Truth That Goes Crunch

So, Google+ - who's on, who wants to be on, who wants to connect to a person who posts next to nothing?

In other news, I finally finished my essay on the impact of trans vlogs in portraying trans men on film: Part 1 and Part 2. Also, a new QWB episode with a (now outdated) discussion of callout culture and setting in indie games.

Beyond work, I've mostly been watching my way through Master Keaton, the anime adaption of one of Naoki Urasawa's earlier manga. The show really only works because of Keaton's non-detective charm, but even so, I feel like it's the lost gem of Urasawa's work for English speakers (the manga was never officially translated).

And for my own amusement - Podcasts I Subscribe To/Like: ( 50 shows under the cut, from politics to pop culture. )

...don't see Becoming Chaz. Don't. If I were playing Trans Documentary Drinking Game, I'd be wasted. There's "being trapped in a female shell," there's baby pictures, there's testosterone shots, there's "courage." Oh and there's RuPaul. Randomly. It's the exact kind of documentary Still Black exists to not be.

Also, bonus use of "retarded" as a pejorative in the first three minutes of the documentary--by Bono!

Official Awesome Sentence I Wrote of the week: "There is absolutely no reason for anyone to need to know that there's a synthetic penis in my pants--and I assure you, fabulous as it is, it's not about to bring down a 747."

- Apparently there's going to be a an Indian call center comedy in the fall lineup. I...wow. I can see that Fail Train a-chuggin' right into the station from miles away.
- Wonderful essay on how we collect media, hoard it, and then have to let it go.
- On Lady Cops and the Necessity of Sexiness. I have to hand it to Erin Gibson, she's getting better at this gig with each new "Modern Lady."
- There are gays in the Tea Party! A whole two of them!
- And because this is what happens when I can't move my energy into doing school-related stuff, a huge post on why Boys Don't Cry is extremely problematic.

What happens when Natty Light enters my apartment. I swear this was neither intentional, nor do I remember putting it in the freezer.

So, there's going to be two, count 'em, two young trans men on English-language television next season. And none of them are played by Daniela Sea (much as I do like her)! One could call it an abundance, almost. The way the characters are framed, though, has some troubling implications.

And the GID entry in DSM-V Draft is...hmm. In my reading, it's more realistic than DSM-IV, and has some important recognitions in the notes:

( Read more... )

In past news: Major American media conglomerates (Disney, Fox) have begun entering foreign markets where they have less of a foothold and fund/make localized products with native companies, instead/alongside of the traditional "pump and dump"-ing of American media products. See the Japanese version of Sideways, Fox opening a Korean branch, Disney making animated films based on local Chinese/Russian fables.

And now, a Chinese version of High School Musical. Zhang Jun Ning is starring, alongside some of the guys from BOBO, apparently.

If nothing else, this'll certainly be...interesting.

Other stuff:

- Neat DanweiTV report interviewing organizers of the Beijing Queer Film Festival.
- I am going to regret starting The Prisoner, aren't I? I know what TV show I'm going to obsessively watch and finish at work during the wee hours of the morning!
- Top 10 Bad Messages From Good Movies. I especially love 2 and 3.

This book, Searching for Whitopia: How the Whiter Half Lives, sounds absolutely fascinating. I'm curious to see if he looked at if the places he went were once (or still are) considered "sundown towns."

I'm also interested to see his argument that "the small government movement has always had racial components, beginning with white flight from central cities and public schools in the 1960's -- and a great deal of this is based on fear"--and then see if it would hold up against white Southern minds.

And in Authors Not Of the Time, SF author John C. Wright gets his crazy on, then when faced with overwhelming internet derision, declares, "Even though we are on opposite sides, I assure you that the real division in the world is not between Right and Left, not between Homophobes and Pervertarians, but between men of reason and good will, we men of the mind, and our mutual foes, the men of unreason, the men of mere emotion."

Also, anger at his opinions is is in actuality all about others' collective daddy/mommy complex, for "Those folks are all mad at their fathers or something, and wanted to say to me hateful things they never got a chance to say to the people they are really mad at."

Of all the things I'd like to say to my parents (and there's a lot), that some guy on the internet is an ass is not one of them.

UPDATE: Aaaaannnndddd he's back! Some choice quotes:

"If the incest is consensual, between adults, and sterile (so that there are no birth defects) on what ground can it be called illicit while homosexuality is called licit?"

I WONDER.

"Those of you who argued that sex with a sterile woman is the same as homosexual acts: this is both irrelevant and false. You are conflating the sex act with mere stimulation of the sexual organs."

Sterile people don't have sex, they are...stimulated. By...sex? Puppies? Dildos? Unicorn farts? I dunno!

I am, it must be said, not a fan of American Idol. As a resident of a state which has produced at least winners, I have unfortunately had to endure an Idol mania which is far disproportionate to the show's actual importance.

Which is to say, people around me wouldn't shut the bloody hell up about it.

However, this saturation has ensured that I have at least a vague knowledge of the primary contestants in each year's competition--thus, I kept a loose eye on the rise of femme Adam Lambert, curious to see if he would surpass the manufactured homo-hype. Given how rarely this hype is recognized (much less acknowledged), imagine my surprise at finding ‘Idol’ Final Raises Extra Question in today's NYT.

I can't lie, it's nice to see someone making the same points I raised in The Groovy Thing To Do. The dodging of questions, the emphasis on coded appearances, and the assembly line manufacturing style of Motown equals everyone's 'saucy but sweet' gay best shopping buddy in easily packaged CD form.

But unlike Motown, American Idol is a mass-market machine and not a (originally) small minority-owned publisher who goals were both monetary and altruistic. I still can't decide if that's a good or bad thing.