swanpride

---there is a difference between making Black Widow "unsexy" and just toning down the male gaze. The difference is basically Black Widow in Ironman 2 and The Avengers (more so in the former) and her in The Winter Soldier. Or, to put it differently, Natasha is more than just a honey trap.

There is a reason why I find it very satisfying to tell every website I am on "no". Thank you EU, other might think that this is annoying, but I will rather klick the "don't accept" button to the end of my day than being unable to say no at all.

People should also consider WHAT kind of material those truckers sometimes transport....

When Lego started to sell "Lego for girls" the company really lost my esteem. Completely. Anyway, Disney was certainly interested in Marvel with the idea "okay, we have a great market for girls, now we also want something which appeals to boys" in mind...but that doesn't mean that Disney prohibited Marvel from appealing to all audiences. Disney already learned the lesson regarding THIS when it turned out that boys were VERY put out that there was a princess dress-up but no prince Dress-up at Disney world...they corrected that oversight. And they certainly try to appeal to a female audience with their Marvel projects since Perlmutter is out of play.

oh, I am pretty sure that most girls would play with all kind of toys, never mind if they are "designed" for them or not. My mother never liked the idea that only specific toys were for specific genders and mostly picked them based on "are they educational" and "do they encourage creativity". I liked my Lego and my train set just as much as my dolls. The issue is that children don't pick out toys, it is mostly their parents and grandparents which do. And they are lead by the marketing to specific shelves. Otherwise, I wouldn't read to much in any character themed figure being on sale...maybe the figure was simply sh... made or a shop bought more than they could sell in its specific area. You never know.

driverless trucks are still years away. Meanwhile there is an acute shortage. Not to mention widespread exploitation.

Also, just because there is this gender split it doesn't mean that it is necessarily a good business practice. Why should you exclude more than half of your potential market from the get go?

...Frankly, regarding Bridgerton 2, I watched the first episode, the last episode, and I don't feel like I have missed anything remotely important inbetween. Maybe I will catch up at one point, but frankly, the only character whose love live I remotely care about is Penelope anyway.

The whole boys toys/girls toys thing was always nonsense. I mean, why shouldn't a boy want to play with a doll or a girl with racing car? Also, I kind of doubt that Killian sold well either way....

Urgh...good that they went for a different ending for the Eternals.

Oh, yeah, there is still a lot of left to explore regarding Bucky...but considering how much this character has mistreated by the writers so far...it is really lucky that at least Sebastian Stan loves the character and acts the hell out of what he is given.

It's mostly pride. The Brits are so f... prideful of their damned commonwealth in which "the sun never goes down". Though, for the record, I don't think that this is a question of "allowance" (because honestly, if one of them just declares itself independent there is little the Queen can do and even less she would do), and more a question of them trying to convince everyone that the status quo is fine, so why change it.

He is a white guy. She is a black woman. Sadly there are different rules for women, especially black ones. If they show any feeling, they are "too emotional".

Pretty much. There is btw one downside to Tickets which are bound to specific persons: It makes it difficult to do a last minute "I have a ticket too much does anyone want it" exchange in front of the venue. But I guess it is still preferable over people getting duped...and I don't just talk about the price, but also the danger of someone selling a fake ticket.

Why does Disney donate at all if not in order to influence politics one way or another? Also, it is not like Disney didn't take a stance on other bills in the past - see Atlanta. Regarding the tickets: Wow, the US has to do really everything on next level, right?

In this case I mostly appreciate him calling out that Thanos was an abusive a-hole and no family to Nebula and Gamora at all.

Well, it shouldn't BE their job. Their job should be to convince the judge to give their client the lowest possible punishment for what they did, not to hide evidence for their guilt. That's what I mean with the system being too binary. It should be about the truth and the fitting punishment for the actual crime, not about two lawyers up-staging each other and a bunch of people being carefully selected to offer the preferred judgement.

Maybe I am to cynical...still, the main problem is that you have two sides whose main goal is to "win" not to figure out the truth and reach a fair judgement. There are also more than enough defence attorneys who will try to win even if they know that their client is guilty as sin.

I mean, I was saying too that there will be most likely a Hollywood movie one day, but I would never considered actually casting it now, plus, the observation was more meant to point out how irreal the whole thing seems to be. Regarding the so called justice system of the US: I think the main problem is that, like everything in the US, it's so bipartisan. Basically the prosecutors don't go in with the intention to argue the case of the state, they go in with the intention to win, no matter what, because that's how you climb up the ladder, by winning as many cases as possible. On the flipside, the defender only feels the need to win if it is either a highly prolific case which will bring him more clients, or if he gets a high salary for it. If it is a public defender, you can just hope that they guy hasn't lost his desire for Justice yet, or you are f... because his main goal will be to close your case as fast as possible. I have visited court proceedings in my own country...no jury over here, btw, just the lawyers and the judge, in certain cases experts (which are called in by the court...ie to answer the question if someone should be treated like a child or like an adult) and sometimes two "normal" people who are allowed to have their input in the judging...and over here the scenario in which two lawyers are really fighting each other is more the exception than the rule. It happens, but frankly, most of it is more haggling about how high the punishment should be. And if there is solid proof that someone is innocent, there certainly won't be someone trying to throw the proof out.

If it works for him...I actually don't think that working for the MCU is as restrictive as he perceives it to be, but if he likes a more director driven studio, Warner Bros is the place to go. Disney/Pixar/Marvel always had the producer-driven approach.

Also, if he covers Ukraine, it will be most likely from an angle. Not a general "that is happening" and more a "okay, this is the media narrative, and here is what you maybe missed so far". I don't think that there is currently much to miss in regard to the Ukraine. If anything, he did the important segment years ago, when he covered what kind of person Putin actually is. There is little to add to that, especially now that Putin's narrative is basically blown away by the excellent work the Ukrainian government does to keep the eyes of the world on the issue at hand. I would prefer a long segment about the Ukraine when there actually is some BS to cut through.

...That doesn't exactly make it better. 50% of the earning is well too much for anyone.

I guess there are different levels of decriminalisation/legalisation. Like, you can say that being a sex worker is legal, but engaging with one isn't. That way it isn't exactly legal, but the sex workers don't have to fear prison. Or you can go all the way and say that sex work is just a legal business with regulations for those who work there and those who visit the establishments, and just criminalise sex trafficking. The risk you run if you do that is that sex trafficker hide behind legal businesses. I mean there are a lot of ways to pressure women into sex work. And it wouldn't exactly remove the street workers either.

Well, I guess the show is more for covering things which don't get enough coverage, plus, things are moving that fast currently, it is actually pretty hard to make a good assessment. I mean, John Oliver saying that Putin priced the reaction in - I am actually not sure about this. Yes, Putin certainly had a plan and yes, he expected backlash, but I don't think that he expected THAT kind of backlash. I guess he was betting on a weak reaction from Europe, because Germany has a new government (which involves the SPD, which is closer to Russia than a lot of people feel comfortable with), France will have an election soon, and Great Britain has spend the last years being in constant conflict with the EU. But not only is the EU extremely united, even without Merkel at its helm, all the other European countries have joined in, too. Even Switzerland has now joined the sanctions...we are talking "Nazi Gold is Great" Switzerland which always emphasises how "neutral" they are. Nor do I think that he expected the German government after ages of hesitating to suspend Nord Stream 2 pretty much immediately, or the suspension of Swift, or that the other states would basically seize the Russian state money (a lot of which is apparently in Frankfurt), or that Germany would suddenly change a long standing policy and deliver weapons to the Ukraine while also raising their own military budget (temporarily). And then there is the attack itself, which was supposed to be some sort of Blitzkrieg with some nice Propaganda attack on the side, but neither really works out either, considering that Kiew ist still standing, Zelenski stayed in the city thus boosting morale and various videos showing how senseless this war is. Aside from the women with the sunflowers, there is also the guy who offered some soldiers whose tanks run out of gas to tow them back to Russia, there is the picture with the bleeding woman, and of children sitting in a subway station. Anyway, considering all this, it might be better to asses the situation one or two weeks down the line, when it is easier to see which sanctions had which effect and how the war is actually going...and if Belarus gets involved too, and what China decides to do. About the main segment: Coming from a country where Sex Work is legalised (and taxed), it's not perfect by any means, but I still prefer it over the alternative to criminalise sex workers. It is the oldest business in the world after all. And I can't emphasise enough how idiotic it is to criminalize condoms of all things. Not that I am surprised, it's sooo American to do that. Oh and the applebee thing...frankly, I think the drew out the joke too much. But then, I find this a somewhat harmless blunder considering that we once a radio channel following the assassination attempt on the pope with the song "Im Leben, im Leben geht so mancher Schuss daneben" (In live, in live, some shots are a miss) and another time the news about the big Tsunami was followed up with "Das ist die perfekte Welle" (This is the perfect wave). (Though why you would put advertising in the end of a news program is a mystery to me anyway).

...I actually don't see the point in dissecting frogs anyway....