"These are sexy turtles."

"Do not call me a slutty unicorn, because... you don't have proof yet."


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I'm saying The Lion King is racist.

And sexist and homophobic as well.

But those are some catchy songs!

Also, Patton needs some black friends, if only to make his daughter less racist.


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I'd watch this as a web series.

via Interview: Writer/Producer Lena Waithe Talks New Series 'Twenties' + Watch Pilot Presentation, by Masha Dowell, Shadow and Act.

Shadow and Act: What is a pilot presentation? Why did you opt for this route? 

LW: A lot of networks read the script and loved it, but they either thought there wasn’t an audience for it or that it already existed. Of course I became extremely frustrated because I knew neither of those things were true. So I realized I had to show these network executives that TWENTIES was one of a kind and that there was nothing on TV like it. And I figured the best way to do that was to shoot a pilot presentation, which meant we would shoot a few pivotal scenes from the script, edit them together, and give people a sense of how the show would look and feel. Lucky for me, Justin Simien (writer/director DEAR WHITE PEOPLE) offered to direct it and Flavor Unit was willing to pay for it. Now I had the opportunity to show people what I was going for instead of trying to explain it to them. My plan wasn’t just to show it to executives, but to show it to the world so that the people could have a voice in this as well. And just so we’re clear: this is not a web series! I repeat this is not a web series. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing a web series. I’ve done one. My goal is to partner with a network that understands what I’m going for.

[...]


Shadow and Act: What do you want us to do after we’ve watched it?
 

LW: The good news is I don’t want your money. There’s no Kickstarter or IndieGoGo attached to this project. All we want you to do is commit to sharing TWENTIES with twenty of your friends. The more you spread the word the better chance we have of getting it on TV. We’ll keep pitching. You keep sharing. Let’s do this!

I don't know if there is a network that is going to understand and agree with what Lena is going for. There's a reason there aren't many scripted shows from the US with a lead character that is

1. an L, G, B, or T person
2. a black woman
3. a lesbian woman
4. a person talking to multiple black people
5. a black lesbian woman talking to a bunch of other black people

As Lena pointed out, the networks "thought there wasn’t an audience for it or that it already existed", even though "neither of those things were true." If I had a project as amazing as TWENTIES, and networks passed on it, I wouldn't try to prove anything to them. It's 2013. I would produce, distribute, and promote TWENTIES myself, online, as a web series. I would have more control over the show, avoiding interference from well-meaning, but misguided network notes. Also, people would actually be able to see it. The series wouldn't be stuck in development for years, with the risk of never making it to air.

For me, it would be a waste of time trying to sell a product to someone who has no interest in buying it. There just aren't enough network executives who both see the value in and are willing to take a chance on airing a show about the honest story of a black woman, much less one who is articulate and queer. Instead of emphasizing the fact that "This is NOT a web series", why not embrace the new medium and create a successful web series (while we're waiting on Dear White People)? This would allow a fan base to grow around TWENTIES, and make the sale of the project even more profitable (and likely).

I have opinions!

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"I can’t stop reading this tumblr and it is making me so angry."

Ugh.

For more Asian fetish-themed posts to make your skin crawl, visit Creepy White Guys on tumblr.


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"My daughter has executive leadership skills."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I'm sure my sons will have executive leadership skills, too. :)

Thank you, Sheryl Sandberg!


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My favorite part of Bossypants:

Image via morethanwalk.tumblr.com

Thanks for sharing this story in your book, Tina Fey!


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"Rush will do anything with his mouth for cash."

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Rush Limbaugh Apologizes to Sandra Fluke
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

And how. .

"I don't get to talk, but I wear fabulous suits."

The irony of X-Men: First Class (in theaters now!) is the film's theme of social acceptance, while rigidly adhering to the standard discriminatory practices of Hollywood movies. Racism, sexism, ageism, sizeism were all in fine form in a story about celebrating your differences.

First of all--SPOILER ALERT for almost every action movie ever--the black guy dies, after Kevin Bacon self-righteously compares mutants to African slaves, and gives the black guy a pointed look. Btw, the only black guy does have a name: it's Darwin, like the lovable dolphin on seaQuest DSV. (We'll miss you, Jonathan Brandis.)

Second, did the wardrobe department run out of fabric for the ladies? James McAvoy and the other guy had their bodies completely covered from neck to toe, even on the sunny beach scenes. Yet all of female characters (all four of them, in supporting roles) were required to appear semi-naked for most, if not all, of their scenes. Mystique and Rose Byrne insisted upon wearing miniskirts during the rainy season in London and while representing a government agency, respectively. The former couldn't even close her X-Men jumpsuit the whole way, because ladies' zippers don't go up that far? Did they need to be sexually objectified for the entire movie?

Third, these ladies needed to take a page from Storm and Jean Grey in X2 (otherwise known as the best X-Men movie), because none of them seemed to be able to act on their own without the help or guidance or condescension of some man. None of them were allowed to carry their own story line. Each of female characters seemed to exist mainly to assist, serve, praise and/or sexually entice one or more of the male characters in the movie. Way to keep the wimmins in their place.

Fourth, if Charles Xavier could use Cerebro to identify all of the humans in the world, why did he end up selecting almost exclusively the young, pale, painfully thin, American ones? For example, were there no mature, chunky, Indonesian women in the mutant population? And to make matters worse, as Tasha Robinson points out in her review at the A.V. Club, "the few non-Caucasian characters are all dead or evil by halfway through the film". Dead. Silent and evil. Barely clothed and evil.

That's exactly the kind of message a film about escaping the Nazi regime should embrace: only let the white men boss people around; show the true despicable nature of the coloreds; and make sure the ladies are all scantily-clad and submissive. Mutant and proud!

(Side note and SPOILER ALERT: Hugh Jackman was pitch perfect in his cameo appearance. Way to make that mortgage payment, Wolverine.)


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It's a start!

Wanda Sykes, by Noel Murray at The A. V. Club via Comedy Central.

AVC: There’s been a lot of talk in the wake of the whole David Letterman affair about the lack of female writers on late-night comedy shows. What’s your mix like?

WS: I have a well-balanced show. It’s 50/50 on men/women, and also African-American/white writers, it’s the same thing. I have four African-American writers, and four non-African-American writers.

AVC: Why do you think other shows have been so slow to mix up their staffs in that same way? You take someone like Jon Stewart, who seems so progressive, and yet the composition of his staff doesn’t reflect what his politics would seem to be.

WS: You know what, I think maybe it’s because men like to fart, and the host wants to be able to sit in his writers’ room and just pass gas freely. Me, I’m a lady. I’m dainty. I know to get up and leave the room and go to my office.

No Asian or Latino people are mentioned, but we shall overcome someday. Also, Wanda's staff sounds better than this experience:

Letterman and Me, by Nell Scovell at VanityFair.com. Emphases mine.

At this moment, there are more females serving on the United States Supreme Court than there are writing for Late Show with David Letterman, The Jay Leno Show, and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien combined. Out of the 50 or so comedy writers working on these programs, exactly zero are women. It would be funny if it weren’t true.

[ . . . ]

I decided to speak up now for three reasons: 1. People who have no knowledge of the situation are voicing opinions, so why not me? 2. Letterman himself opened this up to a public discussion. 3. I’d like to pivot the discussion away from the bedroom and toward the writers’ room, because it pains me that almost 20 years later, the situation for female writers in late-night-TV hasn’t improved.

[ . . . ]

One frequent excuse you hear from late-night-TV executives is that “women just don’t apply for these jobs.” And they certainly don’t in the same numbers as men. But that’s partly because the shows often rely on current (white male) writers to recommend their funny (white male) friends to be future (white male) writers. Targeted outreach to talented bloggers, improv performers, and stand-ups would help widen the field of applicants. I’m also aware of several worthy females who have submitted material and never heard back. [ . . . ]

Late-night shows shouldn’t relax their standards for women, but why not give feedback and encouragement if it’s warranted? Maybe a writer will nail the tone on her second try. I’d also like to see each show post submission-packet requirements on its Web site so everyone has equal access. Obvious, right? Unless the shows would rather complain about the dearth of female applicants than do anything to encourage them.

Unfortunately, that concept is not solely confined to television writing staffs, Ms. Scovell. :|

I have a theory. An executive producer with an all-male writing staff once inadvertently revealed his deep, dark fear. While discussing a full-time position for me, he mused out loud, “I wonder if having a woman in the room will change everything.” Of course, what he really meant was: “I wonder if having a woman in the room will change me.”

Yes, it will change you: you will become a better writer.

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Musings from a black woman: Me too!

Not looking for things to get pissed off about, by nails at skeptifem. Emphases mine.

I have been trying pretty hard to avoid finding day ruining sexism and racsim, but it just isn’t working out. I don’t have as much time these days to go venting my emotions via blogulation, though I hope I will have more next semester. Nothing is more dismissive of the experiences of women and minorities than the accusation that extreme offense only comes out of ‘looking for something to get pissed off about’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is a template for my days:

So, I go to work and stuff like this happens:

*patients aggresively tell me or my coworker “SMILE” because we do not display unending cheer at being in the presence of dudes

[ . . . ]

Note to readers: I despise that "Smile" one, particularly when it comes from my (female) gym class instructors towards our mostly female class. Who feels like smiling while doing lunges and squats? No one, that's who. So back up, people! I smile when I am happy. If you're not happy, you should feel no obligation to smile for the benefit of others. No wonder so many women fake orgasms. Heaven forbid women admit that they are not enjoying themselves.

*people ask my coworker if I am a lesbian, or sometimes they ask her if I am a dude if they only get a quick look at me. I can’t imagine them needing that information unless it would funadmentally change our interaction somehow.

[ . . . ]

*the breast scar capsules of women who have had their implants go horribly wrong arrive in the lab in a tub of blood and formalin. A pathologist will look into it.

*my boss asks me if I have had any ‘cat fights’ with my coworker, and tells everyone how I didn’t laugh about it and how weird is that.

*a guy who just got promoted to oversee our whole department sends out an email called “why I am afraid to exercise”, the joke is literally nothing but pictures of women who are body builders. I have to fill out some sexual harassment form thingy which is supposed to shield me from retaliation but I am not counting on it.

[ . . . ]

So I watch some tv instead, and an ad for the ugly truth comes on. It’s a movie where the writers bust out that popular template of a lady, the one with a good career and an empty life because she isn’t impregnanted or married. So, she needs help from someone to change her personality or otherwise decieve a man into loving/impregnating her. A review informs me that this movie was written by three women who have apparently internalized the message that they are worthless when not maintaining pornulational compliance. In this case gerard butler is the misogynist savior, who plays a shock jock who tells her that she needs to take off her clothes and quit having opinions before guys will like her. It works when she does it, and instead of being angry about it she accepts it as the nature of things. She eventually falls for the radio douche, who pets the dog to convince us all he is a good person (the dog in this case is his orphaned nephew, aww).

I totally did not see that fakakte ending coming. Ha! No, I did.

Horrible movies get made all the time, but this kind of shit is akin to the already offensive black cop/white cop comedies ending with the black one realizing that whitey’s advice that he uses his savage jungle nature to scare suspects into compliance really was the right way to do things, and thank goodness he found his place in the world through his oppressor. The awfully racist old style cartoons have for the most part been banned from airing on tv these days, but I can still hear a babysitter go “hehehe, math is hard” on the phone during an episode of tom and jerry. Movies like the ugly truth are being put out constantly, they make it through marketing meetings and production and people buy into it. There are tons of movies every year with outright woman hatred as the main spectacle that people just love, usually between saying that there isn't a need for feminism anymore.

Again, not just me. I don't want to complain about movies and TV shows that I expected to love. But I get disappointed because it's 2009 and writers can't conceive that rampant sexism and general bigotry is not acceptable in our media.

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Manic Pixie Dream Girl

or, more on my discontent with Summer (see what I did there?).

For the titular reference, you can read Wild things: 16 films featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, by Amelie Gillette, Donna Bowman, et al, at the A.V. Club.

Onto the articles about the movie:

Indie Movies Can Be Sexist, Too, by Sarah Seltzer, RH RealityCheck.

Indie Dream Girls, by Doree Shafrir, The Daily Beast.

Manic Pixie Dream Girls, the Santa Claus of romantic comedies, by Amanda Marcotte, pandagon.net.

500 Days of He's Just Not That Into You, by Willa Paskin, Double X.

Previews: "500 Days of Summer" and "Paper Heart", by Alyx Vesey, Feminist Music Geek.

(500) Days of Summer, by Marc Webb, MovieMartyr.com.

From the comment section under information addict's post:

I am so sick of things written from a guy’s perspective that don’t acknolwedge that maybe the girl has her own desires, and they don’t include being with the guy, and that doesn’t make her a bitch or unfeeling or cold. It just makes her a person.

From the comment section under An Open Letter to Zooey Deschanel’s Male Admirers, by Pilgrim Soul, The Pursuit of Harpyness:

The idolizing of the quirky girl grates on me–Zoe and her ilk seem so intentionally precious and affected–but overall it fails to ignite my howling feminist rage the way the worship cute-but-dumb girls does (Jessica Simpson, Kendra, Paris, Daisy, LC, Heidi, etc).


If dudes pick Zoe and her ilk over the dumb blondes, well, that’s the lesser of the two evils, IMO. The real problem is that our media/film culture doesn’t offer them anything better or more realistic.

See. I'm not the only one involved in the hateration. Other people let that hate (or, constructive criticism) out, too, as we all should.

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I don't care about "melba toast," Michael Bay.

I do care about a pattern of racist behavior that has continued from the first Transformers film. Now the racism, and sexism, is back.

Dr Boyce: Yes, The Transformers Movie Was Quite Racist, by Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD, BV Black Spin.

Harry says TRANSFORMERS 2 is foul mouthed, racist & misogynistic! It also runs an hour too long!, Ain't It Cool News.

Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues, AP.

Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.

How does a car have a gold tooth? And why does reading come up in a film about cars?

Actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids.

Wilson said Wednesday that he never imagined viewers might consider the twins to be racial caricatures. When he took the role, he was told that the alien robots learned about human culture through the Web and that the twins were "wannabe gangster types."

Gangster types like Michael Corleone or Tony Montana? No?

"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out," the 40-year-old actor said. "If he had uploaded country music, he would have come out like that."

It's not fair to assume the characters are black, he said.

"It could easily be a Transformer that uploaded Kevin Federline data," Wilson said. "They were just like posers to me."

Kenny did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.

Way to cash that check, Mr. Wilson.

[Director Michael Bay] brushes off any whiff of controversy.

"Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes."

If the racism wasn't bad enough, the sexism makes me physically ill:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review, by Tara Meacham, Associated Content. Emphases mine.

You might have noticed that this Transformers film not only contains some poignant stereotypes of black people, but also that the movie is loaded with women. Most of them have fake boobs, push-up bras, and exist solely for the purpose of being sexualized in one way or another on a college campus. If they're not such women, they might be one of a few others—like the protagonist's mom, a typical empty nest middle-aged white woman ridiculed for wanting to have sex with her husband and stupid enough to purchase pot brownies without knowing what they are.

[ . . . ]

There is also Fox's character, Mikaela Banes, a female capable of fixing bikes and hot-wiring cars. She chooses not to go to college because she isn't a bimbo like all of the women that go there (because obviously college is not for smart people or women who think education might help them in life). She stays home to take care of her dad and mind the bike shop while Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) goes off to school on the East Coast.

She does other useful things, such as: run around in slow motion for a full five minutes at the end of the movie after taking off a protective layer of clothing in the desert, land her face on another male character's crotch, open her mouth a lot, appear with inconsistent amounts of collagen in her lips, flash her underwear while getting changed in the front yard, and attempt to be compared to Xena. Her secondary objective seems to be tagging along to help her boyfriend save the world; her primary objective involves getting him to say the L word and keep him away from fem-bots with anal probes.

Fox has a few key scenes in the film. In Egypt, she randomly dons a scarf over her mouth for a moment, because clearly the stereotypically fundamentalist Muslims all around would have been horrified at the sight of her uncovered mouth when her boobs could hardly be contained.

However, Fox does not play the most interesting female character in the film. That task falls to an unnamed female student in an astronomy class. Her job is to pick up a discarded, half-eaten, tossed-on-the-floor apple upon the command of the professor, who tells her to eat it. This degrading display is so horrific that I can't even be sarcastic about it.

Kudos to all involved. The Transformers franchise is now the front runner for the newly coined Rogen/Apatow Award for Excellence in Perpetuating White Male Privilege.

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What I have to look forward to

[photo by Anne Terada]

if I marry a Beatle or a President-elect or an adulterous senator or a former MBA in charge of Operations:

Yoko Ono: A Feminist Analysis (Addendum: Just Like Starting Over), by Cara at The Curvature.

The kind of hate we see for Yoko, we still see today for other powerful women married to men of great influence. Hillary Clinton gets the Yoko treatment when people claim that her marriage to Bill is all a sham intended to bolster her political career, and when Bill was derided for working with Hillary on policy issues. Michelle Obama gets the Yoko treatment when people suggest that she has too much influence over Barack’s decisions, up to and including pushing those she doesn’t like out of the picture, and when Barack is criticized for having a wife with her own opinions. Everything old is new again . . .

. . . And what of her own work? In virtually every article I’ve ever read about one of her art shows or peace initiatives, she is either discussed in relation to her late husband, or defended with the proclamation that she is more than John Lennon’s widow. How absurd that this point need be hammered home.

Also, that chessboard with all white pieces and squares is not only a replica of one of Yoko Ono's most famous works. It is also a cake. Cake!

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I take so much for granted.

Today I attended a women-in-business related meeting, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Afterwards, I invited myself into a conversation amongst women about how women in business are perceived, both by men and by other women. There was a consensus about the double standards, and the impossible standards, that women are held to. Some women were surprised that they would be treated differently simply because they were women, and they were not happy about it. If you are one of the women in question, Hello! Thanks for reading my blog! Please leave a comment. :)

As the conversation progressed, one of the women expressed disdain for the sexism involved in some men spreading rumors about women to undermine them. Then within her next sentences she said, "I am anti-feminist".

I don't understand how the words, "I am anti-feminist," could come out of a woman's mouth. I was offended both as a woman and as an out-and-proud feminist. It would be like Senator Obama saying, "I hate that Dr. King and his ilk. He and Malcolm X and Maya Angelou were always causing trouble. There was no need for all that rabble-rousing to make sure that people like me have equal rights. I didn't need any help to get where I am today, even though people still discriminate against me based on my color. Why should anyone fight for the rights of black people? Now I'm going to go deliver another speech that heavily borrows from 'I Have A Dream'. Check you later!"

Since I am young, educated and black, I never have the opportunity to forget where I come from and how hard millions of people before me have worked to allow me to get where I am, both as a black person and as a woman. I often forget that many nonblack women don't have that same awareness and historical perspective. I know who I am and how I am. I also know that other people think they know, but they have no idea. But many other women don't think about how they are perceived in the world until something happens to them. And even then, they don't always recognize it as sexism. Feminists have made it possible for women to live much of their lives without experiencing (relatively) overt sexism. Feminists worked to get women up to that 77 cents of the dollar that our male counterparts make. Feminists continue to fight for human rights every day, including the right for women to be in business in the first place.

To clarify about The F Word: If you believe women should have equal rights, you are a feminist. Period. End of story. Jam done. You can go home now.

You don't have to tell anyone that you're a feminist. You don't have to protest. You don't have to burn the MYTHICAL bra. You can keep it to yourself. You can enjoy professional sports. You can wear skirts. You can have sex with men. It's okay. Please realize that most if not all of the stuff that you have been taught about feminists and feminism is false. I will repeat: If you believe women should have equal rights, you are a feminist.

And, as I have said before, Men? You can be feminists, too. There is no vaginal requirement. For reference, here is my favorite famous feminist man. He's super cute, too!

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WTF, Puma and YouTube?

So I was trying to find a video on YouTube for the post that I am currently writing about sexism and feminism. And here's the Puma ad that greets me on the front page: Batty Shake. Please read the comments underneath the video as well, and remind yourself that it is 2008.

This is what I have to deal with every day of my life, because there is no other image to combat that. No wonder I'm so tired. There is no ad showing an educated black woman working at her computer minding her business. No. Instead there is a black woman's booty shaking in your face for the enjoyment of some random Jamaican male athlete. I don't even know who he is.

All I have to say is every day. In my face. I am livid.

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Even a commercial about chocolate

has no black people in it. The usurping of roles for brown people has not stopped with Angelina Jolie and Robert Downey, Jr. It continues with computer-generated chocolate people with unquestionably white features.

In the Hershey's commercial featured above, I counted two white people--a tall, thin young man, and a shorter, equally thin, younger woman. I also spotted a butterfly and three bunnies. Of course, the man was conveniently driving the car, because a lady in a commercial can't drive if her man is around.

Before you readers accuse me of being overly sensitive to the racism, sexism, sizeism and heteronormativity of a company hawking candy to Americans, look at the picture below:



It strikes me as odd that to enjoy "what makes a Hershey bar pure", the consumer should be thin, straight and white. Because fat people don't like candy. Neither do the gays or the non-white.

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I wouldn't call it Horrible,

but I would call it lacking. Specifically, lacking in melanin content and quality roles for women. I watched Dr. Horrible today, the online musical created by self-proclaimed feminist Joss Whedon. The three-act production stars both Nathan Fillion of Serenity and Firefly fame, and my favorite child doctor Neil Patrick Harris.

Some say "Dr. Horrible is good!". Some say "Dr. Horrible is Fabulous!". I say it's the same stuff I've been complaining about for two years now. Happy early birthday, blog! It's about two white heterosexual men (including the main character played by "very content gay man" NPH) who fight over a skinny white woman. The woman, named Penny, is younger that both of her male suitors, and she has no real character of her own. Her defining personality traits include doing laundry, volunteering at a homeless shelter and eating frozen yogurt.

Rebecca Allen of A Nerd at Peace writes:

The problem was that the story was so caught up in its trickery—you really liked Dr. Horrible! But he’s eeeeevil! Mwahahaha!—it forgot to not suck. Though to be fair, the parts with Penny had always been kind of weak, because as a character, Penny had absolutely no agency whatsoever. She existed to be Dr. Horrible’s dream girl, and Dr. Horrible was an archetypal Nice Guy through the whole thing. The scenes were cute enough, and Neil Patrick Harris was darling enough, that I gave it the benefit of a doubt. But in the second part, it’s clear Penny exists as a prize for Dr. Horrible. She dates his nemesis, [Nathan Fillion's] Captain Hammer, instead, and that’s what sets off his fall into darkness. She falls for Captain Hammer and never questions his bullshit, even though from the watcher’s POV it’s obvious, which makes her look pretty stupid. She’s generically nice and sweet, but has no other character traits.

So Captain Hammer uses her (both her body for sex and her cause for glory), and it drives Dr. Horrible mad. When Captain Hammer begins to brag publicly about having sex with her, she grows uncomfortable. But before she can actually do anything about it (she seems to be slinking off in shame, but she never speaks about it, never confronts Captain Hammer about it, never takes a decisive action) she is tragically, accidentally killed. Dr. Horrible was trying to kill Captain Hammer, his death ray exploded, Hammer ran off in pain and shock, and she was caught by the shrapnel and dies. But her death gets Dr. Horrible entrance into the Evil League of Evil and turns him into a respectable villain.

The end.

Purtek of The Hathor Legacy writes:

Since it’s Joss Whedon, it’s practically guaranteed to come with high expectations attached, both for quality creative work and, in many circles, for feminist content. On the former, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog definitely lives up to the hype. On the latter, unfortunately, I have to say that it failed miserably. Of the three characters, Penny is by far the least developed. She’s a sweet, somewhat naive, save-the-world local activist with big, romantic dreams for her life. While the two male characters are also stereotypes in a way, they’re both larger than life, hilarious caricatures, whereas Penny just seems to lack personality. The fact that Dr. Horrible initially falls for her as he encounters her twice weekly in the incredibly mundane setting of the laundromat is fitting, here.

And naturally, in a story with three characters, two male and one female, there is a love triangle at work, and as is often the case, the woman in that story becomes more of a prop at play in the interaction between the two men. The real relationship struggle, the real competition is between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. The reason Penny has lasting appeal to Captain Hammer is because it’s one more front on which he can assert his superiority over Dr. Horrible - while the scene where Captain Hammer assures Dr. Horrible that he will be having sex with Dr. Horrible’s crush was admittedly hilarious, due mainly to Nathan Fillion’s delivery, it depended entirely upon playing out their battle with one another using a woman’s body as a way of scoring points. Worst of all, Penny dies at the end, in exactly the kind of death scene we’ve complained about several times on this site - one that serves almost exclusively to progress the character development of the men in her life. She dies as a result of the competition between the two men, accidentally, by getting in the way. Despite the fact that immediately before Dr. Horrible arrived on the scene, she seemed to be recognizing her boyfriend’s incredible arrogance and selfishness, with her dying breath, she sings “Captain Hammer will save us”. Not only does this show her as the woman to be rescued (if unsuccessfully), the main point of having her say it was to take away that last thing that made Dr. Horrible want to be…not horrible, and cement his commitment to proving himself as the most evil person alive.

I agree with both assessments, which I found on Joss Whedon's fan site under the July 20 entry. Commenter rufustfyrfly summed up my second problem with Dr. Horrible:

. . . [the musical] had exactly no named characters of color. Yet another bizarro parallel universe in which Southern California is mostly white.

Come on, Joss. We know you can do better than this! I push because I love.

Almost every person in the entire musical was white and male. Seriously. Even in the dedication of the homeless shelter, almost every person in the room was white. There was one possibly Asian woman who had a singing part, but she had to share all of her screen time with her two white friends.

This kind of nonsense is plausibly excusable when your production is governed by media conglomerates like Viacom or NBC Universal or Time Warner or Disney. But Mr. Whedon, when you decide to create a project with no strings attached, and you have complete creative freedom, you should do better. Especially if you call yourself a feminist, a label which some question.

Here are some related perspectives on Dr. Horrible:

...but., by elisha at sixth_light.

Dr. Horrible, or Why I'm So Pissed Off, by per_maybe_haps.

Blogging along with Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, by Holly at Feministe.

Also, here is Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test, by BetaCandy at The Hathor Legacy.

Finally, I leave you with Joss Whedon's Equality Now speech via Mother Jones:

When the time comes

to memorialize me in a made-for-TV movie--preferably with a title like Yeah, She Said It, or From Elijah to Backstreet, or What is She Complaining about Now?--please don't let my Randy Quaid-equivalent play me. Make the effort to sign my Dennis Quaid-equivalent instead:

Jumpstart Your Acting Career By Profiting Off The Death Of Tim Russert!, Defamer.

But who could play me? Looking through the latest Bright Young Hollywood feature from Vanity Fair, the talent pickings are slim-to-none. The closest person is Zöe Kravitz, whom the magazine made look as pale as possible. The only other option is to put a wig on Rob Brown (who?). Note in the picture that Mr. Brown, the only black guy in the entire article, is off to the left and in the back. Nice.

The entire photo spread seems to embody the qualities that the American media holds dear: racism, sexism, heternormativity. Heaven forbid a woman be allowed to drive a boat or pilot her own bike or hang out on the sand not draped over a fully-clothed beached whale. That last picture just says it all for me. Ugh.

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In Women's News Today

Daria Takes Aim At Jane Magazine, by Slut Machine at Jezebel, via Feministing. Hooray for Daria! The comments led me here. Yippee!

WNBA rookies work on their game faces, by the linster at AfterEllen. Feministing also wrote about this story last month, but the linster points out the inherent homophobia along with the sexism involved.

The AfterEllen article led me to these poignant articles on how the American mainstream media dealt with Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign:

Woman in Charge, Women Who Charge, by Judith Warner at The New York Times.

and

Hating Hillary, by Andrew Stephen at New Statesman.

I have a whole heap to say about the people who let out the hate in their hearts during the Democratic Primary Season. People who won't be satisfied until Senator Clinton grovels at Senator Obama's feet, then leaves the country--nay, the planet(!) and begins her life anew on Mars. People who actually repeated this image on the news, not to condemn its existence, but to lament the loss of Senator Clinton as a late-night talk show punching bag. For now, I leave you with this statement from Feministe's Jill:

I know many women (and men) today are mourning the fact that the female candidate didn’t get her historic moment. I am mourning that too. And again, Melissa says it better than I could. Women are hurting, and our confidence in our “allies” and in our fellow progressives has been thoroughly challenged.

See The Daily Kos for evidence of those so-called "progressives", who often consider 51% of the population a special interest group.

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Same story, different day.

Update on the Dirty Girls Social Club Movie, and Lessons in Latinidad Real for Hollywood - Part One, by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, via Racialicious.

If you can't watch the video, Alisa talks about the difficulty of getting her bestselling book, The Dirty Girls Social Club, made into a movie. To sum up the situation, the white, non-Hispanic males who run every major movie studio don't think the six educated women in the novel are real Latinas. Because they're not "street". Plus, there isn't an A-list actress attached to the film yet. Why? Because the A-list Latina actresses have been advised by their management teams--more white males--not to play Latina roles. Nice.

None of this surprises me at all. However, every time I hear a story like this, whether in person or in print or online, the women telling the stories are usually shocked and hurt. These women have worked hard, played by the rules, paid their dues, achieved above and beyond their peers in their field, proved their talent, worth and potential. And still they get shot down. Every time. Just like they did at the end of my book. So weird that Alisa mentioned WWII movie Schindler's List, too. Hmm. Maybe I have The Shine. Either that or I can see the blatant, continual racism and sexism that persists in Hollywood.

I can't turn my head without seeing a story about how the success of Sex and the City: The Movie has proved that women can open big-budget films. Quoi? I didn't hear the same clamoring over Indiana Jones and the Senior Citizen proving that old white guys can still open action films. I actually had to hear Tattoo on Big Boy in the Morning whining about how terrible Sex and the City was--even though he went to see a completely different movie this weekend--because women who were over the age of 40 and/or overweight went to see the movie in groups and then talked about it. Also, Tattoo didn't like that the movie starred four "old" women. Thankfully Liz and Big Boy totally called him out on his insanity, considering Tattoo very recently had LAP-BAND surgery to combat the 280+ pounds of fat on his own body.

Back to Dirty Girls. I love this book so much that it has been my signature gift to all of my closest friends, who have also loved it. It clearly has an audience in multiple countries. Yet, the movie can't get made because the characters aren't "real Latinas", "we don't get the whole Latino thing", and "nobody would want to see the fat girl get the guy", even though about 15% of the US population is Hispanic, and (allegedly) approximately 62 percent of female Americans are considered overweight.

So what kind of woman is acceptable for mass consumption? Last Comic Standing's Esther Ku. I knew I wasn't the only one who didn't like her.

"Chopsticks"! "Ching chong"! Even though she's Korean. Ha! "I don't want to marry an Asian guy; I like regular people." The hilarity!

Ugh.

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