Luftmensch

I’m starting a fundraising campaign to help me do an animated short: at: http://igg.me/at/ssrids Ssrids will be a sort of animated sketch journal, animated in hand-drawn 2D. It will be a short film, roughly between five and ten minutes, covering the weeks after I stopped taking sertraline. It's just something that I really want to make and that maybe means a good deal to me personally, and I really hope that it connects with other people. I hope this clicks with you folk, keep being cool.

I started reading this book a couple months ago by the recommendation of my SubGenius friends. I'm not really a very heavy or fast reader, so I'm only almost halfway through, but what I've read is fantastic. It's a pretty heavy read, not just because it's a bit over 800 pages but because every page seems to be filled with dense inter-weaved plotlines and sometimes two or three conversations going on at once without any specific context between them (or if there is, it takes 30-50 pages to make it clear). It's pretty batshit crazy and I'm just always too impressed that someone pulled it off to be put off by its convoluted execution. I have no idea how to start a discussion on this book, but it's goddamned marvelous. I'm sure some more learned (or crazier) thumblers might have a lot to say or share about it.

I was at Staples today and came upon the bargain PC shelf. I found this little gem right on the top row.

Then you're objecting to something I also disagree with, which also happens not to be what I'm talking about or what the concept even means by any definitions I've found so far.

a.) wrong, because dismissing buzzwords for being loaded and incapable of allowing neutral discussion is not the same thing as dismissing an entire social activist stance off-hand to insult people I don't like. That's on the same level as calling Al Qaeda members Muslim Camelfuckers (but it's different, I hear you retort) b.) good, you're at least thinking about it, even if you're still making up reasons to justify your visceral reaction. You're literally saying that caring about and addressing anything that isn't being "systematically oppressed" (because apparently we live in a society with so few problems that we have to put bad pay and shitty media representation on the same level as being shipped to the gulag) is bullshit. Anyhow, I'll check out the link Argo, sounds worth reading.

You can buy that cut, Gilliam himself said he thought it was pretty good. Arguably, that's just a different happy ending.

That kind of reminds me of Gilliam's happy ending to Brazil: The hero retreats from the horrific real world into the isolated bliss of his own insanity.

That's kind of the status of this thread on the money situation. Nobody's actually defending the money critique in this thread anymore (except maybe Stalin). Jake poking in to wax eloquent kind of feels like if Superman dropped down from the heavens right now to deliver a speech about the problem with eugenics. It's cool to get his attention but its kind of not a thing anymore.

I think you're vastly, vastly overestimating the scruitiny the two words actually got. The way I saw it, 90% of the talk about the phrase was a meta-discussion about whether its even valid to criticize the word choice. The intimate attention to "regressive crap" was in support of defending a completely benign opinion ("I didn't like the sudden gear change") from a really aggressive retaliation ("who are you to criticize FemFreq?"). Look at the thread. This isn't about her anymore.

Its because he internalized pernicious lies perpetuated by a post-colonial society. Alright, challenge accepted. If you want to play word games, no, I can't say that there's a true "objective" standard of quality writing. But there's lots of good reasons for using a consistent tone, and it is basically common knowledge and common practice.

I take from your evasiveness that we're in agreement: No, noone was criticizing her for having emotions. I also agree that the grounds for the style critique are debatable. (oh yeah: In before tone police! There's another shitty buzzword for you)

By writing 101, I mean it's an elementary guideline. It can and should be broken. With skill. Which I don't think it was here.

I actually haven't seen a single post on this thread criticizing Sarkeesian for having an opinion. Not one. If you can find one, pull it up and I'll retract my statement. Every single comment I read criticizing the phrase "regressive crap" is critiquing the sudden change in tone. That's style 101, pick a tone and stick with it, you don't decide to start being an opinion piece after 10 pages of objective analysis. I for one wish she was willing to express her opinions more openly throughout.

People are still talking about the budget? Cripes.

That literally has nothing to do with what I said. That's fair, like I said it's an arbitrary metric so I'm not going to defend it. I'm not sure we're on the same page about what I was saying though.

Honestly, I feel like the discussion is about the stereotype. There were one or two members who actually sincerely thought the video was complete bullshit and was totally wrong, which you'll always have. But 95% of the conversation is people arguing over whether it's even fair to criticize the video at all. It's a recursive hype machine. I mentioned earlier in the thread, nobody's talking about her argument because nobody seems to think it's worth talking about. A standard metric I use to judge the value of a film (and I know this is arbitrary but bear with me) is when I go to the movies with friends or family, what do we talk about on the ride home? If we talk about the film itself, home run, it's thought provoking, and perpetuated itself for an additional 20-40 minutes. If we talk about basically anything else, then blah, it was a couple hours worth of entertainment and that's it. The fact that 10 pages of argument rose up over inconsistent tone I think both is a product of the recursive hype machine I mentioned above, and the fact that the content of the video isn't thought provoking in itself. Which many of you argue wasn't it's purpose, so whatever.

I don't think the criticism is that she showed emotion (as I have covered aplenty), though I think it's interesting to look at the dry tone as a reaction to anticipated criticism. But, you know, there's editing. It's not like she was in a live interview and passionately lashed insults at her critics. The funding's been complete for what, nine months now? The project was conceived and planned well before then. There's a point where you can read it to friends and colleagues, and someone can say "that's out of place" or "this is too dry", and you can fix it. It's not a "slip" anymore, it's a product she's been working on for nearly a year.

Funny, I watch MIT lectures through OpenCourseWare, and compared with this video those feel casual and conversational. Maybe it's subjective, but it's how I feel.

A lot of people agree with you, but according to a few people, you only think that because you see her as an overemotional woman (they aren't projecting at all).

They're pretty terrible arguments, it's pretty much stuff like women are allowed to vote, women are allowed to be elected, women are allowed to do X or Y. Did I give the impression that I thought any of these were convincing arguments? Then don't expect it to. The false equivalency arguments only work if you treat them as exclusive approaches to the same problem.

That's basically the Limbaugh argument, and this pretty exactly resembles the reaction I get when I try to talk about Feminism with die-hard southern Republicans. When I talk about feminism here, the common response is, "sure, Feminism use to be good and there's some fundamental values I agree with, but really people who identify as feminists are bra-burning irrational lib'rels who just hate men." I'm not even exaggerating (though I am paraphrasing because who writes quotes in regular conversation?), and people still do say "bra-burning" unironically. It's completely acceptable to say Feminism isn't relevant, and people can provide plenty of evidence to boot. The fact that you can find Reddit threads--in fact, a propensity of them--full of frustrated males in no way justifies undermining the core ideas with casual dismissal. Is it as important an issue? Probably not. Is it counter-productive? In some cases, I think so. Is it irrelevant/invalid/just for angry white guys? Absolutely not. I disagree. I think that if you view it as a zero-sum game, it is, and some people are glad to make that claim on both sides of the fence. I don't subscribe to that, and I don't think anyone who takes Feminism and MRM with any seriousness does either. I can't echo Twig in saying I'm not even upset it wasn't what I wish it was, but I think I explained a lot of things the video very well could have/should have been in my opinion and failed at.

This is basically the same thing as Rush Limbaugh's Feminazi meme. Actively associating the values of Feminism (equal representation, reproductive rights, social reform) with irrational fascism is no different from actively associating the values of Men's Rights Activists (addressing higher incarceration rates for men, lower life expectancy, legal disadvantages in divorce and child custody/support cases) with whiny thieving assholes. Congratulations, you're participating in rhetorical disenfranchisement. Queue kneejerk "but it's different" response.

As someone who followed the thread and saw which arguments were coming from whom, it seems to me you're conveniently compressing all the individual arguments you disagree with into one very contradictory chimera. You admitted, "[this] is how the mass of criticism looks to me when reading through this thread." It's not a single mass, so don't address it as one.

By way of your brain. Your brain is capable of freaking out over itself apparently.

Out of context, this snippet could just as easily be describing the situation between the people criticizing Sarkeesian's video and the people getting defensive over it.Which isn't to say that it necessarily goes both ways, but it doesn't necessarily go either way.