Yeah, I don't usually do link posts, but.
Here are some links, y'all!
(1) Over at Abigail Nussbaum's page, Asking the Wrong Questions, a thoughtful post on Mad Max: Fury Road.
Key graph: "Immortan Joe treats women as possessions, brood mares, and cows, yes, but he also treats young men as cannon fodder. His "war boys" are literally that, children raised to desire nothing but violence, taught that a glorious death in battle will secure them immortality in Valhalla, either unfamiliar with or openly hostile to all soft emotions. Much attention is paid to their traditions, all of which are designed to glorify both Joe and the boys' sacrifice of their bodies and sanity in the pursuit of his quest, but when Joe removes his favor, the war boys are revealed as what they are: empty children incapable of grasping the complexity of the world, clinging to fairy tales told to them by an uncaring parent. The brilliance of the movie is less in telling a woman's story, and more in so baldly demonstrating how old men with power will use young men as their tools and weapons, by teaching them to hate and fear women."
(2) From Fred Clark, a great post on my hero Harriet Tubman: Harriet Tubman Stole From the Rich and Gave to The Poor.
Key graph: "[M]ake no mistake, during her years as a “conductor on the Underground Railroad,” Harriet Tubman was a thief who regularly stole the property of wealthy Maryland farmers. That was what the law said and what the Constitution said. She broke that law and took “property” that didn’t belong to her. We may not think of this as theft today because the “property” she stole was people — human beings, but the law at the time did not recognize those people to be people. The Constitution said they were property. And that made her, legally, a thief."
(3) From Mike The Mad Biologist: Apparently true, and hard to believe: Jade Helm.
(4) And our Crossed Genres Stories from this month!
The Corpsman's Tale, by Iain Ishbel -- Time Travel, but with Social Justice!
Let Down, Set Free, by Nino Cipri, a beautiful story about a woman who finds unexpected beauty and love in an unexpected alien place.
The Tragically Dead Girlfriend, by Kate Marshall -- subverting your tropes: what we do best at CG.
2 comments:
You will find the point about men, women and power in my 2006 critique of Star Wars, We Must Love One Another or Die. One of the relevant passages:
"The powerful realized long ago that the most reliable way to produce killer automatons is to separate young boys from the other gender and from the part of themselves that questions, does not split thinking from feeling – and fights from inner conviction, not thwarted affection and vaporous promises of glory."
I remember reading that -- was a year ago? Maybe more. You had linked it in something else I was reading of yours. A good essay!
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