Why racial colour-blindness is a crock. [Daily Life]
Speaking of, Julianne Hough’s blackface Halloween costume totes wasn’t racist, says a white girl. [Thought Catalog]
Pregnancy: when your body is public property. [Daily Life]
Open dialogue about rape prevents rape, not tee totalling. [The Guardian]
48 hours in New York, in which I get a mention, you know, ’cause I’m there right now! [Musings of an Inappropriate Woman]
How does Working Girls’ feminism hold up 25 years later? [Jezebel]
I’ve been thinking and wanting to write about Sex & the City 2 for quite some time, but I was never sure of the right angle to take. Having just rewatched the whole series, culminating in the arguably ill-fated films, I think I’m ready to dip my toe in the shark-infested waters that surround Sex & the City 2.
SATC2 picks up where the first film left off: the franchise’s ascent into affluence but its decent of integrity. And where better to splash some new money than the “new” Middle East: Abu Dhabi.
I stand by the series and even the first movie, but Carrie and the girls are pressing my loyalty with their Arabian adventure. Samantha throwing condoms around the souk in an effort to assert her empowerment (a sentiment I don’t disagree with, but can we please respect multiculturalism?) followed by some covered Muslim women revealing their gaudy designer garb under their abayas and hijabs because FASHUN = the end of gender inequality could certainly have been omitted from the second cinematic outing and it still would have been a semi-palatable film. While these antics blatantly show how out of touch SATC has become, the girls’ ignorance is echoed throughout the film when Charlotte gets sucked into having “the Forbidden Experience” (purchasing black market designer wares) and questions what the call to prayer means. You’d think that before jetting off to the land of “desert moons, Scheherazade and magic carpets” women who are as free as they are would be a little more in touch with the culture and what’s expected of them there. Smart Traveller, hello?!
What I do like about the Middle Eastern flair of the film, though, is the thematic parallels between women wearing veils to silence their voices and the question of whether Carrie, after five books and countless “I couldn’t help but wonder”’s (literally; I lost count after about ten when I rewatched the series. Repetition, much?!), should shut up.
This seems to be the consensus, as New York magazine’s review of her latest book, I Do! Do I?, is titled “The Vow of Silence”. And in the accompanying illustration, Carrie is drawn with tape across her mouth, to echo the silencing of their Middle Eastern counterparts: “It’s like they don’t want them to have a voice,” Carrie observes. Synergy!
The concept of women’s voices is echoed elsewhere in the films’ storylines, with Miranda quitting her job because her misogynist boss didn’t respect her “strong female voice”, and Charlotte blaming Samantha for “open[ing] her big mouth” about her hot, braless nanny being a distraction for Harry.
Looking back on enlightenment of the series, it makes me sad that the insight into women’s lives, sex and otherwise, that it was so famous for has been completely erased from Sex & the City 2 in the name of capitalism and cultural insensitivity.
Related: In Defence of Sex & the City.
The slave narrative of Orange is the New Black. [The Nation]
Still with Orange is the New Black, literature on the show. [Bitch Magazine]
SlutWalk Melbourne is next weekend, and last year’s speaker, Emily Maguire, talks about why she supports the movement. [SlutWalk Melbourne]
I reviewed Patricia Cornelius’ Savages for TheatrePress. Head on over and check it out, and then get to fortyfive downstairs quick smart!
50 not-so-obvious feminist pop cultural items. [Flavorwire]
Why do we treat the male contraceptive pill differently to the female pill? [Aeon Magazine]
Tony Abbott’s sexism is more than just a “gaffe”. [AusVotes2013]
Mark Ruffalo is pro-choice. [Stop Patriarchy]
What the Harriet Tubman “sex tape” means for black feminism. [Ms. Magazine]
Are politicians the new Ryan Gosling? [Daily Life]
And in the wake of last week’s “sex appeal”-gate, Cleo rates Canberra’s sexiest and unsexiest men. A step towards equality or should everyone just shut the eff up about it? [MamaMia]
Fuck “strong female characters”. [New Statesman]
Last night’s (or very early this morning, if you’re still keeping track of when it airs) episode of The Mindy Project dealt with Mindy’s tendency to date douchebags. And who’s douchier than a prostitute, amiright?
Mindy certainly has sexism and racism problems, and the former was never more evident than in “Pretty Man”, in which Mindy picks up a guy, Adam, in a bar who turns out to be a sex worker.
Mindy is disgusted by this and kicks him out of her apartment before they actually engage in what Adam is employed to do, but that doesn’t stop him showing up at her office the next day to get remunerated for his time.
There are lots of ill-thought out jokes about prostitution (even Adam refers to himself as a “prostitute” which I’m not so sure is the preferred term amongst the sex work community), trustworthiness and Pretty Woman (after all, The Mindy Project is a sitcom born out of its protagonist’s love of romantic comedies).
But what the Adam storyline really serves as a metaphor for, whether intentionally or otherwise, is the desire to change a man.
While Mindy is encouraging Adam to pursue is real dream (because no one could ever really want to be a sex worker) of being a singer/songwriter and buying him clothes à la Pretty Woman, Mindy’s friend Alex is trying to mould new boyfriend Danny into the partner she wants him to be: more outgoing and less uptight.
So while this episode is not necessarily man-friendly—it is a change to see a male sex workers portrayed as negatively as female sex workers are—, it’s more detrimental to the womenz: we’ll find faults with any man, whether they’re a prostitute or a rich doctor.
Elsewhere: [Jezebel] Mindy Kaling Only Makes Out with White Guys on The Mindy Project.
Image via Fox.
Is there such a thing as a bad Olsen twin movie? [Rookie]
Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Surfer Blood… What are we willing to overlook in order to enjoy pop culture? [Grantland]
How many times will you see your parents before they die? [See Your Folks]
“Bindi Irwin: Feminist Warrior?” [MamaMia]
In defence of Sex & the City. [The New Yorker]
And, furthermore, in defence of Miranda Hobbes. [Women & Hollywood]
Why women in sport matter. [Lip Mag]
How to ask about someone’s ethnicity the right way. [Jezebel]
Image via Ask Your Feet.
“Single Ladies”, “Blurred Lines”, “Tunnel Vision”… The evolution of the threefold female body in modern pop videos. [TheVine]
Why are there no Asian rom-com leads? [Daily Life]
In case you missed it, my Paper Giants 2: Magazine Wars review is featured in the 62nd Down Under Feminists Carnival. [Hoyden About Town]
Sex and gender in horror movies. [Bitch]
My sister was always the O.C.-obsessed one, so the show was always on on Tuesday nights in our house, but I could never really get into it. (In fact, the only season I really liked was the final one, after the death of the bland Marissa Cooper.) But here are ten little-known facts about one of my generation’s most-loved shows. [TheVine]
The Canyons director Paul Schrader compares Lindsay Lohan to Marilyn Monroe. [Film Comment]
Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”: “ironic objectification” or just plain degradation? Apparently, because Thicke and collaborator Pharrell Williams are “happily married”, it makes it okay for them to derive pleasure from degrading women (Thicke’s words). While there are certainly much worse images and acts of misogyny out there, “Blurred Lines” is lyrically and visually blatantly upholding rape culture: “I know you want it, but you’re a good girl…” Does the fact that it was directed by a woman who instructed the basically—and uncomfortably—naked models and the fully clothed male artists in the clip supposedly love women make it a tongue in cheek exercise in pushing boundaries or raise some more problematic issues considering it’s this country’s number one song? What’s the point in even making such a NSFW video if it can’t even be shown on MTV and YouTube (semi-SFW video above)? [Jezebel]
Dear Julia Gillard,
Thank you for being the first female Prime Minister,
Sincerely,
Mia Freedman. [MamaMia]
The rise and rise of feminist parodies. [Daily Life]
What are the differences between women who receive abortions and those who are denied them and proceed with unwanted pregnancies? [NYTimes]
Screw the “armchair commentators”; you know what your feminism is. [The Guardian]
Julia Gillard urges us to vote for Julia Gillard in spite of the sexist attacks against her (obviously written prior to Wednesday’s ousting). Kind of like that comment about her jackets, Germaine…? [The Hoopla]
Is Miley Cyrus’ latest black culture-inspired gimmick akin to a minstrel show? [Jezebel]
This week in inappropriate fashion spreads: hoarder chic. [Jezebel]
Ranking Stephen King’s 62 books. [Vulture]
xoVain recreates Lindsay Lohan’s mugshot looks.
Benjamin Law thinks all gay men should be feminists. Nay, all HUMANS should be feminists! [Daily Life]
When your mum has bad body image. This piece hits home because my mum is insecure about the way she looks and has transferred that onto my sister. [Daily Life]
The 12th Doctor Who should be a woman. [Slate]
Unfortunately, all my flights for my U.S. trip coming up at the end of the year are with Virgin, so hopefully their new “Get Lucky at 35,000 Feet” campaign doesn’t mean sexual harassment at 35,000 feet. [Make Me a Sammich]
Dissecting Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
“The worse the stories get, the stronger [Olivia Benson] becomes; it’s the show’s unspoken dialectic…
“For all SVU’s excesses, we expect it to keep one promise: no matter how bad things get, the story will end.” [The New Yorker]
Daisy Buchanan: the ultimate Manic Pixie Dream Girl?
“Is she at fault for the fact that all of her swooning suitors idealise and project upon her? Should we pity her, even a little, for not having had the courage or desire to break free of her social caste and love whomever she pleased?” [Women in the World]
Why does Johnny Depp have a bird on his head, speak in pidgin English and bear the Spanish name for dumb in the reboot of The Lone Ranger in 2013? [The Good Men Project]
Discussing street harassment. [Jezebel]
Why the most recent viral Dove ads are bull: lots of people envision themselves as attractive or more attractive than they are. [Jezebel]
Tyler the Creator’s misogyny and homophobia isn’t “just about the music”, and nor is it edgy. It’s disgusting. [Tiger Beatdown]
There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding this piece: it’s natural to lust after randoms passing you in the street, brewing your coffee, or hanging at the bar, but this guy wonders if his perving is more of a compulsion. [Slate]
What murdered teen Trayvon Martin and Justin Bieber have in common. [This Week in Blackness]
Why does Mindy only date white guys on The Mindy Project? [Jezebel]
The onscreen virginity trend. [Daily Life]
Fuck the friend zone; what about when guys you have a purely platonic interested in put you in the “girlfriend zone”? [Insert Literary Reference]
“In The Ethical Slut, perhaps the best-known ‘catechism’ of progressive sexual morality, Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy make the case that ‘the fundamental sexual unit is one person; adding more people to that unit may be intimate, fun, and companionable, but it does not complete anybody.’ Masturbation matters, they argue, not merely because it helps you learn what you want sexually from a partner, but because it helps bring ‘your locus of control into yourself.'” [The Atlantic]
Racism isn’t about being impolite. [New Matilda]
James Franco defends Baz Lurhmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby. [Vice]
The “skank flank”: what happens when you get a tattoo and are automatically deemed a slut. [Bust]
An ode to Barbara Walters. [The Cut]
Image via Entertainment Weekly.
How did Girls go from this…
How did Girls go from one of the best shows on television, so perfectly rendering the lives of twenty-something women in its first season (if a little narrow minded on the racial diversity front) to the disjointed, experimental mess of season two, the finale of which aired last night?
Lena Dunham was obviously under a lot of pressure to perform to the standards she set last year and she buckled under it, mirroring Hannah’s signing on to write an ebook in a month and getting shafted with a mental illness for her efforts. While pretty well every episode of season one lent themselves both to plot and character development, it seemed like the ten episodes of this season each existed in a vacuum; separate from each other and only slightly showing us both new and familiar aspects of the characters.
For example, I know Jemima Kirke just had a baby, but where the hell was Jessa? Sure, we met her dysfunctional dad, which gave us a glimpse into her carefree and flakey motivations, but she was barely around for us to see just how the unraveling of her marriage to Thomas-John affected her.
And Shoshanna was one of the best things to come out of Girls, and still is, arguably, but I hate that her character has succumbed to the virgin-turned-whore trope in that she’s gotten a taste for sex and now she can’t help herself. I expected more from Dunham.
Marnie’s remained just as unlikeable, though less relatable, as she was in the first season while Hannah’s—and, by extension, Dunham?—personality fluctuates from episode to episode, perhaps to foreshadow her eventual OCD relapse.
… to this?
It seems as though Dunham used the early episodes of season two to respond to her detractors (no racial diversity? Hannah dates a black guy. Dunham’s obsessed with being naked? Get naked some more.), and force feed characters of colour (okay, one character of colour) and gratuitous nudity down our throats. I found the balance of “awkward sex”, the embracing of different types of naked bodies and everyday activities that didn’t involve these things in season one refreshing, but by season two it was just too much. Did Hannah really need to wear a mesh singlet with nothing underneath while on a cocaine bender for a whole episode? Did we really need to see Hannah drop trou to pee next to a train station in the middle of nowhere? While I think body diversity is great, and Dunham is largely responsible for the current discourse about it, I think she’s going the wrong way about advocating for it.
Having said that, though, the episode with perhaps the most sex and nudity—the mid-season “One Man’s Trash”, which drew the ire of Dunham’s, and the show’s, critics who thought Hannah wasn’t “pretty enough” to bag a rich, hot doctor—was actually my favourite. It was also the most removed from the essence of Girls, so much so that it was speculated that it could have been a dream sequence (yeah, ’cause someone like Hannah could never get someone like Joshua in real life).
The lackluster sophomore season of Girls has left me wondering what happened to a show that could have been “the voice of my generation… Or at least a voice… of a generation.”
Related: Girls—Pretty Girl Problems.
Girls Acknowledges Its Privilege.
Elsewhere: [Jezebel] Why We Need to Keep Talking About the White Girls on Girls.
[Jezebel] What Kind of Guy Does a Girl Who Looks Like Lena Dunham Deserve?
The Scarlett Woman 