I wrote about racism against the roma a few weeks ago. About deportations, about molotov cocktails used against three-year-olds, about prejudice accepted by society. Today there’s more material in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, but I don’t have the energy to read it, don’t have the strength to cry while at work.

But I hadn’t thought of ONE thing the roma are good enough for in Western society: exotification, preferably with hypersexual characteristics. “Gyspy” comes to mean passionate, alien, wild, beautiful… basically your standard Wednesday afternoon orientalism. Sweeping skirts, dark hair and firelight are used as signifiers of Otherness and Availability (which in itself a part of the same phenomenon that narrates African-American women in a sexualized manner, an extension of their previous position as sexual pray within the legalizing context of slavery.) You get it. You’d think we’ve got further than that in 2010, but culture fucks you right back in your place. The makeup brand Illamasqua released their fall collection The Art of Darkness in September, and one of the looks is called “Queen of the Gypsies.”

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WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. This is what the official image looks like, if you don’t have the energy or inclination, I can inform you that is  a somewhat dark-skinned woman with long black hair and silver highlights. She is wearing a red bikiniesque top and a semitransparent red and blue skirt. She’s also wearing golden earrings, many golden necklaces and at least one anklet. Her upper arm is sporting either a tattoo or a tight bracelet. The only light in the picture seems to come from a candelabra behind her. The look is marketed with the following text: “No one can resist the Queen of the Gypsyies. This alluring temptress, famed for her seductive veiled dancing, knows how to use her art to get what she wants…”

I can’t, a the moment of writing, think of any way I could be more disgusted by this. Exotification is gross enough on its own, any woman of color could tell you that, but imagine  the above text being about a nationality, say, Japanese women. It wouldn’t be any better, but there had been a number of organizations, Japanese and non-Japanese, who has put their foot down, but some pressure on Illamasqua, made sure this was talked about. Right now, there’s just silence. The particular exposed situation of the roma population makes this campaign a little bit more cowardly, a little stupider, a little bit more disgusting.

(on a sidenote, the werewolf-styled ad also trivializes rape. Nice one, Illamasqua. I’m on a lifetime boycot, btw.)

So. Ariadne.

The first time I saw Inception (and yes, there have been several), I was a little disappointed. It occurred to me that apart from Cobb, any character of the team could have just as easily been female. And they weren’t. With the exception of Ariadne, it’s a boys’ club, and it wasn’t until I read Sister Magpie’s entry (link pending on approval from her) on fandom’s reaction to the movie and to Ariadne that I really begun to love her as a character. See, as magpie writes, Ariadne and Arthur may well have been gender-switched*, and had they been, their respective relationships to Cobb has been much more stereotypical.

Perhaps more important, Nolan could just as easily have made it an all-boys-club; it wouldn’t have been unusual for a summer action movie, and Nolan’s women tend to be more like Mal – ethereal, glamorous and dead – anyway. Ariadne didn’t have to be a woman, but she is, and I am happy she is, in her own resourceful, opinionated, intelligent, feeling way.

New Yorker columnist Emma Rosenblum pities Ellen Page for having to wear the “rags” that are Ariadne’s outfits, and I go “uhh, what, now?” I don’t know what Ms Rosenblum normally wears when running around in action dreams, but I was personally very relieved to see a female character in sensible clothing. Men’s glam clothes are pretty practical; they’re usually just more fitted, expensive versions of daily wear. But women’s dressed-up, the stuff Marion Cotillard’s Mal wears, is highly unpractical. Your fall in heels, you can’t run in dresses. I love that Ariadne wears pants she can run in, t-shirts and cardigans, and that she doesn’t need to flash her curves in every single scene. Rosenblum calls it asexual (although desexualized might be a better term), I call it realistic. It’s relieving to have a female lead who does shit instead of smooches her hero boyfriend, and who wears clothes she can accomplish things in. Speaking of desexualized, by the way, didn’t Arthur steal a kiss? And didn’t Ariadne seem to like it, in a darling, smug sort of way?

The real problem with Ariadne is that she is a kind of  audience surrogate; through her ignorance, we are given answers about what is going on. A lot of the time, her dialogue is pure exposition. Now, I admit to loving exposition like I love ice cream, but with a lesser actress, it would undoubtedly have become boring, or at least tiringly transparent after a while. Not with Page. She does a great job of making her lines sound authentic. I believe her, all the way through.

And look at her. Not only is Ariadne a star student at what appears to be a prestigious Paris school, she supposedly a better Architect and maze-maker than Cobb was, she immediately calls him on his shit in a way Arthur never has. She has skills and a fetching personality, and Arthur seems to like her from the start. She is the only person in the team to question the morality of inception, and when Cobb gives up, she’s the one who takes command and makes sure they all get out alive. It pretty much doesn’t get more kick-ass than that.

Star Trek. In some ways, it becomes necessary for me to see it from three points of view: as a (sci-fi) movie among others, as Star Trek, and from a feminist point of view.

As a movie? It rocked. I am so weak for space, for things blowing up, for goodlooking fights and grunge-and-smoothness mixed up, love it. That being said, it was a bit… I am not sure choppy is the right word, but around the beginning and the end, it felt like they were trying to squeeze in more things than there was room for, and the narration suffered for it. Explain red matter? (of course not, mister Abrams) Show, not tell, Spock Prime’ story? Perhaps narrate Kirk’s personal background a little better than that inane wee!Kirk’s car scene? Ten more minutes could have given a lot.) Still a lovely, beautiful, otherwise well paced and terribly captivating story about a bunch of very interesting individuals. I could certainly be seen non-Trekkies who are open to scifi (do they exist?) like it, although the space element the time travels element obviously would scare off the rest. I would love the make my mother watch this on DVD, but then I would be annoying as hell to hear her commentary.

And as Trek? I honestly only have one complaint: explanation. I know people have had opinions about the “feel”; i.e. smoothness, effects/location, the changed transporter look… essentially everything that didn’t look just like TOS and the movies, and I honestly can’t care. It worked. Granted, I haven’t watched TOS in a few years, but it seemed obvious from the start that Abrams was going to try to catch a non-trekkie audience, and I think he managed to make it general enough without playing too fast and loose with the source material. It looked good. It felt good. It felt mostly Trek, with one exception: explain to me what is going on! Give me made up technobabble to explain things that couldn’t possibly work! My coworker Joe had opinions about both the Red Matter and the ejecting-the-antimatter scenario, arguing that an explosions couldn’t provide anything else than thrust, and thus couldn’t possibly outwarp warp. I argue that an uncontrolled antimatter explosion could very well warp space time more effectively than an engine, but that’s not the point. The point is: tell me how. Trek is the goddamned poster child for Science Fiction as the Idea that the World Can Be Understood; tell me how it works, even though the laws of proper physics don’t apply. It just need to follow its own laws. This, mister Abrams, is no time to be mystical, much as I know you love it. Trek is a lot of things, but mysticism was never a part of it.

Oh, also? the water scene? Loved it but it wasn’t Trek. Skip Scotty’s sidekick, save time for narration.

As for the casting… I was unspoiled, but because I mind spoilers (I don’t, I relish in them), but because I hadn’t realized how soon the movie was coming. I knew exactly this: some dude from Heroes (that I had never, at that point, watched) was playing Spock, and this made a lot of people upset, and Simon Pegg was playing Scotty, which made Lucas (my SO) really happy and excited. I was honestly half-thrown out of my seat when I realized Karl Urban was Bones (obviously, as long as there are geeks of any kind, he’ll never have to worry about getting laid Ever Again), but the summary can pretty much be I loved [x] as [y]. Seriously. Zachary Quinto was spot on as a almost-but-not-quite-solidified-Spock, and I actually didn’t want to strangle Chris Pine’s Kirk (unlike Shatner’s) (mainly because other people did it for me, perhaps? Can we rename this movie “James T. Kirk hangs off ledges and gets strangled a lot“?) or perhaps because he was more fucked up, got sat on more. I liked it.
But the feeling was there. The optimism, the thrill, the grandness and good fun combined. And the chemistries, even when not yet fully evolved to series levels; I can see how this universe came to be the one to result in slash (I am not ignoring Spock/Uhura, I am just assuming it will peter out slowly. So there.) “subverting our cultural icons with complete disregard for decency and the law” indeed. Love it. Maybe I’ll go download Amok Time now.

But. How about the feminist perspective?
Okay, let’s just say that the problems there can come from two directions: from the original, and from the new writers. Some things that irked feminist reviewers are the very reasons I don’t watch TOS; the uniforms, the lack of female officers. I honestly think the writers did what they could there; switching out more would have fucked with the fans too much. Uhura was given a personalty and a reason to be on the bridge other than that of a glorified secretary. They could have done a genderswitch a la BSG, but that wouldn’t have gone over well, plus messed with the time-travel idea. Still, I would have loved to see Uhura actually throw a couple of good punches in the bar brawl; I don’t particularly care who she’d hit.
But… the underwear scenes? The two cases of refrigeration? (from “the woman in the refrigerator”; killing off a female character for the sole reason of eliciting a reaction from a male character; in this case Amanda Grayson and Nero’s unnamed pregnant dead wife.) The fact that Winona Ryder six years older than Quinto and plays his mother? Rotten, you guys. Why not bother with giving Amanda a personality, or bother having her say something insightful about the value of emotions other than “yadayada I’m so proud of you always yadayada”? Why not bother showing Kirk’s mother doing something else in life in giving birth to him? Supposedly she’s an officer in this universe, why not give her a title and a throwaway reference from Pike? If Romulans had female military, why not female miners? I know it’s based in a rotten sort of time period, but the revamp people made it worse in some respects, and that bothers me.

That’s all I can think of right now.

(For new readers, Lucas is my boyfriend of almost four years, fiancé of almost three, and come September 20th, hopefully my husband. It depends a little on whether immigrations have finished their paperwork by then.)

Now, he really is fantastic. I’ve often been told by friend (and acquaintances of both me and him) what a catch I’ve made, and I have. The guy is fantastic. If not for other reasons, for putting up with me and my somewhat confusing and chaotic existence and prickly personality.
I am what one would call high maintenance. I am very emotional, I pout when I don’t get 100% of people’s attentions, and while I don’t have diagnosable anxiety attacks, it’s pretty damn close. Of course, I am not exactly sure what it is to be ‘low maintenance’; I associate the expression with someone who leaves her boyfriend alone with a beer and Monday night football, gives him his weekly fuck and a few blow jobs, cooks his dinner, otherwise leaving him alone. That’s not the girlfriend I’d want to be, and nothing could make me, barring a lobotomy. But as a rather rabid feminist, I have set the requirements for a good partner rather high, and yet Lucas manages to fulfil them. He isn’t into porn (for, I think, the same reasons I am not) and he washes his own socks. Granted, he was about as spoilt as I was when he started college, bringing his dirty laundry home when he visited over Thanksgivings, but I think it was less due to laziness and more in order to save those magic quarter. During our almost four years, I have washed for him twice. Both times because I was doing laundry anyway. Both times he thanked me for it. I don’t imagine that it will stay that way once we live together, as it would be ridiculous to keep separate laundry piles, but it’s a good sign. Four years of doing his own laundry will hopefully save me from the forty years of slave labor I see my mother perform.
When he was in high school, during a trip to Seattle, most of the guys in his group went to a striptease club. Lucas and another guy decided that they weren’t interested (I can’t remember what they did instead, but I imagine it had to do with video games.) He told me about this in the beginning of our relationship, and I can’t explain how many points he won there. Fantastic.
Three years ago, I went on the birth control pill. However, I got off of it fairly soon, and it fucked my body up quite bad. Most of my mucus membranes were damaged, and I couldn’t sit properly for half a year. Sex was completely out of the question for almost a full year, and still has to be limited; in fact, the psychological consequences of the pain still leaves me with issues. I only just recently could start wearing tight pants. If this would have happened now, I would have been less surprised by Lucas’ resilience, but it was when had only been together for a year. He could have ditched me within a month; how many twenty year old guys stay with a girlfriend from whom they’re getting no sex (if they don’t have religio-ideological reasons)? Not many.
I spend hours and hours at the computer, reading and writing blogs, talking to people, and reloading my LiveJournal friends list. Checking email. Designing something. Reloading my livejournal friends list. Lucas puts up with it, even when it annoys him. After he has spent five more minutes than I’d like on a video game, I pout (I should mention that we most often manage to cooperate on this; he plays his video games while I am online, and they don’t often collide.)
I fangirl, and squee, and freak out over ridiculous, geeky thing. He thinks it’s cute. I’ve never heard him loudly proclaim that some chick is hot, or caught him giving anyone a once-over while we’ve been out.

He doesn’t bring me flowers. He gives me teddy bats, DVDs and action figures. I’ve never ever received a generic present from Lucas. Well, he has given me flowers twice; two black silk roses in Valentine’s Day, and a bouquet of white lilies as a welcome-back present my third fall in the US. But never, ever, anything generic. When I was doing volunteering for a class, and got home around 1 p.m., tired and cranky, he had been to the mall to pick up a t-shirt I had been coveting for quite some time. He feeds me skittles. He calls me his lady Stardust. I tell you, he’s fantastic.

On another topic, WHY is it so hard to write this project report? It’s on my absolute pet topic, how housewives have never really existed. And still I have to force myself to write.

Oh yeah. It’s sunny. As hell.

I bought a pretty, pretty shirt. It made me happy. I might be a girl. The thought is scary.

The good news: I am returning to my parents’ house the 20th of May. I will stay there over the summer, while (hopefully – I don’t know it for 100% yet) working at an eldercare just across the street. Towards the end of August I will fly back to Washington, and Lucas will have spent the summer looking for an apartment in Seattle. It’s all very yay, especially as Lucas’ parents are informed about the upcoming mawwiage and there’s no reason to be sneaky about it (my parents? mum didn’t have to be told, she sort of just looked at me and knew.) Thus, my current worries include the visa application process (temporary visa with the intention of bringing an alien fiancé/e to the United States for marriage) and getting the job.

FYI, the filling out of forms has had Lucas start calling me “Miss Alien Martian from the Moon.”

Aside from that, I have to ethnology projects left this semester, a project report and a paper (the paper will be turned in via email and I’ll go back down here and present it on June 7th.) I must say it’s been a good semester academics-wise; I’ve been able to bring the gender aspect into basically all of my project, and will in the final paper also. I might not be outta here with a Master’s, but I’ll know more, a lot more, than I did when I came.

(oh, and I should probably warn you: as soon as I get going with this project, there will with all probability be an entry that bitches about people’s lack of knowledge in relation to the housewife ideal and “working women”. Heh.)

I decided to, like Lucas did a few months ago, do a Sam. It might be long, it might be short. Whatever.

I believe that there are no gods or ‘higher power’, I believe that there is nothing beyond the material, but that that isn’t as pitiful as it sounds, I believe that humanity will cause its own extinction in the near future, and that this isn’t a bad thing. I believe that we’ll also cause death of most other things on this planet, and that’s worse. I believe that with time, it will heal. I believe that time is relative and that we are small and pity creatures. I believe that this is somewhat precious, in an ironic way.

I believe that it is never true freedom to be able to enslave others. I believe that a woman’s body is her own and that a the father should never be able to overrule a (affirmative or negative) abortion decision because he is not the one doing the work, feeling the physical pain. I believe that there is no need for a ‘special (exclusive) connection’ between mother and child after birth if the father participates equally in nurturing. I believe that modern GYN exams and mammograms are the products of misogyny and will looks different if society changes. I believe that most people consider gender to be fixed because they don’t think or know enough about the world.

I believe that most ‘conservative’ opinions are caused by lack of information or misinformation. Or maybe lack of empathy.

I believe emotional empathy to be strong, but overrated as a ground for action, as people have different amounts of it. I believe that rationality is nonexistent. I believe there to be no good reason for decision making whatsoever. I find it amazing how some people still manage to make good decisions. I believe that relativism is morally unjustifiable, and that absolutism is an illusion.

I believe that love is simple, but not necessarily kind. I believe that the world has only formal qualities -it just is, not good or bad.

I believe that some things that are considered sexually deviant are just parts of sexuality most people suppress. I believe that other things considered sexually deviant are ills caused by the culture we live in. I believe ‘culture’ as source of qualities is underrated because it is underestimated. Everything we do other than eat, drink, sleep, talk and walk upright is culture.

I believe that every form of violence and oppression are interconnected systems and that unless we notice that we’ll get nowhere solving anything. I believe that it’s hard work but must be done. I believe that Aristotle and Paul respectively are more responsible for more of this development that any other individuals we know of.

I believe that stupidity and ignorance are unrelated but that one of them tend to invite the other. I believe that 98% of the world population are fundamentally stupid. I believe that there are equal amounts of stupid people in every culture, sexual orientation, sex, religion, and country.

I believe that although men are also oppressed by western patriarchy, they fundamentally gain from it and most of them will not let go unless forced to. I believe forcing them is a fundamental part of getting equality – not changing the inequality from one group to another. Privilege needs to go away. I believe that education can go far, but only so far.

I believe that the human world is a lot more plastic and capable of change than people think. I believe because humans think is is, it becomes static. I believe that if a time machine would ever be invented, so universe would in an instant become nothing; it never will have existed. I believe the universe to be impossible, and that exists anyway.

I believe that one day, people will worship David Bowie as a god. I believe that music has deteriorated in the west the last 15 years due to music videos. I believe that beauty ideals have always been unattainable by 95% of all people, that they are fundamentally bad but will never go away. I believe I will never be able to shop wishing I was 100 lbs.

I believe that sports and entertainment media are indeed a part of manufacturing consent.

I believe in the cuteness of kittens, the beauty of ravens and my own sense of melodrama