I don’t expect a ton of folks to read this week’s installment, as I know a bunch of my audience is on self-imposed exile from the Internet until they get a chance to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi. So, this is my chance to just write a bunch of random shit with no challenge or repercussion. And don’t worry, as I’m saving my Last Jedi thoughts for next week.
HarassmentWatch (TM)
I can’t tell you how tired I am of writing this section every week, but dudes just can’t seem to keep their dicks in their pants, so here we are.
Mario Batali: The week started off with celebrity chef Mario Batali being accused of sexual misconduct. Four women came forward that Batali has touched them inappropriately over a span of 20 years. While he didn’t know the identities of the women, his response was basically, “Yup, that sounds like me.” As a result, he has stepped away from the business operations of his restaurants, and has been fired as a co-host of ABC’s talk show The Chew. I just want to point out that, out of all of the celebrity chefs, they got Batalo before they got Guy Fieri. It just goes to show that you can’t judge a book by its frosted tips!
Tavis Smiley: The PBS host was accused of having engaged in sexual relationships with multiple subordinates – in many cases where it was implied that the women’s employment was contingent upon them complying. He said anything that might’ve happened was consensual. PBS said “No way, José!” Or maybe something like “Who’s Smiley now?” I don’t know. I bet they said something really clever. In any case, they’ve suspended distribution of his show.
Blake Farenthold: The US Representative from Texas announced that he won’t seek re-election following accusations of sexual harassment. Ah, he’s taking the Conyers package. Excellent choice, sir! Anyway, unlike most of these dudes, who turn out to be wang danglers, Farenthold’s offense was that he was unprofessional and liked to make off-color jokes to subordinates. For example, when one of his aides was leaving for his wedding, Farenthold reportedly said, “Better have your fiancée blow you before she walks down the aisle — it will be the last time.” So, in addition to looking like Captain Planet villain Hoggish Greedly wearing a toupee, Farenthold is also clearly a prophet. Oh, and he also had a habit of calling those around him “fucktards”.
Morgan Spurlock: THIS piece of shit. Just look at his smug face. You know, I’ve had issues with Spurlock ever since Super Size Me. Yes, I have an irrational loyalty to the McDonalds Corporation, and I didn’t like the hit job he did on them with that documentary. A lot of folks don’t realize that his wife at the time was a vegan chef, and that was basically his diet. So, yeah, eating McDonalds 3 times a day is gonna make you throw up – not necessarily because of anything having to do with the McDonalds, but more due to the fact that your body just ain’t used to it. Anyway, he thought he was being noble by outing himself on Twitter, saying “I am also part of the problem”. He went into detail that he’d been accused of rape in the past, that he had paid a settlement to a former assistant due to sexual harassment, and that he had cheated on every wife and girlfriend he had ever had. He blamed it on a drinking problem that, according to him, he’s had for 30 years. Anyway, he stepped down from his production company in the wake of his “confession”.
Basically ALL of NFL Network: Former wardrobe stylist Jami Cantor worked for NFL Network for over a decade, and reported that she had been sexually harassed by Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk, as well as analysts Ike Taylor and Heath Evans. She also included former employees Warren Sapp, Donovan McNabb, and Eric Davis in her allegations. Faulk fondled her when greeting her, Taylor sent her pics of himself in the shower, McNabb tried to sext her, Davis told her he wanted to have rough sex with her, and Evans sent her naked pictures of himself and constantly asked her to have sex with him. Oh, and Sapp gave her a sex toy at Christmas THREE YEARS IN A ROW, taking a page from the Matt Lauer handbook. NFL Network has suspended the guys who actually still work for them, but half of them had already been fired for other offenses. In fact, these allegations came out during a wrongful termination suit, in which it is alleged that Cantor herself was fired for stealing clothes from an unspecified on-air talent member.
Harvey Weinstein Update: Salma Hayek added her voice to the 70 women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct. She said that Weinstein was her “monster”, and detailed the aggressive advances he made towards her after they established a business relationship to help her produce Frida. He even insisted that a full frontal love scene be included – a scene so distressing for her that she said she had to take tranquilizers just to get through filming it.
In politics, Omarosa Manigault, or just “Omarosa”, was reportedly fired from the Trump administration earlier this week. In fact, reports seem to imply that she was physically removed from the premises. They dragged her out like a belligerent Delta passenger, yet the White House insists that she “resigned to pursue other opportunities”. To hear the story, they chucked her out like Uncle Phil used to do to Jazz. Womp womp. She was reportedly making $180,000 a year as the Special Assistant to Who The Fuck Knows. No, seriously, nobody seemed to know what she was doing there, and she didn’t even make it a full year. Well, good riddance to bad rubbish. She’ll probably be on Dancing with the Stars or have her own Fox News show by this time next year.
In movie news, some interesting stuff is going on with the Screen Actors Guild Awards. For starters, only women will present awards at the 2018 ceremony. The executive producer of the awards said that this is a “salute to women”, following a year in which they were “very, very brave.” Yeah, that’s all well and good, but considering things will just go back to “normal” in 2019 kinda kicks the wind out of the sails of this gesture. It feels like an overcompensation, rather than sustainable, meaningful change.
Meanwhile, Jordan Peele’s Get Out has been jerked all over the awards circuit, being nominated for Best Musical of Comedy Motion Picture for the Golden Globes, which resulted in an “It wasn’t a comedy!” outcry. Well, for the SAG Awards, the cast was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. However, breakout star Lil Rel Howery, got excluded this nomination due to a trivial SAG rule. You see, according to the rule, you can’t be considered a main cast member if you don’t have your own solo title card in the main title sequence. A lot of this billing stuff is decided arbitrarily as deals are being ironed out, but Howery appears in the credits on the same card as Erika Alexander, so it gives the appearance of perceived lesser star power, and neither will win an award if the cast wins this category.
In Power Rangers news, we got our first glimpse of the Super Sentai series that will air next season in Japan (with the assumption that the footage will eventually be adapted into a future Power Rangers season). Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patoranger looks stupid. It’s 2 teams of three: one group is a bunch of thief Rangers with safe tumblers on their Zords, while the other group seems to be detectives, with badges on their helmets. The designs are ugly, and it just sounds like a dumb premise. But Ranger fans are eating it up because, well, Ranger fans…Seriously, you could eat rainbow sherbet and shit in a bucket, and they’d still be mesmerized by all the colors. It doesn’t take much with them. Anyway, I hope Saban skips this season just like he did with the train series.
In comics news, it has been SEVENTEEN DAYS and Marvel still hasn’t addressed the Cebulski thing. Kinda have to admire the balls on them at this point. Like, at this point, they control the narrative, and they’re choosing to retcon the whole thing. Most conversations about it have died down, but that doesn’t make it any less worse. It’ll be interesting to see if any big name talent walks away from any projects over there. I doubt it, and it won’t be any of the White dudes. It’d have to be someone like Wilson or Coates. But jobs are hard to come by, and nobody wants to rock the boat…
With Disney’s backing, Marvel’s cock of the walk and probably feel like they don’t need to address it. That said, if the majority of readers don’t care, they have little to lose by briefly addressing it and moving on, with “an eye trained on the future and not the past”. It’s quite the thing to just leave dangling. Plus it may not affect marquee creators, but you’d better believe it will be a new barrier to entry for the next Asian writer. It’s going to be kind of hard to take a Sunfire miniseries seriously written by newcomer “Ryu Kurosawa” when everyone knows there’s a chance it’s really just Cullen Bunn, “taking the piss”. That’s where the real damage has been done.
I know how corporations work, and I don’t expect Marvel to get down on their knees. In all honesty, the window has passed. It’s just a really messy handling of the entire situation.
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- USA renewed Mr. Robot for a 4th season. I bailed back in season 2, so maybe somebody can catch me up. Have they introduced Mrs. Robot yet, or is he swinging bachelorbot?
- Curb Your Enthusiasm was renewed for a 10th season at HBO. Based on its production pattern, don’t look for it to debut until around 2023.
- Archie Comics will be rebooting Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy in an ongoing series that launches in April.
- Dreamworks and Netflix are teaming up for a reboot of She-Ra: Princess of Power. Based on how the reboots of other 80s cartoons have been received, I expect this to be ruined by the unrealistic nostalgia expectations of manchildren.
- The Walking Dead television series took a major detour from the comics this week, solidifying the upcoming death of an original character. It’s funny – comics fans expect the series to end with Carl Grimes picking up where his father, Rick, left off, while the television series will probably just end with Rick and Michonne raising their halfy kids in the woods somewhere.
- Sylvester Stallone will no longer be directing Creed 2, which will now be helmed by relative newcomer Steven Caple Jr.
- Apple acquired music discovery app Shazam in a deal worth $400 million. I’ve got nothing snarky to say here. Next?
- Hannibal Buress was arrested last weekend for disorderly conduct, which can only mean that Bill Cosby and the Black Illuminati are finally exacting their revenge on him for setting into motion the renewed interest in Cosby’s sexual assault allegations back in 2014.
- The all-female Ocean’s 8 is actually called Ocean’s 8. I thought that was just a working title. It’d be funny if it’s a prequel, and they turn out to be the moms of everyone in Ocean’s 11. Think about it: they started at 8, meaning they have room for a full trilogy that leads right into the Clooney/Pitt installment.
- John Wick 2 director Chad Stahelski is attached to an adaptation of Ed Brubaker’s comic, Kill Or Be Killed. I’m a big fan of the book, which follows a regular guy whose botched suicide attempt somehow results in him having to kill people to appease a demon. I know it sounds weird, but it’s really good.
- Alabama narrowly avoided electing an alleged child molester to the U.S. Senate. Sure, the feel-good story everyone is telling is about how Doug Jones beat Roy Moore, with the help of Black women voters. Let’s not forget, however, Moore got 48.4% of the vote, which is about 48.4% too much for a dude with a penchant for 14 year old girls. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you people?!
- Disney purchased Fox’s assets for a reported $52 billion. I’ve already gone into detail as to why I think this is a bad deal. Anyway, have fun with your Fantastic Four movies. I hope they were worth it.
- I LOVE the Miles Morales character, so I’m interested to see how this animated movie, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is going to turn out. Honestly, this trailer doesn’t do a lot for me, but I’m hoping for the best.
Who had a great week? Hmm…Disney? Yeah, I guess so. That remains to be seen, however. Fox? I mean, they did just make a shit ton of money, but what are they gonna do with it? You know who had a great week? Ajit Pai, Chairman of the FCC who spearheaded this week’s vote to repeal Net Neutrality. That dude was on videos with alt-righters, mocking Net Neutrality supporters, and he got his wish when the vote passed. Still, this ain’t Time Magazine where we award “influencers”, and that dude’s a piece of shit. Ya know who had the West Week Ever? Black Women. Yeah, I know this is uncharted territory for the site, but let’s look at things here.
First of all, it was the Black female vote that helped to keep Roy Moore out of the Senate in Alabama. If you weren’t aware of that, it’s because you clearly have been in a coma, as everyone is falling over themselves to remind us that Black women did this. Well, thank you, Black women. It’s a shame that you had to come save the day, but you did it, and Alabama (and the country) thanks you. Here’s hoping politicians realize your influence in the future instead of hoping to just call on you like Toodles when shit gets bad.
Next, as a nice little “Thank you present”, Black women got to revel in the fact that “traitor” Omarosa was basically dragged through the White House Rose Garden, her Louboutins carving tracks behind her. While some might have once considered Omarosa to be a “strong, Black woman”, she really hasn’t endeared herself to her peers in recent years. Now she’s trying to act like it was lonely being her in the Trump White House. Well, no shit! Prominent Black women from Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts to journalist April Ryan all got in their parting shots at the former Apprentice contestant. In fact Omarosa was so incensed by Roberts’ “Bye, Felicia” remarks that she has declared a Black Woman Civil War, so I guess y’all have got that to look forward to, as well!
So, as you’re taking off your earrings and your high heels for this fight, rest well, Black Women, knowing that you had the West Week Ever!
