cosmo and the taliban

On facebook, a friend posted what I'm assuming is a satirical Cosmo cover of a veiled Taliban woman. In her tag with the image, the friend expressed what we're all thinking, "truly racist and trashy but a little bit funny." While there have been similar horribly mean-spirited stereotypes passing off as satire in the past, I have been trying to figure out what is the fine line that this pink cover is treading that makes you complicit in a guilty laugh. For example, here below is yet another Cosmo-based satire about the Taliban:

This above "cover" is a good starting point to understand the difference between the black&white one and the color one. The Cosmotaliban is focused only on a demeaning depiction of a women under Taliban rule - they don't speak, Muslim fashion is dull and "same old" and the worst of it, the allusion that this woman enjoys and submits to the "5 favorite unequal treatments." There is nothing funny about this because its primary intention is to be nasty to the woman. 

Meanwhile the pink Cosmo cover is able to really poke fun at the Cosmopolitan brand itself. If you look at the Fergie cover, you see the typical issues Cosmo aspires for western women to be interested in - how to make your man happy in bed, how to lose weight (but without much effort), that most pressing question, "why is love harder in the winter" and how to be stressed out without being a bitch (cos god forbid a woman expresses anger or aggression). And then the most popular type of feature - "what is the guy really thinking?" and in this particular research breakthrough "what his hug reveals." The Cosmo about Taliban is able to hone in on these particular cheap preoccupations of the actual magazine. While completely adhering to every possible racist, rude stereotype of Taliban (guns, hostages, stoning, child marriage) it still manages to express it in the utterly flakey, sex-obsessed, heteronormative language of Cosmopolitan - the kind that seeks to empower women while mainly being concerned with making slaves of male agendas and of course, of consumerism. 

What do you all think? Weigh in with your comments below...

feminist dead ends

I was surprised when the usually discerning and perceptive feminist blog Feministing recently brought attention to the article about how the six big differences between men and women have been debunked. Below is my paraphrased version of these supposed myths vs realities. 

Men want "sexy," women want "status": U-Michigan psychologist Terri Conley and colleagues claim that when in an actual situation of finding a mate (such as speed dating) these differences evaporated. 

Men want many sex partners, women want far fewer: Apparently this myth exists due to some mathematical errors. Calculating an average does not offer clear data. Men need to affirm masculine ideals and thus tend to inflate numbers. However, when told that they are being given a lie detector tests, they are truthful and it turns out that men and women sleep with an equal number of partners in their life. 

Men think about sex more than women do: In empirical data provided by a study in the Journal of Sex Research, psychologists asked research participants to record their thoughts throughout the day. Men thought of sex 18 times, women 10 times "but men also thought about food and sleep proportionately more than women. That suggests sex doesn't hold as vaunted a position for men as you might expect."

Women have far fewer orgasms than men do: Again, a mathematical error. While it seems like men have more orgasms, women are not far behind and are likely to have as many when in a committed and considerate relationship. Women just do not do that well in hook-ups. 

Men like casual sex more than women do: While studies show that women turn down casual offers whereas men do not, the problem here is that women being propositioned by strangers do not imagine he is any good in bed. "When women are asked to consider a hypothetical offer from someone more familiar or very attractive, they become much more receptive. Likewise, gender differences in one-night-stand interest evaporated when men and women were asked to consider sleeping with someone famous."

Women are pickier than men: Here psychologists’ claims that womens’ picky attitudes are bound to dating rules. Since men conventionally are meant to make the first moves, it allows women to be choosy.

Now that we are done with our salacious pop psychology fix for the day, lets get to why this particular article does not deserve praise from feminists at all. On the one hand, living in a real world defined by conventions and rules when it comes to mating between men and women, these supposed differences may be weighing on our minds and to know that some of this is untrue might be empowering. But really, empowering only in a witty-bar-repartee-prehookup-banter kind of way. The biggest hindrance to the debate about feminism is the entire framework of difference. By this I mean a preoccupation with the ways in which men and women differ and in what ways can we prove or disprove those differences. All the six myths above – being with a lot of partners, focus on looks, frequency of sex, embracing casual sex – all these are problems that are really about constructions and constrictions of masculinity and by extension, they affect women’s lives. 

For the article to be feminist, it would have to use a reverse strategy and we could then arrive at the more relevant questions – for example, what are women’s issues and anxieties with regards to sexual fulfillment or how are women with multiple sexual partners judged or labeled and it’s impact on a collective psyche, or what are the challenges women face when finding partners of equal standing in terms of looks or income. By addressing these questions with a women-first approach, we can really delve into something as opposed to squeezing women into the limited space given to them in discourses of masculinity.

Popular culture tends to extract the most schematic, brief and simple points from theories propounded in academic ivory towers. There is indeed a small victory in being able to enter a mainstream internet space and have in-your-face, bold ideas about women and men come to the fore in a normalized way. However, even with great advances in feminist thinking, we still remain under the sway of what I’m calling “biology fundamentalism” – quite simply that men and women have natural, biological differences and those lead to social inequalities. Biology, an honorable study in itself, is constantly used as a tool to propagate horrible prejudices whether applied to homosexuality, interracial intercourse, racial supremacies and many others. It seems that there is still a carte blanche of biology fundamentalism with regards to gender where there is a merry and relaxed attitude towards conversations about men and women being embedded in natural difference. There is no need for Judith Butler to rap us on our knuckles to remind us yet again that biology is socially constructed too and examples of that are all around us.

The simplicity and brevity of feminism as experienced in the mainstream arena obfuscates the complex and difficult process it took for feminist thinkers to arrive there. To take somewhat masculine preoccupations as an a priori and to view them as women-centric is first of many hurdles. What may be groundbreaking for pop culture can become a dead-end for feminism. 

fashion faux pas?

It seems that the fashion industry just cannot get it right whether its the most minimal use of dark-skinned models or insane trends such as Vogue Italia's "slave" earrings or Michael Kors' foolish safari suits. Even the most talented and intellectual designers always mess it up when it comes to Africa. Alexander McQueen's primitivization of Africa or Christian Dior's utterly idiotic fetish of Pharaohs. However, it is much more disconcerting when celebrities who have probably encountered a lot of resistance to their own skin color while climbing the ladder of success refuse to say NO to most absurd manipulations of their own images. 

Just a few months ago, Beyonce allowed herself to be photographed in blackface. Somehow because she was in France, she was convinced it was edgy to be painted into an ebony colored "African queen." Some critics and bloggers said that since she is an African-American, it was hardly a big deal, completely ignoring the fact this is an insidious historical legacy and simply must not be touted as hip or normal. At the obverse end of same debate, behold Rihanna who has appeared on the cover of Vogue UK with her skin clearly whitened. Rampant racism, c'est toujours trendy?!

dudes, bros and the women they hate to love

-written in joint disdain by Bhakti & Laxmi

The Story with the Stats

I recently watched I Don't Know How She Does It, a movie where a frazzled Sarah Jessica Parker juggles career, kids, marriage and friendship. The film was about the current state of affairs that the modern mother has found herself in. Though light in its tone, I was surprised by the careful and critical depiction of the genre of books known as mommy lit. The commentaries by Christian Hendricks resonated with me; they were tough, sarcastic and undeniably feminist. While it espoused a cliche, white heteronormativity, it was refreshing because it was not about landing some guy but about doing well in career and with your kids. When I looked for reviews on rottentomatoes.com, it only rated at 17% from critics. It was not the first time I had come home from a women-centric film and found that it rated atrociously, with critics saying the harshest possible things. When it comes to dude movies, however, its a completely different story. Take a look at these revealing stats:

Knocked Up 90% - A story about a set of greasy, unfortunate looking young men who smoke pot all day and the grimiest of them all ends up with a hot babe with an amazing tv career. 

I Love You Man 83% - A story about a vulnerable (read pathetic) guy with no friends who friends out with a greasy, sleazy guy who waxes eloquent about farts.

Hangover 78% - A story about some attractive and some greasy, potbellied guys who take roofies in Vegas and do things like pull out their own teeth and trash their hotel room. Some of them still get hot babes, especially the tooth guy.

And then here are stats for the equally annoying chick films...please note that these are not romantic comedies but female-bonding films even though critics constantly rate them based on romance criteria. 

Baby Mama 63% - A hilarious, hip movie about a woman trying to have a baby and the comedy of surrogacy that ensues. Starring attractive, profilic, insanely talented women like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

Sex and the City 1 - 49% and Sex and the City 2 - 15% - An occassionaly funny, mainly sappy movie with fabulous fashion and talented actresses propounding (though poorly) some feminist ideals. 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 77% An extremely charming coming-of-age film about teenage friendship that shockingly rates less than Hangover!

Lets forget about the pot-bellied, pot-smoking, trash-talking dudes for a moment and see how their six-packed, ball-dunking, trash-talking bro counterparts rate: Best Man 71% or The Brothers 63%. While the bros do poorly compared to the dudes in our pathetic society that lacks the most basic critical tools to understand African-American context or culture, they still rate higher than sisterhood movies. For example, the less recent How Stella Got Her Groove Back 48% or Phat Girlz 23%. 

To understand the exceptional case of Bridesmaids, read here. 

Machismo to Mess-ismo 
What is the malady at hand? Well, the most obvious issue is the unadulterated worship of male chauvinism. While the trend towards chauvinist narratives is hardly new, it is the particular form that it has taken which poses a big problem for us women who have to deal with the outrageous trends that arise in real life thanks to the fictive lives in these movies. Once upon a time, masculine ideals were perpetrated through dashing action heroes who were sauve and skilled. They beat a villain to pulp, sipped a martini and swirled breathless girls to tango music, all in a days work! What kind of role models do these overweight, jobless, broke, vulgar, messy and crass guys espouse? It seems that socially we have taken a turn for the worse - from the raw machismo of the previous times, we are now applauding farting, unkempt hair, lack of focus or ambition and a porn collection. 

Trash Talking
The direct outcome of these films is that men feel it is now okay to take trash-talking about women to the next level. Characters of women in most of these films have gone from adorable bimbo or nurturing angel to that of brittle bitch who stands in the way of anything the man may enjoy such as bachelor parties, porn, guys nights, pot parties and other shallow and vulgar pastimes. Attractive women that these men have miraculously snagged interrupt every possible moment of male camaraderie. The first topic among the male friends focus on how to "get" women, that is, how to get laid without getting the woman in question to fall madly in love with the greasy guy. The second focus is on pure women-bashing. All these women are desperate to get married, have kids, they are constantly in the pursuit of plotting home-making, plotting monogamy and mainly snooping and stalking even though not a single one of these characters seems remotely eligible for so much attention to be heaped on them. Though the men in dude movies are clearly losers, thus vulnerable and thus lovable, it is the bro movies which astound a little more. These hunky African-American males are all ivy-league educated, moneyed guys with all kinds of worldly experience, success and an erudite vocabulary, yet they spend their male bonding time mindlessly dissecting women in a manner that seems to hark back to the middle ages. Women-bashing is rampant here too but almost worse because the characters are supposedly so classy. 


Overall, it is so sad that these ineligible males view themselves as prized candidates whom women are waiting to entrap. They are chronically contriving to keep these women off and are perennially playing these women to keep them in check. These are such unlikely scenarios but the tragedy is that they have started to pass off as truth. Men romanticize these mindsets and  it is changing the fabric of relationships and courtships for the worse today. Some months ago, the New Yorker article on Anna Faris made a big splash by exposing sexism in Hollywood. The moguls of dude comedies claimed to follow some basic rules for date nights. I quote: "1) Men Rule: Men decide which movie a couple will see on any given weekend, and any hint that a film involves fashion, pedicures, or female troubles is "man-poison" --- 2) Men are simple. Don't confuse them: Men just don't understand the nuances of female dynamics...Male movie-goes care chiefly about the male star and his buddies --- 3) If a woman is the star, it better be a romantic comedy." Hollywood may swear by these rules but it is upto women to take date night into their own hands. Real women have never been more different than their on-screen avatars. They are stronger, more successful and less likely to settle than ever before. There is an embedded subjugating tactic within these films that I would urge women to not respond to. As for the men, I only have a simple question: Do you really want to be like these guys? I sincerely hope not. 

movies to avoid in the next few months

1. Machine Gun Preacher

Racism Alert!

Some white guy tries to save "Africa." Again! The trailer is totally insidious showing a towering man in safari suit bending over masses of young black kids as a disheveled red-head aid-worker type looks at him adoringly. Then there are the trucks blowing up, red-eyed "African" militants running amok, giant wooden crosses being mounted, a miscast Gerard Butler foolishly banging on desks asking to save children and random yet consensual "African" men looking on at him in admiration. Need I say more? Even though it is directed by the nuanced Marc Forster and even if the trailer may be misrepresenting the actual film, the whole premise is starkly racist and imperialist. Not to mention, utterly cliche.

2. Ides of March

Intellectual Hogwash Alert!

I can just imagine the casting meeting for this movie - "just find every intellectually smug actor in town, put him in a suit and have him parade around with a creased brow." There's a lot of high-stakes dialogue about election campaigns, the wrong man, the mistake, the leaked story but its still impossible to figure out what this movie is about. It seems entirely premised on the illusion that when Clooney, Gosling and Seymour Hoffman get together, something important is going to take place. Why then bother with a plot, a script or even a comprehensible premise. Sadly, this one may haunt us till the Oscars.

3. 50/50

Sexism Alert!

Here comes another dude movie glorifying oversmart, overweight characters that have overtaken Hollywood. This time their endless male-bonding is interrupted not by women, but by cancer. Nothing could be more unbearable than the fast-talking, fake vulnerability of Seth Rogen and the expressionless, cutesy, hipster histrionics of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Apart from the usual jokes about pubic hair trimmers and marijuana, these guys will try to pick up chicks using the cancer card. Plain ugh.

4. Abduction

Brain Drain Alert!

Lets call this what it is - an excuse to see Taylor Lautner flaunt his body! From what starts off as a promising psychological thriller about stolen identity, a whole patchwork of thriller and mystery plots suddenly appear and some talk of a wanted asset. Main mystery though is how John Singleton went from Boyz in the Hood to directing our favorite werewolf running around town destroying stuff. Everyone is constantly mouthing something very grave and technical but I can promise you this is going to be dumb and dumber.

5. The Double

Cold War Nostalgia Alert!

It begins with a telling shot of a flag flying over the Capitol building and soon enough, its about the return of Soviet assassins called "Cassius 7." I almost fell asleep as I typed that line. Richard Gere is terribly serious as he hunts down the killers with all kinds of gratuitous violence thrown in. Patriotism, nationalist propaganda and blatant stereotyping aside, when will Hollywood actually get the memo about the Cold War? It really is over.

straight people, get a life!

Ever gotten that sense of self-revulsion and embarrassment when you find your hands automatically clicking on a predictable and shallow advice column on dating, sex, love or relationships? I must confess that it is a rare day that goes by when I haven't clicked on some pseudo-psychology column written by seemingly eminent PhDs and supported by the most suspicious of surveys. Why are these little columns so addictive?  

At the surface level, there is the obvious - anyone involved in dating and love issues is often in puzzling, murky territory and and there is nothing wrong in resorting to some pop psychology suggestions to figure out if things are working out or wondering if you're reading every line and signal wrong. Sounds harmless enough so far. But....

It is the actual advice and the reality about straight men and women that it posits which is deeply perturbing. These days, I find that people are bored to tears about any debate that harks back to gender relations, gender representations and gender equality. The idea that kiosks filled with women posing half-naked, half-starved on magazine covers are being objectified, or the fact that the US is weak on strong female leaders, or that our obsession with celeb weddings and princess gowns keep us confined in a tight heteronormative bind are all notions that people roll their eyes at. The list of excuses is long and analytically abortive: so passe, so lame, we are so over it, this aint the fifties, I already fulfilled my gender bender college course requirement, I have a gay friend....so on and so forth. 

Nothing reflects the backward and constantly regressing mode of our heterosexual selves as these advice columns. Loosely speaking,they are divided into a few main categories - dating, understanding men and sexual tips. The sexual tips category more or less fulfills the role of erotica, the highly narrativised tips are meant to titillate and offer a little sneaky reading pleasure. While it is not exactly a progressive way of discussing sex, at least the focus on female orgasms redeems these passages a little bit. 

daniel mendelsohn, why so snarky?

(image from http://malepatternboldness.blogspot.com)

Daniel Mendelsohn takes on the monumental task of critiquing Mad Men here. Almost everything he says makes perfect sense - the understanding of nostalgia as a primary shaping factor for the show, the way in which Weiner leaves many plotlines hanging, the weak treatment of homosexuality and race, the often bland acting, the fetish and over-consumerism now attached to the style of the period and the depth with which children actors really make the show extremely special.

I am so very puzzled, however, by his snarky tone.  There is no real room for it in writing about a show that seems to have gripped the critic and while we are often angry with ourselves for giving in to repulsive television, liking Mad Men could hardly fit that bill. I suspect Mendelsohn is annoyed because of the reverance with which the show has been spoken about until now, as if its a sacred space, untouchable, flawless, perfect. Maybe it is impossible to break that particular hushed sacredness without punching a little hard at it!

With or without the snark, this is still a fabulous analysis! Do read...