Celluloid Closet

Saturday, June 6, 2009

I've spent the majority of the day sitting (okay, lounging and lying) on the couch watching TV. It feels terribly luxurious. I did get up for a while to go hunt for a new perfect tea-mug for work (which I didn't find, but I did indulge in some new Luminarc mixing bowls), and a non-carcinogenic foundation (turns out the brand I've been using for performances has totally dangerous chemicals...boo! I didn't find that either....indulged in 2 t-shirts from Old Navy instead).

My unnecessary shopping, however, is not the point.*

The point is that I did watch some non-trashy TV. For Pride Month, PBS showed "The Celluloid Closet," which is a documentary about LGBT characters in film, and the way that Hollywood has shown (and not shown) them. The history was interesting, though I suspect that I would have gotten more out of it if I were a film buff.

One point, about the difference in the way that homosexuality was depicted in early cinema for men and women, was exactly the same as a point that Julia Serano made in her book Whipping Girl.

I read Whipping Girl a few months ago, and at the time, I wanted to write a review/dissection of it. I didn't, though, because it was around the same time as the pro-trans/anti-trans blog kerfuffle, in which feminist blogs on both sides of the "issue" spat venom at each other. I really didn't want to get into it, especially since prior to reading the book, I really didn't know much about trans theory.

Serano's main hypothesis is that femininity has been demonized and scapegoated, and a feature of that is the way that gay and/or gender variant people are looked at: a woman wanting to be a man (or acting like one) is far more accepted than a man who wants to be (or "acts like") a woman, because men are considered superior to women.

This same point was made in "Celluloid Closet" in regards to gay characters. In the early days of Hollywood, up to about the 30's, male homosexuality was only referenced in terms of the "sissy" character who was ridiculed and derided. Lesbianism or masculinity in women was less stereotyped and more acceptable to audiences. The example was Marlene Dietrich dressed in a totally snazzy, perfectly tailored tuxedo, swaggering into a nightclub, tipping her top hat and knocking all the women AND all the men off their feet.

Interestingly, it was the 2nd time this weekend that I've thought about film in reference to Serrano's work.

Boyfriend is away again, which means that I've filled our Netflix** queue with all sorts of things that he won't like. Namely, costume dramas. This time, I'm on a steady diet of the showtime series "The Tudors."

The entire thing seems to be devised for the sole purpose of showing Jonathan Rhys Myers with his clothes off, which is something of a shame because the costumes are gorgeous. They are not always historically accurate (um, no, bare shoulders were not acceptable in the Tudor era), but beautiful nonetheless.

Anyhow, I kept thinking back to Serano's idea that femininity (or masculinity, for that matter) is to a certain extent ingrained, since some people develop affinities for its trappings at a very young age.

I know that I didn't quite agree at the time, but my counter-argument became much clearer as I watched "The Tudors." It just doesn't seem to fit in my head that the way one expresses gender is biological since the tools of expression have changed so drastically from one era to the next.

Whipping Girl is very interesting and thought provoking, even if I don't think that I quite agree with all of the theories in it. It taught me a lot about the history of the Trans movement, and the ways in which current trans issues are deeply tied to traditional sexism.

Incidentally, I think that I propose a change in vocabulary. Rather than "masculine" or "feminine," which claim a rightness or an essentialism to the way that some women and men act, I think we need new words that won't have a negative connotation, and can simply be descriptive.

I propose "froofy" instead of "feminine."

I'm still looking for a good word for "masculine."

Let me know...




*My income has gone up this spring, giving me a certain amount of disposable income the likes of which I've never seen. It's not much in the grand scheme of things, but it makes things like a weekend of reasonably priced, though not absolutely necessary items possible.

*Have I mentioned that I friggin' LOVE Netflix?? It's inexpensive, and lets me watch as many old PBS shows as I can manage!

Huzzah!!!!!

Friday, May 16, 2008

I am so proud to be from California right now. The CA Supreme Court has overturned the ban on lesbian/gay marriage! Whoo hoo!

I was driving around in circles yesterday, trying to find a place to park (which was insanely difficult, and I was really frustrated), already late for work because there was no parking, when Michael Krasny (on NPR) interrupted himself to announce the ruling. I "whoo hooed" in the car.

Here's some history: The first election that I voted in was the spring 2000 CA election (and presidential primary? maybe, can't remember). My friends and I were outraged when Proposition 22 passed, decreeing that marriage was between one man and one woman. We were so insensed, in that really righteous way that only teenagers can be. We simply could not understand how so many people could be so illogical and hateful. Skip to 2004. My college friends and I cheered when Gavin Newsom took it into his own hands to try to undo prop 22. We really cheered when Del and Phyllis, a lesbian couple who are positively famous in San Francisco, and who have been together since 1954 (!!) were the first in line to get married at CityHall.

Well, we cheered yesterday as well. The conservative groups are "vowing to fight this," so the celebration shouldn't get too wild, but hopefully people will realize that marriage rights for a new group of people don't infringe on the rights of the others. Our illustrious governor, about whom I'm usually just embarrassed, said beforehand that he would uphold the court's ruling, and repeated that after the result was announced. Cool.

What's not cool is the weather. How's that for a transition?? It was nearly 100 degrees f yesterday, and it's supposed to be about 90-95 again today. This is northern California, people! We're not equipped for this! No one has air-conditioning at home or anything! I think I was most comfortable while in Safeway, cuz that was the coolest building around. Oh yeah, and the air conditioning at work is broken. The kids are positively roasting.


Speaking of work, it's 7:20 and I must go get ready for said drudgery.
Go California!!!

Things To Be Aware Of

Monday, March 17, 2008

Several people have sent me links to interesting articles lately.

This first one is also a call to action. Celeste blogged about this article from the UK. An Iranian teenager fled to England on a student visa after being discovered with his boyfriend. While he was there, the boyfriend was put to death after being charged with sodomy. The UK won't give this boy asylum. I'm beyond appalled, obviously.

Here's the article. I don't know that there's much of anything we can do, but surely getting the story out there will make people think. I welcome any ideas.

The constant BS about "homeland security" is always cause for eye-rolls, but here's a twist that I bet you haven't thought of: Airports don't generally recognize native travellers' Tribal ID's. Since Native American tribes are sovereign entities, the id's should be just as valid as a state id, right? Apparently the new push for "real id's" doesn't think so. The Great Falls, Montana paper has the story. Ugh.....it seems that the powers that be don't think it's so hard to just get a passport, already. Despite, you know, cost, availability of birth records, cost, and oh, cost!

On a much lighter note, Robin Hobb (Fantasy writer) talks about the dangers of blogging when you're a writer with a deadline. She seems to think that one shouldn't blog, one should write, and that the two are mutually exclusive. Writer, poet, ground-breaking feminist and blogger extrordinaire Maggie Jochild totally disproves this. Her blog posts are real and substantive, too. Not "dear diary, here's what I did today" crap like I write.
It's an amusing read, though, so here ya go.

That's about it for now. Must go rescue laundry from the laundromat and rescue my grandma from the clutches of her incredibly boring step-son.

love to all!

bleary eyed sunday ramblings

Sunday, January 27, 2008

I actually have the day off today. This is pretty remarkable. Well, it's not completely "off," as I do have to teach piano, but I don't have rehearsal or work. Between last week and the end of next week (that's confusing but I don't know how to write it differently) today is my only day off from rehearsals......

So far, the show I'm in is fun, but we haven't started staging yet. That all starts tomorrow, and apparently the staging is going to be manic and hyper with a ton of dancing. We'll see how I feel about it being fun after that. At yesterday's music rehearsal, Justin, one of the guys, had just finished his aria, and while the director played the little postlude, he looked up and said "This is where your solo dance will be." Justin's face went white. Literally, all the color drained in about a second. The response was great: "Don't worry, the last time we did this show, Mercury was a gymnast, but we won't make you go that far." Justin's face got even more white.....

Anyway, I'm encouraging you to read 2 articles this weekend. This one is from Alternet, and talks about assimilation versus separatism in queer communities, and how that relates to the struggles of the suffragettes and post-slavery/civil rights issues. The other is the short story in this week's New Yorker. It's called the Reptile Garden, by Louise Erdrich. I think you can listen to it at www.newyorker.com, or in the print version.

In general, the fiction in the New Yorker hasn't been grabbing me lately. I don't know why, but I've been more into the regular articles. This is quite a shift, since when I started reading the New Yorker (at my grandma's house when I was a kid), I only read the fiction. And the cartoons. So, yeah, it's the first time in a while that I've been really into one of the short stories.

*********

I watched the US Figure Skating championships last night. Youth is definitely the name of the game at the moment, but when 2 out of 3 of the medalists in the women's competition are so young that they can't even compete in Worlds, I think things have gone too far. I really wonder what the point is of competing in Senior when you know that even if you win, it's the end of the road. If you're too young to compete internationally, why not stay in Junior, where you can actually go to Junior Worlds? It just seems dumb. Yes, Senior is where all the attention is, you'll get better known, all that, but for Nationals to be the end of the road would be a total let-down, I would think.

Poor Kimmie Meissner fell 3 times, all of them rather bad wipe-outs. She was the defending champion, and while only 18, has a maturity and a grace that were totally lacking from the ickle 14 year old "prodigies." She's obviously an amazing athlete, but it much more normally proportioned, and doesn't look all bony and stuff. Plus she's smart as hell, and can actually give a good interview, unlike the little ones. She looked so upset, but was trying to be stoic as she watched her horrible marks come up. It was really awful to watch, and the fucking TV cameras were right up in her face. I hope that she gets put on the team for Worlds (they have to create a team, since they can't just send the medalists, like they're supposed to), because she certainly deserves it (she won in '06).