L'chaim

A riff from elsewhere, on the general mantras regarding "you're too fat" messages, which in turn was based on this article with the shocking news that Bullies Target Obese Kids (who knew?):

I'm just thinking: the "it's for your health" crap. I mean, even besides the whole, it sort of gives the game away that someone doesn't necessarily have your best interests in mind when they also call you an ugly old hag or "bitchcunt" and other hilariously witty epithets. But, yeah, sure: health is a good thing. Eat better, if you can, get more exercise, assuming you're able. All over it. Eating more fruits and vegetables and fiber and fish. Haven't had fast food for quite a while. Doing Pilates twice a week now. Getting back into dance and yoga. Signed up for pole dancing next week, yah rly. Because it makes me feel better, physically and mentally. Health, yes. And yeah, I don't actually eat all that much, amount wise; mainly this has to do with the meds I'm on. Will it result in weight loss eventually? Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is, if I made that my priority, I'd make myself nuts, so I'm not. Again: in the interest of health. Mine.

So, but yeah, in terms of ingesting shit that's bad for you? Today it occurred to me: y'know, I could eat McChuck's three times a day and wash it down with a donut milkshake, and I'm betting it still wouldn't be as bad for me as swallowing the toxic go-ahead-and-hate-yourself-for-not-being-thin-enough (along with every other reason, of course) bullshit being shoveled at us from all sides. I mean, you can't not swallow any, fuck knows. But, just sucking it up undiluted? In the apparent belief that it's, I don't know, a health drink? Might as well go out into the Gulf right now and take a nice big gulp out of the noxious oil slick. And fuck yes, that eventually takes a physical toll, too. The more I learn about mind-body-well, that's another thread.

I got a fair share of bullying as a kid, surprise. The main theme wasn't fat, although that was certainly a motif through at least some years. I hovered around the "high end of normal" until I was 21 or so, except when I was dieting. Which, the first time I did that, I was 10. Yeah, ten. Why? Three guesses. It didn't quite develop into an eating disorder, but I have a feeling I was well on my way; for whatever reason, at some point the suggestion by a doctor that if I remained as underweight as I was I wouldn't hit puberty upset me more than the prospect of getting fat, so I started eating again, and that was that; by the end of sixth grade I was back to normal, if not well before that. There are pictures of me from that proto-anorexia or whatever it was period, though: you can count all my ribs through the T-shirts I'm wearing. I'd throw away lunch and exercise till I was dizzy and nearly passed out.

Then, when I was 17, Mom and I decided to do Jenny Craig together, (Mom's idea, natch) because we'd both hit the horrifying weight of-what was it? 138? At 5'4? My god, we were sometimes into the double digit sizes. Thank fuck we straightened that out in time, I say. Mom's instructor was a "former" anorexic who would lecture about how she trained herself out of having a glass of wine at the end of the day by chanting about how she didn't need it a hundred times. Something like that. But by the end of it I was wearing a size 4, at least for a year or so; no one made fun of me for being fat at that point.

So, instead, for instance, the same boy who'd started our acquaintance by randomly calling me a "bitch" in class back in junior high, before I'd so much as spoken to him or he knew my name (it took me till much later to realize it had happened when I knew the answer to something he didn't) prank calling me drunk in the middle of the night and making remarks about, like, the shape of my face. Seriously. Or the shoes I wore. Like that. In itself? No big deal. Years and years' worth of that kind of shit? It gets old.

I know a bunch of people who don't like the Judy Blume book "Blubber" because it's depressingly-some would say gratuitously-true to the way kid harassment works: the name calling, the hazing, the sheer thoughtless nastiness. It seems to suggest that the bullies are right, is the argument from those people. Personally, I still think it's one of her better ones. There's a point where the title character has brought a "diet" meal to school, and when the ringleader points it out she says something like, she's going to lose weight and then they won't be able to make fun of her anymore. To which the ringleader responds by forcing her to repeat that "My name will always be Blubber" and then telling her not to forget it, because "even if you only weigh fifty pounds you'll still be a smelly whale." It is rather instructive, at that. And then when the protagonist stands up to the ringleader, she becomes the goat for a while. She fights back, and she manages to get off the hot seat, but it's not really a moral victory; life just kind of goes on.

And yet, of course, it's not pure randomness that the designated goat is the "fat girl." You do get a glimpse behind the scapegoating impulse that can, in fact, land on anyone; but fact is, it does land more often on some people than others; this is was we call "structural" shit, of course.

As for not standing up for yourself...well, it's an interesting set of mixed messages out there, for sure.

Frex: vacations, I'd go to my grandparents' house in Arizona, a "safe space" for me, on the whole. I liked to read the books on her shelves-I was always a reader; most of them had been around since the year one. She had the original "Weight Watchers" book from 1960, beehive do's and pointy boobs on the front cover, glowing testimonials on the back. One of the chapter titles, as I recall:

"You Have To Hate Yourself Enough."

To lose weight, that is. Motivation to go on a diet starts through hating yourself. It was that bald.

Oh, they've softened that line since then, I'm sure, have WW. That, and bits like the inspirational little stories sprinkled throughout like:

the one of the sweet but painfully sad and alone (what else would she be?) fat woman who began to "blossom" as the pounds came off. And then, one day, she Met A Man! And it was wonderful and romantic! And he proposed to her! Swoon! But, he also told her he could "never marry a fat girl." Panic, when she hit the dreaded "plateau!" She'd "never make it to her wedding," she cried to her WW buddies! But, somehow, they got her through it, the pounds started to come off again, and she wore her beautiful size seven wedding dress to marry her wonderful husband, and they lived happily ever after^. Seriously. That was in the book. I remember it well; I read it over and over again, along with the Dr. Spock book and the ten year old guide to the best restaurants in Phoenix.

(^That is, he carried her over the threshold with one arm, no doubt, and they lived happily ever after until she gained the weight back again and he dumped her for his secretary, or she didn't gain the weight back and he dumped her anyway because she got too old for him or she got breast cancer and it was too upsetting or he didn't like the way she snored, or he didn't leave her but he beat the shit out of her or just wore her down till she took a wee fistful of Valium every day, or...yes well they left that bit out, never mind, moving on)

The 80's, and other early harbingers of the Apocalypse

So, because I like to torture myself, and have recently given up one of my favorite pastimes for Yom Kippur or Lent or something, I have turned to the never-fail method of Really Bad Music Videos.

Invisible Woman, bless her, is right there with the bad 80's nostalgia trip. Thanks to her, I found myself watching this video by Vanity again and again:

(embedding disabled, which is probably a blessing, really)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fub8EXoMShc

Oh, I'm not saying it isn't the best song/video about money shots ever to be represented with feathers and giant glasses full of styrofoam peanuts. Just: well, the hair! the shoulders! the hair! the shiny! the burpy synthesizer! the gauzy floaty things! the Pretension! the HAIR!...

there was a lot of that about, sadly.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oKTiwCez6Zs

someone! left the wedding cake out!@ in the rain! apparently fatally. bummer, dude.



But Wait! There's More!

feel the PAIN:



So, today's boybands make you writhe and twitch uncontrollably, do they? Well, listen up, l'il missy: -this- is what SOME of us were subjected to in our tender youth:



Oh yeah, that's right: FEAR the fedoras. and the SKIPPING OF DOOM.

But the very best song and/or video of the era, and possibly ever, I still think, has to be this:



Enjoy.

...fucking hell.

Black Amazon has a link to an incredibly disturbing story, with of course her own commentary. Summary, from the linked article:

A woman was sexually abused, beaten and humiliated while being held captive in a home for at least a week, sheriff's officials said Monday after making six arrests.

Those arrested, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, are white. The victim, a Charleston woman who was being treated at a hospital Monday, is black. The FBI plans to investigate it as a possible hate crime.

"The things that were done to this woman are just indescribable," Logan County sheriff's Sgt. Sonya Porter said.

It then goes on to describe some of the things. Yep. It's...bad. As for how "shocking" it is...read BA's commentary.

And from there, this post, as noted at HRTFP.

I'm not stunned. Not in the least.

It is, “par for the course”. The tale of Jena reminded me of an incident that took place in my family some 14 years ago. It was a simple family reunion...in a small southern town...

read the rest. now.

"Poundcake"

Antiprincess reminds me of this, roundabout like, with her mention of the ungodly news that Van Halen is back on the road. With Pat Boone opening. No, I made that bit up. Probably.

Anyway! So I've been a-tripping and stumbling down Memory Lane, and it occurred to me to revisit a video that--unlikely, because it sucks, musically and aesthetically, nonetheless--made rather an impact on my tender whenever it was, junior high, high school, psyche.

Feel free to watch this Sammy Hagar-fronted yowling sludgefest with the sound off. Actually if you dub in something better, like Alvin and the Chipmunks, it improves the overall experience substantially. But that's not my point (I'm getting there).

(If you are a serious glutton for punishment, the "lyrics" are here).



Subtle, no?

So, yes, a, ahem, deconstruction of the narrative. Young woman in modest dress and sensible shoes (ALERT) goes to try out for being one of Van Halen's chorus girls. She finds the dressing room, with a conveniently placed hole in the frosted glass window. She puts an eye to the hole; inside is a bevy of beautiful young women in leather, lace, nylon, maribou, ostrich feathers and pink fur (o joy to my girlie heart), cone bras, high heels, makeup for days, fuckloads of hairspray. The young woman is shocked. Yet, she cannot resist another peek. And another. She is too shy or too prudish (we presume that's what the problem is supposed to be) to enter the forbidden chamber herself, but cannot tear herself away.

For the next couple of minutes, we are shown various flashes of this Edenic scene--corset lacing, perfume spritzing, powder puff-puffing, sultry posing in front of the mirror or just in the middle of the floor (like you do), a petite cat-fight--as glimpsed by Miz Sensible Voyeurism; intercut with shots of VH performing on stage, with Sammy lamenting to the heavens of the "poundcake" which has apparently stricken him with terrible cramps, and no Immodium in sight. (There is a profound metaphor buried in that juxtaposition somewhere. See if you can find it).

Eventually, there appears a blonde (who seems to have just entered the dressing room from elsewhere, possibly the stage, except it'd be some other stage besides the one on which Intestinal Cramps!Sammy is playing, because there are no females there. or possibly Narnia. personally I vote for Narnia) who shakes her golden mane free of her football helmet and then begins to peel off her jacket. Emboldened...or, something...Our Heroine takes off -her- jacket. Perhaps she might actually get up the nerve to -go inside!- in another five hours or so. Or perhaps she's going to just change into her audition duds out there in the hall (shy, you know).

Unfortunately at this juncture the blonde, who has a laser-accurate third eye hidden beneath that gorgeous mane of shiksa cornsilk, whips around with an angry glare, clutching the jacket to her bared bosoms. Sensible Shoes immediately ducks behind the door jamb: she sees! Caught! CAUGHT!! But, Our Guilty Heroine is paralyzed with fright, or something, so does not flee; instead, after catching her breath, peers through the hole AGAIN.

A new woman appears on the scene, chewing gum and packing, or rather unpacking, tools. Judging from her short, bluntcut hair, baseball cap, plaid shirt, suspiciously understated makeup (just a slash of red on the lips), clear oral fixation, forward, aggressive manner, and aptitude with power tools, she is obviously being coded, in time-honored media tradition, as a lumberjack. Maybe Tumnus the Faun needed some landscaping done or something. She turns on the drill, to the apprehensive muttering of the femme'd-out wimminz, and heads, a grinnin' and a chompin', straight for the door, and the plucky l'il voyeur behind it. The hazel eye in the hole widens. Our Heroine hides from the rampaging, encroaching drill by turning around and pressing her back flat against the door. Like you do. Lumberjack Lady, grimacing with effort, penetrates the door with her drill; the tool pierces through the barrier, brushes Our Heroine's sensible skirt and comes perilously close to her tender flesh. After two or three of these brushes with danger, Our Heroine flees in terror. Clearly the reminder of her miserable experience in shop class upset her. She just didn't have what it takes; she is not, in fact, coming back a star, or at all. (Please note the unusual narrative technique of taking the protagonist out of the picture before the end).

But from this melancholy note we come back to the idyllic Paradise, now gloriously restored, of the dressing room, where the scantily clad lovelies will continue to make themselves beautiful, rouge and tightlace each other, whisper and giggle, brush each others' hair, playfully spat with powder puffs and pillows, and daintily lap at each others' airbrushed pink pearls with the tip of their little pink tongues oh what a giveaway; until such time as they are needed to strut and fret upon the stage and give Sammy some goddam chamomile and saltpeter tea.

The End.

--oh, right, I forgot, there's also an annoying little moppet in a tutu that appears before and after the video proper, saying something annoyingly moppety.

Eth NEd.

*************************************


Now, some people would say that this is a -classic- example of Patriarchy's oppressive standards for women, from start to finish. The little girl with her nauseatingly cutesy Shirley Temple posing and tutu, lisping about "sugar and spice," (already in training); cut immediately to a male fantasy of women's space, what the little girl is being seasoned into: a sexually saturated harem of women struggling to fit themselves into instruments of couture torture in order to become toys, mere objects for mens' delectation, (poundcake is CONSUMED, of course), and generally acting like, well, bimbos. Or your term of choice (bows). The one woman who looks remotely like a Real Woman (tm) is mocked mercilessly for her failure to conform to Patriarchal standards of feminine beauty, both by the token Male Identified Patriarchy Fucker (tm) and the cruel, yet vacant, male-fantasy-conforming girls. The men themselves, of course, are safely out of reach (the fuckers) in the place of power; whatever else happens, -they're- safe. Clearly Our Heroine was right to run as fast as her low-heeled but probably still uncomfortable shoes could carry her. Hopefully, some day, she will find a safe space to be herself.

Now, nothing like this floated, even incoherently, across my consciousness, when first I saw this oeuvre. I -was- incredibly disturbed by the video, yes. But the source of my disturbment wasn't the elaborate beauty rituals, which I'd always adored anyway; nor was it the men yowling on the stage, who were less interesting than dead sea-fruit to me.

No, what struck atavistic, complex terror into my heart was the whole woman spies on beautiful/sexual women undressing, gets caught, publically humiliated, and driven off.

-This- was my primal terror all through junior high and high school; -this- is what sent me fleeing down the corridor, mentally at least. And I don't even mean just in gym class. I mean, like, in algebra or Spanish or pretty much anywhere in public really, when some girl would glare (or so I imagined) at me, perhaps one of the pretty ones, perhaps one of her friends, perhaps just some random girl; and send me into blushing fits for the forseeable -weeks- or -months- every time I saw her or even heard her name. Holy shit! They know! They KNOW.

Oh, sure, I -thought- I was safely invisible, and truthfully, I was. But videos like that, like any number of reminders a thousand times a day, kept me constantly vigilant. Because you never know when some lumberjack with understated makeup might just see right through you and EXPOSE you. Maybe even drag you into the circle of angry women and drill you mercilessly. Demand that you explain yourself. And be punished. Clearly, a FATE WORSE THAN DEATH.

Dip me in honey and poundcake, please don't throw me in that briar patch.

x-posted at Big Queer Blog

"...all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again..."

As I may have mentioned hither and yon, before coming into the wacky world of online feminism, I was a member of an organization that I will here refer to as Dyke Drama Collective, a Downtown theatre that is/was started in the early 80's and is for the women, by the women, very on-a-string, very DIY let's-put-on-a-show. It's had its high points--alumnae include Holly Hughes and Sarah Schulman; and I should say I had a show of my own (directed, wrote, co-produced) at one point. Had some good times with some of the regulars, onstage and off. I don't mean to say this without any affection whatsoever. Just, I was indirectly reminded, elsewhere, just now, from an allusion to the endless Online Dwamas with the Usual Suspects, of this:

Right about when I knew it was time to leave the DDC (which was, I reiterate, not -nearly- as obnoxious as erm some people in terms of the Usual Dread Subjects, on the whole; the younger set far less so than the older ones, whom i didn't know as well, true, still)

...anyway, shortly after 9/11, one of the (older, whom I didn't know very well) women used Vulva puppets, Mr. Rogers-like, (complete with squeaky voice and syrupy intonation) to enact her sentiment that dark as the times were, maybe the crumbling of the phallic structures symbolized a better time to come for Pussies. (or however she put it. there was nauseating cutesiness, was the bottom line, besides the, well, that).

a few years later, i ran into her at the friendly local wimmins' book co-op (which later got bought out by an individualist if still leftie entrepreneur, on account of the wimbon who was "collectively" running it by basically letting crunchy wide-eyed twenty year olds staff the place on a "volunteer" basis basically ran it into the ground, business-wise).

She was all, oh, hi! I can't remember your name. (obligatory exchange) Hi! Good to see you! Say, I'm house managing tonight, why don't you come and staff for me?

Now, the way Dyke Drama Collective works is, everyone pitches in and works volunteer on a system of what's called "sweat equity." You help your sisters with their shows, and the space as a whole, goes the idea, and when it comes time to do your show, you'll get help with yours. In practice it didn't always work out quite so neatly, but anyway. "Staffing" means you help clean up before and after the show (usually not much to do), sit and take tickets at the door or wait downstairs to meet and greet, maybe run some light errands. In return you get basic "sweat equity" and of course to see the show for free. Not a bad system, and a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Except, I hadn't been to the place for several years. But, okay. I tell the woman, politely, sorry, no can do, but good luck!

She goes, in so many words,

"Why not?"

I bit back the first four or thirteen responses ("um, hello, I -might- actually have something else to do, did it occur to you, person-I-haven't-seen-in-several-years, and you don't even remember my damn name?") and said, rather less pleasantly,

"I'm busy."

She did drop it then, at least. The temperature perked back up a few notches, we made with the conversational noises, she bought her copy of -off our backs- or -Tidewombon Periodical- or -Craft Your Way To The Revolution- and maybe a vegan cookie/paperweight or so. Goes off. And that was that.

The brief reunion did leave me with a warm glowy feeling of sisterhood, though. Unless it was acid reflux from the herbal tea.

a question.

Did anyone out there actually enjoy high school? (junior high, elementary...)