The Friday Fluffle: Fetty Pop; Hello Hollywood; Propaganda Masters And Me

First off, dealing with the 500-pound bunny in the room, “Fluffle” is actually a word, a collective term for a buncha bunnies. And, yes, veteran readers here should be aware of our taste for archaic language and occasional use of wordplay (we hope) drives our point home when needed. So, Fluffle worked for us today as it describes the rabbit hutch that is our brain and the rambunctious flurry of thoughts bouncing around inside.

People ask us (no, they really do) how we find topics to write about and what, exactly, moves us to put pen to paper. Well, being fairly keen observers of the Human Condition we try to keep our cranial cap open to stuff we see until the Old Brain Bucket fills up and is close to overflowing – and we are forced to write to alleviate the building pressure.

Topics driving our thoughts this week include the particularly lethal onset of crashes we’re seeing on local roads and highways; the totally anecdotal but apparent uptick in Bad Girl Behavior and fentanyl ODs; and the number of incidents involving men (often armed) barricading themselves in their suburban castles and forcing local SWAT operators to come ferret them out, among other things.

When not dealing with the mind-crinkling effects of the aforementioned, we are left to ponder the dearth of watchable content on screens both big and small, the apparent failure of Hollywoodland empires committed to re-educating the stolidly uneducable American public, and the apparent resurgence of bold, 30s-style propaganda which – unbelievable as it may sound to some – appears to be working.

That’s why our little heads are Fluffled as the bunnies race and people look away when we overhear the latest engineered press conference sound bite and we’re left looking around, dully, asking: “Did anyone else just hear that?” and “Why wouldn’t you invite the president of the invaded nation to a discussion on ending the invasion of said nation?”

We won’t linger on the subject as we know how that angers people who encourage us to “Stay in your lane!” or shout the ever-popular “Shut up or we’ll stop our advertising!” That last one is always a hoot because it is most often uttered by people who have never advertised, or even considered, advertising on our pages – which is probably the better for everyone involved, we suppose. For the record, in case anyone is keeping a tally, we’ll continue to free the bunnies from time to time because we were born and raised American and that’s how we roll.

As for the crash and burn landscape in Hollywood, a place once embraced as the center of entertainment worldwide but which has apparently devolved into a podium for causes far and wide, it appears whole studios are going down and taking executives with them as the plan to foist the Message of the Day dries up and dies as quickly as Rachel Zegler’s career.

Now, we won’t say we didn’t see this coming. As word-peddlers we’ve created more than a few works in hope of getting studio attention only to have our agent come back, script in hand, saying: “They say they like it, and that it’s really good, but that there’s no strong female lead character.”

As scribblers, we’re used to and have steeled ourselves against the flaying pain of rejection, but this whole predisposition toward the Woman as Warrior motif signaled – to us, at least – the eradication of once-valued character types and the relegation of same to roles devoted to comic relief. Full Disclosure: We’re male – and we like women for their complexities and for what they have to say – but we were not surprised when actor Emily Blunt turned Los Angeles producers’ heads inside out when she said:

“It’s the worst thing ever when you open a script and read the words ‘strong female lead,’” Blunt said. “That makes me roll my eyes. I’m already out. I’m bored. Those roles are written as incredibly stoic, you spend the whole time acting tough and saying tough things.”

We’ve always liked the actor for her role choice and deadpan, limpid-eyed delivery so we’ll admit to uttering “Whoa, that was refreshing” when we caught wind of her statement to an interviewer. Our moaning and Blunt’s candid rejection of the existing trope before character trait probably won’t stop the franchise factories in Los Angeles from churning out more painful, expensive “projects” before eventually going under. But we’d like to think Americans may finally be waking up to the soporific churn of endless re-makes and steady stream of young actors sent out to posture and moralize on an increasingly threadbare red carpet. We’ll see. But guldang it, just give us a good story in the interim!

What’s also energizing our bunnies lately is that while America may be rejecting one type of propaganda our fellow citizens do appear to be willfully succumbing to other, we thought more obvious, forms. At one recent gathering we were stunned to hear otherwise learned people parroting the slogans of Hamas, overriding our mention of the October 7 murder raid into Israel as “the continued resistance of the Palestinian people.” We gulped that one down with the help of a good single malt and surveyed the room for signs of pushback. Seeing none, we put it down to another successful operation by the Modern Propagandists, the same ilk who managed to convince a large part of America that the Jan. 6 Capitol Raiders were “tourists” and, later, “hostages” worthy of release.

Realizing we won’t be solving that one anytime soon we took a look around for reasons why Americans seem so willing to accept mind-warping lies and parrot them back during demonstrations in public places and part of the problem, it appears, may be our declining literacy rates. The fact that a good portion of our college students can’t read or write, coupled with the fact that many can’t find the Middle East on a map might also explain why so few of our countrymen understand what they mean when chanting “From the River to the Sea!” with friends in those cool keffiyehs they bought at Outside Lands years ago.

Now, we know we’re not going to sway those committed to what they’re committed to – we just thought it would be wise to know what you’re advocating for when you take to the street calling for a people to be wiped from the face of the earth. We think we can all agree that’s a bad thing? No?

Anyway, thanks for letting us Unleash the Bunnies. We feel better now.