Self care Saturday, September 10: Oh, Carmilla

The original Carmilla codified the Lesbian Vampire trope, a short hand technique to make a woman threatening enough to be a villain by making her both dead(ly) and… gay. The trope doesn’t always have fantastic implications (“gay women are as trustworthy as blood sucking vampires”) but some of the worst of it can be mitigated in vampire fiction where they try to depict all vampires similarly. Some of the more modern interpretations of the trope could simply be described as Hedonistic Pansexual Vampire. Like Tru Blood, which I shamelessly admit I watched because the fucking in that series was hot. 

The modern Carmilla has been reimagined in a YouTube series featured here. Told from the perspective of a naive but stubbornly idealistic college freshman through a series of in-universe vlogs hosted by protagonist Laura, we see Carmilla depicted as a smouldering and aloof roommate caught in the midst of a campus conspiracy. As Laura latches on to uncover the conspiracy, she finds herself in increasingly dangerous situations, where Carmilla reluctantly intervenes due to complex guilt from her past.

The series likes to turn classic romance tropes on their head, so many of the expectations you’d have aren’t safe. The director & writers are experts in ship teasing so when a romantic kiss seen on screen it is a thousand times more satisfying.

It’s very much genre-blending fiction for Queers.

That embrace makes me melt like butter.

Stay hot and bothered lovelies.

-Shiv

Canadian news coverage of racism “unpopular”

In news that I’m sure will absolutely and completely take you by surprise, a CBC Editor shared openly that the reason Indigenous issues aren’t often represented in the mainstream media is because white people don’t read/listen to it:

This is not a guess. Whereas news organizations in the past relied mostly on gut instinct to gauge the importance of any particular subject to the audience, they now have hellishly accurate online tools that can measure precisely how many people are reading any story at any moment.

Big numbers are the prize, and editors and columnists know beyond a doubt that when they select certain topics for coverage, the audience will probably tank.

I’ve learned that one guaranteed way to shrink my numbers is to write about Israel/Palestine, or, to an even greater extent, Indigenous issues.

In that vein I’ll remind FtB readers that Caine is at the actual Standing Rock Camp doing bonafide journalism. You can see the first post of their series here.

It is important for you to know. Better if you can help in some way and choose to. Money can be sent here or here. Signal boost the campaigns, Caine’s work, or those few media outlets that are reporting on the camp fairly. Or even attend the camp! Anything but “meh” is helpful.

-Shiv

Open letter to Alberta, on fundagelicals

Inspired by the recent announcement of a Baptist school board in which they stated they would refuse to affirm Queer students, an Albertan penned an anonymous open letter about her experiences with publicly funded Christian schooling in the province:

This morning I woke up and read the most unsurprising news of my life. In a world where water is wet and blue mixed with red makes purple, the chair of two Christian schools announced that they would not comply with guidelines designed to protect the human rights and dignity of LGBTQA2S+ students. The only thing shocking to me about this news is that it took until the thirtieth of August for media to hear about it, because in the world that I grew up in, this one is just a no-brainer.

I was raised in a lifestyle that I like to refer to as “fundagelical”: fundamentalist evangelical. The intricate subtleties of fundagelical culture would fill tomes, and we just don’t have that kind of time here. What I do have time to tell you is this: fundagelicals speak a different language than everyone else. The reason you’ve never noticed this is because this language is entirely comprised of words that also exist in English. So when I say something like, “I want what’s best for my children”, what I mean is exactly what you think I mean, that my intentions and actions are guided by a desire to see my children benefit from having their emotional, mental, and physical well being prioritized. When a fundagelical says, “I want what’s best for my children”, they mean something slightly different.

You see, in their culture “what’s best for children” can be summed up this way: to be raised in, devoted to, and reflective of the glory of their god, and eventually saved by his grace in order to enter the kingdom of heaven; henceforth referred to as “The Prime Directive”. Now, just to clarify, I am not suggesting that fundagelical parents do not care about the physical, emotional, and mental health of their children. What I am saying is that those things don’t fall under the category of what they mean when they say “what is best for my children”. The bottom line is that, given a conflict between those things and the Prime Directive, the Prime Directive will win. Almost every time. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and check out the mission statements on one of the aforementioned schools, and the one I attended as a child:

http://www.meadowsbaptist.ca/#!about-us/c1se

http://rockychristian.wrsd.ca/

When I was five years old, my mother helped me pack a lunch and drove me to my first day of Kindergarten. I remember the blocks stacked against the wall by the entrance and the circle corner on the opposite side of the room. I remember my teacher Miss P. (that’s a whole other letter). We prayed to start the day. We heard Bible stories and memorized Bible verses. We prayed to end the day. None of this was odd to me; I grew up in this culture after all. In truth, I can’t recall when it was I finally figured out that our school wasn’t like other schools. Maybe around grade five is when we started whispering behind our hands to each other about the other kids on our busses who had to go to schools where they learnedEvolution. What was Evolution? The EVIL idea that we all came from monkeys. We all knew this was ridiculous of course. Anyone with half a brain knew that God made man from dirt and woman from his rib.

It’s hard to recall, exactly, when I first heard about gay people (that’s when boys marry boys and girls marry girls). “Ewwwwwwww” we all said, as if we actually understood why the adults around us would find it gross. Transgender people were not even on our radar, although to this day, I am convinced there was at least one very close in age to me. Occasionally, I’ll think of them, and hope so fervently that they made it.

I’m a little ways into adulthood now. The biggest thing I’ve learned so far is that I truly do not understand the scope of my own lack of knowledge. But I’d like to think that I’ve gained a relatively good perspective about my time spent in fundagelical culture. After all, few things are more humbling than realizing that you’re wrong about almost everything.

Looking back on myself as a young teenager, I’ve no doubt I was an unpleasant one. A strong, stubborn personality combined with a childhood focused on holiness instead of personal development, topped off with an environment steeped in authoritarianism and indoctrination. Mix all that up with the raging hormones of puberty and the fact I’d been surrounded by the same thirty odd peers for eight years, it’s no surprise I was friendless at school. And believe me when I tell you, in an institution like that, there is no better target than the smart-mouthed loner. When the other students don’t like you and the teachers think you need to be put in your place, the only place you can turn is your parents……except when you can’t………because……..Prime Directive.

If you hadn’t told me this person was real, I’d say you were reading off a Lovecraftian horror novel.

Read the rest here.

-Shiv

Why casting cis men as trans women in film is a bad idea

Content notice: Transmisogyny and more clueless cissexism.

I hate Hollywood. Have I mentioned that? 90 minutes has never in the history of cinema adequately captured the nuance of literally fucking anything, and Hollywood is often the only source of education gazillions of people get because educating yourself is hard, and the consequence of this is a gullible-as-shit public.

So, let’s talk about one more of Hollywood’s vapid stunts, casting Matt Bomer to play a prostitute trans woman in the film Anything.

In the movie, which is based on a play by Timothy McNeil, Lynch plays a man named Early Landry who is suicidal over the death of his wife. Early moves from Mississippi to Los Angeles, where he can be under the watchful eye of his protective sister, Laurette (Tierney). However, when Early begins an intense new friendship with Freda (Bomer), a transgender sex worker, the unlikely new couple must reconcile their vastly different backgrounds as they fill the void in each other’s lives.

Nope-Can-Cooler-by-SUPERKOLDIE-03 nope

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOPE.

Okay, so. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

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The “Clueless Moderate” Gap

There’s a gap in the data, see. And I want to give this gap a name. Maybe the Clueless Moderate Gap?

I’ve written before on two topics: The tendency of Moderates to advocate for something in the abstract but oppose it in practice; and how Canadians supported affirmation of trans rights in the abstract but oppose them in practice.

 

CBC posts a rather optimistic article that perfectly demonstrates this gap.

Eighty-four per cent of people surveyed by the Angus Reid Institute said they would support adding gender identity as a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act — one of several questions in a poll on transgender issues where a firm majority said Canadians should “accept, accommodate, and move on.”

Then, not half a screen later…

Asked about a trans girl or trans boy using the washroom that corresponded with their gender identity, approximately 67 per cent said it was acceptable.

Right there. 84% saying they’re cool with trans rights, 67% saying they’re cool with trans bathroom access–and somehow, at least some people claiming to occupy one position but not the other despite the contradiction inherent thereof.

This is why I’m frustrated by this kind of reporting. 84% of respondents did not support trans rights, because some of those respondents still want to restrict our access to gendered facilities. That is the opposite of support. That’s throwing your weight behind the bathroom bill reactionaries. That’s eliminating our ability to go out in public. That’s putting us in danger. That is the fucking harmful status quo trans activists are trying to change.

Here’s what I want the next poll to do: Don’t ask people if they support explicit protections for trans folk. Instead, ask questions like “would you support a coworker or employee’s transition at the workplace?” “would you agree with letting trans folk share your facilities?” or “should trans women be imprisoned in men’s prisons [and vice versa]?” Then, instead of asking point blank whether trans people should be protected–which most people aren’t heartless enough to say “no” to–define “trans affirmation” as the logically consistent set of answers that actually supports us. 

I suspect you’ll take care of that Clueless Moderate Gap and paint a much clearer picture on the prevalence of transphobia, rather than shrugging and posting a useless feel good post about how accepting Canadians are–when they aren’t!

-Shiv

Signal boosting: Seeing myself in Trump

When the statues mocking Donald Trump were raised, they had unfortunate implications. Instead of arguing that Trump was a monster because of his actions (of which there are many to plunder), it made him a symbol of ridicule by representing a non-normative body. An old body, a cellulite body, an intersex body. Many people, myself included, weren’t particularly comfortable with the comparison. Trump is monstrous because he’s an asshole, a xenophobe, a racist, a rapist–not because an intersex body is in any way objectively immoral.

Chris Hall agrees with me.

At first, it was easy to laugh at the statues, because Donald Trump’s entire image is based on a blustering, ferocious masculinity that crumbles under the most superficial examination. Trump is, to my knowledge, the first serious presidential candidate who’s explicitly bragged about the size of his cock while on the campaign trail. I’ve seen other politicians do it symbolically by waving missiles, flagpoles, and rifles around, but Trump has been so brazen that it seems like an act of restraint on his part that he hasn’t actually suggested that the voters might like to go down on him. Maybe that comes later. Maybe he plans to include public fellatio as part of his presidential inauguration. Which, to be honest, might actually be an improvement on the traditional swearing in on the Bible. I can clearly say that I’ve always found oral sex a lot more enjoyable, enlightening, and genuinely moving than reading the Bible. On the other hand, none of my oral sex experiences have involved Donald Trump, a man who has raped at least one of his wives. I for one would like to keep it that way.So, at first glance, the statues, collectively titled “The Emperor Has No Balls,” seem to strike at the very heart of Trump’s brand.

But here’s the thing: Like I said before, there’s too much of me in that statue for me to laugh very long. There’s too much in that statue of too many people that I know or care about for the joke not to taste bitter and cruel after more than a few moments. While social justice movements have been working to build intersectional organizations and solutions, INDECLINE managed to come up with a perfect storm of intersectional cruelty.

Please consider this next time you mock Trump. It’s not like there’s a shortage of material there.

-Shiv

Behold the conservative deflector shield

I wouldn’t call what I experience during interviews/debates with Trump’s surrogates pleasurable, but… yeah. No. That’s about it. It’s gross.

Behold, a crystal clear demonstration of the conservative deflector shield (video at link):

After Trump received a letter of endorsement from 88 retired military figures, Hall pointed out to Delgado that it was impossible to verify that Trump had donated to veterans charities because he refused to release his tax returns.

Delgado asserted that Trump “can’t release” his taxes because he is under IRS audit.

“Yes, you can,” Tall said. “There’s nothing that prevents you.”

Hall noted that Trump promised in 2014 that he would release his tax returns if he ran for president even though he was being audited at the time.

“Why is it you want them released?” Delgado quipped. “I think the bigger issue is Hillary Clinton’s medical records.”

“We don’t know where he’s invested his money,” Hall remarked, getting the interview back on track. “There was a New York Times report about ties to Chinese banks, potential investments in Russia. We need to know more about this presidential candidate. Why not release that information?”

Hall moved on to questions about Trump’s illegal donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi after she dropped a lawsuit against Trump University.

“It sounds like a situation of pay-for-play,” Hall observed.

“Pam Bondi asked for that donation before she even knew that some complaints had come into her office, hundreds of complaints,” Delgado insisted.

“He would say that there’s no way Hillary Clinton had this conversation and that this lawsuit did not come up,” Hall countered. “Remember all the suspicions regarding [Attorney General Loretta Lynch] and Bill Clinton on the plane? Donald Trump would not accept that as answer.”

Delgado insisted that the donations to Bondi were “not suspicious” because Trump was a “friend.”

The Trump surrogate then attempted to pivot to “pay-for-play” at the Clinton Foundation, but Hall wasn’t having it.

Did you hear that? That sound was the sound of the deflectors being raised.

Or Delgado’s brain short circuiting. Either/or.

Sometimes it’s like watching someone try to crush a fruit fly with a sledge hammer.

‘Merica, you scary.

QUICK, THE FACTS ARE COMING, DEPLOY THE DEFLECTOR SHIELD.

-Shiv

Courts aren’t there to serve you

They’re there to serve the oligarchy.

Content Notice: Aurora mass shooting and soul crushingly sociopathic lawyers.

The entire shtick of lone wolves is that the phenomenon itself is entirely predictable–an aggrieved cishet man, usually white, will, somewhere at some point in time, commit another mass shooting. But is impossible to actually predict which aggrieved cishet man will do this, when they will do it, or where.

So when victims of the Aurora shooting tried to sue Cinemax for damages, I thought it was absurd. The courts–not unfairly–argued there was no way the theatre could anticipate the attack, and so the lawsuit was defeated.

But the multi billion dollar company, instead of moving the fuck on, decided it was going to get the victims–half of whom are paralyzed–to recover their legal costs, around $700k in total. And the courts ruled in favour of Cinemax.

Let that sink in. A multi billion dollar company is going to milk shooting victims to recover legal costs which are chump change to the company’s assets, a debt which would devastate any single working class person, never mind someone disabled.

Cinemax and their lawyers were right to challenge the first lawsuit, but they have sailed way past any moral high ground. The relative worth of the legal costs to Cinemax is a drop in the bucket, but they feel justified in trying to kick shooting victims while they’re down. Cinemax’s legal counsel don’t even deserve to be considered human. They won their case, they should’ve just fucking dropped it.

*spit*

-Shiv

 

FtB is recruiting!

It’s the best job in the world and PZ is totally not holding a gun to my head as I say that. (It’s actually an elastic band–but it’s one of those thin ones. They fucking hurt)

We’re looking for more bloggers! You can see PZ’s old announcement here, which is still accurate.

We are particularly looking to boost our representation of people of colour, women, gender or neuro- diverse folks and anyone who occupies any or all of those intersections and who burn with the fires of urinary tract infections social justice.

Send your application with the following information to ftbapplications@googlegroups.com

Name

Contact email

Do you want your email public?

Twitter account, if any

Link for donations, if any

Links to your current blog, any biographical material, or best examples of your writing in comments or forums or other media

Why do you want to write for us?

And again, the details are all here.

-Shiv

Signal boosting: Mom won’t let me borrow “My Chacha is Gay”

My Chacha is Gay is a radical and controversial text that has the audacity to state such terrible things as “love is love” and “you can’t control who you love.” Rather unsurprisingly, given that the context is Pakistan and the symbolism directly addresses common homophobic interpretations of Islam in Pakistan, the author has received… well. You know. I probably don’t have to tell you how well received apostates are in heavily religious Republics, nor that homophobes of any stripe jumped on too.

But rather upsettingly the author has also stated she’s received flak from Western liberals accusing her of Islamophobia, which is a rather strange accusation to be made of criticisms directed at a country that literally institutionalizes homophobia. It is not xenophobic to say the Pakistani government is draconian especially with respects to gay rights–certainly Eiynah, a Pakistani woman herself, would not argue that all Pakistani citizens are in agreement with her government’s policy. But she does observe that enough people do agree that there is a structural problem to redress, which is an argument that sticks to the facts and makes a very conservative assessment thereof.

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