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Rose Tint My World: Glee Horrifies with Rocky

I am mildly concerned to say the least about the cast of Glee performing songs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the latest episode that premieres tonight. Mildly concerned doesn’t really cut it exactly. More apropos would be horrified, but not in the way that I think Fox wants me to be.

I am quite worried that what I will see tonight will represent the white-washing, cultural neutering, suburban mainstreamifying of an institution that for me and for so many others, has been a last bastion of protected outsiderness. One of those venerable institutions that has stood on the outskirts and both defied mass appropriation and withstood the test of time. Glee taking up Rocky Horror feels like the Culture Industry has steam rolled their way through my heart, and which left me in it’s wake feeling defiled and smelling like Teen Spirit.

To date I’ve been at peace with Glee’s selections of musical material, which the cast has recycled, reinvented, and reinvigorated at alternate turns and with varying degrees of success. Sometimes it’s been reinvigorating classics like Don’t Stop Believin’ and broadened its audience. At other times its lovingly embraced pop mega stars like Britney, Madonna, and Lady Gaga by honoring them with a take on their top hits. At still other times, and they’ve energized 80’s alternative classics that have already migrated to kitsch like Safety Dance for a new generation. But they’ve resisted taking musical works that are on the edge of mainstream, like Sex Pistols or Bikini Kill or Phish. Until now.

It’s probably not for me to say what the writers should get to pick as their subject matter – that’s tantamount to censorship - but I sure wish they’d refrained from this. So rather than issue a litany of why they shouldn’ts, I'll instead just talk about why it is I feel so violated by Glee’s revamping of Rocky Horror. I think it's because for me and for so many others, the cult appeal of this film is that it’s a cultural sanctuary for outsiders. As a teenager growing up in a tame suburb in north Texas in the 90s, I readily admit I didn’t get it at first. I knew Rocky Horror was this thing my sister and her friends went to every Saturday night, but I didn’t really know much about it other than it was late at night and had an element of audience participation that involved rice and some sort of hand and forearm sex. The enigmatic nature of it enticed me. Cut to my fifteenth birthday. Upon leaving the theater at 2:30am after seeing it for the first time, I was kind of in shell shock. I didn’t get the film and I certainly didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

It took several years for me and an embracing of my inner dork to cultivate my appreciation for this film, and several more years for me to articulate that appeal is. Other than the obvious attraction to B-movie spoof-i-ness, the fact that the songs are catchy and well written, and that it features a young Susan Sarandon as an ingénue in her underwear, I think the appeal lies in the sexually liminality the films presents. Not only is what one might call “aberrant” behavior – transvestitism, promiscuity, and homosexuality – portrayed in the film, it’s embraced, and put forth as a kind of sensual alternate universe. And this is not hedonism for the beautiful (like Bertolucci’s The Dreamers) but for the attractive and unattractive alike, and all who are in-between. Even for those not having sex. There’s space for all in this mad-cap realm.

Rocky Horror then as a movie and as an interactive phenomenon provided (and continues to provide) a mass cultural experience which metaphorically and literally created a space for the geeks, dorks, and other outsiders to inhabit (as themselves or in various forms of masquerade) and feel free to just be themselves, with no one to impress. Sort of a progenitor to other alt-phenomena like Comic Con.

I’m not necessarily resentful that Fox is mainstreaming it up (though that the cheerleader character is playing Frank-N-Furter and they have changed the word “transsexual” to “sensational” do make me throw up a little), and I understand that on the 35^th anniversary Rocky could well benefit from a renewed interest made manifest in iTunes sales and increased box office attendance that will help keep the tradition going. But I do feel a certain sense of sanctity has been violated. Rocky Horror has been a sort of refuge for those on the outside (the nerds, the Ren fair folks, the musical theatre dorks) where we could and still can unwind and hang on. If the cool kids are wandering around doing the time warp, it just makes it a little less special.

Yes I will tune in tonight. Yes I will probably ache a little as I witness the peppy cast destroying a sacred piece of my cultural past. And yes I will go to the mall tomorrow and listen out for conversations among the younger set in which they talk about the show and say “I just don’t get it.” And if I hear that, yes I will smile a smug smile of self satisfaction. Rose tint that.

Inspired Madness?

In honor of Alice in Wonderland's release today, a quick poll...

[polldaddy poll=2798368]

A Kinder, More Neutered Oscar?

A commentary that I heard on NPR yesterday by Bob Mondello reminded me of this article from 2009 in the Washington Post by Monica Hesse: both articles essentially speculate on whether the Best Actor/Actress categories should be collapsed into one Best Performer category.

Regardless of my own personal thoughts on the issue, I'm pretty sure this is an idea the academy won't be pursuing anytime soon. What with the flagging interest in the broadcast and the huge industry that's grown out of coverage of the red carpets and dresses, frankly there's NO WAY that AMPAS would make a move that would risk in any way lessening it's star power - that's just about the only thing the broadcast has going for it!  Fewer A-list actors? Fewer gowns? Fewer designers? Not a chance!

Let's face it:  as long as roles are written with gender in mind -  Chris, male, 30s or Pat, female, mid-twenties - there will always be   gendered categories for acting, and so long as you have that there will be a strong argument for gendered categories come awards time.  You can't compare it to other categories: no other professionally-based categories have the explicit gendering that acting does.  The egalitarian in me agrees in principle with Mondello and Hesse - I think it's a good idea to collapse categories and have men and women alike acknowledged as performers first - but so long as the number of lead roles for women in films is relatively small percentage wise, this somehow seems like it would be a setback. Furthermore, I speculate that in practice the studios would want to hedge their bets - if they had a strong male and female leads but the woman had fewer scenes, she would be put forth for Best Performer in a Supporting Role. This could lead to a trend of men in the Best Performer category, and women filling the Best Supporting Performer category, truly making the second sex, second class. But then maybe there would be a big backlash, and  studios would develop more big budget, serious, meaty films with female leads. And then maybe it would all work out.

Whew, all this idealism vs pragmatism makes my head hurt. And, as I said before, it's a little pointless, since things won't change in the forseeable future. Pessimism in the face of entrenched ideologies wins out in the end I suppose. Sigh.

-TVB

The Marriage Problem

My post last week on infidelity scandals by powerful men has me thinking a lot about the issue of marriage in America today. I suspect that with Elizabeth Gilbert's new book Committed topping the bestselling chart, it's on the mind of a lot of other Americans too. An article in the Christian Science Monitor this week strikes the same chord.

[caption id="attachment_117" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Ties that Bind?"][/caption]

The topic is ostensibly about infidelity and our (read "American") schizophrenic relationship to it: on one hand we consider cheating

a truly abhorrent, despicable, and immoral act, and yet it's estimated that 30% of partners have had an affair. This sort of fractured disjunction between our opinions and behaviors is described by the author at some point as a "do what I say, not as I do" philosophy, but I think it has to do with our inability to see long-term benefits at the risk of short-term gains. Look at how easy it is to keep smoking or overeating in the face of scientific evidence that it's bad for you long-term. And what about doing drugs or selling your stocks in a bear market or taking one more hit in Blackjack when you're already showing 17? Truth is, it's hard in the face of immediate sensual gratification to turn it down, to expect our rational mind to kick in and convince us that it's not worth it. But that kind of impulse control is difficult, which is why I think that while we frown on bad behaviors, we're willing to give a pass to those who commit them.

This all also raises larger questions about marriage as a whole. As someone who only recently took that trip down the aisle myself, I have spent the better part of my adult life wondering "Why are we so fixated on being married?" And I mean that from the point of view of both society and as an individual. I was shocked to find myself blubbering and feeling sorry for myself attending the weddings of my closest friends through my twenties - when would be my chance to walk down the aisle? And after a sobering talk with my partner about the likelihood of our getting married (at the time, slim to none), I remember driving by a wedding dress store and almost suppressing the urge to fall into an unstoppable crying spree. I'll be the first to tell you that there's a lot to unpack  in those moments - the conflation of weddings and marriage, the pressure to become a bride, the disappointment when you fail to ever be a bride (which I think is worse if you are part of a couple than if you are single), the exhaustion/embitterment/resentment from fighting off the pressure to get married, etc.  But in spite of all that understanding of why I was where emotionally in those moments, as a card-carrying self-proclaimed feminist I was deeply ashamed of myself.

At our core we are a society who hasn't really figured out what marriage means to us. I think as pointed out in the CSM article, we want to be partnered up, but we want to be happy, but these are presented as two mutually exclusive things, like we're okay with this structure that is totally the norm but at odds with the value of our individual hapiness.  I think if you pose the question at large "Why marriage" the traditional answers - safety + security - are not there anymore. Women and men alike can get jobs, have careers, save for retirement, build networks of friends and social circles they can turn to for support and companionship. Monogamy, emotional intimacy, even child rearing - these things are all possible within a partnership that's not called marriage. Why is that commitment and institutional recognition so important? Or maybe the question is really why is a commitment such a precursor to institutional recognition? Why do I get different medical benefits, different legal benefits, different authority over and different access to my partner once I'm his "wife"? While marriage may imply a lifelong commitment (and thus a shared investment in all members' futures), divorce rates show this doesn't play out in practice. And it's certainly not predicated on any past performance - you can get married to someone you barely know, and only a handful of states have common-law marriages which automatically elevate certain long term partnerships.

Because this is a huge topic (and one I expect to return to frequently), there's obviously no hope here for any cheap and easy answers that might also prove to be true or fulfilling. I know as as individual I struggled to really see and separate my own feeling and beliefs from the ideology of conventional marriage: the husband and I had to redefine it on our own terms.  And every day our our relationship with respect to conventional marriage continues to be a tug of war - I don't know how much I can refer to "my husband" without being part of the problem that is the tidal pressure to get married.  How much can and should be excited when new friends announced that they are engaged? How much will I fight to still get people to call me by "Ms." instead of "Mrs." and not assume I've taken my husband's last name? These day-to-day mini battles are part of my uphill battle against a pretty big ideological hill, and not one that I'm entirely opposed to either. Hope I packed enough applesauce bars for the journey because it's going to be a long journey.

The Mustache Theory

A funny thing happened the other day. I ran into an old colleague, who I hadn’t seen in over a year. I was going to ask how things were going with his girlfriend, but one quick look told me I needn’t bother, that she was out of the picture.  How did I know you ask? It was simple – I knew it, because he had a mustache.

After a long and studied course of action (okay, a short and pithy group of loosely assorted observations), I have come to an astounding realization:

Men grow facial hair for other men.

It’s true. Similar to how women dress for other women, men grow their facial hair out to fascinate/impress other men. And as a caveat here I should say I’m referring to straight men only, since I think facial hair in the gay community is far more coded and complicated and I don’t know the first thing about it.  I am writing this because I think most men don’t really realize the message they’re giving off when they start growing facial hair. For heterosexual men who want women to find them attractive (be it potential mates or the girlfriends or wives they would like to keep attracting to them), eschew the ‘stache.  Here’s why:

The facial hair culture is set by men principally in two populations:

(1)  Men who work in a predominantly male culture - police officers, firemen, auto workers, Hell’s Angels. In these cultures, growing facial hair is sign of masculinity/virility

(2) Men who don’t care about the opinions of women - either they have settled down/married Angelina Jolie,  or they are no longer interested in dating and have just plain stopped caring about what women think of them. These are men who are have taken themselves out of the circuit of heterosexual desire.

Before I move on, there’s a basic assumption here that mustaches are inherently anti-lady. This holds true for a couple of reasons reasons: (1) Facial hair generally makes a man look less good (2) It’s unpleasant for any kind of intimate contact (kissing, nuzzling, etc.)

Notable exceptions include growing it out temporarily for a role or costume of some kind or covering up a zit or facial deformity. For the rest of you, it’s just not cool.

Now, I know that many a contrarian among you will protest and say that facial hair is super sexy - please note that you ladies are part of the problem. The outspokenness of just a few of you will keep unsuspecting men duped into keeping unsightly hair on their face, ruining it for the rest of us.

Still with me? Now the mustache gets public visibility by men in the aforementioned populations above. But this visibility is conflated with popularity. Men think, “People find mustaches cool” when really, it’s just other men who think it's cool. In actuality, growing facial hair is a visual affirmation that one holds a “bros before hos” value system. As the visual expression of that ideology, facial hair becomes even more off-putting to women than it already is, creating a vicious cycle.

In fact, now when I see ostentatious facial hair on a guy, I actually find it offensive. Take Jim Rome for example. That mustache he sports is just ridiculous. And it’s kind of an affront - it says, “Fuck you ladies, I don’t care about what you think. “ It’s the equivalent of a lady growing out her armpit hair and then wearing a tank top.  If that’s what you think, okay then, but keep it under control, would ya?

So listen, if you don’t want a woman to touch you - you know, that way - then fine, grow that ‘stache. Maybe you’ll get more respect from the males in the pack at work or in your social tribe, and maybe that’s more important than getting laid. But if you want to actively court the ladies in your life and keep ‘em happy, then bust out that razor and clean that mug (aftershave optional).

Big(elow) News

Okay, so I was all ready to go forth with a light-hearted post about men and their relationship with facial hair, but the news over the past week made this seem extra ridiculous and irrelevant (rest assured, it will make it into a future post). Of course I’m talking about the DGA win last Sunday by Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, making her the first female director to win the Best Director DGA award and putting her now in top contention for the Best Director Oscar.



Now there’s a lot of commentary going on about this, and my guess is that if she wins there will be a lot of broo ha ha about how she positions herself. According to some sources, she has never seen herself as a “woman” director, i.e. she eschews the limitation of positioning herself in a way that is associated rightly or wrong with “female films” (melodramas, films focusing on “female” subjects, etc.) or “female” direction. So before the Oscars even air, can’t we just all let’s all agree on a few things ? If she wins:

1. Bigelow has the right to define her own role vis-a-vis  gender identity politics. I.e. if she wants to make an acceptance speech which acknowledges the historic signifance of her win and the symbolism of that win (essentially breaking a glass ceiling in a male dominated field), great. If not, that’s fine too. It is up to her to articulate her own relationship to a greater community that she is a part of.


2. Even if she doesn’t make mention of the historical significance, that doesn’t mean the win is not significant for our culture as a whole - it is . It’s all well and good to think that the gender of award winners doesn’t or shouldn’t matter (and I personally believe that the mainstreaming of diverse groups so that we don’t give them special props when they win is an admirable cultural goal), but it is significant now.  A win communicates that gender is not per se a barrier to the upper echelons of critical success. It also potentially ignites a paradigm shift towards such mainstreaming, so that women directors are just thought of as directors –it’s hard to shed a marginal label without mainstream critical success and professional accomplishment.

I’m trying to anticipate the folks who will be annoyed by any media frenzy over the win of a female director. If you’re one of them, let me ask, where were you on the night of November 4, 2008? Were you saying “first Black president, big f*cking deal”? Before you get all riled up, let me say that I’m not suggesting with that comparison that the cultural significance of those two events is comparable: I’m saying that identity politics, at this time and this cultural moment, do matter. AND I’m saying that they matter precisely because the more we see members of marginal “other” groups achieve whatever benchmarks of success, the more we move to eventually not making a big deal of it.

Ultimately, I think most of us have the same goal here: that gender, like race or ethnicity or sexuality, shouldn’t matter. But right now, it does. When the “first” (president, film director, senate majority leader, etc) is achieved by a member of a marginal group, it IS a big deal (have I sad that enough yet?). It’s a big deal because that achievement does not come without that person having overcoming a lot of overt and covert assumptions and generalizations about what s/he is or is not capable of. It comes because that person has likely had to consistently assert his/her right to be in that field, to be taken seriously, to assume a position of authority. And really it’s a big deal because “the first”  is the first step to the second, the third, the fourth, and so on.

So indulge us if we want to talk about it. Maybe we won’t – we won’t have to – in twenty, thirty, fifty years.