Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
tv shows, magazine articles, movies
Betty has brought it to my attention that much of the lefty blogosphere is upset with Fr. Pfleger – that going to Obama’s church & mocking Hillary was not good for Obama, at all.
Which may be true. Surely it is. But that’s not what I was talking about.
I was talking only about the way that white people often deny white privilege & entitlement in ways that seem logical & make sense. For the record.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth watching: Ellen puts John McCain in the hotseat over gay marriage.
Here’s one of the odder things I’ve ever found on the Internets: John Malcovich being interviewed while being bathed, in a bathtub, by another man.
(thanks to Tranny in Trouble for the link.)
Has anyone been watching Sex: The Revolution on VH-1? I catch it late at night sometimes, and I’m finding it a pretty decent series. Tonight, on Episode 3: Do Your Thing, the pride movement, San Francisco, Anita Bryant & Harvey Milk, and commenting, Susan Stryker. Next up, Episode 4: Tainted Love.
It’s good documentary, imho – concise, good interviews, capturing some major cultural moments through the music & images.
& I am going today, because I have to, because I did for The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe, and because I’m really really hoping that the water god looks as cool in the movie as he does in the trailer.
But Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep (well, his voice) should be entertaining, even if the Trufflehunter the Badger isn’t (though if he’s anything close to the Beavers, he’ll be fantastic).
They’re shooting Dawn Treader next, which is my favorite.
Have you all seen the recent Shur-Line commercial? With a woman from Shur-Line and a wife (I assume) who are trying to coax the husband out of hiding so that he’ll paint? It’s so condescending toward men; like they need to be told what to do and reassured that there won’t be any chores.
On the other side, it makes women responsible for making sure “all’s safe” for the guy to come out.
Idiotic & condescending to both genders: well-done.
Many of you have asked about whether I won the “Top Ten Female Bloggers” contest over at WVWV, and in fact I did not. Digby did. and Digby should have; she’s a damn good blogger.
But what’s interesting to me is that she was not known to be female when she started blogging in 2003. Nor in 2004, 2005, & 2006. The many years she was being linked to by the likes of Kos, no one knew she was female.
No, it was when she won an award she accepted in person, in the summer of 2007, that everyone found out she is a woman. If you read some of those comments, the surprise was a little more than “Oh, Digby’s a woman, huh” but people were a little more upset than that by the revelation, which is interesting since she never said she wasn’t a woman; her readers did the assuming, & we all know what assuming means, thanks to that classic moment in The Odd Couple.
As a gendery-y sort, & especially as a writer of a gender-y sort, I find that interesting. I don’t want to admit that maybe George Eliot’s method still works better than being known as a woman, that hiding your gender, if you’re female, lends you more credibility than not.
But I fear that is true, & that Digby’s win perhaps underlines that point. Still & all, she is a fantastic political blogger. I am not in anyway trying to say she isn’t. What I am trying to say is that I’m not sure she would have been recognized if she had been known as female from the outset.
Either way, I think it was damned smart of her, since the likeliness is high that people will diminish or ignore the political opinions of women.
Which is sad in itself, of course, but still true.
Wow. Scary. The trailer rocks. It’s like the other side of Dead Ringers. (Too bad they didn’t get Jeremy Irons to play the gyn.)
(via Feministing)
The NYT did an article about the legal issues when you’re a heterosexual couple and one of you legally changes gender. I’ve been talking about the ramifications of this stuff for so long that I failed to notice for others it might be quite a surprise, and revelatory, but it is.
Interesting comments have come in from Cara at Feministe and a young trans woman who calls herself Critical Thinking Girl. As CTG points out, it is pretty tawdry – the usual before & after photos, etc. – and when she notes:
The tone of this article is clear – Fran is a put-upon woman, with an eccentric husband. The picture they chose is also curious as it has the trans woman in the relationship holding back her wife.
As many of my regular readers already know, one of the things that drives me batshit about the media in general is the way they choose rubes to write about, instead of speaking to activists or advocates who are prepared to deal with media, or who have become allied with LGBTQ people on the issue. For those of you who are interested, here’s a talk I gave at the Law School of Penn State Dickinson last year.
Because honestly, same sex marriage recognition would make life easier for all trans people in relationships – including CTG.
Oh – and to The Times – and everyone else: it’s “transition” not “sex change.”
THURSDAY, APRIL 3 Oregon is in the national spotlight again—and it’s all thanks to our very own transgender pregnant man, Thomas Beatie. In fact, Thomas hit the big time today when she… sorry, he… made an appearance on Oprah! “It’s not a male or female desire to have a child,” Beatie sagely told the big O, “it’s a human desire.” Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to put too fine of a point on it—especially since Beatie is only a “man” in the loosest sense of the word. While Beatie did take testosterone treatments, had her… sorry, his… breasts flattened into a more masculine shape, and took legal measures to call herself… sorry, himself… a man, she’s… sorry, he’s… still got all the female parts underneath—including the va-jay-jay and reproductive organs. So while we’re big fans of our pals in the trans community, Beatie calling herself… sorry, himself… a “man” is like a Potato Head adding a nose and mouth and asking people to call him “Mister.” Sorry! Is that “Ms. Potato Head”?
From The Portland Mercury, by Ann Romano. Emphasis theirs.
Mr. Fucking Potato Head? Is she kidding? What kind of dehumanizing bullshit is that? Okay, folks, start writing. There’s contact info on their site, but here, but here are three email addresses that might be useful. If anyone can find a direct email for Ms. Romano, do post it.
You might want to ask her, specifically, what “So while we’re big fans of our pals in the trans community” is supposed to mean in the context of this very fucked up article.
UPDATE 4/27: Romano apologized.