lady macbeth

thecyndimistuff:

barbie was… a movie!! I’m glad i watched it in a group, it was fun that way. okay nice things to say first!! i cannot deny how fun the set design and costuming is for reasons that speak for themselves.. consumer brain 😞 also the dancer in me was very obsessed with the dance numbers… i cannot help loving good well-shot choreography…….. and as expected the performances were excellent, this movie would’ve been so much more painful if they cast people who weren’t 100% committed to going all-in.

okay.. other thoughts. It is kind of insane tho how people are praising this movie as the pinnacle of nuance when this movie is about as nuanced as a sledgehammer. And hamfisted messages can work in campy movies except this movie is only “tell do NOT show.. ONLY tell”

Also yeah the way it glossed over race as an intersectionality to feminism was painful and whenever there was a remark on it, it was so painfully written by a white woman. greta obviously brushes over things because white woman neoliberal syndrome (obvious to ME not obvious to twitter who is drooling at her feet like this movie is the second coming of christ). And disappointed in the execution of “patriarchy is terrible for overall society bc it oppresses women and hurts men because it doesn’t allow them to express humanity either” which COULD be a good message but the execution was….. very less-than stellar.

i think the problem was that this should’ve just been a fun summer blockbuster that breezes by and then its gone. but the frenzied hype around this makes me dread for the poor girls of color who are gonna have to endure this movie being worshipped in a film class by white girls who will rip your throat out if you say you thought it was “okay”

drdemonprince:

The Barbie Movie is confused – and it is confused on purpose, because it can’t actually acknowledge the role that capitalism and white supremacy play in the patriarchal system that it wants to give itself credit for acknowledging. And so the film introduces patriarchy as a force with no agent or system behind it.

Ken, an oafish goof is able to find the concept of patriarchy and transmit it to the entirety of his society simply by learning about it and speaking about it to his fellow Kens. There is no use of force, no political organizing (notably, the Kens try to take over the political system after they have already taken hold of the culture), no real persuasion even – simply by hearing about patriarchy the women in Barbieworld somehow become brainwashed by it.

This means we never have to really see the Kens as genuine antagonists, we can still laugh at their bizarrely crammed-together multiple dance numbers and forgive them when they, like the women, are freed of the patriarchy simply by women speaking about the fact that sexism exists. Both the origins of patriarchy and the solution to it is as simple as an individual person telling their story.

The CEOs that run Mattel in the Real World in the film are similarly cartoonish and devoid of real agency. They’re even portrayed as generically interested in the idea of Barbie being inspiring to girls. The movie can’t even acknowledge their profit motive, and it can’t make any of the men running the company look too powerful or even too morally suspect – but the film does still want to have Barbie encounter sexism in the real world and grapple with the harm “she” (the consumer product, and not the social forces and human beings that created her) has supposedly done.

In the Barbie Movie, patriarchy is a genie in a bottle, and no one is to blame - except maybe Barbie herself, since the movie spends a significant amount of time discussing how she is responsible for giving women unrealistic beauty standards.

And so Barbie is depicted as both sexism’s victim and sexism’s fault. She’s dropped into a patriarchal world that the film acknowledges has a menacing, condescending quality – but the film can’t even have an underlying working theory of where this danger comes from, and who had the power to create this patriarchy in the first place, because that would require being critical of Mattel and capitalism.

And in the film, ultimately the real world with all its flaws and losses and injustices is still preferable to Barbieworld, because you get to have such depth of feeling and experience and you get a vagina, so how bad could really be? And hey, when you think about it, the Barbieworld is just an inversion of the real world, isn’t it? A world with women in power is just reverse sexist, so it was justifiable for the Kens to want to take over, and what does it say that all things being equal Barbie still would prefer to leave behind her matriarchy and join the patriarchal capitalist world? That’s the real world. Real world is struggle and sexism and loss and pain and capitalism and death and we must accept all of it but it’s worth it..

It’s not that I’m surprised the film’s a clarion call for personal choice white feminism and consumer capitalism. I just expected the call to be a little more seductive or in any way coherent. I wanted to have frothy fun, and instead I was more horrified by the transparency of its manipulation than I was by even the most unsettling moments in Oppenheimer.

animentality:

(via plaguerightsactivist)

afloweroutofstone:

confusionofconfusions:

confusionofconfusions:

eminem’s got about lyrics about how the secret service interviewed him, so a journalist FOIA’d info about eminem from the secret service to fact check his rap

it turns out the secret service investigated eminem because of lyrics threatening trump and ivanka

and they really did interview him

and when one of the secret service agents started reading the threatening lyrics out loud eminem started rapping along 

and they noted that

@afloweroutofstone​

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6515270-LEOPOLD-Secret-Service-FOIA-Eminem.html enjoy

I’m sorry to report that this is a W for Eminem

(via mioxenoblade)

brendanicus:

For all the textual and paratextual browbeating about being a movie about Empowering Women and sending conservatives into meltdowns, the Barbie movie really was like, the fucking apogee of a feminism whose goalposts have been shifted so much it’s mostly about men and their feelings at this point

batsarebetterthanpeople:

No offense to anyone who makes these posts but I’m not interacting with any Barbie posts that suck Greta G’s dick about Ken’s “”“"MRA/incel”“”“ arc without acknowledging how fundamentally stupid it was to give it to someone canonically oppressed on the basis of their gender. Patriarchy wasn’t appealing to him because he’s losing his power it was appealing to him because Barbies have all the power but in patriarchy he’s in control I’m beating every last one of you with a copy of Judith Butler I am making you read Bell Hooks like it’s clockwork orange I am sneaking into your house and putting Angela Davis audio books and speeches on while you sleep I’m exposing you to real feminism by any means necessary until you understand that patriarchy about fuckin POWER not who has long hair and boobs.

Like I just want you to imagine how fundamentally stupid it would be to give any character played by Ryan Gosling other than Ken the speech that Gloria gave Barbie and have it have the same effect on him that it has on the Barbies. That is the level of idiocy we’re operating on here

I’m just…. Hm… It’s not even how dumb it is that makes me mad it’s how everyone just seems to think it’s genius when it’s the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a while. My problem is that I’m the only one I see casting doubt on this MRA thing and I’m the only one who immediately thought "oh he’s like terfs and the terminally online rad fems who brag about doing misandry” and was surprised when the internet brought up the manosphere.

batsarebetterthanpeople:

No offense to anyone who makes these posts but I’m not interacting with any Barbie posts that suck Greta G’s dick about Ken’s “”“"MRA/incel”“”“ arc without acknowledging how fundamentally stupid it was to give it to someone canonically oppressed on the basis of their gender. Patriarchy wasn’t appealing to him because he’s losing his power it was appealing to him because Barbies have all the power but in patriarchy he’s in control I’m beating every last one of you with a copy of Judith Butler I am making you read Bell Hooks like it’s clockwork orange I am sneaking into your house and putting Angela Davis audio books and speeches on while you sleep I’m exposing you to real feminism by any means necessary until you understand that patriarchy about fuckin POWER not who has long hair and boobs.

Like I just want you to imagine how fundamentally stupid it would be to give any character played by Ryan Gosling other than Ken the speech that Gloria gave Barbie and have it have the same effect on him that it has on the Barbies. That is the level of idiocy we’re operating on here

I’m just…. Hm… It’s not even how dumb it is that makes me mad it’s how everyone just seems to think it’s genius when it’s the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a while. My problem is that I’m the only one I see casting doubt on this MRA thing and I’m the only one who immediately thought "oh he’s like terfs and the terminally online rad fems who brag about doing misandry” and was surprised when the internet brought up the manosphere.

themoonthatlived:

as a person of color it’s so important to me that miles looked at hobie—rule-breaking, conflict-provoking, dark-humored hobie—and couldn’t help but call him cool, that pavitr and gwen see him as a reliable dude when adults call him a “piece of work”. we see him just fuck around and cause trouble and joke about capitalism and silently advise miles to be skeptical about authority.

idk like its easy to have another charming (usually white) rebel without a cause who stirs the pot for shits and giggles with a smug grin on his face to match his devil may care attitude, that the kind and humble protag shrugs off in his quest to seek approval from authority. but then instead we get teens from marginalized identities looking up to a young black man who challenges them to think about their actions carefully and question what they know, who jokes about things that other people would politely grimace at in response to, who makes adults uncomfortable. i can think of some people in my life like him—those older kids whom i was told were troublemakers, whom adults told me to ignore, to be scared of, to reject, yet were the ones who gave me wisdom and whom i ended up looking up to and whom i bitched about colony and homophobia and fascism with.

and it isn’t just hobie and his throwaway lines barbed with criticism and discontent, it’s also when gwen says “can you stop being a cop for once”, it’s also when pavitr says “this is where the british stole all our stuff”, it’s that level of awareness of unfairness and injustice in the world they live in and as kids they just have to passively accept the status quo and kick the dirt and angstily, cynically point at injustice with a half-cocked smile of irony. of course young vigilantes would say shit like that. of course young vigilantes would have blm pins and trans lives matter flags and jokes about colony and capitalism. of course kids like me would understand that. of course kids like me would look at hobie and say he’s one cool fucking dude.

(via dyke-terra)

valleyfthdolls:

You can bend over backwards trying not to be one of “those” cringey queers who wears pride everywhere and goes by arson and has they/it/fluff/pixel/boo pronouns on a catgender pin they wear everywhere and suppress everything “extra” unlikable about your identity and pass as a “normal” cishet and mock everyone who dyes their hair for pride and wears rainbow nail polish and guess what? Conservatives will still want you dead. There is no appeasing them. Stand by your community. Maybe you’ll find that arson (they/it/fluff/pixel/boo) is going to be the best goddamn person to have in your corner when the republicans you’ve given up your life to placate inevitably turn on you and try to sentence you to death because any amount of queer is too damn queer. Maybe you’ll find that we are a community for a reason. We’re all equally degenerate in the eyes in conservatives and equally worthy of joy and life in the eyes of the “weird” queer community you shun.

(via butchfeygela)

butchfeygela:

penrosesun:

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

I forget why, but I was on the Wikipedia page for polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I started researching hirsutism in women, and I learned the following things in this order:

• there’s a diagnostic criteria used to evaluate how hairy a woman is
• This is important because being too hairy is a diagnostic criteria of most disorders that cause hyperandrogenism
• Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism can be diagnosed by…measuring how hairy you are (this is the main and most important diagnostic criterion for PCOS)
• Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism are important because they are correlated with obesity, infertility, and…being too hairy?
• I think to myself, wait, what is a normal range for testosterone in women? I find this article…which set reference ranges for “normal” testosterone levels in women…EXCLUDING WOMEN WITH PCOS?
• Quote: “Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is another notable condition in genetic (XX) females, which is characterized by excessive ovarian production of androgens. This condition is included for comparison with DSD, as the affected females with PCOS are genetic and phenotypic females. The elevated levels of testosterone in these females can lead to hyperandrogenism, a clinical disorder characterized variably by hirsutism, acne, male-pattern balding, metabolic disturbances, impaired ovulation and infertility. PCOS is a common condition, affecting 7%-10% of premenopausal women.”
• So: the study claims to demonstrate a clear distinction between the normal range of hormone levels in “Healthy” men and “healthy” women…with “healthy” being defined in the study as…having hormones within the “normal” range…………………..
• So I researched what the clinically established “normal” range for testosterone in women is
• THERE ISN’T ONE????
• Quote from the above article: “Several different approaches have been used to define endocrine disorders. The statistical approach establishes the lower and the upper limits of hormone concentrations solely on the basis of the statistical distribution of hormone levels in a healthy reference population. As an illustration, hypo- and hypercalcemia have been defined on the basis of the statistical distribution of serum calcium concentrations. Using this approach, androgen deficiency could be defined as the occurrence of serum testosterone levels that are below the 97.5th percentile of testosterone levels in healthy population of young men. A second approach is to use a threshold hormone concentration below or above which there is high risk of developing adverse health outcomes. This approach has been used to define osteoporosis and hypercholesterolemia. However, we do not know with certainty the thresholds of testosterone levels which are associated with adverse health outcomes.”
• What the fuck?
• What the fuck?
• It’s batshit crazy to make a diagnostic criteria for medical disorders by placing arbitrary cutoffs within 2-5% of either end of a statistical distribution. What the actual fuck?
• “The results came back, you have Statistical Outlier Disease.” “What treatments are available?” “Well, first, we recommend dietary change. You should probably stop eating so many spiders.”
• Another article which attempted to do this
• Quote: “Subjects with signs of hirsutism or with a personal history of diabetes or hypertension, or a family history of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) were excluded.”
• “We’re going to figure out the typical range of testosterone levels that occur in women! First, we’re going to exclude all the women that are too hairy from the study. I am very good at science.”

Anyway I got off topic but there are apparently race-specific diagnostic tools for “hirsutism.” That’s kinda weird on its own but when I looked more into this in relation to race I found this article that straight-up uses the term “mongoloid”

(The last article linked also mentions that measurement systems for ‘hirsutism’ were originally developed for the purpose of defining race)

Imo, it’s even worse than that because “being too hairy” is… not actually a great way of determining whether someone has Grows Cysts In Their Ovaries Disease??? Of all of the people I know with PCOS (which, to be clear: no one I know with PCOS was diagnosed based on hair, even the ones who were actually hairy; basically everyone I know who was diagnosed with the Grows Cysts In Their Ovaries Disease was diagnosed specifically due to the many cysts that they were found to have growing in their ovaries, because until it was clear that there cysts in their ovaries, their symptoms were simply dismissed all together) roughly half of them were told by doctors that their diagnosis was surprising, since they didn’t “look like they have PCOS”. Which… if that many people with PCOS “don’t look like they have PCOS”… then idk maybe you don’t have a fucking clue what PCOS looks like, actually.

Growing many cysts on your ovaries isnt even like a requirement for PCOS insanely. bc basically all afab period issues besides endometriosis basically get called PCOS. they barely wanted to diagnose me w it despite them finding cysts on my ovaries bc i was (pre-t) less hairy than a normative cis perisex women.

Something else interesting is the low dose T has been shown to benefit cis women w muscoskeletal issues but the medical guidelines Require them to stop treatment (regardless of how beneficial it is) if they start getting hairy.

but smth i find interesting

funky-dealer:

icant even explain why i feel this way about it but this meme, this specific version, just makes me so emotional i love it so so much. its very heartwarming. peace n love on planet earth

(via ittybittytatertot)

memetheon:

jellybeanium124:

Hey. Gentiles. Listen up for a sec.

When September and October are nearing and you’re planning an event: google “Rosh Hashanah *year*” and *Yom Kippur *year*” and then, and I cannot stress this enough, don’t plan your event on those days. In fact, don’t plan any events starting sundown the night before. Those are the three most important days of the Jewish calendar, and, once again, I cannot stress enough how much this little bit of forethought and kindness will make every Jew you know cry tears of joy.

in 2023, the night before Rosh Hashanah is Thursday evening, September 14.

Rosh Hashanah ends Sunday evening, September 17.

calendar date

in 2023, the night before Yom Kippur is Saturday evening, September 23.

Yom Kippur ends Monday evening, September 25.

calendar date

(via ittybittytatertot)

audinoplushie:

i hope shein gets shut down i hope ai projects get shut down i hope billionaires go bankrupt i hope public transportation expands fast i am so tired of the world’s bs

(via ittybittytatertot)

amaditalks:

xiaoguiwang:

instead of participating in “crab day” (which btw was started by transphobic fundie christians) and donating to a website owned by a multibillion corporation, you can affect real change by donating to me, a broke lesbian of color!

p*ypal.me/moreissuesthanvogue

k*-fi.com/T6T671UI

i also have an etsy and do commissions

Do not give your money to a corporation for nothing in return. Do not be so brain poisoned by capitalism that you think that a multi million dollar company running a deficit in one of their divisions requires you to volunteer to help them figure out their accounting. There are countless people on this platform who have a GoFundMes and Patreon and sell art in order to live. That’s where your cash belongs, not in the ableist hands of Matt Mullenweg.

(via butchfeygela)