What the hell Fox?

From its earliest burrowing into the American cultural landscape with Survivor, I have loathed reality television—with the exception of The Mole, not so much because I watched it, but because it looked like a fun one to be on.

Now, it seems that Fox Network has come up with possibly the worst idea for a reality show ever: Someone's Gotta Go.

The premise of the show is that a small business will let one person go each week. The catch? That person is chosen by their co-workers, who can look into their files.

Wow.

... wow.

On April Fools

I'm not sure I really understand the concept of this "holiday." Or its desirability. Let's play pranks on each other and pretend things are true that aren't, just to get a kick out of someone's horror or surprise.

What I'm saying is, why is falseness hilarious? Why do we devote an entire day to playing tricks on each other and disguising the truth?

I mean, here's a real joke: "America has moved from a logical society to an emotional basket case, and it began in 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment." And even better, one of the comments: "The 4 Ism's, liberalism, feminism, socialism and communism will be the torpedos [sic] that will sink our great ship of state." Too bad they're both serious. Too bad they really blame women's suffrage for the downfall of America.

Here's another, and another, and another: that women's sexuality is dangerous. That it needs to be controlled from a young age, and by girls' fathers. That women belong to their men, be it their fathers or their husbands. That having sex means engaging in a lower standard for one's life, or that it's not "wholesome" or "healthy."

The joke isn't funny - the joke that leads people to completely disassociate from reality like this. So I don't get voluntary disassociation from reality. I don't get why anyone would choose to be a fool, when there are far, far, far too many in our world already.

On Bromance

While in my Rhetorical Criticism the other day, my professor spouted out a word that was new and quite puzzling to me: "bromance". A portmanteau of "bro" and "romance", the word apparently refers to a non-sexual romance between two heterosexual men. A little more from this article from MSN:

The Urban Dictionary defines... more bromance as "the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males." And while it may be a relatively new term within the American vernacular, coined in the 1990s by writer Dave Carnie in the pages of Big Brother Magazine, bromantic relationships have been intricately woven into the fabric of art and pop culture for centuries.

For those more versed in queer/literary theory, this might be more familiar to you vis-à-vis Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick from her book Between Men, as male homosociality. However, in Sedgwick's book male homosociality must be triangulated through a female--in other words, it can never be expressed openly, but rather as a contest between two males over a woman, though the woman is nothing more than an extra prize from victory. It should be said that Sedgwick was referring to Victorian (et ergo Victorian culture) in her book, though a lot of her theories have held true in modern society (Foucault also posits that, in terms of sex, we are more like the Victorians than we would like to admit--this is where Laura's screen name comes from).

But the movie that the MSN article is written in response to, I Love You Man, seems about as far away from that as possible. (From what I gather, the movie is about a man whose best man and fiancée do not get along, and the "hilarity" that ensues from that.) For one, the homosocial love between men is articulated in the title, and is not skirted around. Second, there is no triangulation through a woman, rather the fight is between a man and a woman over a man, and this fight is overt, not subtle.

What does this mean? I really can't say for sure. On one hand, this seems like it would be a good thing, especially in terms of Sedgwick's work, as the inability to openly express homosocial desire has resulted in many instances of sexism and homophobia. On the other, the whole "bro" cultural phenomenon has always bothered me, as it seems to be focused on excessive, almost to the point of grotesque, masculinity--(bad) beer guzzling, sports watching, flamboyantly heterosexual, not to mention the air of ""douchebaggedness" that seems to surround them. To me, this just seems another way to reinforce heterosexism, because it makes male homosocial desire acceptable between two straight men, and thus pushes non-sexual homosexual homosocial interaction outside of the bounds of acceptable, and homosocial interaction between a straight man and a gay man is almost unthinkable.

On Rachel Maddow

I have struggled for some time to come up with something witty to say about Rachel Maddow, my new favorite commentator and visible lesbian. I wanted it to be something that was intelligent, that included commentary on what it is to be "butch" (whatever that means), how her show is so incredible because of its depth and insight, how most of the media coverage of her to this point has been ridiculous and patronizing (and unnecessarily essentializing and feminizing).... etc.

Obviously that's a lot to talk about and I just haven't done it. So let me instead direct you to this wonderful article by Malinda Lo of AfterEllen.

Any time a lesbian who does not fit feminine norms makes a splash in the pop culture landscape (and it doesn’t happen too often), it is followed by a mass of handwringing as the media attempts to make sense of why she looks the way she looks.

...A Rhodes scholar, Maddow has also benefited from Americans’ renewed interest in intellectualism after eight years of Bush idiocy. It’s cool, these days (finally!) to be smart. But I don’t think it’s only her intelligence that people are attracted to, and Maddow’s sex appeal - which is ultimately what Merkin was trying to understand - is a transgressive one.

...A butch lesbian, at least in the ideal, is not the best of both worlds, male and female — she is a new world. She is the discovery, every day, of how a woman can be a woman without the trappings of femininity. The set of a woman’s shoulders, the way she crosses her legs, the angle of her hips when she walks - all of these are signals of butchness. And we know it when we see it. That kind of recognition takes place in the gut.

So good. On all points.

On Conspiracies: PC Viruses

I admit, I am prone to conspiracy theories. I think I inherited this from my grandmother.

There's been quite the string of viruses running the email circuit at my university; they come up from someone you know, with your name and a message similar to the following: (I messed with the url just in case any of you are silly enough to actually click on it.)

Othervictorian,

I'm not sure whether you have seen it?

http://297.225.219.xxx/redundancy_payment.zip

Panda de Tueur

But I seriously sometimes wonder if there are Mac enthusiasts (extremists?) sitting around coming up with these things to get people to just give up and become a switcher. Seriously.

Coffee Art. Not the Frothy Kind.

Check out this great article in the NY Times today. It's about a graphic artist named Christoph Niemann, and his latest series, a collection of "napkin art" (for lack of a better word). The art is stains on a napkin (presumably using coffee?), creating images that accompany a brief story just below the napkin. They all have to do with coffee culture and personal anecdotes about experiences with coffee. 

As an addict myself, here's one of my favorites. Click on it to enlarge.

Along with the accompanying text/story:

Here’s a chart that shows my coffee bias over the years.

For good measure I have added my bagel preferences over the same period. (1) Drip coffee, (2) Starbucks, (3) blueberry bagels, (4) sesame bagels, (5) poppy-seed bagels, (6) everything bagels

Please don’t hold my brief affair with blueberry bagels against me. I cured myself of this aberration.

Love it. :D

New Lows in Political Discourse

I hesitate to bring this up, just because it's so explosive and ridiculous. But I think it clearly illustrates the depths to which people can sink to smear others, politicians or otherwise.

I think the video betrays its true intent with the last second - "NoHussein.org." This isn't about abortion or children - it's about simple, cynical, any means necessary politics. It uses children as a political tool, rather than actually trying to defend them through constructive activism.

Obama's made it clear many times that his position on this has been grossly misconstrued. Infanticide is beyond cruel and inhumane, and I should hope we all have the sense to realize that NO ONE, regardless of party, religion, or even opinion on abortion, would support something like this.

Furthermore, who's to believe that the nurses and medical staff would actually take part in such a thing? I know many nurses, close friends and family, and they'd sooner break the law and/or be fired than do any such thing. No one would do that, and I'm surprised the woman in the video apparently did.