argo: the united states does not negotiate with terrorists.

it is a testament to my long involvement in film and theatre that two of the things that stood out most to me about ben affleck's newly released historical thriller, argo, were the cinematography and the sound design, both of which served the story eminently. that and the fact that i felt suspense throughout the movie, despite always knowing how it would end.

it begins with a summary of events leading up to the iran hostage crisis of 1979, explaining how the shah, put in power in a 1953 cia-engineered coup against the democratically elected iranian government, had terrorized the people of iran and lived in opulence as his subjects starved.  by the end of the 70s, the people had had enough; they rebelled and the shah fled, seeking asylum in the united states. the iranian people demanded the us return the shat to them so that they could sentence him as a a criminal. when the us government refused, they stormed the gates of the embassy, taking fifty-two american hostages.

this movie does not deal with these fifty-two americans, but rather with the efforts of tony mendez (ben affleck) to get six americans who escaped the embassy out of the country. replete with many brooding close-ups of the bearded affleck, it is a stark, tense movie with scarcely a flourish, unless you count the witty one-liners, most of which are featured in the trailer. it tells the story as it happened (according to mendez's accounts) and no more.

this is the movie's key failing: faced with the telling of a story of one of the biggest foreign policy crises the us has faced, it asks no questions, draws no parallels or conclusions, offers no criticism or insight.

but to me the implications are obvious, inescapable. this movie cannnot be a celebration of a united states intelligence triumph (though it seems to aspire to it) when it draws (intentionally or un-) the hypocrisy of the us government's cliched slogan "we do not negotiate with terrorists" into sharp relief against the truth: that the us government created those "terrorists".

by failing to reckon with this conflict, between one's national identity and pride and the horrible things that country has done, this movie missed it's chance at greatness. to be fair, had the script made less obvious the cause-effect relationship between the us and this crisis, perhaps the movie could have avoided this politic-y trap altogether. but it is my opinion that it would have been equally hollow; telling a story but lacking purpose, or direction, and, at the end of the day, doomed to the fuzzy no-man's land of those without conviction.

seven psychopaths, a review.

or why martin mcdonagh is one of the only people working in hollywood with principles.

it's impossible to ignore the trend at the beginning "seven psychopaths" (written and directed by martin mcdonagh): all of the women are black and all of them are being terrorized by lunatic men running around waving guns. or... pens and bottles of whiskey (looking at you, colin farrell). ...with one exception, that is, and she's as psychotic as the men.

anyone with a consciousness of "race struggles" & "american history" is probably be feeling queasy at this prospect. but in light of my familiarity with (and affection for) the depraved rantings that characterize this playwright's oeuvre, i knew that if i just waited it out, he would come around to his point.

sure enough, it didn't take long for the movie to develop into a fully-fledged satire of the hyper-violence (and sexualization of violence) that is so characteristic of hollywood movies today, by depicting scene after scene of the very thing he criticized. it didn't hurt that 5 of the 8 (or something like that; I didn't count) previews were for movies of the "gratuitous-shooting-people-without-a-good-reason-except-that-guns-go-bang-and-we-like-explosions" genre.

mcdonagh, who has been called the "most influential contemporary irish playwright" (never mind that he grew up in england and has spent little time ireland) is known in the theatre world (and increasingly in hollywood, since "six shooter", "in bruges" and now "seven psychopaths")  for his maniacal characters and gruesome tales is, in fact, a pacifist. perhaps the best explanation for his motives in writing these pieces is explained in his play "the pillowman". the main character, katurian, is a writer of horrific tales (like mcdonagh), who explains that the reason he writes of such depravity is because he lives in a world that is depraved and when you live in such a world, how can you bury your head in the sand and write of a world that is sane?

seven psychopaths is mcdonagh at his best; it does just this.

from the very start, his stream of pathetic-black-woman-victims makes it impossible to ignore (for once) the racist trope so commonly featured in hollywood films. the fact that they are especially pathetic and the white men tormentors are especially maniacal only serves to heighten the indictment. but at the same time, the first major clue that mcdonagh is not a raging racist is that all the major romantic relationships are mixed race and the woman is black. but the woman is not just black, she is the stronger of the two (especially in the case of hans; a fantastic christopher walkin, and myra; a stunning and dignified linda bright clay)

but the real thesis doesn't become clear until rather later in the movie as billy (sam rockwell) grows more and more insistent that no movie is complete without a climactic, over-the-top shootout scene in which nearly everyone dies in myriad absurd and gorey fashion, the hallmark of the hollywood shoot-'em-up (all this, much to pacifists marty (farrell) and hans' disgust), which culminated in a finale that was just as bloodily preposterous as the playwright was in his late '90s glory.

girls get in free.

"hey guys, you going to a club tonight? be sure you bring enough chicks with you; the bouncers might not let you in..."

the practice of letting girls in for free or at discount to encourage them to go to clubs is common place to say the least, a practical application of the idea that you can't have a good party if there isn't enough eye-candy to grind up against.

it is a curious act of reverse-discrimination, showing preference to women even though the only thing they did to earn it was to be born with two x chromosomes. but ultimately it is for the benefit of the guys who (according to cultural mythos) are all looking for some hot piece of ass to take home at the end of the night; no one likes a stag party (unless it's at a strip club) because there's no chance of getting lucky.

the problem is that it reinforces the deeply embedded idea that women are there for the sake of men, that if a dude goes to a club or party, it is his due to get that women be there for him. women get in free because the implication is that they'll be giving out much more...


this summer a friend informed me of a practice where club managers actually pay attractive twenty-something women to sit in the club, drink a bottle of top-shelf (on the house), and look like they're having a really fucking good time.

i know a lot of people will tell me this is not at all like prostitution; others will tell me that girls who pose topless and covered in a fine mist in diesel jeans ads are also not like prostitutes.

they're right: prostitutes make a lot more money.

but to me, this all looks like sex-work. in each case, women are being paid to do something because they are "sexy". the message sent is: "dudes, you might get laid" ... that no money is exchanged for the actual sex act does not change the essence of it.

that said, i for one, can't say i would turn down a paying gig in which i sit on my butt, get drunk and basically have an awesome fucking time... so go figure.

pro-sex; anti-porn.

1. when i was in high school, a bunch of my friends were self-proclaimed otakus. they participated in the weekly anime club, where they gathered to watch (gasp) anime; their media consumption was dominated by manga and anime. in this environment, it was only a matter of time before someone (or several someones) showed up at school with porn.

okay, so drawings of a sex scene seem pretty tame compared to the shit you find online these days but the depravity of these comic books was striking. i never actually read the one involving tentacle-rape, though i heard... more than i wanted... about it.

but what stood out to me the most was that a culture that was so repressed could produce such depraved pornography. where did this come from? i wondered.

this question went unanswered for until several years later when a student in my acting class did a scene from jekyll and hyde. after the scene the teacher waxed philosophical, as she was wont to do. in her monologue she mentioned how interesting it is that the victorian era was one of the most repressed eras in western history, and it produced so much depravity: jekyll and hyde, dracula, frankenstein, jack the ripper...

and a realized what now seems obvious (to me): if you repress such an essential aspect of humanity that completely, it still needs a way to express itself. But because you aren't allowing for natural expression it become pressurized, far more intense and volatile than normal. So when it does become manifest, it will often be far more extreme than it would be normally.


2. in the early 80s a group of feminists abandoned more concrete activism in favor of an argument: pro-sex or anti-porn? Pro-sex said sexual freedom is an important part to women's freedom; anti-porn argued that porn was the cornerstone of female oppression.

for my part the whole argument is like, why even bother? #canhazusefulfeminism?

okay, yes the cornerstone of porn has been male dominance over women, with physical and verbal abuse present in a vast majority of porn videos. but the pornography industry makes billions of dollars a year; today it's ubiquitous. We assume that all men over the age of 12 watch porn regularly (even if this isn't true) and that a not inconsequential proportion of women do so as well. Books have been published documenting the negative effects of watching porn, but it makes money so, just as this industry juggernaut was undaunted by the 80s sex wars, production hasn't flagged.

but what's most distinct about that production is the way it moves towards extremism. from a producer's point of view it only makes sense:  there are only so many times you can film two people having  normal sex, what most real life human beings engage in. to be able to keep producing more videos, you have to keep upping the stakes, upping the sensationalism. the result is often intense violence and degrading depictions of women as men exert power over them.

which people watch.


3. while not entirely responsible (capitalism cannot be let off the hook) american culture's repressive attitudes about sex contributes to this.

okay, yes, i hear the protests: we talk about sex all the time. porn is becoming mainstream. sex is everywhere: on tv, in books, on the billboards. but this is a commodification of sex, meanwhile a good percentage of this country does not have access to birth-control because there is this group of people with considerable lobbying power who believe that abstinence works.

the contradiction is absurd: you are bombarded with sexual imagery from the first minute you're old enough to actually process what's on the tv, and then you are told: "this is bad, don't do it" (some terms and conditions may apply... like being married)

the best thing that annie sprinkle ever said (imo) was her indictment that we live in a sex-negative society and that this ultimately damages everyone because we do not have space to develop sexual identities independent of things like... say, violent tentacle porn. but you know what, guys? hey guys! newsflash! human beings have been having sex since human beings existed. and we were a lot less fucked up about it before we founded a religion that declared sex the "original sin".

so really, those 80s feminists got it wrong: it's not a question of pro-sex OR anti-porn. Ultimately these are the same thing: porn is a phenomenon fed by the sex-negatives attitudes of our society which in turn feeds the attitude, and so on and so forth in an eternal feedback loop. Only once we as a culture (not we, as feminists or we, as any other faction but we, as a nation) acknowledge this can we actually begin to change the way we treat ourselves and those around us and learn to respect this basic aspect of humanity.

make-up.

spring 2012, living room. i was on my computer on the couch, one of my housemates (housemate a) was at the table, also on a computer. this is after all the age we living, everyone always attached to one device or another. but i digress:

enter the third housemate (housemate b) and a friend. this friend was chronically unemployed and she was talking about an interview she'd gone on the week before for a temp position. she was explaining how, as someone who's been a "full-time" temp for years, she is familiar with the process and the rules and, most importantly, the dress. in other words, she had a wardrobe full of business formal-wear. but the woman who interviewed her specifically commented on what she was wearing, suggesting that there was something... wrong with it.

she walked out the interview room deeply confused. what was wrong with what she was wearing? she could not figure it out.

at this point, housemate a spoke up. "she wants you to wear make-up," she explained; the critique had been code.

"so she wants you to look like a hooker?" asked housemate b.

"no," housemate a demurred before going on to elaborate about standards of beauty and something about women of a certain age.


i never said anything. but listening as they discussed the apparent arbitrariness of the situation, the implications were obvious to me:

a man would never in a million years be obliquely criticized for not wearing make-up. the mere idea is laughably absurd. and yet the expectation that women wear make-up is so deeply ingrained that she can lose serious points in a job interview for not adequately adhering to the standard

that this is a form of discrimination is irrefutable, but it's far subtler than many forms of discrimination women experience on the workforce. it would be near impossible to legislate against it (especially considering our current congress' inability to legislate anything). we live in a world where we learn that women are to be looked at so of course it's only natural that women be properly beautiful in the in the office. never mind that what she looks like has no impact on how well she does her job (except perhaps inasmuch as men harass her for being too attractive or not attractive enough; it's a lose-lose situation)

but if she denies the cult of beauty she is dying a cornerstone of cultural existence in the united states. and in a capitalist society that makes billions selling women the "essence of beauty" we just can't have that, can we.

"i like masculine men"

We live in a world of opposites, a world that defines X as the exclusion of everything that is Y, and vice versa. White is “not black”. On is “not off”. This paradigm allows no room for flow or mutability or change. To be one thing is to necessarily reject everything contained by it’s “opposite”.

This is the basis upon which the masculine-feminine dichotomy rests.

So what does it mean to be “feminine” or “masculine” (read: in the US/the Western World)? Typical feminine qualities include sensitive, submissive, gentle, supportive, delicate, soft, weak. Masculine qualities are things like aggression, dominance, insensitivity, ambition, hardness, physical fitness, strength, power.

Looking at these lists, they appear fairly mutually exclusive. The problem is that human beings are not distinct programs; we are not lists. We are full of contradictions and quirks and things that just do not make sense. You cannot contain a human being within “ons” and “offs”.

So even though submissive and dominant are defined as opposites it is completely possible that an individual be both. Perhaps not at the same time, sure, but both these qualities can be present in the same personality without that person being a paradox.

Or maybe that’s the point. We are paradoxes; we can be both delicate and powerful, both empathetic and insensitive, both powerful and weak.

But.

As a culture (the US), we blanket deny this mutability. What else spawned the “crisis of masculinity” but 70s feminist taking on “masculine” traits? Feminists are, to this day, shamed for not being “feminine” enough, while men become “pussies” and “bitches” and “gay” for not beating their chests loudly enough.

This is ultimately hurtful for everyone. How can you possibly be emotionally healthy if, by virtue of gender, you are required to deny one half of the emotional spectrum? How can you be a full, rounded, interesting, productive human being if you are constantly policing yourself for signs that you might be behaving like the wrong sex?

It is absurd that we socialize our children so thoroughly that many people are not even aware of this paradigm of opposites, rather than teaching them that sometimes you need to be strong but other times it’s okay to cry. We are finally working to break down the laws that told us pink/purple is a girl’s color, and blue a boy’s, but we are not looking at the paradigm that spawned these rules. Six states have legalized gay marriage, but even in those that haven’t more and more people are learning to respect the blurriness that is inherent in identity, no matter what your gender or whom you choose to have sex with.

But this shift cannot be completed until we acknowledge that men sometimes feel weak, while women sometime feel strong; that women can be dominant without being safely packaged within the “dominatrix” trop, and men can be gentle, supportive friends and lovers. Only when we have embraced this truth, with the war truly be won.

lock and key: the lock

“A key that opens all locks is an awesome key, but a lock that all keys open is a shitty lock.”

the lock

if something is compared to a lock it is implicit that it is protecting something. And if something is protected then it must need to be protected, which is to say it is desirable; it is a commodity. To say that a woman’s vagina is a lock is to say that it is “protecting” her sexuality, which, we are taught, is a commodity that is only supposed to “open to” one man. So in the metaphor, the lock is shitty because it not “protecting” the commodity (her virginity/sexuality) from other men.

this idea does a number of things. For one it completely denies women’s right to their sexuality; it is a commodity that belongs to men or a man. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. There are few things that our culture excels at more than propagating the myth that women are not sexual (except inasmuch as they exist to please men). According to this concept, a woman’s sexuality is locked away except when the one man who is “her key” wants it.

but if he wants another “lock” in the mean time and can get it… high five dude! You tap that ass!

of course the whole concept is unquestionably male in origin: women don’t need “protecting” from other men (rape being the obvious pit-fall but in the interest of time I will leave that for another post). We don’t need to “lock” ourselves up to keep men “out”; being that we are autonomous individuals (in theory at any rate) we are fully capable of choosing whom we want or don’t want. And we can make that decision based on a long list of criteria, in the same way a man can choose who he wants for a mate. (Of course choosing doesn’t always mean you get the one your go after.)

but the point is, a woman only needs “protecting” if she is the exclusive property of one man. This is an ancient concept, which can be traced back to basic evolutionary roots: the only way for a man to ensure the offspring is his is to “own” the woman. In today’s world, however, this is an obsolete, discriminatory practice, which could arguably be called a form a slavery.