Rotate cap, remove spring and insert Thread for further Openness.
Two big items of note in the world of pop culture. First, Emmy nominations were announced! Game of Thrones (Peter Dinklage), Mad Men, Modern Family and The Good Wife were big winners. Community: completely snubbed.
Also, there’s a sequel to a sequel about boy wizards or something.
Comment of the Week belongs to CPF on our Breaking Bad Think Tank:
I love your site, but that graphic at the top put me off this article. Class 4 dangerous goods are flammable solids/dangerous when wet (emits flammable gas) and that label is specifically flammable solids. “Volatile” is not a category. “Extremely” would never be used – it is either dangerous or it is not. And the label itself is the “warning.”
As commenter Cornelius noted beneath it, that was a Class 4 “Well Actually.” Nicely done!
Did anyone else get snubbed for an Emmy nod? Are you cosplaying to see the conclusion of the single greatest media achievement of the 21st century? Or is there something we missed? Sound off in the comments, for this is your … Open Thread.
Some Harry Potter material from the Back Catalog:
“Hogwarts is a Terrible School”
http://www.overthinkingit.com/2009/09/24/hogwarts-is-a-terrible-school/
Benedict Cumberbatch was snubbed for Sherlock, imho.
My childhood is now officially over. Crap. A comment on the group midnight showing experience, though: There were a number of random costumes out. I saw a Jedi, two pandas, and a Where’s Waldo. It’s an excuse to dress up…? And two of the trailers got as much cheering as a strong supporting character did during his moment of glory.
It has been noted many times over on the internets, but Nick Offerman is the biggest snub of the Emmys this year.
Also, Breaking Bad is back this weekend. I know there was a whole article dedicated to the show this week, but it should be mentioned again. Breaking Bad!
Oh, yeah, and that reminds me. Bill Maher is going to keep his record-breaking non-winning nomination streak going again. Poor dude.
Four Best Supporting Actor nods for Modern Family? REALLY? No love for Nick Offerman (RON F’ING SWANSON!), Danny Pudi and Donald Glover, or NPH and Jason Segel? I kind of understand Community not picking up any nominations, because the Emmy voters haven’t exactly demonstrated they have any awareness of the show, but they nominated Parks and Rec for Best Comedy and Amy Poehler for Best Actress. They have to at least know of Nick Offerman.
I’m not willing to comment on who should have been nominated for an Emmy. But I would like to comment on who should not have been nominated – anyone having anything to do with The Big Bang Theory. That show was cute for about 5 episodes, and then became formulaic and stupid. How the writers have managed to keep it afloat this long is beyond me.
I was gonna make a cheap play for feminism cred by saying it’s sexist to say Harry Potter is just about ‘boy’ wizards, see I’m not sexist because I point it out in others! But that trailer is so rife with phallic and Oedipal imagery it’s ridickupenis, Freud is erecting I mean blushing in his cradle I mean grave.
So is there a bunch of yonic imagery I’m missing? Like is there a female equivalent to the money shot at 1:22? I guess all the sperms made of magic are flying to a giant golden cervix made of magic, is water and fire shooting down halls the female climax?
Brilliant! Several excellent comments recently; I nominate you to write this one into a full-length guest post.
I would argue that the yonic counterpart to Harry Potter (Potter? I hardly knew ‘er!) is actually represented by Neville Longbottom (to be less heteronormative). His magical skills are more into plants (nurturing life instead of shooting horny stags out of his phallus), he decapitates the big snake, etc.
Thanks. Yeah I’d gladly write a full length, the problem is I’m not familiar enough with Harry Potter, so I was thinking of making it about the evolution of phallic trailers in general, when they started and why, as the X-Men First Class and new Sherlock Holmes trailers are also ridickupenis.
But is it really just a bunch of phallic trailers? It may also be the case there’s tons of yonic trailers, I just can’t see the signs because I don’t have a yon. Are trailers viewed through different gender lenses, like if you’re a girl you’ll mainly see the yonic but not the phallic and vice versa?
With the Harry Potter trailer I think you can make the case that females are present as much boys, that’s it’s equally Electral as Oeodipal. The still for the youtube has a girl behind the yonic arch of the school window which recalls the baby crib bars in the first shot. But that is still Phallic stage stuff for both genders according to what wikipedia tells me about psychoanalysis.
Think of all of the tunnels and bodies of water you see in trailers. Just sayin’… ;)
I feel like the things that are usually the most striking about a piece of literature are either the things that the author is fixated on, or an unfamiliar problem that the author is trying to work out. It would require a case by case examination of the female characters, but perhaps Rowling has written a world with “normal” female characters that doesn’t require so much embellishment of the female while her male characters are the ones who are shaped into stereotypes and operate in a world that seems rife with phallic imagery as an overcompensation for her unfamilarity with it. On the other hand, this might just be an issue with the people who put together the movie.
With HP’s trailer at least I think it’s world is heavily yonic. That seems to me the big joke/reveal of the whole HP universe is to get males, but really our whole culture, to accept and not fear the yonic, right down to his name origin= hairy pot, I mean wow. The shot of him jumping into the gravely ravine is yonic, and I thought negatively so at first, but really it shows the power of embracing the yonic not a fearful aggressive rejection/denial. Because of this the phallic in the HP world is more generative and communal-as in the money shot at 1:22- and less constantly in aggressive conflict, trying dominate/deny the infinite yon.
Trying to get males to accept the yonic like this is super duper rare in our pop culture, as I’ve been watching a lot of trailers and it’s almost unanimously about trying to deny/dominate the feminine by male aggression, at least recently. Even something like Eat, Pray, Love doesn’t reach the level of yonic embrace as the HP trailer, and probably the movie and books.
OK, just, ew, Brian. I’m not even going to respond to the first part. I find the world much less gendered and more balanced. Watching the trailer, you get a sense of the women and Harry being under attack. His mother whispering, Hermione at his side, McGonagall standing beside Molly saying “Man the boundaries, protect us”. I see it as “if you play out male aggression on a male-dominated field you forget about the balance”. Harry Potter’s triad reminds of us the balance and he fights to restore balance.
What struck me was how sperm-fertilizing-an-egg that scene of all the wizards casting spells toward the school was.
Fair enough, I went too new age quackery. But now that you mention it the school and crib are protective. I was reading it more trapped, misread the threat vibe. Thanks for pointing that out.
My big issue with Harry Potter: in this economy, what good is a wizarding degree? As someone with an English degree who has so far managed to find only menial work in customer service jobs, I see Harry’s future in the job market to be bleak. I bet they don’t make a movie called “Harry Potter and the Quest for a Standard Resume”.
Like with the Oscars, I feel that getting offended when your favorite shows get snubbed by the Emmys is often times a waste of energy. This feeling is offset by the snub of Ron Effing Swanson. Emmy voters, you are dumbasses.
I don’t think you can equate an English degree with a wizarding degree. Off the top of my head, jobs in the Harry Potter world include: teacher/professor, Auror, lower level worker at the Ministry of Magic, groundskeeper, book author, newspaper/tabloid journalist, entrepreneur/small business owner, athlete, dragon tamer, etc. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of customer service since presumably they can take care of most of the small stuff and certain businesses (i.e. the bank) require you to be of another species. I think getting a wizarding degree is more like going towards a professional career like doctor/lawyer.
We don’t have Netflix over here, but what’s y’all’s response to the announced price hikes? Are you guys committed enough to the streaming that it won’t make much difference? Will this be the impetus that spreads the field and allows Netflix’s competitors to get a bigger share?
I’m slightly let down that Castle didn’t get any noms, that show has delivered time and time again with very well written stories and plotlines plus Nathan Fillion had been AMAZING at playing comedy one second and then serious drama the next.
Seconded.
I still catch it on hulu from time to time but that show is a mess of cliches and melodrama.