I think we’ve got a problem with otherizing urban poverty. Ruth pointed this out and it made me think of the following clip, the first few minutes of which discusses education reform, and make reference to the urban terror of inner city schools. It’s an uncomfortable conversation. But they both speak of urban poverty in ways that I think are “othering”. It’s also worth listening to the criticism of higher ed toward the end. I’ve also posted this on tomorrow’s class notes page and I want to talk a bit about “where the crime comes from.” I’m not going to link it here, but I suggest Googling around a bit about the supposed connection between the reduction in crime after the mid-80s (the setting for Watchmen) and abortion. Steven Levitt put this theory forth in Freakonomics and it’s been rebutted by right-to-life groups. Access to abortion and to birth control certainly provides a level of freedom for women, especially poor women who, Levitt argues, can’t provide an environment for their children that prevents them from eventually leading a life of crime. To me, there are other subtle jabs in the book at women and promiscuity. Rorschach’s landlady, for example, or just the way the various female characters are portrayed.
The discussion in class today about the age-specific-ness of Watchmen brought up a lot of questions for me. While I will agree with Alex M., that most superhero comics are simpler than Watchmen, comics in general seem aimed at young males.
So, what classifies a comic (or other work) as something not acceptable for the younger generation? Is it the profanity, the sex, darker concepts? At what age do we stop forcing our children to watch wholesome Disney movies and allow them to watch/read the “darker stuff”? And if Watchmen is aimed at adults, then why is it in graphic novel form? For many adults, comics have a negative stereotype as being for the children, and very few would even attempt to pick up this work from a bookstore’s shelves.
What about gender-specification? Women’s comics are romance-fests and men’s comics are virtual massacres…Yes, there’s a stereotype there, but upon perusing the local comic store, I noticed it everywhere I looked. So, yes, I feel Watchmen is a comic aimed at men. I don’t believe that women can’t enjoy it, but no attempt was made towards any strong, likeable females, I feel. But, is that what it takes for women to read comics?
*is confused*
Watchmen Gender bender by ~Biigurutwin on deviantART
I thought this was an interesting conception of some of the Watchmen characters as the opposite gender.
I am so excited to hear that there will be a new women’s soccer league in the U.S.! The Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) league is expected to be more realistically prepared for the amount of fans they will have and the sort of salaries the players will earn than the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) which only existed from 2000 to 2003. When WUSA had folded in 2003, I was disappointed. I couldn’t understand why no one would want to watch a sport just because the players were women. This happens for almost every female professional league, such as the WNBA and the LPGA. Then of course there are the sports that simply don’t have enough “following” for a professional women’s league to even be created.
http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2009/0903/womens_pro_soccer_0327.jpg Stuart Ramson / AP
Whatever, it is the cheapest sport to attend and with other sports failing to lower their prices reasonably considering the recession this will actually be a great way to spend time outdoors with friends and/or family. I think that this league will struggle as much as the next new sport, but I believe that it has potential for success. I’ll end this with Olympic champion Kristine Lilly’s promotion of the WPS, “It’s not going to make or break you, and it’s probably cheaper than going to have coffee with someone. Be a critic after you’ve come see a game, don’t make a judgment beforehand. If you attend a game, you’ll see people working their asses off.”
Just wanted to announce that trans feminist activist and author Julia Serano is going to be speaking at Bryn Mawr today!! Serano is the author of “Whipping Girl,” one of the most important and books on queer politics of the last 25 years (and one of my all-time favorite books). She’s one of the strongest voices in radical trans/queer activism today. Her work is funny, intelligent, challenging, and FIERCE in the truest sense of that word!!
The workshop concerns the intersection of feminist, queer, and trans politics, and it’s part of the BMC Trans-Awareness Week events. Definitely relevant to our discussions in this class, particularly from a few weeks ago.
3:30 PM, Thomas 224. (slight overlap with class time…)
An article in the NYTimes last week, about the phenomenal growth of Facebook,
had @ least two bits that I thught relevant to our discussions:
- “homophily” — the tendency of individuals to associate only with like-minded people of similar age and ethnicity.
- “This is a technology that has inherently generated community, and it has gotten to the point where members of that community feel not only vested but empowered to challenge the company.”
“homophily” — the tendency of individuals to associate only with like-minded people of similar age and ethnicity.
Just heard about this on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. It’s a website for buying prayers, not to be prayed by real people, but to be read aloud by a text-to-speech program. InformationAgePrayer.com
Soul Scrolls, anyone?
If you want to listen to the NPR conversation about the site, it’s approximately 33 minutes into March 28th’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me podcast.
So this is pretty different from what other people have been blogging about, but when I heard about this movie, it reminded me of this class.
200 Pounds Beauty is a Korean comedy about an young overweight woman who undergoes full body plastic surgery and ends up a successful pop star. I thought it was sort of interesting, you guys should check it out if you get the chance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NSZO5cpl4 _ Youtube video with english subtitles
A lot of the posts here about the film adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, definitely criticize the film. I think generally we all disliked it (myself included…I mean that ending? Seriously?), but at the same time, do you think it did something…anything right?
Personally, one thing I liked about the film was one of the beginning scenes when thy women were being sorted. In Farhat’s Post in response to Aline, I mentioned I didn’t like how linear the film was (here I go criticizing the film while trying NOT to criticize it…) because in the novel, since we’re seeing the world from Offred’s memories, time is more fluid and it feels more “real”—regardless of how real it actually is. Yet the scene where the women were being sorted was so confusing and loud, and panicky, that it was one of those scenes where time didn’t exist. Throughout the movie it felt like time was scrawling forward very slowly but in this scene it may have very well been shattered because it was so chilling to see, especially when they shoved a whole group of women (I think 116 of them?) into the truck marked “Livestock.” In the heat of a moment like that, where everyone is kicking and screaming, what really does matter? Everything is disoriented, and I really liked that effect. I suppose I also liked the scene because it was the last time we actually physically saw the women as real women, instead of machine-like handmaids and robotic wives. The film didn’t delve much in the past, before Gilead was created, so I appreciated the last look at “normal.”
But what about you all? Do you think the film hit the mark somewhere?
Watchmen – What’s up with that ink blot guy?
I wanted to write about Watchmen. I wanted to write about someone who was a really interesting, really good example of the intersection of gender and technology. And Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl, or either of the Silk Spectres would have been great for this. But Rorschach’s my favorite, and even if he’s less perfect for the topic, I think I can produce something more interesting if I’m talking about him.
When compared to his comrades, Rorschach falls in interesting places with relation to both gender and technology. His view of technology is largely utilitarian; the few things he carries around with him serve a very functional purpose, and he’s happy to improvise whatever he doesn’t have on him. I’m thinking of the way he uses his grappling gun, hair spray, pepper, hot oil, a toilet, and a blowtorch as weapons. He recognizes the usefulness of many of Nite Owl’s inventions, but seems largely uninterested with the march of technology as a whole. He doesn’t even seem particularly put off by Doctor Manhattan or his research. Immediate practicality for the sake of defending his binary world of good-and-evil morality is what matters to him, and anything that complicates that he despises or ignores. Even his mask, more symbolic than practical, is for him a way of reassuring that the world does operate in the terms he imagines: black and white shapes, perpetually shifting, never mixing.
Rorschach’s extremely conservative values also show through in his interactions and dealings with gender. He is shown to be homophobic, and though I at first thought that he might be repressing his own sexuality – especially in light of his disgust with women’s undergarments or revealing clothing – I’m now wondering if it might just be that he is so certain in his moral values that such things disgust him genuinely. In any case, doesn’t seem like a traditional chauvinistic conservative who views women as fragile or inferior to men. He doesn’t seem to have any problem with Laurie or Sally going out and beating up criminals, and neither does he show any sign of thinking women need more protecting then men.
Figuring out exactly where Rorschach stands on any issue – or why – is pretty difficult, and usually kind of bad for your mental health. What is it that he really wants? Does he have a vision of a utopia, or does his perfect world necessarily contain an evil element for good to do battle with? The futuristic perspective on utopia that Adrian Veidt offers seems uninteresting to him, and certainly not worth the millions of lives it cost. It seems as though what interests him is the violation of morality and punishing that violation; gender is not a concern unless it relates to crime, and technology is not a concern unless it is useful for punishment. His disinterest in, more than his relation to, both gender and technology makes him quite peculiar among the cast of Watchmen.
Looks like a clock?
The ending of Watchmen seemed strikingly similar to the ending of The Handmaid’s Tale when I started thinking about the books in terms of utopia. That last image in Watchmen of the editor’s assistant’s shirt definitely got my attention. Ozymandius says, after he realizes his ‘victory’, that now he can move on to creating utopia–but judging from the reappearance of creepy smiley face, absolutely nothing has changed over the course of the apocalyptic events. The hatred and willfull stupidity of people like the editor of the Fronteirsman and his lackey will survive the apocalypse like cockroaches, according to Watchmen. And because there will always be hate-mongerers, utopia is impossible. The process of striving for utopia will repeat endlessly, one failed utopia on top of another (or inside of each other, like in “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Borges!)
The Handmaid’s tale begins, rather than ends, with an anti-utopia founded on mass murder. The transcript of the conference at the end suggests that Offred’s anti-utopia is finished, but we know next to nothing about the society of the people analyzing her story in this future. Do they really understand what went into the creation of Gilead and how oppressive it was? Do they know enough to keep it from happening again? In Watchmen, the clock at the end of each chapter is striking 12, but time doesn’t stop: as Dr. Manhattan said, “Nothing ever ends.” I got the feeling, maybe because of the flippant attitude of the presenter, that the people at conference weren’t in a position to stop another misguided attempt at utopia.
How do these infinite, circular failed attempts at utopia relate to gender and technology? Well, I’m not sure. But I think the link lies in how technologies of representation work (as we talked about on Monday). Representation is never perfect (Borges again). In these 2 books, it’s shown to be really deeply flawed, so much so that people can’t learn from representions of history enough to prevent history from repeating itself. The imperfection of historical accounts, coupled with hatred/indifference/misunderstandings, is a recipe for disaster. BY representing this problem, Watchmen and the Handmaid’s Tale try to fix it.
Reading Farhat’s post “The Handmaid’s Tale – a Poster Gone Wrong” I went back to the images that we were shown in class when we first discussed the book. The images are right below. The first is the book cover, the second is (if I remember right) a cover that was used by a PhD student in her dissertation, and the third is, of course, the cover of the movie.
I agree with Farhat about the poster for the movie (the bottom image) – it does not do justice to Atwood’s message in the book at all. In the book, we read about the oppression in the society. The clothing the handmaids are forced to wear, which is described in detail, gives us an even clearer picture of the oppression that they feel. In the movie cover, however, the handmaids are sexualized and the clothing is barely there. Skin is exposed in a way that was never suggested in the book. The book has its own cover (the top image) that shows two handmaids walking in what looks almost like a dungeon. We see the two handmaids from far away, so it’s hard to understand their clothing very well. To me it seems like the wings are not exactly where they are supposed to be – they are supposed to limit their peripheral view, but it looks like they are above the handmaids’ heads in the picture. I think I like the image used in the PhD dissertation (the middle image) the most. Not only do the wings seem to be more in place, I feel like it explains so much about the atmosphere and oppression as well. The handmaid is sitting by herself, in a room that seems to have close to nothing. I can feel her loneliness from the image. I can feel the oppression. She is sitting there doing nothing, probably with thoughts running through her head, and that is what the book had mostly – a narration of her thoughts. I wish the movie used a cover similar to that, one that is more oppressed than sexual.
Farhat’s description of the issues that the movie poster for The Handmaid’s Tale raises got me thinking about the many different issues I’ve had with movie posters, and movie advertising in general, lately. The sexualized image of Natasha Richardson’s Offred clutching a red bed sheet to her naked body as a way to advertise a film which is supposedly about the evils of a “society gone wrong,” in its oppression of women and obsession with the control of sexuality is a seriously convoluted message.
We’ve already discussed film and television as popular technologies of representation, but I think it’s also interesting to consider them as technologies of misrepresentation. How many times have I seen a trailer for a movie which potrarys the themes of the film as completely different from their actuality in an effort to garner more “mainstream” attention? The worst example I can think of right now is the trailer and advertising for the Mike Leigh vehicle “Happy-Go-Lucky,” for which Sally Hawkins (rightfully, she was awesome) won a Golden Globe. I saw the film without really being exposed to any advertising except for the write-up on the website of the Bryn Mawr Film Institute and loved it. It’s a film which manages to be simultaneously uplifting and realistic, happy but not saccharine. It’s also a character study of an adult woman which does not revolve primarily around her looking for love, although she does meet someone in the film. That is something which is not considered marketable at all in Hollywood, which explains the film’s limited release and critical,but not financial, success.
Recently, I was watching an installment of the hilarious and amazing “Target: Women” with Sarah Haskins, which skewers adverstising aimed at women, and was disappointed to see Happy-Go-Lucky included in a segment on the idiotic marketing campaigns for so-called “Chick Flicks.” While I agreed with Haskins take on the genre, I was seriously annoyed by the film’s inclusion and surprised to see how incredibly off-base the American trailer for the film was. It portrayed Poppy’s story like any other asinine film all about how your life is worthless until you find someone to be with forever and ever etc. blah. It was misrepresented so well that it even managed to get on the nerves of feminists and women who think chick flicks are annoying!
It’s amazing that even when people attempt to subvert the dominant filmic themes the technology of advertising and marketing can subsume the original purpose. Does anyone have any other examples? I’m sure there are some.
I just wanted to start by stating an opinion I’ve had since Monday when we discussed the genre of A Handmaid’s Tale. I believe it was Maddie who said she thought the novel really didn’t place an emphasis on giving the reader a “warning” of sorts. She did mention the fact that environmental rights were talked about but nothing more to a greater degree (I’m sorry if I’m misquoting here but I believe this was the idea). I disagree with this. I found A Handmaid’s Tale inundated with messages of caution for women from Offred thinking about “the way it was” to the in-depth conversations that take place with Offred’s mother. I saw Atwood telling us to not take our freedom for granted. The smallest liberty such as nail polish is dwelled upon with Atwood letting us know that this type of environment is not completely fabricated. I could be alone in feeling this theme but I believe this lynchpin is an essential topic in the book.
As for what I really want to talk about, I think this is pretty cool. One of my best friends is an avid WOW player, or for those of you not familiar, World Of Warcraft. It’s a computer game in which you design a character from the available wizards, warlocks, shamans and other mythical creatures available and your goal is to fulfill a number of quests to gain levelship. I spoke to him the other day when I saw him playing a female character. I asked him why he chose to do so. He went on to discuss how he was so excited that the geniuses at WOW decided to create a “gender-change” program where you’re character can remain exactly the same but is either changed to male or female depending on preference. I thought this was so fascinating and relevant to the blog that I asked him to express his views on why he had his character changed to female. He stated that he felt the female characters were given more “style” with the outfits chosen showing more skin so men would like to see their characters move around on screen. He said the change had nothing to do with ability, female characters really aren’t stronger in any way, it’s just for eye candy. I’d like to know what other men think whose characters have undergone gender surgery. I think the answer is deeper than my friend provided.
(Which’ll be about the same time I get my novels published, win an Eisner Award, and learn to sing…)
Two huges changes I’d put into place for a remake of the Handmaid’s Tale: modern day setting + animation.
One of the issues with making adaptations of any work is how to get the story to fit in not just a different medium, but also a different context. I think Atwood’s novel is a good book, don’t get me wrong, but it’s been almost a quarter of a century since the book was written and it feels like a little update would go a long way. Just think of what’s happened to us in the past not-quite-25 years: Oklahoma City, Columbine, 9/11, Katrina, Iraq, economic crises, an end to the Cold War, the internet, cell phones, reality television, and the entire realm of politics. There’s a different language used now than in the 80s when we’re talking about really scaring The Average American. What if Gilead had started as a grassroots movement on the internet, mobilizing millions of followers at once against their state’s legislative bodies? What if there had been more major terrorist attacks, or what if we decisively won Iraq and lead a new crusade for the rest of the Holy Land? The focus of the story could still be about the supression of women and sexuality (as well as homosexuals – I liked that idea a lot), but with modern tech I think Gilead’s forces are much, much scarier.
There are a couple reasons I wave flags for an animated Offred. Number one, you can do anything in animation. Was the ’90 movie too bright for you? Think of dark, depressive, and gorgeously detailed backdrops of urban decay, or Stepford Suburbia in washed-out sepia. Dingy and broken environments with the strongest colors being, of course, red, blue, and green. Two, animated movies feel like they age better. The ’90 move will always scream to me late ’80s/early ’90s, but animated movies around that time – Disney and Don Bluth, I’m looking at you – feel less rooted to the time they were made. Three, I really want America to let animation out of the just-for-kiddies box. It’d be an interesting juxtaposition; animation, usually reserved for kids, used to portray a terrible future where a religious regime enforces ‘normalcy’ by destroying anything that offends their morals.
