Jonathan
William Lindsey 
“Watching as professional crybabies like Ben Shapiro tried to get people to boycott 'Barbie' because one of the actresses in the film (Hari Nef, who played Doctor Barbie) is trans, and seeing that has absolutely no effect on the film’s success demonstrates that the Bud Light and Target controversies and capitulations only became big deals because Bud Light and Target responded to the outrage as though it were genuine.”
#Barbie
/1
“It was not.
Had Bud Light and Target told the outraged weirdos to pound sand, they’d have avoided the mess, but in the rush to appease the far right, they handed Shapiro and the rest of his Daily Wire goons wins they thought they could use to reshape culture around their own bigoted and exclusionary beliefs.”
~ Parker Molloy
#Barbie #BenShapiro #trans #CultureWars #Republicans #gender
Tanquist@wdlindsy
#AnheuserBusch and #Target also earned themselves #boycotts from #LGBTQ & #allies because they capitulated to the bullies. Which lasts longer... being annoyed by #corporations selling stuff you don't like, or feeling betrayed by corporations which claim to be allies?
#AnheuserBusch and #Target also earned themselves #boycotts from #LGBTQ & #allies because they capitulated to the bullies. Which lasts longer... being annoyed by #corporations selling stuff you don't like, or feeling betrayed by corporations which claim to be allies?
@tanquist Yes. The excerpt from Parker Molloy to which you're responding explicitly names Target.
John Shirley@wdlindsy The thing is, death threats were involved with Bud Light and Target. It's not as if the right wing isn't scarily armed and dangerous. I *guess* it would have been better if they'd stood up and just kept on with the pro LGBT work they'd been doing, but if a major bomb killed a hundred employees, people would question their judgment, to say the least. It's really a hard thing to figure when we have these overarmed nuts out there. It's a miracle no congressperson was killed Jan 6.
@JohnShirley2023 I take for granted these folks are willing to use violence with any and all of these culture war tantrums. Bullying, which is violence, whether it’s verbal or actual physical acting out, is their signature. But you’re right, of course, that safety of workers is a serious consideration.
@wdlindsy Right. True. I'm just saying it's hard for me at least to take a hardline with Target due to the death threats in an age of hyper violent nuts.
Evelyn@JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy When my mother received death threats in her capacity as a high school teacher, her bosses called the police. They didn’t shut down the high school, or even stop teaching math.
@gorfram @wdlindsy I'm glad she (I'm guessing) wasn't attacked. Was that recently? Target got, in effect, death threats to everyone working there. Target and Budweiser made police reports too. And they didn't shut down. But they did remove some LGBT material and probably they shouldn't have but it's easy to judge from the cheap seats.
@JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy Yes, it’s very easy to judge from the cheap seats. &, at the time- 40 years ago- my judgement was that they should indeed have shut down the high school.
Mom was not physically attacked. The threat came from her encouraging certain students not to drop out of school for a career selling drugs; & while they didn’t back off entirely, the drug dealers found the police involvement clashed with their business plan.
Mom did stop working late at school, though.
@JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy This was a gang-related thing in an inner city area, which I think was even more dire 40 years than it is now. Mom started hauling all her papers home to grade, instead of staying late to get some of them done at school, when there was a gang member standing out by her car, or watching her from across the street every night when she left the building.
It wasn’t a nationwide politically-induced violent mass hysteria, but it was pretty f*cking scary.
It wasn’t a nationwide politically-induced violent mass hysteria, but it was pretty f*cking scary.
@batyalee 🌿@gorfram @JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy 40 years ago was during the height of the crack cocaine era, if my memory serves. It was indeed a difficult and scary time in many cities when lots of gang violence forced lots of people to take care to protect themselves.
@batyalee @JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy Yes. It wasn’t like now, with RWNJs brandishing their intolerance & their AR15s; but inner cities were being flooded with gang violence & guns.
I met one kid who Mom had influenced into staying away from gangs, & I know there were several others. In essence, she was poaching talent away from the gangs’ personnel pool. They didn’t like that.
I met one kid who Mom had influenced into staying away from gangs, & I know there were several others. In essence, she was poaching talent away from the gangs’ personnel pool. They didn’t like that.
@gorfram @JohnShirley2023 I’m very grateful to you for sharing this important and inspiring story.
@wdlindsy @JohnShirley2023 Thanks. 😊
Every once in a while, a teacher like my mom really is able to make a difference in a kid’s life.
@gorfram @JohnShirley2023 My hat is off to your mother. As a teacher myself by vocation, I know the strong urging to make a real difference, and the opposition and even outright hate you can face in trying to make that difference. We need heroes to inspire us, and your mother was one of them.
@wdlindsy @JohnShirley2023 Thanks. I am proud of her.
I taught for a few years myself, as a grad student TA; and I learned how hard & exhausting it can be to try to teach the students as opposed to just teaching the material. Massive kudos to you.
@gorfram @JohnShirley2023 Teaching done well is definitely a vocation. I grew up with two teacher aunts (primary school) and an uncle and his wife who taught in college, and had good examples with them, since they put themselves into the teaching and made an effort to push against prejudices that affected how other teachers dealt with some students. They set a good example for me as a teacher-to-be.
@gorfram @JohnShirley2023 Thanks for that excellent point.
@wdlindsy See I'm no fan of big corporations. I dislike box stores. I don't like the room they're taking up, their innate damage to small businesses, their union suppression (in many of them). I satirize them in my fiction, bigtime. But I have some sympathy for their employees who shouldn't be in the line of fire so they can collect their small paychecks.
@JohnShirley2023 As I say, I think any employer has to take into serious consideration the well-being of workers. At the same time, I think Parker Molloy makes a very valid point here about the alacrity with which Target and Bud Light caved in to bullying from the hard right — and this is not a helpful path for corporations to take.
rhizome
Caffe Neko@JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy I would like to remind everyone what Cody's Books in Berkeley did when religious terrorists actually bombed the store b/c they were carrying Salman Rushdie's book Satanic Verses. https://www.berkeleyside.org/2014/02/04/25th-anniversary-of-bombing-of-berkeleys-codys-books
25th anniversary of bombing of Berkeley’s Cody’s Books
On Feb. 28, 1989, around 4:30 a.m., someone threw a molotov cocktail through the window of Cody’s on Telegraph Avenue because the bookstore was carrying Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses.’ Waldenbooks on Telegraph was also firebombed. The culprit was never captured. Andy Ross owned Cody’s Books for 30 years, from 1977 to 2007. Now a literary agent, […]
@JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy "When the staff had assembled, I told them we had a hard decision to make. We needed to decide whether to keep carrying The Satanic Verses and risk our lives for what we believed in. Or alternatively, take a more cautious approach and compromise our values. So we took a vote. The staff voted unanimously to keep carrying the book."
@JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy "Tears still come to my eyes when I think of this. It was the defining moment in my 35 years of bookselling. It was also the moment when I realized bookselling was a dangerous and subversive vocation; because, after all, ideas are powerful weapons. I felt just a tad anxious about carrying that book. I worried about the consequences.... But with the clarity of hindsight, I would have to say it was the proudest day of my life."
Medea Vanamonde🏳️⚧️ ♀@JohnShirley2023 @wdlindsy my dream solution to the armed issue is some biohacker in her garage hand crafting a new bacterium that eats gunpowder and poops MDMA. I know I know…wish in one hand and poop in the other etc etc
dragonfrogMaayyybe. I will say this about Bud Light - their target market very much overlaps with Ben Shapiro's audience, so they could in theory lose that market, and it wouldn't be a trivial loss of business for them.
Ben Shapiro's audience was never going to watch Barbie in the first place, so this only changes how loudly they don't watch it, a $0 difference to Warner Brothers.
@dragonfrog I think Parker Molloy is making a valid and important point about the need for corporations not to cave in to culture-war bullies — when those corporations do business with a much bigger set of people than the loud minority urging them to cave in.
@wdlindsy sorry I should be clear, I was absolutely disappointed that Anheuser Busch caved so cravenly. I just think a morally upright stance would have required them to at least risk some loss of revenue. Warner brothers doesn't even have such a consideration.
@dragonfrog Thanks for clarifying your point. I agree.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon@wdlindsy Also, the quality of the products matter too.
Barbie movie sounds awesome; Bud Light is disgusting
Jonathan Joelson@formerlydisgruntled @wdlindsy Regardless of whether you like Bud Light, it’s certainly more substitutable than the Barbie movie.
Jay 🆘@wdlindsy What? Bud Light sales dropped 30%, it is for the first time in decades not the #1 selling beer, and stores are struggling to sell cases for under $10. I don’t agree with these idiots, of course, but the boycott is making a real dent in sales. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/business/bud-light-sales.html
@jsit Your comment addresses me, but you’re responding to statements of Parker Molloy.
Aaron@jsit @wdlindsy Or maybe it just sped up long term trends.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bud-light-modelo-america-best-selling-beer-conservative-boycott-2023-7?op=1
Bud Light doesn't exactly have a reputation as being a good beer, at least near my social circles.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bud-light-modelo-america-best-selling-beer-conservative-boycott-2023-7?op=1
Bud Light doesn't exactly have a reputation as being a good beer, at least near my social circles.
Tergenev has moved
Chuck Taggart, Private Eye
i_give_u_worms
Andrew Jon Thomson@wdlindsy I think what you’re saying sounds likely to be correct but I think there’s also an additional factor which is that Bud Light in particular is a vulnerable target for right wing boycotts because of the demographics of their average customer.
@HelloAndrew The statements in quotation marks to which you’re responding are by Parker Molloy.
@wdlindsy oh sorry, I did not notice the quote marks and since they were not attributed to anyone I think even if I’d seen them I might have ignored them but thanks for the clarification I did not mean to criticize you but my point stands.
@HelloAndrew Sorry it wasn’t clear that my two-part thread was an excerpt of an article by Parker Malloy. Her name is found as author at the bottom of the second post. I normally put an author’s name at the bottom of the first post in a series, but the characters allotted for that post did not allow me to include her name. When I post excerpts from articles, I always try to make that clear by using quotation marks.
@wdlindsy that is more clear I’ll try to remember that next time
Martha Howell@wdlindsy
Respectfully, I have seen the headlines from approximately 1M Barbie stories, more PR for one single movie than I can recall for a decade, and never once saw the word "trans."
Respectfully, I have seen the headlines from approximately 1M Barbie stories, more PR for one single movie than I can recall for a decade, and never once saw the word "trans."
@MHowell Do you mean that Parker Malloy is incorrect in stating that the trans issue is central to Ben Shapiro‘s animus against the movie?
@wdlindsy
No, I meant that most people who haven't seen the movie aren't aware that there is a Trans character. I have no idea what Shapiro thinks. I try to avoid his thoughts if at all possible.
No, I meant that most people who haven't seen the movie aren't aware that there is a Trans character. I have no idea what Shapiro thinks. I try to avoid his thoughts if at all possible.
@MHowell Thanks for clarifying. You're right: I think most folks who haven't seen the movie don't know it features a trans character.
SabreToothTigress/ZenDragoness
Jay Peach@wdlindsy Target and Budweiser are the definition of the word “cuck”
@jaypeach53 I definitely agree with Parker Molloy that they caved in to bullying with unnecessary alacrity.
ZZ Bottom
Adam@wdlindsy it's pretty clear that Bud and others do it to generate the outrage, as a marketing tool. Responding to it is part of the plan.
@Kels_316 As Parker Molloy writes, "the Bud Light and Target controversies and capitulations only became big deals because Bud Light and Target responded to the outrage as though it were genuine,"
@wdlindsy I'm just pointing out that that was the plan, and usually is.
@Kels_316 You may be right that Bud Light justifies its actions to itself by claiming they've been good for sales — though I'm not sure that's the case. But to me, the good point Parker Molloy is making is that corporations that claim they support the LGBTQ community cannot cave to pressure in this way and still retain the right to claim they're LGBTQ-supporting.
@wdlindsy it’s such a naive position to take. Brands don’t “support” anything, they sell products. Whatever “support” they offer anyone is part of their marketing. People need to stop buying into this nonsense.
@Kels_316 I suspect Ron DeSantis would agree totally with your statements. Disney appears not to do so.