title: Libs of TikTok

text: Prior to being revealed as the account creator, Raichik was interviewed anonymously on several occasions, during which she boasted that posts from the account led to the firings of several teachers. Raichik encouraged followers to join local school boards in order to remove teachers who teach about gender and sexuality. Raichik told the "New York Post" that "I don't do this for money or fame" and "I'm not some politician or blue-check journalist."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: The account's creator endeavored to stay anonymous, appearing in newspaper and television interviews under the condition of anonymity. However, in April 2022, details began to surface about Libs of TikTok's identity. Software developer Travis Brown researched the history of the Libs of TikTok account and named Chaya Raichik as the account's creator. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) donation records, Raichik donated to Republican politicians in 2020 and 2021.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On April 19, 2022, "The Washington Post" published an article by journalist Taylor Lorenz which further publicized the identity of Raichik, noting that she was an Orthodox Jew who worked in real estate in Brooklyn. These details were scraped from early iterations of the Libs of TikTok Twitter account. The online version of the article initially included a link to Raichik's real estate license, although this was later removed.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: The article was controversial, mostly with American conservatives, who accused Lorenz of doxxing, antisemitism for mentioning Raichik's religion, and hypocrisy for having previously spoken out against online harassment. Raichik herself accused Lorenz of doxxing and told the "New York Post" that she "will never be silenced". Raichik also accused Lorenz of violating her right to free speech. According to "The Times" of London, "supporters of Lorenz meanwhile pointed out that Raichik's followers were only too enthusiastic about doxxing when it came to teachers being smeared as ." In a tweet, Lorenz said that her "whole family was doxxed again this morning ... trolls have now moved on to doxxing and stalking any random friends I've tagged on Instagram." Lorenz argued that Raichik's information was already publicly available.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Some conservatives said Lorenz's visitation of the home of Raichik's relatives was harassment. Journalists responded by noting that visitations are a standard part of reporting procedure.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Lorenz and "The Washington Post" have stood by the reporting and Lorenz accused conservatives of trying to "sow doubt and discredit journalism". Cameron Barr, a senior managing editor at "The Washington Post", wrote in a statement that the "Post" "did not publish or link to any details about [Raichik's] personal life". Some commentators, as well as Libs of TikTok, disputed this because the real estate license that the article initially linked to included a home address.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok gained about 200,000 new Twitter followers in the day after the article was published.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In April 2022, following the publication of "The Washington Post"'s article on Libs of TikTok, Twitter user @deletedtweet161, who tracks deleted posts, said that Libs of TikTok deleted "at least 20 tweets" over several days. 2,795 tweets had been deleted since the creation of the account, with some tweets being deleted to get access to the account restored following a suspension from Twitter.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In June 2022, Libs of TikTok had some of their tweets removed after they posted the locations of all ages drag shows in the United States. One location, in San Lorenzo, California, was stormed by the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group. Pride events in Dallas and Coeur d'Alene have also been targeted by right-wing extremists after Libs of TikTok posted about them, with 31 Patriot Front members being arrested, before getting to their destination, for planning a riot in the Coeur d'Alene event. Raichik was reportedly encouraged to post about the Coeur d'Alene event by Dave Reilly, a local white nationalist known for participating in the 2017 Unite the Right rally. According to NPR, "there's no conclusive link between the posts and the extremist groups' activities," although investigators at the Alameda County Sheriff's Office believe that the Proud Boys confrontation was caused by Libs of TikTok.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On June 13, Raichik tweeted that she had "received about a dozen death threats", including threats from people threatening to throw a pipe bomb into her house.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On June 30, in Woodland, California, an alleged Proud Boys group tried to break into a bar that was about to host a drag event, as they yelled anti-LGBT insults. Days before, Libs of TikTok made a tweet about the upcoming event.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In late October, Raichik drew her followers' attention to a drag brunch being planned to benefit a local LGBT resource center in Sanford, North Carolina. Around 16 masked members of the Proud Boys showed up to protest the private event, yelling "groomers" at attendants and holding signs decrying "state-sponsored pedophilia." Raichik claimed that one of the drag queens booked for the brunch was "inspired by Satanism", although the individual she mentioned in her post was not invited to perform at the brunch. After Raichik posted about the brunch, the venue's owner said that she started to receive death threats on social media. Local law enforcement said that they were investigating threats against the event.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In December, a school in Clintonville, Ohio, canceled a drag queen storytime hour after a LibsofTikTok post on the upcoming event prompted the Proud Boys to prepare an armed march outside school grounds.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In August 2022, Libs of TikTok made around 13 tweets about the Boston Children's Hospital and their gender-affirming care, falsely claiming that they were providing gender-affirming hysterectomies to minors. One of these tweets contained a reposted video in which one of the hospital's gynecologists discusses a gender-affirming hysterectomy and Libs of TikTok captioned it as: "Boston Children's Hospital is now offering 'gender-affirming hysterectomies' for young girls". The video was removed after the hospital started receiving a high volume of online criticism, despite the physician not suggesting that the procedure is offered to children.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: The false claims that Boston Children's Hospital performs hysterectomies on young children were republished by prominent conservative commentators and conservative media outlets such as "The Post Millennial". This resulted in the hospital, its employees, and providers receiving death threats, threats of violence, and other harassment via email, phone, and on the internet. According to Boston physician Michael O'Brien, "pediatric patients in Boston [Children's Hospital] are being seen with extra security" due to threats. The harassment campaign's effect on hospital phone systems temporarily impaired the ability of patients to speak with providers there.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On August 30, the hospital received an anonymous bomb threat by phone which forced the hospital into a temporary lockdown, although it is unknown whether the threat was related to the harassment. On September 9, 2022, Boston Children's Hospital received a second bomb threat, which police likewise responded to. On September 15, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that Catherine Leavy of Westfield, Massachusetts, a frequent donor to former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, had been arrested in connection with the first bomb threat. She was charged with one count of making a false bomb threat through telephone and could face up to five years in prison. After the announcement, Libs of TikTok tweeted: "This is great news. Threats of violence should always be taken seriously." Before the announcement, Libs of TikTok claimed that the bomb threat came from "probably a left-wing troll".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: "The Washington Post", "USA Today", NPR, and "Politifact" rejected Libs of TikTok's tweets and claims as false. According to the hospital's website and statements, the hospital adheres to medical guidelines developed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and gender-affirming care involving genital surgeries are only offered to patients between the ages of 18 and 35 while surgical consultations can be offered beginning at the age of 17. The hospital said in a statement that "we condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms, and we reject the false narrative upon which they are based." When contacted by "The Washington Post", Raichik did not answer a question about whether she felt responsible for the threats against the hospitals, but said that "we 100% condemn any acts/threats of violence". However, Libs of TikTok later said that she would not stop calling out hospitals and sharing information from them.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: According to "The Washington Post", an archived version of the hospital's website appeared to state that vaginoplasties, the surgical construction or reconstruction of a vagina, were available to 17-year-olds at the hospital. The hospital has since updated their website to reflect their policy of gender-affirming surgeries only being offered to patients between the ages of 18 and 35. The hospital also clarified that patients can only receive surgical consultations at 17.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On September 18, 2022, several protesters opposed to transgender youth services and around 200 counter-protesters gathered outside of Boston Children's Hospital on Longwood Avenue for several hours. Armed Boston police officers kept both groups separate.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On August 25, 2022, Libs of TikTok published a recording of phone operators at the Children's National Hospital, who incorrectly suggested that a 16-year-old transgender boy could be eligible for a hysterectomy at the hospital's gender development clinic. One employee incorrectly stated that even younger patients are eligible for a hysterectomy. Right-wing media outlets, including Fox News and "The Daily Caller", published articles about the recording"." A spokeswoman for the hospital stated: "None of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our patients. We do not and have never performed gender-affirming hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18." The hospital's website, in error, had previously stated that hysterectomies were provided to patients "between the ages of 0-21". The hospital has received harassment and "a large volume of hostile and threatening phone calls and emails", as well as bomb threats. As of September 2, 2022, the recording has been viewed more than 1.1 million times on Twitter.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In September 2022, Libs of TikTok reposted a 2019 story from Cleveland TV station WEWS-TV about Akron Children's Hospital providing gender-affirming care for transgender youth and made several other misleading posts about the hospital's procedures. Afterwards, the hospital temporarily took down the gender-affirming care section of their website after receiving threats from social media users. The hospital also took down information about its employees and the care they provide. In a statement, the hospital said that "We proudly stand behind the work of our program and providers". In response to the threats, Ohio representative Casey Weinstein tweeted: "Imagine going on Twitter to malign, attack and harass a children's hospital while hiding behind an anonymous account - and being proud of it".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On September 23, Libs of TikTok made a post about a gender-affirming care program at U.W. Health, a hospital at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In multiple posts about the hospital, Libs of TikTok highlighted one specific female doctor. That same day, Libs of TikTok posted about an adolescent clinic at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, highlighting its practice of asking parents to step out of the room for a few minutes to give young patients a "safe space."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: After being reinstated following a week-long suspension from Twitter, in October 2022, Libs of TikTok tweeted about Barbara Bush Children's Hospital offering gender-affirming care, which included a video from WMTW-TV about a transgender child who received care from the hospital. Libs of TikTok also tweeted "No matter how many times they try censoring and silencing us, we're never gonna stop the work we've started. We're not going anywhere."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: The account has targeted other hospitals with false claims about gender-affirming care, including a children's hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Phoenix Children's Hospital, leading to phoned-in threats and harassment. After Libs of TikTok's targeting of specific hospitals, other pediatric facilities including Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital have faced harassment and false claims about care they provide. In September 2022, in response to Libs of TikTok's posts, Lurie Children's Hospital increased its security and moved a transgender youth support group from in-person meetings to online meetings.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: NBC News has described Libs of TikTok as "one of the primary drivers of the harassment campaign" against Boston Children's Hospital.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Legal authorities in the state put out statements supporting the hospital and its patients, with a spokesman for the Boston Police Department stating that they were investigating the threats. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) also launched an investigation into the threats and has spoken out in support of the hospital, saying that they will "ensure equal protection of transgender people under the law".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Joseph Bonavolonta said that "Making threats of violence is not a prank — It's a federal crime.", adding that "These threats with innocent people at risk divert law enforcement from responding to actual emergencies are costly to taxpayers, and cause undue stress to victims and the community." The U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins called the attacks "disturbing", adding that "health care providers who support and offer care to gender-diverse and transgender individuals and their families deserve to do so without fear." Boston Mayor Michelle Wu condemned the threats being made against the hospital.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Harvard Law School clinical instructor and transgender activist Alejandra Caraballo said that "It's very disturbing to see people justify attacking a children's hospital because of their transphobia and their hatred of trans people". Michael Haller, a professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Florida, said that "A lot of people have chosen to try to be as quiet about their practice as they can to avoid those direct attacks" and that "Institutions have removed their websites, taken down their publicly facing phone numbers." Michelle Forcier, a clinician at LGBT telehealth group Folx Health, argued that "Kids are getting this significant messaging of, not only are you not okay, but we want to hurt you", adding "That's a pretty scary message to get as an 8-year-old or 12-year-old. It absolutely makes everybody think twice about walking in the door [to a hospital], kids and parents."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On November 20, 2022, Libs of TikTok received renewed media attention following the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, a mass killing that took place at an LGBTQ venue in which five people were killed and dozens more were injured. Club Q, the venue targeted by the shooter, frequently hosts drag events, including those advertised to an all-ages audience. "The Independent" noted that Libs of TikTok often attracts negative attention to such events with her social media accounts and that harassment and threats are often sent by her followers against patrons and performers following her postings. Hours after the shooting, Raichik used her Twitter account to target a "drag organization" in the same state where the massacre took place, underlining the names of two Colorado state legislators, one of which was trans, for supporting it. "The Advocate" criticized the post, saying that: "In the hours after news of the Club Q shooting spread, Raichik, for example, doubled down on her anti-LGBTQ+ messaging by posting about other drag-inclusive events in the state." They drew attention to an interview previously published on its website with Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, in which it was stated that social media accounts such as Libs of TikTok practice stochastic terrorism by provoking extremist outrage against marginalized groups, but using "vague language that allows the agitator to deny responsibility for the act."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Twitter has temporarily suspended Libs of TikTok five times. On April 13, 2022, Libs of TikTok was suspended on Twitter for promoting "violence, threats or harassment against others based on their sexual orientation or other factors such as race or gender". The tweet that resulted in this suspension featured an image of a transgender woman, whom Libs of TikTok referred to as male, and claimed that the woman had been using female locker rooms. The tweet was later deleted by Libs of TikTok.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On August 27, 2022, Libs of TikTok received a one-week no-posting suspension from Twitter for "hateful conduct" and Twitter issued a warning that the account could be permanently banned. According to "The Washington Post", the tweet that resulted in this suspension featured "Raichik again misidentif[ying] a person's gender." The tweet was later deleted by Libs of TikTok. In response to the suspension, Libs of TikTok said that "Getting suspended by Twitter has only made me realize my biggest mistake. I only called one hospital I should have called dozens because I promise you Children's National is not the only one. I promise to learn from my mistake and uncover more of what our Big Tech overlords don't want us to know. I will do better in the future."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On September 25, 2022, Libs of TikTok received a one-week suspension from Twitter and claimed that Twitter did not cite a reason for the suspension. However, "The Babylon Bee" CEO Seth Dillon said that Libs of TikTok was suspended for "hateful conduct" with "no specific tweets [being] flagged". In response to the suspension, Libs of TikTok hired a law firm that sent a letter threatening legal action against Twitter if they decide to permanently suspend Libs of TikTok. Libs of TikTok also created a legal defense fund and encouraged her supporters to donate to the fund. Libs of TikTok said that the suspension was "the result of a targeted harassment campaign from the Left to deplatform me", adding that "The truth is I haven't engaged in hateful conduct. I've just exposed the Left's depravity by reporting the facts. There's no rule against that, so they have to make up violations I've never committed".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: According to NPR, "Libs of TikTok appears to have evaded outright bans by coming right up to the edge of the platforms' rules but not breaking them", adding that the account "does not explicitly encourage followers to threaten anyone, and typically uses its target's own words, sometimes stripped of context, to imply wrongdoing." According to Joan Donovan, research director at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, deleting controversial tweets before a platform takes action is a common tactic for digital actors spreading disinformation. Libs of TikTok has used this tactic to avoid additional penalties from Twitter while still making an impact on a large online audience.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: According to "The Washington Post", Twitter employees in internal Slack conversations have been urging Twitter to take more action against Libs of TikTok, with one employee arguing that it is "only a matter of time" before Raichik's posts result in someone being killed. In a Slack conversation, a Twitter executive asked employees to "refrain" from discussing if an account should be suspended, arguing that the conversation could get leaked.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On December 9, the Twitter Files published by Bari Weiss revealed that Twitter had operated to limit Libs of TikTok's reach, with internal documents showing that the account was targeted for suspensions for indirectly breaking the site's rules and was subject to forms of shadow banning. Twitter CEO Elon Musk later stated that the site's content guidelines were historically enforced against accounts expressing right-wing views while being ignored for those that expressed left-wing views. Conversely, Evan Urquhart of "Slate" argued that Weiss' own publishing revealed that Libs of TikTok was receiving preferential treatment, with moderators directed not to take any action against the account and to instead elevate issues to higher management. Urquhart further argued that Weiss' portrayal of Libs of TikTok dangerously conflated conservative opinions with stochastic terrorism and extremism.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok had an account on TikTok itself, but it was suspended for violating TikTok's community guidelines in March 2022.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On May 27, Libs of TikTok was suspended by Instagram. That same day, the account suspension was reversed. A Meta spokesperson told "The Daily Dot" that "this account was automatically disabled following multiple copyright complaints" and that "we investigated further and found an issue following one of the complaints, so we restored the account."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On August 17, Libs of TikTok was suspended by Facebook for violating the platform's "community standards"; according to Raichik, she was told it was "permanent". After less than a day, the account was reinstated. Facebook said that the account was suspended in error. LGBT organization GLAAD criticized the reinstatement of the account.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On August 30, activists launched a campaign to pressure e-commerce platform Shopify into dropping Libs of TikTok. The activists have claimed that Raichik's store violates Shopify's acceptable use policy, which bans hateful content, as well as goods or services that lead to harassment, bullying, or threats. As of September 1, over 4,300 users have submitted reports to Shopify to drop Libs of TikTok. In a statement, Shopify defended Libs of TikTok, saying that "We host businesses of all stripes and sizes, with various worldviews".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok has been described as right-wing, far-right, extreme right-wing, conservative, and extremist. "The Times" of London described the account as a "Twitter provocateur".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok's early content focused on reposts of videos by progressives about Anthony Fauci and vaccinations that it deemed cringeworthy. The account's early content also mocked perceived liberal hypocrisy and "wokeness". "Slate" linked Libs of TikTok's early success to "shamelessly tagging alt-right and far-right heavy hitters on Twitter, a strategy she continues to use to this day".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok promotes conservatism and anti-LGBT rhetoric. It has referred to schools as "government-run indoctrination camps" for the LGBT community. It has encouraged followers to contact schools that allowed transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity. Libs of TikTok also aims to "spread the horrors of what doctors are doing to young, confused individuals".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok has also said that adults teaching children about LGBT identities is abusive and constitutes child grooming. In since-deleted tweets, the account specifically accused Chasten Buttigieg and The Trevor Project organization of grooming. The account argued in another since-deleted tweet that any teacher who comes out as gay to their students should be fired. The account has claimed that being gender non-conforming or being an ally of the LGBT community is a "mental illness", and deliberately misgendered transgender people. In a since-deleted tweet, Libs of TikTok stated, "Men should not wear dresses. You can’t change my mind."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok opposes gender-affirming surgery on children, arguing that it is mass scale child abuse and that "Any doctor performing these surgeries should have their license revoked. They belong in prison".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: The account has been criticized for spreading hoaxes, including the litter boxes in schools hoax about bathroom accommodations for students that identified as cats, and for spreading such false claims as that students in a second-grade class in Austin, Texas were being taught about furries, and that US Representative Katie Porter had argued that pedophilia is not a crime after Porter lamented that LGBT people were being slandered as pedophiles and groomers on social media.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok has denied the existence of systemic racism, but argued that racism against white people was "flourishing" in the United States. Reporting by "Slate" stated that "Raichik's feed is colored by an intense hostility to liberals generally, but she holds an especially pronounced animosity toward LGBTQ people, city dwellers, and Black people who have been killed at the hands of police", noting that the account has defended and endorsed incidents of police brutality, including the murder of George Floyd and the killing of Ma'Khia Bryant.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: The most popular video posted on Libs of TikTok, with 5.7 million views, was taken by a female student of color at Arizona State University and shows her and her friend repeatedly asking a white male student to leave a multicultural center due to a "Police Lives Matter" sticker on his laptop. After the video went viral, ASU investigated and then reprimanded the two female students.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: After gaining popularity on Twitter, Libs of TikTok has since expanded to additional social media platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, Rumble, Gab and Gettr. Libs of TikTok also sells merchandise on e-commerce platform Shopify and sells subscriptions on online newsletter platform Substack. According to Erin Reed, a content creator and legislative researcher, "Libs of TikTok relies on monetizing through Shopify and Substack. They use these funds in continuing their work to target children's hospitals and getting them shut down".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: After Libs of TikTok reposts videos of LGBT people or their supporters, some of her followers send harassment and death threats to those people, who are usually teachers.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On December 23, 2021, an 8th grade English teacher in Owasso, Oklahoma posted a video to TikTok about supporting LGBT students, in which he stated: "If your parents don't accept you for who you are, (expletive) them. I'm your parents now. I’m proud of you. Drink some water. I love you". In April 2022, Libs of TikTok posted the video, and the clip went viral. The teacher received death threats and other online harassment as a result, and resigned soon thereafter. Libs of TikTok later made a post claiming, without evidence, that the teacher was fired "after complaints of grooming." Some parents defended the teacher, saying that he provided a "safe haven" for LGBT students. Other parents said that some of the teacher's TikToks were inappropriate. Oklahoma Republican Senate candidate Jackson Lahmeyer accused the teacher of being a "predator". As of May 9, 2022, the repost has more than 460,000 views.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: A teacher in California was placed on administrative leave after a video she posted joking about asking her students to pledge allegiance to a Pride flag was reposted by Libs of TikTok on August 27, 2021. After conservative and far-right accounts attacked her on social media, she deleted all of her social media accounts.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On November 16, 2021, Dr. Allyn Walker, an assistant professor at Old Dominion University, was placed on administrative leave after an interview in which Walker argued that pedophilia should be destigmatized was posted on the Libs of TikTok account and went viral. On November 24, Walker resigned from their position.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On March 9, 2022, Libs of TikTok posted a screenshot from a TikTok made by an Indiana teacher who said that she allows the students who participate in her school's Gay-Straight Alliance club (which she leads) to tell their parents that it is a study group instead. Libs of TikTok tagged the teacher's school district in the post, and said: "We have seen multiple examples already of teachers grooming kids in a GSA club behind parents' backs." The teacher later deleted her TikTok account.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On April 13, 2022, Libs of TikTok reposted a TikTok of a woman explaining why she supports teachers who educate their students about "sexual orientation and gender identity" without parental consent. Libs of TikTok also said that "this is what the left really thinks" and that "they want to take your kids to groom and indoctrinate them behind your back." After Libs of TikTok's followers sent harassment to the woman, she uploaded a new TikTok on April 14 in which she said that "bigots" accused her of child sexual abuse "because they thought I was a teacher who thought it's OK to teach kids it's OK to be gay". As of May 9, 2022, the TikTok had more than 500,000 views.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On July 18, 2022, Libs of TikTok posted a photo of first-grade teacher Jake Daggett of the Wauwatosa School District with the quote "we had a great pronoun discussion today" being attributed to the teacher. The post spread to far-right forums, including Patriots.win. Afterwards, Dagget received homophobic comments, death threats, harassment, and posts calling for him to be fired. In response, Dagget said that he would take a short break from social media. The Wauwatosa School District acknowledged the situation on Twitter and Superintendent Demond Means defended Dagget, saying that "the negativity that both Mr. Daggett and his principal have received nationally definitely does not represent the values of our school district. We stand in full support of these two outstanding educators."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In October 2022, a Huntsville, Alabama animal shelter received death threats and negative reviews on Google after Libs of TikTok reposted a video from the shelter showing middle school teacher James Miller reading in drag. Libs of TikTok alleged that the teacher "made a series of lewd sexual innuendos and jokes" to a room "full of children", including the comment that "everyone likes a big bone" after reading a story about a dog digging for a bone. The Huntsville School District put Miller on indefinite paid administrative leave while they investigate. Miller argued that his comments were not any worse "than any innuendo from almost any 'kids' movie from the last 40 years." The animal shelter defended Miller and the event he participated in, saying that "We are going to be operating as a dog rescue and training business who is inclusive and open to anybody who wants to be here and be kind to others." Miller has also received death threats.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: A transgender teacher in Los Angeles received death threats and insults after a video they posted denouncing the Parental Rights in Education bill was reposted by Libs of TikTok.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: According to Euronews, "some of the people targeted by [Libs of TikTok] have received hundreds or even thousands of hate comments." According to a report by the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters for America, the account has named or tagged around 222 educational institutions and teachers in 2022 as of April 28.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On a conservative podcast, Raichik stated "it's not easy to be the one responsible for that, for someone losing their job. On the other hand, I mean these people, some of them are literally evil, and they are grooming kids."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Florida governor Ron DeSantis's press secretary Christina Pushaw credited the account for "opening her eyes" on the current state of education around sexuality- and LGBT-related topics. Pushaw has interacted with the Libs of TikTok account more than 100 times since July 16, 2021. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has credited Libs of TikTok, and Pushaw's championing of it, as partly responsible for Florida's passage of the 2022 Parental Rights in Education bill (often referred to by critics as the "Don't Say Gay bill"), which prohibits instruction on sexuality and gender identity in age-inappropriate ways from kindergarten to third grade in public schools.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok was one of the top-ten most influential Twitter accounts in promoting use of the pejorative term "groomer" after the passage of Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill, according to a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Human Rights Campaign. Raichik uses the term as a pejorative for LGBT people, supporters of LGBT youth, and those who teach about sexuality.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: According to a report by Advance Democracy Inc., tweets by Libs of TikTok result in a spike in mentions of specific hospitals and doctors across Twitter. In many of the mentions, doctors are referred to as "child molesters", "pedos", "groomers", and "butchers".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Drag queens and drag events organizers said that they received harassment and threats after tweets from Libs of TikTok about them and their work. Libs of TikTok once encouraged her followers to call Child Protective Services (CPS) on a transgender couple who recently had a newborn baby.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In July 2022, OutLoud North Bay, a centre for LGBT youth in Ontario, received hate messages and death threats after Libs of TikTok posted tweets in response to the centre announcing a drag show for children. Also in July, Libs of TikTok made a tweet criticizing the Conservative Jewish camping network, Camp Ramah in Northern California, for "housing kids according to their gender identity rather than birth sex".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On August 10, 2022, Libs of TikTok reposted a video of a therapist who works with sex offenders who have been jailed. In the video, the therapist says their pronouns and advises people to use the term "minor-attracted persons" (MAPs) instead of "pedophiles", arguing that the latter term has "moved from being a diagnostic label to being a judgmental, hurtful insult that we hurl at people in order to harm them or slander them". They also argue that pedophiles do not choose their attraction to children and should not be solely defined by that one aspect of themselves. Libs of TikTok only posted the first two minutes of the video, which made it sound like the therapist was advocating for acceptance of pedophilia and for people to be nicer to child sex abusers. In the full version of the video, the therapist condemns child sex abuse crimes. Libs of TikTok's reposted video has been promoted by Russian and European disinformation networks, such as Tsargrad TV.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Michael O'Brien, a pediatrics resident at a hospital in South Carolina, said that he received threats after Libs of TikTok, on August 15, retweeted a tweet in which he had criticized the account. O'Brien reported some of the threats to his employer's public safety office: "I got three specific threats that came from within a 50-mile radius of where I live", adding that "The threats felt very tangible. I had to take action to protect my partner and warn my family." Regarding Raichik's Twitter activity, he said that "Every single time [Raichik] claims not to have responsibility, but she continues to do the same thing" and that "She's very tactical, and purposefully tries not to break the terms of Twitter while knowing what she's doing is causing harm."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In September 2022, Libs of TikTok claimed that workshops for transgender youth and their families run by the American healthcare company Kaiser Permanente were being held "without parental consent" despite the workshops being designed for both children and parents. Also in September 2022, a tea shop in Salt Lake City reported receiving "an endless barrage of harassment" after Libs of TikTok's Instagram account reposted a video featuring a young girl dancing with a drag queen inside the tea shop.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: On September 23, 2022, a two minute video of Dr. Katherine Gast (co-director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's UW Health gender services program) describing gender-affirming surgeries was reposted by Libs of TikTok with the caption: "Gast happily describes some of the 'gender affirming' surgeries she offers to adolescents including vaginoplasties, phalloplasties, and double mastectomies." In an emailed response to NBC News, Libs of TikTok stood by her characterization of doctors who work in transgender healthcare. Although Gast does not perform genital surgery on minors, she does perform top surgery in some cases for older teenagers after evaluations by mental health care professionals and doctors, and with parental consent. The original tweet by Libs of TikTok received almost half a million views, one of eight in a thread about Gast and her patients. Senator Ted Cruz tweeted: "She does this to children. Sterilizes & mutilates them. Before they are old enough to consent." Gast and her family were doxxed and her clinic has received "harassing phone calls".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: The account has been described as promoting harassment against and criticizing teachers, medical providers, and children's hospitals, while spreading mis- and disinformation and hateful commentary against marginalized groups by reposting videos and social media clips of LGBT people, teachers, schools and other institutions out of context and with incendiary framing. Fans and supporters of Libs of TikTok describe the account as simply reposting content showcasing "sex and gender ideology" that was already publicly available.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Libs of TikTok has described its reposting of videos as "exposés" of "the crazies". Libs of TikTok has also described criticism of her online activity as efforts to "cancel and silence" and has said that she receives death threats.


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Gillian Branstetter, a media strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that Libs of TikTok "is finding new characters for right-wing propaganda" and that "it's relying on the endless stream of content from TikTok and the Internet to cast any individual trans person as a new villain in their story." Ari Drennen, the LGBTQ program director for the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters for America, argued that "Libs of TikTok is basically acting as a wire service for the broader right-wing media ecosystem", adding that the account has "been shaping public policy in a real way, and affecting teachers' ability to feel safe in their classrooms". According to Drennen, she received more than 500 hateful comments about her sexuality and appearance after criticizing Libs of TikTok. Kylie Cheung of "Jezebel" argued that "Deplatforming hateful accounts like LibsOfTikTok whose online attacks can clearly, quickly escalate into real-life threats is an important step. But it's clear we're in the midst of a terrifying, broader anti-LGBTQ moment right now that's being fueled by pretty much every right-wing media outlet as well as top Republicans." Reina Sultan of "Them" argued that "social media platforms are not doing enough, not only to limit Libs of TikTok's ability to spread hate, but also to protect LGBTQ+ people in general." Melissa Gira Grant of "The New Republic" argued that Libs of TikTok "is part of a much larger pattern" of the political right's "embrace of anti-LGBTQ violence". Christopher Wiggins of "The Advocate" argued that "LibsOfTikTok is [a] voice in an overall climate of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that some correlate to an increase of anti-LGBTQ+ incidents." Elad Nehorai of "The Forward" argued that Libs of TikTok is "fueling a pogrom against trans youth", comparing accusations of grooming to antisemitic blood libel. LGBT organization GLAAD said in a statement that "Libs of TikTok is synonymous with maliciously targeting LGBTQ organizations, people, and allies by posting lies, misinformation, and blatant hate."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Joan Donovan, research director at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, argued that "we've reached this phase in social media where people know what to do when an account like Libs of TikTok calls out another account or a person or institution", calling the response to these posts "networked incitement" that can create "a snowball effect, where you see people getting more emboldened to participate". Donovan also argued that "the precipitating comments may not be that incendiary, but if that creates a pattern of attack that is recognizable, which it is with an account like Libs of TikTok, then these companies are well within their jurisdiction to warn and then ban the account." Donovan has drawn parallels between Twitter's handling of Libs of TikTok and Twitter's failure to stop QAnon, the Stop the Steal movement, and the January 6 Capitol attack, which Twitter only started cracking down on after several acts of violence were linked to these movements. She also drew parallels between right-wing media amplifying Libs of TikTok and the online campaign that resulted in the January 6 Capitol attack. Donovan noted that "We're seeing more people feeling — as they did during the insurrection — that storming a hospital might be their only option to defend themselves and their values". Harvard Law School clinical instructor and transgender activist Alejandra Caraballo argued that Twitter has not banned Libs of TikTok for its content because "they don't want to rock the boat politically while the [Elon Musk purchase] is ongoing." Meredithe McNamara, assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale University, argued that "allowing this hate speech to fester on the internet and fuel direct threats is going to create long standing harms that are difficult to recover from."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Bethany Mandel, writing in the "Deseret News", argued that Libs of TikTok "showcase[s] the ideology and agenda of the far left in their own words" and "gives parents a disturbing look at what their children are seeing on [TikTok]". Brendan O'Neill of "Spiked" argued that "there are some who would prefer to keep the woke indoctrination of the young, so giddily facilitated by Silicon Valley, shrouded from external concern and criticism. It is they who are in the wrong, not Libs of TikTok." Dan McLaughlin of "National Review" argued: "The Libs of TikTok account exists to expose sexually deviant ideas and conduct posted publicly on the Internet by people in a position to influence young children. ... her targets volunteer info in their videos about how they use their positions of trust, confidence, and public power to propagandize young children with their ideologies about sex and gender." Fox News host Tucker Carlson defended Libs of TikTok from criticism, saying that "no news organisation in America has done more to reveal the reality in American schools than Libs of TikTok" and called the videos reposted by the account "idiotic and disgusting". Donald Trump Jr. argued that "the question Libs of TikTok often raises And the Left wants to ignore Is do parents have a right to know what their children are being taught in their public school, or not?" Ben Shapiro defended Libs of TikTok from criticism, calling it "a Twitter account that literally just posts Leftists owning themselves." Seth Dillon called Libs of TikTok's work "heroic" and "high-risk". Christina Pushaw has described herself as "a strong supporter of [Libs of TikTok']s mission."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Bonnie Kristian of "The Week" argued "the person behind Libs of TikTok doesn't matter much... because conspiracism is communal now", adding that "Lorenz's exposé largely missed the point." Kat Rosenfield of "UnHerd" called "The Washington Post" article "an unmasking worthy of a demented superhero story", adding that "it's hard to know what Libs of TikTok's greater sin is: being wrong, or being popular." Dan McLaughlin of "National Review" argued that identity reveals like that of Libs of TikTok have "become standard practice for major media reporters who do stories on people on the right who can be framed as 'extremists.'"


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Kara Alaimo, a Hofstra University professor and former Obama administration staffer writing for NBC News, dismissed criticism regarding identifying the individual running the account, arguing that "the people in need of protection here are those who are being targeted with hate simply because of their identities not the people who are hurling the abuse, like Raichik."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Writing about the revealing of Raichik's identity, Kaitlyn Tiffany of "The Atlantic" argued that "where the term ["doxxing"] once defined a category, it now expresses an emotion. Whoever feels doxxed will claim to have been doxxed."


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Commentator and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec tweeted: "This isn't journalism. This is doxxing and smearing of Libs of TikTok by the billionaire-controlled Bezos Post".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: Some Jewish critics, including watchdog organization StopAntisemitism.org and "Jewcy" magazine editor Isaac de Castro, argued that Lorenz's mention of Raichik's Orthodox Judaism was unnecessary and promoted antisemitism. Andrew Silow-Carroll, editor in chief of "The Jewish Week", defended the inclusion of Raichik's religious beliefs in a blog for "The Times of Israel", arguing that it "shed light on the growing connection between faith and right-wing politics".


title: Libs of TikTok

text: In April 2022, another Orthodox Jew named Chaya Raichik, a stay-at-home mom who grew up in Los Angeles, received hundreds of negative messages from people who mistook her for the person behind Libs of TikTok. Also in April, YouTuber Tim Pool and "The Daily Wire" CEO Jeremy Boreing purchased a billboard in Times Square to accuse Lorenz of doxxing Libs of TikTok. In response, Lorenz called the billboard "so idiotic it's hilarious".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Che is a two-part 2008 biographical film about Argentine Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Rather than follow a standard chronological order, the films offer an oblique series of interspersed moments along the overall timeline. "Part One" is titled "The Argentine" and focuses on the Cuban Revolution from the landing of Fidel Castro, Guevara, and other revolutionaries in Cuba to their successful toppling of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship two years later. "Part Two" is titled "Guerrilla" and focuses on Guevara's attempt to bring revolution to Bolivia and his demise. Both parts are shot in a cinéma vérité style, but each has different approaches to linear narrative, camerawork and the visual look. It stars Benicio del Toro as Guevara, with an ensemble cast that includes Demián Bichir, Rodrigo Santoro, Santiago Cabrera, Franka Potente, Julia Ormond, Vladimir Cruz, Marc-André Grondin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Joaquim de Almeida, Édgar Ramírez, Yul Vazquez, Unax Ugalde, Alfredo De Quesada, and Oscar Isaac.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Filmmaker Terrence Malick originally worked on a screenplay limited to Guevara's attempts to start a revolution in Bolivia. When financing fell through, Malick left the project, and Soderbergh subsequently agreed to direct the film. He realized that there was no context for Guevara's actions in Bolivia and decided that his participation in the Cuban Revolution and his appearance at the United Nations in 1964 should also be depicted. Peter Buchman was hired to write the screenplay — the script was so long that Soderbergh decided to divide the film into two parts: one chronicling Cuba, the other depicting Bolivia. Soderbergh shot the installments back-to-back starting at the beginning of July 2007, with "Guerrilla" first in Spain for 39 days, and "The Argentine" shot in Puerto Rico and Mexico for 39 days.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: "Che" was screened as a single film at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. del Toro won the Best Actor Award, and the film received mostly positive reviews. IFC Films, which holds all North American rights, initially released the combined film for one week on 12 December 2008 in New York City and Los Angeles to qualify for the year's Academy Awards. Strong box office performance led to the "special roadshow edition" being extended in NYC and LA, and later expanded into additional markets. It was released as two separate films, titled "Che Part 1: The Argentine" and "Che Part 2: Guerrilla", and further distribution followed. The Independent Film Channel released the films via video on demand and on Region 1 DVD exclusively from Blockbuster. As a whole, "Che" grossed US$40.9 million worldwide, against a budget of US$58 million.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In Havana in 1964, Che Guevara is interviewed by Lisa Howard who asks him if reform throughout Latin America might not blunt the "message of the Cuban Revolution".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In 1955, at a gathering in Mexico City, Guevara first meets Fidel Castro. He listens to Castro's plans and signs on as a member of the July 26th Movement.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: There is a return to 1964 for Guevara's address before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, where he makes an impassioned speech against American imperialism, and defends the executions his regime has committed, declaring "this is a battle to the death."


title: Che (2008 film)

text: March 1957. Guevara deals with debilitating bouts of asthma as his group of revolutionaries meet up with Castro's. Together, they attack an army barracks in the Sierra Maestra on 28 May 1957. After that, they begin to win over the rural peasant population of Cuba and receive increasing support, while battling both the government and traitors in their midst. Gradually, however, the government loses control of most of the rural areas. Soon afterward, the 26 July Movement forges alliances with other revolutionary movements in Cuba, and begin to assault towns and villages. Most fall to the rebels with little to no resistance.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: On 15 October 1958, the guerrillas approach the town of Las Villas. The Battle of Santa Clara is depicted with Guevara demonstrating his tactical skill as the guerrillas engage in street-to-street fighting and derail a train carrying Cuban soldiers and armaments. Near the film's end, they are victorious. With the Cuban Revolution now over, Guevara heads to Havana, remarking "we won the war, the revolution starts now."


title: Che (2008 film)

text: The second part begins on 3 November 1966 with Guevara arriving in Bolivia disguised as a middle-aged representative of the Organization of American States hailing from Uruguay, who subsequently drives into the mountains to meet his men. The film is organized by the number of days that he was in the country. On Day 26, there is solidarity among Guevara's men despite his status as a foreigner. By Day 67, Guevara, however, has been set up for betrayal. He tries to recruit some peasants only to be mistaken for a cocaine smuggler, and the Bolivian Communist Party, led by Mario Monje, refuse to support the armed struggle. On Day 100, there is a shortage of food and Guevara exercises discipline to resolve conflicts between his Cuban and Bolivian followers.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: By Day 113, some of the guerrillas have deserted, and, upon capture, have led the Bolivian Army to the revolutionaries' base camp, which contained vast stockpiles of food, much-needed supplies, and intelligence identifying much of the group as Cubans. Much to Che's disappointment Tamara "Tania" Bunke, Guevara's revolutionary contact has botched elaborate preparations and given away their identity. On Day 141, the guerrillas capture Bolivian soldiers that refuse to join the revolution and are free to return to their villages. CIA and US Army Special Forces advisers arrive to supervise anti-insurgent activity and to train the Bolivian Army. On Day 169, Guevara's visiting friend, the French intellectual Régis Debray, is captured at Muyupampa by the Bolivian Army along with two of Che's last contacts with the outside world. A Bolivian airstrike then occurs against Che's guerrillas on Day 219, driving them deeper into hiding. By this time, Che has split his forces; his best fighters travel with him in one column, while another column contains other personnel, including Tania, and carries much of the remaining supplies.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Guevara grows sick and by Day 280 can barely breathe as a result of his acute asthma. Nevertheless, he continues to lead his group towards the other column of revolutionaries. On Day 302, the Bolivian Army wipes out the other column, killing Tania Bunke, Juan Acuña Ñunez, and several others in an ambush as they attempt to cross the Vado del Yeso after a local informant tells the Bolivian troops about the movements of the rebels. By Day 340, Guevara is trapped by the Bolivian Army in the Yuro Ravine near the village of La Higuera. Che is wounded and captured. The next day, a helicopter lands and Cuban American CIA agent Alejandro Ramírez (a fictionalized version of Félix Rodríguez) emerges to interrogate Che, but without success. The Bolivian high command then phones and orders Guevara's execution. He is shot on 9 October 1967, and his corpse lashed to a helicopter's landing skids and flown out.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In a final flashback scene, Guevara is aboard the "Granma" in 1956, looking out over the ocean, as the Cuban Revolution is about to begin. He sees the Castro brothers alone at the bow of the ship; Fidel is talking and Raúl is taking notes. Guevara hands a peeled orange to one of his comrades and returns his gaze to the lone brothers before the scene fades to black.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Originally, "Che" was intended to be a much more traditional film based on Jon Lee Anderson's 1997 biography "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life". Actor Benicio del Toro and producer Laura Bickford optioned the film rights to Anderson's book. However, after two years they had not found a suitable writer and the rights expired. During this time, Del Toro and Bickford researched the events depicted in "Guerrilla" with the idea of exploring Guevara's attempts to start a revolution in Bolivia. Del Toro has said that he previously only thought of Guevara as a "bad guy". For his role, Del Toro spent seven years "obsessively researching" Guevara's life, which made him feel like he "earned his stripes" to interpret the character. Preparation included looking at Guevara's photographs and reading his personal writings. Del Toro read "Don Quixote", one of Guevara's favorites, and the first book published and given out free after the Cuban Revolution. Del Toro then personally met with people from different stages of Guevara's life, including Guevara's younger brother and childhood friends, traveling to Cuba where Del Toro met Guevara's widow, family, and "tons of people that loved this man". The visit included a five-minute encounter at a book fair with Fidel Castro, who expressed that he was happy for the "serious" research being undertaken. Such research included collaborating with the three surviving guerrillas from Guevara's ill-fated Bolivian campaign, and with several guerrillas who fought alongside him in Cuba. While researching for both films, Soderbergh made a documentary of his interviews with many of the people who had fought alongside Guevara. In his encounters with people ranging from fellow guerrillas to Guevara's driver, Del Toro described the reaction as "always the same", stating that he was "blown away" by the "bucketful of love" they still harbored for Guevara. In an interview, Del Toro described Guevara as "a weird combination of an intellectual and an action figure, Gregory Peck and Steve McQueen, wrapped in one". After the film's production concluded, Del Toro professed that "when you tell the story of Che, you're telling a story of the history of a country, so you have to be very careful".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Del Toro and Bickford hired screenwriter Benjamin A. van der Veen to write the screenplay's first drafts, and their extensive research took them to Cuba where they met with several of the remaining members of Guevara's team in Bolivia as well as the revolutionary's wife and children. It was during this phase of development that the filmmakers discovered Terrence Malick had been in Bolivia as a journalist in 1966 working on a story about Che. Malick came on as director and worked on the screenplay with van der Veen and Del Toro, but after a year-and-a-half, the financing had not come together entirely and Malick left to make "The New World", a film about Jamestown, Virginia. Afraid that their multi-territory deals would fall apart, Bickford and Del Toro asked Steven Soderbergh, who was previously on board as producer, to direct. The filmmaker was drawn to the contrast of "engagement versus disengagement. Do we want to participate or observe? Once Che made the decision to engage, he engaged fully. Often people attribute that to a higher power, but as an atheist, he didn't have that. I found that very interesting". Furthermore, he remarked that Guevara was "great movie material" and "had one of the most fascinating lives" that he could "imagine in the last century". Bickford and Del Toro realized that there was no context for what made Guevara decide to go to Bolivia. They began looking for someone to rewrite the screenplay; Peter Buchman was recommended to them because he had a good reputation for writing about historical figures, based on a script he worked about Alexander the Great. He spent a year reading every available book on Guevara in preparation for writing the script. The project was put on hold when Bickford and Del Toro made "Traffic" with Soderbergh.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Soderbergh wanted to incorporate Guevara's experiences in Cuba and at the United Nations in 1964. Buchman helped with the script's structure, which he gave three storylines: Guevara's life and the Cuban Revolution; his demise in Bolivia; and his trip to New York to speak at the U.N. Buchman found that the problem with containing all of these stories in one film was that he had to condense time and this distorted history. Soderbergh found the draft Buchman submitted to him "unreadable" and after two weeks decided to split the script into two separate films. Buchman went back and with Del Toro expanded the Cuban story for "The Argentine". Additional research included reading Guevara's diaries and declassified documents from the U.S. State Department about his trip to New York and memos from his time in Bolivia.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Soderbergh found the task of researching such a popular historical figure as Guevara a daunting one: "If you go to any bookstore, you'll find an entire wall of Che-related material. We tried to go through all of it, we were overwhelmed with information. He means something different to everyone. At a certain point we had to decide for ourselves who Che was". The original source material for these scripts was Guevara's diary from the Cuban Revolution, "Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War", and from his time in Bolivia, "Bolivian Diary". From there, he drew on interviews with people who knew Guevara from both of those time periods and read every book available that pertained to both Cuba and Bolivia. Bickford and Del Toro met with Harry "Pombo" Villegas, Urbano and Benigno—three men who met Guevara during the Cuban Revolution, followed him to Bolivia, and survived. They interviewed them individually and then Pombo and Benigno together about their experiences in Cuba and Bolivia. Urbano was an adviser while they were filming in Spain and the actors often consulted with him and the others about specific details, like how to hold their guns in a certain situation, and very specific tactical information.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In December 2008, Ocean Press, in cooperation with the Che Guevara Publishing Project, released "Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara", with a movie tie-in cover. The book's aim was to compile all the original letters, diary excerpts, speeches and maps on which Soderbergh relied for the film. The text is interspersed with remarks by Benicio del Toro and Steven Soderbergh.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Initially, "Che" was going to be made in English and was met with a strong interest in financing; however, when the decision was made to make it in Spanish and break it up into two films, the studios' pay-TV deals, which were for English-language product only, "disappeared", according to Bickford, "and, at that point, nobody wanted to step up". The director defended his decision to shoot almost all of the film in Spanish in an interview: "You can't make a film with any level of credibility in this case unless it's in Spanish. I hope we're reaching a time where you go make a movie in another culture, that you shoot in the language of that culture. I'm hoping the days of that sort of specific brand of cultural imperialism have ended". Both films were financed without any American money or distribution deal; Soderbergh remarked, "It was very frustrating to know that this is a zeitgeist movie and that some of the very people who told me how much they now regret passing on "Traffic" passed on this one too". Foreign pre-sales covered $54 million of the $58 million budget. Wild Bunch, a French production, distribution and foreign sales company put up 75% of the budget for the two films, tapping into a production and acquisition fund from financing and investment company Continental Entertainment Capitol, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Citigroup. Spain's Telecinco/Moreno Films supplied the rest of the budget.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In 2006, shortly before the U.N. Headquarters underwent major renovations, Del Toro and Soderbergh shot the scenes of Guevara speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in 1964. The director wanted to shoot the first part of "The Argentine" in Cuba, but was prevented from travelling there by the U.S. government's embargo. Doubling Santa Clara proved to be difficult because it was a certain size and had a certain look. Soderbergh spent four to five months scouting for a suitable replacement, looking at towns in Veracruz/Yucatán before settling on Campeche, which had the elements they needed.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: The original intention was for "The Argentine" to be shot using anamorphic 16 mm film because, according to the director, it needed "a bit of Bruckheimer but scruffier". He kept to his plan of shooting "The Argentine" anamorphically, and "Guerrilla" with spherical lenses. Soderbergh wanted to use the new RED One rather than 16 mm film because of its ability to replicate film stock digitally but initially, it was not going to be available on time. However, their Spanish work papers and visas were late and Del Toro and Soderbergh were grounded in Los Angeles for a week. The director was meanwhile informed that the prototype cameras were ready.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Each half of the film focuses on a different revolution, both fundamentally the same in theory but vastly different in outcome, reflecting the Marxist notion of dialectics. Soderbergh wanted the film's two parts to mimic the voice of the two diaries they were based on; the Cuban diaries were written after the fact and, according to the director, "with a certain hindsight and perspective and a tone that comes from being victorious", while the Bolivian diaries were "contemporaneous, and they're very isolated and have no perspective, at all. It's a much more tense read, because the outcome is totally unclear".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Soderbergh shot the films back-to-back in the beginning of July 2007 with "Guerrilla" shot first in Spain for 39 days and "The Argentine" shot in Puerto Rico and Mexico for 39 days. The director conceived "The Argentine" as "a Hollywood movie" shot in widescreen 'scope aspect ratio, with the camera either fixed or moving on a dolly or a Steadicam. "Guerrilla" was shot, according to Soderbergh, "in Super-16, 1.85:1. No dollies, no cranes, it's all either handheld or tripods. I want it to look nice but simple. We'll work with a very small group: basically me, the producer Gregory Jacobs and the unit production manager". According to the director, the portion set in Cuba was written from the victor's perspective and as a result he adopted a more traditional look with classical compositions, vibrant color and a warm palette. With "Guerrilla", he wanted a sense of foreboding with hand-held camerawork and a muted color palette. Soderbergh told his production designer Antxon Gomez that the first part would have green with a lot of yellow in it and the second part would have green with a lot of blue in it.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: At the end of "The Argentine", Soderbergh depicts Guevara's derailment of a freight train during the Battle of Santa Clara. In filming the sequence, Soderbergh balked at the digital effects solution and managed to reallocate $500,000 from the overall $58 million budget to build a real set of tracks and a train powered by two V-8 car engines. To film the scene, they had six rehearsals, and could only shoot the scene once.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Many aspects of Guevara's personality and beliefs affected the filming process. For instance, close-ups of Del Toro were avoided due to Guevara's belief in collectivism, with Soderbergh remarking, "You can't make a movie about a guy who has these hard-core sort of egalitarian socialist principles and then isolate him with close-ups." According to Edgar Ramirez, who portrays Ciro Redondo, the cast "were improvising a lot" while making "The Argentine", and he describes the project as a "very contemplative movie", shot chronologically. While filming outdoors, Soderbergh used natural light as much as possible. Del Toro, who speaks Puerto Rican Spanish, tried to speak the best Argentinean Spanish (Rioplatense Spanish) he could without sounding "stiff". Prior to shooting the film's final scenes that depict Guevara's time in Bolivia at the end of his life, Del Toro shed 35 pounds to show how ill Guevara had become. The actor shaved the top of his head rather than wear a bald cap for the scenes depicting Guevara's arrival in Bolivia in disguise.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Soderbergh has said that with "Che", he wanted to show everyday tasks, "things that have meaning on a practical level and on an ideological level", as a "way of showing what it might have been like to be there". While addressing the issue after at the Toronto International Film Festival, Soderbergh remarked that he was trying to avoid what he felt were typical scenes for a biographical film and that he would tell screenwriter Peter Buchman, that he was "trying to find the scenes that would happen before or after the scene that you would typically see in a movie like this". Soderbergh was not interested in depicting Guevara's personal life because he felt that "everybody on these campaigns has a personal life, they all left families behind, that doesn't make him special and why should I go into his personal life and nobody else's?"


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Soderbergh decided to omit the post-revolution execution sentences of "suspected war criminals, traitors and informants" that Guevara reviewed at La Cabana Fortress because "there is no amount of accumulated barbarity that would have satisfied the people who hate him". Soderbergh addressed the criticism for this omission in a post release interview where he stated: "I don't think anybody now, even in Cuba, is going to sit with a straight face and defend the events. La Cabana was really turned into a Roman circus, where I think even the people in power look back on that as excessive. However, every regime, in order to retain power when it feels threatened, acts excessively ... This is what people do when they feel they need to act in an extreme way to secure themselves". The filmmaker noted as well that, "with a character this complicated, you're going to have a very polarized reaction". Furthermore, he was not interested in depicting Guevara's life as "a bureaucrat", stating that he was making a diptych about two military campaigns, declaring the pictures "war films". Soderbergh said, "I'm sure some people will say, 'That's convenient because that's when he was at his worst.' Yeah, maybe—it just wasn't interesting to me. I was interested in making a procedural about guerrilla warfare".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Soderbergh described the Cuban Revolution as "the last analog revolution. I loved that we shot a period film about a type of war that can't be fought anymore". Soderbergh has said that he is open to making another film about Guevara's experiences in the Congo but only if "Che" makes $100 million at the box office.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Theatrical distribution rights were pre-sold to distributors in several major territories, including France, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Italy, and Japan (Nikkatsu); Twentieth Century Fox bought the Spanish theatrical and home video rights. IFC Films paid a low seven-figure sum to acquire all North American rights to "Che" after production had completed and released it on 12 December 2008 in New York City and Los Angeles in order to qualify it for the Academy Awards. The "special roadshow edition" in N.Y.C. and L.A. was initially planned as a one-week special engagement—complete with intermission and including a full-color printed program—but strong box-office results led to its re-opening for two weeks on 9 January 2009 as two separate films, titled "Che Part 1: The Argentine" and "Che Part 2: Guerrilla". Soderbergh said that the program's inspiration came from the 70 mm engagements for Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now". The film was expanded to additional markets on 16 and 22 January both as a single film and as two separate films. IFC made the films available through video on demand on 21 January on all major cable and satellite providers in both standard and high definition versions.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: "Che" was screened on 21 May at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival reportedly running over four hours. Following this screening, Soderbergh cut 5–7 minutes from each half. It was shown at the 46th New York Film Festival and was shown at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival as "Che" with a 15-minute intermission and as two separate films, "The Argentine" and "Guerrilla", where it was considered the festival's "must-see" film. "Che" made its sold-out L.A. premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on 1 November 2008 as part of the AFI Fest.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: "Che" was screened in Guevara's homeland of Argentina in November 2008. To mark the occasion, the streets of Buenos Aires were decorated with large posters of Del Toro in his role as the guerrilla fighter, unprecedented in the city's history. When questioned by the press on Guevara's ideas and use of violence, Del Toro stated that if he had lived during the 1960s, he would have agreed with Guevara, and that although he did not support violent revolution now, in the '60s he may "have been another person and in agreement with armed war".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Del Toro and Soderbergh both attended the French premiere in late November 2008, where they took questions from the press. Del Toro remarked that the "legendary rebel" was still pertinent because "the things that he fought for in the late 1950s and mid 1960s are still relevant today", adding that "he did not hide behind curtains ... he stood up for the forgotten ones". When asked why he made the film, Soderbergh stated, "I needed to make the film, and that is a different feeling. I felt like, if I am worth anything, I have to say yes. I can't say no". The following day, the Dubai International Film Festival would describe Soderbergh's narrative as a "magisterial ... compelling experience", with Del Toro's performance as "blue-chip".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: "Che" opened in single theaters in N.Y.C. and L.A. where it made $60,100 with sellouts of both venues. Based on this success, IFC Films executives added two weekends of exclusive runs for the roadshow version, starting 24 December in N.Y.C. and 26 December in L.A. This successful run prompted IFC Films to show this version in nine additional markets on 16 January. "Che" will be shown in its entirety, commercial and trailer free with an intermission and limited edition program book at every screening. Soderbergh has said that the film's roadshow version will not be released on DVD but released in two parts with the animated map that opens the roadshow's second half missing from Part II, as well as the overture and intermission music.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: According to "Variety", it had grossed $164,142 in one weekend, at 35 locations in North America and $20 million from a half-dozen major markets around the world, led by Spain at $9.7 million. , it has grossed $1.4 million in North America and $29.8 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $30 million. Eventually, "Che" made good profit for IFC Films.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Early reviews were mixed, although there were several critics who spoke glowingly of the project. "Cinematical" James Rocchi described the biopic as "expressive, innovative, striking, and exciting" as well as "bold, beautiful, bleak and brilliant". Rocchi went on to brand it "a work of art" that's "not just the story of a revolutionary" but "a revolution in and of itself". Columnist and critic Jeffrey Wells proclaimed the film "brilliant", "utterly believable", and "the most exciting and far-reaching film of the Cannes Film Festival". In further praise, Wells referred to the film as "politically vibrant and searing" while labeling it a "perfect dream movie".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Todd McCarthy was more mixed in his reaction to the film in its present form, describing it as "too big a roll of the dice to pass off as an experiment, as it's got to meet high standards both commercially and artistically. The demanding running time forces comparison to such rare works as "Lawrence of Arabia", "Reds" and other biohistorical epics. Unfortunately, "Che" doesn't feel epic—just long". Anne Thompson wrote that Benicio del Toro "gives a great performance", but predicted that "it will not be released stateside as it was seen here". Glenn Kenny wrote, ""Che" benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don't always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and intellectual curiosity".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Peter Bradshaw, in his review for "The Guardian", wrote, "Perhaps it will even come to be seen as this director's flawed masterpiece: enthralling but structurally fractured—the second half is much clearer and more sure-footed than the first—and at times frustratingly reticent, unwilling to attempt any insight into Che's interior world". In his less favorable review for "Esquire", Stephen Garrett criticized the film for failing to show Guevara's negative aspects, "the absence of darker, more contradictory revelations of his nature leaves Che bereft of complexity. All that remains is a South American superman: uncomplex, pure of heart, defiantly pious and boring". Richard Corliss had problems with Del Toro's portrayal of Guevara: "Del Toro—whose acting style often starts over the top and soars from there, like a hang-glider leaping from a skyscraper roof—is muted, yielding few emotional revelations, seemingly sedated here ... Che is defined less by his rigorous fighting skills and seductive intellect than by his asthma". In his review for "Salon.com", Andrew O'Hehir praised Soderbergh for making "something that people will be eager to see and eager to talk about all over the world, something that feels strangely urgent, something messy and unfinished and amazing. I'd be surprised if "Che" doesn't win the Palme d'Or ... but be that as it may, nobody who saw it here will ever forget it".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Soderbergh replied to the criticism that he made an unconventional film: "I find it hilarious that most of the stuff being written about movies is how conventional they are, and then you have people ... upset that something's not conventional. The bottom line is we're just trying to give you a sense of what it was like to hang out around this person. That's really it. And the scenes were chosen strictly on the basis of, 'Yeah, what does that tell us about his character?.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: After Cannes, Soderbergh made a few minor adjustments to the film. This included adding a moment of Guevara and Fidel Castro shaking hands, tweaking a few transitions, and tacking on an overture and entr'acte to the limited "road show" version. Moreover, he removed the trial of guerrilla Lalo Sardiñas, which Chicago film critic Ben Kenigsberg found "regrettable", stating that it was "not only one of the film's most haunting scenes but a key hint at the darker side of Che's ideology".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In her review for "The New York Times", based on a screening at the New York Film Festival, Manohla Dargis observes that "throughout the movie Mr. Soderbergh mixes the wild beauty of his landscapes with images of Che heroically engaged in battle, thoughtfully scribbling and reading, and tending to ailing peasants and soldiers". According to Dargis, "Che wins, Che loses, but Che remains the same in what plays like a procedural about a charismatic leader, impossible missions and the pleasures of work and camaraderie", referring to the "historical epic" as ""Ocean's Eleven" with better cigars". However, Dargis notes that "Mr. Soderbergh cagily evades Che's ugly side, notably his increasing commitment to violence and seemingly endless war, but the movie is without question political—even if it emphasizes romantic adventure over realpolitik—because, like all films, it is predicated on getting, spending and making money".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Film critic Glenn Kenny wrote, ""Che" seems to me almost the polar opposite of agitprop. It flat out does not ask for the kind of emotional engagement that more conventional epic biopics do, and that's a good thing". In his review for "UGO", Keith Uhlich wrote, "The best to say about Del Toro's Cannes-honored performance is that it's exhausting—all exterior, no soul, like watching an android run a gauntlet [sic] (one that includes grueling physical exertions, tendentious political speechifying, and risible Matt Damon cameos)". "Slant Magazine" gave "Che" two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "The problem is that, despite his desire to sidestep Hollywood bio-hooey, the director is unable to turn his chilly stance into an ideological perspective, like Roberto Rossellini did in his demythologized portraits of Louis XIV, Garibaldi and Pascal".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In his review for "Salon.com" magazine, Andrew O'Hehir wrote, "What Soderbergh has sought to capture here is a grand process of birth and extinguishment, one that produced a complicated legacy in which John McCain, Barack Obama, and Raúl Castro are still enmeshed. There will be plenty of time to argue about the film's (or films') political relevance or lack thereof, to call Soderbergh names for this or that historical omission, for this or that ideological error. He's made something that people will be eager to see and eager to talk about all over the world, something that feels strangely urgent, something messy and unfinished and amazing".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: On 4 December 2008, "Che" premiered at Miami Beach's Byron Carlyle Theatre, as part of the Art Basel Festival. Taking place only a few miles from Little Havana, which is home to the United States' largest Cuban American community, the invitation-only screening was met with angry demonstrators. The organization Vigilia Mambisa, led by Miguel Saavedra, amassed an estimated 100 demonstrators to decry what they believed would be a favorable depiction of Guevara. Saavedra told reporters from the "El Nuevo Herald" that "you cannot offend the sensitivities of the people", while describing the film as "a disgrace". A supporter of the demonstration, Miami Beach's mayor Matti Herrera Bower, lamented that the film was shown, while declaring "we must not allow dissemination of this movie". When asked days later about the incident, Del Toro remarked that the ability to speak out was "part of what makes America great" while adding "I find it a little weird that they were protesting without having seen the film, but that's another matter". For his part, Soderbergh later stated that "you have to separate the Cuban nationalist lobby that is centered in Miami from the rest of the country".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: On 7 December 2008, "Che" premiered at Havana's 5,000+ person Karl Marx Theater as part of the Latin American Film Festival. Benicio Del Toro, who was in attendance, referred to the film as "Cuban history", while remarking that "there's an audience in there ... that could be the most knowledgeable critics of the historical accuracy of the film". The official state paper "Granma" gave Del Toro a glowing review, professing that he "personifies Che" in both his physical appearance and his "masterly interpretation". After unveiling "Che" in Havana's Yara Cinema, Del Toro was treated to a 10-minute standing ovation from the 2,000+ strong audience, many of whom were involved in the revolution.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: On 12 December 2008, "Che" was screened at New York City's sold out 1,100 person Ziegfeld Theater. Upon seeing the first image on the screen (a silhouette of Cuba), the crowd erupted into a raucous cry of "¡Viva, Cuba!" Following the film, and the standing ovation it received, Soderbergh appeared for a post program Q&A. During the sometimes contentious conversation with the audience, in which Soderbergh alternated between defensiveness and modesty, the director categorized Guevara as "a hard ass", to which one audience member yelled out, "Bullshit, he was a murderer!" The filmmaker settled down the crowd and explained, "It doesn't matter whether I agree with him or not—I was interested in Che as a warrior, Che as a guy who had an ideology, who picked up a gun and this was the result. He died the way you would have him die. He was executed the way you would say he executed other people". Soderbergh ended the 1 am Q&A session by noting that he was "agnostic" on Che's standing, but "loyal to the facts", which he insisted were all rigorously sourced.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: On 3 March 2009, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, himself a socialist and admirer of Che Guevara, greeted Del Toro and co-star Bichir at the Presidential Palace in Caracas. The day prior Del Toro attended a screening of the film at a bullfighting ring-turned cultural center, where he was "mobbed by adoring fans". Del Toro then visited the state-run Cinema Town, a film production facility President Chávez launched to help Venezuela produce its own movies as an alternative to what Chávez calls Hollywood's cultural imperialism. Del Toro described "Che" as "a totally Latin American movie" and stated that he had "a good meeting with the President".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: "Part One" has a 68% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 142 reviews, and an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Though lengthy and at times plodding, Soderbergh's vision and Benicio Del Toro's understated performance ensure that "Che" always fascinates." Meanwhile, "Part Two" has a 78% rating, based on 53 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's critical consensus states, "The second part of Soderbergh's biopic is a dark, hypnotic and sometimes frustrating portrait of a warrior in decline, with a terrific central performance from Del Toro.". On Metacritic, the film has a collective weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Scott Foundas of the "LA Weekly" proclaimed "Che" "nothing if not the movie of the year". In his review for the "Village Voice", J. Hoberman wrote, "At its best, "Che" is both action film and ongoing argument. Each new camera setup seeks to introduce a specific idea—about Che or his situation—and every choreographed battle sequence is a sort of algorithm where the camera attempts to inscribe the event that is being enacted". Hoberman compared Soderbergh's directing style and "non-personalized" historical approach on the film to Otto Preminger's observational use of the moving camera, or one of Roberto Rossellini's "serene" documentaries. Armond White, in his review for the "New York Press", wrote, "Out-perversing Gus Van Sant's "Milk", Soderbergh makes a four-hour-plus biopic about a historical figure without providing a glimmer of charm or narrative coherence".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In his review for "The New York Times", A.O. Scott writes, "Mr. Soderbergh once again offers a master class in filmmaking. As history, though, "Che" is finally not epic but romance. It takes great care to be true to the factual record, but it is, nonetheless, a fairy tale". Sheri Linden, in her review for the "Los Angeles Times", wrote, "in this flawed work of austere beauty, the logistics of war and the language of revolution give way to something greater, a struggle that may be defined by politics but can't be contained by it". In her review for "The Washington Post", Ann Hornaday wrote, "The best way to encounter "Che", is to let go of words like 'film' and 'movie', words that somehow seem inadequate to the task of describing such a mesmerizing, fully immersive cinematic experience. By the end of "Che", viewers will likely emerge as if from a trance, with indelibly vivid, if not more ambivalent feelings about Guevara, than the bumper-sticker image they walked in with".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: "Entertainment Weekly" gave a "B+" rating to the first half of the film and a "C−" rating to the second half, and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "As political theater, "Che" moves from faith to impotence, which is certainly a valid reading of Communism in the 20th century. Yet as drama, that makes the second half of the film borderline deadly ... "Che" is twice as long as it needs to be, but it is also only half the movie it should have been". James Verniere of "The Boston Herald" gave the film a B-, describing the work as a new genre of "arthouse guerrilla nostalgia", while lamenting "Che" as the film version of Alberto Korda's iconic 1960 photograph Guerrillero Heroico. In Verniere's view, so much information was missing, that he recommended one first see "The Motorcycle Diaries" to fill in the background.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: In her review for "USA Today", Claudia Puig wrote, "With its lyrical beauty and strong performances, the film can be riveting. Its excessive length and rambling scenes also make it maddening. It is worth seeing for its attention to visual detail and ambitious filmmaking, but as a psychological portrait of a compelling historical figure, it is oddly bland and unrevealing". Anthony Lane, in his review for "The New Yorker", wrote, "for all the movie's narrative momentum, "Che" retains the air of a study exercise—of an interest brilliantly explored. How else to explain one's total flatness of feeling at the climax of each movie?" Taking a more positive stance, film critic Chris Barsanti compared "Che" to a "guerrilla take on "Patton"", calling it "an exceptionally good" war film, which rivaled "The Battle of Algiers" in its "you-are-there sensibility". Roger Ebert awarded the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and addressed the film's length: "You may wonder if the film is too long. I think there's a good reason for its length. Guevara's experience in Cuba and especially Bolivia was not a series of events and anecdotes, but a trial of endurance that might almost be called mad".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Film critics Roger Ebert, and James Rocchi went further, naming "Che" one of the best films of 2008. The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Looking back at the experience of making "Che", Soderbergh has said that he now wishes that he had not made the film and remarked, "Literally I'd wake up and think, 'At least I'm not doing that today. The director blamed piracy for the film's financial failure and felt that "It's a film that, to some extent, needs the support of people who write about films. If you'd had all these guys running around talking in accented English you'd [have got] your head taken off".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Del Toro received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance, and in his acceptance speech dedicated the award "to the man himself, Che Guevara and I want to share this with Steven Soderbergh. He was there pushing it even when there [were lulls] and pushing all of us". Guevara's widow Aleida March, who is president of the Che Guevara Studies Center, sent a congratulatory note to Del Toro upon hearing the news of his award. Del Toro was awarded a 2009 Goya Award as the best Spanish Lead Actor. Actor Sean Penn, who won an Oscar for his role in "Milk", remarked that he was surprised and disappointed that "Che" and Del Toro were not also up for any Academy Award nominations. During his acceptance speech for the Best Actor's trophy at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Penn expressed his dismay stating, "The fact that there aren't crowns on Soderbergh's and Del Toro's heads right now, I don't understand ... that is such a sensational movie, "Che"." In reference to what Penn deemed a snub, he added "Maybe because it's in Spanish, maybe the length, maybe the politics".


title: Che (2008 film)

text: On 31 July 2009, Del Toro was awarded the inaugural Tomas Gutierrez Alea prize at a Havana ceremony attended by U.S. actors Robert Duvall, James Caan, and Bill Murray. Named after a prolific Cuban filmmaker, the award was voted for by the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Del Toro remarked that it was "an honor" to receive the award and thanked Soderbergh.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: "Che" was awarded "The White Camel", the top award handed out at the sixth annual Sahara International Film Festival, whose ceremony took place during the spring of 2009 in the Wilaya of Dakhla at the Sahrawi refugee camps of 30,000 residents. Executive producer Alvaro Longoria, attended to accept the award when Del Toro could not because of filming for "The Wolf Man". After dismounting the prize (which was a literal camel), Longoria remarked that "this is real, this is what Benicio and Steven tried to tell in the movie. It's right here, a people fighting a war for their dignity and their land. The principles of Che Guevara are very important to them." However, Longoria returned the live animal before departing, opting for a camel statuette.


title: Che (2008 film)

text: The film was released on Region 1 DVD in January 2009 exclusively from Blockbuster for 60 days as per an agreement with IFC. The Criterion Collection was originally scheduled to release the film on Region 1 Blu-ray Disc in December 2009. However, the release date was rescheduled to 19 January 2010. The two-disc Blu-ray Disc release features 1080p video and a Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack (with English subtitles).


title: Che (2008 film)

text: Additional supplements include audio commentaries on both films featuring Jon Lee Anderson—author of "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life", and a 20-page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Amy Taubin. There are also three short documentaries on Guevara: "Making Che"—a documentary about the film's production, "Che and the Digital Revolution"—a documentary about the Red One Camera technology that was used in the film's production, and "End of a Revolution"—a 1968 documentary by Brian Moser who was in Bolivia looking for Che when Che was executed.


title: Noise rock

text: Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, artists indulge in extreme levels of distortion through the use of electric guitars and, less frequently, electronic instrumentation, either to provide percussive sounds or to contribute to the overall arrangement.


title: Noise rock

text: Some groups are tied to song structures, such as Sonic Youth. Although they are not representative of the entire genre, they helped popularize noise rock among alternative rock audiences by incorporating melodies into their droning textures of sound, which set a template that numerous other groups followed. Other early noise rock bands were Big Black and Swans.


title: Noise rock

text: Noise rock fuses rock to noise, usually with recognizable "rock" instrumentation, but with greater use of distortion and electronic effects, varying degrees of atonality, improvisation, and white noise. One notable band of this genre is Sonic Youth, who took inspiration from the no wave composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has stated: "Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it."


title: Noise rock

text: While the music had been around for some time, the term "noise rock" was coined in the 1980s to describe an offshoot of punk groups with an increasingly abrasive approach. An archetypal album is the Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" (1968). "Treblezine"s Joe Gross credits "White Light/White Heat" as the "cult classic" with being the first noise rock album, accordingly, "perhaps it’s an obvious starting point, but it’s also the starting point. Period."


title: Noise rock

text: Red Krayola are another band that were later assessed to be early pioneers of what would become noise rock. Mark Deming of AllMusic remarked that ""The Parable of Arable Land" exists on a plane all its own; if art-damaged noise rock began anywhere, it was on this album."


title: Noise rock

text: According to legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, The Godz, a New York City-based psychedelic noise band connected to ESP-Disk, can also lay a claim to being among the first of this genre, as demonstrated on Contact High With The Godz (1966), Godz 2 (1967), and The Third Testament of The Godz (1968). Likewise, John Dougan opined in AllMusic: " the three squalling bits of avant-garde noise/junk they recorded from 1966-1968. Sounding like a prototype for Half Japanese or the Shaggs.."


title: Noise rock

text: Cromagnon were a 1960s New York City band with their only album Orgasm (1969) being cited by AllMusic's Alex Henderson as foreshadowing noise rock.


title: Noise rock

text: Guitarist Steve Albini of noise rock band Big Black stated in 1984 in an article that "good noise is like orgasm". He commented: "Anybody can play notes. There's no trick. What is a trick and a good one is to make a guitar do things that don't sound like a guitar at all. The point here is stretching the boundaries." He said that Ron Asheton of the Stooges "made squealy death noise feedback" on "Iggy monstruous songs". Albini also mentioned John McKay of Siouxsie and the Banshees, saying: ""The Scream", is notable for a couple of things: only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". Albini also said that Keith Levene of Public Image Ltd had this "ability to make an excruciating noise come out of his guitar".


title: Noise rock

text: In an article about noise rock, "Spin" wrote that a US compilation album titled "No New York" released in 1978 on an independent label called "Antilles", was important as it documented the no wave New York scene. It featured several songs of Lydia Lunch's first band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks along with material of other groups such as Mars, DNA and James Chance and the Contortions.


title: Noise rock

text: In the 1980s, Big Black, Sonic Youth and Swans were the leading figures of noise rock. Sonic Youth were the first noise rock band to get signed by a major label in 1990. Later notable bands of the noise scene were the Jesus Lizard, Liars and Unsane.


title: Noise rock

text: While noise rock has never had any mainstream popularity, the raw, distorted and feedback-intensive sound of some noise rock bands had an influence on shoegaze, which enjoyed some popularity in the 90s, especially in the UK, and grunge, the most commercially successful. Among them are Wisconsin's Killdozer, Chicago's Big Black, and most notably San Francisco's Flipper, a band known for its slowed-down and murky "noise punk". The Butthole Surfers' mix of punk, heavy metal and noise rock was a major influence, particularly on the early work of Soundgarden.


title: Noise rock

text: Starting in the 1990s, noise punk developed mostly as a form of party music, with the band Lightning Bolt serving as key players in the 2000s noise punk scene in Providence, Rhode Island, although Brian Gibson, the bands bassist, is dismissive of the noise punk label, stating "I hate, hate, hate the category "noise-punk" I really don't like being labeled with two words that have so much baggage. It's gross."


title: Five Points Gang

text: The Five Points Gang was a criminal street gang of primarily Irish-American origins, based in the Five Points of Lower Manhattan, New York City, during the late 19th and early 20th century.