*
“…..It seems oddly Protestant to argue, as some feminists do, that somewhere under all that artifice are “real women,” that one can peel away the layers of clothing and makeup and weave and hair and skin and silicone and dig out a “genuine” person, untouched by culture and context. Smart girls know that “real beauty” is just a tag line to sell moisturizer. Walk in high heels for long enough and the bones in your feet really do change shape. Spend enough time living as an efficient office worker, an obedient wife, a high-street fashion knockout and eventually the contours of your personality do change.
The idea of the self as something permanent, immutable, seems rather old-fashioned when anyone with an Internet connection can create a personal brand that works differently across multiple platforms, with different backdrops, favorite quotes and family snapshots, just as you might prepare one face to meet your friends and another to meet your father-in-law.
Online or offline, this Prufrockian trick is one to which women are more accustomed than men, having been raised to the task since the very first time an adult caught us in ribbons, in feathers, in our mother’s lipstick and said, “Smile for the camera.” The 14-year-old schoolgirls who are ordered to dress in uniform knee skirts and bobby socks in the daytime know perfectly well what they are doing when they post pictures of themselves in underwear taken from above, pulling that face that works so well at a 45-degree angle.
We can’t perfectly control our online selves any more than we can control the contours of our flesh. Bodies, like data, are leaky. Out of the mess of bodies and blood and bones and pixels and dreams and books and hopes we create this mess of reality we call a self, we make it and remake it. Each human being is a palimpsest of possible faces, of personas, and none of us were ‘born this way’…
How The Zero Weeks Of Paid Maternity Leave In The U.S. Compares Globally
Now ain’t that some shit
I am so proud of us, Canada.
Dave Cooper + Adventure Time is a match made in heaven.
You’re breaking my mind, Dave. Breaking my mind.
This so applies to the lingerie industry.
sabrina_il (via tumblinfeminist)
YES! I still watch TV shows and read magazines and enjoy things that have problematic aspects, but that doesn’t make me any worse of a feminist. Feminism doesn’t require you to become an ascetic about all media. It just means acknowledging that things are wrong and could be changed.
(via stfuconservatives)
PREACH! PREACH! PREACH!
(via rosa—sparks)
(Source: glvalentine.livejournal.com)
Concentration from a couple of months ago, been trying to take a good picture of it for the last couple of days, broke down and went outside and finally got some decent pictures.
This actually isn’t done, but I don’t have enough time to finish it so I’ll just have to deal.
Lots of fun, inking with a brush, coloring with copics. This took me quite awhile too, I still need to put more color on it, but I’ll do that after AP exams.
That purple was such a delight to color.
Lyrics are from Waste by Foster the People
So I just want to show you guys that if you think I’m a great monster artist, then you need to look at Raven’s work.
Joss Whedon’s Equality Now speech (by TheHey)
I’ve blogged this before and maybe you’ve watched it, but I’ve been spending a lot of time lately (ever since someone described me by saying “she’s really hot, but she’s a feminist”) thinking about how I see myself, how I’m perceived and how I’ve become so interested in how women are treated. It’s something that can completely pass you by if you don’t pay attention to it. If you watch popular movies and music videos and never question the things presented to you. If you think ‘I believe in equality, but I’m not a feminist’ is an acceptable attitude.
I never expected have the label stickered on my forehead, but I guess it is. You couldn’t have said it about me a few years back. Maybe it was comics, or the internet, but part of me still sort of believes it was Buffy.
I grew up with this show and I loved it like nothing before or since. I always thought that Willow was my favourite character, what with the lesbianism and quirky nerdiness, but I relate more and more to Buffy as I get older. She was such an amazing protagonist. Buffy was strong, independent, willful and brash. She was faulted, she had terrible luck with men, she was a bit flaky. She was also a warrior, but she wasn’t just a girl playing a man’s role. She wasn’t Tomb Raider. She didn’t fight in her underwear. I remember so strongly an episode in which she’s wearing this long dress and rips it into a miniskirt - but not to be sexy, just to be able to kick harder and move more freely. I loved that even when I was too young to understand why.
Joss created these women from a place of love, respect and total devotion. Yes, Buffy’s a dorky show about vampires and monsters, but it also gave me the best role model I could have possibly asked for.
After finishing watching the last episode of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender, I felt deep concern for the future of the world. I foresaw a rise both in anti-bender sentiment, and an increase in the strength of the common populace. I wondered how the increasing technology would change the world, and what place would there be for the Avatar.
I went into the series completely unspoiled, and I was truly shocked to see this new series immediately addressing so many of my concern. I am applaud the show for taking the bold step of allowing technological progress.
Yet of even greater interest is the shift of power in the world, or at least in Republic City. I wonder if it truly is a Republic? Politics have suddenly become of great import, which is how they can afford to have Korra be such a powerful bender right off the bat. We have entered an age where finesse wins over brute force. Unfortunately for Korra. For the Gaang, the world was simple, and the goal was simple. Overpower the evil Firelord. It was Aang’s job because he was born the Avatar. His birth determines his place, as with most per-industrial nations. As Korra quickly learns, being born the Avatar today does not carry with it the rights and honours it did 75 years ago. I got the feeling that she was regarded more as European royalty is regarded today; she is a figurehead, a person of historic importance, but not necessarily one with true power or responsibilities. This is the transition from a cosmocentric conception of the world to an anthropocentric model.
In a way, in building Republic City and advancing civilization, Aang was working to make himself obsolete. Which is awesome. I hail him for it. My manager for a summer job I once had told me that any manager who does her job right should make herself redundant within a year. By then, the place should be running so smoothly by itself it she doesn’t have to do anything (it is balanced, in harmony). To apply this to the show, the Avatar should establish a balance and harmony not dependant on the Avatar. He might make readjustments, or even realignments in times of strife, but 95% of the time, if he is doing his job right, he should be able to just sit back and do nothing. This task of balancing fell to the Avatar, because he had the most brute power, and, theoretically, the most wisdom. But really, when you have mastered all four elements in a society with swords as the cutting edge weapon, generally people have to do whatever the heck you say. Now, but creating Republic city, he is changing the balance of power. Investing it in systems. Which means that anyone, placed at the head of the system, could perform the function of the Avatar.
I am very keen to see where the series goes from here.
Michael Rennie(1) was ill The Day The Earth Stood Still,
But he told us where we stand.
And Flash Gordon(2) was there in silver underwear
Claude Raines(3) was The Invisible Man
Then something went wrong for Fay Wray(4) and King Kong
They got caught in a celluloid jam
Then at a deadly pace It Came From Outer Space
And this is how the message ran:
Science Fiction - Double Feature
Dr. X will build a creature
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis(5) stars in Forbidden Planet
Oh-oh at the late night, double feature, picture show.
I knew Leo G. Carroll(6) was over a barrel
When Tarantula took to the hills
And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott(7)
Fight a Triffid(8) that spits poison and kills
Dana Andrews(9) said prunes gave him the runes
And passing them used lots of skills
But When Worlds Collide, said George Pal(10) to his bride
I’m gonna give you some terrible thrills, like a:
Science Fiction - Double Feature
Dr. X will build a creature
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Oh-oh at the late night, double feature, picture show.
I wanna go, oh-oh, to the late night double feature picture show.
By RKO(11), oh-oh, at the late night double feature picture show.
In the back row at the late night double feature picture show.
(1) A prolific actor who played Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still. He acted in several other science fiction films, and guest starred in two episodes of Lost in Space as “The Keeper.”
-The Time Tunnel (1966)
-Cyborg 2087 (1966)
-The Lost World (1960)
(2) There have been a half dozen different incarnations of the Flash Gordon franchise. This is one of the earliest.
(3) Better known for mainstream classics like Casablanca, Claude Raines was also in The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man (I know, it’s not science fiction), and The Lost World with Michael Rennie.
(4) The incomparable Fay Wray helped establish our very concept of the Hollywood starlet. She aside from her famous role in King Kong, she also played the Mad Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter in Doctor X.
(5) Annie Francis had an incredible, active career, mostly outside of science fiction. Aside from her famous role in Forbidden Planet, she appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone.
(6) A pretty mainstream actor with roles in mainstream classics, who decided to grace Tarantula with his presence.
(7) Janette Scott was a child star who wrote her autobiography at the age of 14. As an adult, she was a leading lady in a number of films, including Invasion of the Triffids, and Crack in the World, alongside Dana Andrews.
(8) This is a reference to Invasion of the Triffids, based on the book The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.
(9) Dana Andrews: A major actor in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. He mostly did very mainstream stuff. A lot of war films, westerns, and thrillers. One could argue his films were the opposite of the sci-fi films of the time. In the 60s he seemed to be a bit less picky in his projects, and did three science fictionish films, and acted in an episode of The Twilight Zone. That said, these seem more like Michael Crichton kind of thing that is technically sci-fi but rather contemporary, mainstream, and not recognized as sci-fi.
-”No Time Like the Past,” The Twilight Zone.
-The Satan Bug (1965)
-Crack in the World (1965)
-The Frozen Dead (1966)
(10) George Pal: An academy award winning director, who made a whole craptonne of short claymations, and animations. Oh, and the eternal sci-fi classic The Time Machine, too.
(11) RKO distributed almost 2150 films between 1928 and 1958, and then one in another two in 1990 and 2002. They also were a production company involved in around 1250 films between 1929 and 1958, including King Kong.
Master List
Directly Mentioned:
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Flash Gordon [i] (1936)
The Invisible Man (1933)
King Kong (1933)
It Came From Outer Space (1953)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Tarantula (1955)
Day of the Triffids [aka Invasion of the Triffids] (1962)
When Worlds Collide (1961)
Doctor X (1932)
*The Time Machine (1960)
*The Time Tunnel (1966)
*Cyborg 2087 (1966)
*The Lost World (1960)
*”No Time Like the Past,” The Twilight Zone (1963).
*The Satan Bug (1965)
*Crack in the World (1965)
*The Frozen Dead (1966)
*Flash Gordon [ii] (1936)
*Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938)
*Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940)
*Flash Gordon [TV Series] (1954)
*Not directly mentioned. A person mentioned stared in it, or directed it. Or is yet another installment of Flash Gordon franchise.
After a friend mentioned he wanted to watch every film mentioned this song, I started compiling a list to send him. Things quickly got entirely out of hand. This is internet research folks, done almost entirely on IMDB and Wikipedia. Take it all with a grain of salt. If a remake or installment of a franchise was produced after 1975 (the year of the Rocky Horror Picture Show), I have omitted it.
