\

motivation

me: did i tell you my dad gave me scrap paper for my printer that im using to print off my prospective job announcements so I can apply to them

but he gave me all the resumes of the people he rejected from the job he hired for recently

Alana: hahaha, that is the saddest thing ever

I hate this so much.

Jan Brewer's spokesman Paul Senseman's explanation of the image (which neither he nor Brewer created) is extremely condescending towards the working class and towards Rosie the Riveter the extremely powerful feminist icon:

"It shows her with a little bandana on. It shows she's workin'. And she's got her blue collar on and she's working hard . . . and got her sleeve rolled up and doin' some of the dirty work that hasn't been done in quite some time."

Obviously, Paul has never gotten his blue collar on and doesn't know shit about the workin' class.



Anyway, bigotry is alive and well in the United States and exists in people with extreme power and influence on laws and cultural perception. So yeah, that's still happening.

Because my middle name is "tasteful"

Holy Crap

Tracie is totally right about this girl!



I FOUND HER!

I don't know how I could have forgotten this

Maybe it's because it took me almost a year to finally get around to discussing it here, but I totally forgot about the BEST PART of this story:

So immediately after class I called my sister who I had a missed call from.

Amy: OH MY GOD.

Me: No, me first! Seriously, oh MY god.

Amy: Ugh. Fine go.


So I tell her the whole story. It takes the entire twenty minute walk home.

(and keep in mind, I'm really upset. I've been on the verge of tears for at least an hour now.)

I finally make it home and kick off my shoes. I'm barefoot and feeling the tiniest, tiniest bit better. I finish my story.

Amy: That sucks, it's my turn.

Me: Fine, go.

Amy starts talking about whatever the hell it is Amy wanted to talk about and I take about three steps into the kitchen. I feel something. Immediately I know what it is.

It's a dead animal.

I don't even put my entire weight on my bare foot against dead, furry OOZING animal before I LOSE MY SHIT.

I collapse onto the floor in a fit of uncontrollable sobs. I cannot speak. I cannot even breathe. I cannot even pronounce the words DEAD BAT for at least 2 minutes.

Me: (incoherent, possibly dieing)

Amy: What? What's going on?! STOP IT. You had your turn! Listen to me!

Me: (I don't know if I was even breathing at this point. I just had the worst day of my graduate experience and now there is DEAD BAT residue on my BARE FOOT)

I writhe on the floor. The cat is confused.

Me: Whimper. Ok, I'm OK.

I look at the bat and start sobbing again. At this point instead of giving a shit about the fact that I am having a major emotional breakdown, my sister starts screaming the second half of her story to me. I am still crying and haven't taken a full breath in at least five minutes.

Amy tells her her story (whatever the HELL it was about) and I pull it (hardly) together.

She finishes and I grab a paper towel to scoop up the dead bat and toss in the kitchen trash can.

Me: That sucks. Ok, I need to go take a two hour shower now.

Amy: Ok, I'll talk to you later.

Me: Ok, bye.

In relation to the previous post:

John showed this piece I made a while ago to his Digital Imaging class in preparation for their mapping project. He told them, "This is a map of the female body."


























I should have yelled across the lab that, "No, it's a pornographic body. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT... pornographic, not female. Totally different."


I didn't.

I should have.



I should do a lot more yelling.

Feeling nostalgic for my Feminism and Visual Culture days

There is a professor here who likes to proclaim that he is guided in all he does by Katie Grace ****'s breasts.

This professor is male, white, straight, able-bodied and tenured. Katie Grace **** is a graduate student who put on a performance piece where she read from sheets of paper which she would then discard one by one onto the floor. During this process of reading and discarding she seamlessly removed both her shirt and bra and finished the piece bare-chested.

This professor now claims it is Katie Grace ****'s lack of inhibition in her art which inspires him to live his life without feeling the need to fear or censor himself. (See, it's like all his thoughts and ideas are like a woman's breasts, you know, oppressed.)

Unfortunately, this manifests itself as a frequently repeated proclamation that "I am guided in all I do by Katie Grace ****'s breasts."

Seriously.

Though I never saw the performance piece, I can imagine it probably has nothing to do with a white male's liberation of ...something?, thus leading this professor to believe that his own fixation on a younger woman's breasts is all in the name of Art (capital A) and should be both applauded and frequently discussed.

To which my gut reaction is: No. Ugh, no.

And upon further discussion, my reaction remains the same.

Also, to irritate me further, I've never met this artist before, but now Katie Grace *****'s name will forever be linked to her breasts. When I hear her name, I (and you) will think of her breasts. When I meet her I will first be thinking about her breast. And thus Katie Grace **** is reduced to her breasts. Somehow I doubt the point of her piece was to be forever identified this way. Just a hunch.

When I first moved to Iowa I had a hard time adjusting. I was working a job I hated, fighting a cockroach infestation and the long standing relationship that brought me here was already going south. I started volunteering for purely selfish reasons. I needed an escape.

Not long after I was at a party when a vegan asked me, "Why horses? Isn't it cruel to turn these smart, capable animals into beasts of burden? Why not use something dumber? Like cows or machines?"

The horses stride at the walk is similar in length and cadence to that of a human's walk. Riding builds strength and muscle memory necessary for what will become some students' first steps. I remember one student who after over a year in therapy still hadn't walked. After one five week session on Jasper's back, his father set him down, stepped back and we all watched as he took six steps forward.


I told the vegan this.

"Oh." He said. "Well, would you EAT a horse?"









...probably not one of these horses.

I've been frustrated a lot lately.

The end of last year I got in a big fight with one of my classmates (and subsequently the rest of the class) about the depiction of a character with a disability in his film.

My classmate was making a video interpretation of the book Heart of Darkness. He acted all four parts, including a filmmaker, an elusive rock throwing forest dweller, a helpful dimwit, and finally a character he described as kind of off, kind of weird. The character was depicted by lying naked on a cement floor wrapped in a dirty blanket. He drooled while gasping and yelling instead of talking. His hands were uncontrolled and contorted as was most of the rest of his body and he lived deeply secluded in a rundown cabin in the woods. The character was undeniably disabled.

After the screening and many praise for the beauty and clarity of HD, I raised my hand.

"Can you tell me exactly what is wrong with the character in the cabin?"

While I cannot claim to be an expert on disability, having worked with people of all ranges of abilities since high school, I have a pretty good vocabulary when it comes to actual symptoms of real diseases/syndromes/injuries/etc.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I just imagined he's been living in this cabin for so long... maybe he starved at some point and this is what happened to him."

Knowing nothing about the effects of starvation on the human brain and body I asked, "Oh, is that what happens to someone when they almost starve to death?"

"I don't know. I didn't look it up or anything. I mean, that's just an idea. I don't think it really matters what's specifically wrong with him."

At this point, because of years of academic training (I'm in 19th grade!) and an inability to argue in a way that might actually engage people, I pull out my big vocabulary:

"Oh, in that case, I find the portrayal of this specific disabled body problematic in that it seems to be a collection of disability stereotypes Frankensteined together to create an idea of disability which you then use to stand in for 'weirdness' or 'otherness.'"

At which point the class rallies to this character's defense.

They don't think the specific disability matters and the viewer will know the character is being played by an able-bodied actor anyway. One person even said he liked the performance because it was kind of funny to see his classmate act that way. Others said they liked the character as he is because the way he acts weirds them out and makes them feel uncomfortable.

The discussion ends when my professor (who makes over $100,000 a year teaching and is quite established as an influential white male filmmaker) informs me:

"It's not the specificities of the individual character that are important, but the filmmaker's idea of what that character represents that truly matters."

Which, of course, was the exact opposite of the point I was trying to make (read: white, upper middle-class, male, college-educated, able-bodied filmmaker's ideas are NOT more important than actual people with disabilities and just because he has the ability to use disability stereotypes to create the idea of difference and otherness in his Art does not give him the right to perpetuate said stereotypes using such an influential medium.)

Years of academic training have also taught me to recognize arguments I cannot win. Besides I suddenly had to focus all my energy on not crying in front of fifteen men. I let it go.

***

The next week brings a new cut of the same film. I don't expect much change in the character in question and subsequently am not surprised when there is little difference. He had cut out some of the sound, I assume because of the funny comment, but left the visual of the dirty, uncontrollable, helpless body (now gasping in silence) untouched. I wasn't going to open my mouth.

The lights come on and my most trusted Iowa friend, the one who came the MFA program when I did (the only other person in my year) raises his hand. He was present last week for the discussion, but had missed the screening. He knew my argument and how upset I was last week.

"Dude, this film is INCREDIBLE and I don't think it makes fun of retarded people at all."






I haven't taken a class in the film department since.

Reasons I know I can't stay in acadamia

A few weeks ago I assigned a reading to my class. It discussed how there are very few women or minorities in the film industry and how the addition of these points of view could drastically change the types of stories being told in Hollywood. My class hearty agreed. The article then went on to say that even if you are not a woman or minority (based on gender, race, or sexuality and I had my students physically write in 'or disability) it is important not to forget about these people when writing your scripts. Even more importantly, however, when one does include someone who is not white, heterosexual, able-bodied and male, the writer should not rely on stereotypes to build the character.

"Yes!" They agreed.

"OK then, how does this apply to your writing or films?" I asked to my 10 white male and 4 white female students.

A bit of silence...

and then:

"Well, I don't see the world in stereotypes so I don't think this really applies to me."

"I think stereotypes are funny. I mean have you ever read stuff White People Like? I'm not offended."

(Going off of an example in the reading of the white cop/black dynamic, think Lethal Weapon)
"It seems to be working. I mean, those films make a ton of money so people must like them. I don't see the problem."

And finally:

"Well, I don't see how I can write about people who aren't white like me. I'm not trying to be racist or anything, but it seems like black people hang out with black people and white people hang out with white people."

Judging academics

carina: Doesn't it seem a little sick that this person has made a thesis out of people in the witness protection program as 'performers' for the world.

amy: she also thinks there are no witness protection people in rural areas.

Scooter

The smartest horse we have at Miracles is a standardbred named Scooter. Originally trained to be a police crowd control horse, he never made it out of the boot camp stage.

My guess is it's because he's just too fucking weird to be a police horse. He does this thing where he exaggerates his bends making it difficult to steer and, more importantly, is incredibly irritating.

Anyway, what is actually significant about Scooter is he is currently the lowest horse in the heard pecking order. Scooter is a social loser. Think:

Seriously though, Scooter's only friend is a fiberglass life-size horse sculpture named Skywalker that he whinnies to and flirts with every time he sees her. The real horses kick and bite him.

****************

One of the students that rides with us looks like a girl. He is a little bit chubby, has a pretty face with freckles, and long curly auburn hair. The first time I met him he told me "I'm Tommy... I'm not a girl."

Normally my first response would be, well, what the hell is wrong with being a girl? But clearly, this is a serious issue for the kid and I don't think twelve year olds with emotional disabilities really share my brand humor.

Well, today Tommy and I were working with Scooter. Now last week it seems somebody told Tommy about Scooter's problems with the other horses. So while the other four (real) girls were crowding in with brushes and combs, poking and pulling at Scooter's mane and tail, Tommy came up next to me, his own hair pulled into a long cascading ponytail. He leaned in close to Scooter's face.

"Scooter, I want you to know it doesn't matter what those other horses do to you. I don't want you to let it get to you. You're better than that. Most important, though, I want you to know you will always, always have somebody you can talk to."

After the ride he leaned down and patted Scooter's shoulder. "Scooter, I am proud of you. No matter what anybody else says, I'm proud of what you did today... OK?"


All of this just really makes me wonder why don't the parents just cut the kid's damn hair?

Paris X 5 from carina johnson on Vimeo.

Oh my

Barbie Barbie Barbie (shakes head)

This argument was accented with nude drawings.

Also, recently Omer attempted to argue that men are better at drawing because they are trained/raised to look and thus are better at remembering from the point when they are looking at their model/object to when they look at the paper how she really looks. Women on the other hand are trained/raised to identify with the object/model and thus cannot actually see her or draw how she really looks.

I mean, it's kind of likes he's reading.

Kind of.

Everything past this point is now optional

So Harold, the Dutch man in my feminism and visual culture class was supposed to give a presentation on an article titled "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists" by Linda Nochlin (which you can read almost all of here in chapter 26 ). So rather than engaging with Nochlin's argument that:

"The question "why have there been no great women artists?" has lead us to the conclusion, so far, that art is not a free, autonomous activity of a "super-endowed" individual, influenced by previous artists and, more vaguely and superficially, by "social forces," but rather that the whole situation of art making, both in terms of the development of the art maker and in the nature and quality of the art work itself, occur in a social situation, are integral elements of this social structure, and are mediated and determined by specific and definable social institutions, be they art academics, systems of patronage, mythologies of the divine creator, artist as he-man or social outcast."

He simply states that "I am going to have to disagree with Nochlin. Women are capable of making great work and to prove it I have brought in a list of great women artists from the past five centuries."

He then produces a list of about 20 female artists from each century. "See, great artists! Women can do it."

And I'm all "Are you serious, did you even read the article or just the title and figured you got the gist of it? 20 women from each CENTURY and you're using this list to discredit the entire article?"

And then my professor was all, "Let's discuss in small groups! Everybody split up."


So the next class period we're watching the film All About My Mother so we can write about it for our midterm exam. We all sit through it as a class and naturally, attempt a bit of a discussion when it ends.

There's a lot of discussion about the gaze, gender norms, women working together in a mutually beneficial way, heterosexual male stereotypes, etc.

And when it gets to Harold:

"You know what I realize about this film? It really is all about my mother. I see my mother in this film and how she gives and gives and nobody gives back to her until she has nothing and that's what it's all about. My mother."


OH MY GOD Harold, did you even watch the movie? Seriously.

I love this so much

nikki's husband on the film teeth:

here's the preview in case you're not familiar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH8yuld4DUE

Joey

it's a good movie

its very sad actually

but really feminist

1:24pmAlana

how so?

1:24pmJoey

well for starters

the lead is a woman

solely a woman

it's her story

and it presents some really difficult and unsavory situations

she gets raped

twice

of course she's teeth

so she bites back

makes you think about the shitiness of it all

it's not like a crappy lifetime movie either

where every guy is a walking penis out to rape and murder every girl

her dad is a really good guy

And David's response:

one more reason not to have sex with women.
that trailer is fucking scary.