Russ, Joanna - What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism

I am not even sure how to start writing about this book; there is so much in it and so much to think about for me.

As a caveat, I add that I am woefully undereducated in Feminism 101, Anti-Racism 101 and Feminist Women of Color 101, and pretty much completely uneducated in Class 101, so I may very well be flailing over what is common knowledge for most people.

Russ first looks at the state of feminism today ("today" roughly being around the 80s, when she was writing the book) and noting the appropriation of "feminism" to mean "anything related to women" or "insane radical bra-burning blahblah you know the stereotypes." She makes a pretty convincing argument for separatism, although she also points out later on that this means separating women of color from allies against racism or lesbians from allies against heterosexism, which I think are excellent points. I'm not sure if she ever goes back to point out that excluding male-to-female transgendered people via female separatism is a way of sticking with binary gender and also a judgment on mtfs as "not real women;" I wish she had, because I had a problem with that.

I didn't take that many notes in the early chapters; they cover Russ' frustration with critical theory via psychoanalysis, the misogyny of Freud, and other issues. This isn't to say they weren't thought-provoking; they were, but I have been thinking about feminism for longer than I have been thinking about race or class, so the territory was more familiar.

But then she goes into class and feminism, which I found very interesting and thought-provoking. Alas, I have no really good comments about this section because I feel like I need to read up more.

The part of What Are We Fighting For? that affected me most was the final section, in which Russ adds race to the picture.

Feminism has and always will be a huge part of how I view the world, but I've often felt excluded from it, even when I wasn't able to articulate that exclusion or my distance from it. And much of that exclusion has been because of race. And so, it was so good to have Russ address that, so much so that I nearly cried through the chapters that followed.

This is, by the way, not to credit Russ as the sole proponent of women of color; she states very clearly that she is not and that she has often gotten in the way of women of color, to her shame. And I have encountered these ideas before, even though I still need to read more women of color. But because I didn't grow up reading women of color, because I am only finding them now, I suspect any acknowledgement of this intersection will affect me a lot for a long time to come.

( Quotes )

And it's not just the intersection of race and gender and class, it is life in that intersection, in all those intersections, when any one movement -- be it anti-racism or feminism or socialism or anti-imperialism or queer pride -- does not work because it means obscuring yet another part of your identity. It is not being able to pick an oppression over another, not ever being able to forget that you are marginal not just among the majority culture of the US, but also in the smaller groups that you have chosen for yourself. And while I think the "more oppressed than thou" game is stupid and divisive, I think it is also important to recognize when someone is dealing with more than one axis of oppression.

Also, Audre Lorde says it much, much better than me.

Anyway, highly recommended, and I need a copy for myself.

McCloud, Scott - Reinventing Comics

Out of McCloud's three books on comics (the other two being Understanding Comics and Making Comics), this is the weakest. This is largely because this is McCloud's book on the future of comics, and it was published in 2000.

The book consists of two distinct halves, the first concentrating on the future of comics themselves -- the industry, the readers, expansion, etc., and the second concentrating on how the digital revolution will affect comics. I think the first still has a lot of relevant information in it, despite the fact that it's now seven years later. McCloud clearly has a lot of experience in comics and in the industry, and his manifesto of sorts still resonates with me (despite my, uh, knowing not much at all about the comics industry). While some of it is now obsolete or somewhat funny, given the current manga trend, it's nowhere near as obsolete as the second half on computers and comics.

Alas, the second part just had me alternately giggling or scanning over pages. It is not really his fault that he wrote it just before the first big internet boom crash, or that things in that industry change so fast that books from last year are already out of date. But there you go. Also, it reads like every other book about the internet and "ZOMG THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION!" written. I mean, I would be interested to see McCloud's look back on things that have changed -- PayPal and the popularity of many webcomics and blogs and the entire "long tail" theory are versions of what he predicted, but I'd love more concrete details on how they have changed the comic industry. But no more predictions, because they just make me laugh.

The first part, though, would have benefitted from even more detail; I think the book as a whole would have been better if it had all been the first part. McCloud details 12 areas in which comics could improve in, some of them being gender representation, minority representation, more genres, focus on the writing, focus on the art, industry revolution, and etc. Sadly, there are only a few pages dedicated to each of these twelve areas. And while I know he only wanted to give a jumping-off point for people, there could be whole books written about each of them.

Also, (you all knew this was coming up) while I was glad that he did at least notice the disparity in gender and POC representation in the content of comics and the comic industry, the whole thing gets about four pages. Argh. I mean, he thankfully knows enough to acknowledge that it's not as easy as saying, "Well, it's just because we don't see enough comics with women/POC" and he acknowledges sexism and racism as institutions. But I don't think he goes far enough to point out that increasing representation takes a lot of work and focus; it's not something that just happens. Granted, it is the same for broadening genre representation, but since I personally find that combating sexism and racism in comics is about, oh, say, eleventy billion times more important to me than genre representation (I can get that elsewhere), I am just going to harp on that point.

Also also, I laughed and laughed because we did get a lot of the advances he was asking for, only with manga. Alas, the American comics industry has yet to get a clue, from my POV. This is, by the way, not to say that manga solves everything, because manga also needs to improve in the same twelve areas that McCloud pointed out for comics. It's just that I feel like the manga industry keeps growing here, so the potential to hit upon those improvements is larger, as opposed to the comics industry, which has yet to win me back. (Comics, I used to love you a lot, but I feel like you keep slapping me in the face over and over and over. At least manga wants me, even if it is only for my money.)

Anyway, it was an interesting read, though flawed, and I so desperately want McCloud to write something on manga.

Hot Fuzz

OMG Hot Fuzz love!

Also, trailer love! Apparently Tom Quinn is now a suburban guy at a funeral!

Also, sophia_helix! Bernard! Bernard in a movie trailer OMG! Except I cannot actually see him as anything else except Bernard going, "$(%*&$%)!!!!" and chucking toast at the ceiling.

ETA: I nearly squealed when I saw the Viz media logo, except I was with an old co-worker. I still flailed a little though, because he is also a geek, just not an anime/manga one. I can't believe I saw a trailer for the Naruto movie in theaters!

The best part was when the kids sitting behind us whispered loudly, "Naruto!" "No man, it's gonna suck! It's dubbed!"

I laughed and elbowed my co-worker and said, "My tribe is taking over the world!"

I adored Hot Fuzz even more that Shaun of the Dead, largely because I hate horror movies and I hate horror movies and... I hate horror movies (I liked SotD, except the parts when it got too horror movie). And I grew up on stupid action movies -- like, not just things like Bad Boys and every movie Stallone ever made that wasn't Rocky, but every bad action movie ever played on Taiwan HBO, because my dad would watch all of them. Trust me. There were a lot of bad action movies on Taiwan HBO.

The movie started a little slow for me, particularly the bits in which it kept morphing into a horror movie (have I mentioned I hate horror?), and the policeman-in-small-town was played a wee bit too straight. But I adored the Nick-Danny relationship, particularly the completely non-subtle date signifiers ("Sooo... would you like to come in for coffee?") and all the buddy/buddy cop stuff. The monkey! Danny's earnest questions!

And when the giant shootout at the end came, I nearly fell out of my seat laughing. Because dude! Action movie! Times a thousand! The only thing they forgot was a car chase that crashed into a random sidewalk cafe and a fruit cart!

( Spoilers )

I am somewhat surprised that I am so fond of the action genre, as I never watch action movies nowadays, but wow, apparently I still know every single trope, and I loved every single time the movie hit them.

In conclusion: SWAN!