throbbing light machine

( meme responses: stuff about Dollhouse, Star Trek, and Narnia )

Also, I want to link to Ana Mardoll's piece at Shakesville on the acquittal of Ezekiel Gilbert for Lenora Ivie Frago's murder, because this is one of those cases I want to point to whenever people (so often in the form of my undergraduate students) assert that we've changed since the (inevitably indefinable) Bad Old Days. It's an impulse that I find really frustrating, because it makes me not want to celebrate our successes, knowing that any mention I make of victory will be taken as a total declaration of the end of the war.

eta: also I passed the graduate Spanish test-out I took yesterday! Which is awesome, because it means I don't have to take HISP 492 for the rest of the summer, and have both the foreign language requirements for my degree covered. Which means that as soon as I defend my prospectus, I'll be ABD. I am chilling out today, but this weekend is going to be for writing; I think I have most of my prospectus worked out mentally, but I need to just sort of pound out the words.

So they say that we should be "shocking" people out of their bourgie complacency, "unflinchingly" tackling images of abuse, rape, violence, and other displays of dominance. But I'm starting to wonder.

Keira Knightley has a new psa out in which she plays a dramatically-rendered victim of physical abuse at the hands of a male lover. And while I'm glad that Keira's speaking up - seriously, kudos - I kind of can't help picturing what it would be like as a woman to have that ad sprung on me, without context or warning in a cinema. Are we not allowed to relax, ever? Seriously? I can't go see whatever new bit of mindless pretty sf is showing this week without having to deal with the patriarchy?

This is why, btw, for all that I really liked Dollhouse 1.06 "Man on the Street" I also had some major problems with it. The scene of attempted rape really, viscerally upset me, and I've never been raped. I can only imagine what it would have been like for a woman who had. And why wouldn't someone like Joss assume that part of his audience is formed of rape/assualt/dv victims? He's the one who keeps talking about making shows for women to watch, and if the figure is one in five ...

The internets are, in this case, so much more polite than the real world. In fandom, in the blogosphere, it's basic courtesy to warn for upsetting and/or triggering contents. to say, "Hey, if you can't take this right now, don't look." Fat Acceptance blogs talk about Sanity Watchers points - if you're not up for page after page of body-hating comments, that's okay. The community recognizes that for oppressed groups it can sometimes take a fairly heroic effort just to survive in a pretty hostile world. We have some compassion for one another, I think. Feelings matter, even if just a little bit.

I don't want to have to deal with my anger, my sorrow, and my horror at the inhumane treatment of women every time I open a book, watch a show, or go to the movies. Sometimes I'm up for it - hell, sometimes I even seek it out, when I feel strong enough, or when I feel like I need to find my anger - but the strength of those emotions means that I just don't always want to go there.

Men don't have to worry about this sort of thing. Why should women have to?

I'm just starting to feel that shock activism hurts victims more than it hurts abusers. Even acknowledged tragedies like rape and violent abuse become a stick to hit women with. It ... reinscribes the violation somehow, through its lack of consideration or courtesy.

eta: further discussion on the dv psa at Shakesville

( names, identities, angry girls, spoilers )

I'm making The Boy watch Clueless - apparently he's never seen it before. I don't even know!