Random Thoughts for the Evening

[kenjari]

The weather here for the past two weeks has made Baltimore (and Peabody Conservatory) much more attractive. They don't regularly get snow in the middle of March. And it's 60 down there. As opposed to Boston, where we're currently considering the low 50s a heat wave.

Snarky feminist retort for the day:
I saw the beginning of a deodorant commercial on TV, in which a jocky guy stated that "The beautiful thing about women is that they don't sweat like we do". My reply: maybe that's because we don't have to work as hard to get things done. (Ok, I'm not really a habitual male basher, it's just that stupid statements bring out my more snide impulses)

Why is it that I find small doses (5-10 minutes) of the WWE to be genuinely entertaining? It's kind of an anomaly among my usual tastes and interests.

I've been feeling like I'm fighting off a cold for the last week or so. I hate being sick, so I'd better start using my usual strategy of drowning it in lots of medicinal tea.

My piano needs tuning. But I'm reluctant to get it done, because I expect to be moving in the next three or four months, which means I'll just have to get it done again much sooner than is usually necessary. And piano tuning is not cheap. Also, it's not exactly pleasant to listen to.

No more news about grad school yet. Waiting sucks.

Comments

[antoniusrex.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the waiting :-(

But, have you ever noticed how WWE is always entertaining, even though you KNOW it's silly and "fake"? I was soooohappy when it was on when the 9-11 madness kept on going. It was a welcomed break.

Funny how lowbrow can be good for the soul, huh?

[anacrucis.livejournal.com]

I've never really watched WWE.

(I've never watched this film, either.)

But the WWE footage used in the trailer, which my coworker showed me, I found to be pretty shocking.

http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/WrestlingWithManhood

(of course I got into an argument afterwords with him where I said if you watched that and just got mad at WWE, then you were kind of missing the deeper point)

[epilimnion.livejournal.com]

we showed this film earlier in the year. Made by the same guy who made Peace & propaganda. Maybe I have a tape somewhere...

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I went to the website. I noticed that the movie seems to connect WWE and relationship violence. I'm really curious about what they have to say about that, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the only bit I've actually seen on WWE that mirrored domestic violence did not seem to condone it. The "abuser" was one of the characters who is a clear villain on the show and always has been. The "victim" was one of the "good guys", and the whole thing seemed to be played to gain sympathy for the "victim" and make the "abuser" even more of a villain. And domestic abuse has been used as a plot point in many other forms of entertainment (I can think of at least two movies in which domestic violence is at the core of the plot).
Not that I'm really defending WWE. I think the real concern is not the use of domestic violence (or bullying, or anything else) as a plot point, but the fact that WWE heavily blurs the line between reality and fiction. In fact, it often seems that WWE thrives on this blurring, on a willful pulling of wool over one's own eyes.
On an only tangentially related point, WWE is in fact a big soap opera, as sudsy and melodramatic as any of the daytime TV aimed primarily at women. Except WWE is so clearly aimed at men. Hmmm, I wonder what that says about the real differences between men and women?

[epilimnion.livejournal.com]

since I actually had to read and write about this film at work, my impression was that MEF weren't saying wrestling leads to domestic abuse, but that wrestling introduces and re-inforces the idea that physical violence is (always) a legitimate response to conflict, whether it's conflict in the context of romantic relationships, work, sports, etc. That a cage match is a good solution to all your problems.

It's similar to one of the more interesting points brought up in Bowling for Columbine. That in American society and culture, it may not be that we have guns, but that we feel justified in using them to resolve even trivial conflicts. I remember reading about 2 50-year old men in Texas, one of whom shot the other over a dispute about his yard fence.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can definitely see how that is one of the less savory aspects of WWE. I guess what really fascinates me about it is less what it says about society and more what it says about entertainment and performance. I think that the most interesting thing about WWE is that it's main artistic or entertainment goal is maintaining the illusion that it is not, in fact, an illusion. These days we have a lot of "reality" shows that stand in for fiction, but in WWE we have a fiction that stands in for reality.

[iralith.livejournal.com]

>beautiful thing etc.

I have oftimes marveled at the creepiness of that ad, or at least that statement therein. Somehow I always expect that guy to say "The beautiful thing about women is that they are literally made out of spun sugar and have no bodily functions whatsoever."

[anacrucis.livejournal.com]

Discussions like this one make me realize just how far out of touch with the cultural mainstream I am these days.

I don't know if that's good or bad.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the ad does kind of weird me out. The opening statement seems to be such a non-sequiter. It's not like the ad goes on to say that this particular brand is designed specifically for a male body chemistry, or anything else even remotely relevant.