Looking back at the last fifty years, we see protests against deception and injustice: the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, feminism, the gay rights movement, environmentalism, the animal rights movement, the Occupy movement.
What’s left? What should be the current generation’s crusade? Big Business. Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Media.
“In 2011, a think tank in London called the Carbon Tracker Initiative conducted a breakthrough study that added together the reserves claimed by all the fossil fuel companies, private and state-owned. It found that the oil, gas, and coal to which these players had already laid claim—deposits they have on their books and which were already making money for shareholders—represented 2,795 gigatons of carbon. … [W]e know roughly how much carbon can be burned between now and 2050 and still leave us a solid chance (roughly 80%) of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius … 565 gigatons. … [A]s Bill McKibben [author of Oil and Honey] points out, ‘The thing to notice is, 2,795 is five times 565. It’s not even close. … What those numbers mean is quite simple. This industry has announced, in filings to the SEC and in promises to shareholders, that they’re determined to burn five times more fossil fuel than the planet’s atmosphere can begin to absorb.’ … In other words, the fossil fuel companies have every intention of pushing the planet beyond the boiling point” (Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything 148, 353-4).
And BigAg? “Billions of people on the planet are supported by farmers who save seeds from the crops and replant these seeds the following year. Seeds are planted. The crop is harvested. And the seeds from the harvest are replanted the following year. Most farmers cannot afford to buy new seeds every year, so collecting and replanting seeds is a crucial part of the agricultural cycle. This is the way food has been grown successfully for thousands of years. With Monsanto’s terminator technology, they will sell seeds to farmers to plant crops. But these seeds have been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are harvested, all new seeds from these crops are sterile (e.g., dead, unusable). This forces farmers to pay Monsanto every year for new seeds if they want to grow their crops.” (Ethical Investing: Monsanto Terminator Technology http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/terminator.shtml
Big Pharma? The average price of the fifty drugs most used by senior citizens was nearly $1,500 for a year’s supply. In 2002. And now they’re creating the disease so they can sell the cure. Halitosis was just the beginning. Now we’ve got erectile dysfunction, female sexual dysfunction, bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), restless legs syndrome, osteoporosis, social shyness (also called social anxiety disorder and social phobia), irritable bowel syndrome, and balding. We’re all sick. We all need drugs. (Larry Dossey, “Creating Disease” The Huffington Post Jun18/10 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-larry-dossey/big-pharma-health-care-cr_b_613311.html)
But this kind of information isn’t screamed in the news because—BigMedia. A mere six corporations own 90% of the median in the States.
So this is my call to this generation: protest against the veneer of respectability that has enabled ‘business’ to proceed ‘as usual’–unchallenged. Question progress. Question profit. Question the right of way that’s been given to business merely because it wears a suit and tie and provides jobs. (Like ‘I’ve got a family,’ ‘I’ve got a business to run’ is used as an all-purpose legitimizing excuse. Youcan get away with anything ifyou’re doing it for your kids. Ditto if you’ve got a business to run. As if merely by employing several people, business becomes some sort of social service. It’s not.
You’ve got fifty years to learn from. The greater one’s youthful idealism, the greater one’s middle-aged bitterness. So, yes, many of us over forty are worse than useless: we are infectious with cynicism. But we were once young. Study what we did and what we didn’t do. Figure out what worked and what didn’t work–then. Figure out what’ll work and what won’t work—now. Take a good look at Kent State, Birmingham, Greenham Common, Tiananmen Square, Seattle… It’s not as easy anymore (if it ever was) as offering a flower or sitting in the way. They will shoot you. They will run over you. And you can’t depend on media coverage–your local station is owned by some fat cat in LA or NY who doesn’t want the world to know. DIY. Use the internet. Figure it out.
As is the case with movements, little bits here and there gradually add up to something that makes the structure collapse and the veil of naïveté dissipate. Utopia doesn’t rise from the rubble, but we never see things in quite the same way again.
A special note to those in business—with great power comes great responsibility. You’re in the driver’s seat. Get us out of here. Use your intelligence, use your imagination. Find a way. Change the way we do business. And save your world.
[a little old…guess who finally got to be Chief of Surgery!]
Why didn’t Bailey get the Chief of Surgery position?
For the same reason Ed jokingly says to Greg, when he questions his rank, “Should I get you a dress?”—and they both laugh.
Because in 2012 being a woman is (still) (STILL!) (STILL!) (STILL!) being subordinate.
I love that on Grey’s Anatomy, so many main characters, surgeons every one of them – are women. Actually they outnumber the men. 8:6. And yet Owen gets the Chief position. Richard, then Derek, then Owen. 3 of the 6 men get to be Chief. 0 of the 8 women. Bailey’s been there longer than Owen. And longer than Sloan, the other contender. And yeah, okay, Kepner got the Chief Resident position even though she was there longer than Karev, but he didn’t want it. (And we see it primarily a position of responsibility, not power.) At one point, the Chief (Webber) said he was grooming Bailey for Chief of Surgery—what happened?
And Sam gets to be team leader in Ed’s absence. Not Jules. Again, she has more seniority on the team. And is just as competent (if not more so—she can shoot and she can negotiate a crisis).
This is why I stick to my Cagney and Lacey, Murphy Brown, and Commander-in-Chief reruns.
(We’re going in the wrong direction, people.) (And just when did we turn around?)
I live in a cabin on a lake in the forest. You’d think that whenever the power goes out, there would be silence. Lovely silence. And lovely dark. And there is. For all of thirty seconds. Then everyone’s backup generator goes on. And for the next five, ten, twenty, or forty-eight hours, I hear engine noise. Constant engine noise. Like a tractor trailer is parked in my driveway. Idling. Loudly.
Because my god but the world would end if people had to go without TV for five hours! Or without whatever the hell it is they need their generators for.
Two hours in, and they’re driving into town. Because ‘What about supper?’ What? Food is that foremost on your mind? You’re not in Ethiopia. You just ate a couple hours ago. And if you’re really that hungry, don’t you have anything in the house that can be eaten raw, out of the box, or out of the can?
Perhaps they can’t stand the silence. No, that can’t be right, because everyone’s generators are on.
Is it that they can’t stand the severance from—what, exactly? Civilization? Please. Most people here couldn’t care less about their neighbours. When I asked one to join a sort of neighbourhood watch so we could call the fire department whenever, during a total fire ban, some asshole one had a huge, blazing campfire, as was his habit, she refused. Didn’t want to stick her neck out.
Quite apart from the fact that a power outage doesn’t sever you from civilization. Can’t you hear everyone’s generators? Everyone’s still here.
Is it that people are so fearful they need the illusion of safety that noise and light provide? Hm. Now I understand why people have their TV on all day even though they aren’t watching it. And it suddenly occurs to me that most of the people who live here never leave their houses, except to get into their car and go somewhere. I never see them out for a walk, on the road, or in the forest. I never see them down at the water, let alone out on the lake.
Or perhaps it’s just that there’s nothing going on inside their little heads, so they need the external stimulation to keep them from utter boredom.
Far more than pathetic, it’s scary. That people are so dependent on that kind of (external) energy.
Catherine, by Chris Wind (from Snow White Gets Her Say) www.chriswind.net
That you don’t recognize me by name is but the first of my complaints about my tale. Oh you know me alright. I’m the main character—in a tale titled with the name of one of the men in the story. But what’s in a name? A lot. Especially if it’s a man’s name. This man’s name is the answer to the question upon which rests the fate of myself and my newborn child. So his name is very powerful, it is very important. My name apparently is not.
Nor is my life. For whether it is to be filled with joy and delight from being with my newborn, or empty with grief and loss from separation is to be decided by a mere guessing game.
Nor are my words important. I denied my father’s boast. I told the King I most definitely could not spin gold out of straw. But he didn’t believe me. Of course not. He chose instead to believe the words of an immature, egotistic, vain man. And I suffer the consequences.
The consequences. To pay for my father’s ridiculous lie, I lose my sanity, my freedom, and my dignity for three nights—and almost my child, forever. (And one sentence—one sentence in the whole tale is devoted to that ‘choice’, that decision to give up my child in return for my life.)
Because I ‘succeeded’ on the third night, I was ‘rewarded’ with marriage to the King. Thus, for all intents and purposes, I also lost my life. Can you imagine what it is like to be married—legally bound to honour and obey until death, and socioeconomically bound with little option but to stay and make the best of it—to a man who didn’t believe me, a man who locked me in a room for three nights, a man so greedy that he said three nights in a row he’d kill me unless I did as he wanted? And that was before he owned me.
But as the tale says, I am shrewd and clever. And I have learned the force of threat, and the importance of a name—especially if it is male. Proud fathers want very much to pass it on. But royal fathers—dear husband, aging Highness, what would happen to your precious lineage if my, your, only son were to suddenly—
Since I am not dead, and am living still…
**
Catherine is the name I’ve given to the woman in “Rumpelstiltskin”. One day a vain and proud miller boasted about his beautiful and clever daughter to the king, telling him that she could spin gold out of straw. The poor maiden denied it, but the king locked her in a room full of straw and insisted that she spin it into gold or else she’d lose her life.
Once in the room, she began to cry; then “a droll-looking little man” appeared and, after hearing her story, offered to do it for her if she’d give him her necklace. When the king returned and saw that the straw had indeed been spun into gold, he locked up the maiden with another roomful of straw. This time she paid the little man with her ring. The third time, the king added the promise of marriage if she succeeded, but she had nothing left with which to pay the little man. He asked for her first child, and having no other option, fearing death if the king returned to find straw and not gold, she agreed.
So she was married to the king, and when her first child was born, the little man came to collect. Appalled, she offered him instead “all the treasures of the Kingdom”—but he wanted the child. Eventually he softened his terms and said that if within three days she could tell him his name, she could keep the child.
For the next two days, she guessed all the names she knew and sent messengers all over the land to gather new ones. Finally, on the third day, a messenger returned with the name ‘Rumpelstiltskin’—which was indeed the little man’s name. She was therefore able to keep her child, and everyone laughed at the little man, Rumpelstiltskin, as he made his way away.
So about this guy in Taiwan who drops his child in order to catch a foul ball at a baseball game…
I don’t know whether to be more appalled at the man’s action or at the media’s framing of it.
Am I appalled that we condition our males to value sports over parenting? That they’d rather catch a ball than take care of a child? No. I myself would rather catch a ball than look after a kid. Which is why I didn’t make or adopt any. The appalling thing is that a father would rather catch a ball than take care of his child.
(Yes, of course, it would be as appalling if it were a mother. But I can’t resist suggesting that if it had been a woman who had dropped her child in order to catch a ball, they’d be hauling her ass into court, taking her kid away, and sterilizing her.)
Why do sports have such a hold over men? Is it the competition and the possibility of winning? And is that so bloody attractive because that’s the way we raise our boys? Or is it simply because they’re hardwired to compete? Either way, if their upbringing or their testosterone (or whatever) makes them choose catching a ball over holding on to a child, something’s seriously wrong.
Or is our obsession with sports an indication that we are so very desperate to be heroic? Have our daily lives become so bereft of significance? (And why is that?) And has the mere catching of a ball become a heroic act? What does that say about us?
Or is it just that men will reach out to catch a ball, even if it means putting a child at risk, because like many animals, their attention is captured by anything that moves. Which is a good thing if you’re a Neanderthal hunting for your next meal, but—we’re not. Neanderthals hunting for our next meal. So does this mean that contemporary men are unable to suppress their primitive brain? If so, we shouldn’t let them—run the world, for starters.
Men, if this (dropping a child in order to catch a ball) isn’t a wake up call to question and reject your conditioning and/or to recognize and resist your biochemistry, what is??
And then there is the commentators’ response. Laughter, first of all. A child is dropped, and they laugh.
And they laugh in a “boys will be boys” way. Men, don’t you find it insulting? To have your irresponsible, immature behavior accepted as inevitable?
Or they laugh because, hey, just goes to show that men aren’t cut out to look after kids; best leave it to the women. Oh please. (Like they can never seem to do a good job of cleaning the house either. And yet the car gleams.)
Then there are the giggling comments about his wife’s “death stare” and how he’s gonna get it now. What is he, twelve? Apparently. And what’s his wife, his mom? Apparently he needs one. Still. (If I were a man, I’d be enraged at this implication that I am to be scolded.)
And then, there are the endless snickers about how “he’s going to be in the dog house” or “sleeping on the couch”. A child is dropped, and the big concern is that he won’t have sex for a while. What is wrong with you people?? (And that whole marital dynamic—if he’s good, he gets sex; if he’s bad, he doesn’t—that’s okay with all of you?)
Where are the men who are wincing at all of this? Where are the men who would confront this guy and tell him to grow the fuck up?
Truthfully, and unflatteringly, I’m not surprised. (Men, are you not ashamed that we’re not surprised? Not surprised you would put a child at risk in order to catch a ball, not surprised at the depth of your irresponsibility, at your ‘me-first’ behavior, at your priorities…) I expect shit like this in the States and Canada. But it happened in Taiwan. And the Taiwanese commentators giggled and snickered just like the American commentators. (In fact, the similarity was chilling.) Could it be that the gender role conditioning that is so prevalent here is damn near universal? A scarey thought. Or is that universality evidence that it’s not a matter of nurture, but of nature (testosterone, the Y chromosome, the primitive brain, whatever).
Either way, the conclusion has to be that men are universally children. Or idiots. (Or both.)
[obviously written a while ago, but this shit keeps happening…]
Toller Cranston, as Janet Lynn takes the ice: “You wouldn’t know by looking at her that she’s a housewife and mother of three.”
What?
Would he have said of Kurt Browning, “You wouldn’t know by looking at him that he does stuff around the house and is a father of three”??
I think not.
Clearly Cranston thinks that – well, I don’t know what the hell he thinks. That doing stuff around the house is somehow incompatible with – skating? I’ll grant that being a parent could deplete one’s energy to the point that maintaining an elite level of athletic performance is unlikely, but that would apply only if the kids were a certain age and only if one didn’t have any assistance – and it would apply to men as well as women.
I suspect he has some stereotype of housewife and mother in his mind that Lynn didn’t fit. Perhaps that of a ditsy simpleton or an unkempt troll.
mother of God. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now—it’s immortalized. I am indelibly identified by my relationship to a male: all of me has been denied, except that one part. And yet even that part has not been accorded full status: I am the mother of God! It’s a relation whose ramifications no one seems to recognize, to credit.
My existence became important, became worthy of mention, only after (only because) Christ became important and worth mention. My childhood, my girlhood, is never looked at, and yet it was my life before Christ that was responsible for my being the mother of God in the first place: I was favoured (Luke 1:28, 30), I was chosen because of the goodness and purity of my life[1]—and yet none of that purity, none of that goodness was documented.[2] From what was considered important enough to document, one gets the impression that Christ and his apostles were the only ones capable of good works.
The issue of good works leads us to another unrecognized ramification of my role. Christ, my son, is known internationally for his compassion, his love, his generosity, his forgiveness—he’s famous for his ethics: well who do you think taught him right from wrong? His mother, of course! Who is it who always teaches a child the first and formative values?
It was no easy feat raising the son of God! Think about it: here we have a little boy who has the gift of miracle-working—do you think for one minute he always used his powers to serve God? Of course not! For a while he went around creating fantastic toys (as a carpenter’s family, we couldn’t always afford the best), and there was no end of trouble because all of the other children wanted ones just like them (I had to laugh at some of them, the rascal had imagination!). And I had to explain—somehow. He also played some very nasty tricks on people who angered or upset him (once he changed some children into goats).[3] It took some doing to get him through that phase quickly! So even though he was the son of God, he had to be taught that there is a good way and a bad way to use his powers. And, as his mother, I taught him.
In fact, I suspect at times that the only reason I wasn’t chosen to spread Christian morality was because God knew no one would listen to a woman. It’s sad, but it’s true. So the next best thing he could do was choose me to be his mother. He didn’t have to. Did you ever wonder why he even bothered? I mean, the virgin birth proves he—[4]
Let’s consider next this issue of virgin birth. I am not going to debate its truth. I have realized for a long time that what is believed to be true matters more than what is true. And the story of the virgin birth is believed to be true.[5] But the belief is at my expense! Because of it, I was suspect of infidelity—a very serious accusation then, I could’ve lost my life (Matthew 1:19)! Fortunately the suspicion was disconfirmed.[6]
Furthermore, to believe in the virgin birth denies me the joy of sexual intercourse—I am not even allowed the biological prerequisite to motherhood. (That is, I am not allowed the pleasing one. The painful one, childbirth, I am allowed: contrary to popular belief,[7] Christ was the son of woman, and he was born of flesh and blood, not of the spirit—I have the scars and stretch marks to show it.)
Further still, the ramifications of this belief go beyond the personal. I have become a universal symbol: the virgin birth implies that intercourse is undesirable, that natural conception is inferior, that the state of virginity is more blessed than the state of non-virginity.[8] I resent symbolizing such a concept: one state is neither more nor less blessed. And I resent being in the awkward position of putting women into an even more awkward, indeed impossible, position: motherhood is pure, but the prerequisite, sexual intercourse, is impure. Well what is one to do then?[9]
Let me go on to yet other unrecognized ramifications to my role as mother of God. For instance, a little publicized fact is that I had some powers of my own. In fact, many people at the time had psychic powers—clairvoyance, psychokinesis, telepathy—it was a time before those skills evolved out of use.[10] I could tell you of several proofs, but I’ll choose one which is documented (but again, unacknowledged): near the end of my life, I went with St. John to Ephesus, then ‘appeared’ in Jerusalem. (However, I fell asleep when I got there; a feat like that at my old age took a lot out of me.) Such an event should not surprise you—I am, after all, venerated as healer, said to have the powers of ‘miraculous intervention’; and the power of relics of mine was reaffirmed as legitimate by the Council of Trent (1545-64); and don’t forget the Shrine at Lourdes, established in 1858, to commemorate my appearance to Bernadette, and the Shrine at Fatima, 1917, for when I came to those three shepherd children.
Another example, the one last point of ‘credit not given when credit is due’ that I want to make, is best illustrated by examining the image, by examining how I am portrayed. Think of the Madonna. Any madonna will do, they’re all the same. Or think of the pietà. Any pietà. Always the young girl with the blank face, like she’s never had a real thought or a strong feeling in her life. Real thoughts and strong feelings! One of my children went through life as the son of God—wouldn’t that make you think? Then he—my son—had nails driven through his body—wouldn’t that make you feel? Can you understand the struggle to understand, or at least accept, such an injustice without anger, without hatred? Your (male) image-makers call me mother of God, but they don’t take into account what that means, they haven’t understood what that really means! I lived, through days, months, years, I became a middle-aged woman, an old woman.[11] In the pietà, my son is thirty-three—that should make me forty-eight, but do I look it? No, I have been denied my life, my experience, my self. And if you do not recognize my reality, you do not recognize me.
Yes, I am the mother of God. But it appears to be in name only. For all intents, purposes, and effects, Christ (like almost every other male in The Bible) may as well have begotten himself.
[1] Later this was not enough: in 1854, Pope Pius IX instituted the concept of the Immaculate Conception which insisted that my purity extend back all the way to a conception unsullied by original sin in order to provide a satisfactorily chaste womb for the birth of Christ.
[2] Actually there are several accounts of my life before and after Christ, but they have not been admitted to The Bible because they are not considered ‘authentic’ enough. The Protoevangelium of James for instance, written around 150-180 A.D., tells that my parents were Anna and Joachim, and that I lived in the temple of the Lord from the age of three.
[4] God didn’t really need a biological mother for Christ. He obviously didn’t really need a biological father. In fact, God has Christ born without a human father, because that would’ve detracted from his divinity. But it seems having a human mother didn’t detract as much—hasn’t anyone ever considered the implications of that one?
[5] And yet there are innumerable such stories in pagan mythology, but no one dreams of taking them seriously. This one, they took seriously.
[6] But not on my word, no, my word was not good enough: only after an angel appeared and explained to Joseph, did he believe it.
[7] Which is amazing, in view of the many confusions: (1) Was it a virgin birth or not? If it was, if Joseph wasn’t the biological father, then doesn’t the genealogy tracing Jesus through back through Joseph to David and Abraham (Matthew 1:1-17) break down? (2) Was it a virgin birth or not? The doctrine of virgin in partu claims I did not experience the ‘pangs’ of childbirth, but Salome, my midwife, will vouch for the pain; and that eyewitness account of her arm withering because she reached out and touched me, not believing the hymen could still be intact but discovering it was, has been relegated to the Protoevangelium (I wonder which part of the story was decided to be invalid. If it was the intactness of the hymen that was in doubt, they had to be considering then either sexual intercourse or natural birth as a possibility.)
[8] This view continues to be manifested by the vow of celibacy taken by nuns and priests; by the popular male habit of according extra status to ‘deflowering’ a virgin; by popular porn (by men for men) which exhibits women in childish, innocent, virginal costume and character; and by popular ‘kiddie’ porn (also by men for men) which exhibits children as sexually desirable—all of which implies that the state of virginity is something special, an added bonus.
[9] Furthermore, the state of motherhood may be pure, but the physical experience of it, childbirth, is not: consider the ‘purification rites’ I had to undergo (Luke 2:22) even though I had just given birth to the son of God!
[10] Peter, for instance, made some dogs talk; he also raised the dead, and flew (The Acts of Peter, Chapter 9). John, another example, controlled the bedbugs that were bothering him one night (The Acts of John, Chapter 61).
[11] Like my existence before Christ’s birth, my existence after his youth also becomes unimportant—it’s as if I was his mother only for the first ten or fifteen years. Even he seems to have thought that: at first he simply wouldn’t acknowledge me as his mother—I was the same to him as anyone else who followed God (Mark 3:31-35); later, he had the hurtful ingratitude to call me ‘woman’ (John 2:4)—not ‘Mom’, not ‘Mother’, not even ‘Mary’.
***
According to Christian mythology, God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to save us by dying for our sins. Mary (a virgin, wife of Joseph) was chosen to be the mother, and impregnation occurred without sexual intercourse—thus the ‘virgin birth’. (The ‘Immaculate Conception’ is usually thought to refer to this conception of Christ, but actually it refers to the conception of Mary—see the first footnote.) This remarkable event led to suspicion on Joseph’s part; at that time, a man could kill his wife for adultery. However, an angel came to explain the miracle to Joseph, and all was well.
The figure of Mary (the ‘BVM’—’Blessed Virgin Mary’) is most prominent in the Roman Catholic sect of Christianity. She is ‘celebrated’ in the five ‘Joyful Mysteries’, which are often depicted in pictures: the Annunciation (when she is told she will be the mother of Jesus, Son of God), the Visitation (she visits a friend with the news), the Birth of Jesus (in a stable at Bethlehem), the Presentation (she presents Jesus in the temple), and the Finding in the Temple (when Jesus is ‘lost’, she finds him there). She is also ‘allotted’ two of the five ‘Glorious Mysteries’: the Assumption (she dies and is carried to heaven by angels) and the Crowning of Mary (she is crowned Queen, which gives rise to her power of intervention).
The bit about Jesus creating toys and turning children into goats is documented (see the Arabic Gospels, below); so is Mary’s ‘teletransportation’ feat (but unfortunately I can’t track down the source of my notes for this one) and her appearances at Lourdes and Fatima (see the encyclopedia citations, below).
A very common prayer is the ‘Hail Mary’: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” It is often given as penance (that is, one must say so many ‘Hail Marys’ to absolve oneself of one’s sins) and it is a major part of the Rosary (a string of beads one passes through one’s fingers, saying a certain prayer at each bead).
John 2:4.
Luke 1:28, 1:30, 2:22.
Mark 3:31-35.
Matthew 1:19.
The Arabic Gospel, The Apocryphal New Testament. tr. Montague Rhodes James. London: Oxford University Press, 1966. 68.
Protoevangelium of James, The Apocryphal New Testament. 39-49, 74.
The Acts of John, The Apocryphal New Testament. 242-243.
The Acts of Peter, The Apocryphal New Testament. 313.
The Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia, ed. William Bridgwater, New York: The Viking Press, 1953. 1:412; 2:736.
The Last Man on Earth explains everything. But he’s too stupid, too infantile, and too self-centered, to know it. Which is exactly why he explains everything.
1. He enjoys knocking things over, breaking things, destroying things.
He rams his grocery cart into a pyramid of cans. He rolls bowling balls into a row of aquariums. (1) Apparently delighted to hear the smash. His reaction to blowing up one car with another is orgasmic. What does that tell us? Destroying things gives men pleasure.
2. He wantonly pollutes the water. That is to say, he does not use resources responsibly. And that is to say, he exhibits extremely short-sighted thinking.
He uses a swimming pool for a toilet. (2) A metaphor if there ever was one. In more ways than one. (In addition to the despoiling of resources, it shows us how full of shit he is.) (And that he is, quite literally, an asshole.)
He does this, perhaps, because he figures he can just move into a new house whenever he’s finished wrecking the one he’s in. (3) Again, such a metaphor. (We’ve used up our own water and oil, so let’s go to someone else’s country and use up theirs.) (And when we’ve used up Earth, we’ll go live on the Moon.)
Is it that, like other infants, Phil doesn’t understand “All gone!”? (4)
Is it that he lacks the ability to imagine the long-term consequences of his behaviour?
And does he really think he’s the only one left? What a special little snowflake he is. Sure, he drove all over the country. Calling out from an RV. Real thorough. Apparently, he didn’t consider the possibility that someone might be alive, but hurt or in other need of help that would require him to actually get out of the RV and walk around a bit.
But that’s Phil. He thinks the world is all about him now. (Actually, he’s probably thought that all along.)
3. He doesn’t really do much else.
Well, he eats a lot of junk food. And he drinks a lot of alcohol.
4. He thinks about himself.
He thinks about how lonely he is. Which may seem paradoxical, given how incapable he is of thinking about other people. But he’s incapable of thinking about what other people might need or want. He’s lonely because of what he needs and wants. (Which explains why, when he finds himself so utterly alone, his cry sounds more like the wail of an infant than an existential scream. [5])
No surprise, then, that
5. He considers half the human species merely as things to be fucked.
Almost the first words we hear him say are about how much he misses women. Since that comes right after apologies to God for masturbating so much, we know he misses women because he uses them to masturbate. (Not because they might know the cure for the virus.)
And just in case we missed this, we see him choosing porn over food in the grocery store (6), and we see his lingering gaze at the female-bodied mannequin.
So that’s three times in the first six minutes we get this message: women are sexual objects for his use. (7)
When he dreams about a woman eagerly kissing him, the woman is, of course, gorgeous. Why is it that unattractive men always think women will find them attractive? More incredibly, why is it that unattractive men think attractive women will find them attractive? Seriously. How deluded do you have to be about your own attractiveness?
And again, just in case we missed this, when Carol introduces herself as “the last woman on Earth,” we see from the look on his face that he’s thinking he may have to break the bro pledge, “I wouldn’t fuck her if she was the last woman on earth.”
Phil thinks he’s the last man on Earth because some virus wiped out everyone else. That may have been the proximate cause. (Or just bad writing.) It’s likely that climate change, due to melting polar ice and the consequent change in the ocean currents, due to increased greenhouse gases, due to relentless fossil fuel use and meat consumption, changed disease vectors which, along with the consequent disruption in the supply of goods and services (food, water, drugs; medical care) created a perfect storm for the virus to become a global epidemic.
He’s the last man on Earth because he gets pleasure from destroying things, because he doesn’t live responsibly, because he thinks only of himself, his own (primarily physical) needs and wants HERE! and NOW!—in short, because he’s disgustingly infantile.
I don’t find that at all entertaining, let alone insightful, so I stopped watching. (9) (10)
(1) And of course, he won’t clean up the broken glass. But, well, he’s the last man on Earth, and, hey, if he doesn’t bother him… So if, when, he discovers he’s not the last person on Earth, if, when, he discovers there are other people in the world, other people who might want to walk there without getting cut up, will he go back then and clean up the mess he made? Of course he will. And pigs will fly.
(2) It brings to mind the patch of garbage floating around in the Pacific Ocean that’s twice the size of the United States. And all the industrial waste — 70% of it — that men (most likely) pour directly into our fresh water.
(3) The truly disgusting shape of the house he’s living in after a mere five months brings to mind that thing about if the history of the Earth were a year, life wouldn’t appear until March, multi-cellular organisms not until November, we’d show up on December 31, by late evening, we’d have well-developed brains—and then it’d take us a mere forty seconds to thoroughly trash the place.
(4) He glories in there being no rules or, more specifically, in there being no rule-enforcer: like a child, he hasn’t developed any rules of his own.
(5) That he continues to believe there’s a God also indicates just how child-like Phil is. He may as well be writing Dear Santa letters.
(6) That pornographic magazines, magazines in which women are for the most part humiliated and degraded, is openly for sale, even in grocery stores, without disapproval by the writers or Phil is clear evidence of the rampant misogyny I’m pointing out.
(7) It’s pretty much what the writers think about women. In the very first episode, we see there’s also a woman alive. But is the series titled, then, The Last Man and Woman on Earth? Of course not. Women are not worth mention. (Well, except, as fuckholes.)
(8) He’s certainly not thinking that she might be thinking “I wouldn’t fuck him if he were the last man on Earth.”
(9) Who does find that entertaining? And why?
(10) And does anyone find it insightful? I mean, really, is any of this news?
On yet another occasion during which I was stunned by one of my neighbour’s stupidity and ignorance, it suddenly occurred to me that the person I was speaking with probably hadn’t read a book since high school.
(Yes, it then occurred to me that s/he probably hadn’t read a book during high school either.)
Then it occurred to me that that was probably true for most people.
I tried to imagine what that would be like. What my mind would be like if I hadn’t read a book, not one book, in the last, say, forty years.
Oh the horror.
Because what could possibly go on inside such a mind?
In addition to their high school history and geography textbooks, through which they might have plodded here and there, they might have read, perhaps, a dozen novels, in all. Library books for the annual book review assignment in English class. Who is the main character? Describe the setting. What is the main conflict?
They may as well be illiterate. They are, essentially. They’re functionally illiterate. Because yes, they can and probably do read package labels and price tags, but what else?
The newspaper. Which is pretty much nothing but exposition. Low-level description. No analysis. No critique.
What if everyone read just one non-fiction book a week? What if employers rewarded them for doing so, as many of them do now for physical exercise: in addition to so many points per kilometer, because it reduces their healthcare costs, so many points per page, because — Ah, there’s the rub. What’s in it for them? Nothing. In fact, on the contrary, it’s to their advantage not to have their employees develop knowledge, understanding, critical ability.
Okay, so what if the government implemented such a reward program? Well, it’s not really in their best interests either. Which explains, perhaps, why the education system doesn’t mandate critical thinking courses.
Of course, if parents … But every time they say ‘Because I said so,’ they stomp on critical thinking. It’s just easier that way, I guess.
So in whose interests is it be critical? Our own, of course. Otherwise, we’re suckers to manipulation by media. Corporations. Government. Anyone who puts their own self-interest before yours.
But in our society, the word ‘critical’ has negative connotations. It’s bad to be critical.
So I first heard of the movie Ex Machina when I read a review (by Chris DiCarlo) in Humanist Perspectives—and was so disgusted that I wrote a letter to the editor. Why? Because the reviewer had revealed his own misogyny by failing to address the elephant in the room: the fact that the body the guy created for his AI was that of a female, a sexy female, a young female, is what—mere coincidence? The picture they’d chosen to accompany the review (no doubt, the one chosen to promote the movie) showed her bound. In fishnet.* Her pose was right out of a BDSM scene. Not worth mention? As I said in my letter:
That you failed to remark on any of this disturbingly telling. It indicates just how much men have come to expect to see women as young and sexy. Apparently it’s the norm, it’s normal, to pornify women, to present their bodies as sexually available.
Well, fuck you.
(Have you heard of sexism? Feminism? Check it out, why don’t you.)
The letter was not published. The editor wrote back and said,
I don’t know if this changes anything, but Chris had nothing to do with the selection of photos for the review. That was done by a woman who helps me with the onerous task of laying out the magazine.
—a comment that opens up a whole ‘nother area worth investigation. How is it that people think that if a woman does X, it must be okay? This notion informs the currently popular misconception of feminism as indiscriminate female solidarity. (As a commenter said recently in response to one of my posts on BlogHer, implying that I was not a feminist, “My feminist sisters support all woman in whatever choices they make…” At the very least, that stance would be rife with internal contradictions.)
But onwards. Does it change anything? No. As long as the image is from the movie, then the movie is evidence of the normalized pornification of women, and DiCarlo still ignores that elephant in the room.
If the AI had been black-skinned and called ‘boy’ and given menial tasks and whipped, I suspect it would have been noticed. I suspect DiCarlo would have made at least passing mention to the implied racism.
But—and I’ve just watched the movie. Not only is “Ava” sexy woman-child (there’s even a ‘play dress up’ scene), the guy has a hall full of closets of similar AIs. He’s not making AIs. He’s making fucktoys. He actually tells his (male) guest that they have fully functioning holes. We see him using said holes for his apparent pleasure. The guest realizes that the guy has created Ava to match his porn file. (What the hell is a porn file? Oh.)
All very unremarkable, apparently.
There was one promising line—the guy insists that consciousness is gendered. But the claim isn’t really challenged. And it becomes clear that he has come to that conclusion because his ‘source material’ (his ‘blue book’) for Ava comes from a net cast wide upon the world-as-is. That is, he’s just grabbed all the sexist sociocultural conditioning in the world and built something from it. No wonder, Ava.
Ex Machina is just another movie that objectifies women. It just pretends to be about AI, but it’s not even a little bit past Asimov’s I, Robot.
Is it redeemed by the fact that Ava escapes, after killing the guy (and leaving the guest imprisoned, facing the same outcome)? Not really. Because she does so by sexual manipulation (“I want to be with you,” she tells the guest in her soft, little-girl voice. “Do you want to be with me?”). (“Yes,” I imagine the guest replying. “I’d like the girlfriend experience, please.”) That’s apparently what the script writer and director believe intelligence is, at least when female-bodied.
And she escapes into the forest wearing high heels—fuck-me heels. Though, okay, that’s probably all that was available to her, and we do see that she takes them off. But she doesn’t throw them away. Once in the real world, does she choose instead Doc Martens, loose pants with pockets, a comfortable sweatshirt, and a jacket? No. She remains sexualized. Artificial intelligence indeed.
*Right, okay, it was actually metal mesh, I get that. And the similarity to fishnet is also mere coincidence? (If you think so, you are too naïve for words. Certainly too naïve to be writing movie reviews.)
(You know we’re laughing at you, right? [When we’re not screaming at you.] You who investigate artifical intelligence but are too stupid to recognize your own immaturity, you who have conferences on “The Future of Humanity” with all-male panels, you who publish special issues called “Speaking of Humanism” featuring nothing but male faces…)
"We License Plumbers and Pilots - Why Not Parents?"At Issue: Is Parenthood a Right or a Privilege? ed. Stefan Kiesbye (Greenhaven, 2009); Current Controversies: Child Abuse, ed. Lucinda Almond (Thomson/Gale, 2006); Seattle Post-Intelligencer (October 2004)
"A Humanist View of Animal Rights"New Humanist September 99; The New Zealand Rationalist and Humanist Winter 98; Humanist in Canada Winter 97
have been previously published in Canadian Woman Studies, Herizons, Humanist in Canada, The Humanist, and The Philosopher's Magazine - contact Peg for acknowledgement details.
ImpactAn extended confrontation between a sexual assault victim and her assailants, as part of an imagined slightly revised court process, in order to understand why they did what they did and, on that basis, to make a recommendation to the court regarding sentence does not go … as expected.
What Happened to TomTom, like many men, assumes that since pregnancy is a natural part of being a woman, it’s no big deal: a woman finds herself pregnant, she does or does not go through with it, end of story. But then …
Aiding the EnemyWhen Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.
Bang BangWhen a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?
ForeseeableAn awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?
Exile (full-length drama) Finalist, WriteMovies; Quarterfinalist, Fade-In.
LJ lives in a U . S. of A., with a new Three Strikes Law: first crime, rehab; second crime, prison; third crime, you’re simply kicked out – permanently exiled to a designated remote area, to fend for yourself without the benefits of society. At least he used to live in that new U. S. of A. He’s just committed his third crime.
What Happened to Tom (full-length drama) Semifinalist, Moondance.
This guy wakes up to find his body’s been hijacked and turned into a human kidney dialysis machine – for nine months.
Aiding the Enemy (short drama 15min)
When Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.
Bang Bang (short drama 30min) Finalist, Gimme Credit; Quarter-finalist, American Gem.
When a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?
Foreseeable (short drama 30min)
An awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?
What is Wrong with this Picture?
Nothing. There’s no reason women can’t be the superordinates and men the subordinates. But life’s not like that (yet).
Minding Our Own Business A collection of skits (including “The Price is Not Quite Right,” “Singin’ in the (Acid) Rain,” “Adverse Reactions,” “The Band-Aid Solution,” and “See Jane. See Dick.”) with a not-so-subtle environmental message
Rot in Hell A soapbox zealot and an atheist face off…
