Saturday, December 30, 2006

Good Girls VS. Bad Girls

Lindsay went to Scores (stripper joint in NYC) to be friendly with chicks, learn new tricks for a movie role she's after and of course, apologize for calling strippers "cunts" and "whores."

CTV is "reporting" on the state of the bad girl in the media.

Pathologising the bad girl was the order of the day for the commercial media giant.

OK, I'll admit that the labia-flashing trend overtaking Hollywood starlets like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears are a little outrageous, but these women are hawked at, stalked everyday by the long lenses of the paparazzi. It's very hard to get in and out of cars, boats, what have you when you have a short skirt and an effing CANNON up yours arse. And hot messes like Courtney Love and Tara Reid are constantly taunted, watched, regulated, teased and told they're ugly, disgusting messes. The only solution is to act out. How else is a girl gonna have any fun around here?


Making a passing gesture toward the bad behaviour of men this year like Mel Gibson and Michael Richards' racist tirades, CTV was gender-blinded to the bad boy aspect of the game. Kanye's diva reaction after not winning some celebrity award for his big-deal/big bling video he made with Pam Anderson.

C'Mon! Get it together CTV.

Volver: Almodóvar's latest portraiture of sisters, daughters and the ghost of mama

Volver, directed by the venerable Pedro Almodóvar is the latest oeuvre delivered by him and his muses. The story begins with one of the most memorable opening scenes ever seen on screen—Province-town women are at a small town’s cemetery cleaning madly the graves of their deceased relatives. Clad in smart, primary-colour ensembles and requisite kerchief perched around the dainty faces of the strong leading women. Pénelope Cruz, as Raimunda, plays mother to young teenager Paula (Yohana Cobo)--and sister to Sole, (another Almodóvar favourite Lola Dueñas), and sternly scrubs down the cemented raised coffin of their mother’s grave in the windy season of the eastern village in Spain. Buckets and scrub brushes in tow, they go on with the rest of their day, dutifully visiting their ailing grandmother and the pot-smoking neighbour who looks in on her from time to time.
Volver, Spanish for “to return,” begins to spin a yarn that speaks to women and familial obligations, with a pretty dark lens. When Raimunda comes home to discover her daughter Paula has killed her stepfather in self-defense after an attempted sexual assault, tears are spared only briefly before Raimunda does what any family woman would do at a time like this—clean the shit out of the bloody mess. Before you know it—in 1-2-3 steps—it’s back to crystal clean! Now with stronger action for a tough clean and no permanent blood stains!
We also discover that, after the death of the ailing grandmother, the ghost of Raimunda and Sole’a mother, played by the prolific Carmen Maura, has been released from her duties. She hitches a ride in Sole’s hatchback and settles in to give her daughter the old helping hand in what her mother calls “that illegal hair salon.”
Meanwhile, Raimunda, who struggles financially now that she is the sole breadwinner, illegally takes over the restaurant from her downstairs neighbour. She soon makes a success of it, taking advantage of her talents—cooking delicious meals and making a Spanish province town ambiance with music and charm. One of the most noteworthy scenes is one that fills the screen and the theatre surround sound system with resonating emotion as Raimunda interprets the title track “Volver,” by Estrella Morante.
While other filmmakers chose to tell their stories through the banalities of everyday existing, Almodóvar tells them with the truly dramatic intricacies of everyday life. For Almodóvar, every day life is full of banal crisis. Volver is bright, rich, nuanced oral and visual family history come to life.

Recommended dosage for Almodóvar withdrawal:
La mala educación (Bad Education), 2004.
A wonderfully nuanced performance by Gael García Bernal as a genderqueer actor and the sexual abuse endured by two childhood friends.

Hable con ella (Talk to her), 2002.
Almodóvar 2002 film, Hable con ella, had the “leading” ladies cast as silent coma victims of almost fatal accidents.

Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother), 1999.
Looking for his father, young writer Esteban’s life story to find his family roots even amidst his mother’s smothering if not genuine love.





Friday, December 29, 2006

BOOK BANNING makes its long-awaited return to public schools



The CBC is following a story about the people who would like to see J.K. Rowling's Potter books banned from public schools in the U.S.A. A mother of 3 from Georgia says the series tells kids how to make potions and spells and wave magic wands, oh My! She asked the school board officials why reading* was part of the curriculum, saying,
"The kind of stuff in these books--murder and greed and violence. Why do they have to read them in school?"


(I guess the daily news isn't full of murder, greed and violence like Potter books are, hey?)


Well to answer the lady's misguided question: academic life IS part of life. You cannot separate school and personal life when you're a wee one--it's your whole life. And if you were a bookworm like I was, you definitely don't want to take away a beautiful thing like reading for pleasure and school credit. What is this, 2001? Anybody remember this Canadian censorship scandal?

photo source

*ahem, reading these books.

The L Word actress new face of MsDewey search engine


MsDewey.com is Microsoft's pathetic attempt to gain equal footing in the bid for best search engine ever. It will lose. The interface is hosted by the newest fake lesbian/fake Latina on Showtime's L Word, Janina Gavankar, who tauntingly animates the screen in her sexy librarian black ensemble. The search results are all over the place and Gavankar's incessant babbling ("I'm going to rule the world!?") is pure missplaced enthusiasm.

It reminds me of another copycat move by Microsoft. Something called Zuma? Zume?Wasn't that a clear mystery beverage from the late 90s?

Source

Thursday, December 28, 2006

2007 media forecast: Emo-ting all over your TV screen

(katie couric emoting)

Aside from emo-newscasting,
what were the most memorable media moments in 2006?

A sp!ked-online.com article tells of a new current in news reporting: "Emo-News." While reporting on the Ipswich murders, where the murderer was found by British police via the killer's profile on MySpace.com, writer Mick Hume says


"[the TV report] ended with her telling the studio anchor that, whilst it had been ‘exciting’ to get there first, it had turned out to be ‘really quite emotional… a horrifying case for the police, a horrifying day for the media’. Objective news reporting is a casualty of this sort of reality TV coverage, where journalists imagine themselves taking part in the story rather than simply reporting it."



At the same time though, CBC.ca editor-in-chief Tony Burman asks, at the end of his 5 defining moments write-up, What do you think?

"A lesson from 2006 is that news is no longer a sermon,
but a conversation. And you control the information age."


You=Women?
Are women going to have a say in the control of information, or in this "exchange" these male writers are now proclaiming has taken over information production/consumption?
Granted, women are taking over the means of production à la Riot-Grrrl -Manifesto-cum-Marxism in the form of blogs and citizen journalism. It even reaches further into other subculture, like the T-Shirt Surgery circles borne of livejournal. But I'd say we're far from the tales Hume and Burman regale us with. Looking at the reaction from Katie Couric's emoting on the TV screen over the death of Ed Begley and the discreet tears of Dan Rather over the Iraq "situation."
When Time proudly announced its 2006 person of the year, did they include chicks? More importantly, did they consider the men and women who don't have have access to technology? Though the digital divide often leaves out women, it more often leaves out entire provinces of marginalized people—in tons of communities all over the world, North America and beyond.




More reading about digi-vide
Bridging the digital divide: opportunity for growth for the 21st century


digitaldivide.net


Lip Magazine article: calling for better indymedia

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Rebick withdraws support for Green's May: cites re-ignition of the abortion debate as cause

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party


Judick Rebick, author of Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution and an editor at rabble.ca, has decided that the Green Party's leader Elizabeth May commited a big femme-e-nist no-no by bringing up the baby killing debate again.

"
We had a debate on abortion in this country for decades. Raising the need for further debate as you have done is a serious error in judgment and in the unlikely possibility that Stephen Harper wins a majority in the next election, you could have done irreparable harm," Rebick said in her open-letter of December 20 2006.

The comments stem from a byelection campaign in November by the ex-Sierra Club executive director, read the comments here.

Rebick, I think, purposefully left out the specifics of May's personal views on abortion, or what she calls "a moral issue." It stands to bear that her comments were recorded unbeknownst to her and in a context of capaigning to some religious sisters. But the truth was brought to the public, and it outweighs any ethical quandary of informed consent. I will take the same position as Rebick and not sketch out what May said but I will say that May's desire to again raise the issue in a political realm is outrageous. Her bible-thumping words in the audio file attest to her extremism. Listen the audio here if you desire to have your skin crawl.

Hear her answer to the question "so... what's your position on gay marriage and abortion?" (Whoa, loaded).



White Greens
What the hell do the Greens do, anyway? Like the above pic (queers at a Diversity Pride parade) they seem to be involved in an entanglement of issues, with no clear agenda. And now May's bizzare comments about abortion?
My roomate Renée spent a weekend with Liz back in the summer. She was doing the Sierra Club youth coalition weekend of brainstorming or something. She says Liz was cool but everyone there was old, and the fact that the retreat was held at the Saint-Paul University (for religious studies) was kind of strange. Plus, she said:
"You know what I noticed though? Everyone there was white."

So. Maybe it's time the Green Party, AND ALL THE OTHER EFFING PARTIES, start paying attention to youth issues. Hello, gender & sexuality politics are so the way of the future. Are you listening Stephen Harper?

Friday, December 22, 2006

Miss USA: Bringing drunk girls back to the Trump Tower suite since 1909



Tara Connor, AKA that Miss USA, is soon to be back at her high-rolling Trump suite, cozying up with Miss Teen USA (Whom she was caught kissing). After a brief stint in rehab for her drug use and homo dalliances, Connor will be back to pretending to be a good girl and, well... pure, let's face it. Meanwhile, the Donald is safeguarding the heteroempire with his capitalistobots aggressively pursuing our boys-to-men-to-power regime. Threatening Rosie O'Donnell seemingly seconds after she attacked his "methods" with the Tara. Donnie says he will sue the "loser," and have goons come American Gigolo-themselves to Rosie's wife. Donnie went on a tirade, citing her failed talk show and her "ugliness." She's ugly on the inside and the outside, he said. I think Rosie ticked the Donnie off because she posted an entry from Wikipedia that chronicles Trump's bad debt problems over the years.

The best part is when the interviewer, off camera, says um, Meester Trump, what do you mean by loser, The View has been earning high ratings since Rosie went on the show... ?

two old dykes getting some skank on the skank low

Barbara Walters apologized today for any friction there could be in the love between the two. Babs thinks both tantrum-pullers are good people, and can learn to play fair. Why is Walters apologizing?! She's much too diplomatic this one. Show some tailbone!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

POP FEMME-E-NISM REIGNS!


Catherine Mckinnon called me yesterday, right after Pat Califia, and told me to announce to all practicing femme-e-nists that the SEX WARS ARE OVER. And now we may get back to such issues as "is Oprah Gay?" and "Isn't Nicole Richie getting the munchies when she sucks back her ganja?"

Thanks Cathy!