I don't even know you, and I hate your guts

As usual I'm kind of all over the place with my reading. My dad and I need to read Brené Brown's books as research for a possible article, so I've just started I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't). Brown is a shame researcher.

A friend lent me Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman. She's a UK feminist who wrote this semi-memoir as a jumping point to discuss the topics she thinks women / feminists ought to be up in arms about these days.

And I'm a few chapters into Manning Marable's Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. I read the Malcolm-Haley Autobiography years ago, and own the Spike Lee movie. Dude led a really interesting life.

Reading about Malcolm tonight reminded me of my favorite schtick from him: "Who taught you to hate yourself?" I love it because I think most of us can relate to it. Do you hate anything about yourself? Who taught you that? Who had the nerve to come along and tell you that "real men do This" or "sexiness means That" or "being an adult means This Other Thing"?

Which segues nicely into both the Brown and Moran books. Moran takes on things like women waxing their pubic hair. Who taught us that this is how a vagina is supposed to look? I remember being honestly surprised the first time a friend mentioned an appointment to go get waxed. In my head I thought: Really? This is what we're doing now? I went through a period in my 20s when I didn't shave my legs and my friend's boyfriend let me know--just being friendly--that most guys don't find that attractive. Uh duh. And also--who gives a flying fuck? For decades I've had people tell me I should wear make-up, they'd love to see me in make-up, etc. I know you don't mean to be telling me my face needs improving. But in essence you are saying: Your face needs improving.

No one taught me to hate myself, but it wasn't for lack of trying. 

I'm not far into Brown's book, but I think she's going to take this topic to a deeper level. Cause shame happens at this intersection between what we think of ourselves, and what others tell us we should think. I once spoke to someone about a tough decision they made for what they felt was their best, and they finished by saying: "Then once the decision was made, I had to face society, which was a whole other thing." It wasn't bad enough they had to go through personal shit--then they had to justify it to everyone else.

Lesson for the day: Leave the hating to the player haters.

"Buck Nasty, what can I say about say about your suit that hasn't already been said about Afganistan"

    

Ballerina bodies

I like to have one book that I'm e-reading, cause I don't have a bedside lamp here. And I want to lie in bed in the dark and read a bit til I feel sleepy. So I'm not laying awake thinking of my problems. I sped-finished A Princess Bride. I didn't find it as hilarious as when I was 17. I needed another book, and decided to start the newer Malcolm X biography. Fascinating dude.

In other book news... so many great looking books I'll never have time for. Like this new one on ballerinas. Here are some quotes from an article on it:

"A great lover of dance, Kelly admires ballerinas for their immense talent and artistry, but sees behind the scenes a world plagued by anorexia, sexual abuse, low pay and poor working conditions." 

“I think you need first a new aesthetic. You need to get [the ballerina] back to her own shape. I think you have to allow her to be a woman. I am heartened by the presence of the likes of Misty Copeland in American Ballet Theatre. She’s black, she’s busty…that is her natural body.” 

Kelly dates the huge rise in anorexia among ballerinas to the influence of George Balanchine. ... “1963, George Balanchine the great Russian-born choreographer got the all-important Ford Foundation grant,” Kelly said. “He’s able finally to create ballet in his own vision. His vision included a ballerina who was long of limb, lean of frame, tall, narrow hips and a small head – the proverbial pinheads is what the critics used to call them.”

    (CBC)

End Black History Month?

I felt I should say something in re Black History month. So I'm recommending a great documentary I'm watching by a filmmaker who thinks it should be abolished. I've developed a big sore throat, but it's so good I don't want to sleeps. It's not only interesting, but clever and funny.



And I think I'll finally start that new biography of Malcolm X. ...Not because it's Black History month but... because the mood cometh upon me.

Okay, it's hours later now, I've caught up on my blog reading, I'm trying not to swallow too much, my hubby's waking up to go to work... as LitDiva's students would say: Seriously? Still up? What kind of tribute to Whitney Houston is that!

Go to bed Mabel.
  

Lessons in Pride by X-Men's Mystique

Today's Theme Music: Pride
Brought to you by: Arrested Development


Saw X-Men: First Class tonight. I gots a few critiques, but I enjoyed the Mystique story arc. I don't know if this arc exists in the actual comics--Wiki gives the impression she appeared on stage as the ass kicker we know and love in the original film series. 

She even started off with a female lover, though they Marvel wouldn't let Chris Claremont be overt about it. 

Wiki also draws her as the protagonist of her own Evil Stories, as opposed to Magneto's Sidekick. 

But I like what they did with her in the movies, even as sidekick. I loved her complete acceptance of her mutant form, her pride. One of my favorite scenes in the entire series is this one, where Nightcrawler asks her, if she can imitate people then why not look like a regular human all the time? And she says replies: "Because we shouldn't have to."





X-Men First Class shows her journey to becoming that woman. If I'm being picky (and I was) I'd say it wasn't a completely convincing story arc, because like most superhero movies there was too much packed into this one--they could have kept this movie for Prof X and Magneto and saved her for movie #2 because she's completely incidental to the plot. But it wasn't a fail either.

"I'm ashamed of being ugly and blue. I hides."

"I begins to embrace my blue, though I'm kinda ugly."

"I got blue scales and I'm hot!"

 

This trailer gives you a good idea of her storyline:



You can see how Magneto's role is a nice mirror of the same role he played in X2:



The X-Men stories function on several levels...
* Science fiction: What if some humans evolved into a superior species how would we react? 
* Mirror of our discriminations: Civil Rights Movement, the Holocaust, gay rights, and so forth.
* Symbol of our personal alienations: What is normal? Our struggles to fit in (hence the manifestation of the mutation during a stressful moment of adolescence). Our struggles with our differences, and how those differences might be the key to your success, etc.


It's on that third level that I lurv Mystique and Magneto. In the earlier X-Men movies we see Rogue try, and mostly fail to accept herself as she is. Wolverine is so angry, we wonder if he kind of hates himself. Kurt is hurt by human rejection, Storm fears them.

Mystique and Magneto are not afraid, they're not insecure, and they don't hate themselves. I think pop psychology has taught us to believe that people who think well of themselves are deeply scarred or insecure. I hate that. It's like wishful thinking for those of us afraid to claim our own space in the world. 

Yes, it's true for braggarts, for people who pretend to be something they're not. But it's OKAY to be proud of the things you are, of how you were born, of your natural talents, and of what you've accomplished.

Pride also enhances beauty. Okay Mystique doesn't need enhancing but...

 

when you're a short, skinny old fogey...

it's amazing what pride will do for you...

in fiction or reality...

That was a big part of Malcolm X's appeal wasn't it? Ossie Davis called him "our own shining black prince" because he made African-Americans proud to be, to look, black. Hell I feel prouder to Be Myself when I hear him speak, and he's not even talking to me!

"Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don't want to be around each other? No... Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you." 

Go on and be your own talented self.

"If you're using half your concentration to look normal, then you're only half paying attention to whatever else you're doing. Just pointing out something that could save your life."

- Magneto