Movie Monday

This is my cat Calla Lilly. Calla is not a big fan of my Betty Boop Slippers, and has been known to attack them (i.e. my feet) as they move through the house. And if said slippers happen to find themselves just lying around unsuspecting? Betty doesn't stand a chance.

Seriously? - Are Princesses Good Role Models?

Seriously? I’m starting a new “segment” if you will. It’s going to be called…you guessed it “Seriously?” and whenever I come across things in the media that just boggle my mind, but yet that I must react to, this is where’ll it’ll happen.

So, back to today’s topic. “Are Princesses Good Role Models?” is a headline on Yahoo’s homepage today. There is an ABC news video link to that story, and there is the story at the ABC News Website. Take a moment if you will to either watch the video, or read the story, (the narration is the same as the article) then come back.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=3065469&page=1

Got it? Okay good…so…SERIOUSLY?? Is this what we’ve become? Afraid to let our children play? SERIOUSLY? This Peggy Orenstein chick obviously had a very unhappy childhood, and has some real hang-ups about being a female. She says “She wants children to live in reality, not fantasy.” SERIOUSLY??

For God’s sake…WHY? Why the hell would we want children to live in reality? Childhood should be all about fantasy, and imagination and playing and not knowing the reality of how much the real world SUCKS. Let them be children. They will deal with reality all too soon anyway, why take away those few years where it actually is all about beauty and fantasy? Is that so bad?

Ms. Orenstein worries about their body image? SERIOUSLY? Because I’d be a hell of a lot more concerned about the fact that she’s focusing on a 3 year old’s body image, then the fact that Snow White and Cinderella are pretty CARTOON girls.

Look, I’m not saying I don’t realize that body image is a huge issue for women and girls in this country (in the world), but taking away a childhood fantasy of being a princess isn’t going to fix the problem. She says: “I really worry about what it's setting girls up for. Will the girl who is wearing 'Princess' across her chest when she's three be wearing 'Spoiled' across her chest when she's six, and 'Porn Star' when she is 12?"

SERIOUSLY?? I mean…SERIOUSLY?? And a 12 year old wearing a “Porn Star” t-shirt (WHAT?) is due to watching Princess movies when she was 3 years old? SERIOUSLY? It has nothing to do with parenting, or the values she is taught? And the fact that my mother would have kicked my ass if I ever even looked at a t-shirt that said “Porn Star” on it?

SERIOUSLY?

Let’s stop blaming the media, the music, the freakin’ cartoons already huh? It’s due time that parents take responsibility for raising their kids and that women take responsibility for loving and accepting themselves. We all know that magazines models and celebrities are airbrushed beyond recognition, we know they starve themselves for the sake of their business, we know that it’s not reality. WE have a responsibility to make sure the younger generations know that as well, and that they begin to make the changes we have as yet been unable to make. But for God’s sake…leave the cartoons alone, and let children have their fantasies for a while huh?

SERIOUSLY!

The Virginia Tech Horror

I want to start this off by saying that my thoughts and prayers go out to those families and friends of the victims at Virginia Tech. I debated as to whether or not I should comment on this horrible event, but my heart decided for me. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t watch the news much, because I take on the pain of the world and absorb it like a sponge. I cry whenever I do watch a newscast, because it pains me to see what humans are capable of doing to one another. Therefore, it goes without saying that this tragedy has broken my heart. I can’t avoid it; it’s everywhere, so I find myself crying silent tears for all that pain that’s been caused.

Unfortunately, when an event such as this happens, it opens the floodgates for the media whores to distort it, exploit it, and make a circus of it. Already we have scientology groups calling for the shooter’s blood to be tested for medications, so they can use this to further their own agenda against medicine. Already we have South Korea jumping up to apologize, and ask that we don’t blame their country, for the actions of ONE individual who happens to be of South Korean descent…but has lived here since 1992, in fear that we jump on the racial divide theory we so love discuss. Already we cannot get away from the stories of how the school handled the shootings badly, how his writings raised red flags, how he was sent to counseling…already it is a media feeding frenzy, and already I am disgusted.

THIS is a horrible tragedy. Way too many lives were lost because one individual lost his mind and did a terrible thing. I’m sure more will come out about his state of mind, about warning signs, about missed signals. I’m sure someone will point the finger at someone else, we’ll play the blame game, we’ll analyze, we’ll study, we’ll research. But the real tragedy is that we won’t get anywhere with any of it, and it will happen again in the future. Blame, research, medication…these are all just words. Violence, hatred, desperation…these exist daily, how will we ever eradicate them when we sensationalize them. Unfortunately for all of us, we don’t quite understand the human mind just yet, and why it is capable of inflicting such pain. We can’t control what we don’t know. How could anyone know that a question mark on an attendance sheet would be an indication of a murderer?

The more I read or hear about this tragedy, the more my heart breaks. Nothing like this ever makes sense. How could it? How could he?

It is usually in the midst of horrors I can't wrap my brain about, that I "write"...I don't know (or care) if it's any good, but it had to get out, so here's something I wrote in the midst of all this...

?

It seems you had shut out the world
Long before you gave up on life
They say you stopped participating
Didn’t speak to anyone
But then why take them with you?
What had they done to you
That made their last breath yours to decide?
And who made you God to determine that it was their time?
Who knows what was going through your
“Eerily calm” mind as you pulled that trigger
Again and again
Could you have been helped, or stopped
Before this tragedy
Or if you were just always going to explode,
No matter what anyone did
They say you were a loner
You kept to yourself
Didn’t respond when spoken to
But does that then turn you into a victim
Excuse your horrific actions
Were you crying out for help
I don’t see it that way
I can’t see it that way
Because you had choices
There is always a choice
And you calculated
You planned
You scratched the fucking serial numbers off the guns
You knew what you were doing
And you had no right

I cry for them…
But I can’t find sympathy for you…

30 in 30 - I made it, and a few random thoughts

First of all...hey, I made it...30 posts in 30 days! How about that? I'm going to keep going too.

Secondly, a few random things:

It's Friday the 13th...good luck day or bad luck day for you? It's never really made a difference to me. I'm not supersticious, so I hardly notice it, really.

To follow up on yesterday's political post...I actually think Don Imus deserved to be suspended, and possibly even fired. For starters he used his job as a public figure on national radio to humiliate and offend a bunch of innocent college girls. Besides, the guy mumbles almost as badly as Mayor Menino, what the hell was he doing in radio? I'm glad there was a sit-down with the girls from Rutgers, and that they got to speak their minds to him, and tell him how he made them feel. I'm not sure if they accepted his apology, or even if they believed him (or should believe him), but I'm glad they got their turn to say their piece. That really is how a situation like this should be handled, by letting the parties involved be the ones to hash it out. That said, I'm still wondering why Isaiah Washington still has a job, and the same people quick to defend him when he made his offending remarks, where quick to crucify Imus...Hey, I think they're both asses. And I'm also wondering what this means in terms of how many dumbass and ignorant celebrities are going to get in trouble for opening their mouths, versus how many will be forgiven. I also wonder if the slur had only been aimed at women, as opposed to racially driven, would the uproar have been as loud? Because to me, calling a group of basketball players "hos" would have been offensive on its own...but would it have been enough? Is it about being offensive, or is it the particular group that gets offended that counts? I'm just saying.

I'm realizing I've been a bit too political in my entries of late, and if I had any readers, I'd probably be getting lambasted right now...but I don't really, so whatever...and besides, I'm just saying what's on my mind, you don't like it? Yeah, whatever.

In closing...it's Friday. I love Fridays almost as much as I love Saturdays, but not quite as much. Therefore, I'm in too good of a mood to get any more political. So, everyone, go have a nice drink tonight, and let's all try to get along huh?

29 in 30 - The one where I get political

I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I’ve always been very accepting of anyone who was “different”. Whether someone was of a different race from me, a different sexual orientation, had some sort of disability, whatever it was that made him or her different, it didn’t really matter to me.

My very first best friend, when I started school in Portugal was an inter-racial girl. Mikaela was half black, half white. I don’t even know if I understood any of that. I just knew she was my friend. The very first boy to ever carry my books home, was the only black kid in my class (again, also in Portugal). I was also very friendly with one of the only Down syndrome kids in our school.

When I moved to the United States, I was the outsider myself for a while. I spoke funny (I had learned British English, not American English before I left Portugal), dressed funny (we didn’t have a whole lot of money when we first got here, and hand-me downs look like hand-me downs, no matter what you do to them), and I just didn’t fit. Maybe from those experiences, I surrounded myself with the rest of the kids who didn’t quite fit. And from that, I continued a cycle of always having a very eclectic group of friends, different races, different social classes, and different sexual orientations.

At least 4 of my male friends and one of my female friends in high school came out of the closet either during, or right after, but we (their close friends) always knew the truth, and loved them anyway, because it didn’t make a bit of difference to us. I was lucky enough to go to a very diverse high school, in terms of not only different races, but different social classes, and any other difference you can imagine. I say lucky, because I think it is a blessing to be exposed to such diverse cultures at such a pivotal age. My friends were white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, rich, poor, middle-class, popular, unpopular, geeks, nerds, jocks, fat, skinny, tall, short…whatever…I was NOT one of the popular kids, but I got along with everyone, and even though I hated high school while I was there, I look back on it now as a truly defining time in my life.

College for me was a brand new experience; I had a new opinion of myself, much higher self-esteem, and therefore, was able to enjoy life more fully than I ever had in high school. Still, I continued to surround myself with an eclectic group.

Nothing has changed, as I’ve become an adult. I still have one of the most multi-cultural groups of friends of anyone I know. A party at my house is like a United Colors of Benneton ad. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I value my friendships with members of other cultures, who only add to my experience in life by adding portions of their culture to mine. And mine is also a mixed culture of sorts. Although by blood I am 100% Portuguese, I was born in Africa, and brought up in Portugal by parents whose culture had deeply absorbed African customs from the music to the food. Then I wound up in America, in the melting pot city of Lowell.

And all this history so I can get something off my chest; as an immigrant, who had to learn a language and adapt to a new culture, who has surrounded herself with other cultures and lifestyles, and absorbed all that “difference” has to offer, and considers herself to be 100% American, and everything that America SHOULD represent, well, I think we are TOO DAMN SENSITIVE and need to get over ourselves.

People in the media (and more so in real life) will constantly make offensive remarks. Human beings will always be ignorant, prejudiced and inappropriate, sad to say, but it’s human nature to f-up. And I’m not condoning the Michael Richard’s or Mel Gibson’s or Isaiah Washington’s, or Don Imus’ of the world, or their behavior. They said hateful things, in a hateful manner, and certainly should be called on their behavior, and most certainly serve some punishment for it. But SERIOUSLY, do we need to turn it into a media frenzy where that is all anyone talks about for WEEKS?? Are we really doing any good by constantly playing and replaying or saying and restating what they’ve done and said? Are we really ever going to get any further in our search for equality when all we do is harp on the negativity and just give it more power? Is it helping? Because if it is, then I stand corrected, and I apologize, but all I’m seeing is a media circus, emphasizing the negative, and not offering a damn thing in the way of how to fix it.

Let’s spend less time dividing ourselves into groups that can be offended, and more time uniting ourselves into a COUNTRY that stands for something. We are so damn selfish and individualistic in this society, that we are all up in arms when we feel we have been personally offended, but the world HATES America right now and as a collective, we are not doing a damn to fix it. And I’ll tell you, as someone who has CHOSEN to be an American, I get mighty offended when I hear other countries dragging our name through the mud, and yet…I can’t really find much to defend us with.

Yes, racism, sexism, homophobia, these are all still very much in evidence in this country. But so are greed, self-righteousness, vanity and the syndrome of “if it ain’t about me, then why should I care?”

I used to joke that if everyone married and had children interracially, then we’d have one less issue to worry about. But I don’t believe that now. We’d just replace it with something else. We’d never survive in a Utopia type of society, with no one to single out. So, with that being the case, I’ve chosen to just live my life trying my damnedest to not fall prey to any of those prejudices. Like anyone else, I fail at times. We all do, whether it is laughing at the fat kid, or using a racial slur, we are all guilty of hurting someone different from ourselves at one point or another. But hopefully we realize our mistakes, and learn not to make them again. And we stop playing the victim. Because ONE perverted guy only has conversations with my breasts, never with my face, it does not mean that all women are oppressed, and we’ll never be considered equal…it means that this particular guy is an ass, and I need to continue living my life to prove (to myself) that I can do whatever I put my mind do, female or not.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be outraged that those in the media would voice such horrendous insults, I’m just saying let’s not give them even more power by our reactions. And let’s stop making everything ABOUT race, or sexual orientation, or whatever the difference may be. I really think the more we focus on the differences, the worse we make it. The longer we keep an us v. them (whoever the us and them is at the moment), the harder it’ll be to become a “we”…