Showing posts with label misogyny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misogyny. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 08, 2020
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Defining women
Defining a woman becomes complicated when one ceases to define her on the basis of gender assigned at birth. When experience varies so much from woman to woman, blanket statements fail. Though I am not an expert on gender studies -- and I hope to keep my opinions fluid -- I arrive at a definition of womanhood by looking at men: what they do, what they have, and whom they prevent from doing and having. I define womanhood by who suffers for not identifying or presenting as male, and why. -- Hari Nef, Twitter, Dec 2015
Friday, June 08, 2018
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Repeat after me
Rape is not sex
Rape is not sex
Rape is not sex.
Rape is the opposite of sex.
Rape is not a consequence of too much alcohol or too little clothing. No Kevin Spacey, rape is not a predictable end result of any sexual orientation. Rape is not epidemic because we have somehow lost genteel society. Rape is a felony. Rapists are criminals and they should go to prison just like bank robbers or murderers. Rapists do not have a lack of gentlemanly training. This isn't 1805 and it's not about failing to offer a lady a handkerchief at the formal ball.
Rape is an act of violence, not sex. Rapist feel powerful when they attack someone because they tend to feel powerless in their everyday life.
If the allegations against Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore are true, and the evidence is preponderous, neither of them needs counseling or a forceful chat with the HR department. They need to go to prison.
Sorry, Bill Maher, Harvey Weinstein doesn't need to "take better care of himself", lose weight or shave more often so he can "get laid." This is not about getting laid because rape is not about sex.
Rape. Is. Not. Sex.
Rapists are not sexually frustrated. On the contrary, rapists often are married and/or already have partners they are sexually intimate with. Some even have families with children. And, as the research in the eye-opening 2012 documentary The Invisible War showed, the majority of rapists are serial rapists. In criminal psychology, serial rapists have a lot in common with serial murderers. Serial murderers often begin their criminal careers as rapists. Rapists, exactly like serial murderers, look for opportunity, they look for victims who presumably will be easily overcome and subdued; someone small, someone drunk or impaired, someone young and inexperienced in self defense, someone disabled or unable to run or fight, someone alone, probably someone female.
Rape victims do not get raped because they a) went to the wrong party, b) walked down the wrong street, c) got in the wrong car with the wrong friend or d) left their handgun at home. Victims get raped because a rapist rapes them. Period.
Lumping Senator Al Franken or Louis CK in the same box with Weinstein or Moore is idiotic. Neither Franken or CK are felons. They are stupid, they abused their power but they are likely not rapists. The two women who had the unsavory misfortune to witness Louis CK masturbating in front of them were not raped. They were shocked, scared (because women are conditioned to anticipate odd behavior as a prelude to violence) and later, probably furious. But they are not thankfully rape victims.
Again, Weinstein and Moore are criminals. The former has millions, an entertainment empire, power and people to find and arrange rape victims for him. The latter was so pernicious a pedophile and stalker of teenage girls he was permanently banned from an Alabama strip mall by security guards.
Where it gets confusing -- the conjunction between assaulting a 14-year-old girl behind a restaurant and flashing a coworker your penis -- is called Rape Culture. It's a term that often runs in the same sentence as the War on Women. If you think, like most on the political right, that the War on Women is fictitious then you've never heard of the Congo. Or Yugoslavia. Or the Pink Taxis of Puebla. Or ISIS. Or Jyoti Singh. And on and on the list just keeps getting longer.
Men like Louis CK make the mistake of assuming women are just here for their sexual entertainment because Rape Culture has told them over and over for decades that they are. Every time a hot blonde is strewn across the hood of car in a commercial, every time a video game player has the opportunity to "rape" a character in Grand Theft Auto and every single time there's a televised beauty contest, women are objectified. Objects are things, not people. The first step in suppressing any group of people (African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, etc.) is to make them into stereotypes or caricatures and then objects. Then it's okay to rape and kill them because, Rape Culture tells us, they're not really people.
Our current sitting president attempted to dismiss claims he is a rapist by suggesting one of his victims wasn't hot enough. In the past, he's emceed and produced beauty contests. He is currently married to a former model who's primary resume point is her ability to look fuckable, to fit a stereotype, a pornographic caricature, to be a thing. I suspect, in his narcissism and selfishness, our president sees nearly everyone around him as just a thing.
We cannot stop rape until we learn to discern the difference between men behaving badly (Franken and CK) and rapists (Weinstein and Moore). We cannot dismantle Rape Culture until we dismantle the toxic patriarchy which has been telling us for ages that women are not people but simply things to be: won, earned, bought, possessed, impregnated, discarded, stereotyped and scorned (dumb virgin, slut, conniving whore, gold-digging bitch, etc.).
We cannot stop rape until we see women (and alternately LGBT, brown people, immigrants, etc.) as people. We cannot stop rape until we stop dehumanizing people.
Rape is not sex
Rape is not sex.
Rape is the opposite of sex.
Rape is not a consequence of too much alcohol or too little clothing. No Kevin Spacey, rape is not a predictable end result of any sexual orientation. Rape is not epidemic because we have somehow lost genteel society. Rape is a felony. Rapists are criminals and they should go to prison just like bank robbers or murderers. Rapists do not have a lack of gentlemanly training. This isn't 1805 and it's not about failing to offer a lady a handkerchief at the formal ball.
Rape is an act of violence, not sex. Rapist feel powerful when they attack someone because they tend to feel powerless in their everyday life.
If the allegations against Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore are true, and the evidence is preponderous, neither of them needs counseling or a forceful chat with the HR department. They need to go to prison.
Sorry, Bill Maher, Harvey Weinstein doesn't need to "take better care of himself", lose weight or shave more often so he can "get laid." This is not about getting laid because rape is not about sex.
Rape. Is. Not. Sex.
Rapists are not sexually frustrated. On the contrary, rapists often are married and/or already have partners they are sexually intimate with. Some even have families with children. And, as the research in the eye-opening 2012 documentary The Invisible War showed, the majority of rapists are serial rapists. In criminal psychology, serial rapists have a lot in common with serial murderers. Serial murderers often begin their criminal careers as rapists. Rapists, exactly like serial murderers, look for opportunity, they look for victims who presumably will be easily overcome and subdued; someone small, someone drunk or impaired, someone young and inexperienced in self defense, someone disabled or unable to run or fight, someone alone, probably someone female.
Rape victims do not get raped because they a) went to the wrong party, b) walked down the wrong street, c) got in the wrong car with the wrong friend or d) left their handgun at home. Victims get raped because a rapist rapes them. Period.
Lumping Senator Al Franken or Louis CK in the same box with Weinstein or Moore is idiotic. Neither Franken or CK are felons. They are stupid, they abused their power but they are likely not rapists. The two women who had the unsavory misfortune to witness Louis CK masturbating in front of them were not raped. They were shocked, scared (because women are conditioned to anticipate odd behavior as a prelude to violence) and later, probably furious. But they are not thankfully rape victims.
Again, Weinstein and Moore are criminals. The former has millions, an entertainment empire, power and people to find and arrange rape victims for him. The latter was so pernicious a pedophile and stalker of teenage girls he was permanently banned from an Alabama strip mall by security guards.
Where it gets confusing -- the conjunction between assaulting a 14-year-old girl behind a restaurant and flashing a coworker your penis -- is called Rape Culture. It's a term that often runs in the same sentence as the War on Women. If you think, like most on the political right, that the War on Women is fictitious then you've never heard of the Congo. Or Yugoslavia. Or the Pink Taxis of Puebla. Or ISIS. Or Jyoti Singh. And on and on the list just keeps getting longer.
Men like Louis CK make the mistake of assuming women are just here for their sexual entertainment because Rape Culture has told them over and over for decades that they are. Every time a hot blonde is strewn across the hood of car in a commercial, every time a video game player has the opportunity to "rape" a character in Grand Theft Auto and every single time there's a televised beauty contest, women are objectified. Objects are things, not people. The first step in suppressing any group of people (African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, etc.) is to make them into stereotypes or caricatures and then objects. Then it's okay to rape and kill them because, Rape Culture tells us, they're not really people.
Our current sitting president attempted to dismiss claims he is a rapist by suggesting one of his victims wasn't hot enough. In the past, he's emceed and produced beauty contests. He is currently married to a former model who's primary resume point is her ability to look fuckable, to fit a stereotype, a pornographic caricature, to be a thing. I suspect, in his narcissism and selfishness, our president sees nearly everyone around him as just a thing.
We cannot stop rape until we learn to discern the difference between men behaving badly (Franken and CK) and rapists (Weinstein and Moore). We cannot dismantle Rape Culture until we dismantle the toxic patriarchy which has been telling us for ages that women are not people but simply things to be: won, earned, bought, possessed, impregnated, discarded, stereotyped and scorned (dumb virgin, slut, conniving whore, gold-digging bitch, etc.).
We cannot stop rape until we see women (and alternately LGBT, brown people, immigrants, etc.) as people. We cannot stop rape until we stop dehumanizing people.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Misogyny compels thee!
When I was eight, The Exorcist came out in theaters in
Reno, Nevada. The book had been floating around (no, not levitating) a few years prior. I remember my teenage neighbor
showing me the passage of the book where little Regan masturbates with a cross. I couldn't comprehend it at the time but when I hit puberty I thought: a cross, really? It's telling that a man wrote this book and this was the worst thing he could think of happening ... to an object that hangs on a wall.
Years later, when I was in high school (after becoming well versed in masturbation), I finally saw the movie on cable TV. After years of exaggerated publicity it was a letdown. I don't know what I was expecting but a basic horror movie with dark lighting and a moody soundtrack just couldn't live up to all that hype. The scene where Regan is bowing down before the hazy green demon? I'd seen better special effects on Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
I now see The Exorcist for what it was: fear of a teenage girl's sexuality.
Correction: terror of female sexuality.
How many demonic possession films have been made since? Twenty at least. How many of these feature pubescent boys as the main possessed person? Almost none.
As recently as last year, a horror movie set in 1700's New England came out where the rosy-cheeked Puritan girl at the end not only has sex with Satan (who is dressed as Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Sparrow, go figure), she literally flies afterward. Flying being a clunky metaphor for orgasm. She also has to help kill her entire family. The bias is clear: female sexuality isn't just something to be feared, it drives people to murder.
In demonic possession films the victim is always female because teenage girls are terrifying. And the exorcist is always a man because he represents the dominant paradigm: white, male and heterosexual (yet weirdly celibate and supposedly immune to the girl's sexuality).
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| In yoga this is Seated Twisting Triangle pose. |
There has never been a horror movie where a possessed male victim writhes and howls sexually while tied to a bed as a female exorcist watches. This is because male sexuality isn't feared: it's humorous, it's mocked, it's every day. Female sexuality is covert. Until the likes of Broad City, it was hidden, ignored or dismissed. All the way into the new millennium scientists and social commentators were questioning why women even had orgasms. What was the point? Female sexuality is that unnecessary to the patriarchy.
Possessed female characters in horror films are always restrained because their sexuality must be. Between being tied to a bed, "burned" with crucifixes and holy water and flat-out punched (see: Cinemax's Outcast) what happens to them isn't just sadomasochism, it's full on assault. And the assailant, the exorcist, is the hero! Violence against women is re-envisioned as religious suffering.
So it was with trepidation that I watched the first couple of episodes of FOX's The Exorcist. Once again a teenage girl is getting backhanded by grown men in uniforms. Uniforms which today are more likely to get them compared to pedophiles than angels.
Surprisingly, so far the show has not fallen straight into this misogynistic trope. I mean, it has Geena Davis in it.
Mind you, the trope is still there. The possessed, Casey, is harassed on a subway and nearly raped. In response, she lets the demon possess her and reek unholy vengeance on the slimy sports fan who gropes her. Go Team Demon! But afterward, Casey is so overwhelmed by her new found dark power that she wets herself. This is keeping with the scene in the original Exorcist where little Regan pees herself after mockingly telling a guest "you're going to die." Peeing is a metaphor for menstruation, the undeniable red flag of a woman's virility and sexual maturity. But it's also a sexual fetish for the Male Gaze, see: golden showers.
The patriarchy still needs to rein in Casey's sexuality via burning her with a curling iron but thankfully, the plot is not true and straight. It's serpentine and that's good. Father Marcus is so mistreated by the juggernaut of Catholicism, you wonder why he even bothers to do good. Casey's older sister might be a lesbian, a lipstick one at that, and that's something she could be ex-communicated for. Remember what Monty Python taught us: God loves every sperm.
The third episode introduced a whole bunch of new characters and I pray we'll see more of them. There's a bad-ass nun who performs exorcisms and encourages Marcus to get in touch with his feminine side. Hallelujah! And there's a New Age tour guide couple, Cherry and Lester Rego, who steal the show with their unflappable humor when dealing with homeless Father Marcus. Yes, the Church so mistreats him, the poor guy doesn't even have a place to sleep.
In the latest episode, were given all the tie-ins to the original film's myth arc. Casey's mother, Angela, is really little Regan all grown up. The ending is a nice kick in the nuts of the possession trope with Sharon Gless filling in for Ellen Burstyn as grown-up Regan's mother. But instead of Burstyn's shrill panic, Regan's Mom is now a potent force, a re-envisioned matriarch hiding under the cloak of the patriarchy. She looks completely masculine in the closing scene under the obligatory flickering street light.
I was ready to dismiss this show and it's tired old box of misogyny until this. Now I think I'll sit in the back of the Rego's bus and let the tour unfold. And I'll save my questions for the end of the ride.
Wednesday, July 06, 2016
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Olde Raypey Tymes
Somebody get this lizard out of my wig!
I'm coming to this debate five months late, but since I'm reading the books (just started No. 4) I wanted to say something about the controversy surrounding fantasy author, George R.R. Martin's books aka HBO series Game of Thrones.
Completely unfamiliar with this melodrama? Martin began publishing a series of fantasy novels in 1996. He's an obese, old nerd who once wrote for television, was a fan of Tolkien and decided he wanted his own Middle Earth. So Martin came up with Westeros, which is like medieval France with more dismemberment (and rape).
Except he didn't like the way Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, T.H. White and a dozen others wrote fantasy. There was too much swishing of magical swords and not enough actual hacking of limbs with "real" steel swords. Apparently, Martin is a man who knows his Society for Creative Anachronism's jousting rules -- heavy vs. light armor ... (Sorry, I nodded off for a sec). So Martin's world is envisioned with all the vérité of the Dark Ages or maybe the Inquisition. Beheadings and maimings galore!!! This is fantasy for the adults. Westeros is a place where The Lord of the Rings' Frodo-n-Sam would have been court jesters by day and S&M bottoms by night.
Except that wasn't vérité enough, he wanted Westeros to feel like effed up Europe in Olden Tymes and that meant lots of misogyny. The book's narrative voice gleefully details numerous rapes with dated cheesy verbiage.
Of all the prejudices and fears of those times, why'd he pick the monotonous rape and perpetual oppression of women???
The answer's simple. Martin's a former Catholic school boy. There are two kinds of women in the Catholic school boy universe: WHORES and virgins (yee faire maidens). The end. No multi-fauceted characters as deeply flawed as the male characters allowed. In Westeros, you're either a sexless 11-year-old girl or a WHORE. And George Martin loves that word. I counted WHORE eight times on one page in the first novel.
Never mind the fact that in re-imagining a mythic Olde Europe, Martin ineptly leaves out the primary impetus for misogyny -- women weren't allowed to own property or businesses, say 'no' to a marriage proposal, lead mass, etc. -- the Church. The religion that instigated the Inquisition, burned countless Jews, women and "witches", re-wrote the New Testament, demanded exorbitant taxes from lords to build their Liberace-style Vatican, required celibate males for their priesthood ... and the absolute subjugation of women by medieval society. So what's with all the WHORE calling, George, in a pagan society???
Well today, it's titillating for one. It's sexy if you're an overweight, pasty-white nerd to imagine helpless slave girls writhing at your feet. And this hypothetical nerd has envisioned himself as being like Conan the Barbarian, with pecs bloated from steroids, legs like oak trees and a swept back Fabio hairdo (Kal Drogo!).
But I can't blame parochial school for George's fixation on pre-teen virgins. And that's just ... creepy. In one interview he glumly explains how HBO wasn't thrilled that one of the key characters, Daenerys, is just 13 when she's "wed" to a 30-year-old barbarian. So they made her 18. And George was upset that they had to get an actual adult -- a 22-year-old actor -- to play the child bride. (Damn ye censors!).
And all his fans are crying foul because snarky blogger Sady Doyle, and other women writers, are outraged by the rabid misogyny in the books and now the TV show. The argument Alyssa Rosenberg and a dozen others ineptly make is that Things Really Were Like That Way Back When. Well, yeah maybe. And if they still were, Alyssa, you and I wouldn't be sitting at computers debating the merits of a fantasy novel. All us vagina owner would be washing some feudal lord's clothing by hand, dying during child birth or maybe standing on the slave block waiting to be auctioned off to our next owner/husband. I can't wait for the re-enactment at the next renaissance fair!
Is Martin responsible for upholding his imagined characters to some higher standard? Why should he when most other sci-fi/fantasy novelists can't be bothered and their armies of mostly white, mostly heterosexual, mostly male fans are happy to consume their writing while defending any overt sexism and racism as attempts to "keep it real." (Umm, it's pretend, okay?)
But don't make the female characters as flawed and multi-fauceted as any of the dudes and thus empower them to DO SOMETHING! Rather, George (and his ilk) incessantly objectifies them so that they just sit there like inflatable dolls waiting for something to be DONE TO THEM.
Like Sansa. She just sits there, cries a lot and is the negative stereotype of the vapid, helpless, pretty teenager. Likewise Daenerys, the teen queen, who isn't allowed to have a sex life with Jora Mormount or anybody because ... because ... because ... in Martin's eyes she has to stay vaguely virginal or else she'll fall off the misogynistic precipice and into the stereotype of WHORE. And we all know what sexually active, adult women are!!! They're WHORES. They're manipulative, scheming, power-mad, hyper-emotional, duplicitous WHORES. Unless they're like Ygritte -- in which case they pay for their liberation with their lives, 'cos ya know womens is not to be trusted!
Yeesh.
But apparently complaints about Martin's Whore Tourette's Syndrome got back to him, because by book four, he's toned the WHORE-calling down a bit. Now Little homicidal Arya is traveling to distant lands (rather than being kidnapped by every murder/raper in yon Westeros). And Brienne (the Ugliest Woman in Westeros, oh the shame!) is on a horse galloping off to save Sansa (because what the hell else can you do with a one-dimensional female character except tie her to the tracks and then save her over and over?).
Too pretty to raype? Me thinks not.
Meanwhile, even if you like Martin's bloated sentences (Yee Olde Tyme Talk Es Dyfficult, M'Lord) and his endless over-use of adjectives and adverbs (please save me from "waddles") you've got to wonder: why aren't all the boys getting raped or threatened with rape? If Jaime Lannister is that pretty, why haven't any of these barbarous villains bent him over and horse fucked him yet?
And sure there are token gay male characters but they get conveniently killed off before George has to bother fleshing out their characters ala Renley Baratheon (already dead!). Apparently lesbians don't exist in this pseudo early-Euro world.
And what's up with the overt classism? Did George tour the Tower of London and just not get it? Monarchies are bad and democracies are good, right? Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Surely George isn't dragging us through thousands of pages of fantasy just to drop that cliche at our feet? I thought sci-fi/fantasy readers were a tad more sophisticated than that.
Fear not ye not-so-gentle readers of ye tomes. I shall continue to dodge hack sentences and dead-horse adverbs all the way to the end. I want to get to the part where little Arya grows up, has normal sex (not rape!) and sticks her sword so far up one of the misogynistic villain's asses it comes out his mouth.
P.S. Dear HBO, Peter Dinklage is a lot of things: talented, dynamic, hella fun to watch act. But he is not ugly, not by a long shot. Shame on you for casting him as the Ugly Character Standing in for the Ogreish Author.
Friday, December 09, 2011
"It's ALL about the body ..."
Miss Representation was made by documentarian/actor Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Newsom says her impetus for making Miss Representation was the birth of her daughter. She hopes her child’s life will be less limited, bigoted and oppressive than it is right now for anyone born female. Sadly, with every corporate media conglomerate owned by old white men like Rupert Murdoch that won't happen any time soon.
Feminists are aware of how pervasive misogyny is in movies, TV, the internet and magazines but Miss Representation hammers home statistic after statistic that had the SIFF audience groaning under the crippling sociological reality.
As one high school teen said, “It’s ALL about the body, not about the brain.”
Newsom didn’t have to look hard for material that reflects the dominant view in America she just had to turn on FOX News (owned by Murdoch) where shrieking “TV personalities” debate whether Sarah Palin had breast implants and why does Mrs. Clinton look so old?
Thoughtful interviews with prominent people like Pat Mitchell had the audience’s hands wringing. Mitchell heads the Paley Center for Media. Nobody is surprised hyper-sexualized and negative images of women has got teenage girls cutting themselves, developing eating disorders and becoming victims of assault in schools.
It’s like the entire media (magazines, films, TV and the internet) is now run by a bunch of angry teenage punks who care only about fake tits and catching female authority figures doing dumb things; except it’s not.
Corporate media is run by middle-aged and elderly homophobic men, all of them white, most of them fabulously wealthy, who arrogantly believe they have their fingers on the pulse of American culture. People like the porcine Rush Limbaugh (age 60, earned $285 million from 2001 to 2008) who slammed Michelle Obama for being "too fat" or shock jock Howard Stern, (57, net worth $500 million) who viciously attacked Gabourey Sibide after the film, Precious, for being over-weight and black. Previously, Stern hypocritically attacked Ellen DeGeneres for being a lesbian.
Amongst the points hammered home: America is near the bottom of countries that have women in their national governments, behind nations like Cuba and even Iraq. Girls as young as seven now experience body dysmorphic disorder, begin diets and obsess over dressing sexy.
Amongst the luminaries interviewed: Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinhem, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rachel Maddow and Newark Mayor Cory Booker. But it is experts like Jennifer Ponzer of Women in Media and News and Jim Steyer of Common Sense Media who make the most compelling points. Ponzer points out that “reality” TV shows where hyper-sexualized characters dressed like strippers fight over bachelors drowns out the voices of real female authority figures, like members of Congress.
Actress Geena Davis laments the root of the problem with television and film. Women almost never write or direct the narrative in these mediums. Hollywood is profoundly white, male and heterosexual, and filmmaker Paul Haggis points out, female characters in the past had more depth, were allowed more range and able to present characters that were more real ala Betty Davis in Dark Victory.
All these fake boobs, Girls Gone Wild and uber-violent video games like Grand Theft Auto have sent a clear message to young women: you’re just a hole, you’re good for fucking but nothing else and, you might not even measure up for that. And, girls are told, once you hit 40, just go away, disappear because a woman is only of worth when she’s young and appears sexually available. It’s a message that’s been voiced by Howard Stern on his radio show many times and chanted endlessly in so-called mainstream media like primetime sitcoms where every single female character is white, underweight and always under 40.
Never mind that Howard Stern is an ugly, old white guy with hair weave who bought his most recent wife.
Feminists are aware of how pervasive misogyny is in movies, TV, the internet and magazines but Miss Representation hammers home statistic after statistic that had the SIFF audience groaning under the crippling sociological reality.
As one high school teen said, “It’s ALL about the body, not about the brain.”
Newsom didn’t have to look hard for material that reflects the dominant view in America she just had to turn on FOX News (owned by Murdoch) where shrieking “TV personalities” debate whether Sarah Palin had breast implants and why does Mrs. Clinton look so old?
Thoughtful interviews with prominent people like Pat Mitchell had the audience’s hands wringing. Mitchell heads the Paley Center for Media. Nobody is surprised hyper-sexualized and negative images of women has got teenage girls cutting themselves, developing eating disorders and becoming victims of assault in schools.
It’s like the entire media (magazines, films, TV and the internet) is now run by a bunch of angry teenage punks who care only about fake tits and catching female authority figures doing dumb things; except it’s not.
Corporate media is run by middle-aged and elderly homophobic men, all of them white, most of them fabulously wealthy, who arrogantly believe they have their fingers on the pulse of American culture. People like the porcine Rush Limbaugh (age 60, earned $285 million from 2001 to 2008) who slammed Michelle Obama for being "too fat" or shock jock Howard Stern, (57, net worth $500 million) who viciously attacked Gabourey Sibide after the film, Precious, for being over-weight and black. Previously, Stern hypocritically attacked Ellen DeGeneres for being a lesbian.
Amongst the points hammered home: America is near the bottom of countries that have women in their national governments, behind nations like Cuba and even Iraq. Girls as young as seven now experience body dysmorphic disorder, begin diets and obsess over dressing sexy.
Amongst the luminaries interviewed: Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinhem, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rachel Maddow and Newark Mayor Cory Booker. But it is experts like Jennifer Ponzer of Women in Media and News and Jim Steyer of Common Sense Media who make the most compelling points. Ponzer points out that “reality” TV shows where hyper-sexualized characters dressed like strippers fight over bachelors drowns out the voices of real female authority figures, like members of Congress.
Actress Geena Davis laments the root of the problem with television and film. Women almost never write or direct the narrative in these mediums. Hollywood is profoundly white, male and heterosexual, and filmmaker Paul Haggis points out, female characters in the past had more depth, were allowed more range and able to present characters that were more real ala Betty Davis in Dark Victory.
All these fake boobs, Girls Gone Wild and uber-violent video games like Grand Theft Auto have sent a clear message to young women: you’re just a hole, you’re good for fucking but nothing else and, you might not even measure up for that. And, girls are told, once you hit 40, just go away, disappear because a woman is only of worth when she’s young and appears sexually available. It’s a message that’s been voiced by Howard Stern on his radio show many times and chanted endlessly in so-called mainstream media like primetime sitcoms where every single female character is white, underweight and always under 40.
Never mind that Howard Stern is an ugly, old white guy with hair weave who bought his most recent wife.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Once more into the breach
I got a number of responses to my post about the comic book, Crossed, being displayed without any "mature audience" labels. I'm always thrilled when people post comments. But when they apparently don't READ the post before commenting, I feel compelled to reply.
Daniel M. said...
You're concerned about a kid reading an adult comic, but shouldn't you be more concerned that a kid is wondering around without adult supervision? It's wandering, not wondering. And if I was a parent, the one event I would assume my kid would be safe to wander would be a comicon.
The con was an all ages event that catered to everyone of all ages. (Redundant) Why should that prevent a publisher from selling their comic? Re-read my original post. Point out to me the part where I suggested that Avatar Press (or any other vendor) not be able to sell their books, 'cos I never said that.
There are people of age who want to buy it. You don't have to. What about Fantagraphics? A long-time local Seattle GN/comic book seller that caters to quirky, humorous, offbeat writers and comic artists such as Dan Clowes and Ellen Forney. Yeah, SO? I don't think I've ever seen a GN at their booth that I would describe as gratuitously violent (like Crossed) or over-the-top misogynistic (look that word up).
I don't like Crossed because it seems rather childish, base and nihilistic for the sake of it, Okay ... why were you rushing to their defense again???
You seem to be pigeonholing comic cons as a certain type of event catering to certain types of people. (Again with the redundant comment.) Conventions are by definition events that cater or attract certain types of people. And this just in: the sky is blue.
I went to the con because I love the medium, not because I'm a "nerd." Now who's tossing insults? Where in my original post did I use the word "nerd"? And is that such a awful label? There's far worse out there. I too attended the convention because I love the medium, same reason I went to the last three. And I'll be going to more in the future. But the overt misogyny in Crossed offended me. And I'm still offended. I'm offended any time anyone takes a violent act and trivializes it because to some impressionable minds (10-year-old kids) that makes it seem OKAY. And it's never okay.
I bought both of those comics from Fantagraphics there, some BPRD, an Adrian Tomine thing, and a great old mini series I've been looking for ages. Awesome. I'd rattle off the names of all the GNs I bought but it's a pretty big list and I still haven't read them all. I always look for names like Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan and Neil Gaiman as well as a half-dozen smaller obscure comic writers and illustrators. Why? Because I'm pretty sure none of these writers are misogynists. (Oops, there's that word again.)
The con was for everybody. Except for people who bring their kids and let them "wonder" alone and women who take offense at graphic depictions of rape, right???
To scrutinize what's being sold, I'm a film and book critic. Scrutinizing is what I do, baby.
As for being worried that adults buy the comic because they're numb from corporate media, that's some crock. Stories and images like that have been around for centuries. But never ever have they been presented so graphically, so realistically and so REPEATEDLY as they are now in mainstream media. Between television and film, the average American kid has seen violent images thousands of times by the age of five and a disproportionate percentage of those are simulated violent acts against females by male characters.
Do I consider comicon goers who buy Crossed "nerds"? No, I'm just really worried they also go to gun conventions. And buy 9 mms for their 10-year-old kids. And then the kid goes home and watches Daddy rape and beat the shit out of Mommy and this forms his world view.
Friday, October 16, 2009
The membrane of perpetual stupidity
I'm okay with fundamentalist Muslims that want to live in the 7th Century. Really, it's okay. It's a free planet -- issue fatwas, kill school teachers, beat women for walking unattended down the street -- you Muslims party like it's 780 A.D.!
But when modern American males starts believing a ridiculous myth (thanks, abstinence education!), I must don my feminist cape and do something.
Listen up, boys and girls. The hymen. The so-called proof of a young girl's virginity? It doesn't really exist. Yup, there is no penis-proof membrane of pink tissue guarding the entrance to a teenager's vagina. Isolating and pointing out a hymen at the entrance to an organ that is a mass of folds, lips and membranes is like pointing out one damn pedal on a big clunky flower. And technically, that's not her vagina, it's just her vulva. The vagina is an internal canal, like the colon, and can only be seen with a speculum and a light.
And if a girl is in the unlucky, tiny minority and has a complete hymen, guess what happens when she's 11 to 14 years old and Aunt Flo starts visiting? She will have to have that pesky hymen lanced by an MD or she will suffer a build up of menstrual fluid, become very sick and probably DIE.
Why the fuck would anyone wish this deformity on their girl child?
I had a hippie neighbor when I was a teen growing up in Nevada. Said hippie neighbor loaned me an awesome book. It was called Our Bodies, Our Selves and it calmly explained there are different kinds of hymens and about a third of girls don't have a hymen at all. (We can only wonder how many dead teens there are in fundamentalist Muslim countries thanks to complete ignorance of this simple medical fact.)
As a teenager, my experience with this little flap of tissue was pure annoyance. The first time, I had no pain, barely bled and was super bored because the dude was a lousy lay. The second time, I bled again and was anything but bored. I was happy my hymen had receded never to be heard from again. Amen and pass the condoms.
The hippie neighbor told me she went through years of uncomfortable sex with her troll of a husband until she finally had her first kid. Then the pain was gone and she finally got to half-way enjoy herself. Again, why in the entire fucking world would anyone want to go through painful sex?
For the odd caveman out there (I'm assuming they read) who's scratching his brow and wondering about his pleasure via tightness, may I suggest a sex doll with a permanent hymen or a Fleshlight. Because if/when you're fucking an actual virgin, she likely will be as stiff as a board -- possibly from mild pain -- but mostly scared thanks to all the mental baggage attached to the mythical First Time. You know, as stiff and lifeless as a sex doll.
Here's a few FAQs:
1. Can using tampons remove or destroy a girl's hymen? Yes and no. Depends on whether or not she has one. See the above.
2. Will using a vibrator or dildo break a girl's hymen? An external vibrator? No. A dildo? Yeah, probably. And good riddance if you ask me. The person best suited to popping a girl's cherry is the owner.
3. Can falling on the top bar of a bicycle or riding a horse cause a girl to lose her hymen? I've seen this myth perpetuated on TV shows and I've yet to meet a OB/GYN who will say 'yes' to this one, so I'm saying 'no'. Unless the bike or the horse's saddle is fitted with an upright dildo, I don't see HOW this could happen. More likely, if a girl falls onto the top bar of a bike, it will cause bruising and bleeding of the vulva, the lips that form the outer most part of the vagina.
4. Can an MD or gynecologist tell whether a girl is a virgin just by examining her and looking for a hymen? No!!! In fact, when female children are molested or raped, doctors look for other signs of penetration such as scraping or bruising along the vaginal canal. The absence of a hymen is not conclusive proof of sexual assault in court.
Now, everyone please follow me, the 21st century is right up here on our left.
Uh, you have to actually leave The Past to see it. It's the up-coming part of human history that comes with space ships, genetic research, drastically improved public health, a shocking lack of superstition and little or no interest in useless flaps of genital tissue.
But when modern American males starts believing a ridiculous myth (thanks, abstinence education!), I must don my feminist cape and do something.
Listen up, boys and girls. The hymen. The so-called proof of a young girl's virginity? It doesn't really exist. Yup, there is no penis-proof membrane of pink tissue guarding the entrance to a teenager's vagina. Isolating and pointing out a hymen at the entrance to an organ that is a mass of folds, lips and membranes is like pointing out one damn pedal on a big clunky flower. And technically, that's not her vagina, it's just her vulva. The vagina is an internal canal, like the colon, and can only be seen with a speculum and a light.
And if a girl is in the unlucky, tiny minority and has a complete hymen, guess what happens when she's 11 to 14 years old and Aunt Flo starts visiting? She will have to have that pesky hymen lanced by an MD or she will suffer a build up of menstrual fluid, become very sick and probably DIE.
Why the fuck would anyone wish this deformity on their girl child?
I had a hippie neighbor when I was a teen growing up in Nevada. Said hippie neighbor loaned me an awesome book. It was called Our Bodies, Our Selves and it calmly explained there are different kinds of hymens and about a third of girls don't have a hymen at all. (We can only wonder how many dead teens there are in fundamentalist Muslim countries thanks to complete ignorance of this simple medical fact.)
As a teenager, my experience with this little flap of tissue was pure annoyance. The first time, I had no pain, barely bled and was super bored because the dude was a lousy lay. The second time, I bled again and was anything but bored. I was happy my hymen had receded never to be heard from again. Amen and pass the condoms.
The hippie neighbor told me she went through years of uncomfortable sex with her troll of a husband until she finally had her first kid. Then the pain was gone and she finally got to half-way enjoy herself. Again, why in the entire fucking world would anyone want to go through painful sex?
For the odd caveman out there (I'm assuming they read) who's scratching his brow and wondering about his pleasure via tightness, may I suggest a sex doll with a permanent hymen or a Fleshlight. Because if/when you're fucking an actual virgin, she likely will be as stiff as a board -- possibly from mild pain -- but mostly scared thanks to all the mental baggage attached to the mythical First Time. You know, as stiff and lifeless as a sex doll.
Here's a few FAQs:
1. Can using tampons remove or destroy a girl's hymen? Yes and no. Depends on whether or not she has one. See the above.
2. Will using a vibrator or dildo break a girl's hymen? An external vibrator? No. A dildo? Yeah, probably. And good riddance if you ask me. The person best suited to popping a girl's cherry is the owner.
3. Can falling on the top bar of a bicycle or riding a horse cause a girl to lose her hymen? I've seen this myth perpetuated on TV shows and I've yet to meet a OB/GYN who will say 'yes' to this one, so I'm saying 'no'. Unless the bike or the horse's saddle is fitted with an upright dildo, I don't see HOW this could happen. More likely, if a girl falls onto the top bar of a bike, it will cause bruising and bleeding of the vulva, the lips that form the outer most part of the vagina.
4. Can an MD or gynecologist tell whether a girl is a virgin just by examining her and looking for a hymen? No!!! In fact, when female children are molested or raped, doctors look for other signs of penetration such as scraping or bruising along the vaginal canal. The absence of a hymen is not conclusive proof of sexual assault in court.
Now, everyone please follow me, the 21st century is right up here on our left.
Uh, you have to actually leave The Past to see it. It's the up-coming part of human history that comes with space ships, genetic research, drastically improved public health, a shocking lack of superstition and little or no interest in useless flaps of genital tissue.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Dick Lit
I've been in a sci-fi writer's group for over a year and garnered some awesome friends who are eagle-eyed readers, thoughtful critics and open-minded ... normal folk.
Awhile back, I had to temporarily run the writer's group by myself. It was fun at first but after a couple of less-than-great meetings, I started to feel psychically drained.
There's something about the genre of science fiction, aka speculative fiction, which seems to bring a specific type of crazy out enforce. They're almost always white and male and anywhere from Baby Boomer old to Millennial twentysomething.
At the meetings, a predictable scene plays out. A guy (usually wearing mis-matched fleece and khakis) shows up with a slightly creepy smile on his face clutching some tome he has self-published. He'll eagerly tell everyone he spent $5,000 getting it published (an amount equal to a nice used car).
I've yet to see one of these self-published novels that looked good enough that I'd actually pick it up in a bookstore. Usually the cover is glossy, the paperback is over sized and there's some lurid color scheme surrounding a title that over uses all the words they tell you to never use like: space, death, god, stars, love or alien.
Mr. Self Published has brought it to show everybody he's serious about this writing thing, it's not just a hobby! Depending upon his level of crazy, the guy will either tell us the basic plot ("it's about a guy who travels thru time with the help of aliens to rescue the space program from mind-reading CIA agents disguised as runway models"). Or if he's really nuts, he'll smile coyly and tell you it can't be summed up, you must read the entire 750-page doorstop.
During the meetings, we bounce around the room doing an impromptu meet-n-greet where everybody will give their first name, mention what they're reading and what they're working on. Usually Mr. Self Published will interrupt with snarky remarks so the whole process takes twice as long as normal.
About 30 minutes in, maybe while we're talking about "World War Z", Harry Harrison or the next comicon, Mr. Self Published will pick a fight. He'll snicker loudly at the meek college girl who says she loves Terry Brooks and is writing her own fantasy story. Or someone will say something about Ursula LeGuin and he'll pipe in with "Oh, the feminazi ... I mean feminist writer".
Or if he's like the winner I dealt with, he'll take the discussion of post-apocalyptic sci-fi (something both Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy have dabbled in) to interject his theory on human extinction and why using nuclear weapons in the Middle East is a cool idea! The fur will start to fly and then Mr. Self Published will gloat, safe in his delusion of superiority, 'cos ya know, he already wrote a book predicting all this.
These freaks like to attack women authors, even roaring successes like Joanne Rowling.
I have yet to meet one of these trolls who did not use the slur chick lit; which is applied to any novel, play, script or short story ever published by a writer with a vagina. Don't expect Mr. Self Published to actually have read anything by a female author. He's way too busy and women authors just don't interest him! (This includes everyone from Joan Didion to Virginia Woolf). Mr. Self Published and his ilk are the reason why women's literature programs were invented.
I've coined a new phrase for this group of socially stunted bigots. (DISCLAIMER: as usual this applies only to some men, not all 4 billion of you.)
Dick Lit.
I define it as sci-fi or speculative fiction that has several specific elements.
Dick lit must adhere to the uber-geek norms for science fiction already set down by their favorite homophobic, misogynistic authors. It must have a machine, it must involve the hard sciences and it must involve space in some way like the launching of a futuristic space ship (think: erection).
Dick lit must have an average-looking male protagonist who is deeply misunderstood by everyone around him. A hero who everyone has failed to recognize as a genius (every cardboard character Michael Crichton ever invented).
Dick lit must have a female character (nothing but dudes would be gay), possibly extra terrestrial or part cat, who is overtly feminine and exotically beautiful in a sort of dominatrix way but who, weirdly, recognizes the genius in the story's hero and either strives to help him in an appropriately subservient fashion or, works against him since all girls are duplicitous.
At some point in the story, the female character, despite her extraterrestrial-ness or over-powering wiles, will get stuck, lost, arrested, kidnapped, gagged, brain sucked, encased in dry ice or put into a chemically-induced coma. Then, surprise, the misunderstood genius hero will come to her rescue. This will happen because from birth, we are all read stories and taught that women are people whom things happen to and men are people who do things.
Dick lit has to have action because stories where people just sit around and talk are lame, like most books women authors write. Those are just people sitting around and talking, right?
Dick lit can have sex scenes as long as they’re non-sentimental and brief, because damn it, the hero has work to do! He can’t be bangin’ intergalactic babes all day like Capt. Kirk. And there should be some weird distancing aspect to these sex scenes like sex with zombies or sex with She-Rah the raging lesbian from planet nine so if the hero has to break things off with her, it’s okay because he’s not emotionally attached, it was just random humping like on that video game, Grand Theft Auto.
Finally, the hero has either some sort of special power or a special machine for kicking ass (think: getting back at anyone who picked on the author in school).
I strongly urge every female reader and author out there to start using this cool new pop culture term at any given opportunity. Like if your boyfriend starts rambling about Peter Parker’s special powers in Spiderman, interrupt him by saying “Oh, you mean like dick lit!” Or if he begins to rant about how they got the warp drive configuration in the new Star Trek flick wrong, say: “Dude, that’s such a dick lit thing to say!”
Awhile back, I had to temporarily run the writer's group by myself. It was fun at first but after a couple of less-than-great meetings, I started to feel psychically drained.
There's something about the genre of science fiction, aka speculative fiction, which seems to bring a specific type of crazy out enforce. They're almost always white and male and anywhere from Baby Boomer old to Millennial twentysomething.
At the meetings, a predictable scene plays out. A guy (usually wearing mis-matched fleece and khakis) shows up with a slightly creepy smile on his face clutching some tome he has self-published. He'll eagerly tell everyone he spent $5,000 getting it published (an amount equal to a nice used car).
I've yet to see one of these self-published novels that looked good enough that I'd actually pick it up in a bookstore. Usually the cover is glossy, the paperback is over sized and there's some lurid color scheme surrounding a title that over uses all the words they tell you to never use like: space, death, god, stars, love or alien.
Mr. Self Published has brought it to show everybody he's serious about this writing thing, it's not just a hobby! Depending upon his level of crazy, the guy will either tell us the basic plot ("it's about a guy who travels thru time with the help of aliens to rescue the space program from mind-reading CIA agents disguised as runway models"). Or if he's really nuts, he'll smile coyly and tell you it can't be summed up, you must read the entire 750-page doorstop.
During the meetings, we bounce around the room doing an impromptu meet-n-greet where everybody will give their first name, mention what they're reading and what they're working on. Usually Mr. Self Published will interrupt with snarky remarks so the whole process takes twice as long as normal.
About 30 minutes in, maybe while we're talking about "World War Z", Harry Harrison or the next comicon, Mr. Self Published will pick a fight. He'll snicker loudly at the meek college girl who says she loves Terry Brooks and is writing her own fantasy story. Or someone will say something about Ursula LeGuin and he'll pipe in with "Oh, the feminazi ... I mean feminist writer".
Or if he's like the winner I dealt with, he'll take the discussion of post-apocalyptic sci-fi (something both Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy have dabbled in) to interject his theory on human extinction and why using nuclear weapons in the Middle East is a cool idea! The fur will start to fly and then Mr. Self Published will gloat, safe in his delusion of superiority, 'cos ya know, he already wrote a book predicting all this.
These freaks like to attack women authors, even roaring successes like Joanne Rowling.
I have yet to meet one of these trolls who did not use the slur chick lit; which is applied to any novel, play, script or short story ever published by a writer with a vagina. Don't expect Mr. Self Published to actually have read anything by a female author. He's way too busy and women authors just don't interest him! (This includes everyone from Joan Didion to Virginia Woolf). Mr. Self Published and his ilk are the reason why women's literature programs were invented.
I've coined a new phrase for this group of socially stunted bigots. (DISCLAIMER: as usual this applies only to some men, not all 4 billion of you.)
Dick Lit.
I define it as sci-fi or speculative fiction that has several specific elements.
Dick lit must adhere to the uber-geek norms for science fiction already set down by their favorite homophobic, misogynistic authors. It must have a machine, it must involve the hard sciences and it must involve space in some way like the launching of a futuristic space ship (think: erection).
Dick lit must have an average-looking male protagonist who is deeply misunderstood by everyone around him. A hero who everyone has failed to recognize as a genius (every cardboard character Michael Crichton ever invented).
Dick lit must have a female character (nothing but dudes would be gay), possibly extra terrestrial or part cat, who is overtly feminine and exotically beautiful in a sort of dominatrix way but who, weirdly, recognizes the genius in the story's hero and either strives to help him in an appropriately subservient fashion or, works against him since all girls are duplicitous.
At some point in the story, the female character, despite her extraterrestrial-ness or over-powering wiles, will get stuck, lost, arrested, kidnapped, gagged, brain sucked, encased in dry ice or put into a chemically-induced coma. Then, surprise, the misunderstood genius hero will come to her rescue. This will happen because from birth, we are all read stories and taught that women are people whom things happen to and men are people who do things.
Dick lit has to have action because stories where people just sit around and talk are lame, like most books women authors write. Those are just people sitting around and talking, right?
Dick lit can have sex scenes as long as they’re non-sentimental and brief, because damn it, the hero has work to do! He can’t be bangin’ intergalactic babes all day like Capt. Kirk. And there should be some weird distancing aspect to these sex scenes like sex with zombies or sex with She-Rah the raging lesbian from planet nine so if the hero has to break things off with her, it’s okay because he’s not emotionally attached, it was just random humping like on that video game, Grand Theft Auto.
Finally, the hero has either some sort of special power or a special machine for kicking ass (think: getting back at anyone who picked on the author in school).
I strongly urge every female reader and author out there to start using this cool new pop culture term at any given opportunity. Like if your boyfriend starts rambling about Peter Parker’s special powers in Spiderman, interrupt him by saying “Oh, you mean like dick lit!” Or if he begins to rant about how they got the warp drive configuration in the new Star Trek flick wrong, say: “Dude, that’s such a dick lit thing to say!”
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
American Idiot
On slow nights (we unemployed have a few) I've watched Wife Swap. It's this over-the-top reality show that doesn't just press the offensive button, it leans on it for 54 minutes once a week.
One episode had a white supremacist family swapping moms with an African American family. There's been a lot of so-rural-we-say-shucks families mixing it up with city slickers. And Wife Swap has done the Pagan-Punk-Rocker Mom vs. the Bible-thumping-hillbilly family to DEATH.
Now, weirdly, America is offended by the latest installment. (This after several seasons of offensive?!!!) Yes, the lethargic ire of white trash America has been roused by a Brit Twit in San Francisco, a city that's actively cultivated snobbery since about 1979.
Apparently what's got everybody's Wall-Mart undies in a twist is the fact that the twit was A) un-apologetically rude, B) brazenly proud of his (apparently upper) class and C) he's a foreigner, dagnabit!
So after multiple seasons of paranoid, controlling, psychotic husbands forbidding their families to watch 'sinful TV', dine in restaurants that serve 'murdered animals' or fail to clean their rooms ala boot camp style with a toothbrush -- they're upset because some Brit Twit talked trash about ATVs?!
I wonder how much of this ire is about the Twit verbally lashing out at the redneck wife and hurting her feelings vs. his attack on 'Merkica and the slothful, stupid pastimes so heavily promoted in some parts of the country (Missouri, anyone?).
ATVs are stupid and they do promote laziness, just like the American car or SUV. And paintball is great if you live in a trailer in Tennessee and you've run out of cows to tip, but promoting it as a way to get your gap-toothed spawn into college? PA-LEASSSE!
The Twit is right if it only takes some Toff asshat like him to get under America's skin. We are inbred, stupid and lazy if that's all it takes.
One episode had a white supremacist family swapping moms with an African American family. There's been a lot of so-rural-we-say-shucks families mixing it up with city slickers. And Wife Swap has done the Pagan-Punk-Rocker Mom vs. the Bible-thumping-hillbilly family to DEATH.
Now, weirdly, America is offended by the latest installment. (This after several seasons of offensive?!!!) Yes, the lethargic ire of white trash America has been roused by a Brit Twit in San Francisco, a city that's actively cultivated snobbery since about 1979.
Apparently what's got everybody's Wall-Mart undies in a twist is the fact that the twit was A) un-apologetically rude, B) brazenly proud of his (apparently upper) class and C) he's a foreigner, dagnabit!
So after multiple seasons of paranoid, controlling, psychotic husbands forbidding their families to watch 'sinful TV', dine in restaurants that serve 'murdered animals' or fail to clean their rooms ala boot camp style with a toothbrush -- they're upset because some Brit Twit talked trash about ATVs?!
I wonder how much of this ire is about the Twit verbally lashing out at the redneck wife and hurting her feelings vs. his attack on 'Merkica and the slothful, stupid pastimes so heavily promoted in some parts of the country (Missouri, anyone?).
ATVs are stupid and they do promote laziness, just like the American car or SUV. And paintball is great if you live in a trailer in Tennessee and you've run out of cows to tip, but promoting it as a way to get your gap-toothed spawn into college? PA-LEASSSE!
The Twit is right if it only takes some Toff asshat like him to get under America's skin. We are inbred, stupid and lazy if that's all it takes.
Monday, March 06, 2006
The Two 'F's or Why I've Hated Hollywood Since 1986
Last night while Hollywood was 'quietly judging' poor Jon Stewart as he steered the ol' Academy Awards back into port at it's usual social iceberg; I remembered when I first decided the Oscars were just plain shit.
In 1986, I was just 21 and living in the 'big city' of Sacramento. One day, on a whim I wandered into a mostly empty art house theater in the downtown area. I'd never been in an art house theater before, and aside from the uncomfortable chairs and the 1920's architecture, I initially thought it was like any other Cineplex, just smaller. I saw a movie I'd never heard of by a South American filmmaker I'd never heard of starring one actor I'd vaguely heard of (William Hurt). The movie was Kiss of the Spider Woman, and as the cliche goes, it changed my life.
For the first time I thought maybe movies (and storytelling) could actually do something. Forget that it was Raul Julia playing a political prisoner in an anonymous Latin American prison. And please forget that it had William Hurt deftly playing the most mincing and effeminate of drag queens. Because if you think that's all that movie was about, 1) you slept through it and 2) you're an idiot. Kiss of the Spider Woman was William Golding-ish in scope. It asked THE big questions: why do people do the right thing versus the wrong thing? Are they only inspired by selfish lust or does something more altruistic prompt people to risk their lives for the intangible good?
Within a year, I was living back in Nevada, far from the balmy winters and art house theaters of Sacramento. I watched the Oscars with my mother and sat there in dumbfounded shock when the Best Picture for 1986 went to Out of Africa; a bland movie about lily-white people loving and dying of syphilis in dark-brown Africa. I realized what a lot of other people already knew about the most self-congratulatory and self-censoring business in America. Hollywood has been bending over for conservative America's big raging paranoia hard-on for decades.
Last night Brokeback Mountain lost to an over-blown, wanna-be controversial film about a car accident because Brokeback has fags in it. EeewwW!
While Howard Stern had it right, the 'L' word (lesbians) equal money; the 'F' word sends legions of worried, ignorant Americans scampering for the exits. Both fags and feminists upset the patriarchal dynamic paradigm and it's high time the boys from 'Ave. G' realized that. The patriarchy likes things they can quantify, objectify and above all else, control. Homosexual male sex upsets them enough because it hints that masculinity, like femininity, is a myth and because it implies that male beauty must subscribe to some of the same cruel rules feminine beauty has slaved uselessly under. Men might just have to be as trim, young and pretty as women and where would that leave all these fat, ugly old patriarchs? But male homo love sends the gippers sprinting for their Mercedes SUVs! If some men actually LOVED each other there'd be no ... violence ... no ... war. Wouldn't that fuck up every Halliburton shareholder's day?
I like all of filmmaker Ang Lee's movies. For an Asian working on a green card, he sure can take America's pulse. I quite enjoyed The Ice Storm and the way he showed the hypocrisies of the 1970's without losing empathy for that film's unlucky characters. (Imagine Neil Labute if he had a heart.) But Brokeback Mountain is flawless. Lee took a broadly sketched Anne Proulx short story and made it flesh and blood. And Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal did what actors are SUPPOSED to do. They took a big chance. Who gives a shit if Lee went home with one less trophy last night? I predict this movie will be much like the big ones of old. Like Inherit the Wind, no one will soon forget Brokeback Mountain.
-- Mz M.
In 1986, I was just 21 and living in the 'big city' of Sacramento. One day, on a whim I wandered into a mostly empty art house theater in the downtown area. I'd never been in an art house theater before, and aside from the uncomfortable chairs and the 1920's architecture, I initially thought it was like any other Cineplex, just smaller. I saw a movie I'd never heard of by a South American filmmaker I'd never heard of starring one actor I'd vaguely heard of (William Hurt). The movie was Kiss of the Spider Woman, and as the cliche goes, it changed my life.
For the first time I thought maybe movies (and storytelling) could actually do something. Forget that it was Raul Julia playing a political prisoner in an anonymous Latin American prison. And please forget that it had William Hurt deftly playing the most mincing and effeminate of drag queens. Because if you think that's all that movie was about, 1) you slept through it and 2) you're an idiot. Kiss of the Spider Woman was William Golding-ish in scope. It asked THE big questions: why do people do the right thing versus the wrong thing? Are they only inspired by selfish lust or does something more altruistic prompt people to risk their lives for the intangible good?
Within a year, I was living back in Nevada, far from the balmy winters and art house theaters of Sacramento. I watched the Oscars with my mother and sat there in dumbfounded shock when the Best Picture for 1986 went to Out of Africa; a bland movie about lily-white people loving and dying of syphilis in dark-brown Africa. I realized what a lot of other people already knew about the most self-congratulatory and self-censoring business in America. Hollywood has been bending over for conservative America's big raging paranoia hard-on for decades.
Last night Brokeback Mountain lost to an over-blown, wanna-be controversial film about a car accident because Brokeback has fags in it. EeewwW!
While Howard Stern had it right, the 'L' word (lesbians) equal money; the 'F' word sends legions of worried, ignorant Americans scampering for the exits. Both fags and feminists upset the patriarchal dynamic paradigm and it's high time the boys from 'Ave. G' realized that. The patriarchy likes things they can quantify, objectify and above all else, control. Homosexual male sex upsets them enough because it hints that masculinity, like femininity, is a myth and because it implies that male beauty must subscribe to some of the same cruel rules feminine beauty has slaved uselessly under. Men might just have to be as trim, young and pretty as women and where would that leave all these fat, ugly old patriarchs? But male homo love sends the gippers sprinting for their Mercedes SUVs! If some men actually LOVED each other there'd be no ... violence ... no ... war. Wouldn't that fuck up every Halliburton shareholder's day?
I like all of filmmaker Ang Lee's movies. For an Asian working on a green card, he sure can take America's pulse. I quite enjoyed The Ice Storm and the way he showed the hypocrisies of the 1970's without losing empathy for that film's unlucky characters. (Imagine Neil Labute if he had a heart.) But Brokeback Mountain is flawless. Lee took a broadly sketched Anne Proulx short story and made it flesh and blood. And Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal did what actors are SUPPOSED to do. They took a big chance. Who gives a shit if Lee went home with one less trophy last night? I predict this movie will be much like the big ones of old. Like Inherit the Wind, no one will soon forget Brokeback Mountain.
-- Mz M.
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