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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: "The Ugly Truth" Is, Indeed, Ugly

Posted on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Sady

Here is a thing I was writing in e-mails to everybody late last week: I seriously never thought I would see a movie more offensive to all of my many delicate sensibilities than Observe & Report! But I did. I saw that movie. And then I wrote about it, for Comment is Free:

Anyone who goes to the movies looking for sexism has her work cut out for her. Most movies are directed by men. The vast majority of top studio executives are men. Male demographics are prized. And, maybe because of the above-mentioned facts about who is producing and creating movies, most movies tend to focus on male experiences and male heroes, while movies made “for women” tend to be tossed-off, patronising and terrible. It’s more challenging, actually, to look for movies that aren’t sexist.

Nevertheless, when every single review of a movie mentions its misogyny, I pay attention. Particularly when it comes from a screenplay written by three ladies, and when one of those very few female studio executives – Amy Pascal, of Sony Pictures Entertainment – was responsible for green-lighting it.

This was why I ended up going out to a theatre in Queens, New York, in the middle of the day, to see The Ugly Truth, the beautiful, terrible brainchild of screenwriters Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith. Readers: If there is any experience more humiliating for a girl than uttering the phrase “One for The Ugly Truth, please,” I haven’t had it yet. As I took the ticket, I realised that to any outside observer, this would appear to be the absolute worst-case scenario for my life.

Oh, it is long and it is angry. Read it, please, that my suffering may not be in vain.

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Sexist Beatdown: Ejaculations of Surprise Edition!

Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 by Sady
Why, hello there! I hope you have pleasant plans for the weekend. Me, I have to take my mother and brother out on the town. They will ask, “what precisely is it you do all day, Sady?” And I will say, “today, I posted a chat about whether or not you should let dudes ejaculate in your vagina. OR ELSEWHERE ON YOUR PERSON.”

Yep! Science agrees, apparently, that pulling out is a “reliable” form of birth control. Tracy Quan believes this to be some BS – BS, perhaps, that will maybe result in you getting The Deadly Crotch Rot or an accidental fetus from when the dude in question “forgets” to utilize this cutting-edge birth control method! Meanwhile Jessica Grose thinks Tracy Quan needs to chill and give folks a little more credit.

Of course, this means that it is time for a Sexist Beatdown. Join us, as the incisive and funny Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper’s The Sexist and I discuss the cutting-edge sperm-placement technologies of the modern age!

ILLUSTRATION: Oh, sure, he LOOKS cute and cuddly.

AMANDA: 9:23 a.m. is a great time to talk about the ups and downs of not ejaculating into vaginas.

SADY: yes. personally, when i heard that not ejaculating into vaginas was a “reliable” form of birth control, i had my suspicions! i was like: apparently all of the dudes i have argued with about birth control have become scientists! who knew?

AMANDA: published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal of medicine, Maxim.

SADY: right. it strikes me as some flawed science, is what i am saying! for, even if withdrawal is a semi-effective method of “birth control,” it strikes me as a highly ineffective method of Not Getting Various Diseases Such As The Herp Control. which i think is what Tracy Quan is saying, which is good common sense.

AMANDA: of course, but at the same time, real scientists who are not your ex-boyfriends have worked very hard to come up with dozens of methods of birth control that also don’t prevent STDs

SADY: fair enough! the scientists, they do these things! i suppose i am a person who likes a certain modicum of control over these situations. and withdrawal as birth control, TO ME, relies on your partner having (a) really good timing, and (b) a solid commitment to not getting distracted or losing track of whatever he is supposed to be doing, during a moment that (AS I UNDERSTAND IT) can be kind of distracting! (I AM REFERRING TO THE MALE ORGASM. In case my incredible tastefulness and subtlety are working against me.)

AMANDA: this is a point that Quan made as well, and I agree that for a lot of people withdraw would not be a good option for this reason. But all forms of birth control come with a degree of human error, or in some cases, shit ripping inside your vagina error. say you’re a couple who doesn’t want to use condoms. and the woman takes her birth control pills, but the man, like you, can’t trust her—for whatever reason—to take them at the same time every day. maybe she forgets sometimes!

SADY: fair enough!

AMANDA: he might not want to rely on her, either. and so if you forget a birth control pill, or a condom breaks, or you ejaculate into a vagina, you know, you can take emergency contraception as well. one of the interesting things to me about this study—and i’m just going to assume the study is accurate for argument, because i don’t know anything about methodology with these things. is that it placed withdrawl slightly below condoms, right? and still, most of the response has been, ‘there’s no way this could ever work, this is some frat dude conspiracy.’ and so perhaps what this study reveals isn’t that withdrawl is a very good option, but rather that we have a bit too much faith in condoms

SADY: a fascinating point! and i agree, some of this may have to do with the fact that, as long as i’ve been alive, anyway, Birth Control has been less important to the discussion than Safe Sex. and most of the sex ed i have ever received has been like, “USE CONDOMS, also there are other methods but seriously just USE CONDOMS.” and i’m still a fan of the condom, because it is cheap and does not require a prescription and has a lower failure rate and higher disease protection rate than other things! the withdrawal method, to me, requires what is (in many or most circumstances) a perhaps unrealistically high level of trust for one’s makeout partner. but maybe this just has to do with the fact that i have been culturally conditioned to trust other people less than i trust the Trojan corporation.

AMANDA: of course. and the method is really counter-intuitive, because pulling out is something that irresponsible 15 year old boys are supposed to do, when really it’s something that would be more appropriate for, say, mutually monogamous STD-free old people.

SADY: right. it is odd for me that something which is the centerpiece of much heterosexual porn is now a meaningful expression of committed monogamous trust. NEXT UP: how having sex on a bus can keep you from getting cancer!

AMANDA: hhahaha. yeah. i heard if you put a donut on it and then seductively bite it off it lowers the risk of kidney failure, or something

SADY: WOW. a doughnut, you say! i guess i’ve been doing it all wrong with the bagels.

AMANDA: i’m with the critics of Quan with this one, though – something that PEOPLE DO turning out to be less sexually risky than we thought is probably a good thing. she says a bit of anxiety is good, but i actually have a lot of that! and so reducing that is probably a good thing for a lot of people. maybe not for Quan, but it’s not like we’re getting rid of condoms! The Trojan lobby (sponsored by Tiger Beatdown) would never allow that.

SADY: true enough. i guess i am just concerned with the fact that there is already pressure on girls to be the “cool” ones who don’t “make” the dude use condoms. i do not know why i think that the sort of dudes who apply that pressure are all going to show up with scientific studies and go through a careful risk-benefit analysis! yet i do. in conclusion: withdrawal is totally fine, if you want to do that and are reasonable about it, and not fine if you do not. CONTROVERSY!

AMANDA: agreed. DON’T LET HIM NOT EJACULATE IN YOUR VAGINA IF YOU DON’T WANT HIM TO NOT DO THAT, KIDS.

SADY: there, problem solved. everybody does what they want to do. the real winner? the paper towel industry. hurrah!

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SETH ROGEN IS OUTRAGED, Some More

Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 by Sady
Yes, it’s true: Seth Rogen feels NOTHING BUT OUTRAGE! Because people just won’t stop calling him a SEXIST! I mean, I imagine it hurts to be subject to such unfounded criticism; it’s not like he’s starred in and/or improvised much of the dialogue for a series of movies in which women are either Crazy Drunk Sluts or caretaking mechanisms for men, or like he starred in that one movie with the wacky rape scene, or like he wouldn’t stop doing promotional interviews in which he praised the wacky rape scene, or like he wrote the screenplay for that one movie about how menstruating vaginas are terrible and you should get girls incapacitatingly drunk so as to fuck them and in which THE CHARACTER WHO FREAKED OUT ABOUT THE VAGINAS AND WAS MOST CREEPILY INTO THE GETTING-GIRLS-DRUNK PLAN WAS NAMED “SETH” AND WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED BY ROGEN HIMSELF, or… no, wait. Sources have confirmed that this is exactly what Seth Rogen has done. Because he is a sexist, probably.

Anyway, behold the terrible OUTRAGE of Rogen, via Vulture! Oh, and also, there is BONUS JUDD APATOW. Because Judd Apatow, when not defending himself from charges of sexism, likes to participate in the sexism of his friends. Because Judd Apatow is apparently that wormy little dude who is totally socially appropriate and non-sexist until he’s in the company of bigger dudes who have his back and will help him get away with it. Because look at this shit:

Judd Apatow kept his criticism polite, explaining that she was “probably was doing six hours of interviews and kissing everyone’s ass, and then just got tired and slipped a little bit.” Luckily, however, Apatow brought his furry avatar, Seth Rogen, along to say what he was really thinking.

“I didn’t slip and I was doing fucking interviews all day too,” said Rogen. “I didn’t say shit!” Then he sarcastically praised Heigl’s The Ugly Truth: “That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way.” Apatow joined in a little: “I hear there’s a scene where she’s wearing underwear with a vibrator in it, so I’d have to see if that was uplifting for women.”

Apatow continued, “I feel sad that she hasn’t learned the lesson of her journey yet … [You’d think] at some point I’ll get a call saying ‘Sorry, I was tired … ‘ and then the call never comes.”

Yes, Apatow feels sorry for her. Isn’t it terrible that she hasn’t learned not to say that things are sexist in public? I mean, it is not as if Judd Apatow would not accept an apology from her. Truly, if only she would see the error of her ways and crawl back to Judd Apatow and repent of being one of the many people to point out the overwhelming sexism of Judd Apatow movies, Judd Apatow would welcome her with open arms. Although he would not give her more work, because although he keeps insane codependent multiple-film relationships with pretty much every dude he has ever worked with, the women show up in one movie and then go away forever unless he is married to them. Which is not sexist! NOT SEXIST AT ALL.

Anyway, it’s Rogen, as always, who brings his typical not-sexist and illuminating commentary to the table, and thereby raises the bar for all of us:

“I gotta say, it’s not like we’re the only people she said some batshit crazy things about. That’s kind of her bag now.”

Hey, remember when Rogen responded to the creators of Entourage (again: what?) and their accusations of misogyny by saying that they were “morons” and “assholes”? Note how this differs when the accuser is a woman. If a guy says it, it’s an insult, and must be responded to in an appropriately macho manner. If a girl says it, it’s beneath contempt. It invites pity. It just means that she’s insane. Because it’s not like women, being targets of misogyny, would know what it looks like or anything. No, they’re just hysterical, the poor little things.

Thank God for Seth Rogen, disproving his own misogyny once and for all.

(PS: To folks who are asking me about “The Ugly Truth”: Yes, I saw it. Yes, it’s terrible. Hopefully you will hear what I have to say about it next week.)

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What Message Will You Send With Your Twilight Tattoo?

Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 by Sady

Bad news, everybody: you might be a girl. And, as a girl, you are required to love Twilight. Don’t know why! It just works that way, I guess. So, as a girl, and therefore a Twilight fan, I am assuming that you are planning your very first Twilight tattoo.

But wait! Consider! A Twilight tattoo has many ramifications. I mean, besides the fact that everyone is going to look at it for the rest of your life and be like, “huh, so that’s what you spent a couple hundred bucks on, huh?” Your Twilight tattoo should express the essence of who you are, and what you want out of life and/or sparkly vampires with outmoded attitudes toward gender.

Fortunately for you, Geekologie has provided a handy gallery of Twilight tattoos! (It has also provided many comments you should not read, and proof of the fact that when something geeky is associated with girls everyone in the world can feel free to make fun of it and talk about how terrible it is, whereas when something geeky is associated primarily with guys it is a renowned cultural institution and/or Star Wars.) Here, we examine the leading contenders, to see which one captures the precise nature of your Twilight love.

This is a tattoo that says, “ask me about my extensive collection of free-verse poems featuring the word ‘darkness.'”

This is a tattoo that says, “I will be wearing a turtleneck for every single day of my summer internship.”

This is a tattoo that says, “since I assume you will be watching me while I sleep, I’ve provided you with extensive reading material.”

This is a tattoo that says, “why do people keep buying me copies of Codependent No More?”

And finally, this is a Twilight tattoo that says, “basically, I have given up.”

So, what will your Twilight tattoo say about you? Only you can decide! Well, you and everyone else who sees the words “R-PATT 4EVER” tattooed on your neck, I guess.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: My Knowledge of Genesis is Limited, But I Am An Expert on LOVE

Posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009 by Sady
Hey! Want to hear something crazy? I got to to a guest post on Shakesville, WOO. Do you want to hear something that is EQUALLY CRAZY? I am now a love advice counselor, who gives love advice, which is based on the timeless and always applicable lessons of Cinema! I assume this is going to go well, given that I know everything and whatnot. Behold, the opening paragraphs of my post!

You know, friends, being allowed to do a guest post at Shakesville is an honor. An honor of which I, specifically, plan to prove myself unworthy! How will I do this, you ask? Why, by revealing my new career to you! My new career is: DR. SADY, THE LOVE DOCTOR, WHO GIVES LOVE ADVICE, WITH HER Ph.D IN LOVE.

“But Sady,” you are saying. “You do not actually have a doctorate in the Love Sciences! You are completely unqualified for this position!” This, sadly, is true. I only have a Master’s! Oh, okay, that is not true either, actually. But I have watched a lot of movies.

Specifically, I have watched romantic comedies. These cinematic documents, or “texts,” have unlocked to me many of the true secrets of Love. Also, they are made “for women,” which I assume means they cannot be sexist! Truly, the major film studios of Hollywood always have the best interests of the ladies at heart, as we can learn from Sex and the City: The Motion Picture, and its forthcoming sequel, Sex and the City: Marriage Marriage Shopping Marriage Babies.

I know, I know. You are dying for love advice! Also, you want to know whether I can tell the difference between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins (SPOILER: I cannot). But to do that, you will have to click on this link! So that is what you should do. RIGHT NOW, before it is too late for Love!

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Tiger Beatdown PRESENTS: The Caitlin Flanagan Experience! Featuring Sandra Tsing Loh, and Depression.

Posted on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by Sady
You know, friends, I get tips sometimes! I do not write about all of these tips, for I am lazy. HOWEVER, when I receive a message entitled “Tiger Beatdown Emergency,” and it mentions a live! Multi-media! Interview! With Caitlin Flanagan! Well, I pay attention.

Yes, it’s true: you, the listener, for no money at all, can go to this very web page and listen to Sandra Tsing Loh (who wrote about leaving her marriage because she didn’t like it any more) speaking with Caitlin Flanagan (who writes about how you should never leave your marriage, EVER) about, well: marriage, I guess. MARRIAGE: A Terrible, Soul-Draining Experience From Which You Must Escape, or a Terrible, Soul-Draining Experience From Which There Is No Escape? Such is the topic of discussion. I have this wild suspicion that maybe there are some people who like being married, but this is not newsworthy. Crazy fringe-dwelling marriage-likers!

Anyway, Sandra Tsing Loh seems like a nice lady. I liked her essay OK! (Personally, I like any lady who writes the line “my dearest childhood wish was not just that my parents would divorce, but also that my raging father would burst into flames.”) Sadly, given that Sandra Tsing Loh seems fairly even-handed and level-headed throughout, she cannot be the draw here. No! The real draw is the crazy anti-feminist carnival ride that is listening to Caitlin Flanagan speak! Join me, as I work through the checklist of potential “YIKES” moments presented to the listener here.

1) CAITLIN FLANAGAN SUGGESTING THAT EQUALITY KILLS BONERS: Check! Actually, Tsing Loh takes the lead on this one, suggesting that men have been “feminized” by, um, not being giant babies and learning the skills necessary to feed themselves and not live in their own filth? It is a weird moment. But I liked the essay! Nevertheless, Caitlin Flanagan is the one who really runs with it, as she is nothing if not concerned about the fate of the poor, helpless boners. She attributes the vitality and well-being of the boners in her marriage to the fact that her husband “cannot boil water” and is not burdened with the hard, thankless labor of making dinner or cleaning the house or whatever. The person burdened with this hard, thankless labor is Caitlin Flanagan, and she loves it! Or maybe she doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter, because she wrote that essay about how you should put out for your husband whether or not you want to! Or MAYBE, just MAYBE, none of it matters at all, because Caitlin Flanagan and her husband can hire professional domestic help if they want to, and have done so in the past! In conclusion: vote Yes on Boners! Boners! Hooray!

2) CAITLIN FLANAGAN FOREGOING RATIONAL ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF TALKING ABOUT HOW HER DAD ALSO HAD SOME BONERS: This comes in pretty early on, actually. She is supposed to be talking about how marriage is awesome and you should stay in your marriage if it is not awesome and what she does instead of this is to tell this marvelous story about how her grandpa used to say the phrase “before you were a glimmer in your father’s eye” (a phrase no-one else’s grandpa has ever used! I’m sure) and how she eventually realized that this meant her dad used to get boners, with her mom, and oh God don’t take me back to the Alec Baldwin sexy Dad place, Caitlin Flanagan, pleeeeeeeeeeeeassse.

3) CAITLIN FLANAGAN SUGGESTING THAT MARRIAGE IS “FOR THE CHILDREN,” WHO WILL TOTALLY BENEFIT FROM LIVING WITH TWO PEOPLE WHO HATE EACH OTHER. Did you know that, if children are not raised by their biological parents, they will fail at life? Such are the prophecies of Caitlin Flanagan. This explains why Tiger Beatdown, a blog written by a lady whose mom has been divorced two times and married three times, is basically entirely composed of entries about how I am trading sex for heroin in bus stations with men whom I call “Daddy.” Oh, no, wait, none of that is true! In fact, I know very few people who have spontaneously exploded due to the fact that their parents divorced! I do know people who think fondly about how great their lives would have been if their parents would have gotten divorced instead of fighting all the damn time and being crazy. But this is in direct contradiction to the high-brow ponderings of Caitlin Flanagan, who has found the Platonic model of marriage in “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” (WHAT) and writes things like “Jon and Kate Gosselin’s marriage was an enterprise dedicated not to making themselves happy but to taking care of the cavalcade of children they had produced… laboring at something more significant than their own pleasure.” Ah, culture!

4) CAITLIN FLANAGAN NAME-CHECKING TERRIBLE POTENTIALLY LETHAL ILLNESS THAT NO-ONE CAN SAY ANYTHING ABOUT NO MATTER HOW GROSS HER MEANS FOR NAME-CHECKING IT MAY BE BECAUSE IT MEANS WE DON’T CARE ABOUT HER CANCER: Check! As you may know, Caitlin Flanagan likes to talk and write – a lot – about how she had cancer, and her husband took care of her when she had the cancer, because she was an appropriately submissive wife. The alternative, of course, is that you are not an appropriately submissive wife, and you still get cancer, and your husband wraps you up in a burlap sack and drops you down the well like a sack of kittens. True story! Or, it might not be a true story, but you cannot question this, unless you love cancer and don’t care about Caitlin Flanagan. Shut your traps, cancer-lovers!

5) CAITLIN FLANAGAN DEFENDING MARRIAGE IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE LISTENER CONCLUDES HE OR SHE WOULD PREFER LIFELONG CHASTITY OR PERHAPS HAVING HER EYEBALLS GNAWED OUT OF HER SKULL BY RATS: Check, check, and check, my friends. Hey, remember this line? “There probably aren’t many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies.” Ha ha, YIKES! Yep, that’s pretty much the Flanagan program, and it is on display here. Thank you, Caitlin Flanagan, for steering us away from traditional values by praising traditional values. Again.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: My Dark Plan Reaches Its Zenith; Also, Megan Fox

Posted on Monday, July 27, 2009 by Sady
Friends, as we all know, my goals in life are to blog my faults with 40 links to other places. Also, to fit in some feminism around the edges! And I believe that one of the more important feminist issues today is Megan Fox.

I am serious about that, actually! The press coverage of Megan Fox really, really bothers me, because it is sexist! Which is why I wrote a piece about her for The Frisky. It begins:

Ladies, gentlemen: “Transformers” is not a movie about acting.

I know! It came as a surprise to me, too: I had always believed that “Transformers” aspired to be a sensitive exploration of the human psyche. As it turns out, however, it’s a movie about giant robots fighting each other.

So, no: “Transformers” is many things, but it is not a movie about acting. However, when its star Megan Fox said as much in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, it set off a firestorm of controversy, most of which can be summed up in the title of a post on the blog Zelda Lily (“Feminism in a Bra”): “Megan Fox Is An Ungrateful Bitch.”

Say, would you like to read the rest of what I have to say about Megan Fox? Good! Because you can read it now, on The Frisky.

PATRIARCHY! Oh, I know.

—

EDIT: About the one Megan Fox hate blog I mentioned: some folks I used to follow when I had a Tiger Beatdown Tumblr have been reblogged there. Which: I don’t know what that means. Things can circulate anywhere and everywhere on Tumblr, because of how it’s designed – things get reblogged every which way and eventually some feminist’s statement winds up getting reblogged by a dude who wants Megan Fox to be gang raped or I end up reblogging Boner Party, or whatever. I tended to only follow people who were smart and incisive, which I would imagine precludes them from enjoying random anonymous celebrity-hate blogs about how someone is a “ho” or should “shut her trap” on the Internets, and I imagine a lot of folks would be appalled by the connection. So I don’t know what the connection is; I imagine the person who writes this is just trolling Tumblr and other sources for material. HOWEVER. If you are secretly submitting tips to or (God forbid) editing a Megan Fox hate blog: um, I dunno? That’s fucked up? But I did some research, like, joining Tumblr again so that I could see notes, and Tumblr searches and Google searches to see if anyone had written an entry on another blog that was like, “I also started a blog about hating Megan Fox because I am awful and full of hate and here is its URL,” and nothing came up. If you are embarrassed by association with the hate-blog, I am sorry.

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ADVICE! For Deleted Commenters! Sady the Starfucker Edition

Posted on Sunday, July 26, 2009 by Sady
You know, reader, I have not done one of these in a while. The mean anonymous comments have mostly been boring! And I like to dish out my friendly advice to people who are, at the very least, entertaining or innovative in their comment hate. Today, however, ADVICE FOR DELETED COMMENTERS returns! For, of all deleted comments, my favorites are those in which the commenter tries to make it clear that he or she is only insulting me for my own good. I got one of those today! And, believe me: it is epic.

It begins:

One thing even a casual reader will notice is that, Sady is great at tooting her own horn! Yes! She constantly links to her OTHER writings at MORE IMPORTANT websites!

Reader: the post to which Anonymous Angry Commenter #419 (sorry, dudes: if you won’t leave your names, I’ll have to start numbering you) is responding is entitled “My Raging Narcissism Will Destroy Us All.” A joke, of the self-deprecating variety! In that post I also made jokes about how unqualified I was to represent feminism, and about the fact that the interview in question hadn’t gotten much traffic.

Let us be clear on this: in a post in which I did nothing but make fun of and/or get down on myself, someone left a comment about what a cocky, self-promoting bitch I am. Apparently, I’m not sufficiently convinced that I and my writing are shit; also, I do the decent thing, which is to try and drive traffic toward sites that are driving traffic toward me, and to let my readers know about the other stuff I am up to. I just don’t hate myself enough, is the problem! Fortunately, AAC #419, in the tradition of AACs everywhere, is here to help.

And what do her readers get HERE .. fake interviews with some compatriots instead of original thoughts… reviews of 4 yearold movies! Wow!

Ha ha, yes. Tiger Beatdown, heartless commercial enterprise that it is, is devoted solely to producing marketable posts in order to obtain an optimal number of pageviews; content, style, and principle are irrelevant in my merciless quest for market domination. It is like The Huffington Post, but with fewer naked boobs! (NOTE TO SELF: INCLUDE MORE NAKED BOOBS.) Which is why, last week, I made the ruthlessly commercial decision to stop everything in order to write long, joke-free essays about some obscure movies and tell you about my feelings on a ten-year-old rape case.

You know, some day I’d like to have a “personal blog” where I can write whatever the hell I want, often in direct contradiction to the received wisdom about what makes a commercially viable blog post (short, witty, timely, and controversial are the goals; also, it helps if there are click-through links, polls, and – if possible – naked boobs). But, alas! My days are spent maintaining the corporate media giant that is Tiger Beatdown!

One MIGHT start thinking, well ‘tiger beatdown’, which sounds like a 60s fanmag to Fabian and Rydell…

Hmm, you’re right. “Tiger Beatdown” does sound A LOT like the name of a fan magazine. What an unfortunate and unintended coincidence! Oh, if only I had the on-target pop culture sense of Anonymous Angry Commenter #419.

is just an ‘experiment’.. an add on to see if Sady can make it in the world of fem-blogging… hence her slavering delight when Melissa McEwen featured her .

Here we come to my favorite part of the comment: the part where AAC #419 drops any pretense at criticism and just goes straight to the conspiracy theory. The miraculous thing about all this is that AAC #419 is exactly right! Yes, it’s true: since being openly, vocally feminist, and taking a hard line on feminist issues, is one of the best – if not the best – methods by which to ensure mainstream acceptance and popularity in our culture, I devised a cunning ruse. I pretended to be feminist, and spent several hours of each and every day researching, thinking about, and writing about feminism, in order to obtain the UNLIMITED FAME AND FORTUNE that I believe to be my birthright.

In truth, of course, feminism could not be less important to me. I mean, women! Who cares? Am I right, fellas? “Sady Doyle,” that interminable ranter-on about the ladybusiness, is nothing more than a construct, an elaborate fiction meant to ensure my success. In reality, I am dogged anti-choice advocate and Ohio state Representative John Boehner.

I do apologize, however, for getting excited when Melissa McEwan asked me to do a guest post. As we all know, the appropriate response to learning that someone whose work you have long respected apparently respects your work as well is to retire to one’s bedroom and weep for several hours. Afterward, one must mortify one’s flesh to atone for the deadly sin of Pride. I recommend hair shirts, or a nice long round of whipping.

but wait … favoring better gigs for more exposure? Relying on more famous friends? That sounds like the very patriarchy we’re all supposed to be fighting! YES! Sady doesnt put her A team material on ‘tiger meltdown’.. she has bigger designs.. she wants to MAKE it as a writer .. oh theres patriarchy again ! HIERARCHY!

AIEEEEEEE! My dark secret has been revealed! Yes, if you rearrange the letters in “Tiger Beatdown,” they spell VOLDEMOR… wait, WHAT?

That’s your problem with me? The fact that I’ve published elsewhere? The fact that I have friendly relationships with other people who publish? That’s it? What the unloving everholy fuck are you thinking?

Oh, wait. I know what you’re thinking. I know, because I used to think it too. Because, you see, for as long as I have been writing, I have had people in my life encouraging me to start pitching publications and make a go of the writing. And I said, “no.” I said, “I could never do that.” I said, “I’m not good enough.”

I said this for a variety of reasons, but one of the chief ones, I think, is that I’m a woman. (That is, when I am not Ohio state Representative John Boehner.) Women aren’t supposed to like themselves: they’re not supposed to like the way they look, they’re not supposed to like what they need or how they feel, and they’re definitely not supposed to be ambitious in any way or to believe in themselves to the extent that they can pursue the careers of their choice. Writing – which is, basically, the act of conveying what you think, in the belief that other people will want to hear it – is a particularly unladylike act.

But it’s OK as long as I don’t seem proud of it, right, AAC? It’s OK as long as I don’t betray the massively unwomanly confidence necessary to talk to people and basically be like, “I think my writing is good enough to appear in your publication.” It’s OK as long as I’m obscure, unpaid, not valued. That’s what purity looks like: doing hours of work for no compensation and never betraying any indication that you’re proud of what you do or believe it to be in any way exceptional.

Fuck that. The problem you have, AAC, is not that I’m “patriarchal” or “hierarchical.” That’s some self-serving bullshit you’re ladling out to excuse tearing another woman down in a supremely patriarchal way. The problem, actually, is that you think I don’t know my place. The problem, actually, is that I respect myself and other people respect me and I don’t feel like pretending that I’m unworthy of respect, not any more.

The thing is, I still do participate in patriarchy, though not in the way you imagine. Since this blog has been getting more traffic, since I’ve been getting published in places I admire, I’ve been freaking out, having panic attacks, getting down on myself, telling myself I can’t do it or won’t do it or don’t deserve to do it.

AAC #419, you changed all that. I realize that devaluing myself is a radically un-feminist step, given that my culture already devalues me. I’m a writer. I’m actually a pretty good writer. I’m going to work as hard as I can to write the best stuff that I can, and sometimes I might get compensated to write that work, and you are just going to have to sit there and fucking deal. And occasionally accuse me of PATRIARCHY! when you get really upset.

I do apologize for not putting any “A team” material on the blog, however. To make up for that, here is a picture of Mr. T:

dont post this.

WHOOPS.

I just think you are diluting what talents you have trying to be too many things. I have faults too. But I dont blog them with 40 links to other places.

That’s apparently true, AAC. Of course, since you aren’t brave enough to leave your name or a trackback, I can’t verify that you don’t blog your faults; however, you seem to be content with expressing those faults – which are, in order, a tenuous grasp on basic writing skills, deep stupidity, and a belief that women can best serve the feminist cause by hating themselves and/or living in refrigerator boxes underneath the train station – in anonymous comments on other people’s blogs. A noble calling!

See! Love ya Sady! Really!

Ha ha, love you too, AAC! Tell you what: why don’t you focus on learning to write above a third-grade level? Then maybe you can start publishing, and I can be your very own Famous Friend.
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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: My Raging Narcissism Will Destroy Us All

Posted on Friday, July 24, 2009 by Sady
So! Here is an interesting thing that happened this week: John “Frisky!” DeVore interviewed me about Feminism, a topic I am totally qualified to represent in its entirety, in Imaginationland. And now you can find that interview on noted web publication The Frisky!

Commenters, thus far, are disappointed that it did not turn into Thunderdome. Personally, I think it went pretty well! In that it was actually a conversation and not just two people yelling past each other, as interviews about Feminism tend to be. So, you can read it now.

Also, tune in for next week’s installment, in which John “So Frisky!” DeVore and I participate in a groundbreaking live webcast in which we debate the finer points of gender theory… WHILST HAVING KNIFE FIGHTS. Granted, I have not yet actually pitched this idea to John “Have I Mentioned How Frisky This Dude Is?” DeVore, but I believe it to be solid pageview gold.

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SEXIST BEATDOWN: Takes Guard Has Your Homophobic Rape Joke Video Games Edition

Posted on Friday, July 24, 2009 by Sady
You know, kids, it’s a lovely day. Why don’t you go and play outside, instead of rotting your minds with all of these “video games?”

Ha, no. I like video games OK. I even like Flash games! I have had a none-too-demanding desk job; I have been in college and have wished to avoid term papers; I am a key member of the Internet Flash video game demographic!

So, when I heard about this one particular Internet Flash video game, entitled “Watch Out Behind You Hunter,” in which the goal, the only goal, is to make a little dude wander through the woods while naked men jump out of the bushes and attempt to rape him, at which point he shoots them to death – I was, um… revolted? Scared? BASICALLY JUST IN AWE AT THE DEPTH OF HUMAN TERRIBLENESS AND TOTALLY CLUELESS AS TO HOW OR WHY SOMETHING LIKE THIS GETS MADE?!?!?!? Yeah, that last one, I think.

It was, therefore, time for a Sexist Beatdown! Join us, as Amanda “Player 1” Hess of Washington City Paper’s The Sexist and I, Sady “Player 2” Doyle of the Internet’s Tiger Beatdown, discuss the perils of online media, sophisticated translation software, industries aimed at 14-year-old dudes who are kind of stupid, and the fact that, whether you play it or not, just knowing about Watch Out Behind You makes losers of us all.*

ILLUSTRATION: Remember Bejeweled? That was a nice game. Why can’t you kids just play Bejeweled? Or PARCHEESI.



SADY: why hello my good woman! care to speak about the evils of video games?

AMANDA: corrupting our children

SADY: i know! the youth today! once i would have been not-serious about this but now i am not so sure.

AMANDA: i know, i think i’m getting older 🙁

SADY: well, also: it turns out that videogames, if you research them, are terrifying! like: RAPELAY, the world’s leading rape-simulator for your home system. or this new game, in which the goal, i guess, is to run away from rape-minded gay men whilst shooting them in the face?

AMANDA: i played this game.

SADY: did you? did you really? how was your gaming experience?

AMANDA: well, the first thing to know about this game is that it debuted in french. and if you run the French title through some sophisticated language translators, you will find that the original name of the game was “Takes Guard Has Your Buttocks, Hunter!”

SADY: oh, MY.

AMANDA: the second, and most horrifying, relevant point about this game is that the gameplay is extremely boring. and so, we may conclude that the only possible draws of the game are a) shootin’ queers or b) briefly catching sight of tiny cartoon penises.

SADY: I’M SORRY I CAN’T HEAR YOU I’M PLAYING TAKES GUARD HAS YOUR BUTTOCKS. but not really. i am just looking at it, some more.

AMANDA: hahahah

SADY: yes, i think that the creators were adamant about it being “humor?”

AMANDA: yeah—there’s always this defense from Creators who are criticized over the content of their product. where they contest that the Game is something More than it Appears, when really it’s a very simple and boring flash game with no point, except to depict murder and rape as easily and speedily as possible

SADY: right, exactly. but, i mean, these are the perils of online media. this game has peen in it, and raping, and it allows one to pretend to shoot dudes in the face for wanting to fuck you, and in this manner, it appeals to douchebags and gets traffic. it also has peen, and raping, and allows people to pretend to shoot dudes for wanting to sex them, and in this manner, it draws outrage from people such as myself and gets traffic. either way, TAKES GUARD WINS.

AMANDA: and then i played the game! which allowed me to say, This game is not fun and games!

SADY: (i appear to be playing this game wrong, by the way, as no naked men have jumped from the bushes to assault me yet.)

AMANDA: you gotta walk past them!

SADY: (perhaps i have clicked on the new, “non-offensive” version of Takes Guard Has Your Buttocks, in which you just shoot at rocks.)

AMANDA: Takes Guard Has Not Your Buttocks, Carry On Hunter

SADY: ah, well. well: i mean: i think this kind of stuff is actually endemic to a lot of entertainment, particularly entertainments such as this, which are aimed specifically at young straight dudes and are meant to get word-of-mouth. i mean, ladies play video games too! yet most of the videogames i have played are like being hit in the face with a jockstrap, that is how lowest-common-denominator-sexist they have been.

AMANDA: yeah, and i hate to take a Think of the Children approach to this, but i think that many of The Children persuasion also wish they weren’t being so obviously pandered to. because anytime a filmmaker or gamemaker passes off gratuitous rape scenes or sexist jokes as “edgy” or “un-PC,” what they’re really saying is, “i’m lazy.”

SADY: exactly. they are like, “LOOK, what we are saying is that men who want to have sex with dudes are predatory and rapey and you should kill them. maybe the reason that you are offended is that you have NEVER HEARD HILARIOUS JOKES ALONG THESE LINES BEFORE.” like: no, dude, i have. i really really have. also, don’t quite think you understand the definition of the word “jokes.” and obviously, i follow a lot of ladies on the Twitter who talk about videogames and sexism and also love the crap out of videogames, so i don’t think this is a problem with the base (except for the lazy portion of the base) so much as it is a problem with creators. although the Shoot Dudes Before They Have Your Buttocks Game is a flash game, so, you know. dealing with a whole other subsection of the genre here, primarily there to get you to click on some advertisements for adult friends or whatever.

AMANDA: right. but i think you’ve touched on something interesting, which is that women are consuming things, but there are often a lot of real barriers to getting women making the things, too.

SADY: OR, they can participate, but only insofar as they are making what is deemed “marketable” within that genre.

AMANDA: although i think the only qualifications you need to make an internationally famous flash game is being 14 years old and having access to Babelfish. right – you’re lucky to be involved anyway, so don’t try making any changes, because making us accountable for the terrible sexist and homophobic shit we put out would be SO like a girl. in conclusion, when is sarah palin getting into video games?

SADY: um, i believe AERIAL WOLF HUNTER is already a videogame. if it’s not, it should be. the wolves fight back! with LASERS! but, you know. if you’ve solidly defined your audience as “14-year-old boys who are dumb,” maybe making stuff that appeals to other people seems like a risky business move. i can understand that! personally, i am designing a game right now where you take away the computers of the Buttocks guys and hit them over the head with their own laptops repeatedly. i think it will be a hit!

AMANDA: will there be blood?

SADY: there will be panicked calls to their moms to come down into the basement and save them. i think that’s its own reward.


*Oh, yeah. And there was a font explosion. Because I am still publishing on BloggARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHH.

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