Sophie lives in BK, works, writes, plays music, DJs, puts on shows and uses twitter.
sophcw at gmail dot com
Scrape your knee, it's only skin.
Quote with 7 notes
The novelist Steve Erickson, in a 1992 review of Fire Walk With Me, is one of the few critics who gave any indication of even trying to understand what the movie was trying to do: “We always knew Laura was a wild girl, the homecoming femme fatale who was crazy for cocaine and fucked roadhouse drunks less for the money than the sheer depravity of it, but the movie is finally not so much interested in the titillation of that depravity as [in] her torment, depicted in a performance by Sheryl Lee so vixenish and demonic it’s hard to know whether it’s terrible or a tour de force. [But not trying too terribly hard because now watch:] Her fit of giggles over the body of a man whose head has just been blown off might be an act of innocence of damnation [get ready:] or both.” *Or* both? Of *course* both. This is what Lynch is *about* in this movie: *both* innocence and damnation; *both* sinned-against and sinning. Laura Palmer in Fire Walk With Me is *both* “good” and “bad,” and yet also neither; she’s complex, contradictory, real. And we hate this possibility in movies; we hate this “*both*” shit. “*Both*” comes off as sloppy characterization, muddy filmmaking, lack of focus. At that rate that’s what we criticized Fire Walk With Me’s Laura for. But I submit that the real reason we criticized and disliked Lynch’s Laura’s muddy *both*ness is that it requires of us an empathetic confrontation with the exact same muddy *both*ness in ourselves and our intimates that makes the real world of moral selves so tense and uncomfortable, a *both*ness we go to the movies to get a couple hours’ fucking relief from. A movie that requires that these features of ourselves and the world not be dreamed away or judged away or massaged away but *acknowledged*, and not just acknowledged but *drawn upon* in our emotional relationship with the heroine herself — this movie is going to make us feel uncomfortable, pissed off; we’re going to feel, in Premiere magazine’s own head editor’s word, “Betrayed.
David Foster Wallace from an appendix to his famous essay on David Lynch.
From an interview with the artist Margaret Chardiet aka Pharmakon on her sister’s website (presumably by her sister):
“The name it’s self is the gateway to understanding what the project is about. Pharmakon is an ancient Greek word; it means both poison and remedy, at the same time. It is the philosophy of something being dual in nature. The idea that something which could harm you, could also help you. But the distinction that is important to me is that the project is about duality, not juxtaposition, it is not about two things that are on opposite sides of the same spectrum, it is about two things that are opposite being the same thing.
There are many themes that fall under that umbrella. If you break [Pharmakon] down to it’s core, it is human connection. It’s not some cold power electronics project. It’s hot and sticky. It is the moisture in your groin. What is it? You can’t help it; it’s just there. I didn’t mean to put it there. I know it’s offensive, but the human race is disgusting. If they think I am acceptable, then I am doing something wrong, frankly.”
I don’t think that Fire Walk With Me is a great movie but Wallace’s interpretation of it makes me like it more, and his explanation of what makes something Lynchian helped me understand why I am so drawn to his aesthetic: its unflinching depiction of the mixed up nature of reality, with nothing to separate dark and light, them and you, just a terrifying sense that you do have some of this darkness inside of you and so does everyone you know.
There’s obviously a feminist interpretation here, and I think there’s a reason so many female and queer artists recently have embraced a Lynchian aesthetic, as I think Wallace is points out that it is inherently part of the way “others” experience reality and employing it is a great way to expose that to those who don’t naturally feel it.
Post with 16 notes
Radiolab and rape culture
I just listened to this episode of the podcast Radiolab called “Are You Sure?” The third act is about a woman who was assaulted violently on a beach in Minnesota many years ago. She went to the police station and identified the man she thought was the perpetrator. He ended up in prison for 18 years, until DNA evidence proved he was innocent. Another man, who was already in jail for other crimes, was arrested for her assault. She ended up meeting up with the man who had been falsely imprisoned and he “forgave her” for her mistake.
A few months later, the man who she had first identified raped and killed a woman with the help of his nephew (they mentioned earlier in the story that he had been arrested before for attempted assault and for animal cruelty, so this didn’t really surprise me). He was sent back to jail, the end.
What bothered me about this story and they way it was presented was that though they went into the psychological damage that was inflicted on the woman involved, and most of it was from her perspective, the narrative was shaped around her “uncertainty” around who had attacked her, and how after the other events unfolded she felt even more uncertain, and that she could no longer feel secure in her judgement of someone’s character. They interviewed the judge on the case who had let the murderer/rapist free, and his response was essentially “you can never be sure in life.”
This would have been a perfect story in which to bring up the fact that in the end, BOTH of these men turned out to have been rapists. And the fact that the victim felt guilt about choosing the wrong guy (for her crime) out of the line up, and then some weird sense of responsibility for his murder of the other woman, is a product of a culture that places the responsibility for rape on the victims and not on the rapists. That the male judge’s response was basically shrugging his shoulders and that he for some reason needed to be the voice that alleviated the “guilt” from the victim was also disturbing. On this show about uncertainty, all of the voices of authority were men, with the only prominent female voice being the victim, who is presented as having misjudged things because she is human, and that’s what humans do. Yes, humans are bad at judging situations, but it seems the real lesson here is that we still live in a society that blames victims for their rapes and doesn’t bat an eye at the frequency and regularity with which these events occur.
Radiolab isn’t a political show, it’s a science show. They may have felt that taking a decidedly feminist stance would be overstepping the bounds of what they are comfortable doing. And that is part of the problem.
Note: I am a big fan of this show and listen to it a lot, I don’t think its creators would be very happy to read this interpretation of it, but they really should have looked at the editing of that story more critically.
Quote with 13 notes
Facebook is vulnerable to feminist critique on a number of levels: from Facebook’s all-male board up until 2012, to the lopsided distribution of genders (and compensation) across its departments, to the way women’s images drive the site itself, where the most popular content has always been intimate, personal photographs of women. Sandberg’s book, very strategically, makes no mention of feminist critiques of Facebook, and instead imagines a feminist platform where women’s problems with undercompensation and sexism lie in women themselves, thus negating the need to change Facebook’s operations. In this way Sandberg is able to deploy Facebook’s oft-used tactic of building an in-house version of a competitive product, a move traditionally deployed against apps, against competing feminisms.
Quote with 6 notes
Take Sandberg’s perspective on the family. A successful working mother on the Sandberg model awakes at 5:00 a.m. to answer emails before preparing kids for school, returns home for dinner with her kids (which, like her job, is a duty the mother has to be promptly on time for), and then gets back into her email. “Once he was down at night, I would jump back on my computer and continue my workday,” she writes, acknowledging the fact that, by Silicon Valley’s own hand, “technology has extended the weekday.”
At this point in the text, what could become a critique of the new economy’s round-the-clock work imperative becomes its opposite: resignation to work’s all-consuming nature. “Facebook is available 24/7 and for the most part, so am I. The days when I even think of unplugging for a weekend or a vacation are long gone.”
Quote with 7 notes
But I believe that people would be happier sharing things and being much more of a collective rather than working from these neo-liberal ideas of just looking after yourself. I think people need each other.
Pitchfork interview with The Knife.
The best album of the year hasn’t come out yet.
Quote with 3 notes
There are a lot of really upsetting things going on both inside and outside the studio, both on the industry and consumer sides, which are disturbing and decidedly unfriendly to women. The language used to describe them in industry terminology and in social contexts, the attitudes about their worth as human beings, the aesthetics with which they are presented to the world, and the acts they perform raise a lot of questions. I mean, what’s with the fake boobs and nails and eyelashes and tans and hair? Why the no-body-hair rule? And who came up with the idea that ejaculate is the new trend in facial moisturizers? On that note, where is the line between pleasure and degradation drawn, and by whom? Why have the past few years seen such an abrupt switch from full-length feature films to half-hour-long frenzies of manic semen spewing? Is anybody overseeing this whole operation, and if so, can we arrange to have a private sit-down chat?
Quote reblogged from Hardcore for Nerds with 22 notes
The truth is, says Jensen, that because pornography consists of the same repetitive sexual acts, it needs some form of emotional content to succeed commercially. It’s that which staves off the boredom. “Now, if pornography went towards emotion that was about mutuality, respect and egalitarian relationships,” says Jensen, “then men wouldn’t buy it, because they’re using porn to avoid those aspects of sexuality. So the route to maximising market share involves including emotions that men are more willing to accept in a commercial sex relationship – anger, aggression and domination.
Interesting piece on men speaking out about the complicated problems with porn. (via likeapairofbottlerockets)
Ugh, this article is kinda terrible. ‘Interesting’ in some senses but lacking in a lot of others. I saw another quote of a line that preceded this:
“opposition to intimacy, says Jensen, helps explain why porn has become so cruel, degrading and humiliating – why, to quote Martin Amis, it has become “a parody of love” addressing itself “to love’s opposites, which are hate and death”.
which was an interesting thought, but I resisted the urge to click through then because I knew Guardian pieces on subjects like this are inevitably over-generalised and one-sided - a sort of semi-handwringing, semi-polemical take on social controversies. ‘Porn’ is a monolith, seen through the eyes of the advocates du jour, who in this case come off like a collection of recovering alcoholics discussing hard spirits.
It’s usually a good idea to be distrustful of anyone who starts off a statement with the phrase “the truth is”, especially when it’s about a subject as psychologically and culturally varied as sexuality and pornography, but what I really object to is the bald assertion that porn is used to avoid “mutuality, respect and egalitarian relationships”. In some cases that might be true, but it’s wrong to imply that it’s an issue of either/or, or even one of replacement: is it not obvious that such relationships are not attainable all the time, but rather than taking their place or allowing people - men or women - to ‘avoid’ them, pornography sates, at least partially, other desires?
Whether such desires are sometimes structured in ways that are inimical to egalitarian relationships, and what role pornography (or some forms of it) plays alongside the rest of society in exacerbating that, is a more complex question than virtually any of these interviewees allow. None of them that I see admit to holding a ‘sex-positive’ view, nor do I see that any of them are female, aside from the author - naturally the article is about ‘the men who believe porn is wrong’, but in making sweeping statements about its effects on gender relations it seems odd to exclude women who might disagree.
Tumblr is a great place for sex blogs, both in that it disrupts (as it does with many non-pornographic mediums) the commercial nature of porn distribution and because it offers an opportunity for individual tastes, desires and sexualities to be expressed. Of course much of it replicates the problematic (and aesthetically terrible) nature of much commercial porn, but other blogs span between the artistic and the genuinely amateur. Again, the sexuality on display often reflects existing habits of performativity and social beauty standards, but variety and autonomy offer the choice not easily available in the commercial world.
Significantly, many users are female: probably only a small minority overall, but a frequently vocal one that belies the pronouncements of this article - women who not only tolerate, but appreciate and enjoy pornography and have their own opinions about what is good and what isn’t. It’s not that the influence of much commercial pornography isn’t problematic - it is, but the nature of pornography in general is far more complex and doesn’t submit to easy psychological or moralising dismissal (pace Martin Amis).
This article argues that our culture “doesn’t want to look at” pornography as an issue, and according to the same man that “a lot of it simply has to do with the number of liberal-left men who use porn themselves and don’t want to engage in self-critique”. It would be a good issue to critique, but reductive and negative analyses like this aren’t a good starting place - not least because it gets men who don’t believe that ‘porn is wrong’ defensive about such an inaccurate portrayal of the subject.
(via hardcorefornerds)
Well, whether you believe it’s a good starting point or not, we’re talking about it now! Also, I am a woman who doesn’t believe anything like “porn is wrong,” but who thinks it’s important to consider in this age when it is immediately accessible to anyone with an internet connection (the part about kids seeing porn as their first encounter with sex is a good example of how this can go wrong). For what I think is a great and nuanced perspective on the porn industry and its effects on both those in it and outside of it, everyone should read the McSweeney’s column The Conflicted Existence Of The Female Porn Writer.
Source: likeapairofbottlerockets
Quote with 22 notes
The truth is, says Jensen, that because pornography consists of the same repetitive sexual acts, it needs some form of emotional content to succeed commercially. It’s that which staves off the boredom. “Now, if pornography went towards emotion that was about mutuality, respect and egalitarian relationships,” says Jensen, “then men wouldn’t buy it, because they’re using porn to avoid those aspects of sexuality. So the route to maximising market share involves including emotions that men are more willing to accept in a commercial sex relationship – anger, aggression and domination.
Photo reblogged from Judy Berman with 84 notes
Great news: “It’s Complicated #1” is now available for purchase on Etsy! Buy it here.
Here’s all the info:
“It’s Complicated Zine #1: Totally Crushed Out!” is the first issue of a series of zines about feminist writers’ relationships to the artists whose misogynist work we love. Edited by Judy Berman and Niina Pollari.
Issue #1 is 52 black and white pages, with a full-color cardstock cover designed by Gina Abelkop of Birds of Lace. Included are the following essays:
Nona Willis Aronowitz on Eminem
Brooklyn Copeland on Marlon Brando
Elisabeth Donnelly on The Afghan Whigs
Nina Mashurova on Charles Bukowski
Tom Ribitzky on the men of Ayn Rand
Judy Berman on Glam Rock!
Source: itscomplicatedproject
Photo reblogged from with 502 notes
#feminism
I like Molly Soda because even if she comes off as bratty or self-obsessed or whatever else you want to call her, she owns it, and owns it as a woman, people who are not typically allowed to embrace these personality traits (which describe basically every successful male). I’ve talked before about my fear of appearing to be too self-involved, sexualizing myself (“being a slut”) or “just wanting attention,” and I think this fear is something socially ingrained for all women in our culture. Even when her posts irritate me, I respect Molly because she epitomizes these qualities (at least online) and doesn’t give a shit.
Page 1 of 19
