athousanderrors | Oct. 23rd, 2016

Oct. 23rd, 2016

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fromchaostocosmos:

returnofthejudai:

I don’t care if you’re Jewish or not. If you act like commemorating the deaths of 6 million of our number is somehow a privilege and that we are not allowed to mourn our own dead or speak out against the hatred that caused such horrors without ALSO simultaneously talking about other genocides, you are being antisemitic. I spent a lot of time, effort and ink fighting the Darfur Genocide along with a large number of other Jewish activists and so many of the people criticizing how Jews talk about genocide weren’t there. In fact, many of them criticized us for not focusing our activism on Palestine. I won’t be lectured by these kinds of people. The number one cause of death in my family over the past century has been murder by Nazi. I have spoken to every living member of my father’s family out to my third cousins. I have been told that I should thank Hitler for being alive because my grandparents met at a DP camp and wouldn’t have met were their entire families not murdered. I’ve been told that the “real Holocaust” was of Ukrainians (many of whom were collaborators and whose descendants are trying to deny Babi Yar), or that the Holocaust targeted people who had brown hair (like Hitler himself), or that it wasn’t antisemitic because of other victims, as if “Mein Kampf” didn’t have numerous explicit passages targeting Jews specifically, as if there weren’t boycotts of Jewish families specifically, as if the Yellow Stars were universally applied.

If I take these things personally it’s because they are personal. I am labelled as a “Third Generation Survivor” at the US Holocaust Museum. I have a 90 year old grandmother who survived Bergen-Belsen and the Warsaw Ghetto and there are people who are telling that narrowly avoiding being murdered alongside the rest of her family is somehow a privilege. Or that I somehow “celebrate” the Holocaust. What the hell kind of word choice is that?

Howard Jacobson is right. We will never be forgiven for the Holocaust. They wish we had the good sense to die out so as not to plague their consciences.

Please reblog this if not Jewish so it doesn’t just circulate around Jumblr only because this is so important and so true.

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Star bright cardigan in daylight… #ravelry #knittersofinstagram

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tielan:

beatrice-otter:

EVERYBODY ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO READ THIS. Because like 95% of the people on this website have absolutely no clue whatsoever about what drives rural poor areas. This is ABUNDANTLY clear every time anything having to do with rural issues gets mentioned, or any time a “redneck” perspective gets brought up. I’m a card-carrying Democrat with a strong social-justice focus. I’m a progressive. But there are so many times I read things and go “well, I agree with the theory behind this and that it’s best for the country and the world, but it also has no clue about or provision for anything outside the big cities.” And if the post or article talks about conservative areas? I live deep in a red area of a red state, and usually such posts and articles are only about as accurate as a funhouse mirror. If that. This article, on the other hand, is SPOT ON. Some choice bits:

They’re getting the shit kicked out of them. I know, I was there. Step outside of the city, and the suicide rate among young people fucking doubles. The recession pounded rural communities, but all the recovery went to the cities. The rate of new businesses opening in rural areas has utterly collapsed.

I live in a town of 700 people. We’re a lot more prosperous than most small towns in our area; but that is on shaky ground and could change in an instant. (Remember, “a lot more prosperous” means that 2/3 of the commercial buildings in town stand vacant, boarded up. In some of them, you can see daylight through the gaps in the boards, because the roof is caved in. And in a town of 700 people, 40 separate households needed help from the food pantry last year–that’s about 20% of the population. We’re still doing better than a lot of the surrounding towns.) We have a small school–pre-K through high school–and it graduates between ten and twenty kids a year. In the last decade, there have been three teen suicides in town.

We as liberals tend to have a lot of sympathy for urban poor living in those kinds of conditions. We’ll defend them at the drop of a hat–and we’re right to do so. But that sympathy disappears when it comes to the rural poor. It doesn’t even register that they face most of the same problems you get in the ghetto, with even fewer services and programs to help. We’ll talk about rural racism and homophobia and sexism all day–and all of that exists–but we don’t talk about the very real poverty and hopelessness and other problems that they face.

You know what that does to a community? You know the kind of grinding hopelessness that causes it in the first place? When everything’s going to shit and the larger world doesn’t care, only mentions you if you’re the butt of the joke or they can proclaim their moral superiority? If you were drowning in that every day, and somebody said they’d save you (and kick all the assholes who laugh about you in the teeth while he did it), wouldn’t you want to support him even if he was an asshole you despised?

Now, you know and I know that Trump isn’t going to actually save them–he’d have to be able to come up with a coherent policy, for one, which, hah, ain’t going to happen. And also you and I know and I know that even if he did save all the coal mine and power plant my town depends on it would be disastrous for the whole world in the long run. But Hillary doesn’t really have any plans that might help rural areas like mine, either, and some of her plans would hasten our destruction. Most of them are, in the long run, better for America and the world. (Sure, the rural areas will continue their slow, grinding, painful death, while being mocked for their poverty and backwardness, but America as a whole will be better.) Try telling that to people watching their communities die and their kids and friends kill themselves or drown in bottles.

It really does feel like the worst of both worlds: all the ravages of poverty, but none of the sympathy. “Blacks burn police cars, and those liberal elites say it’s not their fault because they’re poor. My son gets jailed and fired over a baggie of meth, and those same elites make jokes about his missing teeth!” You’re everyone’s punching bag, one of society’s last remaining safe comedy targets.

“The rural folk with the Trump signs in their yards say their way of life is dying, and you smirk and say what they really mean is that blacks and gays are finally getting equal rights and they hate it. But I’m telling you, they say their way of life is dying because their way of life is dying. It’s not their imagination. No movie about the future portrays it as being full of traditional families, hunters, and coal mines. Well, except for Hunger Games, and that was depicted as an apocalypse.”

And yes, there’s parts of that way of life–the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, to name just a few–that should die. But there’s good parts, too. There’s beauty, and love, and strength, and kindness, and generations of families working together to build community and a future. There’s traditions that have nourished and supported generations of people through meaningful lives–even if you might not recognize anything in those lives as important. And all of that is crumbling.

Neither Clinton nor Trump (nor any national politician of the last decade or anywhere on the horizon) can change that. You’d have to somehow dramatically alter the economy to bring jobs back to rural areas, and even if you could find a viable way to do it, more populated areas would probably scream bloody murder at the resources being diverted. But Trump, the vicious, narcissistic, bigoted, homophobic, ableist, misogynistic, jingoistic, fascist turd that he is, at least pretends that he can, that he can bring back the way things were when all those empty buildings downtown were filled and the kids weren’t killing themselves and rural areas at least sometimes saw themselves in popular culture as something other than the butt of a joke. It’s a lie, and a dangerous one, but I don’t blame my neighbors for wanting to believe it.

Particularly worth reading for @beatrice-otter’s addition.

I know that many people here on Tumblr don’t want to sympathise with conservatives, and most particularly not people who support Trump; but everyone has reasons, and those reasons do amount to more than just “sexist, racist, and homophobic”.

The thing to remember is that even if Trump loses, you will still be living with your fellow Americans. You may not have to pay attention to them outside of the election cycles, but believe me, now that they’ve had someone tell them ‘I’m on your side, I can turn the world back to when your communities thrived’, they’re going to be a lot noisier in those election cycles.

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starline:

ms-demeanor:

bifca:

justplainsomething:

nakedsasquatch:

lanawhatever:

nakedsasquatch it’s ya man

Okay but seriously folks - as often as I joke about this movie stirs my loins and as weirdly popular as this text post got a while back, I wanna rap with you all about why the George of the Jungle remake is a pretty important piece of cinema.

It’s literally the only movie I can think of that is based completely around the unheard of “FEMALE gaze.” Granted, while I’m a huge movie buff I’ve not seen every movie ever made. But even so, even if there’s another example of the “female gaze” in cinema that has escaped me it’s still damn impressive that a kids movie from 1997 based on a Jay Ward cartoon from the 60’s managed to turn gender representation in media on it’s fucking ass!

First things first, let’s look at our leading lady and love interest - Ursula, played by Leslie Mann.

Let me just say that while Leslie Mann is adorable and a talented actress, she does look a little less conventional and a little more plain compared to the bombshells that Hollywood likes to churn out. Leslie, in comparison, looks much more like a real women you’d meet on the street. She dresses pretty conservatively and plain throughout the film ; Wearing outfits that are more functional than fashionable for trekking through the jungle, pulling her hair back and so forth. Not that if she was dolled up and more scantily clad it would give her character any less integrity, but can we appreciate how RARE that is in the male dominated industry of film? Just think about all the roads a film about a woman in the jungle COULD have taken but didn’t - no scenes with her clothes strategically ripped or anything! You can say this is a kids movie, intended for children and that’s why the sensuality of the female lead is so downplayed but there are PLENTY of kids movies that handle women in a very objectifying and sexualized manner despite the target audience is pre-pubescent. Like, a disgusting amount. So I don’t think “it’s a kids movie” is why the film doesn’t take ANY, let alone EVERY, opportunity to showcase the main female character’s sex appeal…

…especially considering the sex appeal of the film rests squarely on the well defined shoulders of our male lead, George of the Jungle played by Brendan Fraser in the best god damn shape of his life!

*Homer Simpson Drooling Noises*

Whenever members of the reddit community try to compare the sexualization of women in fiction to the design of characters such as Batman and Superman, I always want to just sit them down and show them this movie. Because THIS is what the female sexual fantasy looks like, and Batman and Superman are male power-fantasies. Look at him - his big blue eyes, his soft hair, his lean, chiseled physique built for dexterity rather than power. He’s wild and free, but gentle. It’s like he fell right out of that steamy romance novel your mom tried to hide from you growing up.

Hell, the whole plot seems to be designed around how damn hot he is! First, for the majority of the film, he wears only a small strip of cloth to cover the dick balls and ass. Everything else is FAIR GAME to drool over for 40 minutes. Then, after he meets Ursula she takes him with her to San Francisco just so we can enjoy him in a well-tailored suit (as seen in the gif set), running around in an open and billowy shirt along side horses while Ursula and all of her friends literally crowd around and make sexual comments about him, and my personal favorite, ditch the loincloth entirely and have him walk around naked while covering his man-bits with various objects while one of Ursula’s very lucky friends oogles him and makes a joke along the lines of “So THAT’S why they call him the ‘KING of the Jungle’…”

And yes, it’s also a very cute and funny little movie. Out of all the movies based on Jay Ward cartoons, it was the most faithful to the fast-paced humor and wit of the original source material (yes even the new Peabody and Sherman movie which honestly I thought was too cutesy-poo.) But that’s not why this movie is popular with the gay community or why we all became women in 1997. It’s just really cool that there’s a film out there where the sensuality of the female form takes a back seat for the oiled up, chiseled, physique of Brendan Fraser (in his prime that is)

One thing to add: in the scene mentioned above where the ladies are watching him in the billowy shirt running with the horses, it pans back to about 50 feet away to two guys in suits at this party looking at the women and one of the guys says, “Man, what is it with women and horses?” So not only does this movie highlight the female gaze, but it blatantly points out that western male sensibilities don’t have a clue what actually appeals to women.

ALSO

he’s non threatening

as mentioned above, he looks built for dexterity rather than power, but he’s still a 6+ foot tall extremely muscular man, and not once are you worried for Ursula when he’s with her

ALSO

let’s take a look at his rival - Lyle is a cravat-wearing trust-fund kid (who, interestingly, is into Ursula’s fortune more than her, which kind of makes this a gender-swapped gold-digger thing too). He’s blonde and Ursula’s mom LOVES him. He’s more uncomfortable and less prepared to cope with the jungle than Ursula is, in his pastels and shiny shoes.

But he talks over Ursula, insists he knows what’s best for her, ignores her autonomy. In spite of the fact that Lyle Van de Groot is a rich, educated, social climber who cares deeply about his clothing and appearances he is a point-by-point checklist of unhealthy masculinity in a way that beefy, inarticulate, uneducated George could never be. Ursula is off on her own doing her own thing and Lyle hires two FUCKING POACHERS to track her down in the middle of the jungle while she’s working (or on vacation? It’s never made clear because he interrupts her before she can explain why she went on the expedition). Lyle ignores the local guides, claiming his experience with a bridge in Maui means the bridge they’re on is safe - which leads to a significant injury for one of the guides. He then tells Ursula the guides are conspiring against him, trying to make himself and his poachers seem safe and the Africans who make up the rest of their party seem dangerous.

Check that body language! A post above points out that we’re never worried about Ursula when she’s around George. That’s because Lyle talks to her like this. Look at his aggressive lean! Look at him literally looking down at her! She’s tilted away from him in the least threatening position possible and he’s so aggressive about whatever point he’s making. When he finds her after he pushed her toward a damned lion he kisses her and she pushes him away. Want a textbook example of gaslighting? Here you go: she says “don’t get all smoochy with me! I remember what happened with that lion” and he responds “What are you talking about? I was fighting that lion the whole time - you were just so terrified you don’t remember.” Then he shoots George! And then he kidnaps Ursula and attempts to force her into marriage!

Now look at how George and Ursula interact (slightly NSFW):

Even though he’s a big strong dude and he thinks he’s doing what’s okay he lets her set the tone for their interactions. He accepts that he’s out of his wheelhouse and even if he doesn’t understand it he does what she says is culturally appropriate. He learns from her! He listens to her! Compare Lyle leaning into Ursula above to this image of George and Ursula talking:

He’s listening to her, all of his attention is on on her, but he’s totally nonthreatening. His torso is turned toward her but he’s not invading her space, his hands are clasped, he’s smiling, and she’s the one leaning into him. Look at that smile she has, look how happy she is to be listened to. Her posture in both images is vulnerable but in this one with George she’s vulnerable because she has chosen to share with him instead of because she feels threatened.

When George rescues Ursula from Lyle at the end of the film it isn’t a typical damsel situation - George doesn’t have a knock-down-drag-out fight with Lyle, he swings into a tree and offers Ursula a hand so she can reach up and save herself (and before he does it he acknowledges how much it’s going to hurt and *whimpers* and looks human and scared). And you’ve gotta remember that George rescues everybody. It’s not just Ursula - he also rescues a parasailer and gets shot rescuing Shep and Ape. He just likes helping, dammit!

AND this movie offers a perfect counter to the “nice guy” thing - Ursula starts engaged to a jerk who her mom thinks is a “nice guy” the moves on to actual nice man George who isn’t *just* nice - he’s also patient, listens to her, has his own skills and talents, is okay with being goofy, has his own social circle and isn’t totally dependent on Ursula, and looks amazing. Ursula doesn’t go with George just because he’s a *nice* guy who rescued her from an asshole, Ursula goes with George because he’s an interesting, fun person who is supportive of her different way of being an interesting, fun person. AND he’s emotionally available. Google image search George of the jungle and see how many smiles you can find, see how many open looks of confusion there are, see how much sadness you can see in George’s face. Now look for images of Lyle. His two expressions are a smirk and cartoonish fear. I know this is a cartoonish kid’s movie, but it is SO powerful that the hero shares his emotions while the villain masks every emotion but fear. Lyle doesn’t want to open up, he doesn’t want to be vulnerable, he wants CONTROL. George wants to learn, to protect people he cares about, to explore new places, to laugh when he’s happy and to be sad when he’s sad, and that he does that while being a broad-shouldered, physically powerful dude who is NOT totally self-involved is just…

Like, look, I didn’t sign on to tumblr dot com for George of the Jungle discourse, but I’m just now realizing that this movie may have done the most for destroying my conception of stoic masculinity and gender roles as a child.

Like

Damn.

2nd reblog because this is even better.

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Well mikey’s not too impressed by Leanne Rimes’ Strictly performance…

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straight people writing closeted gay characters: every day...i Suffer because i Lie....i feel so filthy for my Lies and my gayness...i must lust after every same-gender person i see...i am so jealous of the straights, for i can never be Free like them....
me: fuck i almost outed myself because i couldn't resist a gay joke again

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Best fabric ever, or best fabric ever?

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docholligay:

In other news, apparently Brits pronounce ‘plait’ as ‘plat’ continuing in their proud tradition of keeping around vowels they never actually use, as a love letter to the French

but….how else would you pronounce it?