Tuesday, December 12, 2006

DOES BORAT AROUSE YOU?

One of the more important news items recently was the Alliance of Women Journalists Awards.
Among the many important nominations were:

BEST DEPICTION OF NUDITY OR SEXUALITY:
1. Babel
2. Borat
3. Little Children
4. Notorious Bettie Page
5. Sherrybaby

At first glance, these awards might seem like a step in the right direction; but one quick read of the website proper proves we have a long way to go.

First off, there are countless references to the word "women" which only fosters a subtextual reliance on patriarchal norms and assunptions in our phallocentric society. Could the more proper and appropriate 'womyn' not have been included instead?

Similarly, what of the semiotic implications for usage of the misogynistic term 'actress'; another word that only furthers the capitalist, post-colonialist exploitation of class and gender in Hollywood and society at large.

Were generations of 'actresses' not exploited for profit by an imperialist corporate patriarchal structure that sought to define 'women' only in terms of the male gaze?

The nominations are equally distressful. The inclusion of Kate Winslet (Little Children) seems to imply a woman can be sexual even after birth; but upon closer inspection it only furthers the slave-like condition that womyn are little more than 'baby machines' and seeks to lull them into a dichotomy with themselves in that hetero-normative societal role.

If I have to tell you what is wrong with the inclusion of Gretchen Mol (Bettie Page) you are a dupe to the patriarchal, capitalist, Judeo-Christian power structure.

The only glimmer of hope is the inclusion of Borat. By including male nudity amongst the womyn, these awards can make a point about nature vs. nurture and the hetero-normative gender assumptions that plague all of us.

Hopefully, enough men will see Borat's nudity and feel comforatable in being aroused by him as the more patriarchally convential, Ms. Winslet and Ms. Mol.

Monday, December 11, 2006

THE 8 YEAR OLD LIBERAL

Here is a video that someone made promoting a website I couldn't care less about with an 8 year old girl spewing typical vulgar, left-wing, mis-information against Christians, religion, Republicans etc.

The irony is, taken another way, it shows that the typical leftist argues at the level of an eight year old.

As for that whole gay couple denied Catholic communion thing, I am not at all surprised that the media is trying to make an issue of this. I have said it will get worse...and it will. How some people, on this blogroll even, can say they support SSM and yet still call themselves conservative, is beyond me and shows such a basic lack of understanding of the issues at hand that I have to wonder where they get their information.

It is one thing to have a big tent, it is quite another to have a tent so big that it lacks any definition or purpose.

In other news, my wife and I attended the Liberty Film Festival in California this November. It was a wonderful experience that I will write about very soon (if I have any readers left).

I have not been blogging much for the past few months for several reasons:

1) Too many popular blogs on both the right and left, just seem to be of the "Look at this article-don't these people suck" nature. That's not who I am and if that's what it takes to be a successful blogger...then I haven't got a hope in hell.

2) The most important thing is not politics, it's culture. Not enough conservatives, Christians or Catholics understand this. The music you purchase, the movies you watch, the books you read, the news you consume all affect you and the culture you live in. Too often conservatives would rather run against the culture then embrace it and change it. If you are a conservative but are still pumping money into junk like The DaVinci Code or V for Vendetta solely for entertainment purposes, you are not just pissing in the wind...you are part of the problem.

3) Time. I have, for two years now, been trying to put my money where my mouth is. I recently completed a project that has been very time consuming, but very worthwhile. I am not comfortable talking about it in this forum yet but in the future, hopefully I will.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas season.