The Four Color Media Monitor

The Cyprus Mail interviewed a native of Mexico running a comics store in Nicosia, and she gave signs of being very unfortunately filled with political correctness. She's also quite influenced by punk subculture:

Talking to Ivy Payiatsou – Ivy Yasmin Payiatsou Villalvazo, to give her full name – is an entertainment in itself. It makes no difference what we talk about, whether it’s comic books or Halloween or her own addictive personality (or darker stuff, like being a survivor of an abusive relationship), it becomes a whole production. She strikes poses, does funny voices; she’s hyperactive. Her hair is green, her tongue pierced, her arms a tattooed jungle of flowers, birds and snakes. “I have fun with horror,” she says, and waggles her eyebrows like a geek-Goth Groucho.

I also dread when somebody thinks the horror genre is a true masterpiece above all else. I think it's terrible she experienced a bad relationship, but it doesn't explain why she chose to embrace horror themes like these. I'd honestly think it's counterproductive, and doesn't make things much better. Surprisingly enough, based on her past experience, she does take offense at scenes of sexual violence on TV:

She still gets triggered by TV shows, especially rape scenes but even harassment – “even a woman harassing a man”, played for comedy in Norsemen on Netflix, made her totally lose it. Years into therapy, around the time when she was starting to date Umut, “I was in a bar, I was drinking water and someone – I don’t remember what was said by this very ignorant man” (it was something about women being weak, and deserving all they get) – “I remember I just put the glass down and I’m shaking, and I’m like ‘I’m not OK’. And I remember just screaming, I’m crying and I’m screaming in this bar, and everybody just froze, and I’m trying to open the door – and it’s like ‘I can’t open the door!’. I just pushed it and I ran into the street, I just found a little corner and I could not stop crying.”

Well at least she understands what's wrong with Netflix. Such a pretentious film streaming channel and site, if I do say so myself, and what she describes is surely just the beginning of all that's wrong them. Yet she still remains accepting of political correctness:

There’s a posh British voice, talking of the private kindergarten she once attended: “It was veddy fancy”. There’s a squeaky ethereal voice, representing 16-year-old Ivy when she first passed by Ant Comics: “I was like ‘What is this shop? Hmmm, I see liiiights’”. (At the time she was madly into vampires, though definitely not Bella and Edward: “Do not talk about Twilight, I hated Twilight!… Can we talk about Bela Lugosi [the original Dracula in the 1931 film], he was a beautiful man.”) There’s a dopey voice, like a deep-throated chicken, representing some random guy who complained to her that “‘Oh, comic books now, it’s full of SJWs’. I’m like ‘Bruh! Is this the first time you’ve picked up a comic book? Comic books were always political!’ They were always political, from the get-go. Pick up X-Men, we’re talking about mutants” – Ivy inclines her head, giving me a conspiratorial look from behind her round glasses: “Are we really talking about mutants?”.

She is indeed political – and woke, for want of a better word. “I am a stern believer that art should educate,” says her bio at Calavera de Miel, a statement that sits somewhat incongruously with her goofy persona. “Art should put in motion changes in our society.” You’ll indeed find Batman at Ant Comics, even My Little Pony – but also comics “from feminist theory, LGBTQI+, how to use pronouns. Some historical stuff, WWII, what happened in the Soviet Union…”

Well gee, of course they've always been political in some way or other. The problem is that most leftists like these refuse to admit their brand of politics is turning off even some of the liberal crowd themselves, and they, along with some right-wingers, admittedly, don't always know how to clearly explain what's gone wrong, or what exact politically motivated elements are the turnoff. Should it come as eyebrow-raising that she puts an emphasis on Batman to boot, rather than Superman? Darkness, once again, takes significant space in these press articles, sadly enough. It's also inexplicable why she doesn't consider Netflix has been embracing much of the ideologies she does for a while now, which has only made their channel worse. And then, she continues the SJW angle:

Emotional repression doesn’t sit well with Ivy Payiatsou, whether in a bad relationship or later, in talking about it (and talking in general; she’s done loads of podcasts with other stalwarts of the geek community). She’s not – let’s be clear – a man-hater, indeed the taboos are probably worse for men: “You have that stupid toxic masculinity just building up,” she sighs, “and I’m like ‘Dude, it’s okay to cry’. And they break down”. It’s even worse for LGBT folk, “they’re suffering a lot”, and bad for young people too, who find no obvious outlet for their feelings. “There’s a lot of – woo-hoo-hoo,” she says, meaning roughly ‘pain and mayhem’, “there’s a lot of built-up stuff, I can see it, that it’s a volcano ready to burst. And it sucks. Because I’ve seen that volcano bursting within me, and I don’t want someone to have to go through that.”

Another groaner. Even if she's not anti-male, I can't understand why she brings up the "toxic masculinity" smear that was commonplace a number of years ago, and is still in use by various leftist propaganda outfits even now. And LGBT folk are only sufferers, not among those causing the world's suffering? Over here in Israel, there was a scandal just last week involving a left-wing screenwriter/activist who was accused of homosexual rape of at least 2 boys who were under 18 at the time he assaulted them. He's now under investigation and had to resign his position in some activist groups. But if she does believe LGBT are suffering, is she aware of what they go through in an Islamic regime like Iran?

I think it's a shame when people like these are elevated to the voice of geekdom, because it's honestly embarrassing, and doesn't represent pop culture fandoms as a whole. And some people think it's bad enough when fanboys are accused of all being "unwashed" and "living in their mom's basement". This is no better.

Labels: Europe and Asia, golden calf of LGBT, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, politics, sales, violence