Supposedly, people are getting all up in arms about the movie Kick-Ass — because Hit-Girl swears like a sailor, gores her way through upwards of 50 people over the course of the film with all sorts of weaponry, is unrepentant to boot, and worst of all: she’s 11 years old.
I really enjoy how sexism immediately comes into obvious, irrefutable play despite all supposed to-do about the age:
Why exactly is it perverse? To see a child engaged in violence? Or is it because it’s a female child engaging in violence that’s the problem?
I really suspect it’s the latter and not the former. After all, it’s not as if foul-mouthed, violent male characters are lacking in the market and yet there isn’t a huge brouhaha about that.
It gets funnier:
Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology weighs in with: “This promotes the idea that infantilising adulthood is ok and that we are no longer expected to draw lines between us and kids.”
Oh. Give me a break. Infantilising adulthood? So what do we call the current trend of putting prepubescent teens in stripper outfits and those high heels for babies?
On a related tangent, here’s a clip of 7 year old girls performing dance moves that look as if they’ve come straight out of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” MV:
Or, if you don’t like videos, here’s some pictures:
Granted, there’s somewhat of a firestorm going on because of these girls, but this isn’t the first or only instance of things like this happening.
Girls have been increasingly sexualized at younger and younger ages for years now and yet that sort of behaviour is alright and yet violence isn’t?
I love how there’s the comments that range from claiming that because it’s dance and therefore an art form, it’s not dirty or inappropriate to those who claim that sexualization is only in the eyes of the beholder and whoever sees this as being problematic should really get their mind out of the gutter.
Deanna:
I completely agree with you. These girls are talented little dancers and have skills! They are doing real choreography! There is a difference between getting dirty on the dance floor and body isolations! and do people not understand the difficult turn sequences in this piece.
Ken:
Unless you are one of these girls’ mothers, shouldn’t you keep your ridiculous ultra-conservative opinions to yourself? Anyone who sees sexuality in an outfit on a 7-yr old needs serious professional help. If your mind wasn’t thinking that way, you wouldn’t have this opinion. Period. Look yourself in the mirror and ask why you would see a costume on a 7-yr old as sexual.
Beammer:
The outfits look like swimsuits.
Peters (executive vp of The Hozman Group):
“It has been taken out of context.” and “There was NOTHING provocative about what they were doing.”
Presch (parent of one of the kids):
“The costumes are designed for movement, unrestricted movement and to show body lines.” Also, this is because “the judges need to be able to see the girl’s movement and technical skills.”
Um. Right. I see we’re going from justifying to rationalizing to flat out bullshit in very short order. I wonder if Presch thinks the rest of us are all idiots who haven’t seen ballet performed before. I’m sure that leotards would show body lines and allow for full range of body movement.
I’m gratified that there’s still people who still think that this sort of dance routine and costuming choice is wildly inappropriate for 7 year old girls, but the fact that we have managed to let public morality slide to the point where this sort of performance is considered de rigeur in this sort of venue is frankly appalling. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if a 17 year old I knew was doing this, I’d still be somewhat taken aback. You know it’s bad when Beyonce was wearing much less skin in a much less provocative manner in the original video.
Back to Hit-Girl. I appreciate how Chloe Moretz, the actress who plays Hit-Girl seems to be taking this way more in stride than some of the people blowing their tops off.
“Hit-Girl isn’t very adult at all. She may say this stuff, but she doesn’t know any better. That’s how she was born and raised. She watches John Woo movies — what do you get from John Woo movies? You get violence and cussing. And that’s all she knows. She doesn’t know how to speak kind words to people. Her Dad tried to raise her like that, she really doesn’t know any better.”
and
It’s a movie for a reason. It’s not meant to be taken as real life.
She also doesn’t suggest that kids watch it nor does she think that Hit-Girl should be a role model. She does see it as female empowerment insofar as it’s a female character who is kicking ass instead of being the damsel in distress.
What I really enjoy is the dichotomy. When it comes to violence, cursing, and such non-feminine pursuits, where are all the comments about it being art, about perversity only being in the eye of the beholder, about taking a chill pill because obviously to pull this off takes talent and that therefore excuses all?
Elisabeth Rappe puts it beautifully when she says that it’s because the violence isn’t sexual in nature.
Charlie’s Angels where they seduce men and then beat them? Perfectly alright.
Death via sex? That’s alright too.
But having a girl get all bloody and spill gore? Oh wait, that’s not ok at all, because a woman is supposed to either be the whore or the Madonna. The Madonna nurtures, teaches by loving pacifistic example, and “lends civilization to a brutal world”. Irony quotes. The whore kills with sex, poisons, and is essentially a back-stabbing bad girl who you do not want anywhere near your mother.
When it’s a girl doing all the bloodspilling, it’s no longer “just a movie” or “just entertainment”, it’s something infinitely more subversive, perverse, and problematic.
Hypocrisy, people. Hypocrisy. You’re so bad at this game.
I am honestly very confused by the situation I find myself in, to the extent where I was originally contemplating not writing this open letter for fear of it being construed as passive aggressiveness at work. In the end, I decided that since all following items have been brought up repeatedly by yours truly to all of you, the accusation does not stand. In any event where you still feel this is passive aggressiveness elevated to a whole new level of the art of airing dirty laundry, do please submit it to passiveaggressivenotes.com so that I may enjoy some notoriety for my pain.
To begin with, I do not understand why people constantly labor under the delusion that they are cleaner than anyone else in our circle of friends. I have had people tell me that either they’re cleaner than I am or they would keep a cleaner house if they were in charge, or that they are cleaner than this other person in the group. I hate to break it to you, but I have ample evidence to the contrary. I’m sure you would all like to think that you are cleaner, but I assure you that you really aren’t. Before people get all fired up about how I’m also not a paragon of cleanliness, I will submit that at least I admit to it and that I do not harangue other people by stating that I would do better if only I were in charge. Hypocrisy is the last thing anyone can charge me of.
Following these delusions of cleanliness, I’m not quite certain what compels people to not clean up after themselves. Those who are guests to our household, I’m not sure why you think it is alright to leave your dirty plates and cups scattered about for other people to clean up. Perhaps you see it as your right as a guest to have someone else pick up after you. Fair enough. For those who live with me and have lived with me in the past — is it because you still have fantasies of your mother coming in and cleaning up, or is it that you simply have no attachment to this household and don’t see it as yours? If you see it as your household, then why the reluctance to pick up after yourself? I do not understand this lack of pride or shame in your surroundings. I am not even talking about clutter — which I am guilty of myself — but the failure to mop up red sauce that has dripped onto the floors, the failure to keep the stove from being an encrusted, blistering, peeling mass of blackened, cooked on food matter when the stove is so rarely in use now that there is no one cooking more than one meal there a day per person, if that. Why do you think it is alright to leave sticky remains of your food everywhere on the kitchen floor? What makes you not care?
Then there’s that little bit about added hypocrisy. It seems that every single person I know has a problem with clutter — except when it is theirs. Every. Single. Person. It’s amazing, how suddenly a person who professes a love of clean surfaces is perfectly alright with things being scattered across said surfaces when it’s their stuff. Amazing!
Further along those lines, for those of you who have any illusions about wanting or being able to live with people: no. Just no.
First off, if you can’t stand any other person’s clutter but your own, you’re in trouble with wanting to live with people. There’s the stinking hypocrisy and then there’s the fact that you’re not going to get along with another person with that kind of attitude.
Also if you are incapable of cleaning after yourself, which apparently you are — and you don’t want to clean up anything that might belong to someone else, then I have a news flash for you. If you’re going to be immature about cleaning up after yourself and others, then you are in no position to want to live with anyone except for yourself or perhaps with your beloved fuck-buddies who you will presumably be fine with cleaning up after. Or maybe you can terrorize them into cleaning up after you and themselves. Or perhaps, you will simply continue living in filth as you are doing right now.
Also? You don’t actually really want to live with people in a real household. That would involve caring, compromise, and oh gasp, real work towards making the household tick. I see it now and I’ve seen it before — people simply don’t care enough about their living situation to raise a hand towards making it a better place. If everyone simply had the mindset that this was their home and that they really had to work towards making it a cleaner place — then things would be much more different, and much better than they are now.
For those of you who don’t intend on living with other people because of their perceived faults in your eyes — I really hate to burst your little bubble of self-delusion, but you really aren’t much better than those you are denouncing. You really, really aren’t that much cleaner or neater or anything.
Me? I didn’t keep the house in the best of conditions when I was in residence. In fact, it was often cluttered and downright filthy. However, I will state that I spent an average of at least an hour a day doing household chores whilst I was in residence, if not more. Can any one of you claim that? If I didn’t succeed, at least I was trying to do my part.
As a general public service announcement:
It is very helpful to learn how to load the dishwasher. The fact that people still don’t know how to do it properly boggles my brain. It’s really not hard. You put the dishes in so that they will get the chance to have water get at their surfaces. Sometimes, when you’re clearing out the sink, you may even need to run two loads in a row. Gasp! The horror! For the record, it is very hard to get things clean when they are all stacked on top of each other so that the dishes are overlapping. Physics, people, is your friend.
When unloading the dishwasher, it is helpful to see if the dishes are actually clean. In fact, this is often imperative when you have not learned how to load the dishwasher properly. When a white bowl is speckled all over with pesto sauce, then this is a hint that the dishes are probably less than clean. The correct thing to do is to either re-do the load or scrub at the bowl a bit and then check the other dishes to see if they are clean. The wrong thing to do would be to unload the entire dishwasher, including the dirty bowl, and put it all into the cupboards.
When you have pots boiling over, it is often much easier to wipe it down with a wet sponge rather than let it cook dry and then turn a lovely shade of teak.
Lastly, can we please stop with the delusions? It’s really unattractive in people of our age. Really, really unattractive.
So I thought that after talking to S about how I really wanted him to get back home by 10:00pm and how I would need to stay up for him to make sure he got home safely — maybe he’d wise up and stop being a pain.
Apparently not.
Saturday morning, I ask him if he wants something to eat at about 10:30am. He says no, he’s going out skiing with his friends later. I ask him when he’s going to return and after a bit of hesitation, he says 11:00pm.
Clearly that whole bit about wanting him to get back before 10:00 pm bit didn’t sink quite in.
I reiterate that I really want him back by 10:00, or even 10:30 — but if it’s really necessary, then at the very latest I want him back by 11:00pm.
That entire day I’m plagued by worries about what if he falls and breaks something. After all, skiing isn’t exactly the safest sport out there. Around 10:58pm, I start glancing at the clock.
I’m simmering by 10:05.
When he walks in at 1:44am, I’m absolutely livid.
I hear him walk in and I station myself in the living room doorway, where he has to pass by me to go upstairs. He tools around a bit in the foyer, then gets himself a glass of water. Finally, he walks into the dining room, straight into my line of sight.
I just stare at him. He pauses, looks a bit uncertain, then apologizes. I start dressing him down for not calling to tell me he’d be late and for being almost two hours late. He makes some excuse about the place being really far away. I coolly tell him to leave earlier next time. He mumbles something meant to be placatory. Tired of the entire thing, I tell him that is all.
Still seething over his nonchalant reaction, I fire off an email to my father asking if I can just kick him out if he keeps this up.
Dad: “Sure, if you don’t mind losing the income.”
I send an email to his aunt, who is his current legal guardian while he’s in the US. I tell her about his past two escapades and inform her that if he does this three more times, we will not be able to keep him as a boarder any longer. She apologizes for any inconvenience he might have caused me, thanks me for caring about his safely, and says that if I made it clear how much he’s inconveniencing me, he’d surely stop.
Hah. I doubt it.
Anyways. I get the joyful job of having to talk to him and N later on, to tell them what’s what. It’ll be great fun.
At least I rejected my brother’s idea of setting them a 6pm curfew and refusing to let them out after dark. Clearly that would have gone over awesomely.
someone had very thoughtfully carefully arranged the mini cupcakes I made on Saturday on top of my laptop. I sure am glad that my housemates thought of me and left me some of the cake.
someone’s mug and dirty plate sitting on the coffee table.
a moldy biscuit sitting in the bread box
the box of tin foil out on the kitchen table I had cleared off and wiped clean on Saturday
all four burners on the stove occupied with dirty pots with one of them actually having a stack of pots.
stack of dirty dishes on the kitchen table
a colander with pasta in it sitting forlornly on the floor
a pot of dirty water on the kitchen table, presumably because the stove had all four burners occupied
empty plastic containers sitting on the edge of the sink
the dishwasher sat open, one rack full and one empty, with no way to tell if the stuff in it is supposed to be clean or not
the sink half full
empty food wrapper on top of stack of dirty pyrex lids in front of the microwave.
the chicken I made on Satuday for general consumption stuck in the fridge, uneaten, with neither foil nor plastic wrap to protect it from the elements
the kitchen trashcan filled to overflowing
a dirty bowl sitting on the coffee table with oven mitts in it
an open bag of rice just sitting out on the kitchen floor
To be honest, I think the rows of mini cupcakes on top of my laptop was the truly w0ndrous bit. I’m sure there’s some meaning in there somewhere.
There was a version of this post that got eaten by the Internet, and so there is somewhat more bitterness in this post than there used to be.
I have recently had it drummed into me that my hobbies are rather cheap.
I write and I cook.
Writing? Need anymore be said?
The entire Internet is awash with writing that is at least as good as or better than my own. Asides from those people who have somehow managed to amass what amounts to a cult following, I have not seen that it is worth the time and energy to attempt to self-publish on the Internet. People are reluctant to pay for words, even if they like something. Some even complain about ads that are hosted on blogs that they regularly frequent.
Cooking.
Utterly underrated because:
Many people see it as fuel and many do not care what exactly they put into themselves.
Many people either have no taste or have no preference for anything much more than frozen meals or pizza or the local cheap takeout. Some actively prefer the frozen meals or pizza or local cheap takeout.
There is no concrete evidence of your prowess.
Even if you have given concrete evidence of your prowess, it is likely that it will have been forgotten before they have gone to the bathroom next.
If you even care about your food just a little bit more than anyone else in your acquaintance, you will end up cooking because you need to eat and you will therefore likely be feeding other people in that process unless you’re an absolute grinch. The analogous paradigm of “selfish knitter” does not apply.
If you enjoy cooking, then you almost definitely much needs necessarily give it out because otherwise it’d go bad before you have a chance to finish it — thus rendering a under-valued item that much cheaper.
If you’re female, then it’s almost a given that you will cook for your family. I know that my brother never appreciated it when my mother or I cooked, yet he was almost pathetically grateful that my father cooked for him whilst the two of us were in Asia.
Canning might be the only way to impress people because mere cooking is simply too rooted in the area of the mundane.
It’s relatively cheap to just go out and eat. There’s no value in staying home and cooking, then cleaning, then doing the dishes on top of scrubbing the kitchen when it’s perceived that you can just go out, throw down a couple of tens, and have a decent dinner.
This, as opposed to knitters who apparently have to beat off admirers with a stick. I can’t even begin to recollect the amount of butt-hurt inducing comments from knitters who are tired of people requesting for hand-made items. I think there’s even an entire article on how to butt-hurt people who ask you for stuff by the Yarn Harlot. I could be wrong. The butt-hurtedness is making it hard to think.
Then there’s how Azora managed to get a sweet gig going in college making custom items for people.
…I have really just come to the conclusion that I need to find some other hobbies. I need to stop self-sabotaging this way.
