Kingsman 3/5

Elizabeth Weitzmen
" The violence flies repellently over the top, and the finale features an extended joke so insanely sexist it sends us out on a seriously sour note."

 Chris Cabin
" It's structured in familiar, safe terms, plays for very low stakes, and appeals to no one so much as white, male teenagers with chips on their shoulders."

Donald Clarke
"Though competently acted and lushly upholstered, this childish film is let down by bold-type irony: so bludgeoning that it ceases to merit the description. "


It is a movie made for white men with chips on their shoulders that spits in the eye of minorities, women, and science in all its childlike wonders.

Go ahead argue with me... It's set in Britain.

But it is the British that saves the world.  No one else questioned Mr. Valentine's ploy--not AT&T, not Verizon, and certainly not Comcast.  How could they?  It was free wifi!!!!  How did Mr. Valentine get his money?  I suppose it doesn't matter... because he happened to exist to begin with.  I will give him that.  But alas! The saviors of the world are a group of only white people while the only colored people present were as evil doers.

Strange too.. How is such an ingenious device that produces free wifi created?  Seriously... Connection is only as good as the cell towers that exists in the area, so how does the implantation of a chip in one's head create a signal?  If Mr. Valentine bought all the cell towers then shouldn't everyone's head be sharing the available wifi thus making connection slow.

Mr. Valentine's goals were noble, but misguided.  He wanted to do something about climate change, so he decided on population control.  From the perspective of a human, his actions were evil.  But from the perspective of a chicken intelligent enough to comprehend what was going on, the death of humans is neither good nor bad--infact possibly good because the chicken will have a higher probability of living.  By us being here today, we are bringing about a mass extinction of other species.  Mr. Valentine goes about his plan picking up celebrities along the way all of whom agree with his plan for mass extinction.  In effect, Mr. Valentine is playing God.  This is the only aspect of Mr. Valentine that I consider wicked, but no more so than the celebrities who also selfishly choose themselves over others.  In the end, Valentine dies, but Climate change is still a problem.

In fact the ending is a massive problem, from a feminist's and adult's perspective.  In the end, Eggie saves the world and gets his prize, anal sex from the princess.  Not only is the princess merely a prize to be saved for our hero.  Her value to the hero was only for the sex she can provide because of the only merit she has, her looks.  She may be brave enough to disagree with Mr. Valentine, but Eggie doesn't know that.  I don't think Roxy belongs with Eggsy.  I think Eggsy thinks of her as a sister colleague that he respects more.  In all aspects related to Roxy, I see only praiseworthy things.  Gazelle is pretty bad ass too.  Even though it didn't pass the Bechtel test, I can see this movie being neutral in terms of gender discrimination aside from the ending.  Good and bad exists in all degrees in both sexes. 

I thought it was childish when everyone was chanting Eggsy's name.  Remember the "Eggsy, Eggsy, Eggsy!" or the "Good job Eggsy!"  or the "Great Job Eggsy!" A young boy who had a chip in his shoulder surely needs encouragement not Roxy, not Merlin, not anyone else.  Why did Merlin not join the frey? so that only Eggsy could say he took out Mr. Valentine's WHOLE FUCKING ARMY! without a scratch--just a tie cut in half.  Talk about unrealistic.  Eggsy is infallible, but Harry Hart was.  He made the most rookie mistakes.  He caused Eggsy's father to die, and he went to visit the professor without any precautions!!! Maybe Harry couldn't predict the explosion, but I could predict some sort of disaster.  Also, why the hell did Harry not scout out the church before entering it? or the gala before realizing it was cancelled?  How could he simply accept a burger at Mr. Valentine's place?  (To trust the enemy with no caution as a spy?) And why would Mr. Valentine need to place a track Harry's movement when he knows where Kingsmen HQ is by that old leader of the Kingsmen who agreed to help him with his plan for population control?  Harry is fallible, so he died.  Roxy is fallible because she has fears, and the world is fallible for falling easily for Mr. Valentine's ploy.  Eggsy's mom is fallible because she put her life in the dumpster.  When Eggsy is fallible, reckless, he is only fallible for a reason.  He steals cars and gets into fights because his life is in the dumpster.  Also, why was Eggsy's suit made even though he failed to become a Kingsmen and Roxy's not? Why was all of Eggsy's weaponry created and prepared for him on that plane when he clearly failed?  Why did he wear those glasses in the end when he has okay eye sight?  Why does he dress so obviously like a Kingsmen in the lair of the enemy who has seen Harry dressed the exact same way???

This movie also plays on gendered sometimes racial stereotypes therefore it is by its nature unoriginal.  Let me name a few: evil man with a lisp and his hot ninja secretary, a white boy with a chip in his shoulder, the Hermoine Granger, the hot slut at the end, the abusive father and failing single mother, the predominantly white male "knights."  The media has yet to show the predominantly Asian troop of Kingsmen who save the world, the Hispanic girl with a chip on her shoulder who is reckeless in driving and does parkour as good as Eggie, the hot black male ninja secretary, and the evil white man dressed in threads from the hoods complete with baseball cap tipped to the side (in other words, an evil slim shady).        



TL;DR

•  Climate change still exists.  Problem not solved.
• Eggsy didn't suffer a scratch from his battles. 
• Harry Hart makes the most rookie mistakes that Eggsy doesn't make.    
• Contains Racist/Sexist stereotypes.  

Reason for 3/5

• +3 stars: Entertaining and engaging.
• +1 star: Film has crisp visuals, not distracting, adds to mood, no shaky cam.  
• -1 star: for all the problems and inconsistencies above.
• +0 stars: no out of the ordinary artistic quality.     

anytime I say Kingsmen I mean Kingsman because of course you know, there is only one Kingsman.  

  

Islamaphobia and MRAs

These two thing have something important in common, generalization.

I believe men's rights activist groups originated as a defensive reaction to accusations by feminists groups on the reality of sexism.  For example, we should tell men not to rape because men do the raping.  I bet that most men do the raping while the victims are both men and women.  I don't have the statistics, but I bet you that percent is over 70%.  Hence, men produce most of the grievances in rape.  But in the total amount of rapes in the US of which most are probably perpetrated by men, many of them are probably serial rapists.  Hence, it is not quantity of men, it's a few men with a quantity of rapes.  But men must accept the facts, that they as a demographic are doing the raping.  Also, we should tell both men and women to not rape because both are capable of doing it and because we already tell them not to murder (at least in Christian schools they do (Thou shall not...)).   This epiphany came when I read a really enlightening Reddit post that said that the problem with men is not all men, it is just a few men who do it all the time.  Nonetheless, where we are today is the fault of both men and women who don't look at the statistics closely: by not thoroughly examining whenever cited in comments how many of rapists are repeat offenders and by not putting numbers into perspective out of the entire population.

 *To clarify: I don't mean that rape statistics are all serial rapists.  I just mean to say that rape statistics aren't analyzed well and that sexism (such as catcalling) is the problem of a few men who do it all the time. 

Just like blaming all men and telling them not to rape because some men choose to rape is Islamaphobia:

Those who hate on Islam and blame its people for not taking responsibility for the terrorist group who kills in its name are of the same mindset as feminists who blame men without carefully analyzing the statistics and still assign blame.  I bet most Muslims do not condone the actions of the terrorist group and if they don't care, it is not in our place to attack them for not caring.  The only acceptable mindset if you do choose to blame them is to also blame yourself if you follow a dogma that has committed atrocities.  For example, if you are Christian, you must blame yourself for the crusade.  I believe many (but not every) become atheists because they did blame themselves, asking the question: "Why would I follow a religion that has killed so many people in the past?" followed with "If this religion killed so many before, what reason do I have to believe it won't do so in the future?"  

superhero movies

the dark knight

the dark knight rises

superman 2

captain America winter soldier

iron man

watchmen 

no:

man of steel

any x man movie

westboro baptist church & elliot rodgers.

on the subject of "nature vs nuture"

It is interesting.  I often hear about how Westboro and Elliot Rodgers are mentally ill, but is that a fact of nature of nuture? 
The nature argument appears to give the individual control over their own actions, and ultimately it is a free will argument.  Nuture puts the responsibility of a person's actions on the hands of fate.  Therefore nuture puts forth a deterministic argument of the world.  A friend said Elliot Rodgers could've done it because he had a chemical imbalance.  Chemical imbalances are not within his control, but he could've been born with these chemical imbalances, and they could've been corrected with drugs.  Are these chemical imbalances innate?

Also, politically speaking, do we really have first amendment rights to free speech?  Both Westboro and Elliot represent vastly unpopular hate speech and both have been written off as insane.  If prevention was possible and Elliot Rodgers was detained, wouldn't that also detain his speech because the mental facility will probably limit his right to probably publishing options?  Wouldn't locking Westboro up be limiting their speech?  We hate them, but this insanity case feels like a loophole which if found could be used against "the nail that sticks out--that one leader who could have radical views that could change this country for the better silenced as insane before anyone could hear."

I end with:
What is the difference between a person who is insane and one who believes in extremely unpopular views and expresses them? 

From a psychologist I asked, the difference between the ill and not-ill psychologically speaking, is the amount of stress they feel.  I'm still confused because 99% protestors feel lots of stress about police, politicians, and lack of jobs while a mental person may not even understand what is going on. 

Grammar Nazis, I hate them, OCD Pricks, My Friends

I often get corrected by my friend, Landy.  Landy "corrects" me by saying "you mean to say...[Noun]"  Then, I say, "No, I really do mean...[Proper_Noun ending with s]"  When I sensed she misunderstood me, I began to explain, "Downtown there is this..." Then, she'd cut me off with a "whatever" before I could finish explaining to her what I meant.  She made the effort to correct me first, but when I tried to clear the misunderstanding, she pushed the subject off as though she didn't care for what I had to say to begin with. 


I am privileged to have a world-wide perspective.  In my youth, my parents have always allowed international students to stay in our home to take care of me while they studied English.  I know quite well what it is like to live with hearing grammar mistakes on a daily basis.  However, others may not.  

But rarely does anyone communicate with proper grammar anyways.
We are technically not supposed to start sentences with "but" or "and," but we do.
Most of the people getting their grammar corrected are on websites with a comments section.  I find that people there have a tendency to type how they speak and additionally include text speak.   And  in some sense, text speak adds freedom to the way we communicate.  LOL isn't a complete sentence.  It needs a period if it is to mean "Laugh out loud" as a command.  But do grammar Nazis use text-speak?  Yes! and they also wrongly use words they don't know!  We will all get old.  When parents use text-speak, they have the potential to be hilariously wrong!  Are they dumb? No! Some of those old ladies were probably once grammar Nazis themselves and they wrongly use "LOL" and "FML."

 Correcting grammar is petty and sometimes detracts from the main idea.   
Why would anyone want to correct someone else's grammar?  When someone corrects my grammar, I know it isn't for my sake.  Otherwise, they're doing me a favor I do not want in the first place.  It's like a petty attempt to put me down. 


When it is justified: (for the grammar Nazis)
When you are seeing the person often, and it still annoys you.
When that person making the mistake is going to turn in a report with errors, and you know them and are concerned for them.
When that person has asked you too.
When you really don't get what is being asked.
When the professor makes a mistake (that might be on a test) and may lead to wrong interpretation.

When not to:
When the crowd gets it, (and so do you), but you have no rebuttal to the point of the argument.


Why people seem to do it:
To create what seems to them as a rebuttal when they themselves have none.
When they want to put down the person being corrected for whatever reason.
When they are justified.


My judgement on people who do it when they aren't justified:
Petty, OCD, nit picky, time wasters.  
Grammar Nazis are by no means paragons for literary intelligence-- a subject in which a vast library of praised books for their profoundness purposely stretch the rules of grammar, syntax, and denotation to maybe paint a portrait or further a perspective.  I think English literature is very subjective, so I stay away from it, but I still have more respect for those who would analyze "Jabberwocky" which isn't supposed to make sense rather than correct for the proper usage of "their" vs "there" vs "they're."