A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[Wolfshade]

Statistically*, two out of every five of your friends is a creepy ****er.

*By which I mean, I'm making stuff up.

Does this also mean that if you do not know who the creepy friend is, then it is you?

The only physical contact I make with strangers is a handshake, man, woman, other, handshake, I odn't know you no hug, no kiss, nothing.

[eldargal]

It's possible, I think a lot of men don't realise how damned creepy they are being because women are too conditioned or too ****ing scared to say anything.

Turns out my OP is redundant*, all I need is this to explain feminism:


*not really. Go read it again. Now.

[eldargal]

Rhythmic Gymnast Shin Soo-ji’s First Pitch. Impressive.

[Mr Mystery]

Well she's talented!!!!

And genuinely nice to see a Gymnast whose body has been allowed to develop beyond 12 years old.

[Rissan4ever]

She's clearly a talented gymnast, but how good was the pitch? I didn't see if the batter hit it or not.

And a lot gymnasts are small because they're just naturally small. Do you know of an instance of a gymnast taking some kind of non-growth hormone or something?

[Rissan4ever]

Does this also mean that if you do not know who the creepy friend is, then it is you?

Not necessarily. It could be that you're simply not noticing the creepy behavior.

The only physical contact I make with strangers is a handshake, man, woman, other, handshake, I odn't know you no hug, no kiss, nothing.

That's a pretty safe bet. It's better to be the stand-offish guy than Creepy-Grabby-Rape-Threat-Guy.

[eldargal]

It's a myth. Gymnastics does seem to retard growth and development in some areas which is often made more extreme by a tendency for smaller framed individuals to excel at the sport. But it isn't permanent and doesn't stem from drug use. It's really odd actually, when gymnasts retire they tend to be smaller than their non-gymnast counterparts but after a number of years, six or eight or so there is no discernible difference

[Rissan4ever]

It's a myth. Gymnastics does seem to retard growth and development in some areas which is often made more extreme by a tendency for smaller framed individuals to excel at the sport. But it isn't permanent and doesn't stem from drug use. It's really odd actually, when gymnasts retire they tend to be smaller than their non-gymnast counterparts but after a number of years, six or eight or so there is no discernible difference

Really? How bizarre. I wonder if other sports have a similar effect.

[Nabterayl]

Can I ask a question about feminist academic discourse? I really love Sucker Punch, but I'm not sure how to talk about it in feminist terms. It makes me wonder: is there an academic concept for a work that is feminist within the four corners of the document, as it were, but not in the context within which it was created? Here's my [spoilery] summary of the film:

The film follows five patients at an all-women's mental hospital, at least one of whom was wrongly committed. Unbeknownst to the head doctor, the head orderly abuses his position to conduct an unspecified variety of criminal enterprises from the hospital (including, at least, getting witnesses to crimes lobotomized to silence them) while he and his goons amongst the hospital staff rape the patients whenever they please. The horror of their existence and the fact that nobody will believe them (after all, everybody knows that they are insane) drives the patients to formulate a plan to escape even as they sink deeper into their own minds to insulate themselves from what is going on in the real world. The women imagine that they are sexy prostitutes held captive by an abusive mob boss, plotting to escape his clutches, and imagine their relatively mundane escape plot (steal the four everyday items their escape plan needs) as a series of fantastical combats in which they slaughter inhuman, monstrous opponents.

Putting my feminist hat on, it seems like there are lots of feminist things going on here. All of the protagonists are women. They overcome their physical circumstances (imprisonment) and their emotional circumstances (being raped on a regular basis) through their own agency, with no tools but their own determination. The various fantasy elements have clear parallels to the mental action of the film. The women are degraded as imprisoned sex toys, and mentally reject that by imagining themselves as desirable women asserting their agency over their imprisonment. They reject the objectification they are subjected to by projecting it onto their tormentors (imagining them, in the combat sequences, as various kinds of disposable inhuman opponents). The film is about women who are not in control at all, within or without, taking control of their inner and outer lives.

At the same time, the film is also about showing attractive actresses in needlessly revealing costumes kicking *ss.** I think, within the universe of the film, this makes sense - the characters themselves imagine themselves at their sexiest when they are confronting and overcoming their inner demons. There is even a sense in which this is quite laudable, since I think (both with and without my feminist hat on) women are at their sexiest when asserting that kind of warrior's self possession. On the other hand, outside the universe of the film, there's the fact that attractive actresses in revealing costumes is probably seen as a lot more marketable than non-attractive actresses in non-revealing costumes, and the film that gazes so lovingly on these women was written, directed, shot, and edited by men.

I'm a geek before I'm a feminist, so I'm perfectly willing to accept the film for what I think it means rather than what it is, but what does the feminist analysis of this situation look like?

* Another example, incidentally, of [url=http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?35733-Halloween-Costumes&p=352308&viewfull=1#post352308]the negative mental health stereotype[/url] where psych wards are nothing more than prisons by a different name.

** Based on the director's statements, I think he intended the film to be a bait-and-switch by presenting the sorts of characters that geek culture and Hollywood would typically objectify, and making them the heroes of the film with all the agency, but one doesn't necessarily have to care or think he succeeded.

[eldargal]

I've not seen it personally (I thought I had at one point but I was confusing it for another film, lol) but it really divided feminist opinion. Some thought it was sexist, adolescent drivel hiding behind a thin veneer or feminism others thought it was genuinely feminist and quite brilliant. So I can't help. Google "sucker punch" feminist' and yo uget a whole lot of feminist critiques popping up though, so you can see what feminists who have seen it think of it.