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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 years

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Okay. So. Katherine Ryan. I saw her live a few days ago, and when I got home, I wrote about it briefly in this post. After that, I decided to give it a couple of days before writing in more depth, because I wanted to consider how to explain some stuff. It made me think a bunch about how I judge comedians and comedy and what elements will or won’t take away from my enjoyment of it. That’s the sort of thing that I want to write about carefully. So here’s what I’ve come up with now that I’ve had some time to think:

First of all, as I said that night, it was a really enjoyable show. It was funny. Katherine Ryan is a great performer. She’s very at ease on stage and about interacting with the audience. I’ve been lucky enough to see a few live shows in the last couple of weeks, and a couple more in the last few months, and in my mind afterwards, a lot of them were defined by their pace. The way the comedian would speed up and slow down and be loud and intense or hesitant and catching themselves as they talked. All of those things are fun. But Katherine Ryan’s performance style was pretty even overall, it felt polished and professional. You could see that she had confidence in and enthusiasm for all her jokes, she knew exactly what she was there to do. But she also had the manner of an experienced performer who knows she can get it all across easily and calmly. It was good. She’s very good at what she does.

And the jokes were good. A lot of the stories were somewhat familiar to me because I’ve read her recently released book, but she clearly knew a lot of her audience would have read her book, and she wasn’t just repeating the stories from it. She built on them, adding jokes and other elements and more of her own commentary.

The show was mainly about the last few years of her life, during which she reunited with her ex-boyfriend from high school while filming a TV show in Canada, brought him back to England, married him, had a child with him, and is now pregnant with another. Which is a hell of a lot to happen to someone in about three years. Definitely worth making the subject of a show. I’ve heard some comedians joke that it’s unfortunate when they get through the complicated process of setting up their life and then have it all in order, because while for most people this would be the time when they get to just sit back and enjoy it, a comedian who does material about their own life runs out of shit to talk about on stage. Katherine Ryan definitely does not have that problem in 2022.

Near the beginning, she told a joke about how she realizes she has kind of “let the cause down” by getting married. I put that in quotes because of course getting married isn’t really letting down feminism or whatever, she knows that and we know that, but she was joking about the perception. Her two other recorded comedy specials, both on Netflix, talked a lot about her life as a single mother. How she dated sometimes but always resisted the pressure to try to bring in a man to turn them into a “proper nuclear family”, because they didn’t need to be that, and her and her daughter were happy to navigate the world as a duo. She said in her 2022 show that she knows her previous specials were seen as inspiring to other people who lived in non-traditional family structures and hated the pressure to become more traditional… “And then I went and married a straight white man. Sorry, everyone.”

This joke worked because it wasn’t real. The the fight against it being mandatory for women to fit into a traditional family structure is a political and feminist issue, but Katherine Ryan’s personal choices about getting married are not part of that. You can marry a man and still be a feminist. No one is stopping anyone from marrying a straight white man. And she knows that, she was pretending otherwise for a joke.

She then informed us that she has not only committed the sin of marrying a straight white man, but she even went so far as to marry a conservative straight white man. A guy who likes to download right-wing conspiracy podcasts, and sometimes she hears Jordan Peterson’s voice coming from his phone. She said all this as part of the “I know, I’m such a traitor, sorry for letting down all the feminists who looked up to me when I was making it as a single mom” joke. And that felt… off. Because she’d changed the parametres. Marrying a straight white man is a politically and morally neutral choice. I mean, I guess it's technically not completely because nothing is completely morally or politically neutral, but it’s about as close to neutral as a personal choice can get. While looking at a guy who’s into right-wing conspiracies and saying “Yeah that’s fine, I can overlook that” is not quite so neutral. She’s still saying, “Sorry for letting you all down with this anti-feminist choice”, while I’ve gone from laughing at the joke to thinking… “Yeah, you kind of have done that.” I don’t love her conflating those things. Because only a caricature of an over-the-top unreasonable feminist would object to a woman marrying a straight white man just because he’s a straight white man. Adding his political views into those parametres seemed to suggest that it would also be only unreasonable over-the-top caricature feminists who’d object to marrying a man who’s into Jordan Peterson.

I kind of already knew about this. She made a couple of references in her book to her husband calling himself right-wing. Also there was one really weird sentence near the end in which she said she’s proud to call him the leader of her family. I chose, and I think I still choose, to interpret that last bit in the most charitable possible way, by thinking she calls him that because he’s the one who stays home and keeps the house in order and looks after the daughter while Katherine travels for work a lot. So in that way he kind of leads the house, I guess? I don’t know. It was just a few sentences in a whole book and I figured the fairest thing was to assume she meant something reasonable, even if that required making some leaps in my mind.

I also tried to be charitable in what I assumed from her mention that her husband called himself right-wing. That doesn’t automatically have to mean anything in particular. “Right-wing” can mean a lot of things. John Oliver has a wife who’s technically a Republican, but in that case it’s about wanting proper care for veterans, not wanting to deport all the Muslims and Mexicans. Sarah Millican has a husband who’s called himself right-wing, but he’s managed to appear on Mock the Week enough times without advocating for anything terrible that I choose to believe he’s probably one of the okay right-wing people too. Hopefully. I will judge someone by what their values are and what beliefs they hold, but the label that they put on those beliefs doesn’t tell me exactly what they are. So if the label is all that I know, I try to make charitable assumptions based on it.

So that was fine, until Katherine Ryan got up on stage and started telling us what her husband’s right-wing beliefs actually are. She did not list a deep concern that unchecked spending on public programs could lead to inflation that will ultimately put the most vulnerable in society in an even tougher spot. She listed Jordan Peterson. And I will fully admit that, as many people who know me already know, Jordan Peterson is my fucking kryptonite. I hate him with a passion, more than I hate comparable right-wing assholes, for a number of reasons that I’ve gotten into before on this blog. Mainly involving the way he specifically looks to influence teenage boys, and does influence many teenage boys that I know and care about as a coach. So I tend to see red whenever anyone talks about normalizing Jordan Peterson’s brand of traditionalist bigotry as an acceptable part of normal discourse, just because it’s baked in some fancy faux-intellectual wording. This means that I realize my especially strong hatred for anything related to Jordan Peterson may make me react more strongly than another person would to some of the stuff in Katherine Ryan’s show.

So, that’s what she told us. Her husband calls himself right-wing, downloads conspiracy podcasts, and listens to Jordan Peterson. Sometimes he asks questions like “Why do I, as a white male, have to apologize for my existence?” Katherine Ryan heard this guy say all that stuff, and found that her own values allowed her to say, “Yeah that’s all fine, I’d like to marry him.” Which is not great, but if it had stopped there, I would not be writing this post. I would have shaken my head and said, “Well shit, I don’t like that, but I’m going to try to pretend I didn’t hear it and keep enjoying Katherine Ryan for who she is.”

Shaking my head and trying to ignore it is the same thing I did at the end of her book when she said Geoff Norcott is her best friend in comedy, and the same thing I do when she makes references to her close personal friendship with Jimmy Carr (I use those words to differentiate her from the many Britcom people who work with Jimmy Carr and are friendly with him – that’s not the same as the way Katherine Ryan frequently talks publicly about what a great guy he is). It’s a fact I don’t love about Katherine Ryan that she can hear Geoff Norcott and Jimmy Carr say everything they’ve said, and still want them as friends. But I also try to be very careful about judging women based on their willingness to associate with men I don’t like, because that’s a quick way down the road to sexist double standards. So, all right, Katherine Ryan hangs out with and marries men who say shitty things. That would make me hesitate to trust someone if I knew them in real life, but I don’t know Katherine Ryan in real life and I can still enjoy her comedy just fine.

Unfortunately, the story does not stop there. The show went for a while, she told some more fun stories about her family and her life, and then things got political. She brought up her two sisters: Kerry, the cool one, and Joanne, the one no one likes. I recognized this from her book, when she said it was a joke in the family that Kerry was the fun one and Joanne was the weird one who had moved to Alberta and kept to herself (for the record, Kerry is the sister she brought into Taskmaster for a prize task once). Her book had some stories about how those two were different, how Kerry likes to go out drinking and Joanne does not – normal stuff about jokes within a family.

When she brought up them up in her live show, she contrasted them in a different way: Joanne takes COVID very seriously, and Kerry does not. And this is where the show got quite uncomfortable for my girlfriend and I, sitting there with our KN95 masks on in a room full of people where most wore no masks at all. I’d already been feeling a little uncomfortable in that room, both scared of physically catching something from all those people, and self-conscious about how at this point wearing a mask marks you out as the “not fun” person.

Katherine told us it’s a shame that the pandemic has driven so many wedges within relationships, and there’s an example in her own family, because Joanne and Kerry aren’t speaking to each other due to their wildly different views. Kerry is unvaccinated, anti-vax, anti-mask, into the conspiracies, all of that. And Joanne is on the other extreme, all bundled up in her house, wearing super reinforced masks, fully vaccinated, would take another booster tomorrow if she could, all of that.

That framing immediately hit a nerve with me because for the last couple of years, I have been very frustrated by how people label the “extremes” of responses to COVID. I have been constantly told I’m on the “extreme” end of being careful about it, and it’s not fair to expect others to be as careful as I am because not everyone is so extreme. When in my mind, I do the bare minimum. I wear a mask, took all the recommended vaccines, follow recommendations, take precautions. I hate that that’s been labeled an “extreme” position. That it’s been set up so I’m at one extreme, anti-vaxxers who think COVID is a government conspiracy are at the other extreme, and the reasonable thing to is try to meet somewhere in the middle and all understand each other.

That setup that I hate was pretty much the exact point of Katherine Ryan’s story about her sisters. It particularly got to me that part of her justification for calling Joanne “extreme” was that she’s the type of person who “would take another booster tomorrow if she could”. Because this province recently recommended that all adults get a second booster. I still haven’t booked my appointment for one, but I’ve been meaning to, and I’m going to do it. I object to the idea that following that government advice is a sign of a COVID extremist.

I am not an extreme COVID rule follower. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been to multiple big comedy shows with lots and lots of people (and the Nish Kumar show, which was an amazing experience that for some reason took place in a venue with a capacity of 128, I enjoyed it so much but Nish can do much better and I have no idea what he was doing in a room that small). I wore a mask at all the shows, but I still went. I wear masks on public transit and in the grocery store and other public indoor spaces. I have recently gone back to coaching a full-contact sport where no one wears masks, because it’s not practical for the activity. I hang out with friends and family sometimes, and don’t wear masks in their homes. That’s my current level of caution because right now, things are fairly safe, COVID-wise. It looks like that may be on its way to changing, and if it does, I’ll change my behaviour accordingly. I think that all makes me pretty reasonable. Lots of people are more careful than I am, and I respect them for it. I acknowledge that they’re doing more to keep the community safe than I am. I don’t call them wild extremists.

But to hear Katherine Ryan tell it, the things that make Joanne extreme, comparable to anti-vax conspiracy theorists but just on the other side of the horseshoe, are: bundled up in her home, wears a super reinforced mask, would take another vaccine tomorrow if she could. So basically, in Katherine Ryan’s book, I am an extremist. Because I stay in my house when that’s the public health advice, I wear one of those reinforced masks (by which I mean KN95s, which most public health experts say you should wear if you have access to them), and I would certainly take that booster shot tomorrow if the opportunity fell in my lap. The only reason I won’t take another vaccine tomorrow is I haven’t gotten around to the admin of booking it yet.

That’s how she set up the story. It’s too bad that her two sisters can’t look past their differences about COVID and just talk to each other. She positioned herself as the reasonable centrist in the middle of those two extreme positions, understanding and giving a fair chance to them both. But the words she chose didn’t reflect that. She framed this as the story of her fun sister, and the sister no one likes. “Kerry is so much fun, and no one likes Joanne,” she said, and that had a very different connotation in the context of this story than it did in her book, where she just joked that Joanne was boring for not enjoying parties.

She then went into a segment of the show in which she defended anti-vaxxers. To be clear, she not say she was an anti-vaxxer. I don’t think Katherine Ryan is an anti-vaxxer. I assume she’s vaccinated; presumably lots of the jobs she did last year would have required it. She just said we should try to be more understanding of anti-vaxxers. Because they’re not malicious people who want to kill your grandparents. They’re mostly just nice people who don’t trust advice from the government, and we can’t blame them for that. The government has never protected the population, so it makes sense that anti-vaxxers refuse to believe that suddenly, on this one issue, the government has completely changed and now has our best interests at heart.

That last paragraph is pretty much what Katherine Ryan said; I can’t claim a word-for-word quote because my memory is not a perfect audio recorder, but she made all those points. And I am not going to write a whole thing here about why those points are wrong, because I assume anyone reading this already knows that, and if you don’t, then that’s a whole other conversation. She said it, I sat next to my very COVID-conscious girlfriend as we both winced pretty hard, and then Katherine Ryan said she recently went out drinking with her sister Kerry and it was great fun because anti-vaxxers are more fun to hang out with. “For one thing, they actually go out!” said Katherine. That one is a direct quote.

I’ve read things before by pearl-clutching Christians or whatever who write about a comedy show as: “And then the comedian made a joke about the Lord, and my family and I were there, and we had to sit there as we Christians were abused by this person in the name of so-called comedy!” I realize that my last few sentences might have sounded a bit like that, and all I can say is I don’t mean it that way. I don’t think Katherine Ryan was trying to target us COVID-conscious people, as individuals or as a group. I don’t think she wanted to make anyone uncomfortable. I don’t think she was trying to indoctrinate anyone into not getting a booster shot. Comedy will always be a little uncomfortable for someone, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

But maybe I have a little bit in common with the pearl-clutching Christians, because for those few minutes of the show, I was pretty uncomfortable. I’ve spent over two years being told, sometimes by people close to me, that I’m not enough fun or I’m too extreme because I’m trying to follow health advice. It’s been hard to hear that so often. When I’ve struggled with that and many other things during the pandemic, I’ve often used British comedy to get me through. Being told those things again by one of the comedians I’ve enjoyed so much was not great. But I get that not every moment of every show has to be for me. I also realize that Katherine Ryan never asked to be part of this whole big thing that got me through a global crisis and let me project feminist expectations onto her in the process. She’s, you know, just a person.

After that, Katherine Ryan was thankfully done with the political stuff. She moved on to other topics, told some more funny stories about her life, and I enjoyed it. At the end she told some jokes about Jimmy Carr’s hairline, pretty standard stuff for Katherine Ryan. I knew going in that that’s what Katherine Ryan does. I realize my expectations for Taking A Political Stand were raised fairly high the previous weekend, when I heard Nish Kumar tell 128 people (honestly, the room was so small) that comedians who shit on minorities are not acceptable, and then shout, “Fuck you Jimmy Carr!” Not everyone is going to do that, because not everyone is Nish Kumar. Some people will talk at a reasonable volume, and their reaction to a colleague who shits on minorities is to make light entertainment jokes about his hair and teeth. And if I want enough moral high ground to condemn Katherine Ryan for that, I would have to, at the very least, never watch Catsdown again. And I really like watching Catsdown.

In the car on the way home from the show, I wasn’t sure how reasonable I was being by taking issue with some of what we heard. Katherine Ryan’s political stuff just took up lots of space in this Tumblr post, but it took up a very small percentage of the actual show. Most of the performance was fun. I look back on it overall as a great night out.

During that car ride, I wondered if I was being too judgemental about Katherine Ryan. Maybe I’m failing to check my privilege as someone who was raised in a fairly progressive home. Maybe I’d feel differently if I were raised in Sarnia, in a family with one sister who went full anti-vax conspiracy theorist, in an area where my high school boyfriend would go on to become a Jordan Peterson fan. Maybe then I’d understand that some people grow up surrounded by those people, and to them it’s normalized, so they’re not going to reject friends or siblings or romantic partners just for holding those views. Maybe I need to be more understanding.

There are a few reasons why that’s not quite right, starting with the fact that I’ve had a lot of conflict with my own brother over things like this, so my family isn’t a completely liberal bubble. But what made me really decide I was in fact being reasonable was my girlfriend. I don’t want to go too much into her personal details, but she was raised in a much less progressive home than I was, and has some serious conflicts with her siblings about differences in how to see COVID. And during the drive home from that show, she was the first one to bring up that Katherine Ryan’s political stuff made her uncomfortable.

My girlfriend was raised to believe she was supposed to marry a nice conservative man like Katherine Ryan’s husband, and she was the first to say that she didn’t like that Katherine said this guy who listens to right-wing conspiracies is a great husband. Which suggests that my discomfort with it is not just a sign of me not understanding what it’s like to be from a conservative family. You can be raised by conservatives and still grow up to understand that shit isn’t acceptable.

My girlfriend was also the first to say another thing I’d been thinking, but had been really trying not to think. She said the two brushes with politics in Katherine Ryan’s show seem to be connected, and her sympathy for anti-vaxxers may be related to listening to her husband too much. I think that may be true, but of course, it’s not a hugely feminist thought. “That woman can’t possibly have opinions of her own, she must have been influenced by the man of the house.”

But I do know that that can happen sometimes. It’s happened to people I know, and it’s happened to me. You spend enough time talking to someone who’s on one extreme side of an issue, and even if you don’t end up agreeing with them, you end up seeing their views as reasonable. You drag your personal Overton window toward them. If they’re in your life by choice, you kind of have to do that. The Overton window is for political positions that are deemed acceptable. If you’ve accepted this person into your life, then you have to consider the window of acceptability to include their views. As their views start to seem more acceptable, people who strongly oppose them start to seem more extreme. And that can lead to beliefs like: “Joanne is a COVID extremist because she wears strong masks and would take another vaccine.”

For the record, if it helps to save my feminist cred on this at all, when Russell Howard brought Jordan Peterson onto his show last year, one of my many thoughts about that was: “What does your wife with her job as a medical doctor think about you applauding this guy who’s encouraged anti-vax theories?” So it’s not just women that I think could be influenced by their spouses. Though I suppose that’s a case of Russell Howard not being influenced by his spouse, or at least I hope not, because doctors who support Jordan Peterson are much more dangerous than comedians who support Jordan Peterson.

Oh, I do have an example of me assuming a male comedian was influenced by his wife! Just thought of it now: when John Oliver talks about the terrible way members and veterans of the military get treated, I assume his wife is the reason he’s so passionate and knowledgeable about that. There, proof that it’s not a double standard. I don’t assume Katherine Ryan has been influenced by her spouse because she’s a woman and he’s a man. I assume it because sometimes people are influenced by their spouses.

Also, when Russell Howard interviewed Jordan Peterson, the thing about his wife was a secondary thought. My primary thought about other people’s reactions was: “Come on, man, Frankie Boyle raised you better than this. He would not be proud of you right now. Where did it go wrong?” So, you know, influence can come from all kinds of places. Also, I got a lot angrier at Russell Howard for actually interviewing Jordan Peterson than I did at Katherine Ryan for just letting some of his ideas exist in her house. And I have not tried to “cancel” Katherine Ryan or Russell Howard, in general or even just in my own media consumption. They are still both comedians I like. Saying that immediately made me ask if it’s fair for me to judge Katherine Ryan for deeming a Jordan Peterson fan to be marriage material, when I still like noted Jordan Peterson fan Russell Howard. My answer to that is it’s fine, because I do not wish to marry Russell Howard and have him live in my house. I relate enough to Jon Richardson to know that living with Russell Howard would go very badly for me, and Jordan Peterson is only one of the many reasons why.

Anyway. This post got a little off track at the end there. What was I talking about? Right, Katherine Ryan. Great comedian, Katherine Ryan. Funny, intelligent, talented as a writer and a performer. I don’t think I’d want to have dinner with her though. Or her sister Kerry, no matter how well Katherine sold that as the perfect dinner guest on Taskmaster. Life is complicated. I should go to bed.

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highly-important · 2 years

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Liz Lemon’s Feminism

I love 30 Rock. I’ve been thinking about 30 Rock. I think one of the major themes of 30 Rock is that everyone is existing in their own private reality. Everyone has an image of their own outward persona and the life they’re living, but it clashes with who they actually are.

Liz Lemon really sees herself as a hero, but her own personal actions often make her the villain.

She sees herself as a feminist, but right at the beginning we see that TGS sketches don’t really do anything to actually uplift women. There are characters like Lurlene Katz, the crazy cat lady, and Pam, the overly confident morbidly obese woman. When Liz meets her childhood feminist icon, the ideas she pitches to Liz are too edgy for TGS. Liz often trades her feminist ideology for career stability. There’s a great montage when Liz starts to realize TGS is not living up to its original feminist intent. In that same episode, Liz attempts to help another writer who comes across as a hypersexualized female stereotype, exposing her real identity and putting her at risk from her abusive ex-boyfriend. (A great article from the time that episode aired.)

A lot of moments with Liz are very explicit criticisms of her form of white feminism. One episode, Liz is lonely around Christmas and joins a letters to Santa charity program to give gifts to underprivileged children. Liz goes back to the apartment where she dropped off the presents, and accidentally tells the children that she was the gift giver, not Santa. The episode calls into question whether Liz was actually being charitable, or was just lonely and wanted to use underprivileged people to feel better about herself. In another episode, Liz decides to go to a high school reunion and show all her old bullies that she’s now successful. But when she gets there, everyone tells Liz that she in fact was the bully, and Liz has constructed a narrative about herself to excuse and overlook her bad behavior. In “Generalissimo,” Liz uses underhanded tactics to try and make her neighbor fall for her, only realizing after she’s roofied him that she’s acting like a terrible person. (Actually after just writing all this I found this article that sums it up probably better than I did.)

Another contrast between the outward persona and the sense of self is the really puzzling messaging around Liz Lemon’s body. Tina Fey lost 30 pounds to play Liz Lemon, but despite being a petite example of conventional female beauty, Liz Lemon is portrayed as being frumpy and unattractive. One episode of 30 Rock revolves around Liz’s friendship with Jack, and the jealousy of Jack’s fiancee Elisa. The episode kind of plays with the idea that Liz is “one of the boys,” and her femininity is constantly questioned. In the end, Elisa accuses Jack of having an affair with Liz, but after giving Liz a quick glance, she realizes this is impossible. It fits within the logic of 30 Rock, but by real world standards its absurd. I think that we are meant to see the show as something that is maybe happening through Liz’s perspective, and all the characters are performing as Liz sees them. Sort of like the flashback in the bullying episode, all of the characters treat Liz the way that she thinks they see her, not the way they necessarily do. The disconnect isn’t between the way she looks and the way the world sees her, but in the way Liz looks at and sees herself. (Edit: I just want to add an additional thought I had about this. Tina Fey is making jokes about her perception of her own appearance, and perhaps her appearance +30 lbs heavier and without professional styling. I’m trying to be mindful of creator intent after reading this thread, and I don’t really believe Tina Fey was intentionally trying to depict body dysmorphia. It’s just my impression from watching the show, as an explanation for the bizarre logic of the show.)

All of this is really complicated because at the time, Liz Lemon was often labeled a type of feminist hero, despite sort of being the villain of the show. 30 Rock often falls victim to the same lack of self-awareness that it mocks in Liz. It frequently perpetuated the same problems it was trying to criticize. Some issues are never looked at with a critical lens at all, like some of the slut-shaming jokes, or all the jokes calling Liz Lemon a lesbian.

There is a lot of valid criticism against 30 Rock, ranging from its misogynistic jokes, feminist hypocrisy, to its use of blackface and its general depiction of minorities, especially the way it was racist towards Latinos. I’ve also heard that, much like Toofer, Donald Glover was treated as a diversity hire on the show. Sometimes it is just hard to tell if the comedy in 30 Rock is subversive or just re-enforcing stereotypes. For as much as 30 Rock was an interesting exploration of feminism, Liz is also presented as “the only smart, capable woman in a field of slutty, snobby, neurotic [female] morons.”

I think in the 15 years since 30 Rock aired, there is an expectation that people will be more thoughtful and careful with their treatment of identity. (Although I can’t make the same excuses for some of the worst moments in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) What 30 Rock did was very ground breaking at the time, not only its rapid joke-per-minute ratio but also for creating a female anti-hero at a time of male antiheroes like Don Draper and Walter White. It was very radical the way 30 Rock was constantly calling out everything that is wrong with Liz’s outlook and opinion of herself as a brunette underdog.

I think its also interesting how Tina Fey chose to send off Liz Lemon’s character. At first, Liz tries pitching her own show about a “woman” “writer” living in “New York” (all Kenneth’s no-no words). The reality is, we never really saw evidence that Liz was great at comedy. And she never fully grew out of many of her personal flaws either, or achieved much self-awareness, she simply cools down in her 40s. 30 Rock suggests that Liz Lemon isn’t the best person to tell her own story, but she can be a producer on Grizz and Hers. Its not everything Liz thought she wanted, but she’s finally achieves equilibrium by being a conduit to tell someone else’s story.

#30 Rock #Liz Lemon #Tina Fey #Feminism #body dysmorphia

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star-anise · 5 years

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why would your social environment affect if you identify as a woman or nb?

I don’t know if you meant it to be, but this is a delightful question. I am going to be a complete nerd for 2k+ words at you.

“Gender” is distinct from “sex” because it’s not a body’s physical characteristics, it’s how society classifies and interprets that body. Sex is “That person has a vagina.” Gender is “This is a blend of society’s expectations about what bodies with vaginas are like, social expectations of how people with vaginas do or might or should act, behave, and feel, the actual lived experiences of people with vaginas, and a twist of lemon for zest.” Concepts of gender and what is “manly” and “womanly” can vary a lot. They’re social values, like “normal” or “legal” or “beautiful”, and they vary all the time. How well you fit your gender role depends a lot on how “gender” is defined.

800 years ago in Europe the general perception was that women were sinful, sensual, lustful people who required frequent sex and liked watching bloodsport. 200 years ago, the British aristocracy thought women were pure, innocent beings of moral purity with no sexual desire who fainted at the sight of blood. These days, we think differently in entirely new directions.

But this gets even more complicated, in part because human experience is really diverse and society’s narratives have to account for that. So 200 years ago, those beliefs about femininity being delicate and dainty and frail only really applied to women with aristocratic lineages, and “the lower classes” of women were believed to be vulgar, coarse, sexual, and earthy, which “explained” why they performed hard physical labor or worked as prostitutes.

Being trans or nonbinary isn’t just or even primarily about what characteristics you want your body to have. It’s about how you want to define yourself and be interpreted and interacted with by other people.

The writer Sylvia Plath lived 1932-1963, and she said:

“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars–to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording–all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery.”

She was from upper-middle-class Massachusetts, the child of a university professor. A lot of those things she was “prohibited” from doing weren’t things each and every woman was prohibited from doing; they were things women of her class weren’t allowed to do. The daughters and sisters and wives of sailors and soldiers, women who worked in hotels and ran rooming houses, barmaids and sex workers, got to anonymously and invisibly observe those men, after all. They just couldn’t do it at the same time they tried to meet the standards educated Bostonians of the 1950s had for nice young women.

Failure to understand how diverse womanhood is has always been one of feminism’s biggest weaknesses. The Second Wave of feminism was started mostly by prosperous university-educated white women, since they were the people with the time and money and resources to write and read books and attend conferences about “women’s issues”. And they assumed that their issues were female issues. That they were the default of femaleness, and could assume every woman had roughly the same experience as them.

So, for example, middle-class white women in post-WWII USA were expected to stay home all the time and look after their children. Feminists concluded that this was isolating and oppressive, and they’d like the freedom to pursue lives, careers, and interests outside of the home. They vigorously pursued the right to be freed from their domestic and maternal duties.

But in their society, these experiences were not generally shared by Black and/or poor women, who, like their mothers, did not have the luxury of spending copious amounts of leisure time with their children; they had to work to earn enough money to survive on, which meant working on farms, in factories, or as cooks, maids, or nannies for rich white women who wanted the freedom to pursue lives outside the home. They tended to feel that they would like to have the option of staying home and playing with their babies all day.

This is not to say none of the first group enjoyed domestic lives, or that none of the second group wanted non-domestic careers; it’s just that the first group formed the face and the basic assumptions of feminism, and the second group struggled to get a seat at the table.

There’s this phenomenon called “cultural feminism” that’s an attitude that crops up among feminists from time to time (or grows on them, like fungus) that holds that women have a “feminine essence”, a quasi-spiritual “nature” that is deeply distinct from the “masculine essence” of men. This is one of the concepts powering lesbian separatism: the idea that because women are so fundamentally different from men, a society of all women will be fundamentally different in nature from a society that includes men.

But, well, the problem cultural feminism generally has is with how it achieves its definition of “female nature”. The view tends to be that women are kinder, more moral, more collectivist, more community-minded, and less prone to violence.

And cultural feminists tend to HATE people who believe in the social construction of gender, because we tend to cross our arms and go, “Nah, sis, that’s a frappe of misused statistics and The Angel In the House with some wishful thinking as a garnish. That’s how you feel about what womanhood is. It’s fair enough for you, but you’re trying to apply it to the entire human species. That’s got less intellectual rigor and sociological validity than my morning oatmeal.” Hence the radfem insistence that gender theorists like me SHUT UP and gender quite flatly DOESN’T EXIST. It’s a MADE-UP TERM, and people should STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. (And go back to taking about immutable, naturally-occuring phenomena, one supposes, like the banking system and Western literary canon.)

Because seriously, when you look at real actual women, you will see that some of us can be very selfish, while others are altruistic; some think being a woman means abhorring all violence forever, and others think being a woman means being willing to fight and die to protect the people you love. As groups men and women have different average levels of certain qualities, but it’s not like we don’t share a lot in common. The distribution of “male” and “female” traits doesn’t tend to mean two completely separate sets of characteristics; they tend to be more like two overlapping bell curves.

So, like I said, I grew up largely in rural, working-class Western Canadian society. My relatives tend to be tradesmen like carpenters, welders, or plumbers, or else ranchers and farmers. I was raised by a mother who came of age during the big push for Women’s Lib. So in the culture in which I was raised, it was very normal and in some ways rewarded (though in other ways punished) for women to have short hair, wear flannel and jeans, drive a big truck, play rough contact sports, use power tools, pitch in with farmwork, use guns, and drink beer. “Traditional femininity” was a fascinating foreign culture my grandmother aspired to, and I loved nonsense like polishing the silver (it’s a very satisfying pastime) but that was just another one of my weird hobbies, like sewing fairy clothes out of flower petals and collecting toy horses.

Within the standards of the society I was raised in, I am a decently feminine woman. I’m obviously not a “girly girl”, someone who wears makeup and dresses in ways that privilege beauty over practicality, but I have a long ponytail of hair and when I go to Mark’s Work Wearhouse, I shop in the women’s section. We know what “butch” is and I ain’t it.

But through my friendships and my career, I’ve gotten experiences among cultures you wouldn’t think would be too different–we’re all still white North Americans!–but which felt bizarre and alien, and ate away at the sense of self I’d grown up in. In the USA’s northeast, the people I met had the kind of access to communities with social clout, intellectual resources, and political power I hadn’t quite believed existed before I saw them. There really were people who knew politicians and potential employers socially before they ever had to apply to a job or ask for political assistance; there were people who really did propose projects to influential businessmen or academics at cocktail parties; they really did things like fundraise tens of thousands of dollars for a charity by asking fifty of their friends to donate, or start a business with a $2mil personal loan from a relative.

And in those societies, femininity was so different and so foreign. I’d grown up seeing femininity as a way of assigning tasks to get the work done; in these new circles, it was performative in a way that was entirely unique and astounding to me. A boss really would offer you a starting salary $10k higher than they might have if you wore high heels instead of flats. You really would be more likely to get a job if you wore makeup. And your ability to curate social connections in the halls of power really was influenced by how nice of a Christmas party you could throw. These women I met were being held, daily, to a standard of femininity higher than that performed by anyone in my 100 most immediate relatives.

So when girls from Seven Sisters schools talked about how for them, dressing how I dressed every day (jeans, boots, tee, button-up shirt, no makeup, no hair product) was “bucking gendered expectations” and “being unfeminine”, I began to feel totally unmoored. When I realized that I, who absolutely know only 5% as much about power tools and construction as my relatives in the trades, was more suited to take a hammer and wade in there than not just the “empowered” women but the self-professed “handy” men there, I didn’t know how to understand it. I felt like I was… a woman who knew how to do carpentry projects, not “totally butch” the way some people (approvingly) called me.

And, well, at home in Alberta I was generally seen as a sweet and gentle girl with an occasional stubborn streak or precocious moment, but apparently by the standards of Southern states like Georgia and Alabama I am like, 100x more blunt, assertive, and inconsiderate of men’s feelings than women typically feel they have to be.

And this is still all just US/Canadian white women.

And like I said, after years of this, I came home (from BC, where I encountered MORE OTHER weird and alien social constructs, though generally more around class and politics than gender) to Alberta, and I went to what is, for Alberta, a super hippy liberal church, and I helped prepare the after-service tea among women with unstyled hair and no makeup who wore jeans and sensible shoes, and listened to them talk about their work in municipal water management and ICU nursing, and it felt like something inside my chest slid back into place, because I understood myself as a woman again, and not some alien thing floating outside the expectations of the society I was in with a chestful of opinions no one around me would understand, suddenly all made sense again.

I mean, that’s by no means an endorsement for aspirational middle class rural Alberta as the ideal gender utopia. (Alberta is the Texas of Canada.) I just felt comfortable inside because it’s the culture where I found a definition of myself and my gender I could live with, because its boundaries of what’s considered “female” were broad enough to hold all the parts of me I felt like I needed to express. I have a lot of friends who grew up here, or in families like mine, and don’t feel at all happy with its gender boundaries. And even as I’m comfortable being a woman here, I still want to push and transform it, to make it even more feminist and politically left and decolonized.

TERFs try to claim that trans and nonbinary people reinforce the gender identity, but in my experience, it’s feminists who claim male and female are immutable and incompatible do that. It’s trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer people who, simply by performing their genders in public, make people realize just how bullshit innate theories of gender are.. Society is going to want to gender them in certain ways and involve them in certain dynamics (”Hey ladies, those fellas, amirite?”) and they’re going, “Nope. Not me. Cut it out.” I’ve seen a lot of cis people who will quietly admit they do think men and women are different because that’s just reality, watch someone they know transition, and suddenly go, “Oh my god, I get it now.”

Like yes, this is me being coldly political and thinking about people as examples to make a political point. Everyone’s valid and can do what they want, but some things are just easier for potential converts to wrap their minds around.. “I’m sorting through toys to give to Shelly’s baby. He probably won’t want a princess crown, huh?” “I actually know several people who were considered boys when they were babies and never got one, and are making up for all their lost princess crown time now as adults. You never know what he’ll be into when he grows up.” “…Okay, point. I’ll throw it in there.” Trans and enby people disrupt gender in a really powerful back-of-the-brain way where people suddenly see how much leeway there is between gender and sex.

I honestly believe supporting trans and enby people and queering gender until it’s a macrame project instead of a spectrum are how we’ll get to a gender-free utopia. I think cultural feminism is just the same old shit, inverted. (Confession: in my head, I pronounce “cultural” with emphasis on the “cult” part.)

I think feminism is like a lot of emergency response groups: Our job is to put ourselves out of a job. It’s not a good thing if gender discrimination is still prevalent and harmful 200 years from now! Obviously we’re not there yet and calls to pack it in and go home are overrated, but as the problem disappears into its solution, we have to accept that our old ways of looking at the world have to shift.

#staranise original #lgbt discourse

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bunchofbooks · 4 years

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It’s Time for Kyrsten’s Opinion: Watch Us Rise Edition

My tenth book of the year was Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan. Watch Us Rise is told as a narrative, but includes poems and drawings of the students. The book follows a group of friends, Nadine, Isaac, Chelsea and Jasmine - with most of the focus on Jasmine. They are juniors at their revolutionary New York high school, but soon realize that the curriculum in the theater and poetry program focus on the “classics” and type casting the students. Jasmine and Chelsea decide to quit their programs and start one on their own - Write Like a Girl, a collection of essays, poems and actions posted online to inspire others to be involved. Their work becomes viral and before they really are able to get their feet off the ground, their school shuts down the club. However, Chelsea and Jasmine refuse to be silenced.

Below the cut is a spoiler - free review of Watch Us Rise. If you have read this book, please feel free to shoot over a message with your thoughts on your experience reading it as well as leave a comment with book recs for people who may have enjoyed it!

Before the actual review I wanted to give a content warning for the following potential triggers: sexual harassment, misogyny, racism, death of a parent, body shaming and victim blaming. If any of these are an issue for you, but you still want to read Watch Us Rise, just know that they are throughout the book and read with caution :D

The major issue I had with Watch Us Rise was how Jasmine and Chelsea saw and treated other women. Jasmine and Chelsea wanted to let the girls at their school know that they didn’t have to look or act a certain way; however, they on a few occasions disrespected women who opted to have plastic surgery. At one point Chelsea and her sister, Mia are watching a reality TV show and when Jasmine says that the show the sisters are watching is garbage, Chelse says that “It’s so I can make sure we rage against the system so that no one ever has to see a Botoxed face ever again” (64). At another moment during Thanksgiving, Jasmine’s mother is cooking dinner and Jasmine asks her mother if she ever feels like her father makes her cook or expects her mother to cook. Jasmine’s mother informs her daughter, “Your dad and I don’t make each other do anything. I like to cook, so I cook. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t” (222). While our main characters want to let the other girls that they speak to know that they don’t have to adhere to traditional roles that women have had in history, they completely discredit the value of women who enjoy these traditional roles. I cook because I want to, not because I have a man behind me telling me I have to, I wear makeup because I enjoy putting it on, not because I have a boyfriend somewhere who expects me to wear it. Within this issue is another problem I have with our antagonist. . . Mostly because the antagonist is a girl at school with Jasmine and Chelsea. I feel like when it comes to books about feminism, especially YA and middle grade books, a great disservice is being done when we have antagonists who are also women who are also victims to the same inequalities as other female characters, and the character Meg is no exception. Meg does eventually learn her lesson, but makes really insensitive comments about Jasmine’s weight as well as dress up in culturally appropriating Halloween costumes just to irritate our protagonists. Isn’t a main idea of feminism to, I don’t know, build women up and show that all women are equals, not continue to pit them against each other?

My other complaint with Watch Us Rise was the health of Jasmine’s father. Readers know from the first page that Jasmine’s father is ill and he is not going to get better. I was expecting this to be another educational point of the book, how black patients in this country are treated differently in medical facilities than white patients. Nope. Mr. Gray died for Jasmine’s pain and only for her pain. The book would not have changed at all if he had been in remission from cancer or if he had never been diagnosed at all. This is a personal pet peeve of mine in books, especially YA books where parents die. It’s almost like wives and girlfriends dying in adult romances to fuel man pain, but instead the parent dies to fuel their child’s pain.

While at this point it might sound like I hated this book, but that is so far from the truth! In fact, during most of the book, I was asking the book gods WHERE WAS THIS WHEN I WAS A MIDDLE SCHOOL / HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT?!?!? Watson and Hagan do this amazing job of showing that even those who have great intentions can really mess up. In one scene, Jasmine’s drama teacher, Mr. Morison tells Jasmine that in their improv class session, she was showing so much energy and tells her that “Jasmine, your “girl with attitude” confidence is perfect. . . I think you may be the only one who can pull it off in such an authentic way” (77). Jasmine reminds her teacher that she has performed a variety of roles and the only one Mr. Morison can think she would be well suited for was one where she was sassy and angry. Let me repeat that. . . Mr. Morison told his black student that she would be perfect for a stereotypical role in the media of a sassy black woman. I believe that Mr. Morison said this as a way to encourage Jasmine, however how many times have women heard the phrase, “you’re pretty for a (insert descriptive word here)” comment. At another point, Chelsea and Jasmine begin making shirts for their group and when Jasmine comes to pick up her shirt she notices that there are no plus size options. Chelsea was in charge of making sure everyone could participate in the t-shirt sale and mistakenly excluded her best friend and co - founder of Write Like a Girl! Jasmine and Chelsea eventually reconcile, but I really enjoy the idea that everyone messes up even with the best intentions and learning from your own prejudices that you might not even have realized you have is such an important piece of being a feminist.

Watch Us Rise is super educational, without reading like a textbook. When the protagnoists introduced feminist icons, it was written like two people talking about a shared interest. I never felt like information was jammed down my throat or it was too dense to handle (textbook authors, I want you to take notes here!!). It made me reflect on my early days of learning about feminism, which was I’m ashamed to say mainly rooted in Tumblr when I was a senior in high school, so it was a very white feminist POV that I am proud to say has greatly expanded and is continuing to expand with new life experiences, but enough patting myself on the back. . .

Chelsea and Jasmine have so many safe spaces provided to them in their school, community, and home. Something that again, I wish was made aware to me when I was in high school. I love the idea of a YA or middle grade reader picking up Watch Us Rise and realizing that just because you don’t have this safe space in your home, you can have on in your school or your community. I just love the idea that books are bringing safe spaces to people who could really use them or need them and making readers realize they aren’t alone. There are adults who want to hear what they have to say, again something that I wish I had known in high school when I was blabbing to my parents about whatever I was interested in when there could have been other trusted adults around me who would have loved to hear what I was obsessed with or even been able to contribute.

Finally, another important aspect of Watch Us Rise that I noted was the importance that the internet played. It was nice that the authors included parts where Chelsea or Jasmine went to there internet and looked up other feminist icons to look into on their own time. The last pages of the book also include other icons to look up, resources to go to and books to check out if the urge strikes readers. So many times I feel like authors just make the characters aware of the political issues they are interested in and it’s refreshing to see some characters coming from a place of ignorance, the way we all do when starting to become socially or politically aware.

Overall, I gave this book ⅘ stars. I would 100% read this again and wish I could somehow learn what the future held for Jasmine and Chelsea. Would I recommend this book? Absolutely. I think that it would be a good starting point for students in middle school if they are interested in reading about feminism, but aren’t quite ready for books like Nowhere Girls and The Female of the Species.

#book reviews #books #ya books #watch us rise #stupid and personal but not sad

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feministdisney · 6 years

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Consent in Animated Shows & Movies

Since the issue of consent has been at the top of conversations lately, I thought it might be interesting to link this back to kids’ media. I think in some scenes (like the Gaston one below) it’s really easy to see how responses like “but she never said no, so it’s on her if something happens!!” are just not cutting it. This is not meant to be an exhaustive review, since there are hundreds of movies and shows to consider, so feel free to chime in.

(note: since this is discussing movies, there may obviously be spoilers.)

May We? Asking is a Great Start:

Frozen’s kiss scene at the end was a good example of consent. He makes a verbal request to make sure it would be desired on her end, and I’d guess he would have stopped if she hadn’t said “no” but also looked disgusted by the request. Because: consent is a multi-step, dimensional, ongoing process, not a piece of paper swapped across desks in class that says “will you consent? please circle yes or no.” and then you never think about it again.

As far as other Disney movies go, I was fairly pleased that most of the kissing scenes I reviewed (with the obvious exceptions below) seemed to show the idea of enthusiastic consent. It would be great to see both verbal and non-verbal consent shown together more frequently so that people stop seeing it as some dramatic, silly thing that only takes place on comedy skits about over-the-top feminism, but rather, a great tool to have, especially if you don’t know a person that well and may misread one or the other.

(if I missed any obvious bad moments in movies, though, let me know, since there’s a lot of them!)

Saying No Without Saying “No”:

youtube

The Gaston Proposal scene in Beauty in the Beast (Youtube link) is a great example of what consent DOESN’T look like, the sort of behaviors women do to “softly” say they’re not interested, and what qualifies as a coercive tactic. It’s worth stating that Beauty never says “no” to Gaston - she doesn’t even really say a variation of it. In fact, she says things that could be interpreted positively, on the surface; “Gaston; what a pleasant surprise.”

Would any person really watch this scene and believe she’s “leading him on” or that she’s “into it” though? That her not immediately running upstairs should be taken as a sign that she wants to be in the room with him? Every time he proposes something, she attempts to de-escalate the situation with her joking comments and by taking a few steps away from him. Gaston, meanwhile, continues to follow her around the room (even though she’s obviously moving away from him) and when he doesn’t get the response he wants, instead of leaving, he continues to escalate his body language and get closer to her until he’s got her pinned against the door.

Trust Can Be Used to Manipulate; This is Not Enthusiastic Consent:

Several people referred me to Steven Universe Season 2 Ep 11 and I could see why - it really does hit on the concept of consent and manipulating people into giving a “yes.” Pearl tricks Garnet into being Sardonyx with her (they combine powers... I haven’t watched much of this show so sorry if I get the terminology wrong haha). I think the show does a good job of conveying how Garnet feels and had lines like “I just wanted to share a few more victories with you.” (to justify the trickery)

“Those weren’t victories!”

“We’re so much weaker than you...fusing with you is our one chance to feel stronger!” (justification given by Amethyst for trickery)

The point is clear that even if your goal is something that would normally feel good for both parties, manipulating people in order to get it does not result in a nice, “shared” moment. Whether you intentionally get someone drunk to lower their guard and make them more likely to say “yes” when they’re originally saying “no,” and/or ignore multiple verbal/non-verbal cues that they’re not ready or interested in moving forward because you think more pushing will eventually result in a yes, you are responsible for creating a situation where consent has not been enthusiastically given.

And since Pearl and Garnet have an ongoing friendship, the point is also clear: in this type of situation, you are using someone’s trust in you as a tool to manipulate them.

The Best Plots Don’t Ignore Consent:

People often get very upset over the idea that the scene presented in Sleeping Beauty is completely non-consensual. They forget this is a fictional storyline, in which “he HAS to kiss her to save her” is not an excuse, if that requirement itself has been made up.

From a prior consent-related note I have posted, about Sleeping Beauty:

Sleeping Beauty only works as a positive romance because we know how it’s supposed to end. Handsome nice prince rescues the lovely sleeping princess. He kisses her to wake her even though this is an action she can’t consent to.

This doesn’t mean the prince is a bad person- it means consent wasn’t considered important enough when they made this movie, that it would alter that scene more from the original.

Consent wasn’t considered a “big deal” because we KNOW she likes him from that one scene where she did, and we presume she wouldn’t disagree with him (which is often used to excuse actual crimes, rather than happy-ending story plots)… because kissing is romantic and that trumps making sure a movie’s plot is fully consensual.

Worth noting, the actual story of Sleeping Beauty (though it exists in several forms and variants, as many fairytales do) is really disturbing:

The version of Sleeping Beauty with its chaste, true-love kiss that most of us remember from Disney or the Brothers Grimm derives from a 17th-century Italian tale called Sun, Moon, and Talia by Giambattista Basile, based on folk legends dating from the 14th century. In these early versions, the sleeping princess is raped and impregnated by a passing king – but it all ends well because after she wakes and recovers from the initial shock of finding she has twins, he returns and marries her.

Via The Guardian. You might find this article enlightening

Snow White experiences a similar tale.

The Loss of Consent - Betrayal:

Maleficent goes back into examining consent with the loss of Maleficent’s wings. Stefan drugs her and rips her wings off her body. While this scene is brutal, it is successful in conveying, through metaphor, what sexual assault can be like as an experience. Her pain isn’t just the literal pain of having this done; it’s the betrayal of a friend that causes much of the long-lasting sorrow that follows her through the rest of the film.

To quote my review linked above:

Later in the movie, Maleficent brings Phillip to Aurora for the sake of kissing her, because none of them watched Frozen and realized it could be Maleficent. His lines are pretty much everything anyone’s pointed out about that film from a critical feminist perspective.

“It wouldn’t feel right,” he says as the fairies urge him, chanting KISS HER! in unison.

“But I’ve only met her once,” he hesitates again. And finally, another pause, “What was that about the curse?” (dialogue should be pretty close but might have errors since I accidentally wrote it on top of other notes I took)

Finally, he does kiss her, but I think his hesitation was important for what it established about the questionable nature of the scene. His hesitation, and the way the scene is set up, makes the kiss and the premise behind it seem questionable to us – a call-to-awareness that is missing from the first film.

And it’s also important to note that, in this retelling, his kiss isn’t rewarded with her waking up. (Note: though Maleficent also kisses her, it’s on the forehead, which I think has a somewhat different connotation esp. when the prince had previously expressed a desire to get to know her better, and Maleficent’s kiss is performed without expectation).

But anyway, please let me know your thoughts! This is not meant to be the end-all, just a jumping point.

#disney #consent #feminism

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loudlytransparenttrash · 6 years

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This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 18

Texas State University student, Rudy Martinez, is doubling down and defending his campus newspaper article ‘Your DNA is an abomination,’ which he argues “white death will be liberation for all,” and tells white people to “accept their death as the first step toward defining themselves as something other than the oppressor.” He goes on to write in his piece, “I hate you because you shouldn’t exist” and “there are only about a dozen white people” he would “consider decent.” He also claims white people have the luxury of always coming home safely and never being nervous when confronted by police officers, hence ‘white privilege.’ Although the article was condemned by the student body president, calling it “blatant racism,” Martinez sees it differently. Citing the left’s dumb, manipulated version of racism which “can only be from a position of power,’ Martinez claims he is proud of his stance against the bad white people.

SIT Graduate Institute have released a paper which encourages educators to promote “racial identity” among minority students to prevent “assimilation into the dominant culture.” The author, Hadiel Mohamed, says she “aims to answer how educators can incorporate ethnic/racial identity development in the classroom for youth of color who are driven to pursue whiteness.” “Our education system has been used as an oppressive tool for people of color.” Mohamed contends. “We see the preservation of whiteness through immigration laws. There has been a deliberate attempt at preserving the white race within the United States by racializing our borders.” She worries her fellow POC will “adapt, conform and assimilate to whiteness" and become just as complicit in all of this oppression. To avoid this, she encourages educators to help them become hyper aware of their own racial identity and develop a sense of ethnic pride early enough in the classroom before they can “conceptualize the ways expected to assimilate within white society.” How does she plan to teach these kids to be proud of their ethnicity and refuse whiteness? Lessons on the “injustices enacted upon people of color,” of course!

A University of Colorado, Denver administrator worries that white children may “forfeit their humanity” if they aren’t raised by sufficiently woke parents. She argues that parents should employ “critical race parenting” to prevent white children from committing “racial microaggressions” against their peers. She goes on to suggest that white people are “constantly wielding racial microaggressions,” and that over time these microaggressions can cause “racial battle fatigue,” noting that children of color are especially susceptible to this horror. White children, on the other hand, are especially prone to committing racial microaggressions because they “learn a complicated dance of whiteness” that teaches them not only to “maintain and defend whiteness,” but to do so while claiming to be “colorblind.” “When they learn to love their whiteness, their souls waste away as they are quietly tearing themselves from humanity and real love,” she writes. “Can we instead begin at the core with our white children and work to ward off white identity and whiteness before they succumb and forfeit their humanity in order to join the oppressor?”

University of Wisconsin-Madison is once again offering their charming course, ‘Problem of Whiteness.’ The African Cultural Studies course seeks to teach students to “understand how whiteness is constructed and experienced in order to dismantle white supremacy,” according to the online description. The professor teaching this course just so happens to be a white guy, and says it’s important to explore whiteness because “the problem of racism is the problem of whites being racist towards blacks.”

The same professor also chaired a panel discussion with the same name as his course, ‘Problem of Whiteness,’ which involved another white professor from the Florida Atlantic University, who encouraged the scholars in the audience to spend more time listening to their white, male conservative students. He goes on to argue the reason professors need to be more open-minded towards them isn’t because it’s the fair and right thing to do, but because if they don’t, it will lead these young white men to become anti-feminist and white nationalists which then leads to “the radical militarization of white men that we’ve seen time and time again, all too recently materialize in mass shootings.” The professor goes on to explain how discussions on whiteness “lets white students come to grips with their racist inheritance” and “allows students of color to talk about alternatives to a white supremacist society.”

University of Michigan held a two-day training session that aimed to encourage white employees to deal with their “whiteness” so they could become better equipped to fight for social justice causes. Participants who took part in the “Conversations on Whiteness” session were taught to “unpack their whiteness” in order for them to “recognize the difficulties they face when talking about social justice issues related to their white identity, explore this discomfort, and devise ways to work through it.”

Two New England professors have urged their colleagues to cultivate a “space free from microaggressions” by adopting a “social justice agenda” in class. Their first recommendation for professors involves requiring students to wear “name cards with gender pronouns” to avoid instant microaggressions on the first day. Their second brilliant idea is to quickly stop any conversation from turning into a debate as that allows “one student to be wrong and one to be right,” and that’s a microaggression. “Dialogue, not debate,” you see? To prevent conversation from turning into a debate, the professors suggest asking the individual pressing the other to “move out” of the discussion, which is a disabled-friendly way of saying “step out,” avoiding another microaggression, you see! They conclude by expressing hope that their recommendations will help to create an “anti-oppressive arena for learning,” declaring social justice essential to education.

University of Southern Indiana is the latest school to embrace the left’s tragically regressive push for us to go back in time and see nothing but a person’s skin color when we look at them. Students are being encouraged to “reject colorblindness,” as it’s today racist and microaggressive against racial minorities when white people say, “I don’t see color when I look at people.” A “good ally” instead identifies and “acknowledges the oppressed and disadvantaged group to which the person belongs,” and then behave accordingly around them in order to “reduce their own complicity or collusion in the oppression” of that group.

San Diego State University held a bizarre workshop which certain students were required to attend as part of their class. Organizers described the experience as “shocking” and “disturbing” but it’s all to help the students “step outside their comfort zone and into the shoes of those who are struggling with oppressive circumstances.” Students were walked through a darkened room where they were met by campus leaders acting out a series of horror scenarios non-white people supposedly find themselves in every day. The students were screamed at and told to face the wall before listing a bunch of minorities “they” have gone after. They were then confronted with “ICE agents” breaking into a home and stealing family members, while another scene acted out Nazis. The performance then showed a girl “having a problem” with her new roommate because she’s “a little too foreign.” The students were then taken into a room and debriefed by professors about how these totally realistic plays made them feel and what they should change about themselves to better combat this oppression. “It is our sincere hope that by exposing students to the oppressive systems in society they’ll take a look at how we all participate in these systems and hopefully commit to changing oppressive patterns and behaviors,” the professor says.

Reed College finance office was shut down for three days after a group of students from the ‘Reedies Against Racism’ group forced their way in and refused to leave, blocking the employees and harassing them with demands. They ordered the school to sever its ties with a bank whom they claim is funding the “mass incarceration of POC.” During planning for the protest, white members of the group were designated jobs listed on the ‘Whitey Tasks” which "did not require POC approval,” such as printing labels and carrying objects, while POC in charge dealt with the more serious stuff. The same group have also protested against the school’s Western Civilization course, demanding for it to be “reformed” and taught through the lens of oppression.

Two University of Northern Iowa professors have blasted the prevalence of "white civility" in college classrooms, saying that civil behavior reinforces "white racial power." This civility can reinforce white privilege, the professors argue, and it can even “reproduce white racial power.” To prove their point, they interviewed ten white students and asked them what civil behavior means to them. Those who mentioned “treating everyone equally" were accused of erasing the identity of POC and reinforcing whiteness. The students also became guilty of white privilege if they admitted they spoke to students of color nicely and politely when discussing race. To fight this, the professors suggest that college professors intervene, saying “it is important instructors ensure their classrooms are spaces that challenge, rather than perpetuate, whiteness and white civility.”

University of Rhode Island professors have come up with a way of helping the school’s non-white students deal with all the “racial microaggressions” they’re confronted with daily on campus. Professor Annemarie Vaccaro, the same person who came up with the term “invisibility microagressions” - which is when a ‘person of color’ “feels invisible” around white people - explains the only way these poor, victimized bastards can cope with all of this microaggression is to provide them with extensive therapy and counseling. Providing therapy to a bunch of people who have been misled into believing every slight and moment of discomfort is a coordinated attack against them? Instead of just reminding them they’re perfectly free and capable adults who are in control of their own damn lives? Sounds a lot like feminism.

University of Wisconsin-Madison social justice student group were outraged to discover the school’s football team and band spent a night in a Trump hotel during their Orange Bowl appearance. The group released a statement stating they are “disappointed” and “concerned” with this “massive violation.” “College football makes its profits off the work and talents of people of color. It is absolutely disgusting the very same people of color are being rewarded with a stay in accommodation owned by a man who is one of the biggest oppressors of people of color in this country.” They then go on to accuse Trump of more racism, “questionable working conditions” and “human rights violations” and demand the school to never stay at a Trump hotel EVER again. There’s only one problem - the retards didn’t realize Orange Bowl’s contract with the Trump hotel was set four years ago, and according to Orange Bowl vice president, the hotel not only meets their standards and requirements but exceeds them.

Professors in New York have united to sign a letter calling for New York City to remove monuments of Theodore Roosevelt and Christopher Columbus, saying the statues of the historical figures represent “white supremacy.” “For too long, they have generated harm and offense as expressions of white supremacy,” the professors say in their petition to the mayor and city commissioners. “The monuments are a stark embodiment of white supremacy, and are an especial source of hurt to black and indigenous people among them.” They go on to call for a “bold statement” to be made in removing the statues, declaring such a move would show the world that “racism won’t be celebrated in New York City.”

Ohio State held an event named “Managing the Trauma of Race,” which aimed to teach black students strategies for “self care and activism” and how to “mitigate the trauma the African American community faces from individual, systemic and institutional racism.” The school’s Multicultural Center website states that black Americans are “bombarded” with racism and that it “leads individuals to experience trauma on a daily basis.” What’s traumatizing here is teaching young Americans everything in life is either racist or microaggressive and their lives are a predetermined dead-end designed by white people.

The University of Washington professor who invented the concept 'white fragility’ has quit her job to travel the country giving seminars on ‘white fragility.’ These seminars begin with Robin DiAngelo, who just so happens to be a white woman, telling the white people in the audience to stand and walk on stage. The white people are then required to read from a projection screen, each taking turns admitting their sins, such as “internalized superiority” and “racial privilege.” When they’re finished reading, DiAngelo tells the audience to “not clap” for the white people as they return to their seats. Question-and-answer sessions are also permitted from her seminars - I’m not surprised.

UC Santa Barbara is currently dealing with one helluva internal catfight. An employee popular with trans student activists was dismissed from her position in the school’s Sexual and Gender Diversity center. What was the response from the students? Angry protests and accusations of the Sexual and Gender Diversity center “perpetuating violence against queer, transgender people and marginalized communities” and “perpetuating the systems of white supremacy,” of course! The activist students listed a set of demands during their protests, which included a new building for the center, a doubling of the center’s program budget and extra funding for the school’s queer and trans health advocate. Along with a “trans taskforce advocacy coordinator” (whatever the hell that is) they also demanded for the employee to be reinstated while demanding the center’s director and assistant dean to resign. What was the administration’s response? Heartfelt apologies and total compliance to the demands, of course!

Cal State San Marcos held an event called “Whiteness Forum,” detailing the many different ways in which “whiteness” in America oppresses people of color and society. Guests were welcomed with a large banner reading the “Whiteness Forum is about reflecting on white privilege and racism.” Several anti-Trump displays were also set up around the room. The forum kicked off with some slam poetry performed by students in the “Communication of Whiteness” class who took the opportunity to express their frustration with whiteness. One of the performers, a black female student, called Africa “the greatest country in the world” and went on to claim, “On a daily basis I am seen as a threat, but you get a pass because you’re white.” Another student offered similar sentiments in their “poetry”: “Whiteness thrives on the hate of everyone. Every day is a day to challenge whiteness.” After the performances, the professor in charge of the event encouraged the crowd to interact with her students and learn about the “white supremacy” in all its forms embedded across the country.

Evergreen State College has a new section in its student newspaper dedicated strictly to non-white students in an effort to provide a “place where POC can be us without it being overshadowed by the dark cloud that is living under white supremacy.” They gave an inspiring introduction, encouraging only POC who are united by fear of Nazis and police to get on board with submissions, before footnoting the popular, “Dear white people“ routine, explaining how having a problem with the bizarre concept of white fragility is actually evidence of white fragility, and how embarrassing it is when white people say “we need to view people through a color-blind lens.”

University of Minnesota community members were handed a memo from their Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action to warn against creating a hostile environment for students who could be offended by the joy of Christmas - I think we all know who they’re talking about here. Items the document describes as “not appropriate,” include bows, bells, Santa Claus, Christmas trees, wrapped gifts, the star of Bethlehem, angels and doves. Also included were decorations in red and green or blue and white themed colors. State University of New York, Brockport issued similar guidances, banning “culturally sensitive holiday decorations.” Life University sponsored a decorating contest, but the decorations were ordered to be “inclusive to other cultures and religions.” University of California, Irvine encouraged everyone to celebrate the winter season rather than the Christmas holiday itself while. Many other institutions omitted the word “Christmas.” University of Alabama’s student newspaper accused Trump of being a Christian bigot for returning a nativity scene to the White House.

#college

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mrsslrss · 6 years

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2017

I rang in 2017 drunk and crying. I left a New Year’s Eve Party where all my friends and I drank down the clock and M and I went home, and I had been obsessed with “Love More” for a few weeks so as soon as we got back to the house I put it on over the stereo. Anyway about ten seconds in I started sobbing and I couldn’t, for the life of me, explain why. (I wasn’t even sad! It’s just such a beautiful song!) M just put his arm around me and kind of half-laughed and told me it was going to be okay in a quizzical but very convincing way and eventually I stopped crying and the song played itself out. I think that about sums it up.

Anyway I think we can all agree that 2017 was a weird year in a grand sense, which I don’t feel compelled or equipped to speak to. But it was weird in a personal sense, too. The year started in that mass of feelings for me; I dyed my hair pink; I lost someone I cared about deeply, which hurt in a place I didn’t expect or understand. The other side of that month was the Women’s March: housing twenty friends from Boston and Brooklyn and elsewhere in a spirit of earnest and viable and real solidarity that nearly broke my heart.

In the spring I worked a lot, and eventually got to travel across the country and fall in love with a couple different cities: New York (Life After Youth, celebrating my 25th); Seattle (Bois Naufrage, fancy coffee, riding the bus); Austin (freeways, rental car, KUTX, wildflowers). In the summer, Keeper put out a tape – bittersweet timing, just before Sam moved back to Texas – and I got a few days on the Cape with the crew. I worked weekends and drank green juice and read novels. In the fall I got really into that Fever Ray song and memorized the opening passage of The Argonauts and finally made it to DIA: Beacon.

Overall, I think, it’s been a head-above-water kind of year for me, where I mainly got caught in a cycle of exist-process-react-exist without creating much. I spent a lot of time thinking about my feelings but still can’t exactly mark the growth. Sometimes stillness is a sign of change, though; maybe I’ll count that one as a win. So here’s a list of 10 things (big and small!) that I saw, heard, watched, made, felt and loved in 2017, that helped me get through the year.

The Heart Season: “No”

Before this year became the kind of dumpster fire in which you hear everyday about new ways that powerful, prominent men treat the women around them terribly, The Heart was talking about consent in a genuinely nuanced, genuinely feminist way. The “No” season was four episodes long, during which host Kaitlin Prest stared down specific instances in her own life where consent’s gray area reared its fucked-up face, and explored where the experiences left her – how they influenced her sense of self, how they shaped and informed her future sexual (and non-sexual!) encounters. And then she broadened the scope, ignoring the easier narratives – “yes means yes,” “no means no,” “consent is sexy!!!!”, rhetorical devices so exhausted and exhausting – and instead asked harder, realer questions about the intersections of desire, fear, gender, pleasure, and autonomy. It gave me language I didn’t know I needed and set a model for a kind of audio storytelling I didn’t know was possible. I wish they played this at every college orientation across the country.

Turning The Tables

What if we appreciated women’s art apart from maleness entirely? What would it look like to tell the story of popular music through only women’s greatness? That was, crudely put, the mission of the list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women that NPR Music published this year. Being part of this project was huge: it meant absorbing massive amounts of history, rethinking canon, getting to be an editor(!), working with some of my biggest professional idols. Mostly, though, it meant devoting much of my working life to the intersection of radical feminism and rock and roll. What a dream.

Drag

I was drawn to art that felt genuinely subversive this year, but it mainly played out in moments of surprise: disappointment from expectations I didn’t realize I held being left unmet; utter radiant joy when this need I didn’t know I had was fulfilled. Maybe the most memorable time it happened was in June, at GAY/BASH, a monthly experimental drag show in D.C. It was the first time I saw drag IRL, which would maybe have felt subversive no matter what – but probably few things would have matched watching a drag queen in a red white & blue housewife dress penetrate the eyeholes of a Trump mask with a strap-on. Incredible! Tell me you can watch that and feel unmoved. My friends and I went back to GAY/BASH every month after that. The music was always perfect: The Knife and Paramore and No Doubt and Cher, etc. But mostly what felt so powerful was the company: being in explicitly gay spaces full of gay and queer people, where abject expressions of sexuality and of gender trouble felt neither like threats nor invitations to violence.

There was also, of course, Sasha Velour, the cerebral art-queen who was crowned this year’s winner of Rupaul’s Drag Race. I saw her on tour with other season 9 queens this summer; her lip-sync of “Praying” by Kesha was perhaps, no lie, the most moving musical performance I saw in 2017. She embodied and embraced the reality so many of us face as women and queer people: victims and victors, agents and acted-on, mired in both hope and fear on a near-constant basis. It was transcendent.

Ramen

On a less serious note, D.C. is, like many cities, in the midst of a ramen craze right now, and if I’m honest I spent an inordinate amount of the year benefiting from it! And from the fact that a few places will even deliver ramen right to your house if you have the right app! (Also, there’s a lot to be said about cultural appropriation, the devaluing of non-Western food traditions, etc. in these contexts; I am trying to keep learning and will leave the explanations to folks smarter than I.)

Tank And The Bangas

I called this band the “best band in America” all year and I meant it. Their Tiny Desk concert was both an exhale (after the stress of running the Contest itself) and an inhale (before an unrelenting and enthralling month of tour with them). I saw Tank and the Bangas perform eight times in 2017; their positivity never got stale, their exuberance never felt forced, their passion never wavered. They sound like no one else I know. Goddamn, I love this band. The best band in America!

Therapy

I went back to therapy this year after not really going since childhood but thinking about finding someone to talk to and being jealous of friends’ casual off-hand remarks about their therapists for years. I went mostly because of this thing that happened last December involving some brutal unkindness from a loved one that was so vicious yet unexpected it left me feeling startled and knocked off course, like having been shoved from a great height and, after shaking off the dust, finding myself very alone. I thought it was a minor disturbance but it actually burrowed pretty deep into me and I wound up freaked out about a bunch of stuff, so long story short: I finally found someone to talk to.

I will save my breath about how mental health care should be accessible and de-stigmatized. I will say that therapy made my year better in a lot of ways; mostly, in that I had a dedicated time and place to work, patiently, on some things that felt really paralyzing. (It also taught me some useful concepts, like the idea of psychological safety and the Buddhist teaching of the “second arrow,” which I then snuck into some of my favorite writing I did this year. Win-win.) Nothing is fixed, obviously; therapy has felt mostly like a drawn-out emotional root canal all year, which is to say, I still nurse the same ache that sent me. But I’m grateful and I am learning and it’s starting to feel less self-indulgent to want to address my bullshit. I recommend therapy to everyone! If you’re interested in talking to someone, here are some affordable resources.

Iced Americanos

There are precious few things that get M out of bed early: the promise of imminent skiing; a genuine emergency; and coffee. I’ve relied heavily on the third one this year to squeeze in a half-hour of quality time with him before I go to the office. Listen I know this is cheesy as h*ck but it truly improves the overall quality of my day! Anyway the iced coffee at our corner coffee shop is not for me but the baristas take great care with their espresso shots so I started getting iced americanos instead and now I have been converted to an iced americano grrrl, even in winter (true to my New England roots). And a morning-coffee-with-your-boyfriend grrrl. Gross! I can’t help it.

Creative collaboration

Madeline Zappala is both a dear friend of mine and a total badass artistic inspiration to me. I was so glad she asked me to help edit her magazine, Reflections on the Burden of Men – and that she (and her co-creator, Laura) accepted a short piece I wrote about being disgusted by sexuality, or maybe more so by the insistence that women perform it for patriarchy, feeling isolated from my body, wanting to not want what I want. Editing the writing in the magazine was a dream! And watching it come together was so instructive. Go get a copy! (Or just pick up some unsolicited dick pic stickers, a real thing they made.)

2017 was a pretty exciting year for Keeper, too. Between January and August – when Sam moved back to Texas and Keeper became a project with a less coherent identity – we played amazing shows and put out a tape and met a lot of really lovely people. I learned a lot.

Female solidarity

I never got the appeal of using the phrase “work wife” to describe a lady BFF in your office before this year (too close to “girl crush,” which, I maintain, is basically homophobic; plus, who wants to replicate the capitalist heteropatriarchy of the marriage-industrial complex in your office friendships, of all places?!) but now I have two and I totally get it. There’s really something special about working alongside women like me, and having them be people who are willing to take a lunch break or walk to Starbucks (lol) so we can encourage each other through weird career stuff, or vent about male incompetence, or gush about new music, or interrogate what it means to care about feminism or justice or epistemology or whatever in 2017, which is mostly what we did. Some of the most enriching and important conversations I had this year were these; we often joked about the positions of authority we’d have, the raises we’d get, the articles we’d be assigned if only the People In Charge heard the conversations we had around cafeteria lunch tables!

Of course, there was also the mere fact of having lived with three other women throughout this year, creating a home that was a constant space for frank discussions about shared oppression; there were days of 8+ hours of GChat sessions that formed a virtual safe space; there were the year’s albums that spoke to the bizarre, incredible realities of womanhood. And all of this happening in the context of women coming forward about sexual assault, women journalists reporting on it, all of us whispering #MeToo on the internet. It was a year that, for me, fostered a consistent and palpable sense of solidarity among us. I needed it.

The “Thief” music video:

Lastly: this is, maybe, the most wonderfully terrible music video I have ever seen. I first heard about this on the now-defunct podcast This Week Had Me Like, which I sorely miss, and now it’s rare that my housemates and I go more than a month without watching it communally. It’s histrionic in the best way, nonsensical, totally delightful. Thank you, Ansel Elgort.

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ramenfallsbutnotudon · 7 years

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Riverdale Raw Thoughts

Binge watched Riverdale last night as my Netflix membership for the month was expiring. (Not renewing again until early November to watch S2 The Crown and other stuff I’m waiting on) - Like I literally stayed up from 9 pm to 6 pm this morning watching the show straight and then went to bed and woke up at noon.

Cheesy dialogue aside, it was pretty great for what it was.

But it suffered from the same thing Scream Queens did - interesting core plot, but cheesy cringy writing and too many pop culture references to pander to their target audience demographic (I’m assuming 18-34)

Wishy-washy social commentary:

FP Jones ain’t shit but Jughead has a cute beenie and is sensitive so he’s a-okay.

Alice Cooper grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” but married well so now she’s determined to keep south side trash out by joining the “neighborhood watch” and using her white woman hood, white feminism and ‘come-uppance’ privilage to publish edgy think pieces.

Betty Cooper has some pent up rage that is sorta overlooked because it was “for good” (doing it for the girls and trying to get revenge for Polly - and because the guy was Black, thinly veiled anti-blackness) until it isn’t overlooked but simply mentioned . Then she initally starts using Jughead and Jughead calls it out and she kind of agrees and says she has “darkness” in her - until something happens again and she decides to “let the darkness out” and be selfish and blame it on something else again.

Jughead getting dealt a piss poor hand, being okay at the South Side school (he’s a gang member - arguably gang leader or liutenant’s son...of course he’s fine jesus fucking christ Riverdale) until the trio of good show up to...talk to him and comfort him? and they realize he’s fine.

Betty making a white feminist speech about the town needing to do better because yes although her boyfriend’s dad is a Serpent he’s a good person and although her parents told her to shut her mouth she feels it’s the right thing to do. [She actually did not care about the Serpents before and her buds Veronica and Kevin heckled them during the last drive in movie screening.but whatevs] After the speech she has no solution or propsed ways the town can “do better” and there’s this awkward silence and everyone’s favorite punching bag has to clap it up so people blindy accept that lackluster speech. (I don’t expect a teenage girl to fix the towns problems but if you wanted to tackle the issue and get people talking shouldnt’t you also have some thoughts other than people not being mean to your boyfriend?)

Jughead not having shit and the gang seeing him enter the trailer with a girl and (maybe wanting to keep a pg 13 rating) stop him before their steamy make out session leads to something more give him a jacket to become a serpent and Betty is angry that he’s trying to survive and embracing the gang life that he’s essentially grown up around and will be surrounded by until he comes of age.

Archie’s dad’s forhead. my god. not social commentary but damn it bugged me.

Archie and his hottie teacher banging without impuity and her being allowed to quietly leave after obviously being a predator and dangerous person. (did they ever give her back her gun??? IS that what Alice uses when Hal breaks back in? Did Hal ever mention he stole the evidence to the sheriff even after it came to light FP was innocent?)

Archie wanting the pussy cat’s to use his song so he manipulates one of the band members (Valerie), dates her, uses their connections, ignores her, and when she dumps him and tells him why he isn’t shit he somehow doesn’t get it.

Valerie being acceptable to date because she has blue eyes and light skin but she’s rarely heard from when she’s no longer helping archie’s ‘music career’ but simply dating him.

Archie playing along with Cheryl’s crazy ass family “for his music” as an excuse to be selfish.

Archie trying to be a tortured soul when his dad point blank asked him why he’s lying if he wants music that’s cool it’s just unstable; someone else (Veronica I think?) kind of saying why are you being like this no one is making you choose between Football and music; someone bringing up he was only music when he was banging his hottie teacher; the football team heckles him once but they seen he’s Troy Bolton & they accepted him - everyone fucking accepted him but himself like christ and he spent the whole season searching for validation of his self worth in women and girls.

Just Archie I mean christ lmfao. You don’t like Betty, You make out with Veronica, you decide your really into your hottie music teacher and manipulate her into music lessons (although she manipulated the hell out of him as well), when your dad starts getting a boner for her you try to cut contact with her short, people find out, you decide the pussy cats are your answer, they explain they are black and because of the culture they have had to fight hard and they can’t have a white man just step in and run shit, archie the white man steps in and runs shit, archie breaks them up, Archie says he can’t perform alone and manipulates Valerie playing on her insecurities to leave the band, archie decides “he was wrong” and Veronica decides to help him, he ditches Veronica because he looked within himself and realized he wasn’t shit, he patronizes jughead and only resumes their rocky friendship because he wanted him to keep the secret about him banging their hottie teacher, he’s semi jealous that jughead is dating Betty, archie then really wants Veronica and wants to make sure Betty isn’t jealous. He keeps playing the hero...something which probably got his dad killed at the end - If there’s a s2 I haven’t seen it yet)

Veronica Lodge is hella famous by name and it’s a small town everyone knows who she is and she even points out that she expected more people to talk to her and acknowledge her divine presence but Kevin is like “lol you got overshadowed by another rich person’s death” /s but... Ethel Muggs truly has no fucking idea who she is? No incling? No rumors? Is she really that much of a rock-dweller?

The whole incest baby thing....the josef mengele joke...the fact that Jason and Cheryl were twins.....the eugenics joke when Cheryl’s face says them damn well know they practice eugenics and ethic breeding and need to keep up the “blossom apperance” (Her dad’s red wigs, using Archie as a stand-in for Jason...but I digress - just touch on the topic to sound edgy and draw controversy but leave it shallow eh?)

The whole “lol let’s ship our pregnant daughter away to a literal convent in 2017 because I was shipped to a convent in the late 80′s early 90′s- but why is she mad at me I love her I’d never do anything to hurt her like ambushing her and having her dragged away against her will as an underage expecting teenager lol”

Hyping big bad black football player up to fuck shit up at Archie’s party and in reality he kinda did...nothing? lmao (a la Jughead’s aminous V.O. about “no one expected what happened at that party” or some shit )

The whole “the sins of the father don’t or shouldn’t reflect on the daughter” but Veronica gets away scott free essentially and Cheryl literally loses everything because I mean fuck those Blossoms amirite lololol /S

Archie looked like Jason, got his number initially before retiring it (lol kind of insensitive to have his doppleganger become team captain for plot purposes later on ) and the Blossoms essentially used him because he mirrored Jason at the tapping ceremony.

The name Hermione Lodge lmfao she’s not old enough for the HP book reading mom boom.

Hermione Lodge and Hiram Lodge’s intials on that stupid fucking bag.

Veronica being rich and intelligent but her morals making her real fucking dumb. (I wanna go home but I also wanna coddle everyone my daddy hurt but I still wanna be rich lol but I’m implicating my mom and she’s literally begging and pleading me to stop and having crying fits but lol justice and my chanel bags hahaha and I’m gonna go clubbing and shopping even though my mom is working as a waitress and flirting with her old hs boyfriend to secure a job so we can continue to float and not drown and not be taken down by the families my dad hurt lololol omg archie is a hot prince harry hipster ginger amirite lololol the met gala lalala rich girl things new york lol)

The whole plot demand that Veronica win the impromptu HBIC dance off when big red Cheryl actually killed that shit and Veronica danced like a fucking robot.

ARCHIE HURT HIS HAND PLAYING FOOTBALL AND CRACKING THICK ICE WITH HIS BARE BLOODY KNUCKLES HOW DOES THE GINGER WONDER STILL HAVE USE OF THAT HAND ? The body heals but it’s never the same after repeated exposed trama’s to the same area in a short period of time.

.....I’ve ranted enough about this and I didn’t even mean to.

The last two episodes seemed to have been steamrolled for the sake up tying up loose ends to create a cliffhanger for another season.

Again, good for what it was....but... I truly enjoyed that the real villian was capitalism. Good job millenials.

(not sarcasm. Capitlaism destroyed Jughead’s future a la his father FP and Fred Andrews - The Coopers and the Blossoms - Josie McCoy’s mom - “Criminal” capitalism Hiram Lodge ruining his associates lives, the small town not working for everyone - Archie’s mom moving (after seperation), Jughead’s mom moving, Veronica’s mom moving back because she can survive in their economy on the nest money Hiram left....) etc etc

These small cosy “uppercrust white” town just isn’t safe anymore.

I mean have you seen that new negro mayor? That wealthy latina woman and her daughter?That negro coach and his star player son?

Remember - without Capitalism there is no social inequality, systematic racism, white supremacy, classism, etc etc

(also my personal issues with one of the actors colored this a bit biased....but on how things went it was cool.)

Also our culture has a real hardon for the 1950s eh? I know it’s based on the Archie Comics but Stranger Things, 13 Reasons Why...other media where we’re going for the small town america aesthetic and “traditional values” and sprinkling in some social issues and people of color for kicks.

On to season 2 I guess lol.

Don’t put too much stock into my raw thoughts, I just think shows (especially in our current political climate and reality) should commit to what they really want.

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laughriotgrrrl · 7 years

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Iliza is wrong. But it’s not her fault (kinda).

By Bobbie Oliver On Twitter: @TheBobbieOliver

Iliza Shlesinger begins her interview in Deadline Hollywood ok, “a big part of my comedy is wanting to speak to women and people that are my age in a funny and relatable way. I think the landscape of what’s available out there for women is not as extensive as it could be.” So far, so good (except the limiting it to people her age). But, then she goes on to say:

“I’m so glad you asked that [the way she portrays female comedy in her new project] because I put in those sketches and no one’s ever asked me about it because I think people were too busy laughing in agreement. As a comedian, I have a set of morals. I have a specific point of view. I think a lot of what I see out there, out in comedy clubs, watching contests, watching TV, watching movies—gathering data from these different matrixes…

When you’re a woman in comedy and you get a break, people get so excited about it, but while we have to work hard to get that attention, I do think many women think, “Oh if I just act like a guy, if I go for that low hanging fruit…” Everything’s about sex, or how weird I am. It all just kind of runs together.

I could walk into The Improv, close my eyes, and I can’t tell one girl’s act apart from another. That’s not saying that 30-something white guys don’t all sound the same sometimes, but I’m banging my head against the wall because women want to be treated as equals, and we want feminism to be a thing, but it’s really difficult when every woman makes the same point about her vagina, over and over. I think I’m the only woman out there that has a joke about World War II in my set. I think shock value works well for women, but beyond that, there’s no substance. I want to see what else there is with such complex, smart creatures.”

I included the quote so no one could say I misrepresented her words. Those were her exact words. Since this was released, Iliza has been bombarded with responses from female comics (myself included) because it turns out people weren’t just “laughing in agreement” and that she did not succeed at talking to women “in a relatable way.” Did Iliza look at those comments, think ‘hmm maybe I am missing something and should listen to these women’s collective experiences?’ Spoiler! Um, no. She doubled down; she attacked; she ranted and raved and blamed women with (since deleted) tweets to the effect of ‘women shouldn’t complain about what I said; women just need to get better; my experience is more valid than yours; I worked TEN WHOLE YEARS and nobody gave anything to me; everyone is just jealous; if it doesn’t fit you, don’t be offended...’

There is SO MUCH to unpack there, and I may be all over the place cause I’m pissed I have to sit down and blog about this shit AGAIN. I just got finished producing the 3rd Annual Laugh Riot Grrrl Festival, which features over 100 female comedians each year in a week’s worth of shows and activities. I was feeling pretty good about the state of women in comedy (rare for me) and thinking we just smashed the Patriarchy, even if it were just a little. And then, I turn on my computer to see yet another dick dissing women in comedy, setting us back instead of propelling us forward- and this time that dick was a fellow female comic. I am angry, yes, but mostly I am disappointed. But, Iliza said this is her experience and we have to take that as gold. Well, here is my experience...

I started doing comedy in college at 19 years old in 1988 (a little longer than TEN WHOLE YEARS). As a elder in the comedy community (I am 49, been doing comedy for 29 years, teaching comedy for 13 years, wrote a critically acclaimed book about comedy, own a comedy school, was on the road for years on the East Coast and moved to LA 20 years ago, etc), I feel like it is my OBLIGATION not only to create as many opportunities for women in comedy as possible (in addition to my women’s comedy fest, I produce women-only open mics, feminist comedy shows, etc), but to elevate other women as often as I can ESPECIALLY IN PUBLIC INTERVIEWS. No, I am not rich or famous. Probably never will be. But, I have made my entire living off comedy most of my adult life and my experience matters, too.

Saying women shouldn’t be offended by her lazy answer in an interview if it doesn’t apply to them is like Trump saying Mexicans are rapists and black people are criminals but don’t be offended if you aren’t those things. Nice try. And women just need to get better?? Seriously? Do you know how tired you sound? How many racists have said, in response to being confronted on lack of diversity in their school, business, organization, ‘black people just need to earn it like the rest of us.’ Yeah, cause Obama was the first black man to ever be qualified to be President? Not even close.

Iliza, your experiences are a lot more limited than you realize. Ten years is nothing in comedy and you know that. It is a well-known adage in comedy that it takes 10 years just to find your voice. Getting to your level of success in 10 years thanks to Last Comic Standing (and yes, I and many female comics voted for you, and don’t regret it) is a fast track to the top, bypassing decades of work that other women have put in. Did you deserve that? Sure, why not? You deserve it as much as anyone. But, don’t pretend it didn’t come fast and relatively easy. Because of that, you haven’t worked in as many low level rooms as most of us, so your experience is limited mostly to comedy clubs. Comedy clubs rarely book women, even more rare to have two or more on a single show. All the years I was on the road, I was only in a comedy condo with another woman TWICE. The comedy clubs that do book women are not booking a representation of the best female comedy. Just like Justin Bieber being mega rich and famous is not a representation of the best in music. A more accurate comment would have been, ‘I walk into the Improv and they only book a few women and all the same kinds of female comics. Comedy clubs need more diversity.’

Iliza was right when she said that the “landscape of what’s available out there for women is not as extensive as it could be.” Therein lies the problem. But, you don’t begin by basing the state of female comedy on the “handful” of women you see around. For one thing, I know women who have been unbooked from shows with Iliza because her ‘people’ told them she doesn’t like to have too many women on a show (if those emails are false, she should take that up with her people). Also, most headliners, Iliza included (in my experience) don’t stay in the room and watch all the other comics. I am guilty of that, too. It’s easy to roll up in the club right before your set and leave the room right after. I mean, what comedian wants to watch every other comedian? But, that limits your ability to accurately report on the state of comedy. Because I produce so many events for female comics (and have to be in the room), I see hundreds of women perform yearly in open mics, standup shows, festivals, sketch groups, etc. By producing events like my yearly Women in Comedy Roundtable, I get to/choose to listen to women A LOT. Those women are trying to speak now, and we need to listen and really hear them.

Let’s also talk about smart comedy, low hanging fruit and using our comedy powers for good or evil. I have mutiple degrees, am extremely well-read and follow politics very closely. I don’t think I’m unusual. Most comics make it a point to have informed opinions. Iliza boasted that she’s the only female comic with a WWII joke. Well, she’s not. And, even if she were, what the fuck does that matter? I talk about politics, rape culture, feminism, homelessness, as well as marriage, kids, my Trump-supporting dad, and occasionally, will make a pussy reference if I goddamn feel like it. Men are never policed on their dirty joke subjects, on their ‘bad language’ so I will not be, either. All the hateful rape jokes men tell, and we are worried that a women said, ‘pussy,’ really?? And my pussy does not hang low, thank you very much.

Iilza, like every person you ever hear say women aren’t funny enough, is a victim of the Entertainment Industrial Complex. Art is not TV. If you see a limited number of women and those women all make similar jokes (all jokes that Iliza herself has made), you are not seeing a fair representation of women. You are seeing the ones that made it past the gatekeepers in one way or another. Perhaps they are funny, but perhaps they are also hot, don’t rock the boat, know their place or were in the right place at the right time and got lucky. I have always rocked the boat, never accepted their idea of my place and have never been hot. I do feel lucky because I make a living performing standup and writing jokes for other comics. And I can tell you that I am AMAZED by the state of female comedy. Absolutely flabbergasted at the depth and talent and wit of the incredible women I get to (because I make it a point to) work with weekly. Right after the festival, I was quoted as saying that the only way I was able to get through 14 shows in one week is because every women was not only hilarious, but SO DIFFERENT from each other. My husband, comedian Chris Oliver, said the same. We also book tons of men and, frankly, some of them run together in my mind. Sometimes I can’t remember who made which shitting my pants in traffic joke and which ones told which rape jokes. I mean, let’s face it, MOST COMEDY IS HORRIBLE. It is. It’s painful. But, a lot of those comics get better and wiser and more likeable. Some are given regular spots at the Comedy Store (by some, I mean men, of course) and have an opportunity to grow and reflect and change and improve.

Feminism is already “a thing,” and we are equal, no matter who acknowledges it. As feminists, we need to use our comedy powers for good, to help a sister out. Iliza mentioned hiring women on her show and as openers for her. That’s great. Honestly. It is. Does it make you Feminist of the Year? No. In that major public platform, Iliza was given a chance to be heard by more people than most comics, especially women, ever get. She did not widen the landscape for women, she relied on tired old easily-disproven stereotypes that will not elevate us a profession, but will serve to help keep us as second class citizens in comedy. That statement validated every person who thinks women aren’t funny enough. I mean a famous female comic said it, so it must be true.

There is nothing wrong with misspeaking. We all fuck up. But, after the shock and anger wears off, it’s time to take a real look at our own misconceptions and the role we play in the fight as a whole. And did anyone ever figure out what that “one point” about the vagina is?

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thealliterates-blog1 · 5 years

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April 2019 Book Releases

Being one of those readers who enjoys a large variety of genres, I sometimes find it easy to become overwhelmed with new releases. What should I read next? The paranormal romance about the werebeast? Or the feminist, not-so-fictional story about rape culture? What about the latest installment in an ongoing fantasy series that I’ve been desperately waiting for?

If you’re anything like me, you might find the sheer volume of options daunting, and worry about missing out on awesome, lesser publicized books that might get buried under the hype surrounding the big name bestsellers.

Not to fear, fellow reader! To help us all out, I’ve created this monthly post highlighting the standout releases in several genres, with a special emphasis on representation, diversity, and own voices.

Click on each book title to learn more!

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He Release Date: April 2nd Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Princess Hesina of Yan has always been eager to shirk the responsibilities of the crown, dreaming of an unremarkable life. But when her beloved father is found dead, she’s thrust into power, suddenly the queen of a surprisingly unstable kingdom. What’s more, Hesina believes that her father was murdered—and that the killer is someone close to her.

Hesina’s court is packed full of dissemblers and deceivers eager to use the king’s death for political gain, each as plausibly guilty as the next. Her advisers would like her to blame the neighboring kingdom of Kendi’a, whose ruler has been mustering for war. Determined to find her father’s actual killer, Hesina does something desperate: she enlists the aid of a soothsayer—a treasonous act, punishable by death, since magic was outlawed centuries ago.

Using the information provided by the sooth, and uncertain if she can trust her family, Hesina turns to Akira—a brilliant investigator who’s also a convicted criminal with secrets of his own. With the future of Yan at stake, can Hesina find justice for her father? Or will the cost be too high?

The Princess and the Fangirl by Ashley Poston Release Date: April 2nd Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, LGBTQ+

The Prince and the Pauper gets a modern makeover in this adorable, witty, and heartwarming young adult novel set in the Geekerella universe by national bestselling author Ashley Poston.

Imogen Lovelace is an ordinary fangirl on an impossible mission: save her favorite character, Princess Amara, from being killed off from her favorite franchise, Starfield. The problem is, Jessica Stone—the actress who plays Princess Amara—wants nothing more than to leave the intense scrutiny of the fandom behind. If this year’s ExcelsiCon isn’t her last, she’ll consider her career derailed.

When a case of mistaken identity throws look-a-likes Imogen and Jess together, they quickly become enemies. But when the script for the Starfield sequel leaks, and all signs point to Jess, she and Imogen must trade places to find the person responsible. That’s easier said than done when the girls step into each other’s shoes and discover new romantic possibilities, as well as the other side of intense fandom. As these “princesses” race to find the script-leaker, they must rescue themselves from their own expectations, and redefine what it means to live happily ever after.

Girls on the Verge by Sharon Biggs Waller Release Date: April 9th Genre: YoungAdult, Contemporary, Feminism

A powerful, timely coming-of-age story about a young woman from Texas who goes on a road trip with two friends to get an abortion, from award-winning author Sharon Biggs Waller.

Camille couldn’t be having a better summer. But on the very night she learns she got into a prestigious theater program, she also finds out she’s pregnant. She definitely can’t tell her parents. And her best friend, Bea, doesn’t agree with the decision Camille has made.

Camille is forced to try to solve her problem alone . . . and the system is very much working against her. At her most vulnerable, Camille reaches out to Annabelle Ponsonby, a girl she only barely knows from the theater. Happily, Annabelle agrees to drive her wherever she needs to go. And in a last-minute change of heart, Bea decides to come with.

Girls on the Verge is an incredibly timely novel about a woman’s right to choose. Sharon Biggs Waller brings to life a narrative that has to continue to fight for its right to be told, and honored.

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly Release Date: April 9th Genre: Historical Fiction

It is 1914 and the world has been on the brink of war so many times, many New Yorker’s treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanov’s. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and became close confidantes. Now Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime, home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia. But when Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia’s Imperial dynasty begins to fall, Eliza escapes back to America, while Sofya and her family flee to their country estate. In need of domestic help, they hire the local fortuneteller’s daughter, Varinka, unknowingly bringing intense danger into their household. On the other side of the Atlantic, Eliza is doing her part to help the White Russian families find safety as they escape the revolution. But when Sofya’s letters suddenly stop coming she fears the worst for her best friend.

From the turbulent streets of St. Petersburg to the avenues of Paris and the society of fallen Russian emigre’s who live there, the lives of Eliza, Sofya, and Varinka will intersect in profound ways, taking readers on a breathtaking ride through a momentous time in history.

When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton Release Date: April 9th Genre: Historical Fiction

Beautiful. Daring. Deadly.

The Cuban Revolution took everything from sugar heiress Beatriz Perez–her family, her people, her country. Recruited by the CIA to infiltrate Fidel Castro’s inner circle and pulled into the dangerous world of espionage, Beatriz is consumed by her quest for revenge and her desire to reclaim the life she lost.

As the Cold War swells like a hurricane over the shores of the Florida Strait, Beatriz is caught between the clash of Cuban American politics and the perils of a forbidden affair with a powerful man driven by ambitions of his own. When the ever-changing tides of history threaten everything she has fought for, she must make a choice between her past and future–but the wrong move could cost Beatriz everything–not just the island she loves, but also the man who has stolen her heart…

Last Girl Lied To by L.E. Flynn Release Date: April 16th Genre: Young Adult, Thriller

Something made him angry that night. Something made her cry. Something made Trixie disappear. What if it was all the same thing? Fiona claims she doesn’t remember anything about the night her best friend left a party early and walked into the ocean. But the truth is, she wishes she could forget.

Trixie’s disappearance is ruled a suicide, but Fiona starts to believe that Trixie isn’t really dead. Piecing together the trail of a girl who doesn’t want to be found leads her to Jasper, Trixie’s former friend with benefits, and Beau—the boy who turned Fiona down, who loved someone else, who might be happy Trixie is gone.

The closer Fiona gets to finding out what happened, and the closer she gets to Jasper and Beau, the more she realizes that the girl she knew better than anyone may have been a carefully constructed lie—and she might have been waiting to disappear the entire time.

Told in alternating chapters between the past and the present, Last Girl Lied To is a gripping emotional thriller.

Normal People by Sally Rooney Release Date: April 16th Genre: Literary Fiction

A wondrous and wise coming-of-age love story from the celebrated author of Conversations with Friends

At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers—one they are determined to conceal.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker Release Date: April 22nd Genre: Contemporary, Romance

Freddy Carlton knows she should be focusing on her lines for The Austen Playbook, a live-action TV event where viewers choose the outcome of each scene, but her concentration’s been blown. The palatial estate housing the endeavor is now run by the rude (brilliant) critic who’s consistently slammed her performances of late. James “Griff” Ford-Griffin has a penchant for sarcasm, a majestic nose and all the sensitivity of a sledgehammer.

She can’t take her eyes off him.

Griff can hardly focus with a contagious joy fairy flitting about near him, especially when Freddy looks at him like that. His only concern right now should be on shutting down his younger brother’s well-intentioned (disastrous) schemes—or at the very least on the production (not this one) that might save his family home from the banks.

Instead all he can think of is soft skin and vibrant curls.

As he’s reluctantly dragged into her quest to rediscover her passion for the stage and Freddy is drawn into his research on a legendary theater star, the adage about appearances being deceiving proves abundantly true. It’s the unlikely start of something enormous…but a single revelation about the past could derail it all.

How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom by S.J. Goslee Release Date: April 23rd Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, LGBTQ+

Nolan Grant is sixteen, gay, and (definitely) still a virgin. He’s never had a boyfriend, or even been kissed. It’s not like Penn Valley is brimming with prospects. And when his big sister stages an elaborate “prom-posal” so Nolan can ask out his not-so-secret crush, Nolan freezes. He’s saved from further embarrassment by bad boy Bern, who, for his own reasons, offers to fake-date Nolan.

Nolan thinks it’s the perfect way to get Daphne off his back and spend the rest of the year drawing narwhals, tending to plants, and avoiding whatever died under his bed a few weeks ago. What he doesn’t think about is Bern’s ex-girlfriend, who seriously wants to kill him.

If I’m Being Honest by Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka Release Date: April 23rd Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Retellings

High school senior Cameron Bright’s reputation can be summed up in one word: bitch. It’s no surprise she’s queen bee at her private L.A. high school—she’s beautiful, talented, and notorious for her cutting and brutal honesty. So when she puts her foot in her mouth in front of her crush, Andrew, she fears she may have lost him for good.

In an attempt to win him over, Cameron resolves to “tame” herself, much like Katherine in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. First, she’ll have to make amends with those she’s wronged, which leads her to Brendan, the guy she labelled with an unfortunate nickname back in the sixth grade. At first, Brendan isn’t all that receptive to Cameron’s ploy. But slowly, he warms up to her when they connect over the computer game he’s developing. Now if only Andrew would notice…

But the closer Cameron gets to Brendan, the more she sees he appreciates her personality—honesty and all—and wonders if she’s compromising who she is for the guy she doesn’t even want.

Cape May by Chip Cheek Release Date: April 30th Genre: Historical Fiction

Late September 1957. Henry and Effie, very young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey, for their honeymoon only to find the town is deserted. Feeling shy of each other and isolated, they decide to cut the trip short. But before they leave, they meet a glamorous set of people who sweep them up into their drama. Clara, a beautiful socialite who feels her youth slipping away; Max, a wealthy playboy and Clara’s lover; and Alma, Max’s aloof and mysterious half-sister, to whom Henry is irresistibly drawn.

The empty beach town becomes their playground, and as they sneak into abandoned summer homes, go sailing, walk naked under the stars, make love, and drink a great deal of gin, Henry and Effie slip from innocence into betrayal, with irrevocable consequences.

Erotic and moving, this is a novel about marriage, love and sexuality, and the lifelong repercussions that meeting a group of debauched cosmopolitans has on a new marriage.

A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole Release Date: April 30th Genre: Contemporary, Romance

The Reluctant Royals series returns with a good girl searching for the life that’s not too big, and not too small, and the bad boy prince who might be just right for her…

Nya Jerami fled Thesolo for the glitz and glamour of NYC but discovered that her Prince Charming only exists in her virtual dating games. When Nya returns home for a royal wedding, she accidentally finds herself up close and personal—in bed—with the real-life celebrity prince who she loves to hate.

For Johan von Braustein, the red-headed step-prince of Liechtienbourg, acting as paparazzi bait is a ruse that protects his brother—the heir to the throne—and his own heart. When a royal referendum threatens his brother’s future, a fake engagement is the perfect way to keep the cameras on him.

Nya and Johan both have good reasons to avoid love, but as desires are laid bare behind palace doors, they must decide if their fake romance will lead to a happily-ever-after.

Happy reading!

#articles #tbr #lgbtq #ownvoices #diversereads #contemporary romance #young adult #romance #historical fiction #retelling #literary fiction #thriller #feminism #fantasy

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jameelajamilfan · 5 years

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Press/Video: Jameela Jamil Is Shutting Up and Making Space in 2019

New Post has been published on https://jameelajamil.org/2019/02/01/press-video-jameela-jamil-is-shutting-up-and-making-space-in-2019/

Press/Video: Jameela Jamil Is Shutting Up and Making Space in 2019

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The ‘Good Place’ actress and body positivity activist joins the #AerieREAL role model family.

If you’re familiar with Jameela Jamil’s, work you may know her for a few things: her role as the narcissistic but always well-intentioned Tahani Al-Jamil on NBC’s The Good Place; her fiercely vocal stance against photoshopping and airbrushing in advertisements and magazine covers; her news-making tweet in which she hoped certain celebrities “shit their pants in public” for hawking “detox teas” that promise to help with weight loss and bloating. In her 32 years on earth, the British actress has battled an eating disorder, hearing loss, and a car accident that broke her back. Yet she’s come out on the other side, starting a beloved life positive moment called “I, Weigh” and as of today, Jamil is one of the newest members of the #AerieREAL Role Model family for spring 2019. Ahead of the reveal, I phoned Jamil to discuss how the body positivity movement can change moving forward, why she wished Aerie existed when she was a teen, and why in 2019 she’s making space, not taking it.

When Aerie revealed you were going to join their campaign, it seemed like a match made in heaven. Why did you want to work with them?

I wanted to work with Aerie because they’re one of the only brands I’ve ever seen actually take inclusion seriously, and it’s not performative. It runs throughout the entire brand: their desire to reflect, on their website and in their stores, what we see outside in everyday life, which just never happens. Seeing people from all walks of life and all ages modeling underwear and modeling clothes was just such a breath of fresh air. When I walked into their store I realized how much I could’ve benefited from having a store like that and a company like that when I was younger, so I was very excited to be a part of it. Your body’s been through a lot, between an eating disorder and a serious car accident. How has that affected the way you treat your body now?

I treat my body with great respect now and I make sure to check in with it and thank it every so often. Because I’m aware of what it’s like to not be able to go to the toilet by myself, or to be able to breathe because I had asthma, or be able to hear, because I was deaf as a child. I also stopped menstruating when I had an eating disorder, so my body has been in jeopardy so many times that I’ve, frankly, by the age of thirty, a little bit late but better late than never, learned to treat it with lots of kindness and respect. I don’t talk shit to myself anymore. Every time it crops up I stick up for myself the way that I would for a friend or for a stranger even. The things that women say to themselves in their head, they would never tolerate being said to someone that they love. So I’ve decided to be my own best friend.

I’ve become the loudest voice that’s been allowed in body positivity and I think that has given some people the wrong idea.

How does being your best friend manifest itself?

I did EMDR therapy, which is a specific kind of therapy that removes the conditioning of irrational thought. So it goes right to the core of the problem. It’s very good for PTSD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and OCD—all of which I had. Within a matter of months, it just sort of extracted the root of the problem, which meant that I didn’t have to deal with the symptoms anymore. So that was a big thing that I did. I also made the decision three years ago that most of my money that I would spend on corrective or beauty items I’d save up for therapy. I started doing that when I was 29, and that was probably the biggest act of self love I’ve ever done. So no cellulite cream, no stretch mark cream, nothing anti-aging, I just put all of my money into a piggy bank that I would’ve spent on must have products. I just did therapy and then bought myself some self love.

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Body image and body positivity can be super personal. How do you discuss these topics without alienating people?

I link body positivity with mental health, which makes it a much bigger and broader conversation. I think that we don’t do that enough I think I’ve kind of moved it more into a life positive movement and more into mental health discussion, and I think we can all relate to that. Body positivity is something that we have to be very conscious of not leaving women who are of minorities out of. We need to include everyone, so I just make sure to be inclusive with my language and make sure that I’m involving activists from different minorities in my work and giving them a platform in order to make sure that everyone knows it’s a conversation for all of us to have.

For example, the MeToo movement got kind of taken over by a lot of very famous, slender, predominantly white, straight women actresses. I think it’s important not to let that happen with body positivity, which it does happen. Often, in the last year I’ve become the loudest voice that’s been allowed in body positivity and I think that has given some people the wrong idea: that I think that I speak for all people, which I don’t. It’s just that I have a platform and a privilege that allows me to be listened to and heard, when other people who are actually struggling with these things are being ignored. I’m not afraid of being annoying, I’m just afraid of being complicit in a problem that is systemically destroying the mental health of most of the women around the world.

So how do you deal with the criticism?

I don’t take it personally anymore, and I think I used to get defensive and when I would be called out for not being intersectional enough or just feel frustrated that people were expecting too much of me, but now I just shut up and I listen and I realize that there are people who are going through a lot and I would like to help those people, so I just focus on the good. I also don’t receive a lot of negativity or backlash. Most people support me and my profile growing in the way that it has, has been a sign of mass support of so many people who were just done, they feel the same way as me. I’m not on the wrong side here, I’m on the right side, the feminist side of mental health of young people and their well being internally and externally, of women and people everywhere.

The hashtag is #AerieReal. When do you feel you’re most real?

I feel I’m most real when I’m cuddling my boyfriend, I do [laughs]. I feel most real when I’m spooning. There are so many great role models. Who are some of your own role models in this space?

I mean, Samira Wiley is one of them, so I was super starstruck to meet her and to be photographed alongside her. That was a big seal of approval. Janet Mock is someone that I’m very, very obsessed with, and think that what she has done for our culture is just so extraordinary and she’ll be remembered forever and go down in history as such a game changer for the trans community. Roxanne Gay, I think she’s a real hero of mine, and her books have taught me so much and called me out so brilliantly. As in, in reading them I’ve been able to find my own mistakes and learn, via her, how to do better and be better.

I think we bring a lot of ego into activism and wokeness these days.

What did you learn from her books?

I’ve learned from her books about white feminism and how much we could leave people out of the conversation and what makes you a bad feminist and how you can call yourself out, and that that can be okay to make mistakes. You know, she calls herself out on her own blind spots, and I think that’s a really important thing to do. I think we bring a lot of ego into activism these days and ego into wokeness. I think that that can sometimes make you afraid of admitting when you don’t know something, and therefore you don’t ask, and therefore you don’t learn. Even someone as brilliant and accomplished and educated as Roxanne Gay, to sometimes owning up to her weaknesses or her blind spots, has been so inspiring so many people that I know, because it makes you feel like it’s okay to just keep learning and if you’re a bad feminist now, it doesn’t mean you’ll always be a bad feminist.

We’re having a lot of conversations in the office about the kind of energy that we’re bringing into 2019. How would you describe the energy you’re bringing into this year?

It’s make space, don’t take space. That’s the thing that I’m gonna bring into 2019, is making sure that I create space for other women. I create space for people from minorities, and people who are living in experiences that I have not myself had to live through. Recently I turned down a role of a deaf woman, because even though I used to be deaf as a child, I’m no longer completely deaf. And so that role should go to someone who still currently cannot hear because there’s a brilliant deaf actress out there somewhere who we don’t know her name, but she can’t get the role. I do think it’s really important to start to make sure that we stop being greedy and we just step aside for one another, and don’t fear each other. We’ve been taught to fear each other by men, and feel like there’s only space for one, and that’s a lie. That’s so that we don’t all join together and take up loads of space and become equal. So supporting other women, making sure that I put my money where my mouth is, and pass the mic.

Source: Elle

#aerie #aeriereal #jameela jamil #the good place #tahani al jamil #tahani al-jamil

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blackbird-brewster · 7 years

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I had two profound experiences today, extremely unrelated in context but both thought provoking after the fact. The first experience had to do with me getting my first library card in 18 years and how I was very anxious to go into the library for any reason other than to print something. I will detail this experience in a different post but long story short, all of the embarrassment and shame I felt because of my learning disability melted away and I ended up spending nearly two hours just browsing books. I left feeling to included and happy, I actually cried tears of joy. Fast forward to the second notable experience of my day. Tonight I went on a date with my flat mate to “Naked Girls Reading: The Feminist Propaganda Edition”. Naked Girls Reading is apparently a sort of “brand”, started in the US as a protest against the ways women’s bodies are usually sexualized when naked. The theory is exactly what it sounds like, performers are completely nude and read aloud to the audience. I had never heard of this amazing concept, so I jumped at the invitation. ESPECIALLY since tonight’s theme was feminism. I figured naked women reading feminist works sounded AUHMAZING. [Rest behind a cut for length and transphobia]

The event was hosted by a popular personality in the New Zealand LGBTQPIA scene. They are a self labeled transvestite that MC’s events as their drag king persona, Hugo Grrrl. I assumed, if it was hosted by a gender diverse person it was going to be fairly inclusive. Welp, you know what they say about assuming.

Things started promising as Hugo opened their monologue with my favorite greeting “Guys, gals and nonbinary pals”. Hugo then went on to talk about some of the topics of the night including body positivity, body hair, porn, sex work, sex positivity, etc. It sounded really exciting and inter-sectional, I was pumped.

Within the ten minute monologue there was also the disclaimer that “Although this is called “Naked Girls Reading”, gender is a spectrum and the binary is bullshit.” (woo, yeah!!) ”...We only call it that because it was started in America and we didn’t come up with the name.” (Wait, what?)

Ok... but you could literally just call it “Naked People Reading” or “Naked Folx Reading” or ANYTHING else if you want to TRULY be inclusionary. I wasn’t even concerned about the title UNTIL Hugo made the point to say gender binary is bullshit... but then to say “meh, we didn’t come up with the title we’re just being complacent in it” Was sort of shitty. If you are trying to include people, then INCLUDE them. Don’t say “Hey I’m not transphobic, BUT....” There was no point of this disclaimer other than to point out you recognized a problem but would rather go along with it than change one word of the title of the show. Things only went down hill from there. A few minutes later as Hugo was wrapping up the monologue they wanted to get the crowd pumped before introducing the performers for the evening. To do this, Hugo had “all the women cheer!” (which they did) then followed by “now all the men!” (which they did). It turned out it was just a set up to make the men a punchline of a very stereotypical “feminist hate men” joke. These jokes are always obnoxious and yes, I recognize Hugo was trying to connect to the large feminist audience so we could all laugh at how society views us...but again, we were back at only acknowledging the gender binary.

Now I realize many people right now will think I’m being extremely cynical. “Kit, you can’t say someone is being trans exclusionary if they are a queer that self identifies as a transvestite!” But I can because they were. If you are going to mention nonbinary people. If you are going to make a point of talking about how the binary is bullshit. If you want to have a disclaimer that gender is a spectrum. It’s ALL or nothing. Inclusion isn’t “I acknowledged you, you should be happy” it’s “I acknowledged you AND included you with everyone else as if we’re all the same.

The monologue is over, I am properly uncomfortable and agitated, the performers come out. From the promises of topics, I expected diversity. Again, that nasty assuming sure got the better of me.

Instead I get two skinny women and one average sized woman. They all appear to be white (although one was painted head to toe in blue and pink body paint as a My Little Pony...and later I learned she isn’t actually white.) They’re naked. So I can tell body hair isn’t really happening. A bit of bush but perfectly smooth everywhere else. All have shoulder length or longer hair and present very feminine. Idk, again, maybe I was just so cynical by this point that I let my critic get away with me. I just wonder how hard it would be to find a more diverse cast? Am I just too deep in tumblr culture to expect to see different size bodies at a feminist reading? Or people with actual body hair, especially since there was a point of mentioning it in the monologue? Tattoos? Scars? Short hair? Disabilities? More racial diversity? (Again, the one woc was painted blue. And I feel shitty for thinking she was white but they could have included dark skinned people too.) Introductions are done. The de-robing has happened. We now have three naked women sitting on a couch. Let’s read “feminist propaganda”! Some pretty typical stuff, Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, big names of the feminist movement. There was a reading of an MRA’s post from some MRA website. (Why are we giving MRA’s an audience at a FEMINIST reading?!) Intermission. During intermission, I got up the courage to go speak to Hugo and mention why I was peeved at the start of the show with the women/men division of the audience. They shrugged and said “well it was a set up to a punch line” I smiled and replied, “I realize that but don’t you think trans folks are the punch line enough?” They tried to back track but it got awkward and I walked away. Hugo does some “feminist” trivia during the break. Throwing prize bags of tampons and chocolate to whoever shouts the correct answer.

One question asks what does “SWERF” stand for. A woman yells the answer and Hugo repeats it back to the audience and says “Sex work exclusionary feminism isn’t feminism. Sex work is real work!” It would have been so easy to also educate about TERFs. They don’t. The irony is not lost on me.

More trivia. I win one. I’m told, “Here enjoy these tampons!” I catch it and yell back, “Not all women have vaginas” I turn to the women at our table and say, “Hello, I don’t need tampons and I hate chocolate. Enjoy” They gladly accept. Back to the readings... A dramatic reading of Spice Girl lyrics. Some very heteronormative erotica. A reading of a radfem manifesto of the 70s (that included very acephobic commentary) And then, the woman painted as a MLP says she’s going to read Ivan E Coyote. Now, for those of you who haven’t been blessed with reading their works or seeing Ivan perform (I just saw them again last week!), they are a trans writer from Canada. Very well known in LGBTQPIA circles. AMAZINGLY pure and moving stories and poems and “literary Doritos”. They are an amazing human being and have quickly become one of my favorite queer authors. SO I AM STOKED!! This night has been so cishet heavy and I’m crank, I am READY to end it with Ivan. Ivan has written four of five books, has mountains of published poetry and she chooses to read a piece that is so personal to me. She prefaces this with a quick word about Ivan being an LGBTQ author. But fails to mention they’re a trans masculine person who identifies as a Tom Boy. The piece starts out as a love letter to femmes who are often erased from Queer culture because they are “assumed” to be straight. But then turns to Ivan’s journey through figuring out they were trans and how they became jealous of femmes sometimes and how they will never be seen as who they are. How they will always be coming out of the closet over and over and over. Because their identity isn’t “visibly recognized” because it’s outside the binary. I sob every time I hear this poem because it is so personal to me. The first time I heard it was when Ivan performed in Chch last August. I was in the midst of struggling with how the world saw me and this poem touched a part of me I thought no one would <i>ever</i> understand. I sobbed again tonight. My flat mate patted my hand. She sobbed too for the same reasons. The journey to figuring out your identity can be so isolating, terrifying and lonely. But when you hear your story being told by someone who is on a stage, with an audience, talking as if your journey was the most normal and natural experience....it’s an emotional time. After she finished, the performer stated “As a cis woman, I obviously do not identity with the narrator. I do however think this poem speaks to me as a femme. Because we are often overlooked.” (This gets cheers from the audience) I feel sick inside. This cis woman just spoke the very personal words of a trans person bearing their soul and claimed it as a poem for her. No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to bend it to your whim. If you want to include poetry or stories about the trans experience, YOU FUCKING INCLUDE TRANS PERFORMERS. Thank god the night was over. My flat mate and I are sitting at our table deciding how to make our own event called “Naked Queers Reading” and how much better it would be. We’re minding our own business when out of the corner of my eye I see a crowd around the stage area. Of course. There’s a man who has taken off his shirt to pose with the naked women so he can get his buddy to take his picture. Of fucking course there is. That’s when we left. I don’t know if I am just lucky to live in such a comfortable Queer circle of friends that I’ve become blind to the world of heternormative, patriarchal bullshit or if I am truly too fucking cynical to go out in public...but fuck was I disappointed with tonight. Anyway, if you made it through this entire post, thank you. I promise I’ll post a really lovely story about the library tomorrow. Right now I want to watch Ivan E Coyote performances on YouTube and drink my tea from my Unicorn Elixer mug.

#long post #feminism #tw: transphobia #nonbinary #transgender #about me 2k17 #story time #/rant

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superwoodlandwoman-blog · 7 years

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The Things That Bind Us

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If there is one thing this course has taught me, it would be how easy it is for an idea to reach people. The online actions of one person, be it Beyoncé, Signe Pierce in American Reflexxx, or even a webcam performer, can reach millions. Intentional or not, the dissemination of information has sparked conversations and encouraged people to utilize the internet as a tool for feminist collaboration and activism. These collaborations unite us by giving us spaces to transcend our physical selves and interact with those who may believe in our causes. The internet has provided countless platforms to push back against that which oppresses us, either online or in real life. Conversations which occur in chat rooms and on subreddits are transformed into physical action.

It’s always easy though, to gloss over the negative aspects of this heightened sense of collaboration and increased pushback against oppressive formations. I think the biggest issue facing feminist groups is inherent to any collaboration. Formation of in-groups automatically creates out-groups, those who are excluded from the conversation and activism. Cyberfeminist collaborations are subject to a tyranny of the majority, and this has been seen many times, especially for those who are trans, or young, or a person of color. Feminism is not only for white women, and although cyberfeminist collaborations are increasingly including underrepresented groups, there is still much work to do.

So, what do we do going forward? The world around is changing. We always have access to the internet of things; anything is at our fingertips: food from any restaurant, insight to our acquaintance’s lives, or even hookups. “These emergent technosciences – Facebook and Google – seek to reinforce a notion of everyday life even as they change it almost beyond recognition” (Kember, 2012). The gradual change feels unassuming and normal until we look back. Five years ago, “Overly Attached Girlfriend” and “Gangnam Style” were going viral. Don’t they seem ancient now? Internet history moves so fast. The world may move too quickly, and there may be no place for an overhaul of thought. Cyberfeminist interventions may simply need the seeds for us to view our online content through a feminist lens.

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Feminism, though, will grow and develop as our relationship to the online world continues in flux. As Kember states in her piece, Notes Towards a Future Feminist Manifesto, there is a “tendency in current forms of theorizing to regard processes of affect and relationality as solutions to asymmetries of power rather than as questions we have begun to pose to them” (2012). Recognition of ways to create spaces and solve problems are only the first step for a cyberfeminist intervention and cyberfeminist-welcoming future.

What will this intervention look like? Well, I would argue that it might not seem like an intervention at all. In fact, I think we all might take a note from Tavi Gevinson, a young person. At 11, Tavi Gevinson had a fashion blog called Style Rookie, which gained notoriety quickly. The publicity she had magnified the criticisms and uncertainty she had through her teenage years. She was always at a crossroads, “you can’t be smart and pretty, you can’t be a feminist who’s interested in fashion, you can’t care about clothes unless it’s for the sake of what other people, usually men, will think of you” (Gevinson, 2012). She realized that reconciling her confusion became easier when she realized that as a feminist, she didn’t have to play by a rulebook and that she could, as a woman, figure things out and change her mind.

I honestly believe that this realization, for people everywhere, will be the basis of cyberfeminism. Feminism is not a code of conduct for how to act, whether in real life or online. It is, however, a mindset to experience, think, and support that which serves you and those who advocate for.

Tavi launched a magazine, Rookie, in September of 2011. In her first editorial, she commented, “Rookie is not your guide to Being a Teen. It is not a pamphlet on How to Be a Young Woman. It is, quite simply, a bunch of writing and art we like and believe in.” Rookie is a space for young women to be represented, and to inspire them to give themselves “permission to ask their own questions and find their own answers” (Gevinson, 2012). I think this a beautiful thing. Online, we can abandon the façade we put up for real life and create these large collaborative spaces where we can all use each other to help us figure out what we actually support.

(Source)

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cjjingram · 7 years

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Ask me shit. Lol I've got some shit to ask. What is your opinion on Katie cassidy being black siren for another season? Cassidy was only in 4-6 epis this season and two of them barely amount ed a minute of screentime. She was in Tue finale for LoT in Sara vision so to speak where laurel just told Sara she would do the right thing, which was a waste of screentime as at this point in Sara's journey we know she would do the right thing. It was frankly unnecessary. Whats ur take on KC being BS?

Honestly, I have no idea. I haven’t watched any of season 5 at all. I’ll cop to downloading them and leaving them in a folder on my hard drive on the off chance someone gives me the all clear but I haven’t gotten it yet. All my trusted and best bitches can say is stay afraid of your shadow, little groundhog, because it’s gonna be a long fucking winter.

I will say that the people I know say that Black Siren suits KC a lot better than Laurel ever did probably because she lets KC be dramatic which is what she likes to do.

Listen, I despise Laurel’s character, not because she was a bad person, but because she was badly written. I’m a writer, first and foremost. I’m the real deal and bad writing makes my asshole itch. Bad professional writing, writing that people get paid good money for, makes me go apoplectic with rage.

I’m old school, okay? I view story telling as a noble pursuit. I believe in making the human connection and that writers have an obligation to present stories that need to be told and that uplift mankind. I’ve often said this but writers are guardians of the truth. Their job is to hold a mirror up to the world and say, ‘See? This is what you need to think about.’

I also like to use the example of To Kill a Mockingbird when I talk about this stuff because that book and that movie came out at a time when segregation was the norm, interracial marriage was illegal, and blatant racism was acceptable. People who had never even questioned it suddenly got to see what racism looks like through the eyes of a little girl who didn’t see black or white as much as she saw right and wrong. We were allowed to be Scout for that one brief shining moment. We got to hear why she thought her father was a coward because he didn’t hunt like other fathers did or own a gun and we got to see how all that changed when she watched her father defend an innocent man whose only crime was that he was black. That story changed the lives of millions of people because it made them think and see things from a different perspective.

The reason I so vehemently dislike Laurel’s character is because they shoved her down our throats saying she was a strong, heroic, smart, feminist icon when she was the complete opposite of that. I grew up in the 70′s and 80′s when every time a strong female hero would come on the TV, even if she did have on red high heeled boots and a bathing suit, was something to celebrate. We were desperate for female heroes--I know I was.

I grew up at a time when girls were just starting to be told that they were worth something. We fought hard for feminism because we’d never had it before. For me, as a feminist who grew up in one era and has seen the changes since, to be shown a ‘hero’ like Laurel was...well, it frustrated me.

I always ask someone, ‘If you had a daughter, would you want her to watch this show and want to be just like this person when they grow up?’ Do you want your daughter to wear a Laurel Lance costume for Halloween?

No.

You know why? Because as much as we’re told she’s a hero we never get to see it. What we see is a woman who had no self-respect. Laurel is a woman, an educated women who is a lawyer, staying with a man who she’s caught cheating on her over a dozen times with women she considered her ‘friends’ (canon), who got another girl pregnant while they were together and never told her (canon), and who screwed her own sister (canon), and not only continually takes him back but tells him that he’s the love of her life on her deathbed.

What kind of role model is that?

Laurel is also a woman who, when she makes mistakes, instead of owning her mistakes and learning from them lashes out and blames others (canon). She turns to drugs and alcohol to escape her problems which doesn’t make her a bad person, but we’re never allowed to see her deal with those issues. Instead we’re told that she was an alcoholic with a pill problem and now she isn’t. We’re also shown that she drinks and drives, loses her job, but then suddenly is the DA so there were no long-lasting consequences. Would it have killed them to show her going to AA a few times? Couldn’t they have interrupted one of her grunt and sweat scenes to show her visiting Tommy’s grave and showing her making amends or talking to others about her struggle?

No.

I realize it’s ‘The Arrow’ show, I get that, but in season 3 during her ‘hero’s journey’, we spent 19 out of 23 episodes focused almost entirely on Laurel instead of focusing on Ra’s al Ghul and Oliver. We sacrificed so much storytelling there. I would’ve gladly not seen any Olicity, sacrificed the whole stupid Raylicity bullshit (which is another story altogether), just to have a glimpse of Ra’s talking to Oliver about his past like he did with Batman in the comics. We could’ve seen him tell the story of his wife Sora, about how she was raped and murdered by the noblemen’s son and how he was buried alive because he dared accuse the prince. We could’ve seen Ra’s escape death and lead his uncle’s clan into the city and raze it to the ground before killing the prince and his father.

It would’ve been the origin story of the League of Assassins and, like it did with Batman, it would make Oliver question whether Ra’s is a hero or a villain because, truth is, he’s both. Ra’s is a vigilante, always has been, only he sees the big picture and believes the only way to destroy evil is to destroy it entirely.

Instead we got Laurel sweating and grunting.

We also never got to see any real growth from Laurel or acceptance of her mistakes. Laurel does things without thinking about the consequences. She continually puts her life and the lives of others in jeopardy because all she sees is what she wants to see, she never listens to what other people tell her, and when it backfires on her she always dredges up the past like some kind of shield then makes it the other person’s fault.

She raised her sister from the dead without a soul even after multiple people tell her not to? She takes Thea to Merlyn in Nanda Parbat to resurrect her sister, basically trading Thea’s already rocky mental stability for her sister’s resurrection, not because she loves and misses her sister, but because she doesn’t want her dad to be mad at her anymore and what happens when Oliver confronts her?

Well, you cheated on me with my sister and never respected me so there.

She is constantly ‘forgiving’ Oliver but whenever he calls her on her shit she throws it back in his face. That’s not what a hero does, sorry.

I dislike Laurel because she shows the little girls watching the show that a hero is a woman who trades in her self-respect for a guy, who is supposed to be smart and powerful but who does pratfalls and hair flips instead.

The reason I liked Sara in the role of Canary is because Sara started out in a bad place. She cheated with her sister’s boyfriend, she betrayed Oliver and the others to Ivo, she was an assassin who killed people, but she somehow also managed to confront her demons and become a hero. She redeemed herself because she showed genuine remorse and growth.

Laurel...the impression I get from KC’s earliest performances tells me that she didn’t care for Laurel, probably because she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of taking back a serial cheater like Ollie. Not only that but Laurel was boring. She was the designated damsel in distress and, while she had a few kick ass moments, she wasn’t the Black Canary; Sara was. Whenever KC would do interviews she’d talk about Dinah and the Black Canary but she rarely discussed Laurel as a character. I honestly think a lot of her lackluster and dead-eyed portrayal of Laurel was due to the fact that she wanted to just play Canary and skip Laurel altogether.

Black Siren gives her the opportunity to do just that so it might actually work out for her.

Laurel’s best performances in season 4 came when she was in the costume. Out of the costume she glowered at the screen with her arms crossed defensively over her chest. There was nothing there, no light in her eyes, no enthusiasm; that only came out in the costume because she was finally playing the character she signed up for.

I think that if my friends are right (and, again, I haven’t watched any of the shows including Arrow this season) that she might actually do better with Black Siren because she connects to her more. Laurel would’ve taken an actress with a lot of range, someone who could play vulnerable and sympathetic like Caity did with Sara, but Black Siren is the kind of mean girl character KC loves to play.

Hope that answered your shit. ;p

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sandiegodjstaci · 5 years

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The Hipster's Guide to Classic Country Music

Let’s face it…if your mountain man beard, microbrew fetish, and pipe collection are no longer enough, classic country music can help you get to the next level of hipster (so can a pair of Wrangler jeans). My name is DJ Staci, the Track Star, and I grew up on country music. I lived on a 5-acre llama ranch just outside of Seattle during the grunge era…do you see how there’s a hipster seed in there? I knew I was not your standard redneck when, at 14, my dad’s hunting drew me towards vegetarianism (celebrating 26 meat-free years now). At 18, I pierced my nose and moved to southern California where I could eat tofu, get feminism tattoos, and vote for democrats in a diverse, shame-free environment…but that country music seed definitely grew roots throughout my childhood. In fact, during my 20s, I escaped my days of drinking expensive juice and visiting organic farmer’s markets by honky tonkin’ every week. I would go line dancing at the Brandin’ Iron Saloon in San Bernardino (the biggest & best honky tonk a.k.a. country bar west of Gilley’s…and watch John Travolta & Debra Winger in “Urban Cowboy” if you don’t understand either of those references).

Memes from We Hate Pop Country

Unfortunately, country music withered up and died after the 2000s. After DJing at the world’s largest country music festival (Stagecoach–the country cousin of Coachella), I had to stop listening to country music on the radio. The so-called country you hear on the radio today is known as “pop country” by country music purists (those of us who prefer classic country or “real” country). The artists who “ruined” country music are people like Taylor Swift, Sam Hunt, Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett, & Luke Bryant (and many others). Follow “We Hate Pop Country” on Facebook to learn more.

If you like “Wake Me Up” by Avicii, “Honey I’m Good” by Andy Grammer, “I Will Wait” by Mumford & Sons, “The Country Death Song” by the Violent Femmes, “Easy” by Sheryl Crow, “Wish I Knew You” by the Revivalists, “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show, or Philip Phillips, classic country will be a great fit. If watching the movie Walk the Line turned you into a Johnny Cash fan, rest assured there is plenty more music like that out there. If you resonate as a defiant outsider or a feminist or a government-hating pothead, classic country music welcomes you with open arms! Classic country is outlaw music–pure and simple. It was created by people who knew they were on the outskirts of mainstream society and unshakingly flipped it the bird à la Johnny Cash at San Quentin (below).

Johnny Cash after photographer Jim Marshall asked him to do a shot for the warden (San Quentin Prison – 1969)

Did you know Loretta Lynn, who sang the feminist anthem “The Pill,” & Jack White from the White Stripes, who also has some killer bluegrass tunes, created an album together? Did you know Johnny Cash has covered songs by Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode? Have you heard Lady Gaga’s country roads version of “Born This Way?” Did you know Beyonce has a kick ass collab with the Dixie Chicks (the girl-power Texas band who was banned from country radio for saying they were ashamed that George Bush is from their home state) called “Daddy Lessons”? Did you know the black lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish bailed on the band so he could start a solo country music career (country fans know him as Darius Rucker)? Did you know when I DJ classic country parties, I have to ask the client if swear words are OK?

Do I have your attention now? I thought so. Let’s continue 🙂 You’ll love the country artists as much as you love their music–I promise.

Justin Timberlake & Chris Stapleton performing together at the 49th Country Music Association Awards

THE KING OF COUNTRY MUSIC

First, let’s start with the forefather of all country music kick-assery: Hank Williams. Hank signed to MGM Records in 1947 and his twangy anthems changed country music forever. He was famously fired by the Grand Ole Opry in 1952 after one of many no-shows. He lived a turbulent life that his son Hank Jr sings about in his cornerstone song “Family Tradition.” In true rock star style, Hank Sr. died of heart failure brought on by prescription drug abuse and alcoholism in 1953. Hipster-friendly Hank Williams songs include:

I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry

Hey Good Lookin’

Jambalaya (on the Bayou)

Tear in my Beer

Your Cheating Heart

TOP 125 CLASSIC COUNTRY SONGS FOR HIPSTERS

Pour yourself some Popcorn Sutton’s Tennessee White Whiskey (that’s legal moonshine for you city slickers) & get ready for some serious drinkin’ music free of “Friends in Low Places,” “Achy Breaky Heart,” “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” “Old Town Road,” and “The Git Up.” I’ve includes lots of notes & trivia about the playlist songs because we hipsters can’t just enjoy music in a vacuum…we like to sound like a seasoned expert when putting on a playlist for friends, yes? I’ve included standards as well as a number of “B sides” that will even impress country music enthusiasts…you know the kind of people who still say “Country Western.”

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18 Wheels & a Dozen Roses, Kathy Mattea

9 to 5, Dolly Parton

A Boy Named Sue, Johnny Cash

All My Exes Live in Texas, George Strait

Amarillo by Morning, George Strait

Are You Ready for the Country, Waylon Jennings

Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?, Waylon Jennings (Referring to Hank Williams Sr.)

Back Where I Come From, Kenny Chesney

Bed You Made for Me, Highway 101

Before Country Was Cool, Barbara Mandrell

Born to Boogie, Hank Williams Jr. (Hank Sr’s son)

Chattahoochee, Alan Jackson

Church on Cumberland Road, Shenandoah

Coal Miner’s Daughter, Loretta Lynn (Watch her biographical movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter” staring Sissy Spacek!)

Coat of Many Colors, Dolly Parton

Copenhagen, Chris Le Deux (Yep, chew killed this underground country singer with a cult following. His catchy, hilarious love song to Copenhagen chewing tobacco is like a country version of “Can’t Feel My Face” or “Mary Jane.”)

Copperhead Road, Steve Earle (Listen carefully…After coming home from war, this soldier gives up on the family tradition of making moonshine because he realized when he was in Viet Nam that he could just grow weed instead.)

Country Boy Can Survive, Hank Williams Jr.

Country Club, Travis Tritt

Country Roads, Take Me Home, John Denver (Lucky if I get through this one without tearing up…)

Cowboy Take Me Away, Dixie Chicks

Crazy, Patsy Cline (Sadly, the anthem of Battered Woman’s Syndrome…Patsy was in a violent marriage at the height of her fame. Written by Willie Nelson.)

Cripple Creek, Earl Scruggs & Lester Flatt

Devil Went Down to Georgia, Charlie Daniels Band

Digging Up Bones, Randy Travis

Dixieland Delight, Alabama

Down at the Twist & Shout, Mary-Chapin Carpenter

Dueling Banjos, Roy Clark & Buck Owens

El Paso, Marty Robbins (After writing this song, Marty Robbins was flying over El Paso & had a revelation that he was the cowboy in the song in a past life…so he wrote “El Paso City” about that experience.)

Elvira, Oak Ridge Boys

Every Little Thing, Carlene Carter (Yep, June Carter’s daughter…she called Johnny Cash “Stepdad.” Roseanne Cash’s “Tennessee Flat Top Box” is also a good one.)

Family Tradition, Hank Williams Jr (A proud nod to his famous father…”Put yourself in my position–if I get stoned and sing all night long, it’s a family tradition.” When you hear this song at a honky tonk, know the customs! When Jr sings, “Why do you drink?” The crowd shouts back “To get drunk!” When Jr sings, “Why do you roll smoke?” The crowd shouts, “To get high!” When he sings, “Why must you act out the songs that you wrote?” The crowd shouts, “To get laid!”)

Fancy, Reba McEntire

Fishin’ in the Dark, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Flowers on the Wall, Statler Brothers

Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash

Fool-Hearted Memory, George Strait (His first of SIXTY #1 hits–the most in country music history! Too many for this list but do check them out.)

Get a Rhythm, Johnny Cash

Guitars & Cadillacs, Dwight Yoakum (One of the few west coasters on the list…from Bakersfield, California — also a vegetarian!)

Have Mercy, Judds (A female country duo–mother & sister to famous actress Ashley Judd!)

Highway Man, The Highwaymen (The Highwaymen are Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, & Kris Kristofferson.)

Hillbilly Rock, Marty Stewart

Honky Tonk Man, Dwight Yoakum

Hooked on an 8-Second Ride, Chris Le Deux (Pronounced “Le Doo”)

Hot Rod Lincoln, Commander Cody

I Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This, Waylon Jennings

I Love a Rainy Night, Eddie Rabbitt

I Think I’ll Just Sit Here & Drink, Merle Haggard

I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash

I’m No Stranger to the Rain, Keith Whitley

If You’re Gonna Play in Texas, Alabama

If You’ve Got the Money, Willie Nelson

If Your Heart Ain’t Busy, Tanya Tucker

It Only Hurts When I Cry, Dwight Yoakum

Jackson, Johnny Cash & June Carter

Jolene, Dolly Parton

Jose Cuervo, Shelly West

Kaw-Liga, Hank Williams Jr. (Hank Sr also does this one.)

Lay You Down, Conway Twitty

Long Time Gone, Dixie Chicks

Louisiana Saturday Night, Mel McDaniel

Luckenbach Texas, Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson

Mama Tried, Merle Haggard

Maybe It Was Memphis, Pam Tillis

Meet Me in Montana, Dan Seals

Midnight Girl in a Sunset Town, Sweethearts of the Rodeo

Mountain Music, Alabama

Mud on the Tires, Brad Paisley

Mule Skinner Blues, Dolly Parton

My Kind of Girl, Colin Raye

Next to You, Shenandoah

No Time to Kill, Clint Black

Nobody Wins, Radney Foster

Norma Jean Riley, Diamond Rio

One Piece at a Time, Johnny Cash

Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line, Waylon Jennings

Orange Blossom Special, Johnny Cash

Pancho & Lefty, Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard

Papa Loved Mama, Garth Brooks

Past the Point of Rescue, Hal Ketchum

Pick-Up Man, Joe Diffie

Play Something Country, Brooks & Dunn

Redneck Girl, Bellamy Brothers (During the corresponding Redneck Girl line dance, when the song says, “A redneck girl got her name on the back of her belt,” dancers shout, “Bullshit! Bullshit! F— you!” When the song says, “She’s got a kiss on her lips for her man and no one else,” dancers repeat, “Bullshit! Bullshit! F— you!” When the song says, “A coyote’s howling out on the prairie,” dancers howl. Finally, the song says, “First comes love, then comes marriage.” After “love,” dancers interject, “Then sex!!!”)

Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash

Rockin’ With the Rhythm, Judds

Rodeo, Garth Brooks

Rough & Ready, Trace Adkins

Saturday Night Special, Conway Twitty (Yes, the same guy they famously poke fun at on “Family Guy”–see below)

Sin Wagon, Dixie Chicks

Smoky Mountain Rain, Ronnie Milsap

Sold, John Michael Montgomery

Some Girls Do, Sawyer Brown

Song of the South, Alabama

Stampede, Chris Le Deux

Stand by Your Man, Tammy Wynette

Straight Tequila Night, John Anderson

Streets of Bakersfield, Dwight Yoakum

Sweet Dreams of You, Patsy Cline

Tempted, Marty Stuart

Tennessee River & a Mountain Man, Alabama

Thank God I’m a Country Boy, John Denver (He’s an outspoken vegan and & rep for P.E.T.A #MeatlessMondays)

That Kind of Girl, Patty Loveless

That’s My Story, Collin Raye

That’s What I Like About You, Trisha Yearwood (She’s married to Garth Brooks & is a celebrity chef with a reality cooking show.)

The Gambler, Kenny Rogers

The Pill, Lorettta Lynn (Also check out her cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking.”)

The Race Is On, Sawyer Brown (or any of the older versions)

The Thunder Rolls, Garth Brooks

Ticks, Brad Paisley

Tight-Fittin’ Jeans, Conway Twitty

Tonight We Ride, Tom Russell (We played this at my dad’s funeral…definitely a “b side.”)

Tougher Than the Rest, Chris Le Deux

Tulsa Time, Don Williams

Two Feet of Topsoil, Brad Paisley

Walkin’ After Midnight, Patsy Cline (Check out the Cyndi Lauper cover!)

What Was I Thinkin,’ Dierks Bentley

When You Say Nothing At All, Keith Whitley (Alison Krauss’ version might be more popular though…)

Whiskey, If You Were a Woman, Highway 101

Why Not Me, Judds

Wide Open Spaces, Dixie Chicks

Will the Circle Be Unbroken, dozens of versions

Wrong Side of Memphis, Trisha Yearwood

You Ain’t Woman Enough, Loretta Lynn

You Really Had Me Going, Holly Dunn

You’ve Never Been This Far Before, Conway Twitty

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There are a few current country artists with that classic country sound: Chris Stapleton, Brothers Osborn, some Miranda Lambert (try “Gunpowder & Lead” or “Little Red Wagon”), or Cody Jinks.

If you’re afraid country music is too white, straight, or conservative for you, check out Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush,” Maddie & Tae’s “Girl in a Country Song,” the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl,” Los Lonely Boys’ “Heaven,” Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow,” Big & Rich’s “Love Train,” Garth Brooks’ “We Shall Be Free,” John Anderson’s “Seminole Wind,” or anything by Charlie Pride, Cowboy Troy, k.d. lang, or Freddie Fender.

If you enjoy a good DJ mix, I’m not the only one doing creative things with country music–check out DeeJay Silver, DJ Sinister’s Country Fried Mix, VDJ JD, DJ Bad Ash, or DJ Hish (who I was on the roster with at the Stagecoach Festival and the Moonshine Miles Festival).

Film enthusiast? In addition to watching Johnny Cash’s biographical Walk the Line, you can also try some of these country cult classics: Coal Miner’s Daughter (about Loretta Lynn), Urban Cowboy (with John Travolta & Debra Winger), Pure Country (starring George Strait), Sweet Dreams (about Patsy Cline), Eight Seconds (with Luke Perry)…as well as anything starring Dolly Parton (like 9 to 5 or Steel Magnolias) or Kris Kristofferson (like A Star Is Born or Blade). Dwight Yoakum has a few famous cameos as well (like Sling Blade or Crank). But the real question is: are they “acting” or just “acting natural”? Once you understand that reference, you officially get a gold star in the hipster country music Olympics!!! (Leave me your thoughts in the comments below.)

If you enjoyed the Hipster’s Guide to Classic Country Music, I urge you to explore bluegrass and folk music. And, yes, I know not every “staple” classic country jam is on the list (again, comment below). I also have my Guitar-Infused Country & Classic Rock Wedding Cocktail Hour Playlist and Ultimate Bluegrass Wedding Cocktail Hour & Dinner Music Playlist you can scope out. Some say “crank it up,” but, around here, we say “Hank it up!” Enjoy your hip classic country tunes!

LISTEN TO THE HIPSTER’S CLASSIC COUNTRY PLAYLIST

Check it out on YouTube or Spotify.

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