Prediction: This Christmas, Hollywood Will Discover Teen Girls

It's not unusual for the big holiday blockbusters to become blockbusters because they appeal to the 14-21 crowd. Or, rather, one half of the 14-21 crowd. Everyone knows, after all, that Hollywood is often desperate to capture the attention of teen boys because everyone knows that they are the ones who go to the movies all the time, and will go again and again to the over-hyped movies.

So, watch out for lots of freaked out critics this coming Christmas, when the two biggest blockbusters are going to be made that way by the other half of the 14-21 crowd. Because not only will Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will be coming out late November, but Twilight is set to come a mere three weeks later.

What isTwilight you ask? Twilight, for those of you that have been living under a rock, is a YA series about vampires and full of teen angst. It's also going to be the blockbuster that no one expected.



When it was announced a while ago that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was going to be broken up into two movies, who didn't cynically think "Oh, so you'll break up DH, but you still kept OotP all in one movie. wtf?" Yeah, I'm sure we're all believing that this is all about staying true to the source material and not at all about WB getting worried that their HP cas cow is almost over.



And WB should be especially worried about HP, because while they may have other blockbusters in the works, they don't really have any that are made to appeal to the demographic that made the HP movies such huge successes. The HP books may have been initially made famous by adorable 9 year old boys sporting fake glasses and lightening scars, but it's the teen girls that have been most consistent about showing up in their Hogwarts gear for the midnight screenings of the HP movies as well as the latest Midnight Magic Parties.

Both the books and the movies appeal to a wide variety of people, and neither would have done as well as they had if they hadn't. But that doesn't change the fact that the core audience for the HP movies is the very one that Hollywood has consistently pretended doesn't exist. The one that they make half-hearted attempts to lure into the the theatre every so often, and then pronounce not worth bothering for when their often lame attempts flop.



Which brings us to Twilight. The movie that MTV ignored until their rights expired, despite the fact that it's also based on the books one that the teen girls (and a good number of adult women) I know cannot stop talking about. Yes, my cousin and her friends are all still looking forward to HBP, but it's the casting announcements for Twilight and the speculation about Breaking Dawn - the upcoming fourth book - that dominates the conversation whenever the subject of books and movies come up.



Anyone who had bothered to check Amazon.com's top ten last summer wouldn't have been surprised to find various versions of the Harry Potter books dominating the list. What went largely unnoticed, however, was that all three of the books from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series were consistently on the top ten throughout the summer as well. (Unnoticed enough that my store ran out of our 200+ copies on the first day.) If you need any further proof of the insane popularity of the books and the huge anticipation for this movie, just go to the MTV movies blog post that's prefaced by the announcement that the number of comments on their first post for Twilight left all other comment threads in the dust.

For years (decades?) Hollywood has said that teen girls don't go to movies - or if they do, they go to whatever their boyfriends want to see. HP has already shown that not to be true, but it's not widely acknowledged for fear of scaring off the HP fans who aren't teen girls. (cuz girls have cooties, yannow)

Juno has helped, but adults like to pretend that their teen girls are completely unaware of sex, so it's popularity among that group has been largely ignored. As has the fact that pre-teen crushes on Harry and Ron have grown more adult in past few years.





Plus, god forbid they mention "teen girls" and "Oscar worthy" in the same sentence.

But all this pretending that the adults are doing isn't going to last when Twilight hits the screen.



(shirtless vampires, oh my!)

ps - also expect a more than decent box office performance by YA novel inspired and October release Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, thus solidifying the trend.



pps - expect Kirsten Stewart to blow everybody's socks off as Twilight's Bella as well.



ppps - Will someone please make sure that she, Ellen Page, and Emma Watson all continue to have roles worthy of their talents? thxbai

1100

That's how many linear feet of (adult) non-fiction (non-reference) books are on the shelves at the (soon to be) old branch.

And no, you don't want to know why I know that.

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7 days until we close.

8 days until the movers come.

27 days until we open.

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...and I'm already stressed and exhausted.

Why I Hate Local News

and all kinds of other news shows as well

some LA station is reporting on the "Spitzer sex scandal"

'cuz the most important thing is that it's all about sex. It's not about a public official who was entrusted with enforcing laws now being charged with doing something that's illegal, the hypocrisy of him going after johns while being one, or that he endangered the lives of others - including his wife - by trying to coerce a prostitute into letting him not wear a condom. No, it's really just the sex that matters.

and they keep calling the woman who blew the whistle on Spitzer a "call-girl"

'cuz it's not like there aren't better words they could use, or that she is an adult who deserves the respect of being addressed as one, or that it matters if we imply statutory rape and then ignore the implication, therefore suggesting that charges of rape amount to nothing more than a "sex scandal."

and yet, when they quote some idiot on her myspace page, they replace "whore" with "prostitute"

or, at least, that's what one assumes they were replacing, since "prostitute" was written as "[prostitute]" on the visual aid screen

'cuz it's all fine and good to treat sex itself as both worse and more newsworthy than illegal activity, conflate rape and sex, infantilize a grown woman, quote people who call her names, or use silly euphemisms ourselves, but god forbid we use something as disrespectful as "whore" on local television.

at 11pm.

even if it means inaccurately reporting the name-callers as being more polite than the local news.

Introducing Super K!

Work? What's that?






And no, that's not me. That's my big sis.

PS Since I do actually have work to do, I won't be changing the typos anytime soon, so y'all will have to live with them for a while.

Because We Are A Society That Lives on Soundbites

Male physiques, of course, all conform to the statistical norms of the United States.

That's a comment made in response to this post: Marvel Women Unhealthily Underweight

I suspect sarcasm.

Which seems a little, um, clueless? to me, since, well....

For those of us that like numbers, here's the pretty graph that sums up the post's title:



Note how the spikes for the men's BMI occur at roughly the same place, but the Marvel BMI has a higher spike than the real life BMI. So on the one hand, the Marvel average - or ideal - still corresponds pretty well with the real life average, but on the other, Marvel men are more "average" than real men. They are, in fact, about doubly likely to be "average" than real men.

Now, let's look at the curves for the women's BMI. Not only is the Marvel spike five times higher than the spike for real women, the "averages" aren't anywhere near each other. There is no point at which the Marvel curve and the midpoint of the real life curve even overlap. So we've gone from being almost twice as likely to fitting the real life "average" to no one being like the real life "average."

While real women are more likely to be outliers than real men, Marvel men are more likely to be outliers than Marvel women. Marvel women, in fact, show a range that is only half what Marvel men, a third of real men, and a quarter of real women have. So not only is the average Marvel woman nothing like the average real woman, Marvel women who don't fit that average are pretty much non-existant.

Yeah....um, about that sarcasm.....

PS

You should all go read the actual paper, of course. It is by Karen Healey and Terry D. Johnson.

Definitions

Something is racist if it includes or promotes - however unintentionally - racism.



It is perfectly valid to use an otherwise non-racist something to illustrate a trend that is racist.



Calling something racist does not necessarily imply malicious intent on the part of the person responsible for that racist something. Ignorance and negligence is often all that is needed to keep racism going.



That said, defending such behavior and assuming that accusations of racism always imply intent really makes me wonder about the person doing the defending and assuming.

Countdown

50 days.

In 50 days, the new library opens.

The library that's so big that it gets "and Technology Center" tacked onto it's name, a second name just for the children's part of the library, and an auditorium that fits several hundred people.

By the end of those 50 days, the 12 Pages that we just hired - who won't be starting for another two weeks- and 6 Library Assistants - who haven't even been hired yet - need to be trained. And it's my job to train them. (Did I mention I got a promotion? Yeah, not that one, another one.)

In 50 days, we need to be moved out of the current building and into the new one, have processed hundreds of thousands of books, and retrained a couple dozen employees on new technology.

We're expecting a crowd of around 8,000 people on opening day.

So....I've been kinda busy.

Plus, the family got together for a trip to Yosemite this last weekend. Look, pretty!



(picture taken by my dad)

Anyway, just thought I ought to explain why posting has been light and not terribly thought provoking lately.

(sigh)

huh?

Kitty Pryde throws herself at Peter Rasputin before the big battle. It’s well-written and doesn’t demean her as a character, but is it appropriate? Well, that depends upon its target audience, doesn’t it?

Um...

Kitty Pryde throws herself at Peter Rasputin before the big battle.

wtf-ever.

Seriously, who the hell describes the continuation of a previously established and emotionally fulfilling sexual relationship as one partner throwing themselves at the other? Really, people, we silly feminazi's would be a little less quick to see sexism when it's only barely there if you all would stop conflating female desire with submission and desperation.

It’s well-written and doesn’t demean her as a character, but is it appropriate?

More or less appropriate than Mystique trying to seduce Wolverine in the second X-Men movie? (Or her make-up throughout all three?)

Well, that depends upon its target audience, doesn’t it?

Since I'm guessing both the target audience and the actual audience of the Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is more than old enough to read about sexual relationships where the two people involved actually treat each other with respect...again I say: wtf-ever.

And as far as the actual point of the post goes:

Just in case I haven't said this enough lately, it just so happens that I often am thinking not just of myself but also of any girl who has started puberty* when I argue against crap like the Heroes for Hire cover and for scenes like the ones where Kitty and Peter get it on. What can I say, I like and admire Judy Blume.

Emma Frost trying to impersonate both the Phoenix and a sex starved kewpie doll - at the same time? Now that I could do without and wouldn't really recommend to anyone - including younger teen girls. I only wish, however, that girls - teen and otherwise - could be exposed to more stuff along the lines of the "I phased!" scene and the "one last time before the big battle" scene.

From my experience of having been one, I can tell you that a lot of girls often get the impression from culture that sex is supposed to be demeaning to women - and it seems increasingly obvious to me that we are not the only ones who learn this. Which means that a lot of people have a really hard time distinguishing "sex" from "showing women in a demeaning manner." Why else would you describe that scene as Kitty "throwing" herself at Peter? No matter how many times you try to argue later that the scene is "well-written and doesn’t demean her as a character" - characterizing her behavior as "throwing" herself at Peter demeans Kitty and her actions. Actions that, yes, really were not at all demeaning as originally written.

I can't decide which I find more disturbing, the misrepresentation of Girl-Wonder's goals, the conflation of Girl-Wonder and every feminist interested in comics, or the constant conflation of (male) sexual desire and objectification (of women and girls) Thankfully, that isn't something that I have to vote on. I can simply get pissed at all three.

*And in case I haven't reminded everyone enough lately, it's not unusual nowadays for puberty to hit girls before they are even into double digits.

I Voted!

I'm going to follow my mother's example this time around and not say who I voted for. (Mostly because I keep changing my mind....yes, still.....and don't feel like getting into any debates about it.)

However.....

I will be excited no matter who wins tonight.

And that is a very cool feeling.

:)

Students Back Obama and McCain

That's today's headline for my local paper, and it's completely cracking me up right now.

It's actually referring to the local results of a statewide mock primary that students at my local HS (and one of the local middle schools) participated in. Obama won the local mock Democratic nominatiion and McCain won the local mock Republican nomination.

(Now, keep in mind as you read this that I live in a rather rich, conservative, religious section of one those nice big red counties on the CA map.)

What I find really funny is that if you look at the actual numbers, you see that Clinton - despite losing by a landslide - still got more total votes than McCain did.

These are the results:

Obama 299
Clinton 132
Edwards 25

total Democratic votes: 456

MCCain 96
Romney 38
Paul 32
Huckabee 26
Giuliani 23

total Republican votes: 215

Wow. I mean, I'm used to the current under 35's -especially the under 24's - leaning towards the Democrats by a big amount. But by a supermajority a usually Republican district? Damn. That's just pathetic.

Seriously, look at that. Obama got more votes all by himself than all the Republican candidates combined. Obama, all by himself, beat the combined votes for Republicans by more than 10%.

heh.

Girlie Books

heh.

For all the talk about how required fiction in schools is very girl centric, the truth is that while most well-read women have read a decent number of the classic "boy stories" there are very few well-read men who have read Little Women, Anne of Green Gables or the like. (The one exception being Little House on the Prairie which actually is sometimes read in school, owing in equal parts to the TV show and Laura Ingalls Wilder herself being a teacher, imo.)

And this is why I love Buffy. Because it's written by someone who has actually read Little Women - or at least is aware enough of the story to know the special place that Christian Bale as Laurie occupies in our ....hearts.

On a similar note, the closing quote from the latest episode of Criminal Minds was from the creator of our dear Anne Shirley*.

For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won....

Yeah. There's a reason why I love Criminal Minds.

Well, several, actually. :)




(CM screencaps from Oracle of Quantico)

Speaking of TV shows that make me like TV...I finally saw last weeks episode of Numb3rs - "Power" - and wow. If only rape could be dealt with even half that well on even half the crime shows on air.



*I admit it. It took me a few times to realize that "Lucille" = "Lucy" :)

Apparently, You Can Never Be Young Enough

feministing and copyranter have both weighed in on the creepiness factor in this ad.

What I find interesting though, is that this ad is from Tiger Beat. A magazine that (assuming it had the same purpose and demographics in 1972 as it does now) is for

1) teen and pre-teen girls

2) who are "obsessed" with boys.

The model in the ad is not standing in for a grown woman - as a commenter at feministing argues - she is standing in for a teen girl only several years older than herself. I rather suspect the shampoo maker used a sexualized pictures of a very young girl to sell it's product not just because our culture infantilizes women, but also because it half-neuters teen girls - they are sexualized, but god forbid they are sexual or have desires of their own.

So, how does one use sex to sell something to teen girls if one cannot be seen as encouraging sexual behavior in teen girls? Especially, god forbid, by acknowledging that they like to look at men and boys. Even in a magazine that is generally bought for the pull-out posters of the pretty boy of the day. (And, whatever one may think of the idea, using sex to sell products to the readers of Tiger Beat is a perfectly logical route to take.)

Well, one fetishizes "innocence" - ie, virginity.

And ends up with something even creepier than what one was trying to avoid in the first place. And yet somehow more acceptable to society. Which is a whole 'nother level of creepy altogether.

It's Not Advice If It's An Order

What strikes me most reading this, is how much it such "advice" mirrors the "advice" given to (young) women on how to not get raped.

As inge points out in the comments:

The question is how much is a person expected to give up to reduce how low a risk to their own or their children’s health? At some point it passes ridiculous and becomes political.

Because that's the part they never talk about...the fact that - as Amanda repeatedly points out in the actual post - people still have lives to live and work to do and fun to have and problems and addictions to deal with, and so on and so forth - even people who happen to be female. Even people who happen to be female and pregnant.

Correlation, Causation or Coincidence?

I keep feeling like I should have some deep thoughts about the WW/Playboy thing - and all manner of shit from the past year - happening at the same time that the American Library Association gave two of their major annual awards to graphic novels/comic books (in addition to this, the 2008 Caldecott went to a graphic novel for elementary school kids). Hell, even this year's Newbery went to an illustrated collection of interwoven stories and last year's Printz award went to a graphic novel.

However, it's just not quite there.......and I need to get ready for work.

thoughts, anyone?

There's A What On My What?

It's a little sad and scary how excited I am about this.

(excited enough to do my first ever wikipedia edit, btw)

But seriously, how cool is it that this year's Dr. Seuss award went to an early reader that was done in comic book format?



And hey! Now that I get actual weekends maybe you'll get a review of it sometime soon!

(don't count on it, though)

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Number 1 Reason Why the Playboy/WW Thing Annoys the Crap Out Me

(on the rare occasions that I think it's worth thinking about at all)

....are we to expect a naked, body-painted Batman on Playgirl in the months leading up to this Summer’s Dark Knight?

Pink Raygun

God, I hope so… I would totally buy that.

Liz - in the comments at The Beat.

As if.

and I seriously cannot read the rest of the comments because not two down from Liz's is another "sex is power!" comment. if sex is power then why is Playgirl such absolute crap?


AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What Was The Question Again?

(spoilers for Juno and Knocked Up)

I saw Juno last night - and loved it. (Ellen Page is perpetually awesome.)


However, I saw it with my mom and some of her friends - and they didn't like it quite so much. They didn't hate it, but....they thought it was too easy. How could this be a lesson about pregnancy and teen sex* when everything worked out so easily?

Wha?

"It wasn't about the pregnancy," I said. "It was about relationships." The pregnancy was just a plot device.

I rather suspect their disappointment made them even more eager to see the sneak preview of 27 Dresses that they saw today. But me? I was less jealous of their getting to see it today than I had been before.** It's not that you know how it's going to end just by watching the previews, because I knew that before. It's that it seems so very unreal and fake and empty compared to the kind of love that's central to Juno.

I think a part of it is generational. Juno's main problem wasn't the pregnancy, it was learning how to navigate relationships and learning to keep having faith in other people and romantic love amidst the reality of divorce, break-ups, and loss. I think, in a lot of ways, baby boomers still believe in the idea that everybody gets a happily ever after one true love a lot more than younger generations do. Like people tend to do, they kept imagining what they would have done if they were in Juno's shoes. But they've never worn Juno's shoes because when they were 16 and first starting to figure out adult relationships, divorce was still a bad word. So instead, they focused on the part they understood - the pregnancy. They saw the people in Juno's life as being important because of how they affected her pregnancy and the baby and not how they affected Juno and her willingness to be vulnerable with other people. I'm not sure my mom and her friends really understood what Juno was really searching for throughout the movie. I know they got it in the end, but I think that they missed a lot of thematic points because it took them longer to realize it.

BetaCandy suggested the other day that

I think most people do watch movies and TV to escape reality, but that men are more likely to find escape through pure fantasy with little focus on problem solving and women more likely to find it through seeing problems get solved in fiction.

Some of the best proof for the second part of that statement that I can see is that my mom and her friends are still eager for 27 Dresses and I'm not. To them, Juno didn't do what it was supposed to do. I don't think it's so much that it didn't deal realistically with the pregnancy but that it involved pregnancy but didn't focus on relationship between mother and child, between Juno and her body and the person inside her. And yet, they thought it was meant to, giving them the impression for most of the time they were watching it that the movie was doing a crappy job of dealing with the problems it laid before the audience. 27 Dresses, however, will obviously focus on relationships in a more traditional and understandable way. Problem will be clearly presented and fixed. To me, though, Juno presented and dealt with the issue that most people my age are most worried about when it comes to relationships - who can we count on, how long can we count on them, and is it worth it if it doesn't last? 27 Dresses, however, will still give us that fairy tale ending that hampers our ability to find honest and realistic answers to these questions.

Oddly enough, Juno makes me think of The House of Mirth and class discussions on it. I didn't like it at first because I didn't understand why Lily couldn't make up her damn mind. Our professor gently steered us toward the realization that Lily's problem wasn't making up her mind, it was the fact that she wasn't free to choose what she had already decided. Lily didn't want to decide between Lawrence and Percy, she wanted to go on as she had been - single and social - but that wasn't an option available to women. Juno sets up a false either/or situation for Juno as well. I wasn't as bothered by the unrealistic "they have fingernails!" reason for not getting an abortion as I thought I would be. Because by then, I knew it was a gimmick. I already knew that it wasn't about dealing with the consequences of sex, it was about deciding to be intimate with someone. We aren't shown the flashbacks to the act that got Juno pregnant because we need to know how it happened or why she made such a mistake (which isn't ever addressed in the flashbacks), but because she keeps asking that question throughout the movie - the one she supposedly already answered - should I, or shouldn't I?


Oh, I finally saw Knocked Up a few days ago as well.


I don't get it. It made about as much sense to me as Jerry Maguire did.

So much of it just seemed - odd. Not just "why did she not have an abortion?" not just "her career stays on track? how realistic" but - "what did they see in each other, exactly?" Other than desperately wanting that fairy tale ending, why in the world did they ever try to get together in the first place?

blech.


ps - you should totally go read Amanda's take on it as well.



*Dear god, must everything be a lesson whenever teen sex is mentioned? Although, to be fair, they didn't come up with this idea on their own - that seems to be what is floating around the MSM/word of mouth.

**I work on Sundays now.

Yes....and No

(from the comments at pinkraygun - NSFW - re: the now infamous playboy/WW cover)

But secondly, female sexuality is a power, and I would argue that sexuality has always been one of the things that makes Wonder Woman strong, in addition to her physical strength and other abilities/weapons.

I'm going to set aside the whole issue of Wonder Woman for a moment - mostly owing to the fact that I'm hardly an expert on the subject - and focus on this part of the quote:

...female sexuality is a power.

That's one one of those statements that is technically true, but is often falsely used to mean more than just the literal definitions of the words in question.

Why, after all, does one always feel the need to say that female sexuality is a power? Is not sexuality itself a power? (Really people, I cannot possibly be the only one watching the first season of The Tudors now that it's out on dvd.)

Or, more precisely, isn't being sexually desireable a power?

Since, of course, one's sexuality is made up of more than just how other people view you. Yet, when one is discussing Playboy type looks, one is very obviously discussing how other people view you, not everything that falls under "female sexuality." Feminine desires are part of the conversation only when/if they intersect with being on display.

The Pinkraygun reader is trying to argue that being sexually desireable is just one of the many weapons in Wonder Woman's arsenal. However, the fact that we (usually) only attribute such powers to women makes it a gendered power, which - for various reasons - makes it more of a requirement than an asset. It's not just that it's useful to Wonder Woman that she is beautiful and sexy; by defining male and female sexuality the way we do, we also make being ugly more of a liability for women than for men - superheroes included.

Because, for some reason, we consistently define feminine sexuality as very passive - one is desired but does not desire* - and define male sexuality as very active - one desires but is not desired. Needless to say, the fact that reality is otherwise creates some major problems.

Female sexuality feels more powerful to people than it is because the desire (straight) men have for women tends to undermine the premise that men do not fall prey to emotions. But it isn't a superpower - it's an often an illusory power; being an object of desire is only useful if you are high enough in the hierarchy to use that to your advantage. (Henry VIII vs. Duke of Suffolk vs. Anne Boelyn vs. Buckingham's daughter)

Or, more perhaps accurately, female sexuality feels powerful to people because when one is bargaining, the power dynamic between hagglers is largely determined by who is more willing to walk away without a deal having been made.

When we define sexuality only by men's desires, we make it seem as if straight men are always at a disadvantage; we write a cultural narrative in which women are always the ones willing to walk away and men never are. Reality, however, is quite different. (As the characters from The Tudors can attest to.) Plus, being willing to walk away from a deal is not only determined by how much one wants something, but also by if one is physically, financially, and legally able to leave. When we define reality by men's experiences (and usually powerful men's experiences, at that) we forget how often women and other disadvantaged groups are put in the position of not being able to walk away.

(spoilers for the first episode of The Tudors)

I keep going back to one particular scene in the first episode of The Tudors. In it, the king asks Lady Blount if she consents to having sex with him. She says "yes," and very obviously desires him as well. And yet...she's also just a little bit hesitant. And I can't help wondering what would have happened to her if she said "no." I'm fairly certain that she wondered the same thing at one point, and that both of us came to the conclusion that she would have suffered for denying him.

And then, of course, we have Charles Brandon's seduction of Buckingham's daughter (does she even have a name?). This is very obviously a case where the (modern) cultural narrative doesn't work. He chose her mostly in order to hurt her father; it's almost certain that he would have made sure her father knew of her actions if chance had not done so for him. On the other hand, whatever her reasons, it's obvious that desire was one of them. In this case, the man is the one who is using his attractiveness as a weapon and it is the woman who literally cannot walk away from this world of men.

Female sexuality is a liability in a world where sexuality is defined by male desires, and where this definition is enforced by laws and cultural mores. Being a sexually desirable woman is a possible advantage, but how much of a power it is depends upon one's status, which is in turn determined by whose opinions and desires influence culture and law. Women's status may have vastly improved for the better since the time of the Tudors, but as long as our definition of sexuality is (mostly) shaped by male desires, and as long as women as a group still have less political and economic power than men, women will still be at a disadvantage at the bargaining table.

(People who know the character better than I do are welcome to disagree, but...)

I think that Wonder Woman's beauty and sexiness is a more useful power to her in her home world, where it is seen as an asset rather than a requirement, and where she is afforded enough status that her own desires are not disregarded and where other's appreciation of her beauty isn't used to undermine her other strengths.

Which is pretty much the opposite of what most people mean when they talk about female sexuality being powerful.

Plus, what Ragnell said. In spades.

*even women that are viewed as sexually aggressive are usually viewed as being eager to take whatever men want to do to them, rather than having desires of their own

Inside the Campaign!

A little birdie told me that Clinton had two speeches written for Tuesday.

One for if she lost - by a little.

Another for if she lost - by a lot.



The campaign staff were told to be thinking about looking for other jobs soon.



heh



The same little birdie said that a computer program that makes it easy for volunteers from around the country to make get out the vote calls to other people throughout the country- used once upon a time by Move-on.org - is partly responsible for the win.

Although, the little birdie may be biased in that opinion. :)

Remember Anita Hill

So...several months ago Anita Hill was in the news again, because Clarence Thomas wrote some stupid book.

It occurred to me at the time, that the people who really didn't want Clinton to get elected would do well to remember the last time a bunch of powerful, old(er), white men - and quite a few people who are neither male nor white - sat around and said stupid things about a woman that most people couldn't care less about at first.

Remember, we believed Anita Hill.

Job News

So, what do I discover around the corner from the library on my second day at work?

A comic book store! :)

********

I already have several projects to work on, which is good. :)

(and while I fear this may jinx it....)

One of the projects is coming up with possible events to advertise these free books - as required by the application to ask for them.

Appropriately enough, the children's part of the new library* is named after Martin Luther King Jr. There's a big sign in front of the new (mostly completed) building that says "I have a dream!..." next to a picture of MLK. Since one of the books is an illustrated copy of the Gettysburg Address for kids, I got to thinking...and I looked up a few dates....

And guess what? Those speeches were given 100 years apart - minus about a month and a half. And they are coming up on their 45th and 145th anniversary this year.

So I thought it would be cool to have an essay/speech (and art) contest that's kicked off by reading aloud MLK's speech on 8/28 and concluded by reading aloud the winning speeches and the Gettysburg address on 11/19.

Oh! and look what falls right near the end. Why don't we decide the winners by having the patrons vote for their favorites starting election Tuesday?

(and here comes the "I don't want to jinx this" part)

How cool is it that we may be reading those winning speeches on equality just after an historic election?

(kinda makes me wish the dates were flipped, actually)



*yeah...did I mention that the branch I got transfered to is closing down in a few months and then opening up in a new huge state of the art building a few blocks away?

Me Want Wii

I really wish I had more intelligent things to write about with regards to the latest issue of Cerise, but that's pretty much all I can think about after reading this article.


On a related and more depressing note, my father and I had the following (one-sided) conversation earlier today:

(important background - my new job means I'll have enough $ for an apartment within the next 2-4 months; I borrowed my brother's Playstation2 last March and he finally asked for it back a few weeks ago)

Me: "I hadn't realized how cheap dvd players had gotten in the last few years. Last time I looked it was only the knockoffs that were really cheap, the regular brands were still $100 or more. Now even the good brands are well below that."

(pause)

Me: "You know what though, I saw a used Playstation2 advertised for not much more than that the other day. Now that the PS3 has been out for a while, they are really starting to come down. I might look into that and see if I can get one for about the same price as a dvd player."

Dad: starts listing off prices for dvd players that he's found online.

wtf?

I kinda think that "dvd player/game console" will be taken off the list of "suggested housewarming presents" - I'm far too likely to get what my family thinks I'll use/want rather than what I really would use/want.

Although, to be fair, maybe he doesn't know the PS2s play dvds as well? (But we went through this the last time I moved out, when my younger brother and I shared an apartment - my brother convinced me that PS2 was the way to go and I was very glad he did.) In any case, I'm certain that he has no idea how many games I own.

(And yes, it's very spoiled of me to be expecting housewarming gifts above $20 - or at all, but I also know that my parents and older sister are going to be so thrilled when I finally move out that there's a decent chance I'll be getting such gifts from both of them. My older sister has already said as much when we were discussing Christmas gifts and lists - she pretty much told me that dvd player was too cheap, that it would make a better housewarming present than a Christmas gift, is there anything else I want?)

As of 8 am Tomorrow...

This blog needs a new name!

Whoohoo!

(but it won't likely get one for a while - inspiration has yet to strike)

Half Truths

I've been quite the insomniac over the past few days because my new job starts on Monday, and my last day at my old jobs is on Friday. So I've been reading through (among other things) all the carnivals that I missed over the last few months.

This post from the 47th Carnival of Feminists caught my eye. It's about the classic listserv exchange "that starts out with someone being called out on saying something sexist and immediately turns into an attack on overly-sensitive women and the girly-men who respect them."

At one point, Ross, the guy that Eric ends up exchanging e-mails with, writes:

Maybe I am over-interpreting her response, but I have seen far too many people that always see prejudice in everything because that is what they expect and what they look for.

Excluding the hyperbolic "everything" - there is a kernel of truth to that statement. I very much disagree, however, that we see the sexism because it's what we expect. I'd argue quite the opposite, that we see it precisely because we are the ones who have learned not to expect it, not to normalize it.

As I've said several times before, one of the most enlightening experiences about having gone to a women's college was spending several years in an environment where the default was female. Not male. Not gender neutral. But female.

Remember too, that this wasn't just a place where we volunteered or worked. It was everything: home, work, play. Everything. 24/7

Not surprisingly, language changes in these circumstances. It isn't just our feminist sensibilities, but simple logic, that makes it clear how absurd it is to keep using words like "freshman." So we were "first-years" instead. Or, rather, "firsties." And, needless to say, there were no arguments about which pronouns/nouns were appropriate. When referencing the student body, the feminine was always used. The "he or she" (or "s/he") construction was used when discussing faculty and other staff.

We even developed a type of common shorthand for certain words. The Venus symbol was faster to write than "woman" - and "woman" came up more often than "man" - which became the sign for Mars. (both together meant "people") Besides, the venus symbol looks like a hasty stick figure it you do it a certain way. And that "certain way" was part of the logo for the student government.

And of course, we diminutized a lot of words - but never any that had anything to do with the women who were out mentors and inspiration, no matter whether they were teachers, upperclasswomen*, or our peers.

The point of this ramble being that I came home for Christmas break already unthinkingly referring to my classmates as "women" even though we still called our friends some variation of "girls" when talking directly to them. And so my mom, at one point while I was at home, looked at me bemusedly and asked why we did this.

And I had to think about it. Because it's mostly just something you pick up....and yet as wrong as it feels at first, it felt wrong as well to to call the dormmates we barely knew - especially seniors - girls. We could vote. They could buy alcohol. If we aren't adults by graduation, would we ever be?

And so, after thinking about it, I told her I thought that it wasn't so much that we thought of ourselves as completely adults yet, but that we certainly weren't children either...and that we damn well better be adults by the time we graduated. So while we referred to each other as women as a sign of respect, we did it not so much because we were sure we had earned it, but so that - by the time we left school - we'd become used to it and be able to recognize it better when people treated us with disrespect.

And it's most definitely worked, at least in may case. I don't get annoyed every time someone calls me girl, but I'm freakin' 30 people. When the 19 year old co-worker prefaces his statement to myself and the other 20+ woman sitting beside me with "girls,...." I most definitely get a little annoyed. And I see it as disrespectful, irrelevant of intentions.

Coming back to the post that inspired this ramble, I'd like to point out that at the end of the exchange, Ross adds:

Also, I have enjoyed our debate on this topic..... It can be entertaining and educational to debate these topics, especially considering that I don’t entirely agree with my own position.

Eric rightly calls him on this, saying that:

I wish I could get a guy like Ross to understand that this is not a “debate.” I hope this exchange was at least a little bit educational for him. I don’t feel that combating sexism is entertaining…

What he means of course, is that he wished Ross would see the conversation as something other than a game.

The thing is, I'm fairly certain he does. He may see it as a game as well, but it's obviously more to him than that - the use of ALL CAPS betrays a certain amount of (gasp!) emotion on the subject, as does the rest of the tone, the less formal writing in his earlier emails, and the fact that he bothered to email Eric at all.

No, Ross' claim that he "do[es]n’t entirely agree with [his] own position" isn't there to reassure Eric that he was only messing around, it's there because Ross lost. It's an attempt to lessen the loss by trivializing the debate after the fact. And it neatly, subtly reasserts his comrade Chris' main argument that "this is a silly discussion." An argument belied by the amount of time and effort Ross - and even Chris - put into the discussion.


PS - The comments are nearly as maddening as the emails that prompted the post. Is there any particular reason why people have such a hard time making the leap from "ok, ok, so maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to say" to "I'll try not to do it again"????????


*Spellcheck does not like "upperclasswomen" but it thinks "upperclassmen" is just fine. >P

It's the "Sex" Part That Needs Redefining

I've been reading figleaf's Real Adult Sex (NSFW, but not quite what it sounds like either) and he's been talking a lot about what he's "calling *men's* dominant paradigm of women as the "no-sex" class."

I find the posts interesting because, well, they are (this is one of my faves, for obvious reasons) but also because it's really nice to listen to someone trying to work out feminist arguments in a way that will actually reach other men without intentionally watering them down or twisting them into something they are not.

He explains the theory thusly:

But.... it *doesn't* resonate with men... to the point where we're inclined to say "in our dreams!" Because for whatever indisputable *abstract* privileges such class division might bring to us our *experience* of it is... pretty disempowering.

So in the face of that contradiction -- holding the reins of patriarchy on the one hand and feeling totally out of power when it comes to sex on the other -- I decided to try and (mis)apply a standard strategy from mathematical logic: attempt to prove the contrary position -- that men perceive women as the *no* sex class -- and see what shakes out. And, in fact, tons of fascinating stuff shakes out....

The point being not that feminist theories are wrong but that they are incomplete in that they tend to only describe how men (as a class) act within the system and how women experience being in the system, not how the average man actually experiences being in the system, or even really how women act from his perspective. Which is a fair criticism.

It's also the type of criticism and expansion of feminist theories that is best done with men leading the way - for obvious reasons - so it's really nice to see a man addressing it, because I've been wanting my male peers dissatisfaction to be properly addressed for quite a while now.

But of course, that doesn't mean I agree with all of it. I don't think he's wrong, exactly, just that it's obvious and understandable that he's still working this out - we all are - so it needs some (a lot?) of fine tuning.

It makes me feel like we need some unifying theory.

While he talks about this terminology resonating with men when little else does, and he draws as much from feminist writers as he does from personal experience when explaining the theory, it still bothers me that the terminology doesn't completely resonate with women. (ok, with me, anyway.) So, while it's a very useful theory for reaching out to men, (and again, may I add, thank god, finally?) it still doesn't help much for reaching out to people and has limits in the extent to which it will facilitate conversations between women and men, feminists and not.

Mostly, I disagree that women don't see a distinction between being called "the sex class" or "the no sex class." I think that men and women both identify with being called "the sex class" - or identify with neither. This presents a problem when trying to work things out together.

Well, then, how to resolve this?

I think figleaf got pretty close in his this post on the consent:

I was thinking about someone I quoted earlier on the limits of "no means no" and it occurred to me that even the concept of requiring consent is kind of missing a big point.

We don't seek our friend's "consent" when we ask them to join us for lunch. Instead we seek consent to park our car in somebody's driveway. We don't seek "consent" when we have a couple of extra tickets and ask if our friends want to tag along. We seek consent to use the school gymnasium for a neighborhood fundraiser.

There's been a lot of talk in the feminist blogosphere over the last several years about shifting the goalposts of consent from "no mean no" to "yes means yes."* Which I completely agree with.

But, yeah, still missing the point. Legally, it makes sense to worry about consent, because that's always going to be the legal issue. But culturally, it's both a revolutionary step forward and still so far off the mark. I have the same vague feeling about defining men as the "sex" class and shifting women to the "no-sex" class. It's useful, and good, and suggests some major changes to how we view things, but pretty soon we are going to notice that we've only moved things around a bit. The paradigm shift we are looking for is still buried beneath it all.

I think quite often we are talking past each other.

Not because women are from Venus or men say what they mean, dammit! But because we perceive ourselves differently than others perceive us.

Figleaf classifies women as the "no-sex" class (er....identifies that women are perceived as the "no-sex" class by men) because men have this perception that women don't want sex.

But why the fuck does this even matter? Why does the stereotypical man care that he wants to have sex but women (supposedly) don't? And why do we care? Well, because the stereotypical man wants to have sex with a woman, not a man, that's why!** Shifting women to the "no-sex" class is still focusing on how one gender experiences and perceives the other; it's not really looking at how we both experience living with the system, how we perceive ourselves and are viewed in turn, and, most of all, how this all fits together:

I'm suggesting that either way the heteronormative assumption is that sex is something to be obtained by the man, and dispensed by the woman... that sex is requested by the man and granted by the woman... which in turn assumes that sex isn't something she just might naturally just want to *have.* And that's what I mean by the dominant male paradigm of women as the "no-sex" class -- that by nature women just aren't interested, let alone motivated, the way men are.

Wait!....back up a bit.

....the heteronormative assumption is that sex is something to be obtained by the man, and dispensed by the woman.

Yup, that's the part.

Or, as someone told me quite seriously during the pie fights "A man's sexuality is defined by sexually desiring women. A woman's sexuality is defined by men sexually desiring her." In short form: sex is something that men want and that women have.

That lie that "women don't want sex" is only one part of this very false proscription for sexual behavior.

It's an important one. One that's long overdue for demolishing. And certainly a better one for talking to men than "men hate women." (As is the reasoning behind labeling men the "sex" class - the "boys will be boys" assumption that men are always horny that figleaf picks apart all the time as well.)

However, it's one that doesn't resonate with women not only because, as figleaf constantly points out, we know this for the lie it is, but also because it doesn't speak to our experiences as the class that is responsible for giving out sex.

Now, I don't think that figleaf needs to change his terminology so that it will speak to women as well as men. That would be silly and selfish and counter-productive for obvious reasons. But again, we need some way of talking about this is public, in mixed company, etc. And I think the key there will be found in the dynamic itself - and the tension between how we are taught to be, how other's perceive us, and who we actually are - not just how men or women view the system from the inside.


*the term, in case anybody doesn't know it, is really "enthusiastic participation." But, it tends to be rephrased as "yes means yes" when talking to a non-feminist audience. Which rather misses the point, imo, since the most radical part of "enthusiastic participation" is the idea that one wants to do this, rather than emphatically agreeing to do something.

**because, you know, no one is gay or bi in the prescriptive scenario.

Girls, Girls, Girls

I'm reposting this comment I made over at Echidne's because I think it's something that you, my (whole three) readers might find interesting, and because I might want to expand on later. For context, go here.

Because men like to see women naked a lot more than women like to see men naked.

I call bullshit.

It may (or may not) be true that men are more visually stimulated than women are, but it's absolute BS that biology alone accounts for the fact that pornography is aimed almost solely at men - which is what I gather you are trying to argue.

As I said on my own blog just last night, anyone who thinks that women aren't turned on by pictures of men has never had the task of cleaning up the teen mag section of their local bookstore/supermarket.

I've been that girl. I know what they are looking for in Bop, Tiger Beat, etc. And it isn't that so and so likes Mars Bars but hates peas.

However, unlike boys, they often can't ever find what they are looking for, and so they settle for his favorite color instead. In part because they know that, unlike the boys, they aren't supposed to be looking for it. They aren't supposed to be masturbating. (And I don’t mean “people will tease you” - I mean “your parents will wish you weren’t their daughter.”) Girls aren't supposed to want sex – popular media may show women wanting sex more positively that it used to (but still usually not) but everyone is still very, very frightened of the fact that girls want sex. And so, during the time when they are just learning about their sexuality and are feeling very unsure about themselves, girls usually still hear over and over again that only bad girls want sex.

And so they learn to subvert their sexuality into something more palatable to the general public. One either learns to be asexual or to pretend that one's sexuality is defined only by what other people (men) find to be sexy in you. Often that weird mix of both that keeps us always on the losing side.

That isn't to say that wedes is wrong when she argues that it's normal for women to be aroused when others find us sexy. That this would be true seems obvious. But if it's so obvious, why isn't it obvious for men as well? (And how does who is looking at us come into play?)

I think that it's problematic to talk about freedom of choice and feeling sexy because someone is watching you without also addressing the male gaze, the absence of the female gaze in popular media, and the extent to which women are still often trained to view their own sexual pleasure as secondary, sinful, and/or non-existent. The fact that all this desperately needs addressing elsewhere does not mean that it shouldn’t be addressed when it comes to stripping and porn.

(Although I do agree with wedes that porn gets picked on a lot - because doing so allows us to pretend it's all over there, not in the middle of everything.)

Mostly though, I think it’s just dumb to talk about the gender division in stripping and porn as if it isn’t affected at all by the sexism that affects all other kinds of gender imbalances.

Why is prostitution a mostly female occupation? Do I really need to answer that question?

I’m guessing that you should think about your answer to that question a little more, at the very least.

And when you do, keep in mind that prostitution isn’t really a mostly female occupation. Worldwide, it’s mostly an occupation for women and children. Which isn’t to say that prostitution in inherently exploitive. Just that there’s lots of evidence that the extreme gender division in prostitution, like gender divisions elsewhere, is very much rooted in gender inequality and power structures, not biology.

Random Observations and Rantings

Since I started this blog in part to rant about working retail - because I quickly learned that one cannot actually rant to family or friends about working retail (at least when one is middle class) because it will inevitably lead to various iterations of "yeah, but..." - I thought I'd kick off my last week as a bookseller with some random observations/advice from working at a bookstore:

1) When giving a title/author over the phone, always say it slowly and enunciate. The person you are speaking to doesn't have the option of going to the other room where it's quieter.

In fact, this is fairly good advice in the store as well. Your title/author may sound perfectly logical to you, but I promise you that unless you are asking for a bestseller along the lines of The Secret or The Da Vinci Code (NOT the latest one week bestseller from Douglas Preston), your friendly neighborhood bookseller is not likely to hear "for a fueding once more" as "For a Few Demons More."

2) Whoever decided that women are not as visually stimulated as men has never had to clean up the teen mag section of their local bookstore/supermarket. If those 13 year olds thought they could get away with it, those pictures of the Jonas brothers on their walls? Would be completely buck naked. I swear, it's like they have to go over every single inch of every single one of those things every month just hoping they'll get some skin this time. (btw, whotf r jobros n e way?)

3) The most recent issue of Bitch? We got enough to warrant a full, unencumbered, out to edge, front row, eye-level slot on the magazine rack this time. awesome

4) When looking for a book in the children's section with "love" in the title, have either the exact title or the author. Preferably both. "But I saw it at Walmart and it had a cover with bears hugging..." Does NOT cut it and will just make me hate you. Do you have any idea how may books we have in the store that fit that description? Much less in the search database?

5) Do not, under any circumstances, answer "Are you finding everything ok?" With "Not my wife/husband/friends!" Your friendly neighborhood bookseller may cease to even remotely friendly at this point. And I swear, if one more person answers with "Not my kids!" I swear I am going to smack them. How the fuck am I supposed to know you mean your 16 year old and not your 4 year old? On second thought, I think I'm just going to look all panicked and immediately ask for a detailed description of the kid(s).

6) That "never" goes double for making cracks about stuff being free when we can't get the scanners to work. Making fun of us isn't going to endear you to us or make us think you ought to have your own sitcom. We are just going to think you are a jerk and pathetically unoriginal.

7) It's also not funny or nice when you joke about working at a bookstore actually entailing work. That's right up with there with the people who proclaim "I'd love to work here! I'd read books all day!" (You can do that now, you know...and get paid pretty much the same.....since you'd be fired before your first day was over. Presuming you made it past the interview.....)

I know it sounds like you are being sympathetic, but all you are doing is making more work for me - because yes, smiling while I pick up, for the umpteenth time, the dozens of millimeter thin chapter books that someone decided would stand upright on a shelf - that is work. Especially if what I am pretending to smile at is someone commenting on how much my job must suck while they just stand there and watch me do it. That's why they can fire me for simply failing to be friendly enough.* So, I may not hate you as much as I hate the idiots that decide to answer "can I help you?" with a question that belongs in Deep Thoughts, but I certainly don't think that you are funny. And if you are trying to be kind, you are failing miserably.

8) Speaking of jerks and jokes made at the expense of people who have very little power - I stopped laughing at your dumb jokes last year when retail ceased to be my primary source of income. Yeah, you don't like that too well, do you?

9) Um....it's two days before Christmas, and we consistently do several thousand better that just about any other bookstore in the area on a normal day. We don't have shit. (No, seriously. We ran out of Goosebumps books this year, of all things.) Yeah, I know that the Riverside store does. Riverside still has copies because no one shops at Riverside. Why? Because they don't answer the effing phones for one....but if you'd like me to call them and have them put it on hold for you....

10) It's two days until Christmas. And Christmas is on a Tuesday this year. That makes today a Sunday. No, we cannot order it today and have it in before we close at 6 pm tomorrow.

11) "But it's cheaper on the website." Yes, that's because the website does not involve paying people like me.

12) I don't expect you to take my advice, but when you ask for it, and both I and the preteen fantasy fan** standing next to us advise you not to give your nine-year old daughter Tolkien as her first fantasy novel, I am a little miffed that you go ahead and get her The Hobbit anyway.

Now I, personally, loved The Hobbit at the tender age of 9***. However, I'd already read A Wrinkle in Time (et al), The Chronicle of Prydain, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Princess and the Goblin****. I may have even read The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown. In other words, lots and lots of fantasy books that actually have girls in them. But, please, do go on ahead and make your daughter's first introduction to fantasy a book that doesn't just feature a male protagonist (as does The Chronicles of Prydain) but is pretty much devoid of women and girls altogether. I'm sure that will go over quite well. Especially since it was clear that she would be reading it, rather than the two of you reading it together.

The Hobbit rocks. It also seems to think that girls are creatures more mythical and less likely than dragons. Methinks there are better first fantasy novels out there - for boys and girls. But wtf do I know.

13) Dear god, either my coworkers don't know the alphabet or they don't even bother to look. (Which, ok, Christmas, I can't really blame them.) I finally found 1 of our 2 copies of A Companion to Wolves next to The Princess Bride. I suppose I ought to thankful that it was in SciFi/Fantasy.



That's all for now, but I'm sure I'll have more. :)



*technically, I think I need to do more than that, but they can certainly cut my hours to the point where they might as well have fired me.

**I was initially just going to answer his question of "which cover would she like better?" Because I know better than to argue with customers that have that look in their eyes. The "I loved this as a kid and my kid will too!" look. (Yes, and that story your tell you kids to make them go to sleep will one day be a bestselling picture book!)

It was the 12 (?) year old girl that overheard our conversation that first suggested he pick something else.

***I may have actually been 10. But the point still remains.

****Too bad we didn't have that one in stock, I might have been able to persuade to him to see reason by telling him that George MacDonald's children's books were an inspiration to Tolkien. It also would have been fun watching him pretend to have already known that. Cuz tons of boys read MacDonald's stories nowadays.

And yes, I know I'm assuming that I know his daughter better than he does. But if he wasn't sure about the gift, he wouldn't have asked me for advice in the first place. He didn't give a damn about the covers, he just wanted me to tell him it was a fantastic idea. And possibly to brag about his daughter's literary feats.

Pot, Meet Kettle

So, in doing some research to rebut a comment over at Pandagon, I stumbled across the information that McGovern was the replacement for Bobby Kennedy.

How did I not know that before?

And, wow, as if I didn't hate all the people that point to McGovern's loss as proof that under 30's are useless on election day enough to begin with.

Gee, you mean that the generation that watched the murder of their much beloved president on television when they were in jr. high and high school, and then watched the murder of his brother and their favorite presidential candidate only five years later when they were young adults, you mean they weren't really all that "into" the electoral process that year? Gosh, whodathunk.

Do you know what my mother says about that election? She's one of those people that will never talk about who she is voting for. However, she has told us several times when talking about her first presidential election that "I don't remember who I voted for that year, but I know that it was supposed be Bobby."

And, of course, I've always loved the irony that it's usually baby boomers that are the ones that do this - point to McGovern's loss as if it means something profound about 18-30 year olds, I mean. Because, of course, it's never that it means something about them and the profound cynicism they developed in order to deal with the murders of JFK, RFK, and MLK.

The Things You Discover When You Should Be Sleeping

1) There are over 4,000 fan fiction stories based on the Animorphs series posted to fanfiction.net.

That makes it #6 in books.

What are numbers 1-5, you ask?

Well, you don't really need to be told that Harry Potter is #1

Lord of the Rings is #2

Twilight is #3

The Phantom of the Opera is #4

Tamora Pierce is #5

2) There are 9 stories posted to fanfiction.net based on The Princess and the Goblin

What the hell kind of fan fiction does one write about The Princess and the Goblin?

Apparently, several are sequels written by people unaware that there is an actual sequel. Or that didn't get it. (Just for the record, I loved it. I was, however, no more than 10 at the time, if that matters.)

3) Someone made a movie? MUST SEE!

Final Thought: I'm amused by the number of stories on fanfiction.net based on Eragon. Isn't that a bit redundant? Fan fiction based on Eragon, I mean?

TiVo Has Come to Save Us All

So, I get it when people complain about what's on TV. I complain about what's on TV. Quite a lot, actually.

What I don't really get is when people complain about what's on TV nowadays as if TV was somehow better in the past. I want to ask them what decade they really think compares favorably to the one we are in now.* Because while there may be a hell of a lot of crap on TV, there's also huge number of shows that are leaps and bounds above anything that's been on before. I mean, I agree that the loss of The Cosby Show left a void that has yet to be completely filled again, and that I have better judgement now as an adult than as a kid, but still. I kinda think that if there was something better that Silver Spoons on the air, we would have been watching that instead.

IMO, this is largely due to dvd's and TiVo. It's a lot harder to tell really deep stories if you can't count on repeat viewings. You can't really expect viewers to pick up nuances on first viewing, especially when the chapters are broadcast weeks or months or years apart. Pause and rewind buttons are essential as well. All of the things that the content owning companies hate about new media are the very things that make their products of better quality than they ever were before.**

Did I mention I got into a fight with my sister and dad last night? This was one of the arguments my sister gave. That she'd be more sympathetic to the writers if most of TV wasn't crap. Gee, maybe if writers got rewarded for better stories - ie got a better cut from the shows that are popular enough to sell dvds or be used as bribes to get people to watch ads - maybe they'd have more incentive to write better shows, instead of just what some network committee thinks will sell.

But then, she's also very confused because she thinks that the networks have free downloads available mostly because they will get more people to watch the show each week. Not that this isn't part of the reasoning, or wasn't the initial idea, but I kinda doubt it's the main purpose at this point. First of all, even when this is the case, it's important to remember that free downloads are partly a result of dvds success allowing TV to use arcs more often and make the arcs longer. It's more that networks feel the need to make past episodes of Lost available in order to not lose viewers, rather than because they think it will help them gain viewers in any noticeable amount.

Secondly, if this was the overriding reason, it would be the shows they are trying to heavily promote that would be the available for download (similar to the way the CW will repeat on Sunday episodes of shows they think might do better with a little push), not the shows that are already popular. I'm sure that they use the free downloads to boost their sweeps ratings, but it makes more sense that during the rest of the year, the downloads are mostly there to generate ad revenue.

But then, mostly I just wanted to smack her for flat out saying that she doesn't care if the TV shows her kids grow up to watch are smarter than the ones she watches. Unfortunately, I was so floored by such an idiotic sentiment that at the time my response was (while possibly a good one in other contexts) exactly the wrong tact to take with her. A part of me wishes I'd been clever enough to say something like "well, it's nice that you don't care if your kids never have the opportunity to read Newbery quality literature. Yes, let's stick to the dime novels of the 1900's, it's all fluff anyways." But that would have just made her perpetually defensive about the subject.

Sorry for rambling. It was just very frustrating to come across this kind of attitude in my own family at the same time that I'm finally really getting going in the career that I hope will eventually allow me to help teach media literacy to kids of all ages. I really think my sister thinks that I've just kind of fallen into this because I've always like books. The truth is that that I've been trying to find something that would help me get to where I want to be, which is designing educational programs (both the event and the computer type), toys and/or media for kids that teaches them how to be better writers and readers of all media.

I did at first apply for library jobs in part because I figured that if I was going to work around books, I might as well get paid more to do so. But I was able to see really quickly that public libraries are a great place to experiment with allowing kids to become content creators and readers of all media - especially right now as so many of them are, like the netowrks, looking for ways to not become obsolete in the face of new media. And I suspected this might be true even before I applied. I may have yet to read The Anarchist in the Library, but it's not as if I began this career completely ignorant of how most librarians view things like censorship, free speech, and public access to information.

I'll be getting started on my library school application soon, but I already know that I'll eventually be taking classes in things like film studies and child psychology as well. One of the big reasons why I haven't just up and left CA already is because while it may be expensive to live here, one of the most affordable and best schools for Information Architecture (as applied to libraries) is a CA state school. (Actually, they both are, but San Jose is loads cheaper than UCLA, and still very well respected.) I don't want to just learn how to use to the tools available to serve children and teens better, I want to figure out how to design the tools themselves so they serve teens and children better.

So, yeah, last night's conversation was annoying on several levels.

And then there was the lovely xenophobia/racism exhibited by my extended family earlier that day. Which, considering that the other side of my extended family (not present) is half asian - just like the people they were making fun of - yeah, I'm so ready for them all to go home already. (And yes, I was a coward and kept my mouth shut. I suck.) At least Saturday should be fun, because we'll be to busy coordinating who is waiting in line and who is getting the Fast Passes for there to be too many cringe inducing conversation drifts.

*by which I mean simply the overall quality of storytelling. Not, sadly, the amount of racism, sexism, or unnecessary violence.

** on average - I'm certainly not saying that more than a fraction of what's on TV now could even dare to be compared to All in the Family. I'm saying that TV is quickly becoming more literary because viewers are able to watch shows in ways similar to how we read books.

Another preview pic of the Where the Wild Things Are movie. (via Shakesville)

In case you missed it, here's the first.

News!

I will be a full-time Library Assistant come January. With benefits! And time to take the classes I need to in order to be a real Librarian! And I will be working at a brand spanking new huge library once it opens in the spring!

Y'all have no idea how eager I have to give notice at the bookstore.

Trust

I have a post stuck somewhere in draft hell about trust and experience and how people interpret the books they read, the movies they see, etc.

Reading this comment over at Random Thoughts and watching Criminal Minds tonight made me think of it.

The gist of the comment at Random Thoughts was this:

You see, you say something like this and you get messages of support.

I say something like this and get told that I shouldn't be saying women should go out and make comics. Of course, I was a lot more confrontational, but still.

Tammy's response was:

I'm sorry. I know it ain't exactly fair. Sometimes gender does count for more.

Which, well....as a fan of Tammy's books, I hate to disagree with her because it reminds me that she's merely mortal, but.....as a fan of comics and scifi and fantasy and books and movies and TV and lots of other stuff, I have to call bullshit.

All reading, viewing, listening, etc. involves a certain amount of interpretation.

So, I don't listen when Tammy says this but ignore people like her commenter because Tammy is a girl and the commenter is a boy, I listen to Tammy because I actually know who the fuck she is. Relatively speaking, anyway. I've read her stuff, both fiction and non-fiction, and I have a general idea of where she's coming from so I can read between the lines a lot better than when I run across some random person I've never encountered before.

Now, it's true that being female generated a certain amount of initial trust back when I started reading her books. Or, well, not trust, exactly, but a certain amount of capital when it came to risk analysis. (Cost of book versus chance it will suck.) Not because of anything to do with biology, but because of socialization. Hers, not mine, that is.

Mickle is quite aware that male authors are capable of writing female characters worthy of mountains of praise. But she has noticed that male authors are more likely than female authors to write books that get lots of fannish praise - but also include female characters that make her want to raise invading armies.

More importantly, unlike the guy who is suspicious of the female mechanic because he's never dealt with a women who knows anything about cars before, logic and basic understanding of the culture I live in support my risk analysis rather than contradict it. A female mechanic, after all, is more likely to have faced a lot of discrimination than oh, say, actually been able to sleep her way into a job. (I've never really gotten that. At least not how common such accusations are, anyway. Are women so completely devoid of logic that we would willingly do two jobs for the price of one? en masse? Anyways.....) However, considering how often the male experience is treated as the default, it unfortunately makes a lot of sense that a not insignificant number of male writers, both good and bad, would write women that sound fake.

Still, despite all that, gender was a tiny fraction of my consideration when deciding whether to spend all of 5 bucks on one of Tammy's books. The main factor was the vast amounts of praise her books always got, and who was giving the praise, and what the praise actually was.

The same logic and risk analysis comes into play whenever I decide how to spend my money and time.

The point of my previous (and now molding) post on trust and interpretation was that while I ignore a lot of stuff that might otherwise piss me off as long as it comes from writers that I know, I don't do this out of some misguided sense of fan loyalty. When Julia Quinn's heroes start acting like jerks, I don't ignore my feminist sensibilities because, golly gee willickers, that Julia person seems like a nice girl! I keep reading because I know from experience that there's going to be a payoff a chapter or two down the line.

As a more accessible example of what I mean (since I'm guessing a limited number of my readers are Julia Quinn fans), tonight's episode of Criminal Minds started out with an opening that would have had me switching channels if I didn't know the show already. Not only is the girl who is kidnapped the silly girl who doesn't listen to all the scary warnings about teen girls gone missing! she's also kidnapped while out alone, at night, with her boyfriend. Making out, of course. With suggestions of much more to follow. Bad slutty teen girl, you broke one the cardinal rules of being in a bad horror flick! You must be punished!!!!!!!!

However, not ten minutes later, my double crush says one of the many true things that are acknowledged more often on Criminal Minds than on any other show I've ever watched - that the evil, bad, monster who is raping, torturing, and murdering women does it (in part) because he hates women. And not "hates women so much it's made him crazy crazy crazy!" But "he's messed up enough to kill and he doesn't think too highly of women." The "is willing to commit murder" and "really dislikes women" are connected but not necessarily dependent upon one another. (Thus the constant reminders that cruelty to animals is part of the homicidal triad.)

Every time one of the characters says something like tonight's "Well, we know what he thinks of women." I want to send the writers a lifetime supply of brownies. Especially when it's followed up by "he's a part of this community" - in other words he's not some monster hiding in the shadows, he's one of you. He's a husband, a father, a co-worker. Then I also want to send them milk to go with the brownies.

-mental reminder to donate to the writer's guild - BAD MICKLE!-

And that's before you get to the subplot of rape victims not being believed, the conversations between the victims that revolve around them worrying what other people think of them, and the conversations between JJ and Hotch about what it's like to be the target of so much violence* and the fine line between not caring enough and being consumed by empathy.

Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed with this episode. But part of the reasons why I love Criminal Minds is because the more I analyze it, the more I agree with it. And the more I re-watch seasons 1 and 2, the more I'm convinced that there's a lot being snuck in there that works as commentary about the bad trends it's supposedly a part of.

Like violence on TV.

I was cringing through a good chunk of this episode. The stuff they were describing? Yeah, I can totally see a victim of that being extremely eager to convince herself that everyone is right, she was lying, it never happened to her. But - they never actually show any of it. It's all suggestion.

Fast forward to the opening of tonight's CSI:NY and one of the many reasons why I stopped watching the CSI's a long time ago: several shots (maybe even a full minute or two of screen time) of a dead guy with a big gaping hole where is mouth, upper chin, and nose used to be. That? DO NOT NEED.

Now, this isn't to say that the CM writers don't fuck up (scroll down to the third *). But it does mean they do so less often. And that when they don't, they sometimes get it really, really right. I'm all for less violence towards women on TV, but I much prefer CM's more realistic portrayals and stats to CSI:NY's statistically negligent man whose mouth was blown off by an exploding cigar.

Anyway, back to the main point.

It may be that there is more back story to the comment on Tammy's post, but, well, to go with the themes laid out so far (or, attempted to, anyway)...this is an argument that I've seen come up several times before. And the people crying sexism** when feminists note the gender of the author, or people listen to the Tammys or even Ragnells of the world more than the random dudes out there....they are often people who can't seem to differentiate experience from discrimination, caution from accusation, example from bullying.

If I ignore you, or even berate you, because I misinterpreted what you said, the fault isn't necessarily mine.

The fact that CM warms my heart - despite my being heartless, bitchy feminist- that doesn't mean that CM's opening scene tonight wasn't stupid.

It was. Very.***

Likewise, if I misinterpret what you are saying because it sounds a hell of a lot like what really stupid people say...that's not really my fault. The likely explanation is not that I'm a mean feminist who thinks less of men, but that I misinterpreted what you said because you began it by making it clear that punishing slutty teen girl with a serial rapist/murder/torturer was considered to be appropriate. Or, it could be that experience, logic, a basic understanding of human nature, and risk analysis predicts that you are blind to the fact that she is being punished at all.

Then again, it simply might be useful to establish a certain amount of trust and understanding before we delve into complicated topics.



*technically, the conversation is about what it's like to have so much in common with so many of the victims. But again, an interpretation that takes past episodes into account - which we are obviously meant to do, what with two echoes of Vigilante!Elle! in the same episode - reminds us that JJ isn't just like the victims. Aside from the FBI training, she is the ideal victim - at least in TV land - and has even, like Elle, played the victim to get the case solved.

**unsurprisingly, such people also tend to call this "reverse sexism" -sigh- I'll just leave that one be for now, 'cuz I'm all out of outrage tonight. Except as directed towards my family and my inability to communicate to them the political and social ideas that are the driving force behind my chosen career path. I really think they believe I just love books that much. Game Nights are apparently just bribes. -sigh- sorry for the digression, I had a long fight with my dad and sister tonight about the writer's strike. not fun.

***It was made less so by the team talking about how well executed the attack was; it's clear that the unsub was, um, talented enough to have found someone to grab. This was cancelled out, however, by the scene where the second victim blames herself for what happened to her, and nothing in the episode contradicts this. Although I guess one could argue that since this is the segue into the victims talking about shame.....And I was already willing to give them bonus points for showing some male flesh.....

Books for Boys - and Girls

I'm dropping in from my blogging vacation to say that this conversation made me think what was said when someone asked "are there enough books for boys?" at one of the YA panels at last spring's LA Times Festival of books. The panel was made up of M.T. Anderson, Coe Booth, John Green, and Nancy Werlin, in case anyone cares.

1) Everyone agreed that this was (mostly) bullshit.

2) John Green partly dissented. But his argument was not that there aren't enough books for boys, but more that most of the books with teen boy protagonists tend to be, well overly stereotypical. They are almost always heavy on the action and adventure and light on the emotional chaos of being a teen boy. In other words, there are too many Eragons and not enough An Abundance of Katherines. Although, needless to say, that's not quite how he put it.

3) Everyone agreed that the best way to get your book challenged and/or sent back with lots of red marks from the publisher/editor was to include a female protagonist that has sexual desires/experiences (like, gee, most teen girls) and isn't punished for having them (sadly, not quite as universal).

And on that note, in case anyone cares what I've been doing during my unplanned vacation from blogging: I've been out of state for Thanksgiving, interviewing for full time library jobs, and thinking really wicked thoughts about this fictional man and this real one. Not, um, all at the same time.

(more pretty pictures here - you have to look for mgg yourself to see them - I'm too tired tonight to get around the site's security)

PS - because I know everyone cares - my niece can read and write now. (sort of)