#connie and feminism

[sincerelyyellingback]

Gyns, please check out this song by Connie Converse. It's a clever, insightful comparison between a heterosexual marriage and an eternity in hell. She wrote and recorded it sometime in the 1950s.

[m-guitguiten]

The film is supposed to have a serious subject matter, but it's not handled quite well. I'm not sure, maybe the screenwriter and director didn't take the subject seriously as it should be relevant due to its feminist and toxic masculinity ideas. The tone is dark but not very convincing. Although the performances saved the insufficiencies, of course Mina Kulis is terribly good. She captured that kind of character you root for, but also someone you hate. Also, Finn Wittrock and that brief appearance of Connie Britton make up for the not so appealing overall structure of the film. Luckiest Girl Alive is entertaining for sure, but not as substantial and important as it should be.

[hanjisungslag]

haiii >_< what type of fantasy characters/stererotypes would aot characters be?

- any characters you want but def reiner pls＾ ty baby

🧝‍♀️ aot characters & fantasy

characters included: eren, armin, mikasa, sasha, connie, jean, annie, reiner, bertolt, levi, erwin & hange!!

notes: this was so fun to do omg

✧ eren jaeger - hero gone villain

okay i know this is a bit basic to do… but c’mon!! he’s literally the epitome of ‘i’ve become what i sought out to destroy’ and i just can’t think of him as anything else. he fits the stereotype too well😭.

✧ armin arlert - mage

he is soooo side kick mage, no? tell me you can’t imagine armin (specifically with the mushroom hair) wearing a wizard gown, hat and holding a magical old stick. he doesn’t like to leave his tower often but is usually forced to when something goes amiss - i can imagine him sighing deeply while reluctantly grabbing his magical old stick.

✧ mikasa ackerman - sidekick

bad ass sidekick who lives in the woods & is probably on the run. i’m thinking… arcana muriel vibes for this but less stoic and quiet (and less cursed) but, she definitely learnt to fight in the woods when she was 3 OR taken in by an old, rugged guy whose family died tragically. either way, everyone’s terrified of her but she steals bread for orphans or some heroic shit like that.

✧ jean kirsten - prince

himbo prince😭 i mean this in the BEST way possibly mkay! he’s not really a himbo however… he just gives prince who accidentally got entangled in a weird adventure and he doesn’t know how to live without servants. he’s be like “erm, i am not crossing that muddy river.” BUT THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WOULD BE INSANE by the end, he’d like finally understand how bad the government is or how poor the townspeople are and give them money.

✧ connie springer - the fool

sigh… the fool, the court jester, etc etc. he would be himbo prince jean’s court jester 100% and they’re like actually pretty good friends, they’ve known each other since they were kids. he also gets dragged along with jean on a weird adventure and he would be the comedic relief. (also a shoulder for jean to cry on when he gets mud on his fancy royal shoes).

✧ sasha braus - henchman

hunter/henchman hellooo…? literally expert at using a bow and arrow? grew up in the woods?? she would EAT so hard being a henchman and to make it even better, when someone hires her they don’t know she’s a girl and whenever someone finds out, they’ll be so shocked!! feminism!

✧ reiner braun - the beast

dare i say… some sort of big beast? like a big, fluffy beast but make it sexy, beauty and the beast vibes perhaps. imagine fighting this big and surprisingly attractive who lives under a bridge. IM SORRY THAT WOULD BE SO FUN… i’m thinking like diane from sds vibes too!!

✧ bertolt hoover - squire

young, little boy training to be a knight aka a squire. tell me you cant see this little cutie patootie dressed to the nines in armour, learning how to swing a sword?! maybe him and annie trained together or dare i say, he looks up to her.

✧ annie leonhart - knight

sworn shield to a princess that she falls in love with. imma need someone to write a fanfic about this RIGHT NOW!! we all know annie knows how to whop some ass so, of course she was chosen by the king and queen to protect their precious daughter but what happens when… she falls in love! GAH!! of course, she could never speak of her feelings - maybe one day.

✧ levi ackerman - assassin

leader of some sort of renegade, like a special group of assassins. no matter what universe this man is in, his crown will never fall! his title carries on throughout all possible realties m’kay. same backstory though 100%, raised in the poor ditches but learnt how to fight and now he’s a leader of a renegade! you have to pay big buck to get levi to assassinate someone, he’s the best of the best after all.

✧ erwin smith - commander

i’m sorry to be basic and boring but a commander of an army. HE HAS TO BEEE 😭it’s too perfect, i’m sorry. except imagine the army is all medieval and dripped out in chainmail!

✧ hange zoë - pirate

a pirate. LIKE CMONNN especially s4 hange with the eye patch?! i can totally imagine hange running a ship and sailing the seven seas. they’re literally a commander too? it was written in the stars, they’re perfect for the role! i can totally see them playing devious pranks and tricks on other pirates trying to secure the same treasure.

[jeankirsteinsgrlfrnd]

Hi hi

how would the AOT men (specifically Reiner and Connie) react to them realising they have a crush on the loud cadet?

☼ reiner & connie crushing on you, the loud cadet ☼

☼ short scenarios, canonverse ☼

reiner braun wasn’t the type of person of person to hate anybody. he knew what it felt like to be unwanted, what it felt like to be out of place. he tried to be kind to everybody and treat them like his siblings. there was only just one person he couldn’t stand. you.

you were loud. you were obnoxious, he thought. you made it impossible to focus on anything. you held it together during missions and your time to shine was always during dinner in the mess hall. reiner could hear you everytime he tried to talk to bertholdt. he could make out every word of the conversation you were having.

you were all of his thoughts. he hated you. he hated that you wouldn’t leave his head, that he could hear your voice everywhere he went. he just couldn’t stop thinking about you. he wasn’t sure when he started thinking of you out of admiration and not annoyance.

he thinks it might’ve been the night you two were partnered up on a scouting mission. he was dreading it once he heard the assignment. he soon realized that you were actually an excellent partner to have.

the idea of that was enough to make him laugh softly to himself as you sat across him, on the opposite side of the fire. it was dark out and extremely quiet.

“what?” you asked.

“nothing.” he shrugged his shoulders and dug absentmindedly at his food.

“reiner, come on.”

“i just think you’re growing on me, is all.”

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

connie springer was an easy going guy. everybody loved him and that was something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. don’t get me wrong, you liked him too but you couldn’t fathom why people treated you so much differently than they did him.

you and him were incredibly similar. always laughing, always talking a little too loudly. people that it was endearing when it was connie, but god forbid if it was you. you couldn’t count how many times you’d been told to shut up or called a name that would insult feminism.

connie and you actually bashed heads quite a lot but it was always in good fun. he never actually talked to you outside the mess hall but you lived for those moments during dinner where you could banter and shoot the shit. connie didn’t know it yet, but subconsciously, he was living for those moments too.

you weren’t sure when you two eventually fell in love. you’d asked connie before when he realized and he tells you that he couldn’t pinpoint it. ‘it was all slow and super fast at the same time,’ he’d say. the real moment was too cliche for him to admit.

connie realized he had fallen in love with you on the day you were quiet. it wasn’t like you at all. he’d always know when you showed up but today, he hadn’t even noticed you slither into the seat opposite him. you looked extremely tired and annoyed. connie knew better than to pry and besides, he was enjoying the silence. he continued eating his breakfast, occasionally bickering with sasha. he turned his attention back to you and saw you asleep with your arms folded on the table. your head was gently resting on them and your mouth was slightly open. connie felt his heart twinge, never having seen this side of you. this gentler, sweeter, quieter you. he thought he’d like to see that every night and every morning. he had cursed himself internally at the moment, not believing who he’d fallen in love with. but now, he’d do it all over again.

[vintagetvstars]

Connie Booth Vs. Barbara Billingsley

Propaganda

Connie Booth - (Fawlty Towers, Monty Python's Flying Circus) - British TV was absolutely blessed when Connie Booth moved from the US to Great Britain and enriched every show and movie she was in with her talent and absolute BEAUTY! She looks like a real life princess!

Barbara Billingsley - (Leave it to Beaver) - Look, is June Cleaver the ultimate example of the unrealistic expectations and repressive cult of domesticity that the media forced on women in post-war, pre-second wave feminism America? Yes. Does Barbara Billingsley look insanely hot mopping the floor in high-heels and a pearl necklace? Also, yes. (Sorry Betty Friedan, she just does.) To her credit, she knew it was an absurd fantasy, she was a divorced (and widowed) working mom when she landed the role of the quintessential 50s housewife. In her later years she often spoofed her image, most famously as the Jive-talking lady in Airplane! (When they revived the series in the 1980s, June became a respected member of the city council and later pursued a college degree.)

Master Poll List of the Hot Vintage TV Ladies Bracket

Additional propaganda below the cut

Connie Booth:

Fawlty Towers: Topless afternoon tea

Barbara Billingsley:

June Cleaver on womens changing roles in the 1960s

What It Means to Be a Mother by June Cleaver

[firefly--bright]

b99 au has me like this can we have some more hcs pls pls pls pl

see u get me

U ASK AND I DELIVER here is part two to the headcanons (⁠｡⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠｡⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♡ (+complimentary moodboard because I Feel Like It)

- ok so after the first date (which goes surprisingly well), you start hanging around the precinct more, and at first Connie and Sasha are ELATED because you didn't do it that often before jean. like they didn't realise that it was because you wanted to see him, sasha was just happy that you'd bring mid-day coffee to her and Connie was happy to just rant to you about how "no-one here trusts me ugh" (he's like a mix of Gina and Charles istg) and ur like mhm yeah it's totally not because you file your paperwork wrong everytime. totally, king. MHM.

- and jean usually grabs some lunch outside (which you notice!) and at this point you're not in an Established Relationship, aka you haven't had the "what are we" talk yet so it's mainly just you guys hanging out. right and eren recognises you and like jokes around with you and it pisses jean off SO BAD and eren (the little shit) KNOWS THAT. so he's just trying to get under jeans skin. and you become like this unofficial part of the family :3

- which, by the way, let's do this. who's who. Reiner is the sarge (yes he goes with the suspenders and yes eren and Connie objectify him because of his boobs). Connie and Sasha are partners because they work really well together since the beginning of Time and they're also really good at acting so they get assigned alot of undercovers. CAPTAIN LEVI it's in the name guys c'mon. hange is the autopsy..person. idk the actual name of it. but you get it. Erwin is Levi's husband and it's the whole arc of them basically adopting the precinct :) Mikasa and Armin are partners, jean and eren are also partners (most of the times) because they also work really well together. jean applied to be a lieutenant but that comes way later in the story. so hang on. for rn, tho, Armin is the lieutenant, and marco is the office assistant. ANYWAY

- right so. uhhh cue the Thanksgiving shenanigans. Levi (begrudgingly) invites the whole squad + hange, and asks everyone to bring your own dish. here's what happened

reiner ; guys ok we have to impress the captain and his husband-

eren : his name is Erwin. don't reduce him to just captain Levi's husband

jean : I don't think that's a reduction to his title

eren : stop bootlicki-

sasha : I don't know how to cook anything

Connie : she burnt the packet of ramen once.

....

Mikasa : the...the packet?

Armin : like, the plastic....covering?

sasha : mhm. I've solved alot of crimes.

Connie : yes she has

sasha : feminism isn't a joke.

jean just nods aggressively.

Reiner : right so....to avoid that... do you, can you possibly get someone to help you?

eren : YO WHAT ABOUT YOUR FRIEND

jean : their friend has a nam-

eren : what about titles now, horseboy?

sasha : YES WE SHOULD. WE SHOULD ALL GO TO THEIR PLACE TO COOK BEFORE GOING TO THE CAPTAINS PLACE

Connie : IM GOING TO TEXT THEM RIGHT NOW

Reiner : right. that could work.

marco : it really won-

jean : I THINK YEAH WE SHOULD ALL GO TO THEIR PLACE. MHM. yeah I think we should..... uh. yeah.

Armin : I'm sure the captain won't mind inviting them over as well

- yeah anyways that's how. it happened. long story short your apartment almost burned down but hey atleast you got the job done! with like twenty people in your small cube of a house!

- jean is the first one to arrive at your place (for no reason, haha) and you're like "oh good ur here Im babyproofing the apartment just in case." and he doesn't question it and just helps you and tells you about his Thanksgiving stories thoughout the years and you guys connect alot and he opens up alot too :3

-anuway. HALLOWEEN HEIST IS ALSO REAL AND IT HAPPENS. and you participate. the first year is pretty mild for you, you're jeans accomplice as he tries to beat eren's team to steal the captain's cup of tea. and it's a whole Thing and you do the thing you do best - distract the captain. again, surprisingly, you get him to open up a little while jean gets in through the office's ceiling and you're talking to the captain, sweating, "oh yeah no, totally, the DMV is crazy....MHM!! the lines were so bad when I went last." anyway. at the end, eren and jean are tied, back to back to a chair while the captain (very menacingly) asks them if they're proud of what they accomplished. turns out the captain won. (i have headcanons for this too but this post is becoming too long so,,)

- enough about the squad, more about you and jean. right, so soon after Thanksgiving, the two of you finally have The Talk. after a particularly long day at the precinct, jean is slumped over his desk doing paperwork and everyone has almost already left. Connie had come over to ur place to tell you about the shitty day he had, and you fed him some dinner after that, and he fell asleep on your couch while watching a show (not an uncommon occurence) and his situation got you thinking about jean. you usually tried not to bother jean too much by sending too many messages or calling a lot, so he knows it's important when he gets a call from you. and he takes a break from work and answers and he swears you breathe life into him after he hears you ask him how he's doing. he tells you that "these muscles aren't for nothing" which gets a sigh and a laugh in return. "how long are you gonna stay at the precinct?" you ask him. "i don't know, the works never ending." he says and you've already made up your mind, taking a Tupperware of the dinner you had made, along with a thermos of coffee and head on over to the place. when you're downstairs, you call jean again and tell him to come down too and he's like "what are you doing here holy shit it's late" and you're like "yeah I could tell u the same thing. i got u sum food open up slut" and he leads you to the balcony to get some fresh air while eating (also because if he were to spill even a morsel of food on his desk after the cleaning crew had gone home, the captain would have his head on a plate. anyway. the terrace/balcony. do u see the parallels.

and you and jean get to talking, you tell him about your day and then are like "I'm sorry if I'm distracting you." "no I like the distraction. i don't mind it." and you smile but then just come out and say it "hey so what are we?" and jeans like "??? have I not asked u to be my partner yet?" and you decide to tease him a bit and are like "partner? are u recruiting me to be a detective?" "no! i mean, if that's what...your passion is, then yes, but please be safe. oh ur fucking with me. okay." and u laugh and kiss him on the cheek and he's like "no that's not gonna cut it" and then he grabs your face (GENTLY) and kisses you so softly and helplessly that you're glad he's holding your face otherwise your bones would've just fallen to the ground without structure.

uhh yes. thats all. if you'd like angst headcanons. hmu 😈 I'm not kidding this is so fun for me to think about I've been Thinking About It for like a month now

also! moodboard time!

:D

[ghelgheli]

Stuff I Read In April 2024

bold indicates favourites

Books

Transgender Marxism, ed. Jules Joanne Gleeson & Elle O'Rourke

The Monster Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin

Neocolonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah

Decolonizing Trans/Gender, b. binaohan

Yuri/GL

Even the Introverted Gals Wanna Get Out There! / Inkya Gal demo Ikigariatai!, Kashiwagi Tsukiko

Hello, Melancholic!, Oosawa Yayoi

My Girlfriend's Not Here Today, Iwami Kiyoko

Yamada and Kase-san, Takashima Hiromi

Chocolate and Kase-san, Takashima Hiromi

Kase-san Series, Takashima Hiromi

Love My Life, Yamaji Ebine

My Cute Little Kitten, Morinaga Milk

Short Fiction

The Monkey's Finger, Isaac Asimov

Everest, Isaac Asimov

The Pause, Isaac Asimov

And Come From Miles Around, Connie Willis

Oh Fanged Night!, Hijab Imtiaz Ali [link]

Palestine

Are we indeed all Palestinians?, Mohammed El-Kurd [link]

Point. Click. Occupy. Sophia Goodfriend [link]

‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza, Yuval Abraham [link]

"Man-made hell on Earth", Jeremy Scahill & Yasser Khan [link]

A Mirror of Our Immediate Future, Erica Jung & Calvin Wu [link]

Queer &c.

Is “Gender Ideology” Western Colonialism? ,Jenny Evang [link]

Why are AMAB trans people denied the closet?, Julia Serano [link]

Beyond the Coloniality of Gender: María Lugones, Sylvia Wynter, Decolonial Feminism, and Trans and Intersex Liberation, Alex Adamson [link]

The Problem of Recognition in Transitional States, or Sympathy for the Monster, Nia Frome [link]

Against the Couple Form, Clémence X. Clementine [link] [and coda]

The Abuser's Guide to Transmisogyny, Wyatt Fractal Starlight [link]

The Logic of Gender, Endnotes [link] [and interview]

Rethinking Homonationalism, Jasbir K. Puar [link]

The Child, Jules Gill-Peterson [link]

Maternal (In)coherence: When Feminism Meets Fascism, Joy James [link]

Other

The Campus Does Not Exist, Samuel P. Caitlin [link]

What is an Author?, Michel Foucault [link]

Cuba Libre (1960), Amiri Baraka [link]

From the Nakba to Nasser, The Dig w/ Abdel Razzaq Takriti [link]

A 1962 Defense of the Berlin Wall [link]

The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud, Steven Gonzalez Monserrate [link]

[dwellordream]

“...To women concerned with preserving the esteem and recognition conferred by traditional sex roles, the Equal Rights Amendment encapsulated all that was dangerous in the feminist movement. If the ERA became law, they believed, all differences between the sexes would be abolished, and all institutions based on those differences would then self-destruct as well. The family was based on women and men performing complementary roles, with husbands and wives sharing a loyalty to the family that was more important than their individual lives.

By contrast, the ERA seemed to these people to embody individualism run amok. Not only would men and women lose their distinctive identities: women would start placing their individual desires for fulfillment ahead of their obligation to the family. As one antifeminist wrote, “the humanist-feminist view of the family is that it is a biological, sociological unit in which the individual happens to reside; it has no meaning and purpose beyond that which each individual chooses to give it… [In such a situation, the family] becomes an instrument of oppression and denial of individual rights.”

Worst of all, from this point of view, was the degree to which feminism destroyed the softer, more nurturing and sacrificing side of women’s nature and replaced it with the ideal of women acting like men. This “macho-feminism,” as one person called it, “despises anything which seeks to interfere with the desires of Number One.” Through such a selfish process, women’s true nature was destroyed. “The less time women spend thinking about themselves,” Connie Marshner, a leading antifeminist wrote, “the happier they are… Women are ordained by nature to spend themselves in meeting the needs of others.”

…One of the first movements to counter feminism, therefore, focused on defeating the ERA. Led by Phyllis Schafly, a conservative Republican with a master’s degree in government from Radcliffe, the anti-ERA forces concentrated on mobilizing grass roots constituencies in each state to petition their state legislators not to ratify the ERA. The organizations had many names: STOP-ERA (STOP meant Stop Taking Our Privileges), WWWW (Women Who Want to be Women), and FLAG (Family, Liberty and God). But all had a common theme: defend the family and preserve the differences between the sexes.

“God Almighty created men and women biologically different and with differing needs and roles,” Jerry Falwell proclaimed. “Good husbands who are godly men are good leaders. Their wives and children want to follow them.” According to Schafly and her allies, if the ERA was successful, husbands would no longer be required to provide for wives; alimony (a divorced husband’s responsibility to provide financially for his ex-wife) would cease; and protective labor laws that aided blue-collar women would be eliminated.

…Anti-abortion forces played a variation on the same themes. According to Connie Marshner, the essence of the “pro-choice” argument was that women should be able to put Me first, ignoring the fact that the creation of a fetus was divinely sanctioned, and therefore elimination of the fetus was both a sin and an act of murder. Although Catholics were most likely to become active in “pro-life” groups, as they were called, many Protestants joined also, usually from conservative churches that valued traditional family life as the cornerstone of a virtuous society.

According to the National Right to Life group, people who supported women’s right to abort a fetus were attacking motherhood, devaluing the sanctity of life, and possibly preventing some future Einstein or Edison from growing to maturity to help the world. By showing motion pictures (based on ultrasound) of a fetus moving around a woman’s womb during the third month of pregnancy, these Right to Life groups powerfully portrayed their antagonists as baby-killers.

…All the criticism of the nuclear family and traditional sex roles… from feminists in the media seemed to reflect a distinctly white, middle-class perspective. Black women wanted to preserve and strengthen their relationships with black men, not attack those men. Racial solidarity--not division--seemed the most important priority for African Americans, and to the extent that feminism set women against men, it was a threat to be avoided, not a challenge to be welcomed. Black women supported better pay and greater job opportunities for all women, and they believed in better and more accessible child care facilities. But in too many instances it seemed that white women wanted careers and high-paying jobs so that they could hire black women to take care of their children, without paying them a decent wage.”

- William Chafe, “The Countermovement.” in The Road to Equality: Women Since 1962

[jaegersmoon]

No but here is MY verity. The way you write him has taken me to new levels of feral to the point where I need to be chained to a tree on a full moon. I need him biblically. I want him in a way that is concerning to feminism (this abt connie btw)

yall were never supposed to like him this much 😭😭😭😭

[caramelmachatwo]

A Woman can refuse to be a Female.

a thought about feminism and social labels

I just watched Mona Lisa Smile by Mike Newell. Joan was my favorite out of all the girls, Connie was a cutiepatootie, I wish people understood Betty, and Giselle was the smartest. Special mention to Charlie Stewart.

Is a female automatically a woman? By technicality, yes. But in other means, no. If we all define things literally, then what's the purpose of everything if we focus on what things can only be, and not what it can turn into. Back then, society frowns when one answers creatively, or illogically, but now it's the opposite; Requiring things to be complicated for it to be smart, that in itself is stupid. Nowadays, society reforms back into femineity like princess treatment, the side-walk rule, and a whole bunch of rules that showcases chivalry in modern times. All of this to reminisce old love and grand gestures, comparing how today is a setback from the past since we lost touch of sincerity as evolvement got too artificial. I don't hate it, but I find bitter how women in the past fought for a place in the real word to only find women now going back into wanting peace at home, and I don't hate that also. I love Katherine Watson, she never ridiculed Joan for choosing to be a wife, she only wanted for her to dream, to believe that a lady as smart as her isn't destined to be married if she didn't want to, that was all she wanted, she wanted happiness to be their future. People who don't like Betty should watch the film again, because the whole point of the film was to realize that contentment is a spectrum, for some it's going to grad school, others envisioned it with a family, and one was it being alone and free.

In this range definition of content, it comes with different wavelengths and frequencies that society needs to recognize. One does not stop becoming a woman when she chooses a hammer instead of a doll, nor does a man choosing pink to be less of a man, and if you aren't either, a flower doesn't unflowers if it loses a petal or wilt. And, I get that labels are complicated and too messy, that's why a lot of people hate it, it makes too much of a fuss. But no one bats an eye when it's all about science since it's technical, annoying. Strolling to the topic of feminism, we need to seriously talk about what is feminism exactly. Some mistake it as putting down men in order to empower women, as we have suffered years of detrimental treatment, it is only fair to fight back right? As one might disagree with me, no it isn't fair, not when you believe in equality. You can be a feminist without the involvement of men in any way as it simply encourages movement and opportunities to women. You are not a feminist when you need to hurt someone else.

[innotofproject]

Show Notes: Just Above Midtown

This episode focuses on the Just Above Midtown gallery run by Linda Goode Bryant from 1974-1986, as well as the accompanying Changing Spaces exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art from October 9, 2022 to February 18, 2023.

Written, produced, and edited by Eddie Yoffee. Special thanks to Grace Jackson.

Bibliography for this Episode:

Booker, Eric, et al. Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces. Edited by Linda Goode-Bryant et al., Museum of Modern Art, 2022.

Buhe, Elizabeth. “Just above Midtown: Changing Spaces.” Studio International: Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, 25 Oct. 2022, https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/just-above-midtown-changing-spaces-review-museum-modern-art-new-york. 

Cotter, Holland. “Jam, a Gate-Crashing Gallery, Expanded the Idea of Blackness.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Oct. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/arts/design/just-above-midtown-gallery-exhibit-moma-art.html. 

D’Souza, Aruna. “Senga Nengudi.” 4Columns, 14 Apr. 2023, https://4columns.org/d-souza-aruna/senga-nengudi. 

Harting, Florence. “Nearly 50 Years Later, a Pioneering Gallery for Artists of Color Finally Gets Its Due.” Cultured Magazine, 19 Sept. 2022, https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2022/09/19/gallery-black-artists-exhibition. 

“Just above Midtown: Changing Spaces: MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5078. 

Mooallem, Stephen. “Linda Goode Bryant's Art Revolution.” Harper's BAZAAR, 15 Sept. 2022, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a40823603/0164-0288-seeds-of-imagination-september-2022/. 

Pinckney, Darryl. “Just above Midtown.” 4Columns, 13 Jan. 2023, https://www.4columns.org/pinckney-darryl/just-above-midtown. 

Project EATS, 2023, https://projecteats.org/. 

Tavangar, Anisa. “The Big Review: Just above Midtown at the Museum of Modern Art ★★★★★.” The Art Newspaper - International Art News and Events, 4 Nov. 2022, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/11/04/the-big-review-just-above-midtown. 

Additional Sources:

Cahan, Susan, et al. Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. Edited by Mark Godfrey and Whitley Zoé, Tate Publishing, 2017.

Choi, Connie H, et al. We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85: A Sourcebook. Edited by Catherine Morris and Rujeko Hockley, Brooklyn Museum, 2017.

D'Souza, Aruna, et al. We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85, New Perspectives. Edited by Catherine Morris and Rujeko Hockley, Brooklyn Museum, 2018.

D'Souza, Aruna, et al. Whitewalling: Art, Race & Protest in 3 Acts. Badlands Unlimited, 2018.

English, Darby. 1971: A Year in the Life of Color. University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta, editor. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Haymarket Books, 2017.

Whitley Zoé, and Marion Perkins. The Soul of a Nation Reader: Writings by and About Black American Artists, 1960-1980. Edited by Mark Godfrey and Allie Biswas, Gregory R. Miller, 2021.

Podcast transcript available below.

“I can just picture myself going up in the elevator and into this very small gallery. It had a lot of power, of course—this true New York energy… We all felt like we were a part of something, that we were seriously part of some significant leap forward with art, with theory.” — Senga Nengudi, artist.

Hello, and welcome to In, Not Of, a podcast dedicated to providing short histories of alternative art spaces for Black and Indigenous creatives. Today’s episode focuses on the Just Above Midtown gallery and the recent Changing Spaces exhibition produced by the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Linda Goode Bryant, the visionary behind Just Above Midtown, or JAM, is actually the source of the title of this project, In, Not Of. When JAM was founded, Goode Bryant described it as being intentionally “in, not of the art world.” The gallery was originally located, as the name suggests, just above midtown, only a little ways away from Manhattan’s commercial gallery district. In 1974, when Goode Bryant opened the gallery, the art scene was primarily white and offered few opportunities for artists who fell outside of the norm. Goode Bryant wanted to provide a space for artists of color to experiment and exhibit their work, and that space became the gallery and laboratory we are discussing today.

JAM faced a number of challenges and obstacles from the very beginning. Beyond the general sentiments of the art world at the time, within the Black community there was a strong divide between representational and non-representational artists. This division rose to prominence in the 1960s alongside the question, “what is Black art”? What followed was a debate about defining a Black aesthetic, and the responsibilities of Black artists to their communities. Some people believed that art needed to provide recognizable messages of a political and culturally-specific nature, which abstract art, in their minds, invariably failed to do. Others were more interested in abstraction and tended to define Black art simply as art made by Black people. The debate existed across coasts, with no sense of national unity. Goode Bryant was interested in providing opportunities to artists from all over the country, regardless of the inevitable butting of heads that would result from that decision.

An early instance of backlash occurred at a solo show for David Hammons in May of 1975. Hammons was already somewhat established in California, where he had begun making a series of “Body Prints,” in which he covered his skin, clothes, and other materials in various forms of grease, made outlines on large white sheets of paper by pressing himself into them, and then covered the grease in powdered pigments. This work is what initially caught Linda Goode Bryant’s eye for JAM, but Hammons had a different display in mind at the gallery. He created sculptures out of non-traditional materials such as greasy paper bags, barbecue bones, and clippings of hair he’d gotten from barber shops. On opening night, there was so much outrage that Bryant took the opportunity to stage an impromptu debate about what kind of materials were acceptable to use in one’s art, finally bringing the audience to the conclusion that, while different from his previous work, the Hammons show still had merit. And since many people, Goode Bryant herself included, were still interested in that previous work, another opportunity presented itself: JAM hosted a print-in workshop in which visitors to the gallery were able to make their own body prints alongside Hammons.

Outside of traditional art shows, JAM’s programming included many types of workshops and other forms of community engagement. One of Goode Bryant’s initial concerns was establishing an infrastructure for Black collectors to engage with artists in order to bolster the community and provide support for the art that was being made. It became clear to her that selling art was about relationships, and so JAM needed to bring people together—this led to the establishment of the Brunch with JAM program, which was a series of lunch-time talks by members of the art world from curators to historians to critics. JAM provided cheap, homemade meals to accompany the series.

In 1980, Just Above Midtown moved from its Fifty-Seventh Street location to a warehouse in Tribeca, providing the gallery with significantly more space than before, which Goode Bryant intended to make full use of. From its very beginning, JAM was a place where Black artists could display their work, not in isolation but alongside their white counterparts. Goode Bryant was looking to explore this concept more, in order to let audiences decide for themselves if there was a real difference in the quality of the works. Of course, the choice to move to Tribeca was not just about including more white artists, but also about bringing the gallery further downtown in order to interact with other experimental artists, and now that they had more space they could also explore various modes of performance art and media that were previously inaccessible.

However, complaints from neighbors about late night events led to JAM having to relocate once again, this time to SoHo in 1984. This was to be the final iteration of Just Above Midtown. At the beginning of this episode, I referred to JAM as not only a gallery, but a laboratory. Goode Bryant herself described the project that way, and one of her goals for the new location was to provide a space for artists to work without the pressures or responsibilities of exhibiting and selling works in a commercial setting. Alongside that conceit, Goode Bryant also wanted to offer opportunities for the incorporation of new technologies in film and sound. As Kellie Jones writes, by the time JAM made its final relocation, “the curatorial process was no longer memorialized in objects but contained in living possibilities that held out ‘an alternative or corrective to the failures of mainstream institutions and ideologies.’”

The original intentions of JAM had evolved and shifted over the years, moving away from involving the Black community in standard consumerist art practices and instead towards a reshaping of the art world’s entire infrastructure. On this level, and on a more practical financial level, Just Above Midtown was not designed to be a permanent space—in many ways, this was a known impossibility, particularly because much of the project was financed with credit card debt that Goode Bryant herself incurred. By 1986, JAM had gotten into hot water with multiple landlords and the IRS, and it was no longer tenable to maintain the space. JAM closed its doors in SoHo in August, but several interdisciplinary projects continued around New York with the support of the staff up until 1989.

Though JAM no longer exists, many of the artists involved in its programming continue to make work today, making use of the creative and professional connections that were forged. Goode Bryant has pursued a number of projects across a variety of media, including her 2003 documentary project, Flag Wars, which explores conflicts around gentrification in a neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.

More recently, Goode Bryant is the visionary force behind Project EATS, which she founded in 2009. The project has established several neighborhood-based farms in New York, which provide places for community programming, food pantries, farm stands, and even, in one location, prepared food. Alongside the farm sites, Project EATS runs the Art Inside/Out program, which is a series of artist commissions that aims to bring art outside of the museum and into local communities. The program works with several artists who exhibited at JAM, incorporating their art into installations at their farms and creating a spiritual successor to the boundary-pushing work of Just Above Midtown.

Senga Nengudi reflected back on her time at JAM, saying: “It’s sort of like when you throw a rock into a pond and it ripples outward in concentric circles, that’s how JAM was. It just kept expanding from the center, which was Linda. It kept expanding and getting larger and more beautiful.”

The most recent iteration of Just Above Midtown occurred earlier this year in the form of the Changing Spaces exhibition which ran from October 9, 2022, to February 18, 2023 at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition was a collaboration between MoMA and the Studio Museum in Harlem, whose current Director and Chief Curator, Thelma Golden, alongside many others, put together a beautiful tribute and re-imagining of the gallery.

Representing JAM at MoMA was certainly a challenge, but one that the organizers successfully met. Reviews of the exhibition were overwhelmingly positive, with visitors remarking on how well curators were able to lay out the different eras of JAM and represent the vast variety of visual art, performances, and collaborations that occurred thanks to the art workers involved with the gallery. Goode Bryant’s record-keeping proved to be essential to the exhibition, as a wall of receipts and messages demonstrated the financial difficulties that faced JAM throughout the gallery’s existence, making clear to audiences the individual work and mutual aid that went into keeping JAM afloat.

The presentation of Just Above Midtown at the Museum of Modern Art was successful not only because of the support the exhibition received, but because so many of the people who were involved with JAM and Goode Bryant are still invested in the cause: MoMA’s exhibition therefore is a celebration of the foundational work Goode Bryant and so many others did in order to make space for artists of color within the art world. While there are obviously still many obstacles facing Black artists today, the Changing Spaces exhibition provides hope by showing that though JAM’s doors may be long closed, the spirit of the gallery lives on.

The information from this episode comes in large part from the exhibition catalog for Changing Spaces, as well as the Museum of Modern Art’s digital record. These sources and accompanying images can be found linked on the podcast’s page.

This has been In, Not Of. Thank you for listening.

[anothanobody]

Jean, Armin, Connie and Reiner stans look away. Because they're also misogynistic in that au 😭 the patriarchy is deeply embeded in them. Only Zeke is open to the idea of feminism :) but I promise all of them will change their mentalities

lmaooo i can just imagine. jean is the rising politician and former commander. armin is a renowned lawyer and war tactician. reiner is a commander of the high ranks. connie is in the estate business and owner of a few things. my love, my zeke is the only sane one 🤣 they are all in the same mentality. can you imagine them approaching the girls? 🤣😭 i pray for them. cuz they are just asking to get whacked pretty hard.

[riverstardis]

muddling through:

connie watching old home videos of grace and she smashes her wine glass by putting it down so hard :’(

ethan and robyn walking in together and after robyn calls to greet connie, robyn: “when i grow up i want to be just like connie” ethan: “really?” robyn: “yeah! beautiful, clever,,, rich?” ethan: “scary” robyn: “i can do scary” ethan: “okay” robyn: “boo!” ethan: “ah!” robyn: “hahaha see?” ohhh ethan i love you sjskdkdkd

also ethan’s limping in this scene for some reason, presumably something bts

robyn’s doing one of them quiz type things in a magazine and she asks ethan blonde brunette or redhead and he’s like “i would never judge a girl on the colour of her hair” and robyn goes “i am trying to match you up with your perfect film star here!” lmaooo

ash resigning offscreen because ella’s just got out of prison

connie’s like “doesn’t he care about his career?” and rita’s like “not as much as his daughter” oop bit too close to home for connie there

robyn trying to get lofty to answer the questions too

lofty is a naomie harris man apparently. and ethan is a meryl streep man😮‍💨 good taste

two bisexual men discussing what a magazine says their taste in women is don’t you just love to see it😎

“you’re laughing at me. don’t laugh at me that’s not very nice” sjskdkfk🥺🥺

lmaoo cal offering to book ethan a holiday in magaluf and ethan’s like “why would you do that for me?” and cal’s like “beeecause i love you, dear brother” and ethan just laughs and goes “because you want the flat to yourself for a week?” I LOVE THEM SO MUCH😭😭😭

robyn buying a patient and her family sandwiches with her own money because she overheard them talking about how they were struggling to afford food🥺

lmaoo zoe asking ethan “i hear you’re going on holiday?” and he’s like “yes, magaluf!” and zoe looks confused and goes “interesting choice” sksdjfk

ethan commenting on his patient getting a voluntary hysterectomy at only 27 nooo where’s that feminism from the start gone???? it’s okay he doesn’t say anything bad lol he just thinks it’s a bit extreme and is like “contraception?” don’t worry bestie you’ll experience first hand how contraception isn’t always enough and ik some of your problems could’ve been solved if you’d had a vasectomy when you found out you had a genetic condition you didn’t want to pass on💀

lily saying food banks “encourage dependency” 🤨

rita and lofty talking about ethan’s holiday “ethan? magaluf?” “the man’s gonna get eaten alive” SJSKDKFK

robyn organising setting up a good bank in the hospital🥺

connie still putting her job before grace🫣

[jeramewrites2]

Current Reading, pg 52.

There has been a fair amount going on for the last few weeks in the news and everywhere for everyone. For me personally I finished a semester at Texas Tech as a distance learner and didn't really enjoy my classes. I took the intro to Women's and Gender Studies class as well as a Logic class.

The intro class was fine but had a little too much white feminism for me. There was a fair amount on trying not to center the white voice in liberation spaces but it was still coming from a very colonized mindset. I think it is a good intro class but I learned more about me and myself by the gender study class that I took at ASU. That had nothing to do with the class and 100% to do with the book we read. (Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions) That is a book that I would recommend to any cis person looking to understand the history and how gender is A) a social construct and B) how we don't always see how that informs out thoughts and feelings and personalities.

The Logic class I can't really give anyone any crap about that. I was talking to my advisor and I needed one more math credit and she suggested a philosophy class LOGIC. I figured ok I have enjoyed philosophy classes in the past and I don't really get how that counts as a math class but whatever sounds good. (I was not aware of the mathematical concept of logic. Obviously.) So I gotta say that one is on me. I probably should have investigated a little further into what I was getting into.

My brain was melting pretty much the whole time. The professor is a hard ass and did not accept late work and was just mostly stringent about work. There was very little extra credit and there was the possibility for help but they where office hours that you could go to but as a distance learner that works full time it was hard for me to zoom into those times. Again that one is on me and not his fault. Ultimately he graded the class on a pretty stiff curve. I do not think that I did A- work but that is the grade that I received.

After classes where over I was ready to get back into reading. If you have looked I have shared the two "reviews" for the two books I have read so far. One was The Poppy War and the other Confessions. I am a slow reader and at one point in my life my teachers thought that I might be dyslexic. I guess at some point I might actually want to get a true diagnosis but at 41 years is there a reason for that? The more I read the faster I get and my comprehension continues to improve as well as my spelling.

I picked up this Connie Willis novel because I REALLY enjoyed Doomsday Book and wanted to continue in that world. I didn't expect the comedic aspect of this new one. I have read Hitchhiker's and am a Terry Pratchett fan but I am having a hard time getting into this one. I am going to keep going and see what I think of it. I am hardly even 10% into the book so I still have a long way to go.

Right now I am making some rye bread and listening to a playlist of music from my library that I have 0 plays for. This playlist is a full day long so I will see if I ever finish this but so far.... it's fine. The albums are all in my library so at some point I was interested in the music but not necessarily drawn to those specific tracks.

I wish you all a happy and healthy Sunday.

As always Thanks for Reading.

[icehockeytennisfilmsandmusic]

get all liquored up and just press print.. shouted mary ann.... im grappling with being patient and kind... in oakville ontario... .... my grandsons did badly this weekend at another clownish double a tourney... nathan is 15 and sucks... is gay and hurting people... a true fairy .... he loves kfc and is going absolutely no where.... how embarassing for patrick and patrick eaves... the gay black couple...

patrick has naivety to him.... and probably thinks tomorrow is the day.. and that he can hit on willie or harry.. "as a joke" in front of soprano sister Bella (connie's princess who is ever so spoiled... and gets to shop until she drops... etc... ).. patrick... is getting older.. 40 is around the corner.. he drives a shitty station wagon... remembers john fondly.... my dad.... he uh.. he is struggling.. to learn that billy may not finance just anyone.. connie angland his wife.. of a million light yrs.. may not have time to pass on ben affleck or matt damon's business cards... go easy on patrick... he likes to think black or white... instead of in the grey area .. many people in the system have read "breaking away" and are jelly... heheheh .... patrick other people that are a list .. and experienced that won't molest you or low ball you are eager to work with you... and sophie.. can you stop calling a withdrawal a drop.. and learn some feminism.. correct your book ... and wish your sister all the best... you only have 1 sister.. shannon has gone full mental ... and has a child .. calling herself isla... blue..... etc.1!they live in a vehicle and the lower middle class credit cards since nana died.. are running out.... "sorry P... didn't get a chance to see your film.. please try harder.. for an emmy.. or something... papa has lost his head... but maybe wayne will give you some money back.,.,.. etc"

LOL open mic night .. if kelley dressed up like patrick and embarassed him

now.. class.. what if we tagged connie and billy bob and humiliated them on tumblr.... "is this a good idea? to post!?>!"

[bookclub4m]

Episode 177 - Book Clubs

This episode we’re talking about the concept of mass promotional book clubs! Whether it’s One City, One Read, Canada Reads, or Oprah’s book club, listen to us discuss if we read book club books, the celebrity book club we wish existed, and the idea of “the book club book.”

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jam Edwards

Media We Mentioned

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama XIV and Desmond Tutu, translated by Douglas Carlton Abrams

Links, Articles, and Things

Oprah’s Book Club

Oprah's Book Club 2.0

Reese's Book Club

Buffs One Read

Rams Read

Canada Reads

One City One Book

One Book, One Vancouver | Vancouver Public Library | BiblioCommons 

Wanted: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the VPL's Book Choice

#NerdyGirlzBookClub 

Natalie’s Book Club

The Inner Lives of Book Clubs 

35 Recent* Essay Collections by BIPOC Authors

*Published within the last 2 years.

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay by Julian Aguon

Everybody Come Alive: A Memoir in Essays by Marcie Alvis-Walker

Black on Black: On Our Resilience and Brilliance in America by Daniel Black

¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by John Paul Brammer

Unfollow Me: Essays on Complicity by Jill Louise Busby

Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time by Teju Cole

Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden by Camille T. Dungy

Black Nerd Problems by William Evans & Omar Holmon

Crimes of the Tongue: Essays and Stories by Alicia Gaspar De Alba

Inciting Joy by Ross Gay

Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World edited by by Darien Hsu Gee & Carla Crujido

Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation by Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada by Michelle Good 

Brown Neon by Raquel Gutiérrez

My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives by Charlayne Hunter-Gault

You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston

Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service by Tajja Isen

Shelter: A Black Tale of Homeland, Baltimore by Lawrence Jackson

Who Will Pay Reparations On My Soul? by Jesse McCarthy

Carrying It Forward: Essays from Kistahpinanihk by John Brady McDonald

The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging by Samira Mehta

She's Nice Though: Essays on Being Bad at Being Good by Mia Mercado

Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be by Nichole Perkins

The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

You've Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar by Pyae Moe Thet War

Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes by Phoebe Robinson

Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution by Walter Rodney

People Change by Vivek Shraya

Oh My Mother!: A Memoir in Nine Adventures by Connie Wang

White Magic by Elissa Washuta

Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead

Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life by Alice Wong

Making a Scene by Constance Wu

Give us feedback!

Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday,  July 4th we’ll be discussing non-fiction books about UFOs and Aliens!

Then on Tuesday, July 4th we’ll be pitching books for our very own annual One Podcast, One Book!