Roundtable

Jim: It's roundtable time. Remember our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com but you can also use common_ills@yahoo.com and, in fact, should this week Participating in our roundtable are  The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.

Jim (Con't): Okay, first up, LIGHTYEAR.  The film didn't do well at the box office.

Dona: It didn't do great but it did make over one hundred million in ticket sales.  I don't know how you spend $200 million on an animated film to begin with.  If they'd had a reasonable budget, the same amount at the box office would have been considered a hit.

Stan: LIGHTYEAR needed Tim Allen.  He is Buzz Lightyear and to make the film without him -- despite all their excuses -- was stupidity.

C.I.: I think the role should have gone to Tim as well but I also think Chris Evans is the wrong actor for vocal work.  His voice is not distinctive enough -- or deep enough.  These films do better when you're using unique voices.  Chris Evans has a generic voice.  You need Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Roseanne Barr, Wanda Sykes, Jack Whitehall, Will Smith, people with distinctive voices.  Like Tom Cruise, Chris Evans does not have a distinctive voice.

Stan: And it tends to work better if they've had sitcom experience or stand up comedy experience.

Ann: I would agree with that.  

Jim: You had the RISE OF GRU that did well this summer and the new PUSS IN BOOTS is doing well --

C.I.: Doing damn well.  And here's where we get to Dona's point.  Ticket sales are at $197.  And unlike LIGHTYEAR, it didn't have a $200 million shooting budget, it's shooting budget was $90 million. 

Ava: And, let's be honest, they were just throwing money away on LIGHTYEAR.  Chris Evans with his so-so voice was paid $10 million for LIGHTYEAR.  Why?  His voice is weak and indistinctive.  He didn't deserve it at all. When not playing CAPTAIN AMERICA, what film has he made that justifies a $10 million payday?  None.  

Jim: Steven Spielberg is another one who seems to have trouble justifying a salary these days. The WEST SIDE STORY remake bombed.  THE FABLEMANS is a bomb.  What's going on?

Ann: I don't think he knows how to tell realistic stories anymore.  We don't relate to him unless the film has a syfy gimmick.  His stories are old and tired -- that's true of WEST SIDE STORY and true of THE FABLEMANS.

Jess: Someone, and maybe it was you, Ann, noted that the original WEST SIDE STORY was an iffy project which was why Jack Warner cast Natalie Wood in it -- to bring some star power and ensure that tickets were sold.  Spielberg didn't feel that need.

Ann: He sure didn't and it certainly showed at the box office.  

Jim: He seems out of touch with today's audience.  And that can destroy a career.  I don't think Warren Beatty's going to direct again.  I could be wrong. 

C.I.: I hope you are but you're probably right.  RULES DON'T APPLY should not have received a green light.  It is hopelessly out of date.  If Warren had made it in the 70s or the 80s, that would be one thing.  But in 2016?  It was garbage because, by then, people who care about movies and care about Howard Hughes all knew he was bisexual and had affairs with Guy Madison, Cary Grant, Jack Buetel and others.  So to be playing him as straight looked hopelessly out of date and like a really bad TV movie.  If you can't deal honestly with your subject, don't make the film.  Hughes was bi and pretending otherwise would have worked in the 70s or 80s but it was like making a film in 2016 trying to convince the audience that J. Edgar Hoover was straight.

Ava: It didn't help that the overweight and non-sexy Alden Ehrenreich was the third lead.  

Jim: He's a lead in OPPENHEIMER.

Ava: No, he's not.  He's 14th billed on that project.  Besides Elizabeth Banks there aren't many people stupid enough to give him a main role these days and he's fourth billed in her upcoming film. He has no appeal.  Idiots are casting him in roles when it should be clear to everyone that the American people do not respond to him. 

Jim: Margot Robbie has no appeared in multiple flops.

Ty: But she wasn't carrying the films.  BABYLON is Brad Pitt's film and it's his flop.  She was not the star of AMSTERDAM -- a hideous film with a lousy performance from Taylor Swift.  THE SUICIDE SQUAD was a flop but I think everyone grasps that it would have made even less money without her in it.  It's really easy to blame Margot but these weren't her films and, of course, the press has always refused to hold Brad Pitt accountable for his bombs and he's made more bombs than he has hits.  Right, Betty?

Betty: Exactly.  For an actor who's been making films since the 90s, he has very few hit films he can point to today.  Blaming Margot for BABLYON is sheer stupidity.  Brad's gotten bloated in the face and in the mid-section yet there he was in every ad for BABLYON strutting around in his underwear.  People might have paid for that in the 90s or the 00s, but it's too late now.  He looks like an old man and all that drinking has made him not just fat but also old beyond his years.  He's the reason the film flopped.

Jim: When we were covering BROS -- especially Ava and C.I. covering it -- we got some of the worst e-mails ever.  But as the weeks have passed, even some of those who didn't get the point originally, now appear to have.

Betty: I don't think people realized what a homophobic waves was cresting.  I think people would have taken less offense to Billy Eichner's Tweet -- which wasn't offensive at all -- if they're realized just how concentrated the attacks on the LGBTQ+ community was.  I think we all saw the hatred after BROS opened.  Prior to that, we weren't really aware of it.  We thought the world had progressed beyond the Cameron demon-spawn of Kirk and Candace.  They are disgusting people.  HALLMARK better not take her back after she fails at her new network.  

Marcia: It's funny to me because, growing up, DJ Tanner always read gay to me.  I think that's true for a lot of people who watched.  It wasn't because she was overweight -- although that played into it.  She just had an air and attitude about her.  I think that's why she hates gay people so much, she realizes how easy it is for her to be one.  She'll probably be on her death bed before she can admit the truth to herself.

Betty: She may not know she is but I always felt Kirk was a closet-case and that he ran to religion not out of a love for God but in an effort to deny who he really was.  He's a flamer.

Marcia: Support.

Stan: I think that's true for a lot of them.  They are way too interested in the bedroom actions of two men or two women for it to be anything other than their own inclinations.  I think they're deeply closeted.

Ty: The Camerons or homophobes in general?

Stan: The Camerons for sure.  And Candace is so ugly.  That had to have hurt her growing up.  Knowing she wasn't pretty.  Always being fat and so masculine.  It had to eat at her identity.  She probably always wanted to be small and cute but she's so mannish -- even in the face.  Poor thing.  I'll pray for her.

Betty: I will too.  We're praying for you, Candice, praying Jesus will forgive you for your attacks on LGBTQ+ people and also for all the hatred that's inside your fat and ugly heart.  

Dona: Look, I'm not a girly girl and have never claimed to be but even for me, growing up, Candice Cameron rang the same-sex bells.  I always assumed that when FULL HOUSE ended, she'd be coming out of the closet.  

Ty: I'm going to read this in, this is from LGBTQ NATION:

A new trend seems to be all the rage for anti-LGBTQ+ parents, who have been increasingly touting the need to “deprogram” their progressive children and turn them conservative.

A recent report from the New York Post features a group of mothers who say their children refuse to talk to them after being “indoctrinated” with “gender and race ideology” by progressive high schools and colleges.

The article likens progressive values to being in a cult and details the mothers’ desire to find a “deprogrammer” to jolt their children back to reality.

The mothers were inspired by another story from the New York Post, that of Annabella Rockwell, a pharmaceutical fortune heiress, a rightwing activist, and a Mount Holyoke alumna who claimed that her mother hired a $300/day “deprogrammer” to turn her conservative after college.

“I saw Annabella’s story and my life turned upside down,” said 54-year-old Beth Pensky, whose son and daughter don’t speak to her.

Ty (con't): Thoughts?

Dona: Disgusting.  As a mother, I find that appalling.  You clearly don't love your child if you think they need deprogramming.  I fear for children with crazy parents.

Jess: I'm going to 100% with Dona on that.  If Ava and my child was gay, fine.  If she was a right-winger or left-winger or apolitical, fine.  We want her to be happy.  We want her to find love.  Am I wrong?

Ava: No, you're not.  Some people don't want children, they want little programmable mini-mes.  It's really sad.  I want my daughter to be happy.  That's really it.  I don't need to live through her, I don't need to program her.

Trina: You know, I've got eight children and they have similarities and they have differences.  I have one son who is gay.  I love all my children and I just want them to be happy in life like Dona, Jess and Ava are saying. 

Jim: Did you ever fear for your son being gay?

Trina: I'm scared for him right now.  This is a very homophobic time we're going through.  But I never thought, "Gee, if only he wasn't gay."  Gay is who he is.  I love him and it's not an issue.  Now I'm Catholic and I'm from a family of eight and I have a family of eight children.  When you're Catholic and have a large family, my experience, the question is never, "Do you have a gay child?," the question is "Which one is your gay child?"  Now my friend Pat, she's also Catholic and she has nine kids.  She knew one was gay, one of her boys.  And she thought that was all.  Then it turned out one of her daughters was as well and then two sons -- including one who came out after he married a woman.  If you asked Pat, she'd tell you she loves every one of her kids.   I watch these people like Candace Cameron and think, "Someone needs to study the teachings of Jesus."  She's so far from shore when it comes to God's love.  I have no use for people like that.  Not because they're ignorant -- they are ignorant -- but because they are using their ignorance to hurt others.

Ty: Well said.  To zoom over into the drag queen aspect, there are places that are trying to outlaw women dressing as men and men dressing as women.  I loved when C.I. asked what they're going to do when the next BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE comes to town?  And they're right-wingers who don't seem to grasp that their political hero Bob Hope dressed as a woman in movies.  I just am baffled by the hate involved in that.  I grew up with hatred aimed at me over the gay issue.  But they're bothered by Drag Kings and Draq Queens now?

Kat: I'll say it, I'll say the obvious.  They're home schooled in many cases, they haven't gone to college.  They have a huge chip on their shoulder and are angry at the world so they choose to target the LGBTQ+ community as well as drag artists. 

Rebecca: I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings but I agree with Kat.  Lauren Boebert is the perfect example of that.  She dropped out of high school.  Then, years later, right before she runs for office, she tries --- more than once -- to pass the test for a GED.  She's an idiot.  She's uninformed and she's full of hate.  So is Tulsi Gabbard, by the way.  And she's the equivalent of home schooled -- she went to that cult school.

Ruth: I can understand the hatred she pours on gay people.

Rebecca: You can?

Ruth: Yes.  There was a woman, a girl back then, who was at my school.  She was on her second year of 10th grade, her name was Kim Lide.  Her face, like Tulsi's face, was covered in scars and pockmarks as a result of acne.  People say she was sweet and fun until she got to eighth grade and developed bad acne.  She'd start out every day convinced the world was against her.

Rebecca: I can see it.  And, as a mom, I look at Tulsi and I honestly think, "Shut up."  She keeps talking about how she has to save America's children.  What children does she have?  None.  So back off.  I don't want some stranger interested in my child.  Don't want a male Scott Ritter or a female Tulsi Gabbard.  And what a fake ass she is.

Kat: Yeah, she did run a con job in the primaries pretending she was against wars.  

Mike: Up until she had to put or shut up.  In her last debate, she was twice asked about Joe Biden and the Iraq War and she gave him a pass.  After he's in office, she starts saying he's a Nazi.  Well, golly gee, Tulsi, who helped him into office?  Uh, you did.

Isaiah: Exactly right.

Mike: Exactly.  Not only did she refuse to hold him accountable in that debate, when she finally dropped out, she endorsed Joe and not Bernie.  So if Tulsi is unhappy -- and looking at her, seems like she's always unhappy -- then she has only herself to blame.

Ty: But people like that, homophobes, don't take blame.  They project it out on to others.

Dona: Agreed.

Betty: And I do believe there is a war being conducted against the LGBTQ+ community and that people who think they can stay on the sidelines are kidding themselves.  And that Marcia and C.I. are right to call out Glenn Greenwald.

Wally: Because he is covering up for Mother Tucker Carlson and others.  He's holding hands with homophobes.  He never had any self-respect, of course.  And he's so desperate and clingy that he'll sell out his own family in order to lick the boots of Mother Tucker and Marjorie Taylor Green and all the rest.

Cedric: As an African-American male, I'm bothered by the homophobia in the Black community.  Betty has rightly called it out at her site repeatedly and people will be like, "No, no, it doesn't exist."  It darn well does.  And it's appalling because we know discrimination based on skin color so why would we want to inflict harm on anyone else.  And, be honest, there's not a church choir -- a Black church choir -- in the country that doesn't have a gay man or two on it -- usually as a choir director.  They are our families.  We need to embrace with love.

Betty: I've talked to much, I know.  But when the whole drag thing came up at THE COMMON ILLS, C.I. noted how a freed slave, in DC, was one of the first drag artists in the country.  I mean that's a part of our culture.  It predates Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy and Tyler Perry. It's a long history.  We need to embrace our history.  And if a freed slave can go to DC and do that, nobody else has a right to judge.  How dare they.  This is part of our culture and we need to embrace it.

Ty: I agree with you both.  

Jim: Before we wind down, could you explain, C.I., about the man Betty is referring to.

C.I.: Sure.  William Dorsey Swann was born into slavery in Maryland in 1860.  In the 1880s in DC, he started hosting drag queen balls and is thought to be the first person to refer to himself as "the queen of drag."  PBS' AMERICAN MASTERS did a special on him in 2021.

Jim: Okay and on that note, we're going to wind down.  This is a rush transcript.