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creatingblackcharacters · 1 month

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"It takes HOW LONG?" Black Hair is an Art (pt.2)

(This is part two of the hair lessons, focusing on writing/narratives. If you want to know how the styles LOOK, refer to part 1 and its addendum)

Now that you know what our hair actually looks like, we’re going to discuss incorporating that into your writing (original fic, fanfic, webcomics, anything with a narrative). You don’t HAVE to give us a dissertation on "how you studied 'The Black People’s Hair'" in your story. That’s not what I’m asking you to do. I’m just asking you to CONSIDER the effort and existence of it. The same way you put effort into discussing nonblack hair textures? Should be the sort of tenderness and care you put into discussing ours. It does not stand to reason that I have read thousands of stories describing "the silky, black/blonde tresses/waves that fell down their pale back as their lover ran their fingers through them", but Black readers have nothing of the sort to compare to without seeking our own authors out. Our hair deserves some loving and adoration too!

This is a very long post describing hairstyles and how they can correspond to your character's design and decisions, so I'll put a read more here. The sections are organized into 'Twist Out', 'Afros', 'Locs', 'Braids', 'Black Men', and 'Straight Hair' if you Ctrl F. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take your time to read all of this at some point though, as I put a lot of resources and explanation into this. I'm trusting you!

The History

As I discussed in the last lesson, our hair is incredibly important to us, and part of that includes the vulnerability and trust that comes along with access to it. This is due to a long history of oppression. There’s a racist history of making Black women hide our hair, as if it would ‘tempt white men’ away, regardless of it were due to actual attraction or the (more likely) rape of Black women. There’s a racist history of touching our hair, as though we are animals or zoo exhibits. We aren’t just going to let anyone touch our heads, so DON'T write that, unless you are doing so to show that it is a microaggression towards your character. Even now, cultural appropriation is rampant. If I were to wear cornrows with hoops, it'd be seen as 'ghetto' or 'gang-like'. Meanwhile, it is a fashion statement for white women. When Miles G Morales showed up in Across the Spiderverse, animators specifically chose cornrows for him, but many people mistakenly took it to me that he was 'rougher and tougher' than the original Miles. This was a racist perception! Hearing the Fade get hyped up in the news as the 'Travis Kelce', when Black men and especially NFL players have been wearing it for DECADES to crickets... it hurts lmao. Point is, you can describe and respect Black hair without being racist about it. Okay? Okay.

Vulnerability

YOUR CHARACTERS NEED TO BE CLOSE BEFORE ALLOWING THEM TO TOUCH THEIR HAIR!!!

It needs to be someone they TRUST wholeheartedly. Again, do NOT let a stranger touch their hair unless it’s meant to be an uncomfortable situation!

Consider CONSENT! Consent is ALWAYS beautiful! Have your other characters (Black or not) ASK to touch your Black characters’ hair! And not in the ‘Oh can I touch it?’ way. But if they’re really close friends or dating, have them ask to help do their braids, or wash their hair, or even just to stroke their hair and face! Or if your Black character is injured with a head wound, and they have to tend to them, have them ask! The asking shows a level of care and respect for your Black character and their body! At any point the consent may be revoked, and that needs to be respected! If they let them tend their head wound, but then smack their hand away after, that’s not ‘rude’- they’re allowed to do that, especially to signify that they aren’t at that level of trust yet. That's still angsty!

One great example of love from a Black character is doing their partner’s hair, or allowing their partner to do their hair. The ‘Hair-washing’ fic is a common thing in fanfiction; we all understand how that shows the depth of the trust in the relationship between the characters. How would you write about that trust with a Black character, if you don’t know what goes into taking care of their hair? If you don’t even know what their hair looks or feels like? The lack of awareness will show, and what should be a beautiful, deep moment will fall flat for Black readers. I wrote one once for my character with locs, and it honestly made me tear up because I realized that I’d never seen one, at least not in the majority white spaces that the fandoms I was in were.

Think about it- how often have you read a hair-washing fic with a Black character? Was it accurate? Would you know if it was accurate? Have you spoken to or heard anyone Black in your fandom space talk about it? Do you know anyone Black in your fandom space to ask? It’s things like this that we have to consider!

If you have a character that is nonblack in a relationship with your Black character, that honestly reveals even more trust because there’s a long history (again) behind that NOT happening! In life, we can’t go to the same places. I can’t go to a white hair salon or barbershop. They won’t know what to do! People are allowed to go through hair school without learning how to work with different, thicker textures. It’s not right nor fair, but it’s a part of the casual, systemic racism in our lives.

My feelings on what Lestat symbolizes aside, the scene where he plays with Louis’ curls in AMC's IWTV was an intelligent way to show that closeness, and how a nonblack character would affectionately play with a Black character’s hair! How he works with the curl in his fingers, rather than trying to pet Louis or run his fingers through- it was an intelligent move on Sam and Jacob’s part as actors to understand that THAT’S how that would go down!

If you have a character that wants to show a violation of your Black characters’ space, touching/harming our hair is cruelty on a very personal level that will generate an extreme reaction.

Think About Your Character!

When thinking about your Black character’s hairstyle, you need to think about your character themselves! What do they do every day? What are their hobbies? Are they Type A, Type B personality? Do they have a lot of time? Are they always in a rush? Are they noncommittal? Are they self-conscious? Artsy? Serious? Are they in a time period where the means to care for their hair are limited?

People make jokes and comments about how Black women don’t like getting our hair wet and dismiss our concerns. But it’s not out of ‘silliness’ or vanity. What you consider ‘just hair’ may have taken days of planning in advance and HOURS of our time! We put a lot of thought and effort into our hair, and it will easily shatter the illusion for your Black readers if you describe our hair poorly or create an unlikely scenario with it. It’s not a joke!

Some Terms:

Protective styles- a style that allows our hair to ‘rest’ with minimal manipulation

‘Tender-headed’- some people’s scalps are more sensitive to the tightness of styles, so it’ll hurt a little bit more and require some more gentleness (Regardless it’s still going to hurt for a bit after a fresh style)

Bonnets- a silk/satin cap of varying lengths that we wear at night to protect our hair and keep the moisture in

Loc Sock- same idea, but for locs

Durag- keeps short haircuts protected; can even help create the wave pattern that many Black men enjoy

Scarf- same idea as the bonnets, except scarfs can be used specifically for straight hairstyles to wrap them up to keep it straight and neat

(It'll seem real legit if you include your Black characters wearing their headcoverings at night! I remember laughing while reading Twilight because I knew that if Edward snuck into my room at night, he'd see me in my scarf or bonnet lmao.)

General Hair Care:

While I don’t completely agree with some of the advertising in this first one (it’s the internet. Can’t go nowhere without someone trying to hawk something) it’s cool in general to explain how our hair looks the way it does.

If you have Black children OCs, it’s important to consider that their parents have to do their hair, and how that will be its own experience! (It can be very stressful for Black children to get their hair done, as it takes a long time and can be physically uncomfortable. There are plenty of stories of burnt ears and tugged tangles and not very nice old women. Children are children! Keep in mind how they may behave while getting the style of your choice.

Moisturizing to keep healthy

Twist Outs

Cute twist out styles

Twist outs are a style that takes overnight to hold, or maybe even a few days! The cool thing is that the twists themselves can be the style! So the tighter you want their curls to be, the longer they’ll wear the twists in. If you want to describe your character with tighter curls, there needs to be a section of time where their hair remains in the twists! If your character has an event, and they want twists… this needs to be done in advance. Your character will NOT untwist them the day of, unless they want weak, limp curls (or you want the scene to compose of them having weak curls).

How long they'll last depends on the activity of your character! If all they do is work a desk job, or they don’t sweat very much, the twists can last some time! But if they sweat, or wear hats or caps, it’s not going to last long. Maybe a week.

Pros: Very versatile! If you have a character that loves trying new looks and enjoy being spontaneous, twist outs are for them! Easy! If your Black character is younger, or haven’t done their hair before, this is a great way for them to start working with their hair! Doesn’t take long (to do)! If your character is in a rush, and they do their twists, they can go just about anywhere. If they’re not self-conscious, this will be just fine.

Cons: It cannot get wet again, or the style will puff up back into your natural texture. It does not last long enough to say “oh my character went on a two year long fantasy adventure with this style.” If you want your character to have a twist out the whole time, they’re going to have to take time to do it. It would be cool if you incorporate a scene where they’re working on their hair, maybe in the background while everyone’s discussing plans or something. Just a reminder that their hair isn’t just staying magically twisted (unless they have the magic to do that).

Afros

Afro Style Guide, Style Guide for Men (works for any gender though)

Wash & Gos are just that- wash it (or really, condition it, you don’t have to shampoo it every time) dry with a t-shirt (to prevent breakage), put some oil and a light crème on it, fluff it up and you’re good to go! Maybe an hour at max and can be done while getting dressed in the morning!

Pros: Easy! If they’re doing a full, combed out afro, it’s not as simple, it will take more time. And at night it has to be plaited so that it maintains its length, otherwise it will tangle. But other than that, that’s still not all that hard. They can show off their curls! Black characters can and should have pride in their hair. It’s beautiful. This is the opportunity that you as an author can describe the pure texture of their hair, how it shines in the light, how the coils look, how soft it is! Romanticize Black hair the same way you do anyone else’s!

Cons: None really! Afros are wonderful! Just make sure that your character has a way to keep their hair from getting tangled. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean there’s no maintenance! A pick, a bonnet, oil and water go a long way!

Locs

Five stages of locs

A person who does locs is a loctician.

Can be palm-rolled or interlocked/crocheted

I cannot emphasize enough that you do not want just anyone doing their locs! They can really mess up someone’s hair if they don’t know what they’re doing. I say that to say, for your character, if they don’t trust the person doing their hair… they should. They should not be walking into anyone’s place to get their hair locked; they’d do research first.

The time it takes locs to ‘bud’ (that is, to actually form the loc) depends on the texture of their hair. But it can take up to 3 months to even a year for them to actually ‘loc up’. So if your character just got locs, they’re not going to look neat. They’re going to be frizzy.

As long as they’re washing their hair, keeping it moisturized, and not using wax products (DO NOT HAVE ANY BLACK CHARACTER USE WAX PRODUCTS IT IS BAD FOR BLACK HAIR) it’ll last forever! Locs are incredibly strong, especially the thicker they get! It is recommended that locs are retwisted every six weeks, but if your character has freeform locs, doesn’t have the money or time right now, or they just aren’t that pressed, they can grow indefinitely.

Something cute to write in your stories: sometimes locs do just… fall out. Not the whole thing! But the same way thin hair gets everywhere… sometimes the ends of thin locs just… fall off! You’ll find little buds on the ground. This happens especially in the budding stage.

Pros: Very low daily maintenance! At most they’ll need a bonnet or loc sock, and oil/water mix to spritz and massage in. Strong style that can hold any look- buns, curls, etc. They can be dyed, though it will take a long time to do so. I say that to say, if you want your character to have bright green locs, go for it!!

Cons: Low daily, but HIGH wash day maintenance! So if your character has a fancy date or something to go on, they should not be getting their hair retwisted the same day, or at least not so close to. It’s going to be shiny, oily, and tight, which can cause discomfort. Give them the day to let the hair settle!

Locs are PERMANENT!! This isn’t a bad thing, as much as it is a ‘KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING BEFORE YOU DO IT’ thing. Technically they can be combed out, but that would take a very long time and very precise effort, and most people aren’t going through all that. They’re just going to cut them off and start fresh. If you have a character that would balk at such a choice, locs aren’t for them. If you have a character that’s picky and choosy, that likes versatility, that can’t make up their mind, do NOT give them locs unless they’re making the conscious choice to commit. (Again, this is subjective! Maybe they have locs because their mother died and it reminds them of her! Okay! That works!) If you have a character that’s vain, or at least doesn’t like looking awkward… unless they’re going to style up the awkward stage, they’re not going to want locs. (Awkward stage: the first two stages get considered awkward because the locs look messy. This is because they’re turning from curls to locs!)

Braids

Styles

How long braids can take depend on the style. Box braids can take 10-12 hours to do! Microbraids? You HAVE to have multiple people or you'll be there for damn near a day (and that's assuming you have a masterful braider!)

How long they last depend on your character! If they're like me as a kid, I didn't care how I looked, so my mom got me cheap braids and let me run free for two summer months. So if your Black character is a carefree child! Go for it. But if they're a teen or adult (or are very concerned about how they look) a month to six weeks is about how long braids can stay in before your new growth shows. A character that is usually trimmed and proper having loads of new growth over their braids may symbolize that they don’t have it all together anymore.

Pros: Protective style! Great way to let your character have minimal daily maintenance; oil and water and something to cover it. SOME braided styles allow for high activity and even rain without changing. It depends on the hair that’s been braided in, as well as the style. Incredibly versatile! They can have multi-colored braids, long braids, short braids, beads, trinkets… if your character is creative and bubbly and likes to experiment, the sky is the limit! That can symbolize their artistic expression, just by describing what they look like! So long as they have the time, they can have any look and style they want. No need to commit too long.

If your character is capable of doing their own braids (and locs, btw), they’re amazing. Like… that’s mad respect for them. If you describe your character being able to do their own braids, they’ve got amazing arm strength, patience, and skill. That skilled dexterity can be revealed as a trait of theirs through that alone.

Cons: They take a LONG TIME. Your character is not going anywhere. If they’re getting braids… they’re not going anywhere. If you write your character doing anything fancy the day of, depending on the type of braids, Black readers are not going to believe you. Even if it did get finished, it would be very tight. I currently have a poll going on, and so far, a good majority of the 10+ answers are braids! It cost MONEY. It is NOT CHEAP to get braids done! If your character is poor as a church mouse, they will be doing those braids with their friend in front of youtube. Because it can be in the hundreds of dollars. (Don’t get me started on hair culture right now; BACK IN MY DAY IT COST-)

Hairstyles on Black Men

I want to specifically give space and applause to these hairstyles on Black men, because we REALLY don’t give Black men enough credit for all the creativity they show with their hair! And again, with The Killmonger being the choice style in all these damn vidya games despite almost no Black man I know choosing it as a look… PLEASE LOOK! WE HAVE OPTIONS! Try describing how gorgeous these looks can be on your Black men characters! It would be very nice.

Straight Hair

Well, I was going to explain, but ol ‘Guest Writer’ here pretty much lays it all out! So just go ahead and read this article lol.

Just to re-emphasize, straight hair is NOT something that just grows out of our head that way! It takes effort! So if you have a character that doesn’t feel like maintaining straight hair, they shouldn’t have it! If your character has natural hair and lives in a rainy or humid city, they’re going to be fighting that weather to keep it straight- make sure that’s consistent with their personality!

My best friend used to wash and flatiron her hair every day. Like, laser focused on looking that good, Type A shit (she’s a top money banker now, so I guess it worked out). If you have a character like that, it’s fine! If they’re lazy any other time of the day, they’re not suddenly going to be waking up at 5am to flat iron their hair. It’s not consistent.

Conclusion

That’s pretty much what I have! I’m not the guru on all things Black hair, and I obviously cannot encompass every potential scenario you may have for your characters. Really, my intention here is to get you to think about how our hair reflects our character and personalities, and how when you write and/or draw a Black character, you have that ability! And when you’re able to incorporate that naturally, it makes your Black readers feel seen, like you actually cared about that character enough to give them just as much description as your nonblack characters. You don’t have to be a master at it! Just… occasionally the little things that we can go ‘oh, yeah!’ at would be nice. An equivalent effort would be nice.

Remember, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

#creatingblackcharacters #black hair #black art #black characters #character design #black writers

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dykedragonrider · 2 months

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Finished Zeta gundam and uh. That's really fucking good. Thematically rich, a well executed tragedy, and it iterates on 0079 in ways fitting a sequel. In pieces bc I hit the character limit (THIS SITE HAS ONE?) making this post

First on the agenda, the Char and Kamille dynamic. It's very much father and son, and this is pointed out in the narrative, but what makes it *so* compelling is the fact that Char is the most fundamentally damaged father, and Kamille eagerly integrates his damage into him, he means well but there's a lot of things Char passes on that he really shouldn't. I think the one that sticks out to me by and far the most is Char's unique way of interacting with problems, that being throw yourself into them if you can fix them, and don't think about how badly the consequences hurt you. Kamille even passes this on to Katz towards the end with his grief over Sarah, telling him to not think about it. It's the right thing to say, of course, they're in a war and have no time to grieve, and his blindness because he's thinking about it is part of what sets off a domino effect of character death, but that's part of the tragedy babey! Something I'm a little more sour on is the way that Zeta interacts with its theme of gender? It was released in the mid 80s, so I do understand that it's very much a product of the times in some respects (the "everyone is either a man or a woman" line being the lowest hanging fruit of an example), but I think its actual struggle is how it depicts women? It does a pretty thoughtful examination of masculinity, in the ways that that ideal is something to aspire to that is ultimately a pitfall in the way that it hurts other people, could be better in some ways but it's the mid 80s. Kamille picks up both positive and negative traits associated with his manhood as he develops, and victimizes himself and others through the negative ones consistently. Zeta's women, however, don't really get anything like this? There's one conversation towards the end where women's relationship with their gender, and, notably, how men interact with that that's got something given the role women perform both in that society and ours. I think it's a problem of Zeta focusing on masculinity when it seems like it wants to examine both parts of it. If viewed as masculinity alone, it performs better, but the fact that there are attempts at conversations for both men and women and their gender roles leads me to believe that it's best viewed and understood as talking about gender as a whole, so you can understand the ways it succeeds and fails. Something Zeta wholeheartedly succeeds at though, is its tragedy element. I'll admit here that I wasn't *super* down for Rosamia, so that element didn't land with me well (we already had Lalah iterated upon so well with Four, doing it again felt out of place and she's compared to Four in universe through Kamille's perception, so it's just. Come on.) but every other element of the tragedy is done well towards the end. Char pointing out to Kamille that after the war, Amuro suffered with his soul trapped for seven years (which is also Char speaking about his own suffering, like everything Char does) and then Kamille getting his soul destroyed by Scirocco, leaving the hero coming back from his journey fundamentally different, and not in the way he communicated to Fa, it's just so good. The way that most of the deaths come from a place of love, too, that it's what brings the people down, but it it also humanity's emotions that give Kamille the capability to kill Scirocco. The beauty of Zeta's tragedy is that it would always end up like this as long as humans cared for each other, which is y'know. The point. (1/2 parts)

#zeta gundam #gundam #tsunny reviews

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abovethissilentworld · 2 months

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The vulnerable impermanence of the feminine is, in itself, an archetype that’s worshipped as extensively as the promiscuous psychedelic groupie – they’re distinct phenomenon but share a lot of overlap in contemporary consciousness. When they intertwine, it’s particularly intoxicating to the masculine ego as it both indulges the ‘protector’ narrative and stimulates sexual desire without acknowledging the fact that, in practice, the two often contradict each other. The imagination is a funny thing, though – especially when swaths of people, all convinced of the privacy of their own thoughts, wind up sharing the exact same fantasy. The relationship between culture and the collective imagination is one of those distinctly observable traits in social psychology that often transcends objective definition, especially because the innately human biases towards pleasure, happiness, and achievement affect the collective memory just as much as they do the individual. Everyone wants to think that the textures, sounds, sentiments and aesthetics of an album like F.J. McMahon’s The Spirit of the Golden Juice represents the social experience of the late 1960s, but few care to admit that its recent surge in popularity is just as indebted to what the 2020s aren’t.

What of this mysterious groupie, though? Since they play such a dominant role in the shared imagination of the 60s, these women would likely be sensitive to, if not outright motivated by, the role their demographic plays in sustaining this cultural fantasy. Or, in other terms, it’s less about the sex itself and more about establishing a sense of permanence in self-representation. By actively participating in whatever the current instantiation of culture is perceived to be, they can view themselves both as the byproduct of art itself, and a contributor to cultural history. After all – time is a biconditional. All possible instantiations of one’s future can be perceived – on a subconscious level – synonymously with decision-making in the present-tense. This obviously extends to anything anyone could possibly do, but since sexuality has the possibility of conception associated with it, it’s the most realistic situation to perceive the activity of this biconditional. I think the idea of anyone, but especially any woman, being the architect of their own future through sexuality is quite beautiful and wondrous. The average heterosexual man is often too primordial to perceive sex outside of pleasure, so the narratives of romantic nostalgia that men generate typically describe everything but the sex, so they design their future around its pursuit, not its direct experience. Bragging about its achievement, while undeniably common in both art and conversation, is neither a narrative of romantic nostalgia nor a perception of the future. And if art is any indication, it seems that women typically tend to romanticize sex itself through memory more than men do.

This skeletal outline for sexual behavior in western society remains mostly intact to this day, despite the implementation of it being drastically different. Each gender still contributes to the collective imagination of culture through sexuality, using the same blueprint for subconscious incentivization. However, to insert oneself into the collective imagination through sexuality used to require active participation – half a century later it’s become an overwhelmingly theoretical chess-match where the fusion of AI and social media automates social status based on the homogenization of increasingly objective appearance standards. If there’s anything truly wrong about the modern sexual hivemind, it’s that the fantasy (for both men and women alike) has actually become more powerful than the physical desire for intimacy. This has lead to an immense amount of dissatisfaction in the state of modern sexual culture for men and women alike, so albums like Golden Juice wind up being vulnerable to biases in collective memory as artefacts of a ‘better past’.

But that’s not what the album is, though. The nuances in the album’s construction that could actively support the fantastical ‘free love and psychedelics’ narrative that’s so consistently projected onto the 60s in collective reimagination are purely coincidental. Sure, it’s McMahon’s sincere expression of experiencing what the 1960s were to him – as should be realistically expected from any musician making contemporary music at the time – but it’s difficult to find orgy or psychoactive hedonism in his lyrics. Instead, we find this:

I continue beside her soul For all it is, and all it means My darling black velvet, trim It was a long time ago Red pepper notes and yellow cigarettes She shared and never asked for more At this time, I began to be With my thoughts beside mine For all the guilt and want, I never see It came as no surprise

Black night woman, you give a lot to me I remember all the time Happiness and pain drives you insane It was your time for dying

Sometimes, a love song is just a love song. This one just so happens to be eloquently written and resistant to age – it touches on the psychological complexity of human nature without indulging in it and shapes the romantic experience as a turbulence, as opposed to a linear narrative of success or failure. I don’t really hear “the 60s” in this nor do I think this album epitomizes the 60s in a way that most other fans purport it does. McMahon’s deserving of every inch of his revitalization but he’s also not Jim Morrison. To me, that’s an exclusively good thing.

My own personal dream is simply to experience love so when a balanced, carefully crafted narrative graces my ears I immerse myself with it – hoping that imagining myself into someone or something else might eventually help get me there (wherever there is). I, too, am a victim of my own biases in memory, but I also feel like my memories are observing the phenomenon of memory itself, something distinct from the pseudo-automated intuition that collective imagination invigorates. Spirit of the Golden Juice is just an excellent example of how rose-tinted glasses bias the interpretation of art through reimagination - but it’s also still excellent without any glasses on at all.

#antidote for silence #yvr #shower thoughts #psychedelic rock

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please-attend-carefully · 5 months

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Book Review - The Story of Martha

The Story of Martha by Dan Abbnett (and other authors) - 2008

Disclaimer - I only read the wrap around story by Dan Abbnett, I did not read the embedded stories.

The Story of Martha is a novella, set in The Year That Never Was, between the Television episodes The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords. It tells the story of Martha Jones as she travels the Earth on an important mission to save mankind from the Master.

I would like to start this review by being very upfront about my opinion on this author. I want to address the major issues with his writing and how they affected my time with this novella.

Very plainly put, Abbnett does not understand how to write women. Not only does he not know how to write women, he subjects them to continuous objectification from the male characters. This is a major issue, as the majority of the book is from the perspective of Martha Jones, who is suffering enough already from the situation and must now deal with a misogynistic supporting cast.

Reading this book literally made me scream out loud in anger, and I am not exaggerating. This is possibly the worst book I have ever read, or at least the hardest text I have ever had to put up with. I never thought there would be a more difficult book to read than Nevil Shute’s, On the Beach (1957), because that took me two years to complete due to the emotional and existential fatigue of the narrative. Who knew that beautiful piece of literature would be dethroned by three days with Dan Abbnett. Women are described by their attractiveness and smell, whilst men are described by their muscle mass and the scars they wear like trophies of war.

Abbnett is an IP author, he writes novels and comics for different properties. Most prominently, Warhammer 40K, which probably tells you all you need to know about why this particular book doesn’t work. Abbnett is used to the grimdark world of Space Marines and Tyranids, not the beloved cheesy sci-fi classic Doctor Who. The tone is all wrong, with Martha being subjected to torment and horrors that no companion has ever had to deal with. This is too much, and if we are to believe it is canon, Martha should have never spoken to the Doctor again, not for even a second. I don’t think she could ever emotionally recover from what happens in The Year That Never Was, certainly not enough that she’s joking around in the TARDIS with The Doctor at the end of the next episode. Lifelong physical, mental, and emotional trauma is all Martha comes out of this story with.

Whoever selected Abbnet to write this and then approved his draft was completely tone deaf to what Doctor Who is. This novella should have been handled by a thriller/espionage author, not a grimdark military one. I would love to read what Martha did during her travels around the Earth, but not like this. This was Martha’s time to take the spotlight and show how much of a badass she could be, but instead, she is pushed to the ground and repeatedly kicked by the narrative while men drool over her. The greatest example of Martha’s mis-characterisation is her refusal to cry under stress. She wants to “remain strong” and not let herself become weak by crying.

This is a recurring trope amongst women in Abbnett’s novels. Women are weak because they want to cry, but need to be strong like men who don’t. The emotional climax of this book is Martha finally allowing herself to cry as she watches Japan burn. FUCK. OFF. DAN.

So, is there anything good in this novel? Occasionally, there is some insight into how the world is coping with the Master’s rule and its interesting world building. In particular, I liked how the soldier’s were trained to detect Martha through her perception filter by looking for shadows being cast by nothing and gaps in crowds that seemingly no one is standing in. Notice, however, that these are just small world building details and nothing character driven. The climax of the book introduces a twist and shows that there is another alien race, the Drast, hiding out on Earth and desperately trying to escape before the Master notices they are there. I wasn’t expecting this, and it held my attention through the climax of the narrative. This section of the book was a well executed plot that had intrigue and interesting sci-fi themes, however… Unfortunately Martha is forced to team up with Griffin, the soldier who has been hunting and sexualising her throughout the entire novel. Griffin feels justified that Martha ‘needs’ him to survive and that she is lucky he was there to help her. Again, allow me to say FUCK. OFF. DAN.

Here's an example of another piece of writing by Dan from a Warhammer book featuring a woman trying to be strong in front of a group if men.

At the end of the Novella we return to the Valiant for a short scene between the Master and the Doctor. The characterisation of the Master doesn't escape Abbnett’s sexualising gaze over women, pushing it a little too far, even though I will admit had some similar lines in the TV show. Is it too much? Yes. Is it out of character? Strictly no, but it still doesn’t feel right. Mostly because he isn’t the only character speaking this way, it isn’t villainous and despicable by comparison to everyone else because they’re all doing it!

I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. There isn’t anything here that’s worth the struggle through Martha’s torment and woeful portrayal. This is a shame, because Martha is so often overshadowed by other companions from this era, and I wish she had something of her own that was a strong example of her merits. If these events are canon then she is the single strongest companion the Doctor has ever had. She endured the worst pain and suffering that any human could be subjected to (being a woman in a Dan Abbnett book, haha!), and was still able to look the Doctor in the eye instead of cursing his name and ordering him to never endanger Earth again.

Only read this if you have a strong interest in Martha Jones and are curious, but be prepared for disappointment. Again, I must repeat that I did not read the other mini-stories by other authors throughout, so there may be some great content within those stories. Perhaps this would have helped to balance out Abbnett’s characterisation, but his work should be able to stand up on it’s own.

#the story of martha #book review #dan abnett #martha jones #simm!master #doctor who podcast #please attend carefully

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politicallywannabe · 2 years

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the bane of ‘beauty with brains’

Growing up, a phrase which was often thrown around me by my aunties was- ‘She’s growing up to be a beauty with brains!’ My chest would swell up with pride on hearing that as I had taken on the dual role of being beautiful as well as smart. I found myself nodding along to friends and teachers who segregated smart children from the beautiful ones on the basis of our marks and the outfits we adorned on Children’s Day. Coming from a typical middle-class Indian family, I was always taught how education is the only way for me to succeed in life, as we had no generational wealth to fall back on. It was evident which student I aspired to be. Keeping my head in books, my body grew in adolescence and subject to comments from everyone around me. However, a miracle had happened. I understood that a third category of children who had managed to intersect between the categories of being smart as well as beautiful. This was the next category I knew I had to be a part of. Effortlessly beautiful and a straight A student. A beauty with brains.

All my school years were spent trying to be the exception to the rule of either being beautiful or smart, facing the double brunt of the stereotypes of beauty as well as the desperate need for academic validation to determine my worth. As I blew 18 candles this September, things were different. I had an epiphany. An epiphany so profound it shook the ideals I had built my entire life around. Why ARE women made to believe that beauty and smartness are mutually exclusive concepts?

Throughout our lives, women are conditioned to believe that they can fit in either of these boxes and if we do manage to break through these boxes, being a ‘beauty with brains’ is treated as a rare exception rather than the rule. It is important to note that these comments are gendered comments catering to the image of a woman who can either be conventionally beautiful or intelligent. Never are cisgendered men subjected to a compliment which threatens the ideal of them being either attractive or intelligent. It is taken to be a de facto part of their being. The double standards come into play only for women.

American sociologist C.H Cooley’s ‘the looking glass self’ talks about the stages of perception wherein individuals base their sense of self on how they believe others view them. In a society which puts forth the false narrative that women are naturally less intelligent than men, alters how women determine their self-worth and of the other women around them. The phrase feeds into the degrading way that patriarchy perceives women. It makes women skeptical of their perceived ability to be intelligent if they are taking care of their appearance. For years, I had done my best not to attract too much attention as I wished to be seen as a student who was only interested in her education. Moreover, it also fosters in women a sense of internalised misogyny which caters to keep benevolent sexism and its microaggressions in place. Thus, when one is faced with the dilemma of ascertaining whether ‘beauty with brains’ is a compliment or not, be rest assured it is not. If anything, it is a backhanded ‘compliment’ the cost which is the acceptance of a reality which systematically conditions women into constantly having to prove themselves and avoid being labelled as ‘dumb’ or ‘uptight’. Now the decision is ours: to smile politely at this comment or to question it.

#feminism #poetsandwriters #writerscorner #feminist #women #Dark Aesthetic #dark moodboard #dark academia #all too well #darkacademism #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #red taylor’s version #feminist literature #misogony #patriarchy

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linnea-quinn · 3 years

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[ EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT VEELA ]

An Informative Research Document Compiled by The Librarian’s Consortium of Higher Magical Theory, Narrative Preservation, & Knowledge Procurement

Shelved in UK Catalogue: Magical Species: Beings: Veela

Edited by: Sr. Librn. Benjamin Arnold, Intake Officer, European Division {editor’s notations in braces}

In Muggle Folklore

Referred to colloquially as samodiva or samovila in the Veelan country of origin, Bulgaria, the Muggles’ perception of the Veelan race has been fraught with misconception. Locally equated with mythology surrounding fae, forest spirits, and wood nymphs, a brief compilation of relevant Muggle beliefs about Veela is as follows:

The name samodiva is formed by combining two separate words, ‘samo’ and ‘diva’. The former means ‘alone’, whilst the latter ‘wild’, or ‘divine’, hence the name literally means ‘wild alone’. The first part of the creature’s name signifies its avoidance of human beings, whereas the second indicates her wild or divine nature. {In truth, the Veelan race are highly secretive in what they share about their kind with magical and Muggle communities alike.}

The samodivi are always described as extremely beautiful women who never age. {Not quite factual; see sec. below: “Lifespan” for facts regarding Veelan aging.} They have long, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Their attire consists of a long white gown made of moonbeams. Other legends depict them as ethereal maidens with long, loose hair, and in some cases, wings, typically dressed in free-flowing, feathered white gowns, which give them the power of flight. {Perhaps a historical perception of the Veelan Harpy form.}

Stories about the samodivi often portray them as being harmful towards human beings. Although these creatures enjoy dancing, especially when accompanied by the music of a kaval or shepherd’s pipe, they often either seduce or kidnap a shepherd to obtain that music. If an unfortunate human stumbles on the samodivi whilst they are dancing, he would be enticed to join them. The human, not being able to keep up with their pace, would die of exhaustion. Beginning at midnight and finishing at dawn, their dance symbolized the raw energy of both nature and the supernatural world. {No truth to the menacing intent behind this myth, but the Veela’s Dance has been known to evoke a trancelike response in some humans; see section below: “Active Abilities.” Also calls to mind the ritualistic birthing practices of Veela; see section below: “Veelan Conception & Birth”}

Some legends depict samodivas with an affinity for fire. They have the power to bring about drought, burn a farmer's crops, or make cattle die of high fever. It is said that, when angered, a samodiva can change her appearance and turn into a monstrous bird, capable of throwing fire at her enemies. {Another early reference to the Harpy form.}

They are usually hostile and dangerous to people. Men who gaze upon a samodiva fall instantly in love or in lust. Sometimes a samodiva would seduce a person, commonly a shepherd or a trespasser in her forest, and take them for her lover. However, in doing so, she would take all of their life energy. The person would then become obsessed with the samodiva and chase her relentlessly, unable to think of anything else. The samodiva, fueled by the energy stolen from her admirer, would then proceed to torture the person until he died of exhaustion. {See sections below: “Active Abilities” & “Passive Abilities” for facts which could have inspired such myths.}

A samodiva's power is believed to come mostly from her long (usually blond) hair. A samodiva would sometimes give a small portion of it to her lover to strengthen her control over him via its magical effects. However, if her hair is damaged in some way, she will either disappear entirely or be stripped of her powers and beauty. {Little truth to this myth beyond the magical properties contained in Veelan hair, which is infrequently used as a wix wand core.}

A samodiva's close connection to the forest makes her knowledgeable about magical herbs and cures for all illnesses. It is said that if a person managed to eavesdrop on a gathering of samodivas he could also gain knowledge of these remedies. In many stories, this is exactly what the hero is forced to do to save a loved one, as a samodiva would never share her secrets willingly. In Macedonian folklore, samovila's are often seen that they have the ability to hurt people or to heal them. {See section below: “Passive Abilities” regarding accelerated healing.}

Veelan Conception & Birth

The process by which Veela bear children is not fully understood, but what we do know is that to become pregnant, a Veela must copulate with Intent, in sync with the Natural Harmonics of the area, and after a ritual involving one full Moon Cycle.

Births of newborn Veela commonly happen late evening or early morning while the moon is still visible. The birth of a full-blooded Veela is a dedicated occasion that involves a number of members of the community at once, as neither the conception nor birth are as typical as Humans. The birth of two full-blooded Veelan twins is a rarity amongst the species, and is a highly coveted, sacred occurrence.

Due to the mishap of the Birth of the Twins, the birth is overseen by members of the community to ensure no nefarious acts are occurring, that those involved are protected, and that the ritual can take place comfortably beneath the moon. The presence of a matriarch for the Veelan bloodline being sired is preferable during the birthing ritual.

Lifespan

A common misconception regarding Veela is that they are immortal; in truth, Veela do age, albeit very slowly in comparison to humans and even wix lifespans. Full-blooded Veela average a lifespan of one thousand years, while a half-blooded Veela will average 500-600 years.

A Veela will mature at a rate comparable to humans through “puberty”; roughly 12-17 years after a Veela’s birth they will experience the most growth and development of their passive abilities, and after approximately eighteen years, a Veela is considered fully mature in their society, and will not appear to significantly age until the last 20-50 years of their life. It is likely this quality that perpetuates the myth of Veela being eternally youthful.

Passive Abilities

Known for their beauty, a Veela’s allure is in fact biological; most humans are drawn to Veela, and have been often noted to experience lust and desire while in the presence of a Veela at a heightened or even sometimes overwhelming rate.

Full-blooded Veela possess the ability to transform into a winged, part-bird Harpy-form when enraged, and while in this form they can shoot fireballs from their hands. This shifted form has not been recorded as passed on to part-Veela historically; however, there are several cases of noted affinity to birds in particular, which is theorized to stem from the Veelan Harpy form.

Veelan blood has accelerated healing properties, which means those of Veelan descent heal from cosmetic wounds more rapidly, have difficulty maintaining piercings and tattoos, and are rarely known to contract common illnesses. Historically, Veelan blood was highly sought after by wix, often hunted for and sold on the medicine circuit to aid in healing. Veelan blood is noted to smell irresistible to vampires, and possess a drug-like high on vampires who consume it. Lesser known about is the healing qualities a Veela’s saliva can have on a human wound; in fact, the modern practice of kissing an injury to “make it better” comes from a very old Veelan medicinal practice of kissing an injury to heal it.

Veela are generally highly in tune with the natural world, including plants and animals, and most report being more comfortable the closer they are to nature. Veela also reportedly possess a latent ability to sense energies that are not perceptible to most humans in a physical way, but it’s a sense that must be nurtured and developed; most Veela have been known to channel these mysterious energies into their own form of wandless magic.

Active Abilities

The Veela Charm

“You have to feel it. It’s like fog; gentle and delicate, but enough for you to sense against your skin. It has its own waves, its own currents, and you, my darling, have the power to guide it. You can slip it into the minds of Men and haze them, make them believe whatever you desire, and bend them to your will to act however you see fit. Or, you can wrap it around despair and smother it where it stands, press it into wounds to cloud and ease their pain. It is up to you to choose how it is used, but however you choose— do it with conviction.”

Also known as glamouring or charmé, the act of imposing a Veela Charm on a human or Being involves drawing in express emotional energy from another and then pushing it back into the mind of the person being Charmed, along with the power of the Veela’s will. Those that are experiencing strong or otherwise turbulent emotions are significantly easier to Charm, due to the emotional expenditure they’re putting out. This is especially true of emotions related to desire and anger (’passions running high,’ related to the duality of the Veela’s alluring female form and the rage-fueled Harpy-form), but can be true also of jealousy, anxiety, sadness, worry, joy, disgust, fear, hatred, love, etc.

The nature of the Charm causes the person being Charmed to be susceptible to a Veela’s suggestion, to varying degrees; for the average or half-blooded Veela, the effect equates roughly to intense emotional coercion or persuasion, that when administered properly is often indistinguishable from the Charmed’s own wants and decisions. Those under the influence of a Veela Charm are noted to experience rosy vision, and an intensified desire to please the Veela who is Charming them by doing what they suggest. Full-blooded and more powerful Veela are able to gain such control over the mind of the Charmed, however, that they can fully persuade the subconscious to their own will, effectively altering the Charmed’s perceived reality. For all Veela, the ability to generate and impose a Veela Charm is a learned skill that can be developed and mastered with practice and time.

The most powerful among the Veelan race who experience the highest level of control over their abilities are even able to perform a Veela Charm on other Veela, though this practice is highly frowned upon in Veelan society {see subsection below: “Sins”}

Less common but still practiced amongst some Veelan circles is imbibing non-sentient lifeforms, such as flowers and plants, with traces of the Veela Charm, which causes anyone in near proximity to the item to experience a highly diluted emotional effect based on the will of the Veela who performed the Charm.

The Veela’s Dance

When full-blooded Veela perform together in a ritualized dance, the effect on humans has been characterized as mesmerizing and even hypnotic, in such a way that those watching will enter a trancelike state in which they experience a loss of words, and will sometimes try to impress the Veela in foolhardy ways.

Link of Kin

Originally known as vrŭzka na krŭvta, or “bond of blood” in Bulgarian, the Link or Nexus of Kin is a phenomenon of consciousness connection between Veela in the same bloodline. While Linked, a pair or group of Veela experience an intense magical empathic connection which allows them to feel each others’ emotions on a sensory and telepathic communicative level, as well as share memories. This process is known to be calming and meditative--a heightened zen-like state similar to the ease Veela naturally feel in the presence of other Veela, but exponentially more powerful the more Veela are Linked. The “blood connection” is thought of as sacred and spiritual to Veela, whose long lifespans place particular gravity on family, lineage, and collective memory.

The Link of Kin is a learned process; however, very rarely, a Veela will be a Nexus Born Natural. Such a Veela would, from the earliest development of their abilities, experience an involuntary empathic connection with humans and other Beings, drawing in emotional energy with noticeable physical sensation, as well as sensing the “lifeforce” of the consciousness of others, and sometimes unintentionally mirroring or reflecting drawn-in emotions that are not their own. A Born Natural’s abilities are notoriously difficult to control and require dedicated focus and training to master, lest the Veela become overwhelmed by the constant influx of outside energetic stimuli.

Cold Iron

It’s been shown through some limited study that both passive and active Veelan abilities can be lessened, minimized, and even warded off entirely through the controversial use of cold-forged iron.

A process known only by Goblinkind and kept highly secretive by the same, the cold iron must be forged using a precise process, and then bound to the wix’s aura for the relative immunity to Veelan abilities to be effective. Any slip up in this process can result in disastrous, irreparable damage to a person’s aura. {Recommend further testing and study on the effects of cold iron in relation to Veela and wix.}

Veelan Society

Veelan society is largely matriarchal, with Veelan male offspring being something of a rarity in terms of percentage. Because of the long lifespans of Veela, a Veelan matriarch’s successor is selected prior to their death, and can be chosen from any of the matriarch’s Veelan kin, regardless of their age; often, a new reigning Veela matriarch will be selected based on merit and their contributions to Veelan society as a whole.

Similarly, the death of any Veela is considered a great loss to the societal collective, and as such, the death of a Veela is mourned internationally. All Veela are made aware of their passing and permitted a compulsory mourning period for their fallen kin.

Sins

A set of rules taught to and followed by all Veela which, should they be broken, are considered Sin(s);

None should use the Charm against another Veela. Despite being difficult to achieve, if done the consequences can be exile or even death, depending on the nature of the Sin.

No other Beings are permitted within or around the spaces owned by a brood without prior approval by the Matriarch.

Veela & Other Beings

Veela & Were-Beings/Half-Breeds

With their connection to the moon and close relationship with animals themselves, Veela and Were-Beings tend to get on surprisingly well; they manage to find a common ground on many fronts, their Harpy blood lending to a softness and kinship.

Veela & Vampires: Siblings

{NOTE: THIS SECTION HAS BEEN MARKED AS SENSITIVE AND RESHELVED FOR FURTHER ANALYSIS}

...

{For further study, known Veelan Bloodlines, historical succession disputes, or notable Veelan figures and historically significant events, please consult Appendices A-E of the catalogue Magical Species: Beings: Veela.}

#this is subject to additions and edits but i literally could not look at it anymore lmaooo #libcon #HUGE THANK YOU TO LISA FOR ALL YOUR HELP ON THIS

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whoslaurapalmer · 3 years

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utena manga AND adolescence manga!!!! the longest of any of my utena posts why did i have so much to say.

-i do have to say that the box set is amazing. i’ve never owned hardcover manga before!! and the art is really beautiful and i love all the color illustrations....... -also came with a poster!! but i, don’t particularly want naked utena and anthy on my wall.

-i always love utena, so much -“it’s not shocking pink, it’s rose! it’s a nice color. i picked it out, after all.” babygirl (-omg the explanation that there is a list of stylists that she could get uniforms from and at least she picked one on the list) -poor kaido.......he’s the true Pre-Series Friend Who Shows Up In The First Episode And Is Never Heard From Again Once The Plot Kicks In

-i like that the manga has an explanation of how utena found ohtori academy because, you do wonder -- but i also like how she’s just There in the anime, with absolutely no explanation of how she got There, she’s just There and maybe she’s always been there!, re: time, it ultimately doesn’t matter, it’s where she wound up regardless -the.......floaty dreaminess of it......... -uggg wait especially because even though it has been akio manipulating her around all this time she still doesn’t truly go to ohtori because of akio she goes because of anthy

-i’m. look i don’t even want to say it cause this is a straight-up terrible nickname and i am in pain over it but i have to say something -mr -mr l -mr -licky -lick -i have to wonder how other people have translated that

-me: hey that looks like he licked the tears off her face??? utena: i named him -- the narrator living inside my brain: and at that moment lulu vandelay considered launching a book across the room for the first time in her twenty-six years of life

-you know utena if your aunt got transfered to amsterdam, you still would’ve wound up at an ohtori academy -what even happens at the ohtori in amsterdam?????????????? -what -do they do an exchange program?? do they ever get anyone back??? is amsterdam also creating a world?????? or are they fine over there??? -is it alt universe ohtori????

-chu-chu is so fluffy!!!! so soft.......big squish........huggable............ -anthy making him a tie because she felt bad about him not wearing anything!!!!

-THE MANGA MOVES VERY FAST HONESTLY -especially because i hit a point where i too was reading as fast as possible to get through it but there was still SO MUCH

-no nanami????? no nanami at all??????? except for that one picture of her??????? -no??????? -look. i really love nanami and i didn’t realize how much i really liked her until she wasn’t there :( cause i liked her in the first place but i miss all her antics :( and i liked where her character arc went a lot :( -she’s very loud about this but she’s really just that tumblr post that’s like ‘i put ‘i love salsa’ in the chat and no one said anything and i wondered if salsa had killed a parent or if salsa ever really existed’ and that’s relatable -and the second-guessing embarrassment of every single thing in your life and yet the commitment to radical high-and-mighty confidence about the same exact things to compensate??? good for her!!!!

-utena, with the power of dios: i can see every move! me: wow didn’t know dios had the sharingan

-INTRIGUED actually by touga having. a secret room with a big fucking calendar with zodiac symbols and all the fights predetermined -like there’s something super interesting about that -like...... -on one hand a physical representation of The Plot Being Controlled. The Plot Has A Map Now. on the other hand, touga has to write it all down like a nerd bc he’s not akio and has no sway himself over the narrative and he needs a reference

-i’m absolutely fascinated by how a group of people can come together and create The Same Story that is so different in the manga and the anime..... -just. how -in a good way and a bad way. in the good way, how do you collaborate with people like that????? in the bad way, how do you create two completely separate thematic takes on the same story -with so many of the same base scenes!!!! they go completely different ways!!!!! i’m!!!!!!!!!!!!

-oh i do love the character profiles. i like knowing birthdays!!

-akio grabbing utena because he thought she was anthy

-it fucking goes from. ‘everyone in this manga wants to fuck touga’ to ‘everyone in this manga will support utena, EVEN TOUGA?????’ like wow -he’s just.........living with them..................................... -like a creep -AND HE JUST GIVES UP THE STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENCY THAT’S THE FUNNIEST FUCKING THING -doesn’t take much to get them to break the system down here but they’re still not breaking the system down here -oh my god it’s like the sad lemon man movie speedrunning the first 3 books and hitting the plot notes with none of the substantial theme -it’s just, i don’t think the manga is completely terrible, like i think there are some interesting moments but i also know the common perception is The Manga Is Terrible? so i’m like. do i pick out the interesting things and try and give them meaning? or do i just. wholesale agree that this is, on a whole other thematic plane and terrible (-my whole life is ‘i should be able to make my own opinion on something!’ vs ‘but i like to read other people’s opinions to make sure i don’t miss anything but that should not replace my own capacity for critical thought which i am clearly capable of and did a great deal of work on as a lit major!!’) (oh this is anxiety.) (it’s a lot of ‘i don’t want to misinterpret this in any way because that is a failure on my part so i’m digging around for explanations’ oh that’s still anxiety.)

-i mean. the emphasis on ‘friendship’ more than anything with anthy is, disappointing, but i DO also like utena trying to get anthy to make friends and that anthy’s first instinct is to take after wakaba because that’s super cute

-chu-chu narrating the curry story!! -he’s just such a sweet bean.

-utena: akio? the devil, lucifer? me, reigning my brain back in as it shoots into hyperdrive: okay lulu you’re right about the tarot symbolism but now is not the time, bring it back, girl (......utena’s the fool nemuro hall is the tower the car at the end of the movie is the world anthy stabbing utena is the ten of swords (not in the sense of betrayal but in the end of the cycle/story portrayed in the swords suit)) (ANYWAY)

-and then touga still somehow stays at the center of the story and utena relies on him....... -there’s a bigger reliance on men in the manga that is not, challenged at all, re: touga and dios -but at least akio’s still a full-on creep -actually i think he unsettled me just a smidge more which was a big accomplishment, considering the time i almost fell over furniture

-me: oh my god are utena and anthy gonna switch places??? me: NOOOOOOO -anthy’s coffin breaking because utena puts the ring back on....... -but, like........dios is completely incapable of action as well and utena doesn’t need him to rescue anthy -dios is more some ethereal grand thing here instead of an idealized past self that akio has lost access to and can never regain and was never truly good in the first place -although utena and anthy switching is, interesting. reinforces akio making utena a princess when again she’s neither and it’s.......a little “in the end, girls are all like rose brides” and women are manipulated around by men, but also, kind of loses what anthy holding the swords meant in the first place?

-touga: you have to do it, utena me: touga stop trying to steal the scene. get out. get out now

-THE CASTLE IS REAL?????????????????????????

-okay the absolute roller coaster between ‘he’s gonna kill dios????’ ‘that’s the manga backstory?????’ ‘DIOS IS JUST DEAD NOW????’ ‘NO HE WAS STILL DIOS THE WHOLE TIME!!!!!!’ -oh but you know you could read it as a, killing your past self sort of thing -...........although that doesn’t really vibe here, does it

-i think them being specifically ‘gods’ takes away from just the, cycle of humanity kind of thing........ -it’s so pleasantly vague in the anime because how dios came to be Dios and why anthy had to put a stop to it just doesn’t matter. it’s not what matters. it’s not what’s important. the fact that it happened at all is what matters. -and somehow he still wasn’t dios the whole time!!!!! -“she kept his sword in her bosom, one last token of her love!” that’s an.........interesting way to put it -i mean, yeah maybe?? but also, no??????????????????????????????

-anthy’s kind of, watered down a little in the manga too, in a way? -STABBING UTENA WAS SO IMPORTANT TOO

-noooooo where are my girls learning that it’s not about being a prince and that it’s just genuine love and being there for someone -i mean i guess the love is here but. “i must be the prince myself” no!!!! noooooooooo -you know what i don’t even want to THINK about akio and utena..........like that

-AND THERE’S STILL TOUGA!!! IN THE MIDDLE OF IT ALL!!!!!!!!!! TOUGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA -anthy: /wearing utena’s uniform me: /staring into the camera like i’m on the office

-like...............well that just continues the cycle then, doesn’t it, in a way -which, is its own kind of story.............. -and i guess you could also make a case for ‘well no one’s immediately recovered right after a story that takes time and it’s not always perfect and that could involve anthy emulating utena’ -BUT NO!!!! NO??????? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -i think that’s giving the manga too much credit considering how much it forced ‘the prince’ at the end!!!!!!!! -i get it. i get the ‘the manga is terrible.’ i see you. -it wasn’t, completely terrible, but, wow. i get it.

-okay hold on i still have two side stories before adolescence

-OH ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? ONCE AGAIN I HAVE TO DEAL WITH RUKA -WAS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT I HAVE ALREADY SUFFERED -ruka i still hate you. that’s all i have to say on that

-and black rose arc condensed to thirty pages???? -the way mikage acts towards mamiya is like. blatantly creepy in the anime but i didn’t think it was here???? rude. -anthy and utena holding hands after it, though.......

-OKAY, adolescence -i feel like, i was unduly harsh on the movie...... -mostly because i was reading the youtube comments on the dub before i watched and people were talking about how terrible the dub was (i did not watch the dub) -and i knew about the car and i was just really thrown by the car. the cars. just. unexpected -but if the manga speedruns in a bad way the movie speedruns in a way that not only hit the plot elements but picked up a lot of the thematic elements as well!! -i mean every arc was touched upon in some way! even the black rose arc! -which haunts me, regularly. -also i am forever going to be thinking about the fwwm parallel like damn -it really was a good time....... -oh! this in particular was why i was a little concerned about missing anything in thinking about the manga -like...is this a bad character choice in good writing, or is this a bad character choice in bad writing? sometimes i’m not always great at that

-anyway. -the manga was really mostly the same except somehow touga was more uncomfortable, there were no cars, and utena and touga had sex uggg -god i SWEAR when i was flipping through last week i saw a car though. i swear???? i thought i did????? -guess i didn’t!!

-touga: as long as you keep me there in your heart, i can continue to exist like this. i can stay at this school for all eternity. me: The Grief™ vs ohtori academy doing its thing vs I HATE THIS AAAAAAAAA

-anthy, to akio: be gone! you’re only in my mind! me: oh that’s a powerful statement though. re: like, how akio keeps anthy

-what i DID really really love was the little scene at the end with anthy and utena out of ohtori and older in a planetarium theater after everything and being cute on a date (with chu-chu!) and that that’s how it ends (even if utena was still thinking about touga) with them holding hands walking out............... -the softness!!!! 💖💖

#lulu talks about utena

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letterboxd · 3 years

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Sculpting in Time.

As the world inches into the future, we invited Justine Smith, author of the ‘100 Films to Watch to Expand your Horizons’ list, to look to the cinematic past to help us process the present.

It is said that the essential quality of cinema that distinguishes it from other arts is time. Music can be played at different tempos, and standing in a museum, we choose how many seconds or hours we stand before a great painting. A novel can be savored or sped through. Cinema, on the other hand, exists on a fixed timeline. While it can theoretically be experienced at double or half speeds, it is never intended to be seen as such. Cinema’s fundamental quality is experiencing time on someone else’s terms. As the great Andrei Tarkovsky said in describing his work as a filmmaker, he was “sculpting in time”.

The perception of time, however, is not universal. Our moods, our emotions, and our ideologies shape our relationship to it. Most Western audiences are further acclimated to Western cinema’s ebbs and flows, which similarly favor efficiency and invisibility. When we see a Hollywood film, we don’t want the story to stop. We want to be swept away and forget that we are all moving towards a mortal endpoint. Cinema, though, in its infinite possibilities, exists far beyond these parameters. It can challenge and enrich our vision of the world. If we open ourselves up, we can transfigure and transform our relationship to time itself.

When I first put together my 100 Films to Watch to Expand your Horizons list, I did it quite haphazardly. I imagined countries, filmmakers and experiences that I felt went under-appreciated in discussions of cinema’s potential. Intuitively, I went searching for corners of experience that expanded my own cinematic horizon. Some of these films are well-loved and seen by wide audiences; others are virtually unknown. It was often only after the fact that the myriad of intimate connections between the films came to light.

Manuel de Oliveira’s ‘Visit, or Memories and Confessions’ (2015).

“The only eternal moment is the present.” —Manoel de Oliveira

Released in 2015 but made in 1982, Visit, or Memories and Confessions is a reflection on life, cinema and oppression by Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira. If we were to reflect on cinema’s history, few filmmakers have the breadth of experience and foresight as Oliveira. His first film was made in the silent era using a hand-cranked camera. By the time of his death at 106 years of age, he had made dozens of movies, including many in a digital format.

He made Visit, or Memories and Confessions in the shadow of the Portuguese dictatorship. While filming, he imagined he was in the twilight of his life. It revisited essential incidents in his history but also that of his country. It’s a film of reconciliation, violence and oppression, told tenderly in a home lost as a consequence of a vindictive dictatorship. Oliveira’s film, like his life, spanned time in a way that stretches perceptions. It’s a film without significant incident, about the peaceful pleasures and tragedies of daily life.

Elia Suleiman’s ‘The Time that Remains’ (2009).

What worlds have changed over the past one hundred years? The same breadth of perception, which often feels too seismic to tackle in traditional narrative cinema, was also explored in The Time that Remains. In a retelling of his family’s history, Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman also tells Israel’s story. It is a film of wry comparisons and Keatonesque comic patterns. As borders change and time passes, few things fundamentally change, except on a spiritual plane. What happens to people without an identity or a country? What damage does it do to their souls?

The question of time looms heavily in both Oliveira’s and Suleiman’s films. They are movies that contemplate centuries of experiences and explore how those stories are guarded, twisted and erased by the powerful.

Alanis Obomsawin’s ‘Incident at Restigouche’ (1984).

The echoes of history and attempts to break with old patterns often emerge in other anti-colonial and anti-imperialist films. They can be seen in Alanis Obomsawin’s vital and angry Incident at Restigouche, about an explosive, centuries-in-the-making 1981 conflict between Quebec provincial police and the First Nations people of the Restigouche reserve; In Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India, villagers must win a cricket match to free themselves from involuntary servitude; and in Daughters of the Dust, the languid pace of the Gullah culture is challenged by the promise and violence of the American mainland.

Time, more than just a tool for chronology, becomes in itself a tool for oppression. Those who control time maintain power. If we are to break with dominant histories, the rhythms of oppression must be broken and challenged.

Forugh Farrokhzad’s ‘The House is Black’ (1963).

“The universe is pregnant with inertia and has given birth to time.” —Forugh Farrokhzad, The House is Black

Persian filmmaker and poet Forugh Farrokhzad made just one film before her untimely death in a car accident when she was 32. The House is Black is a short documentary about a Leper colony, which utilizes essay-esque prose taken from the Quaran, and Farrokhzad’s poetry. It is a film about people who are seen as invisible by society at large, cast away and hidden. The film reflects on beauty, sickness and reconciliation. How does one experience time when you’ve been ostracized and cut off from the larger world?

Barbara Loden’s landmark independent film Wanda asks a similar question. A solo mother who cycles from one abusive situation to the next exists outside of time and space. She is invisible. If we look at most American cinema, it might as well be propelled by people who take control over their destiny, but what of the people who are (un)willingly passive to the whims of society and other human beings? In her powerlessness, Wanda stands in for the invisible labor and sacrifices of so many other women. The ordinariness of Wanda’s life, the dusty and dirty environments she inhabits, rebound with significance. It is, however, not a victorious film. Instead, it is a profound portrait of loss and beauty. It’s the only film Barbara Loden ever made.

"If you don't want anything you won't have anything, and if you don't have anything, you're as good as dead." —Norman Dennis in Wanda

Barbara Loden’s ‘Wanda’ (1970).

In 2020, it seemed all we had was time. What seemed like an opportunity quickly became horrific. Time became a burden. We were reminded of our finite time on this Earth and all the hours spent commuting, working and surviving. The pandemic has had a seismic impact on our perceptions. In processing the ongoing crisis, we’ve transformed our relationship to the passage of time. We’ve altered the state of our reality.

This new pandemic gaze offers us new perspectives on time and history. The oldest film on the list is Erich Von Stroheim’s Blind Husbands, released in 1919 during the grips of the Spanish flu. The film does not reference the event, but its sensuality and class conflicts speak to a world on the brink of seismic change. It is a movie about an Austrian military officer who seduces a surgeon’s wife. The men grapple with jealousy and violence on a literal mountaintop, fighting for survival in an increasingly mechanized society.

Poster for Erich Von Stroheim’s ‘Blind Husbands’ (1919).

To this day, Blind Husbands is shocking. It’s profoundly fetishistic and loaded with heavy sexual imagery. It’s a movie about touch and desire absent of love and affection. It speaks to aspects of current life that feel lost and impenetrable. It speaks to growing and changing social disparities as well. Surviving the modern world is more than just surviving the plague; it has to do with value compromises and shifting power dynamics.

But, a pandemic is also about loss. Gregg Araki’s 1992 film The Living End explores the AIDS crisis from the inside out. Rebellious and angry, the film is about a gay hustler and a movie critic, both of whom have been diagnosed with the HIV virus. With characters who are cast out from society at large, gripped with a deadly and unknown fate, The Living End is apocalyptic—much like other Araki works from the 90s, such as The Doom Generation and Totally Fucked Up. It captures the deep sense of hopelessness of experiencing a pandemic while also belonging to a marginalized group. What is so radical about Araki’s cinema, though, is that it is also fun. It is a film that transcends mourning and becomes a lavish punk celebration. It is a film about survival, out of step with dominant ideology and histories.

Gregg Araki's ‘The Living End’ (1992).

The connections between Blind Husbands and The Living End bridge together to form common passions and changing perceptions. Both films are products of their time, at once part of distant histories but also uncomfortably prescient. More than films about a specific time and place, they are transformed by the time we live in now. To watch and connect with these movies in a pandemic means looking and living beyond the current moment.

While it seems like cinema might be facing an especially precarious future, it feels like the ideal art form to process what is happening right now. Caught in the vicious patterns of our own creation, giving ourselves up to the rhythms of someone else’s will might be a necessary form of healing, as well as an ongoing project in compassion. Time does not have to be a prison; it can be an agent for liberation.

Related content

100 Films to Watch to Expand Your Horizons

The Oxford History of World Cinema

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The Great Unknown: High Rated Movies with Few Views

Follow Justine on Letterboxd

#justine smith #justine peres smith #world cinema #expand your horizons #gregg araki #manoel de oliveira #elia suleiman #julie dash #alanis obomsawin #Forugh Farrokhzad #barbara loden #erich von stroheim #mubi #criterion #criterion collection #letterboxd

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beautybranding55 · 3 years

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Artistic Beauty Branding

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The frequency of assortment has elevated from monthly to weekly in only a few years, and Lilah b is devoted to continuing the scheme as a cost of doing enterprise. Nothing says "distinctive" like custom magnificence branding designed just for you by a professional designer. We’ve collected some superb examples of magnificence brand identities from our world community of designers.

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pfenniged · 5 years

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Recommendations for Social Sciences Literature:

So as a recently graduated law student and lawyer (as well as being affected by many areas of intersectionality related below), I’ve been really into studying the social sciences and how society reflects how it treats the least of its citizens. My friend suggested that I draw up a list of recommendations for her, and share it with others as well.

While my interest in these books might begin in how to consider the perspectives of others and consolidate my own point of view when representing a client, I can safely reassure you all that these are (for the most part) layperson books that I read in my spare time; not ridiculous legal dirges that will put you to sleep. All these books were spectacularly engaging for me, and I’d recommend them highly.

I’d also like to preface this list with the fact that I educate myself on books that consider intersectionality and how the experiences of individual subsections of society affect society as a whole and an individual’s position in them. While as a result of the topics themselves these books often consider bigotry and sensitive issues/topics, they are academic considerations of societal constructs and demographics (as well as the history that grows from oppression of certain subsections of society), and attempt to be balanced academic/philosophical narratives. Therefore, while difficult topics might be broached (such as, for example, the discrimination transexual women face in being considered ‘women’), none that I have read would ever be intentionally insulting/ extremist in their views, and many are written by scholars and academics directly affected by these issues. Just research these books before purchasing them, is all I ask; for your own self-care. ♥

That being said, I have divided these recommendations into several areas of study. I will also mark when there is a decided crossover of intersectionality, for your benefit:

Feminist Theory: Mostly concerned with the limitation of womens emotions, the experience of women within Trump’s America, and the idealised liberation of women in 1960s, with a particular focus on the UK and ‘swinging’ London.

Disability Theory: Academic Ableism in post-educational facilities and within the immigration process.

Black Theory: This includes the relations between colonialism and the oppressed individual’s underneath its weight, the struggle through American’s history through ‘white rage’ towards the success of African-American success, and a sad history of racial ‘passing’ in America.

Immigration Theory: This mostly focuses on the experience of the disabled and Southern/Eastern Europeans/ Jewish people entering both Canada and the United States. It also provides this background to the immigration policies against a backdrop of social eugenics. I also included a book on the UK history of the workhouse in this category, as immigrants were often disproportionately affected by poverty once arriving in the UK/England, and often had to seek shelter in such ‘establishments.’

LGBT+ Social Theory/History: The history of transsexualism and the development of transexual rights throughout history.

Canadian Indigenous Theory/History: A history of the movements between the Indigenous peoples of North America and colonialists, as well as a two-part series on Canada’s Indian Act and Reconciliation (’Legalise’ aside in its consideration of the Indian Act, these are fantastic for the layperson to understand the effect such a document has had on the modern day issues and abuse of Indigenous people in Canada in particular, as well as how non-Indigenous people may work actively towards reconciliation in the future).

Toxic Masculinity: Angry White Men essentially tries to explain the unexplainable; namely, why there has been such a rise of the racist and sexist white American male, that eventually culminated in the election of Donald Trump (However, this really rings true for any ‘angry white men’ resulting from the rise of the far right across Europe and beyond). It is based on the idea of "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them by THE REST OF US~~~. While good, also just really expect to be mad (not in particular at the poor sociologist studying this and analysing this phenomenon, as he tries to be even-handed, but that such a thing exists at all).

1. Feminist Theory:

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger:

As women, we’ve been urged for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Yet there are so, so many legitimate reasons for us to feel angry, ranging from blatant, horrifying acts of misogyny to the subtle drip, drip drip of daily sexism that reinforces the absurdly damaging gender norms of our society. In Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly argues that our anger is not only justified, it is also an active part of the solution. We are so often encouraged to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Approached with conscious intention, anger is a vital instrument, a radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power—one we can no longer abide.

Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America:

Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.Featuring essays by REBECCA SOLNIT on Trump and his “misogyny army,” CHERYL STRAYED on grappling with the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s loss, SARAH HEPOLA on resisting the urge to drink after the election, NICOLE CHUNG on family and friends who support Trump, KATHA POLLITT on the state of reproductive rights and what we do next, JILL FILIPOVIC on Trump’s policies and the life of a young woman in West Africa, SAMANTHA IRBY on racism and living as a queer black woman in rural America, RANDA JARRAR on traveling across the country as a queer Muslim American, SARAH HOLLENBECK on Trump’s cruelty toward the disabled, MEREDITH TALUSAN on feminism and the transgender community, and SARAH JAFFE on the labor movement and active and effective resistance, among others.

(A heavy focus on intersectionality ♥)

The Feminine Revolution: 21 Ways to Ignite the Power of Your Femininity for a Brighter Life and a Better World:

Challenging old and outdated perceptions that feminine traits are weaknesses, The Feminine Revolution revisits those characteristics to show how they are powerful assets that should be embraced rather than maligned. It argues that feminine traits have been mischaracterized as weak, fragile, diminutive, and embittered for too long, and offers a call to arms to redeem them as the superpowers and gifts that they are.The authors, Amy Stanton and Catherine Connors, begin with a brief history of when-and-why these traits were defined as weaknesses, sharing opinions from iconic females including Marianne Williamson and Cindy Crawford. Then they offer a set of feminine principles that challenge current perceptions of feminine traits, while providing women new mindsets to reclaim those traits with confidence.

How Was It For You?: Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s:

The sexual revolution liberated a generation. But men most of all.

We tend to think of the 60s as a decade sprinkled with stardust: a time of space travel and utopian dreams, but above all of sexual abandonment. When the pill was introduced on the NHS in 1961 it seemed, for the first time, that women - like men - could try without buying.

But this book - by 'one of the great social historians of our time' - describes a turbulent power struggle.

Here are the voices from the battleground. Meet dollybird Mavis, debutante Kristina, Beryl who sang with the Beatles, bunny girl Patsy, Christian student Anthea, industrial campaigner Mary and countercultural Caroline. From Carnaby Street to Merseyside, from mods to rockers, from white gloves to Black is Beautiful, their stories throw an unsparing spotlight on morals, four-letter words, faith, drugs, race, bomb culture and sex.

This is a moving, shocking book about tearing up the world and starting again. It's about peace, love, psychedelia and strange pleasures, but it is also about misogyny, violation and discrimination - half a century before feminism rebranded. For out of the swamp of gropers and groupies, a movement was emerging, and discovering a new cause: equality.

The 1960s: this was where it all began. Women would never be the same again.

2. Disability Theory:

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education:

Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.

(See immigration below for another book by this author on the intersection between immigration policy and disability).

3. Black Theory:

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon:

A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism:

Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, the author examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide:

From the Civil War to our combustible present, and now with a new epilogue about the 2016 presidential election, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race. White Rage chronicles the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as “black rage,” historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, “white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,” she writes, “everyone had ignored the kindling.”Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House.Carefully linking these and other historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life:

Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It also tells a tale of loss.As racial relations in America have evolved so has the significance of passing. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. After emancipation, many African Americans came to regard passing as a form of betrayal, a selling of one’s birthright. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one’s own.Although black Americans who adopted white identities reaped benefits of expanded opportunity and mobility, Hobbs helps us to recognize and understand the grief, loneliness, and isolation that accompanied―and often outweighed―these rewards. By the dawning of the civil rights era, more and more racially mixed Americans felt the loss of kin and community was too much to bear, that it was time to “pass out” and embrace a black identity. Although recent decades have witnessed an increasingly multiracial society and a growing acceptance of hybridity, the problem of race and identity remains at the center of public debate and emotionally fraught personal decisions.

4. Immigration Theory:

The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America:

A forgotten, dark chapter of American history with implications for the current day, The Guarded Gate tells the story of the scientists who argued that certain nationalities were inherently inferior, providing the intellectual justification for the harshest immigration law in American history. Brandished by the upper class Bostonians and New Yorkers—many of them progressives—who led the anti-immigration movement, the eugenic arguments helped keep hundreds of thousands of Jews, Italians, and other unwanted groups out of the US for more than 40 years.Over five years in the writing, The Guarded Gate tells the complete story from its beginning in 1895, when Henry Cabot Lodge and other Boston Brahmins launched their anti-immigrant campaign. In 1921, Vice President Calvin Coolidge declared that “biological laws” had proven the inferiority of southern and eastern Europeans; the restrictive law was enacted three years later.

Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability:

In North America, immigration has never been about immigration. That was true in the early twentieth century when anti-immigrant rhetoric led to draconian crackdowns on the movement of bodies, and it is true today as new measures seek to construct migrants as dangerous and undesirable. This premise forms the crux of Jay Timothy Dolmage’s new book Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability, a compelling examination of the spaces, technologies, and discourses of immigration restriction during the peak period of North American immigration in the early twentieth century.Through careful archival research and consideration of the larger ideologies of racialization and xenophobia, Disabled Upon Arrival links anti-immigration rhetoric to eugenics—the flawed “science” of controlling human population based on racist and ableist ideas about bodily values. Dolmage casts an enlightening perspective on immigration restriction, showing how eugenic ideas about the value of bodies have never really gone away and revealing how such ideas and attitudes continue to cast groups and individuals as disabled upon arrival.

The Workhouse: The People, The Places, The Life Behind Doors:

In this fully updated and revised edition of his best-selling book, Simon Fowler takes a fresh look at the workhouse and the people who sought help from it. He looks at how the system of the Poor Law - of which the workhouse was a key part - was organized and the men and women who ran the workhouses or were employed to care for the inmates. But above all this is the moving story of the tens of thousands of children, men, women and the elderly who were forced to endure grim conditions to survive in an unfeeling world.

5. LGBT+ Social Theory/History:

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution:

Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events. Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s.

Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.

6. Canadian Indigenous Theory/History:

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America:

Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, The Inconvenient Indian distills the insights gleaned from Thomas King's critical and personal meditation on what it means to be "Indian" in North America, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality:

Since its creation in 1876, the Indian Act has shaped, controlled, and constrained the lives and opportunities of Indigenous Peoples, and is at the root of many enduring stereotypes. Bob Joseph's book comes at a key time in the reconciliation process, when awareness from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities is at a crescendo. Joseph explains how Indigenous Peoples can step out from under the Indian Act and return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance - and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around truth and reconciliation, and clearly demonstrates why learning about the Indian Act's cruel, enduring legacy is essential for the country to move toward true reconciliation.

Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality:

A timely sequel to the bestselling 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act - and an invaluable guide for anyone seeking to work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples.

We are all treaty people. But what are the everyday impacts of treaties, and how can we effectively work toward reconciliation if we're worried our words and actions will unintentionally cause harm?

Practical and inclusive, Indigenous Relations interprets the difference between hereditary and elected leadership, and why it matters; explains the intricacies of Aboriginal Rights and Title, and the treaty process; and demonstrates the lasting impact of the Indian Act, including the barriers that Indigenous communities face and the truth behind common myths and stereotypes perpetuated since Confederation.

Indigenous Relations equips you with the necessary knowledge to respectfully avoid missteps in your work and daily life, and offers an eight-part process to help business and government work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples - benefitting workplace culture as well as the bottom line. Indigenous Relations is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to improve their cultural competency and undo the legacy of the Indian Act.

7. Toxic Masculinity:

Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era:

One of the headlines of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night four years later, when Donald Trump was announced the winner, it became clear that the white American male voter is alive and well and angry as hell. Sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the leading writers on men and masculinity in the world today, has spent hundreds of hours in the company of America's angry white men – from white supremacists to men's rights activists to young students. In Angry White Men, he presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage.Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them.

Happy reading, everyone. ♥

#ugh this took forever but you're welcome #it's actually good stuff take a look :3 #social sciences #sociology #history #literature #recommendations #feminism #disability studies #black studies #immigration theory #toxic masculinity #indigenous theory #lgbt theory #future reference #my recommendations #intersectionality

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talihahiman-blog · 5 years

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Finding Home and Starting a Blog

All my life I have been a curious, questioning seeker of Truth.

I think most people encounter a severe period of Questioning in their lives before they fall back or abandon their quest and resign to stop even thinking about it. But some, like me, remaining searching for a Truth that seems immutable. Finally, Alhamdulillah, I feel like I have found that Truth. And its name is Islam.

This is not a discovery that I happened upon in an instant: there was no thunderbolt from the sky demanding I give myself to it, no massive horde trying to bend me into shape, no men with knives at my throat denouncing me for what I was; no angel hovering beside my pillow, no giant billboards on the highway trying to point me where it thought I should go, no conversion school telling me I was inherently flawed.

This discovery came from a lifetime of asking questions, not accepting vague, mediocre and uninformed answers, the realization that the only way I would find the right answers was to embark on exploring matters of the sacred on my own, and then reading, researching and experiencing first-hand several different paths to the Ultimate.

Each path taught me profound lessons about myself and my relationship with God; each brought me closer to Him and helped clarify what was really important to me.

Last year, in particular, after an unexpected end to my marriage, going completely broke, homeless and feeling worthless, I found myself lying on the floor of my greataunt’s bedroom one February evening, still alive after two suicide attempts in one night, with an acceptance that if I was still alive, it was because God willed it.

“You have to show me why You’re not letting me leave,” I demanded of God. “Clearly You’re keeping me here. And I don’t know why. I still don’t even know You like I want to. I have nothing left. I have no will to stay. I’d leave now with no regret if You just let me. But if You won’t let me go, then show me why You want me to stay.” It was a moment of utter surrender.

The answer was not immediate.

There was a period of three months from that moment where I felt like I was in limbo. No answers, no direction.

In March I decided to move back with my family in Trinidad indefinitely to let the situation and my demand incubate. Slowly, I felt an urging in my heart to come back to NYC and start over, completely alone. It was not at the only option by any means - but it was the craziest possible option. I had nowhere to go, no money, no family here. Yet I was completely homesick. I never understood homesickness was an actual thing until I was in the place that I was born and raised in surrounded by my entire family, and all I could think about was NYC!

To everyone else - and, admittedly, to even myself - it seemed as if I were jumping into shark-infested waters when I could barely even swim, but somehow I understood that coming back would be the catalyst for God’s answers to my sincere plea that February.

By mid-May, I used the money I saved from working in Trinidad to buy myself a plane ticket back to NYC on June 2. Getting off the plane with nothing but one suitcase and a carry on bag of belongings and marching into the homeless shelter, I steeled myself with faith that if God was bringing me back, He would get me through anything that life could possibly throw my way.

So began the most incredible turnaround of my life.

I was faced with trial after trial, and in oftentimes what appeared to be impossible situations, He always showed up. On time. I learned in a very tangible, undeniable way that a true relationship with God was not simply talking to Him, but an active conversation with Him: you talk, you ask, you explain - then you shut up, you watch and you listen.

The answer is not always in obvious places.

For most of the year, I also identified as Hindu if anyone asked, and I hated when people asked because it never felt like it correct answer, which I found common to all to all of the religions I involved myself in at some point or the other. While the nature of the missing pieces would change, something was still missing anyway.

As a major world religion, naturally Islam was on my to-do list of religions to learn more about, but l thought that the only thing we might have in common is my belief that Jesus was a prophet and not the Messiah. The end! After all, it was a war religion that suppressed women, right? And they couldn’t listen to music, right? And they could only eat food from halal places, right? And you had to take a Muslim name! Right?!

And how could I forget: a Muslim group in Trinidad known as the Jamaat-Al-Muslimeen was responsible for an attempted coup d’etat in 1990 that resulted in 24 deaths, severe injuries to the President of the country, and my birth merely three years later meant constantly hearing the story of the “bad Muslim guys” even long before 9/11. Then 9/11. Then ISIS.

Everywhere I turned the narrative was the same: Islam is oppressive and dangerous. And living in NYC, where the new World Trade Center stands tall reminding us of the tragedy that befell this city and the world before it, it also reminded us constantly of that running narrative.

How could I ever be one of them?

Also as a languages enthusiast who loves spending time listening to different things from around the world, I suddenly started to stumble upon several Arabic and English Islamic songs that I really loved and listened to on a regular basis, moved, sometimes to tears, by the beauty of them and pure sense of joy, connection, and devotion contained within them.

While there were many such songs which captivated me at that time, these two became very special to me:

youtube

Listening to these, I couldn’t help but think, “Perhaps we’ve got this Muslim thing all wrong.”

But I couldn’t seem to get past that point.

It turned out that I started a new job this year, and in doing so found myself a close friend in a Bengali-American Muslimah from a neighboring department. She did not wear hijab nor was fussy about her shirt necklines, but was outspoken about her belief in Allah (SWT) and her excitement about Ramadan, as well as the role that Islam played (and continues to play) in her choices. For the first time, I had a wonderful Muslim woman in my inner circle who was my age, so relatable and so...normal.

Almost like instinct, I began asking her to tell me more about her beliefs and was fascinated to hear of her stories about the Jinn and why Ramadan is important. Even though I was raised in a country where Muslims were very visible and Ramadan was celebrated visibly, I discovered through conversations with her that even Ramadan was not what I thought it was - and it was certainly more than just getting bags of yummy treats on Eid. (Barfi, kurma and gulab jamun, anyone?)

From the little I had learned through my new friend and my quickly-expanding catalog of saved Islamic songs on YouTube and Spotify, my interest grew quickly about what Islam really said about the big questions. Shortly before Ramadan, another new hire at our organization came in - she was my age, proud feminist, fresh out of breaking up with her neglectful boyfriend, a real move-maker and unapologetically herself. We, too, became instant friends and quickly found ourselves contemplating modern religious thought and female empowerment. She was also an Arab-American Hijabi.

Neither of these new Muslimah friends tried to tell me that I should be like them, but they were both excited to hear of my interest in Islam, and both proud talk to me about their understanding of and experiences in it. I was being pointed in one direction by God now, and it would have been stupid of me to ignore it.

As the days counted down to Ramadan and conversations continued, it felt very natural to decide that for Ramadan this year, I would sincerely undertake to learn about Islam with an open mind. I had technically already started, and I was surrounded by equally open-minded people who would support me along the way - it finally was the right time. I told my friends of my intent to learn for Ramadan but did not tell them that I would also fast.

I started off Ramadan reading the Quran on my phone telling myself I’d just get the gist of it, but after a week it was inadequate - there was so much I wanted to reread and explore that I needed the real thing in my hands. I desperately wanted to let my mind dance between its pages and get lost in it, find gems and other surprises and come back out with a new understanding. After scouring bookstores for the right first* Quran, I decided on a translation by Tarif Khalidi.

*I already suspected at that point that this one would only be an introduction and that I would desire to read more ‘advanced’ translations and even the original text in Arabic after having a good initial understanding it in English, and this translation struck me as a beautiful cross between capturing not just the meaning but also the poetic and linguistic beauty of the original Arabic.

Ten days into Ramadan, on the second day with my new Quran, one thing was as clear as day: everything that was portrayed to me about Islam was wrong. All of it. The media and sociopolitical landscape is riddled with severe misconceptions and abuse of Islam, and I was completely unprepared for how tainted and ignorant the media perception is when I began to see what it is really is. Seeing past the misinformation and blatant lies being told, I knew that sharing the actual beliefs of Islam with others would become a very important task for me, even if I did not embrace it as my own.

There was also another issue I was praying about in the past few weeks and keeping myself open to answers for, and on the following day the answer came to me in the form of a particular episode of a podcast. I was just scrolling through and clicking on random things to listen to at work instead of my regular playlists to get me through the day, and although I’d been listening to such podcasts of several days at that point, that one was the one that confirmed to me that God was truly listening. Call it convenient confirmation bias if you will - that doesn’t change the fact that it was a direct answer.

I found myself suspended in time, awestruck and understanding in a different way from any path I had ventured into before that this was it.

It was what I’ve been on the hunt for my entire life. Everything I’ve done, felt, questioned, experienced, hoped for, run from, aspired toward and battled with myself about converged into that moment. I didn’t know precisely what I was looking for...until I found it.

Allah (SWT) spoke. My heart understood. And without even knowing it then, I accepted it.

I finally found my spiritual home. I am a Muslim.

Up until now, my travels led me to places that were interesting and useful, but still hollow and incomplete. For the first time, I feel whole.

And so here I am on the 14th day of Ramadan, feeling like simultaneously everything is different yet the same. I have not officially taken Shahada with witnesses, but I know that the real moment when I became Muslim has already happened. It was on that eleventh day on work when time stood still, and everything became clear.

There are still two more weeks left in Ramadan, and I’m not sure yet if I’d like to take Shahada on Eid, as I will be spending it with my Beng-Am Muslimah friend from work and her family again, and I think that would be a wonderful opportunity to do so. Otherwise, I may choose to wait some more and continue to study a while and find a community that I can be a part of it, not just my bubble of work acquaintances. But if I hold off to ‘study more,’ I feel like I will end up never taking it because I may never feel ‘ready’ - and Islam is a way of life and an ongoing act of submission to Allah (SWT), so I understand that officially converting is only the beginning. I really appreciate how often I see and hear the advice that one does not have to know everything to take Shahada - one simply has to be prepared to know, with the guidance of God.

Regardless of when I decide to take Shahada, I feel quite certain that my wandering soul is home at last, and I feel immediately called to share the things I am learning, contemplating and experiencing as a new Muslimah in NYC. Inshallah, it is my hope that someone out there will be able to either relate or at least learn something new, wonderful and unexpected about Islam along the way!

#islam #ramadan #2019 #ramadankareem #muslim #newmuslim #convert #conversion #quran #peace #god #godisgood #happy #reflections

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rapeculturerealities · 6 years

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Joy in a marginalized body has always been a form of resistance entwined with the politics of queerness. After all, Pride, before its corporate takeover, was a parade to celebrate the anniversary of a riot. Today, because of the internet and the ubiquity of social media, queer people of all gender identities have access to a range of images and stories of trans people. For years now, we’ve had earth angel Laverne Cox telling us and everyone who will listen that #transisbeautiful. We’ve got Janet Mock making history as a director and writer on FX’s Pose, which is fundamentally a show that repositions trans bodies as glamorous, regardless of the brutality that surrounds us. We are taking back the narrative that has defined us in the collective imagination for decades now: Sad, tragic, deceptive, and (often in the case of trans men) invisible. And, mostly, we are doing that with our humanity, and our joy.

If I pay attention, happiness because of and not despite my trans status is embedded into every aspect of my life. I am a happy trans man. That’s a sentence I couldn’t have imagined writing even a few years ago. But the truth is, while the rise of social media has made trans people more visible, it hasn’t kept trans women of color safer from violence. And despite the incredible efforts of women like Mock and Cox, trans people are still navigating many of the same myopic cultural narratives around gender and our bodies that have defined binary standards of beauty and “acceptability” since Christine Jorgensen became a transgender celebrity in the 1950s. She was celebrated for passing just as she was also treated as a spectacle, which is still what seems to draw cisgender people to trans stories today.

This makes our public expressions of joy particularly potent. Trans joy is about insisting on our humanity — and I don’t mean the trans-person-as-metaphor framing, the one where we are heralded for our enviable relationship to “authenticity” or “bravery” (which are true enough words, but still more about the culture’s perception of us than anything else). There is very little humanity in being a spectacle or a saint.

#trans #transgender #LGBTQIA #voices

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chpinthestacks · 5 years

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In the Stacks with Kathryn Savage: Shape-Shifting

I was in Iceland less than a day when I was told by an Icelander that if I went for a hike alone in the hills above Laugarvatn, I might see people who weren’t really there. The landscape conspired with perception, revealed visions. It was the quality of the light and lack of trees. What I wanted to see I’d see, the woman who ran the residency told me.

The first week, I saw a child dancing but it was really a towel blowing on a laundry line.

The second week, I saw rocks jumping sideways through hills but the rocks were sheep.

It was always daylight in Iceland in July, the sky perpetually soft-lit, and the light foreshortened the landscape. Eventually, I began to distrust my vision and felt a need to clarify what I’d just seen, look again.

Baltic-region mythology depicts stories about shape-shifters, the deception of sight. Icelandic hidden people—the unwashed children of Eve who she hid from God and who are invisible to humans—live in the hills of Iceland unless they choose to be seen.

The Icelandic folk story “The Sealskin” is about a man who steals a sealskin, and who, upon returning to the site of his theft for more sealskin, finds, instead, a naked woman. She is weeping and he takes her to his house to console and clothe her. Years after his theft of her identity—the sealskin—after his abduction, after they marry and have children, he goes fishing one day and she finds her sealskin in a locked chest in their house. She puts it on and dives back into the sea, never to return.

Pagan Scandinavian mythology is unabashedly brutal. There are child-stealers, jealous dead lovers, and in the story of “My Jawbones!” to stop the haunting of her hearth, a woman must bury the jawbones of a child she finds in her house.

In one Icelandic myth, a stranger comes to town and encounters bad weather, so he spends the night in the home of an older woman and her two young beautiful daughters. He asks the mother if he can take one of her daughters to bed and she agrees. In bed, he tries to have sex with the woman, but when he touches her, his hands move through her body. “I am a spirit with no body,” the woman explains. “You cannot get pleasure from me.”

These misogynistic myths of the young woman, someone who is little more than a beautiful body, often alone, primed to be taken, have hung around. Some of the more violent Baltic region mythologies are about women alone in the woods and the bad things that happen to them because they are alone.

The first funeral I went to was my second cousin’s. She was murdered by a stranger after he abducted her. She was rollerblading home alone one dusk on Kittson County Road 1, a northern Minnesota county road flanked by golden grain.

Lidia Yuknavitch’s essay “Woven” discusses Laumes, Lithuanian water spirits who can take the form of animals and beautiful water-women. She writes: “Laumes were both benevolent and dangerous. They could tickle men to death and then eat their bodies. They could protect women and children or punish them brutally.”

In the same essay, Yuknavitch writes about violence against women and the difficulty of depicting such violence. “In America, it’s tricky to describe violence without it turning into entertainment.”

As a child, I was told my mother’s father was French. More accurately, he was a Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Turkish Jew raised in Nice, France, and later, Brooklyn.

His mother went to Nice seeking refuge from Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe. There, she lived with her two sisters in a small flat where they worked as hat models in the city on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

I inherited my grandfather’s photos after he passed. Beautiful women in hats. Other details about the sisters’ lives remain hazy. When I write about them I come up with more questions than answers, so this past feels closer to mythology to me, to a set of exaggerated familial beliefs, some, perhaps, fictitious. This was Europe, late 1930s, and they were Jews who escaped to America. In Nice, some versions of the story go, they changed their names and assumed Christian identities. In Nice, they lived as themselves and as false selves. They shape-shifted.

Intermediate spirits in Icelandic folktales, those who can shape-shift, are depicted, often, as beautiful women. The moral point of the shape-shift narrative is connected to punishment, to reveal dubious or desperate transformation and its consequence. It’s a relational trope reliant on a quality of before and after. Like a good secret, shape-shifting acquires its gravity by what it conceals and promises to expose later. Across cultures and mythologies, some shape-shifters are more deceptive or punitive, many are humiliated for their transgressions, some symbolize inner conflict, such as the werewolf who changes to reveal his true self. In some shape-shifting narratives, once a character takes on a new form, it becomes impossible to change back.

In a 2008 Grand Forks Herald article about my second cousin’s murder, a friend of hers describes how no women or children went biking or skating alone after her murder on the rural straightaway. It would be a betrayal to her memory, her friend said, to do these things alone now.

In Nice, when Nazi’s found out that my great-grandmother’s sister had been assuming a Christian name, they murdered her children in front of her but let her live. The memory of that sight would be her punishment.

John Berger defines sight as the thing that comes before words. To Berger, the relationship between sight and knowledge is never settled and always relational, mediated by perspective, by sight relative to position. In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag, on the photography of atrocities, writes that “Photographs objectify: they turn an event or person into something that can be possessed.” Certainly narrative does this work of possession too and I feel the edges of shape-shifting as I write this: anything I say about grief or loss is my singular possession, incomplete and mediated, reflecting my flawed sight. What are the details I’ve included, the details I’ve left out? For you, reader, I objectify my experiences and lay claim to those of my family. I mold, omit, and transgress the past.

But the violence is real, the vulnerability that hangs around the edges of sight. Yesterday, I learned from a neighborhood community message board that a white man driving a gold car tried to abduct a child my son’s age two blocks from our home. When I walk the dog tonight, I stare down every honey-hued sedan, try to see inside every car, to every man I don’t trust, but I can’t. Dusk has turned the windshields to mirrored glass.

In her essay “The Precarious” from her recent collection, The Reckonings, Lacy M. Johnson writes, “both autopsy and atrocity require a witness—someone who survives, who sees for herself, with her own eyes. But the violence changes the person who looks.”

One day I went for a hike alone in the hills above Laugarvatn. The hills were steep and mossy and rocky. All the people I saw were tourists like me in bunchy jackets and hiking boots. I was grieving and lonely and wanted something revealed to me. I knew this was ridiculous, but I wanted it anyway. Some unnamable more, some sight or being to lure me away from pain. In some shape-shifting stories, the mother appears and beckons the child home. Sometimes, this isn’t the mother, but a dubious figure able to assume the mother’s form. Instead, in the hills above Laugarvatn, behind mossy lava rocks, there were clumps of used toilet paper. A woman’s torn ticket stub from her flight to Iceland from Tel Aviv.

On a gray day at The Skagaströnd Museum of Prophecies, I gave every Króna in my wallet to a fortuneteller to look at my hands and face so she could see into the privacy of my nature, my past, reveal truths I couldn’t yet see.

Notes: Works used to research this post include John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, Lydia Yuknavitch’s essay “Woven” originally published in Guernica, and Lacy M. Johnson’s The Reckonings. The folktales and quoted excerpts come from Jacqueline Simpson’s Icelandic Folktales and Legends and Silja Aðalsteinsdóttir’s The Trolls in the Knolls. The Sontag quote can be found on page 81 in Regarding the Pain of Others and the Lacy M. Johnson quote can be found on page 28 in The Reckonings.

#kathryn savage #chpinthestacks

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jed-thomas · 6 years

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Why do you hate Betty Draper?

--SPOILERS--

In my opinion, Betty is as essential to Mad Men’s narrative mission as Don. Although it is unfortunate that her screen-time decreases as the show progresses, I do not think that her character’s journey was, in any way, inadequately depicted. She is, to me, one of the show’s most terribly real characters, and it was her fraught relationship with her daughter, Sally, that, as the show progressed, gave rise to some of the show’s most emotional scenes. There are no words in Betty’s final moment in Mad Men - in fact, it is a very simple panning shot, reminiscent of those we have seen in the final moments of many previous episodes - but it is so piercing that little else in the show is as achieved.

You will therefore understand my surprise when, reading through all the opinions online after I finished the show, Betty was constantly referred to as one of the least-liked main characters. Constantly, I would see positive opinions on Betty prefaced with an assertion that they could not forgive her treatment of Sally or some reference to her emotional unavailability, hypocrisy or immaturity. In a community where praise for characters like Don, Joan, Roger, Pete or Peggy is rife, why is Betty thus criticised?

I honestly do not think that these criticisms have anything to do with misogyny, because anyone who watches Mad Men is coaxed into unravelling the fallacies which support sexist attitudes. Instead, I think it has something to do with the general tendency within the Mad Men fan-base to afford the social conventions of the time far too much importance in determining characters’ actions. It is, to my mind, part of the genius of the show that it refuses its audience the opportunity to wholly absolve any of the characters with any assertion of such things as ‘X was only adhering to social expectations’ or ‘X was influenced by societal convention to act such a way.’ Unfortunately for us, it seems to me that many of the characters, by virtue of their personalities and personal histories, would have a tough time operating even in today’s vastly less oppressive world. (I understand that there is nothing perfect about our current state, but we might agree that much has been improved upon since the 1960s.) It is not simply the social conventions that effect the development of characters but the relationship between these conventions and a character’s emotional drives.

For example, would the barriers to Peggy’s ambition have mattered to her if she was not ambitious? And is she, like Joan, not uniquely ambitious, even by male standards? Would Don’s impulsive promiscuity be considered much less of a destructive habit in today’s post-marriage world? Is the confusion that consumes all the characters regarding their priorities in life not simply a perennial problem? Sometimes, we genuinely do not know what we want, and it is not social conventions which confuse us but ourselves.

This focus on the influence of social conventions appears to me to lie at the heart of the criticism surrounding Betty Draper. She is not simply, as some would have you think, the subversion of the “perfect housewife myth,” frustrated by the limited opportunities afforded to her and driven to the point of insanity by boredom. Of course, she is those things and, I will admit, she was raised to value the life that she came to hate but, much like Don and Peggy, she is consumed by an innate yearning for completeness that leads her on an endless search for that mythical something-else and, whilst this feeling may be particularly American, it is not alien to the emotional world of any person. It might therefore be instructive to view Betty’s dissatisfaction with married life as being partly the product of a jealous, perennially-dissatisfied temperament, complexly formed by her upbringing, subjective experience and the social conventions of the time, rather than the sole cause being the external realities of marriage and the specific realities of being married to Don Draper. Betty Draper is as sympathetic as someone struggling to realise themselves can be - which is to say, not often all that much, given the mistakes one often makes.

As the show progresses, Betty becomes so deeply entangled in a web of a sad confusion that she is not emotionally-mobile enough to navigate her increasingly complex circumstances. Self-hatred, betrayal and grief all conspire to ensnare Betty Draper and therefore, in attempting to escape or rectify, her actions need not be allowed but they can easily be understood. She mistreats Sally and, much like the fans that this post is criticising, I do not forgive her for that, but what she sees in Sally is the person she was before she was blunted by her own confused sadness. Sally still has the ferocity that Betty sacrificed on the altar of her own beauty. To her, it is a hateful sight and she becomes resentful, treating her daughter with alienating contempt.

Betty loves Sally. There is no question of that. She just does not know how to communicate that love. Partly it is because she, like Don, was not given parents from which such a lesson could be derived. At a loss, she upholds their values, despite her own understanding of the ways in which they left her so sad and confused. Partly it is because, at that time, a mother was required to raise a daughter to be a certain way, namely physically beautiful and feminine. Sally, prematurely perceptive of the hell that results from an extreme observation of these rules which bred secrecy and alienation in the marriage of her parents, rages against these conventions until such time as they become important to her. Partly it is because Betty cannot love herself in any sustainable way for she has little access to the areas of herself that would enable such an ability. Her self-worth revolved around her beauty, and despite being successful in other areas - amongst others, we learn of her degree in anthropology -, it was first and foremost for her outstanding beauty that she was admired. As sexual creatures, we cannot help but respond to beauty and thus men act as differently towards Betty as women towards Don. That is not a malleable convention but a fixture of human society. She cannot be blamed for wanting to preserve that which sets her apart from the crowd. But what happens when that isn’t enough to keep her husband faithful? What crippling self-doubts so deep beneath the surface are confirmed? What hell does betrayal release on poor Betty Draper?

She is no innocent victim, no one in Mad Men can be viewed this way, all are complicit in the horrid game, but Betty Draper is no malicious monster. It is a horrific experience to see her fade from a life that brought her such misery and despair, but it is even more of a terrible marvel to see her finally reconcile with her own pain, to see her eschew her dependence on her sexual attractiveness and to find contentment in the striving for, not the achievement of completeness. And as the final light drew closer, finally she could see her poor daughter for all she was and not reject her. In her final moments, she found herself at peace with her loved ones and at peace with her life, miserable as her experience of it was, knowing finally her own blindness and feeling, at last, that no one so dangerous or spiteful was out to get Betty Draper as herself.

#Mad Men #jon hamm #don draper #January jones #Betty draper #amc #amcthewalkingdead #criticism #television #TV #drama #netflix #feminism #female character #social justice #progressive television

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leeegrinnerrr · 6 years

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Lee Pace Came Out Seven Times a Week. Then He Came Out for Real.

It’s 2018 and we still don’t know what being out and gay will do to an actor’s career.

Five nights and two afternoons a week on Broadway, “Angels in America” sets out on its grueling, eight-hour course. “A Fantasia on Gay Themes,” as its playwright, Tony Kushner, called it, “Angels” is a knotty, furious history play, a jeremiad on the AIDS epidemic originally delivered at crushing ascent. It is also, at the same time, a skein of interconnected stories about love and betrayal and identity, God, man and Eros. Also, there’s a couple of Mormons. Before “The Book of Mormon,” no less.

Five nights and two afternoons a week, one of those Mormons, Joe Pitt, a closeted lawyer working for the infamous fixer Roy Cohn, goes through hell and out the other side to come out as a gay man.

And so, over the course of this production — now the play with the most Tony nominations in history — does Lee Pace, the man who plays him.

Mr. Pace, 39, has been working steadily in theater, film and TV for the better part of two decades, helping to prop up mega-budget studio tent poles like “The Hobbit” (he is the elven king Thranduil) and “Guardians of the Galaxy” (the ferocious Ronan the Accuser) and cult favorites like “Pushing Daisies” and the recently concluded “Halt and Catch Fire.”

Mr. Pace sometimes attracted attention — from the nominating committees of the Emmys, the Golden Globes and the Independent Spirit Awards — but mostly disappeared into whatever elves, necromancers or sales executives he happened to be playing at the time. That was by design.

“It was a real strategy to draw boundaries,” Mr. Pace said in a recent interview at his New York apartment, as his rescue dog, Pete, dozed by his feet. In interviews, he kept the focus on his work: “I believe very firmly that my work is the reason we’re talking, and my personal life is something I want to protect.”

But earlier this year, Brian Moylan, writing about Mr. Pace’s arrival in the “Angels” Broadway cast for W Magazine, put the question to him directly: What was his sexual orientation?

It seems an entirely predictable question for an interview about the cornerstone of the gay theatrical canon. Mr. Pace had already said in that interview that he “feels it’s important for gay actors to play the gay roles.”

But he was thrown. He seemed “flustered” and “surprised,” Mr. Moylan wrote, and he published Mr. Pace’s response: “I’ve dated men. I’ve dated women. I don’t know why anyone would care. I’m an actor and I play roles. To be honest, I don’t know what to say — I find your question intrusive.”

“He told me his truth, which is all I asked, and all I hope for from any interview subject,” Mr. Moylan said recently. “I don’t apologize for asking the question.”

In the past, Mr. Pace was so not out that occasionally gossip blogs would put him together with an actress, like his friend Judy Greer. He brought her to the premiere of “A Single Man.”

“At the time, I knew he was gay,” Ms. Greer said in an interview. “I didn’t really talk about it to anyone — not even really because he asked me not to, just because it’s his business. When I saw that stuff online, I thought it was really strange. I didn’t think anything of it but to be flattered that anyone would think he would want to go out with me. I was like, ‘Oh my God, whattt?’ He was so tall and handsome! I thought, I’ll ride this wave for a minute.” She laughed. “And I was single at the time.”

The W article made headlines, and Mr. Pace was displeased he had come off angry. In an effort to take back his own narrative, he announced on Twitter that he was a “member of the queer community,” and noted he’d been playing queer characters his entire career, from his breakout role as the transgender showgirl Calpernia Addams in “A Soldier’s Girl” through his Broadway debut in “The Normal Heart” to the bisexual former IBM executive of “Halt and Catch Fire” and now, “Angels.” “Onward,” he wrote, “with Pride.”

The positive response to his tweets — thousands of likes, many comments and now, regular references to them at the stage door after the show — has assured him that he made the right decision, though the old habit of reticence died hard.

“The truth is,” he said at his apartment, “when you grow up queer, you get tough. And perceptive. And you learn how to field it. When someone comes at you that you don’t know, interested in that area of your life, it’s not always a good thing. I certainly knew that when I was a kid.”

Mr. Pace was born in Chickasha, Okla., and grew up in suburban Texas. He came out to his younger sister, Sally, while still in high school. “She cried,” he said. “She said, ‘I don’t know what that means.’” But she was supportive. So were his parents. Mr. Pace headed to drama school.

Unlike Broadway, Hollywood can be less accepting. There are still relatively few out gay actors, along with leading-man parts for them, at least in major studio fare. As his career took began to take off, was Mr. Pace encouraged not to be too open?

He pause for a while. “No,” he said, then reconsidered. “Look — yeah. I remember when I signed with a new agent, we worked together for a year. He took me to some coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon and I knew he wanted to talk about something. He said, ‘I heard you’re gay, is that true?’ I said, ‘Is that a problem?’ And of course he said, ‘No, fine, just felt like I needed to know.’ But within about a year, he was no longer working with me.”

Mr. Pace has the full support of his current team, he added, with whom he has been working happily for years.

The W article ended up offering an “opportunity to participate,” he said, in a way he hadn't before, even if it was one he hadn't necessarily sought or anticipated.

What changed his mind were two things. One is a new relationship, with a fashion executive he preferred not to name. (“I’ve never seen Lee so happy,” Ms. Greer said.) The other is the role of Joe Pitt, and the reflection it gave him on his own life. Onstage, in Joe Pitt’s coming out, Mr. Pace sticks on a few particular lines: “I want to live now. Maybe for the first time ever. And I can be anything. Anything I need to be.”

“I remember after it had happened, I was able to say that,” Mr. Pace said, recognizing the thrill of freedom in it. “I can be anything. Once you say those words and the sky doesn’t fall down, or the earth doesn’t open up, a lightning bolt doesn’t zap you. You really can be anything.”

So he has embraced the opportunity. “It feels nicer,” he said, “than I ever thought it would be.”

What comes next, and how this affects his career, if it does, is yet to be seen. One person whose advice he sought as he considered his Twitter statement was his friend Matt Bomer, a fellow out actor and Mr. Pace’s friend since their high school days. “I’ve known Lee since he was shorter than I am, believe it or not,” Mr. Bomer said. (Mr. Pace is 6-foot-5.)

“My counsel to him was, basically, when you decide to make it public, it can feel like you’re operating in a void,” Mr. Bomer said. “Nothing about you has changed, but maybe certain people’s opinions about you have changed. The beautiful thing about that is out of that void come all the people who truly want to engage with you and want to embrace your most authentic self. To me that’s always been far more rewarding than whatever mass appeal you have if you chose not to.”

“That’s assuming that that even happens,” he said. “I don’t know if that happens anymore.”

When asked if he had experienced negative repercussions after his own coming out, Mr. Bomer paused.

“The shorter answer is yes,” he said. “I hate to say it, I really do. I wish the answer were a resounding no. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. What happened was, an entire world of artists who I had always dreamed of working with and who wanted to engage with me on the most authentic level all came to the forefront.”

Mr. Bomer is appearing in the Broadway production of “The Boys in the Band,” just a few blocks away from “Angels in America.”

“I don’t think he stands anything to lose,” he said. “I don’t think any of us do, really, anymore. And if they do, let it fall by the wayside.”

Mr. Pace acknowledged the uncertainty but also said he had no anxiety about his decision.

“I’m curious to know what it’s going to do to my work,” he said. “I’ve played very different characters, and I don’t think that’s going to change. I guess I’m curious to see if this influences that, and the kinds of roles that come my way. Or in people’s perception of the work that I do.”

But he is confident in the future. “The work speaks for itself,” he said, “and I trust that.” For now, that is the grueling work of being Joe Pitt.

“The thing that gets me through the pain of doing it is knowing he’s going to be O.K. after it’s over,” Mr. Pace said. “Once he gets through it, he’s better off. I imagine him on a beach in Hawaii, renting surfboards. ‘How did you end up with this life?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, actually, I was married. I used to be a Mormon.’ Now he’s got a great boyfriend in my imagination.”

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