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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: December 24th, 2023

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  • emptybamboo@midwest.socialtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.worldWhat do you think about Bill Maher ?
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    5 months ago

    I am generally open to him and his views. I get tired of hearing things that only confirm my own worldview. While I agree with him sometimes, he is just as often challenging to me.

    That said, I’ve been finding his whole recent “kids these days are awful” schtick really tiresome. It feels like an old man shaking a fist at the sky. I have lots to complain about Gen Zs and Millennials but I feel like he is really out of his depth. Every generation thinks their kids are awful.

    But when he is on point, he is really on point.


  • I think it might be partially prettiness but I think it is mostly practicality. If the makeup is that difficult, it will take hours every day to put on. It can be hell on the actors. I remember reading about Peter Ustinov who played Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” but refused to do it for “Death on the Nile” because he did not want to have to wear that makeup in Egypt.

    You have to make sure complicated makeup always looks consistent. It would have been really hard to do that in a series over multiple years.

    One other example I can think of is Katniss in The Hunger Games. If you read the novel, her body was REALLY broken. I think her entire body was covered in burn scars. It would have been very hard to do that in the film consistently (though I will note that in the novels, the scars are not on her face. I saw it as symbolic of the inner scars of the Games).

    So I think it is partially aesthetic but mostly practical.


  • emptybamboo@midwest.socialtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.worldWhat gets you downvoted?
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    6 months ago

    Anytime I mention something vaguely positive about religion. I’m a former religious studies scholar who studied comparative religions. I have two degrees in the subject. I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial: the main thing I usually write is that you cannot usually say that a religion is a monolith - they are pretty complex phenomenon with many variations within them. You can say that Salafis are the totality of Islam. You can’t say that evangelicals are the totality of Christianity. You can’t say 969 in Burma is the totality of Buddhism. You can’t say Hindutva is Hinduism. You can’t say that the Settlers on the West Bank are the totality of Judaism. Religions without any variation or complexity usually die after a generation or two. I don’t just have these arguments online, I am used to have them with students and with friends. But nuance has few safe harbors on the internet…