Participation Awards: Week of 3/2

What's a good millennial without an "everybody gets a medal" ceremony? In this column, we look to highlight the best and worst people in the media from this past week. Let's helicopter parent our way through this week's shining stars. My son should be quarterback, I don't care if he has the coordination of a pineapple in a hurricane. 


The Big, but Not Necessarily More Indicative of Success than Other Trophies Trophy

Did I just hear a pastrami sandwich queef? Oh no, it was Russell Crowe singing "Stars." Also, I'm sorry about this photo. I really was hard-pressed to find an unflattering picture of Hugh Jackman.

Superhero Fans - It's been a big week for fans of comic book caped crusaders, with the continued box office annihilation of Black Panther, an earlier release date for Avengers: Infinity War Part I, and a full slate of pre-Disney X-Men movies on the way in 2019-20.

Treading lightly in commenting on African-American cultural phenomenons, Black Panther is the empowering cinematic achievement representative of a foot firmly planted in a pivot position on the walking direction of representation in entertainment. Any extended metaphors aside, the iconic superhero film has topped 108 million dollars in domestic sales in only its second weekend, following the 202 million dollar opening weekend. At this pace on a global scale, the Chadwick Boseman-showman-slogan will sit behind only Star Wars' newest releases and Jurassic World on the list of fastest grossers of all time. As if that isn't cool enough, Disney donated $1 million to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to further STEM programs in honor of the dark cat with latex and a sweet accent.

In the most definitely-not-a-PR-move move of all time, Robert Downey, Jr. (Disney's resident AA member and billionaire philanthropist playboy) replied to a Marvel Studios tweet about Infinity War's release, asking if it was cool if he "could see it earlier." After a quick back and forth between the Studio and the only man to get away with blackface this side of the 1950s, Marvel announced that the new superhero gangbang would drop over a week before its original slated release. As much as I am not a fan of fake social media interactions, I am very much a fan of getting things sooner than I expected (cc: Seamless, Venmo).

Finally, in wake of the potential 20th Century Fox-Disney pow-wow, Fox has announced a release schedule for 2019-2020 more packed than your suitcase the night before going abroad (you never know when you'll need a bathing suit, and even though you're going to London in the winter you'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it). The six pack of films includes the Deadpool spinoff X-Force, a standalone for Kitty Pryde and Gambit (each), and The New Mutants. Post-Matthew Vaughn, the X-universe is certainly prepared to move into a new phase, especially knowing their franchise face Hugh Jackman decided one lackluster on-screen vocal performance just wasn't enough for him.



The Smaller, but Equally Valuable Trophy. Seriously, Stop Bringing it Up at PTA Meetings.

Kenneth Bachman: Mountaineer, man's man, and owner of a face that says "I was only cool in high school because my mom let the popular kids drink at my house."

Kenneth Bachman - Look, we've all been there. You go out to a bar, you buy drinks, you get a little too drunk, you wanna go home. Kenneth Bachman is just like any of us. The West Virginia University student likes to party, and one night this past week he partied his way to a 200 dollar bar tab and a state of mind that, in layman's terms, can be described as "blacked the fuck out." Kenneth cemented his place as a Barstool Sports/TotalFratMove legend when he slunk his blacked out ass into an UberXL and took a trip from Morgantown, landing in the only place lower in the rankings of "places to go on vacation" than Syria: New Jersey. For those playing at home, that's a 300+ mile drive. Bachman woke up about an hour out from his home, and upon completion of the trip was obligated to pay the $1,635.93 bill, including tolls. At that point just charter a fucking jet Kenneth, you "if it ain't broke don't fix it" haircut-having dumbass. Get me a god damn interview with his Uber driver.

Kenneth has announced he plans to return to Morgantown in order to retrieve his belongings. He has not stated his chosen method of transportation, but one has to infer that he'll be going with Lyft this time around.

To quote a famous 6 seconds of internet video lore: "fuck it up Kenneth, Kenneth fuck it up, fuck it up Kenneth."



-NB

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@noahleebreymeier on that place where your friends show how modest they are by posting paragraph long captions on a picture of themselves, announcing that they just landed a role as an extra in a student film. 

@noahfloods on that place where your actor friends went in high school to passive aggressively shit on their friends, sort of like what I'm doing here.

im not bitter im just insecure and unvalidated