trixtah: (Default)
[personal profile] trixtah
Well, I just got to see Itty Bitty Titty Committee. It's a "look at grassroots-style feminist groups and the feisty young women who run them."

It follows a bunch of lesbo-anarcho-feminists in a group who run around shagging each other and carrying out "actions". I would probably have loved it 15 years ago, and it's kind of cute and amusing with the mild piss-takes of earnest queer/feminist politics. But it felt incredibly dated. Well, ok, there is a t/g character, and they have a website and mini camcorder. But they are listening to riot grrl punk (does anyone who wasn't around at the time actually buy Sleater-Kinney nowadays?), buying and making zines, reading 70's and 80's rad fem works, and not looking at anyone's website except their own. Oh, and they text each other as well. But does anyone have a standalone answer machine that's not their mobi's voicemail these days?

Really, it added up to adolescent dyke drama, lots of outmoded politics and passé music to me. The director, Jamie Babbit, is nearly my age, and I liked But I'm a Cheerleader. The humour about the "scene" was very reminiscent of that movie. But something supposedly situated today should actually be situated in the present. Or, if she had made the movie about the Queer Nation days of the early 90s, it would have been fine.

The cast were good, and quite a lot of the stuff portrayed was excruciatingly familiar. Maybe that's part of the reason I really felt like Jenny Shimizu's grumpy eye-rolling character throughout - been there, done that, and I don't need to relive it again (what was done at the time politically was valuable in many respects, and the whole ACT-UP/QN thing was very energising, but strategies and politics evolve, even if many of the issues haven't). And the interpersonal fuckups were too horribly real - amusing at times, but also cringeworthy.  God, maybe I am getting middle-aged. Unfortunately, Jamie Babbit's attempt to shoehorn nostalgia into a modern setting didn't really work for me.

6½ out of 10, for the sharply-observed characters and interpersonal stuff, even if I thought throughout, "Thank god I'm no longer 19!!" And, actually, the portrayal of the political shenanigans too, even if it is 15 years late. But I had to subtract 2 points for outdatedness and at least half for the movie name: "...an on-campus group called the Itty Bitty Titty Committee, whose focus is to empower women who suffer from D-cup envy." Obviously I've been a little too subsumed in some of those retro values when I find it not at all amusing from the viewpoint of someone suffering from less-than-D-cup envy. Or maybe real feminists really do have small tits. (I know, I know... it made me grumpy, as I say).

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-10 11:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pretentiousgit.livejournal.com
Wow. An actually useful movie review from my flist. Will the wonders never cease!

I can't even picture a serious queer-politics thing being done today that doesn't incorporate extreme body modification (ie: transgendering).

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-10 03:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] goatsfoot.livejournal.com
oh yeah, interesting, extreme body mods?

i guess transhumanism is a rising philosophy, about modifying the body, sometimes radically, to suit oneself, and i'd guess a lot of people into extreme body modification would be into this form of thinking, and i guess an empowering way to think about transgenderism or genderqueer is to say that the body is one's own to change if it doesn't fit/suffice. (rather than the more outmoded idea of the born body as "natural" - which feminism in the 70s & onwards pushed very strongly to combat ideas about breast implants, plastic surgery, etc.)

i reckon recently, some people are getting into modifying their body gender-wise more from experimentation (the zeitgeist of the thing) than dysphoria. i mean even i've seriously wondered what it'd be like if i took some T and i don't have gender dysphoria. i guess also there's always some people who get heaps of piercings and tatts etc so they're committedly uber hardcore, and i reckon there's some ppl running around (hello, dyke scene) with the same attitude to hormones and surgery. some, of course not all. (also heard that anorexia is a form of body modding.)

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-10 04:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pretentiousgit.livejournal.com
It is, for sure. I mean, a dis-ease within your own form is considered viral, a sickness - I did a lot of art and research about this at one point in time. I'd like to do more exploration of the boundaries surrounding the definitions of what counts as a mod, what counts as dysphoria, and what counts as illness. This is because I would willingly implant swappable meat-bits into myself to, say, repair my damn eyeballs. And also, I had people doing a lot of cutter work on my ears once upon a time. My hearing = body modification. But because hearing does not show quite so strongly as, say, facial hair, it's classed differently. Dis-ability, dis-ease.

I did quite a lot of work on cyborgs and the incorporation of extended memory/physical capacity through non/detachable bits, as well. They fascinate me. Liminality fascinates me, too. Edges, hang-times, between-spaces. I think queer theory represented the first major foray into what it really means to splice people and things into the area between people and things, and that "trans" can mean a hell of a lot more than gender. But that no matter what area it occupies, it will always (c/o Kristeva, theories of abjection, and Haraway, theories of the cyborg, and of course Butler, with theories of performativity) make people very uncomfortable. Kristeva is probably my favorite theorist because of how clearly she points out that people who occupy interspaces cause discomfort on account of the human need for rules and classifications. It's interesting that the more tightly Western society is bonded to search engines and distributed networking, the fewer meatspace rules we respect - detachment from the physical promotes negotiation of nonphysical space in new terms, which then spiral back into physical alterations. I could write for the next twenty years on these topics, but they're becoming visible all around me already, particularly in the bigger, more interspacy cities. The bigger the number of components, the higher social-frictive coefficient, the more social anxiety, the deeper need to establish individuality/conformity to increasingly fragmented groups. Hence Toronto - World's Most Multicultural City - having such a gigantic trans populace.

Worth noting: Transmen fall into a slightly different litmus than drag queens or transwomen. It's to do with the relative friction for men versus women changing. I saw an article somewhere a while ago on it, and how the fashion houses always put out Men's Suits For Women every few years, but it's _still_ shocking to see a dude in a dress. Woo. Butler.

I also like The Future a lot, but you know. It's The Future already, and though I can work with a wireless mouse through frankly magical light-beams, I don't have a flying car.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-10 05:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] goatsfoot.livejournal.com
wow, you've given me a lot to think about! :)

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-11 10:51 am (UTC)
ironed_orchid: watercolour and pen style sketch of a brown tabby cat curl up with her head looking up at the viewer and her front paw stretched out on the left (Default)
From: [personal profile] ironed_orchid
I'm thread hopping here, but I just read an interview with Ashley Crawford which discusses similar issues, body modding and being trans- and post-gender. Which you, and [livejournal.com profile] trixtah might like, if you haven't already seen it.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-12 10:20 am (UTC)
ext_8716: (Default)
From: [identity profile] trixtah.livejournal.com
Thread-hopping is groovy, especially when it leads to interesting discussions like this.

That interview with Ashley Crawford is interesting, and I can certainly relate to some of the thought processes that went into it. It's interesting that I found myself reacting to this comment, though:
I was ambivalent at the start — some of the androgenic effects took me a long time to feel at peace with. But at the same time there was an attraction to the idea of looking less feminine because I knew that having such feminine body often made people treat me in a way I didn’t want to be treated. I think that many people have rather low expectations of what girls and women can achieve in certain areas of life, and that sort of attitude has always been very frustrating for me to confront.

Now, I don't believe it's the major reason for Ash's body mod decisions. I personally am fine when people want to mod their bodies to fit their self-identity better or even, actually, just for the hell of it. But I find myself uncomfortable with that kind of reactive thinking being even a small part of the consideration framework. Although maybe I'm just being obtuse - part of the point of being t/g and going through treatment is being able to present to the world as the gender you feel yourself to be.

As an adolescent I used to fantasise about striding around en bloke, and not having to worry about being a gurl... and bought into feminism as a way of letting go of that victim image. Also in my fantasies, I wanted to swap back to being a female - my gender ID seems pretty fixed. I'm lucky enough that I don't have to modify anything physically to not be subject to straight (male) expectations. Other than my own performative utterance of my gender, of course! Heh.

But at the same time, being beyond gender is a cool ideal. However, I don't know if gender is a concept that can be totally done away with. I seem to have more sympathy with the idea that gender can be divorced from the body's morphology, and also the concept of multiple genders. Of course, once you start creating multiple instances of something, you then have to categorise them and slot things into the categories. Perhaps going "beyond" gender would allow a kind of fuzziness to evolve around the concept - people might be able to engage in what we currently consider to be gendered behaviours, but without being locked into a complete behaviour set, or the expectation of having the "appropriate" physical morphology for behaviour X. Hm, interesting food for thought.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-14 05:33 am (UTC)
filkferengi: (Default)
From: [personal profile] filkferengi
Near the bottom of the screen [http://filkertom-itom.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html] there's a great song you might enjoy [I Want My Flying Car]. You can listen for free, then buy it if you like it.

Another fun one is 2nd up from the bottom [http://filkertom-itom.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html]; it's called "Two Guys Kissin' (Ruined My Life)".

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-12 09:27 am (UTC)
ext_8716: (Default)
From: [identity profile] trixtah.livejournal.com
Or even a not-so-serious thing, because this movie most certainly isn't. At least it didn't feel tokenistic/stereotyped, at least no more so than the other characters.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-10 12:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mehitabelmmoss.livejournal.com
Thanks for the review. I will probably rent it when available because I try not to miss lesbian movies. But I also suspect my middle-aged self will have some similar reactions to the politics.
Now CIA - Clits in Action I can go for! One more step towards my dream of prehensile clitorises.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-12 09:40 am (UTC)
ext_8716: (Default)
From: [identity profile] trixtah.livejournal.com
Heh. Prehensile clitorises sounds like a fab concept!

Actually, the movie wasn't at all bad, and pretty entertaining. It's worth checking out. It's much better than Go Fish, for example, but I loved that movie because I was just the right age for it when it came out. :-)

It's funny how some things work like that. I was at just the right age for Anne McCaffrey books in my early teens, so I still remember them fondly (although I don't own any now - I do own a pile of other kids/YA fiction). However, I can't stand Heinlein, because I'm not a bloke and I didn't encounter him in the 60s, when I would ideally have been in my late teens to 30s in age, because that's the demographic that Heinlein appears to appeal to.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-12 06:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mehitabelmmoss.livejournal.com
I loved Heinlein in the '60's. Reread 'Stranger in a Strange Land' a while back and was very disappointed by the sexism mixed in w/ other philosophical concepts I can still abide......My bf in HS read 'The Harrod Experiment' back then too so he was interested in group marriage - until the reality that his gfs may also be interested in each other hit him. He had good taste in women.......

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-10 02:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] goatsfoot.livejournal.com
Huh, interesting review! I hadn't really heard about this movie. Of course I will check it out in the fullness of time, being one of those anarcholezbians. I can really imagine how the movie is just a teensy bit condescending. And nostalgic.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-10 03:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] goatsfoot.livejournal.com
By the way, dontcha love the word "feisty"? It's so cutesy and girly! What about "enraged", "powerful", "angry", "courageous", "strong"?

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-12 09:34 am (UTC)
ext_8716: (Default)
From: [identity profile] trixtah.livejournal.com
Actually, one thing the movie did avoid being was condescending, at least from my perspective. I think because it was told from the POV of the younger women, and really, it was that whole "I've been there" feeling with some of the fuckups.

It's a decent enough movie, and it's actually nice to have a look at lesbo politics, slightly outdated or not, in a light-hearted way. I'm glad I didn't pay money for it at the theatre though.

As for "feisty", ohhhh, yes, especially when it's coupled with "femme". I tend to use the word "stroppy" in preference myself, because it encompasses the angry/powerful thing. "Feisty femme" sounds like a little sex kitten... and really, that's not what I'm after, personally. Or how I'd like to be labelled, myself. Talking about condescending.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-11 10:45 am (UTC)
ironed_orchid: watercolour and pen style sketch of a brown tabby cat curl up with her head looking up at the viewer and her front paw stretched out on the left (Default)
From: [personal profile] ironed_orchid
I've heard of this movie... is it showing in Canberra, or did you see it through other means?

Sounds like it's worth a look, even if it is flawed.

(no subject)

Date: 2007-08-12 09:35 am (UTC)
ext_8716: (Default)
From: [identity profile] trixtah.livejournal.com
I obtained it through the usual nefarious means. And yes, it was worth a look - not perfect, but entertaining enough, and a culture I can actually relate to. :-)

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