How Do You Watch Sad Kids' Movies With Your Kid?

When I was a kid, I didn't watch violent movies (violent defined broadly -- I'm not talking about gore, I mean even a PG-13 action movie). It wasn't really a "rule" -- I just wasn't interested. I remember being reticent to watch Renaissance Man because it had army men on the box cover and I thought it'd be a war movie (turns out, it was a silly comedy, which was exactly my speed).

Once I became a teenager, I was a little shocked when I saw young kids being allowed to watch violent movies -- again not gory ones, but just your standard PG-13 action flick. Is that okay? Are they going to be okay, seeing all that?

But now that I have a kid, and I think about kids' movies ... yeesh. They're so sad! They're all about watching your parents brutally die (Bambi, The Lion King), or desperately trying to find your missing child (Finding Nemo--after said child watches the other parent brutally die), or being abandoned by the one who you thought was your forever friend (Toy Story). Honestly, I'd rather see some baddies get popped in Mission Impossible.

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying these movies are inappropriate for children. I read research saying that these sorts of movies teach important lessons to young kids (about empathy, for instance), Nor am I saying I don't want or won't let me kid watch them (said lessons are important to learn, and in any event one of my parenting rules is that I don't want to pass on my neurosis to my child).

But boy howdy, I don't want to watch them myself, because I will be inconsolable and I can't imagine that's going to do Nathaniel any favors. We might have to create a household rule that mom is the one who takes Nathaniel to movies like that. She's made of sterner stuff than me.

Pictured: A movie I never have and never will see, no matter what

You People, Get a Grip

So quick disclaimer: I have not seen "You People". It did not especially interest me to begin with, and the commentary I've read about it has not (to say the least) altered my initial instincts.

But reading the discourse about "You People", I've noticed a particular type of denunciation which seems to hold several presuppositions as gospel. They are:

1. "You People" is antisemitic;
2. Despite (or because of?) its antisemitism, "You People" is a critical darling; and
3. No other group but the Jews would encounter a situation where a media property that is so hateful is a media darling.

That this last claim is made unironically at the exact same time Dave Chappelle won a Grammy for "The Closer" is absolutely precious. But there's a bigger problem with the syllogism here, which is that "You People" is not at all a "critical darling". It has a flat lousy 42% rating on Rotten Tomato! It is widely seen as a mediocre disappointment!

The "nobody but the Jews is expected to suffer so" is an ever-flowering weed of antisemitism discourse, paradoxically living in largely harmonious coexistence with its opposite ("nobody would ever dare say that about the Jews"). Both positions are obviously wrong, which stops exactly nobody from asserting them with unimpeachable confidence. More interesting is the assumption that "You People" inevitably would be a critical hit; so much so that I saw people simply asserting that it was being lauded as an anti-racism classic in defiance of the actual critical consensus. What is going on here?

My suspicion is that there is a line of thinking amongst some that basically assumes that any film or media property which styles itself as "anti-racist" or "asking the hard questions about discrimination" will, in our supposedly hyper-woke era, automatically be viewed as a work of great significance and power -- and if punches at Jews, so much the better. They have bought in hard to the narrative that "woke" means a complete suspension of critical faculties in favor of blind support for anything that holds itself out as anti-racist; since "You People" fits the mold, of course it will be blindly and fervently supported via this inevitable collapse into groupthink. The complaint that critics will reflexively laud anything calling itself "anti-racist" -- ironically itself a reflex that has (as here) proven itself impervious to empirical refutation (perhaps because its very purpose is to enable the automatic and reflexive suspicion of any media property calling itself "anti-racist" -- it can't ever have earned its praise, if it is being lauded it's simply to fulfill the diktats of political correctness)  -- is paradoxically paired with the complaint that Jews and antisemitism are not included inside this paradigm of blind and uncritical support.

But again -- the whole thing is based on a misnomer. The critical reception of "You People" was not blindly supportive; it was not supportive at all. Whether because of its alleged antisemitism, or its clunkiness, or its heavy-handedness, "You People" was not a highly regarded movie notwithstanding its grand social ambitions. This should (but won't) falsify the notion that critics or commentators simply reflexively praise anything that styles itself as anti-racist -- which in turn should (but won't) make us more willing to consider seriously other "anti-racist" media properties which have gotten plaudits but also are hit with the reflexive dismissiveness that they are naught but contemporary PC pandering.

Who's Afraid of "Jewish" Steve Carrell? (Or, "Us Too-ism")

The JTA headline reads: "Creators of Hulu’s ‘The Patient’ defend casting Steve Carell as Jewish therapist in latest ‘Jewface’ flare-up". I hadn't heard of the story, let alone the "flare-up," so I was curious to see who was making what argument. Unfortunately, the article doesn't actually cite any live human being objecting to Carrell's casting, just a response to an apparently ambient "controversy" (the linked Variety article also doesn't name any specific critics). That said, I know that the "Jewface" controversy isn't completely made up out of thin air. I have seen real people level such concerns before.

Now I'll lay my cards on the table -- I'm not inherently bothered when non-Jewish actors are cast to play Jewish characters. Indeed, to some extent, I feel that some -- not all -- of the "Jewface" controversy is a sort of vulgar "us too-ism" that one sees substitute for genuine Jewish political engagement these days. 

What is "us too-ism"? Some Jews see a given political demand by another minority group (e.g., that Black actors should play Black characters), and then decide that if the powers-that-be don't give similar consideration to a Jewish parallel (Jewish actors playing Jewish characters), then it's proof that "Jews Don't Count" -- full stop. To be clear, it's not that there aren't valid parallels that can be drawn between the political demands of one group and another. But these parallels aren't automatic, and what defines "us too-ism" is that it doesn't pause to ask whether the Jewish community was actually organically bothered by the "exclusion" in the first place. The fact that another group has a demand suffices to make it into a Jewish entitlement as well -- if they're getting this accommodation, then by golly, "us too!" -- even if it never occurred to us to want it until we heard their demand. It's reactive rather than proactive, and often ends up confusing itself (e.g., simultaneously wanting "CRT for Jews" but also blaming "CRT" for why Jews don't count). 

In practice, "us too-ism" often occludes the rich specific history and context which generate organic demands for particular forms of cultural respect (e.g., that actors of X background should portray characters of that background), instead imagining them to stem from some inherent entitlement of "marginalized people" (and Jews are marginalized, so therefore, it fits "us too"). It flattens important points of distinction and differentiation across various social groups that are essential to understanding what actually is oppressing, hurting, or dominating any given group. That two groups are marginalized doesn't mean they're marginalized in the same way, and so it makes sense that a practice which deeply rankles members of marginalized group A doesn't significantly disturb group B. Normatively, it strikes me as self-defeating and self-victimizing to act as if that's a flaw in B's outlook. But at the extreme, "us too-ism" attacks Jews for not being offended by something, as if it is our obligation to feel marginalized by a phenomenon even if it doesn't actually bother us. This strikes me as a tremendously toxic obligation, and one I just refuse to abide by.

All that said, that something doesn't genuinely rankle me doesn't mean it might not do so for others, and I always want to be respectful of persons who do have thought-out arguments for why it is problematic for non-Jews to portray Jewish characters. I've heard these arguments aired more frequently in the context of Jewish actresses being passed over for Jewish parts (even as elsewhere in their careers they're typecast in particular roles because of their Jewishness), and since I'm situated differently vis-à-vis that debate I try to maintain a posture of open receptivity towards those arguments. Certainly, it strikes me as reasonable to care if Jewish actors and (perhaps especially?) actresses are not getting opportunities based on a too-Jewy/non-Jewy enough double bind where stereotypically Jewish features both exclude Jews from certain roles but then are accentuated or exaggerated in non-Jewish actors to Judaize them for the screen (see, e.g., the Bradley Cooper prosthetic nose controversy).

But beyond that, my primary concern is to care about the respectfulness of the representation far more than the personal identity of who is doing the representation. "Respectfulness", itself, is a site for contestation, and people can disagree. I like Rachel Brosnahan's Mrs. Maisel, and find her and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel an endearing portrayal of the sort of New York Jewish life that my parents were raised in. Others disagree, which, fine, but I defy anyone to say Midge Maisel is more offensive than Howard Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory notwithstanding the fact that Simon Helberg is Jewish and Brosnahan isn't.

Basically, there are dimensions of this problem that are internal and external to the work. Externally, the question is whether Jewish actors and actresses face certain exclusions in the industry on account of their Jewishness -- exclusions which no doubt would make it extra-infuriating if they are later passed over for roles where their Jewish character would seem to be an asset. That was certainly the case for Jewish actors historically, the degree to which it continues to be so is an empirical question I don't know enough to register an opinion on. Internally, the question is whether there is something about being Jewish that is necessary to accurately or effectively portraying a given role in a respectful manner. To that, I say "no". Andre Braugher isn't gay, but his portrayal of Raymond Holt was rightly seen as a watershed performance. Stephanie Beatriz is bisexual, and the same was said for her performance as Rosa Diaz. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

But again, this is a subject where I'm happy to hear other opinions. That JTA and Variety couldn't actually name any critics of Carrell's casting can easily make one think that this "flare up" is a media invention. Is it? If anyone wants to come down to register their opposition to Carroll's casting on "Jewface" grounds, I'm glad to lend you my comment section.

Margin Call Review

A few days ago, my wife and I watched Margin Call. It's a movie I had oddly never heard of until last week -- oddly, because it got very strong reviews and had a pretty glittering cast including Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, and Zachary Quinto.

Margin Call is set over roughly 24 hours at a nameless Wall Street firm that understands the economy is slowing down and is in the middle of massive layoffs. After the head-chopping is complete, a young analyst (Quinto) realizes that his now-former boss (he was among those laid off) was on the cusp of discovering a massive flaw in the firm's risk exposure model. Basically, one bad day (and plenty of bad days appear to be coming) and the firm could go entirely bankrupt. The rest of the movie takes place over roughly the next 24 hours, as the powers-that-be in the firm race to figure out how to liquidate their toxic position before the music stops and save the company.

Notice I didn't add "without crashing the economy." The economy is going to crash -- that's a given. The only question is who will tip the first domino, and the logic is that if the firm is the one to set off the panic, it will incur the least in the way of losses. There isn't much in the way of remonstrating that the firm, insofar as it is significantly responsible for the coming economic crisis, should be the one to face the consequences.

I've been reading over the past few days about the problem of "bad coherence" -- where a system hangs together and makes internal sense, and all the players' decisions are justifiable and sensible within the broader architecture of the surrounding structure, but because the structure itself is toxic justifiable, sensible, and reasonable decisions are morally terrible. Margin Call does a wonderful job illustrating that problem. One reviewer said, and I agree, that the film is significantly stronger because of how it doesn't moralize -- there are little in the way of "greed is good!" speeches or mustache-twirling about how they're the kings of Wall Street and the peasants can get wrecked.

To the contrary, the firm's internal functioning is in some ways admirable if one forgets what it's in service of. The relatively junior analyst who discovers the problem isn't met with a lot of chest-thumping about how he's just a kid and who-does-he-think-he-is -- his bosses (all the way up to the CEO) take him seriously and pretty rapidly react to the problem as a problem. There's no shooting of messengers. The firm certainly views all of its cogs as expendable, but it can get away with it because if the cogs agree to be expended they know they'll be handsomely rewarded and if they try to maintain their dignity in any way they'll be crushed. The closest thing the film has to a comedic through-line is the company's desperate attempts to find Quinto's old boss, who they just laid off (and whose phone they unceremoniously shut off) -- not to apologize, but so that they can pay him an obscene sum of money to sit quietly in a room for the next day and not spill the beans about the "problem" and thus ruin the firm's liquidation strategy. He initially doesn't want to cooperate -- not because he actively wants to screw the firm, but he certainly isn't in the mood to do them any favors either. But eventually he yields, because the choice is between getting a ton of money for doing nothing (when he's just lost his job) or having the firm blow up his entire severance and healthcare package. Some choice.

Hell, even when it came to how they handled the layoffs, my wife basically whistled and called it "textbook".

But the result, again, is mostly "rich people stay rich and avoid consequences". Plenty of people at the firm will lose their jobs, but they're mostly lower-level grunts who -- again -- are receiving giant cash payouts if they agree to pay ball. The surrounding economy is going to enter a crisis, but that's accepted as part of business -- economies sometimes crash, the feeling goes, and there's no profit in going down with the ship. The film relentlessly constructs a vise where any opportunity for anyone to display a little personal dignity, or pro-social tendency, is shown to be ultimately futile and counterproductive -- and it does it without marking any of the characters as sociopaths. An impressive feat indeed.

Anyway, I highly recommend this movie. It's a tight, quiet thriller that deserved more attention than it got (or maybe it got plenty of attention and I'm just oblivious. Either way).

Rise of Skywalker: Quick Thoughts

In keeping with the traditional Jewish Christmas festivities, I saw a movie last night. I actually managed to avoid most of the substantive discussions of Rise of Skywalker in advance, and what I did read sounded so muddled and crossed that I managed to come in with no substantive expectations.

Now that I've seen it, I can say one thing with confidence: Rise of Skywalker is, without a doubt, the worst Star Wars film to have Wedge Antilles in it.

Of course, that still makes it presumptively better than all the films without Wedge Antilles in them. Does it manage to hold that high ground? Here are my quick thoughts (*SPOILERS*):

• I think the movie starts off shaky and improves as it goes.
• The new droid gives off a real Portal vibe to me. Also reminiscent of Portal: the GLaDOS rig-up that Emperor Palpatine is attached to.
• The almost complete omission of Rose felt like the producers were giving in to the most toxic elements of the Star Wars fan base, and I disapprove.
• I was among those who very much liked the idea that Rey really was "no one" descended from nobody of consequence, and so I sharply disagree the decision to make her the Emperor's granddaughter.
• More so than the original trilogy or the prequels, the new trilogy (is that what we're calling it?) feels much more like a fantasy story than a science-fiction story. Ancient artifacts giving rise to eldritch power and all that.
• Even for a Star Wars film, Rise of Skywalker in particular badly fails what I call the "James Bond" test (the James Bond test is how early and/or how often the movie would end if the antagonists were remotely competent at aiming). 
• That said, did you ever notice how many Imperial First Order Last Order(?) troops died because they bother to ask questions before shooting? They're always yelling "freeze" or "show me your identification". Resistance fighters just blast people without giving anyone a chance to surrender.
• The "hyperspace skipping" move in the beginning really strained my suspension of disbelief (even granting that I'm watching a super-futuristic Star Wars film). Much like the "hyperspace Kamikaze" move Admiral Holdo did in The Last Jedi, it feels too useful (even if dangerous) not to have been seen before. Also -- TIE Fighters aren't hyperspace capable, so how are they following the Falcon? And even if they are fitted with hyperdrives, how could they track it? Finally, the whole reason Poe does this desperate tactic in the first place is because they're being followed by a huge swarm of TIEs. But after a few "skips" they've only got two behind them -- they should be able to handle those with regular turret fire.
• Speaking of suspension of disbelief, who exactly is crewing all those Last Order Star Destroyers? This is actually one of my least favorite genre conventions -- the big organization, seemingly all-but-fallen, having a giant secret army/base/fleet in a location completely unknown to everyone (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is positively awful about this). Where does it get logistical support? What were all those crewmen doing back when nobody knew where Exogol was?
• Another genre convention I hate: the big bad villain with hundred/thousands/millions/billions of deaths on his hands gets a redemption arc, while meanwhile, hundreds of random and relatively innocent mooks (indeed, the movie goes to some lengths to note they're mostly conscripts kidnapped as children) are slaughtered without remorse or a second thought.
• On the other hand, great job with gender and racial equality here: I heard plenty of female voices in the random stormtrooper death screams!
• After watching the conclusion of the narrative arc, I have to say: I really wish they had told the story of the Thrawn trilogy from the old Timothy Zahn novels instead.
• This is all adding up to a pretty negative assessment, so I will say that I felt like the movie ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. But I still think it's probably my least favorite of the New Trilogy. And that's with Wedge Antilles in it!

UPDATE: I basically endorse Abigail Nussbaum's take.

An Alarmingly Late Realization (About Rings)

You know that game people play, where they say some really obvious mistaken belief they held until were alarmingly old?

Well, I just recently discovered mine.

In The Lord of the Rings, there are various scenes where Frodo puts on the One Ring. In the mythology of the movies (and books), the One Ring makes its wearer invisible to ordinary mortals (say, orcs searching nearby) but quite visible to the ring's master Sauron. Moreover, we are told, the ring "wants to be found" -- it exerts a power over its owner, tempting its holder to wear it so that Sauron knows where it is so that he can get it back.

Anyway, in these scenes Frodo puts the ring on, and then encounters the terrifying gaze of Sauron, at which point he struggles to take it off. He pulls at the ring, which seems to resist him until finally with a great yank he pries it loose. And for all my life, I assumed Frodo was struggling because the One Ring was resisting him.

But now that I, for the first time in my life, wear a (wedding) ring, I've realized the more banal truth: rings -- of all kinds, even ordinary mortal wedding bands -- kind of require a bit of yanking to get off one's finger.

It just never occurred to me -- until age 32 -- that rings required effort to remove under perfectly normal circumstances.

First Rule of Jews Is ... Don't Talk About Jews

Carrie Rickey has a fabulous article in the Forward documenting Hollywood's history of casting non-Jews to play Jews (alongside the famous propensity of Jewish actors to change their name in a goyish direction -- paging Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz). I was a bit surprised it didn't mention the most recent example of this -- the non-Jewish Rachel Brosnahan cast as the lead in the exceptionally Jewish Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I did recall reading at least a few murmurs of discontent about this, though the general vibe among the Jews I know is that it's a great performance on a great show.

Anyway, the paradox Rickey identifies in her article is that many of the Hollywood moguls who resolutely refused to cast Jews in Jewish parts (and often tried to avoid Jewish themes altogether) were themselves Jewish. What gives? The answer is that these Jews were convinced "that movies about Jews would incite anti-Semitism" -- they wanted at all costs to avoid the sense that they were tribalistic, or insular, or that Hollywood was (as it was in the antisemitic imagination) a "Jewish" front. One upshot of this was that the people freest to produce movies about Jews were the non-Jews. Another, of course, was that non-Jews were considered less objectionable or dangerous choices to play what Jewish roles there were.

There's actually a parallel to the academic world here. Academia in the United States has certainly had a robust Jewish presence, but for many years these Jews almost never wrote on Jewish topics (see here for how this played out in Anthropology). Jews were in fact specifically counseled to avoid such matters, lest they be seen as provincial or tribal. And so for the most part, we wrote on other things. Even now, when there's been a flowering of "identity" research in academia (e.g., "ethnic studies"), Jewish Studies have lagged considerably behind -- again, a fact belied by the raw numbers of Jews in academia (on that score, we continue to be just fine). I can tell you I've been counseled on more than one occasion -- albeit with varying degrees of explicitness -- to downplay or cover the Jewish elements of my research agenda. So this is ongoing.

Qualified Grader Roundup

I passed my qualifying exam last week, which is the last formal hurdle before I begin writing my dissertation. That's a weird sentence to write -- like talking about the last safety check before jumping out of an airplane, or the last underling to defeat before facing the Ultimate Final Boss Monster -- but it's where I am.

At the same time, my students' final exams are due today, so my immediate future is not as a writer but as a grader. And since it would be just catastrophic if anything distracted me from that essential task, I suppose it's time to clear some browser space.

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I wrote last week about alleged discrimination against Jewish chaplains in the army; now we get a different story about retaliation against a chaplain in the Air Force after he converted to Judaism.

This is the story of another immigrant we, the United States of America, effectively murdered in the most gruesome way possible (the penultimate part of the story -- before the death -- is an amputated penis) via a mixture of grotesque indifference to obvious medical need and complete lack of empathy.

UC-Berkeley releases its report on campus free speech issues. One interesting thing about it is that it is not really focused on questions law. Rather, it takes for granted that Berkeley is constrained in various ways by the First Amendment, and rather than dwelling on where those precise borders lie it tries to ask what practical steps the university can take -- consistent with those strictures -- to foster and maintain a healthy speech culture.

Also germane: Jeffrey Sachs has an interesting data set on instances of speech suppression on campus. Interestingly, there have been more successful terminations of left-of-center college professors for "bad" speech than conservative professors -- and while on its own that might be explained by different base rates, the big spike in left (but not right) firings from 2015 to 2017 can't be. The other interesting finding was that -- contrary to some narratives about the so-called "Palestine exception" to the First Amendment -- Israel issues were of comparatively minor importance. There were, depending on how you count Joy Karega (Oberlin) and Michael Chikindas (Rutgers), between three and five Israel-related terminations (or coerced resignations) over the data-collecting period (out of a total of 58). Of the unambiguous cases, two were for anti-Israel speech (Steven Salaita at Illinois and N. Bruce Duthu, who returned to the regular Dartmouth faculty from a deanship position due to backlash over his role in the NAISA BDS resolution), one was for pro-Israel/anti-BDS speech (Melissa Landa at the University of Maryland).

The mixture of deep hostility to divorce, openly male supremacist theology, and physical abuse is a toxic combination in the Southern Baptist church.

Speaking of toxic Protestants, a wing of the Presbyterian Church has published a follow-up to its notorious Zionism Unsettled document -- 110 pages on why Israel is the locus point of global colonialism and genocide (this sounds familiar....) through everything from eating hummus ("cultural genocide") to wanting to actually talk to people ("normalizing oppression"). This is the latest in a series of PCUSA highlights, including calls for all Jews to "come home to America" and my absolute favorite exhortation by a Christian minister on this issue: "Jesus wasn’t afraid to tell the Jews when they were wrong."

An interesting "This American Life" segment on an ill-fated Alabama field trip to see Schindler's List.

Two good pieces on police misconduct that I wanted to flag. One is by a Black police officer commenting on business trespass calls (like the Starbucks affair). The argument here is that when individuals call the cops against seemingly innocuous conduct, there is to some extent a fobbing off of responsibility to then say the police officers are the wrongdoers rather than the caller (cf. Colorado State). The other is in the Atlantic on how we might want to extend our narratives of police bravery or cowardice to cover instances where they whistleblow (or cover off) instances of violence, racism, or misconduct by their colleagues.

Review: The Last Jedi

*Warning: Spoilers*

We saw The Last Jedi last night at a theater in Destin, Florida. Apparently, the goyim know about the "see a movie on Christmas" trick (I suppose they all could have been Jews, but we're on the panhandle, so I doubt it).

Overall, I thought the movie was very good. But before we go any further, I should probably address the issue that's at the foremost of everyone's mind. To wit: The Last Jedi decisively proves (as if there ever was any doubt) that Poe Dameron is no Wedge Antilles. By my count, Poe's impulsiveness and "I know best" arrogance ends up ruining carefully-laid Resistance plans not once but twice. Losing the bomber squadron may have been forgivable, but Vice Admiral Holdo's escape plan would have worked were it not for the infiltration plot that Poe decided he just had to try. Poe Dameron has the deaths of literally half the Resistance on his hands thanks to that stunt.

Okay, that's out of the way. Overall, The Last Jedi is clearly better than The Force Awakens. If the latter was a shot-for-shot remake of A New Hope, the former is an amalgamation of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. But not only is it different enough from both of these films to not feel derivative in the way The Force Awakens clearly was, focusing on its original-trilogy predecessors distracts from the bigger influence on The Last Jedi: Rogue One. One of Rogue One's greatest strengths was how it started to turn away from the "one true hero whom everything revolves around" tenor of the series, in favor of a narrative equality between main characters and side players. Like Rogue One, this is a grim movie, and not only does not everyone get a happy ending, not everyone even gets a glorious, cinematic ending. In both major revelations and smaller, more subtle moments, The Last Jedi continues to reinforce a refreshingly egalitarian message that to my mind opens up more storytelling potential untethered to the "What are Luke/Han/Leia and/or their children/relatives/secret lovers up to" well.

Obviously, the big iteration of this is the strong implication that Rey is, in fact, nobody. Not a child of destiny, not secretly related to the Skywalker clan, just ... a nobody, who happens to be force-attuned. But for me, some of the most powerful moments in the film were where it made clear that every member of the Resistance has a rich inner life and story that (for them at least) is on par to that of any of the main characters. The knowing nod between two starfighter pilots as they prepare to take off -- only for both of them to be vaporized when a proton torpedo enters the hanger bay. The bombardier clutching her necklace charm as she desperately tries to complete what she now knows is a suicide mission (this was an effective scene even without the later revelation that she's another major character's sister).

None of these characters "matter" in the grand scheme of the narrative. But people who don't matter, still matter. They have their own lives, motivations, relationships, and personalities, and The Last Jedi does a very good job communicating that throughout the film.

What makes these sequences so effective is that they are not emphasized or given any special significance. Most directors don't bother to pay attention to such side players at all, and those that do often revel in accentuating the head fake ("Oh you thought so-and-so was going to be a main character? Surprise! Laser to the face!" Looking at you, Joss Whedon). By playing it straight, The Last Jedi reinforced one of the most powerful narrative themes there can be in a war movie: everybody has a story, everybody has a narrative, and so having a story and a narrative doesn't make you special and doesn't offer any protection.

From a fan-boy perspective, I appreciated some of the new tactical permutations that were shown in space combat. Getting to see B-wing bombers was pretty cool, and the "slice open the Star Destroyer by hyping through it" was a neat trick (though if that works, it's unclear why the Resistance wouldn't have used it more often as a Kamikaze tactic -- it is a brutally effective way of neutralizing the First Order's capital ship advantage). We can quibble with some details (has nobody invented autopilot yet?), but for the most part I was able to suspend disbelief.

Obviously, the newer iterations of Star Wars are light-years ahead of their predecessors in terms of gender equality. A slew of excellent female characters are well presented and fully fleshed out -- and again, what's most important aren't their presence among the leads (Rey and Leia, though they both are fantastic) but as integrated up and down the supporting cast. Plenty of action movies have one or (maybe) two Strong Female Characters surrounded by a sea of indistinguishable dudes. Rarer is the film wherein women are just a normal part of the universe -- occupying mid-level command posts, serving as infantry grunts, working as unremarkable technicians, and so on. The Last Jedi is exceptional along this front, and deserves much credit for it.

Overall, The Last Jedi was to my mind the best Star Wars film since the original trilogy. I don't really understand the backlash against it, and I do think it works very well as a strong second act setting up a potentially epic Episode IX. So well done Disney, and well done Rian Johnson. The Force is strong in this one.

Assorted bullet thoughts:

• Where are all the aliens? If the Resistance and the First Order are finally gender-integrated, the conflict still seems strikingly human-on-human. Aside from Chewbacca, I counted one indeterminate alien starfighter pilot and one Sullustan (apparently Nien Nunb -- his fan club can rest easy). There actually could be something darkly amusing if this huge galactic conflict really was basically an intra-human spat and the other species of the galaxy just didn't care ("Humans ... there they go again"), but that doesn't seem to be the message of the film.
• Captain Phasma continues to hold the "Boba Fett character who seems like a total badass even though she actually doesn't really do anything" award. The Praetorian Guard certainly made a good run at it, though.
• I love the humor in The Last Jedi. All the major laugh moments do it for me, but the one that really killed me was when Rey "reaches out" to grasp the Force. Mark Hamill's eye roll game is on point.
• Speaking of, I have mixed feelings towards how Luke is portrayed in the film. I neither love it nor hate it, but I do think that Mark Hamill gives it everything he has. His "brush your shoulder off" move is also on point.
• Kylo Ren is turning into a pretty solid villain. It might have been interesting had he succeeded in turning Rey, though. Now that would have been a plot twist nobody would have seen coming.
• I appreciate Vice Admiral Holdo is shown to be competent along all dimensions. Again, her escape plan would have worked had Poe not ruined it. And she also seized an opportunity to escape her captivity when it was presented.
• Man, Jedi have gotten a lot more powerful in the past few decades. Remember when Yoda could impress us by lifting one starfighter out of a swamp?

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XXXIX: Not Believing Dylan Farrow (Special Forward Edition)

In the Jewish Daily Forward, I have a reply to Eli Bromberg's "partial" explanation for why "Me Too" hasn't taken down Woody Allen. In brief, Bromberg attributes Allen's continued high status to antisemitism -- or rather, the fear of people being accused of antisemitism if they go after a Jewish actor being accused by a non-Jew.

My explanation, by contrast, is much more straightforward: it's misogyny, the same factor that explains the vast majority of other cases where men sexually abuse women and then don't face consequences. Woody Allen isn't the exception, he's the rule. And so we don't need a more complicated explanation for why people don't believe Dylan Farrow other than the standard one: most men don't believe most women when they make claims of sexual assault against powerful men. Any worries about "antisemitism" are entirely epiphenomenal.

This essay was originally going to be published on this blog, and in the move over to the Forward a bunch of stuff got cut. I did mention in the essay that while, contrary to popular belief, non-Jews don't really work that hard to not be antisemitic, they do

care quite a bit about portraying themselves as laboring under an oppressive cloud of Jewish scrutiny, whereby a single false move leads to banishment or worse, and where consequently attacking Jews or Jewish institutions is a brave act of rebellion rather than what it actually is — the historical norm.

In the full version, I offered a few examples to provide color: The Vatican newspaper complaining of how Jews complain "at the first shout by anyone who dares raise his voice against this barbarian invasion by an enemy race," a mere ten years after Jews were even emancipated in Rome; or the Presbyterian official who at a 2014 extolled her fellows that "Jesus wasn’t afraid to tell the Jews when they were wrong" -- as if Christianity's main historical problem vis-a-vis the Jews was the former being too reticent and taciturn towards the latter.

I also had an extended discussion of what I take to be the best analogy to the argument Bromberg wants to make: Clarence Thomas's response, in his confirmation hearings, to Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment. It is true that Black men have long been targeted by claims of sexual misconduct as a means of enforcing racist oppression. It is also true that Hill's specific allegations against Thomas were perfectly credible and deserved to believed. Finally, Thomas's declaration that he was being targeted by a "high-tech lynching" was precisely the explicit sort of appeal to racism that Allen is alleged to have made.

What was the result? Thomas' argument did seem to have an impact on some Black organizations who had vivid memories of the link between Jim Crow and claims of Black male sexual predation. But most continued to oppose his nomination. And even to the extent there was some hesitation amongst some Black people to full-throatedly support Anita Hill, it would be absurd to argue that such reticence translated into any meaningful advantage for Thomas inside the White male dominated Senate. White men have not historically needed Black people to give permission before they pass judgment on Black bodies.

Thomas's confirmation vote was 52-48, the closest margin for a Supreme Court nominee of the era. It is almost certainly the case that this margin would have been wider, not narrower, had Thomas not been Black. Put another way, there's little evidence that the Senators who voted for Thomas did so because they were afraid of being called racist. There's a lot of evidence that the Senators who voted for Thomas did so because they, like most men, trust men over the women who accuse them of sexual abuse.

And so too with Allen. Neither being Black nor being Jewish makes it harder for society to condemn you for sexual abuse. If we see Black or Jewish men who appear to be getting away with it, the primary explanation is not that we're too sensitive to the "race card" or we're fearful of being tarred with "antisemitism". The best explanation remains the normal explanation: that men, most of the time, don't believe women who make accusations of sexual assault.

Rogue One Bullet Thoughts

I saw Rogue One yesterday afternoon, a film that has been dividing my friends between "very good" and "not good at all." I think it was actually quite good. A very different, darker vibe than any other Star Wars movie, but it did its job well. Below are scattered thoughts -- some spoilers.

• As a prequel, this is clearly far superior than Episodes I through III. That's not too high a bar, of course, but it's good to get out of the way.
• The most important question for any Star Wars movie -- but particularly one titled "Rogue One" -- is whether Wedge Antilles was in it. And the answer appears to be yes ... sort of. Those weak in the force might think that the reference to "Captain Antilles" heard in the movie is a callout, but obviously that's the (no relation) Antilles who captained the Tantive IV (the rebel corvette captured by Darth Vader at the start of A New Hope). But reportedly there was an audio-only cameo by the actor who voiced Wedge in the first movie. Though (I'm embarrassed to admit this) I don't know what the line was.
• A lot of people complained that the characters in Rogue One were not sufficiently fleshed out such that we came to care about them. I get that criticism, but in a weird way I think that was sort of effective. This was a movie about pretty everyday people fighting for the rebellion. Nobody was the mythical child of destiny, or even particularly special, and so (with the semi-exception of the lead) nobody had some grandiose backstory or sweeping character arc. The movie didn't give the sense that the particular characters it focused on were cosmically more important than the "NPC" characters that surrounded them, and I found that a surprisingly impactful choice -- particularly in a movie where everyone is basically doomed at the end.
• On that same note, many "war" movies treat all "NPC" soldiers as basically robots. They die immediately in one hit (unlike speaking characters, who survive long enough to be cradled and get a few haltering last words). They never care about their fellows being killed or maimed around them. One thing I like about Rogue One is that it was at least better on that score, and that reinforced the fundamental "equality" between the main characters and the extras.
• This is a grim, grim movie. More or less everyone dies at the end. That makes sense given where A New Hope picks up -- the Rebel Alliance is in dire straits there, so something must have happened to devastate its fleet and (more directly) explain why none of these people are seen in the following movies -- but tonally it is very different even from The Empire Strikes Back (the other "dark" movie).
• Forest Whitaker's performance as Saw Gerrera (who, for the entire movie, I thought was "Sol Guerrera") was bone-achingly bad.
• Oh, one more: With the addition of "mountains" and "tropical atoll", has the Star Wars franchise now covered all major topographies? There's desert (Tatooine), tundra (Hoth), forest (Endor), swamp (Dagobah) ... have we done "rolling prairie"? Is Naboo a prairie? I'm trying my best not to remember.

David's Multimedia Blitz Reviews

I've been consuming a variety of media over the past few weeks. Here are assorted thoughts on them(potentially mild spoilers).

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

• Entertaining -- not mindblowing, but I didn't expect it to be.
• Hard to keep track of all the different beasts, which seemed to enter and exit the story at will.
• Speaking of, what was up with the other son of the newspaper magnate? That storyline seemed to get dropped, hard.
• I know that "scrappy investigator is pushed aside by superiors, keeps up her work, is vindicated in the end" is a classic storyline. And I know that the "vindicated in the end" part is supposed to heal all wounds. But was it just me, or was the President of the American wizarding community kind of an unredeemed bitch throughout?

Civilization VI

• Definitely some improvements to the classic formula.
• Still ends up feeling mighty repetitive; a lot of turns of just hitting "enter" and waiting for everyone else to go.
• There is something undeniably delightful about declaring a colonial war on England, though.

Westworld

• A very good show that thinks it's great. That's less of an insult than it seems--maybe if it didn't aspire to be great, it wouldn't even be very good.
• I keep on saying "The Dollhouse vibe is obvious, but there's also a definitive streak of Portal 2." This, I fear, vastly overestimates the number of people who watched Dollhouse (though you should!).
• I know that we're supposed to view Felix and (by the end) Ford as the good guys, but in the midst of our fuzzies let's not forget they may have set off an extinction-level event for humanity.

Shameless

• Best season of this show in awhile (which I continue to think is one of the best on television, period).
• The show has always been pretty explicit about Lip's natural gifts. But it has more subtly been consistent about Fiona having a real knack for business and sales as well. She makes some bad self-sabotaging decisions, of course, but it's not out-of-nowhere that she has real skills too.
• I'm going to miss Svetlana as an integral part of the cast.

Timeless

• Getting too formulaic.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

• Getting too convoluted.

Rayman Legends

• Awesome side-scrolling platformers never go out of style.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

• Still the funniest show on television right now.
• Stephanie Beatriz could order me to kill a man and I'd probably do it if she smiled at me.

The Good Place

• Kristen Bell stars as a woman who was an asshole in life but accidentally makes it into "The Good Place" after death. I like to think of this as the direct sequel to House of Lies.
• D'Arcy Carden is a treasure as Janet. It even makes me forgive her name being "D'Arcy" (which would be bad enough if she was born with it, but no, she changed it from "Darcy". By all rights everyone should hate her).

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XXXII: Star Wars

"Star Wars: Rogue One" is coming out this month. Are you excited? I am (though if a certain Rebel X-Wing pilot isn't in it, I am going to be pissed)! The alt-right? Not so much.

White supremacists are calling for a boycott of the latest “Star Wars” movie as evidence of a Jewish plot to foist racial diversity on whites, even as some on the “alt-right” say they watch the film and root for the evil Empire.

“(((Star Wars))) Is Anti-White Social Engineering,” a Reddit user named GenFrancoPepe posted in a forum for the “alt-right,” a hard-line white nationalist movement. The triple parenthesis, known as an “echo,” is a way anti-Semites online call attention to Jewish names or perceived Jewish influence. 

The evidence: “Alt-right” writers point out the multiracial makeup of the stars in the new film, the female starring role, and that Jewish producers and writers were involved. Criticism of the film evokes one of the central tropes of modern anti-Semitism, envisioning a Jewish cabal promoting multiculturalism to suit its own nefarious goals — at the expense of an embattled “white civilization.”

Say what you will about the massive Jewish conspiracy to undermine White civilization, but it makes for some damn fine escapist cinema.

Sunday Fun Day Roundup

Getting donuts this afternoon with an old college friend (and her new baby!). A lot of the below links really deserve their own posts, but I just don't have the time or energy to give them the commentary they deserve.

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Rabbi Jeremy Wieder of Yeshiva University confronts racism among Orthodox Jewish students at his university. Really worth a read.

South Dakota gets a Chabad Rabbi -- the last state to not have one. Congratulations, Sioux Falls!

Jonathan Chait nails the "intellectual collapse of the center." Regarding David Brooks: "[O]ne of the most common genres of David Brooks column was a sad lament that neither party would endorse policies that in fact Obama had explicitly and publicly called for."

Yehuda Mirsky on the "The New Jewish Question" is perhaps the most thoughtful meditation on the place of Jews in the new, populist-right America (and world) that I've read so far. Another one that deserves your full attention.

I've never seen Last Tango in Paris, but it looks like an infamous rape scene in the movie actually involved raping the actress (she neither was informed in advance nor consented). That's really, truly sick.

"The Force Awakens" Was Ruined Because Wedge Antilles Wasn't In It

The following is a work of self-parody. Even though I enjoyed "The Force Awakens," I basically believe what I'm writing below because Wedge Antilles is awesome. That said, I also know that my sentiment is abjectly ridiculous, so I'm deliberately writing it in as overblown fashion as possible.

The critics love the new Star Wars movie. Fans are ecstatic that something has washed away the wretched prequels. And I can't say that it didn't have its moments. But The Force Awakens comes with one unforgivable flaw: Wedge Antilles isn't in it.

Now you may be wondering, "David, why do you care so much about a character who got maybe a minute's worth of screen time in each of the original three movies?" First of all, notice the end of that sentence: "each of the original three movies." That's right: Wedge is in all three of the movies comprising the holy trilogy. You know who else makes that cut? Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader. Oh, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, if you count his blue ghost form. You know who isn't on that list? Boba Fett (being photoshopped into A New Hope doesn't count). Jabba the Hutt. Admiral Ackbar. Yoda. The Emperor. This is an elite crew.

And what does Wedge do during his on-screen time? Well, he kicks things off by being one of three starfighter pilots to survive the first Death Star trench run, serving as a human shield for Luke Skywalker and taking fire for long enough so that Han Solo could bail his buddy out. Then he moves on to Hoth where he is the first snowspeeder pilot to take down an AT-AT using the "tie them up with tow cables" trick. Fancy flying! What was Luke doing? Getting shot down and having his gunner squished by a giant metal foot, that's what. Following that, Wedge leads Red Squadron in the Battle of Endor, surviving another Death Star trench run (the only pilot to have two on his ledger) and blowing the damn thing up from the inside out (Luke's contribution to the battle, by contrast, was to surrender to his daddy at the outset). And that doesn't even get into what he did post-Endor: commanding Rogue Squadron, leading the commando team that captured Coruscant, liberating Thyferra ... the list goes on (and for those of you crying "but that isn't canon anymore," shut it. I'm an Orthodox Star Wars fan. I don't accept the legitimacy of the Disney Reformation).

Wedge Antilles, in other words, has enough heroic deeds in the space of three minutes of screen time to match what any of the "real" stars did over six hours of film. And unlike said celebrities, Wedge does all of this without the benefit of a character shield. George Lucas isn't George R.R. Martin: we could be pretty confident that Han, Luke, and Leia were going to make it until at least the end of the final movie. But someone like Wedge is perfectly dispensable -- just ask Biggs Darklighter -- which makes his protagonist-level accomplishments all the more badass.

And yet, The Force Awakens proceeds with not a single Wedge Antilles sighting! Instead, we get a movie that begins with a lie: the title crawl informs us that "Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission...." only to find out that it's some dude named Poe Dameron. Poe Dameron? How many Death Stars does he have painted on his X-Wing? Here's a hint: less than two.

The real agony is that the actor who played Wedge, Denis Lawson, was actually offered a role in the new movie and turned it down. Apparently, the role was too small and would be "boring." Now look: like all decent human beings, I was obviously hoping that the new Star Wars movies would center entirely around Wedge and Rogue Squadron. But buck up, man! This is Star Wars, and you're a legend! Take your hundred grand and show these nerf-herders what a real X-Wing ace can do with a one minute cameo appearance.

Was The Force Awakens better than the Star Wards prequels? Yes, obviously -- they didn't have Wedge in them either. But no true successor to the original trilogy can justify ignoring that story's greatest hero. You can keep your Han Solos and your Poe Damerons and your MIA Luke Skywalkers. Wedge Antilles is the greatest starfighter pilot in the galaxy.

Progress is Progress

Making a movie out of Ender's Game has always a little like the cinematic version of Duke Nukem Forever -- it has been "in the pipeline" basically for as long as I can remember, without any noticeable progress. On the one hand, DNF did eventually come out; on the other hand, it was apparently terrible. So there's room for optimism and pessimism.

On the optimistic side, apparently the name of the actor playing Ender has been released, which seems like an important first step. On the pessimistic side, the article describes the "game" the children play as "a cross between the Quidditch matches of Harry Potter and the Jedi light saber battles from Star Wars." Umm, only in the sense that it has nothing to do with either. The game is essentially zero-g laser tag, where the laser's actually can freeze you in place. Nothing like Quidditch, nothing like light sabers.

X-Men First Class: Random Thoughts

* Lots of actors in that movie either were, or reminded me of, other people. Sebastian Shaw looked like the Green Goblin from the first Spiderman. The unnamed mutant who threw tornados (Riptide, though unnamed in the film) I think guest-starred in a season of Dollhouse. And Banshee looked like Ron Weasley, except he actually contributed a useful skill to his fellows in a fight. So not that much like Ron Weasley.

* Bad guys always have superior tailors. Why is that?

* January Jones as a character named Emma Frost? Perfect casting.

* At this point, when Black guy actually does die first, I have to think they're doing it on purpose.

* Kind of weird that Angel had absolutely no compunction gunning at her ertswhile comrades. For a movie that is all about friend-against-friend and such, it rang a bit false.

* Mystique is still probably my favorite character in the movie franchise.

* I might be the only one who didn't think Magneto was a tour de force. I didn't think he was bad or anything -- quite solid, actually -- I just wasn't blown away.

* The scene where all the young mutants are goofing around and showing off their powers was very well-done. That is, in fact, exactly what would happen.

Take Two

I'm not convinced that someone who truly screwed up (as opposed to committing the gaffe of honestly stating his beliefs) would need two cracks at the apology apple (see also: Fatima Hajaig). But I don't speak for the ADL.

Still, as far as I'm concerned, Oliver Stone is just a sober Mel Gibson.

Quiet Riot Roundup

Yesterday was the birthday, tonight is the celebration. Not sure about the lack of blogging though -- it's not like I was busy.

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Right-wing mob urges the lynching of Attorney General Eric Holder -- ironically, because Holder wants to uphold rule of law.

The Winter Olympics start tonight, and Ghana will be representing for the first time.

In sadder news, a Georgian luger died hours before the opening ceremonies in a crash during a practice run.

Voters like gays and lesbians; homosexuals, less so.

Liberal Democrat (UK) MP Baroness Jenny Tonge was sacked from a high profile party position after demanding Israel undertake investigations of completely unsubstantiated allegations of organ theft in Haiti.

Meanwhile, this is a good post on the longevity and impressive staying power of organ theft rumors (not just about Jews or Israelis).

Jews face the highest rate of hate crimes of any religious group in the United States (Blacks are the most targeted overall).

A Tennessee Muslim community is the subject of a sensationalist CBS report questioning whether it is a secret terrorist training facility. It isn't, but gets hit with vandalism anyway in its wake.

It's nice that Glenn Beck disavowed 9/11 troofer-flirting candidate Gloria Medina, but to call it impressive would be to lower our expectations bar underground.

Hedging Hollywood -- a brilliant scheme to induce bad filmmakers to actively try and make their movies worse.

Recasting Avatar

The VC has already brought attention to one property rights interpretation of a tale generally thought to be left-leaning (The Lorax). Today, Ilya Somin points to another example of the genre: David Boaz on Avatar:

Conservatives have been very critical of the Golden Globe-winning film “Avatar” for its mystical melange of trite leftist themes. But what they have missed is that the essential conflict in the story is a battle over property rights....

But conservative critics are missing the conflict at the heart of the movie. It’s quite possible that [director] Cameron missed it too.

The earthlings have come to Pandora to obtain unobtainium. In theory, it’s not a military mission, it’s just the RDA Corp. with a military bigger than most countries. The Na’vi call them the Sky People.

To get the unobtainium, RDA is willing to relocate the natives, who live on top of the richest deposit. But alas, that land is sacred to the Na’vi, who worship the goddess Eywa, so they’re not moving. When the visitors realize that, they move in with tanks, bulldozers and giant military robots, laying waste to a sacred tree and any Na’vi who don’t move fast enough.

Conservatives see this as anti-American, anti-military and anti-corporate or anti-capitalist. But they’re just reacting to the leftist ethos of the film.

They fail to see what’s really happening. People have traveled to Pandora to take something that belongs to the Na’vi: their land and the minerals under it. That’s a stark violation of property rights, the foundation of the free market and indeed of civilization.

I think that's a perfectly tenable interpretation of the movie. I'd question, though, how strong the dissonance is with the "face" (leftist) message.

It is certainly true that the sort of leftist thought that Boaz is identifying Avatar with hardly identifies as capitalist. But that hardly means they can't speak in term of property rights. Indeed, while the anti-colonialist theory being drawn from here would likely not cast things in terms of individual plot ownership, they certainly are quite willing to assert cultural "ownership" of certain plots of land, territories, or resources. Indeed, the Na'vi seem to view these territories as collectively owned by "the people" (there is no indication that any one person in the community owns the land or the unobtanium). This raises a harder question for capitalist theorists than Boaz cares to admit, as capitalist entities have always had trouble figuring out how to handle (read: have felt comfortable ignoring completely) notions of property ownership that were not sufficiently individualistic. The doctrine of terra nullius was applied to claim that places such as Australia weren't actually "owned" by anyone, since the land wasn't titled in a manner that was comprehensible according to contemporary proto-capitalist norms.

But anyway. I think contemporary leftists are more anti-corporate than they are anti-capitalist. The argument in Avatar is that given sufficient power, corporations would be quite willing to ignore such capitalist niceties as property rights and freedom of contract (at least when it suits them). Put differently, the same priors that suggest a corporation would be indifferent to good liberal values like "don't slaughter the natives" would equally suggest that the corporation would be indifferent to good libertarian values like "contract with the natives". The corporation is going to take the least expensive path, whatever that may be, and unless some entity is their to raise the cost of the "killing the natives and taking their property", there's no reason to believe that market economics of all things will act as a restraining force.

So Avatar is an indictment of anarcho-capitalism, to a point, but the twist is it making the further claim that the necessary condition for an anarcho-capitalist hell is not absence of government, but simply corporations more powerful than government. The Ecuador example* I've sometimes cited would seem to be most directly on point.

There, the state had given the Texaco Oil virtually free reign in the country's outland regions. The company responded by engaging in massive environmental degredation at the expense of the nation’s Amazon community. Affected citizens were told that there was no redress available from the company because Texaco was a private corporation and thus not party to relevant treaty law, they would have to go to the state for aid. However, since Texaco’s revenues were 4x the entire GNP of country, and in any event the company was actively backed by the US government, few believed that the nation could stop the environmental destruction even if it were so inclined.

Obviously, there's two problems going on here. The first is the Ecuadorian government's willingness to enable Texaco's predations at the expense of the property rights of the locals. The second is Texaco's willingness to completely circumvent normal legal protections and remedies for the local populace, simply by virtue of the fact that it was actually "bigger" than the state itself.

It is quite easy to see why a country like China would dislike Avatar -- it threatens their exploitative ideology just as much as it would Texaco's. But the moral of the story isn't "yay for market power" so much as it is illustrative of the need to a) establish governmental norms that strongly protect personal rights, particularly of marginalized groups and then b) make sure corporations don't gain so much power that they're able to out-muscle the government.

* Chris Jochnick, "Confronting the Impunity of Non-State Actors: New Fields for the Promotion of Human Rights." Human Rights Quarterly 21.1 (1999) 56-79