Oh they were real guns out front?
Dang that's so irresponsible!
If that's the case sure he has a big amount of fault.

So Oscar noms came out. Everything Everywhere All at Once got 11 nominations, which is a lot.

All Quiet on the Western Front (which i STILL have to see) and Banshees both got 9.

All three are obviously nominated for Best Picture alongside:

Avatar: The Way of Water (lol, wot? Can't wait for it to lose again)
Top Gun: Maverick (really happy to see this here)
Elvis
The Fabelmans
Tar
Women Talking
Triangle of Sadness (I loooooved the trailer and have been told to see this, it looks sooo funny)


so as there is each year, there is controversy with the list of nominations. This year it's because there are no female directors nominated. What's the ratio of movies made this year that have female directors? If it's 50%, then yeah it's weird that none of the 5 nominated directors are women. But I have a strong feeling it's WAY smaller than 50% so statistical variance would deem it completely normal that you could have 5 guys from that sample size end up being nominated.

Plus, the Academy has a record of not only nominating female directors but actually awarding them with the Oscar (my favourite being James Cameron losing to his ex-wife, Kathyn Bigelow for Hurt Locker in 2010) lol. This year he's not nominated and they're calling it a snub. lol what?

So not only did a woman win in 2010, but in 2020 Chloe Zhao won for Nomadland and in 2021 Jane Campion won for Power of the Dog. So yeah, shut up already. Oscars recognized female directors and until studios start hiring female directors much much more often, you won't see as many nominations go to female directors. The problem isn't at the awards level at all.

it's always the same damn story every year. We spin a wheel and statistical variance will always make SOME group not show up as much. Blacks, women, take your pick.

So the #OscarsSoMale hashtag is trending. How about the #PeopleSoStupid

LOL imagine how much worse it would be if the awards shows caved to "feminist activists" that are asking for the gendered awards to be done with. I think I saw that the British Awards got rid of gendered awards and there were zero females nominated for Best Actor. I'm pretty sure that's more sexist than the word "actress."

They are just "Employee of the Year" awards anyways. I really dont care who got IBM, McDonalds or Google employee of the year, why would I care about these awards that amount to an industry wide masturbation and a fashion show?

The ones asking for that tho, are they really feminists? It must be another activity group cuz feminists don’t try to erase the gender ever. They celebrate it and seek equality and representation. I think getting rid of Best Actress is probably not a feminist ideal

I could be wrong tho.

Your point is still excellent. I think the problem will be far far worse if they commingle the categories

I would say that Vogue magazine is, if not categorized as feminist, it is a very female forward publication and they are calling for gender neutral awards. The LA Times is calling gendered awards sexist. I cant link the articles due to paywalls but there are dozens and dozens of newspaper and magazine articles pushing this movement forward.

Most of the time I honestly dont even know what is feminist any more. Like, there are certain tops that are definitely feminist, i.e. equal pay, but beyond the obvious ones I'm at a loss. Is it feminist to demand that people who became female be allowed access to female only spaces or is it feminist to demand that only people who were born female can have access to those spaces? I honestly dont know anymore. I know which side of the argument I fall on, ut I dont know if I can term my position as feminist or not.

My ex-wife used to say that I was one of the biggest feminists she knew, but I don't even know how to articulate my views properly. So colour me confused too.

There's probably one or two feminist coalitions that lobby governments. I would ALWAYS follow whatever they are asking for as a true barometer for what is of importance. Not some magazine or newspaper who is 100% tied to sales and views.

I can't even imagine the shltshow that would ensue if they make it one category. Do you think there would be guidelines that there has to be 3/3 or 5/5 split between the genders? I bet officially there wouldn't be.

Like Christians, they’re not completely homogenous and have the equivalent of different sects. There are feminists who believe all differences between the sexes are socially constructed and erasing the social categories will erase the differences.

I’ve seen feminists with this belief argue with other feminists around the topic of trans women in female sports, with one faction believing if society dissolves women’s sports category and instead has everyone competing in the same category AND society encourages girls more to play sports (because the only reason women have lower physical performance ranges are because society teaches young girls to play with dolls instead of balls) then we would see an even split represented with the sexes at the highest levels of sport, and the other faction aggressively defending the existence of female-only sports categories because they believe there are real physical differences and protecting the category is the only way women will have any representation at the highest levels of sport.

I think it’s a little different with something like awards for acting/directing because I don’t see how physical differences have anything to do with performance ranges in that domain, but the principle is the same - a belief that socially recognizing the categories creates the differences so the solution is to dissolve the categories

Lol that doll argument is so weak it’s laughable

Bro it’s insane. I’ve seen people seriously arguing that the reason men are physically stronger on average is because girls are viewed as 2nd class people and are fed less by their sexist parents.

Those dumb lions letting lionesses playing with dolls so they can’t grow as strong as the lions

tl,dr; I'm an idiot and I almost shot somebody, because I had no idea a gun was REAL and LOADED.

Anecdote:

A friend of mine used to work for a local television station during the night shift. His job was related to advertising programing. He would literally prepare advertisements to run, and then ensure they were sequenced correctly. His job caused him to be in a relatively huge, but empty studio from about midnight to 6am every day.

The area wasn't particularly nice, and definitely had crime, so he decided to come armed to work every night. He had a pistol with him at all times, because fwiw there was no security guard, and he was alone, in a high-crime area of Houston, TX (which is itself a relatively high-crime city) - in a building that obviously contained tons of high-dollar equipment.

Insert me:

I have no idea of the above, and I've been friends with this guy since we were kids. When we were kids he used to have a few, very real looking, fake guns. I didn't play around with those real looking guns much, but I'd definitely held them on a few occasions. The point is, I associated guns given to me by this friend with toys.

I knew very little about pistols and at the time of this story I had never held one, and definitely never fired one.

The event:

He, my good friend, decides to show me his weapon, and hands it over to me. He assumes I know 1) that it is real, and 2) that it is loaded. (yes, this is his fault, but then again, what 30 year old would be carrying a fake gun?!? so it's also my fault). I know neither thing. I proceed to hold it with zero understanding that this thing is not safe. I certainly did not consider it unsafe to point at him, and had no idea that I was even holding a dangerous weapon.

The point is:

When you don't know you are holding a weapon, you don't treat it as a weapon. To me that gun was not dangerous, and I did not handle it, even remotely, safely.

(nothing happened btw, the safety was on. But it easily could have gone a different way - this story is a close analog to the Baldwin event. I'm completely on his side.)

as an aside... this event shocked me to the core. I still think about it sometimes.

Yeah well you should have shot your friend to prove a point

It would have been accidental, but I agree perhaps intentional would have been appropriate as well.

I'm pretty sure Baldwin is being charged not as "Guy holding the gun" but as "Guy financing the project who was negligent in hiring an actually competent props department and gun expert."

Lmao, he wasn’t just acting in it, he was financing it? Bet he hired an incompetent armorer on purpose, so he could murder that person he secretly hated and blame it on the prop dept

worst first sentence on a date?

Best sentence I think.


Ok so if Baldwin as being charged as a “buck stops here”, then he’ll get off cuz there’s Jurisprudence on the John Landis Twilight Zone movie production where an actor and two children were beheaded by a helicopter. Landis and 4 crew members were all charged with involuntary manslaughter and were acquitted.

You just can’t stick charges like that for accidents like this

It's not that cut and dry Barns. From all accounts a good portion of the crew were using live rounds for target practice during down time. That means it is reasonable to atleast investigate the prospect that Baldwin himself knew live rounds were on set. As a producer (financier) of the movie he is responsible for quite a bit including safety issues and it is clearly against union and work regulations to have any live ammo near a movie shoot. If anyone in the crew saw him at their "shooting range" while live ammo was used or anyone states they rased the concern to him prior to the shooting... well I'm no lawyer but if I was on the jury I'm sure you see which way I'm leaning.

I moved to LA in September so since it was our first Christmas in California, away from family, we just kind of went to a bunch of "events" to get a feel for LA and to enjoy the holidays. So I knew they did this fake snow thing at an outdoor mall called The Grove so I wanted to take the kids to see it, they were like 2 and 3 at the time. Since it's a large mall they only do the fake snow thing for a few minutes every half hour so we're waiting around for a while. Right before the snow starts this little train starts making it way to the big christmas tree they have in the middle of the mall. My first wife and kids are there with me. The train pulls up and out jump The Rockettes and Alec Baldwin (this was pre 30 Rock, he was just "a Baldwin brother" at this point). He sings a couple christmas songs , snow starts falling and legs are kicking into the air in all directions. Homerun for dad!



That's my only Alec Baldwin story