Go.
Stop.
Abrasive Is Just Another Word for Bitch
by Shaker llewllew
[Trigger warning for misogynist tropes.]
Once again, CNN’s Entertainment Blog proves to be a dumping ground of misogyny with an article titled, "Christina Aguilera abrasive on 'The Voice'?" The title of the article should indicate the overall sexist tone of the piece, which includes this gem:
Christina Aguilera may need to take some lessons from Jennifer Lopez.Of course, Aguilera, one of the judges on The Voice, is compared to the female judge on Idol, who is praised for having worked so hard to mend her diva ways. No comparison is made to Idol alum Simon Cowell, who is as much praised for his abrasiveness (here, because he is a man, abrasiveness becomes "truthfulness") as he is criticized.
While "Idol's" Lopez has used her time on her hit singing competition show to transform her diva reputation to that of a supportive softie, Aguilera appears to be going in another direction.
The article also propagates the myth that women who work together must be in competition with each other:
And while Shelton [one of the male judges] appeared to allow his team to shine Tuesday night during their performance […] CNN's K.J. Matthews points out in her recap that "Team Christina seemed to be locked in a battle of its own between Beverly McClellan, Frenchie Davis and Christina herself, with all three of them bringing their A game and hitting those hard to reach notes."If you watch the performance of "Lady Marmalade" in question, you will see that it is true that each woman brings her A-game and sings her best. But what CNN's writer fails to mention is that Christina spends a lot of the performance literally encouraging each woman, with comments like "Sing it, Frenchie!"—so I don't understand why this writer would characterize the performance as a "battle," especially in light of hir comments about the male judge "letting his team shine." Except, of course, for the fact that five talented women obviously can't work together without trying to outdo each other. Because, no doy.
The article is especially shameful, given the authentic diversity of the women who make up Aguilera's team, including Beverly McClellan, an out lesbian, and African-American plus-sized singer Frenchie Davis, making her magnificent return to television after being unconscionably shamed off of "American Idol" because nude pictures of her surfaced on the web.
While there is legitimate criticism to be made of Aguilera for her fixation on contestant Patrick Thomas' trousers (the sort of thing for which male judges are rarely taken to task by the media: I'm looking at you, Nigel Lithgow), the evidence that she is abrasive is otherwise pretty thin.
The "Voice's" celebrity coach is coming across as a tad rude in her dealings with fellow judges as she talks over them, makes wisecracks and gets in a few eye rolls here and there at the expense of her male, fellow judges Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green and Blake Shelton.Oh, of course. She isn't demurring to the men.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud makers of something something I'm too tired to think of anything clever.
Recommended Reading:
rboylorn: [TW for discussion of body image; racism; colorism] Ode to Dark (Skinned) Girls
Tobi: City of Portland Gets Trans Inclusive Healthcare
Renee: [TW for racism] The Most Dangerous Place for a Latino Baby Is in the Womb
Andy: GLAAD, AT&T, and Net Neutrality: A Tangled, Sticky Web
Angry Asian Man: World War II Translator Denied U.S. Veteran Status
Happy Blogiversary (and thank you for the kind words) to Scatx!
Action Items/Teaspooning Opportunities:
Commission a Sketch to Help Pay Legal Fees of Girl Who Refused to Cheer Her Attacker. [TW for sexual violence]
Time to Act! Save a Million Lives From TB-HIV!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Awesome. Totally Awesome.
So, well-regarded co-host of the Today show Meredith Vieira (whom, by the way, I remember watching as a reporter on the local CBS affiliate when I was a kid and thinking she was sooooooo glamorous) left her anchor spot this week after five years. On Wednesday, her final day, the show sent her off with all sorts of treats and celebrations, the highlight of which was this amazing live flash mob, in which her colleagues, the Today crew, the ubiquitous inhabitants of the square outside Rockefeller Plaza, and special guest stars Abe Vigoda (yes!) and Jimmy Fallon serenaded Vieira with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," all while wearing We Heart Meredith t-shirts.
Video Description: As above. Vieira is led to a piano by co-anchor Matt Lauer, where they pretend to play and Lauer (badly) lip-syncs the opening lines, then Ann Curry leads Vieira out of the studio and through a series of corridors and down some stairs, at the bottom of which waits Abe Vigoda playing air guitar, with whom Vieira shares a dance, before she is led away, down more corridors and past lip-syncing crew members. As the tempo of the music quickens, Vieira, with a huge grin on her face, begins to hop and run alongside the ever-changing cast of people leading her through the building. Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb lead her up the lobby stairs and out into the square, where a huge crowd cheers. Al Roker grabs her hand and they run down the street. In a small courtyard, a group of people hold up signs over their head making a giant picture of Vieira; they flip them to create a giant sign reading We Heart Meredith. Vieira runs on with more and more people, until she meets up again with Lauer, who is now joined by Jimmy Fallon, who leads the mob on while pretending to play the guitar solo on an electric guitar. As they run-dance down the final stretch, people are lined up on either side of the path, cheering and clapping and dancing, as if it's the end of a marathon (and, considering this is all live, it kind of is). At the end of the path, where Abe Vigoda has rejoined the party with a silver baton, Vieira turns, and the whole crowd lip-syncs the final lines of the song, doing a choreographed dance. Vieira dances with Vigoda as they finish. At the end, everyone cheers, and Vieira is overwhelmed with emotion. Lauer and Vieira kiss Vigoda. "Thank you so much," Vieira says to the crowd. She hugs Vigoda. "I love you," she says. She turns and gives Lauer a hug. "I love you," she tells him. Blub.
On Tracy Morgan
[Trigger warning for homophobia.]
I've gotten a few emails about former SNL alum and 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan's viciously homophobic garbage rant during a comedy appearance in Nashville, so here's a thread for discussion.
I don't have a lot to say about it. I guess I'm a little surprised that it's suddenly news, since his stand-up act has been a fuckload of homophobic, misogynist, and disablist trash, littered with rape jokes, for at least a couple of years. But I'm glad it's getting attention now.
Yep, he's got cigarette butts where his decency should be, and he is one of the many reasons I don't tune in to 30 Rock. Insert here everything I have said in this space literally hundreds of times before about my profound and comprehensive contempt for homophobia and the people who gleefully engage in it. You're gross, Tracy Morgan.
I'll just note one other quick thing: While I support the urge (and need, IMO) to hold entertainment producers accountable for continuing to employ unapologetic bigots, I wonder why it is that Tina Fey is the only producer, among many, including her fellow executive producer of the show Lorne Michaels, who is nearly as famous as she is, and her co-star Alec Baldwin, who has himself received a producer credit on 61 episodes, of whom accountability is being demanded?
Even the argument that Fey has been an ally to the LGBTQI community, and thus must be held to a different standard, doesn't hold water, given the fact that Baldwin has been, too.
It seems as though Fey is being treated as the singular gatekeeper of Morgan's principles (or lack thereof), in an echo of the age-old stereotype that boys will be boys and it's up to women to soften them and control them and deliver consequences for moral failures, that women are the exclusive arbiters and protectors of society's morality.
Yeah, hold Fey accountable for employing a shit-head on her hit show, but hold the rest of the producers accountable, too. She isn't his mommy.
UPDATE: Morgan has issued an apology through his publicist: "I want to apologize to my fans and the gay & lesbian community for my choice of words at my recent stand-up act in Nashville. I'm not a hateful person and don't condone any kind of violence against others. While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context."
Ugh, that "equal opportunity jokester" stuff makes me barrrrrrrrrrrf. As Tami said just the other day in a great post: "No comedy is really equal-opportunity. Why? Because our society is not equal opportunity. We are not all the same."
I Case You Forgot, Rick Santorum Still Hates Women
In a recent appearamce at Informed Choices, a "crisis pregnancy center" in West Des Moines, professional misogynist, fetus cultist and 2012 Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum called health exceptions to abortion bans "phony."
When I was leading the charge on partial birth abortion, several members came forward and said, "Why don't we just ban all abortions?" Tom Daschle was one of them, if you remember. And Susan Collins, and others. They wanted a health exception, which of course is a phony exception which would make the ban ineffective.
So, you got that, ladies? Your health and well-being? Just a bunch of malarkey. Hokum to be used to kill babies or whatever.
As Think Progess notes, Santorum has previously "decried 'the selfishness, the individual self-centeredness' of legislators who were concerned about the health of pregnant women." Santorum, seemingly, has not wavered on his belief that you are less important than a fetus.
Well. This Should Be Interesting.
Sarah Palin's emails during her time as governor of Alaska are finally to be released in accordance with a Freedom of Information Act request:
Sarah Palin is braced for the release of tens of thousands of emails sent when she was governor of Alaska and which opponents say could damage a potential run for the White House.I am quite looking forward to (and fully expect) information that will further discredit Palin, even among her waning numbers of supporters, as a serious contender for the presidency. I am not looking forward to the enormous heaploads of revolting misogyny and classism which will indubitably accompany that information and the subsequent discussion.
The emails, copies of which will be obtained by the Guardian, date from her inauguration as governor in 2006 through to being propelled to fame as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008. The controversial time saw her initial sky-high approval ratings plummet and ended up in a series of rows, including an ethics investigation and a falling-out with her running mate, John McCain.
...Her office is due on Friday to hand over six boxes containing 24,199 pages of printed emails to the Guardian and other media organisations that had applied for copies. Our reporters will immediately begin sifting the documents for stories but the Guardian plans to publish thousands of the raw mails as quickly as possible to allow readers to scan them for interesting material.
...Palin, in an interview last week with Fox, said she was relaxed about the emails because every rock that could be kicked over had been. But a note of caution crept in when she added that "a lot of those emails obviously weren't meant for public consumption".
...About 2,275 emails have been withheld and some of the 24,199 have been redacted.
Sarah Palin is totes the worst, but not because she's a woman, a beautiful woman, an ambitious woman, a mom, a mom to many children, a mom to a disabled child, a former beauty queen, an outdoorsy type with a middle-class background, nor even because she politicks with the mendacious, aw-shucks, insufferably affected demeanor that's been a central part of conservative identity politics since Ronald Reagan's carefully blushed cheeks.
She's the worst not because she says stupid things but because she says wrong things, because she's an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, anti-socialized healthcare, anti-social safety net, pro-social Darwinism conservative asshole, just another self-proclaimed bootstrapper who can be flippant about reproductive choice only because she has it, who fancies herself an anti-disability crusader despite laughable double-standards and routinely referring to US journalists as the "lamestream media," who belittles feminists and their advocacy for the programs and policies that help marginalized women and girls, and who trades on being a rightwing token while demeaning the very feminist activism that has afforded her the public platform on which she brazenly basks in the luxury of her disdain.
Those distinctions aren't all that hard, given a modicum of effort and the willingness to not lazily rely on misogynist and classist narratives as substitute for substantive critique of a terrible candidate.
Zell Miller Is Standing by His Man, No Doy
Despite the magnificent implosion of Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign, his campaign co-chair and BFF Zell Miller ain't going anywhere:
"Of course I'm not leaving him," former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller, a maverick Democrat and national co-chairman of Gingrich's campaign, said in an interview. "I'm as strong for him as ever, and that's strong."Miller will challenge to a duel, or an arm-wrestling match to the death, anyone who stands in the way of Newt Gingrich's ascent to the White House. Watch out, America!
Question of the Day
Of the dipfucks currently running or expected to run for president, which Republican do you think would make the worst president and why?
500 words or less. Please show your work.
Film Corner!
Everything about this sounds terrible:
Universal Pictures is in early talks with Jason Bateman to star with Vince Vaughn in The Insane Laws, a comedy that will mark the feature directorial debut of screenwriter Jeremy Garelick. ... Garelick co-wrote the Vaughn-starrer The Break-Up. Garelick also did uncredited script work on The Hangover.Okay, I didn't even watch Will & Grace and SPOILER ALERT! even I know that it ended with their kids falling in love at college, so kudos on stealing an idea from a sitcom that ended five years ago. Which itself probably stole the idea from the series finale of AfterMASH, but who knows because no one watched AfterMASH, no doy. But I'm guessing it probably stole its ideas from Homer's classic ancient Greek epic Willus and Gracus. What I'm saying is, that idea is tired.
The plan is for Bateman and Vaughn to play longtime best friends, who've shared everything, from college to the time both got married and had kids at the same time. Cut to when those kids are away at college, and, unbeknownst to their parents, falling in love. The best friend relationship is sorely tested when the daughter of Vaughn's character gets pregnant. The actors just did a read-through of the material, and it could be in production by the fall.
And adding in the zany pregnancy twist, so Vince Vaughn can get all "your son ruined my property!" with Jason Batman, does not freshen the concept. "Jason Batman, Imma totes get you AND your son for getting your dirty genes up in my daughter's business!" Nope. Get those purity balls out of your ass, Vince Vaughn. Gross.
Daily Dose of Cute
"I got your tail! I got your tail!"
Much like a honey badger, Matilda just don't give a shit.
Alabama's Got the Nation's Toughest New Immigration Law
[Trigger warning for racism and anti-immigrant sentiments.]
And by "nation's toughest new immigration law," I naturally mean the most anti-migrant racist piece-of-shit legislation in the country:
Republican Governor Robert Bentley on Thursday signed into law [a bill requiring police to] detain someone they suspect of being in the country illegally if the person cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason.Although progressive Alabama social justice groups protested the legislation and petitioned the governor to veto it, their efforts failed, and conservative Alabamans are singing the praises of the new legislation.
It also will be a crime to knowingly transport or harbor someone who is in the country illegally. The law imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly employ someone without legal resident status. A company's business license could be suspended or revoked.
The law requires Alabama businesses to use a database called E-Verify to confirm the immigration status of new employees.
"We have a real problem with illegal immigration in this country," Bentley said after signing the law. "I campaigned for the toughest immigration laws and I'm proud of the Legislature for working tirelessly to create the strongest immigration bill in the country."
Alabama is the latest state to follow the lead of a controversial measure passed in Arizona last year. ... Alabama's law is unique in requiring public schools to determine, by review of birth certificates or sworn affidavits, the legal residency status of students.
Gene Armstrong, mayor of Allgood, Alabama, a small community where the Hispanic population has grown to almost 50 percent, is not worried [that what happened in Georgia, "where farmers have complained that tough new curbs on immigration are creating a shortage of seasonal workers before they even go into effect," will happen in Alabama].Of course.
"We managed in the past without illegal immigrants to pick the tomatoes here, and I haven't heard anyone say that if we sent them all home nobody would be left to do that work," Armstrong said.
"When you have 9 percent unemployment, I think that some people who might not have wanted those jobs previously might reconsider."
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Alec Baldwin, Professor of Ethics at Calling Your Daughter a Pig University, explains that Anthony Weiner is just a modern human being, in the thoughtfully titled "Anthony Weiner Is a Modern Human Being."
Executive Summary: Kids today. So many gadgets! Gleep glorp. We had to walk uphill both ways to get laid. Men need to feel wanted sexually to take the edge off, no doy it's science. Time is money and porn isn't good enough. Wives don't put out on demand, so whaddaya expect? Weiner's crime was forgetting that women are lying whores who won't always keep it confidential when you publicly tweet pictures of your dong to them. Weiner is a busy, modern, high functioning man with needs. Hey, we all make mistakes, so shut up.
Well said, Mr. Baldwin.
Ba Da Ba Ba Baaaa! I'm Lovin' It!
In case my two earlier posts, and Misty's follow-up, weren't depressing enough for you, I just read this alarming tidbit at Mother Jones:
"Up to 30,000 of the 54,000 jobs created in May were the result of a hiring spree by the hamburger chain, analysts at Morgan Stanley told Market Watch on Friday." So hiring at McDonald's accounted for about half of the nation's job growth in May.Emphasis mine.
In addition to the economic implications of that scenario, while McDonald's is becoming US workers' best employment option, the First Lady is busily introducing her "Let's Move" campaign at fucking pre-schools.
Not everyone who is fat eats McDonald's; not everyone who eats McDonald's is fat; not everyone who eats McDonald's and is fat or not fat is unhealthy. But someone who eats McDonald's almost exclusively is very likely to have health problems irrespective of their weight as a result.
Does anyone else find it incredibly absurd to be investing money in a fat-shaming and ableist anti-obesity campaign aimed at children in a country where their unemployed parents are more likely to get hired at McDonald's than anywhere else, a job at which the compensation makes the dollar value menu a more affordable option for many meals than the local grocery store (that is, if they don't live in a food desert), and the likely lack of employer health insurance means that preventative healthcare will be a luxury the family cannot afford?
This country is so fucked up.
Whoooooooooops Your Presidential Campaign!
Senior Gingrich 2012 aides resign en masse:
Newt Gingrich's campaign manager and numerous other key aides have resigned together, a strong blow to his hopes for the Republican presidential nomination.One wonders if this has anything to do with the fact that the launch of his campaign website was a garbage disaster, that his campaign announcement video was a joke, that he is a lulz-quote spewing machine, that he thinks "awesome campaign strategist" and "Zell Miller" are synonymous, and that he is hostile to the media when they have the unmitigated temerity to ask him about things like his six-figure tab at Tiffany's during the nation's more dire economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Gingrich press spokesman Rick Tyler told The Associated Press that he's resigned along with campaign manager Rob Johnson, senior strategists and aides in key early primary states.
Curious.
Sorry about your campaign, Newt!
UPDATE: "Gingrich told the group he intends to stay in the race." Phew! That was a close one.
Consent Matters
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment; rape culture.]
There sure are still a lot of people arguing that Rep. Weiner's internet fuckery is a private matter between consenting adults, even though a Times article made clear yesterday that 21-year-old college student Gennette Cordova neither solicited nor consented to receive the tweeted picture heard 'round the world:
"I have not sent him any suggestive messages," Ms. Cordova said.Listen, there is no one (who doesn't know Weiner personally) who did not want to find out more than me that Congressman Anthony Weiner was sexually harassing women by sending them unsolicited pictures of his genitals. It grieves me. But just because I don't want to be true doesn't mean I get to pretend it isn't; and pretending it isn't doesn't make it so.
She said she was, however, surprised by his informal tone. "He was just very casual," she said. "It wasn't like talking to a U.S. congressman."
A spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner did not dispute Ms. Cordova's account.
Mr. Weiner, at his news conference on Monday, said he had sent Ms. Cordova the underwear photo "as part of a joke." But Ms. Cordova said the image was not in keeping with the tenor of their previous interactions.
"I still didn't get the joke part of it," she said.
It matters that he sent unsolicited sexual images to women, because consent matters.
And the lack of consent matters.
Some will point to the fact that, at the end of the same article, Cordova is quoted as saying, "I certainly don't condone his behavior, but I think that's a personal matter between him and his family." But Cordova has a personal incentive for wanting this whole ugly mess to go away: She is personally involved. Weiner turned her life upside-down with that unsolicited tweet, and she undoubtedly would like to go back to a life in which her name is not known to the world because of a public figure with no impulse control.
Her reasons are not the same as the reasons of someone appropriating her words to argue that a public figure (either with whom they identify ideologically, or by virtue of their shared gender, or owing to a belief that sexual harassment should not be punishable) should be above criticism or consequences.
Members of the US Congress represent The People, and when we fail to hold to account a sexual harasser, for whatever reason, we're saying as a culture that we're pretty okay with that behavior. We're saying that consent doesn't matter.
Once upon a time, there was a Congressman who liked to point out that members of that legislative body should be held to rigorous ethical standards, because they represent a nation whose standards they reflect.
Now he's counting on the fact that the very people who admired him for those principles will jettison them in his defense.
Don't count on me, Weiner.
I'm no prude: I like a good dick picture as much as anyone. The thing is, I just like consent more.
[Related Reading w/ trigger warning for Polanksi stuff: Her Reasons Are Not Yours.]
"Those People"
Liss's posts below reminded me of something I've been meaning to share--this past Saturday I was at an event hosted by the Interfaith Committee on Homelessness. The event's point was to bring various business leaders together with the community and various community organizations to open a dialog about how "business" and "community" can work together on the issue of jobs, housing, and homelessness. It was a very interesting event and I learned a great deal, both positive and negative regarding the business community and its involvement with regards to working in the community.
However, there were two statements made--and stuck to and repeated (and that another CEO nodded along in agreement to)--by two members of the business community that really stood out. During the Q&A session, a gentlemen who runs a shelter organization trying to connect homeless men to jobs opportunities asked the panel of business leaders about issues surrounding the challenges of applying for work and interviewing. The gentlemen asked the panel what could they (the panel) do to make this process easier? Or what advice could they offer to potential applicants, especially in this economy? This, btw, was a very big theme among the Q&A: jobs. Many organization speakers stressed that the people they represent do, in fact, desire employment.
The first answer came from Jonathan Schlueter. Schlueter is the Exec Director of the Westside Business Alliance. What he said was that they (business) can only help so many people (in regards to jobs) and there are some people they just can't help: "the people who simply don't want to work." One example of people who "don't want to work" are those who "don't want to show up on time". Those people.
Now, I don't know about the other people there (I'm pretty sure I do) but I didn't hear anyone talking about "those people". That was his opening statement in his answer--to go first for the stereotype of "those people who just don't want to work".
It was the next comment that was very tell-tale. Bethany Bigelow is Director of Dining Operations for Aramark at Pacific University (and Aramark donates surplus food to shelters). Anyway, she was nodding along with what Schlueter said and when he was finished, she spoke up and said she wanted to build on it. She said that she believes that a major part of "the problem" (with people not getting work) is that too many people are not willing to take jobs they think are beneath them. She said (direct quote here) "People say I'm a CPA! Not a dishwasher!" and refuse job opportunities. Two other panelists nodded along with her statement (one, the CEO of Providence Health and Services actually looked appalled). I was left wondering: so just how do applicants compete, not just with each other, but with entrenched stereotypes by those doing the hiring?
While this one panel is not Industry As A Whole (even if one of the people represents a whole lot of Business), it hardly seems atypical. Recall the recent news of companies not wanting to hire those who are unemployed? Bob Herbert recently wrote:
Twenty-five million Americans were unable to find full-time work in May. Nearly 14 million were officially classified as jobless. Millions more are outside the labor force and not being counted at all. We are surrounded by the evidence of a searing national tragedy. The crippling affliction of joblessness has become a way of life for millions.Yet, as Liss posted, the president is thinking about "seeking a temporary cut in the payroll taxes businesses pay on wages" and NOT thinking about the government doing anything to help actual workers.
The average length of unemployment is a devastating 40 weeks, the longest since 1948, which was the first year such records were kept. Unemployed workers 55 and older are gripped with the very real fear that they may never work again.
It's not the business industry--the one who speaks of those people--that's going to fix anything, Mr. President and Congresspeople. But, sure, just keep giving them tax breaks. THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.
