...link to Girl-Wonder and blog post about why objectifying women is bad both mysteriously vanish from Exiern prior to latest story arc...
...anonymous blogger finally finds good reason to join the "Facebook needs a 'Dislike' option" group...
...Roman Polanksi attempts to evade extradition by disguising himself as a giant dick...
...Doctor Who's first heterosexual producer since 1979 "compensating", says source...
...blogger successfully makes it through 2500 word attack on Jim Emerson without mentioning he wrote It's Pat: The Movie; proceeds it to do so in sidebar anyway...
...it's a tedious, boob-free Civilisation clone, in case you were wondering but didn't actually want to click the banner ads...
Because I have a lot of work to do and it’s hot. No, it’s not always hot in Australia. It was hovering around freezing less than a week ago, but now Spring’s here and I’m being assaulted by pollen as well as drive-by eggings.
Anti-PC Bingo card. Inspired by a certain website, but works for basically all of them.
I retract my previous statement that I would rather gargle acid than attend my high school reunion in two years. It is, in fact, in two weeks.
Because things work better in threes, here’s an excerpt from a script. The guy who “wrote” this saw fit to lecture me on the finer points of screenwriting, despite the fact he’d failed high school English and I’d just graduated from a screenwriting course with a high distinction. Our final “conference” is depicted in this comic, and he was also the author of the “pre-op transvestite” script mentioned in this entry.
Not to be mistaken with any other rare physical, genetic or hormonal disorders, Man Cans are the sudden onset of unwanted unmanly physical appendages. Think of them as a warning sign, a way of knowing it’s time to stop acting like a Nancy boy and act like a real man.
NB. I’m not going to keep posting about this or anything. You know how you can tell a band has gone off the rails because they start writing songs about what it’s like to be in a band? Mmm.
Regular service (including my participation in drawn-out comment threads, which I am missing dearly) will resume Monday-Tuesdayish when I’m less snowed under.
I am busy. I have been working all night, and it is presently 8:54am. I still have things to do. Despite this, I was going to compose a short post on how you can deal with negative male stereotypes, men’s health issues and various social stigma without simultaneously attacking women who are, believe it or not,not your enemy.
Homophobic (which was blatantly obvious, but it was nice to have confirmation).
I’d have sympathy if you were genuinely concerned with helping men. You aren’t. You are concerned with making life shit for everybody but men. Heterosexual white men, to be specific.
Go directly to Hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200, an ounce of my compassion or a fraction of my patience.
Feminism didn’t make women hate you. You did.
I’m not going to approve your comments. You already have you own echo chambers in which to call me a feminised pussy mangina homo cunt, or whatever combination of schoolyard insults takes your fancy. Stay there.
Blah blah Media Watch blah blah not the wretched Mary Whitehouse one blah blah fancy Monica Attard.
Since my blogfriends often post about Fox & the Daily Mail, I thought I’d include a xenophobic tabloid beat-up Australian style. Consider it a cultural exchange.
In 6th grade, we had a Vietnamese girl join the class, and the teacher’s first instinct was to make fun of her for not knowing who Don Bradman was. Later that year, he was concerned we didn’t know enough about how important sheep were to the Australian economy and took us to a sheep museum. The reunion’s in two years.
Assuming we take studded corsets and fleur de lys-embossed breast cups as the baseline of space nun normality – which is, I grant you, no small task – does anybody else think this is actually a pretty strong image, considering the standard representation of women in tabletop gaming? She’s got a massive scar running up one side of her face, her armour (while ridiculous) covers her entire body, and she’s got the “veteran grunt” look rather than “slinky assassin”.
What I should have written here last night, but didn’t because I spent most of it vomiting after a makeshift dinner of microwave chicken and cookie dough (not together, obviously, because that would have just been disgusting) was…
The problem with “anti-misandry” activists like this is that they aren’t fighting against negative depictions of men in popular culture, they’re fighting against the idea that we should see those depictions as negative in the first place. The linchpin of the anti-misandry movement – or the linchpin of Nathanson & Young’s bleating, anyway – is the belief that negative male stereotypes are a relatively new phenomenon that popped into existence a few decades ago, after women got the vote and laid the groundwork for the All-Pervading Matriarchal Conspiracy. No. Men have consistently been depicted as distant, brutish, hedonistic and emotionally stunted throughout history. What has happened is that we’ve reached the point where we’ve started to recognise that these are bad things and feel guilty(ish) about them. My reference to “emotionally stunted” is as good an example as any; a lack of emotion was, and in many cases still is, supposed to be a positive attribute, because it meant that men were more rational, sensible and made better leaders. Now that we’ve reached the stage where we recognise that being emotional is part of a healthy human experience – recognise it, even if we’re not entirely accepting of it – the old idea of men as cold and rational has started to look as unfair and restrictive as… as it was in the first place. Yet instead of encouraging this kind of criticism – which would be integral to dismantling negative male stereotypes – they want it to stop it entirely, because it makes some men feel slightly uncomfortable.
Not that said criticism has actually made much difference. The same stereotypes are still out there, fulfilling the same functions, only they’re tempered by gentle mockery rather than totally unquestioned. All that’s happened is “Father knows best” has mutated into “Father is a blundering doofus, but he still knows best in the end because he’s gotcommon senseanda heart of gold”. And even then, anti-misandry whining would be tolerable – wrong, but tolerable – if they didn’t insist on claiming that women are apparently immune from negative depiction in the media, as if priming women to put up with a brainless manchild who can’t tie his own shoes isn’t also a bad thing.
There. Now that I’m satisfied with my response, I can throw up the remainder of the chicken.
We only have two and a half years left until the end of the decade. Like all good turn of the century indie kids, I was taught that the 90s were grunge, the 80s were hair metal and new romantic and the 70s were punk. Which is all a blatant simplification, but still… what in God’s name are the 00’s going to be remembered for? Because I have a horrible feeling it’ll be either Fred Durst or the Pussycat Dolls.
