WARNING - THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MY OWN SEX LIFE. IT'S NOT GRAPHIC OR DETAILED, AND IT'S CONFINED TO THE "OBJECTION THE FIRST" SECTION, BUT IF YOU HAVE THE KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WITH ME THAT PRECLUDES WANTING TO HEAR ANYTHING ABOUT MY SEX LIFE, DO NOT READ THIS POST. ESPECIALLY DO NOT READ THIS POST AND THEN COMPLAIN TO ME THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MY SEX LIFE, OR THAT YOU OBJECT TO ME WRITING ABOUT IT AT ALL, GIVEN THAT YOU PERSONALLY MAY BE VIEWING IT.
I know this scare has been brewing for quite some time. "Oh, my god, teenage girls don't think oral sex is sex!" "Oh, my god, they're HAVING oral sex!" "Oh, my god, they're having oral sex with random and mutliple people at parties, publicly, like they're WHORES, and also the girls are not receiving it in turn!" I remember this. I remember this scare going on while I was in high school, because that's when the Clinton scandal was taking up 109% of everyone's attention. Apparently, many adults decided that if Clinton said oral sex wasn't sex, then teenagers would pick up that belief, too, even though a) they were being awfully optimistic about how seriously teenagers take - or even know about - the opinions of their authority figures, and b) I don't know about any of you, but I learned in 1994 that oral sex was sloppy thirds and sex sex was home base, and so the two were clearly not the same thing. That was well before the Clinton scandal broke. But this scare has come to my attention again recently. Bitch magazine published on their (s)hitlist a link to Caitlin Flanagan's article in Atlantic Monthly about the phenomenon. So I thought I'd take it up again, with all of my objections to this faux trend and the hype about it.
Objection the first: Thinking oral sex is not the same as vaginal sex and does not constitute the loss of virginity is not the same as casually performing oral sex on multiple boys in one party.
I'm pretty sure I had this conversation with my mother when the Clinton scandal broke. She was shocked to learn that I didn't think it was the same as sex, and that I thought it was a less big deal than sex. I was probably 15 at the time of this conversation, which means that, though my words echoed the words of some of the girls quoted in this article - and the opinions of most of my peers - I wouldn't actually have any oral sex for another three years. In the privacy of a dorm room, not at a party. With my boyfriend. Who is now my husband. Obviously, I don't think of myself as a typical example. But I have girlfriends. I don't know any one of them that considers oral sex to be equal to or dirtier than vaginal sex. I also know that not one of them has performed oral sex on multiple partners in a casual and public setting. I don't believe that any of them has made a habit of performing oral sex on people with whom they are not in a relationship. Not to say it hasn't happened once or twice, but that's probably the extent of it. Even the girls I knew in high school who were significantly more experienced and racier than me didn't engage in that type of behavior. The raciest thing I heard in middle school was a Spin-the-Bottle game that involved breast-touching. I have a younger sister who is now a senior in high school who was upset when a few of her friends decided that a camp bus ride was boring and that French-kissing all the boys on the bus was the best way to pass the time. They were thirteen, I think. These girls (or at least one of them) are the "slutty" ones, the ones with the worst reputations at school, and that's where it started.
Objection the second: If they're still called "sluts," not much has changed.
I found it remarkable that Flanagan didn't notice it when she said, "Wide-eyed young girls spilled the beans on their slutty classmates, and intimated that they themselves weren't so different." Right. It's still considered slutty to behave like this. It was considered slutty to behave like this ten years ago, and it was slutty twenty years ago, and it was slutty forty years ago. It's not becoming a norm of teenage behavior. Obviously, I'm not arguing that sexual norms haven't changed since the 1950s. I'm just arguing that they haven't turned into, "It's now considered normal and acceptable in high school to give blow jobs to as many guys as you can at a single party." I'm also arguing that they've kind of changed for everyone, roughly equally. Can't figure out why a thirteen-year-old thinks pleasing her boyfriend sexually is more important than getting herself off? Ask the twenty-five-year-old reading Cosmo. Don't know why a fifteen-year-old thinks casual sex with acquaintances is a good idea? Tune in to Sex in the City. Why do we expect teenagers to have different values than the culture they're being raised in?
Objection the third: Are those values really such a problem?
Obviously, to the extent that girls are not learning that their own desire is important, it's a problem. And I do believe that that is happening, although not to the extent and not with the end results that so horrify Flanagan and others. But to the extent that oral sex is a little more casual than vaginal sex, and sex in general is a little more casual than it has been before, is this really such a big deal? Did the parents of these teenagers wait until they were married to have any sex at all? Do the parents of these teenagers not perform oral sex on their partners? I don't understand all of the hand-wringing.
And I'm not being deliberately facetious. I wring my hands, too, over the idea that girls don't demand sexual pleasue for themselves, and that they allow themselves to be used in a degrading manner - as part of one of these "trains," for instance - in order to be more popular, and that many teenagers don't understand that you can transmit diseases that way even if you can't get pregnant. I just don't think it's happening as much as these articles imply, and I also don't think that all of the evidence used in these articles is evidence of it happening. Half of all seventeen-year-old girls have had oral sex? Okay, fine. But that statistic doesn't speak to how many times, who they had it with, or who got sexual pleasure from it (since you've "had oral sex" whether you were the receiver or the giver), and I refuse to get my stomach in a knot over the idea of a seventeen-year-old engaging in sexual activity with her boyfriend that has no chance of getting her pregnant (as long as they are acting to prevent transmission of diseases).
And I know that people will say, "Oh, but you're not a parent." Okay, but a) I am a big sister. I feel very protective towards both my younger sisters, one of whom is in this age group. And I can honestly say that as long as she's safe, loved, and getting as much as she's giving, I'm happy for her, and b) if parental reaction to this is more about, "Oh, my baby is growing up," and less about, "These practices are emotionally and physically dangerous," as is implied by the "But you're not a parent yet" attitude, then I have even less respect for them than I did before. Parents, teenagers have sexual urges, because they have gone through or are going through puberty, which means "the time in life when you get sexual urges." The lucky ones are even acting on them. You did or would have, too.
Objection the fourth: If you are an adult interviewing a teenager on their attitudes about sex, you should know they are probably making every effort to come across as blase and experienced to you, because they are teenagers, and they do that. Their answers have no bearing on their actual behavior. If you don't know that, you're perhaps in the wrong profession.
This relates to that "and intimated that they themselves weren't that different" sction of the quote. They tell an adult a story about a friend of theirs whose behavior is slutty, and the adult acts predictably horrified. What are the kids going to do, align themselves with the values of these adults, right in front of them and everything, or quickly align themselves with that which the adults want to reject? Clearly, they're a little shocked and put off by these stories as well, or they wouldn't be telling them. You can't take their "intimating" that seriously.
Objection the fifth: You probably know your own kid better than you think you do.
After another recent teenage-behavior scare, the one about "friends with benefits" (which is, again, something that plenty of older people are doing or pretending to do), my father asked me if I thought my fourteen-year-old brother was at risk for this type of behavior. Now, I love my brother very much, and I think one day he will grow into quite the lady-killer. But right now? He's kind of a dork. I don't know that he's been able to say "Hi" to a girl he has a crush on. I told my dad that he was more at risk for NOT having any of this type of behavior for a long, long time, and that if my dad really wanted to help, he'd figure out how to get him into one of these situations, not out of them.
I've encountered this attitude in other venues. Remember this spring, when some schools banned prom because kids just use it as an excuse to rent hotels and get drunk and have sex? Lots of hand-wringing them. But listen, parents. If your kid goes out to parties all the time before prom, and doesn't come home, and always claims to be sleeping at a friends', whose parents you don't know, then they are also going to do that at prom. If your kid engages in none of these activities before prom, because a) you are too strict for them to get away with that, b) they are not really inclined to that sort of thing (which plenty of teenagers are not, I swear!), and/or c) they are too dorky to be included in that sort of thing, they are not going to do them at prom. You probably already know which of these categories your kid falls into.
I also had a sort of weird discussion with my mother-in-law. I went on a teen tour to Israel when I was 16, for five weeks, and expressed that I expected that I would send our kids on one, too. (Actually, since my grandparents sent me on mine, I sort of expect that my dad will send my kids on theirs, but that's neither here nor there.) My mother-in-law said that she thought this was a bad idea because kids get up to all kinds of trouble on trips like that, away from home, with limited supervision. I said, first of all, that supervision is not that limited, and second of all, that I went on a trip. Not entirely getting my point, she said, "Yeah, and you said some kids were drinking and partying." I pointed out that a) they got caught and their parents were called, and b) I still didn't do anything. I was sitting that night with a bunch of people who knew that it was going on and chose not to go to it. I reiterate, if your kid does that kind of thing when not on a teen tour in a foreign country, your kid will do that kind of the thing when on a teen tour in a foreign country. Admittedly, in Israel, your level of supervision is no longer a safeguard, but you still have the other two - inclination and dorkiness. And you usually know whether your kid has either of those. Really, the biggest worry is if you know your kid wants to drink, you know your kid is cool enough to be invited to hang out with those who want to drink, and so only your vigilance has kept them from doing so. And I think, given their genetic material, there's little chance our kids won't be too dorky to be invited to the big, drunk orgies.*
I have no other objections I want to get into right now**, but I do want to say one other thing. I really do understand why parents don't want their kids having their boy/girlfriends in their actual bedrooms, because there are beds in there, and things can go in beds, so I'm not objecting to the rules themselves. But I do think parents have to understand the phrase "my room" from a teenage perspective. To a parent, who owns the whole house, a bedroom is the place where one sleeps, (hopefully) has sex, and engages in private activities of various types. To a teenager, their room is basically their apartment. The rest of the house is not "theirs" in the same way, and so their bedroom is usually their location for sleeping, eating, dressing, studying, socializing, lounging, etc. So some of the time, when they bring a boy/girlfriend up there, it's not with the understanding that sexual activity will be engaged in, it's with the understanding that this is where they live and so where else would they go? Again, I'm not saying that means you should let your teenagers have their boy/girlfriends in their rooms. I'm just remind you that your understandings of "bedroom" are different so you can be guided accordingly.
*I should stress that these kids don't exist yet, much less do they show signs of wanting to rock and roll all night.
**I do object to how obsessively this is all focused on girls, because obviously, boys are not a factor in blow jobs at all, but there's just too much there.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Adventures in Subbing - Learning and Not Liking the Slang
I suppose I intended to do some serious logging of all of my substitute-teaching adventures, and it's too bad that I stopped when I did, because I've been having some fun in the interim, but today I just want to talk about one aspect of my job - the learning of new slang - and one new word in particular - shysty.
As those of you who can figure out the origins of this term might imagine, "shysty" is an adjective for a person who is untrustworthy, especially with money, a person you can count on to cheat you, steal from you, or lie to you. Obvious to me is that it comes from "shyster." Apparently the kids don't know this, nor do they know that "shyster" is a derogatory term for Jews.
I can't even be too hard on them for not knowing. Some of them have never met a Jew, and anyway, one of my husband's teachers at the dental school used the word "shyster" as if it had no ethnic implication at all. And generally speaking, when I hear it and I say to a kid, "Hey, don't say that, it's a racial slur on Jews," they say they didn't know that and apologize. But so far I've only brought it up to kids I know, kids whose schools I go to all the time. And I don't know if they still use it when I'm not around, much the way they're cautious about saying "white" in front of me. (Well, some of them are. Some of them have no problem not only saying "white," but saying "white motherfucker," in front of me, and not understanding why I think that's a problem.)
But I don't even know if I can state categorically if they're wrong to use it. If for them it is completely divorced from any association with Jews (and they are not using it to apply to Jews or even to imply that the people they are applying it to occupy any other ethnic or racial category than their own), is it wrong for them to use it? I don't know. Nor do I know what to do about it in situations where the kids just met me five minutes ago, and will likely never see me again, and, though they may not mean to be racist or anti-Semetic, don't particularly care if I'm interpretting them as either.
And I thought this was just teenage slang. I'd never heard any of the adults use it. (I didn't hear them tell the kids not to use it, but I figure they have a hard enough time getting them to not say "fuck" all the time.) But last night, on Project Runway, Zulema said it. I don't think she knew either. And maybe the producers didn't. I mean, if a contestant said the n-word,* I'm sure they wouldn't have used that footage.
To end on a lighter note, I wil share some slang I do like:
Track star - promiscuous person. As in, one who runs around a lot.
Chaluppin' - somewhere between walking around, looking for girls, and cheating on your current girl. But in a fairly relaxed way.
Thirsty - desperate, particularly for sex.
Woo woo - yadda yadda yadda
*I can't type it. I feel ridiculous writing "the n-word," and I am trying and trying to convince myself that it's just a word, and I'm only referring to it as a word, not using it to describe a person, and I would never use it in an actually racist way, but I still can't do it. I can't say it either, even when I'm discussing it as a word with the kids, and even when the kids tell me it's okay for me to say it in that context. But it took me until I was 12 years old to say my first curse word, too.
As those of you who can figure out the origins of this term might imagine, "shysty" is an adjective for a person who is untrustworthy, especially with money, a person you can count on to cheat you, steal from you, or lie to you. Obvious to me is that it comes from "shyster." Apparently the kids don't know this, nor do they know that "shyster" is a derogatory term for Jews.
I can't even be too hard on them for not knowing. Some of them have never met a Jew, and anyway, one of my husband's teachers at the dental school used the word "shyster" as if it had no ethnic implication at all. And generally speaking, when I hear it and I say to a kid, "Hey, don't say that, it's a racial slur on Jews," they say they didn't know that and apologize. But so far I've only brought it up to kids I know, kids whose schools I go to all the time. And I don't know if they still use it when I'm not around, much the way they're cautious about saying "white" in front of me. (Well, some of them are. Some of them have no problem not only saying "white," but saying "white motherfucker," in front of me, and not understanding why I think that's a problem.)
But I don't even know if I can state categorically if they're wrong to use it. If for them it is completely divorced from any association with Jews (and they are not using it to apply to Jews or even to imply that the people they are applying it to occupy any other ethnic or racial category than their own), is it wrong for them to use it? I don't know. Nor do I know what to do about it in situations where the kids just met me five minutes ago, and will likely never see me again, and, though they may not mean to be racist or anti-Semetic, don't particularly care if I'm interpretting them as either.
And I thought this was just teenage slang. I'd never heard any of the adults use it. (I didn't hear them tell the kids not to use it, but I figure they have a hard enough time getting them to not say "fuck" all the time.) But last night, on Project Runway, Zulema said it. I don't think she knew either. And maybe the producers didn't. I mean, if a contestant said the n-word,* I'm sure they wouldn't have used that footage.
To end on a lighter note, I wil share some slang I do like:
Track star - promiscuous person. As in, one who runs around a lot.
Chaluppin' - somewhere between walking around, looking for girls, and cheating on your current girl. But in a fairly relaxed way.
Thirsty - desperate, particularly for sex.
Woo woo - yadda yadda yadda
*I can't type it. I feel ridiculous writing "the n-word," and I am trying and trying to convince myself that it's just a word, and I'm only referring to it as a word, not using it to describe a person, and I would never use it in an actually racist way, but I still can't do it. I can't say it either, even when I'm discussing it as a word with the kids, and even when the kids tell me it's okay for me to say it in that context. But it took me until I was 12 years old to say my first curse word, too.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Ew, Kissing
I saw the new Pride and Prejudice this weekend, and, despite my initial misgivings, I was pleased.
Now, this is not a faithful adaptation in many senses of the term. For one thing, it's significantly shorter than the ultra-faithful 1995 BBC version, which (justifiably) launched Colin Firth to stardom,* and came in at around five hours long. This is trimmer, at only a little over two hours, and as a result, they cut out a lot of scenes, combine some others, and cut or combine some extraneous characters. You get a little less time to, for instance, watch Wickham be charming, so when he's revealed as a tool,** you're not really surprised, or invested enough to be surprised. One of Bingley's sisters is cut, so the remaining one has to take on the bitchery that was usually shared between the two of them over a longer period of time into a few short scenes. (Fortunately, the actress handles that pressure with aplomb.) Everything just moves a lot quicker (until the very end, when time suddenly stands still, but that will be discussed later). Most of the time this is fine, although sometimes it's clear they forgot little details. For instance, the visit Elizabeth pays at Bingley's estate while her sister is there and ill is cut short, so that the scene in which her mother and sisters come to see how everything is going in the novel turns into the scene in which her mother and sisters come to pick the two of them up. But this isn't obvious until they drive away, so one is left confused by the fact that Jane doesn't join them downstairs when they come in, and the fact that Caroline Bingley seems so surprised at the extra Bennets' appearance. But these are minor, and most importantly, when plot points hinge on minor characters, those plot points are delivered deftly and quickly.
Unfortunately, a lot is also dumbed down. Jane Austen always displayed incredibly subltey in her wit; nothing sounded insulting until you thought about for a few minutes. Some of that gets tossed away. For instance, instead of Elizabeth Bennet's customary nonchalance at Darcy's overheard declaration that she is not "handsome enough to tempt" him into dancing, she is visibly insulted and later throws those comments back at him, albeit humorously, and then walks off in slo-mo as triumphant music emphasizes her put-down of him. The movie also feels the need to explain things - like Charlotte Lucas marrying Mr. Collins - that the novel and other adaptations allowed the audience to understand for themselves. It's occasionally irritating, but not truly detrimental.
There were two elements of this movie's turn away from the source material and subsequent adaptations that I appreciated very much. The first is that it eschews the tradition of presenting Pride and Prejudice as a light, silly comedy of manners with no real emotional component. I suspect that the director or the script writer was a nerd in high school, because no one could capture the emotional pain of socially awkward characters like Mr. Collins, Mary Bennet (the boring, pedantic sister, who hates going to balls and prefers reading books of sermons), and even Mr. Darcy himself. He is so rarely portrayed as genuinely feeling uncomfortable and out of place at a country assembly, rather than just too good for his surroundings, and this depiction nails both.
The other, somewhat faithless, thing I appreciated was the way class was depicted in this film. In the novel, the way it's explained is the way it needs to be explained to an early 19th-century novel reader, i.e., not at all. Although I've always liked the BBC miniseries, I agree with Stephanie Zacharek's criticism that it concentrates very hard on being pretty at all times. It's possible that the way Longbourne (the Bennet home) is decorated absolutely correctly in a periodic sense, and that the Bennet family is dressed absolutely correctly, but to modern eyes, it's difficult to tell the difference in material wealth between the Bennets and Mr. Bingley based on home and dress, because they all look pretty and old-fashioned to us. And though Pemberley (Darcy's estate) is obviously bigger than Longbourne, it's not obviously nicer. Very little about the dress of the Bennet girls in comparison to the Bingley sisters or Georgianna Darcy makes their economic differences obvious. This movie may (or may not - I certainly don't know what an early-19th-century middle-class chair looks like) not be as historically accurate in its details, but it certainly does a better job of driving home exactly what is at stake financially for the girls.
Also driving home that point is a much-improved (to my mind) Mrs. Bennet. I wrote a paper last year on depictions of her (including the one in the original) and found that she's always shrill and ridiculous, despite the facts that 1) she has a very legitimate concern about the future of her girls, of which Jane Austen is obviously not unaware, and 2) she's right about nearly everything. The novel opens on her fervent desire to see her eldest, prettiest daughter married to the new owner of Netherfield, and lo and behold, it happens. True, she doesn't get to see any of her daughters married to the man who will inherit the estate, but Elizabeth, the daughter she was pushing in that direction, marries the wealthiest man any of them have ever met instead, so it all works out. Mrs. Bennet's real fault in the novel seemed to be that she was just too obvious about these things, too honest, in a society that was supposed to hide these motivations. (That's why the moments in this movie in which other characters were too honest about their motivations - like Charlotte Lucas when she explains to Elizabeth why she's marrying Mr. Collins - bugged me. If that's Mrs. Bennet's fault, all the other people in the story can't share it.) Most depictions of Mrs. Bennet, though, make her purely ridiculous, and none of her statements or emotions are meant to be taken seriously. This film managed to balance the inappropriateness of her character and overabundance of her emotions with the very real nature of the Bennets' problem. Furthermore, we were more able to see how easily any of the Bennet women, the haloed Elizabeth and Jane included, might fall into similar behaviors. One of the cutesy visual jokes of the movie (which, despite being cutesy, I liked) was the constant eavesdropping at the door at innappropriate moments - and the constant being caught at it.*** Elizabeth and Jane participated in this habit with as much enthusiasm as their mother and sisters.
Donald Sutherland's portrayal of Mr. Bennet really drives this home. He's tragic, really. Sad and weary at all turns, a gentleman farmer who is afraid he hasn't been very good at either, and a father who knows he's done a piss-poor job of providing for his daughters, but still can't stand the idea of their marrying for money. Usually, he's Mrs. Bennet's straight man, the one winking at the audience (and Elizabeth and Jane) to let us know that he knows how ridiculous she is. But this version allows him to be every bit as aware of his negligence as he ought to be.
While I don't mind that the costumes and the set design may have been fudged a little to make us understand who has money and what having money means, I do mind a couple of anachronisms that seemed out of place. Most egregious was Mr. Bingley walking into the bedroom Jane is staying in while she's sick at Netherfield (Bingley's house). I know most modern audiences who have no historical perspective whatsoever wouldn't understand, if Bingley's so in love with Jane, and she's in his house for days, why they don't see each other that whole time. But for a man to just wander into the bedroom of an unmarried female guest while she's in her nightgown? It's the equivalent, today, in embarrassment and inappropriateness, for the guy you like to wander into your bathroom while you're putting in a tampon. Also, at one ball, Caroline Bingley appears to be wearing a sleeveless dress. I know that the richer and more urban you were, the more daring your dress tended to be, but I think that's pushing it.
I also minded a lot one other area of faithlessness. I always loved Jane Austen's ability to deliver romance stories that leave out the mushy stuff. Once you know a pair were together, that was pretty much it. The end. Sometimes, she's even teasing to her reader. When Edward comes to propose to Elinor at the end of Sense and Sensibility, the readers have to leave the room with her sister and mothers; we don't even get the pay-off of a proposal scene. And, quite famously, we never see kissing. It's part and parcel of the whole idea that, though Jane Austen appears to be writing about lurve, she's really writing about money and manners and hypocrisy. Though this movie does a very good job with the first, and an okay job with the other two, it insist on having the mushy love stuff, too. As fast-paced as the movie has been to that point, once Elizabeth has more or less vocalized her desire to be Mrs. Darcy (to his aunt, played brilliantly and imperiously by Dame Judi Dench), the movie slows to a stop. Elizabeth runs outside**** and sees Mr. Darcy approaching her through the fog. Very, very, slowly.
A digression: I was reminded of an incident when I was an undergrad at Brandeis. I was assistant stage managing a play, someone's senior thesis for their theater major, and there was a scene which began with an old man working at a book shop. The director (who was crazy in an almost stereotypically director-y way) and the actor playing the old man decided that the most hilarious thing ever would be if the transition music into that scene was "Paperback Writer" by the Beatles, and if the actor would walk to the center of the stage where his desk was v . . . e . . . r . . . y, v . . . e . . . r . . . y, s . . . l . . . o . . . w . . . l . . . y. Seriously. Maybe one footstep per ever half-bar. We all thought they were nuts. We were begging them not to do this. The play was already kind of confusing and out there, and we thought this would just put the audience over the edge and we would lose them. We were wrong. The audience burst out laughing, and didn't stop laughing for the entire walk.
Okay, end of digression. Because this slow walk was not at all the same. It was not funny or romantic; it was boring. And then, when they finally meet, they get all melty, and Elizabeth actually KISSES his HAND, and looks all moonily at him with the Lauren-Bacall-patented chin-down, eyes-up look, like they might actually do it right there in the fog. Then they extended the talk between Elizabeth and her father so we could be really, really convinced they were in lurve. Then, THEN, we were subjected to a scene which appears nowhere in the novel, in which Mr. and the now Mrs. Darcy canoodle on his balcony and talk about how happy the are and they actually KISS. Which made me very mad.
But I enjoyed. I must commend Kiera Knightley, for doing a better Elizabeth Bennet than I thought she would, and to commend Matthew MacFayden for his very endearing, and very un-Firth-like Darcy. I always loved Colin Firth in that role, of course. He was the sine qua non of arrogant, stand-offish sexiness. MacFayden gives Darcy vulnerability (and seems somehow younger). My friend used to talk about the way Colin Firth looks at Elizabeth Bennet as eye sex. Having seen this version, I would say that Colin Firth was having eye sex, as in, he was looking at the person with whom he was having sex with in his mind at that moment. MacFayden's Darcy looked at her like he was looking at the person with whom he morosely thought he'd never be able to have sex with. It was hot, in an entirely different way.
Overall, I was a very pleased movie-goer. And it's very rare for me lately, to approve of a piece of narrative art. Kind of restored some of my faith in storytellers. (In case you're interested, Veronica Mars is the other thing that's restored my faith in storytellers.) You know, except for the kissing part. Ew.
*In fact, the only scenes that were not in the novel but were in the mini-series were 1) Colin Firth taking a bath, 2) Colin Firth fencing with an open-collar shirt on, and 3) Colin Firth swimming in a pond in his extremely thin white shirt and tight pants and then coming out of the pond and promptly running into the love of his life while dripping wet.
**I follow a spoiler policy similar to Television Without Pity's. This novel is nearly 200 years old. If you don't know the plot structure, that's the fault of your high school English teachers, not mine.
*** Actually, one of my favorite scenes, which broke my heart, really, was the scene in which Elizabeth has finally and conclusively turned down Mr. Collins, and at the moment he is realizing his rejection, the door swings open, having accidentally been pushed by one of the eavesdropping sisters, some of whom are giggling. That proposal is usually played for laughs, but this film goes for pathos, really. For the first time in my very long history with Pride and Prejudice, I kind of wanted to hug Mr. Collins.
**** This movie takes the characters outside a lot more than the BBC version did, and I loved that. Sometimes it fell on the treacly side. I know it rains a lot in England, but does it really rain so conveniently every time Darcy and Elizabeth step outside to have a "moment"? But Austen herself is constantly pushing her heroines to go on walks, and Elizabeth is supposed to be a pretty outdoorsy girl, for her time and class, so getting her outside all the time was nice, I thought. Plus all of her walks around sweeping examples of English countryside contrast so nicely with that moment that Caroline Bingley asks her to take a "refreshing" "turn about the [stuffy, tiny, drawing] room." Although I'm sure part of their motivation was that they'd already spent lavishly on the little bits of Netherfield and Pemberley that we do see; they couldn't afford more indoor scenes.
Now, this is not a faithful adaptation in many senses of the term. For one thing, it's significantly shorter than the ultra-faithful 1995 BBC version, which (justifiably) launched Colin Firth to stardom,* and came in at around five hours long. This is trimmer, at only a little over two hours, and as a result, they cut out a lot of scenes, combine some others, and cut or combine some extraneous characters. You get a little less time to, for instance, watch Wickham be charming, so when he's revealed as a tool,** you're not really surprised, or invested enough to be surprised. One of Bingley's sisters is cut, so the remaining one has to take on the bitchery that was usually shared between the two of them over a longer period of time into a few short scenes. (Fortunately, the actress handles that pressure with aplomb.) Everything just moves a lot quicker (until the very end, when time suddenly stands still, but that will be discussed later). Most of the time this is fine, although sometimes it's clear they forgot little details. For instance, the visit Elizabeth pays at Bingley's estate while her sister is there and ill is cut short, so that the scene in which her mother and sisters come to see how everything is going in the novel turns into the scene in which her mother and sisters come to pick the two of them up. But this isn't obvious until they drive away, so one is left confused by the fact that Jane doesn't join them downstairs when they come in, and the fact that Caroline Bingley seems so surprised at the extra Bennets' appearance. But these are minor, and most importantly, when plot points hinge on minor characters, those plot points are delivered deftly and quickly.
Unfortunately, a lot is also dumbed down. Jane Austen always displayed incredibly subltey in her wit; nothing sounded insulting until you thought about for a few minutes. Some of that gets tossed away. For instance, instead of Elizabeth Bennet's customary nonchalance at Darcy's overheard declaration that she is not "handsome enough to tempt" him into dancing, she is visibly insulted and later throws those comments back at him, albeit humorously, and then walks off in slo-mo as triumphant music emphasizes her put-down of him. The movie also feels the need to explain things - like Charlotte Lucas marrying Mr. Collins - that the novel and other adaptations allowed the audience to understand for themselves. It's occasionally irritating, but not truly detrimental.
There were two elements of this movie's turn away from the source material and subsequent adaptations that I appreciated very much. The first is that it eschews the tradition of presenting Pride and Prejudice as a light, silly comedy of manners with no real emotional component. I suspect that the director or the script writer was a nerd in high school, because no one could capture the emotional pain of socially awkward characters like Mr. Collins, Mary Bennet (the boring, pedantic sister, who hates going to balls and prefers reading books of sermons), and even Mr. Darcy himself. He is so rarely portrayed as genuinely feeling uncomfortable and out of place at a country assembly, rather than just too good for his surroundings, and this depiction nails both.
The other, somewhat faithless, thing I appreciated was the way class was depicted in this film. In the novel, the way it's explained is the way it needs to be explained to an early 19th-century novel reader, i.e., not at all. Although I've always liked the BBC miniseries, I agree with Stephanie Zacharek's criticism that it concentrates very hard on being pretty at all times. It's possible that the way Longbourne (the Bennet home) is decorated absolutely correctly in a periodic sense, and that the Bennet family is dressed absolutely correctly, but to modern eyes, it's difficult to tell the difference in material wealth between the Bennets and Mr. Bingley based on home and dress, because they all look pretty and old-fashioned to us. And though Pemberley (Darcy's estate) is obviously bigger than Longbourne, it's not obviously nicer. Very little about the dress of the Bennet girls in comparison to the Bingley sisters or Georgianna Darcy makes their economic differences obvious. This movie may (or may not - I certainly don't know what an early-19th-century middle-class chair looks like) not be as historically accurate in its details, but it certainly does a better job of driving home exactly what is at stake financially for the girls.
Also driving home that point is a much-improved (to my mind) Mrs. Bennet. I wrote a paper last year on depictions of her (including the one in the original) and found that she's always shrill and ridiculous, despite the facts that 1) she has a very legitimate concern about the future of her girls, of which Jane Austen is obviously not unaware, and 2) she's right about nearly everything. The novel opens on her fervent desire to see her eldest, prettiest daughter married to the new owner of Netherfield, and lo and behold, it happens. True, she doesn't get to see any of her daughters married to the man who will inherit the estate, but Elizabeth, the daughter she was pushing in that direction, marries the wealthiest man any of them have ever met instead, so it all works out. Mrs. Bennet's real fault in the novel seemed to be that she was just too obvious about these things, too honest, in a society that was supposed to hide these motivations. (That's why the moments in this movie in which other characters were too honest about their motivations - like Charlotte Lucas when she explains to Elizabeth why she's marrying Mr. Collins - bugged me. If that's Mrs. Bennet's fault, all the other people in the story can't share it.) Most depictions of Mrs. Bennet, though, make her purely ridiculous, and none of her statements or emotions are meant to be taken seriously. This film managed to balance the inappropriateness of her character and overabundance of her emotions with the very real nature of the Bennets' problem. Furthermore, we were more able to see how easily any of the Bennet women, the haloed Elizabeth and Jane included, might fall into similar behaviors. One of the cutesy visual jokes of the movie (which, despite being cutesy, I liked) was the constant eavesdropping at the door at innappropriate moments - and the constant being caught at it.*** Elizabeth and Jane participated in this habit with as much enthusiasm as their mother and sisters.
Donald Sutherland's portrayal of Mr. Bennet really drives this home. He's tragic, really. Sad and weary at all turns, a gentleman farmer who is afraid he hasn't been very good at either, and a father who knows he's done a piss-poor job of providing for his daughters, but still can't stand the idea of their marrying for money. Usually, he's Mrs. Bennet's straight man, the one winking at the audience (and Elizabeth and Jane) to let us know that he knows how ridiculous she is. But this version allows him to be every bit as aware of his negligence as he ought to be.
While I don't mind that the costumes and the set design may have been fudged a little to make us understand who has money and what having money means, I do mind a couple of anachronisms that seemed out of place. Most egregious was Mr. Bingley walking into the bedroom Jane is staying in while she's sick at Netherfield (Bingley's house). I know most modern audiences who have no historical perspective whatsoever wouldn't understand, if Bingley's so in love with Jane, and she's in his house for days, why they don't see each other that whole time. But for a man to just wander into the bedroom of an unmarried female guest while she's in her nightgown? It's the equivalent, today, in embarrassment and inappropriateness, for the guy you like to wander into your bathroom while you're putting in a tampon. Also, at one ball, Caroline Bingley appears to be wearing a sleeveless dress. I know that the richer and more urban you were, the more daring your dress tended to be, but I think that's pushing it.
I also minded a lot one other area of faithlessness. I always loved Jane Austen's ability to deliver romance stories that leave out the mushy stuff. Once you know a pair were together, that was pretty much it. The end. Sometimes, she's even teasing to her reader. When Edward comes to propose to Elinor at the end of Sense and Sensibility, the readers have to leave the room with her sister and mothers; we don't even get the pay-off of a proposal scene. And, quite famously, we never see kissing. It's part and parcel of the whole idea that, though Jane Austen appears to be writing about lurve, she's really writing about money and manners and hypocrisy. Though this movie does a very good job with the first, and an okay job with the other two, it insist on having the mushy love stuff, too. As fast-paced as the movie has been to that point, once Elizabeth has more or less vocalized her desire to be Mrs. Darcy (to his aunt, played brilliantly and imperiously by Dame Judi Dench), the movie slows to a stop. Elizabeth runs outside**** and sees Mr. Darcy approaching her through the fog. Very, very, slowly.
A digression: I was reminded of an incident when I was an undergrad at Brandeis. I was assistant stage managing a play, someone's senior thesis for their theater major, and there was a scene which began with an old man working at a book shop. The director (who was crazy in an almost stereotypically director-y way) and the actor playing the old man decided that the most hilarious thing ever would be if the transition music into that scene was "Paperback Writer" by the Beatles, and if the actor would walk to the center of the stage where his desk was v . . . e . . . r . . . y, v . . . e . . . r . . . y, s . . . l . . . o . . . w . . . l . . . y. Seriously. Maybe one footstep per ever half-bar. We all thought they were nuts. We were begging them not to do this. The play was already kind of confusing and out there, and we thought this would just put the audience over the edge and we would lose them. We were wrong. The audience burst out laughing, and didn't stop laughing for the entire walk.
Okay, end of digression. Because this slow walk was not at all the same. It was not funny or romantic; it was boring. And then, when they finally meet, they get all melty, and Elizabeth actually KISSES his HAND, and looks all moonily at him with the Lauren-Bacall-patented chin-down, eyes-up look, like they might actually do it right there in the fog. Then they extended the talk between Elizabeth and her father so we could be really, really convinced they were in lurve. Then, THEN, we were subjected to a scene which appears nowhere in the novel, in which Mr. and the now Mrs. Darcy canoodle on his balcony and talk about how happy the are and they actually KISS. Which made me very mad.
But I enjoyed. I must commend Kiera Knightley, for doing a better Elizabeth Bennet than I thought she would, and to commend Matthew MacFayden for his very endearing, and very un-Firth-like Darcy. I always loved Colin Firth in that role, of course. He was the sine qua non of arrogant, stand-offish sexiness. MacFayden gives Darcy vulnerability (and seems somehow younger). My friend used to talk about the way Colin Firth looks at Elizabeth Bennet as eye sex. Having seen this version, I would say that Colin Firth was having eye sex, as in, he was looking at the person with whom he was having sex with in his mind at that moment. MacFayden's Darcy looked at her like he was looking at the person with whom he morosely thought he'd never be able to have sex with. It was hot, in an entirely different way.
Overall, I was a very pleased movie-goer. And it's very rare for me lately, to approve of a piece of narrative art. Kind of restored some of my faith in storytellers. (In case you're interested, Veronica Mars is the other thing that's restored my faith in storytellers.) You know, except for the kissing part. Ew.
*In fact, the only scenes that were not in the novel but were in the mini-series were 1) Colin Firth taking a bath, 2) Colin Firth fencing with an open-collar shirt on, and 3) Colin Firth swimming in a pond in his extremely thin white shirt and tight pants and then coming out of the pond and promptly running into the love of his life while dripping wet.
**I follow a spoiler policy similar to Television Without Pity's. This novel is nearly 200 years old. If you don't know the plot structure, that's the fault of your high school English teachers, not mine.
*** Actually, one of my favorite scenes, which broke my heart, really, was the scene in which Elizabeth has finally and conclusively turned down Mr. Collins, and at the moment he is realizing his rejection, the door swings open, having accidentally been pushed by one of the eavesdropping sisters, some of whom are giggling. That proposal is usually played for laughs, but this film goes for pathos, really. For the first time in my very long history with Pride and Prejudice, I kind of wanted to hug Mr. Collins.
**** This movie takes the characters outside a lot more than the BBC version did, and I loved that. Sometimes it fell on the treacly side. I know it rains a lot in England, but does it really rain so conveniently every time Darcy and Elizabeth step outside to have a "moment"? But Austen herself is constantly pushing her heroines to go on walks, and Elizabeth is supposed to be a pretty outdoorsy girl, for her time and class, so getting her outside all the time was nice, I thought. Plus all of her walks around sweeping examples of English countryside contrast so nicely with that moment that Caroline Bingley asks her to take a "refreshing" "turn about the [stuffy, tiny, drawing] room." Although I'm sure part of their motivation was that they'd already spent lavishly on the little bits of Netherfield and Pemberley that we do see; they couldn't afford more indoor scenes.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Frivolity
Lately, I have been obsessed with fashion. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a fashion designer, and now, with Project Runway in its second season, and blogs like Go Fug Yourself and Manolo, and access to sites like this and this, I can indulge this obsession as much as I please. (Keep in mind that this indulgence is not happening anywhere near my actual body. My wardrobe is almost entirely Gap and Old Navy, because I have neither the money nor the figure for the clothes I really want, nor the patience required to overcome the first two problems.) Also, something happened (I can't remember what) in early November of 2004 that made me prefer staring at pretty things rather than thinking about the state of the country or the world.
In this veing, my current obsession is the Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2006 collection. See, for example, the photo at right and above.
Is it not exquisite? Is it not (to borrow a phrase from Michael Kors on an episode of Project Runway*) "deliciously girly," while, at the same time, glamourous, sexy, and sophisticated, as well?
Of course, one could argue that it is not exactly wearable. But actually, I sort of disagree. I mean, if one happens to not be a six-foot tall runway model, one might want to forgo the exposed lines of underwear and stocking top, and instead wear a demure slip. Still, one would need to be confident of one's shoulders and arms, but that's true of any strapless dress, and certainly, strapless dresses are worn by many. If one is less than confident, one could wear a shrug.
Or, what about this one?
Totally wearable! For non-sticks and sticks alike! And it's actually really hard to find beautiful clothing that could be worn by non-sticks, but isn't positively screaming, "No, seriously, fat girls can wear me! Fat girls! Over here!" And being modelled by a "plus" size-eight model.
They've also put out some lovely suits that would look good on anyone:
Who wouldn't look good in those? Though the Everywoman - or really, any tastefully dressed woman operating in real life as opposed to on the runway - should probably choose a nice shell rather than a black lace bra to wear under the suits. Just a thought.
Not that wearability is a necessary standard for gorgeous and fun and sexy and girly, as these designs are. Check out these:
If you want to see the whole collection, click here or here. (If you click on the second one, and read the runway review, I just want to say, I'm confused, too. First of all, it's not red, it's hot pink, right? And second, bosomy?)
Enjoy! Perhaps something more serious will come up next time.
* Though he was not, actually, using the phrase in the positive, but rather to describe what a certain losing outfit was not. For more on that, see here.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, DAMN IT!
I probably shouldn't even honor this faux-controversy by writing about it on my blog, but since I think my readership is up to, you know, zero, I hardly think I am adding to the problem. Plus, it's bugging me.
As a Jewish person who also celebrates Christmas with my pseudo-Catholic mom, I have always thought "happy holidays" makes the most sense, since you don't know which of the many holidays the person you're speaking to might be celebrating, and no matter what, they are celebrating New Year's Eve/Day, so chances are, the plural is relevant. Plus, even atheists have a day or two off of work, which is called a "holiday," so it's grammatically correct, accurate, and inclusive. But it has never bothered me when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me since even if it's not accurate, it's still nice, and maybe that should be the most important thing, right?
But not anymore. Because of the creation of this faux-controversy, now it is reasonable to assume that a person saying "Merry Christmas" is in fact a disciple of Bill O'Reilly, a person who buys in to the belief that there's a "War on Christmas," despite all evidence to the contrary. This person is not just being nice when s/he says "Merry Christmas." This person is now saying, "I am a beleagured Christian who is suffering the slings and arrows of oppression in this country! Where there is so much hate for Christianity that there's even a war on Christmas! So I will fight against those secular liberal PC-police* (by which I mean Jews) by saying to you, 'Merry Christmas!' So hah!"
And conversely, "Happy Holidays" is no longer a nice, inclusive thing to say. It now means, "No! I am the truly beleagured one! You are a moron! So hah!" So basically, this faux-controversy has taken two perfectly nice phrases, which were used in good spirit and cheer, with the intent of making someone else a little bit cheerier, and made them combative phrases. Great.
I even heard one woman say that her minister told her to say "Merry Christmas" because it's a merry Christmas to her. Funny, I thought speech was intended to communicate with others, not to serve as a constant, out-loud diary.
*Wouldn't it make a great Project Runway challenge to have them design uniforms for the PC police?
As a Jewish person who also celebrates Christmas with my pseudo-Catholic mom, I have always thought "happy holidays" makes the most sense, since you don't know which of the many holidays the person you're speaking to might be celebrating, and no matter what, they are celebrating New Year's Eve/Day, so chances are, the plural is relevant. Plus, even atheists have a day or two off of work, which is called a "holiday," so it's grammatically correct, accurate, and inclusive. But it has never bothered me when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me since even if it's not accurate, it's still nice, and maybe that should be the most important thing, right?
But not anymore. Because of the creation of this faux-controversy, now it is reasonable to assume that a person saying "Merry Christmas" is in fact a disciple of Bill O'Reilly, a person who buys in to the belief that there's a "War on Christmas," despite all evidence to the contrary. This person is not just being nice when s/he says "Merry Christmas." This person is now saying, "I am a beleagured Christian who is suffering the slings and arrows of oppression in this country! Where there is so much hate for Christianity that there's even a war on Christmas! So I will fight against those secular liberal PC-police* (by which I mean Jews) by saying to you, 'Merry Christmas!' So hah!"
And conversely, "Happy Holidays" is no longer a nice, inclusive thing to say. It now means, "No! I am the truly beleagured one! You are a moron! So hah!" So basically, this faux-controversy has taken two perfectly nice phrases, which were used in good spirit and cheer, with the intent of making someone else a little bit cheerier, and made them combative phrases. Great.
I even heard one woman say that her minister told her to say "Merry Christmas" because it's a merry Christmas to her. Funny, I thought speech was intended to communicate with others, not to serve as a constant, out-loud diary.
*Wouldn't it make a great Project Runway challenge to have them design uniforms for the PC police?
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Together Forever
So I was fooling around on the Barbie Collectibles website (What? Shut up.) and they have a collection titled "Together Forever," which is Barbie and Ken as various - okay, two - famous couples. Guess which couples go under the heading "Together Forever"?
Romeo and Juliet.
AND
King Arthur and Queen Guenevere!
Hahaha!
Now, I guess I could see the first one. I mean, they are "together forever" if one considers, in a romantic, moony light, that they died together and their souls are bound and blah blah blah. Or, in an unromantic light (my personal choice), their corpses are probably sticking around. Still, "together forever" probably shouldn't imply "only because they killed themselves before they could get a taste of 'forever', or even, say, a week together."
But King Arthur and Queen Guenevere? Have the folks at Mattel never read a book or seen a movie at all?
Romeo and Juliet.
AND
King Arthur and Queen Guenevere!
Hahaha!
Now, I guess I could see the first one. I mean, they are "together forever" if one considers, in a romantic, moony light, that they died together and their souls are bound and blah blah blah. Or, in an unromantic light (my personal choice), their corpses are probably sticking around. Still, "together forever" probably shouldn't imply "only because they killed themselves before they could get a taste of 'forever', or even, say, a week together."
But King Arthur and Queen Guenevere? Have the folks at Mattel never read a book or seen a movie at all?
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Oh! Access to Care! Is That What We Do Here?
I'm sure I don't have to expound at length on my views about pharmacists not dispensing pills because of their religious beliefs here. I mean, obviously, I think that if a pill is legal to be prescribed, and has been prescribed by a liscensed doctor, it should be dispensed by a liscensed pharmacist. I have also been discussing the legal ramifications of freedom of religion with my parents (who are both lawyers - corporate lawyers, but still willing to discuss First Amendment law with me as the whim strikes me) and have come to the conclusion that if your field requires you to do something your religion forbids, you shouldn't be in that field. I understand that individual employers should make reasonable accomodations for religious practices, but presumably, those accomodations don't apply to the entirety of a field of practice. For instance, religious Jews can't work on Friday nights and Saturdays, and I'm assuming there are religious Jews who've sought employment at bars, movie theaters, etc. And individual bars, etc., may have to come to an agreement with those employees, perhaps by giving them all the Sunday or Thursday night shifts, and using them on Christmas and Easter, etc. But I also assume that the recreation field - movie theaters, bars, nightclubs, etc. - don't have formalized procedures for dealing with religious Jewish employees. And you don't even have to go through formalized procedures to become a movie theater employee. Pharmacists go to school for four years AFTER getting a college degree. I'm sure that at some point in school, they're like, by the way, some people have sex before they get married but don't want to have babies, and there are pills you may be required to dispense to that end.
But anyway. I found this article interesting. I think right now, the situation is that there is a religious right contingent within the pharmacalogical community which is intent on not giving birth control to women. (I don't know which contingent is suddenly against mental health medications, or painkillers, but whatever.) And I think the rest of the community is kind of going along with the fight, because it might result in more power for pharmacists, and I get the sense that, very much like actual younger siblings, pharmacists are constantly trying to prove themselves against/wrest power from their big sibling (See what I did there? Gender-free!), actual doctors. But now BigSib is telling LittleSib that it has resources, that it will quash this attempt to gain power. And the non-religious contingent of the pharmacalogical community will want to move the hell away from that if this is going to be the result. So, yay! Go, doctors!
But anyway. I found this article interesting. I think right now, the situation is that there is a religious right contingent within the pharmacalogical community which is intent on not giving birth control to women. (I don't know which contingent is suddenly against mental health medications, or painkillers, but whatever.) And I think the rest of the community is kind of going along with the fight, because it might result in more power for pharmacists, and I get the sense that, very much like actual younger siblings, pharmacists are constantly trying to prove themselves against/wrest power from their big sibling (See what I did there? Gender-free!), actual doctors. But now BigSib is telling LittleSib that it has resources, that it will quash this attempt to gain power. And the non-religious contingent of the pharmacalogical community will want to move the hell away from that if this is going to be the result. So, yay! Go, doctors!
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Glass Slippers and Abusive Husbands
A study about women who love fairy tales and their abusive husbands has been receiving some attention in the blogosphere lately, so I thought I'd give my opinion, as a long time lover of fairy tales, and wife of a non-abusive husband.
Obviously, there are lots of problems with this study. First, there's the sample size - 67 women. A study done of 67 women could not accurately determine anything of value, really. And then, there's the total lack of a "control group." I am sure one could do a similar study and determine that there was a strong preference for wearing blue jeans among women who've been subject to domestic violence. But if you don't look at 67 women who haven't, then you really don't know anything. And a childhood love of fairy tales is just as common as a predeliction for blue jeans in modern industrialized countries. So I don't know why asking 67 self-described victims of domestic violence whether they liked fairy tales growing up tells anyone anything.
There's also a problem, though, with the way they seem to be interpretting the texts. In the AFP article, the author of the study, grad student Susan Darker-Smith, is quoted as saying, " "They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their partner's behaviour." I don't know how one would read fairy tales in their semi-original form and come to the conclusion that one could change one's partner, as the fairy tales, typically, have fairly limited characterization skills. When I was about eight years old, my mother bought me The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes, and I tore through it. (Later, she picked up herself, and grew worried about me liking such a bloody, gory, disgusting book. But, to her credit, she merely checked with me to make sure it wasn't twisting my brain and let me alone.) And the thing is, no one, male or female, has such a strong personality - or such a strong personal growth - that one can accurately determine that the woman changes the man through the strength of her love. The Beast in "Beauty and the Beast" is just beastly in form, really. It's not even implied that it's his fault that Beauty has to stay with him - her father plucks a rose from a magic bush and that's pretty much that. The Prince isn't even Charming in Grimm's; he's just a prince.
The cinematic renditions of these stories - with two hours rather than a couple of pages to fill - go far deeper into the characterizations, and thus Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Drew Barrymore's Ever After, and modern-day Cinderella classic Pretty Woman all play on the theme of a good woman changing the behavior and even personality of a formerly not-so-nice guy. Even Shrek, which went one step better than Beauty and the Beast by allowing the girl to be unattractive, too, centered around the taming of an ogre into a nicer ogre because of the love of a good, if feisty, woman. Those depictions (along with all other romantic comedies ever) seem to do far more to promote the idea that you can change a man by loving him than the original fairy tales would. Which would be fine and well, except the study does single out the fairy tale "literature," and favors TV- and movie-watching as the anecdote to these bad, bad bedtime stories. Again, from the AFP, "Darker-Smith said she believed younger generations exposed to television and other entertainment media may react differently and be less submissive than those weaned solely on literature." How on earth is she determining that TV and movies, laden with images of good girls making bad boys good, will be better for women than Cinderella?
I would also like to note, for those of you who've dismissed fairy tales as get-a-man, fast-as-you-can claptrap, that most of Grimm's Fairy Tales have nothing to do with finding a husband, and there are a surprising number of stories about women getting their brothers out of some kind of trouble, either self-induced or evil-forces induced. Not that it's a feminist paradise in there - it's usually the sisters' ability to stay quiet for extended periods of time, or be submissive and "good," which save the day. And there are A LOT of wicked stepmothers and mothers-in-law. I'm just saying. They're not all, "Someday, my prince will come, and until then, I've got mopping to do."
Obviously, there are lots of problems with this study. First, there's the sample size - 67 women. A study done of 67 women could not accurately determine anything of value, really. And then, there's the total lack of a "control group." I am sure one could do a similar study and determine that there was a strong preference for wearing blue jeans among women who've been subject to domestic violence. But if you don't look at 67 women who haven't, then you really don't know anything. And a childhood love of fairy tales is just as common as a predeliction for blue jeans in modern industrialized countries. So I don't know why asking 67 self-described victims of domestic violence whether they liked fairy tales growing up tells anyone anything.
There's also a problem, though, with the way they seem to be interpretting the texts. In the AFP article, the author of the study, grad student Susan Darker-Smith, is quoted as saying, " "They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their partner's behaviour." I don't know how one would read fairy tales in their semi-original form and come to the conclusion that one could change one's partner, as the fairy tales, typically, have fairly limited characterization skills. When I was about eight years old, my mother bought me The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes, and I tore through it. (Later, she picked up herself, and grew worried about me liking such a bloody, gory, disgusting book. But, to her credit, she merely checked with me to make sure it wasn't twisting my brain and let me alone.) And the thing is, no one, male or female, has such a strong personality - or such a strong personal growth - that one can accurately determine that the woman changes the man through the strength of her love. The Beast in "Beauty and the Beast" is just beastly in form, really. It's not even implied that it's his fault that Beauty has to stay with him - her father plucks a rose from a magic bush and that's pretty much that. The Prince isn't even Charming in Grimm's; he's just a prince.
The cinematic renditions of these stories - with two hours rather than a couple of pages to fill - go far deeper into the characterizations, and thus Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Drew Barrymore's Ever After, and modern-day Cinderella classic Pretty Woman all play on the theme of a good woman changing the behavior and even personality of a formerly not-so-nice guy. Even Shrek, which went one step better than Beauty and the Beast by allowing the girl to be unattractive, too, centered around the taming of an ogre into a nicer ogre because of the love of a good, if feisty, woman. Those depictions (along with all other romantic comedies ever) seem to do far more to promote the idea that you can change a man by loving him than the original fairy tales would. Which would be fine and well, except the study does single out the fairy tale "literature," and favors TV- and movie-watching as the anecdote to these bad, bad bedtime stories. Again, from the AFP, "Darker-Smith said she believed younger generations exposed to television and other entertainment media may react differently and be less submissive than those weaned solely on literature." How on earth is she determining that TV and movies, laden with images of good girls making bad boys good, will be better for women than Cinderella?
I would also like to note, for those of you who've dismissed fairy tales as get-a-man, fast-as-you-can claptrap, that most of Grimm's Fairy Tales have nothing to do with finding a husband, and there are a surprising number of stories about women getting their brothers out of some kind of trouble, either self-induced or evil-forces induced. Not that it's a feminist paradise in there - it's usually the sisters' ability to stay quiet for extended periods of time, or be submissive and "good," which save the day. And there are A LOT of wicked stepmothers and mothers-in-law. I'm just saying. They're not all, "Someday, my prince will come, and until then, I've got mopping to do."
Friday, May 13, 2005
My Husband is Knitting
My husband is knitting.
I probably shouldn't be surprised. Although my husband has never done anything quite this effeminate before (aside from relishing Jane Austen movies, I guess), he's always had a casual disregard for gender roles, or, in fact, any rules imposed by a society which clearly does not operate at as high an intelligence level as he himself possesses. Also, it makes sense. He's very physically dexterous, and he needed a new project. And why should I be so hung up on gender roles that I think it's weird for boys to knit?
But I thought we were buying the yarn, the needles, and the Stitch&Bitch for me.
What happened was, I recently took up embroidery with this lovely kit. I happened to be with my m-i-l when I purchased it, and she mentioned that she'd heard knitting was making a comeback, and she'd like to take it up herself, because not only would she be able to make nice, warm things for her family (a major value for her), but she might stop biting her nails. So I bought her the Stitch&Bitch, and the requisite supplies, for Mother's Day. This prompted my husband to lament, for the four hundred and second time, that I haven't yet learned to knit. I ignored him, but then I started reading, and I got interested. Also, I bought a hank of yarn, which looks like a coil of yarn rather than the standard ball or skein, for his mother, and the two of us had a great time rolling it in a ball for her. He had an especially good time, as he went a lot faster than me. So he decided that we would buy all the necessary equipment for me this week, and he would roll yarn into a ball, and that would make him happy.
But now he appears to be knitting. And having a great time. He's told me I don't need the book, he'll just show me. But why should I learn how to knit if he's going to do it? I've got embroidery projects to work on.
I probably shouldn't be surprised. Although my husband has never done anything quite this effeminate before (aside from relishing Jane Austen movies, I guess), he's always had a casual disregard for gender roles, or, in fact, any rules imposed by a society which clearly does not operate at as high an intelligence level as he himself possesses. Also, it makes sense. He's very physically dexterous, and he needed a new project. And why should I be so hung up on gender roles that I think it's weird for boys to knit?
But I thought we were buying the yarn, the needles, and the Stitch&Bitch for me.
What happened was, I recently took up embroidery with this lovely kit. I happened to be with my m-i-l when I purchased it, and she mentioned that she'd heard knitting was making a comeback, and she'd like to take it up herself, because not only would she be able to make nice, warm things for her family (a major value for her), but she might stop biting her nails. So I bought her the Stitch&Bitch, and the requisite supplies, for Mother's Day. This prompted my husband to lament, for the four hundred and second time, that I haven't yet learned to knit. I ignored him, but then I started reading, and I got interested. Also, I bought a hank of yarn, which looks like a coil of yarn rather than the standard ball or skein, for his mother, and the two of us had a great time rolling it in a ball for her. He had an especially good time, as he went a lot faster than me. So he decided that we would buy all the necessary equipment for me this week, and he would roll yarn into a ball, and that would make him happy.
But now he appears to be knitting. And having a great time. He's told me I don't need the book, he'll just show me. But why should I learn how to knit if he's going to do it? I've got embroidery projects to work on.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Faith and Science
I have just completed my semester-long course in the Bible as Literature - the New Testament. This was, of course, material I'd never read before so it was very exciting for me and as a consequence, I talked so much about it that my husband was about ten seconds from inventing the human mute button. But here's something I've yet to talk about too much. Why is it that any Christian gives a shit about evolution being taught in public schools under the heading "science"?
I realize, of course, that many Christians do not give a shit, and in fact, the majority of people who fill in the bubble next to "Christian" on surveys and forms that still have the temerity to ask are not batshit crazy and do not wish to interfere with science curriculae. But the majority of people who do wish to interfere with science curriculae identify themselves not only as Christian, but as extremely Christian, as Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christian, or some other variety of Christian that in most cases boils down to "batshit crazy." And why? Now I feel I know something about Christianity, I feel I can state, with some authority, that it should not matter to a person who believes in the ideals put forth by people like Paul whether science classrooms teach evolution or not, because to care about things like that is to belie the whole notion of faith. Faith is believing in something when there is no proof, when all provable evidence is either indifferent or against what you believe. So faith should pretty much roundly ignore science, no?
Paul writes all over his letters (or, for the more Biblically correct term, "epistles") that faith in Jesus is all that's important now. He even puts an interesting spin on the story of Abraham to prove that faith is the all-important thing. In it, he's disproving the significance of the law, not of science, but it can be applied either way. Paul reasons that Abraham was deemed "righteous" because when God said to him, "Pack your bags, move to this unknown land, and you will be father to great nations," Abraham said, "Sounds good to me," even though there was no reason to believe that any of this would work out, since he had never heard of this place and he was already too old to think of fathering anything. So if Abraham is supposed to be your model, isn't the exercise in faith in the word of Bible that much stronger in the face of some really serious scientific proof of evolution than it would be if there were no such proof? If it were still reasonable to believe that the world was created by God in six days, would it really be so faithful to do so?
Also, these guys tend to want their faith taught as science. That seems blasphemous to me. Why should God have to hold himself up to the standards of the scientific method? That is totally anti-thetical to the very concept of God.
Anyway, I was just wondering.
I realize, of course, that many Christians do not give a shit, and in fact, the majority of people who fill in the bubble next to "Christian" on surveys and forms that still have the temerity to ask are not batshit crazy and do not wish to interfere with science curriculae. But the majority of people who do wish to interfere with science curriculae identify themselves not only as Christian, but as extremely Christian, as Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christian, or some other variety of Christian that in most cases boils down to "batshit crazy." And why? Now I feel I know something about Christianity, I feel I can state, with some authority, that it should not matter to a person who believes in the ideals put forth by people like Paul whether science classrooms teach evolution or not, because to care about things like that is to belie the whole notion of faith. Faith is believing in something when there is no proof, when all provable evidence is either indifferent or against what you believe. So faith should pretty much roundly ignore science, no?
Paul writes all over his letters (or, for the more Biblically correct term, "epistles") that faith in Jesus is all that's important now. He even puts an interesting spin on the story of Abraham to prove that faith is the all-important thing. In it, he's disproving the significance of the law, not of science, but it can be applied either way. Paul reasons that Abraham was deemed "righteous" because when God said to him, "Pack your bags, move to this unknown land, and you will be father to great nations," Abraham said, "Sounds good to me," even though there was no reason to believe that any of this would work out, since he had never heard of this place and he was already too old to think of fathering anything. So if Abraham is supposed to be your model, isn't the exercise in faith in the word of Bible that much stronger in the face of some really serious scientific proof of evolution than it would be if there were no such proof? If it were still reasonable to believe that the world was created by God in six days, would it really be so faithful to do so?
Also, these guys tend to want their faith taught as science. That seems blasphemous to me. Why should God have to hold himself up to the standards of the scientific method? That is totally anti-thetical to the very concept of God.
Anyway, I was just wondering.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Maybe My Problem is the Desire to Send Letters
They printed my angry letter in Psychology Today! I almost forgive them for printing such an asinine article. I like being published.
I got pissed at the article "The Emperor's New Woes" which is asinine even from the title. It's by Sean Elder, one of the boys behind Bastard on the Couch, the male answer to Bitch in the House. Feel free to read the text yourself, but basically it says that men have been "blindsided" by their wives suddenly wanting them to have, like, feelings, and be, like, friends with them. Even though their wives are icky-picky girls. And it's so unfair because they expect them to have feelings, but to hold down jobs at the same time! It's just terrible, because, hey, they (men) were willing to let their wives have jobs, and even be proud of them, but if they (women) expect them (men) to have feelings just like icky-picky girls, they have to be out of their minds. It's just terrible that "Today, simply not cheating on your wife or beating your kids doesn't make you a good husband or father." Yes, that's a direct quote. Go on, look. Furthermore, while men might be willing to make that extra step towards sharing their icky-picky feelings, they'll only do it if their wives will put out more. No, really. No, really. Go read the article. I'm not making this up.
So I wrote them a letter, saying that if men were still feeling blindsided, they'd been asleep since 1975, and isn't it irresponsible of PT to print articles suggesting emotional intimacy is icky-picky to boys, and isn't feminism supposed to be about everyone? They editted a little, but they printed it! Yay!
And then they printed an article about how day care is bad for children. Argh. But what's even more "argh" about it is that the only sure statistic printed is that children in day care more than 45 hours a week exhibit more bad behaviors and emotional problems. Leaving out the true measure of bad behavior, let's examine, shall we? The work week is supposed to be 40 hours a week. Figure a half hour to and from the work place to pick up the kid and that's exactly 45 hours a week. So the kids who are exhibiting problematic behaviors are the kids with overworked parents. So maybe the problem isn't day care at all. Maybe the problem is overworked parents, corporations that don't allow for family lives, and cultures that keep everyone feeling guilty about every minute they don't spend being "productive." Maybe. They also claim that this study is also looking at quality of care and quality of parenting when the children are at home, but it doesn't say they're controlling for these variables, just looking at them, and the results of the looking aren't mentioned. And these articles always read as cautionary tales to parents (read: mothers) not to put their kids in extended day care, which is sexist but expected, but what about parents who actually have to work, or their kids will have malnutrition problems on top of their emotional problems? Just argh.
Now, I went to day care starting when I was six months old. I was probably in day care 45-50 hours a week. I was always the first dropped off and the last picked up, which I thought made me special. My parents were still excellent parents who made lots of quality time for me. I was an abnormally well-behaved child, and now I've got no more emotional trauma than the average 23-year-old.
Except for this pesky desire to keep sending letters to PT.
I got pissed at the article "The Emperor's New Woes" which is asinine even from the title. It's by Sean Elder, one of the boys behind Bastard on the Couch, the male answer to Bitch in the House. Feel free to read the text yourself, but basically it says that men have been "blindsided" by their wives suddenly wanting them to have, like, feelings, and be, like, friends with them. Even though their wives are icky-picky girls. And it's so unfair because they expect them to have feelings, but to hold down jobs at the same time! It's just terrible, because, hey, they (men) were willing to let their wives have jobs, and even be proud of them, but if they (women) expect them (men) to have feelings just like icky-picky girls, they have to be out of their minds. It's just terrible that "Today, simply not cheating on your wife or beating your kids doesn't make you a good husband or father." Yes, that's a direct quote. Go on, look. Furthermore, while men might be willing to make that extra step towards sharing their icky-picky feelings, they'll only do it if their wives will put out more. No, really. No, really. Go read the article. I'm not making this up.
So I wrote them a letter, saying that if men were still feeling blindsided, they'd been asleep since 1975, and isn't it irresponsible of PT to print articles suggesting emotional intimacy is icky-picky to boys, and isn't feminism supposed to be about everyone? They editted a little, but they printed it! Yay!
And then they printed an article about how day care is bad for children. Argh. But what's even more "argh" about it is that the only sure statistic printed is that children in day care more than 45 hours a week exhibit more bad behaviors and emotional problems. Leaving out the true measure of bad behavior, let's examine, shall we? The work week is supposed to be 40 hours a week. Figure a half hour to and from the work place to pick up the kid and that's exactly 45 hours a week. So the kids who are exhibiting problematic behaviors are the kids with overworked parents. So maybe the problem isn't day care at all. Maybe the problem is overworked parents, corporations that don't allow for family lives, and cultures that keep everyone feeling guilty about every minute they don't spend being "productive." Maybe. They also claim that this study is also looking at quality of care and quality of parenting when the children are at home, but it doesn't say they're controlling for these variables, just looking at them, and the results of the looking aren't mentioned. And these articles always read as cautionary tales to parents (read: mothers) not to put their kids in extended day care, which is sexist but expected, but what about parents who actually have to work, or their kids will have malnutrition problems on top of their emotional problems? Just argh.
Now, I went to day care starting when I was six months old. I was probably in day care 45-50 hours a week. I was always the first dropped off and the last picked up, which I thought made me special. My parents were still excellent parents who made lots of quality time for me. I was an abnormally well-behaved child, and now I've got no more emotional trauma than the average 23-year-old.
Except for this pesky desire to keep sending letters to PT.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Adventures in Subbing - A Backlog
Day One - February 23, 2005 It is my very first day of subbing ever. I am awakened at 10 to 6 and told to go to C_____ High School. I am relieved to learn that it is right by school - so I can just head to class afterwards - but not so relieved to learn that it is right by school - not the best neighborhood in the world. I expected this, but I'm still very nervous. Discipline is my main weakness and I think I might need it more than ever today.
I am right. I get to the school twenty minutes before I was told to - and, as it turns out, twenty minutes before the home room bell rings. They ask what I specialize in. I don't specialize in anything; it's my first day. But I say English, because, well, duh. "Okay, we'll give you Mr. Whoever," says one of the secretaries.
"No, don't give her Mr. Whoever. I'm saving Mr. Whoever for the end."
"Well, who should I give her?"
"I don't know. Do you mind having a seat?"
I sit for twenty-five minutes. The first bell rings. They are still sorting things. Finally they give me Ms. Davis and tell me to go to room 205. This is evidently all the instruction they plan on giving me. I flip open the book they hand me. I have Geometry, Algebra and Reading? Huh? I also have unclear lesson plans for the latter two and no lesson plans for the first one. I tell them this. "Oh, they have books. Just have them flip open their books."
"But - "
"You have a free periods 2 and 3. You can come back down then and ask more questions."
Geometry is my first period. "But-"
"Honey, you've got to go! Homeroom started five minutes ago!"
So I go. They do not have books. The books are locked in the cabinet. I don't have the combination. My first period, my first day of subbing, and I have a geometry class with no lesson plans and no textbooks.
The day does not get better. I keep trying to get more questions answered - why do students keep wandering in and out of my classroom and then claim that they don't belong in my class? How am I expected to take attendance? Where is the bathroom? What kind of teacher teaches math and reading? - but none are forthcoming. I keep going down to the office during my free periods, but they keep sending me to some other teacher's class for more subbing duties. This other teacher is in school; she just has a meeting. Why she has a meeting during her class times, I don't know. I do know that two students almost get into a fistfight in one of her classes while I am there. My presence does not stop them at all. I try to get them to read. One of them may or may not be illiterate. The others are at about a second-grade reading level. They're freshmen in high school.
One kid threatens to hit me. He later tries to turn over a desk/chair thing while another student is sitting in it. Even once I know you're supposed to check IDs, students wander in and out of my classroom as if I am not standing there. I finally get the question about why I teach such varied subjects. It's because these are Special Needs kids. In this school, that does not mean lower IQs or learning disabilities. That means eSpecially Needs a kick in the behind.
When I get to my own class (the one in which I am a student) that evening, my friend asks me what's wrong. "First day of subbing," I reply. She understands completely. She's had first days of subbing before. Well, at least one. She says I look like hell.
I figure, though, that it's a good thing my first day was so rough. Now, what can they possibly give me to top this?
Day Two - March 2, 2005 O____ School, an elementary/middle school, calls me. I had given them my name a couple of weeks ago and said I lived in the area. I am a little nervous that I'll get really little kids, but I'm so grateful I'm not going to Collins that it's fine. I don't; I get eighth graders, and apparently, the "good" eighth graders. I appear to be teaching reading and organizational skills. Or something. I am given explicit lesson plans. Mostly, I am to administer tests and oversee Quiet Reading Time. The eighth-grade kids think they are bad-asses. One in particular, whose worst crime is talking when I tell him not to, wants to know if he's in trouble. If I write him up, he tells me, he'll be suspended. I tell him that if he doesn't want to get suspended, he should stop doing things that would get him written up, but inside I laugh. Kid, I think, you have no idea. I also have seventh graders who think they are bad-asses. They are slightly worse than the eighth-graders. One student keeps farting, causing laughing riots and much movement among other kids. One kid, who clearly fancies himself a Jack Black-style class clown, tells me his name is Seymour Butts. "First of all," I tell him, "it doesn't hurt me if you get marked absent. Second of all, if you want to be class clown, you need better material. That joke was old when my grandfather was your age." All in all, a much better day. I tell the sub coordinator that I would be delighted to return.
Day 3 - March 4, 2005 And return, I do. This time, to sub - get this - gym! It is to laugh! But it's kind of a fun day. I have all ages this time. Most are really pumped to participate. We play Line Soccer, the kind where you divide the class in two teams, have them stand against opposite walls and assign them coresponding numbers, and then call out those numbers so only a few kids play at a time. I scream a lot, I lose my voice, and I discover that third and fourth graders love to tattle-tale. I also discover that most of these kids could whoop my ass. They do multiple push-ups, sit-ups, running - and they do it enthusiastically! By the end of the day, I have completely lost my voice, making it hard to chear for my sister-in-law when we see her in The Vagina Monologues that night.
Day 4 - March 11, 2005 O_____ hasn't call me so I go back to C_____ the next day. I get excited when I see that the students have a half-day, and I don't have kids in my last two periods. I think this means I can leave early. It does not. I have to stay for the Staff Development meeting, which is boring. But then, so is most of my day. I am subbing for the Culinary Arts teacher, who is on maternity leave, but I'm not allowed to actually cook with them. I'm basically allowed to babysit them. I get them to talk about the food they like, a little, but that's about it.
Day 5 - March 28, 2005 I haven't worked in a couple of weeks, because I had a lot of work to do before I went to the Bahamas, and then both I and the students in the CPS district had spring break. I wasn't even going to work today, but O_____ called at 8:40 to tell me to come over right now. So I do. They're using me as a teacher's aid to two Special Needs kindergarteners - one in the morning session, one in the afternoon session. (Kindergarteners here only go to school for half a day.) The one in the morning session has apparently made subs run out of the school crying after half an hour. It's why the sub coordinator is so reluctant to tell me what I'm actually doing. But I think the kid is okay. His parents won't have him diagnosed, and refuse to admit there is a problem at all, but, based on my limited knowledge of the one autistic kid my m-i-l tutors, I think this kid has a slightly lesser degree of autism than that kid, and possibly some attention and hyperactivity disorders as well. The main thing he does is yell, but he doesn't seem to yell maliciously. He just seems to yell when he's really excited. Although it's clear that there is no point to him being in this classroom. He cannot interact with the other kids; he cannot get anything out of the actual education going on. But he certainly does not make me want to run out of the building crying.
The next kid has Ausberger's and is clearly very smart. He's just not great at interacting with the class, and he gets distracted easily. He's obsessed with coinage, which is funny, and routine, which makes it difficult to be his sub. This is true in general, and especially of younger kids, but with kids with mental problems already there's a definite mistrust of me and why I'm there. But he's not overtly bad for me. He just isn't as good for me as he would be for his regular aid. All in all, an interesting day.
Day 6 - April 1, 2005 I accept the job at O____ before I realize that it is April Fool's Day. But nothing bad happens. I get third-graders, who haven't moved beyond "Made you look!" as a form of practical joking. They are the same third-graders I had for gym. Some of them remember me. They all seem to like me. They are a little rowdy but nothing too bad. They are also tattle-tales. One of them reminds me of my sister. Aw.
I am right. I get to the school twenty minutes before I was told to - and, as it turns out, twenty minutes before the home room bell rings. They ask what I specialize in. I don't specialize in anything; it's my first day. But I say English, because, well, duh. "Okay, we'll give you Mr. Whoever," says one of the secretaries.
"No, don't give her Mr. Whoever. I'm saving Mr. Whoever for the end."
"Well, who should I give her?"
"I don't know. Do you mind having a seat?"
I sit for twenty-five minutes. The first bell rings. They are still sorting things. Finally they give me Ms. Davis and tell me to go to room 205. This is evidently all the instruction they plan on giving me. I flip open the book they hand me. I have Geometry, Algebra and Reading? Huh? I also have unclear lesson plans for the latter two and no lesson plans for the first one. I tell them this. "Oh, they have books. Just have them flip open their books."
"But - "
"You have a free periods 2 and 3. You can come back down then and ask more questions."
Geometry is my first period. "But-"
"Honey, you've got to go! Homeroom started five minutes ago!"
So I go. They do not have books. The books are locked in the cabinet. I don't have the combination. My first period, my first day of subbing, and I have a geometry class with no lesson plans and no textbooks.
The day does not get better. I keep trying to get more questions answered - why do students keep wandering in and out of my classroom and then claim that they don't belong in my class? How am I expected to take attendance? Where is the bathroom? What kind of teacher teaches math and reading? - but none are forthcoming. I keep going down to the office during my free periods, but they keep sending me to some other teacher's class for more subbing duties. This other teacher is in school; she just has a meeting. Why she has a meeting during her class times, I don't know. I do know that two students almost get into a fistfight in one of her classes while I am there. My presence does not stop them at all. I try to get them to read. One of them may or may not be illiterate. The others are at about a second-grade reading level. They're freshmen in high school.
One kid threatens to hit me. He later tries to turn over a desk/chair thing while another student is sitting in it. Even once I know you're supposed to check IDs, students wander in and out of my classroom as if I am not standing there. I finally get the question about why I teach such varied subjects. It's because these are Special Needs kids. In this school, that does not mean lower IQs or learning disabilities. That means eSpecially Needs a kick in the behind.
When I get to my own class (the one in which I am a student) that evening, my friend asks me what's wrong. "First day of subbing," I reply. She understands completely. She's had first days of subbing before. Well, at least one. She says I look like hell.
I figure, though, that it's a good thing my first day was so rough. Now, what can they possibly give me to top this?
Day Two - March 2, 2005 O____ School, an elementary/middle school, calls me. I had given them my name a couple of weeks ago and said I lived in the area. I am a little nervous that I'll get really little kids, but I'm so grateful I'm not going to Collins that it's fine. I don't; I get eighth graders, and apparently, the "good" eighth graders. I appear to be teaching reading and organizational skills. Or something. I am given explicit lesson plans. Mostly, I am to administer tests and oversee Quiet Reading Time. The eighth-grade kids think they are bad-asses. One in particular, whose worst crime is talking when I tell him not to, wants to know if he's in trouble. If I write him up, he tells me, he'll be suspended. I tell him that if he doesn't want to get suspended, he should stop doing things that would get him written up, but inside I laugh. Kid, I think, you have no idea. I also have seventh graders who think they are bad-asses. They are slightly worse than the eighth-graders. One student keeps farting, causing laughing riots and much movement among other kids. One kid, who clearly fancies himself a Jack Black-style class clown, tells me his name is Seymour Butts. "First of all," I tell him, "it doesn't hurt me if you get marked absent. Second of all, if you want to be class clown, you need better material. That joke was old when my grandfather was your age." All in all, a much better day. I tell the sub coordinator that I would be delighted to return.
Day 3 - March 4, 2005 And return, I do. This time, to sub - get this - gym! It is to laugh! But it's kind of a fun day. I have all ages this time. Most are really pumped to participate. We play Line Soccer, the kind where you divide the class in two teams, have them stand against opposite walls and assign them coresponding numbers, and then call out those numbers so only a few kids play at a time. I scream a lot, I lose my voice, and I discover that third and fourth graders love to tattle-tale. I also discover that most of these kids could whoop my ass. They do multiple push-ups, sit-ups, running - and they do it enthusiastically! By the end of the day, I have completely lost my voice, making it hard to chear for my sister-in-law when we see her in The Vagina Monologues that night.
Day 4 - March 11, 2005 O_____ hasn't call me so I go back to C_____ the next day. I get excited when I see that the students have a half-day, and I don't have kids in my last two periods. I think this means I can leave early. It does not. I have to stay for the Staff Development meeting, which is boring. But then, so is most of my day. I am subbing for the Culinary Arts teacher, who is on maternity leave, but I'm not allowed to actually cook with them. I'm basically allowed to babysit them. I get them to talk about the food they like, a little, but that's about it.
Day 5 - March 28, 2005 I haven't worked in a couple of weeks, because I had a lot of work to do before I went to the Bahamas, and then both I and the students in the CPS district had spring break. I wasn't even going to work today, but O_____ called at 8:40 to tell me to come over right now. So I do. They're using me as a teacher's aid to two Special Needs kindergarteners - one in the morning session, one in the afternoon session. (Kindergarteners here only go to school for half a day.) The one in the morning session has apparently made subs run out of the school crying after half an hour. It's why the sub coordinator is so reluctant to tell me what I'm actually doing. But I think the kid is okay. His parents won't have him diagnosed, and refuse to admit there is a problem at all, but, based on my limited knowledge of the one autistic kid my m-i-l tutors, I think this kid has a slightly lesser degree of autism than that kid, and possibly some attention and hyperactivity disorders as well. The main thing he does is yell, but he doesn't seem to yell maliciously. He just seems to yell when he's really excited. Although it's clear that there is no point to him being in this classroom. He cannot interact with the other kids; he cannot get anything out of the actual education going on. But he certainly does not make me want to run out of the building crying.
The next kid has Ausberger's and is clearly very smart. He's just not great at interacting with the class, and he gets distracted easily. He's obsessed with coinage, which is funny, and routine, which makes it difficult to be his sub. This is true in general, and especially of younger kids, but with kids with mental problems already there's a definite mistrust of me and why I'm there. But he's not overtly bad for me. He just isn't as good for me as he would be for his regular aid. All in all, an interesting day.
Day 6 - April 1, 2005 I accept the job at O____ before I realize that it is April Fool's Day. But nothing bad happens. I get third-graders, who haven't moved beyond "Made you look!" as a form of practical joking. They are the same third-graders I had for gym. Some of them remember me. They all seem to like me. They are a little rowdy but nothing too bad. They are also tattle-tales. One of them reminds me of my sister. Aw.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
A Vacation and a News Story
I really didn't want to be the 9,765,482nd blogger writing about Terri Schiavo. I barely know anything about the case, but what I know about it tells me that half her problem is that 9,765,482 people are interested, and a couple hundred of them have elected posts in the federal government. (The other half of her problem is that she's a vegetable.) So I was going to write about my vacation to the Bahamas instead.
But the thing is, the Bahamas is lovely to go to, but not very interesting to talk about. Want to know what happened? There was sunshine. Lots of it. There was lolling about poolside. The combination of these two factors led to the copious application of sunscreen, which was, for the most part, successful. There was the eating of much shellfish. There were the endless security lines. But mostly there was the sun and the water and the sunscreen. Not very thrilling for you my readers (all two of you).
The Terri Schiavo case, on the other hand, has meat. Lots of meat. I'm just going to take a little bite. And it is to say this: Monsieur le Presidente, this "culture of life" of which you and your cronies cannot stop speaking - will it be arriving in Afghanistan or Iraq any time soon? What about your old state of Texas, responsible for so many of the death penalty executions in this country?
What's that you say, Mr. President? That's different? There are situations in which life must be sacrificed for some other purpose? Especially if that life belongs to someone darker than us? Huh. Interesting. A person's own better interest, a person's own request, to die instead of being kept alive by life support, is not a good enough purpose?
No, you say, Senor el Presidente? (In case you can't tell, I don't speak Spanish.) Would I be in support of suicide in general, you ask? Well, not exactly, no. I do find suicide understandable and lamentable at times. But "supporting" or not "supporting" suicide is a bit beside the point. The problem with people committing suicide is not in the act itself. It's the despair that leads them to the act that's a problem. Sometimes, that despair is relatively personal and psychological, and therefore, what we, as a society, must do to demonstrate our lack of support for suicide is ensure that access to psychological and psychiatric care is easy and affordable, that there are no stigmas attached to seeking such care, and that there is widespread knowledge about the access to such care. Sometimes, that despair is a bit more societal, say, when gay teenagers feel despair at the way society will discriminate against them (aHEM, President Bush) and thus commit suicide in record numbers. That's also something we need to work on. (AHEM! Geez, I hate it when I have this big a frog in my throat, Mr. President.) My stance on suicide is similar to my stance on teen pregnancy and STI transmissions - I'm not "in favor" of those things; but mostly what I'm not in favor of is the things that lead to those things - lack of education and access to contraception. But I already know you and I don't see eye to eye on this one, Mr. President & Co.
In Terri Schiavo's case, the (presumed and supported by her husband) desire for suicide has roots in the despair over her medical condition. Her medical condition cannot be helped. Medical science, as a rule, makes advances everyday, so we're already working on preventing as many future Terris as possible, but Terri herself can no longer be helped. So why are we forcing her to live with the despair? Why isn't that just as good a cause as anything you use to justify mass killings, Mr. Bush?
And that's all I'm going to say about that.
But the thing is, the Bahamas is lovely to go to, but not very interesting to talk about. Want to know what happened? There was sunshine. Lots of it. There was lolling about poolside. The combination of these two factors led to the copious application of sunscreen, which was, for the most part, successful. There was the eating of much shellfish. There were the endless security lines. But mostly there was the sun and the water and the sunscreen. Not very thrilling for you my readers (all two of you).
The Terri Schiavo case, on the other hand, has meat. Lots of meat. I'm just going to take a little bite. And it is to say this: Monsieur le Presidente, this "culture of life" of which you and your cronies cannot stop speaking - will it be arriving in Afghanistan or Iraq any time soon? What about your old state of Texas, responsible for so many of the death penalty executions in this country?
What's that you say, Mr. President? That's different? There are situations in which life must be sacrificed for some other purpose? Especially if that life belongs to someone darker than us? Huh. Interesting. A person's own better interest, a person's own request, to die instead of being kept alive by life support, is not a good enough purpose?
No, you say, Senor el Presidente? (In case you can't tell, I don't speak Spanish.) Would I be in support of suicide in general, you ask? Well, not exactly, no. I do find suicide understandable and lamentable at times. But "supporting" or not "supporting" suicide is a bit beside the point. The problem with people committing suicide is not in the act itself. It's the despair that leads them to the act that's a problem. Sometimes, that despair is relatively personal and psychological, and therefore, what we, as a society, must do to demonstrate our lack of support for suicide is ensure that access to psychological and psychiatric care is easy and affordable, that there are no stigmas attached to seeking such care, and that there is widespread knowledge about the access to such care. Sometimes, that despair is a bit more societal, say, when gay teenagers feel despair at the way society will discriminate against them (aHEM, President Bush) and thus commit suicide in record numbers. That's also something we need to work on. (AHEM! Geez, I hate it when I have this big a frog in my throat, Mr. President.) My stance on suicide is similar to my stance on teen pregnancy and STI transmissions - I'm not "in favor" of those things; but mostly what I'm not in favor of is the things that lead to those things - lack of education and access to contraception. But I already know you and I don't see eye to eye on this one, Mr. President & Co.
In Terri Schiavo's case, the (presumed and supported by her husband) desire for suicide has roots in the despair over her medical condition. Her medical condition cannot be helped. Medical science, as a rule, makes advances everyday, so we're already working on preventing as many future Terris as possible, but Terri herself can no longer be helped. So why are we forcing her to live with the despair? Why isn't that just as good a cause as anything you use to justify mass killings, Mr. Bush?
And that's all I'm going to say about that.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
If I Had a Million Dollars
So I am now addicted to VH1. Not all of it. I have a Tivo so I can pick and choose, instead of just putting it on. Mostly what I choose is the Fabulous Life of . . . series. I think it's, well, fabulous. You know what's especially hilarious about it? That the VH1 commentators can constantly react with such shock; that they can so very consistently apply their own salaries to the celebrities' lifestyles. I was watching one about celebrity kids, and they were oohing and aahing over some family - the Travoltas, perhaps? - going on an around-the-world vacation over the summer. Imagining these kids going back to school that fall, they were gushing, "Oh, what did you do this summer? I worked at camp, I went to Disney World, I went . . . around the world?!!! How many kids can say that? They're just going to be the coolest kids at school." Well . . . not at the Travolta's kids' school. Or whoever. At the Travolta's kids' school, lots of kids probably take extravagant vacations over the summer. I mean, they probably do go to Disney World, but they probably get to rent the park out, you know?
Or yesterday, I was watching Fantabulous Homes. They were all on top of Jerry Seinfeld for putting a baseball field on his bajillion dollar property in Long Island. "What a waste!" they cried. "The land under that field is probably worth $15 million!" So what? A baseball field sounds like a perfectly good use of space to me. I mean, this isn't public property. He bought it as part of his home. So he's not going to, I don't know, put a homeless shelter there. Not that these people would have cared; they talk about Angelina Jolie's house in Cambodia and they don't even mention her charitable work. But a baseball field would be great at your house! Your friends could come over. Your kids' friends could come over. I mean, he didn't build a stadium. It's just the diamond. I didn't even see bleachers or anything.
Then again, I also thought that Aaron Spelling using two of his 128 rooms in his mansion as gift-wrapping rooms sounded totally reasonable. I mean, if you're Aaron Spelling, you have a lot of gifts to give. And wrapping them actually takes up a lot of space. When I was working as a receptionist last year, I was helping the head secretary wrap the Christmas gifts the company was sending out, and they weren't really big presents - just candies and cookies and nuts - but we needed to completely transform the space between our cubicles, plus use an empty room in the back, plus use part of the warehouse, and the wrapping, etc., was all stored in a closet. Gift-wrapping is space-consuming! And I'm sure Aaron Spelling is not just sending out gifts with drugstore wrapping and $0.99 ribbon, either.
Maybe I was just meant to be ridiculously wealthy, so this all makes perfect sense to me.
Or yesterday, I was watching Fantabulous Homes. They were all on top of Jerry Seinfeld for putting a baseball field on his bajillion dollar property in Long Island. "What a waste!" they cried. "The land under that field is probably worth $15 million!" So what? A baseball field sounds like a perfectly good use of space to me. I mean, this isn't public property. He bought it as part of his home. So he's not going to, I don't know, put a homeless shelter there. Not that these people would have cared; they talk about Angelina Jolie's house in Cambodia and they don't even mention her charitable work. But a baseball field would be great at your house! Your friends could come over. Your kids' friends could come over. I mean, he didn't build a stadium. It's just the diamond. I didn't even see bleachers or anything.
Then again, I also thought that Aaron Spelling using two of his 128 rooms in his mansion as gift-wrapping rooms sounded totally reasonable. I mean, if you're Aaron Spelling, you have a lot of gifts to give. And wrapping them actually takes up a lot of space. When I was working as a receptionist last year, I was helping the head secretary wrap the Christmas gifts the company was sending out, and they weren't really big presents - just candies and cookies and nuts - but we needed to completely transform the space between our cubicles, plus use an empty room in the back, plus use part of the warehouse, and the wrapping, etc., was all stored in a closet. Gift-wrapping is space-consuming! And I'm sure Aaron Spelling is not just sending out gifts with drugstore wrapping and $0.99 ribbon, either.
Maybe I was just meant to be ridiculously wealthy, so this all makes perfect sense to me.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Welcome to my World
Most of my posts will start out like this: I should be doing homework, but . . .
This first post will be no exception. I should be doing homework, but . . . I've decided I need a spot on Blogger! And now that I have one, it's back to Pierre Bourdieu.
But first, a few things about me. I'm a twenty-three-year-old grad student in English Literature. I'm married. I live in Chicago, but I'm from New Jersey. I love raspberry lime rickeys, and not just because they're named after me.
This first post will be no exception. I should be doing homework, but . . . I've decided I need a spot on Blogger! And now that I have one, it's back to Pierre Bourdieu.
But first, a few things about me. I'm a twenty-three-year-old grad student in English Literature. I'm married. I live in Chicago, but I'm from New Jersey. I love raspberry lime rickeys, and not just because they're named after me.
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