On nepotism and Willow Smith’s EMPATHOGEN

On May 6, 2024May 6, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn movies, Music, ParentingLeave a comment

Fun fact: under certain circumstances, I’m not at all convinced that nepotism is a bad thing. Take sports, for example. My understanding is that there’s been some debate about whether Lebron James’ son Bronny ought to be entering the NBA draft or not. But here’s the thing: maybe (I have no idea, and don’t intend to check) Bronny can use his dad’s no doubt impressive influence to get drafted higher than he might be otherwise. But if he can’t perform at the NBA level, he’s not going to perform at an NBA level. There’s nothing Lebron can do if his kid goes out there and averages two points and six turnovers a game. He’s not gonna get playing time, and if he does, there are a billion people out there who are going to be losing money when he’s on the court and eventually it’s going to catch up with him. I remember when Bob Knight insisted on recruiting his son Patrick. Patrick dragged down the team. It was a terrible fucking idea and IU’s basketball program paid for it.

It seems like the place where nepotism is the biggest problem is in politics and business, along with those parts of the entertainment business where, y’know, knowing things can be useful. There are too many examples here for it to be really necessary to list any, but nonetheless, the previous occupant’s wastrel children and Meghan McCain come to mind immediately. You don’t even know about Meghan McCain because her dad was good at something. You know about Meghan McCain because her grandfather was good at something. Similarly, Eric Trump would be living in a trailer park if his grandfather hadn’t been rich. Go find a picture of Rudy Giuliani’s kid sometime. He barely even looks human.

Which brings me to Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s children. They have tried, tried oh so hard, to make Jaden Smith a thing. Jaden Smith’s not a thing. He’s not gonna be a thing. Because in order to actually be a thing in the entertainment industry he’d have to be talented, and if he is talented I have yet to see any evidence of it. Which is why he doesn’t show up in things that don’t have his parents’ money and influence behind them.

Now let’s talk about Willow.

Okay, you would never have heard Whip my Hair if it wasn’t for Willow’s parents. Fine. But do you happen to remember how that story ended? The kid shaved her head in the middle of the tour so that she didn’t have to perform the song any longer. She’s got all kinds of interviews talking about it, but I’ve always enjoyed hearing Will discussing it here.

Willow just released empathogen, a … jazz album? I have her two previous albums; I haven’t listened to anything earlier, although I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and dive into her work before I discovered her on lately I feel EVERYTHING. Her last two albums have been punk rock, and they have kicked ass. This is completely different, and from what I’ve seen her first three albums don’t sound like any of these last three either. I’m not convinced empathogen is a jazz album, although it’s definitely jazz inflected, but most of the instrumentation is guitar, bass and drums; if there are any horns or other strings on there I didn’t notice them on my first listen, which I will admit was in the car and not exactly careful. The vocals are definitely jazzy. I’m not even sure I liked the damn album, but I’m absolutely fascinated by it. (Thinking about it, empathogen is as much of a jazz album as Cowboy Carter is a country album. The influence is clearly there, but you can’t pin either album down to a single genre.)

There’s been some talk in the last few days about whether Willow is a “nepo baby,” in other words, whether she owes her career to her parents’ influence or not. I would like to suggest that given how wildly, insanely eclectic Willow’s musical output over the last nine years had been, I’m really fucking glad that her parents are Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith and not Steve and Carol Smith … because the kid wouldn’t have a career if she didn’t have a leg up. The music industry doesn’t work with people who refuse to fit into boxes like this. Can you imagine what would have happened if some random fuckin’ kid told Jay-Z that she was done with her fun little hair song and wasn’t touring any longer? We’d never have heard from her again. And, I mean, we can argue about whether Will Smith as a parent should have said “Okay, baby, I got you” or, uh, something else(*), but the fact is if her parents weren’t famous I wouldn’t have these albums, and if nepotism gets me lately I feel EVERYTHING and empathogen once in a while, I’ll maybe put up with some fourth-generation news nitwit if I have to.

Suri Cruise and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt are both either already or about to turn eighteen, by the way, so I look forward to the two of them owning the world in, oh, five years or so.

(*) “Baby, Mr. Jay-Z is going to cut Daddy’s balls off and bury both of us underneath Madison Square Garden. You’re gonna grow that hair back today if I have to sell your soul to Satan to make it happen.”

#REVIEW: The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, by Taylor Swift

On April 23, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn Music, ReviewsLeave a comment

It’s boring.

There, I said it.

I could make this post a lot more complicated and detailed if I wanted to, I suppose. I have had a lot of thoughts about Taylor Swift over the years, and I am fully aware that Ms. Swift has no reason to care in even a hypothetical sense about what I think. She’s a billionaire and she’s more talented and influential than I will ever be at anything and I’m not the target audience for this anyway. I have had many, many opinions about her over the years; I still never really thought disappointment was going to be one of them. One of her greatest talents is how incredibly ear wormy her music is. I don’t care if you’re a Taylor Swift fan or not; you have five of her songs memorized. You may not even know you have five Taylor Swift songs memorized, but you do.

I have listened to this album at least four or five times by now, and I could name a couple of individual lyrics over its 31 tracks, but none because I thought they were clever or impressive. I was psyched about her doing a duet with Post Malone; he’s wasted. There are people mad at her about a line about living in the 1830s that is utterly a nothingburger and is out of context besides. There’s another line in another song that I thought was memorable until I realized that Justin Bieber of all fucking people had already written it. There’s one song where she says fuck, like, sixty times, but I can’t remember the name.

Four listens and I can’t hum a single track and there’s nothing I can even start singing along to even if I was capable of matching the slow, breathy voice she’s using for every single song. The whole thing sounds incredibly samey and there’s little variation in tone or tempo or musicality anywhere.

Also: ma’am, you are in your mid-thirties and it is time to stop singing about high school.

I dunno. I genuinely loved Evermore and Folklore and Midnights was pretty OK with a few tracks I really liked. This one’s a dud for me musically, and lyrically it’s yet another Taylor Swift Has Ex-Boyfriends album after three in a row with very little of that type of content.

I take no pleasure in this, but blech.

In which Taylor Swift did it again

On April 20, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn Music1 Comment

I pre-ordered Midnights, Taylor Swift’s last studio album, only to discover when I got up on release day that she’d released a previously-unannounced deluxe “3 AM” edition with several extra tracks three fucking hours after the base version of the album released. She waited three hours and then released an entire new version of the album while I have to assume the vast majority of the people who had preordered were still fucking asleep and hadn’t had time to even listen to Midnights yet.

When The Tortured Poets Department got announced, with a pre-order available, although you could, if you wanted to, spend $1.99 to download something or another that was eight seconds long, I decided there were probably going to be shenanigans afoot again and decided not to pre-order the thing this time. It didn’t look like she was releasing any singles anyway, and she didn’t.

iTunes insisted that the thing was coming out on the 21st, so I was a little surprised when my wife let me know yesterday that it was out already. And that I’d been exactly right– Taylor had pulled the exact same bullshit move again, only worse— that now the new version was a fucking double album, and was clearly the version that she intended to release, for a dollar more than the original pre-order price, and a different cover, and yep, you can still order the original, half-length version if you want to … and every single person who pre-ordered it got the inferior version, because no fucker anywhere knew the “Anthology” version even existed prior to it being released a few hours after the fake-out version.

I have come around on her music after many years of loathing her, but holy shit, is this a bullshit move, and the people it’s hurting the most are her biggest fans. I can’t believe I’m not hearing more about it; maybe it’s a function of the fact that most people stream nowadays. I don’t know what proportion of her fanbase is still buying digital music rather than streaming it. One way or another, I feel like she– and by definition, Apple, as well as whoever else might have been involved in this– owes her fans either a fucking way to get a refund or a way to buy the extra tracks for a dollar. This is an absolute fucking asshole move.

Never, ever, pre-order a Taylor Swift album, kids.

(I haven’t listened to it yet, by the way. The new Pearl Jam album is, after four more listens in addition to the two in the theater, absolutely fucking phenomenal, and it’s absorbed my attention. I’ll give it a spin this weekend sometime.)

In which I enjoy my daddy time

On September 16, 2016September 16, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn ParentingLeave a comment

Today was Parents’ Day at Hogwarts, so I spent the first couple of hours of my morning in the company of many preschoolers. I’ll admit it; the whole experience actually managed to make me miss teaching a little bit, and the only thing that kept me from randomly wandering the building after my son’s time was over and popping into other classrooms was the absolute certainty that I would eventually be found out and escorted off the property, and I’m not super interested in being banned from my son’s school, at least not before he’s in seventh or eighth grade.

But yeah. It was fun, and a tiny bit nostalgic; “Yeah, I remember this” sort of stuff. Even though it’s just preschool, there’s enough commonalities there, y’know? Tonight, the boy is spending the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s and the wife and I are Going to See a Show: specifically, Wicked, which has been in town for two weeks, a run that ends tonight. I’ve read the book but have never seen the musical. I used to be a bit of a fan of Gregory Maguire’s work until realizing that he was on a downward slope with each book he wrote; if he’s done anything since Lost I don’t know about it.

I have failed twice at adulting in the past two days; I spent the entirety of yesterday in bed (again) leaving the several boxes of vinyl flooring still in my car and despite dedicating an entire post to how I don’t want an iPhone 7 last week, once I discovered today that Verizon was gonna let me have one basically for free I caved and ordered it. Space black, not the jet. And, uh, a Plus. Which may prove to be a mistake, honestly, but I want the camera. So so much for responsibility.

Speaking of, it’s noon, and I’ve done damn near nothing in the hour and a half since I got home. I’m gonna go… uh. Yeah. Do something. Not in front of the computer. I just gotta figure out what.

GUEST POST: The X-Files Revival: The Very Disappointing and the Good

On March 17, 2016March 15, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Television3 Comments

I’m running guest posts while I’m in Chicago at C2E2. I’ll probably be posting anyway, but just in case– heck, as this one is posting, I’m still in town. My friend Natacha Guyot gets the first one.

x-files-art-featured To say I was looking forward to the new season of the X-Files, my all-time favorite TV show, would be an understatement. I had high hopes for it, as for the most part I enjoyed all seasons and movies, though the most recent one didn’t live up to my expectations.

I liked the first and last episodes of this tenth season most. The four in the middle, I am still wondering why they made them for the most part. I have nothing against the return of the monster of the week approach, but those “middle” episodes didn’t do it for me.

10.02 ‘Founder’s mutation’ and 10.04 ‘Home Again’ were the closest to old school monster of the week kind, but I found them slightly disappointing and visually gore for the sake of it. Now there were similar aspects in older episodes, but not to this point. When I went to see Deadpool, I felt that it was less gory than the new X-Files, which was weird.

10.03 ‘Mulder and Scully Meet the Were Monster’ was beyond disappointing and atrocious to watch. I generally don’t care for “funny” or parodic episodes, but this one tops every other episode of that kind I had to put up with. It felt like wasted time from start to finish. I didn’t find it smart or witty, but simply horrible and poor writing.

10.05 ‘Babylon’ wasn’t much better and the overall case didn’t feel X-Files-ish at all. The doppelgangers new agents seemed very forced as well (though these two eventually grew up on me in the season finale). While these agents being somewhat similar to Mulder and Scully in dynamic, the trait was too forced, and hindered their introduction and early development. As for the whole section of what I dub “Mulder goes Californication style”, I just shook my head. If I wanted to watch Californication, I’d watch it, not X-Files.

10.01 ‘My Struggle’ and 10.06 ‘My Struggle II’ were my favorite and the season finale actually reconciled me with the newest episodes, as I watched it quite reluctantly at first. They did a great job approaching the mythology of the show that has been developed since day one. It also ended with a cliffhanger that makes me hope we get another season (or movie) because I want more answers! It is sad though that they wasted so much episode time in between those episodes, as the finale would have benefited from being a two part instead of a single one.

All the returning actors did a great job (as well as some of the new additions) and I am grateful we got to see Skinner and Reyes again but more screen time for both would have been great. Duchovny and Anderson showed that they can still do an amazing job as Mulder and Scully, though I wish they had had more scenes together. While it made sense to have them do their own thing in most of the finale (as it happened before in earlier seasons), other episodes could have had them interact more, regardless of the status of their personal relationship.

I like how Mulder’s and Scully’s son was brought up in several moments of the narrative and I am curious to see what they may do about him in a next season, as he should prove pivotal. I loved seeing Scully use her medical abilities a lot again, though one element peeved me. I was surprised to see her faith be of so little importance as she loses her mother in 10.04 ‘Home Again’. I understand it is extremely hard for her, but the writers seemed to mostly “forget” about this intricate part of the character, which annoyed me.

Overall, this season has been disappointing, in terms of number of episodes I have like. Yet, I still am hoping for more X-Files and am crossing fingers that the writers get it together and go back to what makes the show fascinating to me.

***

Natacha Guyot is a French author, scholar and public speaker. She works on Science Fiction, Transmedia, Gender Studies, Children Media and Fan Studies. She is a feminist, a fangirl, a bookworm, a vidder, a gamer and a cat lover.

Her released titles include A Galaxy of Possibilities: Representation and Storytelling in Star Wars (New Revised Edition), and Clairvoyance Chronicles – Volume One.

Tella-ma-vision: what I’m watching

On October 8, 2014October 8, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Television15 Comments

(Because I’m very sure that you all care about this a whole lot.)

I am currently watching the following television shows. By “currently” I mean either actually “currently” as in they’re on the air, or they’re about to start and I plan to watch them.

DRAMAS

The Walking Dead. Currently, for my money, the best show on TV, based mostly on an amazingly strong fourth season. Sadly, because of the way I watch TV (we don’t have cable, so everything is through iTunes or Hulu) I am always a day behind and watching this on Monday– which means I can’t liveTweet the show and have to avoid the interwebs every Sunday night.

Gotham. Same deal as far as the “always a day late” thing– that’s true for every show I watch, in fact– but I livetweeted this show last night anyway. I kind of hate it, but in a way that’s going to keep me watching it for at least a few more episodes. The fact that I almost typed “issues” there means something.

Sons of Anarchy. I came into this late last season– my wife finally pulled me into it– and as soon as this season is over I’m going to binge-watch every episode that has ever been released. I love it.

Agents of SHIELD. I kind of hate this show too. That said the Absorbing Man arc that has started the season has been kind of interesting. I want this to be better than it is, and it’s a Whedon show, sort of, but I don’t cry if I get a couple of weeks behind.

American Horror Story. The most fucked-up show on television, in the history of television, EVER. Also a show that I tend to ignore for weeks on end and then binge-watch.

Sleepy Hollow. Note that I am drawing a distinction between “fucked-up” and “batshit insane,” and while AHS is the most fucked-up show on television, Sleepy Hollow is obviously the most batshit insane. I had no idea at all when this show launched that it would be any good, and this is the only show I watch for the characters and the acting more than the story. Okay, Sons is close, but god, I could watch the characters on this show do anything, and everyone always seems to be having a hell of a lot of fun.

Orange is the New Black. I’m not even sure this show counts because of the weird, Netflixy way it gets released. Eh.

COMEDIES

New Girl, The Mindy Project, Blackish. Why are these all in their own category when the dramas each got their own section? Because in some ways they are the exact same show, and yes, I know I just called Blackish and New Girl the same show, and that doesn’t initially make sense. Here’s why: they alternate wildly, sometimes within the same scene, between being hilariously funny and so painful and awkward that I want to gouge out my own eyes. New Girl is especially bad about this, and Zooey Deschanel frequently makes me want to commit hate-suicide, but I could watch Schmidt and Winston forever.

Archer. Not currently actually on the air, but it’ll be back eventually. Best animated program EVER. True fact: we kept the first season DVD on loop while my wife was in labor. The nurses had no idea what to do with us.

Big Bang Theory. I hate this show also. But I still watch it.

GORDON RAMSAY SHOWS

All of them. Because I am fucked in the head. Yes, even Hotel Hell, the one that makes sure he’s in his underwear or butt-ass naked for at least one scene in every single episode. I watch every single one of his goddamn shows, even the ones (coughhellskitchen) that really suck.

THESE SHOWS HAVEN’T STARTED YET

Flash. I think technically this aired… last night? Which would mean that the first night I could watch it would be tonight. I’ve never really been a big fan of the Flash but the trailers and commercials have been decent. (EDIT: just watched the pilot. Loved it. LOVED it. And I am not generally a big Flash guy.)

Constantine. Same deal, except without the “last night” part. The five-minute trailer sucked me in. I have really high hopes for this show. We’ll see what happens.

I MIGHT WATCH THIS IF I HAD ANY WAY TO

Star Wars: Rebels.

I BOUGHT SEASON TWO LIKE FOUR MONTHS AGO AND I’LL GET TO IT EVENTUALLY

Orphan Black. Which is weird, because this is a great show, starring Tatiana Maslany, who is one of the awesomest actors ever. They should create a new acting award just for Tatiana Maslany– call it, maybe, the Tatiana Maslany Award for Being Tatiana Maslany, and award it to Tatiana Maslany every year. And yet, we still haven’t watched Season Two.

I WON’T WATCH THIS IF YOU PAY ME

Mulaney. I hated Seinfeld and near as I can tell I hate this vaguely embarrassing pale imitation even more.

WHERE THE HELL IS GAME OF THRONES?

I don’t watch Game of Thrones. I watch occasional episodes when I know something big is going to happen, but that’s it.

…

Damn. I watch way too much television.

In which I want to do things I don’t want to do, or vice versa, I’m not sure

On January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy10 Comments

ghibli_whispersdvdsleeve Sitting on the couch in the living room right now, watching the snow outside, which has been stuck on “whiteout” for the past half hour or so. I’m listening to Johnny Cash entertain a bunch of convicts at Folsom Prison in 1968. The boy’s taking his nap, the dogs are sacked out and content. There’s an enormous book about World War II next to me waiting for me to get back to it. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

The Cash is playing through my Apple TV. When you’re listening to music, it plays a screen saver. I got tired of looking at the nature pictures it plays and just for the hell of it told it to start showing me movie posters as a screensaver. I’ve been sorta idly watching them as they’ve scrolled across my screen. And then it hit me: I really miss watching movies. There were several years in my life, most of the time I was living in Chicago, in fact, where I was seeing 40-45 movies a year.

I have not seen a single movie nominated for an Academy Award this year. Not one. And of the nine Best Picture nominees, I only have a haziest idea of the plot of five. I’ve never even heard of Philomena, Dallas Buyers’ Club or Nebraska. And there are lots of movies that I’m seeing posters for that at least pass the initial “that looks interesting” test.

(Sidenote: poster for 3 Days to Kill just spun past. When did Kevin Costner turn into Tom Selleck?)

I don’t remember the last time I saw a movie in a theater that didn’t have at least one Avenger in it, and that kind of makes me sad. And, to make it worse, it’s not like I don’t have all kinds of access to movies– I can stream damn near anything I want a few months after it hits theaters, and you best believe my iTunes wish list, which I’m using as a “Watch this!” queue, is chock full of stuff– I’m just not doing it. This could turn into a typical new-parent “get a babysitter/pay the babysitter/pay for the movie/pay for dinner/night costs $150” rant, but it’s not that. I have time to watch movies if I want. I just don’t. My priorities have shifted. And it’s a weird feeling, knowing that I want to do something, and I have the opportunity to do something, and that I’m just not going to. For no clear reason.

Anyway, that’s all. I could go get my DVD of The Maltese Falcon out of the rack in my office and watch it now, like I’ve kinda wanted to since rereading the book a month ago. What’ll probably happen is that I’ll clean up the living room or read something and keep on listening to Johnny Cash. I dunno why.