What stage of capitalism is this?

Submitted by gjohnsit on Fri, 08/19/2022 - 12:45pm

I've never been a Kayne West fan. I never considered him to be completely sane, but this is...let's say, out-of-touch.

The rapper, now formally known as Ye, posted a black image with white text to his Instagram page on Friday. The post read: “Look to the children / Look to the homeless as the biggest inspiration for all design.”
West, 45, first launched his brand Yeezy in 2015 when the “Stronger” rapper partnered with Adidas to release his own line of Adidas Yeezy Sneakers. Since then, Yeezy has debuted a number of fashion collections at New York Fashion Week, and collaborated with brands like Balenciaga and GAP.

Ah yes. The homeless are legendary for their fashion sense. Who wouldn't want to be mistaken for a homeless person?

In response to West’s latest Instagram, fans were divided, with some applauding the rapper’s visions, while others suggested that he could do more to help those experiencing homelessness.
“Instead of using the homeless as inspiration for design, you should be helping them get out of homelessness,” one person wrote, while another said: “Sounds like exploitation of the powerless.”
“The irony is palpable,” someone else wrote.

That's what the powerless are for - to be exploited.
I remember reading about theme parties that the wealthy had during the Gilded Age where people were supposed to dress up as child factory workers and coal miners.
This is simply the next stage after that - profiting from the same elitist, out-of-touch, lack of empathy attitude.
However, Kayne West was not the first person to go down this road.

"As our designer traveled the cities of America, he witnessed the various ways in which people there lived on the streets and the knowledge they have acquired while doing so," the notes placed on each seat informed guests. "His observations of these so-called homeless or street people revealed that them [sic] to be full of clever ideas for covering the necessities of life."
The line sheet went on to congratulate the homeless for their inventiveness. Calling out the use of blankets as ingenious "coats for cold days," and garbage bags that "can double as waterproof boots when it rains." It also was a particular fan of "experimental sizing," implying that their baggy pants were just a fun way to play with proportions. Bad, right?

Then the models came out. They carried plastic bags full of clothing as they walked the catwalk wearing unfinished hems, layers of coats, and oversize pants. According to onlookers, models walked slowly, slumped over with their heads down.

N.Hoolywood used homelessness as inspiration at #NYFWM and it came off as fetishised & condescending at best https://t.co/SlHDOtMNXw

— Alan. (@alantoye) February 1, 2017

I applaud this effort at leaning-in to the collapse of civilization.

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fashion

homeless

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Fri, 08/19/2022 - 12:53pm

Speaking of Leaning-In

WashPost should change their masthead to "Democracy Died In Darkness".

Submitted by CB on Fri, 08/19/2022 - 1:36pm

It's end stage capitalism

It's when a relative few have accumulated so much of the wealth of a nation it leaves 99.999% of the population destitute and hungry, living hand to mouth for their existence. For their protection, the elites will be forced to live on inaccessible islands or in heavily fortified walled and gated enclaves. The only way for them to venture forth will be by disguising themselves as one of unclean masses in order to not be torn limb from limb and be turned into protein for the commoners soup kitchens.

Submitted by dystopian on Fri, 08/19/2022 - 7:11pm

pretty late stage

Hey GJ,

To get the full monty of understanding of the stage of capitalism this is, I think the way they are displayed at the GAP, says a lot as well. Like a homeless pile of clothes in a bag. Just perfect. Marketing. Aren't we clever?

We won't fix the homeless or housing problem, but will think of ways to capitalize on and financialize it.

—

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Submitted by gjohnsit on Fri, 08/19/2022 - 7:42pm

Your username is fitting for this thread

@dystopian Dystopian is right.
Just think about the number of people that had to sign off on this idea. The number of people that were getting paid six-figure salaries that thought that they were clever and said "This is a good idea."

Submitted by dystopian on Fri, 08/19/2022 - 9:50pm

exactly!

@gjohnsit Yeah gj, you know there was a bunch of gold-seal wallpaper involved... the focus groups must have been something...

—

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Submitted by Creosote. on Sat, 08/20/2022 - 5:45am

Meanwhile the man who set up A-monopoly

@dystopian @dystopian
will be trying out modern sale-of-clothing options in the basement of the former Bon Marche, where men's stuff was found.
The experiment is to test how to automate non-human provision of the options selected by customers so the items can be brought out from storage by some mechanical means.
-- Per the Seattle paper that warmly endorsed GWB.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Sat, 08/20/2022 - 9:31pm

My initial reaction when I heard [edited]

...about Kanye's Instagram message:

“Look to the children / Look to the homeless as the biggest inspiration for all design.”

I took it somewhat differently. I thought Kanye was referring to housing design — (tiny homes), city planning, and public spaces.

Kayne West was not a child of the inner city. His mother was a scholar, and he lived with her and attended school as a child in China, where she was doing research on a foundation grant. There, he learned to speak Chinese, and worked on a number of art installations in various media. He was educated as an artist, and has a background that is far different than his contemporaries. He cannot really be stereotyped as a rapper.

To be clear, West had nothing to do with the Homeless Fashion Show described and illustrated in the original essay.

Meanwhile, the wealth and inequality gap continues to grow unabated in the US — and in most countries around the world that have been touched by capitalism and Western imperialism. Rich vs. poor has been a ubiquitous plot line in plays, fables, and popular fiction in just about every culture. In modern times, progressive policies may close this gap for a time, which is what New Deal regulations and taxes did to end the Great Depression in the 1930s. But economic inequality came roaring back in the 1970s, when the economy was no longer centrally managed, and the regulations that were put in place to prevent Guilded-Age inequalities from re-occurring were systematically repealed.

Economics and finance are not taught to US citizens as part of their public education curriculum, so they are flying blind and selfish through the key global issues of our times. The American people lost their moral compass along the way, and their instinctive sense of ethics has gone from universal to situational and subjective. Justice was the first victim of the inequality gap that opened. Thus, there remains little hope that the ravages of capitalism on the earth can be contained in time — in time to hand over to the next generations a livable earth with a intact biome. We built that, largely by suppressing the voices and policies of the Left throughout the world. We are still building it with our wars. This is predatory Capitalism. Turning the resources of the earth into private wealth, and dividing the profoundly over-populated world into the haves and the have-nots.

Thinking about motion pictures, a technology and art that emerged during the Great Depression, we see there were many films made that featured class inequality themes. I read a review of the classic movie, My Man Godfrey, in a recent issue of The Film Magazine. The movie was made in 1936, as the depression was raging. In the realm of motion pictures arts, it is easy to see how this real-world capitalist tragedy inspired art, then and even now. What follows is an excerpt from that review:

At eighty-five years old, an average span of a human lifetime, My Man Godfrey holds up amazingly well today. Its billowy tone is spiked with doses of searing sarcasm, forming a timeless symphony of socially aware absurdity.

Steeped in the class division heightened by the Great Depression during which it was made, Godfrey is one of those rare movies that is both a product of its time and eerily relevant decades later. The opening credits are ultra-modern: cast names flash atop swanky Manhattan skyscrapers like incandescent city signs, from which we cut away to a garbage truck spilling refuse onto an East River dump while homeless men warm themselves around trashcan fires. A purely visual beginning that already makes a statement about the rich-poor split in America—and even has a word to say about consumer waste.

Amid the heaps of landfill fodder, a “forgotten” (a euphemism for homeless) man, Godfrey Park (William Powell), encounters young elite Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) and her snarky sister Cornelia (Gail Patrick), who want to hire him as their 'forgotten man', the final item on their list for a charity scavenger hunt.

In the 'clash of the classes' dramatic comedy that ensues, the ear is treated to one perfect line of dialogue after another throughout the entire movie, a rapid-fire stream of countless quips worth repeating, memorizing, and quoting:

When Godfrey tells Irene he lives at the dump because of his asthma, she cluelessly chirps, “My uncle has asthma,” to which Godfrey replies with just the right tone of polite irony, “Now there’s a coincidence.”

Departing the dump, Irene takes Godfrey to the banquet hall to win the scavenger hunt. When sensible but broke Godfrey meets the more-money-than-sense Bullock family and their society friends — worlds collide. It's a chaotic sequence that kicks off with some humdingers:

“This place slightly resembles an insane asylum,” a gentleman named Blake tells Mr. Bullock (Eugene Pallette) as they down drinks at the bar. Bullock replies sagely, “Well, all you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people.”

On that dead-on observation, Mrs. Bullock (Alice Brady) enters in full evening regalia, leading a goat on a leash with one arm, and her protegé Carlo (Mischa Auer) with the other. Blake cracks to Mr. Bullock, “Take a look at the dizzy old gal with the goat.”

“I’ve had to look at her for twenty years,” Mr. Bullock grumbles, “that’s Mrs. Bullock.”

Blake: “Oh, I’m terribly sorry!”

Bullock: “How do you think I feel?” Zing!

The film’s main takeaway may be Godfrey’s confession that, for a homeless man, his background is more privileged than we initially realize. He actually chose to flee a life of comfort to dwell with the denizens of the dump, to hang with “people who were fighting it out and not complaining.” He preferred the honesty of a hardscrabble life over the pampered Park Avenue phonies—like Cornelia Bullock, whom he compares to himself, calling her “a spoiled child who’s grown up in ease and luxury and has always had her own way.”

Irene Bullock feels guilty for using Godfrey, so she gives him a job as her eccentric family’s butler. The butler transforms their lives.

This Depression-era fairy tale, with its streak of barbed social satire, actually offers some hopeful class-divide solutions worth resurrecting. Ever notice how the old rich-poor unions that used to populate classic movies have vanished entirely from the screen? When and why did we start ignoring the class system in America? Couples from different ethnic or religious backgrounds abound in entertainment today, but how many pairs do we see that consist of an obscenely wealthy person and a desperately poor person who—against all the odds—break free from their respective socioeconomic circles to meet, fall in love, and get married? The last time this dynamic was explored may have been in Pretty Woman (1990), released over thirty years ago. And yet, what an inspiring theme the rich-poor divide would be for this moment in time.

How to unify this polarized country? Screwball techniques. A love story about an elite Silicon Valley one-percenter marrying an Amazon warehouse worker fighting for fair wages would do it, or a heartfelt romance between a Democrat and a Republican. Maybe even a vaccine advocate and an anti-vaxxer.

Take note, movie studios and filmmakers.

[edited in the highlighted paragraphs for typos and clarity.]

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 08/21/2022 - 12:11am

Hi Pluto

@Pluto's Republic

I've watched the first 10 minutes of My Man Godfrey and every other line so far is great in it's humour and satire. Yes, one can find much that is relevant of today. The 'whisker' scene! I'm looking forward to watching the rest. Thank you for referencing it with that great review.

For anyone interested, it's on youtube ...

[video:https://youtu.be/fiSjeLhg25w]

...about Kanye's Instagram message:

“Look to the children / Look to the homeless as the biggest inspiration for all design.”

I took it somewhat differently. I thought Kanye was referring to housing design — (tiny homes), city planning, and public spaces.

Kayne West was not a child of the inner city. His mother was a scholar, and he lived with her and attended school as a child in China, where she was doing research on a foundation grant. There, he learned to speak Chinese, and worked on a number of art installations in various media. He was educated as an artist, and has a background that is far different than his contemporaries. He cannot really be stereotyped as a rapper.

To be clear, West had nothing to do with the Homeless Fashion Show described and illustrated in the original essay.

Meanwhile, the wealth and inequality gap continues to grow unabated in the US — and in most countries around the world that have been touched by capitalism and Western imperialism. Rich vs. poor has been a ubiquitous plot line in plays, fables, and popular fiction in just about every culture. In modern times, progressive policies may close this gap for a time, which is what New Deal regulations and taxes did to end the Great Depression in the 1930s. But economic inequality came roaring back in the 1970s, when the economy was no longer centrally managed, and the regulations that were put in place to prevent Guilded-Age inequalities from re-occurring were systematically repealed.

Economics and finance are not taught to US citizens as part of their public education curriculum, so they are flying blind and selfish through the key global issues of our times. The American people lost their moral compass along the way, and their instinctive sense of ethics has gone from universal to situational and subjective. Justice was the first victim of the inequality gap that opened. Thus, there remains little hope that the ravages of capitalism on the earth can be contained in time — in time to hand over to the next generations a livable earth with a intact biome. We built that, largely by suppressing the voices and policies of the Left throughout the world. We are still building it with our wars. This is predatory Capitalism. Turning the resources of the earth into private wealth, and dividing the profoundly over-populated world into the haves and the have-nots.

Thinking about motion pictures, a technology and art that emerged during the Great Depression, we see there were many films made that featured class inequality themes. I read a review of the classic movie, My Man Godfrey, in a recent issue of The Film Magazine. The movie was made in 1936, as the depression was raging. In the realm of motion pictures arts, it is easy to see how this real-world capitalist tragedy inspired art, then and even now. What follows is an excerpt from that review:

At eighty-five years old, an average span of a human lifetime, My Man Godfrey holds up amazingly well today. Its billowy tone is spiked with doses of searing sarcasm, forming a timeless symphony of socially aware absurdity.

Steeped in the class division heightened by the Great Depression during which it was made, Godfrey is one of those rare movies that is both a product of its time and eerily relevant decades later. The opening credits are ultra-modern: cast names flash atop swanky Manhattan skyscrapers like incandescent city signs, from which we cut away to a garbage truck spilling refuse onto an East River dump while homeless men warm themselves around trashcan fires. A purely visual beginning that already makes a statement about the rich-poor split in America—and even has a word to say about consumer waste.

Amid the heaps of landfill fodder, a “forgotten” (a euphemism for homeless) man, Godfrey Park (William Powell), encounters young elite Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) and her snarky sister Cornelia (Gail Patrick), who want to hire him as their 'forgotten man', the final item on their list for a charity scavenger hunt.

In the 'clash of the classes' dramatic comedy that ensues, the ear is treated to one perfect line of dialogue after another throughout the entire movie, a rapid-fire stream of countless quips worth repeating, memorizing, and quoting:

When Godfrey tells Irene he lives at the dump because of his asthma, she cluelessly chirps, “My uncle has asthma,” to which Godfrey replies with just the right tone of polite irony, “Now there’s a coincidence.”

Departing the dump, Irene takes Godfrey to the banquet hall to win the scavenger hunt. When sensible but broke Godfrey meets the more-money-than-sense Bullock family and their society friends — worlds collide. It's a chaotic sequence that kicks off with some humdingers:

“This place slightly resembles an insane asylum,” a gentleman named Blake tells Mr. Bullock (Eugene Pallette) as they down drinks at the bar. Bullock replies sagely, “Well, all you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people.”

On that dead-on observation, Mrs. Bullock (Alice Brady) enters in full evening regalia, leading a goat on a leash with one arm, and her protegé Carlo (Mischa Auer) with the other. Blake cracks to Mr. Bullock, “Take a look at the dizzy old gal with the goat.”

“I’ve had to look at her for twenty years,” Mr. Bullock grumbles, “that’s Mrs. Bullock.”

Blake: “Oh, I’m terribly sorry!”

Bullock: “How do you think I feel?” Zing!

The film’s main takeaway may be Godfrey’s confession that, for a homeless man, his background is more privileged than we initially realize. He actually chose to flee a life of comfort to dwell with the denizens of the dump, to hang with “people who were fighting it out and not complaining.” He preferred the honesty of a hardscrabble life over the pampered Park Avenue phonies—like Cornelia Bullock, whom he compares to himself, calling her “a spoiled child who’s grown up in ease and luxury and has always had her own way.”

Irene Bullock feels guilty for using Godfrey, so she gives him a job as her eccentric family’s butler. The butler transforms their lives.

This Depression-era fairy tale, with its streak of barbed social satire, actually offers some hopeful class-divide solutions worth resurrecting. Ever notice how the old rich-poor unions that used to populate classic movies have vanished entirely from the screen? When and why did we start ignoring the class system in America? Couples from different ethnic or religious backgrounds abound in entertainment today, but how many pairs do we see that consist of an obscenely wealthy person and a desperately poor person who—against all the odds—break free from their respective socioeconomic circles to meet, fall in love, and get married? The last time this dynamic was explored may have been in Pretty Woman (1990), released over thirty years ago. And yet, what an inspiring theme the rich-poor divide would be for this moment in time.

How to unify this polarized country? Screwball techniques. A love story about an elite Silicon Valley one-percenter marrying an Amazon warehouse worker fighting for fair wages would do it, or a heartfelt romance between a Democrat and a Republican. Maybe even a vaccine advocate and an anti-vaxxer.

Take note, movie studios and filmmakers.

.

[edited in the highlighted paragraphs for typos and clarity.]

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Sun, 08/21/2022 - 8:41am

Janis, this is very nice thing to do.

@janis b

Now why didn't I think of that? I'm too much into the message and not enough into the experience.

It's the experience that influences, after all.

It's a fun film, and very smart, considering how early it was made in filmic history, But then, it's such a classic human dilemma: the haves and the have-nots. Shakespeare and Dickens had their way with the topic, too. And it is this very topic that will end civilization, as we know it.

PS: Aren't those titles sensational? The horizontal scroll looks just like the ROKU home screen.
And as an actor, Carol Lombard brought something really fresh to motion pictures of that period.

Submitted by janis b on Wed, 08/24/2022 - 12:56am

The film was a romp

@Pluto's Republic

I only wish the possibilities favoured in the film were potentially more able to be realised today.