Travels With Floyd

We can too handle the truth!

So there!

Let me start at the beginning - or, at least, this morning when I started watching the three-hour black and white epic that is D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.

I missed the day in third-year film class where we watched this one, but did the readings on it which basically state that everyone, including the director himself, were of the opinion that this film is waaaay too offensive to be considered for public viewing, and really should only ever be shown to film students and academics (not because they are smarter or anything, but because they will likely be interested enough in the technical aspects of the film to tolerate the mind-blowing repulsiveness of white actors in blackface portraying "renegade negroes" (not my term!  From the film!)).

So anyway, this film made it to my Ziplist almost a year ago, and arrived in the mailbox last month, and I just didn't have the heart, stomach or patience to watch a 80-year-old racist civil war epic (call me crazy!) until  this morning. 

Having already seen Griffith's Intolerance (widely considered the greatest black and white film ever made) (yes, I lead an exciting life) I was semi-prepared for this film.  Intolerance lacks the blatant racial discrimination, but does get in a couple of good jabs at the suffragettes (notably the title card that reads "When women cease to attract men, they often turn to sufferage as a second choice" which is, I guess, the 1916 version of "Feminists are just ugly jealous hags!  They wouldn't want rights and equality and shit if random men shouted obscene "compliments" about their bodies at them!").

So, just how bad is Birth of a Nation?  [Spoiler alert - like anybody is going to watch this movie anyway]. Well, let me put it this way - I'm currently at the scene where the good-hearted Southern girl is being chased by said "white actor in blackface portraying a renegade negro" who wants to marry her.  But don't worry!  She'll soon jump to her death rather than risk bring dishonour to herself and her family by being contaminated by a filthy coloured man!  I only wish I was kidding - I also only wish that I didn't know that the KKK will soon make an appearance as the noble protectors of the "civilized white culture of the South". 

Watching this film reminds me of watching Leni Riefenstahl's Triump of the Will (yes, same film class).  Strip them both of their political, social and historical context, and they are technically masterful - flawless, innovative examples of filmmaking.  But you can't really do that - strip them of all context, that is.  Riefenstahl's gorgeous cloud montage set against Wagner's The Ride of the Valkyries is breathtaking - but not enough to make you forget that that is fuckin' HITLER'S plane.

So it's an odd feeling watching these films, because academically, it's like "ooh, check out that cut - wow, the lighting is incredible - omg, that wide angle shot!" but intellectually and emotionally it's like, "WTF, the blacks are evil because they want to be equal?" or "Those thousands of people are cheering for fuckin' HITLER!"

And that, my friends, is why these films, and other works like them, cannot be censored.  Do they glorify tyranny, racism, xenophobia?  Yes.  (Am I currently watching a crowd of men in white robes dispense "justice" to that same white actor in blackface?  Yes.  Is it disturbing beyond words?  Yes.) 

These types of works are important not for the messages they seek to transmit, but for the message their mere existence denotes: that there were times and places where the notion of human rights was unheard of, where ignorance and hatred formed the root cause of most opinions, where blatant discrimination was not only tolerated, but openly celebrated. 

And that is why censorship is more dangerous than lack thereof - because it is too easy to forget these lessons.  When you take books off of library shelves, films out of public display, ideas of of public discourse, you hide a very real, very troubling part of humanity's history.  Are there people out there who would watch one fo these films and suddenly be filled with a desire to make their own white robes, or don the backwards swastika?  Maybe.  But there are far more who will learn the very valuable lesson: "Never again."

Let's all give ourselves a little credit - it might not be pretty, it might be unpleasant, and it might be downright disgusting at times -  but we can too handle the truth.   

It's too darn hot

Oh, wow - what a week.  Tuesday was the SINGLE HOTTEST DAY OF MY LIFE.  It went past 50 celsius (that's 122 farenheit) during the day.  Also, the air conditioner broke at my work, meaning it was the first day that I didn't freeze my ass off in the office because I'm in a building with two hockey rinks that is kept below room temperature at all time.  So that was good.  But then the ice rinks almost completely melted, so that was bad.  I guess.

And then the other night we had severe thunderstorms - and a tornado warning.  As this flashed across the bottom of the screen during Rockstar Supernova, I was all "whuh?  Wuh wuh?"  Because it never occurred to me that I lived in the part of the world where such things happenend.  So I looked at DD all, "So?  Do we bring in the container garden?  Tie down the patio furniture?  Sleep in the basement?  Tape the rest of the show?"

Fortunately, however, the warning was lifted, and I could enjoy my cheesy reality TV in peace, as nature intended.

Random old guys, second only to God in terms of moral judgement

A friend of mine recently went back to work after a year off battling breast cancer, just in time for to hear all about this wonderful example of humanity spout off about how women aren't capable about making their own decisions regarding their bodies.  At a "welcome back" lunch, we got into a discussion about abortion regulation, and the random old guys who wander around with signs just across the street, and who the hell they think they are to tell women about the morality of her decision. 

See, said friend is pretty young for a breast cancer survivor - 27 - and one of the main issues she's dealing with now is sex and reproduction, post-cancer.   To help prevent a reoccurence, she a) cannot take any hormonal forms of birth control, and b) is on a series of drugs that ARE NOT compatible with healthy fetal development.  She asked her doctor point blank what that would mean if she got pregnant - to which her doctor replied that it was her decision, but he would advise her to have an abortion.

Now sure - random old guys on the street, because they is are "Christian" men and therefore possessing far superior moral judgement to a young woman (or a medical doctor) as far as the issue of pregnancy is concerned - would simply tell her that she shouldn't be having sex anyway, because there's nothing in this world more EVIL than non-married adults engaging in consensual sexual behavior.

BUT!  Here's the sticky point - she IS getting married.  And, seeing as this story is taking place in Canada, I should clarify that she is getting married to a man. 

So it's a very real possibility that some day in the next five years, she might have to walk past random old guys to get to the clinic, and they will wish they lived in a society where, sinless as they are, they could cast all sorts of stones at her (magic stones that hurt the murdering whore without touching the precious angel growing inside her).

Now, some may say that, to be fair, I should accept the possibility that the random old guys would probably understand if she explained her situation to them.  They would probably accept her decision, and feel compassion that she was faced with so many challenges and such a young age.

But to anyone who says that, I say: SO FREAKIN' WHAT?    Oh, would they understand?  Would they be compassionate?  Would they tell her she's not making Jesus cry - this time?  Wow, what a couple of saints!  What truly phenomenal human beings they are - a woman made a personal decision affecting her body and her body alone - and after a detailed explanation, they considered it justified!  STOP THE PRESSES - here are the wisest, most noble of men!  Yes, there!  Hiding behind the "I'm a child, not a choice" signs!

ARRRRRGGGHHH.

Here's the thing about being pro-choice - it means that no woman, ever, anywhere, under any circumstances, needs to justify her decision to ANYONE BUT HERSELF.   Not to her friends, not to her family, and certainly not to complete strangers who spend their whole day protesting abortions while thousands of children in this city alone go hungry. 

It is her body, it is her business, and I am so goddamn TIRED of people who think that they should have the right to decide what are "good" and "bad" reasons for abortions.  There is only one good reason for an abortion - that she wants one.  There is only one bad reason for abortion - that someone else is forcing her to get one. 

That is why it's "pro-choice", NOT "pro-abortion", and if people are so thick-skulled they can't understand that, then they have no place making moral decisions for THEMSELVES, let alone anyone else. 

Saved from summer reruns

...by Rockstar: Supernova.  My love affair with reality TV pretty much ended this year, but that doesn't mean I can't have one last fling with this totally terrific show.  Okay, Dave Navarro is pretty irritating (maybe it's the impending divorce) (but still, telling a female contestant to "eat a sandwich" is pretty rude) (especially when you're lounging around bare-chested, and said chest is more Twiggy than barrel), and Tommy Lee needs to stop his "I am a big ol' horndog who must talk to women in blatantly sexual innuendo only", but the show itself is pretty awesome.  The singers are very talented, and there's a lot of rocking out, and not too much filler, and I'm actually pretty excited to see who will win (My hope?  Dilana.  My guess?  Toby.)

Anyway - if you're not doing anything Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday nights, check it out. 

Watch out, Melania!

Your husband was auditioning replacements last night...

That's right, it was the 2006 Miss Universe pageant, yeeeeeeaaaah!!!

I tuned into City TV (one of the half-dozen channels I still get, what with the cable being cut and all) hoping for a decent Sunday night movie - and instead happened across this strange throwback extravaganza.  Doubly strange was the fact that watching the first hour didn't make me nearly as angry as one would think (that one would be DD, who was visibly cringing as soon as the credits rolled - waiting for the inevitable "GGGGRRRRR PATRIARCHY" comment that was quickly at my lips, but which never fully-formed because - pretty!  Costumes!) 

Continuing that thought outside the brackets - oh, the costumes...they were very pretty.  My personal favorite was Miss Trinidad & Tobago, which made her look like she was surrounded by these giant, gorgeous, black and red  floating butterflies.  I also liked Miss Japan because she was dressed up like a samurai, albeit a sexy one, because we are talking about the grrrr patriarchy here.  But she had a sword!  C'mon!  And Miss...Peru, I think, had a big spear.  I am all for arming these women, and I'm not just talking about when Trump's around.

I sat through the swimsuit competition, mostly to hear some former Miss USA try to convince Carson Kressley that his enjoyment of said competition meant he was a closted heterosexual - to which he did not retort (much to my chagrin) that she seemed to be enjoying it just as much.  Honestly, people, it's a freakin' swimsuit show, not an infallible sexuality barometre (YEAH, that's right, I said it, DONALD TRUMP).

Anyway, like I said, I only watched the first hour, but I did tune in long enough to catch the mini-bios of the top ten contestants, in which I learned that Miss Canada was 6'1, Miss Japan spoke 4 langauges, and Miss Bolivia's interests included "Making people happy." I wonder if she also lives in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane? And then other women listed things like "Learning about new people" and "helping other people" and I finally snapped and snarked "Why don't they just list "Giving blowjobs" or "taking it up the a**"?" Grr...you know the rest...

But really, I stopped watching more out of boredom than anything else, because at the end of the day, 95% of these women were pretty much indistinguishable from each other, and were all basically trying to compete to fit the mold of "most attractive woman in the world according to standards set by insecure Viagra-addicts who build giant phallic buildings named after themselves, which, incidentally, rhymes with "frump"", and it was just generally kind of boring and a little depressing, but the women themselves seemed mostly pretty cool, and will probably accomplish a lot with their lives, and generally raise the status of women everywhere, as long as they are stunningly beautiful.

Some more good news!

That was fast! 

Who really makes that baby?

I'm a frequent lurker on the Fark forums, which provide some of the funniest, most hilarious, most irreverent-and-not-for-the-easily-offended comments on all the Internet tubes.

However, it also provides an outlet for some of the most mind-numbingly asinine asshats to spout their stupidity, an example of which I came across recently in response to an article about anti-abortion groups buying out abortion clinics' leases to shut them down.  A self-proclaimed atheist pro-lifer was arguing against abortion based on his own misguided version of property rights:

Pro choice = pro destruction of shared property. Its half the fathers DNA too, making it not "part of her body". It is "part of her body" in the sense that when you deposit money into the bank it is "part of the bank".

Sure, the bank is housing your money like the woman is housing your uterus. Sure the bank adds its own money onto yours as the woman adds her own DNA to the child. The fact that it happens to be temporarily residing in one place should not give the right to unilateral destruction.

Now there's a thoughtful, egalitarian and realistic view of reproduction:  Women are like ATMs!  You put in $100!  A month later, you take out $100.05!  And that's how babies are made! It's a fun update on the "Magic Sperm" view of gestation.  If you've never heard of that one before, it's kind of like the belief that each sperm is a mini-baby, kind of like a pack of "magic grow" sponges.  Stick one in a woman/put them in a bowl of water, and poof! Dinosaurs!  Er, or babies, depending on the package.

This view - that women are passive baby containers - is at the heart of many anti-abortion arguments.  And, like many other views at the heart of anti-abortion arguments, it is entirely false.  Men and women do not contribute equally to the creation of a child.  Men contribute 1 (one) (uno) (ein) sperm.  That is it - one sex cell.  That is it.  That is all.  The human body has anywhere from 10-100 TRILLION cells.  At birth, you have anywhere between 5-10% of that (based on size), and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE CAME FROM YOUR MOM.  They came from the food she ate, what she drank, the contents of her blood, the air she breathed, the substances that permeated her skin.

Forget about that "magic sperm" of yours, buddy - you didn't make a deposit in a bank.  Making a baby is like building a house, and the man drops off half of the design plans, while the woman supplies the other half, as well as the concrete, the bricks, the mortar, the steel girders, the 2x4s, the nuts and bolts, the drywall, the shingles, the paint, the curtains, the major appliances, a couple of nice throw rugs, etc.  Congratulations - you have viable gametes.  But you didn't "make" a baby - she did.  You just supplied part of the blueprint. 

And to the ladies - be wary of misogynists who hide behind atheism - anti-abortion arguments are anti-women, and religion (or lack thereof) is just a convenient smokescreen for people who really just want those sluts to get what they deserve.

For the last time, you are not going to get blown up by a terrorist

Amanda at Pandagon weighs in on the irrational fear of death by terrorist - almost as terrifying as death by shark.

Sure, you can have a cigarette, right after you pee on this stick

The uterus-coveting, woman-hating, fetus-worshippers down south must really be doing a happy dance, if such a thing weren't so terribly sinful.  States like Arkansas and Utah are moving closer and closer to their ideal world of poor women having the same legal status as brood mares from menstruation to menopause.  This article (and bless them for using quotation marks properly) deals with the issue of states passing "fetal rights" laws, including one that would make it illegal for pregnant women to smoke.

Now, before anyone accuses me of encouraging pregnant women to smoke, that is obviously not the case.   (Furthermore, that's not even relevant - am I a freakin' doctor? Who cares about my recommendations for pregnancy?)  The issue here is that, if these raving fundies have their way, all of us will have countless inalienable rights as little cell clusters in the womb, and none when we're actual living, breathing human beings.

A pregnant woman has just as much right to smoke as anyone else.  She has just as much a right to not smoke, or be exposed to smoke, as anyone else.  She is still a person, she is still a FREAKIN' HUMAN BEING, and she is fully entitled to make the decision whether or not to smoke, or drink, or eat sushi, or play sports, or ride a bicycle, or have crazy hot sex.  She also has the right to be presented with accurate, unbiased, scientifically-proven information regarding fetal development, so that she can have the tools to make the best decisions possible.

The logical progression of this type of thinking - that is, the "protect the fetus from all potential harms, real or imaginary" - is truly terrifying.  I mean, so this law prevents pregnant women from smoking, and we get others that force them to adhere to a specific diet, specific activities, specific thoughts, etc.  But what about other people?  We could pass anti-smoking laws everywhere a pregnant woman might go, which would cover - well, everywhere.  Probably just easier to ban pregnant women from these places.  Easiest, in fact, to round them all up in one place where all these various laws regulating their activities can be enforced.  Sure, lady, you're giving up all personal autonomy and living like a prisoner for commiting the heinous crime of fertility, but it's for THE GOOD OF THE FETUS.  You must live your life for THE GOOD OF THE FETUS otherwise you are a terrible person.  Of course, you're probably a terrible person anyway, because God made you woman.

This quotation almost hits the nail on the head, but then misses the point at the last second:

Even Mathis, the Arkansas legislator, harbors doubts about the state's ability to enforce an anti-smoking law. "The more I think about it... you might end up with a fat lip" if police approach a smoker who is overweight but not pregnant, he said.

Which, dude - yes, you are likely to get a fat lip, but I'd say more so from the pregnant woman who's been dealing with nausea, diarrhea, headaches, swollen ankles, food cravings, strangers fondling her belly, being defined by her condition, judgmental glares and holier-than-thou stares, people glancing down at her hands looking for a ring, and such, who decides that she just needs ONE GODDAMN CIGARETTE to try and get through the last month of this shit, and next thing she knows some rando's all up in her face about how that makes her a criminal. 

Fat lip?  Hell, if it was my mom, that person would have been off solid food for weeks. 

For the last time - YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE EATEN BY A SHARK

Those of you who know me are likely aware that, despite having grown up on an temperate island with plenty of lakes and rivers, I am a piss-poor swimmer.  But don't blame me!  Blame my irrational fear, generated in early childhood by seeing the poster for the movie Jaws, of being attacked by a shark.  Try as they might, my Bubbling Beetle swim instructors cold not get me to float on my back, and I never told them why, because even back then I knew it was a stupid reason.  But still, deep down inside, I felt that if I turned my back to the water...that was when the shark would get me.  And before anyone asks the obvious question - yes, I was in a pool.  So what?  Sharks are SMART.  They'll find a way. 

Of course I'm hardly the only person in this world to have this irrational fear - and it's certainly not the only irrational fear that people have.  So I was smugly superior when I read this article about the six most feared but least likely causes of death.  After all, one out of six isn't bad, right?  Because I've never been scared of flying...or falling...or earthquakes...or axe murderes in my closet...or terrorists...gaaaahhh...okay, now I've got to finish my post from under my desk...

But, really, people get pretty freaked out over harmless things.  Like with mad cow disease and avian flu and people getting all freaked out about how burgers and KFC will kill them.  Which, it will, but just not in the way they think. 

But that's the difference, isn't it?  If it's our lifestyle that gets us in the end - we wind up killing ourselves.  (Aside - the best retort I ever heard to the snottily-asked question "Why do you smoke?" was "I'm suicidal, but also a procrastinator.")  If anything, we should be scared of us.  Every time I go to the pool I should be afraid, but not of sharks - of my own reflection in the water.  "Omigod!  There's the person who's eventually going to get me!  AAAAIIIIEEE!!!!"   

Anyway - I guess all I'm saying is that it's pretty funny how people, on the whole, tend to fixate on way-out-there bizzarro things that are incredibly unlikely, and ignore the things which are actually dangerous.

Not that it matters - we're all going to be killed by a giant asteroid, anyway.