The French director Jacques Audiards “Emilia Pérez”In May 2024, he was made waves among the critics at the Cannes Film Festival for the first time. When it won Several awards. It continued 10 nominations Golden GlobeFour, including the very best musical or comedy.

“It's so nice to see a film that is a cinema.” Guing Mexican Guillermo del Toro. Another Mexican filmmaker, Issa López, who led “True Detective: Night Country”, called it “Masterpiece“Added that Audiard presented topics equivalent to gender and violence in Latin America” ​​better than any Mexican who was confronted with this topic at this point. ”

The film is a musical a couple of Mexican drug lord called Manitas del Monte, played by the trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón. Del Monte hires a lawyer to facilitate her long -awaited gender transfer. After her operation, she fills her death with the assistance of her lawyer and sends her wife Jessi, played by Selena GomeAnd their children in Switzerland. Four years later, Manitas – now often called Emilia Pérez – tries to unite along with her family by pretending to be the Manitas' distant cousin.

Why is it bombing amongst Mexican cinema -goers?

Modest research on a “modest” language

As a scholar of gender and sexuality in Latin AmericaI study LGBTQ+ representation within the media, especially in Mexico. It was subsequently interesting to follow the negative response to a movie that critics say that they broke latest ways in researching gender, sexuality and violence in Mexico.

Many of the perceived mistakes of the film appear to be self -indebted.

Audiard admitted that he Didn't research much on Mexico before and in the course of the rotary process. And although he doesn't speak Spanish, he decided to make use of a Spanish script and film the film in Spanish.

The director told French media outlet Konbini that he made the film in Spanish since it is a language of “modest countries, developing countries, poor people and migrants”.

It doesn’t surprise an early criticism of the film centered within the Spanish: It uses some Mexican slang words, but they’re spoken in a way that sounds unnatural for native speakers. Then there may be the over -control of the film to clichés that border on racism, perhaps probably the most outrageous when Emilia's child sings that she smells of “mezcal and guacamole”.

Of course, an artist doesn’t need to belong to culture with a view to present or explore them in his work. Filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein And Luis Buñuel became renowned figures within the Mexican cinema, although they were born in Latvia or Spain.

When researching sensitive topics, nonetheless, it is crucial to take into consideration the angle of the individuals shown, each out of will of accuracy and as a type of respect. Take Martin Scorseses “Murderer of the flower moon. “” The director Cooperation with Members of the Osage Nation to advertise the historical and cultural accuracy of the film.

Gloss over the nuance

“Emilia Pérez” focuses on how violence is because of the corruption prevailing in Mexico. Several music numbers denounce the agreement between authorities and criminals.

That is actually true. For many Mexicans, nonetheless, it seems like a simplified persecution of the issue.

The film doesn’t recognize the confluence of things behind the country's violence. Like the US claim For illegal drugs that results from its opioid crisis, Or the role, the American weapons Play violence in Mexico.

Professor and journalist Oswaldo Zavala, Who wrote extensively About Mexican cartels ,, argues that the film Remains the concept that Latin American countries are only answerable for the violence of drug trafficking. In addition, Zavala claims that this angle increases the narrative that the border between the USA and Mexico should be militarized.

The musical shows only a couple of male characters; Those who appear are violent without exception, and this includes Manitas before they undergo their transition. The cruelty of the Manitas is contrary to Emilia's friendliness: it helps “Find mothers“These are the Mexican collectives of mothers who are looking for missing relatives, which are assumed that they are kidnapped or killed by organized crimes. One of these collectives, Colectivo de Víctimas del 10 de Marzo, criticized the film For the representation of groups equivalent to their recipients of cash organized by money and favored luxurious galas, wherein politicians and celebrities participated.

The leader of the group, Delia Quiroa, announced that the group would send a letter to the academy to specific his conviction of the film.

Counter response on several fronts

These political and cultural blind spots have created a counter response amongst Mexican cinema -goers.

When the film premiered in Mexico in January 2025, It was bombed on the box officeWith some spectators who demand reimbursements. Mexico's Federal Consumer Protection Authority needed to intervene After the film chain Cinépolis had refused to satisfy their satisfaction to honor-Guarante policy.

The Mexican author Jorge Volpi called The film “One of the crosestest and most fraudulent films of the 21st century.”

Trans -content manufacturer Camila Aurora parodyed “Emilia Pérez” in her short film playful “Johanne Sacreblu. “” “In scenes which might be full of stereotypical French symbols equivalent to croissants and baskets, it tells the story of a heiress who falls in love with a member of the business rivals of her family.

While some spectators Nevertheless, “Emilia Pérez” for his nuanced representation of trans women and the casting of a trans actress who has praised the LGBTQ interest representation Glaad described it as “one step backwards for the hiding place”.

One dispute is the music number that Emilia sings: “Medio Ella, Medio él” or “Half she, half he”, which assumes that trans persons are between two genders. The film appears to be presented too The transition of the character as a tool for deception.

A Viper pit on social media

In the meantime, Gascón's historical nominations were the primary to be overshadowed by her controversial statements by the Oscars and other awards.

She made headlines when She accused Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres worker to lose her work. Torres can be an Oscar candidate for the very best actress.

The most up-to-date controversy began at the tip of January 2025 when Gascóns is old Social media contributions reappeared. The news that has now been deleted included attacks on Muslims in Spain and a co-star co-star Selena Gómez a “Rich rat“What Gascón denied writing.

“Emilia Pérez” limp into the Oscars. Have Netflix and Audiard distant From Gascón to the preservation of the prospects of the film on the annual Oscar award ceremony.

It could possibly be too late.

The incident occurred shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday, the police from Palo Alto said in a press release.

The police said that the victim, which was generally known as a girl in the 40’s, went through the Civic Center Plaza and approached the front entrance of the town hall when a person headed for her, blocked her way and “a racist nickname that against Asian people was directed ”.

The victim, who feared for her security, ran from the suspect who followed her and continued to scream, the police said. He heard to follow her when she reached the street.

The victim dismissed an official police officer in the 600 block of the Ramona Street. Official officials were sent to the area, but they did not find the suspect.

When the officers spoke to the victim, they received a message that a man was harassing customers and walking in and out of the city and country Village in the embarcadero road in and out of circulation.

The officers arrested the man and found that he was the same person who addressed the woman outside the town hall, the police said. The man was arrested and instructed to the prison of Santa Clara County for hate crimes and malicious disability costs.

Everyone with information related to the case can contact the police authority under 650-329-2413. Those who want to remain anonymous can call 650-383-8984 or call a text or send an email to paloalto@tipnow.org.

FREMONT – A person suspected of brandishing a duplicate firearm and shouting death threats at a highway driver whose automotive was decorated with an Israeli flag has been charged with a hate crime and other offenses, in accordance with authorities and court records.

In addition to the charge of violating civil rights, a hate crime, the suspect, Jesus Hernandez Hernandez, 44, of Castro Valley, can be charged with aggravated menacing and brandishing a duplicate weapon, records state.

RELATED: Newark man convicted of hate crime on Oakland freeway

Hernandez is free on his own bail and is predicted to enter a guilty plea on October 31.

According to authorities, the victim told police that on September 12 at around 4 p.m. he was driving on I-680 with an Israeli flag outside his window when one other driver in a Ford sedan attempted to ram his vehicle and commenced yelling at him concerning the flag.

The victim followed the suspect off the highway and onto the streets of Fremont while calling 911, documents say.

The suspect allegedly pointed the gun on the victim again and ordered him to stop following him or he would kill him, documents say.

Fremont police stopped the suspect's vehicle in the realm of ​​Mission Boulevard and Denise Street and arrested Hernandez. A pellet gun was present in the vehicle.

During a lineup, the victim clearly identified him because the suspect. Hernandez refused to talk to police.

Originally published: September 25, 2024 at 8:40 am

Already in May, the federal government of Albania told us we should always expect strict latest hate speech laws.

However, within the draft bill presented to Parliament this week, the federal government has moved away from the plan to criminalise racist hate speech.

Instead, behavior is simply criminalized whether it is “Threat of violence or violence“.

This might be a disappointment to some, particularly those that have wanted stronger protections against racism – including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia – in Australia following the unrest sparked by events in Israel and Palestine.

However, when viewed within the context of the longer history of Australian hate speech laws, this recent development continues a consistent pattern of using civil remedies fairly than criminal sanctions to combat most types of group vilification.

A protracted-standing struggle

Since not less than the Seventies, the Australian government has been trying to find out what laws are needed to combat racism and in what form.

A certain consensus has been reached that racial discrimination must be illegal. It is now under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975and anti-discrimination laws in every state and territory.

Consensus on the legal regulation of racist slurs (sometimes known as racist “hate speech”) has been harder to realize.

Nevertheless, the Labour government 30 years ago managed to Hate Speech Provision (Section 18C) to the Racial Discrimination Act, when Parliament passed the Racial Hatred Act 1995.

States and territories even have their very own vilification laws (which relate to race and a spread of other grounds).

A daring approach, initially

When the federal government of Albania announced earlier this 12 months that it planned to introduce further laws against hate speech, the proposal so as to add latest criminal offenses caught the eye of many individuals, including academics like myself who’ve researched defamation laws. for the reason that Nineties.

We were surprised because a key feature of Australian legislative attempts on this area has been the emphasis on civil law – where an injured person can take private motion against those responsible – fairly than criminal law.

The application of criminal law was considered to be too great an intrusion into the Right to freedom of expression.

Although freedom of speech in Australia is patchy and comparatively weakly protected by law, it’s an influential force on this country's political debates.

Some politicians have also not shied away Armament For example, in 2018 the coalition government launched an investigation to find out whether freedom of expression was adequately protected on university campuses.

Against this backdrop, the Albanese government’s announcement in May set the stage for an additional heated debate about what laws can be best to combat hate speech. Coincidentally, it also got here ten years after a series of (unsuccessful) attempts by coalition governments to amend Section 18C or effectively cancel it overall.

But the Albanese government has now moved away from its original plan. Instead, the modified and latest offences will only apply to conduct that not only defames a bunch (or a member of a bunch) but additionally involves threats of violence or the usage of violence against that group.

This is a much less controversial type of criminalisation. And most Australian states and territories have already got offences of this sort – for instance, the offence of publicly threatening or inciting violence in the NSW Crimes Act.

What impact will it have?

We must be careful to not expect an excessive amount of from the proposed latest federal crimes.

Prosecutions and convictions for these “serious” types of insult are extremely rare in Australia. There aren’t any cases in NSW, although that state first criminalised insults accompanied by threats of bodily harm or damage to property 35 years ago.

The NSW Law Reform Commission is currently conducting a Inquiry why that is the case and whether further reforms are justified.

It is unlikely that this might be any different for brand spanking new Commonwealth offences. They have complex definitions and might be difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

Of course, simply because a criminal offense will not be often prosecuted doesn’t mean that it’s pointless. Governments sometimes use criminalization for symbolic purposes and to convey messages.

And yes, sometimes this can be a cynical exercise in creating the impression of doing something without changing much. Whether this can be a fair characterization stays to be seen.

In the meantime, there’s more likely to be great disappointment amongst members of Australia's Muslim communities.

The latest criminal laws on threats of violence might be applicable to a big selection of identifying characteristics, including religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersexuality, disability, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion.

However, the bill doesn’t amend the more useful civil laws within the Racial Discrimination Act, which at the moment are prolonged to cover religious vilification.

Regardless of whether Islamophobia is appropriately characterised as a “religious” or “racist” vilification, it is evident that Australian Muslims usually are not protected on the federal level by section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in its current version.

In my previous research with Professor Katharine Gelber, we identified this as biggest gap in Australia's hate speech laws.

In contrast, anti-Semitism is legally considered a type of racism, and Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has been used successfully by Jewish organizations and individuals against types of anti-Semitism, including Holocaust denial.

Since Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Australian government has sought to convey to the general public that it’s equally concerned about all types of discrimination and hate speech, including each anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

And yet, while a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism has been appointed, the promise of a special envoy for Islamophobia has to date did not materialise.

The latest hate speech bill introduced by the federal government does little to advertise a real commitment to multiculturalism and anti-racism. We expect the Albanese government to take more energetic steps on this direction.

Officers were first called to the Palo Alto Transit Center at 95 University Ave. around 2:10 p.m. Sunday for a report of a fight between two men, Palo Alto police said in a news release. When they arrived, the boys were still in the realm.

According to police, the investigation revealed that a Latino man in his 20s was sitting on a bench on the bus stop when he heard the suspect “yelling derogatory things about people from Mexico.”

When the person stood up and told the suspect to stop yelling or get away from him, the suspect punched him within the face, police said.

The victim told officers he took a closed pocket knife out of his pocket and held it in his hand to scare the suspect away. However, the suspect challenged the victim to a fight and punched him within the face a second time, police said.

According to police, the victim dropped the pocket knife and hit the suspect within the face.

The perpetrator hit the victim within the face a 3rd time, in line with the police. Both men fell to the bottom and the victim was capable of escape.

The victim suffered minor injuries but refused medical attention on the scene, police said.

During the investigation, a person in his 70s told police that the suspect had recently asked him for a cigarette. When he refused, the suspect knocked a cigarette out of his hand, in line with police.

According to police, the suspect then turned his attention to the opposite man.

Officers charged the suspect with two counts of assault – one for every victim – and a hate crime.

Anyone with information in regards to the case can contact police at 650-329-2413; those wishing to stay anonymous can call 650-383-8984, text or email paloalto@tipnow.org.

OAKLAND – A 63-year-old Newark man was found guilty by a jury this week of committing an anger-fueled hate crime on Interstate 880 in May 2023. The attack targeted a Black woman and her three children, prosecutors and court records show. Portions of the attack were captured on cellphone video.

Tracy Robert Blackwell was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and a hate crime, prosecutors said. He is being held in Santa Rita Prison without bail. He faces seven years in prison, prosecutors said, but a sentencing date had not been set Friday.

According to prosecutors and the California Highway Patrol, a black woman and her three children were driving south on Hegenberger Road in East Oakland toward the I-880 on-ramp at around 4 p.m. on May 16, 2023. Blackwell, driving a Jeep Wrangler, cut off all lanes and pulled in front of her, nearly striking her vehicle.

The woman honked at Blackwell before each vehicles entered the highway.

Prosecutors said Blackwell began yelling the N-word and other obscenities at the girl and her children as they were within the driveway and continued doing in order he drove parallel to them on the highway. He also threw unknown objects at their vehicle.

At one point, the mother had her 14-year-old daughter film the encounter on her cellphone, after which Blackwell attempted to ram her vehicle, authorities said. No one was injured.

According to the CHP, Blackwell lost control of the Jeep and crashed within the shoulder of the road but was in a position to proceed driving. He followed the girl and her children to a gas station in East Oakland, where she got help, court documents say.

The CHP eventually identified Blackwell as a suspect and he was arrested on May 19.

In the press release, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price said, “Not only was this incident dangerous, it was traumatic because part of the crime involved racial slurs. My office will not tolerate acts of racist hatred in our community, especially when children are involved.”

According to court records, Blackwell has been convicted of a felony six times since 1984. This features a 2002 conviction for lewd acts on a toddler under 14, for which he served a jail sentence and was required to register as a sex offender.

Originally published: September 6, 2024 at 11:55 am

According to an investigation by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Instagram did not remove toxic comments directed at Vice President Kamala Harris and other female political leaders from its app shortly before the 2024 election.

The nonprofit advocacy group analyzes major web platforms to see in the event that they adequately monitor their pages for hate speech. Wednesday's report is predicated on an evaluation of 560,000 comments on Instagram posts by five high-engagement Republican and five Democratic politicians.

The politicians the group monitored included Harris, the present Democratic presidential candidate, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), and Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

Of the comments posted between January 1 and June 7, researchers identified greater than 20,000 that were classified as “toxic.” Google's Perspective AI content moderation tool. Researchers then conducted a manual evaluation and discovered 1,000 comments that “clearly violated Instagram's terms,” ​​CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said during a press conference on Tuesday.

“Our recommendations are simple: Instagram must enforce its policies designed to protect women in public life,” Ahmed said in the course of the briefing. “Organizations must be better equipped to support female candidates who experience abuse and frequently provide them with best practices on how to deal with it.”

Meta, Instagram's parent company, has been repeatedly criticized by lawmakers for failing to combat the spread of hate content on its family of apps and for being unable or unwilling to crack down on harmful behavior. New Mexico's attorney general has alleged in an ongoing lawsuit against Meta that the corporate fails to guard underage users from sexual assault and sexual exploitation.

In previous election cycles, Facebook has also been a hub for the spread of misinformation and harmful content targeting political candidates.

Some of the problematic comments captured by the CCDH included statements equivalent to “legalize rape” and “we don't want black people around us, no matter who they are,” the report said. One comment directed at Harris mocked her ethnicity, while one other comment called on President Joe Biden to sexually assault her.

The CCDH researchers then used Instagram's own content reporting tools to flag the 1,000 abusive comments that they had manually discovered. Every week later, “Instagram had not taken action on 926 of them, representing a failure to act on 93% of them,” the report said.

Meta said in a press release that it will review the examples the CCDH highlighted and take away comments that violate company policies, but added that while some content could also be offensive, it doesn’t violate the foundations. The company also said, citing a Google resource page, that the Google AI tool the CCDH relied on partially of its research was not at all times accurate.

“We provide tools that allow anyone to control who can comment on their posts, automatically filter out offensive comments, phrases or emojis, and automatically hide comments from people who don't follow them,” said Cindy Southworth, Meta's head of ladies's safety, in a press release. “We work with hundreds of safety partners around the world to continually improve our policies, tools, detection and enforcement, and we will review the CCDH report and take action against any content that violates our policies.”

The report on Instagram comes months after a California federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's ex against the CCDH. The suit was filed shortly after the group released a study showing an increase in hate speech following Musk's acquisition of the location formerly referred to as Twitter.

Because of all of the negative attention Musk has received, Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have escaped scrutiny recently, giving the impression that Instagram has develop into “a platform that people feel safe to use,” Ahmed says.

“Mark Zuckerberg's strategy is to keep a low profile, while X acts as a lightning rod for much of the anger about the toxicity in public life and political discourse,” Ahmed said. “We wanted to look specifically at this platform to see if they are actually backing up their gloating over X's misfortune with their own actions.”

WALNUT CREEK – Plans for a brand new Chick-fil-A in a Walnut Creek shopping mall have sparked a heated dispute between a whole bunch of neighbors and city planners – and left considered one of the last tenants there caught within the crossfire.

Residents and public officials are divided over whether the fast-food chicken chain's alternative of a vacant bank on the Citrus Marketplace Shopping Center will breathe recent life into this sleepy Walnut Creek square or further increase traffic on the nearby, busy Ygnacio Valley Road bypass.

Rica Zaharia opened her bakery, European delicaciesopened on the property two years ago, and it has turn out to be a well-liked hidden gem in the case of making croissants, brioche, pavlova, strudel and other internationally inspired baked goods baked fresh from scratch.

Now surrounded by 10 vacant lots, the 63-year-old Transylvanian native has welcomed the concept of ​​a brand new Chick-fil-A with open arms – not due to menu or conservative politics, but due to its potential to generate much-needed customer traffic and protect the plaza's small businesses, which she says are currently “dying daily.” Current tenants within the quiet plaza include a BevMo, Panda Express, a small ice cream shop, a youth gymnastics center, a post office and a hair salon.

Despite the town's intention to draw more businesses to the still-vacant lots, Zaharia was the one Walnut Creek resident to specific support for the initiative.

“Please don't hate me,” Zaharia said on the May 21 City Council meeting, addressing the backlash against her position on the Chick-fil-A proposal. “More than any other mall in Walnut Creek, this place feels like a ghost town.”

The issuance of Chick-fil-A's first constructing permits has infuriated dozens of neighbors within the affluent Woodlands neighborhood up the road, who’ve argued vehemently that the proposed Chick-fil-A at 2290 Oak Grove Road would increase automotive traffic on already congested and dangerous streets in the town's northernmost corner, lower property values ​​and attract drifters and criminals.

Despite concessions from the town's elected officials – including prohibiting the development of a drive-thru lane for the 5,363-square-foot Chick-fil-A project, requiring the restaurant to shut at the least 10 p.m., and requiring traffic, odor and other mitigation measures – neighbors were still upset concerning the Approval of the town council in May.

Now, Zaharia said she's coping with strong backlash from her neighbors — including threats of a boycott — because she believes a Chick-fil-A would help your entire mall and her own business, which has experienced a steep financial downturn for the reason that first fried chicken dispute. She needed to cut the bakery's hours in late July after recording the weakest month in sales within the two years she's worked at Citrus Marketplace.

“When people start telling me and others how to think and do things, that is not acceptable,” Zaharia said in an interview. “I have worked 17 hours almost every day for the past two years – starting at 3 a.m. I am not tired because I do everything out of passion and to make my customers happy, but we cannot find enough people to sell our products to.”

After five hours of intense public testimony – which, apart from Zaharia’s comments, was entirely directed against Chick-fil-A – The Walnut Creek City Council unanimously rejected the appeal to the restaurant's design plans.

City staff said any traffic spike attributable to the fast-food chain can be minimal, as they determined that Chick-fil-A would only add a couple of seconds to the common wait time at this busy intersection. The project will now be sent back to Walnut Creek's Design Review Commission for final consideration of the long run restaurant's planned architecture, landscaping and signage.

During the project's public comment period, opponents dismissed data from months of research by Walnut Creek's city planners and transportation consultants, demanding that the town reject Chick-fil-A's plans or at the least delay their approval, arguing that the town is giving fried chicken an undue priority over their neighborhood's character and quality of life.

“The City Council has tried for several years to create a culture, charm and feel of a small community,” said Corban Porter, an attorney and Woodlands resident who has appealed previous project approvals. “We submitted 200 signatures from Woodlands residents and nearly 700 surveys, most of which highlighted health and safety concerns … to allow this to happen without conducting a more comprehensive study of the neighborhood is irresponsible.”

While a handful of speakers raved concerning the delicious baked goods at European Delights and expressed their support for similar small businesses, the Woodlands can't have their pastries and eat them too.

First, city officials argued, there was no legal reason why Walnut Creek could reject the project outright during its May 21 meeting since it was consistent with the town's zoning and general development plan. Second, Chick-fil-A's construction might have been quickly approved months ago if the corporate had not opted for a conditional constructing permit to supply take-out food.

In addition to safety concerns concerning the many young individuals who walk or bike to nearby schools, many residents also expressed concern concerning the Atlanta-based chicken restaurant's conservative repute and its history as a funder of anti-LGBTQ groups.

Chick-fil-A “does not reflect the inclusive and diverse values ​​of our community,” says Jessica Hunt, who has lived in Woodlands for 40 years, owns an area small business and might be the brand new president of the Valley Verde Elementary School Parent Council.

Council member Kevin Wilk also identified that Citrus Marketplace is virtually empty. Business suffered a pointy decline after March 2022, when a former Nob Hill food market on the property closed, which was blamed on skyrocketing rents. Since then, it has turn out to be increasingly difficult to get other businesses to sign business leases, in keeping with representatives of DPI Realty, the space's landlord since 2001.

Wilk lives near the Woodlands but even closer to traffic that results in Whole Foods, Walgreens, Rocco's Pizzeria and other stores within the Encina Grande Shopping Center, lower than a half-mile from Citrus Marketplace across Ygnacio Valley Road. After explaining that traffic near his home will not be as bad as he once feared, he dismissed the notion that city officials haven’t rigorously considered the small print and impacts of Chick-fil-A's future development.

“It's not like companies have to break down the doors of the shopping centers and operate their businesses there,” Wilk said. “We have a shopping center there now, which we need to survive.”

Originally published: August 4, 2024 at 6:15 am