- Saturn’s rings will disappear today – “The rings shine because they reflect sunlight. But every 15 years, the rings turn edge-on to the sun and reflect almost no sunlight.” From Kitty.
- Girl reads at 1, graduates college at 14 – And royally pisses off the Greek Orthodox Church after investigating the historical roots of the church for herself. From QuestionAuthority.
- Deadgirl: the movie – Apparently a movie about killing a girl in order to turn her into a zombie so you can rape her is “clever” instead of “creepy and wrong.”
- Virgin Mary makes an ironic appearance
- And as a bonus, Maria found this quote about Stephen Hawking…and how it’s a good thing he doesn’t live in the UK (just go read it).
Yeah, it’s a good thing Stephen Hawking doesn’t live in the UK, where he teaches at the University of Cambridge. Otherwise, last April, when he became ill with a chest infection, he would have died at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge UK, instead of being admitted to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge England where he made a full recovery.
OK, I don’t think that I’ll be blogging about Deadgirl, unless it is to totally condemn it.
Apparently Ms Pythaitha has turned down financial assistance from various sources because of ethical or religious concerns. I wonder if she’d accept a scholarship from JREF.
I remember looking at Saturn through my telescope the last time this happened. That 13 year-old version of myself would be horribly disappointed to learn that I still haven’t bought a fancy and huge telescope to replace that old 4inch refractor. :\
@Zapski: Yeah, I think I won’t be commenting on this movie either…
Someone in the comments on the article about Promethea (the girl who graduated college at 14) posted a link to her life history/manifesto. Her mom is anti-vaccine and pro-homeopathy (and Promethea seems to support these views as well).
In addition, her story is at http://members.dodo.com.au/~nicvee1/foryourinfo/lifeofPROMETHEA.htm. The main page of which (http://members.dodo.com.au/~nicvee1/foryourinfo/) is full of Antisemitic, conspiracy theory (all of them, as far as I can tell) crap. Stuff that turns my stomach.
This girl, while clearly brilliant, seems seriously misguided and not the sort of person Skepchick wants to laud. Comments like “I was born after a difficult pregnancy during which my mother repeatedly saved my life, risking her own by refusing medical interventions suggested by the attending physicians. Finally the doctor told her he was not willing to attend to her as long as she did not accept his medical advice. So mother was left without a doctor” and “After I received my first immunization, at age 3 months my growth slowed immediately and drastically. My pediatrician suspected that I suffered from a complication of the vaccines called the Immunization Syndrome and could offered no solution, but predicted a fateful outcome. My mother did not take kindly to her cold facts, and sought alternative solutions. Homeopathy! My mother would not consider further immunizations for me. Her decision was ABSOLUTE. My half brother Apollo had suffered in the past from similar serious affliction immediately after hs immunizations with the effect that he was left with a severe and permanent mental and physical disability” hardly make her seem rational, however academically brilliant she is.
Sorry for the long comment–her hatred of the Church just seems to stem from her intense victim complex, and her Antisemitism does not sit well with me.
So dead girl is basically the zenith of the torture porn films that have been coming out for years. I hope this thing was really expensive to make and craters. I hope it doesn’t even make enough money to cover the costs. Otherwise we will see sequals and imitations.
On the virgin mary thing, I saw that yesterday over on Hemant’s site. Down in the comments somthing called christwire.com had linked to it and was talking crazy shit about it. Does anyone know if christwire is real or poe? Is it like landover baptist?
It’s interesting that in Canada, back in the 90s, the Author Barbara Gowdy wrote a story about a woman having sex with (i.e., raping) dead guys. It received tons pf praise, and very little hostile criticism.
It seems most feminists simply loved the story. The general response from the feminist community was support for such an artistic and risky form of showing a woman empowering herself.
Here’s a link to some very brief history of Necrophilia in the arts: http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Necrophilia
So, here’s a question: Is it okay, in the arts, to rape dead guys, but not okay to rape dead girls?
So Stephen Hawking is a zombie physicist?
@SicPreFix: Dude, I don’t think rape is okay in either direction and I really don’t think it necrophilia os okay either.
@Gabrielbrawley: Yes. Yes he is.
@SicPreFix: One point: The dead girl is technically not dead, she is a zombie and is actively resisting her rapists. But like Gabrielbrawley I don’t think rape is ok in either direction.
@Gabrielbrawley: Yeah, Christwire is a poe.
@SicPreFix: I can’t believe I’m about to say this.
I think there’s a difference between a fictional story of a person (male or female) having sex with dead people and a fictional story of a person (male or female) killing the object of their desire in order to have a zombie to rape.
I’m not saying that they don’t both make me want to bleach my brain, but I think the latter is more disturbing because of the violence and that a zombie isn’t the same as a corpse.
@SicPreFix: Just to clarify, my comment was in regards to the first dead girl in the movie. For the second, see Amanda’s comment.
@Amanda: I have to agree. Having sex with a corpse (male or female) is not the same as raping a being (male or female), living or undead or comatose, resisting or not.
I feel like I want to throw up. That’s been happening more and more these days…
Please note, I am neither condoning nor condemning Deadgirl. I have not seen it.
Some of you are too young to remember the major kerfuffle that erupted when Willem Defoe’s The Last Temptation of Christ was released. The religious right, especialy in America, went batshit crazy issuing statement after statement of how utterly evil the movie was.
Of course, none of them had actually watched it.
When the first Harry Potter book was released, religious conservatives around the world reeled in outrage at how evil the Potter saga was.
Of course, none of them had actually read it.
It will be interesting to see how many people go batshit crazy over Deadgirl … without having actually seen it.
Perhaps Deadgirl is a risky, uncomfortable social critique on how so many cultures treat/mistreat women as solely sex objects.
Perhaps it is the latest last gasp in teen slasher psychosis.
But without seeing, I’m certainly not going to post an opinion on it.
We the people are generally kind of stupid and lazy. We don’t want to have to think when watching movies with messages, or reading books with messages. We don’t want to have to face our own demons and work out within our own conscience’s what is right or wrong for us in the world and how we work with it. We want to be told, right here, right now, in this instant.
That doesn’t work.
@Gabrielbrawley: :”Dude, I don’t think rape is okay in either direction and I really don’t think it necrophilia is okay either.”
I don’t either, but I don’t see what makes this film (based solely on its description) uniquely horrible. Violence in any form is abhorrent to me and is the primary reason I pass on critically acclaimed movies like The Wrestler and Saving Private Ryan. Violence against men and women including rape has been fodder for movies as long as movies have been made. Indeed movies that exist solely to showcase violence have been made ever since I have started watching movies. I just don’t see what makes this movie different in either kind or degree.
I think the point about the critics not objecting to the message of the film is unfair. (I noticed none of the reviewers I trust have seen it such as James Berardinelli, Keith Phipps, and Kenneth Turan so I don’t have a good calibration.) Critics, at least the good ones, judge movies in their genre. The genre for this movie is torture porn which is enough for me to avoid it. The fact that a couple of reviewers thought it was better than average for a torture porn movie is not a ringing endorsement.
@Amanda: I agree that zombies aren’t the same as corpses.
In all seriousness, my tongue-in-cheek activism parody blog aside, from a narrative standpoint a zombie is either a monster or a character. If you watch enough zombie movies (and believe me I have) you will find that many of them depict zombies as characters, with sympathies and motives.
For example, Colin (which I’ve blogged about) is a no-budget film that swept Cannes this year. It depicts a typical zombie apocalypse situation, but from the point of view of a zombie. He witnesses other zombies being killed, and the mobs that come after them, etc. He is most decidedly a sympathetic character. Shaun of the Dead is another movie with sympathetic zombie characters, as is Land of the Dead.
The zombie in Deadgirl isn’t just a corpse. She’s a character, and thus is the same as a living character, as far as rape goes. The motivations of a zombie may be depicted as animalistic, but that doesn’t equate to them being animals. It’s not a bestiality film, or even a necrophilia film. It’s a rape film that depicts the worst kind of violence against women. The order of raping and killing, or killing then raping makes no difference. The violence is the same, as is the degradation.
I’d like to write a condemnation from the position of having actually seen it (if I can do so without paying – I don’t want to encourage the making of similar films by rewarding them with money) , but that does not change the fact that I find the premise and the genre offensive.
@SicPreFix:
Of course–your other examples were the religious right going crazy over something. They go crazy over all sorts of things that the rest of us think are ridiculous. I know Christians who did read Harry Potter and STILL found it horrific, because WITCHCRAFT OMG. Whereas I think almost everyone agrees that rape is bad.
And for the record, I read the linked, er, synopsis, and I fail to see the veracity and accuracy in the following statement:
@davew: For me what makes it very awful is that a woman is tied down and raped multiple times by a group of men. Since zombies aren’t real this a woman who is being beaten, shot and raped and then another girl is kidnapped, beaten and raped. You can substitute a man and it would be just as awful. Also she is refered to as “girl” so this makes it seem like the rape of a child. I really don’t like rape, I don’t like the posters for the movie. All that said, I might have to force myself to watch this movie. Because as @SicPreFix: pointed out a lot of people condemn things without watching them. So I will probably watch this but I am not looking forward to it.
Ooops. Sorry for the double quotes.
Yes rape is bad. But if it takes place within a thematic artistic exposition of how and why rape is bad, then it plays an essential role, and is, thematically speaking, right.
I’m not saying that’s what this movie is. It probably isn’t. But until any one of us has seen it and can speak objectively to it, then we’re tilting at windmills again.
Again, that’s not saying rape is okay; that’s saying criticising a movie without seeing it is kind of a waste of time.
@SicPreFix: The first girl was already a zombie (that they rape). The *second* girl is the one that the boys kill in order to make a zombie for them to rape.
@SicPreFix: I was in high school during the Last Temptation flap. My church asked us to sign a pledge stating we wouldn’t see the movie. I refused to sign it. I told them that I wouldn’t be censored. I never saw the movie but not because the church. I just wasn’t interested one way or the other.
@SicPreFix: As mentioned, the (poorly written) IMDB description indicates that that first use the already-zombified girl, and then attempt to kidnap one girl and later succeed in kidnapping another and apparently turn her into a zombie (does tying a naked girl to a table automatically make her a zombie? is that how that works?) so they can rape her, too. I’m not sure why the zombie/deadgirl thing is such a big deal, though. They’re raping a girl. Alive, undead, unconscious, resisting, whatever, it’s all the same to me.
Granted, I haven’t seen it. But I’d read enough to know the premise disgusts me.
@SicPreFix: I agree this movie should probably be watched before deciding whether or not it has any artistic merit. But I also think you could have just said that, instead of starting with all that “so is it okay for men to be raped” stuff. No one here said anything like that, and introducing what the opinions of some feminists twenty years ago (without any definitive citation that this was the universal case, by the way) seemed to be doesn’t really have anything to do with any of us here. Talk about a strawman argument.
I am also puzzled how SicPreFix got from a post that says “raping women–dead or undead–is bad” to “OMG it’s ok to rape men though!”
Sheesh.
That is pretty twisted, dude.
@bug_girl:
I believe here we have a classic “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ??!!” maneuver. Always a classic insta-derailer. I assume SicPreFix does not spend enough time in the Feministosphere to realise we can all fill our bingo cards, so I think instead I will use it as a soapbox.
Rape is frequently used to mean something else FOR MEN in artistic dialogues in our culture. We rape the earth (of her resources), we rape that exam (or get raped by it, hyuck hyuck, it’s funny, cause rape doesn’t actually happen, it’s like hyperbole, ‘n stuff). The female, or feminine object, is DONE TO, and the AGENT is male.
It’s old. It’s not original. There is no conceivable way under the sun for a movie to be edgy and on-message while using a woman’s body as the rape object, because it’s been done to death. Now literally. (I’ve been reading the reviews by people who’ve seen this movie, and no, it isn’t meant in any way that could potentially redeem it. It’s about the menz, and their special journey).
A movie about men being used as raped objects (dead people can’t consent) WOULD actually be different. Because for once, the concept of power, and sickness, and bla bla bla would be played out on a man’s body, and not a woman’s. I didn’t say it would be good, but it would be different. It wouldn’t be good, because at this point, if we still need to exploit another’s body to make a point about the *insert hipster nasal drawl* human condition vis a vis power and sex and… I can’t finish it, I’m bored already… then we’re not making a new statement. Women (and racial minorities – but that’s another post), have had their bodies used to express power and political domination and frustration for the Menz for as long as history has recorded it. There is no possible new permutation, deadgirl or no, that would breathe passable social commentary into this trope. It is too abused for that. And frankly, it’s lazy!
There’s also the matter of how completely, callously oblivious the filmmakers would have to be to think this imagery could be justifiably used to say anything at all. Many, many, real women, potential viewers, have actually been raped, and lots of those were held down forcibly. Lots have been gang-raped. It was practically a sport at my highschool. This will seriously trigger those women to relive a pain that most men can’t conceive of. Even women who have been assaulted in situations not directly comparable will be upset by this. Even the freaking movie poster triggers me.
Using women’s pain as a vehicle to say something *nasal whine resumes* deep and profound *end whine* about college-aged men – ie, a frequent real-world rapist – is so terribly unnecessary that words fail me. This movie is a shining, timely (considering the recent shooting) reminder of how completely women’s feelings as people are ignored in cultural dialogue. The fact that now many reviewers, mostly, but not all, men, will now sit around and “objectively” debate the artistic merits of yet another torture-porn film is the real commentary on privilege and power in our society, here.
Just like every other case of pareidolia, that condom looks a lot more like my cousin Betty than the virgin Mary. Now the important question is, why do my relatives keep showing up everywhere, and why does everyone mistake them for Mary or Jesus?
@catgirl: My dad used to mistake me for Jesus. Usually when he was mad at me for some reason. For the first 3 years of my life I thought my name was “Jesus H. Christ! Get in here ad clean up this mess!”
@SaraDee: Amen.
@Peregrine: Cosby?
@Gabrielbrawley: Could be. I plagiarize all the greats.
(Though I’m not sure if that’s Cosby’s style.)
@clapif you like me: Those comments weren’t in there when I offered it to the Skepchicks. However, with that kind of intelligence, she could well discover the errors in her thinking. I was more fascinated with her as a prodigy.
Some people get hardly any brains; some get a double or triple helping.
@GabrielBrawley: Someday, the censors are going to figure out that banning things only brings more attention to focus on them. They’d be better off ignoring them. ;-)
@SaraDee: Exactly.
I have nothing to add.
@QuestionAuthority: That would kill the sales of Judy Blume books. How else would I have known to read them when I was in Jr. High? And Jr. High students need Judy Blume books.
@Peregrine: He did a routine about how he thought his name was Jesus Christ and his brother was god damnit. It ends with him correcting his dad that he isn’t goddamnit but jesus christ.
I want to nominate a commenter on the linked Stephen Hawking piece for COTW:
“Stephen Hawking is NOT British! Have you ever listened to him? He definitely doesn’t have a British accent.”
:D
I was really disturbed by my impression of Promethea’s mother…. that lady seems off her rocker, just by her direct quotes…. It seems as though this is a mixed example of positive potential affected by a skewed environment.
and:
@SaraDee:
I really like reading what you have to say, and how you say things…
@SaraDee: “This movie is a shining, timely (considering the recent shooting) reminder of how completely women’s feelings as people are ignored in cultural dialogue.”
Saying this is false is too easy. One person saying one thing about “women’s feelings as people” would make it so. I’ll go further. I’d say even in general it isn’t true. I listen to exactly one program about the entertainment industry, The Business, is hosted by Kim Masters. The only other one I know about is hosted by Brooke Gladstone. About 1/3 of the films I watch are directed by women. Pauline Kael was my favorite movie reviewer before her death. There is plenty of opportunity to discuss “women’s feelings as people” and this isn’t even allowing for the possibility than a man might do it. The reason I believe we don’t hear more about “women’s feelings as people” it is a monochromatic filter that strips away any context that might make for a more reasonable discussion. I saw a tongue-in-cheek criticism of _March of the Pengiuns_ chiding it for having too few Hispanics. Absurd to be sure, but it does show the absurdity of viewing the world through a monochromatic filter. What’s wrong with saying Deadgirl is bad because it consists of nothing but gratuitous violence and leaving it there? Is it worse that the violence is directed against women? Would it be better or worse if you take into consideration race, ethnicity, religion or lack there of? I find it disturbing that you believe this movie would be quantifiably different if the violence was directed against men. I can assure you I would find it equally disturbing and equally offensive. My empathy is not gender specific.
Going back to women directors, I can’t say women get any better or worse treatment in these films than in others. _American Psycho_ directed by Mary Harron shows almost as much callousness towards the “women’s feelings as people” as any movie I’ve seen. This is a good film, in my opinion, in spite of the violence, because it is a cutting and insightful satire of corporate culture. The characters in Jane Campion films don’t get off much easier. Clearly these women directors have no problem showing violence directed against women. I found two reviews of Deadgirl by women reviewers (Serena Whitney and Sarah Gopaul) and their reviews were not noticeably different from the male reviewers. If women’s feelings are indeed ignored in the cultural dialog then women are complicit in it, but I don’t believe it. I think there is a lot of money to be made in the movie industry by pandering to the average movie-goer’s baser instincts and and there are people willing to make money this way. No conspiracy or cultural defect is required to explain it.
@Jen said:
Yes Jen, you may be right. But as you (and some others) seem to not have noticed, I had prefaced that question with a link to a brief synopsis of the history of necrophilia (and similar acts), an act which in one sense can only be rape.
The question was therefore pondering the different perspectives that people take to the issue in the arts. And I made that quite clear in the question. This is a film, hence within the world of art, good or bad, and hence that lead to my question. It was not rhetorical.
Perhaps I should have underlined, italicized, and highlighted the question, by way of emphasizing its purpose. Or perhaps otherwise have explained it. But I really didn’t expect such kindergartener clarification was necessary.
You know folks, it often helps to read the entire posting, rather than just the dirty bits that get you all excited, upset, and frothy, before you jump in with the ad hominems.
After all, this is a house of critical thought, skeptical approach, and intellectual pondering, is it not? This is not, I would have thought, a place where one would expect to see people freely criticising something they have neither seen, read, nor understood. Right? Wrong?
I will here repeat the question in question, and for the slow of thought and angry of perspective, I will highlight, underline, and italicize the specification:
Is it okay, in the arts, to rape dead guys, but not okay to rape dead girls?
I also feel that the juxtapostion of the Gowdy story is legitimate. Weakly so perhaps, but still legitimate.
Yes, it is several years ago now; however, the sentiment remains strong today here in Canada that Gowdy’s story is/was great, and an example of women’s empowerment.
I would argue that any man in this country who wrote a story with precisley the same theme, but with sexes reversed, would be in for a very difficult time.
But, yes, that is just conjecture, and as I have done here before, and will gladly do again, I freel admit it is a conjecture about which I may very well be wrong.
@bug_girl:
bug_girl, you wear your antagonistic political bias on your sleeve with the clarity of Waterfords crystal. Bravo!
I usually take the stance that when people fail to understand what one has said, it is almost always the fault of the speaker, in that the speaker was in some way not clear. However, in this instance, I feel it is clearly the angry political bias of the reader that has derailed the intent with the impoverished opacity of vigorous hostilty.
@SaraDee:
SaraDee, in my strong disagreement with almost the entirety of your, ah, rebuttal (???) I will show you a level and degree of civility politeness you are clearly incapable of emulating in your personal wrath against me. After all, even in disagreement, I do usually try to hold a civil, if tempestuous, tongue.
As I pointed out above in my response to Jen, you have misread my comment rather completely. What I said was not intended, however much you may think you can read my mind, as what you so juvenilely call a “classic “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ??!!†maneuver” [sic]. But I have explained that previously, so….
Lastly, your anaylsis is naive, shallow, and simplistic — it is not exactly wrong, just limited. And I am tempted to expand on some artistic history with you, but only just tempted.
Anyway, this is certainly not a good medium for extended artistic debate, and too, I suspect that your deep darkling impatience with any form of legitimate artistic expression, turning and turning as it is in that widening gyre of a blood-dimmed tide, and old or new, or fresh of repellant grey, would make it moot and its ceremony of innocence would be drowned in the rhetoric. And the bombast of the finer points of political rightness
At the risk of being redundant, I usually take the stance that when people fail to understand what one has said, it is usually the fault of the speaker, in that the speaker was in some way not clear. However, in this instance, I feel it is clearly the angry political bias of the reader that has derailed the intent with the impoverished opacity of vigorous hostilty.
Ta ta.
@SicPreFix: “bug_girl, you wear your antagonistic political bias on your sleeve with the clarity of Waterfords crystal. Bravo!”
??
WTF, dude. What “political bias” is involved in saying that rape is bad, exactly?
SaraDee did a very nice job of writing up exactly what I was thinking, in much more detail. Thank you–I am swamped IRL.
PreFix, If you want to more effectively be annoying, you might find this link helpful:
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
in particular, this part:
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#notlistening
@bug_girl:
LOL.
You’re so disingenuous.
And good on you for missing (or is that overlooking?) the real meat of the message, yet again! Bravissimo.
LOL, quietly, but still….
I don’t know how this fits into the conversation but what do you all think about movies that depict torture other than rape like Saw or Hostel? I must admit I have only read about them because I have no desire to watch realistic sadistic scenes.
Personally, I think all brutally violent movies are somewhat offensive and difficult to watch. And I tend to avoid most of them. Especially, of course, the purely gratuitous “blood for the fun of it” ones.
But some of them carry a strong thematic message that is intended to underscore and be carried by, or in some other way emphasize the moral (as opposed to the more obvious and easy to be revolted by visceral reaction) obscenity of the violence depicted.
You mentioned Hostel. Hostel can very easily be analysed as using its violence, the way it’s framed, themed, set up, etc., as being an “anti-American violence ethic” movie in a number of ways.
I’ve not explained that in depth because my posts are getting too long. But I can expand on it a bit if you wish.
Personally, I think all brutally violent movies are somewhat offensive and difficult to watch. And I tend to avoid most of them. Especially, of course, the purely gratuitous “blood for the fun of it” ones.
But some of them carry a strong thematic message that is intended to underscore and be carried by, or in some other way emphasize the moral (as opposed to the more obvious and easy to be revolted by visceral) obscenity of the violence depicted.
You mentioned Hostel. Hostel can very easily be analysed as using its violence, the way it’s framed, themed, set up, etc., as being an “anti-American violence ethic” movie in a number of ways.
I’ve not explained that in depth because my posts are getting too long. But I can expand on it a bit if you wish.
Woops! A first. My bad. Sorry for the double post.
@SicPreFix:
Perhaps if this exchange had started without you accusing people of thinking that women raping men is okay, even without your in the arts disclaimer, the replies you received wouldn’t have been so angry and WTF-ey.
What you presented is what we call a non-sequitur. You implied that because one woman in Canada made a film that women cheered for, involving necrophilia, that we here at Skepchick are therefore also pro-woman-on-man-rape, making us hypocrites by condemning a movie about the rape of a woman.
This is an especially ridiculous thing to imply since, as far as I know, no one on this blog has ever endorsed or condoned violence against anyone, male or female, with the exception of burglars.
I can safely assume that I speak for the entire Skepchick crew when I say that we’re not pro-man-rape, pro-dead-man-rape, or pro-violence against men (except when committed by bears on the faces of burglars.)
Given that most of your comments here indicate that you think we are small-minded, ridiculously un-critical, man-hating rape whiners, I often wonder why you bother spending so much time here… we’re obviously not learning our lessons, and no amount of your condescending lecturing is going to change that.
But Elyse, I did not make such an accusation.
What I did do was point out that here in Canada the majority of literary-minded feminists, men and women, both then and now, were highly enthusiastic supporters of exactly that scenario. That is simply a fact, not a supposition.
And that made me angry then, and makes me angry now. And I think I am right to be angered by such hypocrisy.
What has probably happened is multi-facted:
1. Most people here who are familiar with my posting know that I do not play kowtow to the brand of feminist ideology that is more or less the branded status quo here at Skepchick — I tend to ask uncomfortable, sometimes hostile questions about what I perceive to be a general, blanket, non-skeptical acceptance of that ideology.
2. Some of the people here who are familiar with my posts make the false assumption that the #1 means I am therefore completely anti-feminist and support no feminist idealogy of any sort. And that is simply not so, and is a really idiotic assumption overflowing with the tangy wine of logical fallacy.
3. In making such false assumption several people appear to have gone on to misread what I wrote — please read it again Elyse, slowly, carefully, and with your anger set aside for the moment (@SicPreFix)– and made yet another false assumption that in juxtaposing a historical critique, of sorts, with a link to a site about necrophilia in the arts, with an uncomfortable question, I am specifically accussing folks here of thinking that women raping men is okay. I have done no such thing. That is painting the bald tiger with stripes simply because that’s what you’re used to seeing … or some such thing.
The general point I have been unsuccessfully trying to make is that kneejerk reactions, and blind acceptance of sacred cows of any kind, are dangerous and should be avoided. I despair when I see intelligent, supposedly skeptical people who pride themselves on being critical thinkers jumping on a cliched pro-feminist bandwagon in criticizing a film they have not even seen because a non-academic, ignorant, and really poorly written article claims, with little credible objective justification, that said film is evil; is sexist; is the work of the, metphorically speaking, devil.
And those actions remind me very much of what happened to Brett Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, whose career was effectively ruined because a very powerful lobby of literary feminists (male and female) wholly and willfully, and completely in righteous wrath misunderstood his book (and only a few of those avatars of good actually even read the damned thing), and decided that he was evil, sexist and was, metphorically speaking, the devil in literary sheep’s clothing.
As skeptics we should all, always question the moot status quo, and not fall lazily into the habitual assumption that our personal favourite sacred cows cannot, must not, do not change, grow, shift, run out of favour, gain new ground, and so forth ad infinitum.
And that is what I often try to do here.
No I did not. That’s a misrepresentation, or perhaps misunderstanding, of what I said. That is a false and groundless assumption. I made no such non-sequitor. I laid the ground work of an uncomfortable and hypocritical truth as the lead-in to a legimate question. And as such that was willfully misunderstood.
Good. Perhaps that attitude could actually show through more often than it does. As has been pointed out on more than one occasion by folks other than myself, the general approach around here seems to some of us to be that it is fair and safe game to men-bash, to stereotype men in all the gleefully silly ways we are all so familar with, and to make petty assumptions of the general moral and ethical inferiority of men, but to dare even approach doing so to women is wrong — in my opinion, both are wrong, but like all humans, I oft err and plead guilty of the mote in mine own eye … or is that stye? Beam?
And listen, Elyse, for me to say that, to think that, to feel that way, does not in any way make me sexist, or evil, or any of the other convenient, misanthropic, cliched ad hominems that get tossed around here with such cavalier freedom by a privileged few. It just makes me a guy who is reacting to what I see and making statements based on what I prerceive is a shortcoming of an otherwise first rate blog.
That is such an unfair accusation. It really is. As I’ve said before, one of the most important roles of any skeptic and critical thinker is to question the blindly accepted status quo, even amongst friends. If you can’t point out the logical fallacies and lazy thinking amongst friends, who are self-claimed skeptics and critical thinkers, who can you point it out to? And anyway, what would be the point?
The only reason you question why I bother spending so much time here is because you have conveniently overlooked the many, many times wherein I’ve explained quote precisely, and quite clearly, exactly why I do.
Finally, in the end, and come what may, I really do not think it fair and just that a couple of favoured Skepchicks can with impunity be so damned free with ad hominems and remarkabley ignorant and juvenile responses simply because they are in the privileged sanctum here at Skepchick. That just reeks of ugly favourtism and hypocrisy.
@SicPreFix: Please untwist your panties and drop the condescending attitude. The fact that you think that we on Skepchick need to make it more obvious that we don’t approve of raping men is laughably absurd and, in your words, remarkably ignorant. Do you want me to add it to the banner at the top of the page? Skepchick: Now With Less Man-Raping. Please. Step down off the soapbox and have a discussion like a normal human being.