#i wish it was like alison bechdel or something but no

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

You can't just leave this in the tags, the point's too good!

Also gotta love how once it was ripped out of context, it got passed on to so many people who clearly didn't know shit about who the test was named after, because otherwise you'd think people would remember that Alison Bechdel (and Liz Wallace) were DYKES. Two lesbians who were dealing with literal crumbs of nothing in terms of representation, crumbs that make what we have today look like a sumptuous feast, via what started as a little jokey joke between pals.

Yes, let's all think very hard about the total mystery as to why these women might want women to have more meaningful conversations without a man. Let's think hard about this...oh, I know, the answer is FEMINISM!!!

And honestly?? I think it's a perfectly legitimate complaint for women to want more female characters who have connections of all kinds with each other, including platonic, just the way male characters get to. (And I kinda DO wish the people who bitch about it would ever get to the step of thinking for more than two seconds about what it says about modern media that this bar is so incredibly low, and STILL so few films pass it. That DOES say something meaningful, albeit accidentally, about the way women are portrayed as having no interior lives outside of their looks or a family/a man.)

But also like, ohhhh my god. Oh my fucking GODDDD y'all. Y'all sometimes it really is not that deep. Or at least it didn't start out that way. But it's like it really doesn't occur to people that lesbians are allowed to just fuck around and have jokes and ship things and have fun without our words being taken out of context and made into some Big Feminist Statement it was never originally intended to be.

you people will just. say anything

Keep reading

[gowns]

the first piece of gay media i ever consumed was actually when i stole my dad’s howard stern book and it opened up with a few racy anecdotes of him taking calls about lesbian experiences and it turning him on so much he had to stop and jerk off. amazed that didn’t damage me as much as it did, altho i got really into quote unquote hot chicks after that. and i was like. 8 or 9 years old. like it was only a couple years later i saw the moulin rouge lady marmalade video and i was like. i do believe this is sexy and i will think about this every single night for some reason.

[daughter-of-sapph0]

so there was this tiktok about the mcu movies and how many passed the bechdel test, and like none of them passed. anyway, I commented on how Alison Bechdel created the test not as a serious critique of whether a movie is objectively good or bad, but because she wanted to headcanon the characters as lesbians when she watched movies. and I commented this, told people to look up the original comic that was from "Dykes to Watch Out For", etc etc. and for some fucking reason, like fifty people got pissed at me a week after I posted that comment. "do you have a source for that" "that never happened, you're making that up" "stop lying, asshole" like holy shit, I was just commenting a fun fact. I literally prefaced my comment with "fun fact:". it's not a critique or attack on the guy's video. I linked the comic and her wiki page. I said, "here, look. Alison made the comic 'the rule' as a joke. because she's a comic artist. not a film critic."

and the weirdest thing is that the people yelling at me aren't mad for reasons I thought they would be. they aren't lesbians who are saying that I'm oversexualizing lesbians for having headcanons or something stupid. they aren't third wave feminists mad that the bechdel test isn't the be all end all on whether a movie is objectively good or bad. they aren't terfs saying that I'm appropriating lesbianism or whatever. no. they're just guys mad at me for, get this, not posting a peer reviewed source on a fun fact that doesn't affect their lives whatsoever in a 150 character comment.

holy shit, what do they want now? "the sky is blue. source: Wikipedia.com/sky". not every single thing needs a source. and what infuriates me is that I did give a source. if they bothered to read the replies, they'd see that I told them to look up the original comic, and see that it is a comic about two lesbians joking about watching movies, and not a proposal to the critic board for a new form of film critique.

look, I understand the importance of citing your sources, but it's only necessary either in essays and scientific papers and news articles, or when you're making a bold claim that has the potential to harm someone like saying that masks are fake or something. me commenting a fun fact like "a lesbian wrote a comic, and that is the origin of a thing" isn't a scientific study or an antivax conspiracy theory. it's just a fun fact. I'm just taking about a comic that I like, and that I wish more people would read.

people on tiktok are a different breed. they have no chill at all, and are so self centered that they think every single comment is a personal attack against them.

[marnie1964]

Karate Kid/Cobra Kai survey

i'm gonna consider myself tagged

It’s the year 2021 and you’re obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?: an unexpected turn of events but it's passing the quarantine, i guess!

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?:  to be completely honest, i don't really like the movies? i didn't vibe with them as a kid and when i went back and tried to watch them this year i couldn't make it all the way through.* i think they're well crafted movies, but i've never liked relatable young boy wish fulfillment (i couldn't even get thru harry potter as a kid), and i think the first one is guilty of burying the lede twice over with regards to mr. miyagi and later the relationship between kreese and johnny. and lucky me--these are exactly the areas that cobra kai delivers on.

*except for the third one, which imo is a camp masterpiece and also genuinely heartbreaking. it's the only one that allows daniel to be an genuine pain in the ass. i think i've finally figured out what the target audience for cobra kai is: people who's favorite karate kid movie was tkk3 (me).

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character: johnny! what is a man but a miserable pile of bruce springsteen lyrics? or aimee mann lyrics? or mountain goats lyrics? or otis redding lyrics? or--fuck, have americans ever written songs about anyone else? i have an unreal amount of good will towards this man and his late-life struggle for recuperation. he's the heart of the show both in terms of his relationships with other characters and in terms of zabka's chemistry with the other actors.

my deep dark double secret fave is kreese. he makes me feel real anger in a way that's usually reserved for characters in vince gilligan shows. i'm a bit obsessed with him and his preoccupation with johnny and later johnny's teenaged son (I Have Thoughts). the show does a great job of making what he did to johnny--and all the years and years and years of fallout from that--feel really real, which makes him one of the most viscerally despicable villains i've ever come across . it's unironically among the best portrayals of domestic abuse i've seen, may god have mercy on our souls. the decision to pop out from behind a fucking cardboard cutout of himself to scare daniel in tkk3 was also a hilarious galaxy brain move. aspirational stuff.

also--shout out to daniel-san. the writers really had to work their asses off to make him into a character that appeals to me, and i think they did a great job of it. he's a cringey tool who's capable of displaying a surprising amount of integrity under the right circumstances! he's tom wambsgans! he's pete campbell! he's wonderful i love him!

Favorite ship:  johnny & daniel (what if mysterious skin was a sports comedy??)

Underrated character: the True and Correct answer to this question can only be aisha, although i don't think she was actually underrated by anyone besides the writers. chozen is also lowkey my favorite katate child because c'mon, he had everything (spear fights! ziplines! teen death matches! formfitting disco-era polyester button down shirts worn with gold chains!)

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):  uhhhh... the only teen couple that could have been interesting is tory/aisha. they were cute together and their friendship rang true to me. it's that thing where you're the new girl and you're conventionally attractive, but on the inside you know you're a freak so you immediately gravitate towards the most obvious female outsider. i lived it, bay-bey!

i also think there are interesting things to explore with carmen and johnny's relationship. i don't know if the writers are even aware of it (i lean towards no b/c men amirite) but the entire premise of carmen's character is that she chose to live in poverty to protect herself and her son from a bad man with power. she's thereby the exact opposite of johnny's mother, who (at least by his understanding) married hollywood film producer shmarvey shmeinstein to provide her son with a better life. so, there's a lot to unpack in his attraction to her. also they're super hot hur hur i like sexy nurse thing hur hur.

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?: i can't look directly at it, but sweep the leg. zabka what the fuck man.

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?:  i don't think i've seen anyone mention this one yet, but the football jersey with the sweatpants. it makes him look so small and huggable, i wanna pick him up and set him on my shelf or something.

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver: bring back ali's lesbian girl gang!!! or else--dutch. he was funny and iconic, i loved his exaggerated offended reaction to everything daniel said or did in tkk. also, i'm tacky so i'm a sucker for aggressively bleach blonde hair. the SCANDALIZED wasp couple standing behind ali and johnny in the spaghetti scene will also do. or terry's secretary (an mvp--i believe the original actress has passed away so in my heart of hearts she's portrayed by j. smith-cameron).

Scene that lives in your head rent-free: the whole character development speed run that johnny does from sweep the leg to crying while handing daniel the trophy to getting strangled in the parking lot by his beloved teacher. i'm especially transfixed by that last bit--what's the thought process of a man who decides to publicly execute his teenage student via strangulation? why did none of the many bystanders call the police? johnny is the real kitty genovese, prison for everyone.

from the cobra kai series proper: daniel's decision to greet johnny with a big hug after not seeing him for 35 years and never actually being friends with him (I Have Thoughts), the heinously creepy scene where johnny is repeating the cobra kai mantra for miguel and his entire disposition completely changes (demonic possession shit), and johnny's tiny go-ahead-and-kill-my-abuser nod (his face is so stoney after being so animated at dinner) coupled with daniel's shaky little sign of relief (macchio is really the cutest when he looks scared).

it goes without saying that every johnny & miguel scene lives rent free in my HEART.

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?: anthony becomes relevant for one (1) episode next season when amanda and daniel finally get around to putting him up for adoption.

You live in The Valley and are forced into the karate gang war.  Which dojo do you join?:  i enter the cobra kai dojo decked out in all of my snake-themed clothing and jewelry (it's a lot). i approach kreese and explain to him that the open mouth of a snake, viewed head-on, is a yonic symbol. i am permanently banned from the cobra kai dojo.

(seriously though, assuming i'm a teen in this scenario i think i would have vibed with tory/miguel/aisha. dimitri and sam would have driven high school me up the fucking wall though. the cobra kai style looks like more fun/better exercise. do i also genuinely believe most young girls could actually benefit from someone yelling no mercy down their neck? maybe so 💖)

What’s your training montage song?:  50ft queenie - pj harvey (it takes place in the alison bechdel feminist karate dojo ofc)

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?: it's a full episode flashback to the time johnny got arrested in albuquerque, new mexico. johnny's court-appointed attorney is a weirdly hot babe who seems like a super straight laced killjoy at first, but soon reveals herself to be an unhinged woman. one thing leads to another, and johnny winds up in bed with her and her loser husband. there are lots of great themes about punitive justice, people's ability to change for the better (and worse), and what makes someone "good" or "bad" to begin with, but mostly it's just really hot sex. the husband tries to sell johnny a prepaid cellphone and johnny tell's him that cellphones are never gonna catch on, cause who want's to be bothered by people all the time like that?

better call saul. it's a better call saul crossover ep.

(fwiw think that greg 'hbo succession' hirsch should also be terry's cousin greg on the non-roy side. think about it--the roys are small people, but cousin greg is really tall?? and who else is really tall, and a blue eyed brunette to boot? terry silver. it all adds up! this never becomes relevant to the plot, in any case, i'm just considering it canon until the writers come to my house and explicitly tell me i'm wrong.)

Tagging: anyone who's interested 😘

[positivityforlesbians]

GBTs telling lesbians that we should calm down and that there are so many famous lesbians out and proud : “I don’t get what your problem is, you sound like a TERF or something ... look, apart from Ellen Degeneres there’s hmm .... Cara Delevingne, Janelle Monáe, Kristen Stewart and hum... St Vincent”

Like I don’t know how many times we’ll have to spell out the fact that though we really wish they were lesbians none of these women identify that way, in fact they’re all more or less bisexual, just not automatically using the word but talking about “being very fluid” in regard to who they are attracted to/ who they would date. If you want to blame lesbians for our sadness at the lack of representation in the entertainment industry at least name women who are actually lesbians and aren’t still denying this about themselves, else it looks like you don’t care at all about us (ahem...) and therefore don’t know us. rant over/

Anyway, 

Beanie Feldstein, Portia De Rossi, Lena Waithe, Jodie Foster, Hayley Kiyoko, King Princess, Leisha Hailey, Alison Bechdel, Jane Lynch, Amandla Stenberg, Ruby Rose, Kate Mckinnon, Lea DeLaria, Raven Symoné, Lily Tomlin, Beth Ditto, Julien Baker, Samira Wiley and more 💕 💕 

[halogen2]

i dont say this to be like “haha gotchya” or to #cancel anyone but it is very very very weird and upsetting to me that alison bechdel blurbed and endorsed that one ridiculously horrific, transphobic, & lesbophobic book Adam and yet 1) she hasn’t said anything abt it since? and 2) .....no one else ever says anything about it? like i literally only found out that she blurbed the book when i was doing research on it for other reasons?

about the novel, she wrote: “the sexual revolution is finally over, and Ariel Shrag [the author] has won”  ....really alison? like, REALLY alison?

and its especially weird to me b/c from what i previously understood, alison had a track record of SUPPORTING trans ppl, and i know she has a few trans-friendly comics .... but i guess she isnt trans-friendly enough to understand the violence of this novel....??? i guess she isnt trans-friendly enough to understand that a book which posits the idea that trans men are just butch lesbians might be fucked up? i guess she isnt trans-friendly enough to not catch the paragraphs upon paragraphs of hateful comments on trans mens bodies?? 

not to mention the constant racism, the rape scene, the incest scene, or the fact that the ending endorses the idea that penis-in-vagina sex “converts” lesbians to heterosexuality...............

i just kind of wish someone would say SOMETHING abt this endorsement. its been 7 years since this book came out and like, a year and some change since the movie. i feel like now is as good a time as any for some answers?

[westudiedfilmfor3years]

Our First Episode: The Bechdel Test and its Various Offspring

Maddy: Hello and welcome to our podcast, "We Studied Film For Three Years And All We Got Was This Podcast". I'm one of your hosts, Maddy Raven. I'm a third-year theatre and film student.

Jemima: I'm Jemima. I'm also a third year, but just straight film student.

Sarah: And I'm Sarah. And I'm also studying film and television.

Maddy: So this podcast is going to be about film criticism, specifically focusing on diversifying female voices in film criticism, because we think that there are a lot of male, straight white voices in film criticism. Shout out to Michael, who is a straight white male editor.

Maddy: He's looking from side to side!

Jemima: We love Michael.

Maddy: And we're putting this together partly as part of our assessment. So this will be assessed, but also because we want to talk about films and we like to talk about films and we have super interesting conversations about them.

Maddy: And we want to share them with the world because frankly, my opinions are fantastic, actually. And I'm going to force them on everyone else.

Jemima: Yeah, our opinions matter. And because we've kind of done three years of this, I think that we can all agree we have a kind of educated response to films that we just want to put across and create a dialogue about.

Jemima: But at the same time, we want to keep it informal. We want every person, people that don't watch films often know nothing about the theory of it,  and then the people who have also studied it as well. We just want to make it fun, accessible and yeah, hope you enjoy it.

Maddy: We'll also be having guests on the show, hopefully including, you know, like friends, even family, I'll get my dad to come on and rant about how much he loves Jeff Bridges. My dad is like a massive crush on Jeff Bridges. And he's like, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm sure I'm straight.

Maddy: It's like, you are gay for Jeff Bridges, like so gay for Jeff Bridges, it's ridiculous.

Maddy: But having people on to talk to people from the film industry as well and hopefully talk about various things to do with the industry as well, because as everyone knows, it is really difficult to get into the film industry and hopefully at least one of us will somehow make it there and we will be able to share knowledge.

Jemima: Yeah, let's hope all of us, but at least one that would be great.

Maddy: There's four of us, one in four should make it. Yeah.

Jemima: Twenty-five percent. That's fine. 

Maddy: So each episode will be about like a topic. We like topics. It's a general topic and we're going to start out. Oh my God, my text has disappeared from my notes. That's terrifying.

Maddy: So we just thought we'd start out pretty gentle and start by talking about the Bechdel test, which since it came out as part of Allison Bechdel's comic, which came out I think was in the 70s when I can't find it in my notes. 

Sarah: I think that one was from nineteen eighty-five.

Maddy: Nineteen eighty five. Thank you Sarah.

Maddy: Since then it has become, you know, this huge thing it has come so far since then, and there's even a website where you can go and search up your favourite films and we'll be talking about some of our favourite films and why they passed the test and why they don't and how we feel about that and also why the Bechdel Test exists, in our opinion. So, um, Sarah, do you mind giving us a little rundown of what the Bechdel Test is? Because you sound super knowledgeable and smart.

Sarah: Thank you. Sure. So it's called the Bechdel-Wallace Test, it originates from a comic strip called The Rule by Allison Bechdel from 1985, part of her comic called Dykes to Watch Out For.

Sarah: Yeah, lesbians to watch out for lesbians, lesbians substituting a word that can be considered a slur.

Sarah: And yeah, basically these two characters in the comic strip, they're walking past the cinema, I think, talking about movies. And one of them says how they only go to see a film if it passes three simple rules. 

Sarah: So it needs to have at least two female characters who talk to each other about something other than men.

Sarah: And I think since then, people have added that the female characters need to have names, so, yeah, it started off as just a kind of tongue in cheek little joke about how few films actually do have something really simple, like two women in them. And I think, yeah, Alison Bechdel said this is inspired by a conversation she had with her friend Liz Wallace, which is why sometimes it's called the Bechdel-Wallace test. But since then, yeah, critics have kind of rolled it and made a more official kind of way to look at films.

Maddy: Yeah, yeah, that's it. So have any of you seen Pacific Rim?

Jemima: Yeah, wait, there's more to say about that.

Jemima: There's the whole Virginia Woolf thing. OK, so also another thing is that Alison Bechdel, she prefers it to be called the Bechdel-Wallace test just because they created it together and she got most of the credit. That's one thing to say. And then the Virginia Woolf thing, she read A Room of One's Own and thought that was a great way of just kind of encouraging the feminist writings to be transferred onto film.

Jemima: So this test should be really easy to just apply. Another thing as well: there's an additional, Sarah, you said the named character one. The other one is a total of more than 60 seconds of conversation. That's another important one.

Maddy: So what is A Room of One's Own, because I've not actually read the book. So when you say the Virginia Woolf thing, what do you mean?

Jemima: So it's a nineteen twenty-nine essay.

Jemima: "All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of my fictitious woman, utterly simple. And I try to remember any case in that course of my readings where two women are represented as friends. They are now and then mothers and daughters are almost without exception, they are shown in relation to men.

Jemima: It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that?

Maddy: Oh, that's quite pretty, actually. Maybe I should read that, I'll say that, but I won't read it for years to come because I'm bad at concentrating,

Sarah: You can borrow it if you'd like.

Maddy: Yeah, I would. Genuinely, I wish I could read, but I'm probably sitting down and doing it. So obviously, the Bechdel test is a pretty simple test. It has been elaborated on slightly, but I've read a lot of articles about this and in particular, people notice that certain films were passing the test, while other films were failing them. There was such a disparity, like it said here, like Pacific Rim fails the Bechdel Test, despite having like this badass woman, called Mako Mori, she's a Japanese fighter like she because she kicks this guy's ass like ten minutes into the film. It's amazing because the film fails the test essentially and somehow, Thor passes it.

Maddy: So, you know, people are wondering how do we- how do we remedy this? So a Tumblr user called Chila invented the Mako Mori test after watching Pacific Rim. And you will pass this test if you have one female character who gets her own narrative arc that is not supporting a man's story. So moving on from, they have the bare minimum, which is like two female characters talking about, you know, something other than a man to each other: it's also at least one of these women getting a narrative arc and getting to live her own life. And it's not because of a guy, basically.

Maddy: And then Roxane Gay, who is fantastic, you should follow her on Instagram, we love her. She proposed this six-part test. And it says, is there a central female character who is supporting female characters, who doesn't compromise herself for love or live extravagantly for no explained reason? And at least half the time is this character, a woman of colour, transgender and/or queer?

Maddy: And there's also a sixth point, which is a requirement, which is the suggestion that female characters shouldn't have to live up to an unrealistic feminist standard. They can be flawed so long as they feel like they're human beings because, you know, like women, in order to win a place in film a lot of time, it's almost as if women have to be on their best behaviour. They have to be really good. And that's something I'm particularly interested in. I'm really interested in women that are horrible people. I am obsessed with Gone Girl. It's a little bit of a problem. But the Cool Girl Monologue, it changed my life. I know everyone says that everyone, everyone on Twitter was just like the Cool Girl Monologue created so many monsters. And yes, it should have done because I love it. I love women who are horrible. And I think we should allow women to be horrible in films as well. And I think we should allow them to be angry and cry. And just off the top of my head, just like I've seen so many amazing, like montages like this, especially like I tried to with my social media feeds, with a lot of like women that are talking about film and just watching female rage on screen can be so exciting sometimes. Like, um, have any of you watch Lovecraft Country yet? 

Jemima: Yeah, I have.

Maddy: When she smashes the car windows with the baseball bat.

Jemima: Yeah. Yeah. And then everyone's like, oh, I can smash windows too. Yeah.

Maddy: And there's also like well - what were some other examples I was thinking about? Ready or Not. We studied that a couple of weeks ago with Peter Falconer in our Contemporary Hollywood cinema unit. She's just screaming at her husband. She's so angry she doesn't even have words anymore. She just starts yelling. And I'm like, yes, you know, I love that. I've got away from myself. Yeah. I just love women who are horrible people, and I think that should be more of them. Yeah.

Jemima: And Carrie is an awesome one to do female rage about. Of course, she's a flawed, flawed character, but we have compassion for Carrie. We understand her because she has depth to her.

Jemima: And that's all we want, female characters with depth, motivation. We can determine throughout the film, not just prancing off to a man.

Maddy: So then the next test after that was the Sexy Lamp Test, which was made by Kelly Sue DeConnick. I love the name: Sexy Lamp Test. It's quite easy to pass. You pass it if your female character, it could be replaced by a sexy lamp without the plot falling apart. You're a fucking hack. So, yeah, I'm thinking back to maybe, X-Men First Class where that woman who like turns to diamond half the time follows - is it Kevin Bacon? I think it is Kevin Bacon. It's like she's one of the baddies, I swear, because, like, all she does is just be hot, have boobs and turn to diamonds sometimes. I fully believe, like, she could literally turn into a sexy lamp at any point through the film and nothing would change.

Jemima: Like, I mean, her turning into diamonds is kind of commenting on that itself, she's nothing but a mere object of desire in that way.

Maddy: And just talking about like, yeah, if she could literally be replaced by a lamp and the plot wouldn't change. You've got an issue with your female character. And then when you put all these tests together, it's been put together and formed the Crystal Gems test. So it's named after the heroes in Steven Universe, which I still haven't watched and still need to watch Steven Universe.

Maddy: And it creates this big triangle. And you just kind of you can mark whether or not it passes the tests and it creates a cute little graph. And there's also other stuff like the Ellen Willis test, so that requires the story to make sense if the genders were flipped. So I'm thinking about Overboard! Have any of you seen Overboard?

Jemima: The new one?

Maddy: Yeah, I'm thinking about the fact that they swap the genders for the new version like it's problematic both ways. Just for context, Overboard, is it Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn? Yeah, so she's like this rich woman living on a boat and he's like a workman on the boat. And I think they get into that argument because she's a dick and he pushes her off the boat - I don't know, she falls off the boat. She gets amnesia and then he's somehow got a load of kids. His wife is dead or something, I think. And he's got loads of kids. And so instead of like a normal human being, when he finds that she has amnesia, she goes to the police station and she doesn't know where she is, who she is, instead of being like a normal non-psychotic human being and just leaving her on her own, after he's basically- actually I don't think he pushes her off the boat. He takes her home and tells her that she's his wife and makes her help him raise the kids. I think it's supposed to be this comment about like teaching her humility and teaching her to be a good person. But it's not that. It is kidnap. 

Jemima: It's like 50 First Dates. I had a real, real big problem with the fact that she could not consent to any of the dates. She was vulnerable. She had a disability. She was basically being forced to, like, fall in love with Adam Sandler. And great, cute I understand the rom-com assets of that, but at the same time, like you do not know this person. She wakes up every day. Like just because you've invested so much in her does not mean she should be forced to hang out with you every hour of the day and love you.

Jemima: You know, it's just a bit crazy.

Maddy: So, then they obviously remade Overboard, but they were like, oh, instead of, like, remaking it - obviously people would have had an issue with it if they'd remade it today with the same role models, everyone would've refused. Actually not everyone, sane human people would have been like, this is fucked up. You can't just kidnap women and tell them that your wife because they've got amnesia. But like, they decided to swap the gender roles as if that made it better. So this is Chris Pratt's ex-wife. 

Jemima: You just called her Chris Pratt's ex-wife!

Maddy: I did! Because I've been thinking about him a lot and the fact that he's a conservative and he's like a horrible, homophobic Christian.

Jemima: Allegedly.

Maddy: Allegedly, allegedly. Allegedly. Oh, no. I'm already getting sued.

Maddy: But yeah, I was just thinking about - it's still messed up, even if it's a girl kidnapping a guy, it's still messed up. But then in that way, I guess it does pass the Ellen Willis test.

Sarah: It's an awful idea.

Maddy: And in the last one, the last test I really do like is called the Tauriel, the one the Evangeline Lily plays in the altogether too long Hobbit franchise. The one who falls in love with Aidan Turner. 

Maddy: Anyway, it's a test that says that if there's going to be a woman in the film where she works a job the same as a load of guys, she has to be good at what she does. At least one woman has to be good at her job because they never have jobs. It's always like, you're a housewife. That's your job.

Jemima: You're a mother and a wife first and that is your job.

Maddy: Exactly, like if there's going to be a woman, she's going to have a job and she's going to be good at that job. Just one, the rest can be terrible. Just one. Just one of them has to be a smart human being who is capable.

Maddy: That's all we want.

Jemima: Practical skills. I don't know her.

Maddy: Yes, exactly.

Michael: I've had to not interject like three times. The sexy lady from X-Men is called Emma Frost. And turning into diamond is her secondary mutation. And they've just they've just really badly represented the character on film. I'll defend her.

Jemima: When I was like 15, I read this autobiography by one of the world's most famous groupies from the 60s and 70s. Reread it the other day. And it's the most horrendous anti-feminist paedophilic disgustingness I have ever read. I don't know. It's like glamorising everything. And of course, it was a sign of the times. But like even in her, like, epilogue, she was just like, I excuse myself and my behaviour, it's all fine and it's like, no.

Jemima: So I guess it just takes a twenty-first century perspective on things, isn't it? To reflect, hopefully.

Maddy: Yeah, so I guess. Oh, there are so many more tests I could go into if you guys are up for that

Jemima: Do you reckon we should start doing the film stuff? 

Maddy: Yeah, I would like to mention, though, just to make it clear that I'm not a terrible person. There are also lots of tests. So the Deggans rule requires a show that's not about race to include at least two non-white human characters in the main cast.

Maddy: The Morales Rule by actor Natalie Morales, asks that no one calls anybody papi, dances to salsa music, or uses gratuitous Spanish if they're a latinx character.

Maddy: And one of my personal favourites is the DuVernay test, or sometimes referred to as the Kent test, after Clarkisha Kent. She's an interesting film critic. A piece of work passes it if African-Americans and other minorities have fully realised lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories. That makes me think back to The Help, you know, Viola Davis. She's been saying, I regret being part of that film, but a lot of the time it is about making sure that you're not just including women and giving them a seat at the table, but making sure that people of colour and people who are queer as well because there's also - I'm not how to say this, I'm probably going to butcher it, the Vito-Russo test.

Maddy: There are three requirements to pass this test. The film must contain a lesbian, gay or bisexual or transgender character. That character must not be predominantly defined by the orientation or their gender identity. They need to be as unique as straight cis characters, and they must be important enough to affect the plot. They can't just crack some jokes or paint urban authenticity.

Maddy: There's also the Topside test for trans literature and there are plenty of other tests like the Finkbeiner Test for non-fiction and the Lauredhel test for toys. So there's loads of tests. The Bechdel test started quite a few movements in film, and it's all very interesting. So I think next we're going to be looking at some of our favourite films and seeing whether or not they pass the test.

Maddy: And you are welcome to judge us and our favourite films, as I'm sure you will. And I'm sure we'll judge each other. 

Jemima: Please do. 

Maddy: I think Jemima should go first. 

Jemima: Well, I have a few that I can pick from. I think a good one to start would be - have any of you guys in Starship Troopers? OK, so any one of us, which is Michael and he doesn't even speak a lot, so we'll get him to speak - unmute yourself at this point.

Jemima: OK, I'm going to quiz you on it. Do you think it's a feminist film?

Michael: Isn't like - they're fighting bugs, right? Yeah, isn't like the main enemy, like the queen bug.

Jemima: OK, I'm talking about interpersonal, human relationships.

Michael: Yeah, I think there's only two female characters and they're both trying to, like, vie for the attention of one male character. If I remember.

Michael: Is that right?

Jemima: But what is it? What I find to be really interesting about the film is that, basically, the protagonist, male, heterosexual character, he goes into the army because his girlfriend encourages it, she's in the army, he's like, I don't know what to do. I'm going to follow Carmen to the army.

Jemima: And that is a switch from tradition - it's gender play, which I enjoy. And also the other female character, called Izzy, who also enters the army. But her motivation is to get the protagonist because she fancies him. But they met because they both played American football together on the same team. And it's a Paul Verhoeven film. Paul Verhoeven works a lot with eroticism. So you can see the kind of anti-feminist stuff from sexualising women, but at the same time. 

Michael: Is it Showgirls?

Jemima: Yeah, the same time he's giving female voices power and narrative arcs and all this stuff. And I really enjoy it. And I think when I was a kid, some of my favourite films like Starship Troopers, Aliens, all of that stuff, I really enjoy strong female protagonists. And I think he got somewhere with it, although there's a lot of tits and ass. But you got somewhere. 

Jemima: I don't even know - this is just talking to you guys. But I don't even know if it's good to talk about film if we haven't watched it or whatever, because it's hard because you guys haven't got much to comment on those two.

Maddy: Interesting comment.

Sarah: Yeah. I mean, we can cut it out later if it doesn't work, but like you have some interesting stuff say so like. Go ahead.

Jemima: Thank you. I'll just do a bit on the Bechdel test. So the movie does have at least two women in it, surprisingly, only two though. Some of the other women are nameless characters like you do have women captains, all of that stuff. But yeah, I think the point of having women able to do like military stuff, at a time when women couldn't even do that in the 90s. So I appreciate that. And I think it's much better than our world at that point. So that's a good point. And then they don't talk to each other. That's one that interests me. They only talk in relation to the guy. I think - I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but one of the females dies halfway through, so they can't really talk to each other. Plus, it's all narratives in different parts of space and time and super difficult. Three: about something other than a man. Well, obviously, that's not applicable because they don't talk to each other. And when they do discuss it, it's all about men. And then two additional points that we could make is: two women must be named characters, they are called Carmen and Dizzy, so that's yes and/or they must have at least a total of 60 seconds of conversation. If I was to manipulate this, I would say at least 60 seconds of action, because they're both strong, physically strong women in the film. And you see that throughout. Carmen, at the end, she's like there, fully, with this giant bug and all the men and all the army surrounding her, but she keeps her cool and she survives an awful lot and she does it all by herself.

Jemima: So I think that's a good point. Yeah, that's me done.

Maddy: How about Sarah next?

Sarah: So one of my favourite movies is Lady Bird, have we we all seen that one?

Jemima: Yes.

Sarah: So, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, films that are written and directed by women, well, more likely than films written and directed by men, it seems, Lady Bird does pass all of the features of the Bechdel test because when women write, we know that we have lives and we speak to women. And that's a normal thing that would happen in, you know, a character's life.

Sarah: Yeah, we've got several named female characters who are friends who have conversations about various things. They do talk about men now and then. But like that isn't their only interest in life.

Sarah: I think that Lady Bird's like a pretty good bit of female representation, I mean, the characters are quite well rounded, the main character, Lady Bird, but she's a likeable character that lot of people, you know, relate to in some way, but she isn't, like, flawless, she's quite emotional, but not in a sort of derogatory hysterical kind of way - in a kind of stereotyped fashion.

Maddy: Yeah, I was just thinking I've just been thinking about the fact that we've also been looking at Little Women, which is obviously also directed by Greta Gerwig, this term as once again, as part of our Hollywood unit. And I was thinking about, you know, the moment not that not the proposal moment, but the bit where Joe is in the attic with her mom and she's talking about, you know, her life.

Maddy: And she goes women. They have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition and they've got talent as well as just beauty. I'm so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for. And I think Greta Gerwig does that very well. I mean, it's the same actress both times. It's Saoirse Ronan and I think they're a very good duo.

Maddy: And I think you're right. You know, female directors and female writers, they are women, they talk to other women a lot of the time, hopefully. And they are aware of the fact that, you know, I can't believe I have to say this, but we have complex inner lives. We have thoughts and stuff.

Maddy: I have many opinions, like I've said, and we deserve to have them represented on screen.

Maddy: And I think for Greta Gerwig, despite the overwhelming whiteness of a lot of the people that she casts in her films, she does a very good job of showing, you know, a particular type of female character.

Maddy: And she's very good at teenage girls as well, I think. Yeah, very good at that age group. And she clearly remembers her own adolescence quite well. And she does a very good job of just kind of like, talking about that kind of stuff. I don't know. I rate her for it, I think it's pretty cool.

Jemima: Yeah. I think one of the great things about Greta is the fact that she has completely found a niche in the market. How many times have like we heard about a mother-daughter film? Not a lot like - can we think of any right now?

Maddy: Still Alice, I think is it called?

Jemima: Yeah, that's one.

Maddy: I guess, is My Sister's Keeper a mother-daughter film?

Jemima: We do not talk about that film. *inaudible giggling*

Jemima: Yeah, so Greta really works with the kind of bringing - fleshing out people, not just women, people, and then bringing the interplay between them into question. Just flawed characters - we all have- like, we still love each other. We all make mistakes. And her films really brilliantly portray that. And growing up is also like coming of age films, heart-wrenching. And I really enjoy the fact that, like at the end of the film, I feel like men, women, children, anyone can get something out of Lady Bird, get something out of Little Women.

Jemima: But one additional point is that Little Women, the text of it, she is like the film is- it basically keeps the fidelity with the book, so the literature is really, really ultra-feminist, of course.

Jemima: With Little Women, she obviously was inspired by the text and kind of did it in a contemporary fashion. It was feminist in the start and it really encouraged that narrative and pushed it forward. So yeah.

Maddy: Yeah, I found somehow a way to bring up in almost all of my seminars so far with my girl, that being like, hey, you know, Jo March, she's a lesbian, right? And everyone has, like a little debate about it. I'm just like, guys, she is a lesbian. But, yeah, like a lot of fun to talk about Little Women.

Maddy: I was just looking at my little list of films and I kind of wanted to talk about, um, I think in particular The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Maddy: It came out earlier this year, it's Dev Patel as David Copperfield. 

Jemima: We love the casting.

Maddy: We do. So I found a really interesting website and it's called Mediaversity Reviews.

Maddy: And it gives a kind of like A to F grade for overall diversity for films. And it gives really in-depth reviews of just like, you know, films in terms of like their diversity points.

Maddy: But it does it in a really good way. Like it's not to virtue signal-y. And even, you know, it talks about, you know, like the directors.

Maddy: It's got like a little emoji next to the director. And it shows you whether or not the writer like where they're from is a guy, are they white, you know?

Maddy: Basically, The Personal History of David Copperfield gets a B. So A would be the highest, but it gets a B because they give it five out five for- my Internet connection is unstable.

Maddy: Yeah, The Personal History of David Copperfield gets a B, so the technical diversity, which is kind of talking about overall in terms of just like casting and crew was five out five. But despite passing the Bechdel test, it does point out that a lot of the women kind of like- well, the thing is, it is called The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Maddy: And a lot of the women in the film kind of like exist on the periphery of his life. And, you know, it's all about him and his angst and his stuff he's doing.

Maddy: And it - apart from obviously the fact that it's Agnes, the one who ends up marrying him - which is another thing, she ends up marrying him - she helps to uncover Uriah Heep, who voices Paddington, by the way. She obviously helps to, like, expose the fact that he's swindling her dad and that he's taken over the company and is terrible. So for that, it gets points because it's like, yeah, she's a badass. Like she steals the documents, she does a load of stuff. She's super smart. But apart from that, the film is about a guy and the women tend to exist on the periphery. And, you know, even though, like. Did any of you ever watch Wolfblood?

Sarah: Yeah, I did.

Maddy: Did you recognize Maddie from Wolfblood? She's the one that runs off with Steerforth.

Maddy: Yeah, just a random point. You know, it's Maddie from Wolfblood, but like, you know, just thinking about her, like she kind of like exists on the periphery of the story. And the only time she really comes into play is when she's like either engaged to Ham or she runs off with Steerforth and then he abandons her in London, goes off and dies on the boat. I found him hilarious. I probably shouldn't have done. I just- I just love the way he's always like, "remember me at my best." And I'm like, dude, at best your best is literally someone else's rock bottom. You kind of suck. He's like, "remember me at my best" - you're kind of a dick, though. No one thinks that you're the best.

Maddy: Just stop. But yeah, for race, it gets four out of five and they make a point that obviously Charles Dickens when writing the book, everyone he would have been imagining would have been as white as snow. And that's how he saw the world at the time. But they made a point of just like casting actors they knew would do a good job.

Maddy: And you know, it literally doesn't matter, like it's a story - it is a fictional story and the people are like, oh, but why would so-and-so have so-and-so as a father? That doesn't make sense. It's like, yeah, but, you know, this isn't a film for people who are masters of genetics. This is a film for people that enjoy films and enjoy the story. And all would do a fantastic job.

Maddy: So it gets a really good score for race diversity, but it makes a point, it says, 'when white directors cast blindly without making changes to the character based on the actor's ethnicity, it merely ticks a box of diversity. Meanwhile, matters of true representation not just in body but through diverse narratives defaults to a white experience'. So essentially, I think- I think what they're kind of trying to make is kind of like a point is a bit like the Sexy Lamp test. If you could change the race of this character and it would have absolutely no effect on the plot: is that true representation? I think that's the point they're trying to make. I think what they're trying to say is, yes, this is really good, like I know they had Dev Patel in mind to play David Copperfield from the start, but I think they're making the point that, like, if you're going to cast someone as a character, you need to bring into consideration how their race changes the way that they interact with the world around them and how that might be reflected in the narrative.

Maddy: And it's not interchangeable. And, you know, David Copperfield, looking the way he does, would not have had the same experience as a David Copperfield who was white would have done, especially in Victorian England. But in the end, it's a film. It's a fictional film. 

Sarah: It's a difficult balance to strike, isn't it?

Sarah: You don't want to make it all about race all the time, but you still need to like acknowledge it. It's difficult to represent without overshadowing other elements.

Jemima: If you look at the director, Armando Iannuci- butchered his name. But like, if you look at his authorship, so Death of Stalin, he had Russians from Yorkshire, like his thing is and I listened to an interview when he released Personal History and his justification for all of this stuff is the fact that we can put history, not the kind of the racial side of things, but just history and how things would have been accurately presented, we can put that aside to just have quality in cast and crew.

Jemima: And I think that's a very good point. And of course, this stuff does make a great grounds for the other side. But at the same time, I think he and a lot of people and including what's his name, Dev Patel, all of those people they really, really appreciated and kind of acclaimed, the casting direction, because now so many casting decisions are based on-

Jemima: His essentially groundbreaking thing, because obviously the controversy around having a brown person in a white film as the main protagonist, whatever, and now everyone seems to be doing it. So it kind of has some rubbish sides to it, but at the same time, it's encouraging diversity in a lot of different ways.

Maddy: I remember when the trailer came out for the film, when the comments were just full of the, you know, "Charles Dickens would be rolling in his grave". And it's like, yes, he would, because he was a racist. Everyone back then was racist. But I don't care what he has to say because he's dead.

Maddy: And thanks for the books, Charles, but they're ours now. And then it got zero points for disability.

Maddy: It makes a point. Obviously, it's oh, my God, I'm forgetting everyone's names. Hugh Laurie. Yes. Hugh Laurie playing Mr Dick.

Maddy: He obviously has some issues with his mental health and everyone's really lovely to him about it. I don't - I think they get points for that. But then that's kind of cancelled out by the fact that Mr. Wickfield is serious, he has serious alcohol problems and everyone just kind of think this is a big joke.

Maddy: So for all the points that it gains for being like Mr Dick clearly has something going on there and everyone's super lovely to him about it. And they're never mean to him and they appreciate him for his intelligence and he's great, that gets cancelled out by the fact that Mr. Wickfield is a serious alcoholic and they all kind of make fun of him, but they get zero points for that.

Maddy: I don't know if I would count alcoholism as a disability. 

Jemima: It is a mental illness.

Maddy: Yeah, it's mental illness, I think.

Maddy: But that means that overall it gets a B grade. And I just thought that was an interesting article. I'll probably link it below. It was written by - I'm probably butchering this again, Alicia Johnson, but the Alicia's got a J in it. I think it sounds like it's kind of Polish, so I don't know. And yet it seems like a really interesting website like they give diversity grades to loads of different films, including Lion, another film by Dev Patel, which again, because it doesn't pass the Bechdel test but obviously is very diverse. And yeah, I just- I love The Personal History of David Copperfield, it makes me happy. It's also because obviously, like Bleak House, like the actual Bleak House is in Broadstairs and I'm from Broadstairs.

Maddy: So like, like literally the school next to my school growing up is called Charles Dickens. There are so many pubs in town named after various Charles Dickens things like, when I worked in the pharmacy, so many people would like have prescriptions. It would be like, oh, your address is literally Bleak House. That's so cool.

Maddy: And I don't know, I don't think he was a particularly good person, I've really struggled to read a lot of his work because it's long, it's Victorian. But Charles Dickens obviously is a little bit like- I'm very territorial about it. I'm like, oh, my God, Charles Dickens!

Jemima: Heritage, isn't it?

Maddy: I don't know. I shouldn't be so protective over it, but, you know, I enjoy it. Oh, yeah. How long is the recording so far, Michael?

Michael: I can't actually see a time- if I click on recording will it tell me? 

Maddy: Oh, I thought you were timing it. I thought that would have been- 

Michael: Would have made sense when I started, yeah.

Sarah: I've been timing it on my phone and that's coming up to like forty-eight minutes - I set it off a bit before we, like, started.

Jemima: Yeah. Shall we do a conclusion then, we probably can't fit much more.

Maddy: Yeah.

Sarah: I read some stuff about the Oscars and how like only 50 percent of Oscar Best Picture winners have passed the Bechdel test. Yeah, only half of the Best Picture nominations this year did, might be worth mentioning.

Maddy: I don't want to defend any one, but I will make the point that there have been far less films to choose from this year. Like if- the way we're going the Husavik song Eurovision: Fire Saga or whatever is going to be the one that wins the Best Song for the Oscars.

Maddy: And that would obviously not be ideal, but it's a pandemic! Let Will Ferrell win an Oscar.

Jemima: I just think that, like what makes films Oscar-worthy does not make films good. Yeah, I think that's something that we can all agree on.

Jemima: And so it's just like to win Oscars, you basically have to tick a couple of boxes. Is it melodramatic and sloppy? Yes. Like has it got some really pretentious narrative points? Yes. And then is it either a musical or biographical, all of those things, then it passes. But then that's why a lot of directors and auteurs and stuff just completely reject the whole award system. It's just like the most anti-diverse, anti-feminist, anti-everything. But obviously, as we see in the next couple of years, they have just released that new classification - it won't be implemented for a while, as we know, but I guess they just copied the BAFTAs with a lot of it, doing the whole score marking system of they have to have this amount of diversity in the cast and crew for them to even be allowed to be considered for the award.

Maddy: Cool. Who would like to conclude, I would like not to because I introduced.

Jemima: And so I really hope. Well, we really hope that you have enjoyed this. Obviously, it's a first time, but yeah, I think we've made some really insightful points.

Jemima: And if you would like to look into them further, I'm sure, Michael, God bless his soul, our little white guy at the site-

Jemima: Yes. He'll put some great resources, everything that we were talking about in the description. Yeah. Is there any final thoughts from anyone?

Maddy: I love Dev Patel.

Sarah: Yeah, I second that.  

Jemima: I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Resources:

Failing the “DuVernay Test”: 6 signs your on-screen black character is a tired stereotype

The Bechdel Test, and Other Media Representation Tests, Explained

The Personal History of David Copperfield on Mediaversity Reviews

[begonedullcare]

I set myself up to cry this morning. Someone I’ve followed for a while on Letterboxd wrote about going through a bad breakup. I don’t know how to label them—I want to say stranger, but their reviews are intimate. I’ve read about their ex-partner in those reviews for years, and the non-linearity of the site guarantees I will stumble onto new old memories in the future. But friend is too intimate and too distant and gives in to that social media impulse of labeling anyone you follow a friend. A person, then. And I went on their twitter and read through some of their tweets about the breakup. More difficult to admit than the saddest tweets was seeing the range of emotions you move through during a breakup and the speed at which you move through them. It seems brave to document that, at least in the moment. 

But it wasn’t until I read Jia Zhang-ke’s letter that I cried. “The most beautiful gesture.” There is something in the sparse way he documents how life has changed, in his belief in the cinema and being together, and in the way he uses ‘We.’ (Apichatpong Weerasethakul has written a beautiful, funny reply about a future where slow cinema becomes so popular that people eventually watch nothing on screen, until a filmmaker shows his friends a film, underground, and “the group is shocked to discover that the film contains something.”)

The heartbroken Letterboxd user also has a blog, which is where I found Jia’s and Weerasethakul’s letters. They also shared a link to Francesco Pacifico’s fourth pandemic dispatch, which moves through a startling number of thoughts on friendship and cinema and the violence of ambiguity in our societies. (And if there is one thing to read, it is this essay.) What stands out to me now: in his dispatch, Pacifico writes: “Writing all this has shown me that the only highlights of the recent events—the aspects I’m holding onto because they’re worth remembering—are these haiku interactions.” He writes about a handful of short, draining interactions with friends on social distancing walks. I’ve been in Toronto for almost three weeks and only yesterday I was able to see friends in person. Their faces and bodies were in the same place as mine. I felt a rush of dopamine when I saw them. Pacifico can run into friends on his walks in Rome, but the people I want to interact with here are scattered across this city and the smaller cities around it. On the way back from visiting those friends, another friend texted me about wishing that we could sit and talk in person. She has too far to travel, across too much public transit. I am happier that her family stays safe, but we are left waiting for this to be over. 

Pacifico also writes: “Writing these dispatches keeps me engaged, and also keeps me away from the dopamine binges that life at home consists of—sugar, booze, porn, Facebook likes.” He is right that writing like that, even something as short as this, is engaging. It is difficult, distracting, and demands focus. I’m not entirely sure those kinds dopamine binges are bad. No—that’s a lie. Most days I want to avoid them, because they leave me emptier than other kinds of activity. But I also hope to find a silver lining that would let me keep them. That hope might just be a trick they use to stick around. Those kinds of distracting binges still seem necessary, now and then, but this morning I want to reflect because of these texts. 

A last thought: earlier this week I was browsing through the University of Toronto’s ‘virtual’ Art Museum collection. They emailed about it a few weeks ago and it became another thing to get around to eventually. That was where I found Finch’s painting. But I also found stunning portraits by Robert Giard. I wanted to post about them but didn’t know in what context. This morning, after reading about a stranger’s breakup, Jia’s letter, and Pacifico’s dispatch, the portraits comfort me. Alison Bechdel’s (above) was what made me stop scrolling. It might have been because it was a name I recognized in such a forceful and casual pose. It might have also been everything in the picture: the back light on her arm, her calf, her rolled up sleeve, the mug and saucer on the railing behind her, and the wrinkles on her shirt. I don’t remember ever being so moved by portraiture, but there is something intimate in Giard’s pictures that I obviously need now. 

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Yet Another Feminist Movie Test

The people of the internet (myself included) have a lot of fun playing around with the “Bechdel Test” – a simple formula created by lesbian comic artist Alison Bechdel to determine whether a film is worth seeing. This test asks the following three questions:

Are there at least two named female characters in the film?

Do they have a conversation with each other?

And is that conversation about something other than a man?

The Bechdel Test does a good job of illustrating several significant problems in mass media – the lack of named female characters, and the extremely limited range of plots, lifestyles, and character types that these female characters are given. It’s good for pointing out trends that fail to represent the diverse lives of women, and which specifically fail to appeal to lesbians and other wlw (women who like women).

But this little “test” on its own does not actually determine whether an individual film is “feminist.” It’s only three questions, after all.

Since the Bechdel Test took off in internet circles, many netizens have come up with their own media tests inspired by Bechdel’s comic. You can read about a lot of them here, but here are some of my favorites:

The Mako Mori Test: Is there at least one female character, who gets her own narrative arc, which is not about supporting a man’s story?

The Ellen Willis Test: Would this story’s depiction of these two characters still work if the genders of the characters were flipped?

The Topside Test: Does this film have more than one transgender character, who know each other, and who talk to each other about something other than a transition-related procedure?

Deggans’ Rule: Are there at least two people of color in this film, and is the film’s narrative not about race?

The Sexy Lamp Test: If you replaced the female character with a “sexy” lamp, would nothing change about the film?

Today I am adding my own test to the mix. Let’s call it the Want Test.

The Want Test is based on one question: Does what the named female character want matter to the plot?

Of course, this requires that there be a named female character in the movie. I’m taking that as a given. Most films do have one of those, these days. However, this test does not allow a filmmaker to simply point at the presence of a named female character and say that their work is done. This question asks about the relevance of this named female character. Does what she want actually matter to her world? If the answer is yes, give the film a checkmark. If the answer is no, give it a minus sign.

Note that she doesn’t necessarily need to get what she wants, but the movie world around her should react as though her wanting it means something. Villains have desires that drive plots, certainly, but that doesn’t mean that they should succeed. Additionally, many protagonists begin a movie believing that they want one thing and act upon that desire, but along the way figure out that something else is better for them. These stories are all important and I don’t want to bog this test down with the requirement that these characters get what they want, because getting what you want is not always a good thing.

Musicals tend to pass this test pretty easily, especially Disney Princess movie musicals. Cinderella of Cinderella wants to go to the ball – that matters to the plot. Tiana of The Princess and the Frog wants to open a restaurant – that matters to the plot. A main feature of a musical is the “I Want” song – the scene early on where the heroine has a solo about what she wants, setting up the plot of the story. Movies with an “I Want” song consistently get their checkmark from this test.

But this is me we’re talking about, and I’m not going to leave it this simple, now am I? Let’s add some more plusses and minuses to the test.

The titular character of Snow White gets two “I Want” songs (“I’m Wishing” and “Someday My Prince Will Come”). She wants to find love – and she gets it, too. She also spends a lot of time bossing the dwarves out of their slovenliness, for no apparent reason other than that she wants to. That’s enough for a checkmark.

But Snow White is not the only named female character whose wants matter to the plot. The Evil Queen (and yeah, I’m counting that as a name, because it’s how she’s consistently referred to in Disney media) wants to be the fairest of them all, and that want drives her to try to kill Snow White multiple times, launching the entire plot in the first place. If more than one named female characters have wants that drive the plot, then the film gets a check-plus.

However, Snow White does not do as well under this test as it possibly could. Snow and the Queen’s wants directly conflict with each other; they are enemies. Ultimately, for the story to conclude, what one of them wants needs to matter less than what the other woman wants. And that’s not ideal.

Let’s take a look instead at Frozen. Here we have two named female characters, Anna and Elsa, whose wants absolutely matter to the plot. Anna wants to connect with her sister and save Arendelle from the eternal winter, while Elsa wants to protect her sister (and save Arendelle from the eternal winter, but that’s secondary). Ultimately their wants converge, and they help each other get what they want, living happily ever after. If the named female characters help each other get what they want instead of fight against each other, then the film is upped to a check-double-plus.

Now here’s the disappointing side of this test. Sometimes a named female character wants something, and her wants matter – but her wants directly contrast with the wants of a male character. Perhaps she’s the villain who has locked the male character in a dungeon. Perhaps she’s a prospective love interest who doesn’t want to fall for the male character. In this case, while the female’s character’s wants matter, they only matter insofar as the male character is trying to change what she wants or to make sure she does not get what she wants. These films may depict a woman as having desires, but her desires are not actually important – they are an obstacle.

In Toy Story 2, Jessie wants Woody to come with her to the museum in Japan. Woody doesn’t want to go. The viewer does not want him to go. Her wants certainly matter to the world – Jessie’s backstory is arguably the saddest sequence in all of Pixar history, and she nearly sways Woody to her side – but her wants are an obstacle. The film’s triumphant moment is when Woody gets her to change what she wants and come be Andy’s toy instead. As a result, this film gets a check-minus. It passes – but not in a very positive way.

That got pretty wordy. Here is the tl;dr version of the Want Test:

Does what the named female character want matter to the plot?

Yes – checkmark

Yes, AND this is true of multiple named female characters – check-plus

AND these characters help each other get what they want – check-double-plus

Yes, BUT her wants are an obstacle to a male character’s goal – check-minus

No – minus

Now let’s look at some other movies and see how they fare against the Want Test:

Tangled – check-plus. It’s a musical movie with an “I Want” song, and Rapunzel’s desire to see the lanterns sure as heck matters. So does Mother Gothel’s desire to keep Rapunzel prisoner and stay young forever. They’re opponents, so it doesn’t get a double-plus, but it’s still an excellent film.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – check! Elizabeth Swann is a force to be reckoned with, and the world around her recognizes it right from the start. Alas, she is the only one of her kind. There are other named female characters here, but what they want (to slap Jack) is only ever played for laughs.

Toy Story 1 – minus. Bo exists, but she might as well be a sexy lamp (which, you know, she is). Toy Story 4, on the other hand, earns a check-double-plus in the end. As I’ve written before, that film is entirely about a man learning to put his wants second to what the women around him want. Because of this, Toy Story 4 might even deserve a check-triple-plus.

The Social Network – check-minus. Barely. The film begins with Erica Albright getting fed up with fictional-Mark-Zuckerburg’s assholery and dumping him, which implies that she wants to be treated better. The film gets a check because this want is what sets off the entire plot, and Mark spends the rest of the film trying to impress her in one way or another, but since her wants are one hundred percent in opposition to Mark’s wants, it’s a check-minus.

Mad Max: Fury Road – check-double-plus, easily. This film is a group of women’s journey towards freedom. They don’t all make it there, but the fact that they want it and strive for it literally changes the world.

Ocean’s 8 – check-double-plus. If you need to ask why, then we didn’t watch the same film.

Up – check-plus! Surprised? The female presence in this film isn’t obvious at first glance. But there are two named female characters – Ellie and Kevin (yes, the bird counts, this is a world with sentient animals). While Ellie spends all but the first five minutes of the film deceased, the want that she establishes in those first five minutes – to travel with Carl to Paradise Falls – drives literally everything that Carl does in the film. Kevin just wants to live her life as a mama bird, feeding and protecting her babies, and those wants do matter, in sharp contrast to the wants of the villainous Charles Muntz.

Moana – double-check-plus! Moana, Grandma Tala, and Te Fiti’s wants all align. I can’t remember Moana’s mother’s name ever being said in the film itself (according to the credits her name is Sina), but she has a key moment early on of helping Moana get what she wants, even though that means giving up some of what Sina herself wants, and that’s noteworthy too.

Now here’s where the fun continues: you could also replace “female character” with a different minority! Does what the named Asian-American character want matter to the plot? Does what the named disabled character want matter to the plot? Does what the named transgender character want matter to the plot? So you’ve “inserted diversity” into your film – but what are you doing with it? It’s not enough for us to just be there. We need to matter, as people with desires and agency. We need to matter in films, because we matter in reality. And we haven’t mattered for long enough.

Let’s have a conversation! What other films pass - or fail! - the Want Test? What media tests do you like to apply to the films you watch? Reblog, reply, or retweet with your thoughts!

[clareannisbandola-blog]

Beyond What the Eye Can See

The book Fun Home, written by Alison Bechdel, is no ordinary memoir. Alison writes about her life through the form of a “tragicomic”, revealing details of her life through narration, dialogue, and vivid imagery. This visual form of writing allows Alison to provide the audience with a more visual and clarified representation of her life. Every person has their own form of reality and perceive things differently. Thus, people are often unable see beyond what their eyes display. Consequently, the world has this mentality that disabilities are only physical, and hence must be visible to others. Throughout her memoir, Bechdel shares the struggles she undergoes are she experiences life with a disability. Bechdel demonstrates through text as well as visual aid, that disabilities can be internal and still greatly impact an individual. 

Disability by definition is a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s abilities (Merriam-Webster). Though this is the scientifically accurate definition of disability, the world has formed a unanimous stigma around disability, associating it only with its physical attributes. The research paper, “Provocations for Critical Disability Studies” further accentuates the notion of the disregard of mental disabilities, stating that one is likely to encounter disability in poststructuralist criticism. This research implies that people reject the scientific and positivist aspirations behind the meaning of disability. This is detrimental to those who suffer from non-physical disabilities in its various forms and thus do not receive the help and support they require. 

Alison struggled to cope with her Obsessive Compulsion Disorder (OCD), as she received little to no acknowledgement nor support from her family members. Alison did not display the physical signs of distress, and therefore from an outsider’s perspective Alison seemed like a perfectly healthy, functionable child. What could not be seen was the internal pain that this disability forced onto Alison. Alison’s mother expressed concern about Alison’s behaviour once, but even then only asked if Alison was ating this way because she felt guilty about something. Rather than truly acknowledging the disability Alison was faced with, her mother associated the erratic behaviours to Alison’s own doing, which considerably contributed to Alison’s challenging childhood.

It was devastatingly hard to read that in Alison’s memoir she was neglected for having this pressing disorder. After reading the memoir, I realized that I had faced a similar experience in my own childhood. Growing up I had always thought that I had a focusing disability, however my parents did not see what I was feeling on the inside. My parents therefore claimed that I was being dramatic and was perfectly fine. Finally at 19 years old, I got tested for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and passed with flying colours. I am not blaming my parents for neglecting to acknowledge that I obtained this disability. My childhood was great and I did very well in school despite the inability to focus at times. I just wish they could have seen in me what I saw in myself. 

This goes to show that even people you surround yourself with, whether it be family, friends, or partners, no one can truly see beyond what their eyes show them. And it is because of this that we have to accept people and not make any assumptions about them as we will never really know what physical, mental, emotional struggles or disabilities they are dealing with.

[ad2150mit-blog]

Repsonse post #2: Gender

This week's reading tackled the issue of gender. Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir “Fun Home” discussed the issues she faced throughout her childhood, adolescence, and then adulthood years.  Allison was a child who struggled with her sexuality at a very young age. She always wished to portray herself in a less feminine manner and was ridiculed by her father when selecting unladylike clothing. It was not until she began her adult life, she truly came to terms with her sexuality; openly classifying herself as a lesbian.  

I believe social norms and gender binaries make it very difficult for a child to grow up when unsure of their sexuality or gender identity in today's society. We saw how Alison faced this firsthand because whenever she dressed herself in more manly clothes, had short hair, and wrestled with her brothers, her parents did not approve and constantly tried to make her look more feminine. Even forcibly making her wear certain things; as we saw when her father became hostile about her taking off a barrette. Alison Bechdel explaining and sharing pieces of her childhood and the struggles she faced is very brave and I believe extremely important because many people today face similar struggles. Our society being more open and understanding of numerous sexualities as well as genders is something, I believe, is very beneficial and needs to be continued.  

We are slowly starting to realize that gender is not mutually exclusive and allowing people to freely express themselves is only going to create a more diverse society. There are numerous ways people view or identify themselves. It is now common for people to choose to be identified by the pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’. Stating that the label of he, his and her, hers do not fit and agree with how someone may choose to identify themselves. I have been in many instances, often in a class setting, where an ice breaker would be to go around and say your name as well as the pronouns you associate with. This hopefully creates a safe space where people are being called by the pronouns they feel comfortable and wish to be identified by. I think this is a great step in our society and we should continue to accept people and call them how they wish to be referred to.  

Upon announcing her sexuality, Alison’s mother was unsupportive and hoped she would keep this to herself. Unfortunately, Alison was not as accepted for being lesbian as one would hope, but sadly, many people can relate to this and experience this as well. Not all people and families have come to terms with the idea of someone in their family being homosexual. People are often treated harshly and resented due to ‘coming out’ regarding their sexuality. Upon hearing and reading stories, I am aware that suicide is often a result of not being accepted for being homosexual, as well as many homosexual people face struggles and are discriminated against daily due to their sexuality. I think this is extremely wrong and such a sad fact, someone's life is so valuable, and it is sad that young children are committing suicide because they feel unaccepted in society and are bullied. Beginning my last year of secondary school, there was much controversy regarding a teacher possibly showing discriminating towards homosexuals. One of my close friends, who had come out as gay wished to fill his page of the year book by photographing people freely expressing themselves as well as including gay couples photographed together. The teacher did not support this idea and said there needed to be more diversity. She instructed him to shoot people of all sexualities for his page. He argued that he wanted to represent people who are constantly being told to “fit in”, rather then including numerous heterosexual people. He believed the whole yearbook was showcasing that and he wanted to shed light on students who are typically left out. In my opinion I believe that he should be allowed to design his page however he wishes. As well, having a page that represents homosexual people is in fact more diverse than including all students in that one particular page because they may not be featured in the other pages of the yearbook as frequently.

In today's day and age, many people are sexually fluid, and although I personally have never faced what it is like to question your sexuality, I know close friends and acquaintances who have. I have experienced seeing people fearful of coming out because of the discriminated that is often associated with doing so. This in turn creates anxiety, alienation, isolation and many more issues that frequently have a negative effect on a person's mental health. In my opinion, people should be taught about all types of gender and sexuality and move away from gender norms and the idea that heterosexual is what's best. Without norms, there is no underlying rules or constraints that prevent people from being open about these issues. This as well, would hopefully eliminate that fear, anxiety, and alienation people are facing.  

Overall, I am grateful to have grown up in a society and community that is more accepting of all people and less judgment is present. I can only hope that this fluidity and openness continues to grow. In regard to Bechdel’s memoir, what I have read so far, is unfortunately not uncommon. It is very difficult to express yourself if you fall outside these pre-decided standards. Alison had to spend most of her childhood unaware of her sexuality and repressed the feelings she felt, along with hiding how she wished to appear. She was told that she must fit this mold of femininity and how she wanted to dress was unallowed and frowned upon. I am aware the issue of binaries and social norms is not something that will disappear within a day, but I believe new generations should be educated about these issues so we can live in a world accepting of all sexualities and gender classifications. My goal for society is to be supporting of all gay, straight, bisexual, LGBTQ+ people and more.  

[raoulgoldenlake]

Do I Have That Book Challenge

Thanks to @bookcub for posting the questions!

1. Do I have a book with decked edges?

Hamilton: The Revolution is a huge, beautiful book with decked edges. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s fancy.

2. Do I have a book with 3 or more people on the cover?

Two of my three Eleanor Roosevelt biographies (by Blance Wisen Cook) have a photo that features Eleanor and a lot of other people.

3. Do I have a book based on another fictional story?

I have Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell, which is based on the fanfiction a character writes in Fangirl, and the fanfiction in that book is based on a series that’s based on Harry Potter! Meta.

4. Do I have a book with a 10 letter title?

Exactly 10 letters? I think the only one of my books that fits the bill is Lady Knight, by Tamora Pierce.

5. Do I have a book with a title that starts and ends with the same letter? 

The Miseducation of Cameron Post, by emily m. danforth, The Mayor of Castro Street, by Randy Shilts and Ramona Forever by Beverly Cleary.

6. Do you have a Mass Market Paperback book?

My copy of Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl is the size of a mass market book, but it isn’t mass market in the traditional sense, I don’t think. Maybe it is though! I just see mass market as romance novels and this is a book about the Holocaust and positive psychology but maybe it still counts as mass market.

7. Do you have a book written by an author using a pen name?

The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith a.k.a J.K. Rowling.

8. Do you have a book with a character’s name in the title?

I have so many biographies where the title is the person’s name! I guess that doesn’t count because they’re real people, not characters. Other than biographies, I have Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz and Alanna: The First Adventure, by Tamora Pierce.

9. Do you have a book with 2 maps in it?

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein has a map on the cover and a map later in the book, to illustrate red-lining.

10. Do you have a book that was turned into a TV show? 

I don’t! Some that I WISH would be TV shows (I’d like to see the Bloody Jack books by LA Meyer turned into some type of media, but I think the chances of that happening are pretty slim.

11. Do you have a book written by someone who is originally famous for something else? (celebrity/athlete/politician/tv personality…) 

Oh boy do I. I have two books by famous folk singer Pete Seeger (Where Have All the Flowers Gone and the Incompleat Folk Singer) and one by Woody Guthrie (Bound for Glory). Not to mention autobiographies by Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barney Frank and Henry Waxman. Joe Biden’s was the best. I also have Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography.

12. Do you have a book with a clock on the cover?

To Kill A Mockingbird has a pocket watch on the cover.

13. Do you have a poetry book?

I have two books of Walt Whitman’s poetry, a book of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry and a couple of anthologies I’ve picked up at used book sales.

14. Do you have a book with an award stamp on it?

Ok this is a funny story. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe has the Pura Belpré Award seal which is an award given to books with Latino characters. But when I saw it, I went “oh look, it won the Newbery” which is a prestigious award for children’s and young adult books. My friend looked at the book and went “no, there’s no Newbery medal there.” I pointed to the gold Pura Belpré award and said “that’s it.” And then, for the first time, looked closely at the award and realized I only thought that was the Newbery seal because it had been on literally every book I had to read in high school. I grew up in New Mexico so all the contemporary books we were assigned to read had Latino characters, meaning they all had the gold seal, which I just assumed was the Newbery because the books were all very good. The point of this, I guess, is if you give a white child enough books about Latino characters, they will assume that every book about Latino characters is award winning, which is a posture I think we should all go through life with.

15. Do you have a book written by an author with the same initials as you?

So close! I have a book by Amy Poehler, which is ALMOST my initials.

16. Do you have a book of short stories?

I have Tortall and Other Lands by Tamora Pierce and two David Sedaris books.

17. Do you have a book that is between 500-510 pages long?

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen is exactly 510 pages.

18. Do you have a book that was turned into a movie? 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. And the Wizard of Oz.

19. Do you have a graphic novel?

Several! I have Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, all three books in March, written by John Lewis and my new favorite, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, by Mark Russell.

20. Do you have a book written by 2 or more authors? 

Most politicians use a co-writer but they don’t put the co-writer in the cover. March is probably the closest, since John Lewis actually shares credit with his staffer Andrew Aydin on the cover.

I’m gonna tag @the-aliens-believe-in-you-too, @falliblefabrial and @thewildmageoftortall, if they want to do it, and of course anyone else who’s interested!

[letterthatnevergotsent]

January/April 2022

Dear Caroline,

It’s a full moon and has been for about 12 hours now. (I know when it peaks from my calendar online.) So maybe, technically, it’s now waning, and has been for 12 hours. Either way, it is likely responsible for waking me up before 6 — with Mark, who had to go to work. I made him coffee and poured myself some, so between the coffee and the moon, I feel wide awake — if tired.

I decided to write you a letter in lieu of an email for a couple reasons — firstly, I wanted to share some thoughts with you that are a bit “out there” (ha) and that I’d prefer Google not know about. [Now Tumblr knows about them!] Secondly, I’ve gotten a bit precious about writing emails lately. I wish someone would make Snapchat for emails so that they disappear once you send them — maybe they have? Above all, I wanted to write you a letter and knew you wouldn’t judge me for it!

The sky is starting to lighten and I can’t see the moon against the sky anymore. I think I last received a real letter almost ten years ago, from a friend I knew growing up, who then moved to Florida. I always related to her — I think we have struggled with a similar kind of depression, especially in our younger years. We quit drinking around the same time in our early twenties and I remember having a very cathartic heart-to-heart with her over the phone about that. I think she is still sober, which is a big feat. (I decided with the help of my therapist that I didn’t have a drinking problem so much as a co-dependence problem.) I’ve always admired her spirit and determination. She has, more than once, picked up and moved to a foreign country without much of a plan. She’ll sell all her things and build a whole new life in another place, only to move again a year later. She’s fearless — I’ve always wished I had more of her adventurous spirit.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “self care” and care for the body, specifically, since you opened up that line of thinking in one of our recent conversations — and possibly since we started having more in-depth talks in general. While on the trip to Mexico, I found my mind returning often to your words about accountability around caring for our bodies while in seminary. I found myself returning in particular to a simple exchange we had about working out — you said you wanted to do more of it this semester and I said I wanted to “slow down.” You said something like, “How interesting that self-care can look different to us,” which was a generous reply! And this conversation took on new levels of meaning every time I returned to it as our conversations often do. :)

The language around, and practice of, self-care has become inseparable for me from thoughts and feelings about thinness and beauty. I realized (thanks to you!) that these beliefs are deep-seated — for starters, there is the desire to be beautiful, which can include being thin. I have been running since my pre-teen years, but I have become compulsive about running during those difficult periods in my life when I felt most out of control of my own identity or life course. This became the case early on during the pandemic, after I quit my job and before I came to seminary. I would run 70 or 80 miles per month, and I felt mentally and physically well as a result. But I also got attached to how I looked, which was thinner and to my mind, prettier. My desire to look like girls and women on Instagram with thin bodies was not the initial motivation for running that much, but I do think my compulsive and perfectionist nature had taken the wheel by the end of that period.

I read Alison Bechdel’s newest book this past summer — it’s called The Secret to Superhuman Strength. Her books were important to me growing up — I think her approach to trying to understand her parents and family provided an early glimpse at what would become for me a spiritual journey. Reading the new book made me rethink a lot of the preconceptions I have about relationships, spirituality and culture — three of my favorite topics! I would be very curious to talk to you about her if you are also a fan of her books. The new book explores her fascination with exercise as a form of self-care or self-discovery from a very young age — so it relates directly to a lot of what we’ve talk about.

I will end the letter here though as always there is more to say! Better to leave those thoughts for a future discussion, though, because I want to hear more about how your self-care routine is developing this semester. Mine is virtually non-existent at the moment, ha. (Don’t worry, I’m okay! But do keep me in prayer as I try to find that elusive thing called balance.)

In Friendship, Nic

[david-lynch-ate-my-son]

It sounds like we like a lot of the same writers - Jennifer Egan, Tana French. Also, you, too, teach high school! What do you think I should read over summer break? (My perpetual recommendation for others is Ruth Ozeki.)

Oh man...I struggle making book recommendations. Because I have super eclectic taste, so I’m always like “you might like this thing I like, or you might think i’m super weird for liking it!”

But here goes!

I just finished “Fresh Complaint” by Jeffrey Eugenides. It’s a short story collection, which I love for summer reading, because you can chunk it up bite-sized in between other fun stuff. (Actually, if you haven’t read every single Eugenides book yet, I suggest them all. “The Virgin Suicides” is the slim, sexy option. “Middlesex” is the “I’m ready to devote a month of my life to getting sucked into a story and never stop thinking about it” option).

“Pastoralia” is another great short story collection if you’re into the more...out-there side of fiction.

If you haven’t read “Jesus Land” by Julia Scheeres, it’s the memoir I’m forcing on every at the moment. I had to take a long-ass breather after reading it, because woooow. It deals with race, religion, sexual assault...heavy stuff. But it’s magnificent.

“A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara if you’re looking for something hefty af. I know this one gets recommended out the wazoo, but it’s because it’s so fucking good.

If you love Tana French, I highly suggest Donna Tartt. Tana French loves Donna Tartt, so like...yes! “The Little Friend” was my favorite (though I know pretty much everyone else stans “The Goldfinch” super hard).

I also adored “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng. It hit on one of my hot topic issues with cultural appropriation and the adoption of children of color (by white people who do not understand the child’s native culture).

I also finished “Case Histories” by Kate Atkinson recently. Also “Into the Water” by Paula Hawkins. I am on the fence about both of these books, because they are both mystery novels. And my love of Tana French is such that I have a hard time objectively judging other mystery novels, because they never live up to the magic of the Dublin murder squad for me. But if I hadn’t read Tana French before reading these two, I’m sure I would have loved them both more.

I also always suggest young adult novels to my grown up friends, because I think folks over the age of 18 can still appreciate some of the writing. I am always pushing “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.” It’s....so fucking stunning. And also “The Hate U Give” and “Bone Gap.”

“Fun Home,” the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel is always on my suggestions list, too. As is “The Secret Diary of a Teenage Girl.”

“White Noise” by Don DeLillo is one I re-read a lot. Dark humor, gorgeous writing. Soothes my insatiable desire for Postmodern lit.

I also suggest “The Art of Fielding.” This was one I avoided for so long, because I don’t like sports, like...at all. And also it was suggested to me by my MOST PRETENTIOUS-ASS FRIEND. But when I read it, I wished I’d done so sooner.

YOOOOOOO if you want something nonfiction that will blow your fucking mind, read “The Mismeasure of Man” by Stephen Jay Gould. Cannot recommend enough.

Also “All This Wonder” is a collection of some of the most impactful Moth stories of the last few years. I have re-read it multiple times, because it’s just that fucking wonderful.

“Little Bee” by Chris Cleave. Also gets suggested a lot, but I really enjoyed it.

“The Museum of Extraordinary Things” by Alice Hoffman hits on that magical realism AND historical fiction. Double yas!

I’m sure you’ve probably read some of these, but there ya go!

[ucflibrary]

Pride Month has arrived! While every day is a time to be proud of your identity and orientation, June is that extra special time for boldly celebrating with and for the LGBTQIA community (yes, there are more than lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender in the queer community). June was chosen to honor the Stonewall Riots which happened in 1969. Like other celebratory months, LGBT Pride Month started as a weeklong series of events and expanded into a full month of festivities.

In honor of Pride Month, UCF Library faculty and staff suggested books, movies and music from the UCF collection that represent a wide array of queer authors and characters. Additional events at UCF in June include “UCF Remembers” which is a week-long series of events to commemorate the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in 2016.

Click on the Keep Reading link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the 20 titles by or about people in the LGBTQIA community suggested by UCF Library employees. These, and additional titles, are also on the Featured Bookshelf display on the second (main) floor next to the bank of two elevators.

A guide to LGBTQ+ inclusion on campus, post-Pulse edited by Virginia Stead The research in A Guide to LGBTQ+ Inclusion on Campus, Post-PULSE is premised on the notion that, because we cannot choose our sexual, racial, ethnic, cultural, political, geographic, economic, and chronological origins, with greater advantage comes greater responsibility to redistribute life's resources in favor of those whose human rights are compromised and who lack the fundamental necessities of life. Among these basic rights are access to higher education and to positive campus experiences. Queer folk and LGBTQ+ allies have collaborated on this new text in response to the June 16, 2016 targeted murder of 49 innocent victims at the PULSE nightclub, Orlando, Florida. Seasoned and novice members of the academy will find professional empowerment from these authors as they explicitly discuss multiple level theory, policy, and strategies to support LGBTQ+ campus inclusion. Their work illuminates how good, bad, and indeterminate public legislation impacts LGBTQ+ communities everywhere, and it animates multiple layers of campus life, ranging from lessons within a three-year-old day care center to policy-making among senior administration. Suggested by Tim Walker, Information Technology & Digital Initiatives

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld Darcy Patel has put college on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. With a contract in hand, she arrives in New York City with no apartment, no friends, and all the wrong clothes. But lucky for Darcy, she’s taken under the wings of other seasoned and fledgling writers who help her navigate the city and the world of writing and publishing. Over the course of a year, Darcy finishes her book, faces critique, and falls in love. Woven into Darcy’s personal story is her novel, Afterworlds, a suspenseful thriller about a teen who slips into the “Afterworld” to survive a terrorist attack. The Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead, and where many unsolved—and terrifying—stories need to be reconciled. Like Darcy, Lizzie too falls in love…until a new threat resurfaces, and her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she cares about most. Suggested by Rebecca Hawk, Circulation

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot--if she's willing to sow the seeds of civil war. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

And Then I Danced: traveling the road to LGBT equality: a memoir by Mark Segal On December 11, 1973, Mark Segal disrupted a live broadcast of the CBS Evening News when he sat on the desk directly between the camera and news anchor Walter Cronkite, yelling, "Gays protest CBS prejudice!" He was wrestled to the studio floor by the stagehands on live national television, thus ending LGBT invisibility. But this one victory left many more battles to fight, and creativity was required to find a way to challenge stereotypes surrounding the LGBT community. Mark Segal's job, as he saw it, was to show the nation who gay people are: our sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers. Because of activists like Mark Segal, whose life work is dramatically detailed in this poignant and important memoir, today there are openly LGBT people working in the White House and throughout corporate America. An entire community of gay world citizens is now finding the voice that they need to become visible. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

Basically Queer: an intergenerational introduction to LGBTQA2S+ lives by Claire Robson, Kelsey Blair, and Jen Marchbank Basically Queer offers an introduction to what it can look and feel like to live life as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, two spirited and trans. Written by youth and elders who've lived these lives first hand, the book combines no-nonsense explanations, definitions, and information with engaging stories and poetry that bring them to life. Basically Queer answers those questions that many want to ask but fear will give offence--What is it really like to be queer? What's appropriate language? How can I be an ally? It also provides a succinct and readable account of queer history and legal rights worldwide, addresses intergenerational issues, and offers some tips and tricks for living queer. It does so in an easy and conversational style that will be accessible to most readers, including teens. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections, and Schuyler Kerby, Rosen Library

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado  In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella "Especially Heinous," Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Inseparable: desire between women in literature by Emma Donoghue Emma Donoghue examines how desire between women in English literature has been portrayed, from schoolgirls and vampires to runaway wives, from cross-dressing knights to contemporary murder stories. She looks at the work of those writers who have addressed the "unspeakable subject," examining whether same-sex desire is freakish or omnipresent, holy or evil, as she excavates a long-obscured tradition of (inseparable) friendship between women, one that is surprisingly central to our cultural history. Inseparable is a revelation of a centuries-old literary tradition — brilliant, amusing, and until now, deliberately overlooked. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann Claire Kann’s debut novel Let’s Talk About Love, chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, gracefully explores the struggle with emerging adulthood and the complicated line between friendship and what it might mean to be something more. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Little and Lion by Brandy Colbert Suzette returns home to Los Angeles from boarding school and grapples with her bisexual identity when she and her brother Lionel fall in love with the same girl, pushing Lionel's bipolar disorder to spin out of control and forcing Suzette to confront her own demons. Suggested by Emma Gisclair, Curriculum Materials Center

Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal Myra's personality is altered by her sex change operation and Myron is transported back through time to the year 1948. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Subject Librarian

Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers Set on a Southern army base in the 1930s, REFLECTIONS tells the story of Captain Penderton, a bisexual whose life is upset by the arrival of Major Langdon, a charming womanizer who has an affair with Penderton's tempestuous and flirtatious wife, Leonora. Upon the novel's publication in 1941, reviewers were unsure of what to make of its relatively scandalous subject matter. But a critic for Time Magazine wrote, "In almost any hands, such material would yield a rank fruitcake of mere arty melodrama. But Carson McCullers tells her tale with simplicity, insight, and a rare gift of phrase." Written during a time when McCullers's own marriage to Reeves was on the brink of collapse, her second novel deals with her trademark themes of alienation and unfulfilled loves. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Subject Librarian

Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala In the tradition of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, Speak No Evil explores what it means to be different in a fundamentally conformist society and how that difference plays out in our inner and outer struggles. It is a novel about the power of words and self-identification, about who gets to speak and who has the power to speak for other people. As heart-wrenching and timely as his breakout debut, Beasts of No Nation, Uzodinma Iweala’s second novel cuts to the core of our humanity and leaves us reeling in its wake. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Tash hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee Fame and success come at a cost for Natasha "Tash" Zelenka when she creates the web series "Unhappy Families," a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina--written by Tash's eternal love Leo Tolstoy. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley The Boys in the Band was the first commercially successful play to reveal gay life to mainstream America. This is a special fortieth anniversary edition of the play, which includes an original preface by acclaimed writer Tony Kushner (Angels in America), along with previously unpublished photographs of Mart Crowley and the cast of the play/film. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Subject Librarian

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine wedding clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword, and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain towards the sleeping kingdom. This queen will decide her own future -- and the princess who needs rescuing is not quite what she seems. Suggested by Rebecca Hawk, Circulation

Very Recent History: an entirely factual account of a year (c. AD 2009) in a large city by Choire Sicha  What will the future make of us? In one of the greatest cities in the world, the richest man in town is the Mayor. Billionaires shed apartments like last season's fashion trends, even as the country's economy turns inside out and workers are expelled from the City's glass towers. The young and careless go on as they always have, getting laid and getting laid off, falling in and falling out of love, and trying to navigate the strange world they traffic in: the Internet, complex financial markets, credit cards, pop stars, microplane cheese graters, and sex apps. A true-life fable of money, sex, and politics, Very Recent History follows a man named John and his circle of friends, lovers, and enemies. It is a book that pieces together our every day, as if it were already forgotten. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Victim directed by Basil Dearden A highly respected, but closeted barrister, Melville Farr, risks his marriage and reputation to take on an elusive blackmail ring terrorizing gay men with the threat of public exposure and police action. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Subject Librarian

Why be happy when you could be normal? by Jeanette Winterson Traces the author's lifelong search for happiness as the adopted daughter of Pentecostal parents who raised her through practices of fierce control and paranoia, an experience that prompted her to search for her biological mother. Suggested by Lindsey Ritzert, Circulation

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. Suggested by Rebecca Hawk, Circulation

[francisthegreat]

Book Rec List

HI GUYS I did it and it took ten thousand years, but here’s my book rec list! 

So this is long and I’m ~fairly stoned~ right now, so I’m only going to do little write-ups for ones that like, knocked my SOCKS off, like one in a million. HOWEVER every single one of these is an amazing book that i love from the bottom of my heart like my own child. 

Poetry

Citizen // Claudia Rankine

Calling a Wolf a Wolf // Kayeh Akbar

Dancing in Odessa // Ilya Kaminsky 

Bluets // Maggie Nelson 

The Glass Essay // Anne Carson 

This one. This one deserves a hundred words. This poem was the first poem I ever read by my one and only lord and savior, Anne Carson, who I would die for. Her use of language and metaphor, her fucking grasp of the depths of human emotion and understanding and cruelty and joy and all the complexities of life just. Ugh. Absolutely the most beautiful single poem I’ve ever read. It also has a lot of really beautiful things to say about Wuthering Heights.

Helen in Egypt // HD

The Voice at 3AM // Charles Simic 

Leaves of Grass // Walt Whitman

Howl // Allen Ginsberg 

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, in particular The Bitter River

Antigonick // Anne Carson (*This is a play, a very strange and wonderful adaptation of Antigone)

Nonfiction

Sapiens // Yuval Noah Harari

This book fucked me UP.

A Brief History of Nearly Everything // Bill Bryson 

Between the World and Me // Ta-Nehisi Coates

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics // Carlo Rovelli  

Bad Feminist // Roxanne Gay

Too Much and Not the Mood // Durga Chew-Bose

The Argonauts // Maggie Nelson 

Another woman at whose feet I would literally cower if given the chance. There is so much in this book it almost defies explanation, but it explores relationships and love and gender identity and sexuality all in such a beautiful way, half memoir and half poetry and half love letter and I don’t care if that’s three halves, it’s Maggie fucking Nelson

Jane: A Murder // Maggie Nelson 

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name // Audre Lorde 

Graphic Novels

Fun Home // Alison Bechdel 

Saga // Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples 

I included Fiona because, even though she’s the illustrator here, the art is as much a part of the story as the narrative. This is probably objectively the best graphic novel series I’ve ever read. Absolutely stunning. Deep and insightful and clever and funny and scary and sad, so honest and so frightening in its ability to hold up a mirror to modern society, despite being science fiction. Really a work of genius.

Monstress // Marjorie Liu

Saga of the Swamp Thing // Alan Moore 

Probably the single greatest comic ever written. A fucking inspiration. Groundbreaking in its art and its narration. 

Midnighter //  Steve Orlando 

East of West // Jonathan Hickman

Y The Last Man // Brian K Vaughan 

Sandman // Neil Gaiman 

Black Panther // Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roxanne Gay (World of Wakanda)

Historical Fiction (requested by @meinesterne) 

Girl Waits With Gun // Amy Stewart

All the Light We Cannot See // Anthony Doerr

The Underground Railroad // Colson Whitehead

Lincoln in the Bardo // George Saunders

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle // Haruki Murakami (I’m reaching with this one)

Sci-fi/Fantasy written by authors of color (requested by @rex-luscus)

Akata Witch // Nnedi Okorafor

Binti // Nnedi Okorafor

Parable of the Sower // Octavia Butler

OCTAVIA BUTLER IS A SCIENCE FICTION GOD AND SHE SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED.

Kindred // Octavia Butler 

Futureland // Walter Mosley 

I wish I had more authors for you. If anyone has any, please add, I’d love to read more of this!

Same Sex Couples/Queer Characters (requested by @kyluxtrashcompactor)

Call Me By Your Name // Andre Aciman 

You guys have probably heard me screeching about this lately because the movie is coming out, but jesus mary and joseph if it’s not legitimately the most beautiful romance I have ever read in my entire life. I wept like a baby when I finished it. Like a little baby. The level of intimacy explored and reached in this book between the characters and, through them, the reader is just like. Fuckin unreal. The most intimate, most vulnerable, most delicately emotional romance I’ve ever read.

The Passion // Jeanette Winterson 

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I LOVE THIS BOOK

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit // Jeanette Winterson 

The Song of Achilles // Madeline Miller 

Autobiography of Red // Anne Carson 

This is a novel in verse and it is without a doubt my favorite book of all time. I’ve never read something that has affected me like this. I don’t know if i ever will again.  The way Anne Carson understands desire, the way she communicates it to her audience. There is literally no one on this fucking earth who has a better grip on the very definition of Eros than this woman. I was covered in chills basically the entire time. I had tears in my eyes from the sheer fucking beauty of the language and the sentiments she was writing about.

The Color Purple // Alice Walker 

Middlesex // Jeffrey Eugenides (falls mostly under the Queer Characters part of this)

Orlando // Virginia Woolf (also falls mostly under the Queer Characters part of this)

Her Body and Other Parties // Carmen Maria Machado

Unreal. UNREAL. UNREAL. Extraordinary. Fucking searing. Seriously, just. Go read it. 

General Fiction 

House of Leaves // Mark Z Danielewski 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao // Junot Diaz 

Blood Meridian // Cormac Macarthy

This is How You Lose Her // Junot Diaz 

I just want to say that I would die for Junot Diaz and that everything this man has ever written is un freaking believable. He is a legend. This story collection broke my heart and it felt so sweet while it was doing it. It’s so deeply personal, when he writes. You can really feel it. It crawls inside you.

Things We Lost in the Fire // Mariana Enriquez 

The Handmaid’s Tale // Margaret Atwood

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena // Anthony Marra 

Fucking devastating. I was gutted. 

Kafka on the Shore // Haruki Murakami

John Dies at the End // David Wong

As I Lay Dying // William Faulkner

Slaughterhouse Five // Kurt Vonnegut 

Alright guys. That’s all I can think of right now. If you have more specific requests, hit me up. And you KNOW how much i love playing the “book playlist” game so PLEASE SEND ME CHARACTERS AND I’LL TELL YOU WHAT THEY READ.