So, is Blonde-Washing a thing now? Also, this just in.. Slut-shaming still sucks.

So I may seem hypocritical here, considering my past stance regarding POC's portraying fictional characters that are traditionally portrayed white.  That stance being that I am generally pretty okay with it and think people should not freak out so much about it.  I still stand by that.

That being said, context matters.

So I, like many others, are less than impressed with the new cover for the box set release of Lucy Maude Montgomery's classics Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island.

Here's an older edition:

Source - Amazon.ca

And here's the new cover:

Source

This is wrong.  Mainly because Anne Shirley is a redhead and her being a redhead is pretty integral to the plot of the books and how Anne is perceived by the other characters in the book, as well as how Anne sees herself.  So making her a blonde is  ridiculous, at best.  

The other point is that these books take place in late nineteenth century Prince Edward Island.  So the flannel shirt and long flowing hair is a pretty huge anachronism.  So no, I am not impressed by this ill-though-out attempt to modernize Anne for a new audience and I sincerely hope some art director somewhere is having a strip torn off for clearly not picking up the damn book before designing the cover.

The new cover was posted this morning to a local radio station's Facebook page.  As expected, people were not amused and many voiced their disapproval.  Many more, frustratingly, took to insulting and slut-shaming the model on the cover, call her a tart, a hooker and otherwise speculating on this girl's sex life, because she is a blonde and posing in what can be considered a 'sultry' pose.  

People, this is a model.  I have not yet been able to find her name, but I would be willing to bet that when this cover was taken, she may not have even been privy to what they would be used for.  Perhaps just told something vague like "Oh, it's a cover for a book about a girl in the country" if that much information was even divulged.  Yet people feel entitled to judge this girl as though she personally went and defecated on Montgomery's grave.

 

That second last one makes me laugh out loud.  In what universe does a flannel shirt, buttoned up to the neck, qualify as "provocative" or "scantily clad"?  Oh, and butt-less chaps?  Where the hell did THAT come from??

It's pretty disgusting that people, out of a sense of indignation over a fictional character, feel entitled to insult and degrade the portrayer of said character with gendered slurs.  Anne Shirley is a fictional character, but that girl on the cover is an actual person*

*Unless, of course, she's the result of some really impressive photorealist-type illustration.

The Internet is Effing INSANE.

So, first of all, if you're not reading The Bloggess, you are missing out on some top-notch funny.  Seriously, you three, you need to get on it.

But not only is she funny, she's apparently crazy-powerful as well.

This week, a gentleman *koff* by the name of Jose of Brandlink Communications found this out the hard way.

Here's the full backstory, but I'll sum it up real quick-like for ya:

 - The divine Ms. Lawson receives poorly-researched PR pitch for something having to do with Kim Kardashian and pantyhose.
 - Jenny responds how she usually does to unsolicited PR pitches... with a short letter and a picture of Wil Wheaton Collating Paper
 - Jenny receives short, snippy but on-the-whole still fairly professional email response from Erica at Brandlink Communications.
 - VP Jose replies by calling Jenny "a fucking bitch" but has mistakenly hit Reply All.

In the immortal words of Eddie Izzard: "*sigh*  Stupid man..."

 - Jenny calls Jose on his remark, explaining this her usual response to unsolicited pitches, and most people either find it funny, or at the very least, take the hint.

 - Jose basically tells Jenny she should be flattered that said PR firm should even find her relevant enough to send pitches to.

Let me just add here, that @thebloggess currently has 170K+ Twitter followers to @brandlinkcomm's 900-someodd.  The woman created a Facebook page for a giant metal chicken that has over 26K likes.  This is not what I would call irrelevant.  Irreverent, maybe, but definitely not irrelevant.

Again:

- With a single tweet and a blog post, said Bloggess unleashes an unholy, sulphur-raining maelstrom of internet smackdown on Brandlink Communications.

It was awe-inspiring.

I'm convinced that "Please Stand By For Demonstration of Relevance" is officially the most bad-assed line since "Yippie Kay-ay, Motherfuckers."

I can't read that line without imagining Jenny standing on top of a mountain, arms raised, with lightning flashing and thunder crashing while angry hordes of bloggers and tweeters come swarming from over the surrounding hills, right up into BrandLink's "grill" - so to speak.

I don't think I have to remind Ms. Lawson of Uncle Ben's old adage of great power and great responsibility.  Jenny has also used her blog as a platform to help others by promoting philanthropic causes and in one case, simply publishing one Christchurch, NZ woman's utterly hilarious plea for help.

Wow, those are five words that don't seem like they should go together.

Anyway, if my blogging efforts resulted in me becoming even 1/457 as 'relevant' as this one, I'd consider myself one very excited blogger.

Inducing rage on your Tuesday morning.

Quick post.

Last week, I posted about what I considered the best feminist children's book ever.

This week I'm taking you in the opposite direction, as I have caught wind of what could possibly be the worst book to get your little girl (or boy).  It's called Maggie Goes On A Diet.  It's about a little fat girl who goes on a diet to fit into a pretty pink dress and becomes popular and plays some soccer.

Can we get a big, collective, face palm right now?

It's about a 14-year-old girl, but the book is aimed at the 4-7 age bracket.  BRING EM YOUNG.  Let's look at some of the problematic messages:

Thinness is the ticket to popularity.
Only thin people are athletic.
You are valued for your appearance.

The comments and tags that are going up on the Amazon site for this page are heartening though.  It looks like people are getting that this is a craptacular lesson to be sending  to little kids.  I somehow think this book isn't going to be doing any great amount of sales.

I don't mind saying, for anyone who does buy this for their kids, I hope something very large and pointy falls on them from a great height.

Myself?  I wouldn't be caught dead.  I'd rather read my kids "Go The Fuck to Sleep"

It'd be less damaging in the long run.

Of Intent and 'isms'

I've been watching a rather interesting flame war unfurl on Feministe right now, in regards to a seemingly innocuous ad from Dove, depicting three women under two frames showing dry crackily skin as before, and a frame of smooth-appearing skin as the after.

The interesting note is how the women are arranged under the before and after frame.  We go from a plus-sized woman of color (directly under the 'Before' sign), to a fairly average, "racially-ambiguous" woman in the middle, to a thin white woman (directly under the 'After' sign).

Click to enlarge - Source

Now, myself, I wouldn't have picked up on this had it not been pointed out to me, but I will admit it does look a smidge like the women in the picture are suppose to represent the 'Before' and 'After', in which case, that's a pretty racist AND size-ist image to be putting out there, what with the played out ideas of light=desirable as well as thin=desirable.  Have we not moved beyond this, people?

Two of the common defences for this ad that are popping up are the "I don't see how this is racist" defence and the "I don't think Dove intended it to be offensive" defence.

Two of the commenters on the thread, one an admittedly thin, white woman, made the "I don't see how this is racist," argument, which would have been fine in my humble opinion (because, hey, not everyone is going to read it the same way) had they not decided to suffix this statement by going on about how people, and especially POC, are oversensitive and looking for problematic issues where none exist.

One of the commenters took to her own blog with a diatribe about her hurt feelers, without seeming to get that while it's totally okay to not see the same imagery (like I said, I probably wouldn't have seen it if wasn't pointed out to me) making statements that basically dismiss the concerns of those who DO see a problem with it, especially those who may belong to said marginalized groups, and THEN have a hissy because people aren't respecting that your opinion is your opinion... well, there's just nothing cool about that at all.  It's the debate equivalent of smacking someone and then saying "What? That didn't hurt! Quit being a suckhole!" and then getting pissed off when they smack you back.

The second common defence for the Dove ad is the "They probably didn't mean it that way, so why are we getting all up in arms about it?"

Because, my lovelies, unintentional messages and images that serve to marginalize underprivileged groups are still messages and images that serve to marginalize underprivileged groups and as such, we should do what we can to examine and be critical of such images, and not just give them a pass because maybe they didn't mean it that way.

No, maybe they didn't mean it that way, although it's hard to imagine that with a company the size of Unilever that SOMEONE on the marketing department wouldn't have picked up on this and gone "Uh, hey guys? About that?"  But unintentional messages can perpetuate ideas and stereotypes just as well as intentional messages, and in some cases can be more damaging when you consider the tendency to give people a pass due to ignorance.

In the thread there was a debate about the similarity of the situation to an episode of South Park, but I think a more apt comparison is the scene in Clerks 2 where Randal uses the word 'Porchmonkey'  while ignorant of it's problematic history (Trigger warning on the vid for racial slurs.  A lot of them - p.s. I'm not the author of the video, so that's not my captioning at the beginning).  The incomparable Wanda Sykes plays a customer who takes great offense to this and is just about ready to jump the counter on him.  Blinded by his privilege Randal insists that it's not racist, and continues to offend those around him with his insistence on using the term.  Wanda Sykes' character is offended, not because she's oversensitive, but because Randal, while not an inherently bad person, is an idiot.  Not for using the word porchmonkey, but for dismissing others' experiences with the term, based on his own privileged experience and CONTINUING to use it after having the negative connotations explained to him.

When a small child says or does something inappropriate that hurts others, we (hopefully.. as a parent I try to) point out what they've said or done and why it's hurtful.  Clearly the child doesn't know they're being hurtful, so we correct them so they avoid this behaviour in the future.

Why is it unacceptable to do the same with adults, or large corporations, or the media?  When a message is unintentional, that is ALL THE MORE reason to call it out and let those put the message forth that "Hey, yeah, not okay."

And pointing out the behaviour, and why it's hurtful.  Like we do with small children.  This goes for any 'ism' that one may come across, be it racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and so forth.

The test for Dove and Unilever now will be their response.  So far it's been a resounding "Did Not!" which is basically what we've been talking about here.  A dismissal, when a more PR-friendly response may have been  an acknowledgement of the public's concerns, an apology for inadvertently upsetting people, and then pull or alter the ad.

It's a better move to go "Uhm.. wow.  Didn't pick up on that. Let's fix that." than to be the kid going "Nuh-uh! I never did!"  The latter option ends up acting as a big 'Fuck You' to all the people who did feel the ad was questionable and felt marginalized as a result.

Must I always be 'The Other Woman'?

Avid readers may remember that one year less two days to this very date I had what I originally believed to be a brush with identity theft.  Thankfully the misunderstanding was a result of someone with the same name having a very similar email address to mine.

It seems that some people didn't take a minute to update their contacts list, as today I received the following email from the very same real estate agent who had emailed me almost a year ago today:

How is everything going?  Have you found another rental yet?  If you didn't let me know right away please.
[name redacted]

Excellent customer service, if I was indeed a customer.  I figured it deserved some sort of response.

Hi Maria,

We've spoken previously, almost a year to the day, in fact.  I am not the Andrea whom you seek. You're looking for another Andrea who I will assume has an email address very similar to my own.  I've never lived, owned or rented in the Toronto area, although seeing this kind of customer service, if I was considering a move to the GTA, I might consider using you as a rep.  However, a deep, abiding love for small town life, and a rather inflexible custodial agreement renders the possibility of my relocation as a highly unlikely scenario.  

Have a lovely afternoon.

Best Regards,

The Other Andrea.

 Maybe I've made a new friend.

Metric's sound appropriated for right-wing asswad - music fan is confused.

So I stumbled across an interesting bit of story today, via The Twitter.  Seems a fan by the name of Thomas Horn sent a letter to Metric (awesome band fronted by the gorgeous and talented yet perpetually sad/dull-eyed Emily Haines) to let them know that a riff from one of their songs was being co-opted by a radio station in Pittsburgh for use in the intro to right-wing extremist looney-tune Glenn Beck's radio program.

Turns out Emily and the boys didn't have a clue their tune was being used.  Aghast and all full of 'Why-I-a-Outrage' they contacted their publisher "with a mortified WTF?" who informed them that the station was covered under a blanket license which let's them use the music how they want, albeit in small doses.

Even so, the publisher contacted the radio station and asked them to pretty pretty please not to use Metric's music because they love all things fair and just and Beck is a douche.  This is how I imagined the conversation might go*:

Sad Emily Is Sad.  Source

"Hello,  Philadelphia 104.7, this is the legal department.  How may I help you?"
"Hi, I represent the band Metric.  We heard that you're using one of their songs to open for the Glenn Beck Insanity Hour, and we'd like you pretty pretty please to stop, thanks."
"Well, legally we're allowed to do what we want with it, in small doses.  It's blanket license."
"Yeah, I know, but I thought you could, you know, just stop anyway.  See.. we don't much care for Beck, being Beck and all.  The situation is making Emily all sad and dull-eyed, more so than usual."
"Ahh, I see.  Hmm. Since we're good guys, and secretly we all think Glenn's a douche as well, we'll take it off for you."
"Sweet thanks."

Clearly, I have no idea how entertainment law works.

So happily ever after.  Here's what bugs me:

Is it that, as pondered in Em's letter back to Thomas, that it seems that the teabag-assbag is trying to co-opt the lefties for his show.  Canadian Lefties, even?  (as my dear friend UncleJubb likes to refer to us... communists to the north).

No.

Throughout the correspondence, they refer to the use of Metric's song Rock Me Now, from the 2007 release, Grow Up and Blow Away.  But listen to the sample** of Beck's show provided with Thomas' letter. (I'll just mention here that I hate when people refer to Glenn Beck as Beck, because I always think people are referring to Beck Hansen and I want to fight them.  Because I LOVE Beck.  Hansen.)

Beck.  ❤  Source

Uhm.  Not so much.  Source

Creepin' crap, where was I?  Yeah.  Listen to the clip.

That's not "Rock Me Now", it's "Too Little, Too Late" off of 2007's other release Live It Out.  I should know, I played that riff non-stop when I first learned it.  How has nobody noticed this.. NOT EVEN THE BAND THEMSELVES?

I don't why this bothers me.  Maybe because I'm just anal-retentive in my desire for accurate music trivia.  Maybe it's because when I pointed the mistake out in a reply to the tweet on Metric's Twitter feed I was hoping for some kind of response like "Hey! Good ear!" or "Way to pay attention to detail!" or "Actually Buffy St. Marie smells like vanilla and cookies, if you're wondering."

But nothing.  *sigh*

At least I know I'm right.

*you may want to read the letters in the article for the actual legaleeze.
**Note:  Weird.  They've taken the sound clip out, for reasons unknown.  Well, take my word for it, it was not Rock Me Now.

WWWednesday - A corporation is a corporation...

.. is a corporation.

Oh yeah.  Down 1 lb this week.  *slow clap*

I'm feeling disillusioned with the program this week, but on a scale much grander than my usual "This is hard, wahhhhh" type disillusionment.

So Weight Watchers rolled out their new Points Plus program this week.  The difference here is supposed to be where the old Points program assigned foods a points value based on a food's fibre, calories and fat contents, the new system also incorporates protein and carbohydrate contents into the points value.  As a result some foods, such as fruits, go down in value and some go up.

I mean, in theory it makes sense, right?  Sure.

Here's what irks me.  In the four years I've been with this program, I have been witness to no less than four program roll-outs.  I have paid enough money (not even including recipe books and guides) into the program that I could probably bank roll the education of all of Fluorine Mark's children and still had enough for a nice dinner.  Myself, being the el cheapo I am, haven't bothered much with the peripherals of the program.. the measuring spoons, the fancy journals, the walking tapes, the fancy electronic points calculators.. no, aside from the initial food guides the first year I joined and 2-3 recipe books, I pretty much pay my weekly fees and that's it.

Boy sometimes I'm glad to be a tightwad.

Back to the reason for my aggravation.  Basically, this new points system renders all the old books, accessories, trackers, calculators absolutely moot and irrelevant.  And if there is one thing that gets my plus-sized panties in a bunch, it's planned fucking obsolescence.

So those people who did shell out for the fancy calculators, the food guides, and all that fun stuff, have got to do it again.  With the old program, you could get the fancy calculator or you could use the paper sliding graph that was provided with your WW package.  Now because of all the variables involved, they couldn't effectively design a paper slider, so you pretty much HAVE to buy the fancy electronic calculator.  They were marked down from $15 to $5 as a promotion for the opening week.  I bought one, but I was NOT happy about it.

 

An early version of the paper points finder.

Fancy pants electronic calculator.  Yes, I totally stole this pic from Amazon.  That's what the little camera means.

Frankly, the whole thing seems like a money-grab to me, and I said this to the ladies at the meeting today.  Let's change the whole program around, and bring in all new tools and materials.

Let's face it, although it touts itself as a lifestyle, and a support group, it's foolish to forget that above all Weight Watchers is a giant money-making machine, a corporation.  Sure it looks good on paper, in all reality, no matter what your mission statement may be, we know in the corporate world that the real mission is getting as much money out of the little guy (or the bigger gal) as humanly possible.

I've got some thinking to do.

This is me and here's my song...

So just some updates in general:

Wrangled me up a guest for my staff xmas party.  So that's fun, looking forward to it.

I'm quite excited about some changes in my workplace duties that have been taking place.  Normally to protect the innocent I try not to blog too much about work, and when I do, I like to keep it as vague and anonymous as possible,  but from past posts it can usually be assumed that I A) work for an internet company and B) I was in the Customer Service end of it.  Recent changes have my duties focusing less on customer service and more on web content and marketing via social networking, plus some SEOing which i find funny, because in some of my other duties, I've grown to have a vague contempt for SEO guys, mainly due to their tendency to play around with web-sites.  If I had the time and motivation to explain the one area of my job, my contempt would be easier to understand.  However in the name of again, keeping things rather anonymous, and reducing confusion I'll just say SEO guys make my life difficult so it's funny that in other aspects, I'm kind of becoming one, and leave it at that.


At any rate, the changes in my job description have been interesting in a good way, since I'm finding I'm actually excited about work, this past week, and feeling my potential to be a greater contributor overall.  Although for the most part I generally like my workplace and get along with my co-workers, customer service can be a soul-sucking exercise in frustration and futility that leaves me at the end of the day weeping for the state of humanity and the average's person's complete unwillingness and/or inability to click, scroll, read or otherwise do ANYTHING that would help them figure out things for themselves.  So some days I'm less than enthusiastic about making the 10 minute commute.  So to be excited and looking forward to new tasks and projects is a good thing, indeed.


Not started my Christmas shopping yet.  No big surprises there.

Spent some quality time with the guitar tonight, as there's a coffee house I plan on attending tomorrow night with the girls.  My parents have asked me to take some pictures for their magazine, [pimp]The Tay Township Report [/pimp], as my dad will be working and mom is entertaining.

This particular song has been eluding me for months, despite a relatively simple chord structure.  It's the odd syncopated rhythm that threw me off, and the face that as a relatively unknown performer, except perhaps among the alt-country crowds, NQ Arbuckle is kind of difficult to find tabs for online.

Yeah.. took me three tries to record this, and I still screwed up near the end.  Such is life. Just glad I have it down now.

A picture of Matt Good showed up in my Facebook feed, and I was struck again by the whole 'ugly-hot' phenomenon that guys, especially in the field of rock stars, are able to pull off.  There's a distinct subset of men that while nowhere near what could be called conventionally handsome, are able to make suck in my breathe and momentarily forget what I am doing.   Some less enlightened folks may chalk it up to money+power=sexy, but I think it's more attitude that plays into it, along with the whole creative mystique.  I don't see it as often in sports figures or politicians, but then again, I'm less inclined to pay attention to these types as I am musicians, artists, writers, etc.

Oh, Hai, Matt Good.  You want me come away with you?  mmkay.

I'm thinking I may start a theme day, something like 'Reverse Objectification Friday's' so I can just arbitrarily post pictures of dudes that provoke thoughts in my head of the type that would at best, make old lady's blush and at worse, make baby Jesus cry.

Because hell, who doesn't love a good theme day?

Sexualizing Organ Donation? Are you Kidding me?

So while waiting for my laundry to dry I was browsing through some old posts over at Sociological Images and came across this particular post from November 2008

Using sex to sell the most unlikely things

Now forgive me, as I am about two years behind the times here, but I think we can all agree on the ridiculousness of using scantily clad women to sell canned mushrooms, or of sexualizing sea monkeys. And the archery ad just makes me wanna laugh my ass off. C'mon seventies, you weren't even trying to hide your objectification of women.

However, my focus is on the thoroughly disturbing first ad, from a Belgian Men's magazine:



What. The. Fuck. (Sorry Grandma but in this case, I think it's called for.)

This ad is supposed to promote organ donation? Our basic message here is "See this chick? She's HOT. We all know what organ you really want to put in her, but maybe you can settle for a kidney. That's *kind* of like getting to do her."

I threw up in my mouth a little.

Instead of taking the logical marketing conclusion and NOT dehumanizing and objectifying a woman in need (I'm guessing from her lack of any noticeable body weight that she must be suffering from advanced kidney or liver failure. That's sarcasm, folks), but rather focusing on her humanity, maybe showing that she has family, or a promising future to live for. You know, saying "Hey.. what if this was YOUR daughter/sister/aunt/niece - wouldn't you want them to live??"

Instead we have an ad that likens organ donation to a sneaky way to commit sexual assault. Frankly, it makes me want to rip up my donor card and leave it alongside my corpse after I slit my own wrists in despair at my total loss in faith in the human race, as a big 'EFFYOO' to marketers everywhere.

I won't, granted, but it's tempting. Way to do a huge disservice to the cause of organ donation, since I'm sure I'm not the only one who would feel that way.

The evolution of what?

I saw a billboard on a bus today, and it literally made me laugh out loud.  Emblazoned across the top were the words "The Evolution of Rock95 [rock 95 being our local rock station]"

Underneath these words was a series of stylized photographs depicting, in this order John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Gene Simmons of KISS, John Bon Jovi, and Chad Kroeger of Nickelback.

I'm pretty sure the intention involved a sort of generational 'tying-together' - although the use of Jagger AND Lennon is problematic considering they were contemporaries, so that kind of blows the intergenerational thing.

The humour to be found here lies in the billboard's subtext.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case it needs only about 10.  With this picture, they might as well be saying

"The Evolution of Rock95 - We used to be cool, but now we kinda suck."

irkage.

I went and got my cheap DVD fix today. Sometimes I like to hunt the bargain bins to see what interesting tidbits I can come up with. I picked up three flicks today:

Beetlejuice - I love, love LOVED this movie as a kid. Entertainment for family company was getting little 7 year old Andie to recite entire scenes of memorized dialogue from this film. It also was the catalyst for my love of Harry Belafonte.

The Chiefs - Is apparently a documentary about a semi-pro hockey league out of Laval Quebec which was/is notorious for its in-game violence. Tagline: The Hanson Brothers have nothing on these guys (those familiar with the film Slapshot will get the reference)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Loved the book, and the movie was five bucks. Nuff said.

I've discovered a huge pet peeve in this world of cut-rate cinematography --- the two for one packages. Not just 2 for 10 bucks, but the ones that come wrapped together, or the box sets, or the 3 movies/1 Dvd deals. It's really just a scam to get rid of overstock.

It's like they're saying to me "Here, you can have this halfway decent movie for a pretty good price. Come on, you know you want it.

Ahh ahh ahh! There's a catch. To get the half-way decent film (or even enjoyable on a camp or kitch level film) You gotta take this piece of crap affront to the film business with it. Eg. Grease & Grease 2. What is worse, is people buy these, take the crappy movie to the Hock shop, and the Hock shops sell it for 10 bucks, when the original two-pack cost 8.99

The other ploy is the 'So-and-so Collection'. I saw the Jennifer Aniston Collection in Future shop one day. It didn't even have the Good Girl on it, which was the only film she ever got any acclaim for. Let's not even get into the question of WHY someone would want a Jennifer Aniston collection (Not that I dislike her, I took her side in the Brangelina debacle) but it seems kind of arbitrary, doesn't it? It'd be like having the 'David Arquette Collection'... just Huh? wtf? or the Brittany Murphy Collection. People who tend to do good supporting roles, but can't really carry a film on their own.

*sigh*