Racist policing in McKinney, TX, like the history of black kids trying to use swimming pools isn’t already fraught with white people losing their shit.
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It seems to me that at least once a week I send myself an email with the name of a POC who has met a tragic and untimely death at the hands of law enforcement, so when I wake up I can include them in the link roundup, and today that kid was Kalief Browder. What a horrible, horrible thing. If you don’t want to read about the final days of his life, I would recommend the New Yorker piece that first brought him to the public’s attention:
Browder’s family could not afford to hire an attorney, so the judge appointed a lawyer named Brendan O’Meara to represent him. Browder told O’Meara that he was innocent and assumed that his case would conclude quickly. Even the assistant district attorney handling the prosecution later acknowledged in court papers that it was a “relatively straightforward case.” There weren’t hours of wiretaps or piles of complicated evidence to sift through; there was just the memory of one alleged victim. But Browder had entered the legal system through the Bronx criminal courts, which are chronically overwhelmed. Last year, the Times, in an extended exposé, described them as “crippled” and among the most backlogged in the country. One reason is budgetary. There are not nearly enough judges and court staff to handle the workload; in 2010, Browder’s case was one of five thousand six hundred and ninety-five felonies that the Bronx District Attorney’s office prosecuted. The problem is compounded by defense attorneys who drag out cases to improve their odds of winning, judges who permit endless adjournments, prosecutors who are perpetually unprepared. Although the Sixth Amendment guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial,” in the Bronx the concept of speedy justice barely exists.
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Did you see Elinor Burkett’s bad op-ed in the NY Times? It’s pretty standard issue about she feels bad for trans women but they can never understand being real women, etcccccc. INCLUDING (this killed me) that trans women can never truly GET what it’s like to be afraid you’ll be too weak to fight off rape, like trans women are somehow not at an INCREDIBLY high risk of sexual/physical assault in their daily lives! It was no good. It’s also the sort of thing designed to appeal to a certain group of feminists who want to feel like Realer women than Fake women, and does nothing other than alienate and denigrate trans people.
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this is where you can talk about the Tonys
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ugh i want a gushy read about Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge but i hate that i want it, you know? Also, DEEP SPRINGS is in this piece.
Yet, in the space of two and a half years, the glitter has dulled. The Daily Beast in one article called Hughes and Eldridge “America’s Worst Gay Power Couple.” In another, focusing on Hughes’s recent actions at The New Republic, where he had abruptly replaced the editor, Franklin Foer, and thereby caused most of the top writers and editors to leave, the Daily Beast Photoshopped a picture of Hughes’s face onto the body of Prince Joffrey from Game of Thrones—immature, incompetent, deadly, and a king too young. For his part, Eldridge had run for Congress in upstate New York, losing badly and, in the process, acquiring a reputation as a carpetbagger. Hughes and Eldridge had been lucky beyond any reasonable expectation, and had worked very hard. They had seemed destined to become one of those Washington couples whose dinner table drew a diverse array of the best and the brightest (not that they voiced such an ambition). But inexperience and a high profile are a chancy mix, and the two young men were now widely viewed as entitled brats.
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I know you’re all bored about soccer by now, but this puffy heroic movie they made about Sepp Blatter sounds HILARIOUS:
Mr. Auburtin said he would have preferred to delve deeper into the FIFA darkness. “But I accept the job,” he said. “I know FIFA is producing the film. As we say in France, don’t be more royalist than the king: Don’t be the king if you are not the king.”
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ORALLLL HISTORYYY OF CLUUUUEEELESS
AMY: While we were in production and editing I had to do the voiceover, before Alicia filled in, There are some very wacky versions where there’s this pretty young blonde girl with this depressed Jewish woman in her head. So that’s kinda weird.
TWINK (as reported by Entertainment Weekly in 1996): There was a line, said by Cher, who refers to a faded romance as “Gone. Completely gone. Like a Chevy Chase film after one weekend. ”Sherry said: ‘Oh, Amy, he’s a good guy. Please don’t use that’. It was removed.
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I DO want to know what it felt like to catch a fish this size:
As far as what it feels like to fight it: I’d say take your biggest fishing pole and put a 20-pound test line on it, tighten it down as far as you can, then hook it to the biggest dog you can find and throw a ball.
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Piers Morgan writes that I didn’t recognise him in a restaurant in New York.I did.I just didn’t want to speak to someone I truly detest
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 5, 2015
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My toddler is obsessed with “City of New Orleans,” bc great taste:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
FUUUUUUNNNN HOOOOOMMMMME! I will never, ever be tired of “Ring of Keys,” and the fact that they hurried Alison Bechdel off the stage for that Jersey Boys thing was a damn crime. (Also Sydney Lucas should have won best supporting actress.)
I saw The King and I last week and Ruthie Ann Miles definitely deserved some recognition (not to the extent that Kelli fuckin’ O’Hara did, but still, she was fantastic). But after “Ring of Keys,” I wanted Sydney Lucas to get everything she’s ever wanted in the world.
I really need to start testing out that mobile lottery system for rush tickets. Can’t believe I’ve missed Fun Home at this point, especially since my love for the book is enormous.
I basically started sobbing from the first note in ‘Ring of Keys’ and didn’t stop until the end, because my god, that song. Ugh, it’s going to be so hard to get tickets now, but I’m gonna have to try.
I’m weirdly glad Sydney Lucas didn’t win (although I agree, she’s amazing), if only because I always feel kind of ooky about kids winning big-name awards like that at such young ages. But now she is a TONY NOMINEE forever (or at least until she does win), so yay!
Dear Universe, please give me someone to sing Ring of Keys to. kthnxbye.
Definitely disappointing that the Fun Home actresses all split the vote, but everyone in that category was super deserving. They really just should have had Sydney Lucas sing “Ring of Keys” five more times instead of shoehorning in that godawful Finding Neverland number.
Whyyy did they cut so quickly from Ring of Keys to showing Kristin Chenoweth in that stupid ET costume, I WAS STILL DEVASTATED.
Sydney Lucas was so amazing. Also, I was watching the Tonys with two people who knew nothing about Fun Home and it landed for them, which is really the mark of a great performance.
Somebody should always be on hand to gently serenade Alison Bechdel with that song, because the just-right clothes she was wearing were on fucking point.
Oh man I have read Fun Home but I did not know until this very morning that this was a musical and now I’ve watched Ring of Keys from the show and holy shit it’s amazing.
FUN HOME. FUNNNNNN HOOMMMMMMEEE. So glad it won. Even if I didn’t personally love it WHICH I DO, it was by far the only musical nominated that was at all relevant.
Has anyone been watching Sense8?!!!
I’m about 1/2 way through and I can’t wait to gush! Just so much yaass and squee. I love it, although I am slightly freaked out by Martha with the WRONG accent.
OH YES.
I watched the WHOOOOLE thing. It’s pretty damn great.
I’ve been waiting to see what Toasties thought of it before I binge-watched, so I will get on watching it ASAP!
No spoilers, obviously, but is it as gloriously weird as Jupiter Ascending? Any half-dog men with wings? Sean Bean with bee friends?
No, it’s definitely not weird like JA, but nothing ever could be. But there’s definitely that Wachowski touch to it- if you thought to yourself “would I do X if my mind was connected to 7 other people?”, it probably happens in the show.
Overall, it’s great and I would highly recommend it, even if it doesn’t really pick up until episode 3/4. There’s a LOT of set-up and expository monologue to get through in those first two episode. It does have minor George Lucas syndrome (the dialogue would be fine on paper but sounds super awkward in person) but the action is across the board awesome.
Also, I was kind of impressed that there’d be a shot with a glistening strap-on right there in the foreground of the first episode. I kept thinking to myself, “Well, maybe that’s a little much?” but then I would think, “You know what? No, there’s no point in being prudish about how people are in life. Maybe there’s something wrong with ME that I keep having anxiety about not-PG-13 sex business on my TV shows.”
(It’s weird that that might even cound as non-PG-13 now that I think about it.)
There were definitely quite a few shots in the show (including that one) where I was like “Okay, so that just happened on screen.” But I guess it’s because I’m American and I didn’t really watch HBO until recently so I’m not used to more explicit sex scenes in my shows?
Yeah, and I mean, I too am an American who usually only watches network TV, but I think a lot of this is me unwinding my expectations about it, rather than a criticism of the show; I was surprised by it, but the more i think about it, the more I think I’d rather watch a TV show that normalizes a relationship between a queer person of color and a trans woman where they use a strap-on for sex than I’d like to be able to avoid that kind of instinctive standoffishness.
I think its great that they’re pushing peoples buttons. When she pulled off the strap on I literally though ‘That thing would be dripping.’ and OH YES IT WAS.
Also the orgy. CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT THE ORGY. Straight cut police boy having super gay thoughts/experience, yes please more of this.
THAT ORGY. I mean, of COURSE if there’s 8 of you psychically linked, there’s gonna be an orgy. In no universe would that not happen. Just wait until Will and Lito meet. It comes up.
I heard that Lana had mentioned in interviews that she thought all the characters were pansexual? I haven’t searched out that many pieces on the show yet because I didn’t want to get spoiled, but I will soon.
There were a few key people missing in that orgy but still, its like the first thing you’d do.
I’d believe that they’re pan-sexual NOW, but cop boy definitely wasn’t before. That’s my head canon and I’m sticking to it. His little shout at the end <3
I’m also really happy that although its a good gender balance, they’re not all automatically couples. I think if it was anyone else doing this, there would be an automatic desire to pair them all off, but some of them already have solid relationships and its not being set up that they’re going to leave their partner for one of the other (also because gayness). Although Kala/Wolfgang, I love it, she’s so innocent and he’s so sexual, it just WORKS.
Oh my god, I was dying of laughter when Lito and Will met again. “It was very special” indeed! Lito in general is a delight, hilarious and endearing without ever being the comedic relief in a butt of the joke kind of way.
I totally get that! There was a few times where the dialogue felt like a mouthful for the actors and a bit unnatural. Like the scene with Nomi and Freema’s character on the bench and she’s talking about why she fell in love with her or something, its like a 5 minute dialogue that is basically ‘I like kissing you’
Yeah, it’s mostly in the love dialogue that the awkwardness comes out (making the George Lucas syndrome diagnosis even more fitting). SHOW DON’T TELL, GUYS.
Caveat: only on episode 8 now. My spouse and I decided that once you get past the part where the characters are just not going to talk like human beings all the time, it’s really compelling! I thought that would be too high a barrier but I’m interested enough in the development of the characters as well as the larger story arc that I can MOSTLY deal with the characters-as-exposition-vehicles. Also yes to all of what you’re saying. Other points: the Wachowskis love raves forever and ever and ever amen, their music selections are little absurdly on the nose sometimes, and I love Naveen Andrews enough to battle the the faint echoes of Lost whispering “this may not actually end up anywhere at all.”
Clunky dialogue is such a Wachowski/Straczynski-ism that I expected it, but OI it got near-offensive levels when it came to Sun or Capheus’s story, Sun in particular to me since I’m Korean. Her dialogue scenes in Korea were as clunky and stereotypical as shitty 70s English dubs of HK action films, all stoic intoning about “my daughter” and so on. UGH.
I understand WHAT they were going for, especially in making everyone speak English for the audience, but my god if you’re going to do that at least polish their dialogue enough so it’s natural and not as if the only PoC you know are the ones you saw in films. The point later on in the series with the sensates going ??? in their own languages to each other will still work.
Personally I wouldn’t have minded if they had all spoken their own languages when they weren’t interacting with other sensates. Subtitles are not the worst thing in the world, especially when we have three characters (who tend to get the most time) based in English speaking countries primarily. But I suppose they were working towards an US audience, so it makes sense that they’d anglicize as much as possible. (Although the people you’d probably loose because of subtitles/foreign language, you’d have lost already with the gay/trans/strap-on business probably)
Recently there has been a Hollywood swing towards appealing to foreign markets (including Asian locations/characters etc), and the likes of Snowpeicer was a great example of balancing US and Asian actors and language. It feels like this is what they were going for but backpedaled at the last minute and said ‘Fuck it they all speak English.’
I was on ep 8 last night and I am getting a bit tired of the Africa= gangs and drugs story line, like seriously, I’m 100% sure that there are other things going on in Kenya. I liked it at the beginning because it was about a young guy just trying to make a living, and showing a pretty normal job etc. But of course it descends into ‘He must become a criminal to save his mother’ uugggghh.
On Friday at about 6 p.m. I thought, “Hey, how about I watch the first episode?”
On Saturday at 6 a.m. I had watched the whole thing straight through LIKE A BIG DUMB IDIOT.
The whole time, my brain kept trying to stage an intervention, like Um, OK, but having the white Chicago cop as the *savior* figure–SHUT UP SHUT UP I’M WATCHING THIS. OK, but don’t you think that Freema’s emotive and wonderful acting makes the actress who plays Nomi look a LITTLE stilted and–SHUT UP, THEY ARE IN LOVE.
I ship Kala/Wolfgang because I ship Rajan/Myself. I am going to marry him. They’d better not turn him into a villain in Season 2.
I’m really enjoying that every culture is being given equal weight and importance, and stuff like Nomi being Trans being NBD (I mean yeah it has an affect on her character/story, but its not her main story or character arc), I wonder how much of that part of the story is coming from Lana Wachowski’s persona experience?
I love Kala, she’s amazing! Although Riley is getting a bit manic pixie dream girl, shes just soooo *mysterious*. I am totally in love with the mexican actor, and his weird little fangirl/slasher.
It did take me awhile to figure out that they are all supposedly talking in their native languages; At first I was like WTF why are they all speaking English? And then suddenly not speaking english, but only when they talk to another sensate?
The Lito/Hernando/Daniela relationship is SO important to me. I LOVE THEM. BRING EACH OTHER BRUNCH IN BED AND LIVE TOGETHER FOREVER.
And the languages thing was a bit odd, the way it would switch back and forth, though it made total sense for Capheus in Kenya to speak both Swahili and English. Actually, the foreign countries they chose (Germany, South Korea, Mexico, Kenya) do all have a decent number of English-speakers.
Also, no one has yet discussed Sun, which is a TRAVESTY, so I will start: DOONA BAE IS AMAZING AND THE PRISON LADIES ARE AMAZING, AND I LOVE HOW MUCH ASS SHE KICKS.
Yeah it made sense at first that they were all speaking English, but then I was wondering why an Indian family would all be speaking English at home. And then there was that scene where they’re all singing and Kala is singing in her room and her sister comes in and goes (in English) ‘Why were you singing in English?’ I got it then!
I only just watched the ep where she goes to prision, but sweet jebus she is awesome. When she goes to the sex club to get her brother!! #bossbitch
Sun in prison is the thing I dreaded when I realized what was happening but MY GOD DID IT WORK. The ladies in that prison are amazing and Sun is the best and I LOVE THAT SHE’S THE BIGGEST BADASS ON THE SHOW AHHHH.
Ok, this is super late but I couldn’t read this thread on earlier since I had not yet watched the show. I wasn’t planning on responding until I read what you wrote about Rajan, and I have to tell you that you have competition. It’s me, I am going to marry Rajan.
HANDBAGS AT DAWN!!!!!
(Nah, we can share fictional husbands. I mean, I’m pretty busy, and husbands are a lot of upkeep, I hear.)
Ooh, I totally forgot about this. Perfect timing as a lot of the shows I watch have ended now!
I finished the whole thing yesterday and I LOVED IT. It’s like it was perfectly tailored to me, so like, I didn’t CARE that it moved really slowly at first or that the dialogue was frequently kind of stilted or that some stuff was totally never explained (Lito??? why are you so cool with randomly starting to hear voices/see other people????). I DON’T CARE. IT WAS AMAZING. THESE EIGHT EXTREMELY ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE ARE PSYCHICALLY BONDED TO EACH OTHER AND EVERYTHING IS AMAZING.
I ended up really loving how many tones/genres the show could cover with all its different characters. Getting kind of bored of Wolfgang’s mob deal? No problem, let’s head over to Lito and his adorable boyfriend and girlfriend! Losing patience with Riley’s super traumatic trauma? Time to visit with Nomi and Amanita!
SPOILER SPACE OBV!!
I marathoned it and really enjoyed Sun & Capheus in particular (to me they’re 2 sides of the same “shonen hero” coin lmao), and Lito (with Hernando and Daniela) is a treasure ahh <33. I love the scenes where they share positive emotions or just hang out with each other, especially how joyously Capheus responds to new places or how he and Riley love to ask questions and show people things about where they live and what they like. It’s very sincere and lovely.
But I had … a lot of problems with it at the same time. I really DESPISED the tone-deaf “white saviour cop” with Will’s introduction, especially with the police state as it is. I sympathised with Riley but did not really care about her story, and I disliked how it still ended up being Fragile White Woman Saved By Hero White Guy at the end. With the threat of Whispers being what it is (and they did a great job showing how SCARY and sinister he is just with the breadth of his powers once eye contact is made), the whole “no one’s gonna die i’m gonna live” with the entirety of the last episode/s being Will/Riley focused my basic response was just “ugh white folks doing shit again”. Narratively I understand WHY you’d like the parity of a full group of 8 sensates (contrasting with the previous cluster being ripped apart), but i was so sick of them at the end, even with the amazing “infiltration” scene where everyone would swap places with Will to help him out in different ways (or in general, i love it each time one of them goes “lemme do that for you” for a fellow sensate).
Granted I know I shouldn’t come to a Wachowski project expecting race nuance (especially knowing how anti-black/racist Lana Wachowski is), but it was a clunker. I wanted to go back to Capheus watching movies with Kala or everyone having a great time watching fireworks. :/
I agree with you about Will/Riley and the tone deafness of Will as a white savior cop. I mean, on the one hand, it’s nice to see a cop who’s unabashedly, wholeheartedly all about “serve and protect,” but his storyline really needed more nuance than that, maybe especially given the current climate of discussion around police. Also while I thought the actors had a lovely, sweet chemistry with a genuine connection, Will/Riley was pretty boring. And Riley got shafted storywise, having been so frequently slotted into the damsel in distress role. All the others sensates contributed skills and stuff! Poor Riley was dealing with her trauma, which was sad and all, but made her feel comparatively inert as a character.
I was speaking to a friend about how you could still have a “german shepherd-as-a-person cop who wants to help and save everyone” character by literally swapping the actors for Will and his cop partner. A Latin cop having a complex relationship between the force and the people makes MUCH more sense, ditto the immediate suspicion he would get for assisting a young kid. The scene where a BLACK nurse goes off on Will about saving a kid gangster who may “later kill someone else” ugh ugh the whiteness the BLINDING WHITE OBLIVIOUSNESS OF THIS WRITING.
All Riley was made to do was Suffer Tragically, she didn’t have enough scenes with the other Sensates beyond Will to balance it out. I understand her parallel to Angelica (“mother” of the new cluster vs literal mother to a dead child; the suicide attempt), and ditto Will’s parallel (I assume) with Jonas, but … I just didn’t care. Somehow these two became more boring together than all of Wolfgang’s sullen Grim Troubled Blonde Videogame Protagonist plotline.
That Burkett article was total garbage, but it did afford me the chance to have a very meaningful (and pretty emotional) conversation with Mr. BHam about transphobia, TERFs, and feminism, so that was the slight silver lining to such a poop cloud.
Kalief Browder’s case broke my heart, which is broken by stories like this too regularly.
Took the words right out of my mouth. I remember reading about his case last year and being so happy that he was eventually released, but my heart snapped clear in half this morning.
Things like this make a mockery of ‘justice’…he never should have been in Rikers in the first place. For that matter, from what I hear of Rikers, it should be bulldozed.
FUN HOME!!!!! AND ALSO KELLI O’HARA. KELLI O’HARA FINALLY GOT HER GODDAMN TONY AND EVERYONE STOOD FOR HER AND SHE DANCED OFF STAGE.
Also:
1. I freaking finally saw Mad Max and cue obligatory “it was everything i was promised and more” response
2. I watched alllll of Sense8 this weekend and i did not ask for these feelings where did they come from and when are we getting season two
I’m here to talk you through the Mad Max high if you want. Ten days later and I still haven’t come down.
CAN I JOIN because I’ve seen it twice now and my goal is to go two more times before it leaves theaters (which seems to be this week?!?!?). I just (like, 3 minutes ago) bought a Doof World Tour tshirt and I’m going to wear it everywhere while I stomp on the patriarchy.
Have you seen the insane Etsy merch tho? https://www.etsy.com/search?q=mad%20max%20fury%20…
Welp time to buy all the things.
I’m seriously trying to figure out how to make a Doof Warrior Truck cake for someone’s birthday.
OH NO it’s leaving this week??? (went for the third time this weekend)
We literally left the theater and were like “FUCK IT’S MIDNIGHT WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO NOW, WE CAN’T GO TO BED AND WE PROBABLY SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO DRIVE HOME.” Like, HOLY SHIT that was a movie.
I’ll just be going about my normal day and suddenly it’s like I’M GONNA DIE HISTORIC ON THE FURY ROAD
RIDE ETERNAL, SHINY AND CHROME!!!!!!
(yes, I did see it for the third time yesterday, why do you ask)
My cat is very confused about why my boyfriend and I keep yelling “WARBOYS!!!!” at her.
I’ve been chanting FURIOSA FURIOSA and it pumps me the hell up.
“WE PROBABLY SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO DRIVE HOME.”
This is so true. I was a maniac on the 3 mile drive home.
I’M GOING TO MMFR FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK
WITNESS ME
I wish the locution “real woman” had never entered the lexicon of the world. Kind of like that “real man” business. The only purpose it serves is to divide people under the guise of “empowerment” and alienate those who feel, for whatever reason, that they can’t lay claim to that title. If you want to do something that will make you tear your hair out, Google image search “real women” or “real women quotes” and prepare to cry, a lot. “A real woman never lets her man leave the house hungry or horny.” “Real men like curves, only dogs go for bones.” THIS IS ALL SO, SO, SO AWFUL, WHY DO PEOPLE BUY INTO THIS? Because it serves some need, of course, for people who think that by declaring themselves “real” men or women that they are somehow more authentic. The only way you can discuss “not-real people” is if we are discussing fictional or imaginary people, in which case yes–I will be happy to discuss how Anne Shirley is not a “real woman” and Gilbert Blythe “not a real man.”
(Also, hey Toast! I have taken the day off work because I loathe my job, so I’m eating Kraft Dinner for breakfast and laying around and doing chores and stuff and going to a therapy appointment later like a sensible adult! I wish I was independently wealthy and could do this every day!)
This is where I insert the deeply necessary Orson Welles clapping GIF. The gender-policing inherent is the terminology of “real man”/”real woman” needs to be blown to the moon.
I want to burn the phrase “real women” with fire. FIRE. At least I was able to talk my husband out of using it. He was trying to compliment me, I know, and reassure me that he thought I was beautiful and wonderful fat and all, but I just really hate that rhetoric. Eventually he was able to see the difference between having a preference and telling me he likes my curves, and saying that this is how all women should be.
I think there’s something nastier to it, too, especially when the construction is “Real women/men [are this thing that I am too].” The unsaid second part of that statement tends to be, in my experience, “unlike all those other people who have [the thing that’s the opposite] who I hate because Reasons.”
Qualifications for Being a Real Woman:
1) Identify as a woman.
Seriously, though.
I hope Kalief finds peace in the next life.
Agreed times a billion.
Did anyone see Spy this weekend? I saw it on Friday night and loved it so much that when friends canceled the plans we had Saturday night, we went back and saw it again! Fantastic.
I did not see it, but I am excited by your review!
It was so good! I was expecting fun, but it was so much better than I thought it would be.
Yes, pure delight! And some gross-outs but mostly delight!
I thought it looked good! I’m glad to hear that it was, and now I am excited to see it.
Saw it and LOVED it, as did my mom. Jason Statham’s character was perfection.
Clueless! Generation-gap moment! I saw the movie when it came out in theaters, and people laughed whenever Cher chatted to her friends on her cell phone. Cell phones were still new when that movie came out, and the people who did have them had them in case of emergencies. So the fact that Cher wandered around using it to casually talk to her friends was funny: it Just Wasn’t Done back then. Future generations will have no idea that that was intended as part of the comedy (and character-defining moments) of the movie.
Yay Clueless! I missed it in theaters and saw it on video a bit later. Friends had told me it was a modern-day Emma and I didn’t believe them, because teen movies up to that point just didn’t work like that. And then it *was* Emma and it was wonderful and I’ve watched it with my middle school-aged daughter and I watch it every time it comes on TV when I’m traveling.
Oh, and I still have a big crush on Paul Rudd because of that movie. Dreamy.
This kind of goes in hand with the Zoolander tiny cell phone joke, now that the trend is to go in the opposite direction.
That tiny cell phone will never not be funny.
I watched Face/Off for the first time this weekend and I’m a different person now.
You should go listen to the “How Did This Get Made” episode on it. It’s spectacular.
Face waterfall!
THAT WAS WHY I WATCHED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE
I couldn’t not watch something Mantzoukas loved that much.
OH GOOD. None of my friends watch it, so I don’t usually have anyone to talk about it with, but sometimes you just need to yell “FACE WATERFALL” at someone and have them understand.
90% of my “movies to watch” list comes from HDTGM. Sooooo excited for the Jupiter Ascending episode this week.
I am here to talk about how great Face/Off is
You have to love Travolta doing a killer Cage impression and Cage just going out of his mind doing whatever he wants once the face swap happens.
It is an awesome movie.
Honestly, once it gets into Cage-doing-Travolta and vice versa–not to mention Cage→Travolta→Cage and Travolta→Cage→Travolta, they could be reading the phone book or Lorem Ipsum boilerplate and it would still be great. Plus, of course, Margaret Cho, FBI agent.
Travolta tries so hard to be Cage! It’s incredible!
I love that my first comment at the Toast is going to be about Face/Off.
This movie is classic! This movie is legend! This movie surprisingly got really good reviews when it first came out!
It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, yet also my all time favorite movie? There is no understanding Face/Off, you just have to live in awe of it.
The unfairness of what happened to Kalief Browder is absolutely stunning. Another bright shining life gone, wiped out by the grinding indifference of the system and those who run it–far slower but just as deadly as a bullet from a cop’s gun.
How many more like him are there? How many more will there be before we can make it stop?
I put this on Twitter: this appears to be the same Elinor Burkett who wrote the anti-trans piece, so consider the source. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/73…
I’M NOT BORED ABOUT SOCCER! THE FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP CANADA 2015 JUST STARTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i am tits deep in my feminist feels about this. anyone?
Well now I am deep in my feminist anger about this because it started on Saturday and I didn’t realize! Because of course it doesn’t get nearly the attention/fawning coverage that the men’s cup does! Ugh.
There are matches (only 7, but still) that are ONLY being broadcast on FoxSports 2, a channel that COMCAST LITERALLY DOES NOT CARRY. I had to find a shitty illegal stream for the NZL vs NED match. (There are two legal-if-you-have-cable feeds of video w/o commentary on FoxSportsGo, but one is “tactical” (static camera behind one goal line) and the other is a moving overhead with no zoom.)
(Otherwise it’s actually unusually accessible, as some matches are also being broadcast on regular Fox. But finding that info until, like, the day before the first kickoff was a pain and a half. And I’m actually going to be physically present for three matches!)
(OH MY GOD I AM SO STOKED I MEAN FIFA IS EVIL AND ALL BUT I AM GOING TO CANADA TO WATCH TWO MATCHES ON MY BIRTHDAY AND THEN WE HAVE TICKETS FOR THE FINAL (AND AS A BONUS WE ARE STAYING IN VANCOUVER A COUPLE OF EXTRA DAYS) BECAUSE MY FIANCE IS THE GREATEST AND IS WILLING TRAVEL TO LISTEN TO ME RAMBLE ON ABOUT SPORTS WHEN HE COULD DO IT JUST AS WELL AT HOME. HE ALSO LIKES SOCCER AND ALL BUT UNLIKE ME HE DID NOT PLAY FOR A DECADE AND WAS NOT A REFEREE AS A TEENAGER.)
I love this comment. (I mean, not the part about the TV broadcasts, because fuck that, but your enthusiasm!) Have a great time!!!
oh oh oh do you have access to NBC Live Extra through your TV provider? They appear to have the Spanish broadcast rights, so you can stream all the games with REGULAR NORMAL CAMERAS, as long as you don’t mind the commentary being in Spanish.
Ooh ooh we might! Spanish doesn’t bother me at all, I even understand it a little (though not usually at that speed). It’s only a few matches and at least one also overlaps with a match I want to watch more, but still. I didn’t have this kind of trouble last year, other than trying to find a spot with enough signal to watch the men’s final on a phone during my fiancé’s cousin’s wedding. (Before you call me a terrible person, I was not even *close* to the only person, I barely know her, and the wedding was in France because my fiancé and his cousin are *French* and she and her husband should have known.)
No judgement, who schedules a wedding during a World Cup FINAL??
YES. Did you notice that during the walk into the stadium, the lil soccer players who hold the hands of the big soccer players were all girls? (During international men’s games, it’s both boys and girls). On the one hand, GIRLS RULE. On the other, I feel like lil boys should have been there holding the hands of the female athletes, too. Kind of perpetuates the idea that men’s sports are for everyone whereas women’s sports are just for women.
Yes, totally. I mean, unless a male athlete gets to an incredibly high level, there is always a woman out there who is better than him. Especially when we are talking about kids.
I train teen boys in weightlifting and I think it’s important for them to see me be stronger than them (like when they drop their squat weight so I clean it up to the rack for them easily)
I’m so irritated by dudes who look at the scorelines of the first few games and immediately conclude that there should either 1) not be a Women’s World Cup, or 2) that if it MUST exist, it should be like 8 teams, max. No and no. Y’all upset about blowout scorelines? First of all, welcome to soccer, where goal difference is often a tiebreaker and you see men’s teams post scorelines like this in tournament qualifying all the time. Second, you know how teams get better? PLAYING BETTER TEAMS. Third, if you’re mad at anyone, it should be the federations that have amazing men’s teams but don’t bother to give half a percent of that time and money and attention to the women. Like, not naming names, but Spain and the Ivory Coast.
I know! Want “better football”? FUND THE TEAMS.
Ughhhh nothing like a worldwide women’s sporting event to unmask the secret garbage men in your life, right?
I play pickup soccer a few times a week with a generally super wonderful group of dudes from all over the world, and I was worried they would be shitheads about the World Cup because Men Are Terrible etc, but they’ve been so good! A bunch of them said they would come out with me to watch the US play tonight and no one has said anything obnoxious about women’s sports and I know it’s SUCH a low bar but I’m really proud of them for being so supportive (or at least respecting me enough to keep their real feelings to themselves, hah).
Luckily, these are not men actually in my life, but you know how things diffuse through social media. Even if you’re RTing someone to mock their garbage opinion, I still have to see their garbage opinion, you know? The Soccer Dudes I am friends with have been pretty uniformly excellent. Which is why they have been spared.
See: Me, arguing about women’s hockey EVERY DAMN SEASON
I actually compiled some stats on the first 20+ years of men’s international hockey competitions, where Canada and the US repeatedly trounced other countries in games – I don’t mean like 5-1, I mean like 30-0.
Can we talk about the turf? THE TURF?!!! Can we talk about the pink speech bubbles the BBC are using for graphics in the highlights which are also incidentally called “Oh My Goals!”? These women are ELITE ATHLETES AND YOU SHOULD TREAT THEM AS SUCH GAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
But I still get super pumped every time I watch it, and while my allegiance lies with the good ol’ USA, I have to admit loving how incredibly ruthless Germany are. Still high-fiving each other after the tenth goal. Get it.
Oh god the turf. I have some firsthand experience with how goddamn terrible turf is (not embedding because it’s gross): http://imgur.com/0U88uvQ
Aside from the injury concerns, it also changes the game! The ball moves in totally different ways, and it also gets SO hot — like 130 degrees hot. It’s really unconscionable. I know FIFA has a lot to be ashamed of these days, but this is really up there.
THE TURF IS SO HORRIBLE. It’s HOT and it HURTS and WHY WOULD YOU EVER. My fiancé said he read that it was actually a Canadian thing, because they don’t want to have to deal with grass in stadiums during the winter, but I call bullshit because there are grass fields in stadiums in the U.S. where they have shitty snowy winters, and does Vancouver actually get months and months of snow cover?
also the stadium in Moncton had grass, which had to then be covered up with turf so that it matched all the others!!! nothing about it makes sense
Also there have been men’s friendlies and exhibition games in recent years where they put grass down on top of turf stadiums in Canada so SHUT UP FIFA NO ONE IS FOOLED BY YOUR VERY OBVIOUS SEXISM
They put turf down for friendlies! FRIENDLIES! And, I mean, for the Canadian men’s team? Really? (Sorry, Canada.)
I’m here with you, even though I’m a newish soccer fan!
YESSSSSS yes yes yes I will talk about this literally forever let’s go
BTW, did you see this article in the Atlantic feminism and women’s sports? http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/…
Not gonna lie, as a feminist who likes sports but mostly spends her time watching men play, I could do a lot more to support women’s sports.
WORLD CUP WORLD CUP WORLD CUP
But yeah, speaking of secret garbage men, one of the more social-event-organise-y ones in my circle tried to invite me to a pickup soccer match this evening.
YO, dude. W O R L D C U P.
NEVER BORED ABOUT SOCCER, SUPER HYPED FOR THE CUP!!
i don’t care if my provider won’t carry a match or the managers of the local sports establishments won’t get their heads out of their asses long enough to switch channels, my one skill is being able to hunt down semi-decent feeds for matches and get so involved in watching i inevitably yell something obscene and scare the cat.
A guy I was on the speech team with in high school went to Deep Springs. It was both weirdly surprising, and not surprising at all. I think he’s now travelling the world learning local folkways related to breadmaking or something, so…that’s a thing.
More sad news today – one of the Siegel daughters (of the Queen of Versailles family) has died. She was only 18! Between that and Kalief and anti-trans things and ugh. A bad Monday morning indeed.
That is a bummer. I really felt for those kids.
So my mom linked to that bad Burkett op-ed on Facebook with much approval. I’d like to send her a message pushing back (without falling too far into mansplaining), but would appreciate a good resource addressing a point my mom made, essentially that trans issues (actually, she said “LGBT issues”) will become moot when feminism achieves its goals, because there will be no gender boundaries to transgress. I think I’d essentially like to say that this is pretty cold comfort for trans people in the here and now, and also that asking trans people to accept a supporting role in the (cis) feminist fight is insulting and ignores the dangers and problems they face that cis people don’t. But I’d appreciate a resource from someone who has spent more time thinking through the issues.
I can’t think of a specific article at the moment because Monday, but check out the Crunk Feminist Collective. They’ve written/linked to some really thoughtful pieces about the realities of trans life with a focus on people of color. The linked articles are on their Facebook page which I recommend following 110%.
All of their regular writers are wonderful although Brittney Cooper (aka Crunktastic) is one of my personal heroes and I wish I were half the writer she is.
I’ll have a look around their site. Thanks very much!
The thing is, I kind of get the initial cringe Burkett talks about. I mean, femininity is not something that’s ever come easily to me, it’s something that for me is really 95% a learned behavior, and I tend towards the idea that the differences between the genders are minimal. There’s a lot of resistance to that idea in society, and the existence of trans people does to a certain extent make a point in the opposite direction. So seeing those remarks goes counter to my personal experiences.
But I then part ways with her IMMEDIATELY, because just like I have my person experience, I think it’s generally a good idea to trust people when they talk about their experiences and feelings and truth. So when someone tells me they’re a woman? I believe them! And I don’t believe they’re somehow less qualified to be seen as “real” women – in fact, you could make the argument that the existence of trans people suggests gender may be a spectrum, and I may just be more towards the middle of that spectrum than most people – making trans women more qualified to be called “real women” than me even, perhaps.
It just boggles the mind that people are so eager to deny people who take such a difficult road, who face so much discrimination, who – in the case of trans women – willingly give up their male privilege, are somehow just mistaken or deluded or in some kind of complot to undermine feminism.
Side note: I’ve been watching Sense8 this weekend, and one thing that show really makes you feel is how violent a gesture it is to deny someone their self-identification. The mother of Nomi keeps calling her “him” and “Michael” and it’s so unambiguously an evil thing to do.
So yeah. Get the initial feeling Burkett has. Do NOT get where she gets the gall to write the rest of the piece.
I thought this one in the Huffington Post was excellent: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-beyer/what-mak…
Thank you for this piece! This is great.
Thanks! Great piece, and I did pass it on.
Since I know that links can sometime get lost in the filters, I just replied with a Huffington Post article that was written by Dana Beyer, executive director of Gender Rights Maryland. Sorry for the double post, mods!
The only part of the article where I agreed with Burkett is the part where she factually states that trans women will never experience the horror of starting one’s period unexpectedly on public transit. All the rest of it is utter garbage and it made me so angry.
I mean, I have never had the exact problem of unexpectedly starting my period while on the subway (mostly because I am an obsessive period-charter and start wearing liners ~3 days before I’m due to start, and also partially because I have only lived in an area with a subway for 5 years, or ~*~60 moons~*~) … does that mean that I am less of a Woman than Burkett? Does femininity necessarily require specific shared circumstances in order to be Real Womanhood?
“Their truth is not my truth. Their female identities are not my female identity.”
Ugh. Burn it all to the ground.
Sorry for the late reply, but I just read this and thought it was a very even-handed look at the matter: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a41641/…
Thank you! I agree, it was a really balanced look at the issues, calculated not to put up the hackles of someone who thought Burkett was onto something here. I passed it on.
I will talk about Clueless forever and ever. Even though it makes me feel so old. When it came out I was just at the age where my parents thought I was too young to go see it with my friends but it was okay if I went to see it with my dad. Luckily I was definitely too young to get the vast majority of the jokes but I’m sure my poor dad was mortified.
I was on a first date the other week and the dude had his legs crossed away from me. I was incredibly relieved when he switched them.
I just last night replied to a friend’s email with “That was way harsh, Tai” and he did not get it and I was sad. (Though I only saw Clueless for the first time like two years ago so I can’t judge.)
I actually watched it on Saturday! It was on TV randomly. Am I the only one who feels like its a serious feminist movie? It has a great message about how you can be girly and superficial, but still be a strong woman and a feminist
“You think that’s all I do? That I’m just a ditz with a credit card” , PREACH CHER
That was such a formative movie for me. My best friend and I were old enough at the time to get dropped off at the mall (which had a movie theater), so we saw it together. Thus began a great and storied history of loving female-led satire and witty comedy. A dude friend of mine had never seen it before, so a couple of years ago we took him to see it at a local theater. He fell in love, as is right and proper.
It’s still probably my favorite movie.
Oh, it was hugely formative for me too. My friends’ parents allowed them to go see it themselves and they talked about it continuously to the point where they started calling it “Teacups” because I was so mad that they kept talking about Clueless when I hadn’t seen it. The fact that I can still remember that 20 years later (gasp!) is how important Clueless was to me.
And it ages surprisingly well considering how many jokes were about slang, fashion, etc.
I watched it as part of a valentines day 90s teen rom-com marathon and I think the best part, in comparing it to others in the genre, was there was no prom. (Can you even picture Cher and Dionne at prom? As if!)
Clueless is the best movie of all time and I watch it at least once a year. So, so good. So good that I had the novelization of it (what?) and read it a billion times. I also watched the TV show, which was terrible.
Making my way through the oral history now and this line from Wallace Shawn is gold: “I actually had been a schoolteacher and so I knew some of that from the inside, and at that time, I was an acceptable person to be in a movie.”
There was an entire, amazing, series of books that my sister and I read to rags. At one point, Cher “borrows” a credit card and absconds to NYC, and buys her dad off on her return with a box of black and white cookies. Transformative.
In college I took a 500 level Jane Austen class and the professor was a very posh middle-aged British man who wore tweed suits every day and he LOVED Clueless. He would go on rants about how much he hates the Emma Thompson “Sense & Sensibility” and the Colin Firth “Pride & Prejudice” and insist that “Clueless” is the only good Jane Austen adaptation.
Friends, I will never stop thinking the name “Sepp Blatter” sounds like a terrible medical condition.
yeah, I’ve been calling him “Septic Bladder” in my head for years now… #sorrynotsorry, Sepp.
I mean, it basically is
I always think it’s weird when a rich guy has a stupid name, because of all the people who can easily reinvent themselves, surely it’s rich guys? But maybe it becomes a point of pride with them, like, “Look, suckers, I am SO RICH AND POWERFUL that I can have a name that begs for a course of antibiotics and not even care about.”
I mean also it probably doesn’t sound as bad in German?
But even if he went by his full name Joseph instead of Sepp, it wouldn’t be quite as evocative in English.
Oh, yeah, I guess he’s German, I guess I was thinking he was like one of these American guys with their Mitts and their Jebs and their Tags, &c.
He’s Swiss, but I think from the German-speaking part of the country.
Speaking of American names, Chuck Blazer has always struck me as the most stereotypically-American name you could possibly give someone who was our country’s highest representative in global soccer.
Like in any cartoon from another country, if they had an obnoxious american character, wouldn’t they name him “Chuck Blazer”?? It’s just too perfect.
Aw, yeah, Chuck Blazer, and he’d be have been a former champion soccer player and now he wears a suit and a baseball cap and always talks about himself in the third person, and takes every opportunity to go on about how awesome Chuck Blazer! is.
And he might turn out to be *behind* the Headless Houligan that’s haunting the new Manchester Football Stadium, but more likely he’d be a red herring that the gang figures out had some kind of second-rate plan to recapture the glory of his youth.
This comment is a shining ray of joy in my Monday.
It feels like a drag king name.
It reminds me of the Wayne’s World sketch where Wayne is talking about how “Brit Hume” is a great “James Bond” type name, whereas “Wolf Blitzer” is just trying too hard.
My mind goes to “blatte” which is the French word for “cockroach.” Appropriate!
My favourite tweet when the resignation was announced was “I guess FIFA finally took care of their . . . BLATTER PROBLEM.”
Obligatory “FUN HOME! FUN HOME! FUN HOME!”
I’m going to leave Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s FUN HOME Best Score Acceptance here, because they are the first all-female writing team to win and FUN HOME is beautiful and Jeanine’s jumpsuit is a thing of beauty! It is completely nuts that they don’t have Best Score on the Tony telecast to make space for pirates to give Matthew Morrison a bizarrely overwrought pep talk. http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/STAGE-TUBE-H…
Regarding that Finding Neverland number: I have often felt discouraged and confused while writing, and sometimes I have figured out a way to see or think about the problem that made me feel happy and encouraged instead, and that process has never looked or felt anything like a bunch of pirates swinging from ropes.
Thank you for the link, there was talking going on over the clip that made it on the air and I missed it!
Also, that McKinney incident is both true and bullshit for all of the regular reasons (Christ but it sucks that, “fascist racist cops” is a “regular reason”), but the most ludicrous part is the cop in the video doing an action movie barrel roll, with his gun out, in the middle of the sidewalk for no reason, like he’s Tom fucking Cruise. He looks like an actual Keystone Cop! You can actually hear him singing the Mission Impossible theme in his head when he does it.
Is it better or worse that the police state is run by actual buffoons?
I think he was just holding a baton, but all the same that roll was pointless. I hope that the right people are extremely troubled when they think about that for long enough.
Well, that’s less dangerous, but makes him look more like a Keystone Cop
Sherry said: ‘Oh, Amy, he’s a good guy.
Ha! This was my first thought as well!
Yes, he’s a good guy…IN OPPOSITE LAND.
No but seriously like half the “Live From New York…” oral history is about how Chevy Chase is a shitbird of epic proportions.
And even if he WAS a good guy (substantial evidence to the contrary), was she suggesting his precious ego can’t handle a mild joke about his movies? I mean, it’s not like it would actually affect how successful he is. Ugh, precious male ego and how it makes people think they must be sheltered at all costs.
Sherry was likely a huge fan of the first Fletch, Funny Farm, The Three Amigos and two of the Vacation movies.
Never meet/learn anything at all about your comedy idols.
Can’t be bored of/with soccer now! The Women’s World Cup just started this weekend!
I was confused and irritated by this CBC Sports article about the Germany/Ivory Coast FIFA World Cup match.
Goal differential does matter and it’s tough to fault them for playing hard against a much weaker opponent, but still, should Germany have let up?
Just, what? What kind of question is that? “Should this great team have deliberately played badly so that the weaker team they were pitted against wouldn’t feel too bad?” Is it poor sportsmanship to score goals in a sports competition where the entire point is to score goals? What was the German team supposed to do, stop after a predetermined “acceptable” number of goals and just sit down on the grass and wait for the time to run out? Should the goalie have left her post and let the other team score a few pity goals just so they’d be able to say they had?
You know if this were men’s soccer nobody would even THINK to say something like that.
this is actually untrue. A lot of people thought/said this after germany blew out Brazil last year in the men’s world cup and laughably mats hummels actually said that they had tried to slow down the scoring after the first half
In MLB, you’ll occasionally hear gripes (often coming from the losers) when teams do certain things (like stealing bases or bunting for a base hit) when they’re already far ahead. I think this idea of an informal mercy rule is somewhat widespread in professional sports, but is rarely honored in practice.
Right, it’s not like there aren’t always blowouts in the early stages of a tournament (Brazil – North Korea, 8-1, anyone? Or for that matter Germany – Brazil, 7 – 1? in the semifinals?!) I mean, I stopped watching the game at halftime because I felt so bad for the Ivory Coast team, but there isn’t a mercy rule in soccer.
I could maybe see the coach subbing out the most important players to give them a rest, and often when that happens the team loses its focus. I give more credit to Germany that they didn’t let the score affect them. I’m scared of that team.
Yeah, you know, I don’t seem to recall anyone saying Germany should have taken it easier on Brazil in the Men’s World Cup.
I always think this general category of criticism — “They played the game according to the rules, which was bad sportsmanship” — is super weird. Like, if you think there should be a mercy rule in international soccer, go argue with FIFA about it, don’t try to demand that individual teams come up with ad hoc mercy rules on their own.
I think that if I were a player on the losing team and I saw the opposing team was deliberately slowing down and not taking opportunities to score, it would just make me feel even worse. It feels very patronizing, like they’re thinking, “Poor things won’t be able to handle such a brutal loss! We need to tone it down and not play nearly as well as we have been so far, so that they won’t feel too bad at the end.”
This isn’t a friendly neighbourhood pick-up game for children where the important thing is that You Tried and Everyone’s A Winner! They’re adults playing at the highest level of international competition!
Yep, totally. In high school I played in a regional tournament after my club team won the state tournament in a very small, poor state where soccer isn’t strong at all. At regionals we played against the top teams from New Jersey and Virginia, which both regularly produce some of the best soccer players in the country. We were getting blown out 10-0 every game and eventually the teams would just stop trying to score and it was SO embarrassing. It makes you feel like you’re not even worth competing against. And that was just teenagers playing club soccer, not the highest possible level of professional sports!
lol “goal differential does matter”, yeah that’s because by “goal differential” we mean “winning the game.”
So happy about Fun Home! even though I haven’t seen it yet, haha. (and I’m even happier that I finally bought tickets yesterday morning!)
That John Cleese burn just made my week and it’s only Monday morning.
And he kept going for a bit! It was brilliant.
YESSSSSSS. This one was my fave… https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/60681957225…
I saw Mad Max: Fury Road Saturday night. I am CHANGED. I came out of the theater giddy. So did Mr. Wren. I told him it made me want to burn down the patriarchy. We then had a great discussion (that continued Sunday!) about burning down oppressive systems in general and what a fantastic movie it was. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Also, I don’t remember who posted it on Toastie Twitter, but whoever did, I had “It’s Furi-OH-sa, not Furio-SAAA” stuck in my head for most of yesterday, so thanks for that.
From that awful op-ed:
“Their female identities are not my female identity. They haven’t traveled through the world as women and been shaped by all that this entails. They haven’t suffered through business meetings with men talking to their breasts or woken up after sex terrified they’d forgotten to take their birth control pills the day before. They haven’t had to cope with the onset of their periods in the middle of a crowded subway, the humiliation of discovering that their male work partners’ checks were far larger than theirs, or the fear of being too weak to ward off rapists.”
Thank you Elinor for summarizing exactly what is wrong with this sort of clueless second-wave white feminism: the assumption that there is a universal female experience and a universal female struggle and that feminism should concern itself with fighting that struggle. There are leagues of cis women out there who have never been in a board meeting. There are leagues of cis women who have never worried about pregnancy because they’re not into people with penises, or because they’re unable or no longer able to conceive. There are leagues of cis women whose periods are so bad that they wouldn’t even think of using public transport when they’re having them. And THOSE WOMEN’S ISSUES ARE ALSO FEMINIST ISSUES. So to single out trans women as distinct sort of reveals your motives doesn’t it?
Yeah, even as a cis woman working in an office environment, I have experienced exactly one of those things. The feminist issues that personally affect my life are, bar one, a completely different list. Even the idea that the experience of one white cis female corporate employee is identical to all white cis female corporate employees is a myth, and that’s a *really narrow category of cis women.*
Not to mention the fact that she is basically defining womanhood by struggle and victimhood. As though trans people couldn’t possibly know what that feels like!
I was actually shaking with rage while I read that article and then I made the huge mistake of looking at the comments, in which transphobic garbage like “‘What makes a woman?’ you ask. Nature replies, ‘Two X chromosomes'” got tons of likes.
Among its many problems, this description of womanhood excludes anyone who primarily spends time with other women. “Only woman in the room” is not the only way to be female, by a long shot. (I keep wanting to say something about the “too weak to ward off rapists” comment but it’s just so self-evidently gross? The core problem is not that women are WEAK, it’s that rapists decide to rape them!)
Screw Elinor and her transmisogynistic terfy rape culture enabling manure heap. ALL THE ONE FINGERED SALUTES.
the assumption that there is a universal female experience and a universal female struggle and that feminism should concern itself with fighting that struggle.
Ahhhh, there it is, thank you. I hadn’t quite articulated to myself what precisely bothered me about that, and now I don’t have to, because you did.
If I learned anything from that Clueless piece, it’s that I’m still sooo not over Brittany Murphy’s death.
Watching King Of The Hill reruns gives me the same feelings sometimes when the credits run.
Oh, Luanne.
I love City of New Orleans so much, but I have to say I much prefer the Seldom Scene version because HARMONIES. And a bit of lovable distortion in some of the choruses because the harmonies are SO POWERFUL.
John Duffy was a delight and is greatly missed. (For the lazy, here’s a lovely clean recording of the Scene’s cover.) WAMU’s three-hour bluegrass block was the soundtrack of my childhood Saturday mornings; somehow the mix of straight old-school gospel and hymns to bloody mountain-born vengeance never jarred.
I am listening to and loving their cover of “Sweet Baby James”.
I grew up not knowing that “Rider” was a Grateful Dead song, and their version of “Fox on the Run” is gorgeous.
I have nothing substantial to contribute other than today is my first day teleworking since I had an emergency appendectomy last week and while I’m glad to be pushing keys on a keyboard and not drooling on myself because of my painkillers, I ache and am sore and am ready to be like “hey y’all I’m gonna go take a nap now back in an hour”.
Oh man, appendectomies are serious business. Wishing you fast healing and lots of rest!
An ex housemate of ours posted that NYT piece very approvingly. Fortunately, someone pushed back in a very reasonable, patient way, and seemed to have made an impact on her view. I’m glad there are people who are able to do that, because I was mostly just seeing red.
I live near McKinney and know some people that live in that community. This whole thing is so fucked up, and I opened a huge can of apologist worms when I posted the story on Facebook. “Well, this whole thing could have been avoided if the kids just did what the police officers asked!” No. This all could have been avoided if the adults there hadn’t made blatantly racist comments to kids who were there for a pool party to which they had been invited. I have been told that the kids weren’t invited by a resident (this is a neighborhood pool where only residents and their guests are allowed), but by some dj? What?
Somehow that is an excuse for how the kids were treated? No.
In the video you can actually see one police officer talking reasonably to some of the kids who were there, and then another runs in like a crazy person, forcing everyone, even the kids the other officer is talking to, on the ground! Everything is horrifying.
Also, Kalief Browder did what he was ~supposed to do~ and did just what the police asked… which turned out to be to stay imprisoned without a trial or a release date.
Reading through the Clueless article, what stands out most is how many fucking men were like, can we make this about men instead of women because I need everything to be about meeeeeeeee
Think how many amazing movies we’re not getting RIGHT NOW because some asshat at Fox can’t handle the idea that women exist.
I watched the McKinney video and I was appalled even before that girl got dragged to the ground. Maybe I’m more sheltered than I thought, but is it really okay for cops to verbally speak to children like that? There wasn’t a drop of professionalism in anything that officer did; he was just plain bullying kids of color.
I am definitely not a kid of color and grew up in a pretty bougie community so my experiences are VERY different, but cops will talk all sorts of ways to scared kids because they’re pretty sure teenagers don’t know their rights or how police are actually supposed to behave. My friends and I got scooped for dumb shit like drinking in parks and the cops (who probably had little better to do) were FUCKING ASSHOLES to us–though it never crossed into anything near what the kids in McKinney experienced–because it was a stupid power trip. Fuck cops.
To counteract Elinor Burkett’s hateful piece, here’s a piece also from the NY Times about the books being published about the experiences of trans kids (both fiction and memoir) which are aimed at children and teenagers.
Anyone seen the first trailer for The Martian yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue4PCI0NamI
Chastain! Glover! Damon! Mara! Ejiofor! Bean!
Is it November yet?
I kind of liked the book but I am officially BONKERS for the movie. That looks perfect.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
I’m only watching this if you guarantee me everyone gets home safe and sound lalalalalalalalaaaa
There were certainly some things in that op-ed that I found questionable and unnecessarily exclusive. I think the tent of “woman” is big enough for everyone who wants to claim that identity. But I HAVE had some of her same thoughts on the kind of hypocrisy that surrounds the way we talk about being female. If many feminists consider gender to be a construct, then linking an essential womanhood to dresses, lipstick, makeup, long hair, breasts, and heightened emotions seems inherently problematic? I have no issues with Caitlyn Jenner identifying as a woman for whatever reasons she finds important and true to herself. She can dress how she wants and connect to a socially constructed idea of “womanhood” however she wants. But I do think it’s worth investigating how we talk about these things.
I struggle a lot with this topic. There are a lot of really brilliant people on this site who I respect. Can someone shed some light for me on a better way to examine it?
I don’t think that Caitlyn Jenner is suggesting that lipstick and dresses are what make her a woman; I think what we’re seeing is the joy and relief one particular woman feels at being finally able to freely enjoy some of the optional trappings of femininity after a lifetime of hiding and pretending she didn’t want them. It doesn’t seem to me at all like Caitlyn is saying “Only when I have nail polish on will I be a woman,” but “At last I can wear nail polish if I want to without being mocked and questioned and insulted and threatened.” It seems…willfully disingenuous for someone to pretend that she’s saying the former when she is clearly saying the latter.
It also feels a bit unfair to me that cis feminists often only seem to publicly want to dissect feminine ways of dressing and putting oneself together when it concerns a trans woman. I don’t see these thinkpieces cropping up when, say, Kate Upton appears with styled hair and makeup and done-nails on the cover of a magazine.
As far as the thinkpieces, I would disagree a bit on that – I do still see pieces written about the complex issues of fashion and femininity as it pertains to cis women (Beyonce, Hillary Clinton, etc). But I understand what you’re saying. It has a different tone when focused on trans women.
“I think what we’re seeing is the joy and relief one particular woman feels at being finally able to freely enjoy some of the optional trappings of femininity after a lifetime of hiding and pretending she didn’t want them.”
That makes a great deal of sense. Thank you.
I think it’s important to remember that for many trans women, they have been both violently denied access to feminine things like dresses or makeup because of transmisogyny, and also then denied access to transition help like hormones or surgery because they were insufficiently feminine. There is some hardcore cis/heteronormative policing within the medical model of being trans, so these women, who again may have been refused safe access to feminine things previously, are expected to embrace them wholeheartedly. Many of my friends have been ultra butch or ultra femme upon coming out, because it eased their early transitions and also provided a way to interact with others when being finally read as the correct gender. If you spend all your life being mistakenly read as and treated as male, it would seem very appealing to present in high femme style and be finally read correctly.
I suggest checking out Whipping Girl by Julia Serano.
I’ve been meaning to for a while. Thank you for the recommendation!
Just because something is constructed doesn’t mean it’s not real, or very important to people. It’s interesting that when talking about gender, there’s often this argument that because gender is constructed, people’s performance of their gender is “fake” or illegitimate or not real. Our conceptions of race are also socially constructed, but my racial identity is still very important to me (and very real) as a black woman. My gender identity is also very real and important to me, even though it is constructed.
Also, I didn’t see Caitlyn Jenner as essentializing what being a woman was; rather, I thought Burkett was doing that by trying to find out what being a “real woman” meant.
“Our conceptions of race are also socially constructed, but my racial identity is still very important to me (and very real) as a black woman.”
Yes, absolutely. I think what I struggle with is that the identity of “woman” is very powerful for both cis women and trans women, and yet the word itself is also being considered exclusive and offensive. (“Siblinghood” vs “sisterhood” for example, at a women’s school that openly includes trans women).
I’m working my way through these issues and yours and Mallory’s comments have been very helpful. The point about Burkett trying to find out what a “real woman” is is super on point. Thank you.
I think it all boils down to one key point: We are capable of resisting mandatory feminine gender norms without degrading people who happen to identify with some/many of them. Those who are nitpicking about Caitlyn Jenner’s lipstick are prejudiced against femmes.
Many women and girls who don’t feel comfortable with cosmetics/dresses etc go through a phase of resenting those who do, and that’s understandable as a phase, but it’s dangerous if it isn’t left behind. Plenty of cis women harbour an essentially misogynist level of hostility toward femmes.
CLUELESS. I am late to this everyone but my friend Jen Chaney (well kind of friend? she ran a blog on the Washington Post I loved and frequented until its untimely death) has a book coming out in July called “As If! The Complete Oral History of Clueless”. She is a super-rad person who has smart thoughts about entertainment and pop culture and I am looking forward to reading a book full of her wisdom about Cher and Dionne.
Posting just to say STEVE GOODMAN. I’m so pleased you posted his version of City of New Orleans, because it’s the first one I ever heard (albeit off his anthology album, so, not live like the video) and I love it so.
Also one of my mother’s favorite childhood stories is about how she went to a Steve Goodman concert with her brothers, and while they were in line outside the venue, she saw Steve enter, caught his eye, and he winked at her. She is incredibly proud of this interaction, as one ought to be.
Another thing that bugged me about that Burkett piece is its seeming assumption that if men and women’s brains WERE different that would mean the end to women’s rights. It seems to me that women should be equal to men, even if it turns out that women really are more empathetic or that men really are better at math. And like someone said above, choosing to perform one’s own gender a certain way shouldn’t be determinative of what worth one has, just because gender is a construct.
To me its similar to focusing on how lgbtq folks “can’t change” and thus should be afforded the same rights as cisgendered heterosexual people. That may very well be true, but shouldn’t humans share the same rights, even if they could change?
I don’t know, I don’t write about this subject very often, and always find myself tripping over my words, but it’s been on my mind since reading the piece yesterday.
Overheard on tumblr (which I mostly joined so I could reblog stuff like this:
““It’s just a phase” yeah, but I mean the moon goes through phases but it’s still literally always the moon. Just because the moon is doing something different today doesn’t mean it was lying about being the moon yesterday.”
— via psych-facts.tumblr.com
“shouldn’t humans share the same rights, even if they could change? ”
Yep.
Being a plumber is a choice. Being a teacher is a choice. No one argues that one profession should have more rights than another (“get a different job” arguments in discussions about income inequality notwithstanding).
Man, you know what would be a great way to de-clog the court system? Not arresting people for bullshit reasons, usually based on race. Imagine how much more the courts could get done if the prisons didn’t have so many people arrested for “loitering while not-white.”
Yeah, I think if cities just started repealing their “being black near a crime” ordinances, we’d get a lot of people out of the court system.
And the “black in a pool/black while driving nice cars” ordinances.
Yep. No more arrests for “existing while black” and no more arrests for “refusing to be deferential enough to a police officer”.
(Also reform drug laws so that people don’t get arrested for having small amounts for personal use)
Arresting people for not immediately complying with police requests, btw, pisses me off so much, because it’s so specifically contrary to the entire spirit of the Constitution/Bill of Rights. Like, part of the reason we set up our own country was so that we’d have the right to question the government and demand to know what accusations were being made against us. So it’s not only a violation of the letter of the law, but the spirit, as well as everything America is supposed to stand for. “Excuse me, officer, what seems to be the trouble” is meant to be one of the things we fought a war to have the right to say, damnit!
Kalief. No.
Personally I wouldn't have minded if they had all spoken their own languages when they weren't interacting with other sensates. Subtitles are not the worst thing in the world, especially when we have three characters (who tend to get the most time) based in English speaking countries primarily. But I suppose they were working towards an US audience, so it makes sense that they'd anglicize as much as possible. (Although the people you'd probably loose because of subtitles/foreign language, you'd have lost already with the gay/trans/strap-on business probably)
Recently there has been a Hollywood swing towards appealing to foreign markets (including Asian locations/characters etc), and the likes of Snowpeicer was a great example of balancing US and Asian actors and language. It feels like this is what they were going for but backpedaled at the last minute and said 'Fuck it they all speak English.'
I was on ep 8 last night and I am getting a bit tired of the Africa= gangs and drugs story line, like seriously, I'm 100% sure that there are other things going on in Kenya. I liked it at the beginning because it was about a young guy just trying to make a living, and showing a pretty normal job etc. But of course it descends into 'He must become a criminal to save his mother' uugggghh.
Sorry for the late reply, but I just read this and thought it was a very even-handed look at the matter: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a41641/…