Category Archives: movies

March 6, 2022 · 12:15

More to a script

In the previous article ‘Lights, Camera, Action!’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/05/lights-camera-action/) I discussed a new movie idea, and now I want to add to this. You see, a concept starts nice, but we need to follow it through, drive the dagger home as it is called at times. So in the image below I added a few tracks to the movie story.

Fictive example

As you see in the charts, it is a straight line, and it needs to be. No matter how the movie is made, these tracks tend to have a ‘clear’ path. So we have two tracks added to the real path, now if we merely go through the steps, it becomes a dull exercise and one that relies on all kinds of action sequences. But what happens when we consider the green dots? These are the dots that overlap other tracks and other options, perhaps the two interact, but I try to avoid that, as I feel it becomes rather messy at that point, but I did make references in the first article. I mentioned the Youm7 News Agency, the Mobica store, and they are relatively together. All options to make the change interesting and set the starting point in a different way. As for the export license, it has been done before to implement weapons in cars, but who took the time to see how you fit an M60  (taken apart) in the spare-parts of cars the firing pins UNDER the tools of a trolley chest tool chest? There are all options and there are more and when we interact one with the other we see opportunities arise. So doe the enemy (the opposition of the movie). What if we are aware and we ignore their part and let the work FOR us? Leave them holding the bag so to speak, all whilst the RFID sticker on the potted plants now holds 512GB and the plant is the export tally for the stolen data? (see below) 

200% of real size

The sticker obfuscates view and whilst some inspect the content, the sticker with an RFID stamp is overlooked. 

There are so many more options and that is where the movie would optionally be a new unique setting, bad boys working for governments. It is not unique, but for the longest time we have not seen that kind of movie. Do not get me wrong, I loved True Lies, I love the MI series and many more, but the stage where the hero is not clean and white is ignored, it seems that Hollywood needs pure polarisation in characters, whilst the story should provide that. That is merely my view on the matter. And I did get a few more stages done. And when you think of the Russian war, consider that my articles have a nice bonus hidden, I will let you figure that one out. I need a sandwich!

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March 5, 2022 · 15:22

Lights, Camera, Action!

Well, this Saturday is getting weird in a number of ways. In the first the Dutch politician Geert Wilders is making a fuss, which works out well for me. You see the more waves that person makes, the easier my initial movie idea can be sold. Especially in the Middle East. You see he is the main event in ‘How to assassinate a politician’. I came up with the setting around the same time Charlie Hedbo got killed. I was all up about that and it was THEN that I learned that it is blasphemy to have an image of the prophet Mohammad. I reckon that a lot of people never knew that and as such the actions of Geert Wilders and his drawing event suddenly makes sense. So I designed a movie that takes care of people like him. And as I was contemplating that I came up with a new kind of secret agent movie. With in the lead the rapper 50 Cents (in Russia he is known as 4,000,000 ruble) and Tom Cruise. 

The setting is a weird one. You see 50 cents has the lead and in the movie he is not the ‘good saint’. He plays a rapper who is also a dealer of chemical delights. Coke, H, MDMA. He has it all and in that setting he travels the world. In this case a concert in Egypt. It is in the day before the concert we start seeing his other side. He is a high tech thief and data robber for the US government. In this case it is his job to get the data from a server in the Chinese Embassy in Cairo. Tom Cruise is his backup and also plays his manager, he is also not snowy white, he dabbles in black market military hardware but the combination makes them welcome in all kinds of places. So we get the story that has three circles, the drug circle, the weapons circle and the two are played so that they get access to the Chinese Embassy, where they will unload a few TB of data. 

You see, a movie like this has not been made before. The hero’s are always squeaky clean, the opposition is always so dark that black seems like a snowflake white, yet the grey mix is not usually see. Life in this world is expensive and you need an alternative income to pay for the bills at The Smokery Heliopolis and the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza. The US government allows for it because as data thieves they are unsurpassed and as they have no affiliation the government (CIA) has deniability. 

The nice part is that the VFS China visa center is in actuality right next to Youm7 News Agency, so there are all kinds of options opening up.

There are still a few (read several) issues to deal with. I want to avoid that it is all action and shooting. There should be a chase (optionally from Mobica) but they need to remain ‘invisible’ to the outside world. It is about the suspense of the data theft and that would also allow for a twist or two (doesn’t it always?) And the funny part is that this all took me less than an hour. I know more needs to be done, but it seems that I have put more ideas and scripts online in my blog than most writers for Netflix have ever cleared, so I feel pretty good now. I reckon I earned my bowl of orange jello (with whipped cream). 

And for tonight? Cheese baguettes with Irish stew. Perhaps another idea, depends whether my brain will allow me to get some sleep and recharge the figments of delusional imagination.

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March 3, 2022 · 11:40

Netflix Prime

Yup, that is it and it is not a conundrum. This setting applies to both Amazon Prime and Netflix (other layers too). You see, their valuation is set to a larger stage of WHAT and HOW MUCH they can bring. And in a stage where we are on the brink of active militant debates, having an alternative is never a bad idea. You see, for some unknown reason I have been thinking of the Dutch movie ‘De Prooi’ (1985). 

I remember how stunningly beautiful the leading lady played by Maayke Bouten was. But there is more (there always is), the story was quite good, it was done as it always was in those days. Like a race to the destination with several scenes in the middle. Yet the foundation of a decently good movie was there and it could be remade, the story needs a little adaptation, and if it is set to a different location (San Francisco, Vancouver, Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans) a little extra work might need to be done. A script ready for collecting (whomever has the rights) and it is not a small setting. There are hundreds of scripts out there where the rights are no longer active, where the rights to a movie are nickels and dimes away from ownership (instead of tens of thousands or more). A setting that all streamers need at present and they are all over Europe, all over the commonwealth too. We forgot about the younger watchers, did we not? So what happened to the dozens of movies that were part of the Enid Blyton collection, the hardy boys, and there was a female version too. Sweden has its treasures (beyond Pippi Longstocking that is) and so forth. Even the Netherlands has its share of treasures. All forgotten, all in some drawer catching dust, all whilst everyone is chasing the next mediocre version that comes from one of these great stories. 

As such I wonder how long these stream chasers keep on chasing a reinvented wheel, whilst there is a place where you can find a good collection of second hand wheels at 10% of the price. You will spend op to 5% rewriting it, but is one in 5 is a decent success, you will have an interesting track record as well as a decently fast growing library of works. If we look back to the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s we see movies all with a gimmick, but as long as the story is good, it can be rewritten with the gimmick of today and tomorrow. So where are these writers? What will Netflix (Amazon Prime too) do when the budgets are trimmed down? I did not forget about Apple and Disney, but it seems that they have a different approach to where they want to go, or how they want to get somewhere. I might be wrong, but that is how they feel to me. It is up to them and it is up to Netflix and Amazon, they might to get ahead of the curve before the are chasing it in some uphill battle against that very same curve, because that is what falling behind the curve tend to be. A never ending uphill battle. 

And I reckon that this is a race where the number two has no reward, they merely chased the other one too late. Who will it be? I have no idea, I am not buddies with either on that level, I need not be (not entirely true), I have my own stories to write and for now I reckon that I might have a new chapter coming up in the mini series ‘Residuam vitam’, I think it had a different name earlier. For some reason the others have titles set in stone, this one does not. I cannot figure that part out, even as the story was pretty much set, but now there is a new stage, but I need to write it differently, because the party involved are not like us and that changes the stage. I should say that Meng Po alerted me to that part, but I cannot, because every time she serves me soup I forget what I was doing, but the soup is so delicious.

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February 26, 2022 · 21:18

Four days to wait

In four days people who missed the big screen release get to see it and those who saw it will see it again. For me it will be awesome. Dune (2021) was an amazing trip. ‘Ticket to Arrakis, one way please and make it a window seat’, but the masterpiece by Hubbard is to be read, to be seen on the screen and not yet seen and felt in person. I have several versions and I saw the other one too. Until this version arrived the SciFi channel edition with Alec Newman, Ian McNeice and Giancarlo Giannini was my favourite. It is a really good version, it felt real, it felt down to earth and told the story in an amazing way. So until I saw the new edition (which was always going to happen) I had my doubts, mainly because the SciFi edition was awesome and we all tend to resent anything troubling that view. It was nice to see the announcement that Thanos was coming, Bautista looked a lot more like the written monster Rabban then László I. Kish ever could. In all versions of Dune we see a slim man, so it felt right that Jason Mamoa was chosen. I was toiling on a lot of things, that was until I saw the trailer. 

The trailer was the clear indication that this was going to be next level stuff. I knew nothing about Denis Villeneuve (other than he seemed to be that guy who won several GP’s in the 90’s), but the trailer put him on the map for me. Of course I realised later that he was Canadian, not a French racer and responsible for the Arrival and the Blade Runner sequel. They were good movies, really good, but it was nothing compared what I saw when the lights in the cinema turned off and Arrakis (Caladan too) was shown to us. The ornithopters, the machines, the works and especially the sands. We saw a new look on the Sardaukar and the Atreides family. In this Denis might have chosen Chalamet because he is a good actor and looks like a boy. The 155 minutes that followed blew my mind. The music was off and not from this world, it impacted the film in a massive way. The lighting and the stage of using lighting in this way was truly amazing. Dune rocked and ruled the world in unexpected ways, so as soon as possible I will get this movie and watch it again and again until part 2 arrives, which is set to be released on October 20, 2023, which is another 20 months of bloody waiting (not happy me). But that is how it is. 

Dune (2021) has set a new level and set the bar for anyone else optionally much to high to ever attempt it ever again. 

It is here that I need to take on critique “Stephen M. Colbert of Screen Rant noted that its complex story and Villeneuve’s directorial style were bound to have selective appeal, and that this is reflected in negative reviews thus far”, I disagree. The story starts on Arrakis (the Zendaya scene) and it sets a good tone, The story is clear and follows the book, it skipped one or two issues, but there is every chance that the second part will take these parts up, and lets be clear they are small issues, really small issues. As to the side of ‘selective appeal’ I cannot completely answer. The movie has an uncanny realistic approach towards lighting, it is seen in several ways and at times it makes you wonder what the appeals was of CGI lighting (like the Black Widow movie). This is not an attack on the movie Black Widow, it shows that Denis Villeneuve took the extra 5 miles to get it near perfect (perfection is an on location movie on Arrakis). The ornithopter scenes are unreal and the filming of Charlotte Rampling in the Bene Gesserit scene transgresses from perfection into overwhelming in a few ways. The movie checked all the marks and added a dozen more. This is one of those ‘must see’ movies whether you are into Fantasy/Science Fiction or not. 

I really cannot wait to see it again, it will help pass the time until part two is here and the complete story is shown to us. This is more than the continuation, there is so much more to see, I cannot wait to see how Dennis Villeneuve brought them into the light. In this light I merely wonder to some degree how he was missed as Best Director in the upcoming 94th Academy Awards. I do get it, the other film makers did amazing work in the past, and optionally now too (I did not see all of them), but this time around he is up against Spielberg, Branagh, Campion and Anderson. So the competition was fierce, still Dune is on the list for best movie (and 9 other nominations), so there is that. 

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February 19, 2022 · 18:14

Direction of education

I have been contemplating a separate direction of optional IP. You see, the studios are all focusing on the ‘next big thing’, to seemingly achieve that they tend to go towards the big successes and hope that they have one more slug to deliver. This is not a bad plan, but there is an equal danger on that larger stage not meeting expectations. This is not some curse, it comes from expressions like ‘it rains on the just and unjust alike’, ‘dress for success’, and that list goes on. Yet when we look back, what did Star Trek look back on? What inspired ‘Dallas’, ‘MASH’ and several others? Then I remembered something, something I saw 45 years ago and it still comes up in my mind every now and then. It was a series called ‘Once Upon a time’ and it ran for a long time. It was originally called “Il était une fois…”, a French educational program created by Procidis.

It is time to dig into such a corner (not that corner). You see, we forget that those who inherit the world might not vote, but they are a powerful group and the big wigs seem to forget that THEY too were young once. Consider Marcus Aurelius, the fifth of the good emperors. He died in 180 AD, he was also a philosopher who wrote Meditations, a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. Some still call it a literary monument to a government of service and duty. I was taken aback when I read [6] “to disbelieve the professions of sorcerers and imposters about incantations and exorcism and the like” written by a person who died 1600 years before BS Puritans decided to burn 14 women at the stake in Massachusetts Bay for witchcraft (Salem). All whilst these puritans optionally were afraid of women who merely needed a good fuck (optional speculation). In the end 19 people and two dogs were burned, 1600 years an Italian told them the truth of the matter, and it is time that historic figures more in a life like setting are the stuff of inspiring on TV and not cartoon like. I have nothing against cartoons, yet it is time for the next generation learn on how inspiring, innovative and generation crossing these greeks and Italians were. Some of the Italian practices are still in use 2000 years later. Julius Caesar started encryption by coding his messages. Aurelius wrote a guide that still inspires today. And that is before we consider Homer, Aristotle and a few others. History needs to teach and the classrooms aren’t getting it done, so it is time to give them a hand and the streamers are always looking for new IP, but they seemingly forgot to what the past achieved and what could be possible. Everyone wants another Game of thrones, yet those under 14 needs to be prepared for the future and a good grasp of history is the way to go. If I can create a way to create a concept of burning down a nuclear reactor using an invention from 1900 by Mr Perzy I, what could the next generation achieve when they get a good grasp of Homer, Pythagoras, Gauss and Hilbert, how good could this world end up being? There are of course no guarantees, but considering that the Pentagon cannot be relied on to properly vet translations, people elect a person as president who seemingly is proud on ‘I grabbed her by the pussy’, we seem to ignore basic knowledge and it goes beyond mathematics, or basic philosophy. As I personally see it the media (TV) has forgotten to educate, it is all about the wow, the numbers and the profit and there is every chance at least one generation is coming up short, and we get that it is not all fun and all Game of Thrones, but we need to do more, or streamers should do more to offer a wide interesting scope of educational programs. We could rely on the Squid games to control the population but is that the way big wigs want to go at present? They need numbers for circulation, for ratings and when you decrease the population by X, those numbers would never be reached. Now an argument could be made that certain ratings are easier met when you only have 78% of the population to work with but that requires math, does it not? 

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February 10, 2022 · 11:15

Out with the old?

It is a saying and I have heard it many times. Out with the old, in with the new. Yet in the world of media as an aggregated whole, that saying does not make much sense. For a few reasons my attention came back to Infamous:Second son I gave it an 83% rating when it initially launched (and I stand by that). You see, the game has brilliant and spectacular moments. In all but one setting it is close to brilliant. The one setting is linearity and in a near open world it is worse than a death curse. Linearity makes everything too predicable and that was the short coming of that game. It starts brilliant, the brother setting, the awakening of being a conduit and the power of smoke. It was amazing and until the second power comes into play it is all great, after that the party sizzles and linearity sets in. But that first area in Seattle is just grand. Then I thought what to do and I do not need to do anything, but Sony might. Consider that the game has a good and a bad setting. What if Reggie didn’t had a brother, but twins Delsin Rowe and Darren Rowe. One goes good, the other bad and that becomes a much larger story, one for the TV or whatever streaming service Sony has. They already own the IP, so that would not stop them and the setting could be larger, not larger in the stage, but it could give Seattle more than Amazon and Frasier (to opt an idea). The setting in the game was great and the antagonist Augustine was better thought up than most other antagonists in TV world. They both get the stage to clean Seattle each in their own way and there we need to set the station where the good one wins the concrete powers (and cleans up the streets and heals the reservation victims), as well as open up a much larger conversation. Can we separate people who are different? You see, Augustine is seen as evil, but her motives were pretty pure (from her point of view) and even as the game never went into that, the TV series might just do that and to be honest, the powers we saw in that game were freakin awesome. 

I am a little surprised that no one had thought of that track with a game that was optionally much larger than we all thought it could be. Especially as studios are vying for streaming successes. Sony has a few IP’s in stock that they could alter in many ways and Infamous:Second Son is merely one of them.

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February 5, 2022 · 22:05

Tumour is the edge of humour

Yes, that is quite the sentence is it not? Humour is a funny thing. For me, I like humour delivered intelligent and/or edgy. The brits are great at dark and black humour. It is the kind I like. I do not know too many national humours, yet every nations has its own likings. So when I saw the BBC giving me ‘Jimmy Carr sparks fury with Holocaust routine in Netflix special’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60261876) I had to stop and read it. You see, Jimmy Carr is not for everyone and he is upfront about this. And let’s be clear, he is not for everyone, several comedians bare (or is it bear) that template. 

Now the joke is funny, and it is a truth, he is actually giving a spin to a truth and that is a given setting we did not anticipate. He even makes fun of the Jehovah’s witnesses and their watchtower. Yes, we can get angry, or, here’s a thought, we switch OFF the TV if it upsets us. Have people contemplated this? This is not Bernie reincarnated, this is not a concert of Babe the piglet or even a Tele-tubby, it is humour by the formerly youthful, now not so young Jimmy Carr. We know what he is like, there is nothing out of bounds for him and he gets us by going one way and taking a sharp right whilst we were looking to the left. So I say ‘Well Done Jimmy!’ And in the light of the joke, how many people knew the death camp fate of gypsies, homosexuals and other non Arian likings? 

I know (for a few reasons) the scope of some events during WW2. And also let’s be clear, he was not making fun of the jews (in this instance), he was using a specific method to give us a truth with a twist. And yes, some people find it upsetting, but guess what, they had the option of watching something else. There will always be the setting where we watch something that offends us. It is an absolute given. You see, there are some that give us that at present at total 500,000 movies have been made. The idea that you like them all is absolute zero. So the idiocy (as I see it) to create fury is dumb on a few levels. On the one hand those who didn’t know his show will now check it out. On the other hand, those creating fury are merely enabling voices for censorship. Democracy is a great thing, yet that means that we are confronted with things we do not like. That is the consequence. So one side opens the other and that is good. It is important to see where our borders are, it is good to know what is too much for us and when we face it we look away, we change channels or we switch off what is there. It is our right to do so. On one side we should congratulate Netflix for giving edgy stuff, it shows that Netflix is taking a larger circumference towards what an audience wants and they also give us what some might not want. It offers us the chance to find out.

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January 30, 2022 · 02:08

Free IP for John Cena

Yes, it is a different story this time around. It is IP, and it is free for John Cena. He actually inspired the IP. You see, I first saw him in the Wall, a most excellent movie. I did not know the man, other than that he served, which I read somewhere. Then I saw him in the movie Blockers. A bit over the top, it is so American those Prom movies, but I saw it, mostly because Leslie Mann was in it. It was a few weeks later when I was working as a volunteer in a Salvo’s shop when I saw a 3 DVD pack with the John Cena experience. That was the moment I saw he was originally a wrestler. And whilst watching the first DVD I also had an idea. There is an option for John Cena to get an Oscar, but not the one he might have ever banked on. He could stand a chance to get the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

How so?
You see, what I never knew (as I never served in the US army) is that the WWF has done things for the USO, and there is the story. The USO, or United Service Organisations is a setting that provides entertainment for the armed forces. The USO has been around since WW2. So there is material from WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and many other places. It has over 30,000 volunteers and it has remained (outside of the US) highly invisible. I had heard of the USO, but when you consider just how much they have done, I am surprised that no one else has taken the time to create a movie on what they have achieved. A show about a show, optionally with the special effects on the people who were there, with the morph to what they are now. Interviews with the people behind the entertainment going all the way back to WW2 (if any of them are still around). I think that it is important that this movie is made, because these people should not be forgotten. 

Why John Cena?
That is a fair question. He is a lighthouse of attention, this time the attention should fall on the people who make the USO run. He could optionally even finance the move (and reap the rewards). A movie that could lead to global visibility and global recognition of a people who worked from the shadows for far too long.  And he is but one entertainer that would most likely be willing to shine a torch on the achievements and activities of the USO, there are plenty of others, yet I believe that he gave light to the USO and would willingly do it again.

It could be anyones show, but the greats were Gary Sinise, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye and a few more. And until the JC experience I did not even know that the WWF does its part to entertain the troops via the USO, so there are plenty of people, but who can make the movie? Not me, I am neither a producer or a director, so I am handing it over in the blog. If my writing sets (in part) ownership of the IP, I will happily hand it over to John Cena. Perhaps he can make it work and end up with an Oscar in the process. It seems simple. But is it?

An Idea I have never seen anywhere else, so why not? Why are people not looking around anymore? Why are they all settled on the quick run to cash? As far as I can tell, most of these runs merely shorten their lives and leaves them with nothing, but that is my take on the matter.

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January 27, 2022 · 22:39

When you see the other fellow

That is the setting isn’t it? We do things, we create things and we create concepts and we all think that we are in control of the right one, we all do that. I am no different, yet when I saw the BBC news, I decided to reconsider my point of view. For me it all started in 2020, I set the setting to an article called ‘The stage moves on’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/23/the-stage-moves-on/) I wrote it on February 23rd 2021. And when the BBC gave us ‘Netflix: First Arabic movie sparks morality row’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-60091590) I saw the article somewhere this afternoon, and my mind went on a trip. The concept was initially for Amazon (as I have other elements they might want) yet the article gave me “well-known TV journalist Mustafa Bakry said he had complained to the speaker of the Egyptian parliament about the filmmakers. Mr Bakry urged the country’s authorities to halt co-operation with Netflix “since this is not its first movie that targets the values and traditions of the Egyptian and Arab societies”” I see the offence it might give and I do not think that my concept does that, and other than the alleged assassination of Dutch PVV politician Geert Wilders no one got killed, and as far as I can tell, that man is not really accepted in the Netherlands either. With the housing shortage in the Netherlands, one person less, who will notice?

Anyway, the idea that my (aka western) values would collide with Middle Eastern morality and optional Middle Eastern laws did concern me. The idea was a movie that fought and opposed islamophobia was the setup and it had a nice twist at the end (as any decent movie does), I needed the setting so that people might realise that the stage in the middle east was a lot bigger than we think it is, it is not merely about morality and the dangers, it is also about some people want certain other people to hold the bag, if anything Yemen made that clear, and this idea to create something that made it clear to all was my goal in this. The idea that I create something that could be in part filmed and created in Saudi Arabia was also appealing. The rest would be filmed in the Netherlands. There was the small consideration that creating anything that appeals to a large group of 100 million Egyptians, 35 million Saudi’s and 85 millions Turks could be a success story. The idea that a decent chunk of 220,000,000 people might like my concept is off course a really nice idea, I would take any group up to 50%, only the delusional person aims for 100% covering. There would be no chance of that and that is me not considering the 275 million Indonesians, with over 85% Muslim, the numbers would become interesting to say the least. 

So there I was with an idea, but it is merely one of several that could appeal to Amazon, and any chunk of half a billion people could optionally translate to a nice pay day and that is merely one of the IP’s I had up for negotiating. Yet still doubt is still a part of me. Like anyone, I relish the chance to go into early retirement and take up skiing 4 months a year, just to keep busy, yet not at the cost of inciting protest that I would be attacking another persons morality, my goal was completely the opposite. So for me the BBC article was a wake up call and a loud one. Still the ideas go through my head designing more and more IP. Should I stop? I personally do not think so, but like any other person I have flaws, I have weaknesses and I do relish the chance for success, wouldn’t you?

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January 15, 2022 · 19:29

A woman’s voice

Something bothered me, it bothered me from the beginning, but I let it go. There are several important things going on in the world and this was not one of them, or was it? It was the Guardian that pushed me into action. The article ‘Hollywood stars back Emma Watson after Palestinian solidarity post’ gave me the view that is was essential to act, and believe it or not act is the central part of the whole story.

The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/13/hollywood-stars-back-emma-watson-after-palestinian-solidarity-post) gives us a few things. Now to be honest, for the most I tend to take the side of Israel, for several reasons. The setting was that Emma Watson showed an image, an image that gives us “a photograph of a pro-Palestinian protest with the banner “solidarity is a verb” written across it. It was accompanied with a quote about the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed.” I reckon that Emma Watson agreed and she posted the image. In the initial hours I saw responses and also the accusation of antisemitism and I thought nothing of it, I believed it to be an overreaction. In this, I also saw the tweets by Danny Danon and I believed he was wrong, he too overreacted, but I let it slide. Now that we see all these responses, I feel that it is important to respond. 

As I stated, in most cases I tend to side with Israel. Here there is a truth. The truth is simple “solidarity is a verb”, that is truth, it is a verb until it is followed by acts, commitment and actions. If you want to see that look in your history books on Poland in the 1985-1999 era, solidarity came from actions, until that is done, it is merely a verb. Yet all sources ignore the third side in all this. There is one side, there is the opposition and there is the photograph. You see the photograph is brilliant. It starts conversations,. It starts views and it does create opposition, yet nearly all ignored or overlooked the third party, didn’t you? We see the acts against a young lay, and let’s face it, she is only 382 months old. It is not an excuse, it is not negative, it merely is a fact, just like the fact that “solidarity is a verb”. And she identified with the verb, she identified with the thought. In this she is right and a lot of people are wrong. So it is good to see names like Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Capaldi, Charles Dance, Gael García Bernal, Jim Jarmusch, Maxine Peake, Viggo Mortensen and Steve Coogan standing with her. In this Danny Danon and Israeli officials did the wrong thing, perhaps Palestine was hoping for an overreaction, perhaps it was something else and in all this Miss Watson never uttered an anti-semite word and that needs to be seen and seen as soon as possible. And in all this we see a second failing. Did you pick up on it? The media merely gives us “the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed”. So what was the meaning? Why is it (as I personally see it) overlooked? And more important, who is Sara Ahmed? The Quote was “Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” Do you know where I got that from? Vogue Magazine! They gave a more complete story than the newspapers, how weird is that?

So as we wonder who is right and who is wrong. I gave my view, yet I will not deny that Palestine has a hard situation, in part Palestine created it, but the truth behind the setting is that “Solidarity involves commitment, and work” it is an absolute truth and I wonder all those voices screaming and parroting that Emma Watson is an anti-semite, who did their vetting, who did their investigation? I fear that this group is far too small and that should sadden us all. 

But there is also good news Emma Watson turned 382 months today, so she can celebrate her day in life, her month in life and she can do it holding her head up high, she never did anything wrong here. 

So solidarity is a verb, so is judgemental. Who thought it through and who considered that the photograph did what it needed to do, to get people talking. As I see it +15 points for Gryffindor.

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