#men who do it purely objectify the female characters and don’t ACTUALLy Like them most of the time

[kavehayati]

Unpopular opinion but I get the biggest ick when men simp for female characters

[mirambles]

Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani - An honest review

I watched Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahaani because everyone I know on social media and few close folks in my real life said it was very entertaining - funny, progressive, feminist , and it showed gender equality.

So I was taken aback, because the general sentiment for KJo movies should be ‘It’s so shit, but I love it’ - that is a sentiment I can live with because we all have our guilty pleasures.

KJo has his audience who love the shit he pulls off every time he ‘directs’ a film with toxic masculinity, regressive female leads , justifying infidelity (always the answer to unhappy marriages) , glorifying Indian culture, where he adds 30 mins of melodrama and lectures to make the characters redeem themselves. Kjo’s movies are as lame as they can be, but people love them. I get it - ‘this shit is so bad, it’s so good’ category of films. Guilty pleasures are exactly this!

So sell me his new offering in exactly this manner - but all reviews and social media comments were glowing words of praise of how he has addressed today’s issues and it’s a progressive film. Are people suffering from amnesia or have they not watched better Bollywood films? Because I have a whole list of films you should watch that actually deal with ‘progressive’ mindsets - way before Kjo’s time!

Rani is a feminist. A FL as feisty news anchor who gives a 5 min lecture on men’s gaze, objectification of women and rape culture, but does an absolute U-turn 5 mins later by objectifying a handsome man in front of her. This is gender equality. Tit for Tat.

Wearing open back blouses to work is sign of new age feminism (Will I get trolled for sounding old school - has KJo ever stepped inside a corporate workspace - who dresses like Rani does?) What’s next? Women CEOs wearing bikinis? And why not get all men to dress like Rocky Randhawa - that would be peak gender equality in dress code at workplace.

Infidelity is the answer to all unhappy marriages. Remember KANK? Yes, let’s repeat that here, but let’s twist it into unrequited love between the senior citizens. Then add memory loss and illness excuse to get the 80yr old grandpa smooch his 75yr old ex-lover in front of his wife and entire family. The issue is not old age love, age is never a restriction to fall in love, the issue here is infidelity. But if this isn’t cringe enough, let’s completely destroy the most beautiful romantic number in Bollywood by playing it in the background to immortalise infidelity and later lust under the garb of love.

Let’s get back to our feminism torch bearer Rani, who has now jumped from knowing the guy for two meetings to lusting over him. She is honest with herself (not with Rocky mind you, because at no point have they had any conversation about themselves) that she is in it purely for the physical attraction, it’s just a fling for her. She is an elitist , feminist, Colombian grad, Bengali Girl (who has a terrible Bengali accent) and the crude, can’t speak English well, Gucci/Fendi wearing, Ferrari driving, protein shake drinking, loud Punjabi boy doesn’t match up to her standards. Kjo’s new level of feminism - make women pull the exact shit on men that men have put women through for decades. Tit for Tat! Gender Equality.

Btw at this point I still don’t know why Rocky loves Rani - love at first sight is always about the looks and physical attraction, so convince me why he loves her - because isn’t he this walking-talking green flag just by being understanding of his grandpa’s feelings and calling out Rani checking him out. A walking green flag who gets his grandpa’s ex-lover and his grandpa together to help his grandpa get better - because love is the cure for all illnesses. All doctors and medical researchers have been wasting their time on getting degrees and super specialisations - please enter Kjo’s school of love.

So now Rani realises she is in love - when and why and what changed her feelings from lust to love - I do not know. She drives on a 4-lane highway in the opposite direction - woman should have died there for her reckless driving, but she lives to propose to Rocky on a f&*king Highway! Bollywood I love you for pulling off this shit.

This is supposed to be the pivotal point in their relationship where she professes her love to him, going down on one knee (because hey you see role reversal - she is the feminist, the alpha female) and telling Rocky everything that HE IS NOT , listing her resume and her exes’. Therefore implying he doesn’t deserve her, but she is taking the high road and still falling for him. All the reasons she lists that she loves about him are actually about his physical aspects = Lust. She doesn’t list one meaningful quality that she actually ‘loves’ about him.

It is at this point that I gave up on the film, because after this RRKPK became a collation of scenes dedicated to social media trending topics:

1. Women burdened with household work

2. Women not liberated enough to pursue their dreams

3. Women being fat shamed

4. Cancel culture

5. Men being shamed for pursuing classical dancing (KJo research FFS - 50% of India’s top kathak dancers are males right from 1940s! )

Each topic got 1-2 scenes, tweets converted to preachy dialogues uttered by our ‘feminist’ queen and zero closures or character growth.

The only thing that works in this movie - is Ranveer , not his character, but him! He is effortless in this role, his comic timing is superb, needs some work on emotions.

Alia is a shadow of her awesome self on screen post her marriage to Ranbir. It hurts to say this, cause I have loved her in all her movies except SOTY.

Can people age gracefully, I couldn’t bear to look at Shabana Azmi and Jaya B - former was gorgeous as hell in her younger days, now is swollen with all the Botox fillers! Jaya has forgotten to act completely. Dharmendra should not even be acting anymore.

What was the point of rest of the cast? Only Alia’s dad was a decent act.

The one thing I absolutely love in KJo movies is the music and songs! These were crap too. What Jhumka? Because ruining all the songs from ‘The Golden’ decade of Bollywood was not enough, so they made a terrible mashup of Badtameez Dil & Jhumka Gira Re and killed both the songs in one go! Takes some skill doing this - well done!

Why this long rant if I disliked the movie so much, that too KJo movies? I wouldn’t have written one, if the reviews and comments were honest about the movie being average, typical entertainment; but the moment people praised it to nth level of being socially relevant with feminist heroine and gender equality - they deserved to be called out for their shallow thought process thinking that KJo actually cares about any of this stuff.

Worst people think this is ‘quintessential’ Bollywood. Please watch better films - like Amitabh’s roaring 70s, the romance films of 90s, the fun comedies, the glorious slice of life films from Hrishida, the Yash Chopra multistarrers - that’s quintessential, genuine, charm of Bollywood.

Lastly before I wrap this up - RRKPK when literally translated is Love Story of Rocky and Rani. I spent 2.5 hours on this shit show and I still don’t know the answer to why and how they fell in love! They didn’t have one decent conversation about themselves! The latter half is about them wooing their families. The film should have been aptly titled ‘Randhawa and Chatterjee Ki Prem Kahaani’ - It’s all about loving your family - K3G Part 2!

[girlsgonemildblog]

Valley of the Dolls and Hollywood's Desire to Self-Protect

Poster from imdb.com

Valley of the Dolls (1967) tells the story of three young women working in show business in the 1960s. Originally adapted from Jacqueline Susann’s 1966 book by the same name, the screenplay was written by two women, Helen Deutsch and Dorothy Kingsley. The director for the film, though, was a man, named Mark Robson. The plot centers around three protagonists, Anne Welles, Neely O’Hara, and Jennifer North. Their stories connect and separate several times as they each navigate Hollywood, growing in stardom and fading into oblivion. All three storylines follow two themes, the role of women in the 1960s and the abuse of drugs by these women to deal with the pressures of their culture. The film largely stays true to the novel, but alters some important aspects in order to soften the critique that Susann originally proposed. Valley of the Dolls is an attempted commentary on societal demands on women in the 1960s, but is unsuccessful in its criticism due to continuing to perpetuate several misogynistic standards and Hollywood trying to alleviate itself of guilt.

Valley of the Dolls is one of few movies from its era that centers on multiple female leads without allowing for any male characters to come in and dominate the narrative. The story goes further than to just portray women, and even passes commentary on the harmful expectations put on them by society. There are messages about the workforce, body image, and marriage roles all present. Still, while the film may seem to have a feminist message for most of the plot, it falls short in its final moments. The two women, Neely and Jennifer, who are outwardly ambitious and more sexually promiscuous, are punished for their behavior, while the virginally pure and soft spoken Anne is the one who gets a happy ending, though not in the traditional sense.

The first woman to look at is Neely O’Hara (Patty Duke). Neely, the youngest of the three, is also the most talented and the most ambitious. While her two co-protagonists experience minor stardom, Neely becomes a full-fledged celebrity. As Neely begins her rise to the top, she is forced to work out, despite already being nearly rail thin. During her work-out montage, she even asks her trainer, “you call this acting?” This moment serves to show that for women, being an actor was not strictly about their talent, but also the way they looked. Working out is a part of the job for Neely because if she gains weight, people will no longer want to look at her and thus she won’t be able to be on stage or screen.

The affect of her ambition on her womanhood is also seen through the depiction of her first marriage to her hometown sweetheart, Mel (Martin Milner). When Neely gets her big break, she asks Mel to marry her, flipping the tradition of a man asking a woman. This is the first evidence of the gender role reversal that will be present later. In one scene, after Neely has made it and begun earning more money, the audience sees that Mel is now in charge of keeping house, a job typically meant for the wife at this time. The two get into an argument and Mel, sick of being bossed around by Neely, states, “I am not the butler,” to which Neely retorts, “you’re not the bread winner either.” The two get divorced shortly after. In the beginning of the movie, as Neely is about to be cut out of the broadway show, Mel gives her advice on how to handle the situation in a way that is both best for her career and best for earning money. Mel is more than happy to support Neely’s ambition when she is starting out and he is controlling her success. When Neely grows beyond his grasp, begins to overshadow him, and no longer needs him, the turmoil of their relationship begins. Mel’s male ego cannot handle having a wife who not only is not reliant on him, but who he is reliant on.

In contrast, Jennifer’s fatal flaw is not her ambition but her body. The audience is introduced to Jennifer (Sharon Tate) as she is scantily clad in a leotard with a giant showgirl headpiece on. Her first line is concern that she cannot walk, “I feel a little top heavy,” to which her director replies, “Dear, you are top heavy.” This is met by a chorus of laughter from the men in the room and clear distress from Jennifer’s face. Jennifer’s sin is simply her breasts and her beauty; she is punished for merely existing in her natural form. On the phone with her mother, she states, “I know I don’t have any talent, and I know all I have is my body.” She recognizes that she has no marketable skills, but with the way that society has commodified the female figure, she can use her natural assets to get ahead.

Jennifer’s plot line introduces the character of Miriam (Lee Grant), the sister of Jennifer’s husband, Tony (Tony Scotti). Miriam also manages Tony. This is interesting because all the other women in the film are controlled by men, but Miriam is not only not controlled by a man, but controls one herself. Jennifer, who seems not to have a manager, but operates as an independent, eventually is taken on by Miriam, emphasizing the way that Miriam acts as a male figure, controlling and dominating her world like men normally do. Miriam eventually sells Jennifer into porn. When Jennifer tries to protest, Miriam insists, “Tony wouldn’t know the difference.” Jennifer’s plea of “well, I would,” falls on deaf ears. Miriam views the world like a man, thinking only a husband should be offended by his wife’s immodesty, not recognizing that the woman is also a person with feelings about the exposure of her own body.

Jennifer’s whole life and career is based on her body. When she is diagnosed with breast cancer and must get a mastectomy, she states, “all I ever had was a body. All I know how to do is take off my clothes.” She is realizing that without her breasts, she will have no way of earning a living or supporting herself, as she has done her whole life. This drives her to suicide, deciding she would rather die than lose her body. The message of this scene is clear; despite the fact that society has deemed her figure the only thing that gives her value, her exploitation of it still must be punished by death. Women are supposed to surrender to the forces of the patriarchy, not use them to their own advantage.

The third protagonist, the redeemable protagonist, is Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins). Anne is introduced at the very beginning of the film through her own narration as she tells the listener that her family’s home has been around since the revolution, showing that she represents American tradition. The story of George Washington drinking from their well symbolizes that people like Anne are what give America life. This American idealization is what protects Anne throughout her career. As she enters the office for the first time to the slut shaming of a pregnant cat, the audience immediately knows that this place will not be very friendly to women. This is fortified when her boss tells her she is “too good looking” for her job and talks about getting her “broken in”. This is exemplifying the idea that beautiful women aren’t meant for work while also objectifying them by talking about women like they’re shoes.

Her romantic interest, Lyon (Paul Burke), who is also her boss, calls Anne, “barely pink” when he first meets her, admiring how young she is. He later tells her that jewelry is not for her, and that she should only be gifted flowers, specifically white ones. These are both attempts to preserve Anne’s delicacy, or “pinkness”.  Diamonds and gold are too flashy for a soft spoken woman like Anne, and the white flowers clearly symbolize purity. Constantly throughout the entire film, the audience is reminded of Anne being special and unlike other “bad” women such as Neely or Jennifer. At one point Lyon tells Anne that no other girls compare to her because they can’t “stand up to her image”. Not her actual person or personality, but her image. Anne does not have actual personhood in the eyes of Lyon, but exists only as the idealized woman.

This is further exemplified when she becomes the Gillian Girl. The man who hires her says he wants someone known with Gillian exclusively. The idea here is they want her to be only an image of beauty and innocence; if she works with other brands or as an actress she becomes more than one-dimensional and people can discover that she may have flaws. Anne’s ability to maintain her image of perfection and purity throughout the entire film is why she gets to live happily ever after at the end, unlike her two counterparts. She returns to her hometown and lives out the rest of her life as the embodiment of American tradition.

This movie gets its title from the nickname that Neely gives the pills that she and the other two protagonists all become addicted to. The name, “dolls”, calls to mind a picture of girlhood and female adolescence, highlighting how young Neely is (only 17) when the story begins. Many movies of the 1960s, such as Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969) were depicting taking psychedelic drugs and having crazy trips. Valley of the Dolls shows a different type of drug use, the abuse of painkillers. Though the main characters are movie stars and models, their drug habit was likely more relatable to the suburban movie-going audience than that of Hopper’s characters. It was all too common for housewives to be prescribed “mother’s little helpers” to deal with what was condescendingly written off as “hysteria”. Another difference between these two movies is that psychedelic trips were portrayed as freeing, eye-opening experiences. In contrast, the painkillers are entrapping for the women and ultimately ruin their careers and end their lives.

The character who has the least interaction with the “dolls” is Anne. This is done to keep the idea of Anne as the “pure”, “good” character. The way she begins to take the drugs is interesting, though; she first picks up the bottle when she realizes that her long-term boyfriend, Lyon, is having an affair with her best friend, Neely. This serves two purposes. This first is that it shows that the pills are not used for pleasure, like psychedelics would be, but for numbing purposes. This also displays the corruptive force of Hollywood; it is not until the plot moves from New York to Hollywood that these women turn sour. Because of this city, Neely betrays her best friend and sweet, innocent Anne is driven to drug use.

Jennifer is seen taking the pills two times, twice as often as Anne is. The first time she takes them is when she learns about Tony’s illness. Again, they are used to numb emotional pain. The second time Jennifer is shown taking the pills is when she purposely overdoses on them to kill herself. This is the most extreme version of numbing difficult emotions a person can take, and the most obvious way that the movie could show that these drugs do not provide enjoyment but rather stop misery. What the “dolls” provide is nothingness, and Jennifer takes this nothingness to its maximum.

Neely is the character whose story is most entangled with drug use. She begins when her trainer gives her diet pills to slim her already thin figure. During this montage, the audience clearly sees Mel, the symbol of her pre-fame life, shake his head and tell her no, but she responds with a shrug, as if to say, “what’s the worst that could happen?” Shortly after, she tells Anne that she takes sleeping pills that are so strong, she has to take red pills to counteract them to wake up in the mornings, but then must take the sleeping pills again at night because the red ones have not yet worn off. Taking the pills is an endless cycle for Neely that will lead her to spiral to rock bottom.

In a following scene, Neely is seen being an absolute mess on the set of a movie, causing them to call for her husband to take her home because she cannot work under such strong influence of drugs and alcohol. When Anne and Lyon go to check on her, Anne lectures her about the danger of drinking while taking the pills, but Neely asserts that she must do so because it makes them work faster. This moment shows the desperation Neely has to stop feeling. Later on, after getting drunk in a dive-bar, having sex with some random nobody, and being robbed the morning after, Neely overdoses and nearly dies. Anne implies that this may have been intentional, despite Neely insisting otherwise. The audience is left to wonder.

During the third act of the movie, after Neely has gone to rehab and gotten clean, her older rival, Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward), brags about how she never needed pills like Neely did. Lawson claims her current sobriety is only temporary and Neely will eventually return to her old bad habits. The character summarizes Neely’s entire story with one line, “nothing can destroy her talent, but she’ll destroy herself.” Lawson’s words come true; Neely’s final scene sees her relapsing on opening night of the show she’s supposed to star in and being replaced by her younger understudy, the very thing she was afraid of. Her story closes on her drunk in an alley, screaming her own name.

To properly analyze this film, one must compare it to its source material, Jacqueline Susann’s novel by the same name. Though the movie stays true to the novel in most major plot points, there are distinct narrative changes and omissions that drastically alter the story. One of the most distinct examples of this is that Lyon refuses to marry Anne until the final scene of the film. In the novel, he marries her when they first reunite in Los Angeles. When he begins his affair with Neely, Anne is pregnant with their first child, which gives Anne a stronger motive to turn to the pills than she has in the movie. The book version of the two women are also much closer friends, which creates a more dramatic change in Neely’s character than in the film. Removing these two extremes makes Neely’s character arc less impactful.

Another aspect that was removed is Tony’s obsession with sex. An important part of Jennifer’s characterization is that she has always been made to feel that her body is her only source of value. This is added to, in the novel, by the fact that sex is the foundation for her relationship with her husband. This is only alluded to in the film with one line when they are walking in the park. In the novel, it is emphasized explicitly at multiple points. One of the reasons Jennifer chooses to kill herself rather than lose her breasts is because she believes she will lose even her husband’s love. The film likely made this change, as well as the marital change, to make the characters of Tony and Neely more sympathetic. While this goal is accomplished, it also softens the harsh realities that Susann was trying to expose in her novel.

One final difference between the film and novel is the ending. In the film, Lyon finally proposes to Anne and she rejects him, getting to move on with her life and live peacefully. She gets a happy ending. The novel ends with Anne and Lyon still married, her discovering that he is having yet another affair with a client, and her returning to the pills. This final note makes it clear that there are no happy endings for women in this city. The change is another example of Hollywood trying to show itself in a more flattering light than the one Susann placed on it.

Valley of the Dolls, the novel, was written by a female author as a way to condemn the mistreatment of women in the 1960s, specifically the mistreatment perpetuated by Hollywood on women in show business. The film adaptation tries to duplicate this commentary, but fails for multiple reasons. The first is that it chooses to save the “good girl” character. In the written work, all three stories ending in tragedy shows how no woman is safe from the effects of the patriarchy. Opting to protect the “pure” character alters the message completely so that it is no longer a criticism but a continuation of the idea that ambitious, promiscuous women deserve punishment and good, virginal women deserve happy endings. In addition, it omits important plot points that provide motivation for the characters self-destructive actions, such as Anne taking the pills for the first time and Jennifer committing suicide. By removing the catalysts, the characters are turned into cliché hysterical women. The film fails to adapt Susann’s novel correctly because it replicates the sensational bits while omitting the message. Unlike the book, the film serves only to entertain and not to critique.

[bookscoffeeandracoons]

366 Days Reblog Challenge April 2020

Another month is already over and in these messed up times I’m even more grateful for all the amazing work by these amazingly talented writers! So without much more rambling here are the fics that i’ve read and reblogged for @beccaanne814‘s 366 Days Reblog Challenge. And thanks again to @beccaanne814​ for the wonderful banners!

Happy reading!

01. Patching up by @petals-sunwards

Clint Barton x Reader

Warnings: mentions of blood and injury, a little angst and fluff

Prompt: Can you go a single day without accidentally hurting yourself?

02. A Good Suit by @portals-to-a-new-world

Leonard McCoy x Reader

Warnings: SMUT, 18+ ONLY!!, Some language, Mentions of being tied up, Oral (male receiving), uhhh I think that’s it tho

What? I have to give a massive massive shoutout to @bakerstreethound for the idea: {So have a later night party at the enterprise (can be for Kirk’s birthday, but let’s say you and Kirk are on bad terms so you don’t go to the party) you stay in your room tussling with your body pillow to make up for Bones absence. You wake up to find him sitting on your bed wearing the suit he went to Kirk’s party in.} Love, you’ve absolutely slaughtered me in this process but oml was it worth it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it <3

03. A Bad Boy by @portals-to-a-new-world 

Leonard McCoy x Reader

Warnings: Listen. We all know I’m a slut for suits. So you can bet your ass this is as smutty as all hell. That being said, semi public almost smut, language, being tied up, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it yall), oral (male receiving), mild choking, dom!reader, listen it’s straight filth kay? Kay.

What?: Bones doesn’t want to go to a random 1920s themed party, so Y/n offers him a challenge. Smut ensues. (Sequel to A Good Suit.)

04.  One Night In Vegas by @avengerscompound

Tony Stark x F!Reader

Warning:  Talk of sex, aftermath of drinking and drug use

Summary:  You wake up in a Vegas suite with Tony Stark wearing the biggest diamond ring you’ve seen in your life.  The two of you then try and piece the night together

05. Your Prince, My King by @official-and-unstable-satan

Loki x Reader

Warnings: Dominant Loki. Language. Mentions of insecurities and mental health. Degradation and praise. Bondage? SEX Oral (Male and female receiving) and ACTUAL SEX ETA: Orgasm denial/delay (cause that’s apparently a warning? Didn’t know. Sorry) Odin in general. Loki. Reader being snarky and short tempered. Insecurities. Mentions of trauma. Language, probably. Bad writing? Idk what to put here, really. I’m bad at this. Smut. Mentions of smut. Actual filth. Out of character characters, probably. One day I’ll stop apologizing for my writing. I’m working on it.

06. Surprise by @mermaidxatxheart

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Swearing. If you think I missed anything, please let me know.

Summary: You try to get away with something, but Bucky catches you in the act.

07.  drive-through by @evanstarff

(i must have missed something here beause i can’t get to this fic anymore. @evanstarff seems to be gone. I’ll still leave the fic here, in case anyone knows if @evanstarff maybe has a new blog or something, please let me know!)

08.  Scabulous by @avengerscompound

Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Warnings:  Mentions of past injuries, poor feelings about body image, scars

Synopsis:  Bucky is unwilling to undress in front of you because he hates his scars.  Turn out he isn’t the only one with scars.

09.  Skin Contact by @avengerscompound

Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Series Warnings:  Angst, smut (hand jobs, vaginal sex, fingering), PTSD, mentions of past torture.  Superpowered Reader.

Synopsis: While on the run in Romania you come across a man who has a past very similar to your own.  When the people pursuing him track him down, you assume you will never see him again.

10. Mind Control by @avengerscompound

Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Series Warnings:  Angst, smut (vaginal sex, oral sex), PTSD, mentions of past torture.  Superpowered Reader.

Synopsis: While on the run in Romania you come across a man who has a past very similar to your own.  When the people pursuing him track him down, you assume you will never see him again.

11. CRUSH by @petals-sunwards

Clint Barton x Reader

Warnings: none, pure fluff and kisses

Written for @stuckonjbbarnes‘s 250 Writing challenge. My prompt was ‘You know, I’m really good at telling who has crushes on who‘ and I had a blast writing it.

12. An Exquisite Kind of Pain by @redgillan

Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: read it and you’ll see

Summary: Steve’s in love and that’s the problem.

The five times Bucky saved you…

…and the one time you saved him 

by @buckysknifecollection

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Series warnings: some mild swearing, mention of dangerous situations, death mention, injuries, mentions of men objectifying women; other than that - toothrotting fluff.

Summary: You have a special bond with Bucky. He’s more than your best friend, your partner in missions, the person you care most about. He often saved you from uncomfortable situations, always ready to protect you, but sometimes, you are the one who did the saving. A series of drabbles.

13. Part 1 

14. Part 2 

15. Part 3 

16. Part 4

17. Part 5

18. Part 6

19. Ink on his heart by @bitsandbobsandstuff

Bucky Barnes x TattooArtist!Reader

Warnings: Tattoo experiences, a couple stories about war. Some swearing. Mostly lots of feels and fluff.

Summary: Here’s how Bucky Barnes got a haircut and then decided it was about damn time he controlled his own destiny - starting with a bit of ink.

20. Friends in Training by @until-theend-oftheline

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Sam and Bucky are giant children

A/N: This is a drabble request written for @jewels2876 : How about this with Sam and Bucky? “Are you clinically insane or incredibly annoying?” “I don’t know, probably both?"

21.  Right Where You Are, That’s Where I Am by @corneliabarnes

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Angst, allusions to violence and PTSD, fluffy ending

22.  Looking Up by @avengerscompound​

Clint Barton x Reader (kinda)

Warnings:  action, canon-typical violence, Clint’s naked and a very proud boyfriend.

Synopsis:  Clint’s day was looking up. His girlfriend slept over for the first time. He’s pretty sure she’s a Jedi. He was having a nice bath. So how is it he’s now running down the street naked from gunmen?

23.  Distant Connection by @abovethesmokestacks​

A Bucky x Reader drabble series based on this post

Summary: You happen to be in the office when the email is sent out, you get Trip from IT to help you set up the VPN you need to be able to access company systems from home, you rifle through all of your folders and then just dump all of them in a box. It’s a surreal feeling because you are essentially cleaning out your office. As if you’re losing your job. This will be fine. You send an email to your project collaborator, someone named Barnes, suggesting a first video conference call on Monday before you log off.

This is fine.

Chapter 1: This Is Fine

Chapter 2: Introvert Olympics

Chapter 3: Business As Casual

Chapter 4: Jeremy Bearimy

Chapter 5: Toilet Paper Confessionals

Chapter 6: Netflix And I Have No Chill

Chapter 7: Social Dumbassing

24. Assemble: Bucky Barnes by @official-and-unstable-satan​

Bucky Barnes

Warnings: Language, Bucky struggling a little with the whole idea. I think that’s it.

Summary:  James Barnes remembers. He remembers the words. He remembers their meanings. He remembers what they made him do and he fears them. Even after he was ‘fixed’ by Shuri, he feared them. So, someone suggested he learn to love the words by associating the ways they could help him instead of hurt him.

25. Request for the “Until We Meet Again Series” by @sgtjbuccky​

Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader

Warnings: a little swearing,

Request:  Omggg I have a idea for “until we meet again What if the reader loses her memory and goes to the Avengers because that’s the last place you remember is being, and then like they tell her about herself and they end up finding the prodigies or sum YASSSSS I LOVE YOUR STORIES 😝

26. Audiobook of Love by @nerdy-bookworm-1998​

Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Fluff

Summary: Steve and Bucky are missing their best girl while on a mission, but she has a special surprise  for them.

27. Sore Loser by @squirrel-moose-winchester​

Dean Winchester x Reader

Warning: Fluff, Gambling (is hustling money considered gambling?), Some Crack, Dean being Petty.

Summary: Y/N learns a few new tricks and hustles Dean, the king of pool, out of all his money.

28. Best Laid Plans by @suz-123​

A Falcon and Winter Soldier TV Fic *obviously this is NOT spoiler heavy as the show has not even been filmed yet*

Warnings: None really, just my usual casual cursing and sassy soldiers.

A/N: So, there was a post on here that went around yesterday about a plot theory as to what Zemo was going to be doing to tear these guys apart in their future TV show. Naturally, I was livid with this stupid idea and, naturally, I used the magic of fanfic to fix a problem that may or may not ever actually see the light of day :D

29.  Major Crush by @redgillan​

Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: Explicit Language, Dirty Talk, Groping

Summary: Laser Tag brings out Steve Rogers’ competitive side and Reader loves it.

30. Count on It by @team-iron-wannabe-man​

40’s!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Y/N isn’t too impressed with the Infamous Sergeant James B. Barnes, however Bucky is definitely interested in her.

______________________________________________________________

That was all the fics I’ve read for the Reblog Challenge in April! A big THANK YOU again to all the writers! This time would be so much more difficult without all your work! 

For the readers: if you search my blog for the tag #fic rec you’ll find even more to read!

Stay healthy everyone and lots of love to you all! ❤

Back to main Masterlist 

[penzyroamin]

Hi I know it’s been a bit but I’m the confused bi anon. I really really appreciated your response and it wasn’t too long. You made me feel a lot better. I was wondering if you could maybe suggest some books, tv, movies with bi female characters. Thanks soo much for the entire last response . You are absolutely incredible and so sweet. This means more to me than you could ever know❤️

of course!! i’m glad that my first response helped <3

disclaimer of course: i’m not bi! so i’m not an Authoritative Source on bi rep and what people want to see more of. i do actively seek out stuff about lgbtq+ characters, specifically girls and women, so i have some recs! however, i’ll also be adding some things that some bi folks i know have recommended because while lesbians and bi women have a lot in common, these are at the end of the day representing them, not me :)

extra-super favorites will be bolded! i’m putting this under a read more because... i read a lot of books. and recommended a lot of them.

books:

her royal highness by rachel hawkins-- this book is a pretty easy read-- don’t expect any massive revelations about life from it, and you’ll have a good time!!! essentially, a bi texan girl named millie, after having her heart broken by her friend-turned-sort-of-gf, goes to boarding school in scotland and ends up rooming with the princess, flora. if this sounds outrageous and sappy, that’s because it is! and i love it! sexuality isn’t a BIG part of this book, but it’s discussed, and it’s just a generally fun enemies-to-lovers story about a bi aspiring geologist and a no-fucks-to-give lesbian princess and them falling in love!

fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe by fannie flagg-- hello this is actually my favorite book! unlike hrh it is... a LOT to read. it essentially follows 2 stories-- one about a housewife named evelyn and her friendship with an old woman named ninny threadgoode who she meets at the old folks home her mother-in-law stays at, and the other about the stories ninny tells her about her sister-in-law idgie and her partner, ruth. the book was published in 1987, and ruth and idgie’s story is set during the great depression, so they aren’t actively labeled as lesbian or bi, but it’s made obvious enough through coding and the fact that ruth has relationships with men prior to idgie while idgie spends her entire childhood pining after ruth. both storylines are fantastic-- they have a lot to say about the lives of southern women in the 30s and 80s, and about race relations at both periods. i’ll warn you that there are depictions of extreme racism and of abuse, but it handles both delicately. it’s a critical piece of southern literature, and a landmark for lgbtq+ storytelling. as a bonus, my copy has a bunch of great recipes in the back, so if you read it you might chance upon an edition with those in it. if you like poignant period pieces about wlw relationships, women losing their damn minds, and abusive men getting what they deserve, this is the book for you! you will sob. this is a fair warning.

you should see me in a crown by leah johnson-- i haven’t personally read this one, but i’ve heard great things about it from everyone i know who has! an anxious black bi girl in indiana has to win prom queen at her mostly-white school in order to get enough scholarship money to go to the college of her dreams, but ends up falling for mack, another girl running for queen. 

@landlessbud wanted me to shout out red, white, and royal blue by casey mcquinston-- you’ve almost definitely heard about it before (first son and prince of wales, enemies-to-lovers with a side dish of political drama), and it is primarily about a mlm romance, but nora is a fabulously fun bi girl side character and there’s a lot of great stuff about figuring out your sexuality in it.

leah on the offbeat by becky albertalli-- i’ve read a lot of complex thoughts on this book, and mine are... i like it! it’s flawed, sure, and i wish it had handled a few things a little better, but you know what? it’s cute as fuck! leah is a fat bi drummer, and she’s super cool! abby is a great love interest, and she goes through a whole bi realization throughout the book. all in all, it’s just a fun wlw high school romcom with a couple solid dramatic beats and a lot of goofball shenanigans. also, if you were an american girl kid??? one scene in this book will make the entire experience worth it for you.

harley quinn: breaking glass by mariko tamaki and steve pugh-- hey, we’re in graphic novel territory now! this book is RAD. a really neat look at gentrification, community solidarity, giving people what they deserve, and fantastic lgbtq+ found families. teenage harleen quinzel is taken in by a group of drag queens, and is caught between two sort-of love interests-- mysterious vigilante the joker and classmate and community activist ivy-- and the different forms of protest and resistance they represent. the art here is STUNNING, and it’s a great read!

laura dean keeps breaking up with me, by the great mariko tamaki with art by rosemary valero-o’connell-- the vast majority of the characters are lgbt, with a lesbian main character, and the supporting cast including a bi nonbinary character, a bi girl character, and two mlm characters! this is mostly a piece about modern lgbtq+ teenagers and the way toxic relationships take over our lives. it’s one of the most cathartic things i’ve read in a LONG time, and especially if you’re at a point where your sexuality feels kind of vague, this is a great read because it embraces that vagueness by not needing to clearly label the characters and celebrates whatever point of clarity the characters are at. probably some of the most gorgeous art i’ve ever seen in a book, with a beautiful black-white-and-pink color scheme and a really neat approach to visual storytelling.

movies:

i don’t watch many movies, because i get bored really quickly hskdhskhds. but the movies i DO watch are usually gay!

wowie zowie its fried green tomatoes again!-- fannie flagg came back to adapt this into a film and HOT DAMN is it just as good. the plot is primarily the same, with some stuff obviously cut or trimmed to make it a two hour movie instead of a 450 page books fhsjdhsjhds. mary-louise parker plays ruth!!! it got a GLAAD award and an oscar nomination, and god it’s good. there are a couple scenes in here that i think are going to be in my mind until the day i die. the level of pure butch energy that idgie radiates in this film is a one-hit k.o. and it KILLS me.

birds of prey-- listen. this is not a profound movie. harley’s bisexuality isn’t emphasized, and romance is basically nonexistent in this movie. there is some... quite graphic violence. that said, this movie is so fucking fun. it’s mostly just a bunch of women fucking up everyone who crosses them while margot robbie gives a gleeful performance that you can just TELL she enjoyed the fuck out of. the last 20-30 minutes of this movie are the absolute best part, with a long sequence that kind of reinvented what an action/superhero movie could be for me. again, bisexuality isn’t a massive part of this-- it’s mentioned, and then harley just continues on in her gloriously campy outfits and breaks peoples’ knees. again, i CANNOT overemphasize just how fucking good the last 20-30 minutes are. this movie knows what it is and it embraces it. also, women beating people up in costumes that don’t horrifyingly objectify them is always a plus!

imagine me & you-- i’d be remiss if i didn’t mention this one, considering it’s probably one of the most iconic wlw romcoms. a woman named rachel, while at her own wedding, meets a florist named luce, and they fall in love. it’s a very sweet look at questioning your sexuality when you were already secure in it, and rachel’s husband wins “most genuinely understanding guy in a wlw movie” award. it has a lovely happy ending, and articles have been written about the importance of rachel being a bi character who a) gets a happy ending and b) isn’t shamed for figuring out her sexuality later on or slutshamed. this is just... a sweet movie. it’s the romcom a lot of us need in our lives. also, a LOT of floral imagery.

tv shows:

ok, i’ve got a confession. i reaaaaaaally don’t watch much tv. seriously, the only shows i’ve watched a substantial amount of recently have been parks and rec, schitt’s creek, the good place, and gilmore girls. i have a really REALLY short attention span.

that said, eleanor from the good place is bisexual!! the good place is a really wild ride, it’s half afterlife comedy half philosophical musing, and it will almost certainly make you gasp, laugh, think, and also probably cry. also, eleanor is just buckets of fun and she, like many of us, is often blown away by tahani (jameela jamil) and her beauty.

ummm shows i haven’t watched entirely or at all but that have bi women in them and seem pretty good: black lightning, sex education, jane the virgin, arrow. 

if you haven’t already watched it, do not believe what people are going to tell you about watching glee. it will drag you into a pit of despair and white men rapping, and it’s quite biphobic to top it all off.

i hope you enjoy at least some of these!! i tried to include some of my own favs and some that were pointed out to me, so i hope that at least a couple connect with you and make you feel better. again, the bolded ones are my 100% favorites. i love you and i’m glad you reached out again!!! feel free to send some more asks later on <3

[tigerlover16-uk]

Mind clarifying that last post?

(This is in regards to a short post I did earlier saying how Future Mai in DBS was treated with a lot more respect and was less objectified than Pan was in Dragon Ball GT, in case anyone’s wondering. I wasn’t able to write this response straight away).

Pan is technically the secondary protagonist of GT, considering she’s the one that gets the most screentime after Goku, continuing to have a seemingly prominent role even after Trunks had been demoted to extra. But she never actually does anything to justify it.

In an interview that was recently translated, which I’ll link below, the writers of the show admitted that the role they planned out for Pan was to be beaten up by the villains so Goku would look stronger by comparison. It shows.

In episode 5, the climax to a mini-arc starting off the first saga, Pan attempts to attack the villain of the episode… but then immediately gets trapped in some kind of forcefield or something. Admittedly Trunks also gets one-shot by the guys bodyguard before Goku fights him, but the trend continues for Pan’s future appearances. During the Machine Mutants arc it looks at one point after grieving over Giru’s apparent betrayal that Pan was going to do something to fight the villains herself… only to soon after get captured anyway, and it’s Trunks and Giru who end up saving the day.

During the Baby saga she gets beat up pretty much every time she gets into an action scene, usually by her own possessed father, and her own plans to try and save the day end up failing pitifully and she needs to be rescued by Uub or Goku at various points.

While she got to blow up a few people from the Red Ribbon Army in the Super 17 saga (Hardly an impressive feat though, considering how weak they are at this point), her only active attempt to save the day where she took Dr Gero hostage ended up being for nothing as Dr Myuu was a backstabbing coward, and then Pan was helpless against Super 17 of course.

In the Shadow Dragons saga she does beat up on Haze Shenron at first, but then gets subjected to Haze Shenron’s toxic mist that strips her and Goku of their power, making it look like she almost screwed them both over by not just finishing the otherwise joke villain off right away instead of just throwing a fit and wailing on him for the sake of it because he insulted her.

Then later in the saga she gets taken as a hostage by both Naturon and Eis Shenrons, and does pretty much nothing of value in the final battle against Omega Shenron, with it being Vegeta, who’s only actual role in GT up to this point was to get body-jacked by Baby, gets to go super Saiyan 4 to try and help out.

The only times Pan gets to be all that helpful in battle are against Lord Luud and Oceanus Shenron, and in both instances it’s alongside Goku, so she never gets a serious fight that she wins by herself (And honestly, Goku never even powers up that far against Oceanus Shenron, and both characters are borderline filler villains anyway), and they’re both followed up by really bad worfing in the episodes after, so any attempt to make Pan seem relevant or dependable rings hollow.

The only truly significant contributions Pan makes is in helping Golden Great Ape Goku get a grip on himself and thus becoming super Saiyan 4, and then helping power a weakened Goku up again with the other part-Saiyan characters while Majuub stalls Baby. That’s Pan’s moment of glory as the secondary protagonist, helping a male character gain a transformation. And don’t get me wrong I loved that scene, it’s one of the best in GT and very touching, but it’s systematic of how Pan is treated throughout the series.

Because aside from that, she isn’t treated with a ton of respect. She’s portrayed as a whiny brat who keeps trying to prove herself when people tell her to stay out of things, but she ends up often causing more trouble as a result of that and things only working out for the best purely by coincidence, like her causing the spaceship to crash land on the planet Giru was on. She frequently has to be rescued despite being overconfident in her own abilities.

Episode 15 has her run away from the group into a scorching desert planet when she finds out that Trunks and Goku are quite understandably planning to drop her off at earth and switch her out with Goten now that they know there are villains after the Dragon Balls, which nearly gets Pan killed via heat exhaustion and giant man-eating insects that Giru has to rescue her from. 

And then at the end of the episode, Trunks says he was wrong for thinking of sending her back to earth and allows her to stick around on the basis of “Hey, you found us the dragon ball and an oasis”, which Pan explicitly points out that GIRU found, she wasn’t even looking!

The episode tries to end on a note of Pan proving herself somehow and that she is dependable, when the actual content had her proving without a doubt that NO, she is NOT responsible, NOT capable of looking after herself and that Trunks was RIGHT to want to send her back to earth. It completely undermines her character arc beyond redemption, and makes Trunks and Goku look like irresponsible IDIOTS who think it’s okay to drag incompetent CHILDREN into battle, which is just full of so many unfortunate implications.

The most actual development she gets throughout the series is that she gradually becomes less bratty as time goes on, but even then none of the other problems are addressed.

In fairness, every other character in the show that isn’t Goku suffers a similar problem of not accomplishing much and getting easily beat up so Goku can do most of the fighting that matters, but it’s really noticeable with Pan in that she’s apparently meant to be of similar prominence in the cast to Gohan in Z.

Think of it, Gohan’s moment of glory in DBZ was going super Saiyan 2 and defeating Cell, and despite not being able to beat Super Buu he still gets some decent fights and good character growth in the Buu saga. And plenty of decent development throughout the show as a whole.

Or even take Vegeta in Super, where he’s the secondary protagonist of that show. Vegeta in Super got to go super Saiyan blue purely through training really hard, thus one-upping Goku who initially reached the power of the gods through a ritual. He defeated 3 people from the universe 6 team in the Champa saga and gained Hit’s respect for lasting longer against him than any other opponent he’d fought, got some decent moments towards the end of the Future Trunks saga where he briefly overpowered Goku Black, and then in the universe survival saga he got to take out half of universe 9 alongside Goku, eliminate a number of other minor opponents, before ultimately defeating Toppo, a newly-ascended GOD OF DESTRUCTION. I have my issues with how the last one was carried out, but you can’t say his contributions were minor or not impressive.

Pan doesn’t get nearly as good character development as either Gohan or Vegeta, certainly not as good as Goku, she never even goes super Saiyan, and she’s pretty much shown to be a burden outside of a few cases despite the show trying to go “Well, actually”, and her ultimate role in the grand scheme of things amounts to emotional support (Gee, a female lead who’s main role is to prop up a man. Nothing iffy about this, huh fellas?). And meanwhile, other characters like Uub and Vegeta are the ones who get to have transformations and significant fights with main villains, even if they do amount to pretty much nothing in both cases.

And beyond that, she’s weirdly sexualized at various points. Re-watching the subs for the Black Star saga, I’ve noticed an odd number of shots where the camera seems to linger on her butt momentarily, with her pants being oddly form fitting. There’s that disturbing scene later on in the saga where Pan gets outright turned into a doll, and Dolltaki starts playing with her and even tries to undress her, with Pan freaking out because he’ll “Ruin her as a wife”, and the creep even tries to kiss her when they’re trapped inside Luud. And then there’s that weird scene in the baby saga where a deer starts trying to nurse from her. And she’s NINE in this series.

Considering there was also a scene where two adult men were hitting on Bulla, I get the impression that someone on the writing staff might have been on the creepy side.

Honestly altogether, Pan’s portrayal is pretty horrible and disrespectful for a character who really deserved a lot better than what she got.

Contrast that with Future Mai, who despite being a non-powered human is surprisingly more competent and useful for how she’s written in the Future Trunks Saga of Super. While she needs saving on occasion, she pulls Trunks as well as Goku and Vegeta’s butts out of the line of fire just as often as Trunks saves her, and is proactive in trying to help take down Goku Black. 

When her attempt to snipe Black with a high-powered energy blast fails for example and Trunks shows up to fight him, she takes another shot at Black that creates an opening for Trunks to start beating up on him. She gets multiple moments where she gets to help out, and she’s also responsible for looking out for the remaining civilians of the Future timeline when Trunks isn’t around or incapacitated.

Despite being a love interest for Future Trunks, Mai is still competent and her main priorities aren’t on Trunks, their romantic chemistry is downplayed since she’s dedicated to protecting the future earth and it’s people, and she’s written as competent, brave, selfless and is treated by respect by the resistance soldiers who all seem to take orders from her.

For her role in the story, the show treats her with a good deal of dignity and she’s allowed to be proactive. She’s probably a good go-to example of how you can have a non-super powered supporting character in Dragon Ball still be useful to both the action and the overall narrative of a story. Oh, and also, she doesn’t suffer from any creepy sexualisation like Pan does!

I’m not saying the writing for Future Mai was perfect or anything, for one thing she feels more like an original character a lot of the time since they don’t really bring up her past or connection with the Pilaf Gang outside of one joke, and the romance with her and Future Trunks could have been built up a little more (Though it’s still at least a lot less squicky than the thing with present Trunks and “Kid” Mai. Ick), but she was at least treated with dignity. 

The only reason I wrote that snarky post comparing the two is because Mai shows how pathetically easy it is to write a female character respectfully, while GT Pan is like the ultimate example of how to screw things up with a female protagonist. It’s honestly some of the worst character writing I’ve seen in this franchise, I’d say she was the worst example period but that’s debatable considering how badly Uub was also mishandled in that show.

http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/dragon-ball-gt-dragon-book-gt-back-then-kozo-morishita-interview/

[super-queer-hannibal-obsession]

The M/M Shipping Thing: Misogyny, the Male Gaze, and Feminist and Queer Representation

Follow up post to this one, here. Read this to see my thoughts on the importance of allowing women to see men through a lens where male sexuality is something to be celebrated, not feared. Seems like a lot of people can relate to this, and I just love talking about it so have some more of my thoughts.

First of all, it’s a numbers game…

Going off of this point by @colt-kun which I’ve copied and pasted here. This gives a great overview of a purely statistical analysis of why m/m ships are more common.  

“There’s also the sheer numbers to take into account.

Take the first Avengers movie as an example (because frankly its one of the few recent blockbusters with two female speaking roles). Two females, Black Widow and Maria. Then eight males, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, Loki, Fury, Coulson.

Not counting polyships/selfships for ease of math, and using the characters cisgender identities bc that is what they are largely seen as (no disrespect meant to any trans/nb interpretations)

Possible f/m ships: 16 (35.5%) Possible f/f ships: 1 (2.2%) Possible m/m ships: 28 (62.2%)

That’s not even accounting for screentime, character chemistry, interaction times, etc. thats just the NUMBERS.

When there’s a large disparity in character gender then yeah, you’re going to see a heavy inclination to m/m ships because that’s really ALL THATS POSSIBLE. The fans have a natural desire for more story and romances, they want to world build and AU. We’ve done that since stories were first told.

So of COURSE you’re going to see a lot of women - of all sexual orientations - leaning towards m/m pairings because when there’s only potatoes at the buffet… you eat the potatoes. Think of all the shows an movies with only one female character in a cast of men. Is it really difficult to see WHY there’s a lot of m/m ships there?”

Mainstream media is male-centered and male-dominated.

Going beyond just the numbers the fact is that in the majority of popular films and TV shows many of the female characters aren’t well-rounded or on screen as much as most of the men. There is a tendency for women to be the secondary characters or maybe to have one main female character. This makes it hard to really relate to and invest in a lot of the female characters out there. Not that people don’t, but it’s not going to attract a huge following.

Take Supernatural (low hanging fruit I know) where even if there are a large number of women that appear throughout the series, there aren’t many that stick around(and let’s not even go there with all of the deaths and how sexist that is right now ha)or interact with each other in a way that would lead to a lot of shipping. Even in my lovely Hannibal fandom, the Marlana ship which people love and people write for just isn’t going to have as much of a following just based on the fact that they aren’t the main characters. And Marlana is a good example of a w/w ship where they aren’t objectified, don’t die, and still it’s a secondary focus. There obviously are some exceptions, but they are few and far between.

The Male Gaze:

Also, women (and any gender that isn’t cismale) are trained to see film through the male perspective. Film and TV is usually shot with the male gaze, so women learn to see through this lens. We grow up learning to empathize and put ourselves in the shoes of male protagonists because otherwise we would have very little media to enjoy. I think this is part of why it’s natural for women to ship m/m ships. I also think that shipping men and sexualizing them can be a subversion of the male gaze and is an empowering way to flip that script for many women.

We could go into a whole other discussion on internalized misogyny and patriarchal culture and why there are some not so great reasons women might gravitate towards m/m ships, but I think it’s important to see all the reasons why this is and to not demonize women for doing something that makes sense both statistically, sociologically, and psychologically, etc.

Men rarely have to put themselves in the shoes of women in film. So, I do feel like there is a difference between straight dudes watching lesbian porn and women who thoughtfully engage in a m/m ship. You can’t ignore the gender politics at play and how these factors interact. In an ideal world, people of all genders and sexualities could enjoy bodies without all the baggage of sexism and homophobia, but sadly that’s not our world.

This famous, awesome thread really sums it up:

Disclaimer:

I do think there are women who fetishize and act awful when it comes to m/m ships. (I also realize there are lots of other intersections at work in film such as race and class that I’m not really addressing.) Especially those who don’t do any of the emotional or intellectual work around the history of the queer community and who don’t engage in activism of that sort. Plus, if you are a straight woman who loves and supports gay male ships but you’re grossed out by queer women or you’re objectifying actual queer men in your life, it’s time to check yourself and stop that.

Homoerotic Subtext:

Also, women, and queer people across the board, have been trained to read subtextual clues like pros. Women are especially adept at reading into stories since they are so rarely represented in positive ways. Queer people do this, too. It makes sense that women, especially queer women, would pick up on interactions that have homoerotic subtext easily. And, since film is male dominated, it is much more likely the subtext will be between two men. Also, let’s just face it, the history of film is male centered and homo eroticism is a big part of it, and it’s usually about good looking white dudes. The LGBT community itself still has a long way to go in portraying and magnifying people of all genders and sexualities more equally.

The weight of the male gaze on queer women.

There’s also the problem of objectification. I like to write, read, and see fan art about w/w ships, but there’s always that weight of feeling like you’re objectifying women all over again and feeling unsure about it. Honestly, I think that many of us in fandom should probably do what we can to write more femslash and write original queer female characters, but there are a lot of reasons why these ships aren’t as popular as m/m ships. There’s a lot of baggage around portraying women and female sexuality. And lesbian sex is so objectified that it can be a minefield to navigate even when(once in a blue moon) a good f/f ship opportunity comes along. But, even with that, there are some thriving ships such as Korrasami and Clexa(oh look another queer woman is dead. This is why we can’t have nice things). Queer women do celebrate and create fandom around good w/w ships when we get the chance. 

Misogyny and Mocking Fandom:

Lastly, and I’ve read lots on this before so this is just my take, people tend to demonize fandom and m/m shipping because it is something that is driven by women, mainly made by women, and made mostly for other women (and nonbinary folks, too).

Even in the LGBT+ community, there is a lot of misogyny. Cis gay white men are the face of that movement, and they often don’t realize the sexism that is still alive and well in the community. It’s easy for people to laugh at, mock, and critique shipping because it is very much a space not created by men. I also think it’s easy for some privileged gay men to point out perceived injustice but not realize the sexism inherent in what they are saying.

Fandom is very much a place where women explore their sexuality and can enjoy seeing men being acted upon, not just being the actors. It’s no surprise that women are intrigued by the sexual politics of queer men given the messages about being penetrated and being acted on that women get all the time. Analyzing sexual dynamics through a m/m relationship makes a lot of sense psychologically as it isn’t tied to a male/female gender dynamic in the same way. I think it’s a very natural way for women to see sexuality , and things like dominance and submission, as a personal preference and the beauty and excitement of different ways of expressing sexuality.

People like to enjoy women’s work while also mocking it.

Also, I know many queer men who enjoy m/m smut, fan art, etc. from fandoms where I’m sure that 90 percent of the work is being produced by people who aren’t cisgay men, and are very likely people who identify as women. So, while I know that some queer men are cool with it and some aren’t cool with it, I think it’s important to keep in mind that many of them are benefiting and enjoying from the work that female driven fandom is creating.

In conclusion:

Once again, it’s important to not be a homophobic, fetishizing, clueless person. I see instances of problematic behavior and thinking among women who ship men together often, and it’s a problem and needs to be called out when it happens. But, for all that is holy, stop acting like all of these women are gross, homophobic fetishizers and look at all the reasons why m/m shipping is such a phenomenon. I always think being self-critical and analytical is important. It’s also good to listen to different perspectives because these are intersectional issues with valid discussions to be had.

Sorry this was so long. I really could go on and on, and this is what happens when I miss writing feminist/queer theory papers. ;)

[lauruus]

Let's see... As a girl, what do you think about the fan service and the treatment of women in most of the mangas? Why nudity is so appealing?

Sex sells? But there’s of course more to it. I don’t read a lot of manga so I’ll mostly talk about fanservice in anime but the same things apply I think. 

A joke I once made comes to mind: as a feminist I’m offended, but as a Gay™ I’ll take it. Women in anime and manga are often made purely for men, making them feel unrealistic. It’s gross and uncomfortable because hey? Women 👏 do 👏 not 👏 exist 👏 for 👏 men. But as a Woman™ and as a Gay™ I’ll take what I can. Maybe someone would think that’s wrong of me but honestly? It’s exhausting to constantly criticize the things you’re trying to enjoy. You can like something while simultaneously acknowledging its flaws. Everything has flaws. You take the little representation you get and you work with it. You make it better in your head. You look through the flaws of the character design and love their story arc and personality. You love that they’re there, as a woman, in the action, on screen. I’m not saying women (or anyone really who recognizes the problem) should be compliant about the representation we get in media. You can absolutely speak your mind. Just… People outside of Japan don’t have any say in their entertainment industry, you know? Anime and manga are mostly reflective of Japanese culture so getting anything to change from the outside is practically impossible.

There’s this notion floating around that women are supposed to feel empowered by the skimpy outfits of female characters. Umm excuse me? Fictional women don’t actually decide what they wear themselves. They have no autonomy over their appearance because they are not real. There’s always a dude (a mangaka or a character-designer etc.) specifically drawing them in impractically small outfits. So no, I’m not feeling too empowered thanks.

Just like sexual harassment and/or assault aren’t really about sex but about power, I think putting women in vulnerable situations, dressing them in revealing clothes or getting panty shots is about men having power over women they might not otherwise have. Fiction is an easy way for men to freely objectify and abuse women without real consequences. (Not that there are consequences in real life either…) I’m definitely not equating real women’s struggles with how fictional women are treated, but maybe there is some correlation. I firmly believe that fiction and the real world are not completely separate from each other. Our world is reflected and analyzed in fictional works and there’s no way the fiction we produce and consume doesn’t slowly affect us too. Sure, most people know the boundaries of decent human behavior. But every time a woman is treated as lesser than a man, it normalizes that kind of behavior and way of thinking, slowly but surely. Entertainment shouldn’t be an exception where you can do whatever sick thing you want to women, even if it’s “not real”. A real person thought of it, drew it and watches it. 

And lastly on a lighter note: certain kind of objectifying isn’t always a bad thing. Finding someone’s body attractive is normal after all. You might have a type or you like a specific feature that you find beautiful. That’s normal, that’s how physical attraction works. But admiring and appreciating something is different than wanting to control it.

so in conclusion; As a woman, it’s important to have a critical mind on the media you consume, but at the same time you should be able to enjoy things. Chill. Boobs are pretty great, even if they define gravity.

[d-dumais-blog]

Keijo!!!!!!!! Review: I Like Big Butts & I Can Not Lie

Keijo is awesome! It’s insanely stupid and yet, somehow it succeeds at nearly everything it attempts. Keijo’s success is quite honestly an anomaly.  A quick glance at premise, studio, and staff would suggest this show should have been forgotten before it even finished airing, and yet somehow it stuck around and resonated with fans, particularly in the West, in a way that no one involved saw coming.  Its success in the West isn’t only a surprise to me, it appears to be a surprise to license holder Funimation that currently has NO merchandise available for purchase. No posters, no key chains, no announced bluray release.  So let’s talk about why it works and why I love it so damn much.

Let’s start with the basics; this show is not for everyone.  Keijo is a show about girls fighting each other in bathing suits using only their boobs and butts atop a variety of floats in an Olympic sized pool. Yes it is as dumb as it sounds. Yes there is an obscene amount of fan service focusing primarily on the girls’ butts.  I completely understand why some people might be turned off by its objectification of the women portrayed.  You might consider the show sexist, and you might consider me sexist for my enjoyment. A quick note on that, I’m a fan of all fan service both male and female.  I’m a straight male with a particular affinity for the female rear end, check the title of this review, but you bet I appreciate some well drawn men in various states of undress.  Anime has the opportunity to unrealistically portray human sexuality and I think artists are free to draw all manner of people however they’d like.  I hope this helps you to understand why I won’t be talking about the sexism debate that surrounded this show.

 Keijo’s fan service is excellent, and a show so focused on fan service would never succeed unless it was good, really good.  The show focuses on a few girls, but has a great ensemble cast full of all sorts of girls of varying shapes, sizes, age, and color.  Two points of clarification, there are very few different colored women, none of which are black, and that’s a bummer, and two while they vary in age all girls in the series are over eighteen years of age which we’ll discuss further down this post.  Back to the subject at hand, how to properly handle “tasteless fan service.” Keijo’s fan service is omnipresent, leaking into every scene.  This means it’s not a major shock when a butt fully envelopes the screen, it’s expected and not even that distracting.  This differs from a majority of shows that feel the need to randomly insert their characters in compromising positions so that the viewer gets a better look at their body.  It’s low hanging fruit but let’s compare this to Sword Art Online, it makes an easy comparison because pretty much everyone has seen it and most know its flaws.  SAO II episode one while introducing new female protagonist Xion pans up her body while she lays down in a sniper position.  The camera literally stops and does a quick zoom on her ass before finishing the shot.  It’s disgusting, it’s distracting, and it feels completely out of place in a show that intends to be about technology and coping with grief.  

The other most important thing about the fan service, aside from the age, is the fact that all of the girls are complicit in the fan service.  They might be shy, and a bit embarrassed, but they are never forced into a compromising situation against their will.  There seems to be this prevailing idea in anime that anime characters are cuter if they are pure, but we also need to see them without clothes on because of course we do.  This results in a number of horrible tropes that need to stop, the most prevalent, light novel guy walks in on light novel girl changing.  It’s almost always the establishing shot for their relationship over the series and I just hate it.  The other trope is somehow even worse, girls in fan service shows need to stop being raped! People generally consider Asuna’s rape scene in the second arc of Sword Art to be the beginning of the decline which is absurd considering Silica was sexually assaulted by a plant in the first twelve episodes and no one seemed to care.  It’s so gross and so often over looked.  There’s nothing wrong with a girl being okay showing her body, and if an anime character is going to be undressed, I hope that character is willfully undressed. This goes a long way to help make your characters actual characters and not simply objects.  I think the girls are surely still being objectified, but there’s a difference between looking at a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and looking at leaked celebrity nude photos.  The context matters and Keijo gets the context right.  Our secondary protagonist Miyata even admits that she started Keijo because she wanted a cute swimsuit made custom for her and I think that’s something all of the viewers would also like!

 This show did far better in the west than in Japan, and that’s largely thanks to the way it was adapted. Xebec isn’t exactly known for its great adaptations; in fact I’d argue they generally suck.  Their best known for To Love Ru and Shaman King; two shows that don’t do a lot to improve upon their source material.  Most recently they were responsible for the horribly bad Clockwork Planet.  Apparently that’s actually a pretty good light novel, which should be no surprise considering it’s written by Kamiya Yuu, the celebrated author of No Game No Life. I can’t speak to the actual quality of the Clockwork Planet books because the first episode of the show turned me off of anything that has to do with it.  Point being adaptation is not a strength of Xebec, hell Xebec doesn’t honestly have a ton of strengths aside from their willingness to get smuttier than other studios if that’s your thing.  

This is entirely different in Keijo, the adaptation is immaculate, and makes it far more appealing to a western audience.  For starters, the anime skips the entire first arc where our two female leads are still in high school and under the age of 18.  The girls first appear in their bathing suits in the anime after entering the Keijo training school.  In the manga there are multiple battles that take place before this while the girls are learning Keijo for the first time at the stadium event shown at the start of the first episode.  This arc is also gross for western fans for a number of reasons on top of age.  For some reason at this point in the manga guys are allowed to compete in these non official Keijo matches.  Guys of course only compete for the opportunity to rub up against girls in swimwear.  Girls who, I’ll reiterate again because it’s important, at this point are underage.  There’s also a ton of guys in this manga, which is weird considering there’s really only one in the anime and he’s less of a creep more of a sports fan.  The men in the Keijo manga come to watch and gamble on Keijo and are depicted as perverse onlookers.  Nozomi’s teacher is one such male who has a gambling addiction and comments on his underage student’s physique more than once. The anime made the right decision removing him from the series.  This first arc also has an extremely uncomfortable and short lived love interest in the form of Nozomi’s brother.  They might actually be cousins, the translation I read wasn’t exactly clear on that, but still something western audiences always frown upon.  His feelings are never reciprocated by our star Nozomi, but the whole situation is uncomfortable, especially since he’s eager to jump in and battle her in her first mock Keijo match.  There’s also more preliminary try outs the anime totally skips and that’s to the show’s benefit because again the girls are underage, and it cuts out a plethora of characters that don’t matter at all.  The adaptation also does a great job with its references, choosing series that are particularly popular in western fandom. Attack on Titan and Fate/Stay Night are popular around the world, but really struck a chord in the states and Keijo very obviously references these shows multiple times to great effect. Other references to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, One Piece, and Dragon Ball are all also greatly appreciated and largely absent from the manga.  

Keijo performed very well in weekly viewership numbers, both legally and illegally, but was quickly written off by most.  Everyone who watched it seemed to enjoy it, but wrote it off as “just another fan service show” and that’s unfair.  It stands out among its peers, and should be celebrated as such.  It was ranked the fifth most popular show according to Myanimelist, beating out shows with more popular appeal in pedigree like Occultic;Nine, Izetta the Last Witch, and season 2 of Ajin.  It also beat out several truly spectacular shows in Sound Euphonium season 2, Flip Flappers, and the fifth season of Natsume’s Book of Friends. This wouldn’t have happened if it was “just another fan service show.” If you’re still in need of proof that season had just another an service show, it was Brave Witches, a fairly tasteless follow up to a reasonably successful show about young flying military girls who don’t wear pants for some unknown reason.  People talk about Keijo as if it’s like Brave Witches, and no one talks about Brave Witches because no one cares.  It might be easy to right it off if you don’t watch a lot of fan service shows, but let me tell you Keijo is special.  I’ve lived in Trash Mountain for some time and am an expert in awful anime fan service, please don’t compare Keijo to that garbage; it’s far too good for that. Keijo is excellent! End of statement, no caveats no excuses, it’s really great.  The show is easily the best thing director Takahashi Hideya has ever helmed. It’s arguably the best series Xebec has ever produced solo, inarguably the best this decade.  I love Keijo, and I hope someday fans look back on it with the respect it earned.  

 8.5/10

[snvffyth3cl0wn]

ppl be rb'ing that gif of julie from the maxx solely because her ass is out and i hate it because she should be a goddamn feminist icon. my girl is out there helping the poor and shit, being a goddamn hero, having a heart of gold, and the one of main reasons the villain is so fucking evil is because he's an obsessive rapist who wants to own and objectify her. not to mention her backstory and the fact that she recovered and fearlessly wears what she wants, when she wants. the woman is a goddamn social worker but i bet half the people sharing that wouldn't know. they just see a blonde chick with a nice ass on the phone. i see a social worker doing her damn job and rocking a Look.

also in b4 anyone goes on abt how a man drew her to be objectified. he didnt. her character literally says her clothes dont mean consent to objectification. legit she was one of the first characters who i saw dressed like that and felt honest to god empowered. especially because i ended up wanting to dress like that and later going on to rock looks like that in my teens around the same time i rediscovered the show/comic. her story was always one i clung to as a survivor of sexual assault and someone who refuses to let that shit or anyone treat me like a goddamn sex object. her design was intentional and something meant to challenge our perceptions of how we view women, especially ones in comics. she was not meant to be sexualized. in fact the maxx repeatedly refers to her as something pure and, as the hero, is the complete antithesis of mr. gone. if the villain is grossly sexualizing a character, the viewer/reader should not be.

she's not holly wood. she aint red sonja. she isn't lady fucking death. her outfits have a POINT guys like alan moore and sam kieth are trying to make. she is there to look and seem like everything you'd expect a sexpot love interest to be at first glance only for you to realize this woman is a gold hearted survivor doing what many of us do, taking her agency back through her appearance and loudly telling the world her lack of clothing is not an invitation. for once the skimpy clothes is a major part of a female character's story and message and i think that's actually wonderful. it was a genuinely thought provoking thing that made a very young, and later slightly older, me step back and question my personal views on the clothes dfab people and women wear and how we percieve them how we respond to them being abused or harassed while dressed like that. the series repeatedly says that clothing does not mean consent and that objectification is not flattering over and fucking over. how often do you see that as a main theme throughout something written by men?

i love the maxx more than i love most comics and one of the big reasons is julie herself. her entire character is so interesting and she's so much stronger and independent than she seems the first time you lay eyes on her. the fact that people who don't know who she is or why she's dressed so "provocatively" and immediately sexualize her are the same people she would fucking loathe if she were a real woman. anyone who says otherwise can come at me because i Will defend her and her appearance.

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

EXCLUSIVE: Jill Soloway on Patriarchy, Privilege and Flipping the Male Gaze

In 2014, Jill Soloway burst onto the digital TV landscape with Transparent on Amazon and quickly became an Emmy darling for its portrayal of a complicated Pfferman clan in transition. Now Soloway, who identifies as gender nonbinary and uses the pronoun “they,” is serving up a second helping of their particular brand of art house matriarchy in the messy, cerebral, hilarious series I Love Dick.

Based on the 1997 book of the same name by Chris Kraus, the story follows a married couple, Sylvere and Chris (played by Griffin Dune and Kathryn Hahn), as they move to Marfa, Texas, where the husband attends an art institute run by a cowboy named Dick. On its face, the show is about Chris falling in love with the idea of Dick (Kevin Bacon) and using that stolen sexual excitement to reinvigorate her marriage and artistic direction, swapping filmmaking for the performance art of writing lusty love letters to Dick, which she pastes all over town. In reality, I Love Dick depicts Dick himself as a muse and explores how that designation unravels him and sends him and the rest of the characters down a rabbit hole of feminism, the male gaze, sexuality and gender norms.

Unsurprisingly, the show was able to plumb those depths courtesy of an all-female writers’ room. “It’s about wanting to keep pure that rage [of growing up other] and not feel like it had to be softened to keep the peace of the room,” Soloway says of the show’s writing staff.

MORE: Kathryn Hahn on Her Most Important Working Relationship

Soloway was born and raised in Chicago and got their start on shows like The Steve Harvey Show, United States of Tara and Six Feet Under. At home, they say they were “lucky enough” to have one parent come out as transgender. That experience became the basis for their understanding of that community, the foundation for Transparent and the inspiration for their own nonbinary identification. Soloway says they spent years as a femme lesbian but eventually identified as butch; however, the weight of that box’s trappings was crushing. Now, they’ve carved out a new path as nonbinary.

“For me, I still have all the rage [of growing up other], but identifying as nonbinary really calms me because I don’t have to go, ‘This is my lot as a woman. F**k, this is what’s expected of me,’” Soloway explains while stressing that they’re not abandoning women.

If I Love Dick, another Emmy frontrunner, is any indication of Soloway’s feminist dedication and furthering their goal of toppling the patriarchy (also referenced in the name of their production company, Topple Productions), the plan is working. On the heels of the release of their newest Amazon hit, Soloway spoke to ET about flipping the male gaze, female empowerment and that pesky patriarchy.

EMMYS 2017: The Standout Performances of the Season

ET: At first, I Love Dick seems to be about unrequited love. Then I realized it’s about turning the male gaze on its ear, and how most men can’t handle that constant attention. It’s also about the male act of looking at women together, whether it’s in porn or just in the everyday.

Jill Soloway: In the pilot, when they’re at dinner and Dick and Sylvere are looking at Chris together and ask each other whether or not she’s a good filmmaker, this is the moment where Sylvere leaves her and joins Dick in this corroboration of male gaze. It is the inciting incident of the whole series, where she’s like, “I will not be the object of the male gaze. I am going to try to find my own way of seeing the world.” The truth is women are used as the conduit for men to be able to enjoy sexuality together.

How has your own identity played out in your work?

One of the things that’s been so enlightening has been moving from femme to butch. When I was more femme, it was my job to hold the beauty. Now that I’m butch and am dating more femme women, I’ve noticed that both men and other butch women want to see a picture of [the woman I’m dating]. They want us to talk about her together because images of hot girls are conduits for men to get together and talk about their desires and their worship of beauty. That’s one of the hardest things about the male gaze as you try to understand it, the ways you’re asked to participate without your consent.

I love when Sylvere asks Dick, “You don’t like being the muse?” and Dick replies, “It’s humiliating.” It reminded me of my high school dream to have a video where I’m fully clothed, wearing a turtleneck and fur coat, surrounded by nearly nude men -- as a reaction to music videos featuring nearly nude women dancing around fully clothed men.

You could see that male gaze back then; you could watch and feel that.

Do you think women can objectify themselves for monetary purposes instead of the male gaze?

If you monetize it, you own it -- and that could be anyone from a stripper to a Kardashian. These are people who are incredibly empowered, who recognize their body is a tool for empowerment. My problem is that empowerment comes one degree away from the male gaze, because you’re trying to get a man to do something by engaging their gaze. For me, the dream of being in the center of the video in the turtleneck is that you aren’t actually being looked at, you’re doing the looking. The fantasy for women, for me, is to be invisible and have my work investigated.

I can’t outrun the problem of people talking about my looks, but I do suffer from having spent years working on how I look as a way to feel powerful. Now I feel this tragic sense of “Oh, my God, I missed so many years of having a full mind.” I could’ve been becoming smarter and creating.

In I Love Dick, the women are speaking from positions of power, regardless of how they identify, their jobs or how much clothing they’re wearing. Did that come from the years you wasted on beauty, like, “Let me allow these women to be their full selves?”

Power is the word of the moment for me. It’s shorter than intersectionality or solidarity, and both words create questions about who stands for whom. We all want power; women want it, people of color want it, queer people want it, gender nonconforming people want it. We all want the power that comes with being the default subject, that’s why we’re full of rage. No man will ever understand what it feels like to grow up other, no white person will ever understand growing up as a person of color. There’s so much rage over not only wanting to be recognized as we are, but also who we would be had we been the original subject, and not been born into this other.

You hired an all-female writers’ room. What was the purpose of that, aside from creating an authentic female experience?

You’re always silently clocking your allies in whatever room you’re in, and the idea of what is “good story” or whether a story is “working” is the kind of thing that people who’ve had more time in the business might say. Like, “Alright, it’s all well and good that we’re just having fun here, but as a person with experience/the guy -- and I’m not criticizing what’s going on -- I just want to make sure you guys are getting this right.” In doing so, cisgender men might be unconsciously advocating for what makes them feel comfortable, and that would be versions of the male gaze. That could damage a blossoming possibility when you have a group of people in a room together who’ve never had the opportunity to do that before. It’s exactly the same thing with people of color. I’m sure if Donald Glover had an all-black writers’ room…

He did for Atlanta; I was just going to say the same thing.

What if someone would’ve said to him, “You need to have just one white person in there. It’s their job to rein you in because you’re going be too black!” Or, for a women’s writers’ room, there was a guy in there like, “Too much period blood!” You don’t even want that physics, so that choice was to create a room without the male gaze.

I think that space made deeper women-centered scenes possible. Like when the lesbian character, Devon, calls out the woman she’s dating, Toby, while the latter is completely naked for a performance piece that Devon thinks is exploitive. It was a rabbit hole of white feminism versus brown feminism, art for art’s sake versus creating something purposeful and a conversation between lovers.

Thank you for seeing that! I think women viewers do go down a rabbit hole with our show. One woman’s empowerment is another people’s disempowerment, and how does that get talked about in a story between two people who are falling in or out of love? So much fun for a feminist intellectual to think about!

Circling back to the man as muse, what kind of direction did you give Kevin Bacon in playing Dick?

I don’t really get too micro when it comes to a scene, I’m more creating a space for everybody to let loose. I’ll talk to Kevin about a larger emotion he’s playing and he takes care of the pain and sorrow. I do think that who Kevin Bacon is, the six degrees of separation, means something. In looking for real connections, he probably felt a little about Hollywood the way Dick feels about Marfa.

How does being nonbinary affect your work and topple the patriarchy, your goal and the name of your production company?

Luckily, I have the privilege to try being femme, butch or nonbinary. I don’t want to be frivolous about that.

You don’t want to be privileged about your privilege?

No, I don’t want to be privileged about my privilege, because there are so many people who would like to walk into another experience and for whatever reason, they can’t. I’ve been able to create space in my life to experiment, and my parent coming out was a big deal because it allowed me to notice, besides my age and where I am in life, “Where and how do I want to be today?” It’s a very strange thought experiment that feels like a little bit like your turtleneck: I’m not what you see. I’m not even the other thing, like, “Oh, Jill’s a guy now and she’s failing at that!” I don’t want to be failing at my butchness either! I just want to be. The nonbinary thing is great because I just step out of all of the questions of what I am.

I don’t hassle people about pronouns because I know how hard it is. But when people get my pronoun right, it’s such a lovely feeling to not say, “Women are this” or “She is this” or even “Butch is this, masculine is this.” I’m neither, I’m both, I’m constantly changing. It really removes me from my own self-talk of failure, a lot of which was gender.

So, the nonbinary identity itself is fighting the patriarchy by not subscribing to a label.

Yeah, it is all off my table.

What does toppling the patriarchy look like for you?

If Donald Trump could dream of being president, we can dream of anything. Things are happening so quickly; I couldn’t have even imagined I Love Dick five years ago, let alone that it would be on television. I have to believe that there could be a world where the shared values that are currently thought of as religious values, like God, actually become shared values like love and justice. I think most people prefer peace, but because of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism or any of the -isms, we’re where we are right now.

A toppled world means that the kind of masculine, war-mongering, dominance-obsessed men that have their hold on our planet would evolve in a positive way. To me, believing that I can change the world through culture, television, books or movies, that’s how I get out of bed. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, but I have an 8-year-old, and this could be his future.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

[russellthornton]

Strictly Platonic: Why You Should Never Use the Word Friendzone

Has your crush told you they don’t feel the same way as you and want to stay strictly platonic? Here’s why you shouldn’t ever say they friendzoned you.

We’ve all heard the phrase “friendzone” before. It’s used so casually in conversation these days that it has become normalized. Every time you hear that someone’s feelings aren’t returned by the person they’re interested in, they say they got friendzoned. But you hear less often that a relationship is strictly platonic.

But there seems to be an incredibly important point that a lot of these people are missing, and it’s that the friendzone is completely made up and used to justify all the wrong things.

Where did friendzone come from?

Broadly speaking, the friendzone is a term coined mostly by men upset that a woman they are interested in doesn’t want to start a romantic relationship or have sex with them. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how often you hear women getting angry about being put in the friendzone?

You rarely hear it, as most women tend to have a better time of accepting strictly platonic friendships and unmotivated by anything else. They find it easier to not let their ego be bruised, as they mostly seek out friendship for the pure sake of being friends.

Ultimately, rejection sucks and no one likes finding out their crush isn’t interested, but it shouldn’t mean you can’t form meaningful friendships.

Sometimes you may find your crush is flirting with you and leading you on with no intention of being with you, which is unfair. If you find yourself in this situation then walk away. They don’t deserve your affection or your friendship.

But if someone gave you no indication of anything more than friendship, and they don’t return your sentiments, it doesn’t mean they deserve to be berated or ridiculed. There is nothing wrong with telling someone how you feel about them. There is something wrong with chastising them for not feeling the same way. [Read: 14 platonic friendship rules to be just friends without the drama]

Why shouldn’t I be annoyed if I think someone’s friendzoning me?

Whenever you feel like you’ve been friendzoned, chances are the person you’re interested in is not doing it from a place of malice. They just don’t share the same feelings as you. They can’t turn their romantic feelings on and off, and you shouldn’t expect them to. They’re a human being with desires and feelings. That should always be respected, instead of thinking of friendship as a punishment.

If you feel like you’ve been friendzoned, don’t get defensive or angry. That reaction shows you were only interested in her because you thought it would pay off in sex.

This approach to being “friends” with someone makes the woman feel as if she’s just been used or objecitified. Only being friends with someone in the hopes of beginning a romantic relationship or expecting to get laid isn’t really friendship. Women aren’t prizes to be won or bartered for.

You can see this kind of narrative in TV shows and big blockbuster movies, where the male protagonist always gets rewarded with the hot girl at the end of the film, because he succeeded. Unfortunately, this sense of entitlement leaks out into real life and conditions people into believing that this is what’s deserved for being “a nice guy.” [Read: Passive aggressive men: How to help them quit playing games]

The duplicity of a “nice guy”

There are lots of amazingly lovely men out there. Men who respect boundaries and are completely comfortable with the idea of staying strictly platonic once they find that their feelings are unrequited. On the other hand, there are plenty of dudes that refer to themselves as “nice guys,” and think that by saying this they are entitled to their feelings being reciprocated.

This fabricated niceness is generally only presented up until he does not get the result that he wants or is rejected. It is then swiftly replaced with hurtful behavior. [Read: Why the nice guy isn’t really such a nice guy after all]

Every woman knows at least one man who becomes friends under the guise of being nice, only to then turn out to be manipulative, overly presumptuous, or aggressively persistent. I’ve actually met so many that I’ve lost count.

These self proclaimed “nice guys” are the kind of men who become passive aggressive or spiteful once they realize the person they’re interested in wants to be strictly platonic. They’re the kind of men who can’t figure out why women keep friendzoning them, even though they don’t respect their boundaries.

They harbor resentment for any woman who turns them down. They quickly become hostile when they feel their ego took a beating.

I’ve known plenty of “nice guys” who don’t know how to take no for an answer; have become confrontational when they’ve found out I already have a boyfriend; or harassed me over text, even when I’d already explained I wasn’t interested. All of these occasions have been with men who I’ve not flirted with or insinuated that anything might happen. [Read: 15 reasons why the “nice guys” finish last all the time]

14 reasons you shouldn’t use the word ‘friendzone’ and try strictly platonic instead

This happens to women everywhere, regularly. The ‘friendzone’ seems like a harmless expression or light-hearted joke to some, but the issues that surround it are problematic and toxic.

#1 Good, honest friendship is difficult to find. There is nothing wrong with just being friends with someone. Friendship is not a consolation prize, and none of us are owed anything by anyone. Don’t go into a friendship expecting something more. [Read: Sexual tension between friends: Handle it like a platonic pro]

#2 Respecting boundaries is important. If someone’s not interested in you, respect that they make their own decisions on what’s best for them. They know themselves better than anyone. Accept that they know when a relationship won’t work.

#3 It makes it difficult to determine true character. You shouldn’t feel that you deserve to be rewarded just for being a nice person. Does it really make you worthy of someone you want, if you only do it for your own agenda or to make you feel good about yourself?

#4 It’s always on the other person’s terms. When someone says they’re being friendzoned, it’s always based on how they feel, without taking into account how the other person feels. They’re not being unfair if they’re not attracted to you, they’re just being honest with themselves. [Read: Friendzoned? Don’t turn your crush into a villain]

#5 It forces an attraction that’s not there. Would you want to end up in a relationship with someone only because you convinced them you were worth it or they felt bad turning you down? If they’re not interested, then find someone who is if you want a long-lasting connection.

#6 It promotes a sexist ideal. The concept of the friendzone plays into the idea that women should always be apologetic when they don’t fit in with what is expected of them. There’s nothing bad about someone being upfront about something they’re not comfortable with. [Read: 5 hateful words we should stop using to describe women]

#7 It can be very deceptive. If you think that your feelings would be hurt after being turned down, imagine how it must feel for her to discover that you were only ever interested in hanging out with her because you expected a form of reward, or sex, at the end of it.

#8 Not everyone feels as you do. Unless you were upfront with them when you first realized you had feelings, you can’t expect them to start to feel something for you too. Sometimes feelings do grow. Friendships change into relationships, but if that doesn’t happen they don’t have any obligation to change their mind. [Read: Nice guy syndrome – 16 reasons why girls find you boring]

#9 Love is supposed to be a natural thing. The friendzone dangerously encourages the idea that love can be earned based on the amount of time you put in on trying to woo someone. Love is felt when something real exists. You can’t coerce someone into loving you just because you spend lots of time around them.

#10 It normalizes malicious behavior. I’ve been told before how lovely I was by guys I’ve been friends with. Only later to be told I’m a bitch or a whore once I rejected them. It’s only once they think they’ve been friendzoned that the mask falls away. [Read: 13 rules of etiquette for the modern gentleman]

#11 It makes it difficult to maintain real friendships. It enables the idea that women’s bodies are not their own and can be earned by faking friendship. This also makes it difficult for women to trust whether or not a man genuinely wants to be friends, or in fact has an ulterior motive.

#12 Women don’t like being objectified. The dynamics of a male/female platonic relationship can be tricky at times, but no woman likes to feel as if she’s a trophy to be won. If you spend your time treating her like an attainable object, you’ll definitely put her off.

#13 It implies that friendship is a bad deal. Friendship is an honor that shouldn’t be treated like it’s worthless. Some of the strongest friendships are better than romantic relationships. Boyfriends and girlfriends come and go, but your true friends are always there for you. [Read: Good friends are like stars: 18 ways to build lasting friendships]

#14 You don’t want them, you just want the idea of them. Sometimes guys who claim you friendzoned them don’t really want you, they just want who they think you are. They’ve spent so much time focusing on trying to get into your pants and idolizing parts of you they like that they barely paid attention to what you’re actually like. They probably couldn’t even name your favorite color.

[Read: Platonic crush: What this means and how to proceed platonically]

A lot of people buy into the idea of a friendzone, but don’t be like them. Respect your friend’s wishes for something strictly platonic. Don’t make them feel bad, move on, and find someone who you won’t have to force a connection with.

The post Strictly Platonic: Why You Should Never Use the Word Friendzone is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.

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EXCLUSIVE: Jill Soloway on Patriarchy, Privilege and Flipping the Male Gaze

In 2014, Jill Soloway burst onto the digital TV landscape with Transparent on Amazon and quickly became an Emmy darling for its portrayal of a complicated Pfferman clan in transition. Now Soloway, who identifies as gender nonbinary and uses the pronoun “they,” is serving up a second helping of their particular brand of art house matriarchy in the messy, cerebral, hilarious series I Love Dick.

Based on the 1997 book of the same name by Chris Kraus, the story follows a married couple, Sylvere and Chris (played by Griffin Dune and Kathryn Hahn), as they move to Marfa, Texas, where the husband attends an art institute run by a cowboy named Dick. On its face, the show is about Chris falling in love with the idea of Dick (Kevin Bacon) and using that stolen sexual excitement to reinvigorate her marriage and artistic direction, swapping filmmaking for the performance art of writing lusty love letters to Dick, which she pastes all over town. In reality, I Love Dick depicts Dick himself as a muse and explores how that designation unravels him and sends him and the rest of the characters down a rabbit hole of feminism, the male gaze, sexuality and gender norms.

Unsurprisingly, the show was able to plumb those depths courtesy of an all-female writers’ room. “It’s about wanting to keep pure that rage [of growing up other] and not feel like it had to be softened to keep the peace of the room,” Soloway says of the show’s writing staff.

MORE: Kathryn Hahn on Her Most Important Working Relationship

Soloway was born and raised in Chicago and got their start on shows like The Steve Harvey Show, United States of Tara and Six Feet Under. At home, they say they were “lucky enough” to have one parent come out as transgender. That experience became the basis for their understanding of that community, the foundation for Transparent and the inspiration for their own nonbinary identification. Soloway says they spent years as a femme lesbian but eventually identified as butch; however, the weight of that box’s trappings was crushing. Now, they’ve carved out a new path as nonbinary.

“For me, I still have all the rage [of growing up other], but identifying as nonbinary really calms me because I don’t have to go, ‘This is my lot as a woman. F**k, this is what’s expected of me,’” Soloway explains while stressing that they’re not abandoning women.

If I Love Dick, another Emmy frontrunner, is any indication of Soloway’s feminist dedication and furthering their goal of toppling the patriarchy (also referenced in the name of their production company, Topple Productions), the plan is working. On the heels of the release of their newest Amazon hit, Soloway spoke to ET about flipping the male gaze, female empowerment and that pesky patriarchy.

EMMYS 2017: The Standout Performances of the Season

ET: At first, I Love Dick seems to be about unrequited love. Then I realized it’s about turning the male gaze on its ear, and how most men can’t handle that constant attention. It’s also about the male act of looking at women together, whether it’s in porn or just in the everyday.

Jill Soloway: In the pilot, when they’re at dinner and Dick and Sylvere are looking at Chris together and ask each other whether or not she’s a good filmmaker, this is the moment where Sylvere leaves her and joins Dick in this corroboration of male gaze. It is the inciting incident of the whole series, where she’s like, “I will not be the object of the male gaze. I am going to try to find my own way of seeing the world.” The truth is women are used as the conduit for men to be able to enjoy sexuality together.

How has your own identity played out in your work?

One of the things that’s been so enlightening has been moving from femme to butch. When I was more femme, it was my job to hold the beauty. Now that I’m butch and am dating more femme women, I’ve noticed that both men and other butch women want to see a picture of [the woman I’m dating]. They want us to talk about her together because images of hot girls are conduits for men to get together and talk about their desires and their worship of beauty. That’s one of the hardest things about the male gaze as you try to understand it, the ways you’re asked to participate without your consent.

I love when Sylvere asks Dick, “You don’t like being the muse?” and Dick replies, “It’s humiliating.” It reminded me of my high school dream to have a video where I’m fully clothed, wearing a turtleneck and fur coat, surrounded by nearly nude men -- as a reaction to music videos featuring nearly nude women dancing around fully clothed men.

You could see that male gaze back then; you could watch and feel that.

Do you think women can objectify themselves for monetary purposes instead of the male gaze?

If you monetize it, you own it -- and that could be anyone from a stripper to a Kardashian. These are people who are incredibly empowered, who recognize their body is a tool for empowerment. My problem is that empowerment comes one degree away from the male gaze, because you’re trying to get a man to do something by engaging their gaze. For me, the dream of being in the center of the video in the turtleneck is that you aren’t actually being looked at, you’re doing the looking. The fantasy for women, for me, is to be invisible and have my work investigated.

I can’t outrun the problem of people talking about my looks, but I do suffer from having spent years working on how I look as a way to feel powerful. Now I feel this tragic sense of “Oh, my God, I missed so many years of having a full mind.” I could’ve been becoming smarter and creating.

In I Love Dick, the women are speaking from positions of power, regardless of how they identify, their jobs or how much clothing they’re wearing. Did that come from the years you wasted on beauty, like, “Let me allow these women to be their full selves?”

Power is the word of the moment for me. It’s shorter than intersectionality or solidarity, and both words create questions about who stands for whom. We all want power; women want it, people of color want it, queer people want it, gender nonconforming people want it. We all want the power that comes with being the default subject, that’s why we’re full of rage. No man will ever understand what it feels like to grow up other, no white person will ever understand growing up as a person of color. There’s so much rage over not only wanting to be recognized as we are, but also who we would be had we been the original subject, and not been born into this other.

You hired an all-female writers’ room. What was the purpose of that, aside from creating an authentic female experience?

You’re always silently clocking your allies in whatever room you’re in, and the idea of what is “good story” or whether a story is “working” is the kind of thing that people who’ve had more time in the business might say. Like, “Alright, it’s all well and good that we’re just having fun here, but as a person with experience/the guy -- and I’m not criticizing what’s going on -- I just want to make sure you guys are getting this right.” In doing so, cisgender men might be unconsciously advocating for what makes them feel comfortable, and that would be versions of the male gaze. That could damage a blossoming possibility when you have a group of people in a room together who’ve never had the opportunity to do that before. It’s exactly the same thing with people of color. I’m sure if Donald Glover had an all-black writers’ room…

He did for Atlanta; I was just going to say the same thing.

What if someone would’ve said to him, “You need to have just one white person in there. It’s their job to rein you in because you’re going be too black!” Or, for a women’s writers’ room, there was a guy in there like, “Too much period blood!” You don’t even want that physics, so that choice was to create a room without the male gaze.

I think that space made deeper women-centered scenes possible. Like when the lesbian character, Devon, calls out the woman she’s dating, Toby, while the latter is completely naked for a performance piece that Devon thinks is exploitive. It was a rabbit hole of white feminism versus brown feminism, art for art’s sake versus creating something purposeful and a conversation between lovers.

Thank you for seeing that! I think women viewers do go down a rabbit hole with our show. One woman’s empowerment is another people’s disempowerment, and how does that get talked about in a story between two people who are falling in or out of love? So much fun for a feminist intellectual to think about!

Circling back to the man as muse, what kind of direction did you give Kevin Bacon in playing Dick?

I don’t really get too micro when it comes to a scene, I’m more creating a space for everybody to let loose. I’ll talk to Kevin about a larger emotion he’s playing and he takes care of the pain and sorrow. I do think that who Kevin Bacon is, the six degrees of separation, means something. In looking for real connections, he probably felt a little about Hollywood the way Dick feels about Marfa.

How does being nonbinary affect your work and topple the patriarchy, your goal and the name of your production company?

Luckily, I have the privilege to try being femme, butch or nonbinary. I don’t want to be frivolous about that.

You don’t want to be privileged about your privilege?

No, I don’t want to be privileged about my privilege, because there are so many people who would like to walk into another experience and for whatever reason, they can’t. I’ve been able to create space in my life to experiment, and my parent coming out was a big deal because it allowed me to notice, besides my age and where I am in life, “Where and how do I want to be today?” It’s a very strange thought experiment that feels like a little bit like your turtleneck: I’m not what you see. I’m not even the other thing, like, “Oh, Jill’s a guy now and she’s failing at that!” I don’t want to be failing at my butchness either! I just want to be. The nonbinary thing is great because I just step out of all of the questions of what I am.

I don’t hassle people about pronouns because I know how hard it is. But when people get my pronoun right, it’s such a lovely feeling to not say, “Women are this” or “She is this” or even “Butch is this, masculine is this.” I’m neither, I’m both, I’m constantly changing. It really removes me from my own self-talk of failure, a lot of which was gender.

So, the nonbinary identity itself is fighting the patriarchy by not subscribing to a label.

Yeah, it is all off my table.

What does toppling the patriarchy look like for you?

If Donald Trump could dream of being president, we can dream of anything. Things are happening so quickly; I couldn’t have even imagined I Love Dick five years ago, let alone that it would be on television. I have to believe that there could be a world where the shared values that are currently thought of as religious values, like God, actually become shared values like love and justice. I think most people prefer peace, but because of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism or any of the -isms, we’re where we are right now.

A toppled world means that the kind of masculine, war-mongering, dominance-obsessed men that have their hold on our planet would evolve in a positive way. To me, believing that I can change the world through culture, television, books or movies, that’s how I get out of bed. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, but I have an 8-year-old, and this could be his future.

This interview has been edited and condensed.