the world is quiet here

thisistab: A birthday present. Original is 13x19 inches.

Sat, 25 May 2013 09:00:21 -0400

A birthday present. Original is 13x19 inches.

waiting-for-the-tardis: sometimes i only like things bc everybody’s so bitter about them it’s like...

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:30:08 -0400

sometimes i only like things bc everybody’s so bitter about them it’s like the reverse of being passive aggressive im positive aggressive

thenewwomensmovement: thescarletwoman: thisisrapeculture: xtre...

Sat, 25 May 2013 06:00:22 -0400

thenewwomensmovement:

thescarletwoman:

thisisrapeculture:

xtremecaffeine:

and-other-good-intentions:

So I saw a post on how American Apparel markets unisex clothing, but I couldn’t actually find a unisex section on their website. I did however notice this. The sweatshirts one is particularly illuminating.

Selling men’s clothes to men, and selling women’s bodies to… ?

American Apparel is really fucking horrible for many, many reasons, but here’s another example.

American Apparel’s advertising is a PERFECT example of the way that we sell products to men through advertisements and sell women’s bodies to men even though they’re being used in advertisements for women’s products. It’s a fantastic example of how the female body is treated differently than the male body, how it’s seen as intrinsically sexual, and how this is totally normalized within our culture. To be clear: i’m not saying there’s anything wrong with women’s bodies being sexual, or women being seen as sexual beings. We are sexual beings! What I am saying is that there’s something deeply problematic when that sexualizing is only happening for women, and when that sexuality turns into objectification through a male gaze. To illustrate, here’s a screencap from the AA homepage right now:

because a picture of a woman’s ass that she is spreading with her fingers and the slogan ‘get wet’ is not an objectification of women’s bodies for the male gaze AT ALL, and we would totally see these types of images and ads for male swimsuits too! -________-

Yeah, if you’re still spending your money there, stop.

Luna & Amber singing NU ABO acoustic ver ~~

Sat, 25 May 2013 04:30:09 -0400

Luna & Amber singing NU ABO acoustic ver ~~

bubblineforever: alizabug: what if marcy floats away sometimes...

Sat, 25 May 2013 03:00:19 -0400

bubblineforever:

alizabug:

what if marcy floats away sometimes when she goes to sleep
(the movie was booooooooring bonnibelle)

Nooo Marcy, don’t fly away!

let me shed some light on your dark.: hariboo: gorgons: crossedwires: niqaeli: I admit, I don’t know Cho...

Sat, 25 May 2013 01:30:09 -0400

let me shed some light on your dark.: hariboo: gorgons: crossedwires: niqaeli: I admit, I don’t know Cho...:

saehae:

hariboo: gorgons: crossedwires: niqaeli:

I admit, I don’t know Cho that well, so I am glad there are other readings to be had!
And if he is just calling it out simply because he’s tired of it and he feels comfortable doing so even on his own films now, I think that’s fantastic. There’s certainly plenty for him to be calling out.

Heh. Well, I don’t know John Cho either. But he has talked about race & representation before* (and not in a ‘we’re all human, it doesn’t matter’ way), so it’s not completely ‘out of character’ for him to bring it up. I think it probably would be easier on him if he didn’t say anything, but I’m glad he does.

*Re Harold & Kumar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHEkLBZI1IM 4:07 mark): If you have a Korean and an Indian guy as your leads, you must address race at some point in the movie. You must, because the audience is noting it, really. The other thing is, I think, comedy at its best, treads in taboo waters a little bit. It has to have that transgressive quality to it, and race is the biggest taboo in America. I mean, people are very reluctant to talk about race and yet when you do jokes about race, uh, that work, people are very happy to release tension and laugh about it. But it has been interesting. I’ll make an observation. During the first tour for the first movie, we were talking about race all the time with journalists. It was almost like a process— looking back, the first movie was more concerned with race, but we talked about it so much, I felt that it was in a way…a way of justifying our presence in a motion picture.

And from an interview in 2009 http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/090703/article.asp?parentID=110145>:

JC: I recall from the Harold and Kumar movies is my struggle with the advertisers.

APA: What happened there?

JC: There was all this racial humor in the movie, and the advertising department wanted to say “Starring the Asian guy in American Pie, and the Indian guy from Van Wilder…” and they did go with that, and they submitted that to me for approval, and I said, “I don’t like it.” They asked me why, and I explain it to them, and that was tricky because it’s difficult explaining to my own representatives, why that didn’t jibe with me, because everyone kind of felt like it was keeping in tone with the movie. And I said, “I don’t like it. We’re poking fun at racism in the movie all the time, but it puts the audience on the wrong side of the racism joke.” So they were playing with the wording a little bit in the edits, and they kept coming up with versions to make me happy, but they were essentially the same thing, and I finally said, “you are not going to make me happy. You’re dancing around it, and you’re clearly attached to this idea, and I want you to know that no version of this idea will make me happy. And if you’re afraid that I won’t show up to do promotion because of this bitterness, you can rest assured that that’s not true. I consider promoting a movie part of my duties, and I will show up nevertheless. But you can either use this campaign and know that I’m unhappy, or you can change it and know that I’m happy. That’s it. Stop trying.” And eventually they went with it, and it’s one of those things where I look back and I’ve very proud of the movie, but that’s the thing I remember.

APA: Last question…for Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, Viva La Union recorded a song for the soundtrack with the line, “I want my own Chinese baby” — what’s that about?

JC: When I was thinking about it, I thought of a literal baby. There’s a kind of lack that children fill, that’s just the dark side of being a parent, I think. And there’s an accessory quality to Chinese babies in America, and I just think it’s funny. I just liked it. And you know, I would know people who would fawn over Asian babies more, and it got me to thinking, there’s this belief that Asian babies are really cute, and it got me thinking that our whole race is infantilized to some degree, and it manifests itself in different ways. You infantilize a woman, and she becomes eroticized. You infantilize a man, and he becomes emasculated. You infantilize a baby [laughs] — and it’s possible, it appears that you can infantilize a baby even more. [laughs] The babies need to be cuter than white babies. And it’s just a weird thing that I felt like said something about mainstream America’s relationship to Asians in general. So that’s where it came from.

Also this interview: http://blog.angryasianman.com/2008/04/q-with-john-cho.html

“And yes, I do feel a responsibility, and always have, and it’s been an odd burden for me. Even when I started and no one gave a shit, I was trying to avoid doing roles—and it’s no accident that I’ve never done something with a chop suey accent. It’s no accident that I’ve never played those parts. I strongly believe there are a lot of Asian American actors who think that that’s the price to pay before you get to wherever you’re going. And I take real issue with that. Because you have to maintain integrity from the start, and on a personal level, you have to not do something that’s going to make you sick to your stomach.

But on a political level, how are things supposed to ever change if there’s someone willing to do it? I can tell you now, having worked in the business, that you can gather an army of people to hold picket signs and stand outside the studio, and say, “we destest this portrayal”… but it doesn’t matter if there’s a guy—who they know, a peer—who’s willing to do it, who stands in front of the crew and does the buck-tooth accent. If he or she is willing to do it, it makes the protestors look like extremists. It makes this guy look like the normal guy. Because we all work in the same industry. So the willingness of one actor negates a thousand protestors and a thousand angry letters.”

(So I can see why Butawhiteman Cantbekhan playing Khan would be deeply upsetting to him, even if Cho wasn’t in this movie.)

The Problem with 'Boys Will Be Boys'

Fri, 24 May 2013 22:30:12 -0400

The Problem with 'Boys Will Be Boys':

For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.

No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:

“You know! Boys will be boys!”

“He’s just going through a phase!”

“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”

“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”

“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”

I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”

She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.

It was so tempting.

He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.

She had to keep her building safe.

Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.

His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.

Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.

I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”

Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?

There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.

There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.

Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”

The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement.

"Rather than fighting for every woman’s right to feel beautiful, I would like to see the return of a..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 21:00:23 -0400

“Rather than fighting for every woman’s right to feel beautiful, I would like to see the return of a kind of feminism that tells women and girls everywhere that maybe it’s all right not to be pretty and perfectly well behaved. That maybe women who are plain, or large, or old, or differently abled, or who simply don’t give a damn what they look like because they’re too busy saving the world or rearranging their sock drawer, have as much right to take up space as anyone else.

I think if we want to take care of the next generation of girls we should reassure them that power, strength and character are more important than beauty and always will be, and that even if they aren’t thin and pretty, they are still worthy of respect. That feeling is the birthright of men everywhere. It’s about time we claimed it for ourselves.”

- I don’t want to be told I’m pretty as I am - I want to live in a world where that’s irrelevant (via brute-reason)

idk this article reeks of white feminism? like as a woc, i am never told that i am pretty, i’d get maaaaybe a “you have ~nice features~ but….”. i mean i agree that we need to move towards a culture of respecting women w/o adding qualifiers but this article rubs me the wrong way

(via astroprojection)

Um YEP. I’m way more interested in, say, a combination of a) valuing women for who we are as whole human beings and b) MAJORLY expanding our extremely narrow ideas of what constitutes the bottom line of what it takes to be beautiful (i.e., whiteness).

Having spent most of my life being told I’m “so articulate” and “so intelligent” like it’s a fucking surprise not because I’m too-pretty-to-be-smart but because I’m black — having been told constantly, to my face, how beautiful mixed-race black people are when they have light eyes and skinny noses and straight hair when I am a black-eyed clunky-nosed nappy-haired biracial black woman — having never once in my entire life been asked to dance at an event where there are white girls present, no matter how plain or large or old or young or differently abled they are — having learned to settle for people liking my brain and my character because my appearance and sexuality don’t even register for a huge part of the population — and also having noticed that all of the women the author mentions by name are white, and that the only mention of race is a throwaway line about skin-bleaching products — I feel like that blog post really wasn’t written with women of color in mind at all.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting your appearance not to factor into how and why people value you, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting people to consider you beautiful when they usually don’t. I think there’s next to no point in discussing Western beauty standards without acknowledging how much of a GIGANTIC factor race is. And I also can’t think of any kind of widespread feminism we can “return” to that doesn’t enforce some kind of bizarre standard for the “right” way to be a woman / perform femininity.

(via amazonpoodle)

#if i am never scolded again by feminists who Know Better Than Me #for liking heels and miniskirts and makeup and ‘chick flicks’ and pop music #it will be too goddamn soon #also #i really think that blog post would have been more interesting #if it had addressed more specifically the idea of women’s appearances only being of value when we please MEN #i’d rather help the next generation of girls figure out what they think of themselves #without the overarching bullcrap of ‘here is what dudes want to see; now conform’ #it would be so much nicer to tell the next generation of humans:#’here are the zillion different ways for women and for anybody who performs femininity’ #’to love themselves and be healthy and be beautiful’ #’if you can’t value that shit enjoy being alone on your island’ #’peace’ #idk #i am so much more into the idea that there’s no wrong way to be a woman and/or to be feminine #than into the idea that there’s any part of womanhood and/or femininity #that should be thrown out with the trash #i think i’m done

(via redlanternzoom)

ourpresidents: “That we have the vote means nothing. That we...

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:30:15 -0400

ourpresidents:

“That we have the vote means nothing. That we use it in the right way means everything. Our political work has only begun when we have the ballot. And that work should be carried out exactly as our college work is — as any good work which we undertake is — it must be thoughtful, idealistic, clean, effective.”

-Lou Henry Hoover, April 10, 1920

Before she was First Lady, Lou Henry Hoover spoke at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. At the time of her speech, the 19th Amendment had been passed by Congress. On August 18, 1920, the amendment was ratified, guaranteeing American women the right to vote.

-from the Hoover Library

“I think you just have to appreciate who you are and hopefully...

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:00:49 -0400

“I think you just have to appreciate who you are and hopefully they can see what a superhero is about.”

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:30:21 -0400

"Superman. It’s always been Superman and it always will be. A good Superman story is hard to find...."

Fri, 24 May 2013 04:30:19 -0400

“Superman. It’s always been Superman and it always will be. A good Superman story is hard to find. They’re rare to the point that I can make a comprehensive list of them off the top of my head. But when one does come along… A good Batman story is entertaining and bad ass. And it makes you think “Batman is cool.” A good Green Lantern story is generally fraught with emotional peril but, at the end, you’ll wish you had a power ring. A good Superman story fills you with awe.
It’s the mythology of a sun god who wished he was a man because he saw something so great in us. It’s the story of a hero who could move whole worlds and see through stars and hear a whisper on the other side of the planet… who fell in love with a storyteller. It’s about a man and his dog.
Every single day, you can turn on the news and hear about something bad happening. People do terrible things to each other all the time. And, on the worst days, you might just sit down and get cynical, thinking thoughts like “maybe we are inherently evil. Maybe there’s just something wrong deep down in our hearts.”
And then there’s Superman. Looking down at the world with an unfathomable sadness. Waiting for us to join him in the sun. All the while, truly believing something only an impossible man could believe.
“If you knew how you are loved, not one of you would raise a hand in rage again.”
There’s a psychology to storytelling. It’s really quite simple. When presented with something light, we look for darkness. When presented with darkness, we look for the light. It gives a story depth. In a world without a Superman, we made one for our fiction. To guide us and make us feel brave. To let us hope.
You will believe a man can fly.”

- a redditor talking about his favourite superheroe (via burnedlogic)

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 03:00:26 -0400

The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013)

Fri, 24 May 2013 01:30:19 -0400

_{The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013)}

"Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I’m never not thinking of you."

Thu, 23 May 2013 22:30:13 -0400

“Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I’m never not thinking of you.”

- Virginia Woolf, Selected Letters (via dominicrook)

typicrobots: Last night I stayed up until 3AM reading this 1998...

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:28:21 -0400

typicrobots:

Last night I stayed up until 3AM reading this 1998 NYMag article about how Leonardo DiCaprio is so much worse than you ever even imagined, and how little has changed for him in 15 years. I spewed this all over twitter but I need to put this together and get it out of my system because I can’t believe how none of this is common knowledge. The meme shouldn’t be Leo Has Never Won An Oscar, it should be Leo & His Friends Called Themselves The Pussy Posse, Probs Still Do!!!

Some highlights:

Childhood: Leo once killed a pigeon. Leo once drew a swastika on his head in class while imitating Charles Manson. (NYMag)

1998: LeoDi and his group of friends call themselves the “Pussy Posse”. Like actually, for real. Core members of the 1998 Pussy Posse include: Leo, Lukas Haas*, Tobey Maguire, Harmony Korine, and David Blaine**.

Peripheral members include: Kevin Connolly***, Jay Ferguson, Ethan Suplee, Q-Tip, Amber Benson, Sara Gilbert, and others. (NYMag, Buzzfeed)

2013 Pussy Posse: Leo is seen being gross with Jonah Hill, Mel Gibson, Bradley Cooper, Gerard Butler, and Olivier Martinez in an ever-descending quest to find people equally awful or worse than his old crowd. (Videogum 1, Videogum 2)

*Lukas Haas**** lives with Leo for 7 years until Bar Refaeli makes Leo kick Haas out, in 2010, when both men are in their mid-thirties. (Buzzfeed)
**1998: Leo and David Blaine frequent strip clubs, don’t tip the dancers.
***15 years later, this is still happening.
****15 years later, this is still happening.

1998 Pussy Posse Leo sneaks into Victoria Secret parties and hooks up with 18 year old models. 2013 Pussy Posse Leo harasses 20 year old model Cara Delevingne: “He even lunged at her at one point, and she dodged him.” The man is 38, the girls remain 18 forever. (NYMag, Page Six)

1998 Pussy Posse: Leo and Jay Ferguson sexually harass Elizabeth Berkley and assault her boyfriend, permanently damaging his larynx. Jay Ferguson is best known for playing Stan Rizzo on Mad Men. (NYMag, Buzzfeed)

The real winner in all of this is Kate Winslet.

Photo

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:00:25 -0400

steelplatedhearts: I made a series of Calming Bunnies (based...

Thu, 23 May 2013 20:46:55 -0400

steelplatedhearts:

I made a series of Calming Bunnies (based off of the Calming Manatee meme) for my friend Gab, who isn’t a huge fan of manatees!

We can always use more bunnies, I think.

contentkiller: westeros’s celebs read mean tweets (ps: all...

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:00:26 -0400

contentkiller:

westeros’s celebs read mean tweets (ps: all tweets are real)

…this actually made me love them a bit more..mostly Lena and Carice

yousayperfect-isaystreep: for-southendgirls: Helen Mirren: Not...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:30:18 -0400

yousayperfect-isaystreep:

for-southendgirls:

Helen Mirren: Not dealing with your misogynistic bullshit since 1975.

her face, lol…. ”you fucking moron”