If Caesar* was ‘dumb’, he would be downtrodden, discriminated. If Caesar was ‘normal’, he would be neglected, discriminated. If Caesar was ‘smart’, he would be feared, discriminated. * Caesar is a highly ‘evolved’ ape in ‘The Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. Above shows the seriousness of the problem of discrimination, that can thrive under [...]

In the original version of Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, as in his book, Benjamin is born not as an old and wrinkled tiny baby, but as an actual old man, with beard and all. And he could speak too. But the key element of his reverse ageing remains intact in both [...]

The moral of Kafka’s short story ‘The Metamorphosis’ eluded me for some time. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis for outline) About the terror and tragedy of a man morphing into a bug and being ostracised by others,what embedded messages are there? I think it’s about one’s ability or limits of accepting change in oneself, about others ability and limits to [...]

Ironically, though non-vegetarian non-nature-lovers are less compassionate than non-vegetarian nature-lovers who protect selective animals, they are less discriminative as they don’t bother about all animals in general, other than wanting to eat some of them. Every animal needlessly facing the knife for someone’s meal is an endangered animal, even if there are millions of them [...]

Warning: This is a proper vampire movie, where vampires adhere to the classic rules. E.g. they do not glitter with fairy dust in the sun without bursting into flames during non-twilight hours! (To avoid confusion in monster lore, Twilight’s ‘vampires’ shouldn’t be called so in the first place!) What if the situation is in reverse? [...]

‘The Blind Side’ tells the touching true story of how the once underprivileged and racially discriminated Michael Oher became a successful football player by proving his worth in various aspects of life – beyond just the sport. What is the blind side? It refers to that side opposite of the direction a player is facing. As an example [...]

I saw this as the ‘blurb’ of the new PostSecret book – ‘PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God’. I think it’s a beautiful ‘confession’. If this God-believer believes in love without discrimination, why can’t the God she believes in, who is ‘supposed’ to to personify universal love, do the same, instead of sending all [...]

A Tit for a Tat (67) Tit: A kiddy-looking hairdresser! Next salon please! Tat: Why? Are young hairdressers not good? Tit: It’s not that they are not good, but that I don’t know if they are any good – due to lack of experience. Tat: You make it seem as if all older hairdressers are [...]

The award-winning movie ‘Humpday’ has a thought-provoking semi-serious yet semi-funny premise… Is it possible for two heterosexual guys to have homosexual sex? Wouldn’t it not be an amazing feat that is ‘mind over matter’? Spoiler ahead! The two guys who tried to go through the dare decided that they couldn’t after talking and ‘trying’ it [...]

Literally using ‘illegal aliens’ for addressing multiple socio-political issues such as xenophobia (irrational fear of strangers), ‘District 9′ is a thought-provoking film indeed. A private military contractor (MNU: Multinational United) is tasked to police and forcibly evict 1.8 million aliens from their District 9 slums to District 10 – a new refugee camp some 240 [...]

From ‘X-Men: Messiah Complex’ by Ed Brubaker et al, are these files by Cyclops – File 27: The X-Men – The X-Men have always defended both mutants and humans, so that humans could see that, like them, there were good mutants, as well as bad… Comments: As many X-Men fans know, the ongoing theme of [...]

As featured in ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, through of human birth as brothers, Wolverine and Sabretooth were mutants with opposite inclinations. Wolverine was more slanted towards human-nature – in the humane way, while Sabretooth was more slanted towards animal-nature – in a savage way. While Wolverine was haunted by recurring nightmares of the brutal wars he [...]

Shortly before the screening of ‘Handsome Suit’ this year was ‘Penelope’ last year – another real gem of a movie with an alternative but equally brilliant take on the ugly duckling theme. What’s the moral of the ugly duckling story? Sometimes, one is not a mere ugly duckling, because one can grow to be beautiful [...]

Recently in Singapore, a group of fundamental Xtians coordinated a cunning takeover of a women’s rights group called AWARE (if the leaked emails of their ploy are true). These new Exco members claim that AWARE promotes lesbianism, when it merely does its bit to speak up against lesbians being ostracised, among speaking up for many [...]