Hey everybody, Kayleigh here and this month I wanted to talk about my favourite horror movie adaptations of novels/short stories/graphic novels. I think I started with about 30 titles on this list but I would have been talking at you forever, so I've limited it to just 5. Here goes, in no particular order...

Bram Stoker's Dracula (based on the novel, Dracula by Bram Stoker... obviously)

1992 Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

To boldly entitle this picture "Bram Stoker's" Dracula is funny because it's sort of ironic. There are countless Dracula movies (well, I'm sure SOMEONE has counted them, but I don't have that sort of time), and out of all those that I've seen, this version has to be one of the least like Stoker's book. Usually, because of time-constraints/pacing/focus, the book gets cut down to fit the run-time of a screen adaptation (all of the Tom Bombadil stuff in LOTR, for example). This adaptation is unusual in that a lot was added. Stoker's Dracula is not a sympathetic, tortured character... at all. He is a straight-up monster. There is no love, only possession and conquest, and death.

Coppola's Dracula is a wronged warrior, wrought with unimaginable grief, cursed through his own rage, and driven more by love than blood-lust. He is a complex character that you're conflicted about because on one hand, he's evil, and on the other, you relate to his heartbreak so much that you just want him to get the girl and be happy.

Also, the score and the cinematography in this movie are out of this world.

The Mist (based on the short story/novella by Stephen King)

2007 Directed by Frank Darabont

Now before you start shouting at me for not picking The Shining, or Carrie, or IT, as the best Stephen King adaptation, let me say this - shut up. I love this movie. It's the story of David, a man who finds himself trapped inside a store with his son and several others as a dangerous mist rolls through a small town.

I read this story when I was a teenager and it has remained my firm favourite short story. It's so spooky and tense and claustrophobic. Plus, there are cool monsters and Mrs Carmody, a raving religious fanatic who becomes almost as dangerous as the monsters outside. I love the performances and the dialogue in the movie, and that change to the ending... jeeeez. If you know, you know.

If you can, I'd recommend watching the black and white version, as this is the way Darabont originally intended it to be seen. It really does make a difference, leaning the film into that old B-movie monster flick style.

The Exorcist (based on the novel by William Peter Blatty)

1973 Directed by William Friedkin

Who hasn't heard of The Exorcist? No one. And there's good reason for that. Whether you find it terrifying or comical, this movie is special and marked the most significant of its kind in the genre. As far as possession stories go, I don't think anything else has come close to matching the dread and the horror of this one. If you read the book, you'll find that it's a pretty faithful adaptation. If you're trying the book for this first time, go ahead and treat yourself to the audiobook. It's scary!

30 Days of Night (based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith)

2007 Directed by David Slade

Boy, was I surprised by how much I loved this movie. I've read all of the graphic novels and - please forgive me - I'm not a fan of the art style. This is nothing against the artist, it's just me and my bizarre pet peeves. There are animated shows I can't watch because the art style bothers me so much but for the life of me, I can't explain why. Someone please... figure out why I absolutely detest this...

... but I love this ...

... and weirdest of all, I'm fine with this...

... but can't stand this...

I know, I know. It's nonsense.

So anyway, while I enjoy the story in the graphic novels, the art style isn't for me. I think it's because the vampires look a little more goofy than scary, and I love scary vampires so I find this grating. I wasn't expecting much from the movie but damn! - if those aren't some of the best vampires ever! Slade really made the most of the premise and the setting too, and it's glorious.

The Ritual (based on the novel by Adam Nevill)

2017 Directed by David Bruckner

I won't give any spoilers but the third act goes in a different direction from the book, and it's great, especially if you've read the book. The movie is a pretty close adaptation until a certain point and then it veers, but not so far as to ruin the plot as set by the book. You'll have to read it and then see it to know what I'm talking about, but both are excellent if you like suspenseful, isolation-themed horror (and creepy cult magic). I'm only saying so little about this one because I went into the book blind and that's the way I'd recommend going into this story, whichever medium you decide to enjoy it in first. But READ THE BOOK!

That's all from me this month, I'll be back in April, enthusing about other things I love.

Tropes in Movies that Drive me Crazy

Perfect Bodies

 

So obviously, there is a typical body type in most movies and TV shows. For women, it is a lean figure with a flat stomach and nice curves. For men, it is a muscular, ruggedly handsome look. Hollywood is to blame for a lot of the issues surrounding people's views of their own bodies. These looks are rarer among everyday people. People come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but it seems only one body type gets to have adventures, fight bad guys, and save the world. The only time I see heavier or average looking folks as a lead is in comedies where their looks are often played up for laughs.

Is it so much to ask that we have an average looking person as the main character in a movie without the role centering on the fact that they are not ripped and perfect? Can we have someone like Jonah Hill or Rebel Wilson as a lead in a serious flick that has nothing to do with how they look?

Robotic Horses

 

As an animal lover, the way horses are portrayed on screen has always bothered me. Unless it's a movie that's about horses specifically, they are usually seen as mindless modes of transportation that don't act natural. I'm talking about zero reactions to loud explosions or gunfire, and the willingness to just be ridden by random strangers who steal them from their riders. A real horse isn't going to just stand there while chaos enfolds around them. They also whinny and neigh way too much in films. Real horses don't make that much noise.

Disposable Henchmen

Ah, the old disposable henchman, just there to get killed. Henchmen in movies are fodder and nothing more. Even if they are in legions with the bad guy, these people are still people. They form relationships with each other during training, yet they are never mourned by their comrades when they get killed by the way the good guys do. There is zero character development in the average henchman. I know this is because we are supposed to focus on the main characters, but I still would like to see a little more reaction to them getting picked off.

Non-Devastating Injuries

Random cuts and bruises are always conveniently located somewhere on the main character that won't interfere or distract from the story. You can't honestly expect me to believe that after a big fight scene where the main guy is getting repeatedly punched, stabbed, kicked, thrown, and shot isn't going to have his face swollen shut and be able to continue saving the day without being slowed up a little. A bullet through and through is not something I expect even the toughest hero to be able to walk off. They also can take a beating to the face without losing any teeth, which is downright ridiculous. I'm looking at you, John Wick.

The Head Tilt

 

This is mostly a horror movie trope. Whenever the monster, alien, or supernatural being appears before attacking someone, they always do this slow, calculating head tilt that drives me crazy. When did we decide to start doing this? I've seen it in so many movies, that I can predict it every time. 

The Final Girl

 

Another horror movie trope is that there will always be one character left to tell the tale, and it's usually a woman. She's typically the smartest or most innocent one, and her survival leaves room for a sequel.I get it, but I'd like to see more than one person survive a horror movie. It shouldn't always be a female either. Is it really hard to imagine that a handful of college kids can walk away from the spooky cabin in the woods?

Young Wife, Old Husband

 

For some reason, keeping the ages of husbands and wives close is a big no-no in most movies.You almost always see a much younger, sexier woman with an older, more grizzled man. It's a sin to show couples around the same age on screen. Part of it goes back to the whole idea that women must always look sexy and pretty in movies, while men are given a little more leeway. Though couples far apart in age isn't super rare, it's much more common to see married folk who are closer in age then Hollywood would have us believe. Also, the lead man will almost never have a wife with extra pounds on her or any sort of physical imperfections, which is a whole other argument.

Adult Teenagers

 

In all the teen movies I saw growing up, most of the characters were played by 20 and 30 somethings. They are almost always way too put together and good looking to portray how an actual 16 year old looks. No acne, no awkward bodies, no childish features. The girls in these movies also tend to dress way more provocatively then would be allowed in most schools. I got in trouble in high school for wearing a tank top, but these "teens" are often seen in short shorts and bare midriff tops that would get them sent home in a real school.

Basic Hygiene

    

Come on, do you really expect me to believe that a character with no access to hot showers and razors is going to have great hair and shaved legs when they've been traveling or running for weeks on end? This is a common one in movies and shows set in medieval type landscapes and apocalyptic turmoil. The female characters especially never seem to get greasy, flat hair, and their legs and pits are always still smooth days and weeks after their last bath. A "dirty" character usually has no more than a few smears of soot on their face and some rumpled clothing. Once again, the sin of showing a woman as anything less than perfect shows it's not so ugly face. You don't see this as much with male characters, as the rough and tumble look seems to be more acceptable, but just once I'd like to see a female with un-plucked eyebrows, hairy legs, and rat's nest hair stumble onto the screen after she's just spent months running from zombies. Who has the time to look this good at the end of the world?

The world is ending. Do I have to tweet about it?

Happy Monday, y'all. Or Unhappy Monday, which might be more accurate. Mary here, and like much of the rest of the world I've spent the weekend obsessing over Russia's illegal, immoral, and utterly ignoble invasion of Ukraine. Explainers, think pieces, live updates, articles, essays... I've read them all.

You wouldn't know it to look at my Twitter feed though. Or Facebook. Or Instagram. Nah, I've been posting the usual nonsense -- circus videos, book promos, pet pictures, snarky comments about the PATH train, blah blah blah. Luckily, I'm no celebrity, and I haven't built a following off my sparkling social media personality, so no one much cares about what I do or do not post. Because if they did, I'd probably be accused of being insensitive, ignorant, and a host of other things for not commenting about world politics during a time of crisis.

Social media has set up the bizarre expectation that everyone should have something to say about everything. Beauty influencers are expected to share their thoughts on international politics. Authors of children's books are expected to have well-informed opinions about systematic injustices. Somehow, everyone is supposed to have the same depth of knowledge and ability to comment on any given issue as a professional journalist who's covered the topic for decades or an academic with several degrees in the matter. And if your hastily written, shallowly informed tweet you dashed off to prove you're paying attention doesn't get it quite right, well, may the odds be ever in your favor.

I understand why there is this expectation, both from the creator and audience perspectives. With social media breaking down the barriers between public and personal lives, individuals want to know that the people to whom they give their time (and money) are worthy. Creators want to meet audience expectations and prove that they are, in fact, worthy.

But I think it's a mistake to assume that everyone has to comment on everything. Sometimes, just because someone is silent on a matter doesn't mean they don't care. Social media is a public space, yet it's expected that we act like we would in a more private setting. It's like expecting someone to get up on a stage in a public square but act the same way they would at a hang-out with their two closest friends. Personally, I simply don't consider myself enough of an expert on... anything, really... to shout my opinions publicly.

There was a time when I tried to jump on the whole "have an opinion about everything" bandwagon. Partly it was because I got swept up in the energy of Twitter (there's something of a rush you get from firing off a string of hot-headed tweets), and partly it was because I saw how people were rewarded for this behavior (with followers, clout, and, perhaps most relevantly for me, book deals). But then I got tired. It was exhausting not only trying to keep up with everything, but trying coming up with things to say that felt right. Perhaps it's the nerd in me, but I feel the constant need to fact-check myself. And I'm not comfortable talking about things I have no expertise in. 

For me to tweet about the war on Ukraine, I feel like I'd need a background in the history, culture, and politics of the region to be able to say something that felt accurate and meaningful - and not like empty awareness signaling - and I simply don't have that. 

Awareness signaling. That's another thing I don't feel like doing. I don't know if it's a real term, but it's what I've come to think of whenever something significant happens in the world and everyone parrots the same generic lines, seemingly just to prove to the rest of the internet that they know what's happening and they're on the "right" side of it.

Anyway, I'll sign off with a plea: Just because you follow someone's social media, don't assume you know everything they're thinking.

The Critics Were WRONG!!!

Have you seen Encanto? Of course you have! It’s been a streaming phenomenon since Disney put it on their Disney+ platform on Christmas Eve. Perhaps you have young children and are now on your fifteenth viewing. Surely you’ve listened to the soundtrack. You must have, since the Encanto soundtrack (written by LIn-Manuel MIranda) currently has six songs on the Billboard Hot 100. The catchy songs have earwormed their way into playlists across america. The film has a 91% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating almost universal praise.

Don’t worry. We aren’t going to talk about Bruno. Or turn this site into an Encanto appreciation blog. 

Oh, did you just get “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” out of your head? I’ll fix that.

We are instead going to talk about some of the 9% of critics who didn’t like Encanto. 

The Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast on NPR did an episode reviewing Encanto when it came out in November. Their consensus was that it was a visually beautiful but pretty slight entry from Disney. Stephen Thompson, their resident music critic, in particular singled out the songs for being forgettable and not at all catchy. He went so far to suggest that Lin-Manuel Miranda should take a break since he obviously was running out of steam. 

Yeah, about that... (Did we mention the six songs from the soundtrack on the Hot 100?)

So that review aged like unpasteurized milk left in the sun. So much so that Thompson felt compelled to rewatch the movie and relisten to the soundtrack to see if he’d missed anything on first listen. 

Now this is surely a fantasy of writers everywhere. The critic who gives a bad review is utterly humbled by the massive sales and adulation of the writer’s adoring throngs and publicly recants before slinking off into a tear-stained exile. (Not everyone? Just me?) 

Wrong! I was wrong! The shame!!!

And it never happens. Never.  

Being a writer means you have to deal with the slings and arrows of critics, both professional and amateur. And since writers are often nitpicky by nature, it of course means we focus on the bad (or weird) reviews rather than the good ones. I’ve written two novels. They’ve gotten a lot of good reviews! Yay! But of course I remember the dumb ones. Like the guy who left a five star rating with the one word review: “meh.” That just lives in my head, rent free. Why did you rate it five stars? WHY? And of course there are the people who have left me a rave review (“Funny! Exciting! Great!”) but have some weird personal rating system where that only merits 3 stars. What lofty book gets gets a five out of five from you, dear reader? (“To Kill A Mockingbird is both a riveting courtroom drama and a tender coming of age story! 3.5 stars!!”)

One of the first things my publisher drilled into my head was DO NOT ENGAGE with readers posting reviews. NO. DO NOT. There is no winning. If you do, you either come across like a whiner or a bully. (That’s why I’m not linking to them.) 

It should go without saying that you don’t actually have to like a particular movie or book, no matter what critics or crowds say.  Absolutely everyone has their own example of a movie they love that everyone else hates and a movie that gets enormous critical acclaim that they can’t figure out why. Personally, I love Death to Smoochy - the Robin Williams comedy about a rivalry between kid’s show performers. I am largely alone in that opinion, since my wife and I were literally the only ones in the theatre when it came out. And for the life of me, I cannot understand the critical appeal of Lars von Trier who seems determined to degrade his actresses in every movie. 

C'mon, how can you hate that rhino?

And honestly, it really doesn’t matter WHY a critic or a reader dislikes something. Sometimes something just rubs you the wrong way, or you weren’t in the right frame of mind. Art can be transformative, but if someone is resistant to change, what can you do? And maybe, upon reflection, you might be more open to something at a later time. All you can ask is that the reviewer clearly articulate their reasons as to why they dislike something.

I should add the caveat: if the reason you dislike something is wildly sexist or racist or otherwise bigoted, then you can get fucked. For example, you’re absolutely free to hate on The Last Jedi (just to pick one eternal example explored on Twitter dot com), but if your reason comes down to “they put wokeness and girls in muh Star Wars” then expect me to mock you relentlessly.

There’s always been this division of audiences vs critics, or the snooty elitists versus the unwashed rabble. And of course, things that are popular aren’t always good and things that are good aren’t always popular. For example, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made about a billion dollars more than the recent Nightmare Alley, and the Guillermo del Toro noir movie was about a billion times better than the terrible sequel about fighting robots. And sure, sometimes critics are too quick to dismiss genres out of hand, and audiences are too reluctant to try new things. The level of discourse on social media does very little to help nuance. Trying to write something in 240 characters reduces everything to quips and snark, trying to get the most likes and clicks. And sometimes a film or book just can't be reduced to a couple of sentences, and the first impression is incorrect.

Which brings us back to Encanto and Stephen Thompson. Did he reconsider? Did he succumb to pressure and start singing Surface Pressure around the house?

No.

While he liked it more on a second viewing, he was still resistant to the soundtrack's charms. He was as puzzled as ever why the tracks are filling up the BIllboard charts.

Just as puzzled as I am as to why no one else likes Death to Smoochy and anyone thinks Lars von Trier is good.

Everyone's a critic.

Victor Catano lives in New York City with his wonderful wife, Kim, and his adorable pughuaua, Danerys. When not writing, he works in live theater as a stage manager, production manager, and chaos coordinator. His hobbies include coffee, Broadway musicals, and complaining about the NY Mets and Philadelphia Eagles. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @vgcatano and find his books on Amazon

Creativity is Something Other People Do

A post by P.T. Phronk,
of Forest City Pulp fame

There’s a tendency to think of art as something others do. Art is mysterious; it comes from a magical place. It’s not like going to a day job and pumping out widgets or code or happy customers—all the things you and your ordinary friends do, all the things we do.

Maybe that’s why it’s slightly uncomfortable when good friends create good things. When watching a friend’s band, or play, or art show, it may be objectively fantastic, but that can’t be right, because fantastic acts of creation shouldn’t come from a real person you’ve known for years. They should come from an other.

We’ve even invented the concept of a muse: an other—real or imaginary—who provides the source of artistic inspiration. No way, it couldn’t be a regular person’s brain coming up with this stuff. It must originate somewhere else.

It’s all bullshit, of course. Art is a result of regular brains and regular hands put to hard work. But the belief persists, for some reason.

I try to be aware of this. As a writer, and a writer of horror, the most uncomfortable art of all, I am conscious of how strange it can be for people around me. Self promotion is a challenge, partially for that reason. I’d almost prefer to stand up on a stage and talk about my writing to a crowd of strangers—to whom I am an other—than to answer a friend asking what are you working on now?

So buy my books, stranger.

---

I'm busy and took the lazy way out for this month's post. Creativity is Something Other People Do was originally posted, in slightly different form, on Phronk.com.

The Female Power Fantasy

www.karissalaurel.com

Have you seen Encanto yet? If not, go see it. I'll wait. 

No, just kidding. 

Do go see it, if you haven't, but I'm not going to wait for you. This post will be here when you get back.

This post isn't really about Encanto, but it's inspired, in part, by the popularity of one of the characters: Luisa Madrigal. Without giving too much away, Luisa (who is not the main character, mind you) is a loveable, big, brawny, and beautiful girl who has amazing, super-human strength.

I recently learned that the artists who created her had to fight to draw Luisa with the muscular frame rather than the petite princess build Disney so-often prefers for its female characters. Here's the (very brief) article about the fight to draw a brawny Luisa:  https://www.piratesandprincesses.net/luisa-madrigal-has-become-incredibly-popular-with-many-encanto-fans/

Luisa Madrigal from Disney's Encanto

I also learned that apparently Luisa is so popular with girls that Disney is rushing to make more Luisa merchandise, something they totally hadn't anticipated. Girls love the big brawny female character? What gives?

Luisa's popularity does not surprise me AT ALL. The first thing I thought of when I read that article, and this has been on my mind a lot lately, is a pivotal moment from Season 2 of Jessica Jones, when Jessica's best friend, Trish Walker, breaks off her engagement to her fiancé. Trish is an ambitious radio journalist who dreams of a bigger career. Her fiancé has the kind of successful job she envies--he's like Anderson Cooper, perhaps--and she wants what he's got. In that scene she says, “I don’t want to be with Griffin—I want to be him. I want to do what he does. And that’s not love, and it’s not fair to either one of us.”

To that I say, girl... I feel you!

Trish Walker (From Marvel/Netflix's Jessica Jones) realizing she doesn't want to be Griffin's wife.

I've been thinking a lot about why I'm so drawn, especially lately, to characters like Jack Reacher and even the Punisher. Inspired by the new series (Reacher) on Amazon Prime, I have been gobbling Jack Reacher books as fast as I can get my hands on them. My current manuscript work-in-progress is kind of a gender-flipped version of The Punisher. When I was younger I would have thought my attraction was because I had romantic inclinations toward Jack Reacher and Frank Castle. Now I know that's not really the case. I realize that it's more like...envy. I don't want to be with them, I want to BE them. I don't mean literally so much as figuratively. Women want equity--the possibility and options of being able to achieve the same things as those guys. Sometimes it's careers. Sometimes it's social power. Sometimes it's muscles and physical strength. Sometimes it's a bit of all those things combined.

I do not fantasize about violence (to be clear!) but I do think a lot about being that strong and that invincible. And I don't think media does enough to acknowledge women have those tough-guy fantasies too, so it makes sense that Luisa is so popular. She's the embodiment of an ideal so few of us ever get to see!

This is not to say there has been a dearth of strong women in media, but that's not my point. I was talking about this with fellow ATB contributor, Mary Fan, and she brought up Gal Gadot's portrayal of Wonder Woman, and action stars like Scarlet Johansson (Black Widow). In the same vein I think of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa; Andy in The Old Guard; and Lorraine in Atomic Blond. I think of Kate Beckinsale as Selene in Underworld. These women are tiny. Or even if they're tall like Gadot and Theron, they're slim. Like, runway supermodel slim. 

Often magic, rather than muscle, accounts for their superior strength. I love many of these actresses and the characters they portray, but I'm not critiquing their plentiful existence so much as I'm critiquing the lack of representation of other types of physical shapes in media and culture. Comparatively speaking, male characters who are strong because of magic or because they are an action hero (Thor, Captain America, Geralt of Rivia, Superman, Reacher) get to have the accompanying brawn and muscle. Spiderman/Peter Parker is one of the few exceptions I can think of off the top of my head. 

On that topic, Mary Fan says:

You know what’s interesting — early superhero looks were based on circus strongmen… hence Superman’s red briefs. But there were also strongwomen in those same circuses and they didn’t get superhero-ized.

Even the Terminator, who was all robot inside, got to have big muscles to power his frame. Compare him to a long list of sexy fem-bots who have superior strength but not much muscle and are clearly expected make people think of sex. It's all about the male gaze.

Number Six a Cylon (artificially-intelligent race of machines) from Battlestar Galactica

Luisa Madrigal was not drawn for the male gaze. Instead, she's the rare embodiment of how femme strength can look when freed from sexist constraints. It broke my heart when Gina Carano (a former professional MMA fighter) turned out to be an absolute buffoon and Disney/Star Wars parted ways with her because I adored her portrayal of Cara Dune. In every heist-type group, there's always one character who plays the muscle, the heavy, the bruiser. It's usually a man, and often one who is short on brains. But in The Mandalorian, Cara Dune was not only big, muscly, strong, and fierce, but she was clever too. And beautiful! When she landed a punch, and the bad guy fell, you believed it! You believed she was strong enough to break jaws and ribs and noses. Women are so rarely portrayed that way, and I realized I had been starving to see it!

Cara Dune played by Gina Carano on Disney's The Mandalorian

When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with Adora, She-Ra, the Princess of Power. I had her action figures, all of her friends, and her flying swan, Enchanta. It didn't bother me that she looked like Barbie. ALL female dolls and action figures looked like Barbie and that seemed normal to me. Again, magic explained her strength. Never mind how her cousin, Adam (He-Man), was super strong and had the muscles to go with it. That was just the norm in the early eighties, I suppose, and I wasn't self-aware enough back then to question it. Fast forward to the Twenty-Teens and, like so many other older properties, She-Ra announced she was getting a reboot AND a facelift. She was redrawn to look how a girl who fights and swings swords might look. And naturally a lot of dudes lost their minds about it.

I, an elementary-school aged girl, was the original target market for She-Ra, and I didn't care if she had lipstick and perky boobs or not. So, why was she ever drawn that way in the first place? Sell a Barbie to a little girl to get her to start thinking that's how she had to look when she grew up. Who does that benefit? Surely not the little girl. The answer to that one starts with a "P" and rhymes with hatriarchy. The new She-Ra might still not be as big and muscly as someone like Cara Dune, but when she wields a sword, now, it's believable. There's more than just magic there to explain her physicality.

 I'm not ranting against looking femme or to argue that one cannot be both femme and strong and/or muscular. I'm actually arguing the opposite and highlighting the evolving shapes of women and femininity and spotlighting the fact that characters like Luisa are hopefully signs that the spectrum of gender representation in media is broadening to allow more variety and positivity about that variety.

2018 vs 1985

Women often live with a certain level of fear--we've somewhat come to accept that this is the way the world is. We often feel like prey, and why not? In real life, we're more likely to be the targets of violence rather than the purveyors of it. On top of that, over and over, we've been portrayed as victims in media and in history (The complicated and nuanced truth of women's roles in history is another entire blog post of it's own, but I'll save my time and simply refer you to the mandatory-reading essay by Kameron Hurley, "We Have Always Fought". I feel like an alternate title to that essay could be, "We Have Always Been Strong") . Who is surprised when our fantasies are to be stronger, more able to hold our own in a world historically dominated by the whims of men?

This tough-guy fascination is something that I'm experiencing more and more as I age. Maybe I'm feeling my vulnerability (achy joints, lower endurance, biological systems going wonky). Like I said, I'd love to be less vulnerable and more physically capable. When I was younger, I probably felt stronger and more invincible. Perhaps it's also that I hadn't lived in the world long enough to be weary of sexism, or I was better at ignoring it. Now, I think the appeal of the tough-guy aesthetic has something to do with me being middle aged and having lost my patience and tolerance for the B.S. that comes with being being a woman. 

What kind of B.S.? I'm talking about stuff like this:

I'm not including identifying information on these tweets because I don't want to bring more clicks or views to this jerk.

"That...pressure song she sings & [sic] is just stuff a guy would sing, too," he says. It's like he almost gets the whole point of the song, and Luisa's character, but then misses it by a mile. Instead of considering that women, on an even playing field, could have both equitable success and equitable problems to men, he dismisses Luisa femininity altogether and accuses her of "just being a dude in a dress."  I find it highly unlikely that men in his fundamental and conservative social circle would sing a song like "Surface Pressure." In his world men can't be both physically strong and emotionally vulnerable. It's not allowed. But take away his argument of "God's plan" for what women and men are supposed to be, and all that's left is a bunch of artificial, man-made goop. By the way, dude, Proverbs 31:17 says, "She girds herself with strength, And strengthens her arms." You know how she strengthens her arms? She plants a whole damned vineyard! No matter how much he rails against it, gender evolution will eventually leave him behind. It already has.

William Moulton Marston, a Harvard educated, feminist psychologist and the creator of Wonder Woman predicted that a matriarchy was inevitable and said, "The next 100 years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy—a nation of amazons in the psychological rather than the physical sense.” I'm hopeful that Marston is right and that masculinity, in the toxic patriarchal sense, is on the decline. This sentiment isn't about wanting men to disappear or women wanting to take the place of men in the world, but about the world becoming a place where equality for the full spectrum of gender expression is more fully realized and respected.

So bring on the Luisas and the Cara Dunes and the Xenas. Give us some Jaqueline Reachers and Francine Castles. We would love them. We'd embrace them. We'd buy their merchandise!

The Life Audio-quatic (Interview with Matt Wildasin)

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve!

Hey, everybody!  Hope you're having a fine Valentines Day or Galentines Day or maybe just Monday.  In any case, planning in advance for once (I know, right?) I set up an interview with my good friend and author/audio engineer/illustrator extraordinaire Matt Wildasin.  We talk primarily about audiobooks, but also a lot of other inexplicable nonsense, so you're sure to enjoy it!