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https://www.blackenterprise.com/white-couple-markets-water-as-40-ounce-malt-liquor/
They’re cheap, pack a high-alcohol content, and are often associated with gangsters, low-income communities, and classic hip-hop. Perhaps, that’s part of the reason why Hollywood actor Theo Rossi and his wife, Meghan, thought it would be a good idea to emulate the image of a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor to sell spring water. They were wrong.
Activists and elected officials in Brooklyn, New York, are calling for the removal of Ounce Water from local stores, arguing that the packaging of the water bottles promotes negative stereotypes about black communities as well as alcoholism. In a tweet, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams called the marketing scheme “tone-deaf.”
The tone-deaf "#40Ounce" marketing is cultural appropriation at its worst. Branding that plays off the imagery of 40 ounce malt liquor is an insult to communities fighting for a healthier future. @GetOunced should know better, and I urge them to rebrand. https://t.co/XjrxDrmc12
— Eric Adams (@BPEricAdams) March 6, 2019
Protesters say the water bottles are directly linked to the history of cheap liquors like Colt 45, Olde English, and Private Stock, which were marketed to black neighborhoods and glorified through rap music. As a result, this led to alcoholism and “a big part of the demise” of working class communities of color, community member Christine Gilliam told Yahoo.
“In a community that has been ravaged by alcohol and drugs, we are confused as to why someone would create a product that so closely resembles a malt liquor bottle,” wrote Breukelen RISE, an activist group that serves at-risk youth and their families, in a letter to the company, according to The New York Daily News.
As a result of the outrage, Ounce Water was forced to pull some of its products from a supermarket in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Canarsie last week after NYCHA activists complained about its controversial campaign. However, they were replaced with 20-ounce bottles from the same company.
“They called the store and said we were promoting alcoholism by selling water in that bottle,” said Kevin Chang, the manager of the Food World supermarket, to The New York Daily News. “They said they’d come and protest unless we got rid of them. We called the manufacturer. They came and took the 40s and gave us the 20s. To be quite honest, it does look like an Olde English, but it’s plastic. It’s not glass. It’s just water. It says water on the contents.”
(Instagram/GetOunced)
Founded in 2015, a company spokesperson said Ounce Water’s mission is to keep people hydrated.
“Ounce Water is hydration made easy. Ounce Water is 100% pure natural spring water,” reads a company statement. “We are highly involved in community activities for youth and adults which focus on health and wellness, and further the education of the health benefits of proper hydration.”
However, much like the backlash against luxury brands like Gucci and Prada, which have been accused of marketing racist imagery, critics say 40 Ounce Water is blackface in a bottle. “It’s insulting to our intelligence,” Thora Lashley said. “What’s next, candy corn in a crack vial? Juice in a syringe?
(Instagram/GetOunced)
Lashley, who has lived in Brooklyn’s Breukelen Houses for 50 years, says she saw countless friends succumb to alcoholism growing up in the city housing, some as young as 12 years old. Many of them drank 40s in the hallways, on stoops, and in courtyards, she added.
Derek Perkinson, city field director for the National Action Network, agrees with the protesters. “If it’s a health kick, fine. We’re all for that,” he said. “But the presentation of it in a 40-ounce bottle is bad. We reserve the right to protect our children from being targeted. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
The post White Couple Markets Water As 40-Ounce Malt Liquor in the Hood appeared first on Black Enterprise.
They’re cheap, pack a high-alcohol content, and are often associated with gangsters, low-income communities, and classic hip-hop. Perhaps, that’s part of the reason why Hollywood actor Theo Rossi and his wife, Meghan, thought it would be a good idea to emulate the image of a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor to sell spring water. They were wrong.
Activists and elected officials in Brooklyn, New York, are calling for the removal of Ounce Water from local stores, arguing that the packaging of the water bottles promotes negative stereotypes about black communities as well as alcoholism. In a tweet, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams called the marketing scheme “tone-deaf.”
The tone-deaf "#40Ounce" marketing is cultural appropriation at its worst. Branding that plays off the imagery of 40 ounce malt liquor is an insult to communities fighting for a healthier future. @GetOunced should know better, and I urge them to rebrand. https://t.co/XjrxDrmc12
— Eric Adams (@BPEricAdams) March 6, 2019
Protesters say the water bottles are directly linked to the history of cheap liquors like Colt 45, Olde English, and Private Stock, which were marketed to black neighborhoods and glorified through rap music. As a result, this led to alcoholism and “a big part of the demise” of working class communities of color, community member Christine Gilliam told Yahoo.
“In a community that has been ravaged by alcohol and drugs, we are confused as to why someone would create a product that so closely resembles a malt liquor bottle,” wrote Breukelen RISE, an activist group that serves at-risk youth and their families, in a letter to the company, according to The New York Daily News.
As a result of the outrage, Ounce Water was forced to pull some of its products from a supermarket in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Canarsie last week after NYCHA activists complained about its controversial campaign. However, they were replaced with 20-ounce bottles from the same company.
“They called the store and said we were promoting alcoholism by selling water in that bottle,” said Kevin Chang, the manager of the Food World supermarket, to The New York Daily News. “They said they’d come and protest unless we got rid of them. We called the manufacturer. They came and took the 40s and gave us the 20s. To be quite honest, it does look like an Olde English, but it’s plastic. It’s not glass. It’s just water. It says water on the contents.”
(Instagram/GetOunced)
Founded in 2015, a company spokesperson said Ounce Water’s mission is to keep people hydrated.
“Ounce Water is hydration made easy. Ounce Water is 100% pure natural spring water,” reads a company statement. “We are highly involved in community activities for youth and adults which focus on health and wellness, and further the education of the health benefits of proper hydration.”
However, much like the backlash against luxury brands like Gucci and Prada, which have been accused of marketing racist imagery, critics say 40 Ounce Water is blackface in a bottle. “It’s insulting to our intelligence,” Thora Lashley said. “What’s next, candy corn in a crack vial? Juice in a syringe?
(Instagram/GetOunced)
Lashley, who has lived in Brooklyn’s Breukelen Houses for 50 years, says she saw countless friends succumb to alcoholism growing up in the city housing, some as young as 12 years old. Many of them drank 40s in the hallways, on stoops, and in courtyards, she added.
Derek Perkinson, city field director for the National Action Network, agrees with the protesters. “If it’s a health kick, fine. We’re all for that,” he said. “But the presentation of it in a 40-ounce bottle is bad. We reserve the right to protect our children from being targeted. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
The post White Couple Markets Water As 40-Ounce Malt Liquor in the Hood appeared first on Black Enterprise.
Will Smith will apparently not be returning for The Suicide Squad, due to scheduling conflicts. Instead, Idris Elba is in talks to take on the mantle of Deadshot for the film, which will function as a soft reboot of the first film. David Ayer’s first attempt to bring the Squad to the big screen drew in box office numbers and acclaim for Margot Robbie’s turn as Harley Quinn but for the most part was not well received. James Gunn has been brought on to course correct.
There have been a few frantic tweets and Reddit posts that claim the recasting is a sign that everyone from the Snyder era of the DCEU except Robbie, Gal Gadot, and Jason Momoa, are not safe and might be recast. Let’s probably lay these worries to rest: an actor’s schedule not working out for a film he wasn’t necessarily planning on returning to does not mean that we have to bid farewell to everyone else in the franchise.
Deadline reported that Smith’s parting from the franchise was amicable and purely based on schedule. While people can lie, it’s also not likely that everyone has concocted a giant scheme to hide Smith parting badly with Warner Bros. If they wanted to completely erase the entire first film, Deadshot wouldn’t be involved at all, period. Smith’s lack of involvement also doesn’t mean that no one else from the original film will return.
Don’t fret, DC fans. Elba’s casting is good news, and does not mean the end of the Snyder Verse as we know it. Let’s enjoy the news for what it is.
(via Deadline, image: Warner Bros)
- The first footage of Episode IX has been screened, and here’s a breakdown of what it is. (via Slash Film)
- Adrienne Barbeau returns to the swamp for Swamp Thing. (via Twitter)
- Was Mr. Rogers bisexual? (via Dlisted)
- Patty Jenkins got hyped for Captain Marvel. (via Twitter)
Congratulations team Captain Marvel! Can’t wait to see it and our whole WW crew wish you a great weekend. Love this gorgeous piece by @SamoanJYandall! pic.twitter.com/A3yUxwHhLZ
— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) March 7, 2019
- The first info about Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series has been revealed. (via IndieWire)
- Read this stellar essay about what the movies taught Manohla Dargis about being a woman. (via New York Times)
- Artist Jen Bartel’s awesome Captain Marvel sneakers go on sale tomorrow. (via Nerdist)
- The Queen used Instagram! (via Instagram)
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse required hundreds of hours of work from thousands of artists and technicians—not just to tell the story of Miles Morales and his fellow Spider-People, but to translate the imagery and energy of comic book panels into fluid, dynamic animation.
Story artist Denise Koyama, a longtime fan of the character since the days of Steve Ditko, created tens of thousands of storyboards borrowing from classic comic framing, action and storytelling in order to create sequences that thrilled audiences and brilliantly brought the characters to life.
At a recent press day for the Feb. 26 digital and March 19 home video release of the Oscars’ Best Animated Feature winner, Nerdist sat down with Koyama for an honest, energetic conversation about the tremendous volume of work that she did in order to help Spider-Man look truly spectacular.
In addition to deconstructing the pipeline for creating (and recreating) shots for some of the film’s most exciting sequences, she talked about her own past and present influences as an artist, and reflected on the opportunity to turn her lifelong passion for comic books into one piece of this film’s revolutionary moviemaking process.
You mentioned that there were 1,750 versions of one sequence you worked on for the film. Is that the most versions of any scene?
Denise Koyama: I don’t know—probably not! There were so many different versions because this was different from our normal process. They could literally change the idea [on a whim]. And so you might be launched on something and you’re like, okay, I’m doing this. And then they’d send a note to change that, or start over and do this thing. So there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on, and lots of different versions.
I’m sure that there’s a certain acclimation process, but is there a point where you’re like, I’ve done this 1,744 times, I don’t want to do it one more!
DK: Well, they rotate us out just so that we don’t get tired and put us on different things. But as your job, I like to come up with different options. So for me, it was like, okay, we’ll try a different option, and it was a lot of fun. I mean, sometimes it’s really hard because you love something and it’s hard to see some of your babies die, but it’s all for the greater good.
Talk about your relationship with the other departments and how you work together.
DK: This is hilarious. I work from home, on a farm, so it’s completely opposite—I feel like somehow I live in two different universes. One is the goat lady of Riverside, and the other one is a story artist in Culver City working with the most amazing artists in the world. And there was a lot of collaboration between Justin [Thompson], who is a production designer, and the division where they’re modeling the buildings and stuff. So most of the time I could figure stuff out in 3D, but for Spider-Man, you have to be very, very accurate in some things.
So they’ll do a whole thing and I’ll say, “I want the camera to do this,” and they could actually go into my program and set up the camera, lens, etcetera, and then they’ll shoot the thing without characters—just the environment. And then I’ll take a couple of still frames from there and then put that into my storyboard to give it a little bit more flavor of 3D. Because sometimes with all this stuff going on, it’s very hard to see how the camera will move when people are fighting upside down and sideways and stuff is moving around.
Which department produced the most revisions for you? In the production pipeline, is it the story that’s constantly changing, or the animation style or technique, or the directing, for example?
DK: It’s always the story idea. The experimentation on this was insane, and so it was constantly changing. So you could be working on something and then we’re starting on something else. Usually you have this timeframe, present [your work], and go to editorial. Here, you have two days to do hundreds of drawings, and I don’t know if you saw the outline, but a lot of it is just, “He goes in and saves the Spideys.” That’s it. There’s only a general location, but sometimes we don’t even have visuals for the places that we’re supposed to do. And so you have to make that up and have like an hour to figure this out before I actually have to actually draw this. So it was a little bit of a challenge. But it was fun.
How much did referencing the visual language of comic books affect what angles and framing to use, in the storyboard stage?
DK: What we would do is several different passes: a straight pass where we do traditional storyboarding and then go, where can we make this more like a cartoon? We’d [put] the paneling in or the action words and stuff and then I would try different things and say, does this work? Does the timing of this work? Is the impact of this better or worse? So we’d go through an experiment and do stuff and then the directors might go, well, that works for the scene, but maybe change it up here or do this here, or maybe it doesn’t work. So there’s a lot of collaboration going on.
As a big fan of Spider-Man comics, was there a certain action or silhouette or framing that you hoped to sneak into the film?
DK: I just wanted Spider-Man to be fluid throughout the whole thing. The way that Steve Ditko drew him is very fluid. He did a very classical style of Spider-Man, but there’s some beautiful movement throughout the whole form, and Cheyenne contemporized that and made it very fluid and simplified. And so trying to keep that feeling of it, the spirit of it and keep true to that, that was my goal.
Was Ditko the artist that was most inspiring to you during this process?
DK: Because I grew up looking at his work, for me that’s Spider-Man. That’s my childhood, my heart. This is my love for Spider-Man. It’s such a crazy thing to be in your room reading a comic book, and then fast forward to be working on a Spider-Man movie. Like, brain broken—it’s a dream come true!
What was one choice, be it an angle or movement, that made it into the movie that you’re especially proud of, even if nobody else will notice it?
DK: Just being a part of it for me was everything. As a storyboard artist, after you finish it, it’s kind of like you don’t care how the outcome is and how they decide to change it around. But just being part of that whole collider thing with Doc Ock and Spider-Man fighting, that for me was like, yes, I can die happy now!
Images: Sony
The post INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE Story Artist on Creating Thousands of Versions of a Single Scene appeared first on Nerdist.
Source: Johnny Nunez/WireImage / Getty
You’ve probably seen this photo floating around on social media today. It’s not new. It’s actually from 2017, but it’s a fitting reminder that Wendy Williams rides for her man, Kevin Hunter, and has been doing so for more than 20 years.
During her return to her eponymous talk show on Monday, Williams addressed rumors that her husband, who is also her manager, is toxic (i.e., he’s alleged to have a long-term mistress and his mother accused him of assaulting Williams). She made it clear that while their marriage isn’t perfect, she and Hunter are down for life.
“I want to give a shout out to my husband, I’m still wearing my ring!” she said. “Believe me you, when you’ve been with somebody for 28 years, married for 25 years, and when we got married we waited four years before doing the baby project and stuff, so we know each other! He’s my best friend. He’s my lover, he’s all this and he’s all that. I know what you’ve been saying. And I know what the streets have been talking about.”
“I’m still very much in love with my husband, and anybody whose been married for five minutes or 500 years, you know marriages have ebbs and flows,” she added. “Marriages are not easy. Don’t ask me about mine until you see this gone *points to ring* and it ain’t going anywhere. Not in this lifetime!”
That very interesting photo, and Williams’ defense of her hubby, inspired us to take a look at some throwback images of the pair. The photos we found are just as colorful as that middle finger they gave to their haters. Hit the flip to see some very interesting images of the pair from over the years.
Source: Johnny Nunez/WireImage / Getty