Man of Steel (***1/2)

CROSS-POSTED FROM NO SHORTAGE OF OPINIONS

Catching up on "summer movie" reviews. Seems strange to feel like I'm playing catch-up here, since summer doesn't actually start until Friday…

Anyhow, I'm digging out the old movie rating system:

5 *s = "WOW!"
4 *s = "Good."
3 *s = "Stupid fun, decent, or at least not bad enough to get 2 *s."
2 *s = "Bad, but not awful; or awful, but enjoyable either despite or because of that."
1 * = "The best part was the end, because then it was over."
no *s = "*Deep, pain-filled sigh*...I will never get that [insert running time here] of my life back."

First up is the most recent one I've seen: Man of Steel. My prediction was: good action, mediocre plot, bad gender. So, how did it do?

Well, the action was good, sometimes. I think the story held together better than I expected. I liked the themes they chose to focus on (hope, use of power vs. restraint, and self-determination), though I don't think they did them as well as they could have. And, the gender stuff was  less aggressively bad than I'd thought it would be. So, I have quibbles, but I think it was entertaining. It's definitely worth watching, if you're into the idea of a Superman movie (or a movie with Henry Cavill in it). It's especially worth it if you, like the gentleman I recently overheard at a coffee shop, "just want to see a big, loud movie, where Zod and Superman break some shit, and Superman eventually saves the day, and Lois Lane is a hottie."

But, therein lie the quibbles. (And, herein lie the spoilers.)

Read the rest at No Shortage of Opinions.

Representation, objectification, and the necessary restatement of the obvious

Still thinking about women, the way that we are represented, and the ways that we (re)present ourselves. This time, it starts with an article on the portrayal of women in the media.

HuffPo Women reported yesterday on a study conducted by USC Annenberg and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which analyzed female characters on prime time and children's TV shows, as well as in films rated G, PG, and PG-13. This study showed that female characters were, across the board, less likely to speak than their male counterparts, less likely to be gainfully employed, and more likely to be shown weary sexy or revealing clothing

In a summary of the study's findings, the researchers reported that they found a lack of aspirational female role models in all three media categories, and cited five main observations: female characters are sidelined, women are stereotyped and sexualized, a clear employment imbalance exists, women on TV come up against a glass ceiling, and there are not enough female characters working in STEM fields.

I'm obviously behind attempts to call attention to the problem, and I think it's great to be able to point to data collected through culturally validated channels in discussing what the problem is, and why it's a problem. But, I also think the problem is really obvious. I really believe that, if you've ever watched a TV show, or gone to a movie, you know this, even if you are unable, or more likely unwilling, to consider what it means. Without lessening the importance of the conversation, I sometimes feel the need, once in a while, to point out that this would all be much easier if people would remove head from ass and pay attention.

Deep breath.

So, when I saw this article last night, and I shared a link to it on FB, the commentary I added was a moment of feeling overwhelmed by the feeling that people are missing (or ignoring) something really, really obvious, and really obviously a problem.  The responses I got reminded me, quite rightfully, that we're not all "feminist media literacy advocates" (I love that phrase, and intend to steal it from you, J.), and that we sometimes need to "prime the arena for intervention" (truth, M., and well put). Another friend spoke to a different aspect of the issue, which is the frustration of seeing women perpetuate their own objectification. This is the thing that got me thinking this morning, because I share that frustration -- put some damn clothes on, half-naked woman on the bus, and stop dressing your prepubescent daughter like a miniature version of a woman I'd want to wrap in a blanket and send home to try again! But also worry about how we respond to that behavior.

My problem is that, while I think the most visceral response is often, "ugh, stop making things worse," I also think that there are reasons that people perpetuate systems that do not benefit them, and that those behaviors are hard to change in ways that makes simple censure feel inadequate. Cultural hegemony -- whether the cultures in question are racial, gender-based, national, etc -- is real and powerful. And, it is persistent. Part of what fuels its persistence is that it is self-replicating: the dominant group does not simply impose its values, it naturalizes those values, so that those on whom they're being imposed come to embrace them, to see them as real. Those who are not of the dominant group are marinated in the values of the dominant group, and eventually internalize them as their own. Society's beauty standards are, I think, an accessible example by now -- things like people of color having internalized pale skin and straight, preferably blond hair as THE way to be beautiful, as opposed to one of many.

Similarly, women in the United States (I speak specifically because it's what I know best) have been steeped in the set of ideas about beauty and sexiness. So, while women may dress or act in a way that furthers their objectification, they don't do so in a vacuum. That is to say that they do not usually start from a neutral point of full understanding of objectification, its causes, and its effects and think, "Yeah -- that sounds great!" The nature of cultural hegemony is that it warps reality, so that we think we're seeing clearly when we're not. We look at ourselves in funhouse mirrors, but think that we're seeing the truth. And change is not, in this case (in any case?), like flipping on a switch, so even if the warp in reality becomes visible to some, that doesn't mean that we will all just stop believing and living that false worldview overnight. You've got to get people to realize they've internalized as natural or ideal something that is not, in fact, natural, probably isn't ideal for all, and may not be ideal for any. You've got to get them to internalize something new, which is difficult. And the new thing you've got to get them to internalize might not be clear yet, and is certainly not as well established as the old ways.

All of which is to say that the idea of objectifying yourself, or otherwise playing into a worldview that lessens you, is a tricky one, which makes the sense of censure that usually attaches to it tricky, as well. Yes, I want women to dress like they respect themselves, and to project what I consider to be a positive image. But, that involves moving beyond giving them the side-eye, and really thinking about how to change what someone has internalized as positive, negative, or neutral. This requires changing how people perceive reality, and what they therefore think is worth projecting. (It also involves shaking up how we all interpret what we see, and convincing more people that they're always interpreting and being interpreted, but those are at least a couple of different blogs.)

So, how do we give more people the tools that would enable them to perpetuate a new and better set of images and behaviors? Well, I suppose that we give people the side-eye and shake our heads, but also try to explain why we're doing so. And, we continue to point out, in various ways, where reality has been warped, hoping to help others see it. We participate in conversations about how to straighten things out, and we take the lead in shaping the reflections and representations younger generations are shaped by.

And, sometimes, we point out how obvious the problems are, and extol the virtues of mass craniorectal extraction.

Under Construction

A quick heads up: I'll be tinkering with things in the next few days, including importing in some archival material from previous blogs. If you follow me on a feed, things might go a little haywire -- my apologies in advance!

As I prepared to post this, I thought I'd find a stock "under construction" image to add, just for kicks.

This one seemed apt:

While this one seemed oddly ominous:

Then I thought maybe I'd post a hot construction worker, instead. Now, I figured I knew what would come up on a google search for that term -- lots of heavily oiled models, probably some frontal nudity (true, on both counts). But, after the first few greasy photo shoots, and before the first penis, there was a familiar face:

Any guesses? Here's a hint:

Wow, 1994. Can we just take a moment to talk about the fashion and hair in that commercial? I mean, I know some of the women are supposed to look particularly repressed, but...wow.

But back to Lucky. 18 years later, I recognized this guy's face, and immediately remembered his name. Lucky Vanous. Now, it's a memorable name, in all fairness, but I'm not really sure what made his face stick. He's good-looking, but I'm not sure I'd really pick him out as particularly hot, if I saw him in an ad today. Maybe that's part of it, though. The commercial caused quite a stir, and was notable for its then-surprising reversal of the standard "hot chick's hotness used to sell something" trope, and Vanous was sort of a thing, for a bit -- enough that he was featured in that annual archive of It Boys and Girls: People 's "Most Beautiful People" issue:

Credit: People.com

The commercial seems pretty tame now, but I feel like it was kind of A Big Deal, 18 years ago (let that sink in), that the blatantly objectified body being used to sell something besides Calvin Klein underwear was male. And were those CK ads (first one in 1982) ahead of their time on that?

I've never been sure whether this was brilliant marketing on Coca Cola's part, or not. Here's what I do know: I do remember it as a Diet Coke commercial, but it never induced me to drink Diet Coke. Even in 1994, when I remember talking about that commercial in the hallways at school, there wasn't guy -- male model or not -- hot enough to get me to drink Diet Coke.

A world of hypotheses

[E]ncountering divergent opinions strengthens, rather than weakens, our political ideas. In the research methods courses that I teach, I stress to students that personal experience is a terrific way to form hypotheses, and a lousy way to adjudicate whether our hypotheses are true. So at MHP, we generate ideas from our gut, but we build arguments with research, evidence, and anticipation of counter-arguments.

--Melissa Harris-Perry, from the MHP Show Footnote, 6/10/12

Someone asked me once why I thought humanistic inquiry was so worthwhile, and why I'd devoted myself to furthering it through teaching and scholarship. "Why not," this guy asked, "just teach people the content they need to get a job and do something constructive?" I wasn't able to answer the question very well then -- it was relatively early in my graduate career, and I was only just beginning to articulate why I thought being a professor of religious studies might be worth more than just my personal enjoyment of the subject matter. I made some quick reply about having different criteria for "worth" and "constructiveness," but mostly just to get the conversation over with and move on -- this guy was an asshole for other reasons, and I didn't really want to stand at the bar, justifying my existence for the rest of the night. Little did I know that the next 14 years of my life would involve large amounts of time spent standing everywhere from the bar to the bus stop, justifying my existence as an academic, and especially as a scholar and teacher in the humanities. I didn't realize, all those years ago, how many more times I'd have that conversation, how much more time I'd spend thinking about it, and how long it would take me to figure out an answer that seemed adequate.

I still haven't figured out an answer that seems adequate. But, I do have more of an answer now than I did then.

Since 2008, I have spent most of my time teaching first-year students. I have tried to teach them to be better thinkers and writers, better discussants and readers. Now and again, I have explicitly included a little bit of being a better person, but I admit freely that I included it, implicitly and a lot, all of the time. I liked the quote above when I heard it a couple of weeks ago -- I was grading, and it reminded me of countless conversations I've had with students about how to write a better paper, or read a text more responsibly, or be a more productive member of a section discussion. I thought that I would post it here, and say something about careful critical analysis and the difficulty of crafting a thesis statement. But, when I sat down to write that post, it seemed to be missing something. I felt  like there was something else I wanted to say -- some other reason why MHP's statement had stuck with me so strongly -- so I sidelined that post, to give it a bit more thought. As I've sat with the quote for the last couple of weeks, I've realized that I like it so much because it also addresses what, for me, was always the larger picture. MHP was talking about political opinions, and how she and her production team decide what issues are important to discuss on her show. But, with very little tweaking, that quote could just as easily be about what I thought was worthwhile about humanistic inquiry, and especially about teaching in the humanities. Coming into contact with the thoughts of others -- especially concerning the things we consider important -- and being able to deal with those thoughts in an attentive, thoughtful, critically engaged manner is the best way I know of making our own thoughts stronger, and by extension, making our actions make more sense.

We live in a world full of hypotheses, so learning to form, re-form, encounter, and evaluate them is not an elective; it is a basic human skill, relevant personally and professionally, religiously, politically, legally and socially, ethically, emotionally, intellectually and emotionally -- pervasively. It is a basic human skill, but it does not come to most of us naturally or involuntarily. It's difficult. It requires effort. We develop it best when we develop it intentionally, through practice -- whether that practice comes within an academic setting, or somewhere else in the world. It helps to have models to emulate, and interlocutors with whom one can respectfully disagree. And, given all of the areas of our lives in which this type of engagement is crucial, it seems ridiculous to think that developing it in only one arena would be sufficient to the task of sending us out into a world full of hypotheses of so many different kinds.


So those hypotheses -- those thoughts, opinions, beliefs... I think they're really important. And I think they're important to be good at dealing with. As a teacher in the humanities, I think that it was my duty, my pleasure, and my contribution to a teensy corner of the world to help students be better at thinking about important things; to help them encounter some of what others have thought about these important things in more carefully considered ways; and, thereby, to help them strengthen their own hypotheses, not just about the course materials, but about themselves, other people, and the world. Big words, I know. Big claims. But these few years of teaching have offered me plenty of research, engagement with counter-arguments, and evidence to support the hypothesis that what I was doing was worthwhile, in that it had meaning, value, and a positive impact on that teensy corner of the world.

As many of you know, starting this month, I am no longer devoting myself to furthering humanistic inquiry through teaching and scholarship in the humanities. It might seem strange, then, that I'd bother to articulate why I thought it was so important. But, if you've been to this blog before, you know that one of the things I do here is try to work through hypotheses about important things -- especially gender, ethics, and culture. Sometimes I do that by presenting someone else's hypothesis and pointing out what I think is lacking or compelling about it. Sometimes I do that by offering a hypothesis of my own. I won't always be up to such serious business (though my belief that popular culture can be an important place for engaging with big ideas may blur the line a bit) -- there are all sorts of hypotheses to explore, and only some of them are about Very Important Things. But, don't be surprised if you continue to see, side by side, reviews of dubiously valuable entertainment and critical discussions of everything from blog posts to books to film and television shows. You've been warned.


La prof. est mort; vive la prof.!

Coming soon to a bookseller near you...

I don't really love the cover, but the Table of Contents is pretty sweet.

Available May 1st. You know, unless you're in it.

The Burton/Depp Dark Shadows is dead to me.

Years ago, when I heard that Johnny Depp was interested in making a Dark Shadows movie, I was thrilled. THRILLED! How could I have known? Who could have predicted that, by the time that dream came true, it would be a Tim Burton-ized nightmare? Even when I heard that it would be another Burton/Depp collaboration, I had hope. Maybe this would be the chance for Burton to run with the fantastically dark and ease up a little on the anvilicious whimsy? Then the first pictures of Depp as Barnabas came out, and I knew for sure that this would not be the Dark Shadows for me. Today, a friend sent me the trailer, and it is the proverbial nail in the coffin (or the chains around it, given the source material). How bad does it look? Note that I'm not providing a link to it. It looks like Burton, Depp, et al. have made Dark Shadows via The Addams Family, and it doesn't even look like a funny version of that. Too bad, I think, and a waste of a stellar cast.

WONDER WOMEN!

Today, I'm spreading the word about a film project that I'm very excited about:

WONDER WOMEN! is a documentary film that examines the relationship between popular representations of (super)powerful women and society's anxieties about the power of everyday women. The film features interviews with an array of Wonder Women, from Gloria Steinem to Lynda Carter. Yours truly even sat down with the director, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, to talk about Buffy's place in the ranks of Wonder Women!

The film will be making its world premier in March, at the South by Southwest Festival. But before then, Kristy and her filmmaking partners need support to cover the costs of preparing the final festival print. Please check out the WONDER WOMEN! Kickstarter page, and consider supporting the fundraising drive with a donation of $1 or more. There's just about 2 weeks left to make the funding goal, and they're very close -- every dollar counts!

For more information on the film, please visit the Wonder Women! website, http://vaquerafilms.com/wonderwoman/. To find out more about the pledge rewards, and to pledge your support, please visit the Kickstarter campaign page.

And, please, spread the word!

A long time ago, on a castle far, far away

Finally treated myself to Clan Building, volume 2 -- the collection that spans the second half of the all-too-short-lived Gargoyles comic, including the unreleased material. It was fun to have just a few more "episodes" of one of my favorite things. Lots of familiar faces, and some *serious* drama. Also? This is the cover.

So good.

Best part of the Superbowl

Loki: I have an army.
Tony Stark: We have a hulk. 

Cut to Hulk, smashing.

Nichelle Nichols talks about Star Trek and Martin Luther King, Jr

I hadn't heard about this encounter before now, but I love it! As someone who already believes that the stories we tell are important, that TV and films both shape and reflect us (sometimes in ways we don't acknowledge or even understand), and that speculative fiction can be a particularly powerful way for us to imagine human possibility, I find the idea of MLK telling Nichols to stay with Star Trek for the greater good quite moving. And it puts me in mind of another SFF character that broke racial barriers, at least for this viewer:

NYPD Detective Elisa Maza

Elisa Maza was one of many awesome things about Gargoyles, the utterly fantastic animated series that ran as part of the Disney Afternoon from 1994-1996. One episode of the show, entitled "The Journey," aired on ABC in Disney's One Saturday Morning programming.

Other sources will tell you that the ABC episode I speak of was actually the first of 13, the beginning of a spin-off called something ridiculous, like "Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles." This is patently untrue, as the monstrosity that aired on ABC was not at all the same show, and should, for the most part, be forgotten. Or disavowed. Or stabbed until killed. Dead. It may help you to know at this point that, in my mind, Heroes will be easy to marathon when I finally get around to it, because it only ran for one season. I also maintain that The Matrix was an excellent movie and had no sequels.

But I digress.

Elisa Maza was notable to me because she was a serious badass -- a lady cop with a great old car, a killer roundhouse, and serious attitude, she flew with the Gargoyles, taking on baddies from mobsters to mythical creatures to an uber-rich supervillain diabolical enough to have his own TV Trope. She also had Fantastic Disney Hair.

As if all of that wasn't enough to make her my favorite, here's a picture of her family:

HOLY CHARACTERS OF COLOR, BATMAN!

Seated is a young and uncharacteristically pale-faced Elisa Maza. Standing, far left, is her dad, Peter Maza. On the far right is her mom, Diane Maza. The younger man is Elisa's brother, Derek, who later becomes an important character in his own right. In the middle is Beth Maza, the youngest of the family. We meet all save Beth in "Deadly Force," about halfway-ish through Season One, when shit gets so real that a worried Maza family gathers at Elisa's hospital bedside. At that first intro, it's clear that Diane Maza is African American, and that Peter Maza is not. I believe it's not until Season 2 that we're told he's of Hopi descent. I remember my response being something along the lines of, "Wait, so Elisa Maza's really, really not white? Sweet!"

It doesn't seem like it would be a big deal, a random cartoon character being multi-ethnic. But something about the way that it was handled, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, made her that much more exciting. Maybe it was the fact that I loved that show, that I thought that character had a lot of good things going. Or maybe it was the fact that, thinking back, I couldn't remember another black female character on a cartoon I'd loved since Shana (Jem, 1985-1988) and Diana (Dungeons and Dragons, 1983-1985). 

Shana, far left. Her hair was truly outrageous.

Diana (aka The Acrobat). I never understood why she was wearing a fur bikini.

But I think it was more than that. For me, Elisa Maza was an animated descendant of Lt. Uhura - a female character of color making it look perfectly normal for brown women to kick ass and wield power. Instead of outer space, she traveled through time, around the world, and through the streets and skies of Manhattan, encountering new life and new civilizations of her own.

Of course, Elisa Maza traced her lineage back to the Enterprise in more explicit ways: Diane Maza, a native New Yorker whose ancestors hail from Nigeria, was voiced by none other than Lt. Uhura herself, Nichelle Nichols. 

Breaking Dawn, part 1 review (kind of)

So, you're probably wondering why I've been so quiet about the new Twilight movie. Maybe you even thought I'd developed some sense, and renounced my utterly undignified love for those poorly written, badly acted, so-called films. Maybe you thought...

You didn't really think that, did you?

No, as you might imagine, I could not wait to see the newest installment of The Twilight Saga (Twilight: Breaking Dawn, part 1). I saw it on Saturday afternoon with S., C., C., and E, and we even made a picnic in line beforehand (where we were, embarrassingly enough, the first and, for a while, only people in line). Should I bother to review it? I mean, you already know it wasn't good. It was a better movie that the first one, but that's a really low bar. It was, I believe, the best of all 4, but that's not really saying much, either. It was beautifully shot, they continue to try to tone down the creepiness of the books, and they continue to make really unwise choices with the werewolves. I mean, in the scene where Jacob finally tells Sam and -- oh, whatever, there's this scene, and it's full of wolves, and there's this really terrible echo effect, and the audience laughed and laughed, which *has* to be their intention by this point, right?

Anyway, rather than wasting my time reviewing it in depth, I'll just say that it was bad, thoroughly entertaining, with moments of hilarity -- mostly due, again, to Billy Burke and Anna Kendrick, but with an assist from the most hilarious/disturbing morning-after scene ever written. And I actually think they should get nominated for a makeup award, because I really hope they didn't make KStew lose that much weight for the dying-for-the-fetus scenes.

I won't bother reviewing it in depth, but I did take a few moments to think about why I watch those crapfests in the first place, and why I tore through the books like the pages were laced with crack. Twilight is one of my few honest-to-god guilty pleasures, and the ladies over at Pop Culture Curmudgeon were kind enough to invite me to do a guest post on. You can check it out here, if you like: "Even My Displeasure is Guilty." Here's an excerpt:

If you were around when I read the books, you know I consumed them voraciously. You also know that I spent a lot of time being absolutely horrified by the images of femininity, masculinity, and life in general Meyer propagates. I honestly believe that Stephenie Meyer hates women, or at least the ones in her novel, and just doesn't realize it. Why, then, I wondered, did I keep reading? And why did I go to see the latest move in the series last weekend? The answers there may be a little different. I kept reading the books because they were addictive, in the way that immature, unhealthy melodrama often is (see soap operas, romance novels, the GOP debates). Bella and Edward's so-called-romance was an extended train wreck, and I rubbernecked my way through with glee...

Go check it out!

Even My Displeasure is Guilty (originally posted @ Pop Culture Curmudgeon)

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 14:30

So, boys and girls, we have something special just in time for Thanksgiving: a guest post about the Twilight saga from one of Katie’s oldest friends, elisamaza. Be sure and leave your comments below. Enjoy!

A few days ago, a friend posted a link to an article called “11 Things to Know at 25(ish).” It was a good read, alternating between advice on coming to know yourself and advice on honoring your interpersonal relationships. It may look like the only link between that article and this post is the link that was at the top of the page: Kent Woodyard’s “You Can’t Marry a Hot Vampire.” But I think that self-knowledge and interpersonal relationships are at the core of the subject of that article, and the subject of this post: the Twilight series. Now, I think that Twilight demonstrates and promotes a disturbing lack of self-knowledge (in its characters, perhaps by the author, and, I would argue, by many of its fans), and I think that the models of interpersonal relationship are wildly unhealthy. But, as many of you know, the Twilight series is one of my few guilty pleasures. This is obviously not because I don’t take pleasure in other things that other people might call “guilty pleasures” — I certainly do. But I don’t actually feel guilty about any of those. As long I feel like I can distinguish between “it’s good” and “I like it,” I’m alright.

Sometimes, though, it feels wrong to like something. And for me, Twilight is one of those times.

 If you were around when I read the books, you know I consumed them voraciously. You also know that I spent a lot of time being absolutely horrified by the images of femininity, masculinity, and life in general that Meyer propagates. I honestly believe that Stephenie Meyer hates women, or at least the ones in her novel, and just doesn’t realize it. Why, then, I wondered, did I keep reading? And why did I go to see the latest movie in the series just last weekend? The answers there may be a little different.

I kept reading the books because they were addictive, in the way that immature, unhealthy melodrama often is (see soap operas, romance novels, the GOP debates). Bella and Edward’s so-called-romance was an extended train wreck, and I rubbernecked my way through with glee.

Don't get me wrong: there are, in fact, aspects of the book that are compelling. Meyer does a good job of ratcheting up the tension, for example. Then again, most of what she does to accomplish that involves putting Bella in danger. Again and again and again. The real problem, of course, is not that Bella is constantly under attack from enemies, but that her boyfriend is the biggest threat. She’s “dating” (which, to Meyer and, I fear, a generation of un-critical readers, means being stalked by, and then ragingly codependent on) a guy who loves her so much that he not only wants to be with her at any cost, but quite literally wants to consume her. For those keeping score at home, this is not ok. This combined lover/hunter is also someone whose supernatural existence means that he can be both father figure and peer simultaneously. For those keeping score at home, this is also not ok. His monstrousness makes him a warrior, willing and able to rip things limb from limb if they pose a threat to his beloved, but this really only distracts from the fact that the only appropriate threat to his beloved is him. Again, so not ok. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be wanted. I don’t even think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be protected. But everything in moderation, kids. Being stalked by someone whose desire to harm you is so powerful that it’s physically painful is not romantic. Being controlled by someone whose idea of protecting you is removing the engine from your truck, so that you can’t go and see your friends, is not sweet.

 But I digress.

 Why did I read those books? Given that I couldn’t I stop railing against them, why did I keep going? One of those questions is easy to answer: the Twilight story is a bad version of life, and that’s why I critique, in all seriousness, the harmful images of just about everything I think the books and films glorify (though, surprisingly, the latter to a lesser extent). But the Twilight story is also a bad version of fantasy, and I railed against that, too, before admitting that the thing I was defending is problematic. It took me a while to be able to articulate it, but my cracktastic experience of the Twilight books had partially to do with the fact that, while I now critique and often object to the fantasies from which Twilight was born, I have also been steeped in them. What do I mean by that? Well, his being a vampire should be a dealbreaker, but that didn’t stop me from wanting Nick and Natalie to work it out, nor does it stop me from wanting Damon to get his shit together enough to be a worthy companion for Elena. Her being a teenager should be a dealbreaker, but that never stopped me from getting totally sucked into the Buffy/Angel angststravaganza. See, also: my previous comment about Damon and Elena. But, what are the alternatives in Twilight, and other stories of its kind? What would the “better” version be?

It’s tempting to hold up Jacob 1.0 (maybe even 1.5) as a positive option, and that’s part of why I kept reading — I was hoping against hope that she’d pick “the right guy.” I didn’t hope very hard. It’s honestly never *actually* a triangle, and it eventually becomes impossible to root for Jacob, as Meyer transforms him into her ideal man: possessive, controlling, strangely unable to understand the word “no.” But, even before then, his right-guy-ness is as much a fantasy as Edward’s. Jacob is not the dangerous, mysterious, brooder. He’s the awesome friend, waiting in the wings for Bella to notice how sweet and supportive and handsome and perfect and totally in love with her he is. And what of the other featured couples? Alice and Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett, Carlisle and Esme? All fantasies. It’s a story full of soul mates and happily ever afters, none of which are actually healthy pictures to shape a life with (even if they’re less obviously damaging than the hot mess of obsession and self-abjection that is Bells and Eddie). Even the wolves with their imprinting (brought to its uber-creepy height with the Jacob and Renesmee pairing) is a gross twist on love at first sight. Let *that* sink in for a moment.

The Twilight story is an affront to my sensibilities as a feminist and a critical thinker. I worry about how it both was shaped by and is now shaping cultural images of love and life. But, I am also shaped by its predecessors and peers. This understanding of how I’ve been shaped is actually why I think the critique is crucial, but it’s also why at least a small part of me just wanted to keep reading.

I mentioned earlier that my reasons for being drawn to the books and my reasons for being drawn to the movies might be different. I read the books at least partially because they tapped into a lifetime of unrealistic portrayals of love, men and women, and happiness that my critical thinking feminist is unable to believe, but that my Lloyd-Dobbler-loving, MickBeth-shipping, daydream believer is unable to let go of. The movies obviously tap into some of that, but there’s another reason that I enjoy them so: the Twilight movies involve some of the worst actoring I’ve ever seen, and I happen to love bad movies. There’s something I find really enjoyable about watching something you know is of poor quality, specifically for the joy that comes from pointing out (preferably in a group, with a drink in hand) just how poor the quality is. I enjoy pointing and laughing, staring with disbelief at the wreckage of bad dialogue, bad delivery, bad makeup and wigs — oh, the wigs! I enjoy bad movies, and these are bad in a spectacular way.

But I’m also implicated in a culture that fetishizes pretty faces, chiseled abs, love at first sight, and happily ever afters.

I think it’s important to think critically about the disturbingly unhealthy images of love, life, and beauty in the Twilight books and the movies based on them, but also about the problems inherent in countless other romantic comedies, romance novels, etc. I think it’s important to ask what, exactly, we’re absorbing from our media, but I am also aware that I’ve been shaped by what I have already absorbed form those books, those movies, that media. And this is what’s really scary to me. Because you can’t (and shouldn’t want to) marry a hot vampire, but you can’t marry Mr. Darcy either, be it Mark or Fitzwilliam. And, if someone like me, who thinks really hard about what she’s taking into her brain, and into her heart, has to admit that she is always already affected, and in ways that she’s not comfortable with, what of all the uncritical readers and watchers? If they manage to avoid threatening, possessive creepers, what will they seek instead?


elisamaza is both a nerd and a geek. She grew up in the South, now lives out West, and studied religion, ethics, and literature at schools on both coasts. She currently makes a living teaching students to read, write, and speak more critically about things she thinks it is critical to read, write, and speak about. She’s particularly interested in the relationship between selfhood and storytelling, and has written about it in works as varied as Isak Dinesen’s short stories, Joss Whedon’s TV series’, and Neil Gaiman’s comics. She thanks Jennifer and Katie for inviting her to guest post, and invites you to visit her blog at in medias res, where she talks about everything from “media and metaphysics” to “absolute rubbish.”

She does not usually talk about herself in the third person.

Mutatis Mutandis

This morning, TNC links to Matt Yglesias' response to TNC's first column in the NY Times. Which happens to be about X-Men: First Class. I happen to agree with what I think is TNC's main point, that the film positions itself historically and, in the process, erases or ignores a major part of that history. In fact, as I wrote to a friend yesterday,

He's totally right, by the way. I was actually most annoyed by the way that it adopted the language of the civil rights movement (mutant and proud? really?!) and played up Xavier and Lehnsherr's MLK/Malcolm X resonances, but only in a way that could have been ignored/missed by people who don't already know about those resonances.

I was also unhappy with the fact that all of the brown mutants ended up on Magneto's side. I think Yglesias is correct in that Magneto is right -- homo sapiens sapiens cannot be trusted as naively as Xavier seems to. But, again, I have to side with TNC on this one. Magneto is right, but only up to a point. As TNC says in his response to Yglesias:

If Xavier's integrationist attitude is naive (and it is), I'd argue that Magneto's faith in violence and ethnic nationalism is equally so. For me, that really is the beauty of the film. I don't think it can be reduced to who is "right." As Magneto says, Xavier thinks all humans are like Moira. And as Xavier replies, Magneto thinks all humans are like Shaw. 

I cannot support Magneto's intended (at the end of this film) or actual (in the earlier films) response to that, which is not a fight for equality (violent or otherwise), but a lifelong misson of world domination (very very violent), with disregard for the lives of both "normal" human beings and mutants. And seemingly having forgotten, ironically enough, that genocide and the mass mistreatment of groups on the basis that you consider them less than you are both BAD BAD THINGS.




*This has been your a.m. geek out. Now back to regularly scheduled nerding, as I finish the last of my grading for the quarter. Expect to see a bit more activity around here, now that the school year is loosening its death grip.


ETA: Adam Serwer offers a good amendment to the Xavier/MLK vs Magneto/Malcolm X comparison.

Guess I'd better work on my card card counting

So, over at the New York Times, someone named Ginia Bellafante wrote a "review" of Game of Thrones, in which she proclaims that "Game of Thrones is boy fiction" sexed up with "unhindered bed-jumping" "as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise." I put review in scare quotes because, as far as I'm concerned, if you start with the idea that no one with boobs could possibly want to watch this and follow up, as she does, with the thought that nothing in this genre could possibly have anything worthwhile to say to anyone, you haven't really done much to make me feel like you're trustworthy source of information on whether or not it's worth watching.

Now, as a) a woman who is b) alive and would c) watch if I had HBO, I was planning a response to the "boy fiction" bullshit (I'll be sure to include that in the title of my class next time), but Joanna Robinson over at Pajiba has already made such a fantastic one that I'm just going to link to hers and leave it at that. The comments are also pretty fantastic, as is often the case on Pajiba. Potentially spoilerific, but fantastic.

The Body

It was with some trepidation that I sat down to rewatch The Body. I'm teaching it, so I had to. And I'm teaching it on purpose - on of our texts refers to death as the thing that will "define the creation for the created" and I immediately thought of it. But it's a doozy, as far as I remember. I haven't rewatched it since I saw it the first time, but I remember how shaken up I was by that first image of Joyce on the couch. In addition to the power of the episode, there are obviously some memories there. No surprise, then, that while I'll be suggesting that we watch future episodes as a community, I have no intention of trying to watch The Body with my class.

But enough stalling.

I'd hoped to Rewatch at an accelerated pace and work my way up to here, but that obviously didn't happen, so I'm watching it out of context.

Mom. Mom? Mommy?

Brutal.

It's jarring to see the slayer looking so helpless, but that's the point - actual, normal, human death is the thing that the slayer helpless against (even in the case of her own, it's not her who has any power, and the power that's used has horrible consequences that suggest it maybe shouldn't have been).

Word vomit "good luck"/real vomit.

It think it's well done that it's like it doesn't sink in until Buffy says "the body" herself. Earlier, she corrects the person on the phone and, when she say "the body, " Buffy says, "No, my mom." When she finally yells at Giles, "We're not supposed to move the body!", that's when it really hits her, and she begins to cry. (That's also when I started to cry.)

The pieces of this are so perfect. All of the random things you freak out over, finding the perfect shirt, wanting to know what's expected, wanting to think it's just not true, wanting someone to blame...and then Emma Caulfield (Anya) just breaks it down. But Willow's response, which is less talked about, is also great:

Willow - "We don't know...how it works...why..."

Because that's really the problem, isn't it? We know, more than we know anything else, that it's coming. We don't know when, really. And we don't know how it works. IF you truly believe that it's just a cessation, even that's mysterious, because we can't truly imagine what it is not to have our consciousness anymore. So our brief lives are bounded by

displacement - I don't even know if I"m here

Buffy - Was it sudden?
Tara - No, and yes. It's always sudden.

My problem isn't with Dawn wanting to see, it's with not just saying, "I want to see." Why pick the dumbest way possible? Oh, because you're that character. If you lived in Sunnydale, why would you *ever* go into the morgue unattended, given how frequently people don't stay dead? You know that on any given night, there's got to be some vampire rising in the morgue.

And what, exactly, does Dawn think she's going to see? Or accomplish by seeing? I know this is an impulse for some people, but it's just not one that I share. I've seen the bodies. It's not a comfort, and it only gives you an unpleasant visual to remember. They don't look like the people you loved, and for exactly the reason Buffy gives at the end. "It's not her. She's gone."

On the drama about casting The Hunger Games

There's an article at Racialicious that does a good job of addressing why it matters who's in the lead role and why it's important that they've got it wrong. Why the Casting of The Hunger Games Matters.

This drama was one of the few entertainment-related things that made it through the noise of end-quarter period for me. I haven't read the book yet, though I've very much wanted to since one of my younger sisters recommended it. Given how popular it was, I wasn't surprised when I heard there was a movie version coming, and I made a note to myself to be sure to read it before the movie came out. So, not having read it yet, I don't have any real sense of who the characters are, or who might be right to play them, and I didn't have any idea why people were so upset about the casting. At first, I just kept reading that Jennifer Lawrence's hair and eyes were the wrong color, which seemed like nitpicking to me, given how frequently people wear dye their hair, or wear wigs and colored contacts. Then, I stumbled across a few things that mentioned what a big deal it was that Katniss doesn't look like her mom and sister, or that Katniss is compared to a character who is obviously not White, etc. "Ah," I thought, "I see your point." Then came the other shoe - I stumbled across a few really defensive posts about how it shouldn't really matter anyway, because it's all about class, and the world they're in is post-racial, and... That's where I stopped reading, because that's where people started shooting themselves in the foot, and I hate to see that happen. There are lots of issues to take up here, and they've been taken up by people far better situated to do so. What I'll say is this: if anyone can play grey-eyed, black haired Katniss, because race doesn't matter in Katniss' world, then why did the casting call specify that it only wanted "Caucasian"? Because that doesn't sound post-racial. Oh, I know - because, while the world of The Hunger Games might be post-racial (doubtful, but I'll see when I read it), ours is not. And that's why casting matters, and why it matters that Hollywood gets it wrong so often. We'll be watching this film in *our* world, where people are much more comfortable with the idea of casting a stereotypically blond-haired, blue eyed, fair-skinned actress in the role of an dark-haired, grey-eyed, olive-skinned character than they are with the idea of casting anyone even vaguely brown in the role of anything at all. Even a character from the same book, who is explicitly described as dark brown.

Again, not surprised. And, not having read the book and gotten attached, not disappointed in the way that actual fans are -- I'll get there when I've read it, and have my own ideas of what the characters should look like, which will inevitably not be what it translated to the screen. Instead, I'm disappointed the abstract way that I'm disappointed every time I hear that Hollywood never-ending quest to whitewash our imaginations continues.

Fug Madness: Twitter Edition

The picture, for reference:

Amazing.

Catching up on the Whedon spotlight -- the linkfest begins

Finally catching up on the PopMatters Whedon Spotlight, in which I will be featured on Wednesday. Here's are a couple you might want to check out: Why Cast a Spotlight on Joss Whedon? and Joss Whedon 101: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The first is exactly what is says. Lots of interesting info, and you should go and read it, but the author suggests that, in a nutshell, Whedon rocks because he likes what we (geeks) like, thinks we (the audience) are smart, and actually likes and respects women. The second article linked is all about how BtVS came to TV, and what the author thinks its place in TV history is in terms of female heroes* and narrative structure. Also an interesting read. Both of those pieces are by the spotlight editor, Robert Moore.

*I've mentioned this here before, but will say again: for a thoughtful treatment of the history of female heroes in popular American media, check out Jennifer K. Stuller's Ink Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology.

PopMatters Spotlight on Whedon has started!

Here's the link to the main page - Creator Spotlight: Joss Whedon. On March 23rd, they'll be running an article by yours truly on humanism and heroism is Whedon's work. Until then, check out some of the other pieces - I will, as soon as I'm done grading! Today, for example, there's a 101 article on Buffy, one on vampires, language and masculinity, one on Buffy's place in the fantasy cannon...

You get the picture.

2010: A Movie Odyssey

Sorry - I couldn't resist!


This is where I'll review movies - New, old, old but new to me...I'll leave it here at the top, so PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR MOST RECENT POSTS.


The year so far: Up in the Air; Leap Year; Rear Window; The Book of Eli; A Single Man; Team America: World Police; Clash of the Titans (2010); The Savages; Death at a Funeral (2010); The Losers; Iron Man 2; Robin Hood (2010); The A-Team; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse; Despicable Me; Inception; Salt; Moon; A Perfect Getaway; Legion; Beauty and the Beast (Sing-a-long); Let Me In; The Social Network; Red; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1; Burlesque; True Grit; Going the Distance


PS - The reviews may very well be spoilery. I will not usually put a warning on individual ones.