Santino?

The difference is that “grow some balls” is a figure of speech. Okay, I get that some sensitive people could still find it offensive, especially since figures of speech and humor aren’t always well transmitted over the internets.

But Santino’s post condemning all of “gay cinema” is actually a so-called analysis on his part. To paint the entire range of “gay cinema” as in utter disarray and to begin the whole post with an LOL shows his utter disrespect. Considering the likes of near-universally acclaimed filmmakers like Tsai Ming-liang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul who are both gay and make gay-themed films, the post shows both Santino’s ignorance and contempt for the gay community.

A huge difference. Thanks for asking.

I think the expression should be – “grow a pair of reproductive organs of unspecified gender” though clunky at first, I believe with practice it can roll off the tongue.

Grow a pair of reproductive organs of unspecified gender!!!

Y’all happy now? Stop crying.

I think instead of “stop crying” you need to say “stop crying, though there is nothing wrong with crying”

That poor guy’s appendage is now larger! It has been reported that he’s been offered a free operation but is scared to go ahead because of the risk that apparently he might lose everything and perhaps even die so in the meantime he totes the weary load….aagh have we got problems??! nuh:) Re Santino from all accounts he was becoming a less vexatious forum member through his various incarnations, maybe he will come back one day as a Perfect Being (akin to Kenji:):) so let not the good be interred with his bones!!… It has been said on this thread that people on forums should treat others with the same respect etc they do in real life, but what of the squillions of people who do not treat others thus in real life, what can we expect from them on forums? Not much, and they will be encountered of course. It’s all grist for the mill I think and great material to reflect on feelings others bring up and extract from us and what that means in our own inner world and development around matters of tolerance, finding our voice, putting boundaries in place against bullies or just people we feel very impatient with or on a higher plane to, more knowledgeable than… Isn’t cinema so often about tolerance persecution compassion reconciling to the imperfect nature of man, forgiveness healing etc, what do we learn from it if not these things and to deal with them first hand. So there’s nothing wrong with anything that happens on a forum , it is what it is and it’s all an opportunity for better things. Re that post on Weekend, I read it without emotional encumbrance from past painful engagement and cannot say I found it derogatory to gays, more to the specific film Weekend perhaps, and the opinion that in his observation film makers do not apportion the same level of gravitas, sophistication and evolution to gay relationship narratives as to straight, (and I think we can agree that gay cinema can be respectfully used to describe cinema focused on the lives of gay people, no?) I do, shoot me….

i’m going to have to agree with pretty much every point Blue made.

and i’m going to have to say: Oxy, i respect your opinion and your attempt to defend your friend “santino” but seriously, lighten up. “grow some balls” offends you? how you never heard or used the terms “fuck” or “bitch” or “bastard?” all of those terms are offensive and thrown around lightly on this site.

at it’s core “grow some balls” can be seen as sexist, but it’s also a slang/colloquialism. we’re here to have fun and discuss cinema, but when someone as close minded as Santino/Fredo cancels his account and some of us long standing members of the auteurs—including you— aren’t upset about it, what’s the use of you arbitrarily quoting our own “offensive language” at us and getting butt-hurt (oops did that colloquialism offend you too?) about it? Santino obviously was nice to you, and i apologized earlier for my ‘grow a pair’ comment but sometimes a member that is nice to some is a real big asshole to others, and Santino was nothing more than condescending, offensive, and disrespectful to me. i’m sorry, but i tried to understand where you’re coming from, but attacking Blue the way you did by calling him (indirectly, but still calling him) asinine and sexist was uncalled for. Honestly, from those comments you sound like Santino.

Meg, i agree with you on some points, but i was in that thread about Weekend and the tread about The Descendants and Santino was horribly offensive in both of them.

if someone, preferably Oxy (though he left the convo for good) could explain to me how ‘grow a pair’ is more offensive then countless other colloquial idioms i’ve read on this site that where shrugged off with a laugh as they should’ve been such as ‘white men can’t hang’, ‘never send a man to do a woman’s job’ or countless others i’m all ears. Idioms are much different than ‘asinine sexist comments’ and i don’t see why anyone on this site can’t take some light humor.

For the record, i’m still not happy that Santino left, i may not have liked him but he added a lot to this community, and i love each and everyone one of you MUBIans dearly. I’m not trying to start a quarrel with you Oxy, i’m just merely curious why you jumped on Blue for that comment out of the countless comments i’ve seen plenty of other users make in other threads

Give Oxy a break. He’s coming from a place of pure intentions, and he’s a great guy, hands-down. If he’s clashing with some of the things said on this thread, it may be because he comes from a generation that’s not as used to treating people with disrespect as mine is.

And there’s a lot I’m not saying but my own issues with Fredo stem from his behavior during DiB’s Top 20 game and his role in the muzzling of Dimitris. Falderal and Blue have been honest, even if you disagree with their style.

sorry, JR, i’m not trying to be disrespectful, just honest.

and DiBs top 20 is where my problems started with him as well.

Is there a particular reason that there isn’t an “Ignore This User” option on MUBI like there is on IMDB? Of course MUBI is no where near as bad as IMDB, but perhaps just having the option available, even if they don’t use it, would satiate some forum members.

Captain, there is a pseudo-“Ignore this User” option that really doesn’t work, it only keeps people from following you, not hiding their comments from those who have no wish to see them.

yeah, maybe when mubi moves out of beta that will be an option. also…how long has mubi been in beta now?! lololololol

I don’t know Santino/Fredo so for all I know he could be a total douche bag, (though so could anybody, he seemed fine in the posts that I read) but regardless, isn’t reading too far into an off-hand internet forum post and concluding “ignorance and contempt for the gay community” the same thing as someone taking a joke too seriously and concluding “ignorance and contempt for the female community”.

I mean, come on. People like to get riled up so they read what they want often times. Everyone has issues that are “oh so dear” to them that might mean fuck all to the next guy, so what? How far are you gonna get if you hold insane grudges and call for blood every time someone steps on the toes of your own personal little worldview.

So to Santino who threw a hissy fit and left (again) I would say grow a pair get some thicker skin, but I would also say the same thing to the people “offended” by Santino’s Weekend remarks (yes he was generalizing, no he wasn’t marching in a hate parade) or to people offended by the expression “grow a pair.”

“Considering the likes of near-universally acclaimed filmmakers like Tsai Ming-liang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul who are both gay and make gay-themed films, the post shows both Santino’s ignorance and contempt for the gay community.”

agree, but i would have had less of a problem with it if he said ‘generally speaking, gay films are pretty lame and get acclaim due to their subject matter, and T.M.L and A.W are exceptions’, even if that isn’t an opinion i would completely agree with, although there are certain politics involved when it comes to ‘fringe’ cinema.

Let’s face it, when you are into gay cinema, you are already operating from a position of scarcity. It’s not so extreme to suggest that, as a result of this aforementioned problem, that films that are better than most will get more acclaim because of it. Directors like Tsai and Apichatpong are like big fish in a small pond, and they are often considered ‘too good’ to be compared alongside other contemporary gay film makers. Although they are gay directors, their scope is much wider, even if their films have gay themes, whether explicit or not, and this is especially the case with Apichatpong.

Having said that, it also depends on one’s experience with gay cinema. Most of the gay films i saw back in the day where either lame ‘confrontational’ films that tried hard to be ‘shocking’, or really shitty comedies.

I agree that Santino’s dismissal was a little too casual and arrogant however, esp considering that he probably hasn’t seen much gay cinema anyway, and that it’s important for gays to express themselves in ways that run counter to the narrow and dominant forms of representation in the cultural mainstream. To not recognise the importance of dismantling stereotypical forms of represenation in this context is just ignorant.

Funny how the “Sally left” thread has 5 posts and this thread 165 posts – that must reflect the ratio of popular film vs challenging film post count.

Somebody left. Somebody joined. The painted ponies are still going up and down, aren’t they?

Joni Mitchell is always right.

1) If you’re offended by the phrase “grow some balls” because you think it’s sexist, then you’re basically just a stock feminist character that people make fun of on TV shows. It’s a phrase. Stop being stupid.
2) “When someone consistently follows me and attacks me unprovoked while knowing my real name and looking me up on other websites, I no longer feel comfortable or safe visiting this site.” This is someone who needs to grow some balls. Someone knows your ACTUAL REAL LIFE NAME AND speaks poorly of you?! Wow, what a terrible situation to be in. Next thing you know they could do something really out of line like send you a rude e-mail. O_O
3) Everything about this situation and discussion is retarded.

It is quite a thing. Blue and I don’t travel much in the same mubi circles, but I scarcely remember a post (from the topics I have managed to run into his posts) where he is not talking about either being drunk, his penis, balls or shit.

Here’s a perspective on the tone of some things said recently from the point of view of a moderator.

The phrase that jumps out at me from the forum guidelines is this “most importantly we want a friendly place where your opinions and your passion are welcome”

So we want both a place that is FRIENDLY and where OPINIONS AND PASSIONS ARE WELCOME. So the caveat is that the only opinions that are not welcome are opinions that the forum should be anything other than this.

So please, anytime you post in the forum, please consider these two things. Is the tone of your post being distinctly friendly or is it unfriendly? Are you being welcoming of another person’s opinions and passions?

Now often we will identify people who are not being friendly or who are not being welcoming of other people’s opinions and passions. This often upsets us, and we have an urge to act in like kind. The solution is not to act in like kind or we will get a regression of these standards all over the forum.

If it gets to a point where you feel like you can no longer deal with a person being unfriendly or unwelcoming without being so yourself, the solution is to let a moderator know. Give us all of the relevant information and make a suggestion of how to handle it, and we will do our best to look it over. We are not perfect, and if you feel like we personally ever are being unfriendly or unwelcoming please let us know that as well.

That’s just the way it’s set up here. If you disagree with it and you want to express that by somehow contraditing yourself and being friendly and welcoming when you do so, please feel free to. If you want a forum where you can openly attempt to ostracize people you don’t like, then please feel free to create those groups in other forums on other websites. I know many people have an urge that they feel can only be satisfied by talking disparagingly about people they don’t like here, and while I’m not a proponent of it, if that’s what you need to do to keep those kinds of comments off of the forum here then please do that.

I know that may seem to many people like we are taking the fun out of the forum here. It doesn’t have to be. If you know certain people well and your way of having fun with each other is to feign ridiculing each other in crass ways, I have no problem with that. The problem is when it gets directed at other users who understandably may not find it to be friendly or welcoming.

This is not a judgement of anyone. It’s not directed at anyone in particular either. Just a perspective on the goal of these forums.

I love you all.

Blue started the Criterion penis-tattoo topic

Eating Raoul or Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

Was Santino really a shill? Was he a cog in the machine?

ha, that thread…I told that terrible joke about Wendy. Kenji’s was the best answer (bottom of page 3) at the risk of belabouring the point I’d just like to say I don’t have much time for the grow some balls response because it seems quite closed and boring to me, bound to exacerbate the row/alienate further and you learn nothing much about the other person. What am I doing to myself when I do that? i think I really limit myself….Agree with Axel and would add that we are all – well most except the very evolved – more likely to notice being disrespected than when being disrespecting/ful. ( eg using that unfortunate man’s image to make a point here I thought was disrespectful, what would we say if he came on here to lodge a complaint about that, tell him to…?) so it’s a matter of degree and subjective just what should attract the grow some balls response and what should not and so it rolls on.

For the record, I think “grow some balls” is offensive, although not any more or less offensive than the countless other potentially sexist aphorisms pointed out by Brentos. Normally I don’t say anything about it, since it’s normally a discussion that doesn’t go anywhere (although it is kind of fun :P), and because I doubt the people using it are really sexists. It’s a phrase, and I know how to live with it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is kind of sexist. I think the reason Oxy picked it out is because this is a pretty high-tension thread, and because that phrase is a little grosser than the others.

Also, I don’t think Santino’s comments about gays or Hawaiians were particularly offensive. Yeah, they’re arrogant and misguided, but I really doubt that Santino hates gays, for the same reason that I doubt that Blue or Brentos hate women.

…So that’s the perspective of a feminist with extremely thick skin. I love you guys! :)

I hope I get a going away party like this when I leave.

YES! Greatest post ever.

Well, that was interesting. This whole thing has made me wonder just who we might be interacting with around here sometimes. There seems to be some Jekyl and Hyde characters. Looks like it’s only a matter of time before there’s a news item reporting on some mubi regular who’s gone on a killing spree at a cinema or something.

Wait a minute…

“…I scarcely remember a post (from the topics I have managed to run into his posts) where he is not talking about either being drunk, his penis, balls or shit.”

I think you finally found a replacement for your best friend, Vanselow!

I hope I get a going away party like this when I leave.

YES! Greatest post ever.

i second that doofoo!

Although I had no intention of posting again to this thread, I am just responding to Brentos comments above as to why I was ‘offended’ by Blue’s comments. I thought it was clear when I first posted my reactions to the comment that I consider the term ‘grow some balls’ as a disrespectful and dismissive way to treat anyone’s actions when they close an accoint, complain about harassment, or are ridiculed by someone. I explained that this very expression has been directed toward me, especially when I said I needed to close my account to get rid of a very persistent and irritating troll. Sure, my actions were dismissed as ‘grow some balls’. So, I guess I’m a bit sensitive to how dismissive this term is. Also, I consider it sexist because you would NOT direct it at a female member who might complain about derogratory behavior or close their account.

However, Blue and others now are taking this to mean that I am intolerant of any type of remark just because it has some crude overtones. Completely off the mark. I’m just pointing out that the term is generally used dismissively around here. Instead of just ridiculing anyone’s complaint by telling them to ‘grow some balls’, if you thought about it, it just might have some legitimacy. Otherwise, it seems you have no sympathy for their position at all if that’s all you can say to them.

I could care less about this term, but still think it is used here AGAINST anyone who makes any type of complaint about their treatment here by others. I am for dialogue, trying to understand reasons. I don’t think the term or any comtemptive tone directed at another member is productive of this.

If my onw words are considered too harsh, I apologize. As House said, I come from a generation that was taught to be respectful to everyone – which I generally try to be whenever I can.

I’m sorry that this has now become a side issue when there are many other far more important things to talk about in a forum that seems to be increasingly more divisive. Again, I apologize to anyone who thinks any of my comments have just stirred things up. I withdraw my remarks – all my remarks – from this thread if they are just going to cause more problems.

I’m taking a break from Mubi, because I badly need one.

thanks for the clarification Oxy, didn’t mean any offense to you. I haven’t had much interaction with you personally on this site, but plenty of people whom i have have vouched for you, and you seem like a great guy.

Hope your break from mubi helps, but hope it doesn’t last too long! we can’t afford to lose all of our valuable members :P