and the bride wore white

Last weekend I was sitting on my couch with my close-circle friend E. and fellow bridesmaid for other close-circle friend M. looking at the cover of the movie Bridesmaids.

Did you see Bridesmaids? It was amazing. It had an all-female leading cast, and what was great about it was that it wasn't a chick-flick, it was just a comedy, like The Hangover or Superbad. But it was all women. But it wasn't about the fact that they were women. Seriously, that blows my mind. And you know what? It was funny. SO funny. I nearly peed my pants during the whole movie, I was laughing so hard I almost forgot to add the vodka to my rootbeer. Almost.

But now that that's out of the way, I have a serious problem with it. The DVD cover (and I guess the promo poster?) is both ridiculously photoshopped and white washed.

What you need to do is to open this image and look very closely.

http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/bridesmaids-blu-ray-cover.jpg

I know around the net there has been some complaint about how Melissa McCarthy (left) was covered up while the the other, thinner actresses were more exposed, but in the big picture, I can deal with that. I have two problems with this picture. First of all, look at their feet. Look very close. Look at their toes. Have you ever worn shoes like that? I have. For about 10 seconds in a store. My toes do not look like that. It's just not possible. All those shoes are ridiculously photoshopped to make it look like they are comfortable and all the same size. No. I am not okay with this.

Second of all, look at their skin color. Look at their legs and where their arms are touching. Notice something? Yeah. They're all the same color. They're all the same "very white but not too pale" white. Exactly. Even Maya Rudolph (the one in the bridal gown). You know why I have a problem with this? Maya Rudolph is half black. So why is she the same color as Kristen Wiig? This is what they should look like.

To be fair, I know that everyone's skin color can vary based on many factors such as lighting and age but I tried to choose a photo where Kristen Wiig didn't look "too white" or that Maya Rudolph looked "too black". 

Okay, maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this, but I feel like if I were to go out and find 5 other light skinned women and then we took a picture of all of us you would see a much broader variation in our skin types, not just lighter and darker but skintones that are more pink or more yellow or more olive, and yet, in this image they are somehow all exactly the same.

Leave your comments below. Oh and you should still see Bridesmaids, you'll laugh so hard you might hurt something.

Enough with my problems, here is something I really like. This is the glorious Tina Fey on Ellen talking about her pregnancy with her second child and how they're not going to find out the sex of the baby, ever. They're just going to wait to see what it wears to prom. The comments start at 0:38 but the whole segment is adorable and hilarious. (By the way, she just had the baby, and it's a girl.)

some talk about drapes...

Since my last post was hella long, this one is going to be, uh, shorter. I'm not really interested in disecting all the issues surrounding the unrealistic portrayal of women in the beauty and magazine industry (both in the models themselves and the overuse of image editing) because that's been done (and done, and done). Instead, I'd like to briefly discuss just how powerful visual images have on our sense of self. Well, I'd like to discuss how images have a powerful effect on my sense of self.

I don't have some fancy statistic to tell you how many times a day we see images or reflections of ourself, but I can say that it's a heckofalot more times than we did 50, 100 and 500 years ago. The invention of the mirror, the camera and now the digital camera has made it possible for us to see what we look like virtually any minute of the day. At one point in time the only way to see your reflection was to look in a pool of water. Back then it's logical that you wouldn't have a good grip on what you looked like. Now we have mirrors in several rooms of the house, albums upon albums of printed images of our face from the time we're born, and hundreds it not thousands of photos of us on facebook. We are oversaturated with images of ourselves.

But this means that we're also oversaturated with images of other people, and this has a profound effect on what we expect to see when we pass a mirror. Meaning, do you expect to see yourself, or are you expecting to see something else? Because chances are, the images you're seeing of others don't even come close to what you look like since they are likely to be thinner/whiter/smoother/younger/tanner/taller than you.

Here's my real life example. I was born with a rare gene mutation that causes a pigment variation in my skin and hair. (read: I'm a redhead.) I was born with a full head of bright orange hair, and while I don't have textured curls or a face full of freckles, believe me when I say I am very much a redhead in almost every sense. Being a redhead is sort of cool, actually. Sure I got teased as a kid and require more anesthetic at the dentist, but I have the rarest hair color in the world and people notice it. I get asked about once a month if my hair color is natural, which is then followed by some glowing compliment about how beautiful it is. People pay hundreds of dollars to get what I have naturally. It is absolutely part of who I am and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

But....

I am totally surprised when I look in the mirror every. single. time. When I imagine myself, I think I have brown hair. But I do not. My hair is the color of copper. It's not a variation of brown, it's a variation of orange. My hair has been pretty much the same color for all my twenty some years and I've seen myself probably hundreds of thousands of times in mirrors and through pictures. I know that I'm a redhead, but I expect to see brown hair when I look in the mirror. I don't know how to explain it, but I'm still somehow surprised by my hair color. I am convinced that being surrounded by brunettes explains why I somehow think I am a brunette.

I know you probably think I'm crazy, but I'm totally not. I'll leave you with this excerpt from "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. I think it says it all.

Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old. Wouldn’t have found it out then, but a man come long takin’ pictures and without askin’ anybody, Shelby, dat was de oldest boy, he told him to take us. Round a week later de man brought de picture for Mis’ Washburn to see and pay him which she did, then give us all a good lickin’.

So when we looked at depicture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark child as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don’t see me.’

[...] Ah looked at de picture a long time and seen it was mah dress and mah hair so Ah said: ’Aw, aw! Ah’m colored!’

we were just talking!

Have you ever watched something where everyone else in the audience or in the group of people you're with was laughing but you didn't find it funny at all, and so because you're not also laughing you really pick up on just HOW FUNNY they all think it is and all their STUPID laughs makes your eye twitch like a crazy person? No? Well this is how I feel when I see this commercial. (It's in 2 short parts.)

Apparently this is an older commerical that they've been replaying recently, but I saw it for the first time at the movie theater. It played, and the audience ROARED. I sat there in silence, my feminist rage boiling with each and every chuckle. Then, I look over at husband, and he's laughing too. "WHAT?!?!", I say. He thinks it's funny. I give him the look.

Later, we see this ad on tv. I guess they've decided to run it EVERY WAKING SECOND on every channel. Blah. Anyway, we see it again and husband laughs. I shoot him the look (and I MEAN it this time) and so he shakes his head "so wrong". Mmmm hmmm. Yeah. You were laughing because you think it's wrong.

Look, I know there's no such thing as a non-sexist Axe commerical. Spray on some Axe and the bikini models come a runnin', it's a proven fact. Just look it up. But there's something about this one that makes the blood from all my extremeties quickly make their way to my head so that I can just be more enraged at the world.

Let's start with the first one. Did you hear her voice? That man is HER PROPERTY so don't touch him, ladies. The girls be jealous all up in this shiznet. Amirite, ladies?

And then the second one might just be my favorite. She says "Hi" to the super smooth mannequin dude (which let's be clear, is plastic dripping in Axe body spray, gross) and Roger PUNCHES HIS HEAD OFF IN A SHOW OF MANLY AGGRESSION. Because dood, that girl is HIS PROPERTY. Don't be mackin' on my girl, mannequin! Over-reaction much? Yeah. The dudes be jealous all up in this shiznet. Basically, Axe will make you jealous. So jealous that you can't function like normal people.

Women just CANNOT control themselves around a man wearing Axe. And when a woman can't control herself around you, well you've just gotta defend that, bro.

Someone. Please. Take the remote away from me. I am seriously tftf. (Too feminist to function.)

what doesn't kill us is making us stronger

I recently experienced 10-months of unemployment. During that time I had periods of usefulness and periods of time where I really took life by the reins, but for most of it I caught up on television. So in the interest of full disclosure, I very recently watched every single episode of Roseanne from start to finish. I watched it pretty often as a kid, both during prime-time and in reruns, but as an "adult" (I think we all know why that's in quotations) I have a whole new appreciation for both Roseanne Barr and the show. During my 2 week long Roseannathon I followed Roseanne and Dan’s several career changes and bad financial decisions; Becky, Darlene and DJ growing up from kids into adults (and in the case of Becky, into a whole new person entirely); and I even watched the last season where Dan was mostly absent and the Conners won the lottery. I was so obsessed with watching it I stay up until 2:00 and 3:00am trying to fit in as many episodes as possible until I crashed, and when it was time to watch the season finale, I sat in the bathroom watching it on my phone in the middle of the night. Spoiler alert: Dan died, and I bawled my eyes out. Husband was pretty pissed when he found out I was crying about Roseanne instead of a real problem.

The Conners were down to Earth and real. Yes, many of the problems they faced were no more than your average situational comedy plots, but many of them were “firsts” of that generation, like leading characters who were overweight and a realistic blue collar family, and that dealt with taboo topics like birth control, social class and sex (fat seks at that!). And you know what, they fought with each other. The way real families fight. Not the way TV families fight, but the way you and I fought with our parents, our partners and our employers. (Okay, maybe we’ve never instigated a walk-out, but you know what I mean.)

Anyway, it’s not news that Roseanne is a progressive feminist and absolutely totally fucking awesome, but recently she’s been making her rounds back into the spotlight, and it couldn’t be better. I mean, she’s still kind of fat, but is visibly happy and healthy, and *gasp* she has gray hair. Let me rephrase. She is ROCKING the gray hair. Could I love her any more than I already do? Apparently I can.

So when this article was recently published in New York Magazine about Roseanne being a domestic goddess and a feminist pioneer (and subsequently made its rounds on the feminist blogosphere) I just had to make my comments on it. It’s totally worth the read but if you find it too lengthy here is my favorite highlight.

"Nothing real or truthful makes its way to TV unless you are smart and know how to sneak it in, and I would tell you how I did it, but then I would have to kill you. Based on Two and a Half Men’s success, it seems viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist. Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him. That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife -sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right! People do what they can get away with (or figure they can), and Sheen is, in fact, a product of what we call politely the 'culture.'"

You say it, sistah! There's almost nothing progressive on TV anymore. And don't even think about commenting about how Modern Family or The Closer or The L-Word or Murphy Brown whatever fucking show you think is so progressive is truly modernizing television. They're not really. I'm not saying Roseanne was a total game changer. In fact, it obviously wasn't, because even Roseanne claims that it was "television’s first feminist and working-class-family sitcom (also its last)."

But in reality, I think Roseanne's shining feminist moment was in the very last episode in her revealing monologue. She said:

"We didn’t hit our children as we were hit, we didn’t demand their unquestioning silence, and we didn’t teach our daughters to sacrifice more than our sons.

As a modern wife, I walked a tight rope between tradition and progress, and usually, I failed by one outsider’s standards or anothers. But I figured out that neither winning nor losing count for women like they do for men. We women are the ones who transform everything we touch — and nothing on earth is higher than that."

Well to the major networks and the cable stations, I say: You've underestimated us. Trust us, we can handle it. Just try it. And don't be snarks about it. Do it for real. We're capable of handling it. And don't say you don't know how to create a progressive, real tv show that's also funny and gets high ratings. We have faith in you. We know you can do it :)

And for a little fun, the funniest Roseanne moment ever. Guess what? Sometimes parents are irresponsible. And it's fucking hilarious.

And for good measure, here's the closing song from the finale, because not only was the message a pivotal part of the show, but because it signaled the end of my Roseannathon, and I'm still grieving.

finally

Thank you. I've been waiting all week for someone to do this. (link)

My favorite part about this "iconic" image is that according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton she may have just been putting up her hand before a cough due to seasonal allergies. And that, I'm inclined to believe, because if she even thought for a second that it was due to shock, I think she would have said that. And additionally, she is the only person who looks shocked. Everyone else looks like they're watching a late 80's sexual harassment video. I wish there was a photo of great relief on the face of the president at some point. But as many articles have recently pointed out, what's going on in the president's head and what we see on his face are nearly always two different things.

gender socialization

The true reason as to why I can’t have kids is because I’m scared shitless about gender socialization. I always have been, and whenever I express my concerns to parents I respect, they laugh at how wound up I am about it. I know lots of people are scared about things like birth defects, diseases, vaccinations, or the unthinkable loss of a child. But I’m scared of talking to my (not-yet-conceived) children about gender. I’m scared to let them loose in the world without being by them every step to deconstruct what they learn. I feel confident to talk to them about race, religion, and sexuality. But even thinking about having a conversation about gender with a kid makes my heart beat really fast. What will I do if my daughter comes home begging for a princess dress? What will I do the first time I see my son being destructive or overly competitive? I literally lie awake at night sometimes wondering. I’m so afraid I’ll do it wrong.

Now, before anyone get’s all excited about the following video, keep in mind that the idea isn’t that girls are being told ”No, you can’t play with Tonka trucks”, so don't get all up in my face about how you're a girl and didn't play with Barbies or didn't watch "a lot" of TV. Gender socialization comes from many sources and toys and toy advertising is just one of them.  The reality is that the media is oversaturated with gendered messages. And we wonder why boys are more likely to incite violence on animals as kids, and more likely to commit violent crimes such as armed robbery, rape or murder as adults. We wonder girls are grossly underrepresented in math and science and even far less represented in the armed forces, not to mention way more likely to suffer from an eating disorder. Maybe it's because we've bombarded them for 18 years straight with the message that girls and boys are to act and think differently from each other.

Children are incredibly impressionable. Growing minds take in information like a sponge, even information that they are not yet capable of processing. What if I screw up this delicate information gathering process? What if my kids are getting gendered material and I’m not there to tell them about it? What if they in turn don’t have the words to stand up to their peers and to other adults about these issues? It’s not really like teaching other things where you can teach by example, like the way you would teach them acceptance instead of hate, or to be kind to others, it’s the kind of thing that takes genuine and thoughtful conversation, and I don’t want to have kids until I’m prepared for that. The only serious conversation I ever have with my cat is about how much kibble he's allowed to have.

I seriously need some pre-parenting counseling.

mtv

I don't watch a lot of trash tv or guilty pleasure shows. I've never seen The Jersey Shore and we don't even get MTV. But 16 and Pregnant and its subsequent sequel Teen Mom is totally my guilty pleasure show. I love everything about it. If you've never seen it, it's about (surprise) 16 year old pregnant girls starting with about their 30-35th week of pregnancy through the first month or so after the birth. The show is on its third season and has had a sucecssful spinoff called "Teen Mom" which is in its second season. There have been 2 adoptions, a nearly 90% break up rate, and a million tears. It's fantastic.

No, this isn't a post about how MTV is glorifying teenage pregnancy causing a chain reaction of teenage girls getting pregnant across this country to try to get on the show instead of starting the more important discussions about the lack of safe-sex education in schools. Also, it's not a post about how quick C-list fame has turned most of the mothers into camera whores. (did I really just use that word? dayum, I need a better vocabulary) See here, here, and here.

This post is about how much I love this show. All the feminist cells in my body are screaming at me, and yes, a little part of me watches it as part of an informal and ongoing study on motherhood in this country, but the rest of me just seriously loves it. I love watching how their lives unfold in partially scripted and totally predictable dramas, and how the "don't have sex without protection" lesson just seems to completely escape every single one of them. I even love the narration, done by each teen themselves, which sounds down to the syllable and inflection like every other show on MTV. (Remember this show?)

And maybe, there is a teeny, tiny, microscopic part of me that watches the show with a smug self-righteousness that I made it through my teen years without getting pregnant, and somehow by that right better than the girls on the show. Or maybe that I have the wisdom to know that no, he's not going to stick around. When he's partying instead of attending the birth of his baby, he's probably not going to "come around" once you bring the baby home.

But mostly, I genuinely like the show, and I choose to set aside my overall issues with the conversation surrounding teenage pregnancy, pregnancy in general and ridiculously awful MTV programing in order to just zone out and love it, something that I find I can do less and less these days. Don't hate. I know you have a guilty pleasure show too.

edit: No sooner did I click "publish post" did I see this article on CNN from the creater of 16 and Pregnant. Apparently today is national Day to Prevent Pregnancy. I mean, I totes knew that already.

ready for abduction

Guyz, I think I might be a prude. It might just be me, but it seems like the radio has gotten ridiculously sexually explicit in the past few months.

I’m not talking about Rihanna’s “S&M” (because that rocks my socks off, you go girl!), I’m talking about Jeremih & 50 cent’s “Down on Me” and Katy Perry & Kayne West’s “E.T.” (and not just because E.T. sounds too much like Tatu’s “All the things she said”)

Now, I’m not generally bothered by explicit song lyrics (come on, it’s not like I haven’t had the seks) and I’m not worry about the kidz hearing them and running off to get teenage pregnant. But I honestly wonder if all this is really necessary to sell a song, and additionally, does it have to be SO degrading to women? Why not sing about having mutually awesome, fireworks exploding, opera lady singing seks instead of how “If I do not fit, I’m gonna make it girl, you can take it, don’t stop, get it, get it.”

The overall gist of E.T. is really more an expression of submissive seks than it is degrading, which is fine, but my problems are with Kayne’s interlude.

I know a bar out in mars
Where they driving spaceships instead of cars
Cop a prada space suit about the stars
Getting stupid hah straight up out the jars
Pockets on shrek, rockets on deck
Tell me whats next? Alien sex.
Imma disrobe you, then Imma probe you
See I abducted you
So I tell you what to do

Really? “I tell ya what to do”? Necessary? No. It’s not. I could do without this part of the song.

I don’t really know if I even want to justify Jeremih and 50 Cent’s ridiculous lyrics, but I also want to rip them apart so here’s a nugget. Italics mine.

She want it, I can tell she want it
Really? You could tell she wanted it? That’ll be an awesome rape defense.
Want me to push up on it ‘fore she know when I’m all on it
That’s right. Get her when she’s least expecting it.

Girl, you got that secret treasure, I’m gonna put that lock on it
Um. A chastity belt?
Don’t care what they say, I would be stupid to be not on it
Unless what “they” say is “she doesn’t want to have sex with you”.
Heard you go that sticky
Glad to hear that “sticky” is the new “va jay jay”
Lets go and take 9 shots, we’ll just call it fifty
This doesn’t even make sense.
And I’m gonna lick it, lick it, lick it
At least you’re not expecting her to do all the work.
Till her hicky have her Rev running
Again, no.
Keep you running ‘til you whimpy, bang, bang, bang, bang
Add Murder 1 to that.

and I think this might be my favorite line…

Say you independent, get it from your momma
Tell me if you with it, do you really wanna?
Translation: “Oh, you’re a feminist? Was your mother also interested in women’s liberation? Are you still interested in having consensual sex? Remember you can say no at any time and I will totally respect that.”

Give me a break, music industry. We’re smarter than that. And if we’re not, we aren’t really qualified to operate a radio.