Adventures in Babysitting

I’ve got a new job. I stopped working at competitive hellhole of book retail (at least at the corporate level), and have moved on to the somewhat glamorous world of nonprofits. I wanted to get out of “bottom line” thinking, and to move onto a position in which I felt like I was actually accomplishing something, rather than simply trying to survive from day to day without unloading a barrage of fury onto an unsuspecting Jane Austen fan. And so far, so good. I’m working with teens, helping them to start their own community organizations, and I’ve spent a lot of time meeting with groups of students and feeding their enthusiasm for leadership and change. And no, I’m not working for Barack Obama.

I came to this job knowing that I was good with kids. I knew how to talk to them, how to get them to come out of their shells, and how to be honest and sincere with them, and, I thought, how to be unafraid in their presence. I was confident that I could walk into a room of students and know exactly how to play them, and how to make things happen. I walked into a classroom this past week with this kind of coolness and bravado. And boy did I ever get schooled.

I should have known when I walked in that this was not going to be like other days, like other classes, or like other presentations. The yelling, the running-around, the loud laughter and somewhat controlled chaos – these are all signs that point to a situation that I can handle. But these kids weren’t just running around or yelling at each other across the room. They were quietly conspiratorial, deeply uninterested, and deviously unwilling to acknowledge my presence in front of them. They looked at me as if to say, “There is nothing that you will say that will make me respond.” Normally I view this kind of a situation as a challenge, and usually I find a way to get them engaged in some way. When this happens, my goals are simple: get them to look at you, get them to smile, get them to answer you back, and keep them from breaking you down. Hopefully, thing won’t get out of hand, and you won’t result to standing on chairs, shouting or turning off the lights in a vain attempt to keep them from cracking each other’s skulls open.

I had been warned that these students could become rowdy. Rowdy – that was the actual word used. I was expecting to have to crack jokes and be slightly sarcastic, showing them that I was understanding and not an out-of-touch disciplinarian. Mistake number one. The joking became a gateway to being laughed at, not with. The sarcasm was out of touch and dated – apparently I’m too old to be clever enough for a 13 year-old. I next tried to be individualistic, attentive and supportive. Mistake number two. That turned into a situation where the students who weren’t getting the attention trying to get attention with each other by throwing bits of paper and crayon at each other. Finally, I tried to be the disciplinarian, which was mistake number three. By this time, my credibility was shot and any discipline I tried to hand-out was met with bemused patronizing smiles. “Sure, we’ll calm down lady. Whatever you say.” The object-throwing escalated, the shouting escalated, the running around and teasing each other escalated. The lesson plan flew out the window, or it would have if it could have sprouted wings. I stood on a chair and tried to get their attention. No luck, and as a side effect, I became embroiled in a hostile stare-down with a student who wasn’t even in the class but came by to visit his friends. My shouting was drowned out by the high-pitched screaming of the girls and the stabbing laughter of the boys. And the lights – on or off, it made no difference. They kept on.

Then one boy fell and hurt his elbow. He was quiet, and had been the subject of a barrage of bullying and crayon bits. He tried to defend himself, throwing back while walking, and stumbled. He crashed to the ground, and the bullies cackled with insidious laughter. He was broken – still physically intact, but his reputation was irrevocably damaged. At least for the rest of the day. He tried not to cry, which only made the bullies more fiendish. I wanted to rush over to help him, but feared for his already fragile position within the clique system of the class. And the more the bullies laughed, the more I felt my cool core of self-confidence melt away.

I felt a pounding in my head and my chest, and I realized that something had started to crack and splinter. I felt that moment as powerfully as if I had fallen off the chair and fractured my skull. I had lost them, completely, and they knew it. I was completely powerless, and they knew it. I had nothing to give, nothing to say, nothing that I could do. I became useless and broken.

At the end of the period, the director of the program came to my class to work with the students on their class schedules. My responsibilities were over; she was in charge now. And I couldn’t have been more relieved to see her. When she came over to me, I wanted to tell her that things got a little rowdy –there’s that word again – but that it had gone well. I was happy with their progress, and I felt like we really connected. It would have been a lie, of course, but I would have felt better, and I wouldn’t have betrayed the students. But I didn’t say that. I confessed that the class was out of hand, that I was overwhelmed, and I was extremely disappointed in their behavior and careless disregard for me and their fellow classmates. Mistake number four. She was concerned, and listened carefully. And after they had discussed class changes, she lectured them. Disciplined them, and lectured how disappointed she was in them. And that’s when I broke. I thought they had broken me, broken my coolness, and shattered it like a million particles of ice on the sidewalk. But it was actually me. I had accepted defeat, and had even bought into the rationale that these were just bad kids. And that’s when I broke, when I stopped thinking about them in compassionate terms, and just worried about me.

I had to get out of there. I cleaned up the classroom, said goodbye to the program facilitators, watched the kids leave school to go back to homes, families, dinners, and younger siblings. I got on the subway and tried to read a magazine; I tried to act like it was nothing, like it was any other day. But sitting next to me, all around me, was my defeat and my resigned attitude. I had been broken down. I had disappointed myself, and let the students down. My bravado is gone, and my coolness dissolved. I need to build back up again.

I had thought that I knew a lot, that I knew how things worked. Nothing destroys that naïveté faster than a group of middle-schoolers. And now I am beginning to realize what it is that I need to do, what I need to know, and what kind of person I want to be the next time I have to work a class or any group of students. It takes much more than a knack with jokes and sarcasm. It takes a kind of passion and fearlessness that I have never had until now. It takes strength that one day, I want to have. I think, though, that this is why I’m doing what I’m doing. Kids are amazing; I will never lose faith in their power. But I need to restore the faith in myself.

Shame of the NBA

The headline on the New York Post on August 18 proclaimed, as the Post always proclaims, that a referee for the National Basketball Association shamed the league with his involvement in illegal gambling. His actions compromised his position as an impartial arbiter of the rules of the game, and thereby made such a scandal of the NBA that the organization is now "shamed." Or it should be, according to the Post. This latest development in sporting news suggests that this referee has ruined the integrity of the NBA, and has cast a shadow of doubt on the professionalism of sporting officials. And this is a source of shame.

Really? This is what the NBA and sports fans are angry about? That the integrity of an organization who overpays its employees while hiding their indiscretions has been dismantled because of this one referee that no one even talks about anymore. I sincerely doubt that he alone is the "shame of the NBA." In fact the NBA, and all professional or high-profile sports, is guilty of far worse than allowing its officials to become tainted.

My personal vote for shame of the NBA is for L.A. Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, who was accused of sexual assault in 2003. Not only did Bryant escape a formal trial for his charges, but the case was eventually dropped because of the accuser's refusal to testify. His exceptional ability and his star power created such a media firestorm that the public's attention zoomed like a laser beam onto the identity and respectablity of his accuser. Suddenly, she was on trial, and millions wondered why a woman would accuse darling Kobe of rape. He couldn't have raped her; who wouldn't have wanted to have sex with him? His accuser became a money-grubbing slut, and although Bryant lost his endorsement deals and the sales of his team jersey fell slightly, he still got to keep his job, his millions of dollars, and his wife. Who knows what happened to the woman whom he raped? He said, ""Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did." (Samuels, Allison [October 11, 2003]. Kobe Off the Court. MSNBC.) This was as close as he ever came to an actual apology or even a recognition of the fact that he comitted a gross violation of another person. Four years later, do people even think about this incident, or are we too busy crying out the indiginities of Michael Vick's illegal dogfighting? Would people be making the same fuss if he had raped a woman, as Bryant had done?

There is something foul in the state of professional and high-profile sports. Murder, sexual assault, doping/drug use, gambling, fraud, cheating, animal cruelty, and the ever-inflating pro athlete salary - these are the plagues of professional and high-profile sports. Some might argue that sports are a kind of microcosm for society at large. Then why are all the salaries so much more "macro" than the rest of the world? The money the Boston Red Sox spent on their 2007 line-up is upwards of $126 million - $50 million alone for Daisuke Matsuzaka, to be spread out over six years. That same amount, channeled into Boston public schools and infrastructure could have provided thousands of students with new classrooms, computers, and provided the city with better support for green spaces, recycling and social outreach programs. Clubs are even paying top dollar for less than stellar athletes. Witness David Beckham's $250 million with the L.A. Galaxy soccer team - quite a big check for someone who is more a hairstyle than an athlete.

So while that referee may be the "shame of the NBA" for the moment, the league and professional/high-profile sports have a lot more to answer for, and even more work to do.

Bridezillas and other mythologies

It’s the day that every little girl is supposed to dream about, that each woman has been planning since they first understood what a wedding was. Or what a wedding appears to be. On the surface, a wedding is the symbolic union of two people who have agreed to spend the rest of their lives together. A wedding is also the union of families, and the celebration of the continuance of a loving relationship. The wedding day is assumed to be a day of profound joy, where every little piece comes together to create the vision of perfection and love.

Historically, a wedding was an economic exchange, in which a woman passed from the property of one man, her father, into the possession of another, her husband. A woman moved from being the burden of her father to becoming the burden of her husband, a burden that was offset by her ability to give birth and provide housekeeping services. And although weddings have changed as history has, those economic dimensions of previous nuptuals are still present, having been translated into symbolic gestures and "traditions." In the United States, weddings can be enacted for a multiplicity of couples, although it is still primarily reserved for heterosexual couples. Technically, a woman no longer passes from the lot of her father’s property to her husbands, although the vestiges of “giving the bride away” are still maintained at a variety of wedding ceremonies. The virginity of the bride, while not an iron-clad condition of marriage, is still emphasized in the continuance of the white gown and veil, as well as the preponderance of spring weddings, when nature itself mimics the purity and youth of the ideal virgin bride. A wedding, if anything, is an extremely loaded event, one that comes jam-packed with customs, traditions, expectations, and tensions. All this is embedded in a wedding before the upwards of $20,000 price tag.

In the United States, the wedding industry makes upwards of $23 billion each year while cashing in on the 2.5 million weddings that occur every year in this country. That’s 5 million people getting married, and if we estimate 150 people at each of these weddings, which is a low estimate in my experience, that is 275 million people attend weddings every year. There are 301 million people in the United States. No longer are weddings simply part of a life cycle - weddings are a monster unto themselves.

On some level, the wedding industry is aware of the role they play in the creation of the wedding monster, and its star, the Bridezilla. The constant pressure to up-sell, the promises of a dream or “fairytale” wedding, and the emphasis on beauty and perfection are all tools in the wedding monster’s arsenal. The constant reiteration that a wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime experience only adds to this pressure to make one’s wedding the ultimate experience in extravagance and gluttony.

My own wedding looms darkly ahead of me. In fourteen months, more or less, I will be making my own walk down the aisle. Because of this position, I am acutely aware of the temptations of the Bridezilla and the fairytale wedding. The constant pressure that this will, and should, be the best day of my life is both crushing and laughable. I am simultaneously pulled between restraint and extravagance, between constant reminding that this is “my day” and that this is a day about family. One of my greatest fears about my wedding is becoming a Bridezilla under the pressure, and despite assurances from everyone, from my mother to my fiance, that I am the last person who would ever become one, I know that the Bridezilla haunts me in every task of wedding planning.

What is a Bridezilla? A phrase pushed into the vernacular by the We network, based on their popular reality show series of the same name, Bridezilla is the out-of-control bride. She is demanding and haughty, obtuse and angry, a brat, a bitch, and a monster. She reduces others to tears and has fantastical notions of perfection. She spends too much money, henpecks her fiance, and verbally abuses her parents and parents-in-law. She micromanages and maintains vice-like control on every situation, from the flowers to the food to the apparel of the groom to the weight of the bridesmaids. She is relentless - “It’s better to please her than to deal with her later,” as one groom conveyed. A Bridezilla is simultaneously terrifying and frustrating. In her wake she leaves dozens of pairs of rolling eyes. She is my nightmare. And she looms constantly.
But she is not without reason, or without cause. The Bridezilla is the concentrated version of the feelings many women have when placed under the constant pressure of perfection. To have the perfect body, the perfect clothes, the perfect hair, job, husband, home, child. To make enough money. To find happiness. The Bridezilla emerges in the situation where women are expected to be at their most perfect and wonderful, and it’s no wonder that many of these brides crack. All told, it’s depressing. It’s infuriating. The idea of the bridezilla makes me so angry, both in the way that the bridezilla acts like a petulant child, and the way that women are infantilized through the process of a wedding and being a a bride. Treat them like spoiled children, and they will act like spoiled children. Constantly tell them that this is the most important day of their lives, but do not be surprised when they put pressure on everyone around them to make this the most important day of their lives. Pressure them to look perfect, but do not become disappointed when they are starving themselves to fit into their dress.

Fourteen months away from the day, and I hear the slow purr of the Bridezilla. She is coming of age, despite my best efforts to silence her. My greatest fear is letting her roar out at those I love. My greatest desire is that she will turn on those who made her.

The Melancholy of a Feminist

18 March 2007
Brooklyn, NY

It has been four months since I have updated my blog. This lapse in attention is not due to the lack of interesting events in the world around me, but due to the combination of my busier schedule and my depleting passion for criticizing. Not criticism, but criticizing. I’m tired of waking up everyday and reading the news and not being able to keep track of how many things make me angry. Issues of continuing racism, sexism, sexualized violence, violence in general, anti-environmentalism, xenophobia, fame-obsession, classism, and just general lack of attention to how people and events are represented are tiring me out. And it is nearly at the point where I just don’t care anymore, where I have become one of the millions of people in this country who don’t know where or why people are being slaughtered, starved, or stunted in their ability to express themselves. I’m getting tired of beating my head against a stone wall of apathy and ignorance. Everyday I am confronted with small incidences where I think, “Now, if they had really thought about what they were saying, they wouldn’t have said it like that. Surely not.”

For example, at work last week, one of my co-workers kept referring to all the “foreigners” that come into our store and how they can be a security/loss-prevention issue. He argument was basically that people with accents or a less than perfect grasp of the english language are shoplifters. After the third or fourth time he said “foreigners,” I finally just interrupted him and said, exasperated, “Could you please stop saying ‘foreigners’?”

“Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

“Because it’s racist and xenophobic,” I said.

“What? What’s ‘xenophobic’?” he said. This is a guy who is pretty smart, or at least well-read. Or so I thought, working at a large bookstore.

I explained to him my understanding of xenophobia (fear of that which is Other or different from oneself, although I’m getting more and more tired of referring to the Other like it’s some kind of aberration or interruption of the flow of [white, heterosexual, Western] normal-ness). And then I did something that I normally do, and I apologized for being “all PC.” I think I even referred to myself as a member of the PC Police. But after I said that, I took a beat, and then took back my apology. No, I’m not sorry for refusing to buy into racist clichés. I’m not sorry for being offended by your apathy. I’m not sorry that I refuse to allow you to continue to think in ways that harm yourself and those around you. Maybe next time you’ll give one second of consideration before you say something like that again. Or at least, that’s my hope.

But this argument is tiring. It’s tiring to be on your guard all the time, to be constantly made aware of how much people don’t think about what they’re saying, what they’re showing, what they’re arguing without even uttering a single word. And I feel this ache, this exhaustion now more than ever before. I want to give up, to go mindlessly past posters for Norbit and Black Snake Moan without feeling the stab of being let down once again by a movie industry that really doesn’t care at all about issues of representation. To read headlines about Britney Spears’s breakdown and Anna Nicole Smith’s death and not become painfully aware about how we still love tragic white women while simultaneously destroying them through our infatuation. How women are sexualized even in death. How working class identity is a point of ridicule and laughter and general cause-and-effect thinking: She was always white-trash anyway. I’m tired of reading another US Weekly cover story about how Angelina Jolie is adopting another child from a developing nation, and there being no comment the fetishization of non-white, non-Western children. I hate going to work everyday and having to face a giant poster of Mischa Barton in Bebe’s spring line looking like a girl-child in her older sister’s stilettos, drugged out and impossibly thin. I’m tired of being angry all the time. But living in the culture that I do, knowing the things I know and seeing the things I see, it is impossible not to be mad.

As a native Midwesterner from one of the most conservative communities in Ohio, I held New York City to be filled with liberal and polyvocal possibility. There isn’t anything that you can’t do or find in New York, or so I was told. You have infinite options and choices, or so I was hoping. The city has banned smoking, MSG, and trans-fat...they must be cool, right?
But this city has also the worst newspapers and free daily rags I have ever seen. Even the Village Voice, that last bastion of leftist cultural commentary, has been bought out and overhauled, turning it into an ‘edgy’ celebrity gossip mag as much as anything else. The cultural fringe has been co-opted by the affluent hipster mainstream, which is as consumed with aesthetics and fashion as the Park Avenue set. The look has taken the focus. Appearance, shell, façade - these have taken precedence. Depth, meaning, message - these have been mirrored back onto the outer shell, so that what it means matters only in the context of what it can say about the surface. An endless reflection back onto itself, a narcissism that is reflected in Western culture to the nth degree.

Who can break this endless reflection, the recycling back upon itself of the image, the appearance, the surface? “It hungers for depth, it wants to go deeper.” Eve Ensler originally wrote that as part of her landmark of feminist theater, The Vagina Monologues. That play is now nine years old. Isn’t it time yet to finally go deeper? To shout our questions at the world, instead of just asking them to each other?

This is why, despite my exhaustion and general want of a vacation from seeing the world in such horrifying terms, I cannot shut up, I cannot apologize, and I cannot feel guilty for refusing to let myself or anyone around me go to the easy option, the easy answer. We are better people than that, than the easy answer. And we can make those around us better as well. That is our challenge, and can be our legacy.

On the continuance of glaring omissions

After reading the New York Times online version for the last two to three weeks, I have come across to articles about the state of men in the United States that I just can't let pass by without a few remarks.

First, and most recently, is a story in the National news section entitled, "Facing Middle Age with No Degree and No Wife" (NYT 6 August 2006). The story discusses the situation of a growing number of American men who are remaining single well into their 40s, and their inability to find a wife. The article links this trend to various other phenomena, including the fact that these single men are most often not college graduates, usually blue collar workers (although some are thoroughly entrenched in the middle class), and afraid of alternatively divorce or committment. The article also blames the higher standards of single women, who are getting college degrees at a faster rate than men and who seek men with higher degrees, and "hence better financial prospects." The NYT also cites some "experts" who claim that "the greater economic independence of women and the greater acceptance of couples living together outside of marriage" have contributed to the declining marriage rate.

The rate in question, according to the Times, is "about 18 percent of men ages 40 to 44 with less than four years of college." The article goes on to argue that "That is up from about 6 percent a quarter-century ago. Among similar men ages 35 to 39, the portion jumped to 22 percent from 8 percent in that time." And to add icing to the cake, the Times notes that "even marriage rates among female professionals over 40 have stabilized in recent years." Even older professional ball-busting career women can get married, why can't these dopes?

There are many aspects of this article that make my stomach lurch, but of course, that lurching has to do more with what the Times didn't say or didn't bother to factor into their analysis, rather than what was actually included in the article. Although, the article itself is pretty bad.

Firstly, the four page piece fails to acknowledge how many of those 18 percent of men who are still single in their 40s are, in fact, not interested in marrying a woman because well, they just don't swing that way. No where does the Times account for how many of these men might be gay, transgendered, queer, celibate, or otherwise not invested in the Christian dictum of marriage. These men, assuming that some of them might actually not be heterosexual, would have been coming out in the 1970s and 80s - arguably one of the most importantly visible times for the LGBT community. But the Times refuses to acknowledge this possibility. If you will induldge some highly suspect number crunching, if 18 percent are still single, and roughly 6 to 10 percent of the population is gay, this means that there are possibly only 8 to 12 percent of heterosexual men who are still unmarried.

If you consider this configuration suspect, as I myself do, let us take another step back and ask why this matters? Why should we be concerned that people aren't getting married as frequently as they used to? If you listen to Pat Robertson, or even George W. Bush, this lack of married people contributes to the degredation of the US's moral fiber. But then again, so do gays. And feminists. And pro-choice activists, intellectuals, liberals, welfare queens, immigrants, environmentalists, socialists, and communists. Apparently the only people who don't contribute to this decay are white, middle class, married Christians - but don't they have some of the highest divorce rates in the world??

This article confuses me, and I don't know why the NYT insisted on devoting four pages to the declining marriage rates of older men. But in this article contributes to the spectre of fear of disappearance that haunts the heterosexual white male in US culture. A continuing backlash and anxiety attack over what is to become of red blooded American men, now that they are being displaced to the peripherals of society (apparently). Funny, when women and people of color were pushed to the periphery, we didn't have articles debating why they didn't get married with as much frequency as their hegemonic counterparts.

Perhaps these unmarried men should exchange their unworthy jobs for wives and a comfortable life of leisure, as the men in "Men Not Working and Not Wanting Just Any Job" did (NYT, 31 July 2006).

In this article, reporter Amanda Cox profiles several men in their forties and fifties who are currently unemployed and are not actively seeking work because they cannot find a job that is neither "demeaning nor underpaid" and instead rely on disability payments from the government, taking out multiple mortgages on their homes, or relying on their (female) spouses for financial income. Instead of working or looking for work, they spend their days playing piano, reading books, doing crossword puzzles, or sitting at cafes.

Unlike the women (most likely their mothers) who have the luxury or ability stay at home while a spouse works outside of the home, these men do not take up domestic duties, preferring to spend their time with hobbies. Apparently, laundry and cleaning is also demeaning and underpaid - who knew?

Most of the men profiled in the article are without children, or more accurately, are not required to support any children. Most of them are also white. The NYT calls them "America's Missing Men." Huh? They're not missing at all. Chances are they're still in bed (if it's before 11 am) or sitting on their ass somewhere, probably in close proximity to a television.

Loquacious gems from these missing men include:

“I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me,” says Alan Beggerow, 48, of Illinois, who draws his standard of living from the second mortgage on his house and his family's savings. Yes, but Mr. Beggerow, how much is it worth to your wife and your child? His wife used to do factory work, until an accident forced her to leave. She now takes on freelance seamstress and baking work, as well as selling items on Ebay for a fee. She is looking for a clerical job, in order to earn a steady paycheck, as the money she receives from her disability payments cannot support her and her husband. “The future is always a concern, but I no longer allow myself to dwell on it,” Mr. Beggerow says. Huh?

"To be honest, I’m kind of looking for the home run,” says Christopher Priga, 54, of California. His income also comes from drawing money against his house in Los Angeles. After being let-go from Xerox in the blow up of the dot-com bubble, Priga is tired of grunt work and prefers to spend his time reading at local cafes.

Near the end of the article, the focus turns to those men who are excluded from the jobmarket because of felony convictions and jail time. But this avenue only affords half of the last page. Rather than draw attention to the systemic discrimination in the prison system and how any links to serving time can severly hinder an applicant's chances in this racist and classist jobmarket, the article spends most of its time profiling men who have been let go from their employment because of economic shifts. Since the 1980's, the American economy has moved away from industrial processing and factory work, and thereby making many men and women redundant and unemployed. This is a tragedy and an immense diservice to the working class of the US, prioritizing high profit margins over community sustainability, but this aspect is also absent from the article's analysis.

What really gets me, though, more than anything in this article, is the extremely gendered representation of work in this country that is reflected in these men's choices to abstain from work. Women have been in support positions and are continually forced to engage in unpaid labor in the form of housework and family care, and now more than ever, women are taking on work outside of the home in addition to this support/domestic work. Beggerow's wife takes care of the home, and her husband, and also manages to do freelance work and search for a clerical job. Additionally, it is her disability payments that keep the household running. Why can't Mr. Beggerow or Mr. Priga flip burgers? Why can't they wash dishes? Drive a taxi? Sell groceries, waitress (intentionally gendered), babysit, do laundry, pick up garbage? As someone who is about to approach the job market once again after having taken a year off to complete a master's degree, I am desperate for any job. The social regard for my degree does not place me above doing whatever work I can find. The only job I won't do is clean the floor of a nightclub with my tongue on Monday morning...but that's a whole other set of issues. Perhaps my perspective is a little different, being in my twenties, having mounting school debts and the prospect of marriage and family on the very near horizon. I've worked nearly continuously since I was 17, and I'm terrified of starting my career. But that won't keep me from working.

These men have worked, have spent twenty and thirty years working. And everyone is due a break at some point. But being able to not work because of retirement and pension is a whole hell of a lot different than refusing to work because you can't find a job that you don't feel is demeaning or beneath you. And being retired is a whole hell of a lot different that drawing on public disability and social security funds to avoid having to pay child support (which one would have to do if one had a paycheck) or to avoid working a job that isn't exactly what you want. I applaud Mrs. Beggerow for having the personal strength to scour the classified/help-wanted ads while her husband reads another history of the crusades on the front porch. I personally would have launched a crusade of my own to kick him out of the house.

Stories available from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/us/06marry.html?pagewanted=4&ei=5087%0A&en=198334593b14608d&ex=1155009600

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/us/06marry.html?pagewanted=4&ei=5087%0A&en=198334593b14608d&ex=1155009600

Of Superheroes and Tights

As a nice sequel to my previous blog (and after all, aren'’t these movies really all about the sequels anyway), I thought I would share my thoughts on the latest “superhero movie to hit the mass market, Ivan Reitman's "My Super Ex-Girlfriend."

Notable differences between "Superman Returns” and "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" are as follows:

1. Uma Thurman as blonde goddess versus Brandon Routh as dark Atlas

2. Luke Wilson versus Kate Bosworth as the damsel-in-distress

3. Fishnet stockings and black leather bustiers versus plastic/metal mesh protective suit

4. Crazy superhero sex versus chaste and infantile infatuation*

In summation, "My Super Ex Girlfriend” takes the superhero formula and runs it through the misogynistic Freudian blender of shame. The plot concerns Matt Saunders, a thirty-something architect six months removed from his last 'psycho' girlfriend. Encouraged by his closest friend, Saunders approaches a woman on the subway, asking her out on a date. She quickly turns him down, and immediately has her purse stolen. Saunders, being the handsome gallant, runs after the thief and recovers the purse. The woman is Jenny Johnson, a curator at an art gallery and also G Girl, the local superhero to whom no one seems to really pay attention. Unlike Superman, who commands the hearts and minds (and media) of those around him, G Girl mostly remains out of the limelight, commanding name recognition but without any fuss. The Colin Powell to Superman's Dubya.

Saunders and Johnson begin dating, and the romantic comedy formula swings into full effect. Also in effect are the rampant cliches of the superhero paradigm, including secret identities, a super-villain, contact with an unearthly mineral, and that noxious pair of plastic rimmed glasses. However, the normal restrictions on the romantic line of a superhero narrative, such as the necessity of maintaining a secret identity and of selflessly giving oneself to the larger cause of justice and protection of the people, are absent. G Girl is consumed with her relationship to Saunders, revealing her 'true’ identity about a third of the way through the film. When Saunders realizes the implications of his relationship with G Girl, his concern is not with how this might affect her ability to do the work she is supposed to do (think Mary Jane and Spiderman) but with how this will boost his status in the dating circuit. At one point, he wants to tell his best friend that he is dating G Girl, saying that the friend once slept with a Victoria's Secret model and Saunders has "never heard the end of it." By sleeping with a superhero, Saunders has bypasses his friend in sociosexual status.

Eventually, G Girl begins to suspect that Saunders is cheating on her with a coworker, and in one ridiculous scene refuses to stop a missile from crashing into the “tri-state area” because she doesn’t trust Saunders to be alone with Hannah, his coworker. He manages to convince her, but she goes only reluctantly. Unlike Superman, G Girl will not give herself up to the cause, preferring to keep an eye on her man rather than on the welfare of the world.

Saunders has to break up with G Girl - she’s a neurotic crazy person, and he's really in love with Hannah anyway. G Girl then goes on a rampage, throwing his car into orbit in space and a live shark into the bedroom where he and Hannah are cuddling in post-coital bliss. After several twists and turns, and a climatic showdown involving Eddie Izzard and a giant refrigerated meteor, G Girl gives up her revenge quest and Hannah and Saunders are allowed to live happily ever after. Aahhhh, deep cleansing breath.



This film is exactly as sexist as it sounds. Thurman'’s G Girl is a raging, castrating lunatic - after the first time Saunders and G Girl have sex, she looks at the wreckage around her, including a broken bed, and says, "I’m sorry. I’ll get you a new one.”

Saunders replies with "A new bed or penis?"

"Both,” she answers breathlessly. G Girl not only takes the dominant position during sex, but she breaks his genitals. The next day, Saunders walks awkwardly to work, attempting to deal with the physical discomfort of the previous night’s encounter. Indeed G Girl’s only redeeming feature seems to be her incredible physical attractiveness. Saunders never says how sweet she is, or how smart, or how interesting. Only that she is hot and she "broke his bed” (this after his friend comments, "You have invaded the female and spread your democracy." Seriously. He says that.). Every sexual encounter between them puts him on edge, including when she takes him up into the stratosphere with him. Margot Kidder he is not. He is never energized or in awe of his superhero mate - he is only afraid. "I'’m feeling a little emasculated up here,” he says, eyeing the ground nervously.

If that's not literal enough, there are any number of references to Saunder's manhood, including when she burns the word "dick” into his forehead with her laser vision and when she threatens to shove a chainsaw "up his ass" if he ever reveals her superhero identity. She is both castrating and sodomizing, needy and neurotic. And despite the numerous sexist cliches aimed at male characters, G Girl's outbursts become the crazy to Saunder's centered rationality. She is the extreme to Saunder's normative in more ways than one. Saunders is just a regular guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only when he is with Hannah, who praises his sweetness while remaining subservient to his leadership, can he fully find happiness. Hannah may be able to be a superhero (see meteor climax), but she belongs to him. There is a paradox at play here, one hat many women are compromised with everyday - the cultural imperative to be independent and strong while deferring to a male partner. A woman can have power as long as she knows her place. At the end of the film, Izzard and Wilson are left with girlfriends' purses in hand as the women fly to save a plane from crashing. They are framed as the wives-at-home, and the audience is left with this humorous gender reversal. It's only funny because it's unusual, it's odd. It's funny because it puts Wilson and Izzard into positions they should not occupy. Ha ha, isn't it funny how they've been turned into wives? Because being a wife is funny, especially if you're a wife with a penis.

"Want to get a beer?” Wilson asks. Somebody better break the bottle over his (and director Reitman's) head.


Four other side points:

Firstly, Thurman’s superhero costumes consist of knee high boots, leather corsets, full skirts, and silk capes. Apparently, women can only have superpowers if they have super-cleavage as well.

Secondly, I love Eddie Izzard as a comic, but in this film he falls miserably flat. And in what universe does Izzard end up with Uma Thurman?

Thirdly, Luke Wilson is a disaster. He seems to be playing Owen Wilson playing Matt Saunders. Luke is much better as the antisocial tennis pro of "The Royal Tennenbaums,"” where he doesn'’t have but five lines and spends most of his time onscreen being hidden by long hair and aviator sunglasses.

And finally, what kind of superhero name is G Girl anyway? It's never explained in the film why she is called G Girl, but it doesn't really matter anyway, as it is the lamest superhero name ever. At least Elektra had a cool name (or Storm or Rogue. Hell, even Jean Grey is better). Although Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Batgirl pretty much suck as well. Might as well continue the tradition of infantilizing women with power.

What happened? I keep shaking my head, trying to understand...


*Although somehow we'’re supposed to believe that Lois and Superman did it at some point and produced an angelic yet fragile five year old.

Images from: http://xoomer.alice.it/amasoni2002/shl/index.htm, http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk, and http://www.cinoche.com/actualites/1028, respectfully.

On the Return of Superman

Appropriately or not, my notes on this film were written on old receipts, since I arrived at the film thoroughly expecting to be lulled into stupidity and without a notebook. Also appropriate, I think, is the fact that I put my notes into my borrowed copy of "Imperial Ambitions: Conversations with Noam Chomsky on the Post-9/11 World." This strikes me as one of those tasty little ironies that help me get through the day.

"Superman Returns" is indelibly a post-9/11 film, fraught with references to the war on terror, the civil war in Iraq, and the nationalistic patriotism of the US while recovering from the startling realization that we are, in fact, vulnerable. And like the country with which Superman is readily identified, the Man of Steel is no longer as steely as he might seem. He is weaker, permeable even, and lacking in the self-assuredness of his previous global dominance. However, in his big comeback special, Superman works his magic around the world, impressing people all over the world with his strength, his generosity, and his attention to the pain and suffering of the 'common people.' No job is too small, nor too big. He will work all manner of miracles in the name of truth and justice. Sound familiar?

When I heard that Superman was going to be back this summer in a new film, I could barely stifle my groaning disappointment. Another comic book film, another white WASP-y hero, another reincarnation of adolescent male fantasy dressed up in spandex. Wait, no, superheroes don’t wear spandex. They wear appropriately masculine reinforced rubber-plastic bodysuits, sometimes even with anatomically correct fittings - highlighted crotch or nipples anyone? But always appropriately heterosexually masculine. Unless you’re some Joss Whedon creation or a superhero of color. Then do whatever the hell you want, as long as you’re prepared to be branded a subculture or a one-off.

But back to Superman. Yes, he’s returned. From a five-year vacation to deep space where he attempted to recover the lost planet of Krypton, leaving poor Lois Lane and her broken whiny heart behind. When he returns, he magically gets his job back at the Daily Planet, where Jimmy the kid photographer, still wears that stupid bow-tie. Jimmy’s bow tie is emblematic of the baby boomer/postwar aesthetic employed by director Bryan Singer throughout the film. Superman comics were born in the 1930’s but came to pop culture prominence in the 1950’s. The styles of these twenty years are echoed in the film, most obviously in the building and interior design of the Daily Planet, but also in the homestead of Superman’s adoptive mother, and the flashback to his childhood (how can someone in their late 20’s/early30’s have grown up in the 1960’s?). The costuming of the characters also harkens back to this golden age of Superman, most notably in Lois Lane’s wardrobe, predominantly composed of high heels, pencil skirts, Lauren Bacall shoulder pads, and fingerwaved hair. She only lacks Rosalind Russell/Hildy Johnson’s fantastic woman-reporter hats.



About Lois Lane and Hildy Johnson. As my co-conspirator Art Ryel-Lindsey commented, why can’t we just have a female character in these movies that is actually as strong as we’re supposed to believe she is? Lois Lane is framed as hell-on-heels, a workhorse and a firestarter. A muckraker in the old-timey sense. Yet does she ever write anything except confessionals about how Superman suddenly appears on rooftops and carries her off into the stratosphere? Maybe she belongs to the Candace Bushnell school of journalism. On that note, are we really supposed to believe that Lois Lane won a Pulitzer for an article called “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” That sounds like my second grade science report “Why Dolphins are Pretty.” Okay, I’m making that up. But as Frank Langella as Perry Smith, the chief of the Daily Planet, remarks, “Pulitzers are like the Academy Awards. No one remembers why you got one, just that you got one.” Or something along those lines; it’s hard to write in the dark. Apparently it doesn’t matter how crappy a writer Lois Lane is, just that she’s connected to Superman and the Pulitzer proves her devotion. This incarnation of Lois Lane makes me long for Hildy Johnson, the sharp, cracking female reporter who can run intellectual circles around her male colleagues and still look fantastic, even when standing next to Cary Grant.

And speaking of Cary Grant, Brandon Routh as Superman seems to be invoking those larger-than-life leading men, with the kind eyes and without the silly quasi-British accent. Yeah, Archie Leach, I’m talking to you. Routh does the best he can, I think, with what he’s given. Which is not much. Smile like you know more than other people, which you usually do, act befuddled around Lois, make lots of straining faces as you lift airplanes, cars, crystal-rock-asteroid things, and in a spectacular and horrible moment of cliche, the planet logo from the top of the Daily Planet building in an Atlas-moment. Stay in shape. And practice making fists.

Standouts from the cast are as expected. Or rather, standout, in that Kevin Spacey makes a good villain as we all knew he would. And he even manages to squeak out some truly horrible lines without sounding as horrible. Personally, I think there should be a moratorium on the line “bring it on” for the next thirty years or so, but Spacey pulls it off with a crazy shaking bravado that only a bald man in designer suits can do. His henchwoman/bimbo-of-choice, “Katherine/Kitty,” is played by Parker Posey, and I couldn’t help but wish Singer would have let her do what she does best, which is grind the role into a mush of sour sadism. But instead Kitty is played as alternately stupid and stupider. Plus she carries around a tiny lap dog the whole time. Sigh.

Where this Superman departs from earlier Superman films (and I confess that my knowledge of Superman II and III is severely limited) is in the redeeming power of the nuclear family. Spoiler alert, whatever. Superman gets messed up, as he does when he comes in contact with that green glowing kryptonite (which doesn’t get picked up by my spellcheck...hmmm...how come I can’t get it to recognize “transgender” but it knows “kryptonite”?), resulting in a good, old fashioned ass kicking at the hands and feet of Lex Luther’s thugs. Superman escapes by falling off a cliff into the ocean, and is promptly picked up by not just Lois, but Lois, her husband, and her five year old. This beautiful white upper middle class nuclear family with their own plane pluck Superman out of the ocean and magically bring him back to consciousness. Hooray the saving power of the nuclear family. By jove, those neocons are right. Family values will save the world, or at least save the man/alien who will save the world.

After the world has been saved, and order and father-son relationships are restored, Lois eventually attempts to write a follow-up to her Pulitzer-Prize winning article, entitled, wait for it...”Why the World Does Need Superman.” Hell yes. That’s right. We need a man with good old-fashioned values of truth and justice, of infinite strength and power, of undying devotion and determination. He has to be white, with kind eyes and at least seem tall if not already tall. And it will help if he’s from one of those down-home places like the farms of the Midwest or Texas. Superman returns...again and again and again...

Images courtesy of: BBC, ModernTimes.com, and Wikipedia.com, respectively.

On discovering the location of one's balls

Now, I hate as much as the next gender-theory-conscious person to indulge in a sexual metaphor, but in this case, as most of Congress is male anyway, I feel the metaphor is somewhat warranted. In any case, it makes for a good head/subject line. And besides, if I can claim the phallus, I can certainly claim some balls. Twigs no good without the berries.

The GOP and the President have made a valiant effort to chip away at their approval ratings over the last three years or so, achieving an elegant fall from grace over such issues as gas prices, the growing deficit, and that other elephant in the room, the "war on terror." I applaud them for their determination to stay the course of ruin and unwavering stupidity. Mission accomplished, as it were.

This plummet into the abyss of political cock-up has remained, however, relatively in check as the Democrats and the Left have refused to go toe to toe, instead preferring to tow the line of political unity, if you will excuse the homonym. Growing up in the Midwest, I never really had a sense of the difference between political parties, only knowing that the Dems seemed "cooler" to my burgeoning leftist sensibilities. The GOP, on the other hand, seemed to made up of uncool old white guys who appeared to have a lot invested in making everyone feel like a mixed-up teenager, even when their constituency was mostly over the age of 30. In any case, the more leftist I became, the more the Democrats seemed cool. Or rather cool enough, as I would come to realize that the Dems were really the lesser of two evils.

Then came September 11, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the beginning of the war on terror. And the Dems became the GOP, and the GOP became Gods Army, and the left remained located in the few courageous individuals who could still think straight enough to go, What the hell just happened? For all intensive purposes, the left disappeared. And I began to despair.

Where was the critique? Where were the questions? Where was the thoughtful and analytical engagement with the events of 2001, rather than the knee-jerk cry for blood and justice? The blogosphere was humming, but the most public of voices remained silent. Then the US government, condoned by popular opinion, sent thousands of young men and women to wage a war of vengeance. A war on terror became a war of terror.

And still the Dems remained silent, speaking in favor of unity and patriotism, as if to question our motives for war was in itself an act of violence. No one could speak out without being branded as unAmerican, whatever that means. We all went through this; theres no point in rehearsing the details. An irresponsibility on my part, perhaps. But not as irresponsible as using 16,000 American bodies for fodder in a battle over economic and ideological supremacy (BBC4: Dispatches: Americas Secret Shame [22 Nov. 2005] - I check my shit). By the way, 90f those 16,000 casualties occurred after GWBs big Mission Accomplished speech in May of 2003. Flash forward just over three years, and young people still battle on a massive and convoluted urban front line to accomplish the mission, whatever that was.


Now that I have that off my chest, let me say that for the first time in a long time, I have found something to be proud of in the Democratic party. CNN reported today that the Dems have vowed to reject any proposed salary increases for members of Congress until the national minimum wage is increased. And best of all, the Dems are holding out for an increase of $2.10, to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 (thats £1.15, £2.07, and £3.12, respectively, for all those Brits and others among you). Awesome. Still kind of appalling that the minimum wage in the US is that low, but its a step in the right direction. And in this age, as a Dem or a Lefty, you take what you can get sometimes.

I especially like this scathing assessment of the GOPs legislative strategy by Harry Reid (D-Nevada): "They can play all the games the want. They can deal with gay marriage, estate tax, flag burning, all these issues and avoid issues like the prices of gasoline, sending your kid to college. But we're going to do everything to stop the congressional pay raise" (CNN, Democrats vow to block pay raises... 27 June 2006). He pretty much pins down how the GOP has used a perverse twist on Shock and Awe by distracting the American public with the use of hot button issues like abortion rights, gay marriage, and patriotism. These issues shock middle Americas sensitive morality, and then seek to awe that constituency with the GOPs attention to good Christian family values.

With this gesture, the Dems seem to be getting back to their somewhat lefty tendencies a little, showing solidarity with the working class and pointing out the ways that the Bush administration and the GOP have systematically ignored the working class over the last six years, and probably before that too. If were honest, we can admit that the US government has never been that sympathetic to the working class, for fear that such sympathy would result in a commie takeover and the end of an American capitalist meritocracy. But thats beyond the scope of this little blog right now.

So cheers to the Dems for taking a stand and finding their balls again. Fingers crossed, the standing-up for minimum wage stays hardline and rigid. And in my dreams of dreams, theyll manage to stay standing and continue to push for more reform, including national healthcare system, protecting the environment, providing more funding for education, protection of a womans right to choose and care for herself, and making comprehensive sex ed available in all schools. Oh, gay civil rights would help. And an end to this stupid DOMA thing... But one thing at a time. Its a start, now lets keep going.

Heres hoping for a turn in the course...

CNN: Dems and Payraises

--This blog was originally posted on 28 June 2006 on http://blog.myspace.com/jennyrob--

CDC is A-ok, or why my body matters to the government

From our latest sphincter friends at the CDC, the following:

"New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control."

And also:

"The recommendations aim to 'increase public awareness of the importance of preconception health' and emphasize the 'importance of managing risk factors prior to pregnancy,' said Samuel Posner, co-author of the guidelines and associate director for science in the division of reproductive health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which issued the report.

Other groups involved include the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the March of Dimes, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention's Division of Reproductive Health and the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities."

Hi. My name is Jenny. I'll be your handmaiden, walking-incubator, live-baby-farm, uterus for the day. Would you like to impregnate me now? Oh, wait, excuse me, I have to go take my folic acid supplements and spend an hour in the gym first, to make sure I can carry the baby to full term. Once impregnated, I will not be able to carry another baby for nine months, but I should be able to keep carrying babies for the next 20 to 30 years, at which point I will stop existing in the medical system and the popular culture. Thank you.

Please pass the folic acid and the sperm?


Text taken from "Forever Pregnant" at the Washington Post.

Find the original rant at The Broadsheet at Salon.com

--This blog was originally posted on 17 May 2006 on http://blog.myspace.com/jennyrob--

She's the man, or something like that

So I took a day off and went to the pictures, indulging in the filmic equivalent of a marshmallow. I saw "She's the Man," featuring Amanda Bynes and David Cross (She's the Man on IMDb). Despite the fact that I walked into the theater and saw that I was the oldest person there (not entirely surprised by that), I hung around to see what the latest modernization of the Bard had to offer.

Yeah, well, like I said, it was the equivalent of eating a marshmallow - all fluff and sugar and air, but just enjoyable enough that you don't completely hate yourself after consuming it.

However, what really struck me was Amanda Byne's scrupulous cultivation of a distinctly baby dyke aesthetic. She's an attractive girl in a very conventional sense, let's not deny it, but when she's something else, she's something more. Her performance is over the top, and even campy, making me wonder (as I usually do in these cross-dressing comedies) how anyone could have possibly believed she is "really" a guy. But through a different lens, Bynes is a cute little tomboy. Makes me wish she left on the baggy jeans and slightly-fitted tshirts, and kept the stilletos in her (almost) girlfriend's closet.

Of course this is ruined by the big reveal, involving Bynes and her twin (?) brother revealing breasts and genitals, respectively, to a crowded soccer stadium. Why, why why???

If you feel like marshmallows, wait for Blockbuster or Netflix to deliver. Then you're free to fast forward to Bynes's swaggering tomboy (while muting the dialogue).

--This blog was originally posted on 15 April 2006 on http://blog.myspace.com/jennyrob--

Adventures in the blogosphere

I originally began posting, or publishing, depending on whom one talks to, on my myspace page, watching my words circulate among those selected friends who actually had the time to read. Success has been less than moderate, but I remain undaunted. In this age of freedom of choice, I choose to get out there, to stop complaining to my adorable friends and to pretend that perhaps I might say something that actually matters. The blogosphere seems to be the embodiment of neoliberal individualism - everyone has a voice, a choice, an individuality that can be expressed uncompromisingly. So I am here to put that theory to the test. The question becomes, however, will anyone read or care.

In the catchphrase of advertising and marketing, "watch this space."