Haha I had a stimboard to do at the time which was a character in the police force. I don’t remember which dude it was, but, if when I do requested boards I try to keep them thematically on point so I do my best to make stim gifs available to others wanting similar themes. Acab, tho. Fuck that shit.
“theyre homophobic but theyre good people!!!” hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. are they really. are they REALLY. are they. are theyr eally. Are the
“But they’re my family member!” “But they’re my friend!” Stop. If you call people out on here for homophobia and throw them onto a blocklist, how about you do the same to ^ them? And throw the trash away irl? Or confront them about it. Yeah, because your confidence and online persona is false. That proves it.
Take this as the ultimate lesson in “it’s not the dress, it’s how you wear it.”
To start with, the sexiest part of the dress was the nude illusion created with the fabric that matches Marilyn’s skin. Kim is much darker than the dress, and without the nude illusion it’s just a plain sparkly beige dress. Marilyn wore no underwear with the dress, but she didn’t need to because it was clearly custom-fit for her. She looks comfortable and natural. She’s able to move and give the dress some shimmy. Kim had to crash diet to lose 16 pounds, is wearing some industrial-strength support garments there, and she’s STILL packed into the dress like a sausage. There’s no ease, no sensuality, she looks like she’s trying to suck her gut in the whole time.
And then there’s just Marilyn herself. She just oozed with natural sexuality and charisma, it is so easy to see why she was just born to be a star. Nothing about Kim is easy or natural. No matter how much she denies it, she’s clearly gotten some help from plastic surgeons over the years, and she’s clearly worked at her stage presence and making herself interesting. It’s not that she isn’t charismatic or talented in her own right, it’s just that her kind of charisma is vastly different from Marilyn’s, and she’s trying to stuff herself into something that doesn’t fit, both literally and metaphorically.
also
it was WILDLY irresponsible of the museum that owns this dress to let her wear it?
she definitely had on makeup, lotions, perfume, and other substances that would play havoc with a decades-old silk gown. the weight of the beadwork and the stress and pressure of someone moving in the dress would put strain on the fabric. and I’m told she can be seen treading on the hem in red carpet videos
if it’s been decided that the garment is worth preserving, no spoiled heiress should get to endanger it just to play at being an icon
Did you see the gd stripper stilettos she was wearing to compensate for the fact she’s 4 inches shorter than Marilyn? Stilettos she could barely walk in?
I stared at the bottom of the dress the entire time she was on the red carpet positive she was about to punch a hole in the hem, trip and then tear it even further.
Do you have any idea how many vintage formal gowns I have curated with heel holes in the hem/train?
STILETTOS in a museum dress.
It was an abomination!
I was so flippin mad that this happened. She’s wearing a piece of history. And she doesn’t compare in the slightest to Marilyn. There’s just so goddamn much wrong with this, but this post says it much better than I ever could
imma say it. “kung fu panda” did more for body positivity and saying that you can be fat and still be healthy and liked than ANYTHING any beauty companies trying to get your money.
kfp also respects women more than any beauty company too.
It also did “letting go of physical attatchments” MUCH better than certain other franchises did, as @tyrantisterror can clarify.
Well I’m not really an expert on that subject but people have yelled at me about it a lot so I’ll try my best.
Ok so, as many tumblr Buddhists and Star Wars prequel apologists have informed me recently, “letting go of attachments” is supposed to mean that you don’t let your love for others or yourself to become obsessive. It’s sort of a combination “if you love it set it free” and accepting that bad things can happen without dwelling on them - an acceptance that you can’t be in control of everything, and that the world doesn’t revolve around you.
InKung Fu Panda 2, Po, compassionate and heroic though he may be, is weighed down by a great deal of anxiety about his life. He still isn’t sure if he really deserves to be treated as a hero, he discovers he was adopted and is filled with anxiety about his family, and just as he’s finally making friends with his fellow martial artists a threat rises that is trying to kill them all. Po’s friends, family, and very sense of self are threatened in this story.
His antagonist, Lord Shen, is a perfect foil for him. Shen was born into a wealthy family that was renowned for making fireworks, but wants to use that technology to make canons and guns - weapons that, in the world of this story, are unthinkably powerful - which he can then use to conquer all of China. He is warned that if pursues this scheme that a hero of black and white - a panda, he assumes - will rise to kill him. Rather than pursue a less horrible goal, Shen opts to wipe out all the Pandas in China. Horrified at what he has done, Shen’s parents exile him from their family home, and later die of grief.
Yet despite being given palpable evidence that his current course is wrong, Shen remains committed to his mad dream. He refuses to question the morality of his actions, or accept the consequences of it. He paints his parents as traitors who rebuked his love of him, believing that they were the ones who wronged him by exiling him rather than supporting his ambitions. After all, wouldn’t his plan have benefited them as well? Did they not see that he was trying to bring glory to his family, to increase their wealth and status? Did they not see how special and important and perfect he was?
Shen is definedby his attachments. He obsesses over what he feels he is owed, what he deserves, and is incapable of seeing any of his own actions as wrong as a result. He’s incapable of accepting the consequences of his mistakes, even when they cost him things he loves and values. Every setback he faces can’t be accepted as an accident or a result of his own mistakes - it HAS to be a result of other peoples’ faults, of some monstrous conspiracy to keep him from claiming his rightful place.
He assumes others think like this as well. When Po finally confronts Shen, Shen assumes Po would be furious and vengeful at him for, y’know, exterminating Po’s race. The fact that Po is unaware of their personal connection is amusing to him, and being the egotist that he is, Shen can’t help taunting Po about it.
When Po finally presses Shen to tell him what Shen knows about his family, Shen tells a horrible lie. “ Oh, you want to know so badly? You think knowing will heal you, eh? Fill some… crater in your soul? Well, here’s your answer: your parents didn’t love you.” Interestingly, this exact lie is what Shen has told himself to justify his actions - he knows how much it hurts to believe your parents hated you, how much of a betrayal that is, how much you suffer when someone you’re attached to does not share the sentiment, and tries to trick Po into suffering the same way.
Of course, we learn that this is false for both Po and Shen - Shen’s parents did love him, and were killed by the grief of what they allowed their son to become.
By Shen’s logic, Po should be consumed with grief and anger over what Shen has taken of him. Shen expects Po to be just as deranged and vicious as he is - he expects Po to be broken.
Instead, when Po learns the truth, including what Shen has taken from him, Po… let’s go. He let’s go of the sorrow. of the anger, of the grief. He let’s go because he knows he was loved and, more importantly, is loved. He let’s go because he knows that while there are bad times, there are also good times. He let’s go because he knows he can’t control the past. He can’t control what happened to his mother or to his people. He can’t control Shen’s actions. The past is history - it’s the here and now, the present, that matters. Po has people he loves and who loves him, and he has the opportunity to act on their behalf now.
Shen: How did you find peace? I took away your parents. Everything! I I– I scarred you for life!
Po: See that’s the thing, Shen. Scars heal.
Shen: No, they don’t. Wounds heal.
Po: Oh yeah. What do scars do? They fade, I guess?
Shen: I don’t care what scars do.
Po:You should, Shen. You gotta let go of that stuff from the past ‘cause it just doesn’t matter! The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now.
Even after learning everything that Shen has taken from him, Po tries to heal and teach Shen during their final battle. He doesn’t dwell on the grief, he doesn’t succumb to hatred, he simply tries to stop the violence by any means, the ideal way would be to change Shen’s mind rather than to kill him. Shen ultimately forces Po to fight back, and in the process kills himself. Shen was the warrior of black and white who spelled his own doom all along.
But Po isn’t the best example of a character letting go of attachments in the Buddhist sense that this series has to offer. No, the best, most literal example, would be Master Oogway.
In the first Kung Fu Panda movie, Oogway selects what is, essentially, an heir to his role as the ultimate master of Kung Fu. His choice is Po, which surprises everyone since Po is a big, out-of-shape noodle vender, and has no training in kung fu. Yet Oogway is confident that Po is the correct choice, even though everyone else, including his greatest student Master Shifu, insists it was an accident. “There are no accidents,” Oogway says to Shifu, “You must learn to let go of the illusion of control.”
Oogway’s final words to Shifu are to accept that, while we can affect important change in the world, we cannot control everything - that we have to work with what we are given, and accept that things will not go the way we expect or want them to. His plea for Shifu to believe in Po is also a plea to try and work with the situation as it is, instead of stubbornly trying to force it back into the plan that Shifu had concocted in his head.
And when Shifu agrees to do so, Oogway lets go in the exact way Buddha intended - he leaves the material plane and ascends to a higher existence.
InKung Fu Panda 3, Po briefly ascends to the same spiritual realm that Oogway currently resides in, and Oogway explains how he knew Po would live up to his legacy - how he saw the past, present, and future of Kung Fu in Po, and knew that the world would be safe in the panda’s hands. Oogway’s last attachment to the physical world was his concern for its safety in his absence, and since Po could and would ensure its safety, Oogway was finally ready to let go completely.
Completely letting go of attachments does not work for a traditional hero’s narrative, because the concept isn’t about heroism - it’s not meant to be, either. It’s a philosophy geared towards breaking the cycle of reincarnation, and transcending the problems of a mortal life. Letting go of attachments is what you do to prepare to die, not what you do to prepare for a fight with the Evil Empire.
But letting go of some attachments can be used in a heroic narrative, which is what the Kung Fu Panda series does. It applies Buddhist and Taoist philosophies to a heroic story in a way that makes sense and stays true to both, because it was written by people who are much smarter than George Lucas.
bro tf most people are snickering about sniddies here you got a full on heavily sourced essay on this….hello take my post???
“Evan was so terrified that he was gonna screw that (drunk) scene up, he was terrified! and after every take he would say ‘kill me, kill me, just get me an acting coach.’ He kept saying to me 'get me a coach, tell me what to do, why don’t you tell me exactly what to do because you will know all the things that I don’t know and if I’m bad just lie, just lie’ and I’m like 'Evan stop, stop torturing yourself’ and I didn’t want to say to him 'it’s perfect’ because then that can stop an actor exploring other avenues within the scene you know? if you say 'you’ve nailed it’ so I just kept saying 'it’s absolutely…you’re totally doing it, you’re doing all of it. Just keep doing more of it, just keep going, keep going, keep going’.
Yeah he hated himself, he was just beside himself and Craig and I were like 'what are we going to do?’ he like hates himself and doesn’t ever wanna act again, poor Evan. But I got the sense and I’ve never said this out loud and you may need to call Evan and verify it but I got the sense that he was always just a little bit terrified of me. I like to think I’m very good at putting people at their ease but I will confess that for the first few weeks of our shoot I did let him be just a little bit scared (host: You fucked with him a little bit?) I did a little bit and I’m not that method, I like to think I am not method…I don’t manipulate other actors, never. But actually I did a little bit, poor Evan 'oh that’s quite good for Mare and Zabel isn’t it because he’s supposed to be really scared of me’ and I just thought it’s actually quite, I can be nice to him later, if he just feels a bit freaked out now that’s gonna be good for his character and my character (laughs) I have never done that before ever, poor Zabes. But yeah we were partners, he (Evan) was fantastic, I loved working with him.”
Kate Winslet talking about working with Evan on The Watch podcast.
There is a lot to unpack here But I’m just going to say Evan’s complete lack of ego is both the sweetest thing about him but also the most worrying because it’s not so much lack of ego as a the complete absence of self esteem.
