Lawrence just enlisted in Russell’s next film, the untitled Abscam film that also stars Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.
Black and Tisch said “Jennifer Lawrence is one of the most versatile actresses we have ever seen. Her performance in Silver Linings was transcendent and was truly the heart and soul of the film. Jennifer was basically asked to play 4 personalities — depressed, sexy, romantic and a wild dancer — and did them all brilliantly. After seeing that performance we knew we had our anchor for Ends Of The Earth. Her dedication to the craft and all those who work with her is inspiring and if she is the future of our business we are certainly in good hands.”
Russell added, “Jennifer possesses a self-deprecating humor that made all of the cast and crew feel at ease. She is that kind of person.” He went on to say, “She is the most dedicated person I know. She is devoted to her family and they have been the true inspiration for her character and integrity. Her acting is effortless and she always makes it look easy.”
The film is an American epic, fact-based love story about a powerful oil tycoon Ernest Marland, who has everything stripped from him after he is caught in an affair.
* this is indeed good news. As I mentioned before this period piece should have Jenni first nude scenes alongside Serena (though I'm hearing the producers are aiming for PG-13). Hiring notoriously bad-tempered Russell to work with his muse must have came from the actress herself. She wanted someone who can she trust in racy scenes. If they stick to the original script and I expect them to as the segments are necessary to shift from paternal kind of relationship between Lydie and male lead Ernest to more May-December angle, Jenni will perform couple of love scenes and non-sexual nudity. She will be in heavy make-up and fake hairdo as the plot is set in 1930's. Probably be released after Hunger Games franchise comes to an end.
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Rogue premieres Wednesday, April 3 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. only on DIRECTV's Audience Network.
* so there will be nudity. Betting Leah Gibson drew the short stick when it comes to frenzied sex and nude sequence with that vamped getup and persona. Hopefully the Canadian first nude scene(s) will be akin to Jessica Marais in Magic City.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* more bra-clad and nips covered nonsense?
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James Gandolfini’s Pilot ‘Criminal Justice’ Not Going Forward At HBO
James Gandolfini‘s return to HBO‘s primetime lineup has been put on hold, at least for now. The pay cable network has passed on drama pilot Criminal Justice, which starred The Sopranos alum. Written by Oscar nominee Richard Price (The Color Of Money) and directed by Oscar-winning writer Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List), Criminal Justice is a New York-set crime drama loosely based on the acclaimed 2008 BBC series of the same name created by Peter Moffat. The decision comes on the heels of HBO greenlighting Damon Lindelof’s drama Leftovers to pilot. The network also has hourlong pilot Missionary, which is still casting, and straight-to- series drama True Detective starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. * just wasn't edgy enough for HBO. The pilot was as procedural as crime shows on network television. Most likely will receive TV-movie premiere.
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Anja Rubik : Jan Welters [UK Elle February] 2013
* love Anja but often wondered if she actually request to show her tits in every other photo-shoots.
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Exclusive: Shiri Appleby's Baby Shower: All the Details
Cass Bird x Daria Werbowy
The Versatile Supermodel Stars in a Gender-Bending Animated Short
Daria Werbowy morphs from skater to rocker, businessman to dancer as she shape-shifts through an array of different characters in this stop-motion animation by photographer Cass Bird. The pair were inspired by a series of black-and-white cut-out collages made in the early 70s by Cindy Sherman, an artist famed for her fascination with identity and gender. “I’ve always been interested in how clothes can override our identity,” says Bird from her home in Brooklyn. “How they can change our posture completely, or even how we feel about our sexuality.” Since their first collaboration over a decade ago Bird and the Ukrainian-Canadian Werbowy have traveled the world capturing some of the most distinctive images of the chameleonic model. Bird is celebrated for her spontaneous and intimate photographs of celebrities including Cate Blanchett and Viggo Mortensen, as well as personal projects like recent monograph Rewilding, which portrayed androgynous girls in the Tennessee wilderness. She brought a similar uninhibited freedom to this latest session with her close friend Werbowy, who holds the record for opening and closing the most runway shows in a fashion season and has graced the pages of everything from Vogue to V magazine to the Pirelli Calendar. “I laughed the whole way through it,” says Bird. “I’m always taken with Daria’s physical range. She pushes herself physically and emotionally and has this God-given gift to be able to channel masculine and feminine energy quite genuinely.”
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James Deen Calls James Franco "A Dick," Says Paul Schrader Didn't Respect Him On 'The Canyons'
With the film finding a home last week with IFC Films, you might think the stories around the making of "The Canyons" -- which have included a highly quotable New York Times Magazine profile, and news of its rejection from both Sundance and SXSW -- might be put to rest. But it seems there is still much more talk about, and after so much drama surrounding Lindsay Lohan's onset behaviour, her co-star and adult film actor James Deen has weighed in with this own observations about working on the movie. And it seems that for him, Schrader was more of a hassle to deal with than Lohan.
Writing for The Daily Beast, Deen admits that he didn't initially know who Schrader actually was until he Googled his name, and realized that he was familiar with many of his projects. But this unfamiliarity with Schrader's work was perceived to be a potential problem. "When I told [producer] Braxton [Pope] this, I could see it was going to be an issue. He then explained our director’s personality type. Paul has an ego. He was described to me as a hyperintelligent creative genius with various issues," he writes. "In my previous experiences, the director is a person who has a vision and communicates that vision to everyone in order to create the art. Their primary concern is the piece and the integrity of it. You shut your mouth and do what they say regardless of if you disagree. With this in mind, I was not concerned about dealing with the director, egotistical or not. Braxton, however, seemed worried about me not wanting to feed Paul’s ego."
And indeed, Schrader had reservations that went beyond his ego. "...he was worried about casting an adult actor in his movie. His concern was that no one would take the movie seriously. Paul’s wife, I am told, hates porn, hates sex, hates sexuality, hates 'The Canyons'—hates, hates, hates," Deen shares. "Paul told her he was not sure whom to cast. He put her in a room with two videos he made on his iPhone, one of me and one of some other guy they were talking to. Paul’s wife watched the two videos and told Paul to give me the role because I was better. Paul figured that if I could win her over, then everyone else in the world would be no problem. Like that, the part was mine."
But ultimately, as Deen worked on the movie, it became clear that the professional respect he showed for Schrader -- of whom he says "Love him or hate him, Paul is a genius" -- it was not reciprocated. "Through the whole the film, there was not one moment where I felt he respected me as a person. I did, however, feel as if he respected my acting abilities," Deen states, adding: "Paul and his wife were not the only ones who thought of me as a party trick. Other than Braxton, [screenwriter] Bret [Easton Ellis], and in time, the crew of 'The Canyons,' everyone I met and worked with saw me as a joke."
All that said, Deen still stands by the filmmaker and hopes he helped him achieves his goal: "He was my director, and I will follow him to the ends of the earth. I hope my performance was of the caliber he desired and that I did not let my director down."
But speaking of respect, let's take a brief aside for a moment. Deen also quickly relates crashing a party held for James Franco's art piece "Rebel Dabble Babble" about the other James Dean, in which the XXX actor also participated (read what it's all about right here). "After my first meeting with Paul, he mentioned he was going to a James Franco party for an art piece he commissioned called 'Rebel Dabble Babble.' 'I’m in that!' I told him. I ended up crashing the party with Bret, but that’s another story," Deen wrote. "My not receiving an invite to a party to celebrate a project I was part of is the point. One, Franco is a dick. Two, I would be fighting an uphill battle [to get respect]."
And as for Lohan? Don't expect Deen to jump on the train of those bringing her down. "I only know I didn’t feel like she thought I was a joke. She made me feel good when I was around her," Deen explains, adding: "In adult scenes, I consider myself a prop. I am there to accentuate the star’s brightness. Actors are all really only props anyway. Now I was no longer the star. I was the accent to Lindsay...I think Lindsay is amazing, and I don’t have a single negative thing to say about her."
Meanwhile, Schrader has responded to Deen's lengthy piece of the making of the movie on Facebook: "For my part, he seems to be playing his violin a little loud. I would not cast an actor as the lead in a film I was co-financing unless I had absolute faith in his ability to pull it off. It took me a while to get to that place of trust (casting is destiny), but once I got there I never regretted choosing him. I took him seriously and he took his work seriously. James was the glue which held the production together."
We'll see the final results of this collaboration this summer when "The Canyons" arrives on VOD and in theaters.
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Klara Djamila Kassman Soukkan (Winner of ANTM Sweden) : Michael Barr Former Swedish Next Top Model contestant 19-years old Klara Kassman poses for Michael Barr in these recent portraits. The blonde model works it in sexily cut tees and printed pants styled by Melis Kuris. / Hair and makeup by Miho Suzuki
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Korean Auteur Park Chul-soo Dies Aged 64
I won't pretend to be an expert on Park's body of work but there's no doubt that his eclectic and vibrant films will be sorely missed in Korea's independent filmmaking community. After starting out as a crew member, Park made his first film, Captain of the Alley, in 1978. Throughout the 80s he made a great number of melodramas before turning a new leaf with 301, 302 in 1995, one of the landmark Korean films of that decade.
Before female filmmakers had a chance to do it, Park was one of the few professionals in the Korean film industry using a feminist slant in his works such as 301, 302 and Push! Push! (1997). In the new millenium, Park continued to burn a path with his experimental and frequently explicit films like Green Chair (2005) and Red Vacance Black Wedding (2011).
I was particularly taken with Green Chair when I first saw it years ago and for me it remains one of the best independent films produced in the country. An erotic tale punctuated by both the prosaic and the surreal, there's nothing quite like it.
Before female filmmakers had a chance to do it, Park was one of the few professionals in the Korean film industry using a feminist slant in his works such as 301, 302 and Push! Push! (1997). In the new millenium, Park continued to burn a path with his experimental and frequently explicit films like Green Chair (2005) and Red Vacance Black Wedding (2011).
I was particularly taken with Green Chair when I first saw it years ago and for me it remains one of the best independent films produced in the country. An erotic tale punctuated by both the prosaic and the surreal, there's nothing quite like it.
Known for his energy and enthusiasm, the last 24hrs have featured many fond remembrances from those that knew him. His premature death comes as a shock and is an unfortunate reminder of just how dangerous roads can be in Seoul. It's not for nothing that many of the Korean films you may have seen feature many traumatic traffic collisions.
I was very fortunate to meet Park for a few minutes last October at the Busan International Film Festival. It was early in the morning, on the street outside of an izakaya behind the Grand Hotel. He wore sunglasses and a big smile on his face, happy to shake my hand and full of life as he gesticulated throughout our short conversation. His last completed film, the erotic indie B.E.D, premiered at the festival and was released earlier this month on Korean screens.A unique voice in the Korean film industry, Park Chul-soo will be sorely missed.
* Oh In Hye sex scenes in Red Vacance Black Wedding was remarkable and should be emulated by every American actress in enacting realistic love scene. It was her motion picture debut and the gorgeous babe also did her first sex and nude scene! 51-years old Jo Seon-muk fucks 27-years old In-hye Oh and nibbles on her nips as well. Man...those Koreans....
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++* Oh In Hye sex scenes in Red Vacance Black Wedding was remarkable and should be emulated by every American actress in enacting realistic love scene. It was her motion picture debut and the gorgeous babe also did her first sex and nude scene! 51-years old Jo Seon-muk fucks 27-years old In-hye Oh and nibbles on her nips as well. Man...those Koreans....
Here's the Backstage Video of the photo shooting published on Vogue Italia February 2013.
See the Photos on Vogue.it: http://bit.ly/W1kF7U
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TV networks allowing too much cursing, violence, nudity
By Tristian Evans on Feb 20, 2013Network television is pushing the envelope more and more, and I honestly don’t like it.
Now, when I say network television, I’m referring to such channels as ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC as oppose to cable networks such as Showtime and HBO.
As you might guess, one of the huge differences that have always existed between cable TV and network TV is that cable channels, like HBO, get away with things like cursing, violence and nudity in their shows. However, I’ve noticed in the past year that more and more network TV shows are pushing the envelope.
For example, ABC hit series, Scandal, had an episode recently in which a man walked into a house to find the family living there brutally murdered. I found myself shocked that ABC would show such a violent act.
They could have easily shown us the character, Huck, walking into the house, looking in and then walking out with a disturbed look on his face. But instead, they took time to show the entire family dead, the mother, father, two daughters and dog with bullet holes through their bodies.
Scandal also pushes the envelope when it comes to sex scenes, and even though there isn’t nudity, little is left to the imagination.
Fox’s new hit serial killer drama, the Following, is about a crazed former college professor turned serial killer, who has a network of followers working throughout the U.S. to carry out murders.
In the first episode, the serial killer escapes from jail and goes after a former victim who managed to survive his attack. By the end of the episode, we get a quick glimpse of the victim hanging from a walk upside down with her eyes cut out. The show is also very graphic when it comes to scenes of characters being tortured or stabbed.
I suppose that these shows are trying to keep up with cable television and I guess there is nothing wrong with that. However, I really think they should leave the violence and gore to HBO.
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Fashion Week’s Models Are Getting Whiter
The Fall-Winter 2013 shows have just finished up in New York. This season saw 151 shows and live presentations during fashion week's eight days — making it the biggest and busiest NYFW we've ever covered. But it wasn't very racially diverse.
Click on any chart in this post to enlarge.
This season, 151 New York designers' shows were covered by Style.com. Those shows presented 4479 individual women's wear "looks" to buyers and press, representing 4479 opportunities for a model to walk the runway or pose in a presentation. 3706 of those looks, or 82.7%, were this season shown on white models. Asian models nabbed 409, or 9.1% of all the runway looks. Black models were hired for 271, or 6%. Non-white Latina models had 90 looks, or 2%. Models of other races wore 12, or 0.2% of all looks.
Thirteen companies — Araks, Assembly, Belstaff, Calvin Klein, Elizabeth and James, Gregory Parkinson, J Brand, Jenni Kayne, Juicy Couture, Louise Goldin, Lyn Devon, Threeasfour, and Whit — had no models of color at all. The brands Araks, Calvin Klein, Elizabeth and James, and Louise Goldin didn't hire any non-white models last season, either. That means this season, around 9% of all NYFW shows had all-white casts. That's up slightly from last season, when only 6% of shows had only white models. For comparison, in 2007, one-third of NYFW shows were all-white.
Designers that had more racial diversity included 3.1 Phillip Lim, Anna Sui, Badgley Mischka, Costello Tagliapietra, Diane von Furstenberg, J. Crew, Jason Wu, Jeremy Scott, Jonathan Simkhai, Mara Hoffman, Naeem Khan, Nicole Miller, Rebecca Taylor, Suno, Tracy Reese, Yeohlee, and Zac Posen.
This season marks the fifth year that we've collected this information, but I must admit that every time we finish one of these reports I'm left with questions, many of which are the same ones that I wrestled with nine seasons ago. Why does a huge global brand like Calvin Klein, whose multi-tiered business model depends on people from all corners of the globe wanting to see themselves in its logo, always appear to care so little about racial diversity at fashion week? Why does one mass-market contemporary label — J. Crew — apparently put so much effort into hiring a multi-ethnic cast of models, when others — Elizabeth and James, J Brand — do not? At the high end, why are Oscar de la Renta's and Diane von Furstenberg's shows so racially diverse, while Michael Kors' and Vera Wang's aren't? Why are some of New York's talented younger designers — Jason Wu, Prabal Gurung, Phillip Lim, Zac Posen — hiring so many more models of color than their just-as-buzzed-about peers like Alexander Wang, Proenza Schouler, and Rodarte? Why do so many fashion brands still treat racial diversity as optional, or a matter of taste?
I have a few theories why this season's numbers show NYFW to be a few percentage points less racially diverse than the last two seasons have been. One is that it's the fall season, and we have noted a slight swing from more racial diversity in the casting for the spring shows to less in the fall shows. (Casting directors have told me in the past that there's a belief on the part of some designers that bright spring colors look better on non-white skin tones than fall and winter hues.) The other is simply that a few relatively prominent models of color didn't walk NYFW this season, and with jobs for non-white models being already so scarce, the absence of even a handful of such models has a relatively big impact on the season's overall numbers. Latina models like Mariana Santana and Catalina Llanes, who both walked a bunch of shows last September, didn't do NYFW this season. Nor did the St. Helenian model Rea Triggs, the black models Genesis Vallejo and Senait Gidey, or the North African models Hind Sahli and Hanaa ben Abdesslem, or Tara Gill and Jenny Albright, who are both part Native American, to name a few.
There are many negative effects of the industry's preference for white skin — within fashion, it forces models of color to compete against each other for the one or two runway spots that might go to a non-white girl, it provides downward pressure on non-white models' wages, and it makes agencies less willing to invest in models of color, given that fewer opportunities mean a lower lifetime earning potential. And outside the industry — because the models who rise to the top of the heap doing runway are the models who go on to do the magazine covers, the cosmetics campaigns, the luxury brand ads, the billboards, and the TV commercials that girls all over the world can't help but grow up consuming — it promotes the idea that beauty means having white skin.
As I've written before, the conversation about racial diversity in fashion is a large and complex one, of which data like these are only one small part. It's difficult to quantify a problem like high fashion's demonstrated preference for white skin. Race is a social construct, after all, not a fact. And our "categories" — black, Asian, non-white Latina, and what we for lack of a better term call "other" — are not perfect. Racial diversity is only one way in which the fashion industry — and, by extension, our cultural ideas about what and who gets to be beautiful — could stand to broaden. There's also age, sexual orientation, and, most obviously, size. Despite our imperfect methods, we do this census every season because we believe it's helpful to put anecdote and reportage in the context of actual numbers. If we acknowledge that the overwhelming whiteness of fashion's imagery is a problem, then trying to measure that problem can be the first step towards solving it.
For those who are curious, our full report is embedded below.
Special thanks to Tanisha Ramirez, who helped compile this report.
Lead image: Model Bruna Tenório, who is of indigenous Brazilian descent, walks the runway at Zac Posen's fall-winter, 2013, show.
Models of Color FW2013
Sony Pictures Television Will Shoot at Least 3 Pilots in 4K
How to create 4K content for new Ultra HD TVs was addressed Tuesday at the Hollywood Post Alliance Tech Retreat.
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- Sony Pictures Television plans to shoot between three and five pilots in 4K this season.Since the 4K TV push at last month’s CES, where an estimated 50 “Ultra HD” TVs were unveiled, discussion has quickened about the content-creation and delivery sides of the 4K equation. Sony has been bullish about starting content creation in the format, which represents four times the amount of data as today’s HD.
“My guess is we’ll be doing half a dozen shows in 4K if they are picked up,” SPT senior vp technical operations Phil Squyres said Tuesday at the Hollywood Post Alliance Tech Retreat at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells. He reported that directors of photography on the programs -- a mix of half-hour comedies and one-hour dramas -- had either selected or were exploring the use of various 4K cameras, including Sony’s F65 and new F55.
SPT series that have already used 4K photography are the canceled CBS drama Made in Jersey, which was shot with the F65, and FX’s drama Justified, which is shot with the Red Epic camera.
The F65 is also used on the half-hour comedy Save Me for NBC and one-hour drama Masters of Sex for Showtime, as well as Michael J. Fox’s half-hour comedy pilot for NBC. All three are also posted in 4K at Sony Pictures’ post facility Colorworks, which is based on its Culver City lot.
In late January, Colorworks launched a 4K TV post division, which was equipped with a technical pipeline that Bob Bailey, Colorworks' senior vp sales, said would enable 4K episodes to be made on the same schedule as HD episodes.
There is, of course, more data involved. Bailey told The Hollywood Reporter that Colorworks intends to “share” that added cost with clients. Colorworks intends to provide the additional production storage and ask clients to pay for the 4K archival storage, which would be LTO tapes.
To grow its 4K library, Sony has additionally started to remaster Breaking Bad, a film-based series, in the higher-resolution format. Plans are for additional titles to follow.
Squyres noted that a reason to consider 4K post for new projects is that “remastering costs twice as much, because you are doing the work twice.”
* T-and-A in mega HD.
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20-years old English model Flo (Katy) Dron (more here), 21-years old Polish model Weronika Hetnar and Bosnian model Zlata Mangafic : [Dazed and Confused]March 2013
Why Netflix’s all-at-once strategy for House of Cards was a mistake
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| As Frank Underwood will tell you, to get people's attention you need to make them hungry. Netflix |
Netflix’s attempt to draw customers away from cable TV networks like HBO by making its own TV shows has been performing splendidly so far, says the company. One in ten of Netflix’s 25 million streaming subscribers has watched its new, exclusive show House of Cards, and on average they’ve watched 6 of the 13 episodes released so far. (These numbers come from a survey conducted by Netflix itself, so we can’t vouch for their accuracy.)
Perhaps the most distinctive thing about House of Cards isn’t its storyline (about the machinations of a US Congressman, Frank Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey) but the fact that Netflix decided to make the show’s entire first season available at once. The logic was: Now that people have the choice, a lot of them like to binge-watch their favorite shows whole seasons at a time, rather than on an episode-by-episode weekly drip.
But that was probably a mistake, and here’s why: By giving up the level of constant social media chatter that accrues to shows that are released episodically, Netflix missed out on the kind of sustained conversations that help a show find its widest possible audience.
This sort of thing is difficult to prove, but here are some preliminary data on it from Google Trends, which tracks how many times people are searching for a term on Google. It’s a reasonable proxy for overall interest in a subject.
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The volume of Google searches for the shows “Game of Thrones,” “Downton Abbey,” and “House of Cards” over the past two years. |
Downton Abbey shows a similar pattern to Game of Thrones, just with a smaller audience. House of Cards, meanwhile, has a relatively low search volume at its launch, which is to be expected for a new show. The question is: will that volume increase and be sustained in a pattern resembling that of other shows? And why would it, given that all the show’s surprises have been revealed, and there is no opportunity to commune with millions of other viewers as new episodes air?
As media critic David Carr points out, one of the things that sustains shows like Game of Thrones and Homeland is the social dimension: People tweet along with the show as its broadcast, share their feelings on recent episodes on Facebook, and read episode recaps when they miss the show.
By making it a little too easy for viewers to access all of House of Cards at once, Netflix has missed out on the multiplicative effect that happens when the conversation around a show is concentrated in time. It’s too early to tell if this will reduce the show’s potential long-term audience, but it certainly can’t help.
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LISA EDELSTEIN SCENES ON 2X5 HOUSE OF LIES
from @TheLisaEArmy
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'The Killing' creator devising new crime drama for Cinemax
Feb 20 2013| By Morgan Jeffery |
The Killing creator Soren Sveistrup is developing a new crime drama with Cinemax.
Sveistrup devised the original Danish version of The Killing, which ran for three series and aired to great acclaim on BBC Four in the UK.
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| Sofie Grabol in The Killing |
"[Cinemax] like the tough, hard stuff, the action dramas, and we have Soren Sveistrup working on something," said Piv Bernth, producer of The Killing and head of drama at Danish broadcaster DR.
The cable network's current original series include Alan Ball's Banshee, Sky co-production Strike Back and a new series based on the Transporter film franchise.
Sveistrup previously ruled out the possibility of reviving his former show The Killing for a fourth series.
"I'd hate it to just be another show - just another mass-produced show - ongoing and not really reflecting anything," he explained.
* After Transporter and Hunted less than stellar reception, Cinemax still hoping the collaboration with European producers will yield some positive financial outcome. Can't blame them. They run a tight budget ship over there.
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Canadian Student in Japan Ruins Delicious Snack for the Entire Country
by
Enjoyed by young and old, it’s a relatively clean way to serve up some ice cream on a hot day.
And I will never eat one again thanks to a young woman named Sharla who pointed out something that should have been painfully obvious to everyone in Japan in her video titled Japanese Condom Ice Cream.
The video previously titled Japanese Condom Ice Cream, Over-18 Ice Cream…? naturally caught the curiosity of Japanese netizens.
Then upon seeing a Tamago Aisu (Ice Cream Egg) some thought “What? That’s not… oh.”
Sure enough, it dawns on everyone as the reservoir-tipped rubber tube filled with white cream is held up – yeah, that’s just a condom full of ice cream.
To make matters worse, the ice cream condoms weren’t properly frozen. When Sharla and her friend opened them up, a veritable bukkake of gooey warm cream erupted all over the girls’ faces and stockings. Oh. My.
While the thought that these snacks resemble less appetizing cream-filled rubber sacks has occurred to many before, some companies tried to steer their marketing in a whole other direction with another popular name.
Some companies use the Oppai Aisu (Breast Ice Cream) nickname suggesting that the frozen rubber sack with protruding tip was more like a woman’s breast than a used scumbag. As much as I’d like to share in their vision of this sugary treat, I cannot escape the reality.
So while I’m never going to touch one of these things again, this might just be the next big present for guys to give that special woman for White Day. Thanks gals!
Source: Sharla in Japan (English/Japanese) via IT Media (Japanese)
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Photoshoot: Johanne
My days are really busy at the moment… the kids have had vacation all week and I´m juggling quality time with the kids and loads of exciting work projects – I´m not complaining, but being a mum and a business owner is like always balancing on a fine line. In my case the kids always comes first – so that means that I sometimes have to work when they sleep and today I´m working on a Sunday – doing taxes..yiekk!
I´m so Super excited about a new workshop I´m working on – I can´t reveal it yet, but it´s going to be a portrait and lifestyle workshop – my biggest and best workshop EVER!
Much love,
Christina Greve
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Of Moose and Men
Canadians may be too nice, too passionless to be funny. On the other hand, the country’s low comic profile—notable emigrants aside—could be Britain’s fault. Or America’s. Yes, blame them!
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| “EH?”-PLUS The men of SCTV. Front row: Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, and Martin Short. Back row: Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, John Candy, Thomas, and Moranis. |
Canada’s history lacks the violent frontier mythology that continues to fuel the folk hoax of rugged individualism so central to the American identity. Rather, Canadian society was carefully devised to run on the oiled ball bearings of amity and cooperation, ensuring a near-Scandinavian calm, as in: an aversion to firing semi-automatic Russian assault weapons into schoolrooms; the casual embrace of free health insurance even for deadbeats; debate over same-sex marriage that’s about as heated as that over licensing dogs; open arms to immigrants, swarthy and otherwise; volunteering for U.N. peacekeeping duties, no questions asked; and a national disinclination to jaywalk, even at three A.M. on an empty street, because, heck, they told us not to.
Thus, a strong case can be made that life in unrestive, uncomplicated, unconfrontational Canada is altogether too relentlessly nice for humor to flourish. Lack of societal friction starves the mischief instinct. See also: belgian stand-up comedy festival canceled again … new zealand museum of comedy files for bankruptcy … finland-wide clown search proves futile.
“Canadian humor”—does it even exist? Theories abound and conflict and contradict themselves:
Theory 1: There are actually funny Canadians alive today, but all nine of them moved to the U.S.A., and once they got here they renounced their Canadian cultural heritage, the way Mick Jagger renounced his English accent. Mike Myers never makes Mountie jokes. Jim Carrey declines to send up the toonie, Canada’s hilarious two-dollar coin. You have to scour Wikipedia to confirm the Canadianness of Mort Sahl, David Steinberg, Michael J. Fox, Catherine O’Hara, Seth Rogen, the late John Candy and Phil Hartman, and that guy from that sitcom, you know the one. America absorbed Canadian comedians, or, Canadians would say, Canadian comedians absorbed America.* Lorne Michaels, the Darth Vader of American comedy, harvests all the comedic talent in his native land as ruthlessly as Major League Baseball loots the Dominican Republic of shortstops.
Theory 2: A distinctive Canadian humor style never had a chance. The British and the Americans, with their overwhelming cultural power, exhausted all the possibilities of English-language humor long before the messy agglomeration of territories and provinces was confederated into a sovereign entity called Canada, just after the U.S. Civil War.** This left Canadian wits bereft of original material and forced them back on the only potential for risibility left: the condition of being Canadian. Which, given the national psyche, inevitably curdled into a pathetically self-deprecating brand of humor, typified by the following:
Q: How do you get 26 Canadians out of a swimming pool?
A: Yell, “Everybody out of the pool!”
Theory 3: Canadians are, by history and temperament, the opposite of aggressive, and so, unsurprisingly, their humor is defensive; they beat up on themselves before anybody else—i.e., Americans—can do it.***
Theory 4: Canadians have inhaled such deep drafts of Britishness (the Union Jack disappeared from their flag only in 1965) that what there is of a Canadian humor style hews largely to those twin English enthusiasms, parody and satire.
It has been sneered that the American idea of satire is a pie in the face; Canadian tastes have always been subtler, as befits a nation that tuned in weekly for decades to smart British comedy shows via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a kind of junior BBC in the best sense. Meanwhile, Americans were doubling up over Milton Berle and Red Skelton and that ilk.
Satire also suits the shy Canadian temperament: you can savage your victim while masked in somebody else’s identity. Anything to avoid drawing attention to yourself, which is against Canadian societal law.
I give you Stephen Leacock (1869–1944), the master satirist, English-born, Canadian-raised, who every Canadian schoolchild knows is a humor immortal. And you say thanks and give him right back, because you’ve never heard of him, or his classic works, such as the collections Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy, and the story “Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen,” wherein one character mounts his steed and goes galloping “madly off in all directions.” The Canadian Dilemma, in a nutshell.
Theory 5: The world may not be watching, but Canadians can make other Canadians laugh. It makes sad sense that while Canadian humor entertains the native population—notably with domestic TV comedy series such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce—it will never flourish outside the country, because nobody outside of Canada feels any urgent need to read or hear about, or even be aware of, Canada.
This state of affairs was brought home to me a few years ago when a memoir I’d written about growing up Canadian, Thin Ice, was published here in America. The hardcover subtitle was “Coming of Age in Canada,” but when the paperback version later appeared, the U.S. publisher had changed it to “Saved by the American Dream,” in hopes (futile, as it turned out) of slowing its instant sales decline.
Theory 6: The very word “Canada” may seem to incarnate the Webster’s definition of “bland,” but within Canadian humor lurks a nasty streak, as in the merciless ridicule of French-Canadians by the (anti-Papist, anti-Quebec, Francophobic) Anglophone majority. Newfoundlanders, or Newfies, those hopelessly fogbound, flannel-clad fisherfolk, are mocked as being so clueless—even by Canadian standards—that picking on them makes the rest of the country feel like 34 million or so Noël Cowards.
Theory 7: It’s axiomatic that humor cannot thrive where there is no passion, and Canadians are famed for repressing their stronger feelings under a heavy blanket of earnest phlegmatism, tinged with an embedded Scotch-Calvinist suspicion that high spirits, and especially fun, are the Devil’s work.
In fact, Canadian passions can be and are constantly stirred to the brink of physical violence if the discussion involves:
Theory 8: It is impossible to fully express Canadian resentment of America’s cultural dominance, and the sense of impotence and helplessness involved has been oppressing Canadians since that fleeting high-water mark of self-regard in 1814 when British troops burned down the White House as revenge for the U.S.’s having torched the Canadian Parliament a year earlier. Humor—subversive, ironic, usually dark—is one of the very few weapons available to the oppressed. Which is why the Jews, the Irish, the Russians, and the Canadians are so funny. Being Canadian, however, the Canadians keep it to themselves.
*The historic Canadian talent diaspora is actually pretty funny in itself, e.g., the guy who wrote the music for the Canadian national anthem and then moved Stateside.
**The Dominion of Canada was the original name, about as mild a term for a nation as there is, and consciously chosen instead of the more assertive Republic of Canada or United States of Canada. And no fierce eagle or beast of the wild for a mascot—just that chubby, industrious forest rodent, the un-war-like beaver.
***Not aggressive? I’ll have you know that the Canadian government secretly formulated “Defence Scheme Number 1,” an invasion of the United States, in the early 1920s. From James Madison forward, American politicians had so regularly blustered about making a grab for Canadian territory that preparing a pre-emptive counterstrike, should an American invasion ever be actually imminent, seemed only prudent. PS: The movie rights are mine.
Thus, a strong case can be made that life in unrestive, uncomplicated, unconfrontational Canada is altogether too relentlessly nice for humor to flourish. Lack of societal friction starves the mischief instinct. See also: belgian stand-up comedy festival canceled again … new zealand museum of comedy files for bankruptcy … finland-wide clown search proves futile.
“Canadian humor”—does it even exist? Theories abound and conflict and contradict themselves:
Theory 1: There are actually funny Canadians alive today, but all nine of them moved to the U.S.A., and once they got here they renounced their Canadian cultural heritage, the way Mick Jagger renounced his English accent. Mike Myers never makes Mountie jokes. Jim Carrey declines to send up the toonie, Canada’s hilarious two-dollar coin. You have to scour Wikipedia to confirm the Canadianness of Mort Sahl, David Steinberg, Michael J. Fox, Catherine O’Hara, Seth Rogen, the late John Candy and Phil Hartman, and that guy from that sitcom, you know the one. America absorbed Canadian comedians, or, Canadians would say, Canadian comedians absorbed America.* Lorne Michaels, the Darth Vader of American comedy, harvests all the comedic talent in his native land as ruthlessly as Major League Baseball loots the Dominican Republic of shortstops.
Theory 2: A distinctive Canadian humor style never had a chance. The British and the Americans, with their overwhelming cultural power, exhausted all the possibilities of English-language humor long before the messy agglomeration of territories and provinces was confederated into a sovereign entity called Canada, just after the U.S. Civil War.** This left Canadian wits bereft of original material and forced them back on the only potential for risibility left: the condition of being Canadian. Which, given the national psyche, inevitably curdled into a pathetically self-deprecating brand of humor, typified by the following:
Q: How do you get 26 Canadians out of a swimming pool?
A: Yell, “Everybody out of the pool!”
Theory 3: Canadians are, by history and temperament, the opposite of aggressive, and so, unsurprisingly, their humor is defensive; they beat up on themselves before anybody else—i.e., Americans—can do it.***
Theory 4: Canadians have inhaled such deep drafts of Britishness (the Union Jack disappeared from their flag only in 1965) that what there is of a Canadian humor style hews largely to those twin English enthusiasms, parody and satire.
It has been sneered that the American idea of satire is a pie in the face; Canadian tastes have always been subtler, as befits a nation that tuned in weekly for decades to smart British comedy shows via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a kind of junior BBC in the best sense. Meanwhile, Americans were doubling up over Milton Berle and Red Skelton and that ilk.
Satire also suits the shy Canadian temperament: you can savage your victim while masked in somebody else’s identity. Anything to avoid drawing attention to yourself, which is against Canadian societal law.
I give you Stephen Leacock (1869–1944), the master satirist, English-born, Canadian-raised, who every Canadian schoolchild knows is a humor immortal. And you say thanks and give him right back, because you’ve never heard of him, or his classic works, such as the collections Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy, and the story “Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen,” wherein one character mounts his steed and goes galloping “madly off in all directions.” The Canadian Dilemma, in a nutshell.
Theory 5: The world may not be watching, but Canadians can make other Canadians laugh. It makes sad sense that while Canadian humor entertains the native population—notably with domestic TV comedy series such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce—it will never flourish outside the country, because nobody outside of Canada feels any urgent need to read or hear about, or even be aware of, Canada.
This state of affairs was brought home to me a few years ago when a memoir I’d written about growing up Canadian, Thin Ice, was published here in America. The hardcover subtitle was “Coming of Age in Canada,” but when the paperback version later appeared, the U.S. publisher had changed it to “Saved by the American Dream,” in hopes (futile, as it turned out) of slowing its instant sales decline.
Theory 6: The very word “Canada” may seem to incarnate the Webster’s definition of “bland,” but within Canadian humor lurks a nasty streak, as in the merciless ridicule of French-Canadians by the (anti-Papist, anti-Quebec, Francophobic) Anglophone majority. Newfoundlanders, or Newfies, those hopelessly fogbound, flannel-clad fisherfolk, are mocked as being so clueless—even by Canadian standards—that picking on them makes the rest of the country feel like 34 million or so Noël Cowards.
Theory 7: It’s axiomatic that humor cannot thrive where there is no passion, and Canadians are famed for repressing their stronger feelings under a heavy blanket of earnest phlegmatism, tinged with an embedded Scotch-Calvinist suspicion that high spirits, and especially fun, are the Devil’s work.
In fact, Canadian passions can be and are constantly stirred to the brink of physical violence if the discussion involves:
- Hockey.
- The condescending stupidity about all things Canadian that is an American birthright.
- The American compulsion for insufferable, nonstop, blowhard jingoism.
- The even more insufferable phrase “Only in America,” so favored in July Fourth U.S. newspaper editorials—as if free, democratic, rich, progressive, tolerant Canada didn’t offer its citizens at least as much opportunity for unbounded success and happiness as its swaggering neighbor.
- Canadian beer (nectar) versus American beer (horse piss).
- Tim Hortons doughnuts.
Theory 8: It is impossible to fully express Canadian resentment of America’s cultural dominance, and the sense of impotence and helplessness involved has been oppressing Canadians since that fleeting high-water mark of self-regard in 1814 when British troops burned down the White House as revenge for the U.S.’s having torched the Canadian Parliament a year earlier. Humor—subversive, ironic, usually dark—is one of the very few weapons available to the oppressed. Which is why the Jews, the Irish, the Russians, and the Canadians are so funny. Being Canadian, however, the Canadians keep it to themselves.
*The historic Canadian talent diaspora is actually pretty funny in itself, e.g., the guy who wrote the music for the Canadian national anthem and then moved Stateside.
**The Dominion of Canada was the original name, about as mild a term for a nation as there is, and consciously chosen instead of the more assertive Republic of Canada or United States of Canada. And no fierce eagle or beast of the wild for a mascot—just that chubby, industrious forest rodent, the un-war-like beaver.
***Not aggressive? I’ll have you know that the Canadian government secretly formulated “Defence Scheme Number 1,” an invasion of the United States, in the early 1920s. From James Madison forward, American politicians had so regularly blustered about making a grab for Canadian territory that preparing a pre-emptive counterstrike, should an American invasion ever be actually imminent, seemed only prudent. PS: The movie rights are mine.
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Lucy In The Sky With Diamond Features A Mythical Lou Diamond Phillips
Everyone loves Lou Diamond Phillips right? Well, everyone does in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamond,” the short film by writer/director Joey Boukadakis.
The short film takes the Tony and Golden Globe-nominated actor and turns him into a mythical version of himself, Chuck Norris-style:
“‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamond’ was shot over two days in a diner in the San Fernando Valley. The film also stars John Patrick Jordan (‘American Pie,’ ‘Mad Men’) and Brian Thomas Smith (‘The Big Bang Theory,’ ‘Happy Endings’). Phillips plays a hyperbolized version of himself known as the elusive and mysterious ‘LDP’ – a renegade, spirit guide, life coach character who attempts to help Jordan’s character get over a particularly disconcerting ex-girlfriend.”“The script was sent to me while I was on set in New Mexico shooting the TV show Longmire, and when I sat down to read it I knew it was something special because from the first page I couldn’t stop laughing,” said Phillips. “The characters and dialogue leapt off the page; it was great writing and I knew I had to do it. Plus, I was very flattered by the gesture, particularly as it was sent to me out of the blue.”
Jordan, who also co-starred and co-produced the short with Boukadakis, said, “Since Joey wrote the script specifically for Lou, the entire project depended on his involvement. We sent it to him blind, not really sure how, and if, he’d respond to the material. When we found out how excited he was to jump in the sandbox with us, it just validated how awesome of a guy he is.”
Boukadakis, a music video and commercial director whose short films “Rushers” and “Dinner with Raphael” have played at film festivals all over the world, talked about his undying love for Phillips. “I remember watching ‘La Bamba’ over and over as a kid with my siblings, quoting it, singing along, and acting out scenes,” he said. “In some ways, Lou was to us what Travolta was to Tarantino. We grew up watching him…The man just personifies ‘cool’ – plus, I think somewhere along the way he discovered the fountain of youth and won’t tell anyone about it. The guy seriously doesn’t age.”
Boukadakis said he wanted to do a “Chuck Norris of love” type character when the idea of Phillips appeared. “Lou brings such a unique mythology along with him as an actor; he’s played so many iconic roles across such a wide range of ethnicities,” he said. “Adding a tongue-and-check twist to his persona gave us an opportunity to create some amazing comedic moments.”
Check out the short film below the post and see if you want to learn the ways of Phillips!
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Why even Amsterdam doesn’t want legal brothels
The Dutch experiment in legalised prostitution has been a disaster
Do you remember the rather brilliant comedy sketch featuring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in which they played laid-back police officers in Amsterdam, bragging that they no longer have to deal with the crime of murder in the Netherlands since the Dutch legalised it? Don’t laugh too hard. In 2000 the Dutch government decided to make it even easier for pimps, traffickers and punters by legalising the already massive and highly visible brothel trade. Their logic was as simple as it was deceptive: to make things safer for everyone. Make it a job like any other. Once the women were liberated from the underworld, the crooks, drug dealers and people traffickers would drift away.
Twelve years on, and we can now see the results of this experiment. Rather than afford better protection for the women, it has simply increased the market. Rather than confine the brothels to a discrete (and avoidable) part of the city, the sex industry has spilt out all over Amsterdam — including on-street. Rather than be given rights in the ‘workplace’, the prostitutes have found the pimps are as brutal as ever. The government-funded union set up to protect them has been shunned by the vast majority of prostitutes, who remain too scared to complain.
Pimps, under legalisation, have been reclassified as managers and businessmen. Abuse suffered by the women is now called an ‘occupational hazard’, like a stone dropped on a builder’s toe. Sex tourism has grown faster in Amsterdam than the regular type of tourism: as the city became the brothel of Europe, women have been imported by traffickers from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia to meet the demand. In other words, the pimps remained but became legit — violence was still prevalent but part of the job, and trafficking increased. Support for the women to leave prostitution became almost nonexistent. The innate murkiness of the job has not been washed away by legal benediction.
The Dutch government hoped to play the role of the honourable pimp, taking its share in the proceeds of prostitution through taxation. But only 5 per cent of the women registered for tax, because no one wants to be known as a whore — however legal it may be. Illegality has simply taken a new form, with an increase in trafficking, unlicensed brothels and pimping; with policing completely out of the picture, it was easier to break the laws that remained. To pimp out women from non-EU countries, desperate for a new life, remains illegal. But it’s never been easier.
Legalisation has imposed brothels on areas all over Holland, whether they want them or not. Even if a city or town opposes establishing a brothel, it must allow at least one — not doing so is contrary to the basic federal right to work. To many Dutch, legality and decency have been irreconcilably divorced. It has been a social, legal and economic failure — and the madness, finally, is coming to an end.
‘Of course this couldn’t happen today.’
The brothel boom is over. A third of Amsterdam’s bordellos have been closed due to the involvement of organised criminals and drug dealers and the increase in trafficking of women. Police now acknowledge that the red-light district has mutated into a global hub for human trafficking and money laundering. The streets have been infiltrated by grooming gangs seeking out young, vulnerable girls and marketing them to men as virgins who will do whatever they are told. Many of those involved in Amsterdam’s regular tourist trade — the museums and canals — fear that their visitors are vanishing along with the city’s reputation.
I was last there with Roger Matthews, a professor of Criminology at Kent University and a renowned expert on the sex trade. The politicians he spoke to confess that the legislation has made a total pig’s ear of an already unsavoury situation. So the repair work is starting — for what good it will do. Women who rent the windows will soon be obliged to register as prostitutes. This will be as ineffective as the obligation on them to pay tax. When the fake and government-funded union supposedly representing those involved in prostitution did a massive membership recruitment post-legalisation, only a hundred joined, and most of those were strippers and lap dancers.
Rather than remove the sleaziness of the red light district, it made the area more depressing than ever — full of drunken sex tourists who act as window shoppers, pointing and laughing at the women they see. Local women pass the streets with their heads down, trying not to see the other women displayed like cuts of meat in a butcher’s shop. Men can be seen entering the brothels, trying to barter down the price. Others come out zipping up their jeans. Many of the women look very young, all of them bored, with the majority sitting on stools in underwear playing with their phones.
Nowhere else in the world is street prostitution legal, because people do not want it in plain sight. Where there is a street sex trade, women are accosted on their way home by punters, and often condoms, drugs paraphernalia and pimps are visible. But the Netherlands decided in 1996 that street prostitution was a decent way to earn money and created several ‘tolerance zones’ for men to safely rent a vagina, anus or mouth for a few minutes. Cars drive into cubicles. This being the Netherlands, there is a special section for cyclists. Keep prostitution green.
The day after the Amsterdam zone opened, more than a hundred residents from nearby neighbourhoods took to the streets in protest. It took six years for the mayor to admit in public that the experiment had been a disaster, a magnet for trafficked women, drug dealers and underage girls. Zones in Rotterdam, The Hague and Heerlen have shut down in similar circumstances. The direction of travel is clear: legalisation will be repealed. Legalisation has not been emancipation. It has instead resulted in the appalling, inhuman, degrading treatment of women, because it declares the buying and selling of human flesh acceptable. And as the Dutch government reforms itself from pimp to protector, it will have time to reflect on the damage done to the women caught in this calamitous social experiment.
Twelve years on, and we can now see the results of this experiment. Rather than afford better protection for the women, it has simply increased the market. Rather than confine the brothels to a discrete (and avoidable) part of the city, the sex industry has spilt out all over Amsterdam — including on-street. Rather than be given rights in the ‘workplace’, the prostitutes have found the pimps are as brutal as ever. The government-funded union set up to protect them has been shunned by the vast majority of prostitutes, who remain too scared to complain.
Pimps, under legalisation, have been reclassified as managers and businessmen. Abuse suffered by the women is now called an ‘occupational hazard’, like a stone dropped on a builder’s toe. Sex tourism has grown faster in Amsterdam than the regular type of tourism: as the city became the brothel of Europe, women have been imported by traffickers from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia to meet the demand. In other words, the pimps remained but became legit — violence was still prevalent but part of the job, and trafficking increased. Support for the women to leave prostitution became almost nonexistent. The innate murkiness of the job has not been washed away by legal benediction.
The Dutch government hoped to play the role of the honourable pimp, taking its share in the proceeds of prostitution through taxation. But only 5 per cent of the women registered for tax, because no one wants to be known as a whore — however legal it may be. Illegality has simply taken a new form, with an increase in trafficking, unlicensed brothels and pimping; with policing completely out of the picture, it was easier to break the laws that remained. To pimp out women from non-EU countries, desperate for a new life, remains illegal. But it’s never been easier.
Legalisation has imposed brothels on areas all over Holland, whether they want them or not. Even if a city or town opposes establishing a brothel, it must allow at least one — not doing so is contrary to the basic federal right to work. To many Dutch, legality and decency have been irreconcilably divorced. It has been a social, legal and economic failure — and the madness, finally, is coming to an end.
‘Of course this couldn’t happen today.’
The brothel boom is over. A third of Amsterdam’s bordellos have been closed due to the involvement of organised criminals and drug dealers and the increase in trafficking of women. Police now acknowledge that the red-light district has mutated into a global hub for human trafficking and money laundering. The streets have been infiltrated by grooming gangs seeking out young, vulnerable girls and marketing them to men as virgins who will do whatever they are told. Many of those involved in Amsterdam’s regular tourist trade — the museums and canals — fear that their visitors are vanishing along with the city’s reputation.
I was last there with Roger Matthews, a professor of Criminology at Kent University and a renowned expert on the sex trade. The politicians he spoke to confess that the legislation has made a total pig’s ear of an already unsavoury situation. So the repair work is starting — for what good it will do. Women who rent the windows will soon be obliged to register as prostitutes. This will be as ineffective as the obligation on them to pay tax. When the fake and government-funded union supposedly representing those involved in prostitution did a massive membership recruitment post-legalisation, only a hundred joined, and most of those were strippers and lap dancers.
Rather than remove the sleaziness of the red light district, it made the area more depressing than ever — full of drunken sex tourists who act as window shoppers, pointing and laughing at the women they see. Local women pass the streets with their heads down, trying not to see the other women displayed like cuts of meat in a butcher’s shop. Men can be seen entering the brothels, trying to barter down the price. Others come out zipping up their jeans. Many of the women look very young, all of them bored, with the majority sitting on stools in underwear playing with their phones.
Nowhere else in the world is street prostitution legal, because people do not want it in plain sight. Where there is a street sex trade, women are accosted on their way home by punters, and often condoms, drugs paraphernalia and pimps are visible. But the Netherlands decided in 1996 that street prostitution was a decent way to earn money and created several ‘tolerance zones’ for men to safely rent a vagina, anus or mouth for a few minutes. Cars drive into cubicles. This being the Netherlands, there is a special section for cyclists. Keep prostitution green.
The day after the Amsterdam zone opened, more than a hundred residents from nearby neighbourhoods took to the streets in protest. It took six years for the mayor to admit in public that the experiment had been a disaster, a magnet for trafficked women, drug dealers and underage girls. Zones in Rotterdam, The Hague and Heerlen have shut down in similar circumstances. The direction of travel is clear: legalisation will be repealed. Legalisation has not been emancipation. It has instead resulted in the appalling, inhuman, degrading treatment of women, because it declares the buying and selling of human flesh acceptable. And as the Dutch government reforms itself from pimp to protector, it will have time to reflect on the damage done to the women caught in this calamitous social experiment.
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