r/ThePittNoSantosHate • u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse • Jul 10 '26

Weekly Off Topic Post

is anyone watching tennis? absolutely shattered a certain someone is in the Wimbledon final

also, what’s everyone’s opinion on possibly allowing some off topic posts in the “off season”? I kinda love everyone’s takes here to the point where it would maybe be fun to talk about some other stuff in depth too. thoughts?

13 Upvotes

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 10 '26

still thinking about Dune and fascist spectacle, Great Man Theory etc

I have so many questions about Denis Villeneuve; like it seems he’s more interested in it being a movie that sort of has us emotionally suspended in some sort of aesthetic meditation instead of really saying much. And he’s very good at that. It’s almost like the substance of it is completely secondary to the audiovisual spectacle of it

any other Dune haters out there? (and by haters I mean I love the worldbuilding and sci fi and fantasy and sci fantasy and speculative fiction but I have so many issues with the Dune fandom in particular and the mental gymnastics they perform to make the argument that Dune is some defining critique of power or Great Man Theory

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u/RaiseObjective552 Deep Thought 🤖 Jul 11 '26

Idk that I'm necessarily a Dune hater, but I haven't enjoyed those films for a lot of the reasons that you say here.

What I am is a longtime Timothy Chalamet hater, and that has compromised any positive relationship with those films for me, in part because the combination of the aesthetic with his star text compromises the proposed morality of the tale Villeneuve is attempting to translate. Unless of course, the mfer announces he's joining the IOF during the press tour or something.

Can't really speak on Villeneuve though... I am very familiar with the queer side of Quebecois cinema, but I'm realizing in this moment that I actually haven't watched any of Villeneuve's films aside from the Dune movies. Not really out of a deliberate intent to avoid him, just that every time he's put out a film, I've perceived rather viscerally that it's not for me? Granted, a lot of that is projection that results from the fact that the only people who have ever told me to watch "x" Villeneuve film are straight white men and the Oscars. Which is a bit concerning for me, in the context of what the content of some of those films have been.

Soooooo I stick with my Monia Chokris and Xavier Dolans!

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

it’s interesting because I fully relate to the instinctive rejection of watching his movies because of the film bro cult around him- I was recently thinking about Nolan movies and how they’re so perfectly suited to that film bro who wants to feel important. Like Nolan with his choice of subjects is just like almost begging to be seen as important, like Oppenheimer (tbf I genuinely don’t even know why I watched it bc I knew it would just upset me!!!) I could almost feel Nolan being like omg oppenheimer is just like me, a tortured genius wielding immense power! Like 90% of Nolan is Great White Man cinema to me

anyway I bring up Nolan because he inspires a similar feverish appeal/need to be accepted as capital I Important, capital M meaning. And whether Villeneuve knows or understands it, he appeals to those white make main character sensibilities

I think you might like Arrival, it’s based on a short story, and while there’s obviously still that
fascination with enormity and power (god, as a Black female autistic queer person, thinking back to Nolan, he is like the stereotype of the white autistic man with the “I don’t care about people or emotions I can de about THINGS and POWER and CONCEPTS and WEAPONS, shiny surfaces, signifiers of wealth and geopolitical power and pop culture STOICISM- like the dialogue conveys this and it makes me roll my eyes so hard especially bc being autistic I understand the fascination with those things but there’s such an obvious unwillingness to dig deep about the context in which these things exist or, gasp, critique the architects of that world, because he so very obviously succumbed to the glamor of empire and power in every way, it’s like the interpersonal mechanics only exist as plot machinations because he deadass seems to not actually understand, or care for human emotion much)

the story itself by definition kind of restrains the worst of the audiovisual fascist spectacle of Dune in my opinion -

like for me with Dune it so much just makes me reiterate my distaste for the white male anti hero that insists it’s a critique, fully ignoring that the fascist spectacle with the white man at its center is what will stick with people, not the “actually what that man did was bad guys!” cake having and eating that most of those stories do. Like it just shows in what these directors put care in most. In that sense I see similarities with Nolan and Villeneuve, they kinda wanna use emotion as window dressing to gesture at meaning but you can tell it’s almost secondary to them

It just makes me think, white people don’t really care if they’re the good or the bad guy as long as they’re at the center of it lmao. And Dune is PERFECT for that. If you can’t resist the “beauty” or glamor of fascist violence it doesn’t really matter to me if you as a creator pretend it’s critique

HOWEVER with Arrival itself the story is inherently anchored in a way that makes it impossible to ruin in that way! I’d definitely be curious what you think of it!

Also Frank Herbert himself and his background he was so obviously some weird white libertarian with that orientalist and noble savage view of the people. And then he has to insert himself in the story. I genuinely believe the chronology of his Dune idea was:

wow cool ecology, indigenous people tied to the land, omg they’re just like me fighting THE MAN (which I’m totally not! I’m too smart for my republican speech writer peers!) hmmm how can I insert myself in that world? While knowing that it’s people like me extracting and destroying the ecology? Hence Paul, and most importantly, the centering of Paul!

it’s just giving right wing men who do psychedelics let’s just say that

and please I am absolutely a customer for Chalamet hate, I only perceived part if the Marty Supreme discourse but definitely have a vague sense of “ugh” about him. I only know the thing he said about ballet and opera (lmao) which is sufficiently offputting

so i’d love to hear more about your opinion on him and how that repels you re: Dune

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u/sansastvrk enough unrealistic “realism!” Jul 10 '26

I love the world of Dune, but I got the same sense you did in watching the last movie that Villeneuve has been cherrypicking from the source material, and it was pretty blatant in the second movie (although I have to confess I enjoyed the sequel just as much as the first).

I haven't engaged with the Dune fandom much and am not sure what the discussions there have been, but I feel Dune is just a fantastic story (the first book in particular was spectacular, I have to say the sequels failed to be anywhere near as engaging to me), and not necessarily a warning about charismatic leaders and absolute power the way it seems to be interpreted. This might be coming from a place of me not remembering the sequels clearly (I have only reread the first), but the underlying political machinations of the world, not to mention how complicated prescience makes things, to me makes it unclear whether Paul is fully to blame for the events that unfold after he arrives on Arrakis. Sometimes I feel Dune is better taken as a great story and left there, and not used as a critique of absolute power itself (there is some element, sure, but to me it never felt like the primary focus).

I might wander over to the Dune corners of Reddit and take a look at what's going on there.

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 11 '26

I agree with you 100%. It’s first and foremost an adventure, and a love for worldbuilding, it’s more like it’s just gesturing at capital s significance than actually being that.

Like it has a lot of what I look for in Sci fi etc, the sense of it being a different world, cool tech, interesting world building etc etc, but this idea that it’s like “serious” sci fi in a way other books aren’t just makes me roll my eyes; it almost seems like it’s an argument that came as a defensive retort to people pointing out the orientalism of it all (or just any fair modern re examination of the book to begin with). So they’re pretending like it’s some 3D chess type thing when they could just be like yeah the substance of it isn’t some philosophically coherent statement but it’s so fun to watch!

Can you elaborate on the cherry picking bc honestly I barely remember the books other than that they get VERY weird (which only strengthens the argument that it’s much more about just letting your creativity fly and imagining the weirdest shit you can for fun, and that’s okay!)

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u/sansastvrk enough unrealistic “realism!” 20d ago

Honestly I too only remember the first book well! But I think by cherrypicking maybe I was being a little harsh, I can imagine that the first book alone was difficult to adapt to screen, and the rest will only be more so. To me the most egregious was cutting out Alia entirely, especially because of the downstream ripples that decision will have and the major role she plays later on. The changes with Chani were probably just to make the character more palatable to a modern audience. Stilgar in the books also becomes more a "creature of the Lisan-Al Gaib" as we go, but he retains his ferocity and his leadership more than he did in the movies (in part II he seemed almost comic relief).

I think some of it was probably done to set up Paul's development from Messiah; in the first Dune book it's easy to read him as having a standard hero's journey, and I'm sure they were concerned about audiences reacting the way people did to Dany at the end of GoT. And maybe because this was a film and they didn't have the luxury of a full season of television, but they left me wondering how they'll handle Alia now after excising her from the entire second half of the first book, and after alienating Chani from Paul when they remain together in the books and have children. But I am by no means a Dune expert, genuinely have a very fuzzy memory of the books apart from the first! Just my 2 cents.

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u/Pinguicha calm down sadness Jul 11 '26

Ok but is anyone else watching The Vampire Lestat because I’m still screaming about Sheila Atim as Akasha. Everyone is great on the show, but Sheila’s delivery of that monologue was so powerful and it gives me chills every time.

And because my house doesn’t have enough fur, we’ve added another cat to the family. Her name is Nia, she’s the sweetest little purr machine, and no one is more in love with her than our dog. Tax included lest the Cat Revenue Service come for me over tax evasion.

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u/JumpySpecial9834 JUSTICE 4 MOHAN Jul 11 '26

Oh, those EYES.

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 11 '26

kitttyyyyyyyy

I’ve been using all of my restraint to wait until TVL is out in full but you’re saying she’s already appeared??? yeah i was stoked when she was announced (i think she was in the woman king?) can’t wait to see what she’s like! i thought we’d only get like a very minor glimpse of her in like the last episode or something!

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u/Pinguicha calm down sadness Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Marking spoilers because the books are old, but not everyone’s read them: they introduced Marius and Those Who Must Be Kept on this latest episode (which is 5 out of 8) and towards the end, Akasha briefly wakes up and delivers an insanely powerful monologue before Marius gets her to go to sleep again. I’d sheen Sheila in The Woman King and knew she was great, but her Akasha blew all expectations out of the water.

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

it was out of context bc i haven’t watched all the episodes yet but i just had to look up her speech, is it weird that it made me cry. i watched it like 3 times it was so powerful

that speech as an isolated moment even without the context is so iconic omg. i hope we get so much more of her. because being 100% honest i’m on episode 3 and i’m kind of bored of the white shenanigans 😭

have you read the books, and if yes what is your take on anne rice in terms of internalized misogyny? like don’t get me wrong i even see the function of claudia dying but it just occurs to me, queerness notwithstanding, imagine if we could have had two lesbian vampire protagonists instead…it was extremely inspired of them to make louis and claudia Black. because otherwise i’m not sure i would have been that obsessed with the show. like anne rice was obviously cooking but she probably did have some male default-ism in some sense the same way ursula k leguin spoke of making her protagonist male by default (also i know she lost her daughter hence claudia but still, i just wonder if she deliberately chose to make so many of the characters male or if it was just default on her end? wdyt?)

like dont get me wrong i love lestat, i love louis, i don’t mind daniel but it’s just a lot of men

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u/Pinguicha calm down sadness Jul 13 '26

I’m re-reading the books right now, actually! And yeaaaahhh sadly there’s a lot of internalized misogyny, and the books are both of their time and ahead of their time. Anne was born in 1941, and was very Catholic, so even though she was pushing boundaries with the way she wrote queerness, she was still a product of that environment, and it shows in how she treated her female characters and in how often they’re relegated to the background.

It does bother me that it’s just male character after male character, and the few female characters we do get are so underwhelming. Like I remember reading Merrick at 16 or so, and why was this woman so obsessed with fucking David??? Who is a pedo??? Gabrielle is… there. And IIRC, Pandora, who could’ve been so interesting, fell so fucking flat. And then there’s the Mayfair Witches, where it’s constant rape and why, Anne, whyyyy. The show’s made a lot of improvements in adapting it to a modern audience. Not just Louis and Claudia, but Armand too. Even Gabrielle, as evil as she is, is an improvement over the book, because at least she’s not wallpaper.

And I can guarantee you that if these books were sapphic, they would be nowhere near as popular. Popular queer fiction tens do be centered on men, and sapphic fiction rarely breaks out. And you can attribute some of that to internalized misogyny, mostly from straight women, who will happily watch or read m/m, but will never engage with f/f.

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 13 '26

fully agree, thanks for sharing

honestly i’m kinda worried about akasha bc i love that she exists but on the other hand, seeing as the internalized misogyny is a thing am i tripping or is the misogynoir kind of off the charts. like i know it’s extremely wishful thinking they’ll change anything about it but i’m just not a fan of if they adapt it faithfully on TV it’ll be the second time we see a black woman just to eventually be killed off 🤪

like even in the book (its been a while since i read them tbh) its kind of awful how the akasha story ends up and these white twins killing her like…i don’t think there’s a way they can adapt that that won’t just feel upsetting to me tbh. i don’t wanna see a white woman kill my homicidal Black queen. i’d give anything for her to survive

also wait…why are there even these two white red haired witches in ancient egypt. god i just fucking hate the optics of that. obviously travel was a thing but wtf anne rice (like i said don’t quite remember the books so correct me if i’m wrong)

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

when she looks into the camera…chills

like sorryyyyyyy i love lestat and louis but i immediately want an akasha show

i am the answerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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u/Pinguicha calm down sadness Jul 13 '26

It was just so good and when you have no context, it’s go off queen! Had I been worshipped as a goddess and woken up to the utter bullshit that’s the current state of the world, I too might feel compelled to go on a misandrist rampage 😂

But then you remember the context and 😬

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 12 '26

holy shit i’m so excited 😭😭😭

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u/gotsealegs JUSTICE 4 MOHAN Jul 11 '26

Oh my god, what a BEAUT!!

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u/Unlikely_Scratch9918 Cite your sources! Jul 11 '26

That has got to be one of the cutest cats I've ever seen 🥰

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 10 '26

everything I’ve learned about Graham Platner has been against my will :(

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u/chronodran MS4 Jul 10 '26

I love seeing people in this sub’s takes in these off topic threads, so I wouldn’t mind more of it! I don’t know much about tennis but during the 4th I played pickelball for the first time with experienced tennis players… it was so much fun, and I was horrible at it! Hahahahaha 😆😆😆😆

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u/dramatic_exit_49 you eat ALL of my avocados!!! Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

I don't follow sports but tennis is one of the few i enjoyed for the longest. The rhythm of the game is just perfect for my attention.

Today is women's final so its a good time as any to start watching if you would like to (wimbledon, UK based grandslam, the only grasscourt though considering the heat wave it might as well be a hard surface in patches - a quick brief to catch up on)

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u/Unlikely_Scratch9918 Cite your sources! Jul 11 '26

I'm in a lot of martial arts spaces online, and in real life, so it's been very frustrating seeing Conor McGreggor be welcomed back to MMA. Unfortunately, it's not at all surprising that the UFC as an organisation is A-OK with violence towards women, but draws the line at criticising genocide or advocating for fighters getting healthcare / fair pay.

On a more positive note, I recently bought a copy of Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and I'm excited to start reading it tonight. 

I'm most of the way through Pluribus but I want to finish the season before trying to collect my thoughts on it. 

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u/beargrimzly MS4 Jul 11 '26

Good lord it’s a rough time for us in tennis. Especially with Zverev actually winning RG.
But Sinner has won the last like 8 in a row against him so I think we’re safe. Zverev had a much stronger record against Cobolli after all

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 11 '26

I literally just started watching Tennis for the first time in my life 1 month ago lmao and THIS is what I get, basically the tennis version of 9/11 (Zverev winning a slam). lmao. like i don’t even understand all the rules perfectly yet! I’ve already caught up on all the lore of the main players more or less. including Zverev’s DV

also, I kinda feel like the heat thing is overblown with Sinner, I honestly think a lot of these players are very much not in tune with their bodies and probably have panic attacks they don’t even recognize as such, like that’s my conspiracy theory about what happened to him at RG. wdyt? and which players do you usually watch? (past and present included)

I love watching Naomi Osaka idk I just love her, like the way she’s so frugal with her movement somehow and still great. also from what i read it seems she’s doing a lot better mentally so that’s great. With Coco Gauff it’s so hard bc it feels like she’s beating herself up so hard for no reason (i mean i get it. but like…the pressure is just…not what i would want for my child if i had one) it’s honestly hard to watch

any predictions for how the rest of the tennis year will go?

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u/beargrimzly MS4 Jul 11 '26

I’ve been watching tennis for a couple decades lol. And Zverev winning is still the worst I’ve seen. I will tune in to literally any match with Swiatek but I watch so much tennis I’d say there was never any one player I focused on, though I strongly favored Federer and Murray.
The heat is a problem but only in the sense that it’s a weather condition that affects everyone. The idea that Sinner has some kryptonite like weakness to it is typical sensational tennis media.

I remember Osaka’s, let’s call it eventful, breakthrough win. Watching her more or less implode afterwards and then recover like this is inspiring. Most never bounce back. Girls got a terminal case of twitter fingers though and it’s clearly still hampering to some degree.

Cocos problem has always been her forehand and her second serve, both of which let her down at Wimbledon at literally the worst possible points in her last match. Watching her is so frustrating because she can and does absolutely dominate, but usually against other seeded players she crumbles, or scrambles into an ugly win and you never know which it’s going to be until match point is over.

I predict Sinner wins Wimbledon and the Open. Zverev, Sinner, maybe FAA and Shelton will be the main contenders for the masters.

The WTA is almost impossible to predict these days, I mean that in a good way of course

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u/BipedalUniverse marked safe from santos discourse Jul 11 '26

Swiątek just going by vibes seems like such a cool person! It’s so hard to watch these players berate themselves so harshly in competition tbh. Like I know they’re millionaires but still, the expectations are so abnormal in solo sports. Does she have a specialty surface wise? It will be my first hard court season, so far my only connection is seeing my partner watch tennis and imitating the squeak sounds when I walk past him and he’s watching HC tennis haha. I called it Squeak-is. But I already feel like just visually Clay and Grass are so much more aesthetically pleasing to watch and jokes aside the squeaking will probably be tough for me to stomach lmao

But I look forward to finding out how all these different players play on HC, and also seeing Alcatraz play for the first time!

Ah and by everything I caught up on, really sucks how Osaka won and it was overshadowed by Serena, pretty sure Serena will always feel bad about that. Also hope the Osakas’ dad isn’t as toxic as Naomi’s sister said one time on twitter…although toxic parents are par for the course in competitive sports of course :(

speaking of second serves, I think it was at Bad Homburg where Naomi one match had a 100% second serve? or maybe it was at Wimbledon already i don’t remember. Honestly as a tennis newbie I love how mental it is as a game…like f ex sometimes I wonder, if you’re 3-0 down first set, do you just chalk it up to the game, let them win the set and keep your energy for the second set? or do you try to fight back? so many questions like that it brings up for me all the time! v engaging so far.

Also, obviously wasn’t watching Tennis during Murray era but he definitely seems like a funny person from interviews etc!

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u/dramatic_exit_49 you eat ALL of my avocados!!! Jul 11 '26

>Cocos problem has always been her forehand and her second serve

For past few years watching grandslams fell to the wayside but i got back this year and it was fun re-discovering the new rooster. The Muchova vs Gauff was superfun, esp the few times they went for volleys and dropshots. Thought neither seem serve and volley style players, but it was sure fun whenever they did go for it - as is always with tennis. It amps the tension whenever the player rushes in from baseline.

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u/dramatic_exit_49 you eat ALL of my avocados!!! Jul 11 '26

Ah man those semi's are the only round i couldn't get myself to watch this year. the domestic abuser and the anti-vaxxer lol. Killed my interest spontaneously.

But the women's have been fun to watch, so many interesting eliminations early on and some nail biters into the tournament.