Midrange Weekly Oct 18

Your Weekly Round Up On What’s Got The Midrange Staff’s Attention

Hello friends and welcome back to Midrange Weekly. Maybe it’s the doldrums of the incessant rain in these parts or just a brief hermetic stint before the halloween fun kicks in, but it seems like it’s been a particularly online week. Our feeds have been full of red flag and I am weed memes, and surely everyone else’s screen time count is up a little bit. It’s this time of year that it’s good to remind ourselves to take a break from our screens and try and find some kind of activity to do outside for the betterment of our mental health. Not now though, you should definitely keep reading. Surely your mental health can take just a little more of our broad, fairly obvious attempts at commentary.

 

Here We Go With The Newest Mess Involving Dave Chappelle

It seems like we’re circling closer and closer to the bottom of the drain of these ever insipid culture wars; the outrage cycle is growing more and more iterative, the avarice behind monetizing such conduct more and more explicit. It’s always variations of the same type of individuals involved, the institutions of power and relevance take similar manipulative actions, and the public relations machine revels in its fleeting commitment to sincerity just a little more each time. All of the main characters of such a controversy usually remain inoculated from any real consequence and yet they view even the suggestion that their conduct was ill advised as scandalizing assault on their rights. Meanwhile it’s regular individuals who aren’t immunized from the pernicious consequences of such controversies who actual feel them. It’s not the Dave Chappelles or Netflix CEOs of the world. You know where I’m going with this. 

I can’t believe I’m feeling once again compelled to comment on the egregiously asinine debate surrounding cancel culture, the partisans of which are beyond parody in the manner of which they feel they are being attacked. But in the case of the recent Dave Chappelle Netflix special, such narcissistically insular concerns have intersected with the real world harm of further denigrating and marginalizing the trans community. To recap, Chappelle recently aired a new comedy special, The Closer, on Netflix. Available as of October 5th, Chappelle’s irreverent and socially skewered observations elicited the usual rapturous applause from the crowd, befitting of the cult of personality he has cultivated over his career. The comedy special also featured an excessive amount of anti trans jokes. Referring to the trans community as “alphabet people”, a form of erasure that dissolves individuals into nothing more than anodyne descriptions of demographic traits, he also called them “confusing” and “gross”. Chappelle has- outside of his stage presence and persona- claimed to be an advocate for trans individuals, but I’m really not in the mood for the separating the art from the artist argument when the art is this openly hostile. It’s a generous stretch to even call some of this comments jokes, this is just distilled, invective vitriol.

Assessments like this often generate a countervailing opinion that this is somehow the function or provenance of comedy- specifically stand up comedy. As if the medium’s social utility was to be unapologetically evil to marginalized communities. This argument is a shallow and weirdly sectarian defense of rich people considering those that would offer it usually share none of the social or economic mobility with those they would defend. In other words, in a world where such socio-economic concerns grow ever more existential, where’s your solidarity with those that share your circumstances, regardless of their sexual or gender orientation? Furthermore, and perhaps more within the orbit of what comedy is as opposed to its holistic or social implications, satire is making fun of power and the figures & institutions that hold it; making fun of disadvantaged communities is just bullying. To those that would concurrently claim that any group of people should be able to take a joke or something, are you of the opinion that the trans community has not taken a sufficient amount of ridicule? This isn’t wholesome jesting between affable people or groups, this is a rich and powerful person just being shitty to them- to individuals who have often known nothing but- and people are applauding him.

This notion that comedy as a whole is specifically designed to trade in animosity is also a lazy assessment, and a false equivalency between the abstract notion of being edgy and being clever. To be clear, trans exclusionary jokes are not new or fresh. They are not within the realm of bleeding edge stand up. This is not expanding the mercurial frontiers of comedy or even social commentary; this is old hat. This idea that being objectively awful on stage is not just a half assed acquittal, it also tends to dovetail with another erroneous idea that comedy is not meant to age well. The idea that the pursuit of the most intrinsic forms of comedy push social boundaries and as those social boundaries shift and evolve, they retroactively contextualize previous bits as taboo or in bad taste. This has a certain current of hypothetical logic to it, but it only works in practice if comedians or any kind of purveyor of comedy observes and acknowledges the current social boundaries of the era they are participating in. For example, one of my favourite comedies ever, Trading Places, has a black face scene in it. This has aged very badly! It was also made when the broader understanding of social conventions had not yet acclimatized to the reality that black face was a toxic confluence of erasure and cultural appropriation to a community that had been legislated into second class citizens because of that very same culture and history. Conversely, In the year 2021, no serious individual has any confusion that the trans community is an at risk one that faces social, legislative, economic, and physical risks by being who they are, and incendiary comments such as Chappelle’s exacerbate those risks. Chappelle isn’t operating ahead of the curve, he is embarrassingly behind it. 

Trans communities and other advocates have expressed their frustration with Chappelle and Netflix for airing the special to begin with. Chappelle has been woefully predictable in response to all of this, claiming he is being cancelled. To be clear, his special has not been pulled from Netflix, his platform has not been censored or reduced, nor has mention of him been systematically excised from pop media discourse been considered. He hasn’t faced economic or legal consequences (of course legal consequences would not be the way to address this), nor have the institutional powers that promote his work denounced him in any way. To be even more clear- people being mad at you is not the same thing as being cancelled; to claim other wise is beyond cynical to the point of nihilism. Far from this hurting his social standing, Chappelle is capitalizing on it and promoting the controversy, saying if this is being cancelled, then he loves it (again it isn’t). This is perhaps the most acute expression of the logical pathways that the hijacking of the term ‘cancelling’ has evolved upon. Far removed form the original mid 2010s emergence of the idea that was used by black online communities to collectively dissociate themselves from problematic actors in their social circles, cancelling has now become the literal inverse. It’s a marketing ploy, a way of getting your name out there more, staying in the news. 

With little to no recourse being likely to litigate Chappelle’s actions or even encourage some self-reflection, the trans community has also put pressure on Netflix to assess their own moral standing in relation to economic aspirations. So far it has been to no avail. What did happen however was a trans employee at Netflix expressing their disappoint in the situation over twitter; a move that got the employee summarily suspended. The situation is staggering in how on the nose it all is. A millionaire comedian complains about cancel culture while a regular person with no social clout or platform faces actual real consequences for their weighing in on the situation. Chappelle doesn’t need any more money; the person who was suspended likely did, as do all of us dealing with our various forms of economic asphyxiation. As news of this broke Netflix has scrambled to control the narrative, with spectacular incompetency. Their PR branch claimed that the employee had been suspended for attending a meeting they didn’t have clearance to, which considering the context seems like not really seeing the forest for the trees at best, and horrible optics at worst. When it was determined that the employee did in fact have clearance to attend the meeting but the superiors simply didn’t like what they had to say, the employee was reinstated. However not before any other employee organized a walk out at Netflix in solidarity. The employee that organized the walk out was fired. They were also trans. Again, real word consequences- just not for Chappelle.

It’s these real world consequences that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos seems woefully incognizant of. In hopes of addressing the situation and tempering the uneasy mood in his organization, Sarandos issued a company wide email defending airing the special and keeping it up. He had this to say (emphasis mine): 

With The Closer, we understand that the concern is not about offensive-to-some content but titles which could increase real world harm (such as further marginalizing already marginalized groups, hate, violence etc.) Last year, we heard similar concerns about 365 Days and violence against women. While some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.

The strongest evidence to support this is that violence on screens has grown hugely over the last thirty years, especially with first party shooter games, and yet violent crime has fallen significantly in many countries. Adults can watch violence, assault and abuse – or enjoy shocking stand-up comedy – without it causing them to harm others. We are working hard to ensure marginalized communities aren’t defined by a single story. So we have Sex Education, Orange is the New Black, Control Z, Hannah Gadsby and Dave Chappelle all on Netflix. Key to this is increasing diversity on the content team itself.

Couple things to unpack here. First- and I’m sorry to be pedantic- but it’s first person shooter. Secondly, the fact that he is trying to ‘both sides’ the argument about what content they program is a ruinously bad idea in a post Trump world where the former president used the same argument to absolve people of literally committing murder. At the heart of Sarandos’ argument is that what people- people in power- say doesn’t translate into real world harm. This is an insane thing to say. Public opinion doesn’t come from nowhere; it comes from the public comments of leaders and entertainers, like it always has. That public opinion shapes the legal protection a demographic enjoys, or doesn’t. Commentary like this further marginalizes the trans community. It steers public sentiment among certain factions in our world against them, affecting their economic and social mobility. It depresses public sentiment and support for legislation that protects them and vigorously pursues those would hurt them, protections that most cis people take for granted. It dehumanizes them and frames them as nothing more than reproductive organs that some people don’t ‘get’, making it far easier to excuse- yes- real world harm committed to them. Anyone that thinks bombastic oration cannot and has not correlated directly with real world harm to at risk and marginalized communities over and over again throughout history isn’t paying attention. The intermittent of Japanese people in Canada during WWII occurred because people said they were a sub optimal class of citizens, not to be trusted. The continued institutional abuse indigenous people in Canada face is due to generations of their voice being pushed so far to the periphery in favour of other, more hostile ones to the point where there was no one left to advocate for them. This shit doesn’t happen in a vacuum. This isn’t complicated. When this controversy passes, a man with either a paper-thin ego or a mendacious inclination towards manipulating fans and detractors alike and a media CEO with a disastrously onerous understanding of moral and public responsibility will be fine. As for everyone else involved, it’s hard to say. Like I said, just as it always is. -Tristan

 

Should James Bond Be A Reflection Of Our Current Society?

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I’m still not sure how I personally feel on this topic or the very question I’m about to pose, but I’ll do it anyway.

Should the next James Bond be a woman?

In a era of inclusivity, equality and breaking down barriers for the marginalized, a fictional character like a James Bond will no doubt cast a wide and hotly discussed conversation regarding the status and image this role should continue to pursue. With Daniel Craig leaving the franchise after his latest turn in No Time To Die, the limits and requests for whom should take over the mantle have shown little pressure to stay true to form. And honestly, in the type of society we now see ourselves in, why should they? Back in 2005, the world fell over itself because Daniel had blond hair. In 2021, we’ve come much farther with regards to what we want, expect and can tolerate. This is why I’ve wondered the following question: Is this how we see the character evolving naturally or are we just trying appease a new reality for a desperately underserved lot? 

For nearly 60 years, James Bond has been the archetype of male bravado. The brash alpha male who gets the girl, kills the bad guy and drinks shaken martinis. Sean Connery fashioned the role with an old school trope bent in a world where women were still expected to stay at home and being gay was something you just kept to yourself. Five men have played the role since and in that time, evolution has transpired, all bit slowly and mostly during the Craig era. Moneypenny is now led by Naomi Harris, a distinguished black actress. The new 007 in No Time To Die is played by Lashana Lynch, also a rising black actress. The pegs are moving. Signs are there. But does it fit the mould of James Bond to go that far? To really alter the series in a way that will definitely generate debate but most certainly pushback. Should James Bond wear that mantle? As flag bearer of diversity in cinema?

No matter the choice, whoever is chosen, that person will most certainly feel the weight of a new role or a new way of looking at the most iconic film character of all time. It won’t be easy. But, James Bond must live on. The Daniel Craig era has convincingly made that so — with good reason. Skyfall anyone? The crazy thing about this idea is not that I’m wondering if it should be done, but that it very well just might. Now that’s exciting progress.  - Jamie

 

Things From The Internet We Liked

 

The New The Batman Trailer Is Here And He Looks Pissed

It seems like forever ago that we saw our first look at the new Batman film, but in reality it’s only been one global pandemic. Still the wait is going to be worth it if this wild new trailer is any indication. The vermillion and silhouetted photography of our hero and the grim city he occupies is a remarkable alchemy of film noir and straight up horror. The zodiac killer style interpretation of the villainous Riddler has some fascinating implications of how it could link to larger conspiracies for Batsy to deal with. But also, wow do not fuck with Robert Pattinson. He will mess you up. Colour us stoked.

 

The New Curb Your Enthusiasm Trailer Is Here And It Looks Exactly As You Would Expect

I adore Larry David. He says things I and many who watch him often wish they had the guts to speak out loud. Thankfully if cringe inducing moments are your jam, this new trailer looks to have several for you to salivate over in preparation for the new season. New episodes drop on October 24th on HBO. Get it. Get it.

 

Damn, Tik Tok Is Weird Sometimes

But also hypnotically compelling sometimes? Just look at this video below by Jeremy Elder. The absurdity, the surreal mixture of eco fatalism and economic nihilism, the- honestly pretty good dance moves. Sure we could ask why does this even exist but look how enthusiastic he is about it all. The internet is a strange and mysterious place indeed, but probably less so than the condom factory this dude works at. Sound on for this one.

 

Pitchforks’ Readers Choice List Is Kind Of Predictable, But Kind Of Awesome

Throughout the month, Pitchfork has been celebrating their 25th anniversary with a lot of neat retrospectives and features cataloguing their journey from upstart zine/blog to the monolith in musical criticism (like it or not) that it has become. One such feature has been letting readers vote for their favourite albums and the results are in. While the top albums may inspire groans or cheers depending on your tastes, it’s hard to deny how excellent the overall list is. Furthermore the way Pitchfork drills into demographic and statistical distinctions makes for some really interesting rabbit holes to go down. Check it out and see if you can ‘find yourself’ in it as they suggest.

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MIDRANGE WEEKLYdavid mcleod ringuetteDave Chappelle, Netflix, The Batman, Tik Tok, Pitchfork, James Bond, Curb Your EnthusiasmComment