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Buzz Feed
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Robin Williams's Daughter On AI, Matthew Lawrence Backlash
Back in 2023, Robin Williams's daughter, Zelda, passionately spoke out against the 'disturbing' idea of artificial intelligence being used to recreate her late dad's voice, with the hugely beloved actor dying by suicide in 2014 at age 63. Robin was famously very protective of the use of his voice work in life, and even feuded with Disney after they used his Aladdin character, the Genie, to sell merchandise. The feud was so dramatic that Robin didn't return for the animated movie's sequel, and Homer Simpson voice actor, Dan Castellaneta, was cast to replace him as the Genie instead. Robin did return for the third movie, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, two years later. And Zelda advocated for her father in a statement that was issued in support of the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild's fight against AI two years ago. She wrote at the time: 'I am not an impartial voice in the SAG's fight against AI. I've witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/ recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad.' 'This isn't theoretical, it is very very real. I've already heard AI used to get his 'voice' to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings,' she went on. 'Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance.''These recreations are, at the very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for,' Zelda concluded the post. And this is why people have been left so mad at Matthew Lawrence — who worked with Robin as a child star — after he recently doubled down on his wish to use AI to do 'something really special' in Robin's memory. For reference, Matthew was 12 years old when he played Robin's son Chris in the 1993 movie Mrs. Doubtfire. He was already a pretty established child actor by the time that he landed the role, but he has always been incredibly open about how influential working with Robin on this film was for him. "He stayed a part of my life, you know?' the now-45-year-old star told People earlier this year. 'That movie could have wrapped [and] like everybody else, he could have gone his separate way, but he didn't.''He stayed invested, and he gave me some incredible life lessons that definitely kept me from some dark places at times. And I'll just never be able to thank him enough for that,' Matthew added. In a separate interview with Entertainment Weekly, Matthew shared: 'I didn't quite realize it at the time, but that moment there on set of Mrs. Doubtfire, that those six to eight months were the biggest learning curve anyone can get when it comes to making movies and being an entertainer.' 'And then on top of that, you get a chance to be around Robin Williams, and he takes an investment in you, as he does with people. But in particular, he really took an investment with me,' he went on. "He really quantified what it was to be a real artist for me in the sense that he was definitely, and I worked with some great people, and he was definitely the most brilliant artist I've ever worked with.' 'But on top of that, he had the compassion, he had the humility, and he also had these things that he struggled with,' Matthew noted. 'Man, it's a real shame that he's not with us. There's not a day that goes by that I don't hear his voice,' he then told the publication. 'I even wish, now with artificial intelligence, I kind of want to go to his family and be like: 'Would you guys allow me to use his voice for some sort of creative expression?' Because I hear it every day, in my head.' And Matthew doubled down on his idea to use AI to bring Robin's voice back to the masses during his appearance in Entertainment Weekly's Comic-Con video suite on Friday — and it did not go down well with fans. In the conversation, Matthew explained: 'I would love — obviously, with the respect and with the OK from his family — I would love to do something really special with his voice because I know for a generation, that voice is just so iconic.''It's not just the fact that I knew him and worked with him and so it's in my head — it's in everybody's head. And it would be so cool,' Matthew went on, before detailing that the idea came to him after he watched one of Robin's old commercials. 'It's kinda like this very contemporary, modern, almost sort of foreshadowing of what's going on commercial that he did, where he did this computerized voiceover,' Matthew shared. 'And it always stuck with me. And then, during his passing, with the AI coming out, I'm like: 'Man, he's gotta be the voice of AI. He's gotta be the voice in something.' So yeah, I would love to do that.' But this idea sparked instant criticism on social media, with one hugely viral tweet responding to Matthew's quotes simply reading: 'Tell him to fuck off.' 'No. Let the man rest and our memories of him go on,' somebody else wrote, while another tweeted: 'The possibility of exploiting the talent of dead people through AI is sincerely one of its most repugnant uses, utterly disrespectful for artist of the past and the future.' And one more added: 'theres no amount of respect or consent from his family that would ever make it okay to use AI on a person especially if theyve passed away.' Others referenced Zelda's past comments, with one person sharing a screenshot of a news article about her quotes and writing: "Yeah, I doubt Matthew Lawrence is going to get that permission..." "Zelda would never be okay with it. You'll never see him in AI. Don't even bother asking the first time," somebody else wrote: "His daughter, Zelda Williams would absolutely refuse. She absolutely hates it when people use AI to impersonate her father." What do you make of Matthew's comments? Let me know down below!
NZ Herald
20-07-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
One man and his tower that's a monument to Chen Tianming's determination to live where and how he wants
He climbed lightly up the ladders, past the fifth-floor reading nook and the sixth-floor open-air tearoom. From the ninth floor, he surveyed the sturdy, standardised apartment buildings in the distance where his neighbours live. 'They say the house is shabby, that it could be blown down by wind at any time,' he said — an observation that did not seem altogether far-fetched when I visited him last month. 'But the advantage is that it's conspicuous, a bit eye-catching. People admire it,' he added. 'Other people spend millions, and no one goes to look at their houses.' Chen's house is so unusual that it has lured gawkers and even tourists to his rural corner of Guizhou province, in southwestern China. It evokes a Dr Seuss drawing, or the Burrow in Harry Potter. Many people on Chinese social media have compared it to Howl's Moving Castle. Chen Tianming's house after dark, in Xingyi, China. Photo / Andrea Verdelli, the New York Times To the casual observer, the house may be a mere spectacle, a Frankensteinian oddity. To Chen, it is a monument to his determination to live where — and how — he wants, in defiance of the local government, gossiping neighbours and seemingly even common sense. He began modifying his family home in 2018, when the authorities in the city of Xingyi ordered his village demolished to make way for a resort they planned to build. Chen's parents, farmers who had built the house in the 1980s, thought that the money that officials were offering as compensation for the move was too low and refused to leave. When bulldozers began razing their pomegranate trees anyway, Chen rushed home from Hangzhou, the eastern city where he had been working as a package courier. Along with his brother, Chen Tianliang, he started adding a third floor. At first, the motivation was in part practical: Compensation payment was determined by square footage, and if the house had more floors, they would be entitled to more money. They visited a second-hand building materials market and bought old utility poles and red composite boards — cheaper than the black ones — and hammered, screwed and notched them together into floorboards, walls and supporting columns. Then, Chen, who had long had an amateur interest in architecture, wondered what it would be like to add a fourth floor. His brother and parents thought there was no need, so Chen did it alone. Then, he wondered about a fifth. And a sixth. Chen Tianming looks at his phone in an upper floor bedroom of his house in Xingyi, China. Photo / Andrea Verdelli, the New York Times 'I just suddenly wanted to challenge myself,' he said. 'And every time I completed my own small task or dream, it felt meaningful.' He was also fuelled by resentment towards the Government, which kept serving him with demolition orders and sending officials to pressure his family. By that point, their house was virtually the only one left in the vicinity; his neighbours had all moved into the new apartment buildings about 5km away. (Local officials have maintained to Chinese media that the building is illegal.) Mass expropriations of land, at times by force, have been a widespread phenomenon in China for decades amid the country's modernisation push. The homes of those who do manage to hold out are sometimes called 'nail houses', for how they protrude like nails after the area around them has been cleared. Still, few stick out quite like Chen's. A former mathematics major who dropped out of university because he felt that higher education was pointless, Chen spent years bouncing between cities, working as a calligraphy salesperson, insurance agent, and courier. But he yearned for a more pastoral lifestyle, he said. When he returned to the village in 2018 to help his parents fend off the developers, he decided to stay. 'I don't want my home to become a city. I feel like a guardian of the village,' he said, over noodles with homegrown vegetables that his mother had stir-fried on their traditional brick stove. Distant high-rise residences and colourful lights hanging from one of the floors of Chen Tianming's house, at dusk. Photo / Andrea Verdelli, the New York Times In recent years, the threat of demolition has become less immediate. Chen filed a lawsuit against the local government and the developers, which is still pending. In any case, the proposed resort project stalled after the local government ran out of money. (Guizhou, one of China's poorest and most indebted provinces, is littered with extravagant, unfinished tourism projects.) But Chen has continued building. The house is now a constantly evolving display of his interests and hobbies. On the first floor, Chen hung calligraphy from artists he befriended in Hangzhou. On the fifth, he keeps a pile of faded books, mostly about history, philosophy and psychology. The sixth floor has potted plants and a plank of wood suspended from the ceiling with ropes, like a swing, to hold a mortar and pestle and a teakettle. On the eighth, a gift from an art student who once visited him: a lamp, with the shade made of tiny photographs of his house from different angles. With each floor that he added, he moved his bedroom up, too: 'That's what makes it fun'. His parents and brother sleep on the ground floor and rarely make the vertiginous ascent. Each morning, he inspects the house from top to bottom. To reinforce the fourth and fifth floors, he hauled wooden columns up through the windows with pulleys. He added the buckets of water throughout the house after a storm blew out a fifth-floor wall. Eventually, he tore down most of the walls on the lower floors, so that wind could pass straight through the structure. 'There's a law of increasing entropy,' Chen said. 'This house, if I didn't care for it, would naturally collapse in two years at most.' He added: 'But as long as I'm still standing, it will be too'. Maintenance costs more time than money, he said. He estimated that he had spent a little more than US$20,000 ($33,500) on building materials. He has also spent about US$4000 on lawyers. His family has been, if not enthusiastic about, at least resigned to Chen's whims. His parents are accustomed to curious visitors, at least a few every weekend. His brother came up with the idea of illuminating the house at night with lanterns. Chen Tianming's mother watches TV on the first floor of their house in Xingyi, China. Photo / Andrea Verdelli, the New York Times They have all united against their fellow villagers, who they say accuse them of being nuisances, or greedy. 'Now we just don't go over there,' said Tianliang, Chen's brother. 'There's no need to listen to what they say about us.' In town, some residents said exactly what the Chens predicted they would: that the house would collapse any day; that they were troublemakers. (The local government erected a sign near the house warning of safety hazards.) But others expressed admiration for Chen's creativity. Zhu Zhiyuan, an employee at a local supermarket, said he had been drawn in when passing by on his scooter and had ventured closer for a better look. Still, he had not dared get too close. 'There are people who say it's illegal,' he said. Then he added: 'But if they tore it down, that would be a bit of a shame'. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Vivian Wang Photographs by: Andrea Verdelli ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
Boston Globe
19-07-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Tear it down, they said. He just kept building.
Advertisement From the ninth floor, he surveyed the sturdy, standardized apartment buildings in the distance where his neighbors live. 'They say the house is shabby, that it could be blown down by wind at any time,' he said — an observation that did not seem altogether far-fetched when I visited him last month. 'But the advantage is that it's conspicuous, a bit eye-catching. People admire it,' he added. 'Other people spend millions, and no one goes to look at their houses.' Chen's house is so unusual that it has lured gawkers and even tourists to his rural corner of Guizhou province, in southwestern China. It evokes a Dr. Seuss drawing, or the Burrow in 'Harry Potter.' Many people on Chinese social media have compared it to 'Howl's Moving Castle.' Advertisement To the casual observer, the house may be a mere spectacle, a Frankensteinian oddity. To Chen, it is a monument to his determination to live where — and how — he wants, in defiance of the local government, gossiping neighbors and seemingly even common sense. He began modifying his family home in 2018, when the authorities in the city of Xingyi ordered his village demolished to make way for a resort they planned to build. Chen's parents, farmers who had built the house in the 1980s, thought that the money that officials were offering as compensation for the move was too low and refused to leave. When bulldozers began razing their pomegranate trees anyway, Chen rushed home from Hangzhou, the eastern city where he had been working as a package courier. Along with his brother, Chen Tianliang, he started adding a third floor. At first, the motivation was in part practical: Compensation payment was determined by square footage, and if the house had more floors, they would be entitled to more money. They visited a secondhand building materials market and bought old utility poles and red composite boards — cheaper than the black ones — and hammered, screwed and notched them together into floorboards, walls and supporting columns. Then, Chen, who had long had an amateur interest in architecture, wondered what it would be like to add a fourth floor. His brother and parents thought there was no need, so Chen did it alone. Then, he wondered about a fifth. And a sixth. 'I just suddenly wanted to challenge myself,' he said. 'And every time I completed my own small task or dream, it felt meaningful.' Advertisement He was also fueled by resentment toward the government, which kept serving him with demolition orders and sending officials to pressure his family. By that point, their house was virtually the only one left in the vicinity; his neighbors had all moved into the new apartment buildings about 3 miles away. (Local officials have maintained to Chinese media that the building is illegal.) Mass expropriations of land, at times by force, have been a widespread phenomenon in China for decades amid the country's modernization push. The homes of those who do manage to hold out are sometimes called 'nail houses,' for how they protrude like nails after the area around them has been cleared. Still, few stick out quite like Chen's. A former mathematics major who dropped out of university because he felt that higher education was pointless, Chen spent years bouncing between cities, working as a calligraphy salesperson, insurance agent and courier. But he yearned for a more pastoral lifestyle, he said. When he returned to the village in 2018 to help his parents fend off the developers, he decided to stay. 'I don't want my home to become a city. I feel like a guardian of the village,' he said, over noodles with homegrown vegetables that his mother had stir-fried on their traditional brick stove. In recent years, the threat of demolition has become less immediate. Chen filed a lawsuit against the local government and the developers, which is still pending. In any case, the proposed resort project stalled after the local government ran out of money. (Guizhou, one of China's poorest and most indebted provinces, is littered with extravagant, unfinished tourism projects.) Advertisement But Chen has continued building. The house is now a constantly evolving display of his interests and hobbies. On the first floor, Chen hung calligraphy from artists he befriended in Hangzhou. On the fifth, he keeps a pile of faded books, mostly about history, philosophy and psychology. The sixth floor has potted plants and a plank of wood suspended from the ceiling with ropes, like a swing, to hold a mortar and pestle and a teakettle. On the eighth, a gift from an art student who once visited him: a lamp, with the shade made of tiny photographs of his house from different angles. With each floor that he added, he moved his bedroom up, too: 'That's what makes it fun.' (His parents and brother sleep on the ground floor and rarely make the vertiginous ascent.) Each morning, he inspects the house from top to bottom. To reinforce the fourth and fifth floors, he hauled wooden columns up through the windows with pulleys. He added the buckets of water throughout the house after a storm blew out a fifth-floor wall. Eventually, he tore down most of the walls on the lower floors, so that wind could pass straight through the structure. 'There's a law of increasing entropy,' Chen said. 'This house, if I didn't care for it, would naturally collapse in two years at most.' He added, 'But as long as I'm still standing, it will be too.' Maintenance costs more time than money, he said. He estimated that he had spent a little more than $20,000 on building materials. He has also spent about $4,000 on lawyers. His family has been, if not enthusiastic about, at least resigned to Chen's whims. His parents are accustomed to curious visitors, at least a few every weekend. His brother came up with the idea of illuminating the house at night with lanterns. They have all united against their fellow villagers, who they say accuse them of being nuisances, or greedy. Advertisement 'Now we just don't go over there,' said Tianliang, Chen's brother. 'There's no need to listen to what they say about us.' In town, some residents said exactly what the Chens predicted they would: that the house would collapse any day; that they were troublemakers. (The local government erected a sign near the house warning of safety hazards.) But others expressed admiration for Chen's creativity. Zhu Zhiyuan, an employee at a local supermarket, said he had been drawn in when passing by on his scooter and had ventured closer for a better look. Still, he had not dared get too close. 'There are people who say it's illegal,' he said. Then he added, 'But if they tore it down, that would be a bit of a shame.' This article originally appeared in
IOL News
04-07-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
'Zionacity': The Audacity of Pretend Intellectualism
Tim Flack critiques Gillian Schutte's term 'Zionacity', revealing how it distorts historical truths and manipulates ideological narratives, ultimately challenging the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination. Image: IOL / Ron AI A reply to Gillian Schutte, by Tim Flack In the now all-too-familiar theatre of progressive thought, where victimhood is currency and language is weaponised to invert truth, we find ourselves confronted with a fresh absurdity. Gillian Schutte, self-styled decolonial thinker and social critic, has coined a term 'Zionacity'. A Frankensteinian mash-up of "Zionism" and "audacity," it is the sort of pseudo-intellectual graffiti one might find scribbled in the margins of a 1st years Marxist seminar notes, rather than in anything resembling serious journalism or moral philosophy. Yet here it is, published with no sense of shame or rigour, paraded as if it were a concept of gravitas, rather than a crude ideological club designed to bludgeon the world's only Jewish state. In just a few short paragraphs, Schutte manages to unravel any credibility she may have had by engaging in an extraordinary exercise in double standards, historical revisionism, and - dare we say it - a rather fashionable brand of antisemitism, cloaked, as always, in the language of virtue. Let us begin with her core assertion: that Zionism is not a political movement rooted in the self-determination of a historically persecuted people, but rather a "psychosis," a "global apparatus of control," a "death cult" feeding on the corpses of others. This is not criticism. This is incitement with adjectives. And it's precisely the sort of grotesque rhetorical overreach that reveals the intellectual poverty of her position. Zionism, for the uninitiated or the wilfully ignorant, is the belief that Jews - a people indigenous to the land of Israel, with a continuous presence there for over three millennia - have a right to national self-determination in their ancestral homeland. It is not imperialism. It is not colonialism. It is not conquest. It is return. That this simple truth must still be defended in 2025, and defended against supposed "anti-racists," is a mark of just how distorted our discourse has become. Schutte accuses Zionists of "elevating one group's trauma" above others. This, she says, is the moral disease of "Zionacity." But this is a malicious and cynical sleight of hand. Jewish trauma - pogroms, inquisitions, expulsions, ghettos, blood libels, forced conversions, and of course, the Holocaust - is not elevated. It is remembered. And it is remembered not to cancel out other people's suffering, but because forgetting it has proven time and again to be a luxury Jews cannot afford. To remember Auschwitz is not to diminish Gaza. But to accuse Jews of weaponizing memory is, in effect, to accuse them of having survived too visibly. She then asserts that Zionism, again, Jewish national self-determination has become a template for "settler-colonialism" globally. Here we enter the realm of hallucinatory projection. Are we seriously to believe that Afrikaner farmers in the Karoo are inspired by Herzl and Ben-Gurion? That global injustice, from Yemen to Donbas, is downstream from Tel Aviv? This is the sort of ideological derangement that used to be confined to fringe pamphlets and badly moderated message boards, not respectable publications. But such is the reach of post-colonial chic that anything, however ludicrous, can be published, so long as Jews are the villains. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Her most odious claim and let's not be coy here, is that Jewish grief is uniquely manipulative. That it is not just remembered, but "weaponised." That it is not just sacred, but enforced through guilt. In this framing, Jews do not mourn, they plot. They do not suffer, they scheme. This is the old libel, reheated for the Instagram era. Replace the word "Zionist" with "Jew" in her piece and one quickly realises the ideological lineage of her accusations. They are not new. They are not clever. They are simply more dangerous in an age that has forgotten its history. She laments that radical anti-Zionist Jews are "silenced." Nonsense. Anti-Zionist Jews are given front row seats at every anti-Israel protest, paraded as token 'as a Jews' for ideological antisemitism. The fact that they represent a minuscule sliver of global Jewry is irrelevant to Schutte. What matters is their usefulness as fig leaves for her project of demonisation. They are not prophets they are props. The linguistic trickery continues. Israel doesn't defend itself, it "bombs Gaza." It doesn't resist annihilation, it imposes siege. The flattening of language is complete. Hamas is nowhere to be found. The thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli cities are absent. The tunnels, the hostage-taking, the massacre of October 7 are all unmentionable. Because they disrupt the victim-oppressor binary Schutte so desperately needs to maintain. And then, as if to remind us of her seriousness, she expands her lens to the entire world. Venezuela, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Donbas. All tragic. All relevant. But none of them have anything to do with Zionism. Yet she drops them in like seasoning, hoping the reader won't notice the false equivalencies, or worse, will see Zionism as the root of all geopolitical evil. The move is transparent and it is also contemptible. And here lies the irony. The ideology Schutte claims to oppose, one that allegedly monopolises grief and dehumanises others, is, in fact, the one she practises. She demands selective empathy. She criminalises Jewish memory. She pathologizes Jewish self-defence. And she frames Palestinian suffering not as tragedy but as a cudgel to delegitimise an entire people's existence. It is not Zionists who dehumanise others. It is Gillian Schutte who denies the humanity of Israelis, and by extension, the Jewish people. It is she who insists that Jewish survival is inherently supremacist, that Jewish agency is inherently colonial, that Jewish statehood is inherently illegitimate. Let us be very clear, her vision ends with the dismantling of Israel. That is not justice, that is annihilation by another name.
IOL News
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Body horror, Springbok style: Rassie Erasmus' hybrid revolution
Andre Esterhuizen has been a major talking point this week after the centre packed down at flank against the Barbarians. Photo: Backpagepix Image: Backpagepix The first time I came into contact with some form of body horror was most probably somewhere in the late 1990s while watching Akira as a teenager. That seminal anime has a larger footprint than you might imagine — especially if you're not familiar with the classic 1980s Japanese animated film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. It's probably impossible to list or record all the homages, mentions and influences that the 1988 flick has had on a generation of filmmakers, many of whom have inserted some sort of nod to the beloved work in their own creations. It can get quite gruesome by its climax, but as far as film literature goes, few works have left such an indelible mark on the generations that have followed. Much like how David Cronenberg defined body horror through works such as The Fly, and John Carpenter set the standard with The Thing, Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus is currently cooking up Frankensteinian hybrids amongst his think tank at the national set-up. That may sound a bit harsh… To be clear, I don't believe Erasmus is doing anything untoward or against the spirit of rugby, nor is he some evil genius scientist trying to ruin the game for anyone. Instead, the need to experiment — to push the boundaries of what's expected and challenge the norm — is inspired, out-of-the-box thinking. If anything, his tinkering is more akin to the meshing of a Xenomorph and a Yautja — a Predalien. And if you were born in the '80s or '90s, that might just be the coolest blerrie thing that could have happened to those franchises. Of course, as with the actual attempt to create a shared universe between Alien and Predator, we were all a bit underwhelmed in the end. And that might be true, too, of the current endeavour to create what has been termed a 'hybrid player' by Erasmus and Co. It was somewhat surprising, but not wholly unexpected, when centre Andre Esterhuizen packed down at flank for the Boks against the Barbarians. After all, Erasmus has innovated in such a manner before. Take Kwagga Smith — covering both as a loose-forward and a wing. It may have raised eyebrows initially, but the logic was sound, and the execution even better. Then there's Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden. Both were used at hooker despite being natural flankers — an unusual call, but one that paid off thanks to their breakdown skill and versatility. And who could forget Cheslin Kolbe? Deployed as a wing, a makeshift scrumhalf, and even stepping into line-out duties usually reserved for hookers. That kind of multi-role execution requires serious foresight and trust in a player's skill set. These aren't just quirky selections. They're part of a larger, calculated approach — taking advantage of the laws of rugby and the full capabilities of the athletes available. It's clever, disruptive, and very Bok. Will it work? I'm not wholly convinced, but then we can all agree many teams don't have a big, versatile unit such as Esterhuizen to experiment with. It might be just a step too far at Test level and it feels a bit rugby league to me, which isn't really my ball game. What I will enthusiastically agree with is the need for such innovation and being the rugby nation of such innovations. It speaks to a Bok group that is confident in their set-up, understands what they want to achieve, and has the ability to approach the evolving rugby landscape with dynamic ideas. Moreover, it is a testament to the continued buy-in of the players in the Rassie era — the willingness to learn and expand on new skill sets. It is also an advertisement for the depth and strength of SA rugby. It is something we can all be proud of. And if it does work, well, what a boon to our team. Erasmus might have opened Pandora's box on this one, and regardless of whether it pays off, it certainly makes us the trend-setters of world rugby. Whether Jekyll or Hyde, Erasmus is forcing rugby to evolve — and the rest of the world may soon be playing catch-up.
