Monthly Archives: March 2010

Interweb

Everybody’s Crazy for the Weekend!: Doll Warrior and “This American Life” (Not Really)

Friday’s normally the day for YouTubery Friday (because, duh), but this week I haven’t stumbled across anything overtly awesome in the moving picture vein. I did, however, find a couple of items that put the “crazy” in *that weird index-finger-flapping-your-lips crazy noise*.

One of my brothers works in the fabulous world of film production. There are awesome, glamorous aspects of this job, of course. Like any other job, there are also bad things about it. In the latter category: the sheer amount of kookadooks who seek you out because their Crazy Voice must be heard. It may be hard to believe, but the prospect of fame occasionally attracts unhinged persons. The kind who write pitches that start out THE MAGIC JESUS SPACESHIP IN MY BRAIN HAS THE BEST IDEA FOR A SCRIPT EVAR!!1! I’VE WRITTEN IT ON THIS KNIFE I’M HOLDING AGAINST YOUR THROAT!

Earlier this week, my brother told me he received a movie pitch via fax (always a good sign; 99 percent of all faxes are sent by robots or the criminally insane). He sent me a link for this movie pitch for something called Doll Warrior, without comment. Because really, what else can you say? Other than several variations on WTF?!!!, which is what we did for the next hour.

Finally, I received this email from an email address at “This American Life”. Something tells me it’s not actually from the fabled NPR show. Keep in mind, this is just a small chunk of a very, very long rant that doesn’t even begin to make sense. Brevity and crazy-ity don’t often go hand in hand.

tal.jpg

Parental Guidance

The Terrifying Brangelina Boy-Making Machine!

lifenstyle.jpgA tweet by Onion scribe/artiste Maria Schneider (aka @writtennoise, auteur of Pathetic Geek Stories) pointed me to this hideous cover of a recent issue of Life and Style. As you can see, it’s a “before-and-after” shot of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s daughter, Shiloh. In the before pic, she looks like a typical little girl. In the after shot, she has short hair and is wearing a cardigan. The cover screams WHY IS ANGELINA TURNING SHILOH INTO A BOY? and laments the fact that Shiloh has “No girlie things”! “IS IT HARMING THE 3-YEAR-OLD?” ZOMG!

Despite being a magazine aimed at a largely female audience, this publication has forgotten one very important thing: You can’t force a three-year-old girl what to wear anything she doesn’t want to. Trust me. I am legally required to clothe a three-year-old girl, and I know that they have no qualms about letting you know when they’re unhappy with your choice of outfit for the day (or anything else, for that matter).

At this young age, kids simply like what they like. It has very little to do with the peer pressures that emerge later. For whatever reason, Shiloh likes dressing this way now. The chances of her wanting to dress this way for the rest of her life are about as slim as her watching Dora the Explorer when she’s in college. How many things do you do/like now that you liked/did when you were three? And if she does grow up to wear “boy” clothing, it’s because she wants to, not because Crazy Angelina Jolie “made” her that way.

When I found The Wife and I were having a daughter, one of the first things I thought (other than PANIC) was, “I’m not gonna have any of that princess crap in my house!” Because I associated the whole Princess Phenomenon with a mindless philosophy of entitlement and passivity that’s resolutely anti-feminist.

But somewhere along the line, she got exposed to Princess Stuff, and she likes it. She’s not super into it, like she wears a tiara to day care, but she does like it. So she has some princess-y toys and some princess-y outfits, and the world has continued spinning on its axis. Hopefully, if I raise her right, she won’t turn out to be a Kardashian.

She also likes some non-girly stuff, too. She often makes me play Spider-Man–of course, I always have to be Venom and get wrapped up in her webs and carted off to jail (which greatly resembles our bathroom). As I type this, she’s watching an X-Men cartoon, which she asked to see (screamed, actually). Her love of these things has nothing to do with me. I have never forced her to watch any of them. I learned very early on that when you force a kid to watch something, 99 times out of 100 they will hate it.

Even so, every now and then, she will say of something–even if it’s something she likes, like Spider-Man–“that’s for boys!” As if she shouldn’t watch/play with it. I have no idea where she gets this idea from. She certainly doesn’t get it in our house.

But she has to leave our house sometime. And when I see things like the garbage linked above, I realize she must just get it from the air, living in a world that tells her from infancy that there are certain things she can’t like or do or think or be. I could have kept every item of princess-iana out her hands and sight, and she’d still be exposed to caveman attitudes like this.

Thanks, world.

Baseball, Politics Schmolitics

Jim Bunning’s Heartless Bastard Streak Ends

bunning.jpgWASHINGTON, D.C.–Senator Jim Bunning saw his impressive streak of heartless bastardry end at just over five days, a new legislative record, late Tuesday night. Since last Thursday, the Republican from Kentucky had single-handedly held up legislation that would extend unemployment benefits to millions of Americans. The streak was made even more remarkable by Bunning’s age, and the fact that he did it for no obvious reason other than to be a colossal prick.

The exhausted congressman told reporters in the Senate locker room, “I think I even surprised myself for a while there,” shortly before flipping the bird to each one of them individually.

“I think some of us questioned his stamina,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner. “After all, Jim’s no spring chicken. But to be that much of a cruel, insensitive jerkoff for that long…wow, I think I’d have trouble doing that.”

The previous record of consecutive prickitude was held by President William Howard Taft, who refused to let relatives of victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire bury their family members for four full days. “I shall not reward these insolent whelps for leaving their appointed posts before nine hours of work, fire or no fire,” Taft said.

While Bunning’s streak did not cause quite as much misery, it did last for a longer period of time and show a similarly callous disregard for human life. For the purposes of legislative records, a stretch of dickery can’t simply be waged for mere personal reasons, such as greed or ambition. The pure assholery must have no seeming purpose except to promote suffering.

Before his career in public service, Bunning was a major league pitcher whose exploits on the mound earned him a plaque in Cooperstown. He was best known for pitching a perfect game in 1964, which he later credited to a lucky glove made of orphan skin and the tears of Vietnamese refugees.