Shakesville

Illinois Marriage Equality Update

Illinois, which already offers civil unions to same-sex couples, has been quietly moving toward legalizing same-sex marriage, and it looks like marriage advocates may have the votes to get it done by the end of the month:

With the end of the Illinois' spring legislation session just days away, LGBT leaders say that equal marriage legislation has the support needed to pass by month's end.

Sponsors have until May 31 to pass the "Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act," which would allow all couples, regardless of their gender, to marry. Failing that deadline, the bill's passage would be delayed for months.

LGBT groups pushing for the bill say they are ready to see it come up for a vote.

"I have absolutely no doubt we're going to be done with this by May 31," said Jim Bennett, Midwest regional director for Lambda Legal. "I believe that this bill is going to pass." Bennett declined to give a specific vote count, but said that he expected the bill could be called and passed any day.

Rick Garcia, policy advisor for The Civil Rights Agenda, said he thinks the bill has the 60 votes needed for passage in the House. "I believe we're there," said Garcia. "The cake is baked. We're waiting for the icing."

The bill passed the Senate on Valentine's Day. House sponsors have since struggled to pull together enough votes to pass it in the House.

Illinois Unites for Marriage, a coalition of groups working for the bill, has scheduled a community meeting to update supporters on the bill's progress and share plans surrounding the vote Wednesday evening.

The bill has the backing of major political players in Illinois, including Gov. Pat Quinn, who told Windy City Times that he has met personally with more than a dozen representatives in an attempt to get the bill passed. Quinn has said he will sign the measure into law.

It's crucial for Illinois legislators to pass this bill ASAP, rather than push it back until the fall session, not just because it's the right and decent thing to do to get it done now, but because delaying it "will give anti-gay organizations and churches time to mobilize opposition." Right now, it's just the tiresome Illinois Family Institute having weekend rallies, but, given the summer, out-of-state groups will have time to try to influence the process.

The sponsor of the legislation, Greg Harris, has been waiting to schedule a vote until he's sure he's got the votes it needs to pass.

Get it done, Illinois. The time is now.

Oklahoma Tornado Open Thread

[Content Note: Death; injury.]

Here is the latest. Please note that the same guidelines re: photos and politicizing remain in effect for this thread.

New York Times—Vast Oklahoma Tornado Kills at Least 91:

A giant tornado, a mile wide or more, killed at least 91 people, 20 of them children, as it tore across parts of Oklahoma City and its suburbs Monday afternoon, flattening homes, flinging cars through the air and crushing at least two schools.

The injured flooded into hospitals, and the authorities said many people remained trapped, even as rescue workers struggled to make their way through debris-clogged streets to the devastated suburb of Moore, where much of the damage occurred.

Amy Elliott, the spokeswoman for the Oklahoma City medical examiner, said at least 91 people had died, including the children, and officials said that toll was likely to climb. Hospitals reported at least 145 people injured, 70 of them children.

KFOR reports officials have confirmed 91 fatalities, and that 101 people were found alive in the rubble overnight.

The Guardian—Facebook Page Set Up:

A Facebook page has been set up asking people to post any pictures or documents they have found in their yard or in the street after the tornado in the hope of reuniting them with their owners. One woman said she lives more than 100 miles away in Tulsa and found a picture of a woman in her flower bed.

People are also sharing pictures of missing people, including a four-year-old girl.

On the same page people have posted pictures of lost and found animals.

There is also a dedicated site for lost and found pets as a result of the tornado.

FEMA—President Declares Disaster for Oklahoma: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that federal disaster aid has been made available to the State of Oklahoma to supplement state, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the area affected by severe storms and tornadoes beginning May 18, 2013, and continuing. ...Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster."

Roll Call—Coburn Wants Tornado Disaster Aid to Be Offset: "The tornado damage near Oklahoma City is still being assessed and the death toll is expected to rise, but already Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says he will insist that any federal disaster aid be paid for with cuts elsewhere. CQ Roll Call reporter Jennifer Scholtes wrote for CQ.com Monday evening that Coburn said he would 'absolutely' demand offsets for any federal aid that Congress provides. Coburn added, Scholtes wrote, that it is too early to guess at a damage toll but that he knows for certain he will fight to make sure disaster funding that the federal government contributes is paid for."

Please consider this an Open Thread to share information as it becomes available, to provide links to local services and charitable support, to report in if you're an Oklahoma Shaker, and for considerate discussion. I'm so sorry, Oklahomans.

Open Thread

Hosted by quail eggs in a can.

Question of the Day

If you tend to do most of the cooking for yourself and/or any others in your household, when was the last time someone cooked for you? If you generally don't do the cooking, when was the last time you cooked for someone else?

Oklahoma Tornado Open Thread

[Content Note: Death; injury.]

Earlier this afternoon, a tornado nearly a mile wide struck down in Oklahoma, causing widespread devastation. I've read reports that there have been two deaths and many more injuries, some serious, but I can't find good confirmation on that right now.

Please consider this an Open Thread to share information as it becomes available, to provide links to local services and charitable support, and to report in if you're an Oklahoma Shaker.

I am going to politely ask that we not share photos of the destruction in this space, which may be triggering for some readers, especially those who live and/or have friends, family, colleagues in the area. There are plenty of places to see and share those photos elsewhere on the web. Thanks.

UPDATE 1: KOCO Oklahoma City has confirmed two deaths: "Glen Irish, 79, and Billy Hutchinson, 76, both of Shawnee were killed, according to a medical examiner." My condolences to the people who cared for them.

UPDATE 2: The search continues for children at an elementary school in Moore, OK, which was flattened by the tornado.

UPDATE 3: Tom McCarthy is live-blogging events for the Guardian. Please be advised, at this point, there are pictures of some wreckage, but no images of injury.

UPDATE 4: MSNBC is reporting that the Oklahoma medical examiner is confirming 37 fatalities so far. Many of those are reportedly children who were trapped in their school. I don't even know what to say.

UPDATE 5: MSNBC is reporting that the Oklahoma medical examiner has raised the number of confirmed fatalities to 51.

Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit Central Park

image of actor Tom Hardy strolling through Central Park holding a grey pit bull puppy in his arms

[Content Note: Body policing.]

"Tom," said the puppy, licking its nose, "did you hear about how Vin Diesel said that 'Hollywood is more concerned about its male actors being in shape than its female actors,' ha ha for real no kidding he actually said that?" And Tom laughed and said, "Yes, I did hear about that." And the puppy said, "I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say here, Tom, but do you think that's true?" And Tom said, "I will only make this observation: I believe the closest Jack Black has ever come to having a fat leading lady is Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit." And the puppy said, "So that's a no then?" And Tom said, "Yes, puppy. That's a no." And then Tom added: "Which is not an argument that Jack Black should look any different than he does. It is instead an argument that female leads should be more diverse than they are. And so should male leads, frankly." And the puppy nodded, then ran off to buy a lemon ice.

You Go, Grrl: Eesha Khare

image of Eesha Khare, a young woman of color, holding up her invention

Eesha Khare is an 18-year-old science student who may have fundamentally changed the way we charge mobile devices:

An 18-year-old science student has made an astonishing breakthrough that will enable mobile phones and other batteries to be charged within seconds rather than the hours it takes today’s devices to power back up.

Saratoga, Calif. resident Eesha Khare made the breakthrough by creating a small supercapacitor that can fit inside a cell phone battery and enable ultra-fast electricity transfer and storage, delivering a full charge in 20-30 seconds instead of several hours.

The nano-tech device Khare created can supposedly withstand up to 100,000 charges, a 100-fold increase over current technology, and it's flexible enough to be used in clothing or displays on any non-flat surface.

It could also one day be used in car batteries and charging stations not unlike those used by the Tesla Model S, which includes "supercharger" technology that promises to charge vehicles in 30 minutes or less.

"I'm in a daze," Khare told CBS San Francisco after being honored among the three finalists at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix over the weekend. "I can't believe this happened."

...Khare was the runner-up to 19-year-old Romanian student Gorden E. Moore, who created a low-cost artificial intelligence that can drive vehicles. She tied with Louisiana 17-year-old Henry Wanjune, who figured out new ways to measure dark matter and energy in space.

Kids these days! Get ON my lawn!

[H/T to Susie, who has at her place video of Khare talking about her invention.]

Fatsronauts 101

Fatsronauts 101 is a series in which I address assumptions and stereotypes about fat people that treat us as a monolith and are used to dehumanize and marginalize us. If there is a stereotype you'd like me to address, email me.

[Content Note: Fat bias; body policing.]

#19: All fat people hate/want to change their bodies.

This weekend, I saw an advert for some diet pill or piece of exercise equipment or gut surgery—I don't even remember what—that started with a voiceover matter-of-factly stating: "All of us want a flat tummy."

Nope. That is not true.

Not all of us want a flat tummy. I don't want a flat tummy, and not just because I would have to compromise my health to have one. I don't want a flat tummy because I'm perfectly happy with my tummy as it is.

There are lots of things, lots and lots and lots of things, that try to make me hate my roundy belly, as well as the rest of my fat body. But the fact that I can't, for example, always easily find clothes that fit me doesn't make me wish my body were different: It makes me wish that the clothing industry would make clothes that fit my body as it is.

Always, fat people who say they are perfectly content with their fat bodies are accused of dishonest bravado. We are presumed of saying we like our bodies in spite of really hating them. We are thought to be in denial, to be harboring secret hatred for our transgressive bodies, to be masking insecurity with faux esteem. Anything to avoid accepting the possibility that there exist in a fat-hating world people who refuse to hate our fat.

But life would be easier if you were thin, argue the fat haters, who cannot abide my contentment. How can you not admit you'd prefer to be thin, knowing life would be easier? As if I don't know how privilege works. But that is truly an irrelevant question, when it comes to whether I like my body, which is not defined by external privileges or preferences or arbitrary standards of beauty. I love my body as it is in contravention of external narratives.

Sometimes that's hard to understand, from a perspective of never having your body be marginalized, be hated simply for being the shape that it is.

There are certainly fat people who don't love their bodies, for a multitude of reasons, but I am not one of them. I can speak for no one else—although I am not alone—but I am not harboring a secret hatred of self. I am pleased when I look in the mirror. I like what I see. I don't give a fuck if no one else does. I don't want to change the shape of my body. I love it so much I want to decorate it with ink and top it with nifty hats.

My tummy is just fine, thank you very much. I've no urge to change it.

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

Previously:

#18: You can diagnose fat people's health issues by looking at them.
#17: Fat people's choices are always dictated by their fat.
#16: You are helping fat people by shaming them.
#15: Fat people hate having their pictures taken.
#14: All fat people are unhealthy.
#13: Fat people looooooooooove Twinkies!
#12: Fat people don't like/want to see media representations of themselves.
#11: No one wants to be fat.
#10: Fat people need you to intervene in their lives.
#9: Fat people don't know how they look.
#8: Fat people don't deserve anything nice.
#7: Fat people are permission slips for thin people to eat what they want.
#6: Any fat person eating a salad or exercising is trying to lose weight.
#5: Fat is axiomatically ugly.
#4: Fat people eat enormous amounts of food.
#3: Fat people are jolly/mean, and fat people are shy/loud.
#2: I can tell how someone eats all the time, because of how they eat around me.
#1: Everyone who is fat is fat for the same reason.

Photo of the Day

image of a rainbow cutting through dark clouds over an English countryside

[Click to embiggen.]

From the Telegraph's Big Picture Photography Competition—Round 255: "This week's Big Picture winner is Steve Lindon, of Michaelchurch Escley, Hereford, for this image of a dramatic rainbow in the Golden Valley of Herefordshire."

Amazing.

[H/T to Alison.]

Reproductive Rights Updates: Arkansas, Virginia, & National

Earlier this year, Arkansas legislature overrode the governor's veto to enact one of the most restrictive anti-autonomy laws in the country, banning abortion after 12 weeks of gestation.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright granted a temporary injunction, putting the law on hold. For now. Judge Webber Wright hasn't given any clear indicators in how they will rule about the law:

Wright on Friday sided with lawyers for the groups who argued that the ban could harm the doctors and their patients.

“I believe that there is a threat of irreparable harm, because these doctors ... could face loss of their licenses,” she said Friday. “... They also have established that their patients could suffer irreparable harm by not being able to have abortions post 12-weeks but during that pre-viability period.”

However, Wright said she believes parts of the law may not pose an undue burden to a woman’s right to have an abortion.

“I do not believe it would be an undue burden on a woman’s right to have an abortion for the doctor to determine whether she has a fetal heartbeat and to tell her when she does,” Wright said, referring to another part of the law.

Meanwhile the bill's main sponsor, Jason Rapert (R-Eprehensible), had this completely ironic horseshit to say:

“When there is a heartbeat, there is life. And it is time in this nation and in our state, when you have 55 million human beings that have been taken, we must have a more rational and a more humane policy in abortion in our nation.”

But the life of the person who is pregnant is inconsequential, right Jason?

Look you arrogant fuck, if you want "more rational and more humane" policy around abortion: YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. I'm sure you're all up in arms about Kermit Gosnell but you know what? It's laws like yours who drive people to be taken in by charlatan opportunists like Gosnell. Restrictive measures such as yours do not create or celebrate a "culture of life", they do the exact opposite. Hopefully the courts will not let the likes of you further harm people with your narcissistic, sanctimonious bullshit.

***

Monday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by Freudian pickles.

Recommended Reading:

Mike: The New TV Season, One Stereotype at a Time

Jennifer: Giving Girls a Chance at a Real Future with Real Choices [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of "child marriage."]

Grace: The Perils of Funny Feminism [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism and typical discrediting tropes around oppressive humor.]

Jarrah: My Reality: I Pull My Hair Out [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of compulsive hair-pulling, i.e. trichotillomania.]

Lyle: Supreme Court to Rule on Government Prayer

Jess: Power Forward Podcast: Episode 1—Brittney Griner, Jason Collins, and Tim Tebow

Steve: Emotional Goodbye for David Beckham

Leave your links and recommendations in comments...

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Blur: "There's No Other Way"

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Zelda the Black and Tan Mutt standing at the front door, looking out

Watch Dog.

image of Dudley the Greyhound lying upside down on the couch

image of Dudley the Greyhound lying upside down on the couch

Not-Watch Dog.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

In The News

[Content note: Racism, natural disaster]

Umbrellas:

Tens of millions of people from Texas to the Great Lakes have been warned to brace for severe weather. Yesterday, a tornado outbreak killed two in Oklahoma.

This is cool: Kiera Wilmot is being sent to Space Camp.

Two commuter trains serving New York City collided in Connecticut during Friday's evening rush hour, sending 60 people to the hospital.

Oh, Washington Times, don't ever change!

Star Trek is a flop, only pulling in a mere $84,000,000. Just FYI: $84,000,000 is an obscene amount of money.

Geocities eyes a comeback: Yahoo bought Tumblr.

Star Wars Rebels, a one-hour animated pilot already in production at Lucasfilm, is scheduled to premiere in Fall 2014. Neat!

Weekly Pork Update: The United States Department of Agriculture will relax a ban on the importation of many cured-pork products from Italy.

Liss and Ana Talk About Elementary

image of Lucy Liu as Joan Watson and Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes gazing at something together on a rooftop

THIS SHOW! THIS SHOW! THIS SHOW!
[Spoiler Warning: All kinds of major spoilers from the season finale of Elementary are deducting the fuck outta shit herein. So please tread carefully if you haven't seen the episode yet!]

Liss: OMG THIS SHOW. I LOVE THIS SHOW.

Ana: YEEEEAARRRRHHHHHGGGGGGRRRRRBBBBBLLLLUURRR. That is the exact sound I made on finishing this episode. And I did, like, happy jazz hands with it.

Liss: Okay, first of all, I need to TOTALLY NOT HUMBLE-brag that I have been predicting for months that Moriarty would be a woman, and I totally predicted to Iain weeks ago that Irene would be alive and she would be Moriarty! And even having suspected this would be the reveal, I was not AT ALL disappointed with how it went down. It was AMAZING. And I loved how having JOAN SOLVE THE CASE, or at least a key part of it, managed to simultaneously protect the integrity of Irene having been the only character to best Sherlock AND Sherlock defeating Moriarty in the end. Brilliant. BRILLIANT.

Ana: I am impressed with your humble brag!! I honestly didn't really try to predict because I felt like I would spoil myself if I overthought it, so I was spending the first half of the episode simultaneously believing the PTSD and waiting for the terrible penny to drop when it was revealed that Irene was In On It somehow. And I really, REALLY liked the portrayal of the PTSD, although obvs I'm sad that it turned out to be fake since it was officially the best PTSD I've seen on TV in...maybe ever. I loved the conversations in the brownstone. I LOVED it when Watson was trying to help and offered to move out and he said, totally matter-of-factly, "this is your home." YES. And it was a perfect example of two friends COMMUNICATING instead of (in a worser show) Joan moping about wondering if she's unwelcome or whatever.

Liss: Also? Irene's lack of curiosity about Sherlock's and Joan's relationship was as dead a giveaway as the flower on the right bed. Only Moriarty would already fundamentally understand the nature of Sherlock's and Joan's relationship and ergo have no need to inquire about it. BUSTED.

Ana: I actually liked that Irene didn't ask about Joan, because I thought she was respecting his privacy (assuming she wasn't In On It). LOL, ANA, U R SO TRUSTING.

Liss: Natalie Dormer was amazing. The end.

Ana: I love Natalie Dormer SO MUCH. All the Emmys for her and Lucy Liu!! ALL OF THEM.

Liss: That scene at the restaurant between Lucy Liu and Natalie Dormer was TOO SHORT. It was like watching the best chess match ever. Joan isn't scared of Moriarty. Please.

Ana: Yes, the restaurant. "Do you want to sleep with him?" And Joan being all LOL-WHUT-NO I THOUGHT U WERE 'POSED TO BE SMART?? And then later, with Sherlock saying that she makes a better companion than a nemesis: I died laughing. Also: The "mascot" solved the case. Also-also, Joan is just as good as Moriarty. YES!

Liss: I love that JOAN SOLVED THE CASE with a combination of deduction (the yellow paint) and empathy (understanding that Moriarty was in love with Sherlock). And I love how we're seeing that Joan is teaching Sherlock as much about empathy as he is teaching her about deduction. It was such a little aside, but so fucking brilliant, when Sherlock mentioned empathy to Irene and she commented, "That's new."

Ana: Joan in the house with the paint, oh my god! "Feels just like Holmes is here." I love her. I love Joan. I love JOAN SOLVED THE CASE. And I agree with you about how she's using all the skills, and he is too—they're not doing some b.s. "he's the brain and she's the heart" gender essentialization. She's the "heart" because she's got training in it, but it's got nothing to do with her gender. Love it!

Liss: I am also very excited about the way that the show positions empathy as a type of deductive reasoning all its own, instead of the way that empathy is typically positioned as "emotional" and investigation as "objective." That is a crucial social justice message, because it subverts the narrative that identifying with oppression makes one too subjective to be capable of critically assessing it. Joan is teaching Sherlock that emotionality doesn't have to undermine reason, but instead makes him a better investigator. More sensitive versus the narrative of too sensitive.

Ana: I also loved when Irene was talking about Sherlock being better now, and he said he's SOBER now, but he'll always be an addict—I sobbed so hard. SO HARD. All the blubs. But they were happy blubs because I'm so proud of him. He's not afraid of his past or ashamed anymore; he's owning it and healing. MY GOD THIS SHOW.

Liss: I loved that Sherlock noticed the disparity in Irene's constellation birthmark. It was so terrible and so moving that it was his intimacy with her that revealed her betrayal.

Ana: That scene with the birthmark was SO painful. I felt really uncomfortable when she was already taking charge of the fleeing—something like "is that as far as you've planned? Well, that's alright," or whatever. It just felt so wrong, and then here she's In On It and I hurt for him so badly. And it was evidence, but not conclusive evidence, and I was SO worried that he might doubt himself. Only then we had Natalie Dormer's British accent (NATALIE DORMER) and she's MORIARTY OMG and she says she has to front as a man because clients "struggle with her gender." OH MY GOD THIS SHOW. Even the villains deconstruct sexism!!

Liss: LOL! Totally. Also: Captain Gregson! Detective Bell! I adore these guys. I cannot say that enough.

Ana: Detective Bell's "Spock eyebrow" when Sherlock tells him he's happy his ex-girlfriend turned out to be his nemesis. LOL FOREVER. I love Bell and Gregson so so much.

Liss: Loved all of the flashback scenes of how Sherlock's and Irene's relationship developed. "You're not boring at all, are you?" "I try very hard not to be." And the scene where he approaches her and asks why it is she's not interested in meeting again, and he's so careful to convey his interest while assuring her he's not pressuring her. Again, this show's centering of boundaries and agency and consent is extraordinary.

Ana: The flashbacks were AMAZING. He made it very clear he wasn't blackmailing her when he was talking about the paintings: no rapey overtones! And then when he spoke to her again, he stressed that it was her right to not see him again: no mopey you-owe-me Nice Guy overtones! LOOK AT THE FEMINIST RELATIONSHIP! LOOK AT THE ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT! LOOK AT THE COMMUNICATION AND BOUNDARIES! YES!! I am blown away at this—when was the last time I saw this in a crime drama? NEVER.

Liss: Did not like Joan referring to Moriarty as a bitch. It wasn't even the slur I objected to (although I object to that as well!) as much as the fact that it didn't even seem in keeping with Joan's character for her to say such a thing.

Ana: That line. *that face* COMPLETELY hurled me from the scene, because that didn't sound like Joan. Sounded like she was freaking quoting a summer movie blockbuster. Stilted, out-of-character. And, of course, SLUR. *that face*

Liss: THE BEES. All the blubs in the known universe during the scene with the bees. I am literally crying again just thinking/writing about it, lol. The symbolism in that scene was EVERYTHING. The lone bee given to Sherlock was not supposed to be able to find a partner, but somehow, among the entire hive, there was one bee who was able to be the lone bee's partner—and together they made a thing that was wholly new and different from each of those bees individually. AND HE NAMED THE NEW BEES AFTER JOAN. Good fucking god, this show. THIS SHOW. That scene was beautiful. The perfect end to the season.

Ana: THE BEES. I didn't pick up the subtext you got—mostly because I was still HYPERVENTILATING after the overdose, because I HONESTLY THOUGHT they would end the season there as a stupid reset button to cover old familiar ground again and THEY DIDN'T and I was SO RELIEVED because I didn't want that either for the show or for poor Sherlock and Joan—but that doesn't mean I don't LOVE the subtext you picked up. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Liss: HE NAMED THE NEW BEES AFTER JOAN.

Ana: OH! ONE MORE THING!! Did you see the episode title? "The Woman/Heroine." The Woman being a reference to Irene, but Heroine = Joan???? AWESOME.

Liss: I cannot even wait for Season Two. BRING IT ON.

Discuss.

Film Corner: Star Trek: The Wrath of Yawn

[Content Note: Spoilers for Star Trek: Into Darkness; racism; sexism.]

So, this weekend, I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness. I wanted to like it, but, alas, I did not. There were a lot of problems with the film (for me, and no one is required to agree): The story was insubstantial; Kronos looked like a soundstage; there were gaping plot holes (why did Bones did Khan's blood specifically, when he could have used the similarly genetically engineered blood of any of Khan's 72 compatriots still aboard the ship?); when Bones is more compelling than Kirk, there is officially A Problem. Etc.

I don't have high expectations for a Star Trek film, but Into Darkness failed to meet even my meager expectations.

One of my expectations, which was apparently a foolish one, was that the iconic Khan Noonian Singh, a Sikh character, would not be whitewashed. Whoooooops! Silly me. Of course Khan was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is white. Marissa Sammy at Racebending:

It wasn't perfect in the 60s when Ricardo Montalbán was cast to play Khan (a character explicitly described in the episode script of Space Seed as being Sikh, from the Northern regions of India). But considering all of the barriers to representation that Roddenberry faced from the television networks, having a brown-skinned man play a brown character was a hard-won victory. It's disappointing and demoralizing that with the commercial power of Star Trek in his hands, JJ Abrams chose not to honour the original spirit of the show, or the symbolic heft of the Khan character, but to wield the whitewash brush for … what? The hopes that casting Benedict Cumberbatch would draw in a few more box office returns? It's doubly disappointing when you consider that Abrams was a creator of the television show Lost, which had so many well-rounded and beloved characters of colour in it.

...I'm happy that actors I enjoy like Zoë Saldaña and John Cho are playing characters who mean so much to me, and that they, in respect for the groundbreaking contributions by Nichelle Nichols and George Takei in these roles, have paid homage to that past.

But all of that will be marred by having my own skin edited out, rendered worthless and silent and invisible when a South Asian man is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch up on that screen. In the original Trek, Khan, with his brown skin, was an Übermensch, intellectually and physically perfect, possessed of such charisma and drive that despite his efforts to gain control of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk (and many of the other officers) felt admiration for him.

And that's why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man. Racebending.com has always pointed out that villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that's true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he's smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew.

Sammy also makes the excellent point that "the secrecy prior to release around Cumberbatch's role in the film" is an obfuscation which, while positioned as a mystery to heighten anticipation for the film, also serves to prevent "advocacy groups like Racebending.com from building campaigns to protest the whitewashing. ...[Studios] don't want their racist practices to be called out, pointed at, and exposed before their movies are released" so they keep whitewashed casting secret until a film's premiere, under the guise of the thrill of reveal for fans. Gross.

And then there's this: One of the main arcs of the story is Spock's emotional expression, or lack thereof, and through part of the film, he and Uhura are fighting because she feels that when his life was in danger, he expressed no sadness, anger, whatever about their relationship and what losing him would do to her. He later explains that he chose not to feel/express those emotions because they're too hard, and that his lack of emotion is evidence of what she means to him. She is moved, and satisfied.

Later, when Spock thinks he has lost Kirk, he cries openly. Blah blah exposition about all the emotions he's feeling. Me, yawning in the theater—because I am so goddamn tired of the "straight men's stoicism is evidence of how much they care for women, but they have all the feels for other straight men" narrative.

The "chick flicks are total garbage, but, man, did I bawl my eyes out at Brian's Song" is such a classic trope that it's become a punchline in films. There's an entire scene in Sleepless in Seattle dedicated to this trope, where Tom Hanks and Victor Garber make fun of Rita Wilson for getting emotional over a romantic movie only to cry about the end of The Dirty Dozen.

There are similar narratives about men who only shed tears over/with male teammates, or men with whom they served in the military. And similar narratives about fathers/sons: I have heard a man tell the story of how he "held it together" when his daughters were born, but "lost it" when his son was born. He told this story in front of his kids, as if it might not negatively affect his daughters (or the wife who birthed them) to know he was singularly overwhelmed by the birth of a son.

This isn't a neutral narrative. It reinforces the idea that women's value to men is less than men's value to other men. And in a film that barely features female characters at all, to see Spock explain to his partner that a lack of emotion is evidence of his care for her, then weep for his male friend, is problematic, to put it politely. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that his partner is a black woman, and his friend a white man—in a film already engaging in whitewashing.)

Which is not to demean the power and value of male friendships. Friendships are awesome. Yay friendship! But compare the reverence for male friendship in film (and larger culture) to the contempt and ridicule of female friendship: Star Trek is saying something profound; Steel Magnolias is a stupid chick flick, from which "Drink your juice, Shelby!" has been turned into a silly catchphrase that you can buy on a t-shirt. Media about men platonically caring for other men are profound; media about men romantically caring for women are garbage. And media about men platonically caring for women are virtually nonexistent, which is one of the reasons Elementary is such a radical show.

If you're purporting to show me the future, you've got to offer me something that actually looks progressive. Whitewashing and treating women as less than among men ain't it.

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

[Content Note: Rape Culture]

Emily Esfahani Smith at The Atlantic: Is Sex Still Sexy?

There are fully one-billion things wrong with this article which seeks to chastise Maine college students for writing and acting out a series of skits in order to talk to fellow students openly about sex in a sex-positive manner that will reinforce Yes Means Yes narratives and reduce slut-shaming and rape culture mentalities on campus (from their website: "A performance-based presentation about consent, boundaries and healthy relationships").

Smith leads by criticizing the skits for being too open and too heavy on communication -- which we all know is Not Sexy! -- by saying:

But the exhibitionism of Speak About It kills this mystery and longing—it leaves little to the imagination. As the writer and critic Cristina Nehring, author of A Vindication of Love, tells me in an interview, "Where there is no distance and no sense of transgression at all, where anything goes and everything shows, there is no erotic chemistry.

And ends with:

If we want sex to be sexy again, perhaps we should speak less about it.

Did everyone get that? Where there is no sense of transgression (and since Smith and Nehring are both professional writers, I assume they understand that the commonly used definition of "transgression" is "a violation of limits") there is no erotic chemistry, and therefore we should stop communicating so much about sex, even if the goal is to educate people on sexual assault and healthy consent.

I really hope that Smith is not outright suggesting that sex isn't sexy if there's not always the lingering change that it is actually rape instead. And yet that is what she is effectively advocating, even if she doesn't realize it. She is recycling old "communication kills the mood" narratives, and those narratives are an integral part of rape culture since they are regularly used to silence people in order to preventing them from asserting boundaries until whooops those boundaries have already been crossed. And these harmful narratives are deliberately employed by rapists in order to render their victims vulnerable to transgressions against their will.

What frustrates me most about this intellectually lazy article is that there is no way that Smith immersed herself this deeply into the Speak About It performance materials to write her article that she could somehow miss why and how communication is integral to preventing sexual assault. Speak About It very clearly explains how communication empowers the vulnerable to assert their boundaries and provides crucial visual representations of what healthy sex can look like in contrast to the misinformation disseminated through popular culture. I can only assume that Smith did grasp the fundamentals but felt like they were less important than criticizing these proactive students for Doing Sex Wrong on the grounds that their sexuality doesn't align with her personal narratives of what is erotic and what isn't.

I invite everyone in the comments to pick out their favorite utterly-terrible quotes from this garbage article, but mine will always be the part where Smith criticizes a man for asking his partner if she wants a Gatorade after sex. Smith thinks this is a perfect example of non-erotic sex; my personal response is that hell, yes, I want a drink after sex. There's ice in the freezer, and cups above the sink. And thanks.

[Hat Tip to Jackie. Recommended Related Reading: A Modest Proposal: The Thorny Issue of Sexual Consent; How to Fuck; Rape Is Not a Compliment.]

Nerd in #nerdland

Yesterday, Melissa Harris-Perry did a great two-part segment about Angelina Jolie's decision to have a preventative double mastectomy, including a typically excellent discussion about race, healthcare access, and women's bodies.

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Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

[The full transcript will be here, when available.]
During the second half, Irin Carmon, who does terrific work at Salon, mentioned my piece: "Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville had this great post about how Angelina Jolie's body is seen as sort of collective property, as you mentioned. She's this international sex symbol, she has a body that is lionized—the ideal of our society. So for her to say both 'I'm making my body very public, and I'm putting all of my choices up for the scrutiny of other people' and 'I'm still saying this belongs to me; here's how I chose to make these decisions.'"

Very exciting to be mentioned one on of my favorite shows, no less as part of such a crucial conversation about women's healthcare in the US.

My thanks to Irin Carmon, and my gratitude, as always, to Melissa Harris-Perry for hosting conversations like this one. Her show continues to be a bright spot in an increasingly grim media landscape.

UPDATE: Irin pointed out to me on Twitter that there were two additional segments, "FYI, I think it was a four-part discussion! Amazing luxury for TV." So true! The subsequent two segments can be viewed here and here.

Open Thread

Hosted by Cheeseburger in a Can.

Sunday Shuffle

Passion Pit, Carried Away
Their Tiny Desk Concert is pretty cool.

How about you?