Back to the Draw-ing Board: Australia’s Year of Indecision.

 

After the St. Kilda-Collingwood Grand Final draw on Saturday afternoon, I mentioned to a friend, “It’s been a year of draws.” And she was like, “What?” And I was like, “The Federal election, hello?!”

But her comment certainly summarises Australia’s reaction to our hung parliament as opposed to the Grand Final draw; we care far more about our sport than we do about our government.

While the Julia VS. Tony battle waged on for weeks after we went to the polls, it looks like we’re going to have to succumb to Grand Final festivities all over again next weekend. Joy.

Prime Minister Barbie.

 

You may remember that last week I mentioned an article about feminine feminists and Barbie.

Well, in the comments to the original article, Lexi wrote that “in the 51 years since Barbie’s creation, Barbie has never had a child or a husband [“P.S. Ken is a boyfriend, not a husband”]. Barbie encourages strength and intelligence, not motherhood and obedience.”

Hmm, husbandless and childless? Sounds like a certain Prime Minister of ours. Go Barbie and Julia Gillard!

Related: On the (Rest of the) Net.

In Defence of Barbie.

Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves… But Not the Gays.

Elsewhere: [Em & Lo] Confession: I’m a Feminine Feminist.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

It’s hard out there for a pimp male model. MamaMia profiles “Male Models. Inside Their Straaaange World”, and how images of “buffed” and “ripped” men on magazine covers might affect male body image.

Hannah Montana is the superhero of the modern generation.

“Freelancing means being so poor and so hungry for so long that you ‘eat’ a bowl of soup that’s just hot water, crushed-up multivitamins and half your spice rack…”according to Richard Morgan, in “Seven Years as a Freelance Writer, or How to Make Vitamin Soup”.

Sex in the Digital City writer, Kitty Tonkin, details how she unplugged her iPod on public transport and had a good, old-fashioned conversation with an elderly man on the train. He talked about the old days, and the kinds of values they had back then. While some of his views were certainly outdated (“women need to learn and remember that it’s a man’s role to fish”), Mystery Train Man did drop such gems of wisdom as “feminism has warped views in society” and “romance is so cheap [wine, fish and chips overlooking the ocean] people have no excuse”.

Rachel Zoe literally “dies” for US Harper’s Bazaar. Death by Marc Jacobs? Yes please!

Tiger Beatdown has some interesting views on the “Love The Way You Lie” video. While I think both the song and the film clip accurately portray the cycle of domestic violence, author Garland Grey asserts that both glamorise the situation. View the video and the article, and you be the judge.

Any LOSTies out there still mourning the end of the series? io9 hits it right on the head in “12 Theories About Lost That Were Better Than the Actual Show”, acknowledging that half the fun of watching the show was formulating our own hypotheses about its mysteries.

The Thought Experiment writes about “the cinematic discourse established by director Rob Luketic employs the consistent rhetorical metonymical device of synecdoche to psychologically reinforce the theme of a woman’s appearance…” in Legally Blonde. Or, in layman terms, the film deals with “the constant breaking of the women down in to digestible parts when they are focussed on Warner. This is important because, to a man like that character, taken as a whole, what are we ladies? Too much to chew on, it seems.” Great article.

While our country might be in the midst of a hung parliament, Mia Freedman exerts her feminist stance on the issue in her profile of Julia Gillard: “Would she describe herself as a feminist? ‘I would. All my life I’ve believed that men and women have equal capacities and talents. That means that there are as many smart women as there are smart men and it means there are as many dumb women as there are dumb men. So we’re equal and consequently there should be equality in life’s chances.” Now go bag that Prime Ministership, Julia! (You can also read Freedman’s journey to interview Gillard here.)

Jezebel loves herself some Mad Men. This time around, the feminist blog profiles the show’s stance on “The Psychology of Women”.

Elsewhere, on the “psychology of men” stratosphere, “Can Superheroes Hurt Boys’ Mental Health?” When I said to a male friend that I wasn’t really into superheroes, he said I mustn’t have any daddy issues, ’cause people with daddy issues love superheroes. Well, I have no shortage of daddy issues, and I am dressing as Cat Woman for my Halloween/birthday party, so I guess that proves his point. And so does the article.

Johnny Depp has pulled of many a character, which is no mean feat. The fact that he’s managed to be “doable in pretty much every role is an even bigger accomplishment”.

Once again, women just can’t win. The latest study to prove this shows that “men whose wives make more money than they do are more likely to cheat”. Take a bow, Jesse James, Ryan Phillippe et al.

Seven Links in Heaven.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has challenged his fellow bloggers to post seven links to seven blog posts in response to seven categories.

Rachel Hills did it (albeit with eleven), and now it’s my turn!

Your first post: Aside from the “Welcome” page, it was a review of Dog Boy by Eva Hornung, a book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

A post you enjoyed writing the most: The ones about issues that get me fired up. “Why Are Famous Men Forgiven For Their Wrongdoings, While Women Are Vilified for Much Less?”, “Is there Really a Beauty Myth?”, “Katy P VS. Lady G”, “In Defence of To Kill a Mockingbird, “Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves… But Not The Gays” about Julia Gillard’s appointment to PM, but her refusal to legalise gay marriage, and anything to do with The Hills (The Hills FinaleAll Good Things Must Come to an End” and The Hills Have (Dead) Eyes”). Of course, I love “On the (Rest of the) Net” and “Magazine Cover of the Week”, as those posts showcase my favourite things of the week.

A post which had great discussion: As a fledgling blog, none of my posts have great discussion! But a couple that spring to mind are “Beautiful Women Cause Earthquakes AND Heart Attacks, Apparently” in which the comments were longer than the actual post, and “Everything They Touch Turns to Gold” about mag editors Mia Freedman, Sarah Oakes et al. In addition, “Beauty & the Book” was meant as some fluffy man-candy, but drew criticism from the masculist crowd.

A post on someone else’s blog you wish you’d written: Anything on Jezebel, Musings of an Inappropriate Woman, Mama Mia and Girl with a Satchel. They are my muses.

Your most helpful post: This is a hard one, as none of my posts deal particularly with things that people need help with. Perhaps, “How NOT To Promote Your Book” and “Life by Numbers”?

A post with a title you are proud of: “Bad Boys, Watchya Gonna Do? Host a Seven Family Show”.

A post that you wish more people had read: “Katy P VS. Lady G” was one I had a lot of fun writing (see above), but I can take solace in the fact that Sarah Ayoub of Wordsmith Lane commented on this one! As well as “The Beautiful Bigmouthed Backlash Against Katherine Heigl & Megan Fox”, which I thought would fire people up a bit, but not a bite! And while “The Changing Face of Beauty” garnered my highest number of hits, not one comment! Would like to know what people thought of that one.

Pop Culture Power Women.

This is an edited version of an article originally posted on Girl with a Satchel.

Magazines and media blogger Erica Bartle, of Girl with a Satchel, has recently upped her workload as feature writing and fashion and style journalism tutor at Queensland’s University of Technology. Erica’s first lecture inspired her to write this:

After experiencing some minor audiovisual issues (during which time I had a little jokey internal monologue with Tina Fey in Date Night about the “computer sticky thingy”) and giving my introductory lecture on feature writing on Monday, I opened up the opportunity for questions.

“Are you going to be referencing Sex and the City every lecture?” deadpanned one male student channelling Daria. Touché!

I actually hadn’t intended to make reference to the show (in fact, I genuinely try to curb such things, knowing how tiresome it can sound), but sometimes a pop culture reference comes to mind that fits the occasion aptly enough to illustrate a point and simply must be voiced (cue the scene in Sex and the City when Candice Burgen, playing Carrie’s Vogue editor, returns her piece on shoes dripping with red ink).

Though more “serious journalists” prefer witty literary/historical/political references and high-brow in-jokes, I love a good pop culture reference in a feature; preferably if it’s Gen-Y nostalgic. It says, “you speak my language”. Gillard and Abbott (or, rather, their speech writers) should really think about throwing some random Simpsons/Mad Men quotes into the mix (okay, it didn’t work for Joe Hockey!).

Give me Seinfeld, give me slinkies, give me scrunchies, give me The Goonies and Gilmore Girls and I’m yours. As Elle Woods once said, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy”. So does good pop culture. And puppies.

So who better to inspire the writer’s musethat voice that sits upon your shoulder like trusty Tinkerbellthan some of the feisty and fabulous gals you pointed to in response to the pop popularity poll? Make like Buffy Summers who “slew all manner of demons and even had breath to spare for puns and quips”.

Erica Bartle.

Elsewhere: [Girl with a Satchel] Women of Pop Culture & the Unashamed Use of Cutesy Clichés.

Sisters Are Doing it for Themselves… But Not the Gays.

 

Some frequent readers of this blog asked my why I haven’t posted anything about our new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Not only is she the first female leader of our country (our version of what Hillary Clinton could have been, if you will?), but it was a newsworthy event for the fact that Kevin Rudd was ousted during his first term, despite that it was by a woman.

There has been a lot of hoo-hah about Gillard apparently stabbing Rudd in the back and lying to him that she would never take his place. Sure, she may have lied, but who hasn’t? And when the fate of an entire country lies in incompetent hands (not all that incompetent, if you ask me), sometimes the ladies have gotta take matters into their own.

Other than this being a great step for womankind, it is also a great step for the unwed, childless, redheaded and faithless, with Gillard being the first unmarried, childless, redheaded and atheist PM.

However, that step doesn’t extend to the gays, as Gillard is just another (mostly) forward-thinking liberal (in the true sense of the word, not our country’s warped sense of what that means politically) who opposes gay marriage.

Apparently, it is her “personal view,” however my personal view is that she probably doesn’t want to ruffle more feathers than she already has within the first week of her appointment to PM, as opposed to truly believing “the marriage act being appropriate in its current form.”

It is also my personal view that opposing gay marriage is one big black mark against Gillard’s mostly positive repertoire.

Elsewhere: [Musings of an Inappropriate Woman] Four Articles I’d Like to Read on Julia Gillard, K-Rudd & “the Spill”.

[SMH] Gillard Against Gay Marriage.