I’m going to watch Ghostbusters tonight and I am crazy excited. Here’s why I can’t wait to see it in the theatre, and why I think you should shell out the money to watch it there too.
1. It will piss off the misogynists spewing their garbage all over the Internet
As you may have heard, the trailer for this year’s
Ghostbusters reboot was the most downvoted video of all time. Even though every woman knows not to read the comments on any video containing a woman, I thought I’d take a look just to see what was rising to the top. I was treated to comments like these,
This, along with the general sentiment that “any reboots staring women couldn’t be good,” was the first strike that got me excited to watch the movie. Mostly, I was just feeling spiteful towards the internet trolls who teamed up with the goal of making this movie suffer. Continue reading →
Posted in feminism, film, gender
Tagged abuse, anger, character, characters, childhood, criticized, designer, dress, funny, Ghostbusters, hate, Kate McKinnon, Kristin Wigg, Leslie Jones, love, Melissa McCarthy, misogyny, pretty, racism, reboot, representation, sexism, spiteful, support
Since the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, I encountered several articles that criticize the way the Western world responded to the tragic loss of life in Paris. While each of these articles bemoans the loss of 132 innocent lives, they also highlight similar atrocities that happened before the Paris attack and were almost completely overlooked.
In a lot of ways this event, and its media response, reminded me of the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001. While the media response to this tragedy has been a little more self-aware, our international reaction has been similar to how it was last time this kind of tragedy affected a Western nation. Rather than discuss the way we responded to these attacks, I wanted to examine why we reacted the way we did.
1) It felt close to home
I remember waking up the morning of 9/11, walking into the living room to see my mom crying. My dad turned to me and told me the world had changed overnight. Hearing about the attacks on Paris gave me the same shiver of fear that I felt that day. I don’t think it’s hard to dissect what motivates that feeling. These particular attacks were frightening because they happened to Western nations, and we in the West are very accustomed to feeling in control. We took control over much of the world during an age of imperialism, colonization, and slavery. Today we continue to control much of the world through unfair aid practices and political manipulation. These kind of attacks are terrifying because they make us feel like we don’t have as much control as we think we do.
Even though last Thursday 45 innocent victims lost their lives to a terrorist attack in Beirut and, 6 months ago a similar attack in Kenya killed 147 innocent people, many of us heard little to nothing about those attacks until their news coverage was compared to what occurred in Paris. In our effort to show solidarity with Paris, the Western world made it apparent that certain tragedies frighten us more than others.
As Elie Fares explained in his blog comparing the media response to the Paris and Beirut attack,
“When my people died, they did not send the world in mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant fleck along the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts of the world.”
Continue reading →
Posted in morality, news, politics
Tagged #ParisAttack, 9/11, aid, anger, answers, atrocities, attack, Beirut, change, colonialism, comfortable, complex, control, death, demonize, disturbed, Elie Fares, evil, Fear, frightening, future, George Bush, hate, human, imperialism, innocent victims, institution, Iraq, ISIS, issues, Kenya, liberal, love, manipulation, media, media response, news, paris, politics, prevent, professor, racism, radio, rationalize, Refugee, response, responsible, safe, selfish, slavery, students, Syria, terrorism, threats, tragedy, Tumblr, Twin Towers, underestimate, university, University of Missouri, unsafe, war on terror, War on Terrorism, west, western nations, world
I’m a pretty slow learner when it comes to social media. I feel like I just mastered Facebook when it started going out of style. Unfortunately for me, social media sites are important tools when it comes to blogging. I’ve been making an effort to expand my horizons, starting with Twitter. So far, my favourite thing about Twitter is the hashtags.
Even before I started posting on Twitter, I would check to see what was trending and to follow conversations about race and gender that unfolded around hashtags like #WhyIStayed, #BringBackOurGirls, #GamerGate, #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, etc. Recently, when I went to tag a comment with “#feminist”, I noticed that the first two tags to show up were “#FeminismIsAwful” and “#FeministsAreUgly”. When I decided to make a comment about it, it wasn’t long before I got a response.
I’d like to consider what Jacob is saying. First, let’s set aside the long history of smearing feminism by calling feminists ugly for a second here.
Continue reading →
Posted in feminism, history, internet
Tagged #feminismisawful, anger, barriers, cartoons, celebrity feminism, conversation, equalism, Equality, equity, feminism, feminist #feministsareugly, gender, hashtags, Men's Rights Activism, misandry, movement, patriarchy., race, stigma, Suffragettes, trendy feminism
Have you seen these revamped tabloids floating around?
These awesome rewrites were prompted by a recent challenge that Vagenda Magazine gave on Twitter:
It’s a Twitter campaign I love for two big reasons. Continue reading →
Posted in Comedy, feminism, internet, media
Tagged #thevagenda, anger, Any Adams, equalism, equality vs. equity, feminism, funny, George Clooney, gossip, humanism, humour, issues, Lena Dunham, magazines, news, rant, sexism, tabloids, Twitter, twitter campaign, Vagenda Magazine
Not so long ago a friend sent me an article called “6 Reasons Female Nudity can be Powerful” by Soraya Chemaly. He wanted to know what I thought of it.
To give you some context I should tell you that this friend and I have debated on issues regarding sexuality and nudity since we were teenagers. Back in high school we would have probably taken polar opposite stances on an issue like this. I was a fairly indignant teenager who wanted her gender to be taken seriously, and since he was a teenage boy and boobs held a certain appeal for him I didn’t think his opinion could ever be unbiased. While we continue to debate on these issues now and then, I think we are both coming to slightly less extreme, and maybe more realistic, perspectives. And when it comes to this article I have to agree with him. Female nudity can be a powerful tool.
According to legend, Lady Godiva rode through town naked in order to convince her husband to lower his taxes on the people of Coventry. This rendition is by Jules Joseph Lefebvre
Continue reading →
Posted in feminism, media, politics, pornography, sex
Tagged advertising, anger, boobs, breasts, debat, Femen, feminism, feminists, Girls, Hijab, Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, Justin Timberlake, media, Muslim, Naked Ladies, Niger Delta, nude, nudity, police, politics, power, Problem with Cute, Problem with Pink, Protest, pubic hair on manniquins, Salon, sex, Soraya Chemblay, Victoria's secret, women
Culture War Reporters 