[Content Note: War on agency.]
"I know two twins born at 20 weeks."—Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, on the senate floor earlier today. Graham is supporting legislation that seeks to ban nationwide abortions after 20 weeks, because of course he is.
As Laura Bassett, who along with Robin Marty gets the hat tip, notes, the earliest recorded survived birth is 21 weeks and 6 days.
So, he's a liar or a dingaling and quite possibly both.
[Content Note: Misogynist fat hatred.]
So, there was a scene on the most recent episode of Louis CK's show Louie which is getting a lot of positive attention for being an honest or moving or beautiful or whatever representation of what fat women feel about men and dating. I don't watch Louie, because, despite the fact I have enjoyed some of his comedy (and give him credit for helping revolutionize how comedians and other artists can get their material directly to their fans), I don't trust someone who tells, enjoys, and defends rape jokes enough to tune into his show.
(And I'm reasonably certain that of all the people who would totally get on board with that decision, Louis CK is right at the top of the list.)
Also, if I'm being honest, I find super annoying the endless amounts of cookies that Louis CK gets for saying things about race, or sexuality, or other issues facing marginalized populations of which he's not a part that people from those populations have been saying for decades. To be very specific: I'm not annoyed at him that he gets those cookies, because privilege rewards privilege, but because he's happy to accept them, without acknowledging that his privilege means he gets credit for advocating basic decency, while people fighting for their own equality and respectful treatment get dismissed as oversensitive hysterics.
Sometimes by Louis CK himself.
Anyway.
Despite all this, I was made aware of the scene by fat female friends who liked it, so I went into it with an open mind. I watched it here, where there's also a partial transcript, and where it's described as a "beautifully honest scene about fat girls." And I read this interview with the actress hired to read Louis CK's words, for further context.
And I hated it.
Now, my saying I hated it doesn't mean I think you should hate it. Like what you like! It's just that there are a whole lot of places to talk about enjoying the scene and thinking it's terrific and congratulating Louis CK on his awesomeness, and I wanted to provide a space where fat women (and others) who didn't like it could safely talk about that, too.
The scene has the same problem that all scenes in which one person is meant to serve as avatar for an entire population has: One fat girl's experience is not all fat girls' experience. The fat woman in the scene, tasked with speaking on behalf of fat women, is straight and white and able-bodied and desirous of a relationship, to one extent or another, with a man. That disappears the experiences and perspectives of a whole lotta fat women.
But, okay, even conceding that's a common conceit in pop culture, and extending tons of latitude for the inevitable defense that the character is meant to represent lots of, if not all, fat women, the scene still has issues, three of which I'll address here.
1. The scene ends with Louie taking her hand, after she says all she really wants is for a guy to hold her hand and walk and talk with her, and then telling her a joke about a fat woman, the punchline of which is the woman exploding. At which the woman laughs, naturally. Because the only thing worse than being a fat woman is being a humorless fat woman.
That's not a resolution for the fat woman in the scene, who gets the platonic version of a pity fuck. That's a resolution for Louie, who gets all the cookies for having "learned something" and "done something nice." Presumably right after he goes back to dating and fucking thin women, since the actress was hired for only this single episode.
There's absolutely nothing satisfying to me, as a fat female viewer, in watching a fat woman talk about how men mistreat fat women—how many of them are willing to fuck us but not love us; how men who themselves deviate from the male beauty standard are worried about their social status being undermined if they hold hands with a fat woman—and then get her hand held in public for thirty seconds by a guy who's doing it because he just got shamed by his own prejudice.
The scene is ostensibly about "fat girls," but it's really about men and their feelings about fat girls.
It's a scene written by a man about fat girls. And even though the camera lingers on the fat actress delivering the speech, it's still about how men feel about fat girls, and how fat girls' value is determined largely by how men feel about fat girls.
That's not really a fat girl's voice being amplified. It's a man who hates fat women's voice being amplified.
2. The scene pretends that there aren't already loads of men who love fat women. Men who are specifically attracted to fat women, or men who fell in love with individual women who happen to be fat. Men who, in either case, didn't need an education on how fat women are human beings, many of whom are desirous of and deserving of romantic love.
Men who don't expect to be "rewarded" in some way for loving and being attracted to fat women.
On its face, that might not seem particularly important, but it is—because the routine disappearing of these men underwrites the narratives which pathologize attraction to fat women. Which, suffice it to say, doesn't do any favors for fat women.
It would be significantly more radical, and more progressive, for Louis CK to simply have had his character be attracted to and date and fuck a fat woman without any commentary about her weight at all. Like lots of men already do.
And, remember, this is the guy who cast a black actress as his white children's mother on the show without in-show explanation. But somehow he couldn't conceive of a commentary on dating a fat woman that consisted of his character just dating a fat woman without in-show explanation. Huh.
It's continually amazing to me how comedians (and other people in the entertainment industry) are obsessed with documenting how fat the entire US outside of NY and LA are, but can't wrap their heads around the idea that fat women are loved and get laid.
Which doesn't negate the idea that there is prejudice against fat women. It's just that there's a pretty obvious way to challenge that prejudice that doesn't consist of a speech in which Louie Learns to Be Nice to a Fat Girl for a Minute.
3. "I mean, can I just say it? I'm fat. It sucks to be a fat girl. Can people just let me say it? It sucks. It really sucks." So says the fat women in the scene. And, on the one hand, shit, I get it. I get it so hard. Like, I really get it.
On the other hand, it doesn't suck to be a fat woman because being a fat woman is intrinsically difficult. It sucks because of fat hatred. And although the scene is ostensibly trying to get at that reality—"And I'm going to go ahead and say it. It's your fault. Look, I really like you, you're truly a good guy, I think. I'm so sorry. I'm picking you. On behalf of all the fat girls, I'm making you represent all the guys. Why do you hate us so much?"—the sum total of fat hatred is not "boys don't like me."
I am loved by a man who is probably one of the Top Ten Dudes on the entire planet, who is my best friend and my lover and everything in between, who never body polices or shames me and who spontaneously compliments me on my appearance all the time, and that doesn't mean it doesn't "suck" being a fat woman anymore.
Because my partner doesn't exist to validate me or fix me or imbue me with value.
And because his loving and being attracted to me is constantly demeaned by a culture that treats him like he's doing me some kind of fucking favor. Or like he must be broken himself to love and be attracted to someone who looks like me.
That scene? Is encased of all of that shit, right there.
So, no. I didn't like it. I didn't even think it was neutral, no less helpful. And I am keeping all of my cookies to myself. Insert all the fat jokes here.
Sunday night, as you might have heard, we had a pretty severe storm in this part of the country. (One of several places.) As the storm rolled in, Deeky, Iain, and I stood on our front porch, watching the clouds roll in, faster than any of us had ever seen clouds move. The light grew ominous, and, in one giant blast, the skies opened and a gush of rain came down so furiously that we were drenched on our covered porch.
The electricity flickered on and off a few times, and then it went out permanently. In the end, nearly 7,000 residents in our town lost power for at least 12 hours. Flash floods closed roads; the emergency room was so full that people were being directed to another hospital; and trees were toppled all over the place. A huge branch from our neighbor's tree ended up in our yard, taking down power lines with it and coming to rest atop one of our trees.
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Abduction; terrorism; misogyny; abuse] Following the mass abduction of nearly three hundred girls in Nigeria a month ago, the terrorist organization who has claimed responsibility, Boko Haram, released a video showing dozens of the girls being held. At least one mother "spotted her daughter among the girls sitting on the ground and wearing veils, said Dumoma Mpur, parent-teachers association chairman at Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria." I can't even imagine. Meanwhile, the United States has deployed aircraft to the area, and, per a Pentagon official, has "shared commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerians and are flying manned ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) assets over Nigeria with the government's permission." Further, a US team "of 30 experts in intelligence gathering, counter-terrorism, and hostage negotiations is in Nigeria to assist the government's search."
[CN: Climate change] Welp: "A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries. ...'This is really happening,' Thomas P. Wagner, who runs NASA's programs on polar ice and helped oversee some of the research, said in an interview. 'There's nothing to stop it now. But you are still limited by the physics of how fast the ice can flow.'"
In GOOD NEWS, Circuit Judge Chris Piazza struck down Arkansas' ban on same-sex marriage, calling it an "unconstitutional attempt to narrow the definition of equality." Right the fuck on! Further, he "did not stay his ruling in anticipation of an appeal." Awesome.
[CN: Homophobia] In TOTALLY PREDICTABLE NEWS, former Arkansas governor Mike "I'm not homophobic" Huckabee says that Judge Piazza should be immediately impeached. Jesus Jones. Go suck an egg, Huckabee.
[CN: Food insecurity] Yesssssssss: "More Than 25,000 Schools Can Become Hunger Free: The Community Eligibility Provision is a powerful new tool to ensure that low-income children in high-poverty neighborhoods have access to healthy meals at school. Established in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, next year community eligibility will allow more than 25,000 schools in high-poverty neighborhoods to offer nutritious meals through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs to all students at no charge. ...Community eligibility is making a profound difference for students and schools. In schools in Illinois, Kentucky, and Michigan that participated in community eligibility for two years, lunch participation rose by 13 percent, which resulted in more than 23,000 additional children eating lunch daily, and breakfast participation increased by 25 percent, which resulted in more than 29,000 additional children eating breakfast daily."
[CN: Guns; violence; disablism. Video may begin automatically at link.] Oscar Pistorius' trial for murdering Reeva Steenkamp continues, now with the defense claim that Pistorius has generalized anxiety disorder, which makes him "more willing to fight than to flee when faced with what he considered a threat." Prosecutors are rightly unhappy with the introduction of this assertion at this point in the trial: "His initial defense was putative self-defense. Then I thought his defense was adapted to automatic firing. Now psychiatrist says he suffers from a mental disorder. We don't know which of the three versions [is his defense]." I believe this defense strategy is known as Throw Everything at the Wall and See What Sticks.
All right then: "More than five centuries after Christopher Columbus's flagship, the Santa Maria, was wrecked in the Caribbean, archaeological investigators think they may have discovered the vessel's long-lost remains—lying at the bottom of the sea off the north coast of Haiti. It's likely to be one of the world's most important underwater archaeological discoveries." Sounds momentous! I know at least one sailing ship history nerd who's going to find this very interesting!
Wow: Grace Choi, a Harvard Business School graduate, has figured out how to 3D-print makeup from any home computer: "'The makeup industry makes a whole lot of money on a whole lot of bullshit,' Choi said at TechCrunch Disrupt this week. 'They charge a huge premium on something that tech provides for free. That one thing is colour.' By that, she means colour printers are available to everyone, and the ink they have is the same as the ink makeup companies use in their products. She also says the ink is FDA approved. Choi created a mini home printer, Mink, that will retail for $US300 and allow anyone to print makeup by ripping the colour code off colour photos on the Internet." That is incredible.
Norwegian Major General Kristin Lund, who has served in Lebanon, the first Gulf war, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, has been appointed to command a United Nations peacekeeping force—making her the first woman ever appointed as commander of peacekeeping force.
Comedy Central has announced that Larry Wilmore will replace Stephen Colbert: "The 52-year-old writer-actor, who has been with Comedy Central's The Daily Show as its 'Senior Black Correspondent' since 2006, will get the 11:30 p.m. half-hour beginning in January. A twist on the former occupant's title, the show is called The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore." I guess it's "a twist" on The Colbert Report insomuch as they both have "report" in the title, but the former centered the host's name, and the latter centers the host's ethnicity. I get the joke and everything. I just find it interesting, ahem, that when we finally do see some diversity in late night, that diversity is permanently advertised right in the title. Welp.
Ibhrahim Hamato is a ping-pong player who competes by holding the paddle in his mouth, because he lost his arms in an accident as a child. And he is basically amazing.
And finally! A US veteran was saved by his service dog, who repeatedly dialed 911 when his human guardian had a seizure. Then the dog "went to the front of the house and waited at the curb for police and medics, then brought them to his" guardian, who says: "I probably would have been in severe trouble if he wouldn't have called." GOOD DOG!
[Content Note: Disablism; body/health policing.]
Republican Strategist and Cartoon Supervillain Karl Rove, who graduated from the Dr. Bill Frist School of Medical Diagnostics, says that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has brain damage:
The New York Post's Page Six section reported Monday that Rove, appearing at a conference with former Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs and CBS correspondent Dan Raviv last Thursday, recently waded into the former secretary of state's health issues. In 2012, Clinton — a top possible 2016 Democratic contender — suffered from a blood clot that temporarily prevented her from testifying about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. According to the report, Rove said the Benghazi issue should continue to be pushed.Thirty days, three days, potato, potahto.
"Thirty days in the hospital?" Rove said, according to the report. "And when she reappears, she's wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what's up with that."
After an initial trip to the hospital for medical tests, Clinton was later admitted for three days to a hospital in New York City.
This Sunday is my 40th birthday (yay!), and I am celebrating it by spending the weekend with a whole lot of the people I love most in the world. Tomorrow, Deeky will arrive, beginning the delightful descent onto Shakes Manor. So I am taking tomorrow, Friday, and Monday off, and I will see you back here on Tuesday.
Because this is also graduation weekend in a lot of places, as well as Mothers' Day, and some of the mods are able to spend my birthday with me, we're not going to have daily open threads. I'll leave the Virtual Pub (which I'll post shortly) open through Tuesday morning, so there's a place to chat.
I feel like I should write something profound about turning 40, but I have exactly zero profound thoughts about it. I have no anxiety at all about turning 40, and I am quite content to begin a new decade. Bring it on!
[Content Note: Class warfare; worker exploitation.]
"The people at the top aren't working any harder or smarter than they were before. They're just stealing more of the money, and it's about time we took it back for the people who actually do the work in this country."—David Atkins, in a great piece about what class warfare really looks like. And—spoiler alert!—it doesn't look like taking rich people's money and giving it to poor people.
[Content Note: Anti-choice fuckery.]
Sarah Palin is an asshole of epic proportions, which is not news, but, even based on the garbage expectations she's set with her previous nonsense, this is pretty amazing:
Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin hopes that Hillary Clinton will rethink her position on abortion as her first grandchild arrives.So, here we have another example of an anti-choicer espousing the ferociously absurd idea that pro-choice people have never thought about their positions and what it means to advocate for legal abortion, much like they assert that abortion-seeking people have never thought about their choice before they show up to a clinic.
Palin said in an interview with "Extra" airing Wednesday that having a grandchild could "broaden [Clinton's] worldview" with respect to the national debt, which would affect her grandchild down the road, but also in terms of the "sanctity of life."
"It's a real baby! It's not some disposable something – and I know that's gonna be controversial – but those who, perhaps they're in this position now as a parent or grandparent, they realize that sanctity of life, how innocent, how precious it is," Palin told "Extra" host Mario Lopez. "Of all places it should be in the womb that these babies are protected. So maybe even on a social issue like that she'll open her eyes."
[Content Note: Misogyny. Spoilers from the first few episodes of the TV series Fargo.]
Last September, I mentioned that FX was making a TV series based on the 1996 Coen Brothers' film, Fargo. At the time, I said it didn't sound particularly appealing to me, and, frankly, it still didn't sound appealing to me when it premiered a few weeks ago, but then some friends who have similar taste in television as I do recommended it to me, so I tuned in.
The show, which is set primarily in Minnesota, not Fargo, has a whole new slate of characters and a whole new cascading series of crimes, also allegedly (but not really) based on a true story. It's a similar flavor to the film, in that a bumbling jackass decides to solve his domestic and vocational problems by committing a crime directed at his wife, the consequences of which quickly spin his life out of control.
The show is more violent, and its plot more complex, than the film. The story is set against the same sort of snowy, austere backdrop as the film, with the actors doing their best to approximate Minnesota's cadences, to varying degrees of success.
There are plenty of things to criticize about the show (and criticism is totally on-topic for this thread), first and foremost that the cast is comprised almost exclusively of white men.
But I am less interested in writing about what I don't like about the show than about what I do. Specifically: Deputy Molly Solverson.
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
This blogaround brought to you by violets.
Recommended Reading:
Tennessee: [Content Note: Rape culture] Re-Imagining Disclosure as a Collective Act of Listening
Tressie: [CN: Slavery; misogynoir; rape] Here, a Hypocrite Lives: I Probably Get It Wrong on Leslie Jones But I Tried
Imara: [CN: Class warfare; racism] How the Most Ambitious Affordable Housing Plan in the Country Falls Short
Daniel: [CN: Homophobia; violence] Prominent Ugandan Activist Seeks Asylum in U.S. Over Anti-Gay Law
Resistance: [CN: Racism] Interchangeable Asians
BYP: Father Graduates from College with Son
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Abduction; terrorism; misogyny; abuse.] After another eight girls were abducted by Boko Haram, following the mass abduction 23 days ago, dozens of protestors rallied at the Nigerian Embassy, "with the hope of pressuring authorities to take action. ...Molly Alawode, a leader of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, told Al Jazeera the protests would continue 'if the government doesn't live up to its duty of service and protect the Nigerian population. We think it's really important to send this message today to let him [President Goodluck Jonathan] and other leaders know that the world is really watching,' she added." Nigerian police have now offered a $300,000 reward for information aiding in the rescue of the girls, and the White House has announced "it is sending a team to Nigeria to aid the effort to find the girls and those responsible."
[CN: Racism] Former Republican Governor of Floria Charlie Crist, who is now a Democrat, says that one of the primary reasons he left the GOP was its entrenched racism toward President Obama: "I couldn't be consistent with myself and my core beliefs, and stay with a party that was so unfriendly toward the African-American president, I'll just go there. I was a Republican and I saw the activists and what they were doing, it was intolerable to me."
[CN: Rape culture] Speaking of intolerable, Tucker Carlson is such a fucking dirtbag: "A 15-year-old boy looks at [being sexually assaulted by a female teacher] as the greatest thing that's ever happened." He is as colossally gross as he is colossally wrong.
[CN: Guns] Speaking at the National Council for Behavioural Health conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned against letting go unchecked the idea that "anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime." Said Clinton: "I think again we're way out of balance. I think that we've got to rein in what has become an almost article of faith that anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime. And I don't believe that is in the best interest of the vast majority of people. And I think you can say that and still support the right of people to own guns." I will give this a provisional thumbs-up, although I expect that Clinton, should she become a candidate, will disappointingly take the same approach that's popular among Democrats right now and ultimate propose reforms that demonize people with mental illness.
Speaking of Hillary Clinton, former Second Lady Lynne Cheney took to Fox News to discuss Monica Lewinsky's recent piece in Vanity Fair about her affair with former President Bill Clinton, and these are the actual fucking words that Lynne Cheney actually fucking said: "I really wonder if this isn't an effort on the Clintons' part to get that story out of the way. Would Vanity Fair publish anything about Monica Lewinsky that Hillary Clinton didn't want in Vanity Fair?" Jesus Jones.
And finally! NBA MVP Kevin Durant gave a moving acceptance speech last night, in which he "thanked teammates by name, telling personal tales about each of their relationships and why they mattered to him. He thanked his coaches, talking at length about the close bond he has had with coach Scott Brooks since they came together during the Seattle SuperSonics days in 2007. ...When he finally turned his attention to woman who has always been his backbone, everything else seemed to fade away. With the room captivated, the son who is truly one of a kind spoke from the heart. 'Single parent with two boys by the time you were 21 years old,' Durant said, crying. 'Everybody told us we weren't supposed to be here. We moved from apartment to apartment by ourselves. One of the best memories I had was when we moved into our first apartment. No bed, no furniture, and we just all sat in a room and just hugged each other. We thought we'd made it.'" He called his mom "the real MVP." All the blubs forever.
(Video is here. If and when I can finally find a transcript, I'll add a link. If you happen to find one, please drop a link in comments.)
