PG Porn: Nailing Your Wife

I wrote this post about a week and a half ago and then never got round to posting it so, pretty much, I'm way behind. But I still think it's worth mentioning.

There is a man called James Gunn. He is a writer and a director. He has previously been responsible for such gems as Slither and Tromeo and Juliet. His most recent project is PG Porn (the tagline of which is: "For people who love everything about Porn...except the sex. "), which he is undertaking with his brothers. They have recently released their first PG Porn offering on spike.com entitled "Nailing Your Wife". I watched it. I found it awful but I recognised that it was meant to be awful in terms of production and acting. I saw the ending and was shocked, amused and disquieted by it. I thought very little else about it because, get this, I went to see it because it had Nathan Fillion (aka Mal in Firefly) in it and I forgot to put my critical hat on. I do this sometimes, which is unfortunate because, when I have my clueless non-hat on I internalise the BS that surrounds me (or, more precisely, all of us as BS is everywhere). I also fail as a feminist.

Anyway, I watched it. I forgot about it for a couple of days and then I saw a mention of it on Whedonesque because, get this, a woman dared to highlight its misogyny. And James Gunn? He's not happy about it.

To sum up Darklady's point, she argues that making PG Porn- porn without sex- and having it climax with a woman nailed (literally) in the head with a nail gun is, well, problematic. It's problematic because it depicts a sexual woman as a woman willing to cheat on her sexually inadequate husband and as willing to initiate this extramarital sex as a person whose murder is funny. In other words that sexual women being punished (with death!) for being sexual is absolutely fucking fine.

The Gunn brothers apparently consider violence against women to be not just acceptable but sexy, so long as nobody actually gets laid or engages in any wet spot to erogenous zone contact.

And this, Darklady says, is misogynistic. I have to say that I agree with her although I'm not convinced that it was supposed to be "sexy". I'm not convinced it was meant to be seen in the same light as actual porn but rather to play on the tropes of the porn genre.

However, that said, James Gunn's response to this analysis is, for me, absolutely horrific. More horrific than anything in this PG Porn episode or his movie which, if I could bring myself to look at Slither again I could have a field day talking about what is wrong with it (although I don't remember it being particularly misogynistic but just gross and everybody hating) but, having seen it once, I have no desire to see it again, not even for my Nathan Fillion fix. He says that she is a stupid ("Ms. Reed may be mildly retarded."), that she is "fat" (and therefore, what, too unattractive to listen to?),

"And, fourthly, in your picture, tilting your head like that and cutting off the frame right below your chin doesn't trick anyone into thinking you're not fat."

and that she is an example of someone who just shouldn't be allowed to express an opinion.

" your article pisses me off because it's just another example of how every idiot thinks his or her voice is worth hearing on the internet."

Oh, and lets not forget that she's "humourless and just plain doesn't "get" the joke.

"I have no idea how Ms. Reed doesn't understand that PG PORN is, uh... a joke. But she doesn't."

Because, after all, if he thinks its funny then it's funny. And if he thinks his vid. is just a joke and not a cultural artefact or, even, a representation of what he and his brothers think, then, clearly that's all it is. And the woman who dared to criticise them? Well she's just a stupid fat bitch who shouldn't be allowed to speak. And, out of this whole debacle, that is the thing that I find most problematic.

EDIT: In typing up this post I went back to James Gunn's blog (to get the link) and I noticed that he has responded to some of the responses to his entry. I have to say that, while I question his logic in some places, the fact that he has responded and the tone that he took in it actually impresses me. I still disagree with him, but I am impressed that he has responded.
Click Here to Read More..

Things That Piss Me Off, Part The First.

Quotation marks round words designed to undermine women's stories.

Like in this picture here:


The heading of note here is "Woman beheads 'attacker'".

Now, ok, beheading people is generally not a good thing. And parading the head around the marketplace, which, according to the full article, she did, is also probably not the wisest of choices. Other people may not take it very well and, indeed, didn't since they called the police. But, putting quotation marks around the word attacker automatically implies that the woman is lying.

For the record, in the article the woman says that the man came up behind her while she was cutting grass and attacked her and she cut his head off, presumably in self defense, although the article says it was to preserve her dignity. And in relation to being attacked she had bite marks on her neck and cheek. She also told police that the man had been harassing her for 3 months. The woman in question is in northern India and I know nothing about norther India or the culture of northern India. I presume the 'dignity' comment means that she thought she was going to be raped. So we have an attempted rape victim who fought back being labeled a liar by MSN. Par for the course right.

If she were a man and she beheaded another man because he attacked her- and there were actual physical marks that indicated that there had been some form of violence (bite marks)- would MSN have put quotations around the word attacker? Do victims of muggings who are out walking at night get blamed for being mugged the same way rape victims often are? No. This is the same thing.

On a related note, this is in "today's picks". It is along side the news that Beckham may be returning to football in England, Angelia wants to adopt again (why is this a shock?) and one of the pussycat dolls doesn't think that she is sexy because men don't hit on her. So a woman being attacked and retaliating is on par with not very news-worthy celebrity news?

The world sucks. Click Here to Read More..

McDonald's M Burger.

You never forget your first time. Bah humbug.

This advert opens with all the usual wedding day prep of a young man off to the church. He has a smart suit on. He has a friend hanging around behind him, also smartly dressed, watching him get ready and smiling. They go downstairs and his parents are there, again dressed smartly. His mother tells him how proud they are of him. The walk out to the car and start to get in, his mother fussing at his tie, the neighbours watching. Then we cut to his parents watching him, his mother looks teary eyed, and then to him looking a bit sheepish and hesitant but happy. He looks up and we cut to the smiling face of a young woman looking expectantly at him, waiting, and then he... asks for an M burger. The camera pulls back to show that she's in a McDonald's outfit and she gets him his burger. At this point the VoiceOver tells us about the M burger. As the advert ends he is sitting at a table, his friend and his parents watching him proudly as he takes his first bite and the other customers clap.

Remember Your First ..
Watch the ad...

The thing is, watching this, all I see is that McDonalds are equating meat/a burger with a bride and therefore Women are only Meat. Women are just something to use, to consume. And if you look at the only other females in this ad you have a fussing mother and a obedient server. None of which is a good message.
END OF POST. THERE IS NO MORE Click Here to Read More..

Because, God Knows, We Can't Even Let Old Women Forget That Their Life Boils Down To Their Sexual History!

A woman in Cornwall turns 105- and the Guardian decides the most important part of her story is that she's a virgin. Assholes.

On the main page today(10/10/08) the story is advertised as:

"Woman celebrates 105 years of virginity"



The actual article itself isn't quite so clear cut. Miss Meadmore (the 105 year old in question) says that she thinks her longevity is to do with "plenty of walking, the odd glass of wine - and remaining a virgin." This a paraphrase by the writer of the article so we can't be sure that this is how she phrased it (then again media is suspect at the best of times anyway and even quotes can be misquotes). However the main focus of the article is on her sexual history.

What this makes me wonder is: how did this become the only important part of this woman's story? She was born in Glasgow in 1903. She's lived through the 2 world wars. She's lived through all women getting the vote. She's worked as a secretary. She's lived through women's lib. She will have seen so much and she'll have done so much, but here she is after 105 years and all the reporter covering the story is interested in is that she's a virgin and whether that's because she's gay. How does that even come up in a conversation without some prompting? Did the reporter (Sam Jones) sit and wonder what would make the article interesting and decided "Well sex sells" and therefore set out to focus only on this. Terrible.

It's nice to know that, should I live into my hundreds, all this society will be interested in will be when I last got laid. Way to turn women into sex objects only (because only our sex matters) rather than letting us be people.

Despite my irritation at this article, however, I hope Miss Meadmore had a very Happy Birthday. Hopefully if we talk about her on her next birthday we'll be able to know more about her than merely her sexual status. Click Here to Read More..

State of Britain.

It's been a great day today. I had my daily dose of racism and sexism all before 10.30am.

Firstly, I'm lying in bed contemplating getting up. I'm almost ashamed to say that, as a PhD student whose desk is at the bottom of her bed, this is a near daily occurrence. Chris Moyles and his lot are on the radio and it's the Monday Pub Quiz feature. As ever my ability to answer the questions were shocking. Unfortunately what was not shocking was that one of the men in Chris Moyles' team, annoyed at having a bad score, made a comment about the sole female player's score being "Good for a girl." Why not start the day with some harmless misogyny right? Anyway, the person controlling the quiz, Rachel, docked him a point for being sexist (Go Rachel)! Needless to say he wasn't very happy, but didn't get any sympathy within the team, so the Great British Public weighed on in and by the end of the next song he was reading out a swathe of text messages all saying things such as "That's what you get for giving women authority", and "Don't worry mate, must be her time of the month", etc. So, because Rachel stuck to her guns and made it clear that she did not find sexism acceptable she got a slew of texts basically saying that, as a girl, she should never have been allowed even that limited power and that protesting against sexism is irrational. I especially loved how the guy whose points were docked claimed that the nation had spoken and that the nation was behind him. I really hope that such thoughts weren't the opinions of the nation as a whole.

Incidentally, after those texts were read out, I sent in a message saying, and I quote, "Good to see sexism is still rampant acceptable in British society. By good, of course, I mean shameful and disgusting." I didn't wait around to see if it was read out, I was too annoyed so I got up and got on with things instead.

Then, at about 20 past 10, I was walking past the Buchanan Galleries and there was a drunk ranting and weaving his way across the road. I tend to try to not listen to them because, well, they're always so aggressive and talking such bullshit. Unfortunately I caught the "Look at all these fucking Pakis" line which shocked me to the point of turning and glaring at him before I realised I really didn't want to have to deal with an overly aggressive drunk man when I was actually trying to get to a specific place at a specific time. Also, I'm a wuss and I have no idea what I should do in those situations. I start walking away and following me up the road I hear him going on about "Darkies" and giving some disgusting, and biologically impossible reasons, for the colour of their skin.

Of course it did make me suddenly painfully aware, and ashamed, of my colour and my privilege and my nation, The fact that I look so typically like a Scot means that I will never have to worry about being told that I shouldn't be in Scotland, well unless they decide I sound too English. It also made me realise, again, how many different ethnicities are here in Glasgow, a fact that, even after having lived and worked here for a couple of years, I am every now and then surprised by. My little town in the middle of nowhere was nothing like Glasgow.

I don't know what I should have done. And I think this post is rather whiny. I hate being whiny. I don't like confronting people and I don't think random drunk guys are likely to listen to me or give a shit about my opinions. I'd much rather rant about it on a blog or send an inefficient text message.

Still, today, I am disappointed by my nation. And I wish I was more surprised. Click Here to Read More..