Feminism and Capitalism: Part 2 – feminist objections to capitalism

August 26th, 2008 by Brianna

So, what are the possible feminist objections to capitalism?

The two that I was able to find easily – outside of some ecofeminists whose beliefs are tantamount to religion – were:

1. Capitalism encourages racial discrimination, and
2. Capitalism is inherently exploitive, leading to oppression.

These objections depend, of course, on the assumption that feminists should be anti-racist and anti-oppression. An excellent explanation of this concept, called intersectionality, can be found in the Feministe post linked in the first part of this series.

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Feminist Capitalism: Part 1 – What is capitalism?

August 23rd, 2008 by Brianna

Introduction

Inspired by this post on Feministe, I am going to attempt to write about feminism and capitalism until I either make some sense of it, or run out of things to say. Here is my intent in writing: I purpose to show that feminism and capitalism are compatible.

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Art Snobs

August 20th, 2008 by Brianna

Budding obsessed Xena fan that I am, I was looking through the Whoosh! archives when I came across an interview with Josh Becker. He seemed like a pretty smart (if weird) guy, and a excellent director – who doesn’t like obsessed Xena fans – but I was curious about the statement that he was a “lightning rod for praise and condemnation due to his openness and outspokenness.”

I checked out his website, and my first impressions seemed rather correct. He seemed to be the stereotype of the crazy director – he is rather serious about life, and even more serious about his movies (he is constantly telling people to “grow up”). He is incredibly opinionated about everything, and is smart enough that his ideas seem right a good portion of the time. He obviously knows a lot about making movies – his site is full of advice on film structure, DIY filmmaking, etc.

Now, I usually like opinionated smart people, even if I don’t agree with them. But the more time I spent on Josh Becker’s site, the angrier I became. For a while I couldn’t figure out why. Sure, he’s a condescending jerk to people who ask him dumb questions, but lots of people are like that – it wouldn’t make me hate him.

Suddenly, though, I realized what my problem with Josh Becker is. He is a complete Art Snob.

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Links are the Internet

August 6th, 2008 by Brianna

I hate search engines.

Now, I don’t really mean that. Search engines are great for some things – looking up facts, for instance, or finding a site you already know exists. For anything else, they are essentially worthless.

Let’s say you like bald eagles. If you want to know, say, the wingspan of an average eagle, a search engine is the perfect tool for the job. A few keystrokes, one click, and you’ll probably find the answer. The reason? That information is available on many, many websites. Finding it is easy for the search engine.

The internet is a great way to find information. But most information is not unique to the internet. If you want to know about eagles, you could look in an encyclopedia, or in a book. The internet is simply faster.

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Semi-Critical Reviews: The Pleasure Drivers (2005)

August 3rd, 2008 by Brianna

So – after all I said yesterday about not being too critical, I’m going to review a movie I didn’t really like!

The only reason I watched the Pleasure Drivers was to see Jill Bennett <fangirl>who is, like, the coolest actress EVAR!!!</fangirl>. I wasn’t disappointed. She did a great job, and her character was awesome – but considering that her character’s story was supposed to be equal to the other two stories, it was pretty obvious that her part got lost in the edit room. (especially her !dramatic! death at the end for no apparent reason.)

As for the rest, I suspect it suffered from crappy editing too. The plot made very little sense, particularly in regards to the situation with the kid with head trauma and his guardian/friend/whatever. I suppose that she was supposed to be whacked out on mind-altering substances, or something.

Lots of people seem to think that Lacey Chabert’s character was something wonderful, but I just didn’t see it. Mostly, I didn’t understand what exactly she was doing, except for being high. Anyway, by the end I just wanted Bennett’s character to kill everybody – but since she couldn’t shoot straight (due to being angry at her girlfriend, or something), I suppose that was too much to ask.

Anyway, the one good thing about the movie was the acting. And not just Bennett. (who, let’s face it, I would love no matter what she did!) The acting was quite realistic – everybody seemed completely messed up/high/out of it to the appropriate degree – they seemed about as confused as I was.

And maybe that was the point. Life makes no since. The only way out is death. At least, that is what the closing scene seemed to point to.

So, Jill rocked, and the rest was bearable.

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Semi-Critical Reviews: Introduction

August 2nd, 2008 by Brianna

I hate critics.

I can’t count the number of times that I’ve read a ‘critical review’ of some book, movie, play, album, etc., and being somehow left with the impression that the author of the review didn’t actually like anything. I frequently wonder why they even bother writing them – it would seem like you would only write reviews if you actually liked the things you were writing reviews about.

Newspaper and traditional media (i.e. big websites) are the worst about this. The random reviews on amazon.com, etc. are the second worst. Reviews on smaller websites and blogs are frequently quite good, but they are also hard to find.

Strangely enough, the opposite effect seems to apply when the item reviewed is not seen as ‘creative’, i.e. video games, computer hardware, automobiles. These reviews are generally overwhelmingly positive to the point of uselessness.

I do not intend to review automobiles on this blog.

However, I do intend to review all sorts of creative material – mostly whatever I have seen most recently (not just new releases or anything. I have no desire to be a professional reviewer). I hope to avoid the constant negativity, yet I intend for then to be more than a list of the things I like. I also am going to try and avoid criticizing the technical aspects of the media in question – i.e. no “terrible acting by so-and-so” or “the plot is overused” – rather I will try to take it as it is, and observe the media as a whole.

Basically I hope to write interesting, yet mostly positive reviews. Semi-critical reviews, if you will.

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Blogging with categories

August 1st, 2008 by Brianna

I am by no means an expert on blogs, either reading or writing them. When blogging first appeared, I put it down as a passing fad. Then everybody started blogging, and I couldn’t help but read them.

And now I’m trying to write one.

Anyway, continuing with the theme I started in my essay on essay sites, blogs make things hard to find. Sure, there is a search function, but that’s only useful if you know exactly what you are looking for. So, most blogging software has a tag, label and/or category function. Now, I think what wordpress calls a tag – other software probably has a different name – are basically useless. Bloggers add several tags to each post, usually for the exact topics or persons the post is about. So, if you read a post, you can click on a tag to get other posts about that person. But you could also just search for it. Therefore, tags are essentially search assistance.

Then there are the ‘tag clouds’ with which I have never found anything – perhaps some people like them. (Let me know if you do – I’m curious)

This brings us to categories (or labels, as some call them). These, of course, appear on the sidebar, grouping posts by topic. Categories are great if you want to read about one subject – assuming there is a category for it. There is a problem, though – most bloggers place posts in more than one category. So, you click on one category, read all the posts, click on another category, and – half the posts are the same as in the last category.

The solution, of course, is to place posts in only one category. Blogs would be much improved if this were to happen.

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