Feminism and the question of appropriate clothing.

A while back, Linda left a comment on my post, "Defending Britney.":

I agree about the comments on the poor girl's body - get a grip folks. I'd love to look like that, and I haven't had kids.

Something I've been wondering about though, and have been hesitant to bring up in most of the feminist spaces - after all, who wants to be flamed? Why is it empowering to go around dressed in a way that seems to encourage others to treat you like a vapid twit? Why does so much of the feminist world seem to think it's okay - indeed, it's good and encouraged - to show your underwear, your butt crack, your nipples, your whatever to the whole world? I'm not talking about on the beach, or in your own home, nor am I advocating wearing long skirts and sleeves and a veil. I'm just talking about not exposing what are supposed to be your private bits - you know, the ones we tell 3 year olds about? - to the whole world.

There's been this whole uproar over the passenger on Southwest. I talked to someone who works for them, and they said the part of the story nobody is mentioning in public is that the young lady was wearing no underwear, and the people sitting near her were tired of seeing her crotch exposed to the world. I haven't been following the whole thing too closely because it's such a case of he-said she-said they-said, but it's a prime example of what I'm asking about.

Don't get me wrong - women are beautiful. Men are. Humans are. But we complain about being treated as objects, then proceed to push dressing in a manner that encourages that very behavior. That seems counter productive.

Non-flamed thoughts anyone?

While I would be the first to defend a woman's right to wear whatever she chooses, I will add that I honestly and fervently believe that many of the clothes that hang in my closet are tools of the patriarchy - the underwire bras, the 3-inch heels, the miniskirts, etc. Not that they are *only* tools of the patriarchy - I also honestly and fervently believe in the possiblity and the power of reclamation. But when fashion - and I don't mean Vogue, folks, I mean every damn strip mall in the country - dictates that I can only wear jeans that show off my butt cleavage and shirts that show off my belly, I'd say that there is something else going on than just happy, fashion-conscious women who like to look good. Because the reality is, most of us don't look good in these clothes. And even those of us who do know that there are limits to what is practical, and, yes, acceptable in the average workplace or grocery store.

What I object to is not that some women want to show off their bodies. It's that there seems to be no real option for the rest of us if we still want to wear hip clothes. We often have the choice of wearing the "Kindergarten teacher" look or the "slut" look, and I use the word "slut" not to slut-bash but to point out that this is a look that is designed to convey very particular ideas about our sexuality, and that, while this is part of its appeal (because it's sexy and fun), it is also something that not all women want to project all of the time. My point: we should get to have a choice about this. Our options should not be between looking frumpy and revealing our bodies. I like what Brumberg and Jackson have to say about American women and "fashion":

"The burka and the bikini"
By Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Jacquelyn Jackson, 11/23/2001

THE FEMALE BODY - covered in a burka or uncovered in a bikini - is a subtle subtext in the war against terrorism. The United States did not engage in this war to avenge women's rights in Afghanistan. However, our war against the Taliban, a regime that does not allow a woman to go to school, walk alone on a city street, or show her face in public, highlights the need to more fully understand the ways in which our own cultural ''uncovering'' of the female body impacts the lives of girls and women everywhere.

Taliban rule has dictated that women be fully covered whenever they enter the public realm, while a recent US television commercial for ''Temptation Island 2'' features near naked women. Although we seem to be winning the war against the Taliban, it is important to gain a better understanding of the Taliban's hatred of American culture and how women's behavior in our society is a particular locus of this hatred. The irony is that the images of sleek, bare women in our popular media that offend the Taliban also represent a major offensive against the health of American women and girls.

During the 20th century, American culture has dictated a nearly complete uncovering of the female form. In Victorian America, good works were a measure of female character, while today good looks reign supreme. From the hair removal products that hit the marketplace in the 1920s to today's diet control measures that seek to eliminate even healthy fat from the female form, American girls and women have been stripped bare by a sexually expressive culture whose beauty dictates have exerted a major toll on their physical and emotional health.

The unrealistic body images that we see and admire every day in the media are
literally eating away at the female backbone of our nation. A cursory look at women's magazines, popular movies and television programs reveal a wide range of
images modeling behaviors that directly assault the human skeleton. The ultra-thin woman pictured in a magazine sipping a martini or smoking a cigarette is a prime candidate for osteoporosis later in life.

In fact, many behaviors made attractive by the popular media, including eating
disorders, teen smoking, drinking, and the depression and anxiety disorders that can occur when one does not measure up are taking a major toll on female health and well-being. The American Medical Association last year acknowledged a link between violent images on the screen and violent behavior among children. In a world where 8-year-olds are on diets, adult women spend $300 million a year to slice and laser their bodies and legal pornography is a $56 billion industry, it is time to note the dangers of unhealthy body images for girls and women.

Now that the Taliban's horrific treatment of women is common knowledge, dieting and working out to wear a string bikini might seem to be a patriotic act. The war on terrorism has certainly raised our awareness of the ways in which women's bodies are controlled by a repressive regime in a far away land, but what about the constraints on women's bodies here at home, right here in America?

In the name of good looks (and also corporate profits - the Westernized image of the perfect body is one of our most successful exports) contemporary American women continue to engage in behaviors that have created major public health concerns.

Although these problems may seem small in the face of the threat of anthrax and other forms of bioterrorism, there is still a need to better understand how American culture developed to the point that it now threatens the health of its bikini-clad daughters and their mothers.

Covered or uncovered, the homefront choice is not about morality but the physical and emotional health of future generations.

Whether it's the dark, sad eyes of a woman in purdah or the anxious darkly circled eyes of a girl with anorexia nervosa, the woman trapped inside needs to be liberated from cultural confines in whatever form they take. The burka and the bikini represent opposite ends of the political spectrum but each can exert a noose-like grip on the psyche and physical health of girls and women.

Joan Jacobs Brumberg is a historian at Cornell University and author of ''The Body Project: An Intimate History Of American Girls.'' Jacquelyn Jackson is a women's health advocate in Washington.

This story ran on page A31 of the Boston Globe on 11/23/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.

I was thinking about these issues today when I happened to open the paper to an interesting story:

"Cover(ed) girls
Young Muslim- American women are at the forefront of a movement toward modesty, but that doesn't mean they aren't fashionistas."
BY ALLISON KAPLAN
PIONEER PRESS
Article Last Updated: 10/13/2007 11:28:29 PM CDT

Like many Muslim- American teens and women, 16-year-old Mona Hannon must balance her religious beliefs with her desire to fit in and dress fashionably. She models both sides while having her yearbook photo taken at North St. Paul High School. Arwa Osman would never wear the sleeveless, low-cut baby-doll top as it is shown on the rack at Wet Seal. But the 17-year-old grabs the revealing garment. She asks herself: "How do I 'Islamize' this?"

Finding creative ways to reconcile modesty and trend-consciousness has become so pervasive among young Muslim American women, there's now a verb for it.

Getting dressed is a constant balancing act for Osman, a senior at Central High School in St. Paul. On the one hand, she's a typical American teen - devouring fashion magazines, wearing jeans tucked into Ugg boots and shopping the malls with non-Muslim friends. On the other hand, her deep religious beliefs compel her to cover her head with the traditional hijab and refrain from showing any skin from the chin down - modesty is a core teaching of the Koran.

With the American Muslim population estimated at 6 million to 8 million, and the Islamic Society of North America reporting the number of women dressing modestly is on the rise, Osman is hardly unique. Yet she is virtually ignored by retailers and mainstream designers.

"Modest, pious and prolific shoppers, Muslim women ... are fast becoming a key high-fashion demographic," declared Ann Mack, trend spotter for New York advertising agency JWT, in a report last November. This year, JWT released a major study on marketing to Muslims, which estimated American Muslim buying power at $170 billion. The study found American Muslims are more educated and more brand-conscious than the average U.S. consumer, even though virtually no major brands target them.
"We didn't realize how overlooked they felt," Mack says. "It shows you that there is such an untapped need, and as of yet, not many retailers are addressing it."

So close and yet so far. Nike is the perfect example: The company has designed a hijab for volleyball play. The uniforms were donated to Muslim girls in Kenya, but you can't buy them in the U.S.

The JWT study does theorize on why retailers are reluctant to market to eager Muslim shoppers: Religion is a sensitive issue the business community feels safer ignoring.

"There is still a stigma, certainly," says Milia Islam, program manager for the Islamic Society of North America's leadership development center. Islam, 28, grew up in Missouri and started covering her head her junior year of college. In America, Muslim girls often decide on their own, sometime in their teens or 20s, to demonstate their religious beliefs by covering up, referred to as "practicing hijab." Interpretations of modest dressing can vary. Some women cover their heads; others don't. But the vast majority will not wear tight-fitting garments or show much skin.

Islam wears long sleeves year-round and steers clear of miniskirts. "I consider myself as American as apple pie, but there's a perception of me as being 'other.' "

It's ironic, says 25-year-old Asma Saroya of Blaine, that people tend to view her headscarf as a sign of oppression. In this country, she says, being modest is a choice. Saroya finds it liberating. "I don't have to show off my body. I'm protecting it."

MODESTY ON THE MOVE

As for the endless questions about being hot all summer and, oddly, not being able to have fun when you're covered up, Hafsa Kaka, 25, of Falcon Heights laughs it off. "I went canoeing with my husband on the Fourth of July, and he did all the work. Who's oppressed now?"

Kaka works with young girls at the YWCA in Minneapolis as a resolution and prevention counselor. The girls are not shy about asking why she covers her head and wears long sleeves and pants all the time. "I'm not a preacher in my job, but at the same time, a lot of it gets back to what I teach them about living a positive lifestyle and trying to avoid temptations in society."

For Islam, dressing modestly was in part a reaction to what she sees as the unhealthy standards set for women in America. "You look in magazines and see an image projected that is far from reality," Islam says. "It's not that I don't want to fit in, rather, that this is not how a woman has to be defined. You can be modest, intelligent and religious at the same time, and it can happen within an American context."

The notion of being more modest is gaining traction beyond the Muslim community. "There does tend to be a movement toward the traditional right now," Mack says. "More and more women are looking up to people like Reese Witherspoon, who has always been modest - you'll never find her without her panties. There's a backlash against celebrities showing too much skin. The younger generation, increasingly, is embracing the notion of family values, wanting to stay home with the kids. That trickles down into several areas of life, including clothing choices."

Online, it's easy to find evidence of what Newsweek recently dubbed the "modesty movement." Web sites like Purefashion.com, DressModestly.com and ModestyZone.net offer tips and resources for covering up and provide support for young women from various backgrounds making choices that are still considered outside the mainstream.

Change could be on the horizon for major retail outlets, as well. Macy's stores in the Pacific Northwest have picked up a trendy, yet conservative clothing line called Shade, designed by Chelsea Rippy, a Utah Mormon who, just like many Muslim women, had difficulty finding "hip, modest clothing" in stores.

But don't expect short dresses and sexy tops to disappear from the racks anytime soon. "Our customers have not shown a big demand for modest clothing in the Twin Cities," says Macy's spokeswoman Jennifer McNamara. "But retail is a fast-paced industry, and we are continually examining these factors and updating our assortments accordingly."

COVERED IN COMPLIMENTS

As it happens, dressing modestly, yet fashionably, is easier this fall as skinny jeans give way to wide-leg trousers and voluminous tops. "When fall comes, we hit the stores," says 16-year-old Muslim Mona Hannon of North St. Paul.

Even so, there are issues. "You'll see a long skirt that looks perfect, turn it around and it has a big slit up the leg," says Brooke Samad, 28, of New Jersey, who channeled her shopping frustration into Marabo, a fashion-driven clothing line aimed at Muslim women. She sells online at Maraboonline.com and at Islamic conventions, but she has yet to receive any interest from mainstream retailers. "There's such a huge emphasis on women being sexy all the time," Samad says. "Retailers try to cater to that."

Samad and other American Muslims in their 20s aren't waiting around for major manufacturers to discover them. Instead, they're starting to fill gaping holes in the marketplace themselves. Muslim Tees (Muslimtees.com) is a line of graphic T-shirts launched two years ago by a group of University of Minnesota students who noticed an absence of messages and images that mattered to them on mainstream clothing. They are currently working on a long-sleeved style - not too tight but not dowdy, either - for Muslim women.

"The current generation of (Muslim) kids who grew up here wants something that caters to them," says Taqee Khaled, operations director for Muslim Tee. "I don't think it would be farfetched to see someone on 'Project Runway' in five years designing for covered Muslim women."

The recently launched Muslim Girl magazine is giving women a place to find current fashions that don't require a lot of creative tweaking to be appropriate. The September issue included a Ramadan fashion spread featuring sleeveless dresses worn over turtlenecks.

"The primary reason for the magazine is we didn't have a voice," says editor in chief Ausma Khan. "The images we see in mainstream media are generally very negative. We wanted to make sure the positive contributions are seen."

Perhaps the surest sign of progress is Hannon, a junior at North High School in North St. Paul. She decided to cover her head when she was 13. She won't wear anything revealing, but she shops at American Eagle and Old Navy, just like her friends, and feels accepted by her classmates at school. If forced to label herself, the best Hannon can come up with is, "People know me as a person with really cute clothes."

Funny, isn't it? From the women who are so "oppressed" - and please note that I'm referring to women who choose to wear hijab, not to women who are forced to do so - a way out of the madness. You can be cute and hip AND still decice that sharing your butt crack with the world is not how you roll. For that matter, you can decide what parts of your body, if any, you want to display. This is what feminism is all about, isn't it? Not just having the freedom to make choices, but recognizing and fighting oppression - in this case, the oppression of the fashion industry.

Am I going to toss the 3-inch heels? Hell, no. But I do plan on checking out Marabo.

So, I met Terry Jones...

I have to confess to being a Python fan from way back, and while Terry Jones was not my favorite Python (I always especially liked Cleese, Palin, and Idle), it was still a fairly unreal experience to be walking over to the bookstore, knowing that he'd actually be there.

I pride myself on being not terribly flappable when it comes to meeting celebrities. Well, these days, anyway - in college, when I kept running into the brothers and children of the rich and famous, I was definitely flappable. And not that I've met very many. But I'm usually not all that impressed by their celebrity, and while there are some people I'd really like to meet, in general, I've always thought of myself as unlikely to get flustered around the average famous person.

But there I was, palms actually sweating, thinking, "I'm going to meet a childhood idol. What the hell am I going to say?!" Because it's all well and good to be unimpressed, but obviously, if I'm bothering to get my book signed, I'm somewhat impressed. And if I'm impressed, then that means that it matters to me that I not be a total idiot when I get my few minutes of chatting time. Suddenly, you realize that this is a person who has in some way mattered to you - made you laugh, made you cry, made you think - whatever - and you want that brief moment of contact to be meaningful.

I got to the bookstore before he did, so I had time to take a look at his books. (I had no idea he'd done that pressed fairies book, the one that made me laugh out loud in Barnes and Noble a few years ago.) And he came in while I was in line to buy the three copies of Barbarians that I'd picked up. By the time I got my books and made it over to the line to see him, there were about 20 people ahead of me, and he was taking his time. So, I opened his book and started to read. This turned out to be a brilliant idea - I liked the book! And now I had something to say when I finally met him.

When I got to see him, he was lovely - he didn't mind that I had three books for him to sign (and I did give him the option of just signing one). He could not have been nicer. And for my part, I did not stammer, nor did I gush. (Watch for jokes about Women's Studies. He had not a clue what that is.)

And I did leave rather starry-eyed, and repeated for the rest of the day, to whomever would listen, "I met Terry Jones!"

Boom chicka wakka wakka wow...

Yesterday, I was in the grocery store, and I passed by a young man who had shaped sideburns that were...how should I say...reminiscent of the '70s in a way that isn't exactly decent. In other words, there was a nearly audible soundtrack that followed him as he pushed his cart down the aisle, and I desperately wanted to burst forth with a "wakka wakka boom chicka boom" as per the infamous Axe commercial. If I had been a braver person, and one able to refrain from laughing hysterically (how many takes do you think they had to do for that commercial?), I might have done so. Because, seriously, one should not be allowed to have bad '70s porn sideburns and walk the streets without hearing a few "wakka wakka wows."

As it was, I bit my lip (hard), fought back the tears in my eyes, turned my laughter into a cough, and went off in search of the sauerkraut.

Girls Gone Wild: The Scoop.

OK, so here's the good, the bad, and the ugly about this whole thing.

I found out last Tuesday, via Dakota Women, that a local club, the Lava Lounge (the same place that brought Warrant here - insert eyeroll), had invited Girls Gone Wild to help kick off their Wednesday night Ladies' Nite.

Now - I am on principle against the sort of "hot body" contests that bars usually hold. The reason for this is that I think they're sad. I think that women often (but not always) enter them because they desperately need to be affirmed. I suspect that women with a lot of self-esteem and with a lot going on in their lives have better things to do on a Tuesday night than strut around for a bunch of drunk, not-so-good-looking (only important because they still get to impose ideals of beauty on women) boys and men. I also don't like beauty pageant type events, though I will say that the environment of the overall bar culture disturbs me far more than does the activity. And I'll add that, given the sorts of bars that hold these events, and the harassing behavior I've experienced there myself - in part, I feel, as a result of the way such events encourage male patrons to view female patrons as meat - I do think that such events make for a generally hostile environment for women.

So far, I've sounded like an anti-sex work feminist, though I don't count myself in that category. Context is everything. I could see, for example, events like this becoming less hostile in a variety of settings and incarnations, like the "best lingerie" contest I saw in the early '90s in which women were competing against a very beautiful drag queen.

Anyway. I've never protested these kinds of events because, whatever I may think about the reasons behind some of the women's consenting, the fact is that they are freely consenting and that they are usually coming with friends to the bar and hanging out with friends during the night. They know what to expect from the bar scene, and there are bouncers and cops around should their services be needed. This doesn't mean there is no risk of rape or assault - that risk is always there. But as these things go, events like this are fairly tame and the rules are generally understood.

What's different about GGW is that they manipulate women by getting them drunk and by taking them, one at a time, onto the tour bus. Once there, without their friends to support them, they can be intimidated and coerced into the soft porn we see advertised on cable. They can also be raped. If they are drunk or underage - both happen regularly - they cannot legally consent, anyway. And all of this has happened on the tour buses. I won't go into the details of why Joe Francis is the Devil, but you can easily find this out for yourself. Clearly, GGW is different. GGW poses a danger to women. And, further, Joe Francis and his cronies get rich off of their films, while the women who are filmed get t-shirts or caps.

And so I did everything I could to stop them from coming here. I had the advantage of knowing that, in the past, communities had been successful in convincing bars not to bring GGW to town. So, I sent out a mass email with the above links, urging everyone to call the Lava Lounge and tell the owner what GGW was really about and asking him to cancel the event.

(I was surprised, by the way, to find that not only the owner, not only the city officials, but many of the individuals on my email distribution list had no idea what GGW was beyond an organization that filmed women taking off their shirts. This is not ok. Adults should be educated about popular culture and not assume it's a "kid thing" that we don't have to know about.)

I also called the Lava Lounge. Then I called City Hall. I emailed council members. I talked to the Mayor's Chief of Staff. I called the Dean of Students at my school. I lectured my students about the difference between GGW and the average wet t-shirt contest. I emailed the press with links to the GGW exposes.

I was feeling pretty good about this effort: I knew that others were also making phone calls, and I also knew that people would likely have a strong reaction once they read the links I'd sent. But the next day, there was an interesting shift in the "movement." My original email had been forwarded, and I ended up on a distribution list of some religious folks. Here is a portion of an email call to action I received:

I am more than willing to go to the Lava and pray. The event apparently does not start until 9:00. An effective method maybe to emulate the red LIFE tape we use at the abortion clinics, only use blue tape and write the word "PURE " Silent prayer meetings versus vocal protests have a lot more power in this type of confrontational situation…I know I can rally the Bound4Life intercessors who have been praying at Planned Parenthood all winter; anything over 25 degrees is balmy to them and they will probably enjoy a change of scenery.

I believe that when men, especially, come to events like this and act in prayer and purity, it is extremely powerful against the forces of darkness. I personally believe this is important enough for churches to consider ending their functions this evening in time to get over to the Lava and pray before 9:00.

When we stand as Bound4Life outside Planned Parenthood with red tape on our mouths with the word LIFE ; we are holding a prayer meeting, not a protest. The enemy does not know what to do with this, because the tape on our mouths prevents us from entering into verbal jousting, and we are appealing to Heaven for the young women and their children in the abortion clinic. In the same way if we hold a silent prayer gathering at the Lava, it will cause the kingdoms to collide in the heavenlies, but will afford us protection on earth because we will not be drawn into a carnal battle of words.

There are a couple of problems with this response, aside from the obvious issue that it is based on a belief system that most people do not share. First, it is oblivious to the fact that many of those already acting to oppose this event were pro-choice, and that such a response would completely alienate them - in other words, this is not an example of a coalition effort. Second, I find it disturbing that this response was based on an affirmation of women's so-called "purity" and not on a refusal to allow women to be assaulted and raped. And third, I find it distressing that the word "enemy" is used in the way it is, as if we are not dealing with people with whom we can enter into dialogue but rather with instruments of evil.

This kind of response isn't surprising: it's a standard Christian Right response to the sex industry. But what I wanted to focus on in preventing GGW from coming was the danger of rape and assault and the manipulation of consent. I did not want to have anything to do with a reaction that would judge women who might want to participate - or any women who worked in the sex industry - as impure or immoral. I didn't want to focus on the women at all but rather on GGW as an industry. And I certainly didn't want to paint the bar owner as immoral or evil, particularly when he hadn't yet had much time to consider the information we had only just given him.

By the end of that day, as it happens, I got the news that the Lava Lounge owner had decided to cancel the event due to community concerns. This is significant for a few reasons. First, it should remind us that it's possible to change people's minds through conversation - even rational, respectful dialogue. I don't know what kind of interactions he had with, say, the religious community (who were further concerned that this event was happening during Holy Week) or with city officials (who were concerned that the bar is located next to a daycare (that would be closed during the event - I was not concerned about either of these issues). But I do know that he heard from some of us in the feminist community that this could place women in danger. He also heard that he'd be liable for rape if it occurred on his property.

Second, the fact that we, random activists with no special political power, were able to help influence this outcome means that we have more power than we think we do to make things happen. We didn't just call and email and protest: we got the event cancelled.

Third, while I don't know how much I personally had to do with this, I feel like the steps I took are at the least one model for how to organize quickly, a model that anyone can use: 1) disseminate information about the problem and a solution to everyone in your immediate circle; 2) make your own complaint to the controlling party; 3) contact relevant officials; 4) contact the press; 5) contact any other authorities who might have power to help or who represent the target group (e.g., college officials, etc.); 6) once the situation has been resolved favorably, use the same steps to thank the controlling party.

And fourth - I'm glad it never got to the point of a public protest. Had that happened, though, I'd like to think that some of us could have launched our own protest by installing ourselves inside the club as advocates and insisting on the right to accompany every woman who wanted to bare her breasts into the bus.

Way to go, Sioux Falls!

UPDATE: Thanks to Pandagon, some good "how-to" information for those trying to keep GGW away.

Also, dig this quote from Indiana activist, Liz Ladd, about GGW: "Porn is a business and its workers should be contracted while they're sober and paid with money, not T-shirts, hats and underwear." YES!!!

Girls Gone Wild in Sioux Falls.

I'm sorry for the lack of quality posts lately. I've been on the phone and online today trying to stop Joe Francis from bringing his rape van to Sioux Falls. And tomorrow I'm off to a conference. So - Happy Passover, Happy Easter, and I'll be back soon!!

Is anyone really surprised?

Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

Just so you know what one looks like...

...here is an example of a feminist response to the recent Britney Spears scandal.

Marcel should have won.

Yeah, I'm coming in late here, but only because I left on Thursday and was busy getting ready for my trip on Wednesday night - and consequently missed the finale of Top Chef. When I woke up this morning, however, Bravo was re-running it, so I finally got to see it.

What's been most fascinating about this second season to me, as someone whose lack of cooking skills were recently displayed here, is both the creativity many of the chefs displayed and also the way that having someone to gang up on seemed to make it so much more fun for all of them. And the person they ganged up on was Marcel, who really deserves a lot of credit for behaving in such a mature fashion in the face of this.

Yes, Marcel was my favorite. I don't like reality show contestants who bully others or who are just mean, which is why I hated Susan Hawk, Will and Mike Boogie, Puck, and Jeffrey (who was so awful that he made another contestant's mother cry and shows little understanding of what exactly he did to her). And in Top Chef, contrary to the claims the other "cheftestants" (thanks, Television Without Pity, for the term) made, Marcel was the one who was bullied.

We all know that reality t.v. is scripted and that it is edited in such a way as to maximize any possible drama. So why, then, do we have no examples of Marcel's egregious behavior? Over and over we hear from Sam, Ilan, Elia, and Betty that Marcel thinks he's better than everyone else. But we never actually see Marcel do or say anything of the kind. There is one scene in which the others are laughing and ridiculing him behind his back for having business cards that read "the next Top Chef" on the back. And yes, that is a bit pretentious, but not unforgiveable. Other "cheftestants" did far worse, like Betty being a raging asshat and cursing him out for no reason, or Sam refusing to help him plate his food because Marcel, who was struggling to get his food *cooked*, couldn't stop to help Sam plate.

I think what really happened is that Marcel didn't actually do anything. Ilan, Marcel's most hateful opponent, suggests this when he says, "'On the first day of taping, when we were waiting to go on camera, Marcel said to me in his little ridiculous voice, ’Lights, camera, action, yeah?’ I wanted to elbow him,' Ilan recalled." Um...yeah. Because those are really fighting words in chef language, I guess.

This idea that Marcel didn't deserve such hostility is borne out by one Top Chef Producer who noted in her blog that even the production team doesn't see any reason why the others dislike him so intensely. As she speculates, "living communally under the strict control of the production team has reduced the chefs to a bunch of kids in camp egging each other on to bully the unpopular brainiac. Pretty soon they'll be flushing his head down the toilet ... mark my words." And that's exactly what happened: just a few episodes later, Cliff was holding Marcel down in a full nelson so that the others could shave his head (and his "friend," Elia, was laughing but had taken a firm moral stand not to get involved).

Reading around online brings me to much the same conclusion. Here is an interview with Marcel in which he talks about why his fellow competitors had such problems with him. You'll note that he continues to be pretty generous, considering how they treated him. And this piece quotes him as saying that Ilan, his nemesis, is now trying to make nice.

Meanwhile, former "friend" Elia keeps making the rounds, doing interviews in which she continues to say that Marcel cheated, though she doesn't have any proof of this or even any specific examples except to say that he "obviously" hired someone to hack the popularity polls (note the responses to this claim in the comments of the linked page. You can also read a transcript, if you prefer.). Even judge Tom Colicchio notes that she didn't seem to understand what "cheating" meant: "when Elia made claims last week that Marcel had cheated, my feeling was -- back it up, or back down. In answer to our questions (only a fraction of which made it into the episode) it became clear that Elia was alluding to Marcel’s antagonistic behavior -- in typical fashion he had managed to irritate the other chefs to an extent they considered unprofessional and undermining -- but English is not Elia’s first language, and she fell back on the word cheating."

And so, this finale has left me with - I have to say it - a bad taste in my mouth.

I miss her already.

So, Molly Ivins has died of breast cancer.

I remember when I was just out of college during Bush the Senior's tenure, and Molly Ivins' column was featured regularly in the Hartford Courant (which is, by the way, still the best paper I've had the privilege of reading on a daily basis). I used to read hers, along with Ellen Goodman's, and I'd think, "ok, maybe the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket just yet. There are still thinking people out there."

I have often thought of her mockery of the Texas "Lege," particularly when I hear of some new foolishness our own "Lege" is up to. (Which means I think of her almost constantly.)

I remember particularly Ivins' commentary on how it was that Ann Richards (who also died within the past year, sadly) had won the Texas Gubernatorial election in 1990. Richards' opponent was a nasty guy. He liked to say that if a woman was being raped, she should lie back and enjoy it - that's the kind of guy he was. Well, Richards and her opponent were at some function - perhaps a debate, perhaps some other televised event - and she cordially reached out her hand to shake his. He refused.

I wish I could find the exact quote, but Ivins wrote something like "That decided it. Bubba could tell rape jokes, but Bubba wasn't rude to no lady." And Ann Richards won the election.

I will particularly miss Ivins' insightful, sharp wit. She had a gift for cutting through the bullshit. We relied on her voice to speak for all of us - and we needed her to do it. She did it so well.

He used to be the next president of the United States.

"We have to find a way to expand the limits of what's possible." - Al Gore
"Become the change that you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi

Al Gore came to speak here the other night, and despite my bad cold and what turned out to be horrendously uncomfortable bleacher seats, I went to hear him.

The thing I liked second best about his talk was that it was scheduled opposite the State of the Union address.

The thing I liked best about his talk was listening to someone smart talk about the state of the union.

(They opened with the national anthem. I am one of those people who usually stays seated if I can get away with it. I'm not sure why this is. I think that the crux of the matter is that I think it's an empty show, and I don't like being told when and under what circumstances I should be patriotic, and what that should look like. I can get away with it in New York, but here, not only does everyone stand - everyone SINGS. And the person behind me clearly was a soloist in her church choir, so I got an earful.)

Gore's main points were that our democracy is broken, that the citizens are no longer informed and involved and our representatives are no longer interested in ideas and information. His charge to us is to change the system, to educate ourselves and to take an active role in our government. And while the environment is clearly the central issue for Gore, the dissolution of American democracy is also of critical importance.

Gore avoided castigating the current administration for these problems, cleverly sidestepping direct accusations. He never pointed to Bush and said, "it's his fault." But he did note that, at some point, "we got away from a politics based on a rule of reason and a well-informed citizenry in the driver's seat," moving instead to a political system in which, "instead of reason and knowledge playing the principle role, money does."

Sadly, Gore did not talk much about his movie. That meant that he didn't say much beyond the basics about the problems we face or how we might solve them. Personally, I found this frustrating - I would have like to have more information and to have been given a suggested first step. I mean, it helps. Otherwise there's that panicky paralysis that sets in whenever we find out about some new ill in the world that needs to be healed and the task is just too great.

But what I'm left with from Gore's talk is that we can't solve these problems, environmental or governmental, with our usual responses. We have to shift the paradigm. If making or losing money is the main issue in all of our deliberations, then we are doomed.

Now. Native American activists and traditionalists have been saying the same thing for centuries. There's a reason why the Haudenosaunee practiced direct democracy. It meant that everyone had a voice. If some of the tribe wanted to go to war, they all had to sit down and talk about it, and everyone was heard, and if everyone wanted to go to war, then they went to war. But if only some of the people wanted to go to war, they didn't go to war. We took our system of government from the Iroquois, but we shifted from a direct to a representative democracy. A representative democracy is easier. It means that you don't have to listen to all of the people, just to the majority of the people, and sometimes not even to them (witness the 2000 presidential election). The whole purpose for the electoral college, after all, is because the founding fathers didn't trust the common folk enough to vote intelligently, and so they built in a failsafe by which the elite could temper the popular vote.

(Which is ironic when you look at some of our past presidents. Andrew Jackson, for instance. As one of my professors said: "A dumbass."

...I guess that goes for the current president, as well.)

Further, Native Americans made (and continue to make) decisions with an eye toward the future. The rest of us do not. We tend to think about which MP3 player or flatscreen monitor to buy - and not so much about how the manufacturing of these MP3 players and flatscreen monitors and the disposal of broken or outdated ones will affect the environment (say, by leaking lead) that we leave to the seventh generation yet unborn.

I'm not romanticizing Native American culture here - just saying that what we've got isn't working, and this other thing? Looks like a good way to start thinking.

Doesn't it?

A system of government in which each voice, each vote, really does count?

An environmental approach that weighs policies on their future impacts rather than their revenues?

That, my friends, is something I could get patriotic about.

"I think other women would want to be like us." - promo

Whenever I watch a few minutes - normally, I don't make it through an entire episode - of Housewives of Orange County, I feel a mix of emotions. Sick and angry generally top this list.

For a while, I wasn't sure exactly why. I can watch Real World and just laugh at how predictable it is. (Typical "confessional" monologue: "I just think I'm really growing up a lot right now. I really really love B, but I need to have my freedom, too. I need to see what else is out there for me so that I can be sure that B is the right person for me." Read: "I want B to still be around when I'm done shooting this show, but right now I want to hook up with my housemates and maybe that really hot guy/girl I met last night when we were all drunk in the hot tub. Gosh, I hope I sound intelligent and mature.") I watch Top Chef and Project Runway and get annoyed at the entitled, egotistical, or assholish contestants. But none of this makes me angry or sick.

I think what it is about Housewives is that I really mostly feel sorry for them. In the ten minutes that I could stomach the other morning, two of the blond women were getting Botox. The one who looks like she is a good deal older than the others and in very poor health - when I first saw the show last season, I thought at first that she was seriously ill and maybe had disastrous plastic surgery because her face and neck were so grotesque, but I came to realize that that's just what she looks like - anyway, this one said, "I'll never look older than 32." And I sat there for a few minutes trying to figure out if she was maybe talking about dog years or something, because she looks a hell of a lot older than 32. And not just old - old would be fine. There is something really sexy and feisty about women of a certain age, you know what I mean? But this wasn't it. She looked used. And like her skin had completely given up.

And then the other one, finished with her injections, asked how she looked. "Twenty years younger," the Botox injector said. "Do I look like my [teenaged] daughter?" the Housewife asked. Um, no. She looked like she was her daughter's mother - in that sense, she looked like her daughter. And she actually looked fairly normal, considering. But Botox ain't gonna make her look like a teenager.

So this had already put me in a bad mood, and it had only been a few minutes of watching. But what really made me ill was when the one with the long dark hair and the scary boyfriend was talking to said scary boyfriend about how bored she was being at home all the time. The deal is that scary boyfriend wants her to stay home and take care of him, his house, and his kids. He does not want her to work. He makes lots of money, he'll buy her anything she wants, so why, he figures, should she work? Doesn't he deserve a girlfriend who will stay home? (Readers, I just have to step in here to note that I watched most of the last season of this show and I have yet to see anything redeeming about this guy, except for his money. And even so, if I were his girlfriend, the money would make me feel like a prostitute, because there is nothing she is getting out of this deal other than the money. OK? He's a total jackass, sexist, ignorant loser.)

So she told him she was happy but also bored. And he just looked sorrowfully at her and like he was disappointed in her, and he didn't say much, so of course she tried to backtrack to make him feel better and to make him not be angry at her. And then he got excited when she told him she had played tennis that day and liked it, and he said that "A lot of people around here take tennis very seriously," and "I'll buy you a tennis skirt and you can wear it around the house" (this last inflected with heavy innuendo), and you could just see the cogs and gears turning and his thought balloon saying, "Wow! The neighbors will finally be impressed because I'll have a hot girlfriend who can PLAY TENNIS! And she can wear that short skirt around for my enjoyment, too! I have SO got it made!"

Here's the episode of Housewives I want to see:
The housewives' kids, recognizing how disgusting their fathers / mothers' boyfriends are, get together and send their moms on a field trip to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (the moms think they are going to a spa). Once there, the housewives realize that everyone is having a great time without men, and they stop worrying about getting wrinkles or needing new boobs and just have fun being outdoors with their friends and listening to the music. (They also meet some foine lesbians and have really good sex on their own terms.) They decide men are ok but they certainly don't need to have one to be happy, stop worrying about what other people will think about their appearance, eat whatever they want to, find interesting and challenging jobs, set up a communal household, and are happy ever after. The End.

And another reason to hate MySpace...

...I logged on just now only to find an ad featuring Paris Hilton in a bikini. I mean, WTF? This is the sort of thing I try very hard to avoid. No one should have to encounter random Paris Hilton sightings, and certainly not without due warning.

(NOTE: This sounds like a slam on Paris because I think she's unattractive. When female celebs are trashed, it is their appearance and their intelligence that we target. So I want to explain that this is not what I am doing in the above comment. I do, in fact, find Paris unattractive, but I suspect that this is largely because I am irritated by her constant presence and popularity despite never having done anything useful. Her fame is derived largely from having money and having made a point of being visible. So it wasn't that she was in a bikini that I found distasteful, it was simply that she was there at all.)

The Benefactors of the Arts

One of my job tales I haven't yet shared on this blog involved working for a private school. The clientele - er, students - were, let's say, a certain class of people. Just for example:

We were setting up the gym for the annual fundraiser - an auction. There were TONS of items arranged in the gym, many of them expensive and breakable. And into this came four or five rampaging middle-school girls. I told them they couldn't run around and touch and look at the stuff, and that they'd have to leave. One of them looked me right in the eye, cocked her head, put her hand on her hip, and said, "Do you know who my mother is?"

Her mother was president of the board. And, in point of fact, her mother did not seem like the kind of a mother who would allow her daughter to speak that way - but this kind of gives you an idea of the feeling of entitlement that pervaded that school.

The kids would routinely try to outdo each other by hosting elaborate birthday parties. I remember one was a lavish dinner cruise - for a thirteenth birthday! (As my mother would say, "if you're going to have the dinner cruise on your thirteenth birthday, what's left for the wedding?") Some of these middle school parties were also well-stocked with things like, oh, I don't know, cocaine. I found this out because one parent was brave enough to come forward, though the school swept it under the rug - I know, because I was the one who reported it to school officials - and she was likely ostracized for it.

Anyway. So this was a place where money talked (and they talked about money, which is, by the way, the sign of the Nouveau Riche (Old Money doesn't talk about money, ever) and everyone felt entitled and I got to witness a lot of ignorance and arrogance that folks tried to hide under their money.

Perhaps these attempts to hide ignorance and arrogance under money are most evident when it comes to art. Case in point: One of the auction items that someone had donated was a limited edition print by Magritte.

The piece was "le viol" (the rape):




Now - my boss, who talked about money a lot and was somewhat obsessed with having the "right" shoes, bag, show tickets, whatever - thought this was obscene, and so - god, it's painful even to write it - she ROLLED IT UP and PUT SOME RUBBER BANDS AROUND IT and STUCK IT ON A SHELF. You know, the way you did with your old Duran Duran posters when you left for college. God knows what this was worth before she put all kinds of dents into the print. Or, more to my point, it was something of artistic value, and she crumpled it.

The piece didn't go in the auction and the owner was not informed, as far as I know. My boss seemed to think she could sell it privately, but I don't know what collector would buy a crapped up limited edition print. This incident seems to me, in some way, to be a perfect metaphor for the school and for the way it tried to present itself: it was the right place to be to look as though one had experienced art and culture, but the administrators and parents didn't know art and culture when it looked them in the eye. (The teachers, though, were pretty good - it must be said.)

All of this ran through my mind when I saw this story. At first, I thought, oh, too bad. But then I started to think a bit more about the people involved in this story. And there are two things that really bug me. First, there's Nora Ephron's take, which is fine. It's funny. It's typical Ephron. But I couldn't help but notice her mention of Joe's Stone Crab. I immediately remembered this post. And I realized that Nora was hanging with a guy who owned a painting that he could sell for over 100 million dollars, and then I realized that Nora wasn't one of us, but one of them. So I was annoyed, thinking about these rich people bumbling around and destroying fine art.

But second, there was this piece in The New Yorker, which somehow made it worse. Because now, crapping up art has somehow become a witty little story to be shared at dinner parties among the very rich.

I suppose I should be grateful that, at least, very rich people like Nora Ephron and her friends recognize the value of art when they see it. In contrast, I have also worked a couple of "art" auctions, auctions featuring (often poorly-done) work by overpriced and kitsch artists. At these auctions, people who know nothing about art itself - though they may know of a few artists who are currently "hot" - shop for art that will match the living room couch. I wish I could say I was kidding. I heard repeatedly "but it doesn't GO with anything" and "where would I PUT that?!"

These are appropriate comments for discussing the choice of wallpaper. Art is not wallpaper. And that brings me to the point of this rant, which is simply this: Art is not, or should not be, a conversation piece or decoration or a way to bring together the colors in a room's interior design. It is ART. Its point is to enlighten, move, challenge - to speak something real that will affect us. If it doesn't do that for you, then don't buy it.

And frequently, though not always, the "benefactors of the arts" are the most ignorant of all.

Behind the Music: Mr. Rogers

Some people have famous friends whose names they can drop and stories they can dine out on. I have Mr. Rogers. And I don't even really have him: I have a father who used to work with him.

My dad built Mr. Rogers' original sets (not the ones that you remember - this was before the show was nationally syndicated).

You would think that would make me pretty cool among my peers as a kid, wouldn't you? Sadly, it had zero effect on my social standing. In fact, on a couple of occasions, I found myself defending his honor against jeering "friends" and nearly coming to blows with them (but that's another story). But we did get Christmas cards from the Rogers clan for a few years, and I met him a couple of times.

Yes, he is exactly like that in real life, and much more genuine-seeming.

I had originally planned to take advantage of my celebrity insider-ness and share with you the story of how X the Owl got his treehouse. I have a friend who showed me some work she was doing for Elmo that involved a suspiciously Neighborhood-of-Make-Believe-looking tree. And I mentioned to my dad that I thought Elmo was stealing from Mr. Rogers, and he told me the story of how that tree came to be. However, my dad is writing his own book, and that story is in there, and we decided that perhaps it would be best if I didn't scoop his book.

So instead I'm going to tell you that, the first time I met him was in Buffalo, NY, and I was probably two years old. I remember seeing him there in the restaurant, and being shy, and finally blurting out, "did you know you're on t.v.?" He thought that was adorable, and when I met him again nine years later, he remembered that and mentioned how incredible it was that, in my childlike way, I really had thought that perhaps he was on television and he didn't know it. (Which tells you something about how kids imagine television. Bean* asked me today if we could go on television and never come back, and I realized that what he was thinking television would be like - a magical place in which one could exist only if one didn't also exist in real life - was far, far different from the studio that I had in my mind.)

What I also remember about that second meeting was that there was a very determined little boy in the studio who very much wanted King Friday for himself. He grabbed onto the puppet and held on for dear life, and Mr. Rogers managed to get him to let go without pulling or asking for help or even raising his voice. I'm sure it helps to be a television personality when a little kid has glommed onto your stuff and you want it back - the little kid just looked at him with big, round eyes and, after a while, let go - but Mr. Rogers deserves at least some of the credit for knowing how to be with young children.

I had little tolerance for the show once I turned six or seven, but Bean (I finally came up with a blog name for him!) is enjoying him now, and I notice and remember having been drawn to Mr. Rogers' gentleness, his dorky yet endearing way of moving, the way he is entirely willing to make a fool out of himself in order to capture the moment for a small child on the other side of the screen.

They're Gonna Turn You On

So, I'm finally back from a very long "vacation," if visiting family members counts as a vacation. Kidding aside, it was mostly good - visiting the East Coast always makes me feel at home, as indeed it *is* my home. And it's sort of sad to come back.

But I had with me a gift for turning 38 - which, I should just mention in passing, is much, MUCH better than turning 37. I highly recommend skipping 37, which was a devastatingly depressing year, and moving right to 38. Anyway, the gift was Volume 1 of The Best of The Electric Company. You remember The Electric Company, right? That psychedelic kids' show from the '70s that was on after Sesame Street and before Zoom? With Morgan Freeman (Easy Reader), Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby, Spiderman, and a host of others who still show up sometimes on Law and Order?

I think it says a lot for the quality of the show that I can watch it now and be just as enthralled as I was at 7 when I was watching it for the first time. But what really gets me is being able to watch and enjoy it along with my kid. This show is all about reading, so very often, a word will appear on the screen, and while the voiceover is repeating the word, the word itself is dancing about, doing whatever the word suggests. (For example, the word "row" actually appears to row across the screen.) After a few such scenes, my son began asking, "why is that word doing that?" And this child, who regularly tells me, "stop that, Mommy!" when I try to teach him reading skills, began to understand that words do things.

He began to get it - that words mean things, that the letters have something to say. That we can read them and know something that we didn't know before, as when the character on the screen learns which door says "out" and which one says "in," and is then able to leave the supermarket.

After just one evening of The Electric Company.

As we got ready for bed, he asked, "Mommy, where's my Leap Pad? I want to play with it tomorrow." (This is the same Leap Pad that he barely touched for the last three weeks.)

And as I tucked him into bed, he held up the book he was looking at and said, "I want to know what the words on the page say, but I can't read."

We’re gonna turn it on. We’re gonna turn it on. We’re gonna turn it on.
We’re gonna open the book,
And read every word that we see.
We’re gonna get us the power to learn about anything,
And the power’s gonna get us free.
Power’s gonna get us free.

We’re gonna turn it on.
We’re gonna bring you the power.
It’s coming down the line, strong as it can be, through the courtesy
Of the Electric Company. The Electric Company. The Electric Company.

Random Thoughts in the Movie Theater, Part 2: Monster House

WARNING: Spoilers to follow.

It's troublesome being a feminist at the movies. I'm used to seeing sexist plotlines and underdeveloped female characters, but I keep thinking, "hey, it can only get better. I'll try again."

And Monster House is a cute movie. The basic plot is that the house across the street comes to evil life, and the three children - DJ, Chowder, and Jenny - who are the main characters know this, but of course, none of the adults believe them. Two windows in the front of the house become it's eyes; the doorway is the mouth, with a long runner snaking out to grab unsuspecting victims. (Everyone who gets eaten manages to survive at the end of the movie, which makes it palatable for older kids.)

But there are two major problems with this film. First, although it is two boys and a girl who fight the house, DJ and Chowder do the work while Jenny mostly just comes along for the ride. While Chowder is driving a steamshovel, simultaneously battling the now-mobile house and leading it to a strategic point under a crane, DJ and Jenny are scaling the crane, DJ with explosives in hand that he will drop into the house's chimney, blowing it apart. Jenny has a minor role in this - I can't remember the exact sequence of events, but it's something like, DJ stumbles and drops the dynamite, she grabs it, throws it to DJ, and he drops it in. It was all so predictable - and so unnecessary. Why couldn't Jenny have dropped it in? Why are girls almost always accessories and rarely the heroes? Allowing Jenny to be the one to finally drop the dynamite would have made it a group effort, rather than a boys' effort with a girl tagging along. (Sound familiar? It's the same tired pattern we see in most adult movies.)

Second, and perhaps more disturbing, is the house itself. It has an insatiable appetite. It swallows balls, kites, people: anything and anyone who trespasses on its lawn or front walk. DJ and pals assume that the house becomes haunted with the ghost of it's recently departed and extremely cranky inhabitant, Mr. Nebbercracker, who has for years confiscated toys and frightened children that wander onto his lawn. But as they learn later, it is in fact haunted by the spirit of his wife, Constance, who was accidentally killed and buried when the cement floor of the basement was poured. Not coincidentally, Constance was a circus fat lady who had been terrorized by the public and who, embodied in the house, attacked anyone who came near.

As the house, Constance is therefore enormous, insatiable, crazed - just as she was in life. Mr. Nebbercracker, in contrast, is small and skinny, the one who placates her great rage. This portrayal of a fat woman as out of control with huge appetites (whether for food or for sex) - as, literally, a maneater - is unfortunately all too common. In fact, the very difference in size between a large wife and a smaller husband, whether in literature, film, or real life, communicates the message that she is the dominant partner. These stereotypes of fat women are particular to fat women - the reverse wouldn't work. There are no cultural figures of fat men whose appetites must be controlled by their skinny wives.

Further, the house is only silenced when it is destroyed, at which point we see Constance's ghost dancing with Nebbercracker before swirling off into the sky. Nebbercracker then breaks down in relief that he and Constance have finally been set free. Thus, it is only through Constance's destruction that her appetite is forever controlled.

What's wrong with this picture? Monster House doesn't merely reinforce negative stereotypes - it depends upon them. There would be no plot if not for the purposefully grotesque figure of Constance. Further, as the film makes clear, DJ and Chowder are just entering puberty, and so their interaction with Jenny is one in which they must be heroes in order to impress her, while her role is simply to be impressed. Given the target audience for this film, that means that the film models for children "appropriate" gender roles: good boys are heroes. Good girls are observers. Bad woman are fat, hungry, and out of control. Bad men are skinny and small. Balance can only be attained through the destruction of bad women.

Only a movie? Perhaps. But these notions about men's and women's appropriate sizes and behaviors are real, not imagined, and ingrained in our culture.

If you doubt me, try this: ask the heterosexual women you know - especially the tall ones, the fat ones, and/or the athletic ones - if they date men who are shorter than they are. Then ask them how it makes them feel when they are taller or bigger than their dates.

Random Thoughts in the Movie Theater, Part I

1) Queen should stop performing "We Are The Champions."

(I got to hear a sampling of "hot" hits while waiting in the near-empty theater for Monster House to begin. More on that in a future post.)

The guy can't sing like Freddie Mercury, which means that during the chorus, you can't really hear him, and he can't hit those nice high notes, as in "we'll...keep on FIGHTing...'til the end..." - he doesn't even try. That's bad enough. What's worse is that the he adds a lot of cheesy "whoah-oah-oah yeah"s, which I think is his attempt to really own the song, but which makes it crappy instead of, if not good, then at least not a horrible rendition.

2) Transamerica is a great movie if you think "transwoman" means "prissy drag queen." Or if you really want to see Felicity Huffman with a penis. It's basically a trans version of To Wong Foo, but without the small town and with one born woman playing the lead instead of three straight men.

I mean, really. Was the studio all out of good scripts? This is, no question, a movie for straights, not as in strictly heterosexual people, but as in "don't scare the straights." This has all the important components: self-loathing, awkward attempts to "act" like a woman, the hating family that miraculously becomes supportive almost on a whim. Couldn't we have a transwoman character who isn't uptight and doesn't have a penchant for bad makeup? Cripes. I felt like I was watching Tootsie.

And, for that matter - what? Are there no transwomen who can act? Whatever happened to Jaye Davidson? Surely there was a role for her somewhere in there - perhaps during the transwoman house party?

3) Firewall. Yawn. Even the title is boring. Poor Harrison Ford is running out of opportunities, and even I am getting tired of seeing him play the same guy over and over, seeing the same tired expressions cross his tired face. I swear, one of his opening lines is lifted right out of one of his many other films (something about asking the maid to take his blue suit to the cleaners). Also, his name is Jack in this one, which is weird, considering. I kept wondering what had happened to Anne Archer, if she didn't want to do another sequel or what, until I realized that he wasn't playing THAT Jack.

Kathy Griffin: D for Personality

I used to be a huge fan of Kathy Griffin, back when she'd only had one Bravo special and in the early days of her reality show, "Kathy Griffin: Life on the D-List." What made her so much fun was her willingness to laugh at herself - that and her dishing of celebrity gossip. Kathy was just like the rest of us. She was a hard-working woman struggling to make it in an industry that doesn't much care for women, especially women who don't have money, who aren't thin, who aren't white, etc. And Kathy would get out on stage and just pop all of those little fantasy celebrity bubbles. She would tell us which stars thought they were something special (Sharon Stone) and which ones were cool (Celine Dion). And we would sit back and laugh with Kathy, because she was cool, too. As she told us, we were her "peeps."

Except lately, I'm not feeling so much like I'm one of her peeps. Before, I always had the sense that if I were to run into her in an elevator or a waiting room somewhere, we'd make eye contact and immediately "get it" - we'd chuckle about the obviously closeted gay guy standing next to us and the equally clueless matron trying to fix him up with her granddaughter. We'd laugh at the fashion fiasco that is the '80s revisited (boots with capri leggings? I don't think so.). And I'd feel that she was real and genuine and down to earth and friendly, just as she acts like she is in her stand-up routines.

Except that she isn't. She's still real and genuine and down to earth and friendly with the poor schmucks who have the audacity to book her for dog shows and fundraisers, which are never high profile enough to suit her and at which she is never given the diva treatment she obviously feels she deserves, never hesitating to point this out to us, the viewers. (It's funny, though, that she never turns down these gigs that are so beneath her.) But as soon as the poor schmucks turn their backs, there's Kathy, making nasty comments about how low rent their special events are, how pathetic her life is, how terrible it is that she has to put up with small crowds, with people not recognizing her, with no large private dressing rooms, and how Jennifer Aniston has no idea what it's like.

This is, of course, the whole gimmick of her reality show. As the title tells us, the show lets us know what life is like for a D-list star, and it is funny to see her get the key to a city when there is no one there to see her receive it. But it's hard to reconcile this image of poor, hard-working, friendly Kathy with the Diva Kathy who hires an insane L.A. dog trainer instead of actually working to train her dog (what do these people think? If you have an animal, you need to train it. It doesn't just magically happen.). Just for example, insane dog trainer tells Kathy to dress up as a huge squirrel as part of the dog training, and Kathy is so far gone that she has the balls to tell her assistant, Jessica, to do it (Jessica flat out tells the camera that she will not, and eventually, Kathy backs down). The Diva lives in a huge and very expensive house; she stays at fine hotels; she even brings her DOGS to fine hotels. It's hard to feel like she's one of us when she is constantly telling us that she's better than us, that she deserves more than we do, and that we (meaning America) had better start appreciating her.

And, sort of off-topic but not really, her fag hag routine is kind of humorous, given her husband's and parents' obvious homophobia, but it's also kind of offensive. I can't help but notice that when she talks about "the gays" as if they're her private fan club, she always means men. Queer women never make an appearance in Kathy-world, and I suspect, though I can't say for sure, that if Kathy were to make a statement on lesbianism it would be something akin to Carrie Fisher's and Madonna's insulting conversation from several years ago, in which they decided that lesbianism was ultimately too ridiculous and too lacking to get them off. Oh, and demeaning - lesbians packing dildos were demeaning, too, if I remember correctly. So anyway, I can see Kathy saying something like that, with the added jab that lesbians have a poor sense of style. So I guess I'm glad that I haven't heard her speak on the topic.

Frankly, she was a lot funnier when I didn't know what she was really like.

Oh, Dear Lord

This is just NOT ACCEPTABLE, people.

That is all.

Currently Reading...

Ah, summer. The time for catching up on all the books and movies and t.v. shows and exercise that you missed all winter.

Well, at least I'm getting back into the gym these days. I haven't seen many films, though there are many I want to get to - Pirates, X-3, MI-3, etc., etc., nor have I watched any of the episodes of Lost from the second season after, say, Thanksgiving (I have, however, managed to keep nearly current on animated films that are appropriate for four-year-olds. Go figure.)

But I'm reading. I just finished Inga Muscio's Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, which I read most of last summer, and which I enjoyed picking up again. I didn't pick it up for the longest time because of the title - not that I was offended (I love that word when used in reclamation), but I thought it was going to be all about the word and then, perhaps, about vaginas, and the thing is that I've done quite a bit of reading about vaginas already. But the book is more of a feminist manifesto, the kind of feminist manifesto that pulls in all people who are oppressed (my buddy Drek will hate my use of the term, but it fits here), the kind of feminism that speaks against all injustice. The book largely focuses on women and the kind of crap that we face in our lives, from low self-esteem to violent attack. What's cool is Muscio's response to this - she has one for everything. My favorite: know a guy who sexually assaulted your friend? Why not get all the gals together, go to his place of employment, and tell his boss what kind of guy he is? Why not picket his house?*

(* Before someone leaves a comment to the effect of "but what about women who make up sexual assault stories? What about being innocent until proven guilty?" - let's keep in mind that false accusations of rape are something like 2% of all reported rapes.)

I'm in the middle of a few others. I started The Motherhood Manifesto on one of my recent plane trips, and it's a quick read, but I kind of stalled out partway through. For one thing, it was kind of preaching to the choir in my case, and I didn't learn a whole lot of new information. For another, the new information I did learn was horribly depressing, like the fact that the U.S., Estonia, Slovakia, Poland, and the UAE have the same mortality rate for children under five - and the U.S. spends far more on healthcare than any of these other countries. But it's an important book, nonetheless. I'm particularly interested in its discussion of flex time, job-sharing, parental leave, and other creative ways to help parents keep good jobs and still parent.

I'm reading Nancy Mairs' A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories. Mairs is one of my favorite nonfiction writers, though in this book she seems to have a different voice than the one I remember, perhaps because of the topic. I admit that, at first, reading the book made me feel a bit depressed, but as I read on, I'm finding that it's helping me sort out my own feelings and fears about death.

I just finished Spike Gillespie's Pissed Off: On Women and Anger. People who know me have proably heard me say that I firmly believe that most people don't know how to express their anger well - and that this is particularly true for women. This book is an exploration of moments of anger, of how women have expressed their anger (positively and negatively), of the catharsis of anger, and of the importance of moving beyond anger to a place where one can let go of anger. I liked it, though I did think that in the case of some of the angering moments Gillespie writes about, it was not clear to the reader why certain people deserved her anger. In fact, I found myself identifying at times with the people she had set up as the villains, simply because her own anger seemed so out of place in response to the events in question. But then, that, too, is part of the discussion of anger - processing when it's appropriate, and how, and why, and what to do about it.

Finally, I'm reading Marilyn Abildskov's The Men in My Country, a travel memoir about her time in Japan and - I think (I'm not very far along) the men she met there. I just finished a class with Marilyn at the Iowa City Writing Festival, so I'm hearing her voice in my head as I read (which is sometimes cool and sometimes annoying. You know how it is. You want the only voices you hear in your head to be yours.). I was reading a little bit of her book earlier, and hearing her voice put me in mind of being back at the workshop, a whole week of dedicated time to write, and it compelled me to come out here and sit down and write this.