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The entire team banded together for a very special episode of the Tuesday Televisionary. We cover two episodes of Intervention, Nurse Jackie, Weeds, True Blood, Gimme Sugar, Masterchef Australia, The 7 PM Project, My Life on the D-List and So You Think You Can Dance. And we all share stories of when we got fired, to make you feel better about getting fired, because we care.
DRINK LIKE A GIRL: Yesterday we reported on a new program for alcoholic gay men. Today, we report that the UIC College of Nursing has received a $3 million federal grant to continue research to identify risk factors for excessive drinking among lesbians. So far neither of these programs seem to be doing a deal with Intervention, blergh. No really though, I’m a dork for anything that looks, smells or tastes like a sociology-related study, I await the results on the edge of my seat with my vodka-tonic. (@wbb chicago)
IT TAKES A VILLAGE OF SMILING IDIOTS: I am breaking the “I am so over talking about Miss California” rule because she’s actually done something besides talk crazy. As you’ve heard, she has a book deal, because she is a star now, because this is 1950 and you can get famous just for being a pretty anti-Civil Rights speaker. All I can say is I hope her book has a lesbian reveal. (@ontop magazine)
MADDOW: I’m not the only one breaking rules — Rachel Maddow declared herself “done with Sarah Palin” … until last night, when Palin’s latest ethics violations required her immediate attention:
WORLD OF DOUCHEBAGCRAFT: New video game challenges you to shoot the gays before they fuck you in the ass. Seriously. I could make this stuff up, but in this case, I speak the truth. (@pamshouseblend)
TOP CHEF: Eveything’s coming up gay for the next season of Top Chef. (@dorothy surrenders)
WOMYN: Abortion Party – What’s in a name? (@bitchblogs)
UP THE BUTT: “Am I the only one to notice that President Obama’s angrier critics have a curious habit of associating him with an extremely unpleasant form of bodily invasion?”: Political Metaphors Hit Bottom. (@chicago tribune)
DOUBLE SHOT OF EX TO THE NO: I’m about a week late on seeing this, but tracie/slutmachine sums it all up right perfect in How One-out-of-Touch Woman is Hurting Women. (@one d at a time)
GAY PRIDE? Montreal was denied funding for its annual Pride Festivities. (@cbc)
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS ENOUGH: The British ask why are American television series more addicting than UK television series? (@telegraph uk)
GIRLDRIVE: What do twentysomething women care about? Girldrive tracks a conversation between the next generation, telling its story through photos, profiles and diary entries. It allows gutsy young women across the American cityscape to be seen and heard. It evaluates, trhough an intergenerational conversation, the current state of feminism and its many definitions. It’s about the promise of the open road and how young women grapple with the concepts of freedom, equality, joy, sex, ambition and love — whether they call it “feminism” or not.
WOMYN:: Young Feminist Julie Zeilinger Meets Gloria Steinem: Like most interviews with the oracle of feminism, it ends up illuminating the interviewer a little more than the interviewee. (@jezebel)
MILK: YouTube has posted The Life of Harvey Milk in its entirety! (@queersunited)
LEZ-TEEVEE?: More speculation about Claire the Cheerleader getting it on with a lady on the next season of Heroes, which makes way more sense than like, all of Season Two.
Any truth to the rumors about Heroes’ Claire becoming a lesbian?
According to Hayden Panettiere (Claire), the persistence of fans like you has paid off. “I think the writers are feeling a lot of pressure now to do it, because everyone’s talking about it,” she says. “And I certainly wouldn’t complain.” The non-alcohol induced action (“just a kiss,” says creator Tim Kring) will happen in Episode 5 between Claire and her new college roomie, Gretchen (Madeline Zima). Hayden describes Gretchen as “an odd duck who’s obsessed with death and shows like CSI.” “They’re really cute together,” Kring says. “If Gretchen reveals her sexual orientation to Claire, Claire might want to reveal her own secret.”
WATCH: Why haven’t I seen these girls from the “That’s What She Said Show” before? We should interview them, they’re gay and funny! Here’s a video:
To write Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back
Auto-Straddler of the Day
from Stef:
At long fucking last, Kid Sister’s album (now called “Ultraviolet”) has an official release date of October 6th. Check out this free MP3 of her new single “Right Hand Hi,” dance, enjoy, repeat. If ever there was a song tailor made for Autostraddle dance parties, this is the one – interns Katrina and Laura, I’m lookin’ at you. Kid Sister is one of my favourite rappers and we will share more feelings about her together at a later date.
from Crystal:
I’m fascinated by Things Marketing People Love. I’m in advertising, not marketing – but still slightly ashamed to admit that I’m guilty of 99% of the content, including wearing oversized headphones at my desk, creating “action items”, carrying messenger bags and IM’ing my co-workers when I sit right next to them.
from Alex:
I still need to try this, but I figured it was so damn cute I could share it with y’all anyway: how to make your very own homemade chocolate syrup.
I fucking love Rachel Maddow. That is all.
so for this study, are they just going to take notes in the back of liberal arts undergrad classes and watch episodes of the L word? because that would probably tell them all they need to know for a lot less than 3 mil.
I found it very interesting that in Self-Made Man, Nora Vincent writes how even after she admitted who she was to the straight women she was dating as “Vincent,” some of them proceeded to sleep with her anyway.
i remember that vincent piece from a few years ago. it’s been a while so my memory isn’t great, but i remember finding it trite and reductive, and trivializing/capitalizing on the very real struggles of transmen for legitimacy and acceptance for the purposes of affirming tired old gender stereotypes.
she also wrote a really transphobic article for the advocate a long time ago (2000), which i can’t find online anywhere. it was called “cunning linguists.” it’s quoted here – http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-21978.html and i found some reader responses to it here: http://christielee.net/saen11.htm
the formatting on that last page is bru-tal.
The book, or a different essay?
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Re: “trivializing the very real struggles of transmen” — I disagree w/r/t the book — the book wasn’t about transmen or the experience of being a transman.
She didn’t write about how transmen fit in with men or attempt to uncover the struggles of transmen.
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Instead she was attempting to learn more about the life of a heterosexual man, and to do so, she wanted to present herself as a man-born-man.
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A good analogy would be … hm. Okay, if a normally thin woman decided to eat a ton of food all the time to gain weight and learn what it’s like to be a binge eater and associate with other binge eaters as a fellow binge eater, that would be trivializing and reductive. But if a normally thin woman decided to eat a ton of food to gain weight so she could blend in to a Fat Acceptance Conference and get the inside scoop on the relationships between these women, that would be journalism. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me.
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There were pieces of the book that were reductive towards men though, I agree. My agent, who gave the book to me (her husband’s agency represented Vincent), took issue with several of Vincent’s reductive descriptions of male behavior.
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Perhaps as a woman who isn’t trying to date or marry a straight man, I was able to indulge these tired stereotypes without wanting to throw the book at the wall, as my agent did and probs you did too.
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Most of what Vincent has written in the papers I have not liked, she wrote a really annoying thing about bisexuality once too.
remember when ty-ty put the fat suit on and went out on the street? that may have qualified as journalism, but was it ethical?
i found Vincent reductive in more ways than one, and yes, especially with respect to the essentialism that runs through the book (and the classism inherent in the way she makes conclusions about “men” in general based on the experience of living as a straight, white one). i think that the more glaring criticisms of the book are there.
and i agree that she didn’t set out explicitly to write about the experiences of FTMs, but her work (and again, i should really re-read before embarking on a critique of it) carries implications for FTMs and trans people, as any representation or discusson of gender and trans issues that makes it into mainstream consciousness necessarily does. while her book may not be *about* FtMs, it IS about a female-bodied person living as a man, and there are some pretty significant overlaps there if you ask me, whether they’re intentional or not.
I definitely think that Vincent treated the subject matter better than some others have (Emily Yoffe, anyone?), but ultimately I just think there’s something skeevy about someone in a position of privilege using that privilege to appropriate the experiences of marginalized people in order that they might reach their own epiphanies (in Vincent’s case, that men shake hands firmly and are given more respect as salespeople, pretty sure de Beauv covered that last little gem about 50 years ago thanks). it’s this “becoming the other” kind of journalism that i find voyeuristic (in Vincent’s case this is true in more ways than one) and at times downright unethical. while she’s not setting out to experience life as a member of a particular marginalized group (just the opposite), her lack of nuance and self-awareness has consequences for people whose very complicated everyday struggles are reduced by this piece to costuming and stereotypes.
Your comments led me to do a bit of research on Vincent. I agree, her articles are extremely bigoted. I think that this is the trans-related article you were talking about:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-05-22/nyc-life/welcome-to-the-transsexual-age/
Ugh.
oh no, that’s a whole other superfun article of hers to throw on the pile. i don’t i’d have as much of a problem with her book if she wasn’t such a ‘PHOBE.
“If you take seriously the idea that a person cannot be himself without the intervention of modern technology, then you have lost the notion of a self altogether.”
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Honestly, I agree with this. And that’s all I’ll say about that.
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I love the conversation happening about this!
I agree that one’s anatomy shouldn’t define their identity or sense of self, but it’s pretty insulting for Vincent to insinuate that a sex-change is no different that a boob job.
take THAT, people with glasses!
people with glasses? As in, people who need to fix a physical impairment?
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It just seems like the practice of changing our bodies to fit our psychology is very first-world of us — What are trans men and women in Ethiopia supposed to do? Do you only have the privilege of calling yourself a ‘man’ or a ‘women’ if you have the money to do so?
I agree that bcw’s glasses comparison is pretty nonsensical and that surgery doesn’t make you a man/woman, but I completely understand the desire to change your body as a way of expressing your sexual identity. I don’t look at transexuality as being a “disorder” like some people do, but I do understand the need to present yourself the way you feel in the inside and change the body that you were born with.
Your idea that changing bodies is first-world is totally intriguing, though. It’s definitely given me something to think about.
I don’t think of it as being a disorder at all, obvs — absolutely not.
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I’m speaking now directly w/r/t the choice to have sex-change operations, not to transpeople in general: I think I just wish we lived in a world with a more fluid concept of gender, i wish we lived in a world where we could abandon this binary that is reinforced by the concept that certain body parts are inexorably linked to certain behaviors.
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I wish we lived in a world where a human born with a vagina who feels more associated with traits and behavior that is typically considered “masculine” can act that way, be that person, be the “butchest butch they can be” as kit porter would say, wear men’s clothing, date who they want to date, and not feel that genitals need to be surgically altered within this binary system to express themselves in a more “masculine” way. What makes a vagina inherently inadequate for a person who feels “like a man,” you know? Especially when it is a first world thing, people in other countries don’t have the luxury of fitting body parts to minds (i mean, for starters a lot of ethiopians probs feel they aren’t meant to be living inside a starving, hungry body), they just have to find a way to just be a different kind of person — i mean how interesting! Having lady-parts but a man-mind? Does that make sense?
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Totally makes sense. I’m no believer in the gender binary and I’m sure that, in an ideal world, a good number of trans people would only want to express their gender identity without surgery. However, I can totally feel for someone who feels uncomfortable in their own skin and that they have these body parts that they feel contradict their inner selves. If someone feels that a part of them is completely foreign to their identity and causes them a great deal of emotional turmoil, I can completely understand them wanting to alter that. I also completely understand trans people who present themselves to the world as the gender they identify as and choose to not have surgery. It really just seems like different degrees of alteration work for everyone, just like there are infinite genders.
i agree with you w/r/t the book, i picked it up thinking it would be interesting and different and really it was disappointing. i remember being almost offended at how very simplistically men were portrayed – whether she really felt that way or she was trying to reach a mainstream audience i don’t know.
also, sure it wasn’t about her being a transman, it was about her being a man-born-man, but i couldn’t help feeling there was some kind of self-loathing transphobia (or whatever) inherent in having a total breakdown over it.. i mean, as someone who is not an expert on the limits of journalism i think there would still be the separation between your job and your personal private life??
oooh, i wanna read a f*cking book.
Thank you for the gravatar quip, I’m sorry I was a pain in the ass. That grey and white pic of me made me look washed out.
Ok, let’s see…crossing fingers.
I hate my life.
well I LOVE your gravatar!
Oh, thank you so much, it was worth all of the heartache and pain I suffered then getting it to work (too computer savvy, I am not)!
Hoodies 4eva
also! not that i want to defend sarah palin in any way…but i feel like if political figures violate the law simply by “using their official position for personal gain” then we’d have to investigate every elected official in the united states of america. it’s kind of a dumb law. and seriously vague.
gravatars and palin ftw.
Also, Montreal pride is the greatest! so sad about the funding.
omg are you from montreal too?! incredible.
me three! who wants poutine, i brought some.
gravatars!
this is really exciting, as i kept getting drunk and asking people how to do this and then forgetting what they said.
crystal – marketing people are the hipsters of the business world
#hipsterlesbianbusinessstudent
oh also, things marketing people love: “making up new acronyms.” hey brook11!
FSW, AQR, etc.
so excited about gravatar! also, must read that book