Over four years after Harley Quinn and the others first stormed movie screens, the gangs back with THE SUICIDE SQUAD which is now in theaters and also streaming on HBO MAX. The main question should be why?
The pluses? John Cena provides crowd pleasing moments and is a good addition to the team. Idris Elba adds real weight and gravitas to the film. Returning players -- including Margot Robbie, Viola Davis and Joel Kinnaman nail every scene they're in.
So what's our beef?
Well, for one, Margot's character really isn't integrated with the team and too often Harley's off on her own. There's also some rather sick things going on with the storyline that brings Juan Diego Botto together with Margot Robbie. In fact, what the film may do best is remind people of James Gunn's previous problems which do include his inability to integrate women into his films -- the women in THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY are much more crucial to the action in the Avengers films than in their own films.
Gunn will probably get a pass -- he appears to exist on a pass -- for his problems developing female characters (and for his attempt to sexualize them on camera -- even in a pair of briefs, no attempt is made to sexualize John Cena). We wonder if he will get a pass on the look of the film.
It's disgusting.
We're not referring to the violence or the blood. Were referring to the washed out look.
Superhero films especially need the crisp and vibrant colors -- not unlike the comic books they hail from. THE SUICIDE SQAD looks like it's a very bad print, an aged print, that has been in circulation for about ten years and needs to be restored. Sadly, however, this is the look James Gunn has gone for.
It leaves you detached and distant from what's going on because you never get pulled in, you never forget you're watching a movie and a badly planned film at that.
Washed out?
That's what a great deal of Jimmy Dore's critics are.
Comedian Jimmy Dore hosts a program entitled THE JIMMY DORE SHOW. It takes a humorous and hard hitting look at the world we live in -- admittedly, it's not always humorous because there are times when he's addressing a topic that's just so outrageous, it's impossible to find humor in it.
Jimmy doesn't whore. He doesn't play favorites. He calls it as he sees it. He tries to be fair.
The world needs more people like Jimmy Dore.
Unless you're someone who can't handle the truth. If you're a whore, you outraged by Jimmy Dore.
Enter Keith Olbermann.
The gutter trash boy.
He's on YOUTUBE now. Because who else would have him, right? He wants Jimmy censored.
Censored like what MSNBC, ESPN, CURRENT TV, etc did with Keith?
Oh, wait, no, they just fired his tired ass -- in some cases, repeatedly.
Even in the '00s, we never cheered Keith on. Why? We're not idiots. We are feminists and it took only a glance at Keith to realize that he hated women and he would do anything to trash women. Now we believe economic class matters, absolutely. But we have a problem when we get lectured by people insisting that certain things are special interests and divisive. Too often, when people use that language, what they're really saying is that women don't matter -- or that this ethnic group or racial group doesn't matter -- or that gay people don't matter -- etc.
Keith Olbermann was harmful to women. And, here's the thing, various lefties knew it and they elected not to call him out. They actively worked to not call him out. They organized and plotted to keep from calling Keith out.
As Tommy Christopher (MEDIATE) reported back in 2010:
The Daily Caller has published the latest of its Daily Journolist Leaks, and this time, the supposed liberal cabal is eating one of their own. Countdown host Keith Olbermann
is the subject of this installment, in which the J-listers trash him as
“sexist” and “misogynist,” mainly over his treatment of Carrie Prejean and Hillary Clinton.
While I disagree with the Daily Caller’s publication of the emails, and
their petulant handling thereof, this round also illustrates what
angers me about Journolist and Olbermann.
[. . .]
The Olbermann emails center around his treatment of Carrie Prejean, and of then-Senator Hillary Clinton. Some highlights:
The Nation’s Katha Pollitt began the group’s rant. “He
and Michael Musto did this whole long riff about beauty contestant
Carrie “opposite marriage” Prejean’s breast implants, stupidity, breast
implants, tacky clothes, earrings, breast implants. They went on and on
about how she was “part plastic” and pathetic. You’d think they were
celibate vegans who spent their lives zen meditating. It was just a
whole TV humiliation of her, and it made me feel sorry for her, which
wasn’t easy,” Pollitt said.
…Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and CNN contributor, said
Olbermann’s root problem is his misogyny. “I can’t take him anytime. I
think to write off his mysogyny as limited to Musto is just not
accurate. That very much defined much of how he talked about Clinton as
well as others.”
What pisses me off here is that I have consistently, respectfully, and fairly pointed out that Olbermann’s series of sexually-charged attacks against Prejean were unacceptable, and were undermining his otherwise excellent work. My Mediaite colleague, Rachel Sklar, also called Olbermann out during the 2008 campaign for his comments about Hillary Clinton, comments for which he apologized.
I can’t speak for Rachel, but I know I got nothing but hostility from
my fellow liberals, who didn’t see the use in defending Prejean, or in
criticizing Olbermann. Better to let him sit there and get smelly,
instead of telling him he’d stepped in it. All the while, these same
folks were happily outraged about it behind the scenes. This is not
strictly a liberal phenomenon, as you don’t see very many conservatives
rushing to denounce Andrew Breitbart in public for smearing Shirley Sherrod, do you?
Luke Mitchell put it, “Olberman is irritating and his obvious sexism is
reprehensible. But yes, someone going on TV and saying that torture is
bad is a net positive.” They put a value on your rights and found them unimportant -- torture meant embracing a man who preached hatred against women.
And then there's proto-'feminist' Sam Seder.
The sudden concern for women on the part of Sam Seder strikes us as especially funny. Sorry, Sam, as Joan Crawford would say, "This isn't my first time at the rodeo." Meaning? he can lie all he wants and he can fool some people with his lies. But not us.
We know Janeane Garofalo. We also knew executives at AIR AMERICA RADIO. We are fully aware how he worked to push her out, to steal THE MAJORITY REPORT from her. Sam was a nothing then -- still is -- who got lucky in being paired with Janeane for the program. He was an idiot then and he's an idiot now. Worst of all, he was a pro-war buffoon. Janeane brought on service members against the war -- two women. And that was at the start of the show. We damn well remember Sam's shriek-fest over that. We damn well heard how he tried to stab Janeane in the back over that, how he told suits at the network that there should never be members of the military who were against the Iraq War -- not on the AIR AMERICA airwaves. We know him for the piece of trash he is.
We remember when Janeane would have to miss a show due to vacation or to an acting job. Who did Sam The Feminist get to fill in?
Would you be surprised to learn that he went with Bill Scher, Atrios, Kos? You shouldn't be. Sam's ideal co-host always had a penis. When he could have helped women, he was too busy engaging in a circle jerk and forever being disappointed that he had the shortest stump.
Thems the breaks, Sammy.
When Sam's stunts to ease Janeane out of the show weren't working, he took to attacking her on air. Some may remember when he attacked her for a program that a few NYC fire fighters had found helpful (we neither supported nor opposed the program -- unlike Sam, we don't see it as our role to butt into everybody else's business). Some might remember that because he carried out that attack on air Yes, the tragically unemployed Sam Seder (he even lost out on the role of the brother-in-law on ACCORDING TO JIM) was so desperate to take over THE MAJORITY REPORT that while Janeane was filming episodes of THE WEST WING in Los Angeles, he was in NYC attacking her on air. What a pal, right?
Now Janeane is a nice person. She says she forgives him. But we know Janeane and, no, she doesn't. We know Janeane and we know she's one incident away from exploding over what he did to her. She tries to be nice -- and she is a nice person. But she's not a doormat. And at some point, she will stop taking the high road and confide to her legion of fans just how hurtful what Sam did to her actually was.
Because that's what Sam actually is -- a person who hurts.
Ask his wife. We're sure she'll be as honest with others as she was with us. Yes, Sam, you are on thin ice, we'd advise you to calm your ass down.
Sam also hurts We The People.
We're not believers in electoral politics. As Emm Goldman long ago said, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." But others differ. And many who had differing opinions pinned their hopes on AIR AMERICA RADIO. Starting in early 2004, there was hope that it would make a real impact in that year's presidential election and help sending Bully Boy Bush out of the White House. That, sadly, didn't happen.
And we quickly saw what embarrassments AIR AMERICA RADIO truly employed. There was Mike Papantonio. We didn't hold his long partnership with Republican and obnoxious and repulsive TV host Joe Scarborough against him. We didn't then, we don't now. We do hold it against him that the day after the election he was saying that it was fraud and that he was going to DC and . . . After all of his heated rhetoric he did nothing.
Makes us really wish that Liz Winstead and Rachel Maddow had called him "Pap Smear" as Liz joked on air -- he immediately shut that down with zero indication of humor.
You do not challenge voting results in the United States. That's the lesson Mike learned -- one so many have internalized. That leaves the results forever questionable, in our opinion. But Mike's collapse-able spine was nothing compared to Sam Seder.
In 2004, some readers may be shocked by this, following the election, there was a push for the corporatist Democratic Party to move even further to the right.
There were blogger friends of Sam's (well, not really friends, Sam has no real friends -- for obvious reasons -- but bloggers who were friendly with Sam) who spent their time attacking abortion rights and insisting that it was us "zealots" who demanded that women have control over their own bodies who were destroying the Democratic Party's ability to win elections. At THE COMMON ILLS, we had to note this dismaying trend and to defend Victoria Hopper whom we knew (she was Dennis Hopper's final wife) who was among the women being attacked by these 'Bull Moose' types. Sam was among those types.
December 10, 2004, Sam Seder proved he was never, ever to be trusted. That was the night he whored on air for Simon Rosenberg.
Rosenberg wanted to be DNC chair. There were many competing for that role. THE COMMON ILLS community supported Howard Dean so that's who we supported. We know Donnie Fowler and felt he would have made a strong choice for the position. We did not know Simon Rosenberg personally -- but then we don't tend to hang out with trash.
Sam does. He embraces trash. And he did everything December 10, 2004 but swallow for Simon -- as far as we know, anyway, he spit it out.
Simon was part of the New Democratic Network. That right-leaning organization was the DLC brought back to life. Or, as US Stephanie Tubbs Jones once joked to us, "The organization created by people who felt the DLC was too left-wing."
Simon wanted to be head of the DNC and move it further to the right. He tried to sell himself as a viable candidate via the media and that included AIR AMERICA RADIO. He tried to pull his crap on UNFILTERED (Lizz, Rachel and Chuck D's show) and was shot down by Rachel. Simon felt 'the gays' were holding the Democratic Party back as well. Say what you will able today's Rachel Maddow but, in 2004, she did stand strong and refuse to whore.
Sadly, Sam's never not whored. He was probably whoring back in the days when he was a full on religious freak. He doesn't talk about those days now, does he? Well, he doesn't talk about those days to 'mixed audiences' -- meaning he won't speak of those days to non-Jews. He doesn't feel that non-Jews will understand. Those who've noted his anti-Palestinian bias over the years probably get why.
But Simon Rosenberg needed to sell it and Sam was the man to pimp it.
Hard questions?
No, he had none.
He just stroked Simon over and over -- assisted by Bill Scherr.
It was an embarrassment.
And listeners of the program were outraged. Simon was pushing right-wing and getting away with it. He was anti-gay. He was anti-choice. He was pro-war. And Sam just had his hand down Simon's pants, just stroking and stroking.
Please note that Sam did find time to insult Howard Dean repeatedly.
And after the long hour going down on Simon, Sam did find time to attack the audience. They were outraged and making that clear on the message board for the show. They were calling him out for his 'interview' and for his refusal to hold Simon accountable. And Sam whined and screamed at listeners. It was not a good moment for Sam and it's one he'd like to pretend never happened.
That's the real Sam. A pro-apartheid, pro-war, pro-corporation sell out.
Sadly, people who should know better do not.
There's a bad actress who, back in August, wanted to tell us about Sam Seder. She'd just discovered him. He was wonderful!!!! We had to listen. He was so left.
"You are so stupid," was the kindest remark we gave her. We then suggested she speak to a number of people, including Janeane, before she next listened to Sam. To her credit, she did so. And she no longer praises him and no longer listens to him. Thankfully.
But many people are fooled by him. Not a lot and certainly not as many people as he once had access to.
He is out to get Jimmy Dore because Jimmy speaks his truth.
We do not worship Jimmy Dore. And we do disagree with him from time to time.
Need examples?
We feel Tulsi Gabbard was a fake ass. She refused to challenge Joe Biden in the debate -- Jake Tapper gave her two chances to do so. She postured and preened as anti-war but on the stage with someone who voted for the Iraq War, she refused to hold him accountable. She was so very good at going after Kamala Harris but Kamala never stood a chance at the nomination. And, in fact, when Tulsi went after Kamala, it was seen as payback for Kamala going after Joe. Tulsi is a fake ass. Jimmy disagrees with us on that.
Here's another. Jimmy does not like Green Party member and 2020 presidential nominee Howie Hawkins. That's his right. He can have any opinion he wants. But what we previously called him out on was his insisting that Jesse Ventura should have gotten the nomination.
Oh, hell no.
That's not anything against Jesse except Jesse refused to run for the nomination. You cannot complain about the DNC's process -- as both Jimmy and we have -- and then turn around and claim that the Green Party should ignore the people actively campaigning for the presidential nomination and instead give it to someone who refuses to run for it.
We called Jimmy out for that. We've never heard him mention that again so we assume the point registered.
Even if it didn't, we don't have to agree with someone 100% to enjoy them.
But we do have to believe that they are sharing what they really believe and not trying to trick us.
Sadly for Sam Seder and his ilk, their attempts to trick us were long ago exposed and we have no use for them.