Losing Patience

I am seriously losing patience with white people who don't get it.

Pop quiz! What is your response to this?

A. OH BURN, TRUTH

B. I find it incredibly offensive that someone has just labeled my entire race as thieves. No one race is better than the other, I won't have someone stirring up racial hatred. If you define white as Western European and American, we are not responsible for all the evils in the world. Black people, Asian people, Indian people, Muslims, Jews, shamans, witch doctors, first nations, Maoris etc. have all committed atrocities and stolen from each other.

If you answered A, congratulations! You're not a completely terrible human being!

If you answered B (or some variant thereof), then just... GTFO.

When this happened on my Facebook, I pretty much disengaged completely. I wrote only, “OH NO, I'M REVERSE RACIST”, which is probably far too subtle a slice of mockery for the person in question (who probably thinks that “reverse racism” is a thing), and then I backed the fuck off. Another friend, who does a lot of anti-racist work, stepped up and wrote some very patient and kind posts to try to get the first person to check their privilege without hurting their fee-fees too much. I didn't say anything else, because I knew I wouldn't be able to stay civil.

The fact is, I'm having an extremely hard time giving a flying moon-fuck for white people who care more about their own hurt fee-fees than about combating racism.

Say it with me:

ANTI-RACISM. IS. NOT. ABOUT. WHITENESS.

It's really, really, really, really, really not about us.

I am white – matrilineally Jewish but fully WASP in appearance – and my one personal encounter on the receiving end of racism (not to mention my numerous encounters with sexism and heterosexism) assures me of what should be completely frickin' obvious to everyone: being on the receiving end of an -ism is much, much worse than having to check your goddamn privilege.

And I am profoundly not interested in explaining this to people who don't get it.

I've been learning about the history of the gay rights movement in the US, and one thing I've found very striking is that from the very beginning the movement was split into two wings. The one side advocated a softly-softly approach, and the other was a lot more militant. I think it's generally accepted in activism that both wings are necessary for maximum movement efficacy: if you don't have a softly-softly side, you'll alienate the mainstream, but without a militant wing you might not get anything done.

Myself, I don't have the temperament to be gentle with people whose consciousness hasn't yet been raised. But, by God, I admire those who do.

The Second Annual GCG Pop Culture Awards

Are canceled, because fuck you, entertainment industry. You're a bunch of craven, pusillanimous money-grubbers, recycling the same old garbage, reinforcing the same hegemonic narratives. You're a bunch of soulless suits who stifle genuine artistic expression in service of the bottom line. You suppress important voices and interesting stories so that you can maintain your profit-driven empire and, in so doing, perpetuate the kyriarchal status quo. You churn out meaningless sequel after crappy reboot, all empty fodder for the entertainment-industrial complex. Any flicker of art or soul or resistance is crushed under the jackboot of the massive money-machine that is big studios.

In your relentless pursuit of ultra-capitalism, moreover, you have proved yourself myopic and cowardly in the extreme. Once again you've utterly failed (ironically enough) to adapt to the demands of the consumer and the changing modes of production and distribution. Your opposition to the unstoppable forward march of technology reveals you to be a tantrum-throwing child, a bully, and an utter fool.

Inevitably, things are changing, and you're too busy screaming and throwing your toys at us consumers to take advantage of it. The real artists – the people with something to say, who are motivated by the Muses and not solely by Mammon – are adapting. They're taking their art and message straight to the people. They're utilizing the almighty power of the internet to raise funds and awareness for their projects, and to distribute their creations directly to the fans.

Unlike you, they're harnessing this awesome new power. Unlike you, they accept the change and work with it. You, entertainment industry, are King Canute, frantically flinging your last shreds of integrity into the sea in the vain hope that it might hold back the tide. You're shitting yourself in terror, and I for one welcome the day – surely imminent now – when the sea of change finally drowns you.

(And the best movie of 2011 was Attack the Block, and the best TV show of 2011 was Community, both of which have of course been totally sidelined by the aesthetically and morally bankrupt gatekeepers of the industry.)

For The Last Time, He Is Not My Boyfriend

I grew up with two brothers who are more or less the best people I know, so it's perhaps predictable that all my life I have tended to form very close friendships with dude-type humans. Equally predictably, all my life I have had to combat the constant “tee-hee, it's like you're dating” juvenilia from those around me.

In kindergarten and first grade: Hal is not my boyfriend, Marshall is not my boyfriend, Davis is not my boyfriend (actually he kind of was, but we were six or seven).

In prep school: George is not my boyfriend, Gregory is not my boyfriend, Nikit is not my boyfriend.

In high school: Eystein is not my boyfriend, Chris is not my boyfriend (and if I sort of wanted him to be, it was a very confusing time in my life and I was working a lot of stuff out).

In university: Sam is not my boyfriend (though if I had a pound for every time someone legitimately thought he was, I could easily pay off my student debt).

In grad school: Tyler is not my boyfriend, and would you all please stop saying that he is?

Maybe the first couple of times it was funny, on account of the sheer outlandishness of the whole idea. But with enough repetition it becomes, frankly, problematic.

Constant reassertion of a bullshit heteropatriarchal narrative, in such a way that any objections can be countered with “jeez, can't you take a joke?”, is a time-honored bullying tactic of the Heteropatriarchy Police.

I know you all still think it's funny. But to me it's starting to feel as though the Heteropatriarchy Police are saying, “Hm, two single opposite-sex humans are spending a lot of time together, but with 0% chance of romance on either side. We'd better put a stop to this before the whole bullshit heteropatriarchy collapses! Everyone, quick, start mercilessly pummeling them with the language of romance so they get the message that their friendship as it is is not okay.”

I hate what this narrative says about the power differentials of gender and sexuality. I know if we were both dudes, or both women – or probably even if he were the gay one and I the breeder – we wouldn't get anywhere near this amount of teasing. And I hate what it says about the supreme importance of romantic relationships in our society. I know we only get this much teasing because we're both single. For comparison, I recently mentioned my friend JT to my little brother (who, lest we forget, is one of the best people I know); my brother said in a jokey voice, “Is he your boyfriend?”, but when I said, “He's married,” my brother dropped the entire subject. So apparently a friend's marital status can end the “is he your boyfriend” jokes, but the basic fact of my, you know, sexuality can't? A marriage certificate allows two opposite-sex people to be platonic friends, but the fact that one of them is gay doesn't?

Why does the concept of a very deep, meaningful, 100% platonic friendship between a dude-person and a lady-person blow so many people's minds? Hell, even if I was straight we could still have this sort of friendship. It's not like we're inventing the wheel here. There's even a TV Tropes page for our relationship. Truth be told, I expect better from the denizens of a campus that prides itself on its inclusivity, queerness, and all-round challenging of the kyriarchy.

In conclusion, take your bullshit heteropatriarchal narrative and shove it up your arses.

Quiet Days

Almost every other day, somebody says to me, “Are you okay? You're very quiet today.”

Recently, after a pleasant dinner with the gang, one friend (who prides herself on her emotional astuteness) texted me: “I can't help but notice that you didn't look okay earlier.” My repeated assurances that nothing was wrong seem to have convinced her only that I am unwilling to share with her my deep emotional pain and trauma.

So I asked another, less emotionally-charged friend if I had looked somehow not okay at dinner. He said to me, “Sometimes you're very talkative, and other times you're very quiet.”

Well, duh. Why does this confuse people?

When we were teenagers, my very best friend, who I have known my entire life, used to say pretty often, “You're very quiet today.” I wondered how many quiet days I would have to have before she cottoned on, but I attributed her repeated confusion to her extroversion (in contrast to my textbook introversion).

Some days, I have a lot to say. Other days, I do not. What is odd about this? What is unusual about this? Do most people have things to say every day, or do they just force themselves to keep talking even on days when they have nothing to say?

I like good conversation, but I am not afraid of silence. I talk when I want to, and when I don't want to talk I don't. In this way I can (mostly) avoid those instances of mindless babbling where I listen to myself talking and think, “My God, would you shut up?”

Some days, I am talkative. Other days, I am quiet. This is entirely logical. Why do people find it so baffling?

FUCK YOU, STRAIGHT PEOPLE

(Warning: Expletives abound. I was extremely fucking angry when I wrote this.)

Hey, straight people, guess what?

Grow the fuck up.

I don't care how goddamn ignorant you are. I could not give less of a shit what you think. Don't ask me some fucking stupid shit question like “how come there's no straight pride parade?”, because you won't get an answer. I am fucking done with Gay 101, Feminism 101, How To Be The Greatest Fucking Ally In The World 101. Go join a fucking library. Go home and read Shakesville. Go teach yourself the basics of being a human being – don't expect me to do it for you. Either educate yourfuckingself, or accept that you're a disgusting fucking bigot.

Or maybe I will give you an answer. The answer is, “because fuck you, straight people”. You, with your fucking smug little smirks as you ask me why QUILTBAG excludes straight people, like you think you're the first fucking person on the planet to ask such a stupid fucking question. You, with your “no, I've never been called a pervert for holding hands with a girl, but I've been called names for other stuff, which is totally the same thing”. You, with your “it's okay for me to use 'gay' as a pejorative because I have gay friends, and they know I'm only joking!”

Fuck. Off. Fuuuuuuuuck riiiiiiiight off.

It's gotten to the point where I let so much shit slide, because I don't want to have some really basic fucking kindergarten-level conversation about how actually, yes, being gay defines me in a way that being straight doesn't define you. I don't want to explain to your delicate straight-person brain that having a gay friend isn't a Get Out Of Bigotry Free card. I don't want to hold your goddamn hand and tiptoe your precious straight-person feet through the concept that maybe our taking pride in marginalized identities is a pushback against you straight people trying to make us ashamed. I let it slide, because there are so many times and places in my life where I can't get away with saying fuck you, straight people.

Well, this is my space, and I'm going to say it here for all the other times I don't get to say it.

FUCK YOU, STRAIGHT PEOPLE.

FUCK YOOOOUUUUU, STRAIGHT PEOPLE.

FUUUUUUUCK YOOOOUUUU, STRAIGHT PEOPLE.

FUCK YOU, STRAIGHT PEOPLE!!!

Fucking fucking fuck you, fucking straight people.

FUCK YOU, STRAIGHT PEOPLE.

FUCK YOU FOREVER

Top Five Films Of 2011 So Far

Allow me to don my Professor Trelawney specs and predict: posterity will judge 2011 to be a profoundly crappy year for movies (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 2-9 notwithstanding).

Oh, there's a smattering of mildly interesting releases, both Hollywood and (mainly) not, but compared with the abundant high-quality output of the past few years – 2010's Monsters and Inception and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and Toy Story 3 and Of Gods and Men; 2009's A Serious Man and Up and District 9 and The Hurt Locker and Moon; 2008's Waltz With Bashir and Synecdoche New York and Wall-E and The Dark Knight and Let the Right One In; 2007's No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – compared with all that, 2011 is looking like a banner year for mediocrity.

Nonetheless, we're halfway through the year, and it is only right that I should scrutinize the mediocre-est cinema has to offer and present you with a list of the Top Five Films Of 2011 So Far.

A note on Black Swan: You'll notice I've left Black Swan off this list. That's because I don't know what to do with it. Its US release year was 2010, and by the time I compile my end-of-2011 list I'll be living in the US, so it won't feel right to include it; however, I didn't see it until January, so I don't feel I can legitimately retcon it into my end-of-2010 list. (I probably will, eventually, especially because I was only really happy with 9 of my top 10 of '010.) Of course, I think it's an absolute cracker of a film. Maybe Black Swan and True Grit can have their own little subcategory of my year-end top ten.

A note on the list: It skews obscure and foreign. Sorry and all, but I've not yet seen the big releases I'm hoping to love (Bridesmaids, out of laziness; Super 8, out of the whole not-released-in-the-UK-almost-until-I'm-leaving business).

Top Five Films Of 2011 So Far

5. Source Code [dir. Duncan Jones]

In which Jake Gyllenhaal repeatedly lives out the last eight minutes of a stranger's life in an attempt to prevent a terrorist attack – Precogs On A Train, if you will. The only American film on the list, I know it disappointed a lot of people who were hoping for a second Moon, but I thought it was great. I mean, I love Moon as much as the next Silent Running fan, but it was nice to see Jones tackle something a bit bigger and explodier with the same thoughtfulness (even if the premise doesn't really make sense – just go with it; the ending's great). I officially declare Duncan Jones to be a Very Good Director, and if he delivers a third film on a par with his first two I shall upgrade him to Auteur.

4. The Borrower Arrietty (Kari-gurashi no Arietti) [dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi]

A new Studio Ghibli film is always something to celebrate, especially one based on a classic novel from my childhood. (Side note: did you know it's pronounced “Jibbly”? I literally just found that out yesterday, after like eight years of calling it “Studio Gibbly”. Live and learn.) This one is charming and delightful as ever, though not quite as good as the lovely Ponyo – largely because of the human boy Sho, who is quite as irritating in this film as he was in the book. I saw the subtitled version, and, though I know it's an anime purist's no-no, I'm very much looking forward to the American dub, 'cause AMY POEHLER. (Side note two: ask me about my post-colonialist interpretation of this movie!)

3. Julia's Eyes (Los ojos de Julia) [dir. Guillem Morales]

This first feature film from director Guillem Morales was advertised on the back of star Belén Rueda's previous film The Orphanage (El orfanato). That movie (produced, like this one, by the wonderful Guillermo del Toro, who LET HIM MAKE AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS ALREADY, HOLLYWOOD!!) gave me the serious heebie-jeebies, so I anticipated many a sleepless night from this new offering – and I was not disappoint. This story of twin sisters, a degenerative eye condition, and a creepy stalker ramps up the fear factor in a sequence that makes the night-vision-goggles scene from The Silence Of The Lambs look like something out of Ponyo.

2. Tomboy [dir. Céline Sciamma]

I have no reference points for this movie, so perhaps you won't either, but it's a truly charming French film by a writer-director I'm not familiar with. Skinny prepubescent Laure has short hair, a flat chest, and, like, the most soulful face you've ever seen on a kid actor; when her family moves to a new neighborhood, she presents herself as a boy named Mikael, ushering in a glorious summer of fun with her newfound gang of friends, especially BFF (and potential romantic interest) Lisa. It's never clear whether Laure is trans*, genderqueer, or just the most precocious and adorable little babydyke you ever saw, but little Zoé Héran brings real depth and nuance to the role. Even if you're not interested in queer stories (in which case, why are you reading this blog?), you should watch this film to see the most delightful and naturalistic portrayal of childhood on film since the opening scene of Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are.

1. Attack The Block [dir. Joe Cornish]

My favorite film of the year so far, no question at all. This story of urban yoofs fending off an alien invasion from their South London council estate is an absolutely brilliant sci-fi adventure (brimming with easter eggs for the eagle-eyed sci-fi fan: the titular block is called Wyndham Tower, and it's situated on Ballard Lane) with a reasonably subtle side serving of sociopolitical commentary. Pay no attention to Mark Kermode in this instance (you should jolly well listen to me and The Incredible Suit instead): it's plenty funny and plenty scary, and I think it has a real shot at retaining its number one spot in my end-of-year top ten list.

Well, that was fun! Given a list of movies I feel passionate about – a list that includes only one straight white male protagonist, a class of people about whom I never want to see another movie as long as I live – I am starting to feel relatively optimistic about 2011, and we can't have that. To balance out the warm fuzzies, let's throw in a couple of mid-year GCG Pop Culture Awards.

Benjamin Button Award for Most Painfully Boring Movie I Have Ever Seen In My Life

Blue Valentine. Okay, I'm cheating by including it (see note on Black Swan, above), but I feel moved to share with the world just how much I hated this movie. I went in expecting a searingly honest relationship drama; I came out a ghost to the power of three, because it was so excruciatingly dull I died three times over in the course of watching it. Oh God, it was so boring. It was so tedious, it made Benjamin Button look like Die Hard. It was so long, it made Berlin Alexanderplatz seem like Le Voyage dans la lune. It perpetrated such agonizing torture on my soul that I'm afraid I fought back using my only weapon: atrocious cinema etiquette. I texted a friend, I groaned aloud, I got out a book of Sudoku and started solving them by the light of the screen. And I am generally a person with a very high boredom threshold (and impeccable cinema manners), but this... oy.

Sex and the City 2 Award for Most Loathsome Piece Of Garbage In Cinemas 2011

The Hangover Part II. I've only seen about five minutes of this dungheap whilst doing screenchecks at work, but that five minutes served up a demonic smorgasbord of homophobia, transphobia, racism, xenophobia, and good old-fashioned misogyny. I think – I hope – I'm safe in awarding this prize for the year as a whole, because I can't imagine we'll see a more disgusting pile of kyriarchal poop on the big screen in the next six months. (If we do, I'm turning Amish.)

I'm Not Here For Your Entertainment

The other night I was at a party, where I saw somebody I haven't seen since high school. Let's call him Flobberwobberbobberbobberbobber (+10 if you get the reference, +100 if you can say it out loud without cracking a smile). At some point, the inevitable happened: I made a passing reference to an ex-girlfriend, and Flobberwobberbobberbobberbobber said, “So are you gay now?”

That kind of phrasing sets off all manner of alarm bells, but the simplest answer is “yes”. Of course, this led to a barrage of inane questions, which I really didn't feel like answering. (Mad props to my homies in the house who jumped straight to my defense with the usual inversions: “How long have you been straight?”) Later on, I'm pretty sure he was trash-talking me to a good friend, who also defended me like the absolute brick he is.

It would be nice to say that this is the worst I've ever gotten from a straight dude, that I've never been treated like a performing seal or been called unpleasant names or come close to getting the snot beaten out of me on account of my sexuality. It would be nice, but if I said that I would be a lying liar who lies.

All of this harassment, without exception, has come from men.

Some of these men were bullies; some of them were merely ignorant but well-intentioned; they are all products of a culture that tells men they can belittle women's sexuality with impunity. That tells men all valid sex revolves around men's sexuality. That tells men gay women are putting it on to titillate men. That teaches men to question a gay woman's very existence, because it doesn't make any sense that women can have desires and attractions that don't involve men in some way, so any woman claiming to do so is at best a divertissement for men's amusement and at worst a pervert (yes, I've been called that – for holding hands with my girlfriend in public).

What does it feel like to be told, implicitly or explicitly, that your existence is invalid?

It feels like shit.

The only time a woman has made me feel this bad was when a conservative Christian friend lent me a charming book called Blame it on the Brain, which purports to offer solutions to problems like depression, alcoholism, and homosexuality through a cobbled-together mess of dubious neuroscience and Scripture. How much it hurts when people use my faith, the God whom I love and trust with everything I am, to invalidate me is a whole other story. In the secular world, though, women don't doubt other women's sexuality, because we know from our lived experience that, contrary to the teachings of the kyriarchy, women are sexual beings just as much as men are. Some women, of course, are asexual, as are some men; but among those of us who are sexual, some of us are gay. Yes, really.

We're not doing it to get your attention. We're not doing it to play hard to get. We're not doing it because we feel a feminist's obligation to reject men even though we secretly want them. We're doing it because it's who we are.

When you are part of a marginalized group, your oppressors put you in a neat little damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't snare. When a member of the oppressing majority asks a question that displays eir astonishing, breath-taking ignorance, like “how long have you been gay?”, ey's putting the onus on you to educate em. You can refuse, knowing that ey will probably not bother with the five minutes of googling needed to self-educate, and so you are leaving em in ignorance; or you can oblige, and feel as though you are there purely for the convenience of the oppressor: you're the Magical Minority!

What I want from my oppressors is simple. I don't want to have to justify myself to you. I don't want to hear you say you've “turned” lesbians, or to put up with your sexual advances after I've made it clear that I am not interested. I don't want to feel like I have to educate you, and I don't want to have to be defended by my straight friends. I definitely don't want to have to run away so I can keep my face the way it is. When you do this stuff to me, you make me feel as if I am less of a person than you.