• 8 Posts
  • 458 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: September 24th, 2024
  • vaguerant@fedia.iotoMovies@lemmy.world•Former Superman actor reveals he’s becoming an ICE agent to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda
    35·
    4 months ago

    That’s kind of the point, that show ended 28 years ago. What have you seen him in since then? When he’s been mentioned in the years since, it’s generally either to make a joke about his career or just his general persona.

    30 Rock in 2006: In this episode, Jenna Maroney goes on a sexual walkabout, engaging in a bunch of deviant sex acts. At ~3:45, we see the very end of her checklist:

    • In an airplane wheel well
    • Pull a general Tso’s Revenge
    • Run a train with the cast of “Training Day” on a train
    • Soon-Yi a marriage
    • Supreme court Justice,Liberal
    • Yoko a band
    • Dean Cain

    Once the band has been Yoko’d, she scrolls down to the final entry. “Ugh, Dean Cain,” she sighs, rolling her eyes.

    Family Guy in 2007: Dean Cain is so desperate for attention that he’s taken to wearing old Superman merch and sidling up to random strangers then saying “Hey, is that Dean Cain?” in a fake voice.

  • vaguerant@fedia.iotomemes@lemmy.world•PokeGENDA
    52·
    4 months ago

    I checked, whoever CONEY is isn’t saying these things, it’s a reaction video making fun of the satanic panic around Pokémon. That’s why in the profile pic he looks like one of those dudes who would make an outrageous reaction face in the thumbnail, because he usually does. No shade, except for the obvious shade.

    EDIT: I’m watching the OG video (35 damn minutes); favorite pull quote so far:

    The danger of Dungeons & Dragons or any kind of role-playing game like this is that it’s played with the mind and–when played with the mind–the mind begins to lose that fine line with what’s real and what’s fantasy. And the more you get into the fantasy world, the more it seems real and all of a sudden now, you don’t know what’s real or what’s not.

    Seems like.

    EDIT2: Hold up though, is this guy working undercover for Prima Guides or something?

    And now, parents, if you’re not up on Pokémon, you need to be. And one of the things you can do is go out and buy the official Pokémon Trading Card Game Player’s Guide. And you can get this at any store that sells any of the Pokémon stuff. I mean anything. You can get it like at Toys ‘R’ Us or any of those places that sell any of the Pokémon.

  • vaguerant@fedia.iotoTelevision@piefed.social•What are you watching and what do you recommend this week?
    2·
    5 months ago

    I watched the eight-part miniseries Washington Black (US: Hulu, CA/UK/AU: Disney+). It’s a sort of swashbuckling 1800s steampunk fairytale of a Barbadian boy (the titular George Washington Black) who escapes the life of slavery he was born into using his scientific aptitude and a fantastical airship. I have somewhat mixed feelings about the depiction of life within the show’s universe, but going any further than that strays into spoiler territory. Overall, it was fun to watch. Sterling K. Brown is a major standout in the cast, but everybody is doing good work.

    Below I’ll go into a bit more detail about the things I liked less. It’s fairly minor spoilers, mostly about things that don’t happen in the show, but if you don’t want to know anything going in, skip it.

    Spoilers

    Presumably in service of being “fun to watch,” the realities of slavery and racism in the era are glossed over and sanded down significantly compared to the novel it’s adapting or actual history. There are a few threats of gratuitous violence but probably the worst thing that happens is a slap, which is bad but on the lower end of awful things that might happen to a slave. Nobody in the show’s universe seems to know any racial slurs. There is an over-representation of enlightened, abolitionist white men, although they are for the most part deeply flawed, not idealized white saviors.

    I don’t mean to give the impression that the racism is entirely whitewashed. There’s at least one unrepentant slaver, several malevolent slave-catchers, a light-skinned, mixed-race character is forced to disguise their parentage to continue living in wealthy, white society. But the show’s focus is mostly on the fun parts: the adventures, romance and airships, with the less palatable stuff frequently only implied or occurring off-camera.

    Overall, I’d say it’s what you might expect from a Disney(-ish) fairytale adaptation of darker source material. It just feels a little weird when the elements that were dropped are the harsh realities of 1800s racism and not … little mermaids dying (Hans Christian Anderson spoilers). Again, I had fun watching it, but I feel conflicted about how healthy it is to make historical fiction fun by softening the harder edges. Who knows, maybe it’s OK to have some escapist fiction with PoC protagonists, as a treat?

    For people who have seen Nautilus (US/CA: AMC+, UK: Amazon Prime Video, AU: Stan), I’d say that’s a better show, as far as swashbuckling steampunk adventures which try to engage with the racial dynamics of the (fictionalized) eras they represent. But both shows are very enjoyable, quite short and easy to watch. Go watch Nautilus.

  • vaguerant@fedia.iotoToday I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL that from 1264 to 1827, anyone who received a Master of Arts degree from Oxford had to swear that they would never forgive Henry Symeonis. By 1608, no one knew who he was or what he had done
    192·
    5 months ago

    For those who didn’t follow the link:

    But what was the reason for Henry’s condemnation by the University to five and a half centuries of infamy? It was a murder. In 1242 he and a number of other men of the town of Oxford were found guilty of murdering a student of the University. Henry and his accomplices were fined £80 by King Henry III in May 1242 and were made to leave Oxford as a result, forced to stay away (and allowed no closer than Northampton) at least until the King returned from abroad.

    Further research is needed to discover the exact details of what happened here but it seems that Henry Symeonis had bought the King’s pardon and his permission to return to Oxford. The King was willing to allow his return if the University agreed to it. But the University refused and chose to ignore the King’s order of 25 March 1264, resuming its hostility to Henry Symeonis. In fact, it felt so strongly about it, that it gave Henry Symeonis the unique honour of being named in its own statutes, making the University’s dislike of him official and perpetual.