Things We Saw Today: J.J. Abrams Makes Captain Kirk Cry

A lady Cumberbatch?! Amazing!

She IS amazing, and her piece is eloquently done. (She’s also my coworker. *brags*) :)

I just read the piece. I’m so sorry to hear about the harassment she got. I particularly loved her Cap costume (and I’m jealous I don’t have the figure to pull off the Venus costume).

But let her know at least one person on the internet thinks she’s great for coming forward with her story.

Cumberpatch’s Sailor Venus cosplay is among the best I’ve seen. Ever. I can only count two others I thought were so well done. But seriously, she says someone else made it for her…WHO ARE THEY?? I want to follow all their costumes.

Snaps for her and her Cap costume. <3

Seriously, I saw that one ages ago (I guess during all the brouhaha), and without context my first thought was still, “Wow, she’s got Venus down.” It’s a gorgeously crafted costume and she looks perfect in it.

Y’know…I don’t really swear. Much. Like, not even casually. Which, yeah, kinda makes me sound stupid (funny, that), especially when playing Cards Against Humanity.

But that’s because I’m neurotic, Catholic, and one year Lent went really really oddly.

But…there is nothing that pushes my buttons quite as much as the phrase: “want ladies to act like ladies.” No. “Ladies” act like people, and most of the ones I know have filthy mouths and dirty minds and they are fantastic folks. Who really has this “return to 1950′s” mindset? For pity’s sake, Stepford.

“Via The Frisky, a New Jersey Catholic high school asked its students to take a pledge that they wouldn’t swear. But only half its students. The girl half. Because they “want ladies to act like ladies” and set a good example for the boys. Oh, for fu—”

Pfft, they also ‘expect’ ONLY girls to be virgins, too. I hate religions so much sometimes. Yeah, tell the ‘sex’ that experiences the most consequences because of the OTHER ‘sex,’ “HOW TO BEHAVE!”

The world won’t get any better until men are told to take responsibility and ‘take’ responsibility. And I’d bet my “holy spirit,” on that, too.
…

“Tim Hanley writes about the connection between the original Wonder Woman and Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime show. Are they empowering for women? Yes. But aimed at a male audience? Also yes. And that’s OK.”

Hmmmm, some good points are made, but I still wonder if the Wonder Women’s conception and the Beyonce halftime show are really empowering for women in the long run, if not much further Feminist actions are made? Like for instance, just because video games are including more women, doesn’t mean that women represented make being female something to be proud of for women. Especially, I never could understand how something could be aimed at a male audience AND with not the slightest thought in the back of their mind that girls and women could be possible audience members, too, that makes it “OK.” To me, it’s one thing for boys/men to consider something a girl/women does/looks like is sexual, but for the girl/women’s actions to be girl/women’s reasoning for boy/men’s desire kills any possible Feminist opportunity. “Oh, I’m shaking my breasts and butt around for the men, but because I’m a girl, surrounded by girls, it’s totally “girl power!”"

Just think, do the men do ‘that?’ Where’s my male, skimpily dressed cheerleader, shaking all his “assets” for the female audience?

Hmmph, I just see too much sexism in these things to ever be happy with any female inclusion, but more female inclusion IS a start (but more still NEEDS to be done), nonetheless.

“Obviously, this is kind of a screwed up theory, and contradictory. It’s feminism and fetishism all rolled into one, and it’s all sorts of bizarre. However, at the core there was a feminist message. It was just packaged in a manner that was overtly sexual and aimed at boys, and that in many ways objectified the character.”

I like how this quote sums up the first thoughts of mine in regards to women who participate in the Super Bowl. Naturally, I love to play sports more than watch the professionals play them. Soccer being my all-time favorite. But even so, culture doesn’t do much to help inspire an interest in the professional sports industry, if you’re a female who needs female role models.

I always had a bad taste in my mouth for the sports industry. How not only how there’s a lack of female sports and recognition in comparison to the male sports and recognition, but that women in the males’ sports can only find roles that limit them to eyecandy for the male audience.

The Super Bowl being a HUGE example of males’ entertainment being seen as “everyone’s entertainment” when that’s not true for females’ entertainment, yet conflictingly packs so much tightly packed objectification of women in it, I don’t know how that can be ‘obvious’ “everyone’s entertainment (People sure seem to conveniently blur that out, too…)?” I’ve only been interested to research the commercials AFTER the Super Bowl and just watch the most ‘tolerable’ to completely non-sexist (which, seem to be rare, from my experience) commercials. My family’s on and off about viewing the Super Bowl, too, so I hardly ever think about the Super Bowl until society is in a state where it can’t shut up about it.

The way the author mentions how the original Wonder Woman creator implies how males basically see women’s purpose significantly as a sex-object that it needs to be highlighted all/most of the time, is something I hear in sexist contexts, too. What makes characters like the way he created Wonder Woman bad is that women’s sexuality is still a bargaining chip to women’s better social status and like Beyonce’s song, “Run The World (Girls),” which implies that too, what if women, or a significant amount, weren’t willing to bargain their sexuality for their better social status? That answer is never said, ‘clearly,’ and I’m ‘afraid’ of the answer…

Some comments on the author statements:

“The sexy outfit, the shaking of her assets, the rolling around on stage, and the regular suggestive glances at the camera were, much like Wonder Woman’s bondage, intentionally sexual and aimed squarely at men.”

Well, it doesn’t help that Wonder Woman has no ‘will’ of her own, being a drawing and all, but Beyonce ‘does.’

“I think we should just let the contradiction stand. The world is complicated, things are bizarre.”

Oh, I don’t deny the contradiction. But the world is “sexist,” not complicated in a neutral sense, towards women most/all the time and things are unbalance and unfair for females.

“Wonder Woman and Beyoncé encapsulate both sides, for numerous and complicated reasons.”

Numerous as far as “most writers/bosses are male.” “Complicated,” see above.

That reminds me of a scene in the comic version of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. The teacher is spouting a lot of the extremist teachings that the Iranian government began to preach, including about how girls should look, so Marjane’s father turns around to her and says “If hair is as stimulating as you say, then you need to shave your moustache”

Very good book for reading if you want to see a criticism of sexist practices in religion. In my opinion, anyway.

I flinch every time I hear someone call that half-time show “empowering,” or say it was about “girl power,” which is happening a lot. Since when did we call a bunch of scantily-clad women dancing suggestively “girl power”? Did I miss the memo?

For the Catholic girls, if they are choosing to act ladylike, it is their right. They have just as much right to be ladylike as much as other girls have the right to be tomboys.

However, it is wrong that the boys are either expected not to behave or expected to rely on women; good behavior, here not swearing, should be expected of everyone.

thing is, maybe it’s just me and my circle, none of the guys I watched the halftime show were really interested in it, I mean a bare butt is not an unusual thing, and the songs she did were not all that demanding
. Checked my FB page and a lot of female friends were agog at it.