Letters to the Editor
dendrio
Published Letters: 200 Editor's Choice: 27
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Feminism is political and social, dislike of individuals is personal.
[Read the article: Am I a female misogynist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think that there's any real conflict between being a feminist and not particularily liking women personally. Feminism is about political and social equality and as long as one recognizes that women are in every way socially equal to men, that is all that is required to claim a mantel of feminism.
As an adolescent, most of my closest friends were male (despite the fact that I went to an all-girls' school), primarily because interactions with my female friends always seemed to devolve into catty judgements about others behind their backs. It made me wonder what was being said behind my back when I wasn't around. In addition, I became infuriated at the way that the other female students at my highly regarded private school hid their obvious intelligence when it suited them, in order to attract men and get what they wanted.
The feminist in me is in fact enraged at both of these behaviors, knowing as I do that they are primarily produced by an upbringing in a society in which women are felt to be intimidating if they are too open about their intelligence, and in which girls are always supposed to be sugar and spice, even when we have an axe to grind (and thus we tend to be duplicitous and sneaky). It is similarily the feminist in me that is unceasingly annoyed at the nailpolish and gossip set, feeling as I do that engaging in that kind of preoccupation is playing right in to the hands of the male hegemony.
Besides, why is it that when I go anywhere with my female friends (which I have several of at this point in my life) we have to stop so one of them can pee every 10 minutes?!?
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Pittsburgh Theater Shooting
[Read the article: The Fix]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You kind of make it sound like this is some irrational, possibly racist, knee-jerk response to a random shooting that happened to have gone down near a theater showing Get Rich or Die Trying. As a matter of fact, the shooting occured in the lobby of the theater next to the concession stand as the movie was letting out. This is a huge new googleplex with hundreds of people in it at any given time, located in an area that is desperately, and so far successfully, trying to pull itself out of "bad neighborhood" status. This theater, as well as the rest of the development it's part of is, I think very rightly, concerned that people will stop coming because of this incident. I don't think that's at all irrational or strange.
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It's all so counter-productive to the stated aims!
[Read the article: How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Growing up as the atheist child of atheist parents in a multicultural city, I celebrated Christmas without batting an eyelash. My parents were born into Christian families, though our own celebration of the holiday was pretty much totally secular (except that Christmas carols are pretty, so they were sung).
It wasn't until I moved in to a monocultrual rural area in which the Christian faith was shoved and shoe-horned into everything, that I began to really, really dislike Christmas. My parents couldn't understand my new objections: isn't Christmas just a nice traditional holiday in which to get together? What's the big?
Ironically, these fundamentalist nutjobs have succeeded in making me hate the very holiday they are so jazzed about. If they could just leave well enough alone, I'd probably be putting up a tree this year, despite being allergic to pine. As it is, I feel the need to rebel against their goose-stepping flag-waving mixed-up version of the holiday that was always my favorite as a child.
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This is why I read Steph Z, people
[Read the article: "Rent"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I guess savaging Stephanie Zacharek's reviews is the new extreme sport now that Salon has these bulletin-boardy letters sections, but this one was a prefect illustration of why I go out of my way to read her reviews. My local paper also reviewed Rent today, gave it 2 1/2 or 3 stars and spent the entire "review" summarizing the plot, introducing the characters and telling me what other things the stars and director have done. The critic didn't have a single opinion and I was left unclear as to why he awarded it the number of stars that he did.
Film criticism is supposed to be critical, at least that's the impression I've always had. I've disagreed vehemently with some of Zacharek's assessments, but no one can fault her for not approaching criticism honestly, with an eye to not just recap and give a vague impression, but to assess and place each film within its social and cultural context, as she understands it.
Just because she doesn't like a film that you do seems like a really childish reason to get so freaked out. Her job is to give her informed opinion. We should all be so lucky.
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Jackson's Pre-LOTR Oevre
[Read the article: "King Kong"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For whatever it's worth, Peter Jackson's B-horror movies are considered to be outstanding examples of that particular genre. I can't sit through them, but they do have many admirers and did long before Peter Jackson was a household name. And, of course, Heavenly Creatures is a startelingly good film. I'm looking forward to King Kong. Jackson has proved before that he can take expensive effects and find the soul in them, which is something most other big-name directors have failed to do since the advent of CGI.