Favorite Picks, part 2

Hi Everyone. This moth I have two exams coming up, so unfortunately I wont be able to publish any post until June. Sorry for that, but luckily, I can say I have a lot of ideas for blog post. So come summer, it’ll be raining post at this blog!

Before I leave for a moth, here’s some articles you guys and gals should check out!:

At The Daily Kos, contributer theothermaven wrote a splendid critic on DC comics New 52- series.

At Guardian, Emer O’Toole defending body hair and bravely argued why women should stop shaving. You go, sister!

The great writer Maurice Sendak just passed away this week. May the man rest in peace. As a memorial, here’s a clip of Stephen Colbert interviewing Mr. Sendak.

Jezebel had two interesting essays this week. One was about Hillary Clinton boldly going before cameras without any make up. And sorry for reputation, but I have to say it: You go, sister!

The other was a reflective piece on whether men are attracted to what they think other men approve on or not.

Lastly, if you haven’t heard of the fantastic film critic Mark Kermode, let me introduce you to him by the following three (short) videos with three of his most funny and insightful reviews:

Mr. Kermode’s famous “Sex and the City 2″ (2010) rant (love this review!):

His review of the mockumentary “Pimp” (2010):

And finally, his negatively loving review of “Mamma Mia!” (2008):

Peace and love/ Maaretta

(Update!) Something Old, Somethin New And Something Fun: A Mix Of Articles And Music Videos

First, some two to three weeks old, but still worth a read, essays and articles:

At Feministing, Chloe Angyal pondered if Facebook is enabling eating disorders.

At the same blog, you can read about Guatemala launching a femicide unit.

The blog Racialicious had a good article on racist fans of “The Hunger Games” series.

Also at Racialicious, Andrea Plaid made a tribute to Nichelle Nichols, who’s most famous for portraying Uhura in the original “Star Trek”- series.

Feminist Blogger Kelsey Wallace wrote a short, but spot-on and brilliant, critique of George Clooney’s film “The Ides Of March”. Like Ms. Wallace, I was also highly disturb by the films nearly anti-abortion message, as well as the way the female main lead was written as well.

Alya Dawn Johnson at The Angry Black Woman talked about the Bechdel Test and race.

At Bitch Media, Caroline Narby wrote an article on girls and Asperger’s.

At Colorlines, Hatty Lee posted some statistics which show that thousands of young black men die in gun crimes every year.

Since March is ending, which means the end of “Women’s History Month” is near, the team at Gender Across Borders recommends us to remember Marie Curie.

Second, the new:

Glenn Greenwald wrote about three congressional challengers worth supporting.

Blogger Arturo R. Garcia, who’s works focus often on race and popular culture, explored how Felicia Day and Chris Hardwick reinforced Geekdom’s whiteness.

Rest In Peace, Adrienne Rich.

Update: As Maya Dusenbery (feminist blogger and activist) noted perfectly, a win for abortion rights has been made in Argentina! (Article written by Edurne Cárdenas)

And lastly, something fun!

The Lonely Island’s songs haven’t often thrilled me much. However, “Like A Boss” is a hilarious song. Watch the video below!

The Welsh artists “Marina And The Diamonds” song “Oh No!” is witty and colorful social commentary, with a great melody. View the video below!

The Male Experience: Two Stand Up Comedians Discuss Social Norms Regarding Men

Comedy can be a very powerful social tool. Through humor people can critique politics, point out hypocrisies in our cultures and people, or give us a means to observe the sociology of our beings. Satire is the most commonly known term for this form of comedy and many of the most famous “stand up” comedians tend to use this type of satirical humor. For example George Carlin, Bill Maher, Lewis Black, and Margaret Cho.

In the two videos, below, we can see the work of a couple brilliant comedians working with this satirical technique to confront important political and social issues in their comedic routines, and I will attempt to give a brief thought on what occurs within each of these satirical monologues.

Dave Chappelle is one of the most recognized African-American comedians in the US. He’s mostly known for the comedy sketch program “Chappelle’s Show”, which featured risqué humour as well as social commentary dressed in a mocking tone. He was also quite phenomenal while doing stand up. In this routine, he discusses how society views men who are victims of sexual violence.

Mr. Chappelle, definitively, hits the nail on the head in this routine. Men are expected to “man-up” after experiencing traumatic events, and are bizarrely anticipated to always be able to defend themselves. Men are constantly propelled to feeling shame if they don’t live up to these expectations. However, I don’t exactly agree with Mr. Chappelle that society is just super nice to female victims of sexual violence; there’s a lot of victim blaming there as well.

On an not-so-off note: regarding the topic of preventing sexual violence, check out these superb ads on the subject.

Maz Jobrani is a Iranian-born American comedian who is a part of the excellent comedy group “Axis of Evil”. In his unique satirical style, he critiques and explores subjects such as racism, Islamophobia, and on his own identity of being Iranian/American. Many of his routines excavate and evaluate Iranian, as well as American, politics. In the clip featured below, he talks about his of upbringing in the crux of “manhood”.

The monologue directly confronts the suppression of “weak” emotions that the male is “suppose” to suppress and ignore. Social norms operate often to curtail men in regard to entirely express emotions. Needless to say this suppression is not the greatest of ideas. It’s good that Mr. Jobrani satireizes such upbringing, but he does make an unfortunate implication in the very end. Pity, but still funny insight on the subject if one ignores the very last bit.

Hope these two clips gave you some good laughs, and raised some thoughts!

All Of The Pieces: Links To Interesting Series As Well As Humorous Articles From Various Blogs

Today’s post is a collection of links to essays and videos of the best parts of three series: “Sex And The Fat Girl” from Bitch Media, “Tropes Vs. Women” from Feminist Frequency, and “Isn’t He Lovely” from Bitch Media (again). I will also have links to some of the funniest articles from Cracked.Com!

“Sex And The Fat Girl” is a series by Tasha Fierce, a feminist who writes the stalled blog “Red Vinyl Shoes”. In this column, she talks about fat female sexuality, attempting to break certain prejudices surrounding the subject as well. Here’s the first part of the series explaining in better detail what her writings all about.

The second part deals with the joys of fat porn.

Fierce also tackled the size-hierarchy.

Here’s a piece that brings up certain discrimination plus-sized women face when it comes to the right of having access to Birth Control.

Fierce on breaking certain myths about over-weight people and sex.

Pierce asking the question of why some people are said to be too fat to fuck, as well as fat sexuality being constantly kept behind closed doors.

Here’s Fierce’s interview with the comedian Erica Watson.

Anita Sarkeesian as a feminist pop culture media critic who produces videos on her website “Feminist Frequency”. In her series “Tropes Vs. Women”, she analyzed and attacked the most offensive tropes used to portray female characters in movies and television shows (as well as in literature and mythology).

Fist part was on “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl”.

Second part was on “Women in Refrigerators”, a trope which mostly shows up in comics. On a personal note, I can mention that I have recently started reading and fallen somewhat in love with comic books, but after watching Sarkeesian’s video on this tropes first since know I am aware of this trope and can read certain comics more critically due to this.

Sarkeesian also tackled the “Evil Demon Seductress”. This trope annoys me the most – I hate it when women’s sexuality, something completely normal, beautiful and a part of everyday life, is portrayed as something dangerous and deadly!

Sarkeesian also made a video on the “Smurfette priciple”, but web critic Nostalgic Chick did one before and just a little better.

However, Sarkeesian is the first to talk about the trope “The Mystical Pregnancy”.

CristenCouger is a staff writer at HowStuffWorks.com. In her column “Isn’t he lovely”, she explores how men and male sexuality is viewed and portrayed in society, and what effects it has on male individuals.

Here’s a part that discusses male skin bleaching.

Couger on the short man stigma.

And a discussion on how Asian-American males are portrayed in Medias.

On Hollywood’s adoration for a handsome blind man.

Couger also talked about the politics of balding.

She also talks about “the myth of the superior penis”. In this column, she states something that should be obvious: there is no such damn thing as a superior penis.

She also tackles prejudices people have against Bisexual men.

Crakced.com is a humor site that rages from very good articles too just okay to just bad. I often enjoy there articles about movies, music and comics, like this article on “the 6 most WTF special edition comics ever released”.

Here’s a fun article that blends high culture and popular culture in a fun way: “4 famous authors and their Hip-Hop equivalents”.

And here’s an article on “7 pieces of psychotic relationship advice from Cosmo”. This article had me rolling on the floor and thanking myself endlessly for never, ever reading the horror which is Cosmopolitan!

Enjoy the articles!
Best Wishes/ Maaretta

How To Explain Ones Poetry To Others

Here is a well done comical demonstration of a student explaining his poem to his headmaster.

Sorry for the short entry. In a couple of days I’ll post a longer entry!

The Old Stuff: Some Important News That You Might Have Missed, Plus Funny Skit

Today I will link to some news articles that are a little “old”, but still worth checking out if one hasn’t before. I will also link to a interesting skit.

First, a Chinese rights lawyer has been detained and interrogated about her sex life. It’s horrifying how women still around the world can be terrorized for their sexuality.

Also, Chinese authorities have decided to extend surveillance into supermarkets, cinemas and classrooms.

In Tanzania, a massive report on Violence Against Children has been made. The statistics are pretty disturbing, but it’s wonderful that the issue has been brought up.

On Feministing, the difference between a maneater and sexual criminal was explained, in response to the posters for the movie “Horrible Bosses”. Pretty old article, but think it’s still a good read. I too get sick of how constantly in popular culture the act of sexually violating/harassing men (often by women) is shown as something “funny and harmless” and “not a big deal.”

Here’s a Swedish article about a former South African veteran talking about masculinity, the effects war has on people and of the power of forgiveness and atonement. Amazing and moving article! If you don’t understand Swedish, do use Google translate!

The latest news on the growing protest in Chile. My heart out to those protesters! Use Google translate if not Swedish speaking!

And finally, A link to the skit. The skit is from College Humor; it’s satire on incompetent politics and how authorities at times really harm the individual. Enjoy!

http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6359824&use_node_id=true&fullscreen=1

How I See It…: Feminist Interpetations Of Pop Culture Phenomenans And A Song (Updated Yet Again!)

The Last Harry Potter came out a while ago and a number of Feminists have written interesting analysis of the entire book series. Since the last film is playing in the theaters, I will link to some of the most interesting articles.

Amy Bursok, a feminist writing on the internet site Ms. Magazine, wrote about Hermione Granger and Activism.

Erin Curtis at the same site wrote about the often “ignored” heroes of The Harry Potter Series. She mentions Luna Lovegood, which pleases me greatly, since Luna is my favorite Harry Potter-character.

Chloe Angyal at Feministing wrote a unbashed love letter to Ginny Weasley, the love interest of Harry Potter.

Since there’s been news of the film “Breaking Dawn” coming out soon, a adaption of the final Twilight Saga book, I will link to a feminist critic of the Twilight series (Both films and novels).

Christine Seifert wrote a sharp attack on the whole book series.

Ann Friedman, a former writer at Feministing, also wrote a good critic on the problematic portrayal of Domestic Violence in the second Twilight film “New Moon”.

A very old post by Chloe Angyal on Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”.

Maya Dusenbery states that “The Hunger Games” trilogy is a story about women and girls everyone can love.

Kelsey Wallace at “Bitchmedia” wrote a fascinating article on the portrayal of masculinity in “The Hunger Games”, stating that Peeta is a fresh new type of a male hero.

And Lastly, I will feature the song “Pearl Harbour sucked”, a song from the film “Team America: World Police”. It is made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creatures of South Park. The song takes place after the “hero” of the film has abandoned his friends and love interest. As he lingers on his tormented feelings, the song attacking Michael Bays movie as well as expressing heart ache plays. This song is my absolute favorite love song: it’s funny and romantic (on a strange level). For how else can we truly tell the ones we love how strongly we feel, if not comparing it to how we feel about movies, which everyone has strong opinions and feelings for? (Still picture. Sorry)

Enjoy!/ Maaretta

I Am Always Right: Comedians Take On Extreme Nationalism and Ideology

We are all wrong at one point of your life. We make mistakes and do things we regret. But making an error can be difficult to admit and accept, which often leads us making even more harmful actions. Like making mistakes, we all have a certain belief or opinion we are passionate about. Some people become so obsessed with their opinions and beliefs that they have a hard time admitting that perhaps others of different opinions have a point too. Therefor, I will today present two sketches dealing with just these issues.

The First is a sketch made by the Team working at College Humor, a comedic wedsite. The Sketch is an animated satire of the Tea Party movement in the US, casting the characters from “Alice in Wonderland” as “tea-baggers”.

The next sketch I’ll feature is from the comedy show “A bit Of Fry and Laurie”. In it, Hugh Laurie plays a man who by asking for a book and ending up facing a intense nationalistic librarian, played by Stephen Fry.

Enjoy the sketches! I’ll be posting a book review soon enough. Sorry for the series of short post!

One Of The Most Beautiful Things You Will Ever Hear

In this moving and funny clip from the stand up show “Revelations”, the Texas-born comedian Bill Hicks talks about his take on life. He also speaks of a utopian idea of how the world could be made into a better place. Surprisingly heartwarming vision, one that I also hope will be possible someday.

“Yes Minister” Tells Us Like It Is

“Yes Minister” was a satirical sitcom that ran Britain 1980-1982 and 1984. It focused on a fictional senior minister and his various schemes. Here’s a clip where the Minister talks about which common people read what newspapers:

A little outdated (making the comment that people running the country are male) but still funny. Enjoy!