Mine immediately investigate the camera and rub their faces on it, resulting in a forced fisheye effect. Stop that and go back to being funny and/or cute!
I don't disagree, I just still think there's a sliver of a point in that particular comment from Dunham.
I mean, I rage and fight about Palin being elected anything at all, but I still think that it's at least somewhat good to have a diversity of people to hate and bemoan and be horrified by.
I do think there's something of a point there, though. There are tons of guys who dominate charts, direct their own empire, and made whatever millions of dollars, or whatever the variations are for other fields. Just the fact that Taylor Swift is doing all that for herself and is at that level DOES do something for women. The fact that she doesn't do ENOUGH in some (a lot of) estimations, or that she herself can be kind of awful doesn't negate that.
The first female president may do nothing to advance the legal rights of women, but she'd still be the first female president.
Interesting that "help" equals "not criticizing me even mildly for any of my behavior." I mean, even if you think the joke is shitty and kind of shaming, it's still not the same as "not helping" her.
Okay, but that seems like one facet or a much larger issue that's not confined to Disney or Princesses. There are plenty of critiques of the way they're marketed and emphasized to the exclusion of all else and sometimes diluted and made more problematic in post-movie incarnations (Mulan is always produced or shown wearing her matchmaker's dress, which she was demonstrably uncomfortable in and which did not suit her at all, etc.), but that doesn't make this idea that "girl" things are bad and girls shouldn't be allowed to want them or have them or LIKE them any less of a problem. That's shifting the paradigm, not destroying it. And it punishes girls who happen to really like traditionally feminine toys and stories by stigmatizing "girliness" and making it lesser or wrong.
I just don't see any value in any environment that encourages traits in girls below the surface and then punishes them for having those traits above the surface. Teaching girls how to be passive basically from birth, which is pretty much what our society does whether you have any Disney Princess or not, and then turning around and criticizing them for relating to stories with passive female characters is pretty unfair.
Straight up real talk. There's no wrong way to be a girl, and there's nothing wrong with "girl" things. It's the market that ONLY provides "girl" things that's the problem, not the little girl who loves wearing a pink fluffy dress and a tiara.
Lousy, thanks for asking! Work drama, stress-related nosebleed, someone hit my (parked) car while I was at lunch, and then I read the comments on this article about the Quvenzhane Wallis/Onion debacle and I've lost the will to go on: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/10212-Calling-a-Kid-the-C-Word
Like...seriously, this is the hill people want to die on? The "I have a god-given right to call children cunts" hill? That's what it was all about, the tea-dumping, the massacre of native populations, the manifest destiny and red-scaring, it would all be irrevocably jeopardized if we don't stand for what's right in the cunty 9-year-old arena?
And to add to what badideajeans said, calling out this kind of shitty behavior for what it is isn't entirely for Quvenzhane Wallis - it's for any other girl out there who witnesses or is subject to this sort of thing. It's letting them know that it's wrong, that they are not wrong if they feel lousy about it, they don't have to just keep their mouths closed and put up with it. It's for all the people who see no one say a word and think, "well, I guess it's okay to say that sort of thing, then." Ignoring something like this is a way of fostering an environment that allows it to happen. It's a way of silencing the people it happens to, because they think if no one says anything it must not be so bad and they shouldn't be upset. It's a way of controlling the discourse by putting the burden of people to react in "polite" ways to impolite behavior.
Which is, not to put too fine a point on it, complete and utter horseshit.
Except you don't address any of the things people are bringing up - the real life damages they suffer, the fucked up shit they put up with all because of their gender, or race, or identity. Instead your response is about you and how you feel and how you should be treated or thought of. That's not really helping your "I'm not thoughtless" case. I mean, why do I have to look at it YOUR way? Why does the conversation have to happen on your terms? The answer is: it doesn't. That's what those downvotes are telling you. And they really aren't a hardship, so maybe you should not make a mockery of the things people have said in this post by acting like they are.
I don't think you're an evil jerk, but you really need to take a second and actually absorb what people are telling you instead of asking for cookies for not name-calling. If someone calls you a jackass for what you're saying in this post, it's because what you said HURT her, in a way that reinforces all the hurtful shit the world already dishes out to her. That's shitty of you. Stop doing it. And the fact that anyone has to say this to you isn't really a mark in your favor.
To YOU it seems like everyone here is pretty far from repeatedly disregarding other peoples' well-being or personhood. Because frankly, no one's doing it to you. It is honestly exhausting to explain for literally the five-hundredth time why something upsets you, how yes, this is sexist, or yes, that is racist, no I am not being too sensitive, yes I have a sense of humor but no that was not funny. And then you get the devil's advocates, the "rational" people who want to have a "reasoned exchange of ideas" from their place of privilege, the "no, he was really criticizing Chris Brown!" people, the people who only have to click the little red X on their browser window to exit the discussion and never need to think about it again because it doesn't HAPPEN to them, the people who insist that you have to prove to them your own lived experiences.
Yes, we all show up here hoping for a laugh. So when comments in a post like this turn into the same shit people of marginalized groups have to deal with every single day, it's even more disheartening than if it happens in youtube comments or wherever else. We are tired. Very very tired.
That's all well and good, but when people show repeated disregard for the well-being and personhood and experiences of others (primarily others who get a whole lot of shit heaped on them already by society at large), that's not so easy to bygones away as those different opinions that spice life up.
Well, the thing about "cunt" is in the same vicinity as the thing about the n-word or gay slurs - it's someone wanting to demean you as viciously, ruthlessly, and cruelly as possible. That's why people say it. That's the thought process: what will hurt and dehumanize this person I am angry at most, what will most effectively make them lesser than I am?
So it's not the word itself so much as the intent, the desire to diminish that it comes with. It's an attempt to keep you in your place, your place being - naturally - below the person saying it.
Orrrrr maybe women having breasts that we can see as part of a movie role that explicitly called (whether per script demands, director demands, character needs, or yet more patriarchy) for those breasts to be unclothed could not be made into a "funny" song that implied that no matter what they achieved, it wouldn't matter because BOOBS?
What makes you think this is just about those specific women being uncomfortable in that moment? What about women at home who just want to watch an awards show and are instead reminded that their bodies are usually seen as property? Maybe those actresses AREN'T uncomfortable with being topless in a movie but still are uncomfortable with it being throw in their faces?
Why is it on an actress to refuse being topless instead of the fucking movie industry to stop constantly requiring actresses to be topless in movies? Jennifer Lawrence is 22 and has been a public name for 3 years. If you honestly think that that's proof that she will never be in any movie that requires nudity, I'm amazed. And also, acting like it's actually something to be proud of is gross on your part. Give me a break. Actresses are naked for their JOBS. If they choose not to be, that's their business, and if they DO choose to be, it doesn't make them free fucking game, nor does it make any woman who's uncomfortable with talented and respected actresses being reduced to their tits for a cheap joke wrong.
I guess the people circulating a macro of Meryl Streep with her Oscar that says "WE SAW YOUR BOOBS" are also remembering her achievement too, huh?
The song may or may not be a big deal, but people defending it with "it's totally okay, the actresses thought it was funny, stop being so uptight, lol liberal feminists" actually make it a bigger deal. Stop defending something that was stupid and tacky at best and people probably won't make such a big deal about it.
Uh...seriously? Ladies don't have to get naked? Like, you do know that a "We Saw Your Dick" song would have been virtually impossible because while it's de rigeur for women to be topless in movies, male full frontal nudity gains an NC-17 and thus pretty much doesn't happen in mainstream or mainstream-adjacent movies, even though it's tits-a-go-go? Like...have you SEEN movies?
And participating can be just as much "being a good sport so as not to seem uptight or uncool" in a pre-recorded bit as it can on the spot. I'm a Cool Girl, I don't mind my professional and artistic achievement being reduced to my tits!
That's the cool thing about being an individual person, you can be bothered by anything you want, and you don't need Charlize Theron's permission because SHE wasn't bothered.
Good grief, with this.
Can't wait for more Sansa and Jon to get some and Tyrion fanboys and apologists to make me hate a character that I really enjoyed before I had to see all their bullshit excuses for his bitter, self-pitying behavior towards his child bride! Except only the first two.
I imagine that all of Emilia's friends texted her last night saying "...him?" and then she cracked open another bottle of wine and drank it by herself.
I think that GRRM has said that non-burning isn't truly a Targaryen trait, but rather was an effect of the dragons' magic for Dany. Because obviously Viserys was legitimately a Targaryen and he burned just fine.
Was it really having fun at her own expense? Because at best it seems like being a good sport so you don't seem uptight and uncool to me. Like, the entire joke was, ha ha, ladies have to get naked in movies (because Patriarchy) and we get to discount all their achievements and personhood with the power of having seen them unclothed (because Patriarchy some more)! It was Mr. Skin set to music. It would have been gross and stupid and cheap in an Adam Sandler movie too.
Nope, sorry. The janitor who mops the floor of a hospital doesn't have a valid opinion on the surgical procedures performed there, Paris Hilton doesn't have a valid opinion on what it's like to be poor, a woman doesn't have a valid opinion on the experience of being kicked in the testicles, and a white person doesn't have a valid opinion on the personal experience of racism. You cannot have a valid opinion of something you have no valid experience of. Ideas don't need to be exchanged when it comes to someone's lived experience of oppression, they need to be received and accepted by the person who does not have that lived experience. This is the shutting up and listening part. (Empirical) You are not an authority on oppressions you don't experience and by claiming that your opinion of them is valid, you ARE trying to set the terms for discourse by insisting that your concerns and feelings are of equal importance to those of the people who DO experience those oppressions. They're not. That makes you very lucky and you should appreciate it instead of insisting you get your say.
Not all opinions are valid. Your opinion on someone else's lived experience is not valid. And it never will be. What's dangerous is perpetuating a system where the privileged parties are allowed to set the terms for discourse or else it doesn't happen. Sometimes you need to shut up and listen, and that's not dangerous or wrong or unfair.
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