Tag: politics

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Feature

The 47th Influencer

The Donald Trump influence on Fashion and Masculinity will be felt in the fashion industry.  Professionals should not underestimate the influence of a President’s outlook on style.  John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, the President went hatless on a cold January day, that styling decision placed a once accessory staple to the back of the men’s closet for a generation.  Men dropped the headwear.   Of course, his First Lady who needs no introduction, Jackie, is a timeless fashion icon.    

This election could mark an unexpected shift in many ways. People turned away from mass media for opinions.  Mainstream channels took a credibility hit.   Not only did they get it wrong by a September Issue Size Vogue issue, television commentators could not hide the disbelief on live television.   The fashion press misread voter sentiments, publications placed a bet on the wrong horse, then lost. What does that say about their insight?  No amount of deflection or no comments can cover up the scale of this pubic misread.  After putting Kamala Harris on numerous covers, no one expects Head Editor in charge Anna Wintour to have a public make up phone call to Melania Trump. 

Elle
Elle

Creative directors will need a rethink over the next months and years.  Since the term “gender” became a political toxin, consumers may move away from gender free fashion, out of style.  Sure, the houses can produce it. Who will buy the collections outside of four stores in NYC and SF? The marketing and messaging will take a different course.  Companies are ditching DEI initiatives faster than a Shein can copy a runway look.  Bottom line decisions trump social movements in boardrooms.   The 47th Unites States leader’s 75 million voters are too big a market to ignore.   

There could be a silver lining, style hope.   Brands could become counter reactionary, more underground.  The Gap was born in the counter culture of San Francisco.  The Mini Skirt shock off the feminine rigidity of the fifties.

The 47th head of the United States will leave an imprint on the way we dress, like or not. 

Categories
Cinema

Belarus on the VERGE

Director Aliases Paluyan

Reading the headline about the Ryanair flight intercepted to Belarus, a story straight from a Cold War novel, suddenly the world was back in an East versus West game of high stakes chest. President Alexander Lukashenko has been in power for almost 3 decades with no signs of exiting the stage. After the the 2020 election demonstrators took to the street demanding accountability and change. 

While interviewing Director Aliaksei Paluyan about his film COURAGE,a documentary on thethe current Belarus political sitaution, he said something that hit me, “Minsk is equal flying distance from Berlin as Paris.”

The exclusive interview with Aliaksei.

After the Roman Protasevich hijacking, do you feel safe? 

It would be a lie If I said I feel safe, There is a feeling of fear by all of Lukashenko’s critics. I think more about safety.

I’ve not lost control, but I have held to my goal of telling the truth.

A Lost Moment

Were you expecting a “Ceausecu Moment” during the demonstrations? 

Yes. No one wanted violence. If there is a civil war, the protesters don’t have guns. This is a movement of moral choice. Our choices were taken away from us. The country does not want to be a geopolitical chess piece between the east and the west. Belarus’s destiny must be decided by us not in foreign capitals.

There is a wrenching scene, standing outside the prison, is this a tradition in Belarus? 

There are 350.000 detainees in the country. Not a tradition! A tragedy! This was the hardest scene to shoot. How to understand the emotion? Women reading a list of the disappeared. The nightmare of waiting for loved ones outside a prison, while inside, people are tortured. The crowd applauses when detainees are released.

You can see sense of loss in the guard’s eyes, especially the young ones. People on both sides are broken.

When Dzianis speaks about being abused in prison in the 90’s. It left me in doubt concerning hope. Oppression has been handed down, is this right?

It was important to bring this fact to the audience. Lukashenko has been power since 1994. I used archival footage to show how long this has been going on. He is not a dictator, he is a tyrant abusing his own country, declaring war on his people. Many turned a blind’s eye what was happening.

Political

Are you political?

Director Aliaksei Paluyan

I can’t say I’m political. It is impossible not say anything cause the of critical situation. The trauma is huge.

The wife, Maryna, was the most pragmatic of the characters. She says, “What’s Next?”

She’s a mother.

What about the play and the actors, what happened? 

All the performers were detained for a while. They knew the possible consequences. That is the courage. Keep fighting, overcoming the fear and hopeless.

Pavel left for Kiev. The Director of Photography is still in Belarus. After the Ryanair event, Myrna left on the last flight out. Denis was blackballed. He can not work anywhere.

Courage was screened in May with English subtitles 

Running Time: 90 minutes 

Categories
Feature

The State We Are In!

As the George Floyd Uprising continues in the United States and around the world. I can look and wonder how a tragic video of man slowing having the life choked out him became a movement. This is not the first time such a video has been seen. Why did this one hit home? A combination of many of the perfect storm. An African American man hunted and murdered in Georgia. A Bird watcher in New York threatened by a woman. Tired of being tired. Too much in a short period of time. Who’s next? 

Protect and Serve? 

Police in America are to “Protect and Serve” is a great slogan but not the reality. However if you are a person of color law enforcers are a kin to Henchmen. An apparatus of a State oppression no different from the Gestapo in many ways. I lived in Los Angeles. The feeling of oppression hangs in the air.

The brutal scenes of police forces combating protesters has shocked all the world. For those of us who know the ugly side of the the policing techniques, not so much. Now White America experiences the repressive structure it has built over the centuries. An organization used to terrorize to “keep them in line” has now turned on those who it was “supposed” to protect. A hit over the head with a baton for those whose impressions of policing comes from CSI.

The mainstream news media deserves no credit, late to the game. Most commentators are lackeys wanting access to keys of power thus asking no hard questions or research or at the narratives. They use the word “Riot” instead “Uprising”. Commercial media even want to us to forget their role in the Police State we find ourselves confronting. Ferguson gave us clues of what was to come- a militarized police force with utter competent for the citizens it was meant to serve.

What A Class? 

What have we done to to deserve this political class? Our so called representatives are the real Charlatans living in a disintegrating detached reality. Suddenly, public officials are attempting to rewrite their history hoping we will forget their past criminal judicial policy positions this election year.

President Trump continues to show his ineptitude as a leader. An “American Ceausescu” had to take refuge in the White House bunker. Then he dreamed up an Orwellian enemy, is the best enemy for yet another endless war. I.E. Who or what is ANTIFA?

And where were McConnell, Pelosi, and Shummer? Beside Trump in the bunker. At their only press conference over the past few days, the 3 congressional leaders looked as if they were preparing for the crowd to storm Capital Hill.

The trio acted as if they were unaware the police were killing Black Men. REALLY! What was unexpected; the ferocity and expansiveness of the public revolt, from Minnesota to New Zealand.

UH ! HUH!

The real Tragic Greek figure in this, is Obama, his platitudes to nowhere, smooth sermons, and empty words. During While his 2 term Presidency, were there any policing policy changes?

A hollow media slogan , Mr. “Change We Can Believe In” spoke from his Martha’s Vineyard $12 million mansion, underscoring how important it is get out and vote in November. UH! HUH!

Sorry to tell you this, real change comes from the streets.

My advice for the former President concerning commenting on the protests would have been: get better pr advisors or go back to Billionaire Richard Branson’s private island for long surf trip. You were not needed or called.

Biden in 2020. No Thanks! This man made a career of Boogey Man Politics, scaring his voters, “Predators on the Street”. Bided signed on to every crime legislation bill over the past 40 years. He lobbied for special protection for policemen.

While there is no enthusiasm for the former Vice President. Desperations plays in his favor. A win but a poisoned chalice awaits.

The coming days, weeks, and months will radically define America one way on another.

Categories
Feature

A Denial State of Affairs


There is a visceral disapproval to Donald Trump on the world stage. The US President gets people in emotional state. Whenever I meet friends the is a comment about his policy or what he says. The man in the White House is a piece of work, an entitled vestige of the upper one percent class who knows he is one of the most important presence in the room. Europeans look over the Atlantic with feelings of fear and moral superiority. Oh,,,,denial is lifestyle until reality hits the face.

When I first came to Europe there was a sense of optimism. The false sense of European Identity was everywhere. Nationalism at look last was dead. The EU economies were moving forward in the time of prosperity and open borders and soon a single currency. Pax Europa had arrived with Brussels as the capital.

2018, Europe is in crisis with the political class clinging to power by all its finger nails. The political class reacts more out of desperation than inspiration. Greece has been beaten into economic 3rdworld submission by Euro Champions. Immigration is testing even the most liberal societies. Right Wing movements have slowed, but not stopped. 

The United Kingdom will leave the EU in one form or another in 2019 if the politicians can stop jockeying out of self interests.  May has proven to be a constant humiliated character  held with low regard by all. Brexit could have been avoided had pragmatism with imagination been used with a bit of humility. But instead Barnier, Tusk, Juncker, and the Euro Politicians decided on punishment, to show the other countries in the club, “don’t get any ideas”. Reference popular uprisings in Eastern Europe, Eurocrats could soon learn what the Soviets discovered in 1989. The system did not fall because the Communist were tired of ruling.

Champs Elysees on the first day of the Yellow Vest Protest 
View of the Concorde on the first day of the Yellow Vest Protest

Today, at the time of writing France is gripped by riots that could manifest into full scale civil war. The genie is out of the bottle. Pent up rage has once again exploded on the French streets. When I am in Paris, I marvel at the city, splendor, the charm, the stores, the romantic ideas. But underneath, I often wonder, how do people afford to live here? 8 euros for a cafe in the center, my morning Monster energy drink was 3 euros. I made that one can last for 3 days.

A former banker with the 5.200 euro monthly make up and hair bill was not what he promised. The French believe themselves to be the intellectual class of Europe, a society of sophistication and all things worldly. How could their society get conned by a novice, a media charlatan like the unpolished Americans? A good slogan works, “Together France.”

Electing a former member of the financial circle as head of state then expecting sympathy is a bit naive or desperate. This is familiar to USA in 2016.

Macron’s first legislative act, tax cuts for the wealthy, a few, followed by fuel tax hike, for everyone. Then the standard neoliberal economic phrase, “reform the economy”. This usually means the working class gets less, the corporate class gets more. Like his UK and Brussels elite counterparts, the ambitious leader wants to lead an “Enlighten Europe” with a view from the clouds, out of touch from the mere people who put him in office. Is there any wonder there are violent country wide protests?  The Yellow Vest  movement has spread to Belgium and The Netherlands. 

As I say, it is easier to look out the window than in the mirror. Europe has its high moral plateau made of wet cardboard.