The Faith of a Woman

Posted on April 21, 2011 by lisafindley

“The people making the rules are not the people in the kitchen.” So says my friend Leah as she explains the intricacies of kosher to a group of us as she prepared the Seder dinner for Passover on Monday. No mixing of meat and dairy, of course, but also why only matzo should be used and not regular flour, what fermentation is allowed and what is not, and so on. Some of it conflicts, or doesn’t apply to modern day life, and when we point this out, that’s when Leah points her chopping knife at us and says, “exactly.” Later, after we’ve finished the Haggadah and dug into our meal, someone asks about the rules on the Sabbath. Leah’s friend says that not only are you not allowed to turn lights on and off or make any money transaction, you can’t carry anything on the Sabbath. So, she points out, if you have a baby, you can’t carry your baby for a whole day. To get around this rule, you must be in an eruv, or ritual enclosure established by rabbis, in order to carry things on the Sabbath; this provides a literal loophole from the rule, allowing you to do basic things like care for your child. Again, Leah says, “the people making the rules are not the people in the kitchen.”

Those people making these difficult, impractical rules are, of course, men. Despite the fact that more women than men are religious worldwide, far more men than women are in positions of power and authority within any given religion (okay, except maybe for Wicca). Despite the egalitarian messages promulgated by the major world religions, every single one of them has something to say about the inferiority of women. Every single one of them has fought, or continues to fight, women’s desire for full inclusion. Roger Ebert, on his endlessly interesting blog, wrote a piece about this last December, and I encourage you to read the whole thing. He points out a couple different ways in which Catholicism in particular keeps women subordinate, and links to some videos with different takes on the issue in Buddhism, Catholicism, and Judaism.

Photo from http://roaring20sblog.wordpress.com/category/you-and-your/page/2/

Ebert’s main question is why do men have the upper hand in all religions, and his answer is bluntly, because they can. I think patriarchy’s roots are a little deeper and more complex than simply “men can physically overpower women so their word is always final,” but on some basic level, he’s right. Men have had power in just about every group of humans the world over for thousands of years, and frankly, once you get used to power, you’ll do a lot to cling to it rather than share it more fairly.

As you may recall, I’m not a particularly religious person anymore, but boy howdy was I when I was younger. I liked that there are rules, and that you have to follow them or suffer consequences—my middle school bullies suffered many agonies in my mind for their un-Christian behavior. I liked that there was a plan, that someone was in charge and knew what was going on, because I had no idea why the world functioned as it did and that freaked me out. And perhaps I had an easier time of reconciling my religious beliefs with my growing, changing mind because I went to a fairly liberal Episcopalian church. The main priest during my formative years was a woman, and I didn’t question whether that was the norm until an evangelical classmate told me my congregation was going to hell because it was led by a woman.

That stroppy boy got me thinking and questioning more deeply about the similarities and differences between his branch of Christianity and mine, and whether there were too many upsetting similarities for my comfort level. By the time I finished college, I was no longer a practicing Christian. Now I’m a Creester, showing up to Christmas Eve and Easter services only, tuning in for the beautiful music, the comforting liturgy, and the familiar community of people who raised me.

There’s the part that means so much to so many, and explains in large part why women remain committed to their religions despite the regular reminder that they are less than; it’s the community. My parents have found a community of kind, irreverent people at their church, and they wouldn’t leave them for the world. They are bound by a common belief system, but even within that there are varied thoughts on any topic you can name, from when to kneel and cross yourself to the divinity of Jesus himself. For them, it’s not how precisely they agree on every topic, but rather the willingness to return week after week, year after year, to ponder spiritual questions and share their lives with one another. They’re a beautiful group of people and one I’m proud to know and be an ancillary part of.

Still, it is ironic (yes, truly ironic) that the major religions, which have done so much to keep women down in every possible way, are full of women who defend those religions, attend their services regularly, and make them central to their lives. In that sense, religion is not the opiate of the masses that Marx so famously referenced, but rather the biggest power play ever made, and the greatest trick men ever played on women. If I think too much about the particulars, I get real furious real fast.

Which is why so many women take religion into their own hands. They return to the original texts, they seek out alternative histories and commentaries, they share what they’ve learned with one another. They ordain themselves. They convince the governing body of the religion to change its mind and ordain them. They nurture the communities they hold so dear and seek relentlessly to find an honest place in their lives for the religion that means so much to them.

While I find it difficult to reconcile the very real oppression of women by the major religions of the world with my desire for a spiritual life in a larger community, I understand the desire to do so, and I understand the women who continue to go to services and profess belief in a faith that excludes them on a basic level. This week is Passover and Easter, and as we go through Holy Week (as it’s known in the church), I’ll be thinking of the women who grapple with these issues in their religious lives. I’ll be thinking of Mary Magdalene, the first person to see Jesus after he rose from the dead. I’ll be thinking of Miriam, the prophet some fill a glass of water for during Passover for her essential role in the liberation of the Jews. I’ll be thinking of the women who are in the kitchen and making their own rules.

Mary Magdalene, the faithful, the purported whore, the first to see the resurrected Jesus

Photo from http://www.lib-art.com/tag/catches.html

The Headly Surprise: Up in the Air

Posted on April 12, 2011 by lisafindley

Welcome back to another round of The Headly Surprise! Today’s honoree is Vera Farmiga as Alex in Up in the Air. This 2009 film follows middle-aged Ryan (George Clooney) as he crisscrosses the country firing people for companies too chicken to do the firing themselves. It’s a bleak premise, and the movie carries that feeling throughout, not least because Ryan is, by nature and by habit, kind of a dick. He gives lectures on how to stay emotionally disconnected from others, and he has a trunkful of reasons why his job is helping people rather than devastating them. Of course, Ryan is played by the puppy-dog eyes and aww-whatever-I-did-I-promise-not-to-do-it-again-baby half-smile of George Clooney, so we can’t totally hate him.

I ain't lookin' for love, but I am looking at you. (photo from http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/sag-awards-2010-best-supporting-actress-7894/)

Our wayward hero meets Alex in a VIP airline lounge, and they bond over car rental discounts and credit card miles before having a passionate night in Ryan’s hotel room. They sync their calendars to meet up again in various cities around the country, as both their jobs keep them almost perpetually on the move. All goes well until Ryan’s young colleague Natalie lectures him on using Alex instead of committing to her. [**SPOILER ALERT**] Ryan feels inspired to ditch his emotionally stunted viewpoint, and he surprises Alex at her Chicago home in one of those grand romantic gestures that the movies have primed us to receive for decades. But uh oh! Alex is furious that he’s shown up, since she’s married with two kids, and he could ruin her home life with any displays of affection. Ryan returns to Omaha and his previous life a bit sadder and, of course, a bit wiser.

Alex’s Headly Surprise status rests in the way the movie handles this big reveal. There’s no commentary on how her cheating is immoral, or how it makes her a bad mother. In fact, the movie does a neat job of setting Alex up to be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl character, there to help Ryan find himself without having her own personality, needs, or desires; it then inverts those expectations by showing that this part of her life, which is so central to Ryan and the movie, is merely in her periphery. Her real life is with her family, and Ryan, fond as she is of him, is just an escape.

And she made no bones about that. Sure, she never told Ryan she was married, but from their first encounter, she sets up their boundaries so they’re both on the same page; she wants a no-strings-attached, uncomplicated, passionate affair. This is what Ryan wants too, and it’s why they work so well together, at least until he starts to fall in love with her. Then Natalie gives him that push over the edge into acknowledging his feelings and suddenly he doesn’t just want a passionate affair anymore.

About Natalie’s speech: she’s not wrong to tell a grown man to stop leading a woman on and tell her how he really feels and take steps toward building a life with her. She just happens to be wrong in this instance because she doesn’t know what Ryan does, namely, that Alex explicitly said what she did and did not want. Alex even expresses this at the end of the movie, saying how surprised she is at Ryan’s hurt, since she never said she wanted more than what they had and she’d thought they were on the same page with that.

This is a wonderful example of listening to what a woman says instead of listening to what you think she means, or what you want to hear. We are far too ready in these United States to dismiss a woman’s words as game playing or indecisiveness, rather than her actual thoughts and feelings. This has very real and dangerous consequences, of course–see all the men who stalk women who have told them they aren’t interested, or the men who rape women who say no, or the legislators who tell women that they don’t really want an abortion no matter what they say. There are other, less physically harmful, consequences to this line of thinking, too, like assuming a woman must be coyly angling for a commitment when she says she needs no such thing. This robs women of their agency and reinforces the idea that they’re untrustworthy, scheming beings instead of autonomous individuals fully capable of making their own decisions and expressing their own desires. If our needs and wants aren’t heard when we plainly state them, it’s no wonder some women start speaking in the code that’s expected of us, just to eventually get the desired result one way or another.

Anyway, Ryan is clearly upset by what he sees as Alex’s betrayal, but he doesn’t argue with her that she was anything but upfront about their relationship. The film honors her character as a three-dimensional person who makes the possibly ill-advised decision to cheat on her husband without punishing her explicitly. It hurts her to lose Ryan, but we get the sense that her life will carry on without him pretty well, and she’ll maybe think of him wistfully in a hotel here and there. That kind of complex characterization is rarely afforded to women who cheat in film; they’re usually shown as sluts or too simpleminded to make up their minds about which man to love more. Alex knows which man she loves and builds a life with, but she’s not above finding some good times on the side as she travels for one-third of the year. She’s not perfect, but she’s not a devil, and for that, she earns The Headly Surprise.

Heckling the Hecklers

Posted on March 17, 2011 by lisafindley

When someone’s an asshole to you, what kind of asshole do you get to be back at them? Can you find enough in the situation to destroy their position without destroying their personhood? Such are the weighty questions I pondered after watching some videos on a comedy site. Like ya do.

The premise of Splitsider’s “Eight Types of Hecklers and the Comedians Who Shut Them Up” by Megh Wright is great–what are the different types of people who interrupt stand-up comedy routines and how do comedians respond? But too many of the comedians Wright chose as examples of great heckler shut-downs were unmitigated assholes. I don’t mean they were mean; most comedians have a scale of “a little to a lot” when it comes to being mean in their acts, and frankly that’s usually why we find them so funny. And especially if some jerk in the audience is going to interrupt your carefully crafted routine and your limited stage time with some inane comment or drunken insult, I say rip ’em to shreds. And then call security.

But there’s being mean and funny, and there’s being a bigoted asshole. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that so many comedians choose the latter, since I don’t watch a lot of stand-up precisely because they include terrible jokes in their acts, but it still got to me. With few exceptions, if the heckler was male, the comedian joked about his supposed homosexuality and also about fucking his mother, and if the heckler was female, the comedian called her a bitch/slut/whore and usually crazy too. Ugh. I went from being on the comedian’s side to wishing the video would end sooner so I wouldn’t have to hear the audience laugh at the awful attacks.

Here’s a sample [TW, definitely]: Joe Rogan called his female heckler a “fucking crazy bitch.” George Carlin said his male heckler was “a cocksucker in disguise” and that he only had his mouth open “because he wants someone to come in it.” Bill Hicks, whose profanity is a normal part of his routine, went way too far when he screamed at his female heckler, “you fucking cunt, get the fuck out of here right now, you’re everything that America should be flushed down the toilet, get out you fucking drunk bitch.” But definitely the worst was Ari Shaffir, whose response to his female heckler was, “I wish upon you the greatest success in 2008 and hopefully you will get raped many times before you leave here tonight. But I don’t wanna give the rapist any VD that you have… what did they do? all they wanted to do was get laid, they didn’t know.”

Whew. That was a whole lotta ugly.

And there’s no need! Other comedians in the list had great comeback lines without once employing homophobia or misogyny.

Jacqueline Novak rolls right with her male heckler’s comment and explains just how wrong he is, while remaining in the same joke she had been setting up before she was so rudely interrupted. Steve Hofstetter similarly riffs on his male heckler’s stupid interruption without once making reference to the heckler’s sexuality or his mother’s sexual proclivities. Amy Schumer shut her female heckler down quickly, and then told her to be like the losing chess player in “Searching for Bobby Fischer” and “take the draw” if she felt like talking again. My favorite was Patton Oswalt, who went on a lovely long rant about what a douchebag his male heckler was and how his future was filled with douchebaggery.

Being a stand-up is hard work, I know that, but once you have an audience on your side, it’s real easy to get laughs out of them by dealing low blows to a heckler. Why be satisfied with that? Presumably you actually want to be funny, so skip the bigotry and go straight for the withering put-down.

A Few Quick Notes

Posted on March 1, 2011 by lisafindley

Hello dearest fellow travelers. Some quick notes on this busy Tuesday:

We have one or two posts to go for ACAM: Indonesia (depending on timing — one for sure will be up this Thursday), and then it’s on to Singapore!
The Suggestion Box is a little bare. If you have a spare moment this week, please stop by and add your favorite restaurants, sightseeing spots, city parks, etc. to your favorite cities around the world. It’ll help with my trip so much. Thanks!
The Walk for Choice and Save the American Dream rallies were great! Good turnout on a chilly, snowy day, and a lot of camaraderie between the two groups. My friends and I started at the Walk for Choice, and then peeled off to strain to hear speakers at the workers’ rights rally and cheer with the crowd. I made two signs, one of which was straightforward–“Union Busting is Bad for Business”–and one of which led people to believe I was pro-life! Oh dear. It said “Why is Congress Sentencing American Women to Death?” and then in smaller letters “Stop HR 3 and HR 358.” Sessily pointed out that if you didn’t know about HR 358’s legislation of medical neglect, you might see “Death” and think I was talking about “killing babies.” Oh well! We tried to meet up with the Walk for Choice at its endpoint, but all we saw were pro-lifers releasing a hundred balloons labeled “Life” into the air; we couldn’t decide whether abandoning Life to the elements meant they are now no longer pro-life or if it just turned into a euthanasia rally. Also, someone dressed in a full Chewbacca costume was there, on the wrong side, dancing with the pro-lifers. Perhaps he was just confused without Han there to translate for him. Really, it is a metaphor for the American public. Just Wookieing around until Han comes back with some terse words of direction and a new sense of purpose.

Reproductive Rights Under Attack: Give Five Minutes Now, or They’ll Take Us Back 40 Years

Posted on February 15, 2011 by lisafindley

All right, dearest fellow travelers, let’s get real political. There are now bills actually under consideration in these United States that explicitly call for women to die, and the worst part is we as a country aren’t even paying attention. “Stop exaggerating, Lisa,” you may be thinking, but check out HR 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” the purpose of which is to codify the Hyde Amendment and make abortion access virtually impossible for poor women, or HR 358, the “Protect Life Act,” which intends to establish so-called “conscience clauses” in the case of abortions that would save the woman’s life. [By the way, if you are already convinced about this topic, skip to the end, where I list easy steps you can take to make your voice heard. As the blog post title says, you can afford those five minutes, because we can’t afford to go back 40 years.]

Click here for resources on how to fight this bill

You may have read about an earlier version of HR 3, which sought to redefine rape to mean only “forcible rape,” as opposed to statutory rape, rape of incapacitated or mentally handicapped people, incest, or date rape. So basically, the last forty years of feminists educating people about the many different and terrible ways men can force themselves upon women and other men without physically holding them down or threatening them with a weapon — those years of work were going to be swept aside and rapists, who already hold too much power over their victims, would now hold all of it. Thanks in large part to pressure from groups like the Feminist Majority, NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood, as well as the Twitter campaign #DearJohn, spearheaded by Sady Doyle and aimed at telling House Speaker John Boehner just how reprehensible the bill is, the forcible rape clause has been removed.

But sliding in right behind it is HR 358, which explicitly states that if a woman goes to a hospital in a life-threatening situation, and she requires an abortion to save her life, she can be turned away in order to salve the doctor’s conscience. Yes, you read that right: If a doctor decides that he is “pro-life” and it is against his belief system to perform an abortion and therefore end the life of a fetus, he can refuse to perform that abortion, even if that means that the woman carrying that fetus dies. Life-threatening situations aren’t exactly known for allowing a lot of time to find a different hospital with doctors who will perform the operation, and if you’re in a small town with only one hospital, you are out of luck. You are literally DEAD because the government has legislated your death.

How is this not front-page news? How are only progressive bloggers (and let’s face it, almost all of them women, at that) and left-wing websites the ones reporting on this clause? American women, wake up! Your government wants you dead. One hundred and twenty-one congressmen have co-sponsored HR 358. One hundred and twenty-one people in positions of power have outright said that your life does not matter. The best part is that it’s not as if the fetus is going to survive anyway, in these situations. So rather than save one life and unfortunately lose another, these people are encouraging doctors to step back and watch both woman and fetus (mother and child) die.

I know that abortion is an uncomfortable topic. Many women tell me they could never have one, and that’s okay. You have that choice. But it takes more than just telling other women they can have an abortion if they need to in order to truly be pro-choice; we need to support women in all of their reproductive choices, not just look embarrassed and turn the other way and say “oh Roe will take care of that.” Because the truth is that Roe is being chipped away into nothingness, and in its place we have ever more stringent laws put in place by lobbyists and legislators who take advantage of the fact that abortion is an uncomfortable topic.

If I want to have a baby, let me have a baby. If I don’t want to have a baby, don’t make me have a baby. Don’t hem and haw and hedge about which conditions are acceptable and which ones aren’t, or which women should have easier access to what they do with their own bodies. Don’t tell me it’s more complicated than that. It isn’t. I will do what I like with my body, and you will do what you like with yours. Too bad that you don’t like that I have multiple sex partners, but your religious beliefs about what that means for the state of my soul have nothing to do with me, and to force those beliefs on me in the form of law goes against American principles of liberty and independence, not to mention basic morals and decency. I may not like what you do with your body, and you may not like what I do with mine, but that is irrelevant. You’d think small government advocates, of all people, would be able to understand that.

A special note for my male readers: I get that abortion is a topic that makes you especially uncomfortable. It’s much easier to talk about revolutions and the politics of war and unions, since those are all things you can be a part of, whereas pregnancy is not something you are ever going to personally experience. If you’re a progressive man, chances are you’re pro-choice in the same general way that you’re pro-gay rights and pro-environment, but you don’t much go beyond that. Maybe you feel like you have nothing to add, since you aren’t a woman. Don’t take that easy cop-out! It is vital that we have male allies who take it as a matter of course that all women have legal, safe access to this medical procedure. Not to mention legal, safe access to the contraceptives that can prevent such procedures in the first place — as half of the equation that causes unplanned pregnancies, you’d better be campaigning for easier access to birth control (ahemover-the-counterECahem). Don’t kid yourself that women can be part of your labor movement, your environmental movement, your revolutionary movement if they don’t have access to reproductive health services. They can’t be there for you if you won’t be there for them. It’s in your own interest, if that’s the final push you need to get fully involved in this issue.

And if you’re not a man who is generally involved in political issues, well then, there’s this old chestnut: What if it were your sister/daughter/friend/wife/mother? Statistically, you know someone who has had an abortion. Statistically, you know someone who has been raped. Act according to how that makes you feel, according to how you want those women in your life to be treated.

I have followed the Egyptian revolution closely these past few weeks, and I have cheered for the Egyptian people as they have brought about democracy with perseverance, eloquence, and a unified will. Don’t think for a moment I don’t think their fight is important. But let’s bring our attention into a wider focus. Our domestic situation is dire, and we need our own perseverance, eloquence, and unified will to reveal the “culture of life” for what it is — a death sentence for American women.

TAKE ACTION!
I know we are all busy and have a lot to do in any given day, but this will take literally five minutes of your life, and as I said in the title of this post, they are forcing us back to days that are, frankly, unimaginable to me and most people of my generation. Give Five Minutes Now, or They’ll Take Us Back 40 Years.

Okay, so a thousand-word tirade has convinced you and you’re fired up. Now what? You know I wouldn’t leave you hangin’, baby. Here are some very simple steps you can take:

1) Write to your representatives. Everybody! If your rep is a co-sponsor of either of these bills, definitely write to them and voice your vehement disagreement. They need to know that a loud part of their constituency does not support their actions. If your rep is a strong pro-choicer, write to them and ask them to be loud in their opposition to the bill, rather than staying quiet on it. We need loud champions in the House and the Senate both. If your rep is somewhere in-between, write to them to urge them to vote against this and all anti-choice legislation.

2) Sign a few petitions opposing the bills. Twitter away about this with the #DearJohn hashtag to raise awareness; don’t let it all slip away under cover of the health care bill, the economic wrangling, or international events.

3) Get out there and march, old-school style! Walk for Choice 2011 is going on in cities all across the country (and even overseas in some places). On Saturday, February 26th, have a hearty brunch, then meet up for a noon walk to bring visibility to this issue in your hometown.

4) Write to your newspaper. Sure, this is about as old-fashioned as it gets, but the fact is that a lot of people still read the newspaper rather than the Internet to get their news, and a lot of voters read that Letters to the Editor section. Get their attention! Something like this: “The current attack on women’s lives in the US Congress is reprehensible and un-American. Rep. Christopher Smith’s (R-NJ) proposed legislation, HR 3, would make permanent a law that prevents women from using Medicare to obtain abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when their own lives are in danger. This bill clearly affects poor and uninsured women the most, and its passage into law would put an even greater burden on them when they are at their most vulnerable. The bill’s addendum, HR 358, goes even farther in devaluing women. It allows doctors to refuse to treat a dying woman if doing so would mean performing an abortion. We cannot allow the government to legislate the deaths of thousands of American women every year. Both bills are an attack on the American values of liberty, independence, and a dignified life. Our legislators must reject this legislation and introduce stronger protections for women’s health and their lives.”

5) Donate money to organizations that work full-time to ensure women, men, and children have safe access to reproductive health services no matter their income level. Title X organizations like Planned Parenthood are also under attack right now under a different bill, so they can especially use your precious dollars right now.

Here is a fantastic, comprehensive list of resources (scroll down a bit), including ways to donate money, scripts for talking to your congressperson, and how to sign various petitions.

FURTHER READING:

Fighting to survive: HR3, HR358 and the war on womens’ health by Sady Doyle (on how co-sponsors of these bills are literally killing their base, which seems a foolish move)

Denounce Republicans? When there are Democrats co-sponsoring HR 3? by Shannon Drury (drawing attention to the hypocrisy of the DCCC in this situation)

Meet the HR3 Ten: Heath Shuler by Sarah Jaffe (introducing us to the Blue Dog Democrats who co-sponsor these bills)

The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape by Nick Baumann (one of the original articles on the issue)

Abortion does not harm mental health, study says by Alicia Chang (so there goes that argument — spoiler: this is not the first study that has proven this, and not a single study has proven the opposite)

Chipping Away at Roe… and the Definition of Rape by Melissa McEwan (on how this gives rapists a road map on how to avoid conviction)

I used to be a pro-life Republican by Andrea Grimes (on how realizing that abortion could affect her personally changed her views radically)

What Would Shirley Do? by Linda Greenhouse (on Shirley Chisholm’s work to debunk the myth that abortion is “racial genocide”)

Nancy Pelosi brings it: “We have to make this issue too hot to handle.” by Maya (blog handle) (kudos to House Minority Leader Pelosi and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for starting http://www.stophr3.com/ and acknowledging that this is a serious fight that needs serious fighters)

Anti-Abortion Bills Surging Through Capitol Hill–and States, Too by Miriam Zoila Perez (keep an eye on your state’s legislature, too — denying women their right to choose isn’t just for Nebraska anymore)

The Anti-Choice Suffering Agenda by Thomas Macaulay Millar (if personal anecdotes don’t do it for you, this simple, logical breakdown of how all these laws are clearly about punishing women and not about saving babies will)

House Republican Spending Cuts Target Programs for Children and Pregnant Women by Pat Garofalo (once you are forced to have that baby, don’t expect any support to raise the child)

On Labor by Ta-Nehisi Coates (a heartbreaking story about just how real maternal death is and how fundamentally unfair it is to require women to undertake that risk if they don’t want to)

And finally, a bit of fun:

Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy sing a ditty from the perspective of a good, conservative woman — who still wants the government out of her underwear. Highly enjoyable!

AND MOST FINALLY:

If you’ve read this far, I hope you’re convinced that your action is needed on this issue. I encourage you to leave a comment saying what action you’ve taken, so that we can build a visible record of involved citizens. It’s so easy to say, “Well, other people are working on that,” but I think if we say it right here, we can see just how vital our own voice is in the struggle for human rights, and how simple it is to raise that voice.

Thanks for reading.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/02/labor/70976/

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

Posted on January 7, 2011 by lisafindley

The Good

It wasn’t all bad last year! Feministing rounds up some good news from 2010.

Michelle Obama’s new chief of staff sounds pretty cool. Congrats, Tina Tchen!

Two major anti-racist groups file a formal complaint with the US Department of Education against the curriculum standards of Texas. Texas’s curriculum standards unfortunately affect much of the country, since they buy so many textbooks that whatever textbooks they buy become the main ones in the US. I hope the Department of Ed takes action.

The Bad

A cop assaulted a transgender woman, and when she defended herself, she was arrested.

I got an email from Barack Obama’s Organizing for America group saying we must stand firm on the health care bill and not let it get repealed on the same day I read this article, in which Obama preemptively caves on the end-of-life planning part of the health care bill. Sounds to me like caving and I don’t like it.

An older and a newer piece on the plutocracy we’re living in — it is just mathematically true that the rich now are far richer than the poor than ever before in American history. Disgusting.

Forget everyone’s “Kanye’s record is #1!” top ten lists; his video for “Monster” is terrifying, and not in a ghosts n ghouls kinda way.

The Silly

Here’s a great piece on a man living with schizophrenia who prepares daily for the apocalypse he can see unfolding in his mind. Also, scary effects of LSD!

Here’s a wonderful round-up of some hilarious humor pieces from 2010. I especially like “Et Tu, Brooklyn?” and “Funny Women #1.”

A Celebratory Thing

Posted on November 16, 2010 by lisafindley

I read another write-up on M.I.A. and was struck by her final quote:

“I don’t know why it’s not a celebratory thing, the fact that I just know about a lot of fucking shit. That’s all. Yeah so I know how billionaires live in America, and I know how poor people live in Sri Lanka, and I know how soldiers are, and I know what it feels like for your dad to throw hand grenades out of your bedroom window, I just know that. I’m not going to be able to change any of those things, and ultimately I believe in creativity. You get out what you put in, and it’s not like I only put one thing in.”

You may remember a NYT Magazine article from earlier this year that had all sorts of negative things to say about M.I.A. One of those things was that she’s a sellout for marrying rich and living in LA, and that she can’t talk about her years of living poor in London and Sri Lanka anymore. Which, as she points out in this quote, is bullshit.

She’s had years of various experiences, and she’s perfectly entitled to talk about any and all of them, just as the rest of us are. Pretending you are still living an underprivileged life is very different from continuing to speak up about the conditions of that underprivileged life, and M.I.A. is doing the latter. She has strong (and controversial) political opinions and she’s using her fame and music as a forum for talking about those opinions and drawing attention to issues she believes are under-addressed in mainstream media and hip-hop.

She knows how music works, she knows how fame works, she knows how growing up in a civil war works, she knows how art school works, and she’s weaving all these parts of her past life into her current and future life. If we’re self-aware enough, we’re all doing the same thing with our own lives; sorting through which experiences and ideas are still useful to us, which aren’t, and which we still need to process in order to determine where they fit in our life story.

I can’t argue that M.I.A. is looking to make a buck, but I’m getting so sick of people railing against musicians and authors for that. We are all trying to make a buck, and generally those artists who make a lot of money use it to continue making art. Whether the art becomes good or bad isn’t related to the fact that they made money, but what they chose to do with it once they made it. A sellout uses money to shut down their creativity, whereas a financially successful artist uses money to fuel it.

So she isn’t selling out, she’s synthesizing her life experiences into her art and creativity. We should all be so lucky. As she says, it’s “a celebratory thing.”

Total Recall: Totally Badass Heroine

Posted on August 24, 2010 by lisafindley

This weekend I watched Total Recall for the first time, and while it’s not my most favorite action movie, it features what I’m going to call The Headly Surprise. Remember that review of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels I wrote a while back? (If not, go read and enjoy.) The happy surprise in that movie was that a pretty woman (Glenne Headly) deceived the male leads and was not punished for it, but rather was celebrated. It’s so rare to see that happen in mainstream culture, including Hollywood movies. So rare, in fact, that I think we should point it out when it happens and jump up and down a little with excitement.

And so I bring you a sporadic feature, The Headly Surprise. Whenever I see a movie that features a woman not punished by the film for something women usually get punished for, I’ll mention it here. This doesn’t necessarily mean a physical punishment, but can include the way the woman is talked about or the way the movie frames her. A Headly Surprise movie may include: a woman is smart but isn’t labeled uppity, a bitch, or cold-hearted; a woman is not white but survives the end of the film (if it’s an action film) or isn’t the sassy best friend (if it’s a comedy with a white protagonist); a woman is pretty but there are no nude shots or lingering shots of her body; a woman is fat but her desire for sex isn’t laughed at; a woman has no desire to have sex with men and isn’t derisively called a lesbian or a bitch; a woman saves her own damn self from the villain; etc. The Headly Surprise is usually a movie showing love for, instead of fear of, a badass woman.

Glenne Headly, Hollywood badass (image via reelmovienews.com)

Which brings us to today’s entry in the canon of The Headly Surprise: Rachel Ticotin as Melina in Total Recall. The basic plot of the movie (which is loosely based on a Philip K. Dick story I haven’t read called “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”) is thus: After a bad trip to the implanted-memory doctor, Arnold Schwarzenegger (Quaid) realizes that he is not the married construction worker he thinks he is, but instead is some type of government agent whose memory was erased because he knew too much. He travels to Mars, where he first learned the dangerous information that he can now no longer remember, and sorts out the twists and turns of who he is and who he’s fighting as he meets up with a former flame (Ticotin) and journeys into the underground world of a planet so corrupt that its rulers sell air.

Rachel Ticotin, inaugural Headly Surprise honoree (image via wearysloth.com)

It is not necessary to tell you how it ends to tell you that Melina is awesome. First, Quaid starts out “married” to Lori (Sharon Stone), who is, as we all know, a gorgeous blond, but even brain surgery can’t make him forget the woman he truly loves — Melina, who is a gorgeous woman of color. Unexpected Hollywood Moment #1, right there. #2 arrives when we are introduced to Melina in the shitty bar/brothel she works at. We see right away that Melina is a prostitute, but we don’t get lingering shots of her body or even revealing clothing. We also don’t see any condemnation that she works as a prostitute; that’s just her job and there’s nothing titillating or sad or morally wrong with it, according to the film. Love it.

But my favorite Unexpected Hollywood Moment is #3, when Quaid is dragged to an elevator by Lori and some thugs to be delivered to the big boss for even more of an ass-kicking. The elevator door opens and BAM! It’s Melina, and she came prepared. She mows down all the thugs without missing a beat, then gets into a mighty brawl with Lori. Unexpected Hollywood Moment #4 — this ain’t no catfight. There is no hair pulling, nail scratching, or (always a favorite) accidental-ripping-of-clothing-in-curvaceous-places. These women are fighting to the death, and it shows; there’s punching, kicking, and general ass-kicking by both.

Not only does Melina save Quaid’s life at the elevator, [MILD SPOILER] she also saves his life at the very end of the film, when he’s face to face with the bad guy. This time Quaid is about to be killed, and Melina shows up armed and ready, and BAM! takes out the bad guy. Love it! Now teeeechnically Quaid still saves the day just after that, by pushing an all-important button, so technically the man still saves the world, but it is still a big deal for the woman to save the man from the villain instead of the other way around.

The best part is that it’s an ambiguous ending — did this movie really happen or is it another false memory or fantasy of Quaid’s? — because if it is Quaid’s fantasy, then it is his fantasy that a kickass woman kicks ass and saves his! Fantastic.

I don’t know how many of these elements of the film were drawn from the Dick story, how many were the ideas of the three writers credited with the screenplay, and how many were director Paul Verhoeven’s, but kudos to Verhoeven for producing a Hollywood blockbuster with a Headly Surprise.

Do you have any Headly Surprise suggestions?

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

Posted on August 6, 2010 by lisafindley

The Good:

Prop 8 was overturned! The California law defining marriage as between a man and a woman only was ruled unconstitutional on August 4. Appeals are expected, and this may go all the way to the Supreme Court, which could be iffy, given its current make-up, but for now, hurrah! Here’s a good refresher on what Prop 8 is and why it matters for the nation, not just California.

On the other hand, it might not be so bad if the appeal goes to the Supreme Court, since Elena Kagan was just confirmed by Congress. She will take Justice Stevens’ place this fall. She’s a bit of an unknown quantity, and a career lawyer who played it safe on a lot of issues she could’ve taken some important stands on, but fingers crossed she follows history and leans more left the longer she sits on the bench.

Obama signed a law repealing a mandatory sentencing period for crack cocaine possession. This helps a lot in closing the gap between crack and powder cocaine, a gap that has seen far more blacks than whites go to prison.

The Bad:

Target, known as an LGBT friendly place to work, is under a lot of scrutiny for giving a lot of money to a vehemently anti-gay candidate in Minnesota.

Here’s an insightful article on the dangerous fundamentalism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a liberal favorite for her survivor’s tale and anti-Islam stance.

Renee Martin looks at the viral video of Antoine Dodson and asks why no one cares about the sister he saved, Kelly Dodson, and why people are laughing at his delivery rather than listening to what he has to say.

The Silly:

Ever read an article on ebooks? Then this is the drinking game for you! Warning: extreme accuracy and hilarity follow.

And that’s it for this week! I’m off to sit by a lake with my parents, so if you haven’t commented before, your comment might languish in moderation til I can get to it on Tuesday, but don’t let that stop you. Have a great weekend!

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

Posted on July 28, 2010 by lisafindley

Hello dearest fellow travelers. Here’s something new! I thought I’d start a feature that rounds up some of the best and worst of the political/cultural news I run across each week, so you can get even further inside my brain without getting too Malkovich about it. And since usually the good and bad news is still news and therefore always kind of a downer, how about a silly element on the end of it? Something lighthearted, cheerful, adorable, or otherwise Unserious. If you’re already reading blogs with a political or cultural slant, probably you’re running into similar features, and maybe you won’t find much new here. But maybe you will, and then you will feel enlightened. Also, you can put links to other interesting articles in the comments and this blog will become a veritable font of information.

So here we go — the inaugural The Good, The Bad, and The Silly!

The Good

“Papers, Please” portion of AZ law SB1070 put on hold by federal judge — it’s a start

Erin Andrews urges Congress to pass a stricter anti-stalking law, one that would include high-tech types of stalking and emotional threats

The Bad

As is so often the case, human rights are traded for money — prisons are set to profit big time off SB1070

As the Kalamazoo area reels from an oil spill, Democrats decide a majority in both houses and the White House, plus an oil spill disaster in the Gulf that has the country fuming, isn’t enough to actually push through tough energy reform (Via)

Also, check out this site and be sure to place it over your city. It’s truly disturbing. http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

The Silly

A mother makes fantastical dreamscapes starring her baby (Via)

What have you run across?