You ruined analysis of "Brave" for everyone, Adam Markovitz

So I saw "Brave" with the lady-friend Friday night, and I'd been planning to write something about it in the meantime, be it about the meaning of the complaints that it's too "generic" a story for Pixar or the fact that it explores mother-child relationships in a way Pixar and Disney in general haven't really done before or something else of that nature. But then Adam Markovitz over at Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch wrote this post, about how Kelly MacDonald's Princess Merida is secretly a gay gay homosexual lesbian who is gay.  His evidence?

She bristles at the traditional gender roles that she’s expected to play: the demure daughter, the obedient fiancée. Her love of unprincess-like hobbies, including archery and rock-climbing, is sure to strike a chord with gay viewers who felt similarly “not like the other kids” growing up. And she hates the prospect of marriage — at least, to any of the three oafish clansmen that compete for her hand — enough to run away from home and put her own mother’s life at risk. She’s certainly not a swooning, boy-crazy Disney princess like The Little Mermaid’s Ariel or Snow White. In fact, Merida may be the first in that group to be completely romantically disinclined (even cross-dressing Mulan had a soft spot for Li Shang).

Arguing against something like this can be kind of a tightrope-walk, similar to arguing with people who think the president is a Muslim: one the one hand, the suggestion is patently ridiculous; on the other, when you're arguing that something is ridiculous, it's easy to make it seem like you think it's somehow slanderous to suggest someone is gay or Muslim, which can be offensive in and of itself. My main issue with Markovitz's thesis is its reliance on stereotypes, and the fact that he essentially is interpreting anything not traditionally feminine as lesbian subtext.

Obviously, Markovitz is pretty confused about human sexuality if he expects "cross-dressing" to automatically discount heterosexuality (especially since, in Mulan's case, it was entirely for practical purposes rather than a preference); I must admit I'm kind of surprised that he paints with such a broad brush just because, even beyond one's personal experiences, feminine lesbians have been part of the cultural landscape for YEARS. Yes, admittedly, some of them are of the fan-servicey Katy Perry "aw, two chicks, hawt!" variety, like Lucille from "Sin City" or "Sherlock"'s reinterpretation of Irene Adler, but there are plenty of three-dimensional, well-developed ones as well, such as Willow Rosenberg, Joanie Stubbs,  Angela Darmody or Blue Rain.

The second part of his "theory", the fact that Merida doesn't want to marry any of three guys who even Markovitz describes as "oafish", manages to be even more of a reach. Yes, deciding a woman is a lesbian because she doesn't have any interest in one guy has been useful to frat boys throughout history, but it's not exactly "evidence" of anything. Even beyond the fact that the film goes out of its way to establish her suitors as unappealing (hey, I guess Jasmine was a lesbian for the first half of "Aladdin" by Markovitz's logic), it's made explicit that the reason Merida is uninterested in marriage has far more to do with wanting to be free to do the things she enjoys without the expectations of being a wife or a queen. And yet Markovitz sees that and his response is essentially "More like MeriDYKE, lol". Shit, Adam, they have her going "I want my freedom" in pretty much all of the trailers. You didn't even have to see the movie.

Now, just to say something nice, there may well be some merit to Markovitz's idea that Merida not fitting into her society could be analogous to growing up gay. That kind of parallel is one that's been made in fiction for a while, sometimes much more explicitly. But beyond that, Markovitz's reasoning is a prime example of Sherlock Holmes' warning not to "twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts".

Mike Bloomberg is way worse for sex workers than Big Gulp enthusiasts

***Potential triggers. ***

I wrote a column last week for Style Weekly about how enthusiastically eager our society is to pronounce certain women "unworthy" of protection against violence or sexual assault. This could be because they've committed a crime, it could be because they [eek!] enjoy consensual sex (or, as it's more popularly known, WHORESWHORESWHORESWHORESWHORES), it could be because they're sex workers, et cetera.

Well, as is the case a disturbing amount of the time*, the column was followed almost immediately by another incident that made my point. On Friday morning, New York mayor and possible Sontaran Michael Bloomberg signed a bill into law that would fine cab drivers for knowingly giving prostitutes rides. The bill is being heavily sold as an anti-sex trafficking effort, and Bloomberg assured his constituents that it was cool, bros, cabbies wouldn't have to learn to distinguish between prostitutes and "party girls" (a statement that is notable for being insulting to every single noun in it).

Except here's the thing, Michael Bloomberg: much like, even though you're the mayor of New York, you on occasion drive places to do something other than be mayor (quite a lot of occasions, seemingly), sometimes prostitutes get cab rides for reasons other than to have sex for money. Like, for instance, given how disgustingly common sexual and physical violence against them is, a prostitute might- stay with me here- just MIGHT need a cab ride because she's being pursued by someone who intends to do her- or continue to do her- serious harm, or to get to a hospital  after said serious harm has been done to her (speaking as someone who's ridden in an ambulance before, I can assure you a cab is cheaper) and for a cab driver to help her extricate herself from that situation is now against the law.

And even beyond that, how ridiculously fucking vague is "knowingly"? You know that myth that it's entrapment if you ask an undercover cop if he's a cop and he lies and says no? That doesn't apply to prostitutes either. And on top of that, what's to stop a cab driver from deciding that since he doesn't approve of how a woman is dressed, he "knows" she's a prostitute? I mean, it's not as though the taxi industry has demonstrated a willingness to discriminate or anything.

Anyone who's had the misfortune to interact with some "men's rights" loudmouth has probably noticed that they get REALLY defensive when you bring up the concept of rape culture. But I ask you- in all seriousness- what else can you call it when we decide that a woman, because of what she does for a living, has relinquished her right to get to safety, or seek medical attention, as quickly as possible?

Oh, and as you've probably heard, Mayor Bloomberg has also proposed a ban on the sale of sodas over 16 ounces. Guess which one people are more outraged about?

*Seriously. Last year I wrote this a couple days before this happened, and a  month or so ago this was immediately followed by this. I think I might be a jinx.

Adam Carolla is not as edgy as he thinks he is

Adam Carolla is one of those people whose existence I completely forget until he says something asshole-ish. Via The AV Club, Carolla told the New York Post (which is currently being sued by a woman who claimed she had been sexually assaulted because they ran a headline calling her a hooker) that “they make you hire a certain number of chicks, and they’re always the least funny on the writing staff,” presumably after we control for Adam Carolla. He also said that "If my daughter has a mediocre sense of humor, I’m just gonna tell her, 'Be a staff writer for a sitcom. Because they’ll have to hire you, they can’t really fire you, and you don’t have to produce that much. It’ll be awesome.'"

First of all, the poor girl is Adam Carolla's daughter; of course she's gonna have a mediocre sense of humor. Second, Carolla is the union of two particularly noxious types of person: the white male who's never not been in a position of privilege but is desperately, jealously clutching at that privilege, dragon-like, because his hilarious sandwich jokes aren't universally beloved anymore, and the dickhead comedian who thinks being an asshole is an asset because he's being "edgy" and "politically incorrect". I can't speak for women, obviously, but Carolla doesn't make me particularly angry; he just makes me kind of sad. He's a 48-year-old man who already sounds like some cantankerous, septuagenarian Fox News ranter, and I think it's really sad that he's raising a daughter, considering a girl growing up gets enough messages about how she's less-than from pretty much every possible external source without her family getting in on the act. And no matter how much the Post reassures him, he's not some latter-day Bill Hicks, proclaiming uncomfortable truths; he's a little boy writing "poop" on a wall and waiting for an adult to come yell at him.

Misogyny as a Villain Identifier

This post contains both spoilers for Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy and potential triggers relating to rape and sexual assault.

I recently heard a criticism of Stieg Larsson's  Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) that I haven't encountered before: specifically, that literally every villain in the series is a misogynist. This is pretty much true; for some of the characters, it's their primary motivation (such as the serial rapist/killer Martin Vanger from the first book, or Lisbeth Salander's court-appointed guardian, who sexually abuses and eventually rapes her), while for others, it's just icing on the asshole cake (Alexander Zalachenko is a gangster and a murderer, but he's also a wife-beater who traffics young women in appalling conditions; his son is a hitman whose internal monologue actually says "all women are whores" at one point).

When I first heard this complaint, I figured it was some whiny MRA-type thing ("Waahhhhh!! What about all the perfectly nice misogynists who AREN'T serial killers???"), but I can see a more reasonable grounds for complaint, if you think it's an oversimplification of the nature of bad people in general; to paraphrase Sirius Black, "the world isn't divided into good people and woman-haters". That's not to say I think any misogynist is a good person (or, sorry, "nice guy"), it's just that I'm sure there are all manner of really shitty people who don't have any particular problem with women. And in any other book series, that'd be a pretty valid point, but for the fact that the point Larsson is trying to make is how societal institutions punish women and give cover to people who are violent towards them. Lisbeth's guardian does what he does because he knows that his victim is not considered credible; Zalachenko is a highly-valued Soviet defector, and he beats his wife and daughters because his handlers have a vested interest in letting him do whatever he wants. And neither of them (nor Martin, for that matter) face punishment from any legal or governmental institution. Hopefully this doesn't count as a Godwin violation, but complaining that all of Larsson's villains are misogynists is like complaining that all the villains in Schindler's List are Nazis.

Joss Whedon is also fond of making a character a misogynist to identify them as someone we should root against. Take Burgess from the penultimate episode of Firefly, for instance; he's one of the most grotesque misogynists in the Whedon canon, who's obsessed with reclaiming "his" baby from the prostitute he impregnated, and, at one point, publicly raping another (his informant, no less). Again, this attitude is somewhat necessary to the plot; you can't very well have an antagonist who spends most of the episode terrorizing women have an enlightened attitude about them. And I, at least, get a very strong vibe from this particular episode of the show feeling a bit of guilt about its portrayal of sex workers, or at the very least wanting to show the other side; we know by this point that Inara is intelligent, independent and generally unafraid of men, and yet here comes this episode to show us that we shouldn't assume her existence is the norm in this story.

A much sneakier example is in the next episode, which centers around Jubal Early, the bounty hunter who comes aboard in search of River. At first, he seems like a "worthy adversary" type, a guy who's actively working against the interests of our protagonists but who we can still respect/think is cool. And then comes one of the most awful moments in the entire series, wherein Early threatens to rape Kaylee to find out where River is. He doesn't do it gleefully, or give any indication that he particularly wants to, but really, that makes it worse. He's so creepily nonchalant about the idea of sexually assaulting a woman, as an interrogation technique, no less. Moreover, the fact that Early really doesn't seem to be making this up as he goes would indicate that he's got some experience using rape as leverage. Early is not a misogynist because he would enjoy rape; he's a misogynist because it wouldn't affect him at all. (This scene does have an unpleasant whiff of Women in Refrigerators,  not to mention the uncomfortable implication that Kaylee being the most childlike and innocent of the crew means she's the least deserving of rape, but those are issues for another day). After this scene, Early's little side tangents and eccentricities don't make him seem like a Tarantino hitman in space any more; they make him seem like a really sick person who's amused by his own voice. We're far less hit over the head in this example; the misogyny is part of what establishes him as a bad guy, but it also essentially knocks us, the audience, on our asses re: our initial impression of him.

And of course, then there's the kind of misogyny that really doesn't seem to serve any narrative purpose other than to show another problem with the character; to go back to Whedon, in The Avengers, we already know  Loki's a crazy-ass mass murderer (his smile when he first appears is probably the scariest non-Joker moment a villain has yet had in a comic book movie), so it doesn't exactly throw us for a loop when he essentially calls Black Widow a cunt. As typically excellent as Whedon's character writing is for the film, this just seems a little lazy (and makes Loki's cult following among women who think Tom Hiddleston is hot even more inexplicable). The same thing is often done with race in films; sure, it's not exactly unrealistic for an Irish guy who grew up in mid-20th century Boston to be a racist, but do we really need Frank Costello in The Departed to casually refer to "niggers" in the opening montage to establish him as the bad guy when it's followed minutes later by him shooting two people in the back of the head and giggling about how one of them "fell funny"?

Okay, I can sense I'm running pretty long on this, so I'll wrap up, but yeah, I guess my TL;DR conclusion is that yeah, it CAN be lazy to use misogyny to establish someone as the bad guy, but there can still be sound narrative reasons to do it as well. Thanks for bearing with me, this being my first proper, non-introductory post and all

Welcome

Hey, everyone.
I tend to start up a lot of themed blogs, so hopefully this one has staying power. It's definitely not about subjects I get tired of discussing, so hopefully this'll work out. As we get started, a couple things I'd like to make clear:

• I've never really blogged about feminist issues before, so I'm stating up front that I anticipate possible privilege issues on my part; if and when that happens, please call me on it so I know. (One thing that I'm going to try to discuss at some point is the difficulty in social cues that people with Asperger's syndrome experience, and how that can affect their acknowledgment of privilege, especially considering the fact that people with Asperger's are far more likely to be male).

• I'm a johnny-come-lately on a lot of geek culture, particularly Firefly, Doctor Who and Buffy, so I may talk about them in an annoying noobish way, be forewarned. On the other hand, in the case of properties that I'm more up-to-date on (such as Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and Breaking Bad), there may be spoilers, albeit clearly-marked ones.

• I have a few major influences in terms of what I want this blog to be, such as Alyssa Rosenberg, Feminist Frequency and The Mary Sue. If you know of others I should be reading, please let me know.

Thanks for your patience, everyone. Hopefully this works out for the better; I just need to keep things in perspective, to wit: