Trailer for ‘Jungle Cruise’ offers the first glimpse of one of Disney’s first gay roles
Jack Whitehall and Dwayne Johnson
Disney has just dropped the first trailer for Jungle Cruise, the latest cinematic incarnation of one of its iconic theme park rides. The film will also feature an out-gay character in a supporting role…though he barely appears in the first trailer.
Jungle Cruise follows in the mold of movie classics like The African Queen, Fitzcarraldo and possibly Anaconda by finding explorer Lily Houghton (played by Emily Blunt) searching for a fabled tree that offers the cure for a disease. To find the cure, she must journey upriver into the jungle, guided by the eccentric Captain Frank (Dwayne Johnson).
Reports from filming have made quite a big deal about Lily’s younger brother McGregor (played by Jack Whitehall) being played as something of a campy gayman. The choices to play the character as an over-the-top stereotype, and to have a straight actor playing such a stereotypical role, have attracted controversy. Disney had previously attracted criticism for claiming the character Lefou in the live-action Beauty and the Beast remake was also gay, though nothing in the film specifically identified him as such.
How to Know Which Impeachment Polls to Believe – and Which to Skip
Pollsters are trying their best to track public opinion about the House Democrats’ decision to initiate an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
Currently, it is doubtful the required two-thirds of the Senate, now controlled by Republicans, would vote to convict Trump. But senators’ votes could change by the time they receive the articles of impeachment from the House.
That is why tracking the changes in the president’s support in the polls is so important. Members of Congress will factor in what the public thinks as well as their own assessments of the president’s behavior.
For a variety of reasons, these are difficult measurements to make. As with all polling, the results depend to some extent on who is polled, what they are asked and when.
Whom are you asking?
New polls on the topic are being released every couple of days, and journalists are reporting on the latest shifts in opinions.
Manystories link attitudes on impeachment to the president’s level of support as measured in his approval ratings.
Attitudes on impeachment – and presidential approval – reflect the current state of political polarization in the U.S. Trump’s approval ratings are determined by strong support among Republicans and disapproval among Democrats; party identification has become the primary determinant of most attitudes in the U.S.
Most polls involving political issues focus on one of three target populations: adults 18 years of age and older, registered voters or likely voters.
Presidential approval is commonly measured for all adults. But questions about candidate support – relevant as the U.S. works through the primaries and next year’s election approaches – are typically analyzed for registered or likely voters.
As these samples get smaller by definition and therefore more Republican, this usually mean greater support for Donald Trump and less for impeachment.
Political groups will sometimes produce press releases based on selected samples, such as people “in Republican-held congressional seats and National Republican Congressional Committee targets.” These groups are obviously more likely to be partisan and unrepresentative of the national population.
Partisanship is strongly related to attitudes about impeachment. Consumers should look for differences in opinions by party identification in any single poll. Changing attitudes over time could be related to differences in the partisan composition of samples from different polls, even from the same polling organization.
Democrats are generally more willing to participate in polls while Republicans disproportionately refuse. This potential problem has appeared in some polls in the past. This makes it especially important to compare the partisan makeup of poll samples from different firms, as well as whether the partisan composition is changing over time for the same polling organization.
Due to the variations in question wordings used in different polls, the search for shifts in opinions over time can be sensitive to the wording used in the polls.
In some polls, the impeachment question includes an explicit “don’t know” option, while in others it is a volunteered response. The proportion of “don’t know” responses is quite variable right now from poll to poll, but I expect it to decline over time as people are exposed to more news coverage.
Comparing results from different polls using different wording can be confusing and misleading, so it is best to compare polls conducted by the same organization at different points in time to see whether support for impeachment is stable, increasing or decreasing.
These opinions were pretty stable until that disclosure, with slightly more Americans opposing impeachment than not. Support for impeachment among Democrats was about twice as high as among Republicans, with self-described Independents split evenly.
Since the disclosure of the phone call, support for impeachment among all groups has increased. It increased the most among Democrats, but also among Republicans, and now a majority of Americans support impeachment.
In my view as a polling researcher, the most consequential shifts in opinion on impeachment will be among Republicans and Independents, as Democrats are already pretty solid in their views.
Queen Forces Removal of Trump’s ‘We Will Rock You’ Campaign Video
A Trump campaign video featuring the band’s song “We Will Rock You” has been taken down from Twitter following a copyright claim by the band. Trump tweeted the video on Sunday.
Buzzfeed News reports: ‘The video, featuring Trump speaking to supporters at rallies, was posted on Oct. 9, and it used the song in its entirety. At that time, a representative for the band told BuzzFeed News that the song’s use was unauthorized. The band had “already entered into a process to call for non use of Queen song copyrights by the Trump campaign. This is ongoing,” the representative said within hours of the video going up.’
Don’t expect this video — which uses Queen’s “We Will Rock You” in its entirety — to remain up for long.
A rep for Queen told me tonight that the band “has already entered into a process to call for non use of Queen song copyrights by the Trump campaign. This is ongoing.” t.co/VTLRnLx87p
