Linkage
Austerity=Isolation
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/27/1234157/-Michigan-cutting-off-audio-news-service-for-blind-people
Next up on the chopping block in Michigan: news for blind people. The state is cutting funding for a service that provides free audio access to hundreds of newspapers and magazines, used by about 3,100 people in the state. The amount it costs? A whopping $52,000.
...
Georgia Kitchen of Flint, who is blind and volunteers as a state coordinator of Newsline, said the service provides blind people not just with news, but with leads on jobs through classified ads and information about things going on in the community.
Losing the service will make blind people “more isolated,” Kitchen said.
XX chromosome, Women of color, , diversity in science fiction and fantasy :
http://www.racialicious.com/2013/08/27/45-women-of-color-in-science-fictionfantasy-movies/
Fans often have to isolate the parts of the narrative they find compelling within these problematic portrayals, or be willing to look past the negative aspects of the narrow characterization to find something to relate to. Even in worlds where crime can be predicted before it happens, and lightning can be bottled and sold, women of color still cannot be protagonists, or have complicated and compelling backstories. It’s frustrating when I look at the casts of some of my favorite films and wonder what about the role seems to require a white actress (or actor). As much as I love Stardust, I’m not quite sure why Yvaine had to be played by Claire Danes, or why there weren’t any people of color in the fantastical candy-colored world of Edward Scissorhands, besides Officer Allen. We are slowly moving towards more visibility for women of color, as crowd-sourced films and more venues for the fan conversation call for better characters and more visibility. Just look at the conversation around this summer’s Pacific Rim, led to the creation of an alternative Bechdel test, the Mako Mori test.
When Allison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For introduced the concept of the Bechdel Test to pop culture in 1985, the female character espousing the rule wryly commented that the last movie they'd been able to see in a theatre was 1978's Alien. Why? Because she won't pay money to see a movie unless it has:
1) Two named female characters
2) who talk to each other
3) about something other than a man.
....
In response to this post(see actual article), and in the process of running down numerous arguments for why the Bechdel Test can't and shouldn't be the only measurement by which feminist films are judged, Tumblr user chaila has proposed the Mako Mori Test, "to live alongside the Bechdel Test":
The Mako Mori test is passed if the movie has: a) at least one female character; b) who gets her own narrative arc; c) that is not about supporting a man’s story. I think this is about as indicative of “feminism” (that is, minimally indicative, a pretty low bar) as the Bechdel test. It is a pretty basic test for the representation of women, as is the Bechdel test. It does not make a movie automatically feminist.
source:http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/mako-mori-test-bechdel-pacific-rim/
http://chaila.tumblr.com/post/58379322134/spider-xan-also-i-was-thinking-more-about-why
She’s a female lead of color who gets her own hero arc, and whose function is not to support or admire a man. Why would we want to send the message that we don’t want that? Why do we think that is automatically not feminist or anti-feminist, because it doesn’t meet this one arbitrary “test for feminism” (women minimally interacting)?
Read these articles and posts about women and Pacific Rim! I won't boycott this movie and I am a white woman feminist shaped person.
I think having a few feminist/intersectional judgement points about movies is very good indeed.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/27/1234157/-Michigan-cutting-off-audio-news-service-for-blind-people
Next up on the chopping block in Michigan: news for blind people. The state is cutting funding for a service that provides free audio access to hundreds of newspapers and magazines, used by about 3,100 people in the state. The amount it costs? A whopping $52,000.
...
Georgia Kitchen of Flint, who is blind and volunteers as a state coordinator of Newsline, said the service provides blind people not just with news, but with leads on jobs through classified ads and information about things going on in the community.
Losing the service will make blind people “more isolated,” Kitchen said.
XX chromosome, Women of color, , diversity in science fiction and fantasy :
http://www.racialicious.com/2013/08/27/45-women-of-color-in-science-fictionfantasy-movies/
Fans often have to isolate the parts of the narrative they find compelling within these problematic portrayals, or be willing to look past the negative aspects of the narrow characterization to find something to relate to. Even in worlds where crime can be predicted before it happens, and lightning can be bottled and sold, women of color still cannot be protagonists, or have complicated and compelling backstories. It’s frustrating when I look at the casts of some of my favorite films and wonder what about the role seems to require a white actress (or actor). As much as I love Stardust, I’m not quite sure why Yvaine had to be played by Claire Danes, or why there weren’t any people of color in the fantastical candy-colored world of Edward Scissorhands, besides Officer Allen. We are slowly moving towards more visibility for women of color, as crowd-sourced films and more venues for the fan conversation call for better characters and more visibility. Just look at the conversation around this summer’s Pacific Rim, led to the creation of an alternative Bechdel test, the Mako Mori test.
When Allison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For introduced the concept of the Bechdel Test to pop culture in 1985, the female character espousing the rule wryly commented that the last movie they'd been able to see in a theatre was 1978's Alien. Why? Because she won't pay money to see a movie unless it has:
1) Two named female characters
2) who talk to each other
3) about something other than a man.
....
In response to this post(see actual article), and in the process of running down numerous arguments for why the Bechdel Test can't and shouldn't be the only measurement by which feminist films are judged, Tumblr user chaila has proposed the Mako Mori Test, "to live alongside the Bechdel Test":
The Mako Mori test is passed if the movie has: a) at least one female character; b) who gets her own narrative arc; c) that is not about supporting a man’s story. I think this is about as indicative of “feminism” (that is, minimally indicative, a pretty low bar) as the Bechdel test. It is a pretty basic test for the representation of women, as is the Bechdel test. It does not make a movie automatically feminist.
source:http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/mako-mori-test-bechdel-pacific-rim/
http://chaila.tumblr.com/post/58379322134/spider-xan-also-i-was-thinking-more-about-why
She’s a female lead of color who gets her own hero arc, and whose function is not to support or admire a man. Why would we want to send the message that we don’t want that? Why do we think that is automatically not feminist or anti-feminist, because it doesn’t meet this one arbitrary “test for feminism” (women minimally interacting)?
Read these articles and posts about women and Pacific Rim! I won't boycott this movie and I am a white woman feminist shaped person.
I think having a few feminist/intersectional judgement points about movies is very good indeed.