The Old School Lunch

I hope what Miss Sweden has done gets other women and their respective nations across the world to do the same. That is, she drops out of the completely ridiculous Miss Universe Pageant and gives The Donald a big “fuck you.”

“We’re taking a big beating by being linked to it,” said Panos Papadopoulos, the organizer of the Miss Sweden contest, which scrapped its swimsuit competition and allowed women to apply for the position like any other job after heavy criticism from feminists.

Participants in the pageant also are breaking the mold.

Miss Jamaica, 25-year-old Zahra Redwood, is the contest’s first Rastafarian and the first to appear in dreadlocks. She wants judges to see her as a “Rastafarian promoting the message of peace, love and unity throughout mankind.”

Miss Tanzania, Flaviana Matata, an electrical technician whose country is participating for the first time, is also challenging stereotypes of beauty with her shaved head. “I never let anyone define me neither by hair nor clothing as I believe God made me perfect as a pure, natural African woman,” she said.

Donald Trump, who now co-owns the contest with NBC, says the Miss Universe Organization has redefined beauty pageants.

“With each passing year our ratings continue to get better because of the beautiful and intelligent women who participate in our competitions,” he declared.

What the do looks, hairstyle, dress and appearance in a bikini have to do with anything remotely involving one’s ability to “represent” a country? What’s the competition? What’s the point? As absolute shit as a “Miss (Nation)” is in the first place…I can somewhat see the purpose there in that the representative is supposed to be a spokesperson for blah blah cause (which is almost always some easy, cop-out cause like “reading is fundamental” or pet shelters) and they then make good of the otherwise ridiculous promotional tour and spread awareness of whatever their charity is. But otherwise, the idea of having a woman representative of a country…just the idea that somehow we have to narrow it down to one..is just mind-boggling in its pointlessness. If anything, the country chooses several representatives of diverse backgrounds, men and women, who show the different sides of the country and can be articulate on the country’s history, culture and main issues facing its inhabitants today. Then you give the middle finger to anyone who wants to pit your representatives against others to see whose looks better in a one-piece just for the sake of competition (becuase there always has to be a winner, right?).

[The Scene: Brad and Reginald are at the local Best Buy looking at the different TVs on sale. A UFC match is playing on every single TV.]

Brad: Dude, did you check out the latest issue of SI!? UFC made the cover, baby! We’re showtime now!

Reginald: You watch UFC?

Brad: Yea, don’t you?

Reginald: I’ve seen it, but I don’t watch it.

Brad: It’s awesome man, Tito Ortiz is so badass. Did you know he’s dating Jenna Jameson? Anyways, it’s going to become so huge in the next few years. Just watch.

Reginald: I believe you, unfortunately.

Brad: We’re going to get all the fans from boxing and that pussy ass WWE.

Reginald: Don’t forget the WWE’s racism too. And sexism. You’ll be getting that too, right?

Brad: Pshaw, you mean we’ll get all their hot babes, man. Ring-girls and shit.

Reginald: What makes it so fun to watch?

Brad: It’s real! It’s balls-to-the-wall ass kicking. It’s really smart and strategic and stuff. These guys train all day every day so it’s their passion.

Reginald: Their passion is to kick a guy’s ass until he’s knocked out or taps out?

Brad: It’s about the art man. Martial arts, duh.

Reginald: I get that it’s martial arts, but don’t you think that it’s a bad message to send out to men and boys?

Brad: What bad message? Come on, they all know that it’s professional and totally something that’s your job. It’s not going to make someone go out and kill another person.

Reginald: That’s not what I said. The bad message is that these “men” are centered around being tough, physically dominant and in all ways violent.

Brad: Guys are just like that. It’s natural. You’ve got a set of balls right? Those balls make testosterone and that shit makes you a little violent. It’s what sets you apart. It’s what made your ancestors able to hunt and kill bison for food.

Reginald: So, just to be clear, my balls make me inherently violent?

Brad: Men have been doing this for ages, man, ages! Think about the coliseum. If anything, it’s less violent and more safe now. It’s as safe as boxing. It’s just what guys like to do.

Reginald: So you’re saying men are inherently hostile and aggressive and wanting to become physically violent.

Brad: Right.

Reginald: But that men can control this violence and contextualize it as a “sport.”

Brad: Your point?

Reginald: You know how many men in America beat women? You know that teen dating violence is on the rise?

Brad: OMG, that’s not in any way connected to the UFC. You’re scapegoating it. OMG, nobody even said anything about beating women. These are guys kicking other guys’ asses. Jesus Christ, you blow it out of proportion.

Reginald: I’m not saying the UFC directly causes men to beat women, i’m saying it contributes to a culture of accepting men as inherently violent, explosive and unable to control their behavior and with that, not responsible for said violent behavior.

Brad: That doesn’t even make sense.

Reginald: You back the UFC because you say that’s just how men are. But you know how many men use the excuse of “I just lost control” after they physically assault or rape a woman? It’s the cop-out excuse for men of the last hundred years. When you have things like “men=bison hunters” you’ve got people thinking that men in any capacity are violent and that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the damage they inflict.

Brad: I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that men shouldn’t pretend to be pushovers who don’t fight when men fight. That’s what we do.

Reginald: That’s bullshit and you know it.

Brad: What’d you say? Say that again. I dare you to say that again to my face!

[Reginald walks off the stage leaving Brad pacing around in a huff. The light dims.]

Unbelievable.

I’m pretty certain that this applies to bone marrow donors as well. From my experience, part of the questionnaire that blood agencies ask when it comes to potential marrow donation is about sexual orientation and if someone says that they’re gay (I think this just applies to gay men and not women, but don’t quote me on it), they stop, don’t get a blood sample and the person isn’t allowed to even be put on the national database. I’d like for these folks to try and tell the parents of some kid dying with leukemia “well, we looked all over the world and the whole world came to us trying to help but we just couldn’t find anyone, honest! Oh wait. Except for, you know, The Gays who we didn’t even consider because you wouldn’t want their marrow anyways!”

For the past week, a good friend cousin of mine has been over for his summer break. From his time here, these are some of the highlights of what he has told me:

-He had no clean socks to bring when he flew over here. He’s behind on laundry so he came without any socks whatsoever. And by whatsoever I mean he wasn’t wearing socks with the shoes he had on at the time.
-His apartment has about 5 bags of garbage that need to be thrown out. He didn’t do this before he left for Seattle.
-He wants to move to Vancouver to be closer to the Washington area.
-He’s tired of the racism on the east coast.
-He wants to buy a portable DVD player (two of them actually) to watch on airplanes instead of paying the 5 dollars to watch the onflight movies.
-He orders almost all the food he eats. He’ll call the local Chinese joint by his apartment at 10pm, right before they’re about to close, and then he’ll order. The Chinese joint has asked that he call earlier.
-He decided to get braces because his newfound dentist brother-in-law, wanted to test out doing braces on someone and offered to do so for free as “an experiment.”
-When he’s stressed out, he watches Scarface. Particularly during finals, he watches this film over and over.

UN criticizes Japan on sex slaves

By HANS GREIMEL, Associated Press Writer Tue May 22, 3:54 PM ET

TOKYO - A United Nations committee accused Japan of trying to whitewash its past practice of forcing women to become sex slaves for Japanese Imperial army soldiers, and urged Tokyo to help surviving victims.

The criticism by the U.N. Committee Against Torture comes after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set off a furor by saying there was no proof the government forced thousands of women from Asia and elsewhere to work as prostitutes for front-line troops during World War II.

In a report issued Friday, the U.N. committee condemned what it called efforts to cover up history and urged Japan to address the “discriminatory roots of sexual and gender-based violations” and improve rehabilitation for survivors.

Read the rest here.

[Got this promo in the mail]

I think the standard free trial membership for Netflix is 2 weeks but with this code, you can get it for a month (which actually makes the hassle of signing up, giving your credit card info worthwhile because I don’t think you can really watch a lot in 2 weeks).

Click here first (if you’ve never signed up for Netflix before) www.netflix.com/tellafriend

and then punch in M13652102465 or M56322302655

If readers are going to use a code, please say which one in the comments so I can strike them accordingly. Thanks.

Q: Favorite drink?
A: Pear Looza.

Q: Wow, way to come out swinging with the “cool” to show how hip and non-mainstream you are.
A: Looza is “non-mainstream”? Then Gatorade Propel, peach flavored comes in at number two.

Q: That’s disgusting.
A: Try it.

Q: Something you refuse to eat?
A: Raw cheese. I can stand a little bit of melted cheese on pizza, maybe some pasta, but I hate raw cheese.

Q: Something you have trouble eating?
A: Spicy stuff. I can handle Jack In The Box Spicy Chicken spicy, but it’s a struggle beyond that.

Q: I imagine you get a lot of flak from your family and friends because of that.
A: I do. I have forever dishonored my people (bows).

Q: Did you think Spiderman 3 was that bad?
A: Eh. Not really. It wasn’t The Hulk. Or Batman and Robin.

Q: Something you worry about is?
A: Career/job/future stuff, like everyone.

Q: Would you rather have a stomach ache, headache or feel nauseated?
A: Headache.

Q: One thing you’d like to see happen?
A: Shameless magazine coming out with a podcast. Weekly, maybe even biweekly. I think it could translate perfectly and really take off.

Q: Have you ever gone by a fake name in public?
A: Yea. I’ve gone with “Brian” a few times when reserving a table or ordering a drink, stuff like that.

Q: “Brian”?
A: People have said that I sound like him. Brian from Family Guy, that is.

Q: What’s the funniest line from Lost?
A: “I’ll tell you what, you help me catch that thing and you can keep right on ranch-dippin.”

[I know this is probably standard for most places, but it still burns my toast]

From the welcome letter, my italics:

Good: “Here at (the new workplace), we offer medical, dental, vision, group life insurance and long-term disability, as well as fifteen days paid vacation each year.”

Bad: “You will become eligible for these benefits, as outlined in our employee handbook, after you have successfully completed your 90 day initial employment period.”

[This is one of those times that I actually regret completely erasing the old blog. No use griping now I guess.]

I am a fan of zombie movies. Actually, I am a fan of any movies/tv/fiction in which some sort of unbelievable situation emerges, destruction happens and people are, hopefully, motivated to work together to survive. Growing up, I was the biggest fan of the A*Team and as awful as that show is upon retrospect, it offered the same basic things that I still like now: when the shit hits the fan, you kinda drop what you’re doing and work together. Or as Jack warned, do it “or we’ll die alone.” What I like is that it can so easily be made into a stinging social criticism because honestly, I don’t think there’s any point in producing a piece of fiction unless it has a specific message about society however bleak or optimistic it may be. What I think is absolutely pointless is creating something just to create something with no sort of commentary on issues of the times. I am not of the party who believes that films are or at least should be timeless–somehow made to be socially relevant no matter when you watch. I don’t buy for a second that something, whether it be a film, book or TV show is good and authentic just because it shows what has happened in the world or already is happening. I know that’s vague but to give an example, the film B13 I thought was something that had a better message than 95% of things in theaters. Sure, they could’ve made some visually entertaining film about parkour and wrapped it up with a The Transporter storyline but they actually figured out that if you’re going to spend time and money making something, you can comment on the real-life situation of the poor, the working class, drugs, racism, segregation and crime in France. If you’re going to make something about parkour and don’t want the weight of talking about social issues, make a damn documentary.

In that way, I [spoiler alert about the film 28 Weeks Later] did not like the film 28 Weeks Later because despite its thrilling action, despite the visuals and the suspense, it didn’t say much of anything beyond “oh well, we’re fucked.” Zombie movies at a minimum can say, as George Romero has done throughout his career, that people don’t know how to work together even when lives are on the line. But unfortunately, 28 Weeks doesn’t really do this or make any other significant commentary beyond maybe suggesting that our governments, our military, the folks who are supposed to keep things in order when something like this happen don’t always have the right ideas. Sure there’s the critical message of the US military being all “kill anything that moves” when things go bad but I don’t think that resonates as much as the sheer hopelessness of the film.

But at the same time, purely as a zombie movie with loads of action, it’s a good 2 or so hours to have your heart racing. Don’t get me wrong, in some ways I liked it and it was worth the money (actually, my friend paid this time so his money) but I just can’t get beyond the fact that it didn’t go for something more in saying something. In 28 Days Later, they at least went the route of idolized macho male military attitude = hatred for women, sexual violence against women in conjunction with the whole “people can’t work together” but even that was a bit of a mess considering just how…frayed the ending is.

Land of the Dead (at least the updated version), meanwhile, has plenty to say in terms of racism, sexism, and general despotism when it comes to a few wielding power in control of many. I don’t know, i’ve talked a lot about this film before but I just want to emphasize that if you roll your eyes when I say “zombie movie” and you think they’re all for weirdos who roam Wal-Mart at 12 in the morning (something I also just did), watch a few Romero films because at the very least, the guy tries to interject heads being chopped off with commentary relevant to the times.

—

But wait, before we got to the feature presentation I saw the worst fucking trailer i’ve ever seen. This absolute piece of shit just reaffirmed why I am interested in challenging media and especially representations of women in media. [warning: potential triggers of sexual violence] See for yourself, i’m not shitting you (especially the last sequence).

When I see this, I think “what the fuck is wrong with people?” Who makes this shit? Who signs on to work on making this shit? Who pays money to see this shit? Then I realize that #1 I haven’t made some startling discovery and #2 this garbage has been around for years. I still remember when I was a kid, walking the aisles of Hollywood video and seeing the horror section which for a huge part of the 80’s and 90’s meant that women and particularly young women in sexualized situations or representations were killed in the most gruesome ways by men. It wasn’t a genre of horror so much as it was “watch women in the shower, women undressing, women having sex, women naked (or with little clothes on) being killed by men.”

God. It just gets to a point where I realize that I can sit here and write about it until i’m blue in the face but at the end of the day, they’re still going to keep pumping this crap out.

…

Anybody know if the Media Education Foundation is hiring?

YouTube goldmine: A&E presents The Wonder Years biography.

Best. Show. Ever.