Apparently, it's normal to get drunk after only 4 beers. This is really weird to me because it takes me a lot more. I also drink a lot. But watching Sex and the City, as I am doing for the sake of fabulousness, makes me wonder... Carrie gets drunk at a baseball game after only 4 beers. Four. But they go out drinking almost every night, or at least we're lead to believe this to be true. When they go out for cocktails, do they really just have a couple and go home? Do they not drink to get drunk?
I guess New Mexicans really do know how to party.
I would still have a cocktail with Carrie Bradshaw any day, even though she's a lightweight.
And while I'm still on the subject of Sex and the City, and since I was a girl in the 90s and therefore have to choose which character I am, I totally am Miranda. Completely. We both have ex-boyfriends of the same name and, in this episode with the baseball game called "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", she gets pissed that her friends are only talking about men! This isn't something I've ever necessarily done, but I appreciate the sentiment and have felt this way. It's really hard to talk to women that only talk about men. It's weird because my life does not revolve around who I'm sleeping with or who I want to sleep with. For some women, that is definitely what it seems like.
"That's it, I'm out of here. All we talk about anymore is Big or balls or small dicks. How did it happen that four such smart women have nothing to talk about but boyfriends? It's like 7th grade with bank accounts. What about us? What about what we think, we feel, we know - Christ! Does it always have to be about them? Just... you know, give me a call when you're ready to talk about something other than men for a change."
The other day, I got to thinking. I never believed in Santa or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, and honestly, the idea of it all is pretty weird. Maybe my parents were just bad at it or not convincing enough, because I know they cared. We still and will always get presents from Santa. I was just that kid that felt like she had to prove he didn't exist because the I thought whole thing was pretty stupid and very transparent. It was like in elementary school on St. Patrick's Day when we made a trap for a leprechaun or the little guy left us notes in our desks. I don't think anyone actually believed it but the teachers tried really hard.
Then I realized that that is probably why it was so easy for me to stop believing in God. I started praying to God to give me a sign "He" exists when I was about 9, otherwise I would stop believing (probably shouldn't have threatened God, but whatever). I gave up at 11. As my family was Catholic, this was not very fun for my parents. As far as parenting goes, of what I understand, the only thing Catholic parents need to do is make sure their kid is religious (the right kind of religious, I mean) because that way, even if you accidentally kill 'em, they'll still end up in heaven.
I believe now that the reason why we have these childhood mythical figures is to introduce children to the God concept. Then, when their minds develop to the point where they can try to conceive of God, it will be easier for them. It's a toe in the door to faith. God, like Santa, is a mythical creature that you'll never see, but who is always watching you, making sure you're being good. If you aren't good, both God and Santa punish you in some way. And the only reason to be good for both God and Santa is so that you get a treat. The difference is coal versus hell and toys versus heaven, but that's only minor. I mean, gees, they both have minions to do their bidding, people sing about them all the time, and both have holidays celebrating them. Yes, Jesus did get pushed out of Christmas by Santa a little. They even look the same, according to the white folks.
...But what if Santa is just God in disguise? It's his way of relating to the kiddos. I mean, fire and brimstone isn't going to convince them like it convinces the adults. Adults are afraid of dying; kids want to party. That is, kids want toys and candy. God's public relations guy was really on his shit the day he thought of the Santa character for God to play. I hope he got a good bonus that year.
So, I guess the conclusion to this is that God is a grown-up version of Santa. Santa for adults. Santa smoking a cigar and drinking scotch. Santa making lewd remarks. That's God, I'm pretty sure.
I had two thoughts upon the completion of the documentary Miss Representation, written, directed, and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom; 'I really need to volunteer for an organization that impacts the lives of young people,' and 'I really need to send this to my parents.'
The DVD isn't out yet, so the documentary can be watched here:
This post is to be a sort of summary/review of the documentary. Hopefully, it'll interest some to view the film, and for those who have, maybe my take can be of interest to you, too.
I feel like I should give a little, baby warning for those with easily upset stomachs: there are a lot of generalizations in this post. It may at times seem like I'm saying "all women" or "all men," but I'm not. I realize that there are exceptions to every rule. I'm writing in generalizations because it's easier. You can de-bunch your panties, now.
You can't be what you can't see!! What a great poster.
"The only two choices for women: witch
and sexy kitten." - Miranda Hobbs "Oh you just said a mouthful there, sister." - Carrie Bradshaw
As a culture, women are brought up to be and being fundamentally
insecure. To be a woman means a constant strive for an unattainable level of beauty, and every woman in this culture has a unique but common experience in the attempt to achieve this unattainable goal. This essentially causes women to focus all of their energy toward their physical appearance, placing all of their worth on their bodies. We are distorted in what we see as beauty, we get conditioned to think anorexia is the norm, and this conditioning begins at an early age. Why do we think this? What is the motivation? Let's find out...
"How long is it going to take for someone to take a stand?"
When children are 7-years-old, girls and boys equally want to be
President, but by age 15, there's a huge gap, where boys want it more frequently. Girls are both told they cannot be President and not shown a reality were this occurs and is therefore possible (maybe little girls need to start watching more Battlestar Galactica). After all, "You cannot be what you cannot see," according to Marian Wright Edelman. This is why varied female representation in Hollywood is so important. As it is, stereotypes about women are what is portrayed in film. Only 16% of protagonists in movies are women, and a woman is only the protagonist when her life is centered on getting a
man. Chick flicks, for example,
revolve around getting into a relationship, getting married, and getting
pregnant. And when there is a woman in a movie whose main motivation is not to catch her man, she's a bitch. She's the Bitchy Boss, for another example, where the movie based around taking her down,
usually by a subordinate male.
The thing is, media isn't representing a person with these female characters, they're making cartoons of what a "good female" should be, and punish her when she does not embody that representation. That cartoon female is not as culturally relevant as her male counterpart, and in fact only exists to make the male more relevant; in this way, the female body becomes phallic. Phallic symbols represent power, like the Washington Monument. Therefore, when the female body is only valued for it's beauty, the more beautiful a woman is increases the power the man that won her has. In this way, the female body is used to establish power for a man and her body becomes a phallic symbol (I bet just femininismed the shit out of your mind).
The cartoon females are less intelligent, weaker, their needs in a relationship aren't as important, etc, and men are seeing this in film and television and learning this to be true as well. If a
man is taught that he's supposed to be better than women in every way
yet sees women who are smarter or more powerful than himself, what does it
mean to be a man? What can it mean to be a man? Men are trained to be emotionally constipated and are left without a healthy way to express
themselves because emotions are feminine, and to be feminine is to deny masculine, and this is unacceptable if one is to be a man. And so men lash out at women for emasculating them.
And this can be seen in how the abuse against women's bodies is commonplace in the United States (i.e. we live in a rape culture).
Statistics: 1 in 4 women are abused by a partner in their lifetime, and 1 in 6 women are raped in their lifetime. 16% of those raped are under the age of 12 at the time of the abuse.
"The Fighting Fuck Toy"
This is one of the most interesting concepts presented for me. "The Fighting Fuck Toy" is essentially one of those bad ass women that kicks ass while being sexy as shit. But the thing is, even though it seems like she's
doing things on her own terms, she is still objectified and exists for
the male viewer, just as a different flavor of fuck. Some like sweet, strawberry, Girl Next Door, and some like spicy, chili, Fighting Fuck Toy. It was interesting for me because I think I fell into this trap myself. My greatest concern is that Charlie's Angels is a representation of this. I really hope not because it's one of my favorite movies. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize how problematic it is... Oh well, those ladies kick ass and that's that. But Tomb Raider does suck. And so does Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, so, I'm cool... no, it's fine. I'm still a good feminist.
But they are bad ass and sexy.
"When you're not treated the same, you are de-humanized. When you're
not given the same opportunity, you're de-humanized. When people look
at you differently because you happen to be a women and you happen to be
in a position of some influence that someone who is a man would
naturally be in based on tradition or history and people question your
qualifications, that's de-humanizing." - Gavin Newsom
Now, advertising. It's based on making you feel anxious: women are told to be more beautiful, obviously, and men are told they are not powerful enough. These anxieties are not only caused by advertising, but what society tells us in general (which is hard to say because the question of whether media controls minds or minds control media is just as difficult to answer as the nature versus nurture debate. Safest to say it's both.) So, women now spend more money on beauty products to perpetuate the beauty myth shoved on them than their own education whereas men feel it necessary to have products that represent power, like the right kind of car. But in both cases, women are the ones objectified. Girls and women are seen as objects in these advertisements to make the products more desirable (you can be this body or you can fuck this body if you buy this product). This causes self-objectification for women and girls, which leads to depression, lower GPAs, women are less likely to run for office and vote, et cetera.
Meaning this democracy we're so proud of is not representative of half the population. Actually, according to the documentary, the national leadership in the United States is, on average, chosen from 6% of the country: male, white, straight and married, over 35, college educated, and with a professional degree.
To fix this lack of representation, we both need to have the female candidates (that is, women that can see themselves in powerful positions) and need Americans to be able to see a woman in powerful positions. Of course, this isn't all our fault (or our fault at all?); just look at the way powerful women are talked about in pop news. Female participation in the political process itself creates a
backlash in the media, regardless of their political stance because powerful women are only valued as far as they can be fucked. FOX News and Rush Limbaugh are perfect examples of this, even with Sarah Palin, who the GOP thought could be their saving grace in the Obama - McCain race. Some examples of the quality of commentary about powerful women are as follows: "ugly skank," "ugly hag," "fat moron,"
"wicked witch of the west," "[it's] rare to find a woman worthy of serving
political office", "[what problem with a woman President] besides the PMS and the mood swings?" and it goes on. That last one is one of the most disgusting interviews I've ever seen, actually. Of course it was on The O'Reilly Factor, and the man being interviewed was Marc Rudov, who didn't even have to think about that response. But it's because media (and/or society) treats
power as its defined by men, and power is therefore masculine. Any woman who attempts to have power is therefore attempting to be masculine, and therefore she needs to be put back in her place. She needs to be trivialized, become powerless, so that she can be feminine again. There are many ways media does this, and it all has to do with the way we speak about powerful women in order to perpetuate the stereotype of irrational and emotional, fuckable or not,
women.
Even though John Boehner is Mr. Emotional. But I guess he was feminized in the commentary about him. Hm...
"The media is the message and the messenger"
I'm pretty sure, at this point, that this whole thing - the way women are represented in media, the government trying to take away our rights and own our bodies, the way the media makes us believe that our bodies don't even belong to us in the first place anyway, etc - is a backlash to the Women's Rights movement. In the documentary, reality TV is pointed out in this regard. It feeds on the notion that women are natural enemies: conniving and manipulative bitches. But this is counter to real life (and this is also one of the reasons I love Sex and the City.) And since it's counter to real life, the woman's view has to be squashed in order to perpetuate this frame of thought. Space in the media realm is taken away from women as a backlash to women challenging men's power in the concrete realm.
Media is in the hands of men. That is, 97% of what you know about yourself and world is from the male perspective, and the male perspective says "Sex sells!... Well, fuckable females sell, penises are either gross or funny, depending on how afraid of sex the viewer is." People who employ other people tend to hire those who are a reflection of themselves, and media is a creation of what the people in charge know (read: white males). Obviously the glass ceiling exists.
And even though women have made progress, and I am not denying that in the slightest, to reiterate, media still defines who we are and
men are the ones who hold the positions of power and attempt to keep women out of power. And the thing is, even though women have made progress, and I am not denying that in the slightest, it has always been
problematic when women gain power. During the 1st wave, after WWII was
over, women were fired in droves and with a strong push by the government and with the use of capitalism, media was used to try to "re-domesticate"
women. During the 2nd wave, awesome shit
went down. But then in the 1980s, Reagan started his propaganda of the demonization of
the word liberal, and the feminist was a perfect representation of that. Feminists were seen as posing the greatest
threat to the social order at that time because they denied the role of the American female as wife and mother and therefore destroying the nuclear family. Isn't that what's happening today? Well, hot damn, that is interesting.
Media influence isn't all bad...
Too bad they just pretended this didn't happen to put us back in the home
where we belong.
But that is true in a way, the whole sex sells thing. The exploitation of women's bodies sells products to men 18 to 34. Apparently, men 18 to 34 are the hardest demographic to get to watch something. Throw some tits on it, make it viewable, because apparently, women will watch stories about men but men will not watch stories about women. Apparently, one half of the population just is not interested in the other half. Well, I guess, the sex part, but the talking and the stories and the human connection or relationship? No thank you. I'm sorry, but this can NOT possibly be true. Men have just been trained to think they shouldn't be interested in anything but sex, or at least not act like or speak like they are. Studies came out in 2009 that support the idea that "exposure to sexually explicit video games and music videos is linked to men's acceptance of rape myths and sexual harassment." This is the closest thing to proof that people who are exposed to violence are more likely to be violent. And that men who are exposed to sexual abuse as acceptable are more likely to abuse. So, maybe if men were able to see something other than "women are sex objects," and are able to think of them as humans, this whole rape culture thing wouldn't be such a big deal.
"These images are part of a cultural climate where women are seen as things, as objects, and turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step toward justifying violence against that person." - Jean Kilbourne
This music is in the film and is just perfect. Metric.
1) Measure yourself by your
accomplishments and not by how you look.
"If you and I, every time
we pass a mirror, downgrade on how we look or complain about our looks,
if we remember that a girl is watching us and that is how she's
learning." - Gloria Steinem
2) Reflect on the ways you
might contribute to sexism.
"I think that as women we need to stop
that destructive behavior that we inflict upon each other and
ultimately onto ourselves."
3) Support media that shows accomplished and complex women characters.
4) Boycott media that objectifies women.
5) See movies written and directed by women.
6) Create your own media showing women in complex roles.
7) Teach those around you to look at the media critically.
Which I tried to do when my friends went to see Transformers 2 and I had to explain to them why I would never see that movie, for example.
8) Challenge friends when they say fucked up shit about women.
9) Find healthy role models and be a healthy role model.
10) Support women in power.
If you agree with they way they're using their power, otherwise, to the wolves with them!
