Shakesville

I understand, but that is not how it works

Eons ago, I signed something somewhere that had to do with MoveOn, and now I'm apparently one of their bazillion members. This means that [TW: ableist language] I get e-mails. Here's the bulk of today's, which came under the subject line "Do you really need clean socks that bad?" [emphasis mine]:

Dear MoveOn member,

I know you're busy. The laundry's not done, the house is a mess, the kids need dinner, and the car needs an oil change.

But there are only eight days left till Election Day! If there was ever a time to drop everything—this is it!

Think about it: A year from now, what will you remember from this week? The stellar job you did folding your socks? The episode of "Dancing with the Stars" that you watched? Or the work you did to stop the Republican takeover?

I give you permission—whatever is on your list of things to do, put it off! So can you call MoveOn members and help recruit the volunteers we need to win?

Nice work denegrating your base and their busy lives. Bonus points for choosing domestic activities typically thought of as women's work, and a TV show that, IMO, appears largely targeted at women. I guess you slipped in that oil change bit as a way of showing that you're not just putting down the ladies? I dunno. In any case, heckuva job.

I may well be doing some lit drops this weekend, but I sure as hell don't need your permission. More to the point, my employer does not care what you think, nor does my landlord, nor do my creditors. My daughter also won't take care of herself. None of these things, by the way, involve relaxing and watching television. Mind your privilege.

Today in Fat Hatred

[Trigger warning for fat hatred.]

Yesterday, I wrote that a fat woman "requires supernatural strength just to get through every goddamn day." There are people who will read that and think it's hyperbole.

They are people who don't understand the world is filled with bigoted assholes who have absolutely no compunction about unapologetically expressing their seething contempt, naked hostility, and rank hatred for fat people, right out in public.

Yes, it's the people who shout fat-hating epithets at us while we're Being Fat in Public, doing outrageous things like riding our bikes or eating or crossing the street, but it's also people like the writer who questions, without a trace of irony, whether she is being "an insensitive jerk" at the end of a piece in which she writes of fat people:

The other day, my editor asked me [with regard to the television show Mike & Molly], "Think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?"

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

This is what I face every day: The knowledge that there are people who are "grossed out" just seeing me walk across a room.

This is a fact of my life: All around me are people who are repulsed by my very existence—and many of them make no pretense of it, make not a modicum of effort to conceal their revulsion.

A few months ago, Iain and I were having lunch at Panera Bread; we'd just picked up our food at the counter and I was walking to a table with my tray, which had on it a turkey sandwich, an apple, and a drink. The place was busy, and as I wound my way between tables toward empty seating, I noticed people staring at me. Like, everyone. This is not something that typically happens to me, so I thought I must have something on my face, or on my shirt, or snot hanging out of my nose...something.

I left the table and went to the restroom, where I looked at myself in the mirror. Nothing seemed out of place; my face and shirt were free of anything that didn't belong there, and my hair wasn't in some sort of shocking disarray. I noticed nothing unusual at all. I shrugged, and went back to the table.

Again, the staring.

I was quite genuinely mystified, and feeling really paranoid, until I passed a table and heard a woman not-really-whisper to her companion: "Well, there goes my appetite. Yuck."

I froze. I felt this ping in my gut as the reason for the staring became evident, as the realization washed over me that the thing I'd been missing in the mirror, the horror, was just me. In my entirety. In my enormity.

I wanted to turn to her and do something remarkable, to say something funny, to waggle my fat fingers at her and give her goggle-eyes and chant at her, "Ooga booga!" But I had been rendered numb by her casual cruelty, so unexpected.

I turned and looked at her. I don't know what the look on my face was. Hurt? Shock? Anger? Confusion? She looked momentarily startled, maybe even apologetic, an expression which was quickly replaced with a steely look of disdain. She averted her eyes and threw her napkin onto the table, as if to underline her disgust. How can I be expected to eat in your presence?

I turned back around and sat down to eat my lunch, and swallowed back tears with every bite, trying not to crumble.

There are days when it doesn't get to me and days when it does.

I don't hate myself for being fat, and I don't hate my body, and I don't let my being fat stop me from living a full life, and I am, genuinely, happy.

But I am hated by other people. Openly and brazenly. And I am unhappy about that.

I am especially unhappy about it because there are people with fewer resources, a weaker or nonexistent support system, and/or a crushing self-hatred who are subjected to the same thing. Who never have days when it doesn't get to them. Who have chosen to live their lives behind closed doors, because the world is too difficult, too cruel, to bear.

I could write yet another post about how being fat is not always a choice, about the intersection of fat and disability, about the intersection of fat and surviving sexual assault, about the intersection of fat and poverty, about access to fresh foods, about how there exist plenty of healthful fat people, about the changing parameters of obesity, about the correlation between HFCS subsidies and obesity, etc. etc. etc.

But, ultimately, none of that matters when it comes down to the basic fucking decency of treating fat people with dignity, irrespective of their particular reasons for being fat.

The author of this piece is comprehensively ignorant about granting to fat people the basic dignity and agency that any human being should be granted. That's beyond being "an insensitive jerk." That's being an asshole so thoroughly cloistered in privilege that you can blithely engage in the most vile dehumanization and then wax cluelessly about the possibility you were "insensitive."

Privileged white assholes used to (and sometimes still do) write articles about being disgusted by seeing two people of color (or—horrors!—a white person and a person of color) making out, too. Privileged straight assholes used to (and sometimes still do) write articles about being disgusted by seeing two people of the same sex making out, too. Privileged able-bodied assholes used to (and sometimes still do) write articles about being disgusted by seeing two people with physical and/or mental disabilities making out, too.

That shit isn't just dehumanizing: It's borderline eliminationist. When we acknowledge that ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and body size can be in total or in part inherited traits, to express revulsion at expressions of sexuality is to implicitly express revulsion at the potential for reproduction, and thus the creation of more of "those people."

Add in concern trolling about having to pay for "their" healthcare, and you've got a stinking heap of "the world would be better off without fatties" on your hands.

This is considered acceptable public discourse.

In response, let us recall, to the fact that two fat fictional characters on a television show no one is required to watch, might be depicted showing one another physical affection.

I could write about this all fucking day, but ultimately all I really want to offer in response is this picture of my nonfictional fat self kissing my nonfictional fat husband:

Two Fatsronauts in Love.
Did the world fucking end? No? Shocking.

I'm sure there are thin bigots barfing all over the world right now, at the site of two fat people (not even) making out. And when they're done, they can kiss my fat ass.

Fat people should not be expected to hide evidence of their humanity, in deference to other people's bigotry.

It's shameful that remains a radical statement.

Contact Marie Claire and ask them why they are promoting virulent fat hatred.

[H/T to Shaker skirt.]

Hear a good story lately?

My lovely friend Bill let me know this morning that BBC7 has recently started airing banned works in their uncensored glory.

They started last Saturday with Lady Chatterley's Lover--with the voice talents of Lia Williams, Robert Glenister, and Roger Allam--and which you can listen to part one here.

In the coming weeks, they'll be broadcasting: Madam Bovary (Sarah Smart, John Hurt, Conrad Nelson), Animal Farm (Bill Nighy), Fahrenheit 451 (Michael Pennington), A Clockwork Orange (Jason Hughes, John McArdle, Jack Davenport), Women in Love (Clare Holman, Stella Gonet, Douglas Hodge, Nicholas Farrell), and Brave New World (Anton Lesser).

The Overton Window: Chapter Nineteen

Ah, chapter nineteen! You're a cornucopia of ideas. Most of them silly, some of them nonsensical. In good news, that cover image is finally explained. So that's something, right?

But before that big reveal, we've some nonsense to wade through.

Last chapter Molly had walked out on Noah and "all but disappeared into the river of weekend tourists and theatergoers flowing through the heart of Times Square." But now the two of them are back together, sneaking into Doyle & Merchant.

Because "weekend work was one of the many things his father frowned upon" Noah is forced to take the secret entrance into the office. Did I mention back in chapter five Darthur's hatred of watches? I don't think so. Let me do it now:

In 1978 an account executive had checked her watch during Arthur Gardner's heartwarming remarks at the company Christmas party. She’d looked up when the room got quiet and had seen in Noah’s father’s eyes what time it really was: time for her to find another job, in another city, in another industry. By the following Monday the unwritten no-timepiece rule was in full and permanent effect.

Huh? Okay, anyway. No clocks. No work on weekends. So Molly and Noah have to sneak in the office's back door.

A private elevator led to Arthur Gardner's suite of offices on the twenty-first floor, and that was the way they'd be going in.

The elevator had originally been an auxiliary freight lift, largely unused until its luxury conversion when Doyle & Merchant established their New York offices here in the 1960s. There was only one wrinkle in the layout: the ground-floor entrance to this elevator had to be located on the next-door tenant's property, which was currently a multilevel, tourist-trendy clothing store.

Ummm... okay. Darthur engineered the overthrow of Guatemala but can't con Heinrich's into moving out of their sublet to make way for his private elevator? Or was it intentional of Darthur to have his secret entrance near the belts and socks of the department store? Is this supposed to be the thrilling part of the thriller? Skullduggery among the Dockers?

It's another of those strange little details. Saying Molly and Noah took a freight elevator up to bypass security would have sufficed. But instead there's all this silliness about the elevator being at another address.

They ride up the elevator and Molly thanks Noah for breaking into the office. He replies "I'm not really speaking to you right now." Aww, how cute. Because he speaks to her to tell her he's not speaking to her. You crazy kids!

Noah gets philosophical:

There was only one way to warrant a blatant breach of business ethics such as this, and that was to attribute his actions to a higher cause. If Molly was right, then a cute but quirky mailroom temp had identified a grand, unified, liberty-crushing conspiracy that had been hatched in the conference room of a PR agency. The benefits of learning that would easily outweigh the consequences: forsaking his father's trust and violating the ironclad, career-ending nondisclosure clause of his employment contract. After all, with the fate of the free world in the balance, the prospect of getting fired, disowned, and probably sued into debtor's prison should be among the least of his worries.

I guess if you're willing to suspend disbelief that "a grand, unified, liberty-crushing conspiracy had been hatched in the conference room of a PR agency" then the rest of this book will be easy to swallow. Me, I just can't get past the ridiculousness of it. Then again, I can't get past how a dirty look translates into "no clocks, not here, not ever."

The elevator reaches the top and the two slink into Darthur's office. It's a swank, well lighted place, "a shrine to the very real forms of happiness that money could actually buy."

Molly paused at the sight of one thing.

"What is this?" she asked.

She was looking at a marble sculpture on a pedestal in the corner. Noah's father had commissioned it years ago. The figure depicted was a strange amalgamation of two other works of art: the Statue of Liberty and the Colossus of Rhodes.

Okay, so that's the cover:

The Statue of Liberty meets the Colossus of Rhodes. Which means what exactly?

"It's the way my father looks at things ... at people, I mean: societies. The law may serve some superficial purpose, but it only goes so far," Noah said, touching the spear in the statue's left hand. "At some point the law needs to be taken away and replaced with force. That's what really gets things done. People ultimately want it that way; they're like sheep, lost without a threat of force to guide them. That's what it means."

So, Darthur is a fascist. No surprise there. I mean, he's going to establish the New World Order or whatever. I don't get really how Liberty plus the Colossus symbolizes the effete nature of law and the will to power. But I guess that's what Wikipedia is for.

There is more walking down halls until they reach "the locked AV booth, where the presentation files were stored". There some espionage shit as Noah accesses some "coded folders on the computer" and starts up the Powerpoint again. And blah blah blah it's the same old shit from earlier.

Now, here's something I don't quite get. Either Noah knows about the NWO or he doesn't. He claims not to. But wasn't he right there in the room when Darthur laid it all out in chapter three? I started second-guessing myself. How could he have sat there in the room and then claim ignorance about the whole affair. That would make no sense. (Yes, I know, I know.) So I went back and looked at chapter three again, thinking maybe I misread it.

Nope:

"Because we must, we will finally complete what they envisioned: a new framework that will survive when the decaying remains of the failed United States have been washed away in the coming storm. Within this framework the nation will reemerge from the rubble, reborn to finally take its rightful, humble place within the world community. And you," he said, looking around the table, "will all be there to lead it."

"The misguided resistance that still exists will be put down in one swift blow. There'll be no revolution, only a brief, if somewhat shocking, leap forward in social evolution. We'll restore the natural order of things, and then there will be only peace and acceptance among the masses."

That's pretty straightforward shit there. Either Noah is a liar (PR weasel!) or he has gummi worms for brains. It makes no sense that Noah would lie about the NWO plan then sneak into his own office to reveal the plan to Molly. But it also makes no sense that he doesn't in fact know about it. What the fuck was the point of him burying that leaked memo in chapter three if he wasn't fucking involved in the conspiracy?

It's all down to poor storytelling, I know. Speaking of which:

"Who was in this meeting, do you know?" Molly asked.

Ummm.... From the previous chapter:

"I know there was a meeting at the office yesterday afternoon," she said, lowering her voice but not her intensity. "I saw the guest list on the catering order. I know who was there."

Poor storytelling, like I said.

There are more exciting Powerpoint slides. Like this one:

The heading was "Framework and Foundation: Toward a New Constitution." No names accompanied the headings that followed, only the areas of government that each new attendee supposedly represented.

• Finance / Treasury / Fed/Wall Street / Corporate Axis

• Energy / Environment / Social Services

• Labor / Transportation / Commerce / Regulatory Affairs

• Education / Media Management / Clergy / COINTELPRO

• FCC / Internet / Public Media Transition

• Control and Preservation of Critical Infrastructure

• Emergency Management / Rapid Response / Contingencies

• Law Enforcement / Homeland Security / USNORTHCOM / NORAD / STRATCOM / Contract Military / Allied Forces

• Continuity of Government

• Casus Belli: Reichstag / Susannah/Unit 131 / Gladio / Northwoods / EXIGENT

Noah asks what Casus Belli means. Molly explains "It means an incident that's used to justify a war." Also, Reichstag? Are you fucking kidding me? I guess once can never pass up the opportunity to make an allusion to the Nazis.

More slides. Because nothing is quite so thrilling as Powerpoint. Or passwords.

A security dialog popped up, and with a vocal sigh Noah entered his override password. If anyone ever checked to see who'd accessed these files and when, this would be another nail in his coffin. An hourglass indicator appeared, along with the message: Please Wait ... Content Loading from Remote Storage.

Note the plot point: If anyone ever checked to see who'd accessed these files and when, this would be another nail in his coffin. Whoops! I suspect someone will be checking.

Molly had left her seat and walked a complete circuit of the round room, looking over the various headings on the screens. She stopped by his side, pointing out a bracketed rectangle that enclosed part of the illustration on the slide in front of them.

"What's that box?" she asked.

"It's called the Overton Window."

Two explanations in one chapter! In fact, that's the entirety of the cover explained. Well, almost the entirety. The part that reads "A Thriller" is still a fucking mystery to me.

What follows is a long, and boring, discussion about the Overton Window and airline security and anarchy and "complete top-down Orwellian tyranny" and the media with a little bit of speechifying thrown in for good measure. Noah sums up:

"We put a false extreme at both ends to make the choices in the middle look moderate by comparison. And then, with a little nudge, you can be made to agree to something you would never have swallowed last week."

Which, I guess, is how you end up with that liberal Patriot Act.

And I apologize in advance for this next quote. I really hadn't intended to force you into reading so much of this dreck. But there was just so much in these paragraphs I couldn't not share it with you:

"We never let a good crisis go to waste, and if no crisis exists, it's easy enough to make one.

"Saddam's on the verge of getting nuclear weapons, so we have to invade before he wipes out Cleveland. If we don't hand AIG a seventy-billion-dollar bailout there'll be a depression and martial law by Monday. If we don't all get vaccinated one hundred thousand people will die in a super swine-flu pandemic. And how about fuel prices? Once you've paid five dollars for a gallon of gas, three-fifty suddenly sounds like a real bargain. Now they're telling us that if we don't pass this worldwide carbon tax right now the world will soon be underwater.

"And understand, I'm not talking about the right or wrong of those underlying issues. I care about the environment more than most, I want clean energy, I want this country to recover and be great again, people should get their shots if they need them, and Saddam Hussein was a legitimate monster. I'm saying opportunists can attach themselves to our hopes and fears about those things, for profit, and this is one of the tools they use to do that. The question to ask is, if they've got a legitimate case for these things, then why all the lying and fabrication?"

I'm not going to unpack most of that. I'm too tired to bother. And you're all smart enough to do that without my guidance. But I am going to point out that one galling bit of irony that is laying there like a steaming turd in the snow: "Opportunists can attach themselves to our hopes and fears about those things, for profit."

Yeah, Beck, Opportunists certainly can attach themselves to our hopes and fears for profit. You'd certainly know a thing or two about that, wouldn't you? I mean, what would you call The Overton Window if not an opportunistic attempt to wring cash from your paranoid fanbase by playing on their fears?

More speechifying follows. About Al Gore and Goldman Sachs and Enron and blah blah blah. And more Powerpoint. And more bullet-points:

• Consolidate all media assets behind core concepts of a new internationalism

• Gather and centralize powers in the Executive Branch

• Education: Deemphasize the individual, reinforce dependence and collectivism, social justice, and "the common good"

• Set beneficial globalization against isolationism/sovereignty: climate change, debt crises, finance/currency, free trade, immigration, food/water/energy, security/terrorism, human rights vs. property rights, UN Agenda 21

• Associate resistance and "constitutional" advocacy with a backward, extremist worldview: gun rights a key

• Quell debate and force consensus: Identify, isolate, surveil opposition leadership/threaten with sedition—criminalize dissent

• Expand malleable voter base and agenda support by granting voting rights to prison inmates, undocumented migrants, and select U.S. territories, e.g., Puerto Rico. Image as a civil rights issue; label dissenters as racist—invoke reliable analogies: slavery, Nazism, segregation, isolationism.

• Thrust national security to the forefront of the public consciousness

• Finalize the decline and abandonment of the dollar: new international reserve currency

• Synchronize and fully integrate local law enforcement with state, federal, and contract military forces, prepare collection/ relocation/ internment contingencies, systems, and personnel

Interesting, no, the points like "Quell debate" or "Thrust national security to the forefront"? I seem to recall lots and lots of talk during the previous administration about how True Patriots didn't criticize the President during a time of war. Why, anyone who did that was a traitor! That wasn't something out of the Liberal Playbook. That's standard rightwing rhetoric. Does Beck think his readers are stupid? Does he think no one remembers that? Who was it that thrust national security to the forefront? It sure wasn't the Left who were in charge after 9/11.

Oy. I almost feel sorry for Beck's fans. Almost.

There is one final slide, set to go into effect. In three days! "Casus Belli." Oh noes!

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Little Tibia and the Fibias: "The Mummy"

In Case You Were Ever Under the Misapprehension That Thin Privilege Doesn't Exist…

by Shaker RachelB

[Trigger warning for fat hatred.]

Google Instant and "common knowledge": Do you want to think what your neighbors are thinking? Do you even want to know what your neighbors are thinking…?

Several bloggers have written about Google Instant since it launched in early September. A feature that suggests a range of search completions while you're still typing, Instant is supposed to cut down on the time it takes to perform a search. But as various bloggers have pointed out, Instant, by "guessing" what you mean based on other people's queries, also presents an interesting tool for analyzing a number of linguistic issues—what is considered prurient, what is considered hateful, and what is considered common knowledge.

A number of people noticed that certain words—including "bisexual" and "lesbian"—returned no Instant results; see, for example, Grace Chu's post at After Ellen, "Google doesn't want to give us lesbians."¹

Kelly F., a Google employee, responded to an early question about why Instant did not offer completions for some searches: "The algorithms we use to remove a prediction from autocomplete consider a variety of factors. Among other things, we exclude predictions for queries when the query itself appears to be pornographic, violent or hateful. Our algorithms look not only at specific words, but also at compound queries based on those words, and across all languages."

So what is "pornographic, violent or hateful," anyway, according to Google?

An ongoing discussion [trigger warnings for roughly everything apply] at 2600.com, "Google Blacklist: Words That Google Instant Doesn't Like," gives a range of terms that don't return instant results. Please note that many of the terms on the list are homophobic, misogynist, racist, or transphobic insults that would be unwelcome at Shakesville. Some terms referring to sexual violence also appear on the list.²

Words and phrases that Instant does not autocomplete offer insight into what Google finds "pornographic, violent or hateful," but they also offer insight into what people are already searching for: Regulations tend to appear in response to problems, not in anticipation of them. Suggesting completions for your search also offers insight into what people are already searching for. And here's where we run into a chicken-and-egg problem. As Google's page explaining Instant points out, "Even when you don't know exactly what you're looking for, predictions help guide your search."

Danger, Will Robinson!

Why would I be troubled that Instant guides your search "when you don't know exactly what you're looking for"? First, that kind of guiding is potentially coercive. I teach composition, mostly to first-year college students. When I don't understand what a student is trying to say about a passage we've just read, my first impulse is to paraphrase what I think zie just said, then ask, "Am I understanding you correctly?" In my experience, this has been a dodgy pedagogical impulse. A student who isn't quite sure what zie is trying to say, unless zie is unusually comfortable with hir classmates and me, chooses the path of least resistance and replies, "Yes." If you don't know exactly what you mean, having words put in your mouth or fingers might not just guide your search: It might shape that search, too.

My second problem? The efforts Google has gone through to keep Instant from autocompleting hateful terms are ultimately ineffective. When the people who have designed Instant fail to recognize an axis of privilege—say, thin privilege—the algorithm they use to head hatefulness off at the pass is going to fail. What's more, when the same search engine suggests how you might complete that search, it guides you toward a search that many other people have already done—other people living in a society that prizes one body type at the expense of others. And some of the results it offers reinforce bigotry against fat people in a way that is both appalling and unsurprising.

Which brings me to a cluster of posts in the Fatosphere this weekend, all of which I recommend if you have the intestinal fortitude. Sugared Venom incisively examines the thin privilege and fat hate visible in the way Google completes queries like "fat people are" and "fat people should." Hir post and the follow-ups use screen caps of searches to illustrate their commentary, so trigger warnings for fat hate and eliminationism apply.

Sleepy Dumpling at Fat Heffalump extended Sugared Venom's experiment by plugging in "fat people m," "fat people g," and "fat people h" to see how Google would complete them. (As it turns out, badly. Although fat people do apparently have Wisconsin.) Due to a search result reported in one of the comments, this post probably needs an extra trigger warning for sexual violence.

Brian at Red No. 3 responded by investigating what happens when you type "thin people" into a Google search window. Unsurprisingly, he found none of the vitriol that Sugared Venom and Sleepy Dumpling observed in their examples.

As the thin-privileged sister of a fat brother, I would guess that if you are fat, the viciousness explicit in these search completions is not news to you.³ It's disheartening that the viciousness Sugared Venom and Sleepy Dumpling's searches found is apparently prevalent enough to pass for bog-standard common knowledge. And it's infuriating that Instant compounds the problem, making it easier for bigots to find the sneering that they're looking for, and harder for those of us who just want to find a damn pair of hiking boots.

--------------------------------------

¹ As someone has pointed out in every comment thread I've seen discussing Google Instant's mysterious treatment of the word "lesbian," you can find results for the word "lesbian" using Google; you just have to hit as you would have before Instant debuted. As of when I last checked (October 25, 2010), Google offers search completions for "lesbian," once you type the final "n": "lesbian dating," "lesbian vampire killers," and "lesbian bed death" are chief among them. Woot. There are no suggested completions yet for the search term "bisexual." (Insert your favorite joke about bisexual invisibility here.)

² TW for reference to sexual violence: One commenter on 2600.com suggested that because the word "rape" is currently on the list of terms that Instant doesn't autocomplete, survivors' resources might be marginally harder to locate. Furthermore, the presence of "rape" among sexual terms that don't connote violence, and that would appear here without a trigger warning, makes me think that Google is not actually differentiating between reporting and treating sexual violence, committing said sexual violence, and having sex with one or more enthusiastically consenting adult partner. Which, you know, fails on many accounts.

³ Until reading Sugared Venom's post this weekend, I hadn't done a Google search on fat-related issues since discovering Fat Acceptance blogs. And I had forgotten how much hateful and misinformed stuff there was to sift through in order to find the good and useful FA nuggets the first time. Being able to forget that? Privilege.

Rand Paul Supporters Attack Liberal Woman

[Trigger warning for violence.]

The story is here, with video, which is extremely difficult to watch. Briefly, a woman with MoveOn.org showed up at the Rand Paul-Jack Conway debate in Lexington, Kentucky last night, intending to present Paul with an "employee of the month award" from Republicorp...a fake business MoveOn created to symbolize what it says is the merger of the GOP and business interests controlling political speech." Paul's supporters grabbed her, ripped the wig from her head, threw her to the ground, and held her down while one man stomped on her head as it laid against the curb.

I am beyond enraged after watching the video.

This is the inevitable result of a political movement that constantly engages in violent rhetoric (and there are a lot more links where those came from), whose elected officials feel comfortable speaking casually about the violent overthrow of the government. This shit doesn't happen in a void.

The intellectual leaders (I use the term advisedly) of the Tea Party movement cannot continue to rely on the language of violence and simultaneously assert they are not a violent movement, distancing themselves from demonstrations of violence among their membership, claiming those incidents to be aberrations.

Violence begets violence. Enough.

That Glee Photo Shoot

by Shaker Fannie, author of Fannie's Room, who, when not hanging out at her blog, can probably be found planning the homosexual agenda, twirling her mustache, plotting a leftist feminist takeover of the universe, and coordinating the recruitment effort of the lesbian branch of the Gay Mafia. Her days are busy.

So, there is this. View the slideshow (warning: might not be safe for some workplaces).

I love Glee. I sometimes am annoyed by it, but generally, I appreciate its ode to geekiness. I also do sometimes like looking at photos of attractive women (and men), if the photos are tastefully done and don't seem like they're completely exploiting the person. And subtlety is good. Subtext, to me, is often sexier than in-your-face displays of sexual availability.

Those disclaimers aside, I could now go on about how these photos at once infantilize adult women by portraying female actresses as sexy schoolgirls while also inappropriately sexualizing these characters, who are supposed to be under the age of 18.

I could also talk about how annoyingly predictable it is that, of all of Glee's diverse cast members, it is the two women who most conform to conventional Hollywood beauty standards who have been granted the empowerful privilege of being sexified for a men's mag. For, despite Glee's idealistic and uplifting message that It's What's On the Inside That Counts, the show's resident Fat Black Girl With A Soulful Voice is noticeably absent from the shoot.

And then there's the fact that it's titled Glee Gone Wild! a not-so-subtle allusion to that paragon of klassy art that made Joe Francis a ~~pimp~~ wealthy man. Yeah, I could talk about how that's not my favorite.

We could also explore how the photos are clearly intended for the heterosexual male gaze (or, say, the gaze of a sexually abusive photographer who talks about how his "boner" compels him to want to "dominate" girls) and his sexual fantasies.

And I will talk about that for a minute, actually.

GQ is a men's magazine, so while some lesbians and bisexual women might be titillated by such images, they should not be so naive as to think it is they who are the intended recipients of these images. Finn, the football player, is perhaps the one dude on the show who Average Joes most identify with. In GQ's slideshow, he is almost fully clothed in regular streetwear throughout and often adorned with the Ultimate Straight Male Fantasy of not one, but two, hot chicks who might first make out with each other and then subsequently have sex with him.

As for the women depicted, the images predominately feature the two actors wearing the sexy-lady Halloween costume known as Sexually Available Schoolgirl, thus letting gay men know that this photo shoot about characters in a musical TV show is not intended for them, either.

Which brings me to the self-indulgent, possibly shallow, item I really want to talk about.

See, well, Glee used to be our thing.

The geeks, the losers, the queers, the disabled, the atheists, the dudely jock who likes to sing and dance, the pregnant girl, the teen diva, and the male Asian actor who is supposed to be geeky-cool but who never gets a speaking part in Glee solo. The popularity of Glee has been Revenge of the Nerds all the way and for that reason it has been pretty, dare I say, special to a lot of marginalized people and teenagers in all its campy dorkwad glory.

But now, the GQ photo shoot has subverted geekiness to give heterosexual men yet another thing in this world that can be, erm, special to them. And what's supposed to special about Quinn and Rachel in these photos is not their voices, their struggles, their dorkiness, their self-centeredness, their insecurities, or their dreams, but rather, the never-been-done-before message that it's women! Who are hot! And young! And thin! Who men want to fuck!

GQ, on behalf of its straight male readership, flaunts Rachel and Quinn in these photos like Sue Sylvester boastingly displays her ginormous cheerleading trophies as yet another reminder to the geeks that "not everyone can be champions" because some people are meant to dominate and others to be dominated. The photos are the equivalent of a major studio finally producing a Xena movie, writing in that long-awaited for Xena/Gabby actual make-out scene, and then having the two main characters end up married. To men, that is. Because what heterosexual men would like to see happen to two female characters is, let's face it, always what is most important when it comes to TV and film and to hell with any other major fan base.

Glee should know better.

Trying to be popular by catering to the "I only watch shows with multiple major female characters if they're hot" crowd might make a couple of dorks cool for a while, but it's also why the rest us can't have nice things.

[Cross-posted.]

Open Thread

Hosted by Zombie Shakespeare.

Question of the Day

Inspired by my previous post... You have been given total creative freedom, unlimited time, and the artistic talents of the amazing Gene Ha (that is, if you require them; if you are, like myself, artistically challenged).

What trailblazing, transgressive, weird, and/or wonderful superhero do you create?

If Only Someone Would Make This Film for Realz

Meredith at io9 reports:

In a desperate attempt to stay relevant, director Uwe Boll is making a ridiculously offensive fatsploitation movie called Blubberella. "She will kick major ass - with her major ass."

...Boll is doing what he does best — pathetically poking the masses hoping to generate an angry, free PR machine. But the honest-to-goodness truth is that this film will most likely be so wretched (both in theory and in execution) that hopefully it will just die out on its own, in development hell. Until then, we're bracing ourselves for a barrage of classless jokes about weight from the house of Boll. What do you all think? Does Blubberella make you angry, or just sad once you find out who's attached to direct?

Honestly, I'm just disappointed by another iteration of treating the idea of a fat female superhero as so thoroughly absurd and wildly implausible that it could never be anything but a punchline.

You want incomparable courage and legendary fortitude? I got your courage and fortitude right here: It remains a radical act to be a fat and happy woman in America. If you're fat, you're not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident—and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society's disdain and your own self-hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cow-calls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self-esteem; you don't deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery.

Yeah, what a hilariously improbable idea that a fat woman could be a superhero, when she requires supernatural strength just to get through every goddamn day.

[H/T to Shaker Erin W.]

Quote of the Day

"The most you can expect is two years of good old-fashioned gridlock."—Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah), a vice chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, promising nothing but undiluted obstructionism if (when) the GOP retakes the House.

Oh Fuck! Mayor Bloomberg

He's such! a fucking jer-rk

Three term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come out in favor of the two-term limit he successfully fought to overturn way back in 2008.

First, this plays into a long and disturbing tradition of political exceptionalism, from court-packing (it might not mean what you think it does) to Spitzerism. So hooray for that.

Second, at the risk of Godwining out, this is how things go to hell in a hurry. But-but-but 2008 was practically the end of NYC, and Mayor Bloomberg was the only person in a financial capital of over 8 million people that knew enough about finance to do whatever it is he does. I know. It's just like how in light of OMG POST 9/11 REALITIES it's totes essential to suspend certain civil liberties for certain people. Look, I'm not generally a fan of term limits, but uh, altering the structure of government to respond to annually scheduled perceived emergencies isn't exactly like declaring a snow day.

FYI

[Previous FYI: Rick Astley; Eddie Murphy; The Eurythmics; Eddie Rabbit; Sinéad O'Connor; Was (Not Was); Bon Jovi; Kenny Rogers; Bobby McFerrin; Starship; Dead or Alive; Right Said Fred; Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians; Salt n Pepa; Nelson; The Cure; The Soup Dragons; Europe/BushCo; Elton John; Eddie Money; Human League; Glenn Frey, Van Halen, Alanis Morissette. Hint: They're better if you click 'em!]

Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"

See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

No, That's Not What You Think It Is

[Click image to embiggen.]
Meet The World's Largest Gummy Worm. Yum!

Three pounds, 128 times bigger than a traditional gummy worm, 4000 calories, 5" circumference, made in the USA, from delicious gummy liquid. It's also ribbed, for some reason.

There's a video at the link, which I haven't seen. Diabetics should, presumably, avoid viewing.

[Via Andy.]

Daily Dose o' Cute

Dudley, at the dog park.
The Mayor of Dudlington had a rough weekend, as he had to make a trip to the vet [grossness warning] to get an abscessed anal gland expressed. Poor Mr. Doodles did not know how to express (pun intended) to the resident Two-Legsies that he had butt distress, so there was a good week of uncharacteristic leash-pulling on walks (which in retrospect translates to: "Please hurry! I need to get away from my butt!") before some excessive licking at the affected area finally clued me in to what was going on.

Now not only is Dudley's butt back in shipshape order, but he gets unprecedented globs of peanut butter twice a day (and has yet to notice the antibiotic pills encased therein), which makes life EVEN BETTER.

As if they knew it would just be cruel to add insult to injury, his kitteh sisters welcomed him home from the vet with curious but friendly sniffs, eschewing the "Eww! You were at the STINKY PLACE!" hissing they inevitably give each other.

And Dudz is back to walking gently on the leash, right at one's side, no longer feeling the burning need to escape the stalking terror of his own ass.

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

Because it's almost really good. And then you get to this part [trigger warning for fat hatred and body/food policing]:

Kiki McLean pointedly tells me that one of the things that she most admires about [Senator Kirsten Gillibrand] is "the way she balances being a senator with her husband and her little boys." As much as I hate to make too much of it, I said, I can't help being impressed by somebody who lost 40 pounds while doing this job. "OK," says McLean, "this is a killer because I have fought weight my entire life, and she is completely disciplined about this. She was at my home for dinner recently, and she focused on the salad and the fruit. We can laugh about it and I can be jealous of her, but I think it's a tremendous demonstration of discipline and the fact that she knows she has to be in the best health, so that she can be the best mom and the best senator."

And no doubt remain attractive to her husband of nine years, who is two years younger than she is.

Wow.

Considering all the references to how very much like Hillary Clinton, the senator whose vacated seat Gillibrand now fills, Gillibrand is—starting with the headline "In Hillary's Footsteps"—I'm really amazed that Jonathan Van Meter left me hanging about whether Gillibrand is similarly "cursed with cankles." Come on, Vogue—this is important stuff!

[Via Irin.]

WHUT.

Sure. Why not.

If you share a name with someone famous — like, say, 35-year-old pinball geek Justin Bieber of Jacksonville, Fla., or one of the five Betty Whites in Boston, MA — you might soon be getting a call from somebody at CBS. The network has teamed with 51 Minds (the company behind such critically beloved VH1 fare as I Love New York and Rock of Love) for a new reality project dubbed The Same Name. The basic premise of the show revolves around finding regular folks whose names happen to be the same as celebs, and then having the two temporarily trade lives.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go legally change my name to Barack Obama, so I can apply for the show. Get ready for THE DAY OF A THOUSAND WACKY EXECUTIVE ORDERS!!!

Where "wacky" = "progressive."

(TW for sexual violence: I'm also totes going to submit Iain's name (close enough!) so that he can spend a day working on a novel about a privileged man whose life is thrown into upheaval because a woman he fancies has been raped, threatened with rape, or is already dead. Perhaps he can rewrite whatever his famous name-sharer has been working on to include a female protagonist who has motivations other than trauma, and then there might exist an Ian McEwan novel I actually enjoy reading!)

Monday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the upcoming Deeky W. Gashlycrumb confessional, I Was a Teenage Wizard.

Recommended Reading:

[TW for racism, misogyny, and bullying] Anonymous at the University of Venus: An Unspoken Threat

[TW for discussion of bullying] rboylorn: "Words Hurt": A (Personal) Reflection on Bullying as Verbal Violence

[TW for misogyny] Historiann: Poor Ken: Only Girls Will Play With Him!

[TW for homophobia] Steve: Reinstated Oregon Teacher Seth Stambaugh Talks to Towleroad

[TW for homophobia] LeMew: This Is What Support of DADT Amounts To

[TW for transphobia and homophobia] Autumn: More "Truth" On "Sex Change Operations"?

[TW for sexual violence] There is a new blog project, SoulSpeakOut, collecting the stories of survivors, who are invited to share their stories via prose, poetry, artwork, or other creative expression, either by name, pseudonymously, or anonymously. Visit SoulSpeakOut here.

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