LowerTheTone.com

Unless you in a coma for the last a few years or dead, the whole planet knows that the man who succeeding in becoming the new president of the U. S. and A, is black. In the run up to the election, the only thing that took away from that point was that one of his competitors was a woman. (And as far as I know she still is)

Politics and economic viewpoints aside, no one can deny that it was deemed to be a show of the advancing of maturity, a knock of the head for racism or sexism (or any ism’s you want to throw in) in that a woman and a black man could run for President in the US and as we know, Obama won. Yay for him. That aside, Ireland has had 2 female presidents, Pakistan has had a female leader and well, Maggie Thatcher led the UK for many years and her Spitting Image dummy entertained us throughout.

So while its good for the US, its not the first demonstration that people around the world can park their prejudices when it comes to important matters.

But then I picked up a news article here during the week about Obama’s meeting with Bush in the white house. The article in its second paragraph read:

“It was the first time that Mr Obama, the first black US president-elect in history, has set foot inside the Oval Office”.

Its been how long since Obama’s campaign started? Its been how long since he was announced victor? The article was about Obama first official meeting as President Elect with the outgoing President. I doubt that one of the items on the agenda was that Obama was black. So why do the media still feel a need to describe Obama as the first black president elect, particulary in articles that have nothing to do with race?

I dont believe the colour of someone’s skins is a political trait, maybe Im wrong? Robert Mugabe is black, yet he shares no other political qualities with Obama. Why dont the media describe Ireland’s current Minister for Health as “badly dressed and overweight minister for health” when posting articles about her?

Maybe Im being pedantic. Or maybe I’m naive. Or maybe I’m just ranting.

On a lighter note, I always found this clip from South Park episode on racism (Chef goes Nanners) to be very relevent. (Not the “Im attracted to Cartman bit”!)

Fanboys erupted during the week, and Alan Moore rolled his eyes as 2009′s “Watchmen” director, Zack Snyder confirmed that the ending of the movie is different from the novel. You may recall my origina article linked here, where there rumours abound, well those rumours have been confirmed by Snyder.

Synder in an interview claims that the ending had always been different from the novel in every draft of the script he read. He also debunked rumours that a number of endings were films and tested. He went on to say that he “embraced” the revised ending. Which of course he would, with the paycheck he’s getting to direct!

My own personal view on it is mixed. I’m not a purist when it comes to these things. Despite many discussions when Transformers was being released about the robots looking more like Lego Bionicles and exo-skeletons, I was of the belief that it was the best template given we dont live in 1980 something anymore.

However, when I read the graphic novel, there were themes and the pirate sub plot which I felt did carry great meaning when reviewed in context of the ending. Sure the ending is a bit of the wall and one of the arguments for the side who welcome the change is that its not a realistic/believable ending in the vein of the realism in the story up that point. My counter argument is that superhero blue men making themselves big and small at random, who take holidays on Mars, is no less realistic than the novel’s ending!

OK nerdyisms aside, Im not put off by a revised ending. I’m not the type to picket the cinemas with Fr. Ted “down with this sort of thing” banners. I do hope though, that one of the rumoured endings surrounding Dr. Manhattan does not come to fruition.

Maybe I am a nerd afterall?