What we Missed.
Fatemah's MUST READ piece on the Dos and Don'ts of Defending Muslim Women.
Taz on the cover of Ms. Magazine at Sepia Mutiny. I will probably write a post about this as well, but it is taking me some time to think through it :)
Tyler Perry is taking the kids who couldn't get into the swimming pool in Philly to Disney World.
via Media Matters, Fox News and CBS aired parts of the video that was taken of Erin Andrews. Not. OK.
Colorlines has a spotlight on Jay Smooth.
Sarah Seltzer on the sexification of our favorite wizards.
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You didn't miss Fatemah's piece it was linked here (http://www.feministing.com/archives/016652.html ).
The Ms. Magazine link is not working.
I was strangely attracted to Ron in the last HP movie. I felt like a creep, though I know the actor's not that much younger than me.
The medias treatment of Erin Andrews has always been pathetic and exploitative, but this takes the cake. Its been a long time since I've seen so much unmitigated, unapologetic sexism in the mainstream american press. A journalists very sense of safety and privacy has been violated and the media is cashing in because people--mostly straight male sports fans--like to look at her.
I've always thought Tyler Perry's movies were dross, but the guy has a good heart. Or a good nose for publicity, but either way, yay disappointed kids getting to go somewhere fun.
Seltzer makes excellent points in her article, and I agree overall. One nitpick: one of the things that contributed to Harry and Ron's lack of recognition of their closest friend in book four is that her normally-bushy hair is slicked down. Ever seen a friend after they get a drastic haircut, especially when they have such a distinctive hairstyle already? Yeah. (Incidentally, Emma Watson's hair started getting styled for the movies starting in Prisoner of Azkaban, and Ron and Harry's confusion is much shorter-lifed in the film of Goblet of Fire.)
I give Tyler props for that. Fatemah's piece was good although what she said you would hope would be commonsense.
I appreciated the piece on Muslim women. I have a knee jerk reaction to religion and I constantly have to rethink my ideas and my inner prejudices on this. Not just Islam-Christianity as well. But I think it's so important to recognize that some of my feelings as per Islam could come from the fact that I was raised in a country and in an era that is hostile to Islam and to Muslim countries, and that there's been a long running feud between the "western word," and that I need to come to my conclusions independently, and I need to remember to always view people as people and not as part of a religion.
I greatly appreciate Fatemeh Fakhraie's article. I am not Muslim but my partner is. It is amazing how many people believe that he will somehow try to subjugate me. The fact that he is a feminist and has an older sister who is an Obstetrician doesn't even register.
As an avidly obsessed lover of everything Harry Potter and, of course, a feminist, I have to say that Seltzer's piece touches on something that's been on my mind for years, pretty much since the Prisoner of Azkaban movie. I am so, so sick of hearing everyone complain that Emma Watson is "too pretty to be Hermione." There are plenty of things to complain about with certain casting choices of the filmmakers, and if you want to complain about Watson's acting ability that's one thing (although she has vastly improved in the last couple of movies) but let's remember that these actors were cast as little kids. It is not Watson's fault that she grew up to be conventionally attractive, or the director's fault that he couldn't foresee that she would do so.
But that's all beside the point--it's ALWAYS Hermione people complain about. Never Harry or Ron. Never mind that both Dan Radcliffe and Rupert Grint have grown up to be superstar sex symbols for an entire generation of girls with posters of them in their lockers and bedrooms. Never mind that neither Harry nor Ron as characters are described as attractive; Ron is supposed to be gangly and awkward, Harry is supposed to be unkempt and relatively plain. But no one has EVER complained that Radcliffe or Grint were too sexy to play the lead roles.
And Seltzer had it right; it's because Hermione is somehow rendered less authentic in the minds of many fans. She should be admired for her smarts, not her looks. But hey, Harry should be admired for his amazing magical abilities and Ron for his rising courage from movie to movie; but it's ok, because somehow courage and brilliance are highlighted in men who are sexy. It doesn't work like that with girls and women; these qualities are underscored by attractiveness.
And sure, the makeup people could keep her hair frizzy in the movies to keep true to the book--but if they really wanted to do that, they could also give Radcliffe green contacts, since the bright-blue-eyed actor is playing a character whose vividly green eyes are supposed to be a major part of his physical appearance. Certainly as much a part of Harry as frizzy hair is a part of Hermione, if not more. But why cover up Radcliffe's strikingly blue eyes? They're great on a poster. I understand that it's frustrating that Hollywood constantly sexes everything up. I do. Especially with female actors. But HONESTLY. In this case, it ISN'T just the female actress. It's all of them. And it's not like the threesome of friends' relative averageness in the book is incredibly central to the plot or anything. To suggest a pretty teenager is somehow "unworthy" of playing Hermione simply because she is pretty--why? Oh, right, because pretty girls can't be worthy of anything EXCEPT their objectifiability.
I refuse to listen to any more complaints about Hermione's "unauthenticness" until the same complainers bitch and moan that Rupert Grint is just too darn sexy to be a geeky gangly wizard with an inferiority complex. And somehow, I highly doubt that day will ever come.
Uh...thank you so much. I get so frustrated that people only complain about Hermione's Emma Watson. She was indeed the perfect frizzy haired girl in the first movie, how were the casting directors to know that she wouldn't always be so. Until we start complaining that Daniel's eyes and hair aren't perfectly Harry or that Rupert isn't nearly as gangly then complaining about Emma just sucks.
I think Fatemeh's piece applies to all people. Not Muslim women in particular. But to talking to anyone who is not exactly the same as ones own self.
Hermione, well, she reminds me of myself. Straight As student all through. I used to wear coke bottle glasses- that fitted. Then suddenly when I moved into contacts- people woke up to the fact that I was pretty human. I remained a straight As student still, but in college etc had to become rather formidable with regard to expressing how "smart" I was.
I don't understand all this reaction to the Ms. cover. Isn't Jesus imagery used *constantly* in media? Is it inappropriate to use ANY religious imagery, because that is somehow insulting to a religion or culture, or is it only inappropriate to use imagery from a religion which a is a minority in the west? I didn't feel as if the image was insulting. The Buddha image in the national review, that was a caricature and insulting, but the Ms. image was using the symbolism without it being insulting, I felt, though I am not Hindu. Of course, I have noticed that the people being offended are also not Hindu.
Some people just look for reasons to be outraged and this is a perfect example. Honestly, when I saw the cover I liked it. Who doesn't feel like they are juggling everything in their life at times. I know I do. And what really tickled me was that I sometimes joke about needing extra arms. Too perfect. I am kind of tempted to buy the magazine just so I can pin the cover to the wall of my room. The image was not insulting or a caricature. (Unlike that awful picture of Ms. Sotomayor) Yes it is vaguely Hindu. It is also vaguely a dozen other things too. Relax people. Not everything that kind of/sort of has a cultural influence from somewhere 'not here' is a terrible insult.
True, I can see why the image can be insulting to some - it might have to do with the idea of upperclass white woman using the imagery. Women in India have used the same metaphor of the multiple arms to show all the jobs and roles they have to take on as well.
So I dunno...I'm on the fence, leaning toward the cover not being so bad but I can see the other side.
The same sentiment about the subject in the picture being a white woman was expressed in the article.
"And truthfully, I am discomforted by the fact that Ms. Magazine caters to a middle class liberal white women clientele. Question is, would I have felt different if they had depicted a brown woman in the same image, or if it had been a different magazine? Probably."
I have no doubt people would feel differently if the woman weren't white. Remember the caricature of Sotomayor the Buddha? One of the reasons people were upset with that picture was that she is not south asian. Too quote feministing on the Buddha picture.
"Apparently if you're not white or male, it really doesn't matter what your racial or ethnic identity is. They're all interchangeable. You're just Other."
Hmm. So if the subject is a POC then its othering. But if the subject is white then it's an insult against the culture it is referencing. Since, you know, white isn't an identity or anything. Let us not forget it really is questionable whether or not this picture is referencing a particular culture.
Imagine if the woman had been south asian. I can already hear the screams of 'stereotyping asian culture'. No matter who was in this picture someone would find a reason to be upset. There is a lot of cultural abuse and racist, sexist crap that people have every right to be angry about. This just isn't one of them.
There's a difference between using the imagery of a group that is dominant within a particular a culture and using imagery that belongs to another group.
At the risk of belaboring a point, why has the main feministing blog been so quiet about the Erin Andrews attack? This is not only the biggest sports story of the week, its also a front pager at mainstream media outlets too. In all the mess of victim blaming and gleeful ogling that is the rest of the media coverage over this event, I thought feministing would offer some analysis free of all that. Instead, I had to look elsewhere.
Is it because feministing wants to put as little attention on this story out of respect for Andrews?
Is it because Andrews's work in sports media does not intersect with the pop culture that interests us liberal feminists?
Is it because it has been covered on the community blog?
Is it just a time/resources thing?
I really didn't like Fatemeh's article and I wrote about it here:
http://clarissasbox.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-defend-muslim-women-from-fatemeh.html
I welcome a discussion from anybody who finds her piece inspirational.