Satire

Scarlett Johansson should only be allowed to play Scarlett Johansson in movies about Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson shocked the world last week by doubling down on her previous assertions that she should be allowed to play different characters on the grounds that it’s ‘her job’. 'You know, as an actor I should be allowed to play any person, or any tree, or any animal because that is my job and the requirements of my job,' Johansson blithely claims. This comes off the back of her decision to pull out of a role in which she would have played a trans male gangster brothel owner, due to complaints from the LGBT community over her ciswashing of the character.

scarlett johansson

Trump should go back to where he came from…

Once again, Trump has shown his true colors in a series of tweets posted on Sunday in which he told four congresswomen of color to ‘go back’ to their own countries. Literally ordering WoC to leave America because of the color of their skin. For the sake of clarity, I haven’t read the entire Twitter thread because I refuse to give Donald Trump my attention (apart from Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights at our tri-weekly campus ‘Not Our President’ meetings in Pret a Manger – living in the UK, Trump is *literally* not our president, but we do not allow that to prevent us from standing in solidarity with our US counterparts). Since posting the tweets, he has quite rightly been bombarded with condemnation.

came from trump

My best friend just came out as cisgender and I don’t know what to do about it

For the past three years my best friend Andromeda has been an inspiration to me. Xe moved into our student lodgings after xer’s student loan payment was delayed. We got on so well, I never asked xer to leave. Xe was always a tad distant and would often leave the flat for a few days without telling me where xe was going, but I never questioned xer because xe was a free spirit, and I suspected xe might be polyamorous and perhaps had several multigender relationships on the go.Andromeda was always very supportive of my transracial status and we’ve spent many an evening together feasting on rice and peas while smoking weed and listening to Vanilla Ice.

cisgender

10 things I’d like to see in ‘a whole new Twitter’

Yesterday Twitter announced it was making some big changes, promising us a ‘whole new Twitter’. They put out the following statement on everyone’s timeline:'New features and a new look are launching soon. Bookmarks, account switching, dark mode, and so much more — before long, you’ll be able to see what’s happening even faster.'I must say after reading their proposed ‘changes’, I’m not terribly excited by this rather moribund list of ‘new features’ and so I have taken the liberty of proposing some changes that will actually benefit its user base.

twitter

Tristan Priskett reviews: Stranger Things 3

'Who is Tristan Priskett?!' I hear you cry. Well, among other things, he is a consumer of games, a movie connoisseur, an avid imbiber of TV shows. Basically, an all-round pop-culture critic. So, sit back and take a journey with me (because dear reader, I am Tristan Priskett) through the beguiling and often frustrating world of popular culture [EDIT: ‘popture’? Could we use that? Not sure if it sounds right but I’m just thinking of time-constraints here] Stranger Things burst onto our screens back in July 2015… yes, it really was that long ago!

tristan priskett stranger things

The Fourth of July is nothing to celebrate

As a resident of the UK I knew very little of the Fourth of July until very recently when I read an article in Salon about it. For my fellow Brits, here’s a short summary of why the US celebrates Independence Day based on what I’ve learned from reading mainstream publications and watching a few historical movies...In the 1400s an Italian man named Columbo (no relation to Peter Falk) set out to discover America, but he ended up landing at The Bahamas instead and spent the next several years discovering its exotic beaches, aquariums, and bustling nightlife before dying of scurvy or something.

fourth july godfrey

Conservative snowflake Andy Ngo can’t handle a peaceful beating

Right-wing possible Nazi collaborator (I have no real evidence of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was) Andy Ngo was ‘attacked’ at the Portland rally on Saturday. For those unaware, Andy Ngo is a so-called ‘journalist’ who is apparently well-known for aggravating situations by attending political events armed with his fascist GoPro camera and ‘reporting’ what happens. Now, if this isn’t an act of right-wing terrorism, I do not know what is. Mr Ngo supposedly sustained ‘injuries’ after a small group of around 25 or so noble Antifa comrades bravely surrounded him and peacefully protested by throwing objects at his head. The subsequent outcry from the alt-right has been depressingly predictable.

Louis C.K. is still not OK

Like Kath Barbadoro, I am incandescent with rage that Louis C.K. is getting on with his life and continuing his career despite the fact he did things that were completely abhorrent, acknowledged them when called out, apologized for them, had a movie and several lucrative shows canceled and didn’t work for around eight months. None of this should let him off the hook. He should not be able to just return to a career he is good at. In her article, Kath writes: 'When he disappeared from the public eye, his defenders and fans wondered if his career was over. Then he began popping up on stages around New York City less than a year later.

louis c.k.

Mark Field: the Handmaid’s Tale becomes reality

On Thursday night in London, dozens of brave Greenpeace climate change activists infiltrated a posh dinner for toffs in order to draw attention to evil weather. Instead of listening to their howls of distress at the destruction of the planet, the political elite chose to carry on with their meal which I have no doubt included a plate of ‘Clubbed Baby Seal avec Strangled Fox Cub Tears’.

mark field

Fellow men: it’s really not that difficult to respect women

Guess how many women I sexually assaulted yesterday? Zero. You see, it's really not that difficult. I steadfastly refuse to rape a woman or kill a black person; despite the fact I am a straight white male. By being vocal about this I hope to encourage other straight white men to follow my example. Respecting women is a full-time job if you’re a privileged white man (n.b. all white men are privileged by default), but I am living proof that it is possible. Every white man on the planet is guilty of horrendous abuse, even if he believes otherwise (apart from myself of course). I aim to change this. Every day I strive to recognize my own masculine toxicity and male arrogance. I rise above the urge to mansplain.

respect women

My terrifying journey into the dark heart of far right comedy

If you find yourself laughing at stand-up comedy, it probably isn’t sufficiently progressive. This is why I’ve been so disturbed lately to hear about Comedy Unleashed, a popular monthly event in London that claims to oppose censorship and promote ‘free-thinking’ comedians. As anyone who cares about social justice knows, concepts such as ‘free thought’ and ‘free speech’ are typical racist dog whistles of the far right. To confirm what I had already decided, I went undercover to infiltrate this den of crypto-fascism with my good friend Yohann Koshy, whose devastating account of the goings-on at the club has since been published by the online magazine VICE.

far right comedy

Trump is not the UK’s president

At approximately 8:30am on Monday morning I awoke in a cold sweat. My alarm was not set to go off until 1:30pm. What had disturbed my sleep? Something felt wrong, like an unseen force of evil was spreading its insidious influence across the land. I was confused, nauseous. Waves of anxiety were crashing against the shores of my usual stoic calm. I sat up in bed, straightened my man bun and resolved to find the source of this malevolent aura. I grabbed my phone from my bedside table and opened the Twitter app. Almost immediately, my eyes were drawn towards a news article, the headline of which made me almost vomit into my mouth: ‘Donald Trump has landed in the UK’. Of course.

donald trump jarvis dupont

Daenerys did nothing wrong

YASSSSS! SLAY KWEEEN! [insert several hand clap emojis here] After a two-week break at a Tantric Orgasmic Virtue Eco Retreat in the Yukon, I finally got around to watching Season 8 of Game of Thrones. I had heard that people were disappointed at how it ended to the point of creating a petition to change the results very much like Brexit, and I have to say, I was not in the least bit disappointed at not being disappointed. One thing that confused me however, was the way that many influential social justice bloggers were angry at how the character of Daenerys was portrayed. They accused the show of falling into the sexist trope of a woman being mad and hysterical, claiming that the writers had ‘failed women’. In my opinion that could not have been further from the truth.

daenerys

A milkshake a day keeps the fascists at bay

Yesterday a hero appeared in our midst. A valiant warrior armed only with a cold milk beverage. Not since the Normandy Landings have I seen such bravery against an impending Nazi invasion. Over here in the UK we have our own version of Donald Trump. His name is Nigel Farage. Like Trump he is a hideous Nazi, Hitler incarnate. A walking harbinger of xenophobic hatred, spewing fascism and racism. He is the cause of Britain’s pain and division. He was the one who decided that we should hold a referendum on whether to leave the glorious EU. It’s the mark of a typical fascist authoritarian to inflict democracy upon the ignorant masses. The result of that hateful vote has split our once tolerant and peaceful country in two.

milkshake godfrey elfwick

No #SexStrike please, we’re intersectional feminists

Alyssa Milano is a Hollywood actress, singer and activist, perhaps best known for her roles in box-office hits such as Embrace of the Vampire, Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2. On Saturday, Alyssa posted the following call to arms from her 3.5million follower Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1127040792281767936 She was applauded and supported by the pro-choice movement, and by feminists and feminist allies from all over the media. On the face of it, you might think she was being incredibly brave and progressive. But let me tell you...

sexstrike godfrey elfwick alyssa milano

An interracial couple have birthed a mixed-race youngling

Over the past few hours I’ve been forced to endure the ignorance of regressive ‘logic’ on the television, in newspapers, magazines and across social media platforms: ‘Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have had a baby boy!’ If I went into detail about how many ways that sentence is incorrect, I’d need to write a novel the length of which would rival Tolstoy’s War and Peace. For the more progressive thinkers out there, no explanation is necessary and so this article is for you alone. Anyone who believes that men have penises and womyn have vaginas should close this browser window, leave their house, travel to the nearest coastal town and throw themselves into the sea.

royal baby godfrey elfwick

Brace yourself Donny, spoilers are coming

Ever since that agonizing day on November 8 in 2016, Donald Trump’s Twitter feed has been dark, and full of errors. His Lannister-blonde hair glinting in his avi as his tiny fingers mercilessly excrete torrents of egomaniacal tweets, like an illiterate Cersei drunk with power. Well, no more. This will not continue. Last November, Trump made the fatal mistake of revealing himself to be a Game of Thrones fan by posting a meme, a commitment he reaffirmed in January and April. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1058388700617498625 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1081735898679701505 https://twitter.

godfrey elfwick spoilers

My day: Joe Biden

I’m running. Yes, I’m really running. One more time. Just not too fast, because at my time in life you don’t want to trip and bust your new knees. I’m a pretty damned good athlete. Young people like Bernie Sanders can take it slow in the carpool lane, but I’m running, because this is a battle for the soul of this nation. We can’t let old men like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris steal our future. I wish we were in high school — I could take him behind the gym. You know, I’d like to take both of them behind the gym. That’s what I wish. My days have never been busier. The first thing I do in the morning is check if my teeth are clean. They are, because they’ve spent the night in a glass by my bed. I get up, do some light stretching, and take a shower.

my day joe biden
matilda olofsson

My name is Matilda Olofsson and I am Greta Thunberg’s arch-nemesis

Greta Thunberg first came to my attention one Friday after I had spent the final hour of school putting cling-film over every toilet seat so that the following Monday, students and teachers would find themselves in a horrible mess when it came to do potty-time. The next week however, Greta encouraged the other children to join her in a strike, the purpose of which was to demand the Swedish government take steps to reduce carbon emissions. While this was going on, the school caretaker discovered my plan, and undid all my hard work. Curses. I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for Greta and that pesky janitor. From that day, I swore revenge.

Greta Thunberg, a modern-day Cassandra

Listening to Greta Thunberg, an articulate 16-year-old girl who feels passionately about climate change issues, I am astounded that our political leaders have not yet taken steps to relocate the entire human race to Mars. She makes it very clear that unless we all drastically change our ways, the world as we know it will end in the next two or three years. I for one, believe her. Americans may not be aware of Greta yet, even though she’s listed on the 2019 TIME 100 but it is imperative that we help this modern-day Swedish Cassandra to spread the word of our impending doom as far as possible. I spent the bank holiday Easter weekend digging a hole in my garden in order to install an underground bunker.

greta thunberg