Is the ‘woke’ backlash killing body positivity? - From Sydney Sweeney ad to Zara models ban
Is fashion the latest thing to be swallowed into politics, culture war and the backlash on woke?Stick-thin models with protruding bones were the marketing choice of Zara for a new campaign - the ad has just been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority as irresponsible.And the fallout from Sydney Sweeney's ad campaign for American Eagle jeans keeps growing - a few years ago accusations of white supremacy and promoting the right wing might have caused a share price to plummet.But after Donald Trump described the ad as the hottest ad out there American Eagle stock rocketed. Are we back in the 90's or even the 30's?Ad agencies have always looked for ways to get noticed - but is the war on woke also sweeping away years of progress on body positivity and diversity?On this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by Katie Glass, who writes for the Times and Megan Jayne Crabbe - a writer, presenter and activist for body positivity and feminism.
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Oscar-winning director: West Bank situation 'escalating' after friend shot dead
The world's eyes are on Gaza as the enclave faces mass starvation, but the war there is also emboldening Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.Odeh Hadalin is a Palestinian teacher and activist who campaigned against illegal Israeli settlements and settler violence. He also helped make this year's Oscar-winning film No Other Land which documents Israeli attacks on the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta.It was there that he was shot dead, reportedly after a confrontation between villagers and settlers who were using a bulldozer to destroy property.An extremist settler, previously sanctioned by the US, has been arrested.Around a thousand Palestinians have reportedly been killed in the West Bank in the last two years amid an increasing wave of settler and Israeli military violence.Joining Matt Frei on this week's episode of The Fourcast is the Palestinian film-maker Basel Adra. He co-wrote and co-directed No Other Land and was a friend of Odeh.
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Will UK anti-migrant protests explode into riots again?
A year ago, towns across Britain were in flames as far-right anti-immigration protests turned into riots, while this week the Police Federation called recent protests in Epping a 'signal flare’ for further unrest.So with the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats actually up and social media - not to mention certain MPs - pumping out inflammatory comments, is another summer flare-up inevitable? And how do the police , the politicians and the protesters themselves distinguish between the genuine concerns of dispossessed communities, and the gratuitous violence of far-right racists?On this episode of The Fourcast, Jackie Long is joined by Sunder Katwala, director of the think-tank British Future which focuses on diversity and social inclusion, the academic Lisa McKenzie, who writes primarily about working-class communities and class inequality, and Adam Kelwick, imam of the UK's oldest mosque in Liverpool who came to prominence during last year's riots with his attempts at dialogue with protesters.
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'It's ripping MAGA apart': David Pakman on Trump, Epstein and Dems future
Donald Trump is under pressure, again, this time over his alleged ties to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. As the scandal grows, the Speaker of the House has shut down Congress, seemingly to avoid any further questions being raised on the floor.Trump knew Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s and Epstein’s longtime pilot, Lawrence Visoski, has testified that Trump flew on Epstein's private plane multiple times. Trump has denied ever being on the plane and there is no evidence he was involved in wrongdoing.But now, even Trump’s usual allies in the alt-right world of podcasts and influencers are turning on him. So what happens when the support base that’s shielded Trump for years starts to crumble?On today's episode of the Fourcast, David Pakman, host of The David Pakman Show and author of The Echo Machine, joins us to break it all down.
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Do Democrats need to move right to take on Trump?
In America the Democrats are in crisis — leaderless, divided, and drifting after Donald Trump’s return to power, and on the left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Bernie Sanders and the Democrat's New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are seizing the moment, but is their radicalism the way to beat Trump's Maga bandwagon?Or will they end up alienating the majority of working class America? Tim Ryan, a senior advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute, is the former Ohio Congressman who stood for the senate but lost to JD Vance. He also threw his hat in the ring for the Democrats Presidential nomination when Joe Biden won it. He wants to haul his party back to focus on what he sees as the central concerns of working class voters - their cost of living and the fairness of the system, as well as working with business not against it - what he sometimes calls more of a Bill Clinton style. But is that really the answer to a Democrat resurrection?
A podcast from Channel 4 News taking an in-depth look at the biggest stories from Westminster, Washington and around the world. From global conflicts to the corridors of power, we expose, examine and interrogate what's really going on with the people who really know.
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