US President Barack Obama greets supporters at the Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado on May 23, 2012 upon arriving to attend a campaign event. [Getty Images]Coincidentally, as I was putting this post together, Shaker Morgan emailed me the link to this piece in the New York Times, about the iconic image of President Obama bending over to let a child touch his hair, which is one of my favorites of the President.
[Content Note: Xenophobia; racism.]
"It seems to punish people who can't speak Spanish, and I resent that. In public areas, people should be speaking English, and that includes pizza parlors."—Peter Thomas, chairman of the Conservative Caucus and World Champion Harrumpher, on a promotional offer being made by Pizza Patrón, a carry-out pizza chain headquartered in Dallas, during which the company will "give away thousands of large pepperoni pizzas on the evening of June 5 to folks who order in Spanish."
True Facts:
1. I do not speak Spanish, besides a handful of words and phrases I've picked up over the years in various ways.
2. A place offering a free promotion to people who do speak Spanish is not discriminating against me.
3. "¿Puedo tener una pizza de salchicha, por favor?" I now know how to order a pizza, care of FreeTranslation.com. Yay for me.
4. Peter Thomas has chunks of hate and bile where his brains should be.
[H/T to Deeks.]
"The Normal Heart" resonated with him on a few levels: Mr. Parsons is gay and in a 10-year relationship, and working with an ensemble again onstage was like nourishment, he said. As the production was ending last summer, he heard that the Roundabout Theater Company was considering a revival of "Harvey" ... and last November the play's director, Scott Ellis, asked him and [actress Jessica Hecht, who plays Elwood's sister, Veta] to do a private reading of the work in Los Angeles.Bazinga! Just kidding. The profile is great and you should definitely read it! Another classic prank by Melissa McEwan.
"Jim was solid in 'The Normal Heart,'" Mr. Ellis said, "but his character didn't really change in the journey of that play, so I wanted to see if Jim could take on a challenge and float a couple of feet off the ground, so to speak, in that magical way Elwood has. And in the reading he was just smart, smart, smart."
In rehearsals Mr. Parsons focused particularly on his relationship with Harvey — a character who is not there. He chose spots in the Studio 54 theater to fix his gaze, at the exact height where Harvey's face would be, and developed a series of hand gestures when Elwood was speaking to or making way for the rabbit. If the show has plenty of the laugh lines that Mr. Parsons finds familiar from television, he said he was more aware of the differences between Elwood and Sheldon — and was savoring them.
"Elwood has such warmth, and wants nothing more than to connect with other people, whereas my nine-month-a-year job is a character who says things like, 'If you don't mind, I'd like to stop listening to you and talk now,'" Mr. Parsons said. "The jump-out-of-bed happiness I feel transcends any nerves about taking on a history-laden role."
Chapter 3, page 41-42: "The room exploded when the first television network announced a new Governor in Texas: Governor George W. Bush. I hugged my daughters and kissed my wife."
And then I ruined ALL the things!
[From George Bush's A Charge to Keep, gifted to me by Deeky, because he hates me. In the US, all people who plan to run for president write a shitty book. (Some are less shitty than others, by which I mean the Democrats' books.) A Charge to Keep was George W. Bush's shitty I-wanna-be-president book, published in 1999. I am blogging one random quote per page every day until I have either made my way through the book or lost it behind a couch.]
53%: The number of USians who think same-sex marriage should be legal, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, taken after President Obama's statement that he personally supports marriage equality.
That is an all-time high.
Those who think same-sex marriage should be illegal has fallen to 39%, an all-time low.
Only six years ago, the same poll found just 36% of respondents in support of legal same-sex marriage. A 17% increase in support in six years might not seem like a lot, especially when support is still only at 53%, but to put that into perspective, I want to quote again this old John Rogers post:
[W]hen the Supreme Court struck down the bans against interracial marriage in 1968 through Virginia vs. Loving, SEVENTY-TWO PERCENT of Americans were against interracial marriage. As a matter of fact, approval of interracial marriage in the US didn't cross the positive threshold until -- sweet God – 1991.It took 23 years for support of interracial marriage to move 23 points.
This blogaround brought to you chocolate.
Recommended Reading:
Annie-Rose: Pennsylvania Legislature Will Consider Defunding Planned Parenthood
Jessica: Your "Joke" Isn't Funny, and Your Defenses Are Contemptible [Content note for racism, misogyny, slut-shaming, and sexual violence.]
Pam: North Carolina Pastor Charles Worley Now Under Media Microscope [Content note for violent homophobia; eliminationism.]
Steve: Steve King's Way With Words [Content note for racism; dehumanization; anti-immigrant garbage.]
Courtney: How I Got 50% Women Speakers at My Tech Conference
Sean: Dark Matter Still Exists
Andy: Adam Lambert Makes Music History: First Out Gay Artist to Hit #1 on Billboard Album Chart
[Content note for imagery and description of imagery] And get well soon, Michael McKean!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Just some of the hilariously awkward positions in which I've discovered Lord Dudlington of Goofball Manor over the past few days...
Okay, so I need to tell you that I kind of love Kristen Stewart.* I find her to be a compelling actor, although I'm not certain yet if she's a great one. I dig most of her interviews, in which she is often hilariously blunt and does things like refer to Robert Pattison as "my fucking boyfriend." This recent interview with Teen.com in which she says interesting things about Snow White and the Huntsman (which I can't wait to see, by the way) and funny things about her pets, is pretty good:
Stewart, sitting for an interview with a castle as a backdrop: Whoa, that's sooooo weird. [makes a face and holds up her hand]But. BUT! My favorite thing ever about Kristen Stewart is how she totally doesn't give a fuck. Which leads me to this ridiculously awesome photo of her at the premiere of Snow White and the Huntsman with co-stars Charlize Theron and Chris "Thor" Hemsworth:
Text Onscreen with accompanying voiceover: Teen.com.
Stewart, asked about "kicking a lot of ass" in SWATH: I think the coolest thing about it was that, that they were never going to have me do something that I couldn't actually physically do. [over scenes from SWATH] It was never going to be like, you know, a superhero movie. It was gonna be like, okay, so what—what could a girl actually be capable of in a situation like this? You know, I'm not going to be able to take out like six-foot men in armor. It's, like, you know, about being faster than them, or about like being smarter. And that was cool, because I think it's kinda super on-trend right now to have strong female characters just sort of act like guys.
[edit]
Stewart, asked in a tweet about the necklace she's wearing: [looks at and plays with necklace] Oh, um, it's just a little token. [shrugs] Had a birthday recently. That's all. [edit; now being cheeky, after being asked again] I found it! It just, like, it just appeared somewhere, and I was like, "Whoa. It's on my birthday! It's been so great this year!" Nah.
[edit]
Stewart, asked about whether her cat Max or dog Bear loves her more: Ohhhhhh. [laughs] That's so weird. They both, I think they both like me in, love me, I think [laughs] in very different ways. I think Bear is literally a child. He's like my, he's still a baby. [motions Bear lying beside her] And Max is like... [makes standoffish face of perfect cat contempt] I mean, we live together. [laughs] He's like my roommate. And, uh, so yeah, there's a difference there.
Scanned from a 1982 Wonder Woman.
Gallup's latest polling on abortion makes for a pretty depressing headline: "Pro-Choice" Americans at Record-Low 41%.
And, you know, it's not good news that 41% of USians identify as "pro-choice" while 50% identify as "pro-life."
Serendipitously, right after posting yesterday's QotD, my friend Mark recommended this interview with Damon Lindelof, one of the primary writers on Lost, the series finale of which aired two years ago today.
At 25 minutes, it's too long for me to transcribe in total, but this was my favorite bit:
"What did these people get out of this plane crash? And the answer, as corny as it sounds, was the one that appealed to me the most, which is: Each other! That's what they got. They were all fucked-up, sad individuals who were lost in their own lives and hated themselves, and somehow they found some fundamental community amongst each other. If they hadn't met each other, and spent all that time on the island, then they would never have been able to forgive themselves for their past sins and break through to some sort of level of self-awakening and forgiveness."That was always how I viewed the show. I didn't love the final episode, which is the primary focus of the interview, but I will always love the show for being one of the finest stories about community ever told.
What is your favorite television series finale of all time? (And because "series" means different things in different places, what I mean is the final episode ever.)
Please note that this thread will obviously be rife with spoilers. Commenters should take care to name the show first, before providing details, so others can read comments based on a want-to-know basis.
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 22 May 2012: Keepers have put up a sign telling visitors not to pick the flowers—in the lion enclosure at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire, England. Every spring the grassy paddock where the lions are kept gives way to a glorious display of bluebells. [Pete Willows/BNPS]
[Content Note: Body image.]
Shaker natesmom:
I've never enjoyed being in my body. I have NEVER enjoyed BEING in MY body...the only one I'm going to ever have. I'm 44 and my entire life has been devoted to trying to *fix* my body so I'd be comfortable with it.
[Shaker itsdanilove's] statement [about enjoying being in her body] has brought me to tears...and it has made me realize that I've been on the wrong damn journey all along. I've tried to change my body, when I've needed to change my mind.
by Shaker koach
[Content Note: Objectification.]
I came out as a lesbian in college. One day in class, I was completely distracted by the woman next to me: She was idly twirling her foot around, swinging her clunky sandal from her nicely tanned foot with bright red nail polish. I was mesmerized. And suddenly I realized…I like women! I love their bodies! I love looking at them! It was a revelation to me, and as I gradually absorbed the idea, parts of my past suddenly started to make sense. This strange sense of unease I'd had for most of my life around other women—it was attraction. The unnamable discomfort I'd been feeling for years was lust.
For example, I played sports throughout my adolescence, and I always felt uncomfortable in the women's locker room. Now I saw that it wasn't the same sort of discomfort that most other kids felt. Instead, I was uncomfortable because there was all this female flesh around, all these lovely body parts that I wanted to look at. The idea that someone might look at me in some stage of undress was uncomfortable to me only because it turned me on. A few years ago Liss wrote about her high school friendship with another girl, and, wondering what made her different, wondered if she was attracted to this girl. I had several friendships like that throughout middle and high school, but it's only with the benefit of hindsight that I was able to see that I was attracted to several of my female friends. Sure, I thought they were smart, kind, and witty, but I also desired them.
Accepting my identity as a lesbian meant accepting that I was attracted to women, that I found (and find) women's bodies lovely and fascinating and marvelous. When I looked at a beautiful actress, I was checking out her hips, her ass, her breasts, her thighs, her shoulders, her jawline, all the breathtaking curves and angles that exist on a woman's (on every woman's) body. Accepting my identityǂ as a lesbian meant, at least in part, accepting that I lusted after these very parts.
Gradually I became more explicit and open about my desire for women and their lovely bodies. When a woman with a great, large ass walked by, I'd turn to watch her go. When my waitress had nice cleavage, I checked her out. (Yes, there was a time when I might have enjoyed National Cleavage Day, because I enjoyed letting a furtive glance at cleavage turn into a lingering one, even though I would have been and still am opposed to giving social sanction to men doing the same.) I admired feet, arms, hips, faces, eyes, everything. What can I say? I dig women, and every woman has something unique, something beautiful, something worth a second glance or an extended gaze. I didn't discriminate: I loved fat, thin, and in-between bodies, tall and short bodies, bodies of all colors, disabled and temporarily abled bodies, butch, feminine, queer, and trans* bodies, covered and uncovered bodies.
Fast forward a few more years, and I'm walking across campus on a beautiful spring day with one of my best, straight, female friends. She said something about all the young women out exercising in their sports bras and tiny shorts, how it motivated her to start exercising. I chuckled lasciviously and said I had very different thoughts when I looked at the women sweating in their skimpy clothes, then waggled my eyebrows suggestively. She stopped in her tracks and looked at me in surprise. She said, "You only see them as bodies to ogle?"
It was my turn to stop in my tracks. I saw, suddenly, that my appreciation of women had become demeaning. Though I was a lesbian, I was looking at other women with The Male Gaze. I was objectifying them. I realized a lesbian reducing a woman to a nice ass was no different to the woman being objectified than a man doing so.
To be clear: There's nothing wrong with noticing. To be attracted to other people means one will experience attraction. But one can be attracted without objectifying.
This is pretty hard to admit. I'm a feminist and I was before I knew the word; I wholeheartedly and as continually as possible support women in any way I can. I'm in a field where most lower-level positions are filled by female people and most senior- and academic- level positions are filled by male people, so the empowerment, encouragement, and non-objectification of women is personal as well as political and philosophical for me. In the past, I've pointed out problematic male objectification of women to my father, brothers, and male friends, to try to sway their behavior and thoughts. I respect and honor women and I'd never objectify them—so I thought.
This has been hard for me to untangle and I'm not all the way there. My recognition of my "homosexual tendencies" has been tied up in recognizing my desire for women and their bodies. Yet I know there are other things that draw me to women, that turn me on, that keep me fascinated. For example, I love thinking about and talking about the ways that different women have found to respond to societal expectations about roles, dress, and behavior. Some women embrace these expectations, some reluctantly accept them, some challenge them, some subvert them, some overturn them, or some combination thereof, and all of these individual, varied responses intrigue me. I love all the uses to which different women have put their intellectual capabilities or their passion or their strength. I think I celebrate womanhood in its broadest, most diverse, least-monolithic sense.
And yet. When I'm looking at a woman and reducing her to a nice ass or great breasts, I'm not doing that. I'm treating women as one class, with various physical attributes that are more or less pleasing to my particular eye.
Being consistent and true to my feminism has meant that I have to call myself out when I'm objectifying women. If I repudiate men doing that (and I do), then I need to repudiate women doing it as well. Objectification is objectification. Reducing anyone to a body part is offensive and demeaning. Reading the Today in Disembodied Things series and this post have helped me think through this and reaffirm my objection to objectification. If I'm admiring a sexy pair of legs, for example, but I stop there, without considering the woman as a whole, without wondering about her personality, what drives her, her dreams, what makes her laugh, well, I'm pretty close to viewing her as a passive object there for my viewing pleasure. So I try to remind myself that behind every attractive physical attribute lies a person—a person who is not a passive receptacle for my gaze, but who deserves respect and consideration.
-----------------------------
ǂ This acceptance wasn't easy for me, because I grew up in a Midwestern conservative Christian household where sexuality and lust were forbidden topics; the story of how I did eventually accept and embrace my sexuality is long, winding, and not the topic of this post. Suffice to say, I have gotten to the point where I am comfortable, happy, and proud to be a lesbian.
