Category: whimsy

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Superbowl Round-Up, Gender Studies Style

First, clever Twitter responses to the ridiculous amount of sexism in this year’s Superbowl commercials. One of my favorites:
Posted By: denverlen (February 8, 2010 at 5:19 PM)
This was my fav tweet of the night. Saw a couple of others that were similar as well.
mrbilldempsey: Advertising works. Buying some misogyny first thing tomorrow.

(thanks to Erica for that one)

Weird Superbowl Ad indulges in outworn femme stereotype of a gay couple, but as an Advocate reader points out, in an oddly inclusive sort of way.

An hour of Superbowl watching with Gloria Steinem & Shelby Knox (okay, even I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t).

& As if to summarize, my friend Matty Wegehaupt wrote:
If there is any better evidence than the Super Bowl ads that popular American masculinity is in the throes of a pathetic death spiral, I haven’t seen it. The irony is that even while attacking women as withering harpies, the ads portray the men themselves as even more pathetic: illiterate boors who grunt defiantly at an “unfair” world, yearning for the nourishing respite of crap beer, fast cars, and fake boobs.

Geaux men! Honestly, I find the stereotypes of men in mainstream media horribly offensive – at least as offensive as those idiotic, sexist GoDaddy ads, which is one of the reasons I’ve been very surprised by how well Men of a Certain Age is written, and acted.

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Gobama.

If I’m not mistaken, the President just reprimanded the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Supreme Court, and did all of it with a smile on his face & a reminder of our shared love for this country.

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Joel in Alaska; Helen in Wisconsin

Some thoughts on living in Wisconsin:

  • I’m starting to wonder if my years watching Northern Exposure was actually a prep course.
  • I try not to be an asshole NYer who is always trying to find the NYC cognate for everything I experience. Also, I try to keep discussions of said cognates to conversations with other people who have also lived in NYC.
  • I am regularly amazed at how self-deprecating WI people are about living in WI.
  • I am surprised when I am homesick and surprised when I am not.
  • It doesn’t take long before you find yourself looking at a 19 degree temp and thinking, “it’s only 19” instead of “that’s fucking cold.” Because “only 19” means no long johns; you reserve those for the temps that hover just over or just under 0.
  • I regularly feed wild rabbits that live in the lawn next to my house. We buy carrots for them. We probably shouldn’t.
  • I read an essay by Daniel Nester about leaving NYC and wonder exactly why I stayed in NY for so long except for the obvious reason that I couldn’t conceive of living anywhere else.
  • Every once in a while, we realize that all of our new friends are incredibly smart, mostly geeky, & definitely bookish, and we are very happy about that.
  • I’m not sure you’ve ever really been drunk until you’re drunk in a blizzard at a friend’s wedding in an Irish bar in Wisconsin. (Though I’m not sure you’ve ever really been drunk until you’re drunk in a ladies’ room full of drag queens and burlesque stars, either.)
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MLK Jr. Day

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
– Dr. King

It’s always been a favorite of mine.

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Cool Stuff 2009

On a cheerier note: there are a lot of these lists, too, of the major events of 2009, but I thought I’d do my own. It’s an odd mix of public and private, but so is my life.

  • Obama’s inauguration
  • misuse of both “fisting” and “tea bagging” by right-wingers
  • Law & Order‘s “Transitions” episode, because it was one of the best treatments of transgender lives on television
  • I was chosen as a finalist for the AROHO grant
  • getting to teach Gender Variance – and specifically introducing a bunch of students to Truman Capote
  • Angie Zapata’s murderer was found guilty
  • speaking in Milwaukee at the UW Milwaukee campus & at The Tool Shed
  • the TransOhio conference, & specifically, getting to halt my talk for a Kiss-In
  • domestic partner protection for WI
  • turned 40
  • watching the revolution in Iran
  • Sims 3 came out
  • publication of Bear Bergman’s 2nd book The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (I’m a gender geek like that)
  • two weddings of four lovely friends
  • Caster Semenya gets to keep her gold medal
  • passage of gender-inclusive Federal Hate Crimes Act
  • Kalamazoo keeps its rights
  • Amanda Simpson hired by Obama Administration
  • NYS’s new trans rights policy

So, yours? Are there any events you expected me to list that I didn’t?