Sidetracks - June 29, 2011

[helloladies]

Ana

1. Ugh. You all know how much I love books, but I'm nevertheless sick and tired of articles that present other media (video games in particular) as brainless and unworthy and possibly damaging. But that's not even what irritates me the most about this kind of headline (to be fair, the headline is worst than the article). What really gets to me is how these argument reinforce the unhelpful either/or dichotomy that already surrounds reading. You're either A Reader or a Doer of Other Stuff (gamer, sports fan, you name it). Goodness forbids anyone should find both games and books enjoyable and intellectually stimulating. (Also, don't get me started on the BAD SCIENCE. Dear journalists who clearly skipped science 101, please repeat after me: correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation.)

Horrifying if not surprising: World clouds of the vocabulary used to market toys for boys and for girls. (Via Cheryl Morgan)

I know I'm repeating myself, but how very, very surprising.

2. The Rejectionist reviews Delusions of Gender! Much awesomeness ensues.

3. Best XKCD ever.

4. Jodie's analysis of the recent Red Riding Hood film is brilliant. I've attempted to bribe her to watch Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves and compare the two, and I eagerly await the results.

5. Sticks and Stones: Abuse and Gossip Girl. Amy's post is an excellent read regardless of whether or not you've ever watched the show.

6. Finding Wonderland coverage of a Diversity in YA panel with Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, J.A. Yang and Gene Luen Yang. I wish there were things like this happening near me.

7. Of all the words spoken in [Dr Seuss] books only 2.7% are spoken by females. So much for the overwhelmingly female world of children's literature (OH NOEMS), eh?

Jodie

8. The Future of Reading (Hint: It's not all bad): Honestly the perfect article about the way literature and language is developing. So much inclusiveness of literary tastes and ways of reading.

9. Pandas on a Slide: Wheeeeee! Yeah beat that with your own paltry attempts at animal adorableness!

10. I know this is old internet news now, but I had to mention the Wicked Pretty Things anthology event. Jessica Verday was involved in a Running Press anthology called 'Wicked Pretty Things'. She revealed that she withdrew her story after she was asked to change the central romantic relationship from a gay one to a straight one and the goings on after were well documented over at 'Occupation Girl'. Start with Sit Down and Get Comfortable and continue through the updates Wicked Pretty Update #2, Wicked Pretty Update #3: The Wickeding, Wicked Pretty Update #4: The Prettying, Wicked Pretty Update #5: Wick Harder and Wicked Pretty Update #6: The Cancelling. Need I say that this is messed up?

21 JUMP STREET IS GOING TO BE A FILM! Obviously Jonny Depp is too old to pretend he can infiltrate schools as a student, but Channing Tatum will be taking on his awesome crime fighting teen sympathising role. I am officially putting 21 Jump Street on the you need to watch it list, 80s teen issue drama but with so much more diversity and good storylines than say Saved By the Bell (also better acting and many appearances from actors who went on to be v. famous.

11. Update after reading wikipedia: OMG Jonny Depp might cameo! Please don't make it like Bad Boys though, that is not what 21 Jump Street is about at all.

12. More Gay Girls Please is about the lack of f/f pairings compared with m/m pairings which I thought was related to your review of Ash, Renay and because there's a lot of discussion about m/m slash by straight women I thought it related to this post of yours on Slash Goggles too.

Renay

13. Really interesting article from Roseanne Barr. It's pretty stark, in terms of equality for creative work re: women and men. It makes me sad. :(