I hope y’all had/are having a Merry Happy Festivus Christmukkuh , however you acknowledge (or spell) your favorite holiday celebrations.
This week I received two early bird publication notifications. Translation: due to the mysteries of publishers’ scheduling, stories that were slated for publication in 2014 instead just made it in 2013: My story “Souvenir” is featured in the December/Winter 2013 edition of Hospital Drive and “Requiem” is in the Voices From the Porch anthology.
K is home from college on semester break until MLK day. All four of us (MH, Belle, K and moiself) carried on with our tradition of having Christmas Day lunch at Jake’s Grill, after which we walk (or waddle, depending on the Jake’s menu) to Powell’s Books. Another if sporadic Christmas Day tradition is going out to a movie, which we fulfilled by catching the last matinee [1] showing of Frozen.
There is much to like about the latest Disney Princess Movie ® (insert appropriate groan- gasp), aside from the stunning animation, memorable songs and several genuinely funny sidekick/comic relief characters. [2]
viewer-approved sidekick Olaf
Belle and I talked afterward, about how refreshing it was to see an animated (or any kind of) movie that featured than one main female character (gasp again), and also to find that finding a prince for the princess was not the main plot point…and how pathetic it is that we have to consider those things “refreshing.”
“If they can see it, they can be it.”
Mere words cannot describe how much I love that quote. Really elaborate ones might help, but I’m trying to savor one of my favorite times of the year – the span between Christmas
and New Year’s –
and it would require too much concentration to get all sesquipedalian on y’all.
Instead, I’ll let the quote-generator herself, Geena Davis, actor and founder of the Institute on Gender in Media, do the talking. Best known for her role as Thelma and Louise‘s avenging assault victim, Davis is a righteous warrior when it comes to battling inequality in her chosen field. Thelma Davis takes aim at gender disparity in the movies in her recent guest column in the Hollywood reporter, Two Easy Steps to Make Hollywood Less Sexist.
The basics are that for every one female-speaking character in family-rated films (G, PG and PG-13), there are roughly three male characters; that crowd and group scenes in these films — live-action and animated — contain only 17 percent female characters; and that the ratio of male-female characters has been exactly the same since 1946. Throw in the hypersexualization of many of the female characters that are there, even in G-rated movies, and their lack of occupations and aspirations and you get the picture.
It wasn’t the lack of female lead characters that first struck me about family films. We all know that’s been the case for ages… It was the dearth of female characters in the worlds of the stories — the fact that the fictitious villages and jungles and kingdoms and interplanetary civilizations were nearly bereft of female population — that hit me over the head. This being the case, we are in effect enculturating kids from the very beginning to see women and girls as not taking up half of the space.
Moiself has long thought Hollywood [3] has a bit of what I call an Islamist sensibility when it comes to simple gender demographic representation. Watch a “crowd scene” filmed in an Islamist country, whether it’s a documentary on daily life or a breaking news clip of a demonstration outside of an embassy. What you will see is a sea of male faces. Where are the women? Somebody with lady parts had to make all those bearded boys. Oh, wait – what’s that? A moving, mummified column? Could be a female, but it’s hard to tell under all that casing. We know they are there but they are cloistered, whether mentally and emotionally inside the home as well as literally when they are “allowed” outside. They are…infrastructure.
* * *
But I digress.
On to a new segment I call
Happy New Year – and you do know it’s gonna be 2014, right?
A special Welcome to the nineteenth Century – whoops, that should be twenty-first, where did the time go? – to those Wacky Elders of the LDS. Yes, the Mormon church, always Johnny-on-the-spot re human rights, has come out as no longer being officially racist, with their declaration (way back in 2013) that dark skin is no longer a sign of god’s curse.
It will be interesting to see if, in the coming year, the continuation of the church’s “I’m a Mormon” print and media ads, [4] will bring about the revision if not the elimination of other LDS whackadoodle other beliefs, including:
1. The American continent was originally settled by ancient near easterners.
2. Native Americans are descendants of ancient Israelites.
3. The Book of Mormon [5] is an historically accurate work, translated by Joseph Smith from gold plates buried by the prophet Moroni.
4. The Osmond Family – now, that’s entertainment!
mouthfuls of enormous, white teeth are a sign of god’s favor
* * *
New Year’s and Resolutions Ruminations
* Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to. (Bill Vaughan)
* New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. (Mark Twain)
* Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let’s just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that. (Judith Crist)
* I can’t believe it’s been year since I didn’t become a better person. (Anonymous)
* The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. ( Friedrich Nietzsche)
* Those who break New Year’s resolutions are weaklings. Those who make them are fools. (Anonymous)
The only New Year’s Resolution I’ve successfully kept was the one I made way back in the 1980’s, which was to not make New Year’s Resolutions. But that was so…well…80’s. [6] Perhaps it’s time to give it another try.
In 2014 I resolve to:
1. stop making lists
B. be more consistent
9. remember to count
F. never again use the word “Osmond” (at least in public)
Whatever you resolve, may you leave ample room for the hijinks to ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
[1] Also a tradition: see the movie at the cheaper show times.
[2] Such characters are difficult to pull off, and often trip over the line between amusing and obnoxious. Jar-jar Binks, anyone?
[3] Meaning the film industry, whether it’s a blockbuster filmed in the actual So Cal soundstage or an indie on the streets of Portland or Austin….
[4] The LDA-s million dollar pr campaign a multi-million dollar marketing campaign about “ordinary Americans who are also ordinary Mormons.”
[5] The LDS hold scripture, not the musical. Although there is more rational evidence for the historical accuracy of the musical.
[6] Are you picturing harem pants for men, Valleygirl mallrat side ponytails and Miami Vice designer stubble? You know you want to.
