Books:
We the Corporations by Adam Winkler
Oh did I absolutely love this nonfiction book about the history of how corporations acquired Constitutional rights. Structured similarly to the author’s previous book (which I also loved, about the history of the Second Amendment), it intercuts between the Citizens United case from a decade ago with tracking the progression from the 1800s forward as to why and how corporations were granted rights seemingly reserved for human citizens. Key to this is the vacillation from court to court as to whether corporations were one person from a legal stance or a front for a group of actual people. The Citizens United case, as well as Hobby Lobby, stemmed from the notion that a corporation is really just a legal front for actual human beings and those human rights pass through to the corporation, i.e. since humans have religious rights so do corporations because corporations aren’t distinct from the humans who contracted them into existence. In the other view, corporations are, in fact, a separate legal “person” (not to be confused with “human being” though as with the phrase “defund the police” someone should’ve hired a marketing person to come up with something clearer - or just thought about it for 10 seconds then switched it to something else) in which case there are no passthrough human rights, just the rights granted by law and - and this is where things can get very mushy between these two perspectives - the Constitutional rights necessary for the corporation to do its work.
For example, while Hobby Lobby and Citizens United caused an uproar due to passing through rights that many people felt should be reserved solely for actual human beings, how about corporate owners of newspapers, blogs, this amazing gorgeous Substack you’re reading right now, radio (remember radio?), TV (remember TV?), etc. who won a Supreme Court case back in the ‘30s (or so) granting the media First Amendment rights? If corporations have no Constitutional rights, then perhaps we have no news media since if Constitutional rights only apply to human beings then media companies have no free speech. Then again, if corporations have Constitutional rights, perhaps we wind up with extremely powerful group aggregates serving themselves and their shareholders at the expense of everyone else and having no country at all. Hmm.
To me the issue the Supreme Court consistently fails to address is that, regardless of the fact that humans create corporations, law isn’t there to tell actual humans how to behave; rather, law is a function of how most people behave most of the time anyway. But that really isn't true for the tax entities we call corporations which are engaged in an ongoing battle of self-interest with the law, by which I mean if you removed all laws, most people wouldn't, for example, go out and murder each other (though sure there’d be an uptick); corporations, by contrast, would have entire hit teams to murder their competitors because, even though it's people (for now) who make corporate decisions, those decisions are made in a group and therefore responsibility is diffused across the group, like you may feel bad being one of the 10 people on the team who decided to murder a few java coders at a competing app company, but your feeling of badness is 10% of bad since you didn't do it alone and, as with all higher-up-ordered killings, you justify it with your own version of a Nuremberg defense. Of course, next in line would be AI making these decisions so even though programmers wrote the code the AI used, the AI is still to blame - like I'm sure the Tesla coders whose programs have already killed people due to self-driving failures feel bad... but not responsible. So the issue the Supreme Court fails to consider when thinking about corporations is that humans have an inherent sense of community and responsibility to others that the corporate veil removes. In fact, that inherent sense - the part where we restrain our selfish behavior due to thinking about how it will impact others and blow back on us - is precisely what became codified in what we call “the law.” The corporate veil, by contrast, provides a mask, and we’re all aware that you’re more likely to commit a crime if you’re removed from it in some way, the same way we dehumanize enemies in war, and the legal documents of corporations provide the people running them with a shield, with that sense of being disconnected from responsibility for bad behavior, e.g. “I just signed a piece of paper; it’s not like I killed anyone!” says every chemical company executive after being found out for dumping an endless stream of toxins into a river that wound up with a bunch of people dying from cancer. This disconnect is death by a thousand cuts as a corporation allows each person within it to behave in a way that both absolves them of responsibility for their behavior and is behavior that, while maybe shady maybe nasty, is considered okay within the corporation itself and all those people behaving in ways they never would with their own families adds up to something resembling corporate evil or, if evil has too many moral implications to impose on what’s nothing more than a paper tax entity, into something that has no consideration for the world it’s in because it’s not IN a world - it’s a number and words in some filing cabinet in Delaware. The reason fracking companies exist is because the people who own the fracking companies don’t have any fracking in their own neighborhoods and the detachment in which the consequence of your behavior is being enacted by third parties of third parties onto faceless unknowns is what allows you to say that your responsibility is to your shareholders at the expense of all others and brush away the thought of what’s happening to those unknown people as irrelevant. Put another way, corporations, due to their structure and distribution of responsibility from one person to many, often behave much like mid-level third-Reichers did, where the deaths of millions became irritants around paper pushing and scheduling and pleasing your boss because the outcome of your actions were abstractions. Thus you could say “I’m an office functionary” without much thought or worry about how your officework impacted anyone.
None of this was in the book btw, but it all got me thinking, and really that’s all I ask for in a piece of nonfiction so to me this book is a total recommend.
TV/Streaming:
For Life (Season 1):
Despite a concept that sounded like it could spin into a compelling drama - man jailed for life for a crime he didn't commit gets his law degree in prison in order to get his conviction overturned and get back at the DA who conspired against him (and, along the way, help out fellow cons with the legal system) - and at least one actor punching above the show's level (Indira Varma), this series managed to make me actively angry prior to DNFing due to the squandering of a decent premise done in by a completely sloppy lack of caring at every level in the process. I’ve ranted about this before and no doubt will again, but to the core my being I don’t understand why studios and networks blow so much cashola but completely ignore the obvious show-killing writer choices which don’t cost a single $ to fix, just brainpower. The reality is there are plenty of smart people who just happen to be horrific at story running studios/networks and honestly they should do what all good leaders do, which is deficit-manage, meaning acknowledge your weakness and put, say, English majors, who far before coming to Hollywood showed an interest in story and lit crit, in charge of the development process rather than, say, MBAs and number-crunching big data wizards, i.e. the network/studio excuse for shows like this is poor hiring due to the desperate belief that the next big thing in culture can somehow be gleaned from a spreadsheet as opposed to hiring the best storytellers you can find and hope a lot of people like the stories they’re telling. Showrunners, as you’re about to see, have no excuse.
You can tell from watching this series that literally no one cared (well no one with any power), not the showrunner, not the the studio, not the network, and it was their complete and utter contempt for me, the viewing audience, that put me over the edge. Like here: I'm no lawyer, but I'm aware that witnesses don't swear themselves in in court. Except on this show. But, said everyone in the creative food chain I guess, who cares, we don't want to pay for an actor to be a bailiff, it doesn't matter. Okay, it's a nitpick, but... don't you, the showrunner, care? It’s a law show after all. Or how about our lead character calls a cop as a witness but the police chief puts that cop onto an undercover operation the day he's supposed to appear in court and therefore can't testify. Again, I’m no a lawyer, but, um, really? Courts just shrug and go oh well no testimony for your case for two years then? You're that lazy, writers, and that contemptuous of your audience, network and studio, that you can’t be bothered to come up with something else in the realm of reality in order to have the cop not testify, like here off the top of my head in one hot second: the opposing counsel brings up a legal technicality that means the cop is dismissed. There you go! Problem solved in a way that makes sense. Okay okay, I know you're thinking these are minor points and they are but that level of uncaring slop permeates the entire show up to the top level of its concept, like this: in the backstory episode where we see how the lead character got convicted for life (title here!), there's zero evidence against him other than hearsay. ZERO! The writers didn’t even bother to come up something remotely credible but rather, I guess, decided everyone’s an idiot who will go along with the notion that a jury is going to convict someone FOR LIFE without a shred of evidence that he committed the crime he was accused of. Why??!?! Writers, you couldn't even, I don't know, have the DA fabricate some credible evidence, like a body or a doctored photo, you know something where we, the audience, can believe that our lead is the victim of a smart frame-up? Alternatively, you could also leave it ambiguous where maybe our lead actually did commit the crime or something close or something complicated and messy and play that out for a few seasons. Instead, you decided to toss all that and go for Janice-rage which, sure, is super entertaining, but more entertaining would’ve been for you to care about your show enough to make it credible. Oh well aaaaaaaaaaaargh!
Heels (Season 1):
This drama series about a pro wrestling operation in small-town Georgia kinda grew on me but was still kinda middle-of-the-road cable-drama boring. The show is in the Friday Night Lights model where there's a family at the center - in this case two brothers, one who inherited the family wrestling business and the other who’s the lead wrestler in it - as well as various other people associated with the company. Because it's a sports drama, there's wrestling every episode and it all leads up to a big wrestling event at the end. I know this is probably reading super lukewarm bordering on snoozy cold, but it really wasn't bad just in the mode of a type of measured-paced high-end drama show we've all seen a million times meaning you have to be in the mood for that kind of thing plus find the world compelling enough and for me I was on the fence for both. What made it somewhat interesting was, because pro wrestling is scripted, there was some interplay between the fake drama and relationships in the ring and the real drama and relationships outside of it plus some engaging performances and, when the show shifted focus away from the brother drama to some of the other characters, it became more interesting. But the brother drama, in which the older grounded brother is trying to protect/father (there are daddy issues in there I won't spoiler) the younger fly-off-the-handle-type brother, felt really forced and contrived as did the romantic relationships in the show. The younger brother, who looks like he's in his mid-30s, is written essentially as an impulsive angry aimless baby which is really monotone episode after episode and is there as a character trait simply to create friction between the two siblings rather than as a believable person. Contrast that to Friday Night Lights - which really is this show's progenitor - where whatever blunt character traits everyone started with (bro quarterback, poor weak outsider, nice girl coach's daughter etc.) shifted and evolved almost immediately and revealed people rubbing up against the stereotypes that were in some ways being imposed on them. That's what generated character drama in that show, that people and relationships started one place and then grew and shifted. In this show, not so much. Like I said, it's not bad, just earnest in its way. It tries to create antagonists in the form of an asshole old pro wrestler (successfully as the actor is really excellent at playing the part) and with some other pro wrestling owner who's trying to submarine the brothers (not successfully since it's just a plot contrivance with no real meaning or motivation behind it). It was good enough that I didn't DNF - though it did get downgraded from prime show to background noise because the sluggishness demanded I multitask while watching - and I'll definitely check out the second season (assuming there is one) in the hopes that it improves, which it really could if they shake up the writing because they have a pretty solid and appealing cast which went a long way towards making this show watchable and, if the writing matched some of the acting, could really be something good.
Herrens Veje:
This show, by the same person who wrote and created the great political series Borgen, is about a family of priests (vicars really), and I must sidebar to note that religion is a topic in TV/Streaming which ensures near instantaneous napping for this Janice. Come to think of it, the mere appearance of a religious ceremony of any kind - funerals and weddings mostly but also confessions and just your standard Sunday churchgoing - induce in moi an antsy boredom and a concerted effort to avoid fast forwarding. I mean really has there ever been a single scene of this type EVER in the history of TV/Streaming that wasn’t some tired morality lecture or a Bible verse quote or some sobby eulogy or whatnot that we could just as easily infer rather than be forced to watch? Other than perhaps in comedies (I’ve certainly watched my share of the nun comedies for example), it’s all the same and all so boring and really an empty void inserted into shows because, well I don’t know why writers stick those scenes in. They’re rarely about character, just about people speechifying plus hiring all those extras and well yawn.
So I both did and did not have high hopes for this show - did based on showrunner did not based on topic - and I’d say all my expectations were weirdly met. Look, he's a very good writer who writes smart and interesting characters and knows how to cast a show - in other words, there are a lot of strengths. Ultimately this show is a family drama and is really more about (spoilerable) issues within the family and how they do or don’t get resolved. Much of the religious stuff is about the business of running a church which was interesting and more about the often hypocritical and messy intersection between preaching and practicing said preaching (if you can’t do, preach - waa waa!) The show’s central weakness in many ways is that it’s 20 episodes when it really should’ve been 12 and while I wasn’t exactly bored, it definitely dragged in places. However because the characters are interesting and the writing and acting strong, it's actually pretty good, and it's not churchy/religion-y but more philosophical I'd say so it has some intellectual interest. However, it definitely gets touched by an angel in places and I really wish someone had taken that crap out. It wasn’t enough to ruin the show but it's definitely there. So I don't know. It's not Borgen, but it's also not bad and at least is aiming high so I'll give it credit for that. If you’re in the mood for a smart, moderately-paced family drama without wrestling (see Heels above) and are willing to put up with some religion stuff in exchange for smart writing, I’d say this is worth considering - and if you enjoy religious stuff in shows, then there’s a good chance you’ll think this show is really great.
Movies:
Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel Universe #10) - So I did not start off loving this movie at all; in fact I had deep and abiding concerns that I'd be DNF'ing and would then have to announce that here on Media Report and oh the shame! So I am just delighted to state that that did not happen (oh the pride!). Confession, though: I realized upon watching the first 10ish minutes that I'd actually done exactly that once before when it first came out - watched and DNF'ed though with zero shame (have I ever felt shame?) - so the first thing to note is that the initial 10/20 minutes of this movie totally suck. It's a children's cartoon, as if someone watched the cantina scene in the original Star Wars (sorry A New Hope) and decided to make an entire movie based on that goofy stupid tone with equally stupid creatures that are super funny and engaging if you're, like, 10, but otherwise painfully dull. Also, because it wouldn't be a Marvel movie if there weren't a White person in the lead, Chris Pratt does that thing, that incredibly irritating movie trope thing I HATE which is where the character acts all blase and cracks jokes in a life-or-death situation in order to telegraph to us that they're so super amazing and totally in control which is just annoying because really isn't it more interesting to see someone who's smart about a situation and, like, understands they can die and makes plans to avoid that? Okay so after suffering, yes suffering, through all of that, somehow the movie turned around and became nonstop gummy heaven genius! I have absolutely no understanding whatsoever how any of this relates to the prior Marvel movies nor does anyone bother to explain, so if you're hoping to find that in my plot description, well please let me know if you do because I have no idea.
So Chris Pratt is basically a non-spaceship-owning Han Solo as per the cantina reference above - or something like; he steals (recovers?) items, but in a sassy way, on behalf of other people though really I'm not 100% on that. In any event, he takes some orb that a super baddy totally wants for reasons that I'm sure make complete sense if you did your graduate degree (from elementary school) in Marvel Universe Studies but I don't know what it does or why, just that it's something no baddy should have. So after acquiring the orb, Chris Pratt goes to some other planet where a green woman (and is she somehow connected to the Hulk or did the Marvel Universe just run out skin colors?), who's been sent by the Big Bad to get the orb from Chris Pratt, attacks him, only her attack is interfered with by a bounty hunting raccoon and his big walking tree heavy who also want Chris Pratt. And, no, that last part is not the product of gummy brain - or at least not my gummy brain - but rather what happened in the movie. And I think it’s worth noting that one White dude, a raccoon, a tree, and a green woman is most multicultural diverse lead cast I've seen in a Marvel movie to date, so this movie has that going for it too.
The four of them form some kind of team where initially the green woman wants Chris Pratt's orb (which I don't think is a metaphor but maybe?) and the other two want Chris Pratt - again, it's all very Star Wars what with the bounty hunters and could I possibly be too lazy to Google and see which one was written first presuming this movie was based on some comic of yesteryear? yes, I'm that lazy! - and they all wind up in some kind of prison and there's a prison break and something with the orb and everyone's a reluctant team and a huge battle to defeat the bad guy plus some explanation about what's going on that I completely didn't understand. I will just say this: once the first 15ish minutes are over, this thing is nonstop thoroughly entertaining insanity. I have no idea but it looks like literally the entire film other than the human actors was 100% CGI and between that and the sound mix, it all felt like being in a ridiculous two-ish hour videogame. Unlike with the other Marvels, there's zero subtext in this one and seemingly zero relation to anything else since the others took place on Earth and people mostly seemed to have powers of some kind whereas in this one Earth isn't even a part of it except in a brief flashback, and I don't know what Chris Pratt's superpower is other than being quippy and frankly the raccoon did it better. I'm sure there will be some sexism, racism, heteronormativism, gender stereotyping, and, if we're lucky, mid-length bobs in future films but this one was just some straight-up goofball popcorn entertainment about absolutely nothing other than its Star Wars-stolen (or, alternatively, reclaiming what Star Wars stole) plot and I got zero complaints about that.