Longreads put together a great lil collection of pieces about diversity in comics! So Toast-y.
*
Please enjoy an incredibly helpful guide to whatever the heck is going on in True Detective s2, which I have watched every episode of but do not understand in the least (the second question I have included is kind of a spoiler but I honestly don’t think you can spoil something that doesn’t make any sense, it’s a gift to have any questions answered):
Can I see a picture of Tasha?
No, she has never appeared on this show except in a very fuzzy photograph.
Wait, how did Vera tell Bezzerides anything? I thought she was missing.
She was, but she was the woman that Bezzerides found at the sex party and hustled out.
*
If you want to toss a few bucks into the pot for a great trans dude to help pay for his top surgery, that would be really nice of you!
*
Grilled halloumi is my favourite food, and whenever I go home, my father makes some for me with an oily, lemon-y, olive-y marinade brushed on top, but I’m sure this is good too. When my uncle was stationed in Cyprus, he ate halloumi for breakfast every single morning. Here are many more ways to get it into your face.
*
A YouTube history of white women singing “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”
*
check this out, i gave birth to this:
*
My orthopedic physician has directed me to elevate and ice the knee during those time of higher pain. My new manager is opposed to me raising or elevating it when meeting with clients (I work in government). I have done this only a few time with clients but very, very discreetly. I dress very modestly, wearing longer skirts, dresses, and pants. I sit on the corner of conference table with a chair to the right so I can place the leg/knee up with the table shielding the whole thing. I believe the clients don’t even know I am doing this. They are across from me and can’t see under the table.
*
The glorious Jewishness of WHAS:
There are explicit Jewish jokes like this throughout the movie. The kid who helps Molly Shannon’s character, a fragile A&C instructor, pick up the pieces after her divorce, asks her to “excuse the Yiddish” before admitting that men are “insensitive schmucks.” When Garofalo, as the camp’s director, reels off a list of campers’ names, it becomes clear that she is just halfheartedly improvising Jewish ones: “Amanda Klein… Jessica Azaria… Ira… Stevenberg, Sol… Zimmer… stein… uh, David… Ben-Gurion… .” Michael Showalter’s character, telling a girl that he has fallen for her, explains his passion this way: “I love the way you laugh, and I love the way your hair smells, and I love it that sometimes, for no reason, you’re late for shul.”
*
This is literally the last thing I will say about WHAS, but I bought Elizabeth Banks’ swoopy rainbow jeans from ModCloth. They are not quite high-waisted enough, but dreams CAN come true.
*
Deleted comment of the day:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
“It’s called fiction no analysis necessary.”
The truth! Close down every school in the world–it’s fiction, no analysis necessary!
Welp, this English teacher is out of a job. Guess I’d better go figure out calculus!
Time to learn to code!
This is already taken as one-size-fits-all career advice anyway. My sisters were advised to learn to code and they were PHILOSOPHY MAJORS, for pity’s sake.
Okay then I will give you my one and only calculus tip:
Fuck Newton. Leibniz forever.
I love the idea that JK Rowling wrote a 7-book series ONLY because it was time for the world to know how much owls love cheetos (is that even a thing in the books?)
i laughed so hard at that part i almost spat out a pretzel.
“It’s called fiction there in no analysis necessary.” That’s actually the secret they tell you when you finish a MA in English.
My advisor whispered it to me just after I submitted my 38th and final version of my thesis.
“It’s too late for us, but let’s not save anyone. We can let them believe that analysis is important, even as they overinterpret Hardy.”
“Trust me, nothing makes watching undergrads bang their head against Henry James’ opaque prose more joyous than the delicious knowledge of how futile it is.” which…is actually true though. 😛
Side note: I cannot love Henry James. I have tried and tried, and my favorite novel (well, one of) is apparently James-inspired, but I cannot do it. Am I missing something?
Meh. IMO, Edith Wharton did everything James did but with far more instances of violent passions simmering just under the surface.
I will now actually read Edith Wharton, because I have TRIED with James, so many times, I own The Golden Bowl and got halfway through, also read The Turning Of The Screw, when my whole problem was not starting with The Age Of Innocence, I see. 😛
I should try Wharton. I just have the problem that, if I want to read about simmering violent passion while everyone is polite, I go read Forster, because that’s what I do in almost every occasion.
Other side note: I was once in a BBC/PBS adaptation of the Buccaneers as a child extra, and the costume they put me in made it one of the best days of my life.
Maybe not violent, but Katherine Mansfield stories all seem to be about polite English ladies who secretly despise their husbands.
So THAT’s why all my high school English teachers were laughing to themselves as they assigned papers.
It’s like when you finally reach OTIII and learn about Xenu. Life-changing.
Yep. Written in Latin across the bottom of my diploma.
We had a whole page of Latin we had to agree to in order to matriculate each year. It might have been in there, and I might have noticed had I not decided that Old English was a far more useful language.
Old English is definitely more useful.
That is a very cute kid.
I also really appreciated Willa Paskin’s Q&A-style piece – and I’m not even watching True D this season! It’s simultaneously made me very satisfied about the decision to skip it and sort of morbidly curious to binge it at some point in the future.
“It’s called fiction there in no analysis necessary.”
Where was your veritable genius ten years ago? Why have you withheld your wisdom from me until now? You could have saved me an entire English Lit degree had I but known there was no analysis necessary.
OMG seriously. I got an entire PhD in that shit. Had I but known.
1 of my fav things about the internet this summer is reading WTF reviews of True Detective Season 2, which are a singular joy on their own, as evidence by the fact that I have never watched this show, not even season 1.
When I drop a show I’ll often still keep reading recaps. I’m still reading the Fug Girls’ recaps of Downton Abbey, for example. And this season of True Detective has lead to some really funny writing.
I don’t even watch the shows, but I love recaps. There’s one recapper of Outlander that I especially enjoy, particularly because I can keep up with the plot but don’t have to watch any of the violence.
One of the great joys of my internet life was reading Richard Lawson’s recaps of “The Hills”, lo those many years ago, even though I never watched the show. Recaps can be a beautiful, wondrous thing.
Roxane writing about Magic Mike. Enough said.
That AAM made me SO ANGRY. Dear asshole boss – knee surgery is not a small thing! It is a big deal! Stop being an asshole to your employee and let her fix her fucking knee! Goddammit.
Between that and the severe dog allergy one I’m just sorta rage-spluttering at managers who apparently can’t understand the seriousness of health problems.
I just do not underSTAND the dog allergy one! How did her employer fail to mention at ANY part of the interview process that like 75% of her future coworkers bring their dogs to work??? If I ever owned a Bring Your Dog To Work business, I would shout it from the rooftops. All job postings would have pictures of dogs on them. Dogs dogs dogs!
I find it so odd. The elevation doesn’t affect her ability to do the work and most people can grasp the necessity of elevation after orthopedic surgery (as opposed to an accommodation for a more subtle/less-known disability where outsiders/clients might not necessarily understand the need immediately). I actually wonder if there isn’t a broader dynamic going on here that the letter-writer isn’t aware of or didn’t want to write about.
My secret shame: for as much as I love cheese, I just…I can’t do Greek cheeses. Feta makes me queasy and when I tried grilled halloumi last summer I had to choke it down because the texture + flavor combination was just so not to my tastes. I feel failed as a cheese lover.
Those jeans are magical and I wish they went into the plus range :'( I haven’t started WHAS yet but I am actually looking forward to it, hopefully it won’t be as much of a letdown as Kimmy Schmidt was for me.
A) yes to wishing for the jeans in plus sizes
B) Kimmy Schmidt, my greatest television disappointment since Heros. It began so auspiciously…
always the thing with ModCloth, they have such fabulous things and the big sizes sell out in about three minutes 🙁
Some people can really taste the goat in goat cheeses. I can’t but I don’t doubt those who say they do. There is a great feta-like cheese that I’ve seen called ricotta salata which avoids that problem, mainly by being made with sheep’s milk.
Glorious Jewishness is actually my superhero name.
There was so much anger in the comments of the AV Club review of the second WHAS episode because the reviewer assumed that “shul” (which they wrote as “shool”) was a mispronunciation of “school”. Bless.
(please don’t stop talking about WHAS, I just rewatched the Electro/City episode and it is so so so amazing)
(also someone was looking for this following gif yesterday so)
I was just talking to Mr. Blazes last night about how much the quality of editing at AV Club has dropped. There have been a bunch of times in the last six months when a reviewer has completely missed or misunderstood big, blaring cultural references. I’m slowly weaning myself off of AV recaps because it’s disappointing to read something supposedly thoughtful by someone who didn’t understand the OJ stuff in Kimmy, the Master/scientology stuff in Bojack or the Jewish stuff in WHAS… and who clearly is being edited by people who didn’t get it either.
The AV Club’s been in decline since most of the best writers left for the Dissolve, and now THAT’s gone too… I’ve also noticed the recaps getting sloppier, and some of the recappers really write just straightforward recaps (as in: first this happened, then that happened. Yeah, thanks, I watched it too) instead of analysis. It’s a pity, because they used to be the best at the game.
I completely agree. So glad I’m not alone in this.
You can see it in the comment section over there too. Such a bummer.
Yeah, it’s crazy. That site has gone into a Salon-esque decline over the last few years.
The AV Club reviewer for “Humans” is really leaning into showing what a terrifying person he is. An example follows.
*spoilers for Humans *
“Jill lists all the things she likes about Simon, her points sharpened and aimed to hit Peter where it hurts. She doesn’t have to walk on eggshells around Simon, she doesn’t have to wonder if he still loves her, she doesn’t have to worry about his moods.”
Oh, you think, she was in an abusive relationship, and now she’s getting out. Cool. That is part of the abuse and privilege subtext of the show. The reviewer disagrees.
“In short, she doesn’t have to care about his feelings. It’s supposed to be her big, triumphant break-up anthem, but your fist only gets halfway up before the misgivings arise. That’s her picture of a happy relationship? An object who cares for her, loves her like a puppy dog, is programmed to snap into sex mode, and has no thoughts or feelings of his own? There’s no way she’s actually happy like that. Humans thrive on challenge.”
Dude.
*record scratch*
I don’t even watch the show and this raises so many questions for me. Chiefly, how often have we seen the “male” picture of a happy relationship being EXACTLY what is described above? But somehow since it’s a woman’s desire it’s wrong now.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
Emily Stephens remains a gold-plated delight though, so there’s that.
That’s great, you gentiles are precious.
IT WAS ME!!! This is the best thing!
Isn’t that commenter sort of late to the party? Do try to keep up!
The commenter is a time-travelling Dolores Umbridge
Why wouldn’t owls love Cheetos? Cheetos are amazing. Please analyze why Cheeto-loving owls would be remarkable in Rowling’s magical universe, when they are so patently a mark of realism. Please cite the text to support your argument.
I demand to know why this person’s comment was deleted. They obviously have a magnificently baroque theory worked out to explain the multibillion-dollar Global Rowling-Cheeto Conspiracy, and are itching to share it with us, and now we may never know The Truth!
I WANT TO BELIEVE (in Cheeto-loving owls)
I now fully believe that there is a Cheetos black market going on at Hogwarts, with Muggleborns smuggling them in and selling them at extortionate prices to clueless Purebloods.
Are there even any cheetos in the UK? I couldn’t find any, but then again I was very busy eating giant chocolate buttons
Apparently Cheetos are about to be sold in UK for first time in 25 years, probably because of popular demand from Hogwarts students.
I think Wotsits are the closest approximation.
Rory Cattermole and the Mystery of the Golden Owls
Where do I get Beth’s corduroys? Let’s face it, I can’t pull off Elizabeth Banks, but Janeane Garofalo I have a chance.
Just read that True Detective explainer and really appreciated that the Q&A style anticipated every question I asked whilst reading it. What a confusing programme it is. All this time I thought they were trying to solve the mystery of why Vince Vaughn couldn’t have a baby.
Two operations too many. *shakes head*
Oh god, I’d forgotten about the multiple abortion = that’s why no baby reasoning. Wish that subplot had been in the roundup actually – was that the conclusion of their no pregnancy storyline? If so, BLARGH.
It WAS because *aggle flabble clabble incoherant rage* but Vince Vaughn just told some shady dude that some other shady dude has been “coming around less than my wife’s period,” so I guess she’s been cured by a sufficient time period of monogamy and subsuming her needs and personality to a man.
I hate hate HATE everything about Jordan’s physicality in True Detective. (It’s something that I’ve never noticed before watching Kelly Reilly performances, though I haven’t seen a ton of her work.) I HATE the way Jordan bends and sways and pops her hip contapposto and pooches out her lips and chin and generally contorts her body to exist in a constant orbit around Frank.
It does, however, serve the purpose of making the writing’s flaws literal: Jordan exists only in her relation to Frank, and her physical self shows that utter dependence and yearning toward Frank; he’s the nucleus of her orbit.
A friend recently idly mentioned, “Hey, remember when season two was supposed to feature strong female characters?” and I was all “I SEEM TO RECALL THAT, YES, YES, SOMETHING OF THE SORT, RAGE FLEX.”
Oh my gosh, I’ve had such an aversion to her character from her first moment on-screen, and your assessment of her physicality is exactly why. THANK YOU.
her entire character is a personified pout. it’s so gross.
OH MY GOD THAT FUCKIN’ PERIOD LINE WAS THE WORST THING I EVER HAD TO HEAR AND I CAN’T THINK ABOUT HOW MANY PEOPLE THAT HAD TO GO THROUGH TO MAKE IT TO MY SIGHT/HEARING.
Also I am pretty sure that this is exactly what Nick Pizzolatto thinks strong female characters look like.
It’s one of those shows that pulls off mysteriousness and complexity by simply not making any sense. This is also how I feel watching 80% of sci-fi or action movies; if your conspiracy or conflict was really that well-written,* I wouldn’t be sitting there like “wait, who are half of these characters and why are they mad at the main guy?”
*At least last season of True Detective was well-written, the dialogue in this season is ABSURD
Also the mystery I’m wondering about is why all of these characters keep going into dangerous situations with no backup and no plan to collect any kind of evidence? “Yeah, just sneak in there and like, hang out for a while, somebody will probably do something incriminating before long. This will definitely be admissible in court. Let’s just hope nobody tries to stab you, because after your drug-related betrayal, the rest of the police force is pretty much willing to leave you to die.”
Right?! When Tim Riggins calls Colin O’Farrell all, “I think I’m walking into something here,” I’m screaming, “THEN DON’T GO!”
“It’s called fiction there in no analysis necessary.”
MY LIFE IS A LIE
I could eat squeaky cheese in every incarnation ever, at every meal. It gives me joy as it squeaks.
That deleted comment could have been written by my mom, though Cheetos/owls isn’t really her style. But the “it doesn’t MEAN anything it’s just what the author chose to wrote stop analyzing everything” is word for word a rant I have heard many times. Anyways, that’s why she only reads light murder mysteries and non-fiction these days, and I’m happy as long as she’s happy and not complaining to me about her book group.
I have a friend who is IN LOVE with True Detective (or was, until this finale, for reasons I will not spoil lol), and I just DO NOT get it, so I have to keep doing the internet version of the nod and smile, while biting my tongue about the bad writing and complete lack of diversity, etc etc.
Then again, she’s one of those people who seems to LOVE shows full of white dudes, so I don’t know.
I legit think we were all under a spell cast by Matthew McConaughey’s cheekbones.
I’m looking for a good piece or pieces discussing that discussing general health concerns is more socially acceptable in mixed company than discussing health concerns that affect menstruation, because patriarchy. Anyone have anything good?
(Couple weekends ago, my father wanted to tell me all about his autoimmune problems that are really annoying but sort of the same annoying they’ve been for months. I was asking questions about family medical history because of Extreme Perioding requiring D&C, at which point he made it very clear he didn’t want details, and then my mother told me that his mother had had endometrial cancer in the 70s, which none of us knew, and is sort of super relevant.)
Yes! My dad’s mother and sister both died before I was born (and before my parents even met), so now there’s a whole half on my family that I have no uterus information for. It’s your family history! Just because it’s not immediately relevant to you doesn’t mean it won’t be relevant to your kids!
SocImages had this post yesterday about icky women’s bodies as a taboo in humor – not what you’re looking for, but maybe it will point to some related posts that are. And it prompted a good cathartic eyeroll from me, at the kind of conversation you’re talking about (no clue here either about the uterus-related family health history).
that is interesting, and I didn’t read it yesterday, thanks!
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/5/mens…
Not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for but I found it super interesting!
this is GREAT. Thanks! (i can’t wait to click on many of those links later, too!)
I think there are a bunch of things all intertwined that I’m trying to tease apart, and none of it is in an area where I have particular expertise:
*shame about normal experiences of periods (per your link, per the post from Emily above)
*since talking about normal period experiences is taboo, abnormal period experiences is even more taboo
*as much as i bitch about us all being very aware about breast cancer, i forget that that is actually fairly recent, and the same sort of shame/taboo that kept breast cancer as a topic that wasn’t discussed means other things aren’t discussed (other reproductive cancers, endometriosis, etc)
*disparities in research on AFAB bodies– my recollection is that this has many parts, from disparities in funding for research for diseases that primarily affect AFAB folks, but also that drugs are often not studied separately in women, and the way women present for things like heart disease are often not well understood
*general taboos about the ways we discuss health among family members (which change from family to family, culture to culture)
*defunding PPH stuff.
So there’s huge societal taboo type things that discourage women from talking about their periods, reproductive organs, and health priorities. But there’s also individual men- like my normally good-bro dad— who don’t want to talk about it. And of course that’s related, but I’ve been noticing it all more even in people who are normally good on these sorts of things.
Do you think taboos against talking about ovarian cancer and endometriosis are stronger than taboos against talking about ED and testicular cancer? I don’t talk about health stuff* in general enough to have a sense of this. (*apart from nurse Grandma’s loving “Why are you coughing, let me listen to your chest” and the constant familial chatter about EBOLAAAAAAAA)
Well, I mean, I know about the relative who had prostate cancer, but didn’t know about my grandmother having endometrial cancer. That *might* be because the prostate cancer was more recent, or it might not be.
I wouldn’t be even the tiniest bit surprised if there is a huge disparity.
On a related note, I’ve talked to people who (turned out to) have issues like endometriosis and PCOS whose parents and doctors (!!!) only knew they had some kind of ~menstrual issue~ and wanted to just put them on the pill *without even diagnosing them*. That seems like a special kind of taboo-born erasure: “Your womb is so gross I’m not even going to try to heal it.”
WHAS FASHION: Those light wash flared overalls. I need ’em!
Has everyone seen these live streaming webcams of various animals?
http://explore.org/live-cams/player/brown-bear-sa…
The cats and I have been watching bears catch salmon for days now.
Holy crap there’s a beautiful Alaskan sunrise going on right now at Katmai!
I hope the bears appreciate it. Just amazing!
oh wow, that is gorgeous!
As an Alaskan, I’m jealous that you guys were watching the sunrise, when I haven’t seen it at least a month and a half (when I was seeing it because I was still up).
Someone re-introduces me to this once a year at about this time. I love the beluga webcams- they make me want to take a gopro when I’m on a boat for work but then I remember there are no charismatic megafauna in the Great Lakes and algae blooms aren’t particularly photogenic.
Explore.org is the best. When service dogs in the participating programs have litters you can watch the puppies grow up 24/7.
omg, “dumpling mountain” is the cutest mountain name I have ever heard.
ETA: gosh there are so many animal streams, my productivity for today is effectively ruined 🙁
Hey, if I’m doing no work because I’m watching bears and belugas, neither is anyone else.
Well, there goes my day….
Those jeans are everything! I am having a major surgery in a few weeks so I’m not sure how these jeans are going to fit after everything is said and done…but I am looking forward to watching WHAS while I recover!
I read that whole TD2 explainer twice and I still couldn’t tell you what’s going on. Goddamn it, Pizzolatto. A cast of thousands, plot points only loosely connected, vaguely revealed backstory, and pivotal characters we see in passing/shadows/in a framed photograph behind some other character yammering on about WHO EVEN KNOWS? I was told you knew what you were doing. *sniffs haughtily*
The reveals so far have been… underwhelming, to say the last. It turns out that the corrupt police department is — wait for it — corrupt! And that one guy, we saw him that one time, remember? Yeah, he was bad, it turns out.
This tweet basically sums things up: https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/62807247286528…
Also, guys, I know this isn’t the Open Thread, but I have seen the UnREAL finale and holy shit can we please talk about this show
I have not seen the finale yet (I’m only 5 eps in, planning on watching at least two more tonight), so I’ll avoid this thread after this, but YES. I don’t even watch the Bachelor, but I love everything about this show, from how seedy and dark it is to the humor and the fact that Quinn is a perfect villain.
Ahhhh! I just moved and don’t have cable/internet and I can’t decide if I want to go read spoilers or wait another couple days and watch it myself. I will for sure be able to talk about it by the time open thread rolls around.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
and “NOOOOOOO! Jeremy!! NOOOOO!” were pretty much my reactions to the entire episode.
JEREMY: THE ACTUAL WORST
When he went to her mom at the end!! What?!? I’m worried S2 will open with her forced into a mental facility
That was the best finale. I love this show. Why is everyone not watching this show? It’s about women! It’s by women! It’s smart! It’s got a female antihero which no media EVER has.
Petition to forbid Nicole’s child from growing the rest of his teeth because his gummy smile is perfect.
No but it’ll be so weird in middle school.
There’s something very fitting about True Detective Season 2 revolving around a scheme to buy land for toxic waste dumping.
The blood is probably too old to pull DNA from
Wait, is that even possible?
Wait, is that even possible?
As far as I know, yes–depending on time, temperature, etc., a sample could be degraded enough so that you couldn’t accurately use it for DNA matching.
It’s the age of the sample/time since it was in a living person’s blood vessels, not the age of the person whose blood it is. (This is probably already clear, but I’m so delighted by the syntactical ambiguity that I had to type this.)
I will read one million articles about diversity in comics, so thank you. I’d seen some of them (that Kelly Sue profile is fantastic) but others are new to me, which I appreciate.
If you want another one, I wrote one about queer characters in comics a while back. <3 <3 <3 <3 http://thehairpin.com/2015/03/my-queer-oes-on-you…
That was great! Thank you for sharing.
Very happy you liked it! 😀
The thigh chub on that baby is A+++. That is one quality baby you birthed from your loins, Nicole.
For sure, that’s Grade A baby!
It’s not the thigh chub so much as the toe chub.
THE TOE CHUB
I also feel remiss in not remarking upon the glorious arm rolls above his precious paws.
Now where can I find the suit she wears in the last episode?
baaaaaabyyyyyy. i want to point out all the elements of precious, but am choking on an emotional cute overload. so just wanna scream baaaaaabbbbbyyyyyy
I want one.
Lots of good reading in the comics link. I liked this bit from the Buzzfeed article on women cartoonists drawing their bodies, from Carol Tyler: “You are asking a middle-aged female if an industry, which traditionally supports and advances the ethos of primarily young white males, has presented challenges to her in the almost 40 years she’s been producing comics. Where do I start?”
Wow, that other AaM question, about the IQ test. That kind of goofiness always reminds me of an episode of the great animated show The Tick, where reporter Sally Vacuum asks a cross-country-running bipedal whale, “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” Exactly.
PS: Playing House is back tonight for season 2. Yesssss
TOTES KEWL
Who in the fuck even is Tasha? I only know two people’s names on this show and it’s obviously Athena (duh) and Ani (also duh). Three if you count Vince Vaughn’s self tanner as a character, WHICH I DO. I have no idea how True Dick manages to be both incredibly boring AND incredibly confusing, but there you have it.
You do good work, Nicole, in the fields of both editing and babies.
I should try Wharton. I just have the problem that, if I want to read about simmering violent passion while everyone is polite, I go read Forster, because that's what I do in almost every occasion.
Other side note: I was once in a BBC/PBS adaptation of the Buccaneers as a child extra, and the costume they put me in made it one of the best days of my life.
Congratulations on THE CUTEST BABY I’VE SEEN ALL DAY. I salute you, ma’am.
Congratulations on THE CUTEST BABY I'VE SEEN ALL DAY. I salute you, ma'am.
Do you think taboos against talking about ovarian cancer and endometriosis are stronger than taboos against talking about ED and testicular cancer? I don't talk about health stuff* in general enough to have a sense of this. (*apart from nurse Grandma's loving "Why are you coughing, let me listen to your chest" and the constant familial chatter about EBOLAAAAAAAA)
Maybe not violent, but Katherine Mansfield stories all seem to be about polite English ladies who secretly despise their husbands.
This is already taken as one-size-fits-all career advice anyway. My sisters were advised to learn to code and they were PHILOSOPHY MAJORS, for pity's sake.
It's the age of the sample/time since it was in a living person's blood vessels, not the age of the person whose blood it is. (This is probably already clear, but I'm so delighted by the syntactical ambiguity that I had to type this.)
I want one.
I wouldn't be even the tiniest bit surprised if there is a huge disparity.
On a related note, I've talked to people who (turned out to) have issues like endometriosis and PCOS whose parents and doctors (!!!) only knew they had some kind of ~menstrual issue~ and wanted to just put them on the pill *without even diagnosing them*. That seems like a special kind of taboo-born erasure: "Your womb is so gross I'm not even going to try to heal it."