- Unexamined privilege, other than extremely shallow attempts then heralded as “brace”
- Pretentious, affected writing
- Fetishization of whiteness/WASPiness
- Obsession with bragging about own ancestry (I have an untested theory that anyone who talks about her ancestors who signed the Declaration of Independence/were on the Mayflower as if this is some amazing accomplishment of hers is immediately THE WORST)
- Pretentious, affected writing
- Hilariously offensive thoughts on class and social status
- Fetishization of material consumption
- Extreme wealth
- DID I MENTION THE WRITING
-“You stupid bitch!” scene from Deep Blue Sea
-“What is this freak of nature?” from MST3k’s Jack Frost
-“Alright, pal. You just asked for a sleighful of whoop-ass.” also from MST3k’s Jack Frost
11 Year-Old Carries On Family’s Aztec Dance Tradition
San Francisco Mission District resident Connie Xochiquetzalli “Xochi” Peña has been an Aztec dancer all her life.
As a 2 year-old, she danced an entire parade route. Now 11, Xochi sometimes steps in for her mother and teaches dance class at the Mission Cultural Center.
She comes from a long line of Aztec dancers. Her great-grandfather on her mother’s side was also a dancer in her family’s native Toluca, Estado de Mexico.
Xochi has big plans for herself, ones that include practicing either law or medicine. If dancing parade routes as a toddler and teacher classes while still in the sixth grade is any indication, we’re sure she can do anything she sets her mind to.
via SF Gate
Photo: Rod Yip/The Chronicle
Me: Wow, I have so much work to do on this huge, overarching project on something I presumably care about a lot.
(types a few sentences)
Me: Aaaannnnnd now I am suddenly overcome with inspiration and ideas for old/new stories that have absolutely nothing to do with my actual project due in a few months.
Happens every time. Was like this when I was working on my undergrad thesis, and is happening again for my graduate thesis. I assume if I ever tried to write a dissertation, I would instead finish writing several novels.
and i wonder, good god. was i this horrible when i was their age?
the answer is probably yes.
but even when i was 18 or 15 or 13, i knew that dressing in a “native american” costume or putting on “war paint” was RACIST, unfunny, and uncool. oh, and RACIST.
Super interesting! I learned something today. :3
EVIE NAGY
on Miss Fury, the first female superhero.Art by Tarpé Mills
Tarpé Mills
Tarpé Mills & Miss Fury: Sensational Sundays 1944–1949
IDW Publishing, July 2011. 240 pp.
DC Direct, the merchandizing arm of publisher DC Comics, produces a line of collectible busts called “Heroes of the DC Universe.” Apparently, the category of “Heroes” includes not only classic superheroes such as Batman, the Flash, and Green Arrow but also villains like the Joker, Darkseid, and Larfleeze the Orange Lantern. Flip a few dozen pages farther through the DC Direct catalog, though, and you come to a separate line of statues called “Women of the DC Universe”; this is where you’ll find busts of Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Supergirl, Vixen, and other female members of DC’s vast cast of superpowered beings. In other words, “heroes” are defined as men, including mass murderers, while women are what they are.
I’ve a hunch that whoever in the DC marketing department created these two discrete product lines was working on a notion that separating out the ladies was some kind of honorific, a pedestal to show off their unique skills and forms. But it’s a glittering example of the problematic position of female superheroes, who are usually created and written by men for a largely male audience, while also often serving as models of female power and independence. Even the fact that we routinely call them “female superheroes” more often than “superheroines” or just “superheroes,” reflects the issue; like girl bands and lady judges, the “female” in “female superheroes” is still a modifier to the real thing.
DC’s leading lady is, of course, Wonder Woman, a warrior princess born of an all-woman Amazon civilization created by the gods. She first appeared in December 1941; her real-life male creator, William Moulton Marston, invented the polygraph machine and was an enthusiastic scholar of the psychology of bondage. Combining his interests, he granted Wonder Woman a Lasso of Truth that forces honesty out of those it ensnares. Needless to say, there is no limit to the interpretations that comics fans and analysts have lent to this complicated origin of the superpowered female, which is both wildly progressive and disturbingly fetishistic. That this contradiction burdens female superheroes 70 years later isn’t as surprising as it should be.
But, contrary to common belief, Wonder Woman was not the first female superhero. She was preceded by more than half a year by Miss Fury, who starred in her own Sunday comic strip for 10 years beginning in April 1941. Miss Fury was created, written, and drawn by a woman, June Tarpé Mills, who published under the more sexually ambiguous Tarpé Mills. Had Miss Fury entered an enduring canon like DC’s, it’s possible that the template for female superheroes, as well as for superhero comic readership, would have depended more on the influence and perspective of actual women.
- The history of Mexican land reform, from pre-1900s to now
- The history of the Mexican illegal drug trade, from pre-1900s to now
- The relationship between Mexico’s liberalization of the agricultural sector and the illegal drug trade
…be sure to let me know. I just finished a 20 page paper (SINGLE SPAAAACED) and I have lots of feelings about this.
A few things that I want to remember because they are especially interesting are:
- that Mexico provides 80% of the marijuana, 20 to 30% of the heroin, and 80% of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. (The cocaine isn’t produced there, but rather transported by Mexican cartels with links to Colombians and Peruvian cartels.)
- Cartels have colluded with the government since the 1940s.
- The next big thing? Mexican meth.
- Article 27 of Mexico’s constitution originally (when it was written in like 1917) redistributed land into ejidos, to be communally owned and worked by campesinos. It also disallowed foreign ownership of land, as well as the sale/renting/debt-collecting of the ejidos; Article 27 was basically rewritten in the late ’80s/early ’90s to allow all of those things (easier privatization) and smooth the way for Mexico’s entry into free-trade agreements.
- President Cardenas was a boss.
