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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.

Dear Ambitious Men: You Can’t Have It All

If there’s one message I’ve had drummed into my head over the years, be it from interviews with accomplished women or self help articles in women’s magazines or Gelnn Close’s character in Damages, at it’s that women can’t have it all – the career and the happy well nurtured family that is. I get it. If I want those things, I need a wife, or at least some sort of domestic help (with a legal green card and to whom I pay a living wage of course). But if the last ten years have taught me anything, it’s that this women are not alone in having a personal/professional conundrum. Ambitious, powerful men have a dilemma themselves.  So please - Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Mark Sanford, Tiger Woods - a word to you, my friends:

You can’t have it all either. You can have the women or you can have the family, but you have to choose one.

Now, I’ve heard a lot of pundits expound vociferously on this topic over the last several weeks, but no one’s broken it down quite like I’m about to here, so listen up. As a culture, we pressure men to be successful, to make it to the top. The rewards of this success are power, money, and let’s face it, sex.  At the end of all this is uncomparable ego affirmation. As a man you become a political leader, a world-class athlete, you make it to the top of your profession – what’s driving you there?  These rewards.

However, we’ve set up this sort unfortunate dichotomy, which is that we expect these great leaders to follow cultural norms, namely monogamous marriage and family life.  But those norms and the values that we project onto marriage We like to see our leaders in a conventional marriage, because it confers these qualities onto them. A married man – someone who’s taken on emotional and economic responsibility for the family unit, etc. – is mature, loyal, and responsible.  Without marriage, we’re suspicious. As American’s we’ve had only a single bachelor president, no. 15 James Buchanan, and that was not for lack of trying (his fiancée allegedly committed suicide). I’d venture to say that conventional marriage is a pretty much a prerequisite of success.

Okay, still with me? The problem comes when we require traits in our leaders that put them into conflict with one of these rewards that lure men into these positions. Unsurprisingly, these great men in the moment succumb to sexual temptation. This of course compromised the implied moral firmament that was (at least in part) the foundation of their success. Not coincidentally, I think this is why you don’t hear about nearly as many scandals involving married women in high positions - because a woman’s sexual appeal is not enabled by her proximity to power.

So, ambitious men, you’ve got to make a choice – follow the family track and stick to it, or have the cajones to make it a go alone. But please, don’t get married if you don’t think you can handle it. Seriously, no judgment.

I think we as a culture need to embrace the unconventional whether that’s unmarried men, men with open marriages, non-traditional partnerships, whatever –we need to let men be self aware, and be okay with men whose personal relationships are outside social norms coming to power.  I’m okay with a sports star or even an elected official who’s middle aged and good looking and single sleeping around – as long as that doesn’t interfere with what he does for his profession. Frankly, I’d rather have an open and honest bachelor in office than some sorry married schmo who gives in to temptation weeping at a press conference and mea culpa-ing all the way to divorce court.  We as a society have to be more accepting, because we’ve put men into this impossible position.

So men, take heed. As fraught as women are (and heaven know we have our lights, quandaries and issues), we know you have yours too. More to come on this topic in future pots, I'm sure.

-TVB

A New Year, A New Schedule

Okay, so it's been a while. But we're back, and onto a new publishing schedule: Tuesdays and Fridays.

I know, hard to believe, but we're making a good faith effort to keep at it. There was soooo much to talk about in 2009, so much we've missed. And already this year we've seen the DGA award the first Woman Director, and watched Nikke Finke's commententator fume at each other over the number of pilots picked up that are authored by women - so much juicy stuff! We can't wait!

So we hope you enjoy these posts, and keep coming back for more.

-TVB

The Sanctimony of Diablo

Coming back off hiatus (well, not really hiatus, but rather out-of-country film shoot) and  returned to our fine land to hear much ado about the Fempire piece in the New York Times. Ryan Tate's rxn on Defamer pretty much sums up my thoughts on this:

Lady screenwriters? Just a thought: If you don't want people to fixate on your sexuality maybe don't blurt out to a Times writer, "We've all seen each other naked..."Or call your drunken limousine rides "super porno... But having talked about your work on a would-be series called Sluts, and having dubbed yourselves "The Fempire," it sounded a bit disingenuous when you all complained about "pressure to look photogenic in a way that is not demanded of male screenwriters."

Could not have said it better myself.

Suit for a Cause Weekend

Normally I'm a one-post-a-day kind of woman, but thought I'd share that this weekend is Send One Suit weekend, encouraging women to donate one suit to the nonprofit Dress for Success an organization that "gives disadvantaged women entering the workforce a leg up by outfitting them in professional business attire, providing career counseling and setting them up with professional women's networking groups."

Downturned economy leave you with suits to spare? Donate one this weekend! Drop off your suit at a local Dress Barn store (find one here) and help a good cause.

Hard News for Hardwicke, Disappointment for Women Directors Generally

Have a little backlog of posts due to the starting of a new job. Will post a couple of recent insights to sate the palate, and be back on a regular schedule next week.

So the jury's still out as to whether it was Summit's decision to kick Catharine Hardwicke out of the director's chair, or Hardwicke's decision to turn down directing the next installment in the Twilight series (based on what's she's described as a too-limiting budget). Either way it's a disappointment, especially since since the budget for the first movie was 37M and grossed 70M on opening day weekend (setting a new record for highest opening weekend gross for a film directed by a woman), and it's rumored that the modest budget planned for New Moon was increased upon hiring of America Pie helmer Chris Weitz to direct.

But now Nikke Finke reports that Summit is closing a deal for a third movie, director tbd, making it a little more bitter that Hardwicke's no longer in the director's chair.

And speaking of women directors, Defamer today railed against EW for its top 25 directors list, citing among other problems the lack of femmes at the top. They go on to post 26-50, and Sophia Coppola tops out at  no. 26, ahead of Mira Nair (46) and Mary Harron (49).

Sophia Coppola at 26? Mary Harron at 49? Where's Karen Kusama (director of Girl Fight, Aeon Flux, and the forthcoming Jennifer's Body)? Jane Campion? Jodie Foster? Sally Potter? Mimi Leder? Kathryn Bigelow? Kasi Lemmon? Patty Jenkins? There's a serioiusly flawed rubric behind the present list, one that I don't understand and that celebrates celebrity  in foregrounding Coppola at the expense of some more seriously acomplished directors, both critically and commercially.  Ugh.

But

Film Review Round Up - Badass Lead Chicks

I've been watching the reviews over the past couple of days and I must say, even if these movies are well executed, the fact that they got green-lightsays something. Here is some cinema featuring bad-ass ladies that you may not want to miss:

- Hong Kong thriller Chocolate features a martial artist savant, part autistic teen, part Muay Thai prodigy. 100% bad ass. I have to say I cannot wait to see this.

-The Countess - The summary reads "A 16th-century noblewoman turns to an unusual moisturizer for comfort after she’s been abandoned by her much younger lover" - the moisturizer? Virgin blood!! Talk about a woman scorned. Julia Delpy stars in a movie only the Germans could make.

-Cheri is about a love affair between an older courtesan (Lea) and a spoiled youth (Cheri). Okay, not as firce as the above two but still, nice to see Michelle Pfieffer in a substantial lead role.

An Up and Down Week...for Children

Let me skip right past any homage to parenthood, my own parents, past my own desire to have kids and fears of a life without, and go right back over into the my-God-I-am-sacred-out-of-my-gourd phase. A few things floating around popular culture this week have scared the bejesus out of me.

The Times Op-Ed ‘Till Children do Us Part” and the  now vintage-3-year-old Salon.com article by Mary Elizabeth Williams are fiercesome reminders of the economic and physical toils of childrearing. Add to that the economy woes, and it looks like I'm not alone, as Lisa Belkin writes in "Postponing a Baby in this Recession."

A couple other interersting issues are up in the air now too. The Balance between women and men workinging and the economic turmoil perhaps ushering a new age ofstay-at-home dads may be ne suprising outcome of this historic economic downturn, as Belkin points out in "Unemployed Dads at Home" and NPR's "Talk of the Nation" turned into a discussion about multitasking moms as host Neil Conan explored the culture of Blackberrying and the breakdowns between work at home with guest Dalton Conley, author of the book Elsewhere, USA. The current moment then raises all new kinds of questions about parenthood in the milenium. We'll wait and see I guess.

A Barbie World

On a lighter note, while there's been much talk about Barbie recently - from the giant store planned in Shanghai to Allure's article how she's changed over the years to the forthcoming book on how she was conceived - here's yet another fabulous piece of Barbie news: the Guardian reported on Friday that Mattel is announcing an Andrea Merkel Barbie.



Too bad she's one of a kind (like the real Merkel!)

Academy Awards Watch: Honoring Geek Chic

The Academy's recognition ceremony for accomplishments in the area of scientific and technical contribution to film was held in Beverly Hills last night. As part of the commitment of this blog to comment on the role of women and men in popular culture including tech, I'm obliged to report that the winners were all white dudes. This is not so surprising, as the educational and cultural institutions which promote success in science and technology have historically given been populated by given preference to white men. But I have few doubts  that as these industries become less exclusive and girl gamers and programmers are on the rise, the demo of these awards will change a lot over the next twenty years. That will not however stop me from commenting that the choice of a gorgeous woman to host (Jessica Biel this year, succeeding prior hosting hotties Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, and Charlize Theron) does not = gender balance:  it's more like throwing chum to an audience of hungry sharks, hungry nerdy sharks.

A brief list of the winners is below, with details on the Academy's webpage.

Gordon E. Sawyer Award - Ed Catmull, a computer scientist, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, and president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. 

John A. Bonner Medal - Mark Kimball, a computer scientist and motion picture technologist with more than 28 years experience in the movie industry

Technical Achievement Award - Steve Hylen, inventor of the Hylen Lens System

Scientific and Engineering Award - Erwin Melzer, Volker Schumacher, & Timo Muller for the Arrimax 18/12 lighting fixture .

Scientific and Engineering Award  - Jacques Delacoux and Alexandre Leuchter for the Transvideo-video assist monitors

Scientific and Engineering Award  - Bruno Coumert, Jacques Debize, Dominique Chervin and Christophe Reboulet for the Angenieux 15-40 and 28-76 zoom lenses

A sincere congratulations to all.

The Gross Out Girls

Salon.com today has a post by Rebecca Traister which takes issued with the slate of recent gross out posts by this column’s favorite blog Jezebel, and let me just say to her: get over it. She writes  “Oversharing is in” – this isn’t oversharing – it’s simply sharing. It’s just that we’re not used to it.

Women’s bodies are complicated. The vagina is an extremely sensitive organ whose status is beholden to hormones, environmental factors, women’s grooming, and emotional state (among others). Menstruation, birth control, and hygiene routines mean we spend a lot of time working on the old pipes down there and historically there’s been little place to discuss the ins and outs of all this. I for one find this refreshing. I remember one time pitching a short film to my thesis class – a dark comedy about a woman with dyspareunia, and let’s just say that even though the pitch got laughs, the overall response was tepid. Okay, maybe that pitch was pushing it (it did involve a talking vagina), but I think in large part that’s because we’re not culturally primed to hear about these in public.

All this reminds me of the 1970’s by Gloria Steinem If Men Could Menstruate:

What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not? The answer is clear - menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much. Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties.The US Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts. Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free…Street guys would brag ("I'm a three-pad man") or answer praise from a buddy ("Man, you are lookin' good") by giving fives and saying, "Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!" TV shows would treat the subject at length…so would newspapers…and movies (Newman and Redford in "Blood Brothers"!)

Is it so shocking then that women would take the affordances offered by online communities to share and  provide a forum for our shared frustrations, triumphs, difficulties, curiousities, and questions. This is feminism 2.0, and it’s about damn time.

And let’s face it. As the Jezebel response points out – this is opt in. It’s not like Letterman or Leno are joking about this on the news, and I doubt Conan will replace the masturbating bear with the menstruating red panda (though a girl can dream).

Write on ladies!

In Defense of the Chick Flick

I really do loathe the term“chick flick.” That said, I will not let that prevent me from my post today, which is a brief defense of said genre. In the last few days there has been a spate of criticism (including today’s column from Kevin Maher in today's Times Online) regarding romantic comedies and chick flicks, led by the recent releases of Bride Wars, and the forthcoming Confessions of a Shopaholic and He’s Just Not That Into You. Before the Hollywood clitterati go on a rampage whereby we are ready to burn at the stake the writers and execs churning out this so-called this drivel - let me make an impassioned plea for some perspective.

Let’s put these comedies into context, shall we? While Maher claims that “for every smart-thinking Bridget Jones, Legally Blonde or Devil Wears Prada there appeared a slew of movies that appealed to the genre's baser instincts… 27 Dresses, Made of Honor, License to Wed and What Happens in Vegas.” Let’s compare this to a comprehensive selection of male driven comedies released last year: Tropic Thunder, Yes Man, Step Brothers, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Harold and Kumar. Hancock, The Love Guru, Witless Protection – in terms of offering flattering representations of men, this pretty much spans the gamut. You may look at the success of Bride Wars or Paul Blart and make a good argument about the dumbing down of American comedic tastes, but I’m not convinced there’s a gender gap here.

Let’s face it, the real problem isn’t these movies – rather it’s the dearth of female leads and storylines in genres OTHER than chick flicks and romantic comedies. I think this IS a problem – a huge one. There’s a real lack of movies featuring female stars that don’t happen to be have storylines driven exclusively by female interests (i.e. men, shopping, and getting married). Women do not occupy the lead role in films across genres (actions, thrillers, dramas, superhero movies) with any regularity (as Jezebel's post on the Bechdel Rule reminded us) This is a tragedy.

I do worry that when we call for an end to chick flicks, we risk that chick flicks (be they good, bad, or ugly) will get a shrinking piece of the studio’s financial pie, and that I don’t want to see fewing women on screen, even if it means eduring the bad along with the good. The good ones are worth it!! So let’s not galvanize the Industry to kill the genre entirely just because of a one (or two, or three) movies that spoil the bunch.

Goodbye to My Man-Hating Literature

So it's Tuesday (almost midnight PST, just under the wire) but just wanted to get in this eulogy.

International traveling (as well as impending nuptials) have left me with a need to pare down my belongings and make room for the future. Among the many victims of this purge are my bookshelves, which have been overcrowded with many tomes that have gone unopened for years. I freely admit that many of these books are from my undergraduate and early grad school days, and I've hung onto them for ego's sake, as evidence not only that I have read them but that more importantly they serve as a sort of external proof that I am a thoughtful and well-educated person. But it's time to reckon that, though I owe many of these works deeply, it's time to let them go and trust the impact they've made on me.

As these works now sit in a pile on my floor waiting to be sold and shipped to the good people who buy used-book from Amazon.com, I realize this collection contains much of my "Man Hating Lit" as my male friends call it - literature that would scare the pants off of any possible suitor who happened to peruse my bookshelves. I have tried in vain to defend this literature as showcasing my active interest in understanding men and women (and maintain that makes me an open-minded, attractive person, no?) to no avail. While no one of these books contains any sort of misandronist message, apparently the whole lot of them say to the world that I'm a vicous man eater.

And so here it is, a compendium of mini eulogies dedicated to the books that scare the pants off single men. 

Bachelors by Rosalind E. Krauss - recommended reading for an undergraduate history of photography course.

Representing Women by Linda Nochlin - for my gender and representation in 19th and 20th century French painting class. Awesome, but unopened since '98

Male Trouble by Abigail Solomon-Godeau - ditto

Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a Postfeminist Age by Tania Modeleski - Modeleski was a celebrity prof at my school and so this was de facto required reading

Speculum of the Other Woman by Luce Irigaray - okay, I admit it - any book with "speculum" is bound to scare off men. 

Is Menstruation Obsolete? by Elsimar Coutinho and Sheldon Segal - speaking of scary titles. An interesting argument, but as a lapsed Catholic I will never not panic when I think I've missed my period. The anxiety over a potential unplanned pregnancy is just ingrained in me.

Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader ed. by Charlotte Brundson and Lynn Spigel - a great primer on feminist theory on tv (guess the title kind of explains itself)

Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Ann Fausto - like new! I never did get around to cracking this one (as assigned reading during the last week in a film theory classs chock full of high theory, this became optional reading) 

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks - inspiring but also makes you feel kind of hopeless, like unless you engage in full on revolution, there just ain't no hope. Bummer.

Against Love by Laura Kipnis - purchased this after I saw the author give a talk,  enjoyed it most when I felt my own relationship was doomed. Some women turn to ice cream and Meg Ryan movies; I turned to Kipnis.

Great Women of Film by Helena Lumme and Mika Manninen - receved as a gift. A beautiful black and whote book, but a little more timely than timeless and thusly feels dated. Not doing a good job of selling this one, am I?

Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American Woman's Film by Julie Dash -  bought for a production class. Okay, this one may well push me into unshaven leg, bra-burning territory. 

Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving by Betty Dodson - bought this as a sight gag for a short film, and read it years later. Betty Dodson is my favorite old-school blue-haired diva. I want to be like her when I grow up.

The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women by Tristan Taormino - what can I say? I'm just not that into it.

Still keeping some that I just can't let go of - my Feminist Film Theory Reader, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Linda Williams' Hard Core, Susan Hopkins' Girl Heroes to name a few.

The Ledbetter Double Edge

Last week the news was rife with coverage of Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Obama’s first bill which overturns legislation restricting an employee’s ability to file a pay discrimination lawsuit against their employer. Considered a bittersweet victory for women (essentially returning things to their pre-2007 state) it’s also a misstep for Obama, who promised as part of his campaign to publicly post non-emergency bills in consideration for review and commentary by the public for five days before signing. As Politifact, the organization running the “Obameter” keeping track of his campaign promises reports, he did not do this for the Ledbetter Act. Considering that I can’t even get both my computers connected to my wireless printer, I sympathize with the technical difficulties, but wouldn’t it have been smarter for them to get ahead of this with a quick press release rather than wait for it to catch up to them? Hate to think that this bill, which helps to restore equality among workers and is already being pigeonholed as a some kind of feminist (not humanist) legislation, will suffer another little blow, ultimately detracting from the good work being done here?