Tiger Woods and the Black Man’s Body in America

I don’t dispute that Tiger Woods seems like a giant jerk (why even bother to get married if you’re compelled to cheat with what now sounds like possibly a dozen or more women?), but I can’t shake the impression that keeps popping into my head when I see or hear this coverage that there is a race element to the treatment of the case. It’s nothing groundbreaking to acknowledge that the body and sexuality of black men has long held a sort of revulsed, terrified fascination for mainstream white American culture. There’s this sense of the black man as brutish and somehow more animalistic that still lingers in the American psyche (remember the LeBron James-as-Godzilla Vogue cover?). Some underlying note in the coverage of Tiger Woods strikes me as different, even within the context of America’s uniquely puritanical yet perverse obsession with sex. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just can’t seem to shake this queasy feeling, although maybe that’s just the swine flu speaking.

“Compromise is for people that are wrong”

 

 

This is painful.

 

 

“The state that she did govern was right across the street from Russia…”

Pretty Please With A…

Hi Everyone, I have a favor to ask: I’ve made a quick “survey” (five minutes, tops) of sorts for a class project and now I need some people to take it and give me their feedback.

The survey is really just a series of images that I ask you to write down your reactions to (for yourself). For those of you who have a few extra additional minutes, there is a link to a further survey on another website at the end of my survey which ties in to mine.

So: I need some people to take the survey, which can be found here or here and send me some feedback or thoughts, either on the Facebook page I’ve created for it, or by emailing them to me at interactivityproject@gmail.com

Your participation would really help me out, so thanks in advance for those of you who take a couple of minutes to participate!

Something to Get Off Our Chests

In this brilliantly titled article from the New Yorker, Ariel Levy explores shifts in the feminist movement over the past half a century through the lens of two recent books on the subject–You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary and the Shaping of the New American Woman by Leslie Sanchez and When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins. Levy’s review of these books, and her commentary on the subject matter raises many points which, though disheartening to acknowledge, are necessary in re-forming the feminist movement for today’s world in a way that will allow it to talk about and work on many issues pertaining to women which, as Levy points out, have gotten lost along the way. As she puts it “We’ve come a long way in the past forty years; there’s no “maybe” about it. The trouble is that the journey hasn’t always been in the intended direction.” And, above all, Levy’s article raises an important question which I don’t think gets asked (or answered) often enough–”why has feminism, which managed to win so many battles–the notion of a woman with a career has become perfectly unexceptionable–remained anathema to millions of women who are the beneficiaries of its success?”

Sex and Candy

The thing is, I agree with the message of this PSA from MoveOn.Org, but at the same time, it irks me in the same way PETA’s campaigns irk me (though, admittedly, this is much less egregious than most of PETA’s stuff)…Can’t these people see the contradiction in defending the “public option” while offending half of that public? When will organizations that should know better stop voyeuristically exploiting and objectifying women’s bodies to make their (often otherwise valid) points?

On a further note, this spot also reeks of fat bashing to me…sure, shoving a Big Mac unceremoniously into one’s face like the man in this video isn’t very good for you, but not everyone who doesn’t have Heather Graham’s body is an overeating, lazy glutton.

Bi-Partisan Sexism

(from Slate)

Gender Politics

This interesting article on Politico discusses a new study that shows women lawmakers outperform men in Congress, in terms of a number of factors such as delivering discretionary spending to their districts, introducing more legislation, and doing so earlier in their first terms, getting more co-sponsors for their bills, etc.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27152.html

This mirrors coverage showing that women now outperform men in higher education as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html

The Politico article also mentions the fact that women running for political office face many more challengers than do men, a fact that surely must be related to their performance once elected–that is, only the most tenacious of female politicians are able to clear the extra hurdles laid before them, not only in terms of the less tangible, socially imposed gender expectations they face from birth and in terms of the skepticism that many voters still, incredibly, feel about women in positions of leadership and authority, but in terms of the greater numbers of (male) opponents they must defeat in order to claim their seats.

In any case, it’s an interesting study which, while in a sense good news (in the sense that  it’s nice to have concrete proof that women politicians are indeed “ready to lead” contrary to many still-prevalent lines of chauvinistic thought) also hints at the uphill battle still faced by women in politics and how much work is still to be done in leveling the playing field.

I’ll Remember April

Now, when the waters are pressing mightily

on the walls of the dams,

now, when the white storks, returning,

are transformed in the middle of the firmament

into fleets of jet planes,

we will feel again how strong are the ribs

and how vigorous is the warm air in the lungs

and how much daring is needed to love

on the exposed plain,

when the great dangers are arched above,

and how much love is required

to fill all the empty vessels

and the watches that stopped telling time,

and how much breath,

a whirlwind of breath,

to sing the small song of spring.

-Yehuda Amichai

Critical Themes in Media Studies Conference

Anyone living in New York–come to the Critical Themes in Media Studies Conference this Saturday at The New School! The conference, in case the image above is too small to read, takes place this Saturday, April 4th from 10 am to 8 pm at 66 W. 12th Street in Manhattan and is free and open to the public. It will kick off at 10 am with a keynote address by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and will continue through the afternoon with a variety of panels involving themes in media studies. For more information and a full list of the presenters, visit the conference’s website here.

I’m on the planning committee for the conference and we’re hoping for good turnout on Saturday–hope to see you there!

Stalker Story Soundscape

So yeah, sorry….for those of you who were holding your breath, you’ve probably long since passed out. To everyone else (aka, my parents), my sincerest apologies. But really, what/who doesn’t lapse a bit in mid-March?

Unfortunately, this lapse may continue into the beginning of April, since my life is a blur of perpetual work right now and I have numerous large assignments due in the next few weeks that I’m trying to juggle. 

But in the meantime, here is a new post on my Concepts class blog which contains a link to a very rough sound assignment I did in conjunction with the story I wrote of the class several weeks ago. This assignment was to create a sonic representation or a soundtrack for that story. Due to lack of good equipment, good sound editing software, and more or less any skill, the quality leaves much to be desired, but it’s a first attempt so I suppose it can only get better from here. I also posted an excerpt of the part of the recording I considered most successful. Neither is very long–the full version is just over three minutes, and the excerpt is just over one minute.