Please note:
1. "You are holding Kamala Harris, for example, to standards, scrutiny, and shaming to which white men who hold her positions (or even worse ones) are never held. I see you."
and
2. "Kamala Harris is above criticism! She is perfect and you are not allowed to have valid criticisms of Black women!"
are not the same thing. They are different things!
And if you read someone making the first point, but accuse them of making the second point, you are an asshole who is deliberately misrepresenting their point in order to deflect accountability for engaging in transparent double-standards.
Showing posts with label Today in Kyriarchal Clusterfucks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Today in Kyriarchal Clusterfucks. Show all posts
An Observation
"Sanders Democrats" Don't Own the Left
[Content Note: Racism; misogyny; rape culture.]
It is not yet 9 months since the last presidential election, and already people are talking about the next one. While I understand the desire to think about the end of Donald Trump's presidency, at this point we don't need to be talking about candidates for 2020 before we've ensured that we'll still have free and fair elections. Who's running doesn't matter if the election itself is corrupted by foreign influence, voter suppression, and voting machine hacking.
Nonetheless, people are talking about who they want to run against Trump — and one of the people frequently mentioned is California Senator Kamala Harris. Who used to routinely make the lists of "Women We'd Vote for Who Aren't Hillary Clinton, to Prove We're Not Misogynists," but now is suddenly also insufficiently progressive.
Astounding how quickly the Bernie Sanders crew has mobilized against Kamala Harris. pic.twitter.com/ERUuhfFSvw
— Yashar Ali (@yashar) August 3, 2017
At the Week, Ryan Cooper decided to 'splain why it is that "leftists" are going after Democrats like Kamala Harris, and he wants us to know that it definitely isn't sexism or racism, even though he "would bet quite a lot of money the centrist Democratic establishment will" claim otherwise.
The optics here are not good — especially given the attacks on Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillibrand, and even Elizabeth Warren just for endorsing Clinton during the last cycle.
Cooper assures us that racism and misogyny play no role, and that to assert they do is just a cynical attempt by centrists "to win dirty." But if racism and misogyny play no role, then why is it only men of color and women who come up for this sort of scrutiny?
Yes, we're just scrutinizing records. Kicking tires. Digging into backgrounds. Demanding answers.
— Tom Watson (@tomwatson) August 3, 2017
Of every black Democrat.#badlook
That's one problem with this piece of apologia. The other is this: "Leftists" is defined to exclude anyone who doesn't support Bernie Sanders.
Writes Cooper: "At any rate, if I had to guess, I'd say we're in for a rather bitter fight for supremacy over the Democratic Party between big money elites on one side and Sanders Democrats on the other."
So, you're either a supporter of "big money elites," or you're a "Sanders Democrat" and thus a leftist.
That is a garbage construction, which elides that many of the disagreements between "Sanders Democrats" and Democrats are really about process, not policy.
It further elides how important the Democratic Party is, even when it's more conservative than "Sanders Democrats" would like, to lots of marginalized people in places across the country where Democrats are often the only ones standing between Republican state majorities and the complete annihilation of marginalized people's basic rights.
This is something about which I wrote during the primary in March of last year, by which point the word "revolution" had become a prominent fixture. There were voters talking about revolution, candidates talking about revolution, media talking about voters and candidates who were talking about revolution. But there was rarely any attempt made to clearly define what revolution meant, exactly. To some people, it meant (and means still) breaking up the banks. To others, it meant "making America great again." To still others, it meant electing a history-making candidate.
On the Democratic side of the aisle, there was particular disagreement about "revolution" — how it's defined and how it's best enacted — that came to be framed as those who want revolution (Sanders supporters) and those who don't (Clinton supporters).
But that was a false dichotomy, one that unnecessarily segments progressive voters in ways detrimental to our common interests; a misleading division born of and facilitated by a profound misunderstanding of why some Democratic voters, eager for change, may quite reasonably embrace a more measured and incrementalist approach.
Part of the reason that Black voters and non-Black voters, especially white voters from marginalized communities, joined to deliver crucial victories to Hillary Clinton across the Southern U.S. during the primary is because Sanders' message of revolution, which centered on upending rather than refining the system, failed to resonate. And contrary to pervasive narratives, it was not because voters in those states are too conservative or were too uninformed to appreciate Sanders' big ideas.
The truth is that the prospect of revolution, and the notions of monumental, sudden, chaotic change it conjures, can be utterly unappealing to people desperately longing for comfort and stability.
This is an idea with roots in Black anti-poverty activism, whose activists have detailed that, for many people living on the precipice, the idea of revolution can be nothing short of terrifying. People struggling to find money to keep themselves fed may be justifiably wary of the consequences of economic tumult for those already in financially precarious circumstances. People whose communities are under constant assault from police, corporations, and gentrifiers may be justifiably anxious about the prospect of further civil turmoil.
Like Black communities, other marginalized communities may have members who regard the specter of revolution with fear and suspicion. And with good reason: Revolution is not always kind to the vulnerable people.
At least not the kind of tumultuous, upending revolution that was and is proposed by people who don't view the incrementalist, within-the-system approach favored by Democrats like Clinton, Harris, Booker, Patrick, Gillibrand, and others as deserving of being called a revolution at all.
But how we view revolution often has a lot of do with from where we come.
My former colleague Ginger McKnight-Chavers, a Generation X Black woman, a Texas transplant to New York City, explains:
A discomfort with revolution is not necessarily passivity. With respect to African-American people, we're not monolithic by any stretch. But there is a sense of pragmatism in the way many of us approach politics that arises from needing real solutions to problems.There is a particular sort of privilege, easily and widely taken for granted, in being able to turn on the faucet and drink the water. To know that, despite other problems in a broken system, you reliably have access to clean water. To know that your basic physical safety and essential rights are not social and political footballs.
We don't necessarily want to overthrow the system — we want the system to work for us.
We want to turn on the faucet and be able to drink the water. We want our communities to be safe and clean. We want affordable healthcare. We want jobs. We want the criminal justice system to work for us instead of against us. We don't necessarily disagree with elements of the anti-Wall Street push. We don't see it as a zero sum game; we're just more concerned about our own streets.
And to be frank, many of us want the opportunity to be part of a fair capitalist system. We want to see people like us on Wall Street and in the capital markets, so that perhaps some of that capital will make its way into our communities.
Marginalized people, especially those who live in states with legislatures governed by a Republican majority, are thrown into constant chaos by abortion restrictions, "religious liberty" bills, "trans bathroom" bills, housing and employment discrimination, voter disenfranchisement, and all the other political tug-of-war we are obliged to navigate, in addition to social oppression and a ceaseless onslaught of microaggressions that can leave us reeling.
Those same things also make us urgent for change, but it disposes many of us toward an incrementalist approach, as opposed to the lurching upheaval of revolution.
It is a privilege, in many ways, to be able to "think big." To have the space and safety where one can imagine seismic shifts that don't come with the risk of falling off the edge. We don't all have that luxury.
Which is not to suggest that marginalized people don't desperately long for change. The greater the cavernous divide between reliable drinking water from the kitchen tap and having to bathe your child in bottled water, the more fervent that desire for change is.
In blue states and spaces where the Democratic Party is not as progressive as many of its constituents, the Party can seem almost quaint to its most privileged voters. It's easier to be contemptuous of the Democrats when one lives in a state, or municipality, where they have a comfortable governing majority.
People who live in red states, however, may rightly view the Democrats as the only thing standing between them (with varying degrees of passion and efficacy) and the obliteration of their rights by Republican-majority state legislatures.
The Democratic Party, for all its perceived and actual flaws, means a lot to people in red states. Like in Indiana and Wisconsin and Texas, where Democratic state legislatures left the states and went into hiding to try to stop Republicans from running roughshod over voters' rights and needs.
Many marginalized people in red states depend on the Democratic Party in ways that privileged people in true blue states don't need to. We don't have the luxury of being contemptuous of the Democratic Party for not being as progressive as we might like them to be, because our basic rights are constantly under assault.
There are certainly a number of people who voted for Clinton who appreciate and value Sanders' critiques of corporate corruption, yet bristle at his disdain for establishment politics, because we depend on them. In many red states, the near-total lack of progressive infrastructure means that the Democratic Party — the establishment — is the only well-funded institution prepared to hold the line against conservative oppression.
A revolution that includes the decimation of establishment politics risks leaving many Democratic voters in red states without any functional defense at all.
That's why when we see Bernie Sanders declare "the establishment wing of the Democratic Party" an enemy, or see "Sanders Democrats" launch attacks on Democrats like Kamala Harris, it can feel like an attack on the only institution that has had our backs while our rights are under assault.
And it's no fucking surprise that people who believe choice is negotiable don't understand why "establishment Democrats" who have stood the line for us, even if imperfectly, are important to us.
We all want meaningful change, but we have fundamental disagreements about how best to achieve it. Incrementalism is not a rejection of revolution, and it is certainly not indicative of indifference. It would be a mistake to misinterpret as indifference what is in reality a calculated caution.
And it is a mistake — and an incredible fucking insult — to assert that people who approach politics with calculated caution cannot be "leftists."
"Sanders Democrats" don't own the left.
For thirteen years, I've been occupying this space, advocating for progressive policy and social justice. I support universal healthcare and a basic guaranteed income. I am pro-choice, anti-death penalty, a prison abolitionist, and advocate for vast criminal justice reform. I strongly reject privatization schemes and strongly support free public education. I am an intersectional feminist; an anti-racist; a fierce defender of LGBTQ rights; an advocate for dismantling the rape culture; a disabled survivor; a fat activist; a Democratic critic and a Democratic supporter.
Those are not conservative positions. They are not even centrist positions.
They are leftist positions.
And I have spent the last thirteen years of my life being mercilessly inundated with gross harassment for taking those positions. [CN: Descriptions of abuse.]
Death threats. Rape threats. Threats to kill my family, my pets. Detailed emails describing what it would be like to commit various acts of violence against me. Emails imagining what sex is like between my husband and me, and how he must hate it because I am disgusting. Hopes that someone else will hurt me. Admonishments to kill myself.
Pictures of weapons that people want to use on me. Photoshopped images of me being jizzed on, raped, sliced, diced, murdered. Pictures of dead fetuses.
Pictures of my house. Emails and comments the entire text of which is just my address. Threats. Insults. Slurs. Oh my god, so many slurs.
Harassing phone calls. Voicemails with threats of violence. My home address and phone numbers published. A publicly posted campaign offering a reward to anyone for proof of my rape and/or murder.
Private images stolen and published. Photoshopped images of me as various historical tyrants. Hate sites. My image used in fake Twitter accounts, online dating profiles, blogs. My life scrutinized, my privacy invaded, lies told about me, my appearance mocked, my reported experiences audited.
People have pounded on my front door. Dumped garbage on my lawn. Smashed a phone just beneath my office window, as if to say this is how close I can get.
I have seen my face broadcast on cable news beneath a graphic of a sniper's crosshairs. I have listened to a conservative man say on national television that he wants to personally bankrupt me. (After, by the way, he got me fired from my job.)
All of this, and then some, because I have dedicated my life to leftist activism. It isn't because I'm a fucking centrist that I've had conservatives spit narratives at me about how they are the "Real Americans." That I've had to listen to Republicans call me a traitor for supporting Democrats, for protesting war, for marrying an immigrant. That I've fielded brazen death threats from self-identified Republicans with government email addresses because I am a progressive writer.
That said: Not a small part of this harassment has come from other leftists who accuse me of not being left enough, owing to my insufficient fealty to Bernie Sanders. And every time that "leftist" is defined in a way that writes me out of the left, it puts a target on my back for more of that shit.
Don't fucking tell me that I'm not a leftist when I have risked a lot and been obliged to navigate a colossal amount of abuse because of my politics and advocacy.
I have fucking earned my place on the left.
So have millions of other activists and voters and politicians who are currently being cast out as U.S. progressivism is redefined around a single man.
We are the left, too. And we're not going away.
Sanders Has a Big Problem: His Supporters
[Content Note: Misogyny; racism; harassment.]
The Sanders Stans are awful, and the media is starting to take notice.
Last night, I read this at the BBC: "Bernie Sanders supporters get a bad reputation online."
And this morning, I read this at Mashable: "The bros who love Bernie Sanders have become a sexist mob."
Sexist, and racist, and ageist. And I've seen plenty of LGB and/or trans people who criticize Sanders being 'splained at that they're ignorant or stupid or in some other way wrongity-wrong for their insufficient support of Sanders, too.
Naturally, people will say this isn't Bernie Sanders' fault!
And, sure, he's absolutely not explicitly directing his supporters to harass people who criticize him and/or support Hillary Clinton.
But when the central premise of his campaign is an aversion to "identity politics," and his primary line of attack on his female opponent is inherently misogynist, and his response to criticisms of playing into misogynist narratives is to accuse Clinton of looking for things to get mad about, and he reacts to criticism of his careless comments about major women's health and queer rights organizations by gaslighting critics and putting targets on their backs, and all he can muster in response to his campaign manager's gross misogyny is that the comments were "inappropriate," and when he's asked to center Black Lives Matter activism and deflects by talking about "all groups," and and and...
Well, maybe Sanders has earned some of the responsibility for how many of his fervent supporters are behaving. This shit isn't happening in a vacuum.
[NOTE: If you're fixing to respond by going in on Clinton supporters, save it. I have been doing this a long time, and I'm well aware every candidate has some supporters who behave in terrible ways. And because I criticize Clinton, too, I get my share of shit from Clinton diehards. But nothing, nothing, in all the years I have covered presidential politics has even come close to the garbage I get and have seen directed at others by Sanders Stans.]
Nope
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
This shit demonstrates complete ignorance of why intersectionality matters. You can't talk about income inequality, as but one of a million examples, and say gender doesn't matter, when the means by which income equality is enacted against women is different than how it is enacted against men.
And how it is enacted against women of color is different than how it is enacted against white women. And how it is enacted against trans women is different than how it is enacted against cis women. And black trans women vs. white trans women. And all the other identities that overlap with womanhood: Queer women, women with disabilities, fat women, etc.
Each of these groups are economically marginalized in very specific (and demonstrable) ways, explicitly on the basis of our particular identities.
And I will observe yet again that when control over our reproduction, or lack thereof, is one of the most important factors in determining women's (and trans men's) economic security, no one should be saying that gender isn't crucial to "the issues."
Saying that "gender is not what's important," as if gender is somehow separate from the issues about which Sanders is focusing, is antifeminist garbage that only serves to uphold kyriarchal privilege.
Sanders says he wants a revolution, but his campaign is tailoring a message to appeal to privilege. And you know what I think about that: If your revolution doesn't implicitly and explicitly include a rejection of misogyny and other intersectional marginalizations, then you're not staging a revolution—you're staging a change in management.
Trickle-down economics doesn't work, and neither does trickle-down social justice.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: White/male/straight/cis supremacy; xenophobia; fearmongering; descriptions of violence.]
"I've been really angry and depressed for the last few months. I've finally pieced together why. I'm afraid. I'm not afraid of teenagers building clocks. I'm not afraid of women having economic empowerment or sexual freedom. I'm not afraid of weddings with two grooms/brides, trans folks using bathrooms, Latinos making a living, or Black people wearing hoodies and playing music. I'm afraid of an angry white dude with a gun who's been told repeatedly that HIS country is dying and HE needs to take it back."—Derrick Lemos, in "What 'Taking the Country back' means for the rest of us."
Yep. Specifically an angry white dude with a gun who believes he has a right to feel safe (as distinct from being safe) and has never had to spend a moment of his life sitting with fear.
Hotbed of Liberalism
[Content Note: Misogyny; racism; transphobia; homophobia; ageism.]
We often hear conservatives lament the liberal slant of "Hollywood"—that is, the mainstream US/UK movie industry—which is pretty rich, considering that, aside from delicate-sensibility offending stuff like teens fucking pies or whatever, "Hollywood" tends to have extremely conservative values:
Inequality in 700 Popular Films, created by the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California, examines data from the 700 top-grossing films between 2007 and 2014. USC professor Dr Stacy L Smith, author of the study, said: "By examining the trends over time, it is clear that no progress has been made either on screen or behind the camera when it comes to representing reality. This report reflects a dismal record of diversity for not just one group, but for [women], people of color, and the LGBT community."As far as I can tell, the study also didn't delve into representation of disability and fat. Which, as I'm sure we can all agree, would be about as well represented as women over 45.
The key findings are divided into sections for gender, race or ethnicity, and LGBT.
Just 30.2% of the 30,085 speaking characters in the top 700 films from 2007 to 2014 were women, and that in 2014's 100 most popular movies, only 21 featured a female lead, mirroring the 20% found among the top films of 2007. Behind the camera, the gender gap is even more alarming: only two of the top 100 films in 2014 were directed by women; in 2007, there were three.
The race and ethnicity findings paint an even uglier picture. According to the study, among the top 100 movies last year, a whopping 73.1% of all speaking or named characters were white, and only 17 featured a lead or co-lead from "an underrepresented racial and/or ethic group" – meaning other than white. Minority directors are no better off: only five of the 107 directors behind last year's top 100 movies were black; one of those directors helmed two pictures.
Despite the celebrated LGBT representation on the small screen with shows like Orange is the New Black and Transparent, USC found that not one transgender character was portrayed in the top 100 films of 2014. Only 19 out of the 4,610 speaking characters in those movies were lesbian, gay, or bisexual.
Although age doesn't get its own section in the study, USC does note that in the 100 top grossing films of 2014, "no female actors over 45 years of age performed a lead or co-lead role".
The Oscars Thread
[Content Note: Racism; disablism; misogyny; intersectionality failure; domestic violence.]
Common and John Legend accepting the Oscars for Best Song for "Glory" from the film Selma.
^ That was basically the only part of last night's Oscars about which I cared at all. I mean, I was hoping that Selma would win Best Picture, but I figured it wouldn't (and hoped I was wrong, but unfortunately I wasn't).
Both parts of their acceptance speech were terrific, but I especially loved John Legend's: "Nina Simone said it's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live. We wrote this song for a film that was based on events 50 years ago, but we say Selma is now, because the struggle for justice is right now. We know that the voting rights, the act that they fought for 50 years ago, is being compromised right now in this country today. We know that right now the struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850. When people are marching with our song, we want to tell you we are with you, we see you, we love you, and march on."
Other than that, the Oscars were pretty awful!
I know, I know—you're thinking: But Liss! What about Patricia Arquette's speech calling for pay equality?! And I AM NOT FORGETTING THAT! Listen, I love Patricia Arquette, but she was talking about privileged women only, and, if you doubt that, then check out this garbage that she said after winning in the press room: "It's time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we've all fought for to fight for us now." Wooooof.
In one sentence, she casually wrote lesbian and bisexual women and women of color out of the womanhood, and implied that all straight white women have totes been "fighting for" marginalized women. And now that we magnanimous straight white women have given you your rights, it's time for you to fight for us! I mean.
I know that lots of people will want to defend her on the basis that it's just imprecise language, or at least she was using her platform to say something even if it wasn't perfect, and blah blah, BUT this is exactly what white feminism that fails to practice intersectionality looks like. It's not so much a "mistake" as it is a perfectly clear image of mainstream white feminism. And no women who were written out of the womanhood and admonished to "fight for us now" should be expected to be grateful for that, or recognize it as a moment that was helpful, or even neutral.
And the rest of the night was an utter clusterfucktastrope. At the very top of the show, host Neil Patrick Harris made a joke about how white the ceremony was, which, you know, isn't actually all that funny, is it? And then he put actress Octavia Spencer in charge of watching a briefcase for the whole night, which was part of an abysmally stupid magic trick, and ha ha ha are we all laughing so hard at a black woman, whom herself has won an Oscar, being tasked with "working" at the Oscar ceremony? What fun!
Later, he joked that Gone Girl was originally titled "Bitches Be Tripping Yo." Terrific. Terrific stuff.
Both best acting awards were given to able-bodied white folks playing people with degenerative disabilities. And we've already had this discussion, and you know how I feel about it, so I'll just say here: Richard Linklater filmed Boyhood chronologically over TWELVE YEARS. Stop telling me it's not possible to make a movie with an actor who has a degenerative disease. At least not until someone has fucking tried it, okay?
(I'm guessing someone has. But it wasn't Wes Anderson, so who cares.)
The night culminated in Sean Penn, who once [CN: descriptions of violence; glossing over abuse dynamics] held, tortured, and sexually assaulted Madonna for nine hours while they were married, presenting the Oscar for Best Picture to Birdman director Alejandro Inarritu, who is Mexican, with this hilarious joke: "Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?"
HA HA HA HA WHO GAVE OSCAR WINNER EDDIE REDMAYNE HIS GREEN CARD OH NEVER MIND HE IS FROM ENGLAND SO WE DON'T MAKE THOSE KIND OF JOKES ABOUT HIM, RIGHT?! HA HA HA IT'S ONLY FUNNY BECAUSE INARRITU IS MEXICAN. GREAT PUNCHLINE.
Now, Inarritu and Penn are supposedly friends, and the media is busily reporting that Inarritu thought it was funny, and fine, whatever. Obviously, he has to say that or else be that guy, so who knows if he actually thought it was funny. But, even if he did, a joke that works between friends privately doesn't work on a massive international stage. For fuck's sake.
Anyway. That about sums it up. Congratulations to Common and John Legend!
Discuss.
Oscars 2015
The 2015 Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. Here is a complete list of the nominees.
It's weird how only white people acted in movies again this year. Apparently.
It's weird how only men wrote and directed movies again this year. Apparently.
It's weird how there were no stories to be told about fat people again this year. Apparently.
It's weird how there were no stories to be told by and about trans people again this year. Apparently.
It's weird how there are no gay male actors who could have been cast as Alan Turing. Apparently.
It's weird how there are no actors with disabilities who could have been cast as Stephen Hawking. Apparently.
Etc.
Rinse and repeat every year forever. Apparently.
Not ALL Video Game Protagonists!
[Content Note: Lack of diversity across multiple axes.]
Here is a supercut introducing the heroes of 40 different games announced this week at E3 2014 (the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo):
[The video shows clips from 40 different upcoming video games, each featuring male protagonists, virtually all of them white. At the very end of the compilation is a quote from Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser: "The concept of being masculine was so key to this story."]
Dan Solomon, who gets the hat tip, writes, "[S]eemingly every protagonist looks more or less identical to every other protagonist. That is to say: white, male, with usually a few days' growth of beard on their chins, and a glint in their eye that marks them as someone who plays by their own rules in a world that's set up against them."
And he notes that the lack of diversity among the protagonists is not only potentially alienating to women, as well as men of color, but also makes for some boring-ass gameplay.
Which is absolutely right. I want diversity in protagonists and stories in gaming because of the inherent value of diversity, and the personal acknowledgment of seeing people like oneself included in popular media—but, as a person who loves video games, I'm also seriously checked-out at the moment because there are so few major-label games that actually compel me to want to play them by virtue of their inventiveness.
One of the common arguments I hear in response to this complaint is "indie games, though!" and, yeah, absolutely. There is more diversity in indie games, and yay for that.
But the video game industry should be ashamed that something as basic as "female protagonist" is considered so "specialty" that indie game-makers are tasked with and expected to provide that alternative.
It should be an embarrassment to the industry that a wildly technologically innovative and creative medium can imagine the future, conjure the past, and create new worlds and their inhabitants, but still generally considers a non-male, non-white protagonist too radical to seriously contemplate.
Oh Dear
[Content Note: Transphobia; body policing.]
Tim Gunn on trans people as fashion models:
The fact that fashion designers would put basically adolescent-shaped boys or men in women's clothes is head-scratching for me because, anatomically, women and men have different shapes...So, to be looking at women's fashion on a tall, skinny guy with no hips, there's no way you can project yourself into those clothes.I know that trans people criticizing cis people is the worst thing ever. I also get that queers making catty sarcastic comments about other queer people is passé.
However.
Trans people? Fashion? HIPS? Tim hon, next time I'm in the city, I promise I'll introduce you to some trans people and take you to a fashion show. You'll love it.
My Big Fat Romantic Rebellion
[CN: eating disorders and disordered eating, fat hatred]
So yesterday I was reading a a piece in Slate by Amanda Marcotte, about a new book called How To Disappear Completely. It's written by Kelsey Osgood and draws on her own experiences with anorexia. She argues, in part, that modern anti-anorexia campaigns are ineffective and harmful. The images of starvation used in these campaigns, she suggests, actually read as aspirational to some women and girls, because of our culture's overwhelming adulation of thin-ness.
Now this book seemed pretty interesting, and I was nodding along in the first couple of paragraphs. I was also nodding at the opening of Marcotte's third paragraph, noting we do a bad job in general of talking to teens. Then my brain came to a screeching halt at these amazing sentences [emphasis mine]:
We may think we're saying, "If you make these choices, scary things will happen to you," but what younger audiences often hear is, "These choices are daring and rebellious—even romantic." Need proof? Kids brought up in sex-negative religions have sex on average at younger ages than kids who get more sex-positive messages. One possible reason is that teaching that sex is the forbidden fruit tempts teenagers to get swept up in the moment, whereas sex-positive kids have a more nuanced understanding that allows them to plan their sexual debut carefully. Anti-drug education programs often end up leading kids to believe that all the cool kids use drugs. Research shows that anti-bullying programs, because they detail bullying behavior, often end up teaching kids how to be better bullies. Fat-shaming causes people to eat more, possibly because of stress, and gain weight.
This is truly a marriage of the ridiculous and the obscene.
For one thing, I'm wondering when in the world "obesity" became romantic and rebellious. Don't get me wrong; I think that would be cool as hell. Picture the film scenes:
Fat Rebel Girl roars up to school on her motorcycle in her cool black leathers. She swaggers in the door. Boring teacher-types wag their fingers at her fatness as she strides disdainfully down the hallway. But in every classroom we see her peers straining to catch a glimpse of the Fat Rebel Girl, whom they emulate from her pixie cut to her unfeminist heels. She steps though the swinging doors of the cafeteria like a gunslinger of the Old West. But more fabulous, more fat. A server asks her "Hey, Janey, what are you eating today?" Janey cocks her head and responds with a practiced sneer, "Whaddaya got?" Teens swoon. Authority figures disapprove. And Janey, romantically and rebelliously, eats her damn lunch.
However much I like this scenario (and I do!) I think that the simple act of listening to fat people will confirm it's pretty much fictional. Unlike thinness, fatness (with a few exceptions) is considered axiomatically ugly in our society. Not romantic. Not rebellious.
The entire list of comparisons has some serious problems (having sex is like being a bully?), but I find the embedded fat hatred especially troubling in a piece about finding better ways to address anorexia. For one thing, the linked article doesn't actually support the assertion that fat-shaming causes people to eat more; the study under discussion mentions a range of effects from fat-shaming stress, including binge eating. Binge eating is disordered eating. It is not simply "eating more." Not all fat people are binge eaters. Binge eating does not necessarily make people fat. Again, this is pretty obvious stuff if you listen to fat people.
And reinforcing that if we "eat more," we will develop the dreaded fat, is not exactly helpful in a piece about anorexia. There are people struggling with anorexia and anorexic thinking patterns who are, have been, or will be fat. There are people recovering from anorexia for whom accepting fatness as a normal human state is crucial. There are (many) people who are fat or thin for reasons that have little or nothing to do with their eating. And there are many, many more people whose oppressions intersect in some other way with prejudices regarding fatness and thinness. None of these people benefit from the lies that (a) magical eating formulas keep you from being fat, and (b) you must not be fat because being fat is a terrible thing.
Take it from a Fat Rebel Girl: we cannot tear down one oppression by reinforcing another. It always ends up reinforcing the bullshit idea that any of these prejudices are acceptable, and is especially damaging to people caught in the axes of said oppressions. The really radical rebellion lies in learning to listen to other people's experiences of oppression, to draw the connections between them, and to work on undermining the whole damn kyriarchal mess.
Now excuse me. I'm going to swagger down the hall, and eat my own damn lunch.
Here He Is!
[Content Note: Oppressive humor.]
As you may recall, in May it was announced that NBC's current late night host, Jimmy Fallon, would be wrestling The Tonight Show away from Jay Leno's evil clutches come February, and current Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers would be taking over for Fallon.
At the time, NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt assured us that they definitely for sure totally had to hire Meyers, another straight white dude, for their late night line-up because "We think Seth is one of the brightest, most insightful comedy writers and performers of his generation." Sure.
I'll agree when I see a single episode of SNL that doesn't rely on fat jokes, rape jokes, transphobic humor, and the usual assortment of ancient bigotries being paraded as "cutting edge" jokes.
The bar is set pretty low for "bright" and "insightful" these days.
Anyway. Here's the first art for Meyers' show, which will debut on February 24, via Entertainment Weekly.
"What do you think of our new handsome white dude? Pretty terrific, right?!"—NBC.
The thing about Meyers is that, given his specific cohort of thin, young, handsome, white, straight, male comedians, he generally relies less on bigoted humor than average, and generally appears to actually consider women human beings. But that doesn't make him bright and insightful by a long shot. It just makes him slightly closer to (but still short of!) what, in a kinder and fairer world, would be the bare minimum of decency for a multimillion dollar job hosting a variety show on a national network intended for a broad audience.
And this is a systemic problem: Saturday Night Live has become a launching pad for a late night career for white male stars. Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon came to NBC's late night slot by way of SNL, too.
But SNL isn't fair in its hiring practices. The just hired six new cast members, all of whom are white (and only one of whom is a woman). The show hasn't had "a cast member to portray Michelle Obama for her husband's entire presidency"—a cavernous failing that is defended by current cast members saying shit like there aren't enough funny black women who are well-prepared for auditions.
Which is garbage. It's garbage even on its face, but when SNL now serves as the conduit to one of the most visible and lucrative jobs in television, to keep hiring more white dudes is bigger than just SNL. This isn't just a Seth Meyers problem. It's a who-comes-after-him problem, too.
I Write Letters: DC Comics Edition
[Content note: misogyny, rape culture, racism, suicide, homophobia, opposition to marriage equality]
To: DC Comics
From: Aphra Behn, Assistant Associate Professor of Historical Ladybusiness and Nerdstuff
Re: Upcoming job opening as Publisher
I write to you today in order to apply for the job of Publisher at DC Comics. I realize that Jim Lee and Dan Didio currently serve as co-publishers, but after the fan backlash against their pro-homophobe and anti-marriage equality stances, not to mention their continued inability to retain talent, I was thinking you might be hiring somebody new.
After all, it's really not so good to have your publishers insulting fans' intelligence. Fans can be pretty sharp; we've noticed that troubling racist bent to character re-inventions and team replacements. (When Aquaman becomes a star of the Justice League while Green Lantern John Stewart gets booted, it's hard to miss.) And there have been a few(!) complaints about the continued misogyny at DC, ranging from the percentage of female creators dropping from 12% to 1% with the Nu52 relaunch, to the appalling transformation of strong female heroes into monolithic porn stars, whose rape can be mislabeled "sex." Most recently, there's last week's call for aspiring DC artists to draw Harley Quinn committing suicide, naked. (Because nothing says sexyfuntimes like suicide? WHUT.) And a special shout-out to the anti-feminist reboot of the Amazons as murderous rapists who are too dim to even forge their own weapons.
Basically, when there's whole website dedicated to counting down how long it has been since DC did something cringe-worthy, I imagine you'll be hiring soon. That's where I come in.
Here is my primary qualification to be publisher: I am not an asshole.
I realize that this would mark a new and daring direction for DC, not seen since the days of Jenette Kahn, who, by most accounts, was not an asshole either. That seemed to work well for her, and for you.
But putting my qualifications in the negative is a bad way to start off an application, right? Okay, let me re-word that, and be more specific:
I will respect creators, old and new. Creators need clear and consistent communication; that communication should flow both down and up. For example, if I re-boot the entire universe, I pledge to have direction and co-ordination for major characters like Superman (you may have heard of him). But artists and writers also need creative freedom; they deserve to have input into the overall direction we're going with our comics. If I start losing creators who have been consistently very central to creating the universe, I want to know why. If I can't attract and keep new talent, I want to know why. If my teams aren't diverse in terms of race, gender, and sexuality, I want to know why. If people think DC is a shitty place to work, I want to know why. And once I know why, I want to work on fixing the problems.
I will respect fans, old and new. It's true that not all fan feedback is constructive. But fans deserve respectful communication, particularly when their criticisms are indeed thoughtful. Twitter condescension is not helpful. And when communication gets screwed up, I pledge to stop digging. And furthermore, I pledge to respect new fans, and potential fans as well. Those kids who fall in love with animated DC features? They should have reading options other than seeing their role models treated as sex objects. Don't get me wrong. I also want to continue DC's history of mature comics; fans deserve that. But the word "mature" is not a synonym for "turn ALL the women into sexxxxay pr0n." That's not edgy and cool; it's old as the hills. That's not clever or "realistic"; it's repetitive and one-dimensional. That's not adult; it's the snickering fantasy of an immature misogynist.
I will respect the characters, old, new and as-yet-uncreated. Look, I'm applying to you because I actually love the DC universe. I picked up Wonder Woman 234 when I could just barely read, and I haven't looked back. (Well, okay. I am looking back now that so many titles are starting to resemble crap stag films.) I've stayed with you for years and through many changes; heck, I even remember the days before Batman was dark and twisted. Gold, Silver, Bronze, Modern--I know the ages and own plenty of reprints from each (and not a few originals.) I know the difference between Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis. I can even properly identify the different Batwomen.
DC has an amazing range of characters, including some of the most interesting female heroes in the business. Those characters deserve better than to be treated with scorn by people who don't seem to like them in the first place. Characters definitely need changes to keep going. They need their continuities cleaned up. They need dramatic twists and turns and thrilling surprises in their stories, and they ALWAYS need kickass action. Their characters need to grow and change with their experiences. But the core of each character does not need to be treated as disposable or interchangeable. Wonder Woman doesn't need to become Lois Lane. Superman doesn't need to become Batman. If we want a Kryptonian who is like Batman, then we can bloody well invent a new one.
The characters deserve respect for their distinctive personality and histories; I don't believe in ridiculous cookie-cutter rules like "no superhero can be married because they must all set their personal lives aside." That's silly. Some will be single, some married, some dating, some asexual. Some will make great romantic decisions, others crap ones. Some will be drawn to teams; others will insist on being loners. Some characters will think there is no hope for humanity, some will be optimistic, and some won't give a damn as long as they're making money. Turning all your characters into grim, tortured Byronic figures (the ones you don't reduce to sex objects, that is) has to be the dullest concept I've ever heard of. Vive le difference.
And speaking of difference: I understand that wounding, killing off, or "retiring" characters from marginalized groups is very different from doing the same to cis white, male, straight characters. Sideline Plastic Man, and your white male fans will still have plenty of white male dudes to look up to. Sideline Black Lightning, and you shrink a pool of Black heroes that is already pretty small. Cancelling Jaimie Reyes' run as Blue Beetle is not the same as doing it to Ted Kord. Retconning Donna Troy out of existence is not comparable to doing the same to Wally West. Being opposed to the marriage of straight characters is not the same as opposing the marriage of lesbian and gay characters, precisely because the world does not treat those marriages equally. Pretending otherwise is bullshit, and I don't intend to truck in that. It doesn't expand the fan base, and it tends to stink up the office.
I am a geek and a lover of the DC universe. I understand that a commercial enterprise needs to grow, to expand, and to make money. I believe that respect, diversity and creativity are the best ways to keep old readers and reach new ones.
But mostly? I am not an asshole.
[Commenting note for new readers: the comment policy and all of Feminism 101, conveniently linked above, are required for commenting. You are encouraged to read all the links in the piece before commenting.]
Quote of the Day
"[Ray Donovan showrunner Ann Biderman] writes about violence, vulnerability, and the façade of machismo in a glossy, sexy way, but with depth, duality, and humanity. He's very lonely and very isolated. The contract of marriage, sexuality, relationships, all of that stuff is outdated. Every other social group has gotten an upgrade except for the average white man, and Ray is working on old software, functioning in a world that no longer appreciates men as breadwinners and warriors, and there is a lot of pain in that."—Actor Liev Schreiber, on the titular character in his new Showtime series, Ray Donovan.
"Every other social group has gotten an upgrade except for the average white man." LOL. Okay, player.
It isn't that "average white men" (which, naturally, in the parlance of the kyriarchy means "straight, cisgender, able-bodied, Western, white men") are losing some Zero-Sum Hunger Games of Social Status. In just about every way imaginable, "average white men" still have the advantage out of the starting gate. What "average white men" in the main are lacking, in a time of social change, is a way to (re)define themselves that is neither oppressor nor oppressed.
The Traditional Masculinity of "average white men" has defined itself exclusively in contradistinction to the characteristics it isn't—female, queer, brown—for so long that a serious challenge to the idea of inherent male superiority has left millions of "average white men" floundering—and the best answer most of them have found for the question "What is my role if not a keeper of women, a superior to brown people, an enforcer of cis and hetero dominion?" is "I am a victim of oppression by people unlike me." Otherness has become the center-pin around which masculinity pivots—on one side there is dominion; on the other side, subjugation.
What "average white men" are lacking is not "an upgrade," but a vision of equality.
Marginalized people, those of us who are not "average white men," had to change the rules, because we were told "You can't," because we had seemingly unnavigable barriers put in our way by the "average white men" who didn't want us to succeed, because, if we had played by The Rules (as dictated by The Kyriarchy), we never would have gotten where are—because The Rules were designed so that we fail. For many of us, the odds have been against us our whole lives; everything we've ever done has been in defiance of the distinct likelihood—and expectation—that we would settle for less than we wanted.
But we wanted more, and so we changed the rules—primarily by raising the bar.
The "average white men" who resent that the bar has been raised, their unearned privilege undermined and replaced with an expectation to achieve to the same level as marginalized people who hadn't their head start, can now do naught but whine about victimhood. They haven't yet realized that they are not victims of marginalized people, who only want the equality that's been denied them, but victims of a kyriarchal culture that has spoiled "average white men" with the promise of success without effort, and robbed them of the will to expect more of themselves.
What "average white men" are lacking is not "an upgrade," but great expectations for themselves and of themselves.
Insight isn't the only thing that undiluted privilege doesn't freely give its members; it also robs them of an internal, dignified security that isn't predicated on treating rights as a zero-sum game. Every layer of privilege serves as proxy for the self-assurance hard-won by struggling to be proud despite one's marginalization. Privilege tells its members they need not reflect, or justify, or earn, or question, or fight. They are not social justice "warriors" (though many enlist as defenders of the status quo), because, by virtue of their privilege, they have never had need to be. And they imagine marginalized people have been magically gifted "an upgrade," because, by virtue of their privilege, they have the luxury of ignoring the wars we must fight (though many choose to engage only to fight us back).
Who are they, if that privilege comes undone? If they cannot define themselves as the "breadwinners and warriors," and must express humanity beyond a caretaker/oppressor vocation? Are they good? Are they smart, strong, deserving? They've never had to find out—and thus the insecurity, the resentment of anyone who threatens, in even the most meager way, to topple the tower of unexamined privilege atop which they stand. Their pride was unearned, and they're left with a cavernous void of self-esteem if that tower crumbles beneath their feet.
They are nothing without their privilege, because their privilege has allowed them to live a life never having to be anything, other than privileged.
He is functioning in a world that no longer appreciates men as breadwinners and warriors, and there is a lot of pain in that.
What "average white men" are lacking is not "an upgrade," but a way to appreciate themselves as something other than breadwinners and warriors.
In the same interview, Schrieber describes spending three years of his life in which he followed his partner, actress Naomi Watts, while her career blossomed, "traveling the world and being manny to the children." I guess because parenting isn't the sort of job a real "average white man" would do. Mothers are parents; fathers are "mannies."
Maybe "average white men" need to give themselves a goddamn upgrade, instead of waiting for it to be gifted from an unappreciative world. That they run.
Film Corner: Grown Ups 2
I have written, somewhere between ten and one hundred biebillion times, variations on the following:
Implicit in feminism/womanism is not only the belief, but the expectation, that men are not brutish nor infantile—nor stupid, useless, inept, emotionally stunted, or any other negative stereotype feminists have been accused of promoting—but instead our equals just as much as we are theirs, capable not only of understanding feminism (and feminists), but of actively and rigorously engaging challenges to their socialization, too.Exhibit A: The trailer for Grown Ups 2, a film written, directed, produced, edited, scored, and cast by men, starring four extremely rich, influential, successful men who can write their own paychecks by making whatever kind of material they want for themselves.
Feminists, of course, have the terrible reputation, but it isn't we who consider all men babies, dopes, dogs, and potential rapists. The holders of those views are the women and men who root for the patriarchy—which itself, after all, takes a rather unpleasantly dim view of most people.
Video Paraphrase: Montage blah blah fart with male voiceover reminding us that Grown Ups was a real film in the world. Mother-in-law joke. A deer pees on Adam Sandler in his bedroom. They've all moved back to their hometown because it's a great place to raise a family and their kids can ride their bikes to school because nothing terrible ever happens to children in small towns. Grown-ass adult David Spade rides through traffic inside a tractor tire, narrowly avoids death. His pals Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, and Kevin James bicker over who gets to go next. Adam Sandler doesn't want his daughter to have breasts when she grows up. "They're not growing up without a fight," says the voiceover, about FOUR ADULT MEN, THREE OF WHOM ARE MARRIED AND HAVE CHILDREN. They go to a cliff over a lake from which they used to dive when they were kids and get into a confrontation with four frat boys whose leader is Jacob Twilight. Montagery of so much blah fart stupidity: Fighting with lacrosse players, boobs, shooting at each other from go-karts, a "secret table" that replaces beer with juice when a wife shows up. Good grief. Back to the cliff, where Jacob Twilight tells them, inexplicably, that they have to jump in naked. Which they do, because THEY REFUSE TO GROW UP. They are heroes, you harpy! Adam Sandler jumps off the cliff, screaming. Chris Rock jumps off the cliff, screaming. David Spade jumps off the cliff, screaming. Kevin James jumps off the cliff screaming. Splash! Splash! Splash! The crowd gasps. SPLAAAAAAAAASH! HA HA KEVIN JAMES IS FAT! He lands on David Spade, who screams, "I was inside you! AHHHHHHHHHH!"
I rest my case, Your Honor.
Late Night's So White, I Gotta Throw Shade
So, it is now official: Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers will replace Jimmy Fallon when he takes over The Tonight Show next year.
Meyers will take over the 12:35 a.m. slot after current host Jimmy Fallon vacates the show to take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno. Meyers has been the odds-on favorite to assume the post since March, as SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels is also the executive producer on Late Night.I will just reiterate what I said on Twitter when it was first reported Meyers was Fallon's likely replacement: "So Jimmy Fallon is taking over for Jay Leno, & Seth Meyers is up for Fallon's slot? If only there were funny people who aren't white men!"
"We think Seth is one of the brightest, most insightful comedy writers and performers of his generation," said NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt. "His years at SNL's Weekend Update desk, not to mention being head writer of the show for many seasons, helped him hone a topical brand of comedy that is perfect for the Late Night franchise."
...So with Last Call recently renewed, that means NBC's new late-night lineup will go as follows: Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Carson Daly.
The fact that NBC's late night line-up will remain exclusively straight, white, thin men—who are all also able-bodied and cis, as far as I know—is completely pathetic in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and thirteen, but how the fuck thick is Greenblatt to pile on with some blinkered bullshit about how Meyers is TOPS OF HIS ENTIRE GENERATION. It's eminently possible to say he's bright and insightful and talented (if that is indeed one's opinion) without making it about how he's SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.
Meyers may well be talented and hardworking and whatever, but he also has an enormous amount of privilege. And, under his leadership at SNL, the show has continued to engage in all manner of bullying humor that entrenches marginalization against populations to which Seth Meyers doesn't belong.
Ha ha LUCKY HIM! To be the head writer on a cultural touchstone that upholds his own privileges, only to find himself with a multimillion dollar hosting gig on late night network television! What are the odds?!
*that face*
Whooooooooooops!
[Content Note: Kyriarchy.]
This would be hilarious if it weren't so terrible:
How are white male managers doing when it comes to diversity? Great! At least that's what the white male managers said in a recent survey.That is a quite a disparity!
What do the non-white, non-male managers think? Not as upbeat.
...Asked to rate the diversity effectiveness among white male leaders in their companies, 45 percent of white men gave a positive rating. Among women and people of color, only 21 percent agreed. Wide gaps were also found in the perception of white men's abilities to coach and improve the performance of diverse employees (33 points difference); build strong, diverse teams (36 points); promote diverse talent on merit (36 points); and include diverse voices in decision making (40 points.)
The framing of the disparity in this piece is rather remarkable, too:
But according to the study, it's not entirely the fault of white male managers. What we have here, it claims, is failure to communicate.Ha ha that is definitely my experience with a decade of working in Corporate America—my (cis, straight) white male bosses were TOO RESPECTFUL. They were SO SCARED to criticize people who didn't share their privileges. Their overwhelming respect for us was a real problem.
...[White male leaders] are doing great when it comes to being respectful, the survey said, but fall short when it comes to saying what they really think. Too many fear that any criticism or discussion of race or gender will likely get them in trouble, so they avoid it entirely.
To quote my pal Pam: *blink*
[H/T to Shaker Brunocerous.]
Film Corner
[Content Note: NSFW; rape culture; racism; disablism; misogyny; bullying; violence.]
What in Farrelly Brothers hell is this?! Below, the trailer for a film called Movie 43, which has no apparent plot or point except to be as "hilariously" offensive as possible:
Real-life couple Anna Faris and Chris Pratt sit in a field on sunny day having a romantic picnic. Pratt has a diamond ring. He tells Faris there's something he'd like to ask her. She says there's something she'd like to ask him. They agree to ask each other at the same time. Faris blurts out, "Will you poop on me?"
UNEXPECTED, reads big block text onscreen.
Cut to Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone in a convenience store. "How's your HPV?" Stone asks Culkin. "It's your HPV, Veronica," Culkin responds. "I'm just carrying it!"
UNUSUAL, reads big block text onscreen.
Cut to Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant sitting at a table in a restaurant. "Truth or dare?" asks Merchant. "Dare," Berry replies. "See that blind kid over there?" asks Merchant, gesturing to a birthday party that's going on in a private room. "I dare you to blow out his candles before he gets a chance to." Berry looks horrified but amused, and goes and blows out the candles just before the child, wearing sunglasses, does.
UNCENSORED, reads big block text onscreen.
Cut to real-life couple Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts, who we're informed are homeschooling their teenage son. "It's important that Kevin has a normal and complete high school experience," explains Schreiber, followed by Watts walking past the boy on the stairs and knocks his books out of his arms, saying, "Dropped your books, fuckface!" then Schreiber looking at his naked and horrified son in the shower and yelling, "Guys! Come check out this kid's weird pubes!"
UNBELIEVABLE, reads big block text onscreen.
Cut to Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott in a basement, where a Leprechaun, being played by Gerard Butler, is tied to a chair. "Surprise!" says Knoxville. "Caught you a Leprechaun!" He rips tape off the Leprechaun's mouth, and the Leprechaun threatens to "cut off your balls and feed 'em to you!" He headbutts Knoxville, who complains, "Geez, they're so into balls." HA HA IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE THE JACKASS GUYS ARE SO INTO HITTING EACH OTHER IN THE BALLS HA HA.
UNSPEAKABLE, reads big block text onscreen.
Cut to a team of young black male basketball players in a locker room with their coach, baby wipe aficionado Terrence Howard, who tells them they're definitely going to win because the other team is white and they are black. "You all go kill those Caucasians! You are black; they're white; this ain't hockey!"
JUST PLAIN WRONG, reads big block text onscreen.
Cut to a corporate board room, in which Jack McBrayer is introducing a topless Asian woman packed in a box. "The iBabe," explains Richard Gere, who is seated at the conference table, "is a high-fidelity music player." Says Kate Bosworth, "Kids are sticking their penises in the—" "Vagiport," interrupts McBrayer. "The fan then mangles their penises," concludes Bosworth. Gere asks another guy at the table if he noticed any problems during extensive testing. The guy shrugs, revealing a missing hand, and shakes his head no.
FROM SOME EXTREMELY WARPED MINDS, reads big block text onscreen.
Cut back to the homeschooled son knocking on his own front door, behind which is raging a huge party. His mother tells him he can't come in because a girl he asked out, with whom his father is currently dirty-dancing, is there and it would be "awkward."
PREPARE FOR, reads big block text onscreen. Montagery! Josh Duhamel cries. Elizabeth Banks looks aghast in a pink bathrobe. Schrieber hits his homeschooled son in the head with a basketball. A MOTION PICTURE EXPERIENCE. Chloë Grace Moretz is getting her period and doesn't know what to do! Her male friend calls 911 and screams, "My friend is bleeding out of her vagina!" THAT'S UNFORGIVABLE. Faris gasps. Justin Long, dressed as Robin, screams. Hugh Jackson NO HUGH JACKMAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING gags at a restaurant. Kate Winslet looks horrified.
Cut back to the convenience store, where Culkin says to Stone, "I can't believe you sucked off that hobo for magic beans!" Indignant, Stone replies, "He was a wizard!"
Cut back to Winslet. "This is fucked up!"
Cut back to the picnic. "Poop?" asks Pratt. "On me," says Faris. J.B. Smoove tells Pratt, "You don't wanna be two-squeeze-mister-thank-you-please." WHICH MAKES SENSE.
Cut back to the boardroom. "Just when I think it couldn't get more offensive," says Bosworth.
Cut back to the picnic. "Poo," says Smoove.
Cut to some guy humping the cadaver of a beautiful woman in a morgue and then motorboating her. I can't tell who it is. Who cares. Everyone in this movie obviously thinks that is hilarious. Jesus fucking Jones.
Winslet gags. Culkin and Stone make out. Merchant thrusts his crotch at some women at the restaurant. Howard shouts at the basketball team, "How many fucking times do I have to tell you? You're black; they're white!" He holds up a game plan that simply reads "You're black!" He shouts at them, "The Lord did his part already! He made you black! He gave you a foot-and-a-half dick! Dribble with that motherfucker!"
Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
And there are so many people in this movie who aren't even in the trailer! Kristen Bell! Uma Thurman! Bobby Cannavale! Tony Shalhoub! Aasif Mandvi! John Hodgman!
There is a character listed on IMDb called "Creepy Meat Fundler," which I bet is supposed to be "Creepy Meat Fondler," but EITHER WAY I would like to inform every actor involved with this production that WHEN THERE IS A CHARACTER NAMED CREEPY MEAT FONDLER (OR FUNDLER) IN A SCRIPT, THROW THAT SCRIPT IN THE GARBAGE!
According to IMDb, this movie is "a series of interconnected short films follows three kids as they search the depths of the Internet to find the most banned movie in the world." Sure. Sounds perfect. I can't wait to not see it.
The thing about this contemptible heap of celluloid garbage, at least as it's being marketed, is that it's not even shocking. It's just the same old tired bigotry, bullying, exploitation, and mockery of marginalized people about which I write every day, dressed up in a gross-out comedy.
There couldn't be anything less unexpected, unusual, or unbelievable than this swill.
Call me when you can amass that much talent for a film that challenges the tiredest tropes in the kyriarchy playbook, and then I'll be impressed.
Culture of Kyriarchy
[Content Note: Misogyny; rape culture; objectification; racism.]
Last night, during some sporting event between two institutions about whom I couldn't care less, including one that is currently enjoying national indifference to its sports-related rape scandal because the victims are adult women, Jess caught a gross bit of banter between commentators Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit, who were leering over Katherine Webb and Dee Dee Bonner, who are respectively the girlfriend and mother of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron.
"If you're a youngster at Alabama, start getting the football out and start throwing it around the backyard with Pop," observed Musburger, after the men had drooled over the two women.
Jess makes all the great points about how demeaning the sexual objectification of Webb and Bonner is, and how potentially alienating to women (and men) watching.
I want to additionally note that, in one fell swoop, Musburger draws the boundaries around football as a space for straight men whose reward for throwing around a ball with "Pop" (because Ma would get her girl cooties all over it) is beautiful light-skinned women (because the Objectification Cam never lingers on dark-skinned girlfriends and dark-skinned mothers, while commentators sexualize them and talk about them like trophies).
Heterocentrism. Sexual objectification. Treating women like prized property to which men who are talented at ball-sports are entitled. Men throw around footballs together. Women are there to service the men. That is, if they're pretty enough. Dehumanization by pedestal or invisibility—ladies' choice! Either way, the point is that women have more in common with the football, a plaything, than they do with the men.
Yeah, it's a real mystery why male athletes imagine they can rape women and get away with it.
Film Corner!
Below, the trailer for Lola Versus, the IMDb description of which is: "Dumped by her boyfriend just three weeks before their wedding, Lola enlists her close friends for a series of adventures she hopes will help her come to terms with approaching 30 as a single woman." Oof.
The tagline for this movie is not: "Can one woman discover how to be HER OWN Manic Pixie Dream Girl (at least until she finds a new dude)?" But it should be!
The poster for this film informs us it's "from the studio that brought you 500 Days of Summer," and I definitely hated that movie, so I will probably hate this one, too! Even though, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, I LOVE movies (etc.) about quirky white New Yorkers who don't know any people of color and have no time to meet new people because GROWING PAINS!
Hey, did I ever tell you how half my family is from New York City, and so I used to spend part of my summers in Queens? IT'S TRUE! And my grandfather would give me dimes to run down to the corner store on Myrtle Avenue (holla, Glendale!) to buy sweets, and I rode the subway when it was still covered in graffiti, and I splashed around in cement reservoirs at the public park on hot summer days, and I visited the high school at which my grandmother was a secretary and where my dad taught summer school some summers, and I attended Vacation Bible School at my grandmother's church, and I went for long walks with my granddad all around the neighborhood, and, sometimes, when my older cousin would visit, we'd say we were going to Forest Park to ride the carousel, but we'd really go to an arcade and talk to boys, which is where I saw a boombox, and break-dancing, and rappers, all for the first time.
And here is a True Fact: There were people of color in all of those places, and they were not background.
So when people tell stories (SO MANY STORIES) about New York City, and those stories are just full to fuck of white people (SO MANY WHITE PEOPLE), that story is lie. Or it is a story of privilege. Usually both.
ANYWAY!
Music that sounds vaguely Motown-y, but is actually by a white NYC indie band, obviously. Scenes of New York, by which I mean buildings. Cut to Lola, a young thin white blonde woman, trying on wedding dresses with her best female friend, a young thin white brunette woman, and her best male friend, a young thin white dark-haired man, who may or may not be gay and sassy? (TBD.) "Dude!" Male Friend says to the blushing bride. "You look incredible!" Female Friend asks, "Are you trying to take maid of honor from me?" He responds, "I feel like Rupert Everett." Yiiiiikes. "Don't we all?" says Female Friend. Whut. "It's a wedding dress! It's a wedding dress!" Lola exclaims, pumping her fists.
Cut to Lola coming home to her lovely flat, carrying wedding flowers, where her fiancee, Holder from The Killing, is sitting stony-faced on their leather sofa. "Honey, you're gonna die when you see these flowers!" she exclaims. He looks at her with I'mma-barf face. "Honey, what's up—did you have a stroke?" she asks. "I don't think I can do this," Holder tells her. No doi he can't. He needs to find Rosie Lawson's murderer already. Lola looks stricken. Happy music ENDS!
Cut to Lola looking sad and confused, while working out, while wandering the streets, and while lying in bed, stroking the empty pillow beside her where Holder's head used to be. "I feel like everyone saw it coming but me," she says. Male Friend tells her, "Nobody saw it. It was like lightning." Is that a good analogy? Because lightning is usually preceded by thunder. Or is it succeeded? Either way, it's part of a goddamn storm. I'm just saying.
Lola is "shattered." And so she's "power-eating." Scenes of Lola eating junk food. Now we have evidence of what a tragedy this really is. I didn't feel that terrible until I was reminded of the possibility that SHE COULD GAIN WEIGHT HOLY SHIT!
Female Friend urges her to get out there and date and let men put their dicks in her. Ha ha just kidding. She doesn't say that. She actually says "let them ride your pony." Which is even worse.
Lola eats chips. Lola has dinner with some dude. He designs prisons and has a big dick because he was "an incubator baby." Is that a thing? Having a big dick because you were in an incubator? Lola looks dubious. I consider that this is the material they decided to put in the trailer.
Cut to Lola saying goodbye to Incubator Dick on the sidewalk the next morning. He is on rollerblades. Male Friend is there. She says, in voiceover: "I think men are always looking for someone better, and women are just looking for whatever works." (Yuck, that sounds horrible. Also false.) She uncomfortably kisses Incubator Dick before he rollerblades away, saying, "Have a blessed day!" Male Friend asks her, "Did you just have sex with that rollerblader?"
Cut to Female Friend telling Lola that "being single builds character." Cut to Female Friend falling on her face. Cut to Lola on a laptop asking Female Friend: "Is your Match.com log-in still LetMeBeYourHole?" Female Friend replies, "LetMeBeYourHole1. It was taken." Ooooooooof.
Cut to Lola on a psychologist's couch, saying, "I'm constantly obsessing about everything—food, boys." That's pretty much everything! Lola drinks. Lola clings to a stripper pole at a club and has to be dragged off by a large black man. Lola tells her mother (Debra Winger no!) that being obsessed with Cinderella messes all little girls up because "we get obsessed with shoes." Cut to Lola breaking a heel and falling.
Cut to Lola doing some treatment where an older white man hits her with branches while telling her to release her emotions, then pours a bucket of water on her head. She screams. The end.
Via MaryAnn, who says: "Oh, wow. It's a movie about a woman who does nothing but obsess over food and romance and shoes. I've never seen anything like this before. I cannot wait to see what astonishing insights into the female psyche I will discover here." LOL!
Whooooooopsing to a theater near you soon.
