Month: September 2021

Activision Blizzard — best known for developing games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch — is currently involved in multiple lawsuits regarding its work environment. The company has come under scrutiny from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing due to multiple allegations against of creating a “frat boy” culture. These allegations have led to the departure of multiple higher-ups within the company and the name change of the DPS Cowboy character in Overwatch.

While this has been going on, Activision Blizzard internally has allegedly not been very supportive of its employees. They are being sued by the employees themselves, as well as the labor union Communications Workers of America, for what they allege are unfair labor practices. The employees and CWA are accusing Activision Blizzard of using intimidation and union busting tactics to prevent the worker’s right to unionize. The CWA shared a statement to the Washington Post in regards to the lawsuit.

In a statement shared with The Washington Post, CWA organizing director Tom Smith said: “Management could have responded with humility and a willingness to take necessary steps to address the horrid conditions some [Activision Blizzard] workers have faced. Instead Activision Blizzard’s response to righteous worker activity was surveillance, intimidation and hiring notorious union busters.”

The employees and the CWA union filed this most recent lawsuit in California with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that Activision Blizzard acted coercively to stop unionization using tactics such as surveilling employees, interrogating them, making threats and promising benefits.

This lawsuit comes shortly after Activision Blizzard recently hired the law firm WilmerHale to do an internal investigation. The decision to hire that firm was met with questions because of, as the Post put it, “the firm’s reputation for defending wealthy clients and lack of a track record in uncovering wrongdoing.”

Although excitement for Lil Nas X’s upcoming debut album Montero is generally pretty high, some fans noticed that the tracklist the rising star shared was short on other Black artists — specifically, male ones. Nas addressed the non-controversy by pointing out that, rather than having an agenda, he was actually being shunned for reasons that should be obvious to anyone with two working brain cells to rub together to form a thought. However, he had one other artist in his corner in the form of Kid Cudi, who replied that he’d love to work with the “Old Town Road” singer.

Today, Nas was revealed as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2021 and to comment on the rulebreaker’s success, the magazine tapped none other than Cudi himself to write a glowing mini-profile. In it, he takes a step further than simply standing in solidarity with Lil Nas X, criticizing hip-hop for cultivating a culture of homophobia and predicting that Lil Nas will be part of a systemic change.

“When I saw the tweet about Nas’ album Montero not featuring Black male artists, and he replied that “maybe a lot of them just don’t wanna work with me,” that made me sad,” Cudi writes. “There’s a homophobic cloud over hip-hop, and he’s going to break that sh-t down. We have to stand with him. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to let him know—you have my support. When we do our song together, however trippy the video is, let’s get sexy with it.”

You can read the full profile here.

(Spoilers for What If…? and the MCU will be found below.)

Disney+’s What If…? keeps killing the same character, over and over again, and it feels not unlike how South Park killed Kenny (“Those bastards!”) for all those years. It’s actually kind-of funny (c’mon, it is, if only because people can be way too invested in make-believe things) because the character is a seriously beloved one, who died near the end of Avengers: Endgame after saving the universe from Thanos’ genocidal madness with a reverse Snap. Certainly, the situation would have been arguably worse if this hero was Peter Parker, but thankfully, it’s only Tony Stark.

I kid, I kid. Tony Stark is right up there with Spider-Man in terms of characters that no one wanted to see die. And we saw Peter come back from the Snap, so all was well there after a one-year wait. Yet What If…? is having a ball with its non-canon status, meaning that there are no long-lasting consequences within its alternate realities, so yup, they’ve totally been killing Tony Stark. This happened for the first time a few weeks ago in a procedural-themed episode, in which a serial killer was running amuck and taking out Avengers, and now, the show has done it again.

During the course of this week’s wild episode, Black Panther‘s Killmonger (who’s arguably the greatest villain of the MCU) takes a different path, and one that goes far back in time to initially save Tony Stark from that injury that started it all, and one that helped to motivate him to use Stark Industries for good. This ends up having tragic results because Killmonger is able to harness Stark Industries’ abilities for his own, anti-Wakanda purposes, and along the way, he actually ends up killing Stark.

Of course, this is not really happening, but it’s still a gut-punch to fans to see Tony die, quite mercilessly, so they’re airing their feelings.

Will they kill Tony Stark again next week? You gotta tune in to find out.

Effective Wednesday, September 15, roughly five million HBO subscribers will no longer be able to access the premium channel through Amazon Channels. While those users were given a heads up before today’s big change, the move is part of the agreement reached between HBO and Amazon back in November 2020 that finally ended the stand-off between the content companies over allowing the HBO Max app on Amazon devices.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO subscribers who lost access to their Amazon Channel subscription will be given a special offer in an effort to fully transition those users to the HBO Max app where WarnerMedia prefers them to be:

Speaking with Bloomberg last month, HBO Max chief Andy Forssell said HBO was willing to lose subscribers in the short-term if it meant cutting out the middleman — in this case, Amazon — and having a direct relationship with consumers instead. (HBO has also done the same with Roku and Apple TV.)

“It’s important for us to own the customer,” Forssell said. “If the viewer is in the app, we can tailor the home page to them. We can tailor what they show them next. We can respond to that in real time.”

While HBO Max was able to close last minute deals with Amazon and Roku just in time for Wonder Woman 1984‘s streaming release and WarnerMedia’s controversial move to put its entire 2021 film slate on the burgeoning app, AT&T made moves to dump WarnerMedia altogether just a few months later. Discovery is now on track to acquire WarnerMedia, which will give them control over the company’s vast media library as well as the HBO brand as it attempts to solidify its presence in the streaming wars.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Time unveiled its annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people this morning, and it features a handful of music icons, like Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X, Dolly Parton, and more. Also among those icons is Britney Spears, and writing a heartfelt message about her for the list is Paris Hilton, who praised Spears for navigating all the unprecedented challenges she has faced over the years.

In her blurb, Hilton wrote about how Spears has remained joyful as she has endured things like “the tabloid culture of the 2000s” and her conservatorship:

“When most people think of Britney Spears, they think of Britney the superstar. She’s iconic. A legend. One of the most influential artists in pop-music history.

When I think of Britney Spears, I see the sweetest soul. A mother. A friend. A fighter. A young woman who grew up in the tabloid culture of the 2000s, when the paparazzi machine was accepted, unforgiving and cruel.

Yes, we’ve watched Britney break records and deliver to the world hit after hit. But behind the scenes, she survived more than a decade of trauma and abuse from her conservatorship. In 2021, the battle cries of #FreeBritney roared louder than ever from her global network of devoted fans and a concerned public. Our hearts broke when Britney spoke about her pain.

Despite the darkness that has surrounded her life, Britney embodies joy and shares the light of her beautiful heart, forever the superstar. So we stand by her and root for her as she turns pain into purpose, her unwavering spirit stronger than ever.”

Check out the full Time 100 list here.

If you thought the Bad Takes about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were over, I have bad news: Tucker Carlson has logged on.

On Monday, AOC wore a white dress with the words “Tax the Rich” to the swanky Met Gala. “The medium is the message,” she wrote on Instagram about her fashion choice. “The time is now for childcare, healthcare, and climate action for all. Tax the Rich.” If the medium was the message, the message worked: there was a massive increase in Google searches for “Tax the Rich” and she managed to piss off a bunch of conservatives, including Lauren Boebert, Tomi Lahren, and of course, Tucker Carlson.

The pile of rumpled clothes masquerading as a Fox News host used the dress as an excuse to talk about AOC’s body. “If you’ve been awake at any point over the past 24 hours, you have probably seen this picture of Sandy Cortez showing up in a $35,000 a head gala in New York with a dress that says ‘Tax the Rich’ across the back,” he said. “So Cortez claims she wore the dress to start a conversation about what it means to be a working-class woman of color and not at all so we would stare at a picture of her butt.”

He also called her “so dumb and so annoying” (spoken like a middle school bully) before admitting that she’s “also kind of clever… She is baiting us here, obviously. And it’s tempting to rise to the bait.” He then called her a “paid defender of entrenched power.”

Carlson has made sexist attacks about AOC before (like when he told her to “get a therapist, honey” after she expressed her fear that she was going to be killed by MAGA rioters on January 6), but he’s really saying the quiet part loud by talking about her butt.

Making an appearance on Time‘s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world is a significant honor, and the publication just unveiled this year’s list. On the 2021 roster is a handful of folks from the music world, who had brief tributes written about them by their pop culture peers: Megan Thee Stallion wrote about Billie Eilish, Kid Cudi wrote about Lil Nas X, J Balvin wrote about Bad Bunny, Miley Cyrus wrote about Dolly Parton, Darius Rucker wrote about Kane Brown, Paris Hilton wrote about Britney Spears, Alicia Keys wrote about Angélique Kidjo, and Brandy wrote about Verzuz creators Swizz Beatz and Timbaland.

Of Eilish, Megan wrote, “Billie Eilish is a unique soul, with a voice, style and attitude all unapologetically her own. I first met Billie at the Grammys this year. She had already achieved worldwide stardom, which might make some people have airs about them, but not Billie. She was so real and laid-back, even though her personality is so big. She is a rare spirit who speaks from her heart with no pretenses. I knew I had found a kindred spirit that night. One who is strong, but still learning and still growing. A woman who stands up for herself and advocates for women everywhere.”

Cudi also said of Lil Nas X, “Lil Nas X is a new twist on some of the themes I was riding on when I first started out: being true to yourself and not giving a f*ck what anyone says. What he’s doing is what we need right now. To have a gay man in hip-hop doing his thing, crushing records — that is huge for us and for Black excellence. The way he’s unafraid to make people uncomfortable is so rock ‘n’ roll. He’s a true rock star. […] I’m going to do whatever I have to do to let him know–you have my support. When we do our song together, however trippy the video is, let’s get sexy with it.

Check out the full list here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In September 2020, Donald Trump promised that if he lost the presidency to Joe Biden, “I’ll never speak to you again. You’ll never see me again.” If only! Instead, the former president is saying yes to every interview opportunity to worm his way back into some kind of spotlight, whether that’s by serving up some color commentary on 9/11 alongside his shouty son at this past weekend’s Evander Holyfield-Vitor Belfort fight or scheduling seemingly daily interviews with various Newsmax anchors to rant about whatever thought happens to enter his seemingly damaged brain at that very moment.

On Wednesday, that meant Trump was ready to share his latest bonkers conspiracy theory with former press secretary/longtime toady Sean Spicer: That Barack Obama, not Joe Biden, is the person behind the wheel of America right now.

Jumping on the idea of Biden’s reputation as “the great unifier,” Trump—chatting with Spicer via phone—claimed that the current president is anything but. “He’s the opposite,” Trump said. “He’s worse than Obama. Of course Obama is probably running the country now anyway, according to many.”

Trump, being Trump, did not expand on that statement. And Spicer, being Spicer, did not push him on it. But the former president continued to rail, and tried to make the point that our country is in a really bad way right now.

As Raw Story reports, Trump told Spicer that “our country has gone really downhill in the last eight months like nobody’s ever seen before.” Which… hmmmm… if our math is correct, that means it all started going to hell in a handbasket the moment #45 high-tailed it out of town.

Trump continued his tirade, and had a pretty dire prediction for what’s in store for our country:

“You go to these elections coming up in ’22 and ’24—we’re not going to have a country left. The election was rigged and we’re not going to have a country left in three years, I’ll tell you that.”

Trumpadamus has spoken.

(Via Raw Story)

Embattled Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is still the Energizer Bunny Who Does Not Care when it comes to Twitter. In the past week alone, she’s earned a horrific nickname, essentially blamed God for her place in Congress, and failed at fashion criticism. That’s after her praise of the Taliban and misguided use of “patriots” for a rude pronoun discussion and a confused Samuel Adams tweet, and her latest Twitter mess is remarkable in its banality.

While speaking of the California Recall election (which swung in Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s favor), Boebert tried to take a swing at President Biden and Democratic interest in a Recall rally. She commented upon a reported (and unverified) attendance number of 1000 attendees for a Biden rally in support of Newsom while appearing to inwardly scoff. There’s no telling exactly why her comeback to this number had to involve mentioning toilets, but yep, she did it.

“That’s the line for one port-a-potty at a Trump rally,” Boebert tweeted.

Say what? The people of Boebert’s Colorado district probably aren’t so proud of their elected official right now. Immediately, people piled onto her for thinking this was somehow a flattering tweet about Trump (because it isn’t). Also, people can’t stop thinking about the Daily Beast’s coverage of Boebert’s restaurant, Shooter’s Grill, allegedly giving people food poisoning at a rodeo. One could say that her joke bit her in the rootin’ tootin’ tush, which happens a lot with Boebert.

Once again, Boebert will dust her guns off and come back swinging.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom kicks off with a (thrilling) song and dance sequence, but West Side Story is director Steven Spielberg’s first full-length musical. The remake of the 1961 Best Picture winner (one of the 50 best) stars Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ansel Elgort as Tony, the Romeo and Juliet of 1950s New York.

The new trailer (which you can watch above) begins with Maria singing “Tonight,” one of the musical’s many iconic numbers. There’s also “Maria,” “America,” “I Feel Pretty,” “Somewhere,” and my personal favorite, “Gee, Officer Krupke.” Even if you haven’t seen West Side Story, either in a theater or on Broadway, you know at least one of those songs. The cast recording had a strong effect on a young Spielberg.

“West Side Story was actually the first piece of popular music our family ever allowed into the home,” he told Vanity Fair. “I absconded with it — this was the cast album from the 1957 Broadway musical — and just fell completely in love with it as a kid. West Side Story has been that one haunting temptation that I have finally given in to.”

Here’s the official plot summary:

Directed by Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay by Tony Award winner Tony Kushner, West Side Story tells the classic tale of fierce rivalries and young love in 1957 New York City. This reimagining of the beloved musical stars Ansel Elgort (Tony); Rachel Zegler (María); Ariana DeBose (Anita); David Alvarez (Bernardo); Mike Faist (Riff); Josh Andrés Rivera (Chino); Ana Isabelle (Rosalía); Corey Stoll (Lieutenant Schrank); Brian d’Arcy James (Officer Krupke); and Rita Moreno (as Valentina, who owns the corner store in which Tony works).

West Side Story opens on December 10.