As all zombologists know, Shaun of the Dead is absolutely fabulous. What more can I say? Well, I could say a lot more but I'm only going to say a wee bit.
Shaun of the Dead mixes up genres like an orgy mixes up bodies. A how-to-survive tragicomic thread binds it all together but it is a mash-up of romantic comedy, horror, drama, comedy (it's different, people!), social commentary, family drama (again, it's different)...pretty much everything! And it doesn't just mix up the genres, it alternates between and combines them brilliantly.
But does Shaun of the Dead help advance research in the field of zombology? Well, it does address an academic question that has eluded distinguished zombologists for aeons. How do zombies know the difference between fellow undead and living food?
Zombies are animated corpses. Yes, it's confusing. But what do they know? How do they know it? What is the basis for their action? Even if it is all instinctual, what then is the trigger? Is there a special zombie sense?
How does Shaun of the Dead address this question? It reveals the stunning truth in one of the funniest scenes in the film: to get through a horde of zombies to the Winchester, Shaun et al decide to trick the undead by imitating them. Hilarious! Absurd! Tres bon!
Now we know. Zombies limited senses track movement. If it doesn't lurch and clod about in a somnambulistic way and yet is shaped in vaguely hominid form--IT IS FOOD!!!
So practice up, my dark siblings. Do the zombie walk. Do the zombie dance. Get ready for the zombie apocalypse.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The Value of Life: Don Marquis and Abortion
Philosophy is often pretty pointless. We do what we do because we just do it. No real reason. No deep thought involved. Indeed, when we do think about it we usually end up drunk trying to stop thinking about it.
Don Marquis' pro-life argument shows us why philosophy goes nowhere--and worse. Marquis is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas. He wants to make a secular case against abortion. So he needs to show what it is about abortion that is so fucking wrong.
Marquis thinks he's found it in this: '[w]hat makes killing wrong is...its effect on the victim. The loss of one's life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. The loss of one's life deprives us of all the experiences, activities, projects and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future. Therefore, killing someone is wrong, primarily, because the killing inflicts (one of) the greatest possible losses on the victim.' And what is good for the goose and gander is good for the gosling, too. Abortion kills a fetus which also has a future of value; and so, because it takes away this valuable future it is also wrong. Seems airtight, non? Marquis thinks so.
The problem is his argument unravels once we look at his fundamental assumption. Marquis says: 'What makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his...future.' Yes, on the face. Well, this facial doesn't stick.
Marquis assumes that life is good and valuable--and that this fact doesn't need to be proven or defended. What if he is wrong?
Pessimists like Arthur Schopenhauer, Julius Bahnsen, Peter Wessel Zapffe and Thomas Ligotti all argue that life is horrible, meaningless and painful. What if they are right? What does that do to arguments about 'valuable futures' and such?
So Don, what if life isn't worth living? What if it would have been better to have never been born?
Need I say more? Drink up me hearties!
Don Marquis' pro-life argument shows us why philosophy goes nowhere--and worse. Marquis is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas. He wants to make a secular case against abortion. So he needs to show what it is about abortion that is so fucking wrong.
Marquis thinks he's found it in this: '[w]hat makes killing wrong is...its effect on the victim. The loss of one's life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. The loss of one's life deprives us of all the experiences, activities, projects and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future. Therefore, killing someone is wrong, primarily, because the killing inflicts (one of) the greatest possible losses on the victim.' And what is good for the goose and gander is good for the gosling, too. Abortion kills a fetus which also has a future of value; and so, because it takes away this valuable future it is also wrong. Seems airtight, non? Marquis thinks so.
The problem is his argument unravels once we look at his fundamental assumption. Marquis says: 'What makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his...future.' Yes, on the face. Well, this facial doesn't stick.
Marquis assumes that life is good and valuable--and that this fact doesn't need to be proven or defended. What if he is wrong?
Pessimists like Arthur Schopenhauer, Julius Bahnsen, Peter Wessel Zapffe and Thomas Ligotti all argue that life is horrible, meaningless and painful. What if they are right? What does that do to arguments about 'valuable futures' and such?
So Don, what if life isn't worth living? What if it would have been better to have never been born?
Need I say more? Drink up me hearties!
Bent, not straight--part one
Sexual orientation isn't innate nor is it fixed but that doesn't make it a choice. I can't decide to like bois today and grrls tomorrow. Our sexual orientation may change but we can't switch from one side to the other.
I like grrls. I can't help it. All the feminine gender signifiers--boobs, curves, soft features--attract me. I'm the product of a heteronormative society where all nascent bodily reactions are directed toward the proper object: the opposite sex. So, what's a poor boi to do?
Well, I identify as hetero but that doesn't mean I have to be straight. I'm bent, not straight.
I don't like that word. Straight doesn't apply to me because it suggests, well, not queer. Straight belongs to the system of heterosexuality because it implies 'normal' and conformist. And it is used that way both by proponents and detractors.
If you're straight, you can't be queer because there's nothing weird, different or othering about you. Straight is about work, elections, savings accounts, minivans, family and mortgages. What could be less radical?
So let's bend it. Make it different. Make it messy, muddled and murky. You don't have to be straight to be hetero.
A bent approach is ready to break down and re-form heterosexuality. Equality is its aim; and it pursues it through the commingling of the sexes.
Note: I've decided to break this post up because it started getting too large. I'll post the other parts over the next week or so.
I like grrls. I can't help it. All the feminine gender signifiers--boobs, curves, soft features--attract me. I'm the product of a heteronormative society where all nascent bodily reactions are directed toward the proper object: the opposite sex. So, what's a poor boi to do?
Well, I identify as hetero but that doesn't mean I have to be straight. I'm bent, not straight.
I don't like that word. Straight doesn't apply to me because it suggests, well, not queer. Straight belongs to the system of heterosexuality because it implies 'normal' and conformist. And it is used that way both by proponents and detractors.
If you're straight, you can't be queer because there's nothing weird, different or othering about you. Straight is about work, elections, savings accounts, minivans, family and mortgages. What could be less radical?
So let's bend it. Make it different. Make it messy, muddled and murky. You don't have to be straight to be hetero.
A bent approach is ready to break down and re-form heterosexuality. Equality is its aim; and it pursues it through the commingling of the sexes.
Note: I've decided to break this post up because it started getting too large. I'll post the other parts over the next week or so.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
My dinner with zombie
Last night, a few friends came over and we had a zombie dinner. The whole idea was to cook and consume foods like those zombies would eat. No, human meat was not on the menu...yet.
We could only approximate zombie food. Part ironic. Part iconic. Part outright gross. Part marvelous.
Here's the menu for your delectation and desecration:
I'm hoping we'll get another blog together to share recipes and ideas, so that's all for now. I'll try to get some pics up in a bit as well.
Live Goth. Eat Goth. My pretties.
We could only approximate zombie food. Part ironic. Part iconic. Part outright gross. Part marvelous.
Here's the menu for your delectation and desecration:
- Cosmopolitans for Carl Sagan Day with red raspberry agar blood clots.
- Bloody Marys. The favourite drink of our undead siblings.
- Vampire Cocktails. Yes, wrong undead but bloody fabulous: 1 1/2 oz vodka, 1/2 oz Chambord, and top up an old-fashioned with cranberry juice.
- Pina colada agar noodles, strawberries and cream mixed together to look like intestines with blood clots and bile. Bloody fantastic!
- Lychee fruit with black grapes served in raspberry or blueberry jello. Otherwise known as eyeballs in decomposing body fluid.
- Pork fillets in oatmeal crisp--or shins emerging from the grave.
- Stewed tripe. Yes, that's right, stewed tripe. Need I say more? It is actually delicious with fennel seeds. The licorice flavour compliments it.
- Liver. You know zombies are into organ meat. Not an outrageous menu item but by far the least enjoyable. I just can't stomach it. Unlike tripe.
- Spaghetti squash with cranberries, thyme and butter. Kind of repeated the intestines with blood clot theme but zombies have rather predictable eating habits, don't they?
I'm hoping we'll get another blog together to share recipes and ideas, so that's all for now. I'll try to get some pics up in a bit as well.
Live Goth. Eat Goth. My pretties.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Tighty Whitie
Apparently, black isn't pale enough for real Goth. Via the Ultimate Goth Guide comes this article on racism and black Goths.
That Goth is raced is not surprising. That Goth subculture would contain so many people with dumbass racist ideas about Goth identity is more than a little dismaying. But then that's how racism works in white society. It's the constant undercurrent working beneath the polite appearances. Then something gets caught and pulled under to reveal just how racist the entire system actually is. And we catch a glimpse of how whiteness is enforced.
Goth is very white. That's how it was formed. And if Goths only see whiteness then that becomes a part of the identity. It's just the norm. The way things are. That's how whiteness works. Other people just can't do it right. They can't act white. It's something ineffable that makes it impossible to copy. That's how it excludes.
Because there is no 'sense' to it, it does make it easy to criticize, mock and ridicule. Saying it, however, doesn't change it. There's too much invested in racism for it to disappear with recognition and denunciation. It is a part of being white. We all know it. We catch those horrible thoughts, the racist imp of the perverse, all the time; and we control the monster.
But it takes a lot of work; and our identities are not our own. They lie outside us; and that's the part we have to negotiate and choreograph with other people. That's where subculture comes in as a potentially transformative institution. We can redefine and redeploy our collective identities.
Let's have a little imagination, tighty whities! We need to think and act and live beyond the pale into the dark future.
Cybergoth is certainly promising. It points the way to the perfect perky gloomth. Androgyny of both genders coupled with a trans-racist vision that doesn't dismiss or downplay racial identities but provides methods and space for experimenting with and deconstructing race. Blacks, whites and other races can then pull it off together in different, twisted and dystopian performances.
Not utopian. Dystopian because it's never finished. It is conflicted and conflicting. Based on problems and problematizing. And intensifying trouble. To make it hard for others and for ourselves.
Come on, gothlings. We can all play together. People of all races are welcome for a little dead time.
That Goth is raced is not surprising. That Goth subculture would contain so many people with dumbass racist ideas about Goth identity is more than a little dismaying. But then that's how racism works in white society. It's the constant undercurrent working beneath the polite appearances. Then something gets caught and pulled under to reveal just how racist the entire system actually is. And we catch a glimpse of how whiteness is enforced.
Goth is very white. That's how it was formed. And if Goths only see whiteness then that becomes a part of the identity. It's just the norm. The way things are. That's how whiteness works. Other people just can't do it right. They can't act white. It's something ineffable that makes it impossible to copy. That's how it excludes.
Because there is no 'sense' to it, it does make it easy to criticize, mock and ridicule. Saying it, however, doesn't change it. There's too much invested in racism for it to disappear with recognition and denunciation. It is a part of being white. We all know it. We catch those horrible thoughts, the racist imp of the perverse, all the time; and we control the monster.
But it takes a lot of work; and our identities are not our own. They lie outside us; and that's the part we have to negotiate and choreograph with other people. That's where subculture comes in as a potentially transformative institution. We can redefine and redeploy our collective identities.
Let's have a little imagination, tighty whities! We need to think and act and live beyond the pale into the dark future.
Cybergoth is certainly promising. It points the way to the perfect perky gloomth. Androgyny of both genders coupled with a trans-racist vision that doesn't dismiss or downplay racial identities but provides methods and space for experimenting with and deconstructing race. Blacks, whites and other races can then pull it off together in different, twisted and dystopian performances.
Not utopian. Dystopian because it's never finished. It is conflicted and conflicting. Based on problems and problematizing. And intensifying trouble. To make it hard for others and for ourselves.
Come on, gothlings. We can all play together. People of all races are welcome for a little dead time.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Porn and the tools of oppression
Judith Butler troubles gender and feminism in Gender Trouble. She asks, who is a woman? What is a woman? And, who is the subject of feminism?
Gender haunts feminism in paradoxical ways. A critical theory that challenges gender, strangely also normalizes and reinforces gender. Woman are oppressed. We all know that men do the oppressing. Feminism is about liberating women. We all know who women are. It is obvious; and in the worst cases MTFs need not apply. Not all feminism does this but certainly the most popular and mainstream forms do.
An extreme example of this form of feminism is "Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: 'Pleasure under Patriarchy,'" by Catherine A. MacKinnon. According to MacKinnon's one-dimensional account of porn, women are victimized by porn even when their own bodies betray them and they get wet watching it. For men though, porn is sex: 'What do men want? Pornography provides an answer. Pornography permits men to have whatever they want sexually...It connects the centrality of visual objectification to both male sexual arousal and male models of knowledge and verification, connecting objectivity with objectification. It shows how men see the world, how in seeing it they access and possess it, and how this is an act of dominance over it. It shows what men want and gives it to them .'
So porn is the essence of masculinity: 'No pornography, no male sexuality.' And the essence of porn is this truth: 'Women are in pornography to be violated and taken, men to violate and take them.'
Ok, maybe this is internally consistent but then what about this statement on the role of porn: 'Pornography is a means through which sexuality is socially constructed, a site of construction, a domain of exercise. It constructs women as things for sexual use and constructs its consumers to desperately want women to desperately want possession and cruelty and dehumanization. Inequality itself, subjection itself, hierarchy itself, objectification itself, with self-determination ecstatically relinquished, is the apparent content of women's sexual desire and desirability.'
Now, it is hard to read this whole essay by MacKinnon as anything but a diatribe against men and male sexuality. That is a problem not because it is anti-male but because it is so obviously discriminatory. MacKinnon doesn't care what porn does to men, she is only interested in women. She takes a constructionist view of women's sexuality but then seems to naturalize male sexuality--how else do we explain her point that porn is sex for men? Without then going to how it constructs male sexuality in an equally oppressive way?
MacKinnon told us that sex is constructed. Doesn't that mean for both sexes? Porn does men as much as it does women. It is clearly part of the gendering process.
If men are made as much as women are, then men are not identical with the system of gender oppression. 'Compulsory heterosexuality' (in Adrienne Rich's terms) is not just a negative regime for women. Men are also subject to it. Feminism, however, often sees men--all men--as oppressors or as the tools of oppression. But what if that is part of the mystique of the regime? It blinds both men and women to what is actually happening: men are constructed in a certain way, so that they can be used as the tools of oppression.
Think about the porn you've watched recently--and I know you have!!! What does it tell us about gender? Recall all that humping and pumping and sucking and fisting and licking and rubbing in pose after pose like a fucking circus act of fucking. What was all that contortionist display about, really?
Porn is not about pleasure--even male pleasure. It is about performance, endurance and gymnastics. The sexual positions used in porn are about as much fun as yoga. Porn is a grueling extreme sport; and one of its roles is to discipline men as much as women. It is about setting men up for failure and training them in sexual and sex-role anxiety and sexual overcompensation.
Can you stuff her until she is raw and sore? Can you spread her to the breaking point? Can you hold back until she begs for it to end in a massive cascade of cum across her face? If you can't, then you aren't a real man. But we've got an app for that. We can help you learn how to do it like a man. We can help you make up for any of your manly deficiencies.
Porn presents the cartoon version of manliness. But for men, it is a serious form of indoctrination into the right way to do masculinity, the right way to act and fuck and love--the right way to treat the other.
Porn oppresses men as much as women. It isn't male sexuality that is behind porn. It helps construct male sexuality in a particular and negative way.
So if men are not inherently the oppressors but only the fabricated tools of oppression, then maybe they can be re-tooled. And maybe feminism can be part of the re-tooling process.
How is one of the many things we'll look at, my pretties.
Gender haunts feminism in paradoxical ways. A critical theory that challenges gender, strangely also normalizes and reinforces gender. Woman are oppressed. We all know that men do the oppressing. Feminism is about liberating women. We all know who women are. It is obvious; and in the worst cases MTFs need not apply. Not all feminism does this but certainly the most popular and mainstream forms do.
An extreme example of this form of feminism is "Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: 'Pleasure under Patriarchy,'" by Catherine A. MacKinnon. According to MacKinnon's one-dimensional account of porn, women are victimized by porn even when their own bodies betray them and they get wet watching it. For men though, porn is sex: 'What do men want? Pornography provides an answer. Pornography permits men to have whatever they want sexually...It connects the centrality of visual objectification to both male sexual arousal and male models of knowledge and verification, connecting objectivity with objectification. It shows how men see the world, how in seeing it they access and possess it, and how this is an act of dominance over it. It shows what men want and gives it to them .'
So porn is the essence of masculinity: 'No pornography, no male sexuality.' And the essence of porn is this truth: 'Women are in pornography to be violated and taken, men to violate and take them.'
Ok, maybe this is internally consistent but then what about this statement on the role of porn: 'Pornography is a means through which sexuality is socially constructed, a site of construction, a domain of exercise. It constructs women as things for sexual use and constructs its consumers to desperately want women to desperately want possession and cruelty and dehumanization. Inequality itself, subjection itself, hierarchy itself, objectification itself, with self-determination ecstatically relinquished, is the apparent content of women's sexual desire and desirability.'
Now, it is hard to read this whole essay by MacKinnon as anything but a diatribe against men and male sexuality. That is a problem not because it is anti-male but because it is so obviously discriminatory. MacKinnon doesn't care what porn does to men, she is only interested in women. She takes a constructionist view of women's sexuality but then seems to naturalize male sexuality--how else do we explain her point that porn is sex for men? Without then going to how it constructs male sexuality in an equally oppressive way?
MacKinnon told us that sex is constructed. Doesn't that mean for both sexes? Porn does men as much as it does women. It is clearly part of the gendering process.
If men are made as much as women are, then men are not identical with the system of gender oppression. 'Compulsory heterosexuality' (in Adrienne Rich's terms) is not just a negative regime for women. Men are also subject to it. Feminism, however, often sees men--all men--as oppressors or as the tools of oppression. But what if that is part of the mystique of the regime? It blinds both men and women to what is actually happening: men are constructed in a certain way, so that they can be used as the tools of oppression.
Think about the porn you've watched recently--and I know you have!!! What does it tell us about gender? Recall all that humping and pumping and sucking and fisting and licking and rubbing in pose after pose like a fucking circus act of fucking. What was all that contortionist display about, really?
Porn is not about pleasure--even male pleasure. It is about performance, endurance and gymnastics. The sexual positions used in porn are about as much fun as yoga. Porn is a grueling extreme sport; and one of its roles is to discipline men as much as women. It is about setting men up for failure and training them in sexual and sex-role anxiety and sexual overcompensation.
Can you stuff her until she is raw and sore? Can you spread her to the breaking point? Can you hold back until she begs for it to end in a massive cascade of cum across her face? If you can't, then you aren't a real man. But we've got an app for that. We can help you learn how to do it like a man. We can help you make up for any of your manly deficiencies.
Porn presents the cartoon version of manliness. But for men, it is a serious form of indoctrination into the right way to do masculinity, the right way to act and fuck and love--the right way to treat the other.
Porn oppresses men as much as women. It isn't male sexuality that is behind porn. It helps construct male sexuality in a particular and negative way.
So if men are not inherently the oppressors but only the fabricated tools of oppression, then maybe they can be re-tooled. And maybe feminism can be part of the re-tooling process.
How is one of the many things we'll look at, my pretties.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
JesusWeenie Watch
A new Mississippi personhood bill is part of the Christian fundamentalist war on women, freedom and family planning. But thank gawd women don't have to wear them hijabs. That makes all the difference!
Seriously, these harsh Mississippi laws reveal the raw naked end times of the anti-choice movement. And we should be calling it that--the anti-choice movement. That is exactly what it is about. Taking choice, taking freedom, taking equality away from men and women as part of a Christian fundie regime. Any assault then, any assault on reproductive rights, no matter how seemingly reasonable, is part of this regime of Christian fundamentalist repression and shares these absolute and uncompromising anti-choice goals.
Think of that, siblings. It makes The Handmaid's Tale look like a Christian theme park. That is what they want. That is what it is all about. Not saving little fetuses. Not protecting life. But destroying lives. Controlling lives. Dictating every single fucking detail of life. It's in Exodus, it's in Deutoronomy, it's in Leviticus, people!!!
Now, we know what we are fighting against. We know what we are fighting for. Now, we gotta fight!
Seriously, these harsh Mississippi laws reveal the raw naked end times of the anti-choice movement. And we should be calling it that--the anti-choice movement. That is exactly what it is about. Taking choice, taking freedom, taking equality away from men and women as part of a Christian fundie regime. Any assault then, any assault on reproductive rights, no matter how seemingly reasonable, is part of this regime of Christian fundamentalist repression and shares these absolute and uncompromising anti-choice goals.
Think of that, siblings. It makes The Handmaid's Tale look like a Christian theme park. That is what they want. That is what it is all about. Not saving little fetuses. Not protecting life. But destroying lives. Controlling lives. Dictating every single fucking detail of life. It's in Exodus, it's in Deutoronomy, it's in Leviticus, people!!!
Now, we know what we are fighting against. We know what we are fighting for. Now, we gotta fight!
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