#no i will not be taking critism only support and reiteration

[sawthatmountainburn]

I haven't watched the barbie movie and don't really plan to, I just have a problem with some arguments people have been making in its defense, as they are weak arguments regardless of what piece of media they're defending. specifically it's the "this is just feminism 101 for kids, it doesn't have to be a whole manifesto!" type of dismissive arguments.

first of all, if a movie is marketed as feminist and the fanbase praises it for its feminism, people who go see it will have certain expectations based on their own idea of feminism, since feminism is an umbrella term for different ideologies whose common trait is that they want rights for women. who counts as a woman, what specific rights they should have and how we should get them are all points of contention, without even getting into intersecrionality just yet. (very broad generalization, also some leftist feminists disagree with the 'rights' framing) there's only so many grains of sslt you can take, before you decide this is just too far away from what it was presented as and clearly, many women feel this way about the movie.

second of all, regardless of how a piece of media is marketed, it is always fair game for critism, whether that be from a feminist perspective, an anti-racism perspective, a leftist perspective or whatever else you can come up with. to demand that people simply not bring up these critiques because it's ruining people's fun or it's not that serious (but still serious enough that you call people misogynists for criticizing it?) is blatantly reactionary. it's the same thing angry geek boys do when you point out their funny little sci-fi and fantasy shows have weirdly few POC in them. you can say a criticism is in bad faith or based on a misreading of the text (I've seen this about the gynecologist scene, for example), sure, but what I'm seeing more commonly is just a total dismissal of these critiques and perspectives, as if the movie simply isn't subject to it for whatever reason.

expounding upon this, the "feminism 101" part of the argument is similarly reactionary. to reiterate what i said in my last reblog about this, the way people talk about this movie gives me the impression that it's way more suited to the ~2012-2014 pre-gamergate era of tumblr feminism, when people said stuff like "eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man" and feminist criticism was treated as more of a checklist of good and bad tropes. we're almost a decade past that era, with many events that changed the political and pop cultural landscape in the meantime, so what was passable back then might not be such now. we've talked extensively about intersecrionality, issues of race have been brought up time and time again, especially in light of the BLM movement and anti-Asian racism in the COVID era, queer issues have also been gaining more and more traction, etc etc, I can't and won't recap the last decade of political development. my point is, if you're a feminist in 2023 (or any other type of left-leaning politically active individual, but the barbie discourse is about feminism, so that's what I'm talking about specifically) you cannot simply ignore these issues and say multiply marginalized women will have their time, but they need to wait for the privileged women to go first. actually, it was always unacceptable to demand marginalized women support more privileged women while getting nothing in return, but it's even more obvious and ignorant in the current era, after we've been trying to make people understand intersecrionality for years.

it's also insidious how the implication is that feminism needs to be dumbed down for kids (a dubious claim in the first place) and for some reason, that dumbing down involves flattening everything to being about the most privileged women possible. why shouldn't young privileged girls learn about the issues that face their less privileged peers face? why should girls of marginalized groups have to sit and listen about the issues facing their privileged peers, but never being given the tools to discuss their own issues? whom does this dynamic serve exactly and why is it not only acceptable to continue to exist, but it also important to so vehemently defend?

I'm not trying to tell people not to like the barbie movie, that's really not what I care about. I'm saying the types of arguments being made reveal a failure of intersectionality and a dismissal of multiply marginalized women's issues, coupled with a self-centeredness which should be unacceptable to any serious feminist. stop making excuses for a hollywood blockbuster funded by a multi-billion(!!) dollar toy company and start giving a shit about the women in need right in front of you!

[cooloddball]

Have you ever have any doubt about cockles? If so, why? And if not, why? This is not to cause discourse I promise. Neither am I a troll as people seem to call anyone who sends such asks a troll. I'm just genuinely curious because some times I wonder if I'm projecting destiel onto cockles.

When I learned about cockles, I spent a whole nine months reblogging posts and liking posts without actually ever posting anything about it. I had my doubts because c'mon that couldn't be real right? Wrong.

The one thing that made me doubt was Jensen calling Misha "brother" the whole of 2018. He made sure to include that tid-bit every time he commented on his IG which was sus in and of itself.

The other thing was the jokes Jensen always made at Misha's expense.

Anyway, as time went on I dug deeper― I had all the time in the world because of the 2020 quarantine ― and I realized that Jensen had never called Misha bro/brother at any point in time save for 2018 which was rather strange and I have my thoughts on that to be addressed another time. So that was very very SUSPISCIOUS.

As for the jokes, I realized it doesn't only apply to Misha. They all made awful, terrible jokes about each other all the time. It's just that the jokes about Misha were blown out of proposition and used by Misha haters to propel their propaganda that Jensen hates Misha which― LOL ― even a blind person can see how much he loves him.

So once I realized that, I became at least 90% sure and then:

I came across their little horny performance at Rob's Birthday party on stage during Dallascon, 2015. That whole thing is not safe for work or any environment tbf. Two men who are just friends should never cross some lines with each other but they crossed those lines and there's no coming back from that!!!!

The whole 2019 madness and lovefest from straddlegate that caused Jensen's aubergine to rise, the chest-chest selfie, and the 10 year anniversary post―not to be confused with the 10 year challenge.

Those two isolated incidents sealed it for me because there was no heterosexual explanation for any of it. I even went further and compared how Jensen is with other men he is close to and spends time with a lot―Jared, Rob, JDM ― and nothing and I mean nothing came close to how he is with Misha.

So without any will of my own, I just fell into the dumpster with 99.9% belief ― .1% is margin for error because nothing is 100% foolproof― that it's real and that's where I'm at at the moment. I'll keep you apprised of developments if anything ever changes.