Probably a bit early to have bought a winter coat, but I’m going to pretend that it’s cold and that it’d be impossible to buy one when I’m in Oxford. (The shop assistant certainly looked a bit shocked that I was buying a peacoat in this weather).
Peacoat from Sandro, Henley top from Acne.
J’ai Tué Ma Mère/I Killed My Mother (2009)
So this film basically chewed me up and spat me out last night. You should all watch it.
(Source: myheartdoesnotbelongtomeanymore)
UGHHHHH. I’m really sick of defending shit like the “Innocence of Muslims” in the name of free speech. Can the next person or group of people who decide to insult a world religion please do so in an artistically meritorious way? But none the less, shit, even lying, offensive, poorly scripted, cheaply filmed, badly dubbed shit made by a fraudster, a soft-core porn director and an alleged methamphetamine cook should be defended.
Defending someone’s right to say something — no matter how shady they are and how much we disagree with their message is surely a fundamental pillar of our society, and we should realise that there is a difference — and not a small difference, but a gaping chasm — between defending someone’s right to say something and defending the content of what they say. The guy who made the “Innocence of Muslims” video is a complete arse —he really, truly is an utterly despicable individual who made it purely to wind people up — but his right to say that still exists. At this point, a lot of people, even on the liberal left, seem to decide that while the director of the film has the right to be an arse, none of this is his fault, and instead the Muslim world — which let’s face it, has been poked with a fairly big, crude stick these past few years/decades — should learn to better accept criticism and even insult directed at it. I’m not so sure…
As far as I’m concerned, this kind of outrage, and these kinds of protests do not come out of nowhere. Like Salman Rushdie’s (incidentally unreadable) novel, the Satanic Verses; or like the (badly drawn, unfunny) Danish cartoons this video was picked up on, and was used by other interested parties (in this case an Egyptian Islamist TV channel) as a way of manufacturing (justifiable) outrage against the West, and as a way of bringing that outrage of a violent and public head, in the form of the protests that have been seen this past week. People do not spontaneously get angry and take to the streets — there are organisers with targets in mind. Rushdie’s novel had been out for months before Khomeini decided to issue a bounty on his head — it just so happened that the outrage was a good way for him to bolster his regime (floundering after the Iran-Iraq war); similarly, the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube clip had been on the internet for months, and eventually a TV channel picked up on it, gave it some Arabic subtitles, and here we are.
It may seem that there’s a kind of outrage machine that works in the Middle East — aiming to create scenes like the ones that have been seen the past few days, but at its root, it seems to me to just be a more extreme version of what we see with Fox News, Glenn Beck and papers like the Daily Mail. The outrage that all these media outlets — and many more — try and generate is fundamentally the same thing that’s being done here, just on a more impressive scale, and in different geo-political circumstances. But really, please, if you’re going to insult a world religion through the medium of film, or literature or art, please make it a good work of art so we don’t all have to buy another ‘solidarity copy’ of an unreadable novel?
P.S. I’ve just seen the cover of the French satirical magazine as well, and I’m sick of politicians calling for restraint and sensitivity, and the US government saying, in apparently contradictory terms, that “We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” — belief systems should all be open to satire, and to criticism, but as I say, I do wish people would do it in a funnier way.
Obviously in reference to Newsweeks publicity seeking, islamophobic front-cover - Muslim Rage - which includes a picture robbing the subjects of their context
(Source: mohandasgandhi, via duchampswag)
— Owen Jones on Maggie Thatcher
The Thick Of It
The second episode was simply fantastic. While I think the coalition is interesting, Malcolm Tucker’s presence elevates the show from funny to sublime.
(Also, my dad knew Peter Capaldi about 25 years ago, just sayin’)
(via egotropic)
The Duchess of Cambridge is topless in the French magazine Closer, and it is too close. The Duchess is no feminist, or anything like one. She is a semi-silent, semi-saintly doll (the recent photographs of her in a headscarf touring the Far East invite comparison with plastic Madonnas), who in her engagement interview clutched her husband’s hand and called him “a good teacher”, as the feminist clock tick-tocked in the wrong direction.
She is a reactionary figure, and this is a reactionary crime, even if the editor-in-chief of Closer – a self-serving monster called Laurence Pieau – calls it great fun. “What we see is a young couple, who have just got married, who are very much in love, and who are splendid,” Pieau said. “She’s a real 21st-century princess,” Pieau said. “It’s a young woman who is topless, the same as you can see on any beach in France or around the world.” Why couldn’t she just tell the truth and admit that Kate’s breasts are profitable, easily converted into gold? Any defence of these photographs is nonsense, including the tired press freedom argument. Poor press freedom, wanting to be free for Kate’s breasts, or Harry’s bottom, and not more interesting things; the Windsor family is right to sue. We bought the clothes. We do not own the flesh.
Perhaps the most offensive thing is that it will do the monarchy no harm, because it is a love of sorts. (What her controlling husband will say to this mistake is another thing.) Enjoy the photographs, or hate them, or both; they will only add to her myth. The worst nightmare for monarchy is indifference. Tabloid tales and tawdry soap opera do not diminish it, if other family members are more stable, or too old to take their clothes off, or to play strip pool. Fascination, no matter the vessel, no matter how squalid, is essential.
It is grating to ascribe victimhood to a woman so privileged, especially now, when other victims are many, and growing, but she is a victim. The government’s assault on the poor is ever more vicious, even as the coverage of Kate would melt even Edward Longshanks’ heart. The London Evening Standard’s front-page headline on Thursday was “Kate’s kindness”, accompanied by a photograph of the Duchess sitting with a child who has leukemia; the next step is obviously to imbue her with healing powers, like the old monarchs, who “cured” with touch. Her trajectory whizzes on to who knows where. No one can live for long in a euphoric dream, as Auden wrote. It will end badly.
"— Tanya Gold on Kate Middleton
