In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Tag: Celebrity

The best thing you will read today about Breaking Dawn

And vampire-fetus-babies and misogyny and female desire and abuse and rough sex and mother-martyrs:

Welcome to the twisted glory that is Mormon housewife turned teen-lit sensation Stephenie Meyer’s imagination.

On the pages of Breaking Dawn Meyer let that imagination, which has been hovering under the repressed surface of the series’ previous three books, run rampant: Bedboard-breaking, feather-spilling, bruising honeymoon sex. A demonic pregnancy that grows so fast the fetus is nudging and jumping around the heroine’s womb days after conception. A grown-up werewolf falling in love with a half-vampire infant. And our heavily-pregnant heroine sipping blood from a soda cup–and loving it–just before her ribs and spine are shattered by the immortal spawn she’s carrying. It gets better: a c-section performed by vampire teeth. A shot of venom straight to the heart. A crazed childless vampire woman who will protect the fetus at all costs.

People who should not exist

Guy Fieri

Guy Fieri. I mean, anyone who wears his Oakley sunglasses wrapped around the back of his head is clearly a waste of space (see also: his hair and his bowling shirts and ohmygod that goatee and basically everything about him). But he’s also an anti-Semite, a misogynist and a homophobe to boot. So yeah, fuck that guy.

Short answer: No, celebrity photography isn’t rape.

Long answer: Does there need to be a long answer? Yes, Johnny Depp, I’m sure photography is terribly intrusive. Yes, Kristen Stewart, I’m sure paparazzi swarms are scary. But rape is rape; those things are just not.

Photographers want to take pictures of you and sell them for money. They don’t particularly care about your physical or emotional comfort while it’s happening. Sometimes, they want to make you uncomfortable or scared–pissed-off pictures sell. It sucks. But feeling unsafe, like life as you knew it has been taken away, not knowing who you can trust? Not rape. Violation of your privacy, your peace of mind? Still not rape.

Rape is a very specific, particular violation with unique implications and aftermath; it’s not a convenient catchall term to add drama to a traumatic experience. If the worst thing that’s ever happened to you is that people have screamed at you and made you scared on purpose–or that you’ve sat for a photo shoot that made you feel not like yourself–you should consider yourself very, very lucky.

Roman Polanski apologies to the girl he raped. Kind of.

Roman Polanski

So Roman Polanski said that the woman he drugged and raped when she was 13 was “a double victim: My victim, and a victim of the press.” And good effort, I guess? But no. Let Gabe help you:

Uh, hey Roman, let’s try that again buddy, cool? No, no, that was great, you’re doing great, we just want to get one more take on the apology for safety so that we have something to work with in the editing room. First of all, let’s lose the part about the press. Roman. Roman, please. You know that I understand what you’re saying, I hear you, dude. But it kind of seems like you’re trying to split the guilt here 50/50 between you and “the press,” and I think, you know, it’s your first public apology in 34 years so I think you should keep it simple and leave the media out of it. Me? What would I have you say? Hmm, OK, right, OK, yeah, how about: DEAR SAMANTHA GREIMER, I AM VERY SORRY THAT I DRUGGED AND SODOMIZED YOU WHEN YOU WERE 13 YEARS OLD. And that’s it. Action!

Jon Hamm is not real.

Photo of Jon Hamm looking sexy.

I refuse to believe it’s possible for a man to be this perfect (see also: Ryan Gosling).

Not only was he a high school teacher before he rocketed to fame as an actor, but you won’t believe the job he had during college…

He worked at a daycare center!

Working with children and teens meant much more than a paycheck.

“I was a child of a single parent,” Hamm said at yesterday’s annual Rape Treatment Center benefit brunch in Beverly Hills. “I spent the majority of my life in daycare, after school programs, summer school programs.”

Hamm said, “Having gone through what I had gone through as a child…there were no real male role models in any of these places. There were never any dudes.

“It was a bummer as a young man to, not only not have a father figure in my life, but no real male figures as teachers or as educators or as afterschool program leaders or anything,” he said.

Hamm made the point to emphasize the importance of the Rape Treatment Center’s educational outreach, especially for boys and young men. “It is an important thing to instill in a younger generation about the impact of rape, the lasting impact of rape,” he said, adding, “Children from grade school to high school to college are incredibly susceptible and incredibly malleable, as we all know. To get them early, to teach them about the facts and figures and other realities of rape is key. It is an important issue to me as not only a man, but as an educator, as a human being and as a person on this planet.”

I don’t read this as Hamm lamenting the fact that he was in daycare and after-school programs, or complaining about having a single mother; I read it as, “This was my reality, and it could have been better in some ways, so I did my part to try to make it better for other kids.” It is a problem that women are the vast majority of care workers; it is a problem that kids are brought up rarely seeing male care-takers. Whatever, I can’t even finish this paragraph because all I’m doing is going on offense against the inevitable But There’s A Problem Here! in the comments and that’s boring, let’s all just calm down and look at his face. Look at his FACE!

Also, the first few comments on the E! posting are a hoot. They involve the terms “virile,” “girly-men” and “broads.” Enjoy.

In which I indulge myself in brief admiration of Helen Mirren

I kind of love Helen Mirren. I just think that for the most part, she’s a classy dame. I like that she takes no shit. I like that it looks like she knows how to have fun. I like how outspoken she is about the dangers of gender stereotyping, and the importance of mentors and role models, and the irrelevance of looks, (all of which really make her toxic comments about date rape and bitchy, jealous women all the more confounding. If anyone here can sort that out, let me know). I like seeing a thoroughly adult woman who’s fully content with the less-traditional choices she’s made in life. I like that she appears to have welcomed age without screwing with her face. Whenever my mom is panicking about not knowing what to wear for some event, I always tell her, “Just ask yourself what Helen Mirren would wear.” I’m pretty sure I’d like to hang out with her.

I also like her judgment in picking roles. She tends to pick good ones, and then play them well. Victoria was probably my favorite character in Red, because of the contradiction evidenced in the scene where she pulled an assault rifle out of a flower arrangement. Of course, that role was written to be played by a woman–the whole point of Victoria was that she was that unexpected combination of old-school/feminine and tough and fearless. A well-developed character in and of herself, she was also a bit of a mascot. To really change it up, we look over to NPR’s Monkey See, where Linda Holmes has a list of Twenty Iconic Male Movie Roles in Which Helen Mirren Would Have Ruled.

Of course, she’s already played a couple of gender-swapped roles, playing Hobson to Russell Brand’s Arthur in Arthur and turning Prospero into Prospera for The Tempest. But Holmes has a great list of major male roles that Mirren would have, in fact, ruled. Dame Helen (because she is one of those) would definitely do a great job as Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men. She’d be a fantastic replacement for Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men (although you’d need a bit of a title change there). I’m not sure about Bond, Jane Bond, probably because I really like the way the series has rebooted with a rougher-edged Bond as played by Daniel Craig. It’s an interesting thought, though.

For me, I’d love to see her swap roles with John Malkovich in just about anything he’s done. Ditto Clive Owen. For reasons even I don’t understand, I’d like to see her approach to the captain in Cool Hand Luke, but she’d definitely need to take care of Holmes’s number 14 first.

14. Michael Clayton, Michael Clayton. She’s a fixer! She’s a lawyer! Also, I want to see her and Tilda Swinton have a confrontation.

Helen Mirren in a stony face-off with Tilda Swinton, and then the two of them hanging out together at press junkets, PLEASE SOMEBODY MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

(h/t Go Fug Yourself)

Auf’ed Is A Word In Every Gender: A Few Reality TV Notes

So here’s the thing: while waiting this past weekend in my just-across-the-block-from-the-evacuation-zone apartment for the threatened transformation of New York from this:

Into this:

…I did not spend my weekend writing posts for Feministe, as was my brief, but instead watching Project Runway.

Project Runway Australia.

I won’t qualify Project Runway as a guilty pleasure. It’s a full-on, bells and whistles, so much fun that even a lapsed Catholic can enjoy it simple pleasure. I started watching the U. S. show in its fourth season, and have been devoted ever since. (Although I do have a few words for you, Mr. Christian Soriano! Love your clothes–but lose the catchphrase.)

But what are you going to do when you’re all caught up on the current season, and still need your “let’s make a dress from tile grout and shower curtains!” fix? Easy–watch the international editions, starting with Australia.

So fiancée and I huddled next to our cats and our “Go Bag” to watch Season Two of PR: A. Which leads me to the subject of today’s musings-posing-as-a-post: reality shows, and transness, and Anthony Capon.

Read More…Read More…

Strength in cupcakes

“Women are girly. Again,” she says. And apparently, that sucks.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Peg Aloi bemoans the death of the “tough gal,” as evidenced by blogs about cupcakes, gardening, Hello Kitty, and knitting. Women write about cuddly kitties. BUST is sponsoring a craft fair, holy shit! Feminism has not only come to an end but is actually regressing, and it’s all because of heirloom fucking tomatoes. Thanks, ladies.

It would appear that the world, as seen through Ms. Aloi’s TV, has become squishy, pink, and birthday cake-scented. (Oh, my God, how cool would a birthday cake world be, at least for a few hours?) The view from my window looks nothing like delicious baked goods, though, so I thought I’d share some of that view with Ms. Aloi.

Before we begin: Ms. Aloi, most of the examples of “tough gals” you provide hit somewhere around the mid- to late-’80s. Blogs, in the form we enjoy today, didn’t really come into popularity until the late ’90s. Women in the Age of Ripley still were knitting and baking cupcakes–they just weren’t blogging about it, because, y’know, no blogs.

Moving on:

Those “tough gal” examples cover a fairly vast range: leather-wearing rock rebels like Joan Jett and Courtney Love*; supernatural kickers of ass like Xena, Buffy, and Ellen Ripley**; iron-spirited fighters for right like Norma Rae and Erin Brockovich. You identify them as “strong, sexy, and take no crap.”

Read More…Read More…

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, this sounds like a well-made piece of television heading our way: MTV is debuting a new reality show in October in which a small town girl moves to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams in the fashion industry. The twist? She’s fat. (Note: the linked article actually lists her weight, so if that’s triggering for you, you might not want to click through. I can only conclude that this particular detail is included because the headline says “plus-sized” and they want to be specific that it’s not “Hollywood plus-sized”.)

23-year-old Chelsea Settles is going to star in what’s being billed as a docu-drama that will “be a viewer-friendly blend of reality dramas like “The Hills” and weight loss programs like “I Used to be Fat” or “The Biggest Loser.”” The show itself will be called Chelsea Settles and chronicle topics like her long-distance relationship, social phobias, and weight loss.

Really: what could possibly go wrong in trying to address topics like mental health and weight loss in a TV show format that is infamous for chewing up its stars and spitting them back out? Set in a city and industry infamous for their complete and total preoccupation with appearances? I’m sure it will be a nuanced, thoughtful interrogation of the issues and everyone will go through a period of profound personal growth, and the horridness of the trailer is just there to set up drama.

If you watch the trailer, (trigger warning for some pretty serious fatphobia) it seems like Chelsea is a lovely young woman of color whom other people are trying to make miserable in the name of achieving her dreams. There are some truly peculiar shifts. In one clip, Chelsea is being fat-shamed by some random bypassers yelling that she’s fat, and that’s framed as cruel. But she’s also shown eating fast food and then that immediately cuts to a lecture from a physician about her need to lose weight and eat better. She’s bullied by various personal trainer types and shown crying about how much she loathes her body. Apparently, the right to pick on someone for their weight is reserved to people with letters after their name or at least six pieces of matching fitness gear.

The show’s also framed with the expectation that we should all understand why Chelsea hates her body: because she’s fat. It’s a very public struggle with body image and disordered eating (also mentioned in the trailer). I’d note that other MTV reality TV shows have also featured women who dealt with major body image issues, but here it’s pitched as a particular issue only because Chelsea’s fat. The Hills (to which Chelsea Settles has been compared) featured Heidi Montag, whose own body image issues are so well known that the top Google suggestion for her name is followed by plastic surgery.

From the very beginning, Chelsea is told that fashion is a very image conscious field and ties this to her weight. (Curiously unmentioned is the fact that she’s a woman of color, which almost certainly plays into the image consciousness.) It seems as though the only way she will ever be successful is if she loses weight, so that’s the focus of the show: getting her thin enough to be able to work in fashion. I have no doubt that people are being honest with her when they say she’s got to be thin (or at least significantly thinner than she is at the opening of the show) in order to be able to do the kind of work she wants to do in LA, but man alive, is that depressing.

I would really love it if we could have a TV show that featured fat characters without the fat being a gimmick. I would also love it if Chelsea could find her way in life and in her chosen profession without being tormented about her weight or being told that it’s completely dispositive to her success. I doubt MTV will be showing that, though: a young, happy, fat woman, makes peace with herself and finds professional success? I mean, the latest story about Jennifer Hudson is that she’s prouder of her weight loss than she is of her Oscar. That makes it sound like that even achievement is wholly secondary to being thin.