3.30.2010

Hot Tub Time Machine, Nitpicking, and The Ol' 5-Minute Man Joke

Because I generally like John Cusack, Rob Corddry, and Craig Robinson, because I love an f'd-up (that's right keeping it clean for the kids) comedy, and because I kinda lust after the idea of a hot tub time machine, I went to see...Hot Tub Time Machine.  Highly enjoyable. I recommend it. However, I nitpick and criticize because I love. If we don't actively critique the social information our pop-culture showers on us, then we become passive sponges that are doomed to understand ourselves, our society, and our fellow humans largely though depictions created not from reality but from profit seeking industries. They simply don't put much thought into how the depictions they create affect us as long as it created revenue for them - so we have to consider how it affects us. I am going to discuss this movie in 3 parts
1) a critique focusing mostly on my disdain for worthless, dull romantic-interest tack-ons 
2) Nitpicky, but not necessarily unimportant element of the movie that annoyed my sensibilities. 
3) As always - a discussion of the blunt and/or insinuated depiction of female sexual functioning.

3.22.2010

The Ugly Movie...sorry I mean The Ugly Truth

I don't like to be judgmental. Oh wait, I love to be judgmental actually. That movie (The Ugly Truth) sucked. However, I won't discuss the boring script, the lack of chemistry between the characters, or that it was neither humorous nor compelling in any way. No, because of the nature of this blog, I am only discussing what the movie insinuates or bluntly says about female sexual functioning, and that part pretty much sucked too.

Katherinr Heigl  is a stuffy but successful female lead forced into a work relationship with Gerard Butler, the male lead shock jock with a penchant for misogyny. Surprise surprise, she hates him and he antagonizes her. She's ridiculously and obviously indignant about everything, and he's just so devil-may-care fun, raunchy, and wild. So it makes sense, I guess?, that she takes advice from him about how to sex herself up  (as if she's not super hot enough on her own - don't get me started on that) so she can get a date with her hot neighbor. Anyway in this process, he's telling her rules for getting a guy. He tell her to laugh at anything he says...


Him: "A fake laugh is like a fake orgasm"
Her: "a fake orgasm is good?
Him: "No, but a fake orgasm is better than no orgasm at all"
Her: "A fake orgasm is no orgasm"
Him: "Only to you. You're not the only one in the room, you know. Let's not be selfish."
Her: giggles
Him: "real or fake?"
Her: "You'll never know."

3.15.2010

April 16th cast party at White Rabbit Cabaret

Last year we shot our first scene with Miss Samantha Borowicz on April 17th. So in a way it's fitting that our cast party is almost a year to the day of our first shoot. We originally thought it would happen in September, then February, and for a while now we've been thinking mid April. Now we actually have a date, and I'm super excited because we have a deadline and this is gonna happen. I assume the cast is excited because it's been a long time since we wrapped shooting. They're a wonderful and patient bunch though (on and off set), so they never complained (to me at least).

I'm also excited because it will be at White Rabbit Cabaret which just opened up in Fountain Square. In fact it's so new, it hasn't even had its grand opening yet - that will be coming soon. One of our fantastic dancers from the movie (dancing excellently to our opening number "Shitty Perspective"), Debra Silveus, is one of the owners of the White Rabbit Cabaret. I went to check it out and talk about the cast party this past Thursday, and I have to say that I was really impressed. It looks really nice in there. The stage is huge with great lighting. The place has great decorating touches like fantastic antique couches for your sitting pleasure. It's just really cool. I also was able to see a sneak peak of their house show this past Saturday. Debra and 3 other dancers (one, Heidi Keller Phillips, who also happens to be a cast member/dancer/choreographer in our movie) performed some sweet ass stuff. By stuff I mean dances that are contemporary with burlesque and cabaret influence (maybe that's not the exact correct description, but it's the best I can do with almost no dance background). They each had a variety of great cabaret outfits, pseudo names, and individual stage personas. Loved it. They looked great, danced great, and I had a great time. I suggest you head down there for a show on or after their grand opening.

Anyway, point being on Friday, April 16th at White Rabbit Cabaret, we're going to have a kick ass cast party where we are showing select scenes from the movie, and we can't wait. Invites are going out this week.

3.07.2010

A couple more things I would like to discuss regarding intersex conditions

Same sex marriage is unnatural you say? Well by all means, please neatly define what a female is and what a male is and we can quickly ban these same sex abominations. But that's right - it can't be done. However easy you think it may be, it simply is not possible to make 2 categories (male and female) and then fit all people into one or the other. Normally it isn't that important to specifically categorize people as either biologically male or female but when it does come up, people can't figure out how to do it. Ask the International Olympic Committee. In the 1936 Olympics, Hermann Ratjen tried to pass himself off as a woman and that began the need to once and for all have a test to separate the males from the females (side note: Hermann Ratjen did not win against the women athletes). They tried checking the genitals. They tried testing for chromosomes (xx/female or xy/male).  Let's just say there is nothing straight forward about this process, and the medical community, at times, had to set the IOC straight about the complexity of the biology involved. Trying to ban males from marrying males and females from marrying females will be equally problematic. If we focus not on the sex of the person, but the gender (i.e. banning men from marrying men and women from marrying women), then it gets even more complicated. I think this quote from the Intersex Society of North America website says it well.
"Whether or not the medical establishment rallies to explain intersex to the U.S. courts remains to be seen. If history is any guide, as gay marriage prohibitions make their way through the courts, a scientific expert here and a medical expert there will offer up one little gene or one type of anatomical tissue that might be used as a male-female sorting mechanism. But such a sorting system simply won’t accord with what people see on the outside and feel on the inside. The fact is, every anatomical bit you think of as female (breasts, XX-chromosomes, even ovarian tissue) can be found on someone who has looked and felt like a male since birth. The opposite is also true. Think about it: if sex categories really were naturally strict, we wouldn’t see so many cosmetic surgeons offering men breast reductions and offering women facial electrolysis."
A ban on same sex marriage is unnecessary and discriminatory, but it is also biologically naive. How do we define who is a woman? Her level of of testosterone/estrogen levels? How her genital look? Her chromosomes? Whether she feels like she is a woman? That she is able to conceive and give birth? Whether she has ovaries? Whether she has a vagina? Does she have to be born with these things or can they be surgically or chemically imposed later in life? Good luck creating a legal set of rules that includes all people. I can tell you that there are people married right now that both have XY chromosomes.
It's interesting to me because I never hear these kinds of discussions when same sex marriages are being discussed. I assume that as bans are being challenged more and more cases are moving through the courts, these sort of silent issues will begin to rise to surface because eventually they just can't be ignored.
I think the larger point here is that there is a lot of crossover between what we know to be men and what we know to be women. Yes we can tell the difference, but sometimes the line isn't so clear, and I think that makes people uncomfortable - so uncomfortable that it causes fear and discrimination. Feminism, gay/bi issues, intersex issues, transgender/transsexual issues, (and of course the sexual issues in Science Sex and the Ladies) - these all suffer from people's discomfort with mixing the feminine and masculine.
Women aren't biologically equip to vote/think straight while on their periods/have jobs/be good at science/play sports/be on the front lines of combat/do whatever happens to be the thing that women aren't supposed to do at each particular time period in our history. Only men can do these things.
Men can't want to kiss/fall in love with other men/get married (women are supposed to make them do that)/want to nurture and raise children. Only women could want that.
Men need a penis and women must have a vagina that can hold a penis. Etc...Etc... Point is people find the gender-bending associated with these issues disturbing. This creates fear and discrimination, and then scared angry people try to say that this gender bending -whatever form it takes- is unnatural. However, we know that a distinct line between male and female that all people easily fit into is really the unnatural, biologically naive thing here.