Too Long To Tweet

I saw *a* boob….

I had pretty low expectations for Seth MacFarlane- ok, I predicted he would be worse than Franco-Hathaway- but I have to admit that in terms of fulfilling the role of Oscar host- standing up and keeping the show moving- he was competent. In terms of the content of his delivery, though, he was banal. What has puzzled me the most about the during-and-post-show commentary were the descriptions of his humor as “edgy.” 

This is 2013, y’all. Jokes about Jews controlling Hollywood, “oh my god you might think I am gay! Tee hee,” older actors dating younger women and actresses starving themselves are not cutting edge. I was reminded of nothing so much as when my son Nathan discovered the word “butt” at age 3, and stood in the living room, shaking his rear and singing “butt butt butt butt butt” over and over. It was that level of envelope-pushing. (Except to be honest Nathan was much funnier.)

However, just because anti-Semitism, homophobia and misogyny are nothing new doesn’t mean they’re okay, either, and that was what left such a bad taste in my mouth. “We Saw Your Boobs?” Really? These women are here because they are being honored for their work- years and years of incredibly hard work and amazing performances, and we’re going to reduce them to boobs? 

I thought of 9 year old Quvenzhane Wallis then, and wondered if she noticed. If she noticed that even if someday she plays a character who is being raped, for pete’s sake, some idiot is taking note of the exact time stamp because, hey, boobs. If she noticed that even if someday she is as accomplished as Meryl Streep, the Academy may still think reducing her to “boooooobs” is an appropriate accolade. 

How could she not notice? MacFarlane made sure to point out exactly how long was left until she would begin to be boob-tracking-worthy…. and reminded us all that time would be fleeting. Sally Field, you may be nominated for a third Academy Award, but let’s not forget that the time when your boobs were of interest has long passed.

My main gig is raising two boys, so I always come back to what I want them to learn- and not learn- from moments like this. They both have girls they know and admire- S. is the best reader in kindergarten, C. does first grade math, the other S. tells the funniest jokes. In preschool H. loves bugs and reptiles, C. swings higher than even the 4 year olds. I wonder when and if their peers will stop judging these girls on their merits- when my sons will find themselves confronted with the choice to objectify them. How do I help them remember women are just as human as they are? How do I show them how wrong so much of our culture is?

I don’t know the answers, but I do hope that by the time they hit adolescence, Seth MacFarlane will have outgrown his. I’m not holding my breath, though- his unimaginative riffs on 3 year old “butt butt butt” humor have made him a lot of money. He’ll keep going with “boobs boobs boobs” until the market for that dries up. It’s a long road ahead.

____

(The two things I *do* hope Quvenzhane noticed were:

1)Of the six young filmmakers chosen to carry the trophies, three were women and two were women of color. 

2) Shatner’s joke about Amy and Tina- in a very short time we’ve gone from a time where you could get paid to argue that women aren’t funny to a time when the conventional wisdom is that the funniest, best hosts would have been two women.

We’ve come a long way, Quvenzhane. But some of the men are having a hard time keeping up.)

• 2 months ago
• 6 notes

Powerless Over People, Places And The Things They Post On Facebook

In the past few days, like most of us, I’ve been full of fear and anxiety and anger. I haven’t handled it well- especially the first day, when I channeled my feelings into picking fights with my brother on Facebook, hiding and unhiding him, returning again and again to state things with the subtext shut up, you idiot.

It didn’t help. It made me feel worse, and worse as the Facebook comments piled up- on my page, on friends’ posts, all over- and I realized people I know and love are having very different reactions to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary. I can’t wrap my head around it- I try to be tolerant and open to all, but the idea that children’s lives are the price we pay to live in a “free” society makes no sense to me. That’s not the kind of freedom I want- if we’re going to regulate what people can do in a crowded theater we shouldn’t just keep them from shouting fire, we should make the rest of feel reasonably confident no one will open fire.

(But I digress— see, I am doing it again. And why? Social media is one arena where we can all write so much and yet none of the words are heard. I know I am guilty of it, why do I think someone who disagrees with me will even read this, much less give the idea that maybe we should regulate firearms any more thought than I give the argument that “murderers will always find ways to kill so why bother regulating firearms” any credence? What I wanted to shout there was, “YOU’RE RIGHT, LET’S LET EVERYONE HAVE NUKES BECAUSE THEY DON’T KILL PEOPLE! People kill people! And also does that bumper sticker sentiment take into account deaths from accidental discharge because I think in that instance guns kind of do kill people?” But to what avail?)

It got distracting, for me. All I could see were the ways in which dear people were so wrong and there were so many of them and how could I ever speak to some of them again the same way, knowing how we differed on the firearms vs. human lives valuation scale?

I did the only thing I know how to do- I asked for help. My friend M. told me that I had to step back, and trust that God was bigger than the disagreements I saw. God is bigger than any argument on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else. “God is bigger than crazy,” she said. (And by crazy I do not mean mentally ill, I mean crazy like thinking the way to make our children safer is to give every school teacher a gun. God is probably bigger than both.)  

Of course, if God is more powerful than my anger and irritation then God probably ought to be big enough to prevent a massacre like this in the first place. Yet that was much less of a theological stumbling block for me. Several times a week I hear stories of God’s work and am told that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. But I don’t think God always does what we can do for ourselves, and in this case I do believe we could have protected those children. 16 times so far this year, 88 people dead, but I think the power to prevent it was in our hands.

What I cannot do for myself- maybe you can- is balance my outrage, my need to take action, and my fear with my interactions on social media this past week. I’m stepping away from the topic after this online- I will continue to write my representatives, and our Christmas Jar money will be going to the Brady Campaign. But I’m not going to return to talking about it online until I figure out how to listen and talk, not just shout and berate. I don’t know how to do that- the topic is so raw for me and I am truly set in my opinions- but I have seen God do so much more, and I have to have faith that on this, like any other larger issue, my own part is very small. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in all this- I feel compelled to act, act, act until everyone’s mind is changed, but I don’t think that’s God’s plan. 

I know God can do so many things that we cannot do for ourselves, and I know right now people are turning to God as they understand Him to heal so many larger things than my inability to Play Nice On The Internet. I need to remind myself God is big enough to handle it. I’m not.

• 5 months ago
• 0 notes