I’m too caffeinated yet tired to write a full review, so I’m just going to throw my feminist critique out there. (Is it still a critique if I’m going to say something good?)

Yay for a movie about teenage hookups that focused on the FEMALE orgasm for once. Granted, one girl used it as a weapon to hurt the other, but let’s hear it for some focus on the girl getting off for once.

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone else, so I’m not going to say any more than that.

Oh, but Kat Dennings is so damn cute.

Posted: October 27th, 2008 under Feminism, Movies, Sex.
Comments: none

Regular readers here will know that I love me some Gina Carano, female MMA fighting superstar.

Well, apparently some male sports writers believe Carano needs to be “protected from herself.”

See, cutting weight is part of fighting. It’s one that I’m disgusted by, having lived with a fighter for two years and seen the battles that he–yes, he–went through with the process and the damage it did to his body image. Fighters weigh in a day or two before their fight, and the idea is to take a fight at a low weight, lose some of it off your body and sweat the rest of it out so that when you rehydrate, you weigh more–hopefully more than your  opponent, and you get an advantage. So no one actually fights at their real body weight, except amateur boxers and wrestlers, who weigh in the day of the event, just hours before their bouts. And even they  often sweat out a few pounds and hope to be able to hydrate and eat before their fight.

But thousands of men across the world do this regularly. Boxers, muay thai fighters, and MMA fighters, as well as even high school wrestlers “cut” weight. It’s been dramatized on shows such as The Ultimate Fighter and Fight Girls, which starred Carano.

None of them were called out by name as being in danger of injuring themselves by taking fights at weights too low to make, even though there are many who struggle with the weight-cutting process.

Instead, the writer here chose to make the female MMA star–and there is no argument that Gina Carano is the biggest female mixed martial arts star out there–the subject of his article.

Once again, the female body is there to be policed by men.

If this writer is so concerned with the health of fighters, he should have written an article exposing the entire weight-cutting process for what it is: physical damage done in the attempt to gain a somewhat unfair advantage. He could’ve written about high school coaches encouraging teenagers to go into the ring weakened and dehydrated in order to make a lower weight class.

In other words, he could’ve written this article without making it about a woman.

Instead, Carano needs to be protected from herself. She needs to be stopped from doing damage to her body. He throws in some images of naked Carano being weighed in between two towels, and jokes about internet fans hoping someone would drop the towel.

This is completely unnecessary. If he had a specific point to make about how women are more likely to be encouraged to lose weight, how the thin ideal is encouraged on women more than men, he could’ve done it. He could’ve proposed same-day or even right-before-bout weigh-ins (like jockeys on the racetrack, though they routinely go into races dehydrated and starved as well).

But he didn’t. He chose to sexualize and then scold the woman.

Posted: October 10th, 2008 under Bullshit, Feminism, Fighting, Media, Sports.
Comments: 1

OK, so one of these is my article. But still: my take on the VP debate.

Also, read Natalia’s piece here. Really. You must.

Posted: October 4th, 2008 under Politics, Shameless self-promotion.
Comments: 1

So as you may or may not know, I’ve become addicted to Rachel Maddow. Not watching her yet? Here’s a taste:

In any case, though I love Rachel (and to a lesser extent, Olbermann), I must admit that this ain’t journalism and it isn’t a step forward for the journalistic profession as such.

It’s punditry, of course, just like FOX News. The dangerous thing about it, just like the dangerous thing about the blogosphere, is that it leads you to think everyone is thinking like you.

I watch Rachel for the laughs, and because she is in fact quite bright and backs up her sources. Because she’s a young, smart, liberal woman who’s an out lesbian with her own prime-time news commentary show, and that makes me happy.

I don’t believe in “objective” journalism. I believe in transparency. I believe that it’s impossible to hide your opinion, to pretend that you don’t have a horse in the race. If you’re a human being, you’re going to have an opinion, you’re going to be swayed one way or another. It’s just not possible. And thus I think that it’s better to be out in the open about it.

Still, I get my news from NPR, which of any American news outlet seems to come the closest to the “objective” ideal. That doesn’t mean they don’t call out bullshit when they see it–listen to the hilarity when actual lipstick was applied to an actual pig. Even objectivity doesn’t mean some sort of mythic balance between two sides.

It should mean finding the truth.

Anyway, I appreciate Rachel Maddow because she usually has backup for her sources, and her opinions are clearly that–opinions.

My dream media landscape would include much more public funding for NPR and PBS, enough to make them truly competitive news sources. Because not-for-profit news is the only way we’re going to get truly disinterested (at least financially–the reporters and producers will always be human and thus never truly disinterested) news. Then MSNBC and FOX and whoever else wants to get into the game can put out whatever kind of news and commentary they want, because there would be something to check it against.

Of course, the calls of liberal bias on NPR wouldn’t stop, not when Republicans have found it such an effective campaign strategy. But a recent study (Kull, Ramsay and Lewis, “Misperceptions, The Media, and the Iraq War”) found that NPR and PBS consumers had the fewest misperceptions about the Iraq war–and that having those misperceptions contributed to the likelihood of supporting the war, and of voting for Bush.

Anyway, that’s my dream.

Most of you regular readers know that I’m working on my master’s in journalism. Yet very little of what I do currently is actually journalism. I blog. I write op-eds for Global Comment. I write about comic books, movies, and pop music. Very little of that is real journalism. I suppose that when I do an actual interview with a comics writer (like this one) that might count, but I don’t really flatter myself that it has a huge effect on the world.

Not to denigrate the impact of art–I think art and music, literature and film can have a huge impact on the world, and it’s one of the reasons that I return over and over again to writing fiction. Willow Wilson’s AIR and Brian Wood’s DMZ, Warren Ellis’s BLACK SUMMER and Alan Moore’s V FOR VENDETTA and WATCHMEN all could conceivably change people’s minds about political issues, and for that comics are as valid as any other format. But when I’m writing about them? At best I’m a critic, at worst a glorified fangirl.

I’d love to do real journalism when I get out of school. Love to go write for one of the heavy magazines and do long, in-depth investigative pieces that require months of work at a time.

But it ain’t what I do now.

And it ain’t what Rachel Maddow is doing, either. Or Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity or Brit Hume. At least not most of the time.

Posted: October 2nd, 2008 under Media, Politics, comics.
Comments: 3

I usually expect revisionist history (or historical fiction) that purports to show the women’s side of things to have a rough time of it, for the simple fact that quite often the women had a rough time of it. A story of the Boleyn sisters isn’t going to end well—we all know what happened to Anne Boleyn.

But still, I would assume that the film would attempt to take some sort of a feminist tack, right?

I’d be wrong in this case. (Spoilers below) Read more »

Posted: September 16th, 2008 under Feminism, Movies.
Comments: 4

(h/t Pop Feminist for the video link)

I knew it was only a matter of time before Tina Fey played Sarah Palin. Her twisted, brilliant comedy writer’s brain must have exploded when she first saw a picture of McCain’s VP nominee. I mean, really, she’s note perfect (though I think Tina’s cuter, but I’m not exactly unbiased).

This clip, though, was better than I expected. By placing mock-Palin next to mock-Clinton, Fey and Poehler manage to both poke fun at both candidates and make several points about Palin. Most notably, that she is not Hillary Clinton. Also, that it’s bloody hypocritical for the McCain camp and supporters to cry sexism now.

Most importantly, though, they remind us that it’s NOT sexist to ask a female candidate about her positions and preparation for the job. That we had a qualified, smart, strong woman candidate and that this election shouldn’t be about choosing a woman for woman’s sake.

In this age of the utter failure of journalism to even approach doing its job properly, at least we have comedy. Yes, we have the blogosphere, but no lefty political blog comes even close to the audience of Saturday Night Live.

Posted: September 15th, 2008 under Feminism, Media, Politics.
Comments: 2

Posted: September 3rd, 2008 under Rock'n'roll.
Comments: none

thoughts on Hurricane Gustav up at GlobalComment. (thanks again, Natalia)

Posted: September 3rd, 2008 under New Orleans, Shameless self-promotion.
Comments: none

In the grand tradition of Pop Feminist, I have to love on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a minute.

I picked up my sister’s box set of the first season DVDs to stick on in the background while I was working on various things, and got sucked in. I’ve never been one for regularly-scheduled TV viewing (except for a stretch of Pokemon and Batman Beyond addiction in college, but that was strangely social–my entire floor in the dorms would gather to watch) so I never got into Buffy back in the day like most teen goth chicks did. Plus, I was a little older–Buffy started in 1997, when I was a senior in high school.

I am absolutely not embarrassed to admit that I loved Sarah Michelle Gellar on All My Children, the soap that my mother’s watched since she was in high school. I grew up with AMC and the other ABC soaps, and Sarah Michelle Gellar was a super-sweet villainess back in the day. (It is completely criminal that she doesn’t have the acting career she should–TV success so often does that, doesn’t it?)

Anyway, I’m digressing. The best part of Buffy for me so far–I’m now way into the second season– is watching the Angel-Buffy romance unfold. The meta humor, snappy dialogue:

“A normal teenage girl and her cradle-robbing creature of the night boyfriend,”

“How did you know that?”

“I lurk.”

Yeah, it’s unrealistic, but who needs realistic? Real teenagers are boring. But there was enough real teen drama sprinkled throughout Buffy, coupled with winning characters and, yes, man-pretty in the form of David Boreanaz. (Yes, I like him because he reminds me of a certain ex–that’s my issue, and none of your bizness.)

Of course, the Buffy-Angel romance turns into the ultimate “girl has sex and the world ends” story, which is definitely an antifeminist plot structure. But Buffy doesn’t wilt away or feel guilty. She goes on and continues to kick ass, and though she can’t kill him right away, she certainly works on it.

And the boyfriend losing his soul after having sex with her? What better metaphor for the post-sex freakout that might be a stereotype, but is so because it happens quite frequently? (C’mon, what straight girl hasn’t had a boy freak on her after she’s slept with him? Oh, I’ve got stories…books full of stories.)

Also, I think the success of Buffy opened the doors for the wave of female action heroes we’ve seen in recent years (see entire film career of Milla Jovovich, Keira Knightley (minus costume drama) and Lara Croft).

There are mountains of academic work on Buffy, and I’m not even going there right now. Suffice it to say that talk of the Twilight books, which I am now tempted to read for the laughs and the feminist analysis, got me thinking about why teenage girls have this attraction to vampires. The blood metaphor sprang to mind.

Blood is something teenage girls are just learning to deal with, and the sexy vampire is a way to make blood powerful, while still allowing that it’s scary. And the otherworldly boyfriend, the bad boy who watches over her and shows up to help, but is still ultimately a monster? Yeah, that isn’t wish fulfillment coupled with teen fears writ large.

And while I dislike the plot device of the girl’s losing her virginity spawning evil, I do like that eventually Buffy had to take care of herself, without Angel.

Buffy herself is a perfect example of what I’m always discussing on this thread–the pretty blonde girl who gets written off as stupid. Buffy is a nerd at heart, though, and she’s smart, sassy, and witty. She’s what every girl wants to be–and yet she’s rejected by the cool kids and has to deal with things on her own.

This isn’t in any way coherent, and maybe someday if I have spare time (who am I kidding?) I’ll write an actual paper or two about Buffy. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy watching.

Posted: September 3rd, 2008 under Feminism, Media.
Comments: 5

Marie Antoinette, as Sofia Coppola imagined it, is all about beauty, ‘sparkle’ and femininity as the only pleasures available to a woman in a society where she is just a bargaining chip to be bought and sold—even by her mother, a political force in her own right.

Coppola gives us Kirsten Dunst, a star we are familiar with precisely for her lack of uber-glamness, her waifish build and glowing skin with little makeup, and transforms her before our eyes into the Queen, powdered white and perfect, hair not just styled but turned into a living sculpture on her head, seizing her pleasures where she can.

Marie Antoinette is, after all, denied even the freedom to dress herself in the mornings, and her husband is incapable of sexual performance, so she is denied not only pleasure in sex, but her very identity. It must be her fault, after all, that he cannot perform.

Beauty is both a millstone round her neck and the thing that saves her, at least for a time. She is dressed in the clothing of her new country—the forcible public removal of her clothing happens more than once in this film—and presented to her new husband as a cake upon a platter. The same as the cakes she so gleefully crams into her mouth later, and like the one she is mistakenly accused of telling the people to eat when they have no bread.

The aunts are jealous of her beauty, and they turn her against the one woman who might have helped her gain any freedom and happiness, Madame Du Barry, the old king’s mistress, played lushly by Asia Argento, all blacks and reds to Marie’s pastels and blonde. Du Barry is of course the ‘whore,’ yet she wants nothing more than to be friends with Marie, and is only angered when she is spurned. The simple pleasure on her face when Marie speaks to her is telling—and leads directly into a scene contrasting her lively sex life with the aging King and Marie and Louis’s bedtime conversation.

Later, of course, Marie takes up with another woman of questionable virtue, and it is then when she starts to have her own life.
Read more »

Posted: August 22nd, 2008 under Feminism, Lipgloss, Movies, Sex.
Comments: 2