOW. About cell phones. It's funny watching people sweat about how big their display screen is, how many pixels their camera has, how many games and movies they can hold - on their freaking phones. No one talks about dropped calls or keeping their phone for emergencies (unless it's using their video to capture some event from their car even though they're not supposed to use 'em while driving). No, their phones need to be the best there is so they can play Angry Birds on the toilet or something.

My phone is five or six years old. It's make and model doesn't matter - just know that it flips open, I dial, I talk, I close it to hang up. Period. Pictures? Oh it takes pictures. In fact it's memory is completely full. Why? Well, this particular one will not download photos to a computer. You have to BUY a picture storage service. Then you CALL them, give them the pictures and they put it on THEIR picture site. From there you can then download them on your computer. Sheesh. So I have some important photos on there that are years old on my phone 'cause... you know.

I've purchased two ringtones during my stint with this phone. So I thought hey, my favorite band betrayed me (never mind) so I wanted a new tone. I made a list of ten possibilities of songs that were catchy AND that I would be able to hear (it doesn't play songs so loudly - if I'm not beside it, I can't hear it). After trying over and over they had number 5 so I went to the right screen (yes it hooks up to the internet, you just have to remember to keep your magnifying glass handy) and purchased it. Cool. 

Not cool. No song. Sigh. I called customer service. The first call I felt like I was talking about a computer (Did you turn it on and off? Did you try...) - eventually the call came to the point a lot of them do. They hung up on me. Oh no you don't.

Your only hint, sorry...

I called again - I made sure that the gentleman knew I had to call twice. He apologized in advance 'cause his headset was shorting out so unless he stayed perfectly still there would be a loud buzzing noise. Oh well, it brought a little levity as it was kind of like playing Operation - every time I heard a buzz I'd say 'You moved!'. I had to do something. Another half hour later (I'm guessing) the verdict is I can buy all the songs I want - they just won't download. Great. Got my $2.50 back with only an hour of work. Pffft. 

Then I got the bill - not only had they STILL charged me for the song, but we were also charge around $25 for me being on the internet because we 'don't have a data plan'. That took yet another long phone call to reverse. Finally. But I still ain't getting no smart phone - I don't sit on the toilet long enough to watch a movie or play games.

Back to the movies (on a real computer)...

https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies