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Rotten: Big Bird (2018)
"Big Bird" Lays a Colossal Egg
When the fourth episode of the Netflix docuseries "Rotten", titled "Big Bird", the opening statements made me question the validity of every "truth" that was "revealed" in the previous episodes. It also made me wonder about the last two episodes, "Milk Money", and "Cod is Dead".
In the opening of "Big Bird", the narrator's first statement is, "There are no wild chickens."
A poultry farmer then chimes in, "These birds do not feed themselves. They do not move to fresh pasture or clean out the poultry house. The farmer has to do that."
The narrator goes on to say, "Until the dawn of the 20th century, this animal did not exist."
To say the least, at that point the "Big Bird" episode goes from being a documentary about chicken to become an albatross.
In show biz vernacular; with the "Big Bird" episode, Netflix laid a colossal egg.
Each of the opening statements by the narrator, and the first sentence and a half out of the poultry farmer's mouth are patently false. Anyone who knows anything about animals and has owned live chickens knows it.
The first and third statements quoted above, "There are no wild chickens," and "Until the dawn of the 20th century, this animal did not exist." are preposterous and show the writers' lack of research or complete disregard for the facts for the sake of dramatizing the episode's point.
The fact of the matter is that there are, and have always been wild chickens. The Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus), Grey Jungle Fowl (Gallus sonneratii), Green Jungle Fowl (Gallus varius), and Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl (Gallus lafayettii) are the four wild birds of the genus Gallus. They're wild chickens.
The Red Jungle Fowl is the direct ancestor of today's domesticated chickens, though there has been deliberate cross-breeding among the four genera. All four genera still thrive in the wild today.
The Red Jungle Fowl are dead ringers for today's domesticated "game chickens". Domesticated chickens with yellow skin and legs are the product of cross-breeding the Red and Grey Jungle Fowl. Red Jungle Fowl have dark legs.
The habitat range of the Red Jungle Fowl in the wild is from India to southeast Asia, and southward to Indonesia. They have been known to inhabit that area for at least 3,000 years.
The Grey Jungle Fowl's natural habitat in the wild is mainly in the Indian Peninsula but extends into Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and south Rajasthan.
The Green Jungle Fowl's natural habitat in the wild is Java, Bali, Lombok, Komodo, Flores, Rinca and small islands linking Java with Flores, Indonesia. It was also introduced onto the Cocos (Keeling) Islands where there is a small wild population.
Domesticated chickens can now be found worldwide except in the Arctic and Antarctica.
Chickens first appeared in Indian artwork around 500 B.C., and is depicted in Persian fabric designs that date to 600 A.D.
Chickens were common in the Middle East in Christ's day, and eggs were part of people's diet in that era (1-34 A.D.). This is evidenced by Christ's questions in Luke 11:11-12: "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?"
The second statement, made by the chicken farmer, that "These birds do not feed themselves. They do not move to fresh pasture..." is also false.
Anyone who has owned chickens or has seen them in a free range setting knows that chickens forage wide areas of pasture, meadows, farmyards, and wooded areas for seeds, grain, insects, and worms. They are perfectly capable of and have the intelligence to feed themselves and to teach their chicks how to forage, how to incorporate grit in their diets, etc. They are not confined to one specific area, but forage over a wide area for food, adding "fresh pasture" to their range when necessary.
So, with the first three statements in the opening of "Big Bird", which are completely false, the credibility of the episode and all involved in its production was destroyed; and it caused me to seriously doubt the accuracy and "truth" of the information presented in every other episode of the docuseries.
Supergirl (2015)
Unrealistic Scripting for Male Characters
I was looking forward to a series in the vein of "Arrow" or "The Flash", where men are men, women are women, and both have more or less appropriate behavioral responses. I also expected emotional responses to be true to gender. The fact of the matter is, men and women's emotional reactions to any given situation are different in key ways.
I don't know if the script writer for the Winn Schott and James Olsen characters was female, or if the characters are supposed to be gay, closet transsexuals, just effeminate, or suffering from either an overdose of estrogen or a serious deficiency of testosterone. What I found in the first season of Supergirl were men who cry or go into a tizzy when they get a little bit flustered, or get all teary-eyed when they wax sentimental; and who approach virtually every subject from a woman's perspective, and whose general demeanor are not masculine at all, as if they had been neutered and given estrogen hormone therapy.
To the writers' credit, the male villains' parts are somewhat masculine, but I think that reflects more on a sexist attitude toward men rather than writing skills or any understanding of human behavior.
It seems that the male villains are the only men in the entire production with any masculine traits; and they are portrayed as psychotic murderers and out of touch military officers who are more concerned with making a military career than protecting the people.
Overall, whoever is writing the male characters' parts seems to have a frail grasp--fundamental misconceptions--of male behavior and what motivates men to react as they do in any given situation.
If it was just one of the male characters who was acting strangely, I would just attribute it to that character's personality; but that isn't the case. Every male character in the story line who is not a villain has the same feminine behavior issues. They act like feminized eunuchs.
I think the series would be better served if men wrote all the male characters' parts, and women wrote all the female characters' parts; men and women who have an objective clue as to how real world men and women behave; and not the skewed, unrealistic views of someone with a misandric sexist agenda.
I really want to like this show, and I believe I could if the male characters and their dialogue and behavior were more realistic. I see that the next two seasons are already done. I'm hoping that somewhere among those episodes Jimmy Olsen and Winn Schott's testosterone kicks in, and they begin acting and talking like real men instead of emotional adolescent girls. That may have worked for Jimmy Olsen when he was an overly-eager cub photographer; but it doesn't work for a 30-something James Olsen; not in this or any universe.
It's a Joke, Son! (1947)
One of the funniest movies I've seen to date
Senator Beauregard Clanghorn is the real-life fictional character from whom Mel Blanc created the barnyard politician Foghorn Leghorn.
If you don't laugh at this movie and the outrageous humor of Beauregard Clanghorn, then you're either dead and don't know it; or you're taking life way too seriously--and isn't that the point of the whole movie?
Someone said that the movie may not be "politically correct." Well, to heck with "political correctness"! That's just a bunch of plastic people imposing plastic rules for a plastic world.
There's nothing plastic about "It's a Joke, Son!" or Beauregard Clanghorn--and there's nothing plastic about uproariously funny comedy. Good comedy is neither politically correct nor incorrect. It is just something that makes you laugh when you need it.
Whoever said, "Laughter is the best medicine," certainly knew what he was talking about; and "It's a Joke, Son!" is GOOD medicine--even in the 21st Century! You ca--I say, you can bank on that!