1993-1994
Space-action eye candy that didn't aspire to be more. Second-rate, but with enough charm and potential to make its first-season cancellation a shame. It follows the adventures of a starship crew of Rangers on the fringes of the known galaxy, where resources are stretched thin. Jeff Kaake (VIPER) plays the cranky captain with a heart of gold. Marjorie Monaghan (BABYLON 5) is the tough-as-nails pilot. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (LICENCE TO KILL) is the non-human enforcer/pilgrim who uses a collar to dampen his aggression. Clint Howard (THE JUNGLE BOOK, APOLLO 13) is the clumsy base doctor. Linda Hunt (DUNE, KINDERGARTEN COP) is the base commander who takes the heat for her overeager rangers. The only indelible episode is "To Be...Or Not to Be", starring Buddy Hackett(!) as a down-on-his-luck comedian who crash lands on a prison planet.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
"The BUST Guide to the New Girl Order"
-edited by marcelle karp & debbie stoller
1999
Bust is a girl-power feminist magazine, born in the early 90s and still going strong. It's mostly wonderful! Even though third-wave feminism itself isn't as brainy and empowered as the waves that came before, its best thinkers give cause for hope and pride. Bust happily outs female outlets like Cosmo, Glamour, and the Lifetime Channel, as idiot's paradises (but also gives permission for any woman to occasionally indulge, as a guilty pleasure). The articles in this anthology may leave you laughing or fist-raising. A few might make you sad, as you realize how trapped and unevolved even many of the smartest women still are, when it comes to sex and romance. The subtext in those articles feels like nothing so much as "I'm so damaged i don't know up from down...it's all so horrible i don't even have the first clue as to WHY all this happened, WHAT i actually need from life, and HOW i might begin to find it." The worst example is "Don'ts for Boys" - it starts off feeling smart and honest, but soon descends into a depressing morass from which the obvious stupidity of Vogue would be a welcome release. But the far, far greater portion of the book is devoted to wonderful, smart articles on bodies, beauty, sex, men, childhood, motherhood, and celebrities. Has Bust changed me? Indeed. With corroborated testimony that the best cunnilingus may be coming from another species altogether (woman's best friend?), there may be some upcoming modifications in my technique. Get the book, get the magazine...for your friends, your children, your men, and yourself.
1999
Bust is a girl-power feminist magazine, born in the early 90s and still going strong. It's mostly wonderful! Even though third-wave feminism itself isn't as brainy and empowered as the waves that came before, its best thinkers give cause for hope and pride. Bust happily outs female outlets like Cosmo, Glamour, and the Lifetime Channel, as idiot's paradises (but also gives permission for any woman to occasionally indulge, as a guilty pleasure). The articles in this anthology may leave you laughing or fist-raising. A few might make you sad, as you realize how trapped and unevolved even many of the smartest women still are, when it comes to sex and romance. The subtext in those articles feels like nothing so much as "I'm so damaged i don't know up from down...it's all so horrible i don't even have the first clue as to WHY all this happened, WHAT i actually need from life, and HOW i might begin to find it." The worst example is "Don'ts for Boys" - it starts off feeling smart and honest, but soon descends into a depressing morass from which the obvious stupidity of Vogue would be a welcome release. But the far, far greater portion of the book is devoted to wonderful, smart articles on bodies, beauty, sex, men, childhood, motherhood, and celebrities. Has Bust changed me? Indeed. With corroborated testimony that the best cunnilingus may be coming from another species altogether (woman's best friend?), there may be some upcoming modifications in my technique. Get the book, get the magazine...for your friends, your children, your men, and yourself.
Friday, February 7, 2014
hide the kids...it's disney!!!
It's arguable that Disney deserves no attention - not even the (mostly) negative kind i'm about to bestow upon it. With moral failing this monumental, it's generally best to shut your mouth and walk away. The game-ender, of course, is misogyny. The Disney canon is so steeped in it, that shunning the entire mess is eminently justified (plus, anything about a princess or prince is almost inevitably a commercial for the privileged class). But...somehow, somehow, somehow Disney created THE JUNGLE BOOK - despite a couple flaws, one of the pinnacles of human achievement! If you wish to enrich a child for a lifetime, sit them down with Baloo, Louie, and the vultures. So in the spirit of overgenerous open-mindedness, i explored the oeuvre more fully, to answer the question, "Are there any (other) Disney animated films appropriate for young children?" I didn't watch every single one, mostly just those with cultural resonance. If i've missed any gems, let me know.
How did Walt (and Roy) do it? How did Disney become DISNEY - shrine to greed and serial gobbler of rival creative entities? All i know is this. If you want the adulation of millions (and therapy doesn't dissuade you), you'll be well on your way if you can figure out how to simultaneously piss off both fundamentalists and the intellectual elite.
Some notes on the following key..."beautyism" is equating ugliness with badness, and beauty with goodness. Beautyism often incorporates ageism (again, particularly for women). "Unnatural sexuality" is repressive sexual shame, or untruths about sexual nature (and there's no lie more pernicious than "happily ever after"). "Superstitious ignorance" is a slippery thing - greek gods or magic usually don't count, because our culture treats those as fantasy. "Animal abuse" includes the obvious, plus ingestion/enslavement. Nor is the appearance of one of these elements necessarily a prohibitive thing, if shown in an honest and instructive way, like the animal abuse in LILO or BAMBI. I don't always list every single negative element; sometimes when one or two things are particularly grievous, that's all that need be mentioned (plus, no self-respecting writer could resist the low-hanging, fruity wordplay that extra letters might have messed up).
KEY
S - sexism
R - racism
C - classism
B - beautyism
A - animal abuse
D - recreational drugs
V - gratuitous or glamorous violence
I - superstitious ignorance
U - unnatural sexuality
W - it's a white, white world
M - it's a man's, man's world
italics = inappropriate for young children
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS - S,I,U,W,A,R
Is this film the reason why generations of men and women have been incapable of having a functional romance? And why men have felt entitled to sit on their asses while women work? Nope - it just seems that way. Adults should watch this, for cultural understanding and one timeless song.
PINOCCHIO - M,I
The message? "Be good for the sake of reward, not for the sake of being good."
FANTASIA - D,I,S,M
What, what, what to do with FANTASIA, a commercial flop that Walt might have been justified in believing was his masterpiece? It starts off soporifically, and the second act is a miasma of material inappropriate for any child, but i almost urge you to share the first act with children. Except...it's the only classic to feature ol' Mickey himself - the face of the franchise, and all the wrongdoing that represents.
DUMBO - R,U,A
Racist sequences (roustabouts and crows) spoil an otherwise charming effort.
BAMBI - A,C,U
One wants very much to celebrate the bejeezus out of this one, as it's arguably the most significant historical catalyst to the animal rights movement. Well done, Walt. But the fast and loose portrayal of sexuality, in either anthropomorphization or deer (half-siblings getting it on - shocking!) comes to a depressing head when the film teaches that boys must destroy other boys, with girls as the prize. Forest royalty? Noxious, too.
CINDERELLA - S,U,C
A film that inspired its own psychological complex. Ground zero for the blind, poopy journey of the worm at Disney's core.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND - W,A,D
Enchanting, if you don't mind a long hookah interlude, some egg/butter animal exploitation, and shades of beautyism. But pretty much enchanting. Share it with a mature, informed child you love.
PETER PAN - S,M,R,W
Woman, thou art catty and jealous! Plus the most appalling bit of native american racism ever?
LADY AND THE TRAMP - A,M,U
Bitches be from Venus! Studs from Mars. Sigh.
SLEEPING BEAUTY - B,S,W,I,M
The absolute nadir of all things Disney - a woman literally lifeless without a man. Um...didn't we already go down this rabbit hellhole in SNOW WHITE? If her name were "Sleeping Average" or "Sleeping Ugly", would she still be asleep?
101 DALMATIANS - I,W,B,A,D
A schizophrenic swirl. On the one hand, children who watched this grew up to create PETA. On the other, Cruella De Vil epitomizes Disney misogyny. She's single! She's successful! She's...UGGGGGGGGGLY!
THE SWORD IN THE STONE - S,M,A,C,B,V,D,I,U,W
A Disney decafecta of infamy! What, they couldn't squeeze in a little racism? And by the way, Walt - squirrels? Not actually monogamous (nor humans, as it turns out).
THE JUNGLE BOOK - M,S,C
The pinnacle of Disney moviemaking, music, and magic. A lightning strike of writers, illustrators, and performers. When everything goes amazingly right, even an appalling ending becomes somehow perfect. Walt's last major work. How much healthier might western civilization be if they'd shuttered the studio for good? Ironically, that's exactly what might have happened had the film not been a hit. Talk about a faustian dilemma - you can have a world where all the Disney atrocities of the following decades never existed. The price? A mediocre JUNGLE BOOK. Hmm. Give me a minute...
THE ARISTOCATS - A,S,C,R,U,D
Phil Harris and Sterling Holloway (Baloo and Kaa) are back! A fine effort, but for gaping moral failings - one only need look at the title to realize something unfortunate is about to happen. And indeed, the violence inherent in a classist society is in full, horrific bloom. Curiously, in anthropomorphizing cats, Disney paints a picture of romance that is true to neither feline NOR human.
ROBIN HOOD - I,C,W,M
Stealing okay! End justifies means! Civil disobedience! Phew, heady stuff. It's a shame the film is dripping with classist and religious trappings.
THE MANY ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH - A,M
The anti-animal messages of Disney often come wrapped in a seemingly pro-animal package - beneath this wildlife love-in are casual consumptive exploitation, and a positive portrayal of mounting dead animal heads as trophies.
PETE'S DRAGON - D,U,M,B
I know, i know...no one places this in the Disney animated canon. Well, i do! For is the dragon Elliot not one of the most adorable animated characters ever? The fact that the rest of the film is live action, is neither here nor there. Plus, i have misty, sweet memories of this, as the only Disney film i saw in a theater as a child. More importantly though, this film is the overlooked, historic convergence of Disney and...Helen Reddy! Surely the presence of the "I am woman, hear me roar" songstress will shelve all the usual misogynistic nonsense, no? Well...no. One is hopeful for a bit, but...no.
THE RESCUERS - B,A,D,I
In the most unintentionally ironic Disney moment ever, the show opens with a female choir singing "Who Will Rescue Me?" Oy. Plus an arch-ugly villainess and a forlorn orphan girl being assured she's "pretty enough" to be adopted.
THE FOX AND THE HOUND - M,A,W,V
A hopeful parable for racial struggles, plus another bambiesque blow against hunters. If you don't mind a little violent mansworldism, share this one with a mature child.
THE BLACK CAULDRON - V,W,M
A surprisingly dark occult tale, of passing interest to Tolkien fans.
THE LITTLE MERMAID - S,C,U,M,B
Insipidly infuriating. You might want to hate this with every fiber of your being - and you should. If the Alan Menken songs weren't so infernally irresistible, might Disney finally have slid into oblivion? Share the soundtrack.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - W,A,M,B,I
Disney's anti-sexism baby steps, clothed in a self-defeating product. In trying to deliver a non-beautyist message, they trip over their own feet...ah, the enchantress isn't REALLY ugly, ah, Beast isn't REALLY ugly!
ALADDIN - R,V,M,S,C
The formulaic prototype for modern children's animated movies - visuals and story for kids, plus snarky jokes only adults will get. Am i the ONLY one who finds this approach patronizing? The only Disney film in which racism is integral, not merely incidental.
THE LION KING - S,C,U,M,I
I've never so hated any other film i'd never even seen, as the poster crystallized all that was unforgivably amiss in the Magic Kingdom. At the center is a male, heroically looking destiny in the eye. Off to the side and below, is a subservient female in awe of his amazingness. The first Disney film to consciously leave behind Walt's unspoken judeo-christian-muslim ethics. While this may be progress, reincarnation is hardly an improvement over resurrection...and with a heavenly shaft of light beaming down on a newly anointed "prince", it's arguably a regression. Plus, another hero gets it on with his half-sister - not unnatural, just amusing!
POCAHONTAS - V,A,I,M
A more human portrayal of a woman...yet why does the first montage of her frolicking in nature feel a little like, um...indian porn? Is it just me? Kudos for a non-patronizing view of native americans (better late than never). Yet the feel-good ending feels like a betrayal of history. And the "new" Disney spiritualism steps farther over the line than the old. Talking to trees, and having them respond? Okay, there might be some merit there. Using the power of "faith" to have two people unfamiliar with each other's language, suddenly able to converse perfectly...can that be good to teach children?
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME - C,R,U,M,S,I,V
The first Disney to make religion its subject matter. Sexual repression, genocide, divine homicidal intervention...of course! Call the kiddies!
HERCULES - I,M,V
The first Disney based entirely on "mythology" (what religions become when people stop believing). A child is born divine, lives as a mortal, inspires the love of a fallen woman, dies, is resurrected, then returns to Earth. Sound familiar? Of course, it's Hercules! A cloak of mythology doesn't earn a "get out of superstitious ignorance" card.
MULAN - S,M,V,I
It takes about six minutes to hate this film with a passion. The flaw in showing a woman succeed in a man's world, is that you have to first teach children that the world belongs to men - save that dose of reality for older children. And gosh, if you gut it out longer than six minutes, you can hear a man disparage other men by calling them women!
TARZAN - W,U,M,V
Um...why is he the only ape wearing a loincloth? And how can it be a white, white world in...Africa??
FANTASIA 2000 - A,U,I
Really? I mean...really? A Noah's Ark sequence? No joke? Is this how far the carriers of the flame have strayed? As catastrophically flawed as Walt was, the core of his vision was about providing children with a gift of magic, in which no one would be left behind or made to feel unwelcome. All the vision needed was some tender tweaking. Instead, for each step forward, his inheritors always manage one step back and three to the side. The other sequences are charming. One even starts to hope that for once Disney got almost everything right. And then...a segment constructed to make 20 million non-jewish/christian american children squirm. To say nothing of the billion-plus alienated worldwide. Shame, Mr. Eisner. Your vanity shames us all.
THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE - I,C,B,M,S
Look! An ugly older woman hiking her skirt! The men are petrified! Oh, she's just getting a dagger...
ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE - M,V,S,A,D
Violence makes it inappropriate for children. Misogyny makes it inappropriate for anyone. A shame too, as it's the only Disney film to address America's capitalistic rape of the world.
LILO AND STITCH - I,A
A fantastic film spoiled by an appeal to an invisible, all-powerful being. Take that away, and the magic is more alive than you ever would have imagined it could be forty years post-Walt.
THE JUNGLE BOOK 2 - M
Given Disney's record, fans of the original are amply justified for avoiding this like the plague. Yet...come watch a minor miracle. It's good. On par with the original? Not within within a kazillion kilometers. But incontestably...good.
BROTHER BEAR - I
THE SWORD IN THE STONE showed us a child transformed into animals...through the magic of an amusing magician. Children understood it was fantasy. Here, a child is transformed into a bear, though...nature? God? Will this confuse a child's perception of reality? Maybe not - but that's an answer not nearly sufficient to the responsibility at hand.
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG - D,U,M,B,I,C,A
Disney offers a love note...to itself! Everybody should want to be a princess, and everyone should wish upon that star. The first african-american Disney princess is notable for being...the first african-american Disney princess. A love note to the american dream, as the plucky, underprivileged heroine happily works two jobs (Of course! Nothing unromantic or unfair there! Leisure time? A social life? For fools!). And a love note to "happily ever after", of course. Sigh. Can you FEEL that love tonight?
(Much gratitude to Mark Pinsky's "The Gospel According to Disney", for inspiring and shaping this article. Pinsky's book is brilliant, not least of all for keeping the reader almost perpetually stumped as to the author's own biases. Not one writer in a thousand is so impartial, i suspect.)
How did Walt (and Roy) do it? How did Disney become DISNEY - shrine to greed and serial gobbler of rival creative entities? All i know is this. If you want the adulation of millions (and therapy doesn't dissuade you), you'll be well on your way if you can figure out how to simultaneously piss off both fundamentalists and the intellectual elite.
Some notes on the following key..."beautyism" is equating ugliness with badness, and beauty with goodness. Beautyism often incorporates ageism (again, particularly for women). "Unnatural sexuality" is repressive sexual shame, or untruths about sexual nature (and there's no lie more pernicious than "happily ever after"). "Superstitious ignorance" is a slippery thing - greek gods or magic usually don't count, because our culture treats those as fantasy. "Animal abuse" includes the obvious, plus ingestion/enslavement. Nor is the appearance of one of these elements necessarily a prohibitive thing, if shown in an honest and instructive way, like the animal abuse in LILO or BAMBI. I don't always list every single negative element; sometimes when one or two things are particularly grievous, that's all that need be mentioned (plus, no self-respecting writer could resist the low-hanging, fruity wordplay that extra letters might have messed up).
KEY
S - sexism
R - racism
C - classism
B - beautyism
A - animal abuse
D - recreational drugs
V - gratuitous or glamorous violence
I - superstitious ignorance
U - unnatural sexuality
W - it's a white, white world
M - it's a man's, man's world
italics = inappropriate for young children
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS - S,I,U,W,A,R
Is this film the reason why generations of men and women have been incapable of having a functional romance? And why men have felt entitled to sit on their asses while women work? Nope - it just seems that way. Adults should watch this, for cultural understanding and one timeless song.
PINOCCHIO - M,I
The message? "Be good for the sake of reward, not for the sake of being good."
FANTASIA - D,I,S,M
What, what, what to do with FANTASIA, a commercial flop that Walt might have been justified in believing was his masterpiece? It starts off soporifically, and the second act is a miasma of material inappropriate for any child, but i almost urge you to share the first act with children. Except...it's the only classic to feature ol' Mickey himself - the face of the franchise, and all the wrongdoing that represents.
DUMBO - R,U,A
Racist sequences (roustabouts and crows) spoil an otherwise charming effort.
BAMBI - A,C,U
One wants very much to celebrate the bejeezus out of this one, as it's arguably the most significant historical catalyst to the animal rights movement. Well done, Walt. But the fast and loose portrayal of sexuality, in either anthropomorphization or deer (half-siblings getting it on - shocking!) comes to a depressing head when the film teaches that boys must destroy other boys, with girls as the prize. Forest royalty? Noxious, too.
CINDERELLA - S,U,C
A film that inspired its own psychological complex. Ground zero for the blind, poopy journey of the worm at Disney's core.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND - W,A,D
Enchanting, if you don't mind a long hookah interlude, some egg/butter animal exploitation, and shades of beautyism. But pretty much enchanting. Share it with a mature, informed child you love.
PETER PAN - S,M,R,W
Woman, thou art catty and jealous! Plus the most appalling bit of native american racism ever?
LADY AND THE TRAMP - A,M,U
Bitches be from Venus! Studs from Mars. Sigh.
SLEEPING BEAUTY - B,S,W,I,M
The absolute nadir of all things Disney - a woman literally lifeless without a man. Um...didn't we already go down this rabbit hellhole in SNOW WHITE? If her name were "Sleeping Average" or "Sleeping Ugly", would she still be asleep?
101 DALMATIANS - I,W,B,A,D
A schizophrenic swirl. On the one hand, children who watched this grew up to create PETA. On the other, Cruella De Vil epitomizes Disney misogyny. She's single! She's successful! She's...UGGGGGGGGGLY!
THE SWORD IN THE STONE - S,M,A,C,B,V,D,I,U,W
A Disney decafecta of infamy! What, they couldn't squeeze in a little racism? And by the way, Walt - squirrels? Not actually monogamous (nor humans, as it turns out).
THE JUNGLE BOOK - M,S,C
The pinnacle of Disney moviemaking, music, and magic. A lightning strike of writers, illustrators, and performers. When everything goes amazingly right, even an appalling ending becomes somehow perfect. Walt's last major work. How much healthier might western civilization be if they'd shuttered the studio for good? Ironically, that's exactly what might have happened had the film not been a hit. Talk about a faustian dilemma - you can have a world where all the Disney atrocities of the following decades never existed. The price? A mediocre JUNGLE BOOK. Hmm. Give me a minute...
THE ARISTOCATS - A,S,C,R,U,D
Phil Harris and Sterling Holloway (Baloo and Kaa) are back! A fine effort, but for gaping moral failings - one only need look at the title to realize something unfortunate is about to happen. And indeed, the violence inherent in a classist society is in full, horrific bloom. Curiously, in anthropomorphizing cats, Disney paints a picture of romance that is true to neither feline NOR human.
ROBIN HOOD - I,C,W,M
Stealing okay! End justifies means! Civil disobedience! Phew, heady stuff. It's a shame the film is dripping with classist and religious trappings.
THE MANY ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH - A,M
The anti-animal messages of Disney often come wrapped in a seemingly pro-animal package - beneath this wildlife love-in are casual consumptive exploitation, and a positive portrayal of mounting dead animal heads as trophies.
PETE'S DRAGON - D,U,M,B
I know, i know...no one places this in the Disney animated canon. Well, i do! For is the dragon Elliot not one of the most adorable animated characters ever? The fact that the rest of the film is live action, is neither here nor there. Plus, i have misty, sweet memories of this, as the only Disney film i saw in a theater as a child. More importantly though, this film is the overlooked, historic convergence of Disney and...Helen Reddy! Surely the presence of the "I am woman, hear me roar" songstress will shelve all the usual misogynistic nonsense, no? Well...no. One is hopeful for a bit, but...no.
THE RESCUERS - B,A,D,I
In the most unintentionally ironic Disney moment ever, the show opens with a female choir singing "Who Will Rescue Me?" Oy. Plus an arch-ugly villainess and a forlorn orphan girl being assured she's "pretty enough" to be adopted.
THE FOX AND THE HOUND - M,A,W,V
A hopeful parable for racial struggles, plus another bambiesque blow against hunters. If you don't mind a little violent mansworldism, share this one with a mature child.
THE BLACK CAULDRON - V,W,M
A surprisingly dark occult tale, of passing interest to Tolkien fans.
THE LITTLE MERMAID - S,C,U,M,B
Insipidly infuriating. You might want to hate this with every fiber of your being - and you should. If the Alan Menken songs weren't so infernally irresistible, might Disney finally have slid into oblivion? Share the soundtrack.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - W,A,M,B,I
Disney's anti-sexism baby steps, clothed in a self-defeating product. In trying to deliver a non-beautyist message, they trip over their own feet...ah, the enchantress isn't REALLY ugly, ah, Beast isn't REALLY ugly!
ALADDIN - R,V,M,S,C
The formulaic prototype for modern children's animated movies - visuals and story for kids, plus snarky jokes only adults will get. Am i the ONLY one who finds this approach patronizing? The only Disney film in which racism is integral, not merely incidental.
THE LION KING - S,C,U,M,I
I've never so hated any other film i'd never even seen, as the poster crystallized all that was unforgivably amiss in the Magic Kingdom. At the center is a male, heroically looking destiny in the eye. Off to the side and below, is a subservient female in awe of his amazingness. The first Disney film to consciously leave behind Walt's unspoken judeo-christian-muslim ethics. While this may be progress, reincarnation is hardly an improvement over resurrection...and with a heavenly shaft of light beaming down on a newly anointed "prince", it's arguably a regression. Plus, another hero gets it on with his half-sister - not unnatural, just amusing!
POCAHONTAS - V,A,I,M
A more human portrayal of a woman...yet why does the first montage of her frolicking in nature feel a little like, um...indian porn? Is it just me? Kudos for a non-patronizing view of native americans (better late than never). Yet the feel-good ending feels like a betrayal of history. And the "new" Disney spiritualism steps farther over the line than the old. Talking to trees, and having them respond? Okay, there might be some merit there. Using the power of "faith" to have two people unfamiliar with each other's language, suddenly able to converse perfectly...can that be good to teach children?
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME - C,R,U,M,S,I,V
The first Disney to make religion its subject matter. Sexual repression, genocide, divine homicidal intervention...of course! Call the kiddies!
HERCULES - I,M,V
The first Disney based entirely on "mythology" (what religions become when people stop believing). A child is born divine, lives as a mortal, inspires the love of a fallen woman, dies, is resurrected, then returns to Earth. Sound familiar? Of course, it's Hercules! A cloak of mythology doesn't earn a "get out of superstitious ignorance" card.
MULAN - S,M,V,I
It takes about six minutes to hate this film with a passion. The flaw in showing a woman succeed in a man's world, is that you have to first teach children that the world belongs to men - save that dose of reality for older children. And gosh, if you gut it out longer than six minutes, you can hear a man disparage other men by calling them women!
TARZAN - W,U,M,V
Um...why is he the only ape wearing a loincloth? And how can it be a white, white world in...Africa??
FANTASIA 2000 - A,U,I
Really? I mean...really? A Noah's Ark sequence? No joke? Is this how far the carriers of the flame have strayed? As catastrophically flawed as Walt was, the core of his vision was about providing children with a gift of magic, in which no one would be left behind or made to feel unwelcome. All the vision needed was some tender tweaking. Instead, for each step forward, his inheritors always manage one step back and three to the side. The other sequences are charming. One even starts to hope that for once Disney got almost everything right. And then...a segment constructed to make 20 million non-jewish/christian american children squirm. To say nothing of the billion-plus alienated worldwide. Shame, Mr. Eisner. Your vanity shames us all.
THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE - I,C,B,M,S
Look! An ugly older woman hiking her skirt! The men are petrified! Oh, she's just getting a dagger...
ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE - M,V,S,A,D
Violence makes it inappropriate for children. Misogyny makes it inappropriate for anyone. A shame too, as it's the only Disney film to address America's capitalistic rape of the world.
LILO AND STITCH - I,A
A fantastic film spoiled by an appeal to an invisible, all-powerful being. Take that away, and the magic is more alive than you ever would have imagined it could be forty years post-Walt.
THE JUNGLE BOOK 2 - M
Given Disney's record, fans of the original are amply justified for avoiding this like the plague. Yet...come watch a minor miracle. It's good. On par with the original? Not within within a kazillion kilometers. But incontestably...good.
BROTHER BEAR - I
THE SWORD IN THE STONE showed us a child transformed into animals...through the magic of an amusing magician. Children understood it was fantasy. Here, a child is transformed into a bear, though...nature? God? Will this confuse a child's perception of reality? Maybe not - but that's an answer not nearly sufficient to the responsibility at hand.
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG - D,U,M,B,I,C,A
Disney offers a love note...to itself! Everybody should want to be a princess, and everyone should wish upon that star. The first african-american Disney princess is notable for being...the first african-american Disney princess. A love note to the american dream, as the plucky, underprivileged heroine happily works two jobs (Of course! Nothing unromantic or unfair there! Leisure time? A social life? For fools!). And a love note to "happily ever after", of course. Sigh. Can you FEEL that love tonight?
(Much gratitude to Mark Pinsky's "The Gospel According to Disney", for inspiring and shaping this article. Pinsky's book is brilliant, not least of all for keeping the reader almost perpetually stumped as to the author's own biases. Not one writer in a thousand is so impartial, i suspect.)
Monday, February 3, 2014
unlearn
Our longings for love
Our desires to be free
Never will we find
No, never will we see
Til' we unlearn a question
Til' we recant our plea
Til' we forget how to ask
What's in it for me?
Our desires to be free
Never will we find
No, never will we see
Til' we unlearn a question
Til' we recant our plea
Til' we forget how to ask
What's in it for me?
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
masturbation montage 5
The women i dream of, when dreams are all there is...
KORTNEA
She works at my new favorite local restaurant (since my previous local favorite closed). With my housemate, we three always chat. I've given her two love poems. She said the first was the sweetest thing anyone's ever given her. My housemate is 90 and unabashed about lobbying on my behalf, whereas i'm quite shy. There is a lovely energy when we touch. She's christian, and i have no reason to think we have deep compatibility...yet i have lurid dreams of living with her, loving her relentlessly, and impregnating her willy nilly. I dream of serving her, cooking a meal and rubbing her feet while she eats, then asking whether she wishes me to kiss her feet. The fantasy culminates in the most mind-blowing oral pleasures she's ever imagined (and given her beliefs, her entire sex life may be hypothetical), then penetrating her and whispering that i won't cum, not now or the 1000th time, unless she whispers for me to do so. If she needed monogamy or marriage to be completely at ease, i imagine happily offering those! Perhaps part of my desire for someone wrong for me, in a situation that might be a crime against my creativity and sanity, is because i recently opened myself wide to loving the most compatible woman i've ever known...and got singularly crucified. That's on top of my growing collection of years of emotional and sexual isolation. Is there a touch of literal insanity in this? It sure feels like it. All the more frightening, in that i'm actively courting kortnea, and almost feel i'd let the fantasy play out if it kept unfolding. Loneliness drives me ever closer to being the game-playing, sexual/romantic predator this society makes of everyone.
LAKOTA
Still in the center of my dreams (see MM#4). I can't shake the image of our most intense moment, genitals engorged and sliding together...then imagining myself whispering beautiful words about whether she thinks her son should be an only child, and did she know when holding his father that he was the man to fill her womb, and then penetrating her (instead of holding back, as i did). I'm pretty sure she desired me completely that night. It's all eerily like a scene in AS GOOD AS IT GETS, when Helen Hunt has a disastrous date with a man who turns tail after repeated interruptions from her sick child. He says it's too much reality, and comes off as a shallow wanker...but is that fair, even a tiny bit? Isn't he being abnormally considerate? Lakota was a single mother with a five year-old developmentally disabled child. That's a lot of reality to heap upon attraction. Perhaps i was a little unfair to her (and this society was certainly immeasurably unfair, as it is to every single mother), but was i supposed to take her life situation out of the picture? Was i supposed to imagine that she was able to do so herself? Here i am years later, unwilling to forget one of the more beautiful moments of my life, yet almost tormented by the sensible reaction i showed. Do i love children? Far more than most. Could i have loved Lakota immensely and enduringly? Absolutely. Would being a "daddy", with all the indescribable burdens and self-abnegation that implies, have been at all right for me then...or now?
MARA
We lived in the same boarding house last year, for a couple months. She returned to her native China, and we've kept in touch. She's intelligent, and i was achingly attracted. We came tantalizingly close to romantic involvement. I dream of offering her marriage, so she might return to this country for as long as she likes. I dream of offering her the multiple babies she could never have in her own country. There's nothing rational about these thoughts...not even on the compatibility level, which we never got to explore deeply. There is an almost unrelentingly lonely desperation to living in this society, and it breaks stronger people than i.
KORTNEA
She works at my new favorite local restaurant (since my previous local favorite closed). With my housemate, we three always chat. I've given her two love poems. She said the first was the sweetest thing anyone's ever given her. My housemate is 90 and unabashed about lobbying on my behalf, whereas i'm quite shy. There is a lovely energy when we touch. She's christian, and i have no reason to think we have deep compatibility...yet i have lurid dreams of living with her, loving her relentlessly, and impregnating her willy nilly. I dream of serving her, cooking a meal and rubbing her feet while she eats, then asking whether she wishes me to kiss her feet. The fantasy culminates in the most mind-blowing oral pleasures she's ever imagined (and given her beliefs, her entire sex life may be hypothetical), then penetrating her and whispering that i won't cum, not now or the 1000th time, unless she whispers for me to do so. If she needed monogamy or marriage to be completely at ease, i imagine happily offering those! Perhaps part of my desire for someone wrong for me, in a situation that might be a crime against my creativity and sanity, is because i recently opened myself wide to loving the most compatible woman i've ever known...and got singularly crucified. That's on top of my growing collection of years of emotional and sexual isolation. Is there a touch of literal insanity in this? It sure feels like it. All the more frightening, in that i'm actively courting kortnea, and almost feel i'd let the fantasy play out if it kept unfolding. Loneliness drives me ever closer to being the game-playing, sexual/romantic predator this society makes of everyone.
LAKOTA
Still in the center of my dreams (see MM#4). I can't shake the image of our most intense moment, genitals engorged and sliding together...then imagining myself whispering beautiful words about whether she thinks her son should be an only child, and did she know when holding his father that he was the man to fill her womb, and then penetrating her (instead of holding back, as i did). I'm pretty sure she desired me completely that night. It's all eerily like a scene in AS GOOD AS IT GETS, when Helen Hunt has a disastrous date with a man who turns tail after repeated interruptions from her sick child. He says it's too much reality, and comes off as a shallow wanker...but is that fair, even a tiny bit? Isn't he being abnormally considerate? Lakota was a single mother with a five year-old developmentally disabled child. That's a lot of reality to heap upon attraction. Perhaps i was a little unfair to her (and this society was certainly immeasurably unfair, as it is to every single mother), but was i supposed to take her life situation out of the picture? Was i supposed to imagine that she was able to do so herself? Here i am years later, unwilling to forget one of the more beautiful moments of my life, yet almost tormented by the sensible reaction i showed. Do i love children? Far more than most. Could i have loved Lakota immensely and enduringly? Absolutely. Would being a "daddy", with all the indescribable burdens and self-abnegation that implies, have been at all right for me then...or now?
MARA
We lived in the same boarding house last year, for a couple months. She returned to her native China, and we've kept in touch. She's intelligent, and i was achingly attracted. We came tantalizingly close to romantic involvement. I dream of offering her marriage, so she might return to this country for as long as she likes. I dream of offering her the multiple babies she could never have in her own country. There's nothing rational about these thoughts...not even on the compatibility level, which we never got to explore deeply. There is an almost unrelentingly lonely desperation to living in this society, and it breaks stronger people than i.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Fallout
STAGE/SCREEN 75
-fall 2005
A short film by Andy Rath, a young filmmaker who ran his own company. He produced art pieces and corporate films. FALLOUT was initially created for use in rehab centers, showing drug users going through their lives, with all the trigger behaviors that addicts would recognize. The film would splice Andy’s segments between educational footage. Andy had already shot the other “drug users”, and hired me as his heroin addict. We filmed over three days - around the waterfront in Brooklyn, in a Greenpoint apartment, and on the streets nearby. I played a fella named Steve, and the film shows the progression of his life from occasional heroin user, to seeking it on the street, to living on the street doing crack. It was an absolute blast. Andy had great energy, very laid back and focused. His assistant Ryan was at least as much fun. My first acting partner was Miki Mosman, whom i actually met for a blind date the day of the shoot. She joined us on set, and was pressed into service in a flashback, as the girlfriend who introduces me to heroin. It was very trippily shot…and wouldn’t this be a much cooler world if all fizzled first dates were that much fun? My second acting partner was a fellow named Luis Rodriguez, who played my drug connection. Luis used his own car in the film. I fear i may have offended him by assuming that all the Puerto Rican flags and bandanas and seat covers were just for the shoot. I initially laughed at them, not realizing that that’s how the car always looked - living in America, i’m just not used to non-ironic patriotism. The shoot was often tough physically, because of the simulated drug use - regular cigarettes and crack pipe. Because of the intimacy of film, i couldn’t get away with my stage trick of “appearing” to inhale, so i gutted it out and sucked it in, take after take. Interestingly, the following year i did another short, one that required chain smoking, and after thirty straight minutes i began to feel debilitatingly sick. That film was abandoned in production, and had also included footage of me being drowned naked in a bathtub. Back in FALLOUT, i was crack-smoking a combination of aspirin, tobacco, and steel wool (take that, you weenie asbestos inhalers!). Ryan had a wonderful dog who almost made it into the film. We nicknamed him Cracky the wonder dog, and joked that the sequel should be about him. The producers were so happy with the final product that they commissioned a separate art film, using just the footage involving me. There were real life elements that made it into the film…a huge rat on the waterfront, a bicyclist i suddenly jumped up after and chased…it was such a cool creative process. We used a borrowed forklift for an overhead “zoom away” shot. To make the heroin injection realistic, a setup was concocted using a sealed tube of fake blood, and superglue on the syringe tip so it would “stick” in my skin. The effect was disturbingly realistic. One of the funniest things to come out of the film was the shirt i wore for the apartment shots - a T-shirt from the children’s camp where my brother’s brother and his girlfriend taught. The shirt had a happy cartoon sun, and that smiling sun was all that was visible behind many of the heroin shots. Were our film a bigger production, might the camp have sued? As it was, it was just hysterically funny (to John, Brian, and Janice, especially). The film was submitted to festivals, but rejected because it lacked narrative structure. It’s wild to think about the thousands upon thousands of rehab vets across the country who might recognize me on the street. The most unlikely fanbase to ever approach an artist publicly?
-fall 2005
A short film by Andy Rath, a young filmmaker who ran his own company. He produced art pieces and corporate films. FALLOUT was initially created for use in rehab centers, showing drug users going through their lives, with all the trigger behaviors that addicts would recognize. The film would splice Andy’s segments between educational footage. Andy had already shot the other “drug users”, and hired me as his heroin addict. We filmed over three days - around the waterfront in Brooklyn, in a Greenpoint apartment, and on the streets nearby. I played a fella named Steve, and the film shows the progression of his life from occasional heroin user, to seeking it on the street, to living on the street doing crack. It was an absolute blast. Andy had great energy, very laid back and focused. His assistant Ryan was at least as much fun. My first acting partner was Miki Mosman, whom i actually met for a blind date the day of the shoot. She joined us on set, and was pressed into service in a flashback, as the girlfriend who introduces me to heroin. It was very trippily shot…and wouldn’t this be a much cooler world if all fizzled first dates were that much fun? My second acting partner was a fellow named Luis Rodriguez, who played my drug connection. Luis used his own car in the film. I fear i may have offended him by assuming that all the Puerto Rican flags and bandanas and seat covers were just for the shoot. I initially laughed at them, not realizing that that’s how the car always looked - living in America, i’m just not used to non-ironic patriotism. The shoot was often tough physically, because of the simulated drug use - regular cigarettes and crack pipe. Because of the intimacy of film, i couldn’t get away with my stage trick of “appearing” to inhale, so i gutted it out and sucked it in, take after take. Interestingly, the following year i did another short, one that required chain smoking, and after thirty straight minutes i began to feel debilitatingly sick. That film was abandoned in production, and had also included footage of me being drowned naked in a bathtub. Back in FALLOUT, i was crack-smoking a combination of aspirin, tobacco, and steel wool (take that, you weenie asbestos inhalers!). Ryan had a wonderful dog who almost made it into the film. We nicknamed him Cracky the wonder dog, and joked that the sequel should be about him. The producers were so happy with the final product that they commissioned a separate art film, using just the footage involving me. There were real life elements that made it into the film…a huge rat on the waterfront, a bicyclist i suddenly jumped up after and chased…it was such a cool creative process. We used a borrowed forklift for an overhead “zoom away” shot. To make the heroin injection realistic, a setup was concocted using a sealed tube of fake blood, and superglue on the syringe tip so it would “stick” in my skin. The effect was disturbingly realistic. One of the funniest things to come out of the film was the shirt i wore for the apartment shots - a T-shirt from the children’s camp where my brother’s brother and his girlfriend taught. The shirt had a happy cartoon sun, and that smiling sun was all that was visible behind many of the heroin shots. Were our film a bigger production, might the camp have sued? As it was, it was just hysterically funny (to John, Brian, and Janice, especially). The film was submitted to festivals, but rejected because it lacked narrative structure. It’s wild to think about the thousands upon thousands of rehab vets across the country who might recognize me on the street. The most unlikely fanbase to ever approach an artist publicly?
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
"cunt"
(a declaration of independence)
-by inga muscio
1998
Do i love this human because she de-capitalizes her own name, like certain other unnamed (ahem) anti-narcissist crusaders of our time? Heck no, i fell in love long before i became consciously aware of that distinction on the book's uncapitalized cover. It may even be just an accident of publishing aesthetics.
But the towering devotion this book inspires is achieved within the first chapter. Inga is one pissed-off feminist, yet at no point do her points stray from absolute rectitude. She's perhaps the only woman who's ever made me say, "If i'd been born female, THAT's who i'd be." The fact that she might never read this, for no other reason than my penis, is neither here nor there - if i were a woman, i might not read me either. I might also be a lesbian who wears teddy bear ears, too. If i had a cunt, would virtually every favorite movie of mine involve women killing men? I hope not. Is EVERYTHING in life about the politics of gender? I hope not. But again, i have the luxury of that aforementioned penis.
Nor is CUNT a simple tale of woe. It be a manifesto, filled with life-changing ideas, starting with taking back a powerful word from the cleft of negativity into which it's plunged. It's time to celebrate cunt, she exhorts!
No more menstruation shame. Tampon alternatives like sea sponge or diva cup. Holistic, self-induced abortion instead of the depersonalized horrors the male medical establishment offers (a subject on which she speaks from most profound experience). No more stigma for whoredom. And more Pippi Longstocking, goddamit!
She also talks about the communication gap that exists between muslim women and outraged westerners, who often have a patronizing attitude toward the horrors of muslim female life. What western women fail to perceive is the sense of isolation and mutual mistrust they feel among themselves, which is absent in the muslim world, where women KNOW the deck is blatantly stacked against them - and so respond with a sense of female community and caring which we western cunts can't even begin to grasp. Awakening this sense of community is essential to western women fully using the freedoms at their command.
Muscio also writes of how women are horribly disconnected from their bodies, most apparent in the disconnect from the moon and its effects on them. Inga has filled me with eager anticipation of the next woman who might let me be part of her carnal passions - i look forward to confirming that it's possible to anticipate ovulation or menstruation through the subtle cunt taste differences that pertain to each phase of a woman's cycle.
Who's up for being licked every day for a few months?
If you want to read while i'm conducting the experiment, i'll understand.
-by inga muscio
1998
Do i love this human because she de-capitalizes her own name, like certain other unnamed (ahem) anti-narcissist crusaders of our time? Heck no, i fell in love long before i became consciously aware of that distinction on the book's uncapitalized cover. It may even be just an accident of publishing aesthetics.
But the towering devotion this book inspires is achieved within the first chapter. Inga is one pissed-off feminist, yet at no point do her points stray from absolute rectitude. She's perhaps the only woman who's ever made me say, "If i'd been born female, THAT's who i'd be." The fact that she might never read this, for no other reason than my penis, is neither here nor there - if i were a woman, i might not read me either. I might also be a lesbian who wears teddy bear ears, too. If i had a cunt, would virtually every favorite movie of mine involve women killing men? I hope not. Is EVERYTHING in life about the politics of gender? I hope not. But again, i have the luxury of that aforementioned penis.
Nor is CUNT a simple tale of woe. It be a manifesto, filled with life-changing ideas, starting with taking back a powerful word from the cleft of negativity into which it's plunged. It's time to celebrate cunt, she exhorts!
No more menstruation shame. Tampon alternatives like sea sponge or diva cup. Holistic, self-induced abortion instead of the depersonalized horrors the male medical establishment offers (a subject on which she speaks from most profound experience). No more stigma for whoredom. And more Pippi Longstocking, goddamit!
She also talks about the communication gap that exists between muslim women and outraged westerners, who often have a patronizing attitude toward the horrors of muslim female life. What western women fail to perceive is the sense of isolation and mutual mistrust they feel among themselves, which is absent in the muslim world, where women KNOW the deck is blatantly stacked against them - and so respond with a sense of female community and caring which we western cunts can't even begin to grasp. Awakening this sense of community is essential to western women fully using the freedoms at their command.
Muscio also writes of how women are horribly disconnected from their bodies, most apparent in the disconnect from the moon and its effects on them. Inga has filled me with eager anticipation of the next woman who might let me be part of her carnal passions - i look forward to confirming that it's possible to anticipate ovulation or menstruation through the subtle cunt taste differences that pertain to each phase of a woman's cycle.
Who's up for being licked every day for a few months?
If you want to read while i'm conducting the experiment, i'll understand.
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