Daily Archives: February 28, 2017

Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out. The villains here arent southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called alt-right. Theyre middle-class white liberals. Photograph: Justin Lubin/Universal Pictures

The success of Jordan Peeles Get Out it took $30m in its first weekend in the US is remarkable for lots of reasons. This is a first-time film from a respected, but essentially cult comedian, with no real big-name stars and a premise that is anathema to most of middle America. Yet people came out to see it in their thousands and critics raved about a horror film, which just does not happen. The film has a A- rating from audiences on CinemaScore, which as some have pointed out is unheard of for a horror, and a rare 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Like Donald Glovers Atlanta, almost universal praise has followed the films debut and as with that series, Peele has dealt with race in America in a refreshing, funny and unflinching manner. The number of things Peele manages to reference is stunning: the taboo of mixed relationships, eugenics, the slave trade, black men dying first in horror films, suburban racism, police brutality.

Film-makers have used absurd horror to tackle race before, like in Timo Vuorensolas 2012 film Iron Sky, which placed the action on the dark side of the moon where the Nazis had been hiding out, plotting to forcibly make black people white. But in Get Out, Peele brought the action much closer to home. Some have dubbed the film an African-American nightmare movie; it isnt. This is an American horror story. (It comes after an impressive run of low-budget two-word-title horrors that place the action in middle America, and prod at issues bubbling just beneath the surface: Dont Breathe, It Follows and Youre Next.)

The villains here arent southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called alt-right. Theyre middle-class white liberals. The kind of people who read this website. The kind of people who shop at Trader Joes, donate to the ACLU and would have voted for Obama a third time if they could. Good people. Nice people. Your parents, probably. The thing Get Out does so well and the thing that will rankle with some viewers is to show how, however unintentionally, these same people can make life so hard and uncomfortable for black people. It exposes a liberal ignorance and hubris that has been allowed to fester. Its an attitude, an arrogance which in the film leads to a horrific final solution, but in reality leads to a complacency that is just as dangerous.

There was always something that didnt quite ring true about Guess Whos Coming to Dinner a film many have compared to Get Out. It wasnt in Sidney Poitiers performance, which felt real: his anger, fear and frustration at having to battle his own familys disapproval of him marrying a white woman and her familys liberal hand-wringing was note-perfect. What didnt feel real was the mostly calm reactions of almost everyone involved. In Get Out, under that placid exterior lurks the dark subconscious, where the true horror lies.

In the screening I was at, the biggest reactions from the mainly black audience were the knowing laughs whenever Peele took on tropes people recognised from real life. There was the anxiety about meeting the family of a white partner, which proved to be well placed when Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) arrives at the Armitage residency and is immediately treated to a line of ham-fisted and loaded questioning. There was the cringe-inducing way the black serving staff are treated; the interactions with the police who, unlike in most horror films, arent last-minute saviors but potential fatal hurdles.

Horror tropes are inverted, subverted and turned on their head, none more so than the way Peele takes the idea of a white woman being in peril as soon as shes in an inner-city area and turns that into a black man being at his vulnerable in an affluent white neighborhood. The unique history plus the fascination, fetishization and fear of dark-skinned men on this continent gives Get Out even more punch. After seeing it, I started to think that it might not be a coincidence the film came out almost five years to the day since Trayvon Martin was killed.

Peele said The Stepford Wives, because of the way it dealt with social issues in regards to gender, was an inspiration for Get Out. I just thought, thats proof that you can pull off a movie about race, thats a thriller and entertaining and fun, he said. His debut has managed to do just that, and like The Daily Show a satirical news show which became must-watch social commentary Peele has placed real issues in an unlikely context, this time a horror film, and said something painfully true about them. Get Out will be one of this years biggest conversation starters. Just dont expect it to be comfortable.

Continue reading here:

Get Out: the film that dares to reveal the horror of liberal racism in America - The Guardian

R. Alexander Acosta, President Trump's nominee for secretary of labor, is racking up an impressive list of endorsements from liberal groups and appears to be drawing no serious opposition from the union movement, suggesting that the nominee will likely have an easy confirmation when the Senate gets around to him.

At least three major unions have endorsed Acosta's bid and most other groups that would lead the effort against a Republican appointee are holding their fire. That's a sharp change from their reaction to Trump's previous nominee for the position, fast-food businessman Andrew Puzder. He drew fierce opposition from Democrats and liberal groups, especially organized labor.

"He's been a public servant, he has a record of enforcing the laws that he's been put in charge of, whether it's the [National Labor Relations Board] or elsewhere. We think he deserves absolute serious consideration, yes," Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, said of Acosta in an interview Tuesday on Fox Business. An AFL-CIO spokesman clarified that Trumka was not endorsing Acosta.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told the Washington Examiner, "It doesn't appear as if Acosta has the same level of conflicts of interests and other problems that Puzder did." She did not endorse Acosta but raised no possible problems with him.

Stay abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.

Sorry, there was a problem processing your email signup. Please try again later.

Processing...

Thank you for signing up for Washington Examiner News Alerts. You should receive your first alert soon!

Acosta, who is currently dean of Florida International University law school, appears to be benefiting from interactions he has had with liberal groups from his past career in public service. He served as a member of the NLRB, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, from 2002 to 2003. He was also an assistant attorney general for civil rights during President George W. Bush's administration and was a U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida.

Wilma Liebman, who was appointed chairwoman of the NLRB by President Obama and whose time on the board overlapped with Acosta's, told Politico, "Even though we often came out differently on policy conclusions or the outcome of a case, he was a good colleague and he was always willing to talk and bounce around ideas. I would say he's very smart and he's an independent thinker."

Lafe Solomon, who served as acting general counsel for NLRB under President Barack Obama, told Bloomberg Businessweek Monday: "I found Alex to be very open-minded and fair ... He deserves to be secretary of labor."

Acosta has been endorsed by the International Union of Operating Engineers, the Laborers' International Union of North America and the International Association of Fire Fighters. All praised his record of public service in the two previous presidential administrations and said they expected he would fairly apply the law as labor secretary.

Also from the Washington Examiner

"Administrative corrective measures" have been taken against the individuals based on their involvement.

02/28/17 8:20 PM

Original post:

Trump's new Labor secretary drawing liberal support - Washington Examiner

Jennifer Garner has not given up on Donald Trumps Washington.

The 44-year-old actress spent the weekend lobbying the towns pillars of power to support early education for poor rural children. She spent Friday on Capitol Hill meeting dozens of top staff members. On Saturday, she delivered the keynote address before the annual National Governors Association winter meeting here. A potential sit-down with Ivanka Trump, who is advocating for more funding for child care, fell apart because of scheduling conflicts, but Garner remained optimistic about a face-to-face discussion soon.

Other Hollywood liberals have shunned the new commander in chief notably during Sundays Academy Awards ceremony, when many jokes were told at President Trumps expense. But Garner, a true-blue Democrat who campaigned for Hillary Clinton last year and held a fundraiser for Barack Obama in 2008, is taking a unique approach: pushing a cause that would benefit the new administrations political base.

The West Virginia native has long worked to bring assistance to poor, rural communities in desperate need of it. She has no plans to change that just because most of those communities went big for Trump in last years election. In fact, she sees an opportunity to hold the president accountable for the pledges he made to the countrys rural working class.

Im looking forward to helping him make good on what they saw as promises, a mandate from him, that he was going to make their lives better, Garner said in a 45-minute interview with The Washington Post.

(Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

Its another indication of how Trump has changed the rituals of Washington. For decades, Hollywood celebrities have used the glow of the Capitol dome to advance personal causes. Some may be less inclined to do so now, when legislative gains might help burnish Trumps image.

That makes Trumps presidency a psychological test of sorts for some members of the Hollywood elite, who can either demonstrate their true commitment to the causes they push or expose their charity work here as more about bolstering themselves.

Very much in the former camp, Garner acknowledged that some of her friends want to turn their back to this administration ... [and] just wouldnt even want to engage.

Not her. If hes willing to help the poor kids who got him elected, then lets do it. They certainly think hes going to, she said.

Is Ivanka Trump building bridges or walking a tightrope?

For nine years, Garner has been on the board of Save the Children, a nonprofit organization. Mark Shriver is president of its political advocacy arm, Save the Children Action Network. Save the Children is known primarily for its international projects, but it has also built out a niche focus on U.S. education programs, particularly in poor rural communities.

Thats Garners personal story. She grew up solidly middle class, but she knew plenty of poor children who started elementary school behind and never caught up. They lived in the same sort of communities that Robert F. Kennedy, Shrivers uncle, visited in the mid-1960s along the Mississippi Delta, shaping the ideas of his 1968 presidential campaign.

Together, Garner and Shriver have urged Congress and state governments to fund reading and literacy programs that include all-day kindergarten. The organization has its own reading programs that it administers in schools and during in-home visits.

They found that children in rural areas are 60percent more likely to be placed in special education programs when they start kindergarten. Garner has her own intuitive test when she meets small groups of rural children to determine which come from homes where parents have more time and resources to engage with them.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, she said, singing the nursery rhyme out loud. Humpty Dumpty had a great ...

Some children shout fall. Others offer blank stares, because theyre from homes with less educational nourishment. You just wouldnt believe the number of kids who have never heard a nursery rhyme, she said.

Garner and her allies arent asking for assistance only for rural America, theyre also pressing for a rewrite of the tax code. And theyre not shy about the approach: political shame.

If a tax package is going to cut rates and red tape for corporations and Trumps fellow billionaires, the thinking goes, the president had better find a way to expand credits and deductions for the education needs of the families that formed the bedrock of his support.

If there is tax reform and theres nothing for poor, working families in this country, and families that are middle class and struggling, thats not good, Shriver said.

Garner calls their cause the bobblehead issue, because everyone loves to tell her that they support children, but in the end it sometimes seems as though they just enjoy being around a beautiful celebrity.

Everyones nodding and couldnt agree more, and shaking your hand and want their picture, she said. But when the vote is cast, nobodys out there screaming and yelling for poor kids.

Garner returned home to West Virginia last year to help raise money after devastating flooding in the state. Reliably Democratic during her childhood, West Virginia ended up giving Trump his largest margin of victory something she could see coming by talking to people in economically depressed areas.

People felt like Trump really understood them, that he was going to come in and create jobs for them, she said. They felt like they needed something to just turn everything upside down.

Its that level of despair that leaves Garner willing to deal with Trump when some of her friends want to offer nothing but resistance. She may even be willing to meet the president.

Send me a ticket to Mar-a-Lago. Im ready to go down and have a steak and a good chat, she said, only half joking about the prospect. I really think its great, if hes willing to help the poor kids who got him elected.

Read more from Paul Kanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

View post:

An unlikely ally for President Trump: Liberal actress Jennifer Garner ... - Washington Post