missiknoweverything

I did call it when I said it was a male fantasy. But perhaps I was too kind with my diagnosis of propaganda. Dhurandhar is, in all ways, the BJP's most efficient way to gaslight and manipulate the Indian audience to believe a revised version of real-life events. It can no longer claim to be 'based on true events', a 'documentary' or a 'creative interpretation' of reality. It is far-right, Hindutva propaganda that is the most effective of its kind so far because it has established popularity and reach far beyond its predecessors. I suppose one should congratulate Aditya Dhar; he has marked a new era of cinema in which public faces and places are no longer secretly celebrated, but rather lauded by the masses. But you might be confused as to why I'm crying propaganda.  Well, if you read my Dhurandhar 1 review, while I criticized the film, I did actually enjoy it for what it tried to be. But I also pointed out its glaring flaws. Mainly, the political sentime...

Since everyone is throwing in their two cents about the recent Manon situation, I figured I'd add my paise in there too.  Katseye is a mess. And it was from the start. They were literally manufactured to be an 'International Girl Group'. Which is not really that weird, considering some of the most recent disbanded bands in pop were also manufactured, like 1D, Fifth Harmony, Little Mix, etc. The difference is that they were trained under the K-pop system by HYBE, a known K-pop industry giant, and Geffen, a label under Universal Music. But besides that, the girls were set up from the beginning.  They were put on a survival show, against their knowledge, and forced to compete to get a spot in the group against many other girls, and their experience was used as footage to later entertain the masses on Netflix. Dream Academy, the aforementioned competition, was basically, like any reality show, a breeding ground to pit both the girls against each other to 'make it', and ...

Because it tried to be real.  The operating word there being tried . Now, don't get me wrong, I do think Dhurandhar was about as real as Bollywood allowed it to be, but that in and of itself was a big leap. See, while Hollywood and the likes have had 'realistic' spy flicks that attempted to depict spycraft as...an actual craft, Bollywood made the active choice to remain unserious and entertaining. I used the words 'active choice' because that's exactly what it was and still is, a money move made to get the quick bucks. The Indian audience is, in the mind of corporate film overlords, simple-minded creatures who don't crave for depth. Give them a two-hour-long melodrama with a few superstars, and the seats are booked the moment the trailer is released. While the outside world had their Bond's and Bourne's and Hunt's, we had flicks that refused to actually be anything other than a serial B-plot or worse, propaganda (something Dhurandhar also isn...

We've officially reached two years!!!  MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO! Thank you to everyone who read (or pretended to) the blog for this long. I'm not the best at updating and posting so I appreciate the love all the same. I know that last year I made quite the cow-pedia post to celebrate 1 year so it'll be tough to beat. This year I've decided to celebrate with fictional cows. We should also learn to embrace the non-existent, unrealistic parts of the cattle too!  If this is perchance your first foray into my blog, this both a true and false depiction of the content I make.  * Honorable mention to special somebody I found before we start.... This absolute diva over here is none other than 🎉 Millie the cow 🎉 My cartoon twin. If I had never ventured onto this strange Wikipedia/fandom wiki search I might never have crossed paths with her. She's spectacular.  1. Benny (from Dora the Explorer) Now, Benny here is a bull but we don't (usually) discriminate so it's a...

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” ―  Plato It is said that education is the distinction between being the future and remaining a relic of the past. As centuries pass, societies evolve and human beings adapt, so do the systems that are meant to inform and teach. But have we perhaps, in the vast and never ending journey towards purpose, lost the ideals that shaped what it meant to be a student?  Yes, we have grown beyond the ancient ways of sitting under a tree and being lectured about the ways of life and yes a collective of Greek men debating about the intricacies of human nature no longer holds ground because everyone is a philosopher due to the internet, but what of the pupil? What of the young minds that governments, parents and society seek to educate? Do they still receive the basic knowledge that any citi...

The commercialization of literature has reached an all-time low. This has been the case for a hot minute now and people have been talking about it but with the advent of everything that is occurring the international scene, it is an important conversation now more than ever.  If you're part of a reading space or community, or heck you just like listening to people talk about books, it is impossible to miss the criticisms that have been flinging left and right about the state of contemporary literature. This critique does not stem from a particular genre or author, no. It's roots have taken hold to big publishing houses, literary censorship, marketing and lack of creativity. This is a problem. And when it affects a whole field, best believe it will have consequences for you too.  Publishing as a field has been in a slump because for every one or two well-written books, you get fifty of the same half-effort, poorly written novels that exclusively either romance or fantasy (or bo...