#Mockupy
December 9, 2011 6:55 AM Subscribe

On the heels of Occupy Wall Street's "Law-And-Order Problem", last night #OWS protestors occupied the set of Law & Order.

Last night #OWS supporters rallied at Foley Square where Law & Order: SVU was filming an episode based on #OWS. 50 officers eventually arrived to "rescind the show's permit" and clear the park. While no arrests were made, all involved were noted as looking very realistic.

A comparable incident occurred in Pittsburgh last year, when "the most grisly murder scene" Police Chief Blyth had seen "in his 35 years in law enforcement" turned out to be a movie set left "untouched in case the crew had to come back for re-shoots".

posted by mhoye (113 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite

Meta
posted by Skeptic at 6:57 AM on December 9, 2011

And now I read the tags...
posted by Skeptic at 6:57 AM on December 9, 2011

A little over a dozen NYPD officers stood on the south end of the park, while protesters began handling the set material in shock. "Toilet paper! They have toilet paper here!" one cried. "Where are they planning on using it?" Overturned pickle buckets soon became drums, and a man with an accordion slung around his neck showed up.

something something imitating art or something
posted by jquinby at 7:01 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

If the L&O writers have any sense of humor, which they probably don't, they'd rewrite their episode to reflect these new developments.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:03 AM on December 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

I'll bet somebody 5 dollars that the SVU episode is a heavy-handed allegory about somebody getting sexually assaulted by a charismatic yet sociopathic organizer.
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:04 AM on December 9, 2011 [49 favorites]

I can't wait for the "ripped from the headlines" episode about a murder/rape on the set of a police procedural that was filming at an pseudo pseudo OWS event that's occupied by pseudo OWS activists.
posted by Think_Long at 7:05 AM on December 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

It would be even more meta if the #OWS protestors targeted this FPP next.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:07 AM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

The charismatic organizer is a red herring for REAL sociopath who flash-mobs an occupy stunt to cover the REAL crime: a troubled teen who's pissed at her parents for divorcing and kills her step sister.
posted by victors at 7:09 AM on December 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'll bet somebody 5 dollars that the SVU episode is a heavy-handed allegory about somebody getting sexually assaulted by a charismatic yet sociopathic organizer.

To be fair, there actually were sexual assaults at some Occupy events. Of course, there are sexual assaults going on all the time in the world, at all kinds of gatherings and at all kinds of events. As a matter of fact, actor Anthony Anderson of Law and Order was arrested for aggravated rape, and he's currently facing a $900K lawsuit on similar grounds in another case.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:10 AM on December 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Law & Order: Recursive Actors Unit
posted by erniepan at 7:11 AM on December 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

If the L&O writers have any sense of humor, which they probably don't...

Now, I don't watch SVU, but I have been burning through the vanilla series for a month now. While not ha-ha funny generally, there was an exchange in season 8 or 9 between Briscoe and Rodgers that had me lollin':

"I got another body coming in. Guy took a javelin to the chest."
"Why are you still in this line of work?"
"Free javelins."
posted by griphus at 7:13 AM on December 9, 2011 [31 favorites]

mhoye, dude, you linked to The Daily Mail. Dude!
posted by likeso at 7:17 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

On the one hand -- it feels pretty exploitative for L&O to already be capitalizing on the OWS stuff.

On the other -- god-dammit, this was not cool. The film and media industry in New York is not the enemy -- on the contrary, Law and Order in particular keeps a lot of entertainment professionals employed who would otherwise go broke. (Do you know how many NY stage actors earn their rent money through stints as L&O extras?) Fucking with a film shoot is just....fucking with it for the sake of fucking with something, and dammit that's NOT what they were supposed to be doing.

I've supported the OWS movement in the past, but this was a big mistake and I may question my support unless someone addresses this.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:18 AM on December 9, 2011 [15 favorites]

I hope the real protestors / show protestors / real protestors on the show played Ice T's "Cop Killer" while the police were ousting them, because nothing says 99% like exploding the world in a glorious BLAZE OF META.
posted by nicebookrack at 7:20 AM on December 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

A real live criminal, on the run from the Baltimore Police Department, entered the set of Homicide: Life on the Street and surrendered to the actors in uniform. This incident was later spoofed in an episode where the actors in the show chased a suspect onto the set of "Homicide" and encountered the director, Barry Levinson, and several of their favorite actors from the show.

Homicide did it first.
posted by mkb at 7:21 AM on December 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

Who's craft service? OUR craft service!
posted by orme at 7:25 AM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hey, now my dad will find out about Occupy Wall Street!
posted by activitystory at 7:25 AM on December 9, 2011 [19 favorites]

This should certainly get Congress to address the growing wage gap and the breaks on taxes for the 1% and the status of corporations as "people."
posted by Postroad at 7:26 AM on December 9, 2011

I agree with Empress Callipygos. Just think this is damn mean and stupid.
posted by sweetkid at 7:27 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've supported the OWS movement in the past, but this was a big mistake and I may question my support unless someone addresses this.

This was certainly not A Big Planned OWS Event, this was some dudes who are in OWS and decided to do a stupid thing. Don't withdraw your support from the entire movement for this, because the vast majority of OWS people weren't involved.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:29 AM on December 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

If the L&O writers have any sense of humor, which they probably don't, they'd rewrite their episode to reflect these new developments.

As a recovering L&O addict, I'm embarrassed to admit what I would give for a Jose Chung's From Outer Space-style episode of SVU where the fourth wall of fiction slowly crumbles around the cast. Suddenly, they realize that they have arrested a certain perp multiple times under many names, that one of their cops had a rap career and moonlights as a reality TV star, and that Hudson University is not a real place. Lost and adrift, the cast wanders around real New York in character, surprised that people still treat them as cops, even though they may not be.

They go mad.

Then it all ends in a big musical number.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:37 AM on December 9, 2011 [74 favorites]

robocop i cannot fund you but i would if i could
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 7:41 AM on December 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

(Do you know how many NY stage actors earn their rent money through stints as L&O extras?) Fucking with a film shoot is just....fucking with it for the sake of fucking with something, and dammit that's NOT what they were supposed to be doing.

no disrespect, but film shoots fuck with / disrespect / misrepresent people's lives all the time. in this case, it sounds like an authoritarian-themed TV show was going to misrepresent an anti-authoritarian movement. sounds like a worthy target. and funny.

are PAs / actors somehow not still getting paid for their time on set?

sounds like they need a union.
posted by eustatic at 7:47 AM on December 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

"it sounds like..."

Well, THERE's a good reason to mess with people's income.

"are PAs / actors somehow not still getting paid for their time on set?" Probably not if they close the set down and send them home. And, you can be certain they already have a union.
posted by tomswift at 7:52 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I despise Law and Order. Police propaganda bullshit.
posted by spitbull at 8:07 AM on December 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

This was certainly not A Big Planned OWS Event, this was some dudes who are in OWS and decided to do a stupid thing.

That's the kind of statement I want to hear from the rest of OWS. They've usually been pretty good about making it clear that "those were actually just some yutzes" when stuff like that happens.

no disrespect, but film shoots fuck with / disrespect / misrepresent people's lives all the time.

"Fuck with" -- meaning what?
"Disrespect" - how?
"misrepresent" - it's not the film shoot doing that. If you have a problem with how people are being represented in media, your problem is with entertainment and art ITSELF.

are PAs / actors somehow not still getting paid for their time on set?

Only the time they're on set. And if the set is closed down early, then that's that much pay lost. Not to mention the time that the actors had to beg off their day jobs in order to accomodate that shoot....and the lost opportunity because when they go back to their bosses to say that now they need this second day off and their boss says "no chance" they then have to go back to the film company and say "sorry I have to drop out" and someone else gets the gig...

sounds like they need a union.

They have one. Unions don't help when outside assholes who don't know any better ruin your workplace, though.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:15 AM on December 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

That's the kind of statement I want to hear from the rest of OWS.

That's going to take a while, because you're going to have to ask each occupier one-by-one. There's no official spokesperson. What kind of statement are you looking for here, and by whom?

Probably not this one: I think it was a clever reaction to a tone-deaf move by L&O's producers.

If you're really willing to "question [your] support" of a movement dedicated to fighting economic injustice and political corruption because a film shoot got disturbed one night, I'm willing to wager you weren't that supportive to begin with.
posted by davidjmcgee at 8:24 AM on December 9, 2011 [17 favorites]

Jon_Evil: "I'll bet somebody 5 dollars that the SVU episode is a heavy-handed allegory about somebody getting sexually assaulted by a charismatic yet sociopathic organizer."

I think it's going to be a heavy-handed allegory about the 99% getting fucked by the 1%.
posted by symbioid at 8:30 AM on December 9, 2011

Overturned pickle buckets soon became drums

I'm pretty sure approval for Occupy would jump 5-10 points in polls if the drum circles would forever end.
posted by spaltavian at 8:33 AM on December 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

This is clearly more the sort of thing Anonymous would do and a clear case of brand dilution and as an American how could I support an entity that betrays such a core American value as brand integrity? Obviously I could not!
posted by furiousthought at 8:35 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't think this was a good action. It wasn't any kind of "official" OWS event or promoted from within the way that Occupy Broadway, Occupy Our Homes, Occupy Lincoln Center, and all of the other events in the past week or so were. I have my ear very close to the ground and this was never on my radar. Like the Occupy Artists Space, which was another poorly thought out action by a small splinter group unendorsed the larger Cultural and Arts working group (who did endorse the better Occupy Museums and aligned themselves with shut out Christie's Art handlers) in a open movement there are always going to be some participants who are inspired to go off and do their own thing. This isn't always bad, but it those actions don't have general backing from the larger movement.
posted by stagewhisper at 8:37 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Toilet paper! They have toilet paper here!" one cried. "Where are they planning on using it?"

On their dirty arsecracks. You filthy hippie scum.
posted by biffa at 8:44 AM on December 9, 2011

That's going to take a while, because you're going to have to ask each occupier one-by-one. There's no official spokesperson. What kind of statement are you looking for here, and by whom?

I'm aware of the unstructured nature of OWS, thanks. The group nevertheless is good about making clear whether a given action is "official" or not, and all I ask is clarity on whether this was one or not.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:47 AM on December 9, 2011

The cops took down the L&O set? That's a union job. I predict NYPD will have a lawsuit on their hands.
posted by adamrice at 8:54 AM on December 9, 2011

The action was not consented on at a General Assembly or Spokes Council, so it wasn't "official".
posted by davidjmcgee at 9:06 AM on December 9, 2011

_{That's the kind of statement I want to hear from the rest of OWS.}

That's going to take a while, because you're going to have to ask each occupier one-by-one. There's no official spokesperson. What kind of statement are you looking for here, and by whom?

1) Doesn't OWS have a press committee? Occupy Vancouver does. "This event was not authorized by the General Assembly" would be a matter of fact statement, not a controversial matter of opinion.

2) What about the General Assembly? Official proclamations could be made by consensus at the GA, could they not? Again, proposals to that effect were passed by the GA at Occupy Vancouver (e.g. denying that Occupy the Vatican had anything to do with Occupy Vancouver and condemning their plan to disrupt Catholic religious services).
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:07 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here in Seattle, the Occupy movement is working hard to destroy their credibility by fighting to stay camped at the community college. Because harassing community college students and the farmer's market is really going to teach the 1%. [eyeroll]
posted by nomisxid at 9:08 AM on December 9, 2011

I'm pretty sure "outside assholes who don't know any better ruining our workplace" is exactly how Wall Street would describe OWS.
posted by Errant at 9:11 AM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

And, you can be certain they already have a union.

Actors have a union... but what union do PAs have? They're PAs precisely because they AREN'T unionized.
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 9:17 AM on December 9, 2011

Empress, for possibly the first time, I have to actually disagree with you.

What if I reframed it this way: Do you know how many NY cops earn their rent money by cracking the skulls of the dispossessed?

The cops aren't supposed to be the enemy either, but they're given a tough choice. They support themselves and their families by getting out in the street and using violence to support the interests of the very class that makes their own lives so precarious. If you want to get to the bad guys, you're going to have to go through them, in this case by publicly shaming them, getting them suspended, generally making them pay for that choice.

You don't get to fight the bad guys directly. You have to go up against people who are a lot more like you than like them because the bad guys always protect themselves with a layer of innocent human shields. It's a fundamental tactic. You want to boycott whichever big oil company most recently fucked up the planet in a huge way? Well, you're going to have to hurt all these innocent small station owners who had nothing to do with it.

And I'm certainly sympathetic to people in the film and TV business (I used to be one of them; I know how grindingly difficult it is to stay afloat there), but I think the fact remains that if this show is going to recast the OWS movement into what one expects Law and Order would recast it into, then I think it's important to not simply let them sieze control of the narrative. The point isn't to hurt the actors and crew workers but, just like the cops, they've sold out to the bad guys and you either have to let them face the consequences of that choice or you just fold up and surrender.
posted by Naberius at 9:22 AM on December 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

(Do you know how many NY stage actors earn their rent money through stints as L&O extras?)

The town I grew up in hosted a Shakespeare Festival every year that featured out-of-town actors, mostly from New York, and they would do a performance or two for kids from the high school*. Every year, basically every single actor in the program who was listed as being from New York, was listed as having been on Law and Order. Some of the people were the same from year to year, but a lot of them weren't, and the L&O experience was always there. It was mind boggling how many people that show must employ.

*This led to my an embarassing moment where I feel asleep during a performance of Romeo and Juliet and was woken up by my neighbor because I was responding in my sleep to the actors on stage. No one ever told me what I said, which is probably for the best.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:39 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'll bet somebody 5 dollars that the SVU episode is a heavy-handed allegory about somebody getting sexually assaulted by a charismatic yet sociopathic organizer.

and then I'll use my winnings to purchase the new OWS-themed Phoenix Wright episode from the iTunes Store
posted by Hoopo at 9:40 AM on December 9, 2011

First off, Occupy Wall Street is a decentralized movement. If there's a tactic you want to use, you're free to go ahead and do it, though we encourage nonviolence to ensure that everyone feels safe participating. If there's a particular tactic a few occupiers use that you don't like that's okay. Say you don't like it and why and then find an OWS action you do like and support that.

The Move Your Money day was a great example. Lots of people aren't comfortable or don't have the time to march in the streets, but they'll gladly close their bank account with the criminal, exploitive banks and open account with a responsible one.

Occupy Wall Street thrives on a diversity of tactics and inspires, empowers if you will, people to create their own actions.

A lot of my friends were down there on the set. Personally, I felt sorry for the actors who were going to find out that they didn't have a show to do tomorrow.

From a larger philosophical perspective, I'm thrilled with the occupation of #Fauxcotti. Companies can buy themselves an occupation and free speech and exploit the movement for their personal gain, but when the real deal happens just down the block we are brutally evicted.

Companies can block of public space during the day and overnight without a problem, but the people can't peacefully assemble with basic equipment that enables us to continue that assembly (shelter/warmth is a need)? Give me a break. The ironic justice of occupiers taking over the fake occupation is too good to overlook.
posted by ActivityGrrl at 9:43 AM on December 9, 2011 [19 favorites]

"...are PAs / actors somehow not still getting paid for their time on set? ... Only the time they're on set..."

Someone should jump in if they know the specific info for this situation, but when I worked briefly in the biz in Los Angeles, you had your day rate and your rate for hours past 8. The minimum you got paid was your day rate. Even if you went home before 8 hours. Though going home before 8 hours is super rare.
posted by the jam at 9:59 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

You don't get to fight the bad guys directly. You have to go up against people who are a lot more like you than like them because the bad guys always protect themselves with a layer of innocent human shields.

Okay, then, can you clarify for me precisely how taking over a film shoot affects the finance industry?

I know you don't always get to fight the bad guys directly -- you do battle with the footsoldiers, not the president -- but this wasn't fighting the footsoldiers, this was attacking a completely different country.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:08 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'd say a counterattack against a completely different country that nobody was even thinking about until they suddenly decided to jump into the fight and sucker punch one side.
posted by Naberius at 10:12 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, I'd argue that the OWS movement is about a lot more than just the financial industry.
posted by Naberius at 10:13 AM on December 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'd say a counterattack against a completely different country that nobody was even thinking about until they suddenly decided to jump into the fight and sucker punch one side.

Explain to me the nature of this "sucker punch", because I'm not seeing it.

Also, I'd argue that the OWS movement is about a lot more than just the financial industry.

Oh, excuse me, then explain how taking over a film shoot affects the 1%.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:15 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

"NYPD does not respect Law and Order" strikes me as a particularly clever chant.

As someone else pointed out, lots and lots of stage actors pay their bills by doing L&O. My favorite was when we were at a play a while back and someone had written in their bio, "Law and Order (all three)."
posted by Betelgeuse at 10:27 AM on December 9, 2011

the nature of this "sucker punch"

Here's how I see it: unless the crime being investigated in the episode had to do with institutional denial of First Amendment rights (I guess it might, though I doubt it), this is just working to further the meme that Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are hotbeds of crime.

And when people are still reeling about the loss of their home (I know this might strike people as silly or entitled, but people were living there and considering it home, regardless of what we think about it), and justifiably upset about the manner in which the raid occurred, to build a simulacrum five blocks away so you can fictionalize crime happening there stikes me as really tone-deaf at best, and reeks of the kind of co-opting that OWS is struggling against.

explain how taking over a film shoot affects the 1%

Law and Order is on NBC. NBC is owned by GE. GE pays no taxes.
posted by davidjmcgee at 10:28 AM on December 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

Law and Order is on NBC. NBC is owned by GE. GE pays no taxes.

Then they can occupy NBC or GE directly.

unless the crime being investigated in the episode had to do with institutional denial of First Amendment rights (I guess it might, though I doubt it), this is just working to further the meme that Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are hotbeds of crime.

Then the beef is with the writers. Go occupy the writers' studios.

(I've been getting the general message that this wasn't an "official" thing, and am satisfied, and am only arguing from a place of intellectual exercise crossed with "okay, wait, you're hassling my peeps now" anger.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:31 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Empress: Well, consider how many people across the country are actually watching live net feeds from the various Occupy groups on the ground or otherwise getting their sense of it direct from the source, versus how many learned all they know about OWS from other media sources. A lot of people know only what they're told on the news. They hear talking heads describe what's going on, see random photos of people clashing with cops, and are told that the movement doesn't know what it wants, all without actually seeing or hearing what's actually happening in the camps. Even that is seriously diffusing the movement's message. There's a case to be made that the public support they've gotten isn't even because of their core message but is a rejection of police overreaction. In other words, it's not recognition of the rapacious behavior of the ruling classes that's gaining the movement public sympathy but police violence against nonviolent protestors that has little real connection to what they're actually protesting.

Now consider how many people who have only the vaguest understanding of what the whole Occupy business is about would see a Law and Order episode that uses a fake Occupy encampment to physically act out on the screen a story that, one can be reasonably certain, would greatly oversimplify the group's actual aims, misrepresent the kinds of people who are involved, and use the whole thing as a backdrop for the typical sensationalism and authoritarian values that the Law and Order shows represent. That would become the foremost impression of the Occupy movement in the minds of millions of mainstream Americans, an expertly crafted piece of propaganda made by people whose core competency is creating impressions that stick in the mind of an audience. It would almost completely surrender control of the movement's narrative to a handful of rich TV producers.

Now I don't believe in secret mustache-twirling conspiracies. I don't think the boards of Citibank and BofA got together in their secret lair and sent out marching orders to Dick Wolf to discredit those bastards down there in the park. But the effect is the same. I think that's something the movement has to resist if it's not to be marginalized and propagandized into defeat.
posted by Naberius at 10:34 AM on December 9, 2011 [12 favorites]

As a recovering L&O addict, I'm embarrassed to admit what I would give for a Jose Chung's From Outer Space-style episode of SVU where the fourth wall of fiction slowly crumbles around the cast. Suddenly, they realize that they have arrested a certain perp multiple times under many names, that one of their cops had a rap career and moonlights as a reality TV star, and that Hudson University is not a real place. Lost and adrift, the cast wanders around real New York in character, surprised that people still treat them as cops, even though they may not be.

They go mad.

Then it all ends in a big musical number.

I used to have a similar dream. I wished the final season of Murder She Wrote would reveal that Angela Landsbury's character was a diabolical serial killer who had framed every single person she ever caught.

The Internets give me hope that both are dreams will one day be real in some form or other...
posted by srboisvert at 10:38 AM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Fucking with a film shoot is just....fucking with it for the sake of fucking with something, and dammit that's NOT what they were supposed to be doing.

NO. A shoot is a damn invasion army. The equipment and disruption they bring is not to be believed.

I lived in a downtown LA location, in the Artist's District, my street was used commonly by film shoots. Film crews made my home into a war zone. First they'd swoop in with no advance notice and mark the area a tow-away zone, right in downtown where there was no other parking available. Then they'd come in and tow away people's cars. This is where starving artists live, I know lots of people who could not pay the tow and storage fees, and lost their cars. There was a recent video on MeFi that showed a reality TV show in NYC with film crews towing away whole blocks of cars.

Then there's the facilities they bring. It displaces the whole community. I remember being pissed off one morning, trying to get to work, because there's a huge shoot going on, trucks everywhere, and a "Honey Wagon" (a portable toilet truck) parked in front of my driveway. I cannot get to work, I can't get my car out of the parking lot. Film permits require the trucks to not block driveways. I found a PA and insisted they get the damn truck out of my driveway. They refuse, I argued loudly. Next thing I know, I'm being arrested by the LAPD rent-a-cop working security, on the charge of "interfering with a film crew." After a a few hours of processing through LAPD Central (the worst station in all of LAPD) I bail myself out and get right back to my home. This time there's a different LAPD rent-a-cop on site, he makes them move the honey wagon and I get to work about 5 hours late.

A week later I found the charges were dropped, of course there were no charges they could make, not even disorderly conduct. This is what film crews do, if there's any disturbance that could delay shooting (which can cost tens of thousands of dollars per minute) they will just arrest anyone who gets in their way, on any pretext, just to get them out of the site while they finish filming. Then later they drop the charges. It is a horrible abuse of civil rights. I traced the production company, talked to the show runner for that shoot, I bitched him out, and he said, "you got what you deserved."

This is how film shoots work, how they think. I recall reading an article in the LA Times about how aggressive and intrusive film shoots were. They described a film shoot in LA City Council Chambers, they filmed all night so they would be gone in the morning and not interfere with the City Council using the room during the day. Well of course shoots go behind schedule, they were still filming in the morning when the offices started up. And there are cables and lights and film equipment snaking down the halls and everywhere. So one of the City Councillors is trying to get to her office, she's stepping over cables and equipment, and trying to get into her office which is in a line of sight with the camera. She might get in the shot, so a PA snarls at her, "hey, we're filming here!" The City Councillor said that warning was delivered with the same tone you'd say, "hey, we're curing cancer here!"

And that is how film shoots work. They spend lots of money to prepare equipment to swoop in and take over a neighborhood, with enough security force to insure nobody interferes, so they can do whatever they want. There are regulations for film location licenses, like not blocking driveways, not blocking streets for more than 2 minutes, etc. But when this is the industry that generates most of the tax base for LA, they can do pretty much whatever they want. And with off-duty LAPD running security, at premium hourly rates, they have their own police force.

Oh the stories I could tell. Like being blocked from driving home for 30 minutes because there is a stunt rigged at the intersection next to my loft, I can go once the explosives have fired and the shot is over. Gee thanks for the advance warning. Or the time when I was awakened one morning at 6AM by diesel fumes when a generator truck parked with its exhaust pipes 3 feet from my bedroom window. Or the helicopter hovering with blades about 10 feet from my main windows. Oh.. I think I already wrote about a film crew leaving a pile of real machine guns at my loft overnight. I lived with film shoots in front of my house for years and it was a monumental pain in the ass for everyone.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:41 AM on December 9, 2011 [34 favorites]

Homicide did it first.

That's true in many respects.

HBO saw Homicide, asked Barry Levinson if he'd like to produce a show without having to worry about commercials or censors, and thus we got Oz on HBO. Their success with that show ushered in the whole one-hour cable drama era.

In other words, millions of people might actually leave their sofas on Sunday nights if not for Homicide's critical acclaim.

I also get a kick out of the cool quasi-continuity between Homicide, Oz, and The Wire.
posted by snottydick at 10:42 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I used to have a similar dream. I wished the final season of Murder She Wrote would reveal that Angela Landsbury's character was a diabolical serial killer who had framed every single person she ever caught.

Seriously! This makes so much sense.
posted by sweetkid at 10:43 AM on December 9, 2011

charlie don't surf, I live in New York City and am well aware of what location film shoots can do to a location.

I still disagree with the people who fucked with this one.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:44 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

right, I live in NYC and Person of Interest filmed outside my house for three days. The trucks all came at 6 am and woke me up. Pretty annoying, but that doesn't mean I think it's OK to go screw with their work, just because it's annoying to me. I know people who work in this industry and they work endless hours for okay kinda money and they don't need to be occupied. They have enough to deal with on a daily basis.
posted by sweetkid at 10:54 AM on December 9, 2011

I live in NYC and Person of Interest filmed outside my house for three days. The trucks all came at 6 am and woke me up.

During the 12 years I lived on the Lower East Side, I dealt with about 5 different L&O film shoots in my neighborhood per year easily. I also had my entire block completely redesigned by Julie Taymor when she was filming a scene from Across The Universe (you try leaving work for the day and having everything look one way, and then coming back at the end of the day and suddenly all the street signs on your block are reading "Haight/Asbury" and the deli's painted bright orange with flowers and has flyers in the window advertising be-ins), and a scene from Glitter was filmed on my stoop.

Actually, I got home just as they were packing up from the Glitter shoot and ended up having a WHALE of a time busting on Mariah Carey with one of the lighting grip guys.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:04 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

this is just working to further the meme that Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are hotbeds of crime.

Ah, so it was bad speech.
posted by spaltavian at 11:06 AM on December 9, 2011

I don't understand how it's ok to let NBC (or whoever) write the OWS story.

I don't understand your logic. The media has been "writing the OWS story" since day one, but no one's broken into the newspapers yet, or the Daily Show, or... so why is L&O getting singled out?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:19 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

(Actually, the writers were probably told to do a OWS story. But wherever the order came from to interfere with a protest message, that's who is responsible for the company catching protest flack. And they probably expected it to draw protest ire too, perhaps they were even counting on it for free publicity - they likely just had the hubris to think they were untouchable and could do whatever they liked and that the protest would be powerless to do anything but whine after the fact. Their mistake.)
posted by -harlequin- at 11:21 AM on December 9, 2011

I see a pretty large difference between (even axe-grindy editing of) genuine OWS footage, and the outright manufacture of fictional footage from whole cloth. If only that the later is easier to disrupt.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:25 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

you try leaving work for the day and having everything look one way, and then coming back at the end of the day and suddenly all the street signs on your block are reading "Haight/Asbury" and the deli's painted bright orange with flowers and has flyers in the window advertising be-ins

I was walking in the financial district near my downtown loft one day, the big stone bank building on the corner had a film shoot going on. The large outdoor sign said "Fourth Reich Bank."
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:28 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I see a pretty large difference between (even axe-grindy editing of) genuine OWS footage, and the outright manufacture of fictional footage from whole cloth.

So if it's fictional, then where's the concern? Do you not trust that the public will know the difference?

And if you don't, then whose fault is that really?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:30 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't think what they, the real OWS people did in taking over the fake "OWS/L&O" set was either stupid or misguided. Rather I think it was a natural, spontaneous reaction to the experience of having one's experiences spectacularized right in front of one's very own eyes.

You don't have to have experienced the very real and oppressively self-important manipulations of the routine occupation of a public space, correctly "permitted" or not, to see the inherent foulness of the materialization of a replica clearly meant to distort the meaning, whatever it may be of the original.

The word for what was in the offing in the intended creation of this "episode" of "SUV" is recuperation and resisting or undermining or fucking with that is always a good thing.
posted by emhutchinson at 11:34 AM on December 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Fictional footage depicting current events has that murky "Based On A True Story" thing going. So who knows where the line is. I'm not sure it even matters. As I see it, someone decided to tell people to play with fire, and those people got burned. Don't blame the fire.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:35 AM on December 9, 2011

I don't understand how it's ok to let NBC (or whoever) write the OWS story. If the production company doesn't consult OWS, hell yeah shut that down.

Don't blame OWS for the disruption, blame the writers for inappropriately taking up arms and attracting deserved return fire. OWS did what should have been done once the writers crossed the line. If someone was fucking over the PAs, etc, it was the writers. The buck stops there.

Why the fuck should OWS get to determine who writes their story? They're in the news, whoever wants to talk about them gets to, period. This isn't a "fire" it's not some unstoppable, unaccountable natural force, it's people making a decision. I will absolutely blame people who spend their time trying to shut up speech they don't like, and I won't feel bad about it at all.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:40 AM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

mic check?

MIC CHECK!

mic check

MIC CHECK!

this thread is silly, it was just a funny thing that some people did not really a big deal

YUP!

kthnxby

TTYL!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:40 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Jesus Christ.

I don't understand your logic. The media has been "writing the OWS story" since day one, but no one's broken into the newspapers yet, or the Daily Show, or... so why is L&O getting singled out?

First of all, as I pointed out above, this was not a large scale operation with pre-event publicized OWS backing. Saying that Law and Order was singled out implies that OWS considered all of the possible avenues of attack and decided to go with L&O. Also- nobody who has participated in OWS has broken into newspapers yet, nobody who has participated in OWS has tried to assassinate Glen Beck yet, and nobody who has participated in OWS has decided to drop poodles out of a helicopter with collars that read "end the fed" on them yet either.

So if it's fictional, then where's the concern? Do you not trust that the public will know the difference?

I can't fully get behind this action, but if the past shows us anything, it's that large swaths of the public do not and will not understand the difference between fact and fiction when it comes to forming opinions on real-life topics.

And if you don't, then whose fault is that really?
I don't know. You tell me.
posted by stagewhisper at 11:43 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is really just about OWS fucking with your peeps this time. In occupying bridges, intersections, public thoroughfares, OWS has disrupted many workplaces not directly of the 1%. If that didn't bother you before, this isn't really that different. If you buy into the Mario Savio quote, then everywhere is the machine that needs to be dismantled.

It's ok if you don't buy into that. I don't think that I do. But workplace-disruption is not some new tactic with unfortunate consequences. It is the original and primary tactic.
posted by Errant at 11:44 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

First of all, as I pointed out above, this was not a large scale operation with pre-event publicized OWS backing. Saying that Law and Order was singled out implies that OWS considered all of the possible avenues of attack and decided to go with L&O.

Hey, tell -harlequin- that. He's the one making apologetics for this action.

And as I've pointed out above, I understand by now this was not an OWS-backed event, and am arguing more from a place of "the event in and of itself" and holding the specific individuals at fault.

This is really just about OWS fucking with your peeps this time.

I know. That's exactly why I've been saying I was upset.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:48 AM on December 9, 2011

the outright manufacture of fictional footage

Fiction does tend to be fictional.

I don't understand how it's ok to let NBC (or whoever) write the OWS story.

It's actually okay for anyone to write any story. You get to counter with your own speech. You don't get to prevent or disrupt their speech. Freedom cuts both ways. Deal with it, or at least stop pretending to be "progressive".
posted by spaltavian at 11:56 AM on December 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's actually okay for anyone to write any story. You get to counter with your own speech. You don't get to prevent or disrupt their speech.

Quoted for summing up my objection way more eloquently than I could.

Yes -- this is what bothers me about their actions as well. They fought to get the right to free speech, they used Free Speech as a means to preserve the occupation.

Them winning the right to free speech does not give them the right to mess with someone else exercising the same damn right.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:03 PM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Law and Order is straight-up right-wing-authoritarian propaganda which fetishizes vengeance, glamorizes state violence, exalts the powerful, and sells pop tarts on commercial breaks. The show is produced by NBC, which is in turn owned by GE. GE is a huge player in the health care industry, a major defense contractor, TARP fund recipient, pioneer in outsourcing american jobs, epic industrial polluter, and it is sitting on $91 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of the third quarter 2011. I can see why some OWS participants might not trust such an operation to represent them. I agree that film extras and PA's need love too, but it's up to to their fabulously rich/powerful employers and the government that is supposed to represent them to make sure they get paid.
posted by jcrcarter at 12:04 PM on December 9, 2011 [10 favorites]

It's actually okay for anyone to write any story. You get to counter with your own speech.

That's really up for debate. There are laws against libel and defamation, you know. Also, legal and ethically "okay" are two different things. I don't think it's okay for someone to knowingly write a story full of lies and pretend it's anything other than a fabrication. Depending on the circumstances there are (unfortunately like most things in this society not equally enforced) laws against doing so. I'm for free speech and am against censoring opinion, so that's what my problem with this action stems from.

You don't get to prevent or disrupt their speech.

Prevent? No. It's wrong to prevent someone else's speech. Disrupt? I think it's sometimes a perfectly legitimate tactic to disrupt a speech within certain contexts and situations. Whether or not I have an ethical problem with it depends on a host of complicating factors.
posted by stagewhisper at 12:10 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I really don't see a legitimate purpose in a company operating a fake OWS - a fake me - designed to speak as if me, but isn't me and doesn't speak for me, and doesn't have my consent to pretend to be me and put words in my mouth.

If someone wants to speak, they can do it without pretending to be me, and do so without my objection. Otherwise, they can do it with my objection. (As appears to have happened.)

But this is an objection that would basically eliminate storytelling that touches on real subjects. The legitimate purpose is storytelling, just like the legitimate purpose of the fictionalized versions of real life people and movements that appear on TV and in movies all the time is storytelling. We also, thank God, don't require an agreed upon "legitimate purpose" before let people speak.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:20 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I really don't see a legitimate purpose in a company operating a fake OWS - a fake me - designed to speak as if me, but isn't me and doesn't speak for me, and doesn't have my consent to pretend to be me and put words in my mouth.

And that is why, at the very beginning of that episode, the producers of the show would take pains to run a message stating that the people depicted in that episode are NOT actually you.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:24 PM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

But this is an objection that would basically eliminate storytelling that touches on real subjects

No it doesn't. It means that you follow the same rules that every other storyteller has to follow, and follows for good reason. If you're going to masquerade as someone else and put words in their mouth, you either get the consent of the affected people, or you be very careful, or you get a lawyer.
posted by -harlequin- at 12:26 PM on December 9, 2011

No it doesn't. It means that you follow the same rules that every other storyteller has to follow, and follows for good reason. If you're going to masquerade as someone else and put words in their mouth, you either get the consent of the affected people, or you be very careful, or you get a lawyer.

Law and Order was built on protraying fictionalized versions of real events, but with major changes. They did not get the consent of those people, they didn't have to because they were presenting fictionalized versions of them that weren't so close as to run afoul of the defamation laws.*

If you're objection is to a storyteller using real life event (not person), and fictionalizing people involved with that event, then yeah, you've just made it impossible to tell a huge number of stories. World War II was a real event; if I tell a story about soldiers in World War II, then I'm making fictional versions of actual World War II veterans to the same extent that this is making a fictionalized version of anyone involved in OWS.

I'd also point out that (as far as I know) we don't know what the plot of the SVU episode is. Instead of waiting to learn that information, some people decided to go be bullies to try to stop someone from (maybe) saying mean things about them.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:38 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've supported the OWS movement in the past, but this was a big mistake and I may question my support unless someone addresses this.

Translation: "I used to think that corporate control of our government is the biggest problem facing America. But forcing L&O to film somewhere else? That's a REAL problem."
posted by coolguymichael at 12:51 PM on December 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

Don't put words in my mouth, coolguy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:02 PM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos, you've been outed as an OINO (Occupier In Name Only) by the decentralized movement. If the Occupy Movement's actions don't sound reasonable to you, then you just have to look harder to find justification to make it so. L&O shoot sounds benign enough. But if you think about it, L&O is authoritarian. And it runs on NBC. Which is owned by GE. Which is a huge corporation that paid no taxes. And those people are getting paid well anyway, and it's not fair that outsiders get to tell the Occupy story.

So the question here isn't if those Occupiers are hurting the movement more than helping. The real question is why aren't you out there on the set sticking it to the biz? Splitter!
posted by 2N2222 at 1:23 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, if I was a "film crew", shooting a "movie" about #OWS, how long do you suppose I could get a permit to ~~occupy~~ film in Zuccotti Park? After all I just want to make sure my filming looks authentic. The movie's going to have a lot of extras, and shooting might take a while...I'm kind of a "method" director, you see, and I want my actors to really feel what it's like to be sleeping in tents and so forth...
posted by mstokes650 at 2:06 PM on December 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

That's really up for debate. There are laws against libel and defamation, you know.

It is not up for debate. Libel has a very high standard, and it has to, because libel and slander are not regulating content. It is not does not regulate concepts, ideas, motives. That's what speech is; not the unlimited right to make sounds. Trying to use libel laws as "proof" the door is already open for kind of authoritarian regulation of content that -harlequin- calls for is ridiculous.

I really don't see a legitimate purpose

You don't get decide what a "legitimate" purpose (whatever the hell that means) is for speech. Speech doesn't need a legitimate purpose.

No one is "pretending" to be you. This isn't a false flag operation, and you don't get to prevent other people commenting on what you do. Especially people who protest in public in order to be seen and heard, for fuck's sake. Freedom of speech apparently means "freedom to agree with what I said" to you.
posted by spaltavian at 2:12 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

No. "Freedom of speech" means the government shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It doesn't mean you have the right to never ever be interrupted by anyone ever.

We can discuss whether or not what the demonstrators did last night was dickish, but unless they were elected to an office that I don't know about it certainly wasn't abridging anybody's freedom of speech.
posted by davidjmcgee at 2:27 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Reread my comment spaltavian. I was not saying that libel and defamation laws preemptively shut down free speech. I was specifically replying to your assertion that "It's actually okay for anyone to write any story. You get to counter with your own speech.". I was pointing out that the law does not find this "okay" in certain situations. I'm not defending or supporting -harlequin-'s position. I don't agree with it. I am saying that there can be negative legal consequences for story-telling that involves actual lying. I'm not talking about fiction or opinion here, I'm talking about knowingly asserting something's true when it isn't.
posted by stagewhisper at 2:45 PM on December 9, 2011

I was specifically replying to your assertion that "It's actually okay for anyone to write any story.

I was using -harlequin-'s turn of phase, "I don't understand how it's ok to let NBC (or whoever) write the OWS story." I was not saying that people could write anything libelous, I was rejecting -harlequin-'s contention that she, Occupy or anyone else get's to own narratives.

but unless they were elected to an office that I don't know about it certainly wasn't abridging anybody's freedom of speech.

Not true. Non state actors can't properly said to employ censorship, but private citizens can infringe on another's rights. But we're kind of past this specific example at this point, because we have people talking about speech needing a "legitimate purpose" to be allowed.

It doesn't mean you have the right to never ever be interrupted by anyone ever.

Of course it doesn't which is why you can protest at an appearance of a politician, or the like. But making it impossible for speech to take place, such as causing the shutdown of production of art (even of dubious quality) is a different matter. You can hold up signs that say "Obama Sucks", but you can't block his motorcade to getting to the event.
posted by spaltavian at 2:57 PM on December 9, 2011

private citizens can infringe on another's rights.

You're right, of course. I was probably being too glib.

But making it impossible for speech to take place, such as causing the shutdown of production of art (even of dubious quality) is a different matter.

Is there? I'm very interested in where this line is drawn, and who gets to decide, and why. I'm certainly no legal scholar; is there precedent on this sort of decision?
posted by davidjmcgee at 3:00 PM on December 9, 2011

What's up with the outpouring of concern for the free speech rights of one of the world's largest corporations? One that own it's very own television network?
posted by jcrcarter at 3:38 PM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos, you've been outed as an OINO (Occupier In Name Only) by the decentralized movement.

No -- if it's a decentralized movement, then you don't speak for them. Which means I've been accused of something by ONE PERSON.

If the Occupy Movement's actions don't sound reasonable to you, then you just have to look harder to find justification to make it so.

And it sounds like this ONE PERSON is apparently assuming things about what I think about the whole of the movement, based on my stating I dislike what a FRINGE GROUP did.

So the question here isn't if those Occupiers are hurting the movement more than helping. The real question is why aren't you out there on the set sticking it to the biz?

Because I respect my industry enough to stay the fuck off a set I'm not part of, just like they stay the fuck out of my rehearsals. Because that's what entertainment professionals do.

And because I don't care enough about the opinions of ONE PERSON, who's clearly just trying to talk big by dropping sexy-sounding buzzwords without knowing enough about them, to alter my behavior.

Splitter!

Poser!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:53 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I don't think the boards of Citibank and BofA got together in their secret lair and sent out marching orders to Dick Wolf to discredit those bastards down there in the park.

When I worked for Citigroup, there were jokes that the board had a black ops team to deal with 'problems'.

Very nervous jokes.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out about a black-ops contract with Xe, though, just in case.

(There was a story about a Citigroup high-ranking VP who died of a heart attack on his honeymoon with his second, thirty years plus younger wife with Viagra in his blood; some people pointed at that as a possible black ops sort of thing. but I admit to being bitter at the layoff.)
posted by mephron at 4:07 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

EmpressCalliygos uh, 2N2222 isn't actually serious. He can't stand OWS and is lampooning it.
posted by stagewhisper at 4:11 PM on December 9, 2011

According to the Mother Jones article linked in the post, one of the organizers said, "They've delivered us this perfectly wrapped Christmas present with a bow on top: They rebuilt our camp. How could we not go and take it?"

In video of the event, the protesters very specifically visited the fake library and the fake kitchen and took video of those things.

Everyone here is arguing over whether OWS should have been protesting Law and Order. But they weren't protesting Law and Order.

They were protesting the fact that their protest camps around the country have been torn down in the name of order, because they were supposedly creating a "public nuisance," but a television show bankrolled by a gigantic corporation set up a near-perfect replica of an OWS camp, complete with semi-permanent structures (library, kitchen) and big (fake) crowds, and no authorities complained. Because someone with money was doing it to make more money, and that made it okay.

NBC blocks streets and fills a public park with tents to film an episode of a fluff-filled fictional TV show? No problem.

A group of ordinary American citizens wants to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and assembly in order to protest the corporate and government malfeasance that led directly to the worst economic crash in nearly a century, pushing thousands of people out of their homes and eventually causing 1 in 6 Americans to need government assistance just to put food on the table?

Well, sheesh. That's just disruptive.
posted by BlueJae at 4:12 PM on December 9, 2011 [20 favorites]

2N2222 isn't actually serious. He can't stand OWS and is lampooning it.

Thanks for letting me know.

Fortunately, sounds like he's still someone I can safely mock, even if it's for a different reason.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:33 PM on December 9, 2011

Sorry for the inconvenience, we're trying to change the world.
posted by unknowncommand at 7:37 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Co-optation and mis-representation in popular media is something that a number of disadvantaged groups in society (blacks, women, latino/as, poor people, non-straight people; formerly: different ethnic groups now considered "white" from earlier waves of immigration, Catholics in a predominantly Protestant country, etc.) have been complaining about for ages as being harmful to them. At issue is the lop-sidedness of harmful or co-optive representations, given that the groups being misrepresented don't have the same resources to put their story or their own representation of themselves out into the media and popular discourse anywhere near as effectively.

(Think, for example, about female models in advertising. Your average model still has one of many possible human body shapes (photoshopping excesses aside, most models are still real people, not completely unrealistically proportioned robots or barbie dolls). But it's the overwhelming use of models in the extreme tail of the distribution as far as body weight/thinness goes that results in cumulative negative impacts on womens' health and self-image. Sure, feminist groups or others concerned about this can (and do) make healthier images of the diversity of womens' body shapes publicly available, but the difference in resources, and thus the difference in impact, is so vast.)

This is one of the points of OWS, I believe: that free speech should mean that everyone has relatively equitable access. As opposed to how things presently stand, where groups with lots of money are able to effectively drown out the speech of disadvantaged groups, even though they aren't technically actively censoring or preventing the disadvantaged groups from exercising their speech. So I can see where concerns about the L&O episode could have arisen among OWS members. I will reserve judgement until I learn more specific details. But, though I generally agree with you EmpressCallipygos, I think there is a valid concern here from OWS' (or sub-groups') perspective that I would urge you to consider, though I respect that you disagree with the tactic that was used to address the concern.
posted by eviemath at 9:06 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I am most certainly not one of those people who was/is demanding a coherent point by point list of demands from Occupy protesters, anger at the financial sector and income inequality in the US is enough for me to have gotten on board. But the lack of message discipline here is disturbing. I don't want OWS to become some identity politics based nonsense where protesting it's ostensible purpose is gradually sidelined to concentrate on protesting people who may or may not say something bad about you. (Or really, having unauthorized thoughts about OWS.)

If it's because GE owns NBC and GE is a big corporation, man, then OWS is just becoming that caricature of "they all have iphones, but Apple is a big corporation why aren't they protesting them they hate rich business durr durr" that is so popular in the right wing wurlitzer right now.
posted by Snyder at 12:06 PM on December 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"If it's because GE owns NBC and GE is a big corporation, man, then OWS is just becoming that caricature of "they all have iphones, but Apple is a big corporation why aren't they protesting them they hate rich business durr durr" that is so popular in the right wing wurlitzer right now."

Yeah, no. That wasn't the primary reason why some of the OWS people in NYC were protesting the fake OWS camp, as you can see from the majority of the comments, the protester's own words, etc.

People claiming to have been silently sympathetic to the movement in the past now cherry picking a couple comments from OWS supporters in this thread in order to write the main concerns of the entire movement off seems to be all the rage these days, though, so have at it.

This was the most recent OWS organized action and it got no play here despite being much larger, OWS supported, and publicized heavily by OWS before and after.
posted by stagewhisper at 12:36 PM on December 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

comment removed, try it again without the "fuck you" please.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:14 PM on December 10, 2011

Yeah! Fuck corporations! Everything they do is horrible.

Posted from my iPad, via Netgear, via Time Warner, AT&T, Sprint, Level3, Nortel, Checkpoint, Intel.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 1:39 PM on December 11, 2011

*slow clap*
posted by Sys Rq at 5:05 PM on December 11, 2011

People claiming to have been silently sympathetic to the movement in the past now cherry picking a couple comments from OWS supporters in this thread in order to write the main concerns of the entire movement off seems to be all the rage these days, though, so have at it.

This sort of "you're with us or you're against us," shit was so tiresome when the neocons were doing it, and it is still tiresome now that anarcho-occupiers picked up that playbook.

Besides, NBC|Universal is no longer "owned" by GE. ~~Kabletown~~Comcast bought them out a while back.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:00 AM on December 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

This sort of "you're with us or you're against us," shit was so tiresome when the neocons were doing it, and it is still tiresome now that anarcho-occupiers picked up that playbook.

What stagewhisper is complaining about is an all-or-nothing support of Occupy (or similar movements), where people remove their support of the entire movement on the basis of disagreement with one or two details, rather than holding a nuanced understanding of the fact that a large movement is going to include people and events that you don't always completely agree with, even though you agree on the main principles or issues. That's the exact opposite of a "you're with us or you're against us" perspective.
posted by eviemath at 7:28 AM on December 12, 2011

That's the exact opposite of a "you're with us or you're against us" perspective.

Except this was the same thing the neocons have done, and continue to do. Everybody has to accept the entire package deal or else you're an enemy. It is now impossible to have nuanced discussion on either front, and it functions to move the entire group into more radical directions.

I don't like income inequality. But I also think that people fucking up regular people's daily lives and jobs is fucked up. You had me at hello, but you lost me the day you kept my subway from running properly. You are not my enemy, but you've made me yours.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:18 AM on December 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, if I was a "film crew", shooting a "movie" about #OWS, how long do you suppose I could get a permit to occupy film in Zuccotti Park? After all I just want to make sure my filming looks authentic. The movie's going to have a lot of extras, and shooting might take a while...I'm kind of a "method" director, you see, and I want my actors to really feel what it's like to be sleeping in tents and so forth...

mstokes650, the problem is the risk you would face that #OWS members might decide to occupy your film site. Then you'd be faced with the unenviable task of attempting to roust the real occupiers. If you didn't keep very careful records of all the temp actors you hired, the only reasonable way to separate them would be based on acting ability. Anyone who acted like an OWSer would have to leave, while those ACTING like OWSers would, of course, be employees of the set, and allowed to stay.

Of course, if any Anonymous members joined your set under assumed names, you'd have another layer of problems...
posted by IAmBroom at 8:27 AM on December 12, 2011

The planned West Coast Port Shutdown is happening in dozens of cities right now.

Occupy Portland: demonstrators shut down 2 Port of Portland terminals

Hundreds of Occupy protesters block Port of Oakland

An open letter from America's port truck drivers on Occupy the Ports

The twitter hashtag is #D12
posted by finite at 11:58 AM on December 12, 2011

What stagewhisper is complaining about is an all-or-nothing support of Occupy (or similar movements), where people remove their support of the entire movement on the basis of disagreement with one or two details, rather than holding a nuanced understanding of the fact that a large movement is going to include people and events that you don't always completely agree with, even though you agree on the main principles or issues.

If either you or stagewhisper really think that my words indicate a withdrawal of support, in totality, from OWS, then it's pointless to try and communicate. I guess stagewhisper is allowed to not like the action, but everyone else is just concern trolling, or something.
posted by Snyder at 9:56 AM on December 13, 2011

If either you or stagewhisper really think that my words indicate a withdrawal of support, in totality, from OWS, then it's pointless to try and communicate.

They may be talking about my initial statement that I was going to question my own support. Although it seems they'reconveniently overlooking my qualifier of "unless someone can speak to whether this was any officially-sanctioned action or just a bunch of rogue guys."

But yeah.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:32 AM on December 13, 2011

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