Pop example: The Autotune the News "Bed Intruder" song, featuring Antoine Dodson, his sister, and the news team and footage from the incident of attempted rape in Huntsville, AL
The issues: Because of some of the popular and critical reception of this song, it seems important to me to address the reasons we might need to defend this song, on at least two levels.
First, it's popular, and pretty much anything popular seems to need a well-rehearsed defense to make people think it might also be significant.
Second, it's a video made by two white boys about a violent incident in an impoverished and largely black community. It practically screams "exploitation."
Some critics have pointed out the exploitative potential of the video -- see the Wikipedia critical reception section for this song -- and its problematic use of Antoine's words and look as a possibly comic aesthetic, without consideration for the actual events that inspired Antoine's passionate speech. Making attempted rape the subject of a popular song is fraught with obvious issues, particularly since this song wasn't confined to its usual "gangsta rap" home.
What redeems it: Some people may be laughing at Antoine Dobson, in which case, some of these critiques are necessary and valid. I furrow my brow to think that two white boys made the video that caused Antoine's words to become the household catchphrases they are now. And it is problematic to make a joke out of attempted rape.
But here's the thing: I don't think people are laughing at Antoine. Anyone laughing at Antoine is completely missing the awesomeness of his speech, which is that Antoine is laughing at and standing up to a potential rapist.
On the one hand, Antoine warns of the pervasiveness of violence in "the projects," implying that rapists are everywhere, and that people should "hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husbands cause they're raping everybody out here." But rather than being the histrionic cries of the cartoon white people in Bowling for Columbine (the South-Park style insert on why white people like guns so much), Antoine's warnings come with enough self-possession to continue on, explaining to the intruder how dumb he is.
As alarming as it would be to have someone enter your home and make an attempt to do violence against you, Antoine's reaction to the situation when it happened was similar: he and his sister fought back, and the attempt failed.
Now that is a narrative that we need. Not the all-knowing horror-movie manipulator (a la The Collector), who is already in your bedroom before you even know it, whose whims must be obeyed to the letter, or you die, but the bumbling, stupid criminal who can be thwarted by people willing to take immediate action to stop him.
Not that all criminals can be thwarted by unexpected and immediate action -- but I bet most can be.
And then Antoine, clinching his and his sister's victory over this idiot, gives a television interview in which he repeatedly mocks the potential rapist. "You are so dumb. You are really dumb. For real."
This is how every rapist should be treated. He should be mocked in a national venue.
Obviously, rape is serious, and as a crime it should be taken very, very seriously -- in part because it strips women of power and their choice in an extremely intimate and personal context. So what better response than to do the same to the rapist, exposing him for the idiot he must be? If rape is about power, it seems to me the best response is to forcibly and immediately strip that power away. Antoine's speech and the subsequent video do that extremely effectively.
We're not laughing at Antoine. We're celebrating with him, and admiring his victory, and his attitude toward a situation that could have seriously traumatized his family, and the rest of us if it had happened in our homes.
Now if this victory makes people say to themselves "see? People living in the projects are fine! We don't need to do anything about poverty!" then that is a serious problem.
Maybe Autotune the News and Antoine can make a video mocking those people next.
Note: This defense of poppery refers only to the Autotune the News and Antoine Dobson version of the song. While "researching" this video (that is, listening to it repeatedly and head bopping along), I also found a version done by a choir at Liberty University for their Christmas coffee house. It's entertaining -- particularly at the end, when they sing "you are so dumb" to the tune of "Carol of the Bells" -- but it substitutes the word "taking" for "raping," which I find both inevitable (considering the university context), and offensive (considering the original context).
Subtracting the idea of rape from Antoine's speech completely nullifies the victory I outlined above, making the song into a mere meme instead of a personal and political statement of strength, and I wish someone had problematized this hammy and milquetoast (I might even say cowardly) version of the song before it was performed at Liberty -- but that may be a gripe for a different blog post, perhaps on the exigencies of working at or attending an evangelical institution.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Accusations XV
People who let their dogs poop in the middle of the sidewalk chute formed by mountains of snow piled on one side by plows (from the street) and on the other side by yards and the snow removal from the sidewalk -- and then don't clean up their dogs' mess. It is disgusting, and at the very least, it should not be everywhere.
My own ears, which often require me to immediately listen to some song stuck in my brain, or else torture me with phantom music and obsessional thoughts until I'm able to. You're over-zealous; I will get you to a CD player as soon as I can. In the meantime, chill out.
The snow, which will not stop.
My own ears, which often require me to immediately listen to some song stuck in my brain, or else torture me with phantom music and obsessional thoughts until I'm able to. You're over-zealous; I will get you to a CD player as soon as I can. In the meantime, chill out.
The snow, which will not stop.
Friday, January 28, 2011
PSA: The System of the World
The title of this post refers not to the excellent book by Neal Stephenson, in particular (though it also deals with these themes), but to capitalism.
I finally figured it out. The other day, it all came together in my mind, like a perfectly formed sphere made up of infinite vicious cycles. I turned to Prince Certainpersonio and said "I understand it -- I just got it -- what people mean by 'get a real job'."
I'd been thinking about this because I had been reading through my old columns for Local City Paper, and my responses to particular (and particularly insulting) comments made on the Local City Paper website about some of those columns, by an anonymous reader who supposed I must not have accomplished anything in my life, and suspected that it could only be nepotism that got me a weekly column. (He didn't like the column, and didn't find it "useful." [Shrug.])
In reality, of course, I'm not related to anyone working at the paper, except for my 12-year-old self, who had a paper route in Local City.
Also in reality, since I had never posted my resume as one of the weekly columns, this commenter had no real evidence that I had never accomplished anything -- except my admissions, over the year I wrote the column, that I had done volunteer work, in both China and Washington, D.C.
What I couldn't understand the other night was what, exactly, the objection was to my being a full-time volunteer. I'd felt, and still felt, a vague sense of shame over this accusation when I first read it, but I'd never questioned the commenter's perspective in making it. I just took it as a given that "volunteer" meant "not a real job."
But my Cultural Production M.A. leads me to ask what the hell he's talking about, since I actually did work full-time -- as an American ambassador of sorts, in addition to teaching English, and without any government money, in China; and as a full-time teacher and sometime development/marketing, administrative, data-entering assistant, in the U.S. -- for the four years I was technically a volunteer.
So it's not that I was lazy. I'd set the goal of living and working in Asia when I was in middle school (and delivering those papers door-to-door), and I'd accomplished it in the typical single-minded-focused way you'd expect approved-of, goal-oriented people to do. The commenter suggested that there was something wrong with fundraising (for China) and "being on the government dole" (for teaching GED in DC), which is a typical argument. But the fundraising was from individual donors, which is typically how people who argue for "real jobs" would prefer nonprofits and social programs receive ALL their money, so it's hardly fair to call foul on that when it actually happens. And the "government dole" I was on for Americorps in DC was far, far less than the same government would have paid to a "real" teacher for the two years I worked there.
So the issue is not actually "not working hard," or "running from responsibility," which is often how these arguments are framed. The issue is getting paid.
Responsible living in a capitalist society means getting paid. You must get paid. A "real job" means a job that pays.
And it probably means a job that pays more than you need to live on, because of the necessities of capitalism: we must produce more than we need, and then consume more than we need, to keep the economy moving "forward" (that is, to make it larger). People who volunteer full-time and live in communal living situations don't consume enough. They're producing at the same rate -- maybe at a faster rate, since people who volunteer for things tend to do it because they're motivated -- as other civilians, but they aren't consuming at the same rate. It's the same "irresponsibility" of living like a "modern-day hippie" (which the commenter also accused me of being, based, he said, on my "appearance" -- the glasses, maybe?).
I also understand, based on this incredibly obvious and simple observation, why people who get a degree in Cultural Production don't have a career track waiting for them when they get out. I mean, if everyone who went into cultural studies programs came out understanding this principle, they would probably all do what I suspect I will do with the information, which is to specifically choose to remain "irresponsible" -- do what I care about, and earn what I need.
They're all going into Brooklyn co-ops and DIY movements instead of careers. It's probably exhausting, and I believe most of us will fail to live this way our whole lives, but at least I feel like now I know what's at issue. And I understand that I probably can't argue with people who use the phrase "real job"...because those people obviously don't have a background in cultural studies, or they'd be asking me where they could get macrame lessons instead.
I finally figured it out. The other day, it all came together in my mind, like a perfectly formed sphere made up of infinite vicious cycles. I turned to Prince Certainpersonio and said "I understand it -- I just got it -- what people mean by 'get a real job'."
I'd been thinking about this because I had been reading through my old columns for Local City Paper, and my responses to particular (and particularly insulting) comments made on the Local City Paper website about some of those columns, by an anonymous reader who supposed I must not have accomplished anything in my life, and suspected that it could only be nepotism that got me a weekly column. (He didn't like the column, and didn't find it "useful." [Shrug.])
In reality, of course, I'm not related to anyone working at the paper, except for my 12-year-old self, who had a paper route in Local City.
Also in reality, since I had never posted my resume as one of the weekly columns, this commenter had no real evidence that I had never accomplished anything -- except my admissions, over the year I wrote the column, that I had done volunteer work, in both China and Washington, D.C.
What I couldn't understand the other night was what, exactly, the objection was to my being a full-time volunteer. I'd felt, and still felt, a vague sense of shame over this accusation when I first read it, but I'd never questioned the commenter's perspective in making it. I just took it as a given that "volunteer" meant "not a real job."
But my Cultural Production M.A. leads me to ask what the hell he's talking about, since I actually did work full-time -- as an American ambassador of sorts, in addition to teaching English, and without any government money, in China; and as a full-time teacher and sometime development/marketing, administrative, data-entering assistant, in the U.S. -- for the four years I was technically a volunteer.
So it's not that I was lazy. I'd set the goal of living and working in Asia when I was in middle school (and delivering those papers door-to-door), and I'd accomplished it in the typical single-minded-focused way you'd expect approved-of, goal-oriented people to do. The commenter suggested that there was something wrong with fundraising (for China) and "being on the government dole" (for teaching GED in DC), which is a typical argument. But the fundraising was from individual donors, which is typically how people who argue for "real jobs" would prefer nonprofits and social programs receive ALL their money, so it's hardly fair to call foul on that when it actually happens. And the "government dole" I was on for Americorps in DC was far, far less than the same government would have paid to a "real" teacher for the two years I worked there.
So the issue is not actually "not working hard," or "running from responsibility," which is often how these arguments are framed. The issue is getting paid.
Responsible living in a capitalist society means getting paid. You must get paid. A "real job" means a job that pays.
And it probably means a job that pays more than you need to live on, because of the necessities of capitalism: we must produce more than we need, and then consume more than we need, to keep the economy moving "forward" (that is, to make it larger). People who volunteer full-time and live in communal living situations don't consume enough. They're producing at the same rate -- maybe at a faster rate, since people who volunteer for things tend to do it because they're motivated -- as other civilians, but they aren't consuming at the same rate. It's the same "irresponsibility" of living like a "modern-day hippie" (which the commenter also accused me of being, based, he said, on my "appearance" -- the glasses, maybe?).
I also understand, based on this incredibly obvious and simple observation, why people who get a degree in Cultural Production don't have a career track waiting for them when they get out. I mean, if everyone who went into cultural studies programs came out understanding this principle, they would probably all do what I suspect I will do with the information, which is to specifically choose to remain "irresponsible" -- do what I care about, and earn what I need.
They're all going into Brooklyn co-ops and DIY movements instead of careers. It's probably exhausting, and I believe most of us will fail to live this way our whole lives, but at least I feel like now I know what's at issue. And I understand that I probably can't argue with people who use the phrase "real job"...because those people obviously don't have a background in cultural studies, or they'd be asking me where they could get macrame lessons instead.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
20x11: Videos from your PBS childhood.
1. "The Word is No (no no no no no no no)", Sesame Street
2. Monsterpiece Theater ("Me Claudius"), Sesame Street
3. "Teamwork," Reading Rainbow
4. Yeppers ("Old MacDonald Had a Spaceship newsflash"), Sesame Street
5. Reading Rainbow theme
6. "Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco," Sesame Street
7. Mathman, Square One
8. 3-2-1 Contact theme
9. "Mathematics of Love," Square One
10. Cecile ("Up Down In and Out"), Sesame Street
11. "I Hate Christmas," Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
2. Monsterpiece Theater ("Me Claudius"), Sesame Street
3. "Teamwork," Reading Rainbow
4. Yeppers ("Old MacDonald Had a Spaceship newsflash"), Sesame Street
5. Reading Rainbow theme
6. "Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco," Sesame Street
7. Mathman, Square One
8. 3-2-1 Contact theme
9. "Mathematics of Love," Square One
10. Cecile ("Up Down In and Out"), Sesame Street
11. "I Hate Christmas," Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
PSA: Bored? There's a conference for that.
Proving that we've all gone too far with this irony thing, the end of last year featured a conference called Boring 2010, in London.
Perhaps they required such a conference because, at least in my opinion, London is one of the least boring places on the planet.
Those sorry they missed the conference, take heart: there will be a Boring 2011, and I am betting it will be epic...in its extreme triviality.
(If you can't wait that long for boredom, check out this blog.)
Perhaps they required such a conference because, at least in my opinion, London is one of the least boring places on the planet.
Those sorry they missed the conference, take heart: there will be a Boring 2011, and I am betting it will be epic...in its extreme triviality.
(If you can't wait that long for boredom, check out this blog.)
Sunday, January 9, 2011
20x11: New year, same old idiocies
Inspired by a speech given by New York State Senator Diane Savino in 2009 -- or more accurately, the comments following the speech -- in favor of allowing for same-sex marriages in New York state (which failed in the state senate that day), I'm reiterating some of the more pervasive red herrings in the gay marriage debate in order to have fun arguing against them.
1. "The right for gays to marry is contingent on proving that being homosexual is a biological imperative, not a choice."
Well, as a straight person I've never had to prove that my heterosexuality is a biological imperative, and I gained the right to marry as soon as I turned 18 -- when I was an idiot, and should probably not have been allowed to even think about marriage.
Next idiotic point, please.
2. "The government should stay out of marriage, which is a religious institution and not a political one."
Alright, fair enough. If that's your argument, I'm willing to allow you to define marriage as "only religious" if you're willing to forgo all the legal benefits accrued to you by your marriage.
To deny yourself these legal benefits, you pretty much have to not get legally married. Go ahead and marry each other in churches of your choice -- just don't file the paperwork, and don't expect death benefits, or to be called on in emergencies as next of kin to make life-altering decisions for your partner, or the tax exemptions, or the ability to get a loan in both your names. If your marriage breaks up, don't expect any compensation. If you choose to have kids, don't expect your partner to have to care for them as much as you do; nor should you expect to have equal access to them if your partner wants to have custody.
If you're willing to think of marriage as solely religious after that, I'm fine with your argument. But in that case, the legal trappings of marriage should be extended to gay people as well, since they actually have nothing to do with religious marriage, anyway.
If you're thinking this is unfair and that you need those benefits, then you're already on the side of the same-sex marriage proponents. You need a new protest sign.
3. "It needs to be proven first that gay marriage would be of benefit to society before we change the law."
This is ridiculous. How could we possibly expect gay people to prove that their marriages would benefit society if all we're doing is performing stupid thought experiments about what might possibly happen if we let them get married? Let people get married! Then see if there are benefits.
Or, you know, don't, because hetero marriages don't have follow-up appointments or requirements of beneficiality. No heterosexual couple I know has ever been interviewed by a govt. (or even religious) agent, asking what benefits they've provided society as a result of their commitment. It's even more absurd to imagine that their commitment would be dissolved if they hadn't had enough of a beneficial impact on society.
4. "Societies throughout time have always had the heterosexual family as their basic structural unit."
This person has been watching too much TV, and coming from me, that's saying a lot.
If, on the other hand, they cracked an anthro textbook every now and then, they would see that societies have all manner of bases and kin relationships, with very few "rules" in common. (One is, for instance, that men always try to control or dominate women. Another is the taboo against incest.) Some societies have had elaborate homosexual relationships built into their structure; some have had children remain with birth family members throughout life (only impregnating, or being impregnated by, outsiders -- but raising children together with siblings).
Read Foucault's History of Sexuality and watch less Two and a Half Men.
5. "If gays are allowed to marry, God will destroy our country/bring wrath on us/no longer have America as his [sic] favorite."
I doubt that will be the straw that broke the camel's back. I mean, have you seen Two and a Half Men?
6. "The slippery slope!"
What slippery slope? Is the fear that we'll begin "tolerating" things that are harmful to ourselves and others? What things, exactly?
I've heard polygamy (based usually on strict gender roles that don't allow women many rights -- so, conservative), incest (which we all agree causes birth defects in the long term even with personal consent, and in nuclear families is often abuse perpetrated by the father, which we agree has a terrible impact on children), bestiality (really? These are the same people who refuse to believe we might be related to monkeys, but having a relationship with another human is going to lead automatically to sex with a barnyard animal?? I thought that human/non-human line was hard and fast for non-evolutionists), and other polyamorous relationships.
Well, guess what. Those things exist, with or without gay marriage. With the exception of polyamorous relationships -- which either have a negotiated relationship with marriage (i.e., the "open marriage"), or nothing to do with marriage -- I think we all agree there are major problems with the relationships some are afraid we might "slip into."
I think if you're worried that allowing two other people to marry each other will make your children want to have sex with a cow, you might have other things to worry about.
7. "It threatens marriage."
I'm not sure how this is supposed to work, except as a hodge-podge of slippery slope arguments and repressed homosexual leanings. Are droves of previously straight men and women suddenly going to realize they'd have married gay if they had had the option before?
Is it that children might grow up thinking about whether they're gay or straight, because that might lead some of them to believe they're gay?
What exactly is at stake in allowing others to enter into the institution, except that more of us will be institutionalized, overall? (And isn't that the point of conservativism, that we'll all be "normal"?)
8. "It threatens the family."
This is what's at stake, actually -- the nuclear family as the basic unit of production in capitalism. We have gender roles not because we're born that way -- into a 1950s sitcom -- but because those are the roles assigned to us in modern capitalism. Men go out and work, producing labor for the GDP, and women stay home to spend money and raise the next generation of workers.
When two men love each other, what are they supposed to do in this system? It's CRAZY! They can do anything they WANT TO DO! And that's not what society is FOR...society is for working, and raising a family, and spending the appropriate amount of money on newer and more faddish stuff, so that newer and more faddish stuff needs to be continually produced, so that there's work to be done.
The bottom line to this scary statement of threat to the family is that "family" and "family values" are conceived of as work- and role-related, rather than fun- and freedom-related.
The confusing part is that in asking to be let into the structure of marriage (and possibly children), gay marriage advocates are showing that they would like to be a part of that capitalist structure, too. Asking to be allowed to be married is one of the most conservative things that people in the position of the freedom of marginality (you know, minus the hate crimes and discrimination, if those could be subtracted) can possibly do.
9. "It's just not natural."
Well, neither is NASCAR, but you're allowed to have that.
Setting aside the arguments previously mentioned, of course, that some societies practiced homosexual behaviors, and that what we might characterize as homosexual behavior has been documented in the animal world as well. And also setting aside that any family unit created by capitalism -- which in turn was set in motion by the Industrial Revolution (read: machines) -- cannot really be considered "natural."
10. "It's not normal."
Yeah, that's partly because we're refusing to allow it. If we allowed it, it would be normal. That's how laws and norms work. This is a circular argument.
I think the underlying fear here is actually that it might become normal if we allow it -- so not that we should disallow anything "not normal," but the realization that anything we allow will eventually become fine. It's an argument for restricting normality to exactly what it's defined as now. Think about how that would have worked out for America (or how it did work out) during the Civil Rights movement.
Race and sexuality may not be the same, but the comparison is apt in that the attitudes of conservatives is the same in each case: to conserve. But wanting preserve the current norm or trying to return some lost past norm (like, say, attempting to relate all of modern life directly back to the U.S. Constitution) is not an argument. It's nostalgia, and a dangerous kind that ignores all the experiences of minorities who didn't have such awesome "golden years" with those norms (like, say, the slaves, who were cut out of the recent constitution reading in Congress -- so as not to remind us of how far we've come since then).
This protest should be better expressed "but then it will become normal!" which is the real fear of those saying it.
11. "It's part of the gay agenda."
To...what?
Are gays going to take over the world? Usher in the apocalypse? Raise more gay children? (To what negative effect?) Convert you? Worship their great master Satan and call down demons to plague you? What exactly are gay people going to do to ruin everything?
No one can explain exactly what the gays will ruin by marrying each other, which is why that's not the point of "the gay agenda" argument. It's actually a pretty genius straw man, propping up a bunch of conservative beliefs.
Most likely, if you're saying this, you're white and conservative and probably live near a lot of people who agree with you. If you're a religious fundamentalist, you probably also go to church to hear other people say things like this and to agree with them. If you're all of these things, you probably believe you're being persecuted as a "true Christian" in "America today." Part of the way you're being persecuted is that people keep pointing out your positions of privilege and asking you to define exactly how you're being persecuted, which you can only do in vague spiritual terms that refer to strict interpretations of certain passages of Scripture, most of which you're not actually prepared to defend. People who don't go to your church don't seem to believe you.
In which case, if they gays get to marry, you win.
Then when their Satan-worshiping, child-sexuality-warping, apocalypse-ushering, plague-bringing ways begin to show through (in marriage, for some reason, more than any other institution), you'll not only be able to say "I told you so" -- you may actually be right when you claim to be persecuted.
You'll still be white and conservative, and most likely male and a Protestant, but at least then you'll be able to prove that same-sex couples were out to get you all along.
Or, alternatively, you'll find no change at all in your social power, in which case you can stick to the vague spiritual terms and literal Scripture interpretations and continue to mutter foreboding things about ushering in the end times, until the apocalypse comes or you die, probably peacefully at an old age.
The idea of a gay agenda is a win-win for you headshakers who believe in the decline of society.
Congratulations on thinking it up.
1. "The right for gays to marry is contingent on proving that being homosexual is a biological imperative, not a choice."
Well, as a straight person I've never had to prove that my heterosexuality is a biological imperative, and I gained the right to marry as soon as I turned 18 -- when I was an idiot, and should probably not have been allowed to even think about marriage.
Next idiotic point, please.
2. "The government should stay out of marriage, which is a religious institution and not a political one."
Alright, fair enough. If that's your argument, I'm willing to allow you to define marriage as "only religious" if you're willing to forgo all the legal benefits accrued to you by your marriage.
To deny yourself these legal benefits, you pretty much have to not get legally married. Go ahead and marry each other in churches of your choice -- just don't file the paperwork, and don't expect death benefits, or to be called on in emergencies as next of kin to make life-altering decisions for your partner, or the tax exemptions, or the ability to get a loan in both your names. If your marriage breaks up, don't expect any compensation. If you choose to have kids, don't expect your partner to have to care for them as much as you do; nor should you expect to have equal access to them if your partner wants to have custody.
If you're willing to think of marriage as solely religious after that, I'm fine with your argument. But in that case, the legal trappings of marriage should be extended to gay people as well, since they actually have nothing to do with religious marriage, anyway.
If you're thinking this is unfair and that you need those benefits, then you're already on the side of the same-sex marriage proponents. You need a new protest sign.
3. "It needs to be proven first that gay marriage would be of benefit to society before we change the law."
This is ridiculous. How could we possibly expect gay people to prove that their marriages would benefit society if all we're doing is performing stupid thought experiments about what might possibly happen if we let them get married? Let people get married! Then see if there are benefits.
Or, you know, don't, because hetero marriages don't have follow-up appointments or requirements of beneficiality. No heterosexual couple I know has ever been interviewed by a govt. (or even religious) agent, asking what benefits they've provided society as a result of their commitment. It's even more absurd to imagine that their commitment would be dissolved if they hadn't had enough of a beneficial impact on society.
4. "Societies throughout time have always had the heterosexual family as their basic structural unit."
This person has been watching too much TV, and coming from me, that's saying a lot.
If, on the other hand, they cracked an anthro textbook every now and then, they would see that societies have all manner of bases and kin relationships, with very few "rules" in common. (One is, for instance, that men always try to control or dominate women. Another is the taboo against incest.) Some societies have had elaborate homosexual relationships built into their structure; some have had children remain with birth family members throughout life (only impregnating, or being impregnated by, outsiders -- but raising children together with siblings).
Read Foucault's History of Sexuality and watch less Two and a Half Men.
5. "If gays are allowed to marry, God will destroy our country/bring wrath on us/no longer have America as his [sic] favorite."
I doubt that will be the straw that broke the camel's back. I mean, have you seen Two and a Half Men?
6. "The slippery slope!"
What slippery slope? Is the fear that we'll begin "tolerating" things that are harmful to ourselves and others? What things, exactly?
I've heard polygamy (based usually on strict gender roles that don't allow women many rights -- so, conservative), incest (which we all agree causes birth defects in the long term even with personal consent, and in nuclear families is often abuse perpetrated by the father, which we agree has a terrible impact on children), bestiality (really? These are the same people who refuse to believe we might be related to monkeys, but having a relationship with another human is going to lead automatically to sex with a barnyard animal?? I thought that human/non-human line was hard and fast for non-evolutionists), and other polyamorous relationships.
Well, guess what. Those things exist, with or without gay marriage. With the exception of polyamorous relationships -- which either have a negotiated relationship with marriage (i.e., the "open marriage"), or nothing to do with marriage -- I think we all agree there are major problems with the relationships some are afraid we might "slip into."
I think if you're worried that allowing two other people to marry each other will make your children want to have sex with a cow, you might have other things to worry about.
7. "It threatens marriage."
I'm not sure how this is supposed to work, except as a hodge-podge of slippery slope arguments and repressed homosexual leanings. Are droves of previously straight men and women suddenly going to realize they'd have married gay if they had had the option before?
Is it that children might grow up thinking about whether they're gay or straight, because that might lead some of them to believe they're gay?
What exactly is at stake in allowing others to enter into the institution, except that more of us will be institutionalized, overall? (And isn't that the point of conservativism, that we'll all be "normal"?)
8. "It threatens the family."
This is what's at stake, actually -- the nuclear family as the basic unit of production in capitalism. We have gender roles not because we're born that way -- into a 1950s sitcom -- but because those are the roles assigned to us in modern capitalism. Men go out and work, producing labor for the GDP, and women stay home to spend money and raise the next generation of workers.
When two men love each other, what are they supposed to do in this system? It's CRAZY! They can do anything they WANT TO DO! And that's not what society is FOR...society is for working, and raising a family, and spending the appropriate amount of money on newer and more faddish stuff, so that newer and more faddish stuff needs to be continually produced, so that there's work to be done.
The bottom line to this scary statement of threat to the family is that "family" and "family values" are conceived of as work- and role-related, rather than fun- and freedom-related.
The confusing part is that in asking to be let into the structure of marriage (and possibly children), gay marriage advocates are showing that they would like to be a part of that capitalist structure, too. Asking to be allowed to be married is one of the most conservative things that people in the position of the freedom of marginality (you know, minus the hate crimes and discrimination, if those could be subtracted) can possibly do.
9. "It's just not natural."
Well, neither is NASCAR, but you're allowed to have that.
Setting aside the arguments previously mentioned, of course, that some societies practiced homosexual behaviors, and that what we might characterize as homosexual behavior has been documented in the animal world as well. And also setting aside that any family unit created by capitalism -- which in turn was set in motion by the Industrial Revolution (read: machines) -- cannot really be considered "natural."
10. "It's not normal."
Yeah, that's partly because we're refusing to allow it. If we allowed it, it would be normal. That's how laws and norms work. This is a circular argument.
I think the underlying fear here is actually that it might become normal if we allow it -- so not that we should disallow anything "not normal," but the realization that anything we allow will eventually become fine. It's an argument for restricting normality to exactly what it's defined as now. Think about how that would have worked out for America (or how it did work out) during the Civil Rights movement.
Race and sexuality may not be the same, but the comparison is apt in that the attitudes of conservatives is the same in each case: to conserve. But wanting preserve the current norm or trying to return some lost past norm (like, say, attempting to relate all of modern life directly back to the U.S. Constitution) is not an argument. It's nostalgia, and a dangerous kind that ignores all the experiences of minorities who didn't have such awesome "golden years" with those norms (like, say, the slaves, who were cut out of the recent constitution reading in Congress -- so as not to remind us of how far we've come since then).
This protest should be better expressed "but then it will become normal!" which is the real fear of those saying it.
11. "It's part of the gay agenda."
To...what?
Are gays going to take over the world? Usher in the apocalypse? Raise more gay children? (To what negative effect?) Convert you? Worship their great master Satan and call down demons to plague you? What exactly are gay people going to do to ruin everything?
No one can explain exactly what the gays will ruin by marrying each other, which is why that's not the point of "the gay agenda" argument. It's actually a pretty genius straw man, propping up a bunch of conservative beliefs.
Most likely, if you're saying this, you're white and conservative and probably live near a lot of people who agree with you. If you're a religious fundamentalist, you probably also go to church to hear other people say things like this and to agree with them. If you're all of these things, you probably believe you're being persecuted as a "true Christian" in "America today." Part of the way you're being persecuted is that people keep pointing out your positions of privilege and asking you to define exactly how you're being persecuted, which you can only do in vague spiritual terms that refer to strict interpretations of certain passages of Scripture, most of which you're not actually prepared to defend. People who don't go to your church don't seem to believe you.
In which case, if they gays get to marry, you win.
Then when their Satan-worshiping, child-sexuality-warping, apocalypse-ushering, plague-bringing ways begin to show through (in marriage, for some reason, more than any other institution), you'll not only be able to say "I told you so" -- you may actually be right when you claim to be persecuted.
You'll still be white and conservative, and most likely male and a Protestant, but at least then you'll be able to prove that same-sex couples were out to get you all along.
Or, alternatively, you'll find no change at all in your social power, in which case you can stick to the vague spiritual terms and literal Scripture interpretations and continue to mutter foreboding things about ushering in the end times, until the apocalypse comes or you die, probably peacefully at an old age.
The idea of a gay agenda is a win-win for you headshakers who believe in the decline of society.
Congratulations on thinking it up.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
20x11 New Year’s Resolutions:
I will go to at least one live concert this year.
I will complete my Goodwill letterboxing series.
I will give away at least one bookshelf’s worth of books.
I will try to say two positive things for every one negative thing I say.
I will try to sell one purse.
I will watch 52 seasons of TV.
I will have at least two themed parties, for which the themes will be hilarious and clever.
I will embark on at least one DIY project, just in case I ever have to move to Brooklyn.
I will try to find a new job.
I will take at least three significant trips, again.
I will watch one sunrise with P.C., who suggested this resolution and so will now have to watch it with me.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
20x11: Things I don’t like
This list is only half the 20x11, because in general I think it’s a good practice to try to focus on things you like more than on things you don’t like. Besides, anyone who has met me has heard at least 20x5.5 number of things I don’t like and can therefore supplement the list with those complaints.
In completely random order:
Hot seatbelt after the car’s been sitting in the summer sun; missing puzzle pieces; Internet spam; yapping dogs; children crying in that way where their faces turn red and they choke on their own crying; stepping on the bottom of your jeans outside in the rain or snow so they get wet and dirty; William J. Vader II; Alicia Silverstone; people who try to explain predestination by repeating their argument louder instead of saying something different; when something falls in the trash accidentally
Vomiting; reading Agatha Christie novels when I’m not on long train rides; mirrors with shiny silvery metallic frames; mirrors with shiny gold-like metallic frames; people who tell you not to do something and then go and do it themselves, anyway; people who condescend to you; the self-centeredness of making lists of stuff you like on your personal blog; not being able to control the whininess in your voice when you’ve been crying or are upset; when people give away what “Rosebud” means; getting cut off in traffic; being told “you’ll understand when you’re older,” especially since you never do
When the person you’re with is paying more attention to someone else than to you; going to parties where you don’t know anyone; pretzels; cream cheese on anything but a bagel; The Itchy and Scratchy Show; the American flag – aesthetically; “the American flag” – as a rallying point for people who don’t have an actual well-thought-out opinion on issues; Jean-Ralphio on Parks and Recreation; when people use second person to distance themselves from the stuff they’re saying; making errors in spelling; Mike Rappaport
Saurkraut; not understanding German; Screech from Saved By The Bell; the fact that some of the shows I really liked aren’t out on DVD, or that they stopped after releasing the first season or two; that time I had just gotten my training wheels off and fell into the kiddie pool as I rode around the driveway, at the time; living on the third floor or higher; drying clothes on a clothesline, because of the time it takes and how I have to schedule laundry around the weather report; drinking alcohol; spending more than an hour at the aquarium; waiting in line; when I tell someone to stop tickling me and they don’t
Wearing high heels; not having a place to put all the stuff I want to hoard; not knowing everything in the world; touching raw chicken; meat pies; the phrase “humble abode”; having to check the pockets of pants before putting them in the washer; not having a dishwasher; washing the dishes; My Antonia by Willa Cather; burning my tongue on a too-hot beverage even though I blew on it for a long time and it seemed safe to drink
The word “discombobulate”; A Day No Pigs Would Die by a guy whose name I can’t remember; not remembering that guy’s name; cheesy and sweet flavors together; cheesecake; the recent years of Garfield; when people gather in the kitchen at parties even though everything is set up in the other room; troubleshooting lost Internet connections; competing publicly; karaoke; people who immediately begin saying a word that someone just said they hated, as if to test out the hatred of the person who hates that word, or to torture them
Swimming at the YWCA when I was little; my stupid phone battery that dies all the time; potato salad; cranberry sauce with other stuff in it, like celery; celery; having multiple plates and bowls per-person, per-meal, at a home dinner party; orange-scented things; wracking my brain for a movie title on the tip of my tongue and still not being able to think of it; doing my taxes; back pain; any phrase combining a body part and food word, such as “head cheese” or “toe jam”
Carrying a purse that doesn’t go over the shoulder; when DVDs won’t let you skip ahead to the main menu; this weird digital TV signal thing that causes me to not get any channels; giant corporations that are secretly running the world; the Tea Party; Power Bars; the idea of climbing a mountain; imaginary friends, when adults have them and speak to them in public; prices on food at concession stands; Carrot Top; people who never stop complaining
Cursing; the virgin/whore dichotomy; lima beans; AOL; dogs that lick you; “dog-hand” – the smell your hand has after you pet a smelly dog; the fatty edge of ham; cigarette smoke, or the smell of it; when people name their kids stupid names; sharp knives; dickies
Canadian bacon; the way the new Oprah channel is being advertised as if she didn’t already have her own TV network; when people accidentally break my stuff; American cheese; those wheelie shoes; shoes that you have to shine; when people back down just to appease someone else who is wrong; when people back down just to appease someone else who is a jerk; movies where the lead woman is an idiot; movies where the lead man is an idiot; movies where everyone else has to be an idiot to make the lead man look like a normal guy
Shoulder and neck pain; Valentine’s Day clichés; the idea of “figgy pudding”; the rudeness of guests who would demand that you “bring it right here”; dancing; the portions of songs I otherwise like, particularly 80's ballads, where the band "breaks it down" and includes a long musical interlude, often of a saxophone solo (.5)
Saturday, January 1, 2011
20x11: Things I like
In completely random order:
George Elliot’s Middlemarch; “Good Idea/Bad Idea” from Animaniacs; NPR; driving long distances to arrive somewhere awesome; the idea of shopping sprees; Will Arnett; Paradise Pizza; salads with croutons; William J. Vader III; the dog from New Jersey voice; The National; watching P.C. play video games
Parks and Recreation; Willow Brook park; breakfast food for dinner; breakfast food for breakfast; particularly bacon; copyediting; showing that simple things are often complicated; coconut-scented hand lotion; Joe Biden’s hilarious out-takes; London; Los Abandoned
Aziz Ansari; those gingerbread cookies Laura makes; friend Jenny; Dujiangyan, China; the Oxford Tube; allowing myself to watch the Harry Potter movies even though to evangelicals they’re evil; allowing myself to listen to the Harry Potter books even though to evangelicals they’re evil; Jim Dale’s reading of the Harry Potter books; swings; fresh flowers on the table at a friend’s house; Washington, D.C.
Swimming at the Lion’s pool when I was little; Chuck; reading Agatha Christie novels on long train rides; lamps; mirrors with nice wooden frames, particularly ones that look kind of retro; fitted sweaters that can be layered; Stuff White People Like; writing fun stuff on my blog; pretending my opinions are of grand importance; the quirkiness of making lists of stuff you like on your personal blog; friend Carl
The Simpsons; carving stamps; memories of 7-11 Slurpees; watching movies with friends in my dorm room; watching movies with friends in my apartment; having themed parties, such as the “T party”; Edwards key lime pie, from your grocer’s freezer; pepper-jack cheese; pointillism; friend Becca; e-friend Jason
Chester, England; my old car Betty; hatchbacks in general; velvety sofas, such as the purple sofabed; velvety sofas such as the gold loveseat; eject buttons on DVD player remotes; watching endless hours of TV until I feel I’m a part of the characters’ lives; when someone editing my writing tells me something I already kind of knew but hadn’t dealt with yet; chocolate Vitasoy; memories of eating spinach quesadillas in Thailand, with English Breakfast tea, every morning in Chiang Mai; knowing DVD math
Fried fish; the story of how I learned some Chinese; knowing some Chinese; friend Carmen; friend Vivian; friend Apple; when the DVD logo bounces exactly in the corner of the screen when the player is on screensaver; that scene in The Office where the whole office is waiting for the DVD logo to bounce exactly in the center of the screen and Michael thinks they’re having a great meeting; riding in a red wagon with my family to Laura’s house; quoting the old Ames “two-day sale” commercial where the man says “I was holding her weenie…and poof! My Doris was gone!”; going through the entire Bill Nye dialogue on being a fathead with my fathead brother
The smell of laundry dried on a clothesline; clean flannel sheets; clean flannel pajamas; holding hands with P.C.; calling people “cheater” instead of jerk or other rude terms; the theme music to NYPD Blue; having AAA; saying “release the Kraken!” whenever we open the Kraken brand rum; biscuits; Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream; the memory of walking the streets in Belgium
Star Trek: The Next Generation; reading my horoscope from Rob Breszny; getting packages in the mail; the Elaine painting; quoting Strong Bad; super-local music; Tilly and the Wall; friend Heather; letterboxing; my awesome winter coat; hating New Jersey
Lots of pillows; my $3 winter boots from the Goodwill; Where the Red Fern Grows; Garfield without Garfield; the Allen and Craig show on youtube; Matt & Kim; eating cookies; the “yesterday’s bread” rack at the Bristol Stop & Shop; the Acme Steel sign visible from the New Britain Stop & Shop; flatbread; calling it “Fartford”
Star Trek: Voyager; owning an extra DVD player so I can keep one at work for overnights; space heaters; River Raid, the Atari game; pineapple, particularly a quarter of a pineapple on a stick; chef’s coats on chefs; swimming at the YMCA when I was little; Fifties Television by William Boddy; putting a candy cane in hot chocolate; looking at the blue and green Christmas lights on my tree; buying half-price wrapping paper in bulk after the holiday
Queer studies; brownies with coconut; brownies without coconut; Caroline in the City; knowing something about football; Battlestar Galactica (the new one); King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry; banter; verbing words; Calvin and Hobbes; those VH1 “Remembering the [X]ties” marathons (mainly the ones about the 80s)
Cranberry sauce, jellied; sleeping; the weird things introduced to me by Nigel Frith, including the Pangeia room; coconut Vitasoy; inventing new types of purses; President Obama; jasmine tea; yogurt; talking with my friends on the phone until we run out of things to say; talking with my friends on the phone until we can barely breathe through the laughter; quoting “Behind the Laughter”
Diet Dr Pepper; tuna subs from Subway with lots of onions; saying “for reals”; ironic cross-stitches; peanut-walnut milk; cilantro; T-shirts from thinkgeek; 30 Rock; the idea of living in a box truck; the idea of living in a schoolbus; the fact that I just typed “schoolbux” by accident
Big Bang Theory; Judith Halberstam’s thoughts on horror as described in Skin Shows; being good at helping people move; my grandparents; making mix CDs; my students from Academy of Hope; saying “that’s what she said”; staying up really late; sleeping until 10 a.m.; talking to myself when I’m alone; singing loudly along with certain songs in the car
Teamwork; the episode of Reading Rainbow with the song “Teamwork” starring Levar Burton; regular Doritos; falafel; Amsterdam Falafel in D.C.; libraries; the way the Parks and Rec staff have a vendetta with the “punk-ass book jockeys” at the Pawnee Library; the way food tastes when it comes from a concession stand at a baseball game; heckling; Patton Oswalt; cleverness
Raw almonds; milkshakes; Jim Gaffigan; pretending to shout “apt!” when relevant; panang curry; the way so many people on TV and in the movies look like friend Jeff; arranging things in the fridge or car with Tetris-like efficiency; crab meat; being proud of something a friend has written; So You Think You Can Dance; ironic viewing of Gidget movies
When people admit that they’re wrong (when they are); the Best of Craigslist listings; Mad Men; crocheted blankets from the Goodwill; Cool Whip; hard-boiled eggs; the yeariversary plans to visit a different state capital on every yeariversay with P.C.; volunteering for things I care about; taking the bus in foreign countries; The Office; unresolved sexual tension between work partners in sitcoms
Designating my boyfriend “Prince Certainpersonio” on my blog; calling my boyfriend “buttface” in real life; bringing P.C. donuts for breakfast when his day at work is terrible; Lewis Black; Valentine’s Day horror movie marathons; using a tray for eating in the living room in front of the TV or elsewhere; Tina Fey; Amy Poehler; Adam Baldwin in all his roles so far; taking long walks; smart people
Watermelon flavored things, including a drink made by blending watermelon with just some water; warm cardigans; Carebears; taking frivolous things seriously; friend Emily; ironic use of yearbook clichés such as “reach for the stars!”; Joseph Gordon-Leavitt; Persuasion, the movie with Ciaran Hinds; chocolate-covered gummy bears; chocolate-covered frozen bananas; the word “satchel”
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