Black Adam movie's screenplay builds on left-wing metaphors

Overrated wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson's new Black Adam movie, last time I looked, fell to 40 percent on Rotten Tomatoes' approval ratings. But that aside, when I looked at the reviews so far, Vanity Fair had quite an eye-opener for the political metaphors turning up in screenplay, which surely were to be as expected as what turned up in Wonder Woman 1984. First:

Kahndaq, you see, is a stand-in for not-Iraq/not-Afghanistan under longtime occupation by not-America, but a band of villainous swine called Intergang who plunder the nation’s resources and make the people wait at long checkpoints. They also zoom around on sci-fi skiffs that glow blue (just like Eternium!) and really want that crown.

Soon Adrianna summons the trapped hero, Teth-Adam, who is the gargantuan Johnson wearing a superhero suit and a scowl. Bullets and missiles and grenades can’t stop him, and a mere touch of his hand can turn someone into a skeleton. He goes on a wild PG-13-style kill spree, flinging bodies thousands of yards in the air and ripping off limbs, but without any blood, terror, or agony. [...]

Ah, so that's there excuse for the violence: they didn't add any blood spilling out of severed limbs. Sorry, but doesn't make it any more acceptable, and children shouldn't have to be subject to this kind of mayhem any more than what you see in a Mortal Kombat game. Whether the film lacks terror and agony, however, doesn't really matter when disgust and insult could sum up the proceedings much better. According to the UK Independent, the filmmakers had to remove at least 5 scenes to avoid an R-rating, which confirms just how blatant their vision truly is. And as for the hints given in the above regarding the leftist metaphors, here's that part of it from VF:

There’s not really much to stew on with Black Adam once you’ve left the theater, except to be somewhat amazed at how the story comments-but-doesn’t-comment on the actual political situation in the Middle East. An early checkpoint sequence is clearly meant to mirror the struggles of everyday people crossing from the Palestinian Territories into Israel, and Adrianna’s fed-up line about world powers not doing much for the people after a decades-long presence could be about Iraq or Afghanistan or both. And while there is much reverent talk of Khandaq’s indigenous cultural heritage, there are no Muslim signifiers center stage throughout the picture. Indeed, the Hollywood staple of the muezzin call to prayer is nowhere on the soundtrack, probably a first for a movie set in this part of the world, even when it’s a fictional country. One must marvel at how this massive international project goes out of its way to be even remotely apolitical, taking its cue, perhaps, from the famously politically-unaffiliated Dwayne Johnson. It takes a special kind of movie where the most interesting thing is what’s not in there. During its two-hour runtime, you won’t be asked to exert yourself, either with backstory or political reads. Viewers can just sit back in their cushioned seats, silence all brain functions, and enjoy the CG fireworks.

Oh my, why am I not shocked they could resort to these kind of metaphors, building as they do upon anti-Israel propaganda to boot, with Intergang as the stand-ins? And that's something that'll have to be considered by all concerned when it comes to past and present movies based on DC properties: they may have more leftist metaphors, stealthed or out in the open, than we think. The Marvel movies too, lest we forget. One more reason they're not aging any better than the overload of special effects accompanying the "actors". I hesitate to think what'd a screenplay containing a metaphor for opposing war with Iran's brutal regime would be like, because it's not impossible for these obsessed ideologues to go that far too.

Interesting how the reviewer here seems disappointed specifically because there's little or no serious allusions to Islam, as though this movie couldn't be bad enough. The filmmakers, who should be ashamed of themselves, are already doing enough harm with the metaphors they've injected as it is. The following reviewer from Buzzfeed seems disappointed for similar reasons, and is much more blatant:

It’s too bad that Black Adam ultimately punts on most of the big questions it attempts to raise, because the movie does have something sorely lacking in much of its peers: a willingness, however slight, to engage with the world around it. It’s hard to miss the similarities between Kahndaq, a Middle Eastern country occupied by white military personnel, and a variety of real-world analogs, ranging from the American occupation of Iraq to the ongoing occupation of Palestine. [...]

It’s pretty jarring to see a major superhero movie that even gestures at treating America as the bad guys in anything beyond a “there are a few bad apples in the military” sense. After all, the genre entered its modern era with 2008’s Iron Man, where a weapons contractor is kidnapped by terrorists and escapes captivity in Afghanistan. Black Adam isn’t the movie that’s going to continue exploring that territory, but it’s refreshing to see it try.

So here, the writer is much more hostile to Israel in the sense he won't even mention the country, replacing it as he does with the Roman era name for Israel that's been distorted in modern times for the sake of delegitimizing Israel's claim to Judea/Samaria, by fabricating the lie that there was ever an Islamic/Arabic country there? Now that's even sicker, as is the strong hint his opinions on the USA are extraordinarily hostile too. (Interestingly, the Boston Herald says movie co-star Mohammed Amer is a "Palestinian-American". Could such casting have been intentional, coinciding with the filmmakers' politics?)

I also noticed this review by NPR's terrible writer Glen Weldon, who surprisingly enough actually panned the movie, but, he really screwed up on just who reintroduced Black Adam:

In the early 2000s, writers Geoff Johns and David S. Goyer — with art by Stephen Sadowski and many others — introduced to the comics pages a new version of Black Adam. The character had been around since the 1940s as a supervillain who dogged the family of superheroes that, like him, had been given powers by the wizard Shazam. As such, he came factory-installed with the basic supervillain-threats package: I'll destroy you, I'll rule the world, etc.

Man, is this sloppy, but to be fully expected from such a charlatan who's not a comics fan, no matter how much he insists otherwise. Black Adam was first reintroduced to the DCU proper in 1994, in Jerry Ordway's GN, The Power of Shazam, which later led to an ongoing monthly series for Billy Batson that ran at least a few years. And reprehensible Weldon would rather rob Ordway of the credit, and bestow it upon some of the least deserving of DC's overrated modern writers, Johns and Goyer, instead. As disappointing as I find Ordway's leftism these days, this is still too much. So shame on far-left Weldon for this deception as well.

Now, one more review I checked is from Midwest Film Journal, and in addition to panning the movie, they also make an eyebrow raising note regarding a certain 2013 movie whose star is brought back in this new movie as a special guest for Teth-Adam to clash with:

Man of Steel, which launched the whole misbegotten DCEU in 2013, introduced the world to a darker and more “grounded” take on these heroes. It had its flaws but feels like a masterpiece compared to Black Adam. The two have some very direct points of comparison, too, as supposed launching points for future films. Zack Snyder’s Steel, for example, featured a breathlessly cool prologue on Krypton whereas Adam features an extended sequence narrated by an annoying child. In Snyder’s film, the violence of two Kryptonians battling is destructive and purposely reminiscent (however wrongheadedly so) of 9/11. Here, Adam’s supposed brutal fighting is nowhere near as destructive and, 10 years later, considerably worse-looking. Steel’s fights still inspire awe; Adam‘s are nauseating at best.

Of course, Adam also invites comparison because it delivers on what “fans” have been supposedly clamoring for — the return of Henry Cavill to the role of Superman, a half-decade after his experience filming Justice League turned him off the role and turned Warners off of the franchise he headlined. Bringing Cavill in for a post-credits tease is a Hail Mary by a studio desperate to garner interest in a movie that they clearly know has no interest to any sort of general audience. It’s kind of pathetic, particularly because there’s a blatant joke about Superman being an empty role early on in this film. I’m a fan of Cavill in that role, but there’s no part of me that thinks he deserves to be thrown into more shitty iterations of the character, if Black Adam is any indication of where it will go from here.

Well, like I said, if this new DC movie could be so blatant in its political metaphors, chances are there'd be earlier ones going that route too, and looks like Man of Steel had one that was bound to be troubling. If Batman vs. Superman could boast a scene alluding to protests against illegal immigrants in real life that was insulting to the intellect, we can't be shocked if any 9-11 metaphors Snyder's Man of Steel attached to its screenplay could be just as tasteless. That's why I for one am not pleading for Cavill to resume the role, even in a stand-alone movie for Superman proper, because what if more blatant leftist metaphors seep in? This whole "franchise" of the past decade was decidedly never worth looking forward to in the first place, and the dark angle didn't help matters.

So now, if the above descriptions say anything, I have far less reason to admire Johnson, whom I recall was among several far-leftists who created controversy for the sake of attacking podcaster Joe Rogan over distorted reasons (and Johnson himself wrote extremely crude comments years earlier). And recalling Rogan was just as critical of Hollywood for romanticizing violence as Bill Maher was, he might want to take issue with the Black Adam movie next, because physical/sexual violence has tragically been glorified in Hollywood too over past decades, and this new film is no improvement with its portrayal of Teth-Adam. A most shameless embarrassment it decidedly is, and I wish WB would stop making superhero movies already if this is what it's all coming down to.

Predictably, Marvel studios indicates they'll go the PC route with Sabra

The Times of Israel reported that, as could surely have been expected, Marvel studios went out of their way to answer anti-Israeli activists offended at the inclusion of Bill Mantlo's minor character, Sabra, in the upcoming 4th Captain America movie:

Marvel Studios said it will take “a new approach” to its controversial character Sabra, to be played by Israeli actress Shira Haas, after Palestinian groups criticized the decision to bring the Israeli comic book character to the big screen.

“While our characters and stories are inspired by the comics, they are always freshly imagined for the screen and today’s audience, and the filmmakers are taking a new approach with the character Sabra who was first introduced in the comics over 40 years ago,” Marvel told US media outlet Variety in a statement Friday.

Translation: they'll go so far as to avoid any positive portrayal of Israel, all because they don't have the courage to stand up to Islamic antisemitism. In any case, it was pretty obvious from the start that today's comics publishers and filmmakers wouldn't defend the dignity of the Jewish creators who founded the very industry that today's films are based on. Cartoonist Uri Fink, as noted before, figured this was unlikely to be something admirable, but what's been told now only compounds the impression this'll be something awful when it's ready.

I also discovered the Nerdist website employs a possible Muslim writer who's also a LGBT ideologue(!), and he wrote a smear piece where he said Sabra shouldn't be in the Marvel movieverse. He concludes it like this:

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to put a Jewish hero in the forefront of the MCU; however, putting Sabra, an Israeli government agent, into the world’s biggest blockbuster franchise is a problem. It certainly feels like the powers that be are ignoring the real-life atrocities happening to people. There are already other Jewish heroes that Marvel Studios can include in the MCU. [...]

Ah, so in other words, he's ostensibly saying, "Jewish character = good, Israeli character = bad". But, this kind of shoddy distinction and excuse could easily be used to say, exclude indigenous residents of countries like Holland, who're called Dutch. It could even be used against the Basque of the northern Iberian peninsula where Spain is located. Come to think of it, the approach used in his screed could also be used to say only people of specific ethnicities living in the USA proper are qualified for representation, not foreign-born characters living outside. And he doesn't even care that under the PLO, gays and lesbians are suppressed by their police forces and face terrible persecution. That Nerdist would give a platform to somebody who goes by the kind of ideologies he does is truly despicable, and I will not be linking directly to their site anymore as a result of this disturbing propaganda that entirely omits how "palestinians" are a whole fabrication for the sake of invalidating Israel, and even Newt Gingrich eventually acknowledged this. To think, that nowadays, we have whole sites centered around entertainment topics who actually separate the Jewish creators of comicdom from their homeland origins. This is exactly why old movies like Otto Preminger's Exodus from 1960, based on Leon Uris' book, can no longer be made, because anti-Israelists in Hollywood have almost literally shut the gates to any such projects.

And that's why it's no shock at all when Hollywood kowtows to anti-Israeli movements, with the worst part being whenever those in charge of properties originally created by Jews refuse to defend them, regardless of how specific characters were created in the first place.

Israeli cartoonist warns new Captain America film's portrayal of Sabra could be woke

There's been news - superficial as could be expected - that Israeli actress Shira Haas was cast in the role of the Bill Mantlo/Sal Buscema-created Sabra in Captain America: New World Order. Here's what i24 News is saying about it:

Israeli actress Shira Haas joined the Marvel cast in the fourth "Captain America" film, in which she will play an Israeli superheroine, according to an announcement made Saturday evening at Disney's D23 Expo conference in California.

According to Variety, Haas will play a former spy agent named Ruth Bat-Seraph aka "Sabra," a term used for Israeli-born Jews. She first appeared in the Marvel comics in 1980.

Sabra served in the Mossad and has superpowers, which include extraordinary strength, stamina and speed. She also possesses anti-gravity devices, allowing her to fly through the air faster than 300 miles per hour.

Alas, this alone is not reason enough to watch a film coming at a time when Kevin Feige's turning their screenplays into woke garbage, as the recent Thor installment makes clear. And on that note, YnetNews says veteran Israeli cartoonist Uri Fink is not optimistic. It also tells what he thinks was a case of plagiarism, based on a character he created early in his art career in the late 1970s:

Since Disney announced that Israeli actress Shira Haas will play an Israeli superhero named Sabra in the next installment of the Captain America series, veteran Israeli comic book artist and writer Uri Fink's world went abuzz.

The reason? In 1978, at the tender age of 15, Fink created Sabraman — the first Israeli superhero — who shares some striking similarities with Marvel's heroine, first and foremost, their names.

"I'm getting messages from people who know the character, asking what I'm going to do about it, as if they're encouraging me to sue Marvel and make a killing off the whole thing," Fink tells Ynet.

"It's not the first time. It already happened in 1980 when [Marvel] first created the character, two years after Sabraman, but I didn't think it was right to sue them and I still don't think this is appropriate and that I would make anything out of it. It's just a word. You can't copyright a word. Sabra is just a word."

Sabra is a prickly pear cactus that is very common in Israel and has become a colloquial term used to describe native Israelis — rough and tough on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside.

Fink says it is likely the American comic book publisher drew inspiration from his work back in the day.

"I do believe they saw Sabraman back in the day. There were articles written about it the world over and I gave interviews to various papers, so it is likely they saw it," he says.

"Many guys in DC and Marvel were Jewish back then and the book made it to the Jewish communities abroad too. The comic was in English, and Jewish American guys dug it, it likely reached them, but it wasn't the most polished comic book in the world."

Yes, maybe it's possible, based on how similar their costumes look, although Sabraman appears to have a mask on, while Ruth Bat-Seraph doesn't wear one. That aside, here's where Fink provides a realist view in context of the PC mentality now ruining much of showbiz:

However, Fink voiced pessimism about how the Israeli character would be portrayed by contemporary comic artists.

"Sabra went on to feature in some stories that weren't very pro-Israel, it was already weird back then. So I don't think this would augur well for how she'd be depicted by Marvel now that they've gone woke," he said, using a term that is popularly used to describe people highly alert to social injustices but is also used by some as a derogatory term for a flavor of contemporary progressive leftist ideology which, among other things, is highly critical of Israel.

Sadly, her first official appearance in 1981 is nothing to write home about, because of the troubling moral equivalence and downright sloppy writing that permeated the story, and some of that unfortunately questionable scripting that took place in the original Hulk #256 where Sabra officially debuted (she may have made her first appearance 6 issues prior in a cameo) is further elaborated upon here. First:

In a move that is already thrilling some Jewish audiences and stirring controversy among other international fans and activists, Marvel Studios announced that an Israeli comic book hero will appear in the next installment of its Captain America movie franchise.

Seriously, I find it dismaying, no matter how much it does happen, when audiences just go bonkers over the mere announcement, when the finished product can be anything but a celebration. And the original debut is just why it could be thought otherwise:

Sabra (also the word for an Israeli prickly pear, which has a bristly outside and soft and sweet inside, and is used as a nickname for an Israeli person) is a Mossad agent and police officer with superhuman speed and strength. The 1981 comic that first prominently features her involves multiple quotes and plot points that would be seen as taboo in a contemporary Hollywood blockbuster.

In the comic, the Incredible Hulk mistakenly ends up in Tel Aviv, where he befriends an Arab boy who gets killed in an attack by identifiably Arab terrorists. Sabra — real name Ruth Bat-Seraph — witnesses the attack and assumes Hulk is in cahoots with the terrorists. She attacks Hulk with “energy quills,” weakening him, but the Hulk explains that the boy was his friend — and references the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Boy died because boy’s people and yours want to own land!” the Hulk tells Sabra. “Boy died because you wouldn’t share. Boy died because of two old books that say his people and yours must fight and kill for land!”

This is all delivered without any genuine quotations from the Judaist Bible/Torah or the Islamic Koran/Hadith provided. What Mantlo injected was incredibly embarrassing, and it makes little difference that it's a "product of its time". That doesn't make it any less poor. This is another example where people don't realize that a specific storyline where a character debuted is, unfortunately, the result of bad writing rushed into production. That the sea port in Tel Aviv isn't even portrayed very accurately is the least of the tale's problems.

Things are not getting better when seeing a columnist for the far-left Forward exploit the moment for confusing propaganda:

Even as the MCU has made efforts to stare down institutionalized American racism and overreach of government surveillance a la the Patriot Act, many still view these movies and shows as little more than military propaganda. (The studio has, in fact, partnered with the military quite a bit.)

He makes it sound as though the army's anything but influenced by leftism. That aside, it's loathsomely reprehensible how this puff piece builds on anti-American propaganda of the sort that claims the USA is "systemically racist". And it's just like them to cite Civil War as though it were a positive example, when it was most definitely not. Once, superheroes, if they fought each other in the past century, it wasn't over partisan politics, and IIRC, in the Avengers/Defenders War of 1973, it was over misunderstandings, and communications with a paralyzed Black Knight that got warped by Loki and Dormammu along the way. Yet these propagandists on the left never care.

Introducing the Israeli counterpart to Captain America, then, whose comic origins tie her directly to the Jewish State’s intelligence agency, has raised eyebrows. It’s scarcely surprising, given how over at DC the mere casting of Gal Gadot as an Amazon from a fictional island generates perennial outrage.

A critic on Twitter wrote that Sabra’s powers will include “demolishing Palestinian homes with her mind.” Many others noted how Sabra’s debut, in an issue of “The Incredible Hulk,” featured the killing of an Arab child (the word “Palestinian” is never used) so that Sabra can have a teachable moment. As we delve into the controversy a little more, let’s start there.

At least this is making clear that, no matter the content of the upcoming film, antisemites reject Mantlo's creation from the outset. Then:

She first shows up in 1980’s “Incredible Hulk” No. 256 “Power in the Promised Land!” She mistakenly believes that the Hulk is working with terrorists and the two fight. In their final confrontation, the Hulk cradles the body of Sahad, an Arab boy he befriended who was killed in an explosion caused by terrorists. The Hulk then lectures Sabra about the toll of the ongoing conflict.

“Boy died because boy’s people and yours both want to own land!” the Hulk yells. “Boy died because you wouldn’t share!” (Remember, this is the Hulk talking.)

What makes the Hulk even angrier is that the crux of the conflict is because of “two old books” (i.e., the Quran and Hebrew Bible) and “now boy is dead — but boy didn’t even read books!”

Many online have rightly noted how Sahad, who first tells the Hulk about the “two old books,” is a racist depiction of a Palestinian kid. He is illiterate, steals and lies to tourists for money. The only other sort of Palestinians the issue shows are terrorists. If this is indeed the nuance we can expect from Sabra’s corner of the world, there’s reason for concern.

Now, let's hold on here for a moment. The kid tells Hulk about the books...yet he's illiterate and never actually read either?!? If that's not some of the most slapdash writing, I don't know what is. Of course, why does the columnist keep insisting on referring to the Arab boy in focus as a "palestinian", and not as an Arab or even a Moslem? Funny how the columnist doesn't suggest maybe the boy should've been a Jewish child instead, since that way, Mantlo could've proven he wanted to at least try to provide insight on Jewish society from a child's perspective.

But Sabra has had a few decades to develop and she has gone on other adventures — helping to keep the son of an ambassador to Israel from turning into the next Adolf Hitler; becoming an advocate for mutants; even working alongside a Palestinian teammate called (sigh) Arabian Knight.

Overall, she’s a pretty minor character with just 50 appearances and it’s far too early to tell what her role in the new film may be.

Oh, and what's this here? I thought Arabian Knight, introduced an issue later, was of Egyptian background, and this sorry excuse for a columnist is taking this out of context too? I'm sorry, but this only compounds the perception he's telling all this out of contempt for Israel, to undermine its birthright history, and suggests he doesn't respect Golda Meir, who refuted the "palestianian" propaganda decades ago. He does make one fairly accurate observation, though:

While some will always balk at the idea of featuring an Israeli superhero at all, this may, in fact, not be where much of the world is at, even as many rally behind BDS. That said, it’s more than likely the film will face a ban in the Middle Eastern countries that have yet to normalize relations with Israel.

Even after the Abraham Accords, don’t expect Haas to be walking a red carpet in Saudi Arabia for the premiere. That new world order is still out of reach.

That is bound to be the case, sadly. If a number of Muslim dominated countries wouldn't screen Gal Gadot's movies, there's no reason to assume this'll be any different.

Through this, I found a Twitter thread posted by Simcha Gross, an assistant professor on ancient Jewish history at the University of Pennsylvania, who found the 1st full tale guest starring Sabra cringeworthy after researching it. He describes the following, in example:

Sahad tells Banner "sometimes it is very hard to be an Arab in Israel. Both my people and the Israelis say that this land is theirs. They could share it, but two very old books tell them they must kill each other over it." Some oversimplification for you! 7

— Simcha Gross (@Simcha_Gross) August 24, 2020

Sahad also tells Bruce "Me, I don't read books." In this issue we encounter only two types of Arabs in Israel; terrorists, and a kindhearted illiterate child thief/con-artist. As for Israelis, we only encounter police officers, soldiers, and Sabra. Not good. 8 pic.twitter.com/AIXP1gGgEy

— Simcha Gross (@Simcha_Gross) August 24, 2020

Not quite, in regards to Arabs: the adult marketeers who yell, "stop, thief!" and give chase are not just Arabic, they're clearly identified as Moslems by the keffiyes they wear on their heads. But, the point about the pseudo-citation of the Bible/Koran is well made, mainly because the boy, as indicated, didn't even read books.

The Hulk takes Sahad's body and flees, with Sabra in pursuit. Here comes the denouement of the story, as the savage Hulk informs Sabra that the Israelis and Arabs are the true savages, mimicking Sahad's geo-political analysis: 12 pic.twitter.com/3TjGQVBpbD

— Simcha Gross (@Simcha_Gross) August 24, 2020

I did think it was odd, in addition, that it's made to sound like Sabra never actually cared about the child in the first place. There's many stories built around the problems of misunderstandings. But this, from a political perspective, really takes the cake. The way it's set up also has the effect of watering down the serious issue of Islamic terrorism, which was just as relevant a topic in the early 80s as it is today.

And, just in case we missed the point of the savage hulk pointing out the inhumanity of the various actors in the conflict "It has taken the hulk to make her see this dead arab boy as a human being. It has taken a monster to awaken her own sense of humanity." 16

— Simcha Gross (@Simcha_Gross) August 24, 2020

And here, it is silly and superfluous to use those kind of descriptions for her personality. Now, you could argue it wouldn't be entirely implausible for the Hulk to dish out an ill-informed lecture. There were other times when he was depicted taking questionable positions, and in Hulk form, Bruce Banner could be mentally messed up (let's also note that in later years, around the time Peter David became writer, multiple personality disorder was emphasized circa issue #377). Even so, the script by Mantlo is very slapdash and the product of people who resorted to cheap paths instead of firm challenges. Not many may realize it, but Sabra's early entries, unfortunately, were not very good, as this story suggests.

And considering Hollywood's track record in the past few decades on the subject of Israel's history, that's one more reason why I'm not optimistic this new Capt. America sequel would respect Israel, let alone Sabra herself. Let's remember, Feige is a bad lot, and has already proven so with the most recent Marvel movies containing wokeness.

Entertainment Weekly absolutely loves the Muslim Ms. Marvel for PC reasons

Entertainment Weekly predictably gushes over Marvel's worst propaganda production to debut since the time Axel Alonso was their EIC, and the TV show based upon it:

As portrayed by Iman Vellani, the personality and aesthetic that has already made Kamala an icon to so many fans remains intact with the Ms. Marvel show. She is still an avid superhero fan who makes her own Avengers fan-fiction, she's still the child of Pakistani immigrants who live in Jersey City, and she still pursues her own superhero responsibilities with exuberance once her powers manifest. But every adaptation necessarily brings about changes to fit a new format, and a very noticeable one is that Kamala's powers work very differently on screen than they do in Marvel comics.

In the Ms. Marvel show, Kamala manipulates energy into physical constructs like stepping discs or a giant fist. We're only two episodes in, so the full mechanics and potential of her powers have yet to be revealed, but so far they bear a striking resemblance to the Green Lantern ring from DC Comics — especially since Kamala's ever-present wrist bangle seems to play a key role in her powers. Lots of thought went into this change, as Amanat explained to EW in a Summer Preview interview last month. Since Vellani is set to star alongside Brie Larson's Carol Danvers and Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau in the upcoming film The Marvels, MCU architects clearly wanted Kamala's capabilities to line up more visibly with those energy-based heroes.

Considering how paltry sales of the comic were (little more than 20,000 copies or less, and they never actually gave clear figures for digital sales), one can only wonder what they believe they're accomplishing by lecturing everyone that the character seriously has fans despite the ideological components souring the milk. The Capt. Marvel movie from 3 years ago was so overrated and pretentious that to cast a character developed as Khan was with politicized components does nothing to improve perceptions of what Marvel studios set out to do at the time. All this news does is make me glad I'm staying away from the Marvel-based movies.

Kamala Khan is defined by many things — her religion, her ethnicity, her hometown — but most of all, she's an incredible teen hero. In addition to fighting supervillains, she also faces struggles relatable to any modern young person: Drowning in extracurricular activities, finding a balance between work and personal life, trying to do right by both her family and friends.

The best thing about her original, physical powers is that they fit right into these teen problems. What young person hasn't woken up one day to find some part of their body suddenly mismatched with the rest?

This is meaningless if the whole story builds on divisive politics and whitewashes what the Religion of Peace is built on, which unsurprisingly, the magazine has no issues with. Not to mention it's laughable how they base the gushing here on the character proper, rather than the writing/artwork. EW is decidedly irrelevant as a showbiz magazine, and this is further confirmation of that.

Why far-left reporter Taylor Lorenz needs to be ostracized

Left-wing Wash. Post journalist Taylor Lorenz has quite a history of defaming people on the right she doesn't agree with, which included the daughters of Pamela Geller. Now, the reprehensible Lorenz has gone so far as to doxx another right-winger she despises, based on antisemitic tropes, because this woman was exposing reprehensible leftists on TikTok:

Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz’s hit piece on the popular “Libs of TikTok” Twitter account was not her first foray into doxxing private citizens, but she certainly brought a new twist to the genre when she portrayed the account owner as a “powerful” Orthodox Jew who is “shaping” the media.

[...] Lorenz’s “reporting” is similar to usual corporate media hit pieces on conservatives, with the obvious goal of chilling speech and intimidating anyone who dares to challenge the regime’s narrative, which apparently now includes private citizens. But Lorenz took it a step further by dabbling in the long-held anti-Semitic trope that “Jews control the media.”

The piece is so clearly agenda-driven that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous and appalling. At a time when anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. are at an all-time high, editors at The Washington Post thought it was a good idea to identify a private citizen as an Orthodox Jew, a detail that is entirely irrelevant to the story, then link to said person’s real estate license, including the person’s name, real estate license number, and physical address. The newspaper only removed the link after public pushback.

More on the topic here. Based on Lorenz's past conduct, this isn't entirely surprising she'd go full-fledged antisemitic, seeing as she's already gone after Geller's family, obviously because Lorenz is against people who object to Islamofascism as well. What Lorenz has done is defamatory and hurtful to people trying to put a stop to evils in the world.

The good news is that Lorenz and the Wash. Post's offensive conduct has actually had the opposite effect of what they wanted, and only helped build up more audience for the Libs of TikTok account:

Because she disagrees with Pamela Gellar’s politics, Lorenz outed Gellar’s daughters, who had developed their own popular, non-political Instagram accounts. She also went after KellyAnne Conway’s daughter. And speaking of Gellar, some people have noted that Lorenz seems to have a real issue with Jews. (LOTT's proprietor is Jewish.)

[...] I sincerely hope that LOTT sues both Lorenz and the WaPo (along with the individual editors involved) and that she gets Nick Sandmann rich off them. Lorenz is a trust fund kid and the WaPo is Jeff Bezo’s private political playground, so there are some mighty deep pockets there. The public should also deride, shame, and shun Lorenz and the WaPo.

But here’s the biggest punishment of all, and it’s a natural consequence of WaPo’s doxing hit piece: Although the purpose was to silence LOTT, it dramatically increased her reach. I don’t know how many followers LOTT had before she was doxed, but I noted about 630,000 on Tuesday morning after the numbers had already begun accruing. As of now 11:45 P.M Eastern Time on Tuesday, the account is at 800,000 followers and it’s increasing, as best as I can tell, by around 2,000 new followers every ten minutes.

This is the Streisand effect on steroids, a term that refers to Barbra Streisand’s attempt to suppress a photo of her Malibu property only to draw massive attention to the photo. With LOTT’s expanded audience, the account had better start going back to its core activity, which was showing to the wider world the bizarre, creepy, even dangerous materials leftists freely promote about themselves.

So now, Lorenz's actions have caught up with her, and she's being noticed for having an antisemitic leaning. If the Wash. Post wants to do a favor, they'll stop employing her, and so will the Daily Beast, where she also worked. People like Lorenz have no place in journalism, which is almost an embarrassing career to be in at this point.

Video: How To Brainwash A Nation

(hat tip: The Astute Bloggers)



YouTube blurb:

Yuri Bezmenov is a former KGB agent and an expert on ideological subversion. He discusses the slow process of demoralization that transformed America from a conservative and mostly homogeneous country into a socially-marxist and egalitarian one.

Interview conducted by Edward Griffin in 1984.

Creepy 1938 Comparison

Children sing to Hitler.




Children sing to Obama.