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By Lynda Barry  May 2016

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feminist DEMOLITIONS

“There’s a scene, late in the movie, with Kate McKinnon, that made me feel like I’ve never felt at a movie before. (No, it wasn’t the vibrating chair talking, this was real.) I should confess: Some of this is personal. My favorite character, in any big action-ensemble movie, is always the demolitions guy: the mad scientist, the weapons expert, the damage-dealer, the one who just wants to see stuff blow up. I say “demolitions guy” because he’s always a guy; they never cast the mad scientist or gun nut as a woman. But in this movie, he’s Kate McKinnon.

So she gets the scene these guys always get, in a movie like this. She has a wonderful new toy. The film slows down. She starts moving, and sure enough, she just starts unleashing raw havoc everywhere.

Something in my chest opened up. This is it, I realized. This is the thing I never got to see before. The scene where the demolitions guy is a girl. I was right: It actually does feel different when it’s a girl. This must be how guys feel every time they watch one of these movies. This is it, the version that’s for me, the scene I always wanted, and it’s here.

I don’t know what that feeling was, or how to describe it. But here’s the best way I can: For all the talk about “childhoods,” I got exactly 30 seconds in that movie where I felt like I was 8 years old again. Except that it was better than being 8 years old. It was like being 8 years old would have been, if the world had been fair.

I didn’t realize the political implications until I was out of the theater. I didn’t realize that this was also an openly queer actress, playing a more-or-less openly queer character (and we could do with more “more” and less “less,” Sony), that it might have hit other people in the audience even harder than it hit me, and for that reason. I didn’t think about anything, except that a woman was getting the same big slo-mo blowing-shit-up scene a million guys have gotten, and that scene is awesome. I’ve always loved that scene. Women aren’t treated as a big boundary-breaking historic symbol of progress and equality, in this movie. They’re treated like people.

And then you go out into the real world, where thousands of people are trying to hurt Leslie Jones on Twitter, and everyone hates Ghostbusters again. The same world you went into Ghostbusters to escape. But you can escape it, for a little while, in that theater. There’s a reason we need movies like these, after all.”

– Sady Doyle, These Times

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Marni Nixon dubbed vocals for some 50 films. She dubbed Natalie Wood’s singing part in West Side Story and Deborah Kerr’s singing in The King and I. Although classically trained and an actress in her own right, she would often not be credited for her singing and mostly got very little compensation.  Marni Nixon died earlier this week at the age of 86.  Terry Gross spoke to Marni Nixon, along with Rita Moreno in 2001, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the film West Side Story. 

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voter registration deadlines

Alabama 10/24/2016

Alaska 10/9/2016

Arizona 10/10/2016

Arkansas 10/10/2016

California 10/24/2016

Colorado 10/17/2016

Connecticut 11/1/2016

Delaware 10/15/2016

District of Columbia 10/11/2016

Florida 10/11/2016

Georgia 10/11/2016

Hawaii 10/10/2016

Idaho 10/14/2016

Illinois 10/11/2016

Indiana 10/11/2016

Iowa 10/29/2016

Kansas 10/14/2016

Kentucky 10/11/2016

Louisiana 10/11/2016

Maine 10/18/2016

Maryland 10/18/2016

Massachusetts 10/19/2016

Michigan 10/11/2016

Minnesota 10/18/2016

Mississippi 10/8/2016

Missouri 10/12/2016

Montana 10/11/2016

Nebraska 10/21/2016 

Nevada 10/8/2016

New Hampshire 10/29/2016

New Jersey 10/18/2016

New Mexico 10/11/2016

New York 10/14/2016

North Carolina 10/14/2016

North Dakota

Ohio 10/11/2016

Oklahoma 10/14/2016

Oregon 10/18/2016

Pennsylvania 10/11/2016

Rhode Island 10/9/2016

South Carolina 10/8/2016

South Dakota 10/24/2016

Tennessee 10/11/2016

Texas 10/11/2016

Utah 10/11/2016

Vermont 11/2/2016

Virginia 10/17/2016

Washington 10/10/2016

West Virginia 10/18/2016

Wisconsin 10/19/2016

Wyoming 10/24/2016

everything you need to know about voting: including how to vote early in 37 states and how to vote absentee

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Cackling at the effortless shade.

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Sobering Up, And Facing The Reality Of Sex Without ‘Liquid Courage’

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“Couple suffered two adoption losses.”

Hmmm…ok, let’s clear a few things up.

What “Adoption Loss” IS: 

1. When a child is separated from their family of origin and given/sold to strangers resulting in a lifetime of grief and physical, mental, social and relational symptoms of trauma for that child. 

2. When a child is separated from their family of origin and given/sold to strangers resulting in a lifetime of grief and physical, mental, social and relational symptoms of trauma for the original parents and family of origin. 

What “Adoption Loss” IS NOT:

1. When you didn’t get your baby.

2. When a child is able to stay with their family of origin. 

This is where we land as a society when the entire focus of adoption gets successfully shifted from finding homes for children who really actually legitimately need them, to supplying childless people with babies. Now, THEY are the ones experiencing Adoption Loss. Amazing. 

Prospectives: I understand you have feelings about your quest to be parents and some of them are tough, but here’s the deal: If you cared more, or even as much, about the best interests of the child, the needs of the child, or the future of the child, as you did about your own very specific desires for a womb-fresh infant to call your own, then you might find yourselves feeling joy for a child who gets to stay with their family of origin instead of getting saddled with a lifetime of what Adoption Loss really is. Try it out, give it a whirl.  

P.S. 250K kids in foster care available for adoption at this very minute that super legit need homes. 

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This is the email that I sent to Congressman Glenn Grothman, who represents the district in Wisconsin where my brother and I grew up and where my parents still live:

Dear Representative Grothman,

I grew up in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin--a community steeped in Christian values like inclusiveness, acceptance, and a respect for human life and dignity. People in my town cared about each others' health, safety, and livelihoods. I find it deeply disappointing and troubling that someone who represents my parents’ region and my home-state, someone who claims to represent those values, does not vote accordingly.

If, Rep. Grothman, you are pro-life, I would hope that you would support gun control measures to stop these weapons from killing people. Death as a result of an automatic assault weapon is a very "unnatural" death, indeed. If you espouse Christian values, I do not comprehend why you would vote against legislation that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

I hope that you will support the Brady Bill in the wake of the Orlando atrocities. This bill represents what I believe is good, kind, and essentially human about the place where my little brother and I grew up.

Sincerely, Hilary Disch

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i want allll the dance moves and snappy menswear in this video!

almost a year later and this is still the best video on the internet

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The incredible Eartha Kitt as the diabolical Catwoman.  Can we talk for a minute about how badass Earth Kitt was? Not only was Eartha Kitt responsible for the best portrayal of Catwomen to ever be put on film, but she stood up to the Johnson White House and gave zero fucks.  In 1968, Kitt was invited to a luncheon at the White House.  During the question and answer session, when asked about the Vietnam War, Kitt had this to say:

“The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons — and I know what it’s like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson — we raise children and send them to war.”

Reportedly, Mrs. Johnson left the room in tears.  When asked about the incident later, Kitt still was not apologetic:

Sadly, Kitt’s career suffered a considerable setback because of her remarks.  Fuck yes Eartha Kitt.

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Hot. 

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Mini skirts til I die.

Some actual good advice from cosmo that I thought I should put out there

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You are not defined by the bad things that have happened to you. (But it’s OK to feel sad about it)

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Beyoncé’s “Love Drought” Video, Slavery and the Story of Igbo Landing

[image description: Beyoncé in the music video for “Love Drought” marching into the water followed by a procession of black women]

Beyoncé’s LEMONADE is filled with incredible artistry and stunning imagery. One of the most striking images for me on the visual album, though, occurs in the video for “Love Drought”. Much has been said about how LEMONADE draws influence from Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, but less has been said in these same conversations about how the story of Igbo Landing is central to Daughters of the Dust and how the story of Igbo Landing- an act of mass resistance against slavery-also shows up in a really pronounced manner in the “Love Drought” Video.

[Image description: Donovan Nelson’s artistic depiction of Igbo Landing in charcoal. It shows the Igbo slaves marching into a body of water with the water already up to their necks and their eyes closed. Image via Valentine Museum of Art]

For those who don’t know, Igbo Landing is the location of a mass suicide of Igbo slaves that occurred in 1803 on St. Simons Island, Georgia. As the story goes, a group of Igbo slaves revolted and took control of their slave ship, grounded it on an island, and rather than submit to slavery, proceeded to march into the water while singing in Igbo, drowning themselves in turn. They all chose death over slavery. It was an act of mass resistance against the horrors of slavery and became a legend, particularly amongst the Gullah people living near the site of Igbo Landing. 

Not only is the story of Igbo Landing one of the key themes of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, which influenced LEMONADE, but its imagery also appears to be central to the “Love Drought” video. In the video, Beyoncé marches into the water followed by a group of black women all in white with black fabric in the shape of a cross across the front of their bodies. They march progressively deeper into the water before pausing and raising all of their hands toward the sunset.

[Image description: Beyoncé marching into a large body of water by a beach followed by other black women]

This scene and the video as a whole also occurs in a marshy, swampy landscape, matching African-American folklore descriptions of the location of Igbo Landing. In addition, this is all mixed in with imagery of Beyoncé physically bound in ropes and resisting their pull, which directly evokes slavery, resistance and the events at Igbo Landing for me.

[Image description: Beyoncé on a beach leaning backward as she appears to be resisting the pull of a taught rope]

Lastly, I would like to note how Beyoncé and the group of black women she is with very deliberately rose their hands while in the water toward the sunset. For me this recalled how the act of mass resistance at Igbo Landing was mythologized in many African-American communities as either the myth of the “water walking” or “flying” Africans. In the latter legend, the Igbo slaves walked into the water and then flew back to Africa, saving themselves in turn. 

Below is the myth of the “flying Africans” at Igbo Landing as told by Wallace Quarterman, an African-American man born in 1844 who was interviewed by members of the Federal Writers Project in 1930 (via wiki):

Ain’t you heard about them? Well, at that time Mr. Blue he was the overseer and … Mr. Blue he go down one morning with a long whip for to whip them good… . Anyway, he whipped them good and they got together and stuck that hoe in the field and then … rose up in the sky and turned themselves into buzzards and flew right back to Africa… . Everybody knows about them.

[Image description: Beyoncé and several black women partially submerged in water by a beach and raising their arms toward the setting sun]

Seeing Beyoncé and a group of black women marching into the water and raising their hands collectively toward the sunset reminded me specifically of this last interpretation of the story of Igbo Landing where the slaves flew to their freedom.

There are lots of potential interpretations for this video and the visual album as a whole but the core imagery of the “Love Drought” video - marshy landscape matching folklore descriptions of the location of “Igbo Landing,” images of Beyoncé bound in ropes and resisting their pull, a collective march into the water and holding their hands out toward the sky as if they were about to fly away together-basically screamed out to me as the story of Igbo Landing as I watched the video. It’s such a powerful act of mass resistance against slavery and as an Igbo person living today in America, it was moving to see imagery which reminded me strongly of it in LEMONADE as well.

Learn more about the story of Igbo Landing: Here