Extra Credits
Published on 5 Feb 2019Tolkien lived in a dark time in history, but he believed not only in having hope, but in sacrifice as a means to redemption, which is why we get such a satisfyingly bittersweet ending in the Lord of the Rings.
February 7, 2019
Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King – Extra Sci Fi – #3
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Cultural nationalism versus cultural imperialism at the CBC
Andrew Coyne reflects on the odd musings of CBC president Catherine Tait:
“There was a time,” Catherine Tait was saying, “when cultural imperialism was absolutely accepted.”
The CBC president was musing, at an industry conference in Ottawa last week, about the heyday of the British and French Empires, when if “you were the viceroy of India you would feel that you were doing only good for the people of India.” Or, “if you were in French Africa, you would think ‘I’m educating them, I’m bringing their resources to the world, and I’m helping them.’ ”
The comments have since come back to bite her, not because many people have a kind word for imperialism these days but because she was comparing those colonial empires, which invaded and conquered territory by force of arms, to the “new empire” of Netflix. As more than one commentator has objected, none of the six million Canadians who subscribe to Netflix was made to do so at the point of a gun.
Neither is it evident what comparable “damage” is done by a service that gives willing viewers in this country access to well-made television programs from around the world. It was, in short, an altogether silly line of argument.
And yet it seems wrong to heap such particular scorn on Tait. For in truth she was only giving voice to the sort of thinking typical of her generation and class: middle-aged cultural bureaucrat/subsidized private producer, of a kind found in particular abundance in the Montreal-Toronto corridor. The same defensive attitudes, what is more, have for decades formed the foundation of much government policy on culture, even if they are largely incomprehensible to a generation raised on Netflix and YouTube.
There was a time, that is, when cultural nationalism was absolutely accepted — when it was taken as a given among the educated classes that it was the responsibility of government to protect and defend Canadian culture, if necessary from Canadians themselves. Hence the whole apparatus of CanCon, most of which is still with us today.
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Dunkirk (2017) | Based on a True Story
The Cynical Historian
Published on 25 Jan 2018Dunkirk is a 2017 war film written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan that depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II. Its ensemble cast includes Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy. The film is a British, American, French, and Dutch co-production, and was distributed by Warner Bros.
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Wiki:
Dunkirk portrays the evacuation from three perspectives: land, sea, and air. It has little dialogue, as Nolan sought instead to create suspense from cinematography and music. Filming began in May 2016 in Dunkirk and ended that September in Los Angeles, when post-production began. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the film on IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film stock. Dunkirk has extensive practical effects, and employed thousands of extras as well as historic boats from the evacuation, and period aeroplanes.
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Hashtags: #History #Dunkirk #WWII #Review #BasedOnATrueStory #PhoneyWar
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QotD: Generation Z begins to hit adulthood
Those born after 1998 are currently (and quite unimaginatively) being called Generation Z. And, by Pew’s math, the eldest members of this nascent generation are turning 18 this year [2017].
Welcome to adulthood, Gen Z!
As one of the oldest members of your immediate ancestors in American youth, I’d like to officially transfer the think-piece mantle your way. As millennials’ misadventures in youthful entitlement and narcissism dwindle, may your place as a scapegoat for societal fears about sex, technology, and general change shine bright. May Gen X prove as much a collective nemesis for you as boomers have so generously done for my generation. And, perhaps most importantly, may you please be patient in a few years when you’re trying to explain to us how to upload a hologram snap to Mind Twitter.
Also, for what it’s worth, millennials may have spawned Facebook, but don’t blame us if Americans are more politically polarized these days. According to another recent generational study, it’s the oldest Americans who have grown the most polarized within their own generation in recent decades. While many people attribute political polarization to social media or the internet more broadly, the study’s authors found that, between 1996 and 2012, the increase in polarization was “largest among the groups least likely to use the internet and social media.” On a nine-point measure of different sorts of polarization, the gap grew by 0.38 index points for respondents ages 75 and older, but just 0.05 index points for adults ages 39 and below.
Lastly, don’t get too comfortable, kids — your generational predecessors are already arriving. Going by Pew’s parameters, the typical generation spans about 17 years … which means that the last of Gen Z babies were likely born in 2016. A new generation starts being born this year.
Welcome to the world, post-Gen Z generation! What a weird, absurdist time to be starting your lives. May we course correct a bit here before you hit adulthood. (Alternately, tell your kids to give President Ivanka’s reanimated corpse and V.P. Chelsea Clinton’s cryogenically frozen head my love, and sorry about the Kardashians. That one really is our fault.)
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, “Welcome to Adulthood, Gen Z: The post-millennial generation starts turning 18 this year, while the eldest members of the post-Gen Z cohort are starting to be born.”, Reason, 2017-03-22.
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