Unity of Thought

I have a problem . . . yes, I know, I have many problems, but only one that I feel like addressing today so let's just go with "I have a problem," okay?  I tend to assume that people agree with me, or have any idea what I'm talking about at all.  I know the proverb about assuming and donkeys, but I have trouble internalizing lessons learned from pithy sayings.  So I'm generally quite surprised when I stumble upon discussions like the comments thread at this wonderful blog post over on Bitch's website.  Tasha Fierce write a great piece on positive portrayals of fat women on TV.  She cited Sara Ramirez's Dr. Callie Torres from Grey's Anatomy at the top of her list (having suffered through seen about 7 episodes of that show I have this to say: I hate Grey's Anatomy but, man, I love Callie!  If only the rest of the show could be as awesome as she is.)  What followed was a thread of fat-shaming (e.g., Sara Ramirez isn't fat because she's not gross!  Sara Ramirez is healthy, not fat!), fat-policing (e.g., Sara Ramirez isn't fat enough to count as actually fat!), and various and sundry other forms of utterly offensive derailment.

Which, seeing as how this is Bitch, an awesome feminist media outlet, left me completely shocked and awed.  If you know me, then you know my stance on body acceptance (see my review of Body Drama) and I did not expect to see the conversation take such a negative turn.  Color me naive.

Luckily, Tasha up and wrote another post giving a little Fat Acceptance 101 to the Bitch audience.  Enjoy, it's awesome.

So have you noticed a trend lately?  The last few posts have all been me saying, essentially, "Hey, why isn't everyone on my page, here?  What the heck?"

Bechdel and Me

Well hello there!  I suppose this is the place where I offer all my sincerest apologies for not writing in ages and, by way of defense, list the myriad responsibilities, obligations, projects, major and minor catastrophes, and sundry timesucks that have plagued me these last eight weeks.

I'm terribly sorry.  Can we ever move past this?  What's that?  It was nothing?  You've already forgiven me?  Fantastic!

Because today I want to talk about women.  Specifically women in film.

Recently I learned all about the Bechdel Test (And by learned all about, I mean watched this video) -  three simple questions to gauge a film's treatment of women.  Are there at least two women in it?  Do they talk to each other?  Do they talk to each other about something other than a man?



Fascinating stuff, right?  Now I love movies.  Deeply.  Passionately.  But not, apparently, vaginally.  Because after going through my approximately 200 movies, I counted about 20 who passed the test, and some of those quite dubiously.  I'm not sure a thirty second conversation about medication should qualify No Country for Old Men, but that is a conversation between two women that is not about a man.

With standards like that, only 10% of the movies I own (not the movies I've seen, but the ones I liked enough to want to watch again and again) pass?  Over at The Bechdel Test Movie List their list of 854 movies has about 50% passing the test.  Discrepancy, much?

Now, I've come up with a few plausible explanations . . .

• Their list may have more passing movies because people are eager to add passing films to the list.  
• A passing movie =/= a feminist movie and many films that pass are full of damaging, painful stereotypes (hello SATC!).
• It's quite possible to make a movie that does not pass but still treats women as real, important people (Strange Days).
• My collection might be devoid as all hell of passing movies because I have internalized a lot of misogyny and gravitate towards male-centric films and male characters.
• A nice clusterfuck of all of the above.

Interestingly, my extensive collection of television on DVD all passes the Bechdel Test.  I guess when you have years to tell a story, instead of 90-120 minutes, you can spend time on the unimportant - like women.  I've yet to analyze my book collection and, frankly, I'm scared to.  But if we are to grow, we must do the thing that scares us . . . so stay tuned for a deeper look at ladies in books.  My books.

Amusing, no?

In another life and time, Postman and I would have had a great deal to discuss. Perhaps we would have done so publicly, in large arenas, complete with cheering audience and five-hour time limit. Alas, destiny precludes it, so I am left to read and digest and respond to no one and everyone all at once. This blog, it is literary - steeped in typography. In its own way, it is also another piece of (mostly irrelevant) information contributing to our culture's information glut. It may even be entertainment.

I suppose, at my core, I am a relativist. My essential quarrel with Postman is not that television has reshaped our public discourse, our sense of truth and knowledge, our definitions of intelligence and information, but that we are in any place to pass a judgment on these changes. Things are not as they were 100-200 years ago. Much has changed, for the better and the worse (e.g. while I bemoan the heaps of irrelevant "news" trumpeted from every corner of the world, I embrace the mind-opening exchange of information and culture). I do not believe that it is possible to get enough perspective from inside today to accurately judge it against yesterday. We need a little distance.

But distance is a luxury that we will never have, for we are here right now, teaching and learning in this quagmire of headlines, tweets, texts, hypertext, moving images, and typography. Sure we can lament the "fall" of print, the "rise" of imagery, the shorter attention spans, the perceived decrease in complexity of thought and lack of exposition, the "reading problems" and learning disorders that Postman argues did not plague the students and educators of yester-century. Or we can work diligently and thoughtfully to provide kids today the best ways and means to process, analyze, reflect on, and thrive in and shape (for the better, the meaningful-er, the serious-er!) our culture.

It's been ages

And I'm sorry about that.  Fall into Winter 2009 will forever be remembered as the semester that did me in, which, considering my debaucherous past, is saying something!

Today I was passed a link to a NY Times article on geekifying our high schools.  Looking at the link and description, I hesitated to even click through.  Afterall,  I can still taste the disgust that I felt at Wired's short take on the subject of geek culture in high schools.  But click through I did, and I was pleasantly surprised to find an even-handed article on how we've been teaching high school computer science and technology classes all wrong . . . and some promising examples of how to do it the right way.  More theory and critical thinking, less word processing and spreadsheets!  More creativity and a better view of the big picture, less code-writing drills!  Woohoo!

Technology shapes and is shaped by humanity.  We both use it and are used by it.  A clear understanding of how new technologies function and evolve is critical to a future aided, rather than controlled by, technology.  Improving high school tech course: step one.

On an entirely different note - here's a collection of short fiction by New Jersey native Patrick Eamonn.  Funny, poignant, at times disturbing glimpses into the lives of a series of no-one-in-particulars from our own Garden State.

On credibility

In this article on Locus Magazine’s website, Doctorow (the author of Little Brother) discusses why young adult novels should have sex (or drinking, or drug use, or mild anarchy . . . ).  His argument is simple and elegant: because teens already do these things.   Doctorow posits that if YA fiction only portrays rule-bending, authority-defying, sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll-having behavior as having immediate and dire consequences, then it will lose its credibility.  After all, real life certainly does not work that way.  In fact, a little rebellion can be a good thing, as we test our boundaries, form our personal ethics, and develop our identities.  There is a certain amount of trial and error involved in growing up.

We champion literature because, as C.S.Lewis said, “In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.”  Experience by proxy allows us to leap the confines of our daily existence.  It allows us to empathize with the stranger, to understand those we may never meet.  It broadens our world-view and opens our mind.  If we’d rather teens learn and “experience” the more unsavory aspects of  adult life through literature than through action, it’s vitally important that that literature honestly reflect reality.  Teens might read what rings false, but they certainly will not connect to it.  Furthermore, a literature devoid of reality, full of schmaltzy cautionary tales may well push our children to dangerous behaviors, as they seek to separate fact from myth through their own experience.  If reading about risky behaviors (which they know exist) will keep kids from engaging in them, or overindulging in them, then by all means - bring on the prose!

Power Dynamics

In the future, when I think about my time at Pratt as a Library Science student, I may very well consider July 27, 2009 - the eighth meeting of Summer II's Young Adult Lit class - the worst day ever. Why, you ask? Because I wasn't there. And Barry Lyga, author of Boy Toy, was. Missing truly awesome stuff could be a major theme of my life. It's something I'm trying to work on. Promise.

I want to write about Boy Toy. There is so much I want to say, but I'll keep this brief. Of all of the things that struck me about this book (as reader, a teacher of seventh graders, an adult who loves adolescents . . . ), what stuck with me, haunting me and forcing me to examine my own practices, was the way Lyga paints such a clear picture of adult-child relationships. In Boy Toy, Josh is sexually abused by his seventh grade Social Studies teacher. They end up having an extended "affair," which culminates in her going to prison, her husband beating Josh senseless, and Josh sexually molesting a friend. There is a lot to explore here, as we listen to now-eighteen-year-old Josh tell his story and figure himself and his relationships out.

But I want to focus on the relationship between Eve, the teacher, and Josh, the twelve-year-old. Specifically, in how Lyga, with compassion and amazing skill crafts Eve's sly manipulation of Josh. He makes so explicit the complex power dynamics at play between adults and children, and especially between authority figures such as teachers, and their charges. Every time Eve asks Josh if this is "what [he] wants," she works to ensure that he sees himself as the guilty party. She preys on this guilt, carefully setting up sexual situations that appear to Josh to be in his control and his fault. Six years later, this situation is still being used by certain adults in Josh's life, to their advantage. When Josh's coach wants to goad him - he brings up Eve. It's so well written, and quite disturbing.

And, because I have a near-pathological need to relate everything back to my life and work . . . as a teacher I think about power dynamics of the classroom and the school bureaucracy in general all of the time. The way we are manipulated by our administrators, and they by their supervisors . . . how we, in turn, manipulate our students and they each other . . . in one long chain of power plays. The need to balance honesty, respect, humor, patience, and authority in order to craft a safe learning environment for all kids. Something as simple as collecting a homework assignment, or handing back a quiz is an opportunity to humiliate or praise, to create a class hierarchy, to validate or invalidate . . . everything we do is fraught with this emotional potential. How we use it is everything.

Body Drama

I want so badly to love Body Drama - the book, not the actual thing itself. It's about high time someone made a book celebrating girls' real bodies and showcasing the range of shapes, sizes, colors, and textures they come in. I love that it's full of photographs and frank talk about all the weird and interesting things normal bodies do. I love that it discusses what isn't normal (BV, STIs) without moralizing or sliding into the ick-gross trap too often, and that it offers great advice for dealing with your period and keeping healthy.

But there are a few things I don't like about the book, and they really stand out to me because on all the other points, it's spot on.

First of all, despite its lip service to celebrating our unique and awesome bodies, the book is chock full of body care and beauty tips designed to help you take your awesome uniqueness and make it look, you know, better . . . more ummmm, normal? What the hell? Don't come out swinging, shouting body love and acceptance from the rooftops, then spend every other page reinforcing the beauty status quo. That ideal image you're self-tanning, plucking, waxing, squishing, pushing up and out, coloring, straightening, and painting to achieve . . . it ain't real! And you should know that, Body Drama!

Then it gets a little fat-phobic on you. Body Drama equates being overweight with being unhealthy again and again, but the two are not interchangeable. There are plenty of thin folks who are terribly unhealthy and plenty of chubsters (like myself) who are not. Poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle are unhealthy, but they don't, necessarily = overweight, as healthy eating habits and exercise do not = thin. I know that it's possible to be overweight and healthy. So do plenty of other people (scientists and doctors, even!) Like the good folks at Healthy at Every Size. I know that overweight people can live longer and have better survival rates for cardiac events, I know that fat can help protect against many diseases, I know that thin=/=healthy and overweight =/=unhealthy, I know that dieting can make you sick (really sick). I know that the BMI scale is crap. If I know all of this, why doesn't Body Drama? Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for everyone getting fit and healthy, by all means . . . and I commend Body Drama for a great section on nutrition . . . but fit does not equal trim, it equals fit, it equals the ability to perform certain physical tasks. And a sense of self confidence and self worth that comes from having, specifically, lost weight and from the compliments of others is bound to crumble. Again, Body Drama is paying lip service to love and acceptance, while reminding us that we could look better . . . compliment-worthy, even.

The third way Body Drama disappoints me (deeply, painfully) is in its coverage of sexy, sexy sex. Or lack thereof. Yes, there's a great section on contraception that even includes tubal ligation (woot!) and good info on STIs, but no information about your body and sex. Nothing to prepare a girl for what might happen and the ways her body will react to getting hot and heavy (hello vaginal secretions!). Nothing on masturbation, either. Seems to me that sex is a major source of body drama (amiright, Ms. Cho (2:10)? Seriously, after the sex bit, she discusses body issues, dieting, and eating disorders with such grace and humor.)

Body Drama just told me I'm cool the way I am but: really, I could look a lot better, I'm fat and therefore unhealthy, and I might be a slut. Sheesh! I'm going to go crawl into my closet for a while. My winter coats don't judge me.

Defaults and Diversity

Nick Burd, author of the amazing, Vast Fields of Ordinary came to talk to us the other day about his book, and about writing YA lit in general. It was a pretty enlightening conversation, and he said a couple of things that gave me a lot to think about and digest.

The first was about race. The main character of Vast Fields of Ordinary is white - most of the characters in the book are white. It's set in Iowa, which according to the U.S. Census Bureau is 90.6% White. That is a whole lot of percent. Nick said that he chose to make the main character White because (I'm paraphrasing here) writing about a Black person in Iowa necessitates writing about a whole mess of stuff that this novel isn't about. I see the truth in that, I absolutely do. Our cultural default is still set to White, Heterosexual, Judeo-Christian Male. To a certain extent any deviation from that requires explanation and exposition. But what if we stopped explaining? Maybe part of shifting or eliminating the default is to stop explaining why something isn't it?

The second was about sexuality. Nick's next YA book is about two straight boys because (paraphrasing!) in writing about gay teens again, he would be afraid of writing the same book twice. It got me to wondering how many authors think, "Man, if I write about straight kids again . . . well, you know." or "Crap, here I am with another novel about heterosexual teens. I need to take it easy on the P and V, you know?"

Which got the class to talking about how well-represented gay boys are these days, and how under or poorly rep'd gay girls are. The requisite "Why is that?" was tossed around and I said nothing because I have some serious class discussion anxiety. Maybe the idea of our cultural default is at work here, too. White, homosexual, J-C, male is only one step away from default. White, homosexual, J-C, female is two steps away. Twice as far . . . takes twice as long? God, that's overly simplistic, but I think it still holds some water.

We need to start leaping away from the default. Over and over again. Until there are so many "outliers" that the idea of "regular" or "normal" or "other" is obliterated in a mess of everyone. Because, hey, just because we live in a messed up White, heterosexist, religiously intolerant patriarchy doesn't make it right or normal.

On Little Brother

Little Brother rocks my socks in the best of fight-the-power-revolutionary-freedom ways. Reading this book made my heart sing. It made me want to learn how to solder tiny metal bits in meaningful ways.

It may seem an odd pairing, but Little Brother reminds me a great deal of Donnie Darko. Both lovingly and accurately portray the seriousness of teens lives as actually serious. In both the main character is on a quest for the truth about how things work. Whether that thing is space-time, or habeas corpus. While Little Brother is a techno-thriller about a Department of Homeland Security gone mad on its own power (comment peu realiste!) and the gamers who decide to put an end to the madness, and Donnie Darko is a tale of wormholes, and bubbles of space-time, alternate realities, and the ramifications of the everyday choices we make, they both speak to the power of teens. The power to make a difference, to manifest change, to take control. They speak to agency - which is something I think many teens feel a distinct lack of.

Hope . . .

Do teens need hope? More to the point - do they need it in their literature? After discussing some painfully gut-wrenching novels in class, we came around to this essential question. We brainstormed and were able to come up with only a handful of titles (barring Christopher Pike's oeuvre) where in the main character dies. Many of these were still relatively hopeful - begging the question, do teens need hope? Do they need that glimmer of silver in the thunderhead?

I don't think so. I see kids go from tween to teen every year. I watch them mature and learn to read and take stock of the world around them. They exist in a limbo: not kids and not yet adults, governed by rules they have no say in, highly marketed but not self-sufficient, affected and interested by politics but unable to vote . . . Teens live in a adult world that is largely ignorant of their concerns and crises. I think there is something about the hopeless, the utterly bleak, that speaks to this sense of alienation and disenfranchisement.

Many of them don't need rainbows after the storm, but we keep providing it. Perhaps it has something to do with our adult guilt - our need to promise that everything will eventually be kind of okay. The protagonist will survive (and so will you!). The world cares about her (and also about you!). Bad things happen to good people but not really because in the end there is a glimmer of hope to let you know that g-d or whomever is still on their (your!) side.

Do I think teens need hope? Not any more than adults do. I think we're just suffering from Pretty Woman syndrome - on their behalf.

My thoughts on Twilight . . . ages after the fact

Yeah, it's been done to death, but here I go, adding my voice to the fray . . .

Ok ok, I get it. I know why Twilight is so popular. It speaks to your gut, it confuses love and lust (as so many do) and its portrayal of first love is amazingly, viscerally accurate. It validates our basest desires. It speaks directly to the reptile brain. It's hot.

Yes, we all know that feeling - that OMG I can't live without them! mix of fear and bodily yearning. It's real. It totally happens. Twilight is steeped in it. That is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. But when we live in a world so dominated by one worldview, where love is lust and romantic love lasts forever, but real attachment never develops and women are weak and helpless and men are cold and stoic . . . then I wish that people writing for the most impressionable audiences would think a little harder about the choices they make and the characters they bring to life, the relationships they portray, and the norms they reinforce. I guess, in the end, it just makes me sad.

If, for every Bella there were an equally popular kick-ass heroine, maybe. . . but there isn't. Well, why the hell not?