Subtle sexism
Watching this was the first time in my life I've ever truly laughed and cried at the same time.

Whether any of these things could be turned around and said to a man, or not, isn't the point. It's the constant commentary, the dichotomy, the conflicting messages, the importance we place on a woman's appearance and perceived behavior.
We should challenge the things that are expected of each gender in society, but I can't speak from a male experience. I haven't lived my life as one; I've lived my life as a female and I know my experiences.  And I'm tired of being blamed for other people's behavior (note: this is extends to more than just sexism, I'm also dealing with emotional manipulation issues).

I'm tired of having lived my life being silenced! I grew up in a "closed" culture (maybe there's another word for this, I don't know) where all my family and friends had basically the same mind set because 99% of us belonged to the same rule-heavy religion. In this culture, I didn't have any examples of strong, independent, 'fierce' women. This is not to say that the adult females in my life were weak, but I never knew what a you-will-respect-me-and-what-I-say, I-have-boundaries-and-I'm-allowed-to-keep-them woman looked (or acted) like until a few years ago. And very few girls in American society are taught how to be that woman. We compromise our boundaries ALL THE TIME. I don't want to teach my daughter how to do that. So when she loudly and firmly told her friend who was annoying her to "Leave Me Alone RIGHT NOW", I had to check my conditioned response of scolding her to "be nice" and tell her "good for you" instead.

Sure, there are "nicer ways" to say just about anything, but if I have to mince my words to "be nice" instead of asserting whatever it is that I need, then the focus shifts from the actual message to whether I made somebody feel bad when I protected my boundary. (This is what "tone policing" is all about). I mean, can you imagine when (Country A) tried to invade (Country B) if they had been all "Well I don't want to hurt your feels, but I'd prefer if you didn't take my land and kill my people. Let's just play nice, okay?" Like, when has that ever worked? It's apparently human nature to constantly test boundaries (even toddlers do it) and try to find the weak spot - if you don't consistently and strongly define where the line is and what kind of behavior you expect, you eventually WILL be breached. 

A girl's "city walls" (if you will) are breached in minor ways on a *daily* basis as a lot of the comments in that video demonstrate. Although it is just as emotionally damaging to tell a boy to 'be a man', 'play with trucks not ponies', or "pick the boy colors" (heard a relative say this to their 4yo son), it seems to me that the consequence is that males are often silenced from talking about how they feel, or from expressing certain things they like. They are allowed -and indeed expected- to define their borders in other areas of their life. When girls are taught to be "pleasant" and "nice" we are taught that someone else's comfort comes before ours and we are not allowed to set the standards for ourselves. We are taught this when we are told to "smile!" (or even worse, "you're such a pretty girl, why don't you smile?!"), we are taught this when we're told "boys/nobody likes a girl who ____."  With all these little chips and holes, it becomes very difficult to keep the walls intact and defend against the real threat when it comes.

It doesn't matter what color my walls are, it doesn't matter what kind of stone they're made, it doesn't matter how many bricks have been patched and replaced. That is not what makes the invader attack. I am not responsible for the intruder's behavior, I am responsible for mine. I am allowed to defend my boundaries and I wish to help defend the walls of my neighboring cities who may or may not have the resources to protect themselves. Together we must push back and try to eradicate this threat forever. 

P.S. Nowhere in here have I said that anything is perpetrated by males alone, or is "the man's fault" - the invasion I speak of is the patriarchal society that teaches males and females alike, whether overtly or subtly, that women are soft-spoken and pretty / men are bold and ambitious; that a woman's greatest purpose is to obtain 'the right man' and a man's greatest achievement is to obtain a 'hot chick/beautiful wife', and also teaches that comments on a person's looks/body/clothes/health are completely appropriate (newsflash: they're not). 

V

Just found out last night that ABC canceled "V". I cannot even put words to how much I am pissed off by this. V is a GREAT show -great writing, wonderful story & characters, every actor on the show is so great in their role... And it's not just that Season 2 ended on a *monster* of a cliffhanger, the show is just.so.good. It really drew me in from the first episode. Morena Baccarin is amazing at creeping me out and making me hate Anna (Supreme Commander of the Visitors), and you find yourself really pulling for Erica (played by Elizabeth Mitchell) throughout it all.

And I don't give a shit what ABC's reason was. With the cancellation, the message that ABC is sending, in my mind, is "we don't care about quality, we only care about making obscene amounts of money." Even though the show was more "mainstream" than its predecessor, V is a scifi show and appeals to a certain audience - not everyone is going to tune in. Instead of letting us fans enjoy one of the best shows out there (not many left nowadays thanks to 'SyFy'), ABC will probably replace V with another dime-a-dozen "comedy" that appeals to the Two and Half Men crowd...

HBP /HP6

I will be writing a review for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but it's going to be a very in-depth review. I also may need to see the movie again before I do, and I'm unwilling to spend another dollar on a ticket, so we'll see... Not like anyone reads this anyway. :)

Crap.

I was going to post yesterday, just so that I didn't go the entire months of March and April without one, but oh well. Okay, so in the last few months a lot has changed, and last week we bought a house. Well, a 'manufactured home' that needs some work, but it's a house to us -it's better than an apartment. And it's across the street from my brothers...who are moving to Ohio soon anyway.But it has a yard! Somewhere for my kid (and the dog) to run! and ride his bike! And it has a large kitchen. And for the last two days, instead of being at work all I want is to scrub and clean that kitchen so I can start moving stuff in! I'll probably be doing that tomorrow though since I can't help with the insulation. We completely demolished the walls in the kid's room and are rebuilding them this weekend. Fun stuff!

PS you can now find me on Facebook and Twitter.

Oscars

Okay, just a little blurb about the Academy Awards. THANK GOD Heath Ledger got Best Supporting Actor -we were going to have to boycott the Oscars from now on if he hadn't. That said, WTF people. Dark Knight was definitely one of the best movies of the year and it won only 1 award -for sound editing. And Wall-E should have won one of the sound categories too. Arrgh. anyway.

Here's my beef: Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Everyone I know who's seen it had said "it's okay....it's good, but..." Everyone I know who saw Dark Knight? "That was totally wicked!" or something similar :) Benjamin Button came out in the last week of the year and overshadowed all these other great movies that came out last spring/summer. From now on, if a movie comes out after November, it shouldn't be counted until the next year's award season. And this now segues into inconsistancy -they award the movies that came out in the calendar year, but when they do the tribute to those who have died, it's only those who died since the last Oscars' broadcast. I was expecting to see Heath's tribute since he died in calendar year 2008 but no. Moving on.

I was happy to see Kate Winslet finally win, she is a great actress. And hopefully Anne Hathaway can win next year. I guess I'll have to go see Slumdog Millionaire now since apparently it's the best movie of the year. Oh and kudos to the academy on Robert Downey Jr's nom for Tropic Thunder -completely surprising since it was a comedy! The Academy really really really needs to get away from only honoring dramas and "artsy-fartsy" movies. Sure sure, actions get their squeeze in too, but when will they learn that comedies have their place too?** Talk to any actor and they'll tell you that comedy is much harder to do than drama. But oh well, cheers for now.

**Yes, I know I used "too" twice in a sentence, but I don't feel like editing it. Instead, I'd rather write this little note that takes much more time and effort. Kinda like the joke about the mom who writes a letter to her son with the postscript that she was going to send him money but the envelope was already sealed.

I'm an Assassin...

....on Burnout: Revenge. Well actually, I've reached Elite rank, but as of last night I have perfected every event up to the Assassin rank. That's right, I'm a perfectionist.

I love this game because it's got diversity: road rage (where the goal is to takeout all your opponents -over and over again), traffic check (hit all the cars in front of you and watch them fly! Come on, we all want to do that!), racing/time trials/burning laps, and then there's Crash --where the goal is to cause the biggest multi-vehicle pile-up carnage you've ever seen. Have I mentioned that it's all very cathartic? Need for Speed series is good (Underground 2 is my fav) because they have different kinds of skills competitions (i.e. drift, circuit, drag) and you can completely customize and mod your car, but it's really nice to just forget about the technical stuff and go all out sometimes. Pedal to the metal balls to the wall I'm gonna kick your fuckin ass at 200+ mph cuz I can.

Man, I can't wait to play tonight. After perfection within the events have been achieved, I will work on getting all the Signature Takedowns (I have 15/24) and completing all the Challenge Sheets to get the special cars. Hell yeah. Peace out.



(images are from www.operationburnout.com)

Twilight Twilight Twilight!

Wow, the first new post in 3 months! Mostly I haven't posted because no one reads this anyway, but sometimes (like now) I just need a venue to get out the shite that's in my head. Without further ado, today's topic will be... TWILIGHT!

So I started the book the night before Thanksgiving and had finished all 4 by the next weekend. Recently I read Stephenie's draft of Midnight Sun which made me want to read Twilight again. Alas, the night I got it back from the friend I had lent it to, his girlfriend read the preface and got sucked in so I let her borrow it. :( I consoled myself by reading New Moon again which I finished last night. Oh, and I've seen the movie 3 times already, the last being Christmas day, and will see it probably at least once a month until it's out of theatres. Seriously, I could watch it at least 5 more times before it's gone.

I didn't like the movie too much at first, though like the book it was addicting, but after reading Midnight Sun..wow-there's so much more to the film. Watching it now, it's clear that Catherine Hardwicke and Rob Pattinson had access to the draft -there's a lot of subtlety to the film that's hard to pick up on without that knowledge...or maybe I'm just projecting stuff. Who knows? Anyway, I'm excited to see Chris Weitz's vision for New Moon and being the person that I am (wannabe director) I'm planning out scenes for it in my head. I hope Chris doesn't disappoint and moreover, I hope that my vision doesn't bias me against his. It would be a dream to direct one of these movies (except for Eclipse; I don't think I could do that one).

So many topics to talk about: actors/acting, the books, the writing, my favorite scenes (books and movie).... This will probably keep me going for a while, especially since I live in the US and couldn't watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special -working on that angle though.

I just read a Twilighter's experience at a mall signing with Rob Pattinson in CA and oh my hell I'm laughing my ass off! Well, most of the story sucks until the end when she meets Rob -that's funny right there. Just had to share that. Alright enough talk for now.