Linkspam: More gender stuff

[innerbrat]

I don't know if I'm getting more obsessed with sexuality and gender, or because that's where the interesting discussions and posts appear to be happening in my corners of the internet, or what, but my del.icio.us account is still full of equality stuff. I know it's International Blog Against Racism Week, but I'm very much an intersectionalist at

Comments

[gilhamilton]

Oh, there were all sort of Absurdly Racist Videos from the 40s to 70s. I remember one Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny one about the Japanese made during World War 2 that you couldn't help but laugh at because it was that over the top.

However, the Masculinity in Disney films movie seems way off, or at least seems really poor at choosing its examples and editing. Like, just about everything it did with Mulan. Of course, from the moment Mulan disguises herself as a man she is inundated with the idea that strength and prowess are everything... she just joined the army! They aren't going to say "We must use caring and understanding to make the Hsung-nu please, please stop burning down our cities!"

Also, I recall the very next line in the piece of "A Girl Worth Fighting For" is Mulan piping up and going "How about a girl who's got a brain
and who always speaks her mind?" Besides, it doesn't take the sentiment of the song into consideration, that is "What do soldiers suffer and fight for?" but rather takes it out of context.

It also goes without saying that they took Beauty and the Beast out of context. Gaston was depicted as a completely vile fratboy jock during that movie, not someone to emulate. Meanwhile, Belle falls in love with the Beast, while he's a two legged giant furry bison, precisely because despite his looking like a buffalo, underneath it all, he's a good caring guy whom she grows to love, with snowball fights and dancing, not with manly displays of prowess.

Or using Hercules as an example. At a certain point, you have to be true to the source material, even if only vaguely in the case of Hercules, and in the source material Hercules was the demigod son of Zeus who was the strongest person in Greece. It's kind of hard to get around the muscle pumping hero jock thing... when you make a movie about a muscle pumping hero jock.

It's interesting they noted that Disney movies always end in a climactic battle between two men and include a clip from Aladdin. You'd think Aladdin would be the antithesis of the point they are trying to make. Aladdin being completely the opposite of a muscle bound thug, who wins the girl ultimately by respecting and charming her (and when he tries to pretend to be a pompous, arrogant manly man, he fails utterly with her), and who's climatic battle ends with him not overpowering Jafar, but tricking him into doing something really stupid.

[timjr]

And when they threw in the bit from 'The Emporer's New Groove'?

I'm like "Wait, the point is that he's a d-bag until he goes through this whole journey..."

[davegodfrey]

I remember seeing some of those Absurdly Racist Cartoons on Rolf Harris' Cartoon Time, and he would explain how standards have changed and this sort of thing Isn't OK Now But Wasn't Considered Bad Then.