The Press Box - Memes Gone Wrong at the Olympics, Barack and Michelle Obama’s Official Portraits, and the New York Times’ Op-Ed Problem| Damage Control (Ep. 427)

Episode Date: February 14, 2018

The Ringer’s Justin Charity and K. Austin Collins on the meme-ification of Kim Jong Un’s sister (1:18), the overheated response to the Obama family’s official portraits (8:22), The New York Times’ op-ed problem (13 :30), and—in anticipation of 'Black Panther'—the merits of the 'Blade' film franchise (22:04). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, we're going to be talking about the New York Times this week, and you should probably check out an article I wrote for the ringer.com about the ongoing recent backlash against the New York Times. And we're also going to talk a bit about Black Panther and other black superheroes on this week's episode, and you should check out Cam's review of Black Panther. And if you're down to hear more about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, binge mode is doing a deep dive this week, so please be sure to listen to Bench Mode, well. Now on to the show. I'm Justin Charity. And I'm Cameron Collins.

Welcome to Damage Control on the Channel 33 Network, a podcast where we unpack what upsets, excites, and divides us in popular culture. Happy Valentine's Day. Today on the podcast, we're talking about the failing New York Times. We're talking about the paper of records controversial op-ed page. It's staple of columnists, including Barry Weiss, Brett Stevens, Ross Douthit, who cultivated a reputation for reactionary trolling. But first, in the wake of both the Winter Olympics

and the unveiling of Barack and Michelle Obama's official White House portraits, we're going to talk about the uses and abuses of political imagery. Public service announcement. Kim Jong-un's sister is not your new fave shade queen. She's a garbage monster. So that's a BuzzFeed headline about Kim Yo-Jong, that's Kim Jong-un's sister, who sat next to Mike Pence last week at the opening ceremony for the winner Olympics in Pian Chang.

Here's the thing about Kim Jong-un's sister. She's a minister of propaganda for North Korea. She's obviously an unsavory figure. And yet, this BuzzFeed story is about the fact that on Twitter, there are these screenshots of Kim Jong-un's sister sitting next to Pence instead of giving him these, like, delicious side-eye glances. Right. And, you know, because a lot of people don't like Donald Trump and they don't like Mike Pence,

a lot of people saw those images as a reason to embrace Kim Yo-Jong and sort of reimagine her as, like, part of the resistance now. Is that what was happening? I think that's kind of what was happening. Do you think that people look at memes that closely? Do you think that people do not just see a smirk at Mike Pence? Do people know who she is by face? No, but that's the problem, right?

The problem is that she is a senior figure in the North Korean regime. And she's a political figure who political observers look at, Americans look at, and they don't really see her in a political context because Americans don't really care about the rest of the world, frankly. And so they just make up a political context for her. And I think that's fascinating. Well, they don't care, but they also, Before this week, before the Olympics, what occasion would you have had to know her by face? Not many.

That's true. I'm just, I mean, I'm really not defending using this meme. To be clear, I think I have a folder of gifts on my phone that are just smirks and like, it's a shade. It's called shade. That's the name of the folder. I have plenty of other smirks that I could use to get that point across. And I think if I have them, other people could easily find them. Just like type smirk, jiff into Google and do something with that.

So there's no particular reason why we need this particular image. But I do also think just the way memes work, I don't, I think people see Mike Pence and I think they see a smirk. And I think they sort of leave it at that. And we should talk about the depoliticization of her face and her. But I don't think people are, I don't think it's that deep for most people, you know? Yeah, for sure. I think the more intensive and real version of this trend actually applies to Melania Trump. She, Melania Trump always has this great facial expression of a kid who's on a field trip that they don't want to be on.

I know, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and we come up with these like fantasy narratives about Melania's inner life and the state of their marriage based on the proximity of their hands. And those things are kind of irresistible. But yeah, why do we do that? Because it's funny. The facial expressions in the body language. Yeah. And even footage of sometimes Donald Trump will be giving a speech

and he'll refer to Melania as if she's back in Washington or something and she's standing right there. I mean, it does seem... It's funny. It's objectively funny. From the photographic evidence, because I'm a CSI now, it does seem that they do not have a particularly productive marriage. But I do also think that we should find ways to resist this sort of romanticizing of these people based on photographs and and gifts and memes.

But it is sort of, it's just so easy to fall into that trap. I'm like sympathetic to everyone who sort of retweeted this Mike Pence meme because, yeah, he's a basket of shit on your front stoop running the country. Yeah, it does feel good to see some international figures sort of shade him. But yes, I would rather that that international figure were not the minister of propaganda of North Korea. But again, it's funny to think of memes in this context because just to what extent does that sort of back knowledge of who's in the photo determine whether or not I retweet the photo? Like I know who Mike Pence is. I maybe don't know her by face because before, I mean, personally,

before this event, before the opening ceremony, I actually didn't know her by face. I didn't retweet the image either. I don't really need a Mike Pence giff in my life. But I don't know what to do for people who don't make that connection. I don't know, like, the extent to which asking someone to be overeducated about a meme seems to suggest that you don't know what a meme is. I don't know that the question is whether people need to be overeducated about a mean.

So much as it's a question of whether people need to be overeducated about political figures who, by whatever means, sort of force their way into our political consciousness in consideration. That's the thing that seems. strange and almost, I wouldn't, not totally, but almost perverse about it, is that it feels like a new way of engaging with who politicians and political figures are. Again, it's super fun and enjoyable in the moment, but I do wonder in the long term,

what doing that, what sort of disembodying political figures from their political context does to our general understanding? Well, I would say that we already are in the long term. I mean, since putting presidents on dollar bills, like we have, oh, we, we are a culture that has always sort of divorced the specific politics of these figures from their image. We are, we're, we've always been a culture of icons. This is like prehistoric. So I think what's really changed is that we metabolize these things much more quickly in meme form. But I do also think that the face of Abraham Lincoln on a bill is a meme.

I was so invested in Harriet Tubman being on the bills because I wanted her to circulate to the culture in that way, literally. I mean, I'm kind of torn on this because, yes, I think we should all keep up with the real politics of all these figures. I also think that at our current moment, when every day I have five New York Times push alerts about five new different bad people, that it is really hard to keep up with all these.

It is hard to keep up with everyone's laundry list of bad acts, of being a bad politician, of being a bad person. I'm really not making excuses for anyone. I'm just sort of saying I could see missing the opening ceremony, but seeing that meme and sort of retweeting it. Understanding, given the context, looking at it, that it probably had something to do with the Olympics, but probably not knowing who was in that image and probably not looking it up. Because who looks up memes. I'm sympathetic to that. I think this is just the way memes work. But then, so my question to you is, how do you feel, speaking of kind of political icons and images, how are you feeling about these new presidential portraits of Michelle and Barack? How are you feeling?

I'm feeling like an art critic. You and the entire internet. Everybody's a damn art critic now. It's great. Never been to a museum, but. Yeah, I used to hang out in the National Portrait Gallery when I was broke and had no money and it was the recession in D.C. in the summers. because they have the best air conditioning there. The third floor has free tea and free coffee. I used to hang out there for eight hours a day. No joke. So how do these portraits compare then?

I like the Brock Obama portrait by Cahinda Wale and also the Michelle Obama portrait by Amy Sherald. I like the Michelle Obama portrait better, I think. Yeah. Like I'm more excited to see it in person because it just looks so... There's something about that portrait that is not so...

super literal and yet seems to represent almost all of the fashion statements of Michelle Obama synthesized into a single portrait. I agree. I think it's really wonderful. I know that there's been some sort of it doesn't look like her nonsense online, which is just boring to me. First of all, because it doesn't look not like her. And second about it because all you have to do is like Google the artist to see that this is part of our project, that she does things with skin color that that for her, it's a sort of washing out of the specifics of one skin color in order to make us pay attention to other things. I will say I did just before I walked in today see a really funny meme of the Obama portrait, but instead of all the flowers, it was replaced with drones. I actually think that's better.

No tea, no shade, but all the shade. And look, I mean, I like Obama a lot. I like him more as a person than as a politician probably. I have conflicted feelings about his presidency, which was in many ways a good presidency for me. But I am interested in our ability to do something like that, where we sort of take, for example, the official national portrait and revise it and metabolize it, and, you know, metabolize it, revise it very quickly online.

These are the things that I'm really interested in. I'm also into the sort of Homer disappearing. Into the Bush. These are the things that I like. And to get back to, you know, the Mike Pence thing, again, like, this is all part of the same thing to me. It's, like, all remixing. It's all revising. Sure, but there is a different frustration with the Obama portraits.

Yes. I should clarify that both the Barack and Michelle portraits are unconventional, if you look at them in the lineage of presidential portraits. And yet, there is a frustration online and it erupted as the unveiling ceremony was happening at the National Portrait Gallery, where you could tell that there was, on the one hand, There are people who are super excited. This is this sort of bright, almost feels terminal, like a terminal depiction of the Obama legacy. If you contrast it with like the original Hope logo from 2008, the Shepard Ferry Obama Hope poster, it feels like a conclusive note in terms of bright pop imagery of the Obama's.

Yes. But on the other hand, you have a lot of people who immediately reacted to the portrait unveiling with a sense of, why are we celebrating the Obamas again? When are we going to talk about their political legacy in terms that aren't just talking about pop culture and identity and their historical significance among black people? Am I characterizing that right? No, you're not, but just hearing you recounted,

I'm sort of reacting the way that I did to it yesterday, which is, I mean, I'm all about that conversation. I don't know why you thought that was going to be in the official portrait. Yeah. But yeah, let's have that conversation. There are people who were basically talking as if the acceptable version of the portrait is only the one that has a bunch of drones in it.

And that's just Obama's official presidential portrait has a bunch of drones, him surrounded by drones. As like a political conversation. And I totally understand why that is vastly preferable for people. But I think the thing we have to remember is that these portraits are arriving post-Obama era in the Trump era. when I look at Barack's portrait in particular, it is as much about Obama as it is about Trump for me. It is as, you know, it is as much about Obama's meaning to black people,

to, you know, Gahendi Wiley's project involved so much revising old, old portraiture and sort of inserting black people, usually hood people, like, you know, with kind of hood style, kind of people that you don't see these sorts of fanciful, fancy portraits of in modern art or classical art and revising it in that way. And I appreciate that.

And I also appreciate that the image of Obama beaming surrounded by flowers is particularly impactful in the midst of Donald Trump ruining my life. But yes, obviously, I'm, you know, I am also really interested in the drone version, you know? Well, I'll tell you what.

The official portrait lives in the portrait gallery. The drone portrait lives online. I love both those places. I'm sure I'll get my fill of both portraits. So, Cam, do you remember right after Donald Trump was elected, when the New York Times steps up and the New York Times becomes the final refuge for truth in journalistic rigor, in America.

I remember being asked to resubscribe for reasons that sound vaguely like the ones you just listed, yeah. Yeah. Well, never mind, okay? So for the past several months, New York Times, has taken a somewhat different tact than I think a lot of people thought. The Times would take in resistance,

so-called resistance to Donald Trump. The New York Times op-ed page in particular has cultivated a certain uncanny reputation for conservative trolling, reactionary trolling. In January, the Times ran this one issue where they replaced their whole editorial page with these mostly defensive letters from Trump voters,

basically just writing about why they still support Trump. There was one letter where a person explained why they regretted it, but just a lot of Trump pandering, a lot of Trump propaganda. And then on the op-ed page, you have all of these conservative columnists writing only the hottest, the spiciest takes. So this is all in addition with the Times obsessive post-election follow-up with Trump voters,

who I think the New York Times sees as this underserved market, right, underserved by a newspaper that people otherwise associate with being dweeby liberal consensus. Is that a fair? A dangerous liberal consensus, I would say, at this point. Yeah. Sort of the pinnacle of mainstream media, the MSM or whatever they call it. The MSM. Right.

But now it seems like the New York Times is acting out against that reputation in ways that feel kind of childish, right? So like on the op-ed page, you have these columnists like Ross Douthit, Barry Weiss, Brett Stevens. David Brooks, the classic man, David Brooks. David Brooks. They've sort of emerged in recent months, I would say, as this unified front for quaint reactionary hot takes. Ross Dothet has penned arguments for banning porn. He's written arguments for very sincerely humoring white nationalists and racist as a matter of immigration policy. Barry Weiss has repeatedly disparaged the Me Too movement, even as her newspaper produces groundbreaking reporting that has advanced the Me Too Movement.

And also does not fire reporters who've acted out in that regard, to be fair. Right. And so the New York Times seems to be an ideologically confused place right now. You know, I'm going to say that the New York Times is not ideologically confused. I think the ideology is staying afloat as a publication. And I think that their way of doing this very cynically is by engaging a realm of audience that they think, as you mentioned, that they aren't serving or that feels they aren't being served by the New York Times. The thing is, I would love to see the extent to which Barry Weiss and Brett Stevens are convincing, you know, the real American Trump voter to be. read the New York Times, I would guess that those people don't care, aren't reading those

editorials, that the only people who are really reading them all were rich people in New York and angry liberals online. And by liberals, I mean leftists, because I think a lot of liberals aren't that angry. But I'm feeling very mad at the New York Times. I haven't unsubscribe yet. It's complicated because I feel like when I'm subscribing, I'm subscribing to like the arts pages. I'm subscribing to the magazine. I'm subscribing to the things like the national reporting that's really good, that's really rich in the New York Times. I feel in many ways like the New York Times is on it. But yes, the op-ed page is mysterious to me because I remember when Brett Stevens was hired, if I recall, like when that job was posted, they were looking for someone who was a quote-unquote

different voice at the times. And I guess I'm wondering why like a stodgy white guy is, somehow different. I still can't get my mind around why a guy who doesn't believe that climate change science is legitimate, is somehow different for the New York Times, because the New York, or why, for example, someone who has Nazi friends as, as in the case of Quinn Norton yesterday, who was hired and then fired after people online sort of found old tweets and remembered her kind of associations with people, um, in the far right, what would be different is a black leftist editorialist, right? Right. Or, you know, like a hyper, hyper feminist woman.

Right. Right. Right. But this is where, so this is actually where I think I have a more cynical read on the situation than you do. Wow. Because you're, you're, positing that they're sort of, in a way, it seems like this weird, quiotic mission to convert white bart loyalists to New York Times subscribers.

So let me posit. I don't think that's what's happening at all. I don't think that the New York Times is doing this to appeal to those people. I think the New York Times is doing it to appeal to the sort of person who hates those people. Because whenever, for instance, when the New York Times ran the January issue where they replaced the editorial page with the letters from Trump voters, the way I heard about that immediately when the Times, not even when the Times announced that issue, but when they first. started soliciting the letters for that issue. I heard about it from every Trump critic on Twitter, right? It's the people, it is, there's this weird dynamic in social media where the people who are the loudest and the most forceful in talking about how the Times is off the rails, they're pandering

to all of these conservatives, why are they publishing this coverage? Those people are simultaneously the people who obsessively read and share and hate share and talk about. that coverage. And if I'm at the New York Times and I'm the most cynical person in the building, I look at that reaction and say, I know these people are saying that they don't want us to publish this, but they all read it. Do they read it or do they just post it? They should, they posted, read the headline and post it. I think you're probably right. I keep thinking of all these reasons and I'm still sort of like, you know, I ultimately don't care because this is still the publication that on the day of his funeral called Michael Brown,

No Angel. Right. I'm never going to get past things like that. I'm never going to get over not firing Glenn Thrush. You know, like things like that where it's like you could come up with all the cynical or non-synical reasons for these editorial hires and sort of the way that the op-ed page is shaping up nowadays and the special features of Trump voters and all that stuff and the and outside of the op-ed page, the articles about the Nazi and your grocery aisle and all of that. and I still ultimately I'm landing on I don't give a fuck because it's all bad to me. You know, like the reasons for it, cynical or not just aren't as interesting to me is the fact that it's dangerous and that it's obviously dangerous. And that's when I started thinking, well, like, do you really need my money?

Because I can just Google search a headline after I run out of my free trial or free articles and still read the article anyway. Yeah. You know? I don't know. I don't know. I tell you all what, I will keep reading the Times, but I'm in, I'm in private browser mode until further notice, okay? All right, all right, Dean, Bacett, private browser mode on the New York Times homepage until further notice. I see now. You've been trading for two years to take me out. And now here I have.

So exciting. All right, Charity. So let's talk about why you don't like black people. I'm just kidding. Oh my God. J.K. We're going to talk about a movie that I like that I recently discovered that Charity does not like, relevant to this week, the week Black Panther is coming out.

I want to talk to Charity about Blade 2, which is a movie that has come up in this conversation because everyone is talking about the prehistory of Black superhero movies. Many of us are going back and we're watching Blank Man, Meteor Man. Some of us are watching Catwoman. I would advise against it. Blade 1, Blade 2. Blade 3. No one's rewatching Blade 3.

I'll rewatch Cat Woman before I... Okay, that's harsh, but probably fair. But Charity, you do not like Blade 2. Ugh. And I just wanted to have this on the record out on the open for everyone to hear. Tell me about why you do not like Blade 2. A movie that I have to say

most of my black friends like? Yeah. What is this? So this is... Blackness Police. This is... No, not Blackless Police. This is interesting to me.

Like, because it was just sort of like consensus. this black people like this movie, I'm interested in not liking this movie. Well, first of all, a lot of black people are forgetting this movie with the Black Panther hype. So, I mean, I'm glad we're bringing this back into... The black people who do not have an Mnichita.

You're right, right. The black people who aren't lost in the sauce. Yes. I should say, I like Blade One a lot. I love Blade One. That movie, from beginning to end, every scene of that movie, every setting of that movie, I love Blade One.

Steven Dorff Stan. Steven Dorff Stan, man. Everyone is, everyone's got great. makeup in that movie. Love his e-sigarette commercials. But Blade 2. Yes. Oh my God. Tell me about it. What a boring movie. Help me out here. Okay, so it's a Del Toro joint. Yes, it is Guillermo del Toro. And look, I'm actually not a fan of Guillermo Deltoro. I think that his movies are largely really boring.

I think that shape of water is trash. It's probably going to win the best picture. I don't care. I think Blade 2 is a much better movie than that. But tell me why you think it's so boring. So much more boring than Blade 1. Well, I would say the first 20 minutes of Blade 2 are great. Yes. The setup is they go back and rescue my man Chris Christopherson. Yes.

Who is supposed to have died in the first movie, who seems pretty conclusively to die in the first movie. And then they're just like, well, we don't see it. We hear it. Yeah, yeah. Right. So the first 20 minutes, I think, have some great fighting,

have some great motorcycles and dim alleys. Yes. Just some great kinetic energy to the first 20 minutes. 20 minutes. And then to me, after Chris Christopherson is back in the mix, that movie becomes like a bad Star Trek movie. It becomes so procedural and gray and boring. And I just can't. I have a, you know, it's really once they introduce the, like, the Reapers. Yeah. In Blade 2 where I'm just like, this is going to get complex in a way. that I would find interesting if I thought the set pieces are better

if the writing were better and if I thought Snipes was still on the way he is in Blade's. But you have thoughts about Now this is the first part of your critique where I'm like I don't know

because I accept all those criticisms of Blade too I think at many I mean it's more of a B movie somehow it's more of a B movie than Blade 1 which is I think why for Del Toro it's more interesting for me because when he's making actual B movies rather than gussied up prestigious B movies,

he's really good. To your point about Wesley Snipes, I think what's interesting about Blade 2 is that it gives him more to do with Blade as an icon and as a figure. I mean, I think we agree on this part, that Blade 2 is where you sort of feel racial subtexts becoming more a part of the text of it.

The Reapers for me are just a device. I agree that they're sort of boring. also think they're well designed. I like the way that their jaw splits and, you know, I'm all about... It's freaky. That is freaky. The jaw splitting open and a thing to look at every time. These, like, creepy white villains. It's all just very racialized. But anyway, I think what I appreciate about Blade, too, is that it's the movie that finally says, you know, there's something about this guy that's like half vampire, but extremely self-hating in a way that has analogies to something. I wonder what. And I think the energy of that for a lot of people is,

probably what makes us forget that, yes, some of the, some of the set pieces are sort of whatever. I mean, I think they're a little better. I think they're a little better than you think they are. I think they're only bad when they sort of totally switched to CGI. Like there's an earlier, the earlier fight with the sort of the Simone Biles vampires swinging from the rafters or whatever. There are these like brief moments in the midst of that otherwise interesting fight where it totally switches to CGI and you just see these sort of very vague-looking alien figures fighting that are supposed to be Blade and these hot vampires. I think that's when it's bad.

But what I like about Blade, too is that it really, really, really doubles down on the fact that Blade is not just an action hero. He's part cowboy. He's part cop. He's part every other kind of action hero all kind of collapse into this one black guy. That is where I really, really feel that to be true in Blade II. And I think because of that, I'm willing to overlook what's kind of goofy and cheap and be movieish about it. I'm not even mad at the acting.

I'm mad. You should be. The movie really loses me like when they spend 15 minutes in that sewer with those little bombs, the light bomb. Yeah, there's just, there are too many stretches of the movie that feel really protracted to me. And the main thing I like about Blade 2 is that it has a young, beautiful Norman Redis. looking very looking very early odds wearing some varsity

everything everything about this movie is very early odds it was a weird decade yeah you know I mean the think about this movie one of the things about Black Panther that I really appreciate is that is making us all revisit these movies and treating them like a canon of movies like thinking about I mean to be honest before this week I hadn't really had many occasions

to think about Black Panther and Blade and Media Man and Blank Man and Catwoman all in the same sentence. Like this is the first week where I feel like everyone is reckoning with the weight of all of that, this idea that we've actually sort of had these figures all along in some ways. And then you add spawn and et cetera, that I or us, for people at our age, that we actually in the 90s grew up with a lot of these figures. You add bad boys to that, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that's what I'm appreciating.

And I'm a little defensive about Blade, too, because it's the best of Blade. in the series. Well, you noticed that we didn't talk about Blade 3, and we're going to keep it that way. Oh, absolutely. A low point for the race, I think. Oh. Well, I'll tell you what, everyone at least rewatch

the first Blade movie. I cam suggestion rewatch Blade 2 and then no one rewatch Blade 3. Agreed. That's the official judgment of damage control. All right, that does it for us. I'm Justin Charity. I'm Cameron Collins.

Don't forget to rate and subscribe if you like the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back in two weeks. The Olympics are here, which means one thing and one thing only. The Bachelor Winter Games are also here. I'm Juliet Litman. I break down The Bachelor every week after each episode, and that will include Winter Games.

It's a four-episode special from your favorite producers at ABC, where they're having American contestants compete in winter games events against contestants from other seasons. I know it sounds great. It's kind of like The Bachelor meets Bachelor Pad, meets a challenge, meets Bachelor in Paradise. Who says no to that? You can listen to my Bachelor Winter Games recap on the Bachelor Party feed on February 15th and on February 22nd. I promise it's going to be fun. You can find Bachelor Party wherever you get your podcast. Apple Podcast, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Art 19, the whole nine.

So give it a shot and I hope you like it.