The Hasty Pudding Theatricals Announces Ryan Reynolds as The 2017 Man of The Year

Ryan Reynolds (PRNewsFoto/Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770)

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the oldest theatrical organization in the United States, announces producer and Golden Globe nominated actor, Ryan Reynolds as the recipient of its 2017 Man of the Year Award. The Pudding is proud to honor such a talented and diverse actor, whose seamless transition across multiple genres captures audiences and keeps them coming back to see what's next.

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals' Man and Woman of the Year Awards are presented annually to performers who have made lasting and impressive contributions to the world of entertainment. The Man of the Year award was established in 1963. Its past recipients include, among others, Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, Justin Timberlake, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Pratt and most recently, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was the 50th Man of the Year.

The Man of the Year festivities, presented by the Related Companies, will take place on Friday, February 3rd, 2017. The Hasty Pudding Theatricals will host a celebratory roast for Mr. Reynolds and present him with his Pudding Pot at Farkas Hall, which has been the Pudding's historic home in the heart of Harvard Square since 1888. A press conference will follow the roast at 8:40 p.m.

For the first time ever, the press conferences for Hasty Pudding's Man and Woman of the Year will be live-streamed and available to the public free-of-charge. More information will be available on the Hasty Pudding's social media channels soon via Facebook www.facebook.com/thehastypudding, Twitter @thehastypudding and Instagram @thehastypudding. 

After the press conference, Mr. Reynolds will attend the opening night performance of the Pudding's 169th production, Casino Evil.

"We're thrilled to present Mr. Reynolds with our Man of the Year award, especially after he proved his ability to simultaneously break box-offices records and the fourth wall in 2015," said Guan Chen, President of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. "And if his headline-stealing kiss with Andrew Garfield at the Golden Globes is any indication, it looks like he's getting ready for his roast."

Deadpool

Ryan Reynolds is one of Hollywood's most diverse leading men seamlessly transitioning through varied genres of drama, action and comedy in his rich and ever evolving career.

Reynolds is the Golden Globe nominated star of the 20th Century Fox record-breaking film DEADPOOL. The movie opened in February 2016 and shattered expectations, opening to $152.2-million over the four-day Presidents' Day weekend making it the biggest R-rated opening of all time and the biggest February opening in box office history. The superhero juggernaut also replaced "Matrix Reloaded" as the highest-grossing R-rated film in history with more than $750- million globally. The film continues to break records with 2 Golden Globe nominations. A "Best Actor" nod for Reynolds and Best Picture nomination for the film, making it the first live-action superhero movie to pick up a Golden Globe nomination in the Comedy or Musical category. The film also received a Writers Guild of America nomination for "Best Adapted Screenplay" and a PGA Award nomination for "Best Picture." Reynolds, who is a producer on the film, will begin shooting DEADPOOL 2 later this year.

Next up Reynolds can be seen opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson in Sony Pictures' LIFE. Teaming up once again with Reese & Wernick and director Daniel Espinosa for the space thriller out March 2017. He also has THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD with Samuel L. Jackson coming out August 2017.

Reynolds body of work continues to be extremely diverse. In 2015 he starred in a variety of feature roles including MISSISSIPPI GRIND, WOMAN IN GOLD, THE VOICES and SELFLESS. MISSISSIPPI GRIND directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden premiered at Sundance to rave reviews. In The Weinstein Company's WOMAN IN GOLD, Reynolds starred alongside Helen Mirren to tell the story of Maria Altmann (Mirren), a Jewish refugee who is forced to flee Vienna during World War II and her personal mission to reclaim a painting the Nazis stole from her family: the famous Lady In Gold. In Lionsgate's serial killer comedy THE VOICES by famed French director Marjane Satrapi, Reynolds stars as a troubled, med-addicted factory worker driven to murder by his talking pets, a psychopathic cat called Mr. Whiskers and Bosco, his peace-loving dog. Reynolds also voices both of the animals. He also starred opposite Sir Ben Kingsley in the independent feature SELFLESS, directed by Tarsem Singh.

Reynolds voiced two DreamWorks Animation films in 2013. TURBO, in which Reynolds voices a snail named 'Turbo' who has dreams of winning the Indy 500. The movie also features the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, Maya Rudolph, Snoop Lion and Michelle Rodriguez. Prior to that, Reynolds had his animated film debut as the voice of 'Guy' in DreamWorks Animation's, THE CROODS. The movie also featured the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone and Catherine Keener and earned over $508 million worldwide. Reynolds has signed onto the sequel, which is already in development.

His other film credits include; the Universal action thriller, SAFE HOUSE opposite Denzel Washington. The film opened to $40 million domestically in its first weekend and went onto earn $208 million worldwide. The Universal comedy, THE CHANGE UP, opposite Jason Bateman, the Warner Brothers adaptation of the popular DC Comic, GREEN LANTERN and the mystery/thriller BURIED. In the acclaimed and cinematically challenging film, Reynolds is the only actor to appear on camera for the duration of the piece.

In 2009, Reynolds served as Disney's romantic comedy lead in THE PROPOSAL, opposite Sandra Bullock. The film opened at #1 at the box office and grossed $315 million worldwide. Reynolds was also seen as 'Deadpool' in the X-MEN spin-off, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. He starred opposite an all-star cast including Hugh Jackman and the film grossed $365 million worldwide. Additionally that year, Reynolds starred in ADVENTURELAND opposite Kristen Stewart, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated in the "Ensemble Performance" category at the 2009 Gotham Awards.

Some of Reynolds other film credits include; PAPERMAN and the Working Title film DEFINITELY, MAYBE for Universal Pictures, writer/director John August's THE NINES, director Joe Carnahan's SMOKIN' ACES for Working Title and Universal Pictures and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, a remake of the classic cult film which opened #1 at the box office and made $107 million worldwide. As well as cult favorites WAITING and VAN WILDER.

DarkFire, Reynolds' TV production company, recently sold its first two projects, the live action comedy "Guidance" and the animated comedy, "And Then There Was Gordon" to 20th Century Fox TV. Reynolds will executive produce alongside Allan Loeb, Jonathon Komack Martin, Tim Dowling and Steven Pearl.

In addition to his numerous leading roles, Reynolds also serves on the board of directors for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. In November of 2007, Reynolds ran the New York City Marathon in honor of his father - who has long suffered from ravages of Parkinson's disease. Reynolds marathon run raised over $100,000 for the Michael J Fox Foundation.

TO LIVE STREAM the Hasty Pudding Theatricals' Man of Year press conference, viewers can tune in at 8:40 p.m. ET via the Hasty Pudding's Facebook www.facebook.com/thehastypudding

SOURCE: Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770

ICG Publicists Name Denzel Washington Motion Picture Showman Of The Year

Denzel Washington (photo credit: John Russo)

Oscar winner Denzel Washington will be named Motion Picture Showman of the Year at the 54th Annual International Cinematographers Guild Publicists Awards (ICG, IATSE Local 600) in recognition of his remarkable career achievements, including producing, directing and starring in Fences, a major contender in this year's Oscar race. The awards will be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Friday, February 24.

"Denzel continues to excel as a major creative force in filmmaking while also recognizing the key role that publicity and promotion play in the success of filmmaking," said awards committee chairman Henri Bollinger. "His understanding of what it takes to attract movie audiences supports his exceptional talents as an actor and filmmaker."

ICG National President Steven Poster, ASC, said, "Denzel Washington brings a unique reality and a dignity to every character he portrays, be they actual or imagined people, good guys or bad. I always look forward to seeing him on screen."

Denzel's unforgettable performances have garnered him two Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, and countless other awards.

He received his first Academy Award for the historical war drama Glory (1989) and his second for his portrayal of the corrupt cop in the crime thriller, Training Day (2001). Denzel won a Tony Award for his performance in Fences, during his return to Broadway in 2010.

Denzel's current project is the critically acclaimed film adaptation of August Wilson's Fences, released Christmas 2016. In addition to producing and directing the adaptation, Denzel reprises his original Tony Award-winning role alongside Viola Davis.

Denzel's professional acting career began in New York, where he performed in theatre productions such as Ceremonies in Dark Old Men and Othello. He rose to fame when he landed the role as Dr. Philip Chandler on the NBC long-running hit television series, St. Elsewhere. His other television credits include The George McKenna Story, License to Kill, and Wilma.

As Denzel crossed over into the world of film, he garnered critical acclaim for his portrayal of real life figures. He earned his first Oscar nomination for Cry Freedom (1987), as South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. From there, he went on to portray Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X in Malcolm X (1992), boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999), football coach Herman Boone in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters (2007), and drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007). A few of his other beloved credits are: Much Ado About Nothing (1993), A Soldier's Story (1984), Crimson Tide (1995), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), and Inside Man (2006).

Denzel's most recent credits include Unstoppable (2010) where he reunited with director Tony Scott for the fifth time, 2 Guns (2013) where he starred alongside Mark Wahlberg, and The Equalizer (2014) an action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua. In 2016, Denzel teamed up with Antoine Fuqua again for a remake of The Magnificent Seven, which also starred Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke.

In 2016, he was selected as the recipient for the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards, cementing his legacy in Hollywood.

Washington is a native of Mt. Vernon, NY, and graduated from Fordham University, where he majored in drama. He spent a year at San Francisco's prestigious American Conservatory Theatre before beginning his professional acting career.

As previously announced, the Publicists Awards Luncheon will also honor Jeffrey Katzenberg with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Ryan Murphy will receive the Television Showmanship Award and Nanci Ryder will be awarded with the President's Award.

Annual International Cinematographers Guild (ICG, IATSE Local 600)

SOURCE: Annual International Cinematographers Guild (ICG, IATSE Local 600)

NAFSA Opposes Jeff Sessions for Attorney General

Jeff Sessions (via Gage Skidmore)

In written testimony to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Esther D. Brimmer, executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators expressed the organization's strong opposition to the appointment of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to attorney general. NAFSA stands with 144 civil and human rights organizations against Sessions' appointment.

Opposing any presidential cabinet nominee is an extremely rare move for NAFSA. As Brimmer noted in her statement to the Judiciary committee, "NAFSA does not take this step lightly. As a matter of practice, NAFSA believes it is preferable to reserve judgment on cabinet level nominees until after they have had a chance to testify in the confirmation hearing process. However, in the case of Senator Sessions, his long track record provides sufficient evidence for us to determine he is not qualified to enforce laws pertaining to immigration and civil rights that are vital to NAFSA's mission."

NAFSA, the world's largest professional association dedicated to the promotion and advancement of international education and exchange, specified objections to Sen. Sessions' appointment on the basis of three components: Senator Sessions' anti-immigrant stance, alarming record on voting rights and fight to continue the unconstitutional ruling in Alabama for separate and unequal education for minority students.

Brimmer's statement explained that NAFSA's commitment to fostering peace and security through international education relies upon leadership that embraces openness, equality and justice. The statement also noted that NAFSA believes that Senator Sessions' hostile positions on immigration, voting rights and education disqualify him from leading the United States Department of Justice, and his record on these issues indicates that if confirmed, he will champion policies that are neither just nor inclusive.

Read Brimmer's complete Congressional testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Sample Tweet: In a rare decision, @NAFSA opposes Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. #intled @senjudiciary http://bit.ly/2i9fC6t

NAFSA Logo www.nafsa.org/ (PRNewsFoto/NAFSA) 

SOURCE: NAFSA: Association of International Educators

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Stop The Pregnant Horse Blood Trade! [Petition]

Image via Avaaz.org

Dear friends,

It’s straight out of a horror movie: hundreds of pregnant horses hooked up to blood-draining machines, some so weak they collapse and die. But we can stop this right now. 

The industrial horse torture is driven by European pharmaceutical companies who use the blood to speed up factory farming! The EU has said it’s considering action, but so far nothing has happened. 

No more horses need to die! Ministers are meeting in just 2 weeks -- let’s light a fire under the EU with a massive million person petition demanding they ban the abusive pregnant horse blood trade. 

Add your name to the petition below *with one click* and tell everyone:  

>> Click to sign the petition

To the EU Parliament, Commission, and Council:

We call on you to ban the import to Europe of any goods produced using techniques which are cruel and cause suffering to animals. As a world leader in animal welfare, Europe should apply its own standards to products it imports. 

>> Click to sign the petition

Death is far from the only horror: so much blood is taken that it can lead to shock and anaemia. And because only the blood of pregnant horses is valuable, they’re often forced into repeat pregnancies and abortions. 

Demand is driven by pharmaceutical companies who sell the hormone found in pregnant horse blood to factory farmers to get pigs and other animals in “heat” on demand -- another layer of abuse in this sorry story.  

If we shine a light on this horror by raising a massive global outcry now, we can help get a ban of all products made from the suffering of animals -- making it difficult for companies all over the world to make big profits from this disturbing industry. 

Add your name to the petition above with one click on the link, then forward this to friends and family -- let's build pressure on the EU to act!  

>> Click to sign the petition

Horses are full of beauty, grace and majesty -- it's hard to understand how people could be so cruel. But when we come together in massive numbers to protect animals from the horrors they face every day, we can do incredible things. Let's do it now for these horses who need us to be their voice more than ever.

With hope,

Loup Dargent

On behalf of Oli, Rewan, Bert, Ari, Camille, Nataliya, Ricken and the entire Avaaz team

More information: 

• The cruel trade with pregnant mare blood (Animals' Angels USA)
• Blood farms investigation (Animal Welfare Foundation)
• Turning horse blood into profits (The Dodo) 
• Why is the world out for horses’ blood? (The Guardian)

Brexit, Comedy And 'Britishness' – What To Do When Parody Becomes Real

A local shop, for local people. BBC

By Neil Archer, Keele University

If as it is said comedy is tragedy plus the benefit of time, sometimes time allows things to come full circle. When in 1999 Edward and Tubbs, characters from the BBC’s The League of Gentlemen, declared their Royston Vasey village store “a local shop for local people” I laughed because their narrow-minded localist zeal seemed so grotesquely out of step with the UK’s global and multicultural attitudes. But in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, where not being “local” became a figurative, legal or literal stick with which to beat others, Edward and Tubbs have lost some comic lustre and gained an eerie relevance.

In much film and television comedy of the New Labour years – such as the Simon Pegg film Hot Fuzz (2007), where civic pride concealed satanic rituals of local “cleansing”, or Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), where the threat to local produce instills villagers with a mob mentality – it is an inclusive, plural, playful sense of “Britishness” that is the implied alternative to these excesses. When I recognised the Britishness of these films and how I identified with it, I realised that, to a large extent, this Britishness did not really exist – or at least, it only existed as an ironic gesture or parody. The alternative, of course, was to assert the sort of cultural and racial essentialism that has long been among the unpalatable myths used by nationalists the world over.

In laughing along, I feel that Britishness is here defined by not taking the concept of Britishness at all seriously. This isn’t itself an innately British quality, but it could be thought of as a certain post-imperial tendency in the comedy that has shaped a prevalent part of British culture since the 1960s. The sort of comedy that is as much obsessed by historical myths of Britishness as it is derisive of them: Beyond the Fringe, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Ripping Yarns, Blackadder, and The League of Gentlemen.

This comic playfulness regarding Britishness has become a key vehicle for promoting British culture abroad through hugely successful rom-coms such as Notting Hill or Love Actually. That the UK tops recent indexes of global soft power owes much to the self-effacing and metropolitan charms of films such as these. It is also apt that Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean persona, Britain’s most exportable comedy brand, should have found a central role in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

The inspired choice to have Atkinson’s weary keyboardist daydream his way through a travesty of Chariots of Fire’s opening scene – a film more often associated with flag-waving jingoism – helped rework the ceremony’s traditional cultural remit towards less aggressively nationalistic or historically essentialist terrain. Recall also that the show began with Her Majesty jumping from a helicopter strapped to a Union Jack parachute. Yet this same send-up of British iconography also served in the context of the ceremony as a form of soft patriotism: one that while drawing a line under Britain’s imperial past, was no less assertive even through parody of its new cultural standing in the world.

But that was 2012. The events of 2016 point towards political isolationism and more tightly prescribed notions of national identity, with significant repercussions for British comedy. How do we reconcile, for example, the divergent comedic impulses to leave or remain? The League’s village of Royston Vasey is taken from the birth name of Roy “Chubby” Brown, a foul-mouthed and anarchic British comedian who has mined cultural and ethnic prejudices to perennially popular effect. The uncomfortable potency of the League’s dark comedy comes from their willingness to flirt with sentiments that have clearly not been banished to the past, but which still churn away just under the surface.

The lessons of “Chubby” Brown and a whole other tradition of British comedy dating from the 1970s (oddly enough, the decade that Britain entered the European Economic Community), such as the Carry On films, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, and Mind Your Language, are that comedy can as easily reinforce exclusive and culturally fixed notions of national identity as it can dispel them. Nor can we simply laugh away such comedy’s potent appeal, however much it might make us squirm.

The role of comedy in negotiating not only a hard or soft Brexit, but hard and soft conceptions of Britishness, will be a pressing concern both for comedy producers and those who write about it. It was perhaps fitting that this of all summers should see the BBC attempting, in an evidently nostalgic gesture, to revive popular sitcoms from the 1970s, and just as apt that the week after the EU referendum saw the release of Absolutely Fabulous – a very knowing comedy portrayal of national self-denial. The wider impact of the events of 2016 on the cultural and comedic tendencies to come remains to be seen.


About Today's Contributor:
Neil Archer, Lecturer in Film Studies, Keele University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

UK: Where Press Regulation Is Concerned, We're Already Being Fed 'Post-Truth' Journalism

SamJonah

By Brian Cathcart, Kingston University

The Times newspaper greeted the start of 2017 by warning: “The freedom of the press is under direct and immediate threat.” Its Murdoch stablemate, The Sun, went further by identifying the “sinister zealots behind regulators [who] want to destroy the popular press”. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, urged its readers to: “Act NOW if you want to help defend the right to read a website like MailOnline.”

Free speech in Britain – which has been a beacon of human rights since 1689 – is clearly under threat. Or is it? It depends who you believe.

Anyone attempting to follow the progress of press regulation in the UK can be forgiven some bewilderment – and also some impatience. Matters generally thought to have been sorted out after the Leveson Inquiry seem suddenly to be surfacing again, and the public is being asked to take an urgent interest in something called Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. This provides for costs in defamation cases and mandates that judges can direct newspapers to pay both sides’ costs even if they win a libel case.

Make no mistake: the bewilderment and impatience have been deliberately engineered by the corporate press – by which I mean the Murdoch, Mail, Mirror, Express and Telegraph papers – whose objective is to sabotage all change, including changes already passed into law by parliament. With this objective in mind, these newspapers have engaged in a rampage of misinformation.

“MPs are considering forcing newspapers to pay celebs and politicians who sue – even if cases are thrown out”, declared a recent editorial in The Sun, beneath a headline about protecting the free press and keeping investigative journalism alive. Similar messages have even been rammed home to the employees of these companies in internal emails.

Sinister zealots behind press regulator would willingly destroy popular press. But you can stop them https://t.co/e14QfNPGF1

— Tony Gallagher (@tonygallagher) December 30, 2016

These publications are desperate to give a veneer of legitimacy to the work of their political allies who are trying to bury the Leveson reforms and with them the second part of the Leveson Inquiry (which deals with criminality rather than regulation). Having stalled both of these measures at the behest of the press, ministers have launched a consultation about the next step – the implementation of Section 40 – and the papers are going all out for the option of complete abandonment.

Blurring the truth
Despite The Sun’s rhetoric, MPs are not actually involved in implementing Section 40 for the good reason that the Crime and Courts Act was passed into law with the support of every party in 2013. Section 40 is not about celebrities and politicians – on the contrary, what it chiefly does is to give every citizen a historic new right of access to affordable justice in cases of libel and unjustified intrusion.

If the government will only put Section 40 into operation, we will see the end of the age-old British scandal by which only the very rich or the very lucky get to uphold their rights against libellers and those who violate our privacy rights.

But it is precisely because it gives us all that right that the corporate papers and their friends are fighting it. They are terrified by the idea that ordinary people might suddenly be able to sue them and get damages.

As with most post-truth news, there is a germ of truth in what The Sun claims and it is this: if someone wants to exercise the right to affordable justice through arbitration and a newspaper refuses to cooperate, so forcing them to take the far more expensive route of court proceedings, then the judge will have the option of making the newspaper pay both sides’ costs even if the paper wins.

Far from being outrageous, as The Sun and others suggest, this is absolutely fair. What would be unfair would be to leave editors with the power to pick and choose which claimants can use cheap arbitration. All experience tells us that they would push the rich into arbitration, thus saving money, and push the rest of us towards the courts knowing we can’t afford it and so would abandon our cases.

This has nothing to do with rich celebs – who have long been among the privileged few able to afford to sue. Instead it is about empowering people who, in the absence of Section 40, are left powerless.

No state control
The Sun’s comments are self-serving. By banging on about “state-backed regulation”, corporate papers aim to smear “recognised regulation” as set out under the Royal Charter of 2013 with the taint of censorship.

Powerful voices. Lenscap Photography

Recognised regulation is regulation that meets the basic standards of independence and effectiveness set out in the Leveson Report as necessary to uphold standards and protect the public from abuse.

The test is applied by the Press Recognition Panel, which although a public body enjoys unprecedented and unique independence from ministerial or political influence – and one of the criteria it applies is that a regulator must have no power “to prevent the publication of any material, by anyone, at any time”.

So far from representing a step towards state control, the charter system has freedom of expression at its heart – and no one has been able to show any way in which it could inhibit public interest journalism. There are no rational grounds for any responsible news publisher to object to regulation under the charter.

Yet the propaganda continues. The papers that hold the megaphone of mass communication are all shouting the same words together and, at the same time, refusing even a hint of balance in their reporting.

Despite all of this, there is something you can do. Hacked Off is helping coordinate responses to the government consultation, which closes on January 10. There at least you cannot be drowned out by the megaphone.


About Today's Contributor:
Brian Cathcart, Professor of Journalism, Kingston University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

The Violent, Post-Truth 2017 Predicted In The Running Man? We're Living In It

‘It’s showtime!’ Movies in LA, CC BY-SA

By David Bishop, Edinburgh Napier University

Welcome to a world where fake news stories are used to manipulate public opinion. Dissent is no longer tolerated and all your communications are monitored; the economy is not functioning and reality TV is used to distract you from harsher realities. Welcome to 2017.

I don’t mean our 2017 but an imagined one from 30 years ago. This was the setting for 1987 movie The Running Man, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bad news? Much of this action-adventure slugfest looks eerily prophetic now that we’re here for real.

In the film, Schwarzenegger plays police helicopter pilot Ben Richards in a 2017 when many people are living on the streets and food, natural resources and oil are in short supply. The movie begins with him refusing to fire on a food riot from his helicopter because the people are unarmed, with women and children caught up in the protest. He gets overpowered by colleagues and the rioters are massacred, with footage of the incident edited to make him the perpetrator – and a useful scapegoat.

The original.

Imprisoned for life, Richards is offered the chance to win his freedom by competing in the most popular TV programme in history, Running Man. This state-sponsored show pits contestants against high-profile hunters with extreme weaponry. It’s a Schwarzenegger vehicle from his 1980s heyday, so you can probably guess who wins.

The script by Steven E de Souza loosely adapts a 1982 novel of the same name by Richard Bachman, the pseudonym of horror author Stephen King. The source material is set in 2025 and far less heroic. It ends with Richards hijacking an aeroplane and flying it into the television company’s skyscraper headquarters – stop me if this is sounding in any way familiar.

The film adaptation is a product of its time, with 1980s props that look out of place in the fictional 2017 setting. People carry clipboards instead of tablet computers, use analogue phones rather than mobiles, and store their music on cassette. The Running Man does feature smart home technology, like voice-controlled coffee makers, but the computers are primitive. It’s the satirical touches that stand out most in this film, such as the president of the United States having his own theatrical agent.

When in Rome …
The central conceit of both novel and film – that those in power use mass entertainment to distract the population from reality – is part of a long tradition. It dates all the way back to the Roman empire when the masses were appeased with free wheat and arena spectacles, a tactic described as panem et circenses – bread and circuses.

One of the first writers to transplant this notion to television was Quartermass creator Nigel Kneale in his 1968 play for BBC Two, The Year of the Sex Olympics. It envisaged a dystopian future where the elite maintains control over the people by broadcasting a constant stream of pornography and trash television.

Kneale effectively predicted the rise of reality TV programmes like Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here; and much other science fiction has drawn on the same theme. It appears, for example, in Doctor Who in the 1985 adventure Vengeance on Varos – set in a totalitarian world where torture and executions are televised to amuse and divert the masses – and more recently in The Hunger Games trilogy.

The additional element that makes The Running Man even more resonant right now is fake news. The fake footage of Richards’ helicopter massacre is replayed to the live audience in the game show studio to coerce them into believing Schwarzenegger’s character is a liar, a murderer and a threat to everyone. The programmers then do the same thing to his sidekick, Amber Mendez (Maria Conchita Alonso), before later faking their televised deaths during the game itself.

It’s not unlike how social media and even some broadcasters have been guilty of distributing and promoting fake news in recent months, especially during the US presidential election. When psychotic Running Man host Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) interviews studio audience members in the movie, their simple-minded responses echo footage of real American voters dismissing reality for what they’ve been told on TV or via alt-right news sites.

Muscular politics
Meanwhile, The Running Man cast included not one but two men who would improbably become governors of American states. Jesse Ventura, then best known as a professional wrestler, appears as gameshow veteran Captain Freedom. In 1999, Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota, serving a full four-year term.

The Governator. EPA

Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder, was then elected governor of California in 2003 and re-elected in 2006. And having starred in a movie about the potential dangers of reality TV, on January 2 he will become host of Celebrity Apprentice in the US. The person he replaces? A real estate tycoon called Donald Trump who will become the president of the United States in the coming days, despite losing the popular vote.

Trump has appointed as his chief strategist and senior counsellor Stephen Bannon. Until recently, Bannon was executive chair of Breitbart News, a right-wing website accused of massaging facts to promote its agenda and win the election for his new boss. And lest we forget, one key part of Trump’s mandate is to revive an economy that has never recovered from the financial crisis of 2007-08.

Put it all together and the 2017 of The Running Man doesn’t look very far away.


About Today's Contributor:
David Bishop, Lecturer in Creative Writing, Edinburgh Napier University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

A Million Reasons To Hope In 2017

Images via Avaaz.org 

Dear Avaazers, 

In 2016, hate was given hope -- but now we take it back! 

From terrorism to Trump to Syria, it was a rough year. But hidden by all the darkness filling our screens, there's a simple, beautiful, truth: 

The world has never been in a better place. 

From poverty to literacy, the rise of women and fall of deadly disease -- on virtually every metric -- the world is better off than it's ever been. It's a powerful reason for us all to have hope, and rise to 2017. 

So to kick off the new year, here's a video of 10 beautiful reasons to have hope -- let's share them, add our own, and together give the world a million reasons to hope in 2017: 

Share this on facebook 

Even on the environment, we're winning epic progress on everything from historic ocean conservation to an unstoppable revolution in clean energy!

Political extremists and divisive zealots thrive on fear and desperation. That's why they try to convince us that the world is falling apart.

Master trolls like Trump and Putin have even hired vast armies of both real people and fake "bots" to hijack our social media with smears and lies about how awful everything and everyone else is, except them. (this is true! see sources below). What better way to answer them than a million new year's posts about what gives each of us and all of us hope: 

Share this on facebook 

Let's take this dose of hope, and let it fuel our determination and that of our friends. Because in 2017, together, we rise. 

With hope, 

Loup Dargent

On behalf of Ricken, Pascal, Bert, Emma, Mike, Fatima and the whole Avaaz team. 

PS - This new year's reflection feels so important, for each of us, and for a world that is at a tipping point -- between love, hope and wisdom, and fear, anger and ignorance. Here are 5 points of reflection that might be useful for your reflection this year: 

1. Yes, things are serious. A new autocratic world order (60% of Avaazers believe even a second rise of fascism) could threaten everything we love.


2. But this is also a tremendous opportunity. Humanity, like each of us, learns best from mistakes. Much of our greatest progress has been catalyzed by crisis. If we meet this moment right, we can emerge from it stronger and wiser than ever.


3. We need to be strong, and to challenge the forces of regress. But let’s not be twisted by the darkness and act from fear and anger. We are warriors for love and wisdom. We must act from that light.


4. When we do come from love and wisdom, we can see that our ‘enemy’ is not so much any people, as it is unwisdom. Misplaced fear and anger. Lack of awareness and understanding.


5. These are age-old foes of our people. Our grandparents faced far worse with far less, and they won progress. We have every reason to hope, and no excuse for despair.

And lastly - all the forces present in our world are present within us. Fear and love. Hope and despair. The choices we make in our personal lives shape our world through billions of acts of kindness or cruelty, wisdom or foolishness. All we can do is our best. Let's hit that mark this year :).

SOURCES: 

• 99 Reasons Why 2016 Was a Good Year
• How a Putin Fan Overseas Pushed Pro-Trump Propaganda to Americans (New York Times)
• Invasion of the troll armies (The Guardian)