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shadowkat1. Birthday Card from Grocery Store, Handwritten no less.
Signed by all of the staff, and made out by hand. Meanwhile, I've still not gotten the card from mother, we're worried - she sent me a check. She's trying to decide if she should cancel the check and try again. Of course she's out the card - which she probably worked a bit to find.
I get everything else. Bills galore, and junk mail, and a birthday card from my grocery store (actually it's one of five grocery stores that I frequent semi-regularly, although I tend to go to it the most.)
ME: I got a birthday card from my grocery store.
Mother: But not from me?
Me: Not so far - no.
Mother: This makes no sense, I sent it two weeks ago, and put two stamps on it. How long does it take? When was the grocery store card sent?
ME: The grocery store is a fifteen to twenty minute walk from my apartment, I doubt seriously it took that long. (However, it may have been sent two weeks ago too?) Also, you didn't appear to appreciate what I stated - I got a birthday card from my grocery store. And no, it wasn't a sales pitch card - it was a hand written, hand addressed, and hand stamped card - with everyone's signature. As if I worked there. That's a first.
Mother: Oh. Hand done? Who signed it?
Me> (I read off the names, many are Bengali or Pakistani - so I gave up on those).
Mother: Okay, that's admittedly odd.
Me: I thought so. It is a family owned store, but...it's definitely a first.
I want my Mother's card - outside of the fact that is from my Mother, it also has a check for money inside. Stupid post office.
But I am amused about a getting a Birthday Card from Foodtown. (I'm semi-regular - I go to about five different stores on a semi-regular basis. I live in NYC, everyone does that.)
***
2. Twitter, Fandom, and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
So, I've been kind of discussing Everything, Everywhere, All at Once on the internet. Not that much, fans of this film are weirdly protective of it. I think it's because it's a "nerd" win - and well. To such a degree - that AO Scott, NYTimes Film Critic, got fed up and decided to jump down from his post as film critic at the NY Times.
Movies have been part of my dream life and my worldly education since my first traumatic encounter with the flying monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz.” I’m still in awe of their power (the movies, not the monkeys) — to conjure up intense emotions, to invent new worlds and to disclose unsuspected truths about the one we inhabit.
The thing I love most about the movies is their ability to obliterate reason and abolish taste. You know the jump scare is coming, but you jump anyway. You suspect you should be offended by the joke, but you laugh helplessly in spite of yourself. Why are you crying? You don’t really know, but you can’t argue with tears.
It’s inevitable that movies sometimes abuse their power and mistreat the people who love them most. When my kids were little — they were my regular companions at Saturday-morning preview screenings — I often objected to the pandering cynicism of “family-friendly” films like “The Lorax” and “Despicable Me.” I also marveled at the artistry of Studio Ghibli and the sublime ingenuity of Pixar in its glory years.
Similarly, I was pleased with the first couple of “Spider-Man” pictures, impressed by “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” (which my brilliant colleague and fellow chief critic Manohla Dargis reviewed) and admiring of the way George Lucas connected the mythic dots in “Revenge of the Sith.” But I’m not a fan of modern fandom. This isn’t only because I’ve been swarmed on Twitter by angry devotees of Marvel and DC and (more recently) “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It’s more that the behavior of these social media hordes represents an anti-democratic, anti-intellectual mind-set that is harmful to the cause of art and antithetical to the spirit of movies. Fan culture is rooted in conformity, obedience, group identity and mob behavior, and its rise mirrors and models the spread of intolerant, authoritarian, aggressive tendencies in our politics and our communal life.
He equates fandom with social media as if they go hand in hand, and I disagree. Social media tends to enable toxicity in a way that isn't necessarily true of fandom in of itself. Particularly Twitter - where folks are encouraged to fling opinions at each other with little to no regard for the consequences. Also, the thing about criticism is - if you put the negative energy out there - you will get it in kind. I know, I've experimented with it. And I have a dry snarky wit - so there's that.
Twitter and Everything Everywhere All at Once discussion
Art Block (an alt-folk musician based in London, who I've friended on Music Twitter, because I needed an antidote to Soap Twitter and Political Twitter, Music Twitter is kind of calm and tranquil and relatively sane in comparison) - was watching Everything Everywhere All At Once, and his comment was WTAF.
LOL
Then they began to try and describe it.
Me: Yep. Very busy movie. I liked it, and it does play with your head a bit. My favorite bit was the talking rocks. And it reminded me of magna too. But I agree - kind of headache inducing. I’m not sure they needed to literally hammer the theme with a sledgehammer.
Art Block
Yeah my favourite bit was the talking rocks too! The only time the movie seemed to cohere into some semblance of sense.
Pop Cult magazine
One helluva an accomplishment to tell that story on film. It’s sorta like Bill and Ted meets Jackie Chan with a strong thread of familial relationships and a giant helping of bonkers. Visually stunning, and funny and touching.
TheRealGlueman (or Thomas) 🇩🇰🤜🤛
God, I loved it. Was crying for the last half hour. That family drama, slightly obfuscated by martial arts & sausage fingers, hit home clean with me. Every actor brings it on this movie
Art Block
There is a lot of martial arts. Reminds me of The Matrix.
ME: It kind of is the Matrix meets Crouching Tiger meets the Laundromat and possibly Rocky Raccoon.
Real Glueman: You attempted to describe the impossible and I guess that actually went pretty well😂👍
Art Block much like myself found it to be a bit overrated, and busy.
I told someone over at FB that while I liked aspects of it, it was very busy movie. They got offended, and said wasn't that the point, and how could it accomplish it's aim otherwise?
My response was basically...it was why it’s not to everyone’s taste? Personally I liked it more than expected but I also can’t remember much of it. (Although apparently I remember more of it than most - on account of my visual memory.) And I wouldn’t rec it to a lot of folks who’d be put off by the busyness and minutiae. Some love that, but it gives others migraines. I’m uncertain if theme could have been a little less literally driven home with a sledgehammer?
Their response: But I think the whole thing was about multiple existences, and I'm not sure how else that could be shown. I know it's not everyone's taste, but nothing is.
ME: I liked the rocks. The rocks made the movie for me.🙂
It is true - nothing is to everyone's taste. And that's okay. We have a tendency to put value judgements on other people's tastes - and that annoys me. Although I do it too - when I get frustrated with something. I did it to Soap Twitter today - accusing them of preferring to turn the soaps into Hallmark. (I don't like Hallmark, it annoys me.) So, I'm wondering if this is a human flaw? Most fandom arguments are about value judgements. Just as a lot of push-back against a film critic on social media is due to value judgements regarding other's tastes. Which isn't a possible thing - since taste is often a mystery in of itself. Most of the time people have no clue why they like something - they just do. They don't necessarily want to analyze why - they just happen to like it. The reverse is also true, they don't necessarily want to analyze why - they just dislike it.
So, you can't really place a value judgement on "I don't know why, I just happen to like this, okay. Now, go away."
I mean we can try - and even possibly speculate as to why, but truth is, we don't know and it is ultimately pointless. Doesn't stop me from doing it anyway.
Anyhow I do agree with Art Block - Everything Everywhere All at Once - reminded me of reading Magna quite a bit. It's very similar in style.
I'm glad it won the Oscar - and somewhat surprised it did. It's a nerdy film. And very progressive. Also, well outside the box.
Also, I like the idea of talking rocks. The talking rocks were seriously the best part of that movie - they made the movie for me.
Everyone else: I loved Short Round.
Me and Art Block: I loved the talking rocks.
***
3. Crazy Workplace
New Gal and Babs were exposed to COVID. Apparently there's an upside for rubbing Disney Theater Guy (DTG) the wrong way? You don't get exposed to COVID.
I barely interacted with him. My back was to him. And we were six feet away from each other. So, I didn't get the notification or exposed. I'm not surprised he got COVID - the guy has gone to multiple plays and musicals, seen his daughter's musical performance, and never wears a mask.
He kind of was asking for it. NG was annoyed - she had visited her Aunt last night, also saw various family members and friends, two cousins prior to their departure on an airling to Dominican Republic. She'd even kissed one of her family members. And she didn't find out until today, and was exposed yesterday. So she took the test - and was negative. Babs was equally annoyed - verging on pissed off. DTG had rudely thrown a bunch of boxes in her office. When she'd asked for them, he created them and stacked them on her chair in a tower. I thought, okay, I think he's being nice - but his energy radiated annoyance. My back was to him - so I wasn't exposed.
As FM pointed out - it's a virus, and we're out in the world. But I do work hard to avoid it.
Work is still stalled. So my little group, such as it is, is bored and frustrated. But hey, I've discovered I can do Chipolte as an alternative.
I'd meant to go to The Center of Fiction after work for my artist date - and to see if I could find an interesting book. But I was exhausted and just wanted to go home.
**
4. This is interesting...
So, I friended comic book writer, Gail Simon, on Twitter. She usually just trolls it, but today found out a few interesting things.
* The Orgins of Fridging
"The term "Women in Refrigerators" was coined by writer Gail Simone as a name for the website in early 1999 during online discussions about comic books with friends. It refers to an incident in Green Lantern vol. 3 #54 (1994), written by Ron Marz, in which Kyle Rayner, the title hero, comes home to his apartment to find that his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, had been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed into a refrigerator.[2][3] Simone and her colleagues then developed a list of fictional female characters who had been "killed, maimed or depowered", in particular in ways that treated the female characters as mere devices to move forward a male character's story arc, rather than as fully developed characters in their own right.[3][4] The list was then circulated via the Internet over Usenet, bulletin board systems, email and electronic mailing lists. Simone also e-mailed many comic book creators directly for their responses to the list. "
Here's the UK article: From Bond to ITVS Strangers - Why is Everyone Fridging?
“Fridging”, or “Women in Refrigerators” (WiR), is shorthand for a persistent sexist trope, named after a 1994 Green Lantern comic in which the hero returns home to find that his nemesis, Major Force, has murdered his girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt and stuffed her corpse into a fridge. So begins a tale of revenge in which Green Lantern reaches new heights of superheroism, but his female companion can’t make any decisions or enjoy any character progression, because she’s been sacrificed. She has died to give our hero something to do.
“While the woman plays an integral part in the narrative, in terms of characterisation, the focus is on the trauma of the man, not what the woman has experienced,” explains Dr Miriam Kent, a lecturer on film and media studies at the University of East Anglia who specialises in gender and identity representations in superhero stories. “These things are ultimately connected to men’s and women’s roles in society: who’s active and passive.”
WiR has been prevalent in superhero narratives since The Amazing Spider-Man comic shockingly killed off Gwen Stacy in 1973, inaugurating an era of darker stories in which actions had serious consequences (although these consequences were disproportionately suffered by women). Since comics writer Gail Simone gave the trend its name in 1999, publishing a list of “superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator”, the term “fridging” has been used mostly about superhero storytelling. But it has seeped into mainstream pop culture too, particularly in the past decade as comic-book adaptations have dominated blockbuster cinema. It became a talking point again this year with Deadpool 2, a movie that – for all its woke satire of genre stereotypes – fridges Morena Baccarin’s character, Vanessa, in its first act.
Like the Bechdel Test – a device for detecting gender imbalance in movies, which asks whether two female characters converse about something other than a man – fridging is perhaps most useful for the way it brings focus to something that might otherwise have stayed as a nagging black spot in your peripheral vision. Once the idea has been explained, you realise it is everywhere. Libby and Shannon in Lost? Fridged. Julia Stiles’s character in Jason Bourne? Fridged. A woman at some point in almost every Christopher Nolan movie except Dunkirk? Fridged."
And...
"Where there has been pushback against critiques such as fridging and the Bechdel test, it has largely been from people understanding them to be strict, binary tests, rather than observations designed to raise awareness and prompt discussion. Nobody is saying that stories about vengeful, grief-powered men are absolutely verboten. Gail Simone herself – who, sadly and somewhat inevitably, now rarely discusses fridging, because she has become exhausted by endless criticism from male comic-book fans who haven’t fully understood the idea – put it succinctly in 2010: “WiR was never meant to be an indictment, it was meant to ask a question to provoke thought.”
“The Bechdel test is quantitative rather than qualitative,” says Fletcher. “Gravity wouldn’t pass it, but it doesn’t mean it’s anti-feminist. Lots of porn movies would pass. That doesn’t make them feminist. It’s more a test to see how often it happens: so many movies don’t have female characters talking to each other. And, so often, a woman has to die or be tortured to facilitate a male’s personal growth. That’s when it becomes a problem, when we’re seeing it all the time.”"
From the excerpt? This statement interests me..."Nobody is saying that stories about vengeful, grief-powered men are absolutely verboten. Gail Simone herself – who, sadly and somewhat inevitably, now rarely discusses fridging, because she has become exhausted by endless criticism from male comic-book fans who haven’t fully understood the idea – put it succinctly in 2010: “WiR was never meant to be an indictment, it was meant to ask a question to provoke thought.”"
And... Gail Simon's Story of Becoming a Comic Book Writer and her relationship with her adoptive Mother, who recently died.
This had me crying by the end.
Gail had a rough childhood. They were poor. She was an oddball (nerdy, who loved to read books and comics, and watch horror movies and fantasy). Her parents didn't understand her. And her mother insisted on giving her horrific cheap haircuts. Which was traumatizing. So..finally, she found a hairstylist to fix it, at the edge of town.. at the age of 13.
This hairdresser was amazing. She understood her love of comic books and nerdy things. And taught her to become a hairdresser, also set her up with her son - whom Gail later married, and who shared Gail's interests. Years later, Gail was the caregiver for the adoptive Mom, who was seriously ill. Adoptive Mom never appeared to understand Gail's job of writing comics, and achieving her dream of doing so, and to Gail's knowledge never read them. When Gail told her that she was giving a speech at the White House - her adoptive Mom wondered if that meant she was getting a raise? To Gail's knowledge she'd never even looked at one. Gail went through hell caring for her - and would do anything for this woman. This woman turned her life around and had done so much for her. But to Gail's knowledge knew nothing of her chosen vocation and her love of writing comic books, the one thing that meant so much to her.
After her mother died. Gail had to straighten out her house. She'd become a bit of a hoarder, so it was difficult. And in the process of cleaning, she pulled out the dining room table, moving it, and underneath, found a wooden box. Inside the box..was first editions of each of the comics she ever wrote. Birds of Prey, The Simpsons, Deadpool, and on and on.
Gail has no idea how she came by them. Gail could have sent them to her. But the woman collected her "daughter's" comics and never told her. Did it privately.
Love makes you do the wacky.
Signed by all of the staff, and made out by hand. Meanwhile, I've still not gotten the card from mother, we're worried - she sent me a check. She's trying to decide if she should cancel the check and try again. Of course she's out the card - which she probably worked a bit to find.
I get everything else. Bills galore, and junk mail, and a birthday card from my grocery store (actually it's one of five grocery stores that I frequent semi-regularly, although I tend to go to it the most.)
ME: I got a birthday card from my grocery store.
Mother: But not from me?
Me: Not so far - no.
Mother: This makes no sense, I sent it two weeks ago, and put two stamps on it. How long does it take? When was the grocery store card sent?
ME: The grocery store is a fifteen to twenty minute walk from my apartment, I doubt seriously it took that long. (However, it may have been sent two weeks ago too?) Also, you didn't appear to appreciate what I stated - I got a birthday card from my grocery store. And no, it wasn't a sales pitch card - it was a hand written, hand addressed, and hand stamped card - with everyone's signature. As if I worked there. That's a first.
Mother: Oh. Hand done? Who signed it?
Me> (I read off the names, many are Bengali or Pakistani - so I gave up on those).
Mother: Okay, that's admittedly odd.
Me: I thought so. It is a family owned store, but...it's definitely a first.
I want my Mother's card - outside of the fact that is from my Mother, it also has a check for money inside. Stupid post office.
But I am amused about a getting a Birthday Card from Foodtown. (I'm semi-regular - I go to about five different stores on a semi-regular basis. I live in NYC, everyone does that.)
***
2. Twitter, Fandom, and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
So, I've been kind of discussing Everything, Everywhere, All at Once on the internet. Not that much, fans of this film are weirdly protective of it. I think it's because it's a "nerd" win - and well. To such a degree - that AO Scott, NYTimes Film Critic, got fed up and decided to jump down from his post as film critic at the NY Times.
Movies have been part of my dream life and my worldly education since my first traumatic encounter with the flying monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz.” I’m still in awe of their power (the movies, not the monkeys) — to conjure up intense emotions, to invent new worlds and to disclose unsuspected truths about the one we inhabit.
The thing I love most about the movies is their ability to obliterate reason and abolish taste. You know the jump scare is coming, but you jump anyway. You suspect you should be offended by the joke, but you laugh helplessly in spite of yourself. Why are you crying? You don’t really know, but you can’t argue with tears.
It’s inevitable that movies sometimes abuse their power and mistreat the people who love them most. When my kids were little — they were my regular companions at Saturday-morning preview screenings — I often objected to the pandering cynicism of “family-friendly” films like “The Lorax” and “Despicable Me.” I also marveled at the artistry of Studio Ghibli and the sublime ingenuity of Pixar in its glory years.
Similarly, I was pleased with the first couple of “Spider-Man” pictures, impressed by “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” (which my brilliant colleague and fellow chief critic Manohla Dargis reviewed) and admiring of the way George Lucas connected the mythic dots in “Revenge of the Sith.” But I’m not a fan of modern fandom. This isn’t only because I’ve been swarmed on Twitter by angry devotees of Marvel and DC and (more recently) “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It’s more that the behavior of these social media hordes represents an anti-democratic, anti-intellectual mind-set that is harmful to the cause of art and antithetical to the spirit of movies. Fan culture is rooted in conformity, obedience, group identity and mob behavior, and its rise mirrors and models the spread of intolerant, authoritarian, aggressive tendencies in our politics and our communal life.
He equates fandom with social media as if they go hand in hand, and I disagree. Social media tends to enable toxicity in a way that isn't necessarily true of fandom in of itself. Particularly Twitter - where folks are encouraged to fling opinions at each other with little to no regard for the consequences. Also, the thing about criticism is - if you put the negative energy out there - you will get it in kind. I know, I've experimented with it. And I have a dry snarky wit - so there's that.
Twitter and Everything Everywhere All at Once discussion
Art Block (an alt-folk musician based in London, who I've friended on Music Twitter, because I needed an antidote to Soap Twitter and Political Twitter, Music Twitter is kind of calm and tranquil and relatively sane in comparison) - was watching Everything Everywhere All At Once, and his comment was WTAF.
LOL
Then they began to try and describe it.
Me: Yep. Very busy movie. I liked it, and it does play with your head a bit. My favorite bit was the talking rocks. And it reminded me of magna too. But I agree - kind of headache inducing. I’m not sure they needed to literally hammer the theme with a sledgehammer.
Art Block
Yeah my favourite bit was the talking rocks too! The only time the movie seemed to cohere into some semblance of sense.
Pop Cult magazine
One helluva an accomplishment to tell that story on film. It’s sorta like Bill and Ted meets Jackie Chan with a strong thread of familial relationships and a giant helping of bonkers. Visually stunning, and funny and touching.
TheRealGlueman (or Thomas) 🇩🇰🤜🤛
God, I loved it. Was crying for the last half hour. That family drama, slightly obfuscated by martial arts & sausage fingers, hit home clean with me. Every actor brings it on this movie
Art Block
There is a lot of martial arts. Reminds me of The Matrix.
ME: It kind of is the Matrix meets Crouching Tiger meets the Laundromat and possibly Rocky Raccoon.
Real Glueman: You attempted to describe the impossible and I guess that actually went pretty well😂👍
Art Block much like myself found it to be a bit overrated, and busy.
I told someone over at FB that while I liked aspects of it, it was very busy movie. They got offended, and said wasn't that the point, and how could it accomplish it's aim otherwise?
My response was basically...it was why it’s not to everyone’s taste? Personally I liked it more than expected but I also can’t remember much of it. (Although apparently I remember more of it than most - on account of my visual memory.) And I wouldn’t rec it to a lot of folks who’d be put off by the busyness and minutiae. Some love that, but it gives others migraines. I’m uncertain if theme could have been a little less literally driven home with a sledgehammer?
Their response: But I think the whole thing was about multiple existences, and I'm not sure how else that could be shown. I know it's not everyone's taste, but nothing is.
ME: I liked the rocks. The rocks made the movie for me.🙂
It is true - nothing is to everyone's taste. And that's okay. We have a tendency to put value judgements on other people's tastes - and that annoys me. Although I do it too - when I get frustrated with something. I did it to Soap Twitter today - accusing them of preferring to turn the soaps into Hallmark. (I don't like Hallmark, it annoys me.) So, I'm wondering if this is a human flaw? Most fandom arguments are about value judgements. Just as a lot of push-back against a film critic on social media is due to value judgements regarding other's tastes. Which isn't a possible thing - since taste is often a mystery in of itself. Most of the time people have no clue why they like something - they just do. They don't necessarily want to analyze why - they just happen to like it. The reverse is also true, they don't necessarily want to analyze why - they just dislike it.
So, you can't really place a value judgement on "I don't know why, I just happen to like this, okay. Now, go away."
I mean we can try - and even possibly speculate as to why, but truth is, we don't know and it is ultimately pointless. Doesn't stop me from doing it anyway.
Anyhow I do agree with Art Block - Everything Everywhere All at Once - reminded me of reading Magna quite a bit. It's very similar in style.
I'm glad it won the Oscar - and somewhat surprised it did. It's a nerdy film. And very progressive. Also, well outside the box.
Also, I like the idea of talking rocks. The talking rocks were seriously the best part of that movie - they made the movie for me.
Everyone else: I loved Short Round.
Me and Art Block: I loved the talking rocks.
***
3. Crazy Workplace
New Gal and Babs were exposed to COVID. Apparently there's an upside for rubbing Disney Theater Guy (DTG) the wrong way? You don't get exposed to COVID.
I barely interacted with him. My back was to him. And we were six feet away from each other. So, I didn't get the notification or exposed. I'm not surprised he got COVID - the guy has gone to multiple plays and musicals, seen his daughter's musical performance, and never wears a mask.
He kind of was asking for it. NG was annoyed - she had visited her Aunt last night, also saw various family members and friends, two cousins prior to their departure on an airling to Dominican Republic. She'd even kissed one of her family members. And she didn't find out until today, and was exposed yesterday. So she took the test - and was negative. Babs was equally annoyed - verging on pissed off. DTG had rudely thrown a bunch of boxes in her office. When she'd asked for them, he created them and stacked them on her chair in a tower. I thought, okay, I think he's being nice - but his energy radiated annoyance. My back was to him - so I wasn't exposed.
As FM pointed out - it's a virus, and we're out in the world. But I do work hard to avoid it.
Work is still stalled. So my little group, such as it is, is bored and frustrated. But hey, I've discovered I can do Chipolte as an alternative.
I'd meant to go to The Center of Fiction after work for my artist date - and to see if I could find an interesting book. But I was exhausted and just wanted to go home.
**
4. This is interesting...
So, I friended comic book writer, Gail Simon, on Twitter. She usually just trolls it, but today found out a few interesting things.
* The Orgins of Fridging
"The term "Women in Refrigerators" was coined by writer Gail Simone as a name for the website in early 1999 during online discussions about comic books with friends. It refers to an incident in Green Lantern vol. 3 #54 (1994), written by Ron Marz, in which Kyle Rayner, the title hero, comes home to his apartment to find that his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, had been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed into a refrigerator.[2][3] Simone and her colleagues then developed a list of fictional female characters who had been "killed, maimed or depowered", in particular in ways that treated the female characters as mere devices to move forward a male character's story arc, rather than as fully developed characters in their own right.[3][4] The list was then circulated via the Internet over Usenet, bulletin board systems, email and electronic mailing lists. Simone also e-mailed many comic book creators directly for their responses to the list. "
Here's the UK article: From Bond to ITVS Strangers - Why is Everyone Fridging?
“Fridging”, or “Women in Refrigerators” (WiR), is shorthand for a persistent sexist trope, named after a 1994 Green Lantern comic in which the hero returns home to find that his nemesis, Major Force, has murdered his girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt and stuffed her corpse into a fridge. So begins a tale of revenge in which Green Lantern reaches new heights of superheroism, but his female companion can’t make any decisions or enjoy any character progression, because she’s been sacrificed. She has died to give our hero something to do.
“While the woman plays an integral part in the narrative, in terms of characterisation, the focus is on the trauma of the man, not what the woman has experienced,” explains Dr Miriam Kent, a lecturer on film and media studies at the University of East Anglia who specialises in gender and identity representations in superhero stories. “These things are ultimately connected to men’s and women’s roles in society: who’s active and passive.”
WiR has been prevalent in superhero narratives since The Amazing Spider-Man comic shockingly killed off Gwen Stacy in 1973, inaugurating an era of darker stories in which actions had serious consequences (although these consequences were disproportionately suffered by women). Since comics writer Gail Simone gave the trend its name in 1999, publishing a list of “superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator”, the term “fridging” has been used mostly about superhero storytelling. But it has seeped into mainstream pop culture too, particularly in the past decade as comic-book adaptations have dominated blockbuster cinema. It became a talking point again this year with Deadpool 2, a movie that – for all its woke satire of genre stereotypes – fridges Morena Baccarin’s character, Vanessa, in its first act.
Like the Bechdel Test – a device for detecting gender imbalance in movies, which asks whether two female characters converse about something other than a man – fridging is perhaps most useful for the way it brings focus to something that might otherwise have stayed as a nagging black spot in your peripheral vision. Once the idea has been explained, you realise it is everywhere. Libby and Shannon in Lost? Fridged. Julia Stiles’s character in Jason Bourne? Fridged. A woman at some point in almost every Christopher Nolan movie except Dunkirk? Fridged."
And...
"Where there has been pushback against critiques such as fridging and the Bechdel test, it has largely been from people understanding them to be strict, binary tests, rather than observations designed to raise awareness and prompt discussion. Nobody is saying that stories about vengeful, grief-powered men are absolutely verboten. Gail Simone herself – who, sadly and somewhat inevitably, now rarely discusses fridging, because she has become exhausted by endless criticism from male comic-book fans who haven’t fully understood the idea – put it succinctly in 2010: “WiR was never meant to be an indictment, it was meant to ask a question to provoke thought.”
“The Bechdel test is quantitative rather than qualitative,” says Fletcher. “Gravity wouldn’t pass it, but it doesn’t mean it’s anti-feminist. Lots of porn movies would pass. That doesn’t make them feminist. It’s more a test to see how often it happens: so many movies don’t have female characters talking to each other. And, so often, a woman has to die or be tortured to facilitate a male’s personal growth. That’s when it becomes a problem, when we’re seeing it all the time.”"
From the excerpt? This statement interests me..."Nobody is saying that stories about vengeful, grief-powered men are absolutely verboten. Gail Simone herself – who, sadly and somewhat inevitably, now rarely discusses fridging, because she has become exhausted by endless criticism from male comic-book fans who haven’t fully understood the idea – put it succinctly in 2010: “WiR was never meant to be an indictment, it was meant to ask a question to provoke thought.”"
And... Gail Simon's Story of Becoming a Comic Book Writer and her relationship with her adoptive Mother, who recently died.
This had me crying by the end.
Gail had a rough childhood. They were poor. She was an oddball (nerdy, who loved to read books and comics, and watch horror movies and fantasy). Her parents didn't understand her. And her mother insisted on giving her horrific cheap haircuts. Which was traumatizing. So..finally, she found a hairstylist to fix it, at the edge of town.. at the age of 13.
This hairdresser was amazing. She understood her love of comic books and nerdy things. And taught her to become a hairdresser, also set her up with her son - whom Gail later married, and who shared Gail's interests. Years later, Gail was the caregiver for the adoptive Mom, who was seriously ill. Adoptive Mom never appeared to understand Gail's job of writing comics, and achieving her dream of doing so, and to Gail's knowledge never read them. When Gail told her that she was giving a speech at the White House - her adoptive Mom wondered if that meant she was getting a raise? To Gail's knowledge she'd never even looked at one. Gail went through hell caring for her - and would do anything for this woman. This woman turned her life around and had done so much for her. But to Gail's knowledge knew nothing of her chosen vocation and her love of writing comic books, the one thing that meant so much to her.
After her mother died. Gail had to straighten out her house. She'd become a bit of a hoarder, so it was difficult. And in the process of cleaning, she pulled out the dining room table, moving it, and underneath, found a wooden box. Inside the box..was first editions of each of the comics she ever wrote. Birds of Prey, The Simpsons, Deadpool, and on and on.
Gail has no idea how she came by them. Gail could have sent them to her. But the woman collected her "daughter's" comics and never told her. Did it privately.
Love makes you do the wacky.
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Date: 2023-03-18 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-18 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-18 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-18 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-18 06:40 pm (UTC)My response after watching Everything Everywhere All At Once was "WTF did I just watch?" I think I enjoyed it, LOL - but I really struggled to recommend it to friends to watch - I think I only recommended it to Bossman, with the description "it is UTTERLY absurd".
Honestly, the rocks was also my favourite part of the movie, LOL
I remember in my theatre, when the "intermission" card came up, several people left - I still don't know if they thought the movie had ended, or were utterly dismayed and took the opportunity to flee :D
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Date: 2023-03-18 11:04 pm (UTC)I was also admittedly charmed by the grocery store sending me a card. I told the super, and she said that her son's karate school sends him one. But it is lovely.
Had exactly the same response you did to Everything Everywhere All at Once. Although - I didn't go in blind. A co-worker (Chidi) had seen it - and basically stated that he liked the characters but hated the movie, it was busy. So, I had low expectations - and was surprised that I liked it better than I expected. However, I also so it on television - not the movie theater - which may have helped? I could stop it. Rewind. That sort of thing. I didn't know it had an intermission - it doesn't on the television streaming.
But I have co-workers who really disliked that movie. Chidi was dismayed that it not only won awards but it actually got nominated for them. LOL!
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Date: 2023-03-19 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-19 03:12 am (UTC)But, I'm of two minds regarding awards. Why? The film did well. Some loved it, some didn't. And the people making made it without knowing or really expecting any awards.
I'm not sure we should have awards for things that are expressions...subjective, and in the eye of the beholder?
My mother went to a piano competition today - and reported back that the performance that blew her away wasn't even one of the finalists. He played with such passion, enough to make her cry. While the one who won was elegant and pretty, but didn't make my mother feel anything really at all.
When you reach a certain level in art - beyond objective critique, it's subjective. And really just a popularity contest. I don't think you should require or need validation for the risk, nor be paid for something you love doing. These people did something they loved, they were paid over a million for it - more money than we can imagine. Why do they need awards? Is it to market the film? Get more people to try it? Convince others to make more like it? (That rarely works - or we'd have more films like the Mission, Chariots of Fire, Breaking Away, Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird...as opposed to lots of superhero films.)
And no one really remembers who won ten to twenty years down the line anyhow. Outside of those who did. Do you remember who won in 2003? I don't. Do you remember who won in 2019? 2o21? 2o22? I think Parasite and Moonlight won somewhere in there, but can't remember when.
It's silly in a way. This need for an award. A gold ribbon. To tell me what exactly - that one group of people thought a movie or a painting or a book was their favorite out of all of the books, movies, paintings they saw at this point in time? Ten years down the line - if they looked at them all again would they have the same answer? Give the same awards? Probably not. Taste changes with time.
I couldn't tell you what the best film that I saw last year was. It wouldn't be fair really to any of the one's that I saw. They were all so different. And I don't regret seeing anything of them really, well maybe Ticket to Paradise (it was awful). LOL!
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Date: 2023-03-19 03:36 am (UTC)But - I guess if winning an award means that the directors or writers have a bigger likelihood of being funded to do more stuff then maybe that's the benefit?
I honestly pay so little attention to awards stuff - I have no idea who won anything - and certainly I don't remember years later, LOL
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Date: 2023-03-20 03:00 am (UTC)As for the rewards? I think it works best as a marketing ploy - but only immediately after the awards. They kind of have to do it now. In three months, people have moved on. But nominations and awards do bring attention to small films, or films under the radar. Also, it's great for shorts, documentaries, animated shorts, and the crafts - because it helps them get the next job. Actors? Doesn't help that much. Producers? It does help - gets them funding for the next film. Directors? Mixed bag. Songwriters? Mixed bag.
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Date: 2023-03-18 10:38 pm (UTC)Agreed -- the platform and the lack of moderation has more to do with it than the clan of people. Not that fandom hasn't had plenty of toxicity over its history but so has virtually every other group.
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Date: 2023-03-18 10:51 pm (UTC)Even sites that are moderated get trolls. I've been on heavily moderated sites with trolls or where there were kerfuffles. Actually, the worst battles were on the nutrition sites over sugar and gluten, also my sisterinlaw's craft discussion board had it.