Fleur de What Now?

... MY APOLOGIES TO ANY MEN WHO READ THIS POST ...

Because:  this isn't fun male thinking, I believe.

Among the flotsam of my recent reading - a new take on what the Fleur de Lys symbolizes (from, it must be said, a wildly conspiracy-minded and anti-Semitic screed of such prodigious length, ignorance, and offense, I absolutely will not link it here):  circumcision.

It does have a certain thrusting and, dare I say...peeling sort of look...
Image:  Wikimedia
(though I'm sure they/the city of Florence won't be pleased to see it here)

To be fair, I can actually see why someone (weird) would come up with this theory, but in all my years of Frankish research, this is definitely a new one on me, so I'd like to posit that this idea is not common nor accepted.

"Bloodline"

It's funny, the places you can run into wisdom.  I've thought for a while now, but continued to avoid, posting about exactly what my religion (as opposed to my faith) really means to me.  At times, it seems like it could be important; but mostly, I know that my heart is my vanity.

A couple of days ago, I fired up "Bloodline" on Netflix, and finally finished watching it just now.  This documentary is the breathless following, over a couple of years, of an investigation into the Merovingian Heresy.  It could be funny, I could play a game of (pardon the offensive terminology, yet it is exactly the right phrase) "bait the 'tards" - making fun of the whacko conspiracy nerds (as one could play the same way with so many docs - about Trekkers, about ferret lovers, what have you) - but I chose to put it in my queue just because the heresy, named for the very dynasty Clovis I founded, is one which, while maddening, is also of at least a passing interest to me.  I have a hard time abiding Dan Brown and this sort of thing (Foucault's Pendulum, which I allowed myself to read twice, with a decade or more between attempts, I have confirmed as a nuisance read), but anyone who knows me or reads here regularly won't be surprised to know this is exactly the sort of car wreck I succumb to rubbernecking.

So we started off this post with mention of wisdom.

I don't find wisdom in the games people play, performing edge-of-your-seat-AWFUL "archaeology" while following TV-series-Batman-level-silly/convoluted clue games and digging up bright shiny bottles they've caked with mud and swear are generations-old buried treasures.  I don't find wisdom in missing the point that, in debunking something passionately, you actually accept its premises in order to deconstruct them.  If you really don't believe a mythology, it isn't particularly necessary, for most people, to spend time and energy (and, in the name of making a documentary, one assumes many many thousands and thousands of dollarse/euros) obsessing about it.

The wisdom I found in "Bloodline" crops up near its end.  With ten minutes left in its nearly two hour run, we come to an interview with the Right Rev. John Shelby Spong, DD, retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark.  The documentary introduces him as controversial, and, though I must state that even as a relatively newly minted Episcopalian, I know nothing about him - I can believe he's controversial.  Like many in this Church I was drawn to for its compassion, Spong sees change, and perhaps even the abandonment of certain traditions, as growth.  I want to quote him at a little length here:

I think that traditional Christianity, that institutional form of Christianity, is probably dying.  And I'm not sure that letting it die wouldn't be a good thing to happen, because I think When you look at the manifestations of traditional Christianity, they're not very life-giving.  We blessed slavery with the Christian scriptures.  We blessed anti-Semitism with the Christian scriptures.  We stood by and watched Hitler destroy six million Jews, and then we were negative about women, and then we were negative about gay people, and we've been negative about left-handed people and we've been negative about mentally ill people and we've been negative about divorced people.  The Church has victimized a great number of people in this world; now how does that square with the portrait of Jesus drawn by the Fouth Gospel, that says the purpose of Jesus is that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly?  Is the way we treat gay people giving them life?  Is the way we have treated women giving them life?  ... and so the traditional way in which we have told the Jesus story I think is inaccurate, and I think it will die.  But I don't think the Jesus story will die, and I don't think the power of a G-d presence in human life will die.

As a rule, I write this blog to the standard that anything here could be read by my coworkers, my boss, my government, my nieces - my mother.  This post is not one she'd have a happy time reading.  It's also possible that, apart from being described as "controversial" by a conspiracy documentarian to whom he agreed to give an interview, the Bishop holds views or has done things I might find anathema.  For some reason, I prefer not to start worrying about that with facile research; because in many ways what he says resonates with me.

At bottom, the very concept of divinity is beyond the ability of the magnificent, and yet wee and paltry human brain to actually comprehend.  Those of us who believe in it choose mythologies to cope with it, to guide us, to grapple with *everything* we encounter which is beyond our wee and paltry brains (spirits and hearts).  Some believe those mythologies very deeply indeed.  Some believe an "essence" of these roadmaps to faith. Me, I give up on the particulars, rejoice in the spiritual leader I have been fortunate to find,  and bless what wisdom can be gleaned, without (as above) trying to peer too closely at its provenance.  Staring into the sun is bad for the eyes, and doesn't look interesting enough to justify doing it.  Take the light, live in it, hope it shines on a good path, and try to stay on *some* track, for the most part.

Or explore, be brave, bless the light and still proceed at night as well.  If that means concerning yourself with conspiracies, go with G-d  as they say and try not to hurt anyone including yourself.

It's an interesting watch, in some ways.  But could have been edited down significantly and still have said everything it does.  Watch it, or don't.  This is just the story of what I accidentally seem to have gotten from stumbling on this in my own path.


Edited 07/29/13 to add this - turns out the hoax is admitted.  Hardly a pearl-clutching revelation, but does make taunting the fakers less fun.

Netflix Agenda?

I'm at the Deep Space 9 season 1 episode, "In the Hands of the Prophets" and here is the description:

A Bajoran woman in religious garb observes Keiko O'Brien's class and calmly objects to Keiko's secular methods of instruction.

This reads as being remarkably biased, to me - particularly as the "calmly" objecting religious leader in question goes on to become one of the greatest villains in the series, possibly in the Trekverse overall, over the course of the series (not to mention other media!).  The entire point of the episode was to point to the bigotry and narrowmindedness of this particular person (not the faith of the Bajoran people, which is actually treated with more depth and respect than any other spiritual thread in the Trekverse), so this description, beyond being disingenuous, seems outright revisionist.  It's weird.

Is Netflix yet ANOTHER entity out to foist its punishing morality upon us?  Are we going to have to have gay kiss-ins like at Chick-Fil-A?

When Self Esteem = Cosmetic Surgery

This makes me heartsick for our "culture" and the children we inflict it upon.

“Beautiful” is bullshit, a standard created to make women into good consumers, too busy wallowing in self-loathing to notice that we’re second class citizens.

I can't even add further comment.  Just read the link, it says what it sets out to.

Ism-atic

Roger Ebert, a Pulitzer prize winner and one of my favorite writers, even though I frequently disagree with him philosophically and cinematically, has said,

Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever.

I recently had a conversation in which someone else I respect immensely said they reject 'isms' too.

As for me, I think I reject this "all these things" generalization.  Oddly enough, it resembles, itself, the reasoning for rejecting  this ism or that:  that the ism reduces all members of some (possibly imaginary) category to a limited (possibly imaginary) definition, and is therefore invalid.

I'm a feminist.  It tires me out to endlessly encounter, in this day and age, the prejudice and pejorative assumptions people have about those who are feminists, and the meaning of the term itself.  "Post feminism" and Buffy Studies and Girl Power and all the women's studies terminology and finer points of observation mean perhaps less to me than those who practice them might like, and far less than those those who hate them may assume.  Feminism isn't some limited club, for which specific requirements are expected before admission may be ratified.

It's also not a predictable stereotype.

Even in the 2010s, there are those who still imagine feminism defines a woman (men, these people would presume, cannot be feminists at all) as a man-hater.  Even in the 2010s, there are those who are frightened by the perceived implication of anger the word "feminism" still carries thanks to generations of propagandistic, proselytizing foolishness precisely designed to cause this fear.  Even in the 2010s, the understanding of women fighting simply for human rights remains terrifyingly unsophisticated, and relentlessly negative.

I say the words "I am a feminist" and I can tell you, people screw up their little faces just as much as they do when I use the charged term "I am a secretary" or admit my dastardly habit of kitten-torturing.  Oh, wait ...


"I am a feminist" causes cognitive dissonance.  "But you are nice," I can almost HEAR people thinking.  And it's not just men.  Women have bought into the calumny wholesale - have been trained as part of the good and patriotic populace (of many cultures; not just my own) that they don't want to be different.  They don't want to be unattractive (what is less attractive than an uppity man-hating selfish person spoiling for a fight, after all?).  They don't want to rock the boat.  For that matter:  nobody wants to have to WORK.

Feminism is work.

I'm not as much a witness for my hideous, humanist religion of women's rights as the legion of those who have sold the world an image of feminism-as-*unwomanliness*.  But I do hold my beliefs, I do speak of them, I do try, even passively, to embody an understanding of something far deeper, far more important than the cartoon stereotype of a bra-burning, man-wannabe-ing, aggressive and ugly pugilist.  I am dismayed at women who push the label "feminist" away like it was a tattoo advertising "I am undesirable!"  I am dismayed at men who believe in the simple human rights we all should have, who won't adopt the label (I don't mean you, you whom I've discussed this with most recently; there's someone else this is directed toward) because, even knowing better, the illusion of the archetypal feminist still repels them.

Rejecting an ism, even knowing its actual face, because others find it ugly condones the perception of ugliness.  "Yes, that is ugly - whoo - that's not me!"

Rejecting an ism just because it's an ism, even though that is a principle of valor, still gives the "ugly" crowd a win.



Wisconsin has rejected its own wellbeing because enough money went into a short-notice election that, even with astounding mobilization and a viable option, a false perception was screamed loud enough at the populace they voted to agree with the perception even against their interests.  They were bombarded, inundated, with beautiful beautiful money which told them "you think this" and the message ... well, prevailed.

The inundation of cultures and societies throughout the world, with repeated mantras, "ALL (THIS) ARE (THIS)" has bought and paid for power enough to pass for persuasion since language began.  It's crippled our culture, certainly, in recent decades, giving rise to the primacy of Wall Street and those Have's who are satisfied to continue draining to the dregs the massive majority of Have Not's - who have been so entirely saturated with misdirected messaging (staunch "morality" successfully masking a movement more dedicated to finance than any tenet of decency) they eagerly and angrily support the powers who will happily destroy them utterly.

Feminism's just a *part* of the array of principled movements smeared, tarred, rabidly detested by those who have (let's face it, usually monetary) "reason" to fear it.

Of course, in order to defeat principled movements, fear must be employed.  And so reason must be stifled, if at all possible.

And stifled it is.  Money is able to create deafening volume, in any society, these days.  Just ask Tom Barrett.

Just ask a feminist.

Other Things Suck Too

If you don't know the history of Glass-Steagall:  LEARN IT.

The six largest banks (in the U.S.) control assets equal to sixty-two percent of the ... gross national product.

Be afraid.  And educate yourself about our economy.

Here is a Frontline selection worth perusing.

Misspoke

Trying to keep the screed brief today, my point yesterday was not that the 1970s were a golden age and "kids today" just don't get feminism and grouse-grouse-old-lady-rant etc.  No, my point was that the machine which once spat out jiggling and airheadedness (but also happened to toss in the occasional "Maude" and even allowed non-white people on TV outside of the form of Magical Black Women and without Tyler Perry's, nor even Oprah's, influence) has bloated to an extreme degree, AND writers are a lot less common than they used to be.

I look back at some of the hyper-earnest scripts we used to have served up to us, and of course I can see how (a) naive and (b) self-importantly WRITERLY it was (there's a post in "writerly", to be sure - and a relevant one as an author).  A certain stretch of 70s TV tended toward didacticism, which isn't a load of fun.  When you can hear the writer's ax on the stone, it's not entertainment, and it's not sophistication.

But sheesh, at least someone tried on occasion.  In between Farrah  Fawcett and Loni Anderson, there WERE women like Erin Gray (cruelly reformulated in Season Two - to be "softer" and more "feminine" and "sexy" - of Buck Rogers, but actually a lot of fun, and rather strong, when they first debuted her) and of course Bea Arthur, bless her bones.

Mojourner points out to me that access is such, now, that awesome women of enormous talent are out there to be found in a quantity we would not have heard of when we were kids.

But the thing is, the quantity of trash has gone up, too.  My intention had been to comment on THAT - on the ubiquity of narrowly defined womanhood (and girlhood), and how much greater the flood is now than when I was a kid.

Not that "when I was a young'un, life was so much better" - that tiresome old song of the middle aged and geriatric, ditty of fear and judgmentalism and frank self aggrandizement.  No, it was supposed to be a note about how gross cheap culture is, and how in a world where not everyone chooses to refute and ignore it, surely it has some kind of negative effect.  I'm old, strong, and contrarian enough looking at fashion magazines only makes me feel BETTER about myself, it doesn't leave me barfing to a size three.

But I'm not typical, and I'm not convinced there aren't an awful lot of girls out there getting fed, essentially, a non-nutritious mental and social diet.  That bothers me, even knowing my nieces are not typical either.  Just because the people I love most may be safe from the vagaries of this vast, swirling morass of crap doesn't mean I don't care about the squillions who are submerged in it and who might not have life preservers.

This is More Than a Comment

I started to respond to Mojourner in the comments, but - no - this goes right up in a post.

**


Wasn't on.  I've actually been contemplating the precipitous backslide of feminism for a while now, and I'm not the only one who sees it.

Sure, Free to Be You & Me is a weak example - but the point is, when I was coming up, even way back in the dark ages of the 1970s, in a Southern Baptist home, in the morass of beautiful downtown White Flight suburbia, the stone-age exposures I had to pop culture were FAR more enlightened than "The Bachelorette" and rather terrifying swaths of the YA urban fantasy lit now utterly saturating the populace.  As an agent I really like said a year and a half ago, "the boobs are getting smaller" ... but female characters in the vast majority of entertainment today are NOT what they used to be.

Even as recently as the 1990s, women - actual, human women (and not even all of them milky white) - were allowed to make money making music.  Now even the supposedly "edgy" ones (Gaga) conform to the blond, radically thin, porcelain-skinned model pioneered by Britney when she was a pedophile's delight.

Look at a movie made in the 1970s and just the physical appearance of the women alone is a revelation - but the characters written back then are almost alien today.  Sex was something they participated in - it wasn't imposed upon them - and it wasn't something they imposed upon those around them, either.  These days, there isn't a female character in television, movies, or "reality" TV who isn't using sex in one way or another - to that exhausting, inevitable end:  proving that women are either evil sexbots - or useless, decaying flesh.  The evil sexbot might well be appealingly drawn.  But it's a detestable and seriously tiresome cliche' I frankly didn't have to grow up with.

Yes, female characters have been "drawn that way" for millenia now.  Even the early Church's hysteria about feminine sexuality and its resultant He Man Women Hater's (and rather drawn out; it took centuries) decision to refuse priests the right to wives was a reactionary stance strictly by gender.  BUT.  When I was growing up, that was not the ONLY available model of femininity.  Love her or hate her, even "Maude" was an option once upon a time.

Now, though, there's Sullen Teenage Girl, the character whose life is utterly empty but for the empty veins of her chilly and much-aged vampire/boyfriend.  There are the "boobs getting a bit smaller" heroines of games, none of whom presents as a human woman ever really could.  There's "The Bachelorette" and every pneumatic, "perfect" girl hawking her body (erm, music) and a culture glorifying adolescent cat-fighting and vanity the likes of which even I can't hold a candle to.

I have never cared for Madonna - and she's become the very icon of everything I'm complaining about, as well as a hilarious travesty to boot - but in 1983, that girl had a gap in her teeth, armpit hair, and a belly on her.  At least she looked like a *person* - and still approximated that financial bonanza people equate with success.  Belinda Carlisle got a lot of flack 25 years ago for not being a stick - but she had a career (and, I doubt, ever got a boob job either).  Beautiful, talented women who weren't peroxided nor stamped with makeup straight out of Playboy magazine, standardized, sanitized, all vestige of talent rendered irrelevant before the almighty corporate trends of "sexy" and "perfect".  Melissa Etheridge could not get a break today, period.  And those years I was talking about, in the 90s? - when PJ Harvey and all those alterna-GRRLS who had something to say beyond "please observe my appearance" - are over.  I don't know when I've caught sight of an American performer whose own raw gifts could really overcome anything so important as the package she's served in.  (Yeah, yeah, Adele is doing well - and she has a curve, yes.  But Adele is already pissing people off due to oversaturation, and those curves of hers still come packaged in highly calculated vintage style, perfect false eyelashes, and a creamy envelope of beautiful skin so luminous a camera still adores her.  Holler at me when a woman comes on the scene who is homely by current telegenic standards, but whose assets and training are more luminous than that skin.  Particularly if she is not extremely pale, no matter her race.)

Holler at me, for that matter, when you see a female police officer, attorney, or actual romantic lead who has a waistline above 24 inches ... or an ID indicating she was born before the 80s.  Who has something more to say than platitudes or pining admiration for some man, or (worst of all) self sacrificing paeans of martyrdom which mouth a writer's cause, not a character's.  I have grown pretty sick of the self-martyring female character.

Gaaaahhhh.

I need to go mow the grass, so I"m posting this while my thoughts are still roiling.  But still.  Keep on thinking for me.  And I'm not stopping either.