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Hollywood Poised for a Shutdown, CNN Misgenders Over Beer, and The NY Times Forgets Pools Are Racist

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Jul 13, 2023
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

07.13.23

Anti-Social Media – HOLLYWOOD

The Hollywood studio system was already hobbled by the months-long writer's strike, but for the time being, they were still able to produce new content. As usual practice, if a strike of that sort is approaching, they would go on a buying spree of sorts, stockpiling scripts they would be able to work from as the walkout took place. That all changed today.

The Screen Actors Guild, after some deadline delays, officially went on strike today. This will shut down dramatic productions in their tracks. Just as a sign of how serious the actors are, in Britain, the cast of the upcoming Christopher Nolan movie "Oppenheimer" walked out on the red carpet premiere in London. This will either be the motivation to get a resolution to the strikes, or it could become a long summer and fall with limited new releases and shows. 

Considering how these days everything is awash in sequels/reboots/remakes/prequels, going back and watching prior content will hardly feel different.

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Glossary Over Things – CNN

  • When even the lecturers cannot keep their lessons straight.

In yesterday's column, we covered how CNN reporter Ryan Young broke open the deeply trenchant story of Kid Rock actually serving Bud Light in his Honky Tonk bar in Nashville. Well, Young is back, and not in a good way. In a companion piece he filed, he appeared on air on the CNN - News Central show with another Bud Light feature, and he slipped up – hugely, we guess.

There was outrage on social media because in the portions of his appearance when he referenced the Dylan Mulvaney controversy, Young used the words "he" and "him' in referencing the trans-influencer. As we have learned, the outreaches of the left-wing consider dead-pro-nouning to be a high crime. The network absorbed enough complaints that the next day on the show, they issued an apology:

Yesterday in a segment about transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who was featured in Bud Light’s recent campaign, she was mistakenly referred to by the wrong pronouns. CNN aims to honor individuals’ ways of identifying themselves and we apologize for that error.

We will keep an eye out to see if Mr. Young suffers any cancellation reprisals. 

Demo-lition Project – CNN

It has been weeks of promise, and a copious amount of pregame hype, coming off of the infamous Donald Trump town hall, but this week, we finally saw the debut of Kaitlan Collins with her new primetime program, "The Source." Well, maybe "saw" is a bit strong of a word to use here. The ratings came in, and they were not impressive. At all. 

Monday's debut saw Collins getting trounced, as Rachel Maddow netted 2.4 million viewers, while on Fox News, Sean Hannity came in just under 2 million. Collins barely managed to eke out over half a million, with a wan 540,000 viewers. In the advertising demo, she drew a paltry 83,000 as her competition saw well over 100,000 more in the target category. 

Pathological Media Amnesia – THE NEW YORK TIMES

Seriously, how does a news outlet do this?! Is there no one in editing or the fact-check departments who pass things through their internal search engines?

The paper just came out with a piece advising how women can get a full body workout in the pool with just a 20-minute routine. It comes complete with a live header picture showing white ladies doing some of the exercises. 

I hear all of you asking the very same question: "Hey, RFTH – why the need to highlight WHITE women in your comment?!" Well, you see – astute readers – it is because The Times has a lengthy history of telling us just how racist and intolerant swimming pools are toward black folks. We feel the need to remind the outlet that they recently told us about the plight of black children being an inordinately larger percentage of children who drown while swimming, something they reported on Monday of this week!

First Amendment Strike Force – THE IRISH ROVER

The folks at National Review have let us know about a lawsuit brought by a professor at Notre Dame University. Prof. Tamara Kay has filed a defamation suit against a conservative student newspaper, The Irish Rover. Her claim is that in a pair of articles, the paper has revealed that she is a pro-abortion activist professor (something that does not exactly align with the religious standards at the Catholic university). 

Prof. Kay maintains she has become endangered as a result of the "defamatory and false statements" printed in the two editions of the paper. One notable issue with her suit: Nowhere in her court filing does she list specific examples of false statements that were printed. 

This is basically because one article quoted her directly from a panel appearance she made about the repeal of Roe v. Wade and abortion resources, as well as posts to the same effect she made repeatedly on her Twitter account. In another article, when she claims she had been quoted in response to a question that had never been asked of her, there is a recording of the dialogue taking place.

Race to the Bottom – PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE

In the PBS series "American Icons," the tax-backed network covers a number of symbolic reference points in the country and delves into the history and particulars of those items. In this week's episode, they look at The Statue of Liberty and – this being PBS, after all – manage to find problems with this landmark of freedom and opportunity. 

It is racist, you see. Of course. 

Interviewed for the program was History Professor Tyler Stovall from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and unshockingly, there are problems, it is said, with this fixture beckoning to incoming peoples from foreign lands. Apparently, at one stage of the design of the statue, it was conceived Lady Liberty would hold a pair of broken chains, symbolizing the ending of slavery. Instead, the design was changed to the now famous torch and tablet. Prof. Stovall was asked by host David Rubenstein if this design alteration managed to alter history, and he dutifully stated that it has. Then came the follow-up:

RUBENSTEIN: “As you look at the Statue of Liberty today, as an American, do you regard it as an important symbol of our country, or do you look at it as a flawed symbol of our country?”

STOVALL: “It’s both.” It's a symbol of the ways in which freedom has often been entangled with whiteness.”

"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage of the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation, where Brad Slager looks to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.