Be expecting a new site, Readerland, before X-mas, and probably after Chanukkah. Or Hanukkah. I still can’t decide how to spell it.

In the meantime, may I suggest the fabulous archives or checking out some other places I babble, such as FWD/Forward, Change.org’s Womens’ Rights blog, my guest posts at Bitch Magazine, or even the intermittent happenings occasionally appearing at Racialicious? That should keep you satisfied.

Also, feel free to follow me on tumblr, twitter, or Facebook.

This weekend I was guilty of indulging in Tangled, twice, at the free theatre on post with Kid. The first time we saw it with some friend, one of them being the family of one of her best friends from school and his family who had already seen the film in the States, and who liked it enough to recommend it to us. The second time was because we were bored about the time that it was showing the next day, and lo and behold! it was playing, and we were there, and we liked it enough to force ourselves to get some popcorn and enjoy it again, just the two of us.

The obligatory and only slightly spoiler-y plot synapses:

Tangled is a re-boot of the classic Rapunzel story, the story of a baby, traded for lettuce by her careless father (a classic recipe in fairy tales, the uneven trade of something small for something of worth to jump-start the story-line, especially in a Brothers Grimm story… ugh the Brothers Grimm…) to a woman slash witch (it is always an old woman slash witch) who agrees to raise her as her own.

Bad enough that the two women of consenting age in the Grimm version are already  turned to be the at-fault beings: The mother of the soon-to-be Rapunzel craves lettuce, and since in olden times it was nigh a crime to deny a pregnant woman any food she craved (not a lot of food policing and shaming going on then), what was her poor hen-pecked husband to do but sneak into the old woman slash witch’s garden and steal it. Then, the old woman slash witch, who is obviously wronged because her lettuce has been stolen, over-reacts and demands repayment in the form of flesh. To her the baby is awarded, and she is painted as evil…the evil stepmother is exemplified in Dame Goethe, as only an example of one. The Grimm Brothers liked their evil stepmothers, for sure. The baby girl is also exchanged as property.

Dame Goethe raises her in a tower, accessing it by calling the iconic words “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair”. Naturally, following the recipe, of conventional beauty, a mystically beautiful singing voice, and a handsome prince, Rapunzel is encountered by a Dude who wants to Save her (read: marry her after first sighting).

Of course, after a few meetings, Rapunzel is stupid enough to get herself knocked up, according to the Grimm Brothers, and gives away their secret rendezvous. Their silky ladder plan is wrecked by her wacky lady-brain. Rapunzel’s hair is chopped, she is banished from the tower, and the Prince is taken by surprise by Evil Step Mum who casts him from the tower where he is blinded on some briar patch. If I recall correctly, Rapunzel and her dreamboat find each other via True Love the sound of her voice.

They live happily ever after.

Anyone not aware that I am not a fan of  The Brothers Grimm would do well to make a note of that.

The re-boot twists the plot by making the girl a baby stolen from a King and Queen by an old woman because she is born with magical hair that has healing and re-generative properties which can make a person forever younger. Mother Goethe raises her in a tower, and Rapunzel is none-the-wiser. The idea is to hide her away so that no one will discover her or her magical hair that glows when she sings.

Rapunzel, however, from her tower, gathers glimpses of the outside world, and decides that she must see what she calls “the floating lights” for her 18th birthday, in person, which she concludes only appear on her birthday. She sets her mind to accomplishing a goal and to leading her own life, even though she is scared out of her mind to even ask, and even though Mother Goethe badgers her into temporary submission by telling her she may never leave the tower, because she is too naive and the world is too dangerous.

The world, however, doesn’t stay away from Rapunzel, and in a terrific plot device, a wanted thief going by the name of Flynn Ryder happens upon her tower and hides from the palace guards inside it. Rapunzel defends herself from the invasion (in a convenient “women can fight back” image), and convinces Ryder to take her on her journey after she cleverly dispatches her mother on an errand that should have kept her away long enough.

The biggest problem that Disney hit with this film was that their marketing for the film, most of which I was sheltered from with my being in another country, centered on the story from Flynn’s point of view. It seemed that Disney was afraid that the movie would not draw an equal number of boy and girl viewers if they didn’t pretend that this was a swashbuckling dudebro film about a guy saving a girl from a tower and convincing her to fall in love with him. The trailers from the film certainly back this up, and Natalie Wilson’s post at Women and Hollywood certainly seem to follow this idea, though she takes some of Scott Mendelson’s thoughts out of context. You would think that Tangled was following Disney’s narrative of damsel in distress and that boys won’t see “chick flicks”, but that girls will see either a movie featuring a boy or a girl. You would think this was the story of how Flynn Ryder saved a missing princess from a tower, rather than how a smart young woman saved Eugene Fitzherbert from death.

But Tangled, much like James Cameron’s Avatar, which I reviewed earlier this year, didn’t live up to the idea of the marketing, and actually delivered a much more delightful event that promised. Not without flaw, Tangled was a twist on the recipe, and almost a spoof on the Princess films of the past. There were moments when I was certain that Disney was mocking its own history of the pretty girl singing to a flock of blue birds in a field, or making fun of the heroine who fulfills her day by keeping house and performing absurd tasks for the delight of her wicked stepmother.

Tangled is, of course, about a pretty, young, impossibly thin, white girl with huge green eyes in a giant heart-shaped face meant to be the vision of conventional beauty, I am sure. And, OH! the blonde, hair! Isn’t it always blonde (even though it seems that there are versions of the story that pre-date the Grimm’s version in Iran that reference a girl who would throw down her “musky black tresses” to allow her lover to climb up to see her)? It is a story that ends in a hetero marriage, that they were sure to pound home was precipitated by him proposing to her. It must always be marriage.

But are we surprised by this anymore? When there is such a pushback against a brown woman wanting to be a hobbit or people wanting to see movies about Asian stories starring Asian people? I’m not. It feels like running in quicksand to keep pointing some of this tired tripe out, because it is. Tired. Done. Old. Boring.

I do note that the positioning of Rapunzel as a pale, blonde, green-eyed girl as the protagonist against her stepmother, a dark(er)-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman was the first thing that I noticed. First thing. Evil is positioned as dark (and desperately clinging to youth and beauty), and good as light (and young!), and then people wonder why I get upset that I want to see faces that are not fair and light in movies… They are only ever evil… orcs, ogres who are not Shrek, evil witches and Stepmothers, sorceresses, seawitches, the occasional dark creepy clergy guy… Disney is rife with this dichotomy (Don Bluth had Rasputin once). Played by the talented Donna Murphy who is often, even though she considers herself a white American woman, is often cast as Eastern European in parts I have seen her play on television…Mother Goethe is dark… and an evil mother in fantasy… there is something new and refreshing… Hopefully we won’t see a wave of young girls fleeing out their bedroom windows from their mothers and stepmothers because they are angry at the notion that “Mother Knows Best”.

But Tangled spins the older Disney Fairy Tales on their heads, even the ones that claim to feature “feminist” princesses, like Jasmine or Belle or even Mulan (I like the tale of Fa Mulan…but Disney does it so wrong). Disney destroyed the legend of Pocahontas and can’t get a revision of The Little Mermaid turned into a good teenage coming-of-age story without making it All About the Dude. Rapunzel starts out with a dream of her own, she is clever and resourceful (there are many uses for a frying pan), and even doubtful about what she wants in the long run, but she is trying to figure it out starting with this one small step. A big step for an abused young woman, if you ask me (which Disney, of course, pokes fun at).

I can agree with Wilson on a few things, most notably, that Disney could put a little effort into balancing casts, especially into making notable female characters. This cast had exactly three female characters, two with speaking parts, and only needed three female voice-actors, two playing the same character (young-girl Rapunzel and Rapunzel as a young woman) as the only top-billed parts. This isn’t exclusive to Disney, however, so I am unwilling to ascribe this to “The Disney Machine”. Most all animated films (and family and fantasy films in general) are guilty of doing this with minor exceptions that end up proving the rule. To have a female protagonist who isn’t a waif or (more of) a stereotype is a start.

Unlike many of the other stories Disney has told where the protagonist often either falls in love immediately with the guy at first encounter, or, like Mendelson notes, nor do they end up sniping at one another during their adventure a la The Princess and the Frog. Rapunzel and Flynn, who begin their journey in a rather tense manner, form a friendship based on a need to trust one another so that by the end of the movie when they do wind up, predictably, together, we find it actually believable and not at all forced. Unlike much of the marketing and descriptions I did see for the film (which wasn’t much, and enough to make me roll my eyebrows off of my head), Rapunzel and Flynn did not fall in love at first sight and set off together so she could escape. In fact, Rapunzel had the intention of returning to her tower through most of the storyline.

Though, Disney shatters this in the eleventh hour with a move by Flynn to remove Rapunzel’s (albeit limited) choice from the situation, figuratively and literally. Disney does a great job of placing her in a situation where she is forced into a lose-lose situation to make sure that The Dude has a hand in Saving the Day. Natch.

Just as Disney decides it is finished with Fairy Tales and the Princess genre, they hit me with what I consider to be my favorite movie in that vein so far. Tangled, while not unproblematic, really knocked several things into place that were missing from previous movies, including The Princess and the Frog (which I really enjoyed, but had many problematic elements to it as well). I’m extremely tired of watching Barbie-shaped girls run amok and fall magically in love with a swashbuckling, barrel-chested and tiny-hipped hero who saves them from the evil witch slash stepmother before they can get a scratch on her pale skin (unless the movie is specifically stated to be of a certain ethnic origin, then they will jack it all up with racist tropes). Tangled didn’t undo all of that, but it certainly made leaps and bounds in the right direction.

At first, it was amusing, because she is attracted, as I have discovered that all cats I with whom I have ever had the honor of sharing a dwelling I have had my space overtaken by are, to running water. The shower, rain, sink water, and yes, the toilet (unfortunately, even if you are already sitting on it). Her new-found ability to jump up and reach ALL THE SURFACES has enabled her to discover lots of new exciting hobbies, like leaving paw prints in the sink. So, one day, while using my hand washing time to rinse said paw prints down the drain, Cordy decided that the stream of water looked enticing.

I rinsed my hands and backed away…and wasn’t it just adorable the way that she thought that she could lap the water from the running column without getting her head wet? Wasn’t it hilarious the way that it angled off of her forehead when she tried to get closer, as she looked at it cross-eyed and confused? Did it not remind me of my Dad’s cats when they would try to walk on snow while not getting their paws wet? Didn’t it just make me cry with laughter when she discovered that the porcelain provided no traction, or that she wasn’t able to grab the stream with her paws and pull it towards her?

So, naturally my instinct was to show my whole family, immediately, how, when I turned the tiny stream on and backed away, Cordelia would come bounding in happily from across our apartment, and use the trash can, toilet and counter, 1, 2, 3, as step to hop up to her new fountain! Of course my Partner and Kid both found it equally as entertaining as I, and over the next few days we would take turns casually turning on the water whenever we had open-door bathroom needs. Cordelia would even wait patiently as we brushed our teeth so as not to get spittle on her paws.

Well, naturally, now, whenever I go to the bathroom, Cordy will wait by the door, whimpering and pawing until I let her in, and then she will sit up on the counter and look at me, expectantly, as if to say “Hey! Two-legs! I’m waiting for my refreshing sip!”.

Yes, the sink running has produced a rather Pavlovian effect, just like shaking the kibble bag, but it is almost as if her face, perplexed by why I haven’t yet turned on the sink seems to almost have me trained to do her bidding.

That, and the urge to watch her play in the water and attempt to not get wet. That’s pretty good incentive, I suppose.

Quick and dirty, as accurate as I can get with my headphones getting feedback from my converter, transcript (Please feel free to link and repost with attribution):

Unknown Speaker: gentleman is recognized for five minutes

[Ron Paul walks to the podium]

Paul: Thank you Mr. Speaker

I rise, uh, this evening to introduce some legislation today that uh, dealing with the calamity that uh, we have found in our airports dealing with TSA. Something has to be done. The people are fed up, the pilots are fed up, I’m fed up.

I’ve come to this floor many times over the last, um, many years, complaining about the terrible foreign policy we’ve had, the terrible monetary policy we’ve had, the excessive spending and the debt, and also the tax policy, but what we’re doing, what we’re accepting and what we’re putting up with at this airport is so symbolic of us just not standing up and saying “Enough is enough!”.

I know the American people are starting to wake up, but our Congress, those in charge, as well as the Executive branch, are doing nothing. Yes, they are talking about maybe backing off and allowing the pilots to go through, but can you think how silly the whole thing is, the pilot has a gun in the cockpit, and he’s managing this aircraft which is a missile, and we make him go through this groping, x-ray exercise, having people feeling their underwear… It’s absurd.

And it’s time we wake up. The Bill I’ve introduced will take… will take care of this. But we have to realize that the real problem is that the American people have been too submissive, we have been too submissive, that this has been going on for a long time that this [unclear] was to be expected. Even from the beginning of the TSA.

And it’s deeply flawed. Private property should be protected by private individuals, not bureaucrats but the, but the, the bill that I’ve introduced will take care of that. It’s very simple. It’s one paragraph long. It remo, it remo, it remo, it removes the immunity from anyone in the federal government that does anything that you or I can’t do. If you can’t grope another person and if you can’t x-ray people and endanger them with possible x-ray, you can’t take nude photographs of them, of individuals, why do we allow the government to do it? [Voice raises, and he waves his arms emphatically] We would go to jail! If an individual, he would be immediately arrested, if an individual citizen went up and did these things. And yet, we just sit there and calmly “Oh they’re making us safe”. And besides, the argument from the Executive branch is when you buy a ticket you have sacrifice your rights but it’s the duty of the government to make us safe. That isn’t the case. You never have to sacrifice your rights. The duty of the government is the protect our rights. Not to use them and do what they have been doing to us.

The pilots you know, hopefully, will be exempted from this. Another suggestion I have that might help us, let’s make sure that every member of Congress goes through this. Make ‘em take the x-ray and make ‘em look at the pictures and then go through one of those, uh, groping, uh, pat downs. And then I think there’d be a difference. And then have everybody in the Executive branch, anybody, a Cabinet member, make them go through it and look at it, maybe they would pay more attention.

But, this…doesn’t work [shakes head] this is not what makes us safe. This is preposterous to think the TSA has made us safer. Ya know, when you think about it, if you look at what has happened over the last ten years, if you look at what we’ve lost, three thousand on a terrible, terrible day for America, but since that time in this last decade we have also lost six thousand of our military personnel going over and trying to rectify this problem. We have lost four hundred thousand people on our government-run highways, we have lost 150 thousand individuals from homicides so I think there is reason to be concerned, reason to deal with this problem. We’re not dealing with it the right way, we’re doing the wrong thing, and groping people at the airport is not solving the problem. What has solved our problem is basically they put a good lock on the door and they put a gun inside the cockpit. That’s been the greatest [unclear] to our safety. Safety should be the responsibility individual and the private property owner. But right now we assume the government is always going to take care of us and we are supposed to sacrifice our liberties. I say that is wrong, we are not safer, and we also know that there are individuals who are making money off this. Michael Shirtoff, I mean, here’s a guy who was the head of the TSA selling the equipment. And the equist, the equipment’s questionable. We don’t even know if it works and it may well be dangerous to our health.

You know, the way I see this, the way I see this, if this doesn’t change, I see what has happened to the American people is we have accepted the notion that we should be treated like cattle. Make us safe, make us secure, put us in the barbed wire, feed us, fatten us up, and then they’ll eat us. And we’re a bunch of cattle and we have to say we’ve had it. I think this whole idea of an Opt Out Day is great. That’s great, we outta opt out, make the point, get somebody to watch, to take a camera, it’s time for somebody to stand up and shrug off the shackles of our government at TSA at the airport.

[hits the podium with palms and walks away]

 

Of course, I don’t agree with every word here, but the idea that the TSA is not doing things the right way, and the idea that strip searches and sexual assault are not good options. Removing the immunity of federal government agents and allowing them to be charged for sexual assault as long as they actually do it, is not a bad idea.

I wouldn’t vote for his anti-choice, libertarian ass, but I agree with him here.

One strike in the “hate” column, were it possible for me to keep up with the number of things I hated, is the way that Goodkind took incredibly interesting women characters and wrote them into incredible tropes whose sole purpose was to serve the whims of the principle protagonist, who might be the most annoying man I have ever read written into (fantasy) fiction, ever. And I have read some Star Wars fiction, and all of the Twilight books.

I am not sure if it annoyed me more or less that these women characters were from most perspectives, well, awesome. I fell in love with them on most fronts. The first of many, Kahlan, was undoubtedly one of the most unusual characters I’ve ever met in fiction. She was a matriarch of sorts over all of the Midlands with a rare and incredible power.

As a Confessor she commanded respect from everyone who crossed her path, or that was how things were intended to be. Until, that is, she met and fell in love with Richard Cypher, who turned out to be *spoilerspoilerspoiler* the heir to the Rahl line. A woman who is used to having kings and queens bow to her ultimate and unquestionable authority suddenly has her reign usurped by her fiancée and doesn’t seem to mind because she can still rule by his side. Once they are married.

In my mind it was fun to have this woman placed in a position of ultimate power only to have her toppled by the parties of men. Another Queen, who happens to be Kahlan’s sister by a coincidence, is also dethroned, then brutally raped and beaten until she literally goes insane by a group of misogynistic marauding men working for the Ultimate Evil Socialist Baddie (I am not kidding). The women who run the Palace of the Prophets, a group of powerful sorceresses who train young wizards, have their palace usurped and destroyed out from under them. This theme did not go unnoticed. /digression

Kahlan’s father taught her everything he knew about war and survival, and as a result she knew how to train young soldiers who were outnumbered greatly and spent more time leading armies than Richard — who was prophesied to lead the final battle against the great Socialist Evil. But love conquers all, right? When Richard decides that he must throw out the laws of the old Midlands and unite them under D’Hara (even though it doesn’t work), Kahlan, flinching momentarily, does anything she can to support Richard. Goodkind even goes to great pains to show her failing when she goes against Richard’s advice — even though it doesn’t make sense given her educational background, her personality, or the strength of her character and her power. One of the most absurd aspects of the story is that some of the greatest power she wields can only be invoked on behalf of Richard. And that particular point is never fully explained. I will never be able to fully explain all the ways that I loved Kahlan so much, and was so disappointed and frustrated at the same time with how her character was written.

I don’t know, though, if it measures up to the way that I became righteously indignant in behalf of Nicci. When Nicci was first introduced, I wasn’t aware that I would ever see Nicci again since she seemed to be an aside character, one of those cardboard cutouts who serve as a momentary evil tool of the devil Keeper of the Underworld. Then I was remotely aware that she would turn up again — the whole “I’m going to kill Richard” thing gave it away — but didn’t imagine that she would develop to the point that I would find her the most amazing person in the series. Hands down.

But.

Nicci spent the last third of the series being a martyr for Richard’s needs. Worrying about Richard’s health. What was best for Richard. Sleepless weeks studying ancient tomes because Richard doesn’t know squat about his own abilities, and Nicci has more than enough for three wizards and five sorceresses. In spite of Richard knowing exactly jack about being a wizard he magically is able to pull miraculous theory out of his arse so he can save Nicci’s life. Save. Her. Life. Because the most contrived plot points meant to show that Richard can do anything no matter how many times these incredibly educated women attempt to teach him anything, he instantly proves them wrong in the most amazing ways.

During the last third of the series, Nicci is constantly being shoved to Richard as a love interest, with whom she has fallen in love but is trying to keep that feeling buried, and she goes to great pains to help him in whatever way he needs because of this. She makes herself a sacrifice to Richard, and in the end, she is fulfilled because Richard is happy, even if it almost kills her in the process. She takes on heroic acts of selflessness because it doesn’t matter if she dies so long as the thing that makes Richard happy and successful comes to fruition. These things just don’t add up to her character development.

The Mord-Sith, Cara, who is sworn to Richard’s side is one of the most feared women in all the Midlands, known for the legendary torture that turns her into a weapon for the Lord Rahl. After Richard becomes the great hero who sets all Mord-Sith free, Cara chooses to be his personal guard. Now, Cara is badass, even as the lore created by Goodkind — who has no problem describing the torture and abuse of women as a plot device to show how horrible a bad guy can be — is as fascinating to me as it is triggering and problematic. Tougher than iron spikes and determined to show you that no man can scare her let alone better her at anything, the thanks Cara gets for throwing her life in front of danger for Richard’s protection is Richard’s insistence that she needs to be “more feminine”. Somehow her lack of desire to swaddle babies and feed squirrels makes her less feminine, because there is obviously only one definition. Cara is the stereotype of “strong female character” in that she is supposed to be the “anti-female” or something, but she is witty and clever and endearing, but there is a never-ending side-story to make her into a better, softer woman.

The series is rife with graphic descriptions of violence against women. Rape and gory death drawn out in great detail. A serial killer who rapes and strangles prostitutes to ensure that everyone knows that they are less than human. A man who cuts off the nipples of women to control them with magic. Rape scene after rape scene described to ensure you know just how evil someone is. Women reduced to sex slaves by the “bad guy”. Combined with subtle message after little detail that ensures you know that gender roles are expected not only in the Midlands, D’Hara, and all of the New World, but in the heart of the philosophy that is being pounded by the beaten horse in this Randian-lite crap, the utter contempt that Terry Goodkind has for women shines through in what would have been an incredibly enjoyable series.

And I’ve only scratched the surface. I’d have to go, book by book, to get more in-depth.

It baffles me the way that someone can write incredible women with depth and amazing attributes and still demonstrate a full-on hatred for them with the stories and plots written out for them. The way their lives unfold and the arcs stretch on, at times, made me weep with anger. To this day I can’t figure out how I can hate a series so much and enjoy it at the same time.

Sometimes I forget how it is still relevant, especially if you are willing to watch and mull it over through various points of view.

The Gilmore Girls, created and written by Daniel Palladino and Amy Sherman-Palladino was well known for its witty and quick-paced dialogue. It was well praised for its portrayal of single mom Lorelei Gilmore and her teenage daughter, Lorelei “Rory” Gilmore. It was mostly a clever depiction of their lives, centered mostly in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, just outside of Hartford.

More than that, though, the show was an incredibly astute look into the dynamics between three generations of mothers and daughters. Not just of Lorelei and Rory, of which I was able to incredibly relate. Naturally, as a single mother I reached out and embraced Lorelei as someone I could relate to and who I wanted to like, flaws and all. I wanted to raise a kid as wonderful as Rory, someone even as occasionally broken as Rory, but who was able to work through it, and who was able to come to a mother as someone she trusted for help.

The Gilmore Girls also portrayed a relationship between Lorelei and her own mother, Emily. A relationship of brokenness and loss. Emily and Lorelei, both hurting from the years of the cavity that was not having each other, mostly out of necessity — that point can’t be argued — but both not yet willing to admit it at the series’ inception.

The brilliance of the Gilmore Girls was that it was able to tell stories of women and show the way that they lived lives that yes, involved men, but didn’t center on them. It focused on the ways that women in familial settings interacted with and learned to grown up around and together. It demonstrated that there are different kinds of family, and that wounds can be healed, ripped open, licked clean, and healed again.

Was it a perfect representation? No. I think that as the show went on the fan insistence that Lorelei find her One True Love 4-Evah influenced the way the series took its turns. I think that fans wanted Rory to do the same. I think that when Sherman-Palladino left the show in the seventh and final season that there was a rush to wrap things up, and that the primary characters (some of the most intensely independent women) were treated poorly and the men in the principal roles were portrayed unfairly in order to tie up those ends. There are also some incredible issues of race and class to be examined that exist in the primary framework of the show’s concept that just can not be ignored, including the idea of the famous Interchangeable Asian Person.

But the Gilmore Girls gave me a bit of relevant pop culture that I was able to cling to during some important moments in my life. The flaws and cracks in mirror were some of my own as well as that of the writers’. It was refreshing to realize that I was not the only person in the world going through what I was, even if it was only to know that it was in the sense that it was a vague pop-culture connection.

Seoul is still on the map, and the G20 came and went.

It is beautiful out there! The world is drenched in a quilt of well-worn pink, orange, gold, ruby-red, burgundy, and faded browns. We took a slow (very very slow) walk up to Nam San the other day to take pictures and play in the leaves and let the bite in the air push our lungs open. In was well worth the wearing out of my legs, and the pictures were amazing.

Anyone else going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part I this week? *is jealous* We’ve been seeing only free movies on base to save up for the IPark IMAX viewing when it hits Seoul. NO ONE TALK TO ME ABOUT THE MOVIE UNTIL I SEE IT I MEAN IT I WILL DISOWN YOU!!!!11!!ELEVEN!!

*ahem*

Now it is crunch time, and I have a stack of back-logged writing to finish. So, here you go, your weekly pick-me-up. Please to be playing along!

• Turn on your iPod or music device of choice (our XBox 360 plays ours from the teevee!)
• Blog the first 10 songs that come up (no cheating! yeah! no cheating! *wink wink*)
• Have fun. If you post a video, I strongly encourage lyrics and video descriptions.

Now with little more ado, since I am not a concise person, I bring you this week’s MRT:

1. Anything But You — The Moldy Peaches
2. Crazy Little Thing Called Love — Queen
3. Face to Face (demon remix) — Daft Punk
4. Rotten Apples — Smashing Pumpkins
5. The Poet and the Pendulum — Nightwish
6. Assdrop — Sevendust (how did that get in there? *looks suspiciously at partner*)
7. Poker Face — Lady Gaga
8. A Place Called Home — Kim Richey
9. I Believe In a Thing Called Love — The Darkness
10. Don’t Stop — Fleetwood Mac

All right, kids! Whatcha got?

I think, more than any Monday I have seen in a while, we are going to need an MRT today.

We have a little conference coming to Seoul this week…you may have heard of it. A few important people are gonna show up and chat about some stuff. I have some thoughts. I may discuss them (ad nauseam) in the future.

Anyhow…on w/ the show.

If you haven’t played before:

• Turn on your iPod or other music playing device.
• Turn it to “shuffle.
• Blog (or drop into comments if you don’t have a blog or Facebook/LiveJournal/Dreamwidth/any medium for such things) the first ten songs that come up!
• Share!
• Enjoy!

I am not playing by the rules, and you don’t have to either. I first heard this done at Feministe by Jill, who did it on Fridays, and I adopted Natalia’s idea of doing it on Mondays, because my Mondays needed a lift more than Fridays.

1. To Binge (featuring Little Dragon) — Gorillaz
2. Viva La Vida (Coldplay Cover) — Lady Gaga
3. Eternal Flame — The Bangles
4. Follow Me — 2NE1
5. Technologic — Daft Punk
6. Money, Money, Money — Mamma Mia! Company (Korean Cast)
7. Redemption — Switchfoot
8. Love the Way You Lie Featuring Rhianna — Eminiem
9. Say Hey (I Love You) [featuring Cherine Anderson] — Michael Franti & Spearhead
10. Holding My Own — The Darkness

Michael Franti & Spearhead — Say Hey (I Love You)

Video Description: Filmed at Vigário Geral favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the video features Michael singin’ his tune while people are dancing, singing, drumming (on a variety of really cool drums), running, jumping, and children are playing in the streets, in the buildings, and on the beach.

Is that your best "peppy cheerleader" smile? Really? Ha!

Kid has had an amazing time as a flag football cheerleader this past season.

I know, I know… many of you reading this blog maybe have a lot of biased opinions that are very steeped in stereotypes about cheerleaders and the sport of cheerleading itself.

Yes, I said sport.

I watched this season as Kid had an incredible time, and I expected her to have fun, learn a thing or two, ya know. Maybe finally get the hang of a cart-wheel.*

The very first day, with all of the girls** gathered in front of the coach, who was an active duty volunteer and handled it very matter-of-factly. I heard a lot of talk about cheerleaders being “girly” and “peppy” and how they “always smile”. I groaned to myself a lot that day, and almost rolled the eyebrows right off of my big ol’ forehead (or “fivehead” as The Guy affectionately calls it).

But in true drill sergeant style, there were push-ups, there were laps to run, and there were basics to learn, learn, learn. To anyone out there who doesn’t believe that cheerleading is a sport I will refer you to the athleticism required to repeatedly do the jumps demanded of these girls. It was a great way for these girls to burn off their energy, and wonderful exercise for them. They always came home ready for bed (bonus!) What was more, they were having fun doing it.

Eventually they were broken down into squads by age groups, and Kid’s squad was about a dozen girls, give or take. The coach of the smaller squad was less of the “you all are going to be girly” mind, and made a lot of fun cheers. She enlisted a parent volunteer who used to be a cheerleader. We all made ribbons for their hair and took turns bringing snacks, and they cheered at all of the flag football games.

What happened here was a group of young girls put on their first uniforms, which gave them pride, and they worked together, building a sense of team unity, helping each other learn routines and different moves. As the season moved along the became confident in their ability to jump, kick, and yell their hearts out. They learned how to yell the “right” way (without hurting your voice). Some of them were only able to master the moves or the words at first (remember, we are dealing with third and fourth graders), and eventually they put them together. Maybe it is because I am a mum, but really, the whole things was adorable. *squee*

They developed self-esteem. I saw girls who were shy run and grab a crowd of parents’ attention, and rouse them to cheering. I saw them have the courage to make mistakes, recover, and move on, which is a life skill that even some adults I know don’t have. I didn’t learn that until high school marching band. Recovery is a tough lesson to master.

Yes, I also saw some pettiness, I saw some mean-spirited actions, and I saw a girl kick another girl and tell her she was stupid for messing up… I am not naive enough to think that this kind of behaviour does not happen… but to be fair, I also saw the same thing on the co-ed soccer team that Kid participated in and also on the football teams that she cheered for. This behaviour is neither the sole property of girls nor cheerleaders. Pettiness and being a jerk is an equal opportunity trait, and we as adults, especially those of us who labour in social justice circles, are keenly aware of that.

Mostly, I saw how being part of a cheerleading team made my girl a better person, a more confident person (and a bit of a better speller, HA! Just kidding, she was already an ace at that one!) and a girl who knew how to be a supportive team player. At the end of season banquet when they all got their participation trophies (that reminded Kid of Amy’s mom from S1 of Buffy) they all stood around with the megaphones and altered a cheer and devoted it to their coaches, thanking them.

I honestly feel that cheerleading — even among F*eminists, who claim to be about equal opportunities and about supporting choices for women and girls, and who want them to be proud of those choices — gets a really harsh rap. It gets treated as a non-sport, as if it is an accessory worn by the boys’ and mens’ sports of the world. I have even heard cheerleaders called mouthpieces of schools, as an excuse to force a girl to cheer for her rapist. Cheerleaders are automatically presumed to be of a certain subset of people, and dismissed as stupid, ditzy, rich, stuck up, slutty, gay if you are a guy… you get the point.

As a woman who grew up as part of the Title IX Generation, I am appalled that we are not doing more to recognized cheerleading for the sport that it is, for the athleticism that it requires, and for the team spirit it inspires in the people who participate in it. I am also appalled that we do not do more to insist on giving it its due as part of athletic programs, to make sure that it is considered an equal to other sports programs, and that the people who participate in it are not stigmatized. We don’t promote the competitive events, we assume that team spirit is where it ends.

Watching my cheerleader this season confirms that there should be no shame, and that she has every reason to feel the pride that she does.

*No. She did not.

**There were only girls on the squads this year, but I checked, and the team is open to any boys and young men who are interested. I suspect that social conditioning in the military community probably curbs the interest. Maybe? Hmm…

Photo © Brandann R. Hill-Mann. All Rights Reserved.

It rolled out like play dough in a fun factory, and Latoya stressed her wishes to broaden the conversation to the many ways in which race plays a huge factor in the way we as non-white people approach sexuality. It was an amazing discussion, but, since I wasn’t really taught to embrace much of my non-white self until later in my sexual experience, or life in general, I found myself lost in that part of the discussion. That was OK by me, because I ended up taking much away from it anyhow. Being in a mixed race/ethnicity marriage/partnership now has caused me to have to look at my relationship from many angles, but they were not things that I had to deal with when I was approaching sex for the first time. Or when I thought I was approaching sex for the first time.

The ideas being tossed around became so varied and so many that it seems that Latoya had this great idea to turn this into a Blog Carnival. The first one that Racialicious has ever done.

So here’s the first official call.  Entries are due November 30th, 2010, and we will start running the pieces in November and December.  Sexual Correspondent Andrea Plaid is co-editing, and we are hoping for a huge mix of participants.

What are we looking for?

Anything really. But for those of you who need a prompt, here are some things like I would like to see:

• General commentary on sex and dating
• First times
• Discussions of abstinence and virginity
• The construction of masculinity and how that impacts dating, love, and sex
• Racial stereotypes/perceptions and their impact on your sex life
• Being part of a “sexless” class and how that impacts dating, love, and sex

Guidelines are the same as general Racialicious ones.

Submissions can be in any format – would love to see poems, erotica, comics, illustrations, video, and audio, as well as straight text. Please include a transcript with video/audio.  Anonymity can be arranged – the best way I can see it to upload your file to a drop.io, send it to team@racialicious.com and just use a fake email address. But we can figure that out as we go.

I hope that some of you out there will consider submitting to this. I will be doing a featured piece that will focus on the intersection of disability, but I would like to see more non-white/PoC voices from the disability community be involved if they are willing. I am really excited about this opportunity, and can’t hardly wait to see what comes of it.

Photo Credit:  cygnus921