- Put the bleach down and stop the whitewashing, Netflix. So
say the fans and critics who are accusing you of whitewashing again after
sharing the trailer for your “Death Note” remake was released. While you may
not know a lot about the project, the most relevant fact here is that this
upcoming movie is based on a popular Japanese manga comic book series that has
already been made into four Japanese films - zero in on the word Japanese
appearing twice in that sentence. See, the repetition of that word indicates
that the characters, most of them anyhow, should be Japanese, yet Netflix’s
adaptation relocates the entire story to Seattle and replaces the original’s
Japanese lead character, Light Yagami, with a white, American character named
Light Turner. No one is trying to knock the man playing Turner, “The Fault In
Our Stars” actor Nat Wolff, but his casting and the additional fact that the
franchise’s female lead, Misa Amane, has also been replaced by a white,
American character called Mia Sutton, has a lot of people extremely angry.
Whether Turner and “The Leftovers” actress Margaret Qualley can pull off their
roles in the tale of a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook
which gives him the ability to kill anyone whose name and face he knows isn't
the question…why Netflix got rid of the story’s roots and made it a typical,
white-dominated American production is. On the heels of the studio casing white
British actor Finn Jones as the lead in “Iron Fist,” Netflix’s latest Marvel
series, this most definitely was not the wisest move in terms of casting
choices………
- Even people Donald Trump has never met and probably didn’t
even know existed are having their lives ruin by the
Mutated-Tangerine-in-Chief. The latest casualty is a state legislator in Hawaii
who claims she was pressured to give up her leadership post at the statehouse
after criticizing one of the many, easily criticizeable aspects of Trump’s
presidency. Rep. Beth Fukumoto said members of the GOP willingly turned a deaf
ear to racism and sexism by Trump, including his suggestion to create a Muslim
registry during his campaign. "As a Japanese-American whose grandparents
had to destroy all of their Japanese artifacts and items and bury them in the
backyard to avoid getting taken and interned, how could I not have said
anything?" Fukumoto said. “And how could my party have not said
anything?" Her words and general opposition to the hatred and xenophobia
that have come to define Trump’s political existence led to her being voted out
of her post as House Minority Leader in February, not long after she called Trump
a bully in a speech at the Women's March in Honolulu, saying many of his
remarks were racist and sexist and had no place in the Republican Party. Her
words were on point, but since then she went in search of feedback from her
constituents about leaving the GOP and said three-quarters of the more than 470
letters she received supported the move. Fukumoto agrees with many Democratic
positions on affordable housing and equitable taxes and intends to make a party
swap, but even there she may not be welcome. Hawaii Democratic Party leader Tim
Vandeveer said his party will consider Fukumoto, but added that some are concerned
about her past voting record on civil rights and women's issues. As another
participant in last year’s race for the White House, one Bernie Sanders, can
attest, one can always go the independent route………
- You’re not helping, Manchester United midfielder Ander
Herrera, you’re hurting the situation and you need to think before you speak. Herrera
is a teammate of arguably the biggest ego in sports right now, Swedish forward
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose arrogance is so legendary that he once proclaimed that
he hadn't gotten his wife a gift for her birthday because “she already has
Zlatan.” When a man is that full of himself already, one of his teammates
publicly proclaiming him to be a genius is only going to inflate that ego
further. "He is a genius. He can say that he will score 30 goals and that
he is the best because he can get away with it,” Herrera said. “He is so good
that he can do that Ibrahimovic can very annoying because he wants to win it
all, even at football-tennis." Yes, Ibrahimovic created two of the three
goals that saw United past FC Rostov and booked their place in the Europa
League quarterfinals and he’s clearly a great player, but let’s keep that
between us and not throw the G-word around so casually. Keep doing that and ol’
Zlatan may just demand that Manchester United chance the name on the back of
his No. 10 game jersey to “GENIUS” and that he be allowed to do whatever the
hell he wants on the field without the interference of his non-genius coaches
and teammates. Ibrahimovic has scored 26 goals and set up eight more in 41
appearances since joining United as a free agent last summer, so you can't deny
his production, but you can avoid feeding his enormous self-image……..
- On a continent where it seems many nations balance on the
precipice of disaster on a daily basis, it’s a bad sign when the United Nations
refugee chief says a particular country is at a "breaking point." In
a joint statement by U.N. official Filippo Grandi and Uganda's government,
that’s precisely how Grandi describes Uganda as nearly 3,000 South Sudanese
refugees pour into the country every day. They’re fleeing the ongoing turmoil
in the world’s newest nation and as a result, the U.N. has called this the
world's fastest-growing refugee crisis. According to the statement, more than
570,000 refugees have arrived from South Sudan since July, a number projected
to surpass 1 million by the middle of this year. Uganda isn't exactly a
rock-solid nation in terms of its fiscal and governmental standing, but it’s
nonetheless hosting a total of 800,000 South Sudanese refugees who have arrived
since the country's civil war began in late 2013. Ugandan Prime Minister
Ruhakana Rugunda sounds like a man presiding over a country taxed to its limits
and noted that the unprecedented surge in refugee arrivals has placed
"enormous strain" on public services and infrastructure within his
nation. In light of all they’re being asked to do in helping those in need,
Uganda and the U.N. said in their joint statement that the country needs
significant international help and they believe more than $250 million is
needed this year. Here’s hoping the world doesn’t turn a blind eye to this
situation as it tends to do with so many horrible humanitarian crises……..
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