when love simon came out white gays got hella loud-which is fine because it was a coming of age movie about a closeted gay kid. but it’s been real quiet since the announcement of rafiki, which is not only a film about two kenyan girls but the first kenyan film to go to sundance
on top of that despite the best efforts of the director to appeal to the kenya’s film and classification board the film was banned in kenya on the grounds that it “attempts to legitimize lesbianism”. since that put the film in the spotlight it seems like this should have shown up on some radars and spawned a few “support rafiki” posts yet they’ve been very few and far between
Please support this movie!!!
I had literally never heard of it until right now :O
let me tell you guys something that ACTUALLY happened in my screenwriting class last week
one of the female writers in our class is writing a feature about this gang of teenage girls who sort of become vigilantes and murder men who harass women (that’s a shitty logline of it but it’s actually fucking awesome and highly stylized and over-exaggerated like tarantino in a good way bc i fucking hate tarantino). ANYWAY their first kill is this guy named taylor. taylor is one of the girl’s boyfriends. it is heavily implied and the writer confirmed that he abuses and rapes her. not explicitly seen, but she has bruises, there are scenes implying it etc.
so. she wrote the part where they kill taylor. and one of my professor’s comments was about how he felt like he didn’t hate taylor enough.
to which me and my female friend were like um what?? we hate him. he fucking raped and abused her. wE HATE HIM. HE IS A HORRIBLE PERSON.
and my prof was like well yeah i hate him but i don’t HATE hate him. and we argued about it. so he took a poll of who hated taylor. ALL of the girls in the class raised their hands. none of the boys did. when he asked who didn’t hate taylor all of the men raised their hands. and me and my friend started laughing because of COURSE they did.
and my prof was like why are you laughing and the writer was like “i think they’re laughing at the gender difference in that answer” and my prof was like “well, from my male perspective, i don’t think i’m being sexist”
WHAT.
first of all did you hear that sentence at ALL do you understand how paradoxical it is?????
second of all, no. just no.
and then my prof went on to say “i feel like we need to see taylor be horrible. like bad solution, he kicks a dog”
evidently a man can abuse and rape a girl and not be hated, but if he kicks a dog then he’s PURE EVIL
is it time for frank cho and milo manara to die or what
That’s basically a naked woman I’m YELLING
What a pervert. What the FUCK does he not know how clothes work? What the hypothetical fuck is she wearing then if we can see all that?
It’s like how bath towels in comics miraculously wrap completely around breasts. Or how even when injured and dead on the ground women in comics have to be twisted into “sexy” poses. Or how women in comics walk like they’re in high heels even barefoot.
It’s the only way men know how to draw women, because to them female characters are only there to be sexy. They only think of “women” as exploitative costumes and camera angles, high heels and titillation. Sex objects to ogle, plot objects to further male heroes’ narratives and drama, not heroes to cheer for.
I’m sorry, I was labouring under the impression that this was the crowd that thought women should wear what they want..?
And that applies to fictional women who are depicted by men how? You can’t apply agency in the plot to something metatextual when it comes to fictional characters.
Come on, let’s not pretend this is a male exclusive thing.
We’re going to have this argument are we? Not to mention you’re deviating from the original point that attributing agency to fictional characters’ clothing is asinine.
What you have here are images of power, and do you really believe these characters are designed with titillating heterosexual women and bisexual and homosexual men in mind? Because I don’t think you do.
This is why the Hawkeye Initiative exists. Take common female poses in comics, put a man in the role, and see how “empowering” and “strong” it actually looks:
Also:
He got the painting for fighting against ‘censorship.’ Note that they handed him a gross design of a female being objectified, because at the end of the day, that is all they really want, to be allowed to objectify women. They don’t care about censorship in general it is about their ability to sexualise and degrade women without consequence.
You can see her butthole for chrissakes
I think the best imagery I’ve seen to explain the difference between what men think male objectification is vs what women actually want to see is the Hugh Jackman magazine covers.
Hugh Jackman on a men’s magazine. He’s shirtless and buff and angry. He’s imposing and aggressive. This is a male power fantasy, it’s what men want to be and aspire to – intense masculinity.
Hugh Jackman on a women’s magazine. He looks like a dad. He looks like he’s going to bake me a quiche and sit and watch Game of Thrones with me. He looks like he gives really good hugs.
Men think women want big hulking naked men in loin cloths which is why they always quote He-Man as male objectification – without realizing that He Man is naked and buff in a loin cloth because MEN WANT HIM TO BE. More women would be happy to see him in a pink apron cutting vegetables and singing off-key to 70s rock.
Men want objects. Women want PEOPLE.
This is the first time I have EVER seen this false equivalence articulated so well. Thank you.
I love kids they’re all like.. “when i grow up i’m gonna be an astronaut and a chef and a doctor and an olympic swimmer” like that self confidence! That drive! That optimism! Where does it go
It gets destroyed by adults not believing in you and telling you to pick a realistic career. And by society creating all these obstacles to the point that you’re too tired to try.
But they’re not really unrealistic, SOMEBODY is going to be an olympic swimmer and it might as well be you.
Actually I want to talk about this a little more than I did, because olympic swimming is incredible and works perfectly to talk about attaining goals.
I used to be a varsity swimmer, and I was damn good, but I was forced into it by my parents and completely lost my love for it and therein my drive. But in high school I was swimming against such talented swimmers like Olympic Swimmer Missy Franklin. I’ve met her, and the main difference between her and me was that I was strong but had no passion, but she was strong BECAUSE she had passion.
And I could have been good, really good, maybe even Olympic good. I even have the predisposition for it, been swimming since I was 2 years old, have a mom who was almost an olympic swimmer. Missy didn’t have either of those things, she just wanted it, loved it, had been doing it for a long time, and decided she was going to kick ass at it.
Right, that’s great and all, but I completely missed my opportunity to be an olympic swimmer, yeah? and can never achieve those dreams I had as a kid? No, not even though. There was this whole thought that female athletes peak when they’re 17 years old and lose their skills quickly after that, and male athletes peak around 19. But then Olympic Swimmer Dara Torres shows up. She was an olympic swimmer when she was 17, 21 and 25. Pretty normal age for retirement. She had a few kids. She kicked butt at being a mom.
And then at 33 years old she decides she’s bored or something gets back in shape and kicks so much ass at the trials that she lands herself on the Olympic Team ONCE AGAIN. And then 8 years later, she decides, heck I’m 41 now, no one has ever made the olympic swim team as old as I am, I want to get in shape yet again and teach these children how sports work.
And she still has the record for oldest US Olympic Swimmer, not even any men have beat out that record.
So basically what I’m saying is you could be an olympic swimmer, you really could be. And there are obviously a lot of things stopping you and trying to get in your way: your brain, society, too much chocolate cake for example. But if you really dedicate yourself to it and love it with all of your heart you could, you really could.
And lets say olympic swimming isn’t your jam? That’s cool too. There isn’t a single skill in this world that you can’t learn if you absolutely love it and want to. Any skill you want is going to take time. There are countless famous people who started learning a skill after 20, 30, 40, or even 50. Not a single person has even been president under age 35 (most likely because you’re not allowed to be, but there’s a reason for that). Whatever you want to do you’re probably going to be bad at first, and I’m talking really shitty.
Van Gogh got started in his 20′s and was thought to have no artistic talent at first and was forced to sit in the back of classrooms where the worst artists in the class sat. So yeah you’ll probably be bad, like really bad and everyone including you will think you’re bad. If you stick with it though, if you’re willing to work for years and years, if you keep loving it after all the pain it’s given you,
then you might just paint Starry Night.
#looks like there’s still time for me to learn how to draw
… YES. As someone who started drawing at 35 and who always was like: ‘eh, I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life, but I would love to be able to’ this is near and dear to my heart. If you want to draw, start drawing. Keep drawing. Be shit at drawing at first. Keep it up, doodle things on scraps but also draw stuff you don’t think you can draw. Challenge yourself, you will be surprised what you can do. It will be frustrating at times, but it will also be awesome. It is SO much a matter of practice and dedication, not talent.
This applies for writing, too.
Don’t ever think for a second that it doesn’t! Want to start writing? Then write! You will get better the more you write, the more often, and you will improve, all of the time, as long as you dedicate yourself.
The worst lie we tell ourselves is “it’s too late.”
Oh. My. God. I just found out about this movie called “In Between” which follows the lives of three strong, independent Palestinian women. And get this: one of the main characters is an ARAB LESBIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ll repeat it in case you didn’t hear me scream: THERE IS A MOVIE ABOUT AN ARAB LESBIAN!!!!!!!!
And not only is this the first Arab movie I know of that focuses (and I’m gonna say it again) on ARAB LESBIANS!!!! the actress herself is gay in real life and is an awesome woman who has been know for her art and work before. Her name is Sana Jammalieh and in case you don’t know her, I strongly suggest you check her out.
C.A. Jacobs
C.A. Jacobs 