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Rogue must be guest starring in in the new Black Widow book, because I came across this cover of her in one of my comics this week and….Oh, wait…nevermind. That’s just Black Widow, wearing the same unzipped to her stomach bullshit that Rogue wears now. Silly me.
Bonus points for the Black Widow costume being unzipped to her stomach while she’s out in the SNOW in RUSSIA trying to be a spy that is not noticed. Yeah, women totally do that. ALL the time. Jesus.
My new column is up at CSBG, check it out if you get a chance. It’s a bit of a rant…so I’m trying to prepare myself for the inevitable hate mail…man, I’m so bad at hate mail…why doesn’t everyone just agree with me and be nice all the time? 
Apparently my angry cries of foul on Rogue’s bullshit new costume that is constantly unzipped to her navel have fallen on deaf ears. The evidence? The X-Men Legacy cover #232. SIGH. Oh comics. I don’t know why I continue to love you when you treat me so. I’m just glutton for punishment I suppose.
My friend Josh sent me this link to Marvel’s “Women of Marvel” Halloween Costumes and said he thought it would be good “fodder for my blog”. And he’s so right. But I must be tired of fighting this unwinable (not a word) fight because all I can come up with is REALLY MARVEL? REALLY!?!
Actually, I tried, but even exhausted, I can’t just say nothing. I know we (I’m speaking for all women everywhere here – so that should tell you how tired I am) do sometimes like to dress up like sluts for Halloween – it’s a nice opportunity to get our slutty selves out there with less public shaming, cause it’s Halloween and well, anything goes! And we can just pretend tomorrow that it didn’t happen! But c’mon Marvel, do you really have to stoop to the absolute lowest freaking common denominator?
First of all, a superheroine costume is pretty slutty to begin with – all skin tight and ridiculous – it’s not like you actually have to make it sluttier. I mean, until now I wasn’t even sure it was possible in some cases. The Spider-girl costume is perhaps the most disgusting, because, I don’t know, she’s SPIDERGIRL. I mean, I’ll give you the Emma Frost/White Queen costume, because frankly, compared to some of Emma’s outfits that costume is actually pretty tame (although SUPER tacky – Emma would never be caught dead in that shit). BUT WTF…AN AMERICAN DREAM COSTUME? That’s barely even a real character! And that’s not remotely HER COSTUME!
I’m sorry, AM I SHOUTING?! IT’S PROBABLY BECAUSE I AM INSANE WITH RAGE.
Ahem. Yeah, “American Dream” barely a real superhero…I mean, even comic nerds that see you in this costume are going to be all…”Really? American Dream? She’s uh…so…uh…minor. Where’s Storm, or Jean Grey, or She-Hulk, or Ms. Marvel, or…I mean the list is endless.” So those of you who don’t know about superheroes, you might want to stick with Hooker Spider-girl, or Working Girl Black Cat, which, though completely fucking ridiculous, are at least superheroes people will actually recognize…sort of.
I’m not generally a big fan of musicals – which is good as a lot of them – especially the older ones of course – tend to be pretty anti-feminist and anti-progressive in general. However, a few musicals from my childhood have slipped through the cracks and remained good memories for me – Grease 2, A Chorus Line, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, West Side Story – I know it’s an unusual group – but gimme a break. Anyway, The Sound of Music has always been one of those fairly pristine happy musical memories.
No longer.
And man do I wish I could go back in time and NOT catch it again on television this past weekend. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
I mean, we all know those ‘I Am Sixteen Going On Seventeen‘ lyrics are a feminist nightmare, but the choreography in that scene has always belied the true nature of Liesel and Rolfe’s relationship – a far more interesting and intelligent girl hoping to seduce a rather dense and shy boy. And so I was always able to pretty well rationalize away the ramifications of that song – in my own mind at least.
However, I had completely forgotten (or deliberately blocked out?) the fact that ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria‘ – a somewhat lighthearted and silly song sung by the nuns early on, is also played while Maria walks down the aisle dressed in shockingly virginal white.
Really movie people? REALLY?!
So I mean, I’m not exactly making a big leap here when I say you’re suggesting that you solve a problem like Maria by marrying her off? Considering this movie was made in 1965…ugh. The insult is then further exasperated by including a shot of the nuns looking on almost hungrily from behind the gates (bars?) of the abbey as Maria gets married. SO, not ONLY do you solve a problem like Maria by marrying her off – but we want to make sure to further reinforce that women are nothing if not married – either to a man or to God (and by the wistful looks on the nuns faces – preferably a man) by showing seemingly desperate nuns looking longingly into the ceremony?
As if that was not enough, one of the only scenes with Maria (that isn’t singing) post wedding, is when she tentatively tries to advocate for the children singing in the Salzburg Music Festival – at which time she is immediately shut down by her husband. And unlike the brash outspoken ‘fight the good fight’ woman she was as a single governess – a woman who would never step down from what she believes in – as a “happily” married wife she literally steps back, puts her hands behind her back, and lightly bows her head in acquiescence to Captain VonTrapp’s orders. Shortly thereafter she sings a bit of ‘Sixteen Going On Seventeen‘ with Liesel in which they both longingly sing about ‘belonging to a man’ – good role modeling Maria, good role modeling.
All this to say DAMN YOU FEMINISM FOR RUINING THE SOUND OF MUSIC FOR ME! Damnit! I’m never going to be able to watch this shit with a clear conscience again.
And here’s the real question – if I have kids someday – do I put them in front of it? I mean, certainly once they’re old enough they can choose what they want to watch – but when they’re young enough that I’m choosing for them – do I want to corrupt their little minds with these antiquated ideas – that they may not even realize are ridiculous and antiquated until far too late? Damnit I say again.
Completely Unrelated Sidenote: I cannot believe how gorgeous Austria is and it has now shot up to the top of my travel wish list.
That is what I have learned from Resident Evil 3.
And I learned it by looking at the three main female characters and finding that the only thing they really had in common to insure their survival was their superhotness.
I’m so annoyed. And thus feminist rant, here we come…
Below is what I am calling the “Hot Trifecta” of Ali Larter (who I’m not a big fan of); Milla Jovovich (who I am a fan of, usually in spite of myself); and Ashanti (who I barely know but have to concede is pretty hot at least).
WTF?!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?
Okay, it’s confession time. I love me superheroes, I love me apocalypse tales, I love me some badass superhero-like future chicks that kick ass and take names, and it’s great if they can wear badass futuristic clothes while doing it (Milla’s outfit here is both *purr* delicious and also not nearly as ridiculous as it could have been) all the better. But COME ON! By making them all so out of control hot you kind of just kill any attempt I could make at getting into this story (if there was one) instead I get all distracted by the fact that these are the only women that have survived. The incredibly small percentage of women that have survived an apocalyptic like event…are all supermodels?! I’ll even give you that maybe they’d all be in pretty great shape, because survival can be tough (although they all look like they’re eating pretty well from the fleshed out tan limbs) and so perhaps they’d have smoking hot bodies…but these are the faces of the average women that survive?! Hollywood, have you looked around? Even in Los Angeles you would be hard pressed to find three women this attractive within a several mile radius, let alone have them be three of the very few survivors. Oh, and the one kid in the movie that we focus on (Kmart – yes I said Kmart – it was one of the movie’s few and horribly executed attempts at character development) is young, but totally on the verge of being these ladies fourth hot friend…give her a couple years and she’d give any one of them a run for their money.
Now let’s talk about the men. Surely you have to also be a superhot man to survive the apocaplyspe right? No, not so. Here’s the “non-hot trifecta” of men in this film:
And let’s be clear – there’s nothing wrong with these guys. Hursley (far right) is a bit on the goofy side, and Ashby (far left) is a bit on the old side, but they’re decent looking guys, and really, on the whole they’re actors, so they’re still more attractive than your average person, but they’re normal looking. What a shock. The men get to be just normal looking average joes, but the women better be supermodels or people just won’t watch this movie appears to be the thinking and it just pisses me off. Why don’t you just spend a little time on things like story, or character development, or anything other than physical beauty and special effects…maybe if you did that people could find some great redeeming stuff even if your main characters aren’t supermodels. So focused is this movie on the hotness of its women that I had trouble even finding photos of the men, and some of the men not pictured were impossible to find. Notably missing is MIke Epps who I could not find a still of anywhere for the film, as well as the slew of normal looking MALE doctors and scientists in the film that cannot be found anywhere, including Iain Glen, the baddie in the film.
Oh, I almost forgot. There is one ugly woman in the film. Fat too, of course. And she’s a bad guy. Second from the right. She’s even got disgusting teeth, instead of the perfect white smile of heroes.
So to recap, here is what we have learned. Your superhotness will not only help you survive the apocalypse, but it will also make you a good guy. If you are ugly and maybe fat your only chance to survive is to become as disgusting on the inside as you (obviously) are on the outside (ARGH!) by becoming a villain. The kind of cartoon level villain that tries to kill beautiful superhero types and their good intentions with infected dogs and shit.
Has Hollywood learned nothing from shows like The Office and even 30 Rock, which are monster hits, and have many normal average looking people starring in them? You write something good, you get good actors to star in it and you know what, people just don’t care that they’re not necessarily looking at supermodels. In fact, while my rampant hatred of this trend may be the minority, I don’t think I’m in the minority of people by being bored with staring and unrealistically hot people all day. How can I relate to that? Ugh. Okay, rant officially ended. Here’s the “official rundown”.
The Good: Milla’s costume. It was badass.
The Bad: Everything else.
The Ugly: Anything that I missed above.
Rating: 1 Star. It was going to be 2 stars, but the more I wrote the more pissed off I got, and by the end of the post, it’s one star. Blech.
So this is my first book review of 2008. The year in which I am not torturing myself to read a book a week, and I have to say, I’m really enjoying reading again, mostly because I don’t feel so pressured, it’s also of note that I’m getting a lot more done that isn’t reading – so it’s good on all sides.
Adam lent me this book, Superfolks by Robert Mayer (which he has not read) thinking I might find it interesting, both because I love me some superheroes, and also because my novel (and my in-progress second and third novels – part of a trilogy) are basically about a superhero. I think he thought it would be helpful and constructive to read, and that I also might enjoy it. He’s not wrong. I did enjoy it. But it also totally enraged me, and in the end, despite the fact that I concede my rating may be a bit unfair considering that it was originally published in 1977, it only gets 2.0 stars. Here’s why.
The Good: It was enjoyable in a fluffy way. I can appreciate that Mayer was doing something innovative with superheroes for his time. It reads easily and the hero/superhero David Brinkley is likable enough (despite the misogynistic aspects) but he’s also not too sticky sweet and perfect, he seems very three-dimensional.
One of my favorite parts of the book was a little detail that if Brinkley used his powers of ex-ray vision for non-superhero reasons, like looking at an interns boobs through her tight sweater, then he became instantly clumsy, and that despite the consequences, he often abuses the power and as such is often running into things and falling down. It was a funny bit and an element that would make Superman as Clark Kent more believable in his civilian disguise.
I was very interested in the idea, that was unfortunately only touched on, of Brinkley’s inability to perform sexually as his superhero persona, and the other more psychological ideas about the realities of being a superhero that were explored, it was all very interesting, but unfortunately not really fleshed out thouroughly.
There was a brilliant (also pretty unexplored) idea about villains (powered or not) that all went to the same boarding school (The Winthrop School For Boys) to be trained to be villains – Lee Harvey Oswald being a current (though deceased) alumni and martyr – it was funny and creative and I wish it had tied more into the overall plot, rather than just being a wonderful little side note. The overall conspiracy/plot was also quite clever, though it made for the most dull reading in the book.
The Bad: The title is terrible. Who came up with this title? The title really does not pertain at all to the story. David Brinkley lives in a world with superheroes and supervillians, yes, but the story does not focus on other heroes at all – there are vague mentions of them – mostly in an effort to create a sense of the world that Brinkley lives in, and I think two super villains and one superhero (retired) make fairly brief appearances. The book is also not really about people with super powers in general or as a comment on society, or science, or the future, or anything, so I can’t figure out the reason for the title choice. The Incredibles, with its five minute newsreel footage at the beginning, which brilliantly sets the political and social stage for that world is more about “superfolks” and how that effects them and the world, than this entire 240 page book.
We never know our “hero’s” superhero name. It’s annoying. He is often referred to as Indigo, but later it is suggested that this is just a code name for him by respective governments. You never know for sure. I’m certain Mayer had a reason for doing this, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out the reason. It only served to frustrate me.
There are little tricks that Mayer uses, which I’m sure many readers like, but which left me a bit cold. Tricks such as using famous names for normal people and normal people names for famous people, for example, Jane Doe is a famous movie star and Gloria Steinem (one of our most powerful women in reality – so of course she must be “brought low”) is described as married with children and wearing a smelly housedress and an extra 30 distasteful pounds. There are a lot of name drops like this and initially I thought it was a bit clever, but it gets old fast.
It’s also not clear what stage he has really set for his world, it’s not the real world, or any other pre-established comic book world (i.e. Wonder Woman exists, as do Batman and Superman, but so does Snoopy the Flying Ace and The Lone Ranger), so but I can’t get a sense of what it’s supposed to be like with any accuracy.
People in Mayer’s book also behave in ways pretty contrary to the way we do in 2008, and I suspect contrary to the way people behaved in 1977, and QUITE often in a borderline pornographic way, but there is no set up for why that is acceptable in this society…did something go horribly wrong…or right…to make people act this way? It came up too often to be ignored but not often enough that I accepted it without reservations…especially with no “historical” explanation. The little in-jokes may have been inventive and inspiring or chuckle inducing in 1977, but in 2008 it left me kind of bored, and without a clear sense of the world in which the in-jokes existed I was left frustrated.
The Ugly: The 1977 publication date is hugely at issue in this review because there are many 2008 socially unacceptable things in the book that were probably the norm in 1977. The same way I bristled at the N-word being used occasionally in Matheson’s I Am Legend (fitting that Will Smith got the lead in 2007 – it’s nice when things come around like that) I bristled at the black/white separation here and the way it was handled. I know I cannot expect things like that not to exist in what is essentially a period piece but it’s also hard to just accept it. And this brings us to my major issue with the book, especially in the final pages…
Spoiler Alert
Women are without a doubt second class citizens in this book.
They are sex objects and wives and mothers and that’s about it. They are certainly not superheroes, the best they can do, apparently, is be a hollow version of Superman’s ‘Lois Lane crack reporter’, in the form of Peggy Poole, who is really not as much a reporter as a vehicle for Brinkley to remember his youth and past sexual desire for her. Women can also be whores, as evidenced in the form of Brinkley’s ex-high school sweetheart Lorna Doone, who also operates simply as a vehicle for Brinkley to remember his youth and past sexual desire for her, though as a whore she is now sad looking and unappealing. Boy we women cannot win. What time period is this set in – the 1500’s? Jesus.
I understand it’s 1977, but really? I mean, Charlie’s Angels was on the air then (1976 – 1981)…I’m not saying that it was a groundbreaking show and the angels certainly used their looks to their advantage in every single frame and they were ultimately taking orders from not one, but two men (one of who lived inside a speaker phone no less) but at least they were the stars. They weren’t sidelined reporters and whores, and little housewives, they were private investigators, and spies, and models, and athletes, and they were smart. You know what else was out in 1977…a little show called Wonder Woman…oh yeah, and this show you may have heard of…it’s not like women weren’t on the rise…they were stepping up and were showing, especially during the late 1970’s, that they were NOT just the little wifey, the powerless sidekick, the whore, the sex object. And these shows weren’t even particularly innovative and revolutionary, but rather mainstream, so I have to say that ultimately Mayer’s book is buried in the opposite of innovation and forward thinking. It’s like he decided to do a superhero novel, which was super innovative for the time, and then decided that that was quite enough innovation and quit.
As if to add insult to injury, the end of the book is like a giant punch in the vagina of all women.
Seriously. In literally the last pages of the book, our “hero” allows his old flame Peggy to give him a blow job…he justifies the fact that he allows this to happen while his wife is literally in labor with their third child, by saying that “he didn’t ask for it or instigate it” and that he “deserves it” for saving the world (yet again). Whoo. What a hero. Someone hold me back from this awesome specimen…this golden example of man. Blech. It turns out that it is actually his apparently gay sort-of-one-time sidekick that is blowing him (his eyes were closed) and so he chases him out of the room when he realizes the mistake, and ‘hyuck-hyuck-hyuck’ we can all feel okay that he didn’t actually cheat on Pamela (his wife) with Peggy (his old flame) because it was really Peter (what’s up with the P names?) and he of course didn’t want that. So we are supposed to overlook the fact that our hero wanted it to happen and that he thought it was happening and allowed it to go on, but since it technically didn’t happen the way he wanted with the person he wanted then it doesn’t matter and all is well. Hahahaha! Isn’t life grand? Totally annoying.
And that’s not all – the WORST offense by far is that at the very end of the book Brinkley is basically losing his super powers (as he was in the beginning) and is lamenting the loss of them and of his lost heritage, but his wife has a baby BOY in the end, and SURPRISE, there are very strong hints (i.e. ridiculous hard to deny proof) that the son will have his father’s power. I guess those two little girls of his didn’t get anything. I mean what a surprise, why would they? Girls should pretty much be drowned like unwanted kittens at birth, or farmed out as strippers and whores, or maybe sold into the slavery of marriage, or oh, I know, they can be “crack reporters” that get captured all the time, so that heroes can have someone helpless to rescue.
BLAH! ANGER!
I’m disappointed in my man Grant Morrison for writing the intro to this and praising this book so much. I’m angry at Stan Lee for saying, “You’ll never look at superheroes the same way again” – he’s right, I can’t. And I’m more disappointed than ever.
i’ve been debating all day whether to write about this article i read in the New York Times today or not. i guess i decided to write about it. but i still feel conflicted.
here’s the problem, i’m a smart girl, i’m no genius but smart enough most days and while i’m more informed about worldly events than the average American (and apparently more educated considering i can point to not only North America but several other continents – not to mention actual countries too – on a map) i have been doing a piss poor job of keeping involved in current events, politics, world issues, etc. i get my news mostly from the internet, clicking on stories that interest me. i don’t regularly read any newspapers and i refuse to watch American news reports which we all know are really entertaiment news programs anyway. as such i feel like my information is a bit limited and part of this is deliberate. like many educated people i suffer from a strong desire to know these things and be involved, but also like many people i feel overwhelmed quickly. i can only read about a war that i have no interest in (and if it were up to me we would not have ever gotten involved in) so many times before i give up in frustration.
i think it’s a combination of things, but mostly there are not enough hours in the day for me to work my job, submit (and write) short fiction, submit my novel, re-write my novel, re-draw and re-tool my graphic novel, work out (which always seems to get lost in the shuffle), engage in my relationship, and also both care about and do something about things like female genital mutilation in Egypt (or anywhere else for that matter). so all i end up feeling is frustration.
on one hand it is my choice to not do anything about it, to instead focus my energy on becoming a “successful” writer. on the other hand if people like me don’t care (there seem to be so few of us out there) then who will do anything? *sigh* it’s depressing. in my mind there is always going to be ample time to care about such things when i quit my full time job and become a “full time writer” because then i will have all this magical free time that used to be used up on writing…but we all know that is a myth. there will never be any extra time. maybe this is why i get mad when people tell me they are bored. please, give me your extra time that you have to be bored, because there are plenty of things i’d like to do with your “i’m bored” time.
okay, enough of the rant. please read the article below, and if you’re a better person than me (i hope you are) consider getting involved. there must be something that can be done.
these men are cowards. they are afraid of change and more importantly they are afraid of the power of women. they hide behind religion because it is hard to attack religion without being called all sorts of things, but what they are too cowardly to realize is that they are hiding behind man’s interpretation of God’s word and man gets things wrong all the time, this is no exception.
and speaking of getting things wrong…how is female genital mutilation the same as circumcision? it’s not female circumcision it is female castration.
it is female castration and it has to stop.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/world/africa/20girls.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
this is a picture from the NY Times article of some of the men who defend the tradition of genital cutting with the words, “we support circumcision!” you are cowards. you are all cowards.
i’ve been reading girl-wonder.org off an on for the last month or so and generally enjoy what she has to say over there, but never have i agreed with her more than in her post of September 9th 2007. check it out if you find yourself interseted in comics, feminism, or better yet, both.
my boyfriend didn’t much like my post about surgical bras yesterday as he felt i was putting too much blame on men for these “great” advancements in female beautification and not enough on women themselves, i felt that i put JUST enough blame on women, in that i mentioned we have a hand in it as well, which was all that needed to be said.
sidenote: the boyfriend is not generally a fan of plastic surgery – whether it be facelifts or breast enhancement or whatever the next hottest grossest thing is.
he also made an argument that women advance many other beautifications that men are subjected to (he used male chest shaving as an example, and while i have no proof i have to say i am inclined to believe it was more likely invented by gay men than women). my real answer to his complaint was a very intelligent “seriously? i mean you’re kidding right? can you even compare what men have physically subjected women to with what women have possibly physically subjected men to?” it was not my greatest rebuttle, but i was just stunned to find he even thought there was a comparison to be made. i consider him pretty advanced for the male species, but i have to admit i felt pretty let down. we got into a rather drawn out discussion about it and lets just say we had to agree to disagree on this issue, as with many in our life together.
however, it did bring up an issue that i have been wondering about for myself lately, which is that i’ve got a lot of man rage going on right now. i feel just poised on the edge of becoming some militant feministe lesbian woman (not that there is anything wrong with that – but i feel that scenario will likely go badly for said boyfriend). so i’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is that is causing all this feminist rage. the question should probably be what is NOT causing my feminist rage, considering the current world at large, but whatever.
i have felt listless, or restless, or pointless, i don’t know, something with a “less” on the end of it a lot lately. as such i have spent more time than usual surfing the net and ending up on annoying sites like perezhilton.com and thesuperficial.com. these sites are kind of ‘anti’ what i am about as a person, or since i have been going to them i should say that they are ‘anti’ what i WANT to be. they are mostly about calling people out (mostly women) and talking about how terrible they look.
the superficial is actually pretty funny and well written, but i’m going to have to pull the plug i think because its just bad vibes for a girl like me who thinks she’s got some feminist in her to be partaking of this stuff. here’s an example: one day this summer he (the superficial dude) was bitching about how big Kim Kardashian’s ass is (it is – and it’s awesome), there was this point (probably a week prior) where he thought her ass was the greatest thing on earth, but at some point she apparently crossed some magical and INVISIBLE line in the sand and now it is suddenly considered WAY too big, i believe the words were “the body of a regular girl and the ass of an obese woman”. to make matters worse, a day or two following that he was bitching about how flat Mila Kunis’ ass is (i believe he compared her ass to a board of wood). so here’s the thing, we can’t win. no matter what we do, we just can’t win. we can be Mila Kunis level skinny with a tiny little ass and we will be posted on the internet and reviled, or we can be curvy with a giant awesome pornstar ass like Kim Kardashian and we will also be posted on the internet and reviled. i know his job is to be funny and to tear apart “hollywood” and who really cares about these vapid little starlets and wannabes anyway right? i know i don’t care about them, which is i guess why i get sucked in like anyone else, but it’s bigger than that. i think we all have to step up and understand that it is bigger than that. we have to take responsibility for what we are supporting, and by clicking on these sites i am inadvertantly supporting them. just like by watching bad reality television that i then complain about i am still supporting it.
so here’s my experiment, which is going to be completely difficult and painful, but which i hope will ease my man rage. i’m going to stop clicking on these sites and i vow to not watch any more television that is something i would be embarassed to admit i watch (this will mostly include reality television i expect) for the next month. the tv portion of this challenge should not be so difficult because i don’t generally partake in much reality tv that i don’t think is worthwhile (Project Runway is a good show and i’m not afraid to admit to watching it), but the internet clicking is going to be very difficult.
the other side to this is that by ignoring a whole facet of american life (and elsewhere?) that everyone is involved in perhaps i am just ignoring and avoiding a problem that i should instead face up to, i.e. just because i don’t click on things that make me mad and don’t get riled up and have man rage, doesn’t mean anyone is actually behaving any better and i am just kidding myself. we’ll see how i feel in 30 days. wish me luck.
