Sidetracks - May 19, 2012

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.

---

➝ I watched The Avengers the Monday after opening weekend. It was a 10PM showing and the place was still packed, and I was exhausted from working but it was still super fun. It was so exciting and the energy was high. I was not a comic book kid, but I've loved these movies, and The Avengers is my favorite one yet. I thought Mark Ruffalo was fantastic, I want a Black Widow movie where Natasha and Clint are bros, fight evil together and possibly make out a lot. I've been reading tons of meta on the movies since I watched it and I want to talk about it all but there's so much and it's all so good:

• Black Widow and Power by jimhines
• Page to Screen: The Avengers (2012) by The Literary Omnivore
• The Superhero Men Don't See: Evidence by Obsidian Wings
• The excellent series of posts on Hello, tailor, about the costumes and characters of the Avengers.

➝ Wish I was a kid again so I could have a legit use for this awesome homemade jetpack.

➝ The Cast Of The West Wing Reunites For Wonderful Psa About Walking. I wish I could revisit The West Wing all over again for the first time. :(

➝ Keanu Reeves is a vampfire.

➝ Another article about how authors feel about fanfiction. One day these people will figure out that many fans (like myself) ultimately have run out of fucks to give about what authors think, except to maybe be mean and laugh at how little they get it and their insistence on erasure of another literary culture. ~feelings~ My favorite quote was one I've read before, by Charlie Stross:

"I am not a precious sparkly unicorn who is obsessed with the purity of his characters — rather, I am a glittery and avaricious dragon who is jealous of his steaming pile of gold."

➝ Starbucks Secret Menu, which is interesting but also straight up false. If you walked up to me and ordered The Nutella, I would stare at you blankly and by like "GTFO" inside of my head while asking you patiently for the ingredients in order to court the 4.0 you might give your service via your receipt and avoid the terrible score that will make the manager write unhappy things on survey score sheets in illegible handwriting even though I have repeatedly asked for print since I can't read cursive. *paperbag* Anyway, if it's not on the menu, be nice to your barista, because we can give you decaf when you ask for super strong coffee if you're an entitled butthead. Trust me.

Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is was a an interesting video. I don't like some of the language he engages in, but oh well.

---

➝ Lots of interesting reading suggestions on this list of genderqueer books and sites.

➝ The F Word asks, Are Libraries a Feminist Issue? My answer would be yes, as is generally the fact that predominantly female job industries are often disproportionately affected during recessions.

➝ The Guardian reviews My Sister Rosalind Franklin by Jenifer Glynn. I really want to read this book. And I'll also use this opportunity to plug Brenda Maddox's excellent biography of Franklin.

➝ Pixar: Are you "Brave" Enough to Just LET YOUR FILM BE ABOUT A GIRL?. I haven't been paying close attention to how Pixar has been marketing Brave and therefore I don't have a firm opinion on this, but I do like the Japanese trailer a lot more. I would really love to hear what others think.

➝ For Jodie: Seven Extreme Female Explores.

➝ According to Science Daily, a new study suggests that "both men and women see images of sexy women's bodies as objects, while they see sexy-looking men as people." As always with science news, I would love to read the original source, but I can't say I find this very surprising.

➝ Finally, this Lara Pulver quote about Irene Adler's sexual orientation has been making the rounds on tumblr. While I don't disagree with the general sentiment about fluidity and how human experiences don't always fit into neat categories, I have to say I'd be much more inclined to take this reading of her character seriously if people involved in the show didn't allude to sexual fluidity only when it's convenient. Irene says she's gay but falls in love with Sherlock? Well, sure. You can't neatly label everything! John + Sherlock, though? "They're NOT gay, can't you see they're not gay? See, they like women, look at John be attracted to women, NOT GAY, do you hear me silly fandom? NOT.GAY."

---

➝ Let me get all personal straight off this month. I just happened to see a guest post at Kate Elliot's blog, from Tansy Rayner Roberts called 'Looking for Women in Ancient Rome'(found via @fozmeadows). She lists a few of the areas where women could expect to wield power in ancient roman society. Awesome.

Some background — I'm an ex-history student, whose work was heavily focused on pre-nineteenth century society. Specifically, I spent a lot of time learning about classical Roman and Greek society, early medieval society and 16th/ 17th century Europe. I gained a reasonable amount of knowledge about the women who lived in these societies and I'm aware of at least some of forms of power that were available to these women. I'm really keen on the revisionist, feminist worldview that has influenced recent historical study.

However, I never really like to talk about historical women and power, with any kind of positive emphasis, in feminist circles which contain people who haven't studied the areas of history I'm talking about. This sounds weird, right, because I'd be expressing a view of a historical period, which emerged from feminist study, to other feminists, but somehow I always feel like if I start talking about the limited power of the vestal virgins, or the control nuns had over their nunneries in 16/17th century Italy, I'm setting myself up to be accused of denying patriarchal oppression. I know some feminists think revisionism is all a kind of fantasy, or women's desperate and false attempt to place their historical counterparts on an equal footing with the men of the past and over the years knowing that view is out there has had a silencing effect on me.

So, I wanted to take a mo and thank Rayner Roberts for writing this post, Kate Elliot for writing her own post 'Looking for women in historically-based fantasy worlds' and Aliette de Bodard for her post 'Female protagonists in historical fantasy', which inspired this whole post chain.

And I wanted to point you all towards Bettany Hughes excellent short series called 'Divine Woman', which is all about real historical woman who gained power by being involved in major religions. I think if you're outside the UK, I think you can watch it on iTunes.

➝ Sarah Rees Brennan expresses her love for Robin Scherbatsky and her dislike of Ted Mosby in 'How I Met Your More Awesome Friend'. "YES!", to this whole post.

Sometimes I hate 'How I Met Your Mother' SO MUCH. Like the post says, 'sometimes all the people in it are just amazingly awful for the sake of comedy' and I know a lot of sitcoms push their characters into saying stupid and inconsistent things, but — *whine*. Anyway, then Robin appears, with her casual subversion of gender stereotypes and her offhand self-confidence. Suddenly everything is better, because she is aces.

➝ It now seems necessary to make sure that everyone has seen Robin's Canadian pop star video, 'Sandcastles in the Sand':

ENJOY! Ugh, the episode where this video is eventually revealed is the one where Robin's old boyfriend turns up and he is a bald, fat James Van der Beek. I want to watch it again, because it is so perfect! Then she and Barney kiss, which, yay, even though Barney is a determined example of a retro-sexist character.

➝ I know Renay was looking for cool, 'Bookish Podcasts', so I thought I'd share Books and Bicycles post on that subject.

➝ As fantasy fans know, the first stage to beating your enemy is naming your enemy. Thanks to Phoebe North, I am now confident I can win 'The War on Kipple'.

➝ Bookshelves of Doom pointed me towards a useful chart, full of facts about the Hugo in 'Everything You Need to Know About the Hugo Award'.

➝ Musings from the Sofa provides a quick, feminist fist pump moment in Just Like a Girl:

'Oh, and you know what? When I earn more and have a better career, I do that like a girl as well.'

Yeah you do.

Also, if you vote for ME in @QueenofTeenUK, BAT CATS FOR ALL! Here is a SAMPLE BAT-CAT: tinyurl.com/44kgabq

— maureenjohnson (@maureenjohnson) April 6, 2012

Don't know what a Bat Cat is? Well, why don't you click on through and see?

➝ Finally, a cute and interesting infographic on e-books, titled 'E-book Nation'. (via estellasrevenge)

Comments

[copracat]

Hello, I think the Sarah Rees Brennan/Robin Sherbatsky link is borked.

Lots of fun this post :)

[bookgazing]

Sorry about that, the link should be fixed now.

[owlmoose]

That "Hello, Tailor" series is awesome. I love writers who can look at a movie or other creative work through a small lens like costuming and get all kinds of analysis out of it.

[renay]

I know! She also wrote the big post back when Inception first came out, do you remember that one? I love that she started a dedicated blog for her analysis. :)

[jinian]

I have access to the original paper described in the Science Dailiy article (flipping men's and women's photos and seeing how easily individuals are recognized, when both are in swimsuits/underwear), and it's not that much more informative than the writeup. I'm happy to share a copy via email with anyone interested, though; somehow email is okay in our licensing but posting isn't.

[renay]

Hey, this would be awesome! Our email is thisisladybusiness@gmail.com if you want to shoot it to us? :)

[nymeth]

Thank you so much!

[renay]

Ana! I also love the Japanese trailer for Brave tons. I tested my theory that it was better by showing it to my mother, who is often confused by trailers, and she was like "Japanese trailer makes this look way more awesome! Can we watch this now?" VALIDATED.

Thanks for the link, Jodie, I will definitely check that podcast link out (and send you your Grimm eps, a;sldka;skld terrible person).

[myfriendamy]

What did you think of the Grimm finale? (I'm aware we probably watch this show totally differently, but...)

[myfriendamy]

The trailer I saw before...the Avengers? I thought was pretty good for Brave, like, it didn't give away the plot which I feel like the Japanese one does more. And tbh, I'm not sure about this forest/magic/witch agreement stuff. So while it's obviously better than that horrendous kilt one, I still think I like the one I saw in theater the best.

[nymeth]

I'll have to see if that one can be found online. I think I do remember watching something other than those two a long time ago, but it was probably just a teaser.

[bookgazing]

The British trailer's pretty good (says the Brit). It combines some of the silly humour from the US one, with lots of Merida saying 'I want my freedom', shooting arrows and being diappointed by the suitors she's offered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K02u5mPW3ME

That trailer featuring all the dudes is kind of horrendous. Do we need to trot out the stats for who buys film tickets again?

PS. I'm excited for this film, but reasonably sure Scottish people are going to have problems with it from what I've seen so far.

[bookgazing]

Ana I totally agree that I'd be happier with hearing people say Adler is sexually fluid and human beings just fall for human beings, if the people behind this program were equally open to fannish interpretation of S and W as sexually fluid.

Also, ok I'm speaking as a straight lady here, so I encourage people with more knowledge and personal experience to comment on this, but I have problems with the substance of the original Lara Pulvey quote. I think labels ARE important when we're talking about tv representation, because showing characters who actively identify as gay, as bisexual, as lesbian on tv can make a difference to real life people who identify the same way. Suddenly you can see your sexuality represented on tv and from what I hear from GLBTQ people (and what I know about seeing aspects of my own personal experience represented in other programs) that can feel a little bit like a step towards acceptance. And making Adler say she was gay was such a big deal, because there are so few lesbian characters around on tv that every character which does identify as a lesbian increases the equality of representation on tv, which is important because...equality of representation is important. I don't quite know how else to say that. Had she actively identified as bisexual, that would also have been a huge deal, because the number of bisexual characters on tv is so minimal right now. To sort of whisk away all the concerns about equal representation of people who do identify as GLBTQ in media with a flick of the hand and a 'It's just a label' is kind of dismissive.

Is it as big a deal to represent people who identify as sexually fluid...I'm not sure I can answer that because I don't think my knowledge about identifying as sexual fluid vs identifying as bisexuality, or queer is as good as it could be. If anyone can suggest ways I could improve that knowledge I'd be greatful.

And despite the hypocrisy of me, a straight commentator, calling this out after I've just been talking about lesbian representation on tv, I'm going to go for it. I think it's kind of off for Pulvey as a straight woman to say she's against labels and to call being gay just a label, because maybe that's the way it seems to her and probably there are GLBTQ people who agree with her but...to many people, as far as I can make out by talking to people, the words that describe their sexual orientation are not just convenient classifying labels for the straights to use. They're useful ways of defining identity and forging community links. When used in a non-exclusive way they fit with Jason's recent idea that there's nothing wrong with defining groups, as long as it's done in a positive manner. I'm...I'm just not really sure this is an issue where her comments as a straight person should be held up as a shining example of all that is right with thought.

'People fall in love and I think more harm is done from suppressing your true identity than being given the freedom to just be.'

At the same time this is true and lovely.

[nymeth]

"To sort of whisk away all the concerns about equal representation of people who do identify as GLBTQ in media with a flick of the hand and a 'It's just a label' is kind of dismissive."

I totally agree, actually. When I said I agreed with the general sentiment behind her quote, I meant that she was right that not every person who experiences attraction to people of different genders will necessarily label their sexuality in the same way, and I’ve seen people say that it can be really intrusive to have others tell them how they *should* label it, or demand that they do so at all. But you’re absolutely right that her tone is dismissive, and that it’s at the very least very uncomfortable to see a straight actress say something like this in a way that attempts to silence the problems people had with how the show handles representation - because yep, this stuff matters. I can see the good of representing characters that experience their sexuality in a fluid way and aren’t concerned with labels ALONGSIDE plenty of lgbtq characters, but... we’re totally not there right now.

The issue of sexual orientation and identity has been on my mind lately because I finished Hanne Blank’s Straight about a month ago and have been trying to review it ever since (it’s been haaard). I’d be happy to lend you my copy at some point, because I think you’d find it really interesting. What you say about labels being a way of forging community links is hugely important and it’s a point I’ve been trying to make in my post. One of Blank’s main arguments is that sexual orientation is such a huge part of people’s identities because we make it culturally prominent – if the gender of the person you’re attracted to didn’t have so many real life consequences, if there weren’t laws based on it, if we didn’t organise society along straight versus not straight lines, then it wouldn’t be such a big deal. It would still be a part of you, of course, but not such a salient part. I think she has a point, but I want to find a way to express this that doesn’t minimise how important identity is in the world as we know it, because it allows people to come together and realise they’re not alone, draw strength from each other, campaign for the legal and civic rights they should have had all along, and generally feel that their sexual orientation is REAL and legitimate and not something that isolates them from others. I’m totally comfortable making a similar point about gender, for example, but as a straight person I do want to make sure I don’t make arguments about sexual orientation that come across as dismissive or as attempts to erase people’s real, lived identities.

[bookgazing]

Ana I read that review and I think you found a nice course to express what you meant. I'm thinking about adding Straight to my list, along with the billion other non-fic titles I should be getting to.

[bookgazing]

Totally love Hello Tailor now. I haven't seen The Avengers, might see it on dvd instead (I know, I'm a terrible SF fan, maybe I won't see Prometheous either!) but I read the piece on the main site about Hunger Games costumes with great interest.