29 September, 2009
· Filed under general assholery, rape, things that scare me, whatthefuckery, world · Tagged Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alexander Payne, Alfonso Cuaron, assholes, Diane von Furstenburg, Hollywood, Julian Schnabel, Pedro Almodovar, petition, rape apologism, Roman Polanski, Stephen Frears, Tilda Swinton, Wes Anderson, Woody Allen
via ONTD
I’ll admit it. When I heard yesterday that there was a petition going around the film community to free Roman Polanski, I kind of laughed it off, like, “Haha…frivolous Hollywood ‘activism’ at its finest.” I only saw three names on that list, the biggest being Jonathan Demme, so I shrugged it off.
So imagine my absolute dismay to see what the petition actually looks like. I’m completely nauseated to see that some of my favorite directors have signed their names on that petition.
Pedro Almodovar? Julian Schnabel? Stephen Frears? Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu? Alfonso Cuaron? Wes Anderson? Wong Kar Waï? Woody Allen (okay, not too surprising)? Alexander Payne? Tilda Swinton??
Sniff.
Of course, the old boys’ club of Hollywood supports him ( Scorcese, Wim Wenders, etc.), as does Diane von Furstenburg and Salman Rushdie. It’s disgusting.
The petition:
We have learned the astonishing news of Roman Polanski’s arrest by the Swiss police on September 26th, upon arrival in Zurich (Switzerland) while on his way to a film festival where he was due to receive an award for his career in filmmaking.
His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.
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28 September, 2009
· Filed under general assholery, rape, say what?, whatthefuckery · Tagged assholes, Whoopi Goldberg, Melissa, Gilbert, The View, Roman Polanski, rape, rape-rape
Regarding The View’s discussion of Roman Polanski’s arrest, I really don’t know what’s worse:
- Whoopi insisting it wasn’t rape (pretty much all of video 1)
- Melissa and Whoopi trying to take some of the blame off Roman Polanski by placing it on the victim’s mother (2:52 on video 1)
- Melissa saying that “punishment at this point may be excessive” (2:00 on video 1)
- Melissa saying, “Does he have a daughter? Well then I think…he’s gonna be very mindful and watchful.” (1:10 on video 1)
- Whoopi insisting that it wasn’t “rape-rape” (the beginning of video 2).
- Whoopi insisting that, based on legal language, Polanski didn’t rape the victim (pretty much all of it)
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26 August, 2009
· Filed under US news, body politics, feminism, film, food, general assholery, general healthcare fuckery, homophobia, human rights, obama, racial politics, racism, rape, sexism, whatthefuckery, world · Tagged obama, Texas, Florida, adoption ban, King Coal, birthers, Tehran, indoctrination, Mark Lyttle, NASA, Caster Semenya, Julia Child, robots, alcoholism, Martha's Vineyard
25 July, 2009
· Filed under film, sexism, whatthefuckery · Tagged dick flicks disguised as chick flicks, Gerard Butler, Katherine Heigl, The Ugly Truth
Basically every feminist website is avoiding this one like the plague, but I actually went and saw The Ugly Truth opening night. With my parents. Don’t ask.
The movie poster pretty much sums it up for you:
Abby (Heigl) is a producer at a floundering television network. Like all smart, beautiful career women, she’s also an overbearing cat lady with zero romantic prowess who hasn’t gotten laid in a year. Her assistant is even more pitiful, living vicariously through Abby’s occasional interrogations dates since she has no chance of ever finding a man of her own. As for Abby, her dream man is smart, handsome, well off, loves wine, and likes dogs, but prefers cats (she’s a cat lady, remember?).
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12 July, 2009
· Filed under body politics, general government fuckery, whatthefuckery · Tagged 10 Things I Hate About You, childhood obesity, Fresh Prince, health education, physical education, Robert Scott, sex education, TEA, Texas, Texas Education Agency
In this week’s news roundup, I mentioned that Texas will no longer require Health Education in its pubic schools, and I just wanted to expand on that a little more.
First, some background:
A new law went into effect requiring that students to take 6 elective courses, up from the 3.5 that were previously required. Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott then dropped the Health Education requirement in order to give students more flexibility in choosing their electives. He also dropped 1 semester of the PE requirement and 2 semesters of the Technology requirement for the Recommended high school programs.
There are 3 high school graduation tracks in Texas:
- Minimum Program
- Recommended Program
- DAP (Distinguished Achievement; formerly known as the Honors Program)
The majority of students will graduate under the Recommended, which means that the majority of Texas high school now don’t have to take an extra semester of PE, and can now go through high school without ever setting foot in a technology class, since all that was required was 1 full credit (2 semesters) of technology. Since pretty much everything is technology-based nowadays, what the hell is the TEA thinking?
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