Actually, nevermind. im making my own post instead of waiting for some rando's permission to info dump. tags exist for a reason.
Why is no one talking about this scene except for the critics???
Superman 2025 spoilers below; please engage with me in this discussion please, i feel like im going feral over this. lol
The scene I am specifically talking about is the criticism about the writing choice to have Luthor broadcast to the world Superman's Kryptonian parents' message in full.
Critics think this is the writers deciding to demonize Clark's biological parents.
I personally think anyone who says that is missing the point of the scene.
If we back up, the audience is specifically made aware that Luthor is determined to dig up dirt on Superman, at any and all cost. We see his absolute hatred of Superman be underscored and emphasized over and over from the beginning to the end of the movie. So when he went into the arctic fortress and he saw the first half of the message and that the file was corrupted, he KNEW that Superman had only ever heard the first half. It was OBVIOUS the first half that Superman only ever got to see had zero indications of some ulterior motive. Saying otherwise was a blatant lie. He knew that the second half couldnt possibly affect Supermans behaviour or motives. He. Did. Not. Care.
Instead he subjected a woman into physical and memtal distress to force her to recover what was very corrupted data with zero concerns for her well being because Luthor was laser focused on his hatred of Superman. We see this obsession highlighted later when he risked the destruction of planet earth itself just so he could have a chance to kill Superman. Its even the one thing that made him start the war: his hatred for Superman. He wanted an excuse to kill him and he didnt care how many human lives were killed or ruined in his determination to do so.
Then we hear the second half and it is very clearly spoken in Kryptonian. This is not just a foreign language, this is a language that didnt even originate on Earth. This message is the only known Kryptonian media for translation teams to work with.
To fully understand the gravity of how cruel and deliberate Luthor's 'exposé' on Superman's parents was, you also need to understand how language and translation actually works.
Do you know why Google Translate is so bad at actually translating from language to language? Its because of word for word translations. Its because it is a robot that cannot understand tone or linguistic mannerisms or language culture. It is over literal and cannot translate with any nuance.
now dont get me wrong, translating word for word absolutely has benefits, namely for learning a new language and to help you understand the way that language culture thinks. But it is trash for actually conveying true meaning. All word for word is, is a STARTING place for translating. Thats it.
We see the issue of language culture and mannerisms clearly when we compare the English language from the United States to Europe to Australia. The same word can mean drastically different things, but it is all still English. Thats because culture has a massive influence to the actual meaning of the individual words.
This is true of ALL. LANGUAGES. And then on top of that, you have individual mannerisms and tonal inflections. In some cultures, talking loudly is considered normal communication style while in a different person or language culture, speaking loud is rude and indicates anger and conflict. Even pacing of the syllables can change a meaning and so can facial expressions!
All these are nuances within just the languages on earth where there is (usually) a very great abundance of material for translators to work with.
But Krypton has only one known living person in existence (until Kara shows up, but thats neither here nor there). This lone survivor knows NOTHING about his own people. planet. Culture. If not even HE knows anything, there is no way possible to form an iron clad translation of the only kryptonian material they have to work with.
So when Lex Luthor told the interviewer and the world that Superman's "secret goal" was to build a harem and rule the world.... thats the interpretation he was looking for. Not the actual intent behind the message. The interviewer even ASKED Luthor if there was any room for an alternative interpretation. But Luthor, despite everything he should know about linguistics that i stated above, LIED and said no.
FYI, there is ALWAYS room for interpretation, even in your own native language. Thats why we have dictionaries! and the thesaurus! Thats why you have to be certified to become a language interpreter! Thats why its called spinning a story in your favour- which, by the way, is exactly what Luthor was doing.
He made the most disingenous interpretation of the message he possibly could. A much more likely and KINDER interpretation of the footage would be something to the effect of "You are the last survivor of Krypton. Please, do not let us go extinct. Get married and have children so that the legacy of Krypton will live on. The people we sent you to are of a much simpler civilization, they are very far behind technologically. you must help guide them to a better way of life."
So what Luthor effectively did was destroy Superman's reputation, self esteem, sense of identity, sense of purpose, AND stripped away from him the one and only thing that tied Superman to his birth world and people, parents, and culture.
The movie didnt ruin his parents. That was solely Luthor's manufacturing.
That part made me so mad in the theater, I didn't even remember the part about no other interpretation because the entire scene didn't make any sense. Lex wouldn't have ANY interpretation because he'd have no translation period. There are 2 possible people in the entire world that know this language, neither of who talk to Lex. We literally have languages from earth that we have no idea what they say because there aren't anymore native speakers.
The Rosetta stone was a big deal because it let us understand ancient texts that had been lost because it contained other living languages. Its why the Native American code talkers were so effective because the other side had no way to understand languages they didn't have any connection to.
The movie tried to say that they had highly acclaimed and reliable sources for the translation but I don't care how acclaimed a source may be if the facts are just incompatable. You can't translate something you have 0 basis in. Literally not how language or translation works.
girl who sat next to me at the coffee shop had that Tortured By Computer Work look in her eye so i turned to her and was like Are u doing research? and it turns out she (white) just started working as an indigenous liaison for an ecological wellness surveying company (hired bc she worked with the local nation for a year) so i was like OMG can i share resources with you. and whipped out my 1 million notes and academic papers on ethical Indigenous-settler relations/research and Indigenous perspectives on ecological restoration. she was like omg are u sure this is basically a whole course for free and i wanted to tear my shirt off liek YES!!!! I WANT TO PROMOTE LOW BARRIER EDUCATION TO ADVANCE DECOLONIZATION AND RECONCILIATION!!!!!!!!!!! STEP IN2 MY GOOGLE DOC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
here's a googoodrive folder containing learnings on Experiential Learning in Ecological Restoration annnddd Research Practice in Indigenous Contexts. each course folder contains a "![Course number] Notes" document as well as PDFs of all the text-based readings that the notes draw from :-)
i plan 2 make accessible the learnings from my other classes too but i think ill only have time to do all that anonymizing & reformatting once i graduate in a few months lol
While Trump launches us into a new forever war, he’s quietly preparing to suppress the vote at home and rig the midterms in his favor.
He knows he can’t win on the merits, so he’s preparing to cheat.
We can't let him get away with it. Call your senators to urge them to vote no: (202) 224-3121
this is already awful on its face but I'd like to add that they're trying to pass this in combination with invalidating the IDs, birth certificates, and passports of transgender people
When you hear about the Epstein files and you can't understand how people can be so monstrous, keep in mind that every monstrosity that happened on Epstein's island was legal just two lifetimes ago.
A monster kidnaps a barely pubescent girl, rapes and impregnates her, then traffics the baby. That seems like a horror story when you hear about it happening on Epstein's island. But it used to be legal. They used to do this openly. It was not only legal to do this, but also illegal to try to rescue the victims. The police enforced that. The police were originally created for the main purpose of enforcing that.
Rich people acting entitled to do whatever they want? Large numbers of people engaged in human trafficking? Police making the most monstrous people look like saints compared to them? That's nothing new. That's our country's history.
Ok, mother of GOD that's a lot of responses and I am but one man with Excel. I'll update these ASAP but also some rules:
A Pokemon only counts for itself, not its evolution line.
A Pokemon with multiple forms (like Zygarde) will only be counted for the specified form. A Pokemon with multiple appearances (like Spinda, Vivillon, Sylvally, etc.) count for all their appearances.
I'm literally doing this as a testament to my own depression that not everyone is lovable, so add that to the weight of this post's meaning.
Definitely the second. I've seen this trend done by bored/confused folks, and the inflection is all wrong. This man *understands* the joke and has 10/10 charisma.
You guys are all aware that they trained people for those civil rights protests, right? That the people doing sit ins had to be trained to keep their cool as white people screamed invectives and pouring drinks on them? It was a very organized operation.
One of the greatest lies that recent American history has perpetuated is the idea that Rosa Parks was "just a tired Black woman who wanted to sit down on the bus" and not a motivated activist who trained with other civil rights luminaries and very intentionally got on that bus specifically to get arrested about it.
Can you think of a reason why they might not want you to know that the people staging sit-ins and getting arrested for sitting on the bus were trained and organized?
It's worth noting that the March books (it's a trilogy) are the autobiographies of civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis, and they are seriously worth a read.
snowghoul
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
