Superherosplaining

Full disclosure: I’m writing this on my abbreviated lunch hour and I’m kind of annoyed, so I may not use my words at their best. Carry on.

Second full disclosure – I am not a comic book person. I am nominally a comic book movie person when the movie combines writers/directors/actors I like and seems to produce a story that looks interesting to me. I’ve seen maybe… half (?) of the MCU franchise films. Hard to say because I don’t know how many there have been so far off the top of my head, but hey, I know what “MCU” means! I have like, one toe in the club, right?

So I feel okay talking about this off-message PR tour for “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” from the perspective of someone who’s outside enough not to have opinions about whether, say, Iron Man’s characterization is consistent with a previous storyline. I don’t know if the cast is ill-prepared or just really tired after approximately 47 MCU films in a row, but it seems that the press tour has gone off the rails a bit. Unless a debate about when it’s okay to call someone a “whore” was among the talking points for a billion-dollar family-friendly franchise… which I doubt.

Since I brought him up, let’s start with Mr. Renner. The actor I used to jokingly call Movie Boyfriend. (Emphasis on “used to.”) A week or so ago Renner and Captain America did an interview where they were asked about Black Widow, who has been romantically linked to both of their characters, and apparently now to Hulk in AoU. They both joked that Black Widow was a “slut”and a “whore,” and then Renner went on to say something about Black Widow having a prosthetic leg (Huh?).

The actors rightfully got a lot of criticism on social media for their comments, and immediately issued apologies. Well, one of them did anyway. Chris Evans’ statement was perfect – a succinct “I screwed up and I’m sorry” apology that ended the story. (Takeaway: Everyone should be more like Chris Evans.) Renner……. Yeah, he needs new people. Because “I am sorry that this tasteless joke about a fictional character offended anyone. It was not meant to be serious in any way. Just poking fun during an exhausting and tedious press tour” is a BS attempt at actual contrition and everyone who read it knows that he is not at all sorry.

AND THEN he doubled down on Conan this week, first whining about getting into “internet trouble” and then saying “Mind you, we are talking about a fictional character and fictional behavior, Conan, but if you slept with four of the six Avengers, no matter how much fun you had, you’d be a slut. Just saying. I’d be a slut. Just saying.”

Okay, Jeremy? Shut up. No, no – you don’t need to reply. Just stop talking. You look like an ass. Just saying.

The issue is not one person’s off-the-cuff stupid comment. The issue sure as hell isn’t that he said it about a fictional character. The issue is that actual real-life non-fictional women get this BS thrown in our faces EVERY DAY. Renner’s remarks are basically Why I Don’t Go to Bars Anymore Bingo:

-          You like men, therefore you are a slut.

-          Oh, you don’t want to have sex with me? Fuck you, you’re ugly anyway.

-          What, can’t you take a joke?

-          I mean, I would call a dude a slut, too…….. (except that I don’t.)

Part of the reason this bugs me so much is that Jeremy Renner has always seemed like a thoughtful guy who respects the women in his life. So for that guy to so deeply not get why what he said was hurtful, to the point where he’s eye-rolling fans like me on national television, feels like a betrayal.

Hold on, I need to go back to that “prosthetic leg” thing. I think that might bug me more than the slut/whore thing. That was… really, really awful. Maybe if, the day the Interview Where Stupid Things Were Said had come out, I hadn’t just been reading about the Boston Marathon bombing trial, which included testimony from women my age who are now missing legs and who are coping with life-altering change in their perception of self……. Nope, it would still be really, really awful, regardless.

I must’ve been madder at Jeremy Renner than I thought, because what I really started to write about was Joss Whedon quitting Twitter.  The AoU writer/director took down his profile a few days ago. There was a lot of speculation that he’d been driven away bysocial media criticism of the movie, including the depiction of Black Widow and the merchandising – which largely leaves out the female characters (and over which Whedon has no control btw). Yesterday Whedon told Buzzfeed that he just needed a Twitter break to focus on work. Cool. But then Whedon said this:

“Believe me, I have been attacked by militant feminists since I got on Twitter. That’s something I’m used to. Every breed of feminism is attacking every other breed, and every subsection of liberalism is always busy attacking another subsection of liberalism, because god forbid they should all band together and actually fight for the cause.”

Um. No.

First things first, Joss Whedon is awesome. He’s a role model for writers who want to develop interesting female characters. He’s one of the good guys. And since he’s one of the good guys, I hold him to a higher standard than I would, say, Mike Huckabee. What a lot of male feminist allies don’t seem to get is that being an ally doesn’t make you immune from criticism. If anything, it opens you to more because you’ve basically raised your hand and said “Feminists! You’re awesome! How can I help?” You can’t do that and then get mad when we tell you.

So, a few things – I need to know what Joss means when he says “militant.” Individual women tweeting snark at you is not militancy. And the other thing is – he’s not wrong about people in the same camp picking each other apart. The problem is that what looks like nitpicking when you’re the one being nitpicked is actually how you educate the others under your particular big tent to check their own privilege and be more inclusive of other points of view. And I WISH I could get across to men how rage-inducing it is to be told that the thing you’re concerned about is not worth anyone’s attention because of Other More Pressing Issues, Little Lady. Kind of like with the Bar Bingo above, women get this ALL THE TIME, and we are really tired of constantly having our concerns be brushed aside because a dude doesn’t feel like addressing it.

Guys? Sometimes you just need to stop talking. Sometimes it’s not about you. If enough people are criticizing something you said or did that you notice, and if those people are all saying the same thing, that’s when you need to take a pause and just listen. It’s okay if you don’t completely understand WHY what you said/did was problematic, as long as you acknowledge that it was. Don’t lash out at the mean Internet people, don’t mansplain to me why I’m wrong. Just listen. You might actually learn something.

Turkeys & kids you don't know: Why I'm still mad at Elizabeth Lauten

I’ve been trying to understand why, days later, Elizabeth Lauten’s dumbass Facebook post making fun of Sasha and Malia Obama is still pissing me off so much.

In case you missed it… President Obama dragged his teenage daughters to the annual turkey pardon before Thanksgiving. Sasha and Malia behaved exactly as I would’ve at that age. (Probably the way I would now. Because it’s a turkey.) They hung in the background while their dad performed the most awkward ritual of all the awkward rituals on his calendar. I watched the video, and I didn’t see either girl rolling her eyes or sighing or doing anything inappropriate.  

Apparently Lauten saw something else. Lauten is – or was, until she resigned today – a communication staffer for a Republican Congressman. On Friday, she posted to her personal Facebook page a screed that I’m sure at the time she thought was the height of I’m-the-cool-conservative wit, calling out the Obama girls for what she saw as their bad behavior during the turkey pardon. (Again… turkey pardon.) You can read her original post, and the apology she posted later, here.

There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s take it line by line.

“Dear Sasha and Malia, I get that you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re part of the First Family, try showing a little class.”

Dear Elizabeth, I get that you’re writing on Facebook, but you’re a professional communicator and punctuation is your friend. Okay, in all seriousness… Let’s skip the bitchy passive-aggressive concern-\ trolling tone, as if Lauten is the big sister just trying to help. Let’s focus on the concept of “showing a little class.” I don’t grant Lauten’s premise that Sasha and Malia were acting inappropriately. And I have serious problems with a grown woman who takes to social media to lecture someone else’s children presuming to lecture anyone about what constitutes “class.” I’ll come back to this.

“At least respect the part you play.”

What part is that? The part where they try to live normal lives in between getting trotted out for ceremonial appearances a few times a year? Unless the First Kids have some sort of official government role I don’t know about… OMG, you guys! President Obama TOTALLY appointed his daughters White House Kid Czars, probably with an unconstitutional Executive Order! #BENGHAZI!

“Then again your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the role model department.”

(Again, punctuation. Geez.) I think this is what bugs me the most. My blood pressure went up just retyping it. Lauten’s real reason for posting this was to dig at Barack and Michelle Obama, using their kids to do it. And I’m sorry, that’s chickenshit. (Before you say it – yes, I have thoughts on how this compares to times when other politicians’ children have been picked on publicly, specifically Sarah Palin’s family. I don’t think it’s the same, and I’ll try to expand on that if I have space.) Lauten isn’t just saying that the president and first lady “don’t respect” their jobs or America (which, what does that even mean???? Could you give me an example? One?). She’s going further and calling them shitty parents. Regardless of whether you approve of the president’s policies, I think anyone could agree that the Obamas have gotten parenting right. Their daughters have always shown remarkable poise under conditions of unprecedented scrutiny and security. They’re just fine.

“Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you.”

LOL whut. I say again, turkey pardon.

“Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar.”

WOW. She just said that to a 13 year old and a 16 year old. I have a 16-year-old nephew, and if someone said this to him I’d slap the taste out of their mouth. But, of course, no one would say that to him, because he’s a boy. A white boy. (More on that later, too.) So, let’s break this down. Aside from the fact that Lauten evidently frequents the world’s most uptight bar, this line can mean one of two things. The most charitable interpretation is that she thinks Sasha and Malia are dressed too old for their ages. Okay. Not true. They look like every other teenage girl in America. The less charitable interpretation is that Lauten thinks the girls are dressed too suggestively, like a woman in a bar, and that such suggestive dress is inherently bad. Again, a lot to unpack, but the long and short of it is that she thinks the girls look trampy. That’s an off-the-charts horrible thing to say about children. It’s not very nice to say about adult women who exercise their legal right to go to bars, either, but we’ll save that for the next time the GOP tries to convince women that they’re NOT the party of hypocritical, woman-shaming prudes. 

In her BS apology, Lauten said that she’d been judgmental. I’d go with “hostile,” or “bullying.” It’s telling that her apology doesn’t address Sasha and Malia directly, as her original post did. I guess it’s okay to big-sister them when you want to make them the butt of your joke, but when it’s time to consider them as actual human beings, it’s less icky to fall back on “to all I have hurt.” Hey, Elizabeth? Their names are Sasha and Malia. You’re a grown woman. You shouldn’t need “hours of prayer” to figure out how to act like it.

So, I’m trying to figure out why this has gotten under my skin so. Part of it is that Lauten deliberately criticized the girls’ appearance and ascribed to them an adult sexuality. That tactic’s been used to police women and girls forever. It’s particularly disgusting coming from another woman. But there’s more to it, for me. Maybe it was the proximity to the Ferguson grand jury’s decision last Monday. Obviously Mike Brown’s death is orders of magnitude more horrible than one idiot’s Facebook post.

But in both cases there’s an inability, or unwillingness, to treat black children as children. Just as Lauten implied that a girl wearing a short skirt is no different from an adult in an adult place like a bar, Mike Brown’s critics refuse to cast him as a teenager who acted like an idiot. TamirRice took a toy gun to a park and it took the Cleveland police exactly two seconds to shoot him dead. But if you’re a middle-aged white anarchist pointing a loaded gun at a federal agent, that’s A-ok.

There’s no dumb-kids-will-be-dumb-kids zone for black children. Black children are considered to be 100 percent responsible not just for who they are, but for what other people assume they are. And if you think I’m over-exaggerating this double-standard, I’ll just point out that when Elizabeth Lauten was 17, she was arrested for shoplifting – just like Mike Brown allegedly did. She got a deferred prosecution, and later a job in Congress. Good thing she’s not a black boy – she’d still be in jail. Or worse.

Furthermore, I don’t see Lauten or anyone else making these observations about the dress and manner of white men or boys. If I’m wrong, feel free to find me examples of white male political figures’ appearances being critiqued with the same language Lauten used, or that thepeople who bitched about the president’s summer suit used. (Other than Al Gore’s weird beard.) The presumptuousness blows my mind. Who the hell are you anyway, lady? Do you think the Obamas lost a wink of sleep fretting about what you think of their children? This is no different than when someone says “I don’t approve of homosexuality.” That’s nice. Is there some reason you think you get a vote here?

 

With Lauten’s resignation today from her job teaching people not to embarrass themselves on social media, this story’s cycle is probably over. And that’s okay – Elizabeth Lauten screwed up, and she paid for that screw up, and she deserves to get to slink away. But as a larger illustration of a serious problem our country has with race and gender, I hope this doesn’t die. We need to keep asking why some people are allowed to have more dignity than others.

Not my circus, not my monkeys

So kind of a lot has happened since the last time I wrote anything here. I’m not going to get into all of it, because part of the reason I haven’t written anything in so long was the anxiety I’d feel about the prospect of re-capping my life since my last post, and that just led to this feedback loop of not posting anything at all. And for large parts of the last year-ish I didn’t feel like communicating period, ever, because kind of a lot was happening.

Some of the things that happened: being laid off, along with the frustration of knowing how many co-workers I loved were also losing their jobs, and the grief of suddenly losing relationships with 20-ish people I’d been used to seeing every day. Admitting, after about four months, that “grief” was in fact the name of the thing I was feeling. Shame, guilt, fatigue, from spouting my upbeat Elevator Speech-style answer to “So what do you do?” every single time I met a new person for almost a year, and feeling like my friends and family were even more tired of the situation than I was. Feeling rejected, personally and professionally.

But, as I said, that’s not what I wanted this post to be about.

I guess what I wanted to do was reboot. I want to start writing here again, but fair warning: I’m not the same person I was when I last posted. I’m even more different than the person I was when I started this blog almost seven years ago. That person writing back in 2007 was escaping from the most serious personal issues I’ve ever experienced.  The person writing in March of 2013 was going through a different set of issues, but was forcing herself (sometimes painfully) out onto the world to interact with people, and had less interest in blogging. Sorry that all sounds so cryptic…  it’s just a long story.

I’ve thought a lot about how I’m different now. And I think I can describe it best with a phrase that I’ve been overusing the hell out of lately because I just love it so much: Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Supposedly it’s a Polish expression, but that’s according to the same internet that told me Betty White died yesterday, so what does it know? What I like about NMCNMM is that it distills all the best advice I’ve ever gotten about picking your battles, having the wisdom to know the difference between stuff you can change and stuff you can’t, etc., only in a less Hallmark-y way that also makes me think of monkeys, and who doesn’t like monkeys? It’s a fun way to say, just let it go.

I don’t mean “let go” in a gauzy-focused Facebook meme that’s most likely misquoting Marilyn Monroe way, because the spirit of the universe is like a flowing river and – I don’t know, I don’t read those things. I mean reaching the understanding that a) people are individuals, b) some of them are shitheads, and c) that’s got little to nothing to do with you.

I was a pretty angry person, and not that long ago. I would’ve thought that the realization that people are flawed and occasionally selfish and awful would make me MORE angry. But no. It was liberating in a weird way. Don’t get me wrong, I still get mad, and frustrated, and hurt, because I’m human. I don’t really know how to explain it. I guess I just stopped expecting so much from other people, and started cutting them more slack. They’re just people trying to get through the day, and they’re as full of it as I am.

Why did this person not invite me to that thing? Why did that girl write that thing on Facebook and was it about me because she KNOWS how I feel about the Ice Bucket Challenge? Why does that guy always say we’re going to hang out and then never call me? Dude, I don’t know. I don’t care. They aren’t my monkeys.

Maybe this is something that would’ve happened anyway as I got older. Maybe the mega-ton anxiety bomb I had to deal with over the past year taught me some perspective on what matters. Maybe I needed to lose my illusions of control. I don’t know. Either way, I feel better. I have more energy to spend on the people and projects that matter to me in this moment. I’m more honest about my feelings. I trust my intuition more. And I’m not self-conscious about sharing those feelings and intuitions, because the only person I’m whose emotions I’m responsible for is me.*

So, I’m going to write more. I may not do it very regularly. I may not write about the same things I used to. I may not have the same opinions that I used to. But I absolutely still want to hear from other people, and I appreciate any thoughts you might have.

Thanks for reading. :)

*With the standard caveats about not being a dick. Seriously, don’t be a dick.

Five minutes writing about green

Backstory: at my last Jaycees meeting, we spent some time prepping for an upcoming essay competition against Jaycees all over the state (and then the country, and then… world, I guess?). Anyway, to whet our appetite and encourage us to enter, our president gave us a prompt that we’ve have about five minutes to write about. Our topic: what is your favorite color, and why?

I get “you think too much” from a lot of people in my life, and they’re right. But one consequence of spending way too much time thinking through pretty much everything in my life is that, when someone asks me what I think about X, I can usually tell them. At length. With sources.

I could get on my soapbox about the disparity of reaction when people see, say, a 13-year-old softball phenom who pitches 200 balls a day (“Wow, she’s so dedicated!) vs. an adult who reads a lot (“Nerd.”). But that’s for another time.

Anyway, here’s what I wrote. Paper, pen, five minutes, what’s your favorite color and why? Go:

The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda once wrote [You can groan, it’s okay. I groaned a little myself. I had five minutes, what do you want?] that green was the “color of hope.” I wish I could say that I picked green as my favorite color because of this quote… but the truth is that a few years ago I decided that it just looked good on me. Maybe it’s my eyes, I don’t know.

I love green in all its many shades. Forest, emerald, Kelly (which are TOTALLY not the same, by the way), lime, celery. Green can be sophisticated or funky, refined or “street.” My 14-year-old nephew would remind me that green is also the color worn by our favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., which makes it even more awesome.

But it’s more than aesthetic. Which brings me back to Pablo Neruda. He wrote in green ink because, as I said, it was the “color of hope.” I think looking at green just made him happy. I had a dream once where I got married wearing green shoes. In my dream, they were pretty – but mostly, looking at them just made me happy.

…

So, if I could find a job where I got paid to write about random things for five minutes at a time, I’d be a bazillionaire.