Sidetracks - April 13, 2013

[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.

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➝ I am really excited about the remake of Carrie even though it's a horror movie. Somewhere in the comments on the video, someone said, "Carrie is like Harry Potter. Except she didn't get saved." which I'm sure is not a new idea but wow did I ever double-take.

➝ This story of DJs getting suspended over a terrible science joke makes me sad.

➝ Remote Reconnaissance of Another Solar System — this video is beautiful.

➝ Sorry, every time I see this awesome water glass rendition of the Harry Potter theme, I have to share it.

➝ I am really excited about Things I Can't Explain, a continuation of Clarissa Explains it All in book form. Yes, please!

➝ Crossroads: Is this a Kissing Book? SFF’s Relationship with Romance has a lot to unpack. Part of the problem I had growing up is that I didn't, in particular, care for love and/or sex used as a metaphor or to create larger points if they didn't also impact the characters in important, noticeable ways (WITH MAKEOUTS, but whatever that's still a primary goal for me as an adult soooo...). It's funny that this article used vN as an example, because my favorite part of vN was the love story between Amy and Javier; subtle, an integral part of Amy's development while not being the whole of it; Javier enriched her life and she his, and they complimented each other. I just wanted them to make out A LOT. I also really liked the way Haldeman used romance in The Forever War, too, which the article also cites, but only in the "here's where they started doing it differently!" section, which says something about why I still have trouble with early SF (lack of quality makeouts? listen I can't help that makeouts or potential for makeouts can make/break something for me). Anyway, I really recommend this article. :D

➝ And not related to the above essay but really interesting to look at after reading it is Doctor Who‘S First Director Doesn’t Like The Doctor Snogging People, Thinks The Show’s Gotten Too Darn Sexy. (Spoiler alert for discussions of most recent episodes.) Check out the comments, they're pretty tame (and the bad parts mostly get called up on the carpet). What an interesting comparison.

➝ On Criticism: Pornokitsch, Memes and the Shadow of Roger Ebert is an interesting essay about the impact of critics on creators. I liked this especially:

Even when I didn't agree with them. I preferred Ebert, and his reviews, for a two reasons. He was accessible; his reviews were conversational, and neither pandering nor exclusive. And, honestly more importantly, he liked the same stuff I liked. I found a lot of the 'great' cinema everyone told me I should like, as a smart sensitive girl, irritating or boring or otherwise unapproachable. I liked stupid comedies, action films, summer blockbusters, barbarian films, animated films. And Roger Ebert, of them all, didn't tell me that there was something wrong with me for liking the things I liked. Or that I had terrible taste. He told me that there was no shame in being drawn to the films I was drawn to. And this is the important part: he told me that the films I liked were just as worthy of being taken seriously as any other film.

➝ THIS. Here Comes (My Musing on) Honey Boo Boo:

[...] I believe our greatest disgust is supposed to be reserved for June. June seems, to me, to have a great attitude. She finds the humor in many situations and she is affectionate with her girls. She is confident about her relationship with Sugar Bear and her attractiveness to him. She is a bit adventurous and she likes to have fun. June is also money savvy; she endeavors to be an "extreme couponer": "You save money for your family—that's what it's all about," she said [on Jimmy Kimmel Live]. "I could be a multi-millionare and still want to get the best deal for my family." Additionally, "she's putting the show's earnings into trust funds for her children," noting that, "I want my kids to look back and say, 'Mama played it smart.'"

Funny, confident, beautiful, smart… apparently, those are all things forbidden to fat southern women. When June decides to have fun on a water slide, the camera focuses on the fact that she struggles to climb it (even then, she laughs amiably at herself and is clearly having a good time, but the joke is supposed to be on her—HaHa! She's too fat for this!). She notes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that she and Sugar Bear both appreciate her beauty (a fact that he confirms). Yet, she is shown as the opposite of all those things that are constructed as beautiful in our society, from her disdain for makeup to her refusal to obsess over her weight. And, true to common characterization of southerners, there are plenty of "d'oh!" moments when we are given the impression that the family members are not intelligent. I cannot, in one post, catalogue all the ways this woman is mocked and cast as the butt of some joke that everyone else is in on.

➝ I re-watched Return of the Little Hater (Haters Don't Die, They Multiply) this week, and it solidified the trouble I've been having writing critical reviews. My biggest problem when it comes to criticism is always the person on the other end. Of course, reviews are becoming like fanfiction — some authors won't touch them, and disavow reading them, and it's a game of "NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE". Others say they don't read them and then do read them — it's those I worry about. But criticism, like any other writing, is an art and hard to do well. Criticism is going to sting, especially if it's your work, and there's no getting around it. But my goal, always, is to read and critique with consideration and empathy while staying true to my experience of a work. So, my inner editor likes to tell me I lack that ability at every turn, and that I'm destroying people's confidence (which speaks to my OWN ego, lololol self you're not that important) and I should pack it in. I can generally write fiction without this being a problem (it's editing fiction where I keel over), but with nonfiction it happens at every part of the process and I haven't found a way to work through it yet.

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➝ Being taken seriously: the double standard: a very interesting post about how standards of what looks professional vary for men and women.

➝ “Are there any girl bears?”: Gender and the 21st Century Picture Book: "Is it just me or are things getting frighteningly boys-do-this / girls-do-this these days in our children’s literature?"

Nope.

➝ Lastly, the wonderful Celine Kiernan on doing it right:

We all want what we want from a fictional romance and there is no ‘one size fits all’ but in Moorehawke I wanted to portray two very different people who bring their own disparate yet complementary strengths and experiences to a relationship and in so doing improve each other’s lives. In so many stories of young love there is what is, for me, an unfortunate tendency to portray romance as being heightened and improved by conflict. It is as if the only way to prove that two people like each other is to show them fighting. As if somehow conflict and a struggle for dominance rather than support and communication are the vital ingredients in the recipe for true love (I dislike in particular the trope of a patient and accepting woman ‘reforming’ a surly male character into a ‘good husband’) To me conflict is naturally part of any relationship, it's just not a ‘romantic’ part.

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This week I bring you some of the best things I've found on Tumblr. All sorts of pretties below:

➝ Sandy Patangay makes beautiful cakes that she then decorates with traditional henna patterns and you will die of joy when you see them. The intricacy is stunning.

➝ As 'Dr Who' approaches its 50th anniversary all the angsty Rose Tyler/10 gifs start to come out. Let's all join together to weep. Rose related feelings are bad enough, but when the Donna gifs start showing up I'm not going to be able to keep it together. At least Martha got out ok!

➝ Do these clockwork crocodiles seem like a perfect mix of Clanker and Darwinist technology to anyone else?

➝ This Harry Potter themed April fools joke made me chuckle. And I love how many owls this person’s friends managed to find between them.

➝ The Mellifluous Bookshelf presents a very strong contender for library number three at LB Towers.

➝ Can we get Colton Haynes signed up for the new series of 'Torchwood' now?

➝ And not from Tumblr, but I just wanted to congratulate Andi from Estella's Revenge on her recent engagement and show you the sparkler she's now sporting. I love engagement rings :)

Comments

[bookgazing]

I totally see the dress double standard happening. And of course that means that women often on lower salaries have to spend more cash than dudes on maintaining bigger professional wardrobes (and then get chatted at for spending so much more time on their appearance). Personally I am fortunate enough to be able to ignore it as I have no promotion prospects to be affected and even if I dressed up/used more makeup to look more professional the fact that I'm a woman in my late twenties would still mean no one would take me seriously. But if I was in a job where I wanted to progress I'd be pretty fed up of that double standard by now.

Oh and I was not sure I wanted that Clarissa book when I first saw it but reading a description of it I really do now. Clarissa adult journalist :D

[nymeth]

"And of course that means that women often on lower salaries have to spend more cash than dudes on maintaining bigger professional wardrobes." YES. Excellent point. I'm going to bring this up at every chance.

[bookgazing]

I finally got to watching that video about multiplying haters and (of course) I see myself in what it says and what you say in your commentary Renay. Criticism is really difficult to do well. And there's a lot of push back about doing it at all which is really hard to overcome when you're writing for free into the void of the internet + have other issues. I also think a lot of that push back tends to centre around how someone is not doing criticism right which means that even if you've worked hard to beat the little haters down people criticisng your critique bring all that up again with one comment and you have to start the whole cycle of beating down the inner haters all over again. That's demoralising and hard to work around without like closing comments and removing yourself from any debate that follows. I've seen people do that and obviously if that helps you work around your internal critics do it, but it brings its pitfalls (getting locked into your own ideas, not learning etc) which can set off a whole new lot of inner haters along the lines of 'I should be more open to debate, otherwise my ideas will be flawed and partial'.

Umm. So how to beat those internal critics? Absolutely no idea. I like that working as part of a team we can share when our internal critics get set off by outside issues (although I know it's difficult for us to always share because, well for example, I have anxiety and that creates problems with sharing). And I know the mainstream advice is that you just have to keep going whatever and quit focusing on what you think is wrong with your work but...that is exhausting, right? It's like building a wall every day just to see it knocked down in 30 seconds and knowing you've got to build up the wall again the next day. Maybe this is just life (rlly hope not)? Maybe we just need to build wider support networks so we're able to feel the bits that may genuinely be right more frequently? Maybe we need a policy of no contact with authors so we avoid seeing hurt feelings? I have no idea, but we should try to work on this if we can.

I'd love to hear ideas from anyone else :D

[renay]

JODIE WE ARE LIKE CRITICISM!FEAR TWINS. Your whole first paragraph has me all over it. Criticism is great! Learning is cool! Except it is terrifying and makes me want to hide under my covers. I also have no clue how to beat the inner critic down, but the most successful I've ever been with nonfiction is here with you and Ana, except that's also dovetailed with being more active in the community and interacting with more authors and why did I do this to myself?

I had a conversation with a professor once and we talked about how hard to was to put ideas out in front of an audience where you had no clue how that audience might react to them (in the context of our open discussion groups) and she said that even with experience, it doesn't get easier, but the more you do it the more you learn how to get past the fear on both sides — the fear before and the fear after. To use your metaphor, maybe it needs to be less about fear of rebuilding the wall, and confidence in the ability to rebuild it with the knowledge of what made it fall over instead of only dread that it has to be rebuilt. That takes a certain amount of self-assurance, but I also imagine that comes with time, too. In the grand scheme of things, we're really young. We have a lot of learn about writing and expressing opinions. So far, the only solutions I've found are asking people I trust to edit me, time and the best advice from an animated fish you could ever want: "just keep swimming".

/useless answer

[(Anonymous)]

I'd like to comment on more, but.. the professional dressing thing? It makes me SO insecure. And I think perhaps it starts earlier in academia here since as a PhD you are a staff member? I feel I need to "dress up" more than I usually do for regular day work. But then, I might still wear (dark) jeans in some cases. I have a very limited "professional" wardrobe and I am not great with buying things.. It's really difficult I find. Even to find the line in what is proper and not too much or overdone. I don't know. Sorry, useless comment. Let's just say I recognise a lot from that post.

Iris

[nymeth]

NOT USELESS! We're sharing experiences and venting about the effects of sexism in our lives, which is exactly what this space is for. I can imagine how academia would be particularly tricky in this regard, yes :\ I'm so sorry that this is adding stress and difficulties to your professional life. It's so unfair and such a drain of energy that professional women could be putting elsewhere. And yet you can't just decide to stop caring, because there may be real consequences if you do.