wait….are any americans aware that the cia overthrew the democratically-elected premier of iran in 1953 because he wouldn’t concede to western oil demands….and how that coup was the reason for the shah’s return to power, the iranian revolution, and the resulting fundamentalist dictatorship…..like, america literally dissolved iranian democracy and no one knows about it???
No. No we don’t know about it.
Americans aren’t told this shit.
The only thing we’re taught about any Middle Eastern country in school is that 1) the region exists 2) it’s where The War is happening and 3) Muslim people live there. That’s it. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get into the Hammurabi Code and some early Babylonian stuff but American schools seem to think that if it happened outside Europe and before the colonial period, or makes America look bad and isn’t about A Very Watered Down Version of What Slavery Was, it’s not important.
Info on this is almost notoriously hard to find. It’s not in any texts on American and Russian involvement in the Middle East during the Cold War that I can find. You have to specifically look for a book about the Shah’s return to power, and even then you’d be hard pressed to find a book like that at your local bookstore. Once you get into some higher level college courses you might know about it, but the people who can afford those are more likely to already be indoctrinated into a certain Way of Thinking (read: they’re racist as shit) by the time they get there. And it’s almost like you have to know about it beforehand if you want to find information on it.
The only reason I knew about it is because there’s a thirty second summary of the event in Persepolis. Those thirty seconds flipped my entire worldview.
“All the Shah’s Men” by Stephen Kinzer is a good, accessible text for people who want to know more about this.
!!!
I had to explain literally this to one of my co-workers, who is so fuckin racist against Middle Eastern people it’s insane.
She’s 60. She never heard of this.
As I was explaining this and how, during the Regan years, we funded Osama Bin Laden to fight against Russia, leading to the destruction of much of the infrastructure in the region, one of the plant workers came in to get his badge fixed.
He works in the quality control lab. He served 15 years active duty in the Army. Super smart guy, has a masters in chemistry and another masters in biology, raises saltwater fish in his spare time for sale, has the saltwater aquarium setup of the gods. Raises rare corals too, some of which he donates to be used in re-seeding reefs around the world, but that’s a side tangent.
And he listened for a minute, then nodded and said “Yeah. I was there during that. I helped train people to fight. They wanted us to help them build schools and hospitals, after, but we were only interested in them as cannon fodder. Left the whole area in ruins. I wasn’t surprised when they hated us for it later. Told people then it would happen. We let them know then that they were only valuable to America as expendable bodies. Why wouldn’t they resent us for that?”
And she just looked floored.
“So…” She started, after a few minutes. “What do you think of Trump?”
“I hate him. He’s a coward and he’s going to get good people killed.” He didn’t even blink. “
She looked back and forth between us for a second, and then asked how I knew all this.
“I research things.” I said. “Google is great.” He nodded enthusiastically.
And she just sat there for a second and then said, really quietly, “I didn’t know.”
She lived through it.
American schools don’t teach you any of this sort of thing.
I thought of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi too. Never underestimate the power of a good book.
Every year in my entire schooling in small town Indiana, we’d start the year studying the revolutionary war. By the end of the year we would reach world war 2. The next year, the cycle would repeat. Every year. Revolutionary war to world war 2. Rinse and repeat.
We never studied the Vietnam War. Korea. No current events. No ancient cultures. No history of other countries. When 9-11 happened I was in high school, and me and my classmates legitimately had no idea who would attack the U.S. or why. We were baffled. Because we were taught our entire lives that America is always the good guy.
First, not treating Hodor’s disability itself as a mystery (as opposed to why he started saying “hodor”). We don’t have to go deep into the realm of mystery and magic to find out that disabled people exist and why disabled people exist. They exist. They can be characters in the story just fine, thanks, no elaborate justification or origin story necessary.
Related to this is not treating Hodor’s disability as the grand tragedy of Hodor’s existence – it’s pretty fucking condescending, going “oh, how awful, he had to live as a disabled person.” Hodor has value as he is, regardless of the difficulties his disabilities impose. “Oh, but he could do so much more if he wasn’t – “ get bent, Hodor’s doing fine. Helped get three kids across some pretty forbidding landscape full of people who wanted them dead. He’s got a right to feel proud of his accomplishments, with none of the minimisation inherent in “but he could do so much more if he wasn’t disabled.”
The second thing that would help depends on what actually happens in the books. I think the book scenario’s probably going to be similar to the show scenario too, so the options I’m working with are A) Hodor sacrifices himself or B) Bran sacrifices Hodor.
With option A, Hodor’s agency is respected. It’s his decision to hold the door. His decision to sacrifice himself for his friends. That’s fine. Given what we’ve seen in book!Bran’s storyline, I don’t think this will happen.
With option B, it is absolutely necessary to look this horror in the face. Something the show failed to do. Show!Meera told show!Bran to warg into Hodor and hold the door. Which he did. But it’s apparently okay, since Hodor wasn’t warged right at the end. He’d only been moved into position against his will and left to die first. Afterwards, the great pals who did this to Hodor don’t even mention him.
What makes me somewhat optimistic in this regard is that from the very start, we’ve had people telling book!Bran things like “Hodor is a man, not a mule to be beaten,” and skinchanging into people has been treated by the narrative as an abomination. Consistently, across more than just Bran’s PoV.
Skinchanging into Hodor and ultimately forcing him to sacrifice himself will be, I think, Bran’s dark night of the soul – like I think Dany accidentally burning down King’s Landing will be, and Arya coming face-to-face with Lady Stoneheart’s vengeance on the Freys. When someone asks Bran why did you think it was okay to treat Hodor like that? referring not just to the final sacrifice but for his pattern of skinchanging into Hodor to walk around, there can be only one honest answer – Bran thought Hodor was worth less because of his disability.
Treating Hodor’s sacrifice not as a shocking moment but as an evil done to Hodor out of ableism would help a lot, in my opinion.
“This history of this moment is not lost on me,” Mr. Murphy said in a statement. “I am a gay kid from Indiana who moved to Hollywood in 1989 with $55 in savings in my pocket, so the fact that my dreams have crystallized and come true in such a major way is emotional and overwhelming to me.”
Mr. Murphy’s vast slate at Fox will not disappear overnight. All future seasons of “American Crime Story,” “American Horror Story” and “Feud” will continue to air on FX. His procedural drama, “9-1-1,” which is only six weeks old and is becoming something of a sleeper hit, will continue on Fox. And his new drama about the 1980s New York vogue scene, “Pose,” with a largely transgender cast, will proceed at FX.
For me having Versace in the name of the show plays a similar role assassination. People only took atention to what Cunanan did because of Versace. The same goes with the show: Versace was the way to showcase the homophobia that surrounded Cunanan’s crime and what made him go as far as killing Versace. So for me was a great strategy. “You’re all here for the Versace’s but that’s not the point af our history”. (Sorry, I don’t speak english – I’m brazilian. I hope you can understand me).
No worries, your English is fine and I understand it just fine.
The title is something of a hit or miss with the audience, it seems. Some think it adds to the unnecessary confusion about the subject of the series while some share your opinion. I don’t really have an issue with the title since I do understand where they are coming from; besides the marketability of the name, Versace’s murder was the climax of a long homophobic approach that dogged the investigation of Cunanan’s murders, and if there is anything the show wants to emphasize, it’s that this is a murder that could have been easily prevented if not the ineptitude of the authorities which was informed and infused with a lot of casual homophobia. I certainly agree that the title works in that context in the same way that the title of OJ worked to frame the story more than drive it.
The problem here, for me at least, is that they complicated the narrative unnecessarily by doing it in reverse which ultimately detracted from the overarching theme of homophobia. Add to that the bait-and-switch they pulled by their marketing, and the title loses the meaning they wanted to convey and instead becomes a symbol of how the audience isn’t getting the story they were led to believe they are getting. The politics behind the tragedy gets lost in that confusion, between a story following the “wrong” person as far as many are concerned and a convoluted timeline that makes it harder to connect the dots.
I was watching Captain America: Winter Soldier and I had a wondering, do you think there were Hydra agents working as like, janitors, and the SHIELD janitors also had to fight their old friends. like Captain America’s blowin up airships in the sky and meanwhile Randy and Jeff are goin at it with mops
There are terrible and tragic tales of betrayal that haunt the SHIELD mail room to this day.
I would read the heck our of a fic with the premise “being too full of themselves to infiltrate the maintenance staff is why HYDRA failed”.
There’s an implication in that argument that backing Joffrey’s claim is
the neutral choice, the default choice, the peaceful choice, but that
isn’t so. Ned lacks the ability to repack Pandora’s Box. War is coming no matter what he does with Cersei and her children, because both Renly and Stannis know about the twincest and are making plans to deal with it that 100% guarantee armed conflict with Tywin. Ned can affect the power balance in King’s Landing, and the role the Starks play in the war hinges on his fate, but he is not the prime mover as far as said war is concerned. Varys makes this explicit to Ned during his visit to the black cells: Robert’s brothers, and Stannis in particular, are the ones Cersei fears, and what she wants most from Ned (and Robb) is to stay out of the way.
If war is inevitable, the question becomes what side Ned should take, and how he should deploy his power both within King’s Landing and in the North. Within the city, he needed to take direct control of the gold cloaks before moving against Cersei; holding her and the children hostage is the best chance he has of getting Tywin to back down. Bigger picture, I think declaring for Stannis publicly and forcefully, bringing both the North and in all likelihood the Riverlands in on his side, is the right move. Stannis is the claimant that fits Ned’s argument that the Lannister regime is illegitimate. He’s nearby, he’s a proven military leader, Ned respects him highly, and such a coalition could give Stannis the chance to swipe the “Robert’s Rebellion Reborn” narrative from Renly before the latter has a chance to get it going. Speaking of which, we know from Davos’ midnight meetings with Stormlords and the lack of several prominent Reach houses in Renly’s army that the youngest Baratheon brother didn’t have quite the stranglehold on the south that he thought. If Stannis strides into King’s Landing with the North and the Riverlands at his back, the Tyrells might face internal pushback and ultimately dip their banners meekly once more rather than lay siege to the capital and wait for Robb and the Blackfish to hit them from behind.
If Ned stays mum and backs Joffrey, not only is he helping the worst of the worst corrupt assholes in Westeros put a sadistic child on the Iron Throne, he’s also setting himself up to help them make war on Robert’s brothers. I fail to grasp the far-sighted beneficial wisdom of this scenario.
So putting away magazines at work this morning and I noticed Edgar Ramirez is on half the men’s magazines – Versace is splashed everywhere. You know who’s not on any cover….
Well TBF I think it was the result of the “bait-and-switch” before the switch, i.e., most mainstream media thought the show was going to be more about Versace. After all, not everyone watches the screeners; many recappers have a rule of watching as the viewer watches, going so far as to avoid pre-season promotion and next-episode promos. I’m seeing that in a lot of the recaps on YouTube: ”Hey, where are the Versaces? Is this actually the Andrew Cunanan show?” (Me: yes, yes it is). Also as much as we love Darren, there may be an unsavoriness to giving the cover to the guy who plays Cunanan; almost an “is this giving the murderer what he really wanted after all, even in death?” sort of thing. I feel like that will change after the fact, especially once we approach Emmy season.
Meanwhile I know the show’s not even halfway done and I’m already all “what’s next, Darren? I gotta make summer plans!”
Admittedly that’s hurting the show though. While there is near consensus that the last two episodes were objectively great two hours of television, I still detect some upset at how the show has handled the press and made everyone think it’s about the Versaces. I’m not really upset about the amount of focus in the press on Darren but I am fed up with how that sends a completely inaccurate idea about the subject of the show which only frustrates the audience and makes some more prone to stop watching. I don’t think it’s all that smart to do that and pull a “gotcha” at your audience in a show where the narrative did not require or demand it (but then again, TPTB have made several decisions that don’t really serve the narrative but are just… there, ultimately to the detriment of the show imo). I get the unsavoriness element of giving the spotlight in the press to the guy playing Cunanan, except the show is about the murder spree and Cunanan is the one with the most screen time so that’s unavoidable. They could have offset that by doing some press profile thingies for the other victims so the audience knows that they are covering all the victims and not be stuck thinking it’s about Versace. They could have given any focus to the other actors/characters in the press. They didn’t and so the casual viewers had no idea going in what to expect and are perfectly within their rights to feel fooled and confused, especially as the story goes backwards and people meet characters they literally have no idea how they connect to the story or the themes for a portion of the episode (really, if someone has no idea who Lee Miglin was, A Random Killing intro must have been a very confusing and random piece.)
I mean, I sort of get the whole “let’s not give Cunanan the title card” logic, but if Darren’s getting all these accolades and possibly gets awards then fuck they might as well have kept the subtitle as “Versace/Cunanan” (or as my husband suggested “The Assassination of Gianni Versace by the Coward Andrew Cunanan”). It would have been more honest, and viewers wouldn’t feel fooled. I mean, Cunanan is still dead so at least he can’t revel in it.
And I wanna throttle that FX suit who suggested they tell it backwards. Ryan should have learned his lesson from that first season of Glee when the execs made him swap “Theatricality” and “Funk” all because Lady Gaga was going to be on American Idol that week.When this whole thing is done I’m binging it in reverse-reverse.
I actually don’t think the title is the main problem? Last season was far more about the lawyers/prosecution than it was about OJ but it’s the latter’s name that was used in the title to give the frame for the season. I think Versace could have still gotten the title to avoid the sensationalization of Cunanan that the producers talked about while they have the series build up the police incompetence and the casual homophobia that, in the end, aided and abetted Cunanan which is exactly the reason they chose to call it an assassination (though this is an element that I think suffers from the structure but I’m waiting for at least the next episode before I unleash the full scale of my frustration). It’s the way they marketed the show that conveyed inaccurate content with the focus seemingly being on the Versace family and only intersecting with Cunanan that led to this mess. It’s like spaceorphan18 points out above, Versace and Donatella are everywhere in the press material and while I understand that Edgar and especially Penelope are far more known than Darren, I can’t blame the audience or the reviewers for going in thinking that it’s a story about Versace when that’s exactly what TPTB conveyed. The marketing, for all its glamour, is an epic fail imo.
I’ll join you in throttling the FX suit though and I’ll add shaking Ryan till he gets a headache for going along with it. Bad idea on all fronts and it’s bringing down a show that could have been transcendent.
So putting away magazines at work this morning and I noticed Edgar Ramirez is on half the men’s magazines – Versace is splashed everywhere. You know who’s not on any cover….
Well TBF I think it was the result of the “bait-and-switch” before the switch, i.e., most mainstream media thought the show was going to be more about Versace. After all, not everyone watches the screeners; many recappers have a rule of watching as the viewer watches, going so far as to avoid pre-season promotion and next-episode promos. I’m seeing that in a lot of the recaps on YouTube: ”Hey, where are the Versaces? Is this actually the Andrew Cunanan show?” (Me: yes, yes it is). Also as much as we love Darren, there may be an unsavoriness to giving the cover to the guy who plays Cunanan; almost an “is this giving the murderer what he really wanted after all, even in death?” sort of thing. I feel like that will change after the fact, especially once we approach Emmy season.
Meanwhile I know the show’s not even halfway done and I’m already all “what’s next, Darren? I gotta make summer plans!”
Admittedly that’s hurting the show though. While there is near consensus that the last two episodes were objectively great two hours of television, I still detect some upset at how the show has handled the press and made everyone think it’s about the Versaces. I’m not really upset about the amount of focus in the press on Darren but I am fed up with how that sends a completely inaccurate idea about the subject of the show which only frustrates the audience and makes some more prone to stop watching. I don’t think it’s all that smart to do that and pull a “gotcha” at your audience in a show where the narrative did not require or demand it (but then again, TPTB have made several decisions that don’t really serve the narrative but are just… there, ultimately to the detriment of the show imo). I get the unsavoriness element of giving the spotlight in the press to the guy playing Cunanan, except the show is about the murder spree and Cunanan is the one with the most screen time so that’s unavoidable. They could have offset that by doing some press profile thingies for the other victims so the audience knows that they are covering all the victims and not be stuck thinking it’s about Versace. They could have given any focus to the other actors/characters in the press. They didn’t and so the casual viewers had no idea going in what to expect and are perfectly within their rights to feel fooled and confused, especially as the story goes backwards and people meet characters they literally have no idea how they connect to the story or the themes for a portion of the episode (really, if someone has no idea who Lee Miglin was, A Random Killing intro must have been a very confusing and random piece.)
Sam speaks 