Friday, January 23, 2009 - Posts
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... if I were 8, these are the dolls I would want. OK, I kind of want them now. Mattel is releasing three Star Trek Barbies as tie-ins to the upcoming J.J. Abrams' remake of the original 1960s series (which features some genius casting: John Cho as Sulu, Simon Pegg as Scotty, and, um, Tyler Perry as the president of Starfleet Academy). The Uhura doll is experiencing some serious head-to-body ratio issues, but I think even Beyoncé would approve of that hot high ponytail. And they actually gave her a phaser!
(h/t to Wired's Underwire blog)
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A guest post from Slate intern Margaret Johnson:
"After Maddow,” Michael Calderone’s post on Politico this morning, talks about a new program being developed for the MSNBC time slot following Rachel Maddow’s hugely successful 9 p.m. show, but the headline got me thinking about where we are as a culture “after Maddow.” In other words, how has Maddow changed the way lesbians are portrayed on TV?
Every night she enters homes no lesbian has before, and does so as a self-described "butch dyke," albeit with a slight coating of eye shadow and lip gloss to help the medicine go down. On the one hand the mere existence of her show indicates a continuing trend toward putting women on camera who aren’t what Maddow once called "Barbie girls," and that’s awesome. But there’s also a strong possibility that Maddow’s adoring viewers will think she is what all lesbians look like, or at least the smart, successful ones. Through no fault of Maddow’s, other than the visibility her talent and success have brought her, she is perpetuating the idea there’s no such thing as an out lesbian who looks more, well, like a girl.
Sure, the L Word has provided a counter-image, but an extreme one—you’ll never find that many smokin’ hot femme lesbians in one community (if you do, tell me where). There’s also a counterpoint in the simultaneously lovely and badass Portia de Rossi. She played a feminine lesbian acupuncturist opposite Joely Richardson on Nip/Tuck’s 2007-08 season and also appears regularly in the home movies her wife Ellen Degeneres airs on her show, which I admit to finding totally awww-inducing. Still, I wonder how long it will be after and because of Maddow before we see more out female journalists on television, especially any as feminine as Maddow chooses not to be.
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Last week Samantha and I weighed in on the case of "Natalie Dylan," the 22-year-old self-proclaimed virgin who's selling her virginity at auction. The top bid is at $3.8 million. Now, in a personal essay, Dylan explains why she's selling her hymen for millions. Referring to the auction as a "sociological experiment," Dylan asserts it was her recently acquired bachelor's degree in women's studies that made her do it. After she pops her cherry, she's going to pursue a masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, and her virginity auction is preparation for her "upcoming thesis project." Apparently, while pursuing women's studies, Dylan became aware that "virginity" is a tool the patriarchy uses to keep women down, a paradigm she wants to subvert by selling it to someone. Come again?
When I learned this, it became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that? It is mine, after all. And the value of my chastity is one level on which men cannot compete with me. I decided to flip the equation, and turn my virginity into something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men.I took the ancient notion that a woman’s virginity is priceless and used it as a vehicle for capitalism.
How ... feminist? How ... empowering? Whoever invented women's studies must be gnawing at her wrists at this very minute. "Are you rolling your eyes?" Dylan wonders. Why, yes, I am, Miss Dylan! "But I'm not saying every forward-thinking person has to agree with what I’m doing," she continues. Thank God. "You should develop your own personal belief system—that’s exactly my point!" Ah, the wisdom of the young. She concludes: "These days, more and more women my age are profiting directly from their sex appeal, but I’m not sure other women should follow my lead." That would make two of us.
Until today, this sexual spectacle's onlookers have been attempting to discern where Dylan is coming from, personally and politically, but her essay makes it more than clear that her pseudo-feminist blathering is little more than a misguided attempt to conceal her mind-boggling idiocy. Suffice to say, I won't be bidding on her.
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You're right, Jessica, that Kirsten Gillibrand—while proudly conservative—isn't totally orthodox. A smart progressive friend writes me with another example:
Despite the fact as a hard lefty I shouldn't, I kind of find her endearing. ... She voted for the Employee Free Choice Act and was a co-sponsor. Phew!
He adds:
I think that Paterson did not have a killer option and this is not a particularly bad pick. If Jerry Nadler was transformed into a 45-year-old woman from Buffalo with a "z" at the end of her name, great, but you go to war with the army you have.
I only beg the Slate art department not to get on the task of producing an image of Jerry Nadler transformed into a 45-year-old woman from Buffalo.
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Jessica, I'm glad you raised the abortion issue. As I was listening to clips from the pro-life rallies yesterday, what struck me was the time-warp factor. The abortion debate has 
shifted radically over the last five years, but you wouldn't know it from listening to those protesters. Democratic interest groups have been working hard to shift their party's language about abortion. Candidates hardly ever talk about "choice" anymore. They don't even stop at Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare." Nowadays, they take that formula one step further and use the word "reduction," as in, "we will actively pass laws that help reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, in order to ultimately reduce the number of abortions." (See my Atlantic story here, and Amy Sullivan's great book.) Of course, it is a classic strategy of the party in opposition to create straw men. Democrats did it, too. But I can't imagine the callous-to-life argument will stick to Obama, who has mastered the kind of religious overtones that make him impervious to this charge.
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Eve, you're right that Kirsten Gillibrand has a remarkably conservative record for a New York Dem, except on one issue: reproductive rights. She co-sponsored a 2007 bill to "expand access to preventive health care services that help reduce unintended pregnancy, reduce abortions, and improve access to women's health care," and she also got a 100 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice New York. It's been argued by Ross Douhat and others that pro-lifers are more willing to compromise, especially now that Obama and his choice-loving compatriots are in charge, but the evidence of that is scant. In fact, it seems like the pro-life movement has been invigorated by Obama's inauguration, as tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists attended a rally in D.C. yesterday to mark the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. (According to the AP, one woman held up a sign that said “The Audacity of Hope: No More Roe.”)
Related: Wonder what the Catholic Gillibrand thinks of this ad making the rounds from CatholicVote.org, which argues that if Obama had been aborted, he wouldn't be president today.
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OK, so, at first blush, Kirsten Gillibrand—the replacement for Hillary in the Senate, announced today—looks like the ideal solution to all of New York Gov. David Paterson's problems. Like Caroline Kennedy, she's a woman. Like the big names in the replacement race, she's a talented buck-raker (as of this summer, she was crowned the "top fundraiser" among the 42 Democrats in the House class of '06). But unlike Kennedy or Cuomo, she isn't saddled with all that dynastic baggage. Perfect!
But she's also got politics. (Amid all the oohing and aahing over a lady politician's ascent, we sometimes forget that these political girl wonders have views along with their unusual anatomy.) And her politics are quite different from those of the other contenders. She's definitely the most conservative pick out of the possible replacements the Albany Times-Union handicapped. How conservative? Well, this fall she called her voting record "one of the most conservative in the state," and while I was skeptical when I first read that—including Republicans?—it's not too much of an exaggeration, especially now that the antediluvian Vito Fossella has been booted from office.
Among the mavericky votes Gillibrand has racked up: a vote in favor of giving immunity to the telecom companies that helped Bush spy on U.S. citizens; votes against both Pelosi-supported TARP bailout bills; a vote for the May 2007 war funding bill, which lacked a troop-withdrawal deadline, the liberal mania of the moment (no other New York Democrat voted in favor); and a vote for this fall's proposal to roll back the District of Columbia's prohibition on semiautomatic guns. (In general, the National Rifle Association is a huge Gillibrand fan, making the extremely rare move of endorsing her over her Republican opponent this year.)
I have no way of knowing whether Gillibrand is conservative at heart or whether she's simply fastidiously cautious about reflecting her district, which—until November—was the most Republican slice of New York represented by a Democrat. But her elevation represents another triumph for the Blue Dog-style, Rahm Emanuel-style philosophy of expanding Democratic power: make economic crusaders (TARP vote: check) with strong veins of conservatism running through their politics (gun love: check) the new faces of the Democratic Party. (The photo at the top shows Gillibrand next to Pennsylvania's Chris Carney, a top poster boy for the fashionable red-tinged brand of Democrat.)
Well. We'll see what Gillibrand sounds like when Chuck Schumer is done with her.
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Dayo, good catch on the white hands of our new POTUS. Talk about lazy marketing, geesh! Maybe we should be grateful that they weren't John McCain's hands (I wonder if his are gnarled, liver-spotted grandpa hands), or worse, Sarah Palin's glasses (so rose-colored that she actually believed the Republican hype about her qualifications for high office). Now that would be really insulting. I'm just glad that we now have the Real McCoy running the White House and not a cheap cardboard imitation.
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Bonnie, you're right about the Obamas not being able to keep their daughters' popularity in a bottle—the girls are just too cute for words—but I do think their parents can protect them by strictly limiting their media exposure and not allowing them to be mass-marketed by J. Crew, Ty Girlz, or any other company looking to profit off Malia's and Sasha's image. It's bad enough to see the president and the first family's picture on every imaginable tasteless piece of memorabilia (what's next, bathroom tissue?). I'd hate to see the girls become so overexposed that their fans turn into haters tired of seeing them everywhere. I think the parents would also do well not to release any more private-moment pictures of them with their girls, such as the ones of the girl's first day of school in D.C. As Emily B. pointed out in a post about those pictures, the Obamas' decision to make them public sent mixed messages about their daughters' zone of privacy. If the first couple consider photos of their girls doing something as mundane as going to school to be public information, why wouldn't the paparazzi try to push the envelope further the next time the girls are out and about in D.C.? (Granted the Secret Service will likely keep aggressive-minded photographers away, but still. ... ) The Obamas' decision to allow the girls to be interviewed on television last summer also surprised me, especially because it was done in the heat of the presidential campaign and because candidate Obama then said he regretted the decision.
I thought it was pretty classy when, after broadcasting a story about the girls' first day of school, one of the networks news anchors announced it would be the station's last story on the girls because they were entitled to their privacy—and their childhood. The station also said it would follow the same privacy guidelines it had adopted for Chelsea Clinton and other past presidential children. The Clintons' were absolutist about keeping Chelsea out of the media spotlight, and I think it served her well over the long-term.