sundries

[rm]

Patty has a cold. :(

Also, Buffy and Angel? Not here yet.

Finished my WIAD story.

Can we talk about Lady Gaga's new video? Because I could. All day. Not only is it a response to a certain era of Madonna, but it also goes to a lot of strange, strange uncomfortable places, the fascist references in its physical language being close to the top of the list. It's incredibly cool, smart stuff. There needs to be a Gaga Studies Journal, that's all I'm saying.

From all of my friendslist to all of yours: liljacks_corner is a community that has been set up for fan creators to make G-rated stuff for an eight-year-old boy named Jack who has just lost his legs; one of the only things that cheers him up right now is Doctor Who. He's only seen the first two seasons of the New series. What's being requested is a story about a little boy, much like the one it's for, going on an adventure with the Doctor and Rose. Details at the community.

Ready to start hollering? Daring to discuss women in science.

The Century Athletic Club.

New York now has an AllStaints Spitalfields.

Does anyone know more about this: is Judy Shepard's book homophobic? Accusations vague, scenario murky. Bwah? Anyone read it?

Didn't know this: Stephanie Flores, the Peruvian woman van der Sloot has reportedly confessed to killing, was a lesbian.

Comments

[introductory.livejournal.com]

I just came out of a film studies class, so the entire time I was watching the video (which, to be honest, took me a few tries) I kept trying to analyze it from a film studies perspective, like, appropriation of the male gaze and all that. Gaga's videos are always strange, but this was the first one to make me feel especially nervous.

One of my friends watched it and her first reaction was, "It's Evita on drugs." Which, strangely, doesn't not make sense.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes! With the Evita! And nervous is so the right word. There's an actual, personal, discomfort with this one that I haven't felt with the others.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

So weird. I had no real trouble with this one, more with some of the others. Maybe because the majority of the supporting dancers were men while the majority of the supporting dancers/cast most of her other work were women? To me, there was less violence and such in A than the others. Of course, I'm totally oblivious to any discomfort regarding appropriation of Catholic imagry so that whole section didn't bother me at all (except as I think I've seen the translucent latex nun suit at fetish parties around here).

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I totally have a lack of response to the religious stuff in an authentic way too. I can't tackle that at all from anything other than "oh hey, latex" and "oh hey, Madonna" either.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

Well I went 'Oh hey latex... yawn', 'oh hey Madonna... again', 'oh hey girls on top and possessing the space of a phallic dominator... well at least I'm not watching repeats of Friends on E4.'

And interwar Europe, clumsy fascinating fascism, (aside from eroticising imagery of suffering and cruelty and the exoticising of cultural and historical zone be a big American company and rich white girl) it's not actually critical of oppressive relationships, is it? It's more like 'I want to take my turn being an emotional abuser now.'

But then again, it is insipid, it is trash culture and nobody has to take the good bits or bad bits as seriously as I do. They're meant to buy it with their pocket money and then grow out of it in three years time. C'est la vie.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

I think dismissing Gaga as trash culture is failing to take culture seriously. Because she's not just a throw away pop star. She really is saying new and interesting things. They're things that call back to other pop stars that have changed our landscape, but they're also transformative and big. She definitely takes her work seriously. It's not something she's packaging to get rich off of. Everything she makes is put back into the shows, which she's pretty open about.

Listen, I grew up the daughter of Hippie parents. I still don't wear shoes mostly or shave anything. I didn't have a television or microwave until extremely recently (think maybe two years?). I don't know who anyone in the pop scene is. But I also get that it's not OK to dismiss things as being trash culture. What's important to people is important. Being 'above' it in some way doesn't make me more sophisticated and media savvy. It makes me ignorant. It means I'm missing something important that's resonating with other people. You don't have to find it interesting, but acting like you're so much better than people who *do* find it interesting is boring and gauche.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

I never said anybody shouldn't take Trash culture seriously. And just as you're entitled to say Lady Gaga is interesting, transformative and new I'm entitled to say that it's cliched, done-before and the most interesting thing about her work is that it is spectacularly vapid.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Just a little note on the Catholic thing; I remember reading someone saying that there was a similarity between nuns and prostitutes. They both live on the fringes of society. The only difference is that a nun withdraws her sexuality while a prostitute flaunts her sexuality.

There is also a whole slew of sex issues in Catholicism. I was brought up as part of a new generation, so for me it's not the severity it would have been, oh say maybe 100 years ago? We were taught that sex was a sacred thing and supposed to be only for having children and married couples.

But I've heard stories of Catholic couples who were chaste within marriage (okay so maybe some of these stories are from 500 years ago) because sex was equated with Original Sin.

Hmmm... I haven't revisited the 'sexual issues' stuff in Catholicism in years. I might have to do that then re-watch this video.

I do definitely remember one of my nuns mentioning that she had been brought up with sex as the Original Sin. In other words, the forbidden fruit of the tree was sex, and for having sex Adam and Eve were tossed out of the Garden of Eden.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

yeah, I know a fair amount of the history and culture of the Catholic church but the Catholic imagry in the vid, for example, doesn't hit me emotionally the way it might for those who were raised catholic/were raised with some religious practice.

For me, the most emotional reaction to most Catholic imagry is either horror movies or sexual kink (like I said above, I've seen a fair amoutn of kink/porn that uses Catholic imagry).