Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Ending of Angels in America
Friday, May 8, 2015
Ending of Angels in America
Sunday, May 3, 2015
My interpretation of Angels ending
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
KUSHNER'S PLAY
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Punk Rock Feminist Documentary on Netflix: "The Punk Singer"
Normally I don't watch documentaries but "The Punk Singer" completely changed my mind about them. Normally I wouldn't have picked this movie, but this class has been leading me to explore more feminist works of art that I regularly would not be drawn too. I honestly wasn't into any of this stuff until I took this class, but now my mind is like a hamster running on a wheel, the wheel keeps spinning even after we leave class. Anyway, Kathleen Hanna questions gender roles and patriarchy in the same way that Jeanette Winterson and Alison Bechdel do. She seems more fired up than Alison though, more like Jeanette? Her ideas and thoughts are definitely different. I enjoyed it. Anyway, if anyone chooses to watch the documentary (steaming on Netflix) feel free to comment your thoughts! Enjoy.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
My analysis of Fun Home
FUN HOME
Friday, April 10, 2015
Just a Fun (Home) thing to think about
So Fun Home may be my new favorite book .
The idea of a autobiography focusing on someone other than the main character is so interesting to me. But I was thinking a minute ago. How would Alisons life been if Alison lived with her father......and his lover?
That's right! Let's suppose Alison was born and that her mother divorced her father because of gay early enough in alisons childhood that she didn't ever wonder about her mother but instead lived with an openly gay Bruce? How would her life be different? Would her father have lived longer? I'm curious to hear your opinions so feel free to comment your thoughts!
(Also I just found out Fun Home is being made a musical and I am currently listening to a song from it which you can download here <-------. It's about Alisons love for Joan and it's adorable)
(Edit: I read further and even Alison asks this so now I'm even more curious to know y'all's opinions)
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Bechdel's use of maps in Fun Home
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Coming Out Process: more diffcult for those who look straight??
Does anyone know the popular and feminine looking Great British Bake Off Contestant, Ruby Tandoh? She recently came out on twitter. See Ruby's picture above.
This led Bella Qvist, popular LGBTQ+ blogger and journalist (see picture above) to write an article for The Guardian about how coming out is a lifelong issue that is more diffucult and annoying for those who look straight or "cisgender". She argues this is because people assume they are staight/cis because of how they look, and even upon coming out people don't take their sexuality or gender declaratoin seriously because they don't fit the gay sterotype, brushing it off as a phase or something they are doing for attention. Bella paticularly points out that this happens for femme lesbians such Ruby or herself. Whereas people who "look gay," or a fit a gay sterotype have to come out less because people assume they are gay.
What do you guys think? Is this true or is it equally difficult for everyone? Is she bias based off her own expierience? You can check out the artcle at a link below. I pulled two quotes below that explain the main idea of her article, if you don't have time to look at the article. Personally, I never thought of this point of view before. Maybe because I come from a part of New York where the LGBTQ+ community is very accepted, but if someone tells me they are gay, whether or not they look straight, I don't question it, I honestly did not know anyone did. On the other hand I do recognize that looking straight can create a circumstance where one has to "come out" more often.
1. Qvist states “Despite broadcasting her LGBT status to 52K followers, this won’t be the only time that Ruby has to spell things out. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. Contrary to popular belief, the act of coming out doesn’t just happen once; us gays come out all the time. Especially if we’re feminine looking gay or bi women like Ruby or me, because society assumes we’re straight.”
2. “All too often “girly” looking women are quizzed about their sexuality at the doors of gay bars, and femme couples who campaign for femme visibility, are assumed to be sisters or doing it for attention. Really not the case, guys. (And what does that say about our view of women and femininity as a whole?)”
This concept can be applied to groups other than femme lesbians, such as to gay men who are masculine, asexuals who dress provocatively for fashion or other reasons, transgenders who don’t fit stereotypes, ect.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/03/ruby-tandoh-came-out-lesbians-bi
Monday, April 6, 2015
My ideas of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by chapters:
Chapter One -
We meet Janette and her mother and we see that they have a extremely close relationship that she does not have with her dad (we barley see him in the book). There is a lesbian couple the Janette is fond of, but it not allowed to be around. As a reader we see the reason why Janette was adopted: to be missionary child whom she could train to be a servant of God. Her mother made Janette's fate without her even being able to walk yet. The fairy tales relates to Janette and her mother by Janette being the princess that takes over for the hunchback women, her mother.
Her mother want her to change the world, but it seems like she wants her to save it like she is Jesus or something. Her mother is very straight with religion and it seems like Janette is heading down the same path, as she gets older but it changes when she needs to go to school.
Chapter two -
In the beginning of this chapter Jeanette's mother hears the radio broadcasts an account of the family life of snails and her mother calls it abomination. Im glad that Janette doesn't agree with her mother, it tells us that she doesn't agree with everything her mother does and agrees its overreacting. Her "overreacting" was not the first time" since her mother had believed her losing her hearing was talking to god. So her mother never took her to the doctor and she went without hearing until Miss.Jewsbury took her.
Pierre was a old flame the Janette's mother thought was love. It was a story where Janette's mother thought she had feeling for a man in France, but turns out she was just sick. That story was support to be a learn for Janette what you like can be love can just be a sickness. I don't think Janette's mother believes in love, I don't think she loves her husband and I think that she believes in getting married, love god while following the bible and have children or in her case raise.
For the picture of the women I think she did have a relationship with a women since there was a picture in "old flames" and to me a women who is against gays would react worse. She would have told Janette to never go in the story owned by lesbians from the beginning and she would never see Janette when she got older. Her mother is probably ok with gay, maybe one of them, but keeps it in because the bible says no.
We see Jeannette at school and she is so smart and most like a adult then the other kids and even her teacher. I hate how everyone brings her down at school for doing so good.
Chapter three-
I find it hilarious that Janette's mother hears the neighbors might be having sex and she goes crazy. It is like a funny skit, it is bad when a person hears sex but even whose when someone reacts to it. It goes becomes weird when all three women sing a hymn for the benefit of next door.
The fairy tale of the prince look for a wife is telling the story of her and her mother. How her mother is trying to make create Janette the creation for the name of god and she is becoming great but not in her eyes similar to the book the prince got, Frankenstein.
Monday, March 23, 2015
oranges and feminism
"Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical fields. It encompasses work in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, economics, women's studies, literary criticism,art history,psychoanalysis and philosophy.Feminist theory aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy."
^ that basic feminist theory is from Wikipedia (:
Orange Is The New Black Vs Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
1. Both Orange Is The New Black and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit pass the "The Bechdel Test." As mentioned in class, passing The Bechdel Test requires females in a movie to discuss something with each other other than men. Being that it is set in an all female prison, Orange Is The New Black does this beautifully, and allows us to see the depth or the characters for more than just their relations with men. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit does have women talking about men, but it is not the main point of the book. I'm really glad that I learned about the Bechdel Rule in this class. I'm a filmmaker, and a feminist. I'm astonished they did not teach us this idea at my old college, New York Film Academy. What we show people as media/content creators is so important because it molds the minds of others. Any projects that I have wrote have tended to pass the Bechdel Test anyway, but being aware of this idea gives me the power to pass it onto others. Hopefully female characters will be created with more depth- as we can show much more interesting things about a women than just her aspirations/relations with the opposite sex.
2. Both of these books broke LGBTQ barriers. Orange Is The New Black, for example, has broken into the laptops of Ameirca (most popular series on Netflix, according to Netflix) and shown us LGBTQ characters with such depth. One of the most interesting examples of this is the transgender character played by Lavern Cox, a real life transgender women, and her struggle of "coming out," going through with the gender change, and fighting to keep her hormone pills while in the all female jail. This show is a dark comedy that appeals to mostly everyone, with tons of feminist conversations and LGBTQ conversations sprinkled in. As I've said before, showing characters like this with depth makes a huge impression on public opinion. In this case it is a positive one. I have developed a certain dislike for filmmakers who use their power to do the opposite though (I don't watch shows/media that show or perpetuate rape culture, which is hard because many things do. I do this with media that perpetuates other things I disagree with as well such as anti semitism). While I was not around in the 1980's I would imagine Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit also broke down barriers with this novel. My parents were teenagers back then and they said being openly gay was harder for people than it is now (especially with the AIDS stigma about gay males). I like the way the book showed that she just felt how she felt as a child/teenager, not knowing that it would be seen as as "wrong." There are so many people who think sexual orientation is a choice. The only choice is whether one chooses to hide it or not, but it is still there. I know I am making modern people sound dumb, but many people have been raised in a bubble. They need to see someone's story of not "choosing" to be gay, just being gay, to understand it.
3. On a third and not as strong point, the relationship that Jeanette has with her mom is somewhat interesting compared to what Piper from Orange Is The New Black has with her mom. Don't get me wrong, Piper is a spoiled upper middle class women, where as Jeanette was poor. But both of their mother's are controlling and stubborn. Both of their mother's disapprove of their daughters sexual orientation, and either are in somewhat denial or are more concerned with how they look in the community. Below is a clip of Piper's mom visiting her in jail, and you can see that she is, as per usual, in a denial of her daughter's situation. There is a strange tension there that I imagine would have been there when Jeanette visited her mother after going away. I have a theory that the more controlling the parent is- the more rebelious the kid will be.
Anyway, I recommend Orange Is The New Black to anyone from class. It is based off of a nonfiction novel about a women named Piper, a successful, straight, and waspy suburban lady who was sent to a Women's Prison for a 10 year old drug charge that she committed as a young adult with her then lesbian lover. If anyone else watches it, did you think of it when you were reading the book? Listening to the way Jeanette describes men, I think she see's them all as the George "Pornstache" Mendez character from Orange Is The New Black.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
RUTH - The Lesbian in the Bible
When Winterson mentions this idea as a chapter title, it made me dig a little deeper. not surprisingly, there are quite a few who seem to think the same;
"Ruth's declaration of love for Naomi is not only one of the finest and most profound in the Bible, it is the only speech in scripture that approaches our wedding vows. Indeed it goes beyond them, exceeding the promise of "till death do us part". And it brings Naomi back to life. Naomi is sunk in bitter grief and despair, but as the story unfolds we witness her resurrection, until at the end the women of Bethlehem celebrate her and Ruth as a couple, and declare of the child born to Ruth and Boaz: "A son has been born to Naomi", as if Naomi is the father and the husband." (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/14/religion.gayrights )
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Sexuality, self, and the world around us
Monday, March 16, 2015
Demons - orange? brown?
what about her mom's demon? the color differences?
what's brown or orange referenced to?
Is it the fantasy delusion she experienced with her loneliness? confusion of oppression? starvation or the fever hallucinations from her sickness?
oranges are not the only fruit/tongues untied
I was doing some research to back up my hypothesis that the tongues language discussed in class and on the blog is a form of trance induced (by/and or ) hypnosis used in a spiritual setting ... (it would be an interesting analysis having experienced something of the sort myself in my late teens and recently on a retreat in Connecticut - let's discuss some more )
thoughts on Adrienne Rich, Foucault's and Wolf's reading
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Thought I should share some feeling about our discussion in class thanks for reading - Adam
Speaking in tongues/ Homosexuality and religion
Friday, February 6, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Apparently everyones doing test posts sooooo *jumps onto the bandwagon*
uhhhhhhh
potatoes am i right
what do you think Marge