Never Trust a Fairy Godmother or Acid bought on the streets of Cali

Blog; I’m trying to write one every week to keep up on writing and since my job almost requires me to be online through sheer boredom, I see no better alternative.  

 Last week was a mess, and by last week I mean up until two nights ago, shambles.  It’s the same old story fit for any Primetime slot staring 20 something year olds trying to traverse the jagged cliff that is love.  Not even love, relationships in general.  It doesn’t have to be hard, but sometimes you make it harder for yourself.

 I already know my flaws, and while listing them in order would take up more space, you can’t expose all your secrets, it’s relationship espionage people.  So here’s me in a convoluted shitty dialogue, that I’m basically writing to clear my mind.  

 I’m oversensitive.  Don’t say all women are because trust me they’re not.  Other women are sensitive, there are those of us who are oversensitive.  Quick word of warning, I make words.  I like making words, I am most know for making words that have “–love” attached to the end.  Moving back into my train of thought. . . I come from a small town where everyone finds they’re soul mate when they’re like 14 years old.  All of my best friends, coupled.  Me, not so much.  I have more trouble with relationships then President Bush has reading a teleprompter.  I get attached at the drop of a hat, which yes is bad, I’ve come to terms with it and I am trying to amend that flaw.  But it’s really not that hard to get attached when you are given misinformation.

 For example, don’t tell a girl she’s amazing, great, beautiful etc., if you have no plans to act on a relationship.  Oh, nice words are always nice, but at the end of the day to you (guys), that’s all they are, nice words.  Girls here things like that and go, “Maybe he wants to date me.  Oh my God, I should buy a new shirt.  Should I call him or should I wai-I’m gonna call him.”  That’s why two weeks later you’re gassing up your Red Toyota Corolla and telling her that you have to go “find yourself.”  Hey here’s a fun fact, you’re a prick. OK. . . not completely, but think about what you (guy) could have done differently.  Maybe just tell her, “Oh yeah, you’re cool.  I mean in a friend kind of way.”  Shitty let down, yes, however it’s a more effective way to let her down without letting her down, because just dropping out of her life will lead her through unnecessary stress.  Because there’s nothing worse then getting dumped BEFORE the relationship has actually started.

 Guys are not the only ones at fault.  Oh yeah girls, we are definitely to blame too.  But let’s be realistic, it’s really not our fault.  Look at the images we start girls out on.  

 Cut to Cinderella washing floors on her hands and knees adorned in uncoordinated blue and brown rags.  Her hair is matted, face broken out, and her best friend is a rat which most girls can relate to.  Her life is in the drain, because she doesn’t have a man.  

 All of a sudden some fat unattractive apparition comes waltzing out of the woods straight out of an acid trip, with a stick in her hand, and says, “I can make you beautiful, but only for like four hours.” Cinderella is like, “Oh my god this rocks.”  Cut to her entering the ball and all the guys staring at her like, “Wow, I’d do her.”   But Cinderella can’t settle for any man, she has her sights set on Prince Charming. 

 Enter Prince Charming, whose hair looks shellacked with motor oil in tight red pants that totally don’t match his baby blue overcoat. Anyway, after dancing around the ballroom ONCE, they fall madly in love and then Oh wait!  It’s midnight, Cinderella is gonna start looking like a vagabond in one minute.  Cinderella leaves Prince Charming to spend another night with his left and right.  Then wait a tick!  A glass slipper that belongs to the beautiful girl I danced with, I’ll use it as evidence to do house to house searches and find her. 

 Ok first of all, glass slippers?  I know we all believe that fantasy shit, but glass slippers?  She’s one uneven step away from slicing her Achilles tendon and spending her magical night high on morphine in the ER.  Second, I know that the slippers are magical, but you mean to tell me that no other chick in that town had the same size foot as Cinderella.  I find that a little (I think I want to watch The Departed tonight, random I know), odd. 

 Anyway the moral of the story is, Prince Charming is an ass.  Let me tell you how Cinderella really ended.  Prince Charming and Cinderella got married, she had three kids and he goes to the bar three nights out of the week to watch the game, while she spends her nights at home taking care of the babes, and scrubbing floors.  Only now it’s every floor in that friggin’ castle, plus like vomit, spit, poo and crying. 

 So moral of the blog, stop looking for Prince Charming.  It’s a dead end road.  Look for a guy who sees you in uncoordinated brown and blue rags and says, “I’d do her,”or some other sweet nothing like that.     

 

That’s Hot!

Jail is a horrible place, I don’t know that from experience or anything, but come on, I’ve watched “Oz.”  

 Upon first hearing that Paris Hilton was going to jail, I think I dropped my empty Stonyfield Strawberry Smoothie and said, “Woo-hoo!”  I did a celebratory dance around the living room, because I felt as though justice was served.  Then three days later, Paris was released for an “undisclosed medical condition” and my high quickly turned into a low, because let’s face it, an impending nervous breakdown is not a legitimate reason to be “reassigned” to house arrest, in a mansion that is bigger than my hometown.  It’s jail, you’re not supposed to be excited to go, there’s no red carpet, no cameras, and you will not be modeling the lastest fashions.  Please legal system, slap Paris on the hand for breaking the law and confine her to a mansion that’s bigger than my hometown, t-mobile sidekick 3, plasma televisions, real food (not that it matters), and release her into the harsh reality that is the lap of luxury. 

 It’s sad that the only thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on is the incarceration of Paris Hilton.  Look, the fact is, I wish jail upon no one.  Jail is a draining facility, fit for those who have committed the most heinous of crimes.  Paris is not a bad person, but she made a mistake and broke the law, and for that there should be some consequences.  For some to watch their favorite entertainment television shows and be appalled that Paris is going to jail, ask yourself if she would feel the same if it was you.  She wouldn’t, because your incarceration would not be a breaking story on CNN, well, unless you did something drastic to violate parole.  There are more pressing issues for our journalists to cover other than every friggin’ move Paris makes. 

 THIS JUST IN: Paris left the nail salon.  BREAKING NEWS: Paris tripped.  WE’RE GETTING WORD THAT: Paris Hilton just waved.  Sickening.  I don’t need to know what Paris does down to the millisecond, what I need our journalists to do, is cover stories that could actually affect my life.  Tell me about the war, hell, I’ll settle for hearing about the 2008 Presidential Candidates, even the GOP candidates.  How’s Darfur?  Global warming? Give me something more intellectual than Paris Hilton’s life story. 

 No one should be above the law, not even Paris.  What everyone fails to realize is the reason she got into trouble in the first place; driving under the influence.  That’s what she did first, the only reason she did not serve jail time then, is because luckily, she didn’t kill someone.  She then went on to violate her parole three times, and people are criticizing her sentencing as being too harsh?  Are you kidding me?  

 The first time she drove under the influence she should have seen the inside of a cell, that’s an offense that should not be taken lightly.  In my opinion, driving under the influence can not be solved by a teary eyed “I’m sorry.”  It can only be solved by visiting a dozen graves or so, of those who were killed by drunk drivers, placing flowers on them while listening to how much they were loved by their family members, soul searching, and realizing that life change faster than last years Coach pattern . . .  along with some kind of punishment be it community service, that is more than giving last years clothes to charity.   

 

Oh Mickey you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, Hey Mickey

Disneyland. . . simulacra. . . cyborg Minnie. . . Women in drag. . . all will come together Friday.

Analyzing a Parody with characters in Drag through Butler’s lense

• “Is drag the imitation of gender, or does it dramatize the signifying gestures through which gender itself is established” (2489)?
• Hence, as a strategy of survival within compulsory systems, gender is a performance with clearly punitive consequences. Discrete genders are part of what ‘humanizes’ individuals within contemporary culture; indeed, we regularly punish those who fail to do their gender right. (2500)
• “As in other social dramas, the action of gender requires a performance that is repeated” (2500).
• “Significantly, being “outside” the hegemonic order does not signify being “in” a state of filthy and untidy nature” (2494).

In the first bullet, Butler questions the imitative nature of drag, is drag parody or pastiche? For Butler, since there is no inherent gender, all gender performances are a form of pastiche, imitation done without the hopes of getting a laugh.

In the case of the DocuParody, Butler would say that since the script and characters are performing the gender opposite their biological sex in order to make the audience laugh, the drag in this case is parody. Esther’s performance as Karl Marx pimping out Miniborg, screams parody, as does myself who parodies Jean “Bau” Baudrillard. Despite being done for a laugh, the women in drag do confirm the performativity of gender. They simply wear hats, fake mustaches, and signs, and the audience starts to question their gender.

An easy way to understand it is like this: individuals who are transgendered, perform as the gender his or her soul truly is, and this performance is done, not to gain a laugh, but in order for the self (inside, mental) to become synonymous with who they are physically. The women in drag in the DocuParody, do not long to be men, one because their dressing in drag was done in order to make the audience laugh, and two, because outside the realm of the DocuParody, they will not repeat the gender performance of a dude. Gender is solidified through repeated performance, not a one time deal.
Butler would say that by questioning and shedding light on the performativity of gender will help broaden the scope of what society deems acceptable and unacceptable.

Since our society is quick to judge individuals that do not easily align themselves in a gender identity, Butler states, “Significantly, being “outside” the hegemonic order does not signify being “in” a state of filthy and untidy nature.” In other words, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Society has forced individuals to select a gender, we do not allow people to perform as they see fit. Therefore, it is society’s fault that some people do not fit into gender categories, because society created categories. Without the categories, there would be less alienation then there is now.

 

MiniBorg:  Kim who gives a stunning performance as a MiniBorg, has a robotic eye and metallic Mickey eats after finding the parts in his car after performing her ahem. .  duty.  Haraway believes in her “Cyborg Manifesto” that the cyborg is a metaphor for the duality that can exist not only in feminism but in the human body, as in the case of women of color. Butler’s belief about the cyborg correlates to Butler’s belief that gender is not inherent.  If Haraway believes that the body can house two binary oppositions, then this could reference transgendered people.  Haraway states: “Identities seem contradictory, partial, and strategic. With the hard-won recognition of their social and historical constitution, gender, race, and class cannot provide the basis for belief in “essential” unity. There is nothing about being “female” that naturally binds women” (2275). Like Butler, Haraway expresses the idea that there is nothing natural about gender to bind all women together.   Identities are contradictory, like a woman suck in a man’s body, or Haraway’s cyborg.  With the MiniBorg a little Fanon creeps in as well, since the MiniBorg makes its “self” known by asserting its self.

 
         I can’t speak for Butler, but if I had to venture a guess, I think she would think that Disneyland is set up to reinforce gender performativity to children. Disney Princesses, Prince Charming, even the mice are confined to gender roles. Butler would say that until institutions like Disneyland stop reinforcing the biological performativity of gender, children will not be allowed to act as the gender he or she feels to be, they will continue to act as the gender society wants them to be, rven a society oppressed by a fat happy mouse. I mean the picture speaks for itself; they’re the same mouse, only one is in drag, but which one?

 

Reading from Haraway’s Holy Book of Holy Cyborg Crap

Donna Haraway “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s”

 Ok. . . I can deal with convoluted texts about decentering the center.  I can deal with Eliot telling me that I have to be sans personality to write poetry.  Hell, I can even deal with Deleuze and  Guattari believing that life is one huge rhizome. 

 But I can not deal with Haraway.  No.  I can’t do it.  Not after writing my critical perspective paper, not after a well balanced breakfast, even after having a Star Trek marathon, I can not deal with Haraway.  I just have that overwhelming feeling like, “I don’t get it.”  And it’s worse than Derrida, and I loathed him. . . but not anymore.  Haraway tops my “I just don’t get you” list.

 “This essay is an effort to build an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism.”  Yeah real ironic Donna. 

 I mean I get some of her ideas but overall I had more fun making fun of Haraway than I did actually reading her.  I mean, if she can write a manifesto, I’m writing a manifesto too.  But mine will make sense.  What I hate about this reading is the fact that I do not easily understand it, I mean Bau and I were on the same page.  I got him, he got me, it was beautiful. 

 “I am making an argument for the cyborg as a fiction mapping our social and bodily reality and as an imaginative resource suggesting some very fruitful couplings.” (2269-2270).  So the cyborg is a fiction that can map our social and bodily reality.  You know what I think H.  I think you were the kid on the playground how ate dirt.  Not only that, you would totally drink the Kool-Aid first H.  I get it, science fiction was for the boys, and now it’s the final frontier for feminists to tackle if they want to be taken seriously.

 “The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust.  Perhaps this is why I want to see if cyborgs can subvert the apocalypse of returning to nuclear dust in the manic compulsion to name the Enemy.” (2271). Way to be different H. because other theorists NEVER diss religion.  You want to see if cyborgs can circumvent the apocalypse. . . are you kidding me?  Ok and if you discover that they can; how does this help me?  Oh come on, I’m waiting. 

 “So my cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might explore as one part of needed political work.”  (2274)   So H. is a cyborg-monger because they can exceed the boundaries of our patriarchal society.  I guess there’s some freaky deaky loophole the cyborgs found. 

 

The Bloated Rodent Faux Utopia Apparatus

What did Disneyland ever do to Baudrillard. . .
You know besides showcase the shortcomings of our nation, who pollute the minds of our young into believing that the world is a happy place, with flying elephants. . . no really I have nothing against Disneyland, only against the Disney Princesses, but that’s another blog post.

Simulacrum= is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. 
hyperreality characterizes the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures.
    While I’m saddened to learn that Baudrillard will not ride the teacups with meL, onto more phantasmagoric fantasticums (totally made that up) of theory! 

 “The real is produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command models—and with these it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times.  It no longer has to be rational, since it is no longer measured against come ideal or negative instance.” (1733) 

So Bau’s whole argument is that nothing is original anymore, we have entered the phase in which everything is a copy of a copy.  We are as he states, “are substituting signs for the real for the real itself.”  And our society can not die because, everything can be duplicated an infinite number of times, so we are condemned to live in the land of perpetual reruns!  I always equate copying and running out of ideas to horror films.  You can relate horror films to everything if you try hard enough.  So, are we doomed to live in the time of the Asian Horror Film Remake?  “The Ring”, The “Grudge”, are signs of the real for the real itself.  How many people watched the originals?  Show of hands please.

Supermodels.  Perfect example of substituting signs of the real for the real itself.  Hell, the whole Hollywood industry does this.  Please see here. . .  So, girls try to live up to what they see in magazines, and what society leads them to believe is beautiful.  The sing becomes the substitute for the real.  Young girls are thrown into this anorexic genocide to achieve a look that’s not even tangible. 

Dissimulate= to feign not to have what one has

To simulate= to feign to have what one hasn’t

 “Their rage to destroy images rose precisely because they sensed this omnipotence of simulacra, this facility they have of effacing God from the consciousness of men, and the overwhelming, destructive truth which they suggest: that ultimately there has never been any God, that only the simulacrum exists, indeed that God himself  has only ever been his own simulacrum.” 1735 Baudrillard on the Iconoclasts

    Well, I can understand why the iconoclasts wanted to destroy the images and icons of religion.  Because people were taking the sign as the real thing?  I wanted to put this in my post because I kind of get it but I kind of don’t get it.  Any help would be great.  I think the iconoclasts destroyed images because they were afraid if the icons did not help people, people would lose their faith, and start to think that there is no God, only icons of God.

 “When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning.” (1736)  I had to put this in my blog because it reminded me of Watchmen.  Which I miss terribly.  But when I think about it, the bottle of nostalgia would appear when the world started going to hell.  It was most prevalent when Laurie and Jon were on a distant planet, discussing the fate of the world.  The bottle of Nostalgia was spinning out of control.  The world was no longer real, no it was real, it was just. . . the world seemed to metastasize into this dark cruel place, that Jon didn’t want to save, until Laurie’s tears of destruction changed his mind, the thermo-dynamic miracle or something.  

 “As fact as ethnology in its classical institution collapses, it survives in an anti-ethnology whose task is to reinject fictional difference and Savagery everywhere, in order to conceal the fact that it is this world, our own, which in its way has become savage again, that is to say devastated by difference and death.” 1738.

“Our entire linear and accumulative culture would collapse if we could not stockpile the past in plain view.”  (1739). 

            I found the section about museums interesting, because how are we supposed to learn about the past, without visually seeing it.  Is it wrong to want to stockpile artifacts from periods our generation has not seen, in order to come to terms with it?  I don’t know Bau, I feel some resistance.  In essence yes I understand your argument, we’re totally screwing up tombs that were created to be secretive.  That doesn’t mean I don’t deserve and or want to see it.  What should I do?  Go to Museumholics anonymous, to give up my addiction to know about the past through visualizations?  I’m an addict.

 “Disneyland is the perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation.” (1740).  “In this imaginary world the only phantasmagoria is in the inherent warmth and affection of the crowd, and in that sufficiently excessive number of gadgets used there to specifically maintain the multitudinous affect.”  (1740)

            I guess Disneyland is not the magical place of dreams for Bau.  Bau loathes Disneyland and for damn good reason (even though I’m probably going to take my kids there and feed into the bloated rodent apparatus).  Disneyland only has warmth and affection inside the park, the part where they take your money.  I like the comparison of the parking lot and the actual park.  It’s a huge, bloated rodent faux utopia.  Let us dive deeper into the BRFU apparatus.  Think of Disney movies.  For children, movies are the signs substituted for the real.  They watch a movie and until a certain age, they think it’s real.  Disney Princesses.  Every little girl wants to be a princess.  Here are your Disney Princesses. 

 

(Only recently have Mulan and Pocahontas been added as Disney Princesses.) And now almost 80 years after creating princesses, Disney has created an African American Princess.  Princess Maddy.   So if young girls see the images as real what do the images tell them?  It tells them that these are the girls who can be princesses.  Where’s the ethnic diversity Disney?  Where’s the biracial, Asian, Middle Eastern (and no Jasmine doesn’t count), Polish, Greek, Italian, Lebanese Princess?  Start writing Disney, you have a plethora of Princesses to create.     

 

Hork-Dorno and the Bloated Pleasure Apparatuses

Gender performance. . . hi my name is gwen. . . foucault, pronounced “fooco”. . . picture. . . add link. . .  do the works cited. . . gender is performative. . . can’t sleep theory will eat me ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank god I’m done with the carnival.  I shed tears and blood for that thing.  Seriously,where’s my parade?  What about theory pride? 

 Ok it’s out of my system.  

 General Disclaimer:  I just got done fixing the theory carnival at 9:23 am.  After no sleep, no food, this blog is in utter disarray, and might be fixed sometime within the next day.

 Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “From The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” 

 First let me start by saying I got this weird “damn the man” vibe from the whole essay.  We’re all going to hell in a hand basket because television is killing our individuality.  

 “Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art” (1224).  That’s true, look at the music and television scene today.  Everything is the mass produced pile of crap.  One artist becomes popular like. . . Avril Lavigne.  And then all of a sudden the angry chick musicians come wandering out of the woods like, “Oh, it’s our turn now.  Sweet.”  Popular music and reality television pander to the audience like the homeless on the streets of NYC.  If I have to see one more season of “The Bachelor” just so people can watch desperate attention whores fight over a guy they’ve known for one minute, I might vomit, again.

 “The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of mass-produced products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification.  Everybody must behave (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his previously determined and indexed level, and choose the category of mass product turned out for his type.  Consumers appear as statistics on research organization charts, and are divided by income groups into red, green, and blue areas; the technique is that used for any type of propaganda” (1225).  We all statistics on the flow charts of major television studios like Fox and ABC.  They only care about getting the consumers business, not the consumers needs.

 Movie theaters= “bloated pleasure apparatuses” (1230).  These bloated pleasure apparatuses may not add dignity to a man’s life Hork-Dorno, but I enjoy them.  Maybe I get a loophole for being a chick, since whenever they talk about the consumer, it’s always a he.  

 

“It’s influence over the consumers is established by entertainment; that will ultimately be broken not by an outright decree, but by the hostility inherent in the principle entertainment to what is greater than itself.”  This reminded of a new movie that’s coming out with Stone Cold Steve Austin called “The Condemned.”  10 killers are put on an island surrounded by cameras, only one can survive.  Is this where reality tv is headed?  When will enough be enough?  Has reality tv simply taken over the planet, or have screenwriters run out of good ideas for long running television shows?  

 

 

 

“Tae-bo.who fuckin’ knew”. . .”Hi my Name is Gwen and I’m here to WAAAAASH your Vagina”

“They asked you to lose weight, to play yourself.” (body image and hollywood pressure definitely important, didn’t write about it though)

Ok. . . first off let me say that being neither gay/gay male/ or Asian American, I fucking love Margaret Cho. “I’m the One that I Want” was one of the best homework assignments I’ve ever had. I had to preface with that. Margaret Cho is one of my favorite female comedians. I like her sets, I’ve watched a lot of her standup over the years and she just puts it out there. Lisa Lampinelli comes in a close second, but she’s raunchy, even for me.

 

 

 

 

Margaret Cho impersonating Carl Lagerfeld (described as having white hair, big glasses and fan reminiscent of a Spanish lady): “I am fanning the flames of my faggotry.” Here she brings up the topic of homosexuality which she is certainly not shy about given the set about her experience having sex with a woman. So this brings me to a very complex situation. Is Margaret Cho allowed to say faggot because she is a minority who is not using it offensively? I would have said just because she is a minority but please refer to Isaiah Washington’s outburst. I think she forces her audience to consider that maybe it is no the word, but the inflection put on the word, but even that in most cases doesn’t work. I think slurs don’t work no matter who says them; it’s the new “nigger vs. nigga,” which apparently only black people can say. But if black people try to empower a word that was used to oppress, can the word ever truly become empowered? NO. No one should say the word ESPECIALLY black people. The word keeps black youths in a ghetto prison. The media tries to expose the hardships of life in the ghetto, and in some sick fashion, it ends up becoming glamorized. This is why I love Cho, but I don’t know if her use of the word faggot works. I can see that she is trying to empower the word, but is that really possible? Do they shop at KKKmart, where there’s a white sale everyday?

And I went through this whole thing, you know. I was like: Am I gay? Am I straight? And I realized I’m just slutty.” “I’m heterophobic. A gorgeous straight, single man, is like a unicorn.” “Gay vs. Straight Porn.”
This brings into question the idea of being “bi-curious.” I mean I think it’s possible for someone to have a relationship with someone of the same sex and not be gay, but maybe that’s because I’m naïve. You fall in love with a person, not a sex right? I think that society harps on sexual preference so much, because sex is one of the ways society controls the individual. Society needs people to procreate to keep the machine running. So thus, homosexuality is seen as subversive, and a threat to the machine, so much so that our President actually wanted to change the constitution to say that marriage is between a man and a woman. I always thought the constitution was supposed to grant civil rights not take them away. Again, maybe that’s just me. Yeah um, what happened to all of the straight men? Where did they go because I miss them. We have so many categories for people: gay, straight, bisexual, bi-curious, metrosexual. Stop the insanity! Our society seriously has OCD and we feel the need to shove people into a checkbox. Oh and Ted Haggard, you can not be cured of homosexuality in three days, face it, you’re gay, accept it and move on. I loved the whole straight vs. gay porn star, because guys don’t want any chance of being attracted to the man. That is why gay porn gets Jeff Stryker and straight porn gets Ron Jeremy We make such a big fuss about sexual preference, when it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t care who you love or sleep with, why does it matter, that doesn’t define a person. What defines a person is how they act in the world, not who is in their bed. I’m not all that religious but I feel as though our society should stop attacking homosexuality and start attacking bigotry. A loving God would much rather see his people loving and respecting each other, than damning each other for him. It seems as though we try to surpress homosexuality in women more than in men, yet lesbians are more accepted than gay men, and that makes no sense. Once again, some guys think two girls kissing is “hot.” Yet show them two are men and they’re all freaked out like “C’mon dude.” My motto: Real straight men watch “Brokeback Mountain.” That got turned from what it truly is, an amazing complex story about love, into “that gay cowboy movie.” It’s reflective of the hypocrisy that is our society. Homosexuality is not subversive, homosexuals would not devalue marriage, because heterosexuals do a mighty fine job screwing it up. (Think Britney Spears 24hour drunk marriage). Let’s be honest, gay is the new black.

I wasn’t like any Korean role-model that they had ever seen. I didn’t play violin. I didn’t fuck Woody Allen.” This is something that I find myself thinking about at random times: where are the Asian actors? Why does our media lack Asian American representation? I know that hope for utopia and coalition among all minority groups is probably unachievable, but I notice that there is a hardcore lack of Asian American television shows and actors. The only Asian American actors I can think of off the top of my head are Lucy Liu, Margaret Cho, Sandra Oh, Rick Yune (he’s the hot guy from Fast and the Furious) and Lisa Yang. That’s it. Want to know about how screwed up Hollywood is? When Lucy Liu appeared in the first Charlie’s Angel’s she was paid one million dollars, compared to Drew Barrymore’s nine million and Cameron Diaz’s twelve million. What the hell. Lucy Liu is so much more of a versatile actress than Cameron Diaz, who got paid 12 million dollars to shake her ass in cartoon underwear. Don’t get me wrong, I like Cameron Diaz, what I don’t like is injustice and Lucy Liu getting one million dollars and then later a new car, is quite honestly not enough in my opinion. I think that Margaret Cho does a friggin outstanding job not only being hilarious, but bringing to light issues that are important to all communities. Think about it. We had “My Wife and Kids,” “Full House,” and “The George Lopez Show.” Where’s the Asian family primetime show? I’m still waiting for it.

Can race like gender be performed? The answer is, race can be performed, but it will not change your race. Well Cho did a lot of impersonations in her act. She went from impersonating gay men, to her mother who has a thick accent, to a stereotypical Asian voice, to a Louisiana gay man, to Gwen (whom I never want to meet) and so much more. It’s a race and impersonation fantasicum! “I like my klan all crazy and foaming at the mouth.” I definitely think Margaret Cho thinks race can be performed. Look at her set about “Kung Fu.” “It shouldn’t have been called ‘Kung Fu.’ It should have been called, ‘Hey that Guy’s not Chinese.” I didn’t know that but I looked him up on imdb.com, and he’s so not Asian! I mean they couldn’t even fund an Asian American actor to portray an Asian character on a television show about martial arts. Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous. Example, Barack Obama may be criticized for “acting white” because he exhibits traits that some attribute to being white: articulate (bad juju), being intelligent, being even tempered. Why are those attributes associated with being white? That’s a damning proclamation. It does more harm than good and quite honestly, it’s rather ridiculous to bash someone for being intelligent, because no matter how intelligent Obama is, he fully understands that he will never be considered white, nor does he want to be.  My final example of performing race: Larry the Cable Guy.  Most of us know and love Larry the Cable Guy, but his whole redneck thing is an act.  Yes, an act.  Larry the Cable Guy is not a simple man, he is fact intelligent enough to bank off of a stereotype.  Here’s proof.  Yes, the redneck thing is a sham, but he’s making money off of it, especially from the very people he is parodying. . . weird.

Other lines I liked (even though one was not funny):

“I can get gay guys to dance in my house for free.”
“There is no such thing as a straight man with visible abdominal muscles.”
“Do you have a sunburn? No I’m just fucked up.”
“For me losing 10 pounds is a fulltime job, and I’m handing in my notice.”“I had to hold on to the mic stand, I was turning into “The Rose.”

 

 

 

 

 

 




 

“What the what is Ladylike”?

Judith Butler’s “From Gender Trouble,” addressed a lot of issues I often find myself wondering about.

“I noted that trouble sometimes euphemized some fundamentally mysterious problem usually related to the alleged mystery of all things feminine” (2488). In this section Butler is talking about society asserts control by threatening one with “trouble.” Trouble has no doubt been associated with the feminine since the beginning of time. Serioulsy. . . who gets blamed for eating the apple first? Eve. Therefore women are perceived as being “trouble.” Even if Eve was hungry, how do we know that’s the absolute truth? Especially since some gospels were not even put into The Bible. So women are associated with trouble, mystery, and unknowability, which kind of makes women sound like Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter, just dark, twisty and scary.

 

“Power seemed to be more than an exchange between subjects or a relation of constant inversion between a subject and an Other; indeed, power appeared to operate in the production of that very binary frame for thinking about gender” (2489). Yes Butler I find myself nodding in agreement to this statement. Power does not only exist between a subject and the other, it also exists in the gender based system (Rubin) that society has constructed. One thing we didn’t discuss in detail but I think is important, is assigning the gender of babies. When a child is born it is told whether or not it is male or female, even in cases in which a child is both. It is fascinating that the mind and body can be complete opposites proving even more, that you are not your body, you are your mind. “If gender attributes and acts, the various ways in which a body shows or produces its cultural signification, are performative, then there is no pre-existing identity by which an act or attribute might be measured; there would be no true or false, real or distorted acts of gender, and the postulation of a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory fiction” (2501). I remember reading Woman on the Edge of Time for a Sci Fi class, and one of the practices the society of the future used, was allowing children to go into the forest and choose their name. I can’t remember whether or not they could choose their sex, but it would make sense if they could. Only. . . how would they know if they are male or female? The only way they culd figure this out s to turn back to society’s flawed system and try to sqeeze in wherever they see fit. Then this brings me to the whole biblical aspect of sex; I mean Eve was created from Adam, so therefore we can’t always assume that men are unfeeling brick walls, because they’re not. It’s just some social stigma put on men that they can’t cry or they’re weak, they can’t show emotions or they’re a pussy. It’s all so warped.

 

After seeing Hairspray at Proctor’s two weeks ago, I loved the reference to Divine, which leads into another important part for me, is gender just an impersonation of what we think it is? That’s really sloppy right now, hopefully you can figure out where I am going with this. “Does being female constitute a “natural fact” or a cultural performance, or is “naturalness” constituted through discursively constrained performative acts that produce the body through and within the categories of sex?” (2489) I can’t even begin to phrase this into something that is going to make sense, but that’s ok. Is a woman born female, or constructed into being female because of society. . . is gender performative? To this question I would say yes. I would say that because you are born a woman or a man, that does not make you a woman or a man. Look at the Gwen Araujo story. She was born as a male, but her soul was female, and because of that, she was killed. It’s disgusting how our society is so hell-bent on sticking people in categories. It’s likes some twisted game to ensure that there will always be an other.

 

Prospero, Pimp or Dad. . . Thoughts from the English Symposium

For Eng 370, we performed two scenes: one from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and one from Aime Cesaire’s A Tempest.   The main plot of The Tempest is Prospero is a King or Duke who was banished with his daughter to an island, which was inhabited by Sycorax, a witch whose son is Caliban.  Prospero takes Caliban under his wing and uses him to survive on the island, until Caliban tries to have sex with Miranda, which Prospero views as rape, therefore Caliban is inferior because he does not know right from wrong.  Prospero uses his spirit Ariel to conjure up a tempest and bring his foes to the island: Antonio, Sebastian, and Gonzalo.  Stephano and Trinculo are the comic relief.  There’s a lot more but there’s the gist of it.   
    In order to regain his power, Prospero uses Miranda(the only female character besides Sycorax, Sycorax is only discussed in conversation), as a bargaining chip.  He basically pimps out his daughter to Ferdinand, in order for him to regain fame and fortune.  This is precisely what Gayle Rubin discussed in her “From The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex” piece.  Rubin states:

            Traditional concerns of anthropology and social science—such as the evolution of          social stratification and the origin of the state – must be reworked to include the      implications of matrilateral cross cousin marriages, surplus extracted in the form        of daughters, the conversion of female labor into male wealth, the conversion of             female lives into marriage alliances, the contribution of marriage to political          power, and the transformations which all of these varied aspects of society have             undergone in the course of time.  (1683). 

conversion of female labor into male wealth: Miranda offers to do Ferdinand’s field work in order to ease his woes, Miranda is Prospero’s key to regain his status of fame and fortune.
the conversion of female lives into marriage alliances: Prospero stands to benefit from Miranda and Ferdinand’s marriage.
the contribution of marriage to political power: Ferdinand and Prospero will gain political respect from Ferdinand and Miranda’s marriage

      Rubin is criticizing the different ways in which women are viewed, used and manhandled.  She is stating that in order for the shortcomings of the sex based gender system to work; we have to go back and rework the social implications which are not getting better just changing forms.  Prospero uses his daughter as a key, a key to regain the old life he was forced to leave behind.  Miranda grew up on an island with only her father, and Caliban.  There was no woman around to “teach” her what it means to be a woman, and even most women are not sure what that means, but I’ll continue.  Miranda grew up on an island in a “society” in which she is the only woman.  Her father has taught her everything, and by doing so, he just teaches her how to correctly fit into a gender based society.  Instead of empowering her, he makes her daft and gives her the tools to survive but not to evolve in my opinion.  Sex/Gender System: “a set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied” (1665).  If given a blank slate, a fresh start in a sense, the old world problems would still arise.  Prospero had a chance to break the gender/ sex based system, yet refused to since he stood to profit from using his daughter as a gift.  So what does this say about Shakespeare?  Was he ahead of his time, did he write The Tempest to make the reader purposely look at gender roles, or was it some cosmic coincidence?  Hmmm. . . . I wonder.

 

 

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foucault on Sex Discourse

Well, I have to say that this week’s reading was rather interesting.

 Quotes to ponder from Foucault:
    “It is quite possible that there was an expurgation – and a very rigorous one—of the authorized vocabulary.  It may indeed be true that a whole rhetoric of allusion and metaphor was codified.  Without question, new rules of propriety screened out some words; there was a policing of statements” (1648).
     Foucault talks about the policing of statements about sex in seventeenth century literature.  Writers had to use authorized vocabulary to talk about something as natural as sex.  Sex was censored.  Society used sex as a weapon; men were made to feel powerful and women were made to feel as though their bodies were all they had.  Both genders were oppressed.  Maybe this is why even today, society is still wary of sex.  Look at the Janet Jackson Superbowl fiasco.  Who wasn’t sick of hearing about that for three weeks straight?  Everyone pointed the finger at Janet Jackson, and for good reason, it was her breast.  But Justin Timberlake played a good part in the “Nipplegate” as well.  Now Timberlake is winning Grammy’s and performing on every surface of planet Earth, while Jackson has mysteriously stayed out of the lime light.  And what about “Pantygate”?  I’m sick of these so called Hollywood starlets, exposing their vajayjays like there’s no tomorrow.  Are we to say they are liberated because they are sans panties?  Are they setting the feminist movement back years, or bringing it into 2007.  (They are setting it back, girls need to realize that their value in this world, does not reside in their vaginas. Paris Hilton. . . eww, she’s famous for being rich and a sex tape, there’s something to be proud of.) 

    “It was essential that the state know what was happening with its citizens’ sex, and the use they made of it, but also that each individual be capable of controlling the use he made of it.  Between the state and the individual, sex became an issue, and a public issue no less; a whole web of discourses, special knowledges, analyses, and injunctions settled upon it” (1653).  

             In other words, it’s important that the state have a handle on its citizens’ sex.  Not only did society have to control the use individuals made of sex, they had to make sure that the individual had control of their use of sex.  And when he says individual he means men, hence the “he made use of it.”  Sex then became a public issue with different anecdotes attached to it to understand and use it.

(I’ll write more later, but my sinus infection has caused my whole face to hurt and I’m a little dizzy, but stay tuned.)