by Shaker Elena
[Trigger warning.]
As I was walking home from work yesterday, I passed a bus that had a huge ad with the words "Deaf Girls Can't Hear You Coming," and pretty much nothing else – there was a bit of type below the ads, much smaller and not legible from a distance.
I guessed that it was an ad for a movie, and fumed for a while about how totally and completely out of line it was, and how it made me feel unsafe just reading it – just knowing that some advertiser somewhere is writing an ad targeted to rapists, or would-be rapists, with the added disgusting bonus of combined disability fetishism and ablism. I didn't catch on to the deliberate double meaning of 'coming' until I read others' reactions to the ad online – but I believe there's no way that both meanings were not intended by the creator of this ad.
I looked it up when I got home, and found two references to it on Google, which is how I discovered, not really to my surprise, that the ads were courtesy of Tucker Max and his new movie, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I believe I'm lucky in that my only encounter with the movie and the man behind it has been in the multiple posts denouncing it here at Shakesville, most recently on Tuesday.
One of the mentions was on the Chicago Tribune's blog site, by columnist Eric Zorn, who seems to have had a similar reaction to mine, if less angry. The other one is on the Chicago Reader website, and is mostly about another ad, almost as bad (equally bad? I don't think it's worth ranking this crap) – "Strippers will not tolerate disrespect . . . HAHA, just kidding!" Ugh.
Both sites' comments sections have arguments between people who find the ads offensive, and others (possibly trolls sent over by Tucker Max himself?) who are pulling the "it's just a joke," "it's not about RAPE, it's a double entrendre, idiots," and "I'm a woman, and I think Tucker Max is HILARIOUS" triad of defensiveness.
What I don't understand is how the CTA ever thought it was OK to run those ads in the first place.
Some of the people commenting on the above websites have complained directly on Tucker Max's website, but I don't see that as being anything but a waste of time. If you want to call the CTA to complain, you have a couple of options: The contact information they give for advertising is a woman who seems to work for a outside company:
Natalie Tomasella, Sales Manager
Titan Worldwide Chicago
Email: natalie.tomasella@titanoutdoor.com
Phone: (312) 629-1680
I haven't tried her, but today I called the CTA's main contact line, 888-YOUR-CTA (888-968-7282). They instructed me to send a letter to Richard Rodriguez, the CTA board president. His address:
Chicago Transit Authority
ATTN: Richard Rodriguez
567 W. Lake Street
Chicago, IL 60661
Work those teaspoons, Shakers.
[Rape is Hilarious: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty.]
Rape Is Hilarious, Part 41
Photo of the Day
President Obama fences with US Olympic Fencer Tim Morehouse
with a lightsaber. (Photo Credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will try to bolster their hometown's chances of hosting the 2016 Summer Olympic Games Wednesday.[H/T to Shaker Scott Madin.]
Chicago, Illinois, is competing with Madrid, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tokyo, Japan, for the opportunity to hold the Summer Olympics.
Wednesday afternoon, the Obamas will play host to an event at the White House aiming to boost Chicago's bid.
About Bread and Teaspoons
Since I've had a few questions, thought I'd give a few quick answers here.
1) I'm just fine. Busy with life, running my business, and my handfasting ceremony this coming Sunday afternoon (my first "official"* marriage! at 43!). I'm fundamentally an introvert, and sometimes when life gets a little overwhelming, I have a tendency to retreat into my lair and pull a nicely-shaped rock over me. I always come back out, though, when I'm done recharging. :)
2) Bread and Teaspoons will be back, most certainly. I expect to have the next post up Monday morning, as before, though slightly revamped, with an eye to increasing reader traffic through the comment threads.
3) I'll share a piece of wonderful news related to B&T, though: a Shaker e-mailed me last night to tell me they'd gotten new work through a B&T post, and moreover, it allowed them to leave a work situation which was increasingly out of accord with their political views**.
Thanks to those who have written to ask if I'm alright, and to encourage me to keep B&T going. One more reason for me to love this place: relative strangers care about how one is getting on, and notice when one doesn't show up for a bit. One is much pleased by this.
* I've lived in a couple of common-law situations, but never actual vows and ceremonies and so on. I say "official" in quotes because our ceremony isn't legal - my intended is legally married to her husband, we're all polyamourous - but it's plenty meaningful enough. :)
** Yes, I use "singular they". So did Chaucer, Shakespeare and many others. If I'm breaking what you view as the rules, at least I'm in good company.
Today in Fat-Hatin'
A few people have mentioned this in comments over the past couple of days; here is the clip from Monday's The Daily Show of Jon Stewart in a fat suit after having "gone off his diet" for a few weeks during their hiatus. Transcript below. Discuss.
Jon Stewart [in fat suit including "fat face" prosthetic]: Heh-heyyyyyyy! All right! We are back, baby! Three-week break, longest break in the show's history, but tonight's show is a winner—the great LeBron Jaaaaaaaaames is gonna be on the program tonight; we're very excited; it's gonna be awesome—
John Oliver: Whoa, whoa, Jon, Jon—
Stewart: John Oliver, ladies and gentlemen!
Oliver: Hello.
Stewart: John Oliver's back!
[audience applause]
Oliver: Wow.
Stewart: We're all back!
Oliver: We're all back.
Stewart: John Oliver! Yes!
Oliver: Some of us more than others. What happened to you?!
Stewart: Uh, I'm sorry?
Oliver: You're fat!
Stewart: I got what?
Oliver: You are fat. Uppercase F fat.
Stewart: There's no reason for your words like that.
Oliver: Well, what happened?
Stewart: Well, I was down at the Jersey Shore; I may have gone off my diet for a couple of days, but...
Oliver: No shit. No shit you went off your diet.
Stewart: Uh... I don't think there's any reason for that— [A beeper goes off and Stewart holds up a finger to stop proceedings then reaches under his desk.]
Oliver: What was that?
Stewart: Snaaaaack tiiiiiime! [He pulls out a tray with a sandwich and two milkshakes on it.]
Oliver: Oh, please no. [Inaudible] you're hungry.
Stewart: Jersey Shore breakfast of champions.
Oliver: What've we got here?
Stewart: Cheesesteak.
Oliver: Yeah.
Stewart: Milkshake.
Oliver: Yeah—and what's that one?
Stewart: Uh, that's a cheesesteak milkshake.
Oliver: Ooh. I am repulsed. [Stewart goes to take a bite of the sandwich.] Please, Jon, at least let us use the Williams filter on the cameras.
Stewart: The Williams filter?
Oliver: Yeah, it's the camera effect that Brian Williams uses to make himself look normal on TV.
Stewart: Brian Williams is, uh, a big man?
Olivier: Oh, god, he's absolutely enormous. In fact, the only way he got his job was by eating Tom Brokaw.
[Badly Photoshopped picture of Brian Williams' head on a very fat man's body. The audience howls with horror and laughs.]
Stewart: What?
Oliver: That's a fact.
Stewart: It's certainly easier than working out. Can we try the Williams filter?
Oliver: Yeah. Just give it a go to... [moves his hands together as if to indicate shrinking size]
Stewart: If we—I'd just like to give it a try.
Oliver: [points at Stewart's head] This is the problem here.
Stewart: Can you give me a little—? Let me give you an anchor pose while we do it.
Oliver: [makes disgusted face as Stewart moves] Ugh. Your suit's ripping.
[A "lens" comes into view and fuzzes out Stewart and Oliver. When it pulls back, Stewart is no longer in the fat suit and prosthetic. The audience goes wild.]
Stewart: [looks pleased] Eh!
Oliver: There you go. There you go. Pretty good.
Stewart: Nice!
Oliver: That's not bad. There you go.
Stewart: I like it! That worked pretty well.
Oliver: You're back!
Stewart: Wait a minute.
Oliver: What?
Stewart: If we're using that filter, shouldn't you then look even skinnier?
Oliver: Oh, I'm not actually here. Uh, I'm a hallucination brought on by your obesity-induced diabetes. [audience laughter] Well, gotta go! [blows glitter out of hands and skips away; audience cheers]
Stewart: Yeah, baby! We gotta good show for ya! We're back— Can I see that picture one more time, of me without the filter?
[Image of Stewart in fat suit and prosthetic; audience laughs.]
Stewart: Oh! I just want my kids to know how I'll look at their graduations. All right.
Mary Travers -- 1936-2009
What the Hell?
Shaker phredrika
Dual Swatch action!
[See also: Deeky, Liss, evilsciencechick, katecontinued, ClumsyKisses, Mistress Sparkletoes, Liiiz, Reedme, Mama Shakes, Mustang Bobby, RedSonja, MomTFH, Portly Dyke, SteffaB, Icca, Christina, Orangelion03, Car, Siobhan, InfamousQBert, Maud, Rikibeth, MishaRN, CLD, Cheezwiz, MamaCarrie, Temeraire, somebodyoranother, goldengirl, Liss (again), summerwing, yeomanpip, Susan811, bbl, Deeky (Part II), A Daily Shakesville Fan, Sami_J, liberalandproud Temeraire: Redux, Mama Shakes II, Bonus Deeky, OuyangDan, J.Goff, Iain, Talonas, The Great Indoors, gogo, kiwi_a, em_and_ink, Tik_bev, phdintraining, Deeky Freakhands, busydani, Jenny Anne, rowmyboat, DesertRose, Steve/Pido, and Anne Onymous.]
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
I didn't love this movie when I saw it (and I only saw it once, many years ago). I don't really remember exactly what I didn't like about it, although the trailer evokes a vague recollection it had something to do with its indecision about whether to love the characters or laugh at them.
The only thing I remember clearly is thinking Patrick Swayze looked unbearably sexy pulling on his stockings in the opening sequence (@ 2:09).
Top Chef Open Thread
Chef Tom Colicchio will drink. your. milkshake!!!
He will also eat your liver with fava beans and a nice chianti. Oops, no. My mistake. That's Hannibal Lecter. Chef Tom Colicchio will make you a nice pâté served with a garnish of fresh mixed beans and a glass of the vintage wine of your choosing.
Question of the Day
In the same spirit of "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner," what film(s) had a big impact on you, for whatever reason, when you were a kid?
Rape Is Hilarious, Part 40
[Trigger warning.]
Fresh off defending his awesome rape material, Ricky Gervais is now starring in a film called The Invention of Lying, the preview for which includes a rape joke. The premise is that this is a world where no one ever lies, and Gervais somehow figures out how to lie, and wackiness ensues.
The relevant bit begins at 1:40.
[Tall, thin, pretty, blond, white woman is walking down the street and passes Gervais.'Cause HAR HAR, coerced sex is SO funny! Especially FRIGHTENING women into coerced sex! Also known as rape! HAR HAR.
Gervais: The world's gonna end unless we have sex right now!
[Woman whips around and she looks at him, VERY frightened and frantic.]
Woman: Do we have time to get to a motel, or do we need to do it right here?!
Hopefully, in the film, Gervais' character decides to tell her he was mistaken and that's it*, because if this premise were taken to its logical conclusion, the next scene would be the two of them at the hotel "having sex" while she screamed and cried in terror that the world is about to end if they don't "have sex" fast enough.
When Liss and I were talking about it earlier, she guessed, "Post-coital cigarette. No suggestion of rape."
No matter what follows, the rape joke is there, and it was considered so hilarious that it just had to go into the preview.
*(Update: Actually, now that I think of it, even if this part of the scene does exist, it's even more infuriating, because this is exactly how an apologist would dismiss rape joke concerns. "Oh, but he didn't go through with it, so it's okay!" Well, no, it fucking isn't, because:
A) It's still a rape joke, and
B) That very important bit isn't shown in the trailer. Therefore, what they're selling is the rape joke. Gervais' character not being able to go through with it isn't the important part.)
[Rape is Hilarious: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine.]
Breaking News: Rush Limbaugh Is a Sarcastic Apologist for Racism
You're shocked. I know. As was I.
[Transcript below. Btw, I hate transcribing almost no one
else as much as I hate transcribing Rush fuckin' Limbaugh.]
Amanda at Think Progress has the goods on the alleged racial motivations of the fight to which Limbaugh's referring.
As to his contentions re: white racism, I'll just go ahead and repeat what I said in comments earlier today: If "a racist" is defined as someone who has internalized racism, I'd really love to meet the person born and raised on this planet who isn't a racist. Because I've been bombarded with racist messaging since freaking birth, everywhere I've been in the world, and it would have to be some kind of extraordinary bit of magic if I, a human being designed to be a sponge, had absorbed none of the racism constantly present in my environment.
Without rigorous self-examination, we're all racists (and sexists and homophobes and transphobes and disablists and fat-haters and…) by default, by virtue of our socialization in a culture steeped with negative stereotypes; we internalize those messages so profoundly that even those bigotries that target us get turned in on ourselves. The question is not whether we have biases; we all do. The question is whether we leave them unexamined.
And Rush Limbaugh's an asshole. Fin.
Greetings, my friends. Well, it's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America—white kids gettin' beat up on, uh, on school buses now. I mean, if you put your kids on a school bus, you expect, you expect safety, but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering [puts on "black dialect"], "Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on," and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white. Newsweek magazine told us this. Uh, we know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives.
And we can redistribute students, uh, while we redistri— uh, redistribute their parents' wealth. I mean, we could just redistri— uh, redistribute everything. Uh, just return the white students to their rightful place—their own bus, with bars on the windows and armed guards. They're racists! They get what they deserve! Newsweek magazine told us this. Post-racial America.
I mean, I wonder if Obama is going to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard. I mean, the assailants are presumed innocent due to the white racism we all know runs rampant in America. I mean, the drive-by media is, uh, is ginning up all this criticism of Obama again today—it's all based in racism, the criticism of Obama's healthcare plan or whatever, it's all based in racism!
And so, uh, uh, you know, if he's gonna apologize for America, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons. White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and, uh, and her trading partners. I mean, it was white Americans that ran off Van Jones, um, ahh— Well, look, let's just follow Eric Holder's advice and not be cowards about all this; let's have an open conversation, honest conversation, about all of our typical white grandmothers, you had one, I had one, uh, Obama had one, uh, they're racists, just like our students are.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner.
I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's CifA, about how Dirty Dancing was a meaningful film to me when I was a thirteen-year-old girl in the early throes of her feminist awakening:
I was 13 years old when my mom took my little sister and me to see Dirty Dancing on a hot August afternoon in 1987. Years later, my mom would admit that she was slightly horrified to realise she'd taken her two young daughters to a movie that she thought was about dancing, but was really about class, feminism, sex, rape and abortion. If she gave any indication of her squirming discomfort at the time, I didn't notice.Read the whole thing here.
I was too busy balancing on the edge of my seat, obliviously cocooned in the exquisite joy of watching for the first time a film that felt like a personal gift.
...For an A-student who didn't want to disappoint her parents, but was already seriously (but quietly) questioning the dogma of church and kyriarchy, finding alternative views hidden out in the open in ostensibly frivolous fare was magical. My escapist entertainment was the exhilaration of being able to put my well-worn VHS tape of Dirty Dancing into the VCR and find myself instantly transported to the Catskills, where life was just complicated but solvable enough, given a firm commitment to principle, that I might learn to be brave.
Like Baby, my hero. The plucky star of my feminist awakening. Baby, who believed she could change the world, who wanted to send her leftovers to starving children, who seemed at first glance like the perfect match for aspiring model of comfortable complacency Neil Kellerman, and even might have been, if it weren't the sinewy, smouldering dance instructor who stirred within her urgent feelings of possibility and need. Baby, with her deck shoes and her warm, envious gazes at the beautiful Penny and her fierce sense of right and wrong. Baby, who carried a watermelon.
Left in Limbo
When 19-year-old Tegan Leach fell pregnant, she and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Sergie Brennan, decided they did not want to carry the pregnancy to term. She chose to have an abortion. For making that choice, she now faces seven years in prison, and her boyfriend, three.
Tegan Leach lives in Cairns, Queensland in Australia, where having an abortion is a crime. From this article, it appears that a woman can be administered RU-486, if it is determined that the woman’s health is at risk. The article doesn’t mention any other exceptions. So, Leach and Brennan procured a “Chinese version” of RU-486 from Ukraine and induced a miscarriage at home. Police later found the packets that had contained the drugs while searching their home for other reasons.
At the heart of this story is Tegan Leach and I don’t want to divert our attention from that. But I am struck by how her case reveals the systematic way that anti-abortion laws and advocates work to circumscribe the choices of all women, by creating an atmosphere of terror. Women and doctors fear prosecution, ostracism, and vigilante attacks. Since Leach’s case came to light:
Their home has been firebombed.
Her boyfriend’s car has been vandalized.
They have had to go into hiding.
Doctors have stopped prescribing RU-486 (and many of them were hesitant to do so before her case, given the ambiguity surrounding whether or not it should be administered).
And:Queensland hospitals recently suspended drug-induced abortions after the Leach case and insurance companies in the state said that they would withdraw cover from doctors who aided medical abortions. Their decision forced dozens of women over the border into New South Wales for terminations. After doctors there, too, refused to perform abortions for fear of being prosecuted, a number of women were left in limbo…
Always, women are “left in limbo,” waiting for others to decide what our level of autonomy over our own bodies should be.
(x-posted)
Daily Kitteh
Monday morning, Olivia was running across the loft banister, which always makes me fucking trucknutz with anxiety, and she FELL OFF. You know, the exact thing I'm constantly anxious about.
Because she's totes Biggie Smalls, she landed with a huge THUD!!! on the hardwood floor below, and I went running downstairs to see if she was okay.
She was strolling around like nothing happened, and looked up at me like, "What?"
I picked her up and squeezed all her toes and legs, and turned her 'round and 'round while I poked and prodded, and she didn't wince or whine or anything. She just squirmed away and ran to the kitchen and started mewing for more food, which she does 97 times a day, even though it never works.
At least she didn't do it on purpose, like certain other dumbass cats I could name.
I swear Livs is lucky as hell and equally indestructible. We came to be her people after she fell off a farm truck in front of us on a highway when she was a wee kitten, bouncing off the pavement at 60mph and escaping with scraped paws and a few stitches in her chin. She pushed out a screen on a window once and got out; we live near the intersection of two busy streets and she was gone for two days, until she showed up on the porch, demanding to be let back in. She didn't have a mark or a flea on her.
I'm thinking she's got about six lives left.
Today in Fat-Hatin'
Take a look at the cover of the new issue of Details magazine and see if you can guess what teaser caught my eye.
Go ahead. I'll wait.
If you guessed this one, give yourself 1,000 points.
[For those who can't view the images, the teaser is: "Why It's Okay to Stare at Fat People."]
The answer, if you're curious (I know you are!), is: Because they're on the teevee! Actual article headline: "The Obsession with TV Fatties." Actual article subhead: "What's so funny about overweight people getting hit in the groin with footballs? Everything." Actual article opening salvo:
In the United States of America, home of the best-fed people on earth, it's finally come to this: We have developed an insatiable appetite not only for mammoth cupcakes but for fatness itself. Turn on the TV and it's everywhere. On NBC's pioneering The Biggest Loser, where the morbidly obese try to sweat their way into smaller jeans. On VH1's Celebrity Fit Club, with its flotilla of jump-roping chubsters. On Oxygen's Dance Your Ass Off, in which the shaking of Brobdingnagian booties rivals the cataclysmic movement of tectonic plates. And, most recently and tantalizingly, on Fox's More to Love, in which a bevy of lard-assed ladies compete for the meaty paw of a sweet, man-boobed, 300-pound-plus subcontractor from California.Wow.
The author, Simon Dumenco, goes on to a brisk, surface-level exploration of how the shows are degrading to their participants and designed to allow the thin (or less-fat) viewer to feel better about hirself, before giving space to comedian Joe Piccirillo to contend, "No one wants to watch fat people fall in love. They want to watch fat people get hit in the groin with footballs. It's the way God wants it," and eventually wraps up with this verbal shrug:
The humiliated fatty—that used to be a niche, a specialty profession like contortionist or congressman. But with nearly 4 million Americans tipping the scales at 300 pounds or more, it's ballooned into a growth industry. ... Pass the remote—and that pint of Triple Caramel Chunk.Perhaps the most appalling part of that droopy resignation is that it follows this, four paragraphs earlier: "Face it: These shows traffic in human suffering."
Dumenco flatly states he recognizes that Fatty TV is exploitative, literally profiting from turning human suffering into consumable entertainment, and then, overwhelmed by the tide of bigotry, simply throws up his hands helplessly.
Sure, they're horrible, soul-destroying vehicles of abject bigtory against fat people, but they're popular and shit, so I guess I'll just watch them. What else is a guy to do?
Dude, turn. off. the. television.
Have a conscience. Be a responsible consumer. Find another way to make yourself feel better than by comparing yourself to people whom you perceive to be worse off than you are. Grow up.
Take a long hard look in the mirror and try to answer why it is that you can identify something as trafficking in human suffering yet still find it entertaining.
I may be fat, but as least I'm not a fucking sociopath.
------------------
Note: I recognize not all people watch Fatty TV for the reasons Dumenco does, and there is a legitimate debate about whether they are objectively exploitative. I am merely responding to Dumenco's admonishment to "Face it: These shows traffic in human suffering," and his apparent habit of watching them nonetheless. I am not implying that anyone/everyone who watches the shows interprets them in the same way as he does, nor that anyone/everyone who watches them does so for fucked-up reasons.
Science Facts!
Top six planets an alien invasion of Earth is most likely to originate from (in descending order):
1. Mars
2. Planet 10
3. LV-426
4. Planet Ro-Man
5. Lizardania
6. The Planet of the Apes
(See here, here and here also.)
[Cross-posted.]
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, distributors of Space Cowboy's ProgRock Action Figure Collection. "Mom! Timmy keeps stealing Ian Anderson and making me be Michael Giles again!"
Recommended Reading:
Marcella: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 78
Amanda: Court Rules in Favor of Jamie Leigh Jones in Arbitration Dispute About KBR Rape Case
Karnythia: Race, Gender, and the Oppressive Public Gaze
Andy: Complaints Reveal Sick Treatment of Gays During Atlanta Bar Raid
Echidne: The Rich Have It Hard, Too!
Sady: Beyond Good And Evil, Straight To Annoying: A Few Thoughts on Michael Moore
Renee: Kanye West Is Not a N----r
Leave your links in comments...
