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Myndex authored Jun 17, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -53,6 +53,23 @@ For more background on APCA and Readability, you may find these links helpful:
- [The APCA Discussion Forum](https://github.com/Myndex/SAPC-APCA/discussions) the discussion forum on GitHub, free to join in the conversation.
- [APC-Readability Criteria](https://readtech.org/ARC/) Public Working Draft of the next generation guidelines for visual accessibility and readability.


### About the Title of This Repo
Yes, I know rebuttal is not spelled like _"buttle"_.

In Terry Gilliam's classic film, _**"Brazil"**_ a key early plot point is where a literal bug (a flying beetle) was killed by a bureaucrat and falls into a computer's teletype, typing out the last name "Buttle" instead of "Tuttle." As a result one Mr. Buttle was wrongly arrested and interrogated at too high of a voltage, causing his untimely expiration. The film had much to say about the unfortunate side effects from unilateral control by massive bureaucracies.

There was a bitter irony surrounding the film, discussed in the book ["The Battle of Brazil"](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Battle_of_Brazil/QhTu2cmUcqUC?hl=en), where Terry Gilliam, an uncompromising genius filmmaker, met the "not at all filmmakers" who were running Universal at the time. The film as released in Europe is an artistic masterpiece, the story follows a worker who finds solace from his dull days feeding the bureaucratic machine, by losing himself in his dreams, soaring through the sky as if Icarus with mechanical wings.

Universal's studio head at the time was Sid Sheinberg, who's only attempt at a creative thought was his failed proposal to entitle the film **_"Back to the Future"_** as _**"Space Man From Pluto"**_, obviously having no idea what _"Back to the Future"_ was actually about.

Sid and his bean-counting buddies did not understand Brazil, and unfortunately for Terry, the Euro version was too long per the contract he had with Universal. Terry cut the film down to 132 minutes, but was unable to cut more and retain the story—and as a result, this gave Universal the right to re-cut the film however they pleased. The result was the nearly unwatchable _"Sid Sheinberg Love Conquers All"_ version of Brazil, cut to 90 minutes, given a sappy happy ending befitting a forgettable TV movie of the week (from whence Sid came). This version was a corruption at best, and controversy followed.

[**Gilliam declared war**](https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-story-of-the-three-cuts-of-terry-gilliams-brazil), and a battle ensued over which version American audiences would be allowed to see. Eventually, it was Gilliam's 132 minute version. But if you haven't seen it, I do recommend the full European cut, available from the Criterion Collection.

This repo, "Tuttle and Buttle" is directly a nod toward Gilliam's film and his resolute stance in protecting his work. In the more general sense, the name of the repo implies the nature of such battles, standing up for what is right, and dismissing the posturing charlatans who follow arbitrary numbers or badly formed rules due to a lack of critical thinking skills.


[1]: WCAG3NotReady-Rebuttal.md
[2]: https://github.com/Myndex/apca-introduction?tab=readme-ov-file#corrected-fork-of-apca-introduction-with-comments
[3]: https://github.com/Myndex/apca-introduction/blob/main/analysis.md
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