The Power of Prince

Recently I listened to an All Songs Considered podcast about Bob Boilen's book Your Song Changed My Life. Afterwards, I started thinking about the music that has been significant in my life - and there's been a lot. If I had to write a chapter for that book, what would it be about? After much deliberation I finally settled on Prince's album 1999. I distinctly remember using a $10 gift certificate I'd gotten for my 12th birthday to buy the cassette at Dillon Music in Kalamazoo, MI. I remember feeling nervous as I reached for the cassette on one of those rotating cassette towers; it felt a little naughty, and I knew I was probably too young to buy it. But I did it anyway, feeling almost as if I'd won a dare. Honestly, the first thing that drew me to Prince was the line, "Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb?" Ever the activist, I was drawn to his matter-of-fact questioning of the arms race, even if it did inexplicably come at the end of a pretty funky song that to me was about partying despite - or perhaps because of - the impending apocalypse. Soon my friends and I were dissecting the lyrics as we sang along at the back of the bus, playing the cassette on one of those portable Panasonic tape recorders. One of my more precocious friends explained all the sex stuff the rest of us didn't understand. I loved that Prince was profound and dirty, sacred and profane, political and passionate. His was the first music I remember having an in depth conversation about, as I tried to make an argument to my friend in support of his complexity. He was himself, unapologetically and uncompromisingly so, a model I desperately needed as a painfully shy preteen. And he could DANCE! And he sang about dancing! Two years later, Purple Rain was the soundtrack of my first relationship, and first breakup. My purple vinyl Purple Rain 45 is still one of my prized possessions. He definitely helped me get through this thing called life. All of this has been rolling around in my head for the past week, so when my colleague told me today that Prince was dead, it just didn't seem real. Party in Purple, dear one.

Why I'm not going to thank the pope for anything

ANTI-VATICAN RANT WARNING

My Facebook feed tonight was full of statements thanking Pope Francis for admitting today what we've all known for over thirty years: "that the church had grown 'obsessed' with abortion, gay marriage and contraception". In addition to gushy messages from individuals in my feed, there was a statement from Catholics for Choice (an organization I have long supported and deeply respect) and the following graphic from the Abortion Care Network.

While I understand this impulse, as a pro-choice ex-Catholic who attended Catholic school through the 12th grade, and received all the sacraments through that point (as Jim Carroll sings, "I got con-fir-MA-shun!"), I cannot participate in this premature outpouring of gratitude. 

While I have known many wonderful Catholic individuals who have been important in my life, including nuns and brothers, I cannot forget nor can I forgive that the Catholic Church systematically covered up a epidemic of sexual abuse shocking in its extent and the way it was implicitly allowed to continue unabated for decades.

I know my parish had an alcoholic pederast as a priest when I was in junior high. They moved him along to another parish soon enough, and I don't know if he raped anyone while at our parish, but I do know that a classmate of mine who had previously been sexually assaulted refused to be alone with him (e.g. in confession), and I trusted her instincts. 

I know someone who got HIV after being raped by his priest. 

These are but two small examples of a massive crisis in which an astounding number of violent, abusive, exploitative acts were covered up at every level of the hierarchy, all the way up to the Vatican. The decision was made that it was more important to protect the institution than the individuals who looked to that institution for solace and guidance. This goes all the way to the former pope, Benedict XVI, who was named in cases brought by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and others. I firmly believe he retired to defuse the issue and deflect attention away from the hierarchy (after all, how can an infallible being resign?). And it's no accident that he continues to live in the Vatican - doing so protects him from prosecution. 

So no, I'm not going to be mollified by a new pope who names himself for Francis of Assisi, or who phones average Catholics, or who verbally admits blatant doctrinal faults. Those are all nice PR moves, but PR moves aren't enough. I won't accept anything short of massive structural change that results in justice for survivors of sexual abuse by priests, and actual doctrinal changes regarding abortion and contraception, homosexuality, and women in the priesthood. When that day comes, we can all be truly grateful. Until then, I will neither forgive nor forget, and I will certainly not thank.

Entertainment Weekly - source of compelling gender critique?

Recently, my subscriptions to Entertainment Weekly and Adbusters arrived on the very same day. Seeing them next to one another, I had a momentary pang at my apparent wild contradictions. How could I subscribe to both? Luckily, my rationalization kicked in right away: I need to know what mainstream culture is doing in order to critique it.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, mainstream culture critiques itself.

I just sent the following in to EW's letters to the editor in support of a recent commentary in their "News and Notes" section. Unfortunately, I can't find the article online to link to here; it's worth looking up if you can get your hands on the Holiday Movie Preview issue. We'll see if my letter gets published.

Thank you for your article, "Worst Wives Club" (November 9/16, 2012) about the disproportional derision directed at the wives of TV's antiheroes on shows such as The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc. Though author Keith Staskiewicz doesn’t quite come out and identify the fans’ hatred for characters like Lori, Skyler, and Betty as misogyny, his description makes clear that the viewers’ vitriol is not gender-neutral. I do wish Staskiewicz had taken his excellent critique one step further to the writers, show runners, and producers who create these women as “everything from narrative distractions to nagging shrews.” We do know from examples like Friday Night Lights that it is possible to create and sustain critically-acclaimed portraits of loving, equal marriages in which both husband and wife have strengths and flaws. In the midst of a second Golden Age of Television, Hollywood needs to be held to higher standards. Staskiewicz’s article is a good start.

This issue calls to mind the exchange I had with (swoon) Jane Espenson about women writers and female characters, as well as Greg Rucka's excellent article, "Why I Write 'Strong Female Characters'." It's an important discussion, and I, for one, am glad that EW is participating.

After the first season or so, the Mad Men writers
stopped showing us WHY Betty was so unhappy and
 were content to present her as nothing more than a bitch.

Tami Taylor remained complex throughout
the whole run of Friday Night Lights.

12 Days of Christmas Giving: Days 11 and 12: CivLAvia and Partners in Sex Education

A 2-in-1 recommendation special today!

Belated Day 11: CicLAvia
Remember when everyone in LA gave up their cars for bikes, and the LA freeways became the largest bike path system in the world?

No?

Well, ok, maybe we're not there quite yet (although Carmageddon was a good start), but the good folks at CicLAvia are doing their best to get us there. Three times already they've shut down 10 miles of streets in downtown LA to cars, and opened them to bikes and other human powered modes of transportation. There's nothing quite like it - Angelenos from all over the city, out of their cars, enjoying the beautiful weather and our interesting city together!


Mark your calendars now for the next two CicLAvias: Sunday April 15th 2012 and Sunday October 14th 2012. And be sure and donate before January 1 - they've got some cool swag (it's LA, after all) if you give at least $25.

Day 12: Partners in Sex Education


Remember when you/your kids/your partner(s)/your parents got comprehensive sex education in school that provided age-appropriate, non-judgemental information?


No?*


Well Partners in Sex Education is working to change that, at least in Boston.


Led by the indomitable Megara Bell, Partners in Sex Education offers classes for middle school, high school, and at-risk populations in Greater Boston.


Donate to help raise the next generation of young people making healthy decisions for themselves and their partners!


*If you answered yes to this question, you are so lucky! Take a minute to write a thank you letter to your school, your principal, your sex ed teacher. This is a rare and wonderful thing!

Flashback: Little Darlings

Little Darlings (1980) was one of those movies that my friends and I as pre-adolescents were just desperate to see, probably because we weren't supposed to. Along with other R-rated movies like 1982's Porky's (a throw-away) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (an absolute classic) released the same year, Little Darlings tempted us with its promise of teen sex and rebellion. I really loved Kristy McNichol at the time; I think I mostly envied her perfectly feathered hair, but I was also attracted to her toughness and independence.

I recently saw the movie again, and was pleasantly surprised with the story. A group of girls randomly thrown together at summer camp front on their sexual experiences until the two main characters - Tatum O'Neal as rich-girl Ferris and McNichol as smokin', tough-talkin',  Angel ("don't let the name fool you") from the Projects - admit their own status as virgins. A bet is made as to who will bed a guy first, and all the campers line up behind one or the other (largely along class lines), putting their summer allowances on the line. Talk about peer pressure! So far so cheezy. What actually makes this a girl's coming of age story worth watching is McNichol and her character's struggle with having sex for the first time with Matt Dillon's Randy (randy? really? why didn't they just call him Likes to Shag?) Together, they manage to convey the awkwardness, bravado, confusion, hurt, and occasional genuine tenderness of teen sex. By the end of the movie, all the lies have been revealed, some with relief (surprise! almost everyone's a virgin!), some with chagrin, and others with hurt feelings that foreclose further relationships.

Sure there's more than a tinge of silly 70s soft porn to this film, but if you can get past the surface you'll find a film that deals honestly with first sexual experiences that could not be made with major stars by a major studio today.

Bonus: Matt Dillon and Kristy McNichol as the most delicious androgynous couple ever! Oh the hair!

Sex and the Sookie: Still True?

Snoop Dogg's delightful "Oh Sookie," a bizarre but spot-on example of officially sanctioned fanboy-ism, hones in on what is best about True Blood: good sex. Playful, kinky, drug-fuelled, first-time-ever, first-time-today, fantasy-only, fantasy-made-flesh, divine, dirty, orgiastic, orgasmic, beastial...the list goes on and on. What the first two seasons of the show had in common was unabashed pleasures of the body. Creator Alan Ball referred to it as popcorn for intellectuals, but anyone who's watched the show knows it was more like porn than popcorn.

Yes, there was violence, too. But the violence of the first two seasons was directly connected to a social commentary that parallels the collective vampiric "coming out of the coffin," with the LGBT quest for social acceptance. Vampires seek marriage rights (legal in Vermont!), battle Christian conservatives (the "God hates fangs" marquee is a brilliant reference to Fred Phelps' hate-filled "God hates fags" crusade that undermines the hate by highlighting its utter ridiculousness), and are targeted for hate crimes, along with those they love (killer attacks women who sleep with vampires - Boys Don't Cry, anyone?).

This season, however, seems to be taking a disturbing turn towards misogynistic violence for its own sake. On last night's episode "9 Crimes" alone,

• Tara was trapped, bitten, tied up (on the toilet?!), gagged, and kidnapped,
• Pam was suspended spread-eagle on some device and tortured with a hot poker,
• Alcide's ex, Debbie, is (willingly? She is on V...) stripped, man/wolf-handled in the form of crowd surfing, and branded in an atmosphere that feels like a lead up to gang rape, and
• Ann, a stripper, is glamoured by Bill (a procurer?) and violently devoured by Lorena, Russell, and Bill.

This of course is not to mention the final scene of the previous episode, "It Hurts Me Too" (how many people have been beaten to this refrain?), in which Bill "kills my love for Sookie" by viciously fucking Lorena (his mother, for all intents and purposes). I am not making an argument against rough sex here. If that's all that scene was, it probably would have been very hot. Instead, it's an act of hatred, in which Bill literally makes Lorena a faceless object by twisting her head 180 degrees so that all he can see is the back of her head. Of course, at this point, Bill already has quite a history of domestic violence. He's bashed in Lorena's head with a tv and set her on fire in the space of a few weeks. Yes, Lorena seems to enjoy whatever Bill throws her way, but is she a masochist, or a woman trapped in a cycle of domestic violence? Whatever dark history of his this season uncovers, it's already clear that Bill is not the sensitive mainstreamer that he's made Sookie believe he is.

And on a side note, the Sookie Stackhouse novels may have been written before the Twilight Saga, but the storyline of the human young woman coldly abandoned by the vampire she loves - ostensibly to protect her from all the suffering he's brought into her life - being warmly comforted by a shirtless werewolf seemed eyerollingly derivative. 

Don't get me wrong - I'll keep watching in the hopes that the show will return to the social and sexual brilliance it's shown in the past. In the meantime, I'll leave you with Snoop's ode. Might as well get some pleasure out of this blog post!

"Nothing But Sex or No Sex at All"

For anyone (anyone?) who reads my blog, my interest in the sexual politics of vampire/human couples is already known, especially couples in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, True Blood, and the Twilight Saga (this latter interest, is, ahem, purely scholarly). A.O. Scott's review in the New York Times today does an admirable job of outlining some of these issues, particularly as relates to vampires contrasted with werewolves. Scott's review doesn't address any issues of age (daddy complex!) or race (the deathly white and cold Euro guy versus the hot-blooded Native American one whose last name is actually Black), or family (it's all about chosen families replacing fractured biological ones), but it's right on about the pleasure of the series (it's either about "nothing but sex or no sex at all"), and the pleasure of sublimation in particular. While some people are touting the series' chastity, I think they are missing the fact that countless adolescent girls are getting intense sexual pleasure from movies that collectively feature nothing more than a handful of kisses. Oh, and a couple eight-packs of abs. Scott is right to focus on desire, of the characters for each other, and of the audience members for the characters. How and why marriage plays into this (will Edward, like Bill, be able to "put a ring on it"? will Sookie, like Bella, want to be changed? how much more awesome is Buffy/Angel for steering clear of these subjects?) is a subject for another post.