Years ago I, like many teenagers, worked in a local video store (Video Monde, in Larkspur, California) and while the Onion gets most of this right, they forgot to include the most common, most subjective, and most annoying customer question: "What's new, that's good, that's in?"
They also forgot this---which is pretty spot on.
If only my experience as rental store employee had been more like Be Kind Rewind--an absolute gem of a film about the threat of destroying what's precious in favor of commercialization & gentrification -- and the saving grace of creativity, community and play.*
Be Kind Rewind is charming and fun, but it's also about the power of creating your own history (as with Cheryl Dunye's wonderful, Watermelon Woman--another story about someone working in a video store, and the inspiration it provided.)
I do love the convenience of On Demand, iTunes et al. And video stores may soon be obsolete. But consider this: Would Tarantino be Tarantino if he had grown up with Netflix?
Praise Be to Seattle's Scarecrow Video. Let's hope they keep on rewinding.
"Girl-Wonder.org is calling for submissions to our brand-new online newsletter, which will mix focused discussions of feminism (and other forms of -isms) in the comics genre with a fun-loving celebration of comic geekdom. This newsletter will be our ongoing love letter to comics - sharing all the serious and not so serious aspects of comics that keep us coming back for more."
According to a press release from Sony and Eon Productions, the Quantum of Solace trailer will debut on online today on AOL.com in the U.S. and MSN.com worldwide during a two-hour window from 9- 11:00 a.m., PDT. While it's unlikely most fans will rearrange their day around that two-hour glimpse, it's more than long enough for some Q impersonator to snag it and put it up on YouTube.
Post: Call for Proposals on Women of Color in Popular Culture
This came to me through the Comics Scholars List-Serve and the deadline is fast approaching (July 1st!). It's for junior tenure-track faculty, but I thought I should post it in the hopes that at least one person gets a great opportunity out of it.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: ESSAYS OR BOOK CHAPTERS ON Women of Color in Popular Culture
JR. FACULTY PUBLICATION WORKSHOP Thurs. Sept. 18-Sat. Sept. 20, 2008 University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
The CENTER FOR ETHNIC STUDIES AND THE ARTS (CESA), University of Iowa, seeks proposals for participating in a two and a half day workshop for junior tenure-track faculty on their research-in-progress on “Women of Color in Popular Culture.” Workshop participants are also CESA Junior Fellows for Fall Semester 2008 and are part of a collaborative network of scholars.
Topics may include but are not restricted to: ➢ issues of representation regarding gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexualities in any form of popular culture, including literature, music, photography, film and television, comic books, art, dance and performance, technoculture and cyberspace ➢ women of color as creative producers and expressive artists ➢ body politics and women of color ➢ feminist or womanist approaches to race and popular culture ➢ stardom and celebrity ➢ race, gender, and American popular culture in U.S. and transnational contexts ➢ female and racialized audiences, reception, and popular culture
The workshop will consist of: sessions and written feedback on individual drafts: style tips; networking with faculty from many colleges and universities; information about publication and fellowship application strategies.
Participants are expected to participate in sessions from Thursday afternoon Sept. 18 through Saturday afternoon Sept. 20. Preference will be given to faculty from CIC-member or Midwestern universities and colleges. For out-of-town participants, travel and lodging expenses will be reimbursed up to $700.
This workshop is part of CESA’s 2008-2011 Arts in Everyday Life Initiative. CESA recognizes that art and creative expression are integrated components of religion, ritual, everyday life, and other cultural practices of minority communities. The Center seeks and encourages multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches to studying these practices as well as to the ways that ethnicity and popular culture shape U.S. national and international issues and cultures. It seeks critical histories as well as contemporary ones.
TO APPLY: All participants must be Assistant Professors with a tenure-track faculty position (effective September 1, 2008) and must submit a draft of approximately 7-15 pages of the article or book chapter being proposed for workshop development. Only work that has not yet been published is eligible. Please send: a letter of interest that includes an abstract of your submission, a CV no longer than 4 pages, and workshop paper draft to: cesa@uiowa.edu. Please send materials electronically as attachments to your e-mail letter of interest.
DEADLINE: JULY 1, 2008. Participants will be notified by AUGUST 1, 2008.
For questions and further information, please contact: Professor Lauren Rabinovitz, Director, Center for Ethnic Studies and the Arts; (319) 384-3490; Lauren-rabinovitz@uiowa.edu or cesa@uiowa.edu
On the subject of female heroes in movies and television I wanted to link to a couple of thought-provoking posts & sites.
The first is by Cindy Cooper of Blog Spot "The Bad Genious" who passionately writes about the need for women and girls to see positive heroic representations of their sex/gender to be able to grow up believing in themselves. In fact, she relates a story about spinning with her sister until dizzy and nauseated, hoping upon hope to burst into Amazonian Princesses, that echoes one I tell in my book introduction almost word for word. She also asks, and answers, the question,"So why didn’t those little girls watching superheroes grow to be a generation of women reading about superheroes?" and notes the frustrating fact that movies featuring superwomen just aren't given the same respect as those with supermen--which forces young girls to identify with either the love interest or the contemporary male heroic ideal.
Supervillainess over at "Female Comic Book Superheroes" asks female audiences an important question with What's Your Dream Superheroine Movie? (My desires include: A Modesty Blaise movie worthy of her character, a Promethea movie, a good Buffy movie, Wonder Woman, natch, and Birds of Prey.)
And Heroine Content always has thoughtful critiques of race and gender in movies and television.
"I was surprised when Rose brought me a script of Red Sonja that she liked,” adding, "I found it very entertaining. Sonja was strong, smart, cunning — just about everything she'd have to be to survive."
Rodriguez wants to cast the slight McGowan as the red-haired warrior, saying
"Rose is a pistol. She's whip-smart, has attitude to burn, is sexy, extremely strong, yet has a vulnerable side that would surprise her closest friends. That description also fits Red Sonja."*
This isn't going to be an adaptation of any particular comic book story arc, nor will it be a remake of 1985's awesomely awful Dino De Laurentiis produced Red Sonja which starred a young and svelte Brigitte Nielsen in the title role.
Red Sonja became the final installment in a trilogy that included the fabulous Conan the Barbarian which was followed by the atrocious Conan the Destroyer, which unlike Sonja can't even be described as "good bad." And it's so good bad that I had to go buy a copy. See what I mean - -
The characters of these movies were loosely based on the 1930s pulp writings of Robert E. Howard. Red Sonya had appeared in only one of his stories, “The Shadow of the Vulture,” as a pistol wielding Russian in the 16th century. In the 1970s, the character was adapted by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel comics as a supporting character in their Conan title. The spelling of her name was changed from Sonya to Sonja, and her origins were moved from Russia to Conan’s fictional prehistoric “Hyborian Age.” Her deftness with a pistol was changed to mastery of the sword.
Sonja proved popular enough to support an eponymous title. In the original edition of The Superhero Women, Stan Lee refers to her as “the ultimate female warrior” and suggested that because Sonja is depicted as holding her own against any combatant—regardless of gender—“perhaps through the medium of the contemporary comicbook [sic], society may inch itself a bit closer to the time when we judge an individual on his or her own merit, rather than the accident of sex.”
I'm not sure whether the comic book Sonja accomplishes this (and I invite thoughtful comments on the subject) but the movie, though it has Sonja spouting pseudo-feminist rhetoric such as “No man may have me, unless he's beaten me in a fair fight.” and “I don’t need any man’s help.” actually ends up putting Sonja in her rightfully gendered place by the end of the movie. (I go into detail about this in the book, and so only mention it here. Regardless of Lee et al's intentions with the comic, the 1980s film focuses more on Sonja’s gender than on what should be her impressive sword skills.)
Still, it's a Great God-Awful film, well worth watching. Although it's a bummer to see Sandahl Bergman go from her portrayal as the glorious Valeria in Conan the Barbarian to playing the campy Queen Gedren in Sonja--a role for which she "won" a Razzie award.
Finally, I'd originally found the news of Rodriguez's new venture over at Superhero Hype where the comments are filled with disturbing, if unsurprising, misogyny—most of it in this instance directed at McGowan.
A brief rundown includes such sexist gems as:
“She’s witch” who’s “plum bewitched Rodriguez.”
She’s called a “dumb Ho” and “Marilyn Manson’s leftovers” who is only getting roles because “she's banging robert rodriguez so he got her another movie.”
She’s not only blasted as unattractive, but as a both a home-wrecker and career poison.
One poster “Wishes Rodriguez was back with his wife cause they have a ton of kids and I know that's hard.” –an over-simplification of the situation—and another claims “She's doing to Rodriguez what Nielsen did to Stallone. (Wrecked the first marriage, leading him into dopey career moves).”
One poster even goes so far as to praise the scene in Death Proof in which McGowan’s character gets “all broken and bloody.”
Regardless of what one thinks of Rodriguez as a director, or even as an adulterer, and regardless of what one thinks of McGowan as a Beauty or an actress, the vitriol with which her attributes are addressed is alarming. These are not critiques of her capacity to fit the role, or take on this particular acting challenge, this is venomous rhetoric against women.
I don't know whether McGowan can be a phenomenal Sonja, I do think she will be perfect in the couple's remake of Barbarella and she was super kick-ass as Cherry Darling--a go-go dancer cum leader of her people in Planet Terror.
*This is all good, but I hate when strong women are praised for being "vulnerable" --as if it's a necessary qualifier. You never hear the same adjective used to praise the strengths of a male warrior.
The Boys are back in town over at Adult Swim starting this Sunday night at 11:30, but starting tonight you can watch the premiere episode two days early online at Adultswim.com.
According to co-creator Jackson Publick on his blog Publick Nuisance:
Season 3 of The Venture Bros. premieres online this evening at over at ADULT SWIM.COM with our first episode, "Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny." As usual, you can spoil it for yourselves and watch it all tiny with questionable compression, or you can wait till Sunday night to see it in all its letterboxed, full-color, sonically-rich glory on the cable-equipped television of your choice. Whatever mode you choose to receive this gift, I implore you to please not spoil it for anyone else until after Sunday's broadcast!
Also, Astro Base Go has a new Shirt of the Week Club!
Each week we premiere a brand new episode of The Venture Bros. television program, we will premiere a brand new t-shirt to go with it RIGHT HERE. The shirt will remain on sale for one week only--until the next episode and the next shirt premiere. We'll only print as many shirts of each design as we receive orders for (okay, we'll probably make a couple for ourselves, too) and once the ad for a shirt is removed, that shirt will never be available again.
Venture Bros. Shirt Club shirts will all be printed on only the finest American Apparel shirts available, and each is priced at $22 ($23 for 2XL). Each shirt is thematically tied in to the episode it premieres with and every shirt is different. 13 episodes, 13 shirts. That is, of course, unless you choose to SUBSCRIBE!
This week's shirt is Guild-Themed.
And just to get you all excited, here is a Season Three Promo Trailer!
"Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. I try to act in the gap between the two."-Robert Rauschenberg in The Bride & the Bachelors
Thinking of Deborah Loft today.
She was my art history teacher at College of Marin, an amazing woman who pushed my perspective by introducing me to art and philosophy I'd yet to be exposed to, but at nineteen was perfectly ripe for.
She introduced me to the works of John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg when we read The Bride and the Bachelors, by New Yorker art critic, Calvin Tomkins.
This morning, when I opened the NYT homepage to check on the status of the tragic earthquake in China (Ryan is supposed to travel to Chengdu this Summer for MGS) I let out an audible gasp when I read that
So I today I'll remember how his works (as well as Cage's) pushed me to experience with consciousness, and challenged my concepts of beauty.
From his all-white, all-black paintings,
“I always thought of the white paintings as being not passive but very — well, hypersensitive, so that people could look at them and almost see how many people were in the room by the shadows cast, or what time of day it was.”
To his grotesque, yet captivating combines,
“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”
And innovative use of material,
"A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.”
So thank you Deborah, I meant it when I said "You are my hero." And thank you Robert--may you rest in peace.
*All quotes are credited to the New York Times. Although most of them originally appeared in The Bride and the Bachelors and possibly Offthe Wall.
21st Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans
I'm honored to be included in the 21st Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans hosted over at Heroine Content. Check out the many thoughtful posts on gender, sexuality, and race in science fiction and fantasy.
Women Mentoring Women and an Introduction to The Sarah Jane Adventures
"I saw amazing things, out there in space--but there is strangeness to be found, wherever you turn. Life on Earth can be an adventure too... you just need to know where to look!"-Sarah Jane Smith
The Sarah Jane Adventures couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as this month I’m researching and writing my chapters on parents. As I've mentioned before one of the overwhelming themes in stories about the female super, or action, hero is that they have absent mothers and are raised or mentored by men.
I have no problem with father figures or single Daddies per se, having been raised by the latter myself. And as a woman who always identified with her father more than her mother (even before their separation) the exploration of who I am as an adult W-O-M-A-N has, is and will always be of profound spiritual importance to me -- as much so as the search for female role models in real life and in popular culture.
While it’s wonderful to see depictions of fathers who take an active role in their daughters’ lives, when we don’t see women teaching women, the message an audience receives is that these virtual Athenas, whether sprung from their father’s heads or mentored by sage men, can only be as independent as they are because they lack a mother’s womanly—almost always implied as passive—influence.
As I’ll discuss further in the book, there are a few notable exceptions:
• Reciprocal mentorship was an outstanding feature of the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, and they learned from other women as well (including Lao Ma, and the Amazons). But we never got to see either the Warrior Princess or the Battling Bard of Potidaea raise either of their own daughters.
• Trina Robbins’ and Anne Timmons’ Go Girl! series features a kick-ass mother, AND a kick-ass daughter who have a deep and meaningful bond.*
• Beatrix Kiddo, of Kill Bill, has a daughter, and in keeping with the homage to Lady Snowblood, Tarantino has noted that he would like to make sequels that feature daughters avenging their mother’s deaths (think of Vernita Green's daughter Nikki Bell--who we know will, in fact, still be sore that Beatrix killed her mother). Whether this pans out, or would even feature women in mentor roles is totally up in the air.
• In the movie Elektra, the title character teaches Abby--a young martial arts prodigy played by an actress with a Red Belt in Tae Kwon Do.
• In some versions of Wonder Woman (particularly the original) she has a close bond with her mother and with sister Amazons. And of course, Wonder Woman sets an example for everyone.
• In the comic book series Birds of Prey, particularly Gail Simone’s run, we see instances of sisterhood, which is an important counter to the perennial catfight, but is also different from an adult/child relationship. (I haven't yet read the issues with Black Canary and Sin.)
• In the final season of Alias, Sydney Bristow mentored Rachel Gibson and presumably her daughter, Isabelle Bristow Vaughn.
• In the final season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Buffy, Willow, Faith, and Anya train the Potentials.
• It appears that Araña Corazon has been mentored by Ms. Marvel (but I haven’t read those issues yet, and therefore can't speak to them).
Now it seems I can add another “exception” to add to my list!**
Serendipitously, right when I started collecting and organizing my research for these two chapters (Fathers and Daughters, and Mothers and Daughters) Ryan pointed out that the Sci Fi channel was running ads for a series called The Sarah Jane Adventures and noted that it looked like it could be of interest to me (the ad posted above is from the BBC, by way of YouTube). When I caught the commercials myself, I looked into the series on the Net and discovered it’s a spin-off of Doctor Who intended for children.*** Elisabeth Sladen who has embodied the investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith off and on for over 35 years stars.
Sarah was a companion to the third and fourth doctors (Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, respectively) and appeared regularly over the years 1973-1976. Sladen has since revisited the character a number of times—including in a pilot featuring Sarah and the robot dog, K-9 (K-9 and Company didn’t evolve into a series but is rumored to be released on DVD this Summer) as well as in a special feature-length episode of Doctor Who called “The Five Doctors.” Sladen also reprised the role in the second season of the recently revitalized Doctor Who alongside David Tennant’s Doctor (the tenth incarnation) and Billie Piper’s Rose in the episode “School Reunion.”
The Sarah Jane Adventures debuted in the UK with an hour-long special shown on New Year’s Day, 2007, called “Invasion of the Bane,” In it, we meet a thirteen-year-old girl named Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige) who has just moved to West London with her dad after her parents' recent divorce. Dad is a stand-up guy, and while Mom is flighty, she frequently drops by for hellos, meals, and family time. Her living situation (a daughter with a single father) could have made Maria yet another victim of the female hero-sans-female mentor trope that has plagued myth from ancient through modern times, but her mother isn’t dead, drunk, ill, or vindictive; she’s just elsewhere, and, has kind of a difficult personality.
Her first night in her new home, Maria is awakened by a strange pinkish glowing light emanating from outside. She sneaks out of the house and across the street to spy Sarah Jane conversing with a floaty, ethereal, otherwordly creature (who we later discover is a Star Poet who’d gotten lost on her journey and sought Sarah’s assistance with directions).
Maria is understandably curious, but Sarah Jane is terse and standoffish with her neighbors, believing that others should not be subject to the danger involved in her investigative work.
When Maria and her friend, Kelsey, take a tour of the Bubbleshock Soda Company they run into Sarah at the factory trying to expose the soda makers for who they really are---tentacled aliens whose mother bug secrets a substance marketed as the “organic!” additive “Bane” -- actually an alien chemical used in the soda to turn humans into easily controlled zombies (fortunately, Sarah and Maria prefer tea to soda pop).
In the process of escaping the factory they encounter a human boy, called "The Archetype," who was designed by the Bane species to find out why 2% of the population didn't like Bubbleshock Soda, and is made up of the thoughts and wishes of over 10,000 people. Sarah and Maria rescue the child, and at first, when he asks if he can live with Sarah she says no, but she ultimately “adopts” him into her home.
Sarah recognizes Maria's inner strength and sees her as a kindred spirit. While figuring a way to stop the Bane she tells her new young friend, "Maria, there are two types of people in the world. Those who panic, and then there's us. Got it?" Maria understands and affirms, "Got it."
Over the course of the episode Sarah recognizes, even respects, the children’s ability to make choices for themselves. And, she's remarkably honest with them. She tells Maria, and the Archetype--who chooses the name "Luke" that:
"When I was your age, I used to think 'Oh, when I'm grown up, I'll know what I want, I'll be sorted.' But you never really know what you want. You never feel grown up, not really. You never sort it all out... so I thought, I could handle life on my own. But after today... I don't want to!"
The series may tap into the lives and thoughts of children, but scenes like these can resonate with adults. Life never happens as you expect it to. You just have to stick to your values and go with the flow of the adventure. And as Sarah Jane proves, if things aren't working as they are you can always change your mind and do things differently.
At the end of the episode, when I bubbled over how happy it made me, Ryan noted that while he also enjoyed it very much, he was bothered that Sarah was given a child at the end. He felt that it was a crass attempt to restabilize her normative position as a traditionally gendered woman, and it was a shame that they didn't allow her to maintain her status as an independent adventurer who happens to work with children, rather than a Mommy (He’s been reading and editing my chapters!).
The child issue didn’t quite bother me as much as I thought it might, and I think it has to do with context. The adoption of Luke was presented as simply a part of her journey rather than the motivation for it. What bothered me much more was that she couldn’t or wouldn’t find a partner because after The Doctor, “No man could quite compare,” or something like that. Instead, she has playfully named her computer "Mr. Smith."
“wise choice to bring Sladen back with her own show. The actress projects an air of trustworthiness, courage and unapologetic independence, and though Sarah Jane’s attitude is brisk and unsentimental, it leaves room for plenty of wonder at the stranger things in the universe. And by the way, how many series feature a middle-aged woman as the lead -- and even let her battle many-tentacled aliens? Score one for the Brits.”
A reviewer for Variety panned the series, calling it “modestly entertaining for the moppet crowd” but patience trying for adults.” (He also calls Sarah Jane “a rather boring heroine”!)
From the two episodes I’ve seen, SJA is a children’s show in the way that the early Harry Potter novels are children’s books—they are ostensibly for children but have plenty of self-consciousness and intelligence to appeal to adults. (SJA does feature some farting aliens -- justifiably suitable for a munchkin audience.)
The series is wickedly smart, with over-the-top villains who shout B-Lines such as “The time of man is over!” and “ In the words of your young Earth children - bring it on.” Sarah Jane Smith is one of the only female leaders, teachers, or matriarchs of a group. But most importantly, most progressively, even revolutionary, is that Sarah Jane and Maria gift us with the all-too-rare example of a woman mentoring a woman.
A series of ten, half-hour episodes premiered in the UK in September 2007. SJA debuted in the states on the Sci-Fi Network on April 11, 2008. At least one, if not two more seasons have been ordered. Episodes air on the Sci Fi Channel Fridays from 8-8:30 pm. Cheers to Sci Fi for airing the series, Jeers to Sci Fi Magazine (the official rag of the channel) for not including Lis Sladen in their current issue "TV's Hot New Superwomen"--which has a subsection on "Familiar Faces in Fresh New Roles" as well as one on "Brit Girls")
*Trina and Anne should totally do a SJA comic!It's sooooo up their alley!
**(Hopefully, with this new generation of superwomen giving birth to daughters, and occasionally mentoring girls, we are seeing the beginnings of a progressive female heroic tradition, because generally, strong women are depicted raising savior sons (Sarah Connor, Lady Jessica—they’re mothers, not messiahs) or protecting daughters (Ripley, Charly Baltimore). One of the feminist critiques of Joseph Campbell is that in his classic The Hero With a Thousand Faces he notes that the hero can male or female, but then goes on to describe women as markers in the male quest (as goddesses, temptresses, mothers, etc . . .) and not as questers themselves. While this devalues female experience by making male experience the norm, it is also indicative of hero myths to date; Campbell could likely find few featuring women and/or ignored the experiences that make a female life heroic.)
***(I have yet to get into Doctor Who –even though Roz has told me that “Rose is so one of your women” and that I should include her in the book. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’ll have time. --Perhaps for the next edition!)
I thought this column by sex educator and writer Violet Blue for the San Francisco Chronicle was worth posting here, considering how many blog postings I've read where women, particularly self-proclaimed feminists, describe instances in which they have been the victims of sexist and/or misogynistic trollers who either bait writers on said writer's site (which should be a safe space for free expression) OR take quotes from a post to a message board (or blog) elsewhere to talk about how "ugly," "fat," and "repressed" these "horrible feminists" must assuredly be. (As if appearance had any sort of relevance.)
I have to admit, even knowing the statistics on violence against women, it continues to shock me how aggressive and cruel trollers are, and how much they get off on their antagonism. (Through googling my own blog, I've found terrible things said about me, and refused to play into the bait. Particularly since their commentary has nothing to do with me personally, but with their feelings about women in general.)
Violet writes:
Like I, or any woman worth her weight in vagina, should give a toss what "viking116," "toadytenderloins" or "bigdaddyhouston54" say about what we look like, our sexiness, or its relation to what we're saying. No, that's why we have friends (and editors, and in my case, agents and publishers). Everyone knows comments like that are from trolls who make any publication they're associated with look bad, and they should be bitch-slapped from here to ... at least the Tenderloin and back. They're off-topic and thus easy to discount nonetheless, but would political sex and culture commentary from someone who looks like Pamela Anderson actually be taken seriously? Maybe by the editors at Maxim, but honestly, what girl wants the adoration of psychotic anonymous trolls? I just write and talk about sex. But every woman on the Internet gets called slutty and ugly and fat (to put it lightly) no matter what; all we have to be is female.
