Category Archives: Everything Else

Throwing (Fifty) Shades

With the movie version of Fifty Shades of Grey out in theaters now, and the conversation around both the film and the books reaching a fever pitch, I want to weigh in on it as a cultural text. And in case you’re wondering—although I have not yet seen the film (my hope is to see a Mystery Science Theater-style screening with a hundred of my closest kinky friends), yes, I have read the books. Or, at least, I took one or two of the books down from a public library shelf while my children played nearby, and I speed-read through it in horror, taking pictures of particularly appalling passages with my phone, because, after years of making assumptions about this piece of self-published fan fiction turned cultural “mommy porn” phenomenon, it turned out to be even worse than I’d imagined.

How is it worse? What are my issues with it? Well, for starters, I feel that the prose is so bad, you guys. SO. BAD. It is trite and clumsy and repetitive and dull. It’s not even worth it for me to bother quoting it here: you can find plenty of excerpted examples online, or you can do what I did, and pull a copy off your local library shelf and flip to any page at random. But trust me: I’ve been teaching and editing creative writing for many years: I know what I’m talking about here. E.L. James writes shoddy, sorry-ass prose. Continue reading

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You Need a Sisterhood : An Interview with Rufi Thorpe

The cover of Rufi Thorpe’s first novel, The Girls From Corona Del Mar, depicts two girls, probably 11 or 12 years old, in swimsuits, sitting like perfect copies of one another. I immediately wanted to read it. Inside, there’s the story of two childhood best friends: Mia, in her mind the bad one, and the narrator of the story; and Lorrie Ann, the beautiful one with what looks from the outside like the perfect family, the perfect life. As we follow the girls, and the city of Corona Del Mar itself, throughout the years past that pivotal point of first friendships and high-school loyalties, the girls’ roles are almost reversed: Mia becomes the settled one with a child, husband and family; Lorrie Ann the runaway, adrift in parties and drugs, a chaser of the latest craze.

Author Rufi Thorpe

Author Rufi Thorpe

I had the chance to talk to Rufi Thorpe about her first novel, and about the importance of those relationships you create at age 12—how they can last throughout adulthood, motherhood, and more. Continue reading

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The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 6: Do We Even Like Chris?

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Illustration by Matt L Rohrer

OMGGGggggg there is so much to say about this week’s episode that I don’t even know where to begin! I guess I’ll start at the beginning, which was really the end of last week’s episode (which is annoying, The Bachelor, end each episode with a fucking rose ceremony, we already have enough confusion and mayhem in our lives). Kelsey is on the floor and having or staging a panic attack. They’re basically playing her sobs in a loop because they think we won’t notice, and the paramedic tries to distract Kelsey by asking her about some brownies (what brownies?!), which works like a charm. Kelsey laughs “I better get a rose tonight,” and asks to see Chris, then returns to the group of other womyn, who are all pissed. Kelsey laughs off her panic attack and says things like, “these puppies don’t come out every night” about her choice to wear a dress that shows off her cleavage. That’s what we all call our breasts right, “these puppies”?

At the rose ceremony, Farmer Chris speaks more words than we’ve ever heard him utter in all five preceding episodes combined, Exhibit A that we May Not Actually Like Him. And then Kelsey’s like, wait, why am I, a 28-year-old guidance counselor, fighting over this dumb-as-box-of-hammers farmer guy who has marbles in his mouth all the time? JUST KIDDING, you guys, that would of course never happen. You know that moment when you’re dating someone and obsessively asking yourself “does ze like me???”, and then your feminist BFF has to remind you to ask whether or not you’re even into said love object in the first place?? As women, we are socialized to please. And sometimes we forget to think about our actual desires in light of other people’s. If this were the real world, these ladieeeeesssss likely would have moved on from Farmer Chris by now. But this is the Bachelor universe, and there are no feminist best friends, and no alternative suitors. There’s just Farmer Chris, with his mouth slightly agape as he hands out roses to Jade, Kaitlyn, Megan, Becca, Hot V Ashley, and Kelsey, and they all gleefully accept. He sends home Samantha (who is this person?) and 21-year-old Mackenzie (Thank God. Although I was enjoying seeing her and No Longer Hot Virgin Ashley’s friendship forming over a bond of incredible immaturity.) Continue reading

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How I Made My Face Totally Unrecognizable Today — Shocking Pics

Those of you who know me know that I usually look like this when I’m walking around in the world, plus an Instagram filter:

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I know, kinda cute right?!

So in case anyone saw me today and was confused or shocked or baffled or felt betrayed by my utterly unrecognizable face, before I get the Uma treatment, I just want a chance to explain. Let me start from the beginning.* Continue reading

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Feminist or Alone: A Valentine’s Day Drinking Game

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From the ages of 11 through 23 I was sick every year on Valentine’s Day. “Allergic to love” was a common theme in the emo anthems that hugged my cassette player on the 7-minute drive from home to school, and it is also a phrase that I believed accurately described me. I was glad to miss out on mandatory classroom Valentine’s Day cards and pink shit. I was glad to miss out on everyone else’s flower deliveries. Last week someone asked me if I had ever been in love, and I just laughed and laughed and they were quiet. “Invented by Hallmark,” “sexist capitalist bullshit,” “just another day whatever,” “I mean how are we defining love anyway.” I celebrated the last few Valentine’s Days on a “self-love” tip, which consisted of overcooking steak and watching Beyoncé videos with a whole bottle of Pinot Noir. Valentine’s Day makes me sick, and not just because I’m a feminist, and not just because I’m alone.

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Bey don’t know about this life.

Drink when you check the “single” box. Drink when that makes you feel a way. Drink when Beyoncé says you and means you. Drink when you’re not the girl in the Kay Jewelers commercial. Continue reading

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Valentine’s Day Is for Everybody

I think Valentine’s Day is a shitty holiday for lovers. I think it’s an even shittier holiday for people who are in between lovers, or don’t want lovers, or aren’t getting along with their lovers. I mean, it’s not that I’ve never had a really romantic Valentine’s Day. One year my husband and I lit some candles and listened to some accordion music and ate some pastries and wondered, “Could this evening get any more romantic?” And then this happened:

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Obviously the answer was “yes.”

But that incredibly romantic evening (there were FOUR weddings, you guys) was the exception that proves the rule. I’m in love, but I know that love is 1) a brutal trick played on us by our selfish genes to get us to reproduce and 2) destined to end in tears (don’t forget the funeral.) If you’re in love and happy, don’t go to a goddamn restaurant and let everyone watch you share a single noodle. Keep your head down and hope the evil spirits haven’t noticed you yet. At the same time I really love Valentine’s Day. I really love holidays in general, and also Valentine’s Day has the #1 best holiday color scheme. Red and pink and white! Overlaid by doilies! Dipped in chocolate! Coated with sugar! Drenched in glue! Brittle with glitter! Trapped on the sidewalk under an inch of ice and a dusting of snow! So sugary. So bloody. So tacky. So superfemme. Continue reading

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The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 5: Shit-Talking & Storytelling

This week’s Bach brought Farmer Chris and his clan of ever-more-uniformly blonde ladiesssssttttthhh to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Chris talks up this wonderful city while wearing a chic leather jacket, and one nondescript blonde thinks she is going to actual Mexico, ’cause, you know, girls are dumb.

Welcome to Mexico

The first date is a one-on-one with Cruise Ship Singer Carly, and the date card reads, “Let’s come together.” I know what you’re thinking—simultaneous orgasms with Farmer Chris = every womyn’s dream date! But Carly puts the accent on “let’s” and pretends all ladylike like she doesn’t know what orgasms are… but not for long. Cue “spiritual music” and Farmer Chris and Carly walking into a room where a woman who identifies as a “love and intimacy mentor,” or “love guru” as Farmer Chris prefers to call her, waits for them on a pile of sensual Southwestern blankets. She burns sage and leads the pair in a chant, and it’s all really vaguely racist and cultural appropriation-nation and gross. She encourages them to like, hold their gross open mouths near one another without kissing, and then they sort of start dry-humping, ewwies all around. And also a totally insane first date, since the “love guru”’s goal is clearly to help couples reconnect. Oh yeah and love guru tells Farmer Chris and Carly to take each other’s clothes off (because clothing is different masks we hide behind you guys) but they’re too nervous and can’t do it (thanks a lot, Eve!). At dinner, Carly tells Chris that her last boyfriend didn’t want to touch her and it made her feel like she isn’t beautiful while I ran downstairs to get my sushi delivery. When I got back, Carly was still crying. (I hear her, because I had the same ex-boyfriend, basically.) Chris says he’s scared his farmer lifestyle isn’t good enough to make someone happy, and Carly assures him he’s wrong. Carly is confident and nice and normal when she’s around Farmer Chris. Which makes me almost like her, except that I have to remember her talking shit about/gender-policing Jillian last week. And then I’m like, oh right I live in the real world and Carly is horrible. Continue reading

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The Gender Politics of Kristy and Mr. Mom: What We Currently Know

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OBJECTIVE: To obtain enough knowledge about the gender politics of the 1995 novel Kristy and Mr. Mom to eliminate major critical lacunae in the fields of a) feminist theory; b) queer theory; c) sociology; d) Baby-Sitters Club studies; e) Michael Keaton studies; f) Mr. Mom studies. This study is particularly timely because of the current prominence of the Oscar-nominated film Birdman, which stars Michael Keaton as a disgruntled actor who can’t live down his success in the 1983 film Mr. Mom.

PROCEDURE: I will review the facts now available to scholars of Mr. Mom studies, and articulate a series of questions and conceptual problems provoked by those facts. I will then attempt to retrieve my copy of Kristy and Mr. Mom, which I may have left in a coffee shop, and use it to answer these questions. If further funding is available, I will procure and screen a copy of the 1983 Michael Keaton film Mr. Mom.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE (WHAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW):

1. Kristy and Mr. Mom was book #81 in Ann M. Martin’s popular Baby-Sitters Club series, published in 1995 by Scholastic Books. Although Martin is listed as the author, the book was ghostwritten by Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner. Continue reading

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1999

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Feminist Bookstore Super Bowl Tweets from Portlandia

Great news for feminists headed to Super Bowl bashes tonight: Now you will have something besides booze and puppy chow to keep you company. In Other Words, the real-life feminist bookstore in Portland, Oregon, will be taking over the Portlandia Twitter account and live-tweeting the game (and, I hope, the commercials). Here’s one from last year to give you an idea:

What, exactly, is getting made fun of here?! It might be football; it might be me. All I know is I like being in on the joke.

I’ll be posting some of my favorites below, and you can play along with hashtag #FeministBookstoreSaysWhat. In the meantime, check out this deep-cut Feminist Bookstore video from 2009, back when Portlandia was in its incubation stage as Thunder Ant:

 

*UPDATE* Check out these feminist lolz:

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