Two Cool Posts

I was thinking about starting a Sunday Links post, like all the cool blogs do - but then I got lazy and didn't compile a list of links and didn't post the links I did think to mark, and then it was no longer Sunday but Monday and I gave up on the whole thing.

I also, maybe, might have consumed too much coffee today, because I'm still fairly hyper.

That being said, there are two posts that I wanted to highlight.

Reflections on a Gold Bikini, about Princess Leia and the lust that one particular outfit generates (excerpt):

And therein lies the crux of the fanboy lust issue for me. For all that so many of them say they love Leia for her strength, the fantasy focuses on the 10 minutes out of three films when she is forced into submission. The iconic image of sexy Return of the Jedi Leia is one of subjugation and powerlessness. In focusing their desire and fantasy on the gold bikini, the fanboys are identifying not with Han, who loves and desires Leia as a complete and autonomous person, but with Jabba, who sees her as a possession and a decorative object.

I'm sure that a lot of the lust directed at Leia in that moment is due to the massive amount of skin Carrie Fisher was exposing in that scene, and the fact that Fisher wasn't almost naked in any other part of the trilogy. But I do think that the reason why she was almost naked is almost as important. It may not be a conscious choice to be Jabba instead of Han when evaluating the hotness of Leia, but I think the point Melusine makes regarding Leia's autonomy - or lack of it - in choosing that particular outfit makes the reverence that gold bikini generates more than a little squicky is well worth considering.

Then there is a post from Sady regarding Megan Fox, called Megan Fox: Sex Symbol, Mouthy Slut, Or Something Else Entirely (excerpt):

This is what we do to women: tell them to be hot, sexy, sexual. We consistently define women’s worth around their bodies, around how attractive they are. Then, when a woman actually goes for it, and makes bank with her sexuality or her looks, we tell her that she can never be anything else. That she should have been a “good girl” all along. That, having played the game, she can never express an opinion about it: We like you better with your mouth shut.

What’s most disheartening about the Megan Fox coverage is that a lot of the harshest statements seem to come from women, and often, as in the case of Zelda Lily, in the name of “feminism.” It’s hard to tell exactly what feminism means these days, but I’m pretty sure telling women that they should be seen and not heard – saying that they can be “good,” non-sexual girls who are allowed to think, or sex objects who remain passive, vacant, and acquiescent – ain’t it.

I have to admit that I am not a Megan Fox lover - or hater. I've seen her in exactly two things, the first Transformers and an episode of the Amanda Bynes show What I Like About You, in which she had a bit part and where I recognized her only due to previously watching Transformers.

That being said, when I first read about the remark Fox made to Entertainment Weekly, that being:

I mean, I can’t s— on this movie [Transformers] because it did give me a career and open all these doors for me. But I don’t want to blow smoke up people’s a–. People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting.

I was genuinely surprised that it could (or would) create that much of an uproar. It seemed like a pretty duh statement. Transformers, whatever else it might be, is not an actors' film. It is about the coolness of giant robots (while forgetting to give them actual parts, because that might make it a film that needs a bit of acting), and things blowing up. It is an adrenaline ride. I haven't seen the second one yet, but that's what the first one was and that is what most Michael Bay films are. And that's not really a problem, because those movies are fun for what they are. But apparently, pointing that out is a hate-worthy offense.