Category: media

Drinking Game Redux: Stanton Biopic on CNN

Posted by on 03/14/10 12:55 PM

The day has finally arrived when the trans community groans collectively: Susan Stanton’s CNN myopic is on tonight. Get out the fifth (or your drug of choice) because this one is going to be worse than the usual; previews are clear about that. We’ll get to see Stanton insult crossdressers and other trans people.

Sigh.

Mostly I would like for non-trans community to know that most trans people are nothing like Stanton: they don’t reek of privilege, for starters. White, wealthy trans women who transition later in life have always gotten more than their share of the media spotlight, and that’s unfortunate if only because it skews the picture of who trans people are, what they need, and what kinds of discrimination they deal with. Most cannot afford GRS, much less FFS (facial feminization surgery) or, alternately, phalloplasty & the like. People like Stanton (Chloe Prince, etc.) also make it seem as if every trans person comes from a heterosexual history and not only gets GRS but needs it; in fact, most MTF spectrum people don’t get genital surgery, for various reasons.

So if you’re not trans, please don’t bother someone you know who is tomorrow. If you really want to know more, try a book.

Porn Is Good?

Posted by on 03/13/10 2:06 PM

Milton Diamond, who is otherwise best known for being the person who exposed John Money’s failed “experiement” that was the life of David Reimer, has a new article in The Scientists on the cultural, societal value of porn.

Studies of men who had seen X-rated movies found that they were significantly more tolerant and accepting of women than those men who didn’t see those movies, and studies by other investigators—female as well as male—essentially found similarly that there was no detectable relationship between the amount of exposure to pornography and any measure of misogynist attitudes. No researcher or critic has found the opposite, that exposure to pornography—by any definition—has had a cause-and-effect relationship towards ill feelings or actions against women. No correlation has even been found between exposure to porn and calloused attitudes toward women. There is no doubt that some people have claimed to suffer adverse effects from exposure to pornography—just look at testimony from women’s shelters, divorce courts and other venues. But there is no evidence it was the cause of the claimed abuse or harm.

I’ve always been a fan – mostly because I grew up in a family where we were born fully dressed, and where no one was going to show me photos of what a vagina actually looked like (which, if you’re a woman, is hard to see for yourself). It can also be a useful instruction manual that’s actually fun to watch.

That said, I know there are plenty of feminists, and non-feminists, who hate porn and will only ever see the side of it that degrades women. I think of it more like comedy – sure, a lot of it’s lousy and mean-spirited and serves no cultural function, but the cultural function it does serve can’t really be fulfilled in any other way.

Read more: Porn: Good for us?

Best Director

Posted by on 03/7/10 10:57 PM

Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow for being the first female Best Director, for The Hurt Locker.

& Then, minutes later, it snags Best Picture, too. I suppose I should go see it now.

Learning to Speak Privilege

Posted by on 02/24/10 3:59 PM

A few weeks back there was this NYT article about how women need to learn how to speak ‘nanny.”

The whole idea is fucked up in so many ways I can’t even articulate, but let me try: the idea of some women “buying” their freedom as a result of being able to pay other women to take care of their children is screwed up. The cultural differences are screwed up. The fact that most of the women who need to learn to speak nanny are bound to be rich white women – while their nannies are poor brown women – just pisses me off.

Take this paragraph, for instance:

The mother, at times beset by guilt, a touch of intimidation or feelings of her own maternal inadequacy, fails to articulate what she wants from the nanny — and then complains to friends, her spouse or an Internet message board when she doesn’t get it. (The father in many cases steers clear of the whole relationship.)

Wow, right? That little parenthetical is about as huge as Mrs. Ramsey’s death in To the Lighthouse, no? Yes, the father steers clear of it all. Now there’s your article, NYT!

Wiki Win

Posted by on 02/18/10 12:37 AM

A sociology student put a fake quote into the Wiki entry for French composer Maurice Jarre nearly immediatley after he died, and the quote got picked up all over the place by journalists writing Jarre’s obituary:

“The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn’t use information they find there if it can’t be traced back to a reliable primary source,” said the readers’ editor at the Guardian, Siobhain Butterworth, in the May 4 column that revealed Fitzgerald as the quote author.

Superbowl Round-Up, Gender Studies Style

Posted by on 02/9/10 3:18 PM

First, clever Twitter responses to the ridiculous amount of sexism in this year’s Superbowl commercials. One of my favorites:
Posted By: denverlen (February 8, 2010 at 5:19 PM)
This was my fav tweet of the night. Saw a couple of others that were similar as well.
mrbilldempsey: Advertising works. Buying some misogyny first thing tomorrow.

(thanks to Erica for that one)

Weird Superbowl Ad indulges in outworn femme stereotype of a gay couple, but as an Advocate reader points out, in an oddly inclusive sort of way.

An hour of Superbowl watching with Gloria Steinem & Shelby Knox (okay, even I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t).

& As if to summarize, my friend Matty Wegehaupt wrote:
If there is any better evidence than the Super Bowl ads that popular American masculinity is in the throes of a pathetic death spiral, I haven’t seen it. The irony is that even while attacking women as withering harpies, the ads portray the men themselves as even more pathetic: illiterate boors who grunt defiantly at an “unfair” world, yearning for the nourishing respite of crap beer, fast cars, and fake boobs.

Geaux men! Honestly, I find the stereotypes of men in mainstream media horribly offensive – at least as offensive as those idiotic, sexist GoDaddy ads, which is one of the reasons I’ve been very surprised by how well Men of a Certain Age is written, and acted.

What Damfinos Do Know

Posted by on 02/8/10 2:48 AM

The other night on Olbermann, I caught the tail end of him telling a story about Buster Keaton – except that I didn’t hear the beginning. Luckily, I found the transcript:

First, on this date in 1895 was born actor Nigel Bruce famed as Dr.  Watson to Basil Rathbone‘s Sherlock Holmes.  But it was on the set of the movie “Limelight” that Bruce and co-start Norman Lloyd got to watch unmatched film history.  As star and director Charlie Chaplin filmed himself in a complicated bit of business, Bruce and Lloyd heard someone whispering “just to your left, Charlie.  Your center frame, Charlie.”

Finally Bruce realized it was another co-star, legendary comic Buster Keaton, whispering guidance to Chaplin.  My god, Bruce mumbled, we‘re watching Keaton direct Chaplin.

A Damfino (that’s what us Keaton fans are called) can not fail to remind you that Chaplin cut most of Buster’s scenes out of Limelight. Fucker.

Cagney & Lacey Reunited Tonight

Posted by on 01/21/10 5:11 PM

For those who were fans: Cagney & Lacey are going to be re-united on that hip spy series Burn Notice tonight; Sharon Gless, who played Cagney, is a regular on the show, on which she plays Michael Weston’s mom.

“GenderQueer in the Midwest” Mini Documentary

Posted by on 01/17/10 12:20 AM

I love JAC Stringer. Okay, there, I said it.

& Now you do too.
Check out the other stuff JAC does at www.midwestgenderqueer.com.

The Gender Puzzle Documentary

Posted by on 01/14/10 3:45 PM

The Gender Puzzle is a 45 min documentary about intersex that can be seen on YouTube; it’s worth watching if you’re new to intersex issues. You can also check out a 10-min. version.

You can buy a copy here, check out a t r u t h o u t column about it (& Caster Semenya), or check out the filmmakers’ website.

1st (Male) Same Sex Sex Scene on Daytime TV

Posted by on 01/13/10 12:20 AM

I assume the corniness is typical for daytime TV, but there’s no reason a same-sex sex scene can’t be as corny as anyone else’s. With fireworks, even.

For someone who went to see My Beautiful Laundrette about a dozen times – in theatres, people! – it makes me happy to see this on regular old television.

Love is love is love.

(h/t to Alex Blaze @ TBP and to Feministing)

Conveyor Belt of Love?

Posted by on 01/11/10 3:02 PM

I have no idea if anyone in the world watches the show Conveyor Belt of Love, but I did find this clip (& this blog post about it) interesting.

Scott Schofield, as he introduces himself, is Scott Turner Schofield, trans guy, activist, artist.

More interesting to me is the whole “geek hot” idea – I mean that it requires its own terminology. I didn’t know other people didn’t find geeks hot. When is smart not hot? Baffling. Once again, I discover that I have never done “straight woman” correctly.

Renault Trans-Friendly (& Trans Family Friendly!) Advert

Posted by on 01/10/10 12:50 AM

Okay, this made me cry, really.

The world is changing. Slowly, but it is. I have met so many really cool kids – teenagers & adults, mostly – who are cool with their parents’ gender stuff that it is really nice to see this. That’s what made me cry; just seeing a presentation of all those cool KOTs (Kids of Trans) in any medium.

Missing Brooklyn

Posted by on 01/8/10 12:21 PM

This is exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to know about: Steve Severin of the Banshees has written scores for surrealist silent films & will be performing at Galapagos. Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet and Dulac’s The Seashell & The Clergyman are two of the films.

Just Say Sorry, David Letterman

Posted by on 01/7/10 12:37 AM

Ox Freeman of the Alabama Gender Alliance just posted the info from GLAAD about the stupid joke that was made on David Letterman about Amanda Simpson, and with it he commented that, “Trans people will not be safe from hate violence until it is safe to be attracted to us, to love us, and to regard us as human.”

He’s entirely right, of course, and it’s nice to have someone else articulate exactly why I do what I do.

Betty and I are both for trans people having more of a sense of humor, but we both agree: this joke is not even a little funny, exactly because this reaction to finding out a woman is trans is the same reaction that causes the heart-breaking violence trans people — and especially trans women — face.

As Allyson Robinson of HRC put it in an article by ABC News:

“Your skit affirmed and encouraged a prejudice against transgender Americans that keeps many from finding jobs, housing, and enjoying freedoms you and your writers take for granted every day,” HRC’s Allyson Robinson wrote in the letter.

Robinson said the punch line of the bit has “been used as a defense in nearly every hate crime perpetrated against transgender people that has come to trial.” She cited two cases in which individuals suspected of murdering transgender people claimed they did so in a rage after learning about their victims’ gender identity.

So now go to GLAAD.org and bug CBS, or do the same thing via change.org.

SistersTalk Radio Interview

Posted by on 01/4/10 4:24 PM

I’ll be on SistersTalk radio this Wednesday, January 6th, at 7PM Central time.  & Yes, they’re on Facebook. They recently interviewed Rachel Kramer Bussell, erotica empress.

Other upcoming for me: a reading at Appleton Public Library on March 3rd, and I’m doing a reading for the Fox Cities Book Festival on April 12th. My best calendar is still on the front page of my author site, www.helenboydbooks.com (along with a list of past appearances, etc.)

Beautiful Blogger

Posted by on 01/3/10 12:25 AM

Staci Hunter over at Femulate decided I’m a beautiful blogger. Thank you, Staci! It’s a nice way to start the year, and I do have a scintillating personality, at least.

(Is “femulate” not one of the best names for a blog ever?!)

I do have important responsibilities that come with this honor.

  1. thank the person who chose you.
  2. link to her site.
  3. put award on blog.
  4. enumerate 7 interesting things about myself.
  5. chose 7 other people to be Beautiful Bloggers.

So those seven interesting things:

  1. I have been hugged by both Andy Patridge of XTC and Marc Almond of Soft Cell.
  2. I published my first piece of writing – a poem about a kite – when I was in grade school. It was some national children’s arts thing.
  3. I am, in my heart, a fiction writer, even though I have not yet published fiction in any major venue.
  4. I have made my own holiday cards for the past 20 years, only ever missing 2008.
  5. My first boyfriend was named Jason. Also, my last.
  6. I was volunteer staff at the big “comeback” Earth Day of 1989 in Central Park.
  7. I have been asked more than once if I do phone sex. (I don’t.)

So now, the seven people whom I’ve chosen:

  1. Mercedes Allen of Dented Blue Mercedes
  2. Kate Bornstein of Kate Bornstein-ness
  3. Charlie Vazquez of Latino Musings on Literature (“beautiful” is not a gender-specific term, peeps)
  4. Monica Roberts of TransGriot
  5. Caprice Bellefleur’s Glob
  6. Mattilda of Nobody Passes
  7. Jillian Weiss of Transgender Workplace Diversity

So thank you again, Staci, and thanks to all of these bloggers for writing so regularly, and about such interesting things, and for being beautiful while doing so.

Year in Review

Posted by on 01/1/10 12:23 AM

From Harper’s 2009 Year in Review:

Sea levels continued to rise, and a 40-yard-wide asteroid just missed the earth. The Mediterranean Sea was plagued by blobs. Pope Benedict XVI visited Africa; in Angola he warned against witchcraft, corruption, and condoms. Papal archaeologists in Rome authenticated the bones of Saint Paul the Apostle, and Jesus Christ was dismissed from jury duty in Alabama. Toxic-mining wastes in Idaho were killing tundra swans; a man in Munich received a two-year suspended sentence for beating another man with a swan. Highly aggressive supersquirrels were menacing gray squirrels in England, where the Law Lords were replaced with a new Supreme Court whose justices wear no wigs, and where cosmetic nipple surgery was increasingly popular. A London taxi driver tied one end of a rope around a post and the other around his neck and drove away, launching his head from the car. Anglican hymns were sung at Darwin’s tomb. Two Yellowstone National Park workers were fired for peeing into Old Faithful. Sarah Palin published a book, and Sylvia Plath’s son hanged himself in Alaska. Scientists in San Diego made a robot head study itself in a mirror until it learned to smile.

The whole of it is here.

Egg Nog Made With Romulan Ale

Posted by on 12/24/09 12:49 AM

Happy Christmas Eve! Check out this amusing post from 2004 about the 10 Least Successful Christmas Specials. Here’s my favorite:

Ayn Rand’s A Selfish Christmas (1951)

In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts — and therefore Christmas — possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as “anti-life.”

TransFM Live Call-In (with Helen & Betty)

Posted by on 12/20/09 5:39 PM

In about 20 minutes, or 7PM EST, we’ll be calling into Ethan St. Pierre’s annual TransFM holiday live broadcast.