Rachel Dolezal, Caitlyn Jenner, and the Double Standard

Of the all memes that plague the Internet these days, one finally caught my attention for not being instantly recognizable for its stupidity.

The question implied by the meme asks why is it socially acceptable that former Olympian Bruce Jenner – a white person – wants to pass himself off as a something he is not but it is not socially acceptable for former NAACP chapter president Rachel Dolezal – another white person – to attempt to pass herself off as something she is not? Is the difference about gender, is it about race, is it about celebrity; what the heck is going on here?

We should all know by now what Dolezal did wrong: She is guilty* of cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation, if you don’t know already, is adopting or using elements of a culture you’re not considered a part of and using them for your own benefit. Moreover, minorities and Caucasians of an extremely guilty conscious will tell intimate to you – if not tell you outright – that this criminal behavior only applies to Caucasians given the historical treatment of everyone else in the world by said Caucasians, or something. Dolezal, during her tenure as a chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was discovered to be Caucasian and not an actual African American, as she portrayed herself as and continues to identify herself as. This outraged pretty much everyone who chiefly identifies themselves as a victim (which is occasionally for a good reason) and/or operates solely on emotion. (Nevermind that there is no bylaw of the NAACP that states that a chapter president must be of ‘colored’ descent. ) Dolezal, being Caucasian, comes from what is considered the upper and more powerful class and that in itself apparently means she is not allowed to identify herself as an African American no matter how much she acts like it or how much tanning she does. Dolezal, being Caucasian, because of her genetics, her race, is not allowed to portray herself as a member of a disadvantaged class in any manner. Why this is the case is not the question right now, but keep in mind that this is the state of ‘social justice’ mentality in the U.S. right now.

[* Guilty in the eyes of those who chose to accept the definition and the negative connotation of ‘cultural appropriation.’]

By comparison, what Bruce Jenner apparently did right was come from the upper and most powerful class of all – white men – and change himself into a member of a disadvantaged class, borrowing all the bells and getting rid of some of the whistles to do so. Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner went much further than Dolezal did with his/her cultural appropriation. Yet uber-liberals and every disadvantaged class in the U.S went ga ga for Caitlyn. So, on the face of it, this would seem to be a double standard unless something else is going on. Why is what Ciatlyn did acceptable and what Dolezal did unacceptable?

Is it the case that it is okay to go from being one gender within an ethnicity to another gender within the ethnicity because you’re staying within the ethnicity? Is it the case that it is not okay to identify with one ethnicity because you are not genetically that ethnicity? [For argument’s sake, we will concern ourselves with the genetic component of ethnicity since this appears to be the primary basis for accepting or rejecting people into a wide cultural group.] If both these cases are true they must have some kind of philosophical justification. Otherwise, it would seem up to ‘herd mentality’ to arbitrarily judge what is socially acceptable and what is not, and this would mean there is no rational basis for accepting Caitlyn Jenner for who she thinks she is. And that’s just it; there is no philosophical basis for the cases such as I’ve stated them and possible reasons for rejecting them, mostly on the basis of what is considered an ethnicity.

The reality is that ethnicity is almost as fluid as language and this mightily complicates anyone’s attempt at any sort of identity. Take for example someone like Barak Obama who is half-African and half-Caucasian; should he identify himself as one or the other? Based on what, the dominance of one parent’s genes over the other, what he looks more like, based on how he talks, based on what cultural practices he observes? While Barack Obama looks more African than Caucasian, he definitely acts more Caucasian than African. Maybe both ethnicities should reject him as a strange anomaly or as something less than either (and member of both ethnicities surely do). And what would we make of someone who is equal parts African, Caucasian, Asian and Latino? So, we can’t (or shouldn’t) base the acceptance or rejection of someone within a cultural group based on their genetic constitution. If Rachel Dolezal identifies herself as ‘colored’ because that is what she feels inside, this should be exactly the same as Bruce Jenner wanting to change his identity because of how he feels inside. But if we’re going to bring genetics into the argument, that Bruce is good to go because he’s staying within the same ethnicity, the reality is that one can no more actually become a woman than one can become African. But if changing one’s identity is just a matter of drug therapy and surgery, than anyone can become another gender or ethnicity and the stewards of today’s social justice will have to accept it.

Although I am no fan of Kylie Jenner, the black community should get off her back for putting her hair in cornrows. She’s a 17-year old nitwit who hasn’t formed her own identity yet. But when she does, if forming her identity means she is going to walk, talk and look like she’s black, her identity must be accepted for there to be any consistence to the term ‘social justice.’ On the other hand, if what’s really going on here is that it is okay to be racist if you’re from a disadvantaged class because historical Caucasians haven’t treated your group well, well then, let’s call a spade a spade and recognize today’s ‘social justice’ for what it really is – vengeance.

I Watched It So You Don't Have to: Jupiter Ascending

When you find yourself thinking that a dastardly one-dimension, 7-foot tall lizard who wears a trench coat is the best thing about a movie, you start thinking you’ve just seen one of the worst movies ever made.

If you were to take your time trying to explain everything wrong with the Wachowski Brother’s 2015 movie Jupiter Ascending, you would likely miss out on some of life’s equally torturous experiences, such as having your perfectly healthy teeth yanked out with rusty pliers. Jupiter Ascending’s basic plot revolves around a destitute young woman who doesn’t know she is royalty (thanks to the configuration of her DNA) and her scheming space-family who all want her inheritance, the Earth, for themselves. With a huge budget, the movie attempts everything including the kitchen sink; nothing is spared in an effort to cram everything into a movie: In short, if you were to take Cinderella and Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix, Guardian of the Galaxy, Gravity – basically every other sci-fi movie ever – and put it in a blender, Jupiter Ascending would come out. Unsuprisingly, everything gets lost in the mix. The casting is questionable, the acting is terrible, the plot barely coherent, the visuals (generally agreed by critics to be stunning are in fact) too far over the top and OH my GOD THE sound EDITING! Fire that guy!!

I’ll begin with the plot holes simply because I have to start somewhere and they are something that for me is incredibly distracting. Most notably, Channing Tatum’s character’s past reveals that he was alleviated of his (literal) wings for attacking a member of the royal family, but we never find out why he did it. If you’re Kunis’ Jupiter, who is royalty, you might want to know what exactly happened instead of falling for this alien who is essentially a wolf-like space stripper with Spock ears. In another instance, Mila Kunis’ character is attacked in her apartment by silly little aliens looking to kill her, yet they don’t actually do it and instead opt to ‘wipe’ her memory. Wtf? Worse, the same aliens erase her memory of them being in her apartment but are so incompetent that they leave her with a picture of them on her smart phone. Then there’s half of Chicago getting blown up when the villains are chasing down Channing and Kunis, but this is explained away as Channing says the aliens will ‘wipe’ everyone’s memory and although some people will remember what happened, no one will believe those people. Meanwhile, everyone else in the city has no memory as to why half the city is blown up! And if you add in the assumption that some people would have videoed the battle and the aliens don’t have the sense to erase data on smart phone, well, you see why this is a plot hole. (I would also like to add that the 8-minute long battle over the skies of Chicago feels much like watching your friend play a first-person shooter game while you eagerly wait your turn. Of course, you never get to play.)

As far as casting is concerned, the movie might as well have been cast by a deaf and blind mute. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter (“Just call me Jupe,” she says to her subjects upon discovering she’s royalty. REALLY?), a down on her luck 20-something who wishes she was royalty and then discovers she’s royalty. Naturally, upon discovering she owns the entire friggin’ Earth, doesn’t want the responsibility and really just wants to go back to her family of poor Russian immigrant stereo-types. Unfortunately, Kunis cannot act worth a lick, making the far-fetched Cinderella plot device all the worse. Meanwhile, Channing Tatum reluctantly plays Caine, a half-wolf ex-space marine bad-ass hoping to redeem himself and get his feathery Victoria’s Secret angel wings back despite wearing a pair of gravity-defying roller skates that would seem to be more handy. There is no denying Channing was simply picking up a paycheck with this movie as he waited for the Magic Mike sequel to go into production. Then there’s Sean Bean cast as Caine’s mumbling father figure while Eddie Redmayne plays the evil Balem Abrasax, a character even more mumbly than Sean Bean who occasionally musters enough strength to scream, “Kill her!” The rest of the cast is ancillary, whose careers are probably over after appearing in this movie.

Then there’s the visuals. Are they good? Frankly, they’re too good in that there is often so much going on on the screen at times that you can possibly process it all. The visuals then were perhaps a means of distracting viewers from the movie’s attempt to critique capitalism but for which it offers no solution. Cue the scene of Kunis navigating the space-DMV in order to claim her inheritance with help of a roboticly gay assistant. Groan.

“Ambitious failure is at least worth talking about,” says critic Martin Roberts. He is right; Jupiter Ascending qualifies as a movie so bad that it is good, insofar as one can enjoy the movie on a comical level, mocking the movie’s poor execution despite the honorable intentions of the movie’s producers. You clearly get the sense that the Wachowski Brother’s thought they had a good story on their hands but once the movie went into production, it seems as though they saw how bad it was going to turn out but had already crossed the point-of-no-return and therefore had to finish production. This ‘fact’ is no more evident than in the dialogue, which seems at times written by complete strangers who didn’t bother to communicate with each other about what the characters in the movie were saying to each other, much less how they were saying it.

All of this is a shame as the underlying premise, the very reason Earth is at risk, is actually somewhat interesting: The planet is just one among thousands in which its inhabitants are ‘harvested’ to produce a life-extending drug for the alien royalty. It’s a good enough premise to construct a story around, so perhaps the remake in five or so years will be better. But that movie would have to be because when your expectations are low, you have nowhere to go but up. And that is how anyone with the guts to sit through this movie should approach this cinematic Titanic.

Manson Family Values

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father and his mother, and wife

and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be

my disciple.” Jesus; in Luke 14:26

I don’t know about you but when I think of the typical American family,

I think of picket fences, summer picnics with 2.5 kids, and cuddly puppy dogs worthy of their own Hallmark cards; the perfect lily white Stepford wives community where we all shower love and support upon one another with nary a cloud in the sky.

And back to reality. These days there isn’t much respect to be had for the family. Spousal and child physical and mental abuse, single parent households, teen pregnancy that lets the fathers off the hook, drug use, too many video games, smart phone use and TV, not enough education, and so on and so forth. For Americans, the phrase “dysfunctional family” has become the default definition of a family. We now live in a day and age when a family that isn’t dysfunctional is considered to be outside the norm.

While religious conservatives would love for you to believe that liberal, homosexual communists are to blame; the disintegration of the family unit actually lies more with, shocker, religious conservatives themselves. As with most anyone worth their salt, conservatives are just as irresponsible at parenting and are among those to blame for the breakdown of the traditional family. After all, weren’t conservatives the stewards of the family unit before it all came crashing down? Somebody somewhere dropped the ball.

In an attempt to disguise and shift the blame, religious conservative in America pretend to get riled up and make a big deal out of the decline of the American family. It’s just that, by golly, the so-called “family values” they support are almost nowhere to be found in the book (the Bible) they claim extols such virtues. [At least Muslims are generally consistent with aligning their values with the Koran in their attempts to subjugate others.] Are religious conservatives for or against the following family values? I’ll report. You decide.

Incest. Any religious conservative will say they condemn such a thing, but the Bible practically condones it! Naturally you don’t believe me, but don’t take my word for. Take God’s word for it. In the Bible, when Lot and his daughters are hanging out in a cave, Lot’s daughters get him drunk and have sex with him and get themselves preggers (Genesis 19:30-38). What, no outcry from the good Lord above? That’s weird. And what about Moses? Moses was the product of an incestuous marriage yet was one God’s favorite characters. I mean, really favorite characters. To be fair, though, the Bible does condemn incestuous marriage in Leviticus. It’s just that God certainly makes exceptions, such as in the case of Abraham and his sister. Ah, what a capricious god.

Sexual abuse. Likewise with incest, it’s hard to find in the Bible where God is against such a thing. Didn’t the previously mentioned Lot offer up his daughters as a sacrifice to an unruly mob (Genesis 19:8)? Rape doesn’t seem to be much of a concern to God. Why, in the Book of Deuteronomy the penalty for raping a virgin is the sum of fifty shekels and having to wed said virgin. Gosh, that’ll make her feel better. Taking female virgins as spoils of war is also okay-ed in the Bible; in Numbers, Judges, and Deuteronomy.

Child abuse. The Book of Proverbs offers up some good advice for dealing with unruly kids. Proverbs 13:24 tells us not to spare the rod. As in, “It was Daddy, in the bedroom, with the lead pipe.” Proverbs 22:15 states beating your child will make them less foolish and perhaps even wise, as stated in Proverbs 29:15. Proverbs 23:13-14 tells us to beat our children hard and often, ya’ know, to deliver their souls from Hell. But wait, there’s more! Exodus 21:7-8 gives instructions on how to sell your daughter. Exodus 21:15-17 and Leviticus 20:9 instruct us to execute a child who hits or curses their parent. And don’t even get me started on that whole circumcision thing! But hey, what are children but glorified piñatas anyway?

Polygamy. Sure we outlaw it these days but that’s hardly because God condemns it. In Genesis, Lamech is the first in a loooong line of really horny dudes to have more than one wife.

The first thing a religious conservative will say in response to this is, “Well, that’s the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus preaches love.” Oh, really? When Jesus preached love, he sure did it in contradiction to respecting your family. On one hand you’ve got Jesus telling people that loving your neighbor is second only to loving God. On the other hand Jesus says in Luke 18:29-30 that if a man leaves his family for God, he’ll be greatly rewarded in Heaven. He affirms more family values when in Acts 16:30-31 he says that if you believe in him your whole family will be saved but in Mark 10:29-30 reiterates what he said in the previously mentioned Luke 18:29-30, giving men great rewards for abandoning their families. Am I really expected to take tips on living harmoniously with my family from a guy who is never once shown to speak kindly to his mother, Mary, and never once speaking at all to his (step) father, Joseph? Am I really expected to follow the example of a man who in Luke 8:10-12 intentionally speaks in parables to keep some people from being saved? Am I really expected to live in the manner of a man who would curse a fig tree for not bearing fruit at his whim? Jesus wasn’t a family man. He was bonkers.

If religious conservatives are to have an argument when they claim they want to protect the traditional American family for religious reasons, they should consider being consistent*. Don’t point out how honky-dory the Bible is when you don’t even adhere to its most basic teachings. If today’s Republican presidential candidates want power, why not just come out and say they want the right to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, the right to sell their daughters, the right to beat their sons within an inch of their lives if they so much as peep when they’re not supposed to? Ah, of course if they did all that, maybe there wouldn’t be so many people in church anymore, at least not of their own free will (putting aside that free will, cough cough, is supposed to be really important to God). Which reminds me, do they ever ask a child if they want the tip of its dick looped off?

“And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.” Genesis 17:14

Way to shun a family member over a piece of skin, God. You are one sick dude.

[* To Jeb Bush’s credit, he has suggested that working-class Americans – the Americans tasked with preserving the family – work longer hours in order to shore up the economy. The consequence, of course, would be that parents would spend even less time with their children than they already do. This would be another form of abuse perfectly in synch with Biblical teachings. Interestingly, one of his competitors for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, has nothing but bad things to say about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, a group of people to whom family is far more important than their fairer skinned American counter-parts. And this…is nothing short of Manson Family Values.]