intertribal | Entries tagged with femininity

For anyone who doesn't know what Big Love is, it's a show about a successful Mormon pillar of the community, Bill, his legal first wife Barb, and his illegal second and third wives, Nicki and Margene (and their collective eight children) set in contemporary Utah. As we all know, mainstream Mormons do not condone polygamy, so the Hendricksons live in three houses that open up on the same backyard but no one knows they're "all" married. This is a secret it is very important they keep. It is a secret they share with the much scarier, much larger, and much more illegal compound run by Nicki's father. And as for the plot...

So that's the show. I really like it. I think it's extremely clever and well-written. But you know me and small towns, religion, family relationships, and "politicking". That's just me all over.

Anyway, Stanley Fish is writing about it for some reason, so I read his column (mostly for the updates about season 3, because I don't have access to HBO anymore... cry) and then I read the comments below. Here's a sampling:

Oh, Stanley, your patriarchy is showing. “Big Love” is the cliche man-as-the-center-of-the universe social construct. I’m big on family, and most of my writing (plays, other) is about family, and maybe if this tv series were about Big Mama with her stable of servile male sex partners and her progeny with her last name, I might enjoy it. But since woman-in-charge is only man-in-charge in drag, I doubt it. Good night, Stanley, and go read “The Feminine Mystique.”

I find nothing at all to love about “Big Love.” It is weird, unrealistic and decidedly misogynistic. Not until the “sister-wives” stop acting like Stepford wives and get themselves some “brother-husbands” will this show hold any interest for me. totally unrealistic and decidely misogynist.

I also watch Big Love, but I find it disturbing as it tries to make me comfortable with polygamy.

Big Love sends the message that men can treat women like a smorgassbord and expect their undying love and loyalty, and it tells women to expect a fractional return at best on the love they give in marriage.

But there is still something distasteful about the show because of the way it portrays the women who live vicariously. My own view is that polygamy would only be acceptable if I didn’t love my husband, and was actually repelled by him. This show just seems completely psychologically unrealistic.

In my opinion, “Big Love” is the Morman version of “The Color Purple” with patriarchal domination and chiild sexual abuse so rationalized it’s unremarkable. These characters are only likeable because their self-delusion is almost total. The women don’t know what it’s like to have a mental fredom to choose... Yes, there are many different kinds of families and marriages, but let’s hope that this series doesn’t make polygamy more popular, socially acceptable, or legal.

I don’t enjoy watching women compete endlessly, and miserably, for a man’s attention, their ‘turn’ with him the high point of their existence, especially when the man is as bland and paternalistic as Bill. I kept waiting for a scene where one of them packed a suitcase and slipped away in the night–if just for a break and some privacy. The fact is that this show portrays a lifestyle that, at least according to girls who have a been subjected to it and run away, relies on oppression, not love, to exist.

I watched an episode in horror. I wanted to shake all of those women and tell them to snap out of it!
Now, marrying several men…

Now, Stanley Fish's odd comparison to The Waltons aside - never watched The Waltons and I don't think that Big Love is sentimental at all, though I agree that the characters are likable (likability to me =/= sentimental, something that people all over the column seem to not be getting) - are you joking? Of all the television shows I have watched (and they are many), Big Love is like the last show I would classify as "misogynistic". Yes, it depicts a patriarchal situation. News flash: they're Mormon. They're fundamentalist Mormon. Probably some of the most overtly patriarchal people in the U.S. So of course that's how they live. Brother-husbands? Servile male sex partners? Slipping away for the night? You're talking about a different religion, one that I have never heard of (check out Xena: Warrior Princess? Maybe? No wait, they're Amazons).

So yeah. They're living in a patriarchal society. But they all still behave in very human ways. Barb and Nicki and Margene are all fully developed characters, as is Bill, for that matter (the psychologically unrealistic angle is so self-obsessed I don't want to go into it). The fact I enjoy the show does not mean I want to participate in polygamy. In fact, anybody that thinks this show glorifies polygamy has severe problems with their critical thinking faculties. It actually depicts polygamy as having serious fucking issues, but it doesn't clobber you with a moral hammer, it just shows, okay, here's a family that's polygamous. This is what could happen, given that these people are real human beings and not allegorical symbols of Certain Values. Very God starts the world running and just lets it go style of storytelling, not God is hanging over you with a thunderbolt or God is directing your every move to make an example out of you. It's a very, very difficult style of storytelling, but I admire the hell out of people who can do it.

Actually, Big Love doesn't glorify anything (where Stanley Fish is wrong) - and I wish people would stop trying to find moral compasses in fucking television shows! I'm looking at you, fucking Oscar Committee. So you find polygamy creepy? You don't like that Nicki is being pressured to have more children? News flash: that's allowed. You're allowed to not like what the characters do. That may mean you dislike the characters for a while (hell, I certainly go through those phases with BSG, which is why I have a love/hate relationship with pretty much everybody except Sharon, Helo, Baltar, and Six, who I love unconditionally - whoa, just now realized I have a thing for Cylon woman/human man couples), but so what? Are you watching the show as a replacement for your Sunday sermon? As a replacement for your friends? If it makes you uncomfortable to watch characters do what you don't want them to do, maybe you need to go into a little box by yourself, because you're clearly not ready for mass media. Or the world.

And as for this obsession with "strong female characters"... I just want strong characters. Whether they're male or female doesn't matter (then again, I am very opposed to gender quotas in legislatures; talk about your classic 3rd-world-tries-to-emulate-1st-world-and-lands-on-its-fucking-face). Now I think a tv show with no women at all is unrealistic, but on a slight tangent, the insertion of female characters for the sake of having female characters is beyond dumb. They have no chance of being strong characters - and I don't mean strong in the sense of oo-rah, I have a gun and control over people, which is what most people seem to want in their "strong female characters", I mean strong as in, fully-developed, three-dimensional, realistic, flawed, a character you can tell apart and not by a stereotype, a character who makes decisions, whether or not they're the right ones or for the right reasons. A character that has discernable reasons.

Unless we're just going to say that no television show should depict an extreme patriarchy. Is that what this is about? Because that makes more sense logically, but sucks even harder. Cuz guess what, guys? Patriarchy (and extreme patriarchy) exists. Just like sadness and death and prison and the mafia. And you know, patriarchy exists too... everywhere. Just in milder, more hidden/embedded forms.

Then again remember when people were calling Battlestar Galactica misogynistic because there was rape in it? Yeah. Wow. Even when they get a deluge of strong female characters (both classic mode, a la Starbuck and Roslin, and unconventional, a la Sharon, Six, Dee, and yes, Callie) they're still not satisfied.

Anyway, thank God for this commenter:

Dr. Fish, for an English Professor you seem oddly (in this case, anyway) oblivious to irony, as are most of the commenters thus far. Only one comment has noted the similarity of Big Love to The Sopranos, which leads to the point you have missed. The subversive appeal of Big Love is that, like The Sopranos, it takes a bizarre American family and suggests how it is a distillation of the “normal” American family itself: hierarchical, superstitious, corrupt, and hypocritical at the same time that it is, as you point out, loving, solicitous, and loyal. This family’s religion is–shall we say?–weird. So is that of nearly all American families. This family is over its head in debt. So are nearly all American families. This family claims to be utterly devoted to the welfare of its children yet the oldest daughter is pregnant and lonely (gee, where have we heard that before?). I could go on.

There's this flashback in Speed Racer that shows the neighborhood children at a garden party. They're all about eight or ten. Speed is on his pretend race car, mowing down flowerbeds. Trixie is with the other little girls, who are talking about how retarded Speed is and flouncing their boas and reminding me of the Sex and the City dumbbelles. Trixie punches the lead little girl because Trixie is awesome. Damn, I think I'm liking this movie too much for my own good. I did not expect to like this movie. Aaargh, what if I want to buy it? But if that scene didn't just remind me of my OTP I'll be damned, and as soon as something manages to remind me of my OTP it gets like 200 lifepoints from me.

Point is, my local newspaper has an article wondering why women love Sex and the City and men hate Sex and the City. It's a terrible article, and focuses, predictably, on sexual mores. What makes it really terrible, however, is its research question, because I would rather watch this:

than Sex and the City, and I'm so tired of hearing that here, men have their Indiana Jones and Iron-Man, and I get this. Well fuck you very much, media.

And Doom, in case anyone was wondering, sucks. Karl Urban (Eomer) is pretty hot. The mutants are gooey. The CG is bad. But some guy is right now swinging around an 80s computer monitor to try to hit a mutant with it. The end.

Current Music: "harder, better, faster, stronger"

I think a lot of fandom really hates women. Fangirls are especially rabid. It should come as no surprise that the more delusional ones hate the women their beloved men have been written into marrying - but I must admit, I did not expect these fangirls' solution to be eliminating women entirely. I expected them to craft better, more perfect women as replacements - oh no. Women have lost their right to be associated with men, for they are stupid, cruel creatures, white sepulchers.

See: An Empire Reborn, a story by this chick (loves Brokeback Mountain!* Surprise! hates the fandom's main female character! Surprise!). When a story comes with this kind of disclaimer -

"The depiction of abortion by the characters in this story does not reflect the author’s political attitudes toward the procedure. The sole intention is to create an interesting conflict between the characters and pave the way for a male/male relationship between the two main characters. No offense is intended towards those in favor of the practice or towards women who have gotten abortions"

- I should have known not to read it. Well, I read it anyway, because I wanted to see if I was right, and I was right.

The story, by the way, uses phrases like "They can have you torn limb from limb and sucked out of the womb in pieces". And "slaughter".

Oh my god you guys. Women kill babies. Women are teh evil. Men are noble! Men = LOVE.
[caveat: the only good women are women who carry their babies to term, and if they really don't want the adorable little suckers, give them away to a deserving but infertile rich couple, like in Juno!]

Reminds me of my 9th-grade English teacher explaining our school mascots (the Spartans) to us: "Women were considered inferior. They were only there to produce children. For men, real relationships could only be had with men, who were their intellectual equals." (paraphrased, obviously - although it forbade me from ever taking a movie like 300 seriously, and made the fact that wrestling was so popular among the boys of our school hilarious as hell)

So while I was mulling over the question of why so many fangirls hate female characters (and yet do not seem to hate themselves, and will in fact sometimes place themselves into their stories, if anything to end up with the only male character that they like, whom they will allow to be heterosexual.), and find the female characters "unworthy" of their canon husbands, this song came on:

"Peron's Latest Flame". Change "Peron" to any male character with a canon girlfriend/wife, and you've got the fangirl's theme song.

[Che:] Could there be in our fighting corps a lack of enthusiasm for
[Army:] Exactly!
[Che:] Peron's latest flame?
[Army:] You said it brother!

[Che:] Should you wish to cause great distress in the tidiest officer's mess, just mention her name

[Army:] That isn't funny!
Peron is a fool, breaking every taboo, installing a girl in the army H.Q. - and she's an actress, the last straw!
Her only good parts are between her thighs, she should stare at the ceiling, not reach for the skies
Or she could be his last whore
The evidence suggests she has other interests
If it's her who's using him, he's exceptionally dim
Bitch! Dangerous Jade!

She should get into her head, she should not get out of bed
She should know that she's not paid to be loud but to be laid
Slut! Dangerous Jade!

Man, I love misogynists. Especially when they're female. I'm going to go watch Embodiment of Fire now. Peace.

* - I too liked Brokeback Mountain. I do not, however, fetishize it.

Current Music: "Supervixen" - Garbage

The other night I tried to explain my love for "screaming girls" in music to my mother. I concluded it was something about valkyries and battle cries - how my favorite mood is "battle-mode", heavy adrenaline and blood rush. She said, "But you don't actually want war, right?" And I said, "No, no, I'm belligerent about peace. Love and peace or else." And then I realize that I like my username after all.

oh, I'm a good person, don't wanna fight with no one
but you piss me off.

I really like Bleed Like Me.

Current Music: "what did they steal?" "my PRECIOUS! AAAAHH!"

Your Musical Tastes Match: Nicole Kidman

See her whole playlist here (iTunes required)

What Celebrity Matches Your Taste in Music?

My mother always wants to listen to my iPod when we're driving in the car at home. Granted, so do I. It beats the radio. But my current obsessions near home-time are always songs that I just know will scare her. Last time it was Scarling songs and "Fuck the Pain Away". Those didn't go over so well. This time it's Hole songs and "Noir Desir" (Vive La Fete), which actually turns into hard-core screaming at the end. But I like them for their intensity, their scariness. Because I feel like screaming so often, even when I'm happy. Just listening to Els Pynoo makes me want to buckle over and scream, with ecstatic rage. Of course I'm sure my neighbors think that I'm being murdered. (Or they would, if they weren't always hammering nails into the wall they share with me. They're constantly renovating, those two.)

I'm contemplating separating out the songs that will potentially scare my mother, or make her cringe, from my frequently used playlists and putting them into their own category: Danger, Danger, High Voltage. But is it really being honest if I let her listen to the playlist that describes "me" and I censor some of the songs? (do I think too much?) I used to never let my mother listen to my music at all. We diverged after we moved to the States, because I got more into pop than I was in elementary school, when all I had was Asia Hit List for two hours on Saturdays (I rooted for the Spice Girls, and secretly, for Madonna and Jewel). Before we listened to Broadway as a family - Les Miserables, Evita, The Phantom of the Opera. And some Disney: The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Pop came and screwed that all up. I think she criticized, or ridiculed, something I listened to once in middle school, and I never let her hear anything I liked again. I suppose that's somewhat a good thing. It spared her "Closer" (Nine Inch Nails) and Meteora (Linkin Park) - both of which I still listen to on occasion, but they're hardly a staple of my audio diet. Then my music collection exploded in college and I got an iPod and suddenly my mom's praising Coldplay and demanding to hear more new music, and it's cool when she likes it, but terrifying when she doesn't. Terrifying, hurtful, the works. I consider my mother's taste sophisticated and learned, maybe that's why. Or maybe because I think: if she likes it and I like it, it's crossed generations, and it must be truly good. I don't want to know that my mother thinks my taste is trash. I want her to love what I love. And when she says nothing in response to songs that are soul-resounding to me, like "Running Up That Hill" (Placebo), I feel like there's this void between us, or the song's not as good as I think it is. Sometimes I just accept that my mother has taste-problems. For instance, she's allergic to country, the same way she's repulsed by lima beans. She can't handle "Walk the Line" - not even sung by Johnny Cash but by Joaquin Phoenix. But when she says she appreciates songs for their complex rhythms, like "Ways and Means" (Snow Patrol), doesn't that mean the ones she doesn't appreciate are simplistic? And then I feel the need to explain myself, why I have such a ridiculous attachment to that song, and I just get frantic and use abstract hyperbole, usually, and I end up sounding as moronic as my song.

For some reason I'm more paranoid and protective with my screaming girls than my screaming boys. I don't take the boys as seriously, perhaps. Rammstein and Korn are both pretty funny, if you think about it. But the girls - I can relate to them and their complaints (even when I don't speak their language). They dig in my stomach - Courtney and Shirley and Els and Jessicka (and Tori, too). And for some reason they're the ones that my mother is more likely to not be able to stand, over the boys. A generation gap? Is it more painful to hear girls being musically "ugly" (so to speak) if you're a woman? A disappointment? A disillusionment? And I guess it is more typical for boys to be screaming in rage than girls (in music). You could probably do a whole big analysis comparing this to the use of the disembodied female voice in cinema - the female scream (in terror as she is about to be killed, or in witnessing a murder) is frequently used, but the disembodied female voice is never in control, never authoritative unless she is a villainess. When she screams it's in fear, never rage. But that's part of the reason I really like it when female artists cover male songs, especially songs that are stereotypically male - grunge and metal and pissed.

"this is a song that kurt wrote... we can't do it very well, but we'll try... maybe he can hear it, and he'll go, you know you really fucked up my song, courtney, don't even try it... but if it works..."

Current Music: "Degradation" - Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson

Lisey has three sisters, one of whom is kooky, and at times ''Lisey's Story'' feels like ''The Ya-Ya Sisterhood Goes to Hell.''

From Politeness and Authority at a Hilltop College in Minnesota.

And yet that is the writer’s work — to notice and question the act of noticing, to clarify again and again, to sift one’s perceptions. I’m always struck by how well fitted these young women are to be writers, if only there weren’t also something within them saying, Who cares what you notice? Who authorized you? Don’t you owe someone an apology?

Every young writer, male or female, Minnesotan or otherwise, faces questions like these at first. It’s a delicate thing, coming to the moment when you realize that your perceptions do count and that your writing can encompass them. You begin to understand how quiet, how subtle the writer’s authority really is, how little it has to do with “authority” as we usually use the word.

Young men have a way of coasting right past that point of realization without even noticing it, which is one of the reasons the world is full of male writers. But for young women, it often means a real transposition of self, a new knowledge of who they are and, in some cases, a forbidding understanding of whom they’ve been taught to be.

- Verlyn Klinkenborg

From Nine Lives: What Cats Know About War.

The bloodiest suicide bombings, even miles away, have the sound and feel of the apocalypse, causing humans to freeze, no matter how often they experience it. Cats need to hear it only once. As they skitter to the safety of trees and bushes, they enter the blast and the tremor on the hard drive of their brains. On the next occasion, come the blast, they barely stir.

Mongrels though they are, our Baghdad cats, we learned from a recent study in the journal Science, have a noble lineage of their own — as inheritors of the same terrain occupied by the felines that were the forebears of all domestic cats, wild families that lived along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates more than 10,000 years ago.

- John F. Burns

Lenny: Gosh, Homer, I would have thought a man with two wives would be happy!
Carl: No, you're thinking of a man with two knives.
Moe [holding two knives]: I gotta admit, this is pretty awesome.
- the Simpsons

this is from an article in The Age, a really stupid Australian newspaper. it's one of those articles that reeks of popular unintelligence - completely pedestrian opinions based on trends that were read in People or the TV guide.

Thomson says writing the series around two men would have produced a completely different — and probably far less interesting — dynamic. "Women tend to give you much more room to move in a character-based drama," he says. "Males generally — in life and in fiction — tend to fall into stereotypes. When you see a male character, you expect him to fit into a certain pigeonhole. And as a writer it's very tough to pull them out of those pigeonholes. With female characters, very rarely is what you see what you get. Life for women is never black and white. It never is and it never can be. So you automatically have conflict there. Drama is conflict, and inner conflict is the most powerful conflict of them all."

and because of this, we decide to write more female characters, the article argues. instead, that is, of challenging male stereotypes, we reinforce female ones - that women are full of drama, especially around other women.

"With the super heroes there's that wonderful physicality," Turnbull says. "Xena was physically a very big woman but Buffy or the Cheerleader are these petite blondes who are also incredibly strong and resilient. They don't have to be butch to be powerful. And that's immensely inspirational for some people."

immensely inspirational that not only do the petite blonde cheerleaders have everything else, but they get to be all-powerful superheroes that beat people up as well? who's inspired?

Current Music: evangelism

Susan Faludi's Terror Dream:

Ms. Faludi, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of two previous books, was perplexed by the cultural fallout from that day. What she found, she says, was a powerful resurgence in traditional sex roles and a glorification of he-man virility as embodied by Wayne, the ur-savior of virtuous but helpless damsels in distress. The prefeminist thinking was everywhere, Ms. Faludi said: in the media, where female commentators were suddenly scarce after 9/11 and specious trend reports appeared about women nesting and baking; in depictions of that day’s heroes as male and victims as female; and in movies like the 2005 “War of the Worlds,” Ms. Faludi said, with Tom Cruise as a “deadbeat divorced dad emasculated by his wife, reclaiming his manhood by saving their little girl.”

At the end of that movie, Mr. Cruise’s character cradles his daughter in his arms, an echo of the final scene in John Ford’s classic 1956 film “The Searchers,” when John Wayne carries home his young niece, who was captured by Indians years before. “It’s some bizarre, weirdly out-of-proportion fixation,” Ms. Faludi said, “an exaltation of American masculinity in an intergalactic crisis.”

Those who did not conform to this story line, she added — like female rescuers on 9/11 and widows who refused to remain piously grief-stricken or who scrutinized intelligence failures — were treated with contempt.

Current Music: "20,000 Deaths for Eidelyn Gonzales" - Xiu Xiu

babyjin, posted in

fanficrants.

( female authors, female characters are not the anti-christ )

The thread that follows is interesting too, although everyone agrees with her (thank God) - i.e., "oh, and a small message to those who bash/kill/otherwise get rid of a female character because she "gets in the way of the mansex": here's a tip - if you have to get rid of a female 'cause otherwise the two guys wouldn't go after each other, maybe they're not actually gay." Apparently she was writing it about the Yu Yu Hakusho fandom, but I could have sworn it was mine.

Current Music: "Hotel" - Tori Amos

Tori Amos did a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, and some people rail against her for it - in particular, that she removes the contrast of quiet and loud that the original version had. And while I admit that's true, I think her version still has the significant addition of merely being sung by a female. I have to admit that I feel much more like I can relate to the song - like it's my song - when I hear her version (although Nirvana's version, and especially the video, will always live in my heart too. Every time I went to a pep rally in high school I thought of this song). It's sort of like Tori Amos allows all the girls in high school an angsty voice too.

I'm worse at what I do best
and for this gift, I feel blessed

I really like it when she sings that part. I remember that in high school*. Although I wish she included this verse from the original, because that's really what high school was for me:

and I forget just what it takes
and yet I guess it makes me smile
I found it hard, it's hard to find,
oh well, whatever, nevermind

It's my favorite verse. Girls are angsty in high school too - sometimes I think teachers, parents, musicians, YA writers, forget that. They think that if girls are angsty it's about eating disorders or dropout boyfriends or pregnancy or fallouts with cliques. None of these things happened to me. But usually, for a girl to be angsty in high school, she needs to have something serious go wrong, something really to cry about. She can't mope about the very fact and essence of high school, which is exactly what "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and other grunge rock allows boys to do. Boys get to be cynical, hate high school's feedlot-like attributes, hate teachers not because of the assignments they give but because of their subliminal messages, hate the authority high that administrators and teachers get, hate the draconian rules not because they want to break them but because they exist at all, hate the cliques not because they've been bullied but because cliques represent an ugly, idiotic hatred ("the blind idiot god", as Lovecraft calls Azathoth) that must be stood against on principle alone. All of that. Girls don't really get to do it. I think it's because many people think high school girls are superficial and materialistic, as well as simple, creatures, too busy trying to find a boyfriend or get perfect As to think about what's really going on deeper down. And to be fair this is true of many teenage girls, but not all of them.

Yeah, that's what the populars in my high school (or preps, as I call them) were like: "the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demoniac flute held in nameless paws" (Lovecraft; The Haunter of the Dark). The smart nerds destined for Math Day and Princeton were more like the Great Old Ones and Cthulhu: "When the stars were right, they could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, they could not live. But although they no longer lived, they would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for them" (Old Castro). I, by the way, was neither, but these are the two categories many think highschool students fall into - the popular preps who are only temporarily admired before they become mediocre adults, or the less popular but exceedingly intelligent nerds who are destined to become CEOs of IBM, of Google, of Lehman Bros., even. The preps live happily ever after because they don't know any better, and so do the nerds, who accomplish "real success". There are a lot of kids that fall between the two extremes, but I don't know a lot of fiction that realizes this.

There are the Hounds of Tindalos, "lean and athirst", always searching madly for a taste of humanity and life.
There are the Dholes and Bholes, long and goo-covered worms who "cannot be seen because they creep only in the dark".
There's Fthaggua and the fire vampires, who gain "energy and knowledge from the intelligent creatures they slay".
There's the Hunting Horrors, whose "forms are said to continually shift and change, twitching and writhing, so that it is hard to view them."
Then there's the dying Great Race of Yith, "setting up exchanges with the minds of other planets, and of exploring their pasts and futures."
The Yuggs, who "sometimes bestow great wealth to humans in exchange for their cooperation and for regular sacrifices."
The Many-Angled Ones "have a dastardly plan to impose rigid geometric order on the whole universe, essentially reducing it to clockwork."
And the Nightgaunts, who while having "a vaguely human shape, but are thin", "are unintelligent (having no language or culture)."

My point is... high school's a diverse experience. It's rather monstrous, but it's diverse.

* I refer to my own high school experience in an old-rich suburb of the Great Plains. It is by no means assumed to be universal.

Before you say "yes, yes it is", let me explain.

I believe that I am entitled to one night of junk food and the movie Independence Day.
How many times have I been caught watching Simon Pegg and Nick Frost with a huge grin on my face thinking "crap, I wish I was them."
I wish love were like in "Shaun of the Dead". Admit it, we're all looking for that killing, speeding, fence-hopping, zombie-acting, who's-gonna-shoot-who-first stuff. Yeah, that LOVE.
I get "high" off watching an awesome action movie, only to have it end and then realize that it's back to my dull life. I want fun, monsters, laughter, and sarcasm that comes only from Jeff Goldblum. I want to become an action movie hermit, and live out my fantasy in an "in-the-end-we-will-kick-those-Martians-to-Kingdom-Come" world.
I fall in love with a guy (may or may not be the lead) at the end of any action movie... you have to admit they are the last men on earth! guys from action movies include... will smith... denzel washington... jeff goldblum... simon pegg... christian bale... viggo mortensen... cillian murphy...
Real life sucks. But the recurring fact of the matter is that just like in all the cheap blockbusters, things totally suck before they outwit the evil empire and aim the nuclear missile away from that village of African orphans.
I feel my life story has played out like the stupidest, funniest, corniest, phoniest, tritest, most outlandish, histrionic, booze-guzzling, panic-inducing, B movie-like horror movie to end all horror movies.
Any boy who sits through "Sophie's Choice", "Beloved", or any of those other epic emotional horror movies is undoubtedly a keeper!
We eat Ramen noodles. We watch Jurassic Park. We discuss how the events and topics of the movie can relate to humanity's doom. It's fun! And it's great fellowship with friends! What more could a girl want?*

Oh yes, I also believe there are certain things guys should do for girls. Period. These are not rules, these are strong suggestions that are to push the male gender from retarded chickflick guys to normal imperfect guys.
1. Forget the girl's birthday. Only remember when he checks facebook, then writes a frantic message on her wall. He should be treated as if nothing happened.
2. Stop channelsurfing when football comes on the tube. Whine when the girl stops channelsurfing when iceskating comes on, then make fun of the male iceskaters.
3. Have a favorite sports team.
4. Enjoy going to a bar with friends to sing "Joy to the World" or "Stairway to Heaven" while plastered.
5. Remember to get a tux for the wedding. Remember to go to the wedding.
6. Introduce her to heavy metal, classic rock, grunge, and/or rap, if she is lacking in these areas.
7. Complain the entire time he is at a chick flick or musical, and probably opera as well.
8. Leave the toilet seat up, the toothpaste uncapped, and dirty boxers on the floor.
9. Watch "A Diamond is Forever" commercials and go, "that's dumb."
10. Leave her notes with links to funny videos on YouTube.
11. Wear baggy jeans and t-shirts.
12. Play "Streetfighter" or "Mortal Kombat" with little impressionable kids.
13. Say she looks hot, cute, pretty, sexy, good, whatever. Just do not call her ugly.
14. Don't ever pay less than half for the date. It's only fair.
15. Use the word bitch. Do not use the word cunt.
16. Use the word fuck. In fact, be able to quote the entire fuck sentence from Boondock Saints.
17. Buy junk food at the grocery store. Insist she eat some too.
18. Bash the Backstreet Boys.

If the male gender would like to become real men, however, here's some more rules to go along with the ones just mentioned.
1. Never ever forget to vote. Don't vote along party lines. Vote for issues, ideas, and track records.
2. Say the female iceskaters are anorexic.
3. Do not support said sports team when it is accused of facilitating a "rape-friendly" atmosphere (like U. Colorado-Boulder).
4. Don't go to the bar to pick up girls.
5. Mean those wedding vows.
6. Give Coldplay a chance.
7. Watch war movies with counterwar messages. Realize war is an unnecessary evil.
8. Go fix it if she yells at you.
9. Follow this up with, "I don't believe in buying conflict diamonds, baby." (seriously, this is so sexy)
10. Follow the links that she gives you. Reply and say they were funny/interesting/mind-boggling/whatever.
11. Don't ever criticize her clothing choice or insist that she look a certain way.
12. Do not play "Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball", ever.
13. Say she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but only if you mean it.
14. Offer to pay for the date, but only if you can afford it. Hobos are not attractive.
15. Use the word bitch on, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger. To his face. That takes balls.
16. Motherfucker should be avoided if she has children, or if you're around your mother-in-law.
17. Offer to help anyone who's having trouble carrying anything at the grocery store.
18. Give the Spice Girls a chance.

So I'm a hopeless romantic... is that so bad?

All this is a response to Facebook groups - the "I Watch Chick Flicks and I'm Proud of It" groups, the "There Are Some Things Guys Should Do For Girls. Period" groups.

Related groups of these Facebook groups.
Chick Flicks --> True Love Waits --> American By Birth, Christian By Choice! --> Abortion is murder; I pray for my future beloved; I'M NOTHING WITHOUT GOD.

I Love A Good Chick Flick --> I am a Lady. --> Abortion is murder; I'm Saving Myself for Wild, Passionate, Awkward Honeymoon Sex --> If we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

Life is like a chick flick... it's gotta suck before it gets good! --> In lOvE wItH pREtTy Men --> The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints --> I'm Bringing Sexy Back.

Compare with one of my Facebook groups.

Dragon Ball Z Mother F*****" --> Barack Obama for President in 2008.

I win.

The New York Times' Movie Dispatch has this article called "Hollywood's Shortage of Female Power". It links the decline of movies "geared toward women and girls" - both at production sets and at the box office - with a declining number of women working in decisionmaking positions in Hollywood. Some producers are apparently concerned over this:

Still, some long-time Hollywood producers feel that something has shifted. “For every Lionsgate, you’d hope there would be another company saying, ‘We’re going to make ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ ” said Lindsay Doran, an independent producer (“Nanny McPhee,” “Sense and Sensibility”) who once ran United Artists. “You don’t see that. You don’t see companies saying, ‘More than half of this population is women, we should design a slate to come up with movies like ‘The Break-Up,’ and ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’ ”

Or how about not. The article does make the point (good job, New York Times, here's a star!) that women go to the "male", adrenaline and testosterone-laden gunfights, monster movies, and special effects extravaganzas. But this point is very downplayed - in general, the tone remains concerned that with a reduction of female presidents and chairwomen at blockbuster studios (Paramount, Disney, and Universal are mentioned) comes a reduction of what I can only call chick flicks, and thus that women like fashion and romance... and that's about all they like. A movie is not geared toward women if it is not inundated with over-the-top, happy-ending, heterosexual love between attractive stars, complete with a cast of lovable supportive goofs, some ridiculous rivals, and a very nice wardrobe that may just end up the movie's only Oscar nomination.

I was once told that it was possible I "have a serious problem with women". Sometimes I think this is true. I have no doubts that I'm straight, and I always identify myself as female. See my entire livejournal. But I don't usually identify myself with the female character, especially in chick flicks. This doesn't mean I identify with the male character, either. It means I identify with no one. And when I find female characters in movies that I can actually applaud, I am ecstatic. That's why I still love "Independence Day" - Jasmine (although I have just realized that I tend to be more sympathetic to female characters who are minorities - of all the characters that are a challenge for me to like, I think the White Woman that is most difficult). Same with Sarah Harding and Ellie in the "Jurassic Park" franchise.

These are all, however, extremely "masculine" movies. Of course, I think they're more like "people" movies, in my opinion - saving Earth from aliens, in this world, is macho. One wonders what a women's alien invasion movie would look like (because surely the softer "Signs" is not a women's movie either, since all the main characters are male). I suppose it wouldn't exist, because women don't think about aliens, and in fact, they don't seem to think about anything larger than themselves and their own friends and families at all. Movies about Earth are not women's movies. Lionsgate, that macho movie house that makes "Hostel" and "Bug" movies, also made "Lord of War". Omigod, it's about guns, it must be macho. It's about arms proliferation and how it's one of the worst things happening in the world and no one seems to care. Then there's "Requiem for a Dream", also by Lionsgate. Drugs! Macho! Even though the protagonist is female! Same with "The Descent", which features a cast of entirely combative, athletic women and monsters, but is still a masculine movie, I suppose, because it is set in a cave, there is blood, there is gore, and there are no men to flirt with. And if that attitude isn't sexist, I don't know what is. I mean, all this hoopla is just bullshit, and I almost feel like writing to the New York Times on this.

When I hear these attitudes, I feel like I'm a contradiction in terms. Lionsgate is one of my favorite production houses. So are Magnolia and Focus Features (and Rogue Pictures). Further, I watch football and figure skating. I played with Legos and Barbies. "Jurassic Park" was my first favorite movie. I love zombie movies, horror movies, and apocalyptic movies. I love documentaries. I watch Law & Order, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, and America's Next Top Model. I absolutely loved "Hot Fuzz", even though there are close to no female characters in it and it's unabashedly a testosterone flick. Whatever. I firmly believe I am not abnormal, and I do not have a problem. As me and Kim decided when we saw it, we're cool because we were two girls who went and were not there because we were dragged by our boyfriends. All it means is that we won't have fights over what movies to watch with our husbands.

And another issue - this feeling that women's movies just aren't being made anymore is not quite true. Discounting the unsuccessful Hollywood romantic comedies, what about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"? Are you really going to tell me "Little Miss Sunshine" is a masculine movie? "Transamerica" wasn't masculine. Then there's "Brokeback Mountain", which is like the opposite of traditional macho. Maybe it says something that all these movies I'm listing off are indie movies, and that my favorite movie studios are all independent. All these movies are also all good movies, not trash like "The Holiday". But you know what? Men go to see these movies as well as women! No, men don't willingly see chick flicks, and yes, women do willingly see macho movies. And while maybe this has something to do with men not being free to express their feminine side whereas women are allowed to be masculine, I think it's far more likely that macho movies, that don't have to pay their stars gargantuan amounts (see Julia Roberts' salary) and can actually devote this money to the movie itself, who recognize that adrenaline and excitement is not a high available only to men, and that are usually much funnier, with better scripts, and are much more willing to poke fun at themselves, are just better movies.

Oh yes, and I should take this opportunity to say that I don't quite agree with the opinion in comparative politics that if more women are elected to office, women's issues will be brought to the agenda. For one, what are "women's issues"? My issues are security, democratization, militaries, norm change, nationalism, and colonial legacies. None of these issues are particular to women. Things like abortion, equal wages, equal legal rights, sexual violence, discrimination, and genital mutilation are not on my plate, not because they're not important, but because I'm just not into them. If I were elected to public office, I would discuss the military budget and foreign policy. Period. And don't anybody dare say that because I believe war is an unnecessary evil, I'm showing my feminine side. No. I'm showing my human side.

the new misogyny.

I used to think I was a feminist, but now I don't feel comfortable saying I am. Of course I'm for equal rights, and I'm pro-choice, and I don't think that women ever deserve/ask to be raped. But I no longer want to associate myself with the feminist movement today, because I think that the way a lot of feminism is taught to little girls - at least the way it was taught to me, as a preteen - was that feminism means the end of femininity, the elimination of men, and the usurping of masculinity. I'll explain and create three characters: Sarah, Jessica, and Katherine.

If you haven't noticed, it is no longer normal to call yourself a feminist in this world and wear skirts or dresses. That is, there is a norm against feminists wearing anything but pants. Young feminists also have certain very prescribed goals: to excel in the maths and sciences, to be sporty, to speak loudly and often in class, and while not to be anorexic, to be either thin or conservative in dress, because real feminists do not have curves, or if they do, they ought to be ashamed of them. I think that modern feminist literature teaches girls to aspire to be the idea of what a "man" is. Ironically, of course, they perpetuate their own stereotypes by insisting that the prevailing norm is that science, or sports, is masculine. Sarah was the first girl to get on the soccer team, participated in math day, wore jeans, sneakers, and ponytails and smiled brightly - everyone loved Sarah.

Not that feminists are allowed to want to be men, or even to be manly or masculine. They seem to want to live in a world where men don't exist. As in, there were never any men in the girl power books I was given. No father figures, only mothers. Occasionally in the fiction books, there were girls who wanted boyfriends and wore makeup, but these girls were always, always evil - not only that, but stupid, spoiled, and selfish, and boys never liked them. The girls that were construed as traditionally "feminine" were the bad ones, and girls and boys and adults alike were all encouraged to see these girls as whores. Jessica wore mascara and got up at nine a.m. to put it on correctly - she pierced her ears and wore hoop earrings, and she was always chasing after Tommy, the most popular boy in school - Jessica was a whore.

Feminists do, however, want to incorporate the masculine and call it their own thing - girl power, probably. Girls that can't move into the realm of the former masculine but yet don't seem to be evil or whorish become, first, useless, weak, and pathetic. These are the girls that are, above everything else, not. Katherine was not like Sarah and not like Jessica. Katherine didn't play sports, wasn't good at math, didn't want a boyfriend and didn't wear makeup. Katherine didn't speak in class and didn't smile. Katherine wasn't strong, and Katherine wasn't pretty. Katherine just wasn't. For fear of audiences empathizing with poor pathetic Katherine, however, feminists were quick to turn Katherine into a figure no girl would want to be - a bitch. It made perfect sense - with Katherine having neither Sarah's true happiness nor Jessica's shallow satisfaction, Katherine became unhappy, hateful, and resentful. Katherine was a bitch.

As the young feminist grows up, the older feminist will give her older books, books that are meant to keep her on the right path as she enters the real world, where she discovers several things: that Jessica has a boyfriend and is well-liked, that Katherine might be good at other subjects if not math, and that, well, boys and men exist. Faced with questions from the young feminist about these inconsistencies, the older feminist will show her the future.

Jessica will get pregnant at age 16 and not know who the father is. Rumor may have it that Jessica was raped, but everyone will know that Jessica was a whore, and even if she was, it was hardly surprising, and no one would pity Jessica much less believe her. Jessica will have to drop out of school to raise her baby, but her parents will kick her out, and she'll end up living in a trailer park and she'll never go to college, because she's stupid. She'll just try to find someone to marry her and take care of the baby for her, because she won't think to get a job, because Jessica doesn't like to work.

Katherine will become a drug addict in high school, start smoking, and cut her wrists. She'll go gothic or punk, she'll be sullen, and no one will ever love her. She'll graduate high school, but she'll be thrown out by her parents for being such a bad child, and she'll wander the streets spreading ill will, spitting on other people, and stealing in order to buy more drugs. She may also start spraying graffiti, and she would not object to stealing bigger things, like cars, if that would thrill her for a moment. Katherine will go to prison forever, probably for murder.

Sarah, on the other hand, will go to Harvard and double major in biochemistry and engineering. She will get an academic and athletic scholarship and she'll be an Academic All-American too. She'll graduate summa cum laude, get an internship working for her local senator, and spend her summers backpacking in the Alps with the boys. Everyone, and I mean everyone, will continue to love Sarah.

The interesting effect of the feminist categorization of teen girl roles is that every type is hated by the other two types, but because "Jessica"s are seen to be so very stupid and airheaded, the real adversaries become Sarah and Katherine, and feminists end up disliking bitches even more than whores, because bitches are an actual competitor for the perfect girl, Sarah. Not that feminists like whores either. And what, of course, do "bitches" and "whores" have in common in this world? Femininity.

Repeat the mantra: to be feminine is to be weak. to wear skirts is to be weak. to like english is to be weak. to be in choir is to be weak.

and that's why I'm not a feminist. As Madonna says, and I've probably quoted, many times, "girls can wear jeans, cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, cuz it's okay to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, because you think that being a girl is degrading." While I think Madonna was talking to men and the orthodoxy, I'm using it to talk to feminists.

and the lyric from the song, "Destroy Everything You Touch", by Ladytron, that I used in the title:

destroy everything you touch today, destroy me this way
anything that may desert you, so it cannot hurt you

Current Location: alone in my dorm
Current Music: "Just a Girl" - No Doubt

1. I hate the MLA Handbook. I don't know why. It's just a bitch looking up proper citations, even though I'm very meticulous about it.
2. I'm obsessed with wearing scarves indoors. Not long Isadora-Duncan-scarves, just short ones. It keeps my neck warm. I like it when my neck's warm. It must be my mother rubbing off on me.
3. If I decide to call Andromeda "Andy" for short, I could totally devote the song "Andy, You're a Star" to her (not Andromache - she's not a star). It would be from her lady-in-waiting, Irene. They have sort of a lesbian relationship. Sort of. It's weird.
       on the field I remember you were incredible
       on the mats with the boys you think you're alone
       with the pain that you drained from love
       in a car with a girl (boy), promise me (s)he's not your world
       cuz Andy, you're a star!
4. I hate most heroines.
5. I am prone to disliking most tomboys.
6. I like women that are referred to as bitches, especially by men.
7. Itching is a very easy symptom for a hypochondriac to psychosomatically manifest.
8. Andromache is modeled after Laura Ingalls Wilder from Little House on the Prairie. So she's kind of a tomboy. But she's also a bitch.
9. I don't have the right to critique anyone else's love lives because clearly mine is fucked up beyond words.
10. I'm going to be a Southeast Asian-ist. I told my mother and she started laughing.
       Me: I know, it's funny.
       My mom: No, it's not funny. It's just that, you know... you come from a family of carpenters, so by god, you're going to be a carpenter too.
       For some reason this reminded me instantly of Jesus, probably because in "Jesus Christ Superstar", Judas says,
       Nazareth, your famous son
       should have stayed a great unknown,
       like his father carving wood,
       he'd have made good.
       Tables, chairs, and oaken chests
       would have suited Jesus best
       He'd have caused nobody harm
       No one alarm.
And no, I'm not comparing myself to Jesus. And that just reminded me of The Simpsons episode where Homer goes on a hunger strike and sings,
       dancing away my hunger pains,
       moving so my stomach won't hurt,
       I'm kind of like Jesus
       but not in a sacrilegious way

Current Mood: discontent
Current Location: confined for everyone's safety
Current Music: "Boiler" - Limp Bizkit

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Page Summary

get back, temptation
that's right, put in work, move your ass, go berserk, eat your salad, no dessert.
the pieces of jennifer's body. found pieces of jennifer's body.
bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the wardrums
screaming girls
one sentence (one moment of your time):
fragility and shrapnel
we do not fault colors for being different.
holy shit! read this book!
amen, amen, amen
I feel stupid and contagious
so I'm a hopeless romantic... is that so bad?
or maybe chick flicks just suck.
destroy anything that may desert you, so it cannot hurt you
ten realizations

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Page generated Jun. 10th, 2025 12:16 am

a sense of joy and then a panic

a sense of joy and then a panic

Entries tagged with femininity

get back, temptation

that's right, put in work, move your ass, go berserk, eat your salad, no dessert.

the pieces of jennifer's body. found pieces of jennifer's body.

bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the wardrums

screaming girls

one sentence (one moment of your time):

fragility and shrapnel

we do not fault colors for being different.

holy shit! read this book!

amen, amen, amen

I feel stupid and contagious

so I'm a hopeless romantic... is that so bad?

or maybe chick flicks just suck.

destroy anything that may desert you, so it cannot hurt you

ten realizations