#i say my ''ideal'' is women but realistically gender just does not play a part in if i like someone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

forestofbeginnings · 3 years

Note

while I do agree with what you’re saying about character’s sexualities needing to be explored rather than being seen as the easy option, having “just a few” LGBTQ+ characters means every LGBTQ+ player is SEVERELY restricted in terms of who they can choose to be with, ESPECIALLY since those few LGBTQ+ characters run the risk of falling into harmful stereotypes to make it “obvious” that they are those characters. it leaves a LOT of room for separation rather than inclusion, for distance between players and characters bc the player may not think the other characters are worth getting to know when those characters arent the “few” LGBTQ+ ones. as much as it is important to have the detailed representation, as a member of the LGBTQ+ myself, I am equally happy with stories going in depth on character’s sexualities as I am with them just being completely normalised. video games are pleasant, peaceful escapes for people, and as much as it would be “realistic” for them to experience some kind of discrimination or self hatred, I personally prefer the idea that in the world of the game, everyone is just fine with it, as they should be. that leaves room for discussion on why the real world ISNT like that already, how we can HELP it become that way by assisting in the normalisation of it, etc. this is in no way a direct argument against you, it’s solely my standpoint on the whole LGBTQ+ marriage options. I just think it should be a fair game to everyone, and no player should feel their options are limited based on their own sexuality and having just a few characters in the game who match that, instead of it being equal for everyone, if that makes sense

That's a very good point, thank you for sending this to add to the conversation! I'll try my best to respond to all the good points you make.

(my reply is very long and under the cut and includes a lot of my Opinions of queer rep in video games so here we go)

I know you're probably talking about Fire Emblem when you're talking about the severely limited LGBT+ options. And it does suck, I'm pretty lucky that I fell hard for one of the few bisexual offerings in FE3H (looks fondly at Mercedes). But on the other hand...my primary experience with LGBT+ rep are Bioware games, where everyone has their own distinct identity. In Dragon Age Inquisition, out of the romance options there's 1 straight woman, 3 straight males (albeit two are limited to elves/humans), 1 pansexual male, 1 bisexual female, 1 gay male, and 1 lesbian. And most of the writing does not focus on their identities. In a majority of the romances, the most you get is a "sorry, not interested" from a character if you're not what they're into. The only route with clear focus on sexuality is for the gay man, which is fantastically written (and is written by a gay man about his personal experiences so take that as you will). All of the other LGBT+ characters’ stories don’t focus on their sexuality at all and don’t face discrimination for it.

The game isn't perfect (the writing for the lesbian is bad in the base game, just straight up bad), but it's what I think of when I say "everyone has an identity." No matter who you play, not all options are open to you. Doesn't matter if you're straight or LGBT+, your options are limited. And honestly, despite the more limited options...the impact that games like Fire Emblem and Dragon Age gave me are still things I remember fondly as a bi/ace woman. I loved Mercedes' romance in FE3H because she was specifically bisexual like me. I was absolutely giddy when Josephine's romance (the bi option in DAI) did not include a sex scene, which meant she could be asexual like me. And to me, I don't get as much excitement playing SoS or SDV. The girls like me because I'm the player. That's it. It’s not because they’re bisexual with their own identity, it’s because I’m the player. And it just reminds me of that quote from The Incredibles like "if everyone is super, nobody will be." Everyone is ""bisexual"" and...

I think when you talk about people not being interested in learning about other, non-LGBT+ characters, that's more a flaw in farming sims in general? Because you can't really...befriend a romance option. You can't learn their full story unless you're romancing them. Which, again, isn't a thing in Fire Emblem or Dragon Age. You can A support anyone in FE and it only becomes romantic if you choose to S support them. In Dragon Age, you learn a character's full story and learn about them regardless of romance. I don't think people will be less interested in knowing other characters...it's just if you don't want to romance them...you can't really know them? So why befriend a character if you can’t just be friends?

But I do really want to touch on the point you make on how LGBT+ romance doesn't need to be realistic and can be idealized. I 100% agree. Making it not a big deal and not put under a microscope helps it become normal. It's actually the kind of rep I prefer. I don’t like when huge deals are made about LGBT+ characters because it just accentuates that they’re different and ‘the other,’ rather than just another person that happens to not be heterosexual.

But literally the only romance-based video game I've played where a realistic struggle of an LGBT+ person is focused on is Dragon Age Inquisition. With the gay route I mentioned and touched on with a non-romancable trans man. Sexuality is not really spoken about in FE3H. Some characters are just...bisexual. Nothing more to it. Mercedes certainly doesn't say anything about it. She can just be romanced by both men and women. It is barely spoken about in Dragon Age games aside from character preference and Dorian's romance. In Dragon Age 2, one bisexual romance option mentions his first experience with a man. Another option is hesitant to date a female because of cultural reasons. That's it.

I do get your point. We don't need to include the realities of the world in our video games. But also...we're allowed to still acknowledge sexuality in video games. I joke about my bi/ace-ness all the time. Even in a perfect world of a farming sim...I'm pretty sure a character can make wisecracks about liking both men and women...or only men/women. Being bisexual always means some kind of discovery that you like more than one gender. Has this love interest dated someone of the same or opposite gender before? Will they tell me off-hand that I'm the first girl they dated? Will they express interest in a character of the opposite gender but can be romanced by a same-sex player? Representation doesn't need to be a sanitized thing completely removed from reality. Even in a completely perfect world where there is no such thing as discrimination against the LGBT+ community, we’re still allowed to speak about our sexualities. It’s a part of who we are.

When I say I want specific representation, I don't want a realistic depiction of the current-day struggles our community faces. I just want a character to say something that makes me know that they're like me. That they're specifically bisexual or specifically pansexual or so on. That they have their own preferences and are their own character and aren't blindly into me because I'm the player.

I do get why you want representation to be equal across the board. It is the easy option and a simple thing to do. But I want quality over quantity. I don’t want a character to marry me because I’m the player. I want a character to marry me because they’re bisexual or pansexual or a lesbian or asexual with romantic preferences or so on and so forth. And the reason why I’m so passionate about this and want farming sims to go towards this direction is because I’ve seen it done in other genres! It can work!

Inclusion of LGBT+ romance options does not have to be at the sacrifice of the identities of bisexual and pansexual individuals. And now I get off my soap box and drink some water because I just got my 2nd COVID vaccination.

#the curator speaks #warning: this is long but i did want to hit all your points!#and i do see your point and they are valid #but i really enjoyed your ask and even if you still disagree that's fine!

29 notes · View notes

hiriajuu-suffering · 3 years

Text

Reasons I believe in Polyamory

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not attractive enough to be able to have more than a single partner at once, but there is a reason for that, and really, the thesis of this wall of text below: heteronormative relationship standards in every culture have always been, and will continue to always be, more about possession than love in a post-imperialistic world.

Personally, I’m a huge proponent of engendered sexuality variance to the tone of males have a constant slow drip of libido and a female’s sex drive hits them like a freight train once a month (in mammalian bioepigenetics, this makes sense). I’m inclined to infer, because I’m not idyllically normatively attractive, only a fraction of a percentage of women will be attracted to me 24-27 days of any given month. As a cisgendered man who is regrettably straight, having the least attractive genoethnic identity intersection (South Asian Muslim) in Western culture, I’m never actually presented with the choices to act on a poly mindset (in fact, I would be ridiculed for it because people think it aligns with some other gross tribal stereotype when it couldn’t be further from the truth). In retrospect, I have everything to gain from interpreting the main benefit of an intimate relationship as ownership like heteronormative culture generally does yet I still think disavowing poly as a legitimate personal choice is immoral.

I know saying monogamous relationships are more about possession than love will offend lots of people, so before you throw hate at me for your emotionally defensive skepticism, hear me out. An unflinching, unyielding love is seen as the highest parameter in any type of romance. So why is it cheating is so much of a bigger problem than a dry spell specifically? Is it because it’s legitimately a breach of trust, or is it more about “if I can’t have you, no one can”? More importantly, does it go a step further and say “if I don’t want you, no one should”? To me, any sort of dry spell (whether physically, emotionally, mentally) signifies a much larger breach of trust than simply having been shared because it shows said commitment in the relationship was not unflinching, not unyielding. The monogamous lens looks at others like: I want to have the best partner, not just so that I’m happy, but no one else can receive the specific happiness I get. Doesn’t that whole mindset come off as brutish? Just me? Well, maybe your pitchforks will start coming down when you realize monogamy is a function of toxic patriarchy on both feminine and masculine ends.

There are bioevolutionary reasons for toxic femininity to value the possession aspect of a relationship over its substantive “quality of life” components, the birth-giving gender in any animalistic specie always had to be beheld to a provider they reproduce with. Does it not then represent a sense of feminine fragility when a single mother immediately demands a long-term relationship and nothing else? If I’m to believe said woman is capable of genuine lust in her system, having a child shouldn’t evaporate all carnal desires completely and, therefore, should leave room for compromise. Said stance also indicates she made some sort of error in judgment of her chosen reproductive mate and feels entitled another man ought remedy her strife even though, evolutionarily speaking, he has nothing to gain from helping to rear offspring not of his kin. Harsh, to be sure, but it does show in the obnoxiousness of the connotation of becoming a stepdad being a positive one and becoming a stepmom assumes the motivation of some gain in status (wealth, fame, power, etc.) which I would argue is negative. Where does toxic masculinity come into play? Desire for possession on the part of a male promotes the viability and exclusivity of his own children with his most desirable partner. While that’s damn near nowhere as compelling, it has to be stated because there are always two benefactors to patriarchy. Patriarchy is not a zero sum game, patriarchy seeks to concentrate all familial social benefits in the monogamously-driven, heteronormative genus, away from those who deviate from the ideal picture of stereotypical gender roles. The ill effects of patriarchal standards exist in every human civilization, but the ontological root to the specific brand of patriarchy that oppresses all genders today was spread by a culture that uniquely preached monogamy.

Polygamy, in a historical sense, was a testament to the more status a person of the provider gender could achieve, the more their genetics would proliferate. Many cultures globally practiced this, the issue is, the ones that didn’t were the ones who, often violently, “conquered” the ones that did. Christian fundamentalism is in every fiber of international morality, whether the nation in question believes in Christianity or not is often irrelevant. Monogamy is enforced, anything outside of that is deemed as necessarily being deviant (whether choosing to be alone or choosing more connections than a monocule). Fetishization of the step relation is eluding to this deviance in a not-so-subtle way because it’s something where its allure is derived from its forbiddenness moreso than its convenience, every one of these scenarios has a subtext of implicit gain, not loss, in engagement. Meaning, the idea is planted because a hot person is there not because a person in general is there and can satiate an urge. Tl;dr - we believe polyamory is a morally negative act because the Holy Roman Empire did and every nation that spawned from it spread, imparted, and coerced that ideal on every culture it came into contact with. Before the Holy Roman Empire, no historical documents made distinctions to behest multiple lovers as desanctifying of life itself, not even the coalescing of nations that made up the Holy Roman Empire before its inception.

We are now in an era when women have access to full reproductive control, yet we still see men lust more than women, e.g. archetypal lesbian tendencies versus archetypal gay male tendencies. Do we not question why this is the case? All lifeforms are hardwired with a desire to survive and reproduce, so why does that drive not reach equity when risk does? There are two answers, and it could even be both: women are only socially conditioned to have sex via patriarchal pressures and don’t have as much inherent desire to reproduce OR sex is a means-to-an-end to exclusively possess a desired provider, whatever said person provides. If said person has a trait valuable enough to want to possess, is it not self-contrived to keep that quality to oneself, not share it with the world where it can provide more utility? Heteronormative relationships, in a sense, are anti-altruistic at their very core. As facetious as this sounds, either of these trains of thought are validated by men being more willing to engage in polyamory than women, not because men are somehow any less loyal than women. On its own, I feel this line of reasoning is enough to justify a vehement disgust of polyamory as immoral, but I want to conclude on the most pivotal facet to this conversation and not just heavily imply monogamy encroachment on moral turpitude is problematic at best.

As I mentioned a few times, I am likely to be a spoke on a polycule, not a member with multiple connections. Exclusive possession is something I probably stand more to gain from than any woman, logically and realistically, given the current social climate and general global beauty standards. My advocacy of polyamory stems from me accepting I may not be enough to be the full extent of happiness my romantic interest desires. That doesn’t even come from a place of insecurity, it comes from a place knowing I could never be perfect even if its pursuit is a righteous cause. I see real insecurity as a fear of loss when the rules of engagement you put into place were exclusivity: you don’t want your partner looking at anyone else because it’s disadvantageous to you, meaning you’re not fixated on their best interest and looking at relationships in said manner is deliberately selfish. To me, the best frame of reference to morality in interpersonal social connections is altruism. Yeah, self-love is important and knowing your own boundaries is beneficial but everyone else’s boundaries don’t have to match yours. I’m not anti-monogamist, really. I’m more anti-polyamorist discontent.

Not having thought this deeply isn’t an excuse, either.

#personal #polyamory #polyamourous #polyandry #polycule #polyam life #polyam relationship #polyamourus pride #polyam tag #polyamorous #polyamoury #polyamorus

16 notes · View notes

ploppythespaceship · 4 years

Text

@imsadidontknow asked me on this post why I referred to the TNG episode “The Outcast” as “a hot mess” (this might have been a while ago but I’m only just seeing the reply now). So I thought I’d take a moment to address it! Because this is an episode that gets brought up a lot and while I vaguely respect it for its efforts, it really did drop the ball. I think the more time passes, the more Trekkies will look back on it with embarrassment.

Side note, some of what I bring up below is from this post written by my friend Eros, shared with permission. They just don’t want their post reblogged, please respect that! Reblog this one if you want.

A recap if you don’t recall the episode! The Enterprise crew is helping a race called the J’naii, who are androgynous -- they have no gender. During their work together, Riker grows closer to one of them, a pilot named Soren, and eventually falls in love. Eventually Soren reveals something very personal: she is actually female, but cannot be open about this in her society. Soren is later found out by her people, and her passionate plea for them to accept J’naii of all genders into their society falls on deaf ears. She is forced into a treatment to “correct” her -- at the end of the episode, it appears that she longer views herself as female, and she no longer has feelings for Riker.

One thing that’s important to remember for this episode is that, despite the story having an apparent focus on gender, it was actually intended as an allegory for homosexuality. By this point in the series, Star Trek was coming under more and more fire for not having any gay characters, which was largely thanks to head producer Rick Berman being a homophobe and a coward. (Renegade Cut has a fantastic video essay on the many ways Berman screwed over the series and its actors here.)

So that’s one point of issue with this episode. Instead of actually including a gay character -- which would have been quite easy to do! -- the writers wrote this episode. An episode that doesn’t even bring up homosexuality. In fact, a line referencing sexual orientation was cut from the final version! Addressing serious issues with allegory is of course a Star Trek staple, but in this instance it’s just frustrating.

There’s also the fact that several people, including Jonathan Frakes, requested that Soren be played by a male actor to strengthen the impact. But Berman refused, on the grounds that “having Riker engaged in passionate kisses with a male actor might have been a little unpalatable to viewers.” Clearly, homophobia was still winning out.

(In fairness that likely would have opened a whole host of other issues, such as two men only being allowed to kiss when they’re portraying a straight couple, but still. The root cause was homophobia and viewing two men kissing as gross. I digress.)

The episode is also troublingly sexist. In one scene, Soren asks Dr. Crusher about the differences between men and women, and if one is better than the other. Crusher replies that in the past women have been considered weaker, but “that hasn’t been true for a long time.” Considering the rampant sexism behind the scenes of TNG, especially directed at Gates McFadden -- look it up, or watch the Renegade Cut video I linked above -- this is a pretty hypocritical statement to make. Star Trek has always looked to a brighter future while stumbling over the same issues in the present day, that’s nothing new, but it’s still upsetting.

Worf is also displayed as a raging sexist during a poker game, which makes absolutely no sense. Klingons certainly believe in rigid gender roles, as we’ve seen in other episodes, but Worf has also displayed an appreciation for strong women over and over again, and he clearly respects the women around him. Making him super sexist for this one scene to make a point? Not a fan.

When considering the episode as a parallel to homosexuality, it does work a little bit better. I will grant that. Soren’s final passionate speech in particular makes more sense and feels less cringey. However, the episode is ultimately based around gender, and that’s not something to just shrug off because the writers didn’t intend it that way.

So how did Star Trek handle a genderless race with a transgender character in 1992?

Ehhhhhhh.

First, there’s the J’naii themselves. All are played by female actresses, which has received criticism from many, including Frakes as mentioned above. The ideal would be having them played by actual non-binary actors, but I grant this would have been near impossible to pull off in 1992. The next best thing would to cast a mixture of men and women in the roles. But instead, we have all women.

Also, pronouns! The episode spends its full runtime dancing around not having pronouns for the J’naii, and it’s honestly painful to watch. Riker says there is no genderless pronoun in his language. But singular they/them pronouns have been around for a long time, well before the airing of this episode. The J’naii also explain that they have their own pronouns in their language -- if there is no proper translation, why not simply borrow the pronoun from their language? I grant that would probably be a lot to juggle in an already tight script, especially with viewers unused to non-traditional pronouns, but it could have been an excellent teaching moment. Instead, we get to watch everyone carefully construct sentences to not include any pronouns at all.

Riker (and the rest of the crew) is also pretty distinctly uncomfortable and unused to the idea of someone existing outside of the gender binary. Obviously this is an episode from the early 90s and it’s not going to be perfect, but it’s still disheartening to see people from the future who are supposedly so enlightened, the best of humanity, struggling the instant something challenges their viewpoint. In particular, struggling with an alien who exists outside of the gender binary, when there are humans who exist outside of the gender binary right now.

I’ll just quote my friend here, because they sum it up better than I ever can:

to think that humanity could become so advanced 400 years from now, but my gender still won’t be accepted. and yeah, it’s just a tv show, and yeah, it’s sci fi and none of it is necessarily meant to be a prophecy for the future. but it IS supposed to represent an ideal future. and not having non-binary genders be part of that ideal future hurt then, and it still hurts now.

The episode does show a pretty realistic view of homophobia/transphobia with the J’naii’s lack of acceptance. And the unhappy ending does prompt more thought than a perfect happy ending would -- and importantly, it’s not shown as being a good ending. It’s clear that the viewer is meant to feel sad about what’s happened to Soren.

But consider that for many trans and/or non-binary people, this is essentially the only representation they have on Star Trek. Someone who is outed against her will and forced to conform, to return to a society that doesn’t accept her for who she is. And then she’s never brought up again. It’s frankly pretty upsetting.

As an aside, I think The Orville has honestly handled a similar concept much better. The episode “About A Girl” deals with parents in an all-male race having a daughter, and debating whether to have her surgically altered to conform or to let her decide for herself when she is old enough. The ending is similar, with the decision forced upon the child -- their daughter is now their son. However, this is not the only time the issue is brought up. The son is a recurring character, and the parents discuss what’s been done to him. It has a lasting impact on their relationship. It’s not perfect, but it’s leagues ahead of anything TNG did.

There are also more episodes dealing with the same issues, showing women of that race who did not have this forced upon them. It’s treated as a more serious plot arc, instead of a strange thought experiment for a single episode. There’s also a scene where the men come to find the women in hiding and the women kick their asses while Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” plays in the background, please watch The Orville please pleASE

But back to Star Trek! The episode also has the unfortunate implication of portraying the genderless race as entirely villains. Again, there’s nothing automatically wrong with this, as it fits the allegory quite well. But when that’s the only example of such a race in Star Trek to date, when the only non-binary representation is a group of bigots... that’s not great.

And that’s a long list of reasons why “The Outcast” is a hot mess. There are some other criticisms as well, such as the romance between Riker and Soren feeling quite forced and rushed, but those honestly pale in comparison to everything else. I love Star Trek, I love TNG, but this episode just... does not work.

#personal #star trek #the next generation #the outcast #honestly i get scared of talking about this episode sometimes cause there's just... so much to unpack #hopefully i did it justice #transphobia /#homophobia /#sexism /

12 notes · View notes

serenagaywaterford · 5 years

Note

What is tender culture????

tender culture is all this cottagecore, domesticity, uwu crap that is particularly prevalent in lesbian/wlw circles. like i’m all for fluff and thinking positively but tender culture seems to reduce loving women to a set of stereotypical “feminine” soft and gentle traits. like here’s an example:

“we are in a toasty log cabin in the woods. it’s cold and we snuggle under this homemade quilt with our cat and quietly sip hot chocolate as the snowflakes gently fall against the reddening leaves outside. but we’re safe and warm and loved.”

it’s that sort of shit.

like i said, it’s not bad. it’s just that it’s EVERYWHERE. hell, i follow that lesbian domesticity blog myself tbh (altho i does grate on my nerves that it’s constantly about tender culture and never about sex. and really it is nothing like my relationship with my wife but hey. it’s about her and her wife, not universal experiences. her blog her rules). tender culture as a whole seems to idealise relationships (cos i’m sure it exists in bi and het circles too) as these sweet, cutesy, soft things that are always perfect and everyone is just gentle and calm and utterly loving all the time.

and there’s never any fucking. there’s never any indication that women are sexual beings and sex is an integral part of relationships. (don’t anybody fight me on this. it’s true and you know it.) there’s never any indication that people argue, or tease, or fight, or get turned on. hell, most of the time there’s never even any indication that people PLAY and joke even. it’s ALL like “uwu i barely touch your hand and feel the stars align and we are soft and perfect and fall asleep in your arms.” BARF.

i think, tbh, that’s the issue i have with it being SO prevalent in lesbian online culture. we’ve been told FOREVER that lesbian sex either doesn’t exist, isn’t real sex, is gross, doesn’t really count OR alternately is this fetishistic OTT porn thing for men to jerk off to. we’ve been taught to be ashamed and keep our SEXUALITY to ourselves. the tender culture thing makes being lesbian palatable to the masses because it’s so non-threatening.

and to separate it from lesbian culture specifically, we AS WOMEN have been taught since birth to shut up about sex. we’ve been shamed into silence about female masturbation and female arousal and female orgasm and female desire. like so many of us grow up without learning about our own bodies. a woman knowing her own body is a threat. a woman seeking her own pleasure is a threat. basically a woman talking about sex is a threat.

and even besides sex, we’ve been socialised to be calm, gentle, nice, accommodating, nurturing, kind, and so so soft. we’re not allowed to be hungry, funny, angry, emotional, mean, have boundaries, be wild and dirty and feral. we’re not allowed to scream and fight unless we’re one of “those” type of women as if all women don’t want to just fucking scream sometimes.

sometimes women just need to get themselves off too. i just find it very… dangerous to ONLY see that non-threatening tender side of things because it upholds patriarchal behavioural gender norms to such a crazy degree.

so all this “tender culture” crap that basically denies this side of female existence by its silence bothers me. which is why i like to reblog posts critical about tender culture sometimes, alongside tender culture posts which i do like also. we need reminders that there is NOTHING wrong with masturbation, sexual arousal, sexual pleasure, fucking (not just ~making love~), and being a woman while doing it. there’s nothing weird or wrong about being angry and upset and playful and horny and wild. i would just really like to see more content like that.

there is an argument that women/lesbians have been so overly sexualised by men that it’s a direct response to that pure sexual objectification. like, hey, women have feelings and care, and especially lesbians are romantic and loving too. not just sex objects shoving dildos in each other while wearing high heels. i can see some validity in that reaction. but to me, there is just too much and it starts to seem like that ALL lesbians want is hand holding and a pretty garden and cats in some idyllic cottage somewhere. it seems to have flipped too far the other way into a cliched “perfect woman” under patriarchy non-threat stereotype.

i also recognise that the moment a woman starts talking about sex, especially lesbians, it easily gets co-opted and appropriated by perverts and fetishists and pornsick men (and women). it’s hard to just talk about our experiences without it being viewed a specific way by outsiders. it’s either hyper-sexualised or hypo-sexualised by someone else. there is always gonna be some sick fuck with his dick in his hand ready to go or some conservative prick screaming bloody murder about morals as soon as we try to discuss our own experiences. but i don’t think that means we should shut up about everything sexual or dirty or “nasty” about our reality as women out of fear of these scrotal cumsacks.

it’s all about balance, really.

and being willing to get up and yell: GET OUT. THIS ISN’T FOR YOU. when you see them infiltrate something for us. you see a man make a lewd comment, call him out. make him uncomfortable. take back what we have from them.

like i said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with tender culture. i just think it needs to be balanced with actual reality. there’s nothing wrong with romantic daydreams and just wanting someone to love you gently, and to cherish you and your relationship. and especially when the world is so insane, it’s fine to want something calm and gentle. but real relationships are not JUST that one thing. and i think tender culture gives a false sense of reality as to what normal adult relationships are like. i’ve been told here on my blog that even talking about sex with my wife is TMI (it’s not), talking about masturbation is TMI (it’s not), and even worse that me arguing with my wife and getting pissed off at her is something to be so terrified of (it’s not) that i should “get somewhere safe”. no. i should work it out and communicate. not run away every time things aren’t fluffy and calm and tender. that’s so unhealthy. and that’s what i feel being inundated with tender culture does. it gives a warped idea about what a healthy relationship is.

like no. tender culture denies this not so nice reality of human relationships, especially when you live together. like yes, of course we have the beautiful, romantic, tender side too. but people argue. people can fucking hate each other sometimes when they’re stressed out or frustrated and it comes out in arguments. and there is a scale. there’s a point when it becomes unhealthy and toxic but i think it’s equally unhealthy to never argue and force yourself to push any feelings you have down in order to maintain some idealized genteel version of a relationship that you’ve been bombarded with online as what you SHOULD have.

and this goes for joking around and playfulness too. sometimes when i joke with my wife and call her a bitch or she says “rude” things to me, people are like “OH MY GOD!” but… i mean, that’s just us? it’s joking. (we sometimes do it purposely in front of people to laugh at their reactions cos we are both assholes.) we play with each other a lot. she’s an incessant tease. she calls me an idiot. i literally tell her i’m gonna punch her in the face when she’s teasing me. do i mean it? of course not. we roughhouse and wrestle and playfight even (not sexually jsyk. just simply playing which is SO LOST in this society. we don’t do any bdsm bullshit). it’s a type of physical expression that doesn’t hurt anybody and requires a certain level of connection and trust too. the fact i can tackle her onto the sofa and she squeals and grapples me back is HEALTHY. adults can play too. it’s like that post i made a while back when i talked about how my wife shoved her fingers in me when i was bending over unaware and laughed about it ...and was told it was TMI. like um ...we are physically intimate and playful and it’s not a BAD THING. and i’ll share it cos honestly? if you don’t have that level of intimacy and trust and fun, i personally think there may be something wrong. (if it crosses personal boundaries for you, that’s something else. but she knows it doesn’t bother me.) on my blog i will talk about my relationship with my wife in ALL its glory, bad, good, fun, horny, loving cos it is a fully-rounded relationship and adults don’t experience just one thing.

i fucking love sex with women and i was denied it for so long i’m not about to shut up about it now. i love fucking and the female body in all its wet, messy, soft, beautiful glory. i love being in love finally and properly and i won’t shut up about that either. i won’t be shamed to be quiet about my body or my sex life or my relationship that ISN’T perfect. (like i’m literally going to kill her if says to me one more time that 80s music is the best music lmao like she’s gonna kill me if i leave one more dirty bowl beside the sofa for the stupid idiot dogs to get at).

to some people, i guess reality doesn’t matter. they only want the daydreams and fantasies, or they only live in a soft cloud world. that’s up to them. maybe that’s what they need in their lives. and that is fine. for a while but it isn’t real life and it’s not what you should strive for. it SHOULD be part of what you strive for however. you should have someone who cherishes you and cares and loves and respects.

i just don’t think tender culture should be as overwhelming as it is. it sets standards that i don’t think are realistic. let’s talk about sex or arguing or any range of human relationship issues too. don’t get rid of tender culture, at all. keep it. cherish it. let it give you hope and positivity and ease loneliness and isolation. healthy, loving, respectful fantasies are important af. but don’t act like a puritanical dunce when a woman talks about sex or hunger or anger as well.

i mean i’m not asking for sexually explicit content and i’d never go into intense detail about my own life (that’s what fanfic is for lmao) but a little recognition that women aren’t just domestic soft cliches. that’s all.

i don’t see any of that in tender culture. it’s all soft uwu feathery kisses and soothing fingers brushing along a forearm. blah… sometimes you need to get fucked. sometimes you need to laugh. sometimes even you need to argue.

wow ok

sorry anon

you asked me what tender culture was and i went off on a rant about why i hate it lol. i’m sorry. you asked such a simple question and i word vommed all over it.

#Anonymous #long post #i am telling you i have had way too much caffeine already today

28 notes · View notes

junoquxxn1 · 5 years

Note

What would you be looking for in a trainer or instructor? Someone online? Local? Does gender matter? Age? Race? What are the trait you find most important? What are your no goes and limits? Would you want someone like a dominant to own you or a coach to guide and encourage you? How would you propose they instruct you? What would they do if you were not able to perform a task?

I’m not sure how to say this without sounding like I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I don’t even know what I’m looking for in an instructor/trainer.

I’m interested in the lifestyle and what I think it can offer, but I think I’m also a lot like clay (as most new subs are). Very moldable and impressionable. I haven’t had any experiences with any real doms (beyond “Tumblr Doms”) or anything like that to know which traits I like and dislike and what works for me.

That being said, I’d like to say I’d enjoy local (and I’m sure I would), but I know myself and think I’d chicken out more likely than if I were online. In-person is something I’d like to shoot for in the future, but that I’m not sure is possible while I’m still feeling out the whole thing. I mean, I often think about how great it would be if I married someone who was interested in a dynamic where we could make it work, but getting there is challenging.

As far as gender, I’m a little more comfortable with women, (but want to eventually marry a man, if that makes sense) but I’m comfortable with men and women.

Ideally, I’d like someone who’s closer to my age (20-25ish), but that isn’t always realistic for this kind of thing. I also prefer Caucasian people, but that’s just personal preference and isn’t a big deal.

The traits I think are most important at the current moment are flexibility and care. A simple check in and “how are you doing today?” can go a really long way. And if either person just isn’t feeling it that day, or isn’t comfortable with whatever is on the table, it’s important to respect that and not push/force it onto them (unless it’s been discussed previously as part of play).

As I said earlier, I’ve found myself to be very impressionable when exploring this whole lifestyle, and I’m very open and willing to try new things and see how they go, especially if a partner is interested in them. However, there are a few things I have hard limits on: scat play/piss play (as in being used as a toilet), anything permanent (tattoos/piercings, etc.), anal stretching, choking, face slapping, knife play, and I have an almost-hard limit on nipple clamps because anything like that I’ve tried with my nipples has been very painful (but you know, maybe I just haven’t used the right clamp). I am sure there will be more as I become more familiar and experienced with things, but these are what come to the top of my head.

In my ideal world, I’d be owned and controlled by a dominant partner, and be mercy to their whims and wishes, though that’s a challenging thing to achieve in an online dynamic.

As far as instructions, If it’s with a local partner, anything goes. If it’s online, I generally prefer written chatting and communication bc I’m a bit self-conscious of myself, and I don’t like to share my face with people on the internet.

I like instructions and being told what to do, I like the idea of reporting back to someone and having someone to give praise for a job well done, or to provide repercussions if a task hasn’t been completed sufficiently.

It’s my favorite when people send me instructions and say “hey I think you should do this,” but I think it would be very fulfilling to be doing it for someone specific, where I’m doing it simply to please them.

If I was not able to perform a task (again depends on whether it’s online/local), but punishments like spankings/painful punishments, humiliating tasks, or being helpless and completely at the partner’s mercy for x amount of hours, all the way to extending my orgasm day, driving me to the brink repeatedly, and any number of things. Imagination is the limit when it comes to punishment (permitted it doesn’t cross a limit).

I realize that much of this sounds uncertain and like I don’t know what I’m looking for, which is true. Because, well. I don’t know.

Most of my experience with “doms” has been unsolicited pictures, demands, and little introduction or care for the person behind the screen. So, I’d like to think that my ideal person is out there somewhere, I’ve just been losing faith that they’re online anywhere.

I think I answered all your questions. But, in short: I don’t really know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#tl;dr i dont really know #but you know #maybe they’re out there somewhere.

6 notes · View notes

cardentist · 5 years

Text

I’ve been chewing on trans discourse here on tumblr for around 8 years now. it’s been a very slow process of learning how to put a words to feelings that I couldn’t understand or that I didn’t know were there how I interactive with and consume this discourse has fundamentally changed over the years, in part because the consumption of that content has fundamentally changed me in that same time

I don’t have eyes on the entire internet, and certainly I don’t have eyes on the trans community as a whole, as it is or as it’s always been, so my perspective is inherently limited. that said, there are some trends that I’ve noticed in the parts that I Have seen, and I think I’m finally putting words to one of them now I will say now though that as a trans man this is reflecting on trans men, because I’m currently speaking on my experiences as a trans man. I’m certain that some of what I’m about to say can apply to other trans people, but I’m speaking from a place where I don’t need to speculate. it’s not my place to speak for trans women or nonbinary people or multi-gender people, but I would more than welcome anyone from those groups to speak up here likewise I’m a white man, no matter how much effort I or any other white person puts into listening to and understanding poc experiences we will never be able to speak from a place of truly Knowing. I greatly encourage poc trans men and poc trans people in general to spread their voices and experiences here if they’d like.

but I think people view trans men as the platonic ideal of what trans men “”“should be””” rather than who they are. when people speak about trans men as a group in a generalization they speak about them as if they’re fully transitioned, fully socialized, fully male presenting in aesthetics, and in a sense totally indistinguishable from cis men. of course people know that fully transitioned trans men don’t just spring out of the ground, but even so they speak as though this is what all trans men Want to become and as if that want or even just the eventuality of Becoming itself inherently erases all that came before

and this has, Several different branching consequences. I mean, speaking realistically there’s potentially as much diversity in how these ideas mingle within our community as there are People in said community, but both my perspective and my time are limited. so to keep this at least somewhat digestible I’m going to be speaking on this from the perspective of masculinity being treated as the inherent ideal that trans men are expected to not only strive for but be measured against and from the perspective of trans men being stripped of their lives as previous or Currently feminine people to be painted as outside of femininity itself and outside of the reach of misogyny.

it would be foolish to suggest or even imply that the enforcement of hyper-masculinity as a standard for trans men has nothing to do with misogyny, internalized or otherwise, or the hyper-masculinity of society at large. however, I think tumblr culture has found a way to re-brand this toxicity, as tumblr does, and specifically peddle it in discourse and activist spaces.

particularly you see this in the backlash against gnc trans men, trans men who can’t or don’t want to bind, and of course in the backlash against trans men without dysphoria. not all of these are inherently tied to the idea of masculinity, but even so you see it in the way that the general groups of people talk about and depict trans men that they feel don’t perform masculinity correctly.

caricatures of “real” vs “fake” trans people, a line that superficially is only supposed to be drawn at having or not having dysphoria, consistently depict “”fake”” trans people, those with dysphoria, as aggressively feminine, as curvy, as not binding, as wearing make up and heels, and more often than not as hyper sexual in a way that specifically speaks to how women are coerced into presenting for men.

the message is clear, trans men who don’t replicate masculinity purely enough aren’t real trans men, Especially if they do so by choice. to present outside of the platonic ideal of what a trans man should be is to forfeit your place as a trans man I shouldn’t have to explain why this is harmful, I shouldn’t and yet I do.

the enforcement of masculinity or femininity is inherently violent. if your presentation isn’t a choice then it is a limitation, a confinement. if a trans man looks inside of himself and sees that there are parts of femininity that he likes, not because he was expected or forced to like it but because it’s something that he enjoys, then it’s no one’s place to tell him that he shouldn’t engage with it. forcing someone to lose a part of themselves just so they have the Right to be respected as a human being is a violent act.

and outside of that, there are people who just aren’t where they want to be yet and who may never be. someone may be pre t because they’re young, because they’re poor, because they’re not safe where they are, or because they medically cannot be. there are people who are forced out of presenting masculinely or outright forced into performing femininely don’t need to have their features plastered on a meme painting them as “fake trans.” they don’t need to be told that who they are isn’t good enough for the cis Or the trans community. and they sure as shit don’t need scumbags here on tumblr dot com coming directly to them to harass them.

whether through necessity, situation, or genuine want there are always going to be feminine trans men. reinventing and rebranding toxic masculinity to try to cut other trans people out of their community won’t make you feel better and it won’t make the transphobia trans people face go away

stepping away from denying trans men the choice of feminine presentation, we have the denial of femininity as a whole in relation to trans men.

this is something that I’ve noticed for a very long time, far longer than that the resurgence of trumeds and far longer than I myself have identified as a trans man, and it honestly played a role in creating the self doubt that delayed my own growth and understanding of myself.

at it’s worst, from what I’ve seen, this is a rebranding and refocusing of the transmisogynistic “predatory man” trope that views men as invaders of women’s spaces, as leeches vying for resources and spaces that they don’t deserve. and certainly I don’t doubt that this came from the influence of terfs in feminist spaces, even people who understand that terfs are wrong are still influenced by their talking points and ideas, particularly those presented without being Overt. laden with “concern for the safety of women” and who gleefully take advantage of genuine and deserved outrage of toxic masculinity to insist that all men are inherently violent and evil and deserve to be hurt, and if internally you two happen to disagree with who exactly counts as male then only one of you knows it. and another one of those ideas has been portraying trans men as misogynistic women betraying their sex because they’re desperate for a slice of male privilege they can rub in the face of other women

bucking this influence, even in progressive spaces, in with people who really do know better, is a process. because the language is everywhere, terfs and people influenced by them are constantly evolving, constantly finding new ways to make their ideas palatable. and people consume their ideas may still integrate them into their own worldview even as they fundamentally disagree with terfs as an ideology. even people who are making an active effort to improve this regard will take time doing so, will miss the ways it’s influenced them subconsciously.

a few years back I’d see this manifest itself more overtly. such as posts promoting solidarity between cis and trans women that Also just so happened to go on a tangent about trans men being Male Invaders in women’s spaces such as women’s homeless and crises centers.

it’s typically less severe nowadays, though that in itself is both a sign of progress and problematic to making progress. on some level the lessening of the severity is a sign of growing awareness of terfs and, if not informed understanding of what makes them awful at least a surface level awareness of that fact. however, intentionally softening your ideals to make it more palatable is on vogue with extremists nowadays. a skinhead with a swastika tattoo isn’t going to get as far as someone “concerned about the safety of our borders” in a crisp suit, but ultimately they believe and want the same thing

this is obviously an incredibly complex and active issue, and I’d be Incredibly ridiculous and just outright dishonest to suggest that trans men are the only target here, but for the sake of this post and my sanity I will be focusing on generally one specific issue from the perspective that I have to offer. again, I highly encourage further conversation on this topic if you have it.

generally speaking, this can be boiled down to “trans men are men, men are privilege, privilege is bad” none of these ideas are inherently malicious, but together they’re the cursed lovechild of the radical feminist idea of trans women being violent, selfish, aggressors and the idea that trans people genuinely are the gender they identify as. it’s a bucking of terf beliefs because they’re wrong about who is and is not a man, not because their beliefs themselves are wrong.

in service of this, trans men are stripped of their femininity and seemingly stripped of their past as being treated as women. they are the platonic ideal of what trans men are supposed to be, indistinguishable from cis men even if they’re still acknowledged as being “not as bad as” cis men

this is problematic and in some situations violent even if it is true, but we have to remember that it isn’t. even under the assumption that every single trans man in the world holds the goal of becoming indistinguishable from cis men and will eventually achieve that, every single trans man has been affected by misogyny. they have been raised with the expectation that they will identify as women. they have lived their lives up until a certain point being treated exclusively as a woman. and indeed there will always be people who see them as women

even for a trans man who fully and completely embraces their masculinity, healthily or otherwise, being forcibly parted with any part of their femininity is being asked to forget or ignore their own lived experiences

trans men who can live up to the “platonic ideal” of what trans men are supposed to be are the minority, but every single trans man has been treated as a woman

and again, for many people they live actively as trans men without transitioning, whether that be temporary or for their entire lives.

you can argue that trans men experience misogyny separately from their identity, as many people do, that it’s “misdirected misogyny” which while to a degree that may be true that can only matter so much when what you’re asking people to do is separate who they are from their lived experiences

I didn’t identify as a trans man when I was assaulted, but I am a trans man I was assaulted and those two things have both shaped who I am and my feelings on one inherently impacts my feelings on the other. it may have been “misdirected” but they’re inescapably connected in my life. because I’m not a conversation, or a statistic, or a compilation of discourses vaguely shambling in the shape of a man, I’m a person

and even still, there are people who know I am a trans man, who even make an effort to respect that, who are still misogynistic towards me. and even more still who are misogynistic towards me Because I’m a trans man

trans men have a better ability to pass in some cases yes and trans men are generally less well known, but the ability to hide is not itself a privilege, it’s fear. it’s repressing a part of yourself knowing that if you slip up in front of the wrong person at the wrong time that could mean the end. it could mean violence, it could mean discrimination, it could mean death

trans men are denied this fact, sometimes incidentally sometimes intentionally they’re denied language specific language to express this because Trans Men Are Men, And Men Aren’t Oppressed For Being Men.

ultimately, trans men and trans women both face an intersection of transphobia and misogyny, with our oppression being Different but Intertwined denying or ignoring one means limiting our understanding of the other and vice versa

there are trans men who hurt trans women and there are trans women who hurt trans men but we as a community need solidarity not just because it’s mutually beneficial but because our experiences are closer than some want to make them out to be

taking radfem rhetoric and pointing it somewhere else will never be the answer, and it’s Certainly not going to help keep transwomen safe

#anti trumed #transphobia #discourse #trans discourse #trans men #long post #I don't know man #this all just happened

14 notes · View notes

scifrey · 5 years

Video

youtube

In February of 2017 I had the great pleasure of addressing the Grant MacEwan University English Department with a keynote speech titled “Your Voice is Valid.”

This speech was all about Mary Sues, fandom, and marginalized voices, and is a direct response to the negative reactions that media texts receive when they announce a protagonist that is deemed to be a "Mary Sue".

In the intervening years I think the message of my talk has become even more vital to creators, so I thought I’d record a new video of the speech to share with a wider audience.

If you liked this video, you can find more of my writing advice on my website.

Read the full speech on Wattpad, or below:

(Text may not match the video exactly as I did alter some of the phrasing.)

My friends, I have a declaration to make. A promise. A vow, if you will. And it is this:

If I hear one more basement-dwelling troll call the lead female protagonist of a genre film a ‘Mary Sue’ one more time, I’m going to scream.

I’m sure you’ve all seen this all before. A major science fiction, fantasy, video game, novel, or comic franchise or publisher announces a new title. Said new title features a lead protagonist who is female, or a person of color, or is not able-bodied, or is non-neurotypical, or is LGBTQA+.

It might be the new Iron Man or Spider-man, who are both young black teenagers in the comics now, or the Lt. Michael Burnham of Star Trek: Discovery, or the new Ms. Marvel, a Muslim girl. It could be Jyn Erso, the female lead of the latest Star Wars film or Chirrut, her blind companion. It could be the deaf FBI Director Gordon Cole from Twin Peaks or Clint Barton from Fraction and Aja’s Hawkeye graphic novel series. It could be Sara, of Dragon Age fame or Samantha Traynor from Mass Effect, both lesbians, or Dorian also from Dragon Age, who is both a person of color and flamboyantly queer. Maybe it’s Lt. Stamets and Dr. Hugh Culber, played by Anthony Rapp of (best known for his time as Mark in Rent) and Wilson Cruz, both open out gay men playing openly out gay men in a romantic relationship in Star Trek Discovery. It could be Captain Christopher Pike, from both the original Star Trek series and the reboot film, who uses a wheelchair and assistive devices to communicate. Or maybe it’s Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, fights with a prosthetic arm in the comics, or Iron Man, whose suit serves as Tony Stark’s ego-tastic pacemaker.

And generally, the audience cheers at this announcement. Yay for diversity! Yay for representation! Yay for working to make the worlds we consume look more like the world we live in! Yay!

But there’s a certain segment of the fan population that does not celebrate.

I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about.

This certain brand of fan-person gets all up in arms on social media. They whine. They complain. They say that it’s not appropriate to change the gender, race, orientation, or physical abilities of a fictional creation, or just protest their inclusion to begin with. They decry the erosion of creativity in service of neo-liberalism, overreaching political-correctness, and femi-nazis. (Sorry, sorry – the femi-“alt-right”).

It’s not realistic. “Women can’t survive in space,” they say, “It’s just a fact.” (That is a direct quote, by the way.) “Superheroes can’t be black,” they say. “Video game characters shouldn’t have a sexual orientation,” unless – it seems - that sexual orientation is straight and the game serves to support a male gaze ogling at half-dressed pixilated prostitutes.

“And strong female characters have to wear boob armor. It’s just natural,” they say.

These fan persons predict the end of civilization because things are no longer being done the way they’ve always been done. “There’s nothing wrong with the system,” they say. “So don’t you dare change it.”

And to enforce this opinion, to ensure that it’s really, really clear just how much contempt this certain segment of the fan population holds for any lead protagonist that isn’t a white, heterosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical, cismale, they do everything they can to tear down them down.

They do this by calling that character a ‘Mary Sue.’

When fan fiction author Paula Smith first used the term ‘Mary Sue’ in her 1973 story A Trekkie’s Tale, she was making a commentary on the frequent appearance of original characters in Star Trek fan fiction. Now, I’m going to hazard that most of these characters existed as a masturbatory avatar – wanna bone Spock? (And, um, you know, let’s face it who didn’t?) They you write a story where a character representing you gets to bone Spock.

And if they weren’t a sexual fantasy, then they were an adventure fantasy. Wanna be an officer on the Enterprise? Well, it’s the flagship of the Starfleet, so you better be good enough to get there. Chekov was the youngest navigator in Starfleet history, Uhura is the most tonally sensitive officer in linguistics, and Jim Kirk’s genius burned like a magnesium flare – your self-representative character would have to keep up to earn thier place on that bridge. This led to a slew of hyper sexualized, physically idealized, and unrealistically competent author-based characters populating the fan fiction of the time.

But inserting a trumped-up version of yourself into a narrative wasn’t invented in the 1970s. Aeneas was totally Virgil’s Mary Sue in his Iliad knock off. Dante was such a fanboy of the The Bible that he wrote himself into an adventure exploring it. Robin Hood’s merry men and King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table kept growing in number and characteristics with each retelling. Even painters have inserted themselves into commissioned pictures for centuries.

This isn’t new. This is not a recent human impulse.

But what Paula Smith and the Mary Sue-writing fan ficcers didn’t know at the time was that they were crystallizing what it means to be an engaged consumer of media texts, instead of just a passive one. They had isolated and labelled what it means to be so affected by a story, to love it so much that this same love bubbles up out of you and you have to do something about it, either in play, or in art. For example: in pretending to be a ninja turtle on the play ground, or in trying to recreate the perfect version of a star fleet uniform to wear, or in creating art and making comics depicting your favorite moments or further adventures of the characters you love, or writing stories that encompass missing moments from the narratives.

‘Mary Sues’ are, at their center, a celebration of putting oneself and one’s own heart, and one’s own enjoyment of a media text, first.

Before I talk about why this certain segment of the fan population deploys the term ‘Mary Sue’ the way it does, let’s take a closer look at this impulse for participatory play.

Here’s the sixty four thousand dollar question: where do ‘Mary Sues’ come from?

I’d like you take a moment to think back at the sorts of games you enjoyed when you were about seven years old. Think back. Picture yourself outside, playing with your siblings, or the neighbour’s kids or you cousins. What are you doing? Playing ball games, chase games, and probably something with a narrative? Are you Power Rangers? Are you flying to Neverland with Peter Pan? Are you fighting Dementors and Death Eaters at Hogwarts? Are you the newest members of One Direction, are you Jem and the Holograms or the Misfits? Are you running around collecting Pokémon back before running around and collecting Pokémon IRL was a thing?

That, guys, gals and non-binary pals, is where Mary Sues come from. That’s it. It’s as easy as that.

As a child you didn’t know that modern literary tradition pooh-poohs self-analogous characters, or that realism was required for depth of character. All you knew was that you wanted to be a part of that story, right.  If you wanted to be a train with Thomas and Friends, then you were a train. If you wanted to be a magic pony from Equestria, you were a pony. Or, you know, if you were trying to appease two friends at once, then you were a pony-train.

Self-insert in childhood games teach kids the concept of elastic play, and this essential ability to imagine oneself in skins that are not one’s own, and to stretch and reshape narratives is what breeds creativity and storytelling. It shapes compassion.

Now, think of your early stories. As a child we all told and wrote stories about doing what, to us, were mundane everyday things - like getting ice cream with the fictional characters we know and love.

My friend’s three year old tells his father bed time stories about going on walks through Home Hardware with his friends, the anthropomorphized versions of the local taco food truck and the commuter train his dad takes to work every morning. He doesn’t recognize the difference between real and fictional people (or for him, in this case, the stand-ins that are the figures that loom large in his life right now as a three year old obsessed with massive machines). When you ask him to tell you a story, he talks about these fictions as if they’re real. And he does not hesitate to insert himself into the tale. “I did this. I did that. We went there and then had this for lunch.” He is present in all his own stories because, at this age, he understands the world only from his limited personal POV.

As we grow up, we do learn to differentiate between fantasy and reality. But, I posit that we never truly loose that “me too!” mentality. We see something amazing happening on the screen, or on the page, or on a playing field, and we want to be there, a part of it.

So we sort ourselves into Hogwarts Houses. We choose hockey teams to love, and we wear their jerseys.  We buy ball caps from our favorite breweries. We line up for hours to be the first to watch a new release or to buy a certain smartphone. We collect stamps and baseball cards and first editions of Jane Austen and Dan Brown. We want to be a part of it. Our capitalist, consumer society tells us to prove our love with our dollars, and we do it.

And for fan creators, we want to be a part of it so badly that we’re willing to make more of it. Not for profit, but for sheer love. And for the early writers, the newbies, the blossoming beginners, Mary Sues are where they generally start. Because those are the sorts of stories they’ve been telling yourselves for years already.

But as we get older, as we consume more media texts and find more things to adore, we begin to notice a dearth of representation – you’re not pony trains in our minds any more. We have a better idea of what we look like. And we don’t see it. The glorious fantasy diversity of our childhoods is stripped away, narratives are codified by the mainstream media texts we consume, and people stop looking like us.

I’m reminded of a story I read on Tumblr, of a young black author living in Africa – whose name, I’m afraid, I wasn’t able to find when I went back to look for it, so my apologies to her. The story is about the first time she tried to write a fairytale in elementary school. She made her protagonist a little white girl, and when she was asked why she hadn’t chosen to make the protagonist back, this author realized that it hadn’t even occurred to her that she was allowed make her lead black. Even though she was surrounded by people of color, the adventures, and romance, and magic in everything she consumed only happened to the white folks. She did not know she was allowed to make people like her the heroes because she had never seen it.

This is not natural. This is nurture, not nature. This is learned behavior. And this is hegemony.

No child grows up believing they don’t have place in the story. This is something were are taught. And this is something that we are taught by the media texts we consume.

I do want to pause and make a point here. There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with writing a narrative from the heterosexual, able bodied, neurotypical, white cismale POV in and of itself. I think we all have stories that we know and love that feature that particular flavor of protagonist. And people from that community deserve to tell their stories as much as folks from any other community.

The problem comes from a reality where when it’s the only narrative. The default narrative. The factory setting. When people who don’t see themselves reflected in the narrative nonetheless feel obligated to write such stories, instead of their own. When they are told and taught that it is the only story worth telling. ‎

There’s this really great essay by Ika Willis, and it’s called “. And I think it’s the one – one of the most important pieces of writing not only on Mary Sues, but on the dire need for representation in general.

In the essay, Willis talks about Mary Sues – beyond being masturbatory adventure avatars for young people just coming into their own sexuality, or avatars to go on adventures with – but as voice avatars. Mary Sues, when wielded with self-awareness, deliberateness, and precision, can force a wedge into the narrative, crack it open, and provide a space for marginalized identities and voices in a media-text that otherwise silences and ignores them.

This is done one of two ways. First: by jamming in a diverse Mary Sue, and making the characters and the world acknowledge and work with that diversity. Or, second: by co-opting a pre-existing character and overlaying a new identity on them while retaining their essential characterization. For example, by writing a story where Bilbo Baggins is non-binary, but still thinking that adventures are messy, dirty things. Or making Sherlock Holmes deaf, but still perfectly capable of solving all the crimes. Or making James Potter Indian, so that the Dursleys prejudiced against Harry not only for his magic, but also for his skin color. Or making Ariel the mermaid wrestle with severe body dysphoria, or Commander Sheppard suffer from severe PTSD.

I like to call this voice avatar Mary Sue a ‘Meta-Sue’, because when authors have evolved enough in their storytelling abilities to consciously deploy Mary Sues as a deliberate trope, they’re doing so on a self-aware, meta-textual level.

So that is where Mary Sues comes from.

But what is a Mary Sue? How can you point at a character and say, “Yes, that is – definitively – a Mary Sue”.

Mary Sues can generally be characterized as:

-Too perfect, or unrealistically skilled. They shouldn’t be able to do all the things they do, or know all the things they know, as easily as they do or know them. For reasons of the plot expedience, they learn too fast, and are able to perform feats that other characters in their world who have studied or trained longer and harder find difficult. For example, Neo in The Matrix.

-They are the black hole of every plot – every major quest or goal of the pre-existing characters warps to include or be about them; every character wants to befriend them, or romance them, or sleep with them, and every villain wants to possess them, or kill them, or sleep with them. This makes sense, as why write a character into the world if you’re not going to have something very important happen to them? So, for example, like Neo in The Matrix.

-A Mary Sue, because it’s usually written by a neophyte author who’s been taught that characters need flaws, has some sort of melodramatic, angsty tragic back-story that, while on the surface seems to motivate them into action, because of lack of experience in creating a follow-through of emotional motivation, doesn’t actually affect their mental health or ability to trust or be happy or in love. For example, like the emotional arc of Neo in The Matrix.

– A Mary Sue saves the day. This goes back to that impulse to be the center of the story. Like Neo in The Matrix.

-And lastly, Mary Sues come from outside the group. They’re from the ‘real world’, like you and I, or have somehow discovered the hero’s secret identity and must be folded into the team, or are a new recruit, or are a sort of previously undiscovered stand-alone Chosen One. Like, for example, Neo in The Matrix.

Now, as I’ve said, there’s actually nothing inherently wrong with writing a Mary Sue. Neo is a Mary Sue, but The Matrix is still a really engaging and well written film. And simply by virtue of the fact that an individual with ingrained cultural foundations is writing a story, that story is inherently rooted in that writer’s lived life and experiences. As much as a writer may try to either highlight or downplay it, each character and story they create has some of themselves in it. The first impulse of storytelling is to talk about oneself. We write about ourselves, only the more we write, the more skilled we become at disguising the sliver of us-ness in a character, folding it into something different and unique. We, as storytellers, as humans, empathize with protagonists and fictional characters constantly – we love putting our feet into other people’s shoes. It’s how we understand and engage with the world.

And we as writers tap into our own emotions in order to describe them on the page. We take slices of our lives – our experiences, our memories, our friend’s verbal tics or hand gestures, aunt Brenda’s way of making tea, Uncle Rudy’s way having a pipe after dinner, that time Grannie got lost at the zoo – and we weave them together into a golem that we call a character, which comes to life with a bit of literary magic. I mean, allow me to be sparklingly reductionist for a second, but in the most basic sense, every character is a Mary Sue.

It’s just a matter of whether the writer has evolved to the point  in their craft that they’ve learned to animate that golem with the sliver of self-ness hidden deep enough that it is unrecognizable as self-ness, but still recognizable as human-ness.

For years, mainstream western media has featured characters that were primarily heterosexual, able bodied, neurotypical, white cismales. And, regrettably, because of that, this flavor of human is now assumed to be the default for a character. When people from other communities speak up requesting other flavours, for characters for whom the imbedded sliver of humanity remains just as poignant and relatable, but the outer shell is of a different variety, this is when that certain segment of the fan population looses their cool.

That certain segment of the fan population has been telling us for years that if we don’t like what we see on TV or in video games, or in books, or comics, or on the stage, that we should just go make our own stuff. And now we are.

“Make your own stuff,” they say, and then follow it up with: “What’s with all this political correctness gone wild? Uhg. This stuff is all just Mary Sue garbage.”

Well, yes. Of course it is. That’s the point.

But why are they saying it like that?

Because they mean it in a derogatory sense.

They don’t mean it in the way that Paula Smith meant it – a little bit belittling but mostly fun; a bemused celebration of why we love putting ourselves into the stories and worlds we enjoy. They don’t mean it the way that Willis means it – a deliberate and knowing way to shove the previously marginalized into the center. They don’t even mean it the way that I mean it in my own work - as a tool for carefully deconstructing and discussing character and narrative with a character and from within a narrative.

When a certain segment of the fan population talks about ‘Mary Sue’, they mean to weaponize it. To make it a stand-in for the worse thing that a character can be: bland, predictable, and too-perfect. Which, granted, many Mary Sues are. But not all of them. And a character doesn’t have to be a Mary Sue to be done badly, either.

When this certain segment of the fan population says ‘Mary Sue’, they’re trying to shame the creators for deviating from the norm - the white, the heterosexual, the able bodied, the neurotypical, the straight cismale.

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “I don’t believe people like this are interesting enough to be the lead character in a story.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “I don’t think there’s any need to listen to that voice. They’re not interesting enough.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “This character is not what I am used to a.k.a. not like me, and I’m gonna whine about it.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “Even though kids from all over the world, from many different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds have had to grow up learning to identify with characters who don’t look or think like them, identifying with characters who don’t look or think like me is hard and I don’t wanna.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: ”Even though I’ve grown up in a position of privilege and power, and even though publishing and producing diverse stories with diverse casts doesn’t actually cut into the proportionate representation that I receive, and never will, I am nonetheless scared that I’ll never see people like me in media texts ever again.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “Considering my fellow human beings as fellow human beings worthy of having stories about them and their own experiences, in their own voices, is hard and I don’t wanna do it.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “I only want stories about me.”

They call leads ‘Mary Sues’ so people will stop writing them and instead write… well, their version of a ‘Mary Sue.’ The character that is representative of their lived experiences, their power and masturbatory fantasies, their physical appearance, their sexual awakenings, their cultural identity, their voice, their kind of narratives.

Missing, of course, that the point of revisionist and inclusive narratives aren’t to shove out previous incarnations, but to coexist alongside them. It’s not taking away one entrée and offering only another – it’s building a buffet.

Okay, so who actually cares if these trolls call these diverse characters Mary Sues?

Well, unfortunately, because this certain segment of the population have traditionally been the group most listened-to by the mainstream media creators and the big money, their opinions have power. (Never mind that they’re not actually the biggest group of consumers anymore, nor no longer the most vocal.)

So, this is where you come in.

You have the power to take the Mary Sue from the edge of the narrative and into the centre. And you do can do this by normalizing it. Think back to that author who didn’t think little black girls were allowed to be the heroes of fairy tales. Now imagine how much different her inner world, her imagination might have been at the stage when she was first learning to understand her own self-worth, if she had seen faces like hers on the television, in comics, in games, and on the written page every day of her life.

And not just one or two heroes, but a broad spectrum of characters that run the gamut from hero to villain, from fragile to powerful, from straight to gay, and every other kind of intersectional identity.

You have the power to give children the ability to see themselves.

Multi-faceted representation normalizes the marginalized.

And if you have the privilege to be part of the passing member of the mainstream, then weaponize your privilege. Refuse to work with publishers, or websites, or conventions that don’t also support diverse creators. Put diverse characters in your work, and do so thoughtfully and with the input of the people from the community you are portraying. And if you’re given the opportunity to submit or speak at an event, offer to share the microphone.

The first thing I did when actor Burn Gorman got a Twitter account was to Tweet him  my thanks for saving the world in Pacific Rim while on a cane. As someone who isn’t as mobile as the heroes I see in action films - who knows for a fact that when the zombie apocalypse comes I will not be a-able to outrun the monsters – it meant so much to me that his character was not only an integral and vital member of the team who cancelled the apocalypse, but also that not once in the film did someone call him a cripple, or tell him he couldn’t participate because of his disability, or leave him behind.

Diversity matters.

Not because it’s a trendy hashtag, or a way to sell media texts to a locked-down niche market, but because every single human being deserves to be told that they have a voice worth listening to; a life worth celebrating and showcasing in a narrative; a reality worth acknowledging and accepting and protecting; emotions that are worth exploring and validating; intelligence that is worth investing in and listening to; and a capacity to love that is worth adoring.

White, heterosexual, neurotypical, able-bodied cismales are not the only people on the planet who are human.

And you have a right to tell your story your way.

Calling something a ‘Mary Sue’ in order to dismiss it out of hand, as an excuse to hate something before even seeing it, is how the trolls bury your Narrative and your Identity.  We are storytellers, all of us. Every person in this room. Whether your wheel house is in fiction, or academia, or narrative non-fiction, we impart knowledge and offer experience through the written word, through the telling of tales, through leading a reader from one thought to another.

And we none of deserve to be shouted down, talked over, or dismissed. No one can tell you that your story isn’t worth telling. Of course it is. It’s yours.

And don’t let anyone call your characters, or your work, or you a ’Mary Sue’ in the derogatory sense ever again. Or I am going to scream.

#J.M. Frey #Words for Writers #Writing Advice #Writing Community #writer #am writing #voice #how to #writblr #writeblr

3 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 6 years

Photo

108: Project Moon Base

Saying ‘fuck this movie’ doesn’t seem like enough, really. Please take a moment and picture the full Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing it to the tune of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. That should about do it. I’m gonna say ‘fuck’ an awful lot in this review, like even more than I usually do. I really hate this movie.

This was a very moon episode. After a couple of dull and suspenseless episodes of Radar Men from the Moon, we get on to Project Moon Base. In the far future year of 1970, the Enemies of Freedom are working to destroy the UN’s space program. To do this, they kidnap a Dr. Wernher and replace him with a lookalike, who is ordered to go to the atomic-armed space station and destroy it in a suicide mission. He’ll have crew-mates on his rocket, though – and Major Moore and space program legend Colonel Briteis aren’t going to let him complete his mission without a fight.

Wow, space spy capers and secret plots! It sounds so exciting when I write it down! Too bad this movie is actually so dismally fucking cheap and boring. The KGB apparently works out of a nicely decorated living room somewhere, and the Spacom offices aren’t much better. Everything is bare walls, clean tables and desks, and giant clocks on the walls, and none of it resembles a place people actually work in. The actors all look like they’d really prefer to be anywhere else and recite their lines at a fast clip that suggests they’re just trying to get this ordeal over with. Given the characters they were being asked to play, I feel for them.

And then there’s the stuff that’s just fucking surreal, like the skullcaps or propane-tank-headed spacesuits that wouldn’t have been out of place in an episode of Rocky Jones: Space Ranger. Or the fact that the first ‘suspicious’ thing the fake Dr. Wernher does is support the wrong baseball team. Or the annoying reporter whose name is Polly Prattles (I guess to imply that she endlessly ‘parrots’ everything she’s told?) and who dresses like a disco ball!

About the only thing that really earns any points is that the effects people made a commendable effort to be realistic. Stuff like the lunar rocket and the frisbee-shaped space station are intended to look practical rather than future-y, and there’s a discussion of orbital mechanics (though it’s confusing and useless to the plot). Navigation information refers to bright stars like Fomalhaut and Polaris. Microgravity is mentioned and there’s even a pretty neat shot where characters walk on the ceilings with magnetic-soled boots! I’m also impressed that they actually filmed some miniatures for their rocket takeoff scene, instead of using the same stock footage we’ve seen in fifty other films.

That’s only a fraction of the movie, though. The other ninety-eight percent or so I absolutely despise from the very bottom of whatever twisted black abomination remains of my soul, and the reason why is the fucking characters.

The first characters we meet are the villains, although calling them ‘characters’ seems like a stretch. I’m not entirely sure who any of these people are or who they’re working for… I’m gonna keep calling them the KGB for lack of a better descriptor. They’re bland men in bland suits who behave as if destroying the capitalist west is just their day job – the bald bellhop guy may say it’s a twenty-four-hour job, but I bet these guys are out of that hotel room the moment the clock clicks to five pm. Even the guy posing as Dr. Wernher isn’t very interesting. Shouldn’t at least one of these people have some kind of motivation besides getting paid to do this? What happened to revenge, or fanatical loyalty to an ideal, or desperation to protect a family who’ll be killed if you don’t comply?

Weirdly, it’s the fake Dr. Wernher who is the closest thing we’re given to a POV character! We follow him into the hotel to take over from the real scientist, and them learn about the space program in tandem with him. If not for the opening crawl I’d be wondering if we’re supposed to root for this guy.

Our so-called ‘heroes’ have some more personality, but those personalities are the furthest thing from likable. First there’s Major Moore, a big sulky baby whose masculinity is threatened by Briteis outranking him. When he finds out he’s been cut from the mission in her favour he whines, and when he finds out he’s been assigned as her co-pilot he whines more because now he’s got to take orders from her. At the end when they marry, he is promoted to Brigadier General mostly so that he’ll outrank his wife!

Briteis herself is no better – we see a few sides of her and they’re all terrible. She pisses and moans about not wanting to interact with Moore, either, and then engages in passive-aggressive dick-measuring contests with him while the two of them are supposed to be flying a spacecraft and saving the free world. You almost can’t blame him for his jealousy when she takes every possible opportunity to rub things in his face. When things go wrong she manages to land on the moon, but then becomes a breathless damsel in distress, leaving Moore to make all the decisions… and then when they’re saved, she reverts right back to whining.

(Yes, by the way, the non-MST3K edit does show them actually landing, and no, it's not very exciting.)

The General in charge of these two is an ass, as well. He basically guilts Moore into accepting an assignment he doesn’t want, and when Briteis protests it as well, he tells her to shut up and then threatens to spank her. These people are supposed to be members of the military, an organization that is associated with rigid discipline, efficient organization, and a strict chain of command, and yet they display less professionalism than kids at a lemonade stand. Jesus Christ, how about we just let the bad guys take over the world? They at least have some fucking dignity.

The moment we discover Briteis is a woman is supposed to be a big surprise, since the characters have carefully avoided any gendered language so far – this seems to hint that we are looking at a future where equality of the sexes has been achieved, but what we see after that quickly disabuses us of the notion. Not only is Colonel Briteis treated like a misbehaving child in spite of her rank, but we’re told that the only reason women are allowed in the space program is to save weight – though not in the case of Prattles, who is told to her face that she’s too fat to go!

In questioning Briteis about how she pilots the spacecraft, Wernher actually treats her with more respect in her expertise than any other character. Are we sure we’re not rooting for this guy?

Of course the idea of Moore taking Briteis with him to set up the communications relay instead of Wernher never even comes up, despite the fact that she must be infinitely more qualified and much less likely to try to kill him. This whole sequence is weirdly mis-used. We’re expecting Wernher to either try to sabotage things somehow, or for Moore to believe he will do so and a fight to result. I guess it’s more realistic, seeing as how the survival of both men depends on the relay, that they cooperate successfully – but if that were supposed to be the case, then why does Wernher die in a total accident, falling from a rock and cracking his helmet open? It doesn’t resolve anything, it’s just a quick and lazy way of getting rid of the character so we can focus on Moore and Briteis and I don’t wanna focus on them.

Wernher’s death also leaves the audience sitting through the last part of the movie without any idea why we’re still watching this. The villain’s dead, so why isn’t the movie over? Even if we didn’t hate Moore and Briteis, we’ve actually known Wernher for longer and the movie was set up as if his mission and its defeat were the main storyline. If he’d been dealt with in a more satisfying manner, either by changing loyalties, or by being killed or recaptured in a way that felt like a victory, it would be easier to move on with the rest of the story.

The final ‘fuck you’ from this movie’s sexual politics is the revelation at the end that the President of the United States is also a woman. You know what that means? That means the writers thought they really were showing us a gender-equal future! They honestly believe that women in positions of power really will freak out and automatically turn to the men for help when things go wrong. They seriously think that women holding high ranks in the military will be threatened with spankings by their superior officers and that’s completely okay. And then when you watch the movie again, the scene where Briteis tells the General that the President has ordered Polly Prattles be admitted just looks like a bunch of girls ganging up on a boy they don't like.

Quite a bit of effort went into the effects in Project Moon Base and into its idea of the future (note how they predicted cordless phones!), but it was all wasted on bad actors, shitty sets, and a script that feels like a first draft. Nothing in the film comes across as properly concluded – not the space mission, not Wernher, and certainly not the love story between Moore and Briteis. Fuck this movie. Fuck, fuck, fuck this fucking movie. Fuck everyone who made it, fuck MST3K for bringing it to my attention, and fuck me for watching it again! Fuck.

#mst3k #reviews #project moonbase #fuck this movie #50s

41 notes · View notes

seonghwa-things · 5 years

Text

Gender Misrepresentation: The Importance of Being Earnest and A Life of Galileo

Male, female, nonbinary, agender, etc. are all different classification of gender today. For the sake of clarity, this essay will only discuss the misrepresentation of binary genders (male and female). It is important to show that media can change how society views gender and their accompanying stereotypes. Consumers should be aware of the fact that there are more to these genders than just the limited view that they are seeing within media. There is a lack of conversation about the misrepresentation of gender in A Life of Galileo, so this essay intends to elaborate on those facts, in comparison to misrepresentation arguments of The Importance of Being Earnest and those seen in everyday media. Although for significantly different reasons, gender binaries are misrepresented in both The Importance of Being Earnest and A Life of Galileo.

Females are generalized, limited and misrepresented in both Galileo and Earnest. In A Life of Galileo, women are treated as lesser, or seen as overly strict. In scene three, Virginia, Galileo’s daughter, asks to look through his telescope; she shows an interest in her father’s work, only to be brushed aside by harsh words: “Why? It’s not a toy” (Brecht 23). It is implied that Galileo would be more likely to show her, had she been a boy instead. Throughout the show, Galileo takes the time to teach Andrea, who is portrayed as the son he never had. The show opens with a parental interaction between Galileo and Andrea, while Virginia is first introduced as a pretty face to present the telescope to the public. Unfortunately, the idea of women being lesser is something not limited to plays written in the 1930s, and is often shown in modern media as well - especially in commercials. Many commercials will stereotype genders; males are typically seen as the breadwinners, while women are often portrayed as homemakers. Research done in 2014, by the Journal of Marketing Management says that “family related advertising in women’s magazines does little to challenge traditional roles of paternal masculinity” (Grau and Yorgos 765). Unfortunately, Galileo treats Virginia the way he does because she is a woman - she should not take part in work related business. Comments like “See to the geese, Virginia,” when Virginia was interested in his and Andrea’s work only emphasizes the fact that Virginia is indeed seen as only a homemaker (Brecht 74). Telling Virginia to attend to the geese was a subtle way of saying “get back in the kitchen”, a joke made far too often - both verbally and on the internet (Drakett et. al. 120). Mrs. Sarti, however, pushes against that stereotype. While doing so, she manages to fall into another - she is strict. In scene one, Sarti shows that she is against Galileo teaching her son, making comments like “What are you doing to my boy…?” and “You should be ashamed…” (Brecht 7). As stated in Grau and Yorgos’s research earlier, the idea of paternal masculinity is not challenged. Brecht shows that Sarti does not want Galileo to take a parental role in Andrea’s life - anytime Galileo starts to teach him, Sarti tries to shut it down. This strictness is shown throughout media today - “Mom said no” is a common phrase said within movies and television series. Not all mothers are strict; they are just trying to do what they think is best for their child.

Women in Earnest have similar misrepresentations to those in Galileo, although Oscar Wilde had a different agenda. While Brecht’s stereotypes were not necessarily created as purposefully, Wilde’s were created as a over-exaggeration - he desired to point out these stereotypes. Lady Bracknell, for example, is strict (and perhaps even a golddigger). Through the duration of the play, she is against Jack and Gwendolen’s marriage. Jack does not have the money that Lady Bracknell desires; she does not wish for someone of such low income to enter her family. The idea of a woman being “dependent on a male breadwinner” is a common occurrence in everyday media - one that often does not sit well with females. The youngest females in the play are also filled with misrepresentations - both Cecily and Gwendolen are gullible. As stated in Finney’s piece, both girls “have always longer to marry a man named Ernest” (643). Falling into the stereotype of gullibility, both ladies quickly believe that their beloved is indeed named Ernest. Wilde’s intentions come to light throughout his show- he brings forth comical elements while also showing how ridiculous these representations of genders happened to be during the 1890’s.

Female characters are not the only ones who are misrepresented within these plays - the men are overwhelmingly stereotyped as well. In Galileo, all men, to at least some extent, are shown to have power over other characters. Galileo clearly has an influence over Sarti, Andrea and Virginia - all will do his bidding without much complaint [e.g. Virginia immediately attending to the geese] (Brecht 74). This power is played with often in media, though often to a more sexual extent. Jokes such as ‘“if I poke her with it, it’ll put her in the mood”’ are seen heavily on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, indicating that even in a more intimate setting men have the power (Drakett et. al. 116). This is not always true. Several characters also show power over Galileo, such as: the Bursar, the Philosopher, and the Mathematician. While these power dynamics are more realistic (a boss to an employee) they are still hyperbolised - at least in relation to today’s media. A boss (or someone equivalent to it) isn’t likely to call their employee out in front of other people, like the Bursar does to Galileo in scene three. Although Galileo insists that his companion stay in the room, most boss-like figures would wait until another given time (or at least let them down a little easier). This type of content helps “legitimise the importance of heteronormative, masculinised traits in leadership roles”, as in the time this play was written, it would extremely unlikely for a role like the Bursar to be played by a female (Drakett et. al. 118). In media, the role of the boss, to this day, is still usually portrayed by a male actor where the character is straight, powerful, and intelligent.

While the men in Earnest are also depicted as smart and dominant, it is pushed past that; they are manipulative liars. Algernon and Jack spend the second act of the play convincing their loved ones that their names are Ernest. “The only earnestness here lies in the homophonous name ‘Ernest’” (Finney 643). Finney’s words speak truth - both Jack and Algernon are willing to lie to get what they would like from Gwendolen and Cecily. When the girls discover that Jack and Algernon have been lying, the men are quick to say that they will be Christened; they are willing to change their names to get to their end goal: marriage (Wilde 166). This could be played off as taking a sacrifice for the sake of their relationships, but with how quickly the girls forgive them, it is clear that there is something more to it. Their forgiveness can easily be interpreted as fear - they must forgive quickly to avoid further disagreement.

The interactions between the genders in Earnest and Galileo further prove that gender binaries are misrepresented in both shows. During scene eight of Galileo, Ludovico enters for a quick visit. Sarti quickly exits at Galileo’s command, and Virginia takes her leave by saying “I’ll show you my wedding dress” - a hyper-feminine reason to exit. As per usual, Ludovico and Galileo start a more detailed conversation after both women have exited the stage (Brecht 50). Brecht is using the lack of female characters in the scene to “‘re-macsulinise’ identities, roles and spaces” (Drakett et. al. 118). Within this scene, it seems as if Brecht was trying to state that important dialogue could only happen when a woman was not present. The women seem to only appear within a scene to further amplify a man’s masculinity - they are there to be bossed around [e.g. “Bring a jug of sicilian wine…” (Brecht 50)].

Conversations in Earnest are no better. When Cecily and Gwendolen first interact, they are volatile towards one another because they are afraid that they are engaged to the same man. Realistically, these types of conversations are few and far between - many females are likely to approach their significant other before bickering with another woman about something that may not even be true. Another unrealistic conversation is shown between Algernon and Cecily in Act II (Wilde 149-152). While intended to be comical, Cecily’s persistence and Algernon’s eagerness to accept her story border on mental disorders. Having mental disorders in a play isn’t necessarily a misrepresentation when done well, but all the characters are so well-spoken that it is clear that that is not Wilde’s intention. He is over-exaggerating the idea of a couple in love to the point where it is almost stalker-like.

Both The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and A Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht are plays that heavily misrepresent binary gender and gender roles. Unfortunately, these ideals of gender are still relevant in today’s media through advertisements and internet memes. Through the overwhelming stereotypes of females, males and the two of them in conversation, it is clear that both Wilde and Brecht had an agenda (albeit quite different ones) - to overplay each gender.

Brecht, Bertolt. A Life of Galileo. Translated by Mark Ravenhill, Bloomsbury Metheun Drama, 2015.

Drakett, Jessica et. al. “Old Jokes, New Media: Online Sexism and Constructions of Gender in Internet Memes.” Feminism & Psychology, Volume 28, Number 1, 2018, pp. 109-127.

Finney, Gail. “Comparative Perspectives on Gender and Comedy: The Examples of Wilde, Hofmannsthal, and Ebner-Eschenbach.” Modern Drama, Volume 37, Number 4, Winter 1994, pp. 638-650.

Grau, Stacy Landreth and Yorgos C. Zotos. “Gender Stereotypes in Advertising: A Review of Current Research.” International Journal of Advertising, Volume 35, Number 5, pp.761-770.

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People. Penguin Books, 2012

#the importance of being earnest #a life of galileo #galileo #bertolt brecht #oscar wilde #my writing #term paper

1 note · View note

writeforsoreeyes · 6 years

Text

transreading - The Other Me

[image description: cover of The Other Me by Suzanne “Xan” van Rooyen. Two teenagers are shown facing forward, only half of each displayed. One has long, curly red hair and looks straight-forward, clear-eyed. The other has an asymmetrical fringe and a brooding gaze.]

An important note before I begin: the transgender POV character realizes they are trans over the course of the narrative. Since the character’s chosen name is a bit of a spoiler and only appears on the final page, I will use their previous name “Treasa” here. However, I will be using he/him pronouns for Treasa in my review.

Treasa feels like an alien at his all-girl Catholic school in South Africa. He doesn’t understand the girls there and even feels different from his female best friend. He’s obsessed with Resa, the alien male lead of a sci-fi show he follows, but does Treasa want to be with Resa or be him?

His confused feelings come to a head when Gabriel (who bears a striking resemblance to Resa’s actor) starts playing piano accompaniment at Treasa’s choir practices. Gabriel, meanwhile, is dealing with his own trauma and feels uncomfortable being held up as Treasa’s ideal.

I related a lot to Treasa’s connection with a fictional character and the way he explored his own identity via writing fanficton. Throughout The Other Me, Treasa is working on a fic in which Resa is romantically involved with Tristan, Treasa’s original character. Treasa projects a lot of himself and his developing relationship with Gabriel onto Tristan and Resa respectively. As someone who also first explored my gender through writing slash fic, I thought this was a really great characterization that’s not often seen, but a fairly common experience.

The writing in The Other Me is clean and the story is easy to follow. Treasa and Gabriel’s storylines are given equal weight (though I’ve focused a lot more on Treasa here) and their perspectives are distinguishable from the other. The pacing is good for the most part, though I thought the ending felt a little rushed.

If you like reading messy relationships and high school drama, this might be right up your alley. However, readers should expect the same kind of slut shaming and misogyny that they might also hear in the halls of a high school. Unfortunately, it’s not often challenged.

The story suffers from a “I’m not like the other girls” vibe. While such a feeling is a common experience among many AFAB trans and nonbinary people, it’s somewhat problematic here because the “other girls” in the book are a bit of a monolith. Thus, the concept of womanhood in the book is very narrow.

By and large, the female characters are feminine, straight, and at least a little catty-- the epitome of stereotypical teen girly girl. The book doesn’t really explore the many different ways there are to be a woman; Treasa just rejects the singular way presented. The only times that other types of womanhood are discussed are in passing and usually in the context of “why can’t you be like that instead of trans?” This likely echoes the experience of many AFAB trans and nonbinary people, but to me the narrative would’ve been stronger if Treasa were more aware of the options available for women and still stood fast in his identity.

One element that I thought was particularly well done was Treasa’s relationship with his mother. She is protective and reluctant to recognize that Treasa is an independent-minded teenager, not a small child. Their dynamic felt authentic, with a lot of raw emotion. The power struggle between them over Treasa’s bodily autonomy is likely to resonate with a lot of trans readers.

Something that people may struggle with is Gabriel’s father. It’d be generous to say that Gabriel and his father have been fighting since Gabriel’s mother’s death. It might be more accurate to say that his father is outright abusive. However, the story humanizes the father by revealing The Reason for his behavior. Despite this, I think most readers would still find his father’s actions unforgivable.

Gabriel doesn’t exactly forgive his father either. While it seems he may like to reconcile with his father eventually, his feelings on the matter are understandably complicated. I could relate to this storyline and the broken parent-child relationship felt realistic to me, but other readers may be put off by any attempt to explain or excuse abuse.

A final note: I feel wholly unqualified to comment extensively on the racial dynamics of a country that is not my own. That said, this book struck me as very white for a story set in South Africa, which is around 80% Black. Not to say there are no Black characters at all-- there’s a few minor characters, to my best knowledge-- and not to say that there aren’t plenty of books by white Americans guilty of the same issue. It’s just something that stood out to me, (along with the rather jarring line “I make like a Kenyan and sprint out”).

With all this in mind, if you are looking for a gay trans man coming out narrative and you are prepared to read through some challenging content, I think The Other Me is worth your time. Right now, it’s even available for free on Kindle Unlimited.

#the other me #suzanne van rooyen #trans books #transgender books #transreading

1 note · View note

sincerelysaoirse · 6 years

Note

All 130 questions 🤓

Mannnnnnn……….

SEXUALITY & COMING OUT: 1. How do you define your sexuality?Queer 2. What pronouns do you use to identify yourself?She/her 3. At what age did you first suspect that you are sexually attracted to other girls?12 years old 4. At what age did you come to terms with your sexuality?Hmm probably 18 5. Did you have an “aha I like girls” moment or was it more of a gradual realization?“Aha I like girls” 6. How did your sexuality make you feel before you came out?Guilty, freaked out 7. How did you become comfortable with your sexuality?Making gay friends 8. At what age did you first come out?16/17 officially. I had been saying it to my mom since I was 12 9. Who was the first person you came out to? How did they take it?I guess my mom but she didn’t take it seriously when I was 12. Then one of my friends when I was 16 and she was.. awkward 10. Do your parents know about your sexuality?Yeah 11. How out are you?Pretty out 12. Do you now identify as something different than when you first came out?Yeah 13. Was anyone surprised when you came out or did people seem to already know?No one was surprised  14. Has coming out lost you any friends?No 15. How soon after meeting someone do you usually tell them about your sexuality?I feel like I never really tell? They just find out from other people? Idk how anyone finds out  16. How difficult do you find it to sympathize with straight women?Not very 17. Have you ever wished you were completely straight?No 18. Agree or disagree: Everyone is at least a little bit gay.Agree 19. If you are not a lesbian, about what percentage of the time do you find yourself attracted to other girls?95% 20. Do you think it is possible to be a true 50/50 bisexual, or is the percentage always skewed towards one gender?I think it’s skewed 21. How often do you find yourself trying to sneak a peek or stare at a cute girl?Every fuckin day 22. How accurate is your gaydar?Not accurate at all

RELATIONSHIPS & DATING: 23. What is your current relationship status?Single 24. What is the longest relationship you’ve been in? Are you still with that person?I guess two years on and off and no. 25. Do you remember anything about the first time you kissed another girl?It was at a bus stop 26. Are you a virgin? If not, what gender did you lose your virginity to?Yes fml 27. What is your ideal first date?Going for a drink. Or going to the extreme and going around town doing a photo shoot for Instagram  28. What personality trait are you most attracted to?Funny? Confident?  29. How flirty are you?Pretty flirty ah 30. Would you ever want to get married, if not already?Yes yes yes 31 Do you want have children someday?Ooh maybe not  32. Would you ever want to give birth?If I was having children yeah 33. How often are you asked if you have a boyfriend?At least once a week  34. Have you ever liked or dated a girl with the same name as you?No 35. Have you ever been on your period the same time as a girlfriend?Yeah  36. Have you and a girlfriend ever been mistaken for sisters?No 37. Have you ever been in a long distance relationship?Yeah 38. Have you ever dated a guy?No 39. Has a girl ever dumped you for a guy? Have you?No and no 40. Has another girl ever hit on you?Yes 41. Have you ever had a crush on a straight girl?Yessss 42. Have you ever had a crush on a woman who’s significantly older than you?No 43. Would you ever date a trans woman?Yes 44. Have you ever had a profile on a LGBT dating website or app?Yes  45. Where do you think is the best place to meet a potential lover?Ideally like in a bookstore or in some soulmate way on the street. Realistically in a bar 46. Do you consider yourself a hopeless romantic?Yeah

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE: 47. Have you ever cut your hair super short? If not, would you ever want to?No and no 48. Is your nose pierced?It had been three times! I keep having to take it out for shows 49. What is your opinion on septum/bull nose piercings?Love em 50. Do you have any tattoos? If so, of what and where?One watercolour abstract one on my ribs 51. How muscular are you?Not very 52. Are you or have you ever been a tomboy?No 53. Have you ever been told that you don’t look gay, or that you’re too pretty to be gay?“Too feminine” 54. Have you ever been mistaken as a dude?No

FASHION STYLE: 55. Do you wear skirts and dresses? If so, how often?Yes probably once a week  56. Do you wear high heels? If so, how often?Probably once a week 57. How much jewelry do you typically wear?None 58. How much makeup do you typically wear?A little bit or full face going out  59. How often do you wear a bra?All the time except at night 60. How often do you wear flannel?Never 61. Have you ever worn a suit?No 62. Do you wear any shoes such as combat boots, Doc Martins or Timberlands?No 63. Do you carry a purse?No 64. Do you wear any hats such as snapbacks or beanies?No 65. Have you ever worn any men’s clothing?Yes 66. Have you ever dressed in complete drag?No 67. Have you ever shared clothes with a girlfriend?No 68. If you want to get married, do you think you will wear a dress?Yes

ENTERTAINMENT: 69. Who is your favorite LGBT celebrity?Kate McKinnon 70. Have you ever watched The L Word?No 71. Have you ever watched Will & Grace?No 72. Have you ever watched RuPaul’s Drag Race?Yes 73. How well do you feel LGBT women are portrayed on television?Not well tbhh 74. Do you listen to any LGBT musicians (i.e. Tegan & Sara, Melissa Etheridge, Chely Wright, Elton John, Sam smith, George Michael, Adam Lambert)?Troy’s Sivan, Hayley Kiyoko, dodie 75. Do you watch any LGBT YouTubers?Rose and Rosie, Ally Hills, Shane Dawson, dodie, Miles, like all of Buzzfeed lmao 76. Do you have a favorite LGBT themed movie?I guess ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ 77. Do you have a favorite LGBT themed blog or website?Nah 78. Do you read any LGBT magazines?Nah 79. Have you read any LGBT themed literature? If so, do you have any recommendations?Nah 80. Is there such a thing as “good” lesbian porn?Probably not

THIS OR THAT: 81. Boobs or butts?Boobs 82. Beer or wine?Wine 83. Ellen or Portia?Ellen

BEING (SOMEWHAT) RANDOM: 84. How much do you like cats?More than dogs 85. Have you ever been to a gay bar or a gay club?Yes 86. How many LGBT friends do you have?Dozens 87. Do you have any LGBT relatives?Yes one uncle  88. Have you ever used any words (or variations of) such as lesbian, queer, gay, or homosexual as a password?No 89. How outdoorsy are you?Not very 90. Have you ever driven an SUV, Jeep, or pickup truck?No 91. How many rainbow items do you own?Probably two 92. Have you ever celebrated National Coming Out Day (Oct. 11)?No 93. Have you ever participated in the National Day of Silence?No 94. Have you ever attended a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) type of club?No 95. Have you ever attended a PFLAG (Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays) meeting?No 96. Have you ever attended a gay or lesbian wedding?No 97. Have you ever been part of a softball team?No 98. Do you skateboard or longboard at all?No 99. Do you play any video games?No

FROM 1-10, HOW ATTRACTIVE ARE: 100. Muscular women?9 101. Women who wear glasses?10 102. Women who are covered with tattoos?10 103. Women who are covered with piercings?10 104. Curvy/plus-sized women?10 105. Women with short hair?10 106. Highly intelligent women?10 107. Tall women (i.e. around 1.83 meters/6 feet or taller)?10 108. Masculine/butch women?10

GETTING SERIOUS: 109. What does equality mean to you? Everyone being respected and treated according to their rights? Like treating people the way they should be treated 110. Do you consider yourself a feminist?Yes 111. Do you eat meat at all?Yes 112. Are you religious at all?No 113. How do you feel about the terms “woman crush” and “girl crush”?They’re not great 114. How do you feel when platonic female friends refer to each other as girlfriends?No tnx  115. How do you feel when people use the word gay to mean things such as stupid, dumb, boring, or idiotic?Angry  116. Are you comfortable with terms such as lezzie, lesbo, dyke, homo, or tranny?No 117. What are your views on gender identity and bathroom use?There should be gender neutral bathrooms everywhere 118. Do you have any opinions on LGBT people in the military?They should be treated the same as everyone else? 119. Have you ever been called a gay slur?No 120. Have you ever been queer bashed?No 121. Have you ever been discriminated against because of your sexuality or gender identity? If so, please explain.No 122. Does it really get better?I think so 123. Americans: How did you feel on June 26, 2015? 124. How accepting of LGBT people is the city/community you live in?Pretty accepting 125. Have you ever tried to “pray the gay away”?No 126. How annoyed are you with how heteronormative society is?8/10 127. What LGBT stereotype do you most disagree with?Like all of them idk I’m so tired 128. Is there anything about the LGBT community that you wish you knew before coming out?Nah 129. What advice would you give to a girl who is struggling to figure out her sexuality?Don’t rush yourself to know who you are but be comfortable with where your identity is. And know that it’s okay for things to change. 1000000s of people feel the same as you. 130. What advice would you give to a girl who is struggling to come out?Come out to yourself first. Accept and love yourself. Then go to the next person you know that will love you no matter what. You’re probably better off just saying rather than beating around the bush😎👉

That was so long tnx

#about me #ask

1 note · View note

eyesaremosaics · 7 years

Note

Feminist film recommendations?

Hmm interesting question anon. I will list some of my personal favorites (in no particular order) hopefully you enjoy them.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

I felt like there was fire in my veins walking out of the cinema. Not only is Charlize Theron’s Furiosa a total badass, but the best thing is that it’s not just her. To have such a range of women portrayed equally and beautifully was so uplifting. Women caring for each other, lifting each other and fighting hard for what is right. We need more of that, both in Hollywood and in life.

2. The color purple (1985)

Read this book in high school, about a sisterhood of women, all standing together against the racism and sexism that they face and somehow coming out on top. It’s an inspiring story of women coming together in the face of adversity.

3. Gone With the Wind (1939)

Scarlett was the most coveted female film role of all time. Despite the films obvious flaws as a result of the time period in which it was made, overall this is a feminist parable. Scarlett is above all else–a survivor. She never gives up, digs her heels in, rolls up her sleeves and does it. She faces adversity with admirable courage. Despite the fact that she is a terribly flawed human being, you can relate to her. She sets her mind to something and she does it, whether it’s dragging her family out of poverty or eating as much BBQ food as she damn well likes. Her flaws make her human, which adds richness to the overall story. Scarlett has inspired me to persevere at the darkest of times. When all hope seems lost, “tomorrow is another day.”

4. Erin Brockovich (2000)

I love Julia Roberts, and this movie stands out as one of her best in my opinion. A single mother, fallen on hard times, but somehow holding everything together. Making the best of a bad situation, an eternal realist. Portraying a woman as much more than she appears. She uncovers some dark secrets (chemicals leaked into the sewer systems) which led an entire community to develop terminal illness. She works tirelessly to expose those responsible and find justice for those who can’t help themselves. My favorite line is when this bitchy secretary says: “maybe we got off on the wrong foot here.”“Yeah lady because that’s all you got, two wrong feet and fucking ugly shoes.” Bahahaha

5. Suffragette (2015)

Tells the story of the women’s right movement at the turn of the last century. It taught me to stand up for myself, and for women everywhere. Very proud to have that as a part of our history. Incredibly grateful to all the women who fought tirelessly, endured persecution, humiliation, incarceration to ensure my right to vote.

6. Pocahontas (1995)

Pocahontas is VERY loosely based on the true story. Disney took a lot of liberties here which mask the horror of early American history and its impact on the native Americans. HOWEVER, what I like about her characterization in this film… Is that she was strong, rebellious, bold, adventurous, and wise. She went wherever the wind took her, a true free spirit. She was graceful, and kind in ways other Disney princesses were not. The purity of her heart and the message she had to bring, stopped a war. She is a warrior, but not one that fights with weapons, she fights with love. In the end she chose herself and her duty to her people over a man. I wanted to be just like her when I was a little girl watching this in the theater, and she still inspires me today, nearly 20 years later.

7. Fried green tomatoes (1992)

I watched this film when I was in high school, with low expectations and was very surprised to discover how moved I was. A story of two women, finding empowerment within oneself. The main character listens to a story from an elderly woman and learns how to love herself. I believe it’s important to encourage other women and learn from each other.

8. Obvious child (2014)

Jenny Slate’s character has an abortion after a one night stand with a guy she actually really likes. However, she knows she isn’t prepared for it and chooses to terminate the pregnancy. There’s great friendship and family in the film and it really helps to destigmatise abortion.

9. Wild (2014)

The book is arguably better, but the film is worth watching. A woman goes out and hikes one of the worlds longest trails, on a mission to find herself and to prove that she can finish what she starts. Finding herself on the elements, and getting clarity. Very freeing and inspiring.

10. Kill Bill 1 & 2 (2003)

Uma Thurman is a boss, and everyone knows it. She is so vice tally connected to her inner life as an actress, always enjoy watching her. These films are what she is most known for nowadays, and for good reason. It’s a story of revenge. A woman is almost murdered by the man she loved, pregnant with his child. Wakes up in a hospital, having been in a coma for years. Suffered all kinds of indignities, she willed herself to walk again. Dragged herself by her fingernails until she could rise up, strengthen her skills as a warrior, and set out to settle old scores. She takes each person down one by one, yet you still find the humanity behind each character and the reasons why they did what they did and became who they were. It’s about survival, perseverance, and ultimately in the end–forgiveness. Leaving the past behind, to start over again.

11. She’s beautiful when she’s angry (2014)

It’s a documentary about the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s, with interviews with many of the women who were part of it. Sure, it makes you angry to see injustice, but it’s also highly uplifting to see what these women did, and how it paved the way for equality forty to fifty years later. These women were, and still are, amazing figures who haven’t stopped fighting.

12. How to make an American quilt

A group of older women reflecting on their lives around a quilting table. Each of their stories are so inspiring, and the way they all come together to heal from their traumas is very powerful. Winona Ryder’s character (Finn) is experiencing a late twenties crisis of identity, and is unsure about wether or not to get married to her long term fiancée. Listening to the lives of all these women helps bring perspective and clarity to her. Life is never black and white, life is like a quilt. You build as you go along.

13. Frida

This Selma Hayek-fronted, Academy Award-winning biopic of the feminist icon portrays the artist in a whole new light. It’s amazing to watch the story of any incredible historic figure succeed against the odds, but double if said figure is also a woman and shot so beautifully by Julie Taymor.

14. The hours (2002)

This film follows three women as their lives weave in and around the narrative of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. The multi-generational movie shows how people are connected through time by similar angst, anxieties, and personal struggles.

15. The Stepford wives (1975)

What happens to women when things are too perfect? The answer might make their husbands happy, but the truth behind what is happening in this ideal-seeming suburb is nothing short of horrifying.

16. Miss Representation (2011)

A documentary on the way women are treated and portrayed in the media, this film broke open the truth behind the images women and young girls are force fed on a daily basis. Start your watching here, if you can, and then continue on to these other films to see how much has and hasn’t changed.

17. North Country (2005)

A fictionalized account of the first majorly successful sexual harassment case in the United States, this film follows the female miners who fought for their right to work without suffering the abuse their male coworkers heaped on them because of their gender.

18. The Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel

New Argentine Cinema figure Lucrecia Martel draws connections to the country’s dark political/class struggles, transposing its “disappeared” from the mid-to-late ‘70s into a sedate, challenging story about a woman’s fractured state following a fatal accident and its ensuing cover-up.

18. Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki

A thread of feminism weaves itself through the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Perhaps his most mature film, Princess Mononoke features a memorable and tenacious heroine, San, who subverts feminine stereotypes and is written without the fanciful quirks commonly found in animation. She is serious and single minded. Grounded to the earth, living in the moment. She is totally present, and pure. Even her rage comes from a pure unadulterated place. Wolf-goddess character Moro deserves attention as an unlikely mother figure that is fierce and, well, totally pissed off (you would be too if people were destroying your home), but also wise and nurturing. Fighting for what’s right, against impossible odds. Being humbled by nature, the ultimate female reclamation. So many layers in this film.

19. Dogfight, Nancy Savoca

A rare film set during the Vietnam War and told from the perspective of a woman, Nancy Savoca’s Dogfight reveals a different kind of cruelty people inflict upon one another, off the battlefield — in this case, a group of misogynistic Marines using women in a contest of looks. Lili Taylor’s peace-loving Rose, who becomes one of the targets in this game, soon realizes she’s being courted by River Phoenix’s Eddie for the wrong reasons — though his guilt and seemingly genuine interest in Rose is apparent. Rose confronts Eddie about the game, defending the honor of all women involved, which winds up bringing them closer together.

20. Alien, Ridley Scott

She’s not a sidekick, arm candy, or a damsel to be rescued. She isn’t a fantasy version of a woman. The character is strong enough to survive multiple screenwriters. She was lucky enough to be played by Sigourney Weaver,” said Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America President John Scalzi of Ellen Ripley from 1979’s Alien. Defying genre cinema’s gender clichés (she is gender neutral, really) as the clear-minded, intelligent, and capable officer of the ship Nostromo, Ripley is more resourceful than the men who employ her and steps in to take over when all hell breaks loose.

21. Orlando, Sally Potter

Our own Judy Berman recently highlighted Tilda Swinton’s performance in Potter’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s satirical text that explores gender and artistic subjectivity, a project that was ambitious in both form and content:

“Although it’s far more straightforward a narrative than most of her work, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando still presents one major challenge for the big screen: its protagonist is a nobleman in Elizabethan England who lives a life that spans centuries, and is suddenly transformed into a woman midway through it. Tilda Swinton may be the only (allegedly) human actor equipped to play the role of such a regal, mysterious androgyne, and her performance in this adaptation — also a breakthrough for director Sally Potter — became her signature.”

22. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jacques Demy

Celebrated for its vivid milieu, Jacques Demy’s sensitively characterized film is a superior look at an independent woman (Catherine Deneuve) in a romantic narrative who makes difficult choices about marriage, children, and survival that sometimes leave her alone — but she is never lonely because of that.

23. Daisies, Vera Chytilová

The young women in Vera Chytilová’s Czech New Wave farce “construct fluid identities for themselves, keenly aware of their sexuality, toying with the men who pursue them. It’s an exhilarating, surreal, anarchic experiment, framed by the turbulent 1960s.

24. Daughters of the Dust, Julie Dash

Julie Dash directed the first feature film by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States in 1991 — a stunningly captured look at three generations of Gullah women off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia in 1902.

25. Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren

The bar for avant-garde female filmmaking, born from personal experiences and anxieties. Maya Deren’s 1943 experimental classic builds its interior female perspective and constructs of selfhood through dreamlike imagery.

26. The Passion of Joan of Arc, Carl Theodor Dreyer

Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s crowning achievement, released in 1928, that still painfully echoes contemporary cases of female oppression — the film’s silent context taking on an unintentional resonance:

“Carl Dreyer’s last silent, the greatest of all Joan of Arc films… . Joan is played by stage actress Renee Falconetti, and though hers is one of the key performances in the history of movies, she never made another film. (Antonin Artaud also appears in a memorable cameo.) Dreyer’s radical approach to constructing space and the slow intensity of his mobile style make this ‘difficult’ in the sense that, like all the greatest films, it reinvents the world from the ground up. It’s also painful in a way that all Dreyer’s tragedies are, but it will continue to live long after most commercial movies have vanished from memory.”

#asks #feminist #feminism #cinema #feminist film #feminist cinema

24 notes · View notes