Sometimes People Really Piss Me Off

Today's rant comes courtesy of: I am a feminist who not only refuses to apologize for her status, but furthermore, refuses to feel bad about it because people are too stupid to find out the actual definition of a word before denigrating it.

What is a feminist? Is she necessarily someone who hates all men? No. Is she a lesbian? Possibly. (I'm not.) Does she burn her bras? According to this article, women never actually did that. But it's possible.

In my opinion, a feminist is someone who thinks that men and women are equals. On an individual level, sure, men and women are different. Then again, on an individual level, two women are different. That's the thing about people. We've all got our strengths and weaknesses. Overall, however, I think I deserve the same amount of respect as a man.

I am appalled when someone begins talking badly about "feminists" in these broad terms, and obviously has no idea that there is a positive side to feminism. It happens all of the time. It happened the other night in a phone conversation I was having with a white male I happen to know.

Now, during the course of this conversation, this male said he was "sick of being blamed for everything because he's white and a guy." He said that, sure, his ancestors HAD had power for the majority of history and they'd done some pretty shitty things with that power, but then went on, "but that's not me! I, PERSONALLY, didn't do those horrible things. So why am I being blamed?"

Here's the thing. History matters.

I'm not just saying this because I was basically a history major in college. I'm saying it because it's true.

There's that oft-quoted saying: "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." Yet I think history's importance encompasses more than learning from the mistakes of others. Our history is an essential component of ourselves.

Even if you don't care about history, it affects you. Your ancestors passed down their conception of life along with genes. You not only get your physical appearance from these people whom you've never met, your views are affected by the views of your parents, which were in turn affected by the views of their parents, which were in turn affected by the views of their parents, and so on and so forth.

So if your ancestors were slave owners, just because you know they were wrong doesn't mean we should all just forget about it.

Families share everything. Everything includes history.

If you're white and male you've got a shitload of history backing you up to give you all of these privileges. Because white males have been primarily in power for a long time. Along with these privileges comes the guilt. Because white males have been in power by treating females and minorities like shit for a long time.

Deal with it.

Do not act like I'm odd or crazy or stupid because I'm a feminist. As a feminist, as someone who thinks males and females are equals, and should be treated as such, I am someone who is going against the grain of tradition that humans have worn away over time.

I wish everyone was a feminist. Sadly, they are not. If you're reading this, and you didn't previously consider yourself a feminist, I hope you reconsider.

Reposting: Because I'm Lazy. Also, Related to Twilight

In honor of all of this buzz about a Twilight graphic novel (because why READ Bella moping around when you can SEE it in non-animated form?), I thought I would repost a blog I originally wrote on Maureen Johnson's ning.

Today's rant is about Twilight. I'm not bashing the book. I know a lot of people like it, and that's fine. I'm not a huge fan, myself, but we all have different tastes.

No, my current problem with Twilight are the excuses people make for me about why I don't like the book. Even people who know me! (Well, kind of know me.)

Basically, people assume 1) I don't like romance, 2) I'm not into vampires, & 3) I'm closed-minded.

Now, the first two points just show that these people don't know me.

1) I AM a cynic. You know what? I'm smart enough to know that a lot of guys my age LIE to girls all the time. They lie to get a girl in bed, they lie because of societal pressure, they lie for fun. A lot of guys are really cool. A lot of guys are jerks. That's the way it is; that's the way it's always been. That doesn't mean I don't believe in romance.

Really, I believe in romance for other people. I'm not going to get super deep with this, but I will conclude this point with the fact that believing in romance for other people means that I like reading about romance - when it's well done.

2) Most romance is NOT well done.

It's just not. Go to any bookstore, walk to the section titled "romance." It's not that there aren't any good books in there, it's just that they're hidden by SMUT. Listen, I've read enough "romance" novels to consider the self-titled genre to generally be predictable, and to think that the only reason most people read them is for the sex scenes. To which I say - suck it up, and buy porn.*

The best romance novels, the ones with REAL romance in them? They're literature, prose that uses metaphor and symbolism, because romance is poetry, and can't be communicated correctly if the writing is too literal.

3) The relationship between Edward and Bella is not a healthy one.

First of all, it's "love at first sight." Give. Me. A. Break. I'm one of those people who doesn't believe you can call it love until you get to know the other person. And Bella was considering herself "in love" before she'd really spoken to Edward. That's not love guys, that's obsession.

Secondly, Bella is AFRAID of Edward. While this makes sense, with the whole "he's a vampire, dude," thing going on, it's not cool to date someone you're afraid of. And Bella is afraid, repeatedly, in Twilight.**

Thirdly, Edward is a stalker. He watches her sleep, and her response is, "Oh, that's cute. I hope I didn't drool." I guess you could say that since they're both obsessed, it's all cool. The fact is, if I had been talking this way when I was sixteen, my parents would have sent me to a therapist.

4) I adore vampire stories.

From the time I've been about ten until the time I was eighteen, almost everything I read was supernatural romance. Christopher Pike & L.J. Smith wrote vampire stories, and I really enjoyed those.

My mother was kind of exasperated, and thought something was wrong with me, because I liked vampires so much.

Short of going to the dentist to get fangs and drinking blood, I couldn't be MORE of a vampire fan.

5) I try really hard to be an open-minded person.

I went into my initial reading of Twilight expecting too much, perhaps. I forced myself to read it again this year, to see if I really didn't like it, or if I had been being too harsh.

It's an okay book, but I think it's too long, and I don't think it's very well written.

It might be better than anything I ever write, but I don't purport to be a great writer. And neither, from Stephenie Meyer's interviews, it seems, does she. She wrote a book for fun. She liked it, her sister liked it, I think her editor should have forced her to pare it down a lot more.

I didn't get "sucked in" like a lot of people. It's not to my tastes.

I kind of like that Meyer inverted a lot of vampire stereotypes - she made the vampires in her stories her own. I can appreciate ingenuity. Saying, "Oh, well, maybe you don't like it because Edward's SPARKLY" really makes me angry. I thought it was kind of cool, though I thought it was an incredibly cheesy effect in the movie.

I don't wish any harm on the author, herself, I don't think her books should be burnt (I don't think ANY books should be burnt), I just didn't like the book.

I'm a literate person. I'm not stupid. I'm not against romance. I like vampires. I JUST DIDN'T LIKE THE BOOK!

I don't think that makes me a horrible person. I don't have a problem with people who like Twilight, so why do my "friends" who like Twilight have such a problem with me not liking it?

*Frankly, this has been my opinion since I was in middle school. If you like romance, that's cool, so long as you admit that often, these books tend to be predictable and have many gratuitous sex scenes.

**A lot of people, when I mention this concept of Bella being afraid, say, "What are you talking about? I didn't get that impression." Well, not everyone reading Twilight took notes, either, and I'm not sure what that says about me, as a person, but it DOES mean that I can cite moments of fright. Bella explicitly mentions being scared on the following pages: 54, 89, 107, 251, 264. I stopped taking as many notes about halfway through the book, so there may be more references, but there are at least that many.

On Why I Avoid Watching "Family Guy"

I hate Lois Griffin.

While I realize hatred of a fictional character is pretty stupid and pointless, I can't help it. Feelings of ill will fester inside of me when I hear her loud voice being passive or ineffective.


One of the great things about Family Guy is that everyone on the show is an asshole sometimes - like in real life. Let's face it: absolute sweethearts who always do the right thing and are always nice only exist in the form of the Disney princess. In real life, people often suffer from jackass syndrome, so the characters in the show Family Guy are realistic.


Lois Griffin, however, while being a MILF, is just a horrible, horrible fictional woman. She has no excuses for being horrible, and her only redeeming quality is her looks. Frankly, that's not enough.


In case you missed WHY exactly Lois is horrible, let me list the reasons:


*She allows her husband to hurt other people. She simply ignores him when he's doing many inappropriate things. She encourages him to continue thinking of women as property, good for sex and cleaning the house.


*She continually insults her daughter Meg, and laughs when others insult her daughter. When she's not insulting Meg, she's generally ignoring her. She is an emotionally abusive bitch who deserves the death wish that Stewie harbors.


*She continually ignores her baby boy Stewie. There are numerous times when she outright ignores the baby, says something that makes it clear she understands him and just doesn't care, and somehow misses the fact that he's often trying to kill her. He's not exactly subtle in his maneuverings. She just doesn't pay enough attention to her baby to notice.


*She doesn't help her children. Her son Chris doesn't do well in school - why the hell doesn't she suggest a tutor? Her daughter has a lot of problems (which Lois has probably helped cause) - why doesn't she suggest a therapist?


*She generally lets her husband get drunk on a regular basis without comment.


*In numerous episodes, she makes it clear that she values sex with her husband more than the needs of her children. Yes, sex is an important part of any relationship, but the frequency with which references are made to the Griffins' sexual intimacy indicates that, in general, Lois Griffin is just a selfish bitch who values sex more than her children.


Are we supposed to feel bad for her because she came from a family with a lot of money, and has deteriorated to living in a poor household with a technically retarded husband with a drinking problem and three whiny kids? No. It has been made clear in many episodes that Lois Griffin CHOSE her current life situation, that she values it more than the lifestyle in which she grew up. It has been made clear that Lois considers the lifestyle in which she was raised to be superficial, and that she thinks money complicates things. Moreover, it is clear that she had her pick of men. She picked Peter, a guy she loves so long as he is in the vicinity (i.e., she has re-married and talked about his being physically incapacitated being unacceptable in episodes).


She has also mentioned having tried to drink & smoke her baby to death, only to "chicken out," which resulted in Chris. She has mentioned not knowing her birth control was invalidated by other medication to her teenage daughter, basically letting her kids know, in general, that they were accidents.


She is a horrible fictional woman, and I hate her. She has no redeeming qualities to make up for all of her horrible, horrible character traits. It revolts me to hear that nasally voice, particularly as the words coming out of her mouth are generally comedic remarks made at the expense of her children.


Knowing that she is from a wealthy family, and from her mannerisms and remarks, knowing that she was well-educated makes her behavior all the more appalling.


I HATE Lois Griffin.


And that is why I don't watch Family Guy anymore.

Julie & Julia - the Movie Version

I just watched the DVD Julie & Julia. It was okay. I had problems with the memoir, I had problems with the movie (though, as all of the reviews said, Meryl Streep did an excellent job).

One of my biggest problems with the movie, however, was the fact that Amy Adams, portraying Julie Powell, kept talking about how she "wants to be a writer." They kind of alluded to what I'm going to discuss in more detail in the movie, and I was going to let it slide, but...spoiler alert...at the end of the movie, they did one of those "words rolling across the screen like what we want you to read is uber-important but we're really just trying to wrap things up without another few days of filming" and in those words were contained "She is a writer."

Well, duh, she's a writer. Didn't she write every, or almost every, day for an entire year on that blog about cooking? Isn't that where her memoir came from, and this movie? (There were also annoying words to the effect that a movie had been made from her book. I guess it was supposed to be cute, but it actually just pissed me off.)

Basically, what I don't think the movie made clear is the difference between being a "writer" and being an "author."

A writer is someone who writes. Period. By virtue of having a blog in which I write occasionally, I am a writer (though not necessarily a very good one). All you have to do to be a writer is write. So if you want to be a writer, stop reading, focus on whatever it is you wish was already written, and make the past tense I just used a reality.

An author is someone who has written something that has been published. It is harder to be an author than it is to be a writer.

Anyone can write. Not everyone has the persistence and dedication to get published.

Some people write because they want a big book deal that's going to get them a lot of money. Julie Powell's memoir became a bestseller, and that's awesome. That doesn't happen with every book, though. It doesn't even happen to many books. The huge bestseller is a rarity, like being struck twice by lightning. Therefore, wanting to become famous and rich is not a reason to become a writer and strive to get published.

Yes, realistically, it's something most of us would enjoy, but it's not the reason to write.

In sum, while we would all like to receive positive feedback and feel like creative genius, the only reason to become a writer is because you enjoy creating and/or relating stories.