"Sick Puppies"

This is actually why I like Keith Olbermann:

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When not on his own show, he's actually not bombastic and hard-liney. He's rather reasoned and calm(ish) and intelligent-sounding. That kind of sounds like I don't like his show, and I do. But I'm sure that if Olbermann covered this on his own show, he wouldn't be offering up the paternal defense and going straight for the "Are you calling me a sick puppy, you sick puppy?" And I like that defense, because it is actually understanding of the different impulses human beings actually have - even Republican ones.

Saturday Sesame Street

Thank Goodness I Was Discerning About My Best Friend Pick In Pre-School

And those friends I made since then, because otherwise I may believe that

BFFs are great when you’re upset about a boy/sick cat/whatnot. But there are limits to friendship...

Luckily, I've got myself a great best friend. One I can go to with more than boys or sick cats or whatnot. One I could call early in the morning hours to come and get me from the streets or who would come to the ER if I found myself there in a bad way. That is, if she had her cell phone near her and the ringer on (there's a reason we're best friends). I had thought that this is typically why people have best friends instead of just regular old friends - so that you could have someone who would be great if your biggest problem was that you have a sick cat or if your biggest problem is a great deal larger than that. Apparently, though, being there for anything above and beyond "sick cat" is too much to ask for from a best friend. Like, say, not abandoning a best friend at a club without knowing whether or not she wants to be abandoned there and begrudgingly picking said friend up from the hospital after she had been "slipped a mickey". At least, that's what Friend or Foe tells me.

The letter is as follows:

A couple of weeks ago, my two closest friends and I went to a small live-music venue to hear a band. While at the concert, someone “slipped me a mickey.” I remember nothing about the rest of the evening, but I was told that the police officer found me lying alone on the sidewalk. I came-to in the hospital E.R.—alone. The entire experience was frightening.

Since then, I’ve tried to piece together what happened. Apparently, at the end of the band's set, I left for the ladies room with my purse—and didn’t come back. My friends figured I had left, so they left, too. Later, when I called them from the street, sobbing in hysterics and asking for help, they told me to go back to the club and that they would have an ambulance pick me up there. When my mother—who lives 2,000 miles away (and hopped on a plane the next day to be with me)—later called these two friends of mine to beg them to join me while I was recovering, they refused. It wasn't until I told them that the hospital wouldn’t release me until I had someone to drive me home that they came to pick me up. They then angrily drove me to my car, and I drove home alone. By then, it was the next morning.

I have known these girls for more than 10 years, and had until now considered them my best friends. But I can't help feeling as though they’d abandoned me. If I found out one of them had been taken to the hospital, I would have dropped everything and gone to be by her side. Am I expecting too much from my best friends, both of whom are mid-twentysomething professional women?

The response? Well, that leaves a lot to be desired. Let's take that from the top, mkay?

Wow, that’s a tough call.

Really? A tough call? Your friend calls you, hysterical in the middle of the night, and it's a touch and go thing whether or not you should book it to the hospital when her mother calls and asks you to sit with her?

A spouse or even a boyfriend? Yes, it would be his or her duty to haul ass to said hospital at 4 a.m.

Well, yes. A spouse or a boyfriend would be driven to haul ass to said hospital, though hopefully out of something more than simply "duty".

But your single female friends who are already, presumably tucked in their beddy-bies?

Should also be hauling ass to said hospital at 4 a.m., not in the least out of concern because the last time they saw their friend, she was heading off to the bathroom. Which means they should be incredibly concerned that her evening ended in the hospital. Because friendish people tend to care when even their liked ones end up in the hospitals after a night spent mostly together. But in this specific case, it seems more likely this woman's friends were not called at 4 in the morning, but instead later along in the day. Which makes their refusal to come to the hospital all the more appalling.

For one thing, it’s not even necessarily safe—depending on where you live and how far you live from the hospital—for a woman to head out alone at that hour.

I'll concede this one, if we're talking about the original sobbing hysterical phone call. And even then, I would expect my best friend to at least feel bad about the not coming out to collect me.

For another, presumably, by the time your mother called you were out of danger.

But not this one. Because, really. One of the reasons to have someone at the hospital with you isn't because you're in danger, but because you've gone through a traumatic experience. And may want some recognizable and sympathetic people hanging around to calm you down.

Yes, overnights at the E.R. are the opposite of fun. So are disastrous drug trips. (I had one in my twenties, which pretty much sealed my fate as an illegal-substance ninny.)

Um... What don't you get about being "slipped a mickey"? That isn't a "disastrous drug trip"; at least, not a voluntary one. That is being drugged without one's knowledge or consent. That is the whole point behind the phrase "being slipped a mickey". A "mickey" isn't something you take for funsies. A mickey is something someone covertly gives you because they want to do all sorts of illicit things to you you may otherwise object to.

But only nuns make it out of youth without a few ambulance rides.

Wait, what?

No, seriously, what?!

And with that, we pick up at the sick cat line:

Here’s a little secret. BFFs are great when you’re upset about a boy/sick cat/whatnot. But there are limits to friendship—limits that don’t apply to our romantic partners or close family members.

Well, yeah. Most people don't share bank accounts with their best friends, or expect their best friends to co-sign loans. But coming to hang with someone when they're in the hospital after a roofie incident? That's not one of the limits I would reasonably expect on my best friendship.
And the piece de resistance:

I also wish they’d been a less critical of what was, by your account, a freak incident. Why were they so unforgiving? I’d wager a guess that they think you’re lying about the mickey, tales of which are sometimes used as a cover for irresponsible behavior. (Only you know the truth.)

There is so much fail contained in those lines, I don't even know what to say. Seriously. Don't even know what to say. Except what kind of dumb ass friends does this Lucinda Rosenfeld think are acceptable?

Let me say this: friendships aren't really that complicated, especially in situations like this. If your friend ends up in the hospital, go there. It really should be just about that level of simple.

(h/t Feministe)

My Crush on Josh and Chuck Is Now Solidified

Josh and Chuck, of the Stuff You Should Know podcast (it can also be easily found on iTunes) and blog, are - in a word - awesome. Why, you ask? Well, because they did a podcast about microlending a few (or, possibly a dozen) podcasts ago. And what they've done now is this:

At the end of the show, we announced that we’ve set up a Kiva team, something we’re all really excited about. You can refer to our show on microlending to fill you in, but here’s the gist… Sign up with the Stuff You Should Know team at Kiva.org and lend an entrepreneur in a third world country (at least) $25 and feel good about yourself! It’s really that easy. You can track the status of your loan and when it’s fully satisfied you can get your money back if you want. Or if you don’t miss it you can roll it into another loan or donate it permanently to Kiva. Our mission is to surpass the lousy fans of The Colbert Report. We’ve publicly challenged them to a “Kiva-off” and sent e-mails to Mr. Colbert in hopes that he responds. We’ll keep you up to speed as things progress, but get on over there now and throw down $25 for the Stuff You Should Know team. It’s the right thing to do.

I want to kick some Colbert butt, and I - as the the post's catchy title says - have a bit of a crush on Josh and Chuck (and Ira Glass, and one of the guys from Buzz Out Loud, and Mac Wilson and David Safar and David Campbell from Musicheads, and... you get the picture). Anyway, both of these things means that I am joining, and I am lending (to a general store in the Philippines), and that I may periodically mention this on the blog. Because I can. And because the About Us states:

Arguably the finest assemblage of people who have never met dedicated to the common purpose of hastening global peace in $25 increments.

And who could ever resist hastening global peace?

Friday Random Ten

1) Gangsta Boogie - Love Stink

2) Nice Work If You Can Get It - Billie Holiday

3) In My Time of Need - Ryan Adams

4) Revenge - Mindless Self Indulgence

5) Africa Unite - Bob Marley & the Wailers

6) Hello Little Girl - The Beatles

7) Feels Like Summer - The Wallflowers

8) (It's ) Hairspray - James Marsden

9) Everybody Loves a Lover - The Shirelles

10) Farther - Third Eye Blind

This Has To Be A Joke

A really, really, really bad joke:

Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License

Right?

The best part of the episode has got to be this:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

I like how he thinks having black friends exonerates him from expressing a really, really racist sentiment.

In other news, I may have to bend my "one charity gets money per month" thing and donate to the ACLU this month even though they're my June charity.

Keith, Ya Done Wrong

I like Keith Olbermann. Mostly, this is linked to the fact that I - unlike a great many other people - am actually unbothered by hysterics in regard to politics. I don't particularly like Bill O'Reilly, but the only time he really gets my dander up is when what he says is an instigation to violence (or is sexist; I'm also not so good with the sexist). I think hysterics are needed, I think people who are far to the right and far to the left are needed as much as people who lean more toward the center, and I don't have a real problem with ideologues. Also, Olbermann looks good in a suit. And that's important, because so few liberals on television do (I'm looking at you, PBS).

But liking Keith Olbermann is problematic. Liking Keith Olbermann means sometimes listening to the same type of shit I'd be hearing if I were listening to some partisan figures on the other side of the isle. In short, listening to Keith Olbermann means sometimes hearing him say something profoundly stupid, hurtful, and the opposite of progressive. Like, his recent commentary on Michelle Malkin:

[Malkin's] total mindless, morally bankrupt, knee-jerk, fascistic hatred, without which Michelle Malkin would just be a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.

Both Air America and Shakesville have posts up about this, and they both come at the problem from different perspectives. I agree with them both.

Megan Carpentier makes the salient point that

on average, once every 24 minutes in this country, a woman does become a "mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it." Nearly 1.3 million American woman will be a victim of domestic violence this year, and one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

A liberal, progressive critique of Malkin need not and should not resort to an attack on her looks or her gender or rely on silly stereotypes or imagery that brings to mind victims of domestic violence.

Over at Shakesville, Paul the Spud argues Olbermann's description

is sexist, it is dehumanizing, which is a central strategy of racism, and it is not helping.

They're both right. They both cover different aspects of why Olbermann was wrong, and they're both right. Olbermann f'd up.

He should apologize, but he probably won't. He won't because most of his viewers probably didn't catch how wrong he was, didn't catch how woman-hating it was, and - most depressingly - probably wouldn't care if they did. Because it is "just" Michelle Malkin. Just like it was "just" Sarah Palin when sexist and at times misogynistic crap was being flung at her. Just like it was "just" Hillary Clinton. And these viewers and Olbermann himself presumably feel these women deserve it, that these women are a special case when dehumanizing language is allowed, is appropriate, is understandable. But it isn't. Precisely because of the reasons Carpentier and the Spud point out.

On Sexual Assault

So...

I was at a friend's shindig - which was more of a gathering, if Oz's definitions are correct, though there was no brie - a couple of years ago. There weren't a lot of people there, and I knew all of them. We watched some television, listened to some music, probably played a game or two; these are people an ex-coworker of mine described as my "basement buddies", people who would rather go out than stay in. There's also some drinking going down.

Around 2 in the morning, I was asleep. I was still a little drunk, and I'm a heavy sleeper as it is. Around 2 in the morning, I'm asleep on the couch, and I slowly come aware of the fact that one of the mutual (boy) friends is touching me. And not in mutual friendish places. Places like under my shirt, under my bra. And I am, strictly speaking, afraid. And ashamed. And silent. Being a deep sleeper, I can talk in my sleep. Being a deep sleeper, I oftentimes can't talk when I'm starting to wake up - even if I want to. Being afraid, I didn't really want to talk at all. I just wanted the touching to stop. I wanted this "mutual friend" to recognize the fact that I was most definitely asleep - and therefore not open to his touching. It went a little further - toward the pants further - and I did the cowardly thing by turning over. The touching didn't stop immediately, and all those things they tell you to do when you're in a situation like this weren't coming to mind. And I started to really wake up - and then he stopped and went into another room.

I stopped trusting Mutual Friend, stopped thinking of him as a Mutual Friend. But I also didn't name what had happened, didn't tell anyone else what had happened for a long time. I told my best friend about six months or so after that night. I never told my then-boyfriend. I've never told my friend, the person whose shindig it was and whose couch it was, because I have always been nervous about the reaction I'd get back. Even more than that, I'm not sure what reaction I want to get. I know what reaction I don't want. I know I don't want what happened to be minimized, to be laughed off or brushed off or apologized for in the "I'm sorry for Mutual Friend" way. But I don't necessarily want Mutual Friend to no longer be my friend's friend either. Because I don't want the guilt of saying, "Hey, Mutual Friend? Not a great guy" and having my friend believe me and lose a friend my friend likes quite a lot. I don't want that burden. I've never wanted that burden. And even more than that, I don't want to be seen as the problem, as the burden, as the person who brought up this thing that we could have all just as easily ignored and had life go on as it has always gone on.

And so, I go through, telling myself that it wasn't that bad (and it wasn't; it could have been a lot worse). I tell myself that it didn't affect me much - I just haven't spent the night with a group of people since. I tell myself that Mutual Friend was drunk, that I was drunk, that I should have stopped it, that I should have woken up and immediately said, "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" I tell myself that all it was was touching, that to make a big deal out of touching would be weak - would be taking something away from those people who have actually been assaulted; you know, the people who weren't gently molested - the people who were grabbed violently, the people who were subjected to Bad Things, the people who fought back. The people who were forced. I wasn't forced, not really. I was just asleep and didn't say no. And I try to make it seem like being asleep and not being awake and conscious for the start of the whole thing makes it less big of a deal, when in reality it makes it more troubling.

If someone had asked me a series of questions after That Night, without asking directly if I felt I was sexually assaulted, the answer would lead to me having been sexually assaulted. If someone asked me straight out if I had been sexually assaulted, I would have said no. Because he was a friend. Because I should have said something. Because I don't want to think of myself as a victim. Because I don't want to make other people think of this guy as someone capable of sexual assault. Because I don't want someone to look at me and pffaw me off, to say, "That? You're making a big deal out of that?"

And I don't want to make a big deal out of that. But I would also like to live in a world where sleeping on someone's couch doesn't lead to a foreign and unwanted hand down the pants.

So.

A year or so out, I can say that I was a victim of (a relatively minor (and I'm still qualifying it)) sexual assault. The day after? I couldn't. The day after that? I wouldn't have been able to. Now, I can.

And that's why sometimes it is important to accept what someone has described as the truth, and then possibly come to a different conclusion about what that was, legally and/or statistically, than how the victim would describe it. Because the reasons for how and why we describe things the way we do are vast. And sometimes, the way we describe them and the way we think of them are a way of coping with what has happened, and nothing more or less than that.

Rape ≠ "Messed Up Romantic Relationship"

This is an FYI for Stephen Goldmeier, who says this:

By far the most dark and twisted relationship on Dollhouse, though, is that between Sierra and her original handler. Her handler, on multiple occasions, took advantage of the preternatural trust programmed into the otherwise blank Sierra to take advantage of her innocence and rape her.

It's one of the most twisted sexual events Whedon has yet crafted, and it further proves his fascination with strange, unconventional, or even downright disturbingly messed up romantic relationships.

Which, no. Just no.

I'm not one who believes there is a total disconnect between sex and rape, forever and always. I am one who believes rape is a form of asserting power, but rapes come in many different forms. There are rapes that do exist within "disturbingly messed up romantic relationships". One of Whedon's own shows even examines that: Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Spike trying to "make [Buffy] feel it" is an excellent example of where power and sex manifest into attempted rape.

Hearn raping Sierra doesn't fit in that pantheon. It is the classic rape-as-power. Hearn says it himself when Adelle asks him, "Did it make it better? That she didn’t struggle?" and Hearn responds, "No. It made it easier."

This was an abuse of the power a caregiver has over his charge, nothing more and nothing less. To describe Hearn's continued abuse of Sierra in romantic terms is to completely misunderstand the presented scenario, and to categorize all rape as somehow romantic in nature, no matter what.

Jay Smooth on Caramel

Just because:


Plus, the face he makes when looking back at the drug spot/candy store is all sorts of funny.

Monday Reading List

"My Tits Are Real; So Is My Penis" by Rebecca. I like the internal debate being waged over whether to be out as a trans woman all the time, or if she can some days just be, just pass and not have to be on guard for the questions or comments (or violence) that may come. Me, I'm in support of having a day off, of having the ability to say, "I am not in the necessary place to fight this battle today", of having the ability to say, "This is not a safe space for me to have this discussion, to acknowledge my difference". Galina of Oh, You're a Feminist?! comes to this internal tension from a different perspective, and discusses her own decision to 'out' herself via her tattoos (as well as just ruminating about her tattoos) over at Female Impersonator.

Cacophonies ponders the Micro vs. Macro divide in talking about feminism and breaking down of privilege.

Echnide's post on Sleeping Beauty is one I like a lot, because I was fairly well obsessed with fairy tales as a kid. Not Hans Christian Anderson, because his were generally friggin' scary as all get out. But the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, those I loved.

Rape Culture 101 by Melissa McEwan, with a whole host of links, is one of the most comprehensive readings on exactly what Rape Culture is. Its definition isn't about feminists denying women agency, and it isn't about feminists making men the singular horrific thing in our universe. It isn't about all men being rapists; it isn't about all women being victims of rape. It is about a cultural norm surrounding sexual violence - and how we react to that sexual violence when it is presented to us. Some are more engrained in it than others; those people who love Tucker Max? More entrenched. Those of us who live on rom-coms and can get through most of them without retching (*waves*)? Pretty well entrenched. What's often missing from discussions like this is the balance between the agency of the individual and the influence of society/culture. The reason for that seems to be pretty clear to me; that break down is on an individual level, and can change rapidly depending upon the subject within the overall discussion. That discussion is about how the micro interacts with the macro, and that is - in many cases - a discussion that is deeply personal.

Schrödinger’s Rapist kind of follows the above. I like the idea of Schrödinger’s Rapist being how we discuss rape and how we talk to women about rape; I like the article linked a lot as well, even though it does have some problems. But I think that this is an implication often lost when discussing rape. When feminists talk about how every man is a potential rapist, there is an (oftentimes erroneous) implication that what feminists mean is that every man could rape you at any given moment and that no man is to be trusted not to rape. But I don't think that is the correct reading. The idea isn't that every man would rape given the chance or that every man has the potential to rape; it is that because women are often given the responsibility to prevent themselves from being raped, and because there are no helpful signs clearly labeling rapists (like, stickies that say "RAPIST: STAY AWAY!!"), then every man you meet may be the guy who rapes. It isn't that every guy is a rapist or has raped; it is that it is impossible to tell - like it is (theoretically) impossible to tell whether the cat in Schrödinger’s box is alive or dead. So, Schrödinger's Rapist is all about not being able to crack open that box.

Racialicious Loves OK Cupid... and Of OKCupid and Denials of Racism break down the data from the internet dating site and discuss what it means in terms of race and gender.

And, because the fall is my favorite season, Autumn is Beautiful (stolen from Coffee Shop Philosophy's Sunday Links).

A Post In Which I Review Dollhouse's "Belle Chose"

Episodes like this one are why I adore Tim Minear; episodes like "Omega" (an episode I still haven't reviewed! Gah!) are not. That's the line of delineation. Well, truly, episodes like "Epiphany" and "Out of Gas" and "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been" are why I adore Minear. This one just kind of confirms that I'm right to. First, though, I'm going to jump in with the bad.

Every week I watch Dollhouse, and I see problems. Last week was the whole structural-vs-episodic nature of the show. This week? I'm back to ragging on Eliza Dushku. It isn't that she's bad. Okay, it is that she's somewhat bad, but she isn't totally bad. She just isn't versatile. At all. As a serial killer, she rocks. As a person fighting off serial killer personas and trying to keep some women alive, she also rocks. As Kiki? There is no rocking. What there is are a bunch of stereotypical bounces? and hair twirls? and ending each sentence like it is a question?, but no actual Kiki. There is Eliza Dushku not understanding how to make Kiki a character. There is very clearly Eliza Dushku playing the stereotype of a possible former non-rocket science cheerleader, whose wit (and she does have some, what with the "Scarlet Lady" remark) doesn't make it clearly into the presentation. Which is strange, because Buffy the Vampire Slayer could have easily been Kiki the Vampire Slayer. Going back to the books and watching how Sarah Michelle Gellar or Mercedes McNab or Charisma Carpenter managed to be ditzy and human, recognizing that there is more to that girl than the hair twists and the awkward delivery of sentences would have been a real help. This line:

Okay, so I probably never should have taken this course to begin with. But I figured it was Mid-Evil lit, not Advanced Evil. How hard could it be? So I skipped Intro to Evil or whatever, but how is it I get an "F" when this guy that we're reading, Chauncy, can't even spell?

was so incredibly painful to watch. Made even moreso by the fact that Enver Gjokaj managed to pull off a much more complete Kiki later on in the episode, and most of that was just dancing his heart out - and his tearful reunion with Paul. I long to see Gjokaj in the above scene with the professor, just to show Dushku how to knock it out of the park. As an aside, I join the list of people who think Enver Gjokaj is the most talented member of that cast. That, by the way, is probably the end of the bad from me this time around. Unfortunately, that bad is the star of the show, and should be able to pull off ditzy/dumb-but-beautiful better than she does. The rest of the episode? Aces.

Here's why: this episode succeeds in doing what I just complained the Dollhouse episodes weren't doing in my last review! See how that works? It is an amazing thing. It's more of an amazing thing if you've seen Epitaph One (And if you haven't, what are you waiting for? Go. This review will be here when you get back). But it is amazing all the same in that it is substantially a stand-alone episode that explains a majority of how the Dollhouse works and what it does, and advances the end game. I should also point out that this episode was supposed to be 2.02 and was bumped to 2.03 for the not-so-goodness that was "Instinct", for whatever the reason. We're introduced to a large portion of the procedure part of the Dollhouse through Ballard navigating his first assignment as Echo's handler. The explanation about the "R" for Romantic Engagement, seeing how the Dolls are dressed, all cool, and lead to this tickle-the-funny-bone exchange:

RANDOM HANDLER: I won't even do this for my wife.

BALLARD: I was trained at Quantico.

This brings us to Ballard. Who is, in a word, a creeper. The somewhat pornorific slow shots of "Kiki" taking in her new outfit with pleasure while being watched by Paul wasn't very pleasant. When Boyd came to take Ballard's place as the Handler, I was with Ballard in his "Serial killer? Thank God" remark. What makes the tension kind of wonky (and quite probably in an intentional way) is that the show makes it hard to tell if Paul is upset by the fact a dirty old professor would be making a student to seduce/be seduced by simply because it is Echo and he has a thing for her or if he would be just as revolted if any Doll - say, Victor - were to be put in this play situation. After all, he felt fine making an Echo to be married and sexed up when he was in control. And that, my friends, is why I can't like or trust ex-agent Paul Ballard - too much.

And yet, I do like him. I acknowledge that Tahmoh Penikett, has, as Maia says, "so little range it’s embarrassing". He's an "upset-frown, confused-scrunch up your face" kind of actor. And yet, for Ballard, it kind of works. It could just be that he continually gets lines that are inherently funny, like:

So... Terry. I gotta ask and I think you know I gotta ask. Have you been practicing dentistry on large cats? Leopards? Pumas?

Out of the many things Ballard had to ask or that Terry knew he had to ask, I don't think that was even on the list. He is also one of the most forthright in being able to put in direct terms what Terry is, and as a by-product, what with the intercutting scenes of Echo's engagement, what the Dollhouse is and caters to:

No, you're weird, Terry. But what you're not is special. It doesn't take a criminal profiler to figure you out. Maybe a pimp. It's ordinary. You're ordinary. Maybe you got bottle-fed, maybe you got dumped. It doesn't matter. At some point, you decided real people weren't worth it. You pushed them away. Alienated everyone in your life so you could surround yourself with the fakes, the copies. It made you feel like you had some control.

Since Ballard is both a criminal profiler and a pimp, he is uniquely qualified to diagnose Terry.

Now, let's jump to the very thing Ballard is describing, the engagement. The Dollhouse operates under the premise that it gives people what they need, when instead it becomes clearer and clearer that they generally traffic in what people want. Case in point: the engagement of the week. I can't imagine that a professor ever truly needs one of his students to sleep with him. I can imagine that a weaseling one like the guy we see may want one of his students to sleep with him. To the point where he'll actually make a fake student to seduce through the words of Chaucer and sleep with her, all the while asserting the student is in control of the situation, and making that clear to her:

DIRTY PROFESSOR: No, [Alisoun]'s not a whore.

KIKI: You're saying she uses sex to get what she wants.

DIRTY PROFESSOR: Yeah, I-I'm saying she's a lusty, bawdy, self-aware woman. She doesn't allow men to define her. She knows she's the one with the real power.

KIKI: What power?

DIRTY PROFESSOR: The same power that all women have.

This is one of my favorite scenes, because it demonstrates the lie the professor weaves. The professor is the one with all the power, both because he created Kiki to play out this fantasy and because he is the one who has the option of turning that "F" to an "A". He is the one who wields his intellectualism like a weapon; he is the one who is determined to 'teach' Kiki about this inherent 'power' she has over him. But the only power she has is the power he is willing to grant her. She isn't allowed to have an alternate reading of the text. She isn't allowed to argue her point in a salient manner or to ask if she can rewrite the paper with his critiques in mind, if she can do extra credit. Her power is purely relational to his attraction to her; her power is purely relational to how far he is willing to allow that attraction to go. Her power is wholly contingent upon him. And in one scene, the meme of the sexy worldly woman who successfully seduces the men powerless before her is revealed as a sham. Because the men she seduces aren't powerless, and because her power is determined by how much they are willing to give her - how much they are willing to take. And the professor may truly believe that he - and men - are helpless before the power of women. But that just makes him, well, wrong.

This connects to Terry, the serial killer. He also is under the mistaken belief that women are incredible masterminds - that the women he abducted orchestrated his getting hit with a car and then transferred into Echo. He's the one who the show opened upon, arranging his very own, slightly more mannequinesque fully human dolls. And, by the by, with my mannequin fear, I'm not going to be able to go to a department store for a very long time. It is exceedingly clear who has the power, and it isn't these women being used as Terry's playthings. As Uncle Bradley put it:

There have been other... indiscretions. Women, "survivors", I should call them. And when you have a survivor, you have a person who might be persuaded - monetarily or by other means - to stay quiet.

The rich and the powerful get to do their thing and have their way with the women of the world, and it is swept up and under the rug by money or other means - because the happiness of the Terrys and the Dirty Profs are inherently more important than the women; you know, those women with all the power.

Boyd, either because he's a better person than most in the Dollhouse (and that includes Ballard) or because he's an ex-cop, has issues with that before the whole "potential serial killer" thing comes rattling on out:

BOYD: Do we really want to wake this guy up?

ADELLE: Mr. Langton, have you no charity? We are working to reunite a desperate family with their wayward loved one.

BOYD: By "wayward", do you mean that they've been looking for him ever since he skipped his last bail hearing?

ADELLE: A bail hearing over a minor matter which has since been resolved.

BOYD: And, by "resolved", do you mean -

ADELLE: Yes, yes. A judge was bought off. There is no need to continue to translate me.

And is it just me, or is Boyd becoming more and more Oz-like? All I could think of in this scene:

BOYD: What are you trying?

TOPHER: Uh, a remote wipe?

BOYD: Why?

TOPHER: Oh, well... Victor's loose, doesn't have GPS and apparently he's a serial killer?

BOYD: Ah.

was how Oz would have a remarkably similar reaction. Well, that, and how Fran Kranz's nervous, making-statements-into-questions thing also put him in the running for being able to create a more believable Kiki than Eliza Dushku.

And we're jumping to Topher, who I've saved for last (perhaps erroneously, if no one has managed to get this far) because he has become my absolute favorite. Topher is one of the least complicated moral agents in the Dollhouse, and one of the most complex characters. He's one of the least complicated on the moral front because he won't do what he feels is ethically unsound. He's one of the most complex characters, because the list of things he feels are ethically unsound so far begins and ends with purposefully waking up a serial killer. Also, we have learned that Topher is not, in point of fact, a sociopath or a psychopath. Which makes where his ethical divides begin and end slightly more problematic. And, I have to give the scene, because I love Tim Minear's writing:

ADELLE: Good news on the coma front?

TOPHER: Uh... yeah. Good news is that he's in a coma.

ADELLE: I beg your pardon?

BOYD: Just show her what you showed me.

TOPHER: This is a brain - a healthy brain. Frankly, an overly smart brain. It's my brain. And this is Terry Karrens' brain. See these dark areas? How they extend all the way out to here? You know what that looks like that? That's because Terry Karrens doesn't use that part of his brain. And that'd be where you find stored such things as empathy, compassion, an aversion to disemboweling puppies. Basically, this is what some of your more famous serial killers' brains look like.

ADELLE: You're quite certain of this?

TOPHER: Certain enough that I have serious ethical problems trying to wake him up.

BOYD: Topher has ethical problems. Topher!

One of the questions that arises from this scene, as well as from the scene in "Vows" with Dr. Saunders and the broken Topher we see in Epitaph One, is when does Topher's moral code grow beyond that? When does he recognize that just because an idea may be intellectually brilliant, it can also be morally bankrupt? That, and Fran Kranz, is why Topher is my fav.

The other scene I loved with Fran Kranz was when he is encouraged by Adelle to create the tech know how that will eventually bring about the end of the world as we know it, the remote wipe:

TOPHER: A remote wipe? It can't be done!

ADELLE: It can be done. Alpha did it with Echo.

TOPHER: But he used a tonal interface! Serial Killer Victor would need to have a phone. I need to have a tone. I'd have to get him to answer the phone. Do you have his number?

ADELLE: Obviously not.

TOPHER: Well...?

It is odd to know the end game, and to see the beginnings of the evolution of the tech start as a way to save people, and Victor. It is odd that, for all the Dollhouse does that is destructive, that we can assert is actively destructive, it is this thing that is hard to characterize as such that helps bring about the dystopian version of the future.

Now, to the character the show is ostensibly based around: Echo. Echo is able to reassert control just as Terry Karrens is about to kill his next victim. Which inevitably leads to the question: Does Echo have some form of control?

If she does, is her willingness to go along with engagements now a tacit acceptance of that engagement? Is it a coerced (unknown, to the Dollhouse at large) consent based purely on a need to survive and the understanding that if she broke rank under almost all circumstances other than smashing someone's head in with a croquet mallet, she would be either wiped thoroughly or sent to The Attic? Or is her ability to assert control minimal, only in situations that go against the very core of who Echo/Caroline is, that there are certain imprints that won't take simply because they are so far removed from the lingering persona that makes one Active #1 over another?

I don't think she ever will have the ability to accept or reject an engagement while she is in the Dollhouse, but I do wonder if she is making a deal with the devil on a conscious level or if she only comes out to play when she glitches or when something occurs like a serial killer tries to murder some people whilst in her body. Either way, it is pretty interesting.

Grade: A

Quote(s) of the Episode:

BOYD: Then what? Just leave him out there in his Doll-State? Totally wiped?

TOPHER: He'll be an empty-headed robot wandering around Hollywood. He'll be fine.

ADELLE: We cannot allow Victor to be used as Terry Karrens' vehicle for abduction and murder.

TOPHER: I'm personally against it.

Saturday Sesame Street

I like how Ernie carelessly throws Rubber Duckie over his shoulder once he finds out he doesn't have to give up the duck for good. It is just so odd for a guy who ten seconds ago refused to put down the duckie.

Also, all of the great guest stars. Those are fun too.

Happs, Birthday, John Lennon

The Beatles, I'm more than happy to admit, played a pretty large role in my life. In a long and much beloved bedtime ritual, my father would read me books, spin his own stories, and sing songs. "Yesterday" is one of the ones I remember most clearly him singing, because that's the one I gravitated to. "Big Yellow Taxi" was a bit complex, especially with all that talk about Joni Mitchell's "old man". "For What It's Worth" may have been a bit too dark, at times. "Piano Man" was awesome and long, but it had that confusing part about tonicingin - I later was able to translate that as tonic-and-gin, which makes a lot more sense (if a bit reversed) but for years that line confused me.

And, yes, "Yesterday" was written by Paul. But because of "Yesterday" and my insistence my father sang it better than whoever that original guy did, I discovered what are commonly referred to as The Red Album and The Blue Album. And I played those records over and over and over and over again, much to the consternation of my mother. I was entranced, enchanted, ensorcelled by the spell The Beatles wove. And though I have never truly developed a favored Beatle, I do think John's voice may be the most vocally interesting. I have become particularly obsessed with The Beatles' version of Please Mister Postman:

It may just be the sandpaper quality of John Lennon's vocals, but this is my favorite version of this song.

And so, I'm pretty glad John Lennon was born. I'm fairly happy I share a birthday month with him.

Friday Random Ten

1) Limelight - Rush

2) The Kids Don't Stand A Chance - Vampire Weekend

3) Memories - Eisley

4) For The Life of Me - The Wallflowers

5) The End of the World - Herman's Hermits

6) Do What You Want - OK Go

7) Koka Kola - The Clash

8) You May Be Right - Billy Joel

9) So Nice So Smart - Kimya Dawson

10) Help Me - Joni Mitchell

Male Bands: 7

Bands with Women: 1

Female Bands: 2

Men: 29

Women: 4

Coffee Beans for Starbucks

Chris Hayes and his wild gesticulations amuse me:



Also, Tuesdays With Rahm.

I have to admit that I have a love for Rahm Emanuel. I'm not sure why. It may be because he studied ballet. And because he was the basis for Josh Lyman, one of my favorite television characters ever, which also explains my love of Bradley Whitford. It's a cyclical thing.

Say, What?

Or, a post where I cowardly voice my confusion here instead of actually at Shakesville, due to the whole "Luddite"/"flight animal" thing. I'm sure both play a large part in this decision. I'm going to err more on the side of the "flight animal" instinct though.

In a post called Rape Reports Hit Two-Decade Low, a regular of Shakesville e-mailed Melissa McEwan a USA Today article detailing, obviously, how rape reporting has hit a two decade low. All's on the up and up, and all past this point is on the up and up, but this one comment by the Shaker who sent in the article? Not so much on the up and up:

Rape prosecutions have improved dramatically over the past two decades because of advances in DNA testing to pinpoint a rapist rather than forcing prosecutors to rely solely on a victim's identification of her attacker, says Kim Gandy, past president of the National Organization for Women and a former prosecutor.

Oh yes, god forbid we have to rely on the testimony of a victim, of a woman. No wonder conviction rates were so low! Thank god we have rational science now instead of hysterical, over-accusing women!

Here's my problem with this. Yes, conviction rates of rapes were (and are) probably low partially because of how we as a society perceive women, and how we think of rape. But, and it is a big "but" indeed, I'm betting that as much as that perception has and will continue to negatively influence rape convictions, there is a bigger issue at play here. And that is the way our justice system is set up.

Our justice system is, at best, imperfect. Jay Smooth outlined one of the ways it is imperfect just as recently as my last post. Yes, the one right below this one! Our justice system has convicted innocent men and women, because of biases. It has also let clearly guilty men and women walk, because of biases. The reason for the White Night riots wasn't because Dan White got the book thrown at him. The reason for the 1992 L.A. riots weren't because the officers who beat Rodney King were sentenced to jail time.

But, the justice system is set up to err on the side of caution. It is set up to protect the liberty of an innocent (wo)man more than it is to punish the guilty (wo)man. I'm of the mindset that this is a pretty nifty system, indeed. A system where the government has to prove the guilt of the accused rather than a system where the accused has to prove his or her own innocence is a place I want to be. Partially because perception is a malleable thing, and walking into a trial with the mindset the accused is guilty until proven innocent will make for a higher conviction rate.

Thus, if the charge placed before the court is to find the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the lack of evidence present to prove the accused guilty of sex at all is going to be a downer in terms of conviction rates. Overall, I'm not doubting that the "hysterical woman" thing plays a part in the trial; but even so, the jury can't convict, shouldn't convict, if the proof is circumstantial or if the proof offered is the testimony of the victim of the rape. In that sense, rape convictions would almost have to go up with the advent of DNA evidence, because now the proof of sexual contact is hard and fast. That is one less thing the prosecutor has to convince the jury of, and one less thing the defense attorney can question.

So, even though I'm in full agreement with the rest of the post, I can't legitimately say, "Right on" to this part of it. Because although it sucks rape victims don't get justice often enough, I can't imagine living under a system of law where the testimony of the victim is enough to convict someone of a crime - any crime. I'm a firm believer in supporting the victims of sex crimes. But I'm also a firm believer in our imperfect system. I'm a believer in the burden of proof being on the government, and not the accused. It doesn't always end with justice being served, but it is a sight less scary than some of the other possible systems of justice.

"That's All The Money I'm Gonna Save When I Never Go To The Movies Again"

In case anyone had any doubts, I still friggin' love Jay Smooth:



You know, videos about child rape aren't really supposed to make me this happy. But hearing Jay Smooth's passionate articulation of the ins and outs of the whole Roman Polanski saga/scandal makes me insanely happy. Because he is so right. And so wonderful while being right - especially with his bit about the switch from "victim" to "accuser"/"survivor" and how Roman Polanski's not facing the law isn't as much a problem for him as it is for the survivor.

There are so many examples of straight up awesomeness that it really makes sense to just watch the entire video; but in case anyone is interested in my favorite bit of absolute awesomeness, it is this part:

Point number 2:
Let's be clear about why he got to plead to that vague, ambiguous thing. If you watch that documentary that came out last year, which was a very slanted pro-Polanski documentary, even in that film they make it clear that this plea bargain was set up by the family and their attorneys, because they saw no other way to protect this girl from the trauma of a trial that would take away her anonymity and subject her to an endless media frenzy. They did not set up that plea bargain because they had any doubts about being able to prove her original charges. They set up the plea bargain because they saw a system that could not adequately protect this child, so they felt they had no other choice but to compromise and settle for something less than justice.

Bold is all mine. Seriously though, chills down the spine to hear it laid out so clearly.

A Connecticut Sports Story

This story made me blub on my way to work:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

My only complaint - aside from Keith Olbermann's terrible glasses - is the pronunciation of Wolcott. It's pronounced, for whatever the reason, Wulkit; much like Southington isn't pronounced South-ington, but Suthington.

The Book That Changed Your Life

This American Life's show Sunday was about books that changed, in various ways, four specific readers. David Sedaris scarred himself and his siblings with a pornographic and incestuous text, someone else was in love with Little House on the Prairie books, another woman fell in love with a long dead author and ended up following a similar life trajectory for a bit, and a man who wasn't David Sedaris amassed the largest private collection of books on the Lewis & Clark expedition. It got me to thinking about whether or not a book has ever really and truly changed my life. I read. A lot. I read a lot of different authors and on a lot of different subjects. I go through fiction and non fiction phases. Currently, I'm in an 'article' phase. But even though I've consumed a large amount of books in my life and have read my favorites more than a dozen times - easily - each, I was still left wondering if I actually have a book that changed my life. I'm still not entirely sure. I have a poem that reaffirmed my natural enthusiasm in Longfellow's Psalm of Life. I have an autobiography I return to time and time again when I need a pick-me-up or a all-families-are profoundly-crazy assurance in My Life and Hard Times. I have favorite books, and books that I enjoy. But I was at a loss for a book that actually changed my life.

And yet, there is one. It is A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle. I haven't collected all of the books L'Engle has written. I'm not, nor have I ever been, obsessed with L'Engle as a person. It did not scar me, and I have never visited her childhood home. I don't want to move to her town. But A Wrinkle In Time was my constant companion from 4th grade to around 8th grade. I carried it every day in my backpack, I pulled it out during lunch, during class, during recess. Its very presence was comforting.

For a while, I had A Wrinkle In Time completely memorized. I loved it that much. Being the completely oblivious atheist I was (and am), I somehow failed to pick up on all the many religious themes contained within the book. All I knew was that Meg Murray, with her temper and her smarts and her worries she wasn't beautiful enough or smart enough, felt so incredibly real. She came alive, leapt off the page and went to save her brother from the evil of a brain with no heart through love alone. She wasn't me; she didn't have my interests or my particular worries. But she was someone I could relate to. I loved Meg Murray. I absolutely adored Charles Wallace. I liked Calvin. And I was mesmerized by the ideas about space and travel, about our world potentially becoming a Dark Planet, a planet shadowed but fighting in the name of and for the sake of Goodness. A Wrinkle In Time filled me with a sense of hope. I still, from time to time, go back to it. It doesn't bring me the exact same feeling of wonderment anymore, but it I can still see exactly why I loved it so much. I can't explain exactly how it changed me; I don't have a before and after picture waiting to be developed. It obviously didn't convert me to Christianity or anything as world-altering as that. But out of all the books I read and loved, it is the one I don't think I would give up.

And I wouldn't give it up because I can't imagine me without it. I can't imagine what I would be like if I didn't have Meg Murray and her powerful temper and incredible love in my life. I don't know what I would be missing if I didn't know about a tesseract. I may have become a great mathematician if I didn't get into that argument in 6th grade about a square being a two-dimensional object like Mrs. Whatsit said and not, as my math teacher was insisting, a one-dimensional one.

A Wrinkle In Time is the book that changed my life.

A Post In Which I Review Dollhouse's "Instinct"

So. I think that Firefly is Joss Whedon's most structurally perfect show. Each episode could (theoretically, as I've never tried it) work as a stand alone. Each episode of the 14 that were made also worked within the overarching story lines and themes. Buffy the Vampire Slayer never really caught to the "stand alone episodes working within a dominant theme" thing. Certain seasons were better at it than others (season 5, for instance, did a pretty good job, whereas season 4 was a mish mosh of absolutely brilliant stand alones that existed along side episodes that dealt primarily with the season-long arc). Angel, which I'm significantly less well versed in, especially once we go beyond seasons 1 and 2, also never could quite master the balancing act Firefly achieved so seemingly effortlessly, though they tended to go too far in the "focusing on the dominant theme to the detriment of the individual episode" thing. Buffy is still my absolute favorite thing ever, but I can give Firefly props for doing a hard thing in a genius fashion.

Why start off this post with that? Because Dollhouse doesn't have it. Dollhouse doesn't have it in a couple of different ways, but I'll start off with this one: simply due to the overarching theme and structure of the series' main plot, stand alone (or even stand alone-ish) episodes are significantly weaker than what Dollhouse is about. This episode, Instinct, was better than most stand alone(ish) season 1 episodes in terms of making the Imprint an actual character with an actual persona and an actual, workable story. This episode, Instinct, was better than most of the stand alone(ish) season 1 episodes in terms of taking a trope and twisting it on its ear. How many horror films are made like this one? I don't watch a lot of horror, but the scene with Echo coming back from the "dead" to reclaim her child and take out her captor/killer is fairly recognizable stuff. And that? Was done well. It's just that, unlike Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the stand alone episode falls far short of the interesting contained in the mystery of the Dollhouse itself. In Buffy, we could take an episode out to deal with Joyce's death. We could take an episode out to mind wipe everyone and have a bit of fun. We could take an episode out to turn a swim team into a bunch of fish (okay, maybe I'm one of the only people around appreciative of that last one). On Angel, we could take an episode to turn Angel into a puppet. We could take an episode to go to the ballet. We could take some time out to deal with Doyle's ex-wife. And I'm not entirely sure what Dollhouse is missing that makes the unbalance it contains less palatable than the wonder that was the unbalance Buffy and Angel struck - but I think it comes down to this: the nature of Buffy and Angel as shows was that we were seeing people we'd grown to love do sometimes crazy things, and we cared because their individual lives were just as important- if not oftentimes more - than that thing that made this season a separate journey from the one that preceded it and the one that would come after. Not only was what they were dealing with generally interesting, but they themselves were a familiar sort of interesting as well.

Dollhouse, if its stand alone episodes were about Topher or Adelle or Boyd, may be slightly more in that vein. As it is now, Dollhouse's stand alones are primarily about the trials and tribulations and wants of people we don't know and don't care about, and the Personas the Actives take on in order to fit into those people's individual worlds.

Take, for instance, this episode. "Instinct". Nate Jordan seems like a pretty okay guy dealing with some pretty traumatic events and who had enough money to make a custom wife and mother for himself and his child while he processed his grief. And I empathize with that plight, even as I consider this episode the bookend to Joel Myner recreating that magic moment he never got to have with his wife in "Man on the Street". But, even though I empathize with Nate Jordan, I don't particularly care about Nate Jordan or his life, even if he does have one of the more adorable infants ever on TV. In order to succeed, and even with the dire news emerging I truly hope Dollhouse does, Whedon is going to have to figure out how to do what he's never done before - make a show not so much about the characters but about the message. Or, he's going to have to focus almost all of his attentions on the Dollhouse, because regular people's lives and what they want Actives for are about as interesting as you'd imagine. Which is to say, even with the money to buy an Active for any length of time, not very interesting at all. Certainly nothing compared to governments turning teenage girls into killing machines, Vampire Slayers dealing with apocalypses on an almost yearly basis, vampires fighting for redemption and dealing with the scurvy demon underbelly of L.A., or a powerful corporation turning people into zombies who can be programmed and reprogrammed. The ethics behind that are far more interesting than what the people are actually programmed to be.

So, now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get on to this episode. And how it actually is pretty good, once all the above is taken into consideration. Let's talk, first, about that Man in the Street comparison. Because I think it's an apt one. Refresher: Joel Myner is a bit of a dick. Electric Peeps has more on this, and it should be read, but the gist is this:

Whatever motivated Joel to do things the way he did, it wasn’t love. His desire to be a hero in his wife’s eyes turns him into something of a villain, a man responsible for the death of his wife. His engagement with the Dollhouse is an extension of his self-deception, both his chance to play the hero and the proof that he is not.

Nate Jordan? I'm not sure if he is a dick. He's a man in mourning. He's a man who has done a dickish thing. But, unlike Joel, he gets that what he's done was not the best thing in the world to do. He is also a widower, but instead of recreating his wife so he could have her, he was recreating his wife so someone could love their child, until he could do it himself. He is more in line with what Pointy anticipated the first time around:

I think that hearing one’s sainted wife’s words and seeing her gestures in an entirely different body would end up being kind of traumatic, an especially cruel reminder that the one you love was gone. I thought it would be heartbreaking to watch the widower growing more upset, and watching Echo/Departed’s resulting confusion and distress at the realization that she was upsetting someone she thinks she loves.

Nate, as "Emily" explains, "just... went away, you know? It's like the person I knew isn't there any more. It's like he's been replaced by a stranger". And that? Is because "Emily" is the stranger, replacing a beloved wife. What stops this from being a reprise of Joel is the fact Nate won't be going back to the Dollhouse for replacement Karens until the end of time, and also because he recognizes what he's done to Echo:

I'm sorry. This is my fault. I put you through hell.

And that makes his story different. It doesn't make his initial turning to the Dollhouse better; but it makes Nate better.

Now, to what I didn't like about the assignment: "The maternal instinct is the purest". Blech. Bleckity Blech. Once more, for good measure. Blech! My problem is not that Echo flipped the hell out and punched Topher in the nose. My problem is that this particular imprint was so powerful, because it was connected to motherhood, that Echo would punch out Topher and go looking for her child. In the episode before, she could tell that she was all the imprints, but none of them were her. Why not now? I can't really even form my utter gahness at such a development into words, so I'll just crib from EW:

But I just keep coming back to the idea that what turned Echo into a homicidal crazy person was the glandular change that allowed her to nurse. Her girl parts. Couch it in whatever science-y mumbo jumbo you’d like, that’s what sends her off the deep end: Chicks are crazy because they’re chicks. They just get…hysterical. For a dude like Joss Whedon, who’s made a career of writing strong female characters, for a writing staff with its fair share of ladies on it, for an episode that was WRITTEN BY TWO WOMEN…that’s kind of inexcusable.

Yeah, that's it. Right there. That, and the fact that motherhood has a tendency to be portrayed as such a sainted thing, that any mother - even one suffering from technologically induced personality removal - would be able and willing to go to any lengths to get their child back. Because that's just 'natural'. You can't protect your kid, always and forever? Bad mother. This is why Marlin in Finding Nemo is considered an incredible father; but if Marlin were Marla, it would just be another Jodie Foster film.

I agree with EW on one other turn, and that is Eliza Dushku gave her best acting performance to date here. Yes, there were times when she reverted to her stash of acting quirks (she tends to do this squinty thing with her eyes - for every single emotion and for every single character); but for the most part, she did a very good job becoming the character(s). Her line as Echo to Nate:

I'm not real. Do you know who's real?

Was like whoa. I'd put it up there with some of Summer Glau's moments. The difference is, of course, that Summer Glau is continually brilliant and heartachingly wonderful. And Eliza Dushku is still hit and miss.

This is already really long, but I forgot to mention him last week, so here's Wesley! Or, rather, Daniel Perrin. It is exceedingly odd to hear Alexis Denisof's real - American - accent. It's slightly surreal. Also, a little nasally. What I see so far, I like. And what I see so far is a guy who isn't Ballard; that is, a guy who isn't really interested in playing the White Knight so much as he is in righting a wrong that hit him too close to home. His vendetta isn't specifically to save the girl. It is to avenge his dying mother, and maybe do some good along the way. Right away, though, Perrin comes off as less of a creeper than Ballard ever did. And I speak as someone who doesn't dislike Ballard.

I also have to say that I love his wife, Cindy. Her "What about the man with the tin foil hat? Didn't he say Rossum mailed his liver to Saturn?" combined with, "Focus. You are Foil Hat Man's only hope" quickly made her a favorite. Plus, they seem so supportive of each other in the five minutes we've gotten to see them.

Also of note? Adelle arranging for Madeline to come back to the Dollhouse. I'm sure there were actual diagnostic tests that could - and should - be run. But it seems so... interesting that the week after she's told Ballard she got his number in regard to Mellie versus Echo that she gets Madeline back into the Dollhouse.

Other random things: Madeline correcting Ballard when he asks her if she's happy, telling him, "I'm not sad" versus Echo choosing to remain fully in contact with her emotions, because "I'm awake now. I don't want to go back to sleep". In Whedon's world, generally, pain is necessary. Pain is the flip side of the passion for the fight. Pain is what allows us to know of pleasure. Pain is not a side effect of existence but a necessary part. To not feel pain is not the preferred option. The preferred option is to feel pain, to know what goes bump in the night, and to face it with all the knowledge you could amass. What the Dollhouse offers, if Whedon's prior works are any indication (and I think they are) is a false sort of existence - it is the ability to sleep walk through life. And awake, for Whedon, is always better.

Grade: B-

Quote of the Episode: The human mind is like Van Halen. If you just pull out one piece and keep replacing it, it just degenerates.

Saturday Sesame Street

"Real" Women

I love Stuff Mom Never Told You, one of the three podcasts I listen to from How Stuff Works. Not as much as I love Stuff You Should Know, where Josh and Chuck's banter makes my workday so much more fun and interesting than it would be sans banter, but I still love it all the same. It's cool to have two girls discuss girl stuff, like why it is important to talk about dating violence, burlesque, women changing (or not) their names after they get married, and so on and so forth. Molly and Cristen are usually calm and even-handed, even when I would prefer it if they weren't, and truth be told, I can handle that because it reminds me not everyone wants to hear the rantings of a feminist about women's issues. That's what I listen to RH Reality Check with Amanda Marcotte for.

With all that being said, though, there is a problem with how they talked about women's bodies in their recent (otherwise fabulous) podcast about women's magazines. And it was in this way - the way they talked about 'real women':

CRISTEN: There was a huge, you know, outpouring of praise for Glamour for showing a real, real woman's body with actual, not - they didn't photoshop out her belly flap, she actually had a little, a little thigh fat, and it reflected more of a normal woman's body than, say, Kate Moss.

...

CRISTEN: Oh, yeah, it was very positive. They were saying, 'Oh, thank you so much, Glamour, for actually, you know, showing a real woman's body. We can actually relate to this'. And Lizzie Miller got all this wonderful attention and Vogue has also promised to, like, start showing more 'plus-size' models in their magazines as well.'

...

CRISTEN: If there was such a huge outpouring of love for a single photo, Molly, in Glamour, what does that say about women's magazines and where we are today? I mean, if it was such a breath of fresh air to actually see some semblance of a real woman's body, what kind of messages are we getting from these magazines?

...

MOLLY: I remember this one time [17 Magazine] put in this chubby model - not, she wasn't chubby, she looked real, but they got just as many letters, they said, from people who didn't like seeing someone who looks like that in a magazine as people saying, 'Thank you, that looks like me'.

Four 'reals' and one 'normal' in the course of the first 4 minutes and 34 seconds of the podcast to describe women's bodies.

That is not good. It isn't good, because it's not like Kate Moss isn't a real woman. She is. She is a flesh and blood woman. She isn't an automaton. She isn't a cyborg (I don't think...). She counts as really being a human being and really being a woman.

Delineating which women's bodies count as real and normal and should be shown because they are real and normal and which women's bodies are fake is just as much as a problem and only showing women like Kate Moss as THE type of body that is acceptable for women. Women come in a profound amount of shapes and sizes. Women should be shown to come in a profound amount of shapes and sizes, without one body counting as good and real and worthy of attention and one being sick and bad and not normal.

I'm not saying this because I look like Kate Moss. I'm not saying this because I look like Lizzie Miller. I'm saying this because women as a group can't make progress by delegitimizing another woman's body. Every time we talk about how one body type isn't 'real', isn't 'normal', doesn't make up a 'real woman', we are implying that the women who are that body type are fake, are freaks, aren't women. That is the problem with the title, "Real Women Have Curves". Yes, a lot of women have curves. Yes, more women with curves being given prominent roles in various forms of media would be good. No, there is no such thing as a 'fake woman'. Women with curves? Women. Women who are more angular? Still women. Trans women? Also still women. Just women. Not 'real women', because there are no 'fake woman', no 'false women', no women-who-just-don't-count women. And every time we talk in those terms, we alienate those women who aren't immediately enveloped by whatever stipulation we've placed on womanhood.

This is the same problem I have with articles like a recent one linked on Feministing, called 10 Ways to Teach Kids About Sexism. Number 1?

Take direct action: make a small bonfire of Bratz dolls. As their creepy baby doll- faces, collagen'ed lips, wisp-thin waists and fishnet tights begin to melt into a toxic blob, encourage your daughters and her friends to clap and chant "Burn the freaks!"

Yes, the best way to lead your daughter and her friends to body acceptance is to make freakish other bodies. It's not to explain that most people don't have lips like Bratz Dolls (Tina Thompson, basketball player extraordinaire, excluded). It isn't to explain that no, a preteen cannot be dressing like the Bratz dolls dress, for X,Y&Z reasons. It isn't to make your daughter and her friends feel comfortable in their own skin and with their own bodies by continually stressing how bodies other than Bratz bodies and Kate Moss' body and so on and so forth are also beautiful. It is to create an Us-vs-Them dichotomy, a 'normal' body and the body of the 'freak'. And that, if we come across a 'freak', we can and should see them as subpar. And maybe try to roast marshmallows over them.

Tip number 5?

Explain to them that though many young women idolise Victoria Beckham and want to be as thin as her no man in the known world finds her attractive.

Except, one assumes, her husband. Who married her and has three children with her. And here's the problem with this (as well as the Bratz example and the constant pickings on Kate Moss): we're still teaching girls (because even though the article's heading talks about teaching 'kids' about sexism, apparently only girls need to know) that being attractive should be an end goal, and that there are certain body types that are prohibited from being attractive. If Lizzie Miller is a 'real woman', then Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham are not. If I'm allowed to have men attracted to me, then Victoria Beckham, with her body and hair oh-so very different than mine, loses out. It can't be that attractiveness is all relative, that Victoria Beckham is beautiful and I am too; it can't be that there is a guy who will like me and think I'm pretty and Victoria gets Becks to do the same for her.

There is an end game, and some women count and some women do not. That does nothing to lessen the sexist lessons. All it does is supply new sexist lessons; all it does is change up some of the victims of these various sexist practices. And though I know (or hope) that Cristen and Molly - two cool girls who have taught me how to make my own lip gloss - don't mean for the take away of the 'real women' description to have an inherent 'as opposed to those other not-real women we've been exposed to in magazines for years and years', it is still there. And we need for it not to be.

PWDTICTJOOOTSBTAJWBKOAB

I'm a member of the political action group "People Who Don’t Think It’s Cool For Criminals To Just Opt Out Of Their Sentencing Because They’re Afraid Jail Would Be Kind Of A Bummer (PWDTICTJOOOTSBTAJWBKOAB, for short)". Our leader is Sady from Tiger Beatdown. Read the rest of her piece, because it is, as usual, HIlarious.

Quote of the Day

This is working for me, surprisingly, because, like Jim, the first track that I heard was "Kiss With a Fist". And it, it sounded like a lot of other things I heard before and then the feminist in my just, like, could not compute. I shout down when I heard that one!

- Jacquie Fuller, a newbie to Musicheads, letting her Feminist Flag fly regarding a song of Florence and the Machine's.

In related news, I may be moving to Minnesota. They do have the coolest people on their public radio stations.

Now, onto the song that raised Jaquie's feminist ire:

It is a violent song with a catchy, boppy beat. When Jacquie remarks, "She says it's metaphorical, but I don't quite get ... how. Seems pretty direct to me", I'm right there with her.

What's more, even if the song is metaphorical in nature, even if plates aren't being smashed over fictional characters' heads, the metaphor of violence for the mutually destructive forces playing part in the relationship explored through song is still intensely violent. Domestic violence doesn't just cover being physically beaten. It covers emotional violence as well. And if these two characters are feeling as though they're each being "kissed with a fist", then they are both guilty of abuse. A relationship that has mutually destructive people doesn't mean that it is a victimless relationship. Instead, it means there are two victims, and two perpetrators. Again, I turn to Jacquie in that "I can sort of run with the 'War of the Roses' absurdity of the song until we get to that chorus when she says, "A kiss with a fist is better than none", and there's something so direct about that that it hurts - in a bad way".

I'm going to posit that the reason that line hurts in a bad way is because many people have either been in or watched a friend be in a bad, destructive relationship where the prevailing wisdom was something along those lines - even if the fist was entirely metaphorical. It hurts because the thought that a relationship all about the drama, a relationship that is literally or metaphorically hurting its participants, is still better than the "nothing" of being single (and I use that in quotes simply because being single isn't nothing - far from it) isn't exactly an idea that exists at the edge of Crazytown. There are people who will (and do) prize a relationship over anything else, over their own well-being, over their partner's well-being, over their sense of self.

But it also hurts because that if that fist isn't metaphorical - if it is real and brutal and there - then a dark line about being in that relationship is better than not being in a relationship at all is all the darker. Because that darkness can be the thought that the persons involved in this type of relationship are already broken, that they don't deserve a better, mutually beneficial relationship.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month this year. Songs like this one, peppy-fun-and-bubbly-on-the-surface songs, should be called out as representing a particular kind of domestic violence no matter the interpretation at any point in the year. But it seems a bit more crucial, a bit more pressing, during this particular month. Because too often, we aren't aware.