I'm like a billion years behind on LJ. Sorry.

[trenchkamen]

GUYS.

GUYS.

...GUYS.

LOOK AT THIS FUCKING RELEASE DATE.

IT IS IN LIKE A WEEK I CAN'T HANDLE THIS. I don't know if I want to just order it from Amazon now, or go to the game store next Tuesday. Also, Valentine's Day release LOL. Except I have three midterms the following week. Fuck my life.

I think I need to write more. It's been a year. A full year. I can't believe this the Summer of Love 2008 when I was spending hours a day reading the KinkMeme and producing 300+ pages in three months seems so recent, and now I'm grossly behind on everything in this fandom.

So is Naoto/Kanji, but I haven't done anything creative in that arena, and I don't think making a costume counts.

I've been on semi-hiatus (unannounced) as of late. Kind of. What with grad school interviews (just did UCLA~! I saw skuldchan and fabula_umbrae and Hillel, faggotry good times were had by all, even if it was for all of two hours) and honors thesis and poster symposium and graduating and other bullshit this semester. Oh, and I have to do my scientific public outreach project, which is going to come after thesis defense in March. Anybody want to contribute to that? It's about the real science behind science fiction and fantasy. Articles are at a laypublic (easy) reading level.

Also, I stand by my facebook status: "We Are the Champions" isn't about sports, the same way "Bicycle Race" isn't about bicycles and "Fat Bottomed Girls" isn't about girls. Which is why I get a huge, sadistic kick out of seeing homophobic jocks sing along with it. This was mostly in Texas at football games.

I still think Bohemian Rhapsody is about AIDS. I don't care if the time period doesn't match up. Queen can go back in time with the power of fabulous.

What the fuck, Dexter? This is the second ad you've done that's shown up on the feminist radar. Both for Dodge. What is this. I'm so disappointed. Not as disappointed as I am in Johnny Depp. I think my heart's been broken.

Ground control to Major Tom?.

Yeah, homework.

Comments

[intravenusann.livejournal.com]

That ad was actually triggering. I mean, I know it's my crazy, but I have a neurosis about being a nagging bitch and a fear that people think I'm telling them what to do (ultimately stemming from hating being nagged and hating people telling me what to do--to the point that I get scary agitated by it myself). Especially the last part, yikes, I mean... None of that stuff was bad.

I mean, honestly, I think if I'm supportive of your manchild need to murder things in unrealistic and silly ways on Xbox and I even go "Tell me more." and nod and congratulate you even though I only care because you care and I hide the fact that I bleed out of my vagina for a week every month because it icks you out. I mean, if you feel THAT ANGRY and THAT PUT DOWN and EMASCULATED by basic social niceties, we all could stop with the bullshit, but I don't think guys would even fucking be able to deal with that. They'd all wither under the horror of vaginal bleeding and arm pit hair and all the other things dudes are shocked that women HAVE and DO. Also, I, personally, would never stop talking about how all real men fail to live up to the unrealistic standards that superhero comics have set for me.

[trenchkamen.livejournal.com]

I can understand fearing nagging people because you yourself don't like to be nagged--I'm the same way. Nagging me is an amazingly fast way to piss me off and get me to do the very opposite of what you are asking.

But this Universal Male Narrator is probably living with the subject of his rant (we're assuming a female he's romantically involved with; I guess it's hoping too much for gay partners to be included, but I somehow doubt it; Super Bowl commercials cater almost exclusively to a heterosexual dudebro demographic). They're cohabiting a living space. That takes a certain amount of common human courtesy. Cleaning up after yourself is acting like an adult and respecting the other person's right to a clean cohabitation environment. Period. Do whatever you want if you live alone and in your own space, if you have a room, etc.

Walk the dog? You have a dog, you take care of it. Easy enough. Walk the dog at 6:30 AM? Seems a little unnecessarily punctual, probably added to make this nebulous subject of narration seem like a shrill, uncompromising, ball-busting bitch. Be at work by 8AM? Outside the context of this commercial this isn't gender-directed at all; the daily grind sucks. It can be soul-crushing if you hate your job. Valid. But consider the context--it little to do with your wife/girlfriend/whatever unless she is expecting you to bring home money so she can spend it on frivolous bullshit while you slave away in cubicle hell--and I would not be shocked if this is the implication. Etc.

Remember the demographic. Advertisers carefully study each decision they make. Every second in a Superbowl commercial is thousands and thousands of dollars.

Enumerating a lot of these concerns makes them seem stupid. It's probably not the acts themselves so much as a sense of obligation--and from that, emasculation. Hen-pecking. And the commercial intermingles reasonable requests with unreasonable and judgmental (i.e. listen to what you and your friends say about my friends, and I assume "listen" is code not for listening but for *acting* upon these opinions, even if it means dropping said friends, which *is* stupid and unreasonable), which contextualizes these reasonable requests as bitchy nagging.

I don't condone bitchy nagging. But when women--especially in a spousal context--open their mouths in so much popular media, even to request men act like adults--especially men they have to live with, men whose childishness encroaches on their physical space--it's presented as nagging that is one step away from forcing the guy to wear pastel Polo shirts and having wine with the in-laws at the country club. It's not. And this emasculated rage is presented as valid within these mixed contexts.

And this is coming from somebody who values her personal freedom and individualism more than anything.

[intravenusann.livejournal.com]

Oh, the implications are there, especially as the greater picture develops. Nothing about the importance of personal responsiblity, hard as it is, no it's that the woman in your life is FORCING YOU and therefore you're losing your independence, somehow, as if you haven't the sense that most children actually have that if you don't pick up your filthy underwear you will RUN OUT OF UNDERWEAR.

I know women who, because they don't know how to make a firm request of someone they feel is in authority or because they don't know any other way to ask for what they need, actually fully endorse nagging people in their lives as They Only Way.

But, because I'm a really angry person with ZERO conflict resolution skills, I fall to passive aggressive methods of getting my way, which for some people is equal to or worse than endless nagging.

Both passive aggressive methods and nagging come out of the same root, though, ultimately women often feel there is NO OTHER WAY to express their basic needs of having their space respected. Whereas men make certain expectations of women's hygiene, behavior, tastes, looks, etc. etc. etc. and when those aren't met they respond in a huge range of ways from whining like toddlers to physical violence and threats. Whining is no better than nagging, it is basically nagging's evil twin, and aggression is actually worse than passive aggression (which never gave anyone a black eye).

And a lot of times, women who do express themselves well are brow beaten by men who don't want to change their behavior, grow up, or respect another person's space into thinking that expressing your wants and needs is being a nagging bitch. And that. THAT. is what's so truly, truly fucked up.

[trenchkamen.livejournal.com]

Exactly. This 100%. This is the only agency a lot of women feel they are given. That doesn't mean being passive-agressive is a good idea, but one can easily see how many women develop those patterns of communication without trying to be manipulative.

And then some people are just plain manipulative, but that's another story.

I tend to have the opposite problem. I'm too direct. I've been told this multiple times. I can't count the number of times I've been told to soften what I'm saying or to make it more 'indirect', essentially, more passive. This apparently is more endearing or less threatening or something.

I only fall into passive-aggressive patterns under extreme duress and helplessness, and it's highly unusual. I don't think that's a gendered behavior in that circumstance.