Bianca Reagan's blog

Part of the Problem

2009-08-16T18:10:53-05:00

This week I was having a conversation with one of my new friends, which went something like this:

New friend: "Let's talk about your dating life."

Me: "Let's not. It's terrible."

New friend: "Really?"

Me: "Really. Guys aren't that into me."

New friend: "That's hard to believe. You're great!"

Me: "Yeah, I know. I am great. But . . ."

And then I never know exactly what to say after that, because the friend that I am talking to is rarely another black woman. So the friend does not fully comprehend the background of racism, sexism, colorism, sizeism, and general discrimination and bigotry that is involved when dating, specifically when dating in the United States. It is difficult to explain that, for many male people my age, the person I am on the outside--and sometimes on the inside--is unacceptable. I am not what they had in mind. I am not what they grew up with. Even if my packaging is what they grew up with, the image of me, to them, remains generally inferior; it is not an image which they aspire to have as a partner.

It is hard for me to encapsulate all that pain in one sentence. It would take weeks for my friend to exit their well-constructed comfort zone and learn about gender studies and the history of institutional racism in the US. Then that friend would also have to recognize and accept that those social phenomena continue to negatively affect people like me, despite the few exceptions to the many rules. Watching Killing Us Softly 3 by Jean Kilbourne would be a start. They could also read the posts below:

Tameka Raymond's HuffPo Op-Ed on Colorism Is A Must Read, by ActsofFaithBlog, Acts of Faith In Love and Life.

"She's Pretty for a Dark-Skinned Girl...", by Tameka J. Raymond, The Huffington Post. Emphases mine.

I am a dark-skinned African American woman with features that reflect my ancestry. Debates regarding Light vs. Dark and other biases have plagued our race for years and continues to impact millions of Black women. The deeply rooted intra-racial contempt that lies beneath this inane "compliment" is the reason I've chosen to spark dialogue surrounding the topic of self-hatred in our culture. It saturates every aspect of our lives, dominating the perspectives of our generation as a whole. We culturally are so influential, at times inadvertently, that we affect all with the words we utter and the images we portray. It lends to the theory of systemic racism. I'm authoring this piece because I'm miffed by this reality and would like to share my views on these subjects.

[ . . . ]

Often dark-skinned women are considered mean, domineering and standoffish and it was these very labels that followed Michelle Obama during the campaign for her husband's presidency and which she has had to work tirelessly to combat. I was appalled when I heard a Black woman refer to Michelle Obama as unattractive. The conversation turned into why President Obama picked her as his mate. No one in the witch-hunt made reference to the possibility that Michelle Obama was smart, funny, caring, a good person, highly accomplished or brilliant. Nor did they mention that she previously was President Obama's supervisor. If she were fair skinned, petite with long straight or wavy hair, would the same opinions be linked to her? I seriously doubt it. It is believed that for the dark skinned, dreams are less obtainable.

In fact, I have read similar comments about myself that I am "dark, aggressive, bossy and bitchy." It has been stated that my husband should have been with a "younger, more beautiful" woman. Astoundingly, the majority of the remarks come from African-American women and are mimicked by others. Sadly enough, I don't know nor have I met 99% of those making these assertions. Funny, how we can judge another without having personally seen, interacted with or experienced a person's character.

[ . . . ]

Reading magazines, social media sites, watching our music videos, and television shows feed our appetites for all things 'beauty". Rarely, however do I see depictions of grace and elegance in the form of dark complexioned women.

[ . . . ]

It is my hope that our First Lady and others who share in this effort will continue to be the beacon to shine a light for those who toil on America's beauty totem pole. Now don't get me wrong or take my words out of context. I truly believe that everyone has a right to delineate what they deem is attractive, but we must not confuse perceived "attractiveness" with authentic "beauty."

Stephen Colbert is an it-getter.

2009-07-17T09:11:23-05:00

Neutral Man's Burden

"In America, white is neutral. Now, for years, Band-Aids [sic] came in only one color: white person. It's standard person color. In fact, it is so standard, that when I was a kid, in Crayola boxes, it was the color called 'flesh.' Now most Americans accept this [Stephen points to the back of his white person colored hand] as neutral without thinking about it. And that is why the decisions made by all those white Justices were not affected by their experiences. Because their life experiences were neutral . . .

Now I'm sure Asians are neutral in Asia. And Africans are neutral in Africa. And Hispanics are neutral in Hispanica. But folks, it doesn't work here."

It gets more colorful at 3:54.

2009-06-28T22:35:16-05:00

First heard by me today on The Week According to Frangela on KTLK AM 1150, during Frangela's beloved segment, "Professional Idiot of the Week":

"Slavery was evil, there's no question about that. But you know what? If it hadn't happened, where would you be right now? If your ancestors hadn't come over here for whatever reason, where would you be right now? You'd be floating down a river in Rwanda in pieces. Or maybe you'd be chased down by machete-wielding Janjaweed militia in the Sudan. Or starving under Robert Mugabe.

"Hey, ingrates. Get on your knees. Kiss the American dirt beneath you. And, please, shut up."

- Jim Quinn, from the June 24 edition of Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn and Rose

There is so much nonsense to unpack in Jim Quinn's statement, including 1) most slaves in the Americas came from Western Africa, which does not include Rwanda, the Sudan, or Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe; and 2) most black people born in the United States have non-African ancestry as well, often due to the owners raping their ancestors. So, despite Jim Quinn's penchant for the one-drop rule, in a parallel universe without centuries of slavery throughout the Western hemisphere, we ungrateful black people could have been living in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the South Pacific, pretty much anywhere. Correspondingly, many allegedly white people in that same parallel universe could find themselves living in Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria or picking diamonds in Sierra Leone, all homes of their hidden ancestors.

I don't care about "melba toast," Michael Bay.

2009-06-25T15:58:11-05:00

I do care about a pattern of racist behavior that has continued from the first Transformers film. Now the racism, and sexism, is back.

Dr Boyce: Yes, The Transformers Movie Was Quite Racist, by Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD, BV Black Spin.

Harry says TRANSFORMERS 2 is foul mouthed, racist & misogynistic! It also runs an hour too long!, Ain't It Cool News.

Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues, AP.

Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.

How does a car have a gold tooth? And why does reading come up in a film about cars?

Actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids.
Wilson said Wednesday that he never imagined viewers might consider the twins to be racial caricatures. When he took the role, he was told that the alien robots learned about human culture through the Web and that the twins were "wannabe gangster types."

Gangster types like Michael Corleone or Tony Montana? No?

"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out," the 40-year-old actor said. "If he had uploaded country music, he would have come out like that."

It's not fair to assume the characters are black, he said.

"It could easily be a Transformer that uploaded Kevin Federline data," Wilson said. "They were just like posers to me."

Kenny did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.

Way to cash that check, Mr. Wilson.

[Director Michael Bay] brushes off any whiff of controversy.

"Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes
and sizes."

If the racism wasn't bad enough, the sexism makes me physically ill:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review, by Tara Meacham, Associated Content. Emphases mine.

You might have noticed that this Transformers
film not only contains some poignant stereotypes of black people, but also that the movie is loaded with women. Most of them have fake boobs, push-up bras, and exist solely for the purpose of being sexualized in one way or another on a college campus. If they're not such women, they might be one of a few others—like the protagonist's mom, a typical empty nest middle-aged white woman ridiculed for wanting to have sex with her husband and stupid enough to purchase pot brownies without knowing what they are.

[ . . . ]

There is also Fox's character, Mikaela Banes, a female capable of fixing bikes and hot-wiring cars. She chooses not to go to college because she isn't a bimbo like all of the women that go there (because obviously college is not for smart people or women who think education might help them in life). She stays home to take care of her dad and mind the bike shop while Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) goes off to school on the East Coast.

She does other useful things, such as: run around in slow motion for a full five minutes at the end of the movie after taking off a protective
layer of clothing
in the desert, land her face on another male character's crotch, open her mouth a lot, appear with inconsistent amounts of collagen in her lips, flash her underwear while getting changed in the front yard, and attempt to be compared to Xena. Her secondary objective seems to be tagging along to help her boyfriend save the world; her primary objective involves getting him to say the L word and keep him away from fem-bots with anal probes.

Fox has a few key scenes in the film. In Egypt, she randomly dons a scarf over her mouth for a moment,
because clearly the stereotypically fundamentalist Muslims all around would have been horrified at the sight of her uncovered mouth when her boobs could hardly be contained.

However, Fox does not play the most interesting female character in the film. That task falls to an unnamed female student in an astronomy class. Her job is to pick up a discarded, half-eaten, tossed-on-the-floor apple upon the command of the professor, who tells her to eat it. This degrading display is so horrific that I can't even be sarcastic about
it.

Kudos to all involved. The Transformers franchise is now the front runner for the newly coined Rogen/Apatow Award for Excellence in Perpetuating White Male Privilege.

I don't have a subscription,

2009-06-14T23:51:46-05:00

and I don't swoon at Alec Baldwin. But I do like what the star of My Life in Ruins has to say about Hollywood.

What’s the big fat deal?, by Nia Vardalos, Anderson Cooper 360 via IMDb.

It’s just weight. Just 40 pounds of fat now gone from my body, but wow, it’s pretty much all I get asked about. In the last year, I got to star in a movie, wrote and directed my next one, and adopted a three year old from American Foster Care. But guess what I’m asked…how did I lose the weight?

I am embarrassed to be in the position of answering questions about my body again. On the publicity tour of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ I was asked over and over again, if, as the writer, I felt it was a fair depiction of real life to have someone of my er, below average looks, hook up with hottie John Corbett.

It’s been years, and I have sat through many a movie like Sideways, where nobody blinks an eye when Paul Giamatti gets together with gorgeous Virginia Madsen. And, then ‘Knocked Up’….well, the visual of Seth Rogen on top of Katherine Heigl made me put the popcorn down and reach for my purse. Not because I was grossed out but because I knew the film was about to stop and Ashton Kutcher would now jump out and go “aha, you’ve been punked, that would never happen.” I waited. But no Ashton. The film went on. And many a reviewer, who probably look like sweet Seth (yes even the women) gave it a thumbs up. [ . . . ]

Furthermore, I apparently will be seeing every Fox Searchlight movie out this summer. You're welcome, Rupert Murdoch. Also, that's a whole bunch of white, brown haired people in love. (Click on the links.) I guess it's the brown hair that makes the films "indie." And yes, I'm still going to see them.

This man should be removed from his position.

2009-06-09T00:07:51-05:00

"Date Rape is not Rape" ?!, by passtheERA, Feministing Community.

University of the Pacific Says Date Rape is Not Rape, by Cara, The Curvature.

UOP responds to sexual assault lawsuit, by David Siders, Recordnet.com. Emphases mine.

A woman identified in court papers as Jane Doe claimed in a March lawsuit that two basketball players raped her at a May 2008 party at Townhouses, campus housing on Pershing Avenue, and that a third player came into the room where she was and assaulted her as the first two players were leaving.

Pacific spokesman Richard Rojo said Thursday that the school does not consider the incident to be a rape.

"We would call it date rape," he said.

Rojo said the university considers "outright rape" and date rape to be different, in that date rape does not involve "a rapist jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly."

He said, "These are people who knew each other. ... It's a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities.

"It doesn't make it right. It's a sexual assault, and that's why the university took action in this matter."

Doe said in her lawsuit that Pacific's handling of the matter was hostile, causing her to feel unwanted at Pacific. Doe, a freshman, left the school.

I wonder how Mr. Rojo would feel if he had attended a party with his university colleagues, and three men whom he knew brutally attacked him. I guess it would not be called "outright assault" since the situation did not involve someone "jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly." No, it involved three men purposefully attacking a targeted victim. Since Mr. Rojo knew his assailants, and was therefore on a "date" with the three men, he should feel comforted because this was "a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities." Getting assaulted at university parties happens all over the world, therefore Mr. Rojo should not feel too bad that it happened to him. He could simply leave the University of the Pacific, like the above Jane Doe did, and find another university with new colleagues that might not "outright" attack him.

Additional articles and posts:

Thursday Frustrations, by Sarah M, The SAFER Blog.

University of the Pacific official's comments blasted, by Jennie Rodriguez, Recordnet.com

University Of The Pacific Claims That Date Rape Isn't "Outright Rape", by hortense, Jezebel.

University Of The Pacific Doesn't View Date Rape As Outright Rape, by Marcella Chester, abyss2hope.

From the annals of willful ignorance on sexual violence, by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon.

Rape Comes From Bushes, Spokesperson Says, by Amanda Hess, The Sexist.

So, it's not just me?

2009-06-06T00:24:18-05:00

Dating 101: Dealing With the Race Factor, by Arnold Chao, Yahoo! Personals.

Internet love is not colorblind, UC Irvine study. Emphases mine.

[UC Irvine sociologists] Cynthia Feliciano and Belinda Robnett collected data from Yahoo personals between September 2004 and May 2005, randomly selecting profiles of people ages 18-50 in the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Atlanta metropolitan regions. While white men were more open to dating outside their race than white women, both had specific racial preferences. White men preferred Asian and Latino dating partners to African Americans; white women were more likely to exclude Asian men.

According to Feliciano, negative portrayals of African American women and Asian men in popular culture could contribute to these preferences.

"Stereotypical images of masculinity and femininity shape dating choices and continue to be perpetuated in the mass media," says Feliciano, sociology and Chicano/Latino studies assistant professor. "The hyper-feminine image of Asian American women contrasts greatly with that of Asian men, who are often portrayed as asexual."

In comparison, the image of the strong African American woman is at odds with idealized notions of submissive and frail women. This may explain why African American women faced high levels of rejection among men, researchers say.

"Cultural portrayals of African American women in the media continue to stress traits seen as negative, such as bossiness," Feliciano says.

[...]

Researchers' analysis of minorities' racial preferences showed that Asians, African Americans and Latinos are more likely to include whites as possible dates than whites are to include them. This suggests that whites, as the dominant group in the U.S., remain in the privileged position of being able to facilitate or hinder the full incorporation of minorities.

Or maybe I'm a crooked pot without a crooked cover due to my "bossiness." I'm sure that's it.

Also, way to be timely, Yahoo! and UC Irvine. I re-reported this phenomenon two years ago, and Racialicious still reports on interracial relationships regularly. Their Craigslist personals article from two years ago is still my favorite. I also enjoyed the open thread on dating that followed a year and a half later.

Furthermore, the survey should have examined same-sex relationships as well. Way to be heteronormative, sociologists.

Ooh! I liked this post, too, by the Frog Princess. I have been saying the same thing for years, yet it is so hard for my friends to comprehend my outlook and my situation. As the Frog Princess says about the open thread on Racialicious, "The article and the comments really validated what I’d been feeling my whole life but that I’m not allowed to say in public because it makes some people uncomfortable."

"A woman voting for the GOP is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders!"

2009-05-12T13:25:04-05:00

And how.

Republican women: A minority in a minority, by Erika Lovley, Politico via Yahoo! News.

Women
make up almost 51 percent of the U.S. population but less than 10
percent of the House and Senate GOP — a gender disconnect that could
make the Republicans’ climb back to power even steeper than it would be
otherwise.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) notices that she’s part
of a shrinking minority every time she heads to the Senate floor for a
vote.

Republican women in the House say they feel the problem —
literally — when their male colleagues nudge them to the front of GOP
press conferences to break up the solid lines of middle-aged white men
in neckties.

Indeed, Rep. Kay Granger — the first and only
Republican woman to represent Texas in the House — says Republican
women have to work to make sure they’re even represented at public
events in the first place. "We pass the word to make sure we're there
at this ceremony or that photo-op, because there are fewer of us and
we're spread more thinly," Granger said. "We're working in a very
successful manner, and we want to make sure that’s shown."

I would like to be in a photo-op!

While
Palin provided a high-profile role model for Republican women thinking
of running for office, her experience was a double-edged sword.
Lawmakers say the rough treatment Palin received
showcased the nastiness of modern campaigns and underscored the notion
that women are susceptible to the charge that they’ve been picked to
run because they’re a good demographic fit — and not because they’re
the most qualified.

Yes, the rough treatment that Sarah Palin received during the 2008 Presidential campaign. No one else received rough treatment. No one else at all.

But
the pool is shallow. State legislatures, which often serve as feeders
for Congress, are also seeing fewer Republican women step up to the
plate. Meanwhile, Democratic training outlets such EMILY’s List have
been well-organized and highly successful at recruiting, while
Republican womens' groups, such as the National Federation of
Republican Women and the Wish List, say they are bracing for another
tough election cycle.

.
. . "If you believe that a more centrist position for the Republican
Party would bring about more success and bring more voters back, then
women would help make that happen," [said Debbie Walsh, director of
Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics]. "Women
bring a voice of moderation that could pull them back to the party."

The Republican Party should focus on bringing in moderate people, not simply matching the Democratic Party by getting more women, or by putting a white lady and a black guy in high-profile leadership positions.

"Plus or minus black people"

2009-05-07T12:56:11-05:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tip/Wag - Forced Smoking & Grizzly Best Man

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Gay Marriage

[I don't know why the Colbert Report video isn't showing up, but you can watch it here.]

Because it's not enough to be born in this country to be considered a real American. This is why I never like to call anyone a hyphen-American. I've never even been to Africa. If only black people didn't vote. Or exist. Then the results would be more accurate?

Byron York responds to the claims that he is a racist, which, okay . . .? Instead of addressing the problems with the article he wrote--including a faulty poll which "divided respondents into black and white, with no other groups reported", as if no other people live in United States--Mr. York is worrying about allegedly being considered a racist. He should worry more about being considered a shoddy journalist.

This is one reason I like Free Radio:

2009-04-26T00:26:13-05:00

the characters look like and act like relatively normal people, including the two women on the show. Though, this is not the normal situation in mainstream media:

Fat Actors vs Skinny Actresses, by Melissa Silverstein, Women & Hollywood.

What’s the Skinny on the Heftier Stars?, by Michael Cieply, The New York Times.

A scene from the new journalistic thriller “State of Play” says it all.

Jeff Daniels, as the politician George Fergus, squares off with Russell Crowe, as the pen-wielding journalist Cal McAffrey.

Two men. One notebook. Four chins.

Hollywood’s pool of leading men is getting larger — and not necessarily in a good way.

Based on a close look at trailers, still photos and some films already released, at least a dozen male stars in some of the year’s most prominent movies have been adding on the pounds of late.

In “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” a subway heist movie due from Columbia Pictures and MGM in June, Denzel Washington, 54, goes cheek-to-jowl with the bulky John Travolta, 55 — and they are beginning to look like a matched set. Mr. Washington is no longer the lean, mean boxing machine he portrayed in “The Hurricane,” 10 years ago.

[. . . ]

Even Leonardo DiCaprio, the young heartthrob from “Titanic,” is better padded these days, at 34. Photos from the set of “Shutter Island,” a thriller on tap from Paramount Pictures and the director Martin Scorsese in October, show a little bit more to love.

Hollywood’s women may have weight issues of their own. But it is somehow less noticeable, possibly because actresses who expand do not often get roles to showcase that growth. Kathleen Turner, 54 and the onetime seductress of “Body Heat,” last December put in a rare film performance as Ms. Kornblut, the plus-size dog trainer in “Marley & Me.”

[ . . . ]

Appearing on the “Today” show on Tuesday, Mr. Crowe, 45, said he was working his way down to fighting trim for his current role as Robin Hood in a new film for Universal, but he confessed that pounds were dropping more slowly than he had hoped.

He might want to get some diet advice from Jason Segel.

Mr. Segel, 29, was fairly hefty in “I Love You, Man,” a comedy released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks in March. But his face looked surprisingly thin on billboards advertising the film.

The advertising photos were done some weeks after the film shoot, with a slimmer Mr. Segel, said Katie Martin Kelley, a publicity executive with Paramount. “There was no retouching done,” Ms. Kelley said.

I had not noticed Russell Crowe's increased "insulation" in the State of Play trailer. Though I did notice Jason Segel's in I Love You, Man. He had even more cushioning than he did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yet the women allowed to appear in all three of these movies are painfully thin, completely overshadowed literally and figuratively by their male counterparts.

Whenever I think to myself,

2009-04-19T14:38:16-05:00

"Is it just me, or . . .", it is never just me. Janeane Garofalo, who recently played a caricature of a women's studies professor on Greek, crystallizes the TEA party movement for me:

"Let's be honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about. They don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism, straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks."

For additional coverage, here are some articles:

appreciate opportunities to release their repressed racism in public, by Macon D, stuff white people do.

10 Most Offensive Tea Party Signs, by Nico Pitney, The Huffington Post.

Clever comedians selling frozen "healthy" food:

2009-04-17T00:58:19-05:00

It's good to see two funny women over forty still working on the TV.

"What about fetuses with guns?"

2009-04-16T22:30:49-05:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Better Know a District - Illinois' 18th - Aaron Schock

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

It's so cute when they try to answer grown-up questions. And by "they", I mean Republicans like Aaron Schock, the current US Representative for the 18th district of Illinois.

Stephen Colbert: Tell me about the Fightin' 18th.

Aaron Schock: Tell you about what?

Colbert: The Fightin' 18th.

Schock: The Fightin' 18th? What's the Fightin' 18th?

Colbert: Do you not represent the 18th district of Illinois?

Schock: Yes?

Colbert: Tell me about the Fightin' 18th.

Schock: You mean like tell you about my district?

[Has Aaron never watched The Colbert Report, including the segment on which he is appearing, called "Better Know a District"?]

Colbert: It sounds better to say the Fightin' 18th.

Oy vey. If Representative Schock is truly "the new face of the Republican party" (what happened to Bobby Jindal?), then we can all sleep easy.

There were also few quotes which, when taken out of context, can sound dirty, especially if you were already objectifying Representative Schock, as I was. Is he more than "just a pretty face, hair and body"? Readers, I suggest you watch the video and decide for yourselves.

Either way, I don't do Republicans; they are weird. I envision Republicans on a spectrum of, at best, misguided, and at worse, evil/Dick Cheney. He shot an old man in the face!

Colbert: Is there a spanking machine.

Schock: No spanking machine in Congress.

If only there were.

Colbert: It's a simple question. I think your constituents deserve to know. Do you or do you not have six-pack abs?

Schock: Well, you know, as soon as I say that, and then I get out of shape, you're going to use it against me. So, you know.

Colbert: You're implying that I am so taken with you right now. You're just implying that I am going to stay obsessed with your abs, sir. And yes. I'm not saying there's no chemistry here. But I'm saying I'm keeping this professional. All right? And I'd wish you do the same.

I wish he wouldn't.

Colbert: Congressman, thank you for taking the time to shock and awe me.

Thank you, indeed.

A little to the left, please.

2009-04-16T11:12:03-05:00

Those dogs look so happy. Maybe I need some Pup-peroni.

I cannot process this animal feces anymore.

2009-04-12T22:54:16-05:00

[Big angry baby head!]

Is Date Rape Funny? Seth Rogen Explains It All For You, by Margaret, Jezebel.

You wouldn't know it from watching the commercials playing constantly on TV, but in Observe & Report Ronnie (Seth Rogen) date rapes Brandi (Anna Faris) after taking her out to dinner, and today, bloggers are talking about it.

It surprises me how many posts I have generated on Seth Rogen, and that most of those posts are about the misogyny of his projects. This is the same Seth Rogen whom I was first introduced to in the beloved Freaks and Geeks. I now refer to Mr. Rogen in my head as "that f-ing f-er who can eat bleep and go bleep himself. Bleephole."

Sady at Tiger Beatdown does the research and says it all so I don't have to, emphases mine: Um.

Anyway, I could spend a little while talking about how even though this comedy is going to be intentionally dark and edgy and scary and weird, and even though I know representation is not the same as perpetuation, and even though as a lady I am somehow always supposed to be a "good sport" and "understanding," because it's not as if women could look back on the history of the world and note that it has been pretty much exclusively male-dominated, and the history of art and note that it too has been pretty much exclusively male-dominated, and note when looking at art produced by men within a male-dominated culture that a whole lot of it reflects and perpetuates male domination, because that would mean they are just terrible people who cannot hear the Music of the Spheres nor hear the Eternal Human Verities within this canon that kind of perpetually excludes or insults or misrepresents them, this is fucked up. I could talk about how I am a person who routinely makes jokes about her own experience of sexual assault, and has maybe the least mature or gentle sense of humor in the world, and I still feel that the whole "dumb bitch gets raped by comic hero" thing is indescribably foul, and yeah, maybe I could "give it a chance," maybe I could try to be "fair" about this, but maybe I just have better things to do than watch a movie that might be about a woman who gets a deserved raping, maybe I've reached the precise point at which I cannot be a "good sport" any longer and that is the point at which I am asked to pay ten fucking dollars plus however much a soda is these days for a movie that may very well insult me and every woman who's ever had an unwanted dick shoved into her body. I could talk about how, even though I got warned in advance, even though I won't be seeing the movie, the incredible frequency of rape and sexual assault in our society means that many, many victims of rape will see it, and the PTSD that often accompanies rape will mean that, for a joke, for some dipshit filmmaker's attempt at being edgy, they are going to experience all of the pain and psychological trauma associated with that experience, they are going to feel that rape all over again, there, in their seats, in the theater, and they are going to pay for the experience, and if they try to talk about what that filmmaker did to them it's probably going to get sidetracked into some conversation about the Sanctity of Art which is invariably given more consideration than their actual lives.

I could talk about all of that, but I won't. These conversations last so long and always seem to involve some guy calling me "oversensitive" or accusing me of making shit up or otherwise calling my perceptions invalid because they conflict with his own or just saying that I'm pissy and not funny and mean, and all of it makes me so tired, you guys, so unbelievably tired of stating basic facts that pretty much everyone with a shred of decency should comprehend but most people and/or movie studios and/or acclaimed Artists of Our Times just fucking don't. So, nope, not getting into it. I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I am, apparently, psychic. Because, of all the many things this is, it is not even remotely surprising.